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211 our fellow-creatures, but likewise insincerity towards Him, and towards ourselves. And, therefore, according to the whole analogy of scriptural language, "to use liberty as a cloak of maliciousness," The hypocrisy laid to the charge of the Pharisees and Sadducees, in Matt. xvi. at the beginning, and in Luke xii. 54, is determinately this, that their vicious passions blinded them so as to prevent their discerning the evidence of our Saviour's mission; though no more understanding was necessary to discern it, than what they had, and made use of in common matters. Here they are called hypocrites, merely upon account of their insincerity towards God and their own consciences, and not at all upon account of any insincerity towards men. This last, indeed, is included in that general hypocrisy, which, throughout the gospels, is represented as their distinguished character; but the former is as much included. For they were not men, who, without any belief at all of religion, put on the appearance of it only in order to deceive the world; on the contrary, they believed their religion, and were zealous in it. Bat their religion, which they believed, and were zealous in, was, in its nature, hypocritical: for it was the form, not the reality; it allowed them in immoral practices; and, indeed, was itself in some respects immoral, as they indulged their pride, and uncharitableness, under the notion of zeal for it. See Jer. ix. 6. Psa. Ixxviii. 36. Job viii. 13, and Matt. xv. 7—14, and xxiii. 13, 16, 19, 24, 26, where hypocrite and blind are used promiscuously. Again, the Scripture speaks of the "deceitfulness of sin;" and its deceiving those who are guilty of it; Heb. iii. 13; Eph. iv. 22; Rom. vii. 11: of men's acting as if they could "deceive and mock God," Isa. xxix. 15; Acts v. 3; Gal. vi. 7: of their "blinding their own eyes," Matt. xiii. 15; Acts xxviii. 27: and "deceiving themselves," which is quite a different thing from being deceived, 1 Cor. iii. 18; 1 John i. 8; Gal. vi. 3; James i. 22, 26. Many more coincident passages might be mentioned; but I will add only one. In 2 Thess. ii. 11, it is foretold, that by means of some force, some energy of delusion, men should believe the lie which is there treated of: this force of delusion is not anything without them, but somewhat within them, which it is expressly said, they should bring upon themselves, "by not receiving the love of the truth, but having pleasure in unrighteousness." Answering to all this is that very remarkable passage of our Lord, Matt. vi. 22, 23; Luke xi. 34, 35, and that admonition, repeated fourteen times in the New Testament, "he that hath ears to hear, let him hear." And the ground of this whole manner of considering things; for it is not to be spoken of as only a peculiar kind of phraseology, but it is a most accurate and strictly just manner of considering characters and moral conduct; the ground when persons will not be influenced by such evidence in religion as they must be understood to mean, not