New Park Street Pulpit · Sermon No. 237
Delivered on Sabbath Morning, February 6th, 1859, the Music Hall, Royal Surrey Gardens.
“Beware ye of the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy.”—Luke 12:1.
This age is full of shams. Pretence never stood in so eminent a position as it does at the present hour. There be few, I fear, who love the naked truth; we can scarce endure it in our houses; you would scarcely trade with a man who absolutely stated it. If you walked through the streets of London, you might imagine that all the shops were built of marble, and that all the doors were made of mahogany and woods of the rarest kinds; and yet you soon discover that there is scarce a piece of any of these precious fabrics to be found anywhere, but that everything is grained, and painted, and varnished. I find no fault with this, except as it is an outward type of an inward evil that exists. As it is in our streets, so is it everywhere; graining, painting, and gilding, are at an enormous premium. Counterfeit has at length attained to such an eminence that it is with the utmost difficulty that you can detect it. The counterfeit so near approacheth to the genuine, that the eye of wisdom itself needs to be enlightened before she can discern the difference. Specially is this the case in religious matters. There was once an age of intolerant bigotry, when every man was weighed in the balance, and if he was not precisely up to the orthodox standard of the day, the fire devoured him; but in this age of charity, and of most proper charity, we are very apt to allow the counterfeit to pass current, and to imagine that outward show is really as beneficial as inward reality. If ever there was a time when it was needful to say, “Beware ye of the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy,” it is now. The minister may cease to preach this doctrine in the days of persecution: when the faggots are blazing, and when the rack is in full operation, few men will be hypocrites. These are the keen detectors of impostures; suffering, and pain, and death, for Christ’s sake, are not to be endured by mere pretenders. But in this silken age, when to be religious is to be respectable, when to follow Christ is to be honored, and when godliness itself has become gain, it is doubly necessary that the minister should cry aloud, and lift up his voice like a trumpet against this sin, “the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy.”
I am sure that every true child of God will stand at times in doubt of himself, and his fear will probably take the shape of a suspicion concerning his own state.
He that never doubted of his state,
He may—perhaps he may—too late.
The Christian, however, does not belong to that class. He will at times begin to be terribly alarmed, lest, after all, his godliness should be but seeming, and his profession an empty vanity. He who is true will sometimes suspect himself of falsehood, while he who is false will wrap himself up in a constant confidence of his own sincerity. My dear Christian brethren, if you are at this time in doubt concerning yourselves, the truths to utter will, perhaps, help you in searching your own heart and trying your own reins, and sure I am you will not blame me if I should seem to be severe, but you will rather say, “Sir, I desire to make sure work concerning my own soul, tell me faithfully and tell me honestly what are the signs of a hypocrite, and I will sit down and try to read my own heart, to discover whether these things have a bearing upon me, and happy shall I be if I shall come out of the fire like pure gold.”
We shall note, then, this morning, first, the character of a hypocrite; then we shall try to cast up his accounts for him, with regard to his loss or gain; and then we shall offer a cure for hypocrisy, which, if constantly carried about with us, will certainly prevent us from attempting to deceive. The cure is contained in these words which follow the text—“For there is nothing covered, that shall not be revealed; neither hid, that shall not be known. Therefore whatsoever ye have spoken in darkness shall be heard in the light; and that which ye have spoken in the ear in closets shall be proclaimed upon the housetops.”
I. First, THE HYPOCRITE’S CHARACTER. We have an elaborate description of the hypocrite in the chapter we have just read, the twenty-third of Matthew, and I do not know that I can better pourtray him than by turning again to the words of Christ.
A hypocrite may be known by the fact that his speech and his actions are contrary to one another. As Jesus says, “they say and they do not.” The hypocrite can speak like an angel, he can quote texts with the greatest rapidity; he can talk concerning all matters of religion, whether they be theological doctrines. metaphysical questions, or experimental difficulties. In his own esteem he knoweth much and when he rises to speak, you will often feel abashed at your own ignorance in the presence of his superior knowledge. But see him when he comes to actions. What behold you there? The fullest contradiction of everything that he has uttered. He tells to others that they must obey the law: doth he obey it? Ah! no. He declares that others must experience this, that, and the other, and he sets up a fine scale of experience, far above even that of the Christian himself; but does he touch it? No, not with so much as one of his fingers. He will tell others what they should do; but will he remember his own teaching? Not he! Follow him to his house; trace him to the market, see him in the shop, and if you want to refute his preaching you may easily do it from his own life. My hearer! is this thy case? Thou art a member of a church, a deacon, a minister. Is this thy case? Is thy life a contradiction to thy words? Do thy hands witness against thy lips? How stands it with thee? With a blush, each one of us must confess that, to some extent, our life is contradictory to our profession. We blush and we mourn over this. But I hope there are some here who can say, “Notwithstanding many infirmities, with my whole heart have I striven to run in the ways of thy commandments, O my God, and I have not intentionally spoken that with my lip which I did not intend to carry out in my life.” Ah! believe me, my hearers, talk is easy, but walk is hard: speech any man may attain unto, but act is difficult. We must have grace within to make our life holy; but lip-piety needs no grace. The first mark of a hypocrite, then, is, that he contradicts by his acts what he utters by his words. Do any of you do so? If so, stand convicted of hypocrisy, and bow your heads, and confess the sin.