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clean with: "I will sprinkle clean water upon you, and ye shall be clean; from all your filthiness will I cleanse you;" Ezek. xxxvi. 25. Foul puddle water will as soon make the face as error make the soul clean. Truth is sure, and hath a firm bottom, Psal. xix. 7. we may lay the whole weight of our souls upon it, and yet not crack under us; cleave to truth and it will stick to thee. It will go with thee to prison, banishment, yea stake itself, and bear thy charges wherever thon goest upon an errand. "Not one thing (saith Joshua) hath failed of all the good things which the Lord your God spake concerning you; all are come to pass concerning you, not one thing hath failed thereof," Josh. xxiv. 14. Whatever you find there promised, count it money in your purse. "Fourscore years," said Polycarp, "I have served God, and found him a good master." But when men think by forsaking the truth to provide well for themselves, they are sure to meet with disappointments; many have been flattered from truth with goodly promises, and then served no better than Judas was by the Jews, after he had betrayed his master into their bloody hands: "See thou to that." Though persecutors love the treason, yet they hate the traitor; yea oft, to shew their devilish malice, when some have been got to wound their consciences by denying the truth, have most cruelly butchered them, and gloried in it, as a full revenge to destroy soul and body together. Again, truth is free, and makes the soul free that cleaves to it. "The truth shall make you free," John viii. 32. Christ tells the Jews of a bondage they were in, which that bragging people never dreamed of, ver. 44, "Ye are of your father the devil, and his lusts ye will do;" such slaves are all sinners, they must do what the devil will have them, and dare no more displease him than a child his father with a rod in his hand. Some witches have confessed that they have been forced to send out their imps to do mischief to others, that they might have ease themselves; for till they did send them abroad upon such an errand, they were themselves tormented by them. And he who hath a lust sucking on him, finds as little rest, if he be not always serving of it, and making provision for it. Can the world, think you, shew such another slave as

this poor wretch is? Well, though all the bolts that the devil hath (lusts I mean) were locked upon one sinner, and he shut up in the closest dungeon of all his prison, yet let but this poor slave begin to be acquainted with the truth of Christ, so as to open his heart to it, and close with it, you shall soon hear that the foundations of the prison are shaken, its doors thrown open, and the chains fallen off the poor creature's legs. Truth cannot itself be bound, nor will it dwell in a soul that lies bound in sin's prison; and therefore when once truth and the soul are agreed, or rather Christ and the soul, who are brought together by truth, then the poor creature may lift up his head with joy, for his redemption and gaol-delivery from this spiritual bondage draws nigh; yea, the day is come, the key is in the lock already to let him out. It is im posible we should be acquainted with truth (as it is in Jesus) and be mere strangers to this liberty that attends it, Eph. iv. 19, 20, 21. Lastly, truth is victorious. It is great, and shall prevail at last. It is the great counsel of God, and though many fine plots and devices are found in the hearts of men (which shew what they would do) yet the counsel of the Lord shall stand. All their eggs are addled, when they have set longest on them; alas! they want power to hatch what their malice sits brooding on. Sometimes I confess the enemies to truth get the militia of this lower world into their hands, and then truth seems to go to the ground, and those that witness to it are even slain; yet then it is more than their persecutors can do to get them laid under ground in their grave, Rev. xi. 9. Some, that were never thought on, shall strike in on truth's side, and forbid the burial. Persecutors need not be at cost for marble to write the memorial of their victories in; dust will serve well enough, for they are not like to last so long. Three days and a half the witnesses may lie dead in the streets, and truth sit disconsolate by them; but within awhile they are walking, and truth triumphing again. If persecutors could kill their successors, then their work might be thought to stand strong, needing not to fear another to pull down what they set up; and yet then their work would lie as open to Heaven, and might be as easily hindered, as theirs at Babel. Who

loves not to be on the winning side? chuse truth for thy -side, and thou hast it. News may come that truth is sick, but never that it is dead. No, it is error that is short-lived: "a lying tongue is but for a moment;" but truth's age runs parallel with God's eternity. It shall live to see their heads laid in the dust, and to walk over their graves, that were so busy to make one for her. Live, did I say? yea, reign in peace with those who now are willing to suffer with and for it. And wouldest thou not, Christian, be one among that goodly train of victors, who shall attend on Christ's triumphant chariot, into the heavenly city, there to take the crown, and sit down in thy throne with those that have kept the field, when Christ and his truth were militant here on earth; thus wouldest thou but in thy thoughts wipe away the tears and blood, which now cover the face of suffering truth, and present it to thy eye as it shall look in glory, thou couldest not but cleave to it with a love stronger than death.

But, secondly, if yet there remains any qualm of fear on thy heart from the wrath of bloody men threatening thee for thy profession of the truth, then, to a heart inflamed with the love of truth, labour to add a heart filled with the fear of that wrath which God hath in store for all that apostatize from the truth. When you chance to burn your finger, you hold it to the fire, which being a greater fire draws out the other; thus when thy thoughts are scorched, and thy heart seared with the fire of man's wrath, hold them awhile to hell-fire, which God bath prepared for the fearful, Revet. xxi. 8, and all that run away from truth's colours, Heb. x. 39, and thou wilt lose the sense of the one for fear of the other: Ignosce Imperator (said the holy man), tu carcerem Deus gehennam Minatur; pardon me, O emperor, if I obey not thy command; thou threatenest a prison, but God a Hell. Observable is that of David, Psalm cxix. 161; "Princes have persecuted me without a cause, but my heart standeth in awe of thy word;" he had no cause to fear them that had no cause to persecute him: one threatening out of the Word, that sets the point of God's wrath to his heart, scares him more than the worst that the greatest on earth can do to him. Man's wrath, alas! when hottest,

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is but a temperate climate to the wrath of the living God. They who have felt both, have testified as much. Man's wrath cannot hinder the access of God's love to the creature, which hath made the saints sing in the fire in spite of their enemies teeth; but the creature under God's wrath is like one shut up in a close oven, no crevice open to let any of the heat out, or any refreshing in to him.

CHAP. VI.

OF THE SECOND KIND OF TRUTH, TRUTH OF HEART OR SINCERITY, WITH THE KINDS OF IT; AND IN PARTICULAR OF MORAL UPRIGHTNESS, TOGETHER WITH ITS DEFICIENCY, AND A DOUBLE CAUTION ABOUT THIS: THE ONE TO THE SAINTS, THE OTHER TO THE MORALLY UPRIGHT PERSON.

WE come now to the second kind of truth, commended to the Christian, under the notion of the soldier's girdle, and that is truth of heart. Where it would be known, first, what I mean by truth of heart; secondly, why compared to a girdle. For the

First, By truth of heart, I understand sincerity, so taken in Scripture, Heb. x. 22. "Let us draw near with a true heart," that is with a sincere heart. We have them oft conjoined, the one explaining the other, Josh. xxiv. 14, "fear the Lord, and serve him in sincerity and truth," we read of the "unleavened bread of sincerity and truth." 1 Cor. v. 8. Hypocrisy is a lie with a fair cover over it; an insincere heart is a half heart; the inward frame and motion of the heart comports not with the profession and behaviour of the outward man; like a clock, whose wheels within go not as the hand points without.

Secondly, Sincerity, or truth of heart, may fitly be compared to a girdle, in regard of the twofold use and end

for which a girdle (especially the soldier's belt) is worn. First, the girdle is used as an ornament put on uppermost, to cover the joints of the armour, which would, if seen, cause some uncomeliness. Here, at the loins I mean, those pieces of armour for the defence of the lower parts of the body are fastened to the upper; now, because they cannot be so closely knit and clasped, but there will be some little gaping betwixt piece and piece, therefore they used to put over those parts a broad girdle, that covered all that uncomeliness. Now sincerity doth for the Christian, what the girdle doth for the soldier. The saint's graces are not so close, nor his life so exact, but in the best there are found infirmities and defects, which are as so many gapings and clefts in his armour; but sincerity covers all, that he is neither put to shame for them, nor exposed to danger by them.

Secondly, the girdle was used for strength; by this the loins were staid and united, and the soldier made stronger to fight or march; as a garment, the closer it fits the warmer it is, so the belt, the closer it is girt, the more strength the loins feel; hence God, threatening to enfeeble and weaken a person or people, saith, "their loins shall be loosened," Isaiah xlv. 1. "I will lose the loins of kings," and Job xii. 21, "He weakeneth the strength of the mighty." He looseth the girdle of the strong.

Now sincerity may well be compared in this respect to the soldier's girdle. It is a grace that doth gird the soul with strength, and makes it mighty to do or suffer. Indeed it is the very strength of every grace; so much hypocrisy as is found cleaving to our graces, so much weakness. It is sincere faith that is the strong faith; sincere love that is the mighty love. Hypocrisy is to grace as the worm is to the oak, the rust to the iron; it weakens them, because it corrupts them. The metaphor thus opened affords these two doctrinal conclusions, in handling of which, I shall comprise what I have to say further of this piece of armour.

1. That sincerity, or truth of heart in our ways, covers all the Christian's uncomeliness.

2. That truth of heart or sincerity is of excellent use, to strengthen the Christian in his whole course.

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