Four sermons preachedFoure sermons preached

I thank God I am not as others are, extortioners, usurers, adulterers, drunkards, or such like. I sanctify the Sabbath, which other men profane: I frequent sermons, which they neglect: I reverence the name of God, which they blaspheme: I pay tithe, which others with-hold? and fast oftentimes, which they do seldom, or never. These were the speeches of the Pharisees that lived in the time of Christ, whom he ¹so often calleth hypocrites: and these are the speeches of the hypocrites of our age, that seem to live after the straightest sect of our religion, Acts. 26. They wash the outside of the ⟨image 44⟩cup, and of the platter: that is, they justify themselves, and seem marvellous holy in the sight of men, which can discern by the outward appearance only: but unto God that seeth and searcheth the secrets of the harts & reins, they appear like painted tombs full of dead mens bones, and all filthiness: that is, they have their inward parts full of ravening, and all kind of wickedness. Wherefore, as Christ said to his Disciples Except your righteousness exceed the righteousness of the Scribes and Pharisees, you cannot enter into the kingdom of ²heaven: so I say unto you, that except your righteousness exceed the righteousness of these pharisaical hypocrites, ye cannot be saved. These holy Pharisees did use to call the Publicans, not usurers, nor extortioners, as they themselves were: but by the general name of sinners, as though they themselves were free from sin. Thus the papists at this day do use to call the most sincere professors of the gospel, not Lutherans, Calvinists, Zwinglians, or protestants, as they were wont to call them: but now they term us heretics, a name more odious then any other, whereas in the mean season, they themselves are of all others the greatest heretics. So the Atheists of our time, when they cannot accuse the godly that are amongst us of usury, or bribery, or extortion, or drunkenness, or any such notorious sin, they call them hypocrites, which is the sum of all: when as in very truth, they themselves do best deserve that name: but it makes no matter what they call us, neither are we to be moved at their despiteful speeches: