An apology for the nonconformists ministry containing I. the reasons of their preaching, II.…

I confess, since I have still observed from my youth, that the most vicious enemies of godliness have used to call those Hypocrites, who do but seem to be no Hypocrites, that is, to be serious in the Christian profession, and seriously to mind, and mention, and seek the life to come; I have been constrained when I heard a man called an Hypocrite, and no more (especially by a vicious man, or an adversary), to suspect that there is some more than ordinary excellency in that person: For I must suppose it is some great good which he is thought to make a cloak for evil: If long praying had not been good, it had not been a fit pretence for oppression in the Pharisees. If praying and alms-deeds had not ⟨p. 93⟩been good, it would have disgraced the Hypocrites, Matth. 6. to have made ostentation of them. When you call us Hypocrites, and dissembled Saints, you tell the world, that we have the profession, and outward appearance of good: And whether we corrupt it by a deceitful heart, remaineth to be proved, as well as asserted. Mr. Robert Bolton was no Nonconformist (as to the old Conformity) who noteth it to be the use of the world, to charge the soundest Christians with Hypocrisy, because then they talk of the secrets of the heart, which we cannot open for our own vindication.

I confess, since I have still observed from my youth, that the most vicious enemies of godliness have used to call those Hypocrites, who do but seem to be no Hypocrites, that is, to be serious in the Christian profession, and seriously to mind, and mention, and seek the life to come; I have been constrained when I heard a man called an Hypocrite, and no more (especially by a vicious man, or an adversary), to suspect that there is some more than ordinary excellency in that person: For I must suppose it is some great good which he is thought to make a cloak for evil: If long praying had not been good, it had not been a fit pretence for oppression in the Pharisees. If praying and alms-deeds had not ⟨p. 93⟩been good, it would have disgraced the Hypocrites, Matth. 6. to have made ostentation of them. When you call us Hypocrites, and dissembled Saints, you tell the world, that we have the profession, and outward appearance of good: And whether we corrupt it by a deceitful heart, remaineth to be proved, as well as asserted. Mr. Robert Bolton was no Nonconformist (as to the old Conformity) who noteth it to be the use of the world, to charge the soundest Christians with Hypocrisie, because then they talk of the secrets of the heart, which we cannot open for our own vindication.