A Christian Directory

§. 2. There are also two Degrees of Hypocrites: Some of them have only a General profession of Christianity and Godliness which is the professed Religion of the Country where they live: and these are Hypocrites because they profess to be what they are not: And others make a greater and extraordinary profession of special strictness in their Religion, when they are not sincere: And these are Eminently called Hypocrites: Such as the Pharisees were among the Jews, and many Fryers, and Jesuits, and Nuns among the Papists, who by their separating Vows, and Orders, and Habits, profess extraordinarily an extraordinary measure of devotion, while they want the life of Godliness.

§. 3. In all Hypocrisy there is considerable, 1. The thing pretended: 2. The pretence, or means of seeming, or the cloak of their deceit. 1. The thing pretended by common Hypocrites is to be true Christians, and servants of God, and heirs of Heaven, though not to be so zealous in it as some of a higher degree. The thing pretended by Eminent Hypocrites is, to be zealous eminent Christians, or at least to be sincere in a special manner, while they discern the common Hypocrite not to be sincere. 2. The cloak of seeming or pretence by which they would be thought to be what they are not, is any thing in general that hath an appearance of Godliness, and is apt to make others think them godly. And thus there are diverse sorts of Hypocrites according to the variety of their cloaks or ways of dissimulation: though hypocrisy it self be in all of them the same thing. As among the very Mohammedans, and Heathens, there oft arise some notable Hypocrites, that by pretended Revelations and austerity of life, profess themselves (as Mahomet did) to be Holy persons, that had some extraordinary familiarity with God or Angels. So among the Papists there are, besides the common ones, as many sorts of Hypocrites as they have self-devised Orders. And every where the cloak of the common Hypocrite is so thin and transparent, that it showeth his nakedness to the more intelligent sort: And this puts the Eminent Hypocrite upon some more laudable pretence that is not so transparent. As for instance, the Hypocrisy of common Papists▪ whose cloak is made up of penances and ceremonies, of saying over latin words, or numbering words and beads for prayers, with all the rest of their trumpery before named (Chap. 3. Gr. Dir. 15. Dir. 11.) is so thin a cloak that it will not satisfy some among themselves, but they withdraw into distinct societies and orders, (the Church and the profession of Christianity being not enough for them) that they may be Religious, as if they saw that the rest are not Religious. And then the common sort of ungodly Protestants have so much wit as to see through the cloak of all the Popish Hypocrisy: and therefore they take up a fitter for themselves: and that is, the name of a Protestant Reformed Religion and Church, joined to the Common Profession of Christianity: