The vain religion of the formal hypocrite, and the mischief of an unbridled tongue…

4. This mans Religion must needs be Vain; for he wanteth the life of faith it self, and heartily believeth not in Christ. He hath but an opinion of the truth of Christianity, through the advantage of his education and company; and thereupon doth call himself ⟨p. 24⟩a Christian, and heartlessly talk of the mystery of Redemption as a common thing. But he doth not with an humbled broken heart, betake himself to Christ as his only refuge from the wrath of God and everlasting misery, as he would lay hold on the hand of his friend, if he were drowning: The sense of the odiousness of sin, and of the damnation threatened by the righteous God, hath not yet taught him to value Christ, as he must be valued by such as will be saved by him. These hypocrites do but talk of Christ, and turn his name, as they do their prayers, into the matter of a dry and customary form. They fly not to him as the only Physician of their souls, in the feeling of their festering wounds: they cry not to him as the Disciples in the tempest, Save Master, we perish. They value him not practically (though notionally ⟨p. 25⟩they do) as the pearl for which they must sell all, Matth. 13. 44, 45, 46. Christ doth not dwell in his heart by faith: nor doth he long with all the Saints to comprehend, what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height, and to know the love of Christ which passeth knowledge, Eph. 3. 17, 18, 19. He counteth not all things loss for Christ, and the excellency of his knowledge, nor doth he count them as dung, that he may win Christ, and be found in him, not having his own righteousness, but that which is through the faith of Christ, Phil. 3. 8, 9, 10. nor can he truly say, that he desireth to know nothing but a crucified Christ, 1 Cor. 2. 2. and that the life that he now liveth in the flesh, he liveth by the faith of the Son of God that loved him, and gave himself for him,] Gal. 2. 20. He is not taken up with that admiration of the love of God in