Puritan Nuggets of Gold # 46

Hypocrites (continued)

They say of the nightingale, that when she is solitary in the woods, she is careless of her note; but when she conceives that she hath any audience, or is near houses, then she composes herself more quaintly and elegantly. Verily, this is the frame and temper of the best of hypocrites. (Thomas Brooks)

It is a sad thing to be Christians at a supper, heathen in our shops, and devils in our closets. (Stephen Charnock)

It is no new thing to see a people professing godliness to cast off the thing that is good. (George Swinnock)

No hypocrite can bear the Cross. (Henry Smith)

Sin, and heresy, and superstition are hypocrites; that is, sin hath the appearance of virtue, and heresy hath the appearance of truth, and superstition hath the appearance of religion. (Henry Smith)

An hypocrite may well be termed a religious atheist, an atheist masked with religion. (Stephen Charnock)

Religion which is begun in hypocrisy will certainly end in apostasy. (William Spurstowe)

The wound religion receives from hypocrites is far more dangerous and incurable than that inflicted on it by the open and scandalous sinner. For religion is never brought into question by the enormous vices of an infamous person; all see and all abhor his sin. But when a man shall have his mouth full of piety and his hands full of wickedness, when he shall speak Scripture and live devilism, profess strictly and walk loosely, this lays a grievous stumbling-block in the way of others; and tempts them to think that all religion is but mockery, and that the professors of it are buy hypocrites. (Ezekiel Hopkins)

An apple, if it be rotten at the core, though it have a fair and shining outside, yet rottenness will not stay long, but will taint the outside also... hypocrisy will discover itself in the end. (John Bond)

Hypocrites are certain to miscarry at last; so true is that proverb, "Frost and fraud have dirty ends." (Thomas Adams)

Idleness

Every man should have a calling to follow, and should follow his calling. God has given no man a dispensation to be idle. The rule is, and that by commandment, that if any will not work, that is able to work, neither should he eat. (2 Thessalonians 3:10). If this rule were observed, I am afraid that more rich than poor would go with hungry stomachs and empty bellies. (Ralph Venning)