_Direct._ V. And think what extremity of injury and injustice this is to God, to blame him or his laws for those sins of men which are committed against him and his laws. Who is it that sin is committed against but God? Is it not he that made the laws, which it is the transgression of? Are not those laws, think you, strict enough against it? Is it not their strictness which such as you dislike? Were they laws that would give you leave to be worldly, sensual, and proud, you would never quarrel with them; and yet you charge men's sins on these laws, because they are so strict against them. Do you impute sin to God, because he will judge men for it to hell-fire, and cast them for ever out of his glorious presence into misery? O cursed impudence! How righteous is God in condemning such malicious souls! Tell us if you can, would you have had God to have forbidden sin more strictly? or condemned it more severely? or punished it more terribly? If you would, you pray for greater vengeance than hell upon yourselves! Woe to you, when he executeth but so much as he hath already threatened! Shall the crime of rebels be imputed to the king, against whom they rebel? If a thief shall rob you, or a servant deceive you, or a son despise you, is he just that will so much increase your injury, as to lay the blame of all upon yourselves? You will say, It is not God that we are offended with. But if it be at a holy life, it is at God; for what is godliness, but the loving, and serving, and obeying God? If you say, that it is not godliness neither; why then do you distaste or speak against a godly life on this occasion? If you say, It is these hypocrites only that we dislike: what do you dislike them for? Is it for their virtue or their vices? If it be for their sins, why then do you not speak and do more against sin, in yourselves and others? We will concur with you to the utmost in opposing sin wherever it be found. If it be their hypocrisy that you blame, persuade yourselves and other men to be sincerely godly. How would you have hypocrisy avoided? By an open profession to serve the devil? or by sincerity in serving God? If the latter, why then do you think evil of the most serious obedience to God? Alas! all christian countries are too full of hypocrites. Every one that is baptized, and professeth Christianity, is a saint or a hypocrite! All drunken, covetous, ambitious, sensual, unclean christians, are hypocrites, and not christians indeed. And these hypocrites can quietly live a worldly, fleshly life, and never lament their own hypocrisy, nor their perfidious violating their baptismal vow. But if one that seemeth diligent for his soul, prove a hypocrite, or fall into any scandalous sin, here they presently make an outcry; not to call the man from his sin, but to make a godly, diligent life seem odious to all, by telling men, These are your godly men. It is godliness that they quarrel with, while they pretend only to find fault with sin. Why else do not you