SERMON III.
PREACHED BEFORE THE HOUSE OF LORDS, IN THE ABBEY OF WESTMINSTER,
On Friday, 30th January, 1740-41.
Being the day appointed to be observed as the day of the Martyrdom of King Charles I.
And not using your liberty for a cloak of maliciousness, but as the servants of God.—1 Peter ii. 16.
An history so full of important and interesting events as that which this day recalls annually to our thoughts, cannot but afford them very different subjects for their most serious and useful employment. But there seems none which it more naturally leads us to consider than that of hypocrisy, as it sets before us so many examples of it; or which will yield us more practical instruction, as these examples so forcibly admonish us, not only to be upon our guard against the pernicious effects of this vice in others, but also to watch over our own hearts, against everything of the like kind in ourselves; for hypocrisy, in the moral and religious consideration of things, is of much larger extent than every one may imagine.
In common language, which is formed upon the common intercourses amongst men, hypocrisy signifies little more than their pretending what they do not really mean, in order to delude one another. But, in Scripture, which treats chiefly of our behaviour towards God and our own consciences, it signifies not only the endeavour to delude
