NABOTH'S VINEYARD, OR, GOD'S VENGEANCE AGAINST HYPOCRISY AND CRUELTY. "And she wrote in the letters, saying Proclaim a fast, and "set NABÓTH on high among the people: and set two men, sons "of Belial, before him, to bear witness against him, saying: "Thou didst blaspheme God and the King. And then carry "him out, and stone him, that he may die." I Kings, Ch. XXI., V. 9, 10. HYPOCRISY, in the general acceptation of the word, is dissimulation, or deceit, with regard to virtuous thoughts and conduct, and especially with regard to religious matters. It is a pretending to feel what we do not feel, to believe what we do not believe, to practise what we do not practise. It is an odious vice: it is greatly mischievous, because, by assuming the garb of, it reflects, in the hour of detection, disgrace upon, virtue itself: it must be founded in evil design, because it proceeds from cool deliberation and calculation: it includes lying and fraud: its natural tendency is to produce injury to our neighbour and to dishonour real religion: accordingly, numerous are God's denunciations against it, and numerous are the instances, in which Holy Writ holds it up as visited with signal vengeance. In this vice, as in most others, there are, however, degrees. Sometimes it is practised for the purpose of avoiding the suspicions, or merited ill-will, of other men ; sometimes for the purpose of obtaining the confidence of others, without any settled design to make it the means of committing any positive and particular injury; on other, and much more frequent, occasions, it is employed to lull suspicion asleep, to inspire unbounded confidenee, and this for the purpose of se curely committing, in the end, some act of gainful fraud. Hypocrisy, being a false pretending, may exist without any pretence to piety; but, it is always prone to assume a religious garb; that being the best calculated to deceive good, and therefore, unsuspecting, persons. When once the hypocrite has assumed this garb, there are few things that he will stick at; the necessary preliminary being, a setting of the admonitions of conscience at defiance. Thus hardened, the hypocrite will proceed to almost any lengths. First, he endeavours to obtain his object by exciting in others a high opinion of his own purity; but, should this fail him, should he be thwarted in his career, he will fall to comparisons between himself and those by whom he is thwarted. He next proceeds to slanders, calumnies, and even to false swearings against them; and, rather than finally fail in attaining the fruit of his long pre meditated schemes, he will, without the least remorse, dip his hands in the blood of the innocent. The bible, in numerous cases, condemns the principles and practices of the hypocrite. It in almost every instance associates malice with hypocrisy. It almost every where assumes that the hypocrite is both cruel and perfidious; and, it every where pronounces upon the hypocrite the severest of sentences. In the BooK OF JOB, Chap. viii. v. 13. it is declared, that "the hypocrite's hope shall perish.” In Chap. xx. v. 5. we are told, "the triumphing of "the wicked is short, and the joy of the hypocrite but "for a moment." The whole of this Chapter goes on to enumerate vengeances upon his head. It is declared that he shall be rendered miserable; that he shall become old even in his youth; that the meat in his bowels shall be turned into gall; that he shall suck down the poison of asps; that in the fullness of his sufficiency he shall be in streights; that, in short, the heritage appointed to him by God shall be an endless curse upon himself and his posterity. But, we have, in this same Chapter of the Book of Job, a description of the objects which the hypocrite generally has in view. We are told in ver. 15, that, "he hath swallowed down riches, and he shall vomit "them up again." We are further told, where he has got the riches; thus; "he hath oppressed, and, "hath forsaken, the poor; he hath violently taken away "an house which he builded not." Thus, as was before observed, hypocrisy has gene-. rally gainful fraud for it's object. Hypocrisy is by no means a theoretical vice. It is practical; and it's object is always self interest. It sometimes proceeds by round about means. It's object is not always manifest to lookers on; there are steps, and sometimes steps hardly discernible; but it always is it's ultimate object, to get, or to preserve, possession of, something or other, which, in right and justice, the hypocrite ought not to possess. If this possession can be obtained, or preserved, without violence; if, to use the words, just quoted, of good Job, the hypocrite can take away a "house which he builded not;" if he can do this without violence, he will be content; but if he cannot, he will resort to the violence. If he can carry his point with a smaller degree of oppres sion, he will abstain from the larger degree; but if be cannot, he will exercise oppression even to the shedding of the blood of his unoffending neighbour These truths might be illustrated by thousands, of examples; and, I may, hereafter, show the desolation which hypocrisy has occasioned in the latter ages of the world. I may, hereafter, show how this detestable vice has spread the rack, and furnished the stake, with not only innocent, but most virtuous human beings. At present, however, let me beseech the reader's best attention to that remarkable instance of bypocrisy and cruelty, recorded, in the 21st Chap. of the first Book of Kings, in the history of the tragical |