Painted pageantry to go to hell in!

(Charles Spurgeon, "Secret Sins" February 8, 1857)

If I must be a wicked man--give me the life of a reveling sinner,
who sins before the face of day. If I must sin--let me not act as a
hypocrite and a coward. Let me not profess to be God's--and spend
my life for the devil!

That way of cheating the devil is a thing which every honest sinner
will be ashamed of. He will say, "Now, if I do serve my master Satan,
I will serve him out and out--I will have no sham about it. If I live in
sin, I am not going to gloss it over by cant and hypocrisy."

One thing which has hamstrung the church, and cut her very sinews
in twain, has been this most damnable hypocrisy! Oh! in how many
places have we men whom you might praise to the very skies, if you
could believe their words; but whom you might cast into the
nethermost pit if you could see their secret actions. God forgive
any of you who are so acting!

I can forgive the man who riots openly, and makes no profession of
being godly. But the man who fawns, and cants, and pretends, and
prays--and then lives in sin, that man I cannot bear. If he will turn
from his ways, I will love him. But in his hypocrisy, he is to me,
the most loathsome of all creatures!

A 'mere profession' is but painted pageantry to go to hell in!

Take heed of a 'waxed profession' that will not stand the sun!

Take heed of a life that needs to have 'two faces' to carry it out!

Be one thing--or else the other!

If you make up your mind to serve Satan--do not pretend to serve God!

And if you serve God, serve Him with all your heart!

"No man can serve two masters!" Do not try it, do not endeavor to do it!