SERMON VII.

THE

DECEITFULNESS OF THE HEART.

JEREMIAH Xvii. 9.

The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked; who can know it?

FOLLY and subtilty divide the greatest part of mankind; and there is no other difference but this, that some are crafty enough to deceive, others foolish enough to be cozened and abused: and yet the scales also turn, for they that are the most crafty to cozen others are the veriest fools, and most of all abuse themselves. They rob their neighbour of his money, and lose their own innocency; they disturb his rest, and vex their own conscience; they throw him into prison, and themselves into hell; they make poverty to be their brother's portion, and damnation to be their own. Man entered into the world first alone; but as soon as he met with one companion, he met with three to cozen him: the serpent, and Eve, and himself all joined: first to make him a fool and to deceive him, and then to make him miserable. But he first cozened himself, giving himself up to believe a lie; and being desirous to listen to the whispers of a tempting spirit, he sinned before he fell; that is, he

had within him a false understanding, and a depraved will and these were the parents of his disobedience, and this was the parent of his infelicity, and a great occasion of ours. And then it was that he entered for himself and his posterity into the condition of an ignorant, credulous, easy, wilful, passionate, and impotent person; apt to be abused, and so loving to have it so, that if nobody else will abuse him, he will be sure to abuse himself; by ignorance and evil principles being open to an enemy, and by wilfulness and sensuality doing to himself the most unpardonable injuries in the whole world. So that the condition of man in the rudenesses and first lines of its visage seems very miserable, deformed, and accursed.

For a man is helpless and vain; of a condition so exposed to calamity, that a raisin is able to kill him; any trooper out of the Egyptian army, a fly can do it, when it goes on God's errand; the most contemptible accident can destroy him, the smallest chance affright him, every future contingency, when but considered as possible, can amaze him; and he is encompassed with potent and malicious enemies, subtle and implacable: what shall this poor helpless thing do? Trust in God? Him he hath offended, and he fears him as an enemy; and God knows, if we look only on ourselves, and on our own demerits, we have too much reason so to do. Shall he rely upon princes? God help poor kings; they rely upon their subjects, they fight with their swords, levy force with their money, consult with their councils, hear with their ears, and are strong only in their union, and many times they use all these things against them: but, however, they can do nothing without them while they live, and yet if ever they can die they are not to be trusted to. Now kings and princes die so sadly and notoriously, that it was used for a proverb in holy

Scripture, Ye shall die like men, and fall like one of the princes. Who then shall we trust in? In our friend? Poor man! he may help thee in one thing, and need thee in ten: he may pull thee out of the ditch, and his foot may slip and fall into it himself he gives thee counsel to chuse a wife, and himself is to seek how prudently to chuse his religion he counsels thee to abstain from a duel, and yet slays his own soul with drinking like a person void of all understanding, he is willing enough to preserve thy interest, and is very careless of his own; for he does highly despise to betray or to be false to thee, and in the mean time is not his own friend, and is false to God; and then his friendship may be useful to thee in some circumstances of fortune, but no security to thy condition. But what then? shall we rely upon our patron, like the Roman clients, who waited hourly upon their persons, and daily upon their baskets, and nightly upon their lusts, and married their friendships, and contracted also their hatred and quarrels? this is a confidence will deceive us. For they may lay us by, justly or unjustly; they may grow weary of doing benefits, or their fortunes may change; or they may be charitable in their gifts, and burthensome in their offices; able to feed you, but unable to counsel you; or your need may be longer than their kindnesses, or such in which they can give you no assistance: and indeed, generally, it is so in all the instances of men. We have a friend that is wise; but I need not his counsel, but his meat: or my patron is bountiful in his largesses; but I am troubled with a sad spirit; and money and presents do me no more ease than perfumes do to a broken arm. seek life of a physician that dies, and go to him for health who cannot cure his own breath or gout; and so become vain in our imaginations, abused in our hopes, restless in our passions, impatient in our calamity, unsupported in our need, exposed to our ene

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mies, wandering and wild, without counsel, and without remedy. At last, after the infatuating and deceiving all our confidences without, we have nothing left us but to return home, and dwell within ourselves for we have a sufficient stock of self-love, that we may be confident of our own affections, we may trust ourselves surely; for what we want in skill we shall make up in diligence, and our industry shall supply the want of other circumstances: and no man understands my own case so well as I do myself, and no man will judge so faithfully as I shall do for myself; for I am most concerned not to abuse myself; and if I do, I shall be the loser, and therefore may best rely upon myself. Alas! and God help us! we shall find it to be no such matter: for we neither love ourselves well, nor understand our own case; we are partial in our own questions, deceived in our sentences, careless of our interests, and the most false, perfidious creatures to ourselves in the whole world: even the heart of a man, a man's own heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked, who can know it? And who can chuse but know it.

And there is no greater argument of the deceitfulness of our heart than this, that no man can know it at all; it cozens us in the very number of its cozenage. But yet we can reduce it all to two heads. We say concerning a false man, trust him not, for he will deceive you; and we say concerning a weak and broken staff, lean not upon it, for that will also deceive you. The man deceives because he is false, and the staff because it is weak; and the heart because it is both. So that it is deceitful above all things; that is, failing and disabled to support us in many things, but in other things where it can, it is false and desperately wicked. The first sort of deceitfulness is its calamity, and the second is its iniquity; and that is the worse calamity of the two.

1. The heart is deceitful in its strength; and when we have the growth of a man, we have the weaknesses of a child: nay more yet, and it is a sad consideration, the more we are in age, the weaker in our courage. It appears in the heats and forwardnesses of new converts, which are like to the great emissions of lightning, or like huge fires, which flame and burn without measure, even all that they can; till from flames they descend to still fires, from thence to smoke, from smoke to embers, and from thence to ashes; cold and pale, like ghosts, or the fantastick images of death. And the primitive church were zealous in their religion up to the degree of cherubims, and would run as greedily to the sword of the hangman, to die for the cause of God, as we do now to the greatest joy and entertainment of a christian spirit, even to the receiving of the holy sacrament. A man would think it reasonable that the first infancy of christianity should, according to the nature of first beginnings, have been remiss, gentle, and unactive; and that according as the object or evidence of faith grew, which in every age hath a great degree of argument superadded to its confirmation, so should the habit also and the grace, the longer it lasts, and the more objections it runs through, it still should shew a brighter and more certain light to discover the divinity of its principle: and that after the more examples, and new accidents and strangenesses of Providence, and daily experience, and the multitude of miracles, still the Christian should grow more certain in his faith, more refreshed in his hope, and warm in his charity: the very nature of these graces increasing and swelling upon the very nourishment of experience, and the multiplication of their own acts. And yet because the heart of man is false, it suffers the fires of the altar to go out, and the flames lessen by the multitude of fuel. But indeed it is because we put