it would come with ease; but will not either take the pains, or hazard the adventure to fetch it. Thus, commonly, the Will, in both respects, waterman-like, looks forward, and rows backward and, under good pretences, doth nothing but deceive.

;

3. The AFFECTIONS are as deceitful as either; whether in Misplacing, Measure, or Manner.

(1.) Mis-placing: They are fiery, where they should be cool; and, where they should burn, freeze. Our heart makes us believe it loves God, and gives him pledges of affection; while it secretly doats upon the world, like some false strumpet, that entertains her husband with her eyes, and, in the mean time, treads upon the toe of an adulterer under the board: That it loves justice; when it is but revenge: That it grieves for the missing of Christ; when indeed it is but for the loaves and fishes: That it fears God; when indeed it is but afraid of our own torment: That it hates the sin; when it is the person: That it hates the world; when it thrusts God out of doors to lodge it.

(2.) Measure: That we love God enough, and the world but enough; when as indeed, the one love is but as the cold fit of an ague, the other a hot; we chill in the one, no less than we glow in the other, when we make God only a stale, to draw on the world: That we do enough hate our corruptions; when, at our sharpest, we do but gently sneap them, as Eli did his sons; or, as some indulgent parent doth an unthrifty darling, whom he chides, and yet feeds with the fuel of his excess: That we have grieved enough for our sins; when they have not cost us so much as one tear, nothing but a little fashionable wind, that never came further than the roots of our tongue: That we do enough compassionate the afflictions of Joseph; when we drink wine in bowls: That we fear God more than men; when we are ashamed to do that in presence of a child, which we care not to do in the face of God.

(3.) Manner: That our heart loves, and hates, and fears, and joys, and grieves truly; when it is a hypocrite in all; That it delights constantly in God, and holy things; when it is but an Ephraim's morning dew: That our anger is zealous; when it is but a flash of personal malice, or a superstitious fury: That we fear as sons; when it is as cowards or slaves: That we grieve as God's patients; when we fret, and repine, and struggle like frantics against the hand of our Maker.

Thus, to sum up all, the HEART of man is wholly set upon cozenage; the Understanding over-knowing, mis-knowing, dissembling; the Will pretending, and inclining contrarily; the Affections mocking us in the object, measure, manner; and, in all of them, The heart of man is deceitful.

II. Ye have seen the Face of this Cheater; look now at his Hand: and, now ye see who this Deceiver is, see also the SLEIGHTS OF HIS DECEIT; and, therein, the FASHION, the SUBJECT, the SEQUEL of it: from whence we will descend to our Demeanor, towards so dangerous an Impostor.

1. The FASHION of his deceit is the same with our ordinary jugglers; either Cunning Conveyance, or False Resemblance.

(1.) Cunning Conveyance, whether into us, in us, from us. The heart admits sin, as Paradise did the Serpent. There it is; but, by what chinks or crannies it entered, we know not so as we may say of sin, as the master of the feast in the Gospel said to his slovenly guest, Quomodo intrasti? How camest thou in hither? Corruption doth not eat into the heart as our first parents did into the apple, so as the print of their teeth might be seen; but as the worm eats into the core, insensibly.

Neither is there less closeness, when it is entered. I would it were as untrue a word, as it is a harsh one, that many a professedlyChristian heart lodges a devil in the blind rooms of it; and either knows it not, or will not be acknown of it, Every one, that harbours a willing sin in his breast, doth so. The malicious man hath a furious devil; the wanton, an unclean devil, a Beelphegor or a Tammuz; the proud man, a Lucifer; the covetous, a Mammon. Certainly, these foul spirits are not more truly in hell, than in a wicked heart: there they are, but so closely, that I know not if the heart itself know it; it being verified of this citadel of the heart, which was said of that vast Niniveh, that the enemy had taken some parts of it, long ere the other knew it. What should I speak of the most common, and yet most dangerous guest, that lodges in this Inn of the heart, Infidelity. Call at the door, and ask if such a one host not there: they within make strange of it; deny it; forswear it. Call the officers; make privy search: you shall hardly find him: like some Jesuit in a popish dame's chamber, he is so closely contrived into false floors and double walls, that his presence is not more easily known, than hardly convinced, confessed. How easy is it to say, that, if infidelity did not lurk in the hearts of men, they durst not do as they do; they could not do but what they do not! Durst they sin, if they were persuaded of a hell? Durst they buy a minute of pleasure with everlasting torments? Could they so slight heaven, if they believed it? Could they be so loth to possess it! Could they think much of a little painful goodness, to purchase an eternity of happiness? No, no; Men, Fathers, and Brethren; if the heart were not Infidel, while the face is Christian, this could not be.

Neither doth the heart of man more cunningly convey sin into, and in itself, than from it. The sin, that ye saw even now openly in the hands, is so swiftly past under the board, that it is now vanished. Look for it in his forehead; there it is not: look for it under his tongue; there is none: look for it in his conscience; ye find nothing: and all this by the legerdemain of the heart. Thus Achan hath hid his wedge; and now he dares stand out to a lot : thus Solomon's Harlot hath wiped her mouth; and it was not she: thus Saul will lie-out his sacrilege, until the very beasts outbleat and out-bellow him: thus the swearer swears; and, when he hath done, swears that he swore not: thus the unclean fornicator bribes off his sin and his shame; and now makes challenges to the

world of his honesty. It cannot be spoken, how peevishly witty the heart of man is this way. Neither doubt I, but this wiliness is some of the poison, that the subtle serpent infected us with in that fatal morsel. They were three cunning shifts, which the Scripture recordeth of three women; as that sex hath been ever noted for more sudden pregnancy of wit; Rachel, Rahab, and the good wife of Bahurim: the first, hiding the teraphim with a modest seat; the second, the spies with flax-stalks; and the third, David's scouts with corn spread over the well: but these are nothing, to the devices, that nature hath wont to use, for the cloaking of sin. God made man upright, saith Solomon, but he sought many inventions. Is Adam challenged for sin? behold, all on the sudden, it is passed from his hand, to God's; The woman, that thou gavest me. Is Saul challenged for a covetous and disobedient remissness? the sin is straight passed from the field to the altar; I saved the fattest for a sacrifice to the Lord thy God. So the one begins his sin in God, and the other ends it in him, Is David bewitched with lust to abuse the wife? the husband must be sent home drunk to hide it; or, if not that, to his long home, in a pretended favour of his valour. Is a griping Usurer disposed to put his money together to breed a monster? he hath a thousand quirks to cozen both law and conscience. Is a Simoniacal Patron disposed to make a good match of his people's souls? it shall be no bargain, but a gift: he hath a living to give; but a horse to sell. And sure I think, in this wise age of the world, Usurers and Simonists strive who shall find the wittiest way to hell. What should I speak of the secret frauds in contracts, booties in matches, subornation of instruments, hiring of oaths, feeing of officers, equivocations of answers, and ten thousand other tricks that the heart of man hath devised for the conveyances of sin; in all which, it too well approves itself incom parably deceitful?

(2.) The False Semblance of the heart is yet worse: for the former is most-what for the smothering of evil; this, is for the justi fying of evil, or the disgrace of good.

In these two doth this act of falsehood chiefly consist; in making evil good, or good evil.

For the first: the natural man knows well how filthy all his brood is; and therefore will not let them come forth, but disguised with the colours and dresses of good. So as now every one of nature's birds is a swan: pride is handsomeness; desperate fury, valour: lavishness is noble munificence; drunkenness, civility: flattery, compliment; murderous revenge, justice: the courtesan is bona famina; the sorcerer, a wise man; the oppressor, a good husband: Absalom will go pay his vows; Herod will worship the Babe.

For the second: such is the envy of nature, that, where she sees a better face than her own, she is ready to scratch it, or cast dirt in it; and therefore, knowing that all virtue hath a native beauty in it, she labours to deform it by the foulest imputations. Would the Israelites be devout? they are idle: doth David dance for joy before the ark? he is a fool in a Morris: doth St. Paul discourse of

his heavenly vision? too much learning hath made him mad: do the Disciples miraculously speak all the tongues of Babel? they are full of new wine: do they preach Christ's Kingdom? they are seditious; the resurrection? they are babblers: is a man conscionable? he is a hypocrite; is he conformable? he is unconscionable; is he plain dealing? he is rudely uncivil; is he wisely insinuative? he is a flatterer. In short, such is the wicked craft of the heart, that it would let us see nothing in its own form; but fain would shew us evil fair, that we might be enamoured of it; and virtue ugly, that we might abhor it.

And, as it doth for the way, so doth it for the end; hiding from us the glory of heaven that is laid up for overcomers, and shewing us nothing but the pleasant closure of wickedness; making us believe that hell is a palace and heaven a dungeon, that so we might be in love with death.

And thus, both in Cunning Conveyance and False Semblance, The heart of man is deceitful above all things.

2. Ye have seen the Fashion of this deceit; cast now your eyes upon the SUBJECT. And whom, doth it then deceive? It doth de ceive others; it can deceive itself; it would deceive Satan; yea, God himself.

Others, first. How many do we take for honest and sound Christians, who yet are but errant hypocrites! These apes of Satan have learned to transform themselves into angels of light. The heart bids the eyes look upward to heaven, when they are full of adultery: it bids the hands to raise up themselves towards their Maker, when they are full of blood: it bids the tongue wag holily, when there is nothing in the bosom but atheous profaneness: it bids the knee to bow like a camel, when the heart is stiff as an elephant: yea, if need be, it can bid a tear fall from the eye, or an alms or just action fall from the hand; and all to gull the world with a good opinion. In all which, false chapmen and horsecoursers do not more ordinarily deceive their buyers in shops and fairs, than we do one another in our conversation.

Yea, so crafty is the heart, that it can deceive itself: by overweening his own powers, as the proud man; by under-valuing his graces, as the modest; by mistaking his estate, as the ignorant. How many hearts do thus grossly beguile themselves! The first thinks he is rich and fine, when he is beggarly and naked; so did the angel of Laodicea: the second is poor in his own spirit, when he is rich of God's Spirit: the third thinks that he is a great favourite of heaven, when he is rather branded for an outcast; that he is truly noble, when he is a slave to that, which is baser than the worst of God's creatures, sin. Let the proud and ignorant worldling therefore know, that, though others may mock him with applauses, yet, that all the world cannot make him so much a fool as his own heart.

Yea, so cunning is the heart, that it thinks to go beyond the Devil himself. "I can," thinks it, "swallow his bait, and yet avoid his hook: I can sin, and live: I can repent of sinning, and defeat

my punishment by repenting: I can run upon the score, and take up the sweet and rich commodities of sinful pleasure; and, when I have done, I can put myself under the protection of a Saviour, and escape the arrest." Oh, the world of souls that perish by this fraud; fondly beguiling themselves, while they would beguile the Tempter.

Yet higher: Lastly, as Satan went about to deceive the Son of God; so this foolish consort and client of his goes about to deceive God himself. The first pair of hearts that ever was were thus credulous; to think they should now meet with a means of knowledge and deifying, which God either knew not of or grudged them; and therefore they would be stealing it out of the side of the apple, without God, yea, against him. Tush, none eye shall see us Is there knowledge in the Most High, saith the sottish atheist? Lord, have not we heard thee preach in our streets? have not we cast out devils in thy name? says the smoothing hypocrite; as if he could fetch God over for an admission into heaven. Thou hast not lied to man, but to God, saith St. Peter to Ananias. And pettish Jonah, after he had been cooled in the belly of the whale and the sea, yet will be bearing God down in an argument to the justifying of his idle choler; I do well to be angry to the death, But as the greatest politicians are oft overtaken with the grossest follies, (God owes proud wits a shame,) the heart of man could not possibly devise how so much to befool itself, as by this wicked presumption: O ye fools, when will ye understand? He that formed the eye, shall he not see? He that teacheth man knowledge, shall not he understand? The Lord knoweth the thoughts of man, that they are vanity; Psalm xciv. 8-11. A rod for the back of fools, yea a rod of iron for such presumptuous fools, to crush them in pieces like a potter's vessel.

3. Ye have seen the Fashion and the Subject of this deceit : the SEQUEL, OF EFFECT follows; every way lamentable.

For hence it comes to pass, that many a one hath had his heart in keeping forty, fifty, threescore years, and more, and yet is not acquainted with it; and all because this craft hath kept it at the Priscillianist's lock, Tu omnes, te nemo. It affects to be a searcher of all men: no man is allowed to come aboard of it. And, if a man, whether out of curiosity or conscience, be desirous to enquire into it, (as it is a shame for a man to be a stranger at home; Know ye not your own heart? saith the Apostle;) it casts itself, Proteuslike, into so many forms, that it is very hard to apprehend it. One while the man hath no heart, b, saith Solomon: then he hath

, a heart and a heart, saith David; Psalm xii. 2. and one of his hearts contradicts another; and then how knows he whether to believe? and what certainty, what safety can it be, for a man to live unacquainted with himself?

Of this unacquaintance, secondly, arises a dangerous misprision. of a man's self; in the nature and quantity of his sin; in the quality of his repentance; in his peace and entireness with God; in his right to heaven; and, in a word, in his whole spiritual estate.