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as the baffles which men sustain by trusting themselves; which gives them but too frequent and sad an experience, that the nearest neighbours are not always the best friends. none surely can be nearer to a man than himself, or be supposed so true and faithful to all his concerns, as the heart which beats in his own breast; yet Solomon, and a greater than Solomon, which is, experience, gives us infallible demonstrations that it is much otherwise; and that the heart, of all things in the world, is least to be confided in, else certainly a man's trusting of it could not thus denominate him a fool.

The words contain in them a caution or admonition against men's trusting their own hearts, upon the account of that disgraceful imputation which such a trust or confidence will in the issue bring upon them; and consequently they very naturally present these two things to our inquiry:

I. What is meant by a man's "trusting his heart."

II. Wherein the folly of it consists.

As for the first of these. For a man to trust his own heart, is, in short, for him to commit and resign up the entire conduct of his life and actions to the directions of it, as of a guide, the most able and the most faithful, to direct him in all the most important matters which relate either to his temporal or his spiritual estate. For whosoever trusts another for his guide, must do it upon the account of these two qualifications to be found in him:

1st, That he is able to direct and lead him. So that in this case a man must look upon every dictate of his heart as an oracle; he must look upon it as speaking to him from an infallible chair, incapable of error or mistake in any thing which it proposes to him to be followed. In a word, lie must take it for the unerring measure of truth, and the most certain reporter of the mind of God.

2dly, A guide must be such an one as not only certainly can, but also faithfully will give the best directions. For let a man know the way never so well, yet if he has a design not to impart that knowledge, but perhaps has more windings and turnings than the way itself, such an one is far from being a competent guide, and fit to be trusted, especially in a man's journey to eternity. So that for a man to "trust his heart," is to take it for his best, his surest, and most unfailing friend, that will deal openly, clearly, and impartially with him in every thing, and give him faithful intelligence in all his affairs.

Having thus seen what is imported in a man's "trusting his heart," we come now, in the next place, to see wherein the foolishness of it consists. For the making out of which, we are to observe, that there are two things which render a trust foolish, both of them to

be considered with mutual relation to one another in this particular:

1st, The value of the thing which we commit to a trust.

2dly, The undue qualifications of the person to whose trust we commit it.

In both of which respects the confidence reposed by men in their own hearts will, in the procedure of this discourse, appear to be inexcusably foolish.

First of all, then, as for the thing which we commit to a trust. We do, in a word, trust all that to our hearts which is the consequent of our actions, either in reference to this world or the other. But to explicate and draw forth this general into the several particulars wrapt up and included in it; while we rely upoir the guidance of our heart, we commit these three things to the mercy of its trust. 1. The honour of God. 2. Our own felicity here. 3. The eternal concernments of our souls hereafter. All of them certainly, either jointly or severally, things too great, too high, and too concerning, to be ventured upon the rotten bottom of a false and a deceiving heart.

We shall speak of each of them distinctly. 1st, First of all then, the honour of God is intrusted with the heart. So far as the manifestation of God's honour depends upon the homage of his obedient creature, so far it is at the mercy of our actions, which are at the command of the heart, as the motion of the wheels follows the disposition of the spring. God is never disobeyed, but he is also dishonoured. In every act of sin, dust and ashes flings itself in the face of the Almighty, and defies him so far, that it puts him to the exercise of his vindictive justice, to prove his sovereignty and dominion over the bold offender. Now God is capable of being honoured or dishonoured by us in three several respects :— 1st, As he is our Creator. And is it not infinitely reasonable for clay to comply with the will of the potter? for such frail vessels as men are, to be subject to their almighty artificer? For did God make us, that we might spit in his face, and give us a being, that we might employ it to the dishonour of him who gave it? While a man sins, he seems to be his own creator, and to own an absolute independency, as to any superior productive

cause.

For no understanding, judging rationally, would imagine, that a creature durst act against him, who first raised him into a capacity of acting, and that even out of nothing, and could crush him into nothing again every minute. So that the honour, by which we vouch and own God for a Creator, is a result of our actions, and the conduct of them is committed to the heart.

2dly, God is capable of being honoured by us as a Lord and Governor. "If I am a minaster," says God, "where is my honour?' But can the rebellion of the subject declare the

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For this is an obvious and easy maxim of reason, "that his servants we are to whom we obey." Obedience is but a clearer comment upon our allegiance. Why does God call upon to let our light shine before men," "did not the shining of that by reflection cast a shine and a lustre upon his own glory? When men see our good works," they are apt to glorify and acknowledge the supremacy and ruling hand of our Lord and Master in heaven. Well it is, that it is not in the power of the most rebellious creature, by any sin and misbehaviour of his, to take away the power and prerogative of God, though it may for the present be able to eclipse, slur, and so obscure it. For surely this is done, in a great measure, by every broad violation of the divine law, which seems to attempt to persuade the rest of the world, that God is not so great and so mighty a potentate as he bears himself for; since the boldness of an offender, for the most part, speaks the weakness of the governor.

To advance the clearness of which by instance. Pray how did David own God in the relation of a king, when by his two great sins he caused the enemies of God to blaspheme? How did the sons of Eli own him in that respect, when by the insolence and impurity of their behaviour they caused all Israel to loathe the offerings of the Lord ?" All these actions were a deposing of God from his throne, so far as his throne was placed in the heart and awful esteem of his creatures. In this respect therefore is the heart intrusted with God's honour.

3dly, The honour of God also, considered as our Saviour and gracious Father, is trusted to the behaviour of the heart. For does not every sin defy, and every act of obedience honour God in this capacity? Would any one take him for a son, who lifts up his heel against him, to whom he should bend the knee? Or can any man be thought to own God for his Saviour, while he treats him with all the acts of hatred and hostility? By the behaviour of sinners towards God, one would think that they took him for an implacable tyrant and an enemy, for one who hated and maligned them, and consequently that the whole tenor of their life was but the acting of a continual revenge upon him for it. Natural ingenuity abhors the recompensing of a friend with all the indignities and contempts that

exasperated nature passes upon an enemy. Every unworthy, sinful deportment therefore tends to beget and foment unbeseeming apprehensions of God in the mind of his creature. Now since the actions are governed by the heart, as the great dictator and commander in chief of all that a man either does or desires; it follows, that the heart has that great trust reposed in it, how far God shall receive the glory due to him, as he bears these three grand relations to us, of a Creator, a Governor, and a Saviour.

2dly, The second thing a man trusts his heart with, is his happiness in this world. And this is twofold: 1st, Temporal. 2dly, Spiritual.

1st, And first, he trusts it with all his temporal comforts and felicities. It is a most known truth, that most of the miseries and calamities which befall a man in this life, break in upon him through the door of sin; frequent experience shewing us, how easily men sin themselves into disgrace, poverty, sickness, loss of friends, and the like; they are the direct consequents of a man's personal misdemeanours. David's adultery and murder made his enemies scorn, and his friends desert him, (Psalm xxxviii. 11.) It is said of them, "that they stood aloof off;" they flew from him as from a living, walking contagion. Intemperance ends in poverty, and a full belly makes an empty purse. Luxury enters upon and spoils the soul through the ruins of the body, and the bed of uncleanness prepares for the bed of sickness.

But now in all these instances of sin which maul the sinner with these temporal disasters, the heart is the first moving spring and principle: they all flow from the prevarications of this. It is this that is the source and the fruitful womb of all the mischiefs that render this life miserable, were there no after-reckonings in another.

How cautious is every man almost of trusting his neighbour with his mind or with his estate; because he knows how much such an one thereby gets the command, and the disposal of his happiness; for he fears lest he may by this means betray his honour, and disgrace him, or undermine his estate, and ruin him; not considering how much greater a suspicion he ought to have of his own heart and temper, which may, through the unhappy bent and propensity of it, push him on upon those courses which shall irrecoverably dash him in all his outward enjoyments; and then that shall sound forth his infamy, and trumpet out his disgrace louder than the tongue of the most merciless reviler can; that shall betray him into captivity to some expensive vice, which shall grind his fortunes to powder, and leave him as bare as the oppression of a domestic tyrant, or the invasion of a foreign enemy.

Such an one ventures into lewd company, and perhaps is thereby surprised into the dishonours of intemperance, and so departs with a wound upon his reputation. Another is confident, and steps into the occasion of sin, which perhaps by degrees entangles, and at length draws him into the paths of vice and uncleanness, and that sullies the clearness of his fame, and withal makes a breach upon the serenity and content of his mind, so that he is brought to taste but little even of these temporal felicities.

Now, how comes this to pass? Why, all through the treachery of his heart, which persuaded him of those strengths which he never really had; which told him what command he had of himself under those circumstances of temptation, which yet upon trial he was unable to contest with; and which would needs make him believe, that he might "touch pitch, and yet not be defiled," venture upon the occasions of sin, and yet stand secure from the sin itself. These fraudulent dealings of the heart are those impostures which prunge men into infinite calamities and inconveniencies, such as imbitter the enjoyment even of common life itself.

2dly, There is yet another part of a man's happiness in this world, which is spiritual, which his heart is also intrusted with, and that is, the peace of his conscience; a thing, the enjoyment of which is so valuable, and the loss so dreadful, that though it stands here reckoned but for a part of a man's felicity, yet it is of that nature, that it may well pass for the whole for what can a man truly enjoy while he wants it? and what can he much feel the want of, while he enjoys it? It is in effect a man's whole, entire happiness; such a spreading universal influence has it upon all his thoughts, actions, and affections. For while a man carries his acquitting, absolving sentence within him, and a transcript of the pardons of Heaven deposited in his own breast, what storm can shake, what terror can amaze, what calamities can confound him? It is he alone who can look death and danger in the face with a rational unconcernment; for he has that which enables him to look him, who is infinitely more terrible than all these together, even a just, a holy, and in-revenging God, in the face.

On the other side, when the glass of a man's conscience shall shew him a God frowning, a law cursing, wrath and vengeance preparing, and all the artillery of heaven and earth making ready against him, what can he think, say, or enjoy, in this condition? Even as much as Cain enjoyed, who lived a vagabond, and a terror to himself; or as Belshazzar, whose joints loosed, and whose knees smote together with horror and consternation. But now, what is this which puts the scourge into the hand of conscience, thus to lash and tor

ment a man? Why, what is it, but the guilt of sin, which arms and envenoms it against the sinner! And is not sin the product of the sinner's heart? Is not this the dunghill where that snake is bred, and which gives warmth to the cockatrice's egg, till it be hatched and brought forth to the sinner's confusion? It is the heart which sows dissention between a man and his conscience, by enticing and ensnaring him into those sins, the guilt of which lies grating and gnawing upon his mind perpetually; so that he lives with pain, and dies with horror, passes his days ill, and ends them worse. In every thing that a man's heart prompts him to, it casts the die, whether he shall be happy or miserable for ever after. An unwholesome draught or an unwholesome morsel may make man a pining, languishing person all his days. And it is the treachery of his appetite which inveigles him into the mischief, which cheats, and abuses, and by deceitful overtures trepans him into a perpetual calamity.

3dly and lastly, The other great thing which a man intrusts his heart with, is the eternal concernment of his soul hereafter. For as a man's heart guides him, so he lives; and as he has lived in this world, so he must be rewarded in the other; and the state a man passes into there is eternal and unchangeable: there is neither retreat from misery, nor fall from happiness. And if so, how vast an acquisition is future glory, and how invaluable a loss goes along with damnation! Better is it that a man had never been born than that he should miscarry in that his grand and last concern. But it is the behaviour of his heart, which must decide whether he shall or no; for if his heart deceives and seduces him into the fatal ways of sin, upon promise of pleasure, it is a thousand to one but the man holds on his course with his life, till those present pleasures determine in everlasting pains. How many are now in hell, who have nothing to charge their coming into that woful place upon, but a hard heart, a voluptuous heart, a vain, seducing, and deluding heart, which failed them in all the specious shows and promises it made them, which varnished over the ways of sin and death, which spread the paths of destruction with roses, and made them venture an immortal soul upon an appearance, and build eternity upon a fallacy. This has been that which has kindled the unquenchable flames about their ears, which has tied those millstones, those loads of wrath, about their necks, which have sunk them into endless destruction.

"Keep thy heart with all diligence," says the wise man. Why? Because, says he, "out of it are the issues of life," (Prov. iv. 23.) It is that in which a man's life is bound up. It is the portal of heaven and hell; and a man passes to either of them through his own

into the other.

And thus I have shewn these things, which a man intrusts his heart with; namely, the honour of God, his happiness in this world, the peace of his conscience, and his eternal happiness hereafter; things, one would think, too great to be trusted with any one, since in all trust there is something of venture; and these things are of too high a value to be ventured any where, but where it is impossible a man should be deceived. God only, who made the soul, is fit to be trusted with it. For if a man is deceived here, where shall he have reparation? or what can a man gain, when he has once lost himself?

But, however, if we should trust these great things in such hands as were liable to a possibility of failing, yet surely we should secure the next degree, that at least there might be no probability of it; and that we would repose our confidence in one who was infinitely unlikely to deceive or put a trick upon us; so that our confidence might be prudent at least, though not certain and infallible. But now we shall find the heart far from being such a thing, but, on the contrary, so unfit to be trusted, that it is ten thousand to one but it betrays its trust; so that as the folly of such a trust has been seen in the first ingredient, namely, the high and inestimable worth of the thing committed to a trust; so the same will appear yet more abundantly from the next, which is the undue qualifications of the party who is trusted: and the heart of man will be found to have eminently these two ill qualities utterly unfitting it for any trust:

1. That it is weak, and so cannot make good a trust. 2. That it is deceitful, and so will not.

As for its weakness, this is twofold: 1st, In point of apprehension; it cannot perceive and understand certainly what is good. 2dly, In point of election; it cannot choose and embrace it.

1st, And first, for the weakness of the heart, in respect of its inability to apprehend and judge what is good. This it is deplorably defective in. For though it must be confessed, that there are these common notions concernag good and evil writ in the hearts of men by the finger of God and nature; yet these are blurred, and much eclipsed by the fall of man from his original integrity and if they were not impaired that way, yet they arrived

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not to their full natural perfection, but as they are improved and heightened by virtuous practices. Upon which account the apostle ascribes not a discerning of good and evil to every one having the natural sense of it, but to such only as have their senses exercised," (Heb. v. 14.) Every man has an innate principle of reason; but it is use and cultivation of reason, that must enable it actually to do that, which nature gives it only a remote power of doing.

This being so, it is farther evident, that all men may, and most do, neglect to improve those notions naturally implanted in them, whereupon they can with no more certainty trust to their direction, than they can rely upon an illiterate ploughman to be instructed by him in philosophy. The "light within is darkness" in many, and but as the dusk and twilight in all; and consequently its directions are but imperfect and insufficient, and dangerous to be relied upon.

2dly, The heart of man labours under as great weakness in point of election: it cannot choose what the judgment has rightly pitched upon. For, supposing that the understanding has done its part, and given the heart a faithful information of its duty, yet how unable is the heart, after all, actually to engage in the thing so clearly laid before it? It may indeed see the beauty, the lustre, and the excellency of an action, but still it is so much a slave to base, inferior desires, that it cannot practise in any proportion to what it approves. "Video meliora proboque, deteriora sequor." That excellent description of a good judgment enslaved to a vile appetite, is an exact account of the movings of man's heart in most of its choices.

It cannot look its fawning affections in the face, and deny them any thing: but like a man captivated with the sottish love of a woman, he is ready to sacrifice his reason, his interest, and all that he is worth, to her imperious will. When the affections come clamouring about the heart, that presently yields, and is not able to stand out against their assaults, to frown upon their demands, and behave itself boldly and severely in the behalf of virtue and reason. Most men in the world, who perish eternally, perish for prevaricating with themselves, and not living up to the judgment and resolves of their own knowledge; they miss of their way to heaven, not because they do not know it, but because they know it, and will not choose it. The heart is "as unstable as water," and therefore "it cannot excel." It hardly bears up against its corruptions so far, as to dare to purpose what is good; but if it does, inconstancy quickly melts down its strongest purposes, and the next temptation scatters its best resolutions, as the sun chases away the morning clouds, and drinks up the early dew.

It is the just shame and blush of the frailty of our condition, to consider how hardly we come to fix upon good, and then how quickly we are unfixed; how weak we are to intend, and how much weaker to perform. Impotence and change, like a spiritual palsy, have so seized all the faculties of our souls, that when we reach forth our hand to duty, and endeavour to apply the rule to practice, it trembles and shakes, and is utterly at a loss how to do any thing steadily and exactly, and reach the nice measures of Christian morality. The rule serves only to upbraid the action, which always comes short of it. "Since thou doest these things," says God, (Ezek. xvi. 30,) "how weak is thy heart!" how unable to resist a flattering mischief and a tempting destruction! It resigns up itself upon every summons of great desire. It quits its throne, lays aside its sceptre, forgets its sovereignty, takes the bit into its mouth, and is willing to be rid.

And thus much for the first ill quality unfitting the heart of man to be trusted, namely, its weakness; and that both in apprehension, that it cannot understand, and also in election, that it cannot choose and embrace what is good.

2. The other ill quality rendering the heart unfit to be trusted, is its deceitfulness, which does so abound in the breasts of all men, that it would pose the acutest head to draw forth and discover what is lodged in the heart. For who can tell all the windings and turnings, all the depths, the hollownesses, and dark corners of the mind of man! He who enters upon this scrutiny, enters into a labyrinth or a wilderness, where he has no guide but chance or industry to direct his inquiries, or to put an end to his search. It is a wilderness, in which a man may wander more than forty years; a wilderness, through which few have passed into the promised land. If we should endeavour to recount all the cheats and fallacies of it, no arithmetic can number, or logic resolve them; their multitude is so vast, and their contexture so intricate.

Yet, to discover and give us some acquaintance at least with the treachery and unfaithfulness of our hearts, I shall endeavour to lay open and set before you some of those tricks and delusions, which may convince us how unlikely the heart is to make good any trust which we can repose in it, in relation to our spiritual affairs.

And these delusions shall be reduced to these three sorts:

1. Such as relate to the commission of sin. 2. Such as relate to the performance of duty. 3. Such as relate to a man's conversion, or change of his spiritual estate.

1. And first, for those which relate to a man's committing of sin; of this sort there are three :

VOL. II.

1st, First of all, a man's heart will drill him on to sin, by persuading him that it is in his power to give bounds to himself, as to the measure of his engaging in that sin, according as he shall think fit. If his conscience is affrighted, when a great and a foul sin shall offer itself to his consideration, his heart will tell him, though the commission of it be indeed dangerous, yet he may at least indulge himself in the thought of it, act it upon the scene of his fancy, and so reap the fantastic pleasure of it in conceit and imagination. And if it comes to be listened to in this its first crafty and seemingly modest proposal, it will advance a little farther, and tell him, that he may also please himself with the desires of it; and so, by letting his desires work, his corruption grows at length so inflamed, that the man is troublesome and uneasy to himself, till it breaks out into actual commission: and when he is wrought up to such an eagerness and impatience, his heart will then enlarge his commission, and tell him that it is no great matter if he ventures to commit the sin he so much desires for once, since it is in his power to retreat and give over when he pleases, and so is in no danger of being forced to continue in it, which alone proves damnable. But now, being brought thus far, sin has a greater interest in his desires than before, and easily persuades the man to act it yet once more, and then again and again, till he is insensibly brought under the power of his sin, and held captive in a sinful course; from which he is not able, by all the poor remainders of his own reason, to redeem and disentangle himself; he has brought himself into the snare which holds and commands him. So that if the free preventing grace of God (which yet no man can certainly promise to himself in such a condition) does not interpose, and knock off his bolts and shackles, the man must die a prisoner and a slave to his sin, which will provide him but a sad entertainment in the other world.

And now, when a man is thus disposed of into his eternal state, with what sadness must he needs reflect upon the cursed artifices of his deluding heart? He little imagined that his destruction could have entered upon him through the narrow passage of sinful thoughts and desires. But had he considered the spreading, insinuating, and encroaching nature of sin, how that by every step it makes into the soul it gets a new degree of possession, and thereby a proportionable power; had he considered also how few men are destroyed at once, but by gradual underminings, and that the greatest mischiefs find it necessary to use art and fallacy to make their approach indiscernible by the smallness of their beginnings; I say, had he considered all these things by an early caution, (which his false heart would