be sure never to prompt him to,) he might have prevented his fatal doom, and avoided the blow by suspecting the hand that designed it.

2dly, The heart of man will betray him into sin by drawing him into the occasions of it. Certain it is, that every thing may be the occasion of a sin to man, if it be abused; but some things have a more direct and natural connection with sin than others, so that a man is under a greater danger of being surprised when he falls under such circumstances, than under others. For surely some companies and some ways of living are such, that, upon the frailty of corrupt nature, a man may as well expect to come dry out of a river, as to come clear and unpolluted out of them. Let a man accustom himself to converse with the intemperate, the profane, and the lascivious, and something of the venom and contagion of these sins will rub itself upon him, do what he can. The very breath of infected and polluted persons is itself infectious.

But there is one notable way above the rest, by which the hearts of most men supplant them, and that is in drawing them on to something unlawful, by causing them to take their utmost scope and liberty in things lawful. The difference between lawful and unlawful is often very nice, and it is hard to cut the hair in assigning the precise limits of each of them.

But surely it cannot be safe for any man still to walk upon a precipice, to stand upon an indivisible point, and to be always upon the very border of destruction. It is true, indeed, that he who stands upon the very brink of the sea, stands as really upon the land, as he who is many miles off; but yet he is not like to stand there so long as the other. There are many companies, sports, and recreations, (I shall not mention particulars,) no doubt in themselves very lawful 1; but yet they may chance to prove the bane of the bold user of them. For, alas! the heart is unable to bear them without warping. Sin is not in the house, but it lies at the door; and it is hard for so near a neighbourhood not to occasion a visit. There are some diversions now-a-days much in request to gratify the palate, the eating of which it is possible a man may time and regulate so, that they shall do him no hurt, but it is certain that they can never do him any good. Though in the diet of the soul, I am afraid the observation is much stricter, and that it is hard to assign any thing, which should only not do us good, without also doing us some hurt.

And therefore let no man trust his glozing heart, when it tells him, what hurt is there in such and such pleasures, such and such recreations? for this very discourse of his heart is a shrewd sign, that they are like to prove hurtful and pernicious to him. And I

shall venture to state and lay down this for a rule, that be an action or recreation never so lawful in itself, yet if a man engages in it merely upon a design of pleasure, (as I believe most do,) it is ten to one but it becomes a snare to that person, and that he comes off from it with a wound upon his conscience, whether he is always sensible of it or no. Let a man's heart say what it will, I am sure the Spirit of God in these cases recommends to every pious person caution, diffidence, and suspicion. It bids him secure himself by keeping out of harm's way. He that escapes a danger is fortunate, but he that comes not into it is wise.

3dly, The heart of man will betray him into sin, by lessening and extenuating it in his esteem. Than which fallacious way of dealing, there is nothing more usual to the corruption of man's nature. In the judgment of which, great sins shall pass for little sins, and little sins for no sins at all. For moats may enter, where beams cannot; and small offences find admittance, where great and clamorous crimes fright the soul to a standing upon its guard, to prevent the invasion.

Now the heart, if it does not find sins small, has this notable faculty, that it can make them so; for it has many arts to take off from, and to diminish the guilt of them. As either by calling them infirmities, such as creep upon men by daily and unavoidable surprise, and such as human weakness cannot possibly protect itself against. When the truth is, the heart is willing to excuse itself from performing duty, and from resisting sin, by representing difficulties for impossibilities, and accounting many things difficult, because it never so much as went about them; whereas a vigorous endeavour would remove not only the supposed impossibility, but even the difficulty also of many actions and duties, which mere laziness has represented to the mind as impracticable.

Certain it is, that the blow given by original sin to man's nature has left a great weakness upon it, much disabling it as to the prosecution of what is good; but yet many impotencies, or rather averseness to good, are charged upon a natural account, which indeed are the effects only of habitual sins; sins that by frequent practice have got such firm hold of the will, that it can very hardly advance itself into any action of duty. Some have accustomed themselves to swear so often, that they cannot forbear it upon every light occasion. Some have lived intemperately so long, that they cannot refrain from their whore and their cups; and then if either their conscience checks them, or others reprove them, presently their answer is, God forgive them, it is their infirmity, they cannot help it.

But in this they are wretchedly deceived;

for it is not infirmity, but custom, custom took up, and continued by great presumption and audaciousness in sin, inducing them to trample upon a clear command, for the gratifying of a lust or a base desire.

Temptation also is another topic, from which the heart will draw a plausible argument for the extenuation of sin. Men will confess that they sin; but how can they forbear, say they, when the Devil pushes them on headlong into the commission of what is evil? And the Devil being so much stronger than they, how can such weak creatures resist so mighty an adversary? But in this also the heart plays the sophister, and shews itself like the Devil, while it pleads against him: for God himself assures us, that the Devil may be resisted, and that so far as to be put to flight and besides this, the freedom of man's will is a castle that he cannot storm, a fort that he cannot take. If indeed it will surrender itself upon vain and treacherous proposals, its destruction is from itself, and it is deceived, but not forced into sin.

:

Now so long as a man's heart can possess him with an opinion of the smallness of any sin, it will certainly have these two most pernicious effects upon him:

1st, Antecedently, he will very easily be induced to commit it; nor will he think the eternal happiness of his soul concerned to watch against it; for he cannot imagine but that it will be as soon pardoned as committed, or that it can make any great breach between God and him. His conscience he finds not much startled or alarmed at it, and so he concludes that it must needs be fair weather without doors, because he finds it so within.

2dly, The other malignant effect it will have upon a man consequently to sin, is, that he will scarce repent of it, scarce think it worthy of a tear. By which means he is actually under the wrath of God, which abides upon every man during his impenitence. The consequence of which to him, who has a spiritual sense of things, must needs be very dreadful. For every sin unrepented of may provoke God by withdrawing his grace to lay the sinner open to the commission of grosser; which how far they may waste his conscience, and where they may end, he knows not, but has cause at the thought of it to tremble.

It is incredible to consider what ground sin gets of the soul, by the heart's extenuating and undervaluing of it, and that in the very least and most inconsiderable instance. For by this means it is easily let into the soul, and seldom thrown out. No caution is applied beforehand, nor repentance after. And surely it cannot but be dangerous to leave the world with any one sin unrepented of.

And thus much for that first sort of fallacies, which the heart of man is apt to put upon

him, namely, such as relate to the commission of sin.

2. The second sort is of those that relate to the performance of duty; of which kind are these two:

1st, A man's heart will persuade him that he has performed a duty, when perhaps it is only some circumstance of it that has been performed by him. Prayer is one of the prime and most sovereign duties of a Christian; and many there are, whose consciences will by no means suffer them to omit it. But how few are there who perform it spiritually, and according to the exact measures of Christian piety! For some do it "to be seen of men," and to approve themselves to the eye of the world, that they are not altogether heathens, and destitute of all sense of religion. Some use to pray, as the Athenian orators made harangues before the people, for applause and ostentation of parts, styling a readiness of speech, and a great flow of words, "the inspirations of the Spirit."

The corrupt heart of man naturally rests in the opus operatum of every duty; and the conscience having lost much of its first tenderness and sagacity, is willing to take up with the outside and superficies of things; to feed upon husks, and to be contented with the mere show and pageantry of duty. There is no doubt, but the Pharisee, who made that boasting prayer, or rather bravado before God, (Luke, xviii. 14,) went home abundantly satisfied in himself, though not at all justified before the Seer of hearts. And it is as little to be doubted, but that the rest of his brethren, who did their alms in the concourse of the multitude, and proclaimed their charity with trumpets, were full of an opinion of their own piety; though all that they gave was but a sacrifice to their own pride, and a slavish service to the designs and humours of an insatiable ambition; yet still their flattering hearts echoed back to them all those acclamations of the ignorant, deceived rabble, and questionless told them, that they were the most pious, liberal, and generous persons in the world.

The like instances may be given in the fastings and mortifications used by many people; which, no question, rightly managed, are huge helps to piety, great weakeners of sin, and furtherances to a man in his Christian course. But every man who is driven from his meat by a proclamation, does not therefore keep a fast in the sight of God, whatsoever his foolish heart may persuade him. Every man who wears sackcloth, and uses himself coarsely, does not therefore perform any one true act of mortification upon his sin. The man catches at the shadow, but misses of the substance of the duty. His heart misreckons him; and therefore, when he comes to rectify his account by the mea

sure God takes of things, he finds that in all his fastings and corporal austerities, he has done indeed a great deal of work, but little duty.

2dly, A man's heart will make him presume to sin with greater confidence, upon the account of duty performed. I have heard of some, who, after they had discharged their consciences in confession, used to rush with so much quicker an appetite into sin; as if former scores being cleared, they were now let loose to sin upon a fresh account: and experience shews, that many take heart to sin, after they have performed some strict duty, thinking that that has set them so much beforehand with Heaven, that they may well be borne with, if they make some little excursions in the indulgence of their sinful and voluptuous appetites. If they have been for any time in the school of virtue, tied up under its severe disciplines, they think they may well claim some time for play, and then vice shall be their recreation.

This is the corrupt, perverse reasoning of most hearts; this they insist upon as a satisfactory argument to themselves, though infinitely sottish and contradictory to the very nature and design of religion. For as the apostle most justly and rationally upbraids the Galatians in that significant reproof of them, (Gal. iii. 3,) " What! having begun in the Spirit, are ye now made perfect by the flesh ?" Can piety fit a man for that which crosses and destroys piety? Can any man make this an argument why he should be vicious, because he has been virtuous? or loose and voluptuous, because he has been sometime strict and abstemious? Yet this is the brutish discourse of most men's minds; who think it all the reason in the world, that they should relax and unbend, after they have for some time abridged themselves by the severe courses of religion.

Though the truth is, upon a right and due estimation of things, such persons never performed any one truly pious and religious action, who had such principles and persuasions habitually resting upon their hearts, but were utterly void of the very notion, much more of "the power of godliness." This is evident; for he who performs a duty from a principle of true piety, is so far from being weary of going on in the same course, that he finds his desires thereby quickened, and his strength increased, for a more vigorous prosecution of it; and no man changes his course, and passes into contrary practices, but because he finds in himself a loathing and a dislike of his former; than which there is not a more certain and infallible sign of a false, rotten, hypocritical heart, a heart abhorred and detested by God; for if we loathe God's commands, we may be sure that God as much loathes our performances, as being the

forced effects of compulsion, not the natural, genuine, and free emanations of the will. He therefore who thinks the merit of any pious action performed by him may compound for a future licentiousness, abuses himself and his religion; for he makes a liberty to sin the reward of piety, than which there cannot be a greater and a more pestilent delusion. And thus much for the fallacies of the heart relating to the performance of duty.

3. The third sort relate to a man's conversion, and the change of his spiritual estate; of which I shall mention two:

1. A man's heart will persuade him that he is converted from a state of sin, when perhaps he is only converted from one sin to another; and that he has changed his heart, when he has only changed his vice. This is another of its fallacies, and that none of the least fatal and pernicious. A man has perhaps for a long time took the full swing of his voluptuous humour, wallowed in all the pleasures of sensuality; but at last, either by age or design, or by some cross accident turning him out of his old way, he comes to alter his course, and to pursue riches as insatiably as formerly he did his pleasures, so that from a sensual epicure he is become a covetous miser; a worthy change and conversion indeed. But as a river cannot be said to be dried up, because it alters its channel; so neither is a man's corruption extinguished, though it ceases to vent itself in one kind of vice, so long as it runs with as full and as impetuous a course in another.

Suppose, amongst the Jews, a man had passed from the society of riotous and debauched livers, from the company of publicans and sinners, to the strictness and profession of the pharisees, this man indeed might have been termed a new sinner, but not a new creature; he had changed his intemperance or his extortion for the more refined sins of vainglory and hypocrisy; he had changed a dirty path for one more cleanly, but still for one in the same road. One man perhaps goes to a town or a city through the fields, another through the highway, yet both of them intend and arrive at the same place, and meet and shake hands at the same market. In like manner, a man may pass as surely to hell by a sin of less noise and infamy, as by one more flaming and notorious. And therefore he that changes only from one sin to another, is but the Devil's convert; and the whole business of such a conversion is but a man's altering of the methods of his ruin, and the casting of his damnation into another model.

2. A man's heart will persuade him, that a cessation from sin is a plenary conquest and mortification of sin. But a king is a king even while he is asleep, as well as when he is awake, and is possessed of a regal power even

then when he does not exercise it. So sin may truly reign where it does not actually rage, and pour itself forth in continual gross eruptions.

There are intervals of operation, vicissitudes of rest and motion, in all finite agents whatsoever; and therefore it is not to be expected, but that the sinner may have some relaxation from the drudgery of his sin, and not be put every minute to "obey the flesh in the lusts thereof."

Nay, there may be a very long forbearance; and yet as there may be a truce with an enemy, with whom there is no peace: so no man can conclude his corruption vanquished, because for the present it is quiet. For such a quietness there may be upon several accounts. As partly mere lassitude and weariness; for what epicure can be always plying his palate? what drunkard always pouring in? Nature is not sufficient for the commands of sin without some respite and breathing time. Partly also may sin be quiet out of design; for sin must still bait its hook with pleasure, and pleasure consists in the interchanges of abstinence with enjoyment, without which it would quickly pass into loathing and satiety. And the Devil knows that these interposals of forbearance do but whet the appetite to a greater keenness of desire, when the object shall come again before it.

How miserably then does that man's heart deceive him, when it tells him that his sin lies wholly prostrate and dead, when it only lies still, and stirs not for some time! But alas! "it is not dead, but sleepeth;" for when the soul is hereby made so confident as to quit its guard, sin will quickly step forth and take advantage to act a sorer and a sharper mischief upon it than ever.

And thus I have given an account of some of those deceits and fallacies which the heart of man is apt to circumvent him by; and God knows that it is but some of many. For infinite are the impostures that lie couched in the depths and recesses of this hollow and fallacious thing. So that all that I have said is but a paraphrase, and that a very imperfect one, upon that full text of the prophet Jeremy, (xvii. 9,) “That the heart of man is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked, who can know it?" It is depth not to be fathomed, and a mystery never thoroughly to be understood. And being so, I suppose it appears by this time how unavoidable that consequence and deduction is made by Solomon here in the text, "that whosoever trusts it is inexcusably a fool." For what principles of ordinary prudence can warrant a man to trust a notorious cheat, and that also such an one as he himself has been cheated and deceived by? There is no man whose experience does not tell him to his face that his heart has deceived him; and no wise

man will be deceived so much as twice by the same person.

Now, the imputation of being a fool, is a thing which mankind of all others is the most impatient of, it being a blot upon the prime and specific perfection of human nature, which is reason, a perfection which both governs and adorns all the rest. For so far as a man is a fool, he is defective in that very faculty which discriminates him from a brute. Upon which account, one would think, that this very charge of folly should make men cautious how they listen to the treacherous proposals coming out of their own bosom, lest they perish with a load of dishonour added to that of their destruction. For if it is imaginable that there can be any misery greater than damnation, it is this, to be damned for being a fool.

But this needs not be our lot, if we can but prevail with ourselves to take that conduct which God has provided us for our passage to our eternal state; a conduct which can neither impose upon us, nor be imposed upon itself, even the holy and eterual Spirit of God, the great legacy which our dying Saviour left to his church, whose glorious office and business it is to lead such as will be led by him into all truth.

To whom, therefore, with the Father and the Son, be ascribed, as is most due, all praise, might, majesty, and dominion, both now and for evermore. Amen.

SERMON LXXII.

THE HOPE OF FUTURE GLORY AN EXCITEMENT TO PURITY OF LIFE.

"Every man that hath this hope in him purifieth himself, even as he is pure."-1 JOHN, iii, 3.

THE apostle in this chapter endeavours to comfort the saints from a consideration of the transcendent greatness of God's love, which appeared in those excellent privileges that accrued to them from it. The first of which the saints enjoy even in this life, namely, to be "the sons of God," the adopted children of the Almighty, to be admitted into the nearest and dearest relation to the great Creator and Lord of heaven and earth. "Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God!" The second great privilege is to be enjoyed by the saints in the life to come, and that is no less than a likeness to Christ himself in glory; a participation of those grand, sublime prerogatives that Christ is endowed

withal. "We know that when he shall appear, we shall be like him in glory," (ver. 2.) Now, because this great enjoyment was as yet future, and so visible but at a distance, and consequently not so pregnant and bright an argument of comfort, he tells them, that the saints could view it as present in the glass of their hopes, by which they could draw from it a real comfort, with an actual fruition.

It is indeed the nature of earthly comforts to afford more delight in their hopes than in their enjoyment. But it is much otherwise in heavenly things, which are of that solid and substantial perfection, as always to satisfy, yet never to satiate; and therefore the delight that springs from the fruition of those is still fresh and verdant; nay, we may add this yet farther, that the very expectation of heavenly things, if rational and well grounded, affords more comfort than the possession and enjoyment of the greatest earthly contents whatso

ever.

The apostle having thus told them of their hope, and what a real hold it took of the things hoped for, that he might prevent mistake, and dash presumption, tells them also, that an assured hope of future glory did not at all lead men to present security, but was so far from ministering to sloth, that it did rather quicken and excite them to duty; so that he that has this hope in him purifieth himself;" he does not lie still, and acquiesce in this, that he shall be happy and glorious in the world to come, and therefore in the mean time forgets to be virtuous in this; but it raises him to a pursuit of a more than ordinary strain of duty and perfection; "he purifies himself, even as Christ is pure;" this is his hope, this is his design; he expects to be like Christ in the brightness of his glory, and therefore he exerts his utmost diligence to resemble him in the purity of his life too.

Now, before we proceed any farther, there are two things that offer themselves in the very entrance of the words, and require some resolution. As,

1st, Is it possible for any man to "purify himself?" Is it not the Spirit of God that must work in us "both to will and to do?" For are we not naturally "dead in trespasses and sins?" And "who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean?" How then can so great a work be ascribed to us?

To this I answer, that we must distinguish of a twofold work of purification:

1. The first is, the infusing of the habit of purity or holiness into the soul, which is done in regeneration or conversion; and in this respect no man living can be said to "purify himself." For in this he is only passive, and merely recipient of that grace, that the Spirit of God, the sole agent, infuses into him; antecedently to which we are said to be "dead in trespasses and sins," and consequently in this

condition can by no means contribute to this work, so as "to purify ourselves."

2. The other work of purification is the exercising of that habit or grace of purity which a man received in conversion; by the acting or exercising of which grace he grows actually more pure and holy. And in this respect a man may be said in some sense to purify himself, yet not so as if he were either the sole or the prime agent in this work; for God is the principal agent, who first moves us, and then we act and move, and are said to be co-workers with God; and so are these words to be understood. God, without any help or procurement of our own, first gave us a talent, which afterwards we improve, yet not that entirely by our own strength, but by his assistance. In short, that which has been said in explication of this thing, amounts to no more than that known and true saying, That God who made, and since converted, that is, new made us, without ourselves, will not yet save us without ourselves. And thus much for the first query.

2dly, But, admitting that a man may purify himself in the sense mentioned, yet can he do it to that degree as to equal the purity of Christ himself? "to purify himself, even as he is pure?" of whom it is expressly said, that "he is fairer,” that is, holier and purer, "than the sons of men," and that the Spirit has "anointed him with the oil of gladness,' that is, with all divine graces, above his fellows.

To this also I answer, that this term "even as," denotes here only a similitude of kind, not an equality of degree; that is, he that hopes for glory, gets his heart purified with the same kind of holiness that is in Christ, though he neither does nor can reach it in the same measure of perfection; he gets the same meekness, the saine spiritual-mindedness and love to the divine precepts, that is, the same for kind; forasmuch as there is no perfection in Christ's humanity, but the very same for kind is also to be found in his members, though, we confess, in a much lower degree; as the same kind of blood that runs in the head runs also in the hand and in the foot, though as it is in the head, it is attended and heightened with quicker and finer spirits, than as it is diffused into the inferior members. But yet farther, though we should grant that he that has this hope in him pursues not only after the same kind, but also after the same degree of purity that is in Christ, yet it follows not hence that he ever attains to the same; for we must distinguish of holiness as it is absolutely perfect in the pattern, and as it is imperfect in our imitation.

These things being thus cleared off, I cannot perceive any thing more of difficulty in the words; the prosecution of which shall lie in the discussion of these two things: