falfe is a man's heart, fo deceived in its own acts, fo great a ftranger to its own fentence and opinions. It is weak alfo in its own refolutions and purposes. We refolve against fin, when the opportunity is over; and lay it afide, as long as the temptation pleases; even till the temptation comes again, and no longer. How many men are there in the world, that against every communion renew their vows of holy living? men that, for twenty or thirty years together have been perpetually refolving against what they daily act; and fure enough they did believe themselves. And yet if a man had daily promised us a kindness, and failed us but ten times, when it was in his power to have done it, we should think we had reafon never to believe him more. And can we then reasonably believe the refolutions of our hearts, which they have falfified fo many hundred times? We refolve against a religious time, because then it is the custom of men, and the fashion of religion. Or we refolve when we are in a great danger; and then we promise any thing, poffible or impoffible, likely or unlikely, all is one to us; we only care to remove the present preffure, and when that is over, and our fear is gone, and no love remaining, our condition being returned, our refolutions alfo return to their former indifferency. Thus the heart is deceitful, because it is weak. It is further deceitful, because it is wicked. Our hearts are wilfully blind; or else they are hardened. We are impatient of honeft and fevere reproof; and order our circumstances so, that we shall never come to the true knowledge of our condition. We are for a cheap and eafy religion; we make a faith of our own, that we may build upon it pleasure and ambition, and a tall fortune, and the fatisfactions of revenge, and do what we have a mind to; scarce once in feven years denying a strong and an unruly appetite, upon the interest of a juft confcience, and piety towards God. We make religion to be the work of a few hours in the whole year. We are without fancy or affection to the feverities of holy living. We reduce religion to the believing of a few articles, and doing nothing that that is confiderable. We pray feldom, and then but very coldly and indifferently. We communicate feldom. We profess Christ, but dare not die for him. We are factious for a religion, and will not live according to its precepts. We call ourselves Chriftians, and love to be ignorant of many of the laws of Chrift; left our knowledge fhould force us into fhame, or into the troubles of an holy life. But the heart is hard too. Not only folly, but mischief alfo is bound up in the heart of man. If God ftrives to foften it with forrow and fad accidents, it is like that of Pharaoh, hardened more and more. It is in love with wickedness, against not only the laws of God, but against a man's own reason, and his intereft. For is it imaginable, that a man, who knows the laws of God, the rewards of virtue, the curfed and horrid effects of fin; that knows and confiders, and deeply fighs at the thought of the intolerable pains of hell; that knows the joys of heaven to be unfpeakable, and certainly believes that an holy life will infallibly bring him thither; I fay, is it imaginable, that this man should, for for a tranfient action, forfeit all this hope, and certainly and knowingly incur all that calamity?-Yea, but the fin is pleafant, and the man is clothed with flesh and blood, and his appetites are bodily, and importunate, and prefent; and the difcourfes of religion are concerning things fpiritual, feparate, and apt for fpirits, and angels, and fouls departed. To take off this alfo; we will fuppofe the man to confider, and really to believe, that the pleafure of the fin is fudden, vain, empty, and tranfient; that it leaves bitterness, poison, and a fting behind it; that he remembers, and actually confiders, that, as foon as the moment of fin is paft, he fhall have an intolerable confcience, and doth at the inftant compare moments with eternity, and, with horror remembers, that the very next minute he is as miferable a man as is in the world: yet that this man should fin! -Nay, fuppofe the fin to have no pleasure at all, fuch as is the fin of fwearing; nay, fuppofe it really to have pain in it, fuch as is the fin of envy, which never can have pleasure in its actions, but much torment and confumption of the very heart: what fhould should make this man fin fo for nothing, fo against himself, so against all reason, and religion, and intereft, without pleafure, and for no reward? THUS is the heart deceitful above all things. We are falfe to ourselves, and dare not truft God. We love to be deceived, and are angry if we be told fo. We love to feem virtuous, and yet hate to be fo. We are fad and impatient, and we know not why. We are troubled at little things, and are careless of greater. We are overjoyed at a petty accident, and despise great and eternal pleasures. We believe things, not for their reafons and proper arguments, but as they ferve our turns, be they true or falfe. We long extremely for things that are forbidden us; and what we despise when it is permitted us, we fnatch at greedily when it is taken from us. We love ourselves more than we love God; and nourish our enemy in our bofom, and will not be brought to quit it; but boaft of our fhame; and are afhamed of nothing but virtue, which is moft |