Chapter 10

The use of the first head of the heart's deceitfulness, or an earnest exhortation to try ourselves whether we have overtaken the temporary.

Hitherto of the deceitfulness of heart in judging of our persons: it remains to speak of the deceitfulness in judging of our actions: but first we must consider what use we are to make of the former.

The special use is that of the Apostle, Try yourselves, examine yourselves, whether you are in the faith or no: our hearts would make us believe we were thus and thus: but the Scripture has discovered our hearts to us for noble impostors and deceivers. Now who is there, that would easily believe a known deceiver? Indeed, as it fares with such that often deceive by speaking falsely, that they cannot be credited by us when they speak truly: the like suspicion and jealousy should we have of these false hearts, even then when they give in right judgment. I know nothing by myself, says Paul, my own heart does not condemn me, and yet I dare not be overbold in bearing out myself upon this judgment, this sentence of my own heart will not justify me. Much deceit may be hidden therein: God, that is far greater than our hearts, sees that in them which they see not themselves: good reason have you then, my brother, to mistrust the judgment of your own heart, concerning yourself, and those so peremptory sentences, which it causes your mouth to utter, that if there were but one man to be saved, you are the man. Oh how many sleepers are there, that dream this dream of a strong assurance of their salvation, that both live and die in this dream, and so go down merrily to hell? Where their pains shall be greater, by how much their expectation of them through the deceitfulness of their hearts, was the less. Is it not pain enough to be in hell, but you must needs increase the pain by this wicked, and willful self-deceiving? Have we then our ears in our heads, and mark we well the voice of these our hearts, when they suggest secretly to us, You are in good case, the child of God, the beloved of God. Consider we whether our own hearts may not flatter us, whether the devil may not delude us. Rest we not in our own heart's voice, neither accept we the deceitful applause thereof; but as once Joshua, seeing the Angel, examined him, Are you on our side, or on our adversaries, so do we, hearing these words, try them from where they are: for the ear, says Elihu, tries words, as the outward words of other men's mouths, so the inward words of our own hearts. Say then to these words, to this secret cry, from where are you, do you come from God's spirit, or from Satan? As we must try the spirits, in the outward words delivered by men, so also in the secret thoughts of our heart, especially these concerning our own estate toward God, whether they be the voice of God's spirit, or of the evil spirit of error and illusion. It was vile for those fawning flatterers to say to a man, The voice of God: much more for us to say so to the Devil himself. And what do we else, when we apprehend and applaud his mocking illusions, and lying suggestions, as the oracle of God, and go away with them, as if God, from heaven, had told us we were his. Try we then these sounds, before we trust them, and carefully examine the grounds which your heart can show to make good her so confident assurance. Here especially remember those fearful deceits of the Temporary; how like a true believer he is, and yet none; how near he comes to heaven's door, and yet enters not, how far he travels in the way to Canaan, even with those Israelites to Kadesh-barnea within eleven days' journey of the land, and yet never sees it, never enjoys it, but is as far off, as if he had sat still in Egypt, and never stirred foot out of door. Consider seriously with yourself how far Pharaoh, Saul, Jehu, Judas, Ahab and others have gone in humiliation, sorrow, desire, zeal, reformation, and yet for all this have gone to their own place. Deal now impartially with yourself, and tell me whether you do not come short of many of these, who yet never had the heart, upon the threatening of the word, to relent and humble yourself with Ahab, to confess your sins and desire the prayers of God's children, with Pharaoh, to be affected with joy in hearing the word, and practice many things with Herod, to be zealous against sin with Jehu, to lose some part of your goods with Ananias, to forsake the world, and all your hopes there, and to follow poor Christ with Judas, Demas and others, much less to venture your life with Alexander the coppersmith, in cleaving to the truth? May such as these be wicked reprobates, and yet will you please yourself in a false conceit of your own happiness, who come far further behind them than they do behind true Christians? For to one of this rank, our Savior says, You are not far from the kingdom of heaven; but to you it cannot be said, that you are not far from Jehu, Judas, Saul, Nicolas, Alexander and other such like temporaries: for they, some of them especially, had many notable graces, so that Nicolas was chosen Deacon by the Church, for that reverent respect they had of his gifts, Judas was an Apostle, and could both pray and preach with great zeal; generally the common sort of them may be inwardly affected in prayer, conference, hearing the word, feel many good motions, taste of the powers of the life to come, feel some relish in the promises, tremble at the threatenings, reform all outward corruptions of life, as we have already showed. And you that make yourself so sure of heaven are perhaps a despiser of the word and prayer, a senseless block, that never feel the least glimpse of any spiritual motion, a muddy worldling, that cannot raise up your spirit out of the muck of the earth, into the heavens, to conceive any one pure or refined thought. Why then have you not the wit thus to think with yourself? What? Those that are saints and angels in regard of me, are they yet deceived in judging themselves to be in state of salvation? How gross then is my error, in being thus conceited of myself? If some that have journeyed in the wilderness to Kadesh-barnea, shall yet never enter into God's rest, shall those, that never left Egypt? Is the stony ground reprobate ground? And can the highway ground be good?

As long then as you are cast behind the temporary, you are miserably deceived, if you think well of yourself. So also are you, though you have attained to him, unless also you outstrip him, attaining to that which no temporary, as long as a temporary, either is or can be. O you will say, what is that? Answer: I have already showed it in the detection of the particular deceits of the temporary, yet this much may be added. The chief difference our Savior, in the parable, makes between the best of the other grounds, and the good, is this: that those only signified by the good ground, had good and honest hearts; for the stony and thorny hearers brought forth fruit, but they wanted this same good and honest heart, and in stead thereof, had either a stony, or thorny. See then what it is wherein the true Christian excels the temporary, namely, the good and the honest heart. The honesty of the heart is to be referred to the intents it has in the doing of particular actions: so that is an honest heart which aims at the right in what she does. The goodness of the heart is to be referred to the inward renewed good qualities. So that a good heart is a heart which by regeneration is changed, cleansed and purged of the former naughtiness, and so endued with another kind of nature, and disposition, whereby it hates all sin, and loves, savors, and affects things spiritual. Here then is that we must narrowly examine ourselves by, if we will not be deceived by our own hearts, in judging ourselves to be God's children, when we are not. If any man, says Paul, be in Christ he must become a new creature (2 Corinthians 5:17). He must have that same clean heart of the Prophet created in him, and that same right spirit renewed in him (Psalm 51:10; Ephesians 4:23). He must be renewed in the very spirit of his mind, in the most inward and subtle parts of the soul, as it were the quintessence of it. And this happily may also be the meaning of the Apostle, praying for the Thessalonians, that they might be sanctified throughout in their souls, bodies and spirits (1 Thessalonians 5:23): by spirit understanding the same thing that in the other place to the Romans, the best and choicest of both the parts, both soul, and body. Here is the main defect of the temporary. Though he may seem to be renewed in his mind, yet not in the spirit of his mind: to be sanctified in soul and body, yet not in the spirit and quintessence of both. He reserves that for some sin or other, which is closely harbored, and nourished there. Like as the thorns have as it were the best spirits of the ground, and do drink up the very cream, and flower thereof, so that the fruit comes to nothing, being robbed of its nourishment by the thorns. Not but that there may be and are many secret corruptions in the truly regenerate: for even the good ground may have thorns: but yet these corruptions encroach not upon the spirit of the soul; that is reserved for the grace and spirit of God; these thorns get not the fat of the soil; the good corn feeds on that; the thorns do not grow up together with, and so ascend and climb up above, and overtop the good fruit. No, the good man plays the good husband, and is ever and anon cutting up those thorns, thereafter as he feels them. Therefore it is said excellently of the good ground (Luke 8:15), that it brings forth fruit increasing and ascending; which seems to be spoken in opposition to the thorny ground, of which it was said (Luke 8:7; Mark 4:8), that the thorns grew up and ascended, namely above the corn. But in the good ground, though there may be thorns, yet the corn ascends above the thorns, grace is superior to corruption, and keeps it under.

Let us not then deceive ourselves with the temporary, for that we have some feelings, some motions, some good affections of joy, fear, sorrow, or such like, if there be but any one thorn, either of covetousness, as in Judas, Demas, Simon Magus, or of vainglory and ambition, as in Jehu, Agrippa, or of any other naughty affection, it is enough to choke all grace, and starve all goodness; so that, as our Savior speaks, we must needs become unfruitful. The Devil can be content to let us pray, preach, hear and do all these things with some feeling and affection, and hereupon to judge ourselves to be true Christians, as long as his interest in our hearts continues, as long as he may have sure hold of us, by any one reigning sin. For right well does he know, whatever good we conceive of ourselves, we do but deceive ourselves, we are still as it is said of Simon Magus (Acts 8), in the gall of bitterness, and in the bond of iniquity. It stands us in hand therefore thoroughly to gauge these deep hearts, even to the bottom, and to cry with David (Psalm 139:23), try me O Lord; prove me, whether there be any way of wickedness in me. If there be a thorn in your foot, you can go but haltingly; if any inordinate lust or desire be ingrafted into your affections, though with Agrippa you may be much moved with the preaching of the word, yet with him you are but a half and a halting Christian. Does the love of worldly honor, pomp, praise and profit prevail in you, then know — you spiritual adulterer, or adulteress — that the love of the world is enmity with God (James 4:4), and that in whom the love of this world is, in him dwells not the love of the Father (1 John 2). Never then bless your soul in any of your good desires, or affections. How can you believe when you seek glory of man, and not of God (John 5)? says our Savior: never tell me that you burn in holy feelings, as long as you burn no otherwise than the bush, which burned, but was not consumed; as long as the inward corruption of your heart remains unwasted, for all these burnings, you may burn in hell forever. Rest not then in your deceitful feelings and flashings of joy. Though these your feelings, desires, and motions be good, and come not always from Satanical illusion, but sometimes from the Spirit of God, as the Scripture plainly teaches; yet they are not sufficient. It is well indeed that you are come further than the common sort of the world, who know not what these feelings mean, that being the stony, or thorny ground, you are nearer to the nature of the good ground, than the highway ground: but what? Because you are come thus far in the way, will you go no further? Do you therefore think yourself well enough? No: as our Savior said to that young man (Mark 10:21), so say I to you, one thing is yet wanting: this same good and mortified heart. There lies in you some leaven of hypocrisy, that must needs be purged out, some root of bitterness, that must needs be weeded up, some thorns of covetousness, pride, vainglory, that must needs be cut down. Lo, my brother, you are come out of Egypt (Exodus 2), you have gone a great way in the wilderness, you are not now far from Canaan, you are come even to the very next borders: two or three strides more would set you in the land itself. Will you now foolishly mock yourself to think yourself in Canaan, because you are on Mount Nebo, within sight of it, and so go no further? Will you thus lose all your other labor and travel? Have you done so many things, suffered so many things in vain (Galatians 3:4)? Have you therefore prayed, preached, heard, read, conferred, fasted, and suffered the taunts of the wicked all this while for no other end but to go to hell together with them? Oh take a little pains more; you have many goodly graces, and they make you to shine, as a goodly and beautiful temple of the Holy Spirit. Only one thing is wanting; there is some error in the foundation; I doubt me, it is sandy; you must needs dig a little deeper: get a little more humility of spirit, and truth and purity of heart, or else when a storm comes, all your other labor about the building will be lost. I am the more earnest in this exhortation, because of those fearful shipwrecks, which many ships richly laden with many precious jewels of grace, have suffered, in all ages, upon this rock of an evil, and unrenewed heart. O then take heed of it, as the very bane and poison of all grace, and so the only cause of those many deceits of the temporary believer. Enter therefore into those dark closets of your heart, take the light of the word, in the one hand, and the sword of the Spirit, in the other: and whatever Agagite or Amalekite that light shall discover, kill, spare none with Saul, make havoc of all, a universal destruction: save but one, and you destroy yourself. Whatever be the outward flourishing show of your graces, if some sin lie covered under them at the core, it will poison and rot them. Oh how much better to have grace lie in the heart, covered under many corruptions, as it does often in the regenerate! For, when corruption lies at the heart, covered under many outward graces, then it eats up and devours the nourishment which grace should receive from the heart, and so our graces become lean starvlings, and in time the thorns that at first lay hid, sprout forth, and overgrow the corn, and so unhappily dash those hopeful beginnings, which seemed to promise a very large and ample harvest. Contrarily, though a man have many, many corruptions, and yet truth of grace lie secretly in the heart, it will, by little and little eat out all those corruptions. We see then what it is we must specially labor for, if we would be freed from that deceit of heart, with which the temporary is beguiled, with whom the Devil plays, as the cat does with the mouse. He lets them in some sort go out of his hands, in that he gives them leave to do many things, and does not hinder them in their joy, and alacrity of spirit, or fervor of zeal, in which regard he is said to be cast out in the Gospel (Hebrews 6:4); but yet as the cat will have the mouse still within her reach, that if she offer to run away, she may presently apprehend her: even so does the Devil here: he is sure to have you within the reach of his paw, as long as your heart within is polluted with the love of any one sin. See then if you can deceive this roaring lion, thus sporting with you — as sometimes we see the poor mouse does the cat — wholly escaping from him, by thrusting out that one sin, that still possesses and defiles your heart, and in place thereof entertaining the word and Spirit of God. Till you do this, you are but in a damnable case, whatever your flattering heart tells you, you must with David refrain from every evil way, before you can be the true child of God, a true keeper of his word. I have refrained my feet — that is my affections — from every evil way (Psalm 119:101), that is from the love and delight thereof, that I might keep your word. And James tells you, that only that one sin of an ungoverned tongue is sufficient to discover the falseness of your religion, whatever be your profession (James 1).