Chapter 17

Six deceits of the heart in persuading to the omission of good.

Having spoken of the deceits of our hearts in persuading to the commission of evil, it remains that we proceed to their deceits in persuading to the omission of that which is good. And they are specially seven.

The first is, when, as before the foul and ugly face of sin was painted with the fair colors of virtue and holiness: so here, contrarily, the beautiful face of virtue is all to be slurred, and smeared with the black soot of those vices, which seem to have some affinity with it. Thus conscience of sin is traduced as precise niceness, and needless scrupulosity; obedience to God's laws is thought the basest bondage (Psalm 2). Just severity hears ill, under the name of merciless cruelty. Zeal is censured for hypocrisy, rashness, madness. Patience for stupidity, and cowardice. Humility for baseness of mind: wisdom for craft. And so are many excellent graces and works discredited with us, and we brought out of love, and liking with them. Judas disgraced the just and honorable liberality of Mary, in breaking the box of ointment on our Savior, as too profuse and riotous a waste. The Jews taxed John's severer gravity as diabolical: and Christ's gentler affability as Epicurean, and savoring of licentiousness. Ahaz counted trusting on God to be tempting of him. And the Papists slander marriage, as an unclean and fleshly work. Herein virtue fares much like her followers, who never could be free from those aspersions, and imputations, which of all others they least deserved. But, as the wicked, to bring the godly into hatred, have always raised up slanderous reports of them, that they are thus, and thus, (as of the Christians in the Primitive Church, that they were enemies to the Emperors, practitioners of uncleanness in their meetings, etc.) when indeed they are nothing less: so do our hearts craftily misinform us of virtue, and as once they of the Huguenots, tell us terrible things of it, to bring us quite out of conceit with it.

The second is, when our hearts would only obtain thus much of us, to remit but a little of our forwardness and zeal, as in the strict observation of the Sabbath, and other such like duties. For by this means, as in committing of sin the deceit of our hearts was, to bring us from a little, to much: so here, from a little to nothing at all, that by little and little degenerating, at the length we might be quite stripped and emptied of all goodness. A fearful example whereof the Church of Ephesus yields; whose little abatement of the fervor of her first love made way to the removal of her golden candlestick, and so to the bringing in of that fearful and fatal darkness wherein her former so glorious and shining a light was wholly extinguished. Our wisdom therefore in standing out against our own hearts, and the Devil, with whom they conspire, must be like to that of Moses in standing out against Pharaoh, not to yield so much as a hoof; if we do, our case in the end will be the same with them, that yield all at once, and at the first dash wholly fall away. It matters not greatly to Satan, in the spiritual shipwreck, whether the ship be suddenly cast away by some violent tempest, or be drowned by degrees, the water getting in by little and little at some little hole. Lingering consumptions bring death, as well as the violent burning fevers. He that is careless in his business, says Solomon, is brother to the waster, and will surely come to poverty in the end. This is true also spiritually. If once we begin to slack of our care and watchfulness, and begin to grow cold and careless, and to carry ourselves remissly in religion, we shall quickly come into the same case with them, that waste and havoc all conscience at once. Since therefore this is the Devil's craft, and our own hearts together, not to set upon our whole treasure and store at once, but here a snatch, and there a snatch, till by little and little, they have exhausted us: like Nebuchadnezzar in the spoil of the Temple, first taking away one part of the furniture, then another: it stands us in hand to hold fast our own, and not to let go the least parcel thereof. For if once a breach be made in upon us, and but some little taken away, we cannot but be weakened thereby, and so lie open to further danger. How often, says Saint Augustine, having at first but tolerated those which tell idle tales, lest we should offend the weak; afterwards by little and little have we come willingly to listen to them? If once we become lukewarm, we are so much the fitter to become cold, and then to freeze. If we suffer zeal to cool, quickly we shall come to rest in the outward performance of religious exercises, without any sense of the quickening life, and power of godliness in them, and at length we shall proceed on, from this dead senselessness, to open profaneness, and contempt of all goodness. Withstand then the first beginnings of declining.

The third is, when the pleasure comfort and reward of godliness is severed from the toil, trouble and affliction that waits upon it. As, contrarily in sin our hearts cunningly abstracted the pain from the pleasure. This deceit sometimes prevails with the godly; as with David, when considering the present afflictions of the godly, he cries out, I have washed mine hands in innocency in vain. But more commonly with the men of this world, when they hear that hard saying, If any man will live godly, he must suffer persecution, and if any man will be my disciple, he must forsake all, father, mother, lands, living, and life itself. But here Chrysostom gives us an excellent rule, that when in any good thing to be done for God's cause, there seems to be loss, we should not only look to the loss, but to the gain also enclosed in this loss. Are you to give alms, and does the expense of money trouble you? Consider also the return and increase of that which you expend. Have you lost anything in your outward estate? Give thanks to God. And consider not the grief which your loss, but the joy and comfort which your thanksgiving affords you. Are you reviled, and reproached? Bear it with a good spirit, and you have more cause to glory in your patience, than to grieve in your reproach. We see the husbandman considers not the sowing in tears, but his harvest, his reaping in joy. The fisherman looks not to the casting in of the net, but to the draught, nor the merchant to his sea-voyage, but to the return of his merchandise: so must we not so much look to our losses, crosses, afflictions, as it were the showering and lowering seedtime, but to our reaping time, our harvest, the coming of our Savior, the blast of the trumpet, the exceeding glory prepared for us. With Moses we must look to the recompense of reward, and the eternal weight of the crown must weigh down with us the light and momentary weight of the cross. And as in sin we should have a fore, not seeing only, but feeling also of the pains, when nothing but tickling pleasure presents itself: so in obedience, of the pleasure, when nothing shows itself to the outward eye, but pain and trouble. If thus we can do and truly conjoin those things which our cunning hearts fraudulently sunder, the crown of thorns, and the crown of glory, Golgotha and Calvary, co-suffering and co-reigning with Christ; then shall we account the rebuke of Christ a matter of encouragement, indeed a greater attractive to godliness, than all the treasures of Egypt. For the less our reward is here with men, the greater may we assure ourselves shall it be hereafter with God. For if cruel man has so much good nature, as to see the pains, which others have taken for him, to be recompensed: think we that the God of mercy can suffer them to go unrewarded of him, that have suffered so much for him?

Indeed but in present you say you see, and feel nothing but pains, punishments, troubles, and tribulations. First, this is not so. Much comfort, and sweetness of delight is there in the very act of obedience, in regard of the peace and joy of conscience; as contrarily much torture, and terror in the very act of sinning: for here even in laughing, the heart is sorrowful, as in the way of obedience, even in mourning the heart is light and cheerful. In which regard, though there were no heaven, nor future reward of glory, yet the godly life, with all the troubles thereof, were to be preferred before the sinful with all its pleasure; only because of the sweet quiet, and contentment of an unguilty conscience, whereas the wicked have a tormentor within, a self-condemning conscience. The mud and mire of which raging sea troubles, and distempers the pleasures of sin, which yet, if untroubled, should last but for a season, having a most miserable successor to follow, endless and remediless sorrow. So quickly in sin does the pleasure fade and vanish, leaving behind it perpetual pain: whereas in obedience contrarily the pain is transient, the pleasure eternally permanent.

Now that in obedience first you hear and feel of the worst, and the better is reserved for the time to come, this ought the rather to hearten you to it. As being an argument that there is no deceit which here you need to fear. For where deceit is meant, there the best things that may tickle and tempt us are showed, the worse are concealed, till afterward. As for example, those that steal away children, do not tell them of rods and stripes, but of plums, apples, cakes, babies, hobby-horses, and such like knacks, that use to please children; And then having thus caught them, the poor children afterward feel much woe and misery; so in catching of birds and fishes, their daily food, that they delight in, is showed them: the snare, the hook they feel afterward. And thus do our hearts, as we showed, deceive us in persuading us to sin by objecting to our senses the pleasurable delights thereof, not telling us of the after-claps. But now in obedience the word of God first tells us of the grief, then of the glory, first of the labor, then of the reward, first of the tears, then of the wiping handkerchief, first of the race, then of the garland, first of the fight, then of the kingdom. Is not this plain dealing to let us know the worst before hand? Does not God herein deal as a Father with his child? And will a Father cozen and circumvent his own child? No. And yet first, in his childhood, he tells him of the severe schoolmaster, of the swingeing rods, of the hard ferule, and of such like terrible things. Afterward, when he is come to age, he tells him of his inheritance, and passes it over to him. Lo then what a strange deceit this is, for our hearts to make us believe that to be an argument of God's deceiving us, which is so clear an evidence of his faithfulness. If now we were told only of pleasures and delights, we might suspect deceit, and fear there would be none in the end. But now hearing nothing but of the cross, of gall, and wormwood, we may the more persuadedly assure ourselves, that the wine and honey will come, and that beginning with the doleful darkness of the night, we shall end in the joyful light of the day. Where joy has the beginning, there fear of grief makes our joy grievous: where grief; there hope of joy makes our grief joyful.

The fourth is, from the remembrance of that good which we have already done. Whereupon we falsely infer that we may now sit down, and rest us a while, as having done enough for our parts. This seems to have been Jehu's deceit. He thought it enough he had destroyed Ahab his posterity, and idols. He thought this a great matter, and therefore that the doing of this might well excuse him for the not destroying of Jeroboam's Calves. But Paul had done far more, and yet forgot that which was past, and still pressed towards the mark, notwithstanding he had so happily combated with his corruption, that he could say, I am crucified to the world, and the world to me, yet he still continued beating down his body. So Timothy, though a rare man for mortification, yet continued still in the use of such severe abstinence, that Paul was compelled to stay him, and bid him drink no longer water. But mark here the deceit of our hearts in turning the spur into a bridle. For there cannot be a more forcible incitement to proceeding on in grace, than from our own beginnings, and former practice. All lost, if we give over, before the race be fully run out. Therefore Saint Paul persuades Philemon to show mercy to Onesimus by reason of his former practice of that grace towards others; for having said, We have great joy and consolation in your love: For by you brother the saints' bowels are refreshed, he infers presently this: Therefore I beseech you for my son Onesimus. Refresh his bowels, as you have done others of the saints. Still hold out in the exercise of this grace, that you may receive a full reward. In like manner he reasons with the Corinthians, As you have abounded in love, and knowledge, etc.: so see you abound in this grace [of liberality] also. We, contrarily, think our abundance in some graces may dispense with our defects in others. But, as in the parable of the lost sheep, the shepherd leaves the sheep he has, and seeks out that he wants: so should we here. In our thoughts, at least, leave those graces you have. Do not so stand thinking of them, that you should neglect that which you have not. In the parts of our bodies none so foolish as to reason, no matter for the want of my eye, because I have ears, nose, etc. No soldier so senseless, as to say, no matter for a head-piece, because I have a breastplate. In the furnishing of our houses, if one only ornament be wanting, we do not think the want made up in the rest, which we have, but contrarily, that we ought so much the rather to provide that which is wanting, because of those we have. In running of races, the people holler, and shout not to the hindmost, but to the foremost that are nearest the goal. The like heartening should we give to ourselves, the nearer we approach to the end of the Christian race.

The fifth is, from comparing ourselves with others that are worse, as the Pharisee compared himself with the Publican. Hence we gather, that as long as we have others far behind us, we need not so bestir ourselves. This deceit is like that of the drapers, that commend a kersey by laying it to a rug. Well in other things we do not so deceive ourselves. A man of some competency in his outward estate, if he see a beggar that has nothing, will not thereupon conclude that he is rich enough, and need seek for no more. No, but if there be but one richer man than himself, he is an eye-sore. As long as he sees him, he thinks himself poor. So the runner in a race hastens his pace by looking to those before, not slackens it by looking back to those behind. So should we rather cast our eyes upon those that are of greater eminence in grace, than ourselves, and then hang down our heads, and cover our faces in shame to see what nothings we are, and then put to the spur to this dull jade, our naughty flesh, that we may make more haste in our journey.

The sixth is, when we abstain from good, under pretense of avoiding evil: which answers to that deceit in the former kind, of doing evil for the procuring of good. This is the deceit of the Papists, in not suffering the Scriptures to be read by the common people, because of the hurt that may come of it. Augustine makes mention of some, that neglected the means of knowledge, because knowledge puffs up. And so would be ignorant, that they might be humble, and want knowledge that they might want pride. So the philosopher plucked out his eyes to avoid the danger of uncleanness. But we must learn never either to fear good, though it may seem never so hurtful, nor to embrace evil, though never so profitable. Hurtful good is more profitable, than profitable evil.