Chapter 19

Of the deceit of the heart in that which it promises to us.

We are now to proceed on to the third head of deceitfulness, which is in promising: And that is either to ourselves, or to God.

To ourselves we deceitfully promise many things.

1. Pleasure, profit, and the sweetness of both in sin; but in the end instead of these (so faithful are our hearts to their words) we find nothing but gall, and wormwood, shame in the world, confusion and horror in our own consciences. From where that question: What fruit have you in those things, of which you are now ashamed? As if he should have said: Your hearts promised you much fruit of pleasure and contentment in sin. Alas, where is it? You find now nothing but shame. So true is that of Solomon: The righteous is more excellent than his neighbor: but the way of the wicked deceives them. They think themselves far better than the righteous. And so they were indeed, if they could find that felicity in their wicked ways which their deceitful hearts promise: but this they do not. Their way deceives them, as he shows in the next verse. The deceitful man (though when he went about to steal his venison he promised much mirth and cheer to himself, yet he comes short of his reckoning) shall not so much as roast that which he took in the hunting. In covetousness, what happiness does the heart promise itself in gain though never so unlawful, and unrighteous. But how deceitfully, many examples can witness. What got Ananias and Sapphira, by reserving to themselves sacrilegiously the church's goods, but a shameful and ignominious death? No more did Balaam, when hope of gain, and the large promises of the king, made him blindly, and boldly rush upon the angel's sword. From where the Scripture uses that phrase of the deceit of Balaam's wages. What got Gehazi by taking up that good morsel, as he thought, which his master so unwisely, in his conceit, let go beside his lips? Nothing but a leprosy. Did not Achan's Babylonian garment bring the stones about his ears? And Judas's thirty pieces of silver the halter about his neck? Excellent Solomon: The bread of deceit seems pleasant to a man: but afterward his mouth is filled with gravel. There are some meats, which are very pleasant in the mouth, and it is delightful to hold, and roll them there, but after once they are swallowed down, with the fish we feel the hook sticking in our jaws; being in the stomach they make us wondrous sick, so that we cannot be well till the stomach has disgorged itself. This is the simile by which Zophar in Job does most elegantly represent to us the deceitfulness of that pleasure the covetous promise themselves in the gain of unrighteousness. Wickedness was sweet in his mouth, and he hid it under his tongue and kept it close in his mouth, rolling it about as a piece of sugar. But what? Was it so sweet in his belly too? No; his meat in his bowels was turned, it became the gall of asps in the midst of him. He has devoured substance, and he shall vomit it. God shall draw it out of his belly. And thus in the Gospel, are pleasures well called thorns, not only for choking the word, but also for pricking, and wounding the conscience with true sorrow, in place of that false and flattering delight which we expected. As it is thus in covetousness, so in ambition and all other sins. Did not Adam and Eve promise to themselves in the eating of the forbidden tree, the glory of the godhead? For what else means that bitter scoff, and sharp sarcasm of the Lord: Behold, man is become as one of us. But what was the issue? Moses tells us: Then were their eyes opened, and they saw their nakedness, they saw how they were mocked, how for the mines of gold, they had met with coal-pits, nay for heaven, with hell, for a throne of glory, with the dunghill of ignominy. In this regard the Apostle says that sin deceived him, because of this deceitful promise of his heart concerning sin. And for the same reason he calls the lusts of the flesh, the deceitful lusts of old Adam; in the same sense, that Solomon calls the ruler's meat a deceitful meat: Because we promise such great matters of joy, and delight to ourselves in our sins, the contrary of which afterward our own woeful experience teaches us. For sin embraces us indeed, but it is like the serpent. Together with the embrace it mortally stings us. Let us not believe then these enchanting songs, and fair promises. We shall smart for our credulity afterward. Sin that lay quiet before, like a sleeping dog, will afterward awake, and fly in our throats, and from a friendly persuader it will turn a most vehement accuser. The promised pleasure shall vanish with the very act of the sin, and then comes the sting of the guilt. After the sin is thoroughly done shall we perceive the heinousness of it.

2. We deceitfully promise to ourselves the enjoyment of many outward blessings, which yet we never get. Thus Saul promised himself victory over David, being shut up in Keilah: The Lord, says he, has delivered him into my hand. So also did the Jebusites triumph against David, as though they had been sure enough forever of being overcome by him. This deceit we may see in the boasting of Goliath, and Sennacherib, who had in their presuming hope gotten the victory of their adversaries before the conflict, and so putting on the armor gloried as those that put it off. And we may easily discern it in ourselves, who too easily believing such things as we desire should come to pass, do often make ourselves sure of them, when yet in the end we come short of them. In this deceiving ourselves, as the devil would have deceived our Savior. All these things will I give you, says he, which yet were not in his power to give. No more are any of the least of these things in our hands which we so confidently assure to ourselves. And therefore to this deceit let us oppose Solomon's counsel: Boast not of tomorrow, for you do not know what a day may bring forth. Many things fall out between the cup and the lip, insomuch that oftentimes we enjoy not those things which even almost we have in our hands.

3. Our hearts deceive us in promising, I know not what contentment and happiness in the fruition of these outward blessings, when yet the event answers not our expectation. O, says the deceitful heart of man, if I might have this or that which I desire, so much living, such or such an office, or preferment, how comfortable and solacing a life should I lead? Well, when he has his wish, it fares with him almost as with the Israelites in their quails. He finds more vanity and vexation of spirit, in the presence, than he did before in the want of this his so much desired good. Hence also that phrase of the deceitfulness of riches, because they do not perform that which our hearts promise us concerning them. In the same regard all worldly honors are called lies by David (Psalm 4:2): O you sons of men, how long will you follow after lies? The lie indeed is in our own false hearts. We make them liars, in that we promise such great matters to ourselves of them. Whereas in the end the leaning staff becomes a knocking cudgel, and the prop to sustain us, like the Egyptian reed, proves a prick to pierce and pain us, and as Job complains of his friends (Job 9), all these matters which we thought would have been inexhaustible fountains of comfort, deceive us like a brook, whose waters fail in the summer, when we have greatest use of them. Thus Eve promised herself great matters in Cain, and he was the man obtained as a special blessing of the Lord, and his brother was called Abel, vanity, as being nobody in regard of him. But afterward this her son, on whom she so much doted, proved a very thorn in her side, and prick in her eye. So concerning Elkanah, it is noted that he loved Hannah more than his other wife, promising no doubt greater matter of comfort to himself in her, than in the other. But what followed? He loved her, says the Prophet, and the Lord made her barren (1 Samuel 1:5). Mark the conjunction of his loving her, and God's making of her barren. So shall it be in all such earthly creatures, to which we cleave inordinately, falsely promising joy to ourselves in their use. God, in his just judgment, shall make them barren, so that they shall not yield us a quarter of that comfort, or benefit, which we expected. The rich fool promised himself a little heaven in his riches (Luke 12:19-20). Soul take your ease, etc. But alas how soon did God disease him? O fool, this night shall they take away your soul, and where then is your ease? The reason of this deceit is, for that we, in our expectation of these outward things, before they come, apprehend only the good, and the sweet abstracted from the sour, the pleasure, divided from the pain: but, in the fruition, we feel both, yea more of the sour, than of the sweet. And hence it comes to pass, that nothing pleases us so well in the fruition, as in the expectation. Indeed, nothing almost which pleased us when hoped for, but does more displease us when had. Nothing I mean of these temporal things, whereof now we speak. For as for eternal things, they are more loved of us, when possessed, than when desired. For it is impossible for any man to imagine, or conceive of a greater happiness, than that which they have in themselves, that so having them he should begin to despise them, finding less, than he looked for before he had them. Indeed, our opinion does not so much run over in conceiving of temporal things, as it comes short in the apprehension of eternal things.

4. Our hearts deceive us in promising to us both freedom from God's judgments in sin, and the fruition of his mercies in the neglect of obedience. In the one, cunningly separating the end from the means, hell, damnation, judgment from sin; and in the other the means from the end, holiness, righteousness, from salvation: telling us, we may enjoy the end without the means, glory without grace, a plentiful harvest without seed sown. As the Devil would have deceived our Savior, promising him safe descent from the temple without going down by the stairs: so here would our hearts deceive us promising a sure ascent up into heaven without going up by the stairs of the works of obedience. A fearful thing it is to see men go on boldly in their sins, and yet as boldly to promise heaven to themselves. O foolish sot, who has thus bewitched you to think, that after you have begun and continued in sin, you shall end in glory, that after you have lived many years here in this world, and done nothing but shamefully dishonored that God which made you, with your filthy beastly life full of all impurity, that yet in the end God will honor you with the glory of his saints. Be not deceived, says Paul: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor wantons, nor sodomites, etc., shall inherit the kingdom of God.

And Saint Peter tells us that God has called us to glory and virtue (2 Peter 1:3). To glory, as the end, to virtue as the way leading us thereunto. Never then look for glory, but in the way of virtue. God has chained these two faster together than that they should be severed. So also has he sin and shame. And yet how many are there, like that man that Moses speaks of, who when he hears the curses of the Law read, yet blesses himself in his heart, saying, I shall have peace, although I walk according to the stubbornness of my heart (Deuteronomy 29:19)? When the ministers of the word threaten in the name of God, his judgments against sin, are there not, who say in their hearts, Tush, these are but scarecrows? God means no such matter, this is but a policy to keep men in awe. These are such as the Prophet says have made a covenant with hell, and death, and the rest of God's judgments (Isaiah 28:15). How could a covenant, will some say, be made with hell? Truly, true covenant can there be none; but only the deceitful heart of man persuades itself of a covenant, and so bears us in hand that we shall be passed by untouched, whatever scourges come. We may see an example of this in Eve; who rehearsing God's commandment and threatening to the serpent, began to mince it with a perhaps, Perhaps you shall die (see Junius in Genesis 3:3), when God absolutely and resolutely had said, In dying you shall die. So they in Jeremiah, wicked and impenitent wretches, yet flatter themselves in hope of mercy (Jeremiah 21:2): It may be the Lord will do according to all his wondrous works. God threatened Ahab to root out his house: yet he promised himself the establishment of his house. And thereupon so followed the work of generation that he left seventy sons behind him (2 Kings 10:1).

5. Our hearts deceive us in promising a settled and immovable continuance of our outward prosperity. This was Edom's deceit, to whom the Prophet thus speaks, The pride of your heart has deceived you, You that dwell in the cliffs of the rock, whose habitation is high, that says in his heart, who shall bring me down to the ground? This deceit was in her that said, I sit as a Queen, and shall feel no sorrows. Indeed the godly themselves are subject to this delusion: as David, when in his prosperity he said he should never be moved, and Job when in his flourishing estate he said, I shall die in my nest, and multiply my days as the sands. No marvel then if the fool say to himself, You have goods laid up for many years.

6. We falsely promise to ourselves good success upon weak, and insufficient grounds. As Micah, Now I know, says he, the Lord will be good to me. Why Micah? because I have a Levite to my Priest, indeed but God did not allow of such roving lep-land Levites. Neither were private houses the place where God would have the Levites employed, but the tabernacle. Herein it seems, Balaam deceived himself, hoping because of his many altars, and sacrifices his desire, and purpose of cursing the Israelites would fadge. And this is the deceit of the superstitious, who boldly promise no small matter to themselves upon the careful performance of their superstitious devotions. Indeed among ourselves many think if they humble themselves in confession, and can fetch a sigh, or shed a tear in prayer, or if they be something more diligent in outward service of God, than ordinary, they shall easily obtain at God's hands that which they desire.