Chapter 26

Of the greatness of the heart's deceitfulness, and of the cause of her deceitfulness.

Having thus spoken of the deceitfulness of man's heart, it remains that now we should speak of those three illustrations, which in the beginning we noted the Prophet used to set it forth by.

The first is, from the greatness of this deceitfulness. It is deceitful, says the Prophet, above all things. Above all things? What — above Satan that old serpent? The meaning is not that our hearts have more craft than Satan, who is an old trained soldier, and his craft-master in this art, we being but beginners, and as of yesterday to him, who is of many thousand years standing: but that that deceit which is in our hearts, in regard of us, and the dangerous consequences thereof to us, is greater, than that in Satan.

1. As to murder oneself is a greater matter, than to murder another, though he does not use the like cruelty in stabbing, and wounding of himself, which is often used in the killing of others: so also to deceive oneself (which is also a spiritual kind of murder) is a greater deceit than to deceive another. And so in this sense the deceitfulness of our hearts may be said to be above Satan's, because it deceives itself, though Satan in his deceits be far more cunning, and wily.

2. This amplifies the deceit, when the person deceiving is our familiar friend, one in whom we repose special confidence. See Psalm 55:12-13. So is it here. Satan is nothing so near us, as our own hearts, that are parts of ourselves. Satan is without us, and if we resist him by faith, he flees from us, but our hearts are within us, and though we resist never so much, yet this deceiver still sticks close to us. So that Satan sometimes leaves us for a season, and we are not troubled with him, or his deceits. But our own hearts, they never leave us, they dog, and follow us at all times, in all places, on all occasions, still ready furnished with deceit to beguile us.

3. Our own hearts can deceive us of themselves, without Satan: Satan cannot, without our hearts. And therefore, in regard of us, our own hearts' deceitfulness is far the greater, as that, which gives Satan all his advantage against us. He could not deceive our Savior, because there was no deceit in our Savior's heart.

The use. This must teach us to account of ourselves as of our chief enemies we are to contend with, in this spiritual conflict. The Apostle stirs up to watchfulness, and circumspection, by setting before us the strength of the Devils, as being powers and principalities, far stronger than flesh and blood. But there by flesh and blood the Apostle means, not so much the corruption as the weakness of our nature. As if he should have said, we have not only to conflict with weak, frail men like ourselves, that are but flesh and blood, but with far more powerful and puissant adversaries, namely the Devils. For the corruption of our hearts is our greatest adversary, this corrupt heart of ours is deceitful above all things, even Satan himself in some sort, as we have shown. And therefore we must bend our forces against ourselves as well as against Satan: indeed the way to overcome Satan, is first to overcome ourselves: and we must so take heed to ourselves, of other enemies, that we must also take heed of ourselves, as enemies. A thing worth noting it is, that the incestuous person delivered up to Satan, did yet repent, and come out of Satan's power. But men once delivered up to themselves, the lusts and deceits of their own hearts, are marked out in the Scripture, as men in a most fearful and desperate case. Therefore Paul in his own person describing the spiritual fight, and the adversary a Christian is specially to encounter with, singles out the body of sin, this naughty flesh. I fight not, says the Apostle, as beating the air, and seeing no adversary, but I see my adversary, and strike at him. And who may this adversary be? He tells us in the next words; I beat down my body, that is, not this outward man, but the body of sin, the mass of corruption, both in the soul, and in the body.

The second illustration is from the cause of this deceitfulness, namely the wickedness of our hearts. The heart, says the Prophet, is deceitful above all things, and evil; this latter clause, showing the cause of that spoken in the former.

Here two things are to be cleared. 1. What this illness of the heart is. 2. How it is a cause of the heart's deceitfulness.

- For the first; the heart is evil 1. Totally 2. Originally.

1. It is totally evil, and that two ways. First, the whole soul is in evil: and secondly whole evil is in the soul.

1. The whole soul is in evil, this gall of bitterness has embittered, this leaven has soured, this leprosy has infected, not this part, or that, but the whole, and every part. Even from the understanding, as it were the crown of the head, to the affections, as it were the soles of the feet, there is nothing but boils and botches. Of which read a most lively description, Ezekiel 16. In our understanding there is a very sea of ignorance, incapable it is of things spiritual, and yet wise and witty in wickedness. The conscience is full of blind fears, terrors, and torments, or else seared and senseless. The memory slippery, and waterish to receive and retain any good impressions, but of a marble firmness, to hold fast that which is evil. The will pliable and obsequious to the Devil, in his hands as wax: but stiff and hard as clay in God's. The affections also are wholly disordered, perversely setting themselves upon wrong objects: instead of bathing the sweet fountains of living waters, they swinishly lie tumbling in filthy, and miry puddles. If in the eye there be a beam of wickedness, oh then the great stack that is in the heart! And if the tongue but the instrument of the heart, be such a world of wickedness, an unruly evil; what then is the heart? The whole frame of our hearts is continually evil. Oh the rout and rabble of filthy, and impure thoughts that lurk in this dungeon. The temple it was once of the Holy Spirit: but now, as it fares with many material temples, which, as it is reported through covetousness of enclosers, are become stables for horses, so this glorious temple is become a stinking sty, and stable of unclean spirits, a cage of unclean birds, a den of thieves, a receptacle of all manner of pollution.

2. All evil, the whole body of sin, that is, the seeds and spawns even of the vilest corruptions are in the heart of man. Naturally the best of us have an inclinableness even to the most odious and loathsome sins. As in that chaos at first creation there were the seeds of all the creatures, fire, air, water, heaven, earth, so in man's heart are the seeds of all sins. Upon which, let but the spirit of Satan move, as once the spirit of God upon the chaos, and with the warmth of his temptations heat it, and no less ugly monsters will proceed out of our hearts, than did once goodly creatures out of that chaos. Hence it was, that those things which David spoke of certain vile notorious wicked sinners, that their throat was an open sepulcher, the gall of asps was under their tongue, etc., are applied by Saint Paul to every mother's child of us. For there is never a barrel better herring. But as the holy proverb is, as in water, [reconstructed: face] answers to face, so does the heart of man to man. The image of our face in the water is no more like our face itself, than our heart is like the heart even of the vilest monster that ever was. And when we see such monsters in them, as in looking glasses, we may see ourselves, and the disposition of our own souls. And thus we see how the heart is totally evil.

2. It is also originally evil. Evil did not begin first to pollute your hand, your eye, your ear, or any of your outward parts, but it began with your heart to seat and nestle itself there, and from there to diffuse and scatter its poison into the external members. Out of the heart, says our Savior, come murders, adulteries, thefts, blasphemies, and such like stuff; even as the rivers out of the sea (Matthew 15:19). This is the fountain from which all the streams of corruption flow, this is the womb in which all these monsters are conceived, this is the shell in which these cockatrices are hatched. Thus we see how we are to understand this doctrine of the heart's wickedness.

The use. 1. Against the Papists, that do somewhat lessen this wickedness, and will have some relics of goodness to remain, some freedom of will to apply itself to good. 2. To teach us all true humiliation, in the sight of our own natural deformity. No outward ornaments should so lift us up, as our inward filthiness should take us down. Are you troubled with pride? I can prescribe you no better remedy than to look upon the face of your heart in the glass of the word. For there you shall see yourself such an ugly, nasty, forlorn, misshapen creature, that you cannot choose but grow out of love with yourself. It is your ignorance that makes you so proud. If you knew yourself what you were, and had eyes to see this sinkhole, and what a deal of baggage passes daily through it, you would be ashamed of yourself. God is a God of pure eyes, and cannot take any pleasure in evil: and will you then take any pleasure in yourself being evil, and nothing but evil, indeed being but a very stinking dunghill of evil? Whatever your outside may be, be it never so fair, your inside is nothing; you are but like one of the Egyptian temples, very glorious and beautiful without, but enter in, and nothing to be seen, but a serpent, or some such venomous creature. Such litters and swarms are there in our hearts of vain, vile, base, filthy, and dishonorable thoughts, affections, desires. Very thoroughfares are they for Satan's impure suggestions to walk up and down in; in regard of murderous and malicious thoughts, very slaughterhouses; in regard of unclean lusts, very stews and brothel-houses; in regard of the heat of boiling concupiscence, very hot houses, and as the Prophet speaks, like a baker's oven. Shall any now brag of his own good nature, or boast with the Pharisee, that he is not so bad as other men, he is no extortioner, or oppressor, etc.? Yes, you blind and boasting Pharisee, you have the seeds of extortion and oppression in you, indeed, and of all other sins besides. And these would break forth in you, did not God by his wise and powerful providence restrain your corruption. By nature, the best, the mildest, and meekest man is a very tiger and lion. And would you account that lion to be of a better nature than his fellows, who therefore does no hurt as they do, because he is not loose as they are, but chained up? Where God's renewing grace has not changed our nature, it is only the powerful restraint of his providence which keeps men from the very outrage of villainy. Shall we then be proud, because we are free from those offenses into which others break forth, and think we are made of some better mold? No, our nature is as untoward and as deeply poisoned with rebellion as theirs. Therefore rather should we be humbled in seeing them. For, as was shown, in them we may see ourselves what we are. Perhaps you have some good parts of wit, memory, etc. to commend you. Yet for all these, your heart is evil, indeed, without a spiritual change, so much the worse, by how much these parts are the better. Even as the more fruitful the soil is, so much the more will it abound with thistles, unless it be tilled. And the Lord knows the thoughts of the wise [that is, such as excel in natural gifts, that are the choicest and most picked men; even the very flower of the rest] that they are vain.

3. Here parents, and all they who stand charged with the education of youth, must remember their duty. The heart of man in general, the heart of all mankind, is strangely and strongly wicked. Even in the heart of a young child, as Solomon says, there is a bundle and pack of folly laid up. And as Moses says, the thoughts of man's heart are evil even from his childhood. This corruption then of nature must be subdued early, else it will grow to that head, that it will be incurable. Look what skill and dexterity is required to tame a wild beast, which had need be gone about very early, while it is but a little whelp, the same, indeed far greater, is required to tame and soften this wild, this wolfish and lion-like nature of ours, that it may become tractable to God's hand.

4. This serves to take away the excuse which is so rife in the mouths of many, that when they swear, speak vainly, or do otherwise amiss, yet they have as good hearts as the best. What is the reason then they have so bad tongues? Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks. When I see the smoke coming out at the top of the chimney, sure I am there is some fire on the hearth. When the floods of corruption come gushing out at your eyes, ears, hands, mouth, there must needs be a fountain within in your heart. For it is the heart that is originally evil. And therefore excellently Solomon, having described the wickedness of some men's eyes, mouths, feet, hands, at last, giving the reason thereof, says, Lewd things are in his heart. And in another place, having said, the thoughts of the wicked are abomination to the Lord; he adds by way of opposition, but the words of the pure are pleasant. The opposition seemed rather to require that he should have said, But the thoughts. But by this kind of opposition Solomon would teach, that the words of our mouths are according to the thoughts of our hearts. And therefore it is idle to talk of a clean heart, when you have a foul mouth.

5. This teaches us a right method in the practice of repentance. That must first be reformed, which was first deformed. Now as we have showed the heart is originally evil, that is, the treasury and storehouse of wickedness. Therefore the first thing in repentance, must be the rinsing and cleansing of the heart. If sin had begun in your outward man, then should your reformation also. But Eve's heart was poisoned before her eye. And therefore I do not so well like their advice, that wish men in repentance to begin with outward abstinence from sin, as the easier, and so by degrees to come to the inward mortification of it. He were an unskillful physician, that when the headache is caused by the distemper of the stomach, would apply outward remedies to the head, before he had purged the stomach, where lies the matter that feeds the disease. The heart as our Savior teaches, is an evil treasury, surcharged with the superfluities of all wickedness, and hence flows corruption, and has a continual eruption in the outward man. So that it is impossible, the outward man, or actions thereof should be reformed, as long as the heart remains unpurged. Things in themselves good, coming yet from an unclean heart, are worthless. Therefore Solomon excellently says, that not only the pride of wicked men's eyes, and hearts, but even their very plowing, that is, whatever they do in things lawful as eating, drinking, sleeping, yes in the service of God, is sin. Listen we then rather to the Prophet's counsel, O Jerusalem wash your heart, and to the Apostle's, Cleanse your hearts you sinners. Let none think they are reformed enough when they have brought their outward man to some civil conformity, their hearts yet inwardly swelling again, till they are ready to burst with abundance of evil, and noxious lusts. No, the heart, as it is the fountain of this natural life, and as at first it was the fountain of a sinful life: so also must it be the fountain of a spiritual life; that as in the motion of the primum mobile in the heavens, all the inferior spheres are moved together with it: so here the heart being spiritually moved by the Holy Ghost, in the work of conversion, all our outward parts may move together with it; every one of them receiving from it, as from a good treasury, their several portions of goodness (Matthew 12; Proverbs 4).

So much for the first point, what this wickedness is. The second is, that this wickedness of the heart is the cause of this deceitfulness: which is the meaning of the Prophet's conjunction of wickedness with deceitfulness, in this place. For this property of deceitfulness is by the Apostle given to sin: and so our hearts come to be deceitful, as they are defiled with sin. For sin blinds the mind, and so makes it easy to be deceived, and to mistake. We see how easily blind Isaac mistook the younger son, for the elder. As easily are our blind hearts deceived, mistaking the motions of the flesh for the spirit, suggestions of Satan for the voice of the Holy Ghost, pretences and colors of zeal, for true, and natural zeal, etc. Proportionately therefore, as sin is more or less in the heart, so is deceit. The most godly men, by reason they are not wholly free from sin, have also experience of this deceitfulness. But the deceitfulness of wicked men's hearts is far greater, by reason that sin in them is far greater even in his full strength, and vigor: but in the godly sin is as it were wounded in the head, and weakened in the brain, and so less able to deceive. The Scripture calls sin in the godly the old man. Now old men that are ready to dote for age are twice children, and have no great store of craft.

This must teach us, as we desire in the profession Use 1 of religion, not to be deceived by our own hearts, so to purge, to rinse, and renew them daily by repentance, not suffering the least sin to be harbored there. For if we have an evil heart, affecting and nourishing but any one sin, this heart will deceive us in the end, whatever be our profession of religion. Judas may be an example to us. His heart was an evil heart, a covetous heart, even in the greatest heat of his following Christ, and preaching the word. Therefore also it proved a deceitful heart, and at last betrayed him into the hands of that fearful sin of betraying his Master. Neither is there any other reason why those forward, and fervent ones in the parable of the stony ground fall away, but the want of a good and honest heart, which only they that are figured by the last kind of ground, have. For as an honest man will not deceive another, with whom, so neither will an honest heart deceive the man himself, in whom it is. This was the reason that Pharaoh, and others, their fits of godliness did not last, because there was no true change of their naughty, and corrupt hearts. Remember we then the Apostle's warning, Take heed lest there be in you an evil heart to depart away from the living God (Hebrews 3:12). Where there is an unsound heart, there will be apostasy in the end, whatever shows be made. For an evil heart is always a deceitful heart.

Again this must further teach us not to trust them in whom we discern an evil and unsound heart, let their outward shows be never so glorious. For an evil heart will deceive the man himself in whom it is, much more will it deceive others. How now can any man safely repose any confidence in an unregenerate friend, or servant, whose hearts are evil, and unrenewed, though otherwise never so civilly honest? What assurance can I have of him, that has none of himself? Or how should I think he will not deceive me, who in the end must needs deceive himself?