Take Up the Cross

Because sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily, therefore the heart of the sons of men is fully set in them to do evil.
— Ecclesiastes 8:11

And I gave my heart to know wisdom, and to know madness and folly: I perceived that this also is vexation of spirit.
— Ecclesiastes 1:17

I applied mine heart to know, and to search, and to seek out wisdom, and the reason of things, and to know the wickedness of folly, even of foolishness and madness:
— Ecclesiastes 7:25

Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was: and the spirit shall return unto God who gave it.
— Ecclesiastes 12:7

Mystical Bedlam, Or The World of Mad-Men, by Thomas Adams. The following contains an excerpt from his work.

The heart of the sons of men is full of evil, and madness is in their heart while they live: and after that they go to the dead.
— ECCLES. 9:3 d-f

The subject of the discourse is man; and the speech of him hath three points in the text:—I. His comma; II. His colon; III. His period. I. ‘Men’s hearts are full of evil;’ there is the comma. II. ‘Madness is in their hearts while they live;’ there is the colon. III. Whereat not staying, ‘after that they go down to the dead;’ and there is their period. The first begins, the second continues, the third concludes, their sentence.

Here is man’s setting forth, his peregrination, and his journey’s end. I. At first putting out, ‘his heart is full of evil.’ II. ‘Madness is in his heart’ all his peregrination, ‘whiles they live.’

III. His journey’s end is the grave, ‘he goes to the dead.’

I. Man is born from the womb, as an arrow shot from the bow. II. His flight through this air is wild, and full of madness, of indirect courses. III. The centre, where he lights, is the grave.

I. His comma begins so harshly, that it promiseth no good consequence in the colon. II. The colon is so mad and inordinate, that there is small hope of the period. III. When both the premises are so faulty, the conclusion can never be handsome. Wickedness in the first proposition, madness in the second, the ergo is fearful; the conclusion of all is death.

So then, I. The beginning of man’s race is full of evil, as if he stumbled at the threshold. II. The further he goes, the worse; madness is joined tenant in his heart with life. III. At last, in his frantic flight, not looking to his feet, he drops into the pit, goes down to the dead.

I. To begin at the uppermost stair of this gradual descent; the COMMA of this tripartite sentence gives man’s heart for a vessel. Wherein observe—

1. The owners of this vessel; men, and derivatively, the sons of men. 2. The vessel itself is earthen, a pot of God’s making, and man’s marring; the heart.

The liquor it holds is evil; a defective, privative, abortive thing, not instituted, but destituted, by the absence of original goodness.

The measure of this vessel’s pollution with evil liquor. It is not said sprinkled, not seasoned, with a moderate and sparing quantity; it hath not an aspersion, nor imbution, but impletion; it is filled to the brim, ‘full of evil.’ Thus, at first putting forth, we have man in his best member corrupted.

1. The owners or possessors—sons of men. Adam was called the son of God, Luke 3:38, ‘Enos was the son of Seth, Seth the son of Adam, Adam the son of God:’ but all his posterity the sons of men; we receiving from him both flesh and the corruption of flesh, yea, and of soul too; though the substance thereof be inspired of God, not traduced from man: for the purest soul becomes stained and corrupt when it once toucheth the body.

The sons of men. This is a derivative and diminutive speech; whereby man’s conceit of himself is lessened, and himself lessened to humility. Man, as God’s creation left him, was a goodly creature, an abridgement of heaven and earth, an epitome of God and the world: resembling God, who is a spirit, in his soul; and the world, which is a body, in the composition of his. Deus maximus invisibilium, mundus maximus visibilium,—God the greatest of invisible natures, the world the greatest of visible creatures; both brought into the little compass of man.

Now man is grown less; and as his body in size, his soul in vigour, so himself in all virtue is abated: so that ‘the son of man’ is a phrase of diminution, a bar in the arms of his ancient glory, a mark of his derogate and degenerate worth.

Two instructions may the sons of men learn in being called so:—(1.) Their spiritual corruption; (2.) Their natural corruptibleness.

(1.) That corruption and original pravity which we have derived from our parents. Ps. 51:5, ‘Behold,’ saith David, ‘I was shapen in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me.’ The original word is, ‘warm me;’ as if the first heat derived to him were not without contamination. I was born a sinner, saith a saint.

It is said, Gen. 5:3, that ‘Adam begat a son in his own likeness, after his image, and called his name Seth.’ This image and likeness cannot be understood of the soul: for this Adam begat not. Nor properly and merely of the body’s shape; so was Cain as like to Adam as Seth, of whom it is spoken. Nor did that image consist in the piety and purity of Seth: Adam could not propagate that to his son which he had not in himself; virtues are not given by birth, nor doth grace follow generation, but regeneration. Neither is Seth said to be ‘begotten in the image of Adam’ because mankind was continued and preserved in him. But it intends that corruption which descended to Adam’s posterity by natural propagation. The Pelagian error was, peccatum primœ transgressionis in alios homines, non propagatione, sed imitatione transisse,—that the guilt of the first sin was derived to other men, not by propagation, but by imitation; but then could not Adam be said to beget a son in his own image, neither could death have seized on infants, who had not then sinned. But all have sinned: Rom. 5:12, ‘As by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin: so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned.’

This title, then, ‘the sons of men,’ puts us in mind of our original contamination, whereby we stand guilty before God, and liable to present and eternal judgments. Dura tremenda refers. You will say with the disciples, John 6:60, ‘This is a hard saying; who can hear it?’—bear it; nay, be ready to conclude with a sadder inference, as the same disciples, after a particular instance, Matt. 19:25, ‘Who then can be saved?’

I answer, We derive from the first Adam sin and death; but from the second Adam, grace and life. As we are the sons of men, our state is wretched; as made the sons of God, blessed. It is a peremptory speech, 1 Cor. 15:50, ‘Flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God; neither doth corruption inherit incorruption.’ It is a reviving comfort in the 6th chapter of the same epistle, ver. 11, ‘Such we were; but we are washed, but we are sanctified, but we are justified, in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God.’ The conclusion or inference hereon is most happy: Rom. 8:1, ‘Now therefore there is no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.’ We may live in the flesh, but ‘if after the flesh, we shall die,’ ver. 13,—si voluntati et voluptati carnis satisfacere conemur, if our endeavours be wholly armed and aimed to content the flesh; but if we be ‘led by the Spirit,’ cum dilectione, cum delectatione, with love, with delight, we are of the sons of men made the sons of God, ver. 14.

It is our happiness, not to be born, but to be new-born, John 3:3. The first birth kills, the second gives life. It is not the seed of man in the womb of our mother, but the seed of grace, 1 Pet. 1:23, in the womb of the church, that makes us blessed. Generation lost us; it must be regeneration that recovers us. ‘As the tree falls, so it lies;’ and lightly it falls to that side which is most laden with fruits and branches. If we abound most with the fruits of obedience, we shall fall to the right hand, life; if with wicked actions, affections, to the left side, death.

It is not, then, worth the ascription of glory to, what we derive naturally from man. David accepts it as a great dignity to be son-in- law to a king. To descend from potentates, and to fetch our pedigree from princes, is held mirabile et memorabile decus, a dignity not to be slighted or forgotten; but to be a monarch—

‘Imperium oceano, famam qui terminat astris,’—*

‘Whose fame and empire no less bound controls,

Than the remotest sea, and both the poles’—

Oh, this is celsissima gloria mundi,—the supremest honour of this world! Yet ‘princes are but men,’ saith the Psalmist. Ps. 146:3, ‘Put not your trust in princes, nor in the son of man, in whom there is no help. His breath goeth forth, he returneth to his earth.’ They may be high by their calling, ‘princes;’ yet they are but low by their nature, ‘sons of men.’ And merely to be the son of man is to be corrupt and polluted. They are sinful, ‘the sons of men;’ weak, ‘there is no help in them;’ corruptible, ‘their breath goeth forth;’ dying, ‘they return to their earth.’

It is registered as an evident praise of Moses’s faith, Heb. 11:24, that, ‘for the rebuke of Christ, he refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter.’ There is no ambition good in the sons of men, but to be adopted the sons of God: under which degree there is no happiness; above which, no cause of aspiring.

(2.) Our corruptibleness is here also demonstrated. A mortal father cannot beget an immortal son. If they that brought us into the world have gone out of the world themselves, we may infallibly conclude our own following. He that may say, I have a man to my father, a woman to my mother, in his life, may in death, with Job, chap. 17:14, ‘say to corruption, Thou art my father: to the worm, Thou art my mother, and my sister.’

It hath been excepted against the justice of God, that the sin of one man is devolved to his posterity; and that for ‘the fathers’ eating sour grapes, the children’s teeth are set on edge,’ Ezek. 18:2, according to the Jewish proverb, Jer. 31:29. As if we might say to every son of man, as Horace sung to his friend: Delicta majorum immeritus lues, —Thou being innocent, dost suffer for thy nocent superiors. This a philosopher objected against the gods; strangely conferring it, as if for the father’s disease physic should be ministered to the son.

I answer, Adam is considered as the root of mankind; that corrupt mass, whence can be deduced no pure thing. Can we be born Morians without their black skins? Is it possible to have an Amorite to our father, and a Hittite to our mother, without participation of their corrupted natures? If a man slip a scion from a hawthorn, he will not look to gather from it grapes. There is not, then, a son of man in the cluster of mankind, but eodem modo et nodo, vinctus et victus, —is liable to that common and equal law of death.

‘Unde superbus homo, natus, satus, ortus ab humo?’—

‘Proud man forgets earth was his native womb,

Whence he was born; and dead, the earth’s his tomb.’

Morieris, non quia œgrotas, sed quia vivis, saith the philosopher,*— Thou shalt die, O son of man, not because thou art sick, but because the son of man. Cui nasci contigit, mori restat,—Who happened to come into the world, must upon necessity go out of the world.

It is no new thing to die, since life itself is nothing else but a journey to death. Quicquid ad summum pervenit, ad exitum properat,—He that hath climbed to his highest, is descending to his lowest. All the sons of men die not one death, for time and manner; for the matter and end, one death is infallible to all the sons of men. The corn is sometimes bitten in the spring, often trod down in the blade, never fails to be cut up in the ear, when ripe. Quisquis queritur hominem mortuum esse, queritur hominem fuisse, † —Who laments that a man is dead, laments that he was a man.

When Anaxagoras heard that his son was dead, he answered without astonishment, Scio me genuisse mortalem,—I know that I begat a mortal man. It was a good speech that fell from that shame of philosophy, Epictetus: Non sum æternitas, sed homo: particula universi, ut hora diei: venire igitur oportet ut horam, præterire ut horam,—I am not eternity, but a man: a little part of the whole, as an hour is of the day: like an hour I came, and I must depart like an hour.

‘Mors dominos servis, et sceptra ligonilus æquat:

Dissimiles simili conditione ligat;’—

‘Death’s cold impartial hands are used to strike

Princes and peasants, and make both alike.’

Some fruit is plucked violently from the tree, some drops with ripeness; all must fall, because the sons of men.

This should teach us to arm ourselves with patience and expectation, to encounter death. Sæpe debemus mori, nec volumus: morimur, nec volumus,—Often we ought to prepare for death, we will not: at last, we die indeed, and we would not. Adam knew all the beasts, and called them by their names; but his own name he forgot—Adam, of earth. What bad memories have we, that forget our own names and selves, that we are the sons of men, corruptible, mortal! Incertum est, quo loco te mors expectat; itaque tu illam omni loco expecta,— Thou knowest not in what place death looketh for thee; therefore do thou look for him in every place. Matt. 24:42, ‘Watch therefore; for you know not what hour your Lord doth come.’—Thus for the owners.

2. The vessel itself is the heart. The heart is man’s principal vessel. We desire to have all the implements in our house good; but the vessel of chiefest honour, principally good. Quam male de te ipse meruisti, &c., saith St Augustine,—How mad is that man that would have all his vessels good but his own heart! We would have a strong nerve, a clear vein, a moderate pulse, a good arm, a good face, a good stomach, only we care not how evil the heart is, the principal of all the rest.

For howsoever the head be called the tower of the mind, the throne of reason, the house of wisdom, the treasure of memory, the capitol of judgment, the shop of affections, yet is the heart the receptacle of life. And spiritus, which, they say, is copula animæ et corporis, a virtue uniting the soul and the body, if it be in the liver natural, in the head animal, yet is in the heart vital. It is the member that hath first life in man, and it is the last that dies in man, and to all the other members gives vivification.

As man is microcosmus, an abridgment of the world, he hath heaven resembling his soul; earth his heart, placed in the midst as a centre; the liver is like the sea, whence flow the lively springs of blood; the brain, like the sun, gives the light of understanding; and the senses are set round about, like the stars. The heart in man is like the root in a tree: the organ or lung-pipe, that comes of the left cell of the heart, is like the stock of the tree, which divides itself into two parts, and thence spreads abroad, as it were, sprays and boughs into all the body, even to the arteries of the head.

The Egyptians have a conceit that man’s growing or declining follows his heart. The heart of man, say they, increaseth still till he come to fifty years old, every year two drams in weight, and then decreaseth every year as much, till he come to a hundred; and then for want of heart he can live no longer. By which consequence, none could live above a hundred years. But this observation hath often proved false. But it is a vessel, a living vessel, a vessel of life.

It is a vessel properly, because hollow: hollow to keep heat, and for the more facile closing and opening. It is a spiritual vessel, made to contain the holy dews of grace, which make glad the city of God, Ps. 46:4. It is ever full, either with that precious juice, or with the pernicious liquor of sin. As our Saviour saith, Matt. 15:19, ‘Out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies.’ ‘Know ye not,’ saith the Apostle, 1 Cor. 3:16, ‘that you are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you?’ If our corpus be templum Domini, sure our cor is sanctum sanctorum. It was the answer of the oracle, to him that would be instructed what was the best sacrifice:—

‘Da medium lunæ, solem simul, et canis iram;’—

‘Give the half-moon, the whole sun, and the dog’s anger; which three characters make COR, the heart. The good heart is a receptacle for the whole Trinity; and therefore it hath three angles, as if the three Persons of that one Deity would inhabit there. The Father made it, the Son bought it, the Holy Ghost sanctifies it; therefore they all three claim a right in the heart. It hath three cells for the three Persons, and is but one heart for one God. The world cannot satisfy it: a globe cannot fill a triangle. Only God can sufficiently content the heart.

God is, saith a father, non corticis, sed cordis Deus,*—not regarding the rind of the lips, but the root of the heart. Hence Satan directs his malicious strength against the heart. The fox doth gripe the neck, the mastiff flies at the throat, and the ferret nips the liver, but the devil aims at the heart, inficere, interficere. The heart he desires, becauses he knows God desires it; and his ambition still inclines, intends his purposes and plots, to rob God of his delight. The heart is the chief tower of life to the body, and the spiritual citadel to the whole man: always besieged by a domestical enemy, the flesh; by a civil, the world; by a professed, the devil. Every perpetrated sin doth some hurt to the walls; but if the heart be taken, the whole corporation is lost.

How should Christ enter thy house, and ‘sup with thee,’ Rev. 3:20, when the chamber is taken up wherein he would rest, the heart? All the faculties of man follow the heart, as servants the mistress, wheels the poise, or links the first end of the chain. When the sun riseth, all rise; beasts from their dens, birds from their nests, men from their beds. So the heart leads, directs, moves the parts of the body and powers of the soul; that the mouth speaketh, hand worketh, eye looketh, ear listeneth, foot walketh, all producing good or evil ‘from the good or evil treasure of the heart,’ Luke 6:45. Therefore the penitent publican beat his heart, as if he would call up that, to call up the rest.

It is conspicuous, then, that the heart is the best vessel whereof any son of man can boast himself possessor; and yet (proh dolor!) even this is corrupted. To declare this pollution, the next circumstance doth justly challenge; only one caveat to our hearts, of our hearts, ere we leave them. Since the heart is the most precious vessel man hath in all his corporal household, let him have good regard to it. Omni custodia custodi cor tuum,—’Keep thy heart with all diligence,’ saith Solomon. God hath done much for the heart, naturally, spiritually.

For the former; he hath placed it in the midst of the body, as a general in the midst of his army: bulwarked it about with breast, ribs, back. Lest it should be too cold, the liver lies not far off, to give it kindly heat; lest too hot, the lungs lie by it, to blow cool wind upon it. It is the chief, and therefore should wisely temper all other members: by the spleen we are made to laugh, by the gall to be angry, by the brain we feel, by the liver we love, but by the heart we be wise.

Spiritually, he hath done more for the heart, giving the blood of his Son to cleanse it, soften it, sanctify it, when it was full both of hardness and turpitude. By his omnipotent grace he unroosted the devil from it, who had made it a stable of uncleanness; and now requires it, being created new, for his own chamber, for his own bed. The purified heart is God’s sacrary, his sanctuary, his house, his heaven. As St Augustine glosseth the first words of the Paternoster, ‘Our Father which art in heaven’—that is, in a heart of a heavenly disposition. Quam propitia dignatio ista, that the King of heaven will vouchsafe to dwell in an earthly tabernacle!

The heart, then, being so accepted a vessel, keep it at home; having but one so precious supellectile or moveable, part not with it upon any terms. There are four busy requirers of the heart, besides he that justly owneth it—beggars, buyers, borrowers, thieves.

(1.) He that begs thy heart is the Pope; and this he doth not by word of mouth, but by letters of commendations,—condemnations rather, —his Seminary factors. He begs thy heart, and offers thee nothing for it, but crucifixes, images, &c.,—mere images or shadows of reward,— or his blessing at Rome; which, because it is so far distant, as if it lost all the virtue by the way, doth as much good as a candle in a sunshine.

(2.) He that would buy this vessel of us is the devil; as one that distrusts to have it for nothing: and therefore, set what price thou wilt upon it, he will either pay it or promise it. Satan would fain have his jewel-house full of these vessels, and thinks them richer ornaments than the Babylonian ambassadors thought the treasures of Hezekiah, 2 Kings 20:13. Haman shall have grace with the king, Absalom honour, Jezebel revenge, Amnon his lusts satisfied, Judas money, Demas the world, if they will sell him their hearts. If any man, like Ahab, sell his heart to such a purchaser, let him know that qui emit, interimit,—he doth buy it to butcher it.

(3.) The flesh is the borrower, and he would have this vessel to use, with promise of restoring. Let him have it a while, and thou shalt have it again; but as from an ill neighbour, so broken, lacerated, deformed, defaced, that though it went forth rich, like the prodigal, it returns home tattered and torn, and worn, no more like a heart than Michal’s image on the pillow was like David. This suitor borrows it of the citizen, till usury hath made him an alderman; of the courtier, till ambition hath made him noble; of the officer, till bribery hath made him master; of the gallant, till riot hath made him a beggar; of the luxurious, till lust hath filled him with diseases; of the country churl, till covetise hath swelled his barns; of the epicure, till he be fatted for death; and then sends home the heart, like a jade, tired with unreasonable travel. This is that wicked borrower in the psalm, ‘which payeth not again.’ Thou wouldest not lend thy beast, nor the worst vessel in thy house, to such a neighbour; and wilt thou trust him with thy heart? Either not lend it, or look not for it again.

(4.) The world is the thief, which, like Absalom, ‘steals away the heart,’ 2 Sam. 15:6. This cunningly insinuates into thy breast, beguiling the watch or guard, which are thy senses, and corrupting the servants, which are thy affections. The world hath two properties of a thief:—First, It comes in the night time, when the lights of reason and understanding are darkened, and security hath gotten the heart into a slumber. This dead sleep, if it doth not find, it brings.

‘Sunt quoque quæ faciunt altos medicamina somnos,

Vivaque Lethæa lumina nocte premunt;’—*

‘The world’s a potion; who thereof drinks deep,

Shall yield his soul to a lethargic sleep.’

Secondly, It makes no noise in coming, lest the family of our revived thoughts wake, and our sober knowledge discern his approach. This thief takes us, as it took Demas, napping; terrifies us not with noise of tumultuous troubles, and alarum of persecutions, but pleasingly gives us the music of gain, and laps us warm in the couch of lusts. This is the most perilous oppugner of our hearts; neither beggar, buyer, nor borrower could do much without this thief. It is some respect to the world that makes men either give, or sell, or lend the vessel of their heart. Astus pollentior armis,—Fraud is more dangerous than force. Let us beware this thief.

First, turn the beggar from thy door; he is too saucy in asking thy best moveable, whereas beggars should not choose their alms. That Pope was yet a little more reasonable, that shewed himself content with a king of Spain’s remuneration: The present you sent me was such as became a king to give, and St Peter to receive. But da pauperibus, the Pope is rich enough.

Then reject the buyer; set him no price of thy heart, for he will take it of any reckoning. He is near driven that sells his heart. I have heard of a Jew that would, for security of his lent money, have only assured to him a pound of his Christian debtor’s living flesh; a strange forfeit for default of paying a little money. But the devil, in all his covenants, indents for the heart. In other bargains, caveat emptor, saith the proverb,—let the buyer take heed; in this, let the seller look to it. Make no mart nor market with Satan.

‘Non bene pro multo libertas venditur auro,’—

‘The heart is ill sold, whatever the price be.’

Thirdly, for the borrower: lend not thy heart in hope of interest, lest thou lose the principal. Lend him not any implement in thy house, any affection in thy heart; but to spare the best vessel to such an abuser is no other than mad charity.

Lastly, ware the thief; and let his subtlety excite thy more provident prevention. Many a man keeps his goods safe enough from beggars, buyers, borrowers, yet is met withal by thieves.

Therefore lock up this vessel with the key of faith, bar it with resolution against sin, guard it with supervisiting diligence, and repose it in the bosom of thy Saviour. There it is safe from all obsidious or insidious oppugnations, from the reach of fraud or violence. Let it not stray from this home, lest, like Dinah, it be deflowered. If we keep this vessel ourselves, we endanger the loss. Jacob bought Esau’s birthright, and Satan stole Adam’s paradise, whiles the tenure was in their own hands. An apple beguiled the one, a mess of pottage the other. Trust not thy heart in thine own custody; but lay it up in heaven with thy treasure. Commit it to Him that is the Maker and Preserver of men, who will lap it up with peace, and lay it in a bed of joy, where no adversary power can invade it, nor thief break through to steal it.

3. The liquor this vessel holds is evil. Evil is double, either of sin or of punishment; the deserving and retribution; the one of man’s own affecting, the other of God’s just inflicting. The former is simpliciter malum, simply evil of its own nature; the latter but secundum quid, in respect of the sufferer, being good in regard of God’s glory, as an act of his justice. For the evils of our sufferings, as not intended here, I pretermit. Only, when they come, we learn hence how to entertain them: in our knowledge, as our due rewards; in our patience, as men, as saints; that tribulation may as well produce patience, Rom. 5:3, as sin hath procured tribulation. Non sentire mala sua non est hominis, et non ferre non est viri,*—He that feels not his miseries sensibly is not a man; and he that bears them not courageously is not a Christian.

The juice in the heart of the sons of men is evil; all have corrupted their ways. Solomon speaks not here in individuo, this or that son of man, but generally, with an universal extent, the sons of men. And leaving the plural with the possessors, by a significant solecism, he names the vessel in the singular,—the heart, not hearts,—as if all mankind had cor unum in unitate malitiæ, one heart in the unity of sin; the matter of the vessel being of one polluted lump, that every man that hath a heart, hath naturally an evil heart. Adam had no sooner by his one sin slain his posterity, but he begot a son that slew his brother. Adam was planted by God a good vine, but his apostasy made all his children sour grapes. Our nature was sown good; behold, we are come up evil. Through whose default ariseth this badness?

God created this vessel good; man poisoned it in the seasoning. And being thus distained in the tender newness, servat odorem testa diu, —it smells of the old infection, till a new juice be put into it, or rather itself made new. As David prays, Ps. 51:10, ‘Create in me, O Lord, a clean heart, and renew a right spirit within me.’ God made us good, we have marred ourselves, and, behold, we call on him to make us good again. Yea, even the vessel thus recreated is not without a tang of the former corruption. Paul confesseth in himself a ‘body of death,’ Rom. 7, as well as David a native ‘uncleanness,’ Ps. 51. The best grain sends forth that chaff, whereof, before the sowing, it was purged by the fan. Our contracted evil had been the less intolerable if we had not been made so perfectly good. He that made heaven and earth, air and fire, sun and moon, all elements, all creatures, good, surely would not make him evil for whom these good things were made. How comes he thus bad? Deus hominem fecit, homo se interfecit. In the words of our royal preacher, Eccles. 7:29, ‘Lo, this only I have found, that God hath made man upright; but they have sought out many inventions.’ Man was created happy, but he found out tricks to make himself miserable. And his misery had been less if he had never been so blessed; the better we were, we are the worse. Like the posterity of some profuse or tainted progenitor, we may tell of the lands, lordships, honours, titles that were once ours, and then sigh out the song, Fuimus Troes,—We have been blessed.

If the heart were thus good by creation, or is thus good by redemption, how can it be the continent of such evil liquor, when, by the word of his mouth that never erred, ‘a good tree cannot bring forth bad fruits?’ Matt. 7:18. I answer, that saying must be construed in sensu composito: a good tree, continuing good, cannot produce evil fruits. The heart born of God, in quanto renatum est, non peccat, —’doth not commit sin,’ 1 John 3:9, so far as it is born of God. Yet even in this vessel, whiles it walks on earth, are some drops of the first poison. And so—

‘Dat dulces fons unus aquas, qui et præbet amaras;’—

The same fountain sends forth sweet water and bitter; though not at the same place, as St James propounds it, chap. 3:11.

But Solomon speaks here of the heart, as it is generate or degenerate, not as regenerate; what it is by nature, not by grace; as it is from the first Adam, not from the second. It is thus a vessel of evil. Sin was brewed in it, and hath brewed it into sin. It is strangely, I know not how truly, reported of a vessel that changeth some kind of liquor put into it into itself, as fire transforms the fuel into fire. But here the content doth change the continent, as some mineral veins do the earth that holds them. This evil juice turns the whole heart into evil, as water poured upon snow turns it to water. ‘The wickedness of man was so great in the earth,’ that it made ‘every imagination of the thoughts of his heart only evil continually,’ Gen. 6:5.

Here, if we consider the dignity of the vessel, and the filthiness of the evil it holds, or is rather holden of, (for non tam tenet, quam tenetur,) the comparison is sufficient to astonish us.

‘Quam male conveniunt vas aureum, atrumque venenum!’

Oh, ingrate, inconsiderate man! to whom God hath given so good a vessel, and he fills it with so evil sap. ‘In a great house there be vessels of honour, and vessels of dishonour,’ 2 Tim. 2:20; some for better, some for baser uses. The heart is a vessel of honour, scaled, consecrated for a receptacle, for a habitacle of the graces of God. 1 Cor. 6:15, ‘Shall we take the member of Christ, and make it an harlot’s?’ the vessel of God, and make it Satan’s? Did God infuse into us so noble a part, and shall we infuse into it such ignoble stuff? Was fraud, falsehood, malice, mischief, adultery, idolatry, variance, variableness ordained for the heart, or the heart for them? When the seat of holiness is become the seat of hollowness; the house of innocence, the house of impudence; the place of love, the place of lust; the vessel of piety, the vessel of uncleanness; the throne of God, the court of Satan, the heart is become rather a jelly than a heart: wherein there is a tumultuous, promiscuous, turbulent throng, heaped and amassed together, like a wine-drawer’s stomach, full of Dutch, French, Spanish, Greek, and many country wines; envy, lust, treason, ambition, avarice, fraud, hypocrisy obsessing it, and by long tenure pleading prescription: that custom, being a second nature, the heart hath lost the name of heart, and is become the nature of that it holds, a lump of evil.

It is detestable ingratitude in a subject, on whom his sovereign hath conferred a golden cup, to employ it to base uses; to make that a wash-pot which should receive the best wine he drinketh. Behold, the King of heaven and earth hath given thee a rich vessel, thy heart, wherein, though it be a piece of flesh or clay of itself, he hath placed the chief faculties of thy spirit and his. How adverse to thankfulness and his intent is thy practice, when thou shalt pour into this cup lees, dregs, muddy pollutions, tetrical poisons, the waters of hell, wines which the infernal spirits drink to men; taking the heart from him that created it, from him that bought it, from him that keeps it, and bequeathing it, in the death of thy soul, to him that infects, afflicts, tempts, and torments it; making him thy executor which shall be thy executioner, that hath no more right to it than Herod had to the bed of his sister! What injury, what indignity, is offered to God, when Satan is gratified with his goods, when his best moveable on earth is taken from him and given to his enemy!

The heart is flos solis, and should open and shut with the ‘Sun of righteousness,’ Mal. 4:2. To him, as the landlord duplice jure, it should stand open, not suffering him to knock for entrance till ‘his locks be wet with the dew of heaven,’ Cant. 5:1. Alas! how comes it about that he which is the owner can have no admission? that we open not the doors of our hearts that the King of glory might enter, who will then one day open the doors of heaven that a man of earth may enter? Did God erect it as a lodging for his own majesty, leaving no window in it for the eye of man so much as to look into it, as if he would keep it under lock and key to himself, as a sacred chalice, whereout he would drink the wine of faith, fear, grace, and obedience, wine which himself had sent before for his own supper, Rev. 3:20; and must he be turned forth by his own steward, and have his chamber let out for an ordinary, where sins and lusts may securely revel? Will not he that made it one day ‘break it with a rod of iron, and dash it in pieces like a potter’s vessel?’ Ps. 2:9.

Shall the great Belshazzar, Dan. 5:2, that tyrant of hell, sit drinking his wines of abomination and wickedness in the sacred bowls of the temple, the vessels of God, the hearts of men, without ruin to those that delightfully suffer him? Was it a thing detestable in the eyes of God to profane the vessels of the sanctuary; and will he brook with impunity the hearts of men to be abused to his dishonour? Sure, his justice will punish it, if our injustice do it. The very vessels under the law, that had but touched an unclean thing, must be rinsed or broken. What shall become of the vessels under the gospel, ordained to hold the faith of Christ, if they be—more than touched—polluted with uncleanness? They must either be rinsed with repentance, or broken with vengeance.

I am willingly led to prolixity in this point. Yet in vain the preacher amplifies, except the hearer applies. Shall none of us, in this visitation of hearts, ask his own heart how it doth? Perhaps security will counterfeit the voice of the heart, as Jacob did Esau’s hands, to supplant it of this blessing; saying, I am well; and stop the mouth of diligent scrutiny with a presentment of Omnia bene. Take heed, the heart of man is deceitful above measure. Audebit dissimulare, qui audet malefacere,—He will not stick to dissemble, that dares to do evil. Thou needest not rip up thy breast to see what blood thy heart holds, though thou hast been unkind enough to it in thine iniquities; behold, the beams of the sun on earth witness his shining in heaven; and the fruits of the tree declare the goodness or badness. Non ex foliis, non ex floribus, sed ex fructibus dignoscitur arbor.

What is lust in thy heart, thou adulterer? Malice in thine, thou envious? Usury in thine, thou covetous? Hypocrisy in yours, ye sons of Gibeon? Pride in yours, ye daughters of Jezebel? Falsehood in yours, ye brothers of Joab? And treachery in yours, ye friends of Judas? Is this wine fit for the Lord’s bowl, or dregs for the devil to carouse of? Perhaps the sons of Belial will be filthy; ‘let them be filthy still,’ Rev. 22:11. Who can help them that will not be saved? Let them perish.

Let me turn to you that seem Christians,—for you are in the temple of Christ, and, I hope, come hither to worship him,—with confidence of better success. What should uncleanness do in the holy city, evil in a heart sanctified to grace, sealed to glory? The vessel of every heart is by nature tempered of the same mould; nor is there any (let the proud not triumph) quorum præcordia Titan de meliore luto finxit. But though nature knew none, grace hath made difference of hearts; and the sanctified heart is of a purer metal than the polluted. A little living stone in God’s building is worth a whole quarry in the world. One poor man’s honest heart is better than many rich evil ones. These are dead, that is alive; and ‘a living dog is better than a dead lion.’ Solomon’s heart was better than Absalom’s, Jude’s than Judas’s, Simon Peter’s than Simon Magus’s: all of one matter, clay from the earth; but in regard of qualities and God’s acceptance, the richest mine and coarsest mould have not such difference. There is with nature grace, with flesh faith, with humanity Christianity in these hearts.

How ill becomes it such a heart to have hypocrisy, injustice, fraud, covetousness seen in it! Let these bitter waters remain in heathen cisterns. To the master of malediction, and his ungodly imps, we leave those vices; our hearts are not vessels for such liquor. If we should entertain them, we give a kind of warrant to others’ imitation. Whiles polygamy was restrained within Lamech’s doors, it did but moderate harm, Gen. 4:19; but when it once insinuated into Isaac’s family, it got strength, and prevailed with great prejudice, Gen. 26:34, 35. The habits of vices, whiles they dwell in the hearts of Belial’s children, are merely sins; but when they have room given them in the hearts of the sons of God, they are sins and examples; not simply evil deeds, but warrants to evil deeds; especially with such despisers and despiters of goodness, who, though they love, embrace, and resolve to practise evil, yet are glad they may do it by patronage, and go to hell by example.

But how can this evil juice in our hearts be perceived? What beams of the sun ever pierced into that abstruse and secret pavilion? The anatomising of the heart remains for the work of that last and great day, Eccles. 12:14, Rom. 2:16. As no eye can look into it, so let no reason judge it. But our Saviour answers, ‘Out of the heart proceed actual sins;’ the water may be close in the fountain, but will be discerned issuing out. The heart cannot so contain the unruly affections, but like headstrong rebels they will burst out into actions; and works are infallible notes of the heart. I say not that works determine a man to damnation or bliss,—the decree of God orders that,—but works distinguish of a good or bad man. The saints have sinned, but the greatest part of their converted life hath been holy.

Indeed, we are all subject to passions, because men; but let us order our passions well, because Christian men. And as the skilful apothecary makes wholesome potions of noisome poisons, by a wise melling and allaying them; so let us meet with the intended hurt of our corruptions, and turn it to our good. It is not a sufficient commendation of a prince to govern peaceable and loyal subjects, but to subdue or subvert rebels. It is the praise of a Christian to order refractory and wild affections, more than to manage yielding and pliable ones. As therefore it is a provident policy in princes, when they have some in too likely suspicion for some plotted faction, to keep them down and to hold them bare, that though they retain the same minds, they shall not have the same means to execute their mischiefs; so the rebellious spirit’s impotency gives most security to his sovereign, whiles he sees afar off what he would do, but knows (near at hand, that is, certainly) he cannot. So let thy heart keep a strait and awful hand over thy passions and affections, ut, si moveant, non removeant,—that if they move thee, they may not remove thee from thy rest. A man then sleeps surely, securely, when he knows, not that he will not, but that his enemy cannot hurt him. Violent is the force and fury of passions, overbearing a man to those courses which in his sober and collected sense he would abhor. They have this power, to make him a fool that otherwise is not; and him that is a fool to appear so. If in strength thou canst not keep out passion, yet in wisdom temper it; that if, notwithstanding the former, it comes to whisper in thine ears thine own weakness, yet it may be hindered by the latter from divulging it to thy shame.

Thou seest how excellent and principal a work it is to manage the heart, which indeed manageth all the rest, and is powerful to the carrying away with itself the attendance of all the senses; who be as ready at call, and as speedy to execution, as any servant the centurion had, waiting only for a Come, Go, Do, from their leader, the heart. The ear will not hear where the heart minds not, nor the hand relieve where the heart pities not, nor the tongue praise where the heart loves not. All look, listen, attend, stay upon the heart, as a captain, to give the onset. The philosopher saith, It is not the eye that seeth, but the heart; so it is not the ears that hear, but the heart.

Indeed, it sometimes falleth out, that a man hears not a great sound or noise, though it be nigh him. The reason is, his heart is fixed, and busily taken up in some object, serious in his imagination, though perhaps in itself vain; and the ears, like faithful servants, attending their master, the heart, lose the act of that auditive organ by some suspension, till the heart hath done with them and given them leave. Curious and rare sights, able to ravish some with admiration, affect not others, whiles they stand as open to their view; because their eyes are following the heart, and doing service about another matter. Hence our feet stumble in a plain path, because our eyes, which should be their guides, are sent some other way on the heart’s errand. Be then all clean, if thou canst; but if that happiness be denied on earth, yet let thy heart be clean; there is then the more hope of the rest.

4. The measure of this vessel’s infection—full. It hath not aspersion, nor imbution, but impletion. It is not a moderate contamination, which, admitted into comparison with other turpitudes, might be exceeded; but a transcendent, egregious, superlative matter, to which there can be no accession. The vessel is full, and more than full what can be? One vessel may hold more than another, but when all are filled, the least is as full as the greatest. Now Solomon, that was no flatterer, because a king himself, without awe of any mortal superior, because servant to the King of kings, and put in trust with the registering of his oracles, tells man plainly that his heart, not some less principal part, is evil, not good, or inclining to goodness; nay, full of evil, to the utmost dram it contains.

This describes man in a degree further than nature left him, if I may so speak; for we were born evil, but have made ourselves full of evil. There is time required to this perfecting of sin, and making up the reprobate’s damnation. Judgment stays for the Amorites, ’till their wickedness becomes full,’ Gen. 15:16; and the Jews are forborne till they have ‘fulfilled the measure of their fathers,’ Matt. 23:32. Sin loved, delighted, accustomed, habituated, voluntarily, violently perpetrated, brings this impletion. Indeed, man quickly fills this vessel of his own accord; let him alone, and he needs no help to bring himself to hell. Whiles God’s preventing grace doth not forestall, nor his calling grace convert, man runs on to destruction, as the fool laughing to the stocks. He sees evil, he likes it, he dares it, he does it, he lives in it; and his heart, like a hydropic stomach, is not quiet till it be full.

Whiles the heart, like a cistern, stands perpetually open, and the devil, like a tankard-bearer, never rests fetching water from the conduit of hell to fill it, and there is no vent of repentance to empty it, how can it choose but be full of evil? The heart is but a little thing; one would therefore think it might soon be full; but the heart holds much, therefore is not soon filled. It is a little morsel, not able to give a kite her breakfast; yet it contains as much in desires as the world doth in her integral parts. Neither, if the whole world were given to the Pellæan monarch, would he yet say, My heart is full, my mind is satisfied.

There must then concur some co-working accidents to this repletion. Satan suggests; concupiscence hearkens, flatters the heart with some persuasion of profit, pleasure, content; the heart assents, and sends forth the eye, hand, foot, as instruments of practice; lastly, sin comes, and that not alone—one is entertained, many press in. Mala sunt contigua et continua inter se. Then the more men act, the more they affect; and the exit of one sin is another’s hint of entrance, that the stage of his heart is never empty till the tragedy of his soul be done.

This fulness argues a great height of impiety. Paul amply delivered the wickedness of Elymas, Acts 13:10, ‘O full of all subtlety and all mischief, thou child of the devil, thou enemy of all righteousness,’ &c.; a wretched impletion. So is the reprobate estate of the heathen described, Rom. 1, to be ‘filled with all unrighteousness, fornication, covetousness,’ &c. The same apostle, in the same epistle, speaking of the wicked in the words of the psalm, saith, ‘Their mouth is full of cursing and bitterness,’ Rom. 3:14. Here the heart is ‘full of evil.’ The commander being so filled with iniquity, every member as a soldier, in his place, fills itself with the desired corruption. ‘The eye is full of adultery and lust,’ saith the Apostle, 2 Pet. 2:14; the ‘hand full of blood,’ saith the prophet, Isa. 1:15; the foot full of averseness; the tongue full of curses, oaths, dissimulations. Every vessel will be full as well as the heart; full to the brim, nay, running over, as the vessels at the marriage in Cana, though with a contrary liquor. And when all are replenished, the heart is ready to call, as the widow in 2 Kings 4:6, ‘Bring me yet another vessel,’ that it may be filled.

This is the precipitation of sin, if God doth not prevent, as Satan doth provoke it; it rests not till it be full. Sinful man is evermore carrying a stick to his pile, a talent to his burden, more foul water to his cistern, more torments to be laid up in his hell: he ceaseth not, without a supernatural interruption, and gracious revocation, till his measure be full.

Thus I have run through these four circumstances of the comma, or first point of man: observing—1. From the owners, their corruptible fragility; 2. From the vessel, the heart’s excellency; 3. From the liquor contained in it, the pollution of our nature; 4. And lastly, from the plenitude, the strength and height of sin. The sum is, 1. the heart, 2. of man, 3. is full, 4. of evil.

I should now conclude, leaving my discourse, and you to the meditation of it, but that you should then say I had failed in one special part of a physician; that having described the malady, I prescribe no remedy. Since it is not only expedient to be made experient of our own estate, but to be taught to help it; give me leave therefore briefly to tell you that some principal intentions to the repair of your hearts’ ruins are these:—1. Seeing this vessel is full, to empty it. 2. Seeing it is foul, to wash it. 3. Since it hath caught an ill tang, to sweeten it. 4. And when it is well, so to preserve it. With these four uses go in peace.

1. There is, first, a necessity that the heart, which is full of evil by nature, must be emptied by conversion, and replenished with grace, or not saved with glory; what scuppet have we then to free the heart of this muddy pollution? Lo, how happily we fall upon repentance: God grant repentance fall upon us! The proper engine, ordained and blessed of God to this purpose, is repentance: a grace without which man can never extricate himself from the bondage of Satan; a grace whereat, when it lights on a sinful soul, the devils murmur and vex themselves in hell, and the good ‘angels rejoice in heaven,’ Luke 15. This is that blessed engine that lightens the hearts of such a burden, that rocks and mountains and the vast body of the earth, laid on a distressed and desperate sinner, are corks and feathers to it, Rev. 6:16.

This is that which makes the eternal Wisdom content to admit a forgetfulness, and to remember our iniquities no more than if they had never been. This speaks to mercy to separate our sins from the face of God, to bind them up in heaps and bundles, and drown them in the sea of oblivion. This makes Mary Magdalene, of a sinner a saint; Zaccheus, of an extortioner charitable; and of a persecuting Saul a professing Paul. This is that mourning master that is never without good attendants: tears of contrition, prayers for remission, purpose of amended life. Behold the office of repentance; she stands at the door, and offers her loving service: Entertain me and I will unlade thy heart of that evil poison, and, were it full to the brim, return it thee empty. If you welcome repentance, knocking at your door from God, it shall knock at God’s door of mercy for you. It asks of you amendment, of God forgiveness. Receive it.

2. The heart thus emptied of that inveterate corruption, should fitly be washed before it be replenished. The old poison sticks so fast in the grain of it, that there is only one thing of validity to make it clean —the blood of Jesus Christ. It is this that hath bathed all hearts that ever were, or shall be, received into God’s house of glory. This ‘blood cleanseth us from all sin,’ 1 John 1:7. Paul seems to infer so much, in joining to ‘the spirits of just men made perfect, Jesus the mediator of the new covenant, and the blood of sprinkling, that speaketh better things than the blood of Abel,’ Heb. 12:23, 24; as if he would prove that it was this blood which made them just and perfect. In vain were all repentance without this: no tears can wash the heart clean but those bloody ones which the side of Christ and other parts wept, when the spear and nails gave them eyes, whiles the Son of eternal joy became a mourner for his brethren. Could we mourn like doves, howl like dragons, and lament beyond the wailings in the valley of Hadadrimmon, quid prosunt lachrymæ,—what boots it to weep where there is no mercy? and how can there be mercy without the blood of Christ?

This is that ever-running fountain, that sacred ‘pool of Bethesda,’ which, without the mediation of angels, stands perpetually unforbidden to all faithful visitants. Were our leprosy worse than Naaman’s, here is the true water of Jordan, or pool of Siloam: ‘Wash, and be clean.’ Bring your hearts to this bath, ye corrupted sons of men. Hath God given you so precious a laver, and will you be unclean still? Pray, entreat, beseech, send up to heaven the cries of your tongues and hearts for this blood; call upon the ‘preserver of men,’ not only to distil some drops, but to wash, bathe, soak your hearts in this blood. Behold, the Son of God himself, that shed this blood, doth entreat God for you; the whole choir of all the angels and saints in heaven are not wanting. Let the meditation of Christ’s mediation for you give you encouragement and comfort. Happy son of man, for whom the Son of God supplicates and intercedes! What can he request and not have!

He doth not only pray for you, but even to you, ye sons of men. Behold him with the eyes of a Christian, faith and hope, standing on the battlements of heaven, having that for his pavement which is our ceiling, offering his blood to wash your hearts, which he willingly lost for your hearts; denying it to none but wolves, bears, and goats, and such reprobate, excommunicate, apostate spirits that tread it under their profane and luxurious feet, esteeming that an ‘unholy thing wherewith they might have been sanctified,’ Heb. 10:29. Come we then, come we, though sinners, if believers, and have our hearts washed.

3. All is not done with this vessel when washed. Shall we empty it, cleanse it, and so leave it? Did not Satan re-enter to the ‘house swept and garnished, with seven worse spirits,’ Matt. 12:44, whiles it was empty? Behold then, when it is emptied, and washed, and sweetened, it must be filled again: a vacuity is not allowable. It must be replenished with somewhat, either evil or good. If God be not present, Satan will not be absent. When it is evacuated of the ‘works of the flesh,’ Gal. 5:24, it must be supplied with the ‘fruits of the Spirit.’ Humility must take up the room which pride had in the heart; charitableness must step into the seat of avarice; love extrude malice, mildness anger, patience murmuring; sobriety must dry up the floods of drunkenness; continence cool the inflammations of lust; peace must quiet the head from dissensions; honesty pull off hypocrisy’s vizor; and religion put profaneness to an irrevocable exile.

Faith is the hand that must take these jewels out of God’s treasury to furnish the heart; the pipe to convey the waters of life into these vessels. This infusion of goodness must follow the effusion of evil. God must be let in when Satan is locked out. If our former courses and customs, like turned-away abjects, proffer us their old service, let us not know them, not own them, not give them entertainment, not allow their acquaintance. But in a holy pride, as now made courtiers to the King of heaven, let us disdain the company of our old playfellows, opera tenebrarum, ‘the works of darkness.’ Let us now only frequent the door of mercy, and the fountain of grace; and let faith and a good conscience be never out of our society.—Here is the supply.

4. We have now done, if, when our hearts be thus emptied, cleansed, supplied, we so keep them. Non minor est virtus, &c.; nay, let me say, Non minor est gratia. For it was God’s preventing grace that cleansed our hearts, and it is his subsequent grace that so preserves them; that we may truly sing—

‘By grace, and grace alone,

All these good works are done.’

Yet have we not herein a patent of security and negligence sealed us, as if God would save us whiles we only stood and looked on; but ‘he that hath this hope purgeth himself,’ 1 John 3:3. And we are charged to ‘keep and possess our vessel in sanctification and honour,’ 1 Thess. 4:4; and to ‘live unspotted of the world,’ James 1:27.

Return not to your former abominations, ‘lest your latter end be worse than your beginning,’ Luke 11:26. Hath God done so much to make your hearts good, and will you frustrate his labours, annihilate his favours, vilipend his mercies, and reel back to your former turpitudes? God forbid it! and the serious deprecation of your own souls forbid it!

Yea, O Lord, since thou hast dealt so graciously with these frail vessels of flesh,—emptied them, washed them, seasoned them, supplied them,—seal them up with thy Spirit to the day of redemption, and preserve them, that the evil one touch them not. Grant this, O Father Almighty, for thy Christ and our Jesus’s sake! Amen.

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