The Government of the Thoughts, Chapter 3
CHAP. III. Of the Hearts Corruptions.
THE Corruptions of the Heart, are, as in the Primitive Age of the World, Gen. 6.5. Only evil continually. The Heart is the fountain of Sin; and the Evangelist tells us, Mat. 15.19. from thence spring evil Thoughts, Murders, Adulteries, Fornications, Thefts, false Witnesses, Blasphemies, all the Sins of Man. All Iniquity is here forged; as it is written, Isai. 32.6. His Heart will work Iniquity; hence words of falshood are conceived and uttered, Isai. 59.13. Here the kingly Prophet declares is the root of War, Psal. 55.21. And the Royal Preacher acknowledges it the seat of Mischief, Prov. 6.18. Error, Frowardness, and that Obdurateness, which excludeth all capacity of hearing God's Word and Judgments, which should lead us to Repentance whereby we may be healed, Psal. 95.10. Prov. 11.20.
2. THE Heart is deceitful above all things; who can know it? Jer. 17.9. There lodgeth Hypocrisie, Jer. 3.10. and many secret Sins; like that unseen Multitude, which rangeth through the Paths of the Deeps, such are the dark Councels of the Heart of Man, which Solomon informs us, Prov. 20.5. Nor is this the Condition of some few, but the secret Corruption of all natural Men; nor are the Regenerate absolutely freed from these Pollutions, being yet partly flesh: We have St. Paul's word for it, Gal. 5.17. For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the Flesh: and these are contrary the one to the other; so that ye cannot do the things that ye would.
3. THE danger hereof fully appears, that these are the Seeds of every Sin, and fomenters thereof; yea, that which obstructeth Faith and Repentance; for as the Physicians affirm, if there be a fault in the first Concoction, there will follow the like in the rest; so it is here, the Hearts Sickness is derived to the Tongue, and all the Actions of Man: It is a People, said the Lord, that do err in their Hearts, and they have not known my ways, Psal. 95.10. As the Eye is deceived through a false Medium; So is the Mind through the cloud of false Opinion: And the Wise Man tells us, Prov. 24.9. That the thought of Foolishness is Sin, into which they must needs run, says the Psalmist, Who set not their heart aright, and whose Spirit is not stedfast with God, Psal. 78.8.
4. THE Almighty searcheth the Secrets of all Hearts, and will at the Great Audit, make all the Thoughts thereof manifest: God requireth the Heart, says Solomon, Prov. 23.26. and David tells you, If a Man regard Iniquity in his Heart, the Lord will not hear him, Psal. 66.18. and Wisdom expresses, Prov. 16.5. That the Thoughts of the Wicked are an abomination to the Lord; and they who have wicked Thoughts, run swiftly to iniquity; and Destruction is in their Paths, Isai. 59.7. In the Corruption of the Heart, the very fibrae and remainders of Sins reviving root, Satan's venom remaineth: The Hydra's ever-growing Heads, which (when occasions and ability so fail, that the impious cannot serve the Devil in External Actions) will shew its venom in their will to Sin.
5. IN the next place, it is a very difficult thing rightly to compose the Thoughts, in respect of the Hearts unfathomed Deceitfulness, and the Mind's unlimited Agility; in these depths of quick-shifting Thoughts, Sin easily hideth it self: External Sins in Words or Works, are (like the Plague of Leprosie, Levit. 13.12, 13. broken all abroad and covering all the Skin) nearer the Cure, and by so much the more easily amended, or overcome, by how much more evident they are, not only to others, but also to our selves.
6. THE Sins of the Heart are harder to be cured, the more secret, and invisibly they are Committed: The Thoughts are more securely Extravagant, Negligent and Presuming by how much less they are obvious, to any Pretender, or Censurer without: And where the Heart is smitten with some awful fear of God, and resolution to Repent, maketh Inquest after Sin; that which is in Word, or Action, is more easily and frequently found: But the sin of the Mind, like Jonathan and Ahimaaz at Bahurim, is let down into the depth of the Heart, whose secret Enemies are like those Ligurian Mountainers, whom the Roman's Chased, more hardly found, than Vanquished. Moreover, Man's innate Self-Love and natural Complacency, makes him unapt, and loth to Condemn himself, in any thing wherein he conjectures others cannot.
7. LASTLY, The restless machination of Satan is to suggest Self-delusions, as he doth Temptations to Sin, whereby his Baits may be swallowed. His policy is to keep the Heart for his Retreat; and if any reproof happily chase away Prophaneness, Anger, Obscenity, or Calumny out of the Tongue, or Adultery, Theft, Murther, or the like, from the outward Man; yet if he can but foment and maintain any of these in the impure Heart, he will find opportunity and diabolical Suggestions, to make an Eruption: Or if not, he knoweth where he has Possession, be the Words and Actions never so well framed, that God hath no part there, which brings me to the next Consideration.