THE GREAT Impostor, LAID OPEN in a SERMON at GRAY'S INN, Febr. 2. 1623.  
By IOS. HALL. D. D.  
LONDON, Printed by J. Havilano for Nath. Butter. 1623.   

TO THE MOST NOBLE, AND WORTHILY Honoured Society OF GRAY'S INN: AT WHOSE BAR This IMPOSTOR was openly arraigned: J. H. HUMBLY DEDICATES THIS PUBLIC LIFE OF HIS WEAK AND UNWORTHY LABOUR.   

THE GREAT IMPOSTOR, Laid open, out of IER. 17.9. The heart is deceitful above all things.  
I Know where I am; in one of the famous Phrontisteries of Law, and justice: wherefore serves Law and justice, but for the prevention or punishment of fraud and wickedness? Give me leave therefore to bring before you, Students, Masters, Fathers, Oracles of Law and justice, the greatest Cheater and Malefactor in the world, our own Heart. It is a great word that I have said, in promising to bring him before you; for this is one of the greatest advantages of his fraud, that he cannot be seen: That as that old juggler Apollonius Thyanaeus, when he was brought before the judge, vanished out of sight; so this great Impostor, in his very presenting before you, dispeareth and is gone; yea so cunningly, that he doth it with our own consent, and we would be loath that he could be seen: Therefore as an Epiphonema to this just complaint of deceitfulness, is added Who can know it? It is easy to know that it is deceitful, and in what it deceives, though the deceits themselves cannot be known, till too late; As we may see the ship, and the sea, and the ship going on the sea, yet the way of a ship in the sea (as Solomon observes) we know not: God asks, and God shall answer; What he asks by jeremy, he shall answer by S. Paul, Who knows the heart of man? 
1 Cor. 2.11.  Even the spirit of man that is in him. If then the heart have but eyes enough to see itself by the reflection of thoughts, it is enough: Ye shall easily see and hear enough (out of the analogy and resemblance of hearts) to make you both astonished and ashamed.  
The heart of man lies in a narrow room, yet all the world cannot fill it; but that which may be said of the heart, would more than fill a world: Here is a double style given it; of deceitfulness; of wickedness; either of which knows no end, whether of being, or of discourse. I spend my hour, and might do my life, in treating of the first.  
See then, I beseech you, the Impostor, and the Imposture; The Impostor himself, The heart of man; The Imposture, Deceitful above all things.  
As deceitful persons are wont ever to go under many names, and ambiguous, and must be expressed with an [alias] so doth the heart of man; Neither man himself, nor any part of man hath so many names, as the heart alone; For every faculty that it hath, and every action it doth, it hath a several name: Neither is there more multiplicity, than doubt in this name; Not so many terms are used to signify the heart, as the heart signifies many things.  
When ye hear of the heart, ye think strait of that fleshy part in the centre of the body which lives first, and dies last; and whose beat you find to keep time all the body over; That is not it which is so cunning; Alas, that is a poor harmless piece; merely passive; and if it do any thing, as the subministration of Vital spirits, to the maintenance of the whole frame, it is but good; no, it is the spiritual part that lurks in this flesh, which is guilty of such deceit. We must learn of witty Idolatry to distinguish betwixt the stock and the invisible powers that dwell in it. It is not for me to be a sticklor betwixt the Hebrews, and the Greek Philosophers, and Physicians, in a question of natural learning, concerning the 〈◊〉 of the soul; nor to insist upon the reasons why the spirit of God rather places all the spiritual powers in the heart, than in the brain; Doubtless in respect of the affections there resident, whereby all those speculative abilities are drawn to practise; It shall suffice us to take things as we find them, and to hold it for granted, that this Monosyllable (for so it is in many languages) comprises all that intellective and affective world which concerneth man; and in plain terms to say, that when God says The heart is deceitful, he means, the understanding, will, affections are deceitful.  
The understanding is doubly deceitful; It makes us believe it knows those things which it doth not; and that it knows not those things which it doth: As some foolish Mountebank, that holds it a great glory to seem to know all things; or some presuming Physician, that thinks it a shame not to profess skill in any state of the body, or disease; so doth our vain understanding; therein framing itself according to the spirits it meets withal; if they be proud and curious, it persuades them, they know every thing; if careless, that they know enough.  
In the first kind; What hath not the fond heart of man dared to arrogate to itself? It knows all the stars by their names; Tush, that is nothing; It knows what the stars mean by their very looks, what the birds mean by their chirping, as Apollonius did; What the heart means, by the features of the face; it knows the events of life by the lines of the hand: the secrets of Art, the secrets of Nature, the secrets of State, the secrets of others hearts, yea the secrets of God in the closet of heaven; Yea, not only what God hath done, but what he will do: This is (Sapiens stultitia) a wise folly, as Irenaeus said of his Valentinians; All Figure-casters, Palmisters, Physiognomers, Fortune-tellers, Alchemists, fantastic projectors, and all the rabble of professors of those 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, 
Acts 19.19.  not so much curious as idle Arts, have their word given them by the Apostle, Deceiving and deceived; neither can these men make any worse fools, than their hearts have made themselves; 
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉.  and well may that Alexandrian tax be set upon them in both names, whether of active, or passive folly: And (as it commonly falls out, that superfluous things rob the heart of necessary) in the mean while, those things which the heart may and should know, it lightly mis-knowes: As our senses are deceived by distance, or interpositions, to think the stars beamy and sparkling, the Moon horned, the Planets equally remote, the Sun sometimes red, pale other some: so doth also our understanding err, in mis-opinion of divine things; It thinks it knows God, when it is but an Idol of fancy, as Saul's messengers, when they came into the room, thought they had the true David, when it was but a Wisp; it knows the will of God, when it is nothing but gross misconstruction: so as the common knowledge of men, though they think it a Torch, is but an Ignis Fatuus to lead them to a ditch: How many thousand Assyrians think they are in the way to the Prophet, when they are in the midst of Samaria? How many millions think they walk fairly on to heaven, when indeed they are in the broad way that leads to destruction? Oh poor blind Pagans, halfe-sighted Turks, blear-eyed Iewes, blindfolded Papists, Squint-eied Schismatics, purblind ignorants, how well do they find themselves pleased with their devotion, and think God should be so too; when it is nothing but a mixture of mesprison, superstition, conceitedness; and (according to the seldome-reverently-used proverb) whiles they think they have God by the finger, they hold a devil by the toe; and all this, because their heart deceives them. If careless, and loath to be at the pains of knowing more, it persuades them they know enough; that they cry out of more, as he did on the ointment, (Vt quid perditio haec?) What needs all this waste? and makes them as conscionable for knowledge, as Esau was for cattle, I have enough, my brother, keep that thou hast to thyself; or as contentedly-resolute, as the Epicure in the Gospel: Soul take thy ease, thou hast knowledge enough laid up for many years.  
From whence it is, that too many rest simply (yea wilfully) in their own measure, not so much as wishing more skill in Soule-matters; applauding their own safe mediocrity; like the credulous blind man that thought he now saw a shimmering of the Sunbeams, when indeed his back was towards it: Hence it is that they scoff at the foolishness of preaching, scorn the forward bookishness of others, fearing nothing but a surfeit of Manna, and hating to know more than their neighbours, than their forefathers; & thus are led on muffled up in an unfelt ignorance, to their grave, yea, (without the mercy of God) to their hell.  
And as in these things there is a presumption of knowing what we do not; so contrarily, a dissimulation and concealment of the knowledge of what we do understand; The heart of man is a great liar to itself this way; Saint Paul says that of Pagans, which I may boldly say of Christians, they have the effect of the law written in their hearts; yet many of them will not be acknown of one letter engraven there by the finger of God: Certain common principles there are (together with this law) interlinearily written in the tables of the heart, as that we must do as we would be done to; That there is a God; That this God is infinite in justice and truth, and must be served like himself; these they either blot out, or lay their finger on, that they may not be seen, purposely, that they may sin freely; and fain would persuade themselves they never had any such evidence from God: so putting off the checks of conscience with bold denials; like the harlot of jericho, (but worse than she) that hath hid the Spies, and now outfaces their entertainment: Wherein the heart doth to itself, that which Nahash the Ammonite, would have done to Israel, put out his own right eye, that it may not see that law whereby it might be convinced, and find itself miserable. Thus the understanding of man is every way deceitful in overknowing, mis-knowing, dissembling; in all which it is like an evil and unfaithful eye, that either will be seeing by a false glass, or a false light, or with distortion; or else wilfully closes the lids that it may not see at all; and in all this deceives us.  
The will is no less cunning; which though it make fair pretences of a general inclination to good, yet (hîc & nunc) in particulars, hangs towards a pleasing evil; Yea though the Understanding have sufficiently informed it of the worthiness of good, and the turpitude of evil, yet being overcome with the false delectableness of sin, it yields to a misse-assent; Reason being (as Aquinas speaks) either swallowed up by some passion, or held down by some vicious habit: It is true, still the Will follows the Reason, neither can do otherwise; but therefore, if Reason misled be contrary to Reason, and a schism arise in the soul, it must follow that the Will must needs be contrary to Will and Reason; Wherein it is like a Planet, which though it be carried about perpetually by the first mover, yet slily creeps on his own way, contrary to that strong circumvolution: And though the mind be sufficiently convinced of the necessity, or profit of a good act, yet for the tediousness annexed to it, in a dangerous spiritual acedie, it insensibly slips away from it, and is content to let it fall; As some idle, or fearful Merchant, that could be glad to have gold, if it would come with ease, but will not either take the pains, or hazard the adventure to fetch it: Thus commonly the Will (in both respects) Water-man-like looks forward, and rows backward; and under good pretences doth nothing but deceive.  
The affections are as deceitful as either; whether in misse-placing, measure, or manner.  
Mis-placing: They are fiery where they should be cool; and where they should burn, frieze; Our heart makes us believe it loves God, and gives him pledges of affection; whiles it secretly dotes upon the world; like some false strumpet, that entertains her husband with her eyes, and in the mean time treads upon the toe of an Adulterer under the board: That it loves justice, when it is but revenge; That it grieves for the missing of Christ, when indeed it is but for the loaves and fishes; That it fears God, when indeed it is but afraid of our own torment; That it hates the sin, when it is the person; That it hates the world, when it thrusts God out of doors to lodge it.  
Measure: That we love God enough, and the world but enough, when as indeed the one love is but as the cold fit of an ague, the other an hot; we chill in the one, no less than we glow in the other; when we make God only a stale to draw on the world; That we do enough hate our corruptions, when (at our sharpest) we do but gently sneap them, as Hely did his sons; or as some indulgent parent doth an unthrifty darling, whom he chides, and yet feeds with the fuel of his excess; That we have grieved enough for our sins, when they have not cost us so much as one tear, nothing but a little fashionable wind, that never came further than the roots of our tongue; That we do enough compassionate the afflictions of joseph, when we drink wine in bowls; That we fear God more than men, when we are ashamed to do that in presence of a child, which we care not to do in the face of God.  
Manner: That our heart loves, and hates, and fears, and joys, and grieves truly, when it is an hypocrite in all; That it delights constantly in God, and holy things, when it is but an Ephraim's morning dew; That our anger is zealous, when it is but a flash of personal malice, or a superstitious fury; That we fear as sons, when it is as cowards, or slaves; That we grieve as God's patients, when we fret, and repine, and struggle like frantics against the hand of our Maker. Thus (to sum up all) the heart of man is wholly set upon cozenage; the understanding over-knowing, mis-knowing, dissembling; The will pretending, and inclining contrarily; The affections mocking us in the object, measure, manner; and in all of them the heart of man is deceitful.  
Ye have seen the face of this Cheater; look now at his hand; and now ye see who this Deceiver is, see also the sleights of his deceit; and therein, the fashion, the subject, the sequel of it; from whence we will descend to our Demeanour towards so dangerous an Impostor.  
The fashion of his deceit is the same with our ordinary jugglers; either cunning conveyance, or false semblance. Cunning conveyance, whether into us, in us, from us.  
The heart admits sin, as Paradise did the Serpent; There it is, but by what chinks or crannies it entered, we know not; so as we may say of sin as the Master of the feast in the Gospel said to his slovenly guest, Quomodo intrasti? How camest thou in hither? Corruption doth not eat into the heart as our first Parents did into the apple, so as the print of their teeth might be seen, but as the worm eats into the core, insensibly; Neither is there less closeness when it is entered; I would it were as untrue a word, as it is an harsh one, that many a professedly-Christian heart, lodges a devil in the blind rooms of it, and either knows it not, or will not be acknown of it; every one that harbours a willing sin in his breast, doth so: The malicious man hath a furious devil; the wanton an unclean devil, a Beelphegor, or a Tammuz; the proud man a Lucifer, the covetous a Mammon; Certainly, these foul spirits are not more truly in hell, than in a wicked heart; there they are, but so closely, that I know not if the heart itself know it; it being verified of this citadel of the heart, which was said of that vast Ninive, that the enemy had taken some parts of it, long ere the other knew it: What should I speak of the most common, and yet most dangerous guest, that lodges in this Inn of the heart, Infidelity? Call at the door, and ask if such a one host not there; They within make strange of it, deny it, forswear it; Call the officers, make privy search, you shall hardly find him: Like some jesuit in a Popish dames chamber, he is so closely contrived into false floors, and double walls, that his presence is not more easily known, than hardly convinced, confessed. How easy is it to say, that if infidelity did not lurk in the hearts of men, they durst not do as they do; they could not but do, what they do not? Durst they sin if they were persuaded of an hell? durst they buy a minute of pleasure with everlasting torments? Could they so slight heaven if they believed it? Could they be so loath to possess it? Could they think much of a little painful goodness to purchase an eternity of happiness? No, no, men, fathers, and brethren; if the heart were not Infidel, whiles the face is Christian, this could not be. Neither doth the heart of man more cunningly convey sin into, and in itself, than from it; The sin that ye saw even now openly in the hands, is so swiftly passed under the board, that it is now vanished; Look for it in his forehead, there it is not; look for it under his tongue, there is none; look for it in his conscience, ye find nothing; and all this by the legier-de-maine of the heart: Thus Achan hath hid his wedge, and now he dares stand out to a lot; Thus Salomon's Harlot hath wiped her mouth, and it was not she: Thus Saul will lie-out his sacrilege, until the very beasts out-bleat, and out-bellow him; Thus the swearer swears, and when he hath done, swears that he swore not; Thus the unclean fornicator bribe's off his sin, and his shame, and now makes challenges to the world of his honesty. It cannot be spoken how peevishly witty the heart of man is this way; neither doubt I but this wiliness is some of the poison that the subtle serpent infected us with in that fatal morsel: They were three cunning shifts which the Scripture recordeth of three women (as that sex hath been ever noted for more sudden pregnancy of wit) Rachel, Rahab, and the good wife of Bahurim; The first hiding the Teraphim with a modest seat, the second, the spics with flaxe-stalkes, and the third David's scouts with corn spread over the Well; but these are nothing to the devices that nature hath wont to use for the cloaking of sin; God made man upright, saith Solomon, but he sought many inventions: Is Adam challenged for sin? Behold all on the sudden it is passed from his hand, to Gods; The woman that thou gavest me: Is Saul challenged for a covetous and disobedient remissness? the sin is strait passed from the field to the Altar; I saved the fattest for a sacrifice to the Lord thy God; So the one begins his sin in God, and the other ends it in him: Is David bewitched with lust to abuse the Wife? the Husband must be sent home drunk, to hide it, or if not that, to his long home, in a pretended favour of his valour: Is a griping Usurer disposed to put his money together to breed a monster? he hath a thousand quirks to cozen both law and conscience: Is a Simoniacal Patron disposed to make a good match of his people's souls? it shall be no bargain, but a gift: he hath a living to give, but an horse to sell. And sure I think in this wise age of the world, Usurers and Simonists strive who shall find the wittiest way to hell: What should I speak of the secret frauds in contracts, booties in matches, subornation of instruments, hiring of oaths, seeing of officers, equivocations of answers, and ten thousand other tricks that the heart of man hath devised for the conveyances of sin; in all which it too well approves itself incomparably deceitful.  
The false semblance of the heart is yet worse; for the former is most-what for the smothering of evil; this is for the justifying of evil, or the disgrace of good; In these two doth this act of falsehood chiefly consist; in making evil good, or good evil. For the first; The natural man knows well how filthy all his brood is, and therefore will not let them come forth, but disguised with the colours and dresses of good; so as now every one of nature's birds is a Swan; Pride is handsomeness, desperate fury, valour; lavishness is noble munificence, drunkenness civility, flattery compliment, murderous revenge, justice; the Courtesan is bona foemina, the Sorcerer a wise man, the oppressor a good husband; Absolom will go pay his vows; Herod will worship the Babe. For the second; such is the envy of nature, that where she sees a better face than her own, she is ready to scratch it, or cast dirt in it; and therefore knowing that all virtue hath a native beauty in it, she labours to deform it by the foulest imputations. Would the Israelites be devout? they are idle; Doth David dance for joy before the Ark? he is a fool in a Morris: Doth Saint Paul discourse of his heavenly Vision? too much learning hath made him mad. Do the Disciples miraculously speak all the tongues of Babel? They are full of new wine: Do they preach Christ's Kingdom? they are seditious; The resurrection? they are babblers. Is a man conscionable? he is an Hypocrite: Is he conformable? he is unconscionable: Is he plain dealing? he is rudely uncivil: Is he wisely insinuative? he is a flatterer: In short, such is the wicked craft of the heart, that it would let us see nothing in it own form; but fain would show us evil fair, that we might be enamoured of it, and virtue ugly, that we might abhor it; and as it doth for the way, so doth it for the end; hiding from us the glory of heaven, that is laid up for overcommers, and showing us nothing but the pleasant closure of wickedness; making us believe that hell is a palace, and heaven a dungeon, that so we might be in love with death; and thus both in cunning conveyance, and false semblance, The heart of man is deceitful above all things.  
Ye have seen the fashion of this deceit; cast now your eyes upon the subject: And whom doth it then deceive? It doth deceive others, it can deceive itself, it would deceive Satan, yea God himself. Others, first: How many do we take for honest and sound Christians, who yet are but errant hypocrites? These Apes of Satan have learned to transform themselves into Angels of light; The heart bids the eyes look upward to heaven, when they are full of adultery; It bids the hands to raise up themselves towards their Maker, when they are full of blood; It bids the tongue wag holily, when there is nothing in the bosom but Atheous profaneness; It bids the knee to bow like a Camel, when the heart is stiff as an Elephant; yea if need be it can bid a tear fall from the eye, or an alms or just action fall from the hand, and all to gull the world with a good opinion; In all which, false chapmen and horse-coursers do not more ordinarily deceive their buyers in shops and fairs, than we do one another in our conversation: Yea, so crafty is the heart that it can deceive itself; By overweening his own powers, as the proud man; by undervaluing his graces, as the modest; by mistaking his estate, as the ignorant; How many hearts do thus grossly beguile themselves? The first thinks he is rich, and fine, when he is beggarly and naked; so did the Angel of Laodicea: The second is poor in his own spirit, when he is rich of God's spirit: The third thinks that he is a great favourite of heaven, when he is rather branded for an outcast; that he is truly noble, when he is a slave to that, which is base than the worst of God's creatures, sin: Let the proud and ignorant worldling therefore know, that though others may mock him with applauses, yet that all the world cannot make him so much a fool as his own heart.  
Yea, so cunning is the heart, that it thinks to go beyond the devil himself: I can (thinks it) swallow his bait, and yet avoid his hook; I can sin, and live; I can repent of sinning, and defeat my punishment by repenting; I can run upon the score, and take up the sweet and rich commodities of sinful pleasure; and when I have done, I can put myself under the protection of a Saviour, and escape the arrest: Oh the world of souls that perish by this fraud, fond beguiling themselves, whiles they would beguile the Tempter.  
Yet higher: Lastly, as Satan went about to deceive the Son of God; so this foolish consort and client of his goes about to deceive God himself: The first pair of hearts that ever was, were thus credulous, to think they should now meet with a means of knowledge and Deifying, which God either knew not of, or grudged them, and therefore they would be stealing it out of the side of the apple, without God, yea against him: Tush, none eye shall see us; Is there knowledge in the most high, saith the sottish Atheist? Lord, have not we heard thee preach in out streets? have not we cast out Devils in thy name? says the smoothing hypocrite; as if he could fetch God over for an admission into heaven. Thou hast not lied to man, but to God, saith S. Peter to Ananias. And pettish jonas, after he had been cooled in the belly of the Whale, and the Sea, yet will be bearing God down in an argument to the justifying of his idle choler, I do well to be angry to the death. But as the greatest Politicians are oft overtaken with the grossest follies (God owes proud wits a shame) the heart of man could not possibly devose how so much to be fool itself, as by this wicked presumption: 
Psal. 94.10, 11.  Oh ye fools, when will ye understand? He that form the eye, shall he not see? He that teacheth man knowledge, shall not he understand? The Lord knoweth the thoughts of man, that they are vanity. A rod for the back of fools, yea a rod of iron for such presumptuous fools, to crush them in pieces like a Potter's vessel.  
Ye have seen the fashion and the subject of this deceit: the sequel, or effect follows; every way lamentable; For hence it comes to pass that many a one hath had his heart in keeping forty, fifty, threescore years, and more, and yet is not acquainted with it; and all because this craft hath kept it at the Priscillianists lock, Tu omnes, te nemo; It affects to be a searcher of all men, no man is allowed to come aboard of it; And if a man whether out of curiosity, or conscience, be desirous to inquire into it (as it is a shame for a man to be a stranger at home; Know ye not your own hearts, saith the Apostle;) it casts itself, Proteus-like, into so many forms, that it is very hard to apprehend it. One while the man hath no heart, (〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉) saith Solomon; Then he hath (〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉) an heart, and an heart, 
Psal. 12.  saith David; and one of his hearts contradicts another; and then how knows he whether to believe? And what certainty, what safety can it be for a man to live unacquainted with himself? O● this unacquaintance, secondly, arises a dangerous mesprison of a man's self, in the nature and quantity of his sin, in the quality of his repentance, in his peace and entireness with God, in his right to heaven, and (in a word) in his whole spiritual estate. Of this mesprison, thirdly, arises a fearful disappointment of all his hopes, and a plunging into unavoidable torments: Wherein it is miserable to see, how cunningly the traitorous hearts of many men bear them in hand all their lives long; soothing them in all their courses, promising them success in all their ways, securing them from fear of evils, assuring them of the favour of God, and possession of heaven (as some fond Bigot would brag of his Bull, or Medal, or Agnus Dei; or, as those Priests that Gerson 
* Qui publicè volunt dogmatizarescupraedicare popu●o, quod si quis audit missam in illo die non 〈◊〉 coe●us, nec moriet●r morte subitanea, nec carebit sufficienti sustetatione, &c  taxes, who made the people believe that the Mass was good for the eyesight, for the maw, for bodily health, and preservation) till they come to their deathbeds; But then when they come to call forth the comforts they must trust to, they find them like to some unfaithful Captain, that hath all the while in Garrison filled his purse with dead pays, and made up the number of his companies with borrowed men; and in time of ease showed fair; but when he is called forth by a sudden alarm, bewrays his shame and weakness, and fails his General when he hath most need of him; right thus do the perfidious hearts of many, after all the glorious brags of their security, on the bed of their last reckoning, find nothing but a cold despair, and a woeful horror of conscience; and therefore too justly may their hearts say to them, as the heart of Apollodorus the Tyrant seemed to say unto him; who dreamt one night that he was flayed by the Scythians, and boiled in a Cauldron; and that his heart spoke to him out of the kettle (〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉) It is I that have drawn thee to all this. Certainly never man was, or shall be frying in hell, but cries out of his own heart, and accuses that deceitful piece as guilty of all his torment: For let Satan be never so malicious, and the world never so parasitical, yet if his own heart had been true to him, none of these could have hurt him. Let the rest of our enemies do their worst, only from the evil of our own hearts, good Lord deliver us.  
It were now time for our thoughts to dwell a little upon the meditation, and deploration of our own danger and misery, who are every way so environed with subtlety. If we look at Satan, his old title is, that old Serpent; who must needs therefore now, by so long time and experience, be both more old and more Serpent. If we look at sin, it is as crafty as he; Lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin: If at our own hearts, we hear (that which we may feel) that the heart is deceitful above all things. Oh wretched men that we are, how are we beset with Impostors on all hands; If it were more seasonable for us to bewail our estate, than to seek the redress of it; But since it is not so much worth our labour to know how deep the pit is, into which we are fallen, as how to come out of it, hear rather (I beseech you) for a conclusion, how we may avoid the danger of the deceit of our false heart; even just so as we would prevent the nimble feats of some cheating juggler, Search him, watch him, Trust him not.  
Look well into his hands, pockets, boxes, sleeves, yea, under his very tongue itself; There is no fraud so secret, but may be descried; were our hearts as crafty as the devil himself, they may be found out; 
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉.  We are not ignorant (saith Saint Paul) of Satan's devices; much more than may we know our own; Were the hearts of men (as Solomon speaks of Kings) like unto deep waters, they have a bottom, and may be fathomed; Were they as dark as hell itself, and never so full of windings, and blind ways, and obscure turnings, do but take the lantern of God's law in your hand, and you shall easily find all the false and foul corners of them; As David saith of the Sun, nothing is hid from the light thereof; Prove yourselves, saith the Apostle; It is hard if falsehood be so constant to itself that by many questions it be not tripped: Where this duty is slackened, it is no wonder if the heart be overrun with spiritual fraud; Often privy searches scare away vagrant, and disorderly persons, where no inquiry is made, is a fit harbour for them; If ye would not have your hearts, therefore, become the lawless Ordinaries of unclean spirits, search them oft; Leave not a straw vnshaken to find out these Labanish Teraphim that are stolen, and hid within us; And, when we have searched our best, if we fear there are yet some unknown evils lurking within us (as the man after Gods own heart prays against secret sins) let us call him in that cannot be deceived; and say to God with the Psalmist, Search thou me o Lord, and try me; Oh let us yield ourselves over to be ransacked by that all-seeing eye, and effectual hand of the Almighty. All our daubing, and cogging, and packing, and shuffling lies open before him, and he only can make the heart ashamed of itself.  
And when our hearts are once stripped naked, & carefully searched, let our eyes be ever fixedly bend upon their conveyances, and inclinations; If we search and watch not, we may be safe for the present, long we cannot; for our eye is no sooner off, than the heart is busy in some practice of falsehood; It is well if it forbear whiles we look on, for The thoughts of man's heart are only evil continually; and many a heart is like some bold and cunning thief, that looks a man in the face, and cuts his purse: But surely, if there be any guardian of the soul, it is the eye; The wise man's eye (saith Solomon) is in his head; doubtless, on purpose to look into his heart: My son, above all keep keep thy heart, saith he; If we do not dog our hearts then in all our ways, but suffer ourselves to lose the sight of them, they run wild, and we shall not recover them till after many slippery tricks on their parts, and much repentance on ours. Alas, how little is this regarded in the world? wherein the most take no keep of their souls, but suffer themselves to run after the ways of their own hearts, without observation, without controlment; What should I say of these men, but that they would fain be deceived, and perish? For after this loose licentiousness (without the great mercy of God) they never set eye more upon their hearts, till they see them either fearfully intoyled in the present judgements of God, or fast chained in the pit of hell, in the torments of final condemnation.  
Thirdly, If our searches and watches should fail us, we are sure our distrust cannot; It is not possible our heart should deceive us, if we trust it not; We carry a remedy within us of others fraud; and why not of our own? The Italians not unwisely pray God (in their known proverb) to deliver them from whom they trust; for we are obnoxious to those we rely upon, but nothing can lose that which it had not; Distrust therefore can never be disappointed: If our hearts then shall promise us aught (as it hath learned to proffer largely, of him that said, All these will I give thee) although with vows & oaths, ask for his assurances; if he cannot fetch them from the evidences of God, trust him not: If he shall report aught to us, ask for his witnesses; if he cannot produce them from the records of God, trust him not: If he shall advise us aught, ask for his warrant; if he cannot fetch it from the Oracles of God, trust him not; And in all things so bear ourselves to our heart, as those that think they live amongst thieves and cozeners; ever jealously and suspiciously; taking nothing of their word, scarce daring to trust our own senses; making sure work in all matters of their transactions. I know I speak to wise men, whose counsel is wont to be asked, and followed, in matter of the assurances of estates; whose wisdom is frequently employed in the trial, eviction, dooming of malefactors: Alas, what shall it avail you that you can advise for the prevention of others fraud, if in the mean time you suffer yourselves to be cozened at home? What comfort can you find in public service to the state against offenders, if you should carry a fraudulent and wicked heart in your own bosoms? There is one above whom we may trust, whose word is more firm than heaven; When heaven shall pass, that shall stand; It is no trusting aught besides, any further than he gives his word for it. Man's Epithet is, Homo mendax, and his best part, the hearts, deceitful. Alas, what shall we think, or say of the condition of those men, which never follow any other advice than what they take of their own heart? Such are the most; that make not God's Law of their counsel; As Esay said of Israel, 
Esa. 57.17.  Abijt vagtis in viacordis sui: Surely they are not more sure they have an heart, than that they shall be deceived with it, and betrayed unto death; Of them may I say, as Solomon doth of the wanton fool, that follows an harlot; 
Pro. 7.21.  Thus with her great craft she caused him to yield, and with her flattering lips she enticed him: And he followed her straightways, as an Ox that goes to the slaughter, or as a fool to the stocks for correction. Oh then, dear Christians, as ever ye desire to avoid that direful slaughter-house of hell, those wail, and gnash, and gnawings, and everlasting burnings, ●●●ke carefully to your own heart's; and what ever suggestions they shall make unto you, trust them not, till you have tried them by that unfaileable rule of righteousness, the royal law of your Maker, which can no more deceive you, than your hearts can free you from deceit.  
Lastly, that we may avoid not only the events, but the very enterprises of this deceit, let us countermine the subtle workings of the heart. Our Saviour hath bidden us be wise as Serpents; What should be wise but the heart? And can the heart be wiser than itself? 〈…〉 wisdom of the heart remedy the craft of the heart? Certainly it may. There are two men in every regenerate breast, the old and the new; And of these (as they are ever plotting against each other) we must take the better side, and labour that the new man, by being more wise in God, may outstrip the old: And how shall that be done? If we would dispossess the strong man that keeps the house, our Saviour bids us bring in a stronger than he; and if we would overreach the subtlety of the old man, yea, the old Serpent, bring in a wiser than he, even the Spirit of God, the God of wisdom; 〈◊〉 would have Achitophel's wicked counsels crossed, set up an Hushai within us: The foolishness of God is wiser than the wisdom of men. Could we but settle God within us, our crafty hearts would be out of countenance, and durst not offer to play any of their deluding tricks before him from whom nothing is hid; and if they could be so impudently presumptuous, yet they should be so soon controlled in their first motions, that there would be more danger of their confusion, than of our deceit. As ye love yourselves therefore, and your own safety, and wo●ld be free from the peril of this secret broker of Satan, your own hearts, render them obediently into the hands of God; give him the keys of these closerts of his own making; beseech him that he will vouchsafe to dwell and reign in them; so shall we be sure that neither Satan shall deceive them, nor they deceive us; but both we and they shall be kept safe and inviolable, and presented glorious to the appearance of our Lord JESUS CHRIST: To whom with the FATHER, and the HOLY GHOST ●e all honour and glor●● for ever and ever AMEN.  
FINIS.