not from the heart. God shall take him away, as a man taketh away dung, till it be all gone "; God does not say there, that he will take away the dung, but the man; not that he will take away the dissimulation of the hypocrite, but he will take away the hypocrite himself, as dung is taken away, till it be all gone, till this hypocrite be swept, not clean, but clean away. If he have a complacency, a joy that he can deceive, and can seem that which he is not (The joy of the hypocrite is but for a moment.) He hath no true joy at all; his joy is but dung, and in a moment comes a cart, and fetches away that dung, sweeps away even that false joy. Can he hope for more? (The hope of the hypocrite shall perish".) If he can conceive such a hope, it shall perish in abortion, and never have life (Their hope shall be as the giving up of the ghost 22.) As soon as it is a hope, it shall be as the giving up of the ghost, and a cart shall carry away that dung, that hope. What cart? first, God shall disappoint his hope of deluding the world; God shall discover him, and lay him open (That the hypocrites reign not, lest the people be insnareda3). And then when God hath discovered him (The innocent shall stir up himself against the hypocrite") that is, consider him, observe him, and arm himself against his imaginations. And God shall not only discover him to men, but God shall discover himself to him, and make him see his future condemnation (Fearfulness shall surprise the hypocrite). And then (What is the hope of the hypocrite, when God taketh away his soul") when the cart comes for the last load of dung, his corrupt, his putrefied soul, what hope hath the hypocrite for the next life?

It is not pureness then, except it be in the right place, the heart; but where is the heart? The heart is vafrum et inscrutabile, Deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked, who can know it? It is uncertain and unsearchable; and it is so, because it pursues those things which are in fluxu, ever in motion. Cast but a paper into the river, and fix thine eye upon that paper, and bind thine eye to follow that paper whithersoever the river, or

the wind shall carry it, and thou canst not imagine where thine eye will be to-morrow: for, this paper is not addressed, as a ship, to a certain port, or upon any certain purpose, but exposed to the disposition of the tide, to the rage of the wind, to the wantonness of the eddy, and to innumerable contingencies, till it wear out to nothing. So, if a man set his heart (we cannot call it a setting) if a man suffer his heart to issue upon any of these fluid and transitory things of this world, he shall have cor cafrum et inscrutabile, He shall not know where to find his own heart. If riches be this floating paper that his eye is fixed upon, he shall not know upon what course; if beauty be this paper, he shall not know upon what face; if honour and preferment be it, he shall not know upon what faction his heart will be transported a month hence. But, if the heart can fix itself upon that which is fixed, the almighty and immoveable God, if it can be content to inquire after itself, and take knowledge where it is, and in what way, it will find the means of cleansing; and so, this second consideration, the placing of this pureness in the heart, enlarges itself also into the third branch of this part, which is de modo, by what means this pureness is fixed in the heart, in which is involved the affection with which it must be embraced, love, He that loveth pureness of heart.

Both these then are settled; our heart is naturally foul; and our heart may be cleansed. But how, is our present disquisition, Who can bring a clean thing out of filthiness? There is not one 2: Adam fouled my heart and all yours; nor can we make it clean ourselves, Who can say I have made clean my heart 25? There is but one way; a poor beggarly way, but easy and sure, to ask it of God. And, even to God himself it seems a hard work to cleanse this heart; and therefore our prayer must be with David, Cor mundum crea, Create, O Lord, a pure heart in me 30. And then comes God's part, not that God's part began but then; for it was his doing, that thou madest this prayer; but because it is a work that God does especially delight in, to build upon his own foundations; when he hath disposed thee to pray, and upon that prayer created a new heart in thee, then God

28 Job xiv. 4.

29 Prov. xx. 9.

30 Psalm Li. 12.

works upon that new heart, and By faith purifies it, enables it to preserve the pureness, as St. Peter speaks 1. He had kindled some sparks of this faith in thee, before thou askedst that new heart; else the prayer had not been of faith; but now finding thee obsequious to his beginnings, he fuels this fire, and purifies thee, as gold and silver, in all his furnaces; through believing and doing, and suffering, through faith, and works, and tribulation, we come to this pureness of heart. And truly, he that lacks but the last, but tribulation (as fain as we would be without it) lacks one concoction, one refining of this heart.

But, in this great work, the first act is a renovation, a new heart; and the other, that we keep clean that heart by a continual diligence, and vigilancy over all our particular actions. In these two consists the whole work of purifying the heart; first, an annihilating of the former heart, which was all sin; and then a holy superintendency over that new heart, which God vouchsafes to create in us, to keep it as he gives it, clean, pure. It is, in a word, a detestation of former sins, and a prevention of future. And for the first, Mundi corde sunt, qui deposuere cor peccati32; That is the new heart that hath disseised, expelled the heart of sin. There is in us a heart of sin, which must be cast up; for whilst the heart is under the habits of sin, we are not only sinful, but we are all sin, as it is truly said, that land overflowed with sea, is all sea. And when sin hath got a heart in us, it will quickly come to be that whole body of death, which St. Paul complains of 33, Who shall deliver me from the body of this death? when it is a heart, it will get a brain; a brain that shall minister all sense, and delight in sin; that is the office of the brain; a brain which shall send forth sinews and ligaments, to tie sins together; and pith and marrow to give a succulency, and nourishment, even to the bones, to the strength and obduration of sin; and so it shall do all those services, and offices for sin, that the brain does to the natural body. So also if sin get to be a heart, it will get a liver to carry blood and life through all the body of our sinful actions; that is the office of the liver; and whilst we dispute whether the throne and seat of the soul be in

31 Acts xv. 9.

92 Chromakus, anno 390.

33 Rom. vii. 24.

the heart, or brain, or liver, this tyrant sin will præoccupate all, and become all; so, as that we shall find nothing in us without sin, nothing in us but sin, if our heart be possessed, inhabited by it. And if it be true in our natural bodies, that the heart is that part that lives first and dies last, it is much truer of this cor peccati, this heart of sin; for, this hearty sinner that hath given his heart to his sin, doth no more foresee a death of that sin in himself, than he remembers the birth of it; and, because he remembers not, or understands not how his soul contracted sin, by coming into his body, he leaves her to the same ignorance, how she shall discharge herself of sin, when she goes out of that body. But, as his sin is elder than himself (for Adam's sin is his sin) so is it longer lived than his body, for it shall cleave everlastingly to his soul too. God asks no more of thee, but, Fili, da mihi cor, My son, give me thy heart; because when God gave it thee, it was but one heart. But since thou hast made it cor et cor (as the prophet speaks) a heart, and a heart, a double heart, give both thy hearts to God; thy natural weakness and disposition to sin (the inclinations of thy heart) and thy habitual practice of sin, (the obduration of thy heart) cor peccans, and cor peccati, and he shall create a new heart in thee; which is the first way of attaining this pureness of heart, to become once in a good state, to have (as it were) paid all thy former debts, and so to be the better able to look about thee for the future, for prevention of subsequent sins, which is the other way that we proposed for attaining this pureness, detestation of former habits, watchfulness upon particular actions.

Till this be done, till this cor peccati, this hearty habitualness in sin be divested, there is no room, no footing to stand and sweep it; a heart so filled with foulness will admit no counsel, no reproof. The great engineer would have undertaken to have removed the world with his engine, if there had been any place to fix his engine upon, out of the world; I would undertake, (by God's blessing upon his ordinance) to cleanse the foulest heart that is, if that engine which God hath put into my hands might enter into his heart; if there were room for the renouncing God's judgments, and for the application of God's mercies in the merits

34 Prov. xxiii. 26.

of Christ Jesus in his heart, they would infallibly work upon him. But he hath petrified his heart in sin, and then he hath immured it, walled it with a delight in sin, and fortified it with a justifying of his sin, and adds daily more and more outworks, by more and more daily sins; so that the denouncing of judgment, the application of mercies, prayers, sermons, sacraments, (which are the engines and ammunition which God hath put into our hands) though they have a blessed and a powerful operation, and produce heavenly effects, where they may have entrance; in this, habitual sinners can have none. Some things therefore, some great things every man must depart with, before he can come to the God of pure eyes3.

When the heart is emptied of infidelity, and of those habits of sin that filled it, when it is come to a discontinuance, and a detestation of those sins, then we can better look into every corner, and endeavour to keep it clean; clean in that measure, that the God of pure eyes will vouchsafe to look upon it, and the light of his countenance will perfect the work. The diligence required on our part, is a serious watchfulness and consideration of our particular actions, how small soever. In the law, whatsoever was unclean to eat, made a man unclean, to touch it, when it was dead. Though the body of sin have so far received a deadly wound in thee, as that thou hast discontinued some habitual sin, some long time; yet if thou touch upon the memory of that dead sin, with delight, thou begettest a new child of sin. And as Esay speaks of a child, and of a sinner of an hundred years old, so every sin into which we relapse, is born an hundred years old; it hath all the age of that sin, which we had repented and discontinued before, upon it; it is born an Adam, in full strength the first minute; born a giant, born a devil, and possesses us in an instant. Every man may observe, that a sin of relapse is sooner upon him, than the same sin was at the first attempting him; at first, he had more bashfulness, more tenderness, more colluctation against the sin, than upon a relapse. And therefore in this survey of sin, thy first care must be, to take heed of returning too diligently to a remembrance of those delightful sins which are past; for that will endanger new. And in many cases it is safer