Fourthly, This frame of heart cannot be altered until we be changed by God's grace. Why ? For there is no principle remaining in us that can alter this frame, or make us so far unsatisfied with our pre- sent state as to look after other things, that can break the force of our natural and customary inclinations. There are three things which lie against the change of the heart towards God.
1. There is nature, which wholly carrieth us to please the flesh, and inordinately to seek the good of the body. Now nature cannot rise higher than itself, and determine itself to things above its sphere and compass ; as the philosopher saith of water, it cannot be forced to rise higher than its fountain. Our actions cannot exceed their principle, which is self-love. But besides this —
2. There is custom added to nature, which makes it more stiff and obstinate ; so that if it may be supposed that conscience is sensible of our mistake and ill choice, and some weighty considerations should be l")ropounded to us, as it is easy to show that eternal things are far better than temporal, and spiritual things than carnal; — if conscience, I say, should come in, and represent the ill state wherein we are, yet because the poise of our hearts doth customarily carry us another "way, we are not inclined to God, or to the concernments of eternal life ; for it is not argument merely will do it. In a pair of scales, though the weights be equal, yet if the scales be not equal there may be wrong done ; so though the argument be never so powerful, yet if the heart that weighs them be customarily engaged and carried away with the momentary and cursory delights of the ilesh, alas ! these will sway us, and affect us more than all those pure, everlasting delights we may enjoy by communion with God. In all reason a lesser good should not be preferred before a greater ; and worldly delightS; which are not only base and dreggy, but also short and vanishing, and the occasion of much evil to us, these should not be preferred before eternal happiness. But here lies our misery, though the pleasures which affect us be less in themselves, yet our habitual propension and customary inclina- tion to them is greater. Look, as in a pair of balances, though the "weight of the one side be less, yet if the scales be not even and equally
376 SERMONS UPON PSALM CXIX. [Si'R. XL.
pendant, if the beam be longer on the side than the other, the lesser weight on the longer side of the beam will overpoise the greater weight on the shorter side ; so while the soul is perverted by evil customs, and the heart doth hang more to temporal things than to spiritual and eternal, certainly there must be something from above that must de- termine us. Man's heart can never be swayed until the Lord joins the assistance of his grace.
'3. There is God's curse, or penal hardness. For as nature groweth into custom, so by our sinful customs God is provoked, and doth with- draw those common influences of grace by which our condition might be bettered, and in justice he gives up our hearts to their own sway : Hosea iv. 17, 'Ephraim is joined to his idols, let him alone ; ' Ps. Ixxxi. 12, ' So I gave them up unto their own heart's lusts, and they walked in their own counsels.' So that we have not those frequent checks and gripes of conscience, those warnings and good thoughts as before. ' Let him alone;' providence, let him alone; conscience, let him alone ; and the sinner is left to his own will. Therefore, out of all the work remaineth to be God's alone, who only hath authority to pardon, and power to cure the distempers of our hearts ; he hath authority to take off that judicial hardness which he as a judge may continue upon us, and which the saints deprecate in these forms of speech, ' Incline my heart to thy testimonies,' &c. And so he hath power to take off the natural and customary hardness which is in us, ' For the heart of man is in his hand as the rivers of water,' Prov. xxi. 1, and can as easily draw us out to good as water followeth when the trench is cut. But what needeth more arguing in the case ? David saith'here, ' Lord, incline mine heart ; and 1 Kings viii. 58, ' The Lord be with us, that he may incline our hearts unto him, to walk in all his wa3's, and keep his commandment.' It is God's work alone to bend the crooked stick the other way. But you will say, this work sometimes is ascribed to man ; for instance, ver. 112 of this psalm, ' I have inclined my heart to perform thy statutes alway, even unto the end ;' and Josh, xxiv. 23, ' Incline your heart unto the Lord God of Israel.'
I answer — These places do only note our subordinate operation, or the voluntary motion and resolution on our part. When God hath bent us and inclined us to do his will, when God hath made our love to act, and poised us to that which is spiritual and good, then we do incline, we bend our hearts this way. So that all these expressions do not imply a co-ordinate but subordinate operation on man's part.