Jer. xvii. 9. The heart is deceitful above all things, and despe- rately wicked : tvho can know it ?
A MORE important subject than that before us cannot occupy the human mind. The knowledge of ourselves is fundamental to all true knowledge of religion. Religion is no longer to us what it was to man in his primeval state, the natural expression of all the feelings of his soul : it is a remedy, devised for the restoration of his soul to the favour, and to the image, of his God : and we must see in what manner, and to what extent, we are fallen, before we can understand aright the provision made for our re- covery: we must know our disorder before we can appreciate the remedy. Behold then what the Scripture speaks concerning us! The expressions in our text are not an eastern metaphor, that must be softened down ; or a complaint uttered against one particular individual, whose impieties far ex- ceeded the common standard of mankind : they are a plain exposition of the state to which the heart of man is reduced by the fall of Adam: and, however we may wish, for the credit of human nature, to put a lenient construction on the terms, we cannot by any fair means explain them away: they are abso- lutely inflexible ; and we must bow before them, as containing the infallible testimony of God concerning us. But it is not without a considerable measure of fear and diffidence that we enter upon the investiga- tion of a subject so deep, so vast, so occult. When God himself says, " Who can know it ?" we seem presumptuous in undertaking to explain it. But we hope that the acknowledged necessity of every man's attaining some knowledge of it will plead our excuse for any attempt which we may make to throw light upon it ; and that you will supply our defects by lifting up your hearts to God in prayer, and en- treating him to give you that self-knowledge, which, even a heathen saw, must descend from heaven.
The subjects then for our present consideration are, the deceitfulness, and wickedness, of the human heart : I. Its deceitfulness —
There is perhaps no stronger proof of the deceitful-