THough we are in the hand of a skilful Arti­ficer, that of the knottiest and crookedest Timber, can make Beams and Rafters for his own [Page 2]House; that can square the Marble and Flint, as well as the Free-stone: And though the Sunshine of Divine Grace can melt and thaw the Ice, of the most congealed hardned Heart, and God can turn men extempore into Saints by his Omnipotent Convin­cing Spirit: yet if we observe the more Ordinary Course of God's Proceedings, we shall find that there is a Peculiar Temper of Mind, which is most agreeable to the receiving of Christ; which those that are Owners of, are said to be [...], Fit or disposed for the King­dom of God: They must have that peculiar Temper, wherein the Gospel will take root, and prosper, namely, an Humble, Flexible and Soft Heart: whereas on the other side; there isLuc. 9.62. AN EVIL HEART OF UNBELIEF, andHeb. 3.12. A REPROBATE Mind; and2 Cor. 13.5. A HARD HEART, Heb. 3.13. HARDENED THROUGH THE DECEITFULNESS OF SIN, against which St. Paul gives us this necessary Caution here in my Text, saying, HARDEN NOT YOUR HEARTS.

From which words I shall endeavour to shew you these Four things:

First, How and when Man Hardens his own Heart.

Secondly, How and when God, without any impeachment to his Justice, may be said to Har­den the Heart.

Thirdly, What are the Properties of a Hard Heart.

[Page 3] Fourthly, By What means we may avoid this Hardness, this Obduration, And

First, I shall shew you, How, and When, Man Hardens his own Heart: For the more perfect dis­covery whereof I must acquaint you with three sorts of Hardness:

First, A Natural Hardness, the Hardness of our Natural Inclination, which was Born with us.

Secondly, A Voluntary Hardness, A Hardness acquired by our own Resolutions and Endeavours.

Thirdly, A Penal, A Judicial Hardness.

First, A Natural Hardness, or the Hardness of our Natural Inclination, which was Born with us.

Physicians tell us of a disease converting the Womb into a Hard Stone; and the Story in Crollius of [...] A Child of a perfect stony Substance, is asserted by others: and such Children are we by Nature, Children of a perfect stony Substance, of stony Hearts: There grows A hard Pearl in the Understanding, the Eye of Our Souls, which makes us almost Blind.

The Soul of the Natural man is so stupified by Obduration, that it measures all Divine Truths by the Standard of Sense and Reason: The Eye of his Soul looking downward, sees clear enough, but if it looks up to the Sun of Righteousness, 'tis, pre­sently dazled: We are Naturally Eagle-Ey'd in Worldly things; Mole-Ey'd in Heavenly, in Spiri­tual things.

[Page 4]The Will of a meer Natural man (before the Grace of God Emancipates and sets it free, and makes it capable of any good impression) is obsti­nate, and impenetrable: We may as easily pierce a Rock, or dissolve a Flint, as prevail upon it, when 'tis overgrown with that Crust of Natural Hard­ness; which oftentimes is improved and increa­sed by the Addition of a Voluntary and Acquired Hardness; which brings me to the Second kind of Hardness; and that is,

Secondly, A Voluntary Hardness, A Hardness ac­quired by our own Resolutions and Endeavours; A Wilful Hardness; when men have wilfully per­sisted in long continued Habits of many sins, which (like gravel after long continuance in the Bladder) Cake into a Stone, and make their hearts hard and obdurate. They have enslaved themselves by a strong Habit of Obduration, they are bored through the Ear, and are resolvedly bent not to change their Servile and Slavish condition.

The Cords of Sin, with which they have bound themselves, are of their own twisting, and those Cords are twisted into so strong a Habit, that they are not easily broken; and when men have brought themselves into these Circumstances, they are al­most under a fatal Necessity of committing Sin: I do not believe (saith aDr. Tillot­son's Sermon on Heb. 3.13 pag. 13. Reverend Author) that God hath Predestinated any man to ruine; But by a long Course of Wilful Sins, men may (in a manner) Predestinate themselves to it, and [Page 5]Choose wickedness so long, till at last it becomes Necessary; and continue to be bad men upon the same account, that the Historian Extravagantly saith Cato was Vertuous, Quia aliter esse non potuit, vellei. Paterc. BECAUSE HE COULD NOT BE OTHER­WISE being bound in the chains of their own wick­edness, nay, like Sampson, not only bound by those lusts which they have embraced, but likewise, robbed of all their strength, whereby they should break loose from those Bonds. And this brings me to the Third kind of Hardness I named to you, and that is

Thirdly, A Judicial, a Penal Hardness; when men are hardned by God by way of punishment for hard­ning themselves; their Voluntary Hardness proves the mother of their Penal Hardness; as you may see in the 12th of St. John, 39, 40. Therefore THEY COULD NOT BELIEVE, BECAUSE THAT ISAIAH SAID, HE HATH BLINDED THEIR EYES, AND HARDNED THEIR HEARTS, THAT THEY SHOULD NOT SEE WITH THEIR EYES, NOR UNDERSTAND WITH THEIR HEARTS, AND BE CONVERTED. It is as St. Augustin observes Pecca­tum est poe­na peccati & causa peccati. SIN IS BOTH THE PUNISHMENT & CAUSE OF SIN; which happens when the Soul is so overspread with the Contagion of Sin, that all Spiritual food corrupts within it; which God perceiving, withdraws the wholsom food of his Grace he did before allow it; He with-holds those Beams which before kept the heart soft and pliant, and thereby it is congealed and frozen; God being justly provoked withdraws his Grace, and leaves us to our selves; and though Satan tempts us to Obduration, yet neither God nor Satan, do real­ly [Page 6]or effectually, produce this Hardness in us, we breed it in our selves, as ill diet may occasion the stone in the Bladder but it is the inward distemper of the body, that immediately breeds it: For, the fur­ther illustration whereof, I shall, as I promised, en­deavour to shew you,

SECONDLY; How & when God, without any impeachment to his Justice, may be said to Har­den Mans Heart; and First, God may be said to Harden men, when he withdraws his grace, be­cause men have first Hardened their hearts against it: It being free for God to take the forfeiture of his grace and mercy, when, and how far, he plea­ses: For although that Help of General Grace al­lowed to all, be, if rightly improved, sufficient to strengthen and Convert the Soul, and to emanci­pate and make the Will Free: Yet if we forfeit our Indentures by the abuse of our Liberty, and neglect the Grace of God, when offered to us, he then may most justly withdraw it from us, and take away the Patent our Wills had for the Pri­viledge of their Freedom: To which purpose 'tis generally observed by Divines, that there is to eve­ry Sinner a time, when the measure of his iniqui­ty is filled up, and Gods Patience in waiting for him is so wearied, that he withdraws his grace, and gives over calling him to Repentance; this was wont to be called by the Jews THE MEASURE OF JUDGMENT; i. e. such a pitch of Sin, which Judgment inevitably followed: And it is possible, that to Obdurate Sinners such a time may be, which [Page 7]may be their last for grace, though not their last for life: That they may live here, and yet be dead eternally: and that a time may be whenHeb. 10.26. THERE WILL REMAIN NO MORE SACRIFICE FOR SIN, but Sinners are Sealed up to Obdura­tion, when God in Justice strikes them dead, who would not live, and consigns them to Damnation who were before resolved to Damn themselves. And St. Basil hath asserted Gods Justice in this Case, by affirming that God, though he hardens mens hearts, yet he is not the Author of Sin: But that Sin is [...] OF MANS OWN CHOICE, not Originally and primarily from God, or by any Positive Act of Gods upon him; of which he gives us a lively instance in Pharaoh whom God found hardned; he did not make him So. And, if you read the story, and observe the method of Gods Proceedings with Pharaoh, you shall find Exod, 8.15.32. that Pha­raoh. HARDNED HIS OWN HEART: And when after so many miraculous Judgments, He was not reformed, then tis said, in a new stile, Exod. 9.10. & 10.27. That the LORD HARDNED PHARAOHS HEART: But there is one Objection, that seems to interfere with this Doctrine, which I must re­move, and then I'le shake hands with this Parti­cular.

The OBJECTION IS THIS.

Did not God tell Moses at first, before ever we read that Pharaoh paved his Heart with Obdura­tion, [Page 8]that he would Harden him? Did not God say to Moses, Exod. 4.21. DO ALL THE WON­DERS BEFORE PHAROAH, WHICH I HAVE PUT INTO THINE HAND, BUT I WILL HARDEN HIS HEART, THAT HE SHALL NOT LET THE PEOPLE GO: Now these words of God, I WILL HARDEN HIS HEART, are recorded before we have any news of Pharaoh's Hardning himself.

To which I Answer,

That Gods foretelling so early, that he would Harden Pharaoh's heart, is no argument, that he would do it immediately, and without any Deme­rit of Pharaoh's; but that God, foreseeing and fore­knowing, that Pharaoh would lay the first stone of his Obduration, and first harden himself, said there­upon, I WILL HARDEN HIS HEART: Now that God foresaw Pharaoh's hardning himself is clear and evident from Exod. 3.19. AND I AM SURE THAT THE KING OF AEGYPT WILL NOT LET YOU GO, NO NOT BY A MIGHTY HAND: So that if you carefully peruse the History of Pharaoh's life and actions, you will find that God did not Harden him, till he had hardned himself six times against Gods heavy Judg­ments: Which was a notable Example of Gods dealings with an Obdurate Sinner, that hath filled up the measure of his Sins, keeping him alive, but without Grace, without Repentance.

SECONDLY, God may be said to harden men (without any impeachment to his Justice) by pre­senting occasions, which Sinners, through their own innate Corruption, make instrumental to their Ob­duration; [Page 9]but this can reflect no dishonour up­on God, nor blemish his Justice, because these occasions are not designed by God to DECOY any into Sin, but are good in themselves: Light (though good and pleasant in it self) yet it hurts Sore Eyes: What is there so good, that obdurate Sinners will not abuse?

Pharaoh was Hardned by Miracles, by which a­nother man's Heart would have been mollified: the Hardned Sinner (like the Spider) sucks poyson out of every thing: He sucks poyson from that, which was designed as an Antidote for him: To this purpose 'tis said Jer. 6.21. I WILL LAY STUM­BLING BLOCKS BEFORE THIS PEOPLE; that is, such Occasions and Providences, as through their own wilfull obdurateness are a means to ruin them: It being Ordinary in Scripture to ascribe an Act to God, whereof he gives the Occasion; An Exam­ple of this may be Shimei's Cursing David, which he told Abishai in 2 Sam. 16.11. that the Lord bid him do: But how did the Lord bid him? He gave him no outward Command, neither did he move him to it by any internal impulse; for, if God had done either, He had been the Author of Shimei's Cursing, and Shimei had been blameless: What o­ther meaning then can these words (THE LORD HAD BIDDEN HIM) be capable of but this? namely, that God did present the Occasion, in letting Shimei [Page 10]see David, in that Affliction spoken of in the 12th verse, and with a small retinue flying from his Son Absalom; his Guards about him being then so small and inconsiderable, that Shimei thought, he might safely vomit out his rancour, and fury, a­gainst him: In all which, and the like, actions, God derogates nothing from his Justice; these Occa­sions, which God Presents, being in themselves harmless, though wicked men abuse them.

And this may suffice for the Second thing I was to shew you; namely How and When God, with­out any impeachment to his Justice, may be said to Harden the Heart.

I Proceed now to shew you,

THIRDLY, What are the Properties of a Hard Heart; and the FIRST Property of a Hard Heart is this, that it doth not yield to any means of grace; For,

First, It cannot be prevailed upon by the word of God, which is a Powerful Agent; the Preach­er that speaks to obdurate Sinners, speaks to Rocks, rather than Men; the Earth will sooner tremble than they;

Their Hearts are so guarded with the Armour of Obduration, that the Word of God, though it be a two-edged Sword, cannot enter into them: Though God hath ordained a Function of men, by whom he does beseech them; though he arms [Page 11]their Messages, and Doctrines, with such Terrors, as makes the very Devils tremble, and joyns his holy Spirit too, sends him in tongues of Fire, that he also may preach to them; and fright them with more flame; yet Hardned Sinners break these Strengths, and vanquish all the Arts and Strivings of the Almighty; and though Gods Ambassadours flash Hell fire against their Vices, in torrents of Scripture threatnings and Comminations, they con­cern themselves no more, than they would at the story of a new eruption of Aetna or Vesuvius; their Hearts are turned into Stone, into pure Mine and Quarry; and thereupon such, as Preach to them, may be said to be damnati ad Metalla, (that old Roman Punishment) condemned like slaves to dig in these Mines and Quarries; So that as Cato Cen­sorius paved the Courts of Judicature with sharp stones, that men might not delight in Law-suits; So the Courts of the Lords House are often paved with Hard Hearts, that the Preacher might be discouraged from Preaching. There is so much Ice in mens hearts, there hath been so long a win­ter in their affections, which are chill and dull to all goodness; that the word of God, which is said to beJerem. 23.29. A FIRE, cannot thaw or melt them: And as a hard heart cannot be prevailed upon by the word of God; So neither

Secondly, Will it be wrought upon by Gods good Spirit; for, though it cannot hinder the grace of [Page 12]God from shining upon it, yet it may, and often does hinder the workings and Operations of that grace; and receives the grace of God in vain; andHeb. 10.29. DOES DESPIGHT TO THE SPIRIT OF GRACE, and abuses, andJude. 4. TURNS THE GRACE OF GOD INTO WANTONNESS.

It was strange that Christ when he was upon Earth Converted so few; the Evangelist wonder'd at it, John 12.37. THOUGH HE HAD DONE SO MANY MIRACLES AMONG THEM, YET THEY BELIEVED NOT IN HIM. BUT he satisfies the wonder, and gives the reason of it out of the Prophet Isaiah, THERE­FORE THEY COULD NOT BELIEVE, BECAUSE THEIR HEARTS WERE HARDNED: Their Hardness was the cause of their small progress in believing; Engra­vers upon stone cannot rid much work; they that Point and Polish Diamonds, use much grinding to wear away a little unevenness. And then

Thirdly, The hard heart will not be wrought upon by the mercy of God; God's Mercy to Pharaoh hardned his Heart; [...]. HE HARDNED, HIM BY HIS MERCY AND FORBEARANCE BY RESPI­TING HIS PUNISHMENT, saith St. Basil.

The Hardned Sinner shrowds his Sins under the wings of Gods mercy; He makes Gods mercy his Protection in Sin: Accustomed dangers escaped harden the Sinner oftentimes to a Stupidity: The ruder Marriners, that have weathered out several storms will steal, blaspheme, and be drunk, in [Page 13]the next tempest: And Dion Cassius tells us, that Catiline being accused for the murders, and rapines, committed on those, whom Sylla had proscribed, and escaping the condemnation, under which others fell for the same Crimes, [...] DID FROM THIS GROW MUCH WORSE: The Hardned Sinner COMMITS the Attri­butes of God, and (as it were) raises a Contest and Dispute between them; and to all de­clarations of his future Justice, he opposes that God is mercifull; that satisfied with his own rectitude, he descends not to mark mens follies; and thus he baffles Gods Veracity with his Clemency, and makes his long-suffering wear out the sense of his Justice: How far such foolish Collections as these will prevail to harden mens hearts, the Wise man tell us Eccles. 8.11. BECAUSE SENTENCE AGAINST AN EVIL WORK IS NOT SPEEDI­LY EXECUTED, THEREFORE THE HEARTS OF THE SONS OF MEN ARE FULLY SET IN THEM TO DO EVIL: Such is the hard-hearted Sinners misery, that God cannot look friendly upon him, but by his too much presuming upon it he ruines and undoes himself: Heavens shining and smile­ing hurts him more than its lowring; the long­er the Hardned Sinner looks upon the Sun of Gods mercy he gathers the more spots, and impairs the beavty of his Soul: God is forced to be a tyrant to obdurate Sinners; He must be always whip­ping and scourging them; and till they are mol­lified and bettered by stripes, He cannot in mercy [Page 14]remove his rod: His taking away his plagues from them would be a greater Plague to them. And then

Fourthly, A Hard Heart cannot sometimes be wrought upon by Gods Judgments: As Gods mer­cy cannot draw it, so his Judgments cannot drive it from Sin. It is an insensate unrelenting Anvil to the heaviest Strokes of the Divine Vengeance: It does (like the Roman Emperour Caligula) [...] thunder back against God, and shoot up a sin, a provocation, against Heaven, for every arrow of Judgment shot down from Heaven; It under­values Gods Power; Hector's and Braves his Om­nipotence; it continues to affront God to his face af­ter all his Judgments, as if he had wasted all his thunderbolts, emptied his Quiver, and broke his Sword in the last encounter; and were like those poor Animals, who lose their sting in the first wound they give. He that should have seen the Tragical iniquity we read of, in the City of Lyons, which was so visited with the Pestilence, that the Dead (without a Figure) buried their Dead, falling down one upon another, each being at once both a Carkass and a Grave; He, I say that should have seen this, and observ'd withal, that the Souldiers daily issued out of the Cittadel, and deflowred Vir­gins, even whilst they were giving up the ghost defiled Matrons even already dead, COMMIT­TING with the dust, warming the grave with sinful heats, and coupling with the Plague and Death; would certainly have been amazed, to see [Page 15]men so hardned in sin, as to Suffer and Sin toge­ther: And thus much for the First Property of a hard heart, that it does not yield to any means of Grace: Secondly. A

SECOND Property of a hard heart is this, that it hath no Feeling in it; it is insensate: It is ob­served in the Body, that the rest of the senses may be distempered and lost, without much impairing the health of it, but only the Touch cannot, which therefore is called the SENSE of life; because that Part, or Body, which is deprived of Feeling is also at deaths door, and hath no more life in it, than it hath reliques of this Sense: So is it also in Spiritual matters, of all other Symptoms, this of a hardned Senlesness is most dangerous; and as the Greek Physicians are wont to say of a desperate disease, [...], very, very mortal: A Man may not feel an aile and yet not be in health; and it is a good degree of health to know our disease; For if a Sinner grow once so hard and senseless, as that no Physick, no means, will work upon that Body of death, that does encompass him, Conclamatum est, We may ring his Funeral knell; for, though he be alive, and in this world, he is dead to all Grace and goodness: If there be no remorse, no grief, no dislike of sin, then woe be to us, this is descensus Averni; the lowest stair that leads to the Chambers of death.

I have read that, near the City of Capena, lay a stone of great note, which upon great droughts the People would bring into the City, and large [Page 16]showers of rain would presently fall; but if we would be tenderly sensible of, and weep large showers of penetential tears for our sins; we must on the contrary, beg of God, to remove the stone out of our hearts, and give us a soft and tender heart, a heart of flesh: And thus having described to you the Properties of a Hard Heart; it is high time I should make use, of those words of Hipocrates [...]; Furnish your selves with all the Softning Plaisters you can, which may either prevent, or remove, this Obdu­ration: And this brings me to the Fourth thing I was to shew you; And that is,

Fourthly, By What means we may avoid this Hardness; And

First, If you would avoid it, avoid gross Sins; for they wast the Conscience, make havock of grace, and render the heart hard and callous: When David cut off the lap of Saul's garment 'tis said, his heart smote him; but when he fell into those foul sins of Adultery and Murder, it is not then said, his Heart smote him; it grew hard upon the commission of those gross sins, till God dis­patcht the Prophet Nathan to him, to rouse and awake him. As for Sins of Infirmity, which are sins of a less and imperfect Choice, some Passions blinding or corrupting the Judgment, they are entailed upon All; and, as the Schoolmen say, Possibility of Sinning is included in the notion of a Creature: But though all men are prone to Sins of Infirmty, and yet all mens Hearts are not so Hard­ned [Page 17]as Habitually to commit gross and scandalous Sins; they have not such vitiated Palats, as to be able to drink down the worst dregs and lees of Vice: When Conscience saith to any person this is a Great Sin, Commit it not, and yet in despite of Con­science, and the Checks it gives him, he will run on; It is just with Conscience, (when its Counsel is rejected) like Achitophel, to strangle and stiffle it self. And as we must abstain from gross Sins, so if we would avoid Hardness of Heart.

Secondly, We must be careful not to harbour any the smallest Sin, with satisfaction and delight: By giving way to little Sins, one after another, we are prepared and disposed for greater, and our strongest Resolutions against them are broken; for though they be not snapt in sunder at once, yet by this means they are untwisted by degrees, and then it is easie to break them, one Thread after another: 'tis scarce imaginable of what Strength and Vigour one Sinful Action (be it never such a Dwarf in our Eyes) is, to Procreat and beget more: for Sin is Prolifical and Fruitful; and, though there be no Blessing annext to it, yet it does strangly ENCREASE & MVLTIPLY: There are certain Rudiments and First Elements of Vices, in which men are first enter'd, & they advance gradually to more gross and heinous Crimes.

Our Saviour reproves the Pharisees in the Gospel, because they would strain at Gnats, and swallow Camels; but yet it is true, that men learn at length to swallow Camels, by swallowing Gnats at first.

[Page 18]No Sinner is so adventurous, as to attempt the greatest Sins at first; the way by which men train up themselves to the committing gross and heinous Sins, is, by not making Conscience of committing less Sins; and yet, I know not Nescio an possimus leve aliquod peccatum dicere quod in der con­temptum admittitur. (saith Paulinus in St. Jerom) WHE­THER WE CAN CALL ANY SIN LITTLE, THAT IS COM­MITTED AGAINST GOD: Small Contempts a­gainst Great Princes are accounted great Crimes; for what is wanting in the thing, is made up in the Worth of the Person; How great a Sin then is the smallest Contempt of the Majesty of God? To which I may also add, that when a small Sin comes by Design, and is Acted with Knowledge and Deli­beration, the Malice of the Agent heightens the smallness of the Act, and makes up the Iniquity. It is incredible how insensibly many small Sins heigh­ten and inflame our Reckonings, and encrease our Spiritual Hardness: Oh then that we wouldCant. 2.15. TAKE THESE LITTLE FOXES; Psal. 1 37.9. that WE WOULD DASH THESE BABYLON's BRATS AGAINST THE WALLS. And this brings me to the Third Remedy against Obduration, and that is;

Thirdly, To nip the forbidden Fruit of Sin in the Bud, before it grows into a Habit; Ibi maxime opor­tet observare Peccatum ubi nasci solet, saith St. Jerom; Observe, and Kill Sin in its infancy; Crush this Cockatrice in the Egg: The Tree, which was in the beginning but a small Plant, may at length bear [Page 19]its Head and Branches so high, as to cast a most dan­gerous Shadow: Even the smallest Pullulations of Sin must not be neglected; the first Blossoms of Iniquity must be blown away; For Sin is of a grow­ing, multiplying nature; there is usually a Concate­nation of Vices; one Devil brings seven other De­vils; One Sin makes a Bridge for more to come over, like the Waves of the Sea, the End of the one is the Beginning of the other: If we go with Sin one Mile, it will compel us to go with it twain: It will swell like the Cloud Elijah saw, from the Big­ness of a Man's Hand, to such a vast Expansion as will cover the Skie: No man descends to the worst at first, but gradually, Step by Step; as Marriners setting sail, first lose the sight of the Shore, then of the Houses, then of the Steeples, then Mountains and Land.

Few or none are so hardned, and desperate, at first, as to leap into Hell: Alipius, in St. Austin; who went only at first for Company, to those bloody Spectacles of the Gladiators, came at last to applaud them: We know where we begin and set out in Sin, but we know not where we shall End, or take up; as no man can say, He will let in just so many Pale­fuls of the Sea, and no more. Stulta res est Nequitiae Modus, saith Seneca; 'tis a foolish, ridiculous thing for a man to think to set bounds to himself in any thing that is bad; or to hope to sin by Rules of Art, and in Number, Weight and Measure.

Fourthly and Lastly, If you would avoid this Hard­ness, use fervent and constant Prayer. Let us im­portune [Page 20]God to cut the Thread of our Wickedness, that we may not spin it out to such a length: Let us sue out a Divorce between us, and our Beloved Sins, that Harden us. The Fire of Prayer must never go out, if we expect that such Mettal as a Hard Heart consists of, should ever be melted by it.

Those, who endeavour Chymically to extract the Philosopher's Stone, must never let their Fire go out; and so those, who would extract and draw the Stone out of their Hearts, must never let the Fire of their Devotion go out; this Fire (like that of the Vestal Virgins at Rome) must be alway kept Burning. Now, that we may make an Experiment of this last Recipe of Prayer against Obduration, let us Begg of God to take away these Hearts of Stone, from within us, and give us Hearts of Flesh, for his dear Son Jesus Christ his sake; to whom, with the Fa­ther and the Holy Ghost, be all Honour, Glory, and Praise, both now and for ever.