c reformation of ordinances and worship, but alas, the deformation of
life and practice outcries all that noise. Nay, certainly all that is done
in the public, must come to no account before God since our practices
outcry it. Public reformation is abomination, where personal corruptions
do not cease. This made the Jews' solemn days hateful, their hands were
"full of blood." Isa. i. 15. All that ye have spent on the public will
never be reckoned, since ye will not consecrate your lives to God, will
not give your lusts up to him. Ye are his enemies in the mean time, though
you account yourselves religion's friends. I beseech you consider your
ways. Would any of us have thought to have seen such profanity, mocking of
godliness, and ignorance in Scotland in so short a time? Nay, it is to be
feared that the day is not far off, when ye will corrupt yourselves, and
do abominable things, yea, defile yourselves as ill as the nations that
know not God.

Every man useth to impute his faults to something beside himself. Ere men
take with their own iniquity, they will charge God that gave no more
grace, but if men knew themselves, they would deduce their corruption and
destruction both from one fountain, that is, from themselves. Ignorance of
ourselves maketh us oft undertake fair, and promise so well on our own
head. What was the fountain of this people's corruption, and apostatizing
from their professions? The Lord hints at it, Deut. v. 29, &c. "Oh that
they had such a heart." Alas, poor people, ye know not yourselves, that
speak so well. I know thee better than thou dost thyself, I will declare
unto thee thy own thought, thou hast not such a heart as to do what thou
sayest; there is a desperate wicked heart within thee, that will destroy
thee by lying unto thee. If thou knewest this fountain of original
corruption, thou wouldest despair of doing, and say, I cannot serve the
Lord. Now here is the fountain of the land's corruption this day. Why is
our way corrupted? Because our hearts within were not cleansed, and
because they were not known. If we had dried up the fountain, the streams
had ceased, but we did only dam it up, and cut off some streams for a
season; we set up our resolutions and purposes as an hedge to hold it in,
but the sea of the heart's iniquity, that is above all things, hath
overflowed it, and defiled our way more than in former times. Ye thought
upon no other thing, but that presently ye would be all changed peop