And I will give them an heart to know me, that I am the LORD: and they shall be my people, and I will be their God: for they shall return unto me with their whole heart.
— Jeremiah 24:7
Only take heed to thyself, and keep thy soul diligently, lest thou forget the things which thine eyes have seen, and lest they depart from thy heart all the days of thy life: but teach them thy sons, and thy sons’ sons;
— Deuteronomy 4:9
But those things which proceed out of the mouth come forth from the heart; and they defile the man. For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies: These are the things which defile a man: but to eat with unwashen hands defileth not a man.
— Matthew 15:18-20
Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts: And see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.
— Psalm 139:23-24
By his knowledge the depths are broken up, and the clouds drop down the dew. My son, let not them depart from thine eyes: keep sound wisdom and discretion:
— Proverbs 3:20-21
He layeth up sound wisdom for the righteous: he is a buckler to them that walk uprightly.
— Proverbs 2:7
We know that whosoever is born of God sinneth not; but he that is begotten of God keepeth himself, and that wicked one toucheth him not.
— 1 John 5:18
A Special Warning to Hypocrites and Formal Professors, by John Flavel. The following contains excerpt from his work, “Keeping the Heart.”
Keep thy heart with all diligence, for out of it are the issues of life.
— Proverbs 4:23
O Christians! I fear your zeal and strength have run in the wrong channel; I fear most of us may take up the Church’s complaint, Cant. 1:6. “They have made me the keeper of the vineyards, but mine own vineyard have I not kept.” Two things have eaten up the time and strength of the professors of this generation, and sadly diverted them from heart-work: (1.) Fruitless controversies started by Satan, I doubt not, to this very purpose, to take us off from practical godliness, to make us puzzle our heads when we should be searching our hearts. O how little have we minded that of the apostle, Heb. 13:9. “It is a good thing that the heart be established with grace, and not with meats;” i.e. with disputes and controversies about meats, “which have not profited them that have been occupied therein.”
O how much better is it to see men live exactly, than to hear them dispute subtlely! These unfruitful questions, how have they rent the churches, wasted time and spirits, and called Christians off from their main business, from looking to their own vineyard? What think ye, sirs? Had it not been better if the questions agitated among the people of God of late days had been such as these? How shall a man discern the special, from the common operations of the Spirit? How may a soul observe its first declinings from God? How may a backsliding Christian recover his first love? How may the heart be preserved from unseasonable thoughts in duty? How may a bosom- sin be discovered, and mortified, &c. would not this have tended more to the credit of religion and comfort of your souls? O it is time to repent and be ashamed of this folly! When I read what Suarez, a Papist, said, who wrote many tomes of disputations, that he prized the time he set apart for the searching and examining of his heart, in reference to God, above all the time that ever he spent in other studies: I am ashamed to find the professors of this age yet insensible of their folly. Shall the conscience of a Suarez feel a relenting pang for strength and time so ill employed, and shall not yours? This is it your ministers long since warned you of; your spiritual nurses were afraid of the rickets, when they saw our heads only to grow, and our hearts to whither. O when will God beat our swords into plow- shares! I mean, our disputes and contentions into practical godliness. (2.) Another cause of neglecting our hearts hath been earthly incumbrances; the heads and hearts of many have been filled with such a croud and noise of worldly business, that they have sadly and sensibly declined and withered in their zeal, love, and delight in God; in their heavenly, serious, and profitable way of conversing with men.
O how hath this wilderness entangled us! our discourses and conferences, nay, our very prayers and duties have a tang of it: we have had so much work without doors, that we have been able to do but little within. It was the sad complaint of an holy one*, ‘O (saith he) it is sad to think how many precious opportunities I have lost; how many sweet motions and admonitions of the Spirit I have passed over unfruitfully, and made the Lord to speak in vain: in the secret illapses of his Spirit, the Lord hath called upon me, but my worldly thoughts did still lodge within me, and there was no place within my heart for such calls of God.” Surely there is a way of enjoying God, even in our worldly employments; God would never have put us upon them to our loss; “Enoch walked with God, and begat sons and daughters,” Gen. 5:19. He walked with God, but did not retire and separate himself from the things of this life: and the angels that are employed by Christ in the things of this world, (for the spirit of the living creatures is in the wheels) they are finite creatures, and cannot be in a twofold ubi at one time; yet they lose nothing of the beatifical vision all the time of their administration: for Mat. 18:10. “Their angels (even whilst they are employed for them) behold the face of their Father which is in heaven.” We need not lose our visions by our employments, if the fault were not our own. Alas! that ever Christians, who stand at the door of eternity, and have more work upon their hands than this poor moment of interposing time is sufficient for, should yet be filling both their heads and hearts with trifles.
3. Hence I infer for the awakening of all, That if the keeping of the heart be the great work of a Christian, then there are but few real Christians in the world.
Indeed if every one that hath learned the dialect of Christianity, and can talk like a saint: if every one that hath gifts and parts, and by the common assisting presence of the Spirit can preach, pray, or discourse like a Christian; in a word, if such as associate themselves with the people of God, and delight in ordinances, may pass for Christians, the number then is great.
But, alas! to what a small number will they shrink, if you judge them by this rule! how few are there that make conscience of keeping their hearts, watching their thoughts, judging their ends, &c. O there be but few closet men among professors! It is far easier for men to be reconciled to any duties in religion than to these: The profane part of the world will not so much as touch with the outside of religious duties, much less with this; and for the hypocrite, though he be polite and curious about those externals, yet you can never persuade him to this inward work, this difficult work, to which there is no inducement by human applause; this work, that would quickly discover what the hypocrite cares not to know; so that by a general consent, this heart- work is left to the hands of a few secret ones, and I tremble to think in how few hands it is.
II. Use, for Exhortation
A Special Encouragement to the People of God
If the keeping of the heart be so important a business; if such choice advantages accrue to you thereby; if so many dear and precious interests be wrapt up in it, then let me call upon the people of God every where to fall close to this work.
O study your hearts, watch your hearts, keep your hearts! away with fruitless controversies, and all idle questions; away with empty names and vain shews; away with unprofitable discourse and bold censures of others; turn in upon yourselves; get into your closets, and now resolve to dwell there. You have been strangers to this work too long; you have kept others vineyards too long; you have trifled about the borders of religion too long; this world hath detained you from your great work too long; will you now resolve to look better to your hearts? Will you haste and come out of the crowds of business, and clamours of the world, and retire yourselves more than you have done? O that this day you would resolve upon it!
Reader, methinks I should prevail with thee: All that I beg for is but this, that thou wouldst step aside a little oftener to talk with God, and thine own heart; that thou wouldst not suffer every trifle to divert thee; that thou wouldst keep a more true and faithful account of thy thoughts and affections; that thou wouldst but seriously demand of this thy own heart, at least every evening, O my heart, where hast thou been to-day? Whither hast thou made a road today?
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