The Application
I. Use — Information.
You have heard that the keeping of the heart is the great work of a Christian, in which the very soul and life of religion consists, and without which all other duties are of no value with God. Hence then I shall infer, to the consternation of hypocrites and formal professors,
1. That the pains and labours which many persons have taken in religion, are but lost labour, and pains to no purpose, such as will never turn to account.
Many great services have been performed, many glorious works are wrought by men, which yet are utterly rejected by God, and shall never stand upon record in order to an eternal acceptation, because they took no heed to keep their hearts with God in those duties. This is that fatal rock, upon which thousands of vain professors have split themselves eternally: they are curious about the externals of religion, but regardless of their hearts. O how many hours have some professors spent in hearing, praying, reading, conferring! and yet, as to the main end of religion, as good they had sat still and done nothing. For all this signifies nothing; the great work, I mean heart- work, being all the while neglected. Tell me, thou vain professor, when didst thou shed a tear for the deadness, hardness, unbelief, or earthliness of thy heart? Thinkest thou such an easy religion can save thee? If so, we may invert Christ’s words, and say, “Wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to life; and many there be that go in thereat.” Hear me, thou self- deluding hypocrite — thou that hast put off God with heartless duties — thou that hast acted in religion as if thou hadst been blessing an idol, that couldst not search and discover thy heart — thou that hast offered to God but the skin of the sacrifice, not the marrow, fat, and inwards of it, — how wilt thou abide the coming of the Lord? How wilt thou hold up thy head before him, when he shall say, O thou dissembling false-hearted man, how couldst thou profess religion? With what face couldst thou so often tell me thou lovest me, when thou knewest all the while, in thine own conscience, that thine heart was not with me. O tremble to think what a fearful judgment it is to be given over to a heedless and careless heart; and then to have religious duties, instead of a rattle, to quiet and still the conscience!
2, Hence also infer, for the humiliation even of upright hearts, that unless the people of God spend more time and pains about their hearts than generally and ordinarily they do, they are never like to do God much service, or be owners of much comfort in this world.
I may say of that Christian that is remiss and careless in keeping his heart, as Jacob said of Reuben, “Thou shalt not excel.” It grieves me to see how many Christians there are, that go up and down dejected and complaining, that live at a poor low rate both of service and comfort. And how can they expect it should be otherwise, as long as they live at such a careless rate? O how little of their time is spent in the closet, in searching, humbling, and quickening their hearts!
You say your hearts are dead: and do you wonder they are so, as long as you keep them not with the Fountain of life? If your bodies had been dieted as your souls have been, they would have been dead too. Never expect better hearts till you take more pains with them: he that will not have the sweat, must not expect the sweet of religion.
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: “They 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, “It is a good thing that the heart be established with grace; not with meats” — that is, 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 subtly! These unfruitful questions, how have they rended the churches; wasted time and spirits; and called Christians olF 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 discern 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 volumes 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 your heads only to grow, and your hearts to wither.
0 when will God beat our swords into plough-shares!
1 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 crowd 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 man. 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 a holy one, (Mr. Strong,) ‘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. 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 beatific vision all the time of their administration; for “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 also, 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 — ExJwrtation.
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 shows; away with unprofitable discourse, and bold censures of others. Turn in upon yourselves; get into your closet, and now resolve to dwell there. You have been strangers to this work 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 busineSvS, 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 thine own heart, at least every evening, O my heart, where hast thou been to-day? whither hast thou made a road to-day? — If all that hath been said, by way of inducement, be not enough, I have yet more motives to offer you; and the first is this:
Motive 1. The studying, observing, and diligent keeping of your own hearts, will marvellously help your understanding in the deep mysteries of religion.
An honest, well-experienced heart, is a singular help to a weak head: such a heart will serve you instead of a commentary, upon a great part of the Scriptures. By this means you shall far better understand the things of God, than the learned rabbles and profound doctors (if graceless and inexperienced) ever did; you shall not only have a more clear, but a more sweet perception and gust of them. A man may discourse orthodoxly and profoundly of the nature and effects of faith, the troubles and comforts of conscience, the sweetness of communion with God, that never felt the efficacy and sweet impression of these things upon his own spirit. But O how dark and dry are these notions, compared with his upon whose heart they have been acted! When such a man reads David’s Psalms, or Paul’s Epistles, there he finds his own objections made and answered. O, saith he, these holy men speak my very heart! their doubts were mine, their troubles mine, and their experiences mine. I remember Chrysostome, speaking to his people of Antioch about some choice experiences, useth this expression: “Those that are initiated know what I say; experience is the best schoolmaster.” O then! study your hearts, keep your hearts.
Motive 2. The study and observation of your own hearts will be an antidote to you against the dangerous and infecting errors of the times and places you live in.
For what think you is the reason that so many professors in England have departed from the faith, giving heed to fables; that so many thousands have been led away by the error of the wicked; that Jesuits and Quakers, who have sown corrupt doctrine, have had such plentiful harvests among us, — but because they have met with a company of empty notional professors, that never knew what belongs to practical godliness, and the study of their own hearts? If professors did but give diligence to study, search, and watch their own hearts, they would have that steadfastness of their own that Peter speaks of, 1 Pet. iii. 17.; and this would ballast and settle them, Heb. xiii. 9. Suppose a subtle Papist should talk to such of the dignity and merit of good works, could he ever work the persuasion of it into that heart that is conscious to itself of so much darkness, deadness, distraction, and unbelief, attending its best duties? It is a good rule. There is no disputing against taste. What a man hath felt and tasted, one cannot beat him off from by argument.
Motive 3. Your care and diligence in keeping your hearts will prove one of the best evidences of your sincerity.
I know no external act of religion that differences the sound from the unsound professor. It is wonderful to consider, how far hypocrites go in all external duties, how plausibly they can order the outward man, hiding all their indecencies from the observation of the world. But then, they take no heed to their hearts; they are not in secret, what they appear to be in public; and before this trial no hypocrite can stand. It is confessed, they may in a fit, under a pang upon a death-bed, cry out of the wickedness of their hearts; but alas! there is no heed to be taken to these extorted complaints in our law; no credit is to be given to the testimony of one upon the rack, because it may be supposed that the extremity of the torture may make him say any thing to be eased: but if self-jealousy, care, and watchfulness, be the daily workings and frames of thy heart, it strongly argues the sincerity of it. For what but the sense of a divine eye, what but the real hatred of sin as sin, could put thee upon those secret duties which lie out of the observation of all creatures? If, then, it be a desirable thing in thine eyes to have a fair testimony of thine integrity, and to know of a truth that thou fearest God, then study thine heart, watch thy heart, keep thy heart.
Motive 4. How fruitful, sweet, and comfortable would all ordinances and duties be to us, if our hearts were better kept!
O what precious communion might you have with
God every time you approach him, if your hearts were
but in frame! You might then say with David,” My
meditation of him shall be sweet.” That which loses all our comforts in ordinances and more secret duties, is the indisposedness of the heart. A Christian, whose heart is in a good frame, gets the start of all others that come with him in that duty. They strive hard to get up their hearts to God; now trying this argument upon them, and then that, to quicken and aflPect them, and sometimes go away as bad as they came. Sometimes the duty is almost ended before their hearts begin to stir or feel any warmth, quickening, or power from it; but all this while the prepared heart is at its work: this is he that ordinarily gets the sight of Christ in a sermon, the first seal from Christ in a sacrament, the first kiss from Christ in secret prayer. I tell you, and I tell you but what I have felt, that prayers and sermons would appear to you other manner of things than they do, did you but bring better ordered hearts to them. You would not go away dejected and drooping: O this hath been a lost day, a lost duty to me. If you had not lost your hearts it had not been so. If, then, the comfort of ordinances be sweet, look to your hearts, keep your hearts.
Motive 5. Acquaintance with your own hearts would be a fountain of matter to you in prayer.
A man that is diligent in heart -work, and knows the state of his own soul, will have a fountain-fulness of matter to supply him richly in all his addresses to God. His tongue shall not faulter and make pause for want of matter: “My heart is inditing a good matter:” or, as Montanus renders the original, “My heart is boiling up good matter, like a living spring that is still bubbhng up fresh water.” And then, “My tongue is as the pen of a ready writer.” Others must pump their memories, rack their inventions, and are often at a loss when they have done all: but it” thou hast kept and faithfully studied thine own heart, it will be with thee, as Job speaks in another case, “like bottles full of new wine, that want vent, which are ready to burst.” As holy matter flows plentifully, so more feelingly and sweetly from such a heart. When a heart-experienced Christian is mourning before God over some special heart-corruption, wrestling with God for the supply of some special inward want, he speaks not as other men do that have learned to pray by rote: their confessions and petitions are squeezed out; his drop freely, like pure honey from the comb. It is a happiness, then, to be with or near such a Christian. I remember Bernard, having given rules to prepare the heart for prayer, concludes them thus: “When thy heart is in this frame, then remember me.”
Motive 6. By this the decayed power of religion will be recovered again among professors, which is the most desirable sight in this world.
O that I might live to see that day, when professors shall not walk in a vain show; when they shall please themselves no more with a name to live, being spiritually dead; when they shall be no more, as many of them now are, a company of frothy, vain, and unserious persons: but the majestic beams of holiness, shining from their heavenly and serious conversations, shall awe the world, and command reverence from all that are about them; when they shall warm the hearts of those that come nigh them, so that men shall say, “God is in these men of a truth!” Well, such a time may again be expected, according to that promise, “The people shall be all righteous.” But, till we. pursue closer this great work of keeping our hearts, I am out of hopes of seeing those blessed days: I cannot expect better times, till God gives better hearts. Doth it not grieve you to see what a scorn religion is made in the world — what objects of contempt and scorn the professors of it are made in the world?
Professors, would you recover your credit? would you again obtain an honourable testimony in the consciences of your very enemies? then keep your hearts, watch your hearts. It is the looseness, frothiness, and earthliness of your hearts that hath made your lives so. And this hath brought you under the contempt of the world: you first lose your sight of God and communion with him, then your heavenly and serious deportment among men; and by that, your interest in their consciences. O then, for the credit of religion, for the honour of your profession, keep your hearts!
Motive 7. By diligence in keeping your hearts, we should prevent and remove the fatal scandals and stumbling-blocks out of the way of the world.
“Woe to the world,” saith Christ, “because of offences.” Doth not shame cover your faces? do not your hearts bleed within you, to hear of the scandalous miscarriages of many loose professors? Could you not, like Shem and Japheth, go backward with a garment to cover the shame of many professors! How is that worthy name blasphemed! James ii. 7. 2 Sam. xii. 13, 14.; the hearts of the righteous saddened! Psal. XXV. 3. Ezek. xxxvi. 20.; by this the world fearfully prejudiced against Christ and religion! the bonds of death made fast upon their souls! those that had a general love and likmg to the ways of God startled and quite driven back, and thus soul-blood is shed! “Woe to the world!”
Yea, how are consciences of fallen professors plunged, and even overwhelmed in the deeps of trouble! God inwardly excommunicating their souls from all comfortable fellowship with himself, and the joys of his salvation! Infinite are the mischiefs that come by the scandalous lives of professors.
And what is the true cause and reason of all this, but the neglecting of their hearts? Were our hearts better kept, all this would be prevented: had David kept his heart, he had not broken his bones. A negligent careless heart, must of necessity produce a disorderly scandalous life. I thank God for the freedom and faithfulness of a reverend brother,* in showing professors their manifold miscarriages; and from my heart do wish, that when their wounds have been thoroughly searched by that probe, God would be pleased to heal them by this plaster. O professors! if ever you will keep religion sweet, if ever you hope to recover the credit of it in the world, keep your hearts: either keep your hearts or lose your credit; keep your hearts, or lose your comforts; keep your hearts, lest you shed soul-blood. What words can express the deep concerns, the wonderful consequences of this work! Every thing puts a necessity, a solemnity, a beauty upon it.
Motive 8. A heart well kept will fit you for any condition God casts you into, or any service he hath to use you in.
* Gospel-glass.
He that hath learned how to keep his heart lowly, is fit for prosperity; and he that knows how to use and apply it to scripture promises and supports, is fit to pass through any adversity: he that can deny the pride and selfishness of his heart, is fit to be employed in any service for God. Such a man was Paul: he did not only spend his time in preaching to others, in keeping others’ vineyards, but he looked to himself, kept his own vineyard: “Lest when I have preached to others, I myself should be a cast- away.” And what an eminent instrument was he for God! he could turn his hand to any work, he could dexterously manage both an adverse and prosperous condition: “I know how to abound, and how to suffer want.” Let the people deify him, it moves him not, unless to indignation; let them stone him, he can bear it: “If a man purge himself from these,” saith he, “he shall be a vessel unto honour, sanctified, and meet for the master’s use, and prepared unto every good work.”
First, the heart must be purged; and then it is prepared for any service of God. When the heart of Isaiah was purified, which was the thing signified by the touching of his lips with a coal from the altar, then he was fit for God’s work: “Here am I, send me.” A man that hath not learned to keep his heart, put him upon any service for God, and if it be attended with honour, it shall swell up and overtop his spirit; if with suffering, it will exanimate and sink him.
Jesus Christ had an instrumental ‘fitness for his Father’s work, above all the servants that ever God employed. He was zealous in public work for God; so zealous, that sometimes he forgot to eat bread, yea, that his friends thought he had been beside himself. But yet, he so carried on his pubHc work, as not to forget his own private communion with God: and therefore you read, (Matt. xiv. 23.) that when he had been labouring all day, yet, after that, “he went up to a mountain apart to pray, — and was there alone.” O let the keepers of the vineyards look to their own vineyard! We shall never be so instrumental to the good of others, as when we are most diligent about our own souls.
Motive 9. If the people of God would more diligently keep their hearts, how exceedingly would the communion of saints be thereby sweetened!
How goodly then would be thy tents, O Jacob, and thy tabernacles, O Israel! Then, as it is prophesied of the Jews, “Men would say, we will go with you; for we have heard that God is among you.” It is the fellowship your souls have with the Father and with the Son, that draws out the desires of others after fellowship with you. I tell you, if saints would be persuaded to take more pains, and spend more time about their hearts, there would quickly be such a divine lustre upon the face of their conversations, that men would account it no small privilege to be with or near them.
It is the pride, passion, and earthliness of our hearts that have spoiled Christian fellowship. Whence is it, that when Christians meet they are often jarring and contending, but only from their unmortified passions? Whence are their uncharitable censures of their brethren, but only from self-ignorance? Why are they so rigid and unmerciful towards those that are fallen, but because they consider not themselves, as the apostle speaks? Gal. vi. 1. Why is their discourse so frothy and unprofitable when they meet? Is not this from the earthliness and vanity of their hearts?
My brethren, these be the things that have spoiled Christian fellowship, and made it become a dry and sapless thing; so that many Christians are even weary of it, and are ready to say with the prophet, “O that I had a cottage in the wilderness,” &c. “that I might leave my people, and go from them!” and with David, “My soul hath long dwelt with them that hate peace.” This hath made them long for the grave, that they might go from them that are not their own people, to them that are their own people, as the original of that text imports, 2 Cor. v. 8.
But now, if professors would study their own hearts more, watch and keep them better, all this would be prevented, and the beauty and glory of communion again restored. They would divide no more, contend no more, censure rashly no more: when their hearts are in tune their thoughts will not jar. How charitable, pitiful, and tender will they be one of another, when every one is daily humbled under the evils of his own heart! Lord, hasten those much-desired days, and bless these counsels in order to them.
Motive 10. Lastly, by this the comforts of the Spirit, and precious influences of all ordinances, would be fixed, and much longer preserved in your souls than now they are.
Ah! what would I give that my soul might be preserved in that frame I sometimes find it in after an ordinance! “Sometimes, O Lord,” saith one of the fathers sweetly, “thou admittest me into the most inward, unusual, and sweet delights — to 1 know not what sweetness — which, were it perfected in me, I know not what it would be, or rather, what it would not be.” But, alas! the heart grows careless again, and quickly returns, like water removed from the fire, to its native coldness. Could you but keep those things for ever in your hearts, what Christians would you be, what lives would you live! And how is it that these things remain no longer with us? Doubtless it is because we suffer our hearts to take cold again. We should be as careful after an ordinance or duty to prevent this, as one that comes out of a hot bath, or great sweat, is of going out into the chill air. We have our hot and cold fits by turns; and what is the reason, but our unskilfulness and carelessness in keeping the heart?
It is a thousand pities that the ordinances of God, as to their quickening and comforting effects, should be like those human ordinances the apostle speaks of, that “perish in the using.” O then let me say to you, as Job, “Do the consolations of God seem small to you?” Look over these ten special benefits, weigh them in a just balance: are they small matters? Is it a small matter to have thy weak understanding assisted; thy endangered soul antidoted; thy sincerity cleared; thy communion with God sweetened; thy sails filled in prayer? Is it a small thing to have decayed power of godliness again recovered; all fatal scandals removed; an instrumental fitness to serve Christ obtained; the communion of saints restored to its primitive glory; and the influences of ordinances abiding in the souls of saints? If these be no common blessings, no small benefits, then surely it is a great duty to “keep the heart with all diligence.”
III. Use — Direction.
The next use shall be for direction to some special means for the keeping of the heart. And here, besides what hath been hinted in the explication of the duty at the beginning of this discourse, to which I refer the reader, and all those directions throughout the whole appropriated to particular cases and seasons, I shall farther add several other general means, of excellent use to this end — and the first is this:
Means 1. Would you thus keep your hearts as hath been persuaded, then furnish your hearts richly with the word of God, which is their best preservative against sin.
Keep the word, and the word will keep you. As the first receiving of the word regenerated your hearts, so the keeping of the word within you will preserve your hearts. “Let the word of Christ dwell richly in you.” Let it dwell, not tarry with you for a night: and let it dwell richly or plentifully — in all that is of it, in its commands, promises, threats — in all that is in you, in your understanding, memories, consciences, affections; and then it will preserve your hearts. “Thy word have I hid in mine heart, that I might not sin against thee.” It is the slipperiness of our hearts, in reference to the word, that causes so many slips in our lives. Conscience cannot be urged or awed with forgotten truths; but keep it in the heart, and it will keep both heart and life upright: “The law of his God is in his heart; none of his steps shall slide.” Or, if. he do, the word will recover the straying heart again: “Then Peter remembered the words of Jesus, and wept bitterly.” We never lose our hearts, till they have first lost the efficacious and powerful impressions of the word.
Means 2. Call your hearts frequently to an account, if ever you mean to keep them with God.
Those that put a stock into the hands of unfaithful or suspicious servants, will be sure to make short reckonings with them: “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked.” O it is as necessary as sweet, that we and our reins, that is, we and our secret thoughts, should confer together every night! We should call our hearts to account every evening, and say, O my heart! where hast thou been to-day? where have thy thoughts been wandering to-day? what account canst thou give of them? O naughty heart, vain heart! couldst thou not abide by the Fountain of delights? Is there better entertainment with the creature than with God? The oftener the heart meets with rebukes and checks for wandering, the less it will wander. If every vain thought were retracted with a sigh, every excursion of the heart from God with a severe check, it would not dare so boldly and frequently to digress and step aside. Those actions which are committed with reluctancy, are not committed with frequency.
Means 3. He that will keep his heart, must take heed of plunging himself into such a multiplicity of earthly business as he cannot manage, without neglecting his main business.
It cannot be imagined he should keep his heart with God, that hath lost himself in a wood of earthly business. Take heed you do not pinch your souls, by gratifying the immoderate desires of your flesh, I wish many Christians could truly say, what a heathen once did, “I do not give, but only lend myself to my business.” It is said Germanicus reigned in the hearts of the Romans, Tiberius only in their provinces. Though the world be in your hands, let it not jostle Christ out of your hearts.
Take heed, Christian, lest thy shop steal away thy heart from thy closet. God never intended earthly employments for a stop, but rather for a step to heavenly ones. O let not Aristippus the heathen arise in judgment against thee, who said, “He would rather neglect his means than his mind; his farm than his soul.” If thy ship be overladen, thou must cast some overboard: more business than thou canst well manage, is like more meat than thou canst well digest, which will quickly make a sickly soul.
Means 4. He that means to keep his heart, must carefully observe its first declinings from God, and stop it there.
He that will find his house in good repair, must stop every chink as soon as discovered; and he that will keep his heart, must not let a vain thought be long neglected. The serpent of heart-apostacy is best killed in the egg of a small remission. O if many poor decayed Christians had looked to their hearts in time, they had never come to that sad pass they now are! We may say of heart-neglects, as the apostle doth of vain babblings, that they increase to more and more ungodliness. Nemo repente Jit turpissimus: Little sins neglected will quickly become great and masterless. The greatest crocodile once lay in an egg, the greatest oak was once but an acorn. The firing of a small train of powder may blow up all, by leading to a greater quantity. Men little think what a proud, vain, wanton, or worldly thought may grow to. “Behold, how great a matter a little fire kindles!”
Means 5. Take heed of losing the liveliness and sweetness of your communion with God, lest thereby your hearts be loosed off from God.
The heart is a hungry and restless thing; it will have something to feed upon. If it enjoy nothing from God, it will hunt for something among the creatures; and there it often loses itself, as well as its end. There is nothing more engages the heart to a constancy and evenness in walking with God, than the sweetness which it tastes therein: as the Gauls, when once they tasted the sweet wine of Italy, could never be satisfied till they conquered the country where it grew.
It is true, conscience of duty may keep the heart from neglecting it; but when there is no higher motive, it drives on deadly, and is filled with distractions. That which we delight in, we are never weary of; as is evident in the motions of the heart to earthly things, where the wheels, being oiled with delight, run nimbly, and have often need of trigging. The motions of the heart upward would be as free, if its delight in heavenly things were as great.
Means 6. Habituate thy heart to spiritual meditations, if thou wouldst have it freed from those burdensome diversions.
By this means you will get a faciUty and dexterity in heart-work. It is a pity those smaller portions of our time betwixt solemn duties should lie upon our hands, and be rendered useless to us, O learn to save, and be good husbands upon your thoughts! To this purpose Boyle speaks: “These parentheses, which happen to come between the more solemn passages (whether business or recreations) of human life, are wont to be lost by most men, for want of a due value for them; and even by good men, for want of skill to preserve them. For though they do not properly despise them, yet they neglect or lose them, for want of knowing how to rescue them, or what to do with them. But although grains of sand and ashes be, apart, but of a despicable smallness, and liable to be scattered and blown away, yet the skilful artificer, by a vehement fire, brings numbers of those to afford him that noble substance, glass, by whose help we may both see ourselves and our blemishes lively represented, (as in looking-glasses); and discern celestial objects, (as with telescopes); and with the sun-beams kindle disposed materials, (as with burning-glasses.) So, when these little fragments or parcels of time, which, if not carefully looked to, would be dissipated and lost, come to be managed by a skilful coiptemplator, and to be improved by the celestial fire of devotion, they may be so ordered as to afford us both looking-glasses to dress our souls by, and prospectives to discover heavenly wonders, and incentives to inflame our hearts with zeal.” — Thus far he.
Something of that nature I have under hand, for a public benefit, if God give life to finish and opportunity to produce it. Certainly this is a great advantage for the keeping of the heart with God.
IV. Use — Co?isolation.
1 shall now close the whole with a word or two of consolation to all diligent and serious Christians that faithfully and closely apply heart-work — that are groaning and weeping in secret over the hardness, pride, earthliness, and vanity of their hearts; that are fearing and trembling over the experienced deceitfulness and falseness of them, whilst other vain professors’ eyes are abroad, their time and strength eaten up by fruitless disputes and earthly employments; or at best by a cold and formal performance of some heartless and empty duties. Poor Christian, I have three things to offer thee in order to thy support and comfort; and doubtless either of them alone, mixed with faith, is sufficient to comfort thee over all the trouble thou hast with thine own heart.
Comfort 1. This argues thy heart to be upright and honest, whatever thy gifts and abilities are.
It is uprightness of heart will comfort thee upon a death-bed. “Then he turned his face to the wall, and prayed to the Lord, saying, Remember now, O Lord, how I have walked before thee in truth, and with a perfect heart,” &c.
I am really of his mind who said, “Might I have my wish, I would prefer the most despicable and sordid work of a rustic Christian, before all the victories and triumphs of Alexander or Csesar;” yea, let me add, before all the elaborated duties and excellent gifts of vain professors, before the tongues of men and angels: it will signify more to my comfort to spend one solitary hour in mourning before the
Lord over heart-corruption, than many hours in a seeming zealous, but really dead performance of common duties, with the greatest enlargements and richest embellishments of parts and gifts.
By this very thing Christ distinguishes the formal and serious Christian, Matt. vi. 5. The one is for the street and synagogue, for the observation and applause of men, but the other is a closet man; he drives on a home trade, a heart trade. Never be troubled then for the want of those thinors that a man may have, and be eternally damned; but rather bless God for that which none but the favourites and darlings of heaven have: many a one is now in hell that had a better head than thine, and many a one now in heaven that complained of as bad a heart as thine.
Comf. 2. Know farther for thy comfort, that God would never leave thee under so many heart troubles and burdens, if he intended not thy real benefit thereby.
Thou art often crying out. Lord, why is it thus? why go I mourning all the day, having sorrow in my heart? thus long have I been exercised with hardness of heart, and to this day have not obtained a broken heart. Many years have I been praying and striving against vain thoughts, yet am still infested and perplexed with them. O when shall I get a better heart! I have been in travail, and brought forth but wind: I have obtained no deliverance, neither have the corruptions of my heart fallen. I have brought this heart many times to prayers, sermons, and sacraments, expecting and hoping for a cure from them, and still my sore runneth and ceaseth not.
Pensive soul! let this comfort thee: thy God designs thy benefit, even by these occasions of thy sad complaints. For, 1. Hereby he would let thee see what thy heart by nature is and was, and therein take notice how much thou art beholden to free grace. He leaves thee under these exercises of spirit that thou mayest lie as with thy face upon the ground, admiring that ever the Lord of glory should take so vile a creature into his bosom. Thy base heart, if it be good for nothing else, yet serves to commend and set off the unsearchable riches of free grace. 2, This serves to beat thee oft’ continually from resting, yea, or but glancing upon thine own righteousness or excellency. The corruption of thy heart, working in all thy duties, makes thee sensibly to feel that the bed is too short, and the covering too narrow. Were it not for those reflections thou hast after duties, upon the dulness and distractions of thine heart in them, how apt wouldst thou be to fall in love with, and admire thine own performances and enlargements! for if, notwithstanding these, thou hast much to do with the pride of thy heart, how much more, if such humbling and self-abasing considerations were wanting! And lastly, This tends to make thee the more compassionate and tender towards others. Perhaps thou wouldst have little pity for the distresses and soul-troubles of others, if thou hadst less experience of thine own.
Comf. 3. To conclude, God will shortly put a blessed end to all these troubles, cares, and watchings.
The time is coming when thy heart shall be as thou wouldst have it; when thou shalt be discharged of these cares, fears, and sorrows, and never cry out. Oh! my hard, my proud, my vain, my earthly heart, any more; when all darkness shall be banished from thine understanding, and thou shalt clearly discover all truths in God, that crystal ocean of truth; when all vanity shall be purged perfectly out of thy thoughts, and they be everlastingly, ravishingly, and delightfully entertained and exercised upon that supreme goodness, and infinite excellency of God, from whom they shall never start any more like a broken bow. And as for thy pride, passion, earthliness, and all other the matters of thy complaint and trouble, it shall be said of them as of the Egyptians to Israel, “Stand still, and see the salvation of God.” These corruptions thou seest to-day, henceforth thou shalt see them no more for ever: when thou shalt lay down thy weapons of prayers, tears, and groans, and put on the armour of light, not to fight but triumph in.
Lord! when shall this blessed day come? How long? how long? Holy and True! My soul waiteth for thee. “Come, my Beloved, and be thou like a roe or a young hart upon the mountains of Bether.” Amen.