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KFF:04b The Time of ProsperityD*KFF:03c Reasons Why is Greatest Business of Life2 KFj^03b Reasons Why is Greatest Business of LifeKFj^02c Duties Included in Keeping the HeartJFbV02b Duties Included in Keeping the HeartJFbV01c Proverbs 4:23, The Text ExplainedJF\P01b Proverbs 4:23, The Text ExplainedtJF\P17 Ten Motives Exhorting to Hearty EngagementYnJFl`16 A Special Encouragement to the People of GodeJFpd15 Special Warning Hypocrites & Formal Professor[JFrf14 Keep Heart When Sickness WarnsDeath ApproachingMJFvj13 Keep Heart Sufferings for Religion Laid on Usd6JFrf 12 Keep Heart in Time Doubting&Spiritual DarknessdJFth 11 Keeping Heart When Hour of Temptation ComestJFnb 10 Keeping the Heart When We Meet With Great TrialJFvj 08c Keeping the Heart in the Time of Outward Wants(JFvj07a Keep Heart in Time danger &Public Distraction(MJFth06a Keeping the Heart in Time of Zion's Troubles{JFrf05a Keeping the Heart in the Time of AdversityJFnb04a The Time of ProsperityLsJFF:03a Reasons Why is Greatest Business of Life RJFj^02a Duties Included in Keeping the HeartZ4JFbV01a Proverbs 4:23, The Text ExplainedJF\P00 Keeping the Heartb @:.LVALJF{\rtf1\ansi\ansicpg1252\deff0{\fonttbl{\f0\fnil\fcharset0 Georgia;}} {\colortbl ;\red0\green0\blue0;\red0\green128\blue0;} {\*\generator Riched20 5.40.11.2210;}\viewkind4\uc1\pard\cf1\lang2058\b\f0\fs32 Proverbs 4:23, The Text Explained\par \pard\sl240\slmult1\b0\fs22\par \ldblquote KEEP THY HEART WITH ALL DILIGENCE, FOR OUT OF IT ARE THE ISSUES OF LIFE.\rdblquote\emdash\cf2\ul Pro_4:23\cf1\ulnone .\par \par THE heart of man is his worst part before it is regenerated, and the best afterward; it is the seat of principles, and the fountain of actions. The eye of God is, and the eye of the Christian ought to be, principally fixed upon it.\par \par The greatest difficulty in conversion, is to win the heart to God; and the greatest difficulty after conversion, is to keep the heart with God. Here lies the very force and stress of religion; here is that which makes the way to life a narrow way, and the gate of heaven a strait gate. Direction and help in this great work are the scope of the text: wherein we have,\par \par I. An exhortation, \ldblquote Keep thy heart with all diligence.\rdblquote\par II. The reason or motive enforcing it, \ldblquote For out of it are the issues of life.\rdblquote\par \par In the exhortation I shall consider, First, The matter of the duty. Secondly, The manner of performing it.\par \par I. The matter of the duty: Keep thy heart. Heart is not here taken properly for the noble part of the body, which philosophers call \ldblquote the first that lives and the last that dies ;\ldblquote but by heart, in a metaphor, the Scripture sometimes represents some particular noble faculty of the soul. In \cf2\ul Rom_1:21\cf1\ulnone , it is put for the understanding; their foolish heart, that is, their foolish understanding was darkened. \cf2\ul Psa_119:11\cf1\ulnone , it is put for the memory; \ldblquote Thy word have I hid in my heart ;\ldblquote and \cf2\ul 1Jo_3:10\cf1\ulnone , it is put for the conscience, which includes both the light of the understanding and the recogniLVALtions of the memory; if our heart condemn us, that is, if our conscience, whose proper office it is to condemn.\par \par But in the text we are to take it more generally, for the whole soul, or inner man. What the heart is to the body, that the soul is to the man; and what health is to the heart, that holiness is to the soul. The state of the whole body depends upon the soundness and vigor of the heart, and the everlasting state of the whole man upon the good or ill condition of the soul.\par \par By keeping the heart, understand the diligent and constant use of all holy means to preserve the soul from sin, and maintain its sweet and free communion with God. [I say constant, for the reason added in the text extends the duty to all the states and conditions of a Christian\rquote s life, and makes it binding always. If the heart must be kept, because out of it are the issues of life, then as long as these issues of life do flow out of it, we are obliged to keep it.] Lavater on the text will have the word taken from a besieged garrison, beset by many enemies without, and in danger of being betrayed by treacherous citizens within, in which danger the soldiers, upon pain of death, are commanded to watch; and though the expression, Keep thy heart, seems to put it upon us as our work, yet it does not imply a sufficiency in us to do it. We are as able to stop the sun in its course, or to make the rivers run backward, as by our own skill and power to rule and order our hearts. We may as well be our own saviors as our own keepers; and yet Solomon speaks properly enough when he says, Keep thy heart, because the duty is ours, though the power is of God; what power we have depends upon the exciting and assisting strength of Christ. Grace within us is beholden to grace without us. \ldblquote Without me ye can do nothing.\rdblquote\par \par So much for the matter of the duty.\par \par 2. The manner of performing it is with all diligence. The Hebrew is very emphatical; keep with all keeping, or, keep, keep, sLVALet double guards. This vehemency of expression with which the duty is urged, plainly implies how difficult it is to keep our hearts, how dangerous to neglect them!\par \par The motive to this duty is very forcible and weighty: \ldblquote For out of the heart are the issues of life.\rdblquote That is, the heart is the source of all vital operations; it is the spring and original of both good and evil, as the spring in a watch that sets all the wheels in motion. The heart is the treasury, the hand and tongue but the shops; what is in these, comes from that; the hand and tongue always begin where the heart ends. The heart contrives, and the members execute: \ldblquote a good man, out of the good treasure of his, heart, bringeth forth that which is good; and an evil man, out of the evil treasure of his heart, bringeth forth that which is evil: for of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaketh.\rdblquote So then, if the heart err in its work, these must miscarry in theirs; for heart errors are like the errors of the first concoction, which cannot be rectified afterward; or like the misplacing and inverting of the stamps and letters in the press, which must cause so many errata in all the copies that are printed. O then how important a duty is that which is contained in the following:\par \par PROPOSITION.\emdash The keeping and right managing of the heart in every condition, is one great business of a Christian\rquote s life.\par \par What the philosopher says of waters, is as properly applicable to hearts; it is hard to keep them within any bounds, God has set limits to them, yet how frequently do they transgress not only the bounds of grace and religion, but even of reason and common honesty? This is that which affords the Christian matter of\rquote labor and watchfulness, to his dying day. It is not the cleaning of the hand that makes the Christian, for many a hypocrite can show as fair a hand as he; but the purifying, watching, and right ordering of the heart; this is the thing that provokLVALes so many sad complaints, and costs so many deep groans and tears. It was the pride of Hezekiah\rquote s heart that made him lie in the dust, mourning before the Lord. It was the fear of hypocrisy\rquote s invading the heart that made David cry, \ldblquote Let my heart be sound in thy statutes, that I be not ashamed.\rdblquote It was the sad experience he had of the divisions and distractions of his own heart in the service of God, that made him pour out the prayer, \ldblquote Unite my heart to fear thy name.\rdblquote\par \par The method in which I propose to improve the proposition is this:\par \par First, I shall inquire what the keeping of the heart supposes and imports.\par \par Secondly, Assign divers reasons why Christians must make this a leading business of their lives.\par \par Thirdly, Point out those seasons which especially call for this diligence in keeping the heart.\par \par Fourthly, Apply the whole.\par \par First, I am to consider what the keeping of the heart supposes and imports.\par \par To keep the heart, necessarily supposes a previous work of regeneration, which has set the heart right, by giving it a new spiritual inclination, for as long as the heart is not set right by grace as to its habitual frame, no means can keep it right with God. Self is the poise of the unrenewed heart, which biasses and moves it in all its designs and actions; and as long as it is so, it is impossible that any external means should keep it with God.\par \par Man, originally, was of one constant, uniform frame of spirit, held one straight and even course; not one thought or faculty was disordered: his mind had a perfect knowledge of the requirements of God, his will a perfect compliance therewith; all his appetites and powers stood in a most obedient subordination.\par \par Man, by the apostacy, is become a most disordered and rebellious creature, opposing his Maker, as the First Cause, by self-dependence; as the Chief Good, by self-love; as the highest Lord, by self-will; and asLVAL the Last End, by self-seeking. Thus he is quite disordered, and all his actions are irregular. But by regeneration the disordered soul is set right; this great change being, as the Scripture expresses it, the renovation of the soul after the image of God, in which self-dependence is removed by faith; self-love, by the love of God; self-will, by subjection and obedience to the will of God; and self-seeking by self-denial. The darkened understanding is illuminated, the refractory will sweetly subdued, the rebellious appetite gradually conquered. Thus the soul which sin had universally depraved, is by grace restored. This being presupposed, it will not be difficult to apprehend what it is to keep the heart, which is nothing but the constant care and diligence of such a renewed man to preserve his soul in that holy frame to which grace has raised it. For though grace has, in a great measure, rectified the soul, and given it an habitual heavenly temper; yet sin often actually discomposes it again; so that even a gracious heart is like a musical instrument, which though it be exactly tuned, a small matter brings it out of tune again; yea, hang it aside but a little, and it will need setting again before another lesson can be played upon it. If gracious hearts are in a desirable frame in one duty, yet how dull, dead, and disordered when they come to another! Therefore every duty needs a particular preparation of the heart. \ldblquote If thou prepare thine heart and stretch out thine hands toward him,\rdblquote &c. \par To keep the heart then, is carefully to preserve it from sin, which disorders it; and maintain that spiritual frame which fits it for a life of communion with God.\par \par This includes in it six particulars:\par To keep the heart then, is carefully to preserve it from sin, which disorders it; and maintain that spiritual frame which fits it for a life of communion with God.\par \par This includes in it six particulars:\par \par 1. Frequent observation of the frame of the heart. CarnLVALal and formal persons take no heed to this; they cannot be brought to confer with their own hearts: there are some people who have lived forty or fifty years in the world, and have had scarcely one hour\rquote s discourse with their own hearts. It is a hard tiling to bring a man and himself together on such business; but saints know those soliloquies to be very salutary. The heathen could say, \ldblquote the soul is made wise by sitting still in quietness.\rdblquote Though bankrupts care not to look in. to their accounts, yet upright hearts will know whether they go backward or forward. \ldblquote I commune with mine own heart,\rdblquote says David. The heart can never be kept until its case be examined and understood.\par \par 2. It includes deep humiliation for heart evils and disorders; thus Hezekiah humbled himself for the pride of his heart. Thus the people were ordered to spread forth their hands to God in prayer, realizing the plague of their own hearts. Upon this account many an up-right heart has been laid low before God; \lquote O what an heart have I.\rquote Saints have in their confession pointed at the heart, the pained place: \lquote Lord, here is the wound.\rquote It is with the heart well kept, as it is with the eye; if a small dust get into the eye it will never cease twinkling and watering till it has wept it out: so the upright heart cannot be at rest till it has wept out its troubles and poured out its complaints before the Lord.\par \par 3. It includes earnest supplication and instant prayer for purifying and rectifying grace when sin has defiled and disordered the heart. \ldblquote Cleanse thou me from secret faults.\rdblquote \ldblquote Unite my heart. to fear thy name.\rdblquote Saints have always many such petitions before the throne of God\rquote s grace; this is the thing which is most pleaded by them with God. When they are praying for outward mercies, perhaps their spirits may be more remiss; but when it comes to the heart\rquote s case, they extend their spiritsLVAL to the utmost, fill their mouths with arguments, weep and make supplication: \lquote O for a better heart! O for a heart to love God more; to hate sin more; to walk more evenly with God. Lord! deny not to me such a heart, whatever thou deny me: give me a heart to fear thee, to love and delight in thee, if I beg my bread in desolate places.\rquote It is observed of an eminent saint, that when he was confessing sin, he would never give over confessing until he had felt some brokenness of heart for that sin; and when praying for any spiritual mercy, would never give over that suit till he had obtained some relish of that mercy.\par \par 4. It includes the imposing of strong engagements upon ourselves to walk more carefully with God, and avoid the occasions whereby the heart may be induced to sin. Well advised and deliberate vows are, in some cases, very useful to guard the heart against some special sin. \ldblquote I have made a covenant with mine eyes,\rdblquote says Job. By this means holy men have overawed their souls, and preserved themselves from defilement.\par \par 5. It includes a constant and holy jealousy over our own hearts. Quick sighted self-jealousy is an excellent preservative from sin. He that will keep his heart, must have the eyes of the soul awake and open upon all the disorderly and tumultuous stirrings of his affections; if the affections break loose, and the passions be stirred, the soul must discover it, and suppress them before they get to a height. \lquote O my soul, dost thou well in this? my tumultuous thoughts and passions, where is your commission?\rquote Happy is the man that thus feareth always. By this fear of the Lord it is that men depart from evil, shake off sloth, and preserve themselves from iniquity. He that will keep his heart must eat and drink with fear, rejoice with fear, and pass the whole time of his sojourning here in fear. All this is little enough to keep the heart from sin.\par \par 6. It includes the realizing of God\rquote s presence with us, anLVALd setting the Lord always before us. This the people have found a powerful means of keeping their hearts upright, and awing them from sin. When the eye of our faith is fixed upon the eye of God\rquote s omniscience, we dare not let out our thoughts and affections to vanity. Holy Job durst not suffer his heart to yield to an impure, vain thought, and what was it that moved him to so great circumspection? He tells us, \ldblquote Doth not He see my ways, and count all my steps ?\rdblquote\par \par In such particulars as these do gracious souls express the care they have of their hearts. They are careful to prevent the breaking loose of the corruptions in time of temptation; careful to preserve the sweetness and comfort they have got from God in any duty. This is the work, and of all works in religion it is the most difficult, constant, and important work.\par In such particulars as these do gracious souls express the care they have of their hearts. They are careful to prevent the breaking loose of the corruptions in time of temptation; careful to preserve the sweetness and comfort they have got from God in any duty. This is the work, and of all works in religion it is the most difficult, constant, and important work.\par \par 1. It is the hardest work. Heart-work is hard work indeed. To shuffle over religious duties with a loose and heedless spirit, will cost no great pains; but to set thyself before the Lord, and tie up thy loose and vain thoughts to a constant and serious attendance upon him; this will cost thee something. To attain a facility and dexterity of language in prayer, and put thy meaning into apt and decent expressions, is easy; but to get thy heart broken for sin, while thou art confessing it; melted with free grace while thou art blessing God for it; to be really ashamed and humbled through the apprehensions of God\rquote s infinite holiness, and to keep thy heart in this frame; not only in, but after duty, will surely cost thee some groans and pains of soul. To repress the outward aLVALcts of sin, and compose the external part of thy life in a laudable manner, is no great matter; even carnal persons, by the force of common principles, can do this: but to kill the root of corruption within, to set and keep up an holy government over thy thoughts, to have all things lie straight and orderly in the heart, this is not easy.\par \par 2. It is a constant work. The keeping of the heart is a work that is never done till life is ended. There is no time or condition in the life of a Christian which will suffer an intermission of this work. It is in keeping watch over our hearts, as it was in keeping up Moses\rquote bands while Israel and Amalek were fighting. No sooner do the hands of Moses grow heavy and sink down, than Amalek prevails. Intermitting the watch over their own hearts for but a few minutes, cost David and Peter many a sad day and night.\par \par 3. It is the most important business of a Christian\rquote s life. Without this we are but formalists in religion: all our professions, gifts and duties signify nothing. \ldblquote My son, give me thine heart,\rdblquote is God\rquote s request. God is pleased to call that a gift which is indeed a debt; he will put this honor upon the creature, to receive it from him in the way of a gift; but if this be not given him, ho regards not whatever else you bring to him. There is only so much of worth in what we do, as there is of heart in it. Concerning the heart, God seems to say, as Joseph of Benjamin, \ldblquote If you bring not Benjamin with you, you shall not see my face.\rdblquote Among the Heathen, when the beast was cut up for sacrifice, the first thing the priest looked upon was the heart; and if that was unsound and worthless the sacrifice was rejected. God rejects all duties (how glorious soever in other respects) which are offered him without the heart. He that performs duty without the heart, that is, heedlessly, is no more accepted with God than he that performs it with a double heart, that is, hypocritically.\par \par ThLVALus I have briefly considered what the keeping of the heart supposes and imports. I proceed,\par \par Secondly, To assign some reasons why Christians must make this the great business of their lives.\par \par The importance and necessity of making this our great business will manifestly appear from several considerations:\par \par 1. The glory of God is much concerned. Heart-evils are very provoking evils to the Lord. The Schools correctly observe, that outward sins are \ldblquote sins of great infamy;\ldblquote but that the heart sins are \ldblquote sins of deeper guilt.\rdblquote How severely has the great God declared his wrath from heaven against heart-wickedness! The crime for which the old world stands indicted is heart-wickedness! \ldblquote God saw that every imagination of their hearts was only evil, and that continually;\rdblquote for which he sent the most dreadful judgments that were ever inflicted since time began. We find not their murders, adulteries, blasphemies, (though they were defiled with these) particularly alleged against them; but the evils of their hearts. That by which God was so provoked as to give up his peculiar inheritance into the enemy\rquote s hand, was the evil of their hearts. \ldblquote O Jerusalem, wash thine heart from wickedness, that thou mayest be saved; how long shall thy vain thoughts lodge within thee?\rdblquote\par \par Of the wickedness and vanity of their thoughts God took particular notice; and because of this the Chaldeans. must come upon them, \ldblquote as a lion from his thicket and tear them to pieces.\rdblquote For the sin of thoughts it was that God threw down the fallen, angels from heaven and still keeps them in \ldblquote everlasting chains.\rdblquote to the judgment of the great day; by which expression is not obscurely intimated some extraordinary judgment to which they are reserved; as prisoners that have most irons laid upon them may be supposed to be the greatest malefactors. And what was their sin? Spiritual wickedness. MerelyLVAL heart-evils are so provoking to God, that for them he rejects with indignation all the duties that some men perform. \ldblquote He that killeth an ox is as if he slew a man; he that sacrifices a lamb, as if he cut off a dog\rquote s neck; he that offereth an oblation, as if he offered swine\rquote s blood; he that burneth incense, as if he blessed an idol.\rdblquote In what words could the abhorrence of a creature\rquote s actions be more fully expressed by the holy God? Murder and idolatry are not more vile in his account, than, their sacrifices, though materially such as himself appointed. And what made their sacrifices so vile? The following words inform us: \ldblquote Their soul delighteth in their abominations.\rdblquote\par \par Such is the vileness of mere heart-sins, that the Scriptures sometimes intimate the difficulty of pardon for them. The heart of Simon Magus was not right, he had base thoughts of God, and of the things of God: the apostle bade him \ldblquote repent and pray, if perhaps the thoughts of his heart might be forgiven him.\rdblquote O then never slight heart evils! for by these God is highly wronged and provoked. For this reason let every Christian keep his heart with all diligence.\par \par 2. The sincerity of our profession much depends upon the care we exercise in keeping our hearts. Most certainly, that man who is careless of the frame of his heart, is but a hypocrite in his profession, however eminent he be in the externals of religion. We have a striking instance of this in the history of Jehu. \ldblquote But Jehu took no heed to walk in the ways of the Lord God of Israel with his heart.\rdblquote The context gives an account of the great service performed by Jehu against the house of Ahab and Baal, and also of the great temporal reward given him by God for that service, even that his children, to the fourth generation, should sit upon the throne of Israel. Yet in these words Jehu is censured as a hypocrite: though God approved and re warded the work, yet he abhoLVALrred and rejected the person that did it, as hypocritical. Wherein lay the hypocrisy of Jehu? In this; he took no heed to walk in the ways of the Lord with his heart; that is, he did all insincerely and for selfish ends: and though. the work he did was materially good, yet he, not purging his heart from those unworthy selfish designs in doing it, was a hypocrite. And though Simon Magus appeared such a person that the apostle could not regularly reject him, yet his hypocrisy was quickly discovered. Though he professed piety and associated himself with the saints, he was a stranger to the mortification of heart-sins. \ldblquote Thy heart is not right with God.\rdblquote It is true, there is great difference between Christians themselves in their diligence and dexterity about heart work; some are more conversant with, and more successful in it than others but he that takes no heed to his heart, that is not careful to order it aright before God, is but a hypocrite. \ldblquote And they come unto thee as the people cometh, and they sit before thee as my people, and they hear thy words, but they will not do them: for with their mouth they show much love, but their heart goeth after their covetousness.\rdblquote Here was a company of formal hypocrites, as is evident from that expression, as my people; like them, but not of them. And what made them so? Their outside was fair; here were reverent postures, high professions, much seeming delight in ordinances; \ldblquote thou art to them as a lovely song:\rdblquote yea, but for all that they kept not their hearts with God in those duties; their hearts were commanded by their lusts, they went after their covetousness. Had they kept their hearts with God, all had been well: but not regarding which way their hearts went in duty, there lay the essence of their hypocrisy.\par \par If any upright soul should hence infer, I am a hypocrite too, for many times my heart departs from God in duty; do what I can, yet I cannot hold it close with God; I answer, the very obLVAL jection carries in it its own solution. Thou sayest, Do what I can, yet! cannot keep my heart with God. Soul, if thou doest what thou canst, thou hast the blessing of an upright, though God sees good to exercise thee under the affliction of a discomposed heart.\par \par There still remains some wildness in the thoughts and fancies of the best to bumble them; but if you find a care before to prevent them, and opposition against them when they come, and grief and sorrow afterward, you find enough to clear you from the charge of reigning hypocrisy. This precaution is seen partly in laying up the word in thy heart to prevent them. \ldblquote Thy word have I hid in mine heart, that I might not sin against thee.\rdblquote Partly in your endeavors to engage your heart to God; and partly in begging preventing grace from God in. your commencement of duty. It is a good sign to exercise such precaution. And it is an evidence of uprightness, to oppose these sins in their first rise. \ldblquote I hate vain thoughts.\rdblquote \ldblquote The spirit lusteth against the flesh.\rdblquote Thy grief also discovers the uprightness of thy heart. If with Hezekiah thou art humbled for the evils of thy heart, thou hast no reason, from those disorders, to question the integrity of it; but to suffer sin to lodge quietly in the heart, to let thy heart habitually and without control wander from God, is a sad, a dangerous symptom indeed.\par \par 3. The beauty of our conversation arises from the heavenly frame of our spirits. There is a spiritual lustre and beauty in the conversation of saints. \ldblquote The righteous is more excellent than his neighbor;\rdblquote saints shine as the lights of the world; but whatever lustre and beauty is in their lives, comes from the excellency of their spirits; as the candle within puts lustre upon t