THE WITHERBLOG

Keeping the Heart
by John Flavel

“Keep your heart with all diligence;
for out of it are the issues of life.”
Proverbs 4:23

The second season in the life of a Christian, requiring more than common diligence to keep his heart, is the time of ADVERSITY. When Providence frowns upon you, and blasts your outward comforts—then look to your heart; keep it with all diligence from repining against God or fainting under his hand; for troubles, though sanctified, are troubles still. Jonah was a godly man, and yet how fretful was his heart under affliction! Job was the mirror of patience—yet how was his heart discomposed by trouble! You will find it hard to get a composed spirit under great afflictions. O the hurries and tumults which they occasion even in the best hearts! Let me show you, then, how a Christian under great afflictions may keep his heart from repining or desponding, under the hand of God. I will here offer several helps to keep the heart in this condition.

1. By these cross providences God is faithfully pursuing the great design of electing love upon the souls of his people, and orders all these afflictions as means sanctified to that end. Afflictions come not by chance—but by counsel. By the counsel of God, they are ordained as means of much spiritual good to saints. “By this shall the iniquity of Jacob be purged,” etc. “But he disciplines us for our profit,” etc. “All things work together for good,” etc. afflictions are God’s workmen upon our hearts, to pull down our pride and carnal; and being so, their nature is changed; they are turned into blessings and benefits! “It is good for me that I have been afflicted,” says David. Surely then you have no reason to quarrel with God—but rather to wonder that he should concern himself so much in your good, as to use any means for accomplishing it. Paul could bless God if by any means he might attain the resurrection of the dead. “My brethren,” says James, “count it all joy when you fall into diverse trials.” ‘My Father is about a design of love upon my soul, and do I do well to be angry with him? All that he does, is in pursuance of, and in reference to some eternal, glorious ends upon my soul. It is my ignorance of God’s design that makes me quarrel with him.’ He says to you in this case, as he did to Peter, “What I do, you know not now—but you shall know hereafter.”

2. Though God has reserved to himself a liberty of afflicting his people—yet he has tied up his own hands by promise never to take away his loving kindness from them. Can I contemplate this scripture with a repining, discontented spirit: “I will be his Father, and he shall be my son: if he commits iniquity, I will chasten him with the rod of man, and with the stripes of the children of men: nevertheless my mercy shall not depart away from him.” O my heart, my haughty heart! Do you do well to be discontent, when God has given you the whole tree, with all the clusters of comfort growing on it, because he allows the wind to blow down a few leaves? Christians have two kinds of goods, the goods of the throne and the goods of the footstool; immovables and moveables. If God has secured those, never let my heart be troubled at the loss of these: indeed, if he had cut off his love, or discovenanted my soul, I would have reason to be cast down; but this he has not done, nor can he do it.

3. It is of great efficacy to keep the heart from sinking under afflictions, to call to mind that your own Father has the ordering of them. Not a creature moves hand or tongue against you—but by his wise permission. Suppose the cup is bitter—yet it is the cup which your Father has given you! Can you suspect poison to be in it? Foolish man, put home the case to your own heart; can you give your child that which would ruin him? No! You would as soon hurt yourself as him. “If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children,” how much more does God! The very consideration of his nature as a God of love, pity, and tender mercies; or of his relation to you as a father, husband, friend—may be security enough, if he had not spoken a word to quiet you in this case. And yet you have his word too, by the prophet Jeremiah: “I will do you no hurt.” You lie too near his heart for him to hurt you. Nothing grieves him more than your groundless and unworthy suspicions of his wise and kind designs. Would it not grieve a faithful, tender-hearted physician, when he had studied the case of his patient, and prepared the most excellent medicines to save his life, to hear him cry out, ‘O he has undone me! he has poisoned me!’ because it pains him in the operation? O when will you be submissive?

4. God respects you as much in a low condition—as in a high condition; and therefore it need not so much trouble you to be made low; no, he manifests more of his love, grace and tenderness in the time of affliction—than in the time of prosperity. As God did not at first choose you because you were high, he will not now forsake you because you are low. Men may look shy upon you, and alter their respects as your condition is altered; when Providence has blasted your estate, your summer-friends may grow strange, fearing you may be troublesome to them. But will God do so? No! no! “I will never leave you nor forsake you” says he. If adversity and poverty could bar you from access to God, it would indeed be a deplorable condition: but, so far from this, you may go to him as freely as ever. “My God will hear me,” says the church. Poor David, when stripped of all earthly comforts, could encourage himself in the Lord his God; and why not you? Suppose your husband or son had lost all at sea, and should come to you in rags; could you deny the relation, or refuse to entertain him? If you would not, much less will God. Why then are you so troubled? Though your condition is changed, your Father’s love is not changed.

5. What if by the loss of outward comforts, God preserves your soul from the ruining power of temptation? Surely then you have little cause to sink your heart by such sad thoughts. Do not earthly enjoyments make men shrink in times of trial? For the love of these, many have forsaken Christ in such an hour. The young ruler “went away sorrowful, for he had great possessions.” If this is God’s design, how ungrateful to murmur against him for it! We see mariners in a storm can throw over-board the most valuable goods to preserve their lives. We know it is usual for soldiers in a besieged city to destroy the finest buildings in which the enemy may take shelter; and no one doubts that it is wisely done. Those who have decayed limbs willingly stretch them out to be cut off, and not only thank—but pay the surgeon! Must God be murmured against for casting over that which would sink you in a storm; for pulling down that which would assist your enemy in the siege of temptation; for cutting off what would endanger your everlasting life? O, inconsiderate, ungrateful man! Are not these things for which you grieve, the very things that have ruined thousands of souls?

6. It would much support your heart under adversity, to consider that God by such humbling providences may be accomplishing that for which you have long prayed and waited. And should you be troubled at that? Say, Christian, have you not many prayers pending before God upon such accounts as these; that he would keep you from sin; that he would discover to you the emptiness of the creature; that he would mortify and kill your lusts; that your heart may never find rest in any enjoyment but Christ? By such humbling and impoverishing strokes, God may be fulfilling your desires! Would you be kept from sin? Lo, he has hedged up your way with thorns. Would you see the creature’s vanity? Your affliction is a looking glass to reveal it; for the vanity of the creature is never so effectually and sensibly discovered, as in our own experience. Would you have your corruptions mortified? This is the way—to have the fuel removed which maintained them; for as prosperity begat and fed them, so adversity, when sanctified, is a means to kill them. Would you have your heart rest nowhere but in the bosom of God? What better method could Providence take to accomplish your desire, than pulling from under your head that soft pillow of creature delights on which you rested before? And yet you fret at this! Peevish child, how do you try your Father’s patience! If he delays to answer your prayers, you are ready to say that he regards you not. If he does that which really answers the end of your prayers, though not in the way which you expect, you murmur against him for that! As if, instead of answering, he were crossing all your hopes and aims. Is this sincerity? Is it not enough that God is so gracious as to do what you desire: must you be so impudent as to expect him to do it in the way which you prescribe?

7. It may support your heart, to consider that in these troubles God is performing that work in which your soul would rejoice—if you did see the design of it. We are clouded with much ignorance, and are not able to discern how particular providences tend to the fulfillment of God’s designs; and therefore, like Israel in the wilderness, are often murmuring, because Providence leads us about in a howling desert, where we are exposed to difficulties; though then he led them, and is now leading us, by the right way to a city of habitation. If you could but see how God in his secret counsel has exactly laid the whole plan of your salvation, even to the smallest means and circumstances; could you but discern the admirable harmony of divine dispensations, their mutual relations, together with the general respect they all have to the last end; had you liberty to make your own choice, you would, of all conditions in the world, choose that in which you now are! Providence is like a curious piece of tapestry made of a thousand shreds, which, single, appear useless—but put together, they represent a beautiful history to the eye. As God does all things according to the counsel of his own will, of course this is ordained at the best method to effect your salvation. Such a one has a proud heart—so many humbling providences appoint for him. Such a one has an earthly heart—so many impoverishing providences for him. Did you but see this, I need say no more to support the most dejected heart.

8. It would much conduce to the settlement of your heart, to consider that by fretting and discontent, you do yourself more injury than all your afflictions could do. Your own discontent is that which arms your troubles with a sting. You make your burden heavy—by struggling under it. Did you but lie quietly under the hand of God, your condition would be much more easy than it is. “Impatience in the sick, brings severity in the physician.” This makes God afflict the more, as a father a stubborn child—who does not receive correction. Beside, it unfits the soul to pray over its troubles, or receive the sense of that good which God intends by them. Affliction is a pill, which, being wrapped up in patience and quiet submission, may be easily shallowed; but discontent chews the pill, and so embitters the soul. God throws away some comfort which he saw would hurt you—and you will throw away your peace after it? He shoots an arrow which sticks in your clothes, and was never intended to hurt—but only to drive you from sin; and you will thrust it deeper, to the piercing of your very heart, by despondency and discontent.

9. If your heart (like that of Rachel) still refuses to be comforted, then do one thing more: compare the condition you are now in, and with which you are so much dissatisfied, with the condition in which others are, and in which you deserve to be. “Others are roaring in flames, howling under the scourge of vengeance—and among them I deserve to be! O my soul, is this hell? Is my condition as bad as that of the damned? What would thousands now in hell give to exchange conditions with me!” I have read (says an author) that when the Duke of Conde had voluntarily subjected himself to the inconveniences of poverty, he was one day observed and pitied by a noble of Italy, who from tenderness wished him to be more careful of his person. The good duke answered, “Sir, be not troubled, and do not think that I suffer from need; for I send a harbinger before me, who makes ready my lodgings and takes care that I am royally entertained.” The noble asked him who was his harbinger? He answered, “The knowledge of myself, and the consideration of what I deserve for my sins, which is eternal torment; when with this knowledge I arrive at my lodging, however unprovided I find it—methinks it is much better than I deserve. Why does the living man complain?” Thus the heart may be kept from desponding or repining under adversity.

Keeping the Heart

by John Flavel

“Keep your heart with all diligence;
for out of it are the issues of life.”
Proverbs 4:23

The second season in the life of a Christian, requiring more than common diligence to keep his heart, is the time of ADVERSITY. When Providence frowns upon you, and blasts your outward comforts—then look to your heart; keep it with all diligence from repining against God or fainting under his hand; for troubles, though sanctified, are troubles still. Jonah was a godly man, and yet how fretful was his heart under affliction! Job was the mirror of patience—yet how was his heart discomposed by trouble! You will find it hard to get a composed spirit under great afflictions. O the hurries and tumults which they occasion even in the best hearts! Let me show you, then, how a Christian under great afflictions may keep his heart from repining or desponding, under the hand of God. I will here offer several helps to keep the heart in this condition.

1. By these cross providences God is faithfully pursuing the great design of electing love upon the souls of his people, and orders all these afflictions as means sanctified to that end. Afflictions come not by chance—but by counsel. By the counsel of God, they are ordained as means of much spiritual good to saints. “By this shall the iniquity of Jacob be purged,” etc. “But he disciplines us for our profit,” etc. “All things work together for good,” etc. afflictions are God’s workmen upon our hearts, to pull down our pride and carnal; and being so, their nature is changed; they are turned into blessings and benefits! “It is good for me that I have been afflicted,” says David. Surely then you have no reason to quarrel with God—but rather to wonder that he should concern himself so much in your good, as to use any means for accomplishing it. Paul could bless God if by any means he might attain the resurrection of the dead. “My brethren,” says James, “count it all joy when you fall into diverse trials.” ‘My Father is about a design of love upon my soul, and do I do well to be angry with him? All that he does, is in pursuance of, and in reference to some eternal, glorious ends upon my soul. It is my ignorance of God’s design that makes me quarrel with him.’ He says to you in this case, as he did to Peter, “What I do, you know not now—but you shall know hereafter.”

2. Though God has reserved to himself a liberty of afflicting his people—yet he has tied up his own hands by promise never to take away his loving kindness from them. Can I contemplate this scripture with a repining, discontented spirit: “I will be his Father, and he shall be my son: if he commits iniquity, I will chasten him with the rod of man, and with the stripes of the children of men: nevertheless my mercy shall not depart away from him.” O my heart, my haughty heart! Do you do well to be discontent, when God has given you the whole tree, with all the clusters of comfort growing on it, because he allows the wind to blow down a few leaves? Christians have two kinds of goods, the goods of the throne and the goods of the footstool; immovables and moveables. If God has secured those, never let my heart be troubled at the loss of these: indeed, if he had cut off his love, or discovenanted my soul, I would have reason to be cast down; but this he has not done, nor can he do it.

3. It is of great efficacy to keep the heart from sinking under afflictions, to call to mind that your own Father has the ordering of them. Not a creature moves hand or tongue against you—but by his wise permission. Suppose the cup is bitter—yet it is the cup which your Father has given you! Can you suspect poison to be in it? Foolish man, put home the case to your own heart; can you give your child that which would ruin him? No! You would as soon hurt yourself as him. “If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children,” how much more does God! The very consideration of his nature as a God of love, pity, and tender mercies; or of his relation to you as a father, husband, friend—may be security enough, if he had not spoken a word to quiet you in this case. And yet you have his word too, by the prophet Jeremiah: “I will do you no hurt.” You lie too near his heart for him to hurt you. Nothing grieves him more than your groundless and unworthy suspicions of his wise and kind designs. Would it not grieve a faithful, tender-hearted physician, when he had studied the case of his patient, and prepared the most excellent medicines to save his life, to hear him cry out, ‘O he has undone me! he has poisoned me!’ because it pains him in the operation? O when will you be submissive?

4. God respects you as much in a low condition—as in a high condition; and therefore it need not so much trouble you to be made low; no, he manifests more of his love, grace and tenderness in the time of affliction—than in the time of prosperity. As God did not at first choose you because you were high, he will not now forsake you because you are low. Men may look shy upon you, and alter their respects as your condition is altered; when Providence has blasted your estate, your summer-friends may grow strange, fearing you may be troublesome to them. But will God do so? No! no! “I will never leave you nor forsake you” says he. If adversity and poverty could bar you from access to God, it would indeed be a deplorable condition: but, so far from this, you may go to him as freely as ever. “My God will hear me,” says the church. Poor David, when stripped of all earthly comforts, could encourage himself in the Lord his God; and why not you? Suppose your husband or son had lost all at sea, and should come to you in rags; could you deny the relation, or refuse to entertain him? If you would not, much less will God. Why then are you so troubled? Though your condition is changed, your Father’s love is not changed.

5. What if by the loss of outward comforts, God preserves your soul from the ruining power of temptation? Surely then you have little cause to sink your heart by such sad thoughts. Do not earthly enjoyments make men shrink in times of trial? For the love of these, many have forsaken Christ in such an hour. The young ruler “went away sorrowful, for he had great possessions.” If this is God’s design, how ungrateful to murmur against him for it! We see mariners in a storm can throw over-board the most valuable goods to preserve their lives. We know it is usual for soldiers in a besieged city to destroy the finest buildings in which the enemy may take shelter; and no one doubts that it is wisely done. Those who have decayed limbs willingly stretch them out to be cut off, and not only thank—but pay the surgeon! Must God be murmured against for casting over that which would sink you in a storm; for pulling down that which would assist your enemy in the siege of temptation; for cutting off what would endanger your everlasting life? O, inconsiderate, ungrateful man! Are not these things for which you grieve, the very things that have ruined thousands of souls?

6. It would much support your heart under adversity, to consider that God by such humbling providences may be accomplishing that for which you have long prayed and waited. And should you be troubled at that? Say, Christian, have you not many prayers pending before God upon such accounts as these; that he would keep you from sin; that he would discover to you the emptiness of the creature; that he would mortify and kill your lusts; that your heart may never find rest in any enjoyment but Christ? By such humbling and impoverishing strokes, God may be fulfilling your desires! Would you be kept from sin? Lo, he has hedged up your way with thorns. Would you see the creature’s vanity? Your affliction is a looking glass to reveal it; for the vanity of the creature is never so effectually and sensibly discovered, as in our own experience. Would you have your corruptions mortified? This is the way—to have the fuel removed which maintained them; for as prosperity begat and fed them, so adversity, when sanctified, is a means to kill them. Would you have your heart rest nowhere but in the bosom of God? What better method could Providence take to accomplish your desire, than pulling from under your head that soft pillow of creature delights on which you rested before? And yet you fret at this! Peevish child, how do you try your Father’s patience! If he delays to answer your prayers, you are ready to say that he regards you not. If he does that which really answers the end of your prayers, though not in the way which you expect, you murmur against him for that! As if, instead of answering, he were crossing all your hopes and aims. Is this sincerity? Is it not enough that God is so gracious as to do what you desire: must you be so impudent as to expect him to do it in the way which you prescribe?

7. It may support your heart, to consider that in these troubles God is performing that work in which your soul would rejoice—if you did see the design of it. We are clouded with much ignorance, and are not able to discern how particular providences tend to the fulfillment of God’s designs; and therefore, like Israel in the wilderness, are often murmuring, because Providence leads us about in a howling desert, where we are exposed to difficulties; though then he led them, and is now leading us, by the right way to a city of habitation. If you could but see how God in his secret counsel has exactly laid the whole plan of your salvation, even to the smallest means and circumstances; could you but discern the admirable harmony of divine dispensations, their mutual relations, together with the general respect they all have to the last end; had you liberty to make your own choice, you would, of all conditions in the world, choose that in which you now are! Providence is like a curious piece of tapestry made of a thousand shreds, which, single, appear useless—but put together, they represent a beautiful history to the eye. As God does all things according to the counsel of his own will, of course this is ordained at the best method to effect your salvation. Such a one has a proud heart—so many humbling providences appoint for him. Such a one has an earthly heart—so many impoverishing providences for him. Did you but see this, I need say no more to support the most dejected heart.

8. It would much conduce to the settlement of your heart, to consider that by fretting and discontent, you do yourself more injury than all your afflictions could do. Your own discontent is that which arms your troubles with a sting. You make your burden heavy—by struggling under it. Did you but lie quietly under the hand of God, your condition would be much more easy than it is. “Impatience in the sick, brings severity in the physician.” This makes God afflict the more, as a father a stubborn child—who does not receive correction. Beside, it unfits the soul to pray over its troubles, or receive the sense of that good which God intends by them. Affliction is a pill, which, being wrapped up in patience and quiet submission, may be easily shallowed; but discontent chews the pill, and so embitters the soul. God throws away some comfort which he saw would hurt you—and you will throw away your peace after it? He shoots an arrow which sticks in your clothes, and was never intended to hurt—but only to drive you from sin; and you will thrust it deeper, to the piercing of your very heart, by despondency and discontent.

9. If your heart (like that of Rachel) still refuses to be comforted, then do one thing more: compare the condition you are now in, and with which you are so much dissatisfied, with the condition in which others are, and in which you deserve to be. “Others are roaring in flames, howling under the scourge of vengeance—and among them I deserve to be! O my soul, is this hell? Is my condition as bad as that of the damned? What would thousands now in hell give to exchange conditions with me!” I have read (says an author) that when the Duke of Conde had voluntarily subjected himself to the inconveniences of poverty, he was one day observed and pitied by a noble of Italy, who from tenderness wished him to be more careful of his person. The good duke answered, “Sir, be not troubled, and do not think that I suffer from need; for I send a harbinger before me, who makes ready my lodgings and takes care that I am royally entertained.” The noble asked him who was his harbinger? He answered, “The knowledge of myself, and the consideration of what I deserve for my sins, which is eternal torment; when with this knowledge I arrive at my lodging, however unprovided I find it—methinks it is much better than I deserve. Why does the living man complain?” Thus the heart may be kept from desponding or repining under adversity.

John Flavel, Works, IV:376-387

A remarkable performance of providence for the people of God is the ordering of the occasion, instrument, and means of their conversion.  In nothing does providence shine forth more gloriously.  You are more beholden to him for this than for all of your other mercies.  I cannot but think that your heart must be deeply affected by the thought of it.  Every gracious heart loves to meditate on this.  It is certainly the sweetest history that was ever told.  The place where, and the instruments used, are exceedingly special.  Jacob’s Bethel was forever sweet to his thoughts.  O blessed places, times, and instruments!  O the deep, sweet impressions, never to be razed out of the memory that this providence has made upon you.  The Lord cast us upon the occasion and ordered the smallest circumstance for this work to be done.  The eunuch, at the very instant he was reading the prophet Isaiah was joined by Philip to show him the way of salvation.  How strange was the change upon Naaman the Syrian wrought by the providential circumstances of a little captured girl!  Consider the blessed providence and conversion of the Samaritans.  How often have people been amazed that the preacher seems to be speaking exactly to their heart when he knew nothing about them!  O what a sweet remembrance it should be to your soul!  Providence had a design upon you for your eternal good.  Little did Zacchaeus know the design of Christ’s mercy upon him when he climbed that tree.  Little did some of you think what the aim of providence was when you went to hear such a sermon.  O blessed providence to set you in the way of mercy!  This mercy flows out of the fountain of God’s electing love.  It is an eternal mercy that will stick by you when all else fails around you.

by John Flavel

“Keep your heart with all diligence;
for out of it are the issues of life.”
Proverbs 4:23

If all that has been said by way of inducement is not enough, I have ten MOTIVES for keeping the heart to offer you:

1. The studying, observing, and diligently keeping your own heart, will surprisingly help you to UNDERSTAND the deep mysteries of religion. An honest, well experienced heart is an excellent help to the head. Such a heart will serve for a commentary on a great part of the Scriptures. By means of such a heart you will have a better understanding of divine things than the most learned, but graceless man ever had, or can have. You will not only have a clearer—but a more interesting and profitable apprehension of them. A man may discourse orthodoxly and profoundly of the nature and effects of faith, the troubles and comforts of conscience, and the sweetness of communion with God—who has never felt the efficacy and sweet impression of these things upon his own soul. But how dark and dry are his notions, compared with those of an experienced Christian!

2. The study and observation of your own heart will powerfully secure you against the dangerous and infecting ERRORS of the times in which you live. What is the reason why so many professors have departed from the faith, giving heed to fables? Why have so many been led away by the error of the wicked? Why have those who have sown corrupt doctrines had such plentiful harvests among us—but because they have met with a race of professors who never knew what belongs to practical godliness, and the study and keeping of their hearts?

3. Your care and diligence in keeping your heart will prove one of the best evidences of your SINCERITY. I know no external act of religion, which truly distinguishes the sound from the unsound professor. It is astonishing 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 they take no heed to their hearts. They are not in secret what they appear to be in public! And before this test no hypocrite can stand. They may, indeed, in a fit of terror, or on a death-bed, cry out of the wickedness of their hearts; but such extorted complaints are wholly of no regard. No credit, in law, is to be given to the testimony of one upon the rack, because it may be supposed that the extremity of his torture will make him say anything to get relief. But if self-jealousy, care and watchfulness are the daily workings and frames of your heart—you have great evidence of your sincerity.

4. How comfortable and how profitable would all ORDINANCES and duties be to you, if your heart was faithfully kept. What lively communion might you have with God every time you approach him, if your heart was in a right frame! You might then say with David, “My meditation of Him shall be sweet.” It is the indisposition of the heart which renders ordinances, and secret duties—so comfortless to some. They strive to raise their hearts to God, now pressing this argument upon them, then that, to quicken and affect them. Yet they often get nearly through the exercise before their hearts begins to be interested in it; and some times they go away no better than they came! But the Christian whose heart is prepared by being constantly kept, enters immediately end heartily into his duties; he outstrips his sluggish neighbor, gets the first sight of Christ in a sermon; the first love-token from Christ in an ordinance; the first communication of grace and love in secret prayer. Now if there is anything valuable and comfortable in ordinances and private duties—look to your heart and keep it, I beseech you.

5. An acquaintance with your own heart will furnish you a fountain of matter in PRAYER. The man who is diligent in heart-work, will lie richly supplied with matter in his addresses to God. He will not be confused for lack of thoughts; his tongue will not falter for lack of expressions.

6. The most desirable thing in the world, that is, the REVIVAL of religion among a people, may be effected by means of what I am urging upon you. O that I might see the time when professors shall not walk in a vain show; when they shall please themselves no more with a name to live, while they are spiritually dead; when they shall be no more a company of frothy, vain people; but when holiness shall shine in their lives, and awe the world, and command respect from all who are around them; when they shall warm the heart of those who come near them, and cause it to be said, “God is truly among these men!” And may such a time be expected? Until heart-work becomes the business of professors, I have no hope of seeing a thing so blessed! Does it not grieve you to see how religion is condemned and trampled under foot, and the professors of it ridiculed and scorned in the world? Professors, would you recover your credit? Would you obtain an honorable testimony in the consciences of your very enemies? Then keep your hearts!

7. By diligence in keeping our hearts we should prevent the occasions of fatal scandals and STUMBLING-BLOCKS to the world. Woe to the world because of stumbling blocks!

8. Keep your heart faithfully, and you will be PREPARED for any situation or service to which you may be called. This, and this alone, call properly fit you for usefulness in any station; but with this you can endure prosperity or adversity; you can deny yourself, and turn your hand to any work. Thus Paul turned every circumstance to good account, and made himself so eminently useful. When he preached to others, he provided against being cast away himself—because he kept his heart! Everything in which he excelled seems to have had a close connection with his diligence in keeping his heart.

9. If the people of God would diligently keep their hearts, their COMMUNION with each other would be unspeakably more inviting and profitable. Then “how goodly would be your tents, O Jacob, and your tabernacles, O Israel!” It is the fellowship which the people of God have with the Father and with the Son—which kindles the desires of others to have communion with them! I tell you, that if saints would be persuaded to spend more time and take more pains about their hearts, there would soon be such a divine excellence in their lives, that others would account it a great privilege to be with or near them.

It is the pride, passion and earthliness of our hearts—which has spoiled Christian fellowship. Why is it that when Christians meet they are often jarring and contending—but because their passions are unmortified? Whence come their uncharitable censures of their brethren—but from their ignorance of themselves? Why are they so rigid and unfeeling toward those who have fallen—but because they do not feel their own weakness and liability to temptation? Why is their discourse so light and unprofitable when they meet—but because their hearts are earthly and vain? But now, if Christians would study their hearts more and keep them better, the beauty and glory of communion would be restored. They would divide no more, contend no more, censure rashly no more. They will feel right one toward another—when each is daily humbled under a sense of the evil of his own heart!

10. Lastly—Keep your heart, and then the COMFORTS of the Spirit and the influence of all ordinances will be more fixed and lasting than they now are. Do the consolations of God seem small to you? Ah, you have reason to be ashamed that the ordinances of God, as to their quickening and comforting effects, should make so light and transient an impression on your heart!

Now, reader, consider well these special benefits of keeping the heart which I have mentioned. Examine their importance. Are they small matters? Is it a small matter to have your understanding assisted? Is it a small matter to have your endangered soul rendered safe? Is it a small matter to have your sincerity proved? Is it a small matter to have your communion with God sweetened? Is it a small matter to have your heart filled with matter for prayer? Is it a small thing to have the power of godliness? Is it a small matter to have fatal scandals removed? Is it a small matter to obtain a great fitness to serve Christ? Is it a small matter to have the communion of saints restored to its primitive glory? Is it a small matter to have the influence of ordinances abiding in the souls of saints? If these are no common blessings, no ordinary benefits, then surely it is a great and indispensable duty to keep the heart with all diligence.

And now are you inclined to undertake the business of keeping your heart? Are you resolved upon it? I charge you, then, to engage in it earnestly! Away with every cowardly feeling, and make up your mind to encounter difficulties. Draw your armor from the word of God. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, in its commands, its promises, its threatenings Let the word of Christ be fixed in your understanding, your memory, your conscience, your affections. You must learn to wield the sword of the Spirit (which is the word of God) familiarly, if you would defend your heart and conquer your enemies. You must call yourself frequently to an account. Examine yourself as in the presence of the all seeing God. Bring your conscience, as it were, to the bar of judgment. Beware how you plunge yourself into a multiplicity of worldly business—how you practice upon the maxims of the world—and how you venture to indulge your depraved propensities. You must exercise the utmost vigilance to discover and check the first symptoms of departure from God, the least decline of spirituality, or the least indisposition to private meditation, and holy conversation and fellowship with others. These things you must undertake, in the strength of Christ, with invincible resolution at the outset.

And if you thus engage in this great work, be assured you shall not spend your strength for nothing! Comforts which you never felt or thought of, will flow in upon you from every side. The diligent prosecution of this work will constantly afford you the most powerful excitements to vigilance and ardor in the life of faith, while it increases our strength and wears out your enemies. And when you have kept your heart with all diligence a little while—when you have fought the battles of this spiritual warfare, gained the ascendancy over the corruptions within, and vanquished the enemies without—then God will open the gate of heaven to you, and give you the portion which is promised to those who overcome! Awake then, this moment; get the world under your felt, pant not for the things which a man may have, and eternally lose his soul! Bless God that you may have his service here, and the glory hereafter which he appoints to his chosen.

“Now may the God of peace, who brought up from the dead our Lord Jesus—the great Shepherd of the sheep—with the blood of the everlasting covenant, equip you with all that is good to do His will, working in us what is pleasing in His sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen. Brothers, I urge you to receive this word of exhortation, for I have written to you in few words.” Hebrews 13:20-22

John Flavel, “Keeping the Heart”

Perhaps the smallness of the sin is urged as
a reason why you may commit it: “It is but
a little sin–a small matter–a trifle!”

But, if you commit this little sin–you will offend
a great God! Is there any little hell to torment
little sinners in? No! The least sinners in hell are
full of misery! There is great wrath treasured up
for those whom the world regard as little sinners.

The less the sin–the less the inducement you should
have to commit it. Will you provoke God for a trifle?
Will you destroy your peace, wound your conscience,
and grieve the Spirit–all for nothing? What madness
is this!

John Flavel, “The Fountain of Life” 1671

O how inflexible and severe is the justice of God!
What, no abatement? no sparing mercy?

No, not even to His own Son!

Cultivate a deep indignation against sin.

Oh cursed sin! It was you who slew my dear Lord!
For your sake He underwent all this! If your vileness
had not been so great, His sufferings had not been
so many. Cursed sin! You were the knife which
stabbed Him! You the sword which pierced Him!