O then be precise and accurate in all manner of conversation ; keep up the power of godliness in your closets and families, and then you will not let it fall in your more public employments and con- verses in the world : I have often told you, that it is the honour of the gospel, that it makes the best parents and children, the best mas- ters and servants, the best husbands and wives in the world.
My third and last request is, that you may pray for me : I hope I can say, and I am sure some of you have acknowledged, that I came at first among you, as the return and answer of your prayers : and in- deed so it should be, see Luke x. 2. I am persuaded also, I have been carried on in my work by your prayers ; it is sweet when it is so ; see Eph. vi. 18, 19- And I hope by your prayers to receive yet a farther benefit, even that which is mentioned, Heb. xiii. 18, 19- Philem. ver. 22. And truly it is but equal you should pray for me, I have often prayed for you : let the pulpit, family, and closet wit- ness for me ; and God forbid I should sin against the Lord in ceasing to pray for you.
Yea, friends, your own interest may persuade to it : what mer- cies you obtain for me, redound to your own advantage ; if God pre- serve me, it is for your use and service : the more gifts and graces a minister hath, the better for them that shall wait on his ministr^^ ; the more God gives in to me, the more I shall be able to give out to you. I will detain you no longer, but to entreat you to accept this small testification of my great love, and have recourse to it, according as the exigencies of your condition shall require: read it consideringly, and obediently; judge it not by the dress and style, but by the weight and savour of what you read. It is a good rule of Bernard, In Ic^ gendis Ubris, non quceramus scientiam sed saporem, i. e. In reading books, regard not so much the science as the savour. That it may prove the savour of life unto life to you, and all those in whose hands it shall come, is the hearty desire of
You?' loving andjuifliful Pastor,
From my study at Ley, in JOHN FLAVEL.
Slapton, Oct.l, 1667.
Prov. iv. 23. Keep thy heart with all diligence, Jbr out of it are the issues of life.
X HE heart of man is his worst part before it be regenerate, and the best afterwards : 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.
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 pinch and stress of religion ; here is that which makes the way to life a narrow way, and the gate to heaven a strait gate. Direction and help in this great work are the scope and sum of this text : wherein we have,
1. An exhortation, " Keep thy heart with all diligence.'*'
2. The reason, or motive enforcing it, " For out of it are the issues "of life."
In the exhortation I shall consider,
1. The matter of the duty.
2. The manner of performing it.
1. The mattter of the duty, heep thy heart. Heart is not here taken properly for that noble part of the body which philosophers call the primum viveiis, et ultimum moriens ; the first that lives, and the last that dies ; but by heart, in a metaphor, the scripture sometimes understands some particular noble faculty of thy soul : in Rom. i. 21. it is put for the understanding part, their foolish heart, i. e. " their foolish understanding was darkened." And Psalm cxix. 11. it is put for the memory, " Thy word have I hid in my heart ;"" and 1 John iii. 10. it is put for the conscience, which hath in it both the light of the understanding and the recognitions of the memory : if our lieart condemn us, i. e. if your consciences, whose proper of- fice it is to condemn. But here we are to take it more generally for the whole soul, or inner man ; for look 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 : Quod sanitas in corpore, id sanctitas in coi'de. The state of the whole body depends upon the soundness and vigour of the heart, and the everlasting state of the whole man upon the good or ill condition of the soul.
And by keeping the heart, understand the diUgenf and constant use and improvement of all holy means and duties, to preserve the soul from sin, and maintain its sweet and free communion with God.
424 "THAT IT 19 TO KEEP THE ttEAKt.
* Livater, on the place, will have the word taken from a besieged gcirrison, begirt by many enemies without, and in danger of being be- trayed by treacherous citizens within, in which danger the soldiers, upon pain of death, are commanded to watch ; and whereas the ex- pression (keep thine heart) seems to put it upon us as our work, yet it doth not imply a sufficiency or ability in us to do it ; we are as able to stop the sun in its course, or 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 saviours, as our own keepers ; and yet Solomon speaks properly enough, when he saith keep thij heart ; because the duty is our's though the power be God's. A natural man hath no power, a gracious man hath some, though not sufficient ; and that poAver he hath, depends upon the exciting and assisting strength of Christ; Gratia gratiam postulate grace within us is beholden to grace with- out us, John XV. 5. "Without me ve can do nothinsf." So much of the matter of the duty.
2. The manner of performing it is, zcith all diligence ; the He- brew is very emphatical, -|- Cum orani custodia^ keeping with all keeping, q. d. keep, keep ; set double guards, vour hearts will be gone else. And this vehemency of expression, with which the duty is urged, plainly implies how difficult it is to keep your hearts, and how dangerous to let them go.