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ratiocination or dry syllogistical inference. Leave trifling studies to such as have time lying on their hands, and know not how to employ it. Remember you are at the door of eternity, and have other work to do. Those hours you spend on heart-work in your closets, are the golden spots of all your time, and will have the sweetest influence on your last hour. Heart-work is weighty, and difficult work; an error there may cost you your souls. I may say of it as Augustine speaks of the doctrine of the Trinity, "A man can err in nothing more easily or more dangerously." O then study your hearts.

My next request is, that you will carefully look to your conversation, and be accurate in all your ways. "Hold forth the word of life." By the strictness and holiness of your lives, settle yourselves in the very consciences of your enemies. Remember that your lives must be produced in the great day to judge the world; 1 Cor. vi. 2. O then what manner of persons ought you to be! You have many eyes over you; the omniscient eye of God that searches heart and reins, Rev. ii. 23; the vigilant eye of Satan, Job i. 7, 8; the envious eyes of enemies who curiously observe you, Psal. v. 8; the quick and observant eye of conscience, which none of your actions escape, Rom. ix. 1. 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 converse in the world. I have often told you, that it is the honor of the gospel, that it makes the best parents and children, the best masters and servants, the best husbands and wives, in the world.

My third and last request is, that you 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 indeed so it should be; Luke x. 2. I am persuaded also, that I have been carried on in my work by your prayers; it is sweet when it is so; Eph. vi. 18, 19. And I hope by your prayers to receive yet a farther benefit, even that which is mentioned in Heb. xiii. 18, 19; Philem. ver. 22. And truly it is but just that you should pray for me; I have often prayed for

you. Let the pulpit, family, and closet, witness for me; and "God forbid I should sin against the Lord in ceasing to pray for you." Yea, friends, your own interest may persuade you to it. What mercies you obtain for me, redound to your own advantage. If God preserves me, it is for your use and service. The more gifts and graces a minister has, the better for them that wait on his ministry; the more God gives in to me, the more I shall be able to give out to you. I will detain you no longer, than 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 considerately, and obediently. Judge it not by the dress and style, but by the weight and savor of what you read. It is a good rule of Bernard, "In reading books, regard not so much the science as the savor.' That it may prove the savor of life unto life to you, and to all those into whose hands it shall come, is the hearty desire of

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Your loving and faithful Pastor,

From my Study at Ley,

in Slapton, Oct. 7, 1667.

JOHN FLAVEL.

A

SAINT INDEED, &c.

PROV. iv. 23.

Keep thy heart with all diligence, for out of it are the issues of life.

INTRODUCTION.

THE heart of man is his worst part before it is 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 on 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, first, the matter of the duty; secondly, the manner of performing it.

I shall consider, first, the matter of the duty, "Keep thy heart." The word "heart" is not here taken for that noble part of the body which philosophers call the "pri

mum vivens et ultimum moriens," the first that lives and the last that dies; but by the word "heart," used metaphorically, the scripture sometimes understands some particular faculty of the soul. In Rom. i. 21, it is put for the understanding; "Their foolish heart," that is, their foolish understanding, 66 was darkened." In Psalm cxix. 11, it is put for the memory; "Thy word have I hid in my heart." In 1 John iii. 10, it is put for the conscience, which has in it both the light of the understanding and the recognitions of the memory: "If our heart condemn us," that is, our consciences, whose proper office it is to condemn. But here we are to take it more generally for the whole soul or inner man; for 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 on the soundness and vigor of the heart, and the everlasting state of the whole man depends on the good or ill condition of the soul.

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And by keeping the heart, we are to understand the diligent 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. ter says that the word is taken from a besieged garrison, begirt by many enemies without, and in danger of being betrayed by treacherous citizens within; in which danger the soldiers, on pain of death, are commanded to watch. The expression, "Keep thy heart," seems to put it upon us as our work, yet it does not imply a sufficiency or ability in us to do it. We are as able to stop the sun in his 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 says, "Keep thy heart," because the duty is ours, though the power be God's. A natural man has no power, a gracious man has some though not sufficient; and that power which he has, depends on the exciting and assisting strength of Christ. Grace within us is beholden to grace without us. "Without me ye can do nothing."

2. The manner of performing it is, "with all diligence."

The Hebrew is very emphatical, "keeping with all keeping;" that is, keep, keep; set double guards; your hearts will be gone else. And this vehemency of expression with which the duty is urged, plainly implies how difficult it is to keep our hearts, and how dangerous to let them go. 3. The reason or motive, quickening to this duty, is very forcible and weighty; "For out of it are the issues of life;" that is, it is the source and fountain of all vital actions and operations; it is the spring and original both of good and evil; it is 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 thence; the hand and tongue always begin where the heart ends. The heart contrives, and the meinbers execute. "A good man out of the good treasure of his heart bringeth forth good things, and an evil man out of the evil treasure of his heart bringeth forth evil things; for out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh," Luke vi. 45. So then if the heart err in its work, these must needs miscarry in theirs; for heart-errors are like the errors of the first concoction, which cannot be rectified afterwards; or like the misplacing and inverting of the stamps and letters in the press, which must needs cause so many errata in all the copies that are printed off. O then how important a duty is that which is contained in the following proposition !—

Doctrine. The keeping and right managing of the heart in every condition, is the great business of a Christian's life. What the philosopher says of waters, is as properly applicable to hearts; "It is hard to keep them within bounds." God has set bounds and 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 labor, fear, and trembling, to his dying-day. It is not the cleansing 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 provokes so many sad complaints, and costs so many deep groans and briny tears. It was the pride of Hezekiah's heart, that made him lie in the

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