Keeping the Heart is a discourse on Proverbs 4:23, "Keep thy heart with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life." Flavel intended this treatise for the specific purpose of illuminating, healing, and guarding the heart. He had the strong conviction, that saints should be marked by their holiness, therefore matters of the heart were of the utmost importance in the Christian life.
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 fixed upon it—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. 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,
An EXHORTATION, "Keep your heart with all diligence."
In the exhortation I shall consider,
First, The matter of the duty.
Secondly, The manner of performing it.
The MATTER of the duty. Keep your heart. By heart, in a metaphor, the Scripture sometimes represents some particular noble faculty of the soul. In Rom. 1:21, it is put for the understanding; their foolish heart, that is, their foolish understanding was darkened. Psalm 119:11, it is put for the memory; "Your word have I hid in my heart:" and 1 John 3:10, it is put for the conscience, which includes both the light of the understanding and the recognition of the memory; if our heart condemns us, that is, if our conscience, whose proper office it is to condemn.
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. 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.
