thoughts, to have all things lie straight and orderly in the heart-this is not easy.

It is a constant work. The keeping of the heart is such a work as is never done till life be done: this labor and our life end together. It is with a Christian in this business, as it is with seamen who have sprung a leak at sea; if they labor not constantly at the pump, the water increases on them, and will quickly sink them. It is in vain for them to say "The work is hard and we are weary." There is no time or condition in the life of a Christian, which will suffer an intermission of this work. It is in the keeping watch over our hearts, as it was in the keeping up of the hand of Moses whilst Israel and Amalek were fighting below, Exod. xvii. 12. No sooner do Moses' hands grow heavy and sink down, than Amalek prevails. You know it cost David and Peter many a sad day and night for intermitting the watch over their own hearts but a few minutes.

It is the most important business of a Christian's life. Without this we are but formalists in religion; all our professions, gifts, and duties, signify nothing. "My son, give me thine heart.' 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, he regards not whatever else you bring to him. There is so much only of worth and value in what we do, as there is of heart in it. Concerning the heart, God seems to say, as Joseph of Benjamin, "If you bring not Benjamin with you, you shall not see my face." Among the heathens, when the beast was cut up for sacrifice, the first thing the priest looked upon was the heart, and if that was unsound and: nought, the sacrifice was rejected. God rejects all duties, how glorious soever in other respects, which are offered him without a heart. He who performs duty without a heart, heedlessly, is no more accepted with God than he who performs it with a double heart, hypocritically, Isa. lxvi. 3. And thus I have briefly opened the nature of the duty, what is im ported in this phrase, "Keep thy heart."

CHAPTER II.

Reasons for Keeping the Heart.

I SHALL next give you some rational account why Christians should make this the great business of their lives, to keep their hearts.

The importance and necessity of making this our great and main business, will manifestly appear in that the honor of God the sincerity of our profession-the beauty of our conversation-the comfort of our souls-the improvement of our graces-our stability in the hour of temptation-all are wrapt up in, and dependent on, our sincerity and care in the management of this work.

1. The glory of God is much concerned herein. Heartevils are very provoking evils to the Lord. The schoolmen well observe, that outward sins are sins of great infamy, but heart-sins are sins of deeper guilt. How severely has the great God declared his wrath from heaven against heart-wickedness! The great crime for which the old world stands indicted, is heart-wickedness, "God saw that every imagination," or fiction "of their heart was only evil, and that continually;" for which he sent the most dreadful judgment that was ever executed since the world began. "And the Lord said, I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth, both man and beast, and the creeping things and the fowls of heaven; for it repenteth me that I have made man." We find not their murders, adulteries, blasphemies, though they were defiled with these, particularly alleged against them; but the evils of their hearts; yea, that which God was so provoked by, as to give up his peculiar inheritance into the enemy's hand, was the evil of their hearts; "O Jerusalem, wash thine heart from wickedness, that thou mayest be saved. How long shall vain thoughts lodge within thee?" Jer. iv. 14. The wickedness and vanity of their thoughts God took special notice of; and because of this the Chaldean must come upon them as "a lion from his thicket, and tear them to pieces." On account of this very sin of the thoughts it

was that God threw down the fallen angels from heaven, and keeps them still "in everlasting chains to the judg ment of the great day;" by which expression is not obscurely intimated some extraordinary judgment to which they are reserved, as prisoners who have most irons laid upon them, may be supposed to be the greatest malefactors and what was their sin? Only spiritual wickedness; for they, having no bodily organs, could do nothing externally against God. Yea, mere heart-evils are so provoking, that on account of them God rejects with indignation all the duties that some men perform unto him; "He that killeth an ox is as if he slew a man; he that sacrificeth a lamb, is as if he cut off a dog's neck; he that offereth an oblation, as if he offered swine's blood; he that burneth incense, as if he blessed an idol," Isa. lxvi. 3. In what words could the abhorrence of a creature'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 he himself had appointed. And what made them so? The following words inform us; "Their soul delighteth in their abominations."

Such is the vileness of mere heart-sins, that the scriptures sometimes intimate the difficulty of pardon for them. Thus in the case of Simon Magus; his heart was not right, he had vile thoughts of God, and the things of God; the apostle consequently bids him "repent and pray, if perhaps the thoughts of his heart might be forgiven him." O then never slight heart-evils; for by these God is highly wronged and provoked! And for this reason let every Christian make it his work to keep his heart with all diligence.

2. The sincerity of our profession much depends on the care and conscience we have in keeping our hearts; for it is most certain, that a man is but a hypocrite in his profession, how careful soever he be in the externals of religion, who is heedless and careless of the frame of his heart. You have a pregnant instance of this in the case of Jehu; "But Jehu took no heed to walk in the ways of the Lord God of Israel with his heart," 2 Kings x. 31. The context gives us an account of the great

service performed by Jehu against the house of Ahab and Baal, as also of a 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; and yet, in these words, Jehu is censured for a hypocrite. Though God approved and rewarded the work, yet he abhorred and rejected the person who did it, as hypocritical. And wherein lay his hypocrisy, but in this, that he "took no heed to walk in the ways of the Lord with his heart," that is, he did all insincerely, and for self-ends; and though the work he did was materially good, yet he, not purging his heart from those unworthy self-designs in doing it, was a hypocrite? And Simon, of whom we spake before, though he appeared such a person that the apostle could not regularly refuse him, yet his hypocrisy was quickly. discovered. And what discovered it but this, that though he professed and associated himself with the saints, yet he was a stranger to the mortification of heart-sins? Thy heart is not right with God." It is true there is a great difference among Christians themselves, in their diligence and skill in heart-work; some are more conversant and successful in it than others are; but he who takes no heed to his heart, who is not careful to order it aright before God, is but a hypocrite; "And they come unto thee as the people cometh, and sit before thee as my people, and they hear thy words, but they will not do them; for with their mouths they show much love, but their heart goeth after their covetousness," Ezek. xxxiii. 31. Here were a company of formal hypocrites, as is evident by that expression, "as my people;" they were like them, but not of them. And what made them so? Their outside was fair. Here were reverential postures, high professions, much seeming joy and delight in ordinances, "Thou art to them as a lovely song;" but for all this 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 sum of their hypocrisy.

If any upright soul should hence infer, that he is a

hypocrite too, for many times his heart departs from God in duty; do what he can, yet he cannot hold it close with God-to this I answer, the very objection carries in it its own solution. Thou sayest, Do what I can, yet I cannot keep my heart with God-soul, if thou dost what thou canst, thou hast the blessing of an upright heart, though God sees good to exercise thee under the affliction of a discomposed heart. There remains still some wildness in the thoughts and fancies of the best to humble them; but if you find a care to prevent them, and an opposition against them when they come, and grief and sorrow afterwards, you will find enough to clear you from reigning hypocrisy.

This fore-care is seen partly in laying up the word in thine heart to prevent them," Thy word have I hid in mine heart, that I might not sin against thee," Psal. cxix. 11; partly in our endeavours to engage our hearts to God, Jer. xxx. 21; and partly in begging preventing grace from God in the commencement of our duty, Psal. cxix. 36, 37. It is a good sign where this care goes before a duty. And it is a sweet sign of uprightness to oppose these wandering thoughts in their first rise; "I hate vain thoughts," Psal. cxix. 113. "The spirit lusteth against the flesh," Gal. v. 17.

Thy grief afterwards discovers thy upright heart. If, with Hezekiah, thou art humbled for the evils of thy heart, thou hast no reason, from these disorders, to question the integrity of it; but to suffer sin to lodge quietly in the heart, to let thy heart habitually and uncontrolledly wander from God, is a sad and dangerous symptom indeed.

3. The beauty of our conversation arises from the heavenly frame and holy order of our spirits. There is a spiritual lustre and beauty in the conversation of saints; "The righteous is more excellent than his neighbour;' they 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 a lustre on the lanthorn in which it shines. It is impossible that a disordered and neglected heart should ever produce well-ordered conversation; and since, as the text states, the issues or streams of life flow out of the heart