are wrought by men, which yet are utterly rejected by God, and hours have fome profeffors spent in hearing, praying, reading, con- 2. Hence alfo infer for the humiliation, even of upright hearts, That unless the people of God spend more time and pains about their hearts, than generally and ordinarily they do, they are never like to do God much fervice, or be owners of much comfort in this world. I may fay of that Chriftian that is remifs and careless in keeping his heart, as Jacob faid of Reuben, "Thou fhalt not excel." It grieves me to fee how many Chriftians there are that go up and down dejected, and complaining, that live at a poor low rate, both of fervice and comfort; and how can they expect it fhould be otherwife, as long as they live at fuch a careless rate? O how little of their time is spent in the closet in fearching, humbling, and quickening their hearts? You fay your hearts are dead, and do you wonder they are fo, as long as you keep them not with the fountain of life? If your bodies had been dieted as your fouls have been, they would have been dead too; never expect better hearts till you take more pains with them: Qui fugit molam, fugit farinam; he that will not have the sweat, muft not expect the fweet of religion. O Chriftians! I fear your zeal and strength have run in the wrong channel; I fear most of us may take up the Church's complaint, Cant. i. 6. "They have made me the keeper of the vineyards, but "mine own vineyard have I not kept." Two things have eaten up the time and strength of the profeffors of this generation, and fadly diverted them from heart-work: (1.) Fruitless controverfies ftarted by Satan, I doubt not, to this very purpose, to take us off from practical godlinefs, to make us puzzle our heads when we should be fearching our hearts. O how little have we minded that of the apoftle, Heb. xiii. 9. "It is a good thing that the heart be established with grace, and not with meats;" i. e. with difputes and controverfies about meats, "which have not profited them that have been "occupied therein." O how much better is it to fee men live exactly, than to hear them difpute fubtlely! These unfruitful queftions, how have they rent the churches, wafted time and fpirits, and called Chriftians off from their main business, from looking to their own vineyard? What think ye, firs? Had it not been better if the questions agitated among the people of God of late days had been fuch as thefe? How fhall a man difcern the special, from the common operations of the Spirit? How may a foul difcern its firft declinings from God? How may a backfliding Chriftian recover his firft love? How may the heart be preferved from unfeasonable thoughts in duty? How may a bofomfin be discovered, and mortified, &c. would not this have tended more to the credit of religion and comfort of your fouls? O it is time to repent and be ashamed of this folly! When I read what Suarez, a Papift, faid, who wrote many tomes of difputations, that he prized the time he fet apart for the searching and examining of his heart, in reference to God, above all the time that ever he spent in other Budies: I am afhamed to find the profeffors of this age yet infenfible of their folly. Shall the conscience of a Suarez feel a relenting pang for strength and time fo ill employed, and fhall not yours? This is it your minifters long fince warned you of; your fpiritual nurfes were afraid of the rickets, when they faw our heads only to grow, and our hearts to wither. O when will God beat our fwords into plow-fhares! I mean, our difputes and contentions into practical godliness. (2.) Another caufe of neglecting our hearts hath been earthly incumbrances; the heads and hearts of many have been filled with fuch a crowd and noife of worldly bufinefs, that they have 3fadly and fenfibly declined and withered in their zeal, love, and delight in God; in their heavenly, ferious, and profitable way of converfing with men. O how hath this wilderness entangled us! our difcourfes and conferences, nay, our very prayers and duties have a tang of it: we have * had fo much work without doors, that we have been able to do but little within. It was the fad complaint of an holy one*, 'O (faith he} • Mr Strong. it is fad to think how many precious opportunities I have loft; how many sweet motions and admonitions of the Spirit I have paffed over unfruitfully, and made the Lord to fpeak in vain: in the ⚫ fecret illapfes of his Spirit the Lord hath called upon me, but my worldly thoughts did ftill lodge within me, and there was no place within my heart for fuch calls of God." Surely there is a way of enjoying God, even in our worldly employments; God would never have put us upon them to our lofs; "Enoch walked with God, and "begat fons and daughters," Gen. v. 19. He walked with God, but did not retire and feparate himself from the things of this life and the angels that are employed by Chrift in the things of this world, (for the fpirit of the living creatures is in the wheels) they are finite creatures, and cannot be in a twofold ubi at one time; yet they lofe nothing of the beatifical vifion all the time of their administration: for Matth. xviii. 10. "Their angels (even whilft they are employed for "them) behold the face of their Father which is in heaven." We need not lose our visions by our employments, if the fault were not our own. Alas! that ever Chriftians, who stand at the door of eternity, and have more work upon their hands than this poor moment of interpofing time is fufficient for, fhould yet be filling both their heads and hearts with trifles. 3. Hence I infer, for the awakening of all, That if the keeping of the heart be the great work of a Chriftian, then there are but few real Chriftians in the world. Indeed if every one that hath learned the dialect of Christianity, and can talk like a faint if every one that hath gifts and parts, and by the common affifting prefence of the Spirit can preach, pray, or difcourfe like a Chriftian; in a word, if fuch as affociate themfelves with the people of God, and delight in ordinances, may pass for Chriftians, the number then is great. But, alas! to what a small number will they fhrink, if you judge them by this rule! how few are there that make confcience of keeping their hearts, watching their thoughts, judging their ends, &c, O there be but few clofet men among profeffors! It is far easier for men to be reconciled to any duties in religion than to thefe: The profane part of the world will not fo much as touch with the outfide of religious duties, much lefs with this; and for the hypocrite, though he be polite and curious about those externals, yet you can never perfuade him to this inward work, this difficult work, to which there is no inducement by human applaufe; this work, that would quickly difcover what the hypocrite cares not to know; fo that by a general confent, this heart-work is left to the hands of a few fecret ones, and I tremble to think in how few hands it is. II. Ufe, for Exhortation. If the keeping of the heart be fo important a business; if fuch choice advantages accrue to you thereby; if fo many dear and precious interefts be wrapt up in it, then let me call upon the people of God every where to fall clofe to this work. O ftudy your hearts, watch your hearts, keep your hearts! away with fruitless controverfies, and all idle questions; away with empty names and vain fhews; away with unprofitable difcourfe and bold cenfures of others; turn in upon yourfelves; get into your closets, and now refolve to dwell there. You have been strangers to this work too long; you have kept others vineyards too long; you have trifled about the borders of religion too long; this world hath detained you from your great work too long; will you now refolve to look better to your hearts? Will you hafte and come out of the crowds of business, and clamours of the world, and retire yourselves more than you have done? O that this day you would refolve upon it! Reader, methinks I fhould prevail with thee: All that I beg for is but this, that thou wouldst ftep afide a little oftner to talk with God, and thine own heart; that thou wouldst not fuffer every trifle to divert thee; that thou wouldft keep a more true and faithful account of thy thoughts and affections; that thou wouldst but feriously demand of this thy own heart, at least every evening, O my heart, where haft thou been to-day? Whither haft thou made a road today? If all that hath been faid by way of inducement be not enough, I have yet more motives to offer you. And the first is this: 1. Motive. The ftudying, observing, and diligent keeping of your own hearts, will marvellously help your understanding in the deep myfteries of religion. An honeft well-experienced heart, is a fingular help to a weak head fuch a heart will ferve you inftead of a commentary upon a great part of the fcriptures: By this means you fhall far better under. ftand the things of God, than the learned rabbies and profound doctors (if gracelefs and unexperienced) ever did; you fhall not only have a more clear, but a more sweet perception and gust of them: A man may difcourfe orthodoxly and profoundly of the nature and effects of faith, the troubles and comforts of conscience, the sweetnels of communion with God, that never felt the efficacy and fweet impreffions of these things upon his own fpirit: but O how dark and dry are these notions, compared with his upon whofe heart they have been acted! When fuch a man reads David's Pfalms, or Paul's epiftles, there he finds his own objections made and answered. O, faith he, thefe holy men fpeak my very heart: Their doubts were mine, their troubles mine, and their experiences mine. I remember Chryfoftom, fpeaking to his people of Antioch about fome choice experiences, ufed this expreffion: Sciunt initiati quid dico: Thofe that are initiated, know what I fay: Experience is the best schoolmaster. O then, ftudy your hearts, keep your hearts! 2 Motive. The study and obfervation of your own hearts will antidote you against the dangerous and infecting errors of the times and plaçes you live in. T For what think you is the reafon that fo many profeffors in England have departed from the faith, giving heed to fables; that fo many thousands have been led away by the error of the wicked; that Jefuits and Quakers, who have fown corrupt doctrine, have had fuch plentiful harvests among us, but because they have met with a company of empty notional profeffors, that never knew what belongs to practical godlinefs, and the ftudy of their own hearts. If profeffors did but give diligence to ftudy, fearch and watch their own hearts, they would have that do repayμon, that fteadfastnefs of their own, that Peter speaks of, 1 Pet. iii. 17. and this would ballaft and fettle them, Heb. xiii. 9. Suppofe a fubtle Papift fhould talk to fuch of the dignity and merit of good works; could he ever work the perfuafion of it into that heart that is confcious to itself of fo much darkness, deadnefs, diftraction, and unbelief, attending its best duties? It is a good rule, Non eft difputandum de guftu: There is no difputing against taste. What a man hath felt and tafted, one cannot beat him off from that by argument. 3 Motive. Your care and diligence in keeping your hearts will prove one of the beft evidences of your fincerity. I know no external act of religion that differences the found from the unfound profeffor: It is wonderful to confider how far hypocrites go in all external duties; how plaufibly they can order the outward man, hiding all their indecencies from the obfervation of the world. But then, they take no heed to their hearts; they are not in fecret what they appear to be in public: And before this trial no hypocrite can stand. It is confeffed they may in a fit, under a pang upon a death-bed, cry out of the wickedness of their hearts; but alas! there is no heed to be taken to these extorted complaints. In our law, no credit is to be given to the teftimony of one upon the rack, because it may be fuppofed that the extremity of the torture may make him fay any thing to be eafed. But if felf-jealoufy, care, and watchfulness, be the daily workings and frames of thy heart, it ftrongly argues the fincerity of it: For what but the sense of a divine eye; what but the real hatred of fin as fin, could put thee upon thofe fecret duties, which lie out of the observation of all creatures? If then it be a defirable thing in thine eyes to have a fair teftimony of thine integrity, and to know of a truth, that thou fearest God; then fudy thine heart, watch thy heart, keep thy heart. 4 Motive. How fruitful, fweet, and comfortable would all ordinances and duties be to us, if our hearts were better kept? O what precious communion might you have with God every time. you approach him, if your hearts were but in frame! You might then fay with David, Pfal. civ. 35. "My meditation of him fhall be "fweet." That which lofes all our comforts in ordinances and more fecret duties, is the indifpofednefs of the heart: A Chriftian whofe heart is in a good frame, gets the start of all others that come with VOL. V. 3 S |