Keep your heart with all diligence, for out of it is the wellspring of life.
Parallel Translations
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Keep your heart with all diligence, for out of it is the wellspring of life.
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Keep thy heart with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life.
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Above all that thou guardest keep thy heart; for out of it are the issues of life.
Cross-references (18)
Passages linked to Proverbs 4:23 in the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge, ordered by reader-vote popularity; verse text shown in World English Bible.
- Luke 6:45 The good man out of the good treasure of his heart brings out that which is good, and the evil man out of the evil treasure of his heart brings out that which is evil, for out of the abundance of the heart, his mouth speaks.
- Matthew 12:34-35 You offspring of vipers, how can you, being evil, speak good things? For out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks. The good man out of his good treasure brings out good things, and the evil man out of his evil treasure brings out evil things.
- Mark 7:21-23 For from within, out of the hearts of men, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, sexual sins, murders, thefts, covetings, wickedness, deceit, lustful desires, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, and foolishness. All these evil things come from within, and defile the man.”
- Psalms 139:23-24 Search me, God, and know my heart. Try me, and know my thoughts. See if there is any wicked way in me, and lead me in the everlasting way.
- Proverbs 13:3 He who guards his mouth guards his soul. One who opens wide his lips comes to ruin.
- Jeremiah 17:9 The heart is deceitful above all things and it is exceedingly corrupt. Who can know it?
- Matthew 15:19 For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, sexual sins, thefts, false testimony, and blasphemies.
- Proverbs 23:19 Listen, my son, and be wise, and keep your heart on the right path!
- Proverbs 28:26 One who trusts in himself is a fool; but one who walks in wisdom is kept safe.
- Mark 14:38 Watch and pray, that you may not enter into temptation. The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.”
- James 1:14-15 But each one is tempted when he is drawn away by his own lust and enticed. Then the lust, when it has conceived, bears sin. The sin, when it is full grown, produces death.
- Deuteronomy 4:9 Only be careful, and keep your soul diligently, lest you forget the things which your eyes saw, and lest they depart from your heart all the days of your life; but make them known to your children and your children’s children—
- Hebrews 12:15 looking carefully lest there be any man who falls short of the grace of God, lest any root of bitterness springing up trouble you, and many be defiled by it,
- Proverbs 4:7 Wisdom is supreme. Get wisdom. Yes, though it costs all your possessions, get understanding.
- Proverbs 3:21 My son, let them not depart from your eyes. Keep sound wisdom and discretion:
- Proverbs 22:5 Thorns and snares are in the path of the wicked: whoever guards his soul stays from them.
- Proverbs 11:16 A gracious woman obtains honor, but violent men obtain riches.
- Ecclesiastes 5:13 There is a grievous evil which I have seen under the sun: wealth kept by its owner to his harm.
Cross-references from openbible.info (CC BY 4.0)
Explain this verse (18 sources)
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Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain For as the heart is either pure or corrupt,…
For as the heart is either pure or corrupt, so is the whole course of man’s life.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain Pro 4:23 Keep thy heart with all diligence; for…
Pro 4:23 Keep thy heart with all diligence; for out of it [are] the issues of life.
Ver. 23. Keep thy heart.] Filth free, as much as may be; keep a constant counterguard against all inroads made by flesh, world, and devil. Keep the heart always supple and soluble, for else thou canst not be long in spiritual health. Quod sanitas in corpore, id sanctitas in corde. Keep it ever well in tune, and then all shall go well. If in a viol I find the treble string in tune, I make no question of the bass; that goes not out so easily. So here.
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For out of it are the issues of life.] That is, as of natural, so of spiritual actions, Hinc fons boni et peccandi origo, saith Jerome. It is the fountain; {Mat 15:19} the root; {Mat 7:17-18} the treasury or storehouse; {Luk 6:49} the primum mobile; the great wheel; the Pharos that commands the haven; the chief monarch in this Isle of Man that gives laws to all the members. {Rom 7:1-25} Keep it therefore with all custody, or with all caution; or if the devil cast poison into it (as he will), cleanse it after. It is in vain to purge the stream, where the spring is defiled; but if the spring be clear, the streaans will soon clear themselves.
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain Thy heart; thy mind and thoughts, and especially the…
Thy heart; thy mind and thoughts, and especially the will and affections, which are the more immediate and effectual cause of all men’s actions.
Out of it are the issues of life; from thence proceed all the actions, as of the natural, so of the spiritual life, which lead to eternal life and happiness; as, on the contrary, all evil actions tending to death spring from thence, which is here implied.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain Keep thy heart with all diligence,.... The mind from…
Keep thy heart with all diligence,.... The mind from vanity, the understanding from error, the will from perverseness, the conscience clear of guilt, the affections from being inordinate and set on evil objects, the thoughts from being employed on bad subjects; and the whole from falling into the hands of the enemy, or being the possession of Satan: great diligence had need be used in keeping it, since it is naturally so deceitful and treacherous; a strict eye is to be kept upon it; all the avenues to it to be watched, that nothing hurtful enters, or evil comes out; it is to be kept by all manner of means that can be thought of, by prayer, hearing, reading, meditation; and, above all, by applying to Christ for his grace and Spirit to sanctify, preserve, and keep it. Or, "above all keeping, keep thine heart" (b); though other things are to be kept, and care taken of them, as kingdoms and cities, and towns and families, and treasures and riches; yet the heart above all:
for out of it are the issues of life; of natural life: it is the seat of it, from whence all actions of life are derived; it is, as philosophers say, the first that lives, and the last that dies; and it is the seat of spiritual life the principle of it is formed in it; from whence all spiritual and vital actions flow, and which lead unto and issue in eternal life: as is a man's heart, such is his state now, and will be hereafter; if the heart is quickened and sanctified by the grace of God, the man will live a life of faith and holiness here, and enjoy everlasting life hereafter: and if the heart is right, so will the actions of men be; they are regulated and denominated by it; they will then spring from right principles, and be directed to right ends, and performed with right views; great care therefore should be taken of the heart, since so much depends upon it, and it is so well known to God the searcher of it.
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(b) "prae omni custodia", Vatablus, Baynus, Mercerus, Gejerus, Michaelis, Schultens; so Aben Ezra and Ben Melech.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain Heart - Thy thoughts, will, and affections. For -…
Heart - Thy thoughts, will, and affections. For - From thence proceed all the actions, as of the natural, so of the spiritual life, which lead to eternal life.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain Verse 23. Keep thy heart with all diligence] "Above…
Verse 23. Keep thy heart with all diligence] "Above all keeping," guard thy heart. He who knows any thing of himself, knows how apt his affections are to go astray.
For out of it are the issues of life.] תוצאות חיים totseoth chaiyim, "the goings out of lives." Is not this a plain allusion to the arteries which carry the blood from the heart through the whole body, and to the utmost extremities? As long as the heart is capable of receiving and propelling the blood, so long life is continued. Now as the heart is the fountain whence all the streams of life proceed, care must be taken that the fountain be not stopped up nor injured. A double watch for its safety must be kept up. So in spiritual things: the heart is the seat of the Lord of life and glory; and the streams of spiritual life proceed from him to all the powers and faculties of the soul. Watch with all diligence, that this fountain be not sealed up, nor these streams of life be cut off. Therefore "put away from thee a froward mouth and perverse lips - and let thy eyes look straight on." Or, in other words, look inward - look onward - look upward.
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I know that the twenty-third verse is understood as principally referring to the evils which proceed from the heart, and which must be guarded against; and the good purposes that must be formed in it, from which life takes its colouring. The former should be opposed; the latter should be encouraged and strengthened. If the heart be pure and holy, all its purposes will be just and good. If it be impure and defiled, nothing will proceed from it but abomination. But though all this be true, I have preferred following what I believe to be the metaphor in the text.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson 1811 · Public Domain Pro 4:23. Keep thy heart with all diligence —…
Pro 4:23. Keep thy heart with all diligence — The Hebrew is, Above all keeping, keep thy heart, that is, thy mind and thoughts, thy will and affections, which are the more immediate cause of men’s actions. Out of it are the issues of life — The life or death of the soul proceeds from the heart: an upright, enlightened, renewed, devout, and watchful heart gives birth to those holy dispositions, words, and actions, which manifest spiritual life, and lead to eternal life: on the contrary, a heart insincere, unenlightened, unrenewed, and corrupt, without knowledge, without grace, produces those tempers, words, and works, which imply spiritual death, and lead to eternal death. From the heart proceeds all evil, Mat 15:11-19. Guard it therefore most carefully, with every kind of diligence, and above all other cares.
Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain Better, as in the margin, i. e., with more…
Better, as in the margin, i. e., with more vigilance than men use over anything else. The words that follow carry on the same similitude. The fountains and wells of the East were watched over with special care. The heart is such a fountain, out of it flow the “issues” of life. Shall men let those streams be tainted at the fountain-head?
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Charles Bridges 1846 · Public Domain (Pro 4:26 quoted in the NT: Heb 12:3)
(Pro 4:26 quoted in the NT: Heb 12:3)
Invaluable are these rules as our safeguard. Assaulted as we are at every point, every inlet of sin must be strongly guarded — the heart — the mouth — the eye — the feet.
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First — the heart — the citadel of man†1 — the seat of his dearest treasure. It is fearful to think of its many watchful and subtle assailants. Let it be closely garrisoned. Let the sentinel be never sleeping on his post. "Take heed to thy way, and keep thy soul diligently." (Deu 4:9 .)
But the heart must be known in order to be effectually kept. Nothing is more difficult, while nothing is more necessary. If we know not our hearts, we know nothing to any purpose. Whatever else we know, to neglect this knowledge is to be a fool at the best. If we know not our weak points, Satan knows them well — "the sins that most easily beset us."
Then when I know my heart, and feel it to be so dangerous, and in such dangers, the question forces itself upon me — ’Can I keep my heart?’ Certainly not. But, though it be God’s work, it is man’s agency. Our efforts are his instrumentality. He implants an active principle, and sustains the unceasing exercise. (Php 2:12-13 . Jud 1:24 with Jud 1:21 .) Conscious faith "commits the keeping of the heart to our faithful Creator." (1Pe 4:19 . Psa 25:20 .) This done — in his strength and guidance diligently improve all the means of preservation. Watch unto prayer. Cherish an humble dependent spirit. Live in the atmosphere of the word of God. Resist the admittance of an evil world, even in its most plausible forms. (Jdg 8:22-23 . 2Ki 5:5, 2Ki 5:16 .) Here lies the conflict to the end. ’The greatest difficulty in conversion is to win the heart to God, and after conversion to keep it with him.’†2 ’What is there’ — asks Mede — ’that will not entice and allure so fickle a thing as the heart from God?’†3 Above all keeping — exhorts the wise man — keep thine heart. Here Satan keeps — here therefore must we keep — special watch. If the citadel be taken, the whole town must surrender. If the heart be seized, the whole man — the affections, desires, motives, pursuits — all will be yielded up. The heart is the vital part of the body. A wound here is instant death. Thus — spiritually as well as naturally — out of the heart are the issues of life. It is the great vital spring of the soul, the fountain of actions, the centre and the seat of principle,†4 both of sin and of holiness. (Mat 12:34-35 .) The natural heart is a fountain of poison. (Mat 15:19 .) The purified heart is "a well of living water." (Joh 4:14 . Compare Pro 14:14 .) As is the fountain, so must be the streams. As is the heart, so must be the mouth, the eyes, the feet. Therefore, above all keeping, keep thine heart. Guard the fountain, lest the waters be poisoned. (Compare Gen 26:18-21 .) Many have been the bitter moments, from the neglect of this guard. All keeping is vain, if the heart be not kept.
But with this keeping, let us not forget to guard the outlets of sin! (Pro 13:3 .) What a world of evil does the heart pour out from the froward mouth! (Jas 3:5-6 .) Commit, therefore, both heart and mouth to Divine discipline. (Psa 19:13 ; Psa 141:3-4 .) Then let prayer and faith be the practical principles of Christian watchfulness. Not only shun, but put away — yea — far from thee — the perverse lips. Their evil — be it remembered — extends beyond ourselves. Even should the peace-speaking blood speak peace to ourselves, still will remain the painful sense of injury to our fellow-creatures, perhaps without remedy.
Next to the heart and mouth — keep thine eyes — "the light of the body" (Mat 6:22 ), the directive faculty of the soul. Yet too often are they a most dangerous inlet to sin. (Gen 3:6 ; Gen 6:2 ; Gen 39:7 . Mat 5:28 . 2Pe 2:14 .) Therefore, like Job, "make a covenant with them." (Job 31:1 .) Place them under heavenly restraint. (Psa 119:37 .) Let them look right on, ’like one ploughing, who must not look back.’†5 Look straight before us. Had Eve done so, she would have looked on the command of her God, not on the forbidden tree. (Gen 3:3-6 .) Had Lot’s wife looked straight before, instead of "behind her," she would, like her husband, have been a monument of mercy. (Gen 19:17, Gen 19:26 .) Achan was ruined by neglecting this rule of wisdom. (Jos 7:21 .) David’s example calls the holiest of us to godly jealousy.†6 In asking the way to Zion, be sure that your "faces are thitherward." (Jer 50:5 .) The pleasure of sin, and the seductions of a tempting world, do not lie in the road. They would not therefore meet the eye looking right on — straight before us. They belong to the bye-paths on the right hand and on the left, or to some backward track. It is only therefore, when the Christian lingers, turns aside, or turns back, that they come in sight. Take the racer’s motto — "This one thing I do." Eye the mark, and press to it. (Php 3:12-14 .) Onwards — upwards — heavenwards.
Lastly, keep your feet. Oh! has not experience, no less than Scripture, shown your need of a circumspect walk? (Eph 5:15 .) Snares are laid out for every path, yea for every step in your path; for your meat, your drink, your calling — perhaps more than all — for the service of God. What deep pondering should there be in a path so beset with danger! Every step should be carefully weighed. (Gen 24:5 . Psa 39:1 . Dan 1:8 ; Dan 6:3-4 .) Joseph pondered, and thereby established his way. (Gen 39:9-10 . Compare Pro 4:14-15 .) Peter, neglecting to ponder, was fearfully sifted. (Mat 26:58, Mat 26:69-75 .) David also, looking at the trial of the path, instead of pondering its direction, brought shame upon himself (1 Samuel 27. - 29.); like the trouble, which Christian made for himself in the smooth exchange of Bye-path meadow for the rough and strait road. ’The habit of calm and serious thinking makes the real difference between one man and another.’†7
Here, then, is the voice of wisdom. Beware of mistaking presumption for faith, temptations for Providential appointments. Never forsake a plain for a doubtful command. (1Ki 13:18-22 .) Estimate every step by its conformity to the known will of God. Dare not to advance one step without God. (Jos 9:14 .) In his path you may "tread upon the lion and adder" without hurt. (Psa 91:11-13 .) But who shall venture into a path of his own choosing, without a wound? See that "your feet are straight," like those of the Cherubim.†8 "The pleasures of sin" lie on the right hand and on the left. The eyes therefore, looking right on, escape the sight. The pondering foot is established in steady perseverance; and, by marking small deviations (See Sir 19:1 ), and never turning out of the straight path to avoid a cross, is removed from evil.
May we all have grace and wisdom to ponder these sound practical rules! The man of God must only have one standard. (Isa 8:20 .) He must "know no man after the flesh." (2Co 5:16 .) He must often put aside the Church, no less than the world, that he may listen more closely to the command — Walk before me. (Gen 17:1 .) He must discern and crush the first motions of corruption; guarding every avenue of sin — the senses — the memory — the imagination — the touch — the taste. He must walk by the straight rule of the Gospel; else will he not only bring discomfort upon himself, but stumbling to the Church. (Gal 2:11-14 .) A single eye, steadily fixed upon the One Object, will make the path luminous. (Mat 6:22 .) Straightforward progress will insure prosperity. (Deu 17:20 . Jos 1:7-8 .) Keeping the middle path, and daily lifting up the voice for restraint and guidance. (Psa 119:37 ; Psa 143:8-10 .)
"Thine ears shall hear the word behind thee, saying, This is the way: walk ye in it, when ye turn to the right hand, and when ye turn to the left."†9
Footnotes:
†1 Schultens.
†2 Flavel’s Saint Indeed — a searching and valuable Treatise.
†3 See his valuable sermon on this text.
†4 Schultens.
†5 Cartwright. Compare Luk 9:62 .
†6 2Sa 11:2 . Mede, ut supra.
†7 Dr. Abercrombie.
†8 Eze 1:7-9. Compare Heb 12:13 . Nearly the LXX. translation of the last clause of verse 26.
†9 Isa 30:21. Compare Deu 2:27 ; Deu 5:32 . The LXX. and Vulgate add here — ’For God knows the ways on the right hand. But those on the left are crooked. But he shall make straight thy paths, and advance thy goings in peace.’ Geier remarks — ’We have no ear for these words, as not belonging to the holy fountain. We leave them to the Papists.’ Cartwright’s exposition of this middle path is valuable. ’It is as if the royal way was hemmed in by the sea, and a fall over either side were danger of drowning. Some are too greedy; others too ascetic. Some are too bold; other too diffident. Some neglect the Mediator; others seek new Mediators. Some flee the cross; others make one. Some tamper with Popery; others, from the dread of it, hazard the loss of valuable truth.’
Charles Bridges, An Exposition of the Book of Proverbs (1846) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary 1859 · Public Domain From it. As the heart is the principal part…
From it. As the heart is the principal part of the body, so the will is the chief power of the soul, from which good or evil proceeds. (Worthington) --- A clean heart gives life, a corrupt one, death, Matthew xv. 11, 19.
George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown 1871 · Public Domain with all diligence--or, "above," or "more than all," custody…
with all diligence--or, "above," or "more than all," custody (compare Margin), all that is kept (compare Eze 38:7), because the heart is the depository of all wisdom and the source of whatever affects life and character (Mat 12:35; Mat 15:19).
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain 23. Keep — Guard.
23. Keep — Guard.
Thy heart with all diligence — Literally, above all keeping or guarding. More than any thing else guard thy heart, for out of it are the issues (goings forth, or currents) of life. As the living stream issues from the physical heart in its normal, healthy condition, to vitalize and nourish every part of the body, so from the pure healthy heart (tropically) go forth good feelings, purposes, thoughts, words, and actions, all of which, as they spring from the inner life of the soul, tend to conserve and increase that life more and more, and to secure as a final result eternal life. The fountains and wells of the East were watched over with special care. A stone was rolled to the mouth of the well, so that “a spring shut up, a fountain sealed,” became the type of all that is most guarded. So it is here. “The heart is such a fountain; out of it flow the issues of life. Shall we let those streams be tainted at the fountainhead?” — Bible Commentary. Compare Mat_15:19.
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain 23. with all diligence] Lit. above all keepings, that…
23. with all diligence] Lit. above all keepings, that is bestowed on aught beside. πάσῃ φυλακῇ, LXX. Omni custodia, Vulg. Others, with R.V. marg., above all that thou guardest; “præ omnibus rebus custodiendis,” Maurer.
“It is very strange that Judaism should ever have sunk into a formal religion of outward observance, when its own wisdom was so explicit on this point … ‘Keep them in the midst of thy heart … Keep thy heart with all diligence, for out of it are the issues of life.’ The Greek version, which was very generally used in our Lord’s time, had a beautiful variation of this last clause. [It is really of Pro_4:21, where by a slight change in the Heb. punctuation they read ‘fountains’ for ‘eyes’]: ‘In order that thy fountains may not fail thee, guard them in the heart’ [ὅπως μὴ ἐκλίπωσί σε αἱ πηγαί σου, φύλασσε αὐτὰς ἐν καρδίᾳ, Pro_4:21, LXX.]. It was after all but a new emphasis on the old teaching of the Book of Proverbs, when Jesus taught the necessity of heart purity, and when He shewed that out of the heart came forth evil thoughts and all the things which defile a man (Mat_15:19).” Horton.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain (23) Keep thy heart with all diligence.—Rather, above all…
(23) Keep thy heart with all diligence.—Rather, above all things that are to be guarded.
For out of it are the issues of life.—That is, from it comes life (and also death). From it proceed “all holy desires, all good counsels, and all just works,” signs of the life with God within the soul; or, “evil thoughts, murders,” &c. (Mat_15:19), “the end of which things is death” (Rom_6:21).
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain Keep thy heart with all diligence; properly, above all…
Keep thy heart with all diligence; properly, above all things that have to be guarded, keep or guard thy heart. So Mercerus, Gescnius, Delitzsch, Zockler. This seems to be the right meaning of the phrase, mikkol-mish"mar , rendered in the Authorized Version "with all diligence," mish"mar, from shamar, "to guard," being the object of guarding; that which is to be guarded. It is as if the teacher said, "Guard riches, property, health, body, everything, in short, in which you have a legitimate interest, or which is advantageous; but before and above everything else, keep a guard on your heart." The rabbins Jarehi, Ben Ezra, Rashi, however, give a different rendering, "From everything which is to be avoided (ab omni re cavenda) guard thy heart;" but the objection to this is that it ignores the radical meaning of the verb shamar, from which mish"mar is derived, as stated above, which is not that of avoiding, but of guarding. A third rendering is," Keep thy heart with all keeping;" so the Vulgate, omni custodia serva cor tuum; and the LXX, pash fulakh threi shan ; on which the Authorized Version seems to be based. Another rendering, similar to the first, except that it gives mish"mar the active signification of guarding instead of the passive one of being kept or guarded, is, "Keep thy heart more than any other keeping (prae omni custodia)." Origen, "Hex.;" Field. Again, Aquila and Theodotion render, "Keep thy heart by reason of every commandment (apo pantogmatov )," thus bringing into prominence the occasion and the obligation of keeping the heart, which is that we are so commanded. Heart (lev); here the affections and the moral consciousness. For out of it are the issues of life. The conjunction "for" introduces the reason. The fact here stated is that the moral conduct of life, its actions and proceedings, are determined by the condition of the heart. If the heart is pure, the life will be pure; if the heart is corrupt, the life will be corrupt. The heart is here compared with a fountain. The same idea which is affixed to it in its physical sense is also assigned to it in its ethical or moral sense. Physically, it is the central organ of the body; morally, it is the seat of the affections and the centre of the moral consciousness. From this moral centre flow forth "the issues of life;" i.e. the currents of the moral life take their rise in and flow forth from it, just as from the heart, physically considered, the blood is propelled and flows forth into the arterial system, by which it is conveyed to the remotest extremities of the body. And as the bodily health depends on the healthy action of the heart, so the moral health depends on and is influenced by the state in which this spring of all action is preserved. Issues; totsaoth, from yatsar, "to go forth," are the place from which anything goes forth, and hence a fountain. For "the issues of life," the LXX reads, exodoi zwhv , the Vulgate., exitus vitae. With this passage compare our Lord"s teaching. (Mat_15:19 Mar_7:21-23 Luk_6:43-45)
On guard.
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I WHAT IS TO BE KEPT. The heart. In the Bible the "heart" represents what we call the "head" as well as the affections and conscience to which we confine the word "heart;" i.e. it stands for the whole inner nature, the life of thought, feeling, and will. This is the "Town of Mansoul," and it has the various constituents of a town.
1. Entrance gates. The soul is always receiving thoughts and impulses from without. It is important to see that no adulterated article, no poison, no subject of infectious disease comes in. Debased, false, and immoral impressions must be warded off.
2. Ways of exit. The broad river bears on her bosom argosies from the busy city to many a distant port. Let us see that the cargo is of good wares, in good measure, honestly realizing professions, containing no injurious things. Some hearts export only sham products, some deadly poisons. Deeds, words, even smiles and glances carrying thought and influences out of the soul must be carefully guarded.
3. Internal thoroughfares. The town is a network of streets and passages. Busy thoughts run to and fro in the heart. Let the traffic be orderly, the road well preserved, lest pure thoughts should be smirched with the mire of an unwholesome mental habit.
4. Storehouses. Memory has her treasuries, warehouses, granaries. Let us see that they are not crowded with rubbish, left in disorder, made fever nests by the corruption of any unhealthy contents. Nourishing truths and beautiful ideas should stock them.
5. Factories. In the heart we weave fine webs of fancy see that the pattern has the beauty of holiness; there, too, we forge great engines for future work see that they are constructed on safe and serviceable principles.
6. Halls of amusement. Let them be places of recreation, not of dissipation.
7. Shrines for worship. See that no idol takes the place of the true God, no hypocrisy does service for the incense of spiritual prayer and praise.
8. Graveyards of dead hopes and loves; keep them beautiful with flowers of tender memory. Are there also graves of dead sins? Plant weeping willows of penitence over them.
II WHY IT IS TO BE KEPT.
1. For its own sake. The heart is the centre of the life; the soul is the true being, the self. To care for the health of the body while the soul is diseased and dying in sin is like sending for the builder to repair the house, but leaving the sick inmate to perish without attention. "What shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world and lose his own soul life, heart?
2. For its fruits. "Out of it are the issues of life." In proportion as the heart is vigorous or feeble, healthy or diseased, all the organs of the body work well or ill. Take care of the heart first, cultivate right principles, see that the affections are set on things above, and then the practice of the details of morals will follow almost as a matter of course. It is a mistake to put casuistry in the forefront of moral teaching. The result of doing so is to weaken conscience, to confuse the sense of right and wrong. Let the condition of the heart be the first concern; see that truth, justice, purity, charity, are enshrined there. Let the love of God and the love of man be well cultivated, and the spiritual directory will be greatly simplified. But it is not even enough to cultivate right principles. Deeper than these is the life. Below the particular actions come general principles; beneath these lie the character, the life, the heart of all. The fundamental requisite is not to do this or that deed, nor to cherish one or another principle, but to possess the life eternal in the heart, out of which pure blood will flow through main arteries of principles to the most remote and minute and intricate capillaries of conduct.
III HOW IT IS TO BE KEPT.
1. Pure. Let us see that the heart above all things is cleansed from sin and kept holy. We cannot do this for ourselves. But we can go to the fountain that is opened for uncleanness, and there wash and be clean. The blood of Christ, which cleanses from all sin, not only removes guilt, but purges out the corruption and power of evil. By faith in Christ and the indwelling of the Divine Spirit that is a consequence of faith, the heart can be cleansed and preserved in purity.
2. True. The Christian is to be a servant of God. Let him be loyal frank, too, and ingenuous and simple.
3. Tender. One has well said that we want "tough skins and tender hearts." There is much in the world to harden them. Let us seek to have them soft to receive Divine influences and to feel human compassions. The heart must be kept, not as a prisoner under hard restraint, nor like the jewels at the Tower, in useless seclusion; but like a garden, well weeded, but also sown with good seed and bearing fruit and flowers. Keep the heart thus by watchfulness, by self-control (the New Testament "temperance"), by prayer, above all by entrusting it to the keeping of God. Feeling that "the heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked," knowing how powerful are the temptations of the world, we may well despair of keeping the heart pure and safe. God meets us in our helplessness, and offers to keep it for us if we will put our trust and love in him. "My son, give me thy heart.
Vers. 23-27. The heart and its issues.
I LIFE CENTRED IN THE HEART. (Ver. 23) Physically, we know this is so. It is a self-acting pump, a fountain of vital force. All the physical activities are derived from it. Spiritually, it is so. The connection of the heart with emotion is recognized in all languages. It is feeling in the widest sense that makes us what we are.
II THE HEART MUST BE, THEREFORE, THE PECULIAR OBJECT OF OUR SOLICITUDE. (Ver. 23) The sentiments, to put it in another form, are the important elements in character. These lie so close to opinion, that we commonly say either "I feel" or "I think" in expressing our opinions. To instil right sentiments about the important points of behaviour, the relation of the sexes, business, honour, truth, loyalty, is the great work of moral education, and here lies its immense value as distinguished from the gymnastic of the intellect.
III THE EXTERNAL ORGANS MUST AT THE SAME TIME BE DISCIPLINED. (Vers. 24-27) Education must not be one-sided. The heart supplies the organs and channels of activity; but these again react upon the heart. The impulses of feeling are in themselves formless; it is the definite organs which give to them peculiar shape and determination. Hence the organs themselves must be trained to receive true impressions and to give them back.
1. The mouth the lips. They are to be corrected of every "crooked," false expression. What wonderful variety of expression is the mouth capable of firmness, laxity, tenderness, scorn, love, irony, hate! In controlling the mouth we do something to control the heart. Its contents must be purified from falsehood, coarseness, foolish jesting, malicious gossip, all of which tell upon the central consciousness, and disturb and obscure it.
2. The eyes. (Ver. 25) They are to be trained to a direct and straightforward expression. The leer of lust, the oblique glance of cunning expressed on the faces of others, or the clear honest light beaming from the eyes of the pure and open-hearted, not only mirror the heart, but remind how the heart may be reached by the self-discipline of the eye.
3. The feet. (Ver. 26) In like manner, they are to be trained to a straightforward walk. Even in moments of relaxation "tis well to have an object for a walk. The mind needs self-direction and discipline even in its pleasures; otherwise it becomes dissolute, and waywardly falls into evil through sheer laxity in the spring of wilt.
(1) Action and reaction, between the inward and the outward world, expression and impression, constitute a great law of our spiritual activity.
(2) Hence self-discipline and moral education should be founded on the recognition of it. We must work from the centre to the periphery, and back again from every point of the periphery to the centre of life. J.
Man"s chief treasure.
"Keep thy heart above all keeping" (marginal reading). Evidently there is a precious treasure which, as the disciples of Wisdom, we are charged to keep. We ask
I WHAT ARE THE CHIEF TREASURES WE HAVE IN CHARGE? These are threefold.
1. That which belongs to us, but which is entirely without us our money, our houses, our lands, our shares, our ships, our precious documents, our "valuables.
2. That which is more closely related to us, but is still outside ourselves our bodily frame, the tabernacle of our spirit, and, with this, our physical health and strength; the clear eye, the healthy brain, the strong nerve.
3. Our own very selves that spiritual nature in virtue of which we are said to be "created in the image of God". (Gen_1:27) These are the treasures we may "keep.
II WHICH IS THE ONE OF SUPREME VALUE, AND WHY? "Keep thy heart above all keeping." That which is nearest ourselves must be of more value to us than that which is further from us. To keep our temporal estate is to preserve that which is precious, but which is not ourselves. To maintain our health is most desirable, but our body is only our temporary home and organ; it is something we can lose and yet ourselves be. But our heart, that is our own very self. God made us, not to have, but to be, living souls: that in us, that of us which thinks, loves, hopes, worships, rejoices in the spiritual and the Divine, that is ourself, and to keep that must be the supreme duty; that is to be kept beyond all keeping. But the wise man says there is a special reason why we should keep our heart beyond all keeping; he says, "for out of it are the issues of life." In other words, a well guarded heart is the spring and source of all that is best in human life.
1. The holy thoughts and pure feelings and kind purposes which flow therefrom are, in themselves, a large part and the very best part of human life.
2. A well guarded heart will prove the source of a well regulated life of a life of honesty, virtue, peaceableness, sobriety; and these will ensure prosperity, esteem, joy.
3. A well regulated heart will conduct to the life immortal in the heavenly land: this is the most blessed "issue" of all. With whatsoever anxiety, vigilance, diligence, we guard our temporal interests, or even our health and our mortal life, with far greater anxiety, far more eager vigilance, far more unremitting diligence, should we guard our heart its purity, its tenderness, its devotion.
III WHAT ARE OUR FORCES OF DEFENCE? Wherewith shall we keep these hearts of ours? What are the forces at our command? They are these.
1. The power of introspection. We can interrogate and examine our own souls, and see how we stand, what need there is for penitence and for renewal.
2. The power of self-regulation. We can acquire healthful habits, pass regulative resolutions which will
(1) keep us away from temptation, and
(2) take us where our souls will be nourished and strengthened in things Divine.
3. The power of the Divine Spirit. We can ask and gain the "might which comes from his Spirit in the inner man. C.
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Biblical Illustrator 1887 · Public Domain Keep thy heart with all diligence.
Pro_4:23
Keep thy heart with all diligence.
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Heart-keeping
The great defect in our system of education is that it turns a man away from himself. Many a schoolboy can describe the continents and islands of the earth, trace out the intricacies of the planetary system, naming suns and moons and stars, who would stand abashed should you ask him the number of bones in the human body, or to trace out the marvellous nervous system that God has given him. Now, Christianity turns mans attention to himself. No other teacher ever equalled Christ in this respect.
I. The heart. If we ask why the heart is chosen rather than the understanding, the judgment, or memory, we find our answer in the fact that the understanding may be always subject to circumstances, or may be enfeebled by disease; the judgment may be in error, and the memory may fail. There are three reasons why the heart is chosen.
1. A pathological; it is the fountain of life, through which the blood passes, to be distributed to every part of the system. Stop the heart, and death follows.
2. The heart is the region of sensibility. When the great passions of hope and fear, of love and hate, of joy and sorrow, take hold of a man, he realises the sensation in the region of the heart.
3. The intellect is controlled by the heart more than the heart by the intellect. Men do not follow their thinkings, but their feelings, yet there are teachers proclaiming a religion of pure intellect, excluding the passions or feelings of the soul. Christianity appeals to the emotions.
II. The keeping. We are not to destroy our appetites and passions, but to keep them in subordination: keeping the heart is not murdering it. Vigilance is the price of everything good and great in earth or heaven, Nothing but unceasing watchfulness can keep the heart in harmony with Gods heart. (Christian Age.)
Supremely good advice
I. Some of those weighty considerations upon which the advice is founded.
1. The heart is the source of all human conduct. The greatest and basest actions of men did once exist as a simple and insignificant thought. The sallyings forth of purpose might easily have been checked at the gate of the citadel, whereas, when once beyond control, the consequences might prove such as we never ventured to anticipate.
2. Every man is that really which he is in his heart. Conduct is not always a trustworthy basis of estimate. The heart imparts a tinge and character to those streams which issue from it.
3. Scripture represents the heart of man as not in a trustworthy condition, and therefore the more to be diligently kept and guarded.
4. The fact that out of the heart come the issues of life adds to the importance of this counsel. What is meant is the issues of our future never-ending existence.
II. Point out in what way this duty may be best performed.
1. Watch narrowly the course and current of our thoughts and affections.
2. Check them at once, when we discover them to have taken a wrong course.
3. Exercise the mind as much as possible with holy and heavenly themes.
4. Earnestly call down the aid and blessing of the Holy Spirit. (Essex Congregational Remembrancer.)
The government of the thoughts
Keep a strict guard over the workings of your mind, your thoughts, and inclinations; for your life and conversation will be conformable to the main current of your thoughts and desires. The soul is ever busy and at work. There is no pause, no suspension of thought, at least while we are awake. Think we must, but what to think is the question.
I. How far may we have a command over our thoughts?
1. It is impossible to hinder irregular, fantastic, evil thoughts from rising up in our minds. But we may choose whether we will cultivate a familiarity with them.
2. It is not in our power to prevent distractions even in our religious addresses to God. While the soul is immersed in matter, it will sometimes fly off in airy wanderings, or flag into a supine heaviness. This is our frailty or misfortune, but will not be imputed to us as a sin, provided we strive against it.
3. Our thoughts are not absolutely free, just after we have received some considerable loss or disaster. But we must not give up our mind as a prey to melancholy, and wilfully indulge our sorrows.
4. Angry thoughts have to be taken into consideration; the passion of anger; the first starts or sallies of this passion; the deliberate and settled consent of the will to it. We are invested with the power to withhold the determinate consent of the will to these primary motions. We may counterbalance one passion by another, and may turn their artillery upon themselves. We may call in our fear to subdue our anger. So far as our thoughts are involuntary, so far they are not sinful. The mind is passive in receiving its notices of things, whether pure or impure; but it is active in its determination, whether to harbour or discard them. So far as it is active it is accountable. It is active when we dwell upon impure thoughts with complacency. We can suspend our judgment. Our mature examination is the consulting of the guide; the determination of the will thereupon is the following of that guide. We may habituate ourselves to the contemplation of the greatest good, and then lesser delights will shine with a diminished lustre.
II. Some rules for the conduct of our thoughts.
1. We must not go too much into light amusements. The mind fixed on trifles is disabled and indisposed for greater and more important business.
2. We must avoid the reading of bad books.
3. Call in other ideas to your aid as soon as ever any passion begins to ferment. When we observe in ourselves the least approaches towards anger, lust, envy, and discontent, we should seek Gods assistance, and pray for the succours of His Holy Spirit.
4. We must often descend into ourselves.
5. Much may be done by the pursuit of knowledge. The more variety of knowledge the mind is enriched with, the more channels there will be to divert our minds into. (J. Seed, M.A.)
The heart, and the issues of life
In its elements and outward scenery nature is the same to all. Light and night, sun and stars, air and earth and landscapes, offer a common enclosure and background to our existence. But the various impulses and aptitudes for work with which we are born--which press from the very core of our being--diversify the world as widely as if we were distributed upon different globes. To one set of men it is a place to think and learn and grow wise in. Another finds the world a place to work in. Others find it a garden of beauty in which the stars are more valuable as blossoms of poetic light than for their astronomic truth, and the air richer for its hues than for its uses, and the mountains grander for their millinery of mist and shadow and their draperies of verdure and snow than for their service to the climates and housekeeping of nations. Still others see the world as a place to trade in and grow rich--a gorge between gold mountains, where they must quarry. Or it is a pleasure-ground for giddy or elegant enjoyment. It is plain, therefore, that our natural bent in the line of work does a great deal to impress a character upon the universe. Even when no moral quality is involved, we see how life gets coined at our mint, so that the world, Gods world, somehow wears the stamp of the die cut into our heart. And temperament, natural temperament, has an effect on life that must be considered in this connection. If a man has a music-box in his heart, the pulse of the sun will seem to beat with it, and the trees to throb and bud with its melody. If his bosom is strung as an AEolian harp, nature will be full of weird and sad cadences. You know how experience, also, interprets the same principle, even in cases where moral considerations are not prominent. You know how a piece of good-fortune brightens the air, how prosperous hours make the globe buoyant, how some impending evil puts the edge of a spiritual eclipse upon the sun as solemnly as the shadow of the moon settles on its burning disc, how suddenly ill-fortune in business will seem to make the very springs of beauty bankrupt, how the sickness of a dear friend turns nature pallid, how the death of wife, husband, or child will convert all the trees to cypress, and set the music of nature in a minor key, as s dirge or requiem. All these facts, which belong rather to the margin of our subject, enforce the duty of keeping the heart. For though aptitudes, temperaments, and moods have much to do with the tone and quality of our life, states have more. A dark moral state stretches a permanent veil of cloud over the heart, that thins and chills all the light, while a mood or a sorrow may sail only like the swift blackness of a shower through our air. And we can do a great deal to control the moral states of the heart; we are responsible for them. Moral evils, such as envy, avarice, selfishness, license, only vivify with various colouring the one fundamental evil, sin--distance from sympathy with God, alienation from the heavenly Father, indifference or disloyalty to His will and love. This is our central foe. This is what corrupts the issues of life. This is the serpent at the fountain. Back of all sins is sin. The one comprehensive purpose of life is to bring Infinite grace to bear on that, and drive it from the inmost artery of the soul. The first thing to do, in order that such life may issue from your heart, is to get your heart broken. Not because it is totally corrupt, but because it is not centrally dedicated--because God is not invited and admitted to the inner shrine, to rule thence with His wisdom and purity, so that you shall consciously live for Him. This world, with its hard conditions and mysteries, is built for an upper and nether millstone to grind pride out of human hearts, to crush their natural state, so that, in penitence and humility, God may come into the spirit, and the world seem remade because the soul is regenerate in consecration and the beginning of a filial life. You are to keep your heart with all diligence, by desiring and praying for this spirit of sympathy with God and allegiance to Him. And you are also to keep it by living in fellowship with great truths and sentiments. If you have had any seasons or season when you have seen the value and blessedness of a religious conception of the universe and of religious principle, honour that; honour your souls own witness to sacred realities, by trying to keep in the society of those noble truths and ideas. (T. Starr King.)
Keeping the heart with diligence
I. Some of our hearts are not worth keeping. Addressing some unconverted men, I say, The sooner you get a new heart the better. God is very plain in telling us no good can come out of these corrupt, degenerate hearts that we all have by nature.
II. Inasmuch as out of the heart are the issues of life, it is important to keep the reservoir full. It is bad enough to have an empty head, but an empty heart is worse still. For, other things being equal, a mans force in the world is just in proportion to the fulness of his heart. Heart is power. We all want more heart in our Masters service.
III. Strive with all diligence to keep the heart pure. A full reservoir is not enough--the water must be clean. A full reservoir means spreading the seeds of pestilence and death. If the heart be not pure, the thoughts will not be pure, nor the conversation, nor the life. A scrupulous conscience and thorough transparency of character are all-important.
IV. Keep your heart tranquil. Seek to have a soul calm and peaceful, and at rest. The state of the heart has far more to do with ones comfort, and prosperity, and success, than most people imagine. From your heart, as from a clear mountain spring, there shall issue influences of health and benediction, to gladden your own lives and to bless all around you. (J. Thain Davidson, D.D.)
Keeping the heart
Either keep thy heart with all sorts and degrees of care and diligence, or keep thy heart as thy most precious thing.
1. Mark or attend unto, inquire into and study the heart.
2. The governance and good management of our hearts, keeping all the motions thereof in due order, within fit compass, applying them to good, and restraining them from bad things.
3. Or preserving, guarding, securing from mischief or damage. It is a peculiar excellency of human nature that man can reflect on all that is done within him, can discern the tendencies of his soul, is acquainted with his own purposes. It is, therefore, his work to regulate as well the internal workings of his soul as his external actions, to settle his thoughts on due objects, to bend his inclinations into a right frame, to constrain his affections within due bounds, to ground his purposes on honest reasons, and direct them unto lawful matters. It is our duty to be looking inward on ourselves, observing what thoughts spring up within us; what imaginations find most welcome harbour in our breasts, what prejudices possess our minds, etc. Thus we may arrive at a competent knowledge of ourselves. This preserves from self-conceit; disposes to equanimity; qualifies our opinion of others; makes wise and prudent; helps to reforming our lives and regulating our devotions, and enables us properly to govern our hearts. (I. Barrow, D. D.)
The keeping of the heart a practicable and important duty
I. What is it to keep the heart? It evidently needs to be kept. It is prone to go astray.
1. The heart is to be kept from all improper objects; every object which has no proper connection with present duty.
2. The heart is to be guarded against all improper affections. When placed upon proper objects, the heart may have very improper affections towards them.
II. Show how the heart is kept.
1. Men should always attend to those subjects only with which they are properly concerned.
2. Men must pursue the same method to keep their hearts from improper affections, as from improper objects. They must, therefore, exercise good affections. Love will exclude hatred; faith will exclude unbelief; repentance will exclude impenitence; submission will exclude opposition; humility will exclude pride. Any gracious exercise will exclude any sinful one: only by the exercise of holiness can the heart be kept from sin.
III. The importance of mens keeping their hearts with the greatest care and constancy.
1. While they neglect to keep their hearts, all their moral exercises will be sinful. Those who neglect to keep their hearts live in the continual exercise of selfish and sinful affections.
2. While men neglect to keep their hearts, all their thoughts will be sinful. Though bare thoughts have no moral good or evil in themselves considered, yet in connection with the heart they all acquire a good or bad moral quality. No thought is indifferent after the heart has been exercised about it.
3. While men neglect to keep their hearts, all their words will be sinful. Men never speak but of choice, so that their hearts are concerned in all their vain or serious conversation.
4. While men neglect to keep their hearts, all their intentions, purposes, or designs will be evil. Every evil design is first formed in the heart of the projector.
5. Let men pursue what employment they will, whether public or private, high or low, civil or religious, their daily business will become their daily sin, unless they keep their hearts with all diligence.
6. Men must keep their hearts lest they abuse all the blessings of providence with which they are favoured, and all the troubles and afflictions which they are called to suffer.
Improvement--
1. Men are never under a natural necessity of sinning.
2. Since men can guard their hearts against evil, they can guard them also against good.
3. Those who neglect the duty enjoined in the text are in imminent danger.
4. None can be sincere in religion who entirely neglect to keep their hearts.
5. The Christian warfare consists in watching, guarding, and keeping the heart.
6. It is both important and helpful diligently to attend the means of grace. (N. Emmons, D. D.)
On keeping the heart
I. The duty enjoined. We must keep the whole heart in--
1. A state of holy watchfulness.
2. A state of continued devotion.
3. A state of joy and confidence.
4. A state of lively activity.
5. A state of preparedness for death and uncertainty.
II. The mode of performing it specified.
1. Under all circumstances.
2. In all places.
3. At all times.
4. With all intensity of solicitude.
III. The motive designed.
1. Thoughts are formed there.
2. Purposes are planned there.
3. Words originate there.
4. Actions proceed from thence.
Learn--
1. The means of spiritual safety: preservation of the heart.
2. The importance of this exercise. All depends upon it.
3. The necessity of cleaving to God with purpose of heart.
4. Urge sinners without delay to believe the gospel and give their hearts to the Lord. (J. Burns, D. D.)
On the government of the heart
Men are apt to consider the regulation of external conduct as the chief object of religion. If they can act their part with decency, and maintain a fair character, they conceive their duty to be fulfilled. The wise man advises us to attend to our thoughts and desires. The issues of life are justly said to be out of the heart, because the state of the heart is what determines our moral character, and what forms our chief happiness or misery.
I. The state of the heart determines our moral character. The tenor of our actions will always correspond to the dispositions that prevail within. On whatever side the weight of inclination hangs, it will draw the practice after it. Independent of all action, it is, in truth, the state of the heart itself which forms our character in the sight of God. In the eye of the Supreme Being, dispositions hold the place of actions; and it is not so much what we perform as the motive which moves us to performance that constitutes us good or evil in His sight. The rectification of our principles of action is the primary object of religious discipline. The regeneration of the heart is everywhere represented in the gospel as the most essential requisite in the character of a Christian.
II. The state of the heart forms our principal happiness or misery. In order to acquire a capacity of happiness, it must be our first study to rectify inward disorders. Whatever discipline tends to accomplish this purpose is of greater importance to man than the acquisition of the advantages of fortune. Think what your heart now is, and what must be the consequence of remitting your vigilance in watching over it. The human temper is to be considered as a system, the parts of which have a mutual dependence on each other. Introduce disorder into any one part, and you derange the whole.
III. In what does the government consist?
1. The thoughts are the prime movers of the whole human conduct. Many regard thought as exempted from all control. To enjoy unrestrained the full range of imagination appears to them the native right and privilege of man. To the Supreme Being thoughts bear the character of good or evil as much as actions. The moral regulation of our thoughts is the particular test of our reverence for God. Thought gives the first impulse to every principle of action. Actions are, in truth, no other than thoughts ripened into consistency and substance. But how far are thoughts subject to the command of our will? They are not always the offspring of choice. Vain and fantastic imaginations sometimes break in upon the most settled attention, and disturb even the devout exercises of pious minds. Instances of this sort must be placed to the account of human frailty. Allowing for this, there is still much scope for the government of our thoughts. As--
(1) When the introduction of any train of thought depends upon ourselves, and is our voluntary act.
(2) When thoughts are indulged with deliberation and complacency. Study to acquire the habit of attention to thought: acquire the power of fixing your minds, and of restraining their irregular motions. Guard against idleness, which is the great fomenter of all corruptions in the human heart; it is the parent of loose imaginations and inordinate desires. Provide honourable employment for the native activity of your minds. When criminal thoughts arise, attend to all the proper methods of speedily suppressing them. Impress your minds with an habitual sense of the presence of the Almighty.
2. Passions are strong emotions, occasioned by the view of apprehending good or evil. They are original parts of the constitution of our nature; and therefore to extirpate them is a mistaken aim. Religion requires us to moderate and rule them. Passions, when properly directed, may be subservient to very useful ends. They are the active forces of the soul. It is the present infelicity of human nature that the strong emotions of the mind are become too powerful for the principle that ought to rule them. Two principles may be assumed.
(1) That through the present weakness of our understanding, our passions are often directed towards improper objects.
(2) That even when their direction is just, and their objects are innocent, they perpetually tend to run into excess; they always hurry us towards their gratification with a blind and dangerous impetuosity. To govern our passions, we must ascertain the proper objects of their pursuit, and restrain them in that pursuit, when they would carry us beyond the bounds of reason. To obtain command of passion is one of the highest attainments of the rational nature.
To obtain it we must--
1. Study to acquire just views of the comparative importance of those objects that are most ready to attract desire.
2. Gain the power of self-denial; which consists in our being ready, on proper occasions, to abstain from pleasure, or to submit to sacrificing, for the sake of duty or conscience, or from a view to some higher or more extensive good.
3. Impress your minds with this persuasion, that nothing is what it appears to be, when you are under the power of passion.
4. Oppose early the beginnings of passion. Avoid particularly all such objects as are apt to excite passions which you know to predominate within you.
5. The excess of every passion will be moderated by frequent meditation on the vanity of the world, the short continuance of life, the approach of death, judgment, and eternity.
6. To our own endeavours for regulating our passions, let us join earnest prayer to God. Lastly, the government of the temper is included in keeping the heart. Temper is the disposition which remains after the emotions are past, and which forms the habitual prosperity of the soul. The proper regulation of temper affects the character of man in every relation which he bears.
(1) With respect to God, the good man ought to cultivate a devout temper.
(2) Point out the proper state of our temper with respect to one another. A peaceable, candid, kind, generous, sympathising temper.
(3) The proper state of temper as it respects the individual himself. The basis of all good dispositions is humility. Hence will naturally arise a contented temper; and from this will spring a cheerful one. To the establishment of this happy temper, the due regulation of the thoughts and government of the temper naturally conduce, and in this they ought to issue. (Hugh Blair, D.D.)
The government of the passions
I. When do our passions become culpable? A sect of ancient philosophers condemned all emotion, held every passion to be culpable, because inconsistent with that serenity of temper, that equal tranquillity of mind, which they thought should ever be preserved. We cannot, however, lay aside our innate dispositions, and with equal indifference meet health or sickness, pleasure or pain. The Stoical doctrine is better calculated for heaven than earth. The passions and affections were all originally designed to have either our own personal good or the good of others for their object, though they are too generally misapplied by our corruption, and degenerate into vices. Our rational and moral powers ought always to have dominion over the inferior principles of our nature. We all stand accountable for the use of our reason, and where reason points out to us good and evil, if we choose the latter, we doubtless appear guilty in the eye of our heavenly Judge. If we cannot wholly extirpate or subdue our passions, yet to subjugate them to government is not only the duty, but the proper and most important employment, of a rational being.
II. Our happiness here, as well as hereafter, is determined by the conduct of our passions. When they are duly regulated, and act under the guidance and direction of reason, we may promise ourselves all the happiness that our station, or other circumstances of life, will admit. They who are at no pains to discipline and govern their passions, but, disregarding right and wrong, indiscriminately follow whithersoever inclination points the way, may find some pleasure in such pursuits, but none that can compensate for the loss of those interior satisfactions, as well as exterior advantages, that naturally result from a wise and virtuous conduct.
III. The means by which this self-government may be attained. Consideration, or a right use of reason, is our only remedy. We must often retire into ourselves, and in some calm hour of reflection review the state of the heart. Passions, however strong and vigorous by nature, may be checked in their growth by timely care and prudent opposition. Let us accustom ourselves to deliberate before we act. We should observe, with a watchful eye, all our passions, desires, and affections; keep a constant guard on every avenue to the heart, and be careful to oppose the admittance of any wrong inclination. In order to succeed in this arduous and important work, let us, to our own efforts, add our supplications to Him who alone can order the unruly wills and affections of sinful men. (G. Carr, B.A.)
Governing our own thoughts
I. What power a man hath over his own thoughts! Some men, by the very principles of their make and constitution, are much better able to govern their thoughts than others. Some that are naturally weaker, have, by long use and many trials, obtained a greater power over their thoughts than others. All have a greater power over the motions of their minds at some times than at others.
1. The first motions of our minds are very little, if at all, in our power. We cannot help suggestions coming to us.
2. When a mans mind is vigorously affected and possessed, either with the outward objects of sense, or with inward passions of any kind, in that case he hath little or no command of his thoughts.
3. A mans thoughts are sometimes in a manner forced upon him, from the present temper and indisposition of his body.
4. We have liberty of thinking, and may choose our own thoughts. It is in our power to determine what suggestions we will fix our minds upon.
5. It is always in our power to assent to our thoughts, or to deny our consent to them. Here the morality of our thoughts begins. No man is drawn to commit sin by any state or condition that God hath put him into, nor by any temptation, either outward or inward, that is presented to him. Our sin begins when we yield to the temptation. The sin becomes great as it grows into action.
II. The art of governing our thoughts.
1. We must rightly pitch our main designs, and choose that for the great business of our lives that really ought to be so.
2. We must avoid two things, viz., idleness and loose company.
3. We must be as attentive as possible to the first motions of our minds; so that when we find them tending towards something that is forbidden, we may stop them at once.
4. There are some particular exercises which would prove helpful. Converse with discreet and pious persons; reading good books, and especially the Bible; taking times for meditation; and fervent and constant prayer to God.
5. With our diligence we must join discretion. We must have a care not to intend our thoughts immoderately, and more than our tempers will bear, even to the best things. We must so keep our hearts as at the same time to keep our health and the vigour of our minds. As long as we consist of bodies and souls, we cannot always be thinking of serious things. (Archbp. John Sharp.)
The keeping of the heart
I. The suggestive saying, Out of (the heart) are the issues of life.
1. All our words and actions originate there. All these evil things come from within, and they defile the man.
2. The moral quality of every word and action depends on its inner motive.
3. Thoughts and feelings themselves, apart from actions, are all either good or evil. The thought of foolishness is sin.
4. Within the heart is formed that character which determines most of the actions of the man. We give the name character to that complex collection of tendencies and habits which grows up within us all as the sum and result of individual acts continually repeated. The germs of the ultimate character can often be detected in the child.
5. The issues of life, in outward condition, depend most of all on the heart within us.
6. The everlasting issues of life come out of the heart.
II. Take up the admonition, Keep thy heart with all diligence. The margin reads, Keep thy heart above all keeping. The common estimate of the relative value of the outside and the inside is terribly astray. It creeps into our very religion.
1. We can avoid the evil.
2. We can fill up the heart with good. (F. H. Marling.)
On keeping the heart
I. The duty here enjoined. The heart is the seat of the thoughts, the will, and the affections. The avenues which lead to this habitation are the senses, through which a great variety of objects are ever soliciting admission. By the original frame of our nature, there was also another way of admission into the heart, viz., faith. Over these was placed the judgment, as a faithful sentinel, to direct the will Scarcely, however, had this happy constitution of our nature existed when, the judgment being perverted, the will was induced to make a wrong choice. Upon this great revolution in our nature, sensible objects began to occupy our chief attention. They tend to produce the utmost irregularity in the affections, and to banish God, and heaven, and eternity, from the mind. To keep the heart while in this state, would only be to shut up the enemy within the wails. The enemy must be ejected. This God promises to do. To keep the heart with all diligence is to set a constant guard on every avenue which leads to it. It is to exercise the strictest vigilance over our thoughts, and to subject them to the most rigid scrutiny, for the purpose of suppressing, upon its first appearance, what is base, impious, or unjust, and of giving every possible encouragement to the slightest emotions of piety and benevolence. So nice and delicate are the hearts springs of action, so susceptible is it of impressions from external objects, and so greatly is it in danger of being disordered by means of these, that we can never be sufficiently apprised of the manner in which it may be kept with safety.
II. The way in which this duty may be best discharged.
1. By summoning up to the view just apprehensions of God, of His greatness, and glory, and holiness, and justice, and authority, and mercy, and love, as exhibited in the plan of redemption, and endeavouring to have these apprehensions habitually impressed upon the mind.
2. We should beware, after having been engaged in any of the solemnities of religion, of exposing them suddenly to the renewed incursion of loose and worldly thoughts, by foolish talking or mixing with vain and giddy associates.
3. We must beware of evil company. And there are secret, as well as open, enemies of goodness.
4. We must carefully abstain from idleness, and rightly occupy every portion of our time.
III. Recommend the duty to serious attention. You live in a world where ten thousand objects are ever ready to pollute the heart, and to seduce it from God. God requireth the heart of man--the whole heart, and nothing but the heart. A heart that is not kept with diligence is not reconciled to God; is not impressed with the love of Jesus; is not sanctified by the Spirit, and is not fit for heaven. (James Somerville, D. D.)
The duty and blessedness of keeping the heart
I. Occasions when it is of the utmost moment to attend to this duty.
1. When you draw near to God in the solemn exercise of religious duty. You have then to do with a God who searches the heart. Be upon your guard against those vain excursions of the soul that eat out all the life and spirit of devotion.
2. When you are surrounded with an abundance of worldly enjoyments. There is something in prosperity that tends to intoxicate the mind.
3. When Gods afflicting hand is upon you. In the day of adversity consider; for consideration and a guard upon the heart are needful.
4. When under provocations from your fellow-creatures. These are very trying periods, and the spirit that is in us often lusteth to resentment and retaliation. Do not be too sensitive of injuries.
5. When your hands are full of worldly business. We walk in the midst of snares. It is no easy thing to keep our souls disengaged, and to live above, while we ere in, the world. Love nothing with a very strong affection that is not immortal as thyself, and immutable as thy God.
6. When you are engaged in diversions and recreations. Very many are in excess given to pleasure, make it the main business of their existence. We ought not to give too much time to recreations, nor seek them for themselves.
7. When you find any tumultuous passions are excited within you. Think what inflammable matter you carry in your bosoms, and be watchful against the approach of whatever may kindle it into a flame.
8. Keep thy heart with all diligence in solitude and retirement. Solitude is not necessarily a blessing. Then only it is a blessing when it is employed piously, with holy feelings and a holy object in view. Whenever you are alone, be present with your God.
II. Arguments urging attention to this duty. This duty is important, because--
1. It is the heart that falls directly under the cognizance of God. Be a mans actions ever so regular, if his heart be not right with God, he will, when weighed in the balances, be found wanting.
2. Because of the influence which the state of the heart has upon the conduct. He who is concerned about making the tree good will surely make the fruit good also.
3. Because keeping the heart is essential to our peace. Is there nothing peaceful, pleasant, comforting, in being masters over our own spirits, able to suppress any rising passion, to restrain any rebellious lust that threatens the peace of Gods kingdom within--of that inner house of man, himself? What a poor, contemptible, miserable creature is he who has no rule over his spirit, in respect of present things as well as future!
III. Directions for keeping the heart.
1. If you desire to keep your heart, endeavour by all means to know it. Endeavour to know human nature in general, its weakness and its corruption. Above all, endeavour to know your own heart, your particular weakness: knowing it, watch that point carefully.
2. If you desire to keep your heart, solemnly feel as in the Divine presence. Seriously consider that God searches the hearts, and that He is with you wherever you are, and whatever you do.
3. If you would keep your hearts, be often calling them to account. I hope that none of you live without self-examination.
4. See to it that your mind be well furnished. Lay in a stock of useful knowledge from the Word of God, from observations of providence, from converse with your fellow-creatures.
5. If you would keep your heart, be often looking up to Him who made it. To find our hearts taken off from dependence on ourselves, and fixed upon God, is a token for good in every part of our Christian course. (T. Munns, M. A.)
The custody of the heart
The heart, in Scripture, implies the whole spiritual end aspiring part in man. Keeping the heart is controlling the whole spiritual condition of our nature.
I. The degree of responsibility implied in the command to keep the heart. We are not mere machines, we are free, immortal, intelligent beings, fallen indeed from our first estate, crippled in body and soul, yet raised again in Christ. We are free to choose good or ill, and therefore responsible for the choice. To keep the heart is to guard it, to watch it, to subdue it. It is attempting, and by Gods grace achieving, the work of self-conquest. The keeping must be habitual. Unless we have been previously vigilant, the tempter, when he comes, will be sure to conquer. One of the miseries of old transgressions is, that it mars the keeping of the heart. We are apt to fall back into a sin which we have committed before. Old sins tend to soften the soul--to emasculate its energies, to destroy those habits of carefulness which are so important in resisting temptation. It is the inward reciprocation with the outward temptation which forms the tempters vantage-ground. Each sin diminishes by so much our chance of repentance, inasmuch as a fresh lesion and hurt has been inflicted on the soul.
II. We must chiefly regard our will and our affections, because these sway and control the rest of the inner man. By the will we mean that power of the soul which determines and chooses; by the affection, that attribute which loves and adheres. The one is the strength of the character, the other is its sweetness and beauty. And these are specially concerned in the service of God, for if man fulfils his end, God is the choice of his will and the object of his affection. God is the choice of mans will. The will of man must submit to Gods will, for Gods wisdom and goodness are necessities of his being. By the original constitution of mans nature, God was the object of his affection. Then he should keep his affections for God above all keeping.
III. All the other powers of the soul must also be kept; for influences deteriorating or elevating are being hourly exercised upon them. The memory may be filled with vile images and unholy recollections, or it may be stored with pious thoughts and the sweet remembrance of past mercies. The imagination may be crowded with foul pictures, worldly fancies, and daring speculations, or it may be consecrated by visions of the beauty of God and the splendours of the New Jerusalem. The intellect may revel in the deceitful charms of scepticism and inquiry, or it may bow down in adoration before the tremendous supernatural truths of the Christian Church. The judgment may take its portion in this life and wed itself to earthly success, or it may choose the better part--sit at Jesus feet and listen to His words. So the whole heart may be perverted or directed; and hence the urgent necessity of keeping it with diligence. (Bp. A. P. Forbes.)
The stronghold of the Christian sentinel
I. The citadel which the Christian has to guard. The heart of man is a wondrous mystery, a strange world in itself; its feelings, affections, desires, emotions, cravings, reasonings, wonderings--who shall tell them? The heart given the Christian soldier in charge is a heart that is renewed and yet unrenewed, that is holy and yet unholy, that is spirit and yet flesh. Such is the heart of every man that is born of the Spirit. The germ is there, but all that is good of that germ has yet to be unfolded and perfected. So long as the heart is kept a man is comparatively safe, for it is the key of the position.
II. The importance of maintaining this citadel. Out of it are the issues of life in mans whole course and conduct, and out of it is the final result of a mans career and course of life. All the streams of life proceed from within. A mans life is regulated by his heart. If the heart be kept the man is kept, and it matters little what else a man keeps; for, after all, a man is what he is in principles, in desires, in emotions, and affections. Every Christian soldier must be aware that it is only by constant vigilance that he can maintain the citadel and prevent its being betrayed. There are two perils--betrayal within and surprise from without. There are many who, instead of keeping their heart, leave its keeping to Satan. And many fall because they allow their hearts to get out of their control. (H. Stowell, M. A.)
Watch the heart
If you would keep the eye from injury, much more keep the heart, so susceptible as it is of complete disorganisation from the mere dust of an evil thought. If there is anything in the world which should be the object of unsleeping, anxious guardianship, it is the heart. Then keep it above all keeping. It is evident, even to reason, that without this precaution of watchfulness over the heart every other counsel for resisting temptation must be of no avail. The heart is the key of the entire spiritual position. But the dangers of the heart are not merely external. There are many traitors in the camp. The exports and imports of the heart are exceedingly numerous. What a fertility of thought, sentiment, impression, feeling is there in the heart of a single man! There are a thousand doors of access to the heart. Passengers are busily passing in and thronging out at every door. Active steps must be taken to ensure against mischief-makers. Solitude is scarcely less dangerous in our spiritual welfare than company, because temptations of self and the devil meet us then. The remedy, in company or in solitude, is to guard, as far as in us lies, the first springs of thought and will. By every spiritual man an attempt is made to bring the region of the heart--the motives, desires, affections--under the sceptre of Christ. It will be found that all the more grievous falls of the tempted soul come from this--that the keeping of the heart has been neglected, that the evil has not been nipped in the bud. There is no safety for us except in making our stand at the avenues of the will and rejecting at once every questionable impulse. This cannot be done without watchfulness and self-recollection. Endeavour to make your heart a little sanctuary, in which you may continually realise the presence of God, and from which unhallowed thoughts, and even vain thoughts, must carefully be excluded. We must watch, but we must also pray. Man must give his exertion, but he must never lean upon it. Prayer is, or ought to be, the expression of human dependance upon God--the throwing ourselves upon His protecting wisdom and power and love. When our Saviour counsels us to unite prayer with watching He counsels us to throw ourselves upon God, under a sense of our own weakness and total insufficiency. To God, then, let us commit the keeping of our souls in the most absolute self-distrust. (Dean Goulburn.)
God only judgeth of the heart
I. An admonition.
1. The act: Keep. Our hearts are untrusty, unruly, and obvious to be surprised; for such things we are wont to keep.
II. The object: The heart. By heart understand inward thoughts, motions, and affections of the soul and spirit, whereof the heart is the chamber. We should keep our hearts in a state of--
1. Purity.
2. Loyalty. A loyal heart cherishes no darling sin; scruples at small sins; hates sin at all times. A loyal heart is the same as a perfect heart.
III. The means of keeping the heart above all keeping. Nature hath placed the heart in the most fenced part of the body.
1. As those who keep a city have special care of the gates and posterns, so must we watch over the senses, the gates and windows of the soul, especially the eye and the ear.
2. Make exceeding much of all good motions put into our hearts by Gods Spirit, and resist at its first rising every exorbitant thought which draws to sin.
3. Let him that would guard his heart take heed of familiar and friendly converse with lewd, profane, and ungracious company. This keeping must be done, because all spiritual life and living actions issue from the heart. This issuing of our works and actions from the heart is that which is called sincerity and truth, so much commended unto us in Scripture. That which is wanting in the measure of obedience and holiness is made up in the truth and sincerity thereof. (Joseph Mede, B.D.)
The issues of life out of the heart
First the fountain, then the streams; first the heart, and then the life-course. The issues of life are manifold; three of their main channels are mapped out here--the lips, the eyes, and the feet. The corruption of the heart, the pollution of the spring-head, where all lifes currents rise, is a very frequent topic in the Scriptures. The precept, Keep thy heart with all diligence, sounds very like some of the sayings of Jesus. He said, Out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries. Therefore keep with all diligence that prolific spring. Here, as in all other cases, prayer and pains must go together. Keep it with all keeping is the precise statement. Leave no means untried. Out of our own conduct will we be condemned if we do not effectually keep our own hearts. We keep other things with success as often as we set about it in earnest. In other keepings man is skilful and powerful too, but in keeping his own heart, unstable as water, he does not excel. Keep it from getting evil, as a garden is kept: keep it from doing evil, as the sea is kept at bay from reclaimed netherlands.
1. The first of the three streams marked on this map as issuing from an ill-kept heart is a froward mouth. Words form the first and readiest egress for evil. The power of speech is one of the grand peculiarities which distinguish man. A vain, biting, untruthful, polluted, profane tongue cannot be in the family of God when the family are at home in their Fathers presence. The evil must be put away; the tongue must be cleansed; and now is the day for such exercises.
2. The next outlet from the fountain is by the eyes. Let the hearts aim be simple and righteous. No secret longings and side-glances after forbidden things, no crooked by-ends and hypocritical pretences. When the eye is single the whole body will be full of light. Straightforwardness is the fairest jewel of our commercial crown.
3. The last of these issues is by the feet. Ponder, therefore, thy path. The best time to ponder any path is not at the end, not even at the middle, but at the beginning of it. The right place for weighing the worth of any course is on this side of its beginning. Those who ponder after they have entered it are not in a position either to obtain the truth or to profit by it. The injunction applies to every step in life, small or great. The value of weighing anything depends all on the justness of the balance and the weights. By the Word of God paths and actions will be weighed in the judgment. By the Word of God, therefore, let paths and actions, great and small, be pondered now. (W. Arnot, D. D.)
The fountain of life
(to children):--In each one of you there is a small organ or member which is sometimes called the seat or throne of life. Its work is to beat out the blood to every part of the body, and so to keep the red stream of life always moving. The text speaks about another heart and another life which we all have. There is a something within a child with which he thinks and loves, hates and wishes, and that something the Bible calls our heart. It means your very self. Out of this heart are the issues, the flowings or streams, of life. A mans real life flows from his love. Thoughts and wishes, likes and dislikes, love and hate--these are the great workers that build up and pull down and do all that is done in the world. Every human life, good or bad, flows like a stream from good or bad thoughts, good or bad wishes. When a man loves goodness, longs for it, thinks about it, a life full of noble, kindly deeds flows like a pure stream out of his heart. But if a man likes what is wrong, thinks wicked thoughts, a stream of bad deeds will flow out of his heart. God guards carefully the heart He has put into your body. He has put the strongest bones all round it, so that, though other parts may be easily hurt, the heart is safe. The text says we should guard the heart of our real lives--our mind--in the same way with all diligence, because, if the heart goes wrong, the whole life goes wrong with it. How can we guard the heart? By keeping bad thoughts, bad wishes, out of it. (J. M. Gibbon.)
The heart more than the head
Most men practically underrate the influence of the heart, compared with that of the head, on success and happiness. Reason, the intellect, the head and not the heart, is usually regarded as mans dignity. But it is his reason as manifested in his active and moral powers. Knowledge is not power--personal power--but only one of its instruments. The power is not in the knowledge, but in the moral qualities or passions which accompany it, which lie behind it, constituting what is called force of character. The essence of greatness, always and everywhere, is a great spirit. If we aspire not only to be great, but to be truly happy, the heart is not only the principal thing, it is almost everything. What is happiness but the sum total of the gratifications of a mans affections and desires? The heart has more to do than the head in determining the distinctions of character. A mans real character depends, not on his outward actions, but on the principles from which he acts--those principles which are real springs of action. All the distinctions of character resolve themselves at last into distinctions of disposition and temper, and not of intellect or understanding. In everything pertaining to human greatness and human happiness, to moral and Christian character, to final salvation, the heart is more than the head. The heart is the principal thing. Out of that, and that alone, are the issues of life. (James Walker.)
Dependence on our inward frame
I. The issues of life, in a religious respect, depend upon the heart. All things relating to religious conduct are reducible either to some matter of belief or practice. How far are belief and practice subject to be influenced by the heart?
1. To begin with belief. How much that depends upon the temper and disposition of the heart is easily seen from Scripture, history, and daily experience.
2. Our practice. How far is the practice apt to be governed by the inclination of the heart without the concurrence of the judgment, or even in opposition to it? Men are generally more swayed by their affections and passions than by their principles, and principles are of very little force or efficacy except when they fall in with inclination or grow up into it. Knowledge is one thing and grace another. Orthodoxy is not probity. A sound head may often be consistent with a corrupt heart. It is not what we believe, but what we affect and incline to, that determines us. But our irregular actions seem rather ultimately resolvable into the false judgments which we make than into affection or inclination; the head is first tainted, then the heart. The error, however, both of judgment and practice is really due to the corruption of the heart. When some sensible good is presented to the eye or to the mind the man judges it to be agreeable or pleasant to the sense, and so far judges right. Yet this alone would not determine his choice, because other considerations, more weighty, might keep him from it. But he dwells upon the thought till his heart is inflamed: then he chooses, and not till then. The drift and bent of his soul leaning too much toward it, he cuts off all farther consideration, and is precipitately determined by it. It is the desire, the impatience, the passion of his heart that hurries him into it. Men act against principle, driven on by a prevailing passion.
(1) Either we think not at all for the time of the general principles which we hold, but suffer them to lie dormant and useless in us; or
(2) if we think of them, we neglect to apply them to our own particular case, imagining ourselves to be unconcerned in them; or
(3) if we do apply them, and consequently are self-condemned and sensible of it, yet we hope to repent and to be saved notwithstanding.
II. What is implied or contained in the precept of the text. It must consist of two parts or offices--
1. To preserve our good dispositions.
2. To correct our bad ones. These will each of them imply two other things--a frequent examination of our own hearts, and a constant endeavour to wean our affections from this world and to fix them on another. (D. Waterland, D.D.)
The importance of keeping the heart
A most important reason is here assigned for keeping the heart with all diligence, because out of it are the issues of life.
I. The heart in the body of man is the centre of life. As the heart is, so is our general conduct. But if the fountain is poisoned, the streams will carry death and desolation in their course. If the principle of the action be defective or vitiated, the action cannot be otherwise. Keep thy heart with all diligence, because the state of it determines our real character; and because upon the state of it essentially depends the comfort or wretchedness of our lives. When temptations suited to the latest propensity to sin are presented--when strong inducements are offered to passion not under due control--the practice will follow the corrupt desire of the heart. Thus the evil heart will show itself, and, by its acting, prove the melancholy truth that when the heart itself is not kept, no mere professions, no outward restrictions, will be sufficient to keep us from falling. But, further, a right state of heart is essential to our own comfort and welfare. A mans happiness consists not in the abundance of the things which he possesses. These are things without a man, which cannot adapt themselves to his wants within. What can outward means avail in lessening the terrors of guilt in an awakened conscience, or in calming the fears of an approaching judgment? To the natural principles of evil in the heart, moreover, Satan is ever adapting his temptations and wiles. And where lies his chief hope of success? Is it not in our remissness? Whilst we sleep he is awake.
II. We proceed to offer some suggestions as to the manner in which this important duty may be most effectually discharged.
1. The right keeping of the heart especially includes the government of our thoughts, our passions, and our temper. If, either wilfully or through neglect and inattention, we suffer our hearts to lie open to thoughts of foolishness and sin, and permit them to lodge within us, then the guilt of these thoughts becomes our own. But the due control of the passions is equally essential, if we would keep our hearts aright. As originally implanted in our nature, and kept in subserviency to reason, these were designed to be instruments of good--the elements of what was great and virtuous in human conduct. But sin has disordered them all. In the Christian, the passions are subjugated to Christ. This is an essential feature in his character.
2. But to keep the heart is also to regulate the temper. Whatever difference there may be in natural dispositions, settled depravity of temper, without any effort to correct it, can arise only from the deep and unaltered corruption of our hearts. To oppose and to destroy this natural and sinful bias is one of the great aims of the religion of the Bible; and where this has been in no measure secured it is a mournful proof that the heart has never been brought or kept under the influence of religion at all. If these things be implied as essential to the keeping the heart, how valuable and important are those means which, under the influence of the Holy Spirit, will most successfully realise this great object! Amongst these means, watchfulness and prayer. (C. Buck, M. A.)
Guarding the heart
More exactly the meaning is this: Keep thine heart beyond everything else you keep; guard thine heart above all else, for out of it are the issues of life. Not your health, not your reputation, not your business credit, not your property--beyond all these things give time and thought to the culture of your heart. If you must take time from one thing or another, rather starve your business than let your heart run to waste. Your heart--what has your heart got to do with your actual life? John Stuart Mills father thought it counted for nothing, or, rather, it was a bad debt, it was a loss, it was a detriment to have a heart, to have feelings, to have emotions. Power, intellect, and strength of will, these were the elements to make a man, and the less heart he carried about with him--well, the less dead weight and the less risk of his being led wrong. And the Bible comes in and says to the business man, Beyond your books and your accounts and your shops and your speculations and your clients, watch over your heart, think about it, take care of it, toil to keep it in health and in beauty. The Bible comes and says the same thing to the servant girl trying to do her duty faithfully, to the working man wishing to improve his position in the world, to the learned man bent on discovering new truth. Yes, your toil, your ambition, your researches, your discoveries, commerce, industry, learning, are all of them good, but the most precious thing is the human heart. Whatever else suffers, see that your heart does not suffer. This proverb runs right in the teeth of the whole mass of our daily life; runs against the whole current and tendency of our education, and our habits, and our notions. The proverb gives its reason--a reason that will stand and hold its own in the court of common sense, as well as at the last judgment. Beyond everything else, take care of your heart, for out of your heart are the issues of your life. Not out of your body, not out of your intellect, not out of your business, not out of your property, not out of your wisdom, not out of your fame--out of your heart are the essential elements and sustenance of your life, its last results for joy or for sorrow. Out of the heart are the issues of life. The phrase makes a picture. You are travelling in the desert with a caravan over the hot sand. The sky above you with a sultry sun in it, the hot ground beneath your feet, your eye wearied, tired, inflamed by the glare above, the glare below; you long to set eyes on the green leaf. In the distance you get sight of something in the air. You draw nearer to it, it grows and forms itself, framed there in the wilderness like a picture--a clump of palm-trees; beneath, green grass; in the branches, birds singing; lazy cattle reclining on the herbage, sheep bleating. You penetrate into it, you discover the tents and homes of men; women and children playing around, life, beauty. Whence, whence all that? Right there in the centre of it you come on a deep, brimming pool of water, fed by a perpetual fountain, like an eye looking up to the sky--ah, more than an eye, the very fountain of all that greenness and beauty; blossom, herbage, sheep, cow, bird, man, woman, child, all of them the outcome of that springing fountain of water. Out of it are the issues of life. Poison it, and all that dies. Turn it brackish, and all withers and diminishes and decays. Quench it, stop it, and the desert flows over the green oasis. Like that fountain of living water is your heart within you. Your heart it is that makes your life to flow, fair, radiant, or poor, poverty-stricken, cold, dead. What is your heart like? What is a mans heart? Well, it is not easy to describe that, and yet we all know well enough what we mean by it. We cannot just put our finger on where it is, or say precisely what it is; but oh, how well you know when your heart bounds with joy, or when it grips together with sharp pain, sorrow, disappointment! Oh, you know it is just the inner core of cravings and hopes and eager wishes and conscious personal thoughts and plans and purposes and attributes that makes you your own very self, that gives you your disposition, that makes up your temperament, that settles your character, that fashions your conduct. Oh, what a blunder a man makes when he thinks that his life will be planned and made by his intellect! There never yet was a man who thought that by his mind he could steer his own course through the world that did not find his heart steal a march upon him. A mans heart--that is what makes him, that is what determines a mans choice at all the great critical points in life. A mans heart it is that settles what his home is to be, that chooses the partner that is to be his, for better, for worse, for him, for her. It is a mans heart that chooses fleshly, that chooses spiritually; that chooses unselfishly, that chooses selfishly; that chooses for the outward appearance, or chooses for heart-worth. Oh, you say, there is not much heart in a great many of these things. I beg your pardon, there is: plenty of heart, but it is base, worldly, greedy, grasping heart; or silly, selfish, vain, flattered heart. When a mans life shows little or nothing of the echoes of lofty, generous, chivalrous thought and purpose and endeavour, we constantly use a false expression, saying, He has got no heart. How is it that a score of men that are your daily associates or friends, all of them educated pretty much on the same level, similar to one another in manner, of the same deportment, and even the same politics--how is it they are all so unlike you? Is it that the one mans talk is tiresome and wearisome? How is it that you feel as if he were made of wood? How is it that the other man has that glow and sparkle that sends a thrill through you, that stimulates you, that makes you think, that so brings out responses that you admire your own cleverness? What makes the difference? Why, it is not the amount of grammar the one learned more than the other, or that the one has read more books. No, not that. It is the inner core and kernel of the one man compared with what is inside the other. Heart, rich heart! for out of the heart in very deed and truth are the ripe, supreme issues of life--life social, life personal, life earthly, and life eternal. Now, if that be true, that a mans life really depends, beyond everything else, on his inner man, on his heart, on his disposition, on his temperament, on his character formed within him, how is it that we do not take a deal more trouble to take care of our hearts? Ah, there are a lot of books that talk about success that are full of the devils lies. A man is a great success because he died a millionaire! Oh, a man may make himself a millionaire and miss making himself a man in the image of God, in the likeness of Christ. Success in life is measured by the heart you die with. Why, then, do not we take more pains about our hearts? How many of us do it? For every one of you knows that is just the thing we neglect. Even our bodily hearts, I suppose, physicians would tell us, we do not take half care enough of. Rather than lose five minutes and miss a train we run, and risk sudden death, or actually damage the working of the central fountain of life in our bodies. And how we ever toil and tax the whole inner core of that body of ours for things not worth it. For, if a man loses his health, what is money to him? Yes, we imagine that our hearts take care of themselves. No man imagines that his accounts will collect themselves. No man imagines that his house will repair itself. Why, you must give as much care to the ties of love and children, if you are to keep these beautiful and fair, as you do to make your garden free from weeds, and your house water-tight and weather-tight, and your business a solvent concern. And besides, there is another mistake that people make. They say to themselves, I am not the one that makes my heart. It is the life that I have to live that should make my heart; it is my circumstances, my fortunes. I am a very miserable man indeed, always careworn and anxious; never able to feel bright and cheerful. When I hear my neighbour whistling in the evening in his garden I envy him; but then he has not the worries that I have. Very likely he has got much worse ones, but he has got the sense to leave them down in the office. That is how he kept his health. It was not easy. The cares and anxieties followed him into the train, got out at the station, stole up the garden; but the man had the wisdom and the strength to slam the door and not let them in. That is how he kept his heart and brain and health up, and his inmost heart of all. How is a man to make the most of his heart? How to keep it pure in this foul world? How to lift it above the grime, and the dust, and the tear and wear? How to make it large and noble, the biggest and most beautiful according to Gods plan? By not leaving it in this world, but by taking it out of this world? Ah, no; not out of this world, but in this world to bring it into another World; not by keeping it to yourself and making it in the measure of your own self, but by taking that heart of yours and letting Christ into it--the real, simple human Jesus. Oh, beyond all thy keeping, keep thy heart! and that thou shalt do best by giving it away to Christ. (Prof. Elmslie.)
What is imported in keeping the heart, and the best means of doing it
I. Explain the meaning of this precept. We need not, it should seem, be told that we are each of us endowed with a power of reflecting upon our own desires and affections, and with a certain invariable standard within us, by which we are enabled to judge whether these inward principles are right or wrong. Nor should we need to be told that our affections and passions are in a great measure under the influence of conscience, and of the superior calm principles, and instincts, by which it was intended they should be controlled. He is the man of worth, he only is truly so, who can hazard an appeal to the Searcher of Hearts, that he does not indulge any vicious affection within him, but makes it his constant business to purify the heart. I have only to add farther, that the great duty recommended in my text must be understood to signify that we should watch over and resist the first workings of passion, the conceptions of lust.
II. The most effectual helps for our doing this with success.
1. And here, in the first place, we are to turn our thoughts to our Creator. Frequent and serious contemplation of His perfections, and of the relation in which we stand to Him, is undoubtedly the most effectual of all means, in forming the heart to goodness.
2. The second thing I would recommend is a virtuous industry. We are formed for action; and when the powers are not employed in something worthy, they are likely enough to find employment of another sort.
3. It is of very great importance that men choose such to be their intimate familiar acquaintances as have a right temper and a just taste in life; that their daily conversation may be such as will not only not endanger innocence and virtue, but contribute to the guarding and strengthening of them. There is a mighty power in conversation, in the behaviour of our familiar acquaintances, to affect the mind, and to render us like them in temper.
4. Conversing much with the heart, observing the tendencies of the affections with care, and endeavouring to preserve always a just sense of things upon the mind, will be found of the greatest use. Taking the tendency of our desires and inclinations to task with severity, and examining the pretences under which the various gratifications of them are recommended. By such a careful attention to ourselves we shall find out the deceitfulness of sin, and those snares which prejudice conceals from the unthinking; we shall be able to resist temptations with firmness and resolution; for in truth, the success of them, where they do prevail, is in a great measure owing to carelessness and inattention. (Jas. Duchal, D. D.)
Keeping the heart
(a sermon to children):--All wise people like to go deeply into a thing, to go to the root of it. What is your root? Where is it? Your heart. A little boy had a very nice watch; but it would not go right. It had a very pretty case, and face; but it sometimes went too fast, and sometimes too slow. He asked his mother what he should do about it. She told him to take it to the watchmakers. He did so; and he said, Master John, it has its hands all right, but it will not go right. Therefore leave it with me, and come again in a few days, and I will tell you what is the matter with it. John went again to him in a few days, and the watchmaker said to him, I opened your watch, and I found there was the right number of wheels, and pins, and screws; but I found a little part called the spring which was wrong; and because the main-spring was wrong, it sometimes went too fast, and sometimes too slow. Now, I think, you are all like watches. Something within you goes tick, tick, and you have hands and inside works. But how do you go? Sometimes too fast, and sometimes too slow. Does not the tongue sometimes go too fast or too slow? Are not the feet sometimes too fast or too slow? Are not the hands sometimes going wrong? How is this? Let us examine--though I am not the watchmaker--God is the watchmaker: the main-spring is the heart. Everything in you depends upon your heart. God always looks most at the heart. What do you think God will look at in the day of judgment? Your heart. That is what He will want to know about. Now as it is so important to keep the heart right, I want to try to help you to do so, by giving you a little advice thereupon. Keep thy heart with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life. One thing is to keep it as we keep a garden--neat. Now, then, if you would keep your garden, you must often look into it. And I will tell you what you will find there--every day there will grow lumps of weeds; however well you may have weeded it yesterday, you will find more weeds to-day. Pull them out! Then another thing--you must water it. This wants doing very often. Do you know what I mean? If not, look at the fourth of John, to what Jesus Christ said about water, and what it is. Bring the Holy Spirit into your heart. Pray that God will pour good thoughts--His grace--into your heart: that is water. If you want to keep your heart, do not let there be any empty corners therein. God likes all boys and girls to be employed--sometimes at their lessons, sometimes at play; sometimes helping somebody, thinking, reading, or playing, to be always employed. I must tell you, if you do not always employ yourselves--if you are idle, and thinking about nothing, the devil is sure to come into your hearts. Another piece of advice I give you is this, be very particular whom you make your intimate friends. You must keep your heart from catching those evil desires that naughty boys and girls will suggest. One thing more. Have you not sometimes, when anybody has given you anything uncommonly valuable, taken it to your father, and said, It is too precious for me to keep, I am afraid of losing it, do take care of it for me? It is very wise for boys and girls to do this with their treasures. Oh, that you would do this with your heart! You cannot keep it yourself; therefore often take it to God: ask Him to keep your heart. (J. Vaughan, M.A.)
Things the heart is like
1. The heart is a lamp, which the High and Holy One has entrusted to our care. Keep it well trimmed.
2. The heart is a ship. Look to the hull and the rudder, the masts, the sails, and the rigging. Have an eye to the crew, and take care what merchandise you have aboard; mind that you have plenty of ballast, and do not carry too much sail.
3. The heart is a temple. Keep it pure and undefiled.
4. The heart is a besieged city, and liable to attacks on all sides. While you defend one part, keep a good look-out on the other. (Old Humphrey.)
The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Alexander MacLaren 1905 · Public Domain Pro 4:23. - 1Pe 1:5.
Proverbs
KEEPING AND KEPT
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Pro 4:23. - 1Pe 1:5.
The former of these texts imposes a stringent duty, the latter promises divine help to perform it. The relation between them is that between the Law and the Gospel. The Law commands, the Gospel gives power to obey. The Law pays no attention to man’s weakness, and points no finger to the source of strength. Its office is to set clearly forth what we ought to be, not to aid us in becoming so. ‘Here is your duty, do it’ is, doubtless, a needful message, but it is a chilly one, and it may well be doubted if it ever rouses a soul to right action. Moralists have hammered away at preaching self-restraint and a close watch over the fountain of actions within from the beginning, but their exhortations have little effect unless they can add to their icy injunctions the warmth of the promise of our second text, and point to a divine Keeper who will make duty possible. We must be kept by God, if we are ever to succeed in keeping our wayward hearts.
I. Without our guarding our hearts, no noble life is possible.
The Old Testament psychology differs from our popular allocation of certain faculties to bodily organs. We use head and heart, roughly speaking, as being respectively the seats of thought and of emotion. But the Old Testament locates in the heart the centre of personal being. It is not merely the home of the affections, but the seat of will, moral purpose. As this text says, ‘the issues of life’ flow from it in all the multitudinous variety of their forms. The stream parts into many heads, but it has one fountain. To the Hebrew thinkers the heart was the indivisible, central unity which manifested itself in the whole of the outward life. ‘As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he.’ The heart is the man. And that personal centre has a moral character which comes to light in, and gives unity and character to, all his deeds.
That solemn thought that every one of us has a definite moral character, and that our deeds are not an accidental set of outward actions but flow from an inner fountain, needs to be driven home to our consciences, for most of the actions of most men are done so mechanically, and reflected on so little by the doers, that the conviction of their having any moral character at all, or of our incurring any responsibility for them, is almost extinct in us, unless when something startles conscience into protest.
It is this shrouded inner self to which supreme care is to be directed. All noble ethical teaching concurs in this-that a man who seeks to be right must keep, in the sense both of watching and of guarding, his inner self. Conduct is more easily regulated than character-and less worth regulating. It avails little to plant watchers on the stream half way to the sea. Control must be exercised at the source, if it is to be effectual. The counsel of our first text is a commonplace of all wholesome moral teaching since the beginning of the world. The phrase ‘with all diligence’ is literally ‘above all guarding,’ and energetically expresses the supremacy of this keeping. It should be the foremost, all-pervading aim of every wise man who would not let his life run to waste. It may be turned into more modern language, meaning just what this ancient sage meant, if we put it as, ‘Guard thy character with more carefulness than thou dost thy most precious possessions, for it needs continual watchfulness, and, untended, will go to rack and ruin.’ The exhortation finds a response in every heart, and may seem too familiar and trite to bear dwelling on, but we may be allowed to touch lightly on one or two of the plain reasons which enforce it on every man who is not what Proverbs very unpolitely calls ‘a fool.’
That guarding is plainly imposed as necessary, by the very constitution of our manhood. Our nature is evidently not a republic, but a monarchy. It is full of blind impulses, and hungry desires, which take no heed of any law but their own satisfaction. If the reins are thrown on the necks of these untamed horses, they will drag the man to destruction. They are only safe when they are curbed and bitted, and held well in. Then there are tastes and inclinations which need guidance and are plainly meant to be subordinate. The will is to govern all the lower self, and conscience is to govern the will. Unmistakably there are parts of every man’s nature which are meant to serve, and parts which are appointed to rule, and to let the servants usurp the place of the rulers is to bring about as wild a confusion within as the Ecclesiast lamented that he had seen in the anarchic times when he wrote-princes walking and beggars on horseback. As George Herbert has it-
‘Give not thy humours way;
God gave them to thee under lock and key.’
Then, further, that guarding is plainly imperative, because there is an outer world which appeals to our needs and desires, irrespective altogether of right and wrong and of the moral consequences of gratifying these. Put a loaf before a starving man and his impulse will be to clutch and devour it, without regard to whether it is his or no. Show any of our animal propensities its appropriate food, and it asks no questions as to right or wrong, but is stirred to grasp its natural food. And even the higher and nobler parts of our nature are but too apt to seek their gratification without having the license of conscience for doing so, and sometimes in defiance of its plain prohibitions. It is never safe to trust the guidance of life to tastes, inclinations, or to anything but clear reason, set in motion by calm will, and acting under the approbation of ‘the Lord Chief Justice, Conscience.’
But again, seeing that the world has more evil than good in it, the keeping of the heart will always consist rather in repelling solicitations to yielding to evil. In short, the power and the habit of sternly saying ‘No’ to the whole crowd of tempters is always the main secret of a noble life. ‘He that hath no rule over his own spirit is like a city broken down and without walls.’
II. There is no effectual guarding unless God guards.
The counsel in Proverbs is not mere toothless moral commonplace, but is associated, in the preceding chapter, with fatherly advice to ‘let thine heart keep my commandments’ and to ‘trust in the Lord with all thine heart.’ The heart that so trusts will be safely guarded, and only such a heart will be. The inherent weakness of all attempts at self-keeping is that keeper and kept being one and the same personality, the more we need to be kept the less able we are to effect it. If in the very garrison are traitors, how shall the fortress be defended? If, then, we are to exercise an effectual guard over our characters and control over our natures, we must have an outward standard of right and wrong which shall not be deflected by variations in our temperature. We need a fixed light to steer towards, which is stable on the stable shore, and is not tossing up and down on our decks. We shall cleanse our way only when we ‘take heed thereto, according to Thy word.’ For even God’s viceroy within, the sovereign conscience, can be warped, perverted, silenced, and is not immune from the spreading infection of evil. When it turns to God, as a mirror to the sun, it is irradiated and flashes bright illumination into dark corners, but its power depends on its being thus lit by radiations from the very Light of Life. And if we are ever to have a coercive power over the rebellious powers within, we must have God’s power breathed into us, giving grip and energy to all the good within, quickening every lofty desire, satisfying every aspiration that feels after Him, cowing all our evil and being the very self of ourselves.
We need an outward motive which will stimulate and stir to effort. Our wills are lamed for good, and the world has strong charms that appeal to us. And if we are not to yield to these, there must be somewhere a stronger motive than any that the sorceress world has in its stores, that shall constrainingly draw us to ways that, because they tend upward, and yield no pabulum for the lower self, are difficult for sluggish feet. To the writer of this Book of Proverbs the name of God bore in it such a motive. To us the name of Jesus, which is Love, bears a yet mightier appeal, and the motive which lies in His death for us is strong enough, and it alone is strong enough, to fire our whole selves with enthusiastic, grateful love, which will burn up our sloth, and sweep our evil out of our hearts, and make us swift and glad to do all that may please Him. If there must be fresh reinforcements thrown into the town of Mansoul, as there must be if it is not to be captured, there is one sure way of securing these. Our second text tells us whence the relieving force must come. If we are to keep our hearts with all diligence, we must be ‘kept by the power of God,’ and that power is not merely to make diversion outside the beleaguered fortress which may force the besiegers to retreat and give up their effort, but is to enter in and possess the soul which it wills to defend. It is when the enemy sees that new succours have, in some mysterious way, been introduced, that he gives up his siege. It is God in us that is our security.
III. There is no keeping by God without faith.
Peter was an expert in such matters, for he had had a bitter experience to teach him how soon and surely self-confidence became self-despair. ‘Though all should forsake Thee, yet will not I,’ was said but a few hours before he denied Jesus. His faith failed, and then the divine guard that was keeping his soul passed thence, and, left alone, he fell.
That divine Power is exerted for our keeping on condition of our trusting ourselves to Him and trusting Him for ourselves. And that condition is no arbitrary one, but is prescribed by the very nature of divine help and of human faith. If God could keep our souls without our trust in Him He would. He does so keep them as far as is possible, but for all the choicer blessings of His giving, and especially for that of keeping us free from the domination of our lower selves, there must be in us faith if there is to be in God help. The hand that lays hold on God in Christ must be stretched out and must grasp His warm, gentle, and strong hand, if the tingling touch of it is to infuse strength. If the relieving force is victoriously to enter our hearts, we must throw open the gates and welcome it. Faith is but the open door for God’s entrance. It has no efficacy in itself any more than a door has, but all its blessedness depends on what it admits into the hidden chambers of the heart.
I reiterate what I have tried to show in these poor words. There is no noble life without our guarding our hearts; there is no effectual guarding unless God guards; there is no divine guarding unless through our faith. It is vain to preach self-governing and self-keeping. Unless we can tell the beleaguered heart, ‘The Lord is thy Keeper; He will keep thee from all evil; He will keep thy soul,’ we only add one more impossible command to a man’s burden. And we do not apprehend nor experience the divine keeping in its most blessed and fullest reality, unless we find it in Jesus, who is ‘able to keep us from falling, and to present us faultless before the presence of His glory with exceeding joy.’
Alexander MacLaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture (1904–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Tyndale Open Study Notes 2022 · CC BY-SA 4.0 4:23 In the Old Testament, the heart represents the…
4:23 In the Old Testament, the heart represents the center of emotions, thinking, and reasoning (e.g., Gen 6:5; Deut 4:29; Ps 131:1). The heart is crucial in the battle between wisdom and foolishness, between righteousness and evil (see Matt 5:8; 13:15; John 12:40; Rom 6:17).
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