Keeping the Heart
by John Flavel
"Keep your heart with all diligence;
for out of it are the issues of life."
Proverbs 4:23
The second season in the life of a Christian, requiring
more than common diligence to keep his heart, is the time of ADVERSITY.
When Providence frowns upon you, and blasts your outward comforts—then look
to your heart; keep it with all diligence from repining against God or
fainting under his hand; for troubles, though sanctified, are troubles
still. Jonah was a godly man, and yet how fretful was his heart under
affliction! Job was the mirror of patience—yet how was his heart
discomposed by trouble! You will find it hard to get a composed spirit under
great afflictions. O the hurries and tumults which they occasion even in the
best hearts! Let me show you, then, how a Christian under great afflictions
may keep his heart from repining or desponding, under the hand of God. I
will here offer several helps to keep the heart in this condition.
1. By these cross providences God is faithfully pursuing
the great design of electing love upon the souls of his people, and orders
all these afflictions as means sanctified to that end.
Afflictions come not by chance—but by counsel. By the counsel of God, they
are ordained as means of much spiritual good to saints. "By this shall the
iniquity of Jacob be purged," etc. "But he disciplines us for our profit,"
etc. "All things work together for good," etc. afflictions are God's workmen
upon our hearts, to pull down our pride and carnal; and being so, their
nature is changed; they are turned into blessings and benefits! "It is good
for me that I have been afflicted," says David. Surely then you have no
reason to quarrel with God—but rather to wonder that he should concern
himself so much in your good, as to use any means for accomplishing it. Paul
could bless God if by any means he might attain the resurrection of the
dead. "My brethren," says James, "count it all joy when you fall into
diverse trials." ‘My Father is about a design of love upon my soul, and do I
do well to be angry with him? All that he does, is in pursuance of, and in
reference to some eternal, glorious ends upon my soul. It is my ignorance of
God's design that makes me quarrel with him.' He says to you in this case,
as he did to Peter, "What I do, you know not now—but you shall know
hereafter."
2. Though God has reserved to himself a liberty of
afflicting his people—yet he has tied up his own hands by promise never to
take away his loving kindness from them. Can I contemplate this
scripture with a repining, discontented spirit: "I will be his Father, and
he shall be my son: if he commits iniquity, I will chasten him with the rod
of man, and with the stripes of the children of men: nevertheless my mercy
shall not depart away from him." O my heart, my haughty heart! Do you do
well to be discontent, when God has given you the whole tree, with all the
clusters of comfort growing on it, because he allows the wind to blow down a
few leaves? Christians have two kinds of goods, the goods of the throne and
the goods of the footstool; immovables and moveables. If God has secured
those, never let my heart be troubled at the loss of these: indeed, if he
had cut off his love, or discovenanted my soul, I would have reason to be
cast down; but this he has not done, nor can he do it.
3. It is of great efficacy to keep the heart from sinking
under afflictions, to call to mind that your own Father has the ordering of
them. Not a creature moves hand or tongue against you—but by his
wise permission. Suppose the cup is bitter—yet it is the cup which your
Father has given you! Can you suspect poison to be in it? Foolish man, put
home the case to your own heart; can you give your child that which would
ruin him? No! You would as soon hurt yourself as him. "If you then, being
evil, know how to give good gifts to your children," how much more does God!
The very consideration of his nature as a God of love, pity, and
tender mercies; or of his relation to you as a father, husband,
friend—may be security enough, if he had not spoken a word to quiet you in
this case. And yet you have his word too, by the prophet Jeremiah: "I will
do you no hurt." You lie too near his heart for him to hurt you. Nothing
grieves him more than your groundless and unworthy suspicions of his wise
and kind designs. Would it not grieve a faithful, tender-hearted physician,
when he had studied the case of his patient, and prepared the most excellent
medicines to save his life, to hear him cry out, 'O he has undone me! he has
poisoned me!' because it pains him in the operation? O when will you be
submissive?
4. God respects you as much in a low condition—as in a
high condition ; and therefore it need not so much trouble you to
be made low; no, he manifests more of his love, grace and tenderness in the
time of affliction—than in the time of prosperity. As God did not at first
choose you because you were high, he will not now forsake you because you
are low. Men may look shy upon you, and alter their respects as your
condition is altered; when Providence has blasted your estate, your
summer-friends may grow strange, fearing you may be troublesome to them. But
will God do so? No! no! "I will never leave you nor forsake you" says he. If
adversity and poverty could bar you from access to God, it would indeed be a
deplorable condition: but, so far from this, you may go to him as freely as
ever. "My God will hear me," says the church. Poor David, when stripped of
all earthly comforts, could encourage himself in the Lord his God; and why
not you? Suppose your husband or son had lost all at sea, and should come to
you in rags; could you deny the relation, or refuse to entertain him? If you
would not, much less will God. Why then are you so troubled? Though your
condition is changed, your Father's love is not changed.
5. What if by the loss of outward comforts, God preserves
your soul from the ruining power of temptation? Surely then you
have little cause to sink your heart by such sad thoughts. Do not earthly
enjoyments make men shrink in times of trial? For the love of these, many
have forsaken Christ in such an hour. The young ruler "went away sorrowful,
for he had great possessions." If this is God's design, how ungrateful to
murmur against him for it! We see mariners in a storm can throw over-board
the most valuable goods to preserve their lives. We know it is usual for
soldiers in a besieged city to destroy the finest buildings in which the
enemy may take shelter; and no one doubts that it is wisely done. Those who
have decayed limbs willingly stretch them out to be cut off, and not only
thank—but pay the surgeon! Must God be murmured against for
casting over that which would sink you in a storm; for pulling down that
which would assist your enemy in the siege of temptation; for cutting off
what would endanger your everlasting life? O, inconsiderate, ungrateful man!
Are not these things for which you grieve, the very things that have ruined
thousands of souls?
6. It would much support your heart under adversity, to
consider that God by such humbling providences may be accomplishing that for
which you have long prayed and waited. And should you be troubled
at that? Say, Christian, have you not many prayers pending before God upon
such accounts as these; that he would keep you from sin; that he would
discover to you the emptiness of the creature; that he would mortify and
kill your lusts; that your heart may never find rest in any enjoyment but
Christ? By such humbling and impoverishing strokes, God may be fulfilling
your desires! Would you be kept from sin? Lo, he has hedged up your way with
thorns. Would you see the creature's vanity? Your affliction is a looking
glass to reveal it; for the vanity of the creature is never so effectually
and sensibly discovered, as in our own experience. Would you have your
corruptions mortified? This is the way—to have the fuel removed which
maintained them; for as prosperity begat and fed them, so adversity, when
sanctified, is a means to kill them. Would you have your heart rest nowhere
but in the bosom of God? What better method could Providence take to
accomplish your desire, than pulling from under your head that soft pillow
of creature delights on which you rested before? And yet you fret at
this! Peevish child, how do you try your Father's patience! If he delays to
answer your prayers, you are ready to say that he regards you not. If he
does that which really answers the end of your prayers, though not in the
way which you expect, you murmur against him for that! As if, instead of
answering, he were crossing all your hopes and aims. Is this sincerity? Is
it not enough that God is so gracious as to do what you desire: must you be
so impudent as to expect him to do it in the way which you prescribe?
7. It may support your heart, to consider that in these
troubles God is performing that work in which your soul would rejoice—if you
did see the design of it. We are clouded with much ignorance, and
are not able to discern how particular providences tend to the fulfillment
of God's designs; and therefore, like Israel in the wilderness, are often
murmuring, because Providence leads us about in a howling desert, where we
are exposed to difficulties; though then he led them, and is now leading us,
by the right way to a city of habitation. If you could but see how
God in his secret counsel has exactly laid the whole plan of your salvation,
even to the smallest means and circumstances; could you but discern the
admirable harmony of divine dispensations, their mutual relations, together
with the general respect they all have to the last end; had you liberty to
make your own choice, you would, of all conditions in the world, choose that
in which you now are! Providence is like a curious piece of tapestry made of
a thousand shreds, which, single, appear useless—but put together, they
represent a beautiful history to the eye. As God does all things according
to the counsel of his own will, of course this is ordained at the best
method to effect your salvation. Such a one has a proud heart—so many
humbling providences appoint for him. Such a one has an earthly
heart—so many impoverishing providences for him. Did you but see this, I
need say no more to support the most dejected heart.
8. It would much conduce to the settlement of your heart,
to consider that by fretting and discontent, you do yourself more injury
than all your afflictions could do. Your own discontent is that
which arms your troubles with a sting. You make your burden heavy—by
struggling under it. Did you but lie quietly under the hand of God, your
condition would be much more easy than it is. "Impatience in the sick,
brings severity in the physician." This makes God afflict the more, as a
father a stubborn child—who does not receive correction. Beside, it unfits
the soul to pray over its troubles, or receive the sense of that good which
God intends by them. Affliction is a pill, which, being wrapped up in
patience and quiet submission, may be easily shallowed; but discontent chews
the pill, and so embitters the soul. God throws away some comfort which he
saw would hurt you—and you will throw away your peace after it? He shoots an
arrow which sticks in your clothes, and was never intended to hurt—but only
to drive you from sin; and you will thrust it deeper, to the piercing of
your very heart, by despondency and discontent.
9. If your heart (like that of Rachel) still refuses to
be comforted, then do one thing more: compare the condition you are now in,
and with which you are so much dissatisfied, with the condition in which
others are, and in which you deserve to be. "Others are roaring
in flames, howling under the scourge of vengeance—and among them I deserve
to be! O my soul, is this hell? Is my condition as bad as that of the
damned? What would thousands now in hell give to exchange conditions with
me!" I have read (says an author) that when the Duke of Conde had
voluntarily subjected himself to the inconveniences of poverty, he was one
day observed and pitied by a noble of Italy, who from tenderness wished him
to be more careful of his person. The good duke answered, "Sir, be not
troubled, and do not think that I suffer from need; for I send a harbinger
before me, who makes ready my lodgings and takes care that I am royally
entertained." The noble asked him who was his harbinger? He answered, "The
knowledge of myself, and the consideration of what I deserve for my sins,
which is eternal torment; when with this knowledge I arrive at my lodging,
however unprovided I find it—methinks it is much better than I deserve. Why
does the living man complain?" Thus the heart may be kept from desponding or
repining under adversity.
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