Keeping the Heart - Softcover

Flavel, John

4.61

726 ratings by Goodreads

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1534885471 ISBN 13: 9781534885479

Publisher: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2016

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Keeping the Heart is a discourse on Proverbs 4:23, "Keep thy heart with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life." Flavel intended this treatise for the specific purpose of illuminating, healing, and guarding the heart. He had the strong conviction, that saints should be marked by their holiness, therefore matters of the heart were of the utmost importance in the Christian life.

The heart of man is his worst part before it is regenerated—and the best afterward. It is the seat of principles, and the fountain of actions. The eye of God is fixed upon it—and the eye of the Christian ought to be principally fixed upon it.

The greatest difficulty in conversion—is to win the heart to God. The greatest difficulty after conversion—is to keep the heart with God. Here lies the very force and stress of religion; here is that which makes the way to life a narrow way, and the gate of heaven a strait gate. Direction and help in this great work, are the scope of the text: wherein we have,

An EXHORTATION, "Keep your heart with all diligence."

In the exhortation I shall consider,

First, The matter of the duty.

Secondly, The manner of performing it.

The MATTER of the duty. Keep your heart. By heart, in a metaphor, the Scripture sometimes represents some particular noble faculty of the soul. In Rom. 1:21, it is put for the understanding; their foolish heart, that is, their foolish understanding was darkened. Psalm 119:11, it is put for the memory; "Your word have I hid in my heart:" and 1 John 3:10, it is put for the conscience, which includes both the light of the understanding and the recognition of the memory; if our heart condemns us, that is, if our conscience, whose proper office it is to condemn.

But in the text we are to take it more generally, for the whole soul, or inner man. What the heart is to the body—that the soul is to the man. What health is to the heart—that holiness is to the soul. The state of the whole body depends upon the soundness and vigor of the heart—and the everlasting state of the whole man upon the good or ill condition of the soul.

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About the Author:

John Flavel was born at Bromsgrove in Wordesterchire. He was the elder son of Richard Flavel, described in contemporary records as "a painful and eminent minister." After receiving his early education, partly at home and partly at the grammar-schools of Bromsgrove and Haslar, he entered University College, Oxford. Soon after taking orders in 1650 he obtained a curacy at Diptford, Devon, and on the death of the vicar he was appointed to succeed him. From Diptford he removed in 1656 to Dartmouth. He was ejected from his living by the passing of the Act of Uniformity in 1662, but continued to preach and administer the sacraments privately till the Five Mile Act of 1665, when he retired to Slapton, 5 miles away. He then lived for a time in London, but returned to Dartmouth, where he labored till his death in 1691. He was married four times. He was a vigorous and voluminous writer, and not without a play of fine fancy. His principal works are his Navigation Spiritualized (1671); The Fountain of Life, in forty-two Sermons (1672); The Method of Grace (1680); Pneumatologia, a Treatise on the Soul of Man (1698); A Token for Mourners; Husbandry Spiritualized (1699).

Review:

""I have benefited greatly from John Flavel's 'Keeping the Heart' which the good folk at Christian Focus have re-published in a very accessible format"" (Robin Weekes ~ Minister, Emmanuel Church, Wimbledon, London)

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