Proverbs 4:23 Keep your heart with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life.… 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.) Parallel Verses KJV: Keep thy heart with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life.WEB: Keep your heart with all diligence, for out of it is the wellspring of life. |
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