Chapter 6: The Last Reason, Showing the Advantages of This Treasure

The tenth argument to evince the necessity of this heart-treasure, is drawn from the profit and advantage in having it, and that principally in facilitating the hardest duties of religion, and furnishing the soul for every good work: And here I shall keep close to the treasure of holy thoughts, fed with those four streams, of truths, graces, comforts, experiences: not only a saving principle, but such a measure thereof, as will make up a treasure.

Now the frame of a treasured soul for duty, is, 1. Ready. 2. Real. 3. Uniform. 4. Perpetual.

1. A treasured heart is ready for duty, like a well-stored house-keeper, you cannot take him unprovided; a well-accomplished scholar that's never nonplussed; and a watchful soldier, that's always fit for service: The Christian has prepared materials to build the house, and wants nothing but its setting up in actual performance. Indeed, the house is built and furnished in some degree for the entertaining of this royal guest; Let my Beloved come into his garden, and eat his pleasant fruits (Song of Solomon 4:16). The bow is strung, the heart fixed, the fire glowing in the cinders upon the hearth, and one blast of the Spirit's breathing heightens it to a flame. Yet suppose the heart be not in actual readiness, yet habits are sooner educed into act, than new habits infused, and this the foolish virgins knew by sad experience.

But observe it, the more of this treasure, and the more readiness; the reason why we are not so free to prayer, conference, meditation, is because we are not so filled with grace. Otherwise, gracious acts would flow from us, as naturally, as streams from the spring; had we a treasure, we should never want suitable matter, and lively affections, we should not need to force ourselves to offer sacrifice, as Saul in another respect, nor with main-strength to bind the sacrifice to the horns of the altar, but we should come off freely, cheerfully, delighting in God's ways as in our proper element, and running with enlarged hearts. The glorious angels, and glorified spirits of the just made perfect, have a perfect treasure of divine perfections, and are therefore readily pressed to do God's will. Now we pray that God's will may be done on earth, as it is done in Heaven, and that will never be, without this living treasure. But oh how quickly shall we hear a command, and how swiftly shall we obey; if we have a treasure? A good soul is like the centurion's servant, half a word will make him run. When God said to David, Seek my face; his heart quickly echoed, Your face, Lord, will I seek; his warrant carried the force of an argument. He needs no persuading when he knows his Master's pleasure. This is one choice advantage of having a treasure.

2. A treasured soul is real and serious, not ceremonial and forced. Israel of old made covenants and seemed very religious, and God himself attested that they had well said, but wishes: O that there were such a heart in them! We have a strange passage in (Jeremiah 5:2): Though they say, the Lord lives, surely they swear falsely. Why? Is not that a truth? Yes, a great truth, God alone is the Living God, but that they say so, yet their heart gives the lie to their lips; they say it with a deceitful heart, and that they may deceive, though it be a truth in itself, yet they speak it not as a truth, wanting a heart to assert the same. It is but a fond and frivolous ostentation, to invite a friend to dinner, when nothing is prepared. It is a mocking of God to bring Cain's sacrifice, a body without a heart, a carcass without spirit, it is as if a Jew had brought the skin of a beast for sacrifice and no more. But where the treasure is in the heart, there the essentials of the service are made up, the work is filled up, or complete before God (Revelation 3:2), that is, it is not lame or defective in any considerable constitutive part thereof. It is such as may be truly called a real good work. This is the chief thing that God expects; and if a good heart be wanting, the work is as undone still. But a sincere Christian finds his prayer in his heart, which he utters with his lips (2 Samuel 7:27): Your servant has found in his heart to pray this prayer — he found it not only in his book, but in his heart; he fetches his prayer from a treasure. Such a man will pray a prayer, as David here, and not only say a prayer, that finds it in his heart. What cares God for a little lip-labor? He may say, Who required these things at your hands? Did I not require them of your hearts? A mock-feast or fast will not content me; I shall not be put off with an empty show; I will have your hearts, or nothing; and I must have a treasure in your hearts, or all you bring is worth nothing. The truth is, God takes principal notice of the heart, and observes how that stands affected. If idols be set up in the heart, God takes no notice of a people's prayers. Therefore we had need look to the frame of the heart.

3. An heart-treasure makes the Christian uniform and universal in the duties of religion; he takes a Christian course as it lies, carries on religion before him without halting or halving, and practices all righteousness at all times. There is a sweet harmony and exact symmetry in a saint's performance of duty. Some can frame to some easier duties, not to more difficult, but the treasured soul can frame to anything which God in the word has made his duty, and hence it is that he is complete in all the will of God (Colossians 4:12). The law of God in his heart carries an aspect to every part of his [illegible] in the written Word; graces and duties are concordant one to another, like a company of horses in Pharaoh's chariot: their cheeks are comely with rows of jewels, their necks with chains of gold (Song of Solomon 1:9-10), that is, the soul is handsomely adorned with a comely train of graces and duties. Indeed, such a soul will at all times act like itself, so that one part of his life will not cross another, as a liar's tales and a hypocrite's carriage do. He does not serve God by fits and starts, in good moods and motions, so as to be off and on in religion, but he has a constant, settled spirit (which David prays for, and the translators call a right spirit, and truly so it is) disposed for God, fitted for duty, bringing forth good fruit in due season. Like a constant good housekeeper, that is [reconstructed: never so suddenly surprised], but can make a [reconstructed: prudent shift] to treat his friend according to his degree. The truth is, man in his fallen estate is uncertain, intricate and multiform in all his ways; you cannot tell where to find him, gadding about to change his way. But being renewed, he is in part reduced to that original rectitude, simplicity, and stability of spirit and practice that was in Adam, in some proportion. So that according to the degree of grace received, he has a constant uniform frame and tenor of spirit, and holds one straight, direct, and even course towards heaven. In all this suitable to the motion of the wheels in the Prophet Ezekiel's Vision (Ezekiel 1:17): when they went, they went upon their four sides [there's their squareness and suitableness to all God's will] and they returned not when they went, [there's their constant, permanent, and unrepentant motion]. That will lead us to the next head; only consider, what an excellency and beauty there is in uniformity in religious duties. When works of nature or art are uniform, what luster have they? We are much taken with a building that is compact and proportionable. A garden drawn exactly, an army marshalled in complete ranks and postures are comely sights. Just such are the fruits of holiness, proceeding from a well-treasured heart. And indeed, without this treasure there can be no such harmony in holy performances, but the actings will be like the legs of the lame, very unequal. That's the third.

4. A treasure makes holy duties constant and perpetual, though there may be some temporary intermissions, yet never a total cessation in acts of religion; Will a hypocrite pray always? (Job 27:10) No, verily: the water rises no higher than the spring, and waters fail that have no spring, like Job's snow-waters, which when it waxes warm, vanishes away: but a little brook supplied with a constant spring, holds out in winter and summer. Just such is the difference between the performances of a treasured and treasureless heart: two men perform duties, the one from gifts, the other from grace; the former in time withers, the latter daily increases. The King of France showed Spain's Ambassador his rich treasures; the Ambassador looks under the treasure-chests, saying, Have these a spring? My master's treasures have, meaning both the Indies: just so it is here, let natural men's attainments be never so excellent, you may come to see an end of all their perfections, their eye of knowledge may be darkened, and their arm of natural and acquired abilities clean dried up. For, how can a well be always giving out water that receives none? How can a rose keep fresh without a root? But they that are planted in the house of the Lord, shall flourish in the courts of our God; indeed, they shall bring forth fruit in old age (Psalm 92:13-14). For a lively principle is the seed of God that will never die, and this spring of grace is fed with supplies from the fullness of Jesus Christ, who is the fountain of gardens, and well of living waters; hence he says (John 7:38), He that believes in me — out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water, that is, he shall have a perpetual supply of grace, and shall send forth constant emanations of gracious acts. A well-furnished Christian shall never be drawn dry, his Savior and treasure ever live, and because Christ lives, the saints and their graces shall live forever. O friends, what would you give in these backsliding times to hold out to the end? That you may not make shipwreck of faith and a good conscience. Behold, I show to you an excellent way: heap one grace upon another till you possess a treasure; tie a chain of these pearls together, and lay them up in the closet of your hearts, and you'll never be spiritually impoverished. Be holily covetous after all graces that are attainable: add to your faith virtue, to virtue knowledge, temperance, patience, godliness, brotherly kindness, charity, for if you have these, you'll not be barren or unfruitful in good duties; and if you do good duties according to that treasure, you shall never fall. See 2 Peter 1:5-11. These are a chain that link the soul to God, and reach as high as heaven. But do not think you can endure to the end without a treasure, for he that has not root in himself, lasts but a while. No wonder if many drop off like leaves in autumn, they have not anything to bear them out, they spend upon themselves, as the spider which spins her webs out of her own bowels, but they are swept away as the spider's web. But the gracious soul has no less than an infinite God to supply the treasures of grace; so that let a Christian fall off to many acts of sin, carelessness in duty, and a course of looseness, yet this treasure will work him off: as a spring clears itself from mud in time, so he shall be reduced to God. There is something in the heart of a backsliding saint that makes him restless in that estate, and moving towards the center. David says, I have gone astray like a lost sheep, [there's his acknowledgement] Seek your servant [there's his request,] for I do not forget your Commandments [there's the argument to enforce it] as if to say, there is yet something in my heart that owns you, though I be fallen far, yet not so far but that I am still reaching after you, and I am not fallen below your reach. The truth is, a child of God has more hold-fast of God in his lowest ebbs than another sinner has. As the spinner leaves a lock of wool to draw on the next thread, so there is something left in the heart, the seed of God that ascends heavenward. Though a saint be in a very dead frame, yet he is not twice dead, as wicked men are: there is yet the root of the matter in the heart, that by the scent of water (the heavenly dew of divine grace) will sprout again, and bring forth fruit. I dispute not how far men may fall, and whether a true saint may not be brought back to the bare habits of grace as they were at first infused, and lose degrees of grace obtained. But sure I am Christ prayed for Peter, (and so for all believers) that his faith should not fail (Luke 22:32), and God always hears him. Therefore our divines have determined, that the seed of regeneration, with those fundamental gifts, without which spiritual life cannot consist, are kept safe and entire. For the same Holy Ghost that infused that seed of grace, has imprinted in it an incorruptible virtue, and perpetually cherishes and maintains it. Mary's better part shall not be taken away. This fear in the heart, keeps them from departing from God (Jeremiah 32:40). They have constancy in their hearts, and perseverance in their hands [constantiam in proposito, et perseverantiam in opere]. Holy resolutions produce successful performances: and thus does the treasured Christian hold on in a Christian course, till these smaller measures of grace end in the vast ocean of glory. Thus much for the reasons of the point.