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.'