The Heart

The word heart includes the whole soul, for the understanding is the heart, 'an understanding heart' (Job 38:36). To ‘lay things up in our hearts' (Luke 2:51) is memory; and to cleave in heart is to cleave in the will (Acts 11:23). To 'rejoice in heart' (Isa. 30:29) is the affection. So that all the powers of the soul, the inward man, as Paul calls it (2 Cor. 4:16), is the heart. In all the powers of the soul there is something good and something ill, something flesh, and something spirit.
A Christian may know how it is with himself. Though he be a mix of flesh and spirit, he has a distinguishing knowledge and judgment whereby he knows both the good and evil in himself. A man who has the Spirit knows both; he knows himself and his own heart. The Spirit has a light of its own, even as reason has. How does reason know what it does? By reflection, which is inbred in the soul. Will a man who is natural consider his state, and know what he knows, what he thinks, what he does, and may not the soul that is raised to a higher state know as much? Undoubtedly it may. Besides, we have the Spirit of God, which is light, and self-evidencing. The work of the Spirit may sometimes be hindered, as in times of temptation. But a Christian, when he is not in such a temptation, he knows his own state, and can distinguish between the principles in him of the flesh and spirit, grace and nature. As the church is determined to confess that which is amiss, so she must be as true in confessing that which is good in her. We must not bear false witness, against others, much less against ourselves. Many help Satan, the accuser, and plead his case against the Spirit, their comforter, in refusing to see what God sees in them. We must make note of this, to know the good as well as the evil, though it be so little.

Devotional Readings taken from Puritan Richard Sibbes 'Refreshment for the Soul.'
The Love of Christ (Bowels Opened), pp. 77-79 [77-78]
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