Heart and Actions

A Christian is what his heart and inward man is. Grace is at the centre, and from there it goes to the circumference. Let the church value herself by the disposition and temper of her heart. To evaluate our spiritual states, we must look into our consciences and souls. Do we allow the ways of God in the inward man? How is it with our affections and bent to good things? God must first have our hearts and then our hands. A man otherwise is but a ghost in religion, which goes up and down; a picture that has an outside and is nothing within. Let us look to our hearts. 'Oh, that there was such a heart in this people,' said God to Moses, 'to fear me always, for their own good' (Deut. 5:29). This is what God's children desire, that their hearts may be aright set. 'Wash your heart, O Jerusalem,' said the prophet, 'from your wickedness' (Jer. 4:14).
However, God is not content with the heart alone. God, as the maker of both soul and body, he must and will have all. Yet, in times of temptation the chief trial is in the heart. A sound Christian does what he does from the heart. What good he does he loves in his heart first, judges it to be good, and then he does it. A hypocrite would do ill, and not good, if it were in his choice. The good that he does is for by-ends, for reputation, or conformity with the times, to cover his designs under formality of religion; that he may not be known outwardly, as he is inwardly, an atheist and a hypocrite. A Christian, by the power of God's Spirit, is sensible of the contradictions in himself, complains, and is ashamed of them. But a hypocrite is not so; he is not sensible of his sleepiness. He does not complain of his sleepiness but composes himself to slumber, and seeks darkness, which is a friend of sleep. He would willingly be ignorant, to keep his conscience as dull as he can, that it may not upbraid him.

Devotional Readings taken from Puritan Richard Sibbes 'Refreshment for the Soul.'
The Love of Christ (Bowels Opened), pp. 83-85
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