Keep Your Heart - Part 7

Keep your heart when you are alone. It was Satan's subtlety to set upon Eve when she was alone and less able to resist. He is like a cunning suitor who woos the daughter when her parents are away from home. The devil breaks through the hedge commonly where it is weakest. I confess that privacy and retirement is good—if a Christian had a fruitful heart, what sweet thoughts he might have of God when he is alone (Psalm 139:17)—but, alas, by reason of innate corruption, how many vain, proud, impure thoughts will steal into our hearts when we are most secluded from the world! The fowls will be coming at the sacrifice; the devil will be shooting in his balls of wildfire and, when we least suspect him, will be tempting us to deliver up the castle of our heart to him. ~Thomas Watson, The Spiritual Watch