"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 cun-
ning 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 eating at the sacrifice; the devil will he shooting in his fireballs and, when we least suspect him, will be tempting us to deliver up the castle of our heart to him.
"Keep your heart when you are in COMPANY. Vain company is the bait by which Satan is angling for the heart. Under the Law, he who touch-
ed a dead body was unclean, (Numbers 5:2). The heart is apt to be defiled by being among those who are dead in sin; it is easy to catch a disease when in company."
