We have all had those seasons where we feel like we are just “going through the motions.” You show up to the service, you sing the psalms, and you even take notes on the sermon. But when you get home, your mind feels like a messy desk covered in a thousand distractions. We often assume that if we just keep doing the outward things, our spiritual health will take care of itself. Richard Alleine, a seasoned Puritan pastor, would tell you that you are making a dangerous mistake. In his final work, Instructions about Heart-Work, Alleine argues that your heart is a massive trust that you have been personally appointed to guard. If you aren’t doing the work of a “keeper,” you are leaving your soul’s door wide open for the worst kind of guests.

If you aren’t keeping your heart, the Devil is

One of the most striking takeaways from Alleine is his insistence that every Christian is appointed by the Lord to be their own keeper. We often pray for God to keep us—which is right—but we forget that God requires us to be his “trustees.” Alleine warns that if we are careless with ourselves, we shouldn’t expect God to step in and do our job for us. He makes the sobering point that a soul without a human shepherd over it is exactly what the Devil is looking for. If you don’t take charge of your own heart, you are essentially signing it over to the custody of the enemy.

This is a wake-up call for those of us who think we can coast on “autopilot.” Alleine explains that God will not be the keeper of the careless. This doesn’t mean we save ourselves, but it means that the grace of God works through our own watchfulness. If we won’t watch, we shouldn’t be surprised when we find ourselves back in the chains of old habits.

“God will keep none but those, that under him, will keep themselves. Those that will not keep themselves, the Devil may come and take them into his custody. . . He will not keep himself for God, I will keep him for Hell.”

Your thoughts are mutineers that need a full-time job

Alleine compares the human heart to an army, and our thoughts to the soldiers. He notes that the biggest reason our hearts are so unruly is that we let our thoughts lie idle. Just like soldiers who have nothing to do in their quarters will eventually start a mutiny, our thoughts will turn to sin and vanity if they aren’t kept busy with “profitable and pertinent” objects. We often complain about “wandering thoughts” during prayer as if they were a random accident, but Alleine says they are the result of a heart that hasn’t been kept under command.

As a pastor, I see this constantly. Alleine suggests that the only way to govern your thoughts is to give them constant exercise in the things of God. If you don’t keep them occupied with the glory of Christ, they will occupy themselves with the dirt of the world.

“Those Legions of Thoughts that are in the Heart, are like the Soldiers of an Army; if Soldiers be not kept to Action, they will hardly be kept under Command; when they lie idly and lazily in their Quarters, and have nothing to do, then they use to Mutiny, and to break out into disorders.”

Self-love is the secret rot inside your religion

This is perhaps the most gut-wrenching insight in the book. Alleine identifies “Self” as the great idol that sits in the room where God should be. He calls sinful self-love the “Rot of all Religion.” This is a surprising and impactful point because it suggests that we can be very “religious” while actually serving ourselves. We might pray because it makes us feel better, or give alms to build our reputation.

For the person in the pew, this means that sincerity isn’t just about doing the right things; it’s about who those things are for. Alleine describes a “selfish professor” as a hypocrite who is rotten at the core. He reminds us that the love of God must be the soul of our religion, or else all our duties are just “bodily exercises” that profit nothing. It is a necessary reminder that our greatest enemy isn’t always outside of us; sometimes it is the “me” we are trying so hard to please.

“It is the rottenness of the Heart, under all its most specious Religious pretenses or performances. . . If there be no love to God in our profession of Religion, if no love to God in our practices of Piety . . . all our Religion is rotten at Heart.”

You can’t “limit” pride; you have to put it on a gallows

In our modern world, we love the idea of “moderation.” We try to be “moderately” worldly or “not too” proud. But Alleine argues that the government of the heart is not about finding a middle ground for our lusts. You don’t “moderate” envy or malice; you kill it. He uses the vivid imagery of a “Cross or a Gibbet” to describe what we must do with our sinful desires.

This is a refreshing bit of honesty. We often fail in our spiritual lives because we are trying to negotiate with our sins instead of executing them. Alleine tells us that allowing ourselves to be “moderately” proud is like allowing ourselves to be “moderate” drunkards. The goal of heart-work is not to make our lusts more polite; it is to crucify them.

“Moderate Pride, or moderate Envy, or moderate malice, or moderate Covetousness, is not that which should be intended, in the Government of the heart, nor is there any such thing possible. . . but must be rooted out and Crucified.”

Your heart is the record-room for your deal with Christ

Alleine offers a beautiful reason for why we must guard our hearts: they are the “Records” of everything that has passed between us and Christ. When you entered into a covenant with God, that transaction wasn’t just written in a church ledger; it was written on your heart. Alleine explains that when we let sin run wild, we are essentially “blotting our evidences.” We lose the ability to read our own title to Heaven because our sins have blurred the handwriting of the Spirit.

This explains why so many of us struggle with a lack of assurance. If we don’t guard our hearts and keep them clean, we can’t see the “marks and prints” of the Lord Jesus within us. Keeping the heart is therefore a way of keeping our comfort. If the records are safe and clear, we can look inward and find peace even when the world is in an uproar.

“Your Hearts are the Records, wherein these Sacred Transactions have been Registered; look into thine Heart, doth not this testify for thee, how thou hast bound thyself to be the Lord’s forever, and hast accepted of his Bond to thee?”

You should read Instructions about Heart-Work because your soul is too precious to be left to chance. Richard Alleine provides a practical manual for the one job that matters most—the keeping of your own heart. In an age of shallow spiritual fixes, this book offers the deep, “downright Christianity” that our forefathers knew was the only way to lasting peace. It will help you move from being a “sleepy loiterer” to becoming a watchful guardian of the temple of God within you. If you want a religion that is more than a name, you need to learn the “heart-work” that Richard Alleine so masterfully describes.