William Gurnall wrote, “a sincere heart is a plain heart.” The sincere heart deals plainly — honestly and straightforwardly — with God, with man, and with himself. Concerning the latter, Gurnall writes:
A sincere heart deals plainly with itself, and that in two things chiefly.
(a) In searching and ransacking its own self. This it doth to its utmost skill and power. . . . When David found his thoughts of God, which used to recreate him, and be his most pleasing company, occasion some trouble in his spirit—’I remembered God, and was troubled,’ Ps. lxxvii. 3—this holy man, wondering what the matter should be, do but see what a privy search he makes. He hunts backwards and forwards, what God’s former dealings had been, and ‘communes with his heart, and makes diligent search’ there, ver. 6; never gives over till he brings it to an issue; and finding the disturber of his peace to be in himself, he is not so tender of his reputation as to think of smothering the business or smoothing it over, but attacks the thief, indicts his sin, and confesseth the fact, to the justifying of God, whom before he had hard thoughts of. ‘And I said, This is my infirmity,’ ver. 10; as if he had said, ‘Lord, now I see the Jonas that caused the storm in my bosom, and made me uncomfortable in my affliction all this while; it is this unbelief of mine that bowed me down to attend so to the sorrow and sense of my present affliction, that it would not suffer me to look up to former experiences, and so, while I forgat them, I thought unworthily of thee.’ Here was an honest plain-dealing soul indeed. What akin art thou, O man, to holy David? is this thy way in of searching thy soul? dost thou do it in earnest, as if thou wert searching for a murderer hid in thy house; as willing to find out thy sin . . . ? Tertullian said of the heathen persecutors, noluerunt audire, quod auditum damnare non possint—they would not let the Christians be heard, because they could not then easily have had the face to condemn them, their cause would have appeared so just. The contrary here is true. The hypocrite dares not put his state upon a fair trial, because then he could not handsomely escape condemning himself. But the sincere soul is so zealous to know its true state, that when he hath done his utmost himself to find it out, and his conscience upon this privy search clears him, yet he contents not himself here; but jealous lest self-love might blind his eyes, and occasion too favourable a report from his conscience, he calls in help from heaven, and puts himself upon God’s review. ‘Do not I hate them, O Lord, that hate thee? and am not I grieved with those that rise up against thee? Ps. cxxxix. 21. His own conscience answers to it: ‘I hate them with perfect hatred: I count them mine enemies,’ ver. 22. Yet David, not wholly satisfied with his own single testimony, calls out to God, ‘Search me, O God, and know my heart; . . . see if there be any wicked way in me,’ ver. 23, 24. And wise physicians will not trust their own judgments about the state of their own health; nor sincere Christians themselves about their souls’ welfare. It is God that they attend to. His judgment alone concludes and determines them. When they have prayed and opened their case to him, with David, they listen what he will say. Therefore you shall find them putting themselves under the most searching ministry, from which they never come more pleased than when their consciences are stripped naked, and their hearts exposed to their view; as the woman of Samaria, who commended the sermon, and Christ that preached it, for this unto her neighbours, that he had told her all that ever she had done, John iv. 29. . . .
(b) The true heart shows its plain-dealing with itself, as in searching, so in judging itself, when once testimony comes in clear against it, and conscience tells it, ‘Soul, in this duty thou betrayedst pride, in that affection, frowardness and impatience.’ Such a one is not long before it proceeds to judgment, and this it doth with so much vehemency and severity, that it plainly appears zeal for God—whom he hath dishonoured—makes him forget all self-pity. He lays about him in humbling and abasing himself, as the sons of Levi in executing justice on their brethren who knew ‘neither brother nor sister’ in that act. Truly such an heroic act is this of the sincere soul judging itself. He is so transported and clothed with a holy fury against his sin, that he is deaf to the cry of flesh and blood, which would move him to think of a more favourable sentence. ‘I have sinned,’ saith David, ‘against the Lord,’ 2 Sa. xii. 13; in another place, ‘I have sinned greatly, and done very foolishly,’ 2 Sa. xxiiii; in a third, he, as unworthy of a man’s name, takes beast to himself—‘so foolish was I, and ignorant: I was as a beast before thee,’ Ps. lxxiii. 22. But with a false heart—if conscience checks him for this or that . . .—the court is sure to be broken up, . . . so conscience ceaseth to give evidence where it cannot be heard, can have no judgment against the offender.—William Gurnall, The Christian in Complete Armour (Banner of Truth Trust, 2002), 1:359–361.
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