Most people are very diligent when it comes to guarding the health of their hearts, especially as they age. Regular checkups with their primary care physician, and maybe also their cardiologist, will sometimes lead to medications, exercise routines, and perhaps even surgery for ablations, valve replacements, or pacemakers. But are we as diligent when it comes to guarding the health of our spiritual hearts?
Our spiritual forefathers, the English Puritans, made this a matter of top priority in the Christian life. A favorite text for many sermons and books was Proverbs 4:23, “Guard the heart, for from it flow all the issues of life.” In our day we discuss this dimension of sanctification under the title of “Spiritual Formation.” It has become the subject of conferences and even of required courses in seminaries.
Speaking of doctrine, this is a good place to re-emphasize how important are both doctrine and life. Paul wrote in 1 Timothy 4:16, “Keep a close watch on yourself and on the teaching. Persist in this, for by so doing you will save both yourself and your hearers.” All of us, not just pastors and teachers, need to be on guard, watching out for our own personal heart health (spiritual formation) – which involves sanctification, as well as watching out for the doctrines we embrace and teach – which involves especially justification. The late J. I. Packer was a Christian author, theologian, and expert on the Puritans. Someone asked him once in reference to what those Puritans thought, “Should one preach about doctrines?” to which Packer answered, “They would say, ‘Why, what else is there to preach?”’
Those doctrines of sanctification are those which deal with personal holiness, which we today often call spiritual formation. A recently published book (also featured in an article in “World” magazine) by Matthew Bingham delves into this: “A Heart Aflame for God; A Reformed Approach to Spiritual Formation.” Published in 2025 by Crossway, it includes his definition of the subject. It is that “conscious process by which we seek to heighten and satisfy our Spirit-given thirst for God (Psalm 42:1-2) through divinely appointed means and a view toward ‘working out our own salvation with fear and trembling’ (Philippians 2:12) and becoming ‘mature in Christ’ (Colossians 1:28).” In fact, this book is regarded as so significant that a free copy was given to every one of the nearly 8000 registrants at the recent SING! 25 Getty Music Conference!
Bingham focuses in separate chapters on a triad of practices that believers have historically been used so effectively to cultivate the spiritual health of their hearts. These are scripture, prayer, and meditation. He contrasts these with the mechanistic approach to spirituality of the medieval church, which taught people to rely on the rote recitation of prayers (usually in a language they did not even understand), external activities (such as pilgrimages, genuflecting before the altar, making the sign of the cross, and veneration of relics), dependance on the sacraments (and the never-ending list “sacramentals”), and numerous other humanly designed and ordered rituals and practices (unknown to scripture).
The three parts of this triad seem so obviously central to the matter of spiritual heart health, that it almost seems unnecessary to mention them. But we live in an age where new, imaginative, creative, innovative approaches are deemed most useful by too many people. Instead, Bingham rightly encourages us to follow the Protestant Reformers to return to “the old paths” of proven use of the ordinary means of grace. That phrase, “the old paths,” popularized by J. C. Ryle, comes from Jeremiah 6:16 (KJV), “Stand ye in the ways, and see, and ask for the old paths, where is the good way, and walk therein, and ye shall find rest for your souls.”
We could create a sizeable list of hymns of every age that give attention to the health of our hearts, and to the immediate importance and eternal value of cultivating a closer walk with God and loving intimacy with the Lord Jesus. We will focus on one of those in this week’s hymn study. It is “Searcher of Hearts, from Mine Erase,” written in 1838 by George Pope Morris (1802-1864). He is described as an American editor, poet, and songwriter.
Born in Philadelphia, early in his life he moved to New York. There,along with Nathaniel Parker Willis, he co-founded the daily magazine “New York Evening Mirror” by merging his fledgling weekly with Willis’s “American Monthly” in August of 1831. From this magazine, several other periodicals were published as well, such as “The New Mirror”and “The Night Mirror.” These short periodicals played an important role in publishing early works by several American poets such as Bryant, Poe, Halleck, Paulding, Willis, Hoffman, and many others.
In 1845, three years after “the Mirror” was finished, Morris started writing another periodical entitled “National Press.”This periodical was short lived and lasted only until Morris began collaborating with Willis to create a new periodical in 1846 entitled “The Home Journal.” Morris is known for being a song writer, especially for composing the ballade “Woodman, Spare That Tree,” which was a story based on true events. Though Morris didn’t have many hymns published, “Searcher of Hearts, From Mine Erase” was published in “Songs for the Sanctuary” (1865) and “Methodist Hymnal” (1878). Morris lived in New York from 1822 until his death in 1864.
Well-known critic and writer Edgar Allan Poe referred to the popularity of Morris’s songs, “which have taken fast hold upon the popular taste, and which are deservedly celebrated.” In April 1840, Poe wrote that Morris was “very decidedly, our best writer of songs—and, in saying this, I mean to assign him a high rank as poet.” Willis wrote of Morris: “He is just what poets would be if they sang like birds without criticism … nothing can stop a song of his.” While it’s not a hymn, one of Morris’s songs enjoyed a time of popularity for its sweet sentiment: “My Mother’s Bible.”
This book is all that’s left me now,
Tears will unbidden start;
With faltering lip and throbbing brow,
I press it to my heart;
For many generations past
Here is our family tree;
My mother’s hands this Bible clasped;
She, dying, gave it to me.Ah! well do I remember those
Whose names these records bear;
Who round the hearth stone used to close,
After the evening prayer,
And speak of what these pages said,
In tones my heart would thrill!
Tho’ they are with the silent dead
Yet are they living still.My father read this holy book
To brothers, sisters, dear;
How calm was my poor mother’s look,
Who loved God’s word to hear.
Her angel face I see it yet!
What thronging memories come!
Again that little group is met,
Within the walls of home.Thou truest friend man ever knew,
Thy constancy I’ve tried;
When all were false I’ve found thee true
My counsellor and guide.
The mines of earth no treasures give
That could this volume buy
In teaching me the way to live,
It taught me how to die.
His hymn, “Searcher of Hearts, from Mine Erase,” conveys the earnest plea we read at the end of Psalm 139 in verses 23 and 24. The Psalm begins with the acknowledgement that God searches out our paths” (verse 3). And then it ends with this longing that He would help us not only see what’s in our hearts, but that He cleanse these hearts and fill them with the purity that would please Him. “Search me, O God, and know my heart. Try me and know my thoughts! And see if there be any grievous way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting!” Morris’s hymn matches that longing for spiritual formation, and advancement in heart health. As you sing it, be sure to recognize that it is a prayer addressed directly and prayerfully to the Lord. This is what we ask Him to do for us.
Stanza 1 begins with the realization that our hearts are not what they should be, not what He wants, not what we want. The hymn begins with the negative, asking that God would “erase” everything that lies in the “deep recesses” of our hearts, everything “that should not be,” including those things that are so deep that we are not fully aware of them. Often, Satan will use those deep weaknesses to bring harm to us, if we are not guarding our hearts, as Proverbs 4:23 reminds us. Isn’t it wonderful that God is able to do this, to actually erase thoughts from our minds and hearts. Think not just of a rubber eraser at the end of pencil. Think instead of a list of our inner impurities and tendencies, displayed on a computer screen, and then God (in effect) pushing the delete button on the keyboard.
Searcher of hearts, from mine erase,
all thoughts that should not be,
and in its deep recesses trace
my gratitude to Thee.
Stanza 2 then moves from the negative (“erase”) even more here to the positive (“guide”) and (“teach”). How wonderful it is for us to be able to pray with the assurance that our God hears us. We often read in the Psalms that He is the hearer of prayer.” And so the request in this stanza is twofold. First, we’re asking Him to “guide aright each word and deed of mine.” He does that for us more often than we realize it, as the Holy Spirit is working within through the new nature He has planted in our hearts, creating new desires in our hearts and prompting new words from our mouths. Only in glory will we realize more fully just how much of this He is doing every day. And second, we’re asking Him to “teach me how to fight.” The Christian life is not a passive resting while He does the work. No, the Bible often reminds us that we’re at war with the world, the flesh, and the devil.
Hearer of prayer, O guide aright
each word and deed of mine;
life’s battle teach me how to fight,
and be the vict’ry Thine.
Stanza 3 gives us words to express the gratitude in our hearts that motivates our desire to labor for spiritual formation and for better spiritual heart health. Not only is He our Creator and Redeemer, He is also the one from whom all blessings flow (James 1:17), the “giver of all – for ev’ry good” … “for raiment, shelter, and for food.” For all of this we thank Him.
Giver of all – for ev’ry good
in the Redeemer came –
for raiment, shelter, and for food,
I thank Thee in His name.
Stanza 4 is a Gloria Patri, a Doxology, something that is very common in 19th century British hymnody as a final stanza to a hymn, and is a joy to find and to sing in American hymnody. It concludes the hymn not only with praise, but also with a beautiful expression of our on-going longing for personal holiness, that His will would be done in all things in our lives, as Jesus taught us to pray in the Lord’s Prayer.
Father and Son and Holy Ghost,
thou glorious Three in One,
thou knowest best what I need most,
and let thy will be done.
The tune BEATITUDO was composed by John Bacchus Dykes (1826-1876), and was originally published in the second edition of “Hymns Ancient and Modern” (1875), where the tune was there coupled with Isaac Watts’ text “How Bright Those Glorious Spirits Shine.” The word Beatitudo was originally coined by the Roman poet Cicero and means “the condition of blessedness.” Dykes was born in Hull, England, where he would eventually become a successful musician and composer. Dykes began studying in Wakefield at St. Catherine’s Hall in Cambridge in 1843. While attending St. Catherine’s, he became one of the foremost recognized students in the Music School. Before Dykes began his college career, he studied under Skelton, the organist at St. John’s Church (Hull), which was built by his grandfather, Reverend Thomas Dykes. In 1847, Dykes graduated from St. Catherine’s college, and was appointed Curate at Malton, Yorkshire. In 1849, Dykes became the minor canon and precentor at Dunham Cathedral.
Here is a link to the hymn with the BEATITUDO tune.