[Oct. 5th, 1862.]
I. What is meant by the heart?
Human knowledge precedes science. Many of the facts of electricity were known, before electricity was discovered. The heart was known as the seat and source of life, before the circulation of the blood was thought of. In the earliest books of Scripture the word is used as freely for the inward life as it is at present. We can now see the propriety of the figure better, but it is not more intelligible. As the bodily organ receives and sends forth the blood to every part, bearing heat, life, activity, through the whole body; so the power which drives the current of thoughts, feelings, affections, desires and volitions, all that constitutes our inward life, is called the heart. The Scriptures therefore speak of the thoughts and purposes of the heart as well as of its desires. The word includes the whole inward life. The heart is therefore the man’s interior and real self, and the demand, give me thy heart, is a demand for the whole soul.
II. What it is to give the heart to God.
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It is to make God the end of our lives. The object for which we live should not be self, the world, the creature in any form, but the glory of God, i.e., that God should be known, worshipped, loved and obeyed.
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It is to make his will the rule of our life. Not our own desires, nor reason, nor conscience; but his revealed will. Not expediency, or the supposed good of others, but what God has declared to be right and obligatory.
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It is to make God the delight of our life. That is, that we should not seek our happiness in the creature, but in God; assured that his favor and fellowship are our blessedness. This is what God demands of us. It is a reasonable demand,
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Because of his infinite greatness and excellence.
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Because our happiness and excellence depend on it. If we give our hearts to the creature, we thereby and therein give ourselves to perdition.
III. The objection that our hearts are beyond the control of the will.
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This objection is not peculiar to this particular command. It lies equally against all the requirements of Scripture and conscience. The fact of inability is a fact of consciousness.
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It is no less a fact of consciousness that this inability does not destroy, or even weaken our obligation.
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While we cannot change our hearts or in our own strength turn to God, we can acknowledge our weakness and seek help from God, as did the blind and the deaf.
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There is much that we can do. So far as the will is concerned we can determine that. And we can determine our outward acts. Those who thus persistently act, God draws to himself.
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