1. It implies the conquest of passions, and the sacrifice of the most beloved lusts. These in the heart are like rebels in a state. They usurp the chief power; and, while they domineer, there “is confusion and every evil work.” Reason is subjected to the loose reins of impetuous passion. God, the rightful sovereign, is dethroned. His law is violated. His will despised. While Satan, that infernal usurper, gives laws to every faculty, and “leads the heart captive at his will.” And what renders this scene of anarchy and rebellion the more melancholy, is, that the heart naturally hugs its own chains, and delights to feed the vipers that spread poison and death through all its powers. From hence arises the cordial love of sin, and a delight in those sinful propensities, which lead to endless ruin. And from hence arises the difficulty of giving the heart to God: because it is requisite that every inordinate pursuit be checked, every tyrannical passion bridled, and every sin, whether gainful, or constitutional, or fashionable, be mortified, before the heart can be emancipated from its slavery. For, how can it be free, while the tyrant sin reigns in it? Let none, therefore, boast of liberty, until the predominant lusts that lead him captive are given up, and sacrificed at the foot of the cross. Neither let any suppose, unless they wish to flatter themselves to their ruin, that their hearts are right with God, so long as they harbour internal adversaries, which he hateth. As well might they attempt to reconcile light and darkness, Christ and Belial, together; or to make the liberty of a Briton consist with the thraldom of a galley slave. And here it seems necessary to observe, that our renunciation of sin must extend not to gross indulgences merely, but to spiritual wickedness, to internal favorite lusts, to the secret working of which no eye is privy, but God’s and our own. Though the parting with them should exceed the pain that attends “the plucking out a right eye, or cutting off a right arm,” the one the most tender organ, and the other the most useful member in the human frame; yet they must be given up; and not some, but all. Thus it is written: “O Jerusalem, wash thine heart from wickedness, that thou mayest be saved! How long shall thy vain thoughts lodge within thee?” Jer. iv. 14. “Whosoever will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me.” Mark, viii. 34. No man, therefore, can be said to have given his heart to God, until he hath given up his sins, and until his heart hath been cleansed from the guilt, and rescued from the tyrannical sway of those vicious inclinations, by which he had been made the miserable dupe of Satan and the world.