The heart is the seat of the affections; and the principal of these is _love_. According to the nature of the object, or the degree with which some objects are pursued, this affection becomes either innocent or criminal, sordid or sublime. If sin in general be the object, love is then the most diabolical passion, and pollutes every other faculty of the mind. Before the fall, it was the glory and happiness of man to love God perfectly and incessantly. Since that melancholy event, it is his misfortune to be under the influence of a “carnal mind φρονημα σαρξ that is _enmity_ against God, and is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be.” Rom. viii. 7. Hence flows an innate propensity to love the world, and from the ignorance and pride of the heart to idolize _self_. This alienation of the affections is, in scripture, called adultery; and they who love the world rather than God, are branded, in the same unflattering, pages, with the odious epithet of “adulterers and adulteresses.” James, iv. 4. It matters not, _what_ the thing is, to which we give a primary place in our affections; even though it may be a necessary, an useful, a lawful, or even an amiable object, yet if it be loved inordinately, or with a supreme affection, it instantly becomes an idol: insomuch that our Lord saith, “He that loveth _father_ or _mother_, _son_ or _daughter_, more than me, is not worthy of me.” Mat. x. 37. Things unlawful, or of moral turpitude, are not to be loved at all. And things lawful are only to be loved in a certain degree. It is not the _love_ of these last that is sinful; but the _excess_ or inordinacy of that love. In giving the heart to God, or restoring the idolatrous alienation of the affections to him, _that_ is given back which was originally his property. He then possesses the supreme affection, delight, and homage of the heart;—is the centre of its wishes, and the spring of its comforts. This is called “yielding ourselves to the Lord.” 2 Chron. xxx. 8. And the grateful language of such a solemn surrender is, “Whom have I in heaven but THEE? and there is none upon earth that I desire beside THEE?” Psal. lxxiii. 25.