Giving Christ the Highest Place in our hearts

Excerpted from the Compleat Body of Divinity, Sermon 2, Man is to Glorify God, by Samuel Willard.
Samuel Willard (1640-1707) was pastor of the Old South Church in Boston, President of Harvard College, and some refer to him as the "Last of the Puritans." Next Sunday, if you like, you can attend the venerable Old South Church in Boston and take part in the oh-so-friendly and inclusive Old South Church Gay and Lesbian Christian Fellowship. Satan knows history, even if we don't, and gleefully attacks former Christian strongholds .

We are to glorify and magnify God in our hearts. We do this by entertaining esteemed thoughts about Him and fixing compelling ideas of His Being in our minds. When we employ our minds in developing attractive apprehensions of God, we honor Him in our hearts. And our love for Him causes us to give Him the highest place in our hearts.

We exalt Him by our vigorous adoration of the Goodness we have discovered in Him. We also greatly fear Him because we have grasped His relative Greatness and Power compared to all of Creation.

We glorify and magnify Him by learning to rest the whole weight of our souls on Him. We trust nothing else. The more fully, calmly, and resolvedly we can place our confidence in Him alone, the more we honor and thereby glorify Him.