[Commenting on Hebrews 8:10:
For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord:
I will put my laws into their minds,
and write them on their hearts,
and I will be their God,
and they shall be my people.]
The heart, as distinguished from the mind, is made up of the will and the affections, which are compared with the stone tablets on which the letter of the law was engraved. For as by that writing and engraving the tablets received the impression of the letters and words that contained the law, so they were nothing but law as they were used. So, by the grace of the new covenant there is a durable impression of God’s law on the wills and affections of men, through which they are able to carry it out since they have a living principle of it living within them. This work has two parts, namely, the removal from the heart of what is contrary to God’s law and the implanting of the principles of obedience to God’s law. So, in Scripture this double action is described. Sometimes it is called a “taking away of the heart of stone,” or “circumcising of the heart,” and sometimes the “giving of a heart of flesh,” the “writing of the law in our hearts,” which is the renewal of our natures to God’s image in righteousness and holiness of truth. So in this promise all of our sanctification, its start and its progress, in its work on our whole souls and all their faculties, is comprised.
~John Owen~
Hebrews (Crossway Classics) (Wheaton, IL; Crossway Books; 1998) Commentary on Hebrews 8:10 – “On their hearts”.
The Old Guys 
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