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- Herausgeber: DigiCat
- Kategorie: Religion und Spiritualität
- Sprache: Englisch
In "The Religious Affections," Jonathan Edwards explores the complex interplay between emotion and spirituality, crafting a profound analysis of genuine religious experience versus mere enthusiasm. Written in the 18th century, this influential treatise utilizes a combination of philosophical discourse and theological reflection, drawing upon Edwards' profound understanding of Puritanism and the First Great Awakening. Through meticulous reasoning, he delineates the characteristics of true godly affections, distinguishing them from deceptive sentiments, thereby providing a vital theological framework that resonates within the broader context of American religious thought. Jonathan Edwards, widely regarded as one of America's foremost theologians, was deeply influenced by his Puritan heritage and the tumultuous religious landscape of his time. Born in 1703, Edwards became a leading figure in the First Great Awakening, experiencing firsthand the fervor and challenges of revivalism. His intellectual rigor and pastoral sensitivity compelled him to address the emotional landscape of faith, prompting him to write this critical work that seeks to authenticate the spiritual experiences of individuals. "The Religious Affections" is essential for anyone seeking a deeper understanding of the nature of true spirituality. Edwards' incisive insights into the human heart and the role of emotion in faith make this book not only a theological classic but also a timeless guide for contemporary seekers, urging readers to reflect on the authenticity of their religious experiences.
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Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2022
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The Religious Affections
Table of Contents
Introduction
A heart can burn with fervor and still be uncertain in its direction, leaving faith poised between genuine transformation and self-deception.
Jonathan Edwards’s The Religious Affections has earned classic status because it confronts, with unusual seriousness and precision, the question of what authentic Christian experience looks like when emotions, convictions, and conduct are all in view. Few works in early American religious literature combine such intellectual rigor with close attention to inner life. Its legacy rests not on a single memorable slogan but on sustained moral and psychological analysis: Edwards treats feelings as real, powerful, and dangerous, and he insists that they must be tested rather than simply admired. Readers return to it because it names a perennial problem.
The book’s influence extends well beyond its original moment. Edwards’s disciplined way of examining spiritual experience shaped later discussions of conversion, piety, and religious psychology in the English-speaking world. Writers and preachers who wanted to avoid both cold formalism and uncritical enthusiasm found in this work a vocabulary for discernment. Its literary impact lies partly in its method: it organizes a difficult subject into careful distinctions and patiently argues from premise to implication. That structure has made it a model for theological reasoning, while its subject matter keeps it accessible to serious non-specialists.
The Religious Affections was written by Jonathan Edwards, a New England Congregationalist minister and theologian. It was published in 1746, during the era commonly associated with the religious revivals of the eighteenth century in British North America. Those revivals brought intense public debate about religious emotion, sudden conversions, and the reliability of outward signs of inward grace. Edwards wrote in the midst of those controversies, neither dismissing the reality of strong religious feeling nor allowing it to stand as proof by itself. The book is best read as a careful attempt to bring order and clarity to a charged spiritual landscape.
Edwards’s central premise is straightforward: religion that is real will engage the affections, yet not every powerful affection is evidence of true religion. By “affections” he means the vigorous inclinations and motions of the heart—what people love, fear, desire, and delight in—rather than mere passing sensations. The work examines how such affections arise, how they express themselves, and how they relate to judgment and will. Edwards’s aim is diagnostic: he wants readers to distinguish between experiences that may be intense but unreliable and those that signal a deeper, steadier spiritual reality.
What gives the book its lasting force is its refusal to accept easy tests. Edwards argues that neither emotional intensity nor bodily effects nor fluent religious talk can, by themselves, settle the question. At the same time, he resists the opposite mistake of treating emotion as an embarrassment to be eliminated. In his account, the human person is not divided into airtight compartments; intellect and desire intertwine, and the moral quality of one’s loves matters. This insistence that faith is more than assent, yet more than excitement, keeps the book poised in a productive tension.
As a work of prose, The Religious Affections is demanding but deliberately so. Edwards writes with a lawyerly attention to definitions, distinctions, and the weight of evidence, and he expects careful reading. Yet the subject is not abstract: it is the lived reality of people trying to know what is happening within them. The book’s sentences press toward clarity, often returning to a point from different angles so that the reader cannot mistake a mood for a principle. That style has helped the work endure, because it invites rereading and rewards patient engagement.
The historical setting helps explain the book’s urgency. The decades surrounding its publication saw renewed interest in preaching, personal conversion, and public manifestations of religious zeal. Such moments can yield both genuine moral awakening and confusion, and Edwards writes as someone who takes both possibilities seriously. He addresses a community where claims of spiritual experience had become common currency and where disagreements could split congregations and families. Without narrating particular episodes, the book assumes the reader recognizes the stakes: reputations, guidance of souls, and the credibility of Christian witness in public life.
Edwards’s approach is notable for its balance of charity and severity. He does not deny that true religious experience may come with strong feelings, nor does he conclude that intense experience is necessarily counterfeit. Instead, he asks what tends to follow from an affection over time—what it produces in the shape of life and in the orientation of the will. This attention to moral fruit, rather than momentary heat, forms the spine of the book’s argument. It has made the work useful in pastoral settings, where questions rarely come in neat, theoretical packages.
One reason the book remains influential is its conceptual toolkit. Edwards supplies distinctions that help readers name experiences that otherwise blur together: sincere longing versus self-regard, temporary impressions versus lasting change, religious talk versus religious devotion. He also models a way of reasoning that is neither purely subjective nor merely external. The inward life matters, but it must be interpreted responsibly; outward behavior matters, but it can be mimicked. The result is a framework that later writers could adapt when grappling with spiritual authenticity, revival dynamics, and the ethics of self-examination.
The Religious Affections also persists because it speaks to the modern problem of identity formed by feeling. In many contemporary settings, intensity is treated as a marker of truth, while skepticism about inner experience leads others to distrust emotion altogether. Edwards challenges both habits. He grants that human beings are moved by what they perceive as beautiful or worthy, and he insists that such movement must be evaluated by its object and its effect. That emphasis resonates today in discussions about sincerity, performative spirituality, and the difference between conviction and impulse.
Readers approaching the book now may come from different traditions or none, but the questions Edwards raises remain recognizable: How can a person tell whether a deeply felt experience is reliable? What role should emotion play in ethical and spiritual decision-making? How do communities weigh testimonies of change without rewarding display? Edwards’s answers belong to his theological commitments, yet the shape of his inquiry extends beyond them. The work offers a disciplined mirror for the inner life and a caution against confusing momentary passion with durable virtue or devotion. That is why it continues to be read as a classic.
Synopsis
Jonathan Edwards’s The Religious Affections is a theological treatise written in the context of the eighteenth-century evangelical revivals in New England and published in 1746. Addressing disputes about the nature of genuine Christian experience, Edwards sets out to examine how inward feelings relate to true religion. He frames the subject as a matter of discerning spiritual reality amid heightened emotion, public controversy, and mixed outcomes associated with revival. The work proceeds by clarifying what “affections” are, why they matter, and why misunderstandings about them can either discredit authentic faith or excuse religious enthusiasm without depth.
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Edwards begins by arguing that religion, in its vital form, involves vigorous inclinations of the heart rather than mere intellectual assent or external conformity. He treats affections as the springs of action, shaping what people love, fear, seek, and avoid, and thus influencing moral and religious behavior. At the same time, he insists that intense feeling, by itself, cannot certify spiritual authenticity. This opening movement establishes the central tension of the book: how to affirm the importance of heartfelt devotion while refusing to treat emotional intensity, novelty, or public display as reliable evidence of grace.
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He then turns to a sustained critique of common assumptions used to judge religious experience. Edwards catalogs various signs that many people take as proof of true faith—such as powerful impressions, fervent zeal, strong confidence, dramatic bodily effects, or sudden changes of mood—and treats them as inconclusive. His purpose is not to deny that such phenomena can occur in genuine religion, but to warn that they can also arise from natural temperament, social contagion, self-deception, or other non-spiritual causes. This portion advances the argument by separating vivid experiences from dependable criteria.
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Continuing this negative phase, Edwards examines additional indicators that may look persuasive in a revival setting yet fail as tests of sincerity. He considers how persuasive speech, intense devotion, abundant religious talk, or the appearance of spiritual insight can coexist with pride, instability, or shallow understanding. He also explores the limitations of relying on personal narratives or private impulses as final authority, particularly when they encourage presumption or contempt for ordinary means of instruction and accountability. The discussion emphasizes discernment, insisting that religious claims must be evaluated by their sources, tendencies, and enduring character.
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After clearing away unreliable evidences, Edwards pivots to a constructive account of what distinguishes gracious affections. He presents authentic spiritual experience as rooted in a new orientation toward God, rather than in self-interest or fear alone. This shift introduces the book’s core inquiry: what kind of inner change produces steady, God-centered devotion. Edwards argues that genuine affections arise from an apprehension of divine excellence and are marked by a transformed set of priorities. The transition from refuting false signs to describing true ones gives the work its overall structure and momentum toward positive criteria.
Historical Context
The Religious Affections emerged from British North America in the early-to-mid eighteenth century, especially the Puritan-descended towns of New England. Its immediate setting was the Congregationalist world of Massachusetts and Connecticut, where churches were locally governed, ministers were highly educated, and public life remained closely tied to religious institutions. Jonathan Edwards wrote as a pastor-theologian in this environment, addressing communities where sermons, fast days, and covenantal church membership still structured weekly rhythms. Yet by the 1730s and 1740s, inherited Puritan patterns faced pressure from demographic growth, expanding commerce, and changing religious expectations.
Jonathan Edwards (1703–1758) was trained in the New England ministerial tradition, studying at Yale College, a key institution for educating Congregational clergy. Yale’s curriculum reflected Reformed Protestant orthodoxy and also the broader intellectual culture of the period, including engagement with philosophy and natural science. Edwards’s later writing shows familiarity with this learned world, even as he wrote for ordinary church members. His career was centered first in Northampton, Massachusetts, where he served as pastor in the 1720s and then as sole minister after Solomon Stoddard, his maternal grandfather and predecessor, died in 1729.
Northampton in the 1730s was part of a regional economy that mixed agriculture with expanding trade networks. Increasing commercial exchange in coastal New England and along river corridors affected inland towns as well, altering patterns of work, consumption, and social differentiation. These material shifts mattered for religious life because they shaped schedules, aspirations, and community cohesion, all of which ministers believed influenced piety. Edwards, like many clergy, interpreted moral and spiritual “declension” partly through these everyday changes. The Religious Affections belongs to this moment of pastoral concern over how to discern genuine devotion amid new social pressures.
A crucial background is the Congregational “Standing Order” in New England, in which established churches had formal public support in many towns and were entwined with civic governance. Ministers were public intellectuals as well as spiritual leaders, and controversies over church discipline and membership had broad social implications. New England churches also inherited earlier debates about who should be admitted to full communion and how to assess conversion. Edwards wrote within that long-running problem, but under intensified conditions created by widespread revival. His book speaks to the public role of religious judgment in a society where church life was not merely private.
Edwards’s own ministerial lineage placed him in the middle of a turning point. Solomon Stoddard had promoted an approach in which the Lord’s Supper could function as a “converting ordinance,” encouraging wider participation. Edwards later disagreed and pressed for stricter standards of admission, a stance that eventually contributed to conflict in Northampton. The Religious Affections does not reduce to that single dispute, but it shares the same underlying question: what counts as true Christianity, and how can a community responsibly distinguish between credible faith and mere outward participation? The book’s historical context includes these intra-Congregational debates.
The immediate catalyst for the concerns addressed in The Religious Affections was the wave of revivals associated with the First Great Awakening (roughly the 1730s–1740s). Edwards had already published A Faithful Narrative of the Surprising Work of God (1737), describing revival in Northampton in 1734–1735. Those events featured intense preaching, heightened emotions, and reports of conversions. As revivals spread, they brought both renewed religious commitment and public controversy. The Religious Affections was written in the early 1740s and published in 1746, after Edwards had witnessed revival’s fruits and its disorders.
The itinerant evangelist George Whitefield’s tours through the colonies in 1739–1741 were especially significant. Whitefield drew large crowds, promoted a style of open-air preaching, and helped knit together a transcolonial evangelical network. His presence in New England, along with local ministers’ revival preaching, expanded the scale of religious excitement and sharpened disputes over authority and proper conduct. Edwards supported revival in principle, but he was also aware of exaggerated claims and manipulative practices that critics associated with itinerancy. The Religious Affections addresses a world in which mass religious communication—through travel, print, and word of mouth—had accelerated.
New England’s print culture provided the means for these debates to become public and enduring. Sermons, narratives, and polemical pamphlets circulated widely, allowing ministers and laypeople to compare experiences across towns and colonies. Edwards himself relied on print to interpret revival phenomena, and his arguments were shaped by the expectation of a reading audience beyond his own congregation. The Religious Affections is part of this pamphlet-and-treatise ecosystem, responding to controversies that were not confined to one locale. Print amplified disputes over spiritual experience by turning local episodes into exemplars—either warnings or models—for broader audiences.
The Great Awakening generated a fracture often described in New England as “New Light” versus “Old Light,” with the terms used in various ways by contemporaries. Many “New Light” supporters emphasized experiential conversion and sometimes challenged established ministerial authority; many “Old Light” critics worried about disorder, enthusiasm, and the undermining of church order. Edwards’s position was complex: he defended the reality of revival and the necessity of heartfelt religion, while criticizing excesses and insisting on careful tests for spiritual authenticity. The Religious Affections reflects this mediating role, offering criteria meant to guard against both skepticism toward revival and credulity about emotional displays.
A key historical issue was the fear of “enthusiasm,” a term early modern Protestants used for claims of immediate divine inspiration detached from Scripture and disciplined judgment. In the aftermath of intense revival meetings, reports of bodily effects, visions, and strong emotional reactions became flashpoints. Critics cited these as evidence of delusion; supporters sometimes treated them as sure signs of God’s work. Edwards sought to distinguish between the presence of strong religious emotions and the spiritual quality of those emotions. The Religious Affections echoes this debate by arguing that religious feeling is central to faith, but that not all feeling is reliable evidence of grace.
The work also belongs to the longer Puritan and Reformed tradition of conversion narratives and “experimental” religion, which emphasized the believer’s experience of sin, repentance, and trust in Christ. Since the seventeenth century, New England churches had asked prospective members to relate experiences that demonstrated credible conversion. By Edwards’s time, these practices were varied and contested, and revival brought new kinds of stories and new urgency to the question. The Religious Affections uses this inherited concern with “signs” of grace, but it reforms the discussion by stressing enduring dispositions and moral transformation rather than momentary impressions.
Intellectual currents of the Atlantic world also formed part of the background. The early eighteenth century saw the spread of Enlightenment approaches that prized reason, empirical observation, and suspicion of superstition. Edwards did not reject reason; he deployed careful argument and engaged philosophical debates, yet he resisted reducing religion to external morality or mere assent to doctrines. The Religious Affections can be read as a response to pressures on traditional Protestant spirituality from more rationalized religion, insisting that true Christianity involves a profound change of the heart while still requiring sober discernment and scriptural grounding.
Political and military events framed everyday life in ways that heightened religious urgency. New Englanders lived through imperial wars that involved Britain and France, including conflicts often grouped under the label of King George’s War in the 1740s. Such wars affected trade, taxation, security, and frontier settlement, and they were frequently interpreted through providential lenses by colonial clergy. While The Religious Affections is not a war tract, its preoccupation with divine activity and human response makes sense in a society accustomed to reading public crises and uncertainties as occasions for spiritual examination and communal repentance.
Economic life likewise influenced the religious landscape. New England’s growing participation in Atlantic commerce, the rise of credit and consumer goods, and the gradual diversification of occupations shaped social aspirations and community dynamics. Ministers sometimes feared that increased worldliness weakened traditional disciplines of worship and family devotion. Revival could be experienced as a corrective, calling people back from distraction to spiritual priorities. The Religious Affections addresses the need for stable, lasting godliness rather than transient excitement, a concern that resonated in a culture where new opportunities and material changes could produce both prosperity and moral anxiety.
The book’s immediate polemical context included debates among ministers about what kinds of revival phenomena should be approved. Edwards had defended revival against some critics in earlier writings, yet he also recognized that claims of conversion could be superficial and that spiritual pride could flourish in revival settings. The Religious Affections is thus historically situated as a corrective within the revival movement itself. It aims to provide tools for ministers and laypeople to evaluate religious experience without extinguishing genuine zeal. This balancing act reflects the precarious authority of clergy during the Awakening, when competing interpretations of events circulated rapidly.
Edwards’s later ministerial conflicts underscore why the question of credible piety mattered socially as well as theologically. In the late 1740s and 1750, disputes in Northampton over qualifications for communion contributed to his dismissal from the pastorate (1750). Afterward he served in Stockbridge, a frontier mission town, and later became president of the College of New Jersey (Princeton), where he died in 1758. These later events do not determine The Religious Affections, but they illuminate the stakes: definitions of true religion affected church membership, community cohesion, and clerical authority in a settled society undergoing change.
Read against its era, The Religious Affections functions as both a mirror and a critique of mid-eighteenth-century New England. It mirrors a culture intensely concerned with discerning God’s work amid revival, war, and social transformation, and it reflects a print-driven public sphere in which theological disputes were widely shared. At the same time, it critiques the era’s temptations: the reduction of faith to outward conformity, the credulous acceptance of dramatic experiences as proof of grace, and the cynical dismissal of all strong religion as delusion. Its historical significance lies in articulating a disciplined account of evangelical experience suited to a contentious, rapidly changing colonial world.
Author Biography
Jonathan Edwards (1703–1758) was an American Congregationalist pastor and theologian whose preaching and philosophical writing made him one of the central intellectual figures of colonial New England. He is closely associated with the revival movement later called the First Great Awakening and is often remembered for combining rigorous Calvinist theology with careful attention to religious experience. Across sermons, treatises, and pastoral writings, Edwards argued for the reality of divine grace, the seriousness of sin, and the necessity of spiritual transformation. His work has remained influential in American religious history, theology, and the study of revivalism.
Edwards received a highly classical education and was trained in the intellectual world of early eighteenth-century New England. He studied at Yale College, where he was exposed to Reformed scholastic theology, contemporary philosophy, and the emerging science and metaphysics debated in the Atlantic world. In his early writings, he engaged philosophical questions about mind, causation, and morality in a style that reflects both Puritan theological traditions and the broader Enlightenment-era vocabulary of reason and evidence. This combination—Reformed doctrine expressed with philosophical precision—became a hallmark of his mature work.
After his education, Edwards entered ministry and became known for preaching that joined doctrinal exposition with vivid moral and spiritual application. He served as a pastor in Northampton, Massachusetts, where his congregation became a prominent setting for episodes of religious revival. Edwards documented and interpreted these developments, seeking to distinguish enduring spiritual change from temporary enthusiasm or social contagion. His public role as a revival leader brought him both admirers and critics, since the revivals raised contentious questions about religious emotion, ecclesiastical order, and the standards by which conversion should be recognized within a church community.
Edwards’s best-known sermon, “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” (1741), exemplifies his intense rhetorical style and his emphasis on human dependence upon divine mercy. The sermon’s enduring reputation comes from its stark portrayal of judgment and its urgent call to repentance, themes consistent with his Calvinist convictions. Yet Edwards’s broader preaching and writing also stressed the beauty of holiness, the transformed affections of a regenerate life, and the joy of communion with God. Over time, his public identity has sometimes been reduced to this single sermon, though his oeuvre is considerably wider in scope and purpose.
As debates over revival continued, Edwards produced major interpretive works that aimed to provide theological clarity. In “A Faithful Narrative of the Surprising Work of God” (1737), he presented an account of revival to a wider readership, helping shape transatlantic perceptions of events in New England. In “Religious Affections” (1746), he argued that authentic Christianity involves deep and durable affections grounded in a changed nature, while warning that strong emotions alone are not reliable signs of grace. These writings sought a measured path between credulity and skepticism about revival phenomena.
Edwards also developed a substantial body of philosophical theology. In “Freedom of the Will” (1754), he defended a compatibilist understanding of moral agency, arguing that choices follow the strongest motives and that divine sovereignty is compatible with human responsibility. In “The Great Christian Doctrine of Original Sin Defended” (1758), he addressed the doctrine of original sin in dialogue with contemporary moral and rational objections. His “Life of David Brainerd” (1749), an edited account based on Brainerd’s writings, became a widely read missionary and devotional text, shaping later evangelical spirituality and mission-mindedness.
In the later 1750s, Edwards served as a missionary pastor in Stockbridge, Massachusetts, and later became president of the College of New Jersey (now Princeton University) shortly before his death in 1758. His writings continued to circulate after his lifetime, and he became a foundational figure for later theologians, philosophers of religion, and historians of American culture. Edwards’s legacy endures because his work addresses perennial questions about religious experience, moral agency, and the relationship between reason and faith. Contemporary readers engage him both critically and appreciatively, often returning to his texts for their intellectual ambition and spiritual seriousness.
The Religious Affections
Introduction
There is no question whatsoever, that is of greater importance to mankind, and what is more concerns every individual person to be well resolved in, than this: What are the distinguishing qualifications of those that are in favor with God, and entitled to his eternal rewards? Or, which comes to the same thing, What is the nature of true religion?And wherein do lie the distinguishing notes of that virtue and holiness that is acceptable in the sight of God? But though it be of such importance, and though we have clear and abundant light in the word of God to direct us in this matter, yet there is no one point, wherein professing Christians do more differ one from another. It would be endless to reckon up the variety of opinions in this point, that divide the Christian world; making manifest the truth of that declaration of our Savior, "Strait is the gate and narrow is the way, that leads to life, and few there be that find it."
The consideration of these things has long engaged me to attend to this matter, with the utmost diligence and care, and exactness of search and inquiry, that I have been capable of. It is a subject on which my mind has been peculiarly intent, ever since I first entered on the study of divinity. But as to the success of my inquiries it must be left to the judgment of the reader of the following treatise.
I am sensible it is much more difficult to judge impartially of that which is the subject of this discourse, in the midst of the dust and smoke of such a state of controversy, as this land is now in, about things of this nature. As it is more difficult to write impartially, so it is more difficult to read impartially. Many will probably be hurt in their spirits, to find so much that appertains to religious affection, here condemned: and perhaps indignation and contempt will be excited in others by finding so much here justified and approved. And it may be, some will be ready to charge me with inconsistency with myself, in so much approving some things, and so much condemning others; as I have found this has always been objected to by some, ever since the beginning of our late controversies about religion. It is a hard thing to be a hearty zealous friend of what has been good and glorious, in the late extraordinary appearances, and to rejoice much in it; and at the same time to see the evil and pernicious tendency of what has been bad, and earnestly to oppose that. But yet, I am humbly but fully persuaded, we shall never be in the way of truth, nor go on in a way acceptable to God, and tending to the advancement of Christ's kingdom till we do so. There is indeed something very mysterious in it, that so much good, and so much bad, should be mixed together in the church of God; as it is a mysterious thing, and what has puzzled and amazed many a good Christian, that there should be that which is so divine and precious, as the saving grace of God, and the new and divine nature dwelling in the same heart, with so much corruption, hypocrisy, and iniquity, in a particular saint. Yet neither of these is more mysterious than real. And neither of them is a new or rare thing. It is no new thing, that much false religion should prevail, at a time of great reviving of true religion, and that at such a time multitudes of hypocrites should spring up among true saints. It was so in that great reformation, and revival of religion, that was in Josiah's time[1]; as appears by Jer. 3:10, and 4:3, 4, and also by the great apostasy that there was in the land, so soon after his reign. So it was in that great outpouring of the Spirit upon the Jews, that was in the days of John the Baptist; as appears by the great apostasy of that people so soon after so general an awakening, and the temporary religious comforts and joys of many: John 5:35, "Ye were willing for a season to rejoice in his light." So it was in those great commotions that were among the multitude, occasioned by the preaching of Jesus Christ; of the many that were then called, but few were chosen; of the multitude that were roused and affected by his preaching, and at one time or other appeared mightily engaged, full of admiration of Christ, and elevated with joy, but few were true disciples, that stood the shock of the great trials that came afterwards, and endured to the end. Many were like the stony ground, or thorny ground; and but few, comparatively, like the good ground. Of the whole heap that was gathered, great part was chaff; that the wind afterwards drove away; and the heap of wheat that was left, was comparatively small; as appears abundantly, by the history of the New Testament. So it was in that great outpouring of the Spirit that was in the apostles' days as appears by Matt. 24:10-13. Gal. 3:1, and 4:11, 15. Phil. 2:21, and 3:18, 19, and the two epistles to the Corinthians, and many other parts of the New Testament. And so it was in the great reformation from Popery. It appears plainly to have been in the visible church of God, in times of great reviving of religion, from time to time, as it is with the fruit trees in the spring; there are a multitude of blossoms, all of which appear fair and beautiful, and there is a promising appearance of young fruits; but many of them are but of short continuance; they soon fall off, and never come to maturity.
Not that it is to be supposed that it will always be so; for though there never will, in this world, be an entire purity, either in particular saints, in a perfect freedom from mixtures of corruption; or in the church of God, without any mixture of hypocrites with saints, and counterfeit religion, and false appearances of grace with true religion, and real holiness: yet it is evident, that there will come a time of much greater purity in the church of God, than has been in ages past; it is plain by these texts of Scripture, Isa. 52:1. Ezek. 44:6, 7, Joel 3:17. Zech. 14:21. Psal. 69:32, 35, 36. Isa 35:8, 10, chap. 4:3, 4. Ezek. 20:38. Psal. 37:9, 10, 21, 29. And one great reason of it will be that at that time God will give much greater light to his people, to distinguish between true religion and its counterfeits. Mal. 3:3, "And he shall sit as a refiner and purifier of silver: and he shall purify the sons of Levi, and purge them as gold and silver, that they may offer to the Lord an offering in righteousness." With ver. 18, which is a continuation of the prophecy of the same happy times. "Then shall ye return, and discern between the righteous and the wicked, between him that serveth God, and him that serveth him not."
It is by the mixture of counterfeit religion with true, not discerned and distinguished, that the devil has had his greatest advantage against the cause and kingdom of Christ, all along hitherto. It is by this means, principally, that he has prevailed against all revivings of religion, that ever have been since the first founding of the Christian church. By this, he hurt the cause of Christianity, in and after the apostolic age, much more than by all the persecutions of both Jews and Heathens. The apostles, in all their epistles, show themselves much more concerned at the former mischief, than the latter. By this, Satan prevailed against the reformation, began by Luther. Zwinglius, &c., to put a stop to its progress, and bring it into disgrace; ten times more, than by all those bloody, cruel, and before unheard of persecutions of the church of Rome. By this, principally, has he prevailed against revivals of religion, that have been in our nation since the reformation. By this he prevailed against New England, to quench the love and spoil the joy of her espousals, about a hundred years ago. And I think, I have had opportunity enough to see plainly that by this the devil has prevailed against the late great revival of religion in New England, so happy and promising in its beginning. Here, most evidently has been the main advantage Satan has had against us; by this he has foiled us. It is by this means, that the daughter of Zion in this land now lies on the ground, in such piteous circumstances as we now behold her; with her garments rent, her face disfigured, her nakedness exposed, her limbs broken, and weltering in the blood of her own wounds, and in no wise able to arise, and this, so quickly after her late great joys and hopes: Lam. 1:17, "Zion spreadeth forth her hands, and there is none to comfort her: the Lord hath commanded concerning Jacob, that his adversaries shall be roundabout him: Jerusalem is as a menstruous woman among them." I have seen the devil prevail the same way, against two great revivings of religion in this country. Satan goes on with mankind, as he began with them. He prevailed against our first parents, and cast them out of paradise, and suddenly brought all their happiness and glory to an end, by appearing to be a friend to their happy paradisaic state, and pretending to advance it to higher degrees. So the same cunning serpent, that beguiled Eve through his subtlety, by perverting us from the simplicity that is in Christ, hath suddenly prevailed to deprive us of that fair prospect, we had a little while ago, of a kind of paradisaic state of the church of God in New England.
After religion has revived in the church of God, and enemies appear, people that are engaged to defend its cause, are commonly most exposed, where they are sensible of danger. While they are wholly intent upon the opposition that appears openly before them, to make head against that, and do neglect carefully to look all around them, the devil comes behind them, and gives a fatal stab unseen; and has opportunity to give a more home stroke, and wound the deeper, because he strikes at his leisure, and according to his pleasure, being obstructed by no guard or resistance.
And so it is ever likely to be in the church, whenever religion revives remarkably, till we have learned well to distinguish between true and false religion, between saving affections and experiences, and those manifold fair shows, and glistering appearances, by which they are counterfeited; the consequences of which, when they are not distinguished, are often inexpressibly dreadful. By this means, the devil gratifies himself, by bringing it to pass, that that should be offered to God, by multitudes, under a notion of a pleasing acceptable service to him, that is indeed above all things abominable to him. By this means he deceives great multitudes about the state of their souls; making them think they are something, when they are nothing; and so eternally undoes them; and not only so, but establishes many in a strong confidence of their eminent holiness, who are in God's sight some of the vilest of hypocrites. By this means, he many ways damps and wounds religion in the hearts of the saints, obscures and deforms it by corrupt mixtures, causes their religious affections woefully to degenerate, and sometimes, for a considerable time, to be like the manna that bred worms and stank; and dreadfully ensnares and confounds the minds of others of the saints and brings them into great difficulties and temptation, and entangles them in a wilderness, out of which they can by no means extricate themselves. By this means, Satan mightily encourages the hearts of open enemies of religion, and strengthens their hands, and fills them with weapons, and makes strong their fortresses; when, at the same time, religion and the church of God lie exposed to them, as a city without walls. By this means, he brings it to pass, that men work wickedness under a notion of doing God service, and so sin without restraint, yea with earnest forwardness and zeal, and with all their might. By this means he brings in even the friends of religion, insensibly to themselves, to do the work of enemies, by destroying religion in a far more effectual manner than open enemies can do, under a notion of advancing it. By this means the devil scatters the flock of Christ, and sets them one against another, and that with great heat of spirit, under a nation of zeal for God; and religion, by degrees degenerates into vain jangling; and during the strife, Satan leads both parties far out of the right way, driving each to great extremes, one on the right hand, and the other on the left, according as he finds they are most inclined, or most easily moved and swayed, till the right path in the middle is almost wholly neglected. And in the midst of this confusion, the devil has great opportunity to advance his own interest, and make it strong in ways innumerable, and get the government of all into his own hands and work his own will. And by what is seen of the terrible consequences of this counterfeit religion, when not distinguished from true religion, God's people in general have their minds unhinged and unsettled in things of religion, and know not where to set their foot, or what to think or do; and many are brought into doubts, whether there be anything in religion; and heresy, and infidelity, and atheism greatly prevail.
Therefore it greatly concerns us to use our utmost endeavors clearly to discern, and have it well settled and established, wherein true religion does consist. Till this be done, it may be expected, that great revivings of religion will be but of short continuance; till this be done, there is but little good to be expected of all our warm debates in conversation and from the press, not knowing clearly and distinctly what we ought to contend for.
My design is to contribute my mite, and use my best (however feeble) endeavors to this end, in the ensuing treatise; wherein it must be noted, that my design is somewhat diverse from the design of what I have formerly published, which was to show the distinguishing marks of a work of the Spirit of God, including both his common and saving operations; but what I aim at now, is to show the nature and signs of the gracious operations of God's Spirit, by which they are to be distinguished from all things whatsoever, that the minds of men are the subjects of, which are not of a saving nature. If I have succeeded, in this my aim, in any tolerable measure, I hope it will tend to promote the interest of religion. And whether I have succeeded to bring any light to this subject or no, and however my attempts may be reproached in these captious and censorious times, I hope in the mercy of a gracious God, for the acceptance of the sincerity of my endeavors; and hope also for the candor and prayers of the true followers of the meek and charitable Lamb of God.
Part I. Concerning The Nature Of The Affections And Their Importance In Religion
1 Peter 1:8[2]: Whom having not seen, ye love; in whom, though now ye see him not, yet believing, ye rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory.
In these words, the apostle represents the state of the minds of the Christians he wrote to, under the persecutions they were then the subjects of. These persecutions are what he has respect to, in the two preceding verses, when he speaks of the trial of their faith, and of their being in heaviness through manifold temptations.
Such trials[3] are of threefold benefit to true religion. Hereby the truth of it is manifested, and it appears to be indeed true religion; they, above all other things, have a tendency to distinguish between true religion and false, and to cause the difference between them evidently to appear. Hence they are called by the name of trials, in the verse nextly preceding the text, and in innumerable other places; they try the faith and religion of professors, of what sort it is, as apparent gold is tried in the fire, and manifested, whether it be true gold or no. And the faith of true Christians being thus tried and proved to be true, is "found to praise, and honor, and glory," as in that preceding verse.
And then, these trials are of further benefit to true religion; they not only manifest the truth of it, but they make its genuine beauty and amiableness remarkably to appear. True virtue never appears so lovely, as when it is most oppressed; and the divine excellency of real Christianity, is never exhibited with such advantage, as when under the greatest trials: then it is that true faith appears much more precious than gold! And upon this account is "found to praise, and honor, and glory."
And again, another benefit that such trials are of to true religion, is, that they purify and increase it. They not only manifest it to be true, but also tend to refine it, and deliver it from those mixtures of that which is false, which encumber and impede it; that nothing may be left but that which is true. They tend to cause the amiableness of true religion to appear to the best advantage, as was before observed; and not only so, but they tend to increase its beauty, by establishing and confirming it, and making it more lively and vigorous, and purifying it from those things that obscured its luster and glory. As gold that is tried in the fire, is purged from its alloy, and all remainders of dross, and comes forth more solid and beautiful; so true faith being tried as gold is tried in the fire, becomes more precious, and thus also is "found unto praise, and honor, and glory." The apostle seems to have respect to each of these benefits, that persecutions are of to true religion, in the verse preceding the text.
And, in the text, the apostle observes how true religion operated in the Christians he wrote to, under their persecutions, whereby these benefits of persecution appeared in them; or what manner of operation of true religion, in them, it was, whereby their religion, under persecution, was manifested to be true religion, and eminently appeared in the genuine beauty and amiableness of true religion, and also appeared to be increased and purified, and so was like to be "found unto praise, and honor, and glory, at the appearing of Jesus Christ.” And there were two kinds of operation, or exercise of true religion, in them, under their sufferings, that the apostle takes notice of in the text, wherein these benefits appeared.
1. Love to Christ: "Whom having not yet seen, ye love." The world was ready to wonder, what strange principle it was, that influenced them to expose themselves to so great sufferings, to forsake the things that were seen, and renounce all that was dear and pleasant, which was the object of sense. They seemed to the men of the world about them, as though they were beside themselves, and to act as though they hated themselves; there was nothing in their view, that could induce them thus to suffer, and support them under, and carry them through such trials. But although there was nothing that was seen, nothing that the world saw, or that the Christians themselves ever saw with their bodily eyes, that thus influenced and supported them, yet they had a supernatural principle of love to something unseen; they loved Jesus Christ, for they saw him spiritually whom the world saw not, and whom they themselves had never seen with bodily eyes.
2. Joy in Christ. Though their outward sufferings were very grievous, yet their inward spiritual joys were greater than their sufferings; and these supported them, and enabled them to suffer with cheerfulness.
There are two things which the apostle takes notice of in the text concerning this joy. 1. The manner in which it rises, the way in which Christ, though unseen, is the foundation of it, viz., by faith; which is the evidence of things not seen: "In whom, though now ye see him not, yet believing, ye rejoice." 2. The nature of this joy; "unspeakable and full of glory." Unspeakable in the kind of it; very different from worldly joys, and carnal delights; of a vastly more pure, sublime, and heavenly nature, being something supernatural, and truly divine, and so ineffably excellent; the sublimity and exquisite sweetness of which, there were no words to set forth. Unspeakable also in degree; it pleasing God to give them this holy joy, with a liberal hand, and in large measure, in their state of persecution.
Their joy was full of glory. Although the joy was unspeakable, and no words were sufficient to describe it, yet something might be said of it, and no words more fit to represent its excellency than these, that it was full of glory; or, as it is in the original, glorified joy. In rejoicing with this joy, their minds were filled, as it were, with a glorious brightness, and their natures exalted and perfected. It was a most worthy, noble rejoicing, that did not corrupt and debase the mind, as many carnal joys do; but did greatly beautify and dignify it; it was a prelibation of the joy of heaven, that raised their minds to a degree of heavenly blessedness; it filled their minds with the light of God's glory, and made themselves to shine with some communication of that glory.
Hence the proposition or doctrine, that I would raise from these words, is this:
DOCTRINE. True religion, in great part, consists in holy affections[1q].
We see that the apostle, in observing and remarking the operations and exercises of religion in the Christians he wrote to, wherein their religion appeared to be true and of the right kind, when it had its greatest trial of what sort it was, being tried by persecution as gold is tried in the fire, and when their religion not only proved true, but was most pure, and cleansed from its dross and mixtures of that which was not true, and when religion appeared in them most in its genuine excellency and native beauty, and was found to praise, and honor, and glory; he singles out the religious affections of love and joy, that were then in exercise in them: these are the exercises of religion he takes notice of wherein their religion did thus appear true and pure, and in its proper glory. Here, I would,
1. Show what is intended by the affections.
2. Observe some things which make it evident, that a great part of true religion lies in the affections.
1. It may be inquired, what the affections of the mind are?
I answer: The affections are no other than the more vigorous and sensible exercises of the inclination and will of the soul.
God has endued the soul with two faculties[2q]: one is that by which it is capable of perception and speculation, or by which it discerns, and views, and judges of things; which is called the understanding. The other faculty is that by which the soul does not merely perceive and view things, but is some way inclined with respect to the things it views or considers; either is inclined to them, or is disinclined and averse from them; or is the faculty by which the soul does not behold things, as an indifferent unaffected spectator, but either as liking or disliking, pleased or displeased, approving or rejecting. This faculty is called by various names; it is sometimes called the inclination: and, as it has respect to the actions that are determined and governed by it, is called the will: and the mind, with regard to the exercises of this faculty, is often called the heart[5].
The exercise of this faculty are of two sorts; either those by which the soul is carried out towards the things that are in view, in approving of them, being pleased with them, and inclined to them; or those in which the soul opposes the things that are in view, in disapproving of them, and in being displeased with them, averse from them, and rejecting them.
And as the exercises of the inclination and will of the soul are various in their kinds, so they are much more various in their degrees. There are some exercises of pleasedness or displeasedness, inclination or disinclination, wherein the soul is carried but a little beyond the state of indifference.—And there are other degrees above this, wherein the approbation or dislike, pleasedness or aversion, are stronger, wherein we may rise higher and higher, till the soul comes to act vigorously and sensibly, and the actings of the soul are with that strength, that (through the laws of the union which the Creator has fixed between the soul and the body) the motion of the blood and animal spirits[4] begins to be sensibly altered; whence oftentimes arises some bodily sensation, especially about the heart and vitals, that are the fountain of the fluids of the body: from whence it comes to pass, that the mind, with regard to the exercises of this faculty, perhaps in all nations and ages, is called the heart. And it is to be noted, that they are these more vigorous and sensible exercises of this faculty that are called the affections.
The will, and the affections of the soul, are not two faculties; the affections are not essentially distinct from the will, nor do they differ from the mere actings of the will, and inclination of the soul, but only in the liveliness and sensibleness of exercise.
It must be confessed, that language is here somewhat imperfect, and the meaning of words in a considerable measure loose and unfixed, and not precisely limited by custom, which governs the use of language. In some sense, the affection of the soul differs nothing at all from the will and inclination, and the will never is in any exercise any further than it is affected; it is not moved out of a state of perfect indifference, any otherwise than as it is affected one way or other, and acts nothing any further. But yet there are many actings of the will and inclination, that are not so commonly called affections: in everything we do, wherein we act voluntarily, there is an exercise of the will and inclination; it is our inclination that governs us in our actions; but all the actings of the inclination and will, in all our common actions of life, are not ordinarily called affections. Yet, what are commonly called affections are not essentially different from them, but only in the degree and manner of exercise. In every act of the will whatsoever, the soul either likes or dislikes, is either inclined or disinclined to what is in view: these are not essentially different from those affections of love and hatred: that liking or inclination of the soul to a thing, if it be in a high degree, and be vigorous and lively, is the very same thing with the affection of love; and that disliking and disinclining, if in a greater degree, is the very same with hatred. In every act of the will for, or towards something not present, the soul is in some degree inclined to that thing; and that inclination, if in a considerable degree, is the very same with the affection of desire. And in every degree of the act of the will, wherein the soul approves of something present, there is a degree of pleasedness; and that pleasedness, if it be in a considerable degree, is the very same with the affections of joy or delight. And if the will disapproves of what is present, the soul is in some degree displeased, and if that displeasedness be great, it is the very same with the affection of grief or sorrow.
Such seems to be our nature, and such the laws of the union of soul and body, that there never is in any case whatsoever, any lively and vigorous exercise of the will or inclination of the soul, without some effect upon the body, in some alteration of the motion of its fluids, and especially of the animal spirits. And, on the other hand, from the same laws of the union of the soul and body, the constitution of the body, and the motion of its fluids, may promote the exercise of the affections. But yet it is not the body, but the mind only, that is the proper seat of the affections. The body of man is no more capable of being really the subject of love or hatred, joy or sorrow, fear or hope, than the body of a tree, or than the same body of man is capable of thinking and understanding. As it is the soul only that has ideas, so it is the soul only that is pleased or displeased with its ideas. As it is the soul only that thinks, so it is the soul only that loves or hates, rejoices or is grieved at what it thinks of. Nor are these motions of the animal spirits, and fluids of the body, anything properly belonging to the nature of the affections, though they always accompany them, in the present state; but are only effects or concomitants of the affections that are entirely distinct from the affections themselves, and no way essential to them; so that an unbodied spirit may be as capable of love and hatred, joy or sorrow, hope or fear, or other affections, as one that is united to a body.
The affections and passions are frequently spoken of as the same; and yet in the more common use of speech, there is in some respect a difference; and affection is a word that in its ordinary signification, seems to be something more extensive than passion, being used for all vigorous lively actings of the will or inclination; but passion for those that are more sudden, and whose effects on the animal spirits are more violent, and the mind more overpowered, and less in its own command.
As all the exercises of the inclination and will, are either in approving and liking, or disapproving and rejecting; so the affections are of two sorts; they are those by which the soul is carried out to what is in view, cleaving to it, or seeking it; or those by which it is averse from it, and opposes it.
Of the former sort are love, desire, hope, joy, gratitude, complacence. Of the latter kind are hatred, fear, anger, grief, and such like; which it is needless now to stand particularly to define.
And there are some affections wherein there is a composition of each of the aforementioned kinds of actings of the will; as in the affection of pity, there is something of the former kind, towards the person suffering, and something of the latter towards what he suffers. And so in zeal, there is in it high approbation of some person or thing, together with vigorous opposition to what is conceived to be contrary to it.
There are other mixed affections that might be also mentioned, but I hasten to,
II. The second thing proposed, which was to observe some things that render it evident, that true religion, in great part consists in the affections. And here,
1. What has been said of the nature of the affections makes this evident, and may be sufficient, without adding anything further, to put this matter out of doubt; for who will deny that true religion consists in a great measure, in vigorous and lively actings of the inclination and will of the soul, or the fervent exercises of the heart?
That religion which God requires, and will accept, does not consist in weak, dull, and lifeless wishes, raising us but a little above a state of indifference: God, in his word, greatly insists upon it, that we be good in earnest, "fervent in spirit," and our hearts vigorously engaged in religion: Rom. 12:11, "Be ye fervent in spirit, serving the Lord." Deut. 10:12, "And now, Israel, what doth the Lord thy God require of thee, but to fear the Lord the God, to walk in all his ways, and to love him, and to serve the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul?" and chap. 6:4, 6, "Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is one Lord: And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy might." It is such a fervent vigorous engagedness of the heart in religion, that is the fruit of a real circumcision of the heart[8], or true regeneration, and that has the promises of life; Deut. 30:6, “And the Lord thy God will circumcise thine heart, and the heart of thy seed, to love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, that thou mayest live."
If we be not in good earnest in religion, and our wills and inclinations be not strongly exercised, we are nothing. The things of religion are so great, that there can be no suitableness in the exercises of our hearts, to their nature and importance, unless they be lively and powerful. In nothing is vigor in the actings of our inclinations so requisite, as in religion; and in nothing is lukewarmness so odious. True religion is evermore a powerful thing; and the power of it appears, in the first place in the inward exercises of it in the heart, where is the principal and original seat of it. Hence true religion is called the power of godliness, in distinction from the external appearances of it, that are the form of it, 2 Tim. 3:5: "Having a form of godliness, but denying the power of it." The Spirit of God, in those that have sound and solid religion, is a spirit of powerful holy affection; and therefore, God is said "to have given the Spirit of power, and of love, and of a sound mind," 2 Tim. 1:7. And such, when they receive the Spirit of God, in his sanctifying and saving influences, are said to be "baptized with the Holy Ghost, and with fire[6];" by reason of the power and fervor of those exercises the Spirit of God excites in their hearts, whereby their hearts, when grace is in exercise, may be said to “burn within them;" as is said of the disciples, Luke 24:32.
The business of religion is from time to time compared to those exercises, wherein men are wont to have their hearts and strength greatly exercised and engaged, such as running, wrestling or agonizing for a great prize or crown, and fighting with strong enemies that seek our lives, and warring as those, that by violence take a city or kingdom.
