Introduction
There is no question whatsoever, that is of greater importance to mankind, than this: What are the distinguishing qualifications of those that are in favour 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 Saviour: “Strait is the gate and narrow is the way, that leads to life, and few there be that find it.”
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. 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. By this Satan prevailed against the Reformation. 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.
Therefore it greatly concerns us to use our utmost endeavours clearly to discern, and have it well settled and established, wherein true religion does consist. My design 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.
Part I — The Nature of the Affections
In the text, the apostle represents the state of the minds of the Christians he wrote to under their persecutions. Such trials are of threefold benefit to true religion. They manifest the truth of it — they make its genuine beauty remarkably to appear — and they purify and increase it. The apostle takes notice of two kinds of operation of true religion in them: Love to Christ (“Whom having not seen, ye love”) and Joy in Christ (“ye rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory”). This joy was unspeakable in kind — very different from worldly joys, of a vastly more pure, sublime, and heavenly nature. And it was full of glory — it filled their minds with the light of God's glory, and made themselves to shine with some communication of that glory.
Doctrine: True religion, in great part, consists in holy affections.
What are the affections of the mind? 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: the understanding, by which it perceives and judges; and the will or inclination, by which the soul does not merely behold things as an indifferent spectator, but either as liking or disliking, pleased or displeased, approving or rejecting. The will, and the affections of the soul, are not two faculties; the affections differ from the mere actings of the will only in the liveliness and sensibleness of exercise.
Why True Religion Consists Much in the Affections
1. True religion consists in vigorous and lively actings of the inclination and will of the soul — in the fervent exercises of the heart. God greatly insists upon it, that we be good in earnest: “Be ye fervent in spirit, serving the Lord” (Romans 12:11). “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might” (Deuteronomy 6:5). 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.
2. The Author of human nature has not only given affections to men, but has made them very much the spring of men's actions. Take away all love and hatred, all hope and fear, all anger, zeal, and affectionate desire, and the world would be, in a great measure, motionless and dead. As in worldly things, worldly affections are very much the spring of men's motion; so in religious matters, the spring of their actions is very much religious affection.
3. Nothing is more manifest in fact, than that the things of religion take hold of men's souls no further than they affect them. I am bold to assert, that there never was any considerable change wrought in the mind or conversation of any person, by anything of a religious nature, that had not his affections moved. Never was a natural man engaged earnestly to seek his salvation; never was one humbled and brought to the foot of God; nor was ever one induced to fly for refuge unto Christ — while his heart remained unaffected.
4. The holy Scriptures do everywhere place religion very much in the affection: such as fear, hope, love, hatred, desire, joy, sorrow, gratitude, compassion, and zeal. The Scriptures place much of religion in godly fear — so much that true godliness in general is commonly called by the name of the fear of God. Hope in God is mentioned as one of the three great things of which religion consists (1 Corinthians 13:13). Holy desire and thirst of soul is mentioned as one thing which renders a man truly blessed: “Blessed are they that do hunger and thirst after righteousness; for they shall be filled” (Matthew 5:6). Religious sorrow, mourning, and brokenness of heart are frequently spoken of as a great part of true religion: “The Lord is nigh unto them that are of a broken heart; and saveth such as be of a contrite spirit” (Psalm 34:18).
5. The Scriptures represent true religion as being summarily comprehended in love — the chief of the affections, and fountain of all other affections. Our Saviour: “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment” (Matthew 22:37–38). From a vigorous, affectionate, and fervent love to God will necessarily arise other religious affections: intense hatred and abhorrence of sin, fear of sin and dread of God's displeasure, gratitude to God, complacence and joy in God, and fervent zeal for the glory of God.
6. The religion of the most eminent saints in Scripture consisted much in holy affections. David — that man after God's own heart — left us the Psalms, which are nothing else but the expressions and breathings of devout and holy affections: humble and fervent love to God, earnest desires and thirstings of soul after God, delight and joy, sweet and melting gratitude, holy exultation, and fervent zeal. The apostle Paul appears to have been a person full of affection — inflamed, actuated, and entirely swallowed up by a most ardent love to his glorious Lord. The apostle John was a person remarkably full of affection, his addresses breathing nothing but the most fervent love.
7. The Lord Jesus Christ himself was a person remarkably of a tender and affectionate heart. He was the greatest instance of ardency, vigour, and strength of love to both God and man that ever was. We read of his great zeal — his grief for the sins of men — his breaking forth in tears over Jerusalem. We read of his earnest desire, his compassion, his pity. Of all the discourses ever penned or uttered by the mouth of any man, his last discourse with his disciples (John 13–17) seems to be the most affectionate and affecting.
8. The religion of heaven consists very much in affection. There is doubtless true religion in heaven, and true religion in its utmost purity and perfection. According to the Scripture representation of the heavenly state, the religion of heaven consists chiefly in holy and mighty love and joy, and the expression of these in most fervent and exalted praises.
9. This appears from the nature and design of the ordinances which God has appointed. Prayer is not appointed to inform God, but suitably to affect our own hearts with the things we express. Singing praises to God seems to be appointed wholly to excite and express religious affections. The sacraments exhibit the great things of the gospel to our view in sensible representations, the more to affect us with them. And the impressing divine things on the hearts and affections of men is evidently one great and main end for which God ordained preaching.
10. The Scriptures place the sin of the heart very much in hardness of heart. By a hard heart is plainly meant an unaffected heart — a heart not easy to be moved with virtuous affections, like a stone, insensible, stupid, unmoved. Contrarily, a tender heart is a heart easily impressed with what ought to affect it. God commends Josiah because his heart was tender. Since it is so plain that by a hard heart the Scriptures mean a heart destitute of pious affections, and since the Scriptures do so frequently place sin and corruption in hardness of heart — it is evident that the grace and holiness of the heart must, in a great measure, consist in pious affections.
Inferences
We may hence learn how great their error is, who are for discarding all religious affections as having nothing solid or substantial in them. Although to true religion there must indeed be something else besides affection, yet true religion consists so much in the affections that there can be no true religion without them. He who has no religious affection is in a state of spiritual death, and is wholly destitute of the powerful, quickening, saving influences of the Spirit of God upon his heart.
Where there is heat without light, there can be nothing divine or heavenly in that heart. But equally, where there is a kind of light without heat — a head stored with notions and speculations, with a cold and unaffected heart — there can be nothing divine in that light. If the great things of religion are rightly understood, they will affect the heart. The reason why men are not affected by such infinitely great, important, glorious, and wonderful things as they often hear and read of in the word of God is undoubtedly because they are blind.
There are false affections, and there are true. A man's having much affection does not prove that he has any true religion: but if he has no affection it proves that he has no true religion. The right way is not to reject all affections, nor to approve all; but to distinguish between affections — approving some, and rejecting others; separating between the wheat and the chaff, the gold and the dross, the precious and the vile.