Tuesdays with Edwards!
A Treatise Concerning
Religious Affections is one of Edwards’ most widely read and influential works, and has come to be viewed as a classic in Christian literature; its popularity and influence attested to by the fact that since its original publication in 1746 it has never been out of print.
In the second part of his book, Edwards outlines twelve signs which neither prove nor disprove one’s affections to be truly gracious. For each of these signs, Edwards shows why a spiritually healthy Christian would and even should exhibit these signs; and then shows why it should not be looked at as a certain sign that it is a proof of saving grace…though sometimes he reverses the order and does the negative before the positive.
So far we have seen that Edwards believed it doesn’t prove one way or the other that religious affections are truly spiritual because:
- They are raised very high.
- They have great effects on the body.
- They cause one to talk a lot about God and religion.
- They inexplicably come about.
- They come with passages of Scripture being brought to mind.
- That there is an appearance of love in them.
- That there are many kinds of religious affections together.
Last week started looking at Edwards’ eighth false positive: “that comforts and joys seem to follow awakenings and convictions of conscience, in a certain order.”
In today’s post, Edwards goes deeper into his shows through an overview of Scripture why it is reasonable to think that there is an “ordinary way” that God works: first bringing conviction of sin, hopelessness, and even terror and then bringing joy and peace afterwards.
You can read Religious Affections in its entirety at www.edwards.yale.edu. This selection is from Religious Affections, ed. John E, Smith, The Works of Jonathan Edwards, vol. 2 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1959) Pages 154-155.
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But there are many things in Scripture which do more directly show, that this is God’s ordinary manner in working salvation for the souls of men, and in the manifestations God makes of himself and of his mercy in Christ, in the ordinary works of his grace on the hearts of sinners. The servant that owed his prince ten thousand talents, is first held to his debt, and the king pronounces sentence of condemnation upon him, and commands him to be sold, and his wife and children, and payment to be made; and thus he humbles him, and brings him to own the whole debt to be just, and then forgives him all. The prodigal son spends all he has, and is brought to see himself in extreme circumstances, and to humble himself, and own his unworthiness, before he is relieved and feasted by his father (Luke 15). Old inveterate wounds must be searched to the bottom, in order to healing: and the Scripture compares sin, the wound of the soul, to this, and speaks of healing this wound without thus searching of it, as vain and deceitful (Jeremiah 8:11). Christ, in the work of his grace on the hearts of men, is compared to rain on the mown grass, grass that is cut down with a scythe (Psalms 72:6), representing his refreshing, comforting influences on the wounded spirit. Our first parents, after they had sinned, were first terrified with God’s majesty and justice, and had their sin, with its aggravations, set before them by their judge, before they were relieved, by the promise of the seed of the woman. Christians are spoken of as those that have fled for refuge, to lay hold on the hope set before them (Hebrews 6:18), which representation implies great fear, and sense of danger preceding. To the like purpose, Christ is called a hiding place from the wind, and a covert from the tempest, and as rivers of water in a dry place, and as the shadow of a great rock in a weary land (Isaiah 32 at the beginning). And it seems to be the natural import of the word “gospel,” glad tidings, that it is news of deliverance and salvation, after great fear and distress. There is all reason to suppose, that God deals with particular believers, as he dealt with his church, which he first made to hear his voice in the Law, with terrible thunders and lightnings, and kept her under that schoolmaster, to prepare her for Christ; and then comforted her with the joyful sound of the gospel from Mount Zion. So likewise John the Baptist came to prepare the way for Christ, and prepare men’s hearts for his reception, by showing them their sins, and by bringing the self-righteous Jews off from their own righteousness, telling them that they were a generation of vipers, and showing them their danger of the wrath to come, telling them that the ax was laid at the root of the tree, etc.
And if it be indeed God’s manner (as I think the foregoing considerations show that it undoubtedly is) before he gives men the comfort of a deliverance from their sin and misery, to give them a considerable sense of the greatness and dreadfulness of those evils, and their extreme wretchedness by reason of them; surely it is not unreasonable to suppose, that persons, at least oftentimes, while under these views, should have great distress and terrible apprehensions of mind: especially if it be considered what these evils are, that they have a view of; which are no other than great and manifold sins, against the infinite majesty of the great Jehovah, and the suffering of the fierceness of his wrath to all eternity. And the more so still, when we have many plain instances in Scripture, of persons that have actually been brought into extreme distress, by such convictions, before they have received saving consolations: as the multitude at Jerusalem, who were pricked in their heart, and said unto Peter, and the rest of the apostles, “Men and brethren, what shall we do?” And the apostle Paul, who trembled and was astonished, before he was comforted; and the jailer, when he called for a light, and sprang in, and came trembling, and fell down before Paul and Silas, and said, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?”
From these things it appears to be very unreasonable in professing Christians, to make this an objection against the truth and spiritual nature of the comfortable and joyful affections which any have, that they follow such awful apprehensions and distresses, as have been mentioned.
Learning To Be Full Of Grace And Truth. 