Chapter 12. What Is Required To Make Our Affections Spiritual.
CHAPTER 12. WHAT IS REQUIRED TO MAKE OUR
AFFECTIONS SPIRITUAL.
What is required in and to our affections, so that they may be spiritual — A three-fold work on the affections is described.
TO declare the interest of our affections in this frame of being spiritually minded, and what they contribute to it, I will do these three things: — First, Declare what is required that our affections may be spiritual, in which lies the foundation of the whole duty; secondly, What are their actings when they are spiritual; thirdly,
What are the means by which they may be kept and preserved in that frame; with sundry other things of like nature.
How our affections are concerned in or belong to the frame of mind inquired about, was declared before. Without spiritual affections we cannot be spiritually minded. And that our affections may be spiritual, three things are required:
I. Their principle; II. Their object; III. The way and manner of their application to their proper object by virtue of that principle.
I. As to the principle acting in them, so that our affections may be spiritual and the spring of our being spiritually minded, it is required that they be changed, renewed, and inlaid with grace, spiritual and supernatural. To clear the sense of this, we must consider a little what is their state by nature, and then by what means they may be worked on as to a change or renovation. For they are like some things which in themselves and their own nature are poisonous; but being corrected, and receiving a due temperament from a mixture of other ingredients, they become medicinal and of excellent use.
By nature our affections, all of them, are depraved and corrupted.
Nothing in the whole nature of man, no power or faculty of the soul, has fallen under greater disorder and depravation by the entrance of sin, than our affections. In and by them the heart is wholly gone and turned away from God, Tit 3.3.85 It would be a long work to set forth this depravation of our affections, nor does it belong to our present design. I will briefly observe a few things concerning it, to make way for what is proposed concerning their change:
1. This depravation of our affections by the fall, is the only corruption of our nature that is evident to reason, or to the light of nature itself.
The wise among the heathen both saw it, and complained of it. They found a weakness in the mind, but saw nothing of its darkness and depravation as to things spiritual. But they were sensible enough of this disorder and tumult of the affections in things moral, which renders the minds of men "like the troubled sea, whose waters cast up mire and dirt." Isa 57.20 This greatly aggravates the neglect of those who aren't sensible of it in themselves, because it is discernible in the light of nature.
2. The affections, as depraved, are the seat and subject of all lusts, both of the flesh and of the spirit; indeed, lust or evil concupiscence is nothing but the irregular motion and acting of our affections as depraved, defiled, and corrupted, Rom 7.8.86 Hence no sin can be mortified without a change wrought in the affections.
3. Affections are the spring, root, and cause of all actual sin in the world, Mat 15:19. The "evil heart," in the Scripture, is the corrupt affections of it, with the imaginations of the mind, by which they are excited and acted, Gen 6.5. 87 At this time, these are what fill the whole world with wickedness, darkness, confusion, and terror; and we may learn what is their force and efficacy from these effects. So the nature of the plague is most evident when we see thousands dying of it every week.
4. Affections are the way and means by which the soul applies itself to all sinful objects and actings. Hence they are called our
"members,'' our "earthly members;" because as the body applies itself to its operations by its members, so the soul applies itself to what belongs to it by its affections, Rom 6.13; Col 3.5. 88
5. They will not be under the conduct of the mind, its light or convictions. Rebellion against the light of the mind is the very form by which their corruption conducts itself, Job 24.13.89 Let the apprehensions of the mind and its notions of good and evil be what they will, affections reject them, and lead the soul in pursuit of their inclinations. Hence, no natural man may in any measure answer the light of his mind, or the convictions of his understanding; rather, he sees and approves of "better things," following those that are worse.
There is no greater spiritual judgment than for men to be given up to themselves and their own evil affections, Rom 1.26. 90
Many other instances might be given of the greatness of that depravation which our affections are fallen under by sin; these may suffice for our present purpose.
In general, this depravation of our affections by nature may be reduced to two heads:
1. An utter aversion to God and all spiritual things. In this lies the spring of all that dislike of God and his ways that the hearts of men are filled with; indeed, they not only produce an aversion to them and a dislike of them, but they fill the mind with an enmity against them. Therefore men say in their hearts to God, "Depart from us; for we don't desire the knowledge of your ways. What is the Almighty, that we should serve him? and what profit would we have, if we pray to him?" Job 21.14,15. See Rom 1.28, 8:7. 91
2. An inordinate clinging to things vain, earthly, and sensual, causing the soul to engage in the pursuit of them, as the horse rushes into battle. Jer 8.6
While our affections are in this state and condition, we are far from being spiritually minded, nor is it possible to engage them in an adherence to or delight in spiritual things. In this state they may be wrought upon in two ways, and yet not be so renewed as to be serviceable to this end:
1. There may be various temporary impressions made on them.
Sometimes this is done by the preaching of the word. Upon this, men may hear it with joy, and do many things gladly. Sometimes it is done by judgments, dangers, sicknesses, apprehensions of the approach of death, Psa 128.35-37. For a time, these things take men away from their greedy delight in earthly things, and the pursuit of the interest of lust in making provision for the flesh. On many other occasions, from a great variety of causes, there may be temporary impressions made on the affections, that seem for a time to have turned the stream of them. And upon that, we have many who on any given day will be wholly for God, as it were — resolved to forsake sin and all its pleasures . But the next day they return to all their former excesses. For this is the effect of those impressions: that ordinarily
men are predominantly acted (motivated) by love, desire, and delight, which lead them to act according to the true natural principles of the soul, but now for a time they are acted by fear and dread, which put a kind of force on all their inclinations. Upon this, for a time they have other thoughts of good and evil, of things eternal and temporal, of God and their own duty. And then some of them may and do persuade themselves there is a change in their hearts and affections, which there is not. It's like a man who persuades himself that he has lost his fever because his present fit is over. The next trial of temptation carries them away again, to the world and sin.
Sometimes there are sudden impressions made on our spiritual affections, which are always of great advantage to the soul, renewing its engagements to God and duty. So it was with Jacob, in Gen 28.1620; so it often is with believers in hearing the word, and on other occasions. On all of them, they renew their clingings to God, with love and delight. But the effect of these impressions on unrenewed affections, are neither spiritual nor durable. Indeed, they are for the most part, but checks given to the raging of their lusts, in the providence of God, Psa 9:20.
2. They are liable to a habitual change. The experience of all ages gives testimony to this. There may be a habitual change wrought in the passions and affections of the mind, as to the inordinate and violent pursuit of their inclinations, without any gracious renovation of them. Education, philosophy, or reason, long afflictions, spiritual light and gifts, have wrought this change. So Saul, upon his call to be king, became "another man." Persons who are naturally passionate and furious, have been made sedate and moderate by this; and those who have been sensual have become temperate; yes, and haters of religion come to be professors of it. All these things, and many more of like nature, have proceeded from a change wrought upon the affections only, while the mind, will, and conscience, have been totally unsanctified.
When it is alone, no man ever became spiritually minded by this change; for there are two parts of the depravation of our affections: that by which they are turned away from God, and that by which they inordinately cling to other things. Their change principally, if not only, respects the latter. They are brought into some order with
respect to present things. The mind is not continually tossed up and down by them like the waves of the troubled sea, which cast up mire and dirt. Changed affections don't carry those in whom they occur, into vicious, sensual actions; rather, they allow them to show virtue in moderation, sobriety, temperance, fidelity, and usefulness in several ways, to be their design. It is admirable to think what degrees of eminency in all sorts of moral virtues even many among the heathens attained, upon this one principle of moderating the affections. But as to their aversion to God and spiritual things, in the true spiritual notion of them, they are not cured by this change; or at least, this change may exist, and yet this latter effect not be wrought.
Again; this alteration only turns the course or stream of men's affections; it doesn't change their nature. They are the same in their spring and fountain as they ever were; only they are habituated to another course than what they are inclined to of themselves. You may take a young whelp of the fiercest and most savage creature, like a tiger or a wolf, and by custom or usage make it as tame and harmless as any domestic creature — a dog, or the like. But although it may be turned into quite another way or course of acting than what it was inclined to of itself, yet its nature is not changed. And therefore frequently, on some occasion, opportunity, or provocation, it will fall into its own savage inclination; and having tasted of the blood of creatures, it will never be reclaimed. So it is with the depraved affections of men with respect to their change. Their streams are turned, they are habituated to a new course; but their nature is not altered, at least not from rational to spiritual, from earthly to heavenly. Yet this is what was most beautiful and desirable in nature — the glory of it, and the utmost of its attainments.
Whoever has by any means proceeded to such a moderation of his affections as to render him kind, benign, patient, useful, preferring public good before private, ordinate and temperate in all things, will rise up in judgment against those who, professing themselves to be under the conduct of the light of grace, are yet morose, angry, selfish, and worldly. They manifest that their affections are not subdued by the power of that grace. Therefore, to be spiritually minded, there is yet another work required upon our affections, which is their internal renovation, by which not only the course of their actings is
changed, but their nature is altered and spiritually renewed. I intend that which is expressed in this great evangelical promise:
Isa 11.6-9, "The wolf shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together; and a little child shall lead them. And the cow and the bear shall feed; their young ones shall lie down together: and the lion shall eat straw like the ox. And the sucking child shall play on the hole of the asp, and the weaned child shall put his hand on the cockatrice' den.92 They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain."
A change and alteration is promised in the natures, principles, and first inclinations of the worst and most savage sinners who pass under the power of gospel grace.
This is what is required of us in a way of duty: Eph 4.23, "Be renewed in the spirit of your mind." There is a renovation of the mind itself, by the communication of spiritual, saving light and understanding to it, which I treated elsewhere at large. (See Rom 12.2; Eph 1.17,18).93
But "the spirit of the mind" — that by which it is enlivened, led, and disposed to its actings — that is to be renewed also. "The spirit of the mind" in this place, is opposed to "the old man, which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts," or depraved affections, Eph 4.22.
These affections, therefore, are that "spirit of the mind" which inclines, bends, and leads it to act suitably toward its inclinations, which is what it means to be renewed. And when our affections are inclined by the saving grace of the Holy Spirit, then they are renewed, and not otherwise. No other change will give them a spiritual renovation. By this renewal, those things which are only natural affections in themselves, become fruits of the Spirit in those who believe: Gal 5.22,23, "The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace," etc. They continue the same as they were in their essence, substance, and natural powers; but they are changed in their properties, qualities, and inclinations, whenever a new nature is given to them.
So the waters at Marah were still the same waters before and after their cure. But of themselves, and in their own nature, they were bitter, such that the people could not drink them. Upon casting a tree into them, they were made sweet and useful, Exo 15:25. So it was with the waters of Jericho, which were cured by casting salt into
them, 2Kng 2:19-22. Our affections continue the same as they were in their nature and essence; but they are so cured by grace, that their properties, qualities, and inclinations, are all cleansed or renewed.
The tree or salt that is cast into these waters, by which the cure is wrought, is the love of God above all, proceeding from faith in Him by Christ Jesus.