Chapter 20. Applying The Soul To Spiritual Objects.
CHAPTER 20. APPLYING THE SOUL TO SPIRITUAL
OBJECTS.
III. HAVING considered the nature of spiritual affections as renewed by grace, and those notions of their objects under which they cling to them, it remains only that we inquire into the way of the soul's application of itself to those objects by its affections, which also belongs to being spiritually minded. I will give an account of this in a few particulars, with brief observations on them:
1. It is required that our adherence to all spiritual things with love and delight, be firm and stable. The affections are the powers and instruments of the soul, by which it makes application to anything outside itself, and clings to it. This is their nature and use with reference to things spiritual. Transient thoughts of spiritual things, with vanishing desires, may rise out of present convictions, as they did with those who cried out to our Savior, "Lord, give us this bread evermore," and immediately left him. Such occasional thoughts and desires are common to all sorts of men, even the worst of them: "Let me die the death of the righteous, and let my end be like his!" Num
23.10 Fading satisfaction, with joy and delight, often befall men in their attendance to the word, who yet never come to have it rooted in their hearts.
There are sundry things lacking for the sincerity of these affections:
(1.) Those in whom they are lacking, never had a clear spiritual view of the things themselves in their own nature which they pretend to be affected with.
(2.) They don't have a sincere love for them nor delight in them for their own sakes, but are only affected with some outward circumstances and concerns of them.
(3.) They don't find a suitableness in them to the ruling principles of their minds. They don't practically, and cannot truly say, "The yoke of Christ is easy, and his burden is light; his commandments are not grievous;" or, with the psalmist, "O how love I your law!"
(4.) Their affections are transient, unstable, vanishing as to their exercise and operations. They are on and off; now pleased and shortly displeased; earnest for a little while, and then cold and indifferent. Hence the things which they seem to affect have no
transforming efficacy upon their souls; they don't dwell in them in their power.
But where our affections for spiritual things are sincere, where they are the true, genuine application of the soul to them, and adherence to them, they are firm and stable; love and delight are kept up to such a constant exercise that it renders them immovable. This is what we are exhorted to in 1Cor 15.58, "Therefore, my beloved brethren, be steadfast, unmovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, for you know that your labor is not in vain in the Lord."
Transient affections, with their occasional operations, deceive multitudes. Oftentimes they are as pregnant in their actions as those that are most sincere; and they will produce many effects, in joys, mournings, and complaints, especially when excited by any outward affliction, sickness, and the like — but their goodness is like the early cloud or morning dew. Let none, therefore, please themselves with the operations of transient affections with respect to spiritual things, however urgent, or pleasant, or frequent in their returns. Those that are sincere are at all times firm and stable.
2. It is required that the soul finds a spiritual relish and savor in the things which it so adheres to. The affections are the palate of the soul, by which it tastes of all things which it receives or refuses, and it will not long cling to anything in which they don't find a savor and relish. Something was said earlier of that sweetness which is in spiritual things, and that the taste of them consists in a gracious sense of their suitableness to the affections, inclinations, and dispositions of the mind. Hence they have no relish to men of carnal minds. Whoever, therefore, would know whether his affections sincerely adhere to spiritual things, let him examine what relish, what sweetness, what savor he finds in them. When he is pleased with them, as the palate is pleased with suitable and proper food, when he finds that he receives nourishment by them in the inward man, then he adheres to them in a due manner.
This spiritual taste is the ground of all experience. It is not only what we have heard or understood, but what we have tried and tasted, of which we have experience. This makes us long for what we have formerly enjoyed, and strengthens faith as to what we pray for and expect.
In every darkness, in every dampening of spirit, under every apprehension of deadness, or the withdrawing of the sense of divine love, the soul knows what it wants, and what it desires. "Oh!" says such a one, "that it were now with me as in former days. I know that the One who then gave me such refreshing tastes of his own goodness, who made everything of himself sweet and pleasant to me, can renew this work of his grace towards me; he can give me a new spiritual appetite and relish; he can make all spiritual things savory to me again."
A man under a languishing sickness, or when he is chastened with strong pain, such that his soul abhors bread and his daily food, can remember what an appetite he had, and with what gusto and relish he usually took his food in the days of his health. This is what lets him know that there is such a condition, and gives him a desire to return to it. So it is with a sin-sick soul. He can find no relish, no gusto, no sweetness in spiritual things; he finds no savor in the bread of the word, nor any refreshment in the ordinances of the gospel, which in themselves remain daily food, "a feast of fat things, and of wine well refined." Isa 25.6 Yet it remembers former days, when all these things were sweet to him. And if he has any spark of spiritual life yet remaining, it will stir him up to seek with all diligence for a recovery. How is it with you who are now under spiritual decays, who find no taste or relish in spiritual things, to whom the word is not savory, nor are other ordinances powerful? Call to mind how it has been with you in former days, and what you found in these things.
The apostle says, "If you have tasted that the Lord is gracious." If you have not, it is to be feared that you haven't yet had the least sincere love for spiritual things; for where that is, it will give a spiritual relish of them. If you have tasted, then how is it you can give yourselves rest for even one moment, without an endeavor for the healing of your blacksliding?
3. It is required that our affections be so set on spiritual things as to be a continual spring of spiritual thoughts and meditations. No man can be so forsaken of reason as to suppose that he has any sincere affection for what he doesn't think about a little, or not at all, or that he can have a true affection for any thing which will not stir up and ingenerate in him continual thoughts about it. Let men test themselves as to their relations, or their enjoyments, or the objects of
their predominant lusts, and they will find how things are stated in their own minds. And therefore, though all men may pretend to love
God, and Christ, and the ways of God, and yet they know in their own hearts that they think or meditate upon them very little, both their pretense and their religion is vain. Where our affections are duly placed on heavenly things, such that we are indeed spiritually minded, they will be a constant spring of spiritual thoughts and meditations. But this also has been spoken to before.
4. When our affections are thus applied to spiritual things, they will be prevalent and victorious against solicitations to the contrary, or allurements to draw them away to any other objects. The work of all our spiritual adversaries is to solicit and tempt our affections, to divert them from their proper object. There are some temptations of Satan that make an immediate impression on the mind and conscience. Such are his injection of diabolical, blasphemous thoughts concerning God, his being, nature, and will — and the distresses which Satan reduces men to in their consciences through darkness and misrepresentations of God and his goodness. But the high road and constant practice of all our spiritual adversaries, is by the solicitation of our affections to objects that are — in themselves, or in the degree of our affection towards them — evil and sinful. Of the first kind are all sensual pleasures of the flesh, such as drunkenness, uncleanness, gluttony, chambering, and wantonness, with all sorts of sensual pleasures. Of the latter kind is all our inordinate love for self, our families, and the whole world, or the things of the world. To this end, everything in the whole world that may make provision for lust is made use of. In this consists the nature and efficacy of most of those temptations which we have to conflict with. They are solicitations of our affections, to draw them away from things spiritual and heavenly, and to divert them to other things. By this our enemies endeavor to beguile us, as the serpent beguiled Eve with fair and false representations of other beloveds, so that our hearts are not preserved as a chaste virgin in all their affections for Christ.
And it is almost incredible how apt we are to be beguiled by the specious pretenses with which we are solicited.
To suppose our affections, in the degree addressed — say of love for the world and the things of it — are lawful and allowable, is one of
the sophisms and artifices with which many are deluded. On this supposition, provided that our affections don't run into scandalous excesses, they approve of themselves in such a worldly frame of mind, and acting according to it, that it renders them fruitless, useless, and senseless. And it is inconsistent with that prevailing adherence of affections to spiritual things that ought to be in us.
Others are deluded by a pretense that it is only in this one instance they want to be spared; it is but to this or that object they would give the embraces of their affections, but in all other things they will be entire for God. We spoke to the vanity of this pretense before. Others are ruined by giving way to their solicitations with respect to any one affection; suppose it is that of fear. In times of danger for their profession, multitudes have lost all their affection for spiritual things through a fear of losing what is temporal, such as their lives, their liberties, their goods, and the like. Once Satan and the world have gotten, as it were, the mastery of this affection, or a prevalent interest in it, they will not fail to draw all others into a defection from Christ and the gospel. "He that loves his life shall lose it." Joh 12.25
Therefore, it is no ordinary or easy thing to preserve our affections pure, entire, and steady, in their vigorous adherence to spiritual things, against all these solicitations. Watchfulness, prayer, faith in exercise, and a daily examination of ourselves, are required for it. For lack of a due attendance to these things, and with respect to this end
— namely, the preservation of our spiritual affections in their integrity — many, even before they are aware, die away as to all power and vigor of spiritual life.
5. Affections thus fixed upon things spiritual and heavenly will give great relief against the remainders of that vanity of mind with which believers themselves are oftentimes perplexed. Indeed, I don't know any thing that is a greater burden to them, nor which they more groan for deliverance from. The instability of the mind, its readiness to receive impressions from things that are vain and useless, the irregularity of their thoughts, are a continual burden to many. Nothing can give the soul any relief in this, nothing can give bounds to the endless variety of foolish imaginations, nothing can dry up the springs from which they arise, or render the soil in which they grow, barren as to their production and maintenance — except the growth of spiritual affections, with their continual vigorous
actings on heavenly things. For by this, the heart and mind will be so united to them (as the psalmist prays for, Psa 86.11),143 that they will not be ready to depart from them, and entertain vain, empty, foolish imaginations. Thoughts of other things, greater and better than what this world can contain, will be continually arising in the mind, not to be laid aside by any solicitations of vanity. For the one who is wise cannot help but know and consider that the spiritual things which it exercises its thoughts about have substance in them; they are durable, profitable, and always the same; that the advantage, peace, rest, riches, and reward of the soul lies in them — but other imaginations which the foolish mind is apt to entertain, are vain, empty, fruitless, and such that end in shame and trouble.
Again, the vanity of the mind that indulges foolish imaginations, arises from or is animated and increased by that gusto and relish which it finds in earthly things and the enjoyment of them, whether lawful or unlawful. Hence on all occasions, even in holy duties, it will be ready to turn aside and take a taste of them, and sometimes take up with them. It's like a tippling traveler who, though engaged in a journey on the most earnest occasion, cannot help but imbibe here and there as he passes by. And maybe at length, before he comes to his journey's end, he lodges himself in a nasty alehouse. When men are engaged in important duties, and yet they always carry with them a strong gusto and relish for earthly things, they'll divert to them sooner or later in their thoughts, either to those real objects they are accustomed to; or to whatever present circumstances minister to their corrupt affections; or to what they fancy and create in their own minds. Sometimes, it may be, after they have made a few short visits, they take up with them, and wholly lose the work they were engaged in. As said earlier, nothing will give relief in this, except the vigorous and constant exercise of our affections on heavenly things. For this will insensibly reduce that gusto and relish which the mind has found in things present, earthly, and sensual, and make them like a sapless thing to the whole soul. They will so place the cross of Christ, in particular, on the heart, that the world will be crucified to it, losing all that brightness, beauty, and savor which it made use of to solicit our minds to thoughts and desires about it.
Moreover, this frame of spirit alone will keep us on our watch against all those ways and means by which the vanity of the mind is excited
and maintained. Such are the wandering and roving of the outward senses. The senses, especially the eyes, are ready to become purveyors to make provision for the vanity and lusts of the mind.
Hence the psalmist prays, "Turn away my eyes from beholding vanity." Psa 119.37 If the eyes rove after vain objects, the mind will ruminate upon them. And another affirms that he had "made a covenant with his eyes," Job 31.1 to preserve them from fixing on those objects that might solicit lust or corrupt affections. And it would be a useful labor, if this place allowed for it, to reveal the ready serviceableness of the outward senses and members of the body to sin and folly, if not watched against, Rom 6.13,19.144 Of the same nature is the incessant working of the fancy and imagination, which of itself is evil continually and all day long. This is the food of a vain mind, and the vehicle or means of conveyance for all temptations from Satan and the world. Besides, sundry occasions of life and conversation are usually turned or abused to the same end, exciting and exercising the vanity of the mind. Wherever our affections are fixed on spiritual things, our mind will constantly be under a warning or charge to keep diligent watch against all those things by which that vanity is maintained and excited, which it so abhors, and which it is so burdened with. Nor will a work of mortification ever be carried on in the soul, without this prevalence in the mind, Col 3.2, 4,
5.145