Jonathan Edwards on the Religious Affections: Part 2
Conversion and Religion in the False Signs
As a matter of Edwardsian grammar, the word used synonymously with “true” and “spiritual” to describe the affections in one who is born again is the word gracious. He begins by clearing ground, first by what constitutes “non-signs,” or in other words, the false. There are twelve in all. We must understand that Edwards is not saying that what is present here is absent in the genuine article. It is simply that, while these may be necessary conditions of a gracious work of the Spirit, they are not sufficient conditions. We see the importance of this distinction in the first “non-sign.” That affections are very great or raised very high is no sign. On the other hand, the “height” of the experience is not to blame. After all, who would say that his affections like love, humility, or zeal for God are high enough? Even so, the Scriptures remain our infallible rule of judgment; not the intensity of the feeling. Likewise it is no sure sign that those have a great affect on the body (second non-sign); nor that there is much fervent religious talk (third non-sign); nor that excitement came from some unknown source (fourth non-sign), nor that these come to mind in a remarkable manner from Scripture texts (fifth non-sign).
Note that what is true about individual conversion in the heart will also tend to be true of right religious practice working outward into the whole church. Non-signs six, nine, and eleven seem to evidence a heart that is heavenly-minded. That is, love abounding, zeal in religious duties, and confidence to approach God. However, every one of these has a counterfeit. In each of these, we may ask whether or not Satan could produce the same, or whether mere nature itself could not do exactly the same. While love is “the chief of the graces of God’s Spirit,” yet, “the more excellent any this is, the more will be the counterfeits of it.”
Of the ones not yet treated, there is a complexity. What of the person who manages to evidence many of these signs together? This was non-sign seven. Similarly, in non-sign eight, the fruit of joy following comforts was conceived as a kind of clear spiritual pattern. What do we make of these clusters and seemingly proper ordering of signs? Both would seem to get us closer in appearance to a true Christian. However, Edwards argues that it is common that “when false affections are raised high, many of them attend each other.” They excite each other, especially if the false love is among them (being the chief fruit). “As from true divine love flow all Christian affections, so from counterfeit love naturally flow other false affections. In both cases, love is the fountain, and the other affections are the streams … So that the channels and streams will be alike, corresponding one with another; but the great difference will lie in the nature of the water.” In other words, there are two summary and distinguishing characteristics we can mention about the false signs: (1) While all these are necessary conditions for a genuine Christian, yet none are sufficient in themselves; (2) They are of a carnal nature, aimed at temporal objects, as will be even more clearly seen in contrast to what he says about the true. This second qualifier is actually indispensable for rightly interpreting the first. We might think of Edwards’ sermon A Divine and Supernatural Light, in which he stressed how the grace imparted directly to the soul by God was not any accumulation of natural principles.
Finally non-signs ten and twelve move even further outside of one’s subjectivity to the praise of God and others’ praise of the Christian. These make the greatest claims of objective testimony. In all of this Edwards does caution the reader to leave room for judgment of charity.
Conversion and Religion in the True Signs
The largest section of the book is Section III. Here Edwards offers fourteen characteristics of truly gracious affections, summarized as follows. They are: 1. spiritual (not natural); 2. grounded in the amiable nature of divine things in themselves; 3. a love of the beauty and sweetness of God’s moral excellencies; 4. following the mind’s being enlightened spiritually to the same; 5. with a conviction of their reality and certainty; 6. attended with evangelical humiliation; 7. and a change of nature; 8. begetting and promoting Christ’s spirit of love, meekness, quietness, forgiveness, and mercy; 9. softening the heart to a Christian tenderness of spirit; 10. exhibiting a beautiful symmetry and proportion with Christ’s image; 11. increasing in hunger for more; 12. having their exercise and fruit in Christian practice; 13. manifesting as a sign to one’s Christian brethren; and 14. a Christian practice that Edwards called the surest sign of conversion to oneself and others.
We must keep in mind, Edwards warns, that these are not given to infallibly know. We cannot have such certainty about the state of others. Why care then? It is simply that these have a practical aim: “to judge of those professors of religion, with whom they are concerned, so far as is necessary for their own safety, and to prevent their being led into a snare by false teachers, and false pretenders to religion.” If there is central principle of this new nature it is, “The grace which is in the hearts of the saints, is of the same nature with the divine holiness, though infinitely less in degree; as the brightness in a diamond which the sun shines upon, is of the same nature with the brightness of the sun, but only that it is nothing to it in degree.” In speaking of this holiness, what is beheld and treasured is “the moral excellency” of God, and that regarded as an intrinsic “loveliness” or sweetness of the soul. It is esteemed in its own right and not on account of its benefit to oneself.
From this common spiritual thread, Edwards shows five basic ways that the affections are necessary to true religion: (1) by divine requirement; (2) by a necessity of practical action; (3) by the example of Christ, the saints, and those in heaven; (4) by the nature of ordinances and duties; (5) by the contrast between the living and the dead.
First, God requires the affections in true religion. He appeals to Romans 12:11 and Deuteronomy 10:12, 6:4-5, and 30:6. God requires the whole heart, and this is because “The things of religion are so great.” It is the strength of who God is, outside of us, and not any intrinsic value to our experience or feeling that makes this true.
Second, as to practical action. We should set this in the context of that final true sign (No. 14), which Edwards called the “surest sign,” since it is evident both to ourselves and to all others. Although there is a caveat here. God looks more at the soul of obedience than the body, as the external can move to the rhythm of human applause. Yet externals are still extensions of the will, and so “out of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaks” (Lk. 6:45), or else, “every healthy tree bears good fruit, but the diseased tree bears bad fruit. (Mat. 7:17).
Third, to some degree, the petition that things be “on earth as they are in heaven” (Mat. 6:10) must put our religious expectations where our prayers are. Of heaven, he says, this is religion “in its utmost purity and perfection.” That is because from the perfection of a thing is found its essence. As to the fruition of that worship on earth, “The knowledge which the saints have of God’s beauty and glory in this world, and those holy affections that arise from it, are of the same nature and kind with what the saints are the subjects of in heaven, differing only in degree and circumstance.” And “they are very bold and daring, who will say that God cannot, or shall not, give the like affecting apprehensions of the same real glory of his nature to none of his saints, without the intervention of such external shadows.”
Now as to the duties and ordinances of religion, take prayer for example. Are we inclining God’s heart one way or the other? Not at all, but there is certainly a motion of our own hearts. The same is the case with singing, sacraments, and sermons. Our part in them is to be affected. By their sensible qualities they are designed to make a gracious impress upon us for the excitement of certain affections. “In nothing is vigor in the actings of our inclinations so requisite, as in religion; and in nothing is lukewarmness so odious.”
Finally, we can see all this in the frequent biblical contrast between the living and the dead. The Scriptures call the chief sin of the heart that hardness of heart. “Now, by a hard heart is plainly meant an unaffected heart, or a heart not easy to be moved with virtuous affections, like a stone, insensible, stupid, unmoved, and hard to be impressed.” Edwards anticipates the objection that affection per se does not evidence a “tender heart,” but the contrasting expressions are meant to set in opposition certain affections from others.
Concluding Applications for the Church Today
Martyn Lloyd-Jones made an observation, both delightful and true, about how Edwards’ reflections on these matters compares with a New Englander from over a century later, William James. To move from the former to read the latter is “like turning from a solid book to a paper-back.” This can also be observed in the comparison of Edwards on this subject to any author today, even of more orthodox standing than a pragmatist such as James.
Indeed, the possession of orthodoxy has guaranteed no infallible capacities for sounding the depths of religious experience. The critics of having any affections must be wrong. “They who condemn high affections in others, are certainly not likely to have high affections themselves … [and] they who have but little religious affection, have certainly but little religion.” On the other hand, the enthusiasts who exalt feeling for its strength are equally wrong. There can be no question that these two extreme errors have never really left the Evangelical church.
What other lessons are there for us today? It is easy to fixate on the corrective against Charismatic and other forms of experientialism. What may be less obvious is the application of Edwards to antinomianism and decisional regeneration. Antinomianism there has always been, but a kind of knee-jerk fixation abounds in our day whenever a Reformed teacher emphasizes the necessity of having Christ either as Lord or as Treasure, or of either internal affections or external works “necessarily” following justification. Of course to speak of necessities of fruit is not to contradict the doctrine of sola fide, and Edwards was quite clear about those evidences which “our Supreme Judge will chiefly use, when we come to stand before him.” A moment’s reflection ought to show us that a necessity of affections is no more or less problematic than a necessity of outward actions. Neither add an ounce to the scales of justification, but each does belong properly to sanctification.
Beyond such debates among the New Calvinists, the many false converts resulting from “decisional regeneration” and the Invitation System could also stand the rebuke of Edwards’ logic. For true affections of the sort he analyzed were no sentimental or subjective experience of one’s own personal Jesus. They were of a solid heavenly substance. They were the kind that could endure suffering. The place of holiness in particular sets this conception of affections completely apart from what contemporary Evangelicals tend to think about the object of religious feeling.
