True Religion Consists in Holy Affections

Whom having not seen, ye love; in whom, though now ye see him not, yet believing, ye rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory. 1 PETER 1:8

In 1746, with the Great Awakening behind him and its wreckage plainly visible, Edwards published A Treatise Concerning Religious Affections. It is his masterpiece, and it was written by a man who had watched thousands profess conversion and had lived long enough to see how many of them lasted. Its opening thesis is deceptively simple: true religion consists, in great part, in holy affections.

What he meant by affections

Everything depends on getting this word right, and modern English makes it difficult. By affections Edwards did not mean emotions in our sense — moods, feelings, the weather of the inner life. He meant the vigorous inclinations of the soul: the settled loves and hatreds, longings and aversions, by which a person is actually moved. An affection is what you are inclined towards with your whole self. He distinguished these carefully from what he called the passions, which are more sudden, more bodily, and more likely to overwhelm. Passions come and go. Affections direct a life. The claim, then, is not that religion consists in having strong feelings during worship. It is that religion consists in the heart being genuinely inclined towards God — and that where this inclination is absent, whatever else is present is not saving faith.

And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might. DEUTERONOMY 6:5

Against two errors at once

Edwards was writing between two parties, and the treatise attacks both. On one side stood those who concluded from the excesses of the revival that emotion in religion is inherently suspect — that the safe course is doctrine soberly held and duty quietly performed. Edwards regarded this as a catastrophic misreading of Scripture. The Bible commands love, joy, hope, godly sorrow, zeal, hunger and thirst. A religion that never engages the affections is not more spiritual than one that does; it is dead.

Not slothful in business; fervent in spirit; serving the Lord. ROMANS 12:11

So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of my mouth. REVELATION 3:16

On the other side stood those who took any strong religious feeling as evidence of grace — who counted tears, ecstasies and dramatic experiences as proof. Edwards regarded this as equally disastrous, and the bulk of the treatise is devoted to dismantling it. His position is that the presence of strong affections proves nothing by itself, and their absence proves a great deal. Feeling is necessary but not sufficient. That is a harder line to hold than either extreme, and it is why the book satisfied neither party.

Why the heart is the issue

Behind this lies Edwards’s whole anthropology. He did not believe that the will is moved by reason alone. Knowledge that leaves the heart cold changes nothing — we all know a great many true things we do not act on. What actually moves a person is what he loves. The affections are therefore not a decorative addition to the Christian life; they are its engine. This is why a merely intellectual conversion is not conversion. A man may revise his opinions about God without his loves being touched at all, and he will remain exactly the person he was, better informed. And it explains the direction of Edwards’s whole ministry. If the heart follows what it finds beautiful, then the preacher’s task is not principally to inform or to persuade but to display — to hold up Christ until the affections move.

There is a diagnostic question here that is worth carrying about. Not: do you believe the right things? Many do who are unchanged. Not: do you feel strongly in church? Many do who are unchanged. But: what do you love? What genuinely delights you, grieves you, occupies you when nothing requires it? Those answers, Edwards thought, are the truest map of a soul that exists.

How much of Scripture is affection

Edwards supported his thesis by an argument from sheer volume, and it is worth following, because it is difficult to answer. Consider how much of what Scripture commands is an affection rather than an action.

We are commanded to love God and neighbour, which the Lord Himself identified as the greatest commandments. We are commanded to fear God, to hope in Him, to rejoice in Him always, to hunger and thirst after righteousness, to delight in His law, to be zealous of good works, to be fervent in spirit, to have compassion on the afflicted, to hate evil, to mourn over sin, to be thankful in everything, to long for the appearing of Christ. Every one of those is a state of the heart. None can be produced by decision alone, and none can be faked for long.

My soul thirsteth for God, for the living God: when shall I come and appear before God? PSALM 42:2

Now consider the saints themselves. The Psalms, which are the church’s prayerbook, are almost entirely affection — longing, grief, exultation, dread, gratitude, rage at injustice. David dances. Jeremiah weeps. Paul is willing to be accursed for his kinsmen. The Lord Jesus weeps at a grave, is moved with compassion, rejoices in spirit, is grieved at hardness of heart, and sweats in agony in a garden.

Jesus wept. JOHN 11:35

Edwards’s conclusion was that a religion which engages the intellect and the will while leaving the affections untouched bears no resemblance to the religion described in the Bible. Whatever such a thing is, it is not what Scripture is talking about. He added one further observation, and it disposes of a common objection. People sometimes plead temperament — that they are simply not emotional by nature, and that their faith is quieter than others’. Edwards allowed for real differences of constitution. But he noticed that the same people who report themselves incapable of strong feeling in religion are frequently capable of considerable passion about money, politics, reputation, sport or family. The affections are working. The question is what they are attached to.

FOR REFLECTION AND ACTION

1. Ask what you actually delight in, as distinct from what you approve of. The gap between those two lists is the honest measure of your heart. 2. If your faith has become entirely cerebral, admit it. Ask God to move your affections, not merely to inform your mind.

3. If your faith runs on experiences, admit that too, and start testing them by the marks in the next chapters. 4. Notice what grieves you this week. Are you troubled by the things that grieve God, or only by the things that inconvenience you? 5. Spend time deliberately beholding Christ rather than analysing yourself. The affections follow the gaze.

A PRAYER

Lord, I have held true things about You without loving You, and I have felt strongly in Your presence without being changed.

Deliver me from a religion of the head that never reaches the heart, and from a religion of the feelings that never reaches the life.

Give me holy affections — real love for what You love, real grief over what grieves You, real longing for Your presence when nothing compels me.

Show me Christ until my heart moves. Amen.