Sabbath Quiet: The Heart And Its Affections

The heart has its reasons which reason knows not. ~Blaise Pascal

The Heart And Its Affections: by Jonathan Edward

The nature of human beings is to be inactive unless influenced by some affection: love or hatred, desire, hope, fear, etc. These affections are the “spring of action,” the things that set us moving in our lives, that move us to engage in activities.

When we look at the world, we see that people are exceedingly busy. It is their affections that keep them busy. If we were to take away their affections, the world would be motionless and dead; there would be no such thing as activity.

It is the affection we call covetousness that moves a person to seek worldly profits; it is the affection we call ambition that moves a person to pursue worldly glory; it is the affection we call lust that moves a person to pursue sensual delights.

Just as worldly affections are the spring of worldly actions, so the religious affections are the spring of religious actions.

A person who has knowledge of doctrine and theology only–without religious affection–has never engaged in true religion. Nothing is more apparent than this: our religion takes root within us only as deep as our affections attract it.

There are thousands who hear the Word of God, who hear great and exceedingly important truths about themselves and their lives, and yet all they hear has no effect upon them, makes no change in the way they live….

No one ever seeks salvation, no one ever cries for wisdom, no one ever wrestles with God, no one ever kneels in prayer or flees from sin, with a heart that remains unaffected.

Jonathan Edwards (1703-1758)

Can God be found in the deepest affections of your heart?

Photograph, Lands End, San Francisco by Melanie Hunt