Chapter 20

HAving considered the nature of Spiritual Affections as renewed by Grace, and those Notions of their Objects under which they cleave to them, it remains only that we inquire into the way of the Souls Application of it self to those Objects by its Affections, which belong also to our being Spiritually-Minded. And I shall give an account hereof in some few particulars, with brief Observations on them.

First, 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 whereby it makes Application to any thing without it self, and cleaves 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 them who cryed out to our Savior, Lord give us evermore of this Bread, and immediately left him. Such Occasional Thoughts and Desires are common to all sorts of Men, yea, the worst of them, let me die the Death of the Righteous, and let my End be as his. Fading Satisfaction with joy and delight, do often befall men in their Attendance on the Word, who yet never come to have it rooted in their Hearts.

There are sundry things wanting to the sincerity of these Affections.

(1) Those in whom they are, never had a clear Spiritual view of the things themselves, in their own Nature which they pretend to be affected withal.

(2) They have not a sincere Love to them, and delight in them, for their own sakes, but are only affected with some outward Circumstances and Concernments of them.

(3) They find not a suitableness in them to the ruling Principles of their Minds. They do not practically, they cannot truely say, the Yoke of Christ is easy, and his Burden is light; his Commandments are not grievous; or with the Psalmist, Oh! how do I love your Law.

(4) Their Affections are transient, unstable, vanishing, as to their Exercise and Operations. They are on and off, now pleased, and anon displeased; earnest for a little while, and then cold and indifferent. Hence the things which they seem to effect, have no transforming Efficacy upon their Souls; they dwell not in them, in their Power.

But where our Affections to Spiritual things are sincere, where they are the true genuine Application of the Soul, and adherence to them, they are firm and stable; Love and Delight are kept up to such a constant Exercise, as renders them immoveable, this is that which we are exhorted to, 1 Cor. 15, 58. Therefore my beloved Brethren, be ye steadfast, unmoveable, always abounding in the Work of the Lord, forasmuch as you know that your Labor is not in vain in the Lord. Transient Affections with their occasional Operations, deceive Multitudes, oft times they are pregnant in their Actings, as those that are most sincere: and many Effects in Joys, in Mournings, in Complaints, they will produce, 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, be they never so urgent, or so pleasant, or so frequent in their returns; those that are sincere, are at all times firm and stable.

(2) That the Soul do find a Spiritual Relish and Savour in the things which it so adheres to. The Affections are the Palate of the Soul, whereby it tasts of all things which it receivs or refuss; and it will not long cleave to any thing which they find not a Savour and Relish in. Something was spoken before of that Sweetness which is in Spiritual things; and the tast 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 do sincerely adhere to Spiritual things, let him examine what Relish, what Sweetness, what Savour he finds in them. When he is pleased with them as the Palate with suitable and proper Food, when he finds that he receives Nourishment by them in the inward man; then does he adhere to them in a due manner.

This Spiritual Tast is the Ground of all Experience, it is not what we have heard or understood only, but what we have tryed and tasted, whereof 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 damp of Spirit, under every apprehension of Dreadness, or the withdrawing of the sense of Divine Love, the Soul knows what it wants, and what it does desire. Oh! saith such an one, that it were now with me as in former dayes; I know he who then gave me such refreshing Tasts of his own Goodness, who made every thing 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, and he can make all Spiritual things Savoury to me again.

As a man under a Languishing Sickness, or when he is chastened with strong pain, so as that his Soul abhorrs Bread, and his dayly Meat; can remember what Appetite he had, with what Gust and Relish he was wont to take in his Food in the dayes of his Health, which makes him to know that there is such a Condition, and to desire a return to it: So is it with a Sin sick Soul; It can find no relish, no gust, no sweetness in Spiritual things; He finds no Savour in the Bread of the Word, nor any refreshment in the Ordinances of the Gospel, which yet in themselves are dayly Meat, a Feast of fat things, and of Wine well refined. Yet does it remember former Days, when all these things were sweet to him. And if he have any spark of Spiritual Life yet remaining, it will stir him up to seek with all diligence after a Recovery. How is it with you who are now under Spiritual Decays; who find no Tast nor Relish in Spiritual things; to whom the Word is not savoury, nor other Ordinances powerful? call to mind how it has been with you in former dayes; and what ye found in these things; if so be, saith the Apostle, that you have tasted that the Lord is gracious. If you have not, it is to be feared that you have never yet had the least sincere Love to Spiritual things; for where that is, it will give a Spiritual Relish of them. If you have, how is it you can give your selves Rest one Moment, without an Endeavor after the healing of your backsliding.

(3) It is required that our Affections be so set on Spiritual things, so 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 affections for what he thinks little on, 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 try 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 whereas all men pretend to love God and Christ, and the ways of God, and yet know in their own Hearts, that they little think of them, or meditate upon them, both their Pretence and Religion is vain. Where our Affections are duely placed on Heavenly things, so as that we are indeed Spiritually Minded, they will be a constant Spring of Spiritual Thoughts and Meditation. But this also has been before spoken to.

Fourthly, When our Affections are thus applyed to Spiritual things, they will be prevalent and victorious against Solicitations to the contrary, or Allurements to draw them off to any other Objects. The work of all our Spiritual Adversaries, is to sollicite 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 he reducs 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 Affections towards them, evil and sinful. Of the first, are all sensual Pleasures of the Flesh, in Drunkenness, Uncleanness, Gluttony, Chambering, and Wantonness, with all sorts of Sensual Pleasures. Of the latter is all our inordinate Love to Self, our Families, and the whole World, or the things of it. Unto this end, every thing in the whole World, that may make Provision for Lust, is made use of. Herein consists the nature and efficacy of most of those Temptations which we have to conflict withal. Solicitations they are of our Affections to draw them off from things Spiritual and Heavenly, and to divert them to other things. Hereby do our Enemies endeavor to beguile us, as the Serpent beguiled Eve; with fair and false Representations of other Beloveds, that our hearts be not preserved, as a chast Virgin, in all their Affections for Christ.

And it is almost incredible how apt we are to be beguiled by the specious Pretences wherewith we are sollicited.

That our Affections in the Degree treated about, suppose of Love to the World and the things of it, are lawful and allowable, is one of the Sophismes and Artifices wherewith many are deluded. Hereon, provided they run not out into scandalous Excesses, they approve of themselves in such a Worldly Frame of Mind, and acting according to it, as renders them fruitless, useless, senseless, and is inconsistent with that prevailing adherence of Affections to Spiritual things, that ought to be in us. Others are deluded by a pretence, that it is in one Instance only they would be spared, it is but this or that Object, they would give out the Embraces of thier Affections to, in all other things they will be entire for God; the Vanity of which Pretence we have spoken to before. Others are ruined by giving place to their Solicitations, with respect to any one Affection whatever. As suppose it be that of Fear. In times of danger for Profession, multitudes have lost all thier Affections to Spiritual things, through a Fear of losing that which is temporal, as their Lives, their Liberties, thier Goods, and the like. When, once Satan or 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.

Wherefore, it is no ordinary nor 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 dayly Examination of our Selves are required hereto. For want of a due attendance to the these things, and that 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 vigour of Spiritual Life.

Fifthly, Affections thus fixed upon things Spiritual and Heavenly, will give great Relief against the remainders of that Vanity of Mind which Believers themselves are oft times perplexed withal. Yea, I do not 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 vain and useless, the irregularity of their Thoughts, are a continual Burden to many. Nothing can give the Soul any relief herein, nothing can give bounds to the endless vanity of foolish Imaginations, nothing can dry up the Springs from whence they arise, or render the Soyl wherein they grow, barren as to their Production and maintainance, but only the Growth of Spiritual Affections, with their continual vigorous Actings on Heavenly things. For hereby the Heart and Mind will be so united to them, (that which the Psalmist prayers for, Psal. 86:11.) as that they will not be ready to depart from them, and give Entertainment to 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 he that is wise cannot but know and consider, that the spiritual things which it exerciss its Thoughts about, have Substance in them, are durable, profitable, always the same, that the Advantage, Peace, Rest, Riches, and Reward of the Soul lys in them; but other Imaginations which the foolish Mind is apt to give Entertainment to, are vain, empty, fruitless, and such as end in Shame and Trouble.

Again, the Vanity of the Mind in an Indulgence to foolish Imaginations ariss from, or is animated and encreased by that Gust and Relish which it finds in earthly things, and Enjoyments of them, whether lawful or unlawful. Hence on all Occasions, yea, in holy duties, it will be ready to turn aside, and take a tast of them, and sometimes to take up with them; like a tippling Traveller, who though he be ingaged in a Journey on the most earnest Occasion, yet he cannot but be bibbing here and there as he passes by, and it may be, at length, before he comes to his Journeys end, lodgs himself in a nasty Alehouse. When men are ingaged in important Duties, yet if they always carry about them, a strong Gust and Relish of earthly things, they will ever and anon in their thoughts divert to them, either as to such real Objects as they are accustomed to, or as to what present Circumstances do administer to Corrupt Affections, or as to what they fancy and create in their own Minds. And sometimes, it may be, after they have made them a few shorter visits, they take up with them, and lose wholly the Work they were ingaged in. Nothing, as was said, will give relief herein, but the vigorous and constant Exercise of our Affections on Heavenly things. For this will insensibly take off that Gust and Relish which the Mind has found in things present, earthly and sensual, and make them as a sapless thing to the whole Soul. They will so place the Cross of Christ in particular on the Heart, as that the World shall be crucifyed to it, losing all that brightness, beauty and Savour, which it made use of to solicite 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 whereby the Vanity of the mind is excited and maintained. Such are the wandring and roving of the outward Senses. The Senses, especially that of the Eye, are ready to become purveyors to make Provisions for the Vanity and Lusts of the Mind. Hence the Psalmist prays, Turn away mine Eyes from beholding Vanity. 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, to preserve them from fixing on such Objects, as might solicite Lust or corrupt Affections. And it were an useful labor, would this place admit of it, to discover the ready serviceableness of the outward Senses and Members of the Body, to Sin and Folly, if not watched against, Rom. 6:13, 19. Of the same nature is the incessant Working of the Fancy and Imagination, which of it self is evil continually, and all the 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 of the Vanity of the Mind. Wherever our Affections are fixed on Spiritual things, our Minds will constantly be under a Warning or Charge to keep diligent watch against all these things, whereby that Vanity, which it so abhorrs, which it is so burdened withal, is maintained and excited. Nor without this Prevalency in the Mind, will ever a Work of Mortification be carried on in the Soul, Col. 3:2, 4, 5.

All that remains on the subject now before us is to briefly consider what the state of spiritual affections looks like as they are daily exercised and developed. We will do this by showing:

First, what is their pattern.

Second, what is their rule.

Third, what is their measure — that is, what they may attain to.

First, the pattern we ought to keep continually before our eyes — the one to which our affections should be conformed — is Jesus Christ and the affections of His holy soul. The mind is the seat of all our affections, and our constant aim and effort should be that the same mind that was in Christ Jesus be in us, as Philippians 2:5 says. To have our minds as affected with spiritual things as Christ's mind was, is the central part of our duty and grace. I do not think any person can attain any significant degree of spiritual-mindedness who is not much engaged in contemplating that same mind in Christ, as 2 Corinthians 3:18 suggests. To this end we ought to fill our minds with examples of the holy affections that were in Christ and their blessed exercise on every occasion. Scripture gives us a full picture of them, and we ought to be regularly meditating on them. What glorious things are said about His love for God and His delight in Him — from which He also delighted to do God's will, with His law lodged at the very center of His affections, as Psalm 40:8 describes. What tenderness and compassion He had for the souls of people — indeed, for all of human kind — in all their sufferings, pains, and distresses. How all His affections were always in perfect order under the direction of His mind and Spirit. From this came His self-denial, His contempt for the world, His readiness for the cross, His willingness to do or suffer according to the will of God. If this pattern is continually before us, it will exercise a transforming power, changing us into the same image. When we find our minds prone to disorder — clinging excessively to the things of this world, agitated by uncontrolled passions, shallow and trivial in conversation, darkened or disturbed by the fumes of disordered lusts — let us call things to account and ask ourselves whether this is the frame of mind that was in Christ Jesus. This, then, is evidence that our affections are spiritually renewed and have made some progress in assimilation to heavenly things: when the soul delights in making Christ its pattern in all things.

Second, the rule of our affections in their fullest spiritual development is Scripture. Two things are addressed in relation to them.

First, their inward activity.

Second, their exercise through the outward ways and means by which they are expressed. Scripture is the complete rule for both. With respect to their inward activity, it gives us one comprehensive law or rule that governs all the others: that we love the Lord our God with all our hearts, souls, minds, and strength. The activity of all our affections toward God is required of us to the highest possible degree — that we prefer and value Him above all things in every situation; that we cling to Him inseparably; and that nothing we ever do is uninfluenced or undirected by love for God. This perfection, as we will see shortly, is not absolutely attainable in this life — but it is set before us as what the excellence of God's nature requires, what the faculties and powers of our nature were created for, and what we ought to aim at and pursue in all things. The inescapable obligation of this rule is that we should always be sincerely striving to cling to God in all things, to prefer Him above all else, and to delight in Him as our chief good. When this disposition is habitually fixed in our minds, it will declare itself and act itself out in every duty and in every test — when other things contend for the primary place in our affections, as they do every day. If this is not our condition, we will be at a constant loss in all our ways. This is what makes us listless and disengaged in duties, careless in temptation, and forgetful of God when it is impossible to be kept from sin without a proper awareness of His holiness. In short, the absence of a prevailing love for God — kept in continual exercise — is the root of all the unfruitful religious profession that fills the world.

Second, there are outward ways and duties through which our spiritual affections are expressed. The rule for these is also Scripture. The way laid out there is the only channel through which the stream of our spiritual affections flows toward God. The graces required in Scripture are those through which our affections act; the duties it prescribes are those which our affections stir up and energize; the worship it appoints is the arena in which they are exercised. Where this rule has been abandoned, people's religious affections have grown irregular — wild and uncontrollable. All the superstitions that fill the world owe their origin primarily to people's affections cut loose from the rule of the Word. There is nothing too foolish, absurd, or irrational to have enslaved the souls of people — nothing too horrifying or demanding to have drawn them in. And once they have taken this liberty, corrupt human minds find far greater satisfaction in it than in the regular exercise of affections according to the Word of God. Hence they will rejoice in acts of penance that are not without their hardships; in outward duties of devotion that are burdensome and costly; in everything that has an appearance of wisdom in self-imposed religion, humility, and harsh treatment of the body. Hence all their affections will be more visibly moved by images and pictures, and a tearful devotion stirred in them, than by all the motives and incentives God sets before them in His Word to draw their affections to Himself. Nothing is more erratic than the affections of people tinged with some devotion, when they abandon the rule of Scripture.

Third, there is the matter of the measure of their attainment — what through due exercise and holy diligence they may be raised to. This is not absolute perfection. "Not that I have already obtained it or have already become perfect, but I press on," as the apostle says in Philippians 3:12. But there is something attainable that those who make high claims to perfection seem to be strangers to. The state of our affections under due exercise on heavenly things, and in their assimilation to them, can be described under three things.

First, a habitual readiness to receive spiritual things whenever they are presented. The ways in which spiritual things are presented to our minds are many. They are presented directly in all the ordinances of worship; indirectly and as a natural result, through all the particular providences that affect us, through our own thoughts and regular meditations, through the movements of the Holy Spirit when He causes us to hear a voice behind us saying, "This is the way, walk in it," through holy conversation with others, and through all kinds of circumstances. And just as the ways of presentation are many, so the times and seasons in which they are set before us encompass all — or at least exclude no season of our lives. Whatever the means of presentation and whenever the moment, if our affections have been properly developed through spiritual exercise, they will be suited to what is presented and ready to welcome it. The absence of this is what produces, on the other hand, evasions and avoidances in duty — a readiness to be distracted — all in order to keep the mind from engaging with and receiving the spiritual things it is not suited to. Therefore, with respect to the solemn way that spiritual things are presented to us — in and through the ordinances of worship — when people have a prevailing reluctance to engage with them, or when they are satisfied with outward attendance but unable to vigorously stir up the inward man to a holy and affectionate engagement with spiritual and heavenly things, it is because they are dominated by the flesh. When people can receive the fiery darts of Satan in temptation into their hearts and allow them to stay there — even nurturing and entertaining them in thoughts of the lusts they ignite — while quickly extinguishing the movements of the Spirit that stir them toward heavenly things, they are worldly-minded. When providences of significance — in afflictions, trials, and deliverances — do not draw the mind into thoughts of spiritual things and stir the affections to welcome them, people are worldly and earthly. When every lust, corrupt inclination, or passion — anger, envy, displeasure at this or that person or thing — can pull the mind away from responding to the spiritual things presented to it, we are living in the flesh.

It is different when our affections are conformed to spiritual and heavenly things. Whenever something spiritual is presented, the mind finds a natural fit with it — like the response of a well-prepared appetite to nourishing food. Just as the full soul despises even the honeycomb, so a mind under the power of fleshly affections has a deep aversion to all spiritual sweetness. But spiritualized affections desire it, have an appetite for it, and readily receive it on all occasions — as something natural to them, as milk is to newborn infants.

Second, affections that are consistently disposed this way find a genuine taste, a pleasant relish for spiritual things. They taste in them that the Lord is gracious, as 1 Peter 2:3 says. To taste God's goodness is to experience a satisfying relish and sweetness in communion and fellowship with Him. And people whose affections are thus renewed and developed do taste a sweet savor in all spiritual things. Some of them — such as a sense of the love of Christ — are at times almost overwhelming, surpassing what they can contain, so that they are, as it were, lovesick with joy, and rejoice with a joy unspeakable and full of glory. Nor is there any spiritual thing, even those seasoned with affliction or mortification, that is not sweet to them, as Proverbs 27:7 suggests. All wholesome food — all good nourishment, even bitter herbs — is sweet to the hungry person. And when through our affections we have developed a spiritual appetite for heavenly things, however bitter any of them may be to flesh and blood in their nature or in how they come to us — as are all the teachings of the cross — they are all sweet to us, and we can taste how gracious the Lord is in them. When the soul is filled with earthly things and love for this world, or when the spiritual appetite is lost through spiritual sickness, or corrupted by any dominant sin, heavenly things become tasteless and flat — like what Job describes as the white of an egg, in which there is no flavor. There may be a pleasing flavor given to the imagination in the preaching of the Word; there may be something like it given to the merely notional understanding — while the affections find no satisfaction in the things themselves. But for those who are spiritually minded in the degree we are describing, all spiritual things are sweet, savory, and pleasant — the affections taste them directly, as the palate tastes food.

Third, properly cultivated affections are a fitting storehouse for all the graces — and in this way the treasury of the soul. There are graces of the Spirit whose primary residence is in the understanding and the will — faith itself, for instance. And in faith all other graces are rooted — they grow from that root. Nevertheless, most of them have their principal residence in the affections. There they are kept safe and ready for exercise on all occasions. And when the affections are properly spiritual, there is nothing that tends to the growth or development of the graces — to their nurturing or reviving, which is a constant need, and for which God has made provision in His Word — that they do not readily receive, store up, keep, and preserve. Through this, the affections come to be filled with grace — with all the graces — for there is room in them for all the graces of the Spirit to dwell. And they readily cooperate with the light and direction of faith in bringing those graces to exercise. When faith perceives and determines that something must be done or endured as a duty to God's glory, affections thus prepared do not shut down or suppress the graces stored in them — they cheerfully offer them for their proper exercise.

These are some of the things that affections conformed to heavenly things will attain to. And this is how spiritually renewed affections work: by being fixed on spiritual and heavenly things, they are progressively conformed to them, made like them, and themselves become more spiritual and heavenly.

This is not how it is with those whose affections have only had an occasional change worked in them through the means described earlier, but have not been spiritually renewed. On the contrary, such people tend to lower and diminish spiritual things — to bring heavenly things down into conformity with their affections, which, however changed, are not spiritual but fleshly. To illustrate this, we may observe the following.

First, these affections operate under the influence of ideas in the mind and understanding that do not give them a clear and accurate picture of spiritual things as they actually are. Where the affections themselves are not spiritually renewed, the mind is also fleshly and unrenewed. And such a mind cannot discern the things of God — nor can it — because they are spiritually discerned. They cannot be rightly understood in their own beauty and glory except by and in a spiritual, saving light — which the unrenewed mind simply does not have. And where they are not presented in this way, the affections cannot receive or cling to them as they should, and will never be conformed to them.

Second, in such people, those ideas are often further distorted and corrupted by fantasy and imagination. They are simply puffed up in their fleshly minds — that is, filled with vain, foolish, and proud imaginings about spiritual things, as the apostle describes in Colossians 2:18-19. And the work of imagination in a fleshly mind is to construct pictures of spiritual things that make them compatible with natural, unrenewed affections.

Third, as this progresses it produces superstition, false worship, and idolatry. For all of these are attempts to represent spiritual things in a way suited to fleshly, unrenewed affections. Hence people suppose themselves to be stirred to love, joy, fear, and delight in the things themselves — when in fact all of it is a response to that false representation of them, shaped to fit them as people of the flesh. These things have been the source of all false worship and idolatry in the Christian world.

First, the mind and affections have been changed and tinged with some devotion through the means previously discussed. In this state they will in one way or another be occupied with spiritual things and are ready to receive impressions from anything superstition is able to impose on them.

Second, through error and false teaching they have been set free from the only rule of their activity and exercise — the Word of God. People satisfied themselves that as long as their affections were engaged with spiritual and heavenly things, it did not matter at all whether the manner of their exercise was directed by Scripture or not. Having lost their guide and their way, every flickering light, every wandering delusion, lures them to follow it into foolish superstitions. Almost nothing is too ridiculous, too horrifying, or too demanding for them to embrace under the name of spiritual and heavenly things.

Third, the fleshly minds of such people — having no proper or clear understanding of spiritual things in their own nature — work to present them under ideas and images that make them compatible with their fleshly, unrenewed affections. For it is as if stamped indelibly on them that the purpose of all knowledge of spiritual things is to present them for the affections to embrace. It would be easy to show that from these three corrupt sources arose the flood of idolatry and false worship that spread across the Roman church — and with whose methods the minds of people are still too thoroughly saturated.

Fourth, where this full progression does not occur, fleshly affections still in various ways degrade and diminish spiritual things in order to bring them into conformity with themselves. And this can go so far that people begin to think wickedly — that God is altogether like themselves. But I will not pursue these things further here.

Finally, where affections are spiritually renewed, the person of Christ is their center — but where they are merely changed, they tend to end in self. Where the new man has been put on, Christ is all and in all, as Colossians 3:10-11 says. He is the spring, by His Spirit, that gives them life, light, and being; and He is the ocean into which all their streams flow. God the Father does not present Himself in His beauty and loveliness as the object of our affections except as He is in Christ, expressing His love through Him, as 1 John 4:8-9 shows. And as to all other spiritual things, renewed affections cling to them in proportion to how they derive from Christ and lead back to Him — for He is all in all to them. It is Christ whom the souls of His saints love for Himself, for His own sake — and all other things of religion in and for Him. The air is pleasant and useful — without it we cannot live or breathe. But if the sun did not light it and warm it with its rays — if it were always perpetual night and cold — what refreshment could be found in it? Christ is the Sun of Righteousness, and if His rays do not quicken, animate, and illuminate even the best and most necessary duties of religion, nothing desirable remains in them. This is the surest mark of spiritually renewed affections: they can rest in nothing but Christ. They fix on nothing except what is lovely by participation in His beauty, and wherever He is present, there they find their satisfaction. It is otherwise with those whose affections may be changed but are not renewed. The truth is — and it can be demonstrated by every kind of example — that Christ in the mystery of His person and in the glory of His mediation is the one thing in religion that they dislike. False representations of Him through images and pictures they may embrace; false ideas about His present greatness and power may affect them; worship of their own devising they may offer Him and find pleasure in it; corrupt opinions about His office and grace may occupy their minds and they may argue for them. But those who are not spiritually renewed cannot love the Lord Jesus Christ sincerely — they have an inward and secret aversion from the mystery of His person and His grace. It is self that all their affections center in, the ways of which would take too long to describe here.

This is the first thing required to bring our affections to the condition from which we may be spiritually minded: that our affections themselves are spiritually and savingly renewed.

The matters that remain can, I believe, be handled more briefly.