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The Affections

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Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jun 25, 1872

FromReview and Herald, Vol. 40, No. 2.

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The Affections.

By M. E. Cornell

[The following article from the Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge, published in the Review in 1865, seems worthy of being re-published. The earnest, striving ones will read it carefully. M. E. CORNELL.]
Affections. With many, says Buckminster, there is, perhaps, too much of a disposition to reduce Christianity to a barren system of rational truths. They are apt to make it a mere collection of specific statutes, like a civil or criminal code, in which the precise amount of obligation, and limit of transgression, may be clearly ascertained. Men of inquisitive and speculative minds, are in peculiar danger of preferring the exercise of the understanding to that of the heart, and thus of rendering the light of religion little more than a cold coruscation, which imparts no warmth to the region of the affections. But (he adds), when we consider how important a part of our constitution the affections are, and how much they do in ultimately determining the character of the man, you cannot suppose that religion is the only subject from which the exercise of them is to be excluded. When we consider, too, the infinite sublimity of religious truths, the influence they have on human happiness here, and on man's expectations for eternity, surely it cannot be that he, who is impassioned on every other subject, may be always lukewarm on this; that the affections, which glow in every other sphere, must lose all their warmth as soon as they touch the region of theology. If it were enough merely to believe, we might believe as well in a malevolent, as in a gracious, being. If it were enough to know the sanctions and admit the obligations of a law, the character of the lawgiver would be of no consideration. If it were enough to keep the commandments according to the barren letter of the moral code, surely the first commandment would have been more than superfluous—Thou shalt love the Lord thy God, with all thy heart, soul, mind, and strength. But it is not sufficient that the actions be merely admitted into religion. If they are allowed to enter it at all, they must enter it largely. If God is to be loved, he is to be loved supremely. If Jesus, though absent and invisible, is yet our Saviour and friend, he demands an attachment, on our part, stronger than death, which many waters cannot quench, nor floods drown. If the soul is worth anything, it is inestimable; you cannot love it too dearly. If the interest of any reaches beyond this earthly scene, it spreads throughout eternal duration. It should move our feelings, as well as our thoughts. There cannot be awakened too deep a sensibility for the immortal welfare of a being who is susceptible of innumerable gradations of bliss and wretchedness.
Let it be admitted that the Scriptures are written in the language of orientals, and abound in phrases and expressions of such passionate hyperbole, as seem, to the colder and more chastised imaginations of the western world, like the language of exaggerated feeling.
But, with all this allowance, and it is great, they cannot be made to describe a religion which exists only in the head. There is not a worthy passion, which silently pervades, or tumultuously agitates the breath of man, that has not been enlisted in the cause of God, and encouraged in the Scriptures. Hope, the most animated of the affections, is, in our religion the ruling spring of ineffable happiness. “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who, according to his abundant mercy, hath begotten us again unto a lively hope, by the resurrection of Jesus from the dead.” The most impatient desires of religious improvement are represented as a part of the Christian character: “Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness.” “Let him that is athirst come, and I will give unto him the waters of life freely.”
Joy enters largely into the Christian temper, “For the fruit of the Spirit is love and joy.” Sorrow, deep, piercing, and humiliating, is not excluded. “Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted;” “and the sacrifices of God are a broken spirit.” Gratitude is a vital principle of religious obedience; and compassion is a sentiment so essential to religion that it has even given a name to the righteous; and a merciful man is equivalent to a good man. “I will have mercy and not sacrifice,” was the passage so dear to our compassionate Saviour. Zeal, too, is not to be rejected for its abuses, if Christ, when he gave himself for us, intended, not only to redeem us from iniquity, but “to purify unto himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works.” To these Christian affections need not be added the comprehensive one of love, for it is not only represented as the source, attendant, and result of true religion, but it is, in numerous passages, commended as the substance and epitome of duty, the fulfilling of the law, the end of the commandment. From this enumeration we may understand that religion is not a bare comprehension of truths, not the knowledge and remembrance of facts, not the confession of a faith, or the observation of duties formally defined; but it is a celestial spirit, which mingles with and informs us of all our duties, in secret and in public, which agitates the mass of our intellectual and moral faculties, which discovers itself in fears and hopes, joys and sorrows, gratitude and humiliation, earnestness and all-hallowed love.
And why is it that in religion alone, things spiritual and invisible are to have no command over the affections? Is not this theory perpetually disproved by every observation of man's ruling passion? The metaphysician becomes extravagantly fond of his obscure and lofty speculations. The mathematician is in raptures with the beauty of a theorem, of which the world sees nothing but the lines and angles. The artist glows with imaginations of ideal beauty. The man of taste has his fancies and his fondnesses, and discerns and loves a thousand inexpressible delicacies, impalpable to ordinary minds. And has religion nothing to elevate the soul, nothing to absorb the thought, to summon the passions, to make men feel? Because God cannot be seen, shall he be, therefore, excluded from our affections? The single circumstance, that God is not the object of any one of our senses, is abundantly compensated by the consideration that he is never absent from us; that he compasseth continually our path and our lying down, and that we cannot remove a step from the sphere of his presence; that every sigh which escapes us reaches his ear, and not an affectionate movement springs up in our hearts, to which he is not intuitively attentive. The faintest glow of gratitude, which lights up the countenance, shines before his eyes, and the least cloud of godly sorrow, which passes over the brow, sends its shade to the throne of God, encompassed as it is with “undiminished brightness.”
That man may well be suspected who takes an active interest in every event that transpires, is busy in every project that is ever undertaken, but in religion only is idle, inattentive, and incredulous. Such a man is not to plead that his feelings are not easily excited, or that his constitutional temperament is lukewarm; and one would think that, if he were dead to every other sentiment, the immense interest, which he himself has at stake in eternity, and the still greater interest of a whole world of living souls, to whom religion is all-important, would rouse every latent spark of passion in his breast, and suffer him not to rest in the cause of God till the affections themselves were quenched in the flood of death.
The causes that modify the exercise of the affections in different minds are extremely numerous, and some of them we proceed to consider. (1) The external exhibition of a man's religious feelings depends much on his religious temperament. (2) The religious affections are also considerably modified by the difference of the doctrines embraced. (3) The affections, also, are modified by the metaphysical direction of religious inquiries.
But there are pursuits of life and habits of mind which repress, and others which utterly destroy, the religious affections; which freeze the current of the soul's best feelings, and leave us but a name to live, while we are dead. Among these last must be reckoned worldly and avaricious pursuits. “If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him.”
Another destroyer of the religious affections is the love of pleasure. There are two classes of men that are governed by the love of pleasure; the gay and fickle, who are ever lost in the rapid succession of amusements; and the sensual, who are forever plunged in gross and criminal enjoyments. But the love of pleasure and the love of God are irreconcilable. They are at continual war; and they never can divide the empire of the same breast. “She that liveth in pleasure is dead while she liveth.” 1 Tim. 5: 6.
II. In Rom. 8: 5, the apostle divides all mankind into two great classes, carnal and spiritual: “They that are after the flesh do mind the things of the flesh; but they that are after the Spirit, the things of the Spirit.” Franck, in his Guide to the reading and study of the Scriptures, lays down the following characteristics:

CHARACTERISTICS OF SPIRITUAL AFFECTIONS.

1. A spiritual affection has for its source, the Holy Spirit, and is the fruit of its influence.
2. A spiritual affection tends to a holy end.
3. A spiritual affection is engaged on objects that are divine, eternal, spiritual, and invisible.
4. A spiritual affection, when engaged on sensible objects, is not employed on them as such; but only so far as they have relation to those which are unseen.
5. A spiritual affection is grounded on faith and love. When these do not operate, affections cease to be spiritual.
6. A spiritual affection influences the subject of it to seek, not himself nor his personal convenience, as such, but God and his glory.
7. A spiritual affection overcomes a carnal affection, though the latter be otherwise very violent.
8. A spiritual affection is always connected with humility. The instant the mind is elated, affections become carnal.
9. A spiritual affection excites no perturbation in the mind, nor does it leave behind it any bitterness. It rather assists in the regulation of the soul, receiving every dispensation with complacency, and acquiescing in God with joy.
10. A spiritual affection tends to the amelioration of nature, the increase of grace, and the edification of mankind; having no object but the glory of God.

CHARACTERISTICS OF CARNAL AFFECTIONS.

1. A carnal affection, as it is opposed to those which are spiritual, has nature for its source, and is destitute of grace.
2. A carnal affection has, for its end, the temporal preservation and amendment of nature, or it refers all things to pleasure; and, particularly, seeks such pleasures not in mental peace, but personal convenience, and this, often under a pretext of duty.
3. A carnal affection is engaged on objects that are corporeal, local, temporal, and sensitive.
4. A carnal affection, if engaged upon spiritual objects, does not dwell on them as such; neither with righteous views, nor in a consistent manner; but only so far as they have relation to private gratification or convenience.
5. A carnal affection receives its existence and support from perverse self-love.
6. A carnal affection gives the preference to things naturally pleasing, though others may approximate more nearly to real excellence.
7. A carnal affection gradually disturbs the mind when it is at all indulged, rendering it incapable of investigating truth, or performing righteous actions, and it leaves a degree of bitterness in the mind, proportioned to the strength of the affection. Cicero justly used to term them “the perturbations of the mind.”
8. A carnal affection has always a degree of pride in it, though it is oft very subtle. As long as this has place in the mind, carnal affections are not put off.
9. A carnal affection often induces a visible change of the body.
Although the carnal affections are, by these characteristics, separated from the spiritual affections, we are not thence to conclude that they are so separated in the heart of a renewed person, as that the former never mingles with the latter. On the contrary, the believer's daily strife is to be more and more delivered from the sinful affections of carnal nature. It is according to the reigning affection, that a man is denominated carnal or spiritual. It were impious to ascribe any mixture of good and bad affections to the Holy Spirit; though we cannot deny that sacred affections show themselves in a sanctified nature, by external and natural indications.
III. That an acquaintance with the doctrine of the affections is an essential requisite-in the exposition of the Scriptures, may be proved from reason: for (1) the affections of love, hatred, desire, hope, fear, joy, sorrow, &c., are frequently to be met with in holy writ. It is evident, therefore, that were we ignorant of these affections, we should be inadequate to the exposition of no inconsiderable part of the sacred writings. (2) When no affections are expressed, we must necessarily consider them implied; and that every sentence is of their dictation. (3) Without a knowledge of these emotions, who can inspect the abyss of the human heart, and the depth of those feelings by which it is agitated? And without forming correct ideas of the affections which it is proposed to imitate, how shall man, who is carnal, “put them on”? (4) The nature of discourse confirms the position. The words of Christ in Matt. 12: 34, 35, decidedly evidence that unless some affection influenced the heart, language would not be uttered; so that a man's words are, in fact, the index of his feelings or affections.
Since then the affections are so intimately connected with all language, none will suppose that they are banished from the writings of the inspired penman; and, because they are closely united with the language of inspiration, it follows that the sacred records cannot be adequately expounded by those who are satisfied with the mere shell and contemn the precious kernel of Scripture; who watch the lips, but never enter into the feelings of the inspired penman.
It forms no solid objection to our views of the subject, that many commentators neglect this point of exposition, and pass it over in silence. This consideration is abundantly overruled, by opposing to it the high authorities that have advocated the study of the affections. Luther, for example, says, “Whoever adopts it, will, I am satisfied, learn more of himself than he can gather from all commentaries united. An expositor should, as it were, invest himself with the author's mind, in order that he may interpret him as another self.” It might be added, that those persons are usually but indifferent examiners of the Scriptures, who, in searching into their meaning, depend, partially, or entirely, on authority. It evidences, as Bernard has observed, that they do not read the word in the Spirit, under whose influence it was written.
Besides, a consequence deduced from the ignorance or negligence of commentators, can avail nothing against the doctrine. It is indeed to be lamented that very few are solicitous to ascertain the spiritual meaning of the sacred writings; but are anxious rather to be diffuse on critical, controverted, and difficult points, where there is a wider field for the range of natural intellect. This inattention to the affections is a main reason why some commentaries are so meager and unsatisfactory to spiritual readers, who, with a view to personal edification, search after the mind of the Spirit, and the revelation of the divine image. A comment, written without adverting to the affections, is so only in name and form.