Religious Affections, Edwards 3

Third installment of notes from this book.

-“Again, others develop a high affection for God as a result of their fears of hellfire which are followed by some assuring text of Scripture that persuades them they are safe and that God has forgiven them and made them His children. But their perspective is distorted, and because of their selfish pride they may even continue to have false notions of their communion with God, believing it is carried on by impulses and whispers and other external manifestations that really come from their own imagination.” -92, 93

-“Some people, emotionally and self-confidently excited, speak ignorantly of seeing the truth of the Word of God. They are, in fact, very far away from it. Some text of Scripture comes to their mind in a sudden and extraordinary manner and they think it declares immediately to them that their sins are forgiven, or that God loves them or that he will save them, In their excitement they call this “seeing the truth of the Word of God.” But it is nothing but a delusion. To truly see the truth of the Word of God is to see the truth of the gospel, not a revelation that such and such persons shall go to heaven.” -119

-“So when they hear of the great and glorious things of religion, they have the notion that all these things belong to them. They readily become over confident that they are true. Hell is for other people, and heaven is certainly theirs. Confident that they are children of God and that God has promised heaven to them, they appear strong in the faith of their reality. They may even have great zeal against unbelief, yet the basis of their zeal is false.” -126

-“The great Christian duty is self-denial. This duty consists of two things: first, in denying worldly inclinations and its enjoyments, and second, in denying self-exultation and renouncing one’s self-significance by being empty of self. Self-renunciation must be done freely, from the heart.” -129

-The truly humble lament their own sinfulness.

-“When the saint compares his love with his obligations, he realizes how far short his love falls. He also sees not only how little he loves, but also how great is the corruption remaining within him. For sin is falling short of God’s demands of us. The more the saints realize their inadequacy, the more they see how vile they are. Thus it appears to them that they are full of sin in not loving Christ enough. Before their eyes this is the most hateful ingratitude.