The Treatise on Religious Affections

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1824 edition. Excerpt: ... in the heart; and our spirits, or consciences receive and declare this eviQLnce. Great mischief has arisen from the false and delusive notion, that the witness of the Spirit is a kind of inward suggestion, or declaration from God, assuring us that we are beloved, pardoned, &c. and many souls, I fear, have been eternally ruined by this delusion.--I have therefore insisted the longer on this head. I now proceed to a second characteristic of gracious affections. II. The first objective ground of gracious affections is the Transcendently Excellent and Amiable NATUttE of divine things, abstractedly considered; and not any conceived relation they bear to ourselves, or to our own interest. I do not suppose, however, that all relation to our own interest, is wholly excluded from any influence in our gracious affections. Self-interest certainly has a consequential, and succeeding influence in those affections which are spiritual and holy, as I shall endeavour to show. It was beforfe observed, that the affection of love is the fountain of all the other affections; and that Christian love in particular is the fountain of all gracious affections. Now the divine excellency and glory of God, of the word of God, of the works of God, &c. constitute the primary reason why a true saint loves these things; and not anysuppos ed interest that he has in them, or any benefit that he hopes to receive from them, or any such relation to his interest, that self-love can properly be said to be the real foundation of them. Some persons say that all love arises from selflove, and that it is impossible in the nature of things, that any man s..ould love God, or any other being, except as that affection springs from selflove. But this opinion arises. I suppose, from...