The Use of the Passions in Religion
We have seen already what is included in “loving God with the heart, and how this divine love will influence all the other affections into a suitable and correspondent exercise.” We proceed now to,
The third general head oi discourse, and that is to show the use of thfe passions in religion, or what advantage may be obtain ed by them, or expected from them in the chris - tian life: And here we shall find the advar tages of them so great and numerous, a? will render it necessary for every one who professes serious religion to have the affections of his soul engaged in it.
Advantage I. “The passions being duly awakened, will set the powers of the understanding at work, in the search of divine truth and religious duty, and render the knowledge of God exceeding desirable to sinful men.” We are by nature thoughtless of God and divine things: A little, a very little general knowledge of religion satisfies our desires, because we imagine it is sufficient for our necessities. The bulk of mankind have their passions touched with earthly things, and they are ever inquiring who will show us where corn and wine, the pleasures of sense, the possessions of this world, honours or preferments are to be gotten? Too many are ready to join with the profane wretches, who are described in Job xxi. 14: “They say unto God, Depart from us we desire not the knowledge of thy ways;” we do not want to know much of God, nor what is our duty to him.
But when the arrows of conviction strike through the soul, when the heart is awakened to a pathetic sense of sin, and the fear of divine vengeance possesses and torments the spirit, then it is the most importunate inquiry of the heart and the lips, “What shall we do to be saved!” Acts xvi. 30. How shall we escape the wrath to come? How is the governing justice of the great God to be satisfied for our offences? What is the way to be made partakers of his pardoning mercy? “Wherewith shall I appear before the Lord, and in what manner shall I bow myself, and worship the most High God V Micah vi. 6. This was the language of the awakened jailor, who had just before scourged the saints of the Lord, the holy apostle, Acts xvi. 30. This was the earnest cry of the crucifiers of Christ himself, at St. Peter’s sermon, “when they were pricked to their hearts,” Acts ii. 37. This is the language of nature, convinced of sin, and the danger of divine indignation. St. Paul learned all the terrors of the Lord, and felt all his painful passions in uproar, when he was struck down to the dust, with the dreadful and overwhelming glory in his way to- Damascus, Acts ix. 3. And with what intense and hasty zeal did he make this inquiry, *’ Lord what wilt thou have me to do ?*’ verse 6. And when he had learned the knowledge of Christ, as the only way to the favour of God and salvation, how highly doth he value it! Phil. iii. 8. “Yea, doubtless and I count all things hut loss, for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus, my Lord.”
If I am awakened to a sense of sin, and fear the anger of God, I shall long to know the awful extent of his power, and the terrible effects of his anger, as well as the methods of obtaining his grace. If I love him, I shall spend many pleasant hours of inquiry into his amiable excellencies. Each pious passion will promote its peculiar inquiries. Fear and love will wander with holy awe, and delight among his glories, and” be ever pursuing further knowledge of his perfections: If I love God with warm and devout affection, I shall rejoice daily to find new discoveries of his unsearchable wisdom, his all-sufficient power, his immense goodness, and the unbounded riches of his grace: I shall trace his wondrous footsteps through this beautiful creation, and endeavour to find his way in the track of daily providences: I shall survey him and his attributes in his book of grace, and dwell upon his divine features in “Jesus the image, and the brightness of his glory;” Heb. i. 3. and I shall search further continually into the knowledge of Christ, who is God manifest in the flesh: I shall dig in the mines of scripture for treasures of divine knowledge, and never grow weary of the work. I shall be always inquiring, “What shall I do to please and serve him,” who is the object of my highest love? and how I shall obtain stronger sensations and assurances of his favour, and dwell forever in his presence, who is the life and the joy of my soul? We long still to know more of this transcendant being whom we love: It is this divine passion that animates these inquiries after the knowledge of God; and this shall render them infinite and everlasting, because God the object of them is everlasting and infinite.
Advantage IL “The affections being once engaged, will keep the soul fixed to divine things. The sense of them is impressed deeper on the mind, by the exercise of devout passions, and it will abide there much longer.” Even where reason is bright, and the judgment clear, yet it will be ineffectual for any valuable purposes, if religion reach no farther than the head, and proceed not to the heart: It will have but little influence, if there are none of the affections, engaged. Notions of religion in the understanding, without any touch upon the passions, have been compared to the stars in a winter midnioht, brio’ht and shining, but very cold: or rather to the meteor, jvvhich is called a shooting star, which vanishes quickly, and is lost in darkness.
Suppose we are convinced by calm reasoning of the being of a God, of the duties which we owe our Creator, of his government of the world, and of his final judgment -; suppose we are led into a demonstration or evident proof, that we are guilty ceatures, having broken the laws of God, and that there is no salvation for us, but in and by a mediator; suppose we are really convinced in our judgment, that there is a heaven or a hell, that awaits our departure from this world; that we must die shortly, and that we are for ever miserable without
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pardoning mercy, and sanctifying gTace; all this is valuable in its kind, and is necessary in order to salvation: But if all this knowledge make no impression on the affections, it is not likely to abide with us, nor to do us much good: Knowledge wears off the mind, if never used. Cold, unaffecting notions, will have no powerful influence to reform our lives. Every new scene of business or pleasure, brushes off these thoughts of religion from our souls, where they have not been let into the heart, nor possessed the passions: they “vanish like the morning dew or like an early cloud that passes away,” Hosea vi. 4.
It is one great end and design of the passions, to fix the attention strongly upon the object of them, to settle the thoughts with such intenseness and continuance on that vdiich raises them, that they are not easily taken off. What we fear or desire, what we love and hope for, what we lament or rejoice in, will seize and busy our minds, and take them up perpetually, notwithstanding the importunities of other businesses or cares: The passions are supremely importunate, and will be heard. Now if the passions are strongly engaged for God, the world will have but little power to call off the heart from religion..
Suppose two preachers were desired to minister to the same auditory, on a day of fasting or praise, and on the same subject too. One of them has all the beauty, force and skill of clear and calm reasoning; the other not only instructs well, but powerfully moves the affections with sacred oratory: which of these two will best secun’ the attention of the people, and guard them from drowsiness or wandering? Surely he that touches the heart will fix the eyes and ears, and all the powers; while he that merely endeavours to inform the head, will find many wandering eyes, and some sleepers.
Suppose two persons have heard the same discourse from the pulpit, which was both rational and pathetic. One of them is pleased with the fine reasoning of the preacher, and hath his judgment convinced of the necessity and importance of the duty which he is exhorted to practice, and goes no further; the other hath also felt the very same conviction of his understanding by force of argument, and at the same time finds his soul touched inwardly with an a motion of the lively passions; he is awakened and surprised with an awful con- -cern about his past neglects, and a holy fear of divine anger; he is struck to the heart with sentiments of piety, he is g-rieved and ashamed at his folly, he is filled with zeal and holy purposes: Pray, which of these two will have the discourse dwell most upon their hearts; which is like to remember this sermon longest, and which is most likely to, put it in practice?
This leads me to the third particular.
Advantage III. “All the duties of holiness are rendered much easier, and temptations to sin much weaker, when religion hath taken hold of the heart, and the passions of the soul are eno-ao-ed in it,” Passion animates all the inferior powers of nature, and strengthens them in all their operation. It is a sort of life and fire within the hearts of men, which God the Creator hath ordained to be ever ready there, to give force and spirit for present action. He knew our nature wanted this spur, this inward spring of activity.
Suppose we had been left merely to the exercise of our reason and judgment, to inform us when it was proper to eat and drink, without having any such appetites as thirst and hunger: It is possible indeed, that life might have been maintained, but we should have been often ready to neglect the proper seasons of food, and nature would have been supported but in a feeble and languishing manner, without such regular and constant nourishment as we want, and that too with out any sensible delight. But the keen appetites of hunger and thirst are implanted in our very natures, to awaken us to take our solid and liquid food, and that with constancy and natural pleasure. It is for the same end, that all the passions were wrought int our constitution by our great Creator, that we might have some more vigorous principles than the mere power of reasoning to animate us to activity on all just and proper occasions.
Suppose I were told that my house was on fire at midnight, and my cold reason informed me, that in a little time I and my goods might be consumed, it is probable I should think of using some method to save myself: But the passion of surprise and fear exerts itself in a moment, and hurries me out to make an immediate escape. Fear was wrought into human nature for such purposes as these. In such a fright we can. almost move mountains, and perform wonders, to the utmost limits o#the strength of man, in order to save ourselves or our dear relatives from the flames. Cold reasoning, without passion, would have no such sovereign and powerful effects.
Thus it is in things of religion. A cold information that misery will be the consequent of sin, or even a rational conviction of the distant danger of hell, without the passion of fear, would never animate the man to cry out, with such importunate inquiries, “What shall I do to escape everlasting burnings?” It is this passion of fear that constrains him to fly for his life to the hope that is set before him in the gospel, and to make him escape as Lot did from Sodom, without looking back on the allurements of sin.
I might give instances of the like kind in the affection of divine love. I may learn by reason that God is to be honoured and obeyed, because he is my Creator and my Lord: I may be convinced of the beauty of virtue, and the excellency of religion, and that all the precepts of it are reasonable; yet these precepts will carry but a feeble sway with them, and have a very imperfect influence on my practice, in opposition to all my carnal interests and corrupt inclinations, if I have nothing to move me but the mere use of my reason, telling me it is a proper thine obey the great God. This will not do the work, if I have no affectionate love to God as a Father and a Saviour.
It is a knowledge and belief of the truth of the gospel, joined with love to Christ my Redeemer, that makes me zealous to fulfil every duty. Christianity itself is thus excellently described by the apostle, it is “faith working by love,” Gal. v. 6. A mere knowledge of any person will not make us grow like him, but love hath an assimilating and transforming power: The divine affection of love will work perpetually within us, and never cease till it has made us like our beloved object, till it has made us holy as God is holy,- and formed heaven within us.
And when this warm love to God our Maker, and to Jesus our Saviour, is joined to a lively hope of everlasting happiness, how do these united passions invigorate the soul in duty, and bear down M. temptations before them? Great is the constraining power of these divine affections, hope and love: They break through all obstacles that stand in the way of salvation: When they are united together they arise to holy joy; and among the saints of the Old Testament, as well as the New, the joy of the Lord was their strength, to fulfil all the duties of religion and righteousness,” Nehem. viii. 10. This sacred temper of mind carried out the patriarchs of old, and the heroes of the ancient church, to obey thQ call of God with courage, to leave their own native country and their friends, to wander through the earth as strangers and pilgrims, and to live upon a naked promise: This taught Moses to esteem the reproach of it
Christ, and the hope of the Messiah, greater riches than all the treasures of Egypt: This enabled the pious Jews to work wonders of righteousness, to venture into the dens of lions, to dare the edge of the sword, and combat the violence of lire; to endure the trial of cruel mockings and scourgings, to pass through showers of stones, and engines of torture, despising death in its most frightful forms, and not accepting deliverance. Tlese are the wonders which are ascribed to faith in the 11th chapter to the Hebrews: But it was faith animated by divine love; it was faith rising high in the hope of a better resurrection. A naked and simple belief of things unseen, would scarce have wrought these amazing effects in human nature, without some warm and joyful efforts of the affections of hope and love.
Behold the hero of the gospel, St. Paul, that little contemptible figure of a man, bearing down all opposition before him in his sacred course of zeal and duty. Under this influence he can triumph over all the formidable things of nature, and the terrors of this world, Rom. viii. 35. “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?” Who shall divide our hearts from him? Who shall make us weary of his service or tempt us away from the faith and obedience of his gospel? “Shall tribulation, shall distress, shall persecution, shall famine or nakedness or peril or sword?” As it was written of the saints in former ages, so shall it be fulfilled again in our age, “for thy sake we can bear killing all the day long.” The sheep of Christ can stand the axe, or the knife of slaughter: In all these things we are more than conquerors, through the grace of Christ that hath loved us.. Every holy martyr hath made it appear, that love is stronger than prisons or death: It hath its flames that are superior to common fire, and can overcome all the terrors of men.
When this dlTvine love and hope have possessed the spirit, what poor and paltry things are all the allurements of flesh and sense? How feeble and insuflicient are all the gay and glittering appearances of nature in this world, all the flatteries of pride and sensuality to draw the heart away from God? The holy soul can boldly withstand all the enticements of sin, when divine grace has seized the affections, and got possession of those sprightly and active powers.
What the nerves and spirits are to animal nature, the same thing are the passions to the soul: They are its very nerves and spirits, its most vigorous and unwearied springs of action, both in the zealous discharge of every duty, and the firm resistance of every temptation to sin. These active springs set all nature at work in the affairs of grace.
The sanctified affections are so great a part of the new creature, that the very graces of the holy Spirit are called by their names. What is divine love, religious fear, and heavenly hope? What is a sacred contempt and disdain of sensual vanities, and an immortal aversion to sin, and utter abhorrence of it? What are holy desires, penitent sorrows, and spiritual joys? What is all this blessed catalogue of the fruits of the spirit, but the passions of nature refined and renewed by grace?
It is the influence of religion on the passions, that doth in a great measure make the difference between the true christian and the mere outward professor: The mere professor may know as much of the doctrines of religion, and of the duties of it, as the most religious man: but he doth not fear and love, and desire and hope, and mourn and rejoice, as the true christian doth. If a bare rational knowledge of divine things were sufficient to make a true disciple of Christ, the greatest student in divinity, and especially the sharpest critic in scripture, would be the best christian: But it is not always found so; critics and students, rich in knowledge, may have cold hearts, and lie dead in a state of sin.
Advantage IV. “The practice of religion are not rendered easy, by having the affections employed in it, but they become pleasant and delightful, and every sin is more painful to the soul where the passions are engaged for God.”
If the christian be employed in holy meditation, how does the soul that loves God travel with delight over the various scenes of his glory, in the lower and the upper worlds! How does he dwell upon the majesty and the mercy of his heavenly Father; upon the excellencies of Christ the Saviour, upon his offices and his dignities from day to day r How pleasurably doth the mind diffuse itself in contemplation upon his pre-existent state, when he dwelt in the Father’s bosom; his condescending incarnation and coming into flesh and blood, the labours and sorrows of his life, the anguish and amazing love of his death, the glory of his resurrection, the honours paid him at his ascent to the throne of God in heaven, the efficacy of his intercession, and the joyful and dreadful appearance of the great Judge, when he shall come in the clouds of heaven to be admired of his saints, and to give vengeance and destruction to those who have ridiculed and rejected the gospel of his grace? How are the thoughts fixed on the sacred theme, withoat an inclination to rove and go astray? How are the powers of imagination devoutly employed, when the holy passions are roused into activity; when our fear, our hope, our love, our joy are all in happy exercise? But if these are absent, and we are left merely to rational enforcements of duty on the mind, without love or affection in the heart, with what a cold indifference do we set about the work? How fluttering are our thoughts! How wandering are our hearts! And every flying fancy calls us away, and scatters our powers among a thousand vanities.
I might instance in the duty of prayer or praise, when the love of the heart flames out into holy desires, how ready and eager is the soul to seek the Lord! Not the shadows and silence of the midnight, not the early business and cares of the morning, can withhold the good man from calling upon his God. “With my soul have I desired thee in the night, with my spirit within me will I seek thee early,” Isa. xxvi. 9. “And I prevented the dawning of the morning, and cried to the Lord,” Psalm cxix. 147. Or if the heart be warmed with a sense of divine mercy, and kindled into religious joy, how gloriously does the tongue break forth into praises!” Bless
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the Lord, 0 my soul, and all that is within me bless his holy name: Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits,” Psalm ciii. 1, 2. “Seven times a-day will I praise thee: My heart is fixed, O God, my heart is fixed: I will sing and give praise: Awake, my tongue, my glory, awake to the joyful work,” Psalm lvii. 7. 8.
While the pious affections are duly engaged in prayer, even a common christian is enabled to make divine work of it :- Our minds never want matter, nor our tongues expression. Sense and language are very much at the call of devout passions, where the mind is tolerably furnished with the principles of religion; and then the soul converses with its Maker with unknown delight. But when we are impelled by a mere precept commanding us to our knees, and conscience goads us on as it were to the task and drudgery of prayer, without any devout affection, how cold is the heart! How languid the worship! How dry the mind! How scanty the language! The invention and the lips strive and labour, and all to little purpose. In such a case, I cannot but think that well composed forms of devotion may be useful helps to awaken the drowsy powers, and to call up sleeping religion. But where these powers are awake and lively, such helps are less needful- in our praying seasons.
The same experiment may be repeated in reading the word of God. How full of sweetness and holy pleasure are the discoveries and the promises of the Bible, when devout affections are at work! How swdet are the histories of Abraham and David, the prophecies of Isaiah, and the predictions that point to Christ! How glorious the epistles of Peter and Paul! How divinely pleasing is the gospel of John, and the dying discourses and prayers of our Saviour in the 14th, 15th, 16th, and 17th chapters of this evangelist! How full of rapture and holy transport are the Psalms of David! We enter into his spirit, and we feel his divine sentiments and joys. But what a deadness, what a dryness overspreads even the most delicious and heavenly parts of those divine writings: what an insipid and tasteless thing is the gospel itself, when the holy passions are all asleep!
So it is in hearing sermons: When our sacred affections are awake, we dwell on the lips of the minister, as on the lips of an angel of God: every sentence seems to come from heaven; and even a feeble teacher, with all his infirmities, at such a season seems like a divine messenger, and raises your attention and delight. But the cause is within yourselves, the activity of your devout affections under the influence of divine grace.
Is not benevolence and kindness to our fellow- creatures, liberality to the poor, and especially to our fellow-christians, another part of our religion? “Pure religion and undefiled — is this, to visit the fatherless and the widow in their affliction,” — James i. 27. ‘• He that loves God, must love his brother also,” 1 Johniv. 21. But how ean Ave fulfil the several duties of help and relief, defence and consolation to our brethren, if we do not indulge the warm and tender affections of pity and sympathy, and love? The bounty of the hands, even to the most distressed object, will be but scanty and small, if there be no compassion in the heart: but when we love our brethren for God’s sake, and excite in our hearts all the friendly and compassionate affections towards the poor and the miserable, then covetiousness and self love lie down vanquished, and have no power to withhold the hand from a liberal distribution of blessings to those that are in need. Compassion melts the heart, and makes the hands flow with bounty and relief,
I might give other instances also of the same happy effect of holy passion in the more difficult duties of religion, in mortification of most beloved sins, as well as in denying our most darling interests for the sake of Christ. How sweet is it, saith St. Austin, under the power of divine love, how sweet is it to abstain from all the old, sweet and sinful delights of the flesh? “Herein is our love to God manifested, that we keep his commandments; and none of his commands are grievous,” 1 John V. 3.
And as the duties of religion are fulfilled with unusual delight, so every sin becomes more painful to the heart, when the passions are divinely tinctured. The very dwelling of sinful principles in the heart, the working of unruly appetites and unholy inclinations, and the first motions of pride, and wantonness, and malice, and envy, and love of the world, are all very grievous to the soul whose affections are renewed and sanctified. Every compliance with temptation breaks in upon the sweet serenity and peace of the spirit, and gives it great disquietude. Read the case of the holy Psalmist and of St. Peter, after their folly. Thus it is in some measure with every sincere and lively christian; nor is the spirit ever at rest after any remarkable sin, till that sin hath been made bitter to the soul, and till the soul has made fresh and warm application to the throne of grace, by humble repentance and faith in the blood of sprinkling.
It is a known doctrine both in the Jewish and christian church, that not only the pleasant, but the painful and uneasy passions of the heart are consecrated to divine purposes, sorrow for sin, and deep mourning, teach us powerfully “that it is an evil and bitter thing to forsake the Lord our God; and in this manner our wickedness is appointed to correct us, and our backslidings to reproach us,” Jer. ii. 19. By grief of the soul, and by the sadness of the countenance arising from it, Solomon tells us, “the heart is made better,” Eccles. vii.~3. When holy David began to be “sorry for his -sin, when he watered his couch with his tears, when his eyes were consumed with grief, and he’roaredby reason of the disquietness of his heart.” Psalm vi. 3, 6, 7, he was then under the workings of recovering grace. When St. Paul’s first epistle to the Corinthians made them sorry for their connivance at the incestuous iniquity of one of their members, he tells ihem, in his second letter, how necessary, this sorrow was, this godly sorrow which worketh repentance unto salvation: What a train of holy passions attended it! What indignation against sin, and the sinner! What holy fear of defilement by communi-DiscotJRSE rir.
on with such a crime, or the indulgence of it! What vehement desire after cleansing and forgiving grace! What revenge against such foul iniquity! What zeal to approve themselves clear before God and man! 2 Cor. vii. 9, 10, 11.
The blessed “God does not willingly afflict and grieve the children of-men;” Lam. iii. 33. and he would not have made the sorrows and the bitter groans of repentance so itecessary a part of the christian life, had he not known the painful passions of nature to have so happy an influence in the kingdom of his grace. By this anguish of the conscience, by these afllictions of the spirit, God carries on his own designs of mercy; and “makes the soul partaker of his holiness,” Heb. ,xii. 10.
Advantage V, *’ To employ the passions for God, is to take a most powerful engine of mischief out of the hand of sin and Satan, and to reduce it to the obedience of Christ. It is the recovery of a considerable part of human nature out of dismal captivity and bondage. The passions are the warmest and strongest powers of the soul. They are the artillery whereby man wages war either for or against heaven. The passions by nature are devoted to the service of sin, and engaged on the devil’s side in his wars against the Almighty, and they are charged with the seeds of impious fire and thtindr: But when divine grace hath taken hold on them, and employed them on the side of God and religion, it is like seizing the cannon of the enemy from their old batteries, and planting them in new bulwarks, to make war upon the devil and all his army.
Fearful and impious work do the passions make when they are engaged on the side of the flesh, the world and the devil. What bold contempt of God and all that is holy! What unruly violence of love to vanity and sensual pleasure! What mad delight in sin! What impetuous desires of forbidden objects! What malice boils in the heart against our neighbor, upon every supposed injury! What wicked envy frets and rages in the soul at the welfare of others! What wrath, and indignation, and revenge, are continually ready to be in arms! And how do these hellish passions employ the tongue in slander and lies, and sometimes embrue the hands in mischief and blood? Now what a glorious victory is it to have the vicious affections entirely “subdued, and the other powers of nature, which had been usurped by hell, seized and restrained, and consecrated to the God of heaven, and become instruments of holiness and peace! To have these engines of iniquity become happy mediums of adoration and service to God, and of hourly benefits to men! O blessed and divine change! O the sovereign power of converting grace! Advantage VI. ‘’ I might add, in the next place, that when the passions are sanctified and formed to a divine temper, it gives the gospel of Christ credit and honour in the world, in that it can triumph over the strongest powers of corrupt nature, and subdue them to the service of God and religion.^’ With what wicked violence were the passions of Paul engaged against the cause of Christianity, when, to use his own expressions,” he was exceedingly mad against the Saints, compelled them to blaspheme, and persecuted them to strange -cities?’’ Acts xxvi. 11. “When he breathed out threatenings and slaughter against the disciples of the Lord?” Acts ix. 1. Now to have this man changed from a lion to a lamb, from a persecutor to a preacher of the gospel; to hear this man propagating that gospel with zeal which he so lately endeavoured to destroy with fury, what divine honours this event gave to the religion of Christ when it was but young in the world? And as there were multitudes of such instances in those primitive days, so I hope they are not utterly wanting now.
There are, I hope, iii our age, in this city, and even in this assembly, some christians that caa bear sacred witness to the divine power of the gospel in this respect. One can say, “how fond was I of vanity and sensual pleasure? Regardless of God, and thoughtless of religion, with an aversion to all that was virtuous and holy? But through the grace of God, the object of my love is changed: I delight now in the things of God: I love his word, his people, himself, and his Christ, above all things in the world.”
Another can say, “I was greedy of money, and ambitious of vain glory.” Another confesses, “I was fretful and quarrelsome: I was malicious and envious; I was wrathful and resenting; and my ungodly passions “were ever ready to rise and ferment against m.y fellow-creatures: but now, through the influence of grace, I find my chief ambition is to be a child of God, and to exceed others in holiness: I covet the riches of grace, and the benefits of the gospel, above all other treasures: Now I am angry at myself because of sin, and angry at sinners when they dishonour God and my Saviour: I love my Lord Jesus, who hath procured forgiveness for me; and I would love all men, and forgive them for Jesus’ sake.
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It is a public glory brought to the gospel of Christ, when our devout and pious passions surmount all the carnal affections of the heart; when the fear of God rises so high, and grows so strong in the soul, as to subdue and overcome all other fears: And if we fear God sincerely, we need fear nothing else. It is very honourable to Christ and his religion, when the love of God and of Jesus Christ the Saviour, flames high above all other loves, and makes us forego and forget every thing which might be dear and valuable to us before, if it stands in competition with God the supreme object of our love. When the christian can rejoice and say,” I love my father and my mother, my wife and children, with as true and tender an affection as ever I did;’ but I love God, and my Redeemer, with a more sublime passion.’’ Neither father nor mother, nor dear young children, nor the wife of my bosom, shall withhold m.e from my duty to God; and, through the aids of divine grace, I would be ready to ofier myself, with all my interest in them, as a sacrifice to the love of Christ.
It is glorious indeed, to see the devout passions so much transcend all other passions and appetites, all other fears, loves, and desires, as they that all melt away and vanish before the power of divine fear and divine love. To see all our fondest desires, and our warmest passions for creatures languish and sink, and die under the present influences of devout affection, as the light of a candle vanishes and is lost in the midst of sunbeams, or as the noise of a shaking leaf, dies and is unheard in the midst of thunder: O happy souls, who have arrived at this sublime degree of Christianity! Thither let our hearts aspire daily, and never cease our holy labours and prayers, till we love, till we fear, till we desire God, in this glorious and intense degree.
Advantage VIL In the last place I add “the sanctified passions render us so much the more conformable to the blessed Jesus, and fitter for his presence and enjoyments in heaven.” As the son of God put on our flesh and: blood, so he assumed the various powers and properties of human nature, the appetites and passions of mankind: He endured hunger and thirst, he had fear and love, hope and joy; nor were the more troublesome affections of anger and sorrow left out of his constitution, but they were all innocent and holy; they were never tainted with sin as ours are; they had no corrupt mixtures to defile his soul. Our passions are like water with mud at the bottom; when they are moved they too frequently raise the mud, and betray their im-DISCOURSE III.
purity: But the passions of Christ were ever pure: like water from the clearest fountain in a glass of crystal, which, though it be never so much agitated, is still unpolluted.
These pathetic powers of his holy soul were ever engaged in the interest of religion, and employed for pious purposes. He loved. God his Father with the most perfect and intense affection; and he let the world know, that he loved the Father, John xiv, 81. He rejoiced in spirit, when he gave thanks to God, Luke x. 21, and when God hid his face from him, and forsook him, his soul was exceeding sorrowful, even unto death, Matt. xxvi. 38. He was grieved and angry with the hypocrites and the blasphemers of his day, and looked round upon them with wrath and holy indignation, Mark iii. 5. How pathetic and vehement was his zeal for his Father’s honour, when “he scourged out the buyers and sellers from the temple? The zeal of the house of God consumed and wasted his spirits, as it is said,” John ii. 17. “He loved his church with most astonishing fervor, for his love was stronger than death,” Eph. v. 25. “And greater love hath no man than this, that one should lay down his life for another,” John XV. 13. How passionately did he mourn at his own foresight of the dismal distress of his enemies at Jerusalem? “He looked upon the bloody city with tender compassion, and wept over it with tears of grief and love,” Luke xix. 41, And what divine passions were exercised in his devout retirements, what holy fervors in the wilderness and upon midnight mountains, is only known to God, and to ministering angels.
Thus it appears, that the more our affections are tinctured with piety and goodness, and the warmer their engagement is in the things of God, the more nearly shall we imitate our glorious Redeemer. 0 divine pattern, beyond all our imitation! But blessed are those who are the nearest copyers of it*
But you will inquire, “How will this exercise of devout passion, fit us the more for the heavenly world?” Angels are not clothed with flesh and blood as we are, and the spirits of the departed saints have left this part of their nature behind them, in the grave: What efforts of passion therefore can there be among the inhabitants of heaven?
To this I answer, that though spirits departed, and angels can have no such ferments of animal nature, as go to make up those principles and powers which we call the passions, in this mortal state, yet there is something akin to them; which may be called affections in the very nature of every intelligent creature: Spirits which have no relation to flesh can fear and hope, can love and desire, can rejoice and grieve, and that in strong and intense degrees; otherwise there would be no hell for the separate souls of the wicked, and for the punishment of devils; nor would thejre he a heaven for the reward of the spirits of just men made perfect: There cannot be a heaven without pleasure, nor a hell without grief and anguish: Since therefore there is and must be something of pure affection in separate spirits,that bears a correspondence with our passions in this mortal state, we may be well assured, that the more these passions are refined and sanctified, and the more they are engaged about divine objects in a proper manner, ac- 1,, cording to the will of God, we shall thereby ► acquire a greater meetness for the business and blessedness of heaven, and be better prepared for the exercise of those more spiritual affections, which belong to the saints departed, and to the happy inhabitants of the intellectual world.
The holy apostle teaches us this doctrine in that sweet period of scripture, 1 Pet. iii.. 6, 8: When we are “begotten again to a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, wherein we greatly rejoice:” and the joy surmounts all our present heaviness, and bears us in conquest and triumph through our manifold temptations. It gives us a transporting view of praise, honour, and glory, at the appearance of our Lord Jesus; whom having not seen we love: in whom, though now we see him not, yet believing, we rejoice with joy unspeakable, and full of glory; or as it is in the original, “with unspeakable and glorified joy!” You see here that the three blessed affections of hope, love, and joy, bring the soul, to the confines of the heavenly world, set him as it were at the gates of paradise, fill the heart with those divine sensations which are near a-kin to the joys of glorified spirits. Thus by the exercise of the holy passions in a sublime degree, “we are come to the spirits of the just made perfect, and almost admitted into the glorious presence of Jesus, our adored Mediator, Heb. xii. 23, 24. Let us awake, let us arise, let us shake ourselves out of the dust of this earth, and dress our souls in these beautiful garments: Let us long and breathe after these sacred sensations of refined pleasure, to which the church itself is too much a stranger in our degenerate times. These are fair emblems and sweet foretastes of those unknown “pleasures which flow from the right hand of God without ceasing, and run like rivers, an everlasting course, through all the ages of eternity,” Psalnij xvi. 13.
MEDITATION.
“How glad am I to find that not only my understanding and my will, but that all my passions may be made serviceable to God and religion, to my noblest designs, and my eternal interest! I am sure some of them have had an unhappy influence to lead me astray from my God and my duty, and I am greatly pleased to hear that they are capable of being reduced to the service of my Maker, and become instruments of holiness and peace. Descend, O divine Spirit, descend into my heart! Take hold of these active and sprightly powers of my nature, and bind them to thy eternal service. Awaken my fear of the majesty and the justice of God, that I may seek earnestly what I shall do to please him, and how I may obtain his favour: And let my fear be constant and restless till my feet are led into the paths of salvation, and I feel the constraining power of divine love.
“Let my devout passions be ever awake and lively when I hear the things of God spoken, or when I read of the momentous concerns of religion, and a life to come. Then the sacred truths and duties of Christianity shall be impressed deep on my memo-, ry, and written there as with a pen of diamond, never to be blotted out. O may the warm passions, melt my soul to tenderness, and make me susceptive of every holy impression. May this heart of mine, this table of stone, be softened by devout affection, till all the necessary and important parts of religion, are written there in lasting characters! May my heart, O Lord, receive the stamp of thy gospel with all its sacred lineaments, till I am become a new creature, transformed into the image of the Son ’ of God.
“How easy will all the duties of holiness become, and all my temptations to sin how weak and ineffectual, if the passionate powers of my nature are warmly engaged for God!
“How delightful and pleasant shall I then find even the difficult practices of religion! How hateful will every sin be in my eyes, and how painful to my heart, when divine love as a sovereign has taken possession of it, and set all the train of affections at work there in its own service! No more shall I complain of weariness, t)r be tired of religious worship: I shall say in my heart no more,” When will the Sabbatbbe
DISCOURSE III.
over?” Not cut short my prayers and meditations, to gratify the flesh and obey its corrupt influence. If I am winged with holy passion, I shall climb over mountains of difliculty, in my way to heaven, or remove hills of temptations that obstruct my course: Divine love, as well as faith, can remove mountains.
“O how happy shall I be when all my passions are sanctified! They have been, I mourn to speak it, they have been wretched engines of mischief in the land of sin and Satan: They have defiled my soul shamefully; they have broken the law of my God; they have abused his grace and his gospel; dishonoured my Saviour, and grieved his holy Spirit. When shall these powers of my nature be rescued from their sinful slavery, and be devoted to purposes divine and heavenly! O that my fear and Tny love, my anger and my desire, my grief and my joy, were all appointed to their proper objects, that they might never more break out in an unruly manner to dishonour God, or to awaken sharp anguish in my own conscience! I would watch, I would pray, I would labour, and wrestle day and night against the body of sin that dwells in me. O for the sovereign influence of almighty grace, to correct all the disorders of my soul, and to turn every passion of my nature into a principle of holiness i” Let the blessed gospel of Christ obtain this triumph over me: Let the gospel subdue these rebellious powers to the obedience of my Lord and Saviour: May the gospel have the glory of so divine a change!
“Come, blessed Saviour, set thy holy example before me, in a more illustrious and transforming light: Let all the devout passions of zeal and love, which reigned in thy heart, reign also in mine: O that I might copy out the wonders of my zeal for the honour of God, and thy love to the race of man! With what a divine vehemence were thy holy affections engaged in I worship! But alas, how cold are all my attempts to devotion! Kindle, O Jesus, the sacred fire within me: let it melt down my leart, and mould me into thy likeness. Let ny soul be made up of divine love, as a lappy preparative for the joys of heaven, md the everlasting presence of God, and ny Saviour.’^ Amen.