MK) THE AFFECTIONATE CHRISTIAN VINDICATED. chief object of our hope and desire, yet our passions may not always be so powerfully impressedby them as they are by sensi- ble and carnal things, and the reason is because they are spiritual and invisible." The passions which arewrought into our present frame, be- long partly to animal nature, as well as to the mind ; and there- fore, the things of sense are nearer a-kin to them : They touch and strikeour passions sooner, and awaken them to moreviva- city, andengage them with more vehemence than things which are unseen. The passions are certain principles inman which dependmuch on flesh and blood ; and therefore, they are more naturally impressed by things that strike our eyes and our ears, and by them find a way to their hearts. It is possible that God and heaven may be really more beloved than men and this earth, though the animal powers of joy, hope, fear, and desire, may not be so sensible and vehement in their operations toward spi- ritual, absent and future objects, as towards things present and sensible. There is not therefore sufficient ground to conclude that we do not love God above creatures, because we sometimes feel the more passionate exercises and commotionsof flesh and blood about creatures, than we do about God himself: And in- deed were it not for this reasonable salvo, this spring of conso- lation, a multitude of christians would be ready to give them- selves up to despair, and I doubt there would be very few of us Who would not have reason to suspectthe truth and powerof our inward religion. Yet I cannot conclude without this observation : In the last place, that " what comfortable evidences soever of our love to God may be derived from the high esteem of him in our minds, and the attachment of onr wills to him, yet these evidences andcomforts will bé greatly brightened and increas- ed by feeling the affectionate love of God in the heart" To love the Lord our God, with all the mind, and with all the soul, and with all the strength, becomes more glorious when it in- fluences the affectionate powers of the heart to join in the prac- tice of religion. It is granted that the mere flashes of sudden passion in a devout moment, without a settled supreme esteem of God in the mind, without a firm attachment of the will to him, and careful obedience to his commands, will yield but small and feeble con- solation in a time of trial and enquiry : Thehearers who receive the word like seed in stony ground are said to receive it with joy, but their religion was but a flash ; it enduredbut for a short sea- son ; it sprungup on a sudden and quickly withered, because it had no root in the understandingand the will ; Mat. xiii. 20, 21. Yetit is better, infinitely better to find and feel that we love God with all our powers ; we should therefore use 01proper rgethods
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