Affection

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As in worldly things, worldly AFFECTIONS are very much the spring of men’s motion and action; so in religious matters, the spring of their actions is very much religious AFFECTION: he that has doctrinal knowledge and speculation only, without AFFECTION, never is engaged in the business of religion….I am bold to assert, that there never was any considerable change wrought in the mind or conversation of any person, by anything of a religious nature, that ever he read, heard or saw, that had not his AFFECTIONS moved. Never was a natural man engaged earnestly to seek his salvation; never were any such brought to cry after wisdom, and lift up their voice for understanding, and to wrestle with God in prayer for mercy; and never was one humbled, and brought to the foot of God, from anything that ever he heard or imagined of his own unworthiness and deserving of God’s displeasure; nor was ever one induced to fly for refuge unto Christ, while his HEART remained UNAFFECTED. Nor was there ever a saint awakened out of a cold, lifeless flame, or recovered from a declining state in religion, and brought back from a lamentable departure from God, without having his HEART AFFECTED. And in a word, there never was anything considerable brought to pass in the HEART or life of any man living, by the things of religion, that had not his HEART deeply AFFECTED by those things…The religion of heaven consists very much in AFFECTION.

(Edwards, Religious Affections)

The love of God, and the love of the world, are two AFFECTIONS, not merely in a state of rivalship, but in a state of enmity, and that so irreconcilable that they can not dwell together in the same bosom. [It is impossible] for the HEART, by any innate elasticity of its own, to cast the world away from it… It is seldom that any of our bad habits or flaws disappear by a mere process of natural extinction. At least, it is very seldom, that this is done through the instrumentality of reasoning, or by force of mental determination. What cannot be destroyed, however, may be dispossessed. One taste may be made to give way to another, and to lose its power entirely as the reigning AFFECTION of the mind. It is thus, that a youth may cease to idolize central pleasure, but it is because the idol of wealth has gotten the ascendancy (so, he becomes disciplined). But the love of money might actually cease to have mastery over his HEART if it is drawn more to ideology and politics, now he is lorded over by a love of power, and of moral superiority, instead of wealth. But here is not one of these personal transformations in which the HEART is left without an object of ultimate beauty and joy. The HEART’s desire for one particular object can be conquered, but it’s desire to have some object is unconquerable. The only way to dispossess the HEART of an old AFFECTION is by the expulsive power of a new one.

(Chalmers, The Expulsive Power of a New Affection)

There, in heaven, this infinite fountain of love — this eternal Three in One — is set open without any obstacle to hinder access to it, as it flows forever. There this glorious God is manifested and shines forth in full glory, in beams of love. And there this glorious fountain forever flows forth in streams, yea, in rivers of love and delight, and these rivers swell, as it were, to an ocean of love, in which the souls of the ransomed may bathe with the sweetest enjoyment, and their hearts, as it were, be deluged with love!

(Jonathan Edwards, Heaven in a World of Love)