Examine me, O LORD, and prove me; try my reins and my heart.
~ Psalm 26:2
The fining pot is for silver, and the furnace for gold: but the LORD trieth the hearts.
~ Proverbs 17:3
Thou hast proved mine heart; thou hast visited me in the night; thou hast tried me, and shalt find nothing; I am purposed that my mouth shall not transgress.
~ Psalm 17:3
Lead me, O LORD, in thy righteousness because of mine enemies; make thy way straight before my face.
~ Psalm 5:8
Wherefore the Lord said, Forasmuch as this people draw near me with their mouth, and with their lips do honour me, but have removed their heart far from me, and their fear toward me is taught by the precept of men:
~ Isaiah 29:13
Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it.
~ Matthew 7:14
Being Zealous About Religious Things is No Sign of Gracious Affections, by Jonathan Edwards. The following contains an excerpt from his work, A Treatise Concerning Religious Affections, In Three Parts.
Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts: And see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.
~ Psalm 139:23-24
3. Being zealous about religious things is no sign of gracious affections
It is no sign that affections are or are not truly gracious affections, just because they cause those who have them to be fluent, fervent, and abundant, in talking about the things of religion.
There are many persons who, if they see this in others, are greatly prejudiced against them. For such persons, others being so full of talk is sufficient ground to condemn them as Pharisees, and as ostentatious hypocrites. On the other hand, there are many who, if they see this effect in anyone, are ignorantly and imprudently eager to at once conclude that they are true children of God, and they are under the saving influences of his Spirit. They speak of it as great evidence of a new creature. They say, “such a person’s mouth is now opened. He used to be slow to speak, but now he is full and free. He is free now to open his heart, and to tell of his experiences, and to declare the praises of God. It flows from him freely, like water from a fountain;” and so on. They are confident and fully persuaded that people are savingly worked upon, if they are not only free and abundant in their speech, but very affectionate and earnest in it.
However, this is the fruit of little judgment, and a scanty and short experience, as recent events abundantly show. It is a mistake persons often run into, by trusting their own wisdom and discernment, and making their own notions their rule, instead of trusting the holy Scripture. The Scripture is full of rules as to how we should judge our own state, and what should conduct our opinion of others. Yet we have no rule anywhere by which to judge whether ourselves or others are in a good estate, based on any such effects. For this is but the religion of the mouth and of the tongue. It is what the Scripture represents by the leaves of a tree: though the tree should not be without them, leaves are nowhere given as evidence of the goodness of the tree.
When people are disposed to abundantly talk about the things of religion, it may be from a good cause, or it may be from a bad one. It may be that their hearts are full of holy affections; “for out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks.” Or it may be that their hearts are full of religious affection which is not holy. For either way, out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks. It is very much the nature of the affections, of whatever kind they may be, and whatever objects they are exercised about, that if those affections are strong, they will dispose persons to speak extensively about what they are affected by. This is not only to speak extensively of these things, but to speak earnestly and fervently about them. Therefore, persons who talk abundantly and fervently about the things of religion, give evidence of no more than this: that they are very greatly affected by the things of religion. But this affection may be present (as already shown) and yet there may be no grace. What men are greatly affected by while the high affection lasts, they will be earnestly engaged about; and they will likely show their earnestness in their talk and in their behavior. The greater part of the Jews in all Judah and Galilee did this for awhile about John the Baptist’s preaching and baptism. For a season, they were willing to rejoice in his light; a mighty commotion was made all over the land, among all sorts of persons, about this great prophet and his ministry. In the same way, the multitude often manifested a great earnestness and a mighty engagement of spirit in everything that was external about Christ and his preaching, and about his miracles. They were “astonished at his doctrine,” Mat 7.28 “briefly receiving the word with joy.” Luk 8.13 Sometimes they followed him night and day, leaving food, drink, and sleep to hear him. Once they followed him into the wilderness, fasting three days as they were going to hear him. Sometimes they cried out to the clouds about him, saying, “Never did a man speak like this man!” They were fervent and earnest in what they said. But what did these things come to in most of them?
A person may be overfilled with talk of his own experiences – often focusing on it everywhere and in all companies. And when it is so, it is a dark sign rather than a good one. Just as a tree that is overfull of leaves seldom bears much fruit; or as a cloud which appears pregnant and full of water, if it brings too much wind, then it seldom provides much rain for the dry and thirsty earth. Several times, the Holy Spirit makes use of this very image to represent a great show of religion with the mouth, but without any corresponding fruit in the life. Prov. 25:14, “Whoever falsely boasts of giving a gift, is like clouds and wind without rain.” And the apostle Jude spoke of some in olden times, who crept in unawares among the saints; having a great show of religion, they were not suspected for a while. “These are clouds (he says) without water, carried about by winds,” Jude ver. 4 and 12. The apostle Peter, speaking of the same thing, says in 2Pet. 2:17, “These are clouds without water, carried with a tempest.”
False affections, if they are equally strong, are much more eager to declare themselves than true ones – because it is the nature of false religion to make a show of it for observation, as it was with the Pharisees.1
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Footnote:
1 That famous experiential divine, Mr. Shepherd, says, “A Pharisee’s trumpet shall be heard to the town’s end; when simplicity walks through the town unseen. Hence a man will sometimes covertly commend himself (and myself ever comes in), and tells you a long story of conversion; and a hundred to one if some lie or other slip not out with it. Why, the secret meaning is, I pray admire me. Hence complain of wants and weaknesses: Pray think what a broken-hearted Christian I am .” Parab. of the Ten Virgins. Part I. pages 179, 180. And holy Mr. Flavel says thus: “O reader, if your heart were right with God, and you did not cheat yourself with a vain profession, you would have frequent business with God, which you would be loth your dearest friend, or the wife of your bosom should be privy to. Non est religio, ubi omnia patent. Religion does not lie open to all, to the eyes of men. Observed duties maintain our credit; but secret duties maintain our life. It was the saying of a heathen, about his secret correspondence with his friend, What need the world be acquainted with it? you and I are theatre enough to each other. There are enclosed pleasures in religion, which none but renewed spiritual souls feelingly understand.” Flavel’s Touchstone of Sincerity,
4. Externally-induced affections are not necessarily gracious
It is no sign that affections are gracious, or otherwise, if persons did not produce these affections by themselves, nor excite them by their own contrivance and their own strength.
There are many these days who condemn all affections which are excited in a way that their subjects can give no account for. These subjects say their affections do not seem to be the fruit of their own endeavors, or the natural consequence of the faculties and principles of human nature, that might be expected in such circumstances and under such means. Instead, they say these affections come from the influence of some extrinsic and supernatural power upon their minds. The doctrine of the inward experience, or the tangible perception of the immediate power and operation of the Spirit of God, has been greatly reproached and ridiculed by many of late! They say God’s Spirit co-operates in a silent, secret, and indiscernible way with the use of means and with our own endeavors, so that we cannot sensibly distinguish between the influences of the Spirit of God, and the natural operations of the faculties of our own minds.
It is true: it is an unreasonable presumption for anyone to expect to receive the saving influences of the Spirit of God while they neglect a diligent improvement of the appointed means of grace. To expect the Spirit of God to savingly operate on their minds, without the Spirit making use of means that are subservient to the effect, is overly enthusiastic. It is also undoubtedly true that the manner and circumstances of the Spirit’s operations is varied; sometimes he operates in a way that is more secret and gradual, and proceeds from smaller beginnings, than at other times.
But if there is indeed a power that is entirely different from and beyond our power, or the power of all means and instruments, and above the power of nature – and this power is requisite to produce saving grace in the heart, according to the general profession of the country – then certainly it is not unreasonable to suppose that this effect would frequently be produced in such a manner as to make its effect manifest, apparent, and tangible. If grace is indeed owing to the powerful and efficacious operation of an extrinsic agent, or a divine efficient that is outside of ourselves, then why is it unreasonable to suppose it would seem to be this way for those who are its subjects? Is it a strange thing that it should seem to be as it is? When indeed grace in the heart is not produced by our strength, and is not the effect of the natural power of our own faculties, and is not of our own means or instruments, but is properly the workmanship and production of the Spirit of the Almighty – then is it a strange and unaccountable thing, that it would seem to those who are its subjects, that their experience agrees with the truth, and is not contrary to it? So if persons tell of effects that they are conscious of in their own minds, that seem to them are not from the natural power or operation of their minds, but from the supernatural power of some other agent, then why should it at once be looked at as sure evidence of their being under a delusion, just because things seem to them to be as they are?
For this is the objection which is made about it: it is seen as clear evidence that the apprehensions and affections that many persons have, are not really from such a cause, just because they seem to those persons to be from such a cause. Those persons are merely declaring that what they are conscious of, seems to them, is evidently not from themselves, but from the mighty power of the Spirit of God. And from this, others condemn these persons. They conclude that what these persons have experienced is not from the Spirit of God, but from themselves, or from the devil. Multitudes are unreasonably treated this way today by their neighbors.
The Scripture abundantly teaches that grace in the soul is so much the effect of God’s power, that it is fittingly compared to those effects which cannot be attributed to any strength in the subject – such as regeneration, or being begotten, or resurrection, or being raised from the dead, or creation, or being brought out of nothing into being. If indeed it is so, that it is an effect in which the mighty power of God is greatly glorified, and the exceeding greatness of his power is manifested, Eph. 1:17-20. then what account can be given for it, that the Almighty, in so great a work of his power, would so carefully hide his power, so that its subjects would not be able to discern anything of it? Or what reason or revelation does anyone have to determine that he does so? If we may judge by the Scripture, this is not agreeable to God’s manner in his operations and dispensations. On the contrary, it is God’s manner, in the great works of his power and mercy which he works for his people, to order things so as to make his hand visible, and his power conspicuous, and men’s dependence on him most evident, so that no flesh should glory in his presence, 1Cor. 1:27, 28, 29 and so that God alone might be exalted, Isa. 2:11-17 and so that the excellency of the power might be of God and not of man, 2Cor. 4:7 and so that Christ’s power might be manifested in our weakness, 2Cor. 12:9. and none might say ‘my own hand has saved me.’ Judg. 7:2.
So it was in most of those temporal salvations which God wrought for Israel of old, which were types of the salvation of God’s people from their spiritual enemies. So it was in the redemption of Israel from their Egyptian bondage. He redeemed them with a strong hand, and an outstretched arm. And so that his power might be more conspicuous, he first allowed Israel to be brought into the most helpless and forlorn circumstances. So it was in the great redemption by Gideon. God wanted his army diminished to a handful, and to be without any arms other than trumpets, lamps, and earthen pitchers. So it was in the deliverance of Israel from Goliath, by a using a stripling boy with a sling and a stone. So it was in that great work of God, calling the Gentiles and converting the Heathen world after Christ’s ascension, and after the world by its own wisdom did not know God. For many ages, all the endeavors of philosophers proved in vain to reform the world. So it became abundantly evident that the world was utterly helpless without the mighty power of God. And this is what we see in most of the conversions of particular persons that we have an account of in the history of the New Testament: they were not worked on in that silent, secret, gradual, and insensitive manner which is now insisted on; but with those manifest evidences of a supernatural power, wonderfully and suddenly causing a great change, which in these days are looked upon as certain signs of delusion and enthusiasm.1
The Apostle, in Eph. 1:18-19, speaks of God enlightening the minds of Christians, and so bringing them to believe in Christ – the end is that they might know the exceeding greatness of his power towards those who believe. The words are, “The eyes of our understanding being enlightened; that you may know what is the hope of his calling, and what are the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints, and what is the exceeding greatness of his power towards us who believe, according to the working of his mighty power,” etc. Now when the apostle speaks of saints being the subjects of his power in this way, in their enlightening and effectual calling, to the end that they might know what his mighty power was towards those who believe, he can only mean, “that they might know by experience.” But if the saints know this power by experience, then they feel it, and discern it, and are conscious of it. It is sensibly distinguishable from the natural operations of their own minds. This is not agreeable to a notion that God operates so
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Footnote:
1 Enthusiasm is meant in a derogatory sense, as literally, “God-within-ism,” the immanent God in opposition to the transcendent God. In an article titled “Reformed and Always Reforming (Always Reformed, ed. R. Scott Clark and Joel E. Kim, Westminster Seminary CA, 2010) pp. 117-119, Michael Horton relates that John Calvin “complained of being assaulted by ‘two sects’ – ‘the Pope and the Anabaptists’ – which, though quite different from each other, ‘boast extravagantly of the Spirit’ in order to distort or distract from the word of God.” Horton writes, “The legacy of enthusiasm has found fertile soil in American religious experience, particularly in the history of revivalism. Alexis de Tocqueville observed that Americans wish ‘to escape from imposed systems’ of any kind, ‘[to] seek by themselves and in themselves for the only reason for things, looking to results without getting entangled in the means toward them.’ They do not need external guidance to discover truth, ‘having found it in themselves.’ …The effect of pietism… was to shift the emphasis away from ‘collective belief, adherence to creedal standards and proper observance of traditional forms, to the emphasis on individual religious experience.’ The effect of the Enlightenment was to shift ‘the ultimate authority in religion’ from the church to ‘the mind of the individual.’ …Yet this inner spark, inner light, inner experience, and inner reason that guides mysticism, rationalism, idealism, and pragmatism in all ages is precisely that autonomous self which, according to the New Testament, must be crucified and buried with Christ in baptism, so that one can be raised with Christ as a denizen of the new age.” Yet Edwards affirms religious experience against those who dismiss it. – WHG
secretly and indiscernibly, that it cannot be known that they are the subjects of the influence of any extrinsic power at all, other than as they may argue it from the assertions of Scripture; which is different from knowing it by experience. So it is most unreasonable and unscriptural to conclude that affections are not from the gracious operations of God’s Spirit, just because these affections do not sensibly proceed from the persons themselves who are the subjects of those operations.
On the other hand, it is no evidence that affections are indeed gracious, just because they are not produced by their subjects, or because they arise in their minds in a way they cannot account for. There are some who make this an argument in their own favor. When speaking of what they have experienced, they say, “I am sure I did not make it myself; it was a fruit of no contrivance or endeavor of mine; it came when I thought nothing of it; if I could gain the world for it, I cannot make it happen again when I please.” Hence, they conclude that what they experienced must be from the mighty influence of the Spirit of God, and that it is of a saving nature. But they do so ignorantly, and without grounds. What they have been the subjects of may indeed not be from themselves directly, but it may be from the operation of an invisible agent, from some spirit besides their own – but it does not follow from this that it was from the Spirit of God. There are other spirits who have influence on the minds of men besides the Holy Ghost. We are directed not to believe every spirit, but to test the spirits, whether they are of God. 1Joh 4.1 There are many false spirits that are exceedingly busy with men, who often transform themselves into angels of light. In many wonderful ways, and with great subtlety and power, they mimic the operations of the Spirit of God. Many of Satan’s operations are distinguishable from the voluntary exercises of men’s own minds. They present themselves in those dreadful and horrid suggestions and blasphemous injections with which he hounds many persons. They present themselves in vain and fruitless frights and terrors, which Satan is the author of. The power of Satan may be as immediate and as evident in false comforts and joys, as it is in terrors and horrid suggestions; and it is often so in fact. It is not in men’s power to put themselves in raptures such as the Anabaptists in Germany have, or which many other raving enthusiasts like them have.
Besides these arguments, consider that some persons may have impressions on their minds which may not be of their own producing, nor are they from an evil spirit, but from the Spirit of God – and yet they still may not proceed from any saving influence, but from a common influence of the Spirit of God. The subjects of such impressions may be among those we read about in Heb. 6:4-5. They “have once been enlightened, and tasted of the heavenly gift, and are made partakers of the Holy Ghost, and have tasted the good word of God, and the power of the world to come;” and yet they may be wholly unacquainted with those “better things that accompany salvation” spoken of in ver. 9.
Where neither a good nor evil spirit has an immediate hand in it, some may still have strange apprehensions and imaginations, with strong affections attending them. These unaccountably arise; they are not voluntarily produced. This happens especially in those with a weak and nervous habit of body, or where the brain is weak and easily susceptible to impressions. We see that such persons are liable to impressions about temporal things; and there is equal reason for them to be liable to impressions about spiritual things. Just as a person who is asleep has dreams of which he is not the voluntary author, so may such persons, in a similar way, have involuntary impressions when they are awake.
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