I am presently reading a Jonathan Edwards Reader for a class. It’s been fantastic, with plenty of worthy portions to excerpt (well, that goes without saying). But one particular portion really jumped out at me, and that is what follows below. It is found in Part 3, Section 12 of the Affections; Part 3 being about the “distinguishing signs of truly gracious and holy affections,” and Section 12 detailing how “gracious and holy affections have their exercise and fruit in Christian practice.”
(For a helpful overview of the whole of Edwards’s Religious Affections, see this article by Justin Taylor at TGC. The text in its entirety can be found here.)
Edwards:
I proceed to show, that Christian practice, taken in the sense that has been explained, is the chief of all the evidences of a saving sincerity in religion, to the consciences of the professors of it; much to be preferred to the method of the first convictions, enlightenings, and comforts in conversion, or any immanent discoveries or exercises of grace whatsoever, that begin and end in contemplation. The evidence of this appears by the following arguments.
ARGUMENT I.—Reason plainly shows, that those things which put it to the proof what men will actually cleave to and prefer in their practice, when left to follow their own choice and inclinations, are the proper trial what they do really prefer in their hearts. Sincerity in religion, as has been observed already, consists in setting God highest in the heart, in choosing him before other things, in having a heart to sell all for Christ, &c. But a man’s actions are the proper trial what a man’s heart prefers. As for instance, when it is so that God and other things come to stand in competition, God is as it were set before a man on one hand, and his worldly interest or pleasure on the other (as it often is so in the course of a man’s life); his behavior in such case, in actually cleaving to the one and forsaking the other, is the proper trial which he prefers.
Sincerity consists in forsaking all for Christ in heart; but to forsake all for Christ in heart, is the very same thing as to have a heart to forsake all for Christ; but certainly the proper trial whether a man has a heart to forsake all for Christ is his being actually put to it, the having Christ and other things coming in competition, that he must actually or practically cleave to one and forsake the other. To forsake all for Christ in heart, is the same thing as to have a heart to forsake all for Christ when called to it: but the highest proof to ourselves and others, that we have a heart to forsake all for Christ when called to it, is actually doing it when called to it, or so far as called to it.
To follow Christ in heart is to have a heart to follow him. To deny ourselves in heart for Christ, is the same thing as to have a heart to deny ourselves for him in fact. The main and most proper proof of a man’s having a heart to any thing, concerning which he is at liberty to follow his own inclinations, and either to do or not to do as he pleases, is his doing of it. When a man is at liberty whether to speak or keep silence, the most proper evidence of his having a heart to speak, is his speaking. When a man is at liberty whether to walk or sit still, the proper proof of his having a heart to walk, is his walking. Godliness consists not in a heart to intend to do the will of God, but in a heart to do it.
Note: I added the two breaks above in the Arg. 1 paragraph for ease of reading. The bold sentences are mine as well.
Toward Articulation 