Signs of the Spirit: A Study in Religious Affections

Religious Affections: The Fourth, Fifth, and Sixth Signs

I.Review of the First Three Signs

  1. The Building of the Signs of Religious Affections

II.The Fourth Sign: “Gracious affections do arise from the mind’s being enlightened, rightly and spiritually to understand or apprehend divine things”

  1. Two Parts to Affections
  1. Speculative knowledge vs. Spiritual knowledge
  1. New knowledge?
  1. Spiritually understanding Scripture “is to have the eyes of the mind opened, to behold the wonderful spiritual excellency of the glorious things contained in the true meaning of it, and that always were contained in it, ever since it was written; to behold the amiable and bright manifestations of the divine perfections, and of the excellency and sufficiency of Christ, and the excellency and suitableness of the way of salvation by Christ, and the spiritual glory of the precepts and promises of Scripture”

III.The Fifth Sign: “Truly gracious affections are attended with a reasonable and spiritual conviction of the judgment, of the reality and certainty of divine things”

  1. A Reasonable Conviction
  1. Belief in the truth of the gospel must be based “on real evidence, or upon that which is a good reason, or just ground of conviction”
  1. A Spiritual Conviction
  1. “[It] is such a conviction, as arises from having a spiritual view or apprehension of those things in the mind,” or a conviction that comes from “a new sense and taste of the divine, supreme and holy excellency and beauty of [divine] things”
  1. The Fifth Sign and Evangelism

III.The Sixth Sign: “Gracious affections are attended with evangelical humiliation”

  1. Legal Humiliation vs. Evangelical Humiliation
  1. Legal Humiliation
  1. Evangelical Humiliation
  1. “…a sense that a Christian has of his own utter insufficiency, despicableness, and odiousness, with an answerable frame of heart”
  1. Two Manifestations of Spiritual Pride
  1. One thinks more highly of his attainments in religion when he compares himself with others
  1. True humility
  1. One thinks highly of his humility
  1. True humility

C.“All gracious affections, that are a sweet odor to Christ, and that fill the soul of a Christian with an heavenly sweetness and fragrancy, are brokenhearted affections. A truly Christian love, either to God or men, is a humble brokenhearted love. The desires of the saints, however earnest, are humble desires: their hope is a humble hope; and their joy, even when it is unspeakable, and full of glory, is a humble, brokenhearted joy, and leaves the Christian more poor in spirit, and more like a little child, and more disposed to an universal lowliness of behavior”