Thursday, May 6, 2010

brokenhearted affections

All gracious affections, that are a sweet odor to Christ, and that fill the soul of a Christian with a 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.

--Jonathan Edwards, Religious Affections (Yale edition, ed. Paul Ramsey), 339-40; see Storms, Signs of the Spirit: An Interpretation of Jonathan Edwards' Religious Affections (Crossway 2007), 117
Dane Ortlund

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