Religious affections

It seems there are no new historical problems. I spent the day with Jonathan Edwards, sidetracked into the 18th century and his "Treatise on Religious Affections" --- aka, "Are people who emote about Jesus certified crackpots?"

Instead of the Charismatics and the Presbyterians, or the Hatfields and McCoys, it was the Revival supporters and Revival naysayers, in particular the Harvard crowd who after George Whitefield's pot-stirring campus visit called him and Edwards "enthusiasts," which wasn't a compliment in those days.

I like Edwards; he has guts. Being the presider over the Revival, he would be expected to answer the question in paragraph one with an unqualified "no." But he qualifies for 200 pages: He spends the first few insisting that when a man gets saved it's not unnatural for him to want to crow or yelp or do cartwheels ("I know of no reason why being affected with a view of God's glory should not cause the body to faint."). And he warns against "lifeless formality" and the "prevailing taste" (ahem, Harvard) for stifled emotions.

Then he spends the remainder of the treatise saying why all that crowing and yelping and cartwheels isn't necessarily a sign that a man is saved. Feelings are not reliable enough for that assurance. You go by the Scriptures, which tell us to judge a tree by its fruit: Is the man "a loyal subject, a true love, a dutiful child, a faithful servant"? Does the man pay his debts, for crying out loud?