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I. AFFECTION IS THE GOING OUT OF THE SOUL TOWARD OBJECTS WITHIN ITS VIEW.

1. How happy it were if affection might go just at its own pleasure and all be right and safe, i.e., that an infallible perception accompanied it with which the moral taste strictly agreed. Then nothing would attract it that ought not; it would be in repulsion to all evil, and both in the right degrees.

2. But this is not so.

(1) Our nature, composed of two kinds of being, places us in strict relation to two different economies. Therefore there is great difficulty in apportioning the regards towards these in due proportion.

(2) By the output of our nature our relation to one class of interests is immediate and sensible, while the relation to things spiritual is only through thought and faith.

(3) Our nature is sunk in such a state that it has a most obstinate tendency to give itself to the inferior class of interests, the effect of which is to throw away the supreme interests of the soul.

(4) One would imagine the terror of this to make the doctrine of Divine grace welcome. Except in reliance on this we should hear the text with despair.

II. A MEASURE OF AFFECTION FOR THINGS ON EARTH IS LEGITIMATE. Good men have used an indiscreet language almost of requiring an indifference to or contempt for earthly things; and according to this there is one essential inconsistency between our duty and the condition in which God has placed us. But our interests here have claims that must be allowed.

1. Think in how many ways we derive pleasure or pain from earthly things. Surely our Creator does not desire the pleasure denied or the pain endured more than is inevitable, or disciplinary. And, therefore, we may in measure desire the pleasing, and be anxious to avoid the painful.

2. Think how much care is necessary to avoid the ills of life, and that we may have the most benefit of its relations. Affection is inevitably and justly set on health, near relatives, and as a matter concerning him and them, on his temporal condition. And then a man that looks on the conduct of public affairs, by which his own, his family's, and his fellow-citizens' welfare are affected, will necessarily feel consider able interest in that direction. Again, if a man be of a cultivated intellect and taste, he cannot help being affected by the beauties of nature and the great works and discoveries of men.

3. But how sad it is that the relations of the present are all which many recognize. Think if they were exhorted to such an utter indifference to their temporal interests as they indulge respecting their eternal ones. What madness would be charged. A fortiori, then, is not theirs an awful madness.

III. SUPREME AFFECTION SHOULD BE RESERVED FOR THINGS ABOVE.

1. By the nobler part of our nature we are placed in solemn relations with another economy comporting with its immortality — to God, the one infinite Being; to the Redeemer, the Lord of the new economy; to an unseen state of holy companionships and endless felicity. How marvellous that the soul can consent to stay in the dust when it might live beyond the stars.

2. What then should be the comparative state of the affections as towards the former and the latter?

(1) The answer can but be that there must be, at the lowest, a decided preponderance in favour of the spiritual and the eternal. Otherwise how is the great purpose of Christ accomplished who came to redeem us to them?

(2) But if no more than barely this is attained, how often it is likely to be put in doubt. We should aspire to have therefore more than a preponderance.

IV. WHAT, THEN, MAY BE TAKEN AS PROOFS THAT WE HAVE THE REQUIRED PREPONDERANCE OF AFFECTION FOR THINGS ABOVE. In most cases this is a matter of prompt and unequivocal consciousness; but in this the best men find tests valuable.

1. Let a man examine when he is strongly interested in some temporal concern whether he can say more than all this is the interest I feel in things above.

2. When he is greatly pleased with something, and his thoughts suddenly turn to higher objects, is he then more pleased?

3. Or is he solicitous that this temporal good may not injure his spiritual interests?

4. If he suffers in goods or body does he feel that he would far rather suffer so than in soul, and does he feel a strong overbalancing consolation from above.

5. Is he more pleased to give earnest application to higher things than to inferior, and that he would sacrifice more for one than for the other?

6. Does he check his temporal pursuits directly they interfere with heavenly, and double his diligence in regard to the latter.

7. Do heavenly things grow increasingly attractive the nearer he gets to them?

(John Foster.)

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KJV: Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth.

WEB: Set your mind on the things that are above, not on the things that are on the earth.