The following is an edited extract of Silent Witnesses by Garry Williams (published by Banner of Truth in 2022).
What can we learn from the Puritan emphasis on the role of affection in the Christian life? No doubt many things, but I highlight five.
Affections matter
First and most obviously, our affections matter. We should not think that God is indifferent to how we relate to him with our whole heart. He is interested in our understanding, but he also wants us to desire him with the strong inclination of our will, to find abiding joy and delight in him.
This is not to reduce the Christian life to emotionalism. As we saw with Jonathan Edwards, our affections go deeper than our emotions. Indeed, it would be possible for our superficial emotions to be quite out of sync with and in conflict with our deep affections. My feelings can be careering all over the place while my soul remains anchored in Christ.
Nor is it to demand a perfection of affections: we are justified by faith, not by love. But we should pray for and seek to cultivate an abiding disposition of delight in God, and we should look to be affected by the means of grace in public worship. This looks different in diverse people, but it should be real for everyone. The unmoved Christian is an example of tragic spiritual malfunction, not heroic stoic nobility.
