The Expulsive Power of a New Affection, pt. 3
by Thomas Chalmers (1780-1847)
[With this study, we continue our series that has the goal of increasing our love for God and
the things of God, while decreasing our love for the world and the things of the world. This
series will consist of three classic sermons by noted godly men of the past. In the first
sermon, Thomas Chalmers teaches that our love for the world cannot be expelled unless we
replace it with love for a greater object: the love for God. This is the third part of that
sermon. The first two parts established that men, by nature, do not give up love for
something unless a greater love replaces it. And for men, the stronghold of the world upon
their hearts is great, so that to expel the love of the world, without replacing it with
something greater, would leave a vacuum.]
15
“Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love
the world, the love of the Father is not in him” (I John 2:15).
To obliterate all our present affections by simply expunging them, and so as to
leave the seat of them unoccupied, would be to destroy the old character, and to
substitute no new character in its place. But when they take their departure upon
the ingress of other visitors; when they resign their sway to the power and the
predominance of new affections; when, abandoning the heart to solitude, they
merely give place to a successor who turns it into as busy a residence of desire and
interest and expectation as before—there is nothing in all this to thwart or to
overbear any of the laws of our sentient nature—and we see how, in fullest
accordance with the mechanism of the heart, a great moral revolution may be made
to take place upon it.
This, we trust, will explain the operation of that charm which accompanies the
effectual preaching of the gospel. The love of God and the love of the world are two
affections, not merely in a state of rivalship, but in a state of enmity—and that so
irreconcilable, that they cannot dwell together in the same bosom. We have already
affirmed how impossible it were for the heart, by any innate elasticity of its own, to
cast the world away from it, and thus reduce itself to a wilderness. The heart is not
so constituted; and the only way to dispossess it of all old affection, is by the
expulsive power of a new one. Nothing can exceed the magnitude of the required
change in a man’s character—when bidden as he is in the New Testament, to love
not the world; no, nor any of the things that are in the world—for this so
comprehends all that is dear to him in existence, as to be equivalent to a command
of self-annihilation. But the same revelation which dictates so mighty an obedience,
places within our reach as mighty an instrument of obedience. It brings for
admittance to the very door of our heart an affection which, once seated upon its
throne, will either subordinate every previous inmate, or bid it away. Beside the
world, it places before the eye of the mind Him who made the world, and with this
peculiarity which is all its own: that in the Gospel do we so behold God, as that we
may love God. It is there, and there only, where God stands revealed as an object of
confidence to sinners—and where our desire after Him is not chilled into apathy by
that barrier of human guilt which intercepts every approach that is not made to
Him through the appointed Mediator. It is the bringing in of this better hope,
whereby we draw nigh unto God—and to live without hope is to live without God;
and if the heart be without God, the world will then have all the ascendancy. It is
God apprehended by the believer as God in Christ, who alone can dispost it from
this ascendancy. It is when He stands dismantled of the terrors which belong to
Him as an offended lawgiver and when we are enabled by faith, which is His own
gift, to see His glory in the face of Jesus Christ, and to hear His beseeching voice as
it protests good will to men, and entreats the return of all who will to a full pardon
and a gracious acceptance—it is then, that a love paramount to the love of the
world, and at length expulsive of it, first arises in the regenerated bosom. It is when
released from the spirit of bondage with which love cannot dwell, and when
admitted into the number of God’s children through the faith that is in Christ Jesus,
the spirit of adoption is poured upon us—it is then that the heart, brought under
the mastery of one great and predominant affection, is delivered from the tyranny
of its former desires in the only way in which deliverance is possible. And that faith
which is revealed to us from heaven, as indispensable to a sinner’s justification in
the sight of God, is also the instrument of the greatest of all moral and spiritual
achievements on a nature dead to the influence, and beyond the reach of every
other application.
Thus may we come to perceive what it is that makes the most effective kind of
preaching. It is not enough to hold out to the world’s eye the mirror of its own
imperfections. It is not enough to come forth with a demonstration, however
pathetic, of the evanescent character of all its enjoyments. It is not enough to travel
the walk of experience along with you, and speak to your own conscience and your
own recollection, of the deceitfulness of the heart, and the deceitfulness of all that
the heart is set upon. There is many a hearer of the Gospel message who has not
shrewdness of natural discernment enough, and who has not power of
characteristic description enough, and who has not the talent of moral delineation
enough, to present you with a vivid and faithful sketch of the existing follies of
society. But that very corruption which he has not the faculty of representing in its
visible details, he may practically be the instrument of eradicating in its principle.
Let him be but a faithful expounder of the gospel testimony—unable as he may be
to apply a descriptive hand to the character of the present world, let him but report
with accuracy the matter which revelation has brought to him from a distant
world—unskilled as he is in the work of so anatomizing the heart, as with the
power of a novelist to create a graphical or impressive exhibition of the
worthlessness of its many affections—let him only deal in those mysteries of
peculiar doctrine on which the best of novelists have thrown the wantonness of
their derision. He may not be able, with the eye of shrewd and satirical observation,
to expose to the ready recognition of his hearers, the desires of worldliness—but
with the tidings of the gospel in commission, he may wield the only engine that can
extirpate them. He cannot do what some have done, when, as if by the hand of a
magician, they have brought out to view, from the hidden recesses of our nature,
the foibles and lurking appetites which belong to it.—But he has a truth in his
possession, which into whatever heart it enters, will, like the rod of Aaron, swallow
up them all—and unqualified as he may be to describe the old man in all the nicer
shading of his natural and constitutional varieties, with him is deposited that
ascendant influence under which the leading tastes and tendencies of the old man
are destroyed, and he becomes a new creature in Jesus Christ our Lord.
Let us not cease then to ply the only instrument of powerful and positive operation
to do away from you the love of the world. Let us try every legitimate method of
finding access to your hearts for the love of Him who is greater than the world. For
this purpose, let us, if possible, clear away that shroud of unbelief which so hides
and darkens the face of the Deity. Let us insist on His claims to your affection—and
whether in the shape of gratitude, or in the shape of esteem, let us never cease to
affirm, that in the whole of that wondrous economy, the purpose of which is to
reclaim the sinful world unto Himself—He the God of love so sets Himself forth in
characters of endearment, that nought but faith, and nought but understanding are
wanting on your part to call forth the love of your hearts back again.
------------------
This article is taken from:
Chalmers,
Thomas.
The
Works
of
Thomas
Chalmers
,
Vol.
VI.
Glasgow:
William
Collins, c. 1850.
A PDF file of this book can be downloaded, free of charge, at:
http://www.ClassicChristianLibrary.com/comp_set_section.html
© 1994-2018, Scott Sperling
The Expulsive Power of a New
Affection, pt. 3
by Thomas Chalmers (1780-1847)
[With this study, we continue our series that has the goal of
increasing our love for God and the things of God, while
decreasing our love for the world and the things of the
world. This series will consist of three classic sermons by
noted godly men of the past. In the first sermon, Thomas
Chalmers teaches that our love for the world cannot be
expelled unless we replace it with love for a greater object:
the love for God. This is the third part of that sermon. The
first two parts established that men, by nature, do not give
up love for something unless a greater love replaces it. And
for men, the stronghold of the world upon their hearts is
great, so that to expel the love of the world, without
replacing it with something greater, would leave a vacuum.]
15
“Love not the world, neither the things that are in
the world. If any man love the world, the love of the
Father is not in him” (I John 2:15).
To obliterate all our present affections by simply
expunging them, and so as to leave the seat of them
unoccupied, would be to destroy the old character,
and to substitute no new character in its place. But
when they take their departure upon the ingress of
other visitors; when they resign their sway to the
power and the predominance of new affections; when,
abandoning the heart to solitude, they merely give
place to a successor who turns it into as busy a
residence of desire and interest and expectation as
before—there is nothing in all this to thwart or to
overbear any of the laws of our sentient nature—and
we see how, in fullest accordance with the mechanism
of the heart, a great moral revolution may be made to
take place upon it.
This, we trust, will explain the operation of that charm
which accompanies the effectual preaching of the
gospel. The love of God and the love of the world are
two affections, not merely in a state of rivalship, but in
a state of enmity—and that so irreconcilable, that they
cannot dwell together in the same bosom. We have
already affirmed how impossible it were for the heart,
by any innate elasticity of its own, to cast the world
away from it, and thus reduce itself to a wilderness.
The heart is not so constituted; and the only way to
dispossess it of all old affection, is by the expulsive
power of a new one. Nothing can exceed the
magnitude of the required change in a man’s
character—when bidden as he is in the New
Testament, to love not the world; no, nor any of the
things that are in the world—for this so comprehends
all that is dear to him in existence, as to be equivalent
to a command of self-annihilation. But the same
revelation which dictates so mighty an obedience,
places within our reach as mighty an instrument of
obedience. It brings for admittance to the very door of
our heart an affection which, once seated upon its
throne, will either subordinate every previous inmate,
or bid it away. Beside the world, it places before the
eye of the mind Him who made the world, and with
this peculiarity which is all its own: that in the Gospel
do we so behold God, as that we may love God. It is
there, and there only, where God stands revealed as an
object of confidence to sinners—and where our desire
after Him is not chilled into apathy by that barrier of
human guilt which intercepts every approach that is
not made to Him through the appointed Mediator. It is
the bringing in of this better hope, whereby we draw
nigh unto God—and to live without hope is to live
without God; and if the heart be without God, the
world will then have all the ascendancy. It is God
apprehended by the believer as God in Christ, who
alone can dispost it from this ascendancy. It is when
He stands dismantled of the terrors which belong to
Him as an offended lawgiver and when we are
enabled by faith, which is His own gift, to see His
glory in the face of Jesus Christ, and to hear His
beseeching voice as it protests good will to men, and
entreats the return of all who will to a full pardon and
a gracious acceptance—it is then, that a love
paramount to the love of the world, and at length
expulsive of it, first arises in the regenerated bosom. It
is when released from the spirit of bondage with
which love cannot dwell, and when admitted into the
number of God’s children through the faith that is in
Christ Jesus, the spirit of adoption is poured upon
us—it is then that the heart, brought under the mastery
of one great and predominant affection, is delivered
from the tyranny of its former desires in the only way
in which deliverance is possible. And that faith which
is revealed to us from heaven, as indispensable to a
sinner’s justification in the sight of God, is also the
instrument of the greatest of all moral and spiritual
achievements on a nature dead to the influence, and
beyond the reach of every other application.
Thus may we come to perceive what it is that makes
the most effective kind of preaching. It is not enough
to hold out to the world’s eye the mirror of its own
imperfections. It is not enough to come forth with a
demonstration, however pathetic, of the evanescent
character of all its enjoyments. It is not enough to
travel the walk of experience along with you, and
speak to your own conscience and your own
recollection, of the deceitfulness of the heart, and the
deceitfulness of all that the heart is set upon. There is
many a hearer of the Gospel message who has not
shrewdness of natural discernment enough, and who
has not power of characteristic description enough,
and who has not the talent of moral delineation
enough, to present you with a vivid and faithful sketch
of the existing follies of society. But that very
corruption which he has not the faculty of representing
in its visible details, he may practically be the
instrument of eradicating in its principle. Let him be
but a faithful expounder of the gospel
testimony—unable as he may be to apply a descriptive
hand to the character of the present world, let him but
report with accuracy the matter which revelation has
brought to him from a distant world—unskilled as he
is in the work of so anatomizing the heart, as with the
power of a novelist to create a graphical or impressive
exhibition of the worthlessness of its many
affections—let him only deal in those mysteries of
peculiar doctrine on which the best of novelists have
thrown the wantonness of their derision. He may not
be able, with the eye of shrewd and satirical
observation, to expose to the ready recognition of his
hearers, the desires of worldliness—but with the
tidings of the gospel in commission, he may wield the
only engine that can extirpate them. He cannot do
what some have done, when, as if by the hand of a
magician, they have brought out to view, from the
hidden recesses of our nature, the foibles and lurking
appetites which belong to it.—But he has a truth in his
possession, which into whatever heart it enters, will,
like the rod of Aaron, swallow up them all—and
unqualified as he may be to describe the old man in all
the nicer shading of his natural and constitutional
varieties, with him is deposited that ascendant
influence under which the leading tastes and
tendencies of the old man are destroyed, and he
becomes a new creature in Jesus Christ our Lord.
Let us not cease then to ply the only instrument of
powerful and positive operation to do away from you
the love of the world. Let us try every legitimate
method of finding access to your hearts for the love of
Him who is greater than the world. For this purpose,
let us, if possible, clear away that shroud of unbelief
which so hides and darkens the face of the Deity. Let
us insist on His claims to your affection—and whether
in the shape of gratitude, or in the shape of esteem, let
us never cease to affirm, that in the whole of that
wondrous economy, the purpose of which is to reclaim
the sinful world unto Himself—He the God of love so
sets Himself forth in characters of endearment, that
nought but faith, and nought but understanding are
wanting on your part to call forth the love of your
hearts back again.
------------------
This article is taken from:
Chalmers,
Thomas.
The
Works
of
Thomas
Chalmers
,
Vol.
VI. Glasgow: William Collins, c. 1850.
A
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