One Great Predominant Affection

"The Gospel 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...In the Gospel we so behold God, as that we may love God. It is then, and then only, when God stands revealed as an object of confidence to sinners and when our desire after him is not chilled into apathy...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 predominant affection, is delivered from the tyranny of its former desires, in the only way in which deliverance is possible."

Thomas Chalmers