“The Law of nature and the law of divine revelation teach us to be united with those that we dwell with in the same country, to have a special affection for them, and makes us in many respects one body with them.”
Jonathan Edwards
Miscellanies, no. 928, Works Vol 20 – pg. 171
“Before I dismiss this head of the degenerating of experiences, I would mention one thing more that tends to it; and that is, persons aiming in their experience to go beyond the rule of God’s word, i.e. aiming at that which is indeed in some respect, beyond the rule. Thus, some persons have endeavored utterly to root out and abolish all-natural affection, or any special affection or respect to their near relations, under a notion that no other love ought to be allowed but spiritual love, and all that other love is to be abolished as carnal, and that it becomes Christians to love none upon the account of anything else but the image of God; and that therefore love should go out to one and another only in their proportion in which the image of God is seen in them. They might as well argue that a man ought to utterly to disallow of, and endeavor to abolish, all love or appetite to his daily food under a notion that it is a carnal appetite, and that no other appetite should be tolerated but spiritual appetites. Why should the saints strive after that, as a high attainment in holiness, which the Apostle in Romans 1:31 mentions as one instance wherein the heathen had got to the most horrid pass in wickedness, vis. being without natural affections?… The Creator of the world has put them in us, for the good of mankind, and because He saw they would be needful for them in us, for the good of mankind, and because He saw they would be needful for them, as they must be united in society in the present state, and are of great use when kept in their proper place; and to endeavor to totally root them out, would be to reproach the wisdom of the Creator. Nor is the being of these natural inclinations, if well regulated, inconsistent with any part of our duty to God, or any argument of a sinful selfishness, any more than our natural abhorrence of pain, and the natural inclination to ease that was in the man Christ Jesus Himself.
It is the duty of parents to be more concerned and to pray more for the salvation of their children, than for the children of their neighbors as it is the duty of a minister to be more concerned for the salvation of the souls of his own flock, and to pray more for them, than those that live at a great distance; and the people of our land and nation are more, in some sense, committed to our care than the people of China, and we ought to pray more for them and more concerned that the kingdom of Christ should flourish among them, than in another country, where it would be as much, and no more, for the glory of God.”
Jonathan Edwards
A Narrative of Many Surprising Conversions, – p. 292
Clearly, if Edwards is correct above about having a natural affection for those closer to us than those farther from us then it is correct for someone like Chocolate Knox to be more burdened for Black people than white people to come to know Christ. The same would work in the contrary direction.
