Great post Tony. Thanks for a really helpful clarification about this topic.
Isn’t it only God who can change our affections? So would the way to change our affections to be more in line with God’s be to ask Him through prayer to change us?

I would certainly say singing the praises of God in the words of God among the people of God has helped re-align my affections.

Thanks for the comments all.

Luke, Yes it is only God who does it, and prayer is thus essential. But God does it through various means—just as conversion is his work, and much to be prayed for, and yet is also achieved through human mediation (the telling of the gospel etc.). So what means does God use to stir our affections?

This goes to your comment, Mikey. Is Edwards backing pretty much ANY means, so long as it moves the affections? Not a bit!  I think you might have been remembering this bit: “If true religion lies much in the affections, we may infer, that such means are to be desired, as have much tendency to move the affections. Such books, and such a way of preaching the word and the administration of ordinances, and such a way of worshipping God in prayer and praises, as has a tendency deeply to affect the hearts of those who attend these means, is much to be desired.”  I.III.2

So it’s not doing anything that might move the affections, but performing what Edwards regarded as the proper and duly ordained expression of religion (prayer, singing, sacraments, preaching), in a lively, heartfelt way—what Edwards calls a ‘pathetic manner of praying and preaching’.

However (and this goes to your point Dianne), Edwards was VERY aware of the sharks in the water. Immediately after he says: “Indeed there may be such means, as have a great tendency to stir up the passions of weak and ignorant persons, and yet have none to benefit their souls; for though they may have a tendency to excite affections, they have little or none to excite gracious affections”. 

The whole treatise (as I mentioned in the post) is aimed at distinguishing what makes for true or ‘gracious’ affections. And the place of the mind and Scripture is paramount in discerning this.

But more of this in part iii ...

TP