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JONATHAN EDWARDS 



ALEXANDER V. G. ALLEN, D. D. 

PROFESSOR IN THE EPISCOPAL THEOLOGICAL SCHOOL, IN CAMBRIDGE, MASS 




BOSTON AND NEW YORK 
HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY 
t&fy ffitoerjiiDe $re#s, 



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EMMANUEL 



Copyright, 1889, 
BY ALEXANDER V. Q. ALLESf. 

All rights reserved. ~ 



The Riverside Press, Cambridge, Mass., V. S. A. 
Electrotyped and Printed by II. 0. Uoughton & Company. 



THE edition of Edwards works to which refer 
ences are made is known as the Worcester edition, 
in four volumes, published in New York in 1847. 
I have drawn freely from his Life by Dr. S. E. 
D wight published in 1830. Valuable as this work 
is, it does not constitute an adequate biography. 
Much that would throw light upon Edwards his 
tory is withheld from publication. It is greatly to 
be regretted also that there is no complete edition 
of his works. But in the method which I have fol 
lowed I have not lacked for abundance of material. 
I have endeavored to reproduce Edwards from his 
books, making his treatises, in their chronological 
order, contribute to his portraiture as a man and 
as a theologian, a task which has not been hereto 
fore attempted. I have thought that something 
more than a mere recountal of facts was demanded 
in order to justify the endeavor to rewrite his life. 
What we most desire to know is, what he thought 
and how he came to think as he did. The aim of 
my work is a critical one, with this inquiry always 
in view. Criticism, however, should be sympa 
thetic to a certain extent with its object, or it will 



vi PREFATORY NOTE. 

lack insight and appreciation. I have not found 
myself devoid of sympathy with one who has filled 
so large a place in the minds of the New England 
people. Edwards is always and everywhere inter 
esting, whatever we may think of his theology. 
On literary and historical grounds alone, no one 
can fail to be impressed with his imposing figure 
as he moves through the wilds of the new world. 
The distance of time from that early period in our 
history lends its enchantment to the view, enhan 
cing the sense of vastness and mystery which en 
velops him. Our great American historian, Mr. 
Bancroft, has justly remarked: "He that would 
know the workings of the New England mind in 
the middle of the last century and the throbbings 
of its heart, must give his days and nights to the 
study of Jonathan Edwards." He that would un 
derstand, it might be added, the significance of 
later New England thought, must make Edwards 
the first object of his study. 
CAMBRIDGE, March 22, 1889. 



CONTENTS. 

FIRST PERIOD. 

THE PARISH MINISTER, 1703-1735. 

PACK 

I. CHILDHOOD. EAELY LIFE. NOTES ON THE MIND . 1 
II. RESOLUTIONS. DIARY. CONVERSION ... 21 

III. SETTLEMENT AT NORTHAMPTON. MARRIAGE. 

DOMESTIC LIFE 38 

IV. EDWARDS AS A REFORMER. SERMONS ON DEPEND 

ENCE AND SPIRITUAL LIGHT. SPECIAL AND COM 
MON GRACE 52 

V. THE MORAL GOVERNMENT OF GOD. FUTURE PUN 
ISHMENT. JUSTIFICATION BY FAITH ... 78 
VI. EDWARDS AS A PREACHER. His IMPRECATORY 

SERMONS 103 

SECOND PERIOD. 
THE GREAT AWAKENING, 1735-1750. 

I. REVIVAL AT NORTHAMPTON. NARRATIVE OF SUR 
PRISING CONVERSIONS 133 

II. THE GREAT AWAKENING. DISTINGUISHING MARKS 

OF A WORK OF THE SPIRIT OF GOD . . . 161 

III. EVILS AND ABUSES OF THE GREAT AWAKENING. 

THOUGHTS ON THE EEVIVAL 177 

IV. TREATISE ON THE RELIGIOUS AFFECTIONS . . 218 
V. UNION IN PRAYER. DAVID BRAINF.RD . . . 232 

VI. DISMISSAL FROM NORTHAMPTON. QUALIFICATIONS 

FOR FULL COMMUNION 248 



Vlll CONTENTS. 

THIRD PERIOD. 
THE PHILOSOPHICAL THEOLOGIAN, 1750-1758. 

I. REMOVAL TO STOCKBKIDGE AS MISSIONARY TO THE 

INDIANS 273 

II. THE FKEEDOM OF THE WILL 281 

III. DEFENCE OF THE DOCTRINE OF ORIGINAL SIN . . 302 

IV. TREATISE ON THE NATURE OF TRUE VIRTUE . 313 
V. GOD S LAST END IN THE CREATION .... 327 

VI. THE DOCTRINE OF THE TRINITY .... 338 

CONCLUSION 377 

BIBLIOGRAPHY 391 

INDEX 395 



CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. 



1631. None but church members admitted as freemen. 

1633. Settlement of East Windsor. 

1648. Cambridge Platform. Adoption of Westminster Con 
fession. 

1650. Descartes died. 

1654. Settlement of Northampton. 

1654. Approval of magistrates required in order to settle a 
minister. 

1662. Synod at Boston adopted the Half-way Covenant. 

1669-1758. Rev. Timothy Edwards. 

1677. Spinoza died. 

1679. Reformatory Synod in Boston. 

1684. Withdrawal of the charters. 

1685. Accession of James II. 

1686. Sir Edmond Andros landed in Boston. 
1688-1691. Witchcraft delusion. 

1688. Accession of William and Mary. 

1691. The new charter. 

1692. Episcopalians, Baptists, and Quakers exempted from 

tax for support of Congregational churches in Mas 
sachusetts. 

1701. Society for Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign 
Parts. 

1701. Charter for college at Say brook, afterwards Yale 
College. 

1702-1714. Queen Anne. 

1703. Jonathan Edwards born. 

1703-1791. John Wesley. 



X CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. 

1705. Plea of Cotton Mather for increased efficiency of 
councils. 

1706-1790. Benjamin Franklin. 

1707-1709. Controversy on the Lord s Supper as a convert 
ing ordinance. 

1708. Saybrook Platform in Connecticut. 

1713. Order of Queen Anne establishing bishoprics in Amer 
ica. 

1714-1727. George I. 

1715. Malebranche died. 

1716. Leibnitz died. 

1719-1720. Edwards graduated from Yale CoUege. 
1722. Edwards licensed to preach. 

1722. Secession of Congregational ministers in Connecticut 
to the Episcopal Church. 

1724. Edwards a tutor at Yale. 

1725. Proposed reformatory synod forbidden by the king. 
1727. Edwards ordained at Northampton. 
1726-1728. Berkeley at Newport. 

1727-1760. George II. 

1731. Edwards sermon on Man s Dependence. 

1734. Edwards sermon on Spiritual Light. 

1735. First revival at Northampton. 

1735. Wesley sailed for Georgia. 

1736. Bishop Butler s Analogy. 

1736. Edwards Narrative of Surprising Conversions. 

1838. Date of Wesley s conversion. 

1738. Whitefield in Georgia. 

1738. Publication of Edwards sermons on Justification, etc. 

1739-1741. Whitefield s second visit to America. 

1740. The Great Awakening. 

1741. Edwards sermon at Enfield. 

1741. Publication of Edwards Distinguishing Marks, etc. 

1742. Edwards Thoughts on the Revival. 
1744-1748. Whitefield s third visit. 

1744-1749. War with Indians and French, known as King 
George s War. 



CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. xi 

1746. Publication of Edwards on the Religious Affections. 
1746. College of New Jersey founded, afterwards Princeton 

College. 

David Brainerd died. 
Troubles at Northampton. 

Publication of Edwards Qualifications for Full Com 
munion. 
1750. Edwards dismissal from Northampton. 

1750. Decline of Half-way Covenant. 

1751. Edwards removes to Stockbridge. 

1752. Edwards Reply to Williams. 

1754. Publication of The Freedom of the Will. 

1755. Treatises of Edwards written on Virtue and End of 

the Creation. 

1757. Edwards called to Princeton. 

1758. Publication of Edwards treatise on Original Sin. 
1758. Edwards died. 



JONATHAN EDWARDS. 



FIRST PERIOD. 

THE PARISH MINISTER. 1703-1735. 

I. 

CHILDHOOD. EARLY LIFE. NOTES ON THE 
MIND. 

JONATHAN EDWARDS was born October 5, 1703, 
in the town of East Windsor, Connecticut. His 
father s family is said to be Welsh in its origin. 
The earliest known ancestor was a clergyman of 
the Church of England, whose widow, having re 
married, emigrated to this country with her son, 
William Edwards, about 1640. The son of Wil 
liam was Richard Edwards, of Hartford, Conn., a 
prosperous merchant, who also sustained a high 
religious character. His oldest son, Timothy, the 
father of Jonathan Edwards, was born in 1669, 
and graduated at Harvard College in 1691. He 
received the two degrees of bachelor and master of 
arts on the same day, " an uncommon mark of 
respect paid to his extraordinary proficiency in 
learning." Having finished his preparatory theo 
logical studies, he was ordained " to the ministry 



2 THE PARISH MINISTER. 

of the Gospel " in the East Parish of Windsor in 
1694. In the same year he was married to Esther 
Stoddard, a daughter of the celebrated Solomon 
Stoddard, minister of the church in Northampton. 

Edwards father was regarded as a man of more 
than usual scholarship and learning. In the ab 
sence of preparatory schools he was in the habit 
of fitting students for college, and had gained the 
reputation of a successful teacher. He gave to 
his daughters the same training with the young 
men who studied under his care ; and if the latter 
went to college, the girls were sent to Boston to 
finish their education. For over sixty years Timo- 
othy Edwards maintained himself in good repute 
with his congregation. As a preacher, it is said 
that his people gave him the credit of learning and 
animation, while for his son Jonathan they reserved 
the epithet " profound." The father is spoken of 
as a man of " polished manners, particularly atten 
tive to his dress and to propriety of exterior, never 
appearing in public but in the full dress of a cler 
gyman." The details of domestic affairs he rele 
gated to his wife, in order that he might occupy 
himself with his studies. 

But to his mother Jonathan Edwards was 
chiefly indebted for his intellectual inheritance. 
She is said to have received a superior education 
in Boston. She is described as "tall, dignified, 
and commanding in appearance, affable and gentle 
in her manner, and regarded as surpassing her 
husband in native vigor of understanding." Re- 



INTELLECTUAL PRECOCITY. 3 

markable judgment and prudence, extensive infor 
mation, thorough knowledge of the Scriptures and 
of theology, singular conscientiousness and piety, 
these are virtues attributed to the mother which 
reappear in the son. These also came as if by 
natural descent to a daughter of Solomon Stod- 
dard. That she did not " join the church " until 
her son was twelve years old, is a circumstance 
which points to an intellectual independence which 
no amount of precedent or prestige could intimi 
date. In this mental characteristic the son resem 
bled his mother. 

Jonathan Edwards was the fifth child and the 
only son in a family of eleven children. He was 
educated with his sisters, the older daughters as 
sisting the father in the superintendence of his 
studies. A few of his letters remain, written while 
he was a boy, but they disclose little of his char 
acter. He appears as docile and receptive, an 
affectionate and sensitive nature, responding 
quickly and very deeply to the influences of his 
childhood. He was interested in his studies, ambi 
tious to excel, and particularly a keen observer of 
the mysteries of the outward world and eager to 
discern its laws. Everything points to him as a 
child of rare intellectual precocity. When not 
more than twelve years old he wrote a letter in a 
bantering style refuting the idea of the material 
ity of the soul. At about the same age he wrote 
an elaborate and instructive account of the habits 
of the field spicier, based upon his own observa- 



4 THE PARISH MINISTER. 

tion. He was not quite thirteen when he entered 
Yale College, then in an inchoate condition and 
not yet fixed in a permanent home. The course 
of instruction at this time must have been a broken 
and imperfect one. Such as it was, Edwards fol 
lowed it faithfully, now at New Haven and then 
at Wethersfield, whither a part of the students 
emigrated in consequence of some disturbance in 
which he seems to have shared. A letter to his 
father from the rector of the college speaks of his 
" promising abilities and great advances in learn 
ing." He was not quite seventeen when he grad 
uated, taking with his degree the highest honors 
the institution could offer. 

One characteristic of Edwards as a student, 
which he retained through life, was the habit of 
writing as a means of mental culture. An inward 
necessity compelled him also to give expression to 
his thought. He began while in college to arrange 
his thoughts in orderly fashion, classifying his 
manuscripts or note-books under the titles of The 
Mind, Natural Science, The Scriptures, with a 
fourth collection called Miscellanies. Even at this 
early age, somewhere between the years of four 
teen and seventeen, he was projecting a great trea 
tise, which he proposed to publish. The Notes on 
the Mind and on Natural Science are to be re 
garded as the materials he was enthusiastically 
collecting for a work intended to embrace almost 
the entire scope of human learning. He carefully 
wrote out the rules which were to guide him in its 



INFLUENCE OF LOCKE. 5 

composition. Thoughts were already stirring with 
in him which he felt would awaken opposition. 
In his rules for guidance he appears as if pre 
paring to besiege the fortress of public opinion, 
and must be cautious lest his attempt should end 
in defeat. 

The intellectual impulse came from the philoso 
phy of Locke, whose Essay on the Human Under 
standing Edwards read when he was but fourteen 
years old. The impression it left upon his mind 
was a deep and in some respects an abiding one. 
But even in his early adherence to the sensational 
philosophy he was still himself, independent, ac 
cepting or rejecting in accordance with an inward 
dictum which sprang from the depth of his being. 
Locke was after all rather the occasion than the 
inspiring cause of his intellectual activity. Had 
he read Descartes instead, he might have reached 
the same conclusion. Although Edwards came to 
his intellectual maturity before his religious ex 
perience had developed into what he called " con 
version," yet his intellect was bound from the first 
to the idea of God. There is a peculiar charm in 
these early manuscripts written before his theology 
had received its final stamp. At times he seems 
as if almost losing himself in the realm of pure 
speculation. But the underlying motive in his 
Notes on the Mind or Natural Science is theolog 
ical, not philosophical. The religious impulse may 
appear as fused with the intellectual activity, yet 
it is always there, and always the strongest element 



6 THE PARISH MINISTER. 

in his thought. Science and metaphysics do not 
interest him as ends in themselves, but as subordi 
nated to a theological purpose. The God conscious- 
, ness was the deepest substratum of his being, 
his natural heritage from Puritan antecedents, 
coloring or qualifying every intellectual conviction 
he attained. 

We turn, then, to these Notes on the Mind, in 
which the boy is seen revelling in the dawning 
sense of fresh creative power. 1 The point which 
he first proceeds to elaborate is entitled Excel 
lency. Of this he writes : " There has nothing 
been more without a definition than excellency, 
although it be what we are more concerned with 
than anything else whatsoever. Yea, we are con 
cerned with nothing else. But \vhat is this excel 
lency ? Wherein is one thing excellent and an 
other evil, one beautiful and another deformed ? " 
In answering the inquiry he accepted the current 

1 It is impossible to give here a complete summary of these 
Notes on the Mind. It may be said of them in general that there 
is hardly a speculative principle in Edwards later writings which 
they do not contain in its germinal form. They discuss the na 
ture of the will and of freedom, abstract and innate ideas : there 
are passages which imply realism, and others a decided nominal 
ism. They present a theory of causation resembling that of the 
late Mr. J. S. Mill, and anticipate Hume s law of the association 
of ideas. The Notes on Natural Science, if written as is supposed 
between the age of fourteen and sixteen, present Edwards as an 
intellectual prodigy which has no parallel. They indicate a mar 
vellous insight into the gaps of knowledge, and an instinctive sense 
of how they are to be filled, which seems like prophetic divination. 
Cf. Dwight, Life of Edwards, p. 53; and pp. 702-761, where 
they are given in full. 



NOTES ON THE MIND. 7 

statement that excellence consists in harmony, 
symmetry, or proportion. But he complains of 
this statement as affording no explanation. What 
he seeks to know is, why proportion is more excel 
lent than disproportion, or why it gives greater 
pleasure to the mind. In the attempt to satisfy 
his mind on this point he was led to sound the 
depths of his youthful experience in order to reach 
some ultimate principle. He found this principle 
in the conviction that life in itself, simple exist 
ence, is the highest good, and therefore the 
foundation of moral excellence. He took his 
stand at the antipodes of pessimistic schemes or 
theories of the universe. He is at the furthest 
remove from the tired mood of Oriental dream 
ers, from the spirit of Buddhism with its primary 
postulate that existence is an evil. He represents 
the concentrated vitality and aggressiveness of 
the occidental peoples, of the Anglo-Saxon race 
in particular, of which he was a consummate 
flower blossoming in a new world. The simple 
energy and potency of life is here deified, as it 
were, as if demanding in itself alone supreme 
adoration. He argues for the truth of this prin 
ciple, from the possession of a deep inward con 
viction. He has striven in vain to conceive a state 
of nothingness. The very attempt to realize it in 
his mind throws him into confusion and convulsion. 
He speaks of nothing as " that which the sleeping 
rocks do dream of." The thought of the possible 
annihilation of that which has once existed fills 



8 THE PARISH MINISTER. 

him with horror. Existence then, in itself, must 
be the highest good, the greatest blessing. 

From this principle he proceeds to deduce the 
conclusion that similarity, proportion, harmony, 
partake of the nature of excellence, since they are 
agreeable to tfrat which has existence. These 
things are in accordance with the law implanted in 
our being. Beyond this statement it is not nec 
essary to go. The simple gift of perception, with 
which intelligent being is endowed, is in itself a 
pleasure and a blessing, and perception is pleased 
in beholding harmony and proportion wherever he 
looks. All beings or existences appear to stand in 
certain relationships, and in the fulfilment of these 
relationships lies the fulness of a real life. What 
ever contradicts harmony, or weakens or contra 
dicts relationships, diminishes the fulness of exist 
ence, and approaches the state of nothingness, 
which is the greatest evil. To approve, then, of 
this primary law of one s being which demands the 
realization of harmony and proportion, is to recog 
nize the principle of all excellence. 

He carries the argument up to the divine exist 
ence. God is excellent simply because He exists, 
for " existence is that into which all excellence is 
to be resolved." Because God has an infinite 
amount or quantity of existence, He possesses in 
consequence an infinite excellence. The physical 
and the spiritual are here merged into one. In 
proportion to the dimensions of existence is the 
quantity of excellence. God, by the mere reason 



NATURE OF EXCELLENCE. 9 

of His greatness, is the more excellent. "It is im 
possible that God should be otherwise than excel 
lent, for He is the infinite, universal, and all-com 
prehending existence. ... He is in Himself, if I 
may so say, an infinite quantity of existence." So 
vast and preponderating is His existence that when 
we speak of existence in general, it is enough to 
think of Him. " In comparison with Him, all 
others must be considered as nothing. ... As to 
bodies, we have shown in another place that they 
have no proper being of their own. And as to 
spirits, they are the communications of the Great 
Original Spirit ; and doubtless, in metaphysical 
strictness and propriety He is, and there is none 
else. . . . All excellence and beauty is derived 
from Him in the same manner as all being. And 
all other excellence is in strictness only a shadow 
of His." 

The supreme law of existence is the law of love. 
While Deity is pleased with the perception of 
excellency as He witnesses existence in harmony 
with existence throughout the universe, yet the 
chief happiness of God lies in His love, or His con 
sent to His own infinite existence. Herein lies the 
difference between the creature and the creator, 
that, if the creature would be in harmony with ex 
istence, he must above all things be in harmony 
with God, consenting to the law of the Divine ex 
istence, which is God s love for Himself. Love, 
therefore, is the highest excellency. The secret 
harmony between the various parts of the universe 



10 THE PARISH MINISTER. 

is only an image of mutual love. In God this 
essential principle operates from all eternity, as in 
the mutual love of the Father and the Son. In 
the Holy Spirit which binds together the Father 
and the Son is to be seen God s infinite beauty, or, 
in the writer s abstract expression, God s infinite 
consent to his own being, which is being in gen 
eral. The love of God to the creation is the com 
munication of Himself in his Spirit. If it seems 
as though this love of God to Himself carried too 
much the aspect of self-love, we must remember 
that " this love includes in it, or rather is the same 
as, a love to everything, as they are all communi 
cations of Himself." Under the influence of this 
principle the universe is transfigured as with the 
light of divine love. 

" We are to conceive of the divine excellence as in 
finite general love, that which reaches all, proportion 
ately with perfect purity and sweetness ; yea, it includes 
the true love of all creatures, for that is His spirit, or, 
which is the same thing, His love. And if we take no 
tice, when we are in the best frames meditating on the 
divine excellence, our ideal of that tranquillity and 
peace which seems to be overspread and cast abroad upon 
the whole earth and universe naturally dissolves itself 
into the idea of a general love and delight everywhere 
diffused." 1 

The answer to the inquiry as to the nature of 
excellence has been given at some length because 

1 Dwight, Life, etc., p. 701. 



GENIAL OUTLOOK. 11 

of its importance, and because it is apt to be over 
looked in attempts to explain the genesis of Ed 
wards thought. Dr. Dwight, who edited the 
Notes on the Mind from the original manuscript, 
did not follow the order of time in which they 
were written, and has placed the treatment of ex 
cellence at the close of the treatise, although it is 
numbered One, and was therefore the first sub 
ject on which he committed his views to writing, 
and must have been uppermost in his mind. The 
reflections of the boy of sixteen must not be un 
derrated as if they were immature, or as if they 
had afterwards disappeared from his consciousness. 
When, at the age of fifty, he wrote his dissertation 
on The Nature of True Virtue, he reproduced his 
early conviction with no substantial change. In 
later years, it is true, the genial outlook upon the 
universe which marked his youth is no longer 
maintained, and he may never have regained the 
beautiful vision which dawned upon the first 
opening of his mind. The devotion to a moral 
ideal had its dark side, which came into an exag 
gerated prominence during the time of his pasto 
ral activity. But beneath the mutations of his 
mental history may still be traced the under 
current of his youthful coTnviction that moral 
excellence must be grounded in God, must be 
identified with existence itself, in order that 
it may be seen as the only reality in a world of 
shadows. 

In his treatment of excellence Edwards appears 



1*2 THE PARISH MINISTER. 

as iii agreement with Plato s conception of God as 
the idea of the good. There is also in his tone a 
still stronger reminder of Spinoza, the doctrine 
of the one substance, of which the universe is the 
manifestation. In some respects also he approxi 
mates in these Notes on the Mind to the famous 
doctrine of Malebranche that we see all things in 
God ; as when it is emphatically asserted that 
"the universe exists only in the mind of God." 
Truth is defined as the agreement of our ideas 
with existence, or, since God and existence are the 
same, as the agreement of our ideas with the ideas 
of God. Hence it may be said that God is truth 
itself. Of the inspiration which prophets had, it 
is remarked that it was in a sense intuitive. " The 
prophet, in the thing which he sees, has a clear 
view of its perfect agreement with the excellencies 
of the divine nature. All the Deity appears in 
the thing, and in everything pertaining to it. ... 
He perceives as immediately that God is there as 
we perceive one another s presence when we are 
talking face to face." 

"With views like these of God, of existence, of 
truth, it is not surprising that Edwards believed 
that "corporeal things could exist no otherwise 
than mentally." Among the earliest statements 
in the Notes on the Mind, we read : " Our per 
ceptions or ideas, that we passively receive by our 
bodies, are communicated to us immediately by 
God." Edwards may have reached this conclu 
sion by combining his idea of God, as universal 



TRANSITION TO IDEALISM. 13 

existence, with the principle derived from Locke 
that all ideas begin from external sensation. He 
emphatically affirms this principle when he says, 
" There never can be any idea, thought, or act of 
the mind unless the mind first received some ideas 
from sensation, or some other way equivalent 
wherein the mind is wholly passive in receiving 
them." l With Edwards premises, the transition 
seems an easy one from the popular belief in the 
externality of the objects of our senses to a dis 
belief in the existence of matter. The question 
which he was asking himself was one which Locke 
had not answered, and had declared himself una 
ble to answer, confessing it to be a mystery, 
What is that substance, or thing in itself, concealed 
behind attributes and qualities, whose existence is 
revealed by perceptions of color or extension, but 
which cannot be resolved into these qualities ? Is 
it " a something, we know not what " ? Edwards 
refused to acquiesce in this confession of an im 
personal and unknown something. " Men," he 
says, " are wont to content themselves by saying 
merely that it is something ; but that something is 
lie in whom all things consist." Sensations pro 
duced by external objects are thus at once resolved 
into ideas coming directly to the mind from God., 
All through the Notes on the Mind, phrases like 
these are recurring : " Bodies have no existence 
of their own." " All existence is mental ; the ex 
istence of all things is ideal." " The brain exists 

1 Dwight, Life, etc., Appendix, p. 666. 



14 TEE PARISH MINISTER. 

only mentally, or in idea." " Instead of matter 
being the only proper substance, and more sub 
stantial than anything else because it is hard and 
solid, yet it is truly nothing at all, strictly and in 
itself considered." " The universe exists nowhere 
but in the divine mind." The popular concep 
tion of space is gross and misleading. " Space 
is necessary, eternal, infinite, and omnipresent. 
But I had as good speak plain. I have already 
said as much as that space is God." And to give 
a final summary of the whole question : 

" And indeed the secret lies here, that which 
truly is the substance of all bodies is the infinitely 
exact and precise and perfectly stable Idea in God s 
mind, together with His stable will that the same shall 
gradually be communicated to us, and to other minds, 
according to certain fixed and exact established methods 
and laws ; or, in somewhat different language, the in 
finitely exact and precise Divine Idea, together with an 
answerable, perfectly exact, precise, and stable will, with 
respect to correspondent communications to created 
minds and effects on their minds." 

One cannot read this extraordinary production 
of Edwards youth without noticing its numerous 
and striking coincidences with Berkeley s system 
of philosophic idealism. But when the question is 
raised whether he had read Berkeley, we become 
aware that a thick veil of obscurity rests upon these 
labors of his early years which we strive in vain to 
withdraw. In recent years there has grown up 
what may be regarded as a history of opinion OD 



INDEBTEDNESS TO BERKELEY. 15 

this difficult point. On the one hand it is main 
tained, that he had no acquaintance with the writ 
ings of Berkeley, 1 and that it is not necessary to 
suppose such an acquaintance in order to explain 
this reproduction, almost complete, of a philosophy 
which is identified with Berkeley s name. 2 On the 
other hand, those who hold that Edwards may have 
read Berkeley s works can bring no direct evidence 
to substantiate their opinion. 3 Berkeley s earlier 
writings, the New Theory of Vision, the Prin 
ciples of Human Knowledge, and the Dialogues, 
had been published by the year 1713. It is pos 
sible, therefore, that they may have reached this 
country before 1719, when Edwards graduated from 
Yale College. But we are assured on good author 
ity that " there is no evidence that a copy of any 

1 This is the view of Dr. Dwight, in his careful Life of Ed 
wards, p. 40. 

2 Professor Noah Porter, D. D. , A Discourse at Yale College on 
the 200tk Birthday of Bishop Berkeley, 1885. Surrounded as it 
were by similar logical and spiritual impulses, Jonathan Edwards 
drew the same conclusions aa Berkeley had done, from the same 
data in Locke s Essays, p. 71." So also Professor M. C. Tyler in 
History of American Literature, ii. p. 183: "The peculiar opin 
ions which Edwards held in common with Berkeley were reached 
by him through an independent process of reasoning, and some 
what in the same way that they were reached by Berkeley." 

3 Professor Fraser, the biographer of Berkeley and editor of 
his complete works, first advanced the opinion that Edwards was 
indebted to Berkeley. Professor Fisher, of Yale College, also 
thinks it not improbable that copies of Berkeley s works had 
come into Edwards hands, and found in him an eager and con 
genial disciple. Cf. Dicussions. in History and Philosophy, p. 
231. 



16 THE PARISH MINISTER. 

of these works referred to was known at the col 
lege, and there is reason to believe that they were 
not then accessible." 1 We seem to come near 
finding the missing link in the fact that Dr. Sam 
uel Johnson, afterwards President of King s Col 
lege, New York, a personal friend of Berkeley and 
an ardent follower of his teaching, was a tutor at 
Yale College while Edwards was a student. But 
the conjecture that Edwards may have become 
acquainted with Berkeleyanism through Johnson 
fails us when it is put to the test. For Edwards 
was at Wethersfield while Johnson remained at 
New Haven, and was among those disaffected to 
ward Johnson as a tutor. 2 Nor is there any evi 
dence that Johnson was at this time acquainted 
with Berkeley s writings. 3 A recent writer has 
suggested another explanation, which deserves at 
tention, that the Notes on the Mind were writ 
ten later than Dr. Dwight, the biographer of Ed- 

1 Professor Porter, Historical Discourse, etc., on Berkeley, 

p. 71. 

2 Professor Fisher, Discussions, etc., p. 231. 

s Professor Porter remarks : " Dr. Johnson is said to have first 
become interested in Berkeley s idealism when he went to Eng 
land in 17-3 for episcopal ordination." Discourse, etc., p. 71. 
Dr. E. E. Beardsley. in his Life of Johnson , throws no light on the 
time when Johnson first became a disciple of Berkeley. But he 
thinks the Berkeleyan philosophy had been heard of at Yale so 
early as 1714, when Johnson graduated ; " Something had been 
heard of a new philosophy that was attracting attention in Eng 
land ; but the young men were cautioned against receiving it, 
and told that it would corrupt the pure religion of the country 
and bring in another system of divinity," p. 5. 



EDWARDS AND BERKELEY. 17 

wards, supposes. 1 The chief evidence on which 
Dr. Dwight relied to fix their date is the pecu 
liarity of Edwards handwriting-, which in youth 
was round and legible, and at the age of twenty 
became angular and less distinct. But this is 
surely slender evidence 011 which to build an im 
portant conclusion. Only a careful reediting of 
the manuscripts could determine this point. If 
the Notes on the Mind, begun while Edwards was 
in college, were continued for several years after 
he left college, this might give the desired time or 
opportunity to become acquainted with Berkeley s 
writings. There is evidence, indeed, that so late 
as 1725, when he had reached the age of twenty- 
two, his mind was still working in the direction 
toward which the reading of Locke had impelled 

1 Georges Lyon, L ldealisme en Angleterre au XVIII s sii de, 
Paris, 1888, pp. 4oO, 431. M. Lyon also offers the suggestive 
hint that Edwards may have had some knowledge of Male- 
branche, either directly or through his English interpreters. 
Edwards affinity with Malebranche is closer than with Berkeley. 
There is a divergence between Edwards and Berkeley on the im 
portant principle of causation, which shows that some motive was 
influential with the American youth which did not operate with 
Berkeley. Berkeley also denounces as absurd the statement to 
which Edwards assents, that space is God. Cf. Princij>les of 
Human Knowledge, London ed., 1820, i. p. 34. It is possible that 
Edwards may have had a knowledge of Malebranche, for two 
translations of the Recherche de la Ve riti had been published in 
England so early as 1094. By 1704 had also appeared Norrie 
Theory of an Ideal World, in which Malebranche was worked up 
by an English mind. It would explain Edwards transition from 
Locke if he had seen these works. M. Lyon s interesting and 
valuable work contains a fresh study of Edwards, and puts his 
philosophy in a clear light. 



18 THE PARISH MINISTER. 

him, and was still undetermined whether to push 
the doctrine of Berkeley to a further conclusion. 
" The very thing I now want," he writes in his Jour 
nal for February 12, 1725, "to give me a clearer 
and more immediate view of the perfections and 
glory of God, is as clear a knowledge of the man 
ner of God s exerting Himself with respect to spirit 
and mind as I have of His operations concerning 
matter and bodies." When Edwards wrote this 
sentence he was about ready to abandon philoso 
phy, and turn to theology as the more congenial 
study. He gives no intimation of the conclusion 
he reached on this vital issue. But even then he 
must have inclined to regard the relation of God 
in each case as the same. Beyond that point his 
speculations did not go. 

It seems on the whole a reasonable conclusion 
that the Notes on the Mind were, some of them 
at least, written later than is generally supposed. 
It is also easier and more natural to think that 
Edwards had some knowledge of Berkeley s writ 
ings. The reading of the Notes gives the impres 
sion that he is stepping into a heritage of thought 
rather than discovering principles for the first 
time. He seems to be more concerned also with 
the application of the new doctrine than with its 
demonstration or exposition. But if we adopt this 
opinion that Edwards was acquainted with Berke 
ley s thought, we have raised another and a grave 
difficulty. Why is he silent on the name of Berke 
ley, making no mention of him anywhere in his 



ABANDONMENT OF PHILOSOPHY. 19 

works ? He paid an ample tribute to Locke, but 
if he had read Berkeley he must have known that 
there lay the greater indebtedness. He certainly 
could not have remained ignorant throughout his 
life of the nature of Berkeley s teaching, and how 
closely his youthful speculation had followed him. 
There is a difficulty and a mystery here upon 
which little or no light is thrown by Edwards 
biographers. Surmise, suspicion, tentative hypoth 
eses might be offered, but there is no space for 
their discussion. The manuscripts of Edwards, if 
carefully reedited, might give the desired informa 
tion. The soul of this marvellous boy went through 
great changes and perturbations of thought of 
which there is no published record. 1 At some 
moment he deliberately turned his back upon phi 
losophy, when, if he had chosen to pursue it, it 
seems as if he could scarce have had his equal. 
He not only turned away from it, but he accus 
tomed himself to speak of it in the underrating 
manner of the popular preacher. Perhaps phi 
losophy had been to him as the scaffolding to the 

1 Frank as these early writings of Edwards may seem, they 
contain intimations of a reserved and even secretive tempera 
ment. He has recourse now and then to shorthand, in which he 
buried in oblivion his most intimate thought or feeling. He 
charges himself not to allow it to appear as if he were familiar 
with books or conversant with the learned world. He seems to 
feel that he has a secret teaching which will create opposition 
when revealed, and clash with the prejudices and fashion of the 
age. On one occasion, after writing in shorthand, he concludes 
with the remark, " Remember to act according to Proverbs xii. 
23, A prudent man concealeth knowledge. 1 



20 THE PARISH MINISTER. 

real structure, a thing to be removed from sight 
when it had served its purpose. 

It may have been a reason why Edwards aban 
doned his project of publishing a treatise on the 
human mind that he felt it would be unwise, in a 
practical and cautious age, to unsettle the minds 
of men by remote speculations which only the few 
could appreciate, which to the majority must seem 
fantastic and absurd. In his Notes, after dwelling 
upon the statement that the brain exists only in 
idea, he confesses : " We have got so far beyond 
those things for which language was chiefly con 
trived that, unless we use extreme caution, we can 
not speak, unless we speak unintelligibly, without 
literally contradicting ourselves." But he also 
comes to the satisfactory conclusion that, although 
the external world is immaterial and the universe 
exists no where but in the mind, " yet we may speak 
in the old way, and as properly and as truly as ever. 
. . . Although the place of bodies means only the 
possibility of mutual communications, and space is 
God, yet the language of Scripture is not improper 
which speaks of God as in heaven and we upon the 
earth, or of God s indwelling in the hearts of His 
people." 

It may have been also that Edwards perceived 
deep incongruities and contradiction in the depth 
of his soul, which he felt himelf unable to reconcile. 
One ruling principle of his career as a practical 
theologian was the Augustinian idea of God as 
absolute and arbitrary will. But this conception 



SPINOZA AND AUGUSTINE. 21 

finds only a faint expression in The Notes on the 
Mind, and indeed was not his conscious posses 
sion until he had experienced what is known as 
conversion. Before that crisis in his life, he con 
ceives of God as Plato, or Spinoza, or Hegel had 
done, the idea of the good, the one substance, 
the absolute thought unfolding itself or embodying 
itself in a visible and glorious order. And indeed 
these remained the poles of Edwards thought 
throughout his life, Spiiiozism on the one hand, 
Augustinianism on the other. Like Augustine, he 
abandoned philosophy for the absorbing devotion 
to Divine and arbitrary will, which better suited his 
practical career as a reformer, concerned mainly 
with the well-being of the churches. But the 
other element of his thought, though subordinated, 
was not annihilated. It appears in all his writings, 
an element seemingly incongruous, and difficult 
to reconcile with his other teaching. It reappeared 
in his later years with something of the beauty 
which had fascinated the vision of his youth. 



II. 

RESOLUTIONS, DIARY, CONVERSION. 

THE call of Edwards was not to metaphysical 
studies or to natural science, great as was the pro 
ficiency he showed in each. It was in the sphere 
of religion and the inner life of the spirit that his 
distinctive quality was most clearly revealed. To 



22 THE PARfSlI MINISTER. 

the life of the spirit he was anointed from his 
birth. Born and brought up in a typical Puritan 
household where religion was the very atmosphere 
and the church the leading interest in life, he did 
not . react from the severity or narrowness of his 
training. His conversion may be said to begin 
with the dawn of consciousness, if it did not begin 
before his birth. From a very early period he 
showed susceptibility to religious impressions. He 
was accustomed as a child to go by himself to se 
cret places in the woods for the purpose of prayer, 
and was wont to be greatly affected. His father s 
parish was the scene of occasional " attentions to 
religion," as they were called ; and of these, while 
yet a boy, he speaks as if they involved the only 
realities of life. He was the subject of no sensuous 
religious influences such as might appeal to a child 
ish imagination, no dim religious light from 
windows filled with glorious color, no long-drawn 
aisles culminating in the mystery of the altar, no 
rich involutions of musical harmony, no accompani 
ment of the rolling organ, no inspiration from an 
imposing architecture. For some reason the plain 
meeting-house at East Windsor was unfinished in 
Edwards boyhood. Not even seats were provided 
for the worshippers, who were driven to accommo 
date themselves on sills and sleepers. And yet 
never was a child imbibing deeper reverence for 
spiritual things. His soul revelled in the mystery 
of the Divine existence : and he grew into the 
knowledge of the majesty and the glory of God. 



SPIRITUAL CONFLICTS. 23 

No exact date can be fixed for his conversion ; 
even the time when he " joined the church " is un 
known. But we know the years in which he was 
passing, through the spiritual struggles out ol 
which he was to emerge a man of God, recognizing 
the call of God and answering it with the entire 
devotion of his will. This period of conflict, of 
aspiration, of resolution, and of consecration fol 
lows upon his graduation from college in 1719 at 
the age of sixteen. For two years he remained at 
New Haven, in order, as was then the custom, to 
carry on his theological studies. lie was then 
called to New York to take charge of a Presbyte 
rian church newly organized, where he remained 
for eight months, preaching to the acceptance of 
the congregation and leaving them with reluctance, 
Returning to his father s house, he was soon after 
made a tutor in Yale College, an office which he 
held for two years (1724-172G), helping to over 
come the shock to the college and the community 
caused by the secession of its rector Mr. Cutler, 
Mr. Johnson one of its tutors, and others to the 
Episcopal Church. He was, says Dr. Stiles, one of 
the pillar tutors, and the glory of the college at 
this critical period. His tutorial renown was great \ 
and excellent. He filled and sustained his office 
with great ability, dignity, and honor. " For the 
honor of literature these things ought not to be 
forgotten." 

From 1720 to 172G, from the age of seventeen 
to the age of twenty-three, runs the period during 



24 THE PARISH MINISTER. 

which he wrote his Resolutions and the greater 
part of his religious Diary. These are 110 ordi 
nary resolutions, and this is no common diary. It 
is, when we read them, as if we stood behind the 
veil witnessing the evolution of a great soul. Like 
Luther, he appears as in search for some high end, 
of whose nature he is not clearly conscious. But 
he will be content with nothing but the highest re 
sult which it is open to man to achieve, or for God 
of his grace to impart. Referring to this period of 
his life some twenty years later, he remarks, kt I 
made seeking my salvation the main business of 
my life." What was it exactly for which he was 
in search ? In some respects his experience is like 
that of all spiritual minds. And yet there are fine 
shades of distinction in these records of religious 
conflict which are worth discriminating. Luther 
labored for the assurance of divine forgiveness ; 
Edwards, for the vision of the divine glory, for the 
assurance of his oneness in spirit with the ineffable 
holiness and majesty of God. We may trace in 
his experience the unmistakable marks of the mys 
tic in every age, union with God, absorption as 
it were into the inmost essence of the divine. He 
finds expression in the intense language of the 
Psalmist : " My soul breaketh for the longing it 
hath; my soul waiteth for t/ic Lord, more than 
they who watch for the morning." 

The seeking and the waiting were at last re 
warded. He was reading one day the words of 
Scripture, " Now unto the King eternal, immortal, 



MYSTIC RAPTURES. 25 

invisible, the only wise God, be honor and glory 
forever, Amen," when there came to him for the 
first time a sort of inward, sweet delight in God 
and divine things. A sense of the divine glory 
was, as it were, diffused through him. He thought 
how happy he should be if he might be rapt up to 
God in heaven, and be, as it were, swallowed up in 
him forever. He began to have an inward, sweet I 
sense of Christ and the work of redemption. The 
Book of Canticles attracted him as a fit expression 
for his mood. It seemed to him as if he were in 
a kind of vision, alone in the mountains or some 
solitary wilderness, conversing sweetly with Christ 
and wrapt and swallowed up in God. He told his 
father the things he was experiencing, and was af 
fected by the discourse they had together. Walk 
ing once in a solitary place in his father s pasture, 
there came to him again a sweet sense of the con 
junction of the majesty and the grace of God. 

" After this my sense of divine things gradually in- \ 
creased and became more and more lively, and had more 
of that inward sweetness. The appearance of every 
thing altered : there seemed to be, as it were, a calm, 
sweet cast or appearance of divine glory in almost every 
thing. God s excellency, his wisdom, his purity and 
love, seemed to appear in everything, in the sun, moon, 
and stars ; in clouds and blue sky ; in the grass, flowers, 
trees ; in the water and all nature, which used greatly 
to fix my mind. I often used to sit and view the moon 
for continuance, and in the day spent much time in view 
ing the clouds and sky, to behold the sweet glory of God 



2d THE PARISH MINISTER. 

in these things ; in the mean time singing forth, with a 
low voice, my contemplations of the Creator and Re 
deemer. . . . Before, I used to be uncommonly terrified 
with thunder, and to be struck with terror when I saw a 
thunder-storm arising ; but now, on the contrary, it re 
joiced me. I felt God, so to speak, at the first appear 
ance of a thunder-storm ; and used to take the oppor 
tunity, at such times, to fix myself in order to view the 
clouds and see the lightnings play, and hear the majes 
tic and awful voice of God s thunder, which oftentimes 
was exceedingly entertaining, leading me to sweet con 
templations of my great and glorious God. ... I some 
times said to myself I do certainly know that I love 
holiness ; it appeared to me that there was nothing in it 
but what was ravishingly lovely, the highest beauty and 
amiableness, a divine beauty, far purer than anything 
upon earth. . . . The soul of a true Christian appeared 
like a little white flower as we see in the opening of the 
year ; low and humble on the ground, opening its bosom 
to receive the pleasant beams of the sun s glory ; rejoic 
ing as it were in a calm rapture, diffusing around a 
sweet fragrancy ; standing peacefully and lovingly in the 
midst of other flowers round about, all in like manner 
opening their bosoms to drink in the light of the sun." 

This spiritual and mystic rapture does not end 
in words or in emotion. The first thing which he 
does is to write out Resolutions for the government 
of his conduct. He proceeds at once to sketch the 
conception of a perfect character. The moral ideal 
springs up spontaneously within him. iThe Reso 
lutions express the essence of a virginal soul, the 
desire for the divine imaire in the soul of man. 



THE MORAL IDEAL. 27 

The germ of Edwards theology is also apparent 
here, which, conceiving the will as predominant in. 
God, conceives man also as an answering will, aim 
ing to renounce itself in God ; but it is a coming 
to the knowledge of God which evokes the process, 
which forces him to ask what are the actions, what 
the character, which alone correspond with the 
privilege of one who has been admitted into the 
inner shrine of the divine glory. 

" On January 12, 1723, I made a solemn dedication 
of myself to God and wrote it down ; giving up myself 
and all that I had to God, to be for the future in no 
respect my own ; to act as one that had no right to him 
self in any respect ; and solemnly vowed to take God 
for my whole portion and felicity, looking on nothing 
else as any part of my happiness, nor acting as if it were ; 
and his law for the constant rule of my obedience, en 
gaging to fight with all my might against the world, the 
flesh, and the devil, to the end of my life." 

In accordance with this renunciation of self, 
Edwards resolves, in the first place, always to do 
whatever he thinks is most for the glory of God 
and his own good, without consideration of the 
time, whether now or never so many myriads of 
ages hence ; no matter how great or how many 
the difficulties he meets with, to do his duty and 
what is most for the good of mankind in general. 
He is never to lose a moment of time, to live while 
he lives with all his might. He will do nothing 

1 

out of revenge, nor suffer anger toward irrational 
beings, nor speak evil of any one unless to accom- 



28 THE PARISH MINISTER. 

plish some real good. lie must maintain the 
strictest temperance in eating- and drinking, be 
faithful to every trust, do always what he can to 
ward making or preserving peace, and in narra 
tions never speak anything but pure and simple 
verity. lie is to cultivate also a temper which is 
good and sweet and benevolent to all. quiet and 
peaceable, contented and easy, compassionate and 
generous, humble and meek, submissive and oblig 
ing, charitable and even, patient, moderate, forgiv 
ing, and sincere. In order to a complete! 1 victory 
over all evil in himself, he will take it for granted 
that no one is so evil as himself; he will identify 
himself with all other men, and act as if their evil 
was his own, as if he had committed the same sins 
and had the same infirmities, so that the knowledge 
of their failings will promote in him nothing but 
a sense of shame. It shall be a rule with him 
never to do anything which he should condemn as 
wrong in others. Whenever he does any conspic- 
, uouslyevil action, he determines to trace it back 
to its source, in order to more successfully over 
coming it. Mingled with these resolutions are 
others of a more specific and local tone. He re 
solves never to utter anything that is sportive or a 
matter of laughter on the Lord s day : when he 
thinks of any theorem in divinity to be solved, im 
mediately to do what he can toward solving it ; to 
study the Scriptures constantly and frequently : not 
to allow the least sign of fretting or uneasiness at 
his father or mother, or to any one of the family. 



RESOLUTIONS. 29 

He is constantly to eKamine himself as to his be 
havior at the end of every day, every week, every 
month, every year. All such things as weaken 
his sense of assurance of the divine favor he casts 
away. Moments when his sense of assurance is 
at its Lest, he will seize as opportunities for fresh 
consecration of himself. 

As we linger over these Resolutions, which por 
tray the ideal of human character and excellence 
as Edwards conceived it in his youth, we find him 
still influenced by the commoner notions of per-, 
sonal advantage and safety to be achieved here- 
after. The sanctions of his deeds he looks for in 
another world ; the test to which he subjects them 
is the hour and moment of death, when things are 
most clearly seen in their true relations. He will 
act in this world as he thinks he shall judge would 
have been best and most prudent when he comes 
into the future world ; he will act in every respect 
as he thinks he should wish he had done if he 
should at last be damned. There is, too, the daring 
ambition of a youth conscious of great capacity, 
and thinking it not unfit that his ambition should 
spur him on in the race for spiritual excellence 
and reward. He has frequently heard persons in 
old age say how they would live if they were to 
live their lives over again. He resolves that he will 
live just as he can think he would wish he had 
done, supposing he were to live to old age. ; Nay, 
even " on the supposition that there never was to $e 
but one individual in the world, at any one, time, 



30 THE PARISH MINISTER. 

in all respects of a right stamp, having Chris 
tianity always shining in its true lustre, and ap 
pearing excellent and lovely from whatever part 
and under whatever character viewed ; resolved 
to act just as I would do if I strove tvith all my 
might to be that one ivho should live in my time." 
The Diary of Edwards, which covers the years 
when he was forming his resolutions, serves as a 
commentary on the difficulties he encountered in 
keeping his will true to the highest standard. 
There is the usual record of alternations between 
failures and successes, seasons of depression and 
of exaltation. The depressions and the failures are 
attributed to the withdrawal of the Spirit of God, 
as if his relation to the soul were not an organic 
one, but fitful and capricious. The Diary has cer 
tain personal touches, apart from their religious 
interest, which throw light on his character. His 
subtlety in making distinctions is apparent in what 
lie says about revenge. On one occasion he ac 
cused himself of having felt a certain satisfaction 
in what he had done, because it might lead some 
persons to repent of their conduct. If he were 
satisfied with their repentance because they had a 
sense of their error, it would be right. But to 
have a satisfaction in their repentance because of 
the evil that is brought upon them would be re 
venge. He observes that " old men seldom have 
any advantage of new discoveries, because they are 
beside the way of thinking to which they have been 
so long used." Hence he resolves that he will not 



DEFERENCE TO TRADITION. 81 

be affected by limitations of tlie lower nature, but 
" if ever he lives to years he will be impartial to 
hear the reasons of all pretended discoveries and 
receive them if rational, how long soever he may 
have been used to another way of thinking." None 
the less, in an entry for February 21, 1725, he 
seems to reflect upon the course of the clergy in 
Connecticut, whose secession to Episcopacy had 
made such a stir in the colony, as if their action 
had not been well considered, or as if it showed a 
lack of deference for authority and tradition. " If 
ever I am inclined to turn to the opinion of any 
other sect, resolved, beside the most deliberate con 
sideration, earnest prayer, etc., privately, to desire 
all the help that can be afforded me from some 
of the most judicious men in the country, together 
with the prayers of wise and holy men, however 
strongly persuaded I may seem to be that I am 
in the right. "^ 

The ascetic tendency which entered so largely into 
the composition of the New England character finds 
full expression in the early experience of Edwards. 
He esteems it as " an advantage that the duties of \ 
religion are difficult, and that many difficulties are 
sometimes to be gone through in the way of duty." 
At the age of twenty, he records his intention to live 
in continual mortification without ceasing, and even 
to weary himself thereby, and never to expect or 
desire any worldly, ease or pleasure. He charges 
himself not to be uneasy about his state or condi 
tion, not to be envious or jealous when he sees that 



32 THE PARISH MINISTER. 

others are prosperous and honored and the world 
is smooth to them ; rather to rejoice in all such 
things for others ; while for himself, he is not to 
expect or desire these things, but to depend on af 
fliction, and betake himself entirely to another sort 
of happiness. In his stoical desire for spiritual 
independence and completeness, he would strip 
himself of those things whose tenure is uncertain, 
so as not to be afflicted with fear of losing them, 
nor pleased and excited with the expectation of 
gaining them. The question arises, whether any 
delight or satisfaction should be allowed which 
ministers to any other than a religious end. At 
first he gives a tentative answer in the affirmative, 
for the reason that otherwise we should never re 
joice at the sight of friends, or have any pleasure 
in our food, a pleasure which contributes to the 
animal spirits and a good digestion. But the final 
answer is, never to allow any joy or sorrow but 
what helps religion. He complains of himself 
that he has become accustomed after working a 
great while to look forward to rest as if it were 
his due, and to expect to be released from labor 
after a certain time even if not really tired or 
weary. But if he did not expect ease, he should 
go on with the same vigor at his business without 
vacation times to rest. The suggestion comes to 
him that too vigorous application to religion may 
be prejudicial to health ; but he will know this by 
his own experience before he abandons his aim. 
He believes that great mortifications and acts of 



ASCETIC TENDENCY. 33 

self-denial bring him the greatest comfort. He 
applies his principle rigidly to his habits of eating. 
By sparingness of diet he shall gain time, and be 
able to think more clearly. These hints from his 
Diary point to the untiring worker of later years 
who did not know how to take rest, finding relief 

O 

only in continuous labor. 

Edwards did not suffer at this time from any 
disquieting self-consciousness as to the power of 
the human will to accomplish its highest resolves. 
There are allusions to the divine grace through 
which all human excellence is achieved, but these 
allusions have a commonplace reminder, as if they 
were said because they ought to be said. There 
is the recognition of a need of absolute dependence 
upon divine power, but he complains that he does 
not yet realize its need as he ought. wk I iind a . 
want of dependence on God, to look to Him for 
success, and to have my eyes unto Him for II is 
gracious disposal of the matter ; for want of a 
sense of God s particular influence in ordering and 
directing all affairs, of whatever nature, however 
naturally or fortuitously they may seem to suc 
ceed." He had at one time felt repugnance to the 
principle of man s inability to accomplish any good 
work, for he records in his journal, under the date 
of March G, 1722, that he has been regarding "the 
doctrines of election, free grace, our inability to do 
anything without the grace of God, and that holi 
ness is entirely throughout the work of the Spirit 
of God, with greater pleasure than ever before." 



34 THE PARISH MINISTER. 

Neither in the Resolutions nor in the Journal 
do we meet the deep, all-pervading sense of sin 
which we should naturally expect from one who 
afterwards made it so prominent in his theology. 
There are traces of the sense of sin and guilt in 
these records of early experience, but it is not the 
prominent feature : it is subordinate to the aspira 
tion after an ideal, or to the methods by which the 
aspiration may be achieved. Forgiveness is not the 
word which becomes a key to unlock the secret of 
his spiritual history. There are some, like Luther, 
who begin their religious experience with the bur 
den of a sinful conscience, a burden which when 
it has disappeared, as at the foot of the cross, is 
gone never to return. And there are others, wor 
shippers of an ideal, who attach themselves with 
out reserve to God, thirsting for the righteous- 
iness which union with the divine demands. "With 
these, the sense of sin may come later, growing out 
of a deeper love, out of the consciousness of failure 
to fulfil the standard of a perfect law. That such 
was Edwards experience is intimated in a beauti 
ful passage from his Treatise on the Religious 
Affections : 

" A true saint is like a little child in this respect : he 
never had any godly sorrow before he was born again, 
but since has it often in exercise ; as a little child before 
it is born, and while it remains in darkness, never cries ; 
but as soon as it sees the light of day it begins to cry, 
and thenceforward is often crying. Although Christ 
hath borne our griefs and carried our sorrows so that 



THE SENSE OF SIN. 35 

we are freed from the sorrow of punishment, and may 
now sweetly feed upon the comforts Christ hath pur 
chased for us, yet that hinders not but that our feeding 
on these comforts should be attended with the sorrow of 
repentance, as of old the children of Israel were com 
manded evermore to feed upon the paschal lamb with 
bitter herbs. True saints are spoken of in Scripture, 
not only as those who have mourned for sin, but as those 
who do mourn, whose manner it is still to mourn : 
Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be com 
forted- " 

There is another point in which the Diary is 
prophetic of work to be accomplished in the fu 
ture. Several of the entries relate to the process 
which is called conversion. At this time neither 
the name, nor the process for which it stood, were 
as familiar as they have since become. In these 
allusions Edwards appears uncertain about his 
spiritual condition, because he is not clear as to 
what conversion requires. He determines that lie 
will be constantly looking within, to the end that 
he may not be deceived as to whether he has a 
genuine interest in Christ. He makes it a point 
for future investigation to look most nicely and 
diligently into the opinions of our old divines con 
cerning conversion. " The chief thing that now 
makes me in any measure question my good estate 
is my not having experienced conversion in those 
particular steps wherein the people of New Eng 
land, and anciently the dissenters of old England, 
used to experience it. Wherefore have resolved 



36 THE PARISH MINISTER. 

never to leave off searching till I have satisfyingly 
found out the very bottom and foundation, the real 
reason why they used to be converted in those 
steps." All this is interesting in view of the fact 
that Edwards did more than any writer who pre 
ceded or followed him in determining the nature 
and the mode of conversion. 

After years of concern about his inward state, 
yet so late as 1725 Edwards was still uncertain as 
to whether he had been converted. Nor in later 
life, as he reviewed these years of struggle and 
anxiety, was he able to describe with clearness the 
process through which he had passed. Ilis con 
version must be left, where he has left it, in mys 
tery and obscurity. No mind, however subtle or 
introvertive, can trace the genesis of spiritual life, 

j or analyze the steps by which the soul enters into 
union with God. But in Edwards case, as in that 
of so many others, the process is confused and 
complicated by extraneous elements. An intel 
lectual transition waited upon the spiritual process 
of which he gives no hint in his journal, lie was 
tending away from the dreams of his youth, which 
reveal such extraordinary affiliations with Plato, 
with the Platonist fathers of the early church, or 
even with Spinoza, toward the Augustinian con 
ception of God as unconditioned and arbitrary 
will. The change resulted in putting him in sym- 

| pathy with the tenets of Calvinistic theology. He 
shows no appreciation of the significance of the 
transition, but he records the fact and its momen- 



CONVERSION. 37 

tons consequences. " From my childhood up, my 
mind had been full of objections against the doc 
trine of God s sovereignty, in choosing whom He 
would to eternal life, and rejecting whom He 
pleased, leaving them eternally to perish and be 
everlastingly tormented in hell. It used to appear 
like a horrible doctrine to me." But the moment 
came to him when he rejected the natural, instinc 
tive working of the conscience as carrying no 
sacred force. This inward repulsion might be only 
the carnal mood of the natural unconverted man ; 
nay, even it might be a presumption in favor of the 
obnoxious tenet. Edwards no longer questioned 
the truth of the doctrine because it was repel- 
lent. What he aspired after was its reception ( 
with a willing and rejoicing mind. And somehow, 
he cannot tell exactly how, he finally attained this 
result. 

" I remember the time very well when I seemed to 
be convinced and fully satisfied as to this sovereignty of 
God, and his justice in thus eternally disposing of men 
according to his sovereign pleasure ; but never could 
give an account how or by what means I was thus con 
vinced, not in the least imagining at the time, nor a 
long time after, that there was any extraordinary influ 
ence of God s spirit in it, but only that now I saw fur 
ther, and my mind apprehended the justice and reason 
ableness of it. However, my mind rested in it, and it 
put an end to all these cavils and questionings. . . . 
God s absolute sovereignty and justice with respect to , 
salvation is what niy mind seems to rest assured of, as 



38 THE PARISH MINISTER. 

much as of anything that I see with my eyes ; at least 
it is so at times. But I have often, since that first con 
viction, had quite another kind of sense of God s sover 
eignty than I had then. I have often had not only a 
conviction, hut a delightful conviction. The doctrine has 
very often appeared exceedingly pleasant, bright, and 
sweet. But my first conviction was not so." 

So Edwards entered into the heritage of his fa 
thers and made the Puritan consciousness his own. 
There are traces of an inward rebellion which was 
suppressed. There is reason to believe that his 
success was not so complete as he fancied in eradi 
cating his earlier thought. But the critical point 
of the transition is not explained. It is buried out 
of sight in silence and darkness. 



III. 



SETTLEMENT AT NORTIIAMITOX. MARRIAGE. 
DOMESTIC LIFE. 

Ox the 15th of February, 1727, Edwards was 
ordained at Northampton as the colleague of his 
grandfather, the Rev. Solomon Stoddard, then in 
his eighty-fourth year. The town of Northampton, 
a beautiful spot on the banks of the Connecticut, 
had been founded in 1G54. The first minister 
was Mr. Eleazar Mather, a brother of the cele 
brated Increase Mather. After his early death 
came Mr. Stoddard, who held the pastorate from 
1G 7 2 to 1729. He was one of the great men of 



CALL TO NORTHAMPTON. 39 

early New England history. Edwards speaks of 
him as " a very great man, of strong powers of 
mind, of great grace, and a great authority, of a 
masterly countenance, speech, and behavior." Mr. 
Stoddard lived in the days when, as Hutchinson 
remarks, " the elders continued to be consulted 
in every affair of importance. The share they 
held in temporal affairs added to the weight they 
had acquired from their spiritual employments, 
and they were in high esteem." But for Mr. 
Stoddard there was felt something more than the 
usual respect and veneration. " The officers and 
leaders of Northampton," says Edwards, " imi 
tated his manners, which were dogmatic, and 
thought it an excellency to be like him." Many 
of the people, he adds, esteemed all his sayings as 
oracles, and looked upon him " almost as a sort of 
deity." The Indians of the neighborhood, inter 
preting this admiration in their own way, spoke 
of Mr. Stoddard as " the Englishman s God." 

It was not an easy task even for Edwards to 
follow such a pastor. Other circumstances in 
creased the difficulty of the situation. The village 
of Northampton had grown rapidly in wealth and 
importance. Many of its inhabitants were marked 
by cultivation of mind, and refinement of man 
ner. They were also characterized by a certain 
high-spiritediiess which made them a turbulent 
people, not easy to control. They rejoiced in their 
reputation as a knowing people, and many of them 



40 THE PARISH MINISTER. 

having been promoted to places of public trust 
there had been much to feed their pride. There 
was also an unfortunate division among them : 
the court party, as it might be called, had wealth, 
land, and authority ; while the country party, not 
so well endowed, was jealous of them, afraid of 
their having too much power in town and church. 
All this was not auspicious for the harmony of 
Edwards pastorate. I5ut we do not hear of these 
sinister aspects of the situation in the early years 
of his ministry. They were the dark possibilities 
of the future. On the other hand, from every 
point of view the settlement at Northampton 
seemed most fitting and desirable. The father and 
mother of the young minister had many friends in 
the parish, for whose sake he was welcomed. Mr. 
Stoddard must have felt a peculiar satisfaction in 
the new relationship, as if his own mantle would 
descend to his successor after his departure. The 
church at Northampton, although on the distant 
borders of the rising civilization, was a large , and 
important one, being estimated as the strongest 
church in wealth and numbers outside of Boston. 
It was a suitable sphere ( for one who had already 
achieved some reputation as a scholar and preacher. 
Edwards contributed to the lustre of the town, 
while the congregation felt a justifiable pride in 
his powers. 

He was at this time twenty-four years of age. 

1 In personal appearance he was tall, being upwards 

of six feet in height, with a slender form, and of 



PERSONAL APPEARANCE. 41 

great seriousness and gravity of manner. His 
face was of a feminine cast, implying at once a 
capacity for both sweetness and severity, the 
Johannine type of countenance, we should say. 
just as his spirit is that of St. John, rather thai? 
that of Peter or of Paul. It is a face which be- . 
speaks a delicate and nervous organization. The 
life which he laid out for himself, according to the 
ministerial standards of the day, was the life of a 
student, who would not allow his time to be frit- 
tered away in useless employments. He visited, 
the people in cases only of necessity. Thirteen 
hours of study daily is said to have been his rule. 
His custom at first was to write two sermons every 
week, one of which was delivered on Sunday, the 
other at the weekly evening lecture. It is prob 
able that he kept up the habit of writing his ser 
mons in the early years of his ministry. His un 
published manuscripts show that he must have 
abandoned this practice, however, in later years, 
substituting plans or outlines carefully prepared. 
He was not, therefore, a mere reader of sermons, 
according to the general impression. On special 
occasions, his sermons were written in full. The 
tradition in regard to the sermon at Enfield makes 
it to have been read very closely from the manu 
script. His manner in the pulpit is described as , 
quiet exceedingly, with little or no gesture ; a voice 
not loud, but distinct and penetrating. He could 
not have been called at any time a popular 
preacher in the ordinary sense ; but he must have 



42 THE PARISH MINISTER. 

been very interesting to his congregation, an in 
terest which can still be felt in whatever he wrote. 
It is sometimes said of sermons like those of 
Whitefield, which now appear so dull as to be al 
most unreadable, that they depended for their 
power on the living speaker. Edwards sermons 
also must have gained from his remarkable pres 
ence and personality. But, unlike most sermons, 
the fire of life and reality still burns in them. 

From the first, Edwards was determined to do 
something more than the prescribed routine work 
of the pulpit. He sought, above all, a wider and 
more intimate knowledge of the Bible. To this 
end he kept a manuscript for notes on Scripture, 
which gradually became of large dimensions. He 
also followed out his resolution to be always solv 
ing difficult problems in divinity, his efforts in this 
line also going into manuscripts and notes. In 
his only diversion, his solitary rides and walks, 
he carried his thoughts with him, generally also 
pen and ink, having fixed beforehand the subject 
of his meditations. Returning from his rides he 
would bring with him various artificial remem 
brancers, such as small pieces of paper pinned to 
his coat, and on going to his study write out the 
reflections associated with them. His life was one 
of protracted, intense application, living by rule 
in regard to food, curtailing sleep, with little real 
recreation, and governed by the purpose, as we 
have already seen, of never indulging any weak 
desire for rest. He could not have carried a 



METHODS OF WORK. 43 

large library with him to Northampton. He read 
what he could get, borrowing some books, buying 
others, and knowing clearly just what books were 
necessary, if he could only get them. The con 
nection of Northampton with Boston was a close 
one. Edwards managed to find out in some way i 
what was going on in the world. He soon learned i 
that the times were changing, even though the 
change went on more slowly in the remote and 
isolated province of the Massachusetts Bay. 

We are studying the life of a Protestant theolo 
gian, the peer of his predecessors in any age of the 
church in intellectual power and acumen, as well 
as in a vast expanding influence. Let us turn 
then, as by a natural transition, to his marriage 
and his domestic life. If we were studying the 
lives of St. Augustine, or St. Jerome, or St. Ber 
nard of Clairvaux, or St. Thomas of Aquiii, we 
should think of them in their monastic cells de 
nouncing the ties of human love and of the fam 
ily relation, as unfit or even degrading for those 
who belong to the sacred order of the clergy. Of 
Edwards we must think as having wife and chil 
dren, finding repose and consolation, and not only) 
so, but inspiration and strength, in the bosom of 
his family. He, too, is a genuine ascetic at heart ; 
but his asceticism, however it may have erred, is | 
of a higher type than the ancient or medieval 
forms. It is of the heroic cast which orders life i 
with reference to the highest end. If he abstains 
from amusements, from excess of food, from many 



44 THE PARISH MINISTER. 

hours spent in sleep, it is not because he believes 
such abstinence scores so much to his merit, but 
i because he has a work to do, and like his Master 
is sorely straitened until it be accomplished. 

Hardly had Edwards become settled in his par 
ish at Northampton when he bethought himself of 
a wife. Nor was there apparently any doubt in 
his mind as to where he should turn to find the 
heart which beat in sympathy with his own. 
While living in New Haven he had first heard of 
Sarah Pierrepont, then a young girl of thirteen 
years. Her ancestry was a distinguished one in 
colonial annals, as also in England, whence her 
paternal grandfather had emigrated to Roxbury, in 
Massachusetts. She was descended through her 
mother from the Rev. Thomas Hooker, called the 
father of the Connecticut churches, generally 
designated as the great Mr. Hooker, of whom it 
had been said that, if any man in his age came in 
the spirit of Jolin the Baptist, Hooker was the 
man. Her father also was an eminent divine, con 
nected with Yale College in various capacities of 
founder, trustee, and for a time professor of moral 
philosophy. Some connection with that produc 
tion known as the Saybrook Platform is also 
ascribed to him. Sarah Pierrepont is spoken of 
as possessing a rare and lustrous beauty both of 
form and features. Her portrait, taken by an 
English painter, presents, says Dr. Dwight, " a 
form and features not often rivalled, with a pecu 
liar loveliness of expression, the combined result 



SARAH P1ERREPONT. 45 

of goodness and intelligence." Her beauty and 
attractiveness are alluded to by Dr. Hopkins, of 
Newport, who speaks of her, after she had passed 
the age of youth, as more than ordinarily beauti 
ful. But her beauty, which throws a. charm and 
softness over the severity of ancient Puritanism, 
was not all that recommended her in Edwards eyes. 
She proved to be a woman of strong character, en 
dowed with a natural religious enthusiasm, with a 
decidedly mystic bent to the piety that belonged 
to her from childhood. Her strongest attraction 
in the eyes of her future husband, when he first 
heard of her, was the natural ease with which she , 
achieved and maintained so intimate a relationship 
with Deity. In this connection belongs the mem 
orable passage written by Edwards at the age of 
twenty, while Sarah Pierrepont was thirteen, a 
passage which Dr. Chalmers is said to have ad 
mired for its eloquence : 

" They say there is a young lady in New Haven 
who is beloved of that great Being who made and rules 
the world, and that there are certain seasons in which 
this great Being, in some way or other invisible, comes 
to her and fills her mind with exceeding sweet delight, 
and that she hardly cares for anything except to medi 
tate on Him ; that she expects after a while to be received 
up where He is, to be raised up out of the world and 
caught up into heaven ; being assured that He loves her 
too well to let her remain at a distance from Him al 
ways. There she is to dwell with Him, and to be rav 
ished with His love and delight forever. Therefore, if 



46 TUE PARISH MINISTER. 

you present all the world before her, with the richest of 
its treasures, she disregards and cares not for it, and is 
unmindful of any pain or affliction. She has a strange 
sweetness in her mind, and singular purity in her affec 
tions ; is most just and conscientious in all her conduct ; 
and you could not persuade her to do anything wrong 
or sinful, if you would give her all the world, lest she 
should offend this great Being. She is of a wonderful 
calmness, and universal benevolence of mind ; especially 
after this great God has manifested Himself to her mind. 
She will sometimes go about from place to place sing 
ing sweetly ; and seems to be always full of joy and 
pleasure, and no one knows for what. She loves to be 
alone, walking in the fields and groves, and seems to 
have some one invisible always conversing with her." 

Such, was Sarah. Pierrepont, to whom Edwards 
wrote from Northampton entreating her to a speedy 
marriage. His tone is as urgent as the heart of a 
maiden could desire. " Patience," he writes to her, 
l " is commonly esteemed a virtue, but in this case 
I may almost regard it as a vice." 1 The marriage 
took place in 1727, only a few months after his 
ordination, the bride having attained the age of 
seventeen. Before turning to Edwards as the 
laborious pastor, involved in a long and fierce con 
troversy, carrying the burden on his shoulders, as 
it were, of all the New England churches, one may 
be pardoned for lingering a moment on this scene 
at the opening of his career, when the young min 
ister and his wife took up their residence in the 

1 Appleton s Amer. Encyc., 1st ed., art. Edwards. 



THE MINISTERS WIFE. 47 

beautiful village of Northampton. As a minister s 
wife Mrs. Edwards fulfilled the somewhat exigent 
ideal which the ways of a Puritan minister de 
manded. She became the administrator of the ( 
household affairs, saving her husband from all un 
necessary knowledge and annoyance. She studied 
economy as a religious duty, bearing in mind the 
words of Christ, that nothing be lost. " She paid," 
says Dr. Hopkins, "a becoming deference to her 
husband ; she spared no pains in conforming to 
his inclinations, and rendering everything in the 
family agreeable and pleasant, accounting it her 
greatest glory, and that wherein she could best 
serve God and her generation, to be the means in 
this way of promoting his usefulness and happi 
ness. And no person of discernment could be) 
conversant in the family without observing and 
admiring the perfect harmony, the mutual love 
and esteem, that subsisted between them." 1 She 
had been " educated in the midst of polished life, 
familiar from childhood with the rules of decorum 
and good breeding, affable and easy in her man 
ners, and governed by the feelings of liberality and 
benevolence." 2 As her husband s reputation grew 
throughout the colony, her name became every 
where associated with his, but also as of a person 
to be known and revered on her own account. It 
was said of her by a somewhat witty divine, that it 
was understood she had learned a shorter way to 

1 Hopkins Life of Edwards, quoted in Uwight, p. 123. 

2 Dwight, p. 130. 



48 THE PARISH MINISTER. 

heaven than her husband. There was nothing 
morbid or sad about her religion ; she had no de 
pressing experiences ; her piety, like her character, 
was a joyous one, bringing with it light and glad 
ness. She made the home at Northampton a cen 
tre of genial and attractive hospitality, till it be 
came almost like a sanctuary to which multitudes 
resorted, as in the course of years Edwards came 
to be looked up to as a spiritual teacher and guide. 
The famous Whitefield, who spent several days at 
Northampton, has left his impressions of his visit 
in liis diary, a record, it is needless to say, which 
also throws light on his own character : 

" On the Sabbath felt wonderful satisfaction in being 
at the house of Mr. Edwards. He is a son himself and 
hath also a daughter of Abraham for his wife. A 
sweeter couple I have not seen. Their children were 
dressed, not in silks and satins, but plain, as becomes the 
children of those who in all things ought to be examples 
of Christian simplicity. She is a woman adorned with 
a meek and quiet spirit, and talked so feelingly and so 
solidly of the things of God, and seemed to be such an 
helpmeet to her husband, that she caused me to renew 
those prayers which for some months I have put up to 
God, that He would send me a daughter of Abraham to 
be my wife. I find upon many accounts it is my duty 
to marry. Lord, I desire to have no choice of my own. 
Thou knowest my circumstances." 1 

1 Tracy, The Great Awakening, p. 99. "He had not yet 
learned, if he ever did," adds Mr. Tracy, "that God is not 
pleased to make sweet couples out of persons who have no 
choice of their own." 



FAMILY LIFE. 49 

As in most New England families of this period, 
the children were numerous, and Mrs. Edwards, in 
addition to her other duties, became responsible 
for their training and discipline. In this respect 
also she was admirable, seldom punishing, and in 
speaking using gentle and pleasant words. She 
addressed herself to the reason of the children, 
was in the habit of speaking but once, and was 
cheerfully obeyed. It was the children s manner 
to rise when their parents entered the room and 
remain standing until they were seated. Quarrel 
ling and contention were unknown among them. 
She prayed regularly with them, bearing them also 
on her heart before God, and that even before they 
were born. She aimed to bring each young will 
into submission to the will of its parents, in order 
that it might afterwards become submissive to the 
will of God. She had also relations to sustain to 
the parish. Here, too, her influence was great, and 
the ideal of character which she aimed to embody 
in herself a high one. She not only made no 
trouble by indiscreet remarks, but set herself as 
an example in the regulation of the tongue. Such 
a woman was sure also to exert an attractive spell 
over her husband. What her influence was, and 
how largely it controlled his attitude, will be seen 
hereafter. 

For two years after Edwards became his col 
league, Mr. Stoddard continued to officiate half 
the day on Sundays. On February 11, 1729, he 
departed from his earthly labors. A peculiar in- 



50 THE PARISH MINISTER. 

terest attaches to him in consequence of his teach 
ing in regard to the Lord s Supper. He thought 
the rite was far too greatly neglected in the Puritan 
churches. In advocating its importance he spoke 
of it as possessing a converting power. His views 
of the church approximated that conception of it, 
as an organic institution, which is found in Presby- 
terianism rather than in Congregationalism, which 
constitutes also a bond of kinship between the older 
Puritanism and the Anglican church, against which 
for other reasons it had revolted. Mr. Stoddard 
can be easily conceived in some other role than 
that of a Puritan minister. lie held, it is true, 
the ordinary Calvinistic theology, but he held it 
with a difference which was his own. He was the 
author of several books, in which his soul shines 
still as that of a kindly, humane, and honest man, 
to whom life and its issues are very real, whose 
wisdom is drawn from experience and not from 
speculative discussion in the schools. He made 
prominent a doctrine which was afterwards dis 
owned as mystical or irrational, the imputation 
of Christ s righteousness as the ground of the sin 
ner s hope and confidence. 

It was fortunate for Edwards that he should 
have been associated in his early ministry with 
such a man. Though he finally rejected Mr. Stod- 

/ J 

dard s idea of the Lord s Supper as a converting 
ordinance, as well as his conception of the church, 
yet the influence of the elder pastor and his writ 
ings remained, a leaven of practical wisdom and 



RELIGIOUS PERPLEXITIES. 51 

of certain theological tendencies, which still dis 
tinguish Edwards from many of his followers. Be 
fore the death of Mr. Stoddard, there occurred at 
Northampton a season of unusual devotion to reli 
gion. Mr. Stoddard had become experienced in 
dealing with persons " under concern" about their 
salvation. A little work which he had written, 
called A Guide to Christ, etc., had been compiled 
for the help of young ministers. In it we may 
study the questions which the younger pastor was 
propounding to himself in his first years in the 
ministry. They illustrate the dark and sombre 
mood which marks the opening of the eighteenth 
century in New England. Among the questions 
proposed for solution are such as these : Whether 
God works a preparation in the soul before it goes 
to Christ in faith ; whether men should be encour 
aged in the use of means toward their conversion ; 
in what conversion consists ; how God can be the 
author of it and yet man prepare himself for it ; 
how decrees are compatible with human liberty; 
in what lies the unpardonable sin ; whether a man 
is ever justified in thinking that he has sinned 
away the day of grace ; whether the threatened 
punishments for sin are out of proportion to its 
guilt ; whether God is under any obligation to 
hear and answer the prayers of those who are un 
converted. With such sad, mysterious question 
ings as these, the mind of the New England people, 
or a large portion of them, continued for genera^ 
tions to be agitated. 



52 THE PARISH MINISTER. 

IV. 

EDWARDS, AS A REFORMER. SERMONS OK DE 
PENDENCE AND SPIRITUAL LIGHT. SPECIAL 

AND COMMON GRACE. 

THE condition of the churches in New England 
at the time when Edwards arose demands a few 
words of explanation as an introduction to his 
theology. It was a period of decline and of dete 
rioration, of many attempts at reform which only 
ended in failure. The lamentations over the situ 
ation are heard from the time of the withdrawal 
of the charter in 1684, or the closing years of the 
reign of Charles II. They began as so<,n as it 
was evident that the unique and beautiful experi 
ment of the Puritan fathers was over, when the 
theocracy which had inspired such heroism as the 
world had not seen before was hastening to its 
downfall. Such an event was a catastrophe of the 
direst kind in New England history. It seemed 
to falsify great hopes and aspirations. It was as 
if God had turned away from favoring an enter 
prise which had His glory in view as its sole ob 
ject and justification. Sore perplexity and eon- 
fusion befel the religious mind in proportion to 
the greatness of its venture of faith. In his His 
tory of Massachusetts, Hutchinson remarks that 
the moral decline or deterioration has been exag 
gerated. AVe need not demur to this statement 
from one who speaks with so much authority, with 



WITCHCRAFT DELUSION. 53 

an almost contemporaneous knowledge of the time. 
But it is not, after all, a question of how great was 
the decline, but as to how the situation was re 
garded by the religious leaders who represent the 
feeling of the hour. In their view it was a time 
of such religious coldness and apathy as to calli 
for the judgment of Heaven, if in some way the 
evil could not be averted by diligent reform. And 
indeed it was believed that the Divine judgment 
had already been visited upon the people for their 
deflection from the ways of their fathers. The 
feeling that God was incensed gave rise to a pre 
vailing consciousness of a great wrong existent in 
the community which must needs be discovered, 
and atoned for by deep repentance. The sense of 
sin, to use the religious expression, became deeper 
and more pervading. 

There are some things, some acts, which speak 
louder than words, louder than the decisions of 
synods or the writings of private individuals, and 
by these is more truly interpreted the real condi 
tion of the moment. The spread of the delusion 
about witchcraft, with its attendant horrors, was 
only possible at this dark hour, with its morbid 
superstitious fears. So far as it was believed that 
God, for some mysterious reason, had withdrawn 
His favor, so far also was it possible to believe that 
restraint was removed from the enmity of evil 
spirits, that devils were allowed to ravage the com 
munity at their will. The witchcraft delusion 
would have been impossible a generation earner 



54 THE PARISH MINISTER. 

or later than its actual date in the closing years of 
the seventeenth century. It was the culmination, 
of the fears and misgivings which had been long 
gathering momentum for some such tangible out 
break. And possibly also, as affording vent for 
the superstitious excitement, it may have been the 
turning point of a new era. 

Whatever may have been the extent of the 
moral or religious decline which is so generally 
bemoaned in the years that followed the with 
drawal of the charter from Massachusetts, no one 
can read the records of the time without being 
convinced that there was a decline, that morals, 
religious fervor, interest in public worship, were 
not sustained at the same high pitch as in the best 
days of the theocracy. The religious faith or 
creed of Puritanism was also endangered by rival 
or hostile creeds, which were now free to be intro 
duced and to grow as they could find supporters. 
The days of repression and persecution were over. 
There was surely enough material for reforming 
synods if only they could get at the root of the 
difficulty. The chief recommendation which all 
concur in making is the revival and more vigorous 
maintenance of the ancient discipline. But how 
could that, which had declined from no apparent 
reason but want of faith or interest, be revived 
again without some great motive to faith which 
did not yet appear ? The situation would indeed 
have been a hopeless one. if it were not that the 
complaints and lamentations were in themselves 



RELATION OF CHURCH AND STATE. 55 

the manifestation of a certain dissatisfaction and 
unrest, symbols of the birth, as it were, of some 
new ideal, heralds of a coming change. This 
change or reformation, when its advent was ac 
complished, must bear some proportion to the 
long and bitter pains and agonies which had pre 
ceded it. 

In the confusion of the time, the ends to be 
achieved were not clearly seen. Now that they 
have been long since accomplished, it is easy to 
see the rationale of the process, and whither it was 
tending. First, it was necessary to reaffirm the 
principle of Puritanism in such an emphatic way ., 
as to reach, if possible, the reason and the con 
science. In the second place, it was incumbent 
to readjust the relations of state and church which ! 
had become involved in so much confusion. The 
latter of these ends was the more important prac 
tical issue, although it was the theological prin 
ciple which made the practical issue possible of 
attainment. The dissatisfaction of the time pro 
ceeded in great part from the condition of the 1 
churches, deprived of the sympathy or support of 
the state, and not having achieved the principle by 
which the church could exist and thrive through 
an independent life of its OWTI. And further, the 
churches in New England had mutilated their 
peculiar constitution, diminishing its native vigor 
in order to adjust it to the relations with the state. 
The Half-way Covenant, the concession of thei 
church in order to a more pliable connection with 



56 THE PARISH MINISTER. 

the sjate, was still in force after the state had l>ecn 
practically divorced from the church, a continual 
source of weakness and depression. Atthis junc- 

iture Edwards arose to .do his peculiar work. If 
it seem to any as if the story we are al>out to 
relate were a petty or a local one, merely, without 
universal relations, it may be said that we stand 
here at the beginning of a new cycle in human his 
tory, in which Edwards is the leader. a cycle 
whose scope and duration include the Church of 
Scotland, and ultimately the Church of England, 
as well as the, church in America. Modern ec 
clesiastical history may be said to date from the 
impetus given by Edwards, so far as he reversed 
the teaching of AVycliffe, on which the relations 
of church and state had been based for four hun 
dred years. The religious world as we see it to 
day is still regulated by the principles which he 
was the first to enunciate in their fulness and 
vigor. To his theology we now turn, asking the 
interest of the reader in perusing a chapter of 
human thought, the like of which cannot be read 
elsewhere in history. 

It was in the year 1731 that Edwards had the 
honor of being invited to appear as a preacher in 

the "public lecture" in the provincial town of Bos 
ton. The occasion was a representative one to the 
young minister from Northampton : we may take 
it for granted that his sermon also had a repre 
sentative character. that like an ancient prophet 
he felt called to deliver his burden. The subject 



SERMON ON DEPENDENCE. 57 

of his sermon was the absolute dependence of man 
upon God, its more exact heading, God glori 
fied in Man s Dependence. 1 The sermon produced 
a profound impression. Its publication was not 
only demanded, but the ministers of Boston, with 
others, felt called upon to bear their testimony to 
Edwards worth ; they had " quickly found him 
to be a workman that need not be ashamed, despite 
his youth ; they thank the great Head of the church 
who has been pleased to raise up such men for the 
defence of evangelical truth ; they express the hope 
that the college in the neighboring colony of Con 
necticut may be a fruitful mother of many such 
sons ; and they congratulate the happy church at 
Northampton on whom Providence has bestowed so 
rich a gift." 

This event was as significant in Edwards life 
and in the history of New England theology as 
when Schleiermacher preached his discourse upon 
the same subject, which marks the date of the 
ecclesiastical reaction of the nineteenth century. 
Of Edwards, too, it might be said, as the great 
German preacher had then remarked of Spinoza, 
" that the Infinite was his beginning and his end ; 
the universal his only and eternal love." The two 
sermons, however, have but little in common ex 
cept the title. Edwards does not seek to show 
that an instinct of dependence is rooted in the 
soul, forming an essential element in the human 
consciousness, or that its development is important 
1 Works, vol. iv. p. 169, Worcester edition. 






58 THE rARISH MINISTER. 

to a complete human culture. lie looks at his sub 
ject from the divine point of view, not from the 
human. Human dependence is both true and de- 
,sirable, because it tends to humiliate man and to 
I promote the glory of God. But none the less was 
Edwards sermon an epochal one. Those who lis 
tened to it must have felt that a great champion 
had appeared to defend the old discredited theol 
ogy. The doctrine of human dependence which 
formed the main idea of the sermon was ordinary 
enough to a Puritan congregation, but the mode of 
Edwards assertion of it was new. There is an 
emphasis of certainty, an intensity of tone, as 
though there were some invisible combatant to be 
overcome, an excitement in the air as if some 
k new issue had arisen. If we interpret the sermon, 
JTJ it was the preacher s challenge to the age, to the 
fashionable Arminianism which was denying or 
ignoring the divine sovereignty, which was magni 
fying man at the expense of God, which was cheap 
ening the gift of divine grace by extending it to 
all, instead of the few whom God had chosen. 

At a time, then, when the prevailing Deism rep 
resented God as if a passive agent, governing the 
world by general laws and second causes, as well 
as far removed from the scene of human activity, 
Edwards presented Deity as immanent and effi- 
, cient will. The stress of his conception is on God 
as will, rather than as idea or reason. The power 
which is displayed in every act or exercise of the 
human will which tends to overcome sin or 



THE DIVINE SOVEREIGNTY. 59 

strengthen right principle is nothing less than the 
power of God. The deliverance of man from evil 
is an act of immediate divine efficiency. It is not 
only from God, but the process of redemption is 
God. When it is said that those who are saved 
have their good in God, this means that they have 
a kind of participation in God. God puts his 
beauty upon them, a sort of effusion of God is 
poured out upon the soul. It is not so much that 
the Spirit of God works good in the soul, but the 
good is in itself the Spirit of God, the two are 
one and the same. The goodness and the right 
eousness in the world are therefore more than 
mere moral qualities or attributes : they are alive, 
as it were, in efficient Deity ; they are the imma 
nent God, and not the changing modes of human 
conduct. 

Closely connected with this teaching about the 
divine efficiency is Edwards assertion of the 
divine sovereignty. The word in itself is not ob 
noxious. In the earlier Calvinism, sovereignty had 
included the call or election of nations to some 
high struggle for liberty or moral advance. But 
the word as Edwards uses it becomes synonymous 
with the tenet of an individual election to life, or} 
reprobation to death. In this form Edwards as 
serts it as the cardinal principle of his theology. 
lie believes that he has biblical evidence in its 
support, for when he defines it he prefers to do 
so in words of Scripture ; the divine sovereignty 
means " that God has mercy on whom He will 



CO THE PARISH MINISTER. 

have mercy, and whom He will. Tie hardeneth." 
It also follows from the doc-trine of sovereignty, as 
he conceives it. that God was under no obligation 

i to do anything for man. That lie vouchsafes to 
save men at all is an act on His part of pure gra 
tuitous condescension. It is also of mere grace 
that the redemption is applied to some and not 
to all. 

At this point we must pause for a moment to 
inquire into the process by which such a profound 
and speculative mind should have reached this 
conclusion. Unfortunately Edwards does not ex 
plain the process. The foundations of this cardi 
nal principle in his theology seem to be sunk in 
an abysmal darkness, which he makes no attempt 
to sound. Between the time when as a youth he 
was writing his Notes on the Mind, and his ap 
pearance at the Boston lecture, there is a gap in 
his mental history, which must be filled out from 
a general knowledge of his thought. His early 
philosophy, as we have seen, was thoroughly Berke- 

leyan in its character. So far as the outer world 
is concerned, God was conceived as the universal 

substance underlying all external phenomena. It 
was God s immediate action on the mind, in ac 
cordance with His fixed and stable will, which gives 
to the mind the idea of an external world. Tilings 
in themselves have no existence but only in the 
mind of God. God is and there is none else. 
But does God s immediate efficiency apply also to 
the thoughts and exercises of the human soul ? 



DENIAL OF HUMAN FREEDOM. 61 

Upon this point Edwards hesitated. He expresses 
himself to the effect that his thought needs to be as 
clear on God s relation to the mind as it is in re 
gard to His relation to the outer world. Nowhere 
in his published works does he, however, take up 
the subject for a full discussion. But there can 
hardly be a doubt as to the conviction toward 
which he was tending as a youthful thinker, the 
conviction which underlies his conception of sov 
ereignty, and which affords the unfailing clue to 
his purpose. He must have believed that God s 
relation to the mind and will of man was in har 
mony with His relation to visible nature. In the 
invisible sphere of man s moral or intellectual ex 
istence, God was still the universal substance ; it 
was He that alone existed and there is none else. 

This very significant transition seems to have 
taken place in Edwards mind as he contemplated 
the phenomena of the human will. Here his depen 
dence upon Locke helped to lead him into a prac 
tical denial of the freedom of the human will. Pie 
thought it was sufficient freedom to concede to 
man, if he were conceived as having the power of 
acting in accordance with his inclination. He 
therefore denied to the human will any self-deter 
mining power the power to the contrary accord 
ing to which a man is free to revise his action. 
At a very early age he had come to the conclusion 
that God determines the will. He felt the more 
unhampered in making this conviction the ruling 
principle of his theology because he was at the 



62 THE PARISH MINISTER. 

same time convinced that man was still responsible 
for his own acts, even if they were done through 
him by another. The self-determination of the 
will was not essential to the quality of human acts. 
Praise and blame attached to the act in itself, 
and not to its origin in a will which possessed 
power to the contrary. 

But when Edwards had reached this momentous 
conclusion he was in danger of making the world 
of human experience a mere lifeless machine, un 
less somewhere there did exist the power to the 
contrary, unless what he had denied to man lie 
were to attribute in an increased degree to God. 
The materialism, the atheism, the religious indif 
ference of the age, would be overcome most suc 
cessfully by asserting the freedom of the will of 
God in the fullest sense, as including self-determi 
nation or the power to the contrary, so far as the 
issues of human life were concerned. The Divine 
will must not be hampered or thwarted by the chains 
of necessity. God must be conceived as having the 
ability to reverse His action. Hence followed Ed 
wards idea of sovereignty as by inexorable logic. 
If God chooses to redeem men from sin, lie is un 
der 110 necessity to do so. If He chooses to save 
one man rather than another, it was because He 
was pleased to do so of His arbitrary will. To rep 
resent Him as willing to save all alike would be to 
deny to Him a sphere where the freedom of His 
will can be displayed in the view of all. In no 
other way can the power to the contrary which in- 



DEFINITION OF SOVEREIGNTY. 63 

heres in the divine will be exhibited so manifestly, 
so unmistakably, as in His having mercy on whom 
He, will have mercy, ichile ivhom He will, He 
hardeneth. The existence of evil in the world is a 
proof of the divine sovereignty. God was under 
no obligation to keep man from sinning. He de 
creed to permit the fall, and to order events to its 
accomplishment. By His decree, every individual 
of Adam s posterity was involved in his sin. In 
all this God was free and sovereign. " When men 
have fallen and become sinful, God in Ilis sov 
ereignty has "a right to determine about their de 
liverance as He pleases, whether He will redeem 
any or no, or redeem some and leave the others. 
If He chooses to redeem any, His sovereignty is 
involved in His freedom to take whom He pleases, 
and to leave whom He pleases to perish." l 

With this doctrine of sovereignty Edwards 
threw down a challenge to the world of his time. 
We have seen how in his youth his soul had been 
filled with an unbounded enthusiasm as he took 
the idea of God as the only substance, the one uni 
versal Being. His spirit must have been turned 
with indignation when, entering his ministerial 
career, he looked abroad upon the low level of an 
age which talked and acted as if God were not in 
its thought ; as he witnessed the spectacle of a re 
ligion which almost seemed as if it could dispense 
with God, so highly did it exalt the independent 

1 Sermon On God s Sovereignty, vol. iv. p. 549. Cf. also vol. iv. 
pp. 230, 231, 2-32, and 254. 



64 THE PARISH MINISTER. 

faculties of human nature, which spoke of the 
sober performance of moral duty as if it were a 
substitute for the passionate devotion to a Being, 
with its moments of spiritual joy and elevation. 
The motive of his sermon on Dependence ap 
pears in its closing paragraph or application : 
" Those doctrines and schemes of divinity that are 
in any respect opposite to such an absolute and 
universal dependence on God derogate from His 
glory, and thwart the design of the contrivance for 
our redemption." 

In asserting the divine sovereignty as necessa 
rily involving the principle of predestination, Ed 
wards had only done what under similar circum 
stances Augustine had also done in the ancient 
church, or Calvin in the age of the Reformation. 
But Edwards inclines to go beyond his predecessors. 
While the world to his view and theirs presents 
humanity as divided into two great classes of the 
elect and the non-elect, yet he was not content to 
consider the non-elect as left by God to their own 
devices. God does not merely pass over them, as 
if in negative fashion, leaving them to the opera 
tion of general laws which secure their destruc 
tion. The grace divine, which is only another 
name for immanent, efficient Deity, includes within 
the range of its activity the evil and the good 
alike. Wherever he looks, the world is, as it were, 
ablaze with the fires of omnipotent, energizing 
will. To the distinction between the elect and the 
lion-elect corresponds another distinction between 



SPECIAL AND COMMON GRACE. 65 

God s special grace and His common grace. The 
first secures salvation ; the other underlies the 
world of affairs, of every-day life, of moral du 
ties, the world of society and human institutions. 
The common grace of God carries with it no sav 
ing efficacy ; none the less it is essential to the 
ordering of the world, in order that God s special 
grace may have the freer course. 

This distinction between special and common 
grace is so important in Edwards theology that 
it deserves particular consideration ; for it con 
stitutes in some measure an original feature in 
his thought. It brings the whole world, and not 
merely a part of it, into the sphere of the Divine 
energizing. It also forced Edwards to revise the 
ordinary theological nomenclature of his time. To 
the sphere of God s special grace he confines the 
use of the word supernatural, while the realm of 
the natural includes the operations of his common 
grace. In ordinary use, the word supernatural 
meant the miraculous interposition of God, as 
contrasted with the course of ordinary life. But 
Edwards had risen above the necessity of attach 
ing supreme importance to miracle as the highest 
evidence of God s activity in the world. In plain 
truth, he takes little or no interest in miracles. 
He makes them hold a subordinate place, as com 
pared with the internal evidences of the truth of 1 
Christ s religion. 1 By supernatural he means the 

1 Cf. Original Sin, vol. ii. p. 477; also Work of the Spirit of 
God, vol. i. p. 557. 



6G ( THE PARISH MINISTER. 

spiritual, as something above and distinct from the 
natural life of man. In this use of the term, he 
is in accord with Schleiermacher and Coleridge, 
who led the revolt of modern religious thought 
against the appeal to miracle as the final and high 
est evidence for Christian truth. 

But the difference between Edwards and these 
modern theologians is also as striking as the 
agreement. In the realm of the natural he in 
closes so large a part of human life as to leave 
almost 110 place or opportunity for the spiritual 
or supernatural. The natural does not pass over 
into the spiritual through moral conflict or pur 
pose ; the law of the spiritual or supernatural is 
not presented as a gradual transmutation of the 
natural. The two are separated as by an infinite 
I gulf. They are as distinct as light and darkness ; 
the natural is the absence of light, as light ceases 
in a room when the candle is withdrawn. In the 
sphere of the natural life is included, as has been 
said, almost the whole scope of human activity. 
Even conscience, which has been called the voice 
of God in the soul, is not regarded by Edwards 
as belonging to the spiritual order. The moralities 
of common life, the duties and the virtues which 
human society involves or which constitute its 
bond of unity, the art and purpose of human 
government, the amenities and affections of the 
domestic circle, these and most other things that 
can be thought or mentioned are placed by him 
on the inferior plane of the natural, higher in 



SUPERNATURAL LIGHT. 67 

rank but in essential quality not different from the 
habits and instincts of the brute creation. 

What, then, is this saving special grace, which 
seems to be in contrast with almost all that we 
know as good, which may be in opposition to all 
that we esteem most dear ? Edwards may have 
felt that he had ruled out so much from the spirit 
ual that a supreme effort was required of him to 
demonstrate the existence and the reality of the 
supernatural. lie responds to the inquiry or the 
doubt in one of the most beautiful and most elo 
quent of his sermons. Its early date is significant 
as showing that his theology had matured into its 
final form during his first years at Northampton. 
Like his sermon on Dependence, its publication 
was called for, and it appeared in 1734, when 
Edwards had attained the age of thirty-one. The 
full title of the sermon as it stands in his Works 
is : A Divine and Supernatural Light immediately 
imparted to the Soul, shown to be both a Scriptural 
and Rational Doctrine. His text was the words 
of Christ to Peter : " And Jesus answered and 
said unto him, Blessed art thou, Simon Barjona ; for 
flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but 
my Father which is in heaven." The emphasis is 
Edwards own when he says, " What I would ; 
make the subject of the present discourse from 
these words is, that there is such a thing as a 
spiritual and divine light immediately imparted 
to the soul by God, of a different nature from any 
that is obtained by natural means." 



68 THE PARISH MINISTER. 

A sermon so remarkable as this lias not escaped 
the notice of those who have made any study of 
Edwards theology. It resembles so closely the 
later transcendental thought of New England as 
almost, to bridge the distance between Edwards 
and Emerson. A recent American critic, speaking 
from a literary point of view, has called attention 

i to the word sweetness as being Edwards character 
istic word. But there is another word which re 
curs quite as often in his writings, and that, too, in 

i the most important connections, the word light. 
It is more than an illustration of his thought : 
light is a word that controls his thought. In com 
paring the essential quality of revelation to light, 
Edwards is widely separated from those who have 
conceived revelation mainly as law addressed to 
the conscience. We have here an element in his 
thought which he assumes without discussion as 
if unconscious of its dee}) significance a relic, it 
may be, of his earlier attitude before he aban 
doned the pursuit of philosophy. In this respect 
he differs fundamentally from his predecessors in 
the Calvinistic churches, with whom the legal ten 
dency is predominant. 1 

Closely related as Edwards thought is to tran 
scendental modes of speech, there is yet, however, 

1 Edwards view of revelation gives to the reason an essen 
tially religious function, making possible also free theological 
inquiry. His view is expanded by the late Bishop Ewuag of 
Argyle in Revelation Considered as Light, a work which, like 
Campbell On the Atonement, may be regarded as developing the 
Edwardian theology. 



THE IMMEDIATE VISION. 69 

a great difference. He does not admit that the 
human reason has in itself a divine quality, or that 
it is a spark of the divine reason, forming- a part 
of the divine image in man. There is nothing in 
human nature, as it exists since the fall, which has 

anything; in common with the divine nature. It is 

. 
only when the divine and supernatural light has 

been imparted that the reason is purified and 
quickened to behold the transcendent beauty and 
glory of God. Edwards assumes, as a first prin 
ciple, that when God speaks to man His word 
must be very different from man s word. There 
is such an excellency and sublimity, such divine! 
perfection, in the speech of God, that the words of 
the wisest of men must appear mean and base in 
comparison. The divine word is like a fire, and as 
a hammer that breaketh the rock in pieces. Into 
the meaning, the transcendent beauty and glory, 
the joy and sweetness, of the divine word, they 
penetrate directly and intuitively in whom a divine 
and supernatural light is shining. Reason does 
not give this light, though the light cannot come 
where reason does not exist. Scripture is power- . 
less also to impart it, though it cannot shine where 
there is no knowledge of Scripture. It reveals no 
new truth which is not already in the Bible. In 
this way it differs from inspiration, which is the 
unique mode of conveying new truth to the world 
as by prophets or evangelists. And yet this divine 
and supernatural light is something higher and 
more to be valued than inspiration, or the power 



70 THE PARISH MINISTER. 

of prophecy or of miracle. Inspiration is a lower 
gift, for it is capable of being imparted to those 
who have no supernatural light, a Balaam or a 
Saul. But this divine light is not the mere exter 
nal power of God : it is of God s own inmost es- 
i sence, it comes immediately and directly from Him ; 
it is not the acting of God upon the soul from 
without, but a vital and personal force dwelling 
within the soul, as if henceforth an organic ele 
ment in its life ; it is the Spirit of God communi 
cating Himself to man. 

The effect of this divine and supernatural light 
is to give the soul an insight into the truth of the 
Christian revelation, revealing a view of things 
that are most exquisitely beautiful. Others who 
have it not may yet have an intelligent opinion 
about divine things, as a man may have some 
knowledge or opinion about sweet things who has 
not tasted them. But the taste of divine things, 
the realizing sense of what they are, belongs only 
to those whom God immediately enlightens. This 
light within them Edwards will not call it the " in 
ner light," for he has prejudices against Quaker 
ism may come to those to whom miracles would 
have no weight as evidence of the truth. The his 
torical testimony of miracles must be weighed by 
those who have the necessary learning or leisure. 
But the divine light may come to children and to 
weak women, bringing with it its own evidence of 
divinity. " The evidence that they, who are spirit 
ually enlightened, have of the truth of the things 



THE CONSTITUTION OF MAN. 71 

of religion, is a kind of intuitive and immediate 
evidence. 1 They believe the doctrines of God s 
word to be divine because they see divinity in 
them." This light within changes the nature of 
the soul, assimilating it to the divine nature. This 
light, and this light only, has its fruit in holiness 
of life. 

But this divine and supernatural light must be 
considered from another point of view. As Ed 
wards thought, it came to but a few, the major 
ity of the race were doomed to live without it. 
The first man had enjoyed its full possession at 
his creation. But when he sinned, by rebelling 
against the divine will, the supernatural light had 
been withdrawn ; and since then, so far as it had 
been vouchsafed to man, it had been as individuals 
only, by a free and gracious act of the divine sov 
ereignty. In all this, Edwards teaching resembles 
the mediaeval theology which had conceived the 
divine and supernatural light as not forming a 
necessary part of the constitution of man, but 
rather as the donum supernaturale, something 
superadded to his constitution by which man is 
made capable of communion with God. While 
the supernatural element is essential to the perfec- 

1 In his Notes on the Mind Edwards had written of Inspiration : 
" The evidence of immediate inspiration that the prophets had, 
when they were immediately inspired by the Spirit of God with 
any truth, is an absolute sort of certainty ; and the knowledge is 
in a sense intuitive, much in the same manner as faith, and spirit 
ual knowledge of the truth of religion. D wight, Life of Ed- 
ivards, p. 691. 



72 THE PARISH MINISTER. 

tion and wellbeing of human nature, yet it is not 
essential to the constitution of human nature. One 
may have everything needful to his being man, 
and yet lack its possession. 

It might be supposed at this point that the situ 
ation was not a desperate one. There is still left 
to man the large and noble sphere of the natural, 
the world of political or social or domestic life. 
In this sphere there still remain lofty and unselfish 
ideals, tasking man s highest powers, calling forth 
patriotism and heroism, and all the manifestations 
of disinterested love. The divine and supernat 
ural light may after all be but a delusion, and the 
natural life the only reality. Such, indeed, has 
been the inference drawn by the positivist or hu 
manitarian schools. But such an inference was, 
from Edwards point of view, not only remote but 
impossible. The withdrawal of the supernatural 
light from Adam and his descendants was a catas 
trophe in human history which the imagination 
can only imperfectly describe or conceive. It must 
be spoken of as " a fatal catastrophe, a turning of 
all tilings upside down, and the succession of a 
state of the most odious and dreadful confusion." 
It is a state of darkness, woful corruption, and 
ruin ; nothing but flesh without the spirit ; dark 
ness, " as light ceases in a room when the candle 
is withdrawn." Others also have used similar 
comparisons. Human life without the guidance of 
divine light is like a ship without its rudder, drift 
ing to its destruction. But the situation, as Ed- 



THE PREDETERMINED WILL. 73 

wards was forced to describe it, is worse than any 
such metaphor can portray. Because man is pos 
sessed of a will, and since the will, as Edwards 
conceives it, cannot exist in a state of indifference 
but is determined from without, and that not in 
its subordinate volitions only, but in its predomi 
nant choice, it follows that the human will now 
rages as violently against God as, under the influ 
ence of divine light, it cleaves vehemently to Him. 
We reach here the negative aspects of Edwards 
theology, aspects the most appalling which can 
be found in any system of philosophical or relig 
ious thought. The explanation of this awful con 
ception of humanity and its destiny is to be found 
again in his denial of the freedom of the human 
will. Others, too, in the history of the church, an 
Augustine or a Calvin, had made the same denial, 
but no one before Edwards had grounded the de 
nial in a system of philosophy which called for 
consistent application, and certainly no one before 
Edwards had dared to face the consequences which 
the denial involved. If the will by its very nature 
existed in a determined state, and that not for God 
but against Him, then it followed that in the will 
of every natural man there was all manner of 
wickedness, the seeds of the greatest and blackest 
crimes, wickedness against man and against God. 
This wickedness is not merely a potential or pos 
sible thing : there is in every man, in virtue of 
his birth or creation, actual wickedness without 
measure or without Dumber; wickedness perverse, 



74 THE PARISH MINISTER. 

incorrigible, and inflexible, that will not yield to 
threatenings or promises, to awakenings or encour 
agements, to judgments or mercies, to terror or to 
love. The natural man, even the little child, is as 
full of enmity against God as any viper or venom 
ous beast is full of poison. Every man by nature 
has a heart like the heart of a devil. Men are by 
nature enemies to God, and would dethrone Him if 
they could. 

A view like this was not reached by a study of 
the contents of the human consciousness : it was 
not the result of either experience or observation 
on a minute or an extended scale. It was an ab- 
.stract conclusion, deduced from the abstract prin 
ciple that the human will could not exist in a state 
of indifference or equilibrium ; for indifference or 
indecision pointed to a self-determining power, and 
a self-determining power conceded to man was a 
practical atheism, since God was then left at the 
mercy of man, waiting to see which way his will 
would turn, and consequently unable to foresee or 
decree all things from eternity. But if the will 
of every man was determined from his birth, then 
a will determined to evil must be conceived and 
described as such. Edwards, however, seems to 
feel the difficulty implied in his abstract conclu 
sion. He represents men as saying that they are 
conscious of no such enormity of wickedness, or 
that they are aware of no desire to dethrone God 
from the government of the universe. To this he 
replies by his theory of God s common grace, 



TEE COMMON GRACE. 75 

which is God s sovereignty over wicked men, as 
His special grace is His sovereignty over His favor 
ite and dear children. 1 

The common grace of God operates in two ways, j 
either by assistance or restraint. According 1 to 
the first of these ways, the divine will may stimu 
late the natural human powers to the performance 
of what they otherwise would be unable or unwill 
ing to do. This assisting grace may carry a man 
so far in the direction of truth or order that the 
result may almost resemble the work of saving or 
special grace. The action of the natural conscience 
may be thus increased in all the grades of human 
endeavor, as in political, social, or family order, 
until God makes the world a habitable or endur 
able place for spiritual men. But it is primarily 
God s restraining grace which prevents the world 
from going rapidly to its destruction, as it would 
otherwise surely do. Thus in the present order the 
intensity of human wickedness is so repressed that 
men do not realize the depth of their enmity to God. 
For this reason also they remain ignorant of the ( 
malice that is in them, and seem to themselves better 
than they are. The Divine efficiency is supreme 
in the natural order as it is in the spiritual order. 
It extends to all human customs, training and edu 
cation, home influences, the voice of conscience, 
the fears of evil, sensitiveness to reputation, tem 
poral interests, the light of nature. By means of 
these and other checks, God restrains the working 
1 Cf. vol. iii. pp. 72, 135 ; vol iv. p. 55. 



76 THE PARISH MINISTER. 

of human evil until the dispensation closes and the 
restraint is no longer needed : or rather until the 
glory of the divine justice shall be better mani 
fested by removing the restrictions which the di 
vine economy now imposes. 

To the eye of Edwards imagination, as also to 
the eye of his reason, this world has become the 
scene of wellnigh universal tragedy. The situa 
tion is in some ways enhanced because of the pre 
vailing unconsciousness of the tragedy which life 
involves. On the one hand is humanity, hating, 
resisting, defying God, aiming at His dethrone 
ment, ready to rejoice even in the thought of His 
extinction ; on the other hand is God, exerting the 
might of omnipotence to hold humanity in check 
until the moment comes when He lets go His hold, 
and precipitates the quivering mass of angry, boil 
ing hatred into the glowing fires of an endless 
hell. Kd wards does not draw back as he contem 
plates the scene. lie studies it in detail, aiming 
to make it more real to the imagination, portray 
ing it in language which for its boldness has not 
been surpassed. One hardly dares follow him, as 
his imagination takes wing, with the desire to see 
the worst, and to convey some conception of what 
he sees. The idea of tragedy in the ancient world 
implied in the evolution of a blind and cruel fate, 
the dreams and nightmares of the middle ages, the 
pictures which Dante has drawn of souls in hell, 
the visions of Milton describing the conscious 
ness of demons, none of these surpass, perhaps 



HUMANITY UNDER RESTRAINT. 77 

they do not equal, the horror which one encounters 
in the sermons of Jonathan Edwards. For Ed 
wards was a powerful preacher, addressing a con 
gregation with the conviction that it was his duty 
to make them see and feel the truth of his con 
ceptions. His language takes a personal form, 
urging the reality upon each individual conscience. 

There may be an appeal in his tone, since there is 
for some a possible deliverance. But even of this 
deliverance it is an indispensable condition that 
men should acknowledge their hatred of God, their 
accumulated guilt, which has justly exposed them 
to the divine wrath. He imagines a man demur 
ring to this charge of hatred, and denying that he 
has ever felt any desire to kill God. But if, says 
the preacher, the life of God were in your reach 
and you knew it, it would not be safe for an hour. 
Such thoughts as these would then arise in your 
heart : " I have the opportunity now to be set at 
liberty, and need henceforth have no fear of God s 
displeasure ; He has never done justly by me ; He 
has 110 claim on my forbearance ; I can rid myself 
of Him without danger." No man knows his own 
heart who does not realize that such thoughts as 
these, and even others too horrible and dreadful to 
be mentioned, would rise within him if such an 
opportunity were presented. 1 

Or, again, he paints a solitary man standing out 
against the background of infinite power com 
bined with infinite anger. " If you continue in 
1 Sermons, vol. iv. p. 48. 



78 THE PARISH MINISTER. 

your enmity," he urges on such an one, " a little 
longer, there will be a mutual enmity between you 
and God to all eternity. It may not have reached 
this point as yet, but at any moment death may 
intervene, and then reconciliation is impossible for 
ever. As you hate God, He will hate you forever. 
He will become a perfect enemy, with a perfect 
hatred, without any love, or pity, or mercy. He 
will be moved by 110 cries, by no entreaties of a 
mediator. But this enmity will be mutual ; for 
after death your own enmity will have no restraint, 
but it will break out and rage without control. 
When you come to be a firebrand of hell, you 
will be all on a blaze with spite and malice toward 
God. Then you will appear as you are, a viper 
indeed, spitting poison at God, and venting your 
rage and malice in fearful blasphemies. And this 
not from any new corruption, but because God has 
withdrawn His restraining hand from the old cor 
ruption." 



V. 



THE MORAL GOVERNMENT OF GOD. FUTURE 

PUNISHMENT. JUSTIFICATION BY FAITH. 

IN turning from the universal ruin in which 
humanity is involved, to the deliverance which 
God is working, we meet another ruling principle 
in Edwards theology, the doctrine of God as 
the moral governor of the world. This doctrine, 



SOVEREIGNTY AND MORAL GOVERNMENT. 79 

like that of the divine sovereignty, was deeply im 
bedded in the Puritan consciousness. Closely as 
the two resemble each other, they are also sharply 
distinguished. The idea of God as a moral <rov- 

^ & 

ernor introduces the conception of law as regulat 
ing the divine procedure ; while sovereignty implies 
the arbitrary will, the free choice to which none 
can dictate. Sovereignty implies freedom from 
law, while moral government implies subjection to 
law. Although these ideas are plainly contradic 
tory to each other, yet it is this very contradiction 
which gave life to Calvinistic theology, necessi 
tating as it did an inward conflict, raising issues 
which, within the limits of the Calvinistic churches, 
were never quite satisfactorily adjusted. The idea 
of God as a moral governor acts as a check upon 
the idea of His sovereignty, reducing to some 
extent the arbitrary display of power, forcing, as 
it were, the divine will to yield to the require 
ments of the divine justice. But where the line 
was to be drawn remained an open question. In 
proportion as sovereignty was urged and enforced 
would the idea of a moral government of the 
world be weakened. In the history of religion, 
the divine sovereignty, which is the earlier concep 
tion, appears as yielding to the growing conviction 
that God governs the world in accordance with 
law. Such had been the course of Jewish history. 
In Calvinism also, in proportion as this same 
truth was felt to be necessary, had the original 
severity of the system been -mollified, till election 



80 THE PARISH MINISTER. 

and decrees had passed into a subordinate position 
and gave but little embarrassment. 

The modification which Edwards was working 
in New England theology sprang partly from his 
vigorous reassertion of the doctrine of divine sov 
ereignty at a period when this conviction was be 
coming a subordinate one in the religious mind. 
From Edwards time the New England clergy were 
classed as old or moderate Calvinists on the one 
hand, and as new or consistent Calvinists, with 
reference mainly to this distinction. The increased 
severity of Edwards theology, whether scientific 
or practical, was owing to the deeper emphasis he 
laid upon the arbitrary, unconditioned will of God. 
We may see the situation at a glance, when we 
remember that the ruin of the world is attributed 
to divine sovereignty, while the deliverance, so far 
as it goes, involves the necessity of an appeal to 
moral law. 

But there were motives which forced Edwards 
to give prominence, as far as he was able, to the 
idea of God as a moral or constitutional governor 
of the world. While he never forgot that the doc 
trines he was maintaining must rest on Scripture 
for their authority, yet he also recognized the rea 
son as a source of strength upon which he always 
felt at liberty to draw in their defence. The rela 
tion between reason and Scripture he never seems 
to have formally considered ; but in most of his 
treatises, if we regard him as making the two 
practically coordinate, we shall do no great in jus- 






INROADS OF ARMINIANISM. 81 

tice to his thought. Like every mystic, like An- 
selm, whom he most resembles in his combination 
of mysticism with dialectics, he had an almost un 
bounded confidence in the powers of the human 
reason. It was also his fortune to live in an a<re 

O 

in which the appeal was generally taken to the rea 
son, whether by the friends or the foes of the re 
ceived theology. But when it came to making an 
appeal to the reason in defence of his theological 
tenets, the divine sovereignty did not serve his 
purpose so well as the resort to the necessities of a 
divine moral government which could be expounded 
in accordance with the analogies of human order. 

Among the theological tenets, which were begin 
ning to be questioned so early as Edwards time, 
may be included the doctrines of endless punish 
ment, the Trinity, the atonement, justification by 
faith, or the imputation of Christ s righteousness 
as the ground of salvation. Upon these doctrines 
Edwards appears as meditating in his first years 
at Northampton. In their defence he rests mainly 
upon the ruling principle of God s moral gover 
norship of the world. Another motive which in 
spires him in this defence is a desire to save the 
churches from the inroads of Arminianism. About 
the year 1734 that fatal error, as he regarded it, 
was disturbing the peace of New England. As a 
deeper seriousness appeared to be settling down 
upon the people, Arminianism was offering what 
seemed to him a shallow comfort to the soul. The 
excitement at this time must have been intense 



82 THE PARISH MINISTER. 

in the parish at Northampton and the surrounding 
country over the subtle progress of a doctrine 
which seemed to imply that there was no need for 
anxiety about the soul s deliverance from impend 
ing ruin ; that religion consisted simply in devout 
observance of church ordinances, and the perform 
ance of the duties of life, things which every one 
had the power to fulfil. It would seem as if fami 
lies were divided upon this issue, as if a root of 
bitterness springing up was threatening serious 
trouble and confusion. It was under these circum 
stances that Edwards proposed to himself the task 
of defending the traditional faith. In giving a 
brief account of his position upon the disputed 
theological tenets, regard will be had chiefly to that 
which is most important and striking in his thought. 
Any complete resume or analysis of his works bear 
ing on these subjects is unnecessary, as it is, within 
the limits of this volume, impossible. 

The doctrine of endless punishment Edwards 
regarded as so essential that if it were denied, the 
foundations, not only of Christian belief but of 
common morality, would be overthrown. Pie ex 
presses amazement that the great Archbishop Til- 
lotson, who has made such a figure among the new- 
fashioned divines, should have advanced an opinion 
calculated to w r eaken faith in such an important 
truth. If this doctrine w r ere to be abandoned as 
untrue, there w r ould be no evidence left that God is 
the mora* governor of the universe. The concep 
tion which Edwards had formed of humanity, as 



REWARDS AND PUNISHMENT. 83 

deprived since its creation of any divine supernat 
ural principle, made it impossible for him to hold 
that the law of God as a moral governor could l>e 
written within the heart to such an extent that 
the divine penalties against sin could be realized 
through the conscience in this present world. He 
makes no appeal to the human consciousness, 
wherein is contained, as if in miniature, the picture 
of God in his relation to all that is not God. Since 
the conscience of the natural man does not partici 
pate in divine supernatural light, what else could 
he hold than that this world is 110 theatre for the 
display of divine justice? The present is rather 
a confused, mysterious dispensation in which God 
is carrying on His strange work. It is in vain to 
point men to the traces of the divine moral govern 
ment written in the order of human society. There 
is, to be sure, a certain artificial or external corre 
spondence between the divine and the natural, 
Edwards never failed to see this analogy, but it 
does not go far enough or deep enough to become 
the basis of a belief in the moral government of 
the world by God. Everything here has been so 
involved in confusion and catastrophe by God s 
withdrawal from humanity, that it is to another 
world we must look for the evidence that God rules 
this world in the interest of eternal justice. 

It is quite noticeable that, in his treatise on God s 
Moral Government, Edwards appears as having 
brooded over the scepticism of the Hook of Ec- 
clesiastes, that his strongest arguments for the 



84 THE PARISH MINISTER. 

necessity of endless punishment should be drawn 
from the mixed conditions of human life therein 
described. There had been devout psalmists in 
the same dark era of Jewish history who had felt 
the same scepticism, but without drawing the same 
conclusions ; who, when they went into the house of 
God, discerned how even in this world the reward 
is with the righteous. But Edwards writes : 

" For unless there be such a state (of future rewards 
and punishments) it will certainly follow that God in 
fact maintains no moral government over the world of 
mankind. For otherwise it is apparent that there is no 
such thing as rewarding or punishing mankind accord 
ing to any visible rule, or, indeed, according to any order 
or method whatsoever. . . . Nothing is more manifest 
than that in this world there is no such thing as a regu 
lar equal disposing of rewards and punishments of men 
according to their moral estate. There is nothing in 
God s disposals towards men in this world to make His 
distributive justice and judicial equity manifest or visi 
ble, but all things are in the greatest confusion." ] 

One of Edwards earlier sermons, which he es 
teemed as among the most effective he had ever 

1 Of God s Moral Government, i. 572. Edwards is oblivious to 
the fact that the sense of God as a moral governor had grown up 
among the Jewish people, not only without an appeal to a future 
state of rewards and punishments, hut with no definite recognition 
even of the sanctions of a future life. It is interesting in this 
connection to recall the aphorisms of -Emerson on this subject, 
such as : " No evil exists in society but has its check which coex 
ists ;" "Punishment not follows but accompanies crime; 1 
" Base action makes you base, holy action hallows you." Cabot 
Life of Emerson, vol. i. pp. 219, 332. 



INFINITE SIN. 85 

preached, is entitled The Justice of God in the 
Damnation of Sinners. To this sermon we turn 
for the argument with which he met the risino- un- 

O 

belief before it had as yet formulated its dogma 
that endless punishment was incompatible with 
either the justice or the mercy of God. A sum 
mary of his argument runs as follows. Every sin 
deserves punishment in proportion to its extent. 
If there be a sin infinitely heinous, it is justice 
which metes out to such a sin an infinite punish 
ment. The degree of guilt involved in a sin is 
measured by our obligations to the contrary. The 
greater obligation we are under to love, or honor, 
or obey, so the greater is the sin when we refuse 
to render the love, the honor, or the obedience. Our 
obligation to these duties, in the case of any person, 
is in proportion to his loveliness, his honorableness, 
and his authority. In these things God excels 
all other beings ; He is infinitely lovely, infinitely 
honorable, and of infinite authority. Therefore 
sin against God must be a crime infinitely heinous 
and demanding infinite punishment. 1 

1 In the above statement lies the gist of Edwards argument. 
But he goes on to remark that the justice is more clearly appar 
ent when it is considered that sinful men are not only guilty in 
one particular but are full of sin, of principles and acts of sin, 
till their guilt is like a mountain grown up to heaven. In this 
connection occurs the famous passage in which is asserted tho 
doctrine of total depravity. The method by which he reaches 
this conclusion is, as we have seen, an a priori or abstract method, 
following the maintenance of the abstract principle that the hu 
man will is from birth controlled by a predominant choice of evil. 
"They (sinful men) are totally corrupt in every part, in all their 



86 THE PARISH MINISTER. 

This argument of Edwards, which has been often 
repeated, cannot be regarded as entirely satisfac 
tory. But while the mind demurs to his statement, 
there is in it also a certain element of truth, which 
we recognize when presented in some other form. 
Had he said that all sin was under the eternal con 
demnation of God, no one could have objected. 
But when he identifies the sinful person with the 
sin, he goes beyond Scripture as also beyond rea 
son. Then the objection is immediately raised 
that a person committing an infinite sin should at 
least be aware of its infinite enormity, committing 
the sin with the full consciousness of its guilt. 
But Edwards does not trouble himself with the 
utterance of the consciousness. The infinite sin 
may be committed unconsciously ; indeed, it has 
. been already committed by the unconscious child 
at its birth. 

There is an objection, however, which he felt 
obliged to meet, a common objection at the time 
to the prevailing Calvinism, that the decrees of 
God have made sin necessary ; that the corruption 
of human nature being unavoidable reduces the 
degree of its guilt. In meeting this objection he 
argues that men, in their relations with each other, 

faculties and all the principles of their nature, their understand 
ings, and their wills ; and in all their dispositions and affections, 
their heads, their hearts, are totally depraved ; all the members 
of their bodies are only instruments of sin ; and all their senses, 
seeing, hearing, tasting, are only inlets and outlets of sin, channels 
of corruption." Cf. sermon on The Justice of God, etc., vol. iv. 
p. 2:10. 



HUMAN ACCOUNTABILITY. 87 

make no such allowances. They treat their fellow- 
men as if the necessity or certainty of their evil 
actions were compatible with full responsibility ; 
they freely attribute to their fellows an original 
perverse disposition, as if this aggravated their 
guilt. Why, then, should the case be different with 
God ? One can hardly believe that such an argu 
ment could be seriously urged. But the inherent 
weakness of his theology was here exposed, and he 
resorted to any expedient to meet the difficulty. 
He was forced to appeal to the divine sovereignty 
as a last refuge, when appeal to God s moral gov 
ernment was no longer possible. He is not sure 
that he understands all which the divine sover 
eignty implies ; but of this he feels sure, that God 
in the exercise of His sovereign will may not only 
permit sin, but by permission may dispose and 
order it : for the only alternative is blind and un- 
designing chance. 1 At this point in his theology, 
upon which everything hinges, he takes refuge in 
darkness, not in light. What he needed, what 
he was sincerely striving after, was some formula 
which, while expressing the relationship of human 
sinfulness to the order and nature of things, should 
not impute to God complicity with or responsibil 
ity for its origin. But this he could not get so 
long as he denied the self-determining power of 
the human will. The desired formula may not yet 
have been reached ; but in some respects this ques 
tion of the ages is nearer a truer solution in pro- 

1 Sermon On God 1 . Justice, etc., vol. iv. pp. 230, 231. 



88 THE PARISH MINISTER. 

portion as its rightful place is conceded to human 
ity, and freedom of the will allowed to be its in 
alienable prerogative. It niay ultimately appear 
that the possibility of sin eternally exists as the 
reverse or opposite implied in righteousness ; that 
the doing of a righteous act involves the contem 
poraneous recognition of the sin and its condemna 
tion. Thus sin may come into actual existence 
through the human will, which approves the wrong 
instead of the right ; while the divine will and the 
divine righteousness make sin an object of eternal 
condemnation. 1 The difficulties of the subject are 
great. It is incumbent on us to recognize them 
when criticising a great thinker who was strug 
gling in the toils. None the less is it necessary to 
insist that his failure was a momentous one, that 
if not his words, yet his thought points directly to 
God as the author of evil. 

Under the principle of God s moral government, 
and not of his sovereignty, falls what is known in 
theology as the doctrine of atonement. From the 
point of view of sovereignty there would be no 
necessity for atonement. In Mohammedanism, 
where sovereignty is the supreme and sole theo 
logical principle, no need is felt for satisfying the 
divine justice. God may pardon whom He will, on 
whatever grounds His sovereign will may dictate. 
It had therefore constituted a great advance in 
Latin theology, as also an evidence of its iinmeas- 

1 Cf. Royce, Religious Aspects of Philosophy, p. 449, for an ad 
mirable statement of this point. 



ANSELM ON THE ATONEMENT. 89 

urable superiority to Mohammedanism, when An- 
selm for the first time, in a clear and emphatic 
manner, had asserted an inward necessity in the 
being of God that His justice should receive satis 
faction for the affront which had been offered to it 
by human sinfulness. So deep was this necessity, 
as Anselm conceived it, that even the doctrines 
of the Trinity and of the Incarnation had been 
interpreted with reference to this end. God had 
become man in order that as God-man he might 
fulfil the requirements of the divine justice. It 
seems also to have been assumed by Anselm, 
though upon this point there may be some doubt, 
that punishment or suffering in some form consti 
tuted the inmost quality of the offering which sat 
isfied the justice of God. 

Such had been substantially the view which Cal 
vin had received by tradition, but to which he had 
also accorded a vital place in his theology. As 
such it had prevailed in the Reformed or Puri 
tan churches, and was now announced again with 
equal emphasis by Edwards. In his treatise, en 
titled Of Satisfaction for Sin, he repeats the prem 
ises of Anselm and draws the same conclusion. 
His mode of presenting the subject possesses no 
special significance in the way of originality of 
treatment, though it is characterized by the fresh 
ness and intensity of utterance which marks the 
independent thinker. And yet this small treatise 
on the atonement is among the most remarkable 
of Edwards writings, as containing the germ of a 



90 THE PARISH MINISTER. 

departure from received views of the atonement, 
a profound hint which had been overlooked for 
generations, until in our own age it gave birth to 
a thoughtful and spiritual discussion of the great 
theme, such as it had never before received in any 
age of the church. 

Edwards lived at a time when the belief was 
beginning to prevail that God pardoned a sin 
ner simply on condition of his repentance, that 
therefore no necessity existed for such a costly pro 
pitiation of the divine justice as was involved in 
the sufferings and death of Christ. Edwards, of 
course, rejected such a view, on the ground that 
such repentance would be inadequate as a compen 
sation for sin. But while rejecting it he admitted 
also that, if there could be an adequate repentance 
or sorrow, it would be an equivalent for an infinite 
punishment. It is requisite, so he argues, that 
God should punish sin with an infinite punish 
ment, "unless there be something in some measure 
to balance this desert, either some answerable 
repentance and sorrow for it, or other compensa 
tion." : It did not occur to him that Christ, in 
stead of bearing the penalty of an infinite punish 
ment, might be conceived as offering an infinite 
repentance and sorrow which would cover all 
human transgression. He made the extraordinary 
admission of the acceptability before God s justice 
of such a repentance, and then passed it by as if 
something irrelevant which demanded no further 
1 Of Satisfaction for Sin, vol. L p. 583. 



McLEOD CAMPBELL 91 

notice. But the idea, which flashed before him 
and disappeared, was like an open vision to Camp 
bell, a theologian of Scotland, the land where 
Edwards influence has been felt as in no other 
country, who, in his great work on the atonement, 
took up the theory of an adequate repentance ac 
complished by Christ, making it a means of eman 
cipation from what had become to him not only a 
narrow but a false theology. As working out a 
thought which Edwards had originated and sanc 
tioned, Campbell may perhaps be regarded as 
showing what manner of man Edwards himself 
might have been at a later day. 1 

But with Edwards, as we have seen, the mediae 
val, the feudal conception of Deity as an absolute \ 
sovereign, was a controlling principle from which 
he could not escape. God, he argues, is as capable 
of receiving satisfaction as He is of receiving in 
jury. The injury done to the honor of His maj 
esty calls loudly for reparation. Humanity had 
incurred a debt to God which must be paid to the 1 
uttermost farthing. Such a debt infinite in amount i 
must be paid, if paid at all, by an infinite being. 

* Dr. Campbell, in comparing Edwards with Owen, a distin 
guished theologian of the seventeenth century held in high re 
pute especially among Independents, remarks: Owen s clear 
intellect and Edwards no less unquestionable power of distinct 
and discriminating thought, combined with a calmer and more 
weighty and more solemn tone of spirit," etc. Cf. Nature of the 
Atonement, p. 51. And again: "The pages of Edwards especially 
I have read with so solemn and deep an interest as listening to 
a great and holy man." p. 54. 



92 THE PARISH MINISTER. 

Christ therefore bore the punishment of sin, suf 
fering, in the place of the elect for whom He died, 
a penalty which was the equivalent of their endless 
misery. The satisfaction which Christ renders to 
the divine justice, while it consists in a deep and 
bitter sense of the horror and heinousness of sin, 
becomes to the imagination a more fearful thing 
because it is undergone apart from any alleviation 
of the divine love : God withdraws from Him in 
the agony upon the cross, leaving Him alone in 
the power of Satan, to realize all that the lost may 
suffer in hell. 

The question, to whom are the benefits of 
Christ s atonement applicable, and how are they 
to be obtained, leads to the discussion of the doc 
trine of Justification by Faith. At a later stage 
in New England theology the controversy arose as 
to whether Christ died for all or only for the elect. 
Edwards assumes the latter conclusion, as if an 
axiom in theology. The elect among humanity, as 
he regards them, differ in so vital a manner from 

O 

the non-elect that they almost constitute a differ 
ent race, as if God were evolving out of the mass 
of human beings a certain higher order or grade 
of existence. The prominence assigned to elec 
tion essentially modifies, therefore, the doctrine of 
jiistification. The locux ctaxxicus on this great 
doctrine, -"Therefore, being justified by faith, we 
have peace with God through Jesus Christ our 
Lord," is not the text of Edwards discourse. He 
chooses rather a cognate passage in Paul s epistles, 



JUSTIFICATION BY FAITH. 93 

which brings out a somewhat different shade of 
meaning : " But to him that worketh not, but 
belie veth on Him that Justine th the ungodly, his 
faith is counted for righteousness." In Luther s 
conception, who first proclaimed the doctrine, it is 
the word, faith which unseals the mystery of God s 
dealings with the human soul. Hence the pro 
found inwardness of the German theology since 
Luther s time, which has sought to unfold the 
contents of the human consciousness, as if therein 
also were to be traced the natural workings of a 
divine spirit. But with Edwards it is not faith, as 
representing an inward process, on which the em 
phasis falls. The doctrine of justification is, in his 
view, but another confirmation of the principle 
announced in his Boston sermon, the entire and 1 
absolute dependence of man upon God. It is not ( 
by him that worketh, but by God that justifieth 
the ungodly. 

And still there is something significant in Ed 
wards devoting a treatise to Justification by Faith. 
It seems almost like a relic of an earlier theology, 
something intruded into an uncongenial sphere. 
The phrase itself was passing into disuse. Under 
the influence of what is known in philosophy as 
Nominalism, the principle of individualism was 
applied to redemption, and each man stood by 
himself and for himself in the process of salva 
tion. The earlier conception of imputation, by 
which in virtue of a membership in Christ the 
merits and righteousness of the Head of the race 



94 THE PARISH MINISTER. 

may be claimed as their own by every member of 
His body, had begun to seem as unreasonable as it 
was obnoxious. Edwards was then reaffirming in 
the unsympathetic hearing of his generation the 
doctrines of realism, the solidarity of all men in 
Adam, the first man, who is of the earth earthy ; 
and the solidarity of the redeemed in Christ, the 
second man, who is the Lord from heaven. Against 
the popular tendency which held that each man 
must suffer his own punishment, or stand in the 
lot of his own righteousness at the end of the 
days, Edwards maintained that Christ had borne 
1 the punishment and achieved the righteousness, 
by which believers in Him were exempted from 
the endless fate which threatened them, and might 
claim His achievements as their title to eternal 
life. 

So vital was this relationship to Christ, as Ed 
wards conceived it, that it became with him an 
underlying truth, in the light of which Scripture 
must be interpreted. The Arminiaiis urged that 
the Bible was full of passages or exhortations 
which implied that men were rewarded by God 
for the merit of their own virtue and obedience. 
Every man shall receive Tils own reward accord 
ing to his own labor. lie icho gives to drink a 
cup of cold ivater only in the name of a disciple 
shall in no wise lose his reward. Thon hast a 
few names even in Sardis which have not defied 
their garments ; and they shall walk with me in 
white because they are worthy. To these instances, 



IMPUTED RIGHTEOUSNESS. 95 

and others like them, Edwards replies that beneath 
the obedience and the virtue lies the merit of Christ. 
This alone gives to human deeds their efficacy in 
the sight of God. " That little holiness and those 
feeble acts of love and grace receive an exceeding 
value in God s sight, because He beholds those 
who perform them as in Christ, and as it were 
members of one so infinitely worthy in His eyes." 
The obedience of the saints is as if the obedience 
of Christ ; their sufferings fill up the measure of 
the sufferings of Christ. 

Difficult or obscure as this teaching may appear, 
it has always had a representation in the church. 
It found an early expression in the profoundest 
of the ancient fathers, as when it was said that 
humanity had suffered and died in Christ, and 
with Him had risen again to a higher life. It was 
a teaching which had survived the Middle Ages, 
taking on, though it did, a perverted form in the 
belief that the merits of departed saints were 
capable of a transfer to the living, in view of 
some consideration offered to the treasury of the 
church. With Luther it had been revived in a 
purer form, and under the designation of imputa 
tion had been accepted in the churches of the Ref 
ormation without dissent. Edwards also held it, 
but with a certain emphasis of his own, which 
made it subserve at the same time the doctrine of 
the divine sovereignty, or of man s absolute depen 
dence upon God. The following quotation illus- 



96 THE PARISH MINISTER. 

trates in a characteristic way one leading motive 
in giving prominence to the doctrine : 

" Seeing \ve are such infinitely sinful and abominable 
creatures in God s sight, and by our infinite guilt have 
brought ourselves into such wretched and deplorable cir 
cumstances, and all our righteousnesses are nothing, and 
ten thousand times worse than nothing, if God looks 
upon them as they be in themselves, is it not immensely 
more worthy of the infinite majesty and glory of God 
to deliver and make happy such poor, filthy worms, such 
wretched vagabonds and captives, without any money 
or price of theirs, or any manner of expectation of any 
excellency or virtue in them, in any wise to recommend 
them ? Will it not betray a foolish, exalting opinion of 
ourselves, and a mean one of God, to have a thought of 
offering anything of ours to recommend us to the favor 
of being brought from wallowing like filthy swine in 
the mire of our sins, and from the enmity and misery 
of devils in the lowest hell to the state of God s dear 
children, in the everlasting arms of His love, in heav 
enly glory ; or to imagine that this is the constitution of 
God, that we should bring our filthy rags, and offer 
them to Him as the price of this." * 

The doctrine of justification by faith gained 
.nothing in attractiveness by its association with 
Edwards conception of the divine sovereignty. 
But there were also other reasons which prevented 
him from seeing, as he might have done, the full 
force of the truth which he was advocating. He 
regards the relation of an elect humanity to Christ 
1 Justification by Faith, vol. iv. p. 131. 



CHRIST AND HUMANITY. 97 

as an unique as well as vital one ; but he does not 
attempt to define the relationship, or to seek for it 
an eternal basis in the very nature of man s relation 
ship to God. There is a curious and somewhat 
indefinite allusion, in his treatise on Justification, 1 
to those who dislike such expressions as " coming 
to Christ," or " receiving Christ," or being " in 
Christ." These persons are also alluded to as dis 
gusted with the word " union " when applied to the 
intimate bond which exists between Christ and the 
soul ; they regarded these expressions as obscure 
metaphors which might at one time have had some 
meaning, but as now no longer intelligible. Ed 
wards treats these objectors with a certain amount 
of deference, as if anxious to say nothing which 
would alienate them still further, as if he would 
gain their consent to his argument by any reason 
able concession to their prejudice. But what may 
be noted as singular, and as calling for an explana 
tion, is the fact that he seems to be indifferent to 
the exact phraseology of the metaphors, which he 
admits them to be ; he is willing to use other words 
if they are preferred ; he will speak of a relation 
to Christ, instead of union with Him. He regards 
it as foreign to his purpose to determine regard 
ing the nature, of the union with Christ, and re 
fuses to be dragged into controversy over it. One 
would have supposed that it was essential to his 
argument to determine this very thing, whether 
Christ stands in an eternal organic relationship to 
> Vol. iv. pp. 70 ff. 



98 THE PARISH MINISTER. 

the soul, and what the ground of this relationship 
is. It is not that Edwards does not believe in this 
relationship ; on the contrary it is the comparison 
of the vine and the branches, or the marriage 
union between husband and wife, which sets forth 
to his mind the relation between Christ and his 
disciples. But why is he so cautious and so re 
served at this critical juncture ? He even quotes 
a passage from Archbishop Tillotson to the effect 
that the union between Christ and true Christians 
is a vital one, and not merely relative ; and he 
remarks of Tillotson that he is " one of the great 
est divines on the other side of the question in 
hand." The inference is, that if Tillotson held 
to a vital union and not a mere relation of some 
lesser kind, the idea cannot be altogether disgust 
ing, or irrational, or dangerous. 

The passage we are criticising is a curious one. 
Perhaps it is more : it may be prophetic in its very 
obscurity of the coming disruption in the New 
England churches ; as if we stood at the remote 
sources of the schism, and were watching the be 
ginnings of disaffection with the doctrine of the 
Trinity. If this supposition be right, then Ed 
wards was silent at a time when he should have 
spoken. Whatever may have been the motive of 
his silence, or of his unusual moderation and de 
ference towards those who oppose him, he cannot 
be suspected of any want of faith in the full 
deity of Christ. It is perhaps the most reasona 
ble explanation, that he was silent because he saw 



NECESSITY FOR THE INCARNATION. 99 

no inward significance in that relationship between 
God and man by which Christ becomes necessa 
rily the Head of a redeemed humanity. The doc 
trine of the Trinity, as he then held it, threw no 
light iipon the creation as subsisting in Christ. He 
subordinated the Trinity and the Incarnation to the 
necessity of an atonement. It must have been at 
this stage of his mental progress, that he wrote : 
" The necessity of Christ s satisfaction to divine 
justice is, as it were, the centre and hinge of all 
doctrines of pure revelation. Other doctrines are 
of little importance comparatively except as they 
have respect to this." l And again, even the doc 
trine of the Trinity is held in abeyance to the 
divine sovereignty ; " It seems to have been very 
much on this account that it was requisite that 
the doctrine of the Trinity itself should be revealed 
to us ; that, by a discovery of the concern of the 
several divine persons in the great affair of our 
salvation, we might the better understand and see 
how all our dependence in this affair is on God, 
and our sufficiency all in Him and not in our 
selves." 2 

Passages like these, when taken also in connec 
tion with the general tendency of Edwards thought, 
indicate that the Incarnation must depend, in the \ 

1 Mysteries of Scripture, vol. iii. p. 542. Cf. also Work of Re 
demption, where the Incarnation is subordinated to the Atone 
ment : "He was born to that end that He might die ; and there 
fore He did, as it were, begin to die as soon as He was born." 
Vol. i. p. 412. 

2 Justification by Faith, vol. iv. pp. 130, 154. 



100 THE PARISH MINISTER. 

last resort, on the divine sovereignty as its ground 
and justification. For sovereignty implies, as he 
construed it, that when man had sinned God was 
under no obligation to save him from the ruin 
which sin had wrought. If God should decide to 
save any at all, He was absolutely free to save 
whom He chose. It is only those whom God elects 
to whom Christ stands related in the intimate bond 
of union symbolized by the figure of the vine and 
the branches. There was, therefore, no eternal 
necessity for the Incarnation in the nature of 
things. It is reduced to a contingent event de 
pending on the arbitrary will of God. Hence 
Edwards felt restrained when the question arose 
as to the nature and ground of that union with 
Christ, which many had come to dislike as indicat 
ing some mystical, obscure relationship no longer 
possessing any significance to the eye of faith or 
reason. He did not feel called upon, when treating 
of justification by faith, to carry the process back 
to its final origin in an arbitrary will. Elsewhere, 
as when treating of God s sovereignty, or of the 
origin of sin, he pushes the argument to its ex 
treme conclusion. But there was something in the 
doctrine of justification by faith which pointed in 
another direction, away from a sovereign or arbi 
trary will to some eternal, divine constitution of 
things, of which the divine will was the executive 
expression. As St. Paul had presented the great 
doctrine after emerging from Judaism, it included 
an organic relationship of every soul to Christ ; 



CONCEPTION OF HUMAN NATURE. 101 

there was a certain divine root in every man s be 
ing which, when discerned by faith, made it pos 
sible for him to believe that, however active or 
dominant the power of sin within him, yet his 
whole nature was not identified with sin ; that in 
his true self as constituted in Christ, there was a 
righteousness which he might claim as his own, 
though he had not yet achieved it. This led him 
to exclaim : "If, then, I do that which I would not, 
it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in 
me." And again he declares that the true life 
within him was not only lived by faith in the Son 
of God, but that the divine Son, was actually living 
in him. 

Edwards treatise on Justification is most inter 
esting, because it discloses his mind as strongly 
attracted to such an attitude, and yet prevented 
from discerning its full significance by his doctrine 
of sovereign election. In his conception of human 
nature every man is completely identified with evil, 
until divine grace arbitrarily restores a supernat 
ural gift which was lost at the fall. So long as 
he was held in bondage to these doctrines, it was 
hardly possible that he should rise to the acknowl 
edgment of an eternal necessity for the Incarna 
tion. Had he attempted to reach such a conclusion 
from his own premises, it would have been incum 
bent on him to represent the fall of man as if it 
were a step forward and upward in the history 
of human development. A tendency, indeed, to 
this mode of speaking finds expression in a ser- 



102 THE PARISH MINISTER. 

mon entitled The Wisdom Displayed in Salvation. 
Here it is practically alleged that the situation is a 
higher one in consequence of the fall than it could 
otherwise have been. The relish of good is also 
greater by the knowledge man now has of evil. 
These contraries of good and evil heighten the 
sense of one another. If man had not fallen he 
would have had all his happiness of God by his 
own righteousness, while now he may claim to 
stand in the righteousness of Christ. And still 
further, the union between God and man is a 
closer one ; there is a more intimate intercourse 
and relationship. 1 Thoughts like these are not in 
congruous with the conclusion which some have 
drawn, that God decreed the introduction of sin 
into the world as the means of a higher develop 
ment. While Edwards does not draw this conclu 
sion, and might have rejected it as unsatisfactory 
or untrue, yet his desire to magnify the Augustin- 
ian doctrine of original sin leads him nearer than 
he is aware to the interpretation of the fall as up 
ward and not downward ; or to the language of a 
mediaeval mystic, Hugo St. Victor, who apostro 
phized the sin of Adam asfelix culpa. 

There had been those in the ancient church who 
had discerned the significance which the manifesta 
tion of God in the flesh must have, apart from its 
relation to sin, as the keystone of the creation and 
the crown of humanity. Even in the Middle Ages 
an occasional protest may be heard to the same 
1 Cf. Wisdom of God, etc., vol. iv. pp. 154, 155. 



THE ETERNAL SON. 103 

effect, that Christ is the completion of the crea 
tion, fulfilling an eternal purpose, and not merely 
an afterthought, with a purely remedial mission. 
But Edwards is not in the number of these. 
Christ, according to his assertion, comes into re 
lation with humanity in consequence of the fall. 
Had there been no sin, there would have been no 
necessity for an incarnation. Because of this lim 
ited, narrow view of the relationship of Christ to 
humanity, Edwards was powerless to stem the tide 
of Arminian aggression. Standing as he did where 
the ways began to divide, he could not present 
Christ as the Son of God in whom the son ship of 
men inheres by an eternal constitution. But on 
this subject a change came over his thought in his 
later years, too late to modify his theology, but yet 
significant still as expressing the latent spirit and 
aim of the man. 



VI. 



EDWARDS AS A PREACHER. HIS IMPRECATORY 

SERMONS. 

AMONG the sermons of Edwards there are a few 
to which attention may be directed as supplement 
ing the general statement of his theology. Ed 
wards made no distinction between a scientific and 1 
a practical theology. His sermons are heavily 
freighted with the results of his speculative thought. 
Of his life work it may be said that, instead of en- 



10-i THE PARISH MINISTER. 

deavoring to create a scientific theology which 
might be recast or interpreted by sacred rhetoric 
into a - practical, effective form, he was occupied 
with the effort to give a scientific cast to what was 
originally a practical or regulative theology. One 
of the peculiar characteristics which marked, his 
preaching grew out of a tendency to make the 
prevailing theology consistent with itself by a 
thorough enforcement of the principle in which it 
had originated, or which constituted its reason or 
justification. In this respect he did not go so far 
as some of his successors. A certain mental sanity 
kept him from pushing his principles to any ab 
surd or fantastic conclusion. Xone the less relent 
less was he in their application, until life and its 
multifarious interests were interpreted by the light 
of an abstract idea. 

But despite the defects of his method, or the 
severity which is the predominant tone of his 
preaching, there is shown also at times a marvel- 
lous tenderness. He had the power of inspired 
appeal and exhortation. Refinement, dignity, and 
; strength, and always and everywhere a fresh and 
intense interest in his theme, make his sermons 
not only readable, but still forcible and impres 
sive, as if the preacher were even yet standing in 
our midst. The deeper one goes into the spirit 
of the hour or studies its issues, the more it be 
comes apparent that he had a mission to his age. 
The exposition of this prophetic burden is reserved 
for the second period of his life. But this con- 



THE INTELLECT IN RELIGION. 105 

sciousness of a mission is shown from the first in a 
supreme confidence which marks his utterance ; an 
authoritative certainty of manner, as of one speak 
ing from direct insight or by divine authority. 
Above the preacher, above the thinker, there tow 
ered also the majestic purity of the man, entirely 
sincere and devoted, a character that seems well- 
nigh flawless ; so that in his own age he was, if pos 
sible, more deeply revered as a Christian man than 
as the dauntless, unwearied champion of the Puri 
tan theology. It is not attempted here to give a 
complete picture of Edwards as a preacher. A 
few points only are selected for illustration which 
are closely related to his theology, or serve to ex 
plain the working of his mind. 

The intellectual element, which has been a marked 
characteristic of the religion of New England peo 
ple, appears as their most legitimate heritage when 
we read a sermon of Edwards on the Importance 
of the Knowledge of Divine Truth. 1 The sermon 
fitly opens the volume of his works which is de 
voted to his more elaborate discourses. No an 
cient Gnostic could have urged more strongly the , 
importance of a speculative knowledge of theology. 
The necessity for pure knowledge is enforced al 
most in the spirit of Socrates or Plato, or as in the 
writings of the ancient fathers who had been in 
fluenced by Greek philosophy, as if, without specu- 

1 The date of the sermon is given as 1739. With it may be 
compared a short essay or paper on The Mysteries of Scripture, 
vol. iii. p. 537. 



106 THE PAlllSII MINISTER. 

lative knowledge, obedience or salvation were im 
possible. A knowledge of the things of divinity is 
absolutely necessary. Without speculative knowl 
edge we can have no practical or spiritual knowl 
edge. What are called the means of grace, such 

O o 

as preaching or the sacraments, can have no force 
or validity except by conveying knowledge. The 
Bible is essentially a book of instructions, which 
can be of no profit except as it conveys knowledge 
to the mind. " He that doth not understand can 
receive no faith nor any other grace." Even love 
demands knowledge as its foundation, for an ob 
ject cannot be loved which is unknown. 

Edwards does not write thus without a special 
motive. He is resisting his old enemies the Ar- 
minians, " fashionable divines of the age," who 
are decrying a speculative knowledge of Christian 
truth as unimportant compared with the practice 
of Christian duty. He has found, as he thinks, 
the secret of their indifference to theology in their 
conception of virtue as consisting in benevolence 
towards men, and not rather in love towards God. 
To know God, then, becomes the highest, the most 
pressing, of all obligations. He recommends the 
pursuit of the knowledge of God to his hearers 
by every variety of argument and appeal. He is 
tempted to depreciate philosophy, as he thinks of 
the transcendent claims of divinity. Let the phi 
losophers differ among themselves as they may, it 
makes little difference to the Christian which may 
be in the rijrht. But he warns his hearers not to 



IMPORTANCE OF THEOLOGY. 107 

apply this principle to theology. Divine truth is 
not a matter for ministers only, who may dispute 
among- themselves as they can. It is of infinite 
importance to the common people to know what 
kind of a being God is, all that relates to His es 
sence or His attributes ; the doctrines also which 
relate to Christ, His incarnation, His mediation 
and satisfaction ; the doctrine of justification, or 
the application of redemption in effectual calling. 

To this end he pleads with his hearers to make 
diligent and laborious study of the Bible. It is 
not a cursory reading which will ever lead to 
thorough knowledge. Let them not be content 
with what they hear from the preacher or may 
gain in conversation, but search the Scriptures for 
themselves, using the same diligence with which 
men are wont to dig in mines of gold and silver. 
The incentives to this pursuit of divinity grow 
upon the preacher as his mind dwells upon the 
theme. It will be a noble w r ay of improving the 
time ; it will help people to a knowledge of their 
duty ; it will enable them to defend the doctrines 
of religion when attacked by their adversaries. 
Incidentally we get a glimpse of the social life 
which Edwards is anxious to improve. If the 
people will only attend to this great study, they 
will find something profitable with which to em 
ploy themselves during the long winter evenings, 
something besides going about from house to house 
spending the hours in unprofitable conversation, 
with no other object than to amuse themselves or 



108 THE PARISH MINISTER. 

wear away the time. Some diversion is doubtless 
lawful ; but it is wrong to spend so many long 
evenings in sitting and talking and chatting in one 
another s chimney-corners ; there is danger of fool 
ish and sinful conversation, of venting their jeal 
ousies and evil surmises against their neighbors, 
lie recommends them to procure and diligently 
use other books than the Bible, which will stimu 
late their minds as well as further the same great 
purpose. He has noticed in his pastoral calls 
among the people that they have a few books, in 
deed, which now and then on Sabbath days they 
read ; but they have had them so long and read 
them so often that they are weary of them, and it 
is now become a dull story, a mere task to read 
them. He remarks that there are many excellent 
books extant which would afford them pleasant 
and profitable entertainment in their leisure hours. 
He laments that, through their unwillingness to be 
at a little expense, they do not furnish themselves 
with helps of this nature. For the rest, let con 
versation with others be improved to the same 
end. But the preacher is too wise not to see dan 
gers and abuses in the course which he is recom 
mending. In concluding he warns his hearers to 
avoid ostentation, and not study divinity for the 
sake of applause, or merely to enable them to dis 
pute with their neighbors. Let them look to God, 
realizing their ignorance in His sight and the need 
of divine illumination. And finally, if they will 
only practise according to what knowledge they 



A PRACTICAL CONTRADICTION. 109 

have, they will be on the way to further knowledge. 
This the Psalmist approves: I understand more 
than the ancients because I keep thy precepts. 
This also Christ affirms : If any man will do His 
will, he shall knoio of the doctrine. 

It is a remarkable feature of Edwards preach 
ing which calls for explanation or comment, that 
thoiigh he is a philosophical necessitarian, denying 
the freedom of the will in its ordinary acceptation, 
yet his sermons abound in appeal and in pathetic 
exhortations, as if the will had the power of choos 
ing between the motives of self or God. It has, 
indeed, been often remarked in regard to one of 
his notable sermons with the title, Pressing into 
the Kingdom of God, that it is thoroughly incon 
sistent with his doctrine of the certainty or neces 
sity of human actions. In this sermon he insists 
on the use of means as indispensably necessary 
to those who are seeking for reconciliation with 
God. He brings to bear upon the will all conceiv- 
able motives to an immediate decision, as if at any 
moment it might exert its self-determining power. 
To press into the kingdom of God is represented as 
involving strength of desire, firmness of resolution, 
greatness of endeavor, engagedness and earnest 
ness directly concerned with this special business. 

That there is here an emphatic contradiction re 
quires no proof. What is more to the purpose is 
to show, if possible, why Edwards himself did not 
feel the contradiction, why he should not have 
been embarrassed when making an appeal to the 



110 THE PARISH MINISTER. 

will. There is a hint in his earliest writings which 
may throw some light on this obscure mental pro 
cess. After having demonstrated that the world 
has no external reality but exists only in the mind 
of God, he remarks that we must continue to speak 
in the old way about things, because of the neces 
sities springing from the defects of human lan 
guage. We may infer, then, that though he does 
not believe in the freedom of the will he sees no 
impropriety in using the customary language. 
This also is the method of Scripture and of the 
common usage of life. Here, too, language has 
assumed its final shape, and cannot be bent to con 
formity with any speculative principle. 

Other reasons may be assigned which throw 
light upon this fundamental inconsistency. While 
Edwards believed that human actions are but links 
in the chain of necessity, that God determines 
the will or that the will is governed by motives 
instead of possessing the power to choose between 
motives or to create a motive to itself, yet he also 
held that the will might be called free, inasmuch 
as freedom consists in the power of a man to act 
according to his inclination. He therefore seems 
to have felt that his admission that the will was 
free in the sense in which he defined freedom, war 
ranted him in using the vocabulary of those who, 
like the Arminians, conceived of freedom in a 
widely different, in a real and vaster sense. It is 
a singular case of delusion, of bondage to the mere 
jugglery of words. The Edwardian notion of free- 



THINGS ARE WHAT THEY ARE. Ill 

dom stands as a hollow, grinning ghost, or as a 
mere deus ex machina ready to relieve the theo 
logical situation when the stress became unendur 
able. 

But it is one of the subtle revenges which the 
reality inflicts upon a thinker who is seeking to 
evade it, that it creeps into his thought and moulds 
it unconsciously, even against his will. Bishop 
Butler gave expression to this recondite truth 
when he said, " Things are what they are, and the 
consequences of them will be what they will be." 
The emphasis which Edwards laid upon the will 
as the principal factor in man as well as in God, 
gave prominence to the will in matters of religion 
or of common life ; and things being what they are, 
the consequences of them were what they always 
must be. Edwards was in reality making a pow 
erful appeal to the will, and the human will re 
sponded in prolonged and mighty efforts to secure 
the great ends of life as Edwards was presenting 
them. The conscious self-direction of the will 
became the characteristic of New England Puri 
tanism, constituting strength and nobility of char 
acter, standing out also in sharp contrast to the 
milder methods which affirm the principle of an 
unconscious growth as the law of the religious life. 
Some such qualification of the working of Edwards 
theology is demanded if we care to understand 
and do justice to New England history. Not that 
Edwards escaped the consequences of his denial of 
a fundamental truth. It will be shown, directly, 



112 THE PARISH MINISTER. 

how his error followed him. But before we turn 
to this unfortunate and even calamitous result of 
an evil theory, we may present him as making- his 
appeal in pathetic and affectionate language, urg 
ing men to seek an interest in Christ and to 
hasten to escape from impending danger. 

The effect of Edwards preaching, then, upon 
the minds of many who listened to him, was re 
duced to an urgent, absorbing appeal to the will. 
Some, it is true, may have been paralyzed by the 
fearful motives which he invoked, so frightened by 
the horrors of the dangers described, as to weaken 
the capacity for action. Some of an intellectual 
cast of mind may have been entangled by snags 
from which they could not get free, eddying about 
in an uncertain, aimless way. But there were 
those also who, in this process of spiritual evolu 
tion, felt goaded to greater and sublimer efforts in 
proportion as the horror of the situation was im 
pressed upon their imagination. These, in accord 
ance with the preacher s exhortation, struggled 
with desperate determination until they took the 
kingdom of God by violence. Those who succeeded 
were from one point of view an illustration of the 
selection of the fittest. Instead of being demoral 
ized, they were incited to more vigorous effort, as 
they considered the extreme necessity of the case, 
the imminent danger of eternal destruction, the 
shortness of the time, the uncertainty of the oppor 
tunity, the difficulties to be encountered, the possi 
bility of overcoming, the exceeding excellence of 



THE PREACHER S EXHORTATION. 113 

the reward. The preacher advises those who have 
undertaken to make the conquest of God s kingdom 
to keep their eye fixed upon the plain issue of the 
struggle, and not to fight shadows by the way. It 
will be a mistake and weaken them in the conflict 
if they are questioning about God s secret decrees, 
searching for signs by which they may read God s 
mind before its accomplishment. Let them cease 
to be distressed with fears that they are not elected, 
or have committed the unpardonable sin, or that 
for them the day of grace is over. When men 
complain that strong desires and thorough earnest 
ness are not theirs to command, it is answered that 
God ordinarily works by means ; that it is in their 
power to attend on the ordinances of religion and 
to strive against the corruption of their hearts, 
their dulness, and the other difficulties in their way. 
Earnestness of mind will follow earnestness of 
endeavor ; and if there be painful striving, it will 
not be long before earnestness and desire will take 
possession of the soul. 

All this may sound commonplace and familiar. 
And yet we are walking here in a field which is 
strown with the perplexities of a bygone age. 
There is one objection in particular, which the 
preacher strives to meet, which has a remote air, as 
if it never could have been real or genuine. Some, 
he remarks, may object that if they are earnest and 
take a great deal of pains they shall be in danger 
of trusting to what they do, and thus come to de 
pend on a righteousness of their own. In this ob- 



114 THE PARISH MINISTER. 

jection Calvinism is seen as the opposite extreme 
to Romanism, which makes religion consist so 
largely in outward works. If the Romanist feared 
that he should not do enough to secure salvation, 
the Calvinist is fearful lest he shall do too much, 
and thus come to depend upon his doing. Ed 
wards disposes of the objection with no great dif 
ficulty, denying that there is any danger corre 
sponding to such a fear. Instead of its being true 
that the more they do the more they will de 
pend on their doing, the reverse is true, the less 
will they be likely to rest in their doing, and the 
sooner will they see the vanity of all their works. 
But the objection really went deeper than Edwards 
perceived. It grew out of the inmost mood of the 
Calvinistic theology. Not only so, but not long 
after Edwards time there arose the sect of the 
Saiidemanians, who asserted as their fundamental 
principle the deadliness of all doings, the necessity 
for inactivity in order to let God do His work in 
the soul. Sandeman, the best representative of 
the sect, w r as a highly educated man, a Scotchman, 
earnest and intense as Edwards himself. He had 
drawn an inference which gave New England Cal- 
vinists an uneasy consciousness in the generation 
that followed Edwards. It was fortunate for Ed 
wards that he lived before Sandeman appeared. 1 

But even in Edwards most affecting appeals 
there still lurks the sense of the divine sovereignty, 

1 Cf. Sandeman, Tfuron and Aspasia, in which his thesis is 
worked out with skill and with considerable grace of style. 



UNCERTAINTY OF THE RESULT. 115 

which orders even salvation in accordance with 
arbitrary will. He urges his hearers to sacrifice 
everything in this work of pressing into the king 
dom of God, to forget the things behind, to labor 
for a heart to go on and to hold out to the end. 
But he also cautions them : " Remember that if 
ever God bestows His mercy on you, Pie will use 
His sovereign pleasure about the time when. He 
will bestow it on some in a little time, and on 
others not till they have sought it long. If other 
persons are soon enlightened and comforted, while 
you long remain in darkness, there is 110 other way 
but for you to wait : God will act arbitrarily in this 
matter, and you cannot help it. You must even be 
content to wait, in a way of laborious and earnest 
striving, till His time comes." But even so there is 
no certainty of the result. " If you stop striving 
and sit still, you surely die ; if you go forward 
you may live." God has not bound Himself to any 
thing that a person does while destitute of faith 
and out of Christ, no matter how hard or how long 
he may strive ; but there is a great probability 
that those who hearken to this counsel, who press 
onward and persevere, will at length by violence 
take the kingdom of heaven. 

The effects of Edwards denial of the freedom 
of the will may be traced in a group of sermons to 
which it is now necessary to turn, painful though 
the necessity be. They may be called his impre 
catory sermons. Out of the forty sermons included 
in the fourth volume of his works, they form a 



116 THE PARISH MINISTER. 

large proportion, being eight in number. They 
are written out in full, an indication that they 
were the deliberate utterance of the preacher. It 
has been said, by way of extenuation for their 
severity, not to say cruelty, that they were de 
livered under peculiar circumstances. Attention 
has also been called to the hardness and cruelty of 
the age, which, if not justifying their vehemence, 
created a different standard of speech, in accord 
ance with which they should be judged rather than 
by the gentler, more sentimental standard of a 
later time. It is quite possible, too, that they 
were demanded by the prevailing taste, that they 
were relished and admired by those who listened 
to them. It was a remark of the last century, that 
in matters of religion men take pleasure in being 
terrified, and admire the preacher who can rouse 
the most dark and awful feelings. But in this 
respect, even in the last century, there must have 
been a limit to human endurance. 

When all allowances have been made that should 
be made, these sermons still possess an unique char 
acter in homiletic literature. They are marked by 
a vehemence not only unrestrained, but which 
seemed to be justified or demanded by the funda 
mental principles of the preacher s theology. Why 
should Edwards, of all other men, have taught in 
such an extreme form the doctrine of endless pun 
ishment, a form unsurpassed, if not unequalled, 
in the whole range of Christian literature ? The 
explanation must be sought, not in his character, 



TOTAL DEPRAVITY. H7 

not altogether in the conditions of the time, but in 
his theoretical denial of the freedom of the will. 
It has not been by accident that he has been chiefly 
known and is still chiefly remembered by his elabo 
rate work on the Will. Even if we could not see 
clearly the connection, we might suspect there was 
some relation between what was obnoxious in his 
preaching and what was irrational in his theology. 
But the connection is not remote or obscure. 

It was the result of Edwards attitude on the 
subject of the will that he was forced to conceive 
the will as constituting the most essential or dis 
tinctive quality of humanity ; and as the will of 
every man who is born into the world is fixed and 
determined toward evil, there was nothing to hinder 
him, there was indeed every motive to force him, 
into the identification of every individual man with 
unqualified and infinite wickedness. Men have not 
only a tendency to sin, but their very nature is iden 
tical with sin. Every man is born with a predom 
inant choice for evil, which controls all lesser vo 
litions and vitiates every act of his life. There is 
no border land which the will may cross from a 
state of indifference or indecision to one of con 
scious purpose ; no twilight of the soul in which 
its forces gather undiscerned for some great reso 
lution. There is no divine root of goodness in 
human nature which may be depended on to resist 
the evil tendency. Those who are determined to 
ward evil are wholly evil, corrupt in every part of 
their being, totally corrupt in all their faculties 



118 THE PARISH MINISTER. 

and dispositions and affections ; all their senses 
being mere inlets and outlets of sin, channels of 
corruption. 

If sin, then, were already cursed by God, why 
should not the preacher be free to curse what 
God had cursed ? Why should he be more re 
strained when speaking of sinful men than when 
speaking of sin in the abstract ? Even the little 
child, notwithstanding its innocence and winning 
ways, was but the incarnation of evil, unmitigated 
and undiluted. How much worse were mature 
men, with whom the predominant choice of evil 
had been exemplified in almost countless acts of 
sin ! This was Edwards conviction, and he be 
lieved it his duty to proclaim it in a fearless and 
unmistakable way. It was a mistaken kindness to 
speak softly or indifferently. And besides, in view 
of Arminiau laxity, there were special reasons for 
giving prominence to his convictions. The incip 
ient tendency toward a denial of the doctrine of 
endless punishment was an urgent motive for its 
more emphatic proclamation. Devotion to God, 
if not to man, required that the divine justice in 
the punishment of the sinner should be maintained 
at whatever cost to the natural affections. If the 
sinner were wholly evil, so that the deepest root of 
his being was grafted in sin, then the sinner de 
served to be denounced in such language as men 
reserve for that which excites their strongest and 
most righteous indignation. In the performance 
of his task Edwards was facilitated by the autoc- 



USEFULNESS Of THE WICKED. 119 

racy freely accorded to the Puritan clergy in an 
earlier stage of New England history, which, al 
though it had begun to decline, had not by any 
means disappeared. 

One of the strongest of these imprecatory ser 
mons, whose argument is condensed in its title, 
Wicked Men Useful in their Destruction Only, il 
lustrates a peculiar phase of Edwards thought. It 
has often been noticed that a certain pantheistic 
tendency attaches to the extreme forms of the doc 
trine of divine sovereignty. There are various 
types and phases of pantheism, as there are of 
monotheism. To that form of the belief which 
attempts the deification of nature, or of all that is, 
Edwards had no direct leaning. Nor to the Bud 
dhistic temper, which treats the world of outward 
things as an illusion destined to cease, had he any 
inclination. In the shape, also, which pantheism 
sometimes assumes, that final annihilation waits 
upon all which does not realize absorption into 
God, there was something which to Edwards was 
repulsive. To his mind, the outward world was 
real only as being the expression of the stable will 
of God. Annihilation is impossible because he 
entertains a profound reverence for being or exist 
ence, so that he who is once possessed of will, and 
whose will is determined by God, is born to exist 
forever. But this evil will, whether in men or 
angels, though it seems to act in defiance of God, 
is no dualistic factor in the universe : it still 
serves the one divine will quite as really as if de- 



120 THE PARISH MINISTER. 

voted to the righteous service of God. All men 
alike, whether sinners or saints, are useful in the 
divine economy. " There can be but two ways in 
which man can be useful, either in acting or in 
being acted upon and disposed of." l The latter 
constitutes the usefulness of the wicked. They 
are the material upon which the divine justice 
operates. Without their existence, God s justice 
would have remained inactive, as a potency without 
opportunity for exercise or manifestation. God 
may be said to need the wicked in order to the 
activity of His justice, as much as the righteous 
in order to the display of His love. When men 
objected that they were useful to their fellows in 
the various walks of life, that they were not wholly 
bad, since they aimed to live for one another, for 
their friends, their neighbors, or the public weal, 
nay, that they might even be of service to the 
church by the promotion of civil order, to such 
pleas Edwards replied, that so long as men did 
not perform these duties designedly, with a con 
scious direction of the will toward God, they were 
not useful as men or as rational creatures, but use 
ful only as irrational things are useful, as the tim 
ber and stone of which a house is built. However 
great their service, it was of no more value in 
God s eyes than the actions of the brute creation. 
Their only real usefulness lay in being reserved 
as vessels of dishonor, through which God glori 
fied His majesty. 

1 Vol. iv. p. 301. 



A TERRIFIC CLIMAX. 121 

In order to overcome the indifferent mood in 
which people might listen to the preaching- of end 
less punishment, Edwards expatiates at length 
upon its nature ; he shows how intolerable it will 
be, how it is without remedy or relaxation or mit 
igation, how it is as unavoidable as it will be in 
tolerable. Every evasion or loophole of escape, 
every fond imagination of a possible release, is 
shown to be futile and vain. No individual, think 
ing himself so obscure as to be beneath notice, 
may hope to elude attention, or to crawl into 
heaven unobserved : neither annihilation nor resto 
ration after ages of suffering are equivalent substi 
tutes for the punishment of an infinite sin, which 
calls for infinite penalty. The fertility of Edwards 
mind is displayed in the supply of images with 
which he presses home upon his hearers his awful 
theme. His imagination attempts to measure the 
significance of the word eternal. The thought 
of these terrific sermons reaches its climax when 
the saints in glory are represented as callous to the^ 
sufferings of the lost. For there is one last hope, 
one last refuge to which sinful humanity is driven 
to cling, when confronting the desperate situation. 
If God be, as He is said to be, without pity, as He 
executes eternal judgment on His foes ; if it be that 
His heart is full of burning anger against those who 
have defied Him, so that the possibility of appeal 
ing to His love is forever closed, may it not be that 
those who have the good fortune to be saved, the 
parents, the friends, the lovers of their kind, will 



122 THE PARISH MINISTER. 

still retain something of their common humanity, 
the natural compassion or sympathy which will 
reduce their own pleasure in heaven when they wit 
ness the agony of souls in hell ? To this pathetic 
hope, which in the lowest extremity still trusts in 
humanity when there is no basis for trust in God, 
Edwards replies by affirming in substance that the 
humanity of the saints is absorbed or annihilated 
in God. They, too, will look upon the scene with 
out flinching ; their serenity will not only be un 
disturbed, but their happiness will be the deeper 
because of the contrast afforded by this ever-pres 
ent spectacle of woe. " There will be no remain 
ing difficulties about the justice of God, about the 
absolute decrees of God, or anything pertaining 
to the dispensations of God towards men. Divine 
justice in the destruction of the wicked will then 
appear as light without darkness, and will shine 
as the sun without the clouds." Those who are 
saved will then be thinking, not of man, but of 
God, how God is glorifying His justice on the ves 
sels of dishonor, or glorifying His grace on the 
vessels of mercy. Even fathers and mothers will 
then rejoice and praise God as they witness eternal 
justice poured out upon their own offspring. If 
this seems strange or impossible, it must be re 
membered that the circumstances of our nature will 
then be changed. What is virtue here will be no 
virtue there. Now virtue shows itself by natural 
affection, but natural affection is no virtue of the 
saints in glory. However the saints in heaven may 



NATURAL AFFECTION IN HEAVEN. 123 

have loved the damned while here, especially those 
who were near and dear to them in this world, they 
will have no love to them hereafter. Virtue will 
then be exercised in some other and higher manner. 1 
It is not that God and the saints will be unable 
to realize the sufferings of the lost. Although the 
saints look upon the smoke of their torments and 
the raging of the fires of their burning afar off, 
they will yet measure the misery and the agony 
more truly than any of us do here. " God also is 
everywhere present with His all-seeing eye. lie 
is in heaven and in hell, and in and through every 
part of His creation. He is where every devil is, 
and where every damned soul is ; He is present by 
His power and by His essence. He not only 
knows as well as those in heaven who see at a dis 
tance, but he knows as perfectly as those who feel 
the misery. He seeth into the inmost recesses of 
the hearts of those miserable spirits, for He up 
holds them in being." 2 While the joy which the 
saints feel, as they contemplate the sufferings of 
the lost, springs partly from their devotion to God s 
glory and their desire to see His justice vindicated, 
yet it also springs from the deeper realization of 
their own happiness. They are lost in adoring 
wonder at the mystery of the love which elected 
and redeemed them. The sight of hell torments 
will exalt the happiness of the saints forever. 
They will prize their own blessedness and God s 
love the more when they see the doleful condition 
1 Vol. iv. pp. 291, 294. 2 Vol. iv. p. 291. 



124 THE PARISH MINISTER. 

of the damned, and how dreadful it is to suffer the 
anger of God. It will give the saints a deeper 
sense of the distinguishing love of God, who has 
made so great a difference between themselves and 
others, who are now lost, but who were no worse 
than themselves and have deserved no worse of 
God. When they shall behold all this, how will 
heaven ring with their praises ; with what love and 
ecstasy will they sing the song of the redeemed ! * 

The preacher does not hesitate to avow his 
belief that the great majority of mankind have 
been lost. To this conclusion he was driven by 
observation and experience, by theoretic considera 
tions, by the enforcement of a high ideal. Again 
and again he reiterates the statement that out of 
the great mass of mankind only a few will be 
saved. " The bigger part of men who have died 
heretofore have gone to hell." The whole heathen 
world is hopelessly doomed. In the Christian 
world the prospect is little better for large masses 
of men under the dominion of idolatry and super 
stition. The majority of each passing generation 
is lost. In every congregation there are many 
whose damnation is sure. 2 

Edwards defended his manner of preaching, on 
the ground that, if these things were true, it was 
only kindness to a congregation to present them, 

1 Cf. vol. iv. p. 307 ; also ch. iii. of Miscell. Observations, 
vol. iv. p. 612. 

2 Cf . vol. i. pp. 78, 537 ; vol. ii. p. 499 ; vol. iii. pp. 448, 449 ; 
vol. iv. pp. 316, 386, 583. 



LAW AND GOSPEL. 125 

and that, too, in what he calls the " liveliest " man 
ner. When ministers preach of hell in a cold 
manner, though they may say in words that it 
is infinitely terrible, they contradict themselves. 
The main work of ministers is to preach the gospel. 
A minister would miss it very much if he should 
insist too much on the terrors of the law and neg 
lect the gospel ; but yet the law is very much to be 
insisted on, and the preaching of the gospel is like 
to be in vain without it. 1 But no one can read 
these imprecatory sermons without feeling that the 
preacher goes beyond the requirements of duty or 
of rhetoric. There enters into them a personal 
tone, as if he spoke in the divine name to curse the 
enemies of God. He is almost over-zealous for the 
honor of the Lord of Hosts. He reflects the spirit 
of the old dispensation, Shall not I hate them, 
O Lord, that hate Thee, and rise up against them 
that rise up against Thee ? Yea, I hate them right 
sore, as if they were mine enemies. " You have 
often seen a spider or some other noisome insect 
when thrown into the midst of a fierce fire, and 
have seen how immediately it yields to the force of 
the flames : there is no long struggle, no fighting 
against the fire, no strength exerted to oppose the 
heat, or to fly from it, but it immediately stretches 
forth itself and yields ; and the fire takes posses 
sion of it, and at once it becomes full of fire and is 
burned into a bright coal. Here is a little image 
of what you will be the subjects of in hell." 2 And 

1 Cf . Marks of the Work of the Spirit, etc., vol. i. p. 538. 

2 Vol. iv. p. 264. 



126 THE PART S3 MINISTER. 

again he seems to lose patience, to grow provoked, 
because men still resist his intense earnestness of 
appeal. He closes a sermon with these words : 
" You who now hear of hell and the wrath of the 
great God, and sit here in these seats so easy and 
quiet and go away so careless, by and by you will 
shake and tremble, and cry out and shriek, and 
gnash your teeth, and will be thoroughly convinced 
of the vast weight and importance of these great 
things which you now despise. You will not then 
need to hear sermons in order to make you sen 
sible." ! 

But if it be painful to read these sermons of 
Edwards, what must it have been to have heard 
them ! The traditions still linger in New England 
of the effect they produced. One man has recorded 
that, as he listened to him when discoursing of the 

O 

day of judgment, he fully anticipated that the 
dreadful day would begin when the sermon should 
come to an end ! He was the greatest preacher of 
his age. It is only at rare intervals that a man 
endowed with such a power appears. His effec 
tiveness did not lie in voice and gesture. He was 
accustomed to lean, it is said, upon one arm, fas 
tening his eyes upon some distant point in the 
meeting-house. But beneath the quiet manner 
were the fires of a volcano. His gravity of char 
acter, his profundity of spiritual insight, his in 
tense realism as if the ideal were the only real, his 
burning devotion, his vivid imagination, his master- 
1 Vol. iv. p. 265. 



SERMON AT EN FIELD. 127 

ful will, these entered into his sermons. He was 
almost too great a man to let loose upon other men 
in their ordinary condition. He was like some 
organ of vast capacity whose strongest stops or 
combinations should never have been drawn. The 
account has been left to us of the impression he 
produced in the little village of Enfield, in Con 
necticut, where he went to preach one Sunday 
morning in the month of July, 1741. The congre 
gation had assembled in its usual mood, with no 
special interest or expectation. The effect of the 
sermon was as if some supernatural apparition had 
frightened the people beyond control. They were 
convulsed in tears of agony and distress. Amid 
their tears and outcries the preacher pauses, bid 
ding them to be quiet in order that he may be 
heard. 1 This was the sermon which, if New Eng 
land has forgiven, it has never been able to forget. 
Its title was, Sinners in the Hands of an Angry 
God. The text was a weird passage from the 
book of Deuteronomy, Their foot shall slide in 
due time. The wicked are here represented as, 
equally with the righteous, a manifestation of the 
one living, eternal will. They illustrate an attri- 

1 Cf. Trumbull s History of Connecticut, vol. ii. p. 145. Accord 
ing to another account, Edwards preached this same sermon on an 
occasion when he was called to take the place of Whitefield, who 
had failed to appear when a multitude were gathered to hear 
him. Although unknown to most of his audience in person, and 
with the disappointment of the assembly to overcome, he pro 
duced an effect which Whitefield could not have surpassed. Cf. 
Rev. ,T. W. Alexander, Ccnten. Discourse of New Jersey College. 



128 THE PARISH MINISTER. 

bute of the divine nature. The justice of God is 
visible in their continuance in life : it will only be 
more visible hereafter. God now holds them in this 
life as long as it suits His purpose ; He holds them 
on the slippery declining ground, on the edge of a 
pit where they could not stand alone without His 
help. They are already under a sentence of con 
demnation. When God lets go they will drop. God 
does not keep them from sliding to their fate be 
cause he has any consideration for them. He is 
even more angry with many of those now living, 
" yea, doubtless with many that are now in this con 
gregation," than He is with many of those who are 
in hell. For these the wrath of God is burning, the 
pit is prepared, the fire is ready, the furnace is hot, 
the flames do rage and glow. The devils are wait 
ing and watching for them, like lions restrained that 
are greedy for their prey. "The unconverted are 
now walking over the pit of hell on a rotten cover 
ing, and there are innumerable places in this cov 
ering so weak that they will not bear their weight, 
and these places are not seen." These do not real 
ize what will be their fate. Though they know 
that the majority of men are lost, they flatter 
themselves with a prospect of peace and safety. 
They do not realize that the wrath of God against 
them is like great waters dammed up for the pres 
ent, but rising higher and higher; that " God holds 
them over the pit of hell much as one holds a spi 
der or some loathsome insect over the fire ; that 
they are ten thousand times more abominable in 



PERSONAL NARRATIVE. 129 

His eyes than a venomous serpent is in ours." And 
there is no reason to be given why those sitting 
in the presence of the preacher have not dropped 
into hell since they rose in the morning-, or since 
they have been sitting there in God s house, but 
God s mere arbitrary will, the uncovenanted, un- 
obliged forbearance of an incensed God. In some 
of his sermons, Edwards warned his hearers not to 
abuse his preaching to their discouragement. But 
in this discourse there is no qualification ; it is one 
constant strain of imprecation against sinful hu 
manity from beginning to close. And the sermon 
ends with the words : 

" If we knew that there was one person and but one, 
in the whole congregation, that was to be the subject of 
this misery, what an awful thing it would be to think 
of ! If we knew who it was, what an awful sight would 
it be to see such a person ! How might all the rest of 
the congregation lift up a lamentable and bitter cry over 
him ! But, alas! instead of one, how many it is likely 
will remember this discourse in hell ! And it would be 
a wonder if some that are now present should not be in 
hell in a very short time, before this year is out. And 
it would be no wonder if some persons that now sit here 
in some seats of this meeting-house, in health and quiet 
and secure, should be there before to-morrow morning" 

The Personal Narrative of Edwards, which cov 
ers the earlier years of his ministry, discloses the 
preacher as endeavoring, by meditation and an 
ever-deepening experience, to make real to himself 



130 THE PARISH MINISTER. 

the doctrines he was preaching to others. He 
records that the gospel seemed to him like the 
richest treasure. Even seeing the name of Christ 
causes his heart to burn within him. He often 
recalls the affecting and delightful text, A man 
shall be as an hiding-place from the wind and a 
covert from the tempest. He likes to think of 
himself as a child taking hold of Christ, to be led 
by Him through the wilderness. Once, as he rode 
out into the woods in the year 1737, and alighted 
in a retired place, he had a view of Christ, as a 
mediator, of His sweet grace and love and conde 
scension, a view wherein the person of Christ ap 
peared of such transcendent excellence, as great 
even above the heavens, that he was overcome, and 
remained for an hour in a flood of tears and weep 
ing aloud. The holiness of God appeared to him 
as the most lovely of His attributes. He had 
learned also to delight in His sovereignty, in His 
showing mercy to whom He would show mercy. 
It was a pleasure to ask of Him this sovereign 
mercy. But these religious raptures were also ac 
companied by affecting views of his own sinful- 
ness and vileness. The sense of his wickedness 
and the badness of his heart was stronger after his 
conversion than before. His wickedness seemed 
to surpass that of all others. No language was 
too strong for the purposes of self-condemnation. 
His heart seemed to him like an abyss infinitely 
deeper than hell. He constantly longed for a 
broken heart and to lie low before God. He could 



COMMUNION WITH NATURE. 131 

not bear to think of being no more humble than 
other Christians. " Others speak of their longing 
to be humbled to the dust ; that may be a proper 
expression for them, but I always think of myself, 
that I ought, and it is an expression that has long 
been natural for me to use in prayer, to lie infi 
nitely low before God. " If he preached to others 
the necessity of dependence upon God s grace and 
strength, of standing only in the righteousness of 
Christ, and of adoring the sovereignty which pre 
sides over the universe, it was not as mere tenets 
of a sound doctrine. He had come for himself to 
have this sense of absolute dependence ; he ab 
horred his own righteousness ; the thought of any 
goodness in himself was detestable to him. Once 
more, in 1739, he was overcome and burst forth into 
loud weeping as he thought how meet and suitable 
it was that God should govern the world, ordering 
all things according to His own pleasure. 

It is suggestive to note that these high expe 
riences are always recorded as coming to him when 
he is alone with nature, as when he rides through 
retired and lonely roads, or, leaving his horse, 
plunges into the still depths of the forest. This 
sympathy with nature had shown itself when he 
was a child, leading him into solitary places in the 
woods in order to communion with God in prayer. 
In his youth also he had displayed a marvellous 
aptitude for reading the secrets of the external 
world. Though he had abandoned the study of 
1 Dwight, Life of Edwards, p. 133. 



132 THE PARISH MINISTER. 

natural science when he turned to theology, his 
days were still bound together by natural piety. 
In the contrast also which nature offered with its 
unconscious life, where there is no continuous strain 
and effort of anxious purpose, he could find com 
fort and relief, a closer communion with God 
than when scrutinizing the workings of the intense 
and concentrated will. 



SECOND PERIOD. 

THE GREAT AWAKENING. 1735-1750. 



I. 



REVIVAL AT NORTHAMPTON. NARRATIVE OF 
SURPRISING CONVERSIONS. 

THE preaching of Edwards, of which illustra 
tions have been given, could at no time have been 
listened to with indifference. If on the one hand 
it may have provoked intense resistance, on the 
other hand, when received as true, it must have 
been followed by some extraordinary attestation of 
its power, or, in the current phraseology, have been 
remarkably blessed. The time had now come for 
that great ecclesiastical reaction or revival, which 
ever we may term it, for which synods had been 
laboring, though ineffectually, for nearly fifty years. 
The lamentations of clergy and laity over the low 
estate of the church, the aspirations for a church re 
stored to its pristine earnestness, as in the early days 
of New England history, these were prophetic of 
the event which now came to pass under the in 
spiration of Edwards influence. To him belongs 
the credit of initiating a movement which, begin 
ning at Northampton, was to spread over New 



134 THE GREAT AWAKENING. 

England and throughout the colonies in America, 
which was to penetrate into Scotland and England, 
stimulating and giving form to ideas which were 
already fermenting in the mind of Wesley. 1 

The impulse of the Great Awakening was a 
theological conviction which first took shape in 
Edwards mind, a belief in the immediate action 
of the Divine Spirit upon the human soul. When 
Edwards as a youth was meditating upon the di 
vine immanence as constituting the reality of the 
outward world, he was preparing himself for his 
distinctive task. At some later stage of his history 
(the exact moment is unknown, as the process is un- 
described), he took a step which carried him beyond 
Berkeley by applying the Berkeleyan principle to 
the human mind. God was then seen to be hold 
ing as direct and immediate a relationship to the 
soul as he held to the external world. This prin 
ciple became the foundation of Edwards doctrine 
of conversion. 

1 In her Life of Wesley, p. 196, Miss Wedgwood remarks : 
" A great awakening to the interests of eternity, as they would 
then be called, had already taken place in America, an account 
of which, written by Jonathan Edwards, under whose preaching 
it had originated, was read by Wesley during a walk from Lon 
don to Oxford (1738). Surely this is the Lord s doing, and it is 
marvellous in our eyes, he Avrites in his journal after the perusal. 
Nothing equal to the sudden and general emotion described by 
Edwards had as yet occurred in his own country, and he doubtless 
was led to desire earnestly that England might not lag behind 
America in the path of grace." Three months after this date 
occurs the first instance of "bodily effects" under Wesley s 
preaching. 



THE DOCTRINE OF CONVERSION. 135 

But the origin of the principle may be traced 
still further back until we come to the peculiar 
ideas which Calvin had stamped upon the churches 
owning allegiance to his authority. While Calvin 
had separated God and man to such an extent as 
to make almost impossible a communication be 
tween the divine and the human, he had endeav 
ored to compensate for this deficiency in his theol 
ogy by attaching greater importance to the office 
and work of the Holy Spirit. Luther had con 
nected God and man through the medium of de 
vout feeling, so that the word of God in Scripture 
became the reflex of human experience. Calvin 
regarded Scripture as an arbitrary and external 
revelation of the divine will. In order to bring 
the mind to a recognition of the truth of Scripture, 
he presupposed an activity of the Holy Spirit, 
which bore testimony in the heart to the truth of 
the written Word. This element in Calvin s teach 
ing does not appear at once as directly operative 
in the theology of the Reformed churches. It first 
became an effective principle, not in the Presby 
terian communions of Scotland or England, but 
in the more extreme form of Calvinism known as 
Independency. And it was not in England, but in 
the Puritan churches of the New England theoc 
racy, that the custom first became a general one, 
of requiring a statement of the experience wrought 
by the Holy Spirit within the soul, as a condition 
of church membership. In so doing the Puritans 
of New England had introduced a theological as 



136 TEE GREAT AWAKENING. 

well as a practical idea, which, however obnoxious 
it may have been in its workings, was none the less 
of profound significance for the future of religion 
and theology. It was destined to spread to Eng 
land, and to revive the spirit of Presbyterianism ; 
it was to be the means of bringing the Calvinistic 
theology into line with the inwardness of German 
theology. It was this doctrine which was taken 
up by Edwards, and was combined with his specu 
lative principles of the immediacy of the divine 
action, whether in the external world or in the 
sphere of human thought and feeling. 

It was therefore no accidental circumstance that 
the first great instance of what are called revivals 
should have been witnessed in America and not in 
England. The idea of revivals is the gift of 
American to foreign Calvinism. Methodism also 
appears as indebted to Puritanism chiefly for this 
,- leading characteristic of its system of religious cul 
ture. When the Puritan churches arose from 
their depression, whether in England or America, 
they found the principle of their restoration in a 
seed of life after their own kind, which had long 
remained dormant, but which was first quickened 
into vital power in the mind of Edwards. It is for 
this reason, among others, that he deserves recog 
nition as a theologian who has sensibly affected the 
interests of scientific and of practical theology. 
That he had not entirely measured the significance 
of the principle, or that it was still accompanied by 
some imperfection in its statement ; that it needed 



THE IMMEDIATE DIVINE INFLUENCE. 137 

to be supplemented with other truth in order to its 
clearer and more consistent presentation, this 
will be apparent as we follow him in his progress 
through the issues created by the Great Awaken 
ing. But yet he stands supreme among Protestant 
theologians, at least in the Reformed churches, for 

o 

firm adherence to the principle despite all obstacles 
and discouragements. We must go back to the 
mystics of the Middle Ages, or to the fathers of the 
ancient church, to find a predecessor for Edwards 
who apprehended and urged this truth with equal I 
power. It is true that Fox and Barclay among the 
Quakers had taught the same essential doctrine, 
If Edwards surpasses them, it is because he 
grounds his conviction upon a philosophical basis, 
and expounds it in more scientific manner. But 
while his doctrine is that of the " inner light," it 
assumes a different form. From one point of view 
more effective because associated with his thought 
of God as energizing will, it suffers by its restric 
tion to the elect, instead of being the prerogative 
of a common humanity. 

There had been movements marked by religious 
fervor, here and there among the churches, for 
many years before Edwards appeared. So far as 
they received a name, they were spoken of as occa 
sions of increased attention to religion. They had 
been known in East Windsor under the ministry 
of Edwards father. Mr. Stoddard counted five of 
them during his ministry at Northampton, compar 
ing them to seasons of harvest. Small as they may 



138 THE GREAT AWAKENING. 

have been, they were the harbingers of tho great 
agency which was to create an independent life 
in the churches. The country could not there 
fore have been taken wholly by surprise when the 
extraordinary movement began at Northampton 
which fastened upon that remote town the interest 
of the provinces. The event has been described 
by Edwards, in his Narrative of Surprising Con 
versions, with local touches that bring the scene 
vividly before us. The Narrative reads as if it were 
intended to be a philosophical account of what had 
occurred, and not a mere enthusiastic report with 
a design to enkindle enthusiasm in the reader. It 
was written at the request of one of the Boston 
clergy, and was not long in finding its way into Scot 
land and England. The importance of the Narra 
tive justifies some detailed account of its contents. 
The people of Northampton, as Edwards thinks 
it necessary to remark, were not in any respect 
different from other people in the province. They 
were as sober, orderly, and good sort of people as 
in any part of New England. But the town had 
its peculiarities, its advantages and disadvantages. 
The " families dwelling more compactly together 
than in any town of such a bigness in those parts 
of the country " was a reason why its corruptions 
and its reformations were more swiftly propagated. 
The isolation of the town in a corner of the country 
had served as a barrier against vice as well as er 
ror and variety of opinion. It was also Edwards 
opinion, at least at this time, that the people were 



DESCRIPTION OF THE SITUATION. 139 

chiefly remarkable for religion and for attainments 
in Christian experience, circumstances which were 
chiefly owing to the influence of his grandfather 
and predecessor. But shortly after Mr. Stoddard s 
death in 1729 there came a time of extraordinary 
dulness in religion. Licentiousness now began 
and continued for some years to prevail. The 
youth of the town became " addicted to night- walk 
ing and frequenting the tavern ; " the lewd prac 
tices of some exceedingly corrupted others. " It 
was their manner very frequently to get together 
in conventions of both sexes for mirth and jollity, 
which they called frolicks ; and they would spend 
the greater part of the night in them, without any 
regard to order in the families which they belonged 
to ; and indeed family government did much fail 
in the town. It was become very customary with 
many of our young people to be indecent in their 
carriage at meeting, which doubtless would not 
have prevailed to such a degree had it not been 
that my grandfather, through his great age (though 
he retained his powers surprisingly to the last), was 
not so able to observe them." A spirit of conten 
tion also existed between two parties in the town 
which created jealousy and opposition in public 
affairs. A custom which then prevailed made the 
evening which preceded the Sabbath a part of holy 
time ; and it was a source of evil that the young 
people had fallen into the habit of devoting the 
evening after the Sabbath as a time for mirth and 
company-keeping, a practice adapted to dissipate 
any good influence produced by the public lecture. 



140 THE GREAT AWAKENING. 

Such is the substance of Edwards preface to 
his Narrative . Its object may have been to show 
that nothing in the human environment of the 
church at Northampton could be adduced as ex 
plaining the extraordinary movement which was 
now to take place ; that on the contrary it was the 
work of God alone. But given the circumstances 
above described, a town predisposed to religion 
by all its antecedents ; a moment in its history 
when no great external interest preoccupied the 
minds of the people ; an isolated town, far from the 
centre of activity, in which the want of healthy 
amusements or excitement to give food to the im 
agination had a tendency to breed as a substitute 
the more vulgar forms of immorality ; and add to 
these, Edwards force as a preacher, his unique per 
sonality which intensified the effect of his preach 
ing, as if by some unexplained magnetic power, 
in the light of this conjuncture of favoring 
circumstances, it is not strange that the religious 
awakening of New England should have begun at 
Northampton. These things are not mentioned 
in order to deny or to depreciate the diviiieness 
of the w r ork which Edwards is describing. But 
it is none the less necessary to bear them in mind. 
Had Edwards made allowance for them, his judg 
ment on the incidents of the movement would 
have been less open to criticism. 

It was so early as the year 1733 that signs of a 
change began to appear among the younger part 
of the people, in consequence of which the pastor 



SIGNS OF A CHANGE. 141 

was able to break up the habit of company-keep 
ing 1 after the public lecture on Sunday. Instead 
of this custom, the practice was introduced of 
spending the Sunday evenings in social religion, 
the people dividing themselves into several com 
panies for the purpose. At this time Edwards 
began preaching the sermons already mentioned 
on justification by faith, the justice of God in the 
damnation of sinners, the excellency of Christ, 
the duty of pressing into the kingdom of God. 
All accounts agree in ascribing to these sermons 
a prominent place among the causes which pro 
moted the revival. How highly the people re 
garded these particular sermons is shown, as Ed 
wards remarks, by a willingness to incur the 
expense of their piiblication at a time when the 
erection of a new meeting-house was already mak 
ing a heavy demand upon their finances. One 
reason for this interest was the fear which had 
begun to spread that God might withdraw from 
the land, or that it would be given over to strange 
doctrine. To the prevalence of this fear, it is 
needless to say that Edwards had contributed. 

And now many began to be moved and much 
affected. A young woman who had been one of 
the greatest " company - keepers " in the whole 
town became " serious, giving evidence of a heart 
tridy broken and sanctified." Presently upon this 
a great and universal concern about religion and 
the eternal world became universal throughout the 
town, among persons of all degrees and all ages- 



142 THE GREAT AWAKENING. 

" It was in the latter part of December (1734) 
that the spirit of God began extraordinarily to set 
in, and wonderfully to work amongst us." And 
now all other talk but about spiritual and eternal 
things was soon thrown by. Conversation upon 
all occasions turned on these things, so much so 
that worldly affairs were treated as of very little 
consequence. Business was followed, but without 
any special disposition for it ; indeed, there was 
danger that temporal affairs would be neglected 
in the interest of religion. The main thing with 
all of every sort was to get into the kingdom of 
heaven, or to flee from the wrath to come. There 
was scarcely a single person in the town, either old 
or young, that was left unconcerned about the things 
of the eternal world. Meetings were appointed 
in private houses, and were wont to be greatly 
thronged. 

" The work of God as it was carried on, and the 
number of true saints multiplied, soon made a glorious 
alteration in the town ; so that in the spring and summer, 
anno 1735, the town seemed to be full of the presence 
of God : it was never so full of love, nor so full of joy, 
and yet so full of distress, as it was then. There were 
remarkable tokens of God s presence in almost every 
house. It was a time of joy in families on the account 
of salvation s being brought unto them, parents rejoicing 
over their children as being new-born, and husbands 
over their wives, and wives over their husbands. The 
goings of God were then seen in His sanctuary, God s 
day was a delight, and His tabernacles icere amiable. 



PHASES OF EXPERIENCE. 143 

Our public assemblies were then beautiful ; the congre 
gation was alive in God s service, every one earnestly 
intent on thei public worship, every hearer eager to 
drink in the words of the minister as they came from 
his mouth : the assembly in general were from time to 
time in tears while the word was preached ; some weep 
ing with sorrow and distress, others with joy and love, 
others with pity and concern for the souls of their neigh 
bors. Our public praises were then greatly enlivened ; 
God was then served in our psalmody in some measure 
in the beauty of holiness. It has been observable, that 
there has been scarce any part of divine worship 
wherein good men amongst us haVe had grace so drawn 
forth, arid their hearts so lifted up in the ways of God, 
as in singing His praises : our congregation excelled all 
that ever I knew in the external part of the duty before, 
the men generally carrying regularly and well three 
parts of music and the women a part by themselves ; 
but now they were evidently flvont to sing with unusual 
elevation of heart and voice, wjhich made the duty pleas 
ant indeed." 

The chief interest of the Narrative is the pic 
ture it presents of Edwards himself, eagerly 
studying every phase of the movement, in order 
to the verification of his theology. He carefully 
collates and examines the experiences of those 
affected, as if he were following the actual traces 
left by a Divine Spirit. He was quick to notice 
all that confirmed the working hypothesis with 
which he came to his task, and yet not incapable 
of seeing things for which he could find no for 
mula. He also notes a rich variety of experience 



144 THE GREAT AWAKENING. 

where others have labored for a special type. But 
there is a tendency, even with him, to put a forced 
interpretation upon what he witnesses, in order 
that it may accord with a preconceived theory. 
He does not realize that the experiences he ob 
serves may be in some measure but the echo to 
his own teaching. Believing that his teaching has 
been the exact reproduction of revealed truth, the 
process among the people appeared to him as if 
wholly divine. It seemed to him an exceptional 
moment in human history, as when a rift in the 
clouds enables an observer to gaze directly upon 
phenomena otherwise concealed from his view. 
He may not have so expressed himself, but in re 
ality he is seeking to ground his theology in the 
human consciousness. What we call psychology 
was to him an unknown science, and yet no mod 
ern psychologist could have laid more stress upon 
the importance of observing the different phases 
of human experience. In this study, his concep 
tion of inspiration or revelation enabled him to 
move with perfect freedom. The same spirit 
which clarified the vision of apostles or prophets 
was now illuminating the minds of the common 
people with a divine supernatural light. 

The first point upon which Edwards dwells, in 
describing the manner in which persons are wrought 
upon, is what may be called the tragic element in 
the process. Salvation consists in a great deliver 
ance. The first stage of awakened consciousness 
is the realization of an awful danger and the im- 



TEE TRAGIC ELEMENT. 145 

portance of speedy escape. This stage of fear and 
anxiety may vary in degree of duration or intensity, 
but 110 one is described as attaining peace without 
some degree of inward trouble. With some the 
sense of divine displeasure and of the danger of 
damnation was so great that they could not sleep, 
or they awakened with heaviness and distress still 
abiding on their spirits. These apprehensions of 
misery and danger for the most part increased the 
nearer they approached deliverance. A melan 
choly distemper at times mixed with these genuine 
fears. With these cases Edwards remarks that it 
is difficult to deal. Everything that is said to them 
they turn the wrong way, or to their own disadvan 
tage : there is nothing that the Devil seems to make 
so great a handle of as a melancholy humor. But 
apart from such cases, there are instances noted of 
persons whose sense of danger and misery has been 
so great that a little more would have destroyed 
them. Others were brought to the borders of de 
spair, and it looked to them black as midnight just 
before the day dawned within their souls. In some, 
however, the terrors were not so sharp when near 
comfort as before : their convictions have rather 
led them to see their own universal depravity and 
their deadness in sin. With others, again, the 
awakening process appeared like a great struggle 
with some hostile power, as of a serpent disturbed 
or enraged. These have experienced heart-risings 
against God, murmurings at His ways, and envy 
toward those who are thought to have been con- 



146 THE GREAT AWAK1.N1NG. 

verted. In dealing with them it was much insisted 
on that they were in danger of quenching the 
Spirit, or of committing the sin against the Holy 
Ghost. 

The second stage in this process of an awaken 
ing soul was the realization of an absolute depend 
ence on sovereign power and grace, and also the 
universal need of a divine mediator. To these 
results the legal strivings, the fears, the anxieties, 
appeared to tend as if by a necessary law. What 
Edwards meant by the divine sovereignty we have 
already seen, and also how he had set forth the 
necessity for a divine mediation. As he surveyed 
the field of the Spirit s operation, he saw that 
many who were struggling for peace with God 
found great difficulty in its attainment, while some 
never achieved the desired result. He has enu 
merated the difficulties encountered with a minute 
ness which it is not necessary to follow. We get 
a confused picture in which the consciousness of 
sin in the sight of God leads the sufferer in various 
ways to seek relief. Persons in this condition 
w r ander in a kind of labyrinth, and some wander 
ten times as long as others before they gain the 
outlet. Some did not have great terrors, but had 
a very quick work. Some were under trouble but 
a few days, others for months and years. The one 
conclusion to which it is necessary that somehow 
all must come is the discovery of the justice of 
God. Those who reach this conclusion express 
themselves in such ways as this, that God would 



SPIRITUAL METAMORPHOSIS. 147 

be just if lie were to bestow mercy on every person 
in the town, and damn themselves to all eternity. 
So great has been their sinfiilness that they feel 
that if they were to seek and take the utmost pains 
all their lives, God might justly cast them into hell. 
All their labors, prayers, and tears can make no 
atonement for sin. The sense of sinfiilness also 
finds diversified expression : with some it is par 
ticular sins that appear vile and loathsome, with 
others it is the acknowledgment of a general sin 
ful condition. But to all must come the revelation 
of the divine justice. On the eve of this great 
discovery there is restlessness, and struggle, and 
tumult ; as soon as the conviction is reached, there 
follows an unexpected quietness and composure. 
It seems to fascinate Edwards mind as he witnesses 
this strange metamorphosis from a child of earth 
and hell to one of the children of God. When a 
person thinks it is all over with him as he makes 
this discovery of divine justice, he is actually on 
the verge of being born again. There is a weird 
sense of satisfaction even in confessing the divine 
justice. Some have appeared to revel in it, to have 
had such a deep feeling of the excellency of God s 
justice, and such indignation against themselves, 
that they have spoken of their willingness to be 
damned. Edwards comment on this mood indi 
cates no sympathy with it. He thinks they cannot 
have had clear and distinct ideas of damnation, nor 
does any word in the Bible require such self-denial 
as this. What they really mean to say is, that sal- 



148 TEE GREAT AWAKENING. 

vation seems too good for them ; so great has been 
their sin, that it seems to them inconsistent with 
the glory of God s majesty that they should be 
saved. 

There were many, however, who could not arrive 
at this or any similar state of mind, despite their 
struggles and tears. What was the message which 
Edwards proclaimed to these and others who con 
tinued for years in a state of distress or agony? 
It does not occur to him that there may be even 
a larger breadth and variety in God s method of 
dealing with souls than he is capable of discerning. 
Although he saw more than many of his contem 
poraries, he still suffers under a limitation of his 
vision. He knows nothing of a gradual maturing 
of the will under a divine education. There is 
no such thing with him as a quiet, unconscious 
growth into the kingdom of heaven. For every 
one is reserved the same tragical process before 
salvation can be obtained. And the bitterness of 
the tragedy lies in the uncertainty of the result, as 
also in the absence of divine sympathy, until suc 
cess has been achieved. No one can be sure that 
the divine love is extended to him in his effort to 
reach out after God. Edwards is certain that to 
have preached such a doctrine would have been 
disastrous. It would have put an end to the 
awakenings ; it would have established strife and 
contention with God because He accepted some or 
rejected others ; it would have blocked the way to 
that humiliation before the sovereign will, which 



GRACIOUS DISCOVERIES. 149 

is assumed to be the first step in the process of sal 
vation. We have met with this difficulty before 
in Edwards theology, and it is constantly recur 
ring. His doctrine of divine sovereignty was built 
upon the doctrine of election, and the doctrine of 
election made it impossible that God should love 
any but His elect. Hence the only encouragement 
which could be held out in the storm of the soul s 
conflict was the abstract principle of the mercy of 
God in Christ, or the probability of success to 
those who had strength to hold out until the de 
layed relief should come. 

When the legal distress had done its work, there 
came a calm to the soul, with special and delight 
ful manifestations of the grace of God. This 
period of what Edwards calls " gracious discover 
ies " also varies in different persons. Many con 
tinue a long time in a course of gracious exercises 
and experiences before they know themselves to be 
converted. But his observations lead him to con 
clude that those who have had great terrors are 
more apt to enter suddenly into light and com 
fort. It is in this stage that wise direction is most 
needed. It is impossible here to follow Edwards, 
as he specifies the different states of religious con 
sciousness in which the subsidence of anxiety 
leaves the soul. He enumerates many distinct 
varieties, all of which he regards as genuine, 
remarking that God is further from confining 
Himself to certain steps and a particular method 
than it may be some do imagine. These fleeting 



150 THE GREAT AWAKENING. 

phases of spiritual experience are all very real to 
Edwards view, more real than any similar number 
of varieties of species in the animal or vegetable 
kingdom. The one common element that runs 
through them all is relationship by feeling or 
emotion to an infinite Person. He would never 
have defined religion, as some have done, to be 
morality quickened by enthusiasm. Morality is 
there by a stringent necessity, but it is rather 
taken for granted than placed in the foreground. 

Edwards is specially desirous that his converts 
should express some conscious relationship to 
Christ, as well as to God. If his teaching regard 
ing justification by faith were true, Christ must 
of necessity reveal Himself in every soul. On this 
point his satisfaction was not always complete. A 
certain deistic tone marks the experience of some. 
" It must needs be confessed that Christ is not 
always distinctly and explicitly thought of in the 
first sensible act of grace." But turning over in 
his mind the confessions of such as these, he finds 
that they imply the Christ, though His name be 
not mentioned. 

This period of gracious strivings and discoveries 
is a confused and mixed period, a period when 
souls are coming to the birth, when the blind are 
first beginning to see, and, their spiritual senses not 
being trained, they may see men as trees walking. 
It is a period when resolutions are formed, and 
holy longings after God and Christ are nourished. 
It is now possible to admit a direct and supernat- 



SPIRITUAL DIRECTORSHIP. 151 

ural guidance, which draws forth the powers of the 
soul, the dawning of a bright day when the soul, 
turning its face toward the sun, opens out as flow 
ers open their leaves under kind and genial influ 
ences. 

In his capacity as a spiritual director Edwards 
strove to be prudent, though in after years he saw 
that he had made mistakes, and lamented his want 
of experience. He was criticised at tin s time for 
pronouncing too positively upon people s condition, 
for giving or withholding certificates of conver 
sion. It was surely a task full of peril, from 
which any one might shrink, to pronounce judg 
ment upon one s fellows, to assure some that 
they had entered into the life that is supernatural, 
or decide that the experience of others did not 
warrant a favorable conclusion. But at this time 
Edwards did not shrink from a task which seemed 
to him to lie in the way of duty. After he had 
seen the mischief of rash and premature judg 
ments, he would have been content to lay down 
principles, allowing to the judgment of charity the 
largest possible scope. As it was, he took a more 
comprehensive view than others in his age, vastly 
more comprehensive than was the fashion when 
revivals had been reduced to a part of the ecclesi 
astical machinery. He warned his people against 
being deceived in their own case, or the case of 
others ; he insisted that sincerity of life was bet 
ter evidence than the manifestation of words. He 
admits that it is not necessary or possible for all 



152 THE GREAT AWAKENING. 

to be aware of the exact moment when the myste 
rious change passed over them. He pointed out 
the difference he had observed in those who gave 
indubitable evidence of having successfully met the 
great crisis. "With some, converting light was a 
glorious brightness suddenly shining ; with others, 
it was like the slow dawning of the day. But in 
all cases it seemed to him " necessary to suppose 
that there was an immediate influence of the 
Spirit of God." One of the means by which the 
Spirit often worked was in bringing texts of Scrip 
ture to the mind. He would not call it an imme 
diate revelation without the action of the memory ; 
but yet there was in it an immediate and extraor 
dinary influence of the Spirit in leading the 
thoughts to passages of the Bible, or exciting them 
in the memory. Another illustration of the Spirit s 
working was in giving a direct insight into the 
truth of the great things of religion, an insight 
more convincing than the reading of many vol 
umes of argument would produce. Those who 
had witnessed this action of the Spirit had seen, 
tasted, and felt the divinity and the glory of Chris 
tian truth ; they might not be able to satisfy an 
inquirer with their reasons for believing, while yet 
they have intuitively beheld and immediately felt 
its reality. And it was a mistake into which many 
fell, that, because the illumination was in and 
through the reason, and so in accordance with 
their natural faculties, that therefore it had only a 
human origin. 



RELIGIOUS JOY AND ECSTASY. 153 

There was another result of the Spirit s action 
upon which Edwards much insists, the spiritual 
delights and joys which follow upon conversion. 
This had been at times his own experience. With 
out some measure of this joy and ecstasy, it seems 
as though he would have mistrusted the genuine 
ness of the Spirit s work. Since God is a su 
premely happy Being, the soul united to Him must 
necessarily share in the divine blessedness. Hence 
those who are converted express themselves to this 
effect, speaking of the excellency of that pleasure 
and delight of soul which they now enjoy ; how it 
is far more than sufficient to repay them for all 
the agony through which they have passed ; how 
far it exceeds all earthly pleasures, making them 
seem mean and worthless in comparison. 

" The light and comfort which some of them enjoy 
gives a new relish to their common blessings, and causes 
all things about them to appear as it were beautiful and 
sweet and pleasant to them ; all things abroad, the sun, 
moon, and stars, the clouds and sky, the heavens and 
earth, appear as it were with a cast of divine glory and 
sweetness. The sweetest joy that these good people 
amongst us express, though it include in it a delightful 
sense of the safety of their own state, and that they are 
now out of danger of hell, yet frequently, in times of 
their highest spiritual entertainment, this seems not to 
be the chief object of their fixed thought and meditation. 
The supreme attention of their minds is to the glorious 
excellences of God in Christ. . . . The joy that many 
of them speak is that to which none is to be paralleled ; 
is that which they find when they are lowest in the dust, 



154 TEE GREAT AWAKENING. 

emptied most of themselves, and as it were annihilating 
themselves before God, when they are nothing and God 
is all." 1 

In a time of such intense and almost universal 
excitement as that which pervaded the town of 
Northampton in 1734-35, it was to have been ex 
pected that there should be phenomena of a phys 
ical kind, a consequence indeed of the religious 
excitement, but having no essential religious char 
acter. There was much less of this kind of nervous 
manifestation in this first revival at Northampton 
than in the Great Awakening which followed five 
years later. This may have been owing in part to 
the prudence of Edwards, and to the fact that he 
kept the control of the movement as far as possi 
ble in his own hands. But under these favorable 
circumstances there were some things of a charac 
ter to discredit the movement. Many persons, as 
Edwards remarks, had a mean idea of the great 
work from what they heard of " impressions made 
on the imagination." These impressions consisted 
of lively pictures of hell, as of some dreadful fur 
nace ; or visions of Christ as a person with glori 
ous majesty and a sweet and gracious aspect ; or of 
Christ upon the cross with the blood running from 
his wounds. Edwards doubts if those who had 
these vivid impressions supposed that any objective 
character corresponded with them ; he thinks that 
such impressions were natural enough, and what 
was to have been expected from human nature un- 

i Narrative, etc., vol. iii. p. 255. 



IMPRESSIONS ON THE IMAGINATION. 155 

der such exceptional circumstances. He was dili 
gent in teaching persons the difference between 
what was spiritual and what was imaginary, cau 
tioning them to lay no stress on any external 
things. But he also admits that there have been 
some few instances of impressions on persons im 
aginations that have seemed mysterious to him, and 
which he has been at a loss to explain, uncertain 
whether they may not have involved some objective 
reality. But the subject is merely alluded to, at 
this time, in a casual way. We may also dismiss 
it here, recurring to it again, when it had assumed 
greater prominence and had become a matter of 
controversy. 

It has been already remarked that morality as 
such does not at first occupy a prominent place in 
Edwards description of the effects of the revival. 
He is chiefly concerned with the emotional moods 
which are aroused by coming into an immediate as 
well as endearing relation with God. As has also 
been pointed out w r hen treating of his theology, mo 
rality is included in the sphere of common grace, 
the grace which may come to all, but which does 
not bring salvation. Nowhere in his works does 
Edwards enter into an exposition of the moral law, 
as enjoined in the second table of the decalogue. 
He is occupied almost exclusively with the duty 
towards God. But while morality finds no place 
in Edwards systematic theology, except as the 
declaration of God s will revealed in Scripture, yet 
in practice there is no lack of emphasis upon the 



156 THE GREAT AWAKENING. 

moral duties of life. Edwards would not have 
been a Puritan had he shown indifference to the 
moral law, by which society is held together, by 
obedience to which conies self-respect and earthly 
prosperity. But he did not discuss ethical pre 
cepts, or reason about their validity. Pie took 
them for granted, as if at least so much must be 
required in order to the attainment of a higher 
ideal. 

A beautiful and impressive illustration of the high 
importance attached to the common duties of life is 
to be found in the Covenant which Edwards drew 
up, and which the people of Northampton sub 
scribed. Though it belongs to a later stage of the 
revival, when its necessity was more stringently 
felt, its introduction here may not be inappropri 
ate. There is a reminder in it of a similar cove 
nant which Pliny, the Roman governor, describes as 
forming a part of the worship of God in the primi 
tive Christian assemblies. Because of God s great 
goodness and His gracious presence in the town of 
Northampton during the late spiritual revival, 
so runs in substance the preamble to the covenant, 
the people present themselves before the Lord, 
to renounce their evil ways and to put away their 
abominations from before His eyes. They solemnly 
promise and vow before the Lord, in all their con 
cerns with their neighbor, to have a strict regard 
to rules of honesty, justice, and uprightness ; not to 
overreach or defraud him in any matter, or, either 
wilfully or through want of care, to injure him in 



TAKING THE COVENANT. 157 

any of his honest possessions or rights ; and to have 
a tender respect, not only to their own interest, but 
to his ; and particularly never to give him cause of 
offence by wilfully or negligently forbearing to pay 
their just debts ; wherever they may be conscious 
of having in the past wronged their neighbor in his 
outward estate, never to rest till they have made 
that restitution which the rules of moral equity re 
quire. They promise to avoid all backbiting, evil- 
speaking, and slandering, as also everything that 
feeds a spirit of bitterness or ill-will or secret 
grudge ; not to ridicule a neighbor s failings, or 
needlessly insist on his faults ; to do nothing in a 
spirit of revenge. And further, they will not allow 
their private interest or honor, or the desire for 
victory against a contrary party, to lead them into 
any course of which their consciences would re 
proach them as hurtful to religion or the interests 
of Christ s kingdom ; and particularly, in public 
affairs, not to allow the interests of party or the 
desire of worldly ambition to lead them counter 
to the interest of true religion. Those who are 
young promise to allow themselves in no diver 
sions or pastimes, meetings or companies, which 
would hinder a devout spirit engaged in religion, 
to avoid everything that tends to lasciviousness, 
and which they believe will not be approved by 
the infinitely pure and holy eye of God. They 
finally consecrate themselves to perform with great 
watchfulness the duties entailed by family rela 
tionships, whether parents and children, husbands 



158 THE GREAT AWAKENING. 

and wives, brothers and sisters, masters, mistresses, 
and servants. 1 

Among the results of this extraordinary dispen 
sation, as Edwards calls it, was the large addition 
to the ranks of the church, raising- the number of 
communicants to about six hundred and twenty. 
The unusual spectacle was presented of persons 
thronging into the church, nearly one hundred 
being received at one time and sixty at another, 
whose explicit profession of Christianity was very 
affecting to the congregation. Of these, Edwards 
remarks significantly, that he had sufficient evi 
dence of their conversion, though it was not the 
custom at Northampton, as it was in some churches 
in the country, to make a credible relation of 
their inward experience the ground of admission to 
the Lord s Supper. In the space of six months 
the number of those converted was upwards of 
three hundred, of whom as many as one half were 
men. This also seemed to Edwards a remarkable 
fact, inasmuch as he remembered to have heard 
Mr. Stoddard say that in his time many more 
women were converted than men. He was also 
struck with the large number of children who pro 
fessed what he regarded as a genuine experience. 
Among them was a child of four years, whose case 
seemed to him so wonderfid that he has related it 
at length, thinking that otherwise it would be in 
credible ; and incredible it does appear, despite the 
detail of his statement. 

1 Dwight, Life of Edwards, pp. 166-168. 



RELIGIOUS MELANCHOLIA. 159 

The excitement of the movement began to de 
cline in the spring of the year 1735. " In the 
latter part of May it began to be very sensible that 
the Spirit of God was gradually withdrawing from 
us, and after this time Satan seemed to be more let 
loose and raged in a dreadful manner." The first 
instance which illustrated his malignity was the 
case of a gentleman of high standing in the town, 
who fell into melancholia, and in this condition 
committed suicide. The people of Northampton 
were extraordinarily affected by this event, being 
as it were struck with astonishment. " After this, 
multitudes in this and other towns seemed to have 
it strongly suggested to them and pressed upon 
them to do as this person had done. And many 
that seemed to be under no melancholy, some pious 
persons that had no special darkness or doubts 
about the goodness of their state, nor were under 
any special trouble or concern of mind about any 
thing spiritual or temporal, yet had it urged upon 
them, as if somebody had spoken to them, Out your 
own throat ! now is a good opportunity. Now ! 
now ! So that they were obliged to fight with all 
their might to resist it, and yet no reason suggested 
to them why they should do it." 

We may be thankful to Edwards for the frank 
ness with which he describes the evil symptoms 
attending the movement in its decline. They in 
dicate the exhaustion of the nervotis system after 
the prolonged tension of the struggle or tragedy 
through which the people had been passing. A 



160 THE GREAT AWAKENING. 

morbid state had been induced where men are seen 
treading the ground which borders on insanity, 
where irrational suggestions and blind impulses 
threaten the supremacy of the will. But this frank 
avowal of the evils accompanying an excitement 
which was largely physical in its nature should 
not be abused to the spiritual discredit of the 
movement. Society was in the throes of a new 
birth. A step forward was to be taken which was 
to change the face of the social as well as the re 
ligious order. In such moments abnormal ele 
ments are sure to be found, mingling with, even 
appearing to grow out of, what is sound and true. 
It is quite possible that Edwards extraordinary 
personality, combined with his " terrific " preach 
ing, should be held responsible in some measure 
for these morbid tendencies. But to attribute 
them to this cause alone is to lose the deeper sig 
nificance of the fact, that similar phenomena have 
always attended those epochs when humanity is 
seen striving in some unusual way to realize the 
spiritual as distinct from and above the natural. 
Indeed, as we think of the sources from which great 
principles have so often taken their rise, or recall 
the disfigurements connected with revolutions that 
have advanced the truth, we are tempted to repeat 
the cry, Can any good come out of Nazareth ? 
But in all this we are anticipating a controversy 
which the opponents of the revival waged against 
its friends and leaders. 



II. 



THE GREAT AWAKENING. DISTINGUISHING MARKS 
OF A WORK OF THE SPIRIT OF GOD. 

FROM the first, Edwards had regarded the re 
vival at Northampton as the forerunner of some 
greater work. What had gone on under his vision 
seemed so exceptional in its character as to point 
toward the accomplishment of some vast organic 
change. If the movement had seemed to decline, 
it was in appearance only. In its apparent sub 
sidence it was like a fire that was slumbering. At 
last the smouldering embers broke forth in a great 
conflagration. 

It is not necessary to describe at length what 
has received the name of the Great Awakening. 
The account given of the first revival at Northamp 
ton will suffice to show its substantial character in 
the one hundred and fifty towns or more into which 
it extended. Edwards has left a brief account of 
its rise in his own parish in a letter to a Boston 
correspondent. 1 In some respects it differed from 
the first movement, more particularly in the matter 
of " bodily effects," such as faintings, outcries, and 
convulsions, which now became a common occur- 

1 Cf . Dwight, Life of Edwards, pp. 160, ff. For a description 
of the movement as a whole, cf. Tracy, The Great Awakening ; a 
History of the Revival of Religion in the time of Edwards and 
Whitqfield, Boston, 1842, a work of great interest and value. 



102 THE GREAT AWAKENING. 

rence, disturbing the order of public worship. The 
irrational purpose which aimed to bring young 
children under the influence of religious excite 
ment was also more pronounced, nor does Edwards 
feel its incongruity. But what is chiefly impor 
tant to note is, that the magnitude of the event was 
an adequate setting for the greatness of mind and 
character which Edwards now reveals. He stands 
forth as the originator, the director, the champion, 
of the movement. As such he was recognized at 
home and abroad. The deep response of religious 
sentiment originally evoked by his preaching called 
forth all his powers for its direction or defence. 
To the works which he now put forth in rapid suc 
cession we must turn our attention. They consti 
tute the most important literature of the revival. 
Most of them were republished in Scotland or 
England. They have an air as if of supreme mas 
tery of the situation. The reply to the enemies or 
critics of the movement is marked by the eloquence 
springing from the consciousness of a great cause. 
While his style is never free from cumbrous sen 
tences and awkward involutions, there are passages 
continually occurring which remind one of the 
masters of modern English. 

The first in this series of apologetic treatises is 
entitled The Distinguishing Marks of a Work of 
the Spirit of God. It was an expanded sermon, 
which had been delivered in 1741 at Xew Haven, 
from the text, " Beloved, believe not every spirit ; 
but try the spirits whether they are of God : be- 



ANALOGY OF MONASTICISM. 163 

cause many false prophets are gone out into the 
world." In this treatise Edwards appears as com 
mitting himself unreservedly to the divine origin 
and the divine character of the revival. It is true 
that so early as 1741 the worst features of the 
movement had not been developed. But evil ten 
dencies were at work, which those saw most clearly 
who had no sympathy with the movement, or who 
disowned the idea that it was divine. If it seems 
to any like a derogation from the greatness of Ed 
wards that he should have been entirely carried 
away by a movement which involved so many ir 
rational if not superstitious elements, where the 
puerile, the extravagant, and the false were so 
largely mingled with what was true, yet in this 
respect he is not an exception, but illustrates di 
rectly the rule in accordance with which men have 
risen to greatness in the church. " It is the higher 
order of minds," as a recent writer has remarked, 
" those endowed with the fire and sensibility of 
genius, whom religion seizes with an attractive 
force, and carries away with a bewildering enthu 
siasm." So also in the ancient church, the most 
eminent of the fathers, Athanasius and Basil, 
Jerome and Augustine, had been identified with 
the evils and the superstitions of monasticism, as 
it swept like a wave over the church of the fourth 
and fifth centuries. Those who were in opposition 
in both cases were men of an inferior stamp, ex 
cept in a certain mediocrity of common sense. 
But it will appear before we close our study of the 



164 THE GREAT AWAKENING. 

movement that Edwards was also going through 
a process of growth, of intellectual and spiritual 
purification, so that when the movement was over 
he is not standing exactly where he stood when it 
began. 

In his treatise on the Distinguishing Marks by 
which a work of the Spirit of God is to be known 
or tested, Edwards dwells at first in a general way 
on the principles at issue in any movement which 
claims to be of God. He meets in a negative 
fashion the various objections which have been or 
may be urged. Nothing, he argues, can be con 
tended against any religious movement from the 
fact that it is unusual or extraordinary. God is 
spoken of in Scripture as doing a strange work. 
There is reason to believe also, from prophecies in 
the Bible, that His greatest, most extraordinary 
work would take place in the latter ages of the 
world. Nor can any one conclude anything against 
such a work from " bodily effects," such as tears, 
groans, outcries, convulsions, or the failure of 
strength. Indeed it is only natural, in view of the 
close relation of body and spirit, that such things 
should be. So also in Scripture the jailer fell 
down before Paul and Silas in distress and trem 
bling. The Psalmist exclaimed, under convictions 
of conscience and a sense of the guilt of sin : 
" When I kept silence my bones waxed old through 
my roaring all the day long ; for day and night 
Thy hand was heavy on me." The disciples in the 
storm on the lake cried out for fear. The spouse 



THE IMAGINATION IN RELIGION. 165 

in the Canticles is overpowered with the love of 
Christ, and speaks of herself as sick with love. 
Again, it is no argument against the work that it 
occasions a great deal of noise about religion. So 
it was also in the apostles days, when they were 
charged with turning the world upside down. The 
vivid picturings of the imagination, which many 
disliked, Edwards does not find unreasonable. 
" Such is our nature that we cannot think of 
things invisible without a degree of imagination." 
He is even inclined to maintain a principle which 
may become the ground of the crudest anthropo 
morphism, the necessity of an image in the mind 
in order to realize the spiritual and invisible. If 
the imagination is the gift of God, he thinks it 
may be expected that He will make use of it for 
divine purposes, especially in those who are igno 
rant and must be dealt with as babes. It is not 
strange or unnatural that those upon whom the 
Spirit of God is working should go into ecstasy 
and have visions, as though they were rapt up into 
heaven and saw glorious sights. Such instances 
he himself has known. Some may interpret them 
wrongly, or lay too much weight upon them, but 
nevertheless they may be wrought by the Spirit of 
God, however indirect or incidental His operation. 
And again, if some thought lightly of the revival 
because it seemed to be propagated by the conta 
gion of example, Edwards contends that the word 
of God may operate through example and make it 
effectual. A work may be from God also, and yet 



166 THE GREAT AWAKENING. 

its subjects may be guilty of great imprudences 
and irregularities. Errors in judgment and delu 
sions of Satan may be intermixed with what is 
divine. It was so also in the apostles days, as in 
the church at Corinth. And even if some who 
seem to have been wrought upon fall away into 
gross errors or scandalous practices, this is no ar 
gument that a work is not of God. Some of the 
opponents of the revival had attributed the move 
ment to the preaching of the terrors of law and of 
endless punishment. This also Edwards defends 
as a legitimate method, indeed the only honorable 
method, of procedure. If these things were true, 
they could not be preached too strongly. 

As to the positive features of a work of God, 
they are such as these : the awakening of the con 
science to a sense of sin and need of a Saviour ; 
the confirmation of men in the belief in Jesus as 
the Son of God ; the increased importance attached 
to the truths of the Bible, and its more frequent 
use. To turn men from darkness to light, to im 
part a spirit of divine love or Christian humilia 
tion, these are things which the evil spirit would 
not do, nor could he if he would. 

But the interest of this treatise does not lie in 
this general consideration of the subject. What 
ever Edwards wrote had always some very definite 
bearing, some concrete relation to the issues of the 
time. It is when we come to the last section of 
his book, which is headed " Practical Inferences," 
that we touch the vital questions to which the revi- 



BODILY EFFECTS. 167 

val had given birth. The first of these is the 
" bodily effects," the outcries, faintings, and convul 
sions, which caused many sensible men to look 
upon the movement as of purely human origin, or 
as having its rise in diseased or abnormal condi 
tions of mind or body. Upon this point Edwards 
voice has no uncertain sound. He appeals to his 
large experience as the ground of his conviction 
that the " bodily effects " are wrought incidentally 
by the Spirit of God, and are evidence of His un 
usual presence and power in the congregation. He 
has no desire to check this feature of the revival. 
It is no mark of confusion, but rather the sign of 
a higher order which God is evolving. These un 
common appearances have been manifested by 
those who have been in great distress from an ap 
prehension of their sin and misery ; or else by 
those who have been overcome with a sweet sense 
of the greatness, wonderfulness, and excellency of 
divine things. In very few cases has there been 
any appearance of feigning or affecting such man 
ifestations, and in very many cases it would have 
been utterly impossible to suppress them. 

" Not but that I think the persons thus extraordinarily 
moved should endeavor to refrain from such outward 
manifestations, what they well can, and should refrain 
to their utmost at the time of their solemn worship. But 
if God is pleased to convince the consciences of persons, 
so that they cannot avoid great outward manifestations, 
even to interrupting and breaking off those public means 
they were attending, I do not think this is confusion or 



168 THE GREAT AWAKENING. 

an unhappy interruption, any more than if a company 
should meet on the field to pray for rain and should be 
broken off from their exercise by a plentiful shower. 
Would to God that all the public assemblies in the land 
were broken off from their public exercises with such 
confusion as this the next Sabbath day ! We need not be 
sorry for breaking the order of means by obtaining the 
end to which that order is directed. He who is going to 
fetch a treasure need not be sorry that he is stopped by 
meeting the treasure in the midst of his journey." 

Edwards gives an intimation, however, in pass 
ing, to the effect that he does not suppose that the 
degree of the Spirit s influence is to be determined 
by the degree of effect on men s bodies ; or that 
those are always the best experiences which show 
the greatest influence on the body. The caution 
was needed, but he does not enlarge upon it. He 
is at present preoccupied with another purpose, 
to affirm strongly that this work is of God, despite 
all its extravagances ; or else we may as w r ell throw 
by our Bibles and give up revealed religion alto 
gether. The imprudences, irregularities, and the 
mixture of delusion are tilings to be expected and 
taken for granted. "As in the first creation, God 
did not make a complete world at once, but there 
wns a great deal of imperfection, darkness, and 
mixture of chaos and confusion, after God first 
said, Let there be light, before the whole stood 
forth in perfect form." So in the deliverance of 
the chosen people from Egypt the false wonders 
were for a time mixed up with the true. When 



INTERMINGLING OF EVIL WITH GOOD. 169 

the sons of God came to present themselves before 
the Lord, Satan came also among them. When 
daylight first appears after a night of darkness, we 
must expect to have darkness mixed with light for 
a while before the perfect day and the sun in his 
strength. The fruits of the earth are green before 
they are ripe, and come to their perfection grad 
ually ; and so, Christ tells us, is the kingdom of 
God. The errors that have attended the work are 
the less to be wondered at because it is mainly 
young persons who have been the subjects of the 
work. And further, the situation has been so ex 
traordinary that even ministers have not always, 
known how to conduct themselves. But, on the 
whole, judging from his own experience at North 
ampton, there has been less of enthusiastic wild- 
ness and extravagance than in the earlier revival of 
1735. He closes his book with a pathetic charge 
to those who are indifferent to the work, and then 
offers some suggestions to its friends. 

To the first of these classes he speaks with that 
unique power of direct appeal which made him the 
foremost preacher of his day. So intense is his 
conviction that Jehovah has bowed the heavens 
and come down, and appeared wonderfully in the 
land, that those opposed to him must have almost 
wanted to feel, despite their reason, that they were 
in the wrong. Those silent ministers who stood by, 
waiting: to see what would come out of the move- 

O 

ment, he accused of standing m the way of God. 
He assures those who are offended by stumbling- 



170 THE GREAT AWAKENING. 

blocks, that these rocks of offence are likely to in 
crease rather than diminish ; and Blessed is he 
whosoever is not offended in me. He is afraid 
that these prudent persons, who stand at a distance 
and look on, will miss the most precious opportu 
nity of obtaining 1 light and grace which God ever 
gave in New England. He warns those who speak 
contemptuously of these things to beware lest they 
commit the unpardonable sin. But whether they 
resist or not, God will have His way in the long run, 
and make all men know that the great Jehovah 
has actually been in New England. 

To the friends of the work lie finally appeals, 
urging them to avoid as far as possible all occasion 
of reproach. He thinks that some of them have 
erred in giving too much heed to impulses and 
strong impressions 011 their minds, as if they were 
signs from heaven revealing to them the will of 
God. The disposition to attach value to these im- 
pulses and impressions he attributes in some meas 
ure to a wrong conception which many entertain, 
that in the approaching happy days of the church 
the extraordinary gifts of the apostolic age will 
be restored. While Edwards admitted and justi 
fied the " bodily effects," he stood like a rock in 
resisting this tendency, which many exhibited, to 
concede value or reality to impulses and impres 
sions. Whitefield, it is well known, magnified the 
importance of these impulses ; he sought for them 
in prayer, and professed to be guided by them. 
When he visited Northampton in 1740, Edwards 



IMPULSES AND IMPRESSIONS. 171 

took occasion, both in private and in company with 
others, to remonstrate with him for giving too much 
heed to these things. It was Edwards opinion 
that Whitefield, though he received his remon 
strance kindly, did not from that time regard him 
as an intimate and confidential friend, as he might 
otherwise have done. 1 

It may seem like an inconsistency in Edwards 
to have admitted the " bodily effects " while deny 
ing the validity of impulses. But there is some 
thing also to be said in his behalf. The subject 
will be resumed in a later chapter, when Edwards 
attitude will appear more clearly. But in regard 
to impressions on the mind which revealed the will 
of God, his reasoning was clear and powerful. 
Not only so, but his eloquence in resisting them 
rises to its greatest height. All that was most 
profound and distinctive in his theology lay be 
neath his repugnance to what seemed to him as un- 
spiritual as it was irrational. The extraordinary 
gifts of the Spirit, such as marked the apostolic 

1 Cf. Dwight, Life of Edwards, p. 147. The practice of the 
brothers Charles and John Wesley in this respect differed from 
that of Whitefield. But they differed also from each other in re 
gard to " bodily effects." John Wesley approved them. It is 
said that Charles, however, on one occasion notified his congrega 
tion that any one who was convulsed should be carried out, and 
this notice insured perfect quiet. But both Charles and John 
were agreed in accepting the Moravian method of solving doubts 
as to some course of action by opening the Bible at hazard and 
regarding the passage on which the eye first alighted as a revela 
tion of God s will in the matter. Cf. Wedgwood, Life of Wes 
ley, p. 19-3 ; Southey, Life of Wesley, vol i. p. 216. 



172 THE GREAT AWAKENING. 

age, even the inspiration of prophets and evange 
lists, these are of a different nature from, as well as 
inferior to, those gracious influences of the Spirit 
which mark the Christian calling. " God commu 
nicates His own nature to the soul, in saving grace 
in the heart, more than in all miraculous gifts." 
Salvation is promised to the possession of divine 
grace, but not of inspiration. A man may have 
these extraordinary gifts and yet be abominable to 
God. Spiritual life in the soul is given by God only 
to his favorites and dear children, while inspiration 
may be thrown out, as it were, to dogs and swine, 
a Balaam, Saul, and Judas. Many wicked men 
at the day of judgment will plead that they have 
prophesied, and cast out devils, and done many 
wonderful works. " The greatest privilege of 
prophets and apostles was not their being inspired 
and working miracles, but their eminent holiness. 
The grace that was in their hearts was a thousand 
times more their dignity and honor than their mi 
raculous gifts. . . . The apostle Paul abounded in 
visions, revelations, and miraculous gifts, above all 
the apostles ; but yet he esteems all things but loss 
for the excellency of the spiritual knowledge of 
Christ. . . . To have grace in the heart is a 
higher privilege than the blessed virgin herself 
had in having the body of the second person in 
the Trinity conceived in her womb by the power 
of the Highest overshadowing her. And it came 
to pass, as He spake these things, a certain woman 
of the company lift up her voice and said unto 



MIRACLES AND INSPIRATION. 173 

Him, Blessed is the womb that bare Thee, and the 
paps which Thou hast sucked ! But He said, Yea, 
rather blessed are they that hear the word of God 
and keep it. " It is the influence of the Holy 
Spirit, or divine charity in the heart, which is the 
greatest privilege and glory of the highest arch 
angel in heaven ; this is the thing by which the 
creature has fellowship with the Father and the 
Son, and becomes partaker of the divine nature in 
its beauty and happiness. 

" The glory of the approaching happy state of the 
church does not at all require these extraordinary gifts. 
As that state of the church will be the nearest of any 
to its perfect state in heaven, so I believe it will be like 
it in this, that all extraordinary gifts shall have ceased 
and vanished away. . . . The apostle speaks of these 
gifts of inspiration as childish things in comparison of 
the influence of the Spirit in divine love ; things given 
to the church only to support it in its minority, . . . 
which should vanish away when the church came to a 
state of manhood. Therefore I do not expect a restora 
tion of these miraculous gifts in the approaching glo 
rious times of the church, nor do I desire it. It appears 
to me that it would add nothing to the glory of those 
times, but rather diminish from it. For my part, I had 
rather enjoy the sweet influences of the Spirit, showing 
Christ s spiritual, divine beauty, infinite grace, and dy 
ing love, drawing forth the holy exercises of faith, divine 
love, sweet complacence, and humble joy in God one 
quarter of an hour, than to have prophetical visions and 
revelations the whole year." 1 

1 Distinguishing Marks, etc., vol. i. pp. 556, 558. 



174 THE GREAT AWAKENING. 

In the light of these words, what Edwards 
thought about the " bodily affections " grows 
clearer. While he held that such things were 
incidental merely to the communication of the 
divine grace, yet it may be that he clung to them 
the more strongly in proportion as his idealism 
threatened to snap the bond which connects the 
spiritual with its physical embodiment. But it is 
in these passages above quoted that we have his 
deepest conviction, his most characteristic thought. 
And these forcible and beautiful utterances, assert 
ing the superiority of the spiritual as if ineffably 
higher than all mechanical gifts or outward signs 
or manifestations of power, have important and 
far - reaching relations. They may be taken as 
marking an epoch in the history of religious prog 
ress. Their spirit has passed into the theology 
of New England, forming, as it were, a bulwark 
against mediaeval religion with its tendency to 
deify the material and the outward, or to sanction 
the worship of the body rather than the spirit of 
Christ. They have become the charter of relig 
ious idealism as contrasted with religious material 
ism. They stand out in sharp contrast also with 
reactionary religious movements in our own day, 
notably that led by Edward Irving, whose object 
was to restore to the modern church the gifts of 
the apostolic age, such as prophesyings, speaking 
with tongues, or miraculous cures of disease, as if 
these were the highest reaches of faith, the evi 
dences most needed or desired in order to attest 
the vitality and certitude of Christian belief. 



IMPORTANCE OF HUMAN LEARNING. 175 

One inference from his attitude on this subject 
Edwards immediately proceeded to draw. Itine 
rant preachers were then beginning 1 to travel about 
the country, proclaiming that human learning was 
not necessary to the work of the ministry. The 
phrase, " lowly preaching," was coming into vogue 
as compared with the ministrations of an educated 
clergy. Against the itinerants, who decried theo 
logical culture and depended upon inspiration, 
Edwards urged his hearers not to despise human 
learning. But he does not stop to argue the point. 
It was too manifest to be denied, that God might 
make great use of human learning. And if so, 
then study, the means by which it was to be 
acquired, should not be neglected. " Though hav 
ing the heart full of the powerful influences of 
the Spirit of God may at some times enable per 
sons to speak profitably, yet this will not warrant 
us to cast ourselves down from the pinnacle of the 
temple, depending upon it that the angel of the 
Lord will bear us up, and keep us from dashing 
our foot against a stone, when there is another 
way to go down, though it be not so quick." He 
also urged that method in sermons should not be 
neglected, since it tends greatly to help the un 
derstanding and memory. And another thing he 
would beg the dear children of God more fully to 
consider is, how far and upon what grounds they 
are warranted by Scripture in passing judgment 
upon other professing Christians as hypocrites, 
and ignorant of real religion. It is God alone 



176 THE GREAT AWAKENING. 

who knoweth the hearts of the children of men. 
To his own master every man standeth or falleth. 
Judge nothing before the time, until the Lord 
cometh. Let tares and wheat grow together till 
the harvest. They greatly err who take upon 
themselves to determine who are sincere and who 
are not. His own experience has taught him that 
the heart of man is more unsearchable than he 
had once supposed. " I am less charitable and 
less uncharitable than once I was. I find more 
things in wicked men that may counterfeit and 
make a fair show of piety ; and more ways that 
the remaining corruption of the godly may make 
them appear like carnal men than once I knew 
of." And finally he admits that it would be 
wise to consider that excellent rule of prudence 
which Christ has left us, not to put a piece of new 
cloth into an old garment. In former years, he 
thinks there was too great confinement within one 
stated method and form of procedure, which had a 
tendency to cause religion to degenerate into for 
mality. And now whatever has the appearance of 
great innovation may shock and surprise the minds 
of people, setting them to talking and disputing, 
perplexing many with doubts and scruples, and 
so hinder the progress of religion. That which is 
much beside the common practice, unless it be a 
thing in its own nature of considerable importance, 
had better be avoided. Let them follow the ex 
ample of St. Paul, who made it a rule to become 
all things to all men, that he might by all means 
save some. 



m. 



EVILS AND ABUSES OF THE GREAT AWAKENING. 
" THOUGHTS ON THE REVIVAL." 

THE Distinguishing Marks had been written in 
1741, before the Awakening had reached its great 
est headway as a movement, before it had engen 
dered the abuses which were destroying not only 
the peace, but threatened the very life, of the New 
England churches. In 1742 it became evident 
that something must be done to guide and control 
the movement if it w r ere not to issue in religious 
anarchy. In ecclesiastical parlance, it was "an 
unhappy time " for the churches during the years 
from 1742 to 1745. So grievous were the evils 
that some have thought the subsequent slumber of 
the American churches for nearly seventy years 
may have been owing to the reaction which they 
produced. These evils sprang from the extrava 
gant assertion or misapplication of the principle 
for which Edwards stood as the foremost champion. 
The doctrine of the immediate contact of the Holy 
Spirit with the human heart a principle in whose 
defence he never wavered was the source, or to 
speak more correctly the occasion, from whence 
came the confusion, the divisions and separations, 
the superstitions, which disfigured a movement 
which he believed to be divine. What Luther had 
feared, when he first heard of the teachings of the 



178 THE GREAT AWAKENING. 

Zwickau prophets, had actually come to pass in the 
New England churches. What the early Puritans 
themselves had dreaded as the necessary outcome 
of Quaker preaching was now resulting from the 
influential utterance of similar views by one the 
most honored in their own ranks. 

It is better not to obscure the issue by seeking 
some other cause for the confusion. Edwards 
himself recognized that this principle of the im 
mediate divine influence not only gave birth to the 
disorder, but was likely to result in still greater 
disorder before the work was over. But, unlike 
Luther, Edwards refused to abandon the princi 
ple, though he was becoming keenly alive to the 
mischief which its misapprehension was working. 
In the presence of the Zwickau prophets, Luther 
denied the truth of the immediacy of the divine 
action, falling back upon the Word and the Sacra 
ments as the external channels of the divine com 
munication. Edwards adhered to his conviction, 
and labored to purify it from abuse and misinter 
pretation. 

The history of these years, from 1742 to 1745, 
may be studied elsewhere. 1 It is only as Edwards 
is concerned that we propose to follow it. But a 
general summary of the situation may be given, in 
order to a clearer appreciation of his work as a 
religious teacher and reformer. One of the most 
embarrassing features of the revival, with which 
the clergy were called to deal, was the disturbances 
1 Cf . Tracy, Great Awakening, pp. 286, fE. 



EVILS OF THE REVIVAL. 179 

in the congregations on Sunday caused by the 
"bodily effects," - the faintings and fallings, the 
weeping and shouting, the trances, the convulsions. 
This was bad enough. But a worse effect followed 
from the popular idea that these things were the 
best evidence of the Spirit s presence and power. 
Religious experiences came to be tested by the 
" bodily effects." There was a rivalry among the 
people as to who should display the most striking 
manifestations. Even at Northampton, among a 
people of whom Edwards was proud as having had 
an excellent training under Mr. Stoddard in spirit 
ual things, and who were noted for their large and 
varied experiences, as well as by their wisdom and 
sobriety, even here the delusion extended. People 
came from abroad who had seen displays of power 
to which Northampton had hitherto been a stran 
ger ; and the work, which had before been compar 
atively pure, now degenerated into this unspiritual 
rivalry. The revival had issued everywhere in a 
sharp distinction between the converted and the 
unconverted. Those who believed themselves con 
verted were not only puffed up with pride, but 
undertook to judge the condition of others in the 
light of their own experience. This practice was 
most fruitful in bitter results. The converted drew 
off from the unconverted, avoiding those who were 
regarded as still in darkness, and addressing each 
other as brother or sister. Itinerant lay preach 
ers, as well as itinerants among the clergy, now 
appeared on the scene to add to the disorder. 



180 THE GREAT AWAKENING. 

They were uneducated in many instances, trusting 
to impulses and impressions, which they held to be 
the direct result of the voice of the Spirit within 
them ; they appealed to the feelings of those al 
ready excited by irrational and noisy exhorting ; 
and, worst of all, they undertook to pronounce 
upon the spiritual condition of the pastors of the 
various churches in the towns which they visited. 
It is mainly to Whitefield that this principle of 
confusion must be attributed. lie had allowed 
himself to intrude into parishes, to condemn their 
ministers as unconverted, and had in many cases 
advised the people to separate from their ministry. 
It is only proper to add that Whitefield saw his 
errors and acknowledged them, but not before he 
had been the author of a great mischief. The re 
port was bruited about that he intended to bring 
over young men from England to take the place of 
unconverted ministers. 1 Separatist congregations 

1 This report gave rise to a prolonged personal controversy be 
tween Edwards and Rev. Mr. Clap, rector of Yale College. It 
seems that Whitefield had told Edwards that he intended to bring 
over from England into New Jersey and Pennsylvania a number 
of young men to be ordained by the two Mr. Tennents. This was 
in 1740. Some time afterwards, when the excitement over White- 
field s course in New England was at its height, Edwards hap 
pened to be riding on horseback to Boston in company with 
Rector Clap, to whom he imparted this information of White- 
field s former intention in regard to New Jersey, and added, 
perhaps incautiously, that he supposed him to have a similar 
intention in regard to New England. On the strength of this 
conversation. Rector Clap declared publicly, that Edwards had 
informed him that Whitefield had told Edwards that he intended 
to bring over young men from England, etc., to supply the places 



OPPOSITION TO THE REVIVAL. 181 

were springing up all over New England, based 
upon the ancient Montanist principle that it was 
the will of God to have a pure church, in which 
the converted should be separated from the uncon 
verted. All the errors of the revival were em 
bodied in these separatist congregations, reliance 
upon impressions as guides to conduct, and to the 
knowledge of their own and each other s condi 
tions ; disowning of the ministers and churches of 
the land as lacking the attestation of the Spirit ; 
approval of lay exhorting as having the only evi 
dence of a divine presence. 1 

Those opposed to the revival now put forth a 
vigorous opposition. The colleges at Cambridge 
and New Haven pronounced against the movement, 
and did much to stay the disorder by the influence 
of prescriptive authority. The opposition was led 
by Dr. Chauncy, of the First Church in Boston, in 
bold and able treatises, 2 in which he condemned the 

of the New England clergy. Such a report, of course, was fuel 
to the excitement. Edwards denied the veracity of Rector Clap s 
statement. Many letters passed between the two, in which the 
Rector of Yale College was finally worsted. The controversy 
has no value beyond illustrating the tenacity with which Edwards 
hung on to an opponent until he had silenced him. The corre 
spondence was published, and may be found in the library of the 
Massachusetts Historical Society. 

1 Cf. Tracy, etc., p. 317, for the Confession of Faith of one of 
these separatist churches at Mansfield. 

2 In 1743 Chauncy published a reply to Edwards Distinguish 
ing Marks, etc., under the title, The Late Religious Commotions in 
New England Considered. He seems to have been fond of issu 
ing his works anonymously. In this case he signs himself "A 
lover of truth and peace." Edwards makes no allusion to him 
by name in his works written in defence of the revival. 



182 THE GREAT AWAKENING. 

whole movement as a delusion, the bodily effects 
as evidence of human weakness rather than divine 
power ; and denounced the intrusions into quiet 
villages, and the separations from the established 
order, as the greatest evil with which New Eng 
land could be visited. Religion, with him and 
those who agreed with him, consisted in responding 
to the divine will by a simple life of obedience to 
the moral precepts of the gospel. Emotions and 
high experiences he rejected, along with impulses 
and impressions, as having a common origin in a 
debased abnormal condition. The Arminians, and 
their sympathizers among the old Calviiiists who 
did not follow with Edwards, appear as the con 
servative power in the churches, resisting changes 
which were dissolving the ancient Puritan order. 
The General Convention of Congregational Minis 
ters in the Province of Massachusetts Bay put 
forth in 1743 their testimony " against errors in 
doctrine and disorders in practice which have of 
late obtained in various parts of the land." In 
Connecticut the evils of the time were met by an 
effort to enforce the principles of the Saybrook 
Platform, in which Congregationalism availed it 
self of Presbyterian discipline as a better method 
of resisting disorder than the principle of the inde 
pendence of the local congregation. 

It is characteristic of Edwards that, in rising to 
the emergency, he does not fall back upon external 
authority, or any adventitious methods which might 
serve a temporary convenience. Pie grapples with 



APPEAL TO NEW ENGLAND. 183 

the principle at issue, making his appeal to the 
pure reason. Hitherto his writings had been ad 
dressed in the first instance to a congregation from 
the pulpit. In his Thoughts upon the Revival in 
New England he speaks to all the clergy and peo 
ple in the provinces of the new world. No high 
ecclesiastical official, no successor of Augustine in 
the chair of Canterbury, not even Gregory the 
Great when he spoke with authority to Western 
Christendom, reproving and exhorting as by di 
vine right, none of these surpassed Edwards 
when he rose in the consciousness of his strength, 
clothed with the majesty of what he held for vital 
and eternal truth, to instruct and to warn the peo 
ple of New England as to their duty in a great 
crisis. His leading aim is to show what are the 
things which should be avoided or corrected in 
order to the furtherance of this work of God. 
He confesses that things have never yet been set 
agoing in their right channel ; that if they had been, 
the work would have so prevailed as to carry all 
before it, and to have triumphed over New Eng 
land as its conquest. He apologizes for assuming 
so high and important a role, on the score of his 
youth (he was then in his fortieth year) ; he 
speaks of himself, in the conventional phraseology, 
as an " inferior worm ; " he is anxious not to ap 
pear as taking too much upon him, as if he were 
dictating or determining the duty of his fathers or 
superiors or the civil rulers. But it is a day when 
great liberty is allowed to the press, when every 



184 THE GREAT AWAKENING. 

author may freely speak his mind concerning the 
management of civil affairs, as in the war then 
raging with Spain. When he considers the sad 
jangling and confusion that has attended the revi 
val, it seems plain that somebody should speak his 
mind, and that not in away to inflame and increase 
the uproar, but to bring the bitter contention to an 
end. If he is right, he hopes his work will be re 
ceived as a manifestation of the mind and will of 
God. If any will hold forth further light to him 
he will thankfully receive it. He feels his need of 
greater wisdom, and makes it his rule to lay hold 
of light, though it come from a child or an enemy. 

Edwards book, with the title, Thoughts on the 
Revival, was published in 1742. It not only bears 
the traces of being written in haste, but it lacks 
unity of impression, owing to the conflicting mo 
tives which impelled him to his task. To defend 
the movement as divine, while pointing out its 
flagrant abuses, was no easy task. But the defence 
of the work comes first in the order of treatment, 
for on this point Edwards had an overwhelming 
conviction that demanded a full and earnest ut 
terance. 

One of the arguments on which he most relies 
to prove the movement from God is the great 
transformation it has worked among the churches. 
" Who that saw the state of things in New Eng 
land a few years ago/ he exclaims, " would have 
thought that in so little a time there would be such 
a change ! " Notwithstanding all the imprudences 



RELIGIOUS TRANSFORMATION. 185 

and sinful irregularities, it was manifest and noto 
rious that throughout the land there had been an 
increase of a spirit of seriousness. The fruits of 
this seriousness were seen in a disposition to treat 
religion as a matter of great importance, to per 
form the external duties of religion in a more sol 
emn and decent manner. There had been an 
awakening of the conscience of the people, which 
had led to deeper views of human sinfuliiess. 
There was a strange alteration almost all over 
New England amongst young people. A powerful 
invisible influence must have been at work which 
had induced them to forsake their devious ways, 
when hitherto they had clung to them despite the 
warnings of the ministers, or the vigilance of the 
civil magistrates. They had now abandoned their 
frolicking, their night-walking, their impure lan 
guage and lewd songs. And among all, whether 
old or young, there was to be seen a change in 
their habits of drinking, tavern -haunting, profane 
speaking, and extravagance of apparel. Notoriously 
vicious persons have been reformed. The wealthy, 
the fashionable, the gay, great beaus and fine ladies, 
have relinquished their vanities. Through the 
greater part of New England the Bible has come 
into much greater esteem than it had formerly 
been, as also other books of piety. The Lord s 
day has come to be more religiously observed. 
Much had been done in making up differences, in 
offering restitution, and in the confession of faults 
one to another, probably more within these two 



186 THE GREAT AWAKENING. 

years than had been done in thirty years before. 
And in view of all this, was it not strange that, in 
a Christian, orthodox country, and in such a land 
of light, there should be many at a loss whether 
the work is of God, or of the devil ? For this is 
certain, that it is a great and wonderful event, a 
strange revolution, an unexpected, surprising over 
turning of things, such as has never been seen in 
New England, and scarce ever has been heard of 
in any land. If it is a work of God, it is a most 
glorious work, or, if a work of the devil, then a 
most awful calamity. There is but one alternative. 
God and the devil may work together at the same 
time and in the same land ; but they cannot work 
together in producing the same event. 

For these reasons he calls upon the magistrates, 
as well as the clergy, to acknowledge God in this 
work, and to put their hand to its promotion, if 
they would not expose themselves to the curse of 
God. He recommends also that the press should 
be utilized to this end. They that handle the pen 
of the writer should come up to the help of the 
Lord. He warns those who are publishing pam 
phlets, in which they endeavor to discourage or 
hinder the work, that God may go forth as fire to 
consume all that stands in His way, and so burn up 
those pamphlets ; and there may be danger that 
the fire which is kindled in them may scorch the 
authors. He intimates that jealousy or envy may 
be among the motives which influence the minis 
ters to show themselves out of humor, or sullenly 



THE OLD REGIME. 187 

refuse to acknowledge the work. Let them not 
decline to give the honor that belongs to others 
because they are young or inferior to themselves, 
or may appear unworthy that so much honor should 
be put upon them. But among the clergy who may 
be thus tempted he includes himself, for he had 
experienced the trial of seeing a young man in his 
pulpit at Northampton whose moving power on the 
congregation proved greater than his own. There 
is a hint in all this that the old regime was coming 
to an end, when the minister might grow old in his 
parish with the increasing reverence of his people, 
even though the fire of a fervent oratory had de 
clined. But Edwards was inclined to acquiesce in 
the change. " It is our wisest and best way to 
bow to the great God in this work, and to l>e en 
tirely resigned to Him with respect to the manner 
in which He carries it on." 

Among the reasons which explain the error of 
those who have had ill thoughts in regard to the 
revival, Edwards assigns the neglect of the Bible, 

the sole rule by which such thing s should be 
judged. They follow, instead, their a priori no 
tions, or they make philosophy instead of Scrip 
ture their rule, and so reach the conclusion that 
religion is running out into transports and high 
flights of the affections. These persons separate 
the affections from the will, as if they did not 
belong to the noblest part of the soul, so that 
the relation of the affections to Christianity is 

regarded as something adventitious or accidental. 



188 THE GREAT AWAKENING. 

Those gentlemen who hold such a view labor, he 
thinks, under a great mistake both in their philos 
ophy and divinity. The religious affections apper 
tain to the essence of Christianity ; the very life 
and soul of all true religion consists in them. The 
affections, he argues, should not be separated from 
the will as though they were two distinct faculties. 
Acts of the will are simply acts of the affections. 
The soul wills one thing rather than another, no 
otherwise than as it loves one thing more than 
another. The greater, therefore, ancl the higher 
the exercises of love toward God and of self-ab 
horrence for sin, so much higher is Christ s reli 
gion, and the virtue which lie raises in the soul. 

But another cause which helps to explain the 
disaffection toward the revival is to be found in 
the failure to discriminate between the evil and 
the good which are associated in the movement. 
Because of this want of discrimination, things are 
condemned as abuses which Edwards refuses to 
condemn. Among these was the style of preach 
ing then coming into fashion, what Edwards calls 
a very affectionate manner of speaking, with great 
appearance of earnestness both in voice and ges 
ture. It was objected that this method of preach 
ing stirred the affections without reaching the 
understanding. Edwards admits the importance 
of clear and distinct explanation of the doctrines 
of religion, a method in which lay his own 
strength, in great part, as a preacher. But it is 
evident that in meeting this objection he is dis- 



AFFECTIONATE MODE OF PREACHING. 189 

tracted by contrary impulses. It would have been 
a more congenial task to have upheld the impor 
tance of the scientific, speculative aspects of Chris 
tian truth. But on the other hand he recognizes in 
the objection the desire to eliminate the emotions 
from the sphere of practical piety, and in the 
emotions he considers the chief part of religion to 
consist. Hence he maintains the correctness and 
necessity of this mode of preaching which appeals 
to the affections. He endeavors, by a subtle dis 
tinction, to show that the affections cannot really 
be excited except by light in the understanding. 
We are to infer, therefore, that this affectionate 
mode of preaching must somehow reach the mind 
before it stirs the passions. The mind may be 
enlightened without a learned handling of the doc 
trinal points of religion. Edwards now goes so 
far as to maintain that speculative knowledge of 
divinity is not what is chiefly needed at this time, 
but rather warmth of devotion. The age, he 
thinks, abounds in this kind of knowledge. " Was 
there ever an age," he exclaims, " wherein strength 
and penetration of reason, extent of learning, ex 
actness of distinction, correctness of style, clear 
ness of expression, did so abound? And yet was 
there ever an age in which there was so little sense 
of the evil of sin, so little love to God, or holiness 
of life? What the people need is, not to have 
their heads stored, so much as to have their hearts 
touched." Here, also, Scripture comes to his assist 
ance. It seems to be foretold that in the latter days 



190 THE GREAT AWAKENING. 

there will be a loud and earnest preaching of the 
gospel. O Jerusalem, that bringest good tidings, 
lift up thy voice with strength, cry aloud, spare 
not, is the divine injunction. This is to be the 
way with the church at the supreme moment when 
the Christ mystical is about to be brought forth. 

The next abuse mentioned, which Edwards will 
not admit as such, is preaching terror to the peo 
ple when they are already under great terrors, 
instead of preaching comfort. He admits of 
course that something else besides terror is to be 
preached. But before a sinner s conversion through 
repentance and faith, there is no danger, he thinks, 
of overdoing the terrors of the law. To bring in 
the gospel too soon would be to undo the previous 
distress. The phase of distress and terrors is 
the moment of the minister s opportunity. He 
must strike while the iron is hot ; then only will 
the work be thoroughly done. He himself is not 
afraid to tell sinners, who are most sensible of their 
misery, that their case is a thousand times worse 
than they imagine ; for this is the truth. If all 
this should lead in some cases to religious melan 
choly, it is not the fault of the ministers. The 
same objection might be urged against the Bible 
as against awakening preaching. There are hun 
dreds and probably thousands of instances of per 
sons who have murdered themselves under religious 
melancholy, which would not have been the case if 
they had remained in heathen darkness. 

That which more especially gave offence to 



CHILDREN IN THE REVIVAL. 191 

many was tjie frightening of poor, innocent chil 
dren with talk of hell fire and eternal damnation. 
This, also, Edwards maintains, is not an abuse. 
Those who complain of the ministers who follow 
this method raise a loud cry, as if such conduct 
were intolerable. But this complaint only betrays 
weakness and inconsideration. Here follows the 
passage which has been remembered against Ed 
wards to our own day : 

" As innocent as young children seem to be to us, yet, 
if they are out of Christ, they are not so in God s sight, 
but are young vipers, and infinitely more hateful tban 
vipers, and are in a most miserable condition as well as 
grown persons ; and they are naturally very senseless 
and stupid, being Lorn as the wild ass s colt, and need 
much to awaken them." 

Upon this point Edwards makes no qualifica 
tion whatever. In theory and in practice he ex 
tended the revival to the case of children. He 
himself presided over children s meetings. He 
thought that God really descended from heaven to 
be amongst them. He declares that he has seen 
the happy effects of dealing plainly with them in 
the concerns of their souls, nor has he ever known 
any ill consequences to result from such a method. 
Indeed, God in this it ork has shown a remarkable 
regard to little children. Let men take care that 
they do not despise the religion of children, as 
did the scribes and high priests who complained 
of the children when they cried Iloxunna in the 
temple, to whom also Jesus had replied : " Have 



192 THE GREAT A \VAKENING. 

ye never read, Out of the mouth of babes and 
sucklings thou hast perfected praise ? " 

Much also was said against frequent religious 
meetings, and spending too great an amount of 
time in religion. This objection Edwards meets 
with ease and in his usual manner. Pie affirms, as 
a matter of course, that people ought not to neg 
lect the business of their daily calling. But hav 
ing admitted the principle, he seeks in some de 
gree to counteract its force. He urges that it may 
not be so improper after all, if, while people are 
seeking eternal riches and immortal glory, they 
should in some measure suffer in their temporal 
concerns. On extraordinary occasions a whole 
nation spends time and money in the ceremonies 
of a public rejoicing. Why, then, should we be so 
exact with God as to think it a crime if we in 
jure our temporal interests in His service ? But, 
whichever way he looks, he has the best of the ar 
gument. He is sure that of late, more time has 
been gained than lost ; more time has been saved 
from frolicking and tavern-haunting, unprofitable 
visits, vain talk and needless diversions, than has 
been spent in extraordinary religion ; " and prob 
ably five times as much has been saved in persons 
estates, at the taverns and in their apparel, as has 
been spent by religious meetings." 

There was one other accompaniment of the re 
vival which its opponents regarded as an abuse 
and delusion, which Edwards still refuses to con 
demn. Once more we must revert to the " bodily 



PHYSICAL MANIFESTATIONS. 193 

effects " which waited upon the movement, as Ed 
wards believed, by a divine appointment. It has 
been already remarked that he clung to these 
manifestations, impelled as it were by some inward 
necessity. In his Thoughts on the Revival he 
resumes the subject, placing- it in the foreground 
of his treatment, determined, as it would seem, to 
have it out with his opponents. It is a subject 
which is confessedly difficult and mysterious, nor 
is his attitude wholly free from contradiction. 
But he guards himself as far as possible from mis 
apprehension. These bodily affections and high 
transports, he affirms, have nothing to do with true 
religion, which consists only in a right state of 
mind and correct moral conduct. They are to be 
regarded as incidental, not to be sought after or 
encouraged, not to be valued as a sign of the di 
vine favor. " The degree of the influence of the 
Spirit of God on particular persons is by no 
means to be judged of by the degree of external 
appearances." But, taking the movement as a 
whole, these effects are also probable tokens of 
God s presence. Where they exist, they are argu 
ments for the success of the preaching. A great 
crying out in a congregation, in consequence of the 
powerful presentation of the truth, seems to him a 
thing to rejoice in, much more than if there were 
only an appearance of solemn attention and a show 
of affection by weeping. " To rejoice that the 
work is carried on calmly, without much ado, is 
in effect to rejoice that it is carried on with less 



194 THE GREAT AWAKENING. 

power, or that there is not so much of the influence 
of God s Spirit." 

He regards it also as a specious objection against 
the work, that there have been cases where the 
body is injured, or the health impaired. Did not 
Jacob wrestle with God for a blessing, and gain 
the blessing, though he was sent away halting upon 
his thigh, and went lame ever after ? Is it strange 
that if God pleases a little to withdraw the veil, to 
let in light upon the soul, giving a view of the 
things of another world in their transcendent and 
infinite greatness, that human nature, which is as 
the grass, a shaking leaf, a weak withering flower, 
should totter under such a discovery ? When 
Daniel saw the majesty of Christ, there was no 
strength left in him ; when John the apostle saw 
Him, he fell at His feet as one dead. The prophet 
Habbakuk, when he saw the awfulness of the di 
vine manifestation, exclaims, " When I heard, my 
belly trembled, my lips quivered at the voice, rot 
tenness entered into my bones." The Psalmist 
also was affected as persons of late have been : 
" I opened my mouth and panted, for I longed for 
thy commandments." God may be pleased at 
times to make the cup of blessing to run over. 
" It has been with the disciples of Christ, for a long 
time, a time of great emptiness upon spiritual ac 
counts ; they have gone hungry, and have been 
toiling in vain during a dark season, a time of 
night with the church of God ; as it was with the 
disciples of old, when they had toiled all night for 



DEFECT IN EDWARDS ATTITUDE. 195 

something to eat and had taken nothing. But now, 
the morning being come, Jesus appeared to his dis 
ciples, and takes a compassionate notice of their 
wants, and says to them, Children, have ye any 
meat ? and gives them such abundance of food 
that they are not able to draw their net ; yea, their 
net breaks, their vessel is overloaded and begins to 
sink." In this process God may not only weaken 
the body, but may take the life also. In this way 
it has been supposed that the life of Moses was 
taken. Indeed, God may so impair the frame of 
the body, and particularly of the brain, that per 
sons shall be deprived of the use of the reason. 
And if God does give such discoveries of Himself 
as to lead to this result, the blessing is greater 
than the calamity, even though the life should be 
taken away ; yea, even though the soul should not 
be immediately taken away, but should be for 
years in a deep sleep, or be deprived of the use of 
its faculties before it should pass into glory. Con 
sidering what a number of persons have been over 
powered of late, it is remarkable that their lives 
should have been preserved, and that the instances 
of those who have been deprived of their reason 
should have been so few. 1 

In accounting for Edwards attitude on this sub 
ject, it has been already suggested that a system 
like his, of such transcendent idealism, needed 
some tangible or physical counterpoise, in order 
that it might not be detached altogether from the 
1 Thoughts, etc., vol. iii. pp. 282-285. 



196 THE GREAT AWAKENING. 

external world, and so be in danger of terminating 
in unreality. It is one of the characteristics of his 
system that he makes no attempt to trace an or 
ganic relationship between man and nature. The 
external world existed only mentally and in the 
mind of God. The purpose of nature in relation 
to man, its necessity to his spiritual existence, the 
conflict of man with nature, the victory which is 
reached through perpetual struggle, and is mani 
fested in the ever-increasing transmutation of the 
natural into the spiritual, these are thoughts 
which find no expression in his works. He had 
reacted against the low materialistic tendency of 
the age which glorified the miracle as the highest 
evidence for the validity of a spiritual revelation. 
He had adopted a definition of the supernatural 
which did not include the miracle, finding the 
evidence for the truth of spiritual things in the 
inward consciousness, the insight or intuition of 
the soul. But he saw no significance for the mir 
acle as in itself a spiritual process, as in the tri 
umph of Christ s perfected humanity over the law 
of necessity in nature. His earnest defence of the 
bodily manifestations may be taken as an intima 
tion that he felt the need of some element which 
his system did not afford. He might have found 
the desired relief, the response of nature to the 
invocation of the Spirit, had he been willing to 
lay supreme emphasis on moral practice as the test 
of the Spirit s presence and power. But from this 
mode of escape he had shut himself off by placing 



MRS. EDWARDS IN THE REVIVAL. 197 

conscience, together with the greater part of the 
moral sphere of human life, under the control of 
God s common grace, which carries with it no 
saving efficacy. And yet at times he was on the 
eve of accepting this mode of deliverance : he hov 
ers about the ethical result as the tangible evi 
dence of the life of God in the soul. And, indeed, 
though he never retracted his testimony in behalf 
of bodily manifestations, it was to this conclusion 
that he seems to have been gravitating as he closed 
the long discussion. 

There is, however, another explanation of Ed 
wards relation to this subject, which is too inter 
esting and important to be passed over without a 
brief allusion. We cannot be wrong in assigning 
to Mrs. Edwards a place in the Great Awakening 
hardly inferior to that occupied by her husband. 
The young girl whom at the age of thirteen he 
had eulogized as a favorite of Heaven, whose rare 
beauty had satisfied his fastidious taste, was still 
exercising as a mature woman the same attractive 
influence over his mind and heart. There is abun 
dant evidence of the spell which she exerted over 
those around her by the beauty of her person, and 
the singular and refined loveliness of her manner, 
as also of the character which inspired it. Her 
reputation had gone abroad in the colony, she was 
even said to surpass her husband in her endow 
ment of Christian graces. Like him, she was a 
mystic devotee, with a natural capacity for the 
highest fervors of devotion. It was her experience 



198 THE GREAT AWAKENING. 

which seemed to Edwards as genuine as it was 
remarkable which would have compelled him to 
believe, even against his will, that the divine vis 
itation might overpower the human body. At his 
request she wrote a statement of these vicissitudes 
of her inner life, 1 to which Edwards often alludes, 
and which he finally incorporated in his own 
words, though not mentioning her by name, in his 
Thoughts 011 the Revival in New England. He 
presents it to his readers as if it were decisive of 
the question at issue. 

Apart from its religious significance, Mrs. Ed 
wards statement is valuable as throwing light 
upon her husband s personal history, as well as her 
own. Indeed, it must be confessed that the pure 
womanliness of her statement, the traces of femi 
nine pride in her husband, her jealousy for his 
reputation, and her desire to retain undiminished 
his respect and love, are more interesting to the 
ordinary reader than the expressions of mystic 
rapture with which it abounds. It was towards 
the close of the year 1738, and at the age of 
twenty-nine, that " she was led under an uncommon 
discovery of God s excellency and in a high exer 
cise of love to God, and of rest and joy in Him, to 
make a new and most solemn dedication of herself 
to His service and glory, an entire renunciation 
of the world, and a resignation of all to God." The 
occasion which led her to long for a deeper resig 
nation and a more entire renunciation of the world 
1 Dwight. Life of Edwards, pp. 171-190. 



MRS. EDWARDS SELF-RENUNCIATION. 199 

was a casual suggestion of Mr. Edwards that she 
had failed in some measure in point of prudence 
in a conversation with Mr. Williams, of Hadley. 
As she looked into her mind, she found that it 
seemed to bereave her of quietness and calm not 
to have the good opinion of her husband. She 
saw that two things interfered with an act of com 
plete renunciation, the desire to keep her own 
good name and fair reputation among men, and es 
pecially the esteem and just treatment of the peo 
ple of the town, and more especially the esteem and 
love and kind treatment of her husband. And 
again, on another occasion, she had felt that the eye 
of God was upon her to observe how she was af 
fected by the respect shown to Mr. Edwards, who 
had then been sent for to preach at Leicester. 
She was sensible that the incident had ministered 
to her pride in her husband, rather than to a pure 
interest in the extension of God s work. When 
she heard that Mr. Buel, a young man recently 
ordained, was coming to Northampton to take Mr. 
Edwards place during his absence, she had a 
struggle with herself before she was willing to 
pray that God would bless his labors. She gained, 
as she thought, the resignation and the submission 
for which she longed, although Mr. Buell s preach 
ing was attended by greater success than had at 
tended her husband s preaching before he went to 
Leicester. Even if God were never again to bless 
the labors of Mr. Edwards, or were to make use 
of Mr. Buell to the enlivening of every saint and 



200 THE GREAT AWAKENING. 

the conversion of every sinner in the town, she 
thought her resignation would enable her to re 
joice in the result. She was not only willing that 
her pride in Mr. Edwards should be humbled, but 
the moment came when she felt that she would be 
able to bear, if God so willed it, these two greatest 
evils, the ill-treatment of the town and the ill- 
will of her husband. " I was carried above even 
these things," so she writes, "and cotdd feel that, 
if I were exposed to them both, they would seem 
comparatively nothing." 

We may doubt if she had succeeded so com 
pletely as she thought to have done ; for ever and 
anon in her confession she repeats how entirely 
willing she had become that " God should employ 
some other instrument than Mr. Edwards in ad 
vancing the work of grace in Northampton." It 
may have been also that her sensitive instincts di 
vined afar off the impending calamity for her 
family ; she may have been foreboding and pre 
paring for an event which would call forth the re 
quirements of stoical fortitude, when, her husband s 
power as a preacher having declined, and his hold 
upon his congregation lost, they should be driven 
forth as it were into that wilderness which, in her 
imagination, she had descried, amid the scorn and 
contumely of the people. But however this may 
be, none the less did she have her reward for her 
consecration to what she believed to be the di 
vine will. For a period of nearly three years she 
remained in a state of such spiritual exhilaration 



MRS. EDWARDS EXPERIENCE. 201 

as lifted her above the world, and brought her into 
intimate communion with Heaven. Although in a 
condition of firm health, she was constantly over 
come by the power of her emotions and the vivid 
ness of her appprehensions of divine things, so 
much so as to faint, or to be deprived of her 
strength. At other times she rose up leaping with 
joy and exultation. The depth of her sense of 
assurance of her own salvation surpassed anything 
her husband had experienced. Her soul seemed 
to be on the eve of sundering its tie with the body. 

" I had a constant, clear, and lively sense of the heav 
enly sweetness of Christ s excellent and transcendent 
love, of His nearness to me and of my clearness to Him ; 
with an inexpressibly sweet calmness of soul in an entire 
rest in Him. I seemed to myself to perceive a glow of 
divine love come down from the heart of Christ in 
heaven into my heart in a constant stream, like a stream 
or pencil of sweet light. What I felt each minute of 
this time was worth more than all the outward comfort 
and pleasure which I had enjoyed in my whole life put 
together. . . . To my own imagination my soul seemed 
to be gone out of me to God and Christ in heaven. God 
and Christ were so present and so near me, that I 
seemed removed from myself. ... I had an over 
whelming sense of the glory of God as the great Eter 
nal All. I knew that I certainly should go to Him, 
and should as it were drop into the Divine Being and 
be swallowed up in God." 

Edwards comment upon his wife s experience 
may be read at length in his Thoughts on the 



202 THE GREAT AWAKENING. 

Revival. lie was so afraid that he should be 
misled by it, that he scrutinizes it with the cool 
manner of a disinterested observer. As he stud 
ied it, it seemed to answer every test which he ap 
plied. Mrs. Edwards was led into no extremes 
of behavior ; she retained her good judgment and 
sound common sense. She followed no impulses ; 
she was the subject of no impressions. Her high 
experience seemed to strengthen and purify her 
Christian character. She was free from censo- 
riousness, with no disposition to judge of others : 
she was filled with charity and humility. She did 
not neglect the necessary business of a secular call 
ing in order to spend time in the exercises of devo 
tion, but rather realized, in worldly business per 
formed with alacrity, the service of God, and as it 
were a substitute for prayer. What she had felt 
could be, therefore, nothing else than the response 
to the exalted expressions of Scripture : T7ie 
peace of God which passeth all understanding ; 
the joy and peace in believing, tohich is unspeak 
able and full of (jlonj, " Now if such things," he 
exclaims, u are enthusiasm and the fruits of a dis 
tempered brain, let my brain be evermore pos 
sessed of that happy distemper ! If this be dis 
traction, I pray God that the world of mankind 
mav be all seized with this benign, meek, benefi 
cent, beatifical, glorious distraction." 

A critical student, concerned only with what is 
unique in psychological manifestations, might be 
inclined to inquire, whether, in all this, Mrs. Ed- 



CRITICISM OF THE REVIVAL. 203 

wards may not have been adapting herself uncon 
sciously to her husband s views, striving- in a spirit 
of devotion and loyalty to embody her husband s 
ideal of what a saint on earth should be. To some 
extent this may be true. But no such suspicion 
crossed his mind. He staked the whole question 
at issue on his wife s experience. It is quite pos 
sible that hers was the stronger influence. 

To the task of exposing the abuses of the revi 
val Edwards seems to come with reluctance. He 
lingers on the gloriousness of the work, the rea 
sons why all should unite in promoting it. But 
when he has once committed himself to the busi 
ness of criticism, he shows the same disposition to 
thoroughness of treatment which characterizes all 
his writings. His tone is kindly, for he is address 
ing the friends of the movement rather than its 
foes. But he lays his axe at the root of the tree. 

The first evil which he attacked went under the 
name of impulses or impressions. 1 He declares 
that one of the wrong principles which had given 
rise to grave errors was the notion " that it is 
God s manner in these days to guide His saints by 
inspiration or immediate revelation, to make known 

1 Edwards Thoughts on the Revival was republished in Eng 
land by Wesley with the title, Thoughts Concerning the Present 
Revival of Religion in New England, by Jonathan Edwards. 
Abridged by John Wesley, A. M London, 1745. It is charac 
teristic of the nature of the abridgment that, while the discussion 
of " bodily effects " is retained, all that relates to "impulses and 
impressions is omitted. 



204 THE GREAT AWAKENING. 

to them what shall come to pass hereafter, or what 
it is His will they should do." That people should 
have been misled into such a notion was a thing 
to have been expected. To admit the immediate 
action of the divine Spirit in the soul seemed to 
warrant the vulgar conclusion that the future 
would now be revealed, and their course of duty 
under all circumstances made plain. What else, 
they might have argued, did they need more than 
this, an infallible directory within ? In what 
other way could the divine Spirit, which was dis 
tinct and different from the human, manifest itself 
as an inward reality, unless by doing that which 
the human spirit could not do ? Edwards himself 
had at first sounded a wrong note when, in his 
Narrative of Surprising Conversions, he attrib 
uted importance to the circumstance that, in the 
process of an awakening soul, passages of Scripture 
suddenly came to the mind as if suggested by the 
Holy Spirit. But he now deprecates this idea as 
part of the same delusion as the impulses and im 
pressions. 

But while Edwards has emancipated himself 
from all complicity with the various manifestations 
of this evil principle, we search his pages in vain 
for a satisfactory enunciation of the method by 
which the root of the evil is to be reached. He is 
sure that the principle is wrong, that it has a ten 
dency to supplant Scripture, to bring in confusion, 
to nourish pride, to draw off the mind from the 
one thing needful. Why cannot men be content 



THE HUMAN AND THE DIVINE. 205 

with the divine oracles ? Why should they desire 
to make Scripture speak more than it does ? There 
is nothing necessarily spiritual in this idea of spe 
cial direction. Even if God were to reveal anything 
by a voice from heaven, there is in it nothing of 
the nature of true grace ; it is but a common in 
fluence of the Spirit ; it is but dross and dung in 
comparison with the gracious leading that a real 
saint possesses. As much as this God gave to Ba 
laam, revealing to him what he should say or do. 
But there is a more excellent way than inspiration 
in which the Spirit of God leads the sons of God, 
their transformation by the renewal of their 
mind, proving to them what is the good and accept 
able and perfect will of God. 

All this is as true as it is admirably said. What 
ever the deficiences of Edwards theory may have 
been, a true instinct warned him away from all 
impulses and impressions, as having a tendency 
toward the degradation of the spiritual, or to a sen 
suous confounding of the spiritual with the mate 
rial. To suppose that these physical or external 
impressions were in any way caused by God, was 
" a low, miserable notion of spiritual sense." If he 
had only felt at liberty to develop this principle, 
his attitude would have been clear and consistent. 
The grace divine coidd then have been conceived 
as the implantation in the soul of an attraction 
toward the good, mingling insensibly with the 
springs of human action, yet so as to be wholly di 
vine, while seeming to be wholly human. The 



206 THE GREAT AWAKENING. 

love of the good would then become the basis of 
faith in the spiritual, the very essence of God 
within the soul. Edwards was inclined to such a 
view of the divine action, but fears of Arminian- 
ism prevented its full acceptance. He has before 
him the Arminian statement that " the manner of 
the Spirit of God is to cooperate in a silent, secret, 
and undiscernible way with the use of means and 
our own endeavors, so that there is no distinguish 
ing by sense between the influences of the Spirit 
of God and the natural operations of the faculties 
of our own minds." l But if he admitted this 
principle, how could he maintain, what lay so close 
to his heart, that the great revival was an excep 
tional moment in history when God was working 
more powerfully than was His usual manner, in a 
way unique and spasmodic, producing even phys 
ical manifestations as in the great upheaval of the 
apostolic age? And still further, if he admitted 
such a view, it would have required a reconstruc 
tion of his ideas of humanity, a practical abandon 
ment of the distinction between elect and non-elect, 
a modification of his views of original sin and the 
freedom of the will. In fact every feature of his 
theology was involved in the issue to which he had 
now been brought. That issue was no other than 
the momentous inquiry as to the relation between 
the divine and the human, whether they were by 
nature incompatible with and foreign to each other, 
or whether they tended to flow together by an in- 

1 Religious Affections, vol. iii. p. 29. 



ACTION OF DIVINE GRACE. 207 

ward affinity, forming an union in which they can 
not be divided or separated, even if they may be 
distinguished from each other. 

The following passage shows Edwards as at 
tempting a sort of compromise with a truth which 
strangely attracts him, while he cannot accept it : 

" However all exercises of grace be from the Spirit 
of God, yet the Spirit of God dwells and acts in the 
hearts of the saints in some measure after the manner 
of a vital, natural principle, a principle of new nature in 
them ; whose exercises are excited by means in some 
measure as other natural principles are. Though grace 
be not in the saints as a mere natural principle, but 
as a sovereign agent, and so its exercises are not tied 
to means by an immutable law of nature, as in mere 
natural principles ; yet God has so constituted that 
grace should dwell so in the hearts of the saints that its 
exercises should have some connection with means, after 
the manner of a principle of nature." * 

Because Edwards failed to reach a satisfactory 
solution of this fundamental problem, his attitude 
was an uncertain and inconsistent one. He could 
not effectually overcome the evils of the revival, 
nor meet the arguments of those who contended 
for impulses and impressions as evidences of the 
Spirit s presence and power. He must be held 
partly responsible for these very evils. Nay, more, 
he was forced into a worse situation, if that were 
possible, than those who were following their own 
impressions, under the delusion that they were 

1 Thoughts on the Revival, iii. p- 078. 



208 THE GREAT AWAKENING. 

divine. Dr. Chauncy and his sympathizers, who 
opposed the revival, showed their keenness in fas 
tening- upon this delusion as its vulnerable point. 
They may have been in error in attributing too 
much to human action, or in reducing the divine 
Spirit to a mere humble, unrecognized servitor 
upon the human spirit. Edwards denounces them 
for refusing to confess the work as divine : he is 
fearful lest they should commit the unpardonable 
sin by denying the presence and activity of the 
Holy Ghost in the religious contagion which was 
spreading throughout the land. But what shall 
we say in reference to the ground which he was 
driven to take in order to defend his own position ? 
Assuming, as he did, that the action of the Spirit 
in the revival was extraordinary, manifested in 
bodily effects, and always distinguishable from the 
human activity, he was obliged to admit that the 
tendency of this divine action was to excite incli 
nations which if gratified would lead to confusion. 
Human judgment and discretion must therefore 
come to the rescue, in order to prevent the unlim 
ited influence of the divine. He illustrates this 
necessity of checking and curbing the divine influ 
ence, by showing how absurd it would be, if those 
who were moved by the love of souls were to spend 
all their time, night and day, in warning and ex 
horting men, giving themselves no opportunity to 
drink or sleep. Such a course of action would do 
ten times more injury than good. And yet, upon 
Edwards principles, not to do this presents the 



ITINERANT PREACHERS. 209 

extraordinary spectacle of the divine influence con 
trolled and kept within bounds by human prudence. 
But we must believe that Edwards was not wholly 
satisfied with his own attitude. A mind like his, 
whose own obstinate self - questionings were more 
embarrassing than the objections of his opponents, 
still remains a more profitable as well as interest 
ing study than the writings of an antagonist like 
Chauncy, who had no misgivings when deciding on 
the course of action to be pursued. We turn away 
from the consideration of this abuse, the impulses 
and impressions, to another evil which grew out 
of them, whose result was to subvert the ecclesias 
tical order in New England. 

Allusion has been made to the itinerant preach 
ers and lay exhorters who went travelling over the 
country, intruding into parishes, censuring the 
clergy as unconverted, calling upon God either to 
convert or to remove them, advising their people 
to form separatist churches in the interest of their 
own salvation. Such were the Whitefields, the 
Tennants, the Davenports, and the young men who 
were inspired by their example. There had grown 
up in New England, in the hundred years that had 
elapsed since its settlement, a consolidated eccle 
siastical system which was as tyrannical ] in its 
way as anything from which the Puritans had 
sought escape in England. " The whole country 
was divided into parishes, in each of which a 

1 Cf. Tracy, The Great Awakening, p. 414. " The revival gave 
a mortal wound to parish despotism." 



210 THE GREAT AWAKENING. 

church was organized and a pastor settled accord 
ing to law, with whose rights none was allowed to 
interfere. The minister of the parish was held 
responsible for the religious instruction of its in 
habitants. The idea grew up very naturally that 
those who held him thus responsible should not 
put themselves under other teachers without his 
leave, and that other teachers ought not to derange 
his plans of usefulness by breaking in upon his 
parish contrary to his judgment. The pastor had 
at least a moral right to control the giving and re 
ceiving of religious instructions within the geo 
graphical bounds of his parish." 1 For this eccle 
siastical system Edwards had a genuine respect 
and affection. Such was his own position in the 
town of Northampton. This feeling partook in 
some measure of an inherited tradition. Herein 
he differed from Whitefield, Davenport, and others, 
who were restrained by no sympathy with New 
England history, and no desire to uphold the 
interests of the standing order. But Edwards 
could not go as far as Chauncy in his opposition 
to the itinerants. He evidently recognizes them 
as having a place and a work to do, though he 
cautions them as liable above all other clergy to 
spiritual pride. " When a minister is greatly suc 
ceeded from time to time, and so draws the eyes 
of the multitude upon him, and he sees himself 
flocked after and resorted to as an oracle, and 
people are ready to adore him and to offer sacri- 
1 Tracy, p. 416. 



CONDEMNATION OF LAY EXHORTEES. 211 

fice to him, as it was with Paul and Barnabas at 
Lystra, it is almost impossible for a man to avoid 
taking upon him the airs of a master or some ex 
traordinary person. If Edwards had had any 
such experience himself, he had resisted the temp 
tations to which it led. But the description might 
be said to apply word for word to Whitefield. 

If Edwards was willing to recognize the itiner 
ant clergy, although it was an invasion of the es 
tablished order, yet at this point he sharply draws 
the line and will go no further. He condemns 
severely the lay exhorters who assume the clerical 
role. In the same connection he asserts the ne 
cessity for an educated ministry. It would be a 
calamity at all times, and especially at that time, 
if men without a liberal education, who according 
to the rule of the prophet had not been taught to 
keep cattle from their youth, were to be admitted 
to the work of the ministry on the ground of hav 
ing had remarkable experiences. These woidd be 
the very men to mislead the people with impulses, 
vain imaginations, and such like extremes. But 
the time had come when such as these were called 
for by a large part of the people. The lowly 
preaching encouraged by the Baptists was making 
inroads on the favored flocks of the educated 
clergy. It was acceptably received by many as 
coming closer to their needs, than the sermons 
which according to right reason should have been 
the most effective. In this respect the age was 
changing : an ecclesiastical democracy was assert- 



212 THE GREAT AWAKENING. 

ing its rights and needs, and in its presence the 
Puritan oligarchy broke down. 

The ground on which Edwards condemns the 
lay exhorters who intrude into the ministerial field 
is most interesting to study, for at this point Con 
gregationalism and Presbyterianism should be dis 
tinguished from the later movement which was led 
by Wesley. Wesley had his qualms of conscience 
upon this point, springing from his high -church 
principles ; but he overcame them, and lay exhort 
ing became one of the features of Wesleyan 
Methodism. Edwards was also a high-churchman 
from the Puritan point of view, carrying the prin 
ciple of church authority to almost extreme results. 
The high - churchman, whatever his ecclesiastical 
affiliation, is inclined to limit the divine influence 
by the bounds of organization, or to make the 
spread of the truth keep pace with the extension 
of the institution. The ecclesiastical idea is one 
to which Edwards never gave much attention ; but 
he was resting upon it when he objected to admit 
ting men to the ministry who did not possess a 
liberal education, simply on the ground of their 
having an unusual experience, or as being persons 
of a good understanding. On this point he ex 
claims naively that, if it should become a custom 
to admit such persons to the ministry, how many 
lay persons would soon become candidates for the 
office ! He doubts not but he has become ac 
quainted with scores of persons that would have 
desired it. And then how shall we know where 



NECESSITY OF CHURCH ORDER. 213 

to stop ? In other words, the agencies for the dif 
fusion of Christianity might surpass the scope of 
the institution to provide for them. 

The chief ground on which Edwards deprecates 
the lay exhorters is the necessity of ecclesiastical 
order. lie speaks of order as among the most 
necessary of external means for promoting the 
spiritual good of the church. He denounces the 
erroneous principle that external order, in matters 
of religion and the use of the means of grace, is 
a thing of no importance. He has no sympathy 
with those who condemn these things as ceremo 
nies and dead forms, inasmuch as God looks only 
on the heart. He may have had Hooker s elo 
quent words in mind when he writes that order is 
most requisite even in heaven itself and among 
angelic intelligences. God has also implanted it, 
as by a wonderful instinct, throughout the ranks 
of the animal creation. A church without order 
is like a city without walls, lacking the means for 
self-defence. He is willing, however, to admit 
that some measure of lay exhorting is proper, 
and may be a duty, if it does not overstep its 
bounds and infringe on the authority of the clergy. 
There is a sharp distinction, as he conceives, be 
tween preaching and what he prefers to call Chris 
tian conversation. Let laymen confine themselves 
only to the latter. The main characteristic of 
preaching is authority. This authority only min 
isters should exercise. Ministers are clothed with 
the authority of Christ ; they alone have the power 



214 THE GREAT AWAKENING. 

to preach the gospel and to speak in His name. 
They are commanded to speak, rebuke, and exhort 
with all authority. But private Christians, who 
are no more than mere brethren, if they exhort, 
should do so by way of entreaty, and in the most 
humble manner. And even " if a layman does not 
assume an authoritative manner, yet if he forsakes 
his proper calling, and spends his time in going 
about from house to house to counsel and exhort, 
he goes beyond his line and violates Christian 
rules." For teaching is the business of the clergy. 
All are not apostles or prophets, all are not teach 
ers. According, then, to the apostolic command, 
fie that teacheth let him ivait on teaching. "It 
will be a very dangerous thing for laymen, in these 
respects, to invade the office of a minister ! None 
ought to carry the ark of God but the Levites 
only. And because one presumed to touch the 
ark that was not of the sons of Aaron, therefore 
the Lord made a breach upon them, and covered 
their day of rejoicing with a cloud in His anger." 
No strenuous upholder of the notion of an apostolic 
succession could desire more explicit language than 
this. 

Such was Edwards devotion to the principle of 
church authority that he seems almost willing to 
limit the spread of the movement, if there is dan 
ger of its weakening or overthrowing the power of 
the clergy. Mingled with these strict principles of 
ecclesiastical authority, we may discern traces of 
the aristocratic pride which marked the manner of 



THE UNCONVERTED MINISTERS. 215 

the ancient Puritan clergy. It was right, as Ed 
wards thought, that " they should have the out 
ward appearance and show of authority, in style 
and behavior, which was proper and fit to be seen 
in them." Hence he was inwardly shocked at the 
way in which the " meanest of the people " took 
upon them to criticise the most eminent ministers, 
sitting in judgment upon their deficiencies, or pro 
nouncing them converted or unconverted. So far 
as his own relations with the ministers were con 
cerned, he had solemnly exhorted and adjured 
them to recognize the work as divine, and labor 
zealously for its promotion. If this impossible ad 
vice could have been received, there would have 
been an end of the difficulty. But even if the 
ministers did not accept the work as divine, or if 
they were really unconverted, yet Edwards does 
not propose that the mere brethren shall be the 
ones to take them to task. The power of judging 
and openly censuring others should be in the 
hands of particular persons or consistories ap 
pointed for the purpose. Upon the question 
whether it was a duty for people to desert the 
ministry of those who unqualifiedly and openly 
condemned the revival, upon this point Edwards 
maintains a prudent reticence. For himself he 
remarks : "I should not think that any person 
had power to oblige me constantly to attend the 
ministry of one who did from time to time plainly 
pray and preach against this work, or speak re 
proachfully of it frequently in his public perform- 



216 THE GREAT AWAKENING. 

ances, after all Christian methods had been used 
for a remedy and to no purpose." J His reserve 
upon this subject, the burning question of the day, 
may be construed as indicating a subordinate sym 
pathy, not easily reconciled with his view of the 
importance of ecclesiastical order. 

However definite and rigid may have been Ed 
wards idea of conversion, he was unwilling for 
himself to pronounce upon the condition of his 
fellow-ministers. He was even willing to admit 
that they might be in a state of grace, and yet op 
pose the work through prejudice or other reasons. 
His moderation was in strong contrast with the 
over-zealous converts who denounced the uncon 
verted ministers as if they were guilty of desecrat 
ing the church, like the ancient money-changers 
in the Jewish temple. These zealots, as they may 
be called, claimed for their justification the words 
of Christ, that He came to send not peace, but a 
sword. One of the scourges which they employed 
in order to drive the unconverted ministers from 
the temple was the most violent imprecatory lan 
guage. Those who indulged in this profane vocab 
ulary defended its use on the ground that they 
only said what was true, that they must be bold 
for Christ s sake, and not mince matters in His 
cause. Edwards complains that the language of 
common sailors is introduced among Christian peo- 

1 Compare on this point a letter of Edwards in which he gives 
advice as to how to deal with repentant separatists. Dwight, 
p. 204. 



.METHODS OF THE ZEALOTS. 217 

pie under the cloak of high sanctity. " The words 
devil and hell are almost continually in their 
mouths." While he admits that every kind and 
degree of sin is justly characterized as devilish, 
cursed, hellish, his refined nature, as well as his 
aristocratic instincts, revolted within him when 
such epithets were hurled by those whom he calls 
the meanest of the people against the most emi 
nent ministers or magistrates. It was as improper 
as it would be for a child to say concerning his 
parents, " that they commit every day hundreds of 
hellish, damned acts, or that they are cursed dogs, 
hell-hounds, devils." He draws a distinction be 
tween characterizing sin in the abstract in these 
truthful terms and giving them a concrete applica 
tion to individuals. But the zealots made no such 
distinction. Nor is it greatly to be wondered at 
that, when such a vocabulary was thought proper 
for the pulpit, it should find its way to general use 
among the people. 

Edwards was hardly in a position which could 
be called consistent, when he advised the zealots to 
drop their denunciation of the unconverted minis 
ters. The zealots maintained that to allow them 
to remain in their parishes was a " bloody, hell-peo 
pling charity." Edwards thought it would be no 
such dreadful danger if they were left undisturbed. 
It almost seems as if a change were passing over his 
mind, as if he were condemning his own practice. 
He now advises the ministers to be careful " how 
they discompose and ruffle the minds of those that 



218 THE GREAT AWAKENING. 

they esteem carnal men, or how great an uproar 
they raise in the carnal world, and so lay blocks in 
the way of the propagation of religion." But cer 
tainly no one could have ruffled the carnal mind 
more than Edwards had done, as in his sermon at 
Enfield. It may be that the caution now exhibited 
is no evidence of a retractation. It was a peculiar 
ity of Edwards that he becomes at times so intent 
upon the point before him, as to leave all the other 
pieces upon the board unguarded. One would like 
to think that the intense fervor of his youth, as 
well as his inexperience at an exceptional moment, 
constitute an apology for those features of his 
earlier preaching which have injured his memory. 



IV. 

TREATISE ON THE RELIGIOUS AFFECTIONS. 

WHEN Edwards published his book on the Re 
ligious Affections, in 1746, the Great Awakening 
as a religious movement had come to an end. To 
use his own language, the devil had prevailed 
against what seemed so happy and so promising 
in its beginning. But the dust and the smoke of 
the controversy were still in the air ; an endless 
variety of opinions prevailed as to the nature of 
true religion. The Religious Affections was writ 
ten as a series of sermons in the years 1742 and 
1743, following immediately the meditations which 



" THE RELIGIOUS AFFECTIONS." 219 

had found utterance in his Thoughts on the Re 
vival. We may be mistaken, but it seems as if 
Edwards attitude toward the revival was never 
again quite the same after he had allowed his mind 
to dwell on its abuses. It must have pained him 
beyond measure to witness his ideal dragged as it 
were in the dust. Under these circumstances he 
did what so many other lofty souls have done 
in similar situations. Rather than behold his 
ideal profaned, he sought to withdraw it beyond 
the reach of vulgar religionists, to make it a 
thing so difficult to attain that very few could be 
certain that they had achieved the prize. As he 
looked upon the variety of false experiences, the 
hypocrisies, the degeneration, which waited upon 
the revival, he was chiefly impressed with the 
words of Christ : Strait is the gate and narroiv 
is the way that leads to life, and few there be that 
find it ; or those other memorable words, Many 
are, called, but few are chosen. 

It is this conviction in Edwards mind which 
like a sad undertone pervades the Religious Affec 
tions, even when not expressed, that has given the 
book, in the eyes of many, only a painful interest. 
But the treatise is a masterpiece in its way, a 
beautiful and authoritative exposition of Christian 
experience. It is a work which will not suffer by 
comparison with the work of great teachers in the 
ology, whether ancient or modern. It fulfils the 
condition of a good book as Milton has defined it, 
" the precious life-blood of a master spirit." It 



220 THE GREAT AWAKENING. 

is in reality Edwards Confessions, as much as if it 
were directly addressed to Deity. It corresponds 
also to the Consolation of Philosophy in the midst 
of failure and disappointment. Some, as they 
have read, have not been able to forget the dark 
background in Edwards mind, the distinction 
between the elect and the non-elect, the destiny 
which awaits the many who are called but are not 
chosen. To such as these, the Religious Affec 
tions is a book which they must avoid as they hope 
to preserve their faith in God. The subjectivity 
which characterizes it, the incessant and profound 
introversion, the variety of delusions which entan 
gle a soul on its way to God, these only add 
horror to the situation which Edwards may have 
been able to contemplate with serenity, but to 
which the modern mind is unequal. It is possible, 
however, to forget the negative side of Edwards 
theology as we study this pure, sublimated ideal of 
Christian experience. Let the book be taken by 
itself, as if by some anonymous writer, and its ex 
cellence will appear. It is occupied with one great 
motive, to distinguish a true from a false experi 
ence, to draw the picture of a human soul which 
under grace has become worthy of union with God. 
The Religious Affections is Edwards answer to 
the question which confronted him in his youth as 
to the nature of true religion. He then determined, 
as is recorded in his Resolutions, " that he would 
look most nicely and diligently into the opinions of 
our old divines concerning conversion." Such was 



THE SIGNS OF CONVERSION. 221 

his unconscious confession that in the depth of his 
mind there lay uncertainty as to how the great 
reality should be defined. Although his book on 
the Affections has a positive and constructive pur 
pose, yet there lingers about it something of the 
controversial spirit, the old hostility against the 
Arminians which had been increased by the revi 
val. He devotes considerable space to demonstrat 
ing against them that the principal part of religion 
consists in the affections or emotions. 1 But if his 
dislike to Arminianism remains unchanged, he has 
also seen something on the Calvinistic side which 
he dislikes still more, the evangelical hypocrisy 
to which the revival had given birth was a greater 
evil than Arminian legalism. 

The second part of his book is devoted to show 
ing that the signs of conversion, upon which so 
great stress had been laid by many in the Revival, 
had no necessary connection with true religion. It 
was to be taken as no sign one way or the other 
that the religious affections were greatly stirred, or 
that they produced great effects upon the body. 
He has not abandoned his former attitude on this 

1 It is sometimes difficult to determine Edwards meaning 
when he speaks of the affections, for under this term he includes 
also the will. He does not follow the modern method of classifi 
cation according to which the faculties are divided into intellect, 
emotions, and will. He made a twofold division, the first of which 
includes the intellectual powers, and the second is variously named 
as the affections, the heart, or the will. It is evident that, in the 
first part of this treatise on the Religious Affections, it is the emo 
tions, as we should call them, for whose recognition in religion he 
is contending. 



222 THE GREAT AWAKENING. 

point, that the action of God on the spirit may 
overpower the body, but he now condemns those 
who are looking for bodily effects as a sign of the 
spirit s action. Persons may be fervent and fluent 
in talking about religion and yet not possess the 
reality. Texts of Scripture, suddenly and unac 
countably brought to the mind, are no evidence of 
the Spirit s work. Religious affections of many 
kinds may exist which are not genuine, but only 
counterfeits of the true. There may have been a 
certain order in the phases of experience by which 
comforts and joys may follow after awakenings 
and convictions, and yet there may be nothing real 
in it all. People may spend much time in religion, 
and be greatly moved in the external duties of 
worship, without having experienced a true conver 
sion. The strong sense of assurance of salvation 
possesses in itself no value. Nor can anything be 
concluded from the circumstance that those pro 
fessing themselves the subject of gracious experi 
ences gain the love and win the confidence of true 
saints. The revival had demonstrated how vast 
was the field for delusion and mistake in judging 
of the condition of others. In a word, it was with 
the things of religion "as it is with blossoms in the 
spring. There are vast numbers of them upon the 
trees which all look fair and promising, but many 
of them never come to anything. And many of 
these, that in a little time wither up and drop off 
and rot under the trees, yet for a while look as 
beautiful and gay as others." 



DEFINITION OF THE SPIRITUAL. 223 

What, then, is the reality ? How shall the spirit 
ual as distinct from the natural be defined ? Or, 
in Edwards words, what are the distinguishing 
signs of truly gracious and holy affections ? 

The divine reality is asserted to be something 
entirely distinct and different from anything that 
is human. The human and the divine have noth 
ing whatever in common. No improvement of 
natural or human tendencies ever passes by slow 
stages into the divine. The divine is different in 
kind from the human. It is in true religion as if 
a new sense were imparted utterly diverse from 
any of the other senses. The difference between 
those who have the spiritual gift and those who 
have it not is to be compared to the difference 
between two men, one of whom is born without the 
natural sense of taste, to whom the quality of 
sweetness is unknown. Edwards does not, in so 
many words, define in what the human consists, as 
distinct from the divine. We might infer that he 
regards the human as if it were the absence and 
the negation of the spiritual. There is nothing in 
his system to prevent the human from being iden 
tified with the principle of evil. He does not deny 
that there is much which is beautiful and even 
admirable in human nature, it may bring forth 
moral fruits of a high order ; it may have graces 
and charms, and even possess affections which may 
simulate the divine influences. But these may be 
the result of what he calls the common influence 
of the Divine Spirit, thaf influence which once 



224 THE GREAT AWAKENING. 

breathed on the face of the natural world in the 
chaos of the creation. The common influences of 
the Spirit are widely diffused. Edwards, as we 
have seen, was in philosophical language a monist, 
and in one sense all things are attributable to God. 
But these effects which are wrought by the com 
mon influence of the Spirit may be also wrought 
by satanic agency. Up to a certain point, the 
magicians of Egypt did with their enchantments 
what Moses did by a divine power. There is no 
redemptive power in the common influences of the 
Spirit. They are but the operation of an omnipo 
tent force overcoming the human spirit from with 
out, for certain ulterior purposes in the divine 
economy. 

In those who are truly spiritual the Spirit of 
God does not merely act from without, as an in 
fluence apart and not their own, but it enters into 
them as an abiding, indwelling, integral factor of 
the soul. The Spirit of God even lives in them 
as in its peculiar home, the bosom of God. The 
Spirit becomes a seed or spring of life, making the 
soul a partaker of the beauty of God and the joy 
of Christ. That which is born of the Spirit is 
Spirit. But this language reminds him that he 
verges upon pantheism. The saints, then, do not 
become actually partakers of the divine essence in 
the abominable and blasphemous language of here 
tics who speak of being " Godded with God." 1 

1 Who were the heretics who used this expression which Ed 
wards quotes, Godded with God and Christed with Christ ? 



POPULAR CALVINISM. 225 

But the protest, which is a necessary one, having 
been made, Edwards continues to use language 
which conveys the same idea. And indeed that 
is his meaning, whether he owns it or not, the 
saints through an indwelling Spirit, which is the 
highest, fullest essence of Deity, become as it were 
one with God. This is the Spirit that bears wit 
ness with our spirit that we are the children of 
God. The bond of union is beheld intuitively. 
The saint feels and sees plainly the union between 
his soul and God. The Spirit of God bearing wit 
ness with our spirit must not, however, be taken 
to mean the action of two independent, collateral 
witnesses. The human spirit is passive in the 
affair, receiving only and declaring the witness of 
the divine. 

From this abstract and unethical statement of 
the difference between the spiritual and the natu 
ral, the thought moves on to the affirmation that 
the response of the human affections is to the ex 
cellent and amiable nature of divine things as they 
are in themselves, and not as they have any rela 
tion to self or self-interest. Popular Calvinism 
exhibited a tendency toward religious selfishness, 
whose manifestation increased in proportion to the 
degree of religious activity. In opposition to this 
tendency, Edwards maintained that affection to- 

And where did Edwards come across it ? It is used in a work by 
Lowde, New Essays, a writer engaged in controversy with Nor- 
ris, the author of the Theory of the Ideal World, and a disciple of 
Malebranche. Edwards use of it may point to some familiarity 
with the controversy. Cf. Lyons, Ide alisme, etc., p. 200. 



226 THE GREAT AWAKENING. 

ward God which arises from self-love is a mere 
product of the natural man, having in it nothing 
of the supernatural or divine. The heart must 
first discern that God is lovely in Himself, and 
then follows the realization of what the love of 
such a being toward man must be. Some might 
be ready to allege against this position the asser 
tion of St. John, We love Him because He first 
loved ws, as if God s love to His people were the 
first foundation of their love to Him. Edwards 
interpretation of the passage is hardly a satisfac 
tory one. But however these words of Scripture 
may be taken, they contain no argument against 
the truth that human love arises primarily from 
the excellence of divine things as they are in them 
selves, and not from any relation they have to hu 
man interests. 1 

But in what consists the excellency and loveliness 
of the divine nature ? What are the tests by which 
these qualities are to be known ? Questions of this 
kind we need not fear to ask, even when reading a 
treatise which is concerned with practical piety ; for 
to Edwards these speculative issues are of supreme 
and absorbing interest. We may follow him in 

1 Upon this point Edwards thought varied. In his Notes on 
the Mind he held that love to God was based upon the recognition 
of the divine existence apart from its moral excellence. He 
again maintained this view in his Treatise on Virtue. But in his 
Treatise on Grace he returns to what he had asserted in the Re 
ligious Affections, that the foundation of delight in God is His 
own perfection. Beneath these variations may be traced diver 
gent conceptions of the nature of Deity. 



THE MORAL EXCELLENCE OF GOD. 227 

sincere agreement as he distinguishes between the 
moral attributes of God and His natural perfec 
tions. These last include His infinite greatness, 
power, and knowledge, as well as His terrible 
majesty. But the spiritual beauty of the divine 
nature does not consist primarily in these. Even 
natural men may have the perception of God s 
physical perfections : the devils also may believe 
and tremble. The moral excellence of Deity is in 
His holiness. And this word, charged with a sense 
of remote Plebrew origin, a word more frequently 
used than defined, exactly how much and what 
does it mean ? According to Edwards, as used of 
God it includes His righteousness, truth, faithful 
ness, and goodness, His purity and His beauty as 
a moral agent. Holiness when applied to men 
comprehends their true excellency as moral beings ; 
it includes all the true virtues of a good man, his 
love to God, his gracious love to men, his justice, 
his charity, his meekness and gentleness. It is 
of these things that it is said : Thy word is very 
pure, therefore thy servant loveth it; the law of 
the, Lord is perfect, converting the soul ; the stat 
utes of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart ; 
the commandment of the Lord is pure, enlighten 
ing the eyes. 

But here one is tempted to ask whether these 
moral qualities, which are included in the general 
designation of holiness, do not have some natural 
foundation also in the constitution of the human 
soul. Edwards has been so emphatic in declaring 



228 THE GREAT AWAKENING. 

that there is something new which is imparted by 
the Spirit in conversion, something entirely dis 
tinct from all that is human, that, when we come 
to the category of moral excellences as they exist 
in God, we look for something more and other 
than he furnishes. Righteousness, truth, faithful 
ness, goodness, these are qualities which have their 
root in human nature, of which the germs may be 
discerned in those who would not be recognized as 
converted. Edwards apparently feels the diffi 
culty. But in conducting his controversy with the 
Arminians it was impossible for him to admit that 
any traces of what he calls the gracious affections 
should be found in the unawakened. There must 
be something in those whom God s Spirit has 
touched which is wholly new, totally unlike what 
existed in them before. To deny this would be 
equivalent to denying the distinction between the 
converted and the unconverted ; it would be dis 
owning the truth that the Spirit dwells in the 
saints in some unique manner, a manner direct 
and immediate, integral, and vital ; and the final 
result would be to deny another fundamental con 
viction, that the divine and the human are ut 
terly diverse and incompatible with each other. 

" We cannot rationally doubt but that things that are 
divine, that appertain to the Supreme Being, are vastly 
different from things that are human ; that there is a 
Godlike, high, and glorious excellency in them, that does 
so distinguish them from the things which are of men 
that the difference is ineffable, and therefore such as, if 



SPIRITUAL INTUITION. 229 

seen, will have a most convincing, satisfying influence 
upon any one that they are what they are, viz., divine." 

All this is undoubtedly true, but again one is 
tempted to ask in what direction lies the difference. 
Shall we be content to say that the difference is 
ineffable ? But that would be almost tantamount 
to affirming that it is incomprehensible also. Or 
shall we say that the difference between God and 
man may be compared in kind to the difference 
between the speech of some great literary genius 
and the talk of a little child ? Edwards uses this 
comparison, but it is not meant to express his en 
tire thought. He falls back upon the statement, 
that God is able to make this ineffable difference 
manifest to those whom He chooses to enlighten 
by His spirit. He now reaffirms, what he had as 
serted so eloquently in his sermon on The Reality 
of Spiritual Light, that in truly spiritual men there 
is a direct intuitive insight into divine things which 
not only convinces of their reality, but discloses 
them in all the reach of their ineffable superiority 
to human things. Not only are the prejudices of 
the heart dissolved, but the hindrances to the pure 
speculative reason are removed, so that divine truth 
stands forth revealed in all its beauty and splendor. 
It is not by miracles or external evidences that this 
supreme result is attained, useful as, under certain 
circumstances, these may be. But even to ignorant 
men and children, incapable of weighing evidence 
or appreciating historical research, the same reve 
lation may be made, the same profound spiritual 



230 THE GREAT AWAKENING. 

intuition may disclose the reality of spiritual light. 
And here for the present Edwards pauses in his 
treatment of a point possessing vital importance. 
We are haunted with a painful sense of unreality 
in the result of his efforts to escape all human 
limitations. Unless there be something in God 
which is very like what is most distinctive in hu 
manity, unless the human has its deepest root in 
the divine, the soul must be baffled in its search 
after God, sinking back in despair, as if its high 
est flight had disclosed only an empty void in the 
place of Deity. That Edwards may have had 
some suspicion of failure there is reason for believ 
ing. In the later years of his life he returned 
again to the great search which enthralled his 
nature. 

Looking at the immediate influence of such a 
treatise as this on the New England churches, it 
must be admitted that it was not altogether a 
healthy one. Edwards had now begun to feel a 
deep dislike to the prevailing laxity in admitting 
to the membership of the church, which had been 
sanctioned by the Half-way Covenant. But the 
opposite evil, which he overlooked, seems almost 
as great as that against which he was contending. 
There now grew up, and mainly in consequence 
of Edwards teaching, a hesitation about " joining 
the church," on the ground of unfitness, or the 
lack of certainty of one s conversion. The intro- 
versive tendency begat religious weakness and 
vacillation. The phrase, " not good enough to join 



THE INTRO VERSIVE TENDENCY. 231 

the church," points to a wrong conception of the 
church which still lingers in New England, and 
has proved an obstacle to the church s growth. It 
has been said that any one who could read Ed 
wards on the Affections, and still believe in his 
own conversion, might well have the highest assur 
ance of its reality. But how few thejr were who 
gained this assurance may be inferred from the 
circumstance that Dr. Hopkins and Dr. Emmons, 
disciples of Edwards and religious leaders in New 
England, remained to the last uncertain of their 
conversion. 

It has been impossible in this brief review of 
the Religious Affections to give any adequate con 
ception of the religious ideal as Edwards portrays 
it. The defects which have been pointed out do 
not diminish from its beauty and value as an ex 
alted presentation of Christian character. The 
evil which it may have wrought was surely owing, 
to some extent, to the nature of the ground into 
which it fell as seed. The conclusion of the whole 
matter, as Edwards labors at great length to show, 
is that Christian character and practice are the 
only tests of the presence of the divine Spirit. 
Whatever may have been his mistakes in the ex 
citement of the years of the Great Awakening, he 
emerged from its unhallowed confusion with the 
conviction that in the life alone can be made man 
ifest the sincerity of Christian faith. The Reli 
gious Affections should be read as we read the Im 
itation of Christ, making allowance for its defect 



232 THE GREAT AWAKENING. 

in severing the spiritual from the world of human 
interests and realities. If we can supply what 
seems to be wanting in Edwards speculative atti 
tude, his book may yet be recovered from the ne 
glect of generations. Works on topics kindred to 
this are not uncommon, but for the most part tliey 
are unredeemed from a certain tameness and com 
monplace because they lack the combination of in 
tellectual power with the spiritual imagination, 
such as Edwards brought to the treatment of his 
theme. One can understand how an enthusiastic 
disciple as well as descendant of Edwards should 
feel impelled to write, " that, were the books on 
earth destined to a destruction so nearly univer 
sal that only one besides the Bible could be saved, 
the church of Christ, if aiming to preserve the vol 
ume of the greatest value to man, that which would 
best unfold to a bereaved posterity the real nature 
of true religion, would unquestionably select for 
preservation the treatise on the Affections." 1 



V. 

" UNION IN PRAYER." DAVID BRAINERD. 

IN the year 1746 a memorial was sent from 

Scotland inviting the people and the churches in 

America to combine in one great united effort to 

gain the blessing of God ; and to bring about, if it 

1 Dwight, Life of Edwards, p. 223. 



THE SCOTCH MEMORIAL. 233 

were His will, such a revival of religion as would 
usher in the millennial reign of Christ. During 
two years previous to this date, there had been 
united prayer for this purpose in many of the 
churches in Scotland and also in America. It 
was now proposed to give to this informal move 
ment a more organic and universal character, and 
to this end the memorial signed by twelve Scotch 
clergymen had been circulated in this country. 
The proposal commended itself to Edwards. He 
was now in somewhat intimate relations with the 
Church of Scotland, carrying on a correspondence 
with several of its leading ministers. His books, 
which had been republished there, had gained him 
great renown among the stricter school of Calvin- 
ists. It was natural, therefore, that a proposition 
coming from Scotland should arouse his interest, 
if for no other reason than that he saw reflected 
in it the extension of his own peculiar influence. 
The method by which the great end was to be 
sought was the setting apart a certain time, on Sat 
urday evening and Sunday morning of each week, 
to be spent in prayer, and also the first Tuesday 
in each quarter of the year. Individuals were in 
vited to pray separately at these stated seasons, as 
well as in concert, where it was practicable. In 
order to further the movement, Edwards preached 
on the subject to his congregation, and out of his 
sermons there grew another treatise, published in 
1747, entitled Union in Prayer. It is a book of 
less interest and value than those we have been re- 



234 THE GREAT AWAKENING. 

viewing ; but it has importance as presenting his 
views on the subject of prayer, as also a glimpse 
<>f his attempt at a philosophical interpretation of 
history. 

Edwards had been disappointed in the results of 
the Great Awakening in America. It had subsided 
almost as quickly as it had arisen, leaving in its 
train a crop of evils from which the churches were 
still suffering. The degree of his disappointment 
may be measured by the high expectations in which 
he had indulged as to the probable extension of 
the movement until it should bring the world, 
even in his own lifetime, into the love and obedi 
ence of Christ. At one time he was so sanguine 
of this vast achievement, that he indulged at 
some length in a fanciful speculation in regard to 
America as the place indicated by prophecy where 
the Christ spiritual was to be reborn. To the old 
world had been assigned the honor of bringing 
forth the historical Christ ; to the new world it 
would belong to present the Christ mystical, gen 
erated after a higher birth, as America s offering 
in return for what it had received. 1 This vision 
faded away, not to appear again. But he still be 
lieved as firmly as ever that there was a day in 
waiting for the church, and it might be near, when 
the glory of God should be made manifest as it 
had not been since the beginning of Christianity, 
a time when, in the language of prophecy, the 
glory of the Lord should cover the earth as the 

1 Thoughts on the Revival, pp. 313, ff. 



DELAY OF THE DIVINE MANIFESTATION. 235 

waters cover the sea. His faith in the coming of 
that day sustained him in the midst of disappoint 
ment. These movements that had come and gone, 
ending in seeming failure, might, after all, be fore 
runners of a greater movement ; just as the wind, 
the earthquake, and the fire on Horeb were fore 
runners which heralded the coming of the Lord. 
He does not attempt to explain the ways of God 
in thus delaying the manifestation of His power 
and presence. But the mystery of the contrast 
between the present and the future impresses his 
imagination. The time that is to be, will be the 
chief time for the bestowment of the divine bless 
ing. Before this the Spirit of God is given but 
very sparingly and but few are saved. But that 
future time is represented in Scripture as emi 
nently the elect season, the accepted time, and the 
day of salvation. The comparatively little saving 
good which there now is in the world, as the fruit 
of Christ s redemption, is granted, as it were, by 
way of anticipation, glimpses of the light before 
the dawning of the day, or as the first-fruits are 
gathered in before the harvest. 

But could the coming of such a day as Edwards 
looked for be accelerated by prayer ? If its time 
had been determined in the secret counsels of 
God, could prayer, however united or protracted, 
change the divine will and hasten the accomplish 
ment of the divine purpose ? Edwards did not 
think so. He had already put himself on record 
to the effect that the object of prayer is not to 



236 THE GREAT AWAKENING. 

change God s will, but suitably to affect our own 
hearts, and so prepare us to receive the blessings 
we ask. 1 Indeed, this view of prayer, as mainly if 
not exclusively subjective in its effect, was the only 
view compatible with Edwards idea of Deity. 
Nor does he anywhere contradict formally this 
emphatic statement of his belief. His book on 
Union in Prayer shows him presenting the motives 
which should induce people to pray for a great 
specific purpose. He meets objections which are 
presented as if they came from others, but it is 
more probable that he was here as elsewhere solv 
ing the difficulties which his own mind suggested. 
It is proper to pray for the general outpouring of 
the divine Spirit on the world, because there are 
many signs that such an event is near, so very 
near that before the appointed seven years of 
prayer are ended, the day determined by divine 
decree may be ushered in. If there should be a 
universal movement toward prayer, it would be an 
evidence that God had also decreed the prayer as 
the condition of fulfilling His decree. " When 
ever the time comes that God gives an extraordi 
nary spirit of prayer, then the fulfilling this event 
is nigh. God, in His wonderful grace, is pleased 
to represent Himself, as it were, at the command 
of His people, with regard to mercies of this 
nature." But though Edwards comes as near as 
he can to the popular notion regarding prayer, he 

1 Religious Affections, vol. iii. p. 15; cf., also, vol. ii. p. 514, 
"On the Decrees." 



SUBJECTIVE DOCTRINE OF PRAYER. 237 

is not willing to conceal his conviction. Again 
we have the subjective doctrine of prayer clearly 
affirmed without qualification : " Though it would 
not be reasonable to suppose that merely such a 
circumstance of prayer, as many people s praying 
at the same time, will directly have any influence 
or prevalence with God to cause Him to be the 
more ready to hear prayer, yet such a circum 
stance may reasonably be supposed to have in 
fluence on the minds of men." And this, it is 
argued, is a reason and justification for the union 
in prayer which has been proposed. 1 

Among the reasons assigned for believing that 
the day is near when the Spirit shall be poured 
out from on high are God s recent dealings with 
New England in its political relations, which are 
taken as an evidence of His interest in the land 
and its people, as if He were preserving them for 
some great consummation. The deliverances 
which have been wrought during the French war, 
" God succeeding us against Cape Breton and con 
founding the armada from France last year," these 
wonderful works of God are only to be paralleled 
by His works of old in the days of Moses, Joshua, 
or Hezekiah. And it is worthy to be noted, he re 
marks, that " God sent that great storm on the 

1 A sermon of Edwards, vol. iv. p. 561, entitled The Most High 
a Prayer-hearing God, though intended as a popular inducement 
to the practice of prayer, contains nothing at variance with the 
views presented above. Edwards was cautious, it would seem, 
lest he should encourage the notion that prayer may change the 
will of God. Cf., also, vol. iv. p. 105. 



238 THE GREAT AWAKENING. 

fleet of our enemies the last year, that finally dis 
persed and utterly confounded them, and caused 
them wholly to give over their designs against us, 
the very night after our day of public fasting and 
prayer for our protection and their confusion." 

These deliverances are the more memorable be 
cause in other respects, and so far as the condition 
of the church is concerned, the present is a time 
of great apostasy and confusion. From a pam 
phlet recently printed in London, he has learned 
that luxury and wickedness of almost every kind 
is well-nigh come to the utmost extremity in Eng 
land. The Church of Scotland has lost much of 
her glory, greatly departing from her ancient 
purity and excellent order. Lamentable also is 
the moral and religious state of these American 
colonies, and of New England in particular. The 
kind of religion which was first professed and prac 
tised has grown out of credit. Fierce and violent 
contentions abound. The gospel ministry is grow 
ing into contempt. Church discipline is weak 
ened, and ordinances are disregarded. Wild and 
extravagant notions, gross delusions of the devil, 
and strange practices, prevail under the pretexts 
of great spirituality, or of zeal against formalism. 
The following passage is interesting as giving Ed 
wards view of his own time. To the minds of 
many, it would apply mutatis mutandis to our own 
age. After alluding to the discoveries in the arts 
and sciences, and to the learned and elaborate trea 
tises written in defence of Christianity, in which it 



THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 239 

seemed to him that the eighteenth century surpassed 
anything seen in the world before, he remarks : 

" It is an age, as is supposed, of great light, freedom 
of thought, and discovery of truth in matters of religion, 
and detection of the weakness and bigotry of our ances 
tors, and of the folly and absurdity of the notions of 
those that were accounted eminent divines in former 
generations ; which notions it is imagined, did destroy 
the very foundations of virtue and religion and enervate 
all precepts of morality, and in effect annul all differ 
ence between virtue and vice ; and yet vice and wicked 
ness did never so prevail like an overflowing deluge. 
It is an age wherein those mean and stingy principles, 
as they are called, of our forefathers, which as is sup 
posed deformed religion and led to unworthy thoughts 
of God, are very much discarded and grown out of 
credit, and supposed more free, noble, and generous 
thoughts of the nature of religion and of the Christian 
scheme are entertained ; but yet never was an age 
wherein religion in general was so much despised and 
trampled on, and Jesus Christ and God Almighty so 
blasphemed and treated with open, daring contempt." l 

But the argument that is based upon the con 
viction that the world is evil, and therefore that 
the time is waxing late, might easily be pushed 
too far. And here Edwards separated himself 
from many contemporary theologians. It was an 
opinion prevailing at the time when the proposal 
was made for united prayer, that the coming of 
Christ s kingdom must be preceded by extreme 
calamity to the church of God, and even the tem- 

1 Union in Prayer, p. 459. 



240 THE GREAT AWAKENING. 

porary prevalence of Antichristian enemies against 
her. Such a feeling must of course make union in 
prayer impossible. To hasten the coming of the day 
of Christ would be to involve those who prayed, their 
children, and all that they held dear, in a terrible 
time, a time of extreme suffering and of dreadful 
persecution. Edwards devoted, therefore, a large 
part of his work on Union in Prayer to the refuta 
tion of this obnoxious belief. His argument is 
drawn from the prophetical books of the Bible, 
from obscure hints in the Book of Daniel and the 
Book of Revelation, which he interprets in the 
light of history as their fulfilment. Into his ar 
gument it is not necessary to enter. The fashion 
of it has passed away. But the conclusion which 
he reached was a service rendered to his own and 
succeeding ages. Much as he felt at liberty to 
denounce his own time for its ungodliness, it was 
impossible for him to admit so irrational a fore 
boding, which found no countenance in history, and 
which must neutralize every effort for the exten 
sion of Christian work. The argument from 
Scripture was but incidental to his own good judg 
ment, which uttered its verdict in advance. 

One other objection against the Scotch Memorial 
deserves notice as illustrating Edwards attitude 
toward a stereotyped Puritanism inherited from 
the conflicts of the sixteenth century. There were 
those who might condemn the observation of stated 
seasons for united prayer, on the ground that it 
was only reintroducing the principle of the Chris- 



PURITAN WORSHIP. 241 

tian Year as it had been retained in the Church of 
England. To do this would be doing what men 
had no right to do ; what eminent Christians and 
divines had protested against : it was adding to 
God s institutions, it laid a bond upon men s con 
sciences, and it naturally tended to superstition. 
Edwards admits the force of this argument. He 
tacitly condemns the Christian Year as an unwar 
rantable burden of human appointment, which, in 
proportion as it is regarded as sacred, is productive 
of superstition. But having made this admission 
he looks at the other side of the question, and 
finds that much which is already practised in the 
customary Puritan worship has no authority from 
Scripture. The only safeguard lies in not regard 
ing these things as sacredly fixed as if by divine 
law. Hence there is no objection to stated seasons 
for prayer, if this caution be observed, any more 
than to an annual fast day. And it is added that 
the Scotch memorializers have been particular to 
make it apparent that it was not their intention to 
commit the Puritan churches to any superstitious 
entanglements in sacred times or seasons. The 
Puritans were still sensitive, two hundred years 
after their origin, to anything which approximated 
the worship of the English Church. 

Edwards seems to share in the same prejudice. 
The objection is apparently one of his own raising. 
And yet one cannot avoid the feeling that he had 
not so great a repugnance, after all, to this or sim 
ilar innovations. Anything which made the wor- 



242 THE GREAT AWAKENING. 

ship of God seem real and glorious he was pre 
pared to welcome. If it had not been for the 
conservatism of a Puritan people holding tena 
ciously to their traditions, it is not impossible that 
he would have ventured some innovations of his 
own. It was, for example, one of the Puritan ways 
to reduce the frequency of celebrating the Lord s 
Supper. In the Church of Scotland semi-annual 
communions had taken the place of the old order 
of the mass which every Sunday had reminded the 
worshipper of the benefits of the death of Christ, 
in however distorted or perverse a manner. On 
this point Edwards admissions are significant. 
He laments that the revival had not resulted in an 
increase of the ministrations of the Lord s Supper ; 
that God s people should not more frequently com 
memorate the dying love of their Redeemer than 
they have been accustomed to do. It was evident 
from Scripture that the primitive Christians kept 
the memorial on every Lord s day ; and so he 
believes it will be again with the church of Christ 
in the days that are approaching. This desire for 
more frequent celebrations of the Lord s Supper 
differentiates him from the Quaker, the spirit of 
whose theology he had appropriated. His philo 
sophical and spiritualistic idealism seemed to de 
mand some external manifestation, as if it needed 
to be made more tangible and real by the outward 
visible sign. There are traces in his writings 
which show that he was not insensible to the pomp 
and ceremony of worship : only given the inward 



DAVID BRAINERD. 243 

spirit, and the outward form could not be too 
beautiful or glorious. But lie would not have re 
versed the method, an elaborate or sensuous 
ritual as a means of spiritual life. 

We have now reached a point in the biography 
of Edwards where it becomes necessary to sum up 
briefly those remoter consequences of the revival, 
which were imperfectly understood at the time, 
but which were big with seeming disaster to the 
fortunes of Edwards and his family. But at this 
point we must also pause for a moment in order to 
introduce the story of David Brainerd, an im 
portant episode in the last years of Edwards pas 
torate at Northampton. 

David Brainerd s short life filled a large place 
in the consciousness of the stricter Calvinistic sort 
during the last century; nor has the memory of 
his devoted career entirely faded out in our own 
day. We may think that the significance attach 
ing to his name is an exaggerated one, but the life 
of Edwards would be incomplete without at least 
an allusion to him. 

Edwards first met him in 1743 at New Haven, 
where he had gone to attend the Commencement 
exercises of Yale College. Some two years before, 
Brainerd, while then a member of the college, had 
expressed himself disrespectfully, not to say con 
temptuously, of the religious character of certain 
members of the faculty. He had said of them, in 
fact, that they possessed no more religion than the 



244 THE GREAT AWAKENING. 

chair on which he was leaning. This language 
having been reported to the faculty Brainerd had 
been expelled. He had now returned to New 
Haven when his class was graduating, in the hope, 
by humble confession of his fault, that he might 
receive his degree. Great efforts were made to 
induce the faculty to accede to his petition. The 
Rev. Aaron Burr, of New Jersey, came on to New 
Haven for the purpose of using his influence in 
his behalf. Edwards also was one among others 
who attempted to make reconciliation between the 
offended teachers and their indiscreet pupil. But 
the degree was refused, nor was it ever accorded to 
him. It was this incident which first drew out the 
sympathy of Edwards for one with whom he after 
wards became intimately associated. Into the 
merits of the case we do not propose to enter. 
Brainerd seems to have behaved well at the time 
he was seeking his degree. He made, says Ed 
wards, " a truly humble and Christian acknowledg 
ment of his fault." When his degree was refused 
" he manifested no disappointment or resentment." 
It must be remembered that he was at this time 
a young man with a reputation for high religious 
attainments, and he came to New Haven from a 
remote settlement known as Kaunameek, what 
Edwards calls a howling wilderness, where he was 
meeting with unexampled success as a missionary 
to the Indians. Under ordinary circumstances it 
would have seemed only natural if the authorities 
had overlooked his offence, and had granted to 



ED WARDS 1 INTEREST IN BRAINERD. 245 

such an exemplary youth, who represented the 
fervors of the revival, the degree which he desired 
in order to enhance his usefulness. But these were 
not ordinary circumstances. The college had 
taken its stand against the evils and abuses which 
the Great Awakening had generated. Brainerd 
was a typical instance of that spirit of censorious- 
ness which, following the New Lights, as they 
were called, was breaking up the harmony and 
unity of the New England churches. The offence 
was therefore a serious one, which could not easily 
be forgiven without conveying the appearance of 
indifference towards the evils of separatism. 

On the other side there was also much to be 
said, and more that was deeply felt. Brainerd be 
came, as it were, a living martyr for the cause with 
which the college at New Haven had little or no 
sympathy. His case became notorious throughout 
the colonies, lending a fictitious interest to his 
name ; and the interest was deepened and made 
abiding by his early death when only thirty years 
of age. He was an ardent, enthusiastic soul, mov 
ing with great impetuosity in whatever he under 
took, one whose zeal for religion was even consum 
ing his life. Four years after the degradation 
which he had received at New Haven (1747), he 
came again into New England, an invalid in the 
last stages of consumption. He was now invited 
by Edwards to take up his abode in his own house. 
His story from this time is an extremely painful 
one. The progress of his disease is recorded by 



246 THE GREAT AWAKENING. 

Edwards, who was watching his case with a morbid 
interest. There must have been something in 
Brainerd of high excellence that he should have 
won the confidence and affection of Edwards. But 
there is so much that is repellant in the situation 
that we gladly pass over what appears to belong 
to a morbid psychology rather than to a genuine 
religious experience. Edwards professed himself 
as thankful for the privilege of having conversed 
so freely with Brainerd in his last days. It was 
as if he were permitted to gain a new and striking 
evidence of the reality of the religious affections. 
He was accumulating, through Brainerd s religious 
experience on his death-bed, fresh confirmation of 
the truth of his own theories as against Arminians 
and deists. As in the case of Mrs. Edwards, he 
was making an intellectual study of Brainerd s 
rapturous condition, not suspecting at all that he 
might be watching in some measure the effects of 
his own influence. For Brainerd s confessions so 
entirely accord with all that Edwards had taught 
as high and desirable in a true conversion, that 
one cannot avoid the conclusion that he reflected 
unconsciously the effects of his association with his 
friend and master. 

But the painful interest of Brainerd s case does 
not stop here. There must have been something 
of an attractive spell in the man who could win 
the affections of a daughter of Jonathan Edwards. 
This daughter, his second child, whose name was 
Jerusha, and who had then attained the age of 



BRAI NERD S LIFE AND DIAR7. 247 

seventeen, was allowed to become the constant at 
tendant upon the invalid. She travelled with him 
on a visit which he made to Boston, and returned 
with him to Northampton. Edwards speaks of 
her as the flower of the family, and as a person 
of much the same spirit with Brainerd. But this 
betrothal was a strange one, with an unnatural, 
unearthly character. For nineteen weeks she de 
voted herself to attending Brainerd in his illness. 
She delighted in the task, because she looked on 
him as an eminent servant of Christ. And yet 
even her young heart must have been chilled on 
its human side, when, shortly before his death, 
Brainerd, in taking his leave of her, spoke of his 
love for her, but also added that it was his brother 
John for whom he had the greatest affection of 
any person on earth. She filled only a subordi 
nate place in his heart, and yet was to offer up 
her young life as a sacrifice to his service. Only 
a few months after his death she was called away, 
leaving an aching void in her father s heart. 

Edwards preached the funeral sermon of Brain 
erd, and afterwards edited his diary, adding to it 
observations and reflections of his own. It was this 
life of Brainerd by Edwards which is said to have 
been the means of the conversion of the famous 
missionary, Henry Martyn. Credit for the mission 
ary spirit, which was so rare a gift in the eighteenth 
century, should be freely accorded to David Brain 
erd. But the story of his connection with Ed 
wards resembles the case of Sterling and Carlyle. 



248 THE GREAT AWAKENING. 

In each instance there is the history of a human 
soul, which, if we can only see it so, is always in 
teresting, wherever we may look at it. But, as in 
the case of Sterling, there was no special reason 
for furnishing a biography. Private motives im 
pelled Carlyle to the task. Edwards was moved 
by a desire to furnish irresistible evidence against 
the Arminians or deists, who denied the validity of 
religious experiences. 



VI. 



DISMISSAL FROM NORTHAMPTON. " QUALIFICA 
TIONS FOR FULL COMMUNION." 

EDWARDS may have found support and refresh 
ment in his association with Brainerd as with a 
kindred spirit. And of such consolation he stood 
in need, for he was now approaching the catas 
trophe of his life. The results of the Great Awak 
ening were to prove bitter fruit to the pastor at 
Northampton and his household. The time was 
at hand when, as Mrs. Edwards had contemplated 
among the possible contingencies of life, they were 
to be driven forth from the town, when, after years 
of devoted service, the unrivalled preacher, the 
theologian who had not his like or his equal, was 
to be banished by the almost unanimous voice of 
the congregation. He had expected, as was then 
generally the case with New England ministers, 



LARGER RESULTS OF THE REVIVAL. 249 

to end his days with the church over which he 
had been set in his youth. But not only were 
the sacred ties which bound him to his people 
broken, there was a manifestation toward him 
of anger, of malice, and of contumely, the story 
of which, even at this distance of time, it is pain 
ful to read. Such an event had no precedent in 
the history of the New England churches. It may 
help to appreciate the situation if a general sum 
mary be given of the effects, near or remote, of 
the Great Awakening, before treating of the pe 
culiar cause which explains the misfortunes of Ed 
wards. 

First among these may be ranked the promi 
nent place assigned to the emotions, which becomes 
an almost new element in popular Christianity. 
The appeal to the emotions had been attended, it 
is true, by gross evils, caricatures, distortions, and 
perversions of true religion, which had made sen 
sible men stand aloof in the conviction that the 
movement was doing more injury than good. But 
the good was in the long run to predominate over 
the evil. To rouse the emotions in the interest of 
religion was equivalent to asserting the inwardness 
of religion, instead of leaving it a cold routine of 
external duties. The emphasis placed upon the 
affections in religion marks a new step in the de 
velopment of the people. Sacerdotal and sacra 
mental theories of a divine grace, conveyed through 
external channels, vanished under the influence 
of the principle that the divine action on the soul 



250 THE GREAT AWAKENING. 

is direct and immediate, capable also of imparting 
such a shock to the whole nature as to divert it 
from its old current into a higher ethical as well 
as spiritual existence. The appeal to the emotions, 
in behalf of which Edwards plead so earnestly, 
not only made possible a religious enthusiasm, but 
was the indirect cause of other popular enthusi 
asms by which great reforms were to be accom 
plished. To rouse the emotional nature was to 
emancipate the powers of the soul which had so 
long lain dormant that their very existence was 
unsuspected. Without such a preliminary quick 
ening movement as the Great Awakening, it is 
doubtful if the sentiment of humanity, which has 
been such a powerful factor in modern civilization, 
could have made its successful record. The hard 
ness and cruelty of the last century, the want of 
sympathy with human suffering, the injustices 
which had long reigned undisturbed, were gradu 
ally overcome when men ceased to remain stran 
gers to their inmost selves. It will always remain 
the peculiar glory of the religious body known as 
Friends, or Quakers, that their theological prin 
ciple made them the first to awake to the evils of 
human slavery. The Puritans now fall into line 
with those whom they have despised or persecuted ; 
and it is a circumstance to be noted, that a friend 
and pupil of Edwards, the famous Dr. Hopkins, 
became the leader in the social reform which ef 
fected the abolition of slavery in New England. 
Another result of the revival in New England 



ELECTION AND CONVERSION. 251 

was to make the inward process of conversion the 
foremost consideration in the religious conscious 
ness. Not but what it had been recognized be 
fore, in name as well as in substantial result. But 
yet the revival so magnified the importance of 
conversion that it may be regarded as a new 
and distinct creation of the last century, whose ac 
ceptance by the Calvinistic churches has had the 
effect of subordinating their differences to such an 
extent as to give them a unity and resemblance 
which overshadows their divergences. And fur 
ther, the idea of conversion, dividing as it did the 
world into two great classes, was a distinction so 
tangible, so potent, as to eclipse the distinction be 
tween the elect and the non-elect, which from this 
time was destined, however slowly, to disappear. 
The necessity of conversion was asserted by the 
great founder of Methodism, with a vigor and suc 
cess which Calvinism could not rival, so long as it 
was embarrassed by the prior distinction between 
elect and non-elect, which Wesley totally rejected. 
Although Edwards had aimed to revive the old 
distinction, and not without success, yet the at 
tempt to retain election, as a coordinate ruling idea 
in the religious life, threw New England theology 
into a confusion out of which it was long in 
emerging. The idea of conversion involved the 
freedom of the will, and was silently undermining 
all false distinctions by which human freedom was 
denied or made inoperative. The question has 
been asked why revivals should have been im- 



252 THE GREAT AWAKENING. 

known in the American churches after the Great 
Awakening in 1740, and should not have reap 
peared until two generations had passed away. 
The answers to this inquiry have been various, 
such as the evils which the Awakening produced, 
or the political complications which ended in the 
American Revolution. Both answers contain a 
germ of truth. But there is another answer still. 
It took the lifetime of two generations of Puri 
tan preachers and theologians to get rid of the 
distinction between the elect and non-elect. It 
was not until Hopkins and Emmons had had their 
day that the new school of Puritanism arose, cor 
dially admitting the freedom of the will in terms 
which Edwards would have regarded as impossi 
ble or absurd. 

The excitement and even consternation into 
which the revival plunged New England is not 
wholly explained from the religious stand-point 
alone. As we study the time, it becomes apparent 
that a change was going on which was affecting 
also the political order, whose result was to undo 
the bonds of sympathetic relationship which for 
ages had united the church and the state. The 
readjustment of the relation between the church 
and the world was now attended by the same ac 
companiments as had waited upon the Montanistic 
movement or the Donatist controversy in the an 
cient church. These signs of agitation and distress 
in the ecclesiastical sphere are but the correspond 
ents to war in the political sphere, the necessary 



THE CHURCH AND THE WORLD. 253 

evils which accompany a great transition. The 
interest in studying such a transition does not lie 
in measuring the extent and bitterness of the agi 
tation, which have passed away, but in reaching an 
adequate idea of the principle at stake, the form 
which the reconstruction was assuming. 

There are times when the church and the world 
are seen drawing more closely together, when it 
looks as if the church were deteriorating in its 
effort to embrace within itself, as far as possible, 
the outlying life of humanity. Whether the 
church actually deteriorates or not, may be an open 
question. It may lower itself, but if so, for the 
purpose of raising itself again, bringing with it, in 
its resurrection to a higher standard, the world 
which it would not have reached if it had not 
known how to abase itself in order to its exalta 
tion. Puritanism in New England had shared in 
the oscillations of this vast process. Hardly had 
the Puritans reached the new world when church 
and state flowed together in close and harmonious 
relationship. But if the church and the world at 
times approximate for mutual benefit, it may also 
be regarded as an equally legitimate process when 
they draw apart, when the church is seen jealously 
separating and holding itself aloof from the world, 
as if fearful of its contamination. The feeling 
grows within the church that its ideal is in danger 
of degradation unless it may go apart by itself, to 
nourish the strength of holy things in silence and 
seclusion. 



254 THE GREAT AWAKENING. 

Edwards had been the leader in a movement, of 
which this was the outcome, to separate the church 
from the world, to raise such barriers between 
them that their life should flow on separate and 
apart. He had grown up in the church, as if it 
were the only necessary sphere for the religious 
man. From childhood on, his attention was con 
centred on the church, as if the state hardly ex 
isted, so little attention did he give to its affairs. 
Throughout his life he was in search of a principle 
whose acceptance by the church would give to it 
a vigorous and independent life of its own. There 
is one notable allusion to the relation which the 
state should hold to the church, and but one, so 
far as we know, in Edwards works. It is found 
in his Thoughts on the Revival, and is couched 
after the manner of the Theocracy. He there 
alludes to the indifference displayed by the civil 
authority to the glorious work that was going on 
in the churches. At least, he thought, the govern 
ment might have proclaimed a day of public 
thanksgiving for so unspeakable a mercy, or a day 
of fasting and penitence for past deadness and un 
profitableness under the means of grace ; or it 
might have entered upon consultation as to what 
should be done to advance so great a reformation. 
If a new governor comes into the province, those 
who are in authority arise and go forth to meet 
him with addresses and congratulations. Not to 
do so would be construed as a denial of his author 
ity, or a refusal to receive and honor him. And 



RELATION OF CHURCH AND STATE. 255 

when the Lord of the universe comes down from 
heaven in so wonderful a manner, shall the civil 
rulers stand at a distance and be silent and inac 
tive ! He would humbly recommend them to con 
sider whether their behavior will not be inter 
preted by God as a denial of Christ, or whether 
God is not adjuring them : Be wise now, O ye 
rulers ; be instructed, ye judges of New England. 1 
But the rulers kept silence notwithstanding Ed 
wards complaint. Nor was the protest which he 
had made indicative of any deep-seated purpose. 
He did not feel impelled to write a treatise in 
order to expound or enforce his meaning. The 
allusion seems to have been intended rather for 
rhetorical ends, as if to complete his thought ; or 
it may have been the conventional echo of an ear 
lier age. Church and state were drifting apart, 
and Edwards not only made no effort to prevent 
or retard the process, but furnished the formula 
for their withdrawal and separation. In accord 
ance with his sharp and ruthless distinction be 
tween common and special grace, the state is de 
prived of a truly divine or supernatural character, 
while the church becomes the exclusive home of 
the spiritual. The same distinction had run 
through Christian history from the time of Au 
gustine, until Wycliffe broke its spell by the an- 
nunciation of a higher teaching, that the state 
is equally divine with the church, holding its sacred 
authority, not mediately, as popes in the Middle 

1 Thoughts on the Revival, vol. iii. p. 820. 



256 THE GREAT AWAKENING. 

Ages had asserted, but immediately from Christ 
Himself. Edwards, like Wycliffe, stands at the 
beginning of a new cycle in the history of the 
church. But though the outcome of his teaching 
was to reverse the thought of Wycliffe, and to sep 
arate church and state as if their union were the 
alliance of things incompatible with each other, he 
showed no disposition to draw the inference which 
popes had drawn, which Calvin and the early Puri 
tans had also drawn, that because the ecclesiastical 
was more important than the civil, therefore the 
state should be subordinated to the church. The 
state had now become too strong, and it may be 
because of its clearer recognition of its divine call, 
to sacrifice its mission at the bidding of the church. 
The only alternative was to awaken in the church 
an independent life, so that it should not feel its 
need of dependence on the state ; to create an in 
terest so powerful and absorbing within the eccle 
siastical fold as to render the clergy content with 
their restricted sphere. Such was the significance 
of the doctrine of conversion when viewed in its 
relation with the dissolution of the Puritan the 
ocracy. The church now became not only recon 
ciled to its new lot, but soon learned to denounce 
the old relation as a baneful mingling of the things 
of Caesar with the things of God. 

It was still another result of the new distinction 
between the converted and the unconverted that it 
made impossible any longer the retention of the 
Half-way Covenant, and especially in the form 



THE HALF-WAY COVENANT. 257 

which it had assumed at Northampton. As orig 
inally set forth in the Synod of 1657, and again in 
1662, the Half-way Covenant had been a conces 
sion on the part of the church, mainly in order to 
jits more facile working in relation with the state. 

When the number of those was increasing 1 who 

, , 

asked for membership in the church in order to^aT 
voice in the affairs of the state, but who had not 
the qualification for church membership in either 
ability or willingness to make the required profes 
sion of religious experience, the church relaxed its 
requirement, and allowed admission to the civil 
privileges of membership on the ground of baptism 
alone. But to those joining the church on this 
Half-way Covenant, as it was now called, the Lord s 
Supper was still refused until they should enter 
into full covenant by presenting before the church 
satisfactory evidence of the Spirit s work within 
them. But this was not the form of the Half 
way Covenant which awoke the distrust and oppo 
sition of Edwards. At Northampton a further 
step had been taken by Mr. Stoddard, Edwards 
grandfather and predecessor, who had introduced 
on his own authority a radical modification of 
the Half-way Covenant, in accordance with which 
baptized persons were admitted to the Lord s 
Supper without making a credible profession of 
Christian experience, or even if they knew that 
they were destitute of any work of divine grace 
within them. 

Although Mr. Stoddard s attitude had met with 



258 THE GREAT AWAKEX1XG. 

much opposition, 1 the custom which he introduced 
at Northampton had very generally prevailed among 
the surrounding churches, as well as elsewhere 
throughout New England. Edwards, when he 
first went to Northampton, felt instinctive mis 
givings as to the method in vogue, but he sup 
pressed at the time any impulse to inquire further 
into the matter for the satisfaction of his mind. 
After the Revival of 1735, and again after that of 
1740, he admitted lai-ge numbers to the commun 
ion without requiring from them any distinct pro 
fession of Christian experience. But in his ser 
mons on The Religious Affections, he intimated 
plainly his dislike to a further continuance of the 
custom. This was in the year 1744. From that 
time until 1748, no one was presented for admis 
sion to the sacred rite of the Lord s Supper. 

1 Among those who resisted the innovation at Northampton 
was the celebrated Dr. Increase Mather, the last great champion 
of the theocracy. But though he answered Mr. Stoddard a 
defence of his position, he felt no great interest in the subject 
and regarded it as of minor importance. Cf. Stoddard s Guide 
to Christ (17o5), which contains a prefatory epistle by In 
crease Mather in which he remarks : " It is known that, in some 
points not fundamental, I differ from this beloved author." Mr. 
Stoddard s position was not a clearly defined one, and was easily 
liable to misapprehension. In his Appeal to the Learned, in which 
he makes his defence, he remarks: "My business was to an 
swer a case of conscience, and direct those that might have 
scruples about participation of the Lord s Supper because they 
had not a work of saving conversion, not at all to direct the 
churches to admit any that were not to rational charity true 
believers." p. 21. Cf , also, the Neic-Enylander, vol. xliii. p. 
615, for an account of Mr. Stoddard s own religious history, 
which has only recently come to light. 



A CASE OF PARISH DISCIPLINE. 259 

Then, in the case of a person who solicited the 
privilege, Edwards stated what he should require 
as the terms of full admission to the church. The 
person in question declined to accept them, and 
the issue was now broached which resulted in his 
dismissal. 

It is possible that the difficulties in which Ed 
wards was now involved might have assumed a 
different shape had not affairs been complicated 
by a peculiar case of discipline in the parish in 
which Edwards had failed to carry with him the 
cooperation of the people. As the story runs, a 
discovery had been made that certain books of an 
obscene character l were in circulation among the 
young people of the parish of both sexes, the 
result of which was licentious conversation and 
immoral practices. The first act of the pastor 
was a sermon in which the facts were made known 
to the congregation, an impressive sermon, which 
led the officers to unite with him in calling for an 
examination of the offenders. But when Edwards 
came to read from the pulpit the names of the 
guilty persons, and of those also who were sum 
moned to give their witness in the case, it appeared 
that almost every family in the church of any 
consideration was involved. Those who had hith 
erto favored an investigation now resisted it. The 
consequence was that the proposed discipline was 

1 The suggestion lias been made that the books were some of 
the popular novels of the time, such as Pamela, etc. Cf. Leslie 
Stephen, Hours in a Library, vol. ii. p. (53. 



260 THE GREAT AWAKENING. 

dropped, while a certain disaffection towards E4 
wards began to be felt which put an end to the 
extraordinary influence he had hitherto exercised. 
From this time Edwards laments the ineffective 
ness of his preaching. Whether it was that his 
speculative cast of mind had carried him too far 
away from the range of the popular interest, his 
sermons no longer aroused the unconverted. A 
general decline of religious interest began to pre 
vail which he was powerless to overcome. 

Edwards was inclined to attribute the difficulty 
to the custom of admitting to the inner shrine of 
the Christian worship those who had made no 
profession of a Christian purpose. He now pro 
posed to discuss the subject in a series of sermons, 
and asked permission of the church to that effect. 
The permission was not only refused, but a storm 
of human rage and furor now broke forth against 
him, and nothing would allay the angry passions 
of the people but his final and immediate dismis 
sal from his post. In vain he asked permission 
to be heard, aware as he w r as that his views 
were bitterly misrepresented. He finally gained 
consent to write a book on the Qualifications of 
Full Communion, which might be read when his 
voice would not be listened to from the pulpit. 
But while the work was in preparation the people 
became impatient that it did not appear, in order 
that they might hasten his dismissal, which had 
become a foregone conclusion. When the book 
appeared but few of them read it. He then deter- 



AN ECCLESIASTICAL COUNCIL. 261 

mined by the advice of the surrounding churches 
to lecture on the subject. But his lectures were 
thinly attended by his own congregation, though 
many came from a distance who made up the 
greater part of his audience. When the question 
arose of calling an ecclesiastical council for the 
purpose of hearing the case, there was long and 
unseemly wrangling, because the church at North 
ampton was afraid that, if Edwards went out of 
the county to invite ministers and churches to sit 
upon the council, as he was entitled to do, the case 
might result in his retention of the pastorate ; and 
they were determined that he should go. When 
the council met, it was decided by a majority of 
one that the pastoral relation should be dissolved. 
But the vote of the church ratifying the decision 
of the council was two hundred in favor of it, and 
only twenty who were opposed. The date of Ed 
wards dismissal was June 22, 1750. Although he 
continued to live in the town for some months 
after his connection with the church was severed, 
great reluctance was felt at allowing him to 
preach, even when the services of no other minis 
ter could be obtained. And at last a town meet 
ing was called which accomplished its object in the 
formal vote that he should not again be permitted 
to enter the pulpit of the church in Northampton. 
So Jonathan Edwards was turned adrift at the end 
of twenty-three years of service, and at the age of 
forty-seven, with a large family of children, and 
with no means of support, and doubtful if he 



2G2 THE GREAT AWAKENING. 

should ever obtain another parish. The spirit of 
the man under these circumstances shone forth so 
beautifully that one s sympathies and love go forth 
toward him as if the scene were still visibly enact 
ing before our eyes. He had sat down and counted 
the cost before he proceeded to action. He knew 
that to overturn the established usage meant dis 
aster to himself and his family. After all, the 
man was greater than the metaphysician or the 
theologian. In his mature years he is exhibiting 
the final product in high Christian character, of 
which he had set before himself the ideal in the 
Resolutions of his youth. It must have been a 
strange scene at Northampton when he preached 
his farewell sermon. The discourse is still trem 
ulous with the intense feeling of the hour. The 
whole man stands forth in it, with his moral indig 
nation at a great wrong ; with the solemnity of ac 
cusation in which he had no equal ; with the tender 
pathos in which he takes his leave of the dear 
children whom God had given him, warning them 
all of the final meeting at the judgment day, when 
the case should be reheard before the tribunal of 
Heaven. 

No attempt can be made here to review at any 
length the questions at issue regarding the reor 
ganization of the Puritan churches. The confu 
sion in this time of transition was so great that no 
one could do justice to the motives of his opponent. 
All parties alike complain of misrepresentation. 
It was Edwards misfortune that he labored under 



EDWARDS POSITION. 263 

the suspicion of being a separatist. He was *" 
charged with seeking to establish a church on 
principles opposed to those of the standing order ; 
of demanding the evidence of an inward change 
on the part of postulants for admission, the stages 
of which should be sharply denned ; of sitting in 
judgment on the religious condition of others. In 
the excited condition of the people, it was almost 
impossible that he should assuage these hostile 
suspicions. But in this case as in others the in 
domitable will of Edwards rose above all obsta 
cles. He was determined to make his position clear. 
In his Qualifications for Full Communion, written 
while the controversy was at its height, he resisted 
that tendency in the Puritan churches, represented 
by Mr. Stoddard, which endowed the church as 
an organic institution with a life-giving efficacy. 
Mr. Stoddard s doctrine of the Lord s Supper 
might easily be interpreted as giving to the feast 
of the Holy Communion a magical effect apart 
from the spiritual fitness of the recipient. Hence 
he had spoken of the Lord s Supper as a convert 
ing ordinance ; he invited persons to the Holy 
Table even though they knew themselves to be 
destitute of Christian sincerity. This sacramental 
tendency was banished from the Puritan churches 
by Edwards influence. His book on the subject 
became a standard authority, holding Congrega 
tionalism to its original principle, that only by a 
living faith did Christ become the living bread in 
the sacrament of His body and His blood. A re- 



264 TEE GREAT AWAKENING. 

ply to this work on the Qualifications for Full 
Communion was made by Williams, a neighbor 
ing minister and a kinsman of Edwards, which 
drew forth from him a few years later another 
large treatise which practically closed the contro 
versy. In this work he pursues his antagonist 
into the hidden recesses of those groundless sus 
picions which were rife among the people. He 
endeavors to clear himself of the charge of set 
ting up a separatist church, or of calling for evi 
dence of conversion, or of insisting that conversion 
should assume a uniform character. All that he 
had insisted upon as a requisite for admission to 
the Lord s Supper was a simple, moderate formula 
of self-consecration, hardly going beyond the con 
firmation vow of the Church of England. 1 

But on the other hand Edwards does not seem 
to have been aware of the revolution which the 
popular idea of conversion was working in the 
churches. As a consequence of that sharp dis 
tinction, the baptism of infants was losing its sig- 

1 Edwards has given two of these formulas in his Reply to 
Williams, vol. i. p. 202. The first of them reads: "I hope I 
do truly find a heart to give myself wholly to God, according 1 to 
the tenor of that covenant of grace which was sealed in my bap 
tism, and to walk in a way of that obedience to all the command 
ments of God which the covenant of grace requires, as long as 
I live." The alternative formula reads: "I hope I truly find 
in my heart a willingness to comply with all the commandments 
of God, which require me to give myself up wholly to Him and 
to serve Him with my body and my spirit ; and do accordingly 
now promise to walk in a way of obedience to all the command- 
meuts of God as long as I live." 



INFANT BAPTISM. 265 

nificance. Until they had been converted, they 
stood in no relation to God ; they were as far from 
Him as if they had never come within the scope of 
Christian influence. Edwards made no effort to 
meet the difficulty, nor did he feel called upon to 
examine the subject of infant baptism. He ad 
mits l that all the baptized are in some sort mem 
bers of the church. But there he leaves a subject 
which had no interest for him. He had no doubts 
about it, as he remarks, but it was " a topic liable 
to great disputes, and called for a large disserta 
tion to make it clear." The opponents of Ed 
wards on this subject had a clear and valid 
position. In maintaining that baptism admitted 
to all the privileges of church membership, 2 they 
were resisting the evil effects of the doctrine o 
conversion, which easily degenerated into a bane 
ful subjectivity, where the organic character of the 
church threatened to disappear, where the shifting 
feelings about one s inner state became the test of 
one s acceptance with God. In adhering to the 

1 Qualifications, etc., vol. i. p. 89. 

2 Among those who actively helped in the expulsion of Ed 
wards from Northampton was another kinsman, Ashley, of Deer- 
field. Edwards bitterest foes seem to have been those of his own 
household after the flesh. Cf. The Historical Magazine, June, 
1867, for a sermon preached by Ashley containing a defence of 
the principle that baptism admits to full church membership, and 
represents an organic relationship to Christ. Ashley suffered for 
his devotion to this principle, as well as for his opposition to Ed 
wards. He saw his own congregation divide on the issue, the 
larger part going to Greenfield to found a church on Edwards 
ideas. It was on this occasion that he preached the sermon. 



266 THE GREAT AWAKENING. 

Half -way Covenant, they were also struggling 
against what was called the Anabaptist heresy, 
which discarded infant baptism altogether, post 
poning the performance of the rite until it could 
gain a real significance by coinciding with the 
experience of conversion. It had been, indeed, 
one object of the Half-Way Covenant to overcome 
the Anabaptist principle by attaching increased 
importance to baptism. With the rejection of 
the Half -Way Covenant, and under the influence 
of the popular notions about conversion, that was 
now coining to pass which the early Puritan 
fathers had dreaded. An opportunity was af 
forded to the Baptist sect of which it w r as not slow 
to take advantage. With this communion most 
of the separatist organizations in New England 
threw in their lot, and were lost to the Congrega 
tional order. 

There are clearly, then, two sides to this contro 
versy. It is not altogether true, as is sometimes 
remarked, that Edwards was simply restoring the 
early order of the Puritan churches in New Eng 
land. He could not restore that order without 
restoring also the Theocracy, with which its con 
nection was a vital one. Those who were resisting 
Edwards were also legitimate descendants of the 
Puritan fathers in the spirit, as also largely in the 
letter. We are tracing here the rise of the schism 
in the New England churches which came to an 
open rupture in the beginning of the present cen 
tury. The opponents of Edwards who insisted on 



ECCLESIASTICAL DIVISIONS. 267 

the importance of baptism as admitting to full 
membership in the church, who rejected the dis 
tinction between the converted and the uncon 
verted, were also representatives of the old Puritan 
purpose which was seeking some normal connec 
tion between the church and the world, keeping 
the church in a larger and healthier attitude by 
its relation to the state, insisting on the objective 
side of Christian truth, and in this spirit vanquish 
ing the antinomian spectre as it appeared in 
Mrs. Ilutchinson, or the subjective moods of the 
Quakers, or the disintegrating tendency of the 
Anabaptists, who threatened the supremacy of the 
standing order. 

The world is weary of discussions about the 
nature of baptism. The only apology for present 
ing the subject here is the fact of its historical im 
portance, and its close relation to the ecclesiastical 
divisions which now began to mark the face of 
New England. Speculations about what might 
have been, although they are intangible, impon 
derable considerations, are nevertheless inevitable 
to any one who cannot help seeing both sides of 
a controversy. If the two positions in this embit 
tered party strife could have been combined ; if 
baptism could have been imparted freely to all 
and accepted as a rite admitting to full member 
ship in the church ; while the ratification of the un 
conscious vow of infancy was required as a natural 
step in maturer years, as well as a condition for 
receiving the Lord s Supper, the divisions into 



268 THE GREAT AWAKENING. 

hostile sects might have been to some degree 
averted. But the churches of the Congregational 
order, both before and after Edwards time, nar 
rowed the number of recipients of the rite, in the 
case of infant baptism, to the children of believing 
parents. There was thus opened a door for the 
introduction of another church, an older ecclesias 
tical order, which rejected 110 child from its fold, 
whatever its parentage, asserting of all baptized 
children that they were divinely and authoritatively 
declared by baptism to be the " children of God, 
the members of Christ, and heirs of the kingdom 
of heaven." For such a church, with such a 
profession, there was surely a demand. Edwards 
must have looked upon its declaration of the mean 
ing of baptism with a feeling of deep repugnance. 
And yet it might become the basis of a theology 
quite as spiritual as his own, and without his limi 
tations. 

The controversy on the nature of the church was 
carried on by Edwards without knowledge of pre 
vious discussions which had covered much the same 
ground in ancient history. His Reply to Williams, 
as well as his Qualifications for Full Communion, 
remind one constantly of Augustine s controversy 
with the Donatists in the fifth century. The para 
bles of the good and bad fish taken in the net, or 
the tares and the wheat growing in the same field, 
recurring in both controversies, are the hinge on 
which the discussions turned. Edwards had some 
thing of the Donatist spirit, which was seeking the 



EARLY PURITANISM. 269 

purity of the church, but he might not have been 
averse to Augustine s compromise of an ecclesiola, 
the little church within the larger church. Au 
gustine was also adjusting afresh the relations be 
tween the ecclesiastical and the civil power. Here 
the divergency is wide and real. In the ancient 
church everything tended toward the union with 
the state in some organic relationship, the church, 
however, possessing the advantage; while the state 
trembled in its impotence as it saw the imperial 
sceptre gradually ceasing to be the symbol of 
power. But in the eighteenth century the situa 
tion was reversed. It was becoming the watch 
word of modern Christianity, as it had been among 
the Donatists, that the church should have no rela 
tion to the civil power. The times were with Ed 
wards in his efforts to mould the church in accord 
ance with the distinction between the converted 
and the unconverted, a distinction which should 
serve to keep the church within its own too narrow 
sphere. Edwards seemed to be carrying back the 
Congregational order to its early purity, when a 
profession of Christian experience was demanded 
from every postulant for admission to the church. 
But the difference is greater than the resemblance 
between his work and that of the Puritan fathers. 
To the original churches there had opened the at 
tractive opportunity of ruling the state and the so 
cial order in the name of God. When this oppor 
tunity and privilege were withdrawn, there was 
danger of an unhealthy pietism invading the reli- 



270 THE GREAT AWAKENING. 

gious circle, which would not only destroy its at 
tractiveness for the outer world, but might rob the 
church itself of a robust manliness, if it did not 
empty religion of its positive significance. There 
are not wanting signs of a certain hollowness and 
unreality in the speculative thought of Edwards, 
which may owe their origin in some part to this 
defect. 

Having made these qualifications, it only re 
mains to add that Edwards may be justly called 
the father of modern Congregationalism. If he 
seemed to have been defeated by his expulsion 
from Northampton, his expulsion made the issue 
clear and he triumphed in his fall. Most of the 
Puritan churches accepted his principles, banished 
the Half-way Covenant, and took on the form which 
they still retain. As one by one they went over 
to his side, they found it hard to understand how 
there ever could have existed a different practice. 
It became the custom to refer to the times of the 
Theocracy as " those unhappy days when things 
secular and religious were strangely mixed up in 
New England." l And yet the Congregational 
churches have never been able to escape alto 
gether from the effects of that u unhappy " con 
nection, if so it must be regarded. It has given 
them a certain distinction, the consciousness of 
which they prize. They have continued to retain 
a sense of relationship to the state, and to feel 
themselves responsible for its welfare. Nor have 
1 Dwight, Life of Edwards, p. 303. 



ALIENATION FROM CONGREGATIONALISM. 271 

the cases been rare in which its clergy have given 
themselves to political and legislative duties, as if 
a natural and congenial work. 

But if Edwards was the father of modern Con 
gregationalism, he came very near disowning his 
offspring. In those dark days after his expulsion 
from his parish, when he did not know which way 
to turn for a common livelihood, he was approached 
by one of his Scotch correspondents, who offered 
to procure for him a church in Scotland. To this 
correspondent he wrote : " You are pleased very 
kindly to ask me whether I could sign the West 
minster Confession of Faith, and submit to the 
Presbyterian form of church government. . . . As 
to my subscribing to the substance of the West 
minster Confession, there would be no difficulty ; 
and as to the Presbyterian government, I have long 
been perfectly out of conceit of our unsettled, inde 
pendent, confused way of church government in 
this land ; and the Presbyterian way has ever 
appeared to me most agreeable to the word of God 
and the reason and nature of things" l It is no 
gratuitous assumption if we view this language as 
expressing only the alienation of the passing mo 
ment. The case of Edwards is similar to that noto 
rious instance in the ancient church where Gregory 
Nazianzen, the Patriarch of Constantinople, was 
driven from his see by the violence of his enemies. 
The language in which, from the soreness of his 
heart, he condemned all general councils and 
1 Dwight, Life of President Edwards, p. 412. 



272 THE GREAT AWAKENING. 

synods of bishops as productive only of evil, may 
be compared with Edwards strictures upon the 
ecclesiastical polity of New England. In both in 
stances allowance must be made for human infir 
mity. Congregationalism as a church polity may 
have its defects and disadvantages ; but it has also 
merits for those who know to discern and appro 
priate them. Among this number Edwards should 
certainly be ranked. He was born a Congregation- 
alist, if we may use the expression. The appeal to 
the reason in defence of truth, rather than the 
prescription of authority, is his leading character 
istic. He was, all his life through, an innovator, 
following the lead of his speculative faculties, 
rather than anxious for the conservation of theo 
logical formulas. His rejection of the church polity, 
whose workings he stimulated and adorned, is not 
consistent with the freedom and independence of 
his own career. 



THIRD PERIOD. 

THE PHILOSOPHICAL THEOLOGIAN. 1750-1758. 
I. 

REMOVAL TO STOCKBRIDGE AS MISSIONARY TO 
THE INDIANS. 

IN the straitened circumstances in which Ed 
wards was placed after his dismissal from North 
ampton, he was remembered by his friends in 
Scotland, who sent generous contributions for his 
relief. 1 It is also touching to read how his wife 
and daughters endeavored to increase the family 
income by various feminine pursuits. Toward the 
close of the year 1750 he received an invitation to 
become the pastor of the church in Stockbridge, 
the frontier town of the colony, forty miles west 
of Northampton. He had already declined to 
further a movement in Northampton whose object 

1 Among these Scotch friends and correspondents of Edwards 
the most distinguished was Dr. John Erskine. He forwarded to 
him supplies of books, urged him to his great controversial writ 
ings, and superintended their publication in Scotland. He has 
been immortalized by Sir Walter Scott in his Guy Mannering, 
where he is presented in his old age leaning over the pulpit of 
Greyfriars. He was the leader of the Evangelical Calvinists in 
the church of Scotland. It is interesting also to note that he was 
the great-uncle of the late Mr. Thomas Erskine, of Linlathen. 



274 THE PHILOSOPHICAL THEOLOGIAN. 

had been to establish there another church of 
which lie should become the pastor. He had 
hardly accepted the invitation to Stockbridge 
when he received a call from a church in Virginia, 
which also promised him a generous support. 
These and similar indications must have been 
grateful in his despondency, as showing that a 
career of active usefulness was still open, despite 
the reflection on his name by his treatment at 
Northampton. The removal to Stockbridge, how 
ever it may have first appeared, was in reality an 
expansion to him, offering opportunities which had 
hitherto been denied for the full display of his 
highest powers. 

He still continued to feel, after his removal 
there, the effects of the great disruption which had 
followed his attempts at reform. It was there 
that he wrote his rejoinder to Williams, who had 
ventured a reply to his work on the Qualifica 
tions for Full Communion. "When Edwards un 
dertook a task of this kind, he showed his ad 
versary no quarter. In this case he brought his 
subtle exhaustive method to an examination and 
refutation of every fallacy, every misrepresenta 
tion, however slight, in order that the reader who 
was willing to examine the subject might become 
fully aware how the case had stood between him 
and his opponents. But irrational and perverse 
elements were so mixed up with that disastrous 
time at Northampton, that one must not expect, 
and from Edwards least of all, an intelligible ao 



MAJOR HAWLETS APOLOGY. 275 

count of the situation. There came to him while 
at Stockbridge some sort of an apology from his 
former parishioners, which seemed to him entirely 
inadequate. His reply, 1 which is addressed to 
Major Joseph Hawley, shows how deeply the sense 
of his personal dignity had been affronted, and 
also the lofty and authoritative tone of the ancient 
Puritan minister. From the same Joseph Hawley 
there came personal letters which even to Edwards 
exacting mind must have disclosed an adequate 
repentance. Hawley, who had been active and 
influential in fomenting the disaffection among 
the people, had now condemned his own conduct, 
and with it that of the people with whom he had 
acted, as sinful and criminal in every respect : as 
he reflected upon it, he had been confounded and 
filled with terror. He appeals to the 51st Psalm 
as the confession of his soul in view of his crime. 
He calls upon the church at Northampton to con 
sider whether it had not been guilty of great sin 
before God in parting as they did with such a 
minister as Mr. Edwards. Their words against 
him he denounces as odious and ungodly and vile, 
full of unchristian bitterness and of gross slanders. 
Mr. Hawley had received from Edwards the assur 
ance of his forgiveness and prayers. But, not con 
tent with this private confession, he published a 
letter, after Edwards death, 2 in which he gave to 
the world the confession which he had rendered in 

1 Cf. Bibliotheca Sacra, vol. i. p. 579. 

2 Dwight s Memoir, pp. 421, ff. 



276 THE PHILOSOPHICAL THEOLOGIAN. 

private ; and as no remonstrance appeared from 
the congregation, it may be taken as indicating 
more than a personal apology. There is now a 
church at Northampton which is called after the 
name of the once dishonored pastor ; and the high 
est distinction which the town can claim, after one 
hundred years and more have passed away, is to be 
identified with the labors and reputation of Jona 
than Edwards. 

The family of Edwards when he went to Stock- 
bridge included ten children, one daughter having 
died, to whom allusion has been made. Two of 
the older daughters were married about the time 
when their father s difficulties were at their height, 
Mary at the age of sixteen, and Sarah at the age 
of twenty-two, events which must have called off 
his mind from his troubles, and renew r ed his inter 
est in the changes and chances of this mortal life. 
Of the daughters who went with him to Stock- 
bridge, Esther was one, to whose beauty inherited 
from both parents, as well as her intellectual 
brightness, tradition bears ample testimony. She 
had attracted the attention of the Rev. Aaron 
Burr, a noted personage in those aristocratic days, 
and to Stockbridge the devoted lover followed her, 
gaining her consent to matrimony in a short court 
ship. Mr. Burr was a man of brilliant qualities, 
who had recently been called to the presidency of 
Nassau Hall, what was afterwards to become 
known as Princeton College. His career was cut 
prematurely short at the age of forty-two, but not 



AARON BURR. 277 

before he had achieved a reputation for piety and 
culture which long survived him. He left two 

O 

children, one of them a boy named after his father, 
in whom a curious interest has always centred, 
partly on his own account, and partly also for the 
thoughts and misgivings which are suggested by 
the fact that such a man should have been the 
grandson of Jonathan Edwards. Aaron Burr was 
the murderer of Alexander Hamilton in a duel ; he 
became vice-president of the United States ; and 
his career reached its height for notoriety in a 
conspiracy against the government, which led to his 
arrest and trial for treason. He was a man with 
an unusual, almost a weird power of fascination, 
to some extent the same charm which may be 
traced in his ancestors, where it had found scope 
and satisfaction in the things of religion and the 
church. Diverted from these channels, the fascina 
tion reappeared under the aspect of a worldliness 
as intense as had been the other worldliness of its 
previous associations. 

Among the younger children of Edwards was a 
son named Jonathan, six years of age at the time 
of the removal to Stockbridge, who illustrates in a 
directer way the principle of heredity. He lived 
to become a metaphysical theologian, following to 
a great extent in his father s line of thought, but 
without his father s genius or poetic fire, or that 
mystic glow which lends interest and beauty to the 
works of the elder Edwards. There was also an 
other son, an infant still in his mother s arms when 



278 THE PHILOSOPHICAL THEOLOGIAN. 

the migration took place, who bore the united 
names of his parents, Pierrepoiit Edwards. 

The town of Stockbridge, when Edwards went 
there in 1751, was almost exclusively an Indian 
settlement. Only a small amount of land had been 
allotted to the few white settlers, who were for the 
most part drawn to the place by plans for the im 
provement of the Indians. Though Edwards had 
received and accepted a call to the church in Stock- 
bridge, his chief responsibility was for these In 
dians, to whom he was appointed missionary by the 
Board of Commissioners for Indian Affairs resid 
ing in Boston, with the concurrence of a society 
in London which also contributed to his support. 
These were the days when there existed in Eng 
land a romantic interest in the American Indian, 
an interest which had drawn Wesley to Georgia, 
which had inspired Pope to write his well-known 
lines ; an interest which Rousseau and his school 
had also felt, as giving support to their reverence 
for nature as something higher than either culture 
or grace. But in America so far, little or nothing 
had been achieved in the way of converting the 
Indians either to civilization or religion. Two ar 
dent missionaries, or apostles as they have been 
called, Eliot and Brainerd, had consecrated their 
lives to this end, but without any permanent re 
sult beyond their own manifestation as types of 
the great Protestant missionaries of the future. 

To this work Edwards was now called at a time 
of life when it was too late to adapt himself to a 



THE INDIANS AT STOCKBRIDGE. 279 

task for which he had no special fitness. His duty 
required him, in addition to preaching twice on 
Sunday to his white congregation, to preach one 
sermon to the Indians through an interpreter. 
How he performed this function may be seen in 
the plan of one of his sermons, prepared expressly 
for the purpose. 1 It shows an effort at adaptation 
of statement, but one can hardly think it was suc 
cessful. The minute divisions and sub-divisions 
still remind us of the author of the Freedom of 
the Will. Edwards, however, may have gained the 
confidence and love of his Indian auditors by his 
untiring and disinterested labors in their behalf. 
In this, too, he was assisted by his family, of whom 
he speaks in one of his letters as being greatly 
liked by the Indians, and more particularly his 
wife. The moment when he arrived at Stock- 
bridge was one of great confusion in Indian af 
fairs. There was no lack of money to carry on 
the work among them, but on the part of some of 
the white settlers there was a disposition to secure 
the money for themselves, and leave the Indian to 
his own devices. The story of Edwards relations 
with the Indians reads like an extract from a 
modern newspaper, detailing the conflict between 
the enemies and friends of this unfortunate peo 
ple ; private avarice diverting funds from their 
appointed course, while an honest, incorruptible 
man refuses to make himself a party to the trans- 

1 Cf. Grossart, Selections from the Unpublished Writings of Ed 
wards, p. 191. 



280 THE PHILOSOPHICAL THEOLOGIAN. 

action. Edwards was an evil genius to those who 
were using the Indians for their private emolu 
ment. Among these was a member of a certain 
prominent family in the colony, who had done 
what he could to prevent Edwards call to Stock- 
bridge. The account of Edwards connection with 
this family suggests some bitter feud, which is left 
unexplained. When Edwards first proposed to 
preach against Arminianism in 1734, it was from 
another member of the same family that he met 
with strenuous opposition to his project. Still 
other representatives of this family, residing in or 
near Northampton, had abetted the disaffection 
which led to his dismissal. In Stockbridge he 
was again confronted with the same hostility. 
Edwards fortunes recall those of Athanasius, who 
seemed to arouse against himself a certain malig 
nant hostility, and apparently for no other reason 
than his unflinching integrity. 

Edwards would not be called a practical man. 
But no man of affairs could have been better fitted 
than he was to detect the avariciousness which 
crippled the Indian mission, and to follow it 
through all its disguises. He had not studied in 
vain the tortuous ways of the Arminians in the 
field of theology. The man who had devoted a 
volume to exposing the misrepresentations of Wil 
liams, or followed up in elaborate letters the in 
accurate statement of Rector Clap, had learned 
how to deal with any adversary, whether in the 
sphere of ecclesiastical controversy or of practical 



THE FREEDOM OF THE WILL. 281 

life. When it came to showing up the trne state 
of Indian affairs, there was no one who could stand 
in comparison with him. In this case it was no 
ecclesiastical council to whom his appeal was car 
ried, but sensible men devoted to a Christian pur 
pose, who only asked for the truth. He was sus 
tained by those to whom his long correspondence 
was directed. For two years or more he carried 
on the hard fight, till he was rewarded by seeing 
the man who was the chief source of the trouble 
abandon Stockbridge, and leave the field a free 
one for the friends of truth and righteousness. 
But in the mean time the Indians had suffered 
from this struggle over their welfare. Pulled 
about as they were between contending factions, 
realizing but little good from the efforts in their 
behalf, from this and from other causes, they 
ceased to regard Stockbridge as their reserve. 
The peace which had come to Edwards was littla 
more than a deeper solitude. 



II. 

THE FREEDOM OF THE WILL. 

EDWARDS was now at leisure to take np some 
larger work than any which he had hitherto at 
tempted. At this time, also, he seems to have re 
verted to the speculations which had interested 
him when he was a boy in college writing his Notes 



282 THE PHILOSOPHICAL THEOLOGIAN. 

upon the Mind. But the gulf of more than a quar 
ter of a century lay between him and that early 
dream, so suddenly and strangely relinquished, of 
interpreting the universe in accordance with the 
absolute reason. Meantime his thoughts had been 
running so long in the grooves of a religious con 
troversy which was still unfinished, that he could 
not escape the fascinations which it offered, the 
temptation to make some final and permanent ef 
fort for the maintenance of the Calvinistic theol 
ogy. So far as he reverted to his early specula 
tions, it seems to have been mainly for the purpose 
of laying a deeper basis for the argument against 
Arminianism. 

Hitherto he had assaulted the foe chiefly on re 
ligious grounds. But it had long been apparent 
to him that the hinge of the whole controversy was 
the speculative issue regarding the freedom of the 
will. Out of the Arminian doctrine that the 
will was free, in the sense of possessing a self- 
determining power, grew, as he thought, the arro 
gant disposition to despise the Calvinistic notions 
of God s sovereignty and moral government, the 
contempt for " the doctrines of grace," the dislike 
to experimental religion, the cultivation of a moral 
ity which read out the divine existence from the 
sphere of human interests. Everything vital was 
at stake in the doctrine of the human will. So 
strongly was he convinced of this that in his most 
impressive manner he declared himself ready to 
admit, that if the Arminians could demonstrate 



A LITERARY SENSATION, 283 

the self -determining power of the will, they had an 
impregnable fortress against every Christian doe- 
trine which he held most dear. To the task, then, 
of demolishing this stronghold he devoted himself 
with the momentum of thought, and energy, and 
indignation which had been gathering for many 
years. So intense was the spirit with which he 
labored that in four months he finished the com 
position of the work on which, more than on any 
other of his writings, his world-wide reputation has 
rested, a work which produced so deep an im 
pression that it still continues to be spoken of as 
" the one large contribution which America has 
made to the deeper philosophic thought of the 
world." 

The treatise on the Will was published in 1754, 
and may be regarded as one of the literary sensa 
tions of the last century. It was more than that, 
it was, to a large part of the religious world, a 
veritable shock, staggering alike to the reason and 
the moral sense. The age was accustomed to sim 
ilar views from infidels and free-thinkers such as 
Hobbes, and Collins, and Hume were reputed to 
be. There were others, too, calling themselves 
Christians, such as Hartley, and Tucker, and Priest 
ley, who denied the freedom of the will, but with 
out awakening the indignation which was caused 
by Edwards assertion of the same principle. For 
here was one who rose up in the name of religion 
and morality, whose high character was acknowl 
edged by all, whose genius was indisputable, whose 



284 THE PHILOSOPHICAL THEOLOGIAN. 

reasoning seemed invincible, and who seemed to be 
clasping hands with materialists and atheists in be 
half of the doctrine that the will was not free to 
choose between good and evil. Edwards teaching, 
also, was associated in the public mind with his 
other beliefs, the divine sovereignty, decrees of 
election and reprobation, an everlasting hell which 
was yawning for the reception of a majority of the 
human race. It now added an element of inex 
pressible horror to the situation if it was also true 
that the will was not free to choose between good 
and evil. 

Edwards work on the Will was but the cul 
mination of the reaction which he had signalled 
when he preached his Boston sermon on Depend 
ence in 1731. His work was received by his fel 
low-religionists with exultant testimonies to its 
power and value. There was among the Calvinists 
a general conviction that he had annihilated Ar- 
miniaiiism. From being ashamed of their cause, 
they now felt themselves forever absolved from the 
disgraceful necessity of bowing in the house of 
Eiminon, which had led so many of their number, 
a Doddridge or a Watts, to admit the self -determin 
ing power of the will. In the enthusiastic words 
of Jonathan Edwards the Younger : " Now, there 
fore, the Calvinists find themselves placed upon 
firm and high ground. They fear not the attacks 
0f their opponents. They face them on the ground 
of reason as well as of Scripture. Rather have 
they carried the war into Italy and to the very 



IMPRESSIVE TESTIMONY. 285 

gates of Eome." : Long after its first appearance 
the same testimony continued to be borne. " There 
is no European divine," said Dr. Chalmers, "to 
whom I make such frequent appeals ; no book of 
human composition which I more strenuously rec 
ommend than his Treatise on the Will, read by me 
forty-seven years ago, with a conviction that has 
never since faltered, and which has helped me 
more than any other uninspired book to find my 
way through all that might otherwise have proved 
baffling, and transcendental, and mysterious in 
the peculiarities of Calvinism." 2 In a passage 
frequently quoted, Sir James Mackintosh speaks 
of Edwards power of subtle argument as " per 
haps unmatched, certainly unsurpassed, among 
men." 3 Dugald Stewart regarded him as not in 
ferior to disputants bred in the best universities of 
Europe. It is said that in conversation he once 
remarked that the argument of the Freedom of the 
"Will had not been and could not be answered. 
The late Isaac Taylor, who edited an English edi 
tion of the work, esteemed it " a classic in meta 
physics," though regretting the mixture of the 
metaphysical with the Scriptural argument. He 
also thought that Edwards had achieved his im 
mediate object of demolishing the Arminian notion 
of contingency, and that his influence had been 
much greater than those who had yielded to it had 

1 Edwards the Younger, Works, vol. i. p. 484. 

2 Chalmers, Works, vol. i. p. 318. 

8 Progress of Ethic 11 Philosophy, p. 108, Am. ed. 



286 THE PHILOSOPHICAL THEOLOGIAN. 

always confessed. Among other things which Ed 
wards had taught the world was " to be less flip 
pant." 1 A writer in the Christian Spectator for 
1828 expressed the prevalent opinion when he re 
marked that it was curious to observe how few 
attempts had been made formally to answer any of 
those larger works in which Edwards put forth his 
strength. " Nibbling enough about the points of 
his arguments there has certainly been, but for the 
most part it has been extremely chary ; and we 
suspect that the few who have taken hold in ear 
nest have in the end found pretty good reason to 
repent of their temerity." The general impression 
that Edwards argument was invincible drove those 
who resisted his conclusion to making an appeal 
to the consciousness in opposition to the intellect, 
as the only available alternative ; or, in the words 
of Dr. Johnson to Boswell, " "We know that we are 
free and there s an end on t." Even so late as 
1864, a distinguished American writer, Mr. Hazard, 
introduced his Review of Edwards on the Will by 
remarking that the soundness of his premises and 
the cogency of his logic were so generally admitted 
that " almost by common consent his positions are 
deemed impregnable, and the hope of subverting 
them by direct attack abandoned." 

In view of these tributes of admiration, and 
many others which could be adduced, it is unnec 
essary to remark that a high place must be as- 

1 Introductory Essay to his edition of Freedom of the Will, 
p. xxv. 



DEFINITION OF TIJE WILL. 287 

signed in literature to Edwards on the Will. 
Like Butler s Analogy, it belongs among the few 
great books in English theology. It may claim 
the great and peculiar honor of having first 
opened up to the world a new subject of interest, 
the neglected and almost unknown sphere of 
the human will in its vast extent and mystery. 
It attempted to fill an empty niche in the corri 
dors of human thought. From an historical point 
of view, no one can question its significance. 
Whether its importance is now more than histor 
ical, it is fairly open to doubt. The book is a 
difficult one to read, and this difficulty has been 
generally supposed to lie in the nature of the sub 
ject rather than in the author s method of exposi 
tion. But the close scrutiny to which it has been 
subjected has revealed a confusion in Edwards 
mind as one source of the difficulty which the stu 
dent encounters. 1 The work starts out with a 
definition of the will as " that by which the mind 
chooses anything," a definition which might be 
allowed to stand, though far from being an ade 
quate one. But even to this definition Edwards 
does not adhere. Hardly is he launched in his 
argument when he is found resting upon another 
ground, that the will is that by which the mind 

1 Among 1 other American critics of Edwards argument besides 
the late Mr. Hazard, are Bledsoe, Examination of Edwards on 
the Will ; Whedon, The Freedom of the Will as a Basis of Moral 
responsibility ; Tappan, Revieiu of Edwards Inquiry, etc. In Mr. 
Martineau s recent work, A Study of Religion, there is an admira 
ble criticism of Edwards attitude. Cf. vol. ii. chap. 2. 



288 THE PHILOSOPHICAL THEOLOGIAN. 

desires or inclines to anything ; and this ambigu 
ity of the word " choice " runs throughout the 
treatise. In his Notes on the Mind he had identi 
fied inclination with will : to this principle he had 
clung throughout his career as a practical theolo 
gian; it now turns up again in this speculative 
treatise, and becomes the basis of his opinion 
regarding the nature of freedom and of human 
responsibility. If a man possesses an inclination, 
however derived, and has the natural power to 
gratify it, he is free. If his inclination be evil, he 
is a proper subject of condemnation, or of ap 
proval if his inclination be right. But the ability 
to reverse the inclination, or to choose between the 
good and the evil, is no prerogative of the will. 

The most striking feature of Edwards position 
is its close agreement with the attitude of the phys 
ical or materialistic school of philosophy in his 
own and in a later age. There is no difference 
between his doctrine and that of the ancient 
Stoics, or of the famous philosopher Ilobbes, who 
shocked the religious world of his day by his un- 
Kpiritual method of dealing with religious things. 1 

1 Edwards declared that he had not read Ilobbes. Hume he 
seems to have read after his own work was published. One 
would like to know whether he had read Collins Philosophic In 
quiry Concerning Human Liberty, in which views identical with 
his own are advocated. It has been remarked that Collins little 
work would have made an admirable introduction to Edwards 
treatise. Edwards makes no allusion to him, though his book 
must have been widely known. Cf. Professor Fisher s valuable 
remarks in Discussions, etc., pp. 234, 235. 



TEE QUESTION AT ISSUE. 289 

There is no perceptible difference between Edwards 
and David Hume on the vital question of the na 
ture of causation. A cause is denned to be, not 
only that which has a positive tendency to produce 
a thing, but it includes also all antecedents with 
which consequent events are connected, whether 
they have any positive influence in producing- them 
or not. He assumes that uniform causes are fol 
lowed by uniform results. In this respect he is 
also at one with the late John Stuart Mill, affirm 
ing the common principle that the life of human 
ity, like that of outward nature, is involved in the 
meshes of necessity. The invariableiiess of the 
order of nature, man as the creature of outward 
circumstance, the iron chain of necessity which con 
trols human character and conduct, these things, 
as Mr. Mill has taught them, are paralleled by 
Edwards view of a world in which every event in 
nature or in human experience is decreed by an 
Infinite Will, and in the nature of the case cannot 
be otherwise than it is. 

Edwards argument against the freedom of the 
human will, in the sense of a power to choose be 
tween good and evil, gains its force from the 
assumption of the thing to be proved. There is 
no movement in his thought beyond this assump 
tion that every event must have some external 
cause. But the question at issue is, whether the 
will be not itself a creative cause, endowed with 
the power of initiating acts, of choosing between 
motives, nay, even of creating a motive to itself. 



290 THE PHILOSOPHICAL THEOLOGIAN. 

The illusion under which Edwards labors is in 
looking at man as part of nature, instead of as a 
personal being, who, rising above nature, has in 
himself the power of new beginnings. It is un 
necessary to follow him in the phases of his argu 
ment as with matchless subtilty lie reiterates the 
principle that every event must have a cause. It 
only requires to start with another definition of 
the will, as, like the divine will, " a creative first 
cause," wherein also lies the image of God in 
the creature, and Edwards objections not only 
fail to overcome this counter principle, but even 
tend to its confirmation. 

But it is, after all, the religious argument, and 
not the metaphysical, upon which Edwards chief 
reliance depends in refuting the doctrine of the 
self-determining power of the will. If the will 
were free to choose between good and evil, then 
there would be uncertainty as to the result of its 
choice, and God s foreknowledge of the volitions 
of moral agents would be impossible. If the 
Divine Mind could not foreknow with infallible 
certainty the acts of the creature, how could 
events be decreed with the infallible certainty of 
their accomplishment? The divine action must in 
consequence be subject to constant revision, the 
divine immutability give way to infinitely numer 
ous changes of intention. But this seemed to 
Edwards as contradictory to Scripture as it was to 
reason and to the moral sense. The Bible, as he 
read it, abounded in the prediction of events at 



THE RELIGIOUS ARGUMENT. 291 

tributed to God. To admit the possibility of the 
uncertainty of human actions seemed also to in 
volve a tacit atheism. Such an admission limited 
the divine omniscience, and endangered the omni 
potence of God. The divine Being would then be 
conceived as standing at the mercy of man, wait 
ing for the human will to determine its course. 
For such a deity, too feeble to govern the world 
which lie had made, a Calvinist like Edwards 
could have no respect. The God of the Armin- 
ians was to him no God at all. 

The issue which is here raised is a serious one, 
confronting every earnest thinker. While we are 
concerned in this discussion, not so much with the 
replies that have been or may be made to Edwards 
position, yet it may be said in passing that we are 
not necessarily shut up to the alternatives of sacri 
ficing human freedom, or limiting the divine omni 
science. It is not difficult to conceive that the 
Infinite Mind may be competent to take into ac 
count every use that man may make of his free 
dom, and to govern the world accordingly. Even 
if it were required to conceive the divine omni 
science as self-limited in order to the free develop 
ment of the creature, this does not make impossible 
the divine moral government. It then would be 
come a feature of the world-process as God has 
ordered it, that the free will of man shall be the 
means through which the divine purpose is to be 
accomplished. To govern the world, and yet allow 
full scope to human freedom, is a task more diffi- 



292 THE PHILOSOPHICAL THEOLOGIAN. 

cult, and therefore worthier of God. It is a grave 
objection to Edwards conception of the universe 
that, when God has once decreed the course of hu 
man affairs down to its smallest detail, there re 
mains no further opportunity for the creative 
divine activity. The same result would be ob 
tained if for God were substituted the action of 
force or of unchanging law. 1 

It had formed an essential part of Edwards 
plan in the treatment of his subject, to show that 
the Arminian idea of the freedom of will as 
implying a self -determining power, or power to 
choose between good and evil was not only untrue 
in itself, but was not necessary to moral agency. 
He had done this, apparently to his entire satisfac 
tion, in the third part of his book, where he elab 
orates his thought at some length. But the 
scholarly recluse may become so accustomed to his 
own line of reflection as to be out of touch with 
the popular mind, which draws inferences from 
premises of its own, the ground of which lies too 
deep to be disturbed by speculative discussion. 
The popular inference from Edwards argument 
was, that he had denied the freedom of the will, 
and in so doing had shaken the truth of moral ac 
countability. In Scotland, where his work had 

1 Edwards biblical argument is a defective one. But it in 
volves questions of Biblical criticism, the relation between the 
revelation and its record, and cannot here be criticised. Ac 
cording to Edwards, Scripture reads like one continuous chap 
ter of fulfilled prophecy. His interpretation of history is in 
harmony with his view of life, as ordered by divine decrees. 



LORD KAMES CONCLUSION. 293 

been long expected and was eagerly received, this 
inference was also drawn by the celebrated Lord 
Kames, who was entangled in speculations of his 
own on the same subject, and who hailed Edwards 
as a kindred spirit coming to his relief. Lord 
Kames had deduced the natural conclusion that, 
" if motives are not under our power or direction, 
we can at bottom have no liberty." He also rea 
soned that the human consciousness, which attests 
a sense of liberty, must be therefore a delusion, 
implanted in the soul in order to give men a sense 
of responsibility for their acts. An anonymous 
pamphlet was also issued in Scotland in which it 
was maintained that, if Edwards teaching were 
true, it was better that it should not be known, as 
it would endanger the feeling of human account 
ability. Edwards seems to have been surprised 
and indignant when he learned through his friend 
and correspondent, Dr. Erskine, how his views were 
interpreted by those with whom he had no sympa 
thy. In order to put his meaning beyond the 
power of misinterpretation, he wrote an open let 
ter, which has ever since been appended to his 
treatise on the Will, in which he denned his atti 
tude against those who understood him to hold that 
the will was not free. 

How, then, did he discriminate his position from 
philosophical necessitarians, as they are called, who 
agreed with him in holding that the will has no 

O O 

power to choose between good and evil ? It is a 
curious and remarkable case of how a subtle and 



294 THE PHILOSOPHICAL THEOLOGIAN, 

powerful mind may fall into captivity to the bond 
age of words. Edwards now declared that he 
held to the freedom of the will, because freedom 
consisted, not in one s power of choosing between 
alternatives, but in his power to pursue his incli 
nation without restraint. Because a man s actions 
were necessitated, or certain to take place just as 
they did, it did not follow that he acted under 
compulsion. Indeed, he was quite willing to give 
up all such words as " necessity " or " inability " 
when applied to the will. What he contended for 
was only the certainty that men s actions would 
take the shape they did, and that without any feel 
ing, on their part, of compulsion or restraint. So 
long as there was no sense of compulsion, a man 
was free, no matter how he came by his inclina 
tion, or how infallibly certain that his action should 
be what it was. 

It is rather to the credit of the necessitarians, 
with whose principles Edwards agreed while he 
disliked their alliance, that they refused to escape 
the consequences of their theory by what seems a 
hollow evasion or mere jugglery with words. Cal 
vin also had held consistently to the same convic 
tion that the will did not possess the power to 
choose between good and evil. He had even de 
nounced with something of scorn in his tone the 
manner of those who, while accepting this view, 
still maintained that a man was free " because he 
acts voluntarily and not by compulsion." " This 
is perfectly true," he adds, "but why should so 



EDWARDS IDEA OF FREEDOM. 295 

small a matter have been dignified with so proud 
a title ? An admirable freedom ! that man is not 
forced to be the servant of sin, while he is, how 
ever, a voluntary slave ; his will being bound by 
the fetters of sin. I abominate mere verbal dis 
putes, by which the church is harassed to no pur 
pose ; but I think we ought religiously to eschew 
terms which imply some absurdity, especially in 
subjects where error is of pernicious consequence. 
How few there are who, when they hear free will 
attributed to man, do not immediately imagine that 
he is the master of his mind and will, and can in 
cline himself either to good or evil ! " l But this 
small matter, as Calvin rightly deemed it, Edwards 
chose to dignify, in the emergency of his conflict, 
with the proud title of freedom. There is even a 
tone of passion in its advocacy. He contends that 
he differs from necessitarians like Lord Kames 
by holding to freedom in the highest sense. " No 
Arminian, Pelagian, or Epicurean," he exclaimed, 
" can rise higher in his conception of freedom than 
the notion of it which I have explained. . . . And 
I scruple not to say, it is beyond all their wits to 
invent a higher notion or form a higher imagina 
tion of liberty; let them talk of sovereignty of 
the will, self-determining power, self-motion, self- 
direction, arbitrary decision, liberty ad utrumvis, 
power of choosing differently in given cases, etc., 
as long as they will." But Calvin was right when 
he foresaw the consequences of dignifying so small 

1 Institutes of Christian Religion, book il ch. ii. p. 7. 



296 THE PHILOSOPHICAL THEOLOGIAN. 

a matter with so proud a title. From a fear of 
being understood to deny the freedom of the will, 
coupled as it was in the popular mind with the 
sense of responsibility, the preachers who followed 
Edwards magnified his meagre conception of free 
dom, and felt justified in using the Arminian 
nomenclature. In this way Edwards idea of free 
dom became a bridge of transition to a modern 
Calvinism in which liberty is conceded in the 
fuller sense as a power to choose between good 
and evil. 

But we reach the momentous outcome of Ed 
wards argument when he applies this same idea of 
freedom to the sovereign will of God. To the con 
clusion that this was the only freedom predicable 
of God, he was driven by the necessities of his 
thought. lie was laboring to show that man is 
free, although possessing no power to choose be 
tween good and evil, free even though his action 
be necessary or certain ; and if free, then responsi 
ble for his action, and deserving of praise or blame. 
To establish this point he drew an illustration from 
the person of Christ, with whom there was a neces 
sity to the right and an impossibility to sin, and 
yet He was morally responsible, and his conduct a 
proper subject of moral approval. From this very 
inadequate conception of the personality of Christ, 
he passed on to the consideration of the being of 
Ciod. God also is free only to do what is right, 
free only in the sense that He has the power to 
carry out the divine inclination. The divine free- 



THE DIVINE FREEDOM DISAPPEARS. 297 

dom is therefore but another name for a divine 
and eternal necessity. Behind the divine will 
there lies an immutable divine wisdom, to which 
the will of God must in the nature of the case con 
form. But here one is forced to ask what becomes 
of the doctrine of the divine sovereignty, which 
played so large a part in Edwards earlier writings, 
which, as he had presented it, implied in the divine 
will a power to the contrary. How often had he 
asserted, that God was under no obligation to save 
man after the fall ; that when, in the exercise of 
His sovereign will, lie had determined to do so, it 
was still a matter of His arbitrary will whom He 
would save and whom He would reject ! " He choos- 
eth whom He will, and whom He will, He harden- 
eth." The two doctrines are plainly incompatible. 
Sovereignty, as he had preached it, contradicts ne 
cessity. The divine sovereignty was the last relic 
of freedom, when it had been denied elsewhere. 
But it now appears as having no justification at 
the bar of reason. Even in Edwards conscious 
ness from the first, it had been a mysterious con 
viction, the genesis of which he coidd not explain. 
It is plain that a change is now taking place in his 
mind as to the nature of God, which is funda 
mental and revolutionary in its character. The 
Augustinian idea of God as arbitrary, uncondi 
tioned will, is growing weak in the presence of 
another conception, the definition of God as the 
one substance of whose thought the world of 
created things is the necessary manifestation. But 



298 THE PHILOSOPHICAL THEOLOGIAN. 

throughout the universe there is no place for the 
freedom of the will. 

At this point, which is the culmination of Ed 
wards argument, there opened before him diverg 
ing lines of thought, and w r hich of them he should 
take depended on whether his interest was stronger 
in following out the line of speculation about the 
nature of God and its relation to man, or in trac 
ing the origin and history of that evil inclination 
in humanity which is known as Original Sin. The 
discussion of the latter topic was required in order 
to supplement the treatise on the Will. For it is 
a noticeable feature of this treatise that no effort 
is made to account for that inclination to evil in 
every man, which man does not originate within 
himself, which he is not free to reverse or over 
come. Elsewhere Edwards had boldly declared 
that the will is determined by God. But we do 
not meet this statement in any such emphatic form 
in his work on The Will. He preferred to abide 
by the negative demonstration that the acts of the 
will are rendered certain by some other cause than 
the mere power of willing. What that remoter 
cause may be is not specially considered. He does 
not go beyond the statement that the will is deter 
mined by that motive which, as it stands in the 
mind, is the strongest, or that the will always is as 
the greatest apparent good is. In the vast and 
obscure region of human motives there is disclosed 
an ample sphere where God may work unfelt or 
unperceived, where He may so influence or direct 



MODERN INVESTIGATIONS. 299 

the agencies which control the will that a man 
shall do the divine bidding while still acting- in 
accordance with his own inclination. To the nat 
ural objection that such a view makes God the 
author of sin, he offers a brief reply, at the same 
time remarking that he has not space to consider 
at length the question of the first entrance of sin 
into the world. The subject of original sin was 
then clearly before his mind. But the idea of 
God had a deeper charm than the nature of man, 
and its exposition more imperatively demanded his 
attention. Before writing his work on Original 
Sin, he stopped to consider the nature of True Vir 
tue and the Last End of God in the Creation. 

With one brief remark we must dismiss the 
treatise on the Freedom of the Will. It no longer 
holds the same preeminence which was once ac 
corded to it. The spell with which it was invested 
by an almost sacred tradition has been broken. 
Marred as it is by its controversial purpose, it can 
not be regarded as a disinterested effort to reach 
the truth. It is disfigured also by methods of 
biblical interpretation which have been discarded 
by a later scholarship. It has been superseded by 
the advances made in psychology, a study which 
in Edwards time was still in its infancy, to 
whose progress we owe the idea of the education 
of the will, of which he takes no account whatever. 
Although the labors of modern students in this 
field of inquiry regarding the will have by no 
means resulted in agreement, yet the tendency of 



300 THE PHILOSOPHICAL THEOLOGIAN. 

later investigation has not been in the direction 
which Edwards was following, but for the most part 
tends toward the assertion of that freedom which 
it was his aim to disprove. But none the less does 
his work still possess a worth which is its own, 
that peculiar quality of his spirit, which gives to 
all his writings their interest and value. He im 
presses the imagination, as does no other writer, 
with the truth that, in some way unexplained, hu 
man freedom, however real or undiminished, must 
yet move and have its being within the sphere of a 
divine determinism. While it is true, as Rothe 
has taught, that moral freedom lies in a mastery 
over one s motives, in the ability to form and 
modify them or to react against their influence, 
yet this process goes on in a world where God is 
supreme, where the divine will mingles with hu 
man action ; or, to adopt the words of Coleridge, 
" Will any reflecting man admit that his own will 
is the only and sufficient determinant of all he is 
and all he does ? Is nothing to be attributed to 
the harmony of the system to which he belongs, 
and to the preestablished fitness of the objects and 
agents, known and unknown, that surround him as 
acting on the will, though doubtless with it like 
wise ? a process which the co-instantaneous yet 
reciprocal action of the air and the vital energy of 
the lungs in breathing may help to render intel 
ligible." ! 

From Edwards point of view, this inward union 

1 Aids to Reflection, Works, Am. ed., vol. i. p. 150. 



THE REAL FREEDOM. 301 

or reconciliation of the divine with the human was 
an impossibility, since the human is conceived as 
having in itself 110 spiritual affiliation. But if we 
may be allowed to interpret him, to distinguish 
what he may have meant to affirm from what he 
actually teaches, it was his aim to enforce that real 
freedom which is in harmony with necessity, 
that service of God which is the only perfect free 
dom. The Arminiaiis, against whom he was con 
tending, also misrepresented themselves, so as al 
most to make it appear as if it were a desirable 
thing for the will to remain in a state of equili 
brium, instead of regarding the liberty of choice 
as a means of rising to a higher freedom where 
the power to the contrary disappears, where a state 
is reached in which the will is fixed in its devo 
tion to righteousness beyond the possibility of 
change. As Edwards contemplated this higher 
freedom, he rejoiced in the necessity which it in 
volved. In this respect he is in agreement with 
Augustine and Anselm, with Luther and Calvin, 
with devout souls in every age whose eyes are set 
on God, with the spirit of all genuine worship, 
whose essence it is to disown self in order to the 
enthronement of the divine. 



302 THE PHILOSOPHICAL THEOLOGIAN. 

III. 

DEFENCE OF THE DOCTRINE OF ORIGINAL SIN. 

After the publication of the Freedom of the 
Will in 1754, Edwards wrote two dissertations, on 
the Nature of True Virtue, and on God s Last End 
in the Creation, as well as other treatises or essays 
which will be described in an ensuing chapter. 
It was after the preparation of these works that 
he proceeded to write his book on Original Sin, 
which was finished in 1757, and was going- through 
the press at the time of his death. For some 
reason unexplained, he preferred to delay the 
publication of these earlier dissertations. A ques 
tion therefore arises as to the order in which these 
works should be treated. If we were to follow the 
movement of Edwards mind, in which there lay 
a certain significance, it would be proper to take 
up these remaining works in the order in which 
they were written. But as the treatise on Original 
Sin was published with the sanction of his personal 
approval, which is lacking in the case of the other 
treatises, it cannot be amiss to give it the prece 
dence. In the case of the other dissertations, there 
is reason for thinking, that if he had lived he 
would have recast them in some different shape. 
Whichever course we take, there will be seen the 
profound suggestiveness of the intellectual and 
spiritual process in which he was engaged. 



MORAL AGENCY. 303 

The connection is a close one between the trea 
tise on Original Sin and the doctrine of freedom 
set forth in the treatise on the Will. Edwards 
now proceeds to show how man comes into posses 
sion of that evil inclination which he is free to fol 
low, but not free to reverse or overcome. It is 
needless to remark that this conception of freedom 
implies a low and degrading view of human nature. 
The younger Edwards, who defended his father s 
teaching in a logical treatise which won for him 
great distinction, plainly asserts what this doctrine 
of the will clearly implies : " Beasts, therefore, 
according to their measure of intelligence, are as 
free as men. Intelligence, therefore, and not 
liberty, is the only thing wanting to constitute 
them moral agents." l But Edwards himself has 
left us in no doubt as to his meaning. The spirit 
ual element, he teaches, forms no necessary part of 
the human constitvition. It is something added to 
man over and above his nature as man, the 
donum supernaturale of mediaeval theology. Vir 
tue, though it may be necessary to the perfection 
and well-being of man, does not belong to man as 
man. One may have everything needful to his 
being a man where virtue is excluded. 2 For one 
brief moment Adam, indeed, possessed this spir 
itual element, what Edwards calls the divine na 
ture, in conjunction with his human nature. But 

1 Edwards the Younger, Improvements in Theology, etc., 
Works, vol. i. p. 483. 

2 Original Sin, ch. ii p. 477 



304 THE PHILOSOPHICAL THEOLOGIAN. 

when Adam sinned and became a rebel against 
God, it was only just that the divine nature should 
be withdrawn from him, and in consequence from 
all his posterity. The merely human was then 
left standing by itself, superior only in its intelli 
gence to the brute creation, or in its greater capac 
ity for evil. 

The interesting question now arises, How came 
Adam to rebel against God, possessed as he was 
of the spiritual complement to his nature which, 
it would seem, should have been a strong barrier 
against a rising inclination to sin ? To this ques 
tion theologians from the time of Augustine almost 
uniformly had replied that Adam formed an ex 
ception to his descendants in possessing the self- 
determining power of the will, and thus originated 
his sin by his own act. Such also was the answer 
of the Westminster Assembly of Divines whose 
Confession was accepted by English Calvinists. 
At this point Edwards made his first great innova 
tion. He denied that Adam had any other free 
dom than was possessed by his posterity. He, too, 
was free only in the sense that he could act accord 
ing to his inclination. For if Adam had possessed 
a self -determining power of the will, it would have 
implied uncertainty as to how he would act, and 
thus made impossible the divine foreknowledge. 
There was but one alternative in Edwards mind, 
that God had decreed to permit Adam s sin ; and 
in his own words, " sin, if it be permitted, will most 
certainly and infallibly follow." l Although he 

1 Freedom of the Will, 9. p. 157. 



THE PERSONALITY OF ADAM. 305 

does not like the expression, yet he is willing to 
admit, if need be, that God is the author of sin. 
The only qualification which he is anxious to urge 
is, that the action of God in causing the fall shall 
appear as indirect and not immediate. lie again 
takes refuge in the land of motives, where the di 
vine will may be active, but where its action is not 
seen. k% It was fitting," he remarks, " that the 
transaction should so take place that it might not 
appear to be from God as the apparent fountain. 1 
Yet, as he also remarks, "God may actually in His 
Providence so dispose and permit things that the 
event may be certainly and infallibly connected 
with such disposal and permission." 

In all this, Edwards emphatically disclaims the 
inference that God implants or infuses any evil 
thing in Adam s nature. Let the disclaimer be 
put to the credit of his heart which prevented him 
from admitting in words what his thought implied. 
The first man, as he has portrayed him, becomes, 
as to his personality, a shadowy, impossible thing, 
a type of existence solitary and unclassified, as if 
neither animal, or man, or angel, an opportunity 
as it were for the operation of the divine will, or 
the manifestation of the divine wisdom. But how 
does the case stand with his descendants ? We 
are now told that when Adam sinned by rebellion, 
it was only just and fitting that God should with 
draw from his posterity those superior principles 
of the divine nature which had been implanted in 
1 Freedom of the Will, p. 161. 



306 THE PHILOSOPHICAL THEOLOGIAN. 

Adam, and wherein consisted the image of God. 
" The Holy Spirit, that divine inhabitant, now for 
sook the house." It was with man as with a room 
where the light ceases when the candle is with 
drawn. Nothing was left but human nature, a 
state of woful corruption and ruin. But as the co 
existence of a divine nature with human nature in 
the case of Adam had served no purpose, unless 
it were as an advertisement of God s idea of what 
man should be, the withdrawal of this divine na 
ture was like taking away its ideal from humanity. 
Edwards argues that it was just and proper in God 
to sever the divine image from man in his fallen 
estate, and to remove the possibility of the divine 
communion. But one does not see why it was not 
quite as fitting that this divine ideal should still be 
allowed to remain, even though it should serve no 
other purpose than as a divine protest against the 
predominance of the animal nature. 

Edwards argument for original sin is, to a great 
extent, a familiar one, and needs no rehearsing. 
His book was intended partly as a reply to a work 
very popular in the last century, by Dr. John Tay 
lor, which proposed to subject this time-honored 
doctrine to a " free and candid examination." Ed 
wards regarded Taylor as a specious writer, and 
seems to have found satisfaction in tearing his 
" candid examination " to shreds. Both were 
agreed in admitting the prevalence and heinous- 
ness of sin. But Dr. Taylor doubted its universal 
ity as including infants from the hour of their 



REALISM AND NOMINALISM. 307 

birth ; he refused to admit that the general diffu 
sion of sin was owing to the corruption of human 
nature, nor did he think it explained anything to 
refer the origin of evil to Adam. It was enough 
to suppose the force of evil example, the weakness 
of our nature, together with the freedom of the 
will, in explanation of the sin which originated 
with every man. Edwards reply consists in un 
rolling upon a larger canvas the picture of human 
ity under the universal predominance of sin, draw 
ing his materials from experience and observation, 
the history of the race, the teaching of Scripture. 
He urges the inference that human nature must 
have been corrupted at its original source as the 
only adequate explanation. But how could human 
nature as a whole have become inwardly depraved 
unless through the sin of its progenitor who car 
ried humanity in himself, and in whom, as at its 
primal fount, the springs of life had been contam 
inated? Until this point had been established, 
Edwards argument halted and fell short of its 
aim. But in seeking to establish this point, he 
was confronted by the moral sentiment and reason 
of the age. Was it just that all men should be 
adjudged guilty of Adam s sin, and doomed to suf 
fer its endless consequences ? In the earlier ages 
of the church, when what is called realism was the 
prevailing philosophical bias, it had been easy to 
defend such a doctrine on the ground that all men 
nad sinned in Adam. But the spirit of nominalism, 
prevailing widely in the eighteenth century, made 



308 THE PHILOSOPHICAL THEOLOGIAN. 

such a statement seem as contrary to the reason as 
it was repulsive to the moral sense. Nor was the 
statement more acceptable in its modified form, 
that God had decreed a certain relationship with 
Adam, in consequence of which his sin was im 
puted to his descendants, even though it were not 
their own. Such opinions were indignantly chal 
lenged as irrational or immoral. Every man stood 
by himself before God, responsible only for his 
own guilt, and not punishable for the sin of another. 
Edwards met the opponents of the doctrine with 
no compromise of its ancient rigor. Nor was he 
content merely with an appeal to Scripture. But 
in calling reason to his aid, he produced an argu 
ment so novel and extraordinary in the history of 
the doctrine that it seems to have struck his read 
ers, for the most part, dumb with astonishment. 
He asserted not only that all men sinned in Adam, 
but that every man is identical with Adam, and has 
therefore actually committed Adam s sin. His 
argument turned on the metaphysical question of 
the nature of identity. The mysterious principle, 
by which a man remains the same being through 
the mutations of experience, he declares to be no 
other than " the sovereign constitution and will of 
God." We have here again the principle of Berke 
ley carried beyond the sphere of sense percep 
tions to which Berkeley confined it, and regarded 
as controlling the whole range of human conscious 
ness or intellectual activity. 1 God is not only the 

1 There is a passage in the treatise on Original Sin, pt. iv., ch. 



NATURE OF IDENTITY. 309 

universal mind which constitutes the substance of 
the external world, but He is also the essence which 
lies behind the phenomena of consciousness or mind. 
There is no essential difference between the process 
by which we know the oak to be identical with the 
acorn, and the self-consciousness by which a man 
knows himself to be one and the same being from 
childhood to maturity. The hidden reality or sub 
stance in both cases is the immediate and contin 
uous action of the stable will of God. Or, to fol 
low Edwards reasoning : " There would be no 
necessity that the remembrance of what is past 
should continue to exist but by an arbitrary consti 
tution of the Creator. It does not suffice to say," 
so he continues, " that the nature of the soul will 
account for the existence of the consciousness of 
identity, for it is God who gives the soul this na 
ture : identity of consciousness depends on a law 
of nature, and therefore on the sovereign will and 
agency of God. The oneness of all created sub 
stances is a dependent identity. It is God s im 
mediate power which upholds every created sub 
stance in being. Preservation is but a continuous 
creation. Present existence is no result of past 
existence. But in each successive moment is wit 
nessed the immediate divine agency. All depen- 

2, p. 479, which contains an allusion, probably, to the Berkeleyan 
philosophy, though without mentioning it by name. " The course 
of nature is demonstrated, by late improvements in philosophy, 
to be indeed what our author himself says it is, viz., nothing but 
the established order of the agency and operation of the author 
of nature." 



310 THE PHILOSOPHICAL THEOLOGIAN. 

dent existence whatsoever is in a constant flux, ever 
passing and returning ; renewed every moment, as 
the colors of bodies are every moment renewed by 
the light that shines upon them. And all is con 
stantly proceeding from God, as light from the 
sun." 1 The same law, then, by which a man 
knows himself as one and the same being, despite 
the differences of time and appearance, also binds 
every man to Adam, and creates a common con 
sciousness of identity with him in his sin and fall. 
The sin of Adam, including his guilt, is therefore 
properly imputed to every man, because by the law 
of identity it is his own. 

While this argument from the nature of identity 
did not commend itself to Edwards contemporaries 
or followers, his free handling of the subject long 
continued to be imitated. The doctrine of original 
sin became the battle-field in New England of a 
great controversy. In some cases the doctrine was 
greatly modified, in others almost explained away, 
while there were those who rejected it altogether. 
Edwards, of course, is not to be held responsible 
for every deduction from his premises. But the 
tendency of an attitude so literal and extreme was 
to neutralize the earlier meaning of the doctrine, 
if not to give rise to a new and diverse interpreta 
tion. It required but a step from the principle 
that each individual has an identity of conscious 
ness with Adam, to reach the conclusion that each 
individual is Adam and repeats his experience. 
1 Vol. ii. p. 490. 



DEFINITION OF SIN. 311 

Of every man it might be said, that like Adam he 
comes into the world attended with the divine na 
ture, and like him sins and falls. In this sense the 
sin of every man becomes original sin. The old 
feudal conception grows weak which regarded Adam 
as having a proprietorship in the race of his descend 
ants. Instead of being the head of humanity, he 
becomes rather its generic type on that side of its 
existence which is of the earth earthy. 

If there is any literary interest in the treatise on 
Original Sin, it lies in the revelation of Edwards 
character. He was penetrated with the mystic s 
conviction of some far-reaching, deep-seated alien 
ation which separates man from God. Out of his 
ideal of the divine perfection springs his conscious 
ness of sin. But his conception of sin is after all 
lacking in what may be called an ethical motive. 
He defines sin as a negation, the absence of real 
ity. But in this negation he seems to include the 
infinite gulf which divides the creature from the 
Creator. All imperfection, finiteness as contrasted 
with the infinite, the interest in earthly things or 
all which is not God, these, as well as the lack of 
entire disinterested devotion, or the darker vices 
which disfigure human life, enter into Edwards 
conception of sin. Naturally, therefore, was he 
indignant at what seemed the shallow theory of 
Dr. Taylor, that " corruption and moral evil are 
not universally prevalent, that good predominates, 
that virtue is in the ascendant." To Edwards 
mind, humanity in itself was identified with evil. 



312 THE PHILOSOPHICAL THEOLOGIAN. 

He treats with disdain the objection which may be 
raised, that his view of human nature is derogatory 
to its sacred ness or dignity. He does not conde 
scend to its consideration. To another question 
which arises, whether, under these circumstances, 
the propagation of the race be not a sin, he replies 
that such is the will of God. 

Of this treatise on Original Sin, Mr. Lecky has 
remarked that it is " one of the most revolting 
books that have ever proceeded from the pen of 
man." Where, if it may be put briefly, lies the 
fallacy of a work which can evoke such a criticism ? 
There is a passage in the opening pages in which 
Edwards states the method he proposes to follow : 
" That is to be looked upon as the true tendency 
of the natural or innate disposition of man s heart 
which appears to be its tendency when we consider 
things as they are in themselves or in their own 
nature, without the interposition of divine grace." 
But had he any right, in considering things as they 
are, to leave out of view the divine action within 
the soul ? Is not God s grace as real as human 
sinf ulness, the divine interposition as inevitable 
as Adam s fall? To separate things which accom 
pany each other is not to see things as they are. 
It is to commit the familiar fallacy of supposing 
that because things may be separated in abstract 
thought, they are also separated as a matter of fact. 
The grace of God is as organic in its relation to 
man as is the evil in his nature. Grace also reigns 
wherever justice reigns. To draw a picture of hu 



RISE OF ETHICAL SYSTEMS. 313 

manity apart from God, is an injustice alike to 
God and man. Such an attempt transgresses the 
limits of a lawful rhetoric, even when seeking to 
impress the imagination with a sense of the evil of 
sin. 



IV. 

TREATISE ON THE NATURE OF TRUE VIRTUE. 

THE Augustinian or Calvinistic theology was not 
a favorable soil for the growth of ethical systems, 
The study of ethics, indeed, had been made almost 
impossible by the doctrine of original sin from the 
time of Augustine onwards. It was not till the 
latter part of the seventeenth century, when the 
traditional interpretation of this ancient dogma 
was losing its hold on the popular mind, that at 
tention began to be given to ethical theories. The 
deistical and Arminian writers, more particularly 
of the eighteenth century, who were seeking to vin 
dicate for character and conduct a higher place in 
religion, as if it were the most essential element, 
found it necessary to seek for some principle which 
should explain and justify the utterances of the 
moral nature, and bind them together in the unity 
of a system. Edwards was watching them in this 
constructive process, so far as it came under his 
vision, eager to detect from his own point of view 
the deficiency of the result. No subject could 
have been more congenial to the natural bent of 



314 THE PHILOSOPHICAL THEOLOGIAN. 

his mind. It had interested him, as we have seen, 
from the moment when he became conscious of his 
intellectual power, occupying the foremost place in 
his early Notes on the Mind. Had he been free 
from the trammels of controversy, or the self-im 
posed necessity of making his conclusions square 
with the narrow principles of his theology ; could 
he have trusted humanity as redeemed in Christ, 
it would seem as if he must have won his chief 
distinction in the field of ethical inquiry. But 
while his treatise on Virtue has never held the 
place of honor among his writings, it is worthy of 
careful study. His conception of virtue, viewed 
apart from the negations which accompany it, has 
much that is sublime and inspiring. In making 
the motive of true virtue consist in devotion to an 
Infinite Being, he marks the first beginnings of a 
transition in the Calvinistic churches to a theology 
in which love is the central principle of the crea 
tion, and the law of all created existence. 

A peculiar interest attaches to the treatise on 
Virtue, as being the reproduction of Edwards 
earliest thought with no essential modification. 
Virtue is again identified with the beautiful. It 
has its primary root in love to God for Himself 
alone. All true excellence or beauty, all propor 
tion and harmony, is traced back to an ultimate 
foundation in the necessities of pure existence or 
being. There can be no virtue where the gradation 
is not preserved between the existence which is in 
finite, and that which is created and finite. It is 



REVERENCE FOR BEING. 315 

not the moral character of God that first awakens 
a moral response in the creation. It is rather the 
infinite preponderance of existence which Deity 
possesses, compared with which the amount of 
created existence is as nothing, that awakens the 
feeling of reverential awe which is the beginning 
of true virtue. For being as he calls it, or sub 
stance as it might be called, Edwards like Spino/a 
felt a profound and awful reverence. That which 
is called great, even in the moral universe, is great 
because it has more of existence than that which 
is small. The comparison is that of a large piece 
of gold to a tiny fragment of the same material. 
The value depends upon the quantity. In the 
relative amount of being possessed by the arch 
angel and the worm lies the difference which dis 
tinguishes and separates them. In the last resort, 
it is being which is the most sacred and awful of 
realities. And being possesses sanctity and value 
because it is the furthest remove from nonentity, 
which is the greatest evil. 1 

This doctrine of Edwards seems to imply a phys 
ical or at least an unethical basis as the ground 
of the moral or spiritual. It is not difficult to see 

1 " lieing, in what we should call an awful nakedness, not, 
unconnected surely (how can it be : ) with life and action; not 
separated, as it is in Spinoza, from a personal will, but almost as 
separate from all relations, almost as far removed from humanity 
as it is in his metaphysics. is the ground of the divinity of Ed 
wards, is the ground also (subject to the exception we have just 
mentioned) of his ethics." Maurice, Hist. Modern Phil., p. 47:5. 
Of., also. Chapter I., First Period, pp. (MO, ante. 



316 THE PHILOSOPHICAL THEOLOGIAN. 

how he came to identify the two. The physical 
or the material did not in his view possess any 
real existence except in the will of God. In 
God s will lies the only substance. A monism 
more absolute it is impossible to conceive. As 
bodies have no real existence, and spirits are but 
the communication of the Infinite Spirit, it was 
necessary for him to insist upon the infinite quan 
tity of the Divine existence, as contrasted with the 
human, if he would escape the consequence of his 
theory which tended to identify all existence with 
God. So deeply is he impressed with this necessity 
of his thought, that he reads it into the minds of 
others even when it would be disowned. lie ap 
plied it to the doctrine advocated by Hutchinson 
and the Arminian school, that virtue consisted in 
love or benevolence to all men, or in regarding the 
good of all, or of the greatest number, in prefer 
ence to the interest of self. He assumes that the 
reason why these writers give the preference to the 
greatest number must be on account of the larger 
quantity of being which all men, taken together, 
possess when compared with the amount of being 
in the individual. On this ground he calls upon 
them to carry out the principle in its application 
to God. They seem to him inconsistent when they 
make morality consist in love to men, and do not 
rather make it consist primarily and even exclu 
sively in the love toward God. That Edwards 
had struck a note of profound significance must 
be confessed. But it can hardly be called an eth- 



EXISTENCE THE ULTIMATE REALITY. 317 

ical principle. It is a principle which underlies 
religion, if religion be defined as, in its origin, the 
sense of awe in the presence of the mystery of 
the universe. But how unethical it is may be 
illustrated by a passage which Edwards was fond of 
quoting, " The devils also believe and tremble." 
But he seems to have clung to his position the 
more strenuously for this reason, that it enabled 
a totally depraved humanity to discern clearly the 
ground of its condemnation. Even if the wicked 
could not appreciate God s moral excellence or 
rejoice in His beauty, yet they could recognize His 
infinite greatness, resistance to the attraction of 
which constitutes evil. In the consummation of 
things at the last judgment, the verdict against 
sinners would be sufficiently justified by this prin 
ciple alone. 

The ethical principle of Edwards is defective in 
grounding morality in the immeasurable, incom 
prehensible essence of God. The landmarks dis 
appear by which the good in itself may be recog 
nized. His insistence on this principle reveals at 
the heart of his theology a defect which he ha*l not 
been able to overcome. Infinite power or force, a 
physical attribute of Deity, becomes the ultimate 
reality. Had he carried out his principle, it must 
have made impossible the Incarnation. For Christ 
is the revelation of God as a spiritual or moral 
bein< r . The <roodness of God can be revealed in 

o o 

humanity when God in the depth and mystery of 
His infinite existence is unknown. Though Christ 



318 THE PHILOSOPHICAL THEOLOGIAN. 

emptied Himself of the infinite g lory and majesty 
of the divine existence, yet, in making Himself of 
no reputation, he still revealed in the flesh the es 
sential image or quality of God. What else was 
the significance of the Incarnation but the en 
trance of God into humanity, the confinement of 
Deity as it were within human limits, in order 
that He might be measured by human capacity, 
and known and loved as the divine ? The mysti 
cism of Edwards here appears as overreaching it 
self, till the soul is in danger of being lost in the 
abyss of the incommensurable. 

But this is not all of Edwards doctrine concern 
ing virtue. The truly virtuous soul, who begins 
with loving God for His infinite existence, ad 
vances to the love of God for His moral excellence. 
To such a soul God appears as preeminently lov 
able, because of the infinite love wherewith He 
loves Himself supremely. To be in unison with 
this love is to rest in the ultimate harmony of 
things. It is to be one with God, for it is to be 
governed by the same principle, rejoicing in God 
as God rejoices in Himself. The love for indi 
vidual or particular beings, in order to be genuine, 
must spring out of the love toward God as its mo 
tive and sanction. But a difficulty arises here in 
the interpretation of Edwards meaning. It was 
thought by the distinguished Robert flail that his 
teaching must result in making individual affec 
tions useless, or even pernicious, supposing that 
they were any longer possible ; for, in order to ob- 



THE INDIVIDUAL AFFECTIONS. 319 

serve the right proportion between the love of God 
and that of the individual, the latter love must be 
infinitely less than the former, a distinction of 
which the human mind was incapable. 1 Mr. Hall, 
also believed that Godwin, the poet Shelley s 
father-in-law, was indebted to Edwards for his 
leading 1 arguments against the private affections.- 
Edwards silence on this point is a reason for 
doubting if he would have sanctioned such an in 
ference from his position. There is but one pas 
sage in the treatise on Virtue in which he appears 
to hold that love or benevolence must be propor 
tioned to the degree of existence. What he does 
urge is the tendency of love toward God to pro 
duce exercises of love toward particular beings as 
occasion may arise, that he who has true love to 
wards God will be more disposed than others to be 
moved with benevolence towards individuals. But 
the ordinary mind draws its own inferences. One 
can hardly read this treatise without feeling that 
he is putting God in contrast with man, as if to 
weigh them in the scales of thought. And the re 
sult is, that either the individual affections become 
impossible, or God is robbed of his infinitude. 3 

1 Hall, Works, p. 2K4, Bohn ed. 

2 Godwin, Political Justice, vol. i. p. 301, Amer. od. 

3 There is a contradiction in this treatise on Virtur, of which 
Edwards may not have been aware. If lie had said plainly, what 
his thought implies, that the creature has no existence outside of 
God, his attitude would have been clear and consistent. Hut ho 
seems also to grant an infinitesimal portion of an independent ex 
istence to humanity. He halts between these two opinions, neither 
of which is quite acceptable to him. 



320 THE PHILOSOPHICAL THEOLOGIAN. 

That Edwards had not made his meaning clear, 
or that its perversion was an almost necessary con 
sequence of so high an ideal, was shown in the 
next generation, when his disciple, Dr. Samuel 
Hopkins, was wrestling with the difficulties created 
by the treatise on Virtue. Dr. Hopkins drew the 
inference that to love God for Himself alone re 
quired that every man should be willing to be 
damned, if thereby God s happiness and glory 
could be promoted. Dr. Hopkins was also puz 
zled by another difficulty. He assumed that it 
was fitting for man to love only those who were 
loved by God. But it was impossible in this world 
to know with certainty who were God s elect, to 
whom He vouchsafed His love. Under these cir 
cumstances, if one s love went forth to his fellows 
it must be a sort of hypothetical or tentative affec 
tion. The incongruities, the absurdities even, to 
which Edwards teaching gave rise, were not alto 
gether inherent in his theory, but sprang from its 
association with the Calvinistic doctrine of election 
or predestination. If this doctrine be dismissed 
from view, his conception of virtue bears a close 
resemblance to the ethics of Spinoza. One might 
be justified in thinking that Edwards would have 
approved these propositions from the Eihica : 
" God loves Himself with an infinite intellectual 
love " (v. 35) ; " The intellectual love of the 
mind towards God is that very love whereby God 
loves Himself " (v. 36) ; " The good which every 
man who follows after virtue desires for himself 



SPINOZA AND GOETHE. 321 

he will also desire for other men, and so much the 
more in proportion as he has a greater knowledge 
of God " (iv. 37) ; " He who loves God cannot 
endeavor that God should love him in return" 
(v. 19). Transcendent ethical impulses like these 
were struggling in the bosom of the old New Eng 
land Calvinism, in sharp conflict with the selfish 
ness which it naturally engendered. We may 
smile at the ungainly shape which the principle of 
disinterested virtue assumed in Hopkins theology. 
But the same principle assumes a fair, attractive 
guise in its large and human presentation by the 
great German poet. Goethe writes, after reading 
Spinoza : "A large and free view of the sensible 
and moral world seemed to open itself before me. 
But what specially chained me to him was the 
boundless disinterestedness which shone forth from 
every proposition. That wondrous word, who 
rightly loves God must not demand that God 
should love him in return, with all the prem 
ises on which it rests, and all the conclusions that 
flow from it, entirely filled my thought. 1 To be 
disinterested in all, and most disinterested in love 
and friendship, was my highest joy, my maxim, 
my practice ; and so that later petulant saying of 

1 "Mr. Brainerd s religion," says Edwards, "was not selfish 
and mercenary : his love to God was primarily and principally for 
the supreme excellency of His own nature, and not built on a 
preconceived notion that God loved him, had received him into 
favor, and had done great things for him, or promised great 
things to him : so his joy was joy in God, and not in himself." 
Reflections on the Memoirs of Mr. Brainerd, vol. i. p. 059. 



322 THE PHILOSOPHICAL THEOLOGIAN. 

mine, If I love thee, what is that to thee ? was 
spoken from my very heart." l 

The resemblance is close between Edwards and 
Spinoza ; but so also is the divergence great. One 
of Spinoza s propositions reads, " No one can hate 
God " (v. 17). It was Goethe s method in per 
suasive speech always to address men as if they 
were already what it was desirable they should be 
come. Spinoza had also written : " He who clearly 
and distinctly understands himself and his emo 
tions loves God, and so much the more in pro 
portion as he more understands himself and his 
emotions" (v. 15). And again: "The more we 
understand particular things, the more do we un 
derstand God " (v. 24). If the tendency of Spi 
noza s ethics was toward moral laxity, in conse 
quence of his obliterating the distinction between 
God and man, Edwards stood at the other extreme, 
and made virtue so difficult as to be almost impos 
sible. The greater part of the treatise on Virtue 
is devoted to the negative effort of showing that 
there is no virtue in acts which are prompted by 
self-love, or the action of the natural conscience. 
The principle is affirmed and reiterated that "what 
ever benevolence or generosity toward mankind, or 
other virtues or moral qualifications which go by 
that name, any are possessed of, that are not at 
tended with a love of God which is altogether 
above them and to which they are subordinate and 
on which they are dependent, there is nothing of the 
1 Hedge, Ways of the Spirit, p. 265. 



THE CONSCIOUS LOVE OF GOD. 323 

nature of true virtue or religion in them." The 
private affections, unless they spring from the con 
scious love of God, have no moral value. There are 
instincts in humanity which in some respects resem 
ble virtue, but they are only instincts, springing 
only from self-love. Such is the love of parents 
for their children, or the pity which is natural to 
mankind when they see others in distress. Kven 
if the soul of a man should go forth in love and 
devotion toward the whole race, without regard to 
God s existence, such love or benevolence would 
not be of the nature of true virtue. It is as if 
Edwards stood in an attitude of defiance toward 
the process of the divine revelation as given in 
human history or experience. His principle seems 
a grand and inspiring one, that true virtue must 
begin and end with loving God supremely. But 
is not this rather the ultimatum, the final goal to 
which virtue tends, rather than its incipient mo 
tive ? The divine training of humanity begins with 
and leads through the human in order to end in 
the divine. Out of the love of children for parents, 
the divinest of all analogies, there arises the love 
toward God. "He that loveth not his brother 
whom he hath seen, how shall he love God whom 
he hath not seen ? " 

The moralists of the last century spoke of a 
moral sense endowed with a direct insight into the 
nature of virtue, of a natural conscience capable 
of approving right and condemning evil. Edwards 
refused to admit that the action of conscience in> 



324 THE PHILOSOPHICAL THEOLOGIAN. 

plied any virtuous principle, inasmuch as it could 
not rise to the love of Being in general, which is 
God. Even though the conscience approved things 
that are excellent, or condemned their opposites, 
this did not imply any spiritual sense or virtuous 
taste. The natural conscience, when well informed, 
will approve of true virtue, and condemn the want 
of it, without seeing the beauty of true virtue. 
Edwards was impressed with the fact which came 
under his vision, that there prevailed a striking 
analogy between the benevolent deeds of the nat 
ural man which have no true virtue in them, and 
the deeds of the virtuous man which are made 
valid and beautiful by consecration to the divine 
love. It was certainly incumbent on him to inquire 
into the analogy in order to detect its full signifi 
cance. But he waives the question, as if it had no 
special bearing on his theme. Why there should 
be such an analogy, he remarks, it is not needful 
to inquire. It is sufficient to observe that God is 
pleased to maintain such an analogy in all His 
works. Wherever we look, it may be seen that 
God has established inferior things in an analogy 
to superior things. Brutes are, in many instances, 
in analogy to the nature of mankind, and plants 
to animals. The external world is in analogy in 
numberless instances to things in the spiritual 
world. And so also it is with natural men, or the 
great majority of human kind, in their conduct 
and character, when compared with the few who 
are truly virtuous. All that can be said is, that 



UNCONSCIOUS GROWTH. 32o 

God has been pleased to make this kind of consent 
and agreement as a beautiful and grateful vision 
to all intelligent beings, an image, as it were, of 
the true spiritual, original beauty which is in God. 
While the action of the natural conscience does 
not rise into the sphere of virtue, it still serves a 
useful purpose in the divine economy. Gratitude, 
sympathy, pity, charity, the spirit of public benev 
olence, the love of country, the domestic affections, 
or conjugal or filial love, these do not have in 
them the nature of true virtue, and yet they are nec 
essary to the order and happiness of social institu 
tions. These qualities have in them also a certain 
negative goodness, implying in greater or less de 
gree the absence of moral evil. For these reasons 
many mistake them for truly virtuous actions. 
But upon this point Edwards is uncompromising 
in the rigidity of his attitude. There is no virtue 
in them unless they are subordinated to the con 
scious love of Being in general, which is (iod. 

It is difficult to treat Edwards teaching on this 
subject with that impartial justice which it de 
mands. One is in danger of spurning what is true 
and sublime in his thought, because of its close 
conjunction with what our moral nature condemns 
as false. A reaction has long been in process 
against his ruling conviction, which has not yet 

o O v 

reached its limit. So far has the modern mind 
gone in the opposite direction, that to some the 
idea of God seems like a waste of energy in the 
presence of appeals to the moral nature. The 



326 THE PHILOSOPHICAL THEOLOGIAN. 

philosophy of the unconscious, if we may so call it, 
underlies to a great extent our modern theology 
and ethical systems. Upon it rests the larger hope 
for the myriads who have come and gone, doing 
their work apart from any conscious service of 
God. As if by tacit assent, the intellect or the 
conscious will is subordinated to the instincts. To 
live by the emotions, to grow by unconscious effort, 
has become the modern ideal. In all this there 
may be a justifiable protest against the narrowness 
of the conclusion that God is not where He is not 
consciously known or served. There are words of 
Christ Himself, spoken to those who have served 
Him in unconsciousness, as when He was in hunger 
or in thirst, in sickness or nakedness, or in prison, 
which seem to justify what Edwards labored to 
disprove. " Forasmuch as ye have done it unto one 
of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it 
unto me." There is truth in Edwards position if 
conscious knowledge be the goal toward which we 
are moving, which even here we struggle to attain. 
His error lay in cherishing true virtue as the pre 
cious pearl, to the neglect of that other illustration 
to which Christ compares the life of God in the 
soul, the leaven slowly penetrating but destined 
to revolutionize the world. He neglected the small 
beginnings, the tedious process, in order to fasten 
his gaze upon the remote result when the course 
of ages should have done its work. He looked to 
the distant end when the kingdom should be de 
livered up to the Father, and God should be all in 



MYSTERY OF THE CREATION. 327 

all. So absorbed was he in the prospect that he 
counted humanity as nothing, so far as it si ill ex 
isted unconscious of its destiny, or as an obstacle 
in the way of the fulfilment of the beatific vision. 



V. 

GOD S LAST END IN THE CREATION". 

ONE more treatise remains to be considered, and 
Edwards long controversy with the Anninians is 
over. The title which he gave to his work, The 
Last End of God in the Creation, is an interesting 
one. It suggests the profound and fascinating 
speculations of Gnostic theosophies. It recalls the 
mystic thinkers of the Middle Ages, an Erigena 
or an Eckart ; the wonderful poetry or the vast 
reaches of thought in Schelling and the Hegelian 
philosophy. But Edwards conies to the subject 
afresh, as if it had never been broached before. 
One cannot help feeling that in this sphere of de 
vout speculation on the hidden mystery and destiny 
of the creation, he might have been the peer of his 
predecessors or followers had he only been free to 
indulge the bent of his poetic-creative genius. But 
while Edwards is free, so far as the presumptions 
of traditional theology are concerned, yet the de 
mands of a practical theology are always upper 
most in his mind. If at times he appears to forget 
himself and soars in philosophic contemplation, or 



328 THE PHILOSOPHICAL THEOLOGIAN. 

seems as if lie would lose himself and revel in the 
open mystery of God, he soon returns to his direct 
purpose, which is to give a final blow to the re 
motest cause of the Arminian heresy. Until he 
had done this, his work was not complete. 

All other questions had been leading up to the 
determination of the final object for which God 
made the world. Back to this issue were to be 
traced the fundamental differences which divided 
the two religious schools. But in one respect these 
schools were agreed, dominated as they were by 
the spirit of the eighteenth century, in regarding 
happiness as the end of existence. Edwards de 
fines God as a supremely happy Being, in the most 
absolute and highest sense possible, so that God is 
free from everything that is contrary to happiness, 
so that in strict propriety of speech there is no 
such thing as pain, or grief, or trouble in Him. 1 
In all that God does, He has reference to His own 
happiness. The Arminians, on the other hand, 
made the happiness of the creation the ultimate 
end of God, representing Him even as if indiffer 
ent to His own interests or dignity in order to 
secure the happiness of the creature. This ten 
dency to think of happiness as the primary issue 
lowers the tone of the discussion. Before theology 
could recover from the degradation into which it 
fell in the last century, an ethical purpose must be 
conceived as having supremest sway in the divine 
existence, and in consequence permeating the uni 
verse of created things. 

1 Cf. Freedom of the Will, 9, ch. 4. 



THE DIVINE FELICITY. 329 

Edwards did not deny that God had some refer 
ence, in the final end of the creation, to the happi 
ness of the creature ; but it must be an indirect 
and subordinate end, not the ultimate or crowning 
purpose. It is one part of his aim to reconcile 
this subordinate reference to the creature with 
the more important principle that God s supreme 
end in all thing s is Himself alone. Of this Ed 
wards was convinced above all, that God had made 
the world for His own glory. This had been the 
dearest conviction of his life from the time of his 
youth onward. Only let God be supremely happy, 
let Him be lovely in all His glorious beauty, and 
it did not matter so much about the world of cre 
ated things. But it was also part of Edwards be 
lief that God gave it to some of His creatures to 
share with Him in His felicity. It was therefore 
necessary to show that God s purpose in bestowing 
happiness upon these could be reconciled with His 
supreme devotion to Himself. 

Two points stand out with great clearness in 
Edwards discussion of his theme ; they may be 
taken as axioms in his mind, so unhesitatingly does 
he assume them. The first is, that God cannot 
love anything other than Himself. He is so great, 
He comprises in Himself so preponderating an 
amount of being, that what is left is hardly worth 
considering. Or, to use Edwards words, the whole 
system of created beings, if put in comparison with 
the Creator, " would be found as the light dust of 
the balance (which is taken no notice of by him 



330 THE PHILOSOPHICAL THEOLOGIAN. 

that weighs), and as less than nothing and vanity." 
And in the second place, so far as God has any 
love for the creation, it is because He Himself is 
diffused therein. The fulness of His own essence 
has overflowed into an outer world, and that which 
He loves in created beings is His essence imparted 
to them. In seeking the creature, God does not go 
out of Himself, but rather seeks Himself. If God 
may be said to have any pleasure in the happy 
state of the creature, it is because and in so far as 
He Himself exists by emanation in the creature. 
That which is communicated to the creature, which 
makes him an object of God s complacency or love, 
is something divine, something of God. God thus 
becomes all in all with reference to the felicity of 
His chosen ones. He continues to pour His own 
divine essence into them, in proportion to their 
capacity to receive it, until in the final consumma 
tion they shall become, as it were, swallowed up in 
God. 1 

Such is Edwards solution of the question, how 
God can love Himself supremely and exclusively 
and yet include the creature in His love. To reach 
this result he appears as denying any degree of 
self-dependent existence to the creation. He has, 
indeed, met the Arminian position, but in so doing 
has sacrificed all that is not God. Some other 
inferences are also apparent. If this treatise rep 
resented his final judgment, the idea of creation 
as an origination de nihilo, the received doctrine 
1 Vol. ii. pp. 210, 211. 



GNOSTICISM AND NEO-PLATONIS.W. 331 

of the church, could hardly find a leintimate. place 

f O 1 

in his system. He does not reject it, but he con 
stantly substitutes emanation for creation, as if its 
full equivalent. Throughout this treatise " emana 
tion " is the word about which the thought revolves. 
The book has a Gnostic or Neo-Platonic atmos 
phere. The old phrases, such as the overflow of 
the divine fulness, diffusion of the divine essence, 
emanation from God compared with the light and 
heat which go forth from the sun, these consti 
tute the verbal signs of Edwards thought. It is 
possible that he might have avoided them had he 
known their earlier association. l>ut they repre 
sent truly the tendency of his mind ; they stand for 
principles which had been lying for years beneath 
his practical theology. The distinction between 
an elect and non - elect humanity, to which the 
Gnostics also gave great prominence, forced him 
into a similar philosophical exposition of the 
ground on which the distinction rested. There 

O 

were various ways in which the Gnostics repre 
sented the final disposition of the non-elect portion 
of the race. But they are one with Edwards in 
regarding the elect as containing in varying de 
grees an infusion of the divine essence which 
makes their salvation possible. 

There is also another marked resemblance be 
tween Edwards thought and the Gnostic theoso- 
phies. He is not only asking the same questions 
under similar circumstances and with substantial 
agreement in the answer, but he also denies that 



332 THE PHILOSOPHICAL THEOLOGIAN. 

the divine love goes forth to every part of the crea 
tion. In the most emphatic manner does he assert, 
and reiterate the assertion, that the creation exists 
only for the elect portion of humanity. 1 The end 
of the lower creation is man, and the end of man 
kind is the elect, and the end of the elect is God. 
But he would not willingly reject the expression, 
however he may empty it of reality, that God loves 
the world. The expression is a true one, but only 
when we consider the creation as a system or as a 
whole. If we cease to consider the interests of the 
individual man, evidence can be found for the di 
vine benevolence in the scheme of the universe. 
Or, to quote again the words of the younger Ed 
wards, commenting on his father s achievement in 
this argument as another victory over the Armin- 
ians : " The declarative glory of God is the creation 
taken, not distributivdy, but collectively, as a sys 
tem raised to a high degree of happiness." 2 

As to the question, whether the creation was an 
eternal necessity in the nature of the divine Being, 
the thought of Edwards vacillates. He argues 
that it is fitting and desirable that the divine ac 
tivity should be manifested, and that without a 
creation the divine attributes would have had no 
exercise. The power which is sufficient for such 
great things, unless there had been a creation, 
must have been dormant and useless. 3 It is also a 
good thing in itself that God s glory should be 

1 Cf. End in Creation, pp. 211, 224, 245. 

2 Works, vol. i. p. 481. 3 End of Creation, vol. ii. p. 204. 



ETERNAL CREATION. 333 

known and rejoiced in by a glorious society of 
created beings. As he thinks of the church of 
the redeemed, he is almost tempted to feel as if 
it were necessary to the completion of the divine 
happiness, as though God would be something 
less than God without it. The creation may in 
some sense be regarded as the multiplication of 
the divine Being, just as the fulness of good 
that is in the fountain increases into the river, 
or as the light flows forth in abundant streams 
from the sun. But if expressions like these point 
toward creation as a necessity in God which woidd 
almost justify the doctrine of an eternal creation, 
yet there are other passages in which the opposite 
is plainly asserted. God s happiness and glory 
before the creation are represented as capable of 
receiving no addition, as if He knew Himself and 
rejoiced in Himself without the exercise of His 
powers in a continuous creation. One would have 
supposed that a Deity whose powers, as Edwards 
asserts, " lay dormant and useless as to any effect " 
until the creation, must at least have been an im 
perfect Deity, if indeed He could be conceived as 
having existence at all. But in this treatise on 
God s Last End in the Creation, no effort is made 
to overcome the contradiction. The deeper ques 
tions which concern the nature of being, or of per 
sonality or consciousness, are left untouched. But 
we hasten to add that Edwards confesses himself 
not entirely satisfied with his statements and con 
clusions. Such an admission is so rare in his writ- 



334 THE PHILOSOPHICAL THEOLOGIAN. 

ings that it arrests attention as worthy of special 
remark. More than once he alludes to the diffi 
culty of the subject, the mystery which enshrouds 
it, the inadequacy of language to express such 
exalted realities. He still believes in endeavoring 
to discover what the voice of reason teaches upon 
these things ; but revelation is the surest guide, 
and to what Scripture teaches he devotes the re 
mainder of the treatise. 

As we follow him here, it is apparent that he is 
still within the circle of his own reason and cannot 
go beyond it. He lays down the principles on 
which he proposes to interpret Scripture, but these 
principles he has first derived from reason. The 
result is that Scripture adds nothing to the argu 
ment : it offers only a large and varied field of 
illustration. He is more particularly impressed 
with the familiar phrase so common in the Old 
Testament, that God s providence in the world is 
manifested for His name s sake. To the study of 
this phrase the name of God as the end of the 
divine activity he devotes two sections of his 
treatise. But he does not get beyond the theol 
ogy of the Old Testament in studying the mystery 
of the divine name. God s name s sake is simply 
His own sake, and His name is identical with His 
glory. There is a moment, however, when he seems 
to stand on the eve of a great transition. He re 
marks : " I might observe that the phrase the glory 
of God is sometimes manifestly used to signify the 
second person in the Trinity. But it is not neces- 



THE ETERNAL CHRIST. 835 

sary at this time to consider that matter." The 
point whose consideration might have relieved him 
from his perplexity he passes over as irrelevant. 
Pie passes over the momentous fact that while it is 
God s name s sake in the Old Testament, it is the 
name of Christ that gives significance to the new 
dispensation. It is strange that he should not 
have recalled in this connection how the prayers 
of the Christian church in every age had been of 
fered in the name of Christ, till the formula had 
almost come to be regarded as an essential ending 
to all petitions. So prominent has been the name 
of Christ during the Christian ages that, unless 
there be some eternal organic unity of Christ with 
God which rests in the very nature of the divine 
Being, it would seem as if God had been robbed 
of His glory by One whose special mission it was 
to proclaim and honor Him, whose meat and drink 
it was to do the will of Him that sent Him. 

In passing over all that the name of Christ im 
plies as not essential to his argument, Edwards 
rejected the aid which would have saved him from 
confusion and failure. In the doctrine of the 
Trinity lay the resolution of the problem he was 
considering. If the doctrine means anything at 
all, it must mean everything when discussing the 
last end of God in the creation. It is of Christ 
that St. Paul remarks that for Him are all things, 
as well as ly Him, and that in Him all things con 
sist. Because Edwards did not recognize the bear 
ings of this doctrine, he is driven to conceive the 



836 THE PHILOSOPHICAL THEOLOGIAN. 

motive of God in the end of things as a selfish one. 
In this treatise, as in his Nature of True Virtue, 
the apparent effect is to glorify an infinite and 
celestial selfishness. It is true that God seeks His 
own glory, and is Himself the final end of His cre 
ation. But this truth must in some way be coun 
terbalanced by the equally essential truth that God 
also exists for another, and in existing for an 
other, and seeking the glory of another, most truly 
exists for self and realizes His own peculiar glory. 
It has been admirably remarked, as a summary 
of the question at issue, that the divine nature 
demands, in the eye of thought, either an eternal 
Christ or an eternal creation. Otherwise the idea 
of God becomes impossible. Edwards, one is 
forced to believe, must have come face to face with 
the dilemma ; but again he is silent where speech 
was demanded. He had recoiled from deism, as 
if it were the negation of God. But, if we take 
this treatise as it stands, he cannot save himself 
from being wrecked on the opposite shore, some 
form of pantheism, which, while seeming to honor 
the divine name, does so in appearance only, and 
equally with deism endangers the divine reality. 
He may have struggled to escape, though he makes 
no sign, as he approached the dangerous pass, the 
Scylla and Charybdis of all human speculation on 
the nature of God. 

The speculative treatises at which we have been 
glancing were written in rapid succession, under 
the heavy pressure of the cares of life and amid 



CONFESSION OF FAILURE. 337 

the weakness of declining strength. Until recent 
years it was by these works alone that Edwards 
was known as a philosophical theologian. In the 
opinion of his literary executors, as they may be 
called, Dr. Samuel Hopkins and the younger Ed 
wards, these works included his final convictions. 
But we have seen that in this treatise on the Last 
End of God in the Creation, he had struck some 
difficulty which he makes no attempt to solve. It 
is pathetic to find him bemoaning the difficulty 
and the mystery of his theme. lie had flung him 
self into the infinite abyss confident that a way 
through the pathless void led up to God. But his 
later unpublished writings, as we are told, abound 
in confessions of a sense of the mystery of things 
Had his thought, so far as he had completed it, 
found full expression in these four treatises we 
have been reviewing, it must be admitted that his 
work as a speculative thinker had ended in confu 
sion, if not in failure. In all these treatises there 
is seen the tendency to one common conclusion, 
that nothing exists but God: His existence, be 
ing infinite, must be equivalent to universal exist 
ence. By a downward movement from God, hu 
manity as well as the whole realm of nature are 
swooped up by the sole activity of the one universal 
will. But Edwards had not attained a position in 
which he could rest, securely poised amid the winds 
and storms that agitate the atmosphere of human 
thought. He had come to the final question which 
the mind can ask regarding God and His relation 
to the world, and was not satisfied with the answer. 



338 THE PHILOSOPHICAL THEOLOGIAN. 

As disturbances in the motion of the spheres are 
said to have suggested the possibility of an undis 
covered planet, and even led to the calculation of 
its size and place, so the perturbations of Edwards 
thought point to some supreme object of interest 
and inquiry, of which no traces are to be found in 
his collected works, in regard to which his literary 
executors were silent, and over which his biogra 
pher has drawn a deeper veil of obscurity by seem 
ing to give a complete survey of his career. That 
subject was no other than the Christian doctrine 
of the Trinity. 

VI. 

THE DOCTRINE OF THE TRINITY. 

FOR a long time, possibly so far back as the last 
century, there has existed a suspicion, under whose 
various forms there was a common substance, that 
in Edwards writings there existed a " tentative " 
element which did not express his final conviction. 
No student of Edwards collected works can pro 
ceed very far with their examination without feel 
ing that he wrote, at times, more for the purpose 
of relieving his own mind than for the edification 
of the reader. In his solitary life, excluded from 
the company of his equals, and shut out from 
much of the highest literature, he became accus 
tomed, as it were, to thinking aloud, a feature of 
his works which does not lend to their elegance of 



UNPUBLISHED MANUSCRIPTS. 339 

form or to ease in their interpretation. We are 
also told that he was always writing, thinking with 
his pen in his hand, stopping by the wayside, or 
rising at night to record his thoughts. It is not 
therefore surprising to learn that, voluminous as 
are his collected works, he should also have left 
behind him a vast amount of manuscript which, 
according to the testimony of its curators, sur 
passes in extent his published writings. That 
these manuscripts should contain, as is asserted, a 
" thorough record of his intellectual life," it is 
easy to believe, as also that there are among them 
"papers of great interest and value that have 
never been given to the public." l 

1 Rev. Tryon Edwards, D. D., Introduction to Chanty and its 
Fruits. Dr. Edwards further remarks : These manuscripts 
have also been carefully preserved and kept together ; and about 
three years since (1848) were committed to the editor of this 
work, as sole permanent trustee, by all the then surviving grand 
children." A writer in the Independent for 1853, to whom had 
been given the privilege of examining the manuscripts, speaks of 
finding among them a seines of sermons on the Beatitudes ; a 
work on Revelation ; a Commentary on the whole Bible (!K)4 
pages), and a Harmony of the Old and New Testaments, which 
was incomplete. The outward appearance of the manuscripts 
illustrated the scarcity of paper and the necessity of economizing 
it. " He used to make rough blank-books out of odds and ends, 
backs of letters, scraps of notes sent in from the congregation ; 
and there is one long parallelogram of a book made entirely out 
of strips from the margin of the old London Daily Gazetteer of 
1743. There is another most curious manuscript, made out of 
circular scraps of paper, 147 leaves, being in the shape of half 
moons, intermingled with the patterns of caps and such other 
like remnants of housewifery." Cf. Living Agt, vol. ixtvi. 
p. 181. 



340 THE PHILOSOPHICAL THEOLOGIAN. 

In 1854 the Rev. A. B. Grosart, a Scottish 
divine and the accomplished editor of various pub 
lications, crossed the Atlantic for the purpose of 
assisting toward a complete and worthy edition of 
Edwards works. The way for him having been 
prepared by correspondence, immediate access was 
given him to all the manuscripts of Edwards. He 
found the labor of examining them, as he remarks, 
" an onerous but very pleasant one," and was re 
warded by the discovery of " papers of rare bio 
graphical interest and value." The treasure of 
the whole proved to be a Treatise on Grace, " care 
fully finished and prepared for the press." Mr. 
Grosart determined to take out of the country 
many of Edwards manuscripts, including some of 
his letters, and in regard to these he remarks, I 
possess already priceless and hitherto unknown 
materials for a worthy biography." From these 
materials in his possession he selected enough to 
form a volume of two hundred and nine large 
octavo pages. Although he did not deem himself 
at liberty to publish anything, there seemed " no 
valid objection " to printing. " In response to 
many frequent and urgent requests," this volume 
of selections was printed at Edinburgh for private 
circulation, and the edition was limited to three 
hundred copies. 1 

1 Selections from the Unpublished Writings of Jonathan Ed 
wards, of America. Edited, from the original MSS., with fac 
similes and an Introduction, by the Rev. Alexander B. Grosart 
Kinross. Three hundred copies. Printed for private circulation, 



STATEMENT OF DR. BUSHNELL. 341 

Bat there were other papers also of rare value, 
among the manuscripts of Edwards, to which Mr. 
Grosart makes no allusion. It was in the year 
1851 that the late Dr. Bushnell called attention to 
a dissertation on the Trinity which Edwards was 
reported to have written. " I very much desired 
in my exposition of the Trinity to present some 
illustrations from a manuscript dissertation of 
President Edwards on that subject. Only a few 
months ago I first heard of the existence of such 
a manuscript. It was described to me as an a 
priori argument for the Trinity, the contents of 
which would excite a good deal of surprise if 
communicated to the public. The privilege of ac 
cess to the manuscripts is denied to me, on the 
ground, as I understand, of the nature of the con 
tents." l That Dr. Bushnell must have had au 
thority for his statement is evident on the face of 
the above quotation. In an article on Edwards, 
contributed a few years later (about 1855) to 
Herzog s Real-Encyclopiidie, by the late Prof. C. 

1865. The remarks of Mr. Grosart above quoted are from his 
introduction to this volume. In addition to the "Treatise on 
Grace " (pp. 19-56), this volume contains "Annotations on Pas 
sages of Holy Scripture from President Edwards Interleaved 
Bible " (pp. 59-179) ; " Directions for Judging of Persons 
Experience" (pp. 183-185); and "Sermons" (pp. 189-209). 
Among the Sermons is the full outline of one preached to the 
Indians at Stockbridge in 1753, on the text, "All Scripture is 
given by inspiration of God," etc. A copy of this work is in 
the library of Harvard University. There are said to be but two 
copies in the country. 

1 Bushnell, Christ in Theology, p. vL 



342 THE PHILOSOPHICAL THEOLOGIAN. 

E. Stowe, allusion is made to this dissertation on 
the Trinity, as though the writer had himself pe 
rused it, and formed his own judgment of its char 
acter. " Among the manuscripts of Edwards," he 
remarks, u there is one on the Trinity which is pre 
pared with great care, and is marked by power and 
boldness and great independence of thought." : 

The call of Dr. Bushnell for the publication of 
the dissertation on the Trinity met with no re 
sponse. But whether it was owing to his call or 
to other causes, a fresh interest was excited in Ed 
wards writings. In 1852 Dr. Tryon Edwards 
edited from the manuscripts a work of some five 
hundred pages entitled Charity and its Fruits. 2 

1 " Unter seinen handschriftlichen Werken ist ein sorgfaltig 
ausgearbeitetes iiber die Lelire von der Trinitat, das mit grosser 
Selbststiiudigkeit des Denkens, Kiihnlieit und Kraft der Gedan- 
keu abgefasst ist." Herzog, Real Encydoplidie, art. "Edwards." 

2 Charity and its Fruits; or Christian Love as manifested in the 
Heart and Life. By Jonathan Edwards, sometime Pastor of the 
church at Northampton, Mass., and President of the College of 
New Jersey. Edited from the original manuscripts, with an In 
troduction, by Tryon Edwards. New York, 1852. This work 
consists of a series of sermons delivered at Northampton in 1738, 
and presents Edwards in his most delightful aspects as a preacher. 
The volume possesses historical importance, and is also indirectly 
related to Edwards views on the Trinity. In the second lecture 
is contained the important principle, which Edwards afterwards 
incorporated into his Distinguishing Marks of a Work of the 
Spirit of God, that the ordinary operations of God s Spirit are 
higher than His extraordinary gifts, such as inspiration and mira 
cles. The fifteenth lecture is closely related to the Treatise on 
Grace, which is yet to be noticed. It is entitled "The Holy 
Spirit forever to be communicated to the saints in charity or 
love." 



RUMORS AND SUSPICIONS. 343 

A new edition of Edwards works was also pro 
jected in Scotland, to consist of about fourteen 
volumes. This edition was expected to remedy 
the fault of previous editions which had departed 
in some places from the text, and to contain also 
the more important treatises existing in manu 
script. It was with reference to this project, 
which never was realized, that Mr. Grosart had 
visited this country. 

In 1880 Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes repeated 
the call for the " withheld " or " suppressed " dis 
sertation on the Trinity. The suspicion in regard 
to its contents, at which Dr. Bushnell had hinted, 
had now become more definite. " The writer (Dr. 
Holmes) is informed on unquestionable authority 
that there is or was in existence a manuscript of 
Edwards, in which his views appear to have under 
gone a great change in the direction of Arianism 
or Sabellianism." l The editor of the Hartford 
Courant reiterated the call for publication, describ 
ing the size of the unpublished manuscript, repeat 
ing the rumor that it contained a departure from 
Edwards published views on the Trinity, and add 
ing other rumors to the effect that it contained a 
modification of his teaching on original sin, even 
approaching so far as Pelagianism. This last 
call brought forth a response in the shape of a 
small treatise entitled Observations concerning the 
Scripture CEconomy of the Trinity and Covenant 
1 International Review, July, 1880. 



544 THE PHILOSOPHICAL THEOLOGIAN. 

of Redemption. 1 The history of the manuscript 
is given, and the reasons why it had not been pub 
lished before, among which there is seen no ground 
for serious hesitation on account of its alleged de 
fection from orthodoxy. The work shows any 
thing but a Sabellian or Arian tendency : it is 
rather Tritheistic, with its formal and as it were 
algebraic method of presenting the subject. The 
disappointment felt on its appearance must have 
been in proportion to the interest which its an 
nouncement had created. It was a relief, then, to 
learn that this was not the dissertation to which 
Dr. Bushnell had referred, and of which Professor 
Stowe had remarked that it was worked out with 
great care, and was marked by power and bold 
ness and great independence of thought. In 1881 
there appeared in the Bibliotheca Sacra two re 
markable articles from one who spoke with un 
doubted authority. 2 These articles, for the time 
being, put an end to the discussion. From them 

1 Observations concerning the Scripture (Economy of the Trinity 
and Covenant of Redemption. By Jonathan Edwards. With an 
Introduction and Appendix by Egbert C. Smyth. New York : 
Charles Scribner s Sons. 1880. The notes which Prof essor Smyth 
has added have great value in elucidating the text, as well as 
for the history of theology in New England. He has also given 
additional extracts, hitherto unknown, from Edwards MSS., 
one of them, in particular, of the highest importance. Cf. pp. 
92-97. 

2 Professor Edwards A. Park, D. D., Sib. Sac., January and 
April, 1881. To these articles I am greatly indebted, and could 
not have written this chapter without them. They contain a 
masterly exposition of Edwards doctrine of the Trinity. 



THE MISSING MANUSCRIPT. 345 

it may be inferred that Edwards wrote a disserta 
tion on the Trinity which justified the comments 
of Professor Stowe. But the manuscript has since 
been mislaid, and so late as 1881 had not been 
found. It had been read, however, several years 
before these articles appeared, by their writer, who 
had also taken notes of some parts of the argu 
ment. No one is better fitted than Professor 
Park to form a true judgment regarding the miss 
ing manuscript, or to report correctly as to its 
substantial contents. It was divided, we are told, 
into two parts. The first part corresponded in 
substance with the Observations concerning the 
Scripture CEconomy of the Trinity, published in 
1880 ; the second part corresponded in substance 
with the third section of the Treatise on Grace, 
which was printed in Edinburgh, in 1865. In addi 
tion to this information, fresh material from Ed 
wards manuscripts is also furnished in the above- 
mentioned articles in the Bibliotheca Sacra, which 
possesses the highest value, throwing a light upon 
the workings of his mind, without which it would 
have been impossible to understand or to do jus 
tice to the labors of his later years. To these sug 
gestive hints from his manuscripts, to the Obser 
vations on the Trinity, and to the Treatise on 
Grace, we now turn in the order enumerated. 
The doctrine of the Trinity has played so large a 
part in the history of religious thought in New 
England, that Edwards contribution to the sub 
ject must be regarded as still possessing great 



346 THE PHILOSOPHICAL THEOLOGIAN. 

significance, even though it has been unknown 
until recent years, and the best part of his thought 
is still secluded in a volume printed for private 
circulation, or buried in the missing manuscript. 1 

Toward the close of his life, and within perhaps 
four or five years of his death, Edwards became ac 
quainted with one of the most remarkable theolog 
ical works of the last century, The Philosoph 
ical Principles of Natural and Revealed Religion, 
unfolded in Geometrical Order by the Chevalier 
Ramsay, author of the Travels of Cyrus. Glasgow, 
1747. 2 From a notice which Edwards saw of 

1 Were it not for Professor Park s conjecture that the missing 
essay was written somewhere between 1752 and 1754, it might 
have been inferred from internal evidence that it was written 
after the Nature of True Virtue and The Last End of God in the 
Creation ; i, e. some two years later (1756). The suggestion is 
here hazarded that, because these two dissertations needed to he 
adjusted to the thought contained in the missing essay, or in the 
Treatise on Grace, Edwards kept them back from the press and 
proceeded with his work on Original Sin, which was going 
through the press at the time of his death. No date is assigned 
for the Observations on the Trinity, or the Treatise on Grace. It 
may be assumed that they were written after 1752. It is to be 
noted that Edwards does not allude to any of these treatises above 
named, in his letter to the Trustees of Princeton College, in which 
he describes the books he is then projecting (1757). But he 
makes the significant remark, I have also many other things in 
hand, in some of which I have made great progress, which I will 
not trouble you with an account of. Some of these things, if di 
vine providence favor, I should be willing to attempt a publication 
of." Dwight, Life of Edwards, p. 570. 

- Andrew Michael Ramsay, commonly called the Chevalier 
Ramsay, was born in Ayr, Scotland, 1686. After studying at Edin 
burgh and St. Andrews he went abroad, residing mainly in France, 
where he died 1743. Among other positions which he held was 



KA^f SAY S "PffJLOSOPHICAL PRINCIPLES." 347 

the work in the Monthly Review, he became aware 
of its significance and was desirous to purchase 
it. The book may have been in his possession by 
1754. Its author must have been a man closely 
resembling Edwards in the type of his mind, a 
speculative thinker aiming at a system of abso 
lute Christian thought. But if the Chevalier Ram 
say had been familiar with Edwards books he 
could not have more directly opposed Edwards 
methods and conclusions. His Philosophical Prin 
ciples combats the theories of Berkeley and Male- 
branche, as tending directly toward Pantheism, 
which he regarded as an immoral fatalism as well 
as a practical atheism. Predestination, also, and 
the denial of freedom of the will, lie condemned, 
tracing them to the principle that Deity was the 
sole efficient cause, a principle which, as he 
sought to show, led back ultimately to Spinoza s 
doctrine of the one substance, with its two attri 
butes of thought and extension. 

Edwards does not seem to have been influenced 
at all by these denunciations of his favorite doc 
trine. But while these two minds were at the 
antipodes of speculation on these profound issues, 
they had also much in common, and at one point 

that of tutor to the children of the Pretender, called James III. ; 
and it has been thought that the doctorate conferred on him hy 
Oxford was partly owing to his Jacobite relations His Philo 
sophical Principles is hardly orthodox from the Roman Catholic 
stand-point, as it urges a final restoration of all souls to God. A 
copy of it is in the library of Harvard College, which is rich in 
the theological literature of the last century. 



348 THE PHILOSOPHICAL THEOLOGIAN. 

their thought tended to coalesce in a common con 
viction. Both had been going through a similar 
theological experience, in that they had recoiled 
from the deism of the eighteenth century, which 
relegated God to some remote spot outside of His 
creation. The Scotchman, however, had first 
fallen into deism, accepting its postulate of Deity 
as singleness of essence, and reducing religion to 
a reverence for and the practice of virtue. All re 
ligions, as he then thought, contained these simple 
ideas, but were also full of false theories and evil 
superstitions, with a complicated ritual which ob 
scured the essential truth. Ramsay did not long 
remain in this position. Under the influence of 
Poiret, he encountered the fascination of French 
mysticism, which led him in 1710 to seek an inter 
view with Fenelon. The story of his conversion 
to Roman Catholicism is told in his Life of Fene 
lon, 1 by whom he was convinced that there was no 
middle ground between deism and the Catholic 
faith. After his conversion, as he pursued his 
great inquiry regarding the nature of God, he 
discerned that the pantheism in which thoughtful 
minds were taking refuge from an impossible 
deism was also but a makeshift, and like deism 
resulted in a loss of the consciousness of the living 
God. It was at this point that he met Edwards, 
who had also arrived by a process of his own at 
conclusions which are closely related to Spinoza s 
doctrine of the one substance. 

1 Life of Francois de Salignac de la Mothe Fenelon, London, 
1723, pp. 189-247. 



DEISM AND PANTHEISM. 349 

The issue which Ramsay had confronted, and 
which Edwards must also have seen, even if at a 
distance, was no passing mood in human thought. 
It involves the same essential condition in which 
the early fathers of the Christian church had 
found themselves when they felt the necessity of 
reconciling the truth in Stoic pantheism with Jew 
ish monotheism. If the idea of God as infinite 
personality was lost in Stoicism, which conceived 
of Deity as universally diffused, permeating the 
universe as all-pervading breath, equally difficult 
was it to find satisfaction in the deistic conception 
of the Jew. A Deity idle or dormant, silently re 
posing in Himself until he comes forth for the 
creation, must be a being without relationships, 
and therefore without consciousness. It was here 
that Platonism came to the rescue of embarrassed 
thinkers, with its idea of a Logos which bridged 
the gulf between pantheism and deism. Or, as 
transmuted by Christian thought, the true Logos 
was the Christ, the Son eternally generated from 
the Father, God s second self, in whom He saw 
Himself reflected, between whom and Himself 
there existed from eternity the activity of divine 
communication and love. The doctrine of eternal 
distinctions within the divine essence satisfied the 
necessity of early Christian thought, as it sought 
some adequate conception of God. 

The following sentence from Ramsay s book had 
first arrested the attention of Edwards: "The 
Infinite Spirit, by a necessary, immanent, eternal 



350 THE PHILOSOPHICAL THEOLOGIAN. 

activity, produces in Himself His consubstantiul 
image, equal to Himself in all His perfections, self- 
origination only excepted ; and from both pro 
ceed a distinct, self-conscious, intelligent, active 
principle of love, coequal to the Father and the 
Son, called the Holy Ghost. This is the true defi 
nition of God in His eternal solitude, or accord 
ing to His absolute essence distinct from created 
nature." This passage Edwards had copied from 
a notice in the Monthly Review, before he was yet 
in possession of Ramsay s work. When he had 
secured the book, he copied out other passages 
which bear upon this leading thought. Among 
them are the following sentences : 

" Such inactive powers as lie dormant during a whole 
eternity in God, are absolutely incompatible with the 
perfection of the divine nature, which must be infinitely, 
eternally, and essentially active. . . . Since God cannot 
be eternally active from without. He must be eternally 
active from within. . . . An absolutely infinite mind 
supposes an absolutely infinite object or idea known. . . . 
Hence this generation of tbe Logos or of God s consub 
stantial idea is sufficient to complete the perfection of 
the divine understanding. . . . Thus it is certain that, 
antecedent to all communicative goodness to anything 
external, God is good in Himself. . . . He does not, 
therefore, want to create innumerable myriads of finite 
objects to assert His essential beneficence and equity ; 
since he produces within Himself from all eternity an 
infinite object that exhausts, so to speak, all His capac 
ity of loving, beatifying and doing justice. The Deists 
Socinians, and Unitarians, who deny the doctrine of the 



THE DOCTRINE OF THE TRINITY. 351 

Trinity, cannot explain how God is essentially good and 
just, antecedently to, and independently of, the creation 
of finite things ; for God cannot he eminently good 
and just where there is no ohject of His beneficence 
and equity. . . . To complete the idea of perfect felic 
ity there must he an object loving as well as an object 
loved. . . . There is a far greater felicity in loving and 
in being loved than in loving simply. It is the mutual 
harmony and correspondence of two distinct beings or 
persons that makes the completion of love and felicity. 
Hence God could not have been infinitely and eternally 
loved if there had not been from all eternity some being 
distinct from Himself and equal to Himself that loves 
Him infinitely. The eternal, infinite, and immutable 
LOVE which proceeds from the idea God has of Himself 
is not a simple attribute, mode, or perfection of the di 
vine mind ; but a living, active, consubstantial, intelli 
gent being or agent. . . . We may represent the divine 
essence under these three notions, as an infinitely ac 
tive mind that conceives ; or as an infinite idea that is 
the object of this conception ; or as an infinite love that 
proceeds from this idea. . . . There are three ; there 
can be but three ; and all that we can conceive of the 
Infinite mind may be reduced to these three : infinite 
LIFE, LIGHT, and LOVE. . . . These three distinctions 
in the Deity are neither three independent minds, . . . 
nor three attributes of the same substance, . . . but 
three coeternal, consubstantial, coordinate persons, co 
equal in all things, self-origination only excepted. . . . 
All those who are ignorant of the doctrine of the Trinity, 
of the generation of the Logos, of the procession of the 
Eternal Spirit, and of the everlasting commerce among 
the sacred three, look upon God s still eternity as a state 
of inaction or indolence." 



352 THE PHILOSOPHICAL THEOLOGIAN. 

Exactly how much Edwards may have meant by 
copying into his note-book passages like these from 
Ramsay, it is not easy to determine. At least he 
was interested in the thought they contained ; to a 
certain extent it must have been new to him. How 
far its influence may be traced in his later writings 
remains to be considered. The Observations on 
the Scriptural CEconomy of the Trinity shows that 
a profound change was passing over the mind of 
its author in regard to the nature of the divine 
existence. Although, as has been remarked, this 
work created a sense of disappointment when it 
appeared, yet the disappointment is only an evi 
dence how thought has moved since Edwards day. 
Had it been published in his lifetime it might have 
involved him in another controversy, and that with 
his own household of faith. A passage like the 
following shows him to be aware that he is making 
an innovation on views which were widely preva 
lent : "It appears to be unreasonable to suppose, 
as some do, that the Sonship of the second person 
of the Trinity consists only in the relation He bears 
to the Father in His mediatorial character." 1 Ed 
wards was contending for the Trinity as grounded 
in the nature of things, or in the necessity of God s 

1 Observations, etc., p. 56. The opinion which Edwards was 
controverting was advanced by Dr. Thomas Ridgeley in 1731. 
In 1792 Dr. Samuel Hopkins speaks of it "as gaining ground 
and spreading of late." Cf. Prof. E. C. Smyth, Appendix to 
Observations, etc., p. 91, for a list of references bearing on this 
point. But Edwards was also controverting his own earlier view. 
Cf. the passages where he alludes to the Trinity, ante, p. 99. 



THE METHOD OF CALVIN. 353 

being. Although he could not have been ac 
quainted with the process of historical theology, 
yet the working of his mind was leading- him into 
the same path through the mazes of thought, which 
Origen and Athanasius had also followed. The 
way in which he was travelling was by no means 
a familiar one in the Calvinistic churches, and by 
many it was regarded with distrust or mislike. 
The method of Calvin had been for the most part 
prevalent, which waived aside the doctrine of the 
eternal generation of the Son as unnecessary or un 
profitable, or even as " an absurd fiction." 1 Such 
a method as Calvin s might answer the practical 
needs of the church, so long as thought lay dor 
mant, or tradition and Scripture possessed an un 
questioned authority. In the eighteenth century, 
when the appeal was carried to the reason, the 
divinity of Christ was endangered by the silence 
of those who refused to follow the voice of reason 
as it pointed toward Christ as the eternal Son, 
without whose coequal and coeternal presence with 
the Father even the thought of God was becoming 
impossible. To maintain the divinity of Christ, as 

1 "I do not undertake," says Calvin, "to satisfy those who 
delight in speculative views. . . . Studying the edification of the 
shurch, I have thought it better not to touch on various topics 
which could have yielded little profit, while they must have need 
lessly burdened and fatigued the reader. For instance, what 
avails it to discuss, as Lombard does at length, Whether or not 
the Father always generates ? This idea of continual generation 
becomes an absurd fiction from the moment it is seen that from 
eternity there were three persons in one God." Calvin, Institutes, 
book i. ch. 13. 



354 THE PHILOSOPHICAL THEOLOGIAN. 

was then the custom, solely on the ground that it 
was essential to His making an adequate atone 
ment for sin, was to involve the rejection of His 
divinity if such a theory of atonement should be 
come obnoxious. If the Spirit of God, as popu 
larly conceived, was but the divine energy applying 
the benefits of Christ s atonement, there would be 
no necessity for His existence as a coequal factor 
or distinction in the divine essence, when some 
different and higher view of human nature should 
have arisen in place of the doctrine of original sin. 
Such was the process by which, in the mind of the 
last century, the doctrine of the Trinity was un 
dermined. Not to ground the distinctions in the 
divine essence by some immanent, eternal necessity 
was to make easy the denial of what has been called 
the ontological Trinity, and then the rejection of 
the economical Trinity was not difficult or far 
away. 

This little treatise of Edwards, then, is far from 
being unimportant or commonplace. It adds to 
our estimate of his work as a theologian. He was 
stemming the theological tide instead of yielding 
to it. He was asserting a doctrine of the Trinity 
which implied its eternal necessity in the nature 
of God, even had there been no fall, no need of 
an atonement for human redemption. Had his 
thought been fully developed, it must have led 
him to the recognition of Christ as sustaining an 
organic relation to the world of outward nature. 
As Christ is the creative wisdom of God in whom 



THE BEAUTY OF CHRIST IN NATURE. 355 

God saw Himself reflected, so the beauty and the 
glory of Christ is visible in the world of created 
things. The following exquisite passage deserves 
no apology for being reproduced at length. It does 
not belong to the Observations, but has been re 
cently recovered from Edwards manuscripts : 

" We have shown that the Son of God created the 
world for this very end, to communicate Himself in an 
image of His own excellency. He communicates Him 
self properly only to spirits, and they only are capable 
of being proper images of His excellency, for they only 
are properly beings, as we have shown. Yet He com 
municates a sort of a shadow or glimpse of His excel 
lencies to bodies which, as we have shown, are but the 
shadows of beings and not real beings. He who, by 
His immediate influence, gives being every moment, and 
by His spirit actuates the world, because He inclines to 
communicate Himself and His excellencies, doth doubt 
less communicate His excellency to bodies, as far as 
there is any consent or analogy. And the beauty of 
face and sweet airs in men are not always the effect of 
the corresponding excellencies of mind ; yet the beauties 
of nature are really emanations or shadows of the excel 
lency of the Son of God. 

" So that, when we are delighted with flowery mead 
ows and gentle breezes of wind, we may consider that 
we see only the emanations of the sweet benevolence of 
Jesus Christ. When we behold the fragrant rose and 
lily, we see His love and purity. So the green trees and 
fields, and singing of birds, are the emanations of His 
infinite joy and benignity. The easiness and naturalness 
of trees and vines are shadows of His beauty and loveJ" 



356 THE PHILOSOPHICAL THEOLOGIAN. 

ness. The crystal rivers and murmuring streams are 
the footsteps of His favor, grace, and beauty. When 
we behold the light and brightness of the sun, the golden 
edges of an evening cloud, or the beauteous bow, we be 
hold the adumbrations of His glory and goodness ; and 
in the blue sky, of his mildness and gentleness. There 
are also many things wherein we may behold His awful 
majesty : in the sun in his strength, in comets, in thun 
der, in the hovering thunder-clouds, in ragged rocks and 
the brows of mountains. That beauteous light with 
which the world is filled in a clear day is a lively shadow 
of His spotless holiness, and happiness and delight in 
communicating Himself. And doubtless this is a reason 
that Christ is compared so often to those things, and 
called by their names, as the Sun of Righteousness, the 
morning-star, the rose of Sharon, and lily of the valley, 
the apple-tree among trees of the wood, a bundle of 
myrrh, a roe, or a young hart. By this we may dis 
cover the beauty of many of those metaphors and similes 
which to an unphilosophical person do seem so uncouth. 
" In like manner, when we behold the beauty of man s 
body in its perfection, we still see like emanations of 
Christ s divine perfections, although they do not always 
flow from the mental excellencies of the person that has 
them. But we see the most proper image of the beauty 
of Christ when we see beauty in the human soul." J 

1 Observations, etc., Appendix, pp. 94-97. When this passage 
was written there is no means of determining 1 without further 
appeal to the manuscripts. I should like to think that it belonged 
to Edwards later years, and was nearly contemporaneous with 
his writings on the Trinity. But it may have belonged to his 
youth, and have been written not long after the Notes on the Mind. 
For similar expressions of thought regarding the relation of Christ 
to the creation, the reader may be referred to Dorner, Person of 



TREATISE ON GRACE. 357 

This beautiful passage, which illustrates the 
poetic temperament of Edwards, has also its the 
ological significance. He was reproducing the 
Christ of the early church, who is organically re 
lated to nature and to man, the manifestation of 
the wisdom of God. But he was resuming also, 

o 

though he may not have known it, the discussion 
of the Trinity at the point where it was dropped in 
ancient controversies, developing the doctrine after 
a manner of his own which deserves the closest at 
tention. His Treatise on Grace, however uninter 
esting its title, contains perhaps his most important 
contribution to theological progress. Of this work 
Mr. Grosart, its Scotch editor, has remarked : " I 
shall be surprised if this treatise do not at once 
take rank with its kindred one on the Religious 
Affections. There is in it, I think, the massive 
argumentation of his great work on the Will, but 
there is in addition a fineness of spiritual insight, 
a holy fervor, not untinged with the pathetic 
frenzy of the English Mystics, as of Peter Sterry 
and Archbishop Leighton, and, especially toward 
the close, a rapturous exultation in the excel 
lency and loveliness of God ; a ylow in iteration of 
the wonder, and beauty, and blessedness of Divine 
Love ; and a splendor of assertion of the claims, 
so to speak, of the Holy Spirit, which it would be 
difficult to overestimate." The distinctive purpose 

Christ, Eng. trans., vols. i. and ii. Cf., also, Twesten, Vorlesunyrn, 
vol. ii. pp. 199, S. , for an admirable statement of how the second 
person in the Trinity is organically related to the external world. 



358 THE PHILOSOPHICAL THEOLOGIAN. 

of this unknown work, printed only for a limited 
circulation, will not be exaggerated when placed 
in comparison with two other treatises, like it 
small in extent, but vast in their influence, 
works which have created epochs in Christian 
thought and experience, Athanasius on the In 
carnation of the Word, and Anselm s Cur Deus 
Homo. The work of Athanasius reveals the im 
port of the Nicene theology as centring in the 
Word made flesh, while Anselm formulated the 
conception of an atonement which became the 
controlling idea in Latin Christendom. Edwards 
brings out, as it had not been done before in the 
whole history of theology, the doctrine of the Holy 
Spirit as related on the one hand to the inner 
mystery of the divine nature, and on the other to 
the spiritual life of man. 

Among the characteristics of the Treatise on 
Grace, one of the foremost to arrest attention is 
the abandonment of the ethical principle laid down 
in the Nature of True Virtue. Edwards had there 
asserted in his most positive manner that virtue 
primarily consists in love to being in general ; in 
the propensity, as he calls it, in the impulsion or 
gravitation, as it were, of the infinitely smaller 
fragments of being to the infinitely larger mass of 
being. Or, as he had there said : " True virtue 
primarily consists, not in love to any particular 
Beings because of their virtue or beauty, nor in 
gratitude because they love us, but in a propen 
sity and union of heart to Being simply con- 



SELF-CONTRADICTION. 359 

siclered." 1 But in the Treatise on Grace he 
writes : " The main ground of true love to God 
is the excellency of His own nature." These two 
kinds of love Edwards had designated as the " love 
of benevolence " and the " love of complacence." 
In his dissertation on Virtue he placed love of 
benevolence first, as the primary ground of virtue, 
to which the love of complacence was secondary 
or subordinate. He now asserts : " Of these two, a 
love of complacence is first, and is the foundation 
of the other ; i. e. if by a love of complacence bo 
meant a relishing, a sweetness in the qualifications 
of the beloved, and a being pleased and delighted 
in his excellency. This in the order of nature is 
before benevolence, because it is the foundation 
and reason of it. A person must first relish that 
wherein the amiableness of nature consists, before 
he can wish well to him on account of that loveli 
ness." 2 This passage is bracketed, as it stands in 
the manuscript, an indication, it may be, that 
Edwards was aware of the contradiction, or wished 
to give the subject fuller consideration. But not 
to speculate on his purpose in bracketing the pas 
sage, or as to what would have been his final con- 

O " 

elusion, it is more important to observe the open 
ness of his mind at an age when most men have 
fixed their conclusions beyond the possibility of 
change. He seems to be exemplifying here the 
resolution of his youth, that he will be impartial 

1 Natvrf of True Virtue, vol. ii. p. 264. 
5 Grosart, Selections, etc., p. 47. 



360 THE PHILOSOPHICAL THEOLOGIAN. 

in hearing and receiving what is rational, how 
long soever he may have been used to another 
method of thinking. As to how this extraordinary 
contradiction is to be accounted for, only a word 
of suggestion can be offered. The necessities of 
the controversy against the Arminians, the desire 
to find a basis for virtue which would include the 
natural man, the non-elect as well as the elect, 
forced him to take one view ; when he wrote apart 
from this necessity, he was irresistibly impelled 
toward the other. The contradiction reaches down 
to the depths of Edwards theology. It conceals 
an intimation that the distinction between elect 
and non-elect was not defensible in the last analy 
sis of his thought, without some sacrifice of essen 
tial truth, which he was unwilling to make. The 
probability is that on this point we must leave Ed 
wards in his self-contradiction, as his only method 
of maintaining his fundamental tenet. 

It is a leading feature of the Treatise on Grace 
that it identifies grace with the indwelling God in 
the soul. As one reads Edwards glowing words 
on this subject, the mind travels back through 
sacramental theologies to the time when the " doc 
trines of grace," as they are called, were first for 
mulated in the Latin church of the fifth century. 
In the earlier and higher thought of the fathers 
before the time of Augustine, a personal Christ or 
the indwelling divine wisdom had been the formula 
which represented the power of God unto salva 
tion. But when an " impersonal grace " was sub- 



CONCEPTION OF GRACE. oGl 

stituted for the personal life of God in the soul, 
sacramental agencies were placed foremost as the 
channels through which an occult spiritual influ 
ence was imparted. " Grace " remained a word 
undefined, despite the various meanings assigned 
to it, through the Middle Ages and on through the 
Reformation age. The word " grace " plays a large 
part in Edwards theology. But it was impossible 
that he should be content without attempting its 
definition. In his conception of grace he has made 
another important contribution to the advancement 
of theology which is not included among the so- 
called " improvements " in which the younger Ed 
wards l has summarized his father s work. To 
Edwards belongs the honor of reasserting the in 
dwelling and personal life of God in the soul, in 
place of the substitutes which men had devised. 
His own words on this point, contained in his un 
published Treatise on Grace, are too emphatic and 
impressive to be omitted : 

" The doctrine of a gracious nature being by the 
immediate influence of the Spirit, is not only taught in 
the Scriptures, but is irrefragable to Reason. Indeed, 
there seems to be a strong disposition in men to dis- 
believe and oppose the doctrine of immediate influence 
of the Spirit of God in the hearts of men, or to diminish 
and make it as small and remote a matter as possible, 
and put it as far out of sight as may be. Whereas, it 
seems to me, true virtue and holiness would naturally 

1 Remarks on the Improvements made in Theology, by Presi 
dent Edwards, Works, vol. i pp. 481-492. 



362 THE PHILOSOPHICAL THEOLOGIAN. 

excite a prejudice (if I may so say) in favor of such a 
doctrine ; and that the soul, when in the most excellent 
frame and the most lively exercise of virtue, love to 
God and delight in Him, would naturally and un 
avoidably think of God as kindly communicating Him 
self to him, and holding communion with him, as though 
he did, as it were, see God smiling on him, giving to 
him, and conversing with him ; and that if he did not so 
think of God, but on the contrary should conceive that 
there was no immediate communication between God 
and him, it would tend greatly to quell his holy motions 
of soul, and be an exceeding damage to his pleasure. 

" No good reason can be given why men should have 
such an inward disposition to deny any immediate com 
munication between God and the creature, or to make as 
little of it as possible. T is a strange disposition that 
men have to thrust God out of the world, or to put Him 
as far out of sight as they can, and to have in no respect 
immediately and sensibly to do with Him. Therefore 
so many schemes have been drawn to exclude or exten 
uate, or remove at a great distance, any influence of the 
Divine Being in the hearts of men, such as the scheme 
of the Pelagians, the Socinians, etc. And therefore 
these doctrines are so much ridiculed that ascribe much 
to the immediate influence of the Spirit, and called en 
thusiasm, fanaticism, whimsey, and distraction ; but no 
mortal can tell for what." l 

It is another feature of the Treatise on Grace 
that it supplements the deficiencies pointed out in 
the Last End of God in the Creation. The con 
ception of Deity there presented was closely akin 
1 Grosart, Selections, etc., p. 40. 



MYSTERY OF UNION WITH CHRIST. 363 

to the Sabellian monad, who dwelt in silence and 
inactivity until He came forth for the creation. 
But the doctrine of eternal distinctions within the 
divine essence, of a spiritual fellowship from all 
eternity between the Father and the Son whose 
mutual bond is the Holy Spirit, is now presented 
in such an eloquent way, with such dee}) convic 
tion, as to leave no doubt that it formed an essen 
tial element in Edwards thought. That it does 
not, however, appear in his earlier works, has al 
ready been noticed. He was silent, as has been 
shown, 1 when he should have spoken, as in his ser 
mon on Justification, where he declines to define 
too closely the organic relationship of the believer 
with Christ. But the omission is now remedied. 
" Herein lies the mystery of the vital union that is 
between Christ and the soul of a believer, which 
orthodox divines speak so much of, that is. His 
Spirit is actually united to the faculties of their 
souls. . . . And thus it is that the saints are said 
to live, yet not they, but Christ, lives in them. The 
very promise of spiritiial life in their souls is no 
other than the spirit of Christ Himself. So that 
they live by His life as much as the members of 
the body live by the life of the Lord, and as much 
as the branches live by the life of the root and 
stock. Because I live ye shall live also. AVo 
are dead, but our life is hid with Christ in God." 
It is characteristic still further of the Treatise 

1 Cf. ante, pp. !7, ff. 

2 Gros.irt, Sflccti/ms, p. 54. 



THE PHILOSOPHICAL THEOLOGIAN. 

on Grace, that it aims to win a place for the Holy 
Spirit, not only in the economy of redemption 
but also in the nature of Godhead, which shall be 
coequal with that of the Father and the Son. In 
the Miltonic descriptions of the councils in heaven, 
where God the Father is represented as deliberat 
ing or making covenant with the Son in regard to 
the deliverance of man, the Divine Spirit finds no 
equal footing of honor and dignity. So, also, in 
the ancient church, the work of the Spirit had 
been left undefined at the Nicene Council, nor did 
the ensuing discussion of the subject possess the 
same general or enduring interest as the contro 
versy over the equality of the Son with the Father. 1 
And those who still approach this exalted theme can 
more readily see the force of the reasoning which 
demands an Eternal Son, while they experience 
difficulty in formulating the position which the 
Spirit holds in the mystery of the Godhead or in 
the redemption of man. The two largest divisions 
of the Catholic Church are still and have long been 
separated by a subtle, it seems to some an almost 
incomprehensible, distinction in regard to the pro 
cession of the Holy Spirit. Edwards was conscious 
that on this subject his mind was moving in ad 
vance of the popular thought : " If we suppose no 
more than used to be supposed about the Holy 

1 "The doctrine of the Holy Ghost," says Dr. Schaff, "was 
not in any respect so accurately developed in this period as the 
doctrine concerning- Christ, and it shows many g-aps." Hist, of 
the Chris. Ch., vol. iii. p. 666. The remark might be extended to 
cover the later periods of Christian history. 



DESCRIPTION OF DIVINE LOVE. 365 

Ghost, the honor of the Holy Ghost in the work 
of Redemption is not equal in any sense to the 
Father s and the Son s." 1 

How, then, did he meet the difficulty ? The an 
swer may be given in a brief analysis of the Trea 
tise on Grace. In the first place, grace is made 
identical with charity or divine love. This love is 
not merely exerted toward men, but rather prima 
rily and mainly toward God. Love is the essence 
of Christianity. When love shall be free from all 
mixtures which accompany or disfigure its earthly 
state, it will stand forth in its exaltation as the 
charity which never faileth. Love is so essential 
that all religion is but hypocrisy and a vain show 
without it. From it and comprehended in it are 
all good dispositions and duties. The love to God 
is not distinct from the love to man ; they are one 
and the same principle flowing forth toward dif 
ferent objects. But how shall this divine love be 
defined, seeing that things of this nature are not 
properly capable of a definition, they are better 
felt than defined " ? But the love which has God 
for its object may be described, if not defined : it 
is the soul s relish of the supreme excellency of the 
Divine nature, inclining the heart to God as the 
chief good. The saving grace in the soul, which 
radically and summarily consists in divine love, 
" comes into existence in the soul by the power of 
God in the influences of the Holy Spirit, the Third 
Person in the Blessed Trinity." But the Scripture 

1 Grosirt, StJH-lions, p. . r >l 



366 TEE PHILOSOPHICAL THEOLOGIAN. 

speaks of this holy and divine love in the soul as 
not only from the Spirit, but as being in itself 
spiritual. It is not called spiritual because it has 
its seat in the spirit of man as contrasted with his 
body. It is called spiritual because of its relation 
to the Spirit of God. 

At this point Edwards makes the transition 
which brings him rapidly to the climax of his 
thought. That love within the soul which consti 
tutes saving grace is not merely a result wrought 
by the influence of the Spirit, it is not merely an 
attribute of the divine character, but it is an in 
finite personality ; it is in itself nothing less than 
the very essence of the Spirit of God. Of the 
Holy Spirit it must be affirmed that in some pecu 
liar sense He is love, even as it cannot be predi 
cated of the Father and the Son. It is true that 
the Godhead, or the entire Divine essence, is said to 
be love. God is lore, and he that dwelleth in 
love dwelleth in God and God in him; and yet 
it is added, Hereby ^ce know that we dwell in Him 
because He hath given us of His Spirit. Edwards 
is careful to insist that the basis of his position is 
a Scriptural one. " In an inquiry of this nature, 
I would go no further than I think the Scripture 
plainly goes before me. The Word of God cer 
tainly should be our rule in matters so much above 
reason and our own notions." And this appears 
to him to be the teaching of Scripture, that love is 
the Holy Spirit and the Holy Spirit is love. Love 
is not an attribute of God, but it is God, an infi- 



LOVE IS THE HOLY SPIRIT. 367 

nite and vital energy which is most truly conceived 
as personal. Because it indwells in man, it makes 
him the temple of the Holy Ghost. " Scripture 
leads us to this conclusion, though it be infinitely 
above us to conceive how it should be." Just as 
wisdom or Aoyos is spoken of as the Son of God, 
after the same manner is love called the Spirit of 
God. It is said of the Word or Wisdom of God : 
" Then was I with Him as one brought up with 
Him, and I was daily His delight, rejoicing alway 
before Him." Or again, in the Prologue of the 
Fourth Gospel : "In the beginning was the Logos 
(or Word), and the Logos was with God, and Logos 
was God." Just as the fathers in the ancient 
church had asserted of reason, however or wher 
ever it might be manifested, that it was no human 
quality casually exerted, but evidence of the in 
dwelling of the divine reason which is God, so 
Edwards now speaks of the Spirit. It is the com 
mon mode of speech to say that God is love. It 
indicates some profound change in the basis of 
thought when the expression is reversed and it is 
said that love is God. But to such a mode; of 
thinking Edwards had come. And now the quali 
fications of his earlier writings tend to disappear 
as he expounds his conviction that Love, in some 
peculiar sense, is an infinite person. Life, and 
Light, and Love, these are God. It makes the 
spiritual nature of man throb as with the pulsa 
tions of eternity to know that the action of God 
upon the soul is no impartation of power from 



368 THE PHILOSOPHICAL THEOLOGIAN. 

without, but the presence of the divinity within. 
In this process the highest place is assigned to the 
personal indwelling Spirit. When it is said that 
the Father and the Son love and delight in each 
other, so that there is perfect and intimate union 
between them, it must be understood that the bond 
of this felicity is the Holy Spirit. 

" The Holy Spirit does in some ineffable and incon 
ceivable manner proceed and is breathed forth from the 
Father and the Son, by the Divine essence being wholly 
poured and flowing out in that infinitely intense, holy, 
and pure love and delight that continually and un 
changeably breathe forth from the Father and the Son, 
primarily toward each other and secondarily toward the 
creature, and so flowing forth in a different subsistence 
or person in a manner to us utterly inexplicable and in 
conceivable, and that this is that person poured forth 
into the hearts of angels and saints. Hence it is to be 
accounted for that, though we often read in Scripture of 
the Father loving the Son and the Son loving the Fa 
ther, yet we never once read either of the Father or the 
Son loving the Holy Spirit and the Spirit loving either 
of them, It is because the Holy Spirit is the Divine 
Love, the love of the Father and the Son. Hence also 
it is to be accounted for, that we very often read of the 
love both of the Father and the Son to men, and partic 
ularly their love to the saints ; but we never read of 
the Holy Ghost loving them, for the Holy Ghost is that 
love of God and Christ that is breathed forth primarily 
toward each other, and flows out secondarily toward the 
creature. . . . He is the Deity wholly breathed forth 



PARTICIPATION IN THE DIVINE NATURE. 369 

in infinite, substantial, intelligent love, . . . and so stand 
ing forth a distinct personal subsistence." l 

Three inferences are deduced by Edwards from 
his exposition of the nature and office of the Holy 
Spirit. In the first place, he believed that he had 
vindicated the coequality of the Spirit with the 
Father and the Son, as against a prevailing theo 
logical tendency which subordinated or obscured 
His true function. But now, wonderful as is the 
love of God manifested by the Father in that He 
so loved the world as to send His Son, wonderful 
as is the love of the Son in that He so loved the 
world as to give Himself, yet these manifesta 
tions of divine love are followed by a third and 
higher display of love, for the Holy Spirit is the 
Love itself of the Father and the Son. " So that, 
however wonderful the love of the Father and the 
Son appear to be, so much the more glory belongs 
to the Holy Spirit in whom subsists that wonder 
ful and excellent love." 

In the second place, it is now seen what is meant 
by man s becoming a partaker of the Divine na 
ture. Phrases like this as they occur in Scripture, 
or similar expressions of his own, abound in Ed 
wards writings. But they are generally accom 
panied with qualifications, such as " as if " or " as it 
were," indications that Edwards hesitated about 
committing himself in language which might seem 
to imply the identification of the human with the 
divine. But as the need of these qualifications has 

1 Grosart, Selections, etc., p. 47. 



370 THE PHILOSOPHICAL THEOLOGIAN. 

disappeared in consequence of the ethical concep 
tion of the Spirit as the inmost essence of God, so 
Edwards language tends toward positive, unqual 
ified assertion. The Holy Spirit is the fulness of 
the Godhead, the summum of all good. " Be 
cause this Spirit which is the fulness of God con 
sists in the love of God and Christ, therefore we 
by knowing the love of Christ are said to be filled 
with all the fulness of God." When we are told 
that the saints are made partakers of the Divine 
nature, we are to understand that " they are not 
only partakers of a nature that may in some sense 
be called divine because it is conformed to the na 
ture of God, but the very Deity does in some 
sense dwell in them." They partake of the holi 
ness wherewith God is holy. Hence the reality of 
the language of Christ appears when He prays 
that the "Love wherewith Thou hast loved Me 
may be in them and I in them." 

And in the third place, Edwards disputes the 
customary language which speaks of a principle or 
habit of grace. He does not like such language : 
it seems in some respects to carry with it a wrong 
idea, because it does not, as it were, personalize 
the divine love in ever-fresh and creative divine 
activity. To speak of a habit of grace is to re 
duce grace to an attribute or quality, or to make 
it a consequence of some previous divine action. 
And so once more the Berkeleyan principle, in the 
extreme form in which Edwards held it, reappears 
in perhaps its strongest expression : 



BERKELEYANISM APPLIED TO SPIRIT. 371 

" The giving one gracious discovery or act of grace, 
or a thousand, has no proper natural tendency to cause 
an abiding habit of grace for the future, nor any other 
wise than by divine constitution and covenant. But all 
succeeding acts of grace must be as immediately, and 
to all intents and purposes, as much from the immediate 
acting of the Spirit of God upon the soul as the first ; 
and if God should take away His spirit out of the soul, 
all habits and acts of grace would of themselves cease, 
as light ceases in a room when the candle is carried out. 
And no man has a habit of grace dwelling in him any 
otherwise than as he has the Holy Spirit dwelling in 
him in His temple, and acting in union with his natural 
faculties, after the manner of a vital principle. So that, 
when they act grace, t is, in the language of the apostle, 
not they but Christ living in them. " 

The substance of the missing essay, as we are 
assured on the best authority, is given in these two 
treatises, Observations on the Trinity, and the 
Treatise on Grace. "We are therefore in a position 
to judge whether Edwards thought contained a 
departure from received views in the Puritan 
churches, as also how it stands related to the 
larger thought of the church in every age. That 
there is a departure, and a significant one, needs no 
further demonstration. The missing essay plainly 
justifies the comment already quoted, that it was 
worked out with great care, and was marked by 
great boldness and independence of thought. No 
student of Edwards works can help noticing the 

1 Orosart, p. 55. 



372 THE PHILOSOPHICAL THEOLOGIAN. 

difference in his tone in these treatises under 
review as compared with his other works. It 
seems like listening to an interlude in his thought, 
or as if he had wandered for a moment in distant 
and unfamiliar fields, and were in danger of for 
getting his old haunts, of not returning again to 
the principles by which his name is known in 
theology. It need scarcely be said that his view 
of the Trinity is not Arian or Sabellian, nor does 
it show any leaning to Pelagianism. He was re 
producing to a certain extent what is known as the 
Nicene or Athanasian theology, whose affiliations, 
if they had been followed out to their legitimate 
conclusions, would have led him far away from the 
tenets of Augustine or Calvin. Dr. Bushnell was 
not far from the truth when he spoke of the miss 
ing essay as containing an a priori argument for 
the doctrine of the Trinity. The stages in the 
history of the doctrine of the Trinity have been 
briefly and accurately summarized as, in the early 
church, a doctrine of reason; in the Middle Ages 
a mystery, in the eighteenth century a meaningless 
or irrational dogma ; and again, in the nineteenth 
century, a doctrine of the reason, a truth essential 
to the nature of God. In an age when there ex 
isted a widespread tendency to reject the doctrine 
as irrational, and when those who held it betrayed 
the influence of their environment by avoiding 
thought upon the subject as dangerous, or taking 
refuge in Scripture as the only sure foundation for 
its support, Edwards appears as anticipating that 



THE DIVINE REASON IN MAN. 373 

feature of modern theology which finds in the doc 
trine of the Trinity the essence of the Christian 
faith, as well as the formula for the interpretation 
of Christian experience. 

But if Edwards appears as tending toward the 
Nicene theology, or even as carrying its develop 
ment to a higher result in the doctrine of the Holy 
Ghost, till his statement approximates the Hege 
lian principle of the life of the Spirit, yet one es 
sential aspect of that theology he not only failed 
to grasp, but, it may be, he sternly and to the very 
last rejected. We read in his Treatise on Grace 
how the Spirit, which is the mutual love of the 
Father and the Son, takes up His abode in human 
souls, and how this love is no mere attribute or 
quality infused from without, but a divine person 
ality within. Why could he not also have main 
tained, as ancient fathers had done, as Justin 
Martyr had so eloquently taught, that the Logos 
or Divine Reason also indwelt in humanity, so that 
mankind was constituted in Christ, and shared 
with Him in the consubstantial image of the 
Father ? If love may indwell as a personal force 
in the soul, why not also the Divine Reason, the 
light that lighteth every man that cometh into the 
world ? What is there in man with which the 
Spirit may fitly associate if it be not this potential 
image of the Son? Upon what can the Spirit 
fasten in humanity unless it be this divine princi 
ple in the soul, which, deeper and stronger than 
the evil in every man, binds the soul to Christ as 



374 THE PHILOSOPHICAL THEOLOGIAN. 

its organic head ? It was not that Edwards failed 
to see this truth, that he did not receive it. As 
we turn over again the discolored pages of that 
ancient periodical, the Monthly Review, for the 
year 1750-51, in which he first met the Christian 
philosophy of Ramsay, we seem to be brought into 
closer contact with Edwards mind. There were 
passages, over which we may imagine him as bend 
ing in serious contemplation, which yet he does not 
seem to have copied into his note-book. There is 
one in particular which reads as follows : 

" The consubstantial Logos united Himself also from 
the beginning to a finite nature composed of soul and 
body, that so he might converse with created intelli 
gences in a sensible manner ; be their conductor and 
guide, their model and high priest ; lead them into the 
central depth of the Divinity, and from thence into all 
the immense region of nature ; show them by turns the 
beauties of the original and the pictures ; and teach them 
the homage finite beings owe to the Infinite." 

In that exquisite quotation from Edwards man 
uscript given above, 1 where he speaks of outward 
nature reflecting the beauty of Christ, he comes 
very near speaking of humanity as if it also re 
flected the same glorious beauty. But when he 
reaches the point where we await this confession, 
he turns aside, unwilling to admit that man as man 
has any relationship with the Son of God, unless 
it may be in the lower beauty and grace of the 
human body. Outward nature may reflect Christ s 
! Cf . ante, p. 355. 



CBRIST AND HUMANITY. 375 

glory, but as yet humanity does not. Or, in his 
own language : " From hence it is evident that 
man is in a fallen state, and that he has scarcely 
anything of those sweet graces which are an image 
of those which are in Christ. For no doubt, see 
ing that other creatures have an image of them, 
according to their capacity, so also the rational 
and intelligent part of the world once had accord 
ing to theirs." 

And so from the consideration of this high 
theme of the Christian Trinity Edwards turned 
away to his exposition of the doctrine of original 
sin. It has already been suggested * that he con 
templated such a work as a supplement to his 
Freedom of the Will. He may have been only 
following out an earlier purpose, when he turned 
from the mystery of the divine nature to the pro 
cess by which humanity had been deprived of its 
birthright. But the transition may have also an 
other significance. It looks as if he were not alto 
gether satisfied with any of these later dissertations, 
on Virtue, the End of the Creation, on Grace, 
or the Trinity. Pie may have retained them for 
revision, or in order to recast their shape, before 
rivin them to the world. lie may also have felt 

O O " 

that the development of his later thought regard 
ing the nature of God, if fully carried out, would 
lead to results incompatible with those doctrines 
to whose advocacy he had devoted his life ; or that 
he was standing on safer grounds when dealing 
1 Cf. ante, pp. 298, 299. 



376 THE PHILOSOPHICAL THEOLOGIAN. 

with humanity in its ruined state than when ex 
ploring the inner mystery of the being of God. 
However it may be, there were grave deficiencies 
in his dissertations on Virtue and on the End of 
the Creation, and the same remark applies to his 
exposition of the Trinity. His thought upon this 
subject cannot have been a mere episode in his 
mental history, there is too much in his earlier 
writings which points in this direction. But his 
treatment of the doctrine of the Trinity, great as 
is its beauty and value in some respects, still re 
mains incomplete. He does not emphasize the 
Eternal Sonship of Christ, nor does this truth find 
anywhere in his works an adequate exposition. 
His thought revolved around God in His sover 
eignty, or the Holy Spirit who sanctifieth all the 
people of God. In the Sonship of Christ is in 
volved humanity with its interests and destiny. 
But as humanity in itself and as a whole possessed 
no importance in his eyes, so Christ, who is its 
head, fills no conspicuous place in his theology. 
The truth of the Incarnation was weakened, if not 
neutralized, by the tenets of original sin and pre 
destination. 



CONCLUSION. 

EDWARDS short residence at Stockbridge is in 
beautiful contrast with the fever and tumult which 
marked the last years at Northampton. He speaks 
of himself as finding " both pleasure and profit " 
in the performance of tasks congenial to his mind. 
His worldly affairs were also falling again into com 
fortable order after the troubles and damage which 
his removal had cost him. But while he was ab 
sorbed in his work, he seems as if oblivious to the 
flight of years. He was a living illustration of the 
words, with which no one could have been more 
familiar, " Of making many books there is no 
end, and much study is a weariness of the flesh." 
His life had been one of prolonged and intense ex 
ertion, of that kind also which drains the strength 
of the vital faculties. Pie ought to have had many 
years yet before him. His father, his mother, his 
grandparents, had lived to an advanced old age. 
But he had inherited a delicate, nervous constitu 
tion, unequal to the strain to which it had been 
subjected. Several times he had been brought 
low with illness, which had interrupted his work. 
But notwithstanding these warnings that his health 
had begun to decline, he continued to write his 



378 CONCLUSION. 

books, and the more he wrote " the more and wider 
the field opened before him." In his secluded 
home he was almost buried to the world. The 
great movement of life, with its " rushing strain 
and stir of existence, the immense and magic spell 
of human affairs," was shut out from his view. 
But had it swept by his very door, it would have 
had no charm to him. From his youth he had 
sacrificed the life that now is, in the conviction 
that the life which is most real is to come here 
after. 

" He threw on God 

(He loves the burthen) 
God s task to make the heavenly period 
Perfect the earthen." 

lie had yielded himself to the search for God as 
the only reality : and while he was still eagerly 
following the search, 

" This high man, 
With a great thing to pursue, 
Dies ere he knows it." 

In the last year of his life he received a call to 
become the president of Princeton College. The 
call was unexpected, and must have reached him at 
the same time as the tidings of the death of Presi 
dent Burr. lie had now attained the age of fifty- 
three, being the elder of his son-in-law by only 
thirteen years. In a very interesting letter to the 
trustees, he opened his mind freely in regard to 
his fitness for the position. Among the obstacles 
in his way, he mentions the difficulty of finding a 



CALL TO PRINCETON. 379 

purchaser for his estate at Stockbridge, the ex 
pense of removing his numerous family, the burden 
which the proper support of such an office would 
entail. lie also enters into particulars regarding 
his constitution, remarking- that it is a peculiarly 
unhappy one ; that he is troubled by " a low tide 
of spirits, often occasioning a kind of childish 
weakness and contemptibleness of speech and be 
havior, with a disagreeable dulness, much unfitting; 

o O 

me for conversation, but more especially for the 
government of a college." He admits a deficiency 
in some branches of learning, as in the higher 
mathemathics and the Greek classics. Nor would 
he care to spend his time in teaching languages, 
unless it be Hebrew, in order to improve himself 
while instructing others. 

But the chief cause which induced hesitation 
and even reluctance in accepting the extended 
honor was his devotion to his studies, his unwil 
lingness to put himself where he should be incapa 
ble of pursuing them, as would be the case if he 
were to undertake the office of president as Mr. 
Burr had conceived and fulfilled it. Among the 
projects before him, there were still points of dis 
pute with the Arminians which he wished to con 
sider. But the thing which interested him most 
was a " great work " which it lay on his heart and 
mind to write, a History of Redemption. It was 
to be " a body of divinity in an entire new method, 
being thrown into the form of a history." It was 
to be<"in and end with eternity, all great events 



380 CONCLUSION. 

and epochs in time being viewed sub specie eterni- 
tatis. The three worlds heaven, earth, and hell 
were to be the scenes of this grand drama. It was 
to include also the topics of theology, as living 
factors each in its own place, but so that " every 
divine doctrine will appear to the greatest advan 
tage, in the brightest light, in the most striking 
manner, showing the admirable contexture and 
harmony of the whole." l It was to combine 
poetry and history, philosophy and theology, the 
features of the Divine Comedy, or the Paradise Lost 
and Regained, with those of Augustine s City of 
God. There is no evidence that this was more 
than a splendid dream which excited Edwards 
imagination. He lacked the necessary learning 
for such a task. More than any other which he 
had undertaken, did it call for requisites not at his 
command. We know, however, what its leading 
characteristic would have been had he lived to 
complete it. Unlike Gibbon s great picture, there 
would have been no effort to trace the operation 
of second causes. The human element, the myste 
rious currents and counter-currents in human his 
tory, the great works which men have done, all 
this would have been passed over as unworthy of 
attention. History would have appeared as alive 
with a divine force, the impulse of an immediate 
divine presence. Everything would have centred 
in the accomplishment of redemption, the mystery 
which angels desire to look into. There would 
1 Dwight, Life of Edwards, p. 570. 



HISTORY OF REDEMPTION. 381 

have been no sharp distinction between the crea 
tive act and a divine providence following in its 
wake. God s providence would be only another 
name for a continuous creation. As all things 
were from God, so all things tend to God in their 
conclusion and final issue. 1 

The call to Princeton was accepted, notwith 
standing an unfeigned reluctance on Edwards 
part to abandon a retirement so fruitful in results, 
so full of promise for the future. A council was 
called, according to the custom of the Congrega 
tional churches, which, having listened to a pres 
entation of the case, decided that it was his duty to 
take the presidency of the college. When this de 
cision was announced, it is said that Edwards fell 
into tears, a thing unusual for him in the presence 
of others. Leaving his family behind him, he set 
out for Princeton in the month of January, 1758. 
There he was awaited by his daughter Esther, in 
the freshness of her great sorrow, and by another 
daughter, Lucy, who remained unmarried. Hardly 
had he reached his destination when he learned of 
the death of his aged father. For several successive 
Sundays he preached in the college hall, but the 

1 Cf. History of Redemption, pp. 556. This treatise of Edwards 
is composed of a series of sermons preached in 1739. It may be 
taken as the first rough draft of his projected work, and as indicat 
ing his method. It was first published in Edinburgh, 1777. It 
has been one of the most widely read of Edwards writings, as if 
it had taken the place with his readers which his magnum opus 
was intended to fill. It adds little, however, to Edwards thought 
beyond what has been already given. 



382 CONCLUSION. 

only work which he undertook as president was to 
give out " questions in divinity " to the senior class. 
When the students came to meet him with their 
answers, he is said to have impressed them all with 
satisfaction and with wonder. As a preacher also 
he appeared full of interest and power, as he had 
done in the early years of his ministry. 

At the time when Edwards reached Princeton 
the community were in a state of alarm over the 
spread of the small-pox in the village and its vicin 
ity. As Edwards had not had the disease, the 
situation seemed to justify in his case the preven 
tive treatment known as inoculation, in the hope 
of preserving a life so dear and valuable. The 
objections to the practice had grown weaker in the 
course of years ; it was also said to have been at 
tended with good results under the skilful direc 
tion of the physicians at Princeton. Edwards him 
self proposed its trial, and the corporation of the 
college consented. He was inoculated on the 13th 
of February, and so successfully that for a while 
it was believed that the danger in his case was 
over. But the hope was a delusive one, and the 
end was near. As he lay dying, aware that his 
time was short, his thoughts reverted to the chil 
dren who were to be fatherless, and more particu 
larly to the absent wife in the distant home at 
Stockbridge. " Tell her," he said to his daughter, 
who took down his words, " that the uncommon 
union which has so long subsisted between us has 
been of such a nature as I trust is spiritual, and 



DEATH. 383 

therefore will continue forever." After this, when 
he seemed insensible and those around him were 
already lamenting his departure, he spoke once 
more : " Trust in God and ye need not fear." 
His death took place on the 22d of March, 1758, 
in the fifty-fifth year of his age. Only sixteen 
days afterwards his daughter Esther followed him 
out of the world. Nor did Mrs. Edwards long 
survive. In September of the same year, she died 
at Philadelphia, where she had gone by way of 
Princeton to assume the charge of her infant 
grandchildren. In the graveyard at Princeton 
they rest together who were lovely and pleasant 
in their lives, and in their deaths were not divided. 
The letters which passed among the sorrowing 
members of the family, beginning with the death 
of Mr. Burr, are still preserved. They are filled 
with utterances of resignation to the will of God, 
but beneath these expressions of religious faith 
there is seen the intensity of human feeling and 
of deep, unspeakable anguish. The devotion of 
human souls to each other is there, though veiled 
beneath a deep reserve. They had been schooled 
to an almost Stoical repression of the natural emo 
tions. They had dissevered their ideal from earth 
as too vast and exalted to be realized in this lower 
sphere. Their eyes were fastened upon a revela 
tion of heaven to the world. Even when he was a 
boy working out the theory of the outward world 
as ideal or immaterial, Edwards had noted, as if 
with a feeling of triumph, that such a doctrine did 



384 CONCL USION. 

not disturb the conception of heaven as the place 
where God resides. Later in life he again ex 
pressed himself in similar fashion : 

" God considered with respect to His essence is every 
where : He fills both heaven and earth. But yet He is 
said in some respects to be more especially in some 
places than in others. . . . Heaven is His dwelling- 
place above all other places in the universe ; and all 
those places in which He was said to dwell of old, were 
but types of this. Heaven is a part of His creation that 
God has built for this end, to be the place of His glo 
rious presence ; and here He will dwell and gloriously 
manifest Himself to all eternity. 

" All the truly great and good, all the pure and holy 
and excellent from this world, and it may be from every 
part of the universe, are constantly tending toward 
heaven. As the streams tend to the ocean, so all these 
are tending to the great ocean of infinite purity and 
bliss." ! 

Over the grave of Edwards the trustees of the 
college erected a marble monument, with a Latin 
inscription which speaks of him as second to no 
mortal man, who as a theologian has scarce had 
his equal. Other eulogies might be mentioned 
which seem to vie with each other in expressing 
the highest admiration which it is lawful to utter. 
"From the days of Plato," says a writer in the 
Westminster Review, " there has been no life of 
more simple and imposing grandeur than that of 
Jonathan Edwards." " I regard him," said Robert 
1 Charity and its Fruits, pp. 467, 474. 



TESTIMONIES TO HIS GREATNESS. 385 

Hall, who knew him only by his books, " as the 
greatest of the sons of men." An eminent Puritan 
divine, who had seen his face when illumined with 
the divine communion, remarked that " he was ac 
customed to look upon him >as belonging to some 
superior race of beings." " I have long esteemed 
him," said Dr. Chalmers, " as the greatest of theo 
logians, combining in a degree that is quite unex 
ampled the profoundly intellectual with the de 
votedly spiritual and sacred, and realizing in his 
own person a most rare yet most beautiful har 
mony between the simplicity of the Christian 
pastor on the one hand, and on the other all the 
strength and prowess of a giant in philosophy." 1 
Edwards lived in an age when such impressions 
could be more easily produced than in our own, 
when the life was less complex, and the individual 
could play a larger role. Among the great names 
in America of the last century, the only other which 
competes in celebrity with his own is that of Ben 
jamin Franklin, who labored for this world as 
assiduously as Edwards for another world. The 
memorial window in Edwards honor in the chapel 

1 In contrast with these testimonies is the judgment of Presi 
dent Stiles, of Yale College, who had a reputation in his day for 
learning- and polite culture, as well as a gift for discerning the 
foibles of his contemporaries. President Stiles condemned Ed 
wards to oblivion. In his Diary for August 7, 1787, he wrote: 
" When posterity occasionally comes across his writings in the 
rubbish of libraries, the rare characters who may read and be 
pleased with them will be looked upon as singular and whim 
sical as in these days are admirers of Suarez, Aquinas, or Dion. 
Areopagita. 



386 CONCLUSION. 

of Yale College, where he had studied and taught, 
contains an inscription revealing the secret of the 
homage which men have agreed to render, even 
though differing as widely as heaven from earth 
about the theology which is identified with his 
name. " Jonathan Edwards summi in ecclesia 
ordinis vatesfuit, rerum sacrum philosof>nus qui 
sceculorum admirationem movet, Dei cultor mys- 
tice amantissimus." There was in him something 
of the seer or prophet who beholds by direct vis 
ion what others know only by report. We may 
apply to him his own words : there was in him 
" a divine and supernatural light," which is seen 
but rarely among the generations that come and 
go. When such a light appears, it does not shine 
for a moment only or for a few : it casts its beams 
to a distance, illuminating the ages. He was like 
a star, says a recent writer, throwing its light afar 
off, ein weithin leuchtendes Gestirn. 

The divine revelation, as it came through him 
as its vehicle, was associated with much that was 
untrue. If we can make allowance for the human 
equation in his teaching, for the reasoning which 
however solid or true was based upon false prem 
ises, if we can look at the negative side of his the 
ology as the local and transitory element of his 
time, there will then remain an imperishable ele 
ment which points to the reality of the divine 
existence, and of the revelation of God to the 
world, as no external evidence can do. Indeed, it 
is only by exposing what was false or distorted in 



MAURICE S ESTIMATE. 387 

his theology that the real man stands forth in the 
grandeur of his proportions. It is impossible to 
allude here to his influence upon the later history 
of religions life and thought in New England. If 
the sketch which has been given of his work be 
true, he did not do for the old theology what he 
attempted or desired. It was his aim to rational 
ize it, but at every point, under his transcendental 
totich, it threatened to expand into something very 
unlike the original. He has had his children ac 
cording to the letter of his teaching ; but those 
who have also protested most loudly against his 
errors may be also his children after the spirit. 
Among- these may be counted the late Mr. Mau 
rice, who was at one with Edwards in that which 
constitutes his essential quality as a prophet, after 
all that is unworthy has been eliminated from his 
message. How deeply Maurice recognized his 
worth may be seen from the following estimate, 
given in his History of Philosophy : 

" In his own country he retains and always must re 
tain a great power. We should imagine that all Amer 
ican theology and philosophy, whatever changes it may 
undergo, with whatever foreign elements it may he asso 
ciated, must be cast in his mould. New Englamlers 
who try to substitute Berkeley, or Butler, or Male- 
branche, or Cardillac, or Kant, or Hegel for Edwards, or 
to form their minds upon any of them, must be forcing 
themselves into an unnatural position, and must suffer 
from the effort. On the contrary, if they accept the 
starting-point of their native teacher and seriously con- 



388 CONCLUSION. 

sider what is necessary to make that teacher consistent 
with himself, what is necessary that the divine foun 
dation upon which he wished to build may not be too 
weak and narrow for any human or social life to rest 
upon it, we should expect great and fruitful results 
from their inquiries to the land which they must care 
for most, and therefore to mankind." 

The great wrong which Edwards did, which 
haunts us as an evil dream throughout his writings, 
was to assert God at the expense of humanity. 
Where man should be, there is only a fearful void. 
The protests which he has evoked have proclaimed 
the divineness of human nature, the actuality of 
the redemption in Christ for all the world. Only 
in the intense light which he threw could the ne 
cessity for these protests have been so clearly per 
ceived. But those who have made them are more 
closely related to him in spirit than they are 
aware or may be willing to admit. It is not too 
much to say that he is the forerunner of the later 
New England transcendentalism quite as truly as 
the author of a modified Calvinism. All who ac 
cept the truth, that divine things are known to be 
divine because humanity is endowed with the gift 
of direct vision into divinity, are accepting what 
Edwards proclaimed, what constitutes the positive 
feature of his theology. There are those who 
have made the transition from the old Calvinism, 
through the mediation of this principle, to a larger 
theology as if by a natural process. Among these 
typical thinkers were Thomas Erskine, McLeod 



TRANSITION TO A LARGER THEOLOGY. 389 

Campbell, and Bishop Ewing, in Scotland, or the 
late Mr. Maurice in England. These and such as 
these, in whom the God-consciousness is supreme, 
are the true continuators of the work of Jonathan 
Edwards. 



BIBLIOGRAPHY. 



THE first edition of Edwards works was published in Worces 
ter, Mass., in 8 vols., 1809 ; afterwards republished in 4 vols. It 
is still in print, the plates being- owned, it is said, by Carter 
Bros., New York. Dr. Dwight s edition was published in New 
York in 1829, in 10 vols., the first volume being occupied with 
the life. There is a London edition in 8 vols. by Williams, 1817 ; 
vols. 9 and 10 supplementary by Ogle, Edinburgh, 1847- Another 
London edition in 2 vols., bearing the imprint of Bohn, is still in 
print, and though cumbrous in form is in many respects excel 
lent. It possesses the only portrait of Edwards which answers to 
one s idea of the man. 

Articles on Edwards may be found in the collections of Alli- 
bone, Duyckinck, Griswold, Richardson, and Sprague. The ref 
erences in Ueberweg s His. Phil. Am. Tr., and Hagenbach s His. 
Doc., are valuable. The following list embraces some of the 
more important contributions elucidating the thought of Edwards 
or bearing witness to its influence. 

Atwater, L. H., Edwards and the New Divinity, Princ. Rev., 
30, 58. 

Bancroft, George, Art in Appletori s Amer. Cyc., 1st ed. , also 
His. of the U. S., vols. iii. and iv. 

Campbell, J. McLeod, on The Nature of the Atonement. 

Chalmers, Thomas, Christian and Civic Economy of Large 
Towns, Works, i. 318-322. 

Charming, W. H., Edwards and the Revivalists, Chris. Exam., 
43, 74. 

Edwards, Tryon, Eeview of Charity and its Fruits, New Eng., 
10, 222 : contains an account of Edwards MSS. 

Fisher, G. P., Discussions in History and Philosophy, pp. 227- 
252, and His. of the Chris. Ch., chap. viii. 



892 BIBLIOGRAPHY. 

Frazer, A. C., Berkeley in Black-wood s Philosophical Classics, 
pp 138-141, also in edition of Berkeley s Works. 

Gillett, E. H., on Edwards Dismissal from Northampton, His. 
Mag., 11, 333. 

Godwin, W., Inquiry concerning Political Justice, vol. i. 301. 
Am. ed. Philadelphia, 1790. 

Grosart, A. B.. Introd. to Selections from the Unpublished Writ 
ings of Edwards. 

Hall, Robert, Works. Bohn ed., p. 284. 

Hazard, Roland G.. Review of Edwards on the Will. 

Hodge, Charles, Bib. Hep. and Princeton Rev., v. 30, p. 585, 
claims Edwards for the old theology of the Westminster Confes 
sion. 

Holmes, O. W. , in Sketches and Reminiscences of the Radical 
Club, pp. 362-375, and Internat. Rev., July, 1880. 

Hopkins, Samuel, Memoir of Edwards, a work which has the 
quaint charm of Walton s Lives. 

Huxley, T. F., Art. Edwards, Encyc. Brit., 9th ed. 

Lyon, G., IS Idt alisme en Angleterre au XVIII e Siecle, pp. 406- 
439. 

Mackintosh, J., Progress of Ethical Philosophy, Philadelphia, 
1834, p. 108. 

Magoun, G. F., Edwards as a Reformer, Cong. Qu., 11, 259. 

Maurice, F. D., His. of Nod. Phil, pp. 469-475. 

Miller, Samuel, Life of Edwards, vol. viii., Sparks Am. Biog. 

Osgood, Samuel, Studies in Christian Biography, pp. 348-377. 

Park, E. A., Edwards Doctrine of the Trinity, Bib. Sac., Jan. 
and Apr. 1881 ; Articles in Bib. Sac. defending Edwards against 
the claims of Presbyterianism ; The Atonement, etc. ; allusions to 
in Memoirs of Hopkins and Emmons. 

Parton, J., Life of Aaron Burr. 

Porter, Noah, Edwards Pecidiarity as a Theologian, New Eng., 
18, 737. Historical Discourse, on Bp. Berkeley, 1885. 

Rogers, Henry, Introduction to Bohn ed. of Edwards Works. 

Smith, H. B., allusions to, in Faith and Philosophy ; also His. 
of the Church, in Chronological Tables. 

Smyth, E. C., Appendix to Edwards Observations concerning 
the Trinity. 

Stephen, Leslie, Essay on, in Hours in a Library, ii. pp. 44- 
100. 



BIBLIOGRAPHY. 



393 



Stewart, Dugald, Dissertation on the Progress of Philosophy, 
p. 2(J:J, ed. 1820. 

Stowe, C. E., Art. Edwards in Herzog s Real-Encyclopddie. 

Strong 1 , A. H., on the influence of Edwards on the "New Theol 
ogy," in Philosophy and Religion, p. 167, with other allusions, 
also, in his Systematic Theology. 

Tarbox, I. X., Edwards and the Half-way Covenant, and Ed 
wards as a Man, New Eng., vol. 4o. 

Taylor, Isaac, Introduction to his ed. of Edwards on The Will. 

Thompson, J. P., on Edwards theology, Bib. Sac., 18, 809. 

Tracy, J., His. of the Revival in the Time of Edwards and 
Whitefield. 

Trunibnll, His. of Conn. 

Tyler, M. C., His. of Am. Lit. 

Uhden, The New England Theocracy, chap. ix. 

Woolsey, T., Historical Discourse, 1870, at the reunion of the 
Edwards family. 



INDEX. 



ADAM, effects of his fall, 72, 101, 103, 
304; lacked freedom, in the sense 
of power to the contrary, 304 ; per 
sonality of, 305 ; every man iden 
tical with, 308-310. 

Alexander, J. W., describes effect of 
Edwards preaching, 128, note. 

Anselm, Edwards resemblance to, 
81 ; his doctrine of atonement, 89 ; 
on freedom of the will, 301. 

Arminianism, Edwards opposition to, 
58, 81, 82, 94, 103, 100, 221, 228, 282, 
328; its view of freedom, 111,282, 
301 ; in the revival, 182 ; conception 
of the action of the Holy Spirit, 
200 ff ; makes the happiness of the 
creature the end of the creation, 
328. 

Asceticism, Traces of, in Diary, 32, 
33. 

Athanasius, his theology, 353, 372 ; on 
the Incarnation, 358. 

Atonement, the doctrine of, wanting 
in Mohammedanism, 88 ; Edwards 
conception of, 90-92, 14G, 352. 

Augustine, his idea of God, 20, 297 ; 
abandonment of philosophy, 21 ; 
conception of God, 37 ; celibate 
ideal of, 44 ; on predestination, G4 ; 
on freedom, 73 ; connection with 
monasticism, 103 ; idea of the 
church, 2G9 ; on real freedom as re 
lated to necessity, 301 ; on grace, 
360. 

Baptism, Edwards view of, 2C5 ; 
difference of opinion in regard to, 
2GG, 268. 

Beardsley, E. E., on the influence of 
Berkeleyism at Yale College, 1G. 

Berkeley, Edwards coincidence with, 
14 ; whether Edwards had read his 
writings, 15; relation of, to John 
son, 16; how lie differs from Ed 
wards, 17, note ; later relation of 
Edwards to the philosophy of, GO, 
61, 110, 308, 300 ; Edwards modifi 



cation of the principle of, 134, 308, 
371 ; combated by Hamsay, 347. 
| Boston, Edwards sermon at, on De 
pendence, 55. 

Brainerd, David, first meeting with 
Edwards, 243 ; becomes an inmate 
of Edwards house, 245; quotation 
from Edwards on his religious lite, 
321. 

Buddhism, essential principle of, con 
trasted with Edwards ruling idea 
of being, 7. 

Burr, Aaron, intercedes for Brainerd, 
244 ; marriage with Esther Edwards, 
27G; death, 378. 

Burr, Aaron, grandson of Edwards, 

Bushnell, Dr. Horace, calls attention 
to Edwards unpublished essay on 
the Trinity, . 141, 344, 372. 

Butler, Bishop, 111, 187. 

Calvin, on predestination, G4 ; denial 
of human freedom, 73 ; view of 
Scripture, 135 ; his doctrine of tho 
Holy Spirit, 135; his consistency in 
holding to his denial of the freedom 
of the will, 294, 295; freedom in 
necessity, 301 ; quoted on the Trin 
ity, 353. 

Calvinism, contradiction in, 79 ; old 
and new schools of, 80 ; objections 
urged against, 8G ; the opposite ex 
treme from Romanism, 114; its 
doctrine of the Holy Spirit, 135 ; 
its idea of God, 291. 

Campbell, J. McLeod, indebtedness 
to Edwards on the Atonement, 91. 

Chalmers, Dr. Thomas, his admira 
tion for Edwards, 4G, 385 ; his opin 
ion of the Freedom of the Will, 
286. 

Chaunry, Charles, opposes the revival, 
181, 2OH, _>0 < .. 

Christ, relation of believers to, 9G-10O ; 
tendency to denial of His divinity, 
98; relation of, to the creation, JO, 



396 



INDEX. 



103, 355, 356 ; the mystical or spirit 
ual, 1 JO, 234 ; God as existing for, 
336. 

Church and State, readjustment of 
their relation called for, 55 ; Wyc- 
liffe s view of their relation, 55 ; 
Edwards attitude on, 56, 254, 269. 

Clap, Rev. Mr., Rector of Yale Col 
lege, 180, 280. 

Coleridge, conception of miracle., 66 ; 
on the freedom of the will, 300. 

Collins, John Anthony, his doctrine 
of freedom and necessity resembles 
Edwards view, 288, note. 

Congregationalism, Edwards the fa 
ther of the modern form of, 270 ; 
his strictness on its polity, 271, 272. 

Conscience, does not belong iu the 
sphere of the supernatural, 66, 323, 
324. 

Conversion, hints relating to, in Diary, 
etc., 35, 36 ; nature of, in Edwards 
case, 37, 38 ; foundation of Edwards 
doctrine of, 134 ; process of, de 
scribed, 144 ; tragic element in, 144, 
148; realization of dependence on 
God, 146 ; uncertainty of divine love, 
148 ; joyful experience following 
after the legal phase of, 149 ; phys 
ical accompaniments of, 154, 164, 
167 ; relation of, to morality, 
155 ff , 231 ; signs of, 221-225 ; re 
sults of the acceptance of the idea 
of, 251, 264, 265. 

Cutler, and others, secession of, to 
Episcopal church, 24. 

Deism, Edwards relation to, 58, 336. 

Dwight, S. E., Life of Edwards, 6, 
note ; arrangement of the Notes 
on the Mind, 11 ; opinion in regard 
to Edwards knowledge of Berkeley, 
15, 16; on Mrs. Edwards portrait, 
45. 

Edwards, Esther, her marriage to 
Rev. Aaron Burr, 276, 277 ; died at 
Princeton, 383. 

Edwards, Jonathan, birth, ancestry, 
1 ; his father, 2 ; his mother, 2, 3 ; 
character as a child, 3 ; enters Yale 
College, 4 ; his manuscript notes, 
4 ; influence of Locke, 5 ; Notes on 
the Mind, 5, 282, 288, 314; the 
theological element predominant, 
6 ; on the nature of excellence, 6 ; 
his fundamental principle contrasted 
with Buddhism, 7 ; relation of great 
ness of God to His excellence, 9 ; 
genial outlook of his youth, 10, 11 ; 
resemblance to Spinoza and Male- 
brauche, 12 ; transition to philo 



Bophic idealism, 13 ; coincidence in 
his thought with Berkeley, 1,4; 
explanation of this coincidence, 15- 
20 ; pushes the doctrine of idealism 
beyond Berkeley, 18 ; Spinoza and 
Augustine, the poles of his thought, 
^1 ; early religious impressions, 22 ; 
residence at New Haven after grad 
uation, in charge of a Presbyterian 
church in New York, tutor at Yale, 
23 ; Diary and Resolutions, 24 ft ; 
mystic raptures, 25; moral ideal, 
27 ff ; spiritual ambition, 30 ; ascetic 
tendency, 32 ; early view of the free 
dom of the will, 33 ; sense of sin, 
not deep in early experience, 34 ; 
references to conversion, in Diary, 
etc., 35; uncertainty as to his 
own conversion, 36 ; repugnance to 
Calvinistic doctrine of sovereignty, 

37 ; the intellectual revolution, 37, 

38 ; ordination at Northampton, 39 ; 
personal appearance, 41 ; methods 
as a student and preacher, 4J, 43_; 
his description of his wife while a 
young girl, 46 ; his marriage, 47 ; 
domestic life, 48, 49 ; advantage to, 
from association with Mr. Stoddard, 
51 ; reverses the principle of Wyc- 
liffe regarding church and state, 

^56j. 254 ; preaches the public lecture 
in Botton, 56 ; opposes Arminian- 
ism, 58 ; asserts the divine sov 
ereignty, 59-64 ; conception of the 
supernatural, 65, 66 ; sermon on 
Supernatural Light, 67, 229 ; how 
he modified the earlier Calvinism, 
80 ; defends the doctrine of endless 
punishment, 82-87 ; accepts the An- 
selmic doctrine of atonement, 89 ; 
suggests a possible departure from 
Anselm, 91 ; his sermon on Justifi 
cation by Faith, 92-96 ; refuses to 
define the unio mystica, 97, 100 ; 
description of, as a preacher, 104, 
105 ; sermon on the Importance of 
a knowledge of Divine Faith, 10G- 
108 ; sermon on Pressing into the 
Kingdom of God, 109 ; his method 
of appealing to the will, 110 ; 
his imprecatory sermons, 116 ; 
preaches at Enfield, 127-129 ; con 
tinuation of his personal narrative, 
130 ; sense of his own sinf ulness, 131 ; 
his preaching leads to the first revi- 

*.vnl at Northampton, 133 ; Narrative 
of Surprising Conversions, 138-159 ; 
studying the phases of the revi 
val, 143 ; as a religious director, 149, 
151 ; attaches practical importance 
to morality, 156 ; how he regarded 
the first revival, 161 ; describes the 



INDEX. 



397 



Great Awakening at Northampton, | 
101 If ; Distinguishing .Marks of a 
Work of the Spirit of God, 102 ; ap 
proves of the physical manifestations 
of the revival, 104. 167, 193, 2:21 
resists impulses and impressions, 
170, 203-209 ; asserts importance of 
theological culture in the minis 
try, 175, 211; condemns censori- 
ousness, 174. 210; publishes his 
Thoughts on the Revival, 1S3 ; de 
fends the revival, 184-195 ; approves 
the new method of preaching, 188 ; 
his method in the case of children, 
191 ; statement of his wife s expe 
rience, 198-202 ; discusses the ques 
tion of itinerant preachers and lay 
exhorters, 209-212 ; asserts necessity 
of church order, 213 ; publishes Reli 
gious Affections, 218 ; treats of signs 
of conversion, 221 ; in what the 
reality of the spiritual life consists, 
223 ; publishes Union in Prayer, 
232 ; gives a picture of his time, 
238, 239 ; condemns the prevailing 
idea of the coining of Antichrist, 

240 ; condemns the Christian Year, 

241 ; desires more frequent celebrv- 
tions of th" Lord s Supper, 242 ; his 
meeting with David Brainerd, 243 ; 
his dismissal from Northampton, 
248-272 ; effect of his teaching on 
relation between church and state, 

,254 ; opposes the Hilt-way Cove 
nant, 258, 270 ; involved in a case 
of discipline at Northampton, 259 ; 
his treatise on the Qualifications 
of Full Communion, 200, 203, 208 ; 
preaches his farewell sermon, 202 ; 
controversy on the nature of the 
church, in reply to Williams, 208, 
209 ; becomes the father of modern 
Congregationalism, 270 ; his stric 
tures on its church polity, 271 ; his 
removal to Stockbridge, 273 ; his | 
controversy with Williams, 274 ; 
receives an apology from Major 
llawley, 275; his relation to the, 
Indians at Stockbridge, 278-281 ; 
writes the Freedom of the. Will, 
281 ; the treatise makes a literary 
sensation, 283 ; marks the culmina 
tion of a reaction, 284 ; testimony 
of its admirers, 285, 280 ; possesses 
historical importance, 287 ; am 
biguity in his use of the word 
" choice," 288 ; his agreement with 
the physical school, 2S8, 289 ; as 
sumes the thing to be proved, 289 ; 
depends chiefly on the religious ar 
gument, 290, 291 ; the popul ir in 
ference from K.lwu-d* ar jnini iit, 



292, 293 ; how he discriminated his 
position from that of the necessitu- 
riaus, 293-290 ; his definition of 
freedom, 2i>4, 295 ; how regarded 
by Calvin, 295 : significance of Ed 
wards distinction in later New 
England thought, 290 ; denies that 
God possesses freedom in the sense 
of power to the contrary, 297 ; de 
fects of treatise on the Will, 299 ; 
religious as)>ect of denial of free 
dom, 301 ; wrote his treatise on 
Or ginal Sin, 303, 313; its connec 
tion with his work on the Will, 303 ; 
denies the sell-determining power 
of the will in the case of Adam, 
304; makes God the author of sin, 
305; defends the doctrine of origi 
nal sin by a metaphysical argument 
on the nature of identity, 308-310; 
natural deduction from his prem 
ises, 310; unethical conception of 
sin, 311 ; the fallacy in Kd wards 
argument, 312 ; treatise on the Na 
ture of True Virtue, 313-327 ; re 
produces his early speculations on 
the nature of excellence, 314 ; rev 
erence for being, as the funda 
mental ethical principle, 315 ; de 
fect of this principle, 310, 317 ; the 
love of God for his moral excel 
lence, 318 ; difficulties in the inter 
pretation of his thought, 319, 320; 
Ins teaching compared with tlr.it 
of Spinoza, 320, 321 ; how he dif 
fers from Spinoza, 322; virtue con 
sists in the conscious love of God, 
323 ; action of the natural con 
science, 324; modern reaction 
against Edwards principle of eth 
ics, 320 ; his treatise on the Knd of 
God in the Creation, 327-338 ; de 
fines Go! as a supremely happy 
being, 32S ; how God s supreme 
love for Himself is reconciled witli 
His love for the creature, 329, 33(1; 
traces of Gnosticism in his thought, 
331 ; the creation exists for the 
elect, 332 ; whether the creation is 
eternal, 333; on the phrase " God s 
name s sake." 334 ; neglects signifi 
cance of the name of Christ, . 535 ; 
his speculations result in confusion 
and sense of failure, 337 ; on the 
doctrine of the Trinity, 338-370; 
his peculiarity as a thinker, 3I5H ; 
volnminousnesH of his manuscripts, 
339, 340 ; call for his unpublished 
essay on the Trinity, 341-344 ; reads 
Kniisny s Philosophical Principlex, 
317 If; why he was attracted to 
Ruiisay, 348 ; his observations oil 



398 



INDEX. 



the Scriptural (Economy of the 
Trinity, 352-354 ; approximates the 
Athanasian statement of the Trinity, 
353; the excellency of Christ seen 
in the creation, 355 ; his Treatise on 
Grace, 357-372 ; Mr. Grosart s es 
timate of, 357 ; abandons the ethical 
principle of Treatise on Virtue, 358, 
359 ; contradiction in his theology, 
300 ; identifies grace with the in 
dwelling Spirit, 360, 3C1 ; place and 
office of the Spirit in the fellow 
ship of the Trinity and in human 
redemption, 364, 365 ; the Spirit de 
fined as love, 366-368 ; coequality 
of the Spirit with the Father and 
the Son, 309 ; participation in the 
divine nature, 370 ; disputes the 
language which speaks of a habit of 
grace, 371 ; the missing essay on the 
Trinity, neither Avian or Sabellian, 
but Athanasian, 372 ; defect in Ed 
wards doctrine of the Trinity, 373- 
375 ; decline of his health, 377 ; call 
to Princeton, 378 ; letter to the trus 
tees of the college, 379 : proposed 
to write a History of Redemption, 
380 ; departure for Princeton, 381 ; 
his death, 383 ; testimonies to Ed 
wards as a man and a theologian, 
384-386 ; the imperishable element 
in his teaching, Maurice s estimate 
of, 387 ; the evil element in his 
theology, 388 ; his relation to mod 
ern theologians, 389. 

Edwards, Jonathan, the Younger, 
compared with his father, 277 ; 
summary of " improvements in 
theology " made by his father, 284, 
332, 361 ; as literary executor of his 
father, 337. 

Edwards, Sarah Pierrepont, her an 
cestry, beauty, character, etc., 45; 
description of by her future hus 
band, 46 ; marriage to Edwards, 47 ; 
management of her family, 48, 49 ; 
her place in the revival, 197-203; 
admired by the Indians at Stock- 
bridge, 279 ; died at Philadelphia, 
383. 

Edwards, Timothy, sketch of, 1, 2 ; 
revivals in his parish, 137 ; death, 
382. 

Edwards, Tryon, 339, 342. 

Emerson, R. W., Edwards affinity 
with, 68 ; aphorisms of, on evil and 
punishment, 84, note. 

Endless punishment, 77,78 ; tendency 
to denial of, 81 ; Edwards mode of 
defending, 83, 84 ; annihilation or 
restoration, etc., no equivalents for, 
121 method in preaching, 121-124 ; 



the great majority of men will suf 
fer, 125. 

Enrield, Edwards sermon at, 42, 127, 
218. 

Episcopal Church, secession to of Cut 
ler, Johnson, and others, 24 ; how 
regarded by Edwards, 31 ; affinity 
of Mr. Stoddard with, 50 ; its wor 
ship, 241 ; doctrine of baptism, 2CS. 

Erskine, Dr. John, correspondence 
with Edwards, 273, 293. 

Erskine, Thomas, of Linlathen, 273, 
389. 

Fisher, Prof. George P., D. D., opin 
ion that Edwards had read Berke 
ley, 15, 16, note; on the resem 
blance between Collins and Ed 
wards, 288. 

Franklin, Benjamin, 386. 

Frazer, A. C., on Edwards indebted 
ness to Berkeley, 15. 

Gnosticism in Edwards thought, 331. 

God (see Sovereignty), Edwards con 
sciousness of, 6, 22, 25, 26 ; excel 
lence of, 8, 314, 318 ; greatness of, 
as the ground of His excellence, 9, 
315; as the one substance, 12, 21, 
60 ; relation of to the external 
world, 13, 14, 20, 309 ; immanence 
of, 58, 64, 362 ; providence of, 33, 
34 ; conceived as will, 59 ; moral 
government of, 78 ff ; justice of, 
79, 84, 85, 120, 124, 147. 

Goethe, the principle of disinterested 

virtue, 321. 

I Grace, identified with divine efficiency, 
64 ; special and common distin 
guished, 65-75 ; Edwards treatise 
on, 357-372 ; not impersonal, 360, 
361 ; not a habit, but the continu 
ous influence of the Spirit, 371. 

Great Awakening, extent of, 161 ; 
Edwards account of, 162; abuses 
of, 163, 169, 170, 177, 188, 203 ff ; 
opposition to, 181 ; Edwards de 
fence of, 164, 184 ; physical accom 
paniments of, 154, 164, 167, 193- 
196 ; Mrs. Edwards place in, 197- 
203 ; decline of, 218, 234; summary 
of the results of, 249-256. 
Grosart, Rev. A. B., results of ex 
amination of Edwards manuscript?, 
340, 341 ; estimate of Edwards 
Treatise on Grace, 357. 

Half-way Covenant, weakened the 
church, 55 ; Edwards dislike to, 
230, 257 ; original purpose of, 55. 
257, 2G6 ; rejection of, 270. 

Hall, Rev. Robert, criticism of Ed- 



INDEX. 



399 



wards ethical principle, 318; esti 
mate of Edwards character, 3S5. 

Harvard College, Timothy Edwards, 
graduate of, 1 ; pronounces against 
the revival, isl ; library of, 347. 

Hazard, Rowland G., comment on 
Edwards Freedom of the Will, 
286. 

Heaven, as a locality, 384. 

Hobbes, Thomas, his doctrine of ne 
cessity, 288. 

Holmes, Dr. (). W., calls for Edwards 
Essay on the Trinity, 343. 

Holy Spirit, importance assigned to, 
iu Calvinistic churches, 135; im 
mediate influence of, 152, 1Y7, 204 If, 
224, 300, 301 ; as causing physical 
manifestations, 107, 193 ; does not 
inspire impulses and impressions, 
203-209; identified with grace, 301, 
302, 371; denned as love, 305; co- 
equality of, with the Father and 
the Son, 301). 

Hooker, Thomas, 45. 

Hopkins, Dr. Samuel, on the attrac 
tiveness of Mrs. Edwards, 45; un 
certain of his conversion, 231 ; op 
position to slavery, 250 ; inferences 
from Edwards doctrine of Vir 
tue, 320, 321 ; Edwards literary ex 
ecutor, 337 ; on the Trinity, 352, 
note. 

Hume, David, law of association, ; 
on causation, 28S, 289. 

Hutchinson, History of Massachusetts, 
quoted on the importance of the 
elders, 39 ; belief that the moral 
decline in the churches was exag 
gerated, 54. 

Impulses and impressions, 171, 203. 

Incarnation, subordinated to Atone 
ment, 89, ( J9 ; dependent on divine 
sovereignty, 100 ; significance of, 
317, 318. 

Indians, The, their opinion of Mr. 
Stoddard, 40; in Stockbridge, UTS; 
Edwards relations to, 27 .). 

Inspiration, as direct insight, 12, 70, 
71 ; the gift of, inferior to saving 
grace, 172, 173, 205. 

Irving, Edward, 174. 

Itinerant preachers, 179, 209-211. 

Johnson, Rev. Samuel, D. I)., ac 
quaintance with Berkeley, relation 
to Edwards, 10. 

Justification by faith, Edwards modi 
fication of, 1)3. 

Kames, Lord, his interpretation of 
Edwards on the Will, 21(3, 295. 



Lecky, W. E. H., comment on Ed 
wards treatise on Original Sin. 312. 

Locke, John, influence on Edwards, 
5 ; his principle that ideas are de 
rived from sensation, 13 ; his con 
ception of substance, 13; Edwards 
dependence on, r,l. 

Lord s Supper, Tlit, regarded as a 
converting ordinance, 50, 51, 257, 
25>>; Kdwards desires its weekly 
celebration, 242 ; Edwards opposi 
tion to the practice of admitting 
unconverted persons to, 258, 259, 
203, 207. 

Luther, religious experience of, com 
pared with that of Edwards, 24, 34 ; 
his doctrine ol justification, 95 ; dis 
like of the Zwickau prophets, 17S ; 
conception of freedom, 301. 

Lyon, Georges, suggestion that Ed 
wards may be indebted to Male- 
branche, 17 ; he suggests the possi 
bility of a later date for Notes on 
the Mind, 17 ; Idealisme, 225, note. 

Mackintosh, Sir James, 2S5. 
Malebranche, Edwards approximation 

to, 12 ; suggestion that Edwards had 

read, 17. 
Mather, Dr. Increase, in controversy 

with Rev. Solomon Stoddard. 258. 
Maurice, Rev. F. 1)., quoted, 315, 387, 

389. 
Methodism, indebted to Puritanism, 

130; how it differed from Puritan 
ism, 212. 
Mill, J. S., on causation, f>, note ; on 

necessity, 289. 
Milton, John, 70. 219, 304. 
Miracles, Edwards conception of, C5, 

00, TO, 229. 
Mohammedanism, its conception of 

God s sovereignty, 88. 
Mysticism, marks of, 25 ; combination 

with dialects, 81. 

Nature, communion with God through, 
132 ; reflecting the beauty and glory 
of Christ, 355, 350. 

New England, ascetic clement in the 
people of, 32 ; conversion as known 
in its early history, 3d ; change in 
the constitution of its churches, 50 ; 
intellectual element in religion of, 
100; conscious self-direction of the 
will, in its religions life, 112. 

Norris, John, Theory of an ideal 
world, 17, note. 

Northampton, settlement of, 39 ; char 
acter Of the jH oplc r>f, 40 ; ini|H>r- 
tanceof the church of, 41 ; connec 
tion with Boston, 43 ; church of, 



400 



INDEX. 



congratulated, 57 ; excitement over 
Arminianism, 82 ; revival in 1735, j 
133 ; Edwards description of the j 
people of, 138, 139 ; why the revival : 
may have begun there, 140; de 
terioration in the revival, 179 ; 
peculiar case of discipline at, 259; 
action of the town at the time of 
Edwards dismissal, 201 ; movement 
to establish there another church, 
273. 

Original Sin, its enormity, 73, 74 ; in 
terpreted as total depravity, 85, 
note ; as extending to children, 
74 ; Edwards treatise on, 298, 299, 
302; God the author of, 305; the 
doctrine of, defended by the meta 
physical argument of the nature of 
identity, 308-310. 

Pantheism, forms of, 119; heretical 
expressions of, condemned, 224 ; 
danger of, in Edwards thought, 
330 ; Ramsay s opposition to, 348 ; 
contrasted with deism, 349. 

Park, Dr. Edwards A., 344 note ; on 
Edwards Essay on the Trinity, 345, 
346. 

Plato, Edwards agreement with his 
idea of God, 12, 37 ; conception of 
knowledge, 100 ; influence of, in 
early church, 349. 

Porter, Professor Noah, D. D., explains 
Edwards relation to Berkeley, 15, 
note. 

Prayer, subjective doctrine of, 236. 

Predestination, 62-04 ; effects upon, of 
the belief in conversion, 251. 

Presbyterianism, revival of the spirit 
of, 136 ; discipline of, 182 ; com 
pared with Methodism, 212 ; Ed 
wards on its form of church govern 
ment, 271. 

Puritanism (see Calvinism), the at 
mosphere of Edwards youth, 6,22 ; 
Edwards acceptance of, 38 ; se 
verity of, 45 ; ideal of a minister s 
wife, 47 ; in relation to the Lord s 
Supper, 50, 242 ; experiment of the 
theocracy, religious decline, 53, 
254, 256 ; its creed endangered, 55 ; 
necessity of reaffirming the princi 
ple of, in order to a reform of its 
discipline, 56 ; its doctrine of di 
vine sovereignty, 79 ; conditions of 
church membership, 135 ; weakened 
by the results of the Great Awaken 
ing, 182, 209 ; its parochial organi 
zation, 209, 210 ; its sensitiveness in 
regard to modes of worship, 241 ; 
its doctrine of relation between 



church and state, 253 ff ; rejection 
of the sacramental principle, 203 ; 
Edwards relation to the early INew 
England type of, 209, 270. 

Quakerism, Edwards prejudice against, 
70 ; Puritan dread of, 178, 207 ; 
how Edwards differs from as to ex 
ternal rites, 242 ; relation to slavery, 
250. 

Ramsay, Chevalier, his Philosophical 
Principles, 340-351; quotations 
from, 350. 351. 

Religious Affections, Edwards treatise 
on, 218-232 ; quotation from, on 
sorrow after conversion, 35 ; inti 
mates Edwards dislike to Half-way 
Covenant, 258. 

Responsibility, 02, 293. 

Revelation, Edwards early idea of as 
immediate, 12 ; considered as light, 
68. 

Revival at Northampton, 133-136 ; pre 
vious movements of a similar kind, 
137 ; how the revival began, 140 ; 
effects of, 142 ; successive stages of, 
144 ff ; physical manifestations of, 
154; taking the covenant, 156; re 
sults in large admissions to the 
church, 158; subsidence of, 159, 
abnormal tendency in, 159. 

Royce, J., Religion of Philosophy, 88, 
note. 

Sandeman, asserts the principle of in 
activity, 115. 

Saybrook Platform, connection with 
of Mrs. Edwards father, 45 ; effort 
to enforce the principles of, 182. 

Schleiermacher, his sermons on de 
pendence, 57 ; idea of the miracu 
lous, 66. 

Scotland, Edwards influence in, 91, 
134, 102 ; memorial from, 232, 233 ; 
Edwards correspondents in, 271, 
273 ; reception of his Freedom of 
the Will in, 293. 

Scripture, study of, 29, 43, 108 ; Cal 
vin s view of, 135. 

Sin (see Original Sin), no pervading 
sense of, in early experience, 34 ; 
extent and enormity of, 73 ; rela 
tion of, to punishment, 85 ; origin 
of, 87, 88; unpardonable, 113; un 
ethical conception of, 311. 

Smyth, Prof. E. C., 344, 352, note. 

Sovereignty of God, Edwards early 
repugnance to, 37 ; ignored by Ar 
minianism, 58 ; Edwards assertion 
of, 59, 60, 297 ; relation of, to God s 
moral government, 79, 81, 87; 



INDEX. 



401 



connection with Justification by 
Faith, 90 ; how it ailected Edwards 
preaching, 115; in Kdwards later 
experience. 131 ; in the religious ex 
perience of the revival, 141) ; con 
tradiction of, in Freedom of the 
Will, ov attributing necessity to 
God, -J97. 

Spinoza, resemblance to Edwards, 1 J, 
in, 37, 57, 317, 348; the Etluca 
of, 320-3L-J. 

Stiles, Dr. Kzra, his estimate of Kd 
wards as a tutor at Yale, J3 ; opin 
ion of Kdwards writings, 15*5. 

Stoddard, Solomon, Timothy Kdwards 
married a daughter of, J ; virtues of, 
reflected in the daughter, 3 ; char 
acter of , 39, 40 ; liis death, 5<l; his 
theology, etc., 51 ; revivals in his 
time, 137 ; condition of North- 
amption after deatli of, 139 ; his 
modification of the Half-way Cove 
nant, 257, JG3. 

Stoicism, 349, 383. 

Stowe, Prof. C. K.,34 1 .!. 

Taylor, Isaac, 2ST>. 

Taylor, Dr. John, Examination of 
the Doctrine of Original Sin, 3W, 
311. 

Tillotsoii, Archbishop, 9S. 

Tracy, !., De.scrij)tion of the Great 
Awakening, 101, 1M. 

Transcendentalism, in Kdwards 
thought, (W. 

Trinity, the doctrine of, 33H ; Kd 
wards first statement of, 1(1 : Kulxir- 
dinated to the atonement, l. 99 ; 
tendency to the denial of. s], .IS; 
Kdwards essay on. 341 ff ; Ram- 
ftay s statement of, 350, 351 ; neces 
sity of eternal distinctions in the 
Godhead, 35J-354 : fellowship of tin- 
Father and the Son in the Spirit, 
, ;s. 

Tyler, M. C., on Edwards relation to 
lierkeley, 15. 

Virtue. Nature of, early theory of, fi 
ll ; treatise on, 313-3 .i7 ; contra 



diction in Edwards views of, 35* 



, Wedgwood, Miss, on Wesley s indebt 
edness to Edwards, 134, note ; on 
Wesley s methods. 171. 

Wesley, Charles, 171. 

Wesley, John, reads Kdwards N;ir- 
rative, etc., l:;4, note; belief in re 
gard to impressions, 171 ; edits Kd 
wards Thoughts on the Revhal, 
.. 03 ; sanction of lay preaching. I lJ ; 
rejected the di.-tmction between 
elect and non-elect, - 51. 

Westminster Confes.si(.n, Kdwards 
willing to subscribe the Mib.-tance 
of, J71 ; his departure from, in re 
gard to Adam s freedom, 3O4. 

Whiterield, his sermons, 4 J ; descrip 
tion of Kdwards household, 49; 
belief in impulses and impressions, 
170, 171, note ; introduces confusion 
into New England churches, ISO, 
note, J10. 

Will. The, Edwards earlier view of. 
33 ; God conceived as, 59 ; denial of 
the fnredom of, t. J, 73. 110, 111; 
freedom of, in God, (! _ , _ H . 7 ; as ad 
dressed by Kdwards in preaching, 
HRI; conscious gelf - direction of, 
II 1 - : Kdwards conception of free 
dom of, lll.-.x.M, -".O, :I3; coiwe- 
queuces of the denial of the free 
dom of, 73, II 1 .!. Ill 1 ,, 117, 2!M, 29.". ; 
no unconscious growth of, 14s ; 
Edwards treatise on, - si i|. 

Williams, Kev. Solomon, repliei to 
Edwanls (^naliticationn, -. 14 ; ^1- 
wards rejoinder to. -Ji^, 1 - 7 .i. - SO. 

Witchcraft delusion, iuigMmsiblc a gen 
eration earlier or later, 53. 

Wyclille, on church and state, 5C,. 



Yal" f r.llegp, inchont- c.mditioii of, 
1. Berkeley s philoHophy in. 1 . 
relation of to the revival . 1*1 ; rt- 
fuws decree to Hrainerd, -M. t . 45; 
memorial window to Kdward in 
chajH.-! of, 3MJ.