EDWARDS

EDWARDS, Jonathan, a celebrated American metaphy-
sician and divine, was born on the 5th of October 1703,
at Windsor, in the province of Connecticut. His family
had originally emigrated from England in the reign of
Queen Elizabeth. His father, Mr Timothy Edwards, was a
clergyman of great piety and respectability, and by his
mother he was grandson of Mr Solomon Stoddard, a noted
and zealous divine of Northampton. Jonathan was ac-
cordingly reared in the bosom of Puritanism, and all his
ideas were early imbued with the cast of thought which
was native to the stock from which he had sprung. There
was something indeed not a little singular in the prevail-
ing character of religion in America in those days. A con-
version seems to have been a regular era in a man's life,
which could be fixed down to a date, as much as his
coming of age or his being married. A very curious docu-
ment remains of Jonathan's conversion, the whole steps and
progress of which he has detailed for the behoof of his chil-
dren; and it is a document which, even amidst all its fre-
quent weakness and extravagance, impresses us with a high
sense of the genius and of the worth of this remarkable
man. We cannot avoid giving our readers a little insight
into it, especially as it contains some passages of deep
feeling and sensibility, which form a striking contrast to
the controversial hardness of his other writings. It is
full of bursts of tenderness; and even whilst the subjects
of his earliest meditations were the same dark doctrines,
in their most tremendous form, which he afterwards de-
fended so ably by the help of his mature reason, amidst
all the gloom which naturally surrounds them, they seem
to have left upon his mind no sentiments but those of
gentleness and charity. At the same time, this document
affords us a distinct proof that such doctrines take their
origin, in a great measure, in peculiar circumstances of
society, or of the individual mind; and since they were
quite as fully impressed upon Edwards before he was ca-
pable of any profound reasoning concerning them, as af-
terwards, the presumption is, that his early prepossessions
came strongly in aid of his later conclusions.

It was in the midst of these youthful musings that he
acquired a full and firm persuasion of tenets which we will
own scarcely seem to us to be either so lovely, or of so
good report, as the more natural sentiments of his un-
converted state, which he gave up in exchange for them.
"I had a variety," says he "of concerns and exercises
about my soul from my childhood; but had two more re-
markable seasons of awakening before I met with that
change by which I was brought to those new dispositions,
and that new sense of things, that I have since had. The
first time was when I was a boy, some years before I went
to college, at a time of remarkable awakening in my fa-
ther's congregation. I was then very much affected for
many months, and concerned about the things of religion."
This state of mind, however, appears to have passed off;
but, in his last year at college, he was visited by a severe
sickness, which made him form many wise and holy res-
olutions, which he was afterwards for the most part enabled
to keep. So far it was well; but now follows the grand
proof of his conversion. "From my childhood up," he says,
"my mind had been wont to be full of objections against
the doctrine of God's sovereignty in choosing whom he
would to eternal life, and rejecting whom he pleased, leav-
ing them eternally to perish, and be everlastingly tor-
mented in hell. It used to appear like a horrible doctrine
to me. But I remember very well when I seemed to be

convincing and fully satisfied as to this sovereignty of God, Edwards,
and his justice in thus eternally disposing of men ac-
cording to his sovereign pleasure. But I never could give
an account how or by what means I was thus convinced,
not in the least imagining in the time of it, nor a long
time after, that there was any extraordinary influence of
God's Spirit in it, but only that now I saw farther, and my
reason apprehended the justice and reasonableness of it.
However, my mind rested in it, and it put an end to all
those cavils and objections that had till then abode with
me all the preceding part of my life. And there has been
a wonderful alteration in my mind with respect to God's
sovereignty from that day to this, so that I scarce ever
have found so much as the rising of an objection against
God's sovereignty in the most absolute sense, in showing
mercy to whom he will show mercy, and hardening and
eternally damning whom he will. God's absolute sove-
reignty and justice, with respect to salvation and damna-
tion, is what my mind seems to rest assured of as much as
of any thing that I see with my eyes." This doctrine con-
tinued throughout Mr Edwards' life in peculiar favour with
him; and he employs the whole resources of his dialectics
to support it, with a full conviction that he was thereby
glorifying God, and performing an important service to
mankind.

In this document of Mr Edwards' early opinions, we
have said that, amidst all the horrors of his creed, there are
many intimations of the natural fineness and sensibility of
his spirit. The following passages are remarkably beauti-
ful, and have about them a tone of pastoral or rather scrip-
tural poetry. "Not long after I first began to experience
these things, I gave an account to my father of some
things that had passed in my mind. I was pretty much
affected by the discourse we had together; and when the
discourse was ended, I walked abroad alone in a solitary
place in my father's pasture for contemplation. And as
I was walking there, and looked up on the sky and clouds,
there came into my mind so sweet a sense of the glorious
majesty and grace of God that I know not how to express
it... God's excellency, his wisdom, his purity and love,
seemed to appear in every thing; in the sun, moon, and
stars; in the 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
a long time, and so in the day time spent much time in
viewing the clouds and sky, to behold the sweet glory of
God in these things; in the mean time singing forth with
a loud voice my contemplations of the Creator and Re-
deemer... I used to be a person uncommonly terrified with
thunder; and it used to strike me with terror when I saw
a thunder-storm rising; but now, on the contrary, it rejoiced
me. I felt God at the first appearance of a thunder-storm,
and used to take an opportunity at such times to fix my-
self to view the clouds, and see the lightnings play, and
hear the majestic and awful voice of God's thunder." These
confessions have let us already into the inside of Edwards'
mind, and there is no need to return upon them whilst we
pursue the account of his studies, life, and writings. There
is a poetry and grandeur in some of his passages of this
sort which show a moral sublimity of genius in the midst
of enthusiastic reveries, often, in inferior minds, more pro-
ductive of dark and disorderly sentiments than of sound
and elevated piety. When he comes, however, to reason
on his theological or philosophical tenets, he is no longer
either an enthusiast or a poet; for he then proceeds with
all the pertinacity and ingenuity of a hard-headed dialecti-
cian, determined neither to tolerate nor employ any weapon
but stern argument.

He went young to Yale College, and as early as his
thirteenth year had read Locke On the Human Under-

Edwards, standing with great delight and profit. He had a great taste for natural philosophy, but the moral and divine sciences were his chief object; and after a long residence at college, during which time he prepared himself assiduously for the ministry, he was in due form licensed to preach. In August 1722 he was invited to preach to the English Presbyterians at New York, where he continued with approbation above eight months; but as this society was too small to maintain a preacher, he returned in the year 1723 to his father's house at Connecticut, where, for some time, he applied to his studies with much industry and perseverance; and this severe application became habitual to him, although he was of a delicate constitution. In the spring of 1724, having taken his master's degree, he was appointed tutor of Yale College, being then in his twenty-first year; an office which, notwithstanding his youth, he filled for two years with great success and reputation. In September 1726 he received an invitation from the people of Northampton in Connecticut, to become assistant to his mother's father, Mr Stoddard, to whom he was ordained colleague in his twenty-fourth year, and continued as pastor of this congregation till the year 1750. During this time he married, had many children, and wrote several pious and useful treatises, chiefly suggested by the events of the times, such as his Faithful Narrative of the Surprising Work of God, in the Conversion of many Hundred Souls in Northampton (for these, as his biographer¹ tells us, were remarkable times for the out-pouring of God's Spirit); but particularly a sensible and useful treatise on Religious Affections, in which he endeavoured to restrain the extravagance and fanaticism into which, under these strong impressions, the religion of his flock was but too apt to degenerate. He was a most faithful and conscientious minister, but at last fell under the displeasure of his people, from no other cause except his anxiety for their spiritual interests. They appear, indeed, to have been a very stiff-necked generation, full of absurd whimsical vagaries on the subject of religion, but at the same time evincing little of its spirit in their lives and conversations. They had all a voice in the election and continuance of their clergyman, and they were very ready to seize any opportunity to show their power. Mr Edwards discovered that some licentious books had got among the youth of his congregation, a fact as to which he wished some investigation to take place; and this was the first point upon which his people flew off from him. There arose afterwards another point about the administration of the holy communion. His grandfather Mr Stoddard had, it seems, a notion that the administration of the sacrament was a moment which the Divine Spirit was much disposed to seize for the conversion of sinners; and that, therefore, the most notorious sinners were almost without scruple to be admitted to that holy ordinance, in the hope that this conversion would fall upon them. The result of this precious notion was, that the utmost licentiousness, mingled as it was with wild religious fancies floating in every brain, began to prevail amongst the people. When Mr Edwards, on his grandfather's death, obtained the entire charge, he endeavoured to make a change in this particular; but the outcry against him was loud and overbearing. Even his brethren of the clergy tamely gave way to a clamour which they condemned; and this excellent, able, and pious clergyman was thus driven away by the misguided flock, for whom he had laboured assiduously during twenty-four

years; and at an advanced period of life, with a wife and a large family, he was thrown upon the world and the care of providence.

His next position was at Stockbridge, in the western part of Massachusetts Bay, where he was put at the head of a mission for converting the Indians. He was not enabled to do much as a missionary; but here he had a great deal of leisure, which he employed in writing his principal works. It was now he completed his chief treatise on the subject of free will; a work concerning the rapid execution of which we have the following information in Sir Henry Moncreiff Wellwood's able and interesting Life of Dr Erskine. "It was not till the month of July 1752, that he appears to have resumed his studies on the subject of free will: for on the 7th of that month he writes Dr Erskine, that 'he hoped soon to be at leisure to resume his design'; and gives him another sketch of the plan of his book, in which, though there be nothing new, there is more detail than in that which he had formerly sent him. Whatever opinion," continues this able writer, "may be held with regard to Mr Edwards' argument, it must appear astonishing to those who are capable of appreciating the difficulty of his subject, that, in nine months from the date of this letter, on the 14th of April 1753, he could write Dr Erskine, that he had almost finished the first draught of what he originally intended; though he was under the necessity of delaying the publication till he knew the result of proposals which he had circulated for printing his book by subscription. His book was published in 1754, and, though he had made some progress in preparing his materials before he left Northampton, was certainly written, and nearly completed, within the time ascertained by the two letters referred to, and must be admitted to convey a very striking idea, both of his mental resources and of his literary ardour."

In 1757, on the death of Mr Aaron Burr, Mr Edwards was chosen president of New Jersey College. He had only been here, however, a very short time, when he was carried off on the 22d of March 1758, in the fifty-fifth year of his age, by the small-pox. This disease was at that time raging in the neighbourhood. Mr Edwards, who had never had it, proposed to be inoculated, which his physicians approved of. He had the disease favourably, but a secondary fever set in, and by reason of a number of pustules in his throat, the obstruction became such that he could not swallow the necessary medicines, and the fatal result was what we have stated. The character of Mr Edwards is that of a very primitive, self-mortified, simple, and amiable man, and affords a strong proof of the power of genuine Christian piety upon the heart, in spite of the most gloomy and repulsive tenets. He was solely occupied with his professional duties and his theological studies, inasmuch that, as is mentioned with inimitable simplicity by the author of his life, "he was less acquainted with most of his temporal affairs than many of his neighbours, and seldom knew when and by whom his forage for winter was gathered in, or how many milk-kine he had; whence his table was furnished," or by what means his wants were provided for. Mrs Edwards, however, a most valuable and sensible woman, fully supplied his defects in these particulars. We must quote another passage from this piece of biography, which is equal in simplicity, though by no means in any thing else, to some of the exquisite biographies of Isaac Walton. After being informed that he did not permit dancing, against which

amusement, indeed, he wrote a sermon, we are told that he allowed not his children to be from home after nine o'clock at night, when they went abroad to see their friends and companions; neither were they allowed to sit up much after that time, in his own house, when any came to make them a visit. If any gentleman desired acquaintance with his daughters, after handsomely introducing himself, by properly consulting the parents, he was allowed all proper opportunity for it, and a room and fire, if needed; but must not intrude on the proper hours of rest and sleep, nor the religion and order of the family."

Mr Edwards comes nearer Bishop Butler as a philosophical divine than any other theologian with whom we are acquainted. His style, like Butler's, is very much that of a man thinking aloud. In both these authors the train of thinking in their own minds is more clearly exhibited to us than perhaps by any other writer, whilst they show us with great truth and distinctness what their notions are, and how they came by them, with very little concern about the form of expression in which they are brought out. Butler, however, had a larger mind than Edwards, and was by no means so much of a mere dialectician. If, therefore, he be less acute than the American, he is more comprehensive, and gives fairer play to every opposing argument. We do not mean here to enter into any of Edwards' speculations. Both on the subject of original sin, and on the freedom of the will, he seems to us to unite a great deal too closely the views which originated, as we have seen, in no small degree, amidst his early reveries, with the infallible discoveries of divine revelation. Our notion is, that in all discussions on such subjects which have hitherto appeared, the speculatists have forgotten how little a part either of the history or the nature of man we are in fact acquainted with; and how ready we ever are, in laying the foundations of our theories, to place a tortoise beneath the elephant. The whole difficulty, for instance, on the freedom of the will, turns upon a puzzle in the idea of cause and effect. Perhaps this idea is far from being precise in our minds (Mr Edwards uses it very loosely in his speculations); yet we do not scruple, in our reasonings upon it, to draw the most positive inferences from the assumptions with which we set out. We suspect, indeed, that the true and accurate notion of causation always involves the idea of volition; and, on that supposition, to ask for the cause of volition itself is absurd. It may be very true that we cannot will to do any thing without previous thought or motive; neither can we think without previous existence. But is our existence the cause of our thinking? Just as much as our thinking is the cause of our willing. We are far, however, from wishing to add our own crude conceptions to those which have been piled up on this subject from the beginning of time to the present hour, without, we believe, doing the slightest service to the cause of moral and religious truth, or accomplishing any thing, in short, beyond affording an exercise for ingenuity, and too often a handle for uncharitable rancour and presumptuous absurdity. Mr Edwards, with all his great powers, has accordingly, we apprehend, done but little good to the world, we mean as a philosopher; for he did much good in his own day, whilst he was living the life of a zealous and faithful Christian minister. But it is "thus we play the fools with the time; and the spirits of the wise sit in the clouds and mock us." Exalted above all the folly of human wisdom, the spirit of this truly good and pious man is now, it may be, disposed to regard with some such sentiment many of his own most severe and laborious speculations, which were carried on in the serious belief, that if "the knots of Calvinism were trimmed off, or its doctrines, in the whole length and breadth of them, were

not rigidly maintained, a man could nowhere set his foot down with consistency and safety, short of Deism, or even Atheism itself, or rather universal Scepticism."

Edwards' works consist of several volumes of sermons, printed at various times, and often reprinted in this country as well as in America. Besides these, he wrote, 1. A Treatise concerning Religious Affections, 1746, 8vo; 2. An Account of the Life of the Reverend David Brainerd, 1749, 8vo; 3. An Inquiry into the Qualifications for full Communion in the Visible Church, 1749, intended as a vindication of his principles in the matter which occasioned his dismissal from Northampton; 4. A careful and strict Inquiry into the Modern Notion of that Freedom of Will which is supposed to be essential to Moral Agency, 1754; 5. The Great Christian Doctrine of Original Sin defended, containing a Reply to the Objections of Dr John Taylor, 1758; 6. A History of Redemption; 7. Miscellaneous Observations on Important Theological Subjects, London, 1793; 8. Remarks on Important Theological Controversies, ibid. 1796. Some of these were posthumous, as were a few other tracts of less importance written by him. (L. L. L.)