Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume VI.djvu/451

EDWARDS 443 smallpox was prevailing in the neighborhood, and he was inoculated ; but the disease took an unfavorable turn, and he died 34 days after his installation, at the age of 54. In 1872 his de- scendants erected to his memory at Stockbridge a monument of red granite, 25 ft. high. In considering the writings of Jonathan Edwards, the first thing to be borne in mind is his unquestioning acceptance of the truth of the Holy Scriptures, of every event recorded there, every miracle, and every prophecy ; the actual fall of man, the incarnation, death, resurrec- tion, and ascension of Christ. The next is, the intensity of his attachment to the system of Calvinism as opposed to that of Arminianism. These points being premised, the characteris- tics of all that Edwards has written are three- fold. He looks always to establish the reason- ableness of his views. The doctrine of a divine incarnation, for example, approves it- self, as he thought, to human reason ; and he cites in proof the authority of Greeks and Ro- mans, the most philosophical nations of the world, and refers to the anima mundi of Blount and the pantheism of Spinoza. He scoffs at the pretensions to greater liberality of the Arminians, and puts reason and common sense on the side of orthodoxy. He thought there was no need that the strict philosophic truth should be at all concealed. " The clear and full knowledge of the true system of the uni- verse will greatly establish the doctrines which teach the true Christian scheme of divine ad- ministration in the city of God." Least of all would Edwards give up the individual right of free inquiry, for he says : " He who believes principles because our forefathers affirm them, makes idols of them ; and it would be no hu- mility, but baseness of spirit, for us to judge ourselves incapable of examining principles which have been handed down to us." He knows no scheme of Christianity that is the fruit of time ; the divine administration began from eternity and reaches forward to eternity. The third great feature of his mind is its prac- tical character. His system has in view life and action ; he puts aside all merely specula- tive questions, and while he discusses the great- est topics, it is only because of his overwhelm- ing consciousness of their important bearing on conduct and morals. He moves in the real world, and brings theology down from the dim clouds of speculation to the business and the bosoms of the universal people. It is a strange misconception about Edwards, that he drew his philosophy from Locke. In the want of books, the essay of Locke trained him to philosophical meditation ; but his system was, at its foundation and in every part, the very opposite of the theory of Locke. On the subject of the origin of ideas he accords with Leibnitz. The doctrine that all truth is de- rived from sensation and reflection he discards. The knowledge of spiritual truth he considers " a new principle," " the divine nature in the soul." "It is the Spirit of God that gives faith in him," were the words of his sermon at the Boston lecture in 1T31 ; and three years later he enforced at large that it is a doctrine of reason that " a divine supernatural light is immediately imparted to the soul by the Spirit of God." He teaches that knowledge of spirit- ual truth cannot be derived from the senses ; it is a wisdom not earthly or natural, but de- scending from above ; " it is the image and participation of God's own knowledge of himself." In like manner he finds the idea of causality " implanted by God in the minds of all mankind." As a consequence, the contrast of Edwards with Locke and those who came after him appears equally in the different man- ner in which they sought to establish the truth of Christianity. The disciples of Locke's phi- losophy cling to the historical evidence from miracles as the principal proof of the Chris- tian religion. Edwards, on the contrary, laid down the principle that "no particular sort of outward representations can be any evidence of a divine power." " Unless men may come to a reasonable, solid persuasion and convic- tion of the truth of the gospel, by the internal evidences of it, by a sight of its glory, it is impossible that those who are illiterate and unacquainted with history should have any thorough and effectual conviction of it at all." " It is unreasonable to suppose that God has provided for his people no more than probable evidences of the truth of the gospel. It is reasonable to suppose that God would give the greatest evidence of those things which are greatest, and the truth of which is of the greatest importance to us. But it is certain that such an assurance is not to be attained, by the greater part of them who live under the gospel, by arguments fetched from ancient traditions, histories, and monuments." The theory of Edwards respecting providence cor- responded with that of Leibnitz. To him the laws of nature were not established and left to themselves, but were the methods according to which God continued his "immediate in- fluence." "His preserving created things in being is equivalent to a continued creation." The presence of moral evil, the depravity of human nature, he considered from two points of view. He raised his mind to the contem- plation of God as the Creator, and had then no theory to offer for man's depravity but the divine will. He never presumed to ask Al- mighty God why it was so. But to those who questioned this absolute sovereignty, and re- jected it as a doctrine full of horror, he made a twofold answer, not as finding excuses for the Creator, but subjectively as shutting the mouth of cavillers : First, that man's depravity is an unquestionable fact ; that through the medium of his senses and merely animal or- ganization man can attain to no knowledge of God and no spiritual perfection. Secondly, he set forth the unity of the race; its common constitution as branches from one root, form- ing one complex person, one moral whole;