The GOSPEL TRUTH

A GENETIC HISTORY OF THE

NEW ENGLAND THEOLOGY

By

FRANK HUGH FOSTER

1907

 

 CHAPTER IV:

Edwards' Remaining Metaphysical Treatises

The conflict with the Arminians could not remain in the more exclusively metaphysical sphere in which it had hitherto been waged since Edwards retired to Stockbridge. A work was soon put into his hands which attacked the doctrine of original sin and which seemed to call for his careful attention. This was the book entitled The Scriptural Doctrine of Original Sin Proposed to Free and Candid Examination, by Dr. John Taylor, of Norwich, England, a Unitarian, which appeared in the year 1740. With it he received two other works by the same author, his Key to the Apostolical Writings and his Paraphrase to the Epistle to the Romans.

These works were characterized by some excellent features. The same recoil from artificial and false modes of statement which was to lead to some of the most important modifications of the current Calvinism by the New England school had led Taylor to take positions and make definitions which must command the assent of the candid mind. Sin is with him a strictly personal matter. Punishment must be as personal as guilt. He rejects the doctrine of the imputation of sin, and even enunciates the great principle that ability and obligation are commensurate. This better side of Taylor is evident in the following extract from his Original Sin:

A representative of moral action is what I can by no means digest. A representative, the guilt of whose conduct shall be imputed to us, and whose sins shall corrupt and debauch our nature, is one of the greatest absurdities in all the system of corrupt religion. That the conduct of ancestors should effect the external circumstances of posterity, is a constitution just and wise, and may answer good purposes; and that representatives of civil societies, or any other persons intrusted with the management of affairs, may injure those who employ them, is agreeable to a state of trial and imperfection; but that any man without my knowledge and consent, should so represent me, that when he is guilty I am to be reputed guilty, and when he transgresses I shall be accountable and punishable for his transgression, and thereby subjected to the wrath and curse of God, nay, further, that his wickedness shall give me a sinful nature, and all this before I am born, and consequently while I am in no capacity of knowing, helping or hindering what he doth; surely anyone who dares use his understanding, must clearly see this is unreasonable, and altogether inconsistent with the truth, and goodness of God.

But these merits of the work did not help it with Edwards, though they drove him to some modifications of old theories, as will be seen. They were too intimately associated with another side of Taylor's theology--with his superficial view of sin and his feeble religious experience. He holds that Adam's sin resulted subjectively in guilt, shame, and fear and that he fell thereby under subjection to sorrow, labor, and death. This death, however, is to be understood simply of physical death. The ruin of man did not seem to him to be very great, as will be evident from the following extract:

We are born as void of actual knowledge as the brutes themselves. We are born with many sensual appetites, and consequently liable to temptation and sin. But this is not the fault of our nature, but the will of God, wise and good. For every one of our natural passions and appetites are in themselves good; of great use and advantage in our present circumstances; and our nature would be defective, sluggish or unarmed without them. Nor is there any one of them we can at present spare. Our passions and appetites are in themselves, wisely, and kindly implanted in our nature. They are good, and become evil only by unnatural excess, or wicked abuse. The possibility of which excess and abuse is also well and wisely permitted for our trial. For without some such appetite, our reason would have nothing to struggle with, and consequently our virtue could not be duly exercised and proved in order to its being rewarded. And the appetites we have, God hath judged most proper, both for our use and trial . . .

This idea then we ought to have of our being; that everything in it is formed and appointed just as it should be; that it is a noble and invaluable gift bestowed upon us by the bounty of God, with which we should be greatly pleased, and for which we should be continually and heartily thankful; that it is a perishable thing, which needeth to be diligently guarded and cultivated; that our sensual inclinations are to be duly restrained and disciplined, and our rational powers faithfully applied to their proper uses; that God hath given us those rational powers attended with those sensual inclinations, as for other good purposes, so in particular to try us, whether we will carefully guard and look after this most invaluable gift of his goodness; and that if we do not, he will in justice punish our wicked contempt of his love; but if we do, he will graciously reward our wisdom and virtue. And all, and every one of these considerations should be a spur to our diligence, and animate our endeavors to answer these most high and most excellent purposes of his wisdom and goodness.

Thus it is true that Taylor perceived, long before the school of Edwards, the excrescences of the doctrine of original sin, but it is also true that he let fall at the same time the invaluable truth contained in that doctrine. It was the perception of this, and the consciousness of an undercurrent of unevangelical thought and feeling, which principally moved Edwards to write against the book. It led Wesley to do the same thing, though he had no objection to Arminianism as such. No doubt, Taylor's views upon the atonement increased the suspicion against him. He taught that the whole work of Christ was comprised in his obedience; his example powerfully attracted men; and he was thereby rendered worthy that for his sake the great good of forgiveness should be bestowed upon men. The doctrine of satisfaction to justice in every form, whether the justice be taken as distributive or public, is entirely left out.

The reply of Edwards fills a large volume, but must be dismissed in the briefest possible space. There are two elements of the doctrine, he says, which are so united in thought that they are either both accepted or both rejected. These are the depravity of our nature and the imputation of Adam's sin. The proof of the first involving that of the other, Edwards' attention is chiefly directed to the question of depravity. The argument is strong and is ranked by the characteristic effort to reduce doctrines to their elements and to urge the most fundamental proofs which can be given. Universal sinfulness is first proved. This, as "universal, constant, infallible," is employed as a proof of a "tendency or propensity." Should it be said that the evil proved is not a "tendency" in man, but has its location rather in external nature, in the circumstances by which man is surrounded, still the difficulty is not removed. Man is then born into the world, as it is, in such a condition as to lead universally to sin; and such a condition is itself a nature unfitted, as things are, to lead to holiness, and hence it is essentially a depraved nature.

Advancing to the positive argument, Edwards derives this principally from the Scriptures. But he also revives an argument at least as old as Anselm, drawn from the infinity of sin, which is to forestall the reply that the tendencies of man toward good are greater than those toward evil. Sin is infinite, since it is the rupture of an obligation which is infinite in being an obligation toward an infinite being. Other arguments are brought to prove the greatness of man's sin, such as his propensity to sin as soon as he is capable of it, to sin continually and progressively, and also the remains of sin in the best men. And then objections are answered: that Adam was not depraved and yet sinned, and so may we; that free will is a sufficient reason for the existence of sin; that the corruption of man may be owing to bad example, which, Edwards says, is explaining the thing by itself; that the senses grow up first, and thus the animal passions get the start of the reason, which is in substance original sin; and the propriety that virtue should meet with trials. Thus thorough was the discussion.

Up to this point Edwards has contributed nothing specially original to the defense or explanation of the doctrine. But he never handled a subject without impressing upon it at some point the force of his own independent thought, and he soon began to let fall hints and advance positions which were to be fruitful in later days. The theory of the current Calvinism required the supposition that there rested upon the descendants of Adam a double guilt--that of Adam's first sin, imputed to them, and that of a corrupted nature which was truly and properly sin. The order of thought is: first, Adam made a federal head; second, his sin imputed; third, corruption of nature visited upon mankind; finally, actual sin in consequence. This is the so-called "immediate imputation." Upon this theory there are two kinds of sin, voluntary and involuntary.

Edwards had already taught that sin was voluntary. It remained to decide whether he would teach that such sin was the only sin, or that all sin was voluntary. The present discussion led him to contemplate this problem, and to adopt this further position. He had already avoided any expression which should make him teach that depravity was properly sin. He accepted the federal headship of Adam, and, as he viewed death as the penalty of the sin of Adam, he was obliged to suppose that all who die are guilty of that sin, or that its guilt lies upon all men. Yet he cannot accept the common view that men are charged with something which they have not done, any more than Taylor. Sin is imputed, he therefore says, but not in order to make it the sin of all men. It is imputed because it is the sin of all men, for they have committed it in Adam. Thus he extends his doctrine, excludes every sin but voluntary sin, and so gives fully to New England theology its first great distinguishing doctrine, that all sin consists in choice. Thus he completes at this point the work begun in the treatise on the will.

To maintain this connection of the race with Adam, Edwards proposes a theory somewhat new. He had already rejected the idea that original sin consisted in a positive taint, which had been the view of original sin opposed by Taylor. He says simply that the Holy Spirit must and did withdraw from man after his sin. The immediate result of this was that man set himself up as his own standard and fell into further sin. Hereupon, in consequence of the established course of nature, or of a special divine constitution, the descendants of Adam were born, as he was, after his sin, destitute of holiness, thus negatively evil or depraved, out of communion with God and certain to pursue the course of their fleshly affections; that is, to fall into sin. So, "all are looked upon as sinning in and with their common root; and God righteously withholds special influences and special communications from all for this sin." In consequence of this act of God's, men consent to Adam's sin as soon as they begin to act. Imputation follows this consent. Edwards says: "The first depravity of heart, and that imputation of that sin are both the consequences of that established union; but yet in such order that the evil disposition is first and the charge of guilt consequent, as it was in the case of Adam himself." Edwards' order is, then: first, the "constitution;" second, birth of men without the Spirit; third, positive evil disposition or sin, which is consent to Adam's sin; fourth, the charge of guilt.

But it is now an interesting question: How did Edwards justify this constitution to himself? The answer comes out in his reply to a supposed objection that things cannot be "viewed and treated as one which are not one but totally distinct." The objection, he says, is founded upon a false idea of identity. Some things entirely distinct and very diverse are yet united by the constitution of the creator so that they are in a sense one, as for instance the oak, a hundred years old, and the acorn. Even the identity of created intelligences depends upon the constitution of God. Continuance of the same consciousness, or memory, is essential to continued personal identity; and yet this continued memory is the constitution of God and not the work of the man himself. Indeed, the continued existence of every created entity, whether person or thing, is nothing but the continued creation of God. It is altogether equivalent to an immediate production out of nothing at every moment. The continued identity of anything is therefore only the consistency with which God produces now what he produced a moment since; or it is the divine constitution. By the same constitution, Adam and the race may be the same person, and so the loss of Adam be the loss of his posterity.

If, now, it is necessary to sum up in one glance the features of progress for the developing thought of New England contributed by this treatise passed in so brief review, they may be summarized (1) in the extension of the proposition that sin is voluntary action to the explicit principle that all sin is voluntary action; (2) in the removal from the theology of the idea that man's corruption consists in a positive taint imparted to his nature (for the whole matter is explained in strict conformity with the moral instincts when it is taught that the Holy Spirit is withdrawn from sinning Adam, and corruption is traced to this root); and (3) in an idea introduced--one which reappears upon many a page of later writers--the maintenance of the doctrine of the actuality of depravity in man by the supposition of an established order of nature, or divine constitution. If the doctrine of natural depravity be accepted, there is need of some explanation of the connection of Adam with this result. Heredity may serve as a partial explanation, and yet only a partial one. The corruption of man is not all of the body. Unless we believe in traducianism (a theory now coming into favor in certain quarters), it will be difficult to explain the disharmony of soul, as it is in psychology to explain the transmittance of traits of character from father to son. But the thought of a continued creation with the added idea of a divine constitution would throw light upon the subject. In the case of every new-born person, God is again operative, and that in accordance with a plan of his own. As the nature of the oak is determined by the nature of the acorn, and that by its parent oak, so with the child. And thus, according to an intelligible method, God can determine to treat men according as Adam, their constituted head, shall remain holy, or fall.

If we were to ask at this point again those questions which we have previously asked as to Edwards' adaptation to further the cause of theology in a time of controversy, we should have to reply that now at last he has come to perceive more accurately his proper task. This treatise is no mere piece of reaction. He learns as he reads. He innovates as he writes. There is movement, change, life, in this work as in no preceding one. It is most significant that some things he says nothing about. There is no refutation of such a sound principle as that ability and obligation are commensurate. What he opposes are the real errors of Taylor, not the great illuminating suggestions which were later to form a large part of the working materials of New England theology. And there is here already that emphasis of the ethical element of theology which was to be more and more characteristic of the school as it advanced to the very end. Our corruption, even, is an ethical corruption, since it consists principally in the deprivation of the Holy Spirit under which we suffer--nothing physical, nothing merely mysterious. Hence Edwards now understands how to conserve the old, how to learn from even erroneous proposals, how to study the spirit of his age, how to change old forms as new light breaks upon him. He has arrived at last at the true position of a leader.

The remaining principal treatise of Edwards is in many respects the most remarkable of the series. The others had been prepared with immediate reference to the demands of the contest against the Arminians, and all suffered from the defects, as well as partook of the vigor and interest, incidental to such an origin. The Dissertation Concerning the Nature of True Virtue was more largely the spontaneous fruit of early and later meditations. The Arminians are not mentioned in it. It breathes the calm spirit of quiet studies. In these respects it stands comparatively isolated among Edwards' writings; and it is isolated in another respect, in that its great ideas, though early formed, and put down in writing with great clearness in the manly notes of the youthful student at college, seem never to have influenced the general course of his speculations upon other themes, fruitful in the extreme as they were to be under the hand of his successors. He defines justice as virtuous only when governed by benevolence, with perfect clearness in the "Notes," but in after years he discusses the justice of God in its application to future punishment and to the atonement exactly as if no such distinction had ever entered his mind. To this extent the work which he had performed in the formulation of the principle of all virtue remained unappreciated by its author; but so far-reaching and revolutionary were to be its effects upon succeeding systems that it merits the designation of Edwards' principal contribution to religious thought. It may be said to have given the determining principle to the whole school of thinking which was to bear the name of Edwardean.

The Nature of Virtue cannot be fully understood, either in its own greatness as a philosophical achievement or in the peculiarities which mark the progress of its discussions, without a glance at the previous history of ethical theory. Edwards himself goes back to Hobbes, when noticing antagonistic views, and it is to Hobbes that the rise of independent and valuable discussion upon ethics in the English-speaking world is to be attributed. He was the first to bring in the idea of the good as something to be sought, though he was unfortunate in the form of his discussion, since he identified it too largely with pleasure. Any further usefulness which he might have served was destroyed by the common understanding that he taught that the only foundation of social morality was the law of the state, and thus denied that it had any ground in the objective nature of things. The Cambridge Platonists opposed him at this point, and emphasized the eternal distinctions between good and evil; but they rendered comparatively little service in promoting the growth of ethical doctrine, since they produced only an ill-arranged collection of aphorisms upon morals, and substantially went over to Hobbes's ground as to the pursuit of pleasure. Richard Cumberland, however, published in 1672 a treatise entitled De legibus natura disquisitio philosophica, which has been worthily styled a fountain-head of English ethics, and which did much to build upon the foundation which Hobbes had suggested and to point the way, at least, to the elimination of the errors into which he had fallen. Like Hobbes, he began with the idea of the good, but he defined it more comprehensively, since he embraced in it even moral acts, though always considering it too much under the category of the natural good--that, namely, which, preserves or renders created beings "more perfect or happy." He introduces an idea which was entirely lacking in Hobbes, the "common good" as an object of effort, under which he almost unconsciously included a much wider definition of good than his more formal statements made place for. But his chief service was that he reduced all the maxims of morality to one general principle, "regard for the common good." Three separate sentences may serve to afford a comprehensive view of his thought. "I judge it requisite to the natural perfection of the human will that it follow the most perfect reason." "Those acts of the will which are enjoined by the same law may all be comprehended in the general name of the most extensive and operative benevolence." "The greatest benevolence does consist in a constant volition of the greatest good towards all." Hence an action is "morally good" which contributes to this end. Cumberland anticipated the objection, which has been voiced in our own day, that benevolence cannot be said to include all virtue, since it cannot include the proper attitude of man toward God except by such torsion as shall evacuate it of all meaning, and laid down the proposition that "to promote the common good of the whole system of rationals" "includes our love of God and of all mankind, as parts of this system." But he could not have defended himself successfully against the charge of utilitarianism, for utilitarian he undoubtedly was. His most conspicuous failure as a moralist was in his definition of conscience, in reference to which, says Dr. Magoun,

It is difficult to decide whether our author regarded conscience as anything more than the discernment of our acts as means to ends, or of the results of acts, pleasant or painful . . . One will look in vain through this . . . treatise . . . for any discussion of the relations of right or conscience to obligation, either as an idea or as feeling.

Locke, while agreeing with Hobbes as to the egoistic basis of conduct and the definition of good, yet does something to suggest a higher style of treating the subject when he supposes that ethics might be put among the demonstrative sciences, like mathematics, if the idea of the Supreme Being and that of ourselves in relation to him were properly carried out. He thus substantially makes ethics to rest upon intuitive principles. Shaftesbury forwarded the theme by showing that the social affections are natural, and that they are in harmony with the self-regarding. Of all this series of writers Hutcheson was the greatest. Upon the basis of Shaftesbury's work he erected, by the help of Cumberland's principles, the most complete edifice of moral philosophy which Britain had seen till that time. He brought out the fact that there is a special power in the human soul to discern moral ideas and relations, for among the "senses" he enumerated one of beauty, a "public sense," "a determination to be pleased with the happiness of others," and a "Moral Sense" "by which we perceive virtue and vice." True, his treatment of the moral sense is too loose and vague to throw much light upon the real nature of this faculty. He is also completely utilitarian, at least in the criterion by which the virtue of a proposed action is to be tested. "That action is best which procures the greatest happiness for the greatest numbers, and that worst which, in like manner, occasions misery." The most distinctive feature of his work is the consistency with which he carries out Cumberland's principle of benevolence. In opposition to Hobbes's account of the origin of moral actions, Hutcheson maintains that benevolence is the only ground upon which man approves of any action. He thus makes it the sole constituent of virtue. Actions flowing purely from self-love and yet evidencing no lack of benevolence are morally indifferent. In respect to many personal actions which men generally morally approve, such as industry, man is virtuous in them because he is to exercise benevolence toward himself. If Hutcheson is not wholly successful in his discussion of this portion of the theme, he contributes something, at any rate, in incorporating the moral subject himself in the scheme of beings toward whom moral relations are to be sustained.

It is at this point that the work of Edwards is to be introduced into the history. He had early gained the elevated plane upon which his whole consideration of the subject is conducted. Though he followed his predecessors in viewing some things as "goods," he did not begin his development of his theme with this topic. He had found, as it seemed to him, the reason both of the nature of the good and of the source of obligation in the fundamental idea that the universe was a "system" and that its ideal harmony was the goal of all individual existence, and hence the reasonable and obligatory object of moral choice. When considered in this light, the whole nature of virtue and it's binding obligation are immediately evident, being written in the very nature of man. And hence, while the theory is, like that of Cumberland and Hutcheson, a theory of benevolence, it avoids the utilitarianism into which they had fallen, and replaces their defective analyses of conscience, self-love, etc., with better.

So evident, in fact, was the truth of his theory to the intuitive gaze of Edwards that he scarcely stops to give formal proof of it. The body of his short treatise is occupied with explanations which shall unfold its meaning and free it from various objections. What there is of proof may be summarized thus:

Virtue is something beautiful, or some kind of beauty, yet not every kind of beauty, but a beauty of a moral nature--that is, one belonging to the disposition and will. Nor is it any "particular" beauty, or beauty in a limited sphere, but it is one which still appears beautiful when viewed "most perfectly, comprehensively, and universally, with regard to all its tendencies and its connections with everything to which it stands related." After these definitions, the author is ready to answer the question "wherein this true and general beauty of the heart does most essentially consist;" and the reply is: "Benevolence in general. Or perhaps; to speak more accurately, it is that consent, propensity, and union of heart to being in general, which is immediately exercised in a general good will." And he goes on to say--thus giving all the proof he has to offer:

The things before observed respecting the nature of true virtue naturally lead us to such a notion of it. If it has its seat in the heart, and is the general goodness and beauty of the disposition and its exercise, in the most comprehensive view, considered with regard to its universal tendency, and as related to everything with which it stands connected; what can it consist in but a consent and good will to being in general? Beauty does not consist in discord and dissent, but in consent and agreement. And if every intelligent being is in some way related to being in general, and is a part of the universal system of existence, and so stands in connection with the whole; what can its general and true beauty be, but its union and consent with the great whole.

Edwards supposed himself to be in accord in this position, not only with the Scriptures and "Christian divines," but with the "more considerable deists" and "the most considerable writers" upon such topics. He could therefore dispense the more properly with lengthened proofs, and could proceed to those definitions by which he hoped to clear up some prevalent "confusion in discourses upon this subject." He explains therefore, first, that such benevolence to being in general may be exercised in a benevolent affection toward a particular person, and that such a particular act of benevolence is virtuous when it arises "from a generally benevolent temper, or from that habit or frame of mind wherein consists a disposition to love being in general." In other words, the great motive of universal love must underlie every volition which is to be virtuous. He also defines in passing the "being" had in mind as "intelligent being," though he had better said sentient being.

The love which constitutes virtue is thus the love of benevolence, that which seeks the well-being or happiness of being considered simply as such. It is thus not the love of complacence, which presupposes beauty, or virtue, in which complacence can be felt, nor, for the same reason, is it gratitude. But-

The first object of a virtuous benevolence is being, simply considered; and if being, simply considered, be its object, then being in general is its object; and what it has an ultimate propensity to, is the highest good of being in general. And it will seek the good of every individual being unless it be conceived as not consistent with the highest good of being in general. In which case the good of a particular being, or some beings, may be given up for the sake of the highest good of being in general. And particularly, if there be any being irreclaimably opposite, and an enemy to being in general, then consent and adherence to being in general will induce the truly virtuous heart to forsake that enemy and to oppose it.

One more quotation is needed to prepare the reader for the highest reach of the Edwardean conception:

Further, if being, simply considered, be the first object of a truly virtuous benevolence, then that object who has most of being, or has the greatest share of existence, other things being equal, so far as such a being is exhibited to our faculties, will have the greatest share of the propensity and benevolent affections of the heart.

Hence, since God is the being who has "most of being," he is the supreme object of choice; and men, since they are in general of the same importance, will have equal shares in the choices of virtuous beings. Hence this theory of Virtue is summarized in the biblical rule that we are to love God with all our heart, and our neighbor as ourselves.

Edwards also felt the force of that objection to this theory of virtue which Cumberland had anticipated, which denies the possibility of including God within the scope of the creature's "benevolence." He set at work vigorously to remove it. He reinforced the reasoning just sketched by a further discussion. He distinguishes first between the primary ground of love, which is simply being, and a secondary, which is the moral excellence which may exist in any being. This is fitted to call forth complacence, but it is also fitted to call forth the love of benevolence, by which he means the choice to seek to promote the virtue in which it delights. Toward God, the most holy of all beings, such a love is most eminently fit; and yet in his case it will consist largely in the love of complacence. Has it, indeed, any true benevolent element? It has, replies Edwards; for benevolence consists not only in seeking to promote, but also in rejoicing in, the happiness of the being toward whom benevolence is exercised. But more than this, benevolence can be directly exercised toward God, since men can be instrumental in promoting his glory, in which he delights.

Edwards insists the more strenuously upon this point because upon it turns the chief purpose of his treatise, which was to put morality in a new relation to religion. Previous moralists had been too exclusively occupied in considering their theme with simple reference to the relations of man toward man. Edwards would show, on the contrary, that true virtue must include a virtuous attitude toward God himself, which is, however, the essence of religion, and would thus advance to the lofty position that there can be no true virtue in the narrower sphere of what is ordinarily called morality, which is not, at the same time, religious. Religion and morality are essentially one. He that is truly moral is implicitly already religious; and he who is religious must also be moral. In his own words:

Whatever other benevolence or generosity towards mankind, and other virtues or moral qualifications which go by that name, any are possessed of, that are not attended with a love to God which is altogether above them and to which they are subordinate and on which they are dependent, there is nothing of the nature of true virtue or religion in them. And it may be asserted in general that nothing is of the nature of true virtue in which God is not the first and the last; or which, with regard to their exercises in general have not their first foundation and source in apprehensions of God's supreme dignity and glory, and in answerable esteem and love of him, and have not respect to God as the supreme end.

But against this view the objection would be raised that there are many things which do not spring from such a benevolence as this which are commonly thought to partake of the character of the moral, and which receive the commendation of men. How can they have this seeming, without having a true, morality? This is the vital question between Edwards and most of his predecessors, and to the answer of it he devotes the remainder of his treatise, nearly two-thirds of its entire compass. The motive of the work here comes to light. It was to root out thoroughly from the minds of men that confidence which they are so prone to feel in the value of a morality which is confessedly not religious. These actions commonly approved have says Edwards in substance, a certain beauty about them, but it is not the true beauty which virtue has. It is an inferior beauty, analogous only to that consisting in the fitness of the act in its relations, and comparable to the beauty of a chess-board, or of a piece of chintz or brocade, or of a square, an equilateral triangle, or a regular polygon. To employ his own words:

There is a beauty of order in society besides what consists in benevolence or can be referred to it, which is of a secondary kind; as when the different members of society have all their appointed office, place, and station, according to their several capacities and talents, and every one keeps his place and continues in his proper business. In this there is a beauty, not of a different kind from the regularity of a beautiful building, or piece of skillful architecture, where the strong pillars are set in their proper place, the pilasters in a place fit for them, the square pieces of marble in the pavement, the panels, partitions, and cornices, etc., in places proper for them.

And among other virtues he specially instances justice as consisting in the agreement, or fitness which there is between the doing of evil, for example, and the receiving of pain.

Thus these so-called virtues have a beauty, but it is not the beauty of true virtue consisting in love to being in general and to God, the being of beings.

The same argumentative necessity leads Edwards now to take up the discussion of self-love which Hutcheson had dropped. Defining it as having meaning only when it signifies regard for one's "confined private self," he discusses here in the main the question whether certain so-called virtues, such as love to friends, gratitude, etc., may not arise from mere self-love, or to use the modern term, from selfishness. He shows that, since kind actions toward us gratify our selfishness, it may be nothing but our perception of this which calls forth our gratitude for them. Far from being virtuous, or having any character of "public benevolence," such affections will be purely selfish. They may possibly at times spring from a feeling of desert, but then they are to be referred to the sense of justice previously spoken of, and are nothing but a delight in the "secondary" beauty, which gives no foundation for true virtue.

With the same general purpose in mind, Edwards next passes to the discussion of the "natural conscience," by which he means the conscience of the natural man. It consists in two things: (1) in a "disposition to approve or disapprove the moral treatment which passes between us and others from a determination of the mind to be easy or uneasy in a consciousness of our being consistent or inconsistent with ourselves;" and (2) in a "sense of desert" as previously explained. It is, in other words, a perception of moral relations, and perceives even the beauty of true benevolence, though it may not itself "taste its primary and essential beauty;" and it covers in the range of its utterances the same subjects as are covered by a true spiritual sense--that is, by a conscience spiritually enlightened. But it does not imply, as some have taught, "a disposition to true virtue, consisting in a benevolent temper naturally implanted in the hearts of all men;" for then, the clearer the perceptions of conscience, the stronger the virtuous principle--which experience shows frequently not to be the case. Even the wicked at the last day will approve their sentence; but, under this perception of conscience, they will not manifest a disposition to repent of their wickedness.

In the same way Edwards discusses natural instincts leading to natural affections which have no real virtue in them; and then passes to consider the reason why all these things are often mistaken for true virtue. And he closes the whole with the investigation whether virtue is founded in sentiment, and whether this is given to men by God arbitrarily, or whether it is founded in the very nature of things. The considerations presented here are in substance the same as those upon which the whole theory was first established.

This is the substance of the great ethical treatise which Edwards wrote in his closing years and which was published after his death. The far-reaching consequences involved in it for theology, his successors were only slowly to appreciate and develop; but it finally created an independent school of ethics, as well as of theology.

The review of the most important services of Edwards to theology is now complete. Were it the present object to discuss his entire career and influence as a historical character, much more would need to be said. The present problem is a narrower one. Not what he was, but what he did; and not what he did upon the broader field even of theology, but what he contributed to the improvement of the system which he received from his teachers, is the subject of the present study. He performed many lesser services not fitted to rank with these prime labors. Professor Park, in the introduction which he prefixed to his collection of Essays from various New England writers upon the atonement, has shown how independent the mind of Edwards everywhere was, and how many fruitful suggestions he let fall in passing, as it were, upon the greatest themes. His preaching of future punishment was valuable for the refutation of numerous dangerous errors. Perhaps the temper of mind which he bequeathed to his spiritual followers was his greatest gift--that perfect independence combined with entire loyalty to the truth, that living sense of the possibility of progress, that keen vision of the necessities of the present hour and that unquestioning subordination of every merely theoretical interest to the practical interests of the Redeemer's kingdom, which have largely distinguished the New England school among thinkers to this day. But it were enough to substantiate his claim to a high position among the theologians of the Christian ages to have begun, as he did, those discussions of the will, of the nature of sin, and of the principle of virtue which resulted finally in the large inheritance into which his children have entered. If his daring and keen speculations gave to the theology something of a rationalistic turn, which his own deep spirituality could not neutralize, it was because the age succeeding the advocacy of Deism must be a rationalizing one; and if the evil effects of this strain of thought are to be detected even to the present, it is because the forces which have from time to time arrayed themselves against evangelical theology have been the direct descendants of the ancient Deistic movement. For himself, Edwards as powerfully promoted the spiritual life of the churches as he did their theology.

 

 

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