Preface
By George P. Fisher
The major part of the manuscripts of Jonathan Edwards was for a good while in the hands of the late Professor Edwards A. Park, for him to use in composing a biography of Edwards which he had projected — — a task for which that eminent theological teacher was in many respects admirably qualified. This undertaking, however, owing to his advanced age and his high ideal of what the proposed biography should be, was not carried by him beyond its early preparatory stages. On his decease, in accordance with an arrangement made a number of years before with the representative of the Edwards family, by whom the papers had been lent to Professor Park, they were transferred permar nently to Yale University.
One of the manuscripts thus received, printed from a careful transcription, forms the concluding Part of the present volume. The sketch of the principal events in the life of the Author, and the characteristics of his theology, which forms the Introduction, I have thought would not be unwelcome, especially as the Fifth of October, 1903, is the two-hundredth anniversary of his birth. Prior to the more general Introduction, some statements pertaining to the literary history of the treatise which follows it will not be out of place.
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Most of the persons who are interested in theological inquiries can hardly fail to be desirous to ascertain what were the thoughts of so great a theologian as Jonathan Edwards on the subject of the Trinity. A half-century ago, rumors were afloat concerning an Essay on this subject which was represented to exist in manuscript among his unpublished papers. As early as 1851 Dr. Bushnell called for the publication of a manuscript “treatise” from the pen of Edwards, which had been described to him as an “a priori argument for the Trinity,” that would occasion surprise were it suffered to appear in print. 1 In 1880, Dr. 0. W. Holmes also complained that the custodians of the Edwards manuscripts chose to withhold from the public an Essay which, he had been assured on “unquestionable authority,” was in “the direction of Arianism or Sabellianism.” 2 A few years later (about 1885), in an article in Herzog’s Real-Encyclopadie, 3 Professor Calvin E. Stowe referred to an unpublished manuscript of Edwards on the Trinity in a manner to indicate that he had examined it, since he declares it to be a very able and carefully composed dissertation manifesting boldness and independence.
The same year new light was thrown on this topic by Professor Egbert C. Smyth’s publication from a copy, which had been made long before, of a manuscript of
1 Bushnell, Christ in Theology, p. vi.
* International Review (1880), also Pages from an Old Volume of Life, p. 397.
3 Quoted by Professor A. G. Allen, Jonathan Edwards (1889), p. 341.
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Edwards, which is entitled in its printed form “Observations concerning the Scripture (Economy of the Trinity and Covenant of Redemption.” The Essay itself is brief, containing about 800 words, but it is concise, and is in the characteristic style of Edwards. This small volume is increased in value by the scholarly introduction and notes of the Editor. As he remarks, however, it is not a “treatise” — the term used in the citation above from Dr. Bushnell. It deals with only one branch of the subject, which is more fully treated by its Author elsewhere. The topic of the “Observations” is the mutual relation of the Persons of the Trinity with reference to the supposed Covenant of Redemption. It manifests no leaning towards Arianism or any. other of the types of opinion usually characterized as heterodox.
In 1865 an important manuscript of Edwards was edited in Scotland and printed there for private circulation, by Rev. A. B. Grosart, 1 who had obtained it in America at a time when he had intended to prepare a collective edition of the works of Edwards. This “Treatise on Grace,” which is the title given it, comprises a full discussion of the Scriptural Doctrine of the Holy Spirit. It considers at length both the relation of the Holy Spirit to the Father and the Son, and the function and agency of the Spirit in the work of redemption. Under this last head, it is maintained that the presence and agency of the Holy Spirit is one and
1 Selections from the Unpublished Writings of Jonathan Edwards p. 19 ff.
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the same with the indwelling of God in the souls of believers, and is the bond connecting them with Christ, as in the immanent relations of the Deity it unites the Father and the Son.
A notable and almost epoch-making contribution on the writings and opinions of Edwards concerning the Trinity appeared in 1881, in two Articles — forming a connected whole — in the Bibliotheca Sacra, from the pen of Professor Edwards A. Park. In the first Article are copious extracts from the “Monthly Review” (April 1751) in which were recorded passages from “The Philosophical Principles of Natural and Revealed Religion,” by the Chevalier Ramsay — a work published shortly before. Ramsay was a Scotchman by birth, with a strong taste and corresponding talent for metaphysical speculation. He espoused successive phases of religious thought and belief, passing from orthodox Protestantism through Deism and, later, Scepticism, into the Roman Catholic Church. He resided for a considerable time in France, and was for a part of this period in close intercourse with Fenelon and under his influence. At the widest remove from many of Ramsay’s religious tenets, Edwards approved, as concurrent with his own, the views which Ramsay set forth, in his book, of the infinitude of God, of His activity as eternal and not originating in anything external but from within; of the analogy, up to a limit in measure, of that activity, in the human mind; of the three distinctions in the Deity, coequal in all things, self-origination only excepted. In the second Article Professor Park adverts to the refer-PREFACE xience that he had made in the first l to a manuscript of Edwards containing “remarks on the Trinity,” which, he had there said, “has been mislaid and cannot yet be found”; 2 although he also observes: “Within the last few months, and particularly the last few weeks, I have found writings of Edwards and memoranda of my own which enable me to. say with assurance what I could not have said without much diffidence. They have enabled me to recognize what without them I could not exactly recall” Later, in the second Article, 3 Professor Park proceeds to give, from notes, some account of the contents of the “mislaid,” and not yet recovered, Essay. After an interval, the vanished Essay turned up in a place not open to observation, into which, as Professor Park explained, it had accidentally fallen. He had it transcribed with much painstaking, and at his own expense. This was read in his presence by several of his clerical friends of high standing, or read to them. Notes were made of its contents by at least one of them. The Professor evidently had not a shadow of doubt of its identity with the mislaid and later discovered document which was still in his possession. It was manifest that he knew nothing of the existence of any other manuf script of Edwards to be regarded in any just sense as a rival of that which is printed in this volume. He considered this Essay, likewise, to be none other than the Writing of Edwards on the Trinity the publication of which had been repeatedly called for. There is some difficulty arising from a seeming want of harmony be- 1 P. 147. a P. 187, note. P. 359 £ xii PREFACE
tween certain expressions in the notes of Professor Park in the Bibliotheca Sacra article and this Essay which had been found and recognized by him as the lost manuscript. In the description in the Article, he speaks of the Essay as divided into two parts. The phraseology, also, of some citations in the notes does not coincide with that Essay. As to the first point, however, the expression in the sketch in the notes is: “That [mislaid] Essay was divided in fact though not in form into two parts.” As to particular discrepancies, Professor Park, in the Article l refers, as the basis of his description of the mislaid Essay, not only to “memoranda of my [his] own,” but also, to other writings of Edwards which he had not found before, but which now helped him “to recognize what he could not exactly recall. 77 Moreover, in the course of this sketch, he refers 2 briefly to language which Edwards in other writings had applied to the several Persons of the Trinity, and he quotes from one of his [Edwards’s] manuscripts a sentence on” the eternal generation of the Son.” 3 On the next page, also, in a note on “The Observations” of Edwards on the Trinity, edited by Professor E.’C. Smyth, he remarks that Edwards was wont to pen his thoughts as they occurred to him; that he often expressed substantially the same thoughts in different manuscripts. He adds: “The present writer’s remembrances of the Essay and some peculiar words in it,” inserted in the sketch of it, correspond with the ‘Observations’ as published by Professor Smyth.” It appears to me a reasonable supposition that, mingled
P. 187. a p. 360. »P. 361, note 3.
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with the Professor’s notes which had been pencilled in the perusal of the Essay, were memoranda derived elsewhere from Edwards, and that a confusion of notes from different sources, which might readily occur, was the occasion of the variations that have been mentioned.
Which of the several writings of Edwards it was that provoked so much curiosity, and was now and then imagined to inculcate opinions at variance with orthodox tenets is really a question of minor consequence, and this for the simple reason that with respect to none of them was there any ground for such an imputation or suspicion. It appears to me probable that one reason why certain proprietors and editors of writings of Edwards hesitated about the publication of a dissertation from his pen on the Trinity was the view, which Edwards held and defended, of the subordination of Persons in the Divine Being — the eternal generation of the Son being a primary element in his faith. He was no more tinctured with Arianism and other types of opinion under the ban of the principal organized churches than the oecumenical creeds are thus tinctured, as well as the creeds of the orthodox doctors of theology generally in the ancient and later periods of Church History. But with the expiration of the century in which Edwards lived, the Nicene doctrine of the eternal generation of the Son ceased to exist any longer as a part of New England orthodoxy. It was not only discarded by its leaders, but it was often openly repudiated, and sometimes with derision. There is no occasion for surprise, if reports of what Edwards had written on the subject xiv PREFACE
should make an impression within as well as without the local schools of orthodoxy, that unpublished writings of the foremost of the New England divines on this subject were not wholly free from a taint of heterodoxy. With the renunciation of the philosophy on the subject which was received and expounded by Edwards, and with the ideas of the later New England schools on the subject, Professor Park, despite his profound respect for his genius and, in general, for his teachings, was in full accord. Hence, the philosophical parts of the expositions of the Trinity by Edwards, and such of his Biblical interpretations as corresponded to them, did not win from him concurrence or. sympathy.
From these circumstances it appears to me that the question which of the several compositions of Edwards on the doctrine of the Trinity was suspected of containing heresy, or whether it was either of them exclusively that was subject to this imputation or surmise, are questions of minor importance, and that the same may be said of the question, should it be mooted, which of them was mislaid and found in Professor Park’s dwelling. The composition of it was evidently gradual and extended over a long period, from time to time. As will be seen by the reader, interpolations of a few lines were inserted in the first draft, and, besides these, additions, here and there, of considerable length. The perusal of the manuscript calls to mind his Letters to the Trustees of Princeton College, in which he explains his habitual method of pursuing his studies and of recording, as he went on, their results, with an eye to the publication of treatises on the subjects which he considered most timely and important. The Essay on the Trinity shows the rapidity with which his pen moved, and as far as the forming of sentences and other matters of style are concerned would have been doubtless subjected to a great deal of revision had he set out to mould it for the press. The Writings published by Edwards in his lifetime sufficiently manifest the external literary features of his style. An intermediate class, e.g., the History of Redemption, were composed not without care, but are not only less elaborate in the contents, but in style lack the Author’s finishing touches. It appears to me judicious to present the present Essay to the reader just as it stands. I do not propose to subject its doctrinal teaching to critcism, but, if I am not mistaken, even in its present form, it will be deemed lucid in its course of thought, and one of the ablest arguments of this species which the History of Doctrine affords in behalf of fundamental positions of the Nicene theology. The Paper in the present volume, as far as I am qualified to judge, is decidedly the most comprehensive and complete discussion of the doctrine on all sides that emanated from its author.
G. P. F.