Appendix

By George P. Fisher

THE DISMISSAL OF EDWARDS FROM THE CHURCH IN NORTHAMPTON

The great trial — one is tempted to call it the tragic event — in the career of Edwards was his dismissal from his pastoral charge at Northampton, after a service of twenty-four years in the ministry there — a dismissal that was judged to be expedient by a majority of one in a council of ministers and by a large majority of the members of the church. It was preceded by a discord which had lasted for a number of years. Were we to look up the causes that led to this separation, we should have to explore the history of the “Great Revival” and of its consequences. The religious movement had deepened in the mind of its chief promoter his conviction of the vital importance of the spiritual experience of conversion. This conviction was made manifest in successive writings issued by him, including his book on the “Religious Affections” (1746). His observations during and after the commotion attending the Revival naturally inspired him with a more strenuous antagonism to everything indicative of laxness of morals in members of his flock, but it also prompted him to a rising antipathy, ending in a determined resistance, to a practice which had been formed and publicly defended by his honored grandfather and predecessor in office, the revered Stoddard, the practice of admitting to the communion of the Lord’s Supper persons who were free from scandalous conduct, and desired this privilege as a step on the road to a new spiritual life, which neither they nor the professed Christian converts about them recognized as already attained by them. The point in dispute was whether, in the intention of Jesus, the Lord’s Supper was a “converting ordinance.” Edwards took ground resolutely against a custom which was ardently approved by most of his parishioners, was sanctified in their eyes by the course of their previous, venerated pastor, and had spread widely in the churches of New England. The outbreaking of the disagreement that ended in the rupture of the pastoral tie and the actual exile of Edwards by his own act, as the natural result, was an instance of ecclesiastical discipline, set on foot by him from the purest motives, but which, in some of its incidents, naturally excited earnest and bitter opposition among the principal families of his parish. In all the transactions provoked at the outset by this initial contention, however in some particulars Edwards may be thought to have erred in judgment, it is undeniable that he uniformly acted with entire self-control, dignity and freedom from asperity of language and deportment. The position that he took was at variance with a fixed, widely diffused public opinion on the theological question at issue, then the subject of a heated controversy far and wide. It is an interesting fact that when the struggle at Northampton had become a thing of the past one of the foremost leaders there of the party hostile to Edwards openly and penitently confessed to him his remorse for his temper and conduct during the contest, imploring and receiving forgiveness for it. It is, also, an historic fact worthy of note that the ground taken by Edwards on the question of the qualifications requisite for full communion with the visible church came to be sanctioned by the New England churches generally, and to be regarded by them as an essential part of their ecclesiastical system. The Half- Way Covenant, which he opposed, was condemned. Much, therefore, as Edwards suffered for his conscientious defence of his opinion in writings and in pastoral administration, the issue was the victory of his cause on what was the extended theatre of the conflict.

II

THE ACCOUNT GIVEN BY EDWARDS OF HIS METHOD OF STUDY

In the letter to the Trustees of Princeton College, Edwards refers first to the temporal inconveniences to himself and his family which an acceptance of their offer would involve. But his main objection is said to be his “own defects,” viz., a constitution which begets ef a low tide of spirits,” with a bashful, retiring manner, a taciturn way, “with a disagreeable dullness and stiffness much unfitting” him for conversation and for such business as the government of a college. Then comes an interesting statement of his method of study and the great accumulation, consequent upon it, of materials in the form of notes, in great part records of his own thoughts. Finally he speaks of his schemes for the composition of various works, several of which, in a preliminary form, saw the light subsequently

to his death.

AUGUSTINE ON THE TRINITY AS IMAGED FORTH IN THE HUMAN MIND

Edwards was apparently acquainted with Augustine’s conception of the imagery of the Trinity in the human

APPENDIX

mind, although it does not appear that he had read the Latin Father’s treatise on the Trinity. Augustine sets forth his, view in varying forms. One of them, a concise expression, is the following. 1 These three, memory, intelligence, will; since there are not three lives (vitce), hut one life (vita), nor three minds but one mind (mens), it follows that there are not three substances, but one substance (substantia). Elsewhere, as an equivalent of intelligence (intelligentia) he uses the words, “interna visio,” and as an equivalent of will (voluntas) in this connection, he uses love (caritas). He says that the mind [1] “remembers itself,” “recollects by means of memory,” [2] “knows itself,” “by means of intelligence beholds,” [3] “embraces (amplectitur) through love,” and “if love, by which the Father loves the Son, and the Son loves the Father, demonstrates in an inexpressible manner the communion of both, what more suitable (convenientius) than that He who is the Spirit common to both should be styled Love.” “Mind remembers itself, knows itself, loves itself; if thus we discern, trinity we discern.”

IV

PRESIDENT T. D. WOOLSEY ON THE PERSONAL TRAITS AND THE INFLUENCE OF EDWARDS

President Woolsey, in the commemorative discourse which he delivered in 1870 at the meeting of the descendants of Edwards — of whom he was one — mingles with full appreciation of his mental and moral qualities and his influence, touches of just criticism. A number of the points to which he adverts, I had anticipated before

recurring to his address, but I mention them on account of his aptitude of expression. Dr. Woolsey speaks of the clearness and penetration of the intellect of Edwards, his high standard in all things and his sense of spiritual beauty, his union of the traits of the Apostles Paul and John, his devotion to biblical study in connection with abstract reasoning, his almost feminine tenderness united with masculine vigor and firmness, the blending of principle and feeling in his religious character, his severe, almost excessive self-criticism. But Dr. Woolsey, in his discriminating estimate of Edwards, expresses the feeling that there was “too much repression of natural qualities in the endeavor after a perfect conformity of will and soul to the will of God. ... He and others of the best Puritans of New England ... in the struggle of the human soul to rise above earthly things ... as a ship in a storm throws away some of its less essential freight .... sacrificed what is akin to the human for converse with the divine. ... To unite the two is perfection: so they reached it only on one side.” Proofs are given by Dr. Woolsey of the unsurpassed impressiveness of Edwards as a. preacher in his day in New England. Dr. Woolsey recognizes his great theological influence, but of the modifications of theology among his followers which sprung up in New England from his example and influence, he remarks, “they carried practical views borrowed from him to an extreme, as in the point of disinterested benevolence. In all this I seem to see several new tendencies impressed on religious life. Eirst there is a tendency in a greater degree toward the subjective in religion. This is good, but when it impels the mind into self-analysis and continued examination of motives, may end in great evil.

Again there is a tendency to greater activity in religious life.” This Dr. Woolsey ascribes “to the putting of benevolence as a leading idea into the place which faith tool*: among earlier Protestants; and hence spring with the same ease the thousand efforts to do good which have emanated in New England.”

Whoever ponders the foregoing observations of Dr. Woolsey may see his way to a better understanding than is common of the Unitarian movement and the division attending it in the New England churches. Edwards, if he was a great promoter, was also a discriminating critic, of Revivals. They spread under the t( auspices “of the New England school that succeeded him. Edwards himself was not blind to the ethical as well as the heavenward relations of “love to being in general.” As concerned his own feelings and outward conduct, he was reverently attentive to the precepts of the Sermon on the Mount. At length a more vivid sense of the humane bearings of the principle of benevolence arose. A reaction appeared against what was deemed an excessive interest in religious emotions, which was thought to leave too far in the background the claims that belong to the duties and services of the life here below. The natural brotherhood of man, as well as the moral brotherhood of believers in Christ, the natural paternity of the Eather, as well as His moral Fatherhood in relation to believers, excited a new interest. It is always possible, on the one hand, to forget what injunction is the first and great command, or, on the other, to forget that the second is like unto, or of a piece with, the same.