made in the Divine image and might hold communion with the Holy One.* Hence, the "excellent order, peace, and beautiful harmony, the proper and perfect state" of man universal, had fallen into confused ruin.

"That the posterity of Adam should be born without holiness, and so with a depraved nature, comes to pass as much by the established course of nature as the continuance of a corrupt disposition in a particular person after he once has it." + "So that, on the whole, all mankind have an infallibly effectual propensity to that moral evil which infinitely outweighs the value of all the good that can be in them, and universally run themselves into that which is in effect their own utter, eternal perdition, as being finally accursed of God, and the subjects of his remediless wrath."

Statements more revolting to common sense, to conscience, to the highest spiritual consciousness alike of heathen sages and Christian saints, can certainly never be made, than this truly pious man has allowed himself to perpetrate upon this subject. In his self-contradictory assertions in regard to the infinite sins of finite creatures he has out-Lutherized Luther and out-Calvinized Calvin, if, indeed, that is possible; and he seems never to have had even a transient misgiving, that, in representing God as the eternally angry punisher of natural and inevitable evil, he did actually attribute to him a malignant injustice too bad to conceive of even in Satan. But evidently his exaggerations grew out of his own poignant sense of demerit, and a profound pity for his fellow-criminals; from no icy peak of philosophical indifference did he look down upon the masses of mankind weltering and swallowed up in the lava-floods of guilt. He was full of tender compassion, not scorn.

But what concerns us now particularly to notice in this doctrine is the view which he has repeated after the Reformers, that evil necessarily results in all men, when supernatural influence is withheld. Here, indeed, is the pith and marrow of the Orthodox creed upon the subject of original sin and regeneration. The Catholic Church described far more justly the measure of human depravity and the means of moral renewal. § But, making allowance for the half-statements which

* Edwards's Works, Vol. VI., pp. 428, 429.

t Ibid., Vol. VI., p. 432.

Ibid., Vol. VI., pp. 157, 137.

§ Moehler's Symbolism, B. I., c ii., § 5, pp. 137-142; c. iii., § 11, p. 178.

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so fatally intermingle in our Babel speech, must it not be granted that sound philosophy as well as universal experience confirms, in the main, this view? It is the recognition of this " open secret" of our spiritual existence that has led men into the exaggerations to which the best have been most prone. For is not the doctrine of a total withdrawal of supernatural aid from man, and so of his total depravity, the most monstrous exaggeration? Does it not involve a gross intellectual absurdity, as well as imply impious doubts and denials of Infinite Goodness? Must not the central vitality of every impulse, even the most debased, be conceived of as for ever recreated by God? Is not the Spirit within the spirit of even the most abandoned for ever seeking to restore a more than original peace, purity, and power?

Looking upon man as an outcast, Edwards saw advancing through all history a glorious "work of redemption," of which Christ is the centre, a work whereby the Divine character is displaying itself in its majesty and loveliness, and through whose instrumentalities communion between God and the race of Adam is once more opened. His longing was to live for the advancement of this kingdom of heaven. He believed that the religious excitement which he saw appearing in his own society and elsewhere in the years 1734 - 1741 was quickened by influences showered from on high, and gave himself up, with all his energies, to till, and weed, and gather in the spiritual harvest. It is true wisdom, before passing judgment upon men or movements, to place ourselves within their sphere by sympathy. And it is well, therefore, to take Edwards's own testimony as to this revival, in which he was earnestly engaged. So let us condense from his description a few of its most characteristic features.

"Great numbers," he says, have been brought, under this influence, to a deep sense of their own sinfulness, vileness, heinous disregard of God and contempt of the Saviour, of their hardness of heart, proneness to evil, exceeding pollution, utter misery and worthlessness, exceeding helplessness, and extreme need of Divine pity and help. Thence they have passed to a new and great conviction of the truth of the Gospel, and to a firm persuasion that Christ Jesus is the Son of God and the Redeemer of the world. They have had a most affecting sense of the excellency and sufficiency of this Saviour, of the wonders of

* Edwards's Works, Vol. II., pp. 9–392.

Christ's dying love and the sincerity of his invitations, and a consequent affiance to him, and perfect rest and holy rejoicing in him, - a lively view of the infinite amiableness of Christ's person, and of his transcendent beauty, until the heart was swallowed up in a glow of Christ's love coming down from Christ's heart in heaven, all the soul flowing out in love to him again, so that there seemed to be a constant flowing and reflowing from heart to heart, and all was solace, peace, and bliss unspeakable. Then the spirit dwelt on high, had admiring and exalting apprehensions of the glory of the Divine perfections, of God's majesty, holiness, unerring wisdom, awful justice; felt a sweet rejoicing that he is all-sufficient and unchangeably happy, an exulting sense that he rules over all and does his will with uncontrollable sovereignty, a most earnest desire for the honor of his name, a sensible, clear, and constant preference of the Divine glory to all one's own interests, both worldly and spiritual, even to a willingness to live and die in darkness and horror, if only thereby he might be glorified. And there has been a great dependence upon the Holy Spirit, a wonderful access to God by prayer, frequent, plain answers to prayer, earnest longings after more holiness and conformity to God, with a deep sense of the need of God's help, an extraordinary self-dedication and resignation of all to God, with high exercises of love to him and rest and joy in him. Together with these states of feeling have there been thoughts of heaven as a world of love, where love shall be the saints' eternal food, where all shall dwell in the light of love and swim in an ocean of love, and where the very air and breath will be nothing but love; and there has been a most dear love for all God's people on earth, and a universal benevolence for mankind, with a longing to embrace the whole world in the arms of pity and mercy. These things have been accompanied with an exceeding concern and zeal for common duties, and a noted eminence in their performance, and an inoffensiveness of life and conversation, and a great meekness, gentleness, and benevolence of spirit and behaviour."

Such, in brief, is the sketch which Edwards has given of the effects produced upon the subjects of this revival, and there is no reason to question its general fidelity. That there were great evils attending these scenes of intense excitement he was the last to deny, though his theory of accounting for them, by the supposition that the Devil is more than usually active in sowing thistles and darnel at seasons when he sees the angels scattering wheat-seed, might be thought a rather fanciful renewal of the old Persian and Manichæan no

Edwards's Works, Vol. III., pp. 123–140.

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tions. But whatever his theory, it must be confessed, that, in fact, Edwards analyzed and exposed the self-delusions incident to enthusiasm with a master hand. And no clinical lecturer in the wards of a hospital could surpass him in the scientific accuracy with which he classified, examined, and gave the treatment of every possible form of morbid spirituality. By his pen, by preaching, and by personal exertions, he did his utmost to save what he devoutly considered a most holy work from the contamination of pride, self-will, and sensuality. But though laboring sincerely and wisely, he labored in vain. Apart from the erroneous views of God and man inculcated, there was a practical defect in the whole movement, in the fact, that, in seeking to elevate man's highest powers, it did injustice to the variety of his functions and relations as a social being upon earth. It did not sufficiently respect the symmetry of man's nature, nor the complexity of his destiny and duties. He who aims at being more than human, while he is human, is in great danger of becoming less.

The extravagances which intermingled in these revivals would, however, have been much less frequent and intense, had others comprehended more clearly and sympathized more heartily with the disinterested view of religion taught by Edwards in his best moods. But even he too often made low appeals to his hearers' personal fears, aroused their consciences through horrors spread out in awful extent and detail before their imaginations, and stimulated them to raptures. of really selfish joy. In these respects, however, he was far less in fault than Whitefield, and the itinerants who followed in his train, to whose influence must be fairly traced a large proportion of the excesses which characterized that period, and to a brief notice of whose career in New England we must now pass.

It was in 1740 that Whitefield paid his first visit to Massachusetts. He was then in the full flush of early success, fresh, elated, vigorous, earnestly convinced of his Divine commission, overflowing with sympathy, conscious of his marvellous power as a speaker, fond of intense action, and not a little maddened with the fever of proselytism. His progress was a triumph. Reputation ran before him like a herald, and crowds of all denominations, old and young, learned and simple, rich and poor, some from curiosity, some from spiritual thirst, some from the contagion of popular feel

ing, thronged to the houses of worship to hear the orator of whose wonderful influence such reports were spread. The story of his life is too well known to need repeating. Here, as in England, the few and the many confessed his magic. charm. They could not resist his imposing air and magnetic energy, his flexible and melodious voice, for ever changing in its modulations with every theme and occasion, - his dramatic skill and splendid rhetoric, his direct, homely, quaint illustrations, his pathetic appeals to natural feeling, and brilliant or terrible pictures for the imagination, his few, plain doctrines, so intelligible that the most dull could comprehend his whole theology at first hearing, his uncompromising threats of damnation, and promises of glory, his tender, warm, gushing sensibility, his profound devotedness, earnest piety, awful sense of spiritual realities, and finally, and above all, his vivid conception of the mighty agency of God through Christ and the Spirit as mysteriously near and instantly operative.* Whole communities gravitated towards him as he swept along, and even the most cultivated and self-governed found their habitual equilibrium disturbed by an attraction which they could not at the time describe, nor well account for afterwards.

Whitefield's movements in New England, regarded as a means of introducing Methodism, do not demand any special attention from us here; but it is quite important to observe the impression which he produced upon the Orthodox Congregational body. For it is owing, in no slight measure, to his influence, and to the direction then given to piety, that a selfish pursuit of salvation was encouraged, instead of the love of absolute goodness and the utter surrender of private interests to universal well-being, in which the higher views of Edwards, when followed out to their just consequences, would have terminated. Undoubtedly the whole tone of Protestant theology, from Luther and Calvin downwards, through even the best writers, had tended to produce an extreme individualism, to separate in thought the destiny of single men from the destiny of the race, and to stimulate each believer to an intense consciousness of personal guilt, and an

*

Stephens's Miscellanies, Art. Life of Whitefield. Chauncy's Seasonable Thoughts, p. 36, et passim. Quincy's Hist. of Harvard University, Vol. II., pp. 40-53.

+ Edwards's Works, Vol. III., p. 499; Vol. IV., pp. 172, 183. Hopkins's Life, pp. 118, 137.