University of Virginia Library

II. THE ENLIGHTENMENT OF
JONATHAN EDWARDS

The enthusiasm of the Great Awakening was
opposed by the sober Puritans as well as by Yankee
liberals. The basic charge against all such illuminism
had been formulated by Bishop Bossuet in his conflict
with Archbishop Fénelon: “Pure love is opposed to
the essence of love which always desires the enjoyment
of its object, and also to the nature of man who neces-
sarily desires happiness.” Fénelon, Pascal, and other
philosophers made elaborate and critical efforts to
meet this double charge radically. Among the most
radical was Jonathan Edwards.

As a child, Jonathan Edwards had been accustomed
to accepting the sovereignty of the Almighty as a
necessary, grim truth; and he had made repeated vain
efforts to love this Sovereign Lord as he was presented
in Puritan pulpits and literature. His first philosophical
emancipation came from reading Locke's Essay con-
cerning Human Understanding. The chapter on
“Power” taught him that it is not the will that does
the willing, but it is the “soul” or self that does it.
Will and “inclination” are the same and in a prudent
person are by nature “subject to the last dictate of the
understanding.” This insight implied that if, as he
believed, the will is depraved, unable to enjoy its true
Good, the “affections” are also benighted, and there-
fore the rational understanding is hopelessly led astray
from its normal “light of nature.” Hence, the best that
a prudent understanding can do is to direct the “heart”
(affections, inclinations, will) toward an enlightened
self-love and a social benevolence. But to achieve “true
virtue” or “pure love” to Perfect Being is naturally
impossible. Being a sensitive, highly emotional youth,
he became desperate, for the chances of being
“elected” by Grace were, on Calvinistic calculations,
very slight.

He was under this tension when, after graduating
from Yale in 1720, he accepted his first charge as a
minister of a Presbyterian congregation in New York.
The family of John Smith, with which he boarded, was
influenced by “new light” pietism and he soon found
himself in intimate relations with religiously enlight-
ened laymen. His own description of what happened
to him during those months in New York and imme-
diately following is a vivid account of illumination:

My sense of divine things seemed gradually to increase, until
I went to preach in Newyork [sic]... and while I was
there I felt them, very sensibly, in a much higher degree
than I had done before. My longings after God and holiness
were much increased. Pure and humble, holy and heavenly
Christianity, appeared exceeding amiable to me.... The

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inward ardor of my soul, seemed to be hindered and pent
up, and could not freely flame out as it would.... Holiness
... appeared to me to be of a sweet, pleasant, charming,
serene, calm nature; which brought an inexpressible purity,
brightness, peacefulness and ravishment of the soul.... On
January 12, 1723 I made a solemn dedication of myself to
God.... The sweetest joys and delights I have experienced,
have not been those that have arisen from a hope of my
own good estate, but in a direct view of the glorious things
of the gospel.... I have many times had a sense of the
glory of the third person in the Trinity, in his office of
Sanctifier, in his holy operations, communicating divine
light and life to the soul,... as an infinite fountain of divine
glory... like the sun in its glory, sweetly and pleasantly
diffusing light and life

(Narrative of his Conversion, ca.
1740).

In 1734 Edwards outlined his doctrine of enlighten-
ment in a philosophical sermon published under the
title: A Divine and Supernatural Light, Immediately
Imparted to the Soul by the Spirit of God. He was now
ready to develop the philosophy of divine illumination,
but he was distracted by the Great Awakening. For
a decade, he devoted himself to the practical problems
and efforts of the revival. After the enthusiasm had
somewhat abated, he returned to his theoretical analy-
sis and in 1746 published his Treatise concerning Reli-
gious Affections. Part I is devoted to the thesis that
religion is at bottom an affair of “the heart” and that
emotional forms of religious expression must be
analyzed for evidences of divine Grace. Part II is a
critique of those “signs” that are not evidence of
enlightenment. Part III states and defends the follow-
ing major conclusions:

(1) God is amiable because of his “inherent” excel-
lence rather than on account of his “objective”
attributes. Holy love is the sense of this beauty, har-
mony, and light.

(2) True virtue is such enjoyment; it is not the “nat-
ural” calculated judgment of conscience, nor is it a
gratitude for divine benevolence. The “moral sense”
as it is emphasized by the Scottish Enlightenment is
only an approximation to divinely enlightened love.

(3) Holy love is a prerequisite for the “witness of
the Spirit” which is central to the “covenant of Grace.”

(4) This is a “rebirth in the Spirit” and not a
“regeneration” of the will.

(5) This is not mysticism. “Gracious affections are
attended with a reasonable and spiritual conviction of
the judgment” (Part III, Sec. V).

(6) “Holy practice” must be pursued with “highest
earnestness” and a convert with an enlightened heart
makes “religion eminently his work and business” (Part
III, Sec. XII).

Jonathan Edwards' theory of enlightenment was
based not only on his own experience and on the Great
Awakening but also on his wide reading in the litera-
ture of illuminism, especially Scottish and Dutch. At
the time of his death in Princeton he was planning
to supplement his philosophical treatises and essays by
a systematic exposition of “Lovely Christianity.” It is
possible that his curious sketch on “The Trinity” was
intended for this systematic work of Pietist philosophy.
It begins:

(Representative
Selections, eds. Faust and Johnson, p. 375).

This is obviously a portrait of Self-enlightened Perfect
Being. It attempts to express in terms of the new
psychology a formal definition of the Divine Essence
and Glory.