73S 



EDWARDS, JONATHAN. 



EDWIN. 



734 



speedily followed by a second relapse. " But in process of time," he 

 observes, in continuation of what has been already quoted, "my 

 convictions and affections wore off; and I entirely lost all those 

 affections and delights, and left off secret prayer, at least as to auy 

 constant performance of it ; and returned like a dog to his vomit, and 

 went on in the ways of sin. Indeed I was at times very uneasy, 

 especially towards the latter part of my time at college; when it 

 pleased God to seize me with a pleurisy, in which he brought me nigh 

 to the grave, and shook me over the pit of hell. And yet it was not 

 long after my recovery before I fell again into my old ways of sin." 

 His final and entire conversion took place shortly after his taking his 

 B.A. degree in September 1720. The chief symptom of his ' con- 

 version ' is thus described by him : " From my childhood up, my 

 mind had been full of objections against the doctrine of God's sove- 

 reignty in choosing whom he would to eternal life, and rejecting whom 

 he pleased ; leaving them eternally to perish, and be everlastingly 

 tormented in hell. It used to appear like a horrible doctrine to me ; 

 but I remember the time very well when I seemed to be convinced, 

 and fully satisfied, as to this sovereignty of God, and his justice in 

 thus eternally disposing of men according to his sovereign pleasure. 



And there has been a wonderful alteration in my mind with 



respect to the doctrine of God's sovereignty from that day to this ; so 

 that I scarce ever have found so much as the rising of an objection 

 against it in the most absolute sense, in God showing mercy to whom 

 be will show mercy, and hardening whom he will. God's absolute 

 sovereignty and justice, with respect to salvation and damnation, is 

 what my mind seems to rest assured of, as much as of anything that I 

 see with my eyes ; at least it is so at times." 



Edwards staye.l at college two years after taking his B.A. degree, 

 preparing for the ministry. In August 1722 he went to New York, 

 having been invited by the English Presbyterians in that town to 

 become their minister. His diary records constant religious medi- 

 tations during hU eight months' stay at New York, and on the 12th 

 of January 1723 he relates that he solemnly dedicated himself to God. 

 " I made a solemn dedication of myself to God, and wrote it down, 

 giving up myself, and all that I had, to God ; to be for the future in 

 no respect my own ; to act as one that had BO right to himself in any 

 respect." He left New York in April 1723, and returned home. In 

 September of the same year he took his M.A. degree, and shortly after 

 he was chosen tutor of Yale College, an office which he filled with 

 great credit. Two years after he accepted an invitation from North- 

 ampton, in Masoachusetts, to assist his maternal grandfather, the Ilev. 

 Solomon Stoddard, in the ministry ; and, having resigned bis tutor- 

 ship, he was ordained colleague to his grandfather at Northampton in 

 February 1727, in the twenty-fourth year of his age. Shortly after, 

 he married. 



Between the time of bis going to New York and his settlement at 

 Northampton, Edwards wrote out seventy resolutions, which he kept 

 before him as his guides through the remainder of his life. They are 

 published in President Dwight's ' Life.' They mostly refer to the 

 governing of his morals and the performance of religious exercises. 



He remained at Northampton first as assistant to hh grandfather, 

 and after his grandfather's death as sole minister for twenty-three 

 years. He was all this while indefatigable in the discharge of his 

 duties as minister, and diligent in self-improvement. He was an 

 effective preacher, and acquired much fame on the occasion of a very 

 general 'revival' in the yean 1740 and 1741 : ministers and congrega- 

 tion* from all parts of New England applied to Edwards for assistance, 

 and solicited him to come among them and preach. It was at the 

 time of this revival, and in order to moderate men's zeal, that he 

 wrote his treatise on 'Religious Affections.' A revival had previously 

 taken place in his own parish of Northampton in 1734, an account of 

 which was at the time published by himself under the title, ' A Faithful 

 Narrative of the Surprising Work of God, in the Conversion of many 

 hundred Souls in Northampton :' this work excited much interest 

 among what is known as the religious public of England, where it was 

 republished in 1736 under the editorship of Dr. Isaac Watts. 



On the 22nd of June 1750, Edwards was dismissed ignominiously 

 from his charge at Northampton. He had offended a large and 

 influential part of his congregation, no lesa than six years previously, 

 by taking some very active and, as they appeared, arbitrary measures, 

 In consequence of a reported circulation of obscene books among the 

 younger members of his flock. He was openly resisted in his attempts 

 to make a public example of the offenders, and from that time hi* 

 influence over his flock was greatly weakened. But the cause of the 

 final rupture between himself and his flock, and of his dismissal, was 

 a different one. It was a refusal to admit " unconverted " persons, or 

 (in other words) persons who either could or would not say that they 

 had really embraced Christianity, to a participation in the sacrament. 

 The custom of admitting such persons had been introduced by his 

 predecessor, and not without opposition ; and now, after the custom 

 had been established some time, a fiercer opposition was raised by an 

 attempt to get rid of it. On Edwards's first announcement of his 

 disapprobation of the custom, and of his determination to end it, hi* 

 dismissal was immediatfly clamoured for. This was in the spring of 

 1711 ; and the six intervening years having been npent in continual 

 disputes, and fruitless attempts to effect a reconciliation, he was 

 dismissed in 1750. A council had been appointed, consisting of ten 



neighbouring ministers, to adjudicate between Edwards and his flock; 

 and this council determined by a majority of one "that it is expedient 

 that the pastoral relation between Mr. Edwards and his church be 

 immediately dissolved, if the people still persist in desiring it." On its 

 being put to the people, more than two hundred voted for his dismissal, 

 and only twenty against it. 



In August 1751 Edwards went as missionary to the Indians at 

 Stockbridge, a town in the western part of Massachusetts Bay, having 

 been applied to for the purpose by the Boston Commissioners for 

 Indian Affairs, and having also received an invitation from the inhabit- 

 ants of Stockbridge. Here ha had much leisure ; and it was during 

 his stay at Stockbridge that he wrote his ' Inquiry into the Freedom 

 of the Will,' and his Treatise on ' Original Sin.' The first of these 

 works, and that on which his fame chiefly rests, was written in nine 

 months, and was published in 1754. In 1757 he was choseu, without 

 any solicitation on his part, and much to his surprise, president of 

 Princeton College, New Jersey. Having after some deliberation 

 accepted the appointment, he went to Princeton in January 1758, and 

 was installed president. He died of the small-pox on the 22nd of 

 the following March. . 



It may be inferred, from the account which we have given of his 

 life, that the character of Jonathan Edwards was eminently estimable. 

 He was an industrious, meek, conscientious, kind, and just man. In 

 religion he was a Calvinist ; and his principal work, that on the Will, 

 was written in defence of the Calvinistic views on that subject and 

 against those entertained by Arminians. 



Edwards's chief works are : 1, ' A Treatise concerning Religious 

 Affections;' 2, 'An Inquiry into the modern prevailing notions 

 respecting that Freedom of the Will which is supposed to be essential 

 to Moral Agency, Virtue, and Vice, Reward and Punishment, Praise 

 and Blame ; ' 3, ' The Great Christian Doctrine of Original Sin 

 defended ; containing a Reply to the Objections of Dr. John Taylor ; ' 

 4, ' The History of Redemption ; ' 5, ' A Dissertation concerning the 

 end for which God created the World ; ' and 6, ' A Dissertation con- 

 cerning the true nature of Christian Virtue.' The three last works 

 were publishel after his death. 



Jonathan Edwards's works on the 'Freedom of the Will' and 

 ' Original Sin ' are the acknowledged authorities in defence of the 

 leading views of what is generally known as CalvinUtic Divinity. 

 The ' Inquiry into the Freedom of the Will ' is beyond dispute the 

 most comprehensive and masterly treatise in which that subject is 

 regarded as a question of metaphysical theology ; and whatever may 

 be the opinion arrived at by the reader a* regards either the principal 

 or secondary conclusions of the author, there cm be no question as 

 to the profundity of hi* reasoning, or the clearness and force with 

 which he sets forth his arguments. Edwards was in fact one of the 

 greatest metaphysicians and most powerful reasoners of his age, and 

 his writings, though d 'ficient in the graces of style, will, apart from 

 their value as exponent of the views of a great theological party, be 

 of permanent value as examples of comprehensive investigation and 

 acute logic. 



The best and most complete edition of Edwards's works is that 

 edited by President Dwight, in ten volumes. There is also an edition 

 in eight volumes, published in London, 1817. The ' Inquiry iuto the 

 Freedom of the Will' has been published separately, with an 

 'Introductory Esray' by Mr. Taylor, the author of 'The Natival 

 History of Enthusiasm.' 



EDWARDS, RICHARD, one of our earliest dramatic writers, was 

 born in Somersetshire in 1523. He was educated at Oxford, in Corpus 

 Christ! College, where he was successively a scholar and fellow : he 

 took his degree of Master of Arts in 1547. Removing to Lincoln's 

 Inn, he was made, in the beginning of Elizabeth's reign, one of the 

 gentlemen of the Queen's Chapel, and master of the children there, a 

 post which engaged him in theatrical management. He in first heard 

 of as a dramatic poet in the year 1564-5 ; and his death is said to 

 have taken place in 1566. Although he is highly commended for his 

 dramatic works by Puttenham (no very competent judge), who sets 

 him ilown as one of the two best writers ia comedy and interlude, 

 we learn the names of no more than two of his dramas. One of 

 these, ' Palamon and Aroite,' was never printed, and is lost : the 

 other, ' The excellent comedie of two the mosto faithfullest freendos 

 Damon and Pithias,' was printed iu a black-letter 4to, in 1571, again 

 in black-letter 4to, 1582, and is included in the first volume of 

 Dodsley's ' Old Plays.' Edwards also wrote some of the poems 

 inserted in 'The Paradise of Dainty Devises,' 1575, reprinted in 

 the ' British Bibliographer,' and a death-bed poem, called 'Edwards' 

 Soul-Knell." His name is interesting as belonging to one of the rude 

 founders of our drama; but his surviving play, in its artificial 

 structure and uirpoetical and undramatio details, offers little that can 

 attract any but the student of literary antiquity. 



EDWIN, King of Northumbria, was the son of Ella, who appears 

 to have reigned in that kingdom from about A.r>. 559 to 589. On the 

 death of Ella the throne was seized by EdilfrM, or Ethilfrith, the 

 husband of his daughter Acca, and Edwin, an infant, of only threw 

 years old, was conveyed to the court of Cadvau, the king of North 

 Wales. Edilfrid on this mado war upon Cadvan, and defeated him 

 near Chester, on which occasion it is said that 1200 monks of the 

 monastery of Bangor, who had assembled on a neighbouring hill to 



