that as soon as Mr. Edwards should close his discourse, the Judge would descend, and the final separation take place." His arguments came with overwhelming weight upon the soul. One of the sermons-that on "Justification by Faith"-well known as a most argumentative piece of reasoning, was the means of the greatest awakening. He had one aim before him-the glory of God in the salvation of sinners-and he realized it.

The Rev. Dr. Trumbull mentions a case of his power to impress a strange congregation. It was at Enfield where there was great religious indifference. "When they went into the meeting-house, the appearance of the assembly was thoughtless and vain. The people hardly conducted themselves with common decency. The Rev. Jonathan Edwards of Northampton preached; and before the sermon was ended the assembly appeared deeply impressed, and bowed down with an awful conviction of their sin and danger. There was such a breathing of distress and weeping, that the preacher was obliged to speak to the people and desire silence, that he might be heard." He spoke as one who knew the human heart, for he had thorough acquaintance with his own, and with the philosophy of the mind. He spoke the word of God with singular clearness. He spoke to the conscience. He spoke with strong feeling and great fervour, as one in earnest for the salvation of souls. And God largely owned his preaching.

His writings were very many and of a most remarkable kind. By them he left a lasting benefit to the Church. He met the objections of philosophy by his able book on "The Freedom of the Will," and of heresy by his treatise on "Original Sin."

These were written amidst the depths of an American forest, and while he was missionary to the Indians, and preaching two sermons weekly to his English congregation, and two by an interpreter to the Indians, and while he had to watch against the machinations of his enemies and con- . duct a correspondence which was both lengthy and troublesome. Notwithstanding these labours, he wrote his treatise on the "Freedom of the Will" in four months and a half. He exposed the danger of the spiritual life by his book on "The Religious Affections," "one of the most valuable works on practical and experimental piety ever published."* He presented a portrait of a devoted Christian and exemplary missionary in "The Biography of David Brainerd," his intimate friend. He stirred up the Church of God in many lands by his "Narrative of Surprising Conversions," and his "Thoughts on the Revival of Religion ;" and he has edified the Church of suceeding ages by his "History of Redemption," published after his death, and his many able and practical "Sermons." Ardently devoted to his work, studying for many years during fourteen hours a day, preaching often, and conversing with the anxious, he finished a career of amazing usefulness, and died at fifty-four."

His posthumous manuscripts, written with great care, and arranged by numbers, amounted to fourteen hundred. None of the editions yet published gives a complete list of his works. A volume on 66 'Charity and its Fruits" was issued only a few years ago, and proposals were then made by an eminent firm to publish a complete and exact edition in fourteen volumes, but the failure of the house prevented the execution of the design. Among his MSS.

*Henry Rogers.

there is an elaborate treatise on the Trinity which, it is strange, has never been printed, notwitstanding the controversy on that subject among the divines of New England, whose theology was so largely affected by the . thoughts of Jonathan Edwards. The style of his writings is their chief defect. He had not an opportunity of cultivating the graces of good writing in his time of education, and he thought neatness and correctness in style of little consequence, as did another great theological author, Dr. John Owen, the Puritan. On one occasion, however, he read one of Richardson's novels, and the impression which it made upon him, awakened grief for his inattention to style, and made him resolve to pay more regard to it in the future. This disadvantage did not hinder his pen from work. He wrote with great perspicuity and power, and upon the grandest themes; hence he obtained the lofty place which has been assigned him in theological literature.

"The name of Jonathan Edwards," says Henry Rogers, "is held in profound veneration by thinking men of all parties; and this universal homage, when contrasted with the obscurity of his life and the peculiarities of his opinions, is one, among a thousand proofs, that real merit will never be long overlooked, and that the rewards of fame are not so capriciously bestowed as is often imagined. Though public opinion sometimes makes preposterous attempts to elevate the mean and the little, and even leaves transcendent merit to struggle for a while with neglect, it is sure, sooner or later, to rectify its errors. We invariably find that those laurels, with which, as if in mockery, it has graced inferior genius, begin to wither in the very hour of their bloom, and that it has reserved its

immortal amaranths for brows worthy of such imperishable honours.

"Never was there a triumph of genius more decisive than that of Jonathan Edwards. By the concurrent voice of all who have perused his writings, he is assigned one of the first, if not the very first place, amongst the masters of human reason. Many of the most acute metaphysicians and accomplished divines of the past and present age, have been the most ardent of his admirers; we refer to such men as Hume, Mackintosh, Stewart, Robert Hall, and Chalmers. All these celebrated men differed from Edwards in some of his most cherished speculations, and some of them abhorred all the peculiar doctrines, in the explication and defence of which he concentrated the full force of his mighty intellect; yet they all agree in the homage they render to that intellect; like that of a few other very great minds, it was too powerful to allow even the proverbial meanness of controversial animosity to attempt the ungracious work of depreciation.

"Jonathan Edwards extorted this unanimous applause by the greatness of his genius in a single department. He was not favoured by any one of the many adventitious advantages which so often help genius to fame; he was utterly destitute of those graces of imagination and of style, which have sometimes clothed abstract truth in many of the attractions of poetry, and administered the profoundest wisdom in the enticing vehicle of eloquence. He wrote for special purposes, and addressed himself to a narrow circle; and he has managed to embody his profound conceptions in the most repulsive of all possible forms. Under such circumstances, nothing but transcendent genius could have subdued the disgust which the

pride of philosophy would necessarily feel at the peculiarities of his religious opinions, or with which a sensitive taste would recoil from the hideous deformities of his style. Yet his gigantic force of intellect, and that alone, has not merely redeemed his writings from obscurity, but attracted the attention, not only of many of the wisest but the most polished of mankind. Like St. Paul at Athens, he has compelled even the Stoics and Epicureans to listen to him by the depth and originality of his speculations."

This is a high eulogium; but it is just, and worthy of its subject. He stood alone among all the illustrious masters in Israel, and left behind him the thoughts which were his greatness for the instruction of succeeding thinkers, his ministry as a model of earnestness and success to preachers, and his life of faith and holiness as an example to all the followers of the Lamb.

Let me suffer wrong without complaining,

While myself from doing wrong abstaining,

Through Thy grace and strength, O Lord, I pray!
Let me never smite the hand that smites me;

But do good to him who ill requites me;

Thus prepare me for the evil day.

Into Thine own image, Lord, transform me,
To Thy gentle Spirit so conform me,

That this lesson never may be lost;
Not the poor oppressed, but the oppressor.
Not the injured, but the proud transgressor,
Is the man who needs our pity most.
Though by cruel treatment oft incited,
Thou hast never ill with ill requited,

Nor, reviled, hast Thou reviled again:
Yet it must have grieved Thy holy nature,
More, far more than me, a sinful creature,
To behold the wickedness of men.

Thou hadst power not only to create us,
But to punish and annihilate us;

Yet, so great, so wonderful Thy love,