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TOPIC: Edwards, Jonathan - Rational Biblical Theology (Other Topics in this Collection)
SUBJECT: Chapt 28 Seeking
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“[I]f it be, that you do not suffer eternal damnation, you have a great work to do before you die.” *1*
The evangelical cutting edge of Edwards’ preaching was the Puritan doctrine of seeking. This was true throughout his life and the doctrine occurs in all themes and texts everywhere. The seeking doctrine is Edwards’ answer to the question, “How do I maintain the total depravity of man and the absolute sovereignty of God without rendering the sinner altogether inactive, if not despairing?” How does the evangelistic preacher give the “awakened” person something to do when in fact he can do nothing virtuous? If you would be in the way of obtaining a holy principle, live in a way of performing the same outward actions after the best manner you can, that would be caused by such a principle if you had it, is Jonathan Edwards’ answer. The sinner cannot eradicate his carnal lusts but he can do something in the way of curbing them. One must live in a way of contradiction to carnal appetites. Though it is not in the sinner’s power to mortify them himself, unless such fleshly desires are denied, sinners never will be in the way of having them mortified. A man can “deny,” that is, restrain the expression of lusts; but only God can “mortify” or kill the lusts themselves. The way to be in the way of obtaining the gracious gift of mortification is to do the natural work of self-denial.
If the obtaining of grace is impossible unless God gives it, even seeking it is very difficult. Nevertheless, many were not doing what was in their power, and Edwards warns of the folly of not seeking. A man is certain to perish if he does not seek salvation although he is by no means certain to be saved if he does. This idea is expressed in various sermons but nowhere so graphically as in the doctrine of the 2Ki_7:3-4 sermon: “That a possibility of being saved is much to be preferred to a certainty of perishing.” *2*
The proper method of seeking involves man’s doing all that is within his natural power. Hearing the Word, being honest in dealings with neighbors, living peaceably with all men - in fact, all Christian duties in so far as they fall within the power of the unconverted are included. Before we progress very far in our exposition of Edwards’ teaching on this subject, we must first consider something of the historical background that provides the context of Edwards’ thought.
1. Seeking the Sources of Seeking
To examine adequately the history of the concept of seeking or preparation in Reformed theology, it is essential to note a distinction between two different ways in which the term was used. One may be called preparation for glorification. *3* This is preparation of an already regenerated individual for his final eternal state. He is working out his own salvation with fear and trembling. Since it is God who is at work within him, there is clearly no inconsistency here with the Calvinist dogma of moral inability that applies to unregenerate man. However, there is another type of preparation (more characteristic of Puritan theology) which has been erroneously interpreted by some as incipient Arminianism. This preparation for regeneration, or seeking, is done by an awakened sinner who hopefully, but without presumption, seeks the gift of regeneration.
Examining the history of preparation in Reformed thought, it becomes clear that the preparation of the saint was universally accepted. God always used the means of grace in preparing his people for glory.
Norman Pettit, in a useful study, The Heart Prepared, unfortunately attributes to Ulrich Zwingli, the idea that God’s dealings with sinners are “absolutely arbitrary” and claims that he differed with later reformers, such as Calvin, who believed that God himself might prepare the unregenerate. *4* Zwingli in the very context of speaking of conversion as “the immediate act of God’s Spirit” declared “it is necessary that the Word be preached, through which God plants the faith.” *5* All Reformed theology always maintained that God himself prepares the elect unregenerate for regeneration through His providential provision of the means of grace, though the time may be long or brief.
Though the concept of God preparing His elect for conversion through the use of means can be traced in Reformed thought back to seeds in the Reformation, it remains to be shown how the concept of preparation for the man in general developed in Reformed thought. John Calvin in his Institutes already conceived of preparation taking place in fallen man in general. In “Fallen man Ought to Seek Redemption in Christ” Calvin speaks of the law convicting men of sin, and giving them an image of what they must strive for, so that “when they are called, they are not utterly untutored and uninitiated in discipline as if it were something unknown.” *6* Though this line of thought can be found in other early Reformed theologians, it remained basically theoretical and was first actively applied through a separate theological link. This link was the concept of covenant children with its sign - infant baptism.
Many later Reformed theologians altered Zwingli’s view of baptism, that baptized children of the covenant were not necessarily elect. Theologians, such as Heinrich Bullinger, maintained that the children of the covenant probably were elect. *7* Calvin’s emphasis on the probable election of covenant children was even more pronounced than Bullinger’s. He writes,
The offspring of believers are born holy, because their children, while yet in the womb, before they breathe the vital air, have been adopted into the covenant of eternal life. Nor are they brought into the church by baptism or any other ground than because they belonged to the body of the Church before they were born. *8*
None of these theologians claimed that all children of the covenant would be saved. It was impossible to forget that the prime Scriptural examples of elect and non-elect born of the same parents were Jacob and Esau, both of them covenant children. Still, much strong and ambiguous theological language (like Calvin’s) spread confusion in Reformed circles.
A large portion of the Reformed community gradually came to believe that a covenant child should be considered regenerate until “the contrary became plainly evident.” *9* This philosophy when applied to child-rearing frequently led to a state of dead orthodoxy because the children (along with their parents) tended to assume their salvation, though many never had experienced God’s regenerating grace.
This view of covenant children clearly helped produce Puritan preparation for regeneration. The distinction between regenerate and unregenerate covenant children was almost totally obscured. Although it was theologically granted that some covenant children were reprobates, practically it was assumed that all were elect and regenerate. A nineteenth century South African Dutch child of the covenant provides a typical example of this mentality. David Livingstone recorded that such children were merely required to memorize the Heidelberg Catechism in order to be received into communicant church membership. *10* There was usually no inquiry into personal acceptance of Christ, that being assumed.
The Puritan enterprise in England was marked by great evangelistic zeal. The movement’s rise in the Anglican Church placed Puritan ministers in congregations in which virtually all the local inhabitants were mandatory church members. Through the precedent of covenant theology’s treatment of covenant children, it became clear that there were steps unregenerate men could take to enhance the possibility of their regeneration. As the doctrine developed initially from an ambiguity, many of the Puritans remained uncertain as to whether the individuals going through the stages of preparation were regenerate or not. *11*
William Perkins broke with this pattern of ambiguity. His work was the classic in preparation which the New England Puritans brought to the New World. Perkins made a clear distinction between beginnings of preparation and beginnings of composition. “Beginnings of preparation arise from the work of the Law and are not necessarily works of God’s Spirit.” “Beginnings of composition are the inward motions and inclinations of God’s Spirit” which are “the effect of regeneration begun.” *12* Other English Puritans, such as John Preston, followed Perkins and made similar distinctions. *13*
This doctrine of preparation for regeneration as well as for glorification was taken to New England by the two most notable Puritan theologians of the first generation, Thomas Hooker and John Cotton. To name John Cotton as a defender of preparation is a moot point. Thomas Hooker’s extensive work on preparation, on the other hand, placed him on a level with Perkins for extensive examination of the preparation doctrine.
Hooker added a possible third type of preparation to the two already considered. He spoke of “saving sorrow” as distinct from “sanctifying sorrow” (i.e., preparation for glorification):
Now two questions must be answered - first, whether this sound sorrow be a work as cannot be in a reprobate. First I will show the order that this work hath to the other works. Second I will show the difference of this from sanctifying sorrow, and yet it comes to be a sanctifying sorrow.
For the order: first the heart in this work is not yet conceived to be in Christ. . . . undoubtedly the soul that hath this work upon it shall have faith powred [sic] into it. . . .
What is the difference of sound saving sorrow and sanctifying sorrow? First, there is a difference in preparation, secondly there is a difference in sanctification. This sorrow in preparation is a sorrow wrought upon me, my soul is passive, it is a patient under the hand of the Almighty, rather than any work coming from any spiritual ability in myself.
Sorrow in sanctification flows from a principle of Grace and from that power which the heart hath formerly received from God’s Spirit . . . in this the man is a free worker. . . .
Many think that every saving work is a sanctifying work, which is false; for every saving work is not a sanctifying work. . . . *14*
Thus Hooker conceives of a slightly different type of preparation. The person going through this preparation does not yet have faith or else his actions would be sanctifying ones, yet he cannot truly be called unregenerate for he is the passive recipient of God’s grace and “undoubtedly the soule . . . shall have faith powrd (poured) into it.” Thus it is neither a “preparation for regeneration” nor a “preparation for glorification.” It appears to be a preparation of a regenerate individual for faith en route to glorification and therefore a part of preparation for glorification. Only Hooker’s language, not his concept, is unusual. *15*
This concept seems quite unusual, until it is examined in the light of Hooker’s whole work. Hooker, like Perkins before him, was concerned with examining every stage a soul passes through on the road to salvation. Thus this state of preparation is probably a logical not a chronological one. The key is in Hooker’s reply to the question concerning what would happen if a person died in this state of preparation. Said he: that is an “idle question because it is impossible that he who is fit and ready will not receive the Lord immediately.” Thus one in this preparatory state of sound sorrow would instantaneously respond by exerting saving faith before death. This appears the only and an easy way to reconcile the different statements he has made and show how he avoided the error of incipient Arminianism.
John Cotton was a preparationist, but one of quite a different breed from Hooker. As Hooker is to some degree the product of the line of thought Perkins initiated, Cotton is more of a return to the early preparation ideas of Calvin. Of course, Cotton was a Puritan and developed preparation further than Calvin’s very elementary ideas. Still, he, like Calvin, puts the highest emphasis on the law’s role of humbling the sinner to the ground. *16*
It is incorrect to interpret this emphasis as a denial of classical preparationism. Throughout the Antinomian controversy, Cotton continued rather “matter-of-factly to discuss preparatory stages necessary before union with Christ.” *17* Still his emphasis had made Cotton an object of suspicion among other divines almost as soon as he arrived in the New World. The Antinomian Controversy allowed them an opportunity to question many of Cotton’s particular teachings, as well as the clearly erroneous opinions of Mrs. Hutchinson.
On one point, Cotton was clearly different from Hooker. Cotton taught that union with Christ preceded all saving preparations. Hooker, as we have shown, taught that saving preparations precede faith and union with Christ. (Cotton’s view was that union with Christ preceded faith; Hooker’s was that faith preceded that union). *18* Cotton, in his Covenant of Grace, clearly expresses his difference with Hooker, “Reserving due honor to such gracious and precious saints as may be otherwise minded I confess I do not discern that the Lord worketh and giveth any saving preparations in the heart, till he gives union with Christ. . . .” *19* After the Antinomian Controversy, a Boston Conference was held to determine once and for all Cotton’s orthodoxy. The very first question inquired whether there were any “gracious conditions or qualifications in the soule before faith. . . .” To this Cotton replied, “there be no gracious conditions wrought in us before we receive union with Jesus Christ.” *20* The rest of his answer makes it clear that “gracious” means truly good actions, not common grace actions. Thus Cotton, consistently to the end, rejected Hooker’s “saving preparation” view.
One of the things that was clearly established through the Antinomian Controversy was that preparation for regeneration was clearly a part of New England theology. As eminent a divine as John Cotton had been placed under considerable suspicion when he was seen by many to question its validity. When the crisis was over, Cotton had shown he did not deny preparation though he denied Hooker’s unique saving preparation view. From that point on there was clear unanimity among the New England divines on the necessity of preparation though diversity in the forms it was seen to take.
For the sake of this study, it is sufficient to acknowledge that this unanimity remained basically unchanged until Edwards’ day. Such monumental change as the adoption of the Half-Way Covenant (i.e., allowing children of baptized but non-communicant members of the church to receive infant baptism) by the Synod of 1662, had minimal effect on the doctrine of preparation. Though the doctrine’s root was probably closely connected with the covenantal view of baptism, it had developed independently in New England far enough that the pastors would have stressed preparation for regeneration as much for a baptized as for an unbaptized generation.
Solomon Stoddard, Edwards’ grandfather, took the Half-Way Covenant a step further, which clearly had implications for the doctrine of preparation. Stoddard taught that baptized members of sufficient age to discern Christ’s presence in the Lord’s Supper and not living scandalously, may, in fact should, participate in the communion even if they knew they were unregenerate. *21* Stoddard thus saw the Lord’s Supper as another of the means of grace which a member of the external covenant should make use of in preparing for salvation. He maintained the classical Puritan balance now applied to the Eucharist: stressing that seeking did not guarantee that God would grant grace, but failing to make use of the opportunity greatly increased one’s chance of damnation: “God’s blessing is to be expected in God’s way: if men act according to their own humorous and phansies and don’t keep in a way of obedience, it is presumption to expect God’s blessing . . . but when they are admitted to the Lord’s Supper that God would have to be admitted, there is ground to hope that he will make it profitable.” *22*
However, Stoddard’s consistent balance between man’s efforts and God’s grace are not always clearly maintained. He discusses how absurd it appears to him to prevent visible saints from taking communion:
It is unreasonable to believe men to be visible saints from their infancy till they are forty or fifty years of Age, and yet not capable of coming to the Lord’s Supper, for want of the Exercize of Faith, they are not to be denied because of the weakness of Grace, they that have the least Grace need to be Nourished and Cherished. *23*
This implies that visible saints are the beneficiaries of at least weak grace. Thus this weak grace will necessarily flourish to salvation, and we have a case of preparation for glorification. But this is hard to reconcile with the quotation in which Calvinist Stoddard states that there is merely “ground to hope” if the person is truly seeking. If the seeds of grace are already present, there must be more than mere hope.
It seems that the only possible reconciliation returns one again to the relation between baptism and preparation. Stoddard’s view of the Lord’s Supper as a “converting ordinance” probably was combined with a return to a heavy emphasis on baptism’s role in conversion. Like the continentals Stoddard believed covenant children should be considered regenerate until proven otherwise. Thus his optimism concerning grace is a return to Calvin and Bullinger and like them he did not literally believe that all the children were possessors of saving grace. It seems this optimistic view of Stoddard’s clearly affected his position on the sacraments, for though he believed even “visible saints” *24* who knew they were unregenerate should take communion, the line of thought that he took to that extreme was probably connected with his feeling that many who should be admitted to the Table as regenerate until proven otherwise were being banned.
To set the stage for Edwards, it is helpful to consider one last Puritan, Cotton Mather. Mather clearly would have less direct effect on Edwards than Stoddard, but his view of preparation shows tendencies in New England which are important background to Edwards’ teaching. Mather had an aversion to much of the language of preparationism *25* and personally considered preparation almost entirely as a state of humiliation before one’s Maker. *26* He repeatedly emphasized that it is better to view one’s self “as a ‘perishing’ sinner than as a prepared one.” *27*
Cotton Mather was himself such an activistic preacher of reform, it is clear that he would not have reservations about preparation because of false dichotomies between man’s actions and God’s sovereignty. It seemed to Mather that many in New England were complacently satisfied that they were ‘prepared’ sinners. They had done their part, now God should do his. Mather naturally condemned this perversion of preparation from the depth of his soul. These sinners had not even started to exercise their natural capacities to seek salvation. All preparationists spoke of humiliation as an essential step. Any truly humble sinner would see himself as perishing even if prepared. For one thing, he will never have done all in his power to prepare until he has breathed his last breath. Even if he had used his natural capacities to their maximum, a humble sinner would realize that he had done nothing worthy of grace. Mather saw that the cancer of spiritual complacency had spread even to preparation. Indeed, Stoddard’s view must have inadvertently aided this degeneration. Now the prepared sinner could take part in all the privileges of external church membership. A Great Awakening would require a return to the emphasis on the perishing sinner in preparation.
We come now to Edwardsian preparation. First, we will face the apparent Calvinistic obstacles to the very idea of preparation. After showing how Edwards surmounted these difficulties, his own rationale and methodology for preparation will be presented. We will then briefly survey the fate of preparationism in Edwards’ own school and other developments of the nineteenth century. We conclude with preparationism in the context of twentieth century Calvinism.
2. Calvinistic Difficulties with Preparation
Of all forms of Christian theology the one that seems most incompatible with preparationism is surely Calvinism. At least three fundamental motifs in that system appear to militate against any conception whatever that has any thing to do with preparation. First, predestination has to do with God; “means” have to do with men, and seemingly they are mutually exclusive ways of salvation. Second, how can an absolute moral bondage to sin, such as Calvinism teaches, conceivably combine with faith as the indispensable way of salvation? In any case, third, justification by faith alone must make the necessity of good works sheer heresy, it would seem. Yet all of these are with equal vigor maintained in Edwardsian Calvinism.
It is easy to see how the lightning-bolt or holy-rape-of-the-soul view of Calvinism has been so common. Indubitably, Calvinism has taught absolute fore-ordination. Everything - human actions included - come about in accord - in perfect accord - with the eternal decree of God. Nothing - evil not excluded - happens which God has not determined in advance - eternally in advance. There is no possibility whatever or ever that something should occur that He does not foresee. He foresees so perfectly because He foreordains so infallibly. In an utterly closed universe where never a screw is loose is there elbow-room for freedom? How can a man’s action make a difference in a programmed providence? Especially, when man’s actions themselves are a part of the program? Surely, it would seem, he must simply wait until (and if) the bolt strikes or the Spirit rapes. What else can he do but do nothing? If salvation is entirely in the hands of God how can man prepare for salvation? You’re damned if you do; you’re damned if you don’t! You’re saved if you do; you’re saved if you don’t! The one thing you can’t do is be prepared! Or so it would seem.
Another Calvinistic hurdle for preparation is the apparent discrepancy between moral inability and faith. Preparation for salvation is preparation for faith in Christ. But how is one to prepare for something for which there can be no preparation? Moral inability teaches that man is a sinner, altogether a sinner, and nothing but a sinner. As such, he is an unbeliever, altogether an unbeliever, and nothing but an unbeliever. How does one prepare a core unbeliever for belief? Even the Bible points out the absurdity: “Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean? Not one” (Job_14:4), as Edwards, incidentally, was wont to observe. Christ himself taught that a man had to be born again before he could “enter” the Kingdom (Joh_3:3; Joh_3:5). Apart from a new birth, which comes only from above, how does one prepare for faith? How does one prepare to be born again? How did one prepare to be born the first time? In the same way, presumably, he would prepare for the second birth; namely, not at all. Nicodemus’ question was pertinent (though he applied it to the physical rather than the spiritual domain): “How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter the second time into his mother’s womb, and be born?” (Joh_3:4) We note that Christ, apart from showing Nicodemus that this second birth took place in the spiritual realm, gave no hint as to how he could prepare for it. The implication was that he could not; it would happen - the second time as it did the first - to him and not by him.
Preparation for faith would certainly seem to presuppose moral ability - at least Arminian, if not Pelagian. It is no wonder that Perry Miller considered preparationism to be incipient Arminianism and concluded that thorough-going Calvinists, such as Calvin and Edwards, would not be found dead with such a doctrine. *28* Intelligent people do not drill for oil in solid rock. If you see such people drilling, you conclude that it is not solid rock, or at least that they do not think it is solid rock. They must think there is oil there somewhere. So it is not surprising to find Arminians preparing people for faith, but Calvinists? Never! Thus, argued Miller:
It was but a short step from such thinking to an open reliance upon human exertions and to a belief that conversion is worked entirely by rational argument and moral persuasion. The seeds of what Jonathan Edwards was to denounce as “Arminianism” in the mid-eighteenth century were sown in New England by Hooker and Shepard, who, ironically enough, were the two most evangelical among the founders and the most opposed to seventeenth-century forms of Arminianism. The subsequent development of their doctrine is not a mere episode in the history of a technical jargon. It is nothing less than a revelation of the direction in which Puritanism was traveling, of the fashion in which the religious world of the seventeenth century was gradually transformed into the world of the eighteenth. A teleological universe, wherein men were expected to labor for the glory of God, wherein they were to seek not their own ends but solely those appointed by Him, was imperceptibly made over into a universe in which men could trust themselves even to the extent of commencing their own conversions, for the sake of their own well-being, and God could be expected to reward them with eternal life. Even while professing the most abject fealty to the Puritan Jehovah, the Puritan divines in effect dethroned Him. The fate of New England, in the original philosophy, depended upon God’s providence; the federal theology circumscribed providence by tying it to the behavior of the saints; then with the extension of the field of behavior through the elaboration of the work of preparation, the destiny of New England was taken out of the hands of God and put squarely into the keeping of the citizens. Even while invoking the concept in an effort to stem the tide of worldliness, the ministers contributed to augmenting the worldly psychology: if the natural man was now admittedly able to practice the external rules of religion without divine assistance, and if such observance would infallibly insure the prosperity of society and most probably the redemption of souls, if honesty would prove the best policy and if morality would pay dividends, then the natural man was well on his way to a freedom that would no longer need to be controlled by the strenuous ideals of supernatural sanctification and gracious enlightenment, but would find adequate regulation in the ethics of reason and the code of civic virtues. *29*
I will show that precisely what Hooker and Shepard preached (that to Miller spelled the seeds of the Arminianism which Edwards so vigorously opposed) Edwards himself also preached.
Yet some interpreters of Edwards’ preaching are caught up in the opposite error. W. W. Sweet, when he saw Edwards preaching for faith, came to a conclusion as untenable as it was absurd: that Jonathan Edwards had become an Arminian (he calls it “impregnating his Calvinism with pietism”). *30* Miller and Sweet are at loggerheads - one insisting that Edwards remained a Calvinist and the other that he had changed to Arminianism. Why the difference between the two scholars about the same man? Because of their tacit agreement on the proposition that bona fide Calvinists would not try to prepare sinners for faith. Miller was rightly convinced that Edwards remained a Calvinist and therefore wrongly concluded (against the evidence) that he never taught preparation. Sweet was wrongly convinced (against the evidence) that Edwards had changed to pietistic Arminianism because he, Sweet, correctly observed that Edwards preached the necessity of activity and faith. Neither scholar could live with the apparent absurdity that an impeccable Calvinist could believe in preparation for faith. So Miller denied Edwards taught preparation and Sweet denied that he remained a Calvinist. But Edwards remained a Calvinist while continuing to prepare sinners for faith. It remains to be shown how he performed the “trick.”
If the Calvinistic problem of harmonizing predestination and freedom is difficult, and harmonizing total moral inability with total moral responsibility still more difficult, the harmonization of justification by faith only with the absolute necessity of works seems simply impossible to all non-Calvinists. Indeed the seeming incompatibility of these two doctrines is what makes them non-Calvinists. To make the utterly impossible more impossible still, Calvinistic preparationists make “works” necessary even before grace comes! At least so it would seem; for if preparation is not before grace what is the meaning of the term? Furthermore, it is to the unregenerate especially that the necessity of preparation is preached. If men cannot do anything truly virtuous even after justification how could they be expected to do so before justification and in order to it?
Jonathan Edwards seems especially vulnerable at this point. The first Great Awakening in Northampton occurred following a series of sermons on justification by faith. It was the purity of the doctrine as preached that, according to Tracy, accounted for the revival. Edwards showed, he said, that “God has not appointed any thing for men to do before coming to Christ by faith. . . .” *31* It must have been the purity of the doctrine that opened the door for men to come pressing in, for there was no “application” in the original sermons any more than in the edited printed form of 1738. Shortly after, came another noted revival sermon “Pressing into the Kingdom” and Edwards cried out: “It concerns everyone that would obtain the kingdom of God, to be pressing into it.” *32* In the next awakening we read in the famous sermon on Gen_6:22 that “If we would be saved we must seek.” It is not, he preached, necessary (or even possible) to merit salvation but it is necessary (as well as possible) to prepare for it. *33*
In other words, Edwards’ revivals were built on a thoroughly gracious justification coupled with an uncompromising demand for the most strenuous seeking on the awakened sinners’ part. Strive earnestly for a free gift which no way rests on your striving. Work for something that cannot be earned. Deny yourself altogether knowing all the while that your denial will get you nowhere with a sovereign deity who is promiscuously gracious. In fact, strive to enter into the strait gate aware that your striving will never get you through, but, in fact, will ultimately remove you further. This would seem to make the anti-paradoxical orthodox more paradoxical than the paradox theologians.
From the time of the Reformation the Protestant doctrine of justification seemed to spell antinomianism, not preparationism. So Trent thundered: “If any one says that the sinner is justified by faith alone, meaning that nothing else is required to cooperate in order to obtain the grace of justification, and that it is not in any way necessary that he be prepared and disposed by his own will, let him be anathema.” *34* So Rome argued: teach justification by faith alone and there will be not justification. The criticism was so persistent that even some Protestants (the Neonomians) were shaken and it was with them that Edwards was especially concerned. But if justification seems to threaten any works at any time how could it ever cohere with preparatory works? Prevenient grace of any kind may be a problem for Roman sola gratia; but, how could it even be discussed in the context of Protestant sola fide?
3. The Edwardsian Rationale for Calvinistic Preparation
A. Edwards’ Resolution of the Difficulties
(1) Predestination and Preparation
Much of Edwards’ literature and preaching went to prove that predestination by God did not preclude action by men. In a sense that was the theme of his greatest work, Freedom of the Will. It was negatively oriented - that is, it was “A Careful and Strict Enquiry into the Modern prevailing Notions of that Freedom of Will, which is supposed to be. . . .” It was designed to show that the “modern prevailing” Arminian notion that predestination and freedom were mutually exclusive reduced to nonsense rather than proving the charge. However, the emphasis was not on the harmony of the two doctrines so much as it was to disprove contradiction. It was a reductio ad absurdum of the critique rather than a proving of the Calvinistic point. Edwards’ “Miscellanies” on the decrees and mysteries are more to that point. However, the best way to show how Edwards dealt with this problem of predestination in relation to preparation is to show how he actually related predestination to one way of preparation, specifically, prayer.
Between the two great awakenings Edwards preached a sermon on Psa_65:2 with the theme, “That it is the character of the Most High God, that he is a God that answers prayer.” *35* Without mentioning predestination or the problem of predestination and prayer, he nevertheless addresses the subject and the problem and resolves it clearly:
Inq. I. Why doth God require prayer in order to the bestowment of mercies?
It is not in order that God may be informed of our wants or desires. He is omniscient, and with respect to his knowledge unchangeable. God never gains any knowledge by information. He knows what we want, a thousand times more perfectly than we do ourselves, before we ask him. For though, speaking after the manner of men, God is sometimes represented as if he were moved and persuaded by the prayers of his people; yet it is not to be thought that God is properly moved or made willing by our prayers; for it is no more possible that there should be any new inclination or will in God, than new knowledge. The mercy of God is not moved or drawn by any thing in the creature; but the spring of God’s beneficence is within himself only; he is self moved; and whatsoever mercy he bestows, the reason and ground of it is not to be sought for in the creature, but in God’s own good pleasure. It is the will of God to bestow mercy in this way, viz. in answer to prayer, when he designs beforehand to bestow mercy, yea, when he has promised it; as Eze_36:36-37. “I the Lord have spoken it, and will do it. Thus saith the Lord, I will yet for this be inquired of by the house of Israel, to do it for them.” God has been pleased to constitute prayer to be antecedent to the bestowment of mercy; and he is pleased to bestow mercy in consequence of prayer, as though he were prevailed on by prayer. - When the people of God are stirred up to prayer, it is the effect of his intention to show mercy; therefore he pours out the spirit of grace and supplication. *36*
Edwards then goes on to explain why God requires prayer in order to the bestowment of mercy. He offers two reasons. For one thing, it is a sensible acknowledgment of our dependence on God and, secondly, it prepares us for the reception of the blessing. “Fervent prayer many way tends to prepare the heart. . . .” *37*
So, we see that predestination made prayer possible, not impossible. The same, by implication, applies to all the steps to salvation. Without divine implementation nothing, including preparation, could ever take place. Of course, God’s implementation must first have been decided upon and, in his case, that meant eternally decided upon. At the same time, just as prayer, so all things come to pass because of God’s decree, not in spite of it. Edwards was inclined to show that violence to the will of the creature would occur if God did not determine. Arminian freedom is like smoke “driven by the wind.” *38* In the Calvinistic system “God does all and man does all.” Unless God did all we could not do all. Unless God did all we could not do anything. It is all like the life we possess: it comes from God who continues it in being from moment to moment. Yet we live our/his life. “’Tis no more a contradiction, to suppose that action may be the effect of some other cause, besides the agent, or being that acts, than to suppose that life may be the effect of some other cause, besides the liver, or the being that lives, in whom life is caused to be.” *39*
(2) Moral Inability and Moral Responsibility
It was by claiming moral inability that Edwards’ parishioners were most prone to excuse themselves for not being awakened, not to mention seeking. How can we be aware of spiritual realities when we cannot “see” them? How can we seek God while we are in bondage to Satan? How can we feel responsibility for preparing ourselves for salvation when we labor under total disability therefor? According to biblical and Reformed doctrines, “there is none that seeketh God.” Can we be exceptions to the rule? You, Mr. Edwards, tell us we “cannot” and then you say we “must.” How can you say that we must do what you yourself say we cannot do?
It may well be that the most important general writings of Edwards on the whole theme of preparation are the four unpublished sermons on Ecc_9:10, the first near the beginning of his ministry and the last one for the Indians not long before he died. ** In a comprehensive fashion, he enumerates what the seeking sinner can and cannot do. In so explicating he spells out the Calvinistic rationale for preparation.
It is true, Edwards maintains, that fallen man suffers moral inability and there are certain things that he simply cannot do. First, (Edwards explains to the Indians in the latest preaching on this text), men cannot make satisfaction for their sins; only God can do that. Second, men cannot earn a righteousness that makes them acceptable before God; only he can provide that. Third, men cannot change their hearts which, yet, must be changed by God. This alone is enough to demonstrate that Edwards was no incipient Arminian. John Calvin never enunciated sinner’s moral inability more explicitly and lucidly. The sinner suffers total moral inability to save himself or to cooperate in his regeneration. *41*
Yet there are many things the sinner can do without new faculties or principles. If Edwards lists three things that he cannot do, we find no less than ten things he can do enumerated in the earlier sermon on our text. I will merely list them here, many of them to be developed in the methodology section of this chapter:
1. “A man can abstain from the outward gratifications of his lusts.”
2. “A man can in many respects keep out of the way of temptation.”
3. “Persons can perform outward duties of morality towards their neighbours.”
4. “Persons can search the Scripture.”
5. “Persons can attend all ordinances.”
6. “Persons can use their tongues to the purpose of religion.”
7. “Persons have in a great measure the command of their thoughts.”
8. “Persons can set apart a suitable proportion of their time for these things.”
9. “Persons can improve divine assistance that is given.”
10.“They can lay out their strength in these things as well as other things.” *42*
It is perfectly clear that this answers the criticism that Edwards capitulates to Arminianism in his preparation doctrine. As much as he gives the sinner to do, all of it could be done by natural ability. There was not an iota of virtue in any or all of it. Sin, Edwards explained, did not destroy the power of the hand but the willingness of the heart. “Outward” acts remained permanently in the power of the depraved. *43* As Puritans were wont to observe, the sinners’ legs could take them to the meeting house as easily as to the tavern. For them, therefore, to excuse themselves for not doing what they could, because of what they could not do, was inexcusable.
Someone may still object that if a sinner is not “willing” how can he “do” anything? Edwards does not mean that the unregenerate are unwilling but able in the same sense. They are unwilling or indisposed for virtue and consistently are unable to perform virtue. They may, however, be willing or disposed (from self-interest) to outward or apparent acts of virtue and are quite able to perform these acts.
(3) Justification by Faith and Necessary Works
Since justification by faith alone combined with necessary works is the most acute problem of all for Calvinistic preparationists, and since it was the justification series which first set men preparing for salvation in the Edwardsian revival, perhaps the best place to look for Edwards’ resolution of this difficulty would be in these sermons. We are not disappointed.
The theme of the great series is “We are justified only by faith in Christ, and not by any manner of virtue or goodness of our own.” *44* After explaining the meaning Edwards develops four arguments in its support. First, faith and its fruits cannot deserve justification. Second, the Bible by which alone we can ever know how to be justified is “exceeding full” on the theme of absolute graciousness. Third, justification by our own virtue derogates from grace. Fourth, justification by our own virtue ascribes to man what belongs to the righteousness of Christ. It is therefore inconsistent with the imputation of his righteousness.
Edwards’ answer to a half-dozen major objections to sola-fideanism need not concern us here, but his delineation of the role of evangelical obedience is of the essence. This subject occupies the entire third part of the treatise, so important does Edwards consider it. He not only maintains its “congruity” with justification by faith alone but insists that it is viewed as future in the first justification. “[W]ere it not for this, it would be needful that it should be suspended. . . .” *45* At the same time, the non-meritorious character of “good works” (even in saints) is ever present: “obedience . . . has no concern in justification by any virtue or excellency in it; but only as there is a reception of Christ in it.” *46* “This is,” Edwards pointedly observes,
the reverse of the scheme of our modern divines, who hold, that faith justifies only as an act or expression of obedience; whereas, in truth, obedience has no concern in justification, any otherwise than as an expression of faith. *47*
If no Edwardsian saint, however perfect, could ever think his works had any “concern” with justification surely no mere seeker, who had no virtue whatever, could think so. On the other hand, if those who were perfectly justified by faith only, had to continue in evangelical obedience if their justification would not deserve “to be suspended” surely no mere seeker could suppose he was free to dispense with what little he could do. To put it another way: if striving after perfection was the least required of the justified, how could no “works” at all be required of the unjustified?
At the same time that Edwards offers a solution to this and other problems he realizes that many prefer the pursuit of the truth to the finding of it. They would rather work on puzzles - especially theological ones - than solve them. In fact, they were in mortal fear of reaching a conclusion. For such persons Edwards had warnings rather than answers. Even momentarily to stop seeking salvation because of preoccupation with theological mysteries was a most “dangerous venture.” *48* “[I]f it be, that you do not suffer damnation, you have a great work to do before you die.” *49*
Probably nowhere has Edwards worked out his basic theological rationale for seeking and justification more thoroughly than in the important sermon on *Rom_3:11-31; *Rom_4:1-25; *Rom_5:1-21; *Rom_6:1-23; *Rom_7:1-25; *Rom_8:1-39; *Rom_9:1-33; *Rom_10:1-21; *Rom_11:1-36; *Rom_12:1-21* “All that natural men do is wrong,” is the doctrine of the sermon which would seem to include any seeking in its indictment and forbid it in practice. If everything seekers do is wrong, the seeking they do is also wrong. Edwards admits it, but has at least two other observations to make: seeking is less wrong than not seeking because it is “externally right.” And, it may be made this incident becomes the doctrine of his sermon. “A possibility of being saved is much to be preferred to a certainty of perishing.” He first indicates five ways in which there is a certainty of perishing: neglecting our souls; continuing in any way of known sin; becoming discouraged in seeking salvation; continuing to trust in our own righteousness; and quarreling with God, especially with his decrees. He next shows that there is a possibility of salvation for all except committers of the unpardonable sin, even for those who have been very great sinners and for those who are very old and still unconverted. The third part of the sermon is a consideration of the reasons of the doctrine, or why “a possibility of being saved is much to be preferred to a certainty of perishing.” First, final destruction is so dreadful that all difficulties undergone in seeking salvation are worth it on the mere chance of being successful. Any calamity whatever is worth enduring if there is the least possibility of avoiding the ultimate calamity. A thousand times more pain than is ever felt in this world is justified by the mere possibility of salvation. Second, eternal life is a thing so desirable that the least hope of obtaining it outweighs any difficulties incurred in gaining it. Even if there were no hell, it would be worth every suffering to inherit heaven.
Perhaps, then, the most fundamental moral justification for seeking is not that it is right but that it is less wrong than not seeking. In a word, it is “right” to do what is less wrong than non-doing. Obviously such seeking is no threat to forensic justification.
B. Edwards’ Rationale for Seeking
Having shown the fundamental justification for the possibility of Calvinistic preparation or seeking Edwards goes on to give arguments for exploiting the demonstrated possibility. He spells out the case for seeking in three fundamental arguments. First, there is the basic and always sufficient fact that God commands it. Second, there are some here-and-now advantages. Third, and most important of all there is the hope of “finding” eternal life.
(1) Divine Command
God commands all men to seek their salvation and that is the end - and the beginning - of the matter. Every text of Scripture, which is ever cited is relevant here. For Edwards, and his parishioners, the Bible is the Word of God. What it commands, God commands. So when the Bible says, “seek,” God says “seek.” When the Bible says, “prepare,” God says “prepare.” When the Bible says, “Strive,” God says “Strive.” Edwards believed that the Bible was an eminently rational book and therefore all its commands were reasonable. This was more certain than that men would see that the Bible is reasonable. But whether they could see the rationality of a particular doctrine or not, knowing it was in the Bible was the greatest proof possible of its rationality, for what the Bible says, God says. Therefore, whatever problems, whatever difficulties, whatever rationalizations, the unregenerate had a divine imperative - prepare! *51*
(2) Guaranteed Natural Benefits
There are temporal advantages in seeking eternal salvation. These are infinitely less than eternal salvation but they are also infinitely more certain. There was a saying in Edwards’ day that being the son of a Puritan manse was worth a hundred thousand votes. Puritan training promoted virtues which the populace approved whether they practiced them or not. If that builder of the world’s best mousetrap was not a Puritan surely a Puritan in that business would build one of the best and would sell it for a fair price. Honesty paid the Puritan. Seeking for God therefore had a cash value with men and God himself tended to prosper it even temporally. “Wisdom and industry is the way for those that are mean and contemptible to come to riches and heaven.” *52* Again Edwards argued, “That ’tis to the godly alone that God gives wisdom to know how to use worldly good things they possess and that he enables truly to enjoy the comforts of them. . . . God gives wicked men the travail and vexation of gathering and keeping worldly good things but ’tis not for their own but the godly’s benefit.” *53* So Puritan prudence tended to promote prosperity and if the Puritan, for some reason, did not have prosperity he still could enjoy what he did have. Imprudence tended to destroy prosperity and if the wicked, for some reason, had any prosperity they could not enjoy it, in any case.
The other certain natural advantage that necessarily accrues to all seekers is the reduction in everlasting punishment. This is the consideration that amazes the typical modern reader. He assumes that the fires of hell have been completely extinguished and then he encounters America’s greatest theologian discussing, with great earnestness, the possibility of the sinner who is certainly going to hell having the degree of torment reduced somewhat! This theology is mind-boggling for a world which, Edwards would say, “flatters” itself. Even present-day evangelicals, who say very little about hell in general, know nothing about the refinements of the doctrine found in the Puritans’ Bible. But back to Edwards is back to the Bible - in this case, to the words of Christ in Mat_5:22.
“That the punishment and misery of wicked men in another world will be in proportion to the sin that they are guilty of.” *54* After indicating men are guilty of the original sin of Adam, Edwards shows how actual sins that proceed from human corruption, evil in themselves, are aggravated by various circumstances such as divine warnings. He also notes that the “mischievous nature and influence” of certain sins will add to their heinousness which will be proportionately punished in the world to come. God tells Ezekiel that if souls die and perish in sin through the prophet’s negligence, God would require their blood at his hand. “So those that by their sins are the occasion of the sins of others and of their ruin as many are of the sins of their families, of their companions, and of the places where they dwell, they are like to have the blood of men required at their hands and to have the condemnation of many heaped upon their heads.” After “improving” the theme by way of solemn warning, Edwards comes to the predicament of the uncovenanted who go on heaping up wrath in proportion to the number and heinousness of their sins: “hence we learn that it would be better for persons to be of a moral conversation whether ever they are converted or not, or rather it will not go so ill with them. There is no good in hell there [is] nothing but misery without happiness but yet there is great difference in their misery. And though you never should go to heaven yet if you live a moral life you will surely have a less punishment.”
Then Edwards considers the “hard-hearted” who say “I shall be damned and what does it signify for me to take any care how I live. . . .” But this “temptation” is built on a “foolish mistake” because by living a “moral life” they will escape much misery. “Tis not absolutely certain that they shall go to heaven but this is certain that they shall escape an exceeding intolerable addition to their eternal misery and indeed any degree of that misery is intolerable.” Consequently seeking all their life (though without ever arriving) would be well worthwhile because they escape “a great deal of everlasting torment and misery.” Edwards urges such seekers not to be discouraged “tho it ben’t absolutely certain but only very probable that they shall escape hell yet tis certain” they will escape much torment. If they object that they sin in the very seeking, he reminds them that it is “more direct and willful” to sin deliberately. “If you are to be beaten with ten stripes it is not at all the less worth your while to endeavour to avoid being beaten with ten more.” If you come to hell you will wish you had sought even though you had not obtained. Indeed “you would willingly give all the world for the least mitigation of your misery. . . .” He warns the aged; he warns the leaders in sin; they “will have the hottest place in the furnace.” Those who have led others to ruin will have not only their own damnation but that of these others as well.
(3) Hope of “Finding” Eternal Life
The third, and by far the most important, supporting argument for seeking is the hope of success - the hope of finding what one seeks for - eternal life. Is this hope a mere possibility? a probability? a certainty? Twenty years ago
I examined fifty or more sermons that dealt with this subject to see the general tenor of his [Edwards’] preaching about the outcome of seeking for salvation. To get some impression of his teaching and emphasis I checked these sermons, trying to discover whether they indicated that the outcome would be uncertain, possibly successful, probably successful, or certainly successful. Of these sermons twenty-seven were clear in their answers to our question. Of these, I found that twelve taught that the sinner would probably be successful in his seeking, seven that he would possibly be successful, five that the outcome was uncertain, and three that the seeker would certainly find. . . . *55*
Since then I have examined many others from this standpoint. Of one thing about seeking in Edwards we may be absolutely certain: eternal salvation following on it (not dependent on it) is at least possible. If someone asks, “Would it not be impossible for the seeker who had committed the unpardonable sin?” The answer is “No, because the unpardonable sinner, by definition, would not be a seeker of salvation.” Where there is a life of seeking there is hope. Whoever seeks may find. This very phrasing illustrates again the liability of the term “seeking” for this Puritan doctrine. Christ’s words are burned into the memory of the Church - “Seek and ye shall find.” Of course, the Puritans consider this the true seeking [Seeking II] of the regenerate (“preparation for glorification”) and not the mere self-motivated seeking [Seeking I] of the unregenerate (“preparation for regeneration”).
If we may be sure that preparation at least possibly may issue in salvation, it is also clear that the emphasis in Edwards is that there is a high degree of probability that it will. This is poignantly stated when he is trying to persuade sinners to seek even if it does not lead to the gift of grace. As a kind of aside, he reminds them that it probably will - though they should seek, even if it does not, as we have seen in the Mat_5:22 sermon.
I can find no unedited statement by Edwards that clearly says that any unregenerate seeker will certainly find. As a matter of fact the sermon on Jer_29:13 raises an academic question about regenerate seekers finding. *56* The text reads, “ye shall seek me and find me when ye shall search for me with all your heart.” Edwards’ doctrine was “When those that have forsaken God are come to seek him so as to search for him with all their hearts, they are in the way to find him.” Edwards does not indicate whether Jeremiah was speaking of regenerate or unregenerate seekers and does not indicate whether he, Edwards, is either. It could well be regenerate seekers in both cases. The significance of this outline sermon is that Edwards defines the seeking as a perfect seeking - “with all their heart.” It is described in a characteristic and conventional manner with no bow to human imperfection. Edwards was against the doctrine of perfectionism we know. He must, therefore, believe that regenerate seekers are imperfect seekers who never do seek “with all their heart.” If that were an absolute and unqualified condition even the regenerate would not find. Yet, of course, true seekers do find as was the case with many biblical instances which were cited in this very sermon. What the sermon shows, therefore, is that even when Edwards is probably dealing with regenerate seekers, who do find, he cannot seem to say it plainly. It is not stated in the sermon or even in the doctrine which adopts the language “they are in the way to find him.” Edwards preached often about the experience of Jesus Christ - in a sense, it is the heart of his whole theology. But he does not seem willing to express it in terms of seeking: there is a certain incompleteness at this point.
So two things in the Edwardsian doctrine of seeking are certain: one, the seeker cannot be certain he will fail and, two, the seeker cannot be certain he will succeed. There is neither ground for absolute despair nor for absolute confidence. The seeker who gave up because sure of failure was foolish and the seeker who went on because sure of success was presumptuous. Neither would likely find.
But there is also a third thing that emerges clearly on the seeking horizon and that is most important. The genuine persistent seeker probably will be given grace. You ask, will he not then inevitably suppose that his seeking merits its success? No, because if he did that, he would not even be a seeker. But, will probability of success not spoil him? If so, it will also spoil chances of success.
But there still remains the question about the certainty statements. Puritans have been known to guarantee success (based, of course, on sovereign divine grace), and there were a few statements in Edwards that seemed to agree. It is clear now, however, that no correct text of Edwards, properly interpreted, teaches that sublime optimism.
In any case, there can be no question that Edwards is very encouraging, as is the whole Puritan tradition. Certainty, for seekers, is always near the surface. Listen to Edwards and imagine how the desperate and frightened strivers must have grasped at his words:
[T]here is great probability . . . you will live. . . . *57*
There is good reason to think God will help you. *58*
There is great hope that you may find it. *59*
Likely methods in order to their salvation. *60*
It is a very rare thing . . . that [earnest seekers] fail of salvation. *61*
’Tis not absolutely certain that they shall go to heaven. *62*
They are in the way to find him. *63*
God is pleased commonly to bestow his saving grace on those. . . . *64*
God usually gives success to those who diligently, and constantly, and perseveringly seek conversion. *65*
[T]he more ready God is to bestow it. *66*
[R]esolution and steadfastness in seeking . . . he bestows. *67*
When persons do what they can God usually does . . . for them. *68*