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TOPIC: Edwards, Jonathan - Rational Biblical Theology (Other Topics in this Collection)
SUBJECT: Chapt 27 cont 2
Other Subjects in this Topic:
(1) What To Do
There is hardly any duty which Edwards at one time or another has not urged the seeker to perform. We merely focus on a few of the more frequently cited and presumably more important.
(a) Wake Up
The sinner’s natural state is an otiose, sleepy, “sottishness.” *72* Hanging over a burning hell suspended by a spider’s thread held in the hands of an almighty God infinitely angry with him the sinner is totally oblivious to any danger. If anything is to be done to avoid disaster he must first be made painfully aware of his predicament. He must be “awakened.”
Usually it is God who awakens the sinner. When he did it on a grand scale in 1734, we had the first Great Awakening. The wicked are most fortunate when the angry God mercifully arouses them and they are urged to take advantage by seeking. It is a “blessed time amongst a people when it is a time of the pouring out of God’s Spirit upon them.” Thus in 1735 Edwards preached: “It is such a time now in this town. . . . when conversion and salvation work is going on amongst us from sabbath to sabbath. . . .” *73* If this opportune and hopeful moment for the sinner is missed, it is not likely to come again. He may never be awakened “until aroused by the flames of eternal torment.”
Some sinners oddly enough complain that God has not awakened them. It would seem that they are awakened enough to complain about not being awakened sufficiently. They blame God for it. “They aren’t thoroughly awakened,” he says, “but they wish they were.” *74*
When the sleepy sinners are finally, fully awakened Edwards, surprisingly, does not urge them to believe but to seek. We read, for example, in “Pressing into the Kingdom of God,” that persons who are crying “What shall I do to be saved?” are those who are awakened and seeking. *75* Again, what does Edwards tell his people when they are virtually making the cry of the Philippian jailer: “What must I do to be saved?” Paul answered “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved. . . .” But Jonathan Edwards preached: Seek salvation. In the entire long “application” of this sermon nowhere does he appeal to the people to believe (though this may be understood). They should “seek for deliverance.” *76* This is surprising indeed. There are two possible explanations. First, Edwards tends to interpret the jailer episode differently. As the title of the sermon (“They who are in a natural condition, are in a dreadful condition”) indicates, Edwards is focusing on the terror of the jailer because of his danger and not on the way of salvation. Second, he thinks the eighteenth century, because of the development of evil, required more seeking than the first century.
(b) Repent
If a sinner is once awakened from a non-seeking condition, it is obvious his mind must be changed if he is to become an active seeker. Repentance, or radical change of mind, is required. But repentance is a saving grace and if a seeker begins with repentance, it would appear he is a finder before he is a seeker. Edwards commonly uses repentance as part of the conversion experience as in his “Concerning Faith:”
the same manner as the bestowment of eternal life, only for accepting of it. For to make us an offer of freedom from a thing, only for quitting of it, is equivalent to the offering the possession of a thing for the receiving of it. God makes us this offer, that if we will in our hearts quit sin, we shall be freed from it, and all the evil that belongs to it, and flows from it; which is the same thing as the offering us freedom only for accepting it. Accepting, in this case, is quitting and parting with, in our wills and inclination. So that repentance is implied in faith; it is a part of our willing reception of the salvation of Jesus Christ; though faith, with respect to sin, implies something more in it, viz. a respect to Christ, as him by whom we have deliverance. Thus by faith we destroy sin, Galatians 2:18. *77*
However, Edwards also speaks of a non-saving preparation form of repentance. This is the view of Perkins and Owen on natural repentance which, while essential to seeking, is worlds apart from the evangelical repentance that is finding. If Thomas Hooker was guilty of attributing genuine repentance to the unregenerate seeker, this was certainly not Edwards’ opinion. He shares the view of a legal, non-evangelical, repentance never to be confused with the salvation experience, though, hopefully, leading toward it, if God please.
(c) Deny, Reform, Forsake
Nowhere does Edwardsian seeking appear more like modern evangelical finding than in this item. To deny, reform and forsake today is considered conclusive evidence that one is a new creature in Christ. This is taken to be a fruit of faith and not a mere possible root!
Many modern evangelicals try to avoid mention of these unpleasant items fearing it may frighten away some potential believers. If these prospects can first be won to Christ by the enticements of the Gospel, Christ himself will give them grace whereby they will be able to meet these tests (which apart from him would keep them away from him). But, for Edwards, facing these was part of “counting the cost” of discipleship - a cost that had to be paid in advance without any guarantee that the person would be accepted and with the clear understanding that the payment would never be returned regardless.
This form of seeking requires denying everything and everybody. There are a “great many difficulties in the way of thorough reformation.” *78* Nothing else can suffice. If the brothers of Joseph had not been willing to give up dear Benjamin, they could never have been reconciled to the Christ-type, Joseph. *79* As noted above, Herod could never qualify as a seeker, however interested and concerned, because he would not part with Herodias. “Here he stuck.” *80* If the rich young ruler of the gospels had been willing to part with his fortune - or even half of it, Edwards speculated - he might not have found the eternal life about which he inquired but he could have become a seeker. *81* But here he stuck.
In the Act_19:19 sermon Edwards tells of a remarkable reformation in Ephesus. *82* “When the Spirit of God has been remarkably poured out on a people a thorough reformation of those things that before were amiss amongst them ought to be the effect of it.” He mentions awakening, converting, and confirming that commonly take place at such times. But the awakened are not necessarily converted, though conversion would not follow without reformation. “Some men are reformed, that are not converted but none are converted but what are reformed.”
(d) Use the Means (Ordinances)
All the requirements seekers have so far been made to meet are demanding - very demanding - of them. Demanding of them, for sinners are required to do them in their own strength. Apart from Christ they can do nothing - nothing of virtue, that is. Even apart from Christ they can seek and they must. And though they do not have Christ within them, he it is who calls them and some aids are offered for the search. These are usually called means of grace or ordinances; sometimes, common grace. We will consider a few of them: The Bible, prayer, preaching, the Sabbath and, in a sense, even the Holy Spirit.
The Bible is the absolutely indispensable means of grace. In a sense all others are derived from this one and this alone can exist alone. That is, prayer, Sabbath, Lord’s Supper and even the Holy Spirit are learned only from the biblical revelation. Conceivably, however unlikely, a person may find Christ even without these other means but never without the Bible. Faith, if it comes, can come only “by hearing” the Bible message.
It is a peculiar kind of prayer that Edwards finds proper for seekers. As we shall see, he came ultimately to bar seekers from the Lord’s Supper because it was the “children’s table,” but he seems never to have felt that prayer was also an exclusive privilege of the children of God. He does admit that only the children of God do truly pray *83* and that “our prayers are loathsome till they are presented by him (Christ).” *84* Surely Edwards would not suggest that non-Christians should offer the Lord’s Prayer in some common secular assembly. This is a prayer for finders and not seekers. But some kind of prayer is a privilege of those who cannot call God “our Father.”
What kind of prayer can these would-be murderers of God (we must not forget that Edwards’ seekers are seeking someone they hate) offer? The sinner’s heart is simply not in it. While hating God he is required to ask that he be made to love him. This is the ultimate shot-gun wedding. You ask God to change your heart from what it is when you ask him - or else. Self-interest alone could keep the sinner at this, even for the brief time of which Edwards complains. It is amazing, in a sense, that the seeker could ever pray:
Dear God, whom I hate with all my being precisely because you hate and threaten me with hell, I hate this punishment perhaps even more than I hate you. Or, maybe I should say that I love my comfort even more than I hate you. For that reason I am asking a favor of you. I want you to make me love you, whom I hate even when I ask this and even more because I have to ask this. I am being frank with you because I know it is no use to be otherwise. You know even better than I how much I hate you and that I love only myself. It is no use for me to pretend to be sincere. I most certainly do not love you and do not want to love you. I hate the thought of loving you but that is what I’m asking because I love myself. If you can answer this ‘prayer’ I guess the gift of gratitude will come with it and then I will be able to do what I would not think of doing now - thank you for making me love you whom I hate. Amen.
Of course, Edwards never drew up such a litany. It is the only kind he could have instituted consistent with his own Calvinistic theology. The emphasis he suggested was on the misery and desperation but he would never let the seeker forget what God, of course, never forgot - that the unregenerate hated God even while he knelt abjectly and prayed most importunately. Nevertheless, Edwards does urge the mere seeker to pray and earnestly, out of self-interest. *85* It is better “to pray out of self-love than neglect prayer out of self-love.” It is better for the wicked to believe there is a God out of self-love than not to save him out of self-love. Edwards found a “natural” duty for men to pray. *86* It seems it may be proper to ask for a gift from God though not for communion with God. *87*
This means of grace was more of a burden for the wicked and they found it difficult to it: “However hypocrites may continue for a season in the duty of prayer, yet it is their manner, after a while, in a great measure to leave off. *88* One advantage of this way of seeking was that the seeker would not be tempted to think that there was any merit in his way of praying.
Uniquely indispensable as the Word of God was, its most effectual form for the seeker was in the preaching. “The Spirit of God maketh the reading, but especially the preaching of the word, an effectual means of convincing and converting sinners. . . .” *89* Thus the Puritan “plain style” - the plain glass window preaching so that plain people could see God.
Edwards never did anything but expound and apply Scripture in his pulpit. Rarely was there any literary flourish. His scholarship did not show. Nor did he indulge in any personal reflections. One would never know he was married not to mention the father of eleven children. No domestic anecdotes were ever heard in Northampton. About the only time Edwards ever resorted to the first person was when he was reminding his people that his office as minister made him the messenger of God and his Word. As such he must be heard. “God is now calling you in an extraordinary manner: and it is agreeable to the will and word of Christ, that I should now, in his name, call you, as one set over you, and sent to you to that end; so it is his will that you should hearken to what I say, as his voice.” *90* He justified his absence from normal pastoral visiting because of incompetence in social visiting. What he neglected there he compensated for by being ever available to seeking souls. His pastoral work was the overflow of his pulpit ministry. His preaching went on without ceasing and one understands why he could never accept Stoddard’s advice not to read his own sermons from the pulpit. Even Edwards could never have produced this volume of sermonic and other literary output if he had been required even materially to memorize it for pulpit presentation. Being confined to the manuscript even in the outline sermons which were very full he had none of the freedom of utterance displayed by others. It is no wonder that his eloquence was, as Hopkins said, dependent entirely on the moving solemnity of his written and read word. Before everything else Jonathan Edwards was a preacher and that because before every other means God was prone to use the evangelical sermon.
Nevertheless, it is not to be forgotten that preaching may be the occasion of hardening as of converting. Miller reminds us of the words of Hooker, “When the sound of the preacher’s voice comes to the ear, and the sense of his words to the mind, then by that means the Spirit comes into the soul, ‘either to convert thee, or to confound thee.’” *91*
In Edwards’ theology the Lord’s Supper is the most controversial means of grace in relation to seeking. In a sermon preached probably between August of 1731 and December of the next year we hear Edwards explaining that the use of instituted ordinances is a way of seeking for grace. *92* “[T]he sacraments of the New Testament these ought to be diligently and carefully attended by all that set themselves to seek the grace of God with such preparation as the word of God directs to.” This is all he says as if quickly dropping the subject. Was he uneasy about the “Converting Ordinances” doctrine even then? Nevertheless, on the last page of this manuscript the sermon concludes exhorting the people to wait on God in “this way” but Edwards immediately adds: “Indeed none can truly and in the sense which it is most commonly taken in the Scripture wait upon God but they that have grace and such a waiting seems to be intended chiefly in the text because it is said ‘Blessed are they that hear me. . . .’” In spite of this, and without any reason, Edwards reasserts, “but yet the unregenerated are to strive to come more and more to this in their seeking grace not to depend on their own endeavours or means they use but to be sensible that God is the sole sovereign giver of grace and that he only is able to bestow it. . . .” Of course, this would be true of the regenerate as well. It has no particular reference to the unregenerate. Edwards may simply be overreacting to a rising concern about admitting the unregenerate to the sacraments. Even earlier, the year after Stoddard’s death, Edwards had urged his people to improve the means of grace (“word and ordinances”) if they would receive justifying faith. *93* As the first Great Awakening was beginning he was telling seekers to attend to “all” the ordinances of religion. *94*
A decade or more later he preached a sermon rare in lacking an application. In a sense it was all application, for the address on Eze_44:9 was apparently the one he was permitted to make defending his departure from “converting ordinances.” *95* Four arguments were given against this “new” doctrine which he contended was new even in New England. Without any direct reference to Stoddard, Edwards argued that from the beginning, even in Northampton, when people “owned” the covenant they did so in full faith - they were not mere “seekers.” He never uses that term and interestingly enough he never uses the ostensible concept except that “converting ordinance” implies that the sacrament was to be used for a hoped-for conversion. Edwards stresses the other aspect of the seeker - namely his unconverted and therefore hostile state. That made a profession of faith as a “visible saint” (that all agreed was understood when one was owning the covenant) utterly incongruous for a “seeker.” So Edwards’ later doctrine not only does not encourage seekers coming to this ordinance but forbids it in the strongest terms.
We need not trace here Edwards’ change of mind about qualifications for communion. Suffice it to note that apparently in the first Great Awakening in Northampton Edwards was still with Stoddard. The later change on this subject which cost Edwards his pulpit did not affect his general doctrine of seeking. Those under conviction were always to use the ordinances of religion but later it would be “all” but the Lord’s Supper. This change on that ordinance which is palpably necessary for Edwardsian consistency left Edwards unconscious of the need for change on the ordinance of prayer. If prayer was meant for saints but a formal shadow of it was available to seekers why not the Lord’s Supper too? If the Lord’s Supper could not have a formal or shadow or external form how could prayer?
However difficult it is to understand how Edwards could ever have included the Lord’s Supper and/or prayer among means of grace for seekers, it is even more difficult to see the Holy Spirit in this role. Of course, there is no problem with the Holy Spirit acting upon the unregenerate in distinction from acting within the saints as a principle. *96* But Edwards gives the Spirit a deeper influence. This is stated and explained this way in M 734:
Preparatory work is from the Spirit of God. It is a work that properly belongs to this person of the Trinity tho there be no holiness in it and so nothing of the nature of the Holy Spirit communicated to the soul or exerted in the soul in it. As the embrio of Christ in the womb of the Virgin Mary tho it had no spirit or soul and so no proper holiness of nature and nothing of the nature of the Holy Spirit in it yet was from the Spirit of God for it was a work wrought in the womb of the virgin that was preparatory or in order to an holy effect or production in her, for that was an holy thing that was born of her.
(e) Strive
It is unfortunate that “Seekers” were not called “Strivers.” Not only would it have avoided confusion with the true biblical seekers of Jer_29:13 and Mat_7:7; not only would it not seem flatly to contradict Scripture’s “there is none that seeketh God”; not only would it never be misidentified with the radical sect of Quakers that went by that name; not only would it save the student the difficulty of grasping the notion of a seeker who is not seeking what he is seeking for; but, the very term “strive” not only suggests the tension and the struggle, not only occurs more frequently in Scripture and in Puritan literature than the other term, but would avoid all these confusions from which seeking seems incapable of being extricated. “Strivers” is what the “seekers” should have been called.
This striving, together with “violence,” seems to make up the best composite figure for the man on the hard way to salvation. It is difficult - very difficult - and the determination of the soldier who will take a goal, if he dies in the attempt, is necessary. Obstinacy is of the essence of the way. *97* The path is narrow, the gate is strait and one must press on and in. In fact, STRAIT and STRIVE are the mottoes.
At the same time that striving is a very strenuous business, the striver must also strive to see that his striving is not his own striving, that is, not in his own strength, if he becomes a true striver. *98* He must put forth the “utmost endeavor” but not in his own strength. He must give the “greatest diligence” but not in his own strength. He must “exert the utmost” but not in his own strength. He has a “great work to do” but not in his own strength, if he becomes a true striver. That may have required his greatest strength - to see that what he did successfully he did not do in his own strength.
(f) Be Universally Obedient
The trouble with Haroutunian’s very useful historical treatment of the theological development after Edwards is its title: Piety Versus Moralism. It is true that the essential piety of the Puritan was against the mere “moralism” of the contemporary and later liberal. But that title gives the unsophisticated modern reader the impression that Puritan religion was somehow against morality. Puritans were far more for morality than “moralism” ever was. “Universal obedience” was its byword. “Outward” morality had to be well-nigh perfect before a person could be considered a seeker for the grace which alone could produce true morality. For the Puritan, a person had to exceed the morality of those who hoped to save themselves by morality before they could qualify as “seekers”!
Virtually all I have so far said about seeking concerned morality in one aspect or another. Time and again seekers never became finders because they balked at moral conformity somewhere. They would give up some vices but not others; outwardly exhibit some virtues while rejecting others. But whatever tempting sin of commission or omission, their dear “Benjamin” had to be yielded in the pursuit of virtue. “Not thorough” was a common weakness. *99* So whatever piety is against; it is not against morality.
(g) Do All You Can
The insistence of Edwards that the seeker should do all that he could may be the best place to consider how the seeker could be conceived capable of doing anything at all. According to the Ecc_9:10 (2) sermon, “Persons ought to do what they can for their salvation.” *100* Edwards preaches this in answer to an objection he had heard more than once that since the unregenerate were slaves of Satan and all they did was sinful, how then could they possibly seek? Edwards’ careful answer begins, first, by observing that slavery to the devil does not mean that he can “force” men to gratify their lusts or prevent them from denying them. “Sin has not its dominion that way but by the influence it has directly on the will itself.” It has “possession of the heart.” The second thing that slavery to sin cannot do is prevent the sinner from avoiding “particular outward acts or ways of sin.” “He can’t avoid sins of heart such as enmity against God and unbelief, pride, carnality which are the great principles of all sin. . . .” Nor can he avoid “sin in the general in his outward behavior because there is sin in everything that a man does.” However, he can avoid outward acts of sin, such as drunkenness and fornication, for example. Third, slavery to sin cannot make a man sin against his will, though he may choose against conscience and reason. *101*
Coupling the moral ability of the morally indisposed with the invitation of God, Edwards can argue: “So that there is no want either of sufficiency in God, or capacity in the sinner. . . .” *102* “It is true,” he continues, “persons never will be engaged in this business, unless it be by God’s influence; but God influences persons by means.” He concludes that these reflections should get men moving again. The “Puritan Sage” notes that their disposition does “not hinder men being able to take pains, though it hinders their being willing.” *103*
(h) Hope
Hope in seeking is not especially stressed but it must be assumed. If anyone was exhorted to seek or anyone sought there had to be some hope in so doing. At least, hope for something if not for the thing sought. If we are “saved by hope” we would also seek by hope. I have already discussed the possible and probable outcome of seeking which showed that Edwards gave a basis for more than hope - even confidence - about certain benefits and hope for all things. Thus as I have shown above, whether certain or uncertain, the awakened would necessarily seek hopefully.
(i) Humble Yourself
To all intents and purposes this is the preparation for salvation. “The heart of man is not prepared to receive the mercy of God in Christ . . . til he is sensible of his own demerit.” *104* “If men would obtain mercy of God they must mourn for sin.” *105* All of the awakened sinner’s seeking ultimately leads him to realize not only that he cannot find but that he cannot, in the true sense, even seek. One could say that seeking is in order to non-seeking. The end of seeking is not seeking. Striving has reached its goal when the agonizer stops striving. “Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls” (Mat_11:28-29). One labors in order to learn the futility of all labor as he finds rest in Christ. But if one does not seek he never realizes non-seeking; if he does not strive he never finds rest in non-striving.
In sight of the goal Edwards wrestles with the whole problem again. “One might as strongly argue,” he argues,
the necessity of a distinct preparatory work of mortification of sin to go before a work of conversion or sanctification of the nature as for the necessity of a person’s being brought off from their own righteousness by a distinct preceding work of humiliation but yet no sound divine will say that sin is mortified . . . before grace is infused. The truth is that the case is the same with regard to the objects of his lust and a man’s own righteousness. There is a legal work commonly preparing the way for a man’s being weaned from each. A legal conviction to beat and force him from his own righteousness and his legal repentance to beat him off from the object of his lust but the heart is not truly weaned from either til grace is infused. *106*
Thus Edwards is preserving the distinction between legal and evangelical humiliation.
It is in a sermon that Edwards goes more thoroughly into this question. *107* How may a proud, natural man suffer humiliation without evangelical humiliation? It takes Edwards’ most critical faculties to extricate himself from a seemingly insuperable difficulty. He faces the inquiry how a sinner is convinced of his desert of God’s wrath, noting in passing that a natural man may have a “like sense” though not the same because he has no sense of the “excellency” of God. Yet he is “convinced” and Edwards explains how. The Holy Spirit assists “natural conscience” which gives a sense of right and wrong, and their relation to retribution in the light of reason and especially “God’s awful and terrible greatness.” The Word of God also convinces man of his helplessness. So Edwards would account naturally for an experience that appeared superficially, at least, tantamount to evangelical repentance.
One may not say, therefore, that humiliation is unique among preparatory experiences. *108* Like all the others it is the seeker’s counterpart of the genuine evangelical experience. It seems to be unique because that of which it is the counterpart (or counterfeit) is itself the very ingredient of saving faith.
(2) What Not To Do
With all the different ways of seeking - and we have only described a few - one would suppose that the seeking sinner would be too busy doing to have time to worry about what he ought not to do. Nevertheless, Edwards is almost as urgent and insistent about the negations as the directions. What not to do - if it did not overshadow the positive obligations - was not slighted. “Persons should be much concerned to known whether they do not live in some way of sin.” *109* If proper seeking was so likely to be successful, then it followed that the greatest peril to the sinner was in not seeking or seeking in the wrong way.
(a) Do Not Procrastinate
Time was the Puritan’s most precious possession. Not only are the diaries and sermons full of this theme and the danger of losing this most valued fortune, but even formal theological texts such as those of William Ames, William could devote a whole section to De Procrastinatione.
Time was also Jonathan Edwards’ most precious possession. While still a teenager he had resolved: “Never to lose one moment of time, but to improve it in the most profitable way I possibly can.” *110* As a mature preacher his “Redeeming the Time” was no New Year’s Day sermon. *111* For him, as for all Puritans, every day may be the last day and he told his parishioners that when they came to die they should have nothing left to do but die. It is interesting that Edwards’ own death was utterly unexpected leaving him little time to do anything but die.
Consequently, because time was as uncertain as it was precious, procrastination if not the worst of all sins was the most foolish and could well become the most fatal. “The Sin and Folly of depending on Future Time” brings this out poignantly. *112*
(b) Do Not Take the Wrong Way
That seeker who did not put off until the uncertain tomorrow what he could do today, could nonetheless do it the wrong way or take the wrong path. If he did nothing, he would surely perish but he could perish doing something the wrong way. There are, preached Edwards, a thousand wrong ways but only one right one. Many are the crooked lines but only one straight one. “There is but one way to heaven and all the rest are ways to hell.” *113* Striving way always associated with straitness. “Strive to enter in at the strait gate.” One had to strive not only in the way but to stay in the way. If Satan could not keep the sinner asleep, his next effort would be to encourage him zealously to go off on his own. He is the father of the theory that zeal or sincerity alone matters. The Puritan was not a sentimentalist. A wrong way was a fatal way and no amount of commitment to it or labor in it would make it end up anywhere but the wrong place. All Edwards’ emphasis on orthodoxy - right thinking - cannot be forgotten. While a man could know the truth and perish with it, without the truth he was certainly going to perish. “The true excellency of a Gospel minister” was to be like John the Baptist who “was a burning and a shining light” full of fire and truth (zeal and knowledge). *114*
As Calvin said, most people want to be saved in a crowd but the Calvinistic Puritans warned that the “broad road,” where many entered, led only to destruction. Bunyan has burned into the minds of millions how fatal the stay at Vanity Fair.
(c) Do Not Become Self-Righteous
Edwards’ sermons are never more interesting than when dealing with objections.” And no “objection” was more interesting than that raised by those who were putting off seeking because it might produce a spirit of self-righteousness in them. The self-righteous avoiding seeking for fear it would develop self-righteousness! If Edwards was amused, he treated the objection with utter seriousness. With analysis worthy of The Freedom of the Will he put the fears of these procrastinators to rest:
It is therefore quite a wrong notion that some entertain, that the more they do, the more they shall depend on it. Whereas the reverse is true; the more they do, or the more thorough they are in seeking, the less will they be likely to rest in their doings, and the sooner will they see the vanity of all that they do. So that persons will exceedingly miss it, if ever they neglect to do any duty either to God or man, whether it be any duty of religion, justice, or charity, under a notion of its exposing them to trust in their own righteousness. It is very true, that it is a common thing for persons, when they earnestly seek salvation, to trust in the pains that they take: but yet commonly those that go on in a more slight way, trust a great deal more securely to their dull services, than he that is pressing into the kingdom of God does to his earnestness. Men’s slackness in religion, and their trust in their own righteousness, strengthen and establish one another. Their trust in what they have done, and what they now do, settles them in a slothful rest and ease, and hinders their being sensible of their need of rousing up themselves and pressing forward. *115*
However sound the theory that true seeking tended to bring humility and humiliation rather than pride and self-righteousness many actual sinners did develop their self-righteousness; and, righteous indignation on top of it. Again Edwards may not have been amused but apart from the tragedy of the situation, the twentieth century man can hardly read these remarks without some grim entertainment: Edwards after reminding these complaining seekers that their seeking itself was sinful activity only less bad than non-seeking, wonders if a thousand dead bodies is better than one. *116* If seeking is bad, a long time in it deserves no more than a little. “It is a gross mistake of some natural men, who think that when they read and pray they do not add to their sins. . . .” *117* All the time they think they are meriting favor “they are meriting his hatred and fury. . . .” *118* This seems to have been true even of the Edwardsian seeker. The more he “sought” the more he sinned and yet the more he thought himself virtuous. Nevertheless, as we have seen above, had he not sought at all, he would have grown even faster in self-righteousness. It was in spite of wrong seeking and not because of true seeking but there can be no denying that many insisted on earning rather than receiving salvation though the seeking was ostensibly for a gift and not a reward. You should have been “ashamed” *119* rather than vain-glorious thundered Jonathan Edwards to the God-seekers who turned out to be self-seekers. All the while they sought with their hearts alienated and worshipping at their own shrine, they thought they deserved something of the God whom they hated all along. Would a wife, he asked, who was kind toward her husband in order to cover her adultery, be deserving his praise?
(d) Do Not Cease Seeking Even When You Have “Found”
Finally, the seeker’s gravest danger of all. The danger of losing even as he finds. Just as the long-sought gift finally becomes his it slips from his grasp never again to be found and probably even to be sought after. Of course, this is not quite accurate - not quite the way it happens. Far too often Edwards preached and defended the perseverance of the saints to suppose that the seeker who really found could ever lose again. “If you have it, you can’t lose it; if you lose it, you never had it.” What did happen was that many who felt themselves converted ceased thereupon to continue seeking. Why not? They had sought. They had found. Why keep looking for what they had found?
As usual, Edwards is equal to the apparently impossible. He gives a devastating reply to a seemingly unanswerable objection. In fact, he gives several answers to the unanswerable, “Why continue seeking when I have found?” First, though one had found justification he would have to press on to sanctification. If he did not seek sanctification, this would prove that he had not found justification. Second, the very nature of sanctification required the same seeking process for life. Third, every true Christian, such as Paul, is shown by Scripture to be a life-long seeker who was constantly proving how much was still to be found.
First, though the seeker had, by the grace of God, found justification, he would have to press on to sanctification. The anti-antinomianism of Edwards is well known. Faith without works is dead and the seeker who has “found” and does not persevere has not found - for he is dead while he lives. “I was alive without the law once; but when the commandment came, sin revived and I died.” (Rom_7:9)
Second, the very nature of sanctification required the same seeking process for life. Edwards’ view of sanctification was characteristically unique. The full treatment that it requires will come in a later chapter. What can be said is that the saint had the same “flesh” as the sinner. Consequently, he had to fight against it by seeking for the Lord who alone could enable the saint to overcome - just as the sinner had to seek and for the same reason. Is there no difference at all? Yes, the Holy Spirit has taken up residence in the soul of the saint and has covenanted to hear and aid him throughout life as was never promised to the unregenerate seeker. That and only that is the reason the saint will never perish. *120*
Third, every true Christian is shown by Scripture to be a lifelong seeker. A major sermon-series was devoted to the apostle Paul, seeker supreme. *121* Edwards makes this quality of seeking the first characteristic of the apostle Paul in a revival sermon on the apostles character as an example to Christians.
The Apostle did not only thus earnestly seek salvation before his conversion and hope, but afterwards. What he says in the third chapter of Philippians of his suffering the loss of all things, that he might be found in Christ, and its being the one thing that he did to seek salvation; and also what he says of his so running as not in vain, but as resolving to win the prize of salvation, and keeping under his body that he might not be a castaway; was long after his conversion, and after he had received his hope of his own good estate.
If being already converted excuses a man from seeking salvation any more, or makes it reasonable that he should leave off his earnest care and labour for it, certainly the apostle might have been excused, when he had not only already attained some grace, but such eminent degrees of it. To see one of the most eminent saints that ever lived if not [the] very eminentest of all so exceedingly engaged in seeking his own salvation - it ought for ever to put to shame those that are a thousand degrees below him, and are but mere infants to him, if they have any grace at all; that yet excuse themselves from using any violence after the kingdom of heaven now, because they have attained already, easing themselves of the burden of going on earnestly to seek salvation with that, that they have got through the work, they have got a hope.
The apostle, as eminent as he was, did not say within himself, “I am converted, and so am sure of salvation. Christ has promised it me; What need I care any further about obtaining salvation? Yea, I am not only converted, but I have obtained great degrees of grace. . . .” The apostle knew that though he was converted, yet there remained a great work that he must do, in order to his salvation. There was a narrow way to eternal glory, that he must pass through and never could come to the crown of glory in any other way He knew that it was absolutely necessary for him earnestly to seek salvation still; he knew there was no going to heaven in a lazy way.
And therefore he did not seek salvation the less earnestly, for his having hope and assurance, but a great deal more. We nowhere read so much of his earnestness and violence for the kingdom of heaven before he was converted as we do afterwards. . . .
Most certainly if the apostle was in the right way of acting, we in this place are generally in the wrong. For nothing is more apparent than that tis not thus with the generality of professors here but that tis a common thing after they think they are safe, to be abundantly less diligent and earnest in religion than before.”
I have merely sketched an outline of some more important points in Edwards’ theory of seeking and preparation. I suggest that though the distinction is not so labelled, there is a difference between seeking and preparation. Although seeking in a sense is a divine preparation for grace, it is more specifically involved with human activity than divine stimulation. Preparation, on the other hand, while it pertains to the man who is prepared, is primarily a divine product. Thus we could think of awakening as steps in seeking and consider the ultimate humbling and humiliation, if not mortification, as the point at which seeking becomes preparation.
Edwards, without budging an inch from a most thorough predestinarianism, has put an utter premium on the utmost activity of the most depraved sons of Adam. Without moving an inch toward Arminianism, he has demanded that fallen men take steps “toward” salvation. With as pure a form of solifideanism as any theologian has ever articulated, he made the most strenuous striving indispensable to salvation.
I will now briefly note how the Edwardsian seeking and preparation fared in the generations that followed.
E. American Calvinism Today: Unprepared for Preparation
I think we may say without any hesitation or doubt that today one would have to seek for the doctrine of seeking with all the assiduity, denial and perseverance that Edwards required of the original seekers, without much hope or possibility, not to mention probability, of finding it in any well-known modern Calvinists. Most of them do not preach it - in fact, they do not believe it - indeed, they do not know what it is. If you try to tell them, they are sure that it must be an Arminian doctrine at best.
It is interesting that all of the well-known modern evangelists are Arminian at best. Graham, Bright, Robertson - all of them, Arminians at best. In the days of the Great Awakening consider the most famous evangelists: Freylinghuisen, Edwards, Whitefield, Tennent, Davies - Calvinists all and preparationists all (more or less).
Is this the explanation? Are Calvinists today not prepared for preparation because they are not doing the work of an evangelist? Those who are “doing” it conspicuously are Arminians who need no such doctrine. So the people who need preparation are not in the business of evangelism and those who are in the business of evangelism do not need it. If a Calvinist is going to preach for anything other than instantaneous conversion, he is going to need it. If an Arminian ever really needs preparation, he has ceased to be an Arminian. So in the present evangelistic job-market there are simply no openings for preparationists.
But is this good? I will not here prove that Arminianism is erroneous (Edwards did that definitively two and half centuries ago) but merely assume it. Those who are, as well as those who are not, Arminians will admit that on the assumption that Arminianism is false its opposition to seeking (being true to its system) is also false. They stand or fall together. Calvinists would grant that if Arminianism were true its opposition to preparation would also be true. Arminians should be willing to grant that if their system is false their opposition to seeking would also be false.
But is it good for Calvinism that preparation has disappeared? I will not prove here that Calvinism is biblically true (Edwards did that definitively also two and half centuries ago) but merely assume it. Is it then good for biblical Christianity, Calvinism, that one must seek for seeking today? I think the answer no, it is not good to have to seek for seeking for several reasons. It is not good for sinners, it is not good for the saints, and it is not good for the church in general.
First, it is not good for the sinners. I was speaking once with a Reformed pastor who thought he was opposed to preparation. Said I, “What do you say to a man under conviction?” He replied, “I tell him to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ to be saved.” I asked: “Suppose he says, ‘but I don’t believe in Christ,’ what then? His answer was a shrug of the shoulders. He shrugged his shoulders - that was bad enough, but he also shrugged off that poor sinner. That was far worse. Calvinists all know that though a man is regenerated instantaneously it very rarely happens when he first hears the gospel. It is well known, in fact, that often a long time elapses before instantaneous regeneration occurs - if it occurs. What is the poor wretch to do meanwhile? I say “poor wretch” advisedly because no one better qualifies for that description than the person who knows he needs conversion and does not possess it. Before conviction he is “poor” without being wretched; after conversion he knows he was and in a sense is a wretch but that he is no longer poor. But when under conviction a person knows he is a poor wretch. Does such a man ask for bread and the Calvinist preacher give him a shrug? Here in particular, I address the Reformed pastor.
Surely, you are not going to say that if God elected him God will bring him in. I say surely you are not going to say that for that is the way that non-Calvinists slanderously caricature us. You surely are not trying to prove a caricature true! You know, as a Calvinist, that God foreordains means as well as ends and those means he puts in your hands. Yes, you reply, but when I have preached the gospel and pointed this poor wretch to Christ I have given him the only means by which he or anyone ever can be saved. I am not neglecting means. It is granted that Christ is the means and only means - to salvation. But are there not means to the means? How do we know Christ except by the Word? Can you not, should you not, urge this convicted individual to continue studying the Word? Should you not say that “If ever you receive the gift of faith it will come by hearing, studying, reading”? Yes, you should warn him that a little learning of the Bible is a dangerous thing and much learning is an even more dangerous thing. Yet it is the only way to possible salvation. And however dangerous reading without faith is, not reading without faith is even more dangerous. Must you not tell the seeker: “One may, admittedly, perish with the Bible but you certainly will perish without the Bible. And suppose God does give you grace how well you may immediately forge ahead if you are prepared. All must grow in grace and knowledge. If you prepare now you will have so much knowledge, to which God would then add grace.”
But suppose the poor wretch, afraid to hope, says “Yes, but I may yet perish. I cannot be sure I will be saved.” You cannot deny this. You would be a false prophet if you did. You would be your own and not God’s messenger. It was said of the Puritans that they would not dilute the vinegar of life and you, if you be a Calvinist and true, you dare not. You cannot dilute the vinegar of eternal life - hell itself. You must admit that this convicted sinner on his knees with the Bible in his hand may perish in his sins. But by this time, if you have preached the whole counsel of God, he will know and be convicted that that is precisely what he deserves. He will give you no argument unless you offer him false assurances. And you can give him one true assurance. He will in studying the Bible be less sinful than in disdaining it and thus will not lay up wrath against the day of wrath as rapidly as he had been doing. Today that would sound gruesomely ludicrous because Calvinistic pastors are not preaching the whole counsel of God which does include the awful fact that every idle word shall be brought into judgment. That does mean an additional infinite measure of the anger of God for every sin committed.
More than this, you will be able to offer our poor wretch more than a diminution of hell, great as that is, but a real hope of heaven as well. Can anyone truly question the fact that most people who ever were saved did seek and that most of those who sought persistently and earnestly did find? More than that cannot be said; but, can less?
Is this not enough to keep a sinner studying hopefully but not presumptuously all his life? And that is without mentioning all the other ways in which he may and must seek - all of them gaining something and, often, everything.
Second, it is not good for the saints to neglect “seeking” seeking for glorification. Is it not true that many who have found Christ sadly sing:
Look how we grovel here below,
Fond of these trifling toys;
Our souls can neither fly nor go
To reach eternal joys.
In vain we tune our formal songs,
In vain we strive to rise;
Hosannas languish on our tongues,
And our devotion dies.
Does the Psalmist saint not often complain about the “drought of summer,” the “panting after the water brooks,” the “arrows” of the Almighty sticking in him? Are these not indications, ratified in the souls of each of us, that the “body of death” is still with us? “O wretched man that I am!” It is, as Paul says, Christ who rescues us and gives us the victory. But, is it not by the means of grace: the Word, prayer, meditation, resisting temptation, doing good deeds? Therefore, the believer does these things not as the unregenerate seeker must do them, as an act of the will against the inclination of the heart. The difference between the unbeliever and the believer is that Christ has promised to work in the believer to will and to do according to His good pleasure. But the believer cannot wait until then. He must unfurl his sail whether the wind blows or not. Only, the saint knows - as the unregenerate cannot - that the divine Spirit will never leave us nor forsake him. So, insofar as he fails to “seek” at that moment he is not obedient to Christ. So saints are not saints when they fail to seek as sinners.
Finally, it is not good for the church in general to neglect preparation. If it has been shown that this is the teaching of the Word of God, it cannot be good for the church to disregard it. If the church is ignorant of it, she must be ignorant of the Word of God. Where there is no vision the people perish - and surely they are perishing today almost as rapidly in the church as out of it. The church is commanded to teach whatever Christ has commanded as the condition of his being with her until the end of the age. If Edwards was right - and no one has shown him wrong - Christ not only taught the duty of striving to enter in at the strait gate but promoted it preeminently in his own ministry. Unless the church today presumes to be a better evangelist than our Lord it will follow His example.
But to show how much wiser we are than He let me tell an experience with a group of church leaders. In a discussion I asked them what they would never say if they were trying to win a soul to Christ. They answered, to a man, “We would not preach the law and duty and giving up things.” I then turned to the encounter of the Rich Young Ruler who asked Christ what he must do to inherit eternal life and how our Lord goofed by saying: “Thou knowest the commandments, Do not commit adultery, Do not kill, Do not steal, Do not bear false witness, Honour thy father and they mother” (Luk_19:20).
Let me conclude simply:
1. If the church of Jesus Christ is founded on Christ as God and Savior;
2. If the church’s supreme commission is to win souls and build them up in the most holy faith;
3. If Christ and the Scriptures alone can tell her how to carry out her commission;
4. If Christ and the Scriptures have told her and that the directions include preparing sinners and saints for salvation;
5. If the church notwithstanding has grossly ignored and neglected where she has not deliberately disobeyed;
6. Then the church must importunately ask God to forgive her and set about the task, in the footsteps of Christ’s greatest herald, crying: “Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make his paths straight.”
To that end, perhaps we may consider and appreciate anew the example of Edwards, in this powerful and passionate exposition and application of the Biblical doctrine of “seeking.”