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TOPIC: Edwards, Jonathan - Rational Biblical Theology (Other Topics in this Collection)
SUBJECT: Chapt 29 Regeneration
Other Subjects in this Topic:
1. Review of Man’s Inclination and Will.
Jonathan Edwards distinguishes emphatically between the power of will and the inclination of will but not enough, apparently, to head off a host of contemporary scholars from confusing them. Even in his own day Edwards had his confusers, as he complains in M 710.
Perry Miller finds Edwards’ determinism not only essentially the same as that of Augustine, Leibniz and Turretin, and “almost all the Calvinistic writers of Geneva and Holland, during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries,” but also in Hobbes and Anthony Collins as well. *1*
The late B. F. Skinner, on the other hand, according to the following statement, must never have read Jonathan Edwards’ Freedom of the Will or any of those philosophers mentioned above:
Prevailing philosophy of human nature recognizes an internal ‘will’ which has the power of interfering with causal relationships and which makes the predictions and control of behavior impossible. To suggest that we abandon this view is to threaten many cherished beliefs - to undermine what appears to be a stimulating and productive conception of human nature. *2*
Rational as man by nature is, it is, according to Edwards, the affections that move him. He can know what he might do but it is his feelings that produce action good or evil. *3*
A disposition is the inclination of the soul. It tends, in Edwards, to equate with the will as we have seen. More than once, especially in Freedom of the Will, he claims that to will and to incline are the same thing. *4* A disposition by its very nature is a created (or re-created) entity or faculty of the soul. Following Aristotle, Edwards thought that the soul’s generating a disposition is an absurd notion. Rather:
This is the general notion, not that principles derive their goodness from actions, but that actions derive their goodness from the principles whence they proceed; and so that the act of choosing that which is good, is no further virtuous than it proceeds from a good principle, or virtuous disposition of mind. Which supposes, that a virtuous disposition of mind may be before a virtuous act of choice; and that therefore it is not necessary that there should first be thought, reflection and choice, before there can be any virtuous disposition. If the choice be first, before the existence of a good disposition of heart, what signifies that choice? There can, according to our natural notions, be no virtue in a choice which proceeds from no virtuous principle, but from mere self-love, ambition, or some animal appetite. And therefore a virtuous temper of mind may be before a good act of choice, as a tree may be before the fruit, and the fountain before the stream which proceeds from it. *5*
“When God first made man he had a principle of holiness.” *6* But now “man is born with no other principle but self-love to direct his powers.” In the application, Edwards says that Adam, too, had the self-love principle but it was subject to the love of God, and, therefore, good. *7*
Preaching on 1Jn_4:12 Edwards tells us that holiness was a supernatural principle in Adam but even then it did not properly belong to human nature. *8* Human nature as such can exist apart from a principle of holiness. The unregenerate are true, though utterly evil, men.
The sermon, “Jesus Christ the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever” leads to an oblique reference to the mutability of mere man.
I. We learn from the truth taught in the text, how fit Christ was to be appointed as the surety of fallen man. Adam, the first surety of mankind, failed in his work, because he was a mere creature, and so a mutable being. Though he had so great a trust committed to him, as the care of the eternal welfare of all his posterity, yet, not being unchangeable, he failed, and transgressed God’s holy covenant. He was led aside, and drawn away by the subtle temptation of the devil. He being a changeable being, his subtle adversary found means to turn him aside, and so he fell, and all his posterity fell with him. It appeared, therefore, that we stood in need of a surety that was unchangeable, and could not fail in his work. Christ, whom God appointed to this work, to be to us a second Adam, is such an one that is the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever, and therefore was not liable to fail in his undertaking. He was sufficient to be depended on as one that would certainly stand all trials, and go through all difficulties, until he had finished the work that he had undertaken, and actually wrought out eternal redemption for us. *9*
According to Medieval theology, the Holy Spirit originally dwelt in the original righteous man who would be pulled apart by the tension between body and soul were it not for the super-added gift (donum superadditum) to hold him in harmony. When man failed to control the tension by failing to use this special gift, he fell into sin. Why man as created did not use this gift was the scholastics’ problem as it was Augustine’s before them.
Edwards’ problem is far more difficult. His super-added gift was none other than the Spirit of God. The Holy Spirit could not fail to keep changeable man from changing from good to evil, and man could not overpower Him if he were tempted to do so. So though never spelled out, this divine super-added “gift” must have been a mere offer. If the Holy Spirit were resident in the first man, he would never have fallen, as it is now with persevering saints, and as will be the case later in heaven where the perfected saint never can even sin because the Spirit fully indwells. If the Spirit were not resident but merely offering to reside within man it still remains difficult to understand why unfallen man would ever reject such a Gift.
Man was made with a holiness principle but this was not essential to human nature. It was lost by the Fall without humanity ceasing to be. As a matter of fact, all the motivation that is necessary to human nature is self-interest, not God-interest. Yet man would know from his rational nature that it is to man’s self-interest to be controlled by God-interest. He was at first aided toward this by the “supernatural” principle of holiness and the presence of the Holy Spirit Himself in Adam, but being deceived by the devil he let his self-interest overthrow God-interest.
Zec_7:5-6 teaches “that no religion is acceptable to God but that which is done from a true respect to him.” *10* This is because that is not “true” which springs from self-love. That only is true which has its foundation in the high esteem of God and a sense of His “excellency.” Consequently, true worship “aims” at the glory of God and pleasing Him and enjoying Him and His promises by faith. The rationale against self-interest and in favor of the divine is that there is no goodness in anything not for the glory of God. God does not command anything for need of it but only as occasion for the creature to respect Him and live. Other-motivated deeds have no “suitableness” to the nature of God and are essentially lies. *11*
2. Knowledge of the Bible.
Man is now dead in trespasses and sins and only God can make him live again. *12* The steps by which He does this - if He does it - are essentially three: 1. knowledge of the Bible; 2. illuminating saving understanding of the Bible; and simultaneously, 3. regeneration.
Illumination is dependent on knowledge. Knowledge is not dependent in the same sense, on illumination. However, illumination does powerfully promote knowledge. Once God has made the knowledge come alive, the saints develop an eager desire for more of such knowledge so that more experience may be possible. Thus the sense of the heart promotes the interests of the head.
It will also be allowed, that the spiritual saving knowledge of God, and divine things, greatly promotes speculative knowledge; as it engages the mind in its search into things of this kind, and much assists to a distinct understanding of them; so that, other things being equal, they who have spiritual knowledge, are much more likely than others to have a good doctrinal acquaintance with things of religion; but yet such acquaintance may be no distinguishing characteristic of true saints. *13*
The sermon on Heb_5:12, the doctrine of which is “Every Christian should make a business of endeavoring to grow in knowledge in divinity,” is especially devoted to this point. *14* “It doubtless,” Edwards preached to his congregation, “concerns every one to endeavor to excel in the knowledge of things which pertain to his profession or principal calling.” *15* If any of his parishioners were inclined to remind their pastor that they were busy farmers and housewives, they would have heard Edwards saying:
But the calling and work of every Christian is to live to God. This is said to be his high calling, Php_3:14. This is the business, and if I may so speak, the trade of a Christian, his main work, and indeed should be his only work. No business should be done by a Christian, but as it is some way or other a part of this. Therefore, certainly the Christian should endeavor to be well acquainted with those things which belong to this work. . . . *16*
Having developed Edwards’ doctrine of the Bible in volume one, little more need be added here. But I will cite a part of what is the most vivid sermonic picture Edwards ever presented of the role of the Bible in conversion:
1. God, in many respects, knows better what belongs to the punishment of sinners than departed souls. Departed souls doubtless know what hell-torments are, much better than any on earth. The souls of the wicked feel them, and the souls of the saints see them afar off. God glorifies his justice in the punishment of ungodly men, in the view of the saints and angels, and thereby makes them the more admire the riches of this goodness in choosing them to life. As the rich man saw Lazarus in heaven afar off, so Lazarus saw the rich man in hell; he saw hell-torments; and therefore the rich man desires he may be sent to warn his brethren. - And if one should rise from the dead to warn wicked men, if it would at all awaken them, it would be because he knew what hell-torments were by his own knowledge, and could describe them to others, as having seen and felt them.
But surely the all-seeing God knows as well as any of the dead, what the present sufferings of the damned are. He is every where present with his all-seeing eye. He is in heaven and in hell, and in and through every part of the creation. He is where every devil is; and where every damned soul is, he is present by his knowledge and his essence. He not only knows as well as those in heaven, who see at a distance; but he knows as perfectly as those who feel the misery. He seeth into the innermost recesses of the hearts of those miserable spirits. He seeth all the sorrow and anguish that are there; for he upholds them in being. They and all the powers of their spirits, whereby they are capable of either happiness or misery, are in his hands.
Besides, it is his wrath they endure; he measures out to them their several portions of punishment; he makes his wrath enter into them; he is a consuming fire to them; his anger is that fire, in which they are tormented. He therefore is doubtless able to give us as clear and distinct, and as true, an account of hell, as the damned themselves, if they should rise from the dead. He needs not any to inform him.
He knows far better what the eternity of those torments is than any of them. He can better tell us how awful a thing eternity is. He knows better what the future judgment of sinners will be, when the Lord Jesus shall come in flaming fire to take vengeance on them that know not God, and obey not the gospel. He knows far better than they how much the torment of the wicked will then be increased.
2. We have the truth upon surer grounds from God’s testimony, than we could have it from the testimony of one rising from the dead. Suppose one should rise from the dead, and tell us of the dreadfulness of hell-torments; how precarious a foundation would that be to build upon, in a matter of such importance, unless we consider it as confirmed by divine testimony. We should be uncertain whether there were not some delusion in the case. We know that it is impossible for God to lie; and we may know that the matter is just as he declares it to us. But if one should come from the dead, we could not be so sure that we were no way imposed upon. We could not be so sure that he who testified was not himself subject to some delusion. We could not be sure that the matter was not strained too high, and represented greater than it really is.
One coming from the dead could not, merely by force of his own testimony, make us sure that we should come to that place of torments if we did not repent and reform. And if there should come more witnesses than one from the dead, if there should be ever so many, yet there is no authority equal to that of God; there is no testimony of spirits from the invisible world which would be so indisputable and unquestionable as the divine testimony. How could we know, unless by some divine revelation, that they who should come from the dead had not come to deceive us? How could we know how wicked, or how good they were, and upon what views they acted?
Whereas we have the greatest ground to be assured, that the First Being, and the Fountain of all being and perfection, is nothing but light and truth itself, and therefore that it is impossible he should deceive or be deceived.
3. The warnings of God’s word have greatly the advantage, by reason of the greatness and majesty of him who speaks. The speeches and declarations of those who are great, excellent, and honourable, have a greater tendency to move the affections, than the declarations of others who are less excellent. Things spoken by a king affect more than the same things spoken by a mean man.
But God is infinitely greater than kings; he is universal King of heaven and earth, the absolute Sovereign of all things. Now, what can have a greater tendency to strike the mind and move the heart, than to be warned by this great and glorious Being? Shall we be unmoved when he speaks who made heaven and earth by the word of his power? If his immediate speeches, declarations, and warnings, will not influence us, what will? Isa_1:2. “Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth, for the Lord hath spoken.” - That is to the present purpose which we have in Mat_21:37. “But last of all he sent his son, saying, They will reverence my son.” He sent his servants before, but they did not regard them. He therefore sent his son, who was a much greater and more honourable messenger, and said, Surely they will regard him.
What if God should send messengers from the dead to warn us, even many in succession, and men should reject them; we should justly argue, that it would have a much greater tendency to make men regard and obey the counsel, if he would sent his Son, or come himself. But God hath sent his Son, and therein he hath come himself. He came down from heaven, and took upon him our nature, and dwelt among us, teaching and warning us concerning hell and damnation.
In the Bible, we not only have those warnings which were given by inspiration of the prophets, but we have God’s own words, which he spake as it were by his own mouth. In the Old Testament is his voice out of the midst of the fire and the darkness, from mount Sinai; and in the New Testament, we have God speaking to us, as dwelling among us. He came down from heaven, and instructed us in a familiar manner for a long while; and we have his instructions recorded in our Bibles. - Now, which has the greatest tendency to influence men, to have one of the departed spirits sent back into its body to warn them, or to have God himself assume a body and warn them?
4. It more evidently shows the importance of the affair, that God should immediately concern himself in it, than the coming of one from the dead would do. Those things about which kings most immediately concern themselves are commonly matters of the greatest importance, while they leave less concernments to be managed by their officers. And surely that must be a matter of very great moment, in which God shows himself so much concerned as he does in our salvation. God, in all ages of the world, hath showed himself very much concerned in this matter. How abundantly hath he warned us in his holy word? How earnest hath he shown himself in it! How many arguments and expostulations hath he used, that we might avoid the way to hell! - This evidently argues, that what we are warned about is a matter of the utmost concern, and proves it much more than if we were only warned by one risen from the dead.
5. God warning us of our danger of damnation hath a greater tendency to have influence upon us, because he is our Judge. Damnation is a punishment to which he condemns and which he inflicts. What he warns us of is his own wrath and vengeance. In his word we have his threatenings against sin denounced by himself. He tells us, that if we go on in sin, he will destroy us, and cast us out of his sight, and pour out his wrath upon us, and hold us eternally under misery. He tells us so himself; and this hath a much greater tendency to influence us, than to be told so by another, who is not to be our judge, who hath not in his hands the power of making us miserable. - When a king immediately threatens his own displeasure, it has a greater tendency to terrify men, than when another man threatens it, or warns them of the danger.
6. God is infinitely wise, and knows better how to speak to us so as to persuade us, than one risen from the dead. He perfectly knows our nature and state, and knows how to adapt his instructions and warnings to our frame and circumstances in the world; and without doubt that method which God has chosen, is agreeable to his infinite wisdom, and most adapted to our nature.
If one should come from hell to warn sinners, it may be he would tell them of hell in such a manner as would have more of a tendency to drive men into despair, and set them a blaspheming as they do in hell, than to excite them to strive for salvation, and diligently to use the means which God hath appointed. But God knoweth what revelation of hell we can bear, and what hath the most tendency to do us good in this our infirm, dark, and sinful state. - The declarations of one come from hell might more tend to drive us from God than to bring us near to him. It is best for us to be warned and instructed by God, who knows best how to do it.
These are some of the reasons why the warnings of God’s word have more of a tendency to bring us to repentance, than the warning of one risen from the dead. *17*
3. Illumination and Enthusiasm
Edwards stresses the way to illumination:
The way to receive spiritual knowledge and wisdom is to sit at Jesus’ feet and hear his word. . . . The most acceptable way of showing respect to Christ is to give hearty entertainment to his word. . . . Anxiousness and fullness of cares about the things of this world is inconsistent with our minding the great concerns of our souls as we ought to do. *18*
If Shakespeare’s prayers without thoughts “never to heaven go” for Edwards thoughts without desires are not sufficient. After all, the best theologians are the devils who know too much to be atheists or deists. Nevertheless, they are devils still. One may not be able to be Christian without being orthodox but he certainly can be orthodox without being Christian. Even “experience” does not prove the point. The major thrust of the Jam_2:19 sermon is expressed in its doctrine. “No such experiences as the devils in hell are the subjects of are any sure sign of grace.” *19* At this point, Edwards not only parts company with the devils but with Plato and Spinoza as well. For Plato knowledge was virtue; to understand was to perform, and essentially the same was true for Spinoza. For Edwards, knowledge was only virtue if the heart was right.
Even Richard Sibbes and John Locke are not quite Edwardsian here. Sibbes could write: “we shall be esteemed of God to be that we love, and desire, and labour to be. . . . The desire is an earnest of the thing desired.” *20* Edwards insists on more: “That which distinguishes good men from bad, is not that they hear good, or that they profess good, or that they intend good; but that they do good.” *21* Edwards’ mentor, John Locke, would try to separate thought-desire-choice *22* but Edwards would have none of it, for him desiring is willing as truly as willing is doing.
In our earlier discussion of seeking we have seen how the elect come at last to divine illumination, a theme we considered in detail in chapter X. *23* According to Edwards, men could have sound knowledge without being regenerated, but they could not be regenerated without having sound knowledge. The nature of the inter-working of the divine and supernatural light with natural reason is made clear in the Edwards exposition of Mat_16:17, the second of his sermons to be published:
It is by reason that we become possessed of a notion of those doctrines that are the subject-matter of this divine light, or knowledge; and reason may many ways be indirectly and remotely an advantage to it. Reason has also to do in the acts that are immediately consequent on this discovery: for seeing the truth of religion from hence, is by reason; though it be but by one step, and the inference be immediate. So reason has to do in that accepting of and trusting in Christ, that is consequent on it. But if we take reason strictly - not for the faculty of mental perception in general, but for ratiocination, or a power of inferring by arguments - the perceiving of spiritual beauty and excellency no more belongs to reason, than it belongs to the sense of feeling to perceive colours, or to the power of seeing to perceive the sweetness of food. It is out of reason’s province to perceive the beauty or loveliness of any thing: such a perception does not belong to that faculty. Reason’s work is to perceive truth and not excellency. It is not ratiocination that gives men the perception of the beauty and amiableness of a countenance . . . it depends on the sense of the heart. - Reason may determine that a countenance is beautiful to others, it may determine that honey is sweet to others; but it will never give me a perception of its sweetness. *24*
As we suggested above, Edwards’ theory of religious knowledge may be represented by the photographic developing process. When the picture is taken, nothing appears on the emulsion; when the film is developed the picture is seen. The developer adds nothing to the picture that is not already present, but it makes the picture visible. Natural men may have mental religious pictures, but these fine pictures are never developed. The divine and supernatural light is God’s “developer” to make the beauty and sweetness of divine truth apparent to his saints.
This analogy, incidentally, shows the epistemological difference between Edwards and Kant. In Kant’s theory, the developing process adds essential ingredients to the original picture which is hopelessly confused without it. The “categories” are actually imposed in the process. In Edwards’ theory, the developing does not add a single ingredient to the original picture that comes to the mind. The picture is complete when taken. The developing merely - but this is the all-important step, of course - makes the picture visible.
The great incentive to the natural man to study the Bible, though he does not see its beauty, is evident. The more he knows in his unconverted state the more will he apprehend if God ever converts him. “The more you have of a rational knowledge of the things of the gospel the more opportunity will there be, when the Spirit shall be breathed into your heart, to see the excellency of these things, and to taste the sweetness of them.” There is the further consideration, also, that even God “cannot” make the beauty of ideas appear when such are not present. God “cannot” make something appear beautiful when that something does not exist at all.
Thus Edwards taught that there was such an experience as divine illumination, and when so enlightened, the seeker found. It was the goal of all his striving. But it, too, had its counterfeit.
For Jonathan Edwards an enthusiast (one who thought himself to be “in God”) thereby proved himself to be in the devil. The outbreak of enthusiasm in New England had happened a century earlier; the famous Anne Hutchinson case. But Jonathan Edwards did not need to go back in history when he warned the Dutch revivalists of the
temptation to religious people, in such a state of things, to countenance the glaring, shining counterparts of religion, without distinguishing them from the reality, what is true and genuine, is so strong, that they are very hardly indeed restrained from it. *25*
Edwards had had vast experience with this in the Great Awakening and warned about it in his 1743 Some Thoughts on Revival. *26*
By this imaginary “inspiration or immediate revelation” these dangerous mystics supposed that God led them, but according to Edwards it is not God who tells them, for “By such a notion the Devil has a great door opened for him,” and in time he comes “to have his word regarded as their infallible rule,” and the Bible becomes “in a great measure useless.” *27* This is only the beginning of sorrows for “This error will defend and support all errors.” The enthusiast becomes “incorrigible” for he is now guided by “the great Jehovah.” How can blind worms of the dust, go to argue with him? “I have seen” Edwards concludes, “so many instances of the failing of such impressions, that would almost furnish an history.” *28*
But it was in Religious Affections that this “bastard religion” is described most colorfully.
When the Spirit of God is poured out, to begin a glorious work, then the old serpent, as fast as possible, and by all means introduces this bastard religion, and mingles it with the true; which has from time to time soon brought all things into confusion. The pernicious consequence of it is not easily imagined or conceived of, till we see and are amazed with the awful effects of it, and the dismal desolation it has made. If the revival of true religion be very great in its beginning, yet if this bastard comes in, there is danger of its doing as Gideon’s bastard Abimelech did, who never left till he had slain all his three score and ten true-born sons, excepting one, that was forced to flee. Great and strict therefore should be the watch and guard that ministers maintain against such things, especially at a time of great awakening: for men, especially the common people, are easily bewitched with such things; they having such a glaring and glittering show of high religion; and the devil hiding his own shape, and appearing as an angel of light, that men may not be afraid of him, but may adore him. *29*
The fullest analysis/critique Jonathan Edwards was to offer of this “bastard religion” was in the published and unpublished exposition of 1 Corinthians 13 . *30*
No doubt it was Edwards’ middle ground between the overly rationalistic Chauncy and the overly emotional Davenport that kept him from enthusiasm on the one hand or opposition to the revival, on the other. As John E. Smith has observed, Chauncy’s contrast, “judgment” versus “emotion,” is as extreme in its way as Davenport’s is in his. Smith continues:
We may say that JE’s ideas involve a greater sensibility than Chauncy’s rationalism could grasp and that his sensibility involves more of idea than the emotionalism of John Davenport could allow. The intimate relation between the two poles brought about by the concept of affections is the real meaning of JE’s “middle ground” in the revival disputes. Part of the tragedy is that neither extreme understood the genius of this transcending third position. *31*
4. Regeneration
Effectual calling, conversions, repentance and regeneration were approximately synonymous terms. An important statement in Original Sin shows the identity of the last three terms.
I put repentance and conversion together, because the Scripture puts them together (Act_3:19), and because they plainly signify much the same thing. The word (repentance) signifies a change of the mind; as the word “conversion” means a change or turning from sin to God. And that this is the same change with that which is called regeneration (excepting that this latter term especially signifies the change, as the mind is passive in it) the following things do shew. *32*
This is a rather unfortunate and unscientific way of proceeding. While it is true that Scripture tends to use these different terms synonymously, there are significant differences, such as the one Edwards notes observing that the mind is passive in regeneration. Edwards often notes that “conversion” too has reference to the passivity of the mind as well as its reflex activity. He especially notes that repentance is a change of the mind [which as we shall soon see he constantly attributes exclusively to God the mind of man being passive (if not hostile) at the time of the change.] Man’s active turning away from sin and toward God is, again, a reflex of God’s activity in changing. So, in Edwards, regeneration, repentance and conversion have their passive aspects. “Effectual calling” or “calling” also possesses this feature though it is followed by an active human response, of course.
With regard to this topic, consider also the important M 15:
IRRESISTIBLE GRACE. To dispute, as more latterly they do, whether the divine assistance is always efficacious or no, is perfectly ridiculous. For it is self-evident that the divine assistance is always efficacious to do that which we are assisted to. And it is no less certain, that it is efficacious to all that God intends it shall be efficacious [to]; that is, when God assists, he assists to all that he intends to assist to. But that the divine assistance is always efficacious to all that it has a tendency to in its own nature, is what nobody affirms.
It is helpful to apply this clear discussion to Edwards’ use of the terms efficacious and sufficient grace in M 436 (cf. M 290). There the grace of God which would have prevented Adam from ever sinning was called “efficacious” while that which would enable him not to sin if he utilized it was called “sufficient.” Using the present phraseology that God’s grace is “always efficacious to all that God intends it shall be efficacious [to]” Edwards would say that the efficacious grace of M 436 was efficacious to perseverance in holiness; while sufficient grace was efficacious to persevering in holiness if one called upon it. The absolute distinction between efficacious and sufficient is, therefore, misleading and Edwards seems to fall later under his own indictment: “To dispute, as more latterly they do, whether the divine assistance is always efficacious or no, is perfectly ridiculous.” What is the divine assistance called sufficient grace”? It must have been sufficient for what it was sufficient for. But, what was that? Apparently:
to enable Adam to stand momentarily (posse non peccare) and that was all. If we say it also enabled Adam to call on efficacious grace if he would, this seems meaningless for he could always do that if he would. Sufficient grace was no way sufficient for Adam to avoid posse peccare or to call on efficacious grace. Moreover, would it not require efficacious grace to call on efficacious grace?
In Edwards’ theology regeneration or “efficacious grace” is immediate and supernatural. This is the main difference between Calvinists (who affirm it) and Arminians (who deny it). In his sermon on Deu_5:27-29; *Deu_5:33* Edwards says of this principle that there is “nothing in heaven or on earth of a more active nature.” “Godliness,” he continues, “in the heart has a relation to practice as much as a fount has a relation to streams.” Yet in the same sermon he insists that “grace” is “infused” and
then goes on to warn that activity even in right things when the “heart” is not right is condemned. It is this infused principle which makes actions right and not actions that make the principle right (as the Arminians erringly suppose). Likewise, regeneration is the result of predestination: “Conversion or efficacious calling . . . in this the decree begins to bring forth with regard to elect persons.” *34*
If ever men are turned, God must turn them. *35* God in his Word is especially insistent on this. “I know of no one thing in Scripture wherein such significant, strong expressions are used, in so great variety, or one half so often, as the bestowment of this benefit of true goodness and piety of heart.” *36* “If God be not the proper bestower, author and efficient cause of virtue, then the greatest benefits flow not from him; are not owing to his goodness; nor have we him to thank for them.” *37* In fact, “there is more of God in it than in almost any other work.” *38*
Eph_1:18 ff. spells out the divine character of grace: we are saved by grace; thus grace is His gift; we are, therefore, His workmanship, and were foreordained to it; “I know not what the apostle [Paul] could have said more.” *39* Metaphorically, this truth is stated in Rom_7:4 (there is no lawful principle in us before we are married to Christ any more than in a married woman until her spouse be dead and she married to another). Again, metaphorically speaking, “In saving conversion they that are blind and in darkness have their eyes opened and are turned from darkness unto light.” ** This grace is impossible with men but possible with God who is able to overcome all resistance. We are reminded of Perry Miller’s interpretation of Calvin on this point in terms of the “holy rape of the soul” discussed earlier.
In another early miscellany (M 1) Edwards developed this point:
[N]ow it is certain that every sinner(?) that becomes good there is a last moment of his being bad, and a first moment of his be[ing] good, a last moment of his being in a state of damnation and a first moment of his being in a state of salvation or that there is a time before which if he had died but one moment he would have gone to
hell, and after which if he had died but one moment he would have gone to heaven, this is self-evident, or which is all one he is made immensely a better man in a moment than he was before, which being allowed it is also self-evident that, the (?) notion of acquired habits, is wrong so then it is evident, to a metaphysical demonstration that one of these things is true, that man that [thus] is become good, either there was a time wherein if he had died he would neither, have gone to heaven or hell, that is neither to great happiness nor great misery or else the future state is not according to mere goodness or badness here, or else, there are infused habits.
This is an impeccable argument for anyone who accepts, as all the orthodox do, that doctrine of instantaneous salvation. One passes immediately out of a state of death into a state of life. If so, there must be an instantaneous infusion of a new habit or disposition of the soul.
At the same time, Edwards is equally insistent on the saints’ reflex activity resulting from regeneration or efficacious grace. Exhortation to unbelievers “to get into a converted state” because God is offering salvation and waiting to be gracious, was characteristic of his evangelistic message to the morally unable. *41* He calls on the converted to live the converted life. *42* “In efficacious grace,” Edwards explains in his ttreatise,
we are not merely passive, nor yet does God do some, and we do the rest. But God does all and we do all. God produces all, and we act all. For that is what he produces, viz. our own acts. God is the only proper author and fountain; we only are the proper actors. We are, in different respects, wholly passive and wholly active. *43*
Efficacious grace as the gift of God is quite consistent with freedom and faith. Titus was forward in his concern for the saints because God put it in his heart. The soul voluntarily determines but this is what the “influence of God’s Spirit determines.” *44*
A major discussion of conversion occurs in a very early miscellany, M 276:
’Tis most certain, both from Scripture and reason, that there must be a reception of Christ with the faculties of the soul in order to salvation by him; and that in this reception there is a believing of what we are taught in the gospel concerning him and salvation by him; and that it must be a consent of the will or an agreeableness
between the disposition of the soul and those doctrines. So that the disposition is all that can be said to be absolutely necessary. The act cannot be proved to be absolutely necessary; that is, it can’t be proved that there is not the disposition before there is an act because it is said by some that a man can’t be saved before he
has actually believed, if he is come to years of discretion, is plain by Scripture. But I say, no plainer than that a man must actually live a holy life before he can be saved; for the Scripture in many places speaks as plainly about the necessity of a holy life as of believing. But by those expressions concerning a holy life, we can understand
nothing else but a disposition that would naturally exert itself in holy [living] upon occasion; so we say of the believing disposition.
In this early miscellany Edwards seems to be taking exception to the orthodox doctrine to which he later clearly subscribed. That is, here he seems to be saying that a man may be saved without an act of faith in Christ, though not without a disposition to believe in Christ. He admits that the Bible requires an act of faith in Christ but since the Bible also requires holy living Edwards argues that only the disposition to believe and to live is absolutely necessary.
However the orthodox argue and Edwards, too, later, that the disposition comes into existence with the hearing of and responding to the invitation to believe in Christ. But Edwards here is inferring that the disposition may exist apart from the act of faith. He is not even consistent with himself here because at the outset of the miscellany he writes that there “must be a consent of the will or an agreeableness between the disposition of the soul and those doctrines” (“what we are taught in the gospel concerning him and salvation by him”). Thus the disposition itself is toward believing in those doctrines of Christ and presumably is aroused by the proclamation of those doctrines and does not exist apart from them as Edwards seems to be saying the latter part of this pragraph.
We note also that the holy living as well as the active believing in Christ is involved. What is taught in the Bible “concerning him and salvation by him” surely includes following him or holy living. In the next paragraph Edwards enters into the argument that probably triggered the
novel doctrine just mentioned. A converted person himself undergoes periods in which there is no active faith or holy living and only the holy disposition remains. From this the inference is drawn that if this could happen during the life of the converted it could happen before that life began:
And as sometimes a person has this disposition within him who has in times past felt the quickest exercises of it, yet may not sensibly feel them for some time; so a man may have the disposition in him for some time before he ever sensibly feels them, for want of occasion and other reasons. ’Tis the disposition and principle is the thing God looks at. Supposing a man dies suddenly and not in the actual exercise of faith, ’tis his disposition that saves him; for if it were possible that the disposition was destroyed, the man would be damned and all the former acts of faith would signify nothing.
If this paragraph does not amount to antinomianism we do not know how to interpret it. The disposition may exist without active faith or holy living! The disposition saves the man! Did Crisp or Saltmarsh ever say anything more radical?
The next paragraph gives Edwards’ interpretation or explanation of the orthodox position on this matter. What he sees the orthodox tradition as meaning by its insistent association of active faith with salvation is that whenever the circumstance calls for it the holy disposition would respond in faith. Where Reformed orthodoxy sees the circumstances preceding the faith elicited by them or at least simultaneous with it, Edwards finds the disposition preceding the circumstances and being called forth if the
circumstances are present.
Those particular acts of our divines describes may possibly be necessary thus, that it is impossible for such a disposition to be in the mind, in such circumstances, without its being exercised in such particular kind of actions; which must be determined by plain consequence of nature or else by Scripture.
And Edwards goes on to account for the Bible statements in the same way that he accounts for the orthodox tradition:
The Scripture indeed, in many invitations to Christ, doth make use of the words ‘come,’ ‘believe,’ ‘trust,’ ‘receive,’ which without doubt signify those actions that are aptly represented by these expressions. It need not be doubted but that many of the ancient Jews before Christ were saved without the sensible exertions of those acts in that manner which is represented as necessary by some divines, because they had not those occasions nor were under circumstances that would draw them out; though without doubt they had the disposition, which alone is absolutely necessary now, and at all times and in all circumstances is equally necessary.
The difference between Edwards and the orthodox on the matter of Old Testament saints is subtle. The orthodox see the difference as btween the implicit and the explicit while for Edwards it is a matter of the absent and the present. The orthodox argue that the Old Testament sints did indeed trust in, come to, and receive Christ in the form of the promised Messiah and sacrifice who was to come (clearly referring to Jesus Christ, but more implicitly than explicitly, as in the New Tstament). For Edwards, the holy disposition was in the Old Testament saints but without “the sensible exertions of those acts in that manner which is represented as necessary . . . because they had not those occasions nor were under circumstances that would draw them out. . . .”
Edwards’ concluding paragraph is another implicitly dispensational view of the Old Testament way of salvation:
This is furthermore certain and evident concerning conversion or a true reception of Christ, if it be actual: there must be a dying unto sin and an emptying of self that Christ may be all in all, what in the Scripture is called ‘hating our own life.’
Another more comprehensive and clear description of efficacious grace occurs in Edwards’ sermon on Rom_2:10 :
Indeed the saints have no excellency, as they are in and of themselves. In them, that is, in their flesh, dwells no good thing. They are in themselves poor, guilty, vile creatures, and see themselves to be so; but they have an excellency and a glory in
them, because they have Christ dwelling in them. . . . it is something of God.
This holy heavenly spark is put into the . . . soul in conversion, and God maintains it there. All the powers of hell cannot put it out. . . . Though it be but small, yet it is powerful; it has influence over the heart to govern it, and brings forth holy fruits in the life, and will not cease to prevail till it has consumed all the corruption that is left in the heart, and till it has turned the whole soul into a pure,
holy, and heavenly flame, till the soul of man becomes like the angels, a flame of fire, and shines as the brightness of the firmament. *45*
The principle once born grows: “In conversion this spiritual principle begins again to be restored, though it be but in an imperfect degree . . . gets more and more powerful. The House of David waxes stronger and the house of Saul weaker and weaker.” *46*
Again, like infants in the womb, all parts of the person are present from the beginning. *47* Conversion is a universal change as this principle affects all of life *48* including the body. *49*
The Arminians found effectual calling to be indecisive, gradual and natural, nothing, indeed, that the devil could not perform. *50* They call it “preventing grace.” This is the assistance of the Holy Spirit; that is, a certain meekness or teachability that is not conversion but leads to, conversion. This is the “drawing of the Father.” In the same vein, Arminianism construes “becoming as little children” as prior to efficacious
graciousness. The new birth is entrance into the Kingdom of God but it comes about by nurture and culture. *51* What it all comes down to, as Whitby puts it, is that efficacious grace amounts to God’s giving motives to obedience and virtue. Turnbull thinks that “sudden conversions” in apostolic days were miraculous. But miracles, according to Turnbull and Butler, are only the natural operating according to unknown laws which
means that angels could affect conversion and God would be necessary.
“The dispute about graces being resistible or irresistible,” Edwards remarks, “is perfect nonsense.” *52* The reason is that this grace produces new life and will; therefore, asking whether it is resistible or irresistible is tantamount to asking whether the will opposes the will. If this grace is thought of as enlightening the understanding, then it
could be resistible. That would mean that the mind sees so well that it could will it yet could nil it. If it is objected that the person can still “will what he pleases” this is simply saying that he can will what he wills which is rather obvious. But, the objection continues, could he not have willed otherwise? Yes, comes Edwards’ answer, if he had willed otherwise. The whole dispute is nonsense because it only says that man can do
what he can do. “Whoever supposed,” he asks later, “that the term irresistible was properly used with respect to that power by which an infant is brought into being; meaning, irresistible by the infant?” *53* The question only arises because the Arminians do not recognize that grace is a determining cause.
Edwards’ critique of the Arminian view of conversion is many-splendored:
1. Nature cannot change nature; only super-nature can (Joh_3:10).
2. In the Arminian view, God can do no more than the Devil, *54* angels, *55* the Pharisees, *56* and obviously men themselves; only the meaner parts of the process are allotted to God, *57* who can only sow while the Arminians give the increase. *58* God, who, according to Scripture, is absolute, sole, and sovereign in this work, is really left
out of it. *59*
3. The Arminians have yet to show how righteousness can come to the souls of men without a truly “physical” work of the Holy Spirit. *60*
4. If this work depends on the sinner then the work may fail to occur. *61*
5. If it were imagined thus to occur, it would mean that man who came into grace on his own could fall out of it the same way. *62*
6. Repentance is specifically called a sovereign gift of God. *63*
7. Paul, the classic case of conversion, was surely not gradually changed. *64*
8. Apostates, *65* who “went out from us” (like Simon the sorcerer) *66* on these principles were still in a converted state.
9. Edwards deals with the favorite illustration of Arminians - the beggar accepting alms - by noting that the disposition to receive the proffered gift is the point at issue.
*67*
10. If being born again means being admitted to the kingdom, then Joh_3:5 means that unless a man is born again he cannot enter the kingdom.
Many of the Edwardsian arguments rest on one fundamental principle, fully developed in the Freedom of the Will and stated in “Efficacious Grace” in briefer form. The principle is this: Virtuous acts can only come from a disposition to virtue. On Arminian principles they come from nothing because sinful man has no such disposition. *68* If, on the other hand, Arminians assume that man has a good heart before he comes to Christ in order to be accepted by Christ, then Christ is really unnecessary. If the demands of the law must be reduced to man the sinner’s ability to meet them, then why did Christ have to die for sins they were unable to avoid? Actually Arminians have no conception of a good (or evil) heart because each volition is spontaneously generated apart from any inclination which would destroy a free volition. Consequently,
Arminianism comes to oppose the teaching of Scripture because of an underlying false metaphysic, tacitly assumed.
No natural man, says Edwards, makes choice of God until he is converted. *69* Divine illumination alone does not account for a person’s becoming a Christian. There must be nature that loves the divine and supernatural light. “Except a man be born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.” These words of Christ are taken as the doctrine of a
sermon on Joh_3:3 dealing with the nature of regeneration. *70* The early sermon on Pro_27:22 has this doctrine: “Folly is naturally so rooted and confirmed in men that if God leaves them to themselves, let what will be done with them, they will not learn wisdom.” *71*
“’Tis no wonder that Christ said that we must be born again.” *72* In this sermon Edwards surveys the entire Bible to show that everywhere it teaches the necessity of the new birth. Then he proceeds to show what is meant by regeneration. For one thing, it means the changing of all that we received by the first birth (morally speaking); and, for another, that this change must be universal, not dealing with aspects of a person merely,
but with the whole person.
Furthermore, the new birth is not something external, but internal; nor is it merely internal, but supernatural as well. If it were merely an internal change in the resolutions and habits, Nicodemus would not have been so surprised. He would have seen nothing mysterious in this. Moreover, it is a radical change and not some superficial mending of the character. The person dies to law, to sin, and to the world, becoming not only a new
creature but a new creation also. Finally, this new birth is not a work of the newborn person any more than his first birth was.
That there must be such a change as conversion, Edwards deduces from three arguments. First, it is impossible for a man with a filthy, sinful heart to cleanse his heart by means of a filthy heart. If his depravity were partial, as the Arminians suppose, this would be possible; but since man is utterly dead in sin, it is not possible. Second, if it were not necessary that a man be born from above, the infinity of Christ’s atonement would have been out of all proportion to what was necessary. God would have done, in the giving of his Son, infinitely more than was necessary. This would be an impossible reflection on his intelligence. And, in the third place, there would be no proportion between the real and the relative relationship of a saint if the new birth were not a supernatural necessity. That is to say, since men by conversion are brought into the most intimate, filial relation to God, there must be something proportionate on which such a relationship rests. If men were actually children of God without having the divine nature, there would be no meaning to the relation. So, since the elect are brought into the family of God, it must be because they have the new nature from God; that is, it must be because they have been born again from above, from the Spirit of God.
The argument presented above was that the Bible taught that there was such a thing as conversion and that, if there was such, it must have been supernatural in character. But in a sermon on a text a few verses later in this same discourse with Nicodemus, Edwards argues the fact of conversion. “There is such a thing as conversion.” *73* Only one of his arguments here is that the Bible teaches it; the other seven are drawn from reason. First, man is manifestly made to be happy; but equally obviously his happiness must be in union with God. Animals, Edwards remarks, may be happy with this world, but man was made for higher things and cannot rest until he finds his rest in God. Union with God can only be effected by God himself. Man cannot unite himself to God; only
God can unite himself to man. Therefore, the argument runs, if there is to be happiness for man, there must be a birth from above. Reason also teaches, secondly that union with God is impossible without holiness, Amo_3:3. Only God can make man holy enough for his fellowship. Third, and this is the theme of much of his later work on Original Sin, *74* reason shows that men are universally corrupt and in bondage. They cannot convert themselves. This is made even more explicit in argument four: nature cannot be changed by nature. A nature cannot influence the nature to be different than its nature. So if man is to be happy and blessed, he must be changed supernaturally, reason demands. We will
mention only one other argument that is given in this sermon: namely, the practical one drawn from the changed lives of many persons. There have been thousands who have been made other than they were, and they could not have done it themselves. He cites especially the notoriously wicked who were converted to show from what depths men have been changed, and the martyrs to show to what heights men have been lifted. There is nothing like the quantity or quality of martyrs in any other religion. He concludes: “Reason teaches it so much that unless we deny the being of God we can’t avoid acknowledging such a thing as conversion.” The doctrine is applied in a seventeen-point application.
Regeneration consists in the divine infusion of a new nature. It is a gracious principle in the soul. This is no mere alteration of habits or outward behavior, but a change on the inside. It is “physical” (in the realistic sense of the word) and not merely moral. The nature of man consists of principles of perception and principles of action. Human nature differs from animal nature in the possession of principles. Some of these distinctly human principles are the faculties, the natural appetites, the love of honor, the love of pleasure, and the aversion to pain. Elsewhere, Edwards says the new principles are not new faculties and defines “principles” as “that foundation which is laid in nature. . . . for
any particular manner or kind of exercise of the faculties of the soul; or a natural habit or foundation for action. . . .” *75* “But man when he is changed from a sinner to a saint has new principles of perception and action; principles that are entirely diverse and not arising merely from [a] new disposition of the old or contracted habits as those changes that are wrought by education do. They are principles that are vastly superior to those he had before.” *76* They are not derived from these native principles. It is no more possible, Edwards insists, for them to come from these than for rational creatures to come from brutes without physical change. There is a divine infusion of spiritual principles of understanding and action above anything before possessed.
Furthermore, this is a change of the whole man, a universal change. The total change takes place immediately. Just as a child, when newly born, possesses all its parts of body and soul, so it is with the spiritual child (Eph_4:24; 1Th_5:23). Even his body is in a sense new. This point Edwards develops more fully in a sermon on 1Th_5:23. “In true
conversion men’s bodies are in some respect changed as well as their souls.” *77*
A third characteristic of regeneration is that the person receives being, very much as at his first conception. At the fall he virtually lost everything (Edwards makes clear, elsewhere, that he lost everything of the moral image of God). Therefore, in regeneration, he is newly created, Eph_2:5. In the fourth place, newly born, he finds himself in a new world, as well. Fifth, at the same time that he is a new creation in a new
world, he is such by the use of means. As the first birth takes place by the instrumentality of human parents, human means are also used in conversion. The last two characteristics are closely related to each other as well as to the preceding. The regenerate are like children imperfect, immature, incomplete, but growing. At the same time, being children they are members of a family, in this case, the family of God.
Other sermons and writings develop this theme, though not so fully. Commenting on Mat_7:15, Edwards asks what is the essential difference between true Christians and merely nominal ones. *78* He finds it to be the difference between the substance and life of Christianity versus the mere shadow. It is the difference between a real man and a picture. “A work of conversion as a great effect of God’s power and grace in the heart, is not a mere (sic) whim or fancy but a great and certain reality.” *79*
This principle of holiness in the soul seems to be none other than the Holy Spirit himself. This is taught in the first published sermon: God Glorified in the Work of Redemption, By the Greatness of Man’s Dependence upon Him, in the Whole of it. *80* It is more developed in a 1746 sermon on Gal_3:13-14, “The Holy Spirit or the third person of the Trinity in his operations and fruits is the sum of the blessings that Christ purchased for us in the work of our redemption.” *81* Edwards gives no less than twelve arguments to prove this doctrine. In the latter part of the sermon, he explains how these fruits are from the Holy Spirit. Specifically, he insists that they are not merely by the Spirit but consist in the Spirit. The Holy Spirit is the principle of life and happiness of all
the saints. All spiritual life consists in divine love; but this is nothing other than the Holy Spirit, 1Pe_5:13; 1Jn_3:24; *Joh_4:12-54; *Joh_5:1-47; *Joh_6:1-71; *Joh_7:1-53; *Joh_8:1-59; *Joh_9:1-41; *Joh_10:1-42; *Joh_11:1-57; *Joh_12:1-50; *Joh_13:1-38* Christ is the olive tree and the Spirit is the very sap, Zec_7:1-14. The Spirit is to the soul as breath is to the body. He is the fullness of the creatur