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In the light of these words, what Edwards thought about the bodily affections" grows clearer. While he held that such things were incidental merely to the communication of the divine grace, yet it may be that he clung to them the more strongly in proportion as his idealism threatened to snap the bond which connects the spiritual with its physical embodiment. But it is in these passages above quoted that we have his deepest conviction, his most characteristic thought. And these forcible and beautiful utterances, asserting the superiority of the spiritual as if ineffably higher than all mechanical gifts or outward signs or manifestations of power, have important and far-reaching relations. They may be taken as marking an epoch in the history of religious progress. Their spirit has passed into the theology of New England, forming, as it were, a bulwark against mediæval religion with its tendency to deify the material and the outward, or to sanction the worship of the body rather than the spirit of Christ. They have become the charter of religious idealism as contrasted with religious materialism. They stand out in sharp contrast also with reactionary religious movements in our own day, notably that led by Edward Irving, whose object was to restore to the modern church the gifts of the apostolic age, such as prophesyings, speaking with tongues, or miraculous cures of disease, as if these were the highest reaches of faith, the evidences most needed or desired in order to attest the vitality and certitude of Christian belief.

IMPORTANCE OF HUMAN LEARNING.

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One inference from his attitude on this subject Edwards immediately proceeded to draw. Itinerant preachers were then beginning to travel about the country, proclaiming that human learning was not necessary to the work of the ministry. The phrase, "lowly preaching," was coming into vogue as compared with the ministrations of an educated clergy. Against the itinerants, who decried theological culture and depended upon inspiration, Edwards urged his hearers not to despise human learning. But he does not stop to argue the point. It was too manifest to be denied, that God might make great use of human learning. And if so, then study, the means by which it was to be acquired, should not be neglected. "Though having the heart full of the powerful influences of the Spirit of God may at some times enable persons to speak profitably, yet this will not warrant us to cast ourselves down from the pinnacle of the temple, depending upon it that the angel of the Lord will bear us up, and keep us from dashing our foot against a stone, when there is another way to go down, though it be not so quick." He also urged that method in sermons should not be neglected, since it tends greatly to help the understanding and memory. And another thing he would beg the dear children of God more fully to consider is, how far and upon what grounds they are warranted by Scripture in passing judgment upon other professing Christians as hypocrites, and ignorant of real religion. It is God alone

who knoweth the hearts of the children of men. To his own master every man standeth or falleth. Judge nothing before the time, until the Lord cometh. Let tares and wheat grow together till the harvest. They greatly err who take upon themselves to determine who are sincere and who are not. His own experience has taught him that the heart of man is more unsearchable than he had once supposed. "I am less charitable and less uncharitable than once I was. I find more things in wicked men that may counterfeit and make a fair show of piety; and more ways that the remaining corruption of the godly may make them appear like carnal men than once I knew of." And finally he admits that it would be wise to consider that excellent rule of prudence which Christ has left us, not to put a piece of new cloth into an old garment. In former years, he thinks there was too great confinement within one stated method and form of procedure, which had a tendency to cause religion to degenerate into formality. And now whatever has the appearance of great innovation may shock and surprise the minds of people, setting them to talking and disputing, perplexing many with doubts and scruples, and so hinder the progress of religion. That which is much beside the common practice, unless it be a thing in its own nature of considerable importance, had better be avoided. Let them follow the example of St. Paul, who made it a rule to become all things to all men, that he might by all means

save some.

EVILS AND ABUSES OF THE GREAT AWAKENING. "THOUGHTS ON THE REVIVAL."

THE Distinguishing Marks had been written in 1741, before the Awakening had reached its greatest headway as a movement, before it had engendered the abuses which were destroying not only the peace, but threatened the very life, of the New England churches. In 1742 it became evident that something must be done to guide and control the movement if it were not to issue in religious anarchy. In ecclesiastical parlance, it was "an unhappy time" for the churches during the years from 1742 to 1745. So grievous were the evils that some have thought the subsequent slumber of the American churches for nearly seventy years may have been owing to the reaction which they produced. These evils sprang from the extravagant assertion or misapplication of the principle for which Edwards stood as the foremost champion. The doctrine of the immediate contact of the Holy Spirit with the human heart-a principle in whose defence he never wavered was the source, or to speak more correctly the occasion, from whence came the confusion, the divisions and separations, the superstitions, which disfigured a movement which he believed to be divine. What Luther had feared, when he first heard of the teachings of the

Zwickau prophets, had actually come to pass in the New England churches. What the early Puritans themselves had dreaded as the necessary outcome of Quaker preaching was now resulting from the influential utterance of similar views by one the most honored in their own ranks.

It is better not to obscure the issue by seeking some other cause for the confusion. Edwards himself recognized that this principle of the immediate divine influence not only gave birth to the disorder, but was likely to result in still greater disorder before the work was over. But, unlike Luther, Edwards refused to abandon the principle, though he was becoming keenly alive to the mischief which its misapprehension was working. In the presence of the Zwickau prophets, Luther denied the truth of the immediacy of the divine action, falling back upon the Word and the Sacraments as the external channels of the divine communication. Edwards adhered to his conviction, and labored to purify it from abuse and misinterpretation.

The history of these years, from 1742 to 1745, may be studied elsewhere. It is only as Edwards is concerned that we propose to follow it. But a general summary of the situation may be given, in order to a clearer appreciation of his work as a religious teacher and reformer. One of the most embarrassing features of the revival, with which the clergy were called to deal, was the disturbances 1 Cf. Tracy, Great Awakening, pp. 286, ff.