s at the present day can exhort their
hearers to put their faith in a silly story of a vision, on the express
ground that the popularity of the belief amongst Catholics proves its
Divine origin. That is wonderfully like saying that a successful lie
should be patronised so long as it is on the side of the Church.
Edwards, brought up in a manlier school, deals with such phenomena in a
different spirit. Suppose, he says, that a person terrified by threats
of hell-fire has a vision 'of a person with a beautiful countenance,
smiling on him with arms open and with blood dropping down,' whom he
supposes to be Christ come to promise him eternal life, are we to assume
that this vision and the consequent transports infallibly indicate
supernatural agency? No, he replies, with equal sense and honesty; 'he
must have but slightly considered human nature who thinks such things
cannot arise in this manner without any supernatural excitement of
Divine power' (iv. 72). Many mischievous delusions have their origin in
this error. 'It is a low, miserable notion of spiritual sense' to
suppose that these 'external ideas' (ideas, that is, such as enter by
the senses) are proofs of Divine interference. Ample experience has
shown that they are proofs not of the spiritual health which comes from
communion with God, but of 'weakness of body and mind and distempers of
body' (iv. 143). Experience has supplied exemplary confirmations of
Edwards' wisdom. Neither bodily convulsions, nor vehement excitement of
mind, nor even revelations of things to come (iv. 158), are sufficient
proofs of that mysterious change of soul which is called conversion. No
external test, in fact, can be given. Man cannot judge decisively, but
the best symptoms are such proofs as increased humility, a love of
Christ for His own sake, without reference to heaven or hell, a sense of
the infinite beauty of Divine things, a certain 'symmetry and
proportion' between the affections themselves (iv. 314), a desire for
higher perfection, and a rich harvest of the fruit of Christian
practice.

So far, Edwards is unassailable from his own point of view. Our theory
of religion may differ from his; but at least he fully realises how
profound is the meaning of the word, and aims at conquering all human
faculties, not at controlling a few external manifestations. But his
further applications of the theory lead him into more doubtful
speculations. That Being, a union with whom constitutes tr