away from the main currents of
speculation, ignorant of the conclusions reached by his most cultivated
contemporaries, and deriving his intellectual sustenance chiefly from an
obsolete theology, with some vague knowledge of the English followers of
Locke, his mind never expanded itself freely. Yet, even after making
allowance for his secluded life, we are astonished at the powerful grasp
which Calvinism, in its expiring age, had laid upon so penetrating an
intellect. The framework of dogma was so powerful, that the explosive
force of Edwards' speculations, instead of destroying his early
principles by its recoil, expended its whole energy along the line in
which orthodox opinion was not injured. Most bold speculators, indeed,
suffer from a kind of colour-blindness, which conceals from them a whole
order of ideas, sufficiently familiar to very inferior minds. Edwards'
utter unconsciousness of the aspect which his doctrines would present to
anyone who should have passed beyond the charmed circle of orthodox
sentiment is, however, more surprising than the similar defect in any
thinker of nearly equal acuteness. In the middle of the eighteenth
century, he is still in bondage to the dogmas of the Pilgrim Fathers; he
is as indifferent to the audacious revolt of the deists and Hume as if
the old theological dynasty were still in full vigour; and the fact,
whatever else it may prove, proves something for the enduring vitality
of the ideas which had found an imperfect expression in Calvinism.
Clearing away the crust of ancient superstition, we may still find in
Edwards' writings a system of morality as ennobling, and a theory of the
universe as elevated, as can be discovered in any theology. That the
crust was thick and hard, and often revolting in its composition, is,
indeed, undeniable; but the genuine metal is there, no less unmistakably
than the refuse.

FOOTNOTES:

[7] The Works of President Edwards. Worcester (Mass.), 1808.

[8] The population of Massachusetts is stated at 164,000 inhabitants in
1742, and 240,000 in 1761.--_See_ Holmes' Annals.

[9] These early New England patriarchs were blessed with abundant
families. Edwards' father had eleven children, his paternal grandfather
thirteen, and his maternal grandfather had twelve children by a lady who
had already three children by a previous marriage.

[10] See an interesting article in the 'American Cyclopedia,' which has,
however, this odd peculiarity, that it nev