d to be everlastingly tormented
in hell. It used to appear like a horrible doctrine to me. But I
remember the time very well, when I seemed to be convinced and fully
satisfied as to this sovereignty of God, and his justice in thus
eternally disposing of men, according to his sovereign pleasure.
_But never could give any account, how, or by what means I was thus
convinced_, not in the least imagining at the time, nor a long time
after, that there was any extraordinary influence of God's Spirit in
it; but only that now I saw further, and my reason apprehended the
justice and reasonableness of it." In this extraordinary passage,
the most instructive he ever penned, he confesses, undesignedly but
clearly, that his faith in the Calvinistic theology did not rest on
those arguments by which he has confirmed so many others in that
tremendous creed, but was the result of supposed supernatural
illumination. The true solution would be, "Sit pro ratione
voluntas!"

Much as we find to admire and revere in this eminent man, the
history of his mind forbids us to rely on him with implicit
confidence as an expositor of divine truth. His religion was
exalted, his genius wonderful, but the subordination of his judgment
to his imagination was an immense evil, producing an almost
superstitious dread of the operations of his own mighty mind,
suppressing its energies, its growth, and its expansion. He presents
an example, not less of the weakness than of the majesty of human
nature. We cease to wonder, when he describes the happiness of the
spirits of the redeemed in heaven, as being derived, in part, from
their listening to the groans and lamentations of lost souls in
hell. Nor can we doubt, that if he had been born and educated a
member of the Church of Rome, he would have lived and died, like
Fenelon or Pascal, a splendid ornament of that impure communion, a
conscientious advocate of that servile faith.

Calvinism has never had another advocate equally qualified with
Edwards to vindicate its awful dogmata; and if, by his own
confession, his most potent arguments would have failed to produce
conviction in his own mind, without God's special influence, we see
reason to suspect the validity of these arguments, until we have
proof that he did indeed receive from heaven miraculous
illumination. Such _special influence_ we may with propriety
question, since a claim to inspiration can be supported only by the
exercise of miraculous powers. De