Jonathan Edwards’s outlook,
The first paragraph comes from one of Edwards’ earliest sermons. The young
pastor-to-be preached “God’s Excellencies” in 1720, setting out at the outset
of his ministry the starting point for his life and thought: the transcendent
beauty and greatness of God.
The beauty of trees, plants, and
flowers, with which God has bespangled the face of the earth, is delightful;
the beautiful frame of the body of man, especially in its perfection, is
astonishing; the beauty of the moon and stars is wonderful; the beauty of [the]
highest heavens is transcendent; the excellency of angels and the saints in
light is very glorious: but it is all deformity and darkness in comparison of
the brighter glories and beauties of the Creator of all, for “behold even to
the moon, and it shineth not” (Job 25:5); that is, think
of the excellency of God and the moon will not seem to shine to you, God’s
excellency so much outshines [it]. And the stars are not pure in his sight, and
so we know that at the great day when God appears, the sun shall be turned into
darkness, shall hide his face as if he were ashamed to see himself so much
outshined; and the very angels, they hide their faces before him; the highest
heavens are not clean in his sight, and he charges his angels with folly. (Works
10, 421)
In the this paragraph, we see that coming to faith, while our duty, is also our
chief delight. In a little-known sermon called “The Spiritual Blessings of the
Gospel Represented by a Feast,” Edwards unfolds the “glorious objects” of our
spiritual focus:
There is every kind of thing
dispensed in Christ that tends to make us excellent and amiable, and every kind
of thing that tends to make us happy. There is that which shall fill every
faculty of the soul and in a great variety. What a glorious variety is there
for the entertainment of the understanding! How many glorious objects set
forth, most worthy to be meditated upon and understood! There are all the
glorious attributes of God and the beauties of Jesus Christ, and manifold
wonders to be seen in the way of salvation, the glories of heaven and the
excellency of Christian graces. And there is a glorious variety for the
satisfying the will: there are pleasures, riches and honors; there are all
things desirable or lovely. There is various entertainment for the affections,
for love, for joy, for desire and hope. The blessings are innumerable. (Works
14, 285-86)
In our final paragraph, we turn to Edwards’ meditation on heaven in his
unforgettable sermon “Heaven Is a World of Love.” Few subjects are more poorly
conceived by Christians than heaven. Edwards offers a biblical vision of the
life to come in God. The chief point the pastor-theologian makes is this: love
is the currency of heaven.
But here the spring shall become a
river, and an ocean. All shall stand about the God of glory, the fountain of
love, as it were opening their bosoms to be filled with those effusions of love
which are poured forth from thence, as the flowers on the earth in a pleasant
spring day open their bosoms to the sun to be filled with his warmth and light,
and to flourish in beauty and fragrancy by his rays. Every saint is as a flower
in the garden of God, and holy love is the fragrancy and sweet odor which they
all send forth, and with which they fill that paradise. Every saint there is as
a note in a concert of music which sweetly harmonizes with every other note,
and all together employed wholly in praising God and the Lamb; and so all
helping one another to their utmost to express their love of the whole society
to the glorious Father and Head of it, and to pour backlove into the fountain
of love, whence they are supplied and filled with love and with glory. And thus
they will live and thus they will reign in love, and in that godlike joy which
is the blessed fruit of it, such as eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, nor hath
ever entered into the heart of any in this world to conceive [cf. 1 Corinthians 2:9]. And thus they will live and
reign forever and ever. (Works 8, 385-86)
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