Yes, I may be OCD but my apparent fixation on Edwards has as much to do with current writing projects as taking the pulse of experimental Calvinists. Edwards’ biography David Brainerd has occupied a few mornings this week for a chapter on Calvinism and foreign missions. So sue me.
If Edwards’ defenders are still reading, and if they still think the First Pretty Good Awakening great, then perhaps they could help us all figure out what Edwards was thinking when he wrote this about Brainerd’s conversion and piety:
His first discovery of God, of Christ, at his conversion, was not any strong idea of any external glory or brightness, or majesty and beauty of countenance, or pleasant voice; nor was it any supposed immediate manifestation of God’s love to him in particular; nor any imagination of Christ’s smiling face, arms open, or words immediately spoken to him, as by name, revealing Christ’s love to him; either words of Scripture or any other: but a manifestation of God’s glory, and the beauty of his nature, as supremely excellent in itself; powerfully drawing, and sweetly captivating the heart; bringing him to a hearty desire to exalt God, set him on the throne, and give him supreme honor and glory, as the king and sovereign of the universe; and also a new sense of the infinite wisdom, suitableness, and excellency of the way of salvation by Christ; powerfully engaging his whole soul to embrace this way of salvation, and to delight in it.
Okay, so this is the standard starting point of Christian hedonism. Genuine faith begins with the convert being enraptured with God. Self-interest is forbidden. The aim of faith is to glorify and exalt God, and to deny the self and renounce pride. This description is, for that matter, close to Edwards’ own account of his own conversion.
But Edwards goes on to contrast Brainerd’s conversion with either an inferior or illegitimate kind:
His first faith did not consist in believing that Christ loved him, and died for him in particular. His first comfort was not from any secret suggestion of God’s eternal love to him, or that God was reconciled to him, or intended great mercy for him; by any such texts as these, “Son be of good cheer, thy sins are forgiven thee. Fear not I am thy God,” &c. or in any such way. On the contrary, when God’s glory was first discovered to him, it was without any thought of salvation as his own. His first experience of the sanctifying and comforting power of God’s Spirit did not begin in some bodily sensation, any pleasant warm feeling in his breast, that he (as some others) called the feeling of the love of Christ in him, and being full of the Spirit. How exceeding far were his experiences at his first conversion from things of such a nature! (Life of David Brainered, (1835], 249)
Hence, the question “what must I do to be saved” is the wrong question to ask for someone seeking salvation. Instead, Edwards seems to prefer “how must I glorify and hedonistically enjoy God?” But as close as that question is to the start of the Shorter Catechism, it is several steps removed from “What is effectual calling?” “Effectual calling is the work of God’s spirit whereby, convincing us of our sin and misery, enlightening our minds in the knowledge of Christ, and renewing our wills, he enables us to embrace Christ freely offered to us in the gospel.”
The Shorter Catechism would appear to be describing something close to the beginning of genuine belief in a Christian, and it says very little about the glory of God. It says much about the sinner’s need, and Christ’s remedy for sin, not to mention the work of the Spirit.
So I wonder what Edwards was thinking, and why so many evangelical Calvinists find his devotion appealing.
Old Life 