Jonathan Edwards

by George M. Marsden

In his "improvement," or application of the sermon, Edwards emphasized the egalitarian implications. "Persons of mean capacities and advantages" can apprehend this spiritual light "as well as those that are of the greatest parts and learning." If the Gospel "depended only on history, and such reasonings as learned men only are capable of, it would be above the reach of far the greatest part of mankind." But people of "an ordinary degree of knowledge, are capable, without a long and subtle train of reasoning, to see the divine excellency of the things of religion." When they do, they gain divine wisdom "more excellent than all the knowledge of the greatest philosophers or statesmen." This "sweet and joyful" divine knowledge, goes far beyond the pleasures of human knowledge. It is a seeing of "things that are immensely the most exquisitely beautiful." This overwhelming beauty "reaches to the bottom of the heart, and changes its nature." It is the only power capable of producing the fruit of "universal holiness of life," which is the primary evidence that confirms true conversion and the "intuitive and immediate evidence" that one has encountered the beauty of the divine.'7