EDWARDS’ SENSE OF HIS SINFULNESS.
By Clericus
PRESIDENT EDWARDS was eminently “a holy man of God.” There was no such beauty in his view as the “beauty of holiness,” and he ardently and perseveringly strove to make it his own. It was the first of his twelve resolutions, “That I will do whatsoever I think to be most to God’s glory, and my own good, profit, and pleasure, in the whole of my duration; without any consideration of the time, whether now, or never so many myriads of ages hence.” Concerning his longings after holiness he thus wrote: “I felt an ardency of soul to be, what I know not otherwise how to express, emptied and annihilated; to lie in the dust, and to be full of Christ alone; to love him with a holy and pure love; to trust in him; to live upon him; to serve and follow him; and to be perfectly sanctified and made pure, with a divine and heavenly purity. And yet but few, if any, have had a deeper sense of their sinfulness than he had. With Paul, he felt that he was one of the chief of sinners, if not the chiefest of all. “Often,” he writes, “I have had very affecting views of my own sinfulness and vileness. It has often appeared to me that if God should mark iniquity against me, I should appear the very worst of all mankind; of all that have been since the beginning of the world to this time, and that I should have the lowest place in hell. My wickedness, as I am in myself, has5long appeared to me perfectly ineffable, and swallowing up all thought and imagination, like an infinite deluge or mountains over my head. I know not how to express better what my sins appear to me to be, than by heaping infinite upon infinite. Very often, for these many years, these expressions are in my mind, and in my mouth: 'Infinite upon infinite! Infinite upon infinite!' When I look into my heart and take a view of my wickedness, it looks like an abyss, infinitely deeper than hell.” How shall we account for such experiences in so holy a man? How shall we account for it that he was accustomed to regard himself as a much greater sinner than many think themselves who are far greater sinners than he was? In the first place, he had far clearer and far more exalted views of the character of God than most persons. Many think of God as one altogether like unto themselves, and thus their views of their sinfulness correspond. A correct view of God would at once wonderfully change their views of themselves, as in the case of Job, who said: “I have heard of thee by the hearing of the ear; but now mine eye seeth thee; wherefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes.” The biographer of Dr. Spencer, a successor of Edwards at Northampton, says: “He had seen God in the glory of his holiness, and therefore he abhorred himself, and repented in dust and ashes.” In the second place he understood, as but few do, the spirituality of the divine law. He understood that according to it, lust is adultery; and hatred murder. He sympathized with Paul, when he said, “I was alive without the law once; but when the commandment came, sin revived, and I died.” And, in the third place, he had an unusual acquaintance with his own heart. He closely examined himself. He looked deep within. He desired to know the worst. It was his earnest prayer, “Search me, O God, and know my heart; try me, and know my thoughts, and see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.” And thus, having unusually clear and correct views of the character of God, of the spirituality of his holy law, and of the nature of his own heart, he was accustomed to regard himself as the chief of sinners. He had humbling and abasing views of himself, and felt that it became him to lie infinitely low before God. There are those whose attainments in piety are far below those of Edwards, who claim to have attained unto perfection. They boast of their sinlessness. Such persons are objects of pity, rather than of envy. They know neither God, nor themselves, nor the nature of the divine law. They are blind as regards spiritual things. Open their eyes, O Lord, that they may see.—Clericus, in New York Observer.