The availability of Doug Sweeney's and Allen Guelzo's The New England Theology: From Jonathan Edwards to Edwards Amasa Park convinced me not to include the introduction and excerpt of Jonathan Edwards Jr. in Early Evangelicalism: A Reader. Sweeney and Guelzo have put together an excellent anthology on many of the "New Divinity" followers of Edwards, including the writings of Jonathan Edwards Jr.
Jonathan Edwards Jr.
Arguably, the most critical
comments on eighteenth-century American revivalism came from Charles Chauncy
(1705-87), the Boston Old Light Congregational minister. In his Seasonable Thoughts on the State of Religion
in New England (1743), Chauncy denounced the Great Awakening as a festival
of “enthusiasts” rather than a venue for godly renewal in the colonies. Chauncy
abhorred the preaching and excessive emotionalism of the revivals, convinced
that God desired an orderly and rational form of Christianity antithetical to
the kind of religion nurtured by the New Lights. Although in many ways an
ardent defender of traditionalism in New England committed to maintaining a
hierarchy with clergymen as society’s ruling elites, Chauncy strayed from the
orthodox Calvinistic beliefs of his forefathers on soteriology. In his
research, Chauncy came to an Arminian understanding of salvation whereby Christ
died not only for the elect, but for the whole of humanity.
Around mid-century, Chauncy began
working on more radical alterations of traditional doctrines in a manuscript he
dubbed as “the pudding.” When served, the pudding carried with it the taste of
universalism whereby Chauncy proclaimed that God’s love could not allow sinners
to experience the torrents of everlasting punishment. Rather, hell was an
intermediate place where the unrepentant would suffer for a period of time in
proportion to the crimes committed while on earth. For Chauncy, it seemed
logically impossible for a benevolent deity to create anything that would not
be brought to an ultimate state of happiness. In the end, everyone would enter
a final stage of eternal bliss. Chauncy’s formerly clandestine views on
universalism surfaced in the 1780s in a number of works, including his Divine Glory Brought to View in the Final
Salvation of All Men (1783), The
Benevolence of the Deity (1784), The
Mystery Hid from Ages and Generations Made Manifest by the Gospel-Revelation
(1784), and Five Dissertations on the
Scriptural Account of the Fall (1785).
As a
response to Chauncy, Jonathan Edwards Jr. wrote The Salvation of All Men Strictly Examined in 1790. Having studied
theology under Joseph Bellamy, the younger Edwards was aptly prepared to engage
his father’s nemesis. A long and theologically technical specimen, The Salvation of All Men was an attempt
to refute Chauncy’s justification for universal salvation with logic and
biblical evidence. Edwards charged Chauncy with a number of inconsistencies on
issues pertaining to the definition of justice, but one of his most effective
critiques had to do with the necessity of Christ’s death. The younger Edwards
wondered why Christ needed to die if a person could serve time in a state of
intermediate punishment. If a person essentially pays for crimes committed
during his or her lifetime, has that individual earned the right to enter the
final stage of happiness without the benefit of divine grace? Edwards Jr.
believed that in denying the existence of hell as an eternal designation for
the unregenerate, Chauncy had reduced the consequences of sin and made Christ’s
death on the cross meaningless.
The Salvation of All Men Strictly Examined
Beside the
doctrine of the salvation of all men, to establish which is the design of his
[Chauncy’s] whole book; there are several other doctrines, which may be
considered as fundamental to his system. He does not deny all future punishment
of the wicked; but allows that they will be punished according to their
demerits, or according to strict justice. Thus he allows that “many men will be
miserable in the next state of existence, in proportion to the moral depravity
they have contracted in this. There is no room for debate here… They must be
unavoidably miserable in proportion to the number and greatness of their vices…
For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through
Jesus Christ our Lord: i.e. if men continue [as] the servants of sin, the wages
they shall receive, before the gift through Christ is conferred on them, will
be the second death.” If some men suffer that punishment which is the wages of
sin, they doubtless suffer all which they deserve. No man deserves more than
his wages. “In the collective sense, they will be tormented for ages of ages;
though some of them only should be tormented through the whole of that period;
the rest variously as to time, in
proportion to their deserts… There shall be a difference in the punishment
of wicked men, according to the difference there has been in the nature and number of their evil deeds.” He speaks of the
wicked as liable “to positive torments awfully great in degree, and long in
continuance, in proportion to the number
and greatness of their crimes…
Another
fundamental principle of Dr. C’s book, is, that all men, both those who are
saved immediately from this life, and those who are saved after they have
suffered the pains of hell; are saved by the mere mercy, compassion, grace or
favor of God, through Christ. He allows, that the Apostle’s doctrine of
justification stands “upon the foot of grace through Christ,” and “that mankind
have universally sinned and consequently cannot be justified upon any claim
founded on mere law… The gift by Christ takes rise from the many offences,
which mankind commit in their own persons, and finally terminates in opposition
to the power and demerit of them all, in their being restored, not simply to
life but to reign in it forever… As mankind universally are subjected to damage
through the lapse of Adam; so they shall as universally be delivered from it,
through the gift by Christ… The gift on Christ’s part ought to be taken in its
abounding sense… The plain truth is, final everlasting salvation is absolutely
the free gift of God to all men, through Jesus Christ he has absolutely and
unconditionally determined, of his rich mercy, through the intervening
mediation of his son Jesus Christ; that all men, the whole race of lapsed Adam
shall reign in life.” He speaks of God as exercising pity, tender compassion and
grace, towards the damned; and speaking of the disciplinary punishment of the
damned, he says, “that God, in the other world as well as this, must be
disposed to make it evident, that he is a being of boundless and inexhaustible
goodness.” He “speaks of the doctrine of universal salvation, as the gospel
plan of mercy extensively benevolent; and a wonderful design of mercy” as “the
scripture scheme of mercy,” and of the vilest of the human race as “the objects
of mercy.” He quotes with approbation, from Mr. Whiston, “That there may be in
the utmost bowels of the divine compassion, another time of trial allotted” to
the damned, “in which many or all of them may be saved, by the infinite
indulgence and love of their Creator.”
Our author
abundantly declares also, that this rich mercy, this free gift, this tender
compassion and grace, this infinite indulgence and love of their Creator, this
boundless and inexhaustible goodness, in the salvation of all men, is exercised
through Christ only, and for his sake. “Jesus Christ is the person through whom
and upon whose account, happiness is attainable by any of the human race… The
obedience of Christ, and eminently his obedience unto death, is the ground or
reason, upon which it hath pleased God to make happiness attainable by any of
the human race… It was with a view to the obedience and death of Christ, upon
this account, upon this ground, for this reason, that God was pleased to make
the gospel promise of a glorious immortality to the sons of men… Christ died
not for a select number of men only, but for mankind universally and without
exception or limitation.”
Now, how
can this part of Dr. C’s system be reconciled with that part, in which he
holds, that all the damned will be punished according
to their deserts? Can those who are punished according to their deserts, after that be saved on the foot of grace through Christ? Can
those who are punished according to the nature and number of their evil deeds;
in degree and continuance, in proportion to the number and greatness of their
crimes; in whose punishment the divine law takes its course, and the threatened
penalty is fully executed: can these persons be saved by a gift? by a gift taken in
the abounding sense? by the free gift
of God through Christ? by rich mercy?
by pity, tender compassion and grace?
by mercy extensively benevolent? by a
wonderful design of mercy? by boundless and inexhaustible goodness? by
the utmost bowels of the divine
compassion? by the infinite
indulgence and love of their Creator? Is the man who by his crimes has,
according to law, exposed himself to the pillory, or to be cropped and branded,
and on whom the law has taken its course, and the threatened penalty has been
fully executed; is he after all delivered from further suffering by grace, by pity, by tender compassion,
by indulgence and love, by the utmost bowels of compassion? No; he has
a right on the foot of mere law, and of the most rigorous justice, to
subsequent impunity, with respect to the crime or crimes, for which he has been
thus punished: and to tell him after he is thus punished, that he is now
released by grace, by pity, by utmost compassion, by indulgence and love, would
be the grossest insult.
Again; how
can those who have been punished according to their deserts, be saved through Christ, or on his account? How can the obedience and death of Christ be the ground or reason of their salvation? Having suffered the full penalty
threatened in the law, they have a right to demand future impunity, on account
of their own sufferings. What need then have they of Christ, of his obedience
and death, or of his mediatory intervention, to be brought into the account?
Dr. C. speaks of the “deliverance” or “the redemption which Christ has
purchased” for all men. But what need is there, that Christ should purchase
deliverance for those, who purchase it for themselves, by their own personal
sufferings?
Jonathan Edwards Jr., The
Salvation of All Men Strictly Examined, and the Punishment Of Those Who Die
Impenitent, Argued and Defended Against the Objections and Reasonings of the
Late Rev. Doctor Chauncy, of Boston, in His Book Entitled, “The Salvation of
All Men” (New Haven: A. Morse, 1790), 1-2, 8-10.
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