"The Cream of All Their Pleasures":
Self-love in the Thought of Jonathan Edwards
David Owen Filson
11 August 1998

    A new day dawned in 1949 with the appearance of a single volume by a scholar named Perry Miller. The title was Jonathan Edwards. This intellectual biography instructed a whole new generation of students that this "major American must be appreciated."1 Miller's task, as he conceived it, was to understand the real Edwards somewhat apart from the straight jacket of creed and religious stigma. Jonathan Edwards was "incurably Lockean," a man more modern than the modern man of Miller's day.

When Edwards stood up among the New England clergy, it was as though a master of relativity spoke to a convention of Newtonians who had not yet heard of Einstein, or as though among nineteenth-century professors of philosophy, all assuming that man is rational and responsible, a strange youth began to refer, without more ado, to the id, ego, and super-ego.2

    Miller's Edwards is truly a Newtonian and Lockean gem. Yet, for Miller, it is precisely the genius of Edwards combined with his revivalism that produced a, "vehicle which ignorance and crudity soon adopted," through which, "Edwards wrought incalculable harm...."3 This seminal work has not been without its detractors, nevertheless Edwards scholars agree that it blew the dust off this too-long shelved teacher of Israel.

    Just before Jonathan Edwards was to leave Stockbridge in 1758 and take the presidency of the College of New Jersey, this Northampton luminary turned Indian missionary/outpost pastor was preparing a work entitled A Rational Account of the Main Doctrines of the Christian Faith Attempted. However, death due to small pox vaccination prevented its completion. Edwards never gave the world his theological summa; he never produced a systematic theology. This perhaps, plus Miller's awakening, resulted in a varied and interesting quest for the real Edwards.

    As one begins to explore some of the literature on Edwards it seems as if he is treated as a kind of a "Theological Mr. Potato Head" which the interpreter of Edwards shapes as his presuppositions dictate.4 Fifteen years after Miller's insistence that Edwards was a philosophical, theological framing of Locke, an important and helpful treatment of Edwards came from Conrad Cherry. While Cherry rightly chided Miller's overemphasis on Lockean influence and lack of attention to Edwards as a Calvinist theologian, he unfortunately assigned Edwards a place among the neo-orthodox with regard to Scripture.5

    Indeed, a large body of important and stimulating work in the field of Edwards studies is from the pens of scholars not possessed of orthodox, Reformed convictions. Much like the quest for the historical Jesus which left modern New Testament scholars staring at the bottom of the well only to see Jesus recreated in their own image, so the "quest" for Jonathan Edwards has outfitted him in a wide array of theological, philosophical, historical, and literary fashions. However, those within conservative Calvinistic circles owe a massive debt to the energy of these Edwards scholars. At the same time, one rightly wonders why the Reformed community seems to have been less occupied with Edwards since 1949 than those outside Reformed circles. Not until the publication of John H. Gerstner's three volume magnum opus The Rational, Biblical Theology of Jonathan Edwards6 was there so full a treatment of Edwards' theology by a conservative Calvinist.

    There should be no doubt, however, in terms of faithfulness to Edwards's theological vision, that those within the Calvinistic Reformed lineage are truly his theological heirs. This issue dates as far back as the tension between the New England theologians and those of Old Princeton Seminary over who stood most squarely in the tradition of Jonathan Edwards.7 The New England Congregationalists, such as Samuel Hopkins, Timothy Dwight, Nathaniel W. Taylor, and Edwards Amasa Park, revered Edwards as their spiritual and theological father. By the time the polemics began, Yale's Taylor and Andover's Park emphasized Edwards as an individualist whose great philosophical contributions to theology were ignored by Princetonians, such as Charles Hodge. Actually, the Princetonians from Alexander to Warfield esteemed Edwards as their own forefather in Calvinistic orthodoxy. However, A.A. Hodge once remarked, "President Edwards was always brimming over with ideas of his own, which stood in need of regulating."8 The Princetonians felt caution was in order with certain theological articulations of Edwards, such as the imputation of Adam's sin and his theory of virtue. Broadly speaking, these differences may be understood, in part, considering Edwards' idealism and Princeton's Scottish Common Sense Realism. Edwards was more enterprising in his idealist articulation than the creedally committed Princetonians. As B.B. Warfield admits, "Edwards' originality thus consists less in the content of his thought than in the manner of his thinking."9 On the whole, Princeton justly laid an unwavering claim to Edwards.10 Other Reformed theologians have expressed more serious concern over Edwards's "originality."11 While it is not the scope of this essay to explore this matter, let it be said that Edwards is truly a Reformed theologian par excellence, standing in line with Augustine, Luther, Calvin, Turretin, Van Mastricht, Owen, and those who followed him, such as Alexander, the Hodges, Warfield, and Murray. It is Edwards, the Reformed theologian, who offers a most significant perspective to the Reformed understanding of the Christian experience and morality, namely self-love.

Introduction to Self-love in General

    Edwards, in the tradition of Augustine, defined self-love in its most basic form as, "a man's love of his own happiness."15 Or, "Self-love may be taken for the same as his [man's] loving whatsoever is grateful or pleasing to him. Which comes only to this, that self-love is a man's liking, and being suited and pleased in that which he likes, and which pleases him; or that 'tis a man's loving what he loves."16 For Edwards there is a natural, inescapable principle in man whereby he simply has, "....a love of pleasure and a love of being loved, and a hatred of pain and an aversion to the being hated."17 One must understand Edwards's theory of self-love in this original, natural, and ontological sense before trying to sort through his development of the doctrine as it relates to the fall and redemption.

Self-love after the Fall

    The concept of self-love, Edwards admits, is "equivocal." While Edwards speaks of self-love as a natural aspect of the way God designed man, he also speaks of the fall gravely ravishing man's quest for his own happiness. Long before Edwards treated self-love in the context of his 1755 Dissertation Concerning True Virtue, he confessed a debt to his grandfather Solomon Stoddard for his understanding of post-fall self-love in his 172718 Miscellanies No. 301 entitled Sin and Original Sin:

The best philosophy that I have met with of original sin and all sinful inclinations, habits and principles, is undoubtedly that of Mr. Stoddard's, of this town of Northampton: that is, that it is self-love in conjunction with the absence of the image and love of God, that natural and necessary inclination that man has to his own benefit together with the absence of original righteousness; or in other words, the absence of that influence of God's Spirit, whereby love to God and to holiness is kept up to that degree that this other inclination is always kept in its due subordination. But this being gone, his self-love governs alone; and having not this superior principle to regulate it, breaks out into all manner of exorbitancies, and becomes in innumerable cases a vile and odious disposition, and causes thousands of unlovely and hateful actions. There is nothing new put into the nature that we call sin, but only the same self-love that necessarily belongs to the nature working and influencing, without regulation from that superior principle that primitively belongs to our nature and that is necessary in order to the harmonious existing of it. This natural and necessary inclination to ourselves, without that governor and guide, will certainly without anything else produce, or rather will become, all those sinful inclinations which are in the corrupted nature of man.19

    From the 1727 Miscellanies entry #301, to a 1738 series of fifteen sermons on 1Cor 13, entitled Charity and Its Fruits, Edwards describes self-love and the fall in even more vivid terminology. Indeed, man fell from "extensiveness" to a state of self-centered "confinedness." In the seventh sermon, on 1Cor. 13:5, "Charity Contrary to a Selfish Spirit," he explains:

The ruin which the Fall brought upon the soul of man consists very much in that he lost his nobler and more extensive principles, and fell wholly under the government of self-love. He is debased in his nature and become little and ignoble. Immediately upon the Fall the mind of man shrunk from its primitive greatness and extensiveness into and exceeding dimunition and confinedness. As in other respects, so in this, that whereas before his soul was under the government of that noble principle of divine love where by it was, as it were, enlarged to a kind of comprehension of all his fellow creatures; and not only so, but was not confined within such strait limits as the bounds of the creation but was extended to the Creator, and dispersed itself abroad in that infinite ocean of good and was, as it were, swallowed up by it, and become one with it.21

But as soon as he had transgressed, those nobler principles were immediately lost and all this excellent enlargedness of his soul was gone and thenceforth shrunk into a little point, circumscribed and closely shut up within itself to the exclusion of others. God was forsaken and fellow creatures forsaken, and man retired within himself and became wholly governed by narrow, selfish principles. Self-love became absolute master of his soul, the more noble and spiritual principles having taken warning and fled.23

    Now that man has turned inward, shut up within himself, Edwards explains the selfishness of self-love. In Charity sermon seven, Edwards continues by defining wherein the "inordinate nature" of this "confined" self-love consists. The selfishness of inordinate self-love may be seen when there is no "other-love," and man places his happiness in "things confined to himself" alone. The influence of self-love grows in degree and rules the individual. The degree of self-love's influence, in the absence of love to God and other creatures, determines its inordinate nature. So, Edwards defines self-love as inordinate "comparatively" speaking to the degree of its influence, and not "absolutely" speaking. Considered absolutely, self-love is the same in all men despite its object.25 The issue becomes whether self-love is under the influence of that "governing principle" or functioning autonomously, as it were.

    A polemic method of Edwards, whether investigating the nature of true religious experience in light of the revival in A Treatise Concerning Religious Affections (1746) or exploring what constitutes true morality in On the Nature of True Virtue (1755), is that of contrasting the true from the false. In the latter work Edwards further develops the privatization of self-love, "'Self-love,' as the phrase is used in common speech, most commonly signifies a man's regard to his confined private self, or love to himself with respect to his private interest."26 Whatever is of "personal" or "private interest"27 is that which man delights in selfishly. Even the "good" that men do is from private self-love. God uses self-love as it affects man's fear of sin's consequences to restrain the corruption of which natural man is capable. In a very important 1736 sermon, Men Naturally Are God's Enemies, Edwards gives his hearers a flavor of what was to come some ten years later with the publication of Religious Affections. In this sermon he speaks of the "principle of grace in the heart," as well as, the false religious affections of natural men. Reverent gestures in prayer accompanied by tears, says Edwards, "have risen from self-love, and not love to God. If you have wept before God, from the consideration of your own pitiful case; that has been because you loved yourself, and not because you had any respect to God."28 Leaving no stone unturned, Edwards admits that self-love does move out to include others in its loving what it loves. Remember that self-love is, most basically, "man's love of his own happiness." Naturally, men love their friends, relatives, etc. However, this love is merely grounded in "private interest." Even the love natural man has to another thing or person that he deems pleasurable is an extension of his own "confined" agenda. Edwards observes:

Thus, that a man should love those that are of his party, when there are different parties contending one with another; and that are warmly engaged on his side, and promote his interest: this is the natural consequence of a private self-love. ...Therefore there is no more virtue in a man's thus loving his friends merely from self-love than there is in self-love itself, the principle from whence it proceeds. So, a man's being disposed to hate those that hate him, or to resent injuries done him, arises from self-love in like manner as the loving those that love us, and being thankful for kindness shown us.29

A Brief Excursus on the Beauty of God and the New Sense of the Heart

Beauty is one of the things Jonathan Edwards was most concerned with understanding. "It is what we are more concerned with than any thing else whatsoever: yea, we are concerned with nothing else" {Mind, I}. If today we in turn wish to come to a full understanding and appreciation of his thought and vision, we must dare to take seriously his frequent suggestion that beauty is the central clue to the nature of reality. He does not suppose that he has completely penetrated either the eternal mysteries of the Divine Being or the ultimate order of the creation. What he does find, in ways this essay will try to elucidate, is that the concept of beauty, and the perception and enjoyment of spiritual beauty in particular, offers as deep a penetration of those mysteries and of that order as is available to men. The primary beauty of being's cordial consent to being and the image of such beauty in the secondary beauty of harmony and proportion provide him with the surest clue to the mysteries of the things that are and the things that are good and of Him in Whom, from Whom, and to Whom the orders of being and beauty are one. Edwards was convinced that beauty is the reality in terms of which the Divine Being and the moral and religious life of human beings as well as the order of the universal system of being, both moral and natural, can best be understood.33

He that truly sees the divine, transcendent, supreme glory of those things which are divine, does as it were know their divinity intuitively; he not only argues that they are divine, but sees that they are divine; he sees that in them wherein divinity chiefly consists; for in this glory, which is so vastly and inexpressibly distinguished from the glory of artificial things, and all other glory, does mainly consist the true notion of divinity: God is God, and distinguished from all other beings, and exalted above 'em, chiefly by his divine beauty, which is infinitely diverse from all other beauty.35

He that sees the beauty of holiness, or true moral good, sees that greatest and most important thing in the world, which is the fullness of all things, without which all the world is empty, no better than nothing, yea, worse than nothing. Unless this is seen, nothing is seen, that is worth the seeing: for there is no other true excellency or beauty. Unless this be understood, nothing is understood, that is worthy of the exercise of the noble faculty of understanding. This is the beauty of the Godhead, and the divinity or Divinity (if I may so speak), the good of the infinite Fountain of Good; without which God himself (if that were possible to be) would be an infinite evil: without which, we ourselves had better have been no being. He therefore in effect knows nothing, that knows not this: his knowledge is but the shadow of knowledge, as the Apostle calls it.36

'Tis unreasonable to think otherwise, than that the first foundation of a true love to God, is that whereby he is in himself lovely, or worthy to be loved, or the supreme loveliness of his nature. This is certainly what makes him chiefly amiable. What makes a man, or any creature lovely, is his excellency; and so what chiefly renders God lovely, and must undoubtedly be the chief ground of true love, is his excellency.39

This infinite excellency of the divine nature, as it is in itself, is the true ground of all that is good in God, without loving him for that excellency in him, which is the foundation of all that is in any manner of respect good or desirable in him? They whose affection to God is founded first on his profitableness to them, their affection begins at the wrong end; they regard God only for the utmost limit of the stream of divine good, where it touches them, and reaches their interest; and have no respect to that infinite glory of God's nature, which is the original good, and the true fountain of all good, the first fountain of all loveliness of every kind, and so the first foundation of all true love.40

    In his well-known 1734 sermon, A Divine and Supernatural Light, Immediately Imparted to the Soul By the Spirit of God, Shown to Be Both a Scriptural and Rational Doctrine, Edwards described this sense "given immediately by God" as the "divine light" which enables the heart to taste or sense the amiableness of a thing. This sense takes one beyond mere rational notion of the "speculative faculty," to inclination of the "will or disposition of the soul."42 Apart from this sense natural man is blind:

Well therefore may the Scripture represent those who are destitute of that spiritual sense, by which is perceived the beauty of holiness, as totally blind, deaf and senseless, yea dead. And well may regeneration, in which this divine sense is given to the soul by its Creator, be represented as opening the blind eye, and raising the dead, and bringing a person in to a new world. For if what has been said be considered, it will be manifest, that when a person has this sense and knowledge given him, he will view nothing as he did before; though before he knew all things after the flesh, yet henceforth he will know them so no more; and is become "a new creature, old things are passed away, behold all things are become new"; agreeable to II Cor. 5:16-17.43

Here, as it were, a new spiritual sense, or principle of new kind of perception or spiritual sensation, which is in its whole nature different from any former kinds of sensation of the mind, as tasting is diverse from any of the other senses. ...Hence the work of the Spirit of God in regeneration is often in Scripture compared to the giving of a new sense, eyes to see, ears to hear, unstopping the ears of the deaf, opening the eyes of them that were born blind, and turning from darkness to light.44

It is clear that Edwards is trying to express the nature of God and at the same time to explain how the self is attracted to Him. The divine nature is always held up as the true foundation of the believer's response, but Edwards also places emphasis upon the capacity of the self to apprehend it. The reason behind this emphasis is that the "new sense" - the heart of the doctrine of the affections - is the channel through which man lays hold of God. This sense is not one of the five "natural" senses; it is a new creation, given only to those regenerated by the Spirit. We shall be in no danger of exaggeration if we say that this new sense represents the unique contribution of the Affections; no idea in all of Edwards' works is more original and no doctrine was more far reaching in its influence upon the course of Puritan piety. Apprehending God through this sense, moreover, takes us to the depths of the individual soul; it is more than an awareness of God and certainly more than a belief in God. The new sense, as this sign makes plain, is a taste of the beauty of the divine gloria.45 In describing the beauty of holiness he [Edwards] says, "this kind of beauty is the quality that is the immediate object of this spiritual sense." Since the beauty of holiness is not to be apprehended with "natural" equipment alone, he who apprehends it must do so in virtue of the activity of the Spirit. A love of God which does not include the taste and relish of the divine beauty is not the love which reveals the saints.46

Self-love after Regeneration

Another part of God's fullness which he communicates is his happiness. This happiness consists in enjoying and rejoicing in himself, and so does also the creature's happiness. 'Tis, as has been observed of the other, a participation of what is in God; and God and his glory are the objective ground of it. The happiness of the creature consists in rejoicing in God; by which also God is magnified and exalted.48

And as it is with the love of the saints, so it is with their joy, and spiritual delight and pleasure: the first foundation of it, is not any consideration or conception of their interest in divine things; but it primarily consists in the sweet entertainment their minds have in the view or contemplation of the divine and holy beauty of these things, as they are in themselves. And this is indeed the very main difference between the joy of the hypocrite, and the joy of the true saint. The former rejoices in himself; self is the first foundation of his joy: the latter rejoices in God. The hypocrite has his mind pleased and delighted, in the first place, with his own privilege, and the happiness which he supposes he has attained, or shall attain. True saints have their minds, in the first place, inexpressibly pleased and delighted with the sweet ideas of the glorious and amiable nature of the things of God. And this is the spring of all their delights, and the cream of all their pleasures; 'tis the joy of their joy.49

Particularly, by what has been said you may try your discoveries of the glory of God's grace and love, and your affections arising from them. The grace of God may appear lovely in two ways; either as bonum utile, a profitable good to me, that which greatly serves my interest, and so suits my self-love; or as bonum formosum, a beautiful good in itself, and part of the moral and spiritual excellency of the divine nature. In this latter respect it is that the true saints have their hearts affected, and love captivated by the free grace of God in the first place.50

Divine love, as it has God for its object, may be thus described. 'Tis the soul's relish of the supreme excellency of the Divine nature, inclining the heart to God as the chief good.
The first thing in Divine love, and that from which everything that appertains to it arises, is a relish of the excellency of the Divine nature; which the soul of man by nature has nothing of.
When once the soul is brought to relish the excellency of the Divine nature, then it will naturally, and of course, incline to God every way. It will incline to be with Him and to enjoy Him. It will have benevolence to God. It will be glad that He is happy. It will incline that He should be glorified, and that His will should be done in all things. So that the first effect of the power of God in the heart in REGENERATION, is to give the heart a Divine taste or sense; to cause it to have a relish of the loveliness and sweetness of the supreme excellency of the Divine nature... self -love will necessarily make a man desire to enjoy that which is sweet to him. But God's perfections must first savour appetite and [be] sweet to men, or they must first have a taste to relish sweetness in the perfection of God, before self-love can have any influence upon them to cause an appetite after the enjoyment of that sweetness. And therefore that divine taste or relish of the soul, wherein Divine Love doth most fundamentally consist, is prior to all influence that self-love can have to incline us to God; and so must be a principle quite distinct from it, and independent of it.52

The alteration which is made in a man, when he is converted and sanctified is not by diminishing his love to happiness, but by regulating it with respect to its exercises and influence, and the objects it leads to... When God brings a soul out of a miserable state and condition into an happy state in his conversion, he gives him happiness who before had none. But he does not at the same time take away some of his love of happiness.54

Self-love, taken in the most extensive sense, and love to God are not things properly capable of being compared one with another, for they are not opposites or things entirely distinct, but one enters into the nature of the other... So that self-love is only a capacity of enjoying or taking delight in anything. Now surely 'tis improper to say that our love to God is superior to our general capacity of delighting in anything. Proportionable to our love to God is our disposition to delight in his good. Now our delight in God's good can't be superior to our love to delight in general; for proportionately as we delight in God's good, so shall we love that delight. A desire of and delight in God's good is love to God, and love to delight is self-love.55

As for instance, when the happiness for which he longs is to enjoy God, and to behold the glory of God, or to enjoy communion with God. Or a man may place his happiness in glorifying God; it may seem the greatest happiness to him that he can conceive of to give God glory as he ought to do, and he may long for this happiness. Now in longing for this happiness he loves that which he looks on as his happiness. If he did not love what he esteemed his happiness he would not long for it. And to love his happiness is to love himself. But yet in the same act he loves God, because he places his happiness in God. What can more properly be called love to any being, or any thing, than to place one's happiness in that thing"56

FOOTNOTES

2 Miller, 63-64. Return to Text

3 Miller, 148. Return to Text

4 I realize that "Theological Mr. Potato Head" is not the most scholarly description. I do not mean to be irresponsible, but it is just that this expresses my initial impression having read a bit of the literature. Just as the Mr. Potato Head toy could be made to look however one wished, so it seems that Edwards is painted quite differently by various scholars. It seems that one of the first challenges in studying Edwards is that of learning how to discern among the varied interpreters of Edwards. Return to Text

5 Conrad Cherry, The Theology of Jonathan Edwards: A Reappraisal, (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1966). Chapter one entitled, "The Internal Dynamics of the Act: Cognition and Volition," Cherry offers a more balanced treatment of Edwards's use of Locke. Regarding Miller's presentation of Edwards, "In his brilliant portrayal of Edwards as an American precursor of modern epistemology and physical theory, Miller frequently minimizes themes of Calvinist thought which were at the forefront of Edwards' reflective concerns. For good or for ill, Edwards was a Calvinist theologian; and, as a Calvinist theologian, he claimed the heritage of his New England forefathers." (p. 3) Yet, concerning Edwards on Scripture, "Though Edwards insists on this conjunction of Word and Spirit, he nevertheless acknowledges that Scripture and preaching may be of value for a man's faith before they area actually joined by the internal work of God's Spirit or before they become the Word of God proper." (p. 49) Return to Text

6 John H. Gerstner, The Rational Biblical Theology of Jonathan Edwards in three vols., (Powhatan, VA: Berea Publications and Orlando, FL: Ligonier Ministries, 1991-1993). Return to Text

7 See Mark A. Noll, Jonathan Edwards and Nineteenth Century Theology in Jonathan Edwards and the American Experience, ed. by Nathan O. Hatch and Harry S. Stout, (New York: Oxford University Press, 1988), 260-287). Having checked 700 entries in M.X. Lesser, Jonathan Edwards: An Annotated Bibliography 1979-1993, (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1994), which covers books, essays, articles, reviews, and dissertations, only Noll's essay treats, at any length, the relationship between Edwards and Old Princeton. Mention must also be made of B.B. Warfield's excellent essay Edwards and the New England Theology in The Works of Benjamin B. Warfield, vol. IX Studies in Theology, (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, 1991), 515-538 for the best historical analysis of the relationship between Edwards and his New England successors. Return to Text

8 C.A. Salmond, Princetoniana: Charles and A.A. Hodge; with Class and Table Talk of Hodge the Younger, (New York: Scribner and Welford, 1888), 179. Return to Text

9 Warfield, 531. Return to Text

10 See David B. Calhoun, Princeton Seminary: The Majestic Testimony 1869-1929, (Edinburgh: The Banner of Truth Trust, 1996), "Of the American theologians, the Princetonians were most impressed by Jonathan Edwards. When John DeWitt contributed an article on Edwards for Biblical and Theological Studies, he wrote that it was "peculiarly appropriate...in a volume celebrating the Century of Princeton Theological Seminary' because Jonathan Edwards "was the earliest of the great theologians who have lived at Princeton." During his short eight weeks in Princeton his only teaching was "in divinity" and "from the chair which may be said to have been transferred from the College to the Theological Seminary when the Seminary was opened in 1812." (p. 411) Return to Text

11 Robert Lewis Dabney criticized Edwards's moral thought. With all due respect this great Reformed theologian, it seems to this writer that Dabney's concern that Edwards's theory of virtue resulted in a utilitarian ethic is an unsound conclusion. Dabney's misinterpretation of Edwards's theory of love to Being in general is due to his failure to distinguish between self-love (which when it has God as its object is the ground of true virtue) and inordinate self-love, a distinction replete in the writings of Edwards. See, Robert L. Dabney, Systematic Theology, (1878; reprint, Edinburgh: The Banner of Truth Trust, 1985), 101-105. A more disappointing critique of Edwards is offered by J. Oliver Buswell in his treatment of Edwards and imputation where he concludes, "The latent pantheism of Edwards' philosophy is evident to many who have examined his works. Edwards was a great pastor and evangelist and preacher of the Gospel, but as a philosophical theologian, it were better if he had not spoken." J. Oliver Buswell, A Systematic Theology of the Christian Religion, (Singapore: Christian Life Publishers PTE LTD, 1994), 301. Return to Text

12 To discern a single, unifying theme in Edwards biblical/philosophical theology is certainly a challenge. The extent to which this writer has studied Edwards reveals a definite theocentricity and emphasis on the glory and excellence (or beauty and holiness) of God. This is methodologically foundational for Edwards. The glory and excellence of God is as central to his anthropology, soteriology, and ecclesiology as it is to his theology proper. God's own glorification is the end in all he does, and it is to be the saint's end in all he does. This God-ward element manifests itself in every facet of Edwards's thought. This is evident in the specific aspect of Edwards's thought with which this essay is concerned, man's seeking his happiness in God. Return to Text

13 Examples of Edwards's unique contributions to various doctrines would be elements, such as his explanation of the Eternal Son as God's perfect idea of himself (cf., An Essay on the Trinity, Miscellanies #238 &782, beauty as primary among the attributes of God (cf., Religious Affections. This will be discussed below), his doctrine of personal identity in his work in original sin (cf., The Great Christian Doctrine of Original Sin Defended), his treatment of natural and moral ability with regard to the will (cf., A Careful and Strict Inquiry In to the Prevailing Notions of the Freedom of Will) and fitness, cause, and condition in his teaching on justification (cf., Justification by Faith Alone). Return to Text

14 As mentioned earlier, Edwards's originality is often met with concern in the writings of various Reformed theologians. Regarding self-love, Edwards is actually following the lead of Augustine's brand of ethical voluntarism. In his famous City of God, Augustine writes, "For it is impossible for one who loves God not to love himself. For he alone has a proper love for himself who aims diligently at the attainment of the chief and true good; and if this is nothing else but God, as has been shown, what is to prevent one who loves God from loving himself." See, Augustine, The Morals of the Catholic Church trans., R. Stothert in Basic Writings of Saint Augustine, ed., Whitney J. Oates (1948; reprint, Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, 1992), 1:342. Hereafter cited as Oates. Augustine also spoke of sinful self-love as "private." See Oates 1:38. That Edwards continued in Augustine's voluntarism is seen in his development of the will, the affections, and the new sense in light of man's depravity and God's sovereignty. Neither Augustine's or Edwards's emphasis on self-love and seeking one's happiness the same thing, however, as eudaimonism. Return to Text

15 Jonathan Edwards, The Nature of True Virtue in The Works of Jonathan Edwards, Vol. 8, Ethical Writings, edited by Paul Ramsey (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1989), 575. Hereafter cited as True Virtue. Return to Text

16 True Virtue, 575. Return to Text

17 Jonathan Edwards, Miscellanies, no. 473, in The Works of Jonathan Edwards, Vol. 13, The "Miscellanies", edited by Thomas A. Schafer (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1994), 387. Hereafter cited as Miscellanies, no. This entry into the Miscellanies was written in 1730, and offers insight into Edwards's explanation of how self-love in its confined sense works in natural man, producing "virtues" that are themselves confined to the individual. Return to Text

18 The data for the dates affixed to the entries in the Miscellanies is found in a very helpful chronological table of the Miscellanies paralleled with Edwards's sermons and other writings prepared by Thomas A. Schafer. See, Thomas A. Schafer Editor's Introduction, in The Works of Jonathan Edwards, Vol. 13, The "Miscellanies", edited by Thomas A. Schafer (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1994), 91-109. Return to Text

19 Jonathan Edwards, Miscellanies, no. 301, in The Works of Jonathan Edwards, Vol. 13, The "Miscellanies", edited by Thomas A. Schafer (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1994), 387. Hereafter cited as Miscellanies, no. According to Norman Fiering, Stoddard's most extensive written treatment of self-love is in his Three Sermons Lately Preach'd at Boston (1717) in a sermon entitled "That Natural Men Are under the Government of Self-Love." Norman Fiering, Jonathan Edwards's Moral Thought and Its British Context, (Chapel Hill, NC: The University of North Carolina Press, 1981), 152. This work of Fiering's is quite valuable in understanding the ethical theory of Edwards. Chapter four, entitled The Permutations of Self-Love, is quite helpful. Return to Text

20 For Calvin, self-love was vile indeed. In his treatment of Lev 19:18, he expressed disdain for the concept. See John Calvin, Commentaries on the Four Last Books of Moses Arranged in the Form of a Harmony in Calvin's Commentaries Vol. III, trans. Charles Bingham, (1852; reprint, Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1993), 3: 195:

We are all of us not only inclined to love ourselves more than we should, but all our powers hurry us away in this direction; nay, filautia (self-love) blinds us so much as to be the parent of all iniquities. Since, therefore, whilst we are too much given to love ourselves, we forget and neglect our brethren, God could only bring us back to charity by plucking from our hearts that vicious passion which is born in us and dwells deeply in us; nor, again, could this be done except by transferring elsewhere the love which exists within us.

21 Jonathan Edwards, Charity and Its Fruits in The Works of Jonathan Edwards, Vol. 8, Ethical Writings edited by Paul Ramsey (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1989), 252-253. Hereafter cited as Charity. The Charity sermons are, in the words of Paul Ramsey, "an extraordinary, systematic treatise on the moral life." Return to Text

22 This is an important element in Edwards's epistemology. Natural man's intellect has become a desperately darkened, self-centered thing. Return to Text

23 Charity, 253. Return to Text

24 It is important to note that after works as early as Miscellanies 301 and the Charity sermons mentioned above, that Edwards considered this theory of the fall's affect on self-love basic for much of his preaching and writing. In fact, his very last work, On Original Sin, which was at the press as he died in 1758, uses this scheme to defend God lest Dr. Taylor charge him as the author of sin. See, Jonathan Edwards, The Great Christian Doctrine of Original Sin Defended in The Works of Jonathan Edwards, 2 vols., edited by Edward Hickman (1834; reprint, The Banner of Truth Trust, 1974), 1:217-219. Hereafter cited as Works. Here Edwards uses a little different language to restate his doctrine. He speaks of self-love as one of the "inferior" or "natural" principles in man. Man was also possessed of "superior" and "supernatural" principles, such as "divine love" and "the spiritual image of God." These are the same as he referred to in earlier works as the "governing principle." Edwards goes on to describe the situation in which these "inferior" principles took the throne of man's soul:

Therefore immediately the superior divine principles wholly ceased; so light ceases in a room when the candle is withdrawn; and thus man was left in a state of darkness, woeful corruption, and ruin; nothing but flesh without spirit. The inferior principles of self-love, and natural appetite, which were given only to serve, being alone, and left to themselves, of course became reigning principles; having no superior principles to regulate or control them, they became absolute masters of the heart. The immediate consequence of which was a fatal catastrophe, a turning of all things upside down, and the succession of a state of the most odious and dreadful confusion. Man immediately set up himself, and the objects of his private affections and appetites, as supreme; and so they too the place of God. These inferior principles are like fire in a house; which, we say, is a good servant, but a bad master; very useful while kept in its place, but if left to take possession of the while house, soon brings all to destruction. Man's love to his own honor, separate interest, and private pleasure, which before was wholly subordinate unto love to God, and regard to his authority and glory, now disposes and impels him to pursue those objects, without regard to God's honor, or law; because there is no true regard to these divine things left in him.

25 Edwards illustrates his point here in terms of a servant who wrongfully assumes the role of master in the house when the real master had lost strength. Self-love, though originally a servant, has assumed an inordinate degree of influence in natural man. See, Charity, 256-258. Return to Text

26 True Virtue, 577. Return to Text

27 As shall be mentioned below, it is the opposite of "private interest" that is meant when Edwards speaks of love to God as "disinterested." Certainly, man is interested in God when he loves him. However, he is "disinterested" in that he loves God apart from trying to get anything out of God. He loves God "disinterestedly" who loves him for who he is and not for any perceived benefit. Return to Text

28 Works, 2:136. This is a very important earlier sermon (1736) that precedes much of Edwards's work on self-love in Charity (1738), Religious Affections (1746), and True Virtue (1755), yet prefigures the message of those works. Interestingly, this sermon on pp.139-140, even reminds one of the vivid imagery later found in Sinners in the Hands of An Angry God (1741). Return to Text

29 True Virtue, 578-579. See also Miscellanies # 437 (1730) for a terse and important account of the seeming "virtues" to which this private self-love gives rise. Return to Text

30 The nature/grace distinction is important also if one is to understand how Edwards's notion of "fitness" fits in his theory of justification by faith, as well as, his notion of natural and moral ability with regard to the will. Return to Text

31 Natural man's "estimation" is the problem to begin with because it is inseparable from the ontological reality that he is devoid of the divine spiritual principle. His very estimation of things is confined. This must be maintained if one is to understand Edwards's ethical theory. It is here that Fiering misses Edwards. While Fiering notes that both "simple" and "compound" self-love are "natural (rather than gracious)," he does not seem to see the nature/grace distinction in Edwards, and concludes. "Compounded self-love is not identical to proper love to God, but it is not entirely distinct from it like simple self-love is. Compounded self-love seems to be in an intermediary position in Edwards's theory, and represents the highest possible reach of simple self-love." See, Fiering, 157. Edwards's emphasis on the necessity of a "spiritual principle" to govern self-love and determine its object does not allow for an "intermediary position." Any "intermediary position" on the part of man is still going to be grounded in confined self-love, therefore an act of sin. Return to Text

32 Roland A. Delattre, Beauty and Sensibility in the Thought of Jonathan Edwards, (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1968). Delattre expounds Edwards's understanding of beauty to a great extent which cannot be discussed in the scope of this essay. His explanation of primary and secondary beauty is essential for a fuller understanding of beauty in Edwards. It is interesting to note that Fiering considers Delattre's emphasis on beauty in Edwards's ethic (and metaphysics as a whole) somewhat fallacious. See, Fiering, 80. Return to Text

33 Delattre, 1. He continues:

Beauty is fundamental to Edwards' understanding of being. It is the first principle of being, the inner, structural principle of being-itself, according to which the universal system of being is articulated. Beauty is also the measure and objective foundation of the perfection of being - of excellence, goodness, and value - and is, therefore, the basis for Edwards' way of affirming and construing the ultimate unity of being and good in God. Beauty is not the only kind of order he finds in reality. But as the first principle of both being and the perfection of being, it provides the primary model of order in terms of which Edwards attempts to understand all forms of order and disorder, concord and discord, in the whole system of being under God. pp.1-2

34 Jonathan Edwards, Religious Affections, in The Works of Jonathan Edwards, Vol. 2, Religious Affections ed., John E. Smith (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1959), 266. Hereafter cited as Religious Affections. Return to Text

35 Religious Affections, 298. Return to Text

36 Ibid., 274. Return to Text

37 Cherry, 75. Return to Text

38 Edwards did allow that natural man, and even devils, can see the outward manifestation of God's beauty, but this is not the same thing as that beauty simply considered, or for its own sake. He held that his natural sense of God's beauty could result only in affections devoid of delight or relish in the sweetness of God's beauty:

From the things that have been said, it appears that if persons have a great sense of the natural perfections of God, and are greatly affected with them, or have any other sight or sense of God, than that which consists in, or implies a sense of the beauty of his moral perfections, it is no certain sign of grace: as particularly, men's having a great sense of the awful greatness, and terrible majesty of God; for this is only God's natural perfection, and what men may see, and yet be entirely blind to the beauty of his moral perfections, and have nothing of that spiritual taste which relishes this divine sweetness.

Wicked men and devils will see, and have a great sense of everything that appertains to the glory of God, but only the beauty of his moral perfection. They will see his infinite greatness and majesty, his infinite power, and will be fully convinced of his omniscience, and his eternity and immutability; and they will see and know everything appertaining to his moral attributes themselves, but only he beauty and amiableness of them: they will see and know that he is perfectly just and righteous and true; and that he is a holy God, of purer eyes than to behold evil, who cannot look on iniquity, and they will see the wonderful manifestations of his infinite goodness and free grace to the saints; and there is nothing will be hid from their eyes, but only the beauty of these moral attributes, and that beauty of the other attributes, which arises from it. And so natural men in this world are capable of having a very affecting sense of everything else that appertains to God, but this only. (The "but this only" should be taken as "except this only"). See, Religious Affections, 263-264.

39 Religious Affections, 242. This quotation is from the second sign of "truly gracious affections, "The first objective ground of gracious affections is the transcendently excellent and amiable nature of divine things, as they are in themselves; and not any conceived relation they bear to self, or self-interest." Return to Text

40 ibid., 243. Return to Text

41 True Virtue, 540. Return to Text

42 Works, 2:12-17. Return to Text

43 Religious Affections, 274-275. Return to Text

44 Ibid., 205-206. Return to Text

45 Smith is here referring to the third sign of truly gracious affections, "Those affections that are truly holy, are founded on the loveliness of the moral excellency of divine things. Or (to express it otherwise), a love to divine things for the beauty and sweetness of their moral excellency, is the first beginning and spring of all holy affections." Return to Text

46 John E. Smith, Editor's Introduction in The Works of Jonathan Edwards, Vol. 2, Religious Affections, ed., John E. Smith (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1959), 30. Along these lines, an interesting article is Michael J. McClymond, "Spiritual Perception in Jonathan Edwards," The Journal of Religion Vol. 77, No. 2 (April 1997): 195-216. McClymond notes that some have charged Perry Miller with "naturalizing" Edwards's understanding of the "new sense." He points to Conrad Cherry as having broken away from Miller in this regard even more so than Smith. Return to Text

47 True Virtue, 548. Return to Text

48 Jonathan Edwards, A Dissertation Concerning the End for Which God Created the World, in The Works of Jonathan Edwards, Vol. 8, The Ethical Writings, ed., Paul Ramsey (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1989), 442. Return to Text

49 Religious Affections, 249-250. Edwards offers an interesting test of true love to God:

Particularly, by what has been said you may try your discoveries of the glory of God's grace and love, and your affections arising from them. The grace of God may appear lovely in two ways; either as bonum utile, a profitable good to me, that which greatly serves my interest, and so suits my self-love; or as bonum formosum, a beautiful good in itself, and part of the moral and spiritual excellency of the divine nature. In this latter respect it is that the true saints have their hearts affected, and love captivated by the free grace of God in the first place.

50 Religious Affections, 262-263. Return to Text

51 Religious Affections, 241. Return to Text

52 Jonathan Edwards, Treatise on Grace in Selections From the Unpublished Writings of Jonathan Edwards, ed., Rev. Alexander Grosart (1865; reprint, Ligonier, PA: Soli Deo Gloria, 1992), 37-38. Return to Text

53 Fiering, 164. Return to Text

54 Charity, 255. Return to Text

55 Jonathan Edwards, Miscellanies #530 in The Philosophy of Jonathan Edwards from his Private Notebooks, Harvey G. Townsend, ed., (Eugene, OR: The University of Oregon Press 1955), p. 202. Return to Text

56 Charity, 258. Return to Text

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