![]() Newton himself engaged in this activity, as did Edwards. And it led to some pretty strange Nostradamus-like noodlings in the margins of the Book of Revelation as one thinker after another tried to pin down the exact instant of the Rapture. The idolatry of logic – and it does often seem like that – led to some miraculous discoveries, such as those of Isaac Newton. Grace is absolutely beyond all human capacity, one thinker after another (like Edwards) will say, and then they begin furiously reasoning their way toward it. There is a profound tension in the eighteenth century between divine grace and human reason. The glory of the door, the reality of the room. The pride of accomplishment, the humility of being you. ![]() “In another generation,” said old Ezra, the works of Jonathan Edwards “will pass into as transient notice perhaps scarce above oblivion, and when posterity occasionally comes across them in the rubbish of libraries, the rare characters who may read and be pleased with them will be looked upon as singular and whimsical.” In the last chapter of Marsden’s book I came across a quote from Ezra Stiles, who was president of Yale when Edwards died. To be welcomed into a place with so much august history, so much intellectual curiosity and attainment, so many great names – surely it’s worth a moment of pride. ![]() Teaching in an institution to which I would not have been admitted as a student (bad grades, bad “life choices”), I was flattered by the association, and it occurred to me that many of the students in attendance might be as well. Not only did I happen to be reading George Marsden’s biography of the great eighteen-century minister and theologian Jonathan Edwards, who was both a student and tutor at Yale, but I happened to have paused at precisely the moment when Edwards himself was about to address the student body. Now Moses in the law commanded us, that such should be stoned: but what sayest thou? … But Jesus stooped down, and with his finger wrote on the ground, as though he heard them not.Ī few years ago I was asked to give the convocation address at Yale Divinity School, where I have taught for the past decade. They say unto him, Master, this woman was taken in adultery, in the very act. ![]()
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