Journal: Bibliotheca Sacra
Volume: BSAC 60:240 (Oct 1903)
Article: Professor Park’s Theological System
Author: Frank Hugh Foster

BSac 60:240 (Oct 1903) p. 672

Professor Park’s Theological System

Rev. Frank Hugh Foster

The two hundredth anniversary of the birth of Jonathan Edwards, who was born October 5, 1703, might be worthily celebrated by the issue of a competent history of the religious movement of which he was the originator, and of the theological school which sprung from his labors. In the lack of such a history, the lives and achievements of some of the more eminent of his school might be sketched side by side with his own. Or some general view of the system of thought which gradually matured among his pupils might be presented as the still living result of his labors and the enduring monument of his genius. Or there might be selected some one theologian, who had drunk deep at the fountain of Edwards’s inspiration, had been a diligent student of the whole period of the development of the New England theology, and had incorporated its best contributions in his own thought, who had himself been a great thinker and systematizer, and represented in his own person and labors the consummate fruit of the seed planted by Edwards; and his work might be set forth in fitting form as the best evidence of the real power of Edwards and the real meaning of his scattered contributions to religious thought, and might be reverently laid as the choicest chaplet, on the tomb of the most famous of American thinkers. If such a one were to be selected, the choice could fall only upon Edwards A. Park; for he was an Edwardean, an historical scholar versed as none other in the history of the Edwardean school, a profound thinker, a

BSac 60:240 (Oct 1903) p. 673

consummate systematizer, an unequaled teacher, himself chief member and unquestioned leader of the school. And he would feel himself honored, were he still living, to be made the means of honoring one whom he ever confessed, under the great faster, as master.

But Professor Park was himself so great a figure, and surpassed, in the minds of many of his pupils, and of the present writer, his great master at so many points, that he cannot be placed in the rank of those who contribute to others’ glory, except incidentally. It is a part of the legitimate glory of Edwards that he secured and retained the homage of such a mind. The power of the impetus he gave to American theology is nowhere better illustrated than in the fact that it by and by stirred and thrilled this imperial intellect. The greatness of his leading ideas is most evident in that they formed the chief working tools of so great an artificer, at so remote a time. As his school culminated in Park, and reached thus an end greater than its beginning, it attained the rare distinction in history of perfect symmetry and interior self-consistency. It was fitted for its time,—a great time,—and did in...