Journal: Westminster Theological Journal
Volume: WTJ 13:1 (Nov 1950)
Article: Reviews Of Books
Author: Anonymous

WTJ 13:1 (Nov 50) p. 35

Reviews Of Books

Perry Miller: Jonathan Edwards. New York: William Sloane Associates. 1949. xv, 348. $3.50.

Adherents of the Reformed Faith, in particular those belonging to the tradition of American Calvinism, do well to receive with eager interest the present volume. In it a contemporary American man of letters attempts to depict the mind of America’s outstanding classical theologian. It is to be noted that Perry Miller regards Edwards as “infinitely more than a theologian”, as “one of America’s five or six major artists, who happened to work with ideas instead of with poems or novels”, as “much more a psychologist and a poet than a logician” (p. xii). It is refreshing to find an outstanding writer of our time, avowedly no partisan of Edwards’ creed (p. xiv)1 , who appears as the proponent of so sympathetic an evaluation of the achievement of the Puritan divine. Some misgivings, however, may be allowed the reviewer who suspects the author of reconstructing a portrait of Edwards in which the marks of the artist’s imagination overshadow the lines of the historical figure.

It is gravely to be regretted that readers and reviewers are put to a disadvantage due to the policy of the series to which this volume belongs not to burden the text with footnotes. The present reviewer can also express keen disappointment over an unsuccessful attempt to discover in “the Harvard College Library” the fully annotated copy which the author asserts he has deposited there (p. 333). Under these conditions the reviewer feels hampered in dealing concretely with the argument of the work.

Even in the absence of available references, it is possible to comment on some of the positions adopted by the author. In his “Foreword”, he remarks: “Except in fairly sheltered groves, systematic theology, once the proud possession of all Protestant Americans, seems to be nearly a lost art” (p. xii). Notwithstanding the noble effort on the part of the author

WTJ 13:1 (Nov 50) p. 36

to hew “rough passages through the uncongenial thicket which was Edwards’ tradition” (idem), it is to be apprehended that he has not quite succeeded in acquiring the mastery of this art.

In the first place, there appears to be a persistent misconstruction of the Federal Theology throughout the book. One is almost inclined to wonder whether Congregational writers in Old and New England developed a new form of Covenant theology, alien to the formulations of H. Witsius, T. Boston and a host of other Reformed theologians including the Westminster divines. These men scarcely conceived of “regeneration as the drawing up of a covenant, requiring assent on ...