The spirit of his resolutions inspired his ministry. A religious abstinence in food, relaxation, and sleep enabled him to devote thirteen hours in each day to theological studies, which, with his depth of research, furnished such materials, as, when matured by his laborious care, produced sermons that attracted, almost from his first appearance as a preacher, the eager attention of the most profound divines. Though he read his sermons, which he modestly lamented as much inferior to preaching memoriter, and his feeble voice formed no counterpoise to this dead weight; yet his solemn manner of announcing the mighty emotions of his own soul, so completely fixed the minds of his hearers, that they forgot every thing but the important subject. The effect of his preaching soon appeared in the event that induced him to publish" a faithful Narrative of the surprising Work of God in the Conyersion of many hundred Souls in Northampton." This relation not only attracted much notice in America, but was recommended by Dr. Watts and Guyse to the British public, and was widely circulated on the continent of Europe. The eagerness with which Mr. Edwards was consulted by multitudes during these extraordinary triumphs of the Gospel, added to his conscientious dread of confounding enthusiasm with religion, and his natural fondness for the philosophy of the human mind, induced him to study the various appearances of religious illumination, terror, and delight, with such anxious attention as

sweet and benevolent, quiet, peaceable, contented, easy, compassionate, generous, humble, meek, modest, submissive, obliging, diligent, and industrious, charitable, even, patient, moderate, forgiving, sincere temper, and to do at all times what such a temper would lead me to.

rendered him a profound master of this most delicate and momentous subject. Yet, after having been regarded by neighbouring churches as an oracle, and valued by his own flock as a man whom heaven delighted to honour, he was called to shew that the disciple is not above his persecuted Lord. To correct some immoralities among the younger persons of his congregation, he adopted a method which betrayed a deficiency in the prudence taught by intercourse with the world, and roused the ungovernable partiality of parents for the children whose characters were exposed to censure. In the midst of this ferment, he was led to renounce Mr. Stoddard's principle of the right of unbelievers to communion at the Lord's table, and thus let in a fresh blast upon the coals of strife; so that the passions of the people triumphed over the meekness and benevolence of the pastor, and produced a final separation.

After twenty-four years of useful labours at Northampton, he retired to preach to the Indians at Stockbridge. Here the adorable providence of God demonstrated that the man who most ably defended the truths against which the carnal mind rises with abhorrence, could not only cast himself, in the decline of life, with a large family, on the wide world without support, but could also devote his powerful intellect to teach these truths in the howling desert, where there were no applauding multitudes among whom he could shine, and no philosophising divines who could echo his praise. The six years which he spent among the Indians, were, however, not lost to the world, but may be valued as the most useful period of his life. In this retreat, besides his labours as a missionary, he devoted himself to such studies as his

former engagements had nearly precluded, and wrote his two treatises on the freedom of the will, and on. original sin. His celebrity, advancing with his labours, soon called him from the exile which now seemed to have accomplished the intention of the mysterious arbiter of events in conducting him thither. Invited to succeed his son-in-law, Aaron Burr, as president of New Jersey college, before he was well seated on the chair, he was snatched from the sanguine hopes of the church by the small-pox. This ornament to the Christian name, whose intellectual grandeur was only equalled by his moral character, was removed to the element of unbounded knowledge and devotion, on the twenty-second of March, 1758, in the fifty-fifth year of his age.

If it be said, that, absorbed in thoughts (the sons of heaven), he too much despised words as the daughters of earth, to be allowed a place among elegant writers; he who removes his works from this class, must give them the precedence in the still higher departments of metaphysics and theology. A periodical critic, though decidedly hostile to the Edwardian 'system of divinity, pronounced his treatise on the freedom of the will," the most stupendous monument of metaphysical reasoning which the human mind ever erected." But his " Dissertation on the Nature of Virtue or Holiness," displays in a still higher degree, such a combination of abstract thought and vast conceptions, with instructive elucidation and holy tendencies, that the reader feels himself extricated from the incumbrances of dull matter, to hearken to the discourses of etherial spirits. The treatise" on God's last End in the Creation of the World," which forms its usual companion, has not, like the former the

rare praise of pouring full day upon a profound subject, which all other investigators had left in undiminished darkness; but it enables us to maintain as philosophers, what we already believed as Christians, or divines. His defence of the doctrine of original sin is, in the former part, conducted so as to compel the adversaries of the truth to contend against common sense and acknowledged fact; while the latter part sets at defiance the logical or metaphysical skill which would have ventured to contradict both our senses and our reason. One of the most useful of his treatises is that on religious affections, which at once enables the Christian to winnow his own soul, separating the precious from the worthless in religion, and preserves him at an equal distance from the mortal coldness of philosophic speculation, and the unhallowed fires of wild enthusiasm. The labours of Edwards have founded a theological school, which, in America, has verged to a metaphysical mania; but` in England, has been a preservative from socinian and antinomian extremes, by presenting evangelical truth in that point of view, which at once satisfies the enlightened mind, and captivates the devotional heart.

* His works are-A sermon preached at Boston, on 1 Cor. i. 29, 30.—A sermon at Northampton, on Mat.'xvi. 17.—A Narrative of the Work of God, &c.-Five discourses at Northampton.-A sermon preached at Enfield. A sermon at New-Haven, on 1 John iv. 1.-Thoughts on the Revival.-Religious Affections.-On Prayer for a Revival. Life of the Rev. David Brainerd. On Qualifications for Communion.-A Reply to S. William's Answer.

A sermon preached at Newark, on James ii. 19.-On the Freedom of the Will.-On original Sin.-Eighteen sermons with his life prefixed. The History of Redemption.-On the Nature of Virtue. God's last End in the Creation.-Thirty-three sermons. -Twenty sermons.-Miscellaneous Observations.-Miscellaneous Remarks.

That part of the world which lies beyond the British empire furnishes too few materials for ecclesiastical history to deserve a distinct section. Among the protestants on the continent of Europe, scarcely any persons of extraordinary eminence arose in the church, which experienced little change and no improvement; and if the ancient fire of persecution sometimes burst forth from the church of Rome, spreading desolation wherever it could reach, the political powers refused that aid, without which religious bigotry can do little more than imitate Vesuvius, when, wanting force for a grand eruption, it emits only a faint rumbling and transient flames, amidst clouds of smoke. Beyond the extent of Christendom, the missions of which the commencement has already been recorded, proceeded in their labours without any striking instances of success; while the Christian church was unhappily not yet awakened from its selfish slumbers, to form new stations for the labourers, who might cultivate the vast desart which still lay entirely neglected.