JONATHAN EDWARDS, one of the early presidents of Princeton College, was born in the year 1703, at East Windsor, Conn. He has left a very full account of his thoughts and feelings at the time of his conversion, and it is so well told that we give the story in full as he has left it.
"When I was a boy," he says, "some years before I went to college, at a time of remarkable awakening in my father's congregation, I was very much affected for many months, and concerned about the things of religion and my soul's salvation, and was abundant in religious duties. My affections were lively and easily moved, and I seemed to be in my element when engaged in religious duties. But in process of time my convictions and affections wore off, and I returned like a dog to his vomit, and went on in the ways of sin. But God would not suffer me to go on with any quietness ; I had great and violent in-ward struggles, till I was brought wholly to break off all my former wicked ways, and all ways of known outward sins, and to apply my-self to seek salvation in a manner that ,I never was before ; I felt a spirit to part with all things in the world for an interest in Christ. My concern continued and prevailed, with many exercising thoughts and inward struggles ; but yet it never seemed proper to express that concern by the name of terror.
"From my childhood up my mind had been full of objections against the doctrine of God's sovereignty. But I remember the time very well when I seemed to be convinced and fully satisfied as to this sovereignty ; yet I never could give an account how or by what means I was thus convinced, not in the least imagining at the time, nor a long time after, that there was any extraordinary influence of God's Spirit in it ; only that now I saw further, and my reason apprehended the justice and reasonableness of it. But I have often, since that first conviction, had quite another kind of sense of it than I had then. Often since I have had, not only a conviction but a delightful conviction. The doctrine has very often appeared exceedingly pleasant, bright, and sweet, but my first conviction was not so.
"The first instance that I remember of that sort of inward, sweet delight in God and divine things, in which I have much lived since, was on reading those words : 'Now, unto the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only Wise God, be honor and glory forever and ever. Amen (1 Tim. 1:1717Now unto the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only wise God, be honor and glory for ever and ever. Amen. (1 Timothy 1:17)). As I read the words there came into my soul, and was, as it were, diffused through it, a sense of the glory of the divine Being—a new sense, quite different from anything I had ever experienced before. Never any words of Scripture seemed to me as these words did. I thought within myself how excellent a Being that was, and how happy I should be if I might enjoy that God, and be rapt up to Him in heaven, and be, as it were, swallowed up in Him forever I kept saying over these words of Scripture to myself, and went to pray to God that I might enjoy Him, and prayed in a manner quite different from what I used to do, with a new sort of affection. But it never came into my thoughts that there was anything spiritual or of a saving nature in this.
"From about that time I began to have a new kind of apprehension and idea of Christ and the work of redemption, and the glorious way of salvation by Him. An inward, sweet sense of these things at times came into my heart, and my soul was led away in pleasant views and contemplations of them. This I know not how to express otherwise than by a calm, delightful abstraction of the soul from all the concerns of this world ; and sometimes a kind of vision, or fixed ideas and imaginations of being alone in the mountains or some solitary wilderness, far from all mankind, sweetly conversing with Christ, and wrapped and swallowed up in God. The sense I had of divine things would often of a sudden kindle up an ardor in my soul that I know not how to express. As I was walking and looking up on the sky and clouds, there came into my mind a sweet sense of the glorious majesty and grace of God, that I know not how to express. I seemed to see them both in a sweet conjunction—majesty and meekness joined together ; it was a sweet, and gentle, and. holy majesty ; and also a majestic meekness—a high, great, and holy gentleness."
We omit what immediately follows this section of the narrative, as it refers chiefly to his experiences as a believer. His closing remarks, however, are interesting, as they show his deep sense of the holiness and sovereignty of God—attributes little admired, even if believed in, by the professing people of God today.
"The holiness of God has always appeared to me the most lovely of all His attributes. The doctrines of God's sovereignty and free grace, in showing 'mercy to whom He would show mercy,' and man's absolute dependence on the operations of God's Holy Spirit, have very often appeared to me as sweet and glorious doctrines. These doctrines have been much my delight. God's sovereignty has ever appeared to me a great part of His glory. It has often been my delight to approach God and adore Him as a sovereign God, and ask sovereign mercy of Him.
"I have loved the doctrines of the gospel; they have been to my soul like green pastures. The gospel has seemed to me the richest treasure, the treasure that I have most desired, and longed that it might dwell richly in me, The way of salvation by Christ has appeared glorious and excellent, most pleasant and most beautiful. It has often seemed to me that it would in a great measure spoil heaven to receive it in any other way."
How true these words, dear reader I Heaven would 'indeed be spoiled if it could be gained in any other way than by faith in Christ. "There-fore it is of faith, that it might be by grace" (Rom. 4: 16). Salvation by faith necessitates its being by the sovereign grace of God ; for faith is a gift, and "a man can receive nothing except it be given him from heaven" (John 3 27). Reader, hast thou faith ?
What a contrast the conversion of this amiable, gentle man presents with some of those previously recorded. God's heavenly grace appears to have fallen on his soul like the gentle dew of a summer's night ; while with others it fell, after a long-felt drought, in a sudden down-pour of blessing, amid the thunder and lightning and tempest of God's wrath against sin, and the fierce opposing conflicts of the unseen powers of hell. But in every instance of real conversion it is the Spirit's work giving a knowledge of sin and glimpses of God's holiness, coupled with a sense, more or less distinct, of the work of redemption wrought out by Christ upon the cross.
As the wind, unseen, and seemingly capricious (though held in the "fists " of God), " bloweth where it listeth," sometimes as the gentle zephyr, and again as the wild fierce hurricane, "SO IS EVERY ONE THAT IS BORN OF THE SPIRIT."