"TRUE RELIGION" AND THE AFFECTIONS: A STUDY OF JOHN WESLEY'S ABRIDGEMENT OF JONATHAN EDWARDS' TREATISE ON RELIGIOUS AFFECTIONS

The phrase "religious affections" has a quaint sound today. On the odd occasion that it is encountered, it more than likely conjures images of an over—dressed, nineteenth—century dandy, reading floridly romantic theosophy in an effort to cultivate new pinnacles of exquisite interiority. This was not always the case.

For Jonathan Edwards and John Wesley, the "religious," or "holy," or "gracious" affections were of the essence of what Christianity was about, and neither man was a religious dilettante of the drawing room. At the very beginning of his Treatise on Religious Affections, Jonathan Edwards states that "True religion, in great part, consists in Holy Affections."1 In his later abridgement of this work, Wesley puts his name to the same opinion.2

In this paper, I will attempt to make clear what Wesley did, and did not, mean by this. To do this, I will first make a few remarks about Edwards' thought and Wesley's relation to it. Next, I will briefly exposit Wesley's abridgement of Edwards' Treatise and compare the themes found there with the theology that Wesley's original works betray. This comparison will show that the Treatise was not just tangentially related to Wesley's theological concerns (as some of his published abridgments were), but that it was a theologically—important document which portrayed a crucial component of what Wesley thought Christianity was all about.

Jonathan Edwards was born in East Windsor, Connecticut in the year of John Wesley's birth, 1703 (d. 1758). Educated at Yale, he had a lifelong fascination with both philosophy and natural science as well as theology. Locke and Newton were his intellectual companions every bit as much as Calvin was. Such interests were reflected in his writings as well as his readings, as seen in his papers titled "Of Insects," "The Mind" and even "Of Being."3 While his Freedom of the Will 4 is usually taken to be his major contribution to theology, Edwards is more widely known for his sermon "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God" which is most notable for its vivid depiction of the end that awaits the reprobate. Unfortunately, neither Freedom of the Will nor his famous sermon gives a true picture of the broad scope and creative nature of his work. Edwards was much more concerned with beauty and love than he was with either humanity's bondage to sin or the nature of hell.5 It is these wider interests that are most relevant for our concerns.

Roland Delattre in his Beauty and Sensibility in the Thought of Jonathan Edwards claims that Edwards understood Divine Being to be most immediately and powerfully present to humanity as beauty.6 This beauty is known through our sensibility; i.e., it is felt, and not merely intellectually inferred by the understanding. Saving knowledge of God then, is available only in and through the enjoyment of God. The fullness of God is encountered as a living reality "only according to the degree to which men find in [God] their entire joy and happiness, the fulfillment of their aesthetic—affectional being."7

This emphasis on the sensible apprehension of God, when linked with Edwards' appreciation for the philosophy of John Locke, has been taken by some of Edwards' interpreters as showing that Edwards' epistemology was nothing more than philosophical empiricism.8 But Terrence Erdt has recently shown that a "sense of the heart" or a "sweetness" (suavitas) can be found in Calvin's thought, so that Edwards' emphasis on feeling and the "heart" has a rootage in the theological tradition which is deeper than is often suspected.9 But regardless of its historical roots, Edwards' affectional "sense of the heart" was at the center of his psychology, epistemology, ethics and, indeed, his whole theology.

It was Edwards' theoretical concern with the nature of religious experience and, more importantly, his burning practical desire to have such experience widely propagated, that put Edwards and Wesley on common ground. Wesley's first contact with Edwards' writings came in 1738. Wesley was traveling from London to Oxford when he "read the truly surprising narrative of the conversions lately wrought in and about the town of Northampton, in New England. Surely 'this is the Lord's doing and it is marvelous in our eyes.' "10

What he read was Edwards' A Faithful Narrative of the Surprising Work of God . . .11 which was to be the first of the five works of Edwards that Wesley would abridge and publish.12 The other four works which Wesley published also had direct bearing on the subjects of Christian experience and evangelism. These were The Distinguishing Marks of a Work of the Spirit of God (written in 1741, Wesley's abridgement published in 1744), Some Thoughts Concerning the Present Revival of Religion in New England (1742,1745); The Life of David Brainerd, who was Edwards' son—in—law and a missionary to the Indians (1749,1768); and, of course, the Treatise on Religious Affections (1746,1773).

These five works by Edwards represent the largest number of separate works by one author that Wesley was to abridge and publish under his own name. The influence of Edwards on Wesley was so strong that Albert C. Outler has said that Edwards was a "major source" of Wesley's theology, and that, indeed, Wesley's encounter with Edwards' early writings was one of four basic factors that set the frame for Wesley's thought.13

This is not to say, though, that there were no important differences between the two, for there were. Wesley was familiar with Edwards' Freedom of the Will, but he published no abridgement of it and, instead, attacked the views contained in it in his "Thoughts Upon Necessity."14 Wesley thought that Edwards' denial of human freedom made nonsense of the moral life. In general, anything that smacked of Calvinistic "irresistible grace" or "unconditional election" Wesley was careful to excise from his abridgements.

Edwards also had his disagreements with Wesley. In fact, the only record of Edwards referring to Wesley was a disparaging remark which he made about Wesley's views on perfection.15 If one were to give an irenic reading of their differences, one might say that while Wesley and Edwards agreed about the sovereignty of God, Edwards expressed this sovereignty through his Calvinist doctrines of predestination and the bondage of the will, and Wesley expressed the same thing by emphasizing prevenient grace and the perfecting possibilities of the spirit. Both the continuities and the differences between these two men can be seen in microcosm in Wesley's abridgement of Edwards' most widely read book,16 his Treatise on Religious Affections.

The task of discerning a man's views by looking at how he abridged another man's work must be approached with caution. Frank Baker in his article "A Study of John Wesley's Readings" states that one of the ways that Wesley dealt with a "dangerous" book was by publishing an expurgated version of it.17 This might lead one to believe that Wesley's version of the Treatise on Religious Affections was merely the lesser of two evils: since the book was already in print, Wesley may have thought that it would be better if his followers read his version rather than Edwards', if they had to read it at all. If this were the case, the abridgement would be less an endorsement of Edwards' views and more a somewhat hostile toleration of them.

Such doubts about attributing the abridgement's views to the abridger are reinforced when it is noted that books did, in fact, appear in the first edition of Wesley's Christian Library 18 which contained views contradicting Wesley's own.19 But this is less of a problem than it first appears to be, for the publication of the offending passages was more the result of Wesley's hasty abridging than any inconsistency in Wesley's thought. Wesley later corrected the Christian Library to remove the contradictions, and the expurgated version was published after his death by Thomas Jackson in 1827.

There is one compelling piece of evidence, though, that allows us to take Wesley's abridgement of Edwards' Treatise as representative of Wesley's own views, namely, that Wesley specifically endorsed the book. Wesley did not always write a preface for the books that he published, but in the case of the Treatise he did. In this preface, he both distances himself from some parts of the original Treatise and recommends the portion he retained. The end of this preface reads "Out of this dangerous heap, wherein much wholesome food is mixed with much deadly poison, I have selected many remarks and admonitions which may be of great use to the children of God. May God write them in the hearts of all that desire to walk as Christ also walked!"20 Our purpose now is to spell out what Wesley considered poison and what he considered food.

Determining what Wesley left out of the Treatise is more difficult than one might first suspect, since it appears that Wesley did not work from the original edition. John E. Smith has determined that Wesley worked from an abridgement made by William Gordon, published in London 1762.21 Gordon, who is listed as an "independent minister" in the Dictionary of National Biography,22 reduced the text by more than one—third, omitted many notes and rewrote the text in hundreds of places. This means that in order to be sure that any omission was truly Wesley 's omission, all three texts must be compared.

But determining exactly what Wesley left out would be crucially important only if our purpose were to chronicle the differences between Edwards and Wesley on the topic of religious affections. The central intent of this paper, though, is to see what Wesley liked about the Treatise, not what he disliked. So, instead of a lengthy three—way textual comparison, I will just make a few general remarks about Gordon's abridgement and Wesley's deletions.

First of all, while he did remove much of the original text, Gordon's appreciation of Edwards was much less critical than Wesley's. The original Treatise consisted of a preface and three major parts: Part I concerning the nature of the affections; Part II containing 12 signs that cannot be used to judge whether or not particular affections are gracious; and Part III which contains 12 distinguishing signs of "Truly Gracious and Holy Affections." Gordon retains all four basic parts of the work, and in parts II and III both sets of 12 signs are fully represented. His excisions and revisions, which apparently occurred most often when he determined that Edwards was "too refined for common capacities,"23 do not, in my judgment, pervert the essential thrust of Edwards' work.

Wesley was a much more ruthless editor. Whereas Gordon's abridgement was about two—thirds of the original, Wesley's was one—sixth. He cut not only Edwards' preface, but the second, third and fourth of the twelve signs of Part III in their entirety, as well as considerably reducing the explanations of the remaining signs. One sign (the seventh) was so reduced that Wesley did not even bother to number it and, instead, merely included a brief summary of it in the preceding section. (This omission of the number, though, might be the fault of Wesley's notoriously bad printers. Later in the text, the numbering jumps from IV to VI with V never appearing.)

The omissions that Wesley made usually fall into one of two categories, both of which are alluded to in Wesley's Preface. These two categories of edited material might be defined as: 1) Calvinistic and 2) overly "subtle."

As he made clear in his Preface, Wesley thought that Edwards' purpose in writing the Treatise was to show that backsliders were never true believers in the first place. In other words, Wesley saw the Treatise as a Calvinistic tract on the perseverance of the saints. Wesley claimed that Edwards' attempt to defend such an indefensible doctrine led him to heap together "so many curious, subtle, metaphysical distinctions, as are sufficient to puzzle the brain, and confound the intellects, of all the plain men and women of the universe; and to make them doubt of, if not wholly deny, all the work which God had wrought in their souls."24 After this broadside, Wesley goes on to admit, as quoted above, that there is much wholesome food mixed in with the "deadly poison."

As others have pointed out, it seems clear that Wesley misunderstood Edwards' purpose in writing the Treatise.25 Edwards was trying to show valid signs for distinguishing true from false piety or "religion," not explain away the fact of backsliding. Wesley might justifiably be accused of being somewhat defensive here—seeing Edwards' Calvinism operating where it really was not. True, Edwards does mention the "elect" in a few places, and other Calvinistic tendencies which Wesley altered can surely be seen in the original, but Wesley's Preface mischaracterizes the tenor of the Treatise as polemical when it is in fact constructive. Since Wesley was caught up in heated debate with the Calvinists at the time of the abridgement, his defensiveness can at least be understood, if not justified.26

The most substantive passages that Wesley omitted from the Treatise, however, are not the overtly Calvinistic ones, but the overly "subtle" ones which "puzzle" and "confound" plain—thinking humanity. Wesley shared Edwards' interest in science and philosophy, but edification was his ultimate criterion when evaluating the written word. Edwards was a brilliant speculative thinker who incorporated many of his philosophical theories into his theological works. Because of this, Wesley encountered much that could be dispensed with. This can be seen especially in two of the three signs that Wesley omitted.

The second of Edwards' twelve signs states that the "first objective ground of gracious affections is the transcendently excellent and amiable nature of divine things";27 the third sign says that holy affections are founded on the "loveliness of the moral excellency of divine things."28 In these two signs, we can see the metaphysics of "beauty" and "excellence" which Delattre has declared to be the lynch—pin of Edwards' speculations.29 Wesley was probably content with Edwards' point (made in many other places) that divine things are the object of gracious affections, and that extended discussions of the "loveliness" or "moral excellency" of these divine things were therefore dispensable.

Conjecture about why Wesley deleted the fourth sign is more difficult, for it asserts something which Wesley would not want to deny—the intellectual component in the affections ("Gracious affections do arise from the mind's being enlightened, rightly and spiritually to understand or apprehend divine things."30) Certainly, Wesley was never tempted, as Luther was, to "tear out the eyes of reason" in order to promote faith. One can only guess that Wesley considered this sign to go too far in the other direction, i.e. that it could be taken as a kind of rationalism. In this condensed volume, Wesley may have thought that there was not enough space for a sign that might give some support to those who advocated a mere 'head' religion which bypassed the heart.

At the beginning of Part I, Edwards quotes the text of 1 Peter 1:8: "Whom having not seen ye love: In whom, though now you see him not, yet believing, ye rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory." In this text, Edwards sees the two archetypal exercises of true religion: Love to Christ and Joy in Christ. Based on this, he then formulates the proposition that he will defend throughout the entire book, that "True Religion, in great part, consists in Holy Affections."31 His first step in this process is to define what affections are.

According to Edwards, the "affections of the mind" are "the more vigorous and sensible exercises of the will."32 In drawing this out, Edwards goes on to say that God has imbued the soul with two faculties: the understanding which is capable of perception and speculation, and the inclination or will which either is pleased or displeased, approving or rejecting the things perceived. The mind with regard to the exercises of the will is called the heart. The crucial point here is that the affections are not exercised apart from the understanding.

Edwards makes this anthropology even more explicit when he says that it is the mind and not the body that is the proper seat of the affections. Herein lies the difference between the affections and passions as well. Passions are more sudden, have a more violent effect on the "animal spirits," and in them "the mind is less in its own command."33

The next section of Part I consists of several points which attempt to show that a great part of true religion lies in the affections. These range from the more speculative arguments ("The religion of heaven consists much in affection"34) to arguments based on observations of human behavior ("affections are the springs of men's actions"35 which, of course, are necessary for religion) to arguments based strictly on Scripture ("Holy Scripture places religion in the affections"36; "The Scriptures place the sin of the heart much in hardness of heart"37). From these and other arguments Edwards draws these inferences:

This leads to Part II.

Having established the connections between true religion and the affections in Part I, Edwards now moves on to the theme that occupies the largest part of the book: distinguishing the holy and gracious affections from those that are not. Part II consists of 12 points which deal with 12 different ways of analyzing affections. Edwards asserts that these 12 "signs" cannot give certain knowledge as to whether or not religious affections are "truly gracious."

One can imagine the sobering effect that these negative points must have had on many of the "spirit—filled Christians" of his day. Among the most interesting, are points number 1 (that religious affections are raised very high 41); 2 (that they have great effects on the body 42); 4 (that the persons did not make the affections themselves 43); and 5 (that they come with texts of Scripture.44) Point number 3 can serve as a warning to all garrulous theologians of any age (that it is no sign to be fluent, fervent and abundant in talking of the things of religion 45).

The final four signs, when seen together, show that, for Edwards, we can never know how another person's soul is seen by the eyes of God by observing their outward behavior. People can: spend much time in Religion and Worship 46; praise God with their mouths 47; be confident that their experience is divine 48; or convince other people of their Godliness 49 without being assured that their affections are gracious. This makes an important point about the entire book. It is to be an aid for one's own spiritual quest, not a guidebook for the judgment of others. Part III of the Treatise is perhaps the most important section, for this is where Edwards explains what are valid signs of gracious and holy affections. The first sign is that gracious affections arise from "spiritual, divine and supernatural" influences on the heart.50 In a sense, this begs the question and is of no practical help, but it does make clear that his epistemology is a kind of spiritual empiricism. The Spirit of God gives the believer a new "spiritual sense"51 through which one has access to the divine things.

The second sign in Wesley's abridgement (Edwards' fifth sign) states that gracious affections are accompanied by a conviction of the reality and certainty of divine things. This conviction is not some sort of vague mysticism, or a certainty about the existence of "divine things" in general a la Schleiermacher. It is a "conviction of the truth of the great things of the Gospel."52 The title of the Treatise may sound as if the book is about generic religious experience, but, in reality, the positivity of the Christian religion is constantly and unashamedly asserted.

The sixth sign states that gracious affections are attended with "evangelical humiliation," i.e. a conviction of one's own "utter insufficiency, despicableness and odiousness, with an answerable frame of heart, arising from a discovery of God's holiness."53 On this point, it is flatly put that "They that are destitute of this, have not true religion whatever profession they may make."54 For Edwards (and Wesley), humility is pervasive, it is a quality of all the other affections, and therein lies an important safeguard against "enthusiasm."

The material contained in the seventh sign in the original is treated in just a few unnumbered paragraphs by Wesley. This is perhaps because this sign simply states that gracious affections are attended with a change in the nature of the affected person, which is really already implied in several of the other signs (e.g. numbers 6, 8, 9, 11, 12 in the original).

The eighth and ninth signs show that while false affections have a tendency to harden the heart, truly gracious affections promote the spirit that appeared in Christ (#8), a tenderness of spirit (#9). In these sections, Edwards lays special emphasis on love, meekness, quietness, forgiveness and mercy. From the very beginning, of course, Edwards has said that love is the first and chief of the affections—the "fountain" of all gracious affection 55 —but it is not until this eighth sign that we are given an overall view of what specific additional affections are, in fact, "religious."

The tenth sign is that gracious affections have beautiful symmetry and proportion. While there are echoes here of Edwards' philosophical contention that we know God through beauty, there is also something more important being stressed. In saying, for example, that love of God must be yoked with love of man, or that having hope does not mean jettisoningly holy fear, Edwards is laying out a theological roadmap (or we might Ray a "grammar") of the affections. This grammar of the affections can be seen as the emotional manifestation of Christian doctrines. In one sense, the laying bare of this grammar is the main theological task of the entire Treatise.

The eleventh sign states that gracious affections increase the longing for spiritual attainments while the false affections tend to make one rest satisfied. This can be seen as a corrective against those who might think that Edwards is about a kind of mysticism which cultivates "religious experiences" for their own sake. This theme reaches its culmination in the twelfth and final sign where the emphasis is shifted completely away from inner experience to the necessary fruits of the affections: works of love.

This last sign, the explanation of which is by far the longest of the twelve in both the original and in Wesley's abridgement, contains many arguments for Christian practice as the chief of all the evidences of a "saving sincerity" in religion. So much is practice emphasized here that Edwards feels compelled to answer two objections that might arise regarding the importance of the works: the objection that Christian experience is to be the central sign of grace, and that emphasizing works could lead to a works—righteousness. Edwards smoothly answers these objections by showing that "experience" and "practice" cannot be separated, and that making a "righteousness" of experience is just as heretical as a works righteousness.56

We can see from the above exposition of Wesley's abridgement of Edwards' Treatise that Wesley endorsed the view that true religion consists, in great part, of gracious affections. These gracious affections find their apex in love and joy, but also consist of meekness and forgiveness, among others, all of which are marked by humility. The outward expression of these affections in dramatic bodily demonstrations is not a sign of their holiness, but they must issue in fruits—works—in order to be considered gracious.

It is not hard to find equivalent statements in Wesley's own writings. In commenting on Romans 14:17 ("For the kingdom of God is not meat and drink; but righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost"), Wesley says: For the kingdom of God—That is, true religion, does not consist in external observances. But in righteousness—the image of God stamped on the heart; the love of God and man, accompanied with the peace that passeth all understanding, and joy in the Holy Ghost.57

On Galatians 5:22 ("But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace . . ."), he says that—"love is the root of the rest"58 (cf. Edwards' statement that love is the "fountain" of the other affections). In the following verse, commenting on meekness, there is an unmistakable parallel with the "symmetry and proportion" of Edwards' tenth sign. Here Wesley says that meekness means "Holding all the affections and passions in even balance."59

Similarly, commenting on 1 John 4:19 ("We love him, because he first loved us"), Wesley says: "This is the sum of all religion, the genuine model of Christianity. None can say more: why should anyone say less, or less intelligibly?"60

In his sermons, the emphasis on the affective life is no less evident. For example, in "Salvation by Faith," saving faith is distinguished from the faith of a devil "by this: it is not a speculative, rational thing, a cold, lifeless assent, a train of ideas in the head; but also a disposition of the heart."61 In "The Circumcision of the Heart" he begins the final section by saying "Here, then, is the sum of the perfect law; this is the true circumcision of the heart. Let the spirit return to God that gave it, with the whole train of its affections."62 Again, the sixth sermon in the "Sermon on the Mount" series contains the following:

In his sermon "The Witness of the Spirit," Wesley tries to show how the testimony of God's Spirit may be distinguished from the "presumption of a natural mind." Wesley, again, sounds like Edwards here by 1) relying on Scripture as a guide; 2) emphasizing joy, but a joy that is humble; and 3) maintaining the importance of works as a sign of the presence of grace, especially the "keeping of the Commandments."64

All of the works of Wesley quoted above were written before he published his abridgement of Edwards' Treatise, so we cannot say that this particular work was germinal for Wesley's own thought on this topic. But I think it is fair to say that in the Treatise, Wesley saw a useful summary of insights into the nature of Christian experience which clearly reflected his own views on the matter. He could, in clear conscience, recommend this work as if it were his own to "all that desire to walk as Christ also walked."

Wesley recognized that by emphasizing the importance of the affections for "true religion," he would be parodied and ridiculed. Alluding to his sermon text of Acts 26:24 ("And Festus said with a loud voice, 'Paul, thou art beside thyself"), Wesley says in "The Nature of Enthusiasm":

But in his abridgement of the Treatise, as well as his original work, Wesley showed that one can talk about the inner life without losing one's reason, for his discourse is always rational in form, even when its subject matter is affectional. Similarly, he showed that focusing on the affections does not entail making them the primary source of revelation, as witnessed to by his constant use of the external checks of the Bible and tradition. The other great danger of linking true religion with the affections—an obsession with one's own inner experience—is also clearly excluded from Wesley's conception by his constant emphasis on the affections issuing in external behavioral "fruits," i.e. making Christian love and joy manifest in the world through one's actions.

Certainly, true religion for Wesley does not start with the heart, its beginning is the Gospel. Neither is the end of true religion in the heart, for its telos in the human life is in the works of love, the "fruit" of the heart. But until the heart is addressed, the Gospel will fall on deaf ears and the works will be empty moralism.

The affections for Wesley were more than a source of error and confusion, things which only confound our "higher" faculties. They were not seen as dispensable luxuries which may or may not be indulged in (according to one's temperament after all of the hard thinking is done. Wesley's message, like Edwards', was simply that if the seeker after Truth was not humbly filled with love and joy about what God had done for him or her, then the Gospel message had not really been heard and Christianity had not yet taken root in that person's life. Wesley knew that such a position made him somewhat vulnerable to the charge of "enthusiasm." But his reading of the Gospel convinced him that this was a risk that all Christians had to run.

1Jonathan Edwards: Works (New Haven, 1959, Vol. 2, p. 95). First published in Boston in 1746, all quotes will be from Volume 2 of the Yale University Press edition of his Works, John E. Smith, editor, Perry Miller general editor (New Haven, 1959). Hereafter, RA.

2Christian Library, (1827), Vol. 30, p. 310. Wesley's abridgement first appeared in his collected Works (Volume 23; pp. 177—279) 1773, reprinted in 1801, and later appeared in the second edition of his Christian Library (Volume 30: pp. 307—376) 1827. See Frank Baker, ed., A Union Catalog of the Publications of John and Charles Wesley (Durham: Duke University, 1966) entry number 294 for the complete publication history. All references in this paper are to the Christian Library edition. Hereafter, RA (W).

3Cf. Scientific and Philosophical Writings, Volume 6 of his Works (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1980).

4Works, Volume 1 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1957).

5Actually, there are less than a dozen imprecatory sermons written by Edwards to be found among the more than a thousand which survive in manuscript form. See Sydney E. Ahlstrom: A Religious History of the American People. (Garden City, New York: Image Books, 1975) p. 370.

6(New Haven: Yale University Press, 1968) p. 50. Delattre's analysis is based on all of Edward's works, but he draws most heavily on the RA The Nature of True Virtue (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1960) and the Miscellanies (forthcoming in the Yale Works series.)

7Ibid., p. 49.

8The most influential exponent of this view was Perry Miller, especially in his Jonathan Edwards (New York: Wm. Stoane Associates, 1949).

9See his Jonathan Edwards: Art and the Sense of Heart (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1980) especially chapter 1 "The Calvinist Psychology of the Heart."

10Nehemiah Curnock, ed., The Journal of Rev. John Wesley (London: Epworth Press, 1960) Volume II, pp. 83—84. Hereafter, Journal.

11The full title continues: in the Conversion of Many Hundred Souls in Northampton and the Neighboring Towns and Villages of New Hampshire in New England, first written in 1736, Wesley's abridgement published in 1744.

12For more detailed commentary on the abridgements, as well as an enlightening comparison of Wesley and Edwards, see Charles Rogers' "John Wesley and Jonathan Edwards" in The Duke Divinity School Review, (Volume 31, Number 1, Winter, 1966, pp. 20—38).

13In his John Wesley, in the Library of Protestant Thought series (New York: Oxford University Press, 1964) p. 16. The other three factors, according to Outler, were his Aldersgate conversion, his disenchantment with Moravianism and his vital reappropriation of his Anglican heritage.

14Thomas Jackson, ed., The Works of John Wesley (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, reprinted, 1979) Volume X, pp. 457—474.

15The Works of President Edwards, IV, p. 118, quoted in Rogers "John Wesley and Jonathan Edwards," p. 36.

16RA, Smith's introduction, p. 78.

17In London Quarterly and Holborn Review, 1943, p. 240.

18See Frank Baker's Union Catalog (cited above) for the publication history of the Christian Library (entry number 131).

19See T.W. Herbert's John Wesley as Editor and Author (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1940) pp. 26—27.

20RA (W), p. 308.

21RA, p. 79. Smith says that the chances of Wesley and Gordon independently making so many of the same omissions and substitutions is very small. Dr. Frank Baker's opinion, stated to me in a personal correspondence, concurs with Smith's.

22Ed. by Leslie Stephen and Sidney Lee (New York. Macmillan and Co., 1890) Volume XXII, p. 235.

23Gordon's abridgement, p. 78.

24RA (W), p. 308.

25See Smith's introduction in RA, p. 80, and Rogers' "John Wesley and Jonathan Edwards," p. 30.

26John Allan Knight's "Aspects of Wesley's Theology After 1770" in Methodist History (6, 3, April, 1968) pp. 33—42.

27RA, p. 240.

28RA, p. 253.

29See Beauty and Sensibility in the Thought of Jonathan Edwards, (cited above) for in—depth discussions of primary and secondary beauty, the equivalence of beauty and excellence; and beauty as the "cordial content of being to being—in—general."

30RA, p. 266.

31RA (W), p. 310.

32Ibid., p. 311.

33Ibid, p. 312.

34Ibid. p. 316.

35lbid, p. 313.

36Ibid, p. 313.

37Ibid, p. 316.

38Ibid, p. 317.

39Ibid, p. 318.

40Ibid, p. 318.

41Ibid, p. 320.

42Ibid, p. 321.

43Ibid., p. 324—325.

44Ibid, p. 327.

45Ibid, p. 324.

46Ibid, p. 333.

47Ibid, p. 334.

48Ibid, p. 335.

49Ibid, p. 342.

50Ibid, p. 343.

51Ibid., p. 346.

52Ibid.

53Ibid, p. 349. To avoid confusion, I will refer to the signs by Edwards' enumeration.

54Ibid, p. 349.

55Ibid, p. 316, for example.

56See pp. 372—376, ibid.

57Explanatory Notes Upon the New Testament (London: Epworth Press, 1976) p. 575.

58Ibid, p. 697.

59Ibid, p. 697.

60Ibid, p. 915.

61Sugden, ed., Wesley's Standard Sermons (London: Epworth Press, 1955) Volume 1, p. 40.

62Ibid, p. 279.

63Ibid, p. 436.

64Wesley's sermon "The Witness of the Spirit," second part, in ibid., pp: 211—218. Wesley was, like Edwards, always quick to emphasize the gracious nature of these affections. He thought any emphasis on the affections which was purely naturalistic to be heretical. For example, regarding Hutcheson's feeling—based ethics, he said that Hutcheson was a "beautiful writer; but his scheme cannot stand, unless the Bible falls." (Journal Curnock, ed., Volume V, p. 492).

65Wesley's Standard Sermons, Volume II, pp. 86—87.