As a theologian, America has not yet produced his superior. His _Treatise
concerning the Religious Affections_, his account of the Great Awakening,
called _Faithful Narrative of the Surprising Work of God_, and _Thoughts on
the Revival_, as well as his more distinctly technical theological works,
show his ability in this field. Unfortunately, he did not rise superior to
the Puritan custom of preaching about hell fire. He delivered on that
subject a sermon which causes modern readers to shudder; but this, although
the most often quoted, is the least typical of the man and his writings.
Those in search of really typical statements of his theology will find them
in such specimens as, "God and real existence is the same. God is and there
is nothing else." He was a theological idealist, believing that all the
varied phenomena of the universe are "constantly proceeding from God, as
light from the sun." Such statements suggest Shelley's lines, which tell
how
"... the one Spirit's plastic stress
Sweeps through the dull dense world compelling there
All new successions to the forms they wear."
Dr. Allen, Edwards's biographer and critic, and a careful student of his
unpublished, as well as of his published, writings, says, "He was at his
best and greatest, most original and creative, when he described the divine
love.
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