Whether in the briefer or more expanded form, the movement of this type of parallelism strongly suggests the "characteristically Hebrew" Pendulum Figure that is found throughout the Bible. For a discussion of the Pendulum Figure and its importance as a mode of Hebrew thought and expression, see Moulton, pp. 58–59, et passim. The figure in Edwards' sermons sets up the same rhythms of thought and emotion as are found in the Bible.
Moreover, one can easily see in the sustained or expanded parallelism a significant source of structure. Already, in passages from Job 18:15 (p. 215), Daniel 4:35 (p. 238), and Ecclesiastes 11:2 (pp. 241–42), statements have been presented that reiterate the opening idea more or less in parallel form at the conclusion, making an envelope figure which structures the passage as a unit. The significance of the Envelope Figure in the Bible is discussed in Moulton, pp. 56–58, 543. Between the sustained parallelism and envelope figures, a prime source of internal structure in Edwards' prose is defined.
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Most obvious and simple, yet frequently most important and effective, are the rhythmic devices of repetition and parallelism. Indeed, it has been remarked that "repetition of words and constructions is the essence of his style." Faust and Johnson, Selections, p. cxii.
In this trait JE is identified with a rich tradition of English homiletics, as is suggested by the fact that Dudley Fenner's The Artes of Logike and Rethorike (Middleburg, 1584) devotes no fewer than three chapters to the repetition of word forms and three to repetition of syntactical structures. His earlier sermon manuscripts indicate that a tendency to repetition was as innate in Edwards as his love of concrete images and details.
For instance, in Matthew 16:17, JE originally wrote, "He is the author of the knowledge of all moral prudence; he is the author of all knowledge and skill…," but revised it to read, "He is the author of all moral prudence, and of all knowledge and skill…," thus eliminating the redundant "knowledge" and the needless parallel construction. There are enough such revisions in his sermons—most notably in the 1720s and early 1730s—to indicate that he tended to lapse into pointless repetition of words and constructions.
But genius and toil turned what might well have been a rhetorically fatal vice into a source of formidable literary power. The use of simple repetition in the Scripture attracted Edwards' attention, and in "Notes on the Scripture," no. 325, he observes that "such a repetition or doubling of a word, according to the idiom of the Hebrew tongue, is as much as our speaking a word once with a very extraordinary emphasis.… it sometimes signifies certainty, at other times extremity, and sometimes both." The notably soft-spoken and undemonstrative preacher could put such an aid to good use.
Even the simplest repetition is carefully calculated to call attention to essential points, and to take advantage of the variegated rhythms of English prose. There is, for instance, the statement of doctrine in a sermon on Ecclesiastes 6:4,
There are some persons that are born miserable and live in darkness, and die in darkness, and when they are dead go into eternal darkness.
In the course of the sermon, Edwards picks up the verbal lead and discusses "a positive darkness… a darkness that can be felt… blackness of darkness." A comparable use of repetition occurs in the statement of doctrine in "Glorious Grace."
The gospel dispensation is finished wholly and entirely in free and glorious grace; there is glorious grace [which] shines in every part of the great work of redemption. The foundation is laid in-- 238 -- grace; the superstructure is reared in grace, and the whole is finished in glorious grace.
"Glorious Grace" is one of Edwards' earliest sermons, but he is already an artist, making the repetition of "glorious" and "grace" evocative of the ringing of festive bells.
Many times, of course, Edwards uses repetition in sermon passages simply to emphasize the importance of a point local to that passage, as in this example from "Wicked Men's Slavery to Sin,"
So that these discourses were delivered in the most public manner, at the most public time, and in the most public place that could be: before the whole nation of the Jews, and many of other nations who went up to Jerusalem to worship.
From the last two examples, it is clear that Edwards employed alliteration and risked unconventional usage in order to give greater emphasis to the repeated words and, sometimes, to build a crescendo within the passage.
A more elaborate and extensive incremental repetition is also evident in the earliest sermons. Sometimes, a head within a sermon may involve the exploitation of a word from the text or doctrine that has not been emphasized previously in the development of the sermon; such is the case in the second proposition under the Doctrine of Daniel 4:35, a sermon having the doctrine that "God doth whatever he pleases."
II. The sovereignty of God in doing whatever he pleases…He created the earth as he pleased; he made a place for the sea where he pleased; he raised the mountains where he pleased, and sunk the valleys where he pleased. He created what sort of creatures to inhabit the earth and waters he pleased, and when he pleased he brought a flood of waters and covered the whole earth, and destroyed all its inhabitants.And when he pleases, he'll dissolve this curious frame of the world and break all to pieces and set it on fire, when the earth and all the works that are therein shall be burnt up and the heavens shall be dissolved and rolled together as a scroll; when God pleases, he'll roll all together as when a man takes down a tent. In such things as these relating to the material world does God manifest his sovereignty.
Sometimes, apropos of nothing earlier in the sermon but rather a disposition in his congregation that he wished to toy with, Edwards seizes a word or phrase and plays with its connotations through incremental repetition. Here is an instance from a sermon on Proverbs 9:12.
1. Such is the nature of things that there is a necessary connection in point of justice between those ways [of sin] and utter ruin. Such is the nature of those wicked ways, and such is the nature of justice, and such is the holy and righteous nature of God, and such is the nature of moral government, and such is the nature of the constitution of the world, that a connection between ways of sin, if continued in, and the utter ruin of the sinner is requisite and unavoidable. God is not to blame that justice is of such a nature as it is, and he is not to blame for being himself of a just and righteous nature. And therefore, that misery and ruin that is the consequence of sin may be looked upon as necessary, and not merely arbitrary.
The play upon "nature" and "necessary," enhanced by the insistent repetition of "such is the nature," give the passage a lively and righteously mischievous quality that is by no means unprecedented in Edwards' sermons. A comparably witty passage involving similar incremental repetition is to be found in "Great Guilt No Obstacle to the Pardon of the Returning Sinner," Works, Worcester rev. ed., 4, 426, 3rd paragraph (head I.). It may be assumed that the congregation had a new sense of the nature of things after that passage.
These samples have demonstrated simple and incremental patterns of repetition in single passages, but much of Edwards' best repetition is of a larger pattern; indeed, in many cases a single pattern dominates a whole Doctrine, Application, or even an entire sermon. Edwards' earliest extant sermon, "Christian Happiness," is dominated by repeated variants of the doctrinal statement. Below are concentrated the main segments of the pattern.
Doctrine. A good man is a happy man, whatever his outward condition is.… and we are now to show that the state of a good man is such, whatever his outward circumstances are, but we shall first observe…-- 240 --
Secondly, the good man is happy in whatsoever condition he is in, and that [is] because…
How happy, then, must the condition of such a man be. Let any man now ask himself…
Secondly, the godly man is happy in whatever circumstances he is placed because…
… but the time would fail to stay to enumerate all the happinesses of a good man, even in this life.…
And now I hope I have sufficiently cleared it up: the godly man is happy in whatsoever worldly circumstances he is placed.
Use
Inference 1. Then we may infer that the godly man need not be anxious about his worldly condition whatsoever. This no man in the world can deny that grants what has been asserted. For surely, if none of those worldly afflictions are able to do him any hurt, and if he is a happy man in the midst of them all…
Inference 2. Hence we may see the excellent and desireable nature of true godliness, that which will cause that a man be a happy man in whatsoever condition he is in.But such is the state of the good man, and however troublesome those afflictions may seem to a good man at present, yet…But you are now exhorted to… embrace that which will make you happy men in whatever condition you are in, and whatsoever your outward circumstances are.You are happy men in whatsoever condition you are; you, for your parts, have got into those ways which are ways of pleasantness and those paths which are paths of peace. You are happy, and you will be happy, in spite of all the world, men and devils.
Eleven separate passages, distributed throughout the Doctrine and Application, reiterate the essential parts of the doctrine statement—"good man," "happy man," and "what(so)ever-outward-condition"—with sufficient emphasis and regularity to dominate the sixteen-page sermon. In the course of the sermon's argument, the "good man" is fully identified, his happiness defined, and the conditions under which he might have to live are delineated; thus, in accordance with the definition of incremental repetition, the repeated terms grow rich
with associated meaning as the sermon progresses, and since the terms are themselves interrelated, a vivid notion of Edwards' doctrine gradually emerges. From the passages quoted above, it is obvious that the repeated elements neither prove nor illustrate in themselves; rather, they constitute a dynamic point of reference for both argument and illustration which moves through the sermon relating its various elements to the central idea. In the context of the sermon, the pattern of repetition is never clumsily obtrusive, but rather quietly insistent.
This technique, illustrated above in a very early and unrefined state, was later developed by Edwards into one of his most effective rhetorical devices. In fact, the matured device is so important and unusual that it deserves to be differentiated from "incremental repetition," and I have thus identified it as the "tonic word (or phrase)."Originally conceived during studies leading to my Ph. D. dissertation, "The Literary Techniques of Jonathan Edwards" (Univ. of Pennsylvania, 1971), the concept of the tonic as a subliminal reinforcer and thematic point of reference within JE's arguments has only been amplified by subsequent study.
Within the form of the sermon presented here, the tonic structure of echoes provides the most comprehensive literary structure uniting the multiple subdivisions of the text. Like the tonic chord in music, the tonic word serves as a constant point of reference and foundation for the elaborations and variations which surround it. The somewhat cumbersome series of terms employed in Isaiah 3:10 is reduced, in the matured device, to a single word, or occasionally a phrase. One instance of a tonic word has already occurred in this chapter in the illustration of another point. "Strange" functions as a tonic word in the sermon on Job 31:3 (above, pp. 211–12).
Another fine example of the tonic word occurs in Ecclesiastes 11:2, a sermon delivered after an earthquake (
Great changes will come. We live in a world of change; the state of mankind is subject to continual changes.[The image of the wheels in Ezekiel is] indeed a lively emblem of God's providence towards the world of mankind; such sort of changes do mankind constantly undergo.-- 242 --
There are great changes… yet in the womb of providence.…
The time that we live in seems especially to be a time wherein we are called upon to prepare for approaching changes.
In the second and third sections, however, there is little direct use of the word as Edwards discusses specific instances, such as strange natural phenomena, new diseases, the wars of religious factions, and the earthquake at hand—all instances of threatening changes. Only infrequently is there a statement such as, "the first thing that warns us of great approaching change, viz. the prophecy of [the] Scripture." But in the fourth section of the sermon, as he nears his end, Edwards picks up the tonic word with greater frequency:
… we can't be prepared for changes any other way than by getting an interest in things that ben't liable to changes.
They have that hope that is sure and steadfast, and as an anchor keeps a ship steadfast in a storm, so does the hope of a Christian keep his soul steadfast through the storms and changes of the world.
With a final juxtaposition of "steadfast" and "change," Edwards returns to the tonic word in his conclusion.
So far, only examples of tonic words that continue throughout whole sermons have been represented, and such are certainly the most dramatic. But Edwards often uses a tonic word only within a head, and thus each of several heads may have its own tonic word, as so many separate movements in a musical composition. Usually, a tonic word tends to dominate one of the main divisions of the sermon—Text, Doctrine, or Application—though there are a great many instances, such as the following example from Job 18:15, where a minor head coalesces about its own tonic word. This head concludes the sermon.
2. Use of warning to beware of those things that will bring you into danger of its proving [that you are cursed by God] at last.1. Beware of continuing long under gospel calls in rejection of the Lord Jesus Christ.2. Beware of going on in repeated acts of sin against clear light. You have lived under the enjoyment of great light.… Beware, therefore, of every vicious [act].-- 243 --
You have often had warnings in the word and in providence. Beware of known and allowed wickedness against such warnings.
3. If you would not be followed with God's curse in all your concerns, beware of going on in sin under great mercies.…
Beware of going on in sin under such.
And beware of {going on in sin} under special mercies, remarkable deliverances, and answers of prayer for you: have you been healed when dangerously sick? brought back from [the grave]? Rescued when greatly exposed by accident, or whatever other special service you have received? Beware.
Thus, after a gradual increase in the frequency of repetition, the head (and the sermon) ends on the tonic word.
On the whole, the words selected by Edwards to serve as tonic words are remarkable for their plainness. They are common words which have no great suggestiveness or particular vividness. Indeed, some of them—such as "unmixed" in Luke 16:24—seem rhetorically useless. But that is the whole point: to select a word that was so commonplace to every member of the congregation that it would be almost beneath notice. The average tonic word has a clear, because minimal, meaning; it neither suggests much beyond a "simple idea" nor possesses the weighty concreteness of an image. Therefore, it has a kind of "negative capability" which enables it to become the nexus of diverse images, tropes, and ideas, as it "moves" through a passage or sermon via the device of repetition. In its passage, this "naked" term acquires associations from the context of the sermon, and in turn forms that context in such a way that the relationship between the tonic word and its context is analogous to that between the cherry's stone and its fruit. With such a device, Edwards strove to create the conditions in his auditory which predicated "the mind filled with the idea and with all its associates, and then consenting to it."Miller, "Sense of the Heart," p. 128.
Parallelism—the repetition of syntactical patterns and structures of thought—is also a major device in Edwards' rhetorical repertory. In the case of parallelism, as in so many other instances, one need not look far for precedents and influences: "… the versification of the Bible is of a kind totally unlike that which prevails in English literature.… Its underlying principle is found to be the symmetry of clauses in a verse, which has come to be called 'Parallelism.'" R. G. Moulton, The Literary Study of the Bible (New York, 1899), p. 46. Inasmuch
as Edwards' Bible's verse was printed as prose, and he seems not to have differentiated between the prose and verse in the Bible, I suppose that he took the apparent form of the verse as a model for his own highly rhythmical prose, for Edwards' sermons display a remarkable number of variations on parallelism, several of which are recognized as conventional forms in biblical verse.
Coordination, the simplest form of parallelism, is the dominant structure in Edwardsean syntax. In the unpunctuated sermon manuscripts, the exposition characteristically evolves through a succession of declarative statements and ampersands. Unedited excerpts from a sermon on Psalms 108:4 give the flavor:
This metaphor [God's mercy is great above the heavens] very naturally signifies in the general a superlative inexpressible & Incomprehensible Greatness & Excellency of the mercy of G. the Expanse of the Heavens is the Greatest & most Extensive thing that we have in view or that we have any notice of by our senses & the height thereof is Immeasurable & InconceivableIn G. Infinite Greatness & Infinite Goodness & mercy are joined together the mercy of G. is like a sea or like a deluge noahs flood was so great that it was above the tops of the mountains but the mercy that is in the Heart of G. is greater it is above the heavens and overtops our sins that are like great mountains that are grown up to Heaven
The remarkable thing is that it is as clear as it is, and it is that clear because of the inexorable forward movement of the agglutinative syntax. The formula is essentially that of the ancient storyteller: "and then, and then, and then," although other elements make the total impression far from simple. In this manner of expression, the listeners are given the impression of being led, ever outward and onward, from the point of departure to some unrevealed destination. Or, if one thinks of the auditory as receiving facts, ideas, and experiences, the impression of weight and massiveness is enhanced by the sustained sequence of coordinated units of thought. It is a most simple, yet forceful syntax.
Beyond the fundamental level of coordination, Edwards employs parallelism for various rhetorical effects. One of the more effective devices is the doublet, a pair of words, roughly synonymous, which connotatively supplement each other and, together, enhance a point
with the emphasis of concise parallelism. A fine example of the technique occurs in "The Nakedness of Job":
We have an instance in this chapter of one of the greatest men in the world, in the most prosperous worldly estate and condition, brought to be externally one of the meanest of men… a most remarkable instance of the vanity of worldly honors, riches and prosperity. How soon is it gone and lost; how many hundred, yea, thousands of accidents may deprive the most prosperous of all in a little time, and make him most miserable and forlorn?
In addition to emphasizing the point indicated by each doublet, the pairs of words parallel the other pairs, of course, and thus call attention to a pattern of thought: worldly condition-riches-loss-misery.
Edwards frequently employs a more insistent, reduplicative parallelism when he wishes to emphasize a major point, the simple structure enabling him to put forward the maximum number of ideas per word. In Luke 17:9, he insists that God is under no obligation to man, and that "obedience and labors and prayers and tears" do not compromise God's essential freedom:
This [that God is under no obligation] is certainly plain reason, and if it be, then God don't owe salvation, nor pity, nor pardon, nor the answer of prayers, nor the mitigation of punishment, nor converting, nor assisting grace for any thing that we do in religion, because as we have showed already, he owes us nothing at all, not the least benefit anyway.
With incantatory power, the succession of negations represents so many slamming doors to those who are looking for an easy way out. A comparable use of parallelism occurs in "A Warning to Professors," involving a long series of similarly structured queries, though here the effect is that of a probing surgeon's knife. Works, Worcester rev. ed., 4, 535. In both examples, however, the essential effect of the parallelism is to advance the argument at such a rate that the auditor is fully occupied in taking it in, and has little pause to rationalize or reply. It is a rhetoric of brute power.
There is, in all the examples cited above, a kind of rhythmic progression, and all of Edwards' parallel constructions give some sense of crescendo—if only through the impression of rapidly increasing
mass. Some of his most dramatic perorations, however, are achieved through the combination of parallelism and the periodic sentence structure, as in 2 Kings 7:3–4.
If you are so wicked that you are like a dead man; yea, if you are so wicked that you are not only dead, but rotten; yea, if you have been dead so long that your bones are dried, yet God can bring you up out of your grave and bring you into the land of Israel.
The gradually altered idea, plus the repeated construction, make this a kind of "incremental parallelism." Such magniloquence is generally reserved for the conclusion of a head or sermon, though less emphatic variants of the pattern, often involving several sentences, may be found whenever Edwards is making a summary within his argument.
Other complex forms of parallelism are employed by Edwards to facilitate juxtaposition, antithesis, and contrast of ideas. Among these is the sustained juxtaposition of two antithetical alternatives, as illustrated in "The Unreasonableness of Indetermination in Religion." Works, Worcester rev. ed., 4, 342.
And there are but two states in this world, a state of sin, and a state of holiness, a natural state, and a converted state.… There are but two masters, to one of which we must be reputed the servants, Baal and Jehovah, God and mammon. There are but two competitors for the possession of us, Christ and the devil. There are but two paths, in one of which you are to travel, either in the strait and narrow way which leadeth unto life, or the broad way which leadeth unto destruction.
The sheer weight of the rhetoric and the vivid simplicity of statement make a passage such as this much more powerful than one with a more varied structure. Edwards frequently employs this formula, particularly when concluding a phase of his argument. An expanded version of this juxtaposition through parallelism appears in the "dialogue" passages, the traditional Objection-Answer formula as improved through Edwards' keen sense of verisimilitude and his dramatic flair. One of the better instances of this technique occurs in "Great Guilt No Obstacle to the Pardon of the Returning Sinner," where the minister appears carrying on a realistic debate with an imaginary sinner. Works, Worcester rev. ed., 4, 426–28.
Whether in the briefer or more expanded form, the movement of this type of parallelism strongly suggests the "characteristically Hebrew" Pendulum Figure that is found throughout the Bible. For a discussion of the Pendulum Figure and its importance as a mode of Hebrew thought and expression, see Moulton, pp. 58–59, et passim. The figure in Edwards' sermons sets up the same rhythms of thought and emotion as are found in the Bible.
Moreover, one can easily see in the sustained or expanded parallelism a significant source of structure. Already, in passages from Job 18:15 (p. 215), Daniel 4:35 (p. 238), and Ecclesiastes 11:2 (pp. 241–42), statements have been presented that reiterate the opening idea more or less in parallel form at the conclusion, making an envelope figure which structures the passage as a unit.The significance of the Envelope Figure in the Bible is discussed in Moulton, pp. 56–58, 543. Between the sustained parallelism and envelope figures, a prime source of internal structure in Edwards' prose is defined.
Third. And lastly, light is of a quickening, reviving, and refreshing nature. It revives one that hath been long in darkness again to behold the light; so Christ Jesus revives the souls that come unto him by faith. Here you may run a parallel between the sun and Jesus Christ, the Sun of Righteousness.
1. As the sun, when it rises, all things are thereby revived and awakened out of sleep and silence, so when Jesus Christ shines into the souls of men, they are revived out of their deep and dead sleep of sin. When the sun arises, the world that before was all still and silent, and seemed to be dead, now is revived and raised up by the light thereof, and all things begin to stir and move: things seem to have new life put into them; man rises out of his sleep and sets about his business; the husbandman goeth forth to his labor, the beasts come out of their dens, the birds begin to sing and chant forth their notes, and the world is again put into motion. So it is in spiritual matters with respect to Christ. Before he shines into men's souls, they are dead and dull in a deep sleep, are not diligent at their work, but lie still and sleep and do nothing respecting their souls. All their affections are dead, dull and lifeless; their understandings are darkened with the dark shades of spiritual night, and there is nothing but spiritual sleep and death in their souls.
But when Christ arises upon them, then all things begin to revive, the will and affections begin to move, and they set about the work they have to do. They are now awakened out of their sleep: whereas they were still before, now they begin to be diligent and industrious; whereas they were silent before, now they begin to sing forth God's praises. Their graces now begin to be put into exercise, as flowers send forth a fragrancy when the sun shines upon them.
2. As the sun by his returning influences causes clouds and storms and cold to fly before it, so doth Jesus Christ, the cold, tempests, and clouds of the soul. In the winter season, the heavens are frequently overcast with clouds that hide the pleasing light of the sun; the air is disturbed with winds, storms and tempests, and all things are chilled with frost and cold. The rivers and streams are shut up with ice, the earth is covered with snow, and all things look dreadful, but when the sun returns with its warming influences, the heavens are cleared of dark clouds and the air stilled from tempests, the ice and snow and cold are fled. So the souls
-- 249 -- of men in their natural state are like winter, perpetually disturbed with the storms of lust and vice, and a raging conscience; their souls are all beclouded with sin and spiritual darkness. But when Christ comes with his warming influences, things are far otherwise: their minds are calm and serene, warmed with holiness and religion, and the clear sunshine of spiritual comfort.
3. As when the sun returns in the spring, the frozen earth is opened, mollified and softened, so by the beams of the Sun of Righteousness the stony, rocky, adamantine hearts of men are thawed, mellowed, and softened, and made fit to receive the seeds of grace. In the winter, the face of the earth is closed and shut up as a stone, unfit for any thing to be sown in it, but is loosened in the spring by the warm beams of the sun; so [is] the heart in its natural state frozen and like the stony ground, so that the seeds of God's Word take no rooting in it, but it is as if we should cast seed upon the bare rock. But when Christ melts the heart by shining upon it, the seed then sinks into it and takes root and begins to germinate and spring forth.
4. As the sun revives the plants and trees and fruits of the earth, so Christ Jesus by his spiritual light revives the soul and causes it to bring forth fruit. In the winter, the trees are stripped of their leaves and fruit, and stand naked, cease growing, and seem to be dead; the grass and herbs are killed, and all things have the appearance of death upon them. But when the sun returns, then all things have the appearance of a resurrection: things revive again, the trees and fields put on their green livery and begin to bud forth, anew, and flourish and grow. The grass and herbs begin to peep forth out of the ground, and all things look green and flourishing: the fields, meadows, and woods seem to rejoice, and the birds sing a welcome to the returning spring. The fields and trees are adorned with beautiful and fragrant flowers.
Just such an alteration is made in the soul at conversion by Jesus Christ, only far more glorious:
My beloved spake, and said unto me, Rise up, my love, my fair one, and come away. For, lo, the winter is past, the rain is over and gone; the flowers appear on the earth; the time of the singing of birds is come, and the voice of the turtle is heard in our land; the fig tree putteth forth her green figs, and the vines with the tender grape give a good smell. Arise, my love, my fair one, and come away (Canticles 2:10–13).-- 250 -- In conversion, graces do spring forth in the soul which are like the sweet flowers that adorn the face of the earth in the spring, and like the sweet melody of singing birds. The soul of one upon whom Christ has shined differs as much from the souls of the wicked as the earth, beautified with the vernal sunbeams, and, when covered with ice and snow, and vexed with storms in the dead of winter.
To chronicle the varieties of parallelism, alone, in this excerpt—leaving out the synthetic scriptural idiom; the nature imagery from the Connecticut Valley; the similes, metaphors, and symbols; the puns, alliteration, and assonance—would constitute a kind of academic parlor game. Nevertheless, taken as a total impression, the passage offers the prepared reader an authentic representation of the mind and rhetorical manner of the young preacher.
Here is his great theme, his central imagery, and his characteristic diction—before the "chastisement of the trope," the years of refining and disciplining metaphors in "Shadows," and the acquisition of that cool self-possession and incisive precision which mark the years of his stylistic mastery. Lacking the focus of an adequate tonic word, or the centripetal cohesion of philosophically systematized imagery, the passage seems to explode in all directions, the constraints of the sermon's numbered divisions and the power of the central metaphor notwithstanding. But it is a joyous, effervescent explosion, and in its final configuration depicts a mind reveling in the very plenitude of parallels (analogies) between the Word and life, the Deity and nature, and finally, its own ideas and its sensations. This is the mind and the style that underlay all the homiletical experiments and developments in Edwards' subsequent career.
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