NOTES TO JONATHAN EDWARDS.

FOR a general introduction to the Resolutions, see the sketch of Edwards. The lives of Franklin and Edwards present a striking and instructive contrast. Franklin lived for this life; Edwards for the life to come. Franklin aimed at worldly success; Edwards at moral and spiritual excellence. Franklin stored his mind with maxims of practical wisdom; Edwards with the moral precepts of the Scriptures. Franklin led a busy life among men, seeking to improve their material condition; Edwards lived in communion with God, seeking to grow in spiritual wisdom and culture. Both lives, were, perhaps, a little one-sided. It would have been better for Franklin if he had paid more attention to moral and spiritual truth. His character would have gained in completeness and beauty; and his life would have escaped the moral obliquities with which it is stained. It would have been better for Edwards if his piety had been more genial. His character would have gained in attractiveness, and his life would have appealed more strongly to the sympathies of

men.

Edwards was a profound student of the Scripture. Its truths had become a part of his ordinary store of thought and feeling. These Resolutions seem to have been original productions, growing directly out of his own religious life; yet most of them embody Scripture truth. The general tone of them, however, shows a Puritan rigor that is commonly regarded to-day as untrue alike to the gospel and to human life. But this rigor, it should not be forgotten, was characteristic of the best religious life in New England during the Colonial period.

I.

"Whether therefore ye eat, or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God."—1 Cor. x. 31. In like manner nearly every resolution may be illustrated from the Scriptures. Under favorable circumstances, such an illustration might be assigned as an exercise.

2. This and the following resolution show the Puritanic type of faith. Such habitual meditation on death is not urged in the Scripture, nor is it helpful to the life and character.

3. This resolution savors of what has been called "other-worldliness." The best preparation for happiness in the other world is a faithful discharge of our duty in all the relations of this world.

4. By assurance is here meant full confidence in God's favor.

5. This resolution again reminds us of the exaggerated Puritanism that found expression in the so-called "Blue Laws," some of the requirements of

which were as follows: "No one shall run on the Sabbath day, or shall walk in his garden or elsewhere, except reverently to and from meeting. No one shall travel, cook victuals, make beds, sweep house, cut hair or shave on the Sabbath day. No woman shall kiss her child on the Sabbath or fasting day.”

6. This seems to bring out clearly the one-sidedness of Edwards's life. Religion is only a part of life. It is not so much an end in itself as a means to ennoble character and sanctify human relations. When religion is viewed otherwise than in relation to the common duties of life, it is apt to degenerate into asceticism.

7. From this and preceding resolutions, it will appear that Edwards's type of piety was too self-centred. He was continually thinking of himself, of his state of mind, and of his spiritual attainments and deficiencies. It may be questioned whether this attitude of mind is best. We should think more of God and of duty, and then our inward states will largely take care of themselves.

8. The Rev. Thomas Manton, D.D., was a distinguished Puritan preacher in England. He was born in 1620, and died in 1677. One of his most admired works is "CXC. Sermons on the CXIX. Psalm."

V.

SELECTION FROM JEFFERSON.

A DECLARATION BY THE REPRESENTATIVES OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA IN GENERAL CONGRESS Assembled.

WHEN, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

I

We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with [inherent and]3 inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; that to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed; that whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governinents long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, [begun at a distinguished period and]+ pursuing invariably the same object, evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security. Such has been the patient sufferance of these colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to [expunge]5 their former systems of government. The history of the present king of Great Britain is a history of [unremitting] injuries and usurpations, [among which appears no solitary

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fact to contradict the uniform tenor of the rest, but all have]3 in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over these states. To prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world, [for the truth of which we pledge a faith yet unsullied by falsehood]."

He has refused his assent to laws the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

He has forbidden his governors to pass laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his assent should be obtained; and, when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

He has refused to pass other laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of representation in the legislature, a right inestimable to them, and formidable to tyrants only.

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the repository of their public records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

He has dissolved representative houses repeatedly [and continually]10 for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.

He has refused for a long time after such dissolutions to cause others to be elected, whereby the legislative powers, incapable of annihilation, have returned to the people at large for their exercise, the state remaining, in the meantime, exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without and convulsions within.

He has endeavored to prevent the population of these states; for that purpose obstructing the laws for naturalization of foreigners, refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new appropriations of lands.

He has [suffered]" the administration of justice [totally to cease in some of these states], refusing his assent to laws for establishing judiciary powers.

He has made [our]12 judges dependent on his will alone for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries. He has erected a multitude of new offices [by a self-assumed power], and sent hither swarms of new officers to harass our people and eat out their substance.

13

He has kept among us in times of peace standing armies [and ships of war]14 without the consent of our legislatures.

He has affected to render the military independent of, and supe rior to, the civil power.

15

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitutions and unacknowledged by our laws, giving his assent to their acts of pretended legislation for quartering large bodies of armed troops among us; for protecting them by a mock trial from punishment for any murders which they should commit on the inhabitants of these states; for cutting off our trade with all parts of the world; for imposing taxes on us without our consent; for depriving us of the benefits of trial by jury; for transporting us beyond seas to be tried for pretended offences; for abolishing the free system of English laws in a neighboring province, establishing therein an arbitrary government, and enlarging its boundaries, so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these [states];16 for taking away our charters, abolishing our most valuable laws," and altering fundamentally the forms of our governments; for suspending our own legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever. He has abdicated government here, [withdrawing his governors, and declaring us out of his allegiance and protection].

18

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

He is at this time transporting large armies of foreign mercenaries to complete the works of death, desolation, and tyranny already begun with circumstances of cruelty and perfidy 19 unworthy the head of a civilized nation.

He has constrained our fellow citizens taken captive on the high seas, to bear arms against their country, to become the executioners of their friends and brethren, or to fall themselves by their hands.

He has 20 endeavored to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian savages, whose known rule of warfare is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes, and conditions [of existence]."1

[He has incited treasonable insurrections of our fellow citizens, with the allurements of forfeiture and confiscation of our property.

He has waged cruel war against human nature itself, violating its most sacred rights of life and liberty in the persons of a distant people who never offended him, captivating and carrying them into slavery in another hemisphere, or to incur miserable death in their transportation thither. This piratical warfare, the opprobrium of INFIDEL powers, is the warfare of the CHRISTIAN king of Great Britain. Determined to keep open a market where MEN should be bought and sold, he has