myself more particularly disposed to regard the glories of the world, than to
∞≠≠ Anxieties
Edwards was captivated by the idea that God's purpose in creating the universe is to bring harmonious communications among minds, or spiritual beings, and every detail of physical creation points to that loving reality, epitomized in Christ. In this enthralling framework, he continued his meditation:
When we are delighted with flowery meadows and gentle breezes of wind, we may consider that we only see the emanations of the sweet benevolence of Jesus Christ; when we behold the fragrant rose and lily, we see his love and purity. So the green trees and fields, and singing of birds, are the emanations of his infinite joy and benignity; the easiness and naturalness of trees and vines [are] shadows of his infinite beauty and loveliness; the crystal rivers and murmuring streams have the footsteps of his sweet grace and bounty. . . . That beauteous light with which the world is filled in a clear day is a lively shadow of his spotless holiness and happiness, and delight in communicating himself.≥Ω
Yet young Calvinist that he was, he was too well trained in the hermeneutics of self-suspicion to ever rest easy in his own experience, no matter how profound. Even contemplating the beauties of nature could be a temptation. So in Bolton, as spring was arriving, he wrote in his diary: ''Monday, March 16. To practice this sort of self-denial, when at sometimes on fair days, I find myself more particularly disposed to regard the glories of the world, than to betake myself to the study of serious religion.''
C H A P T E R ∏ kl ''A Low, Sunk Estate and Condition''
n late May, Edwards received news that provided escape from Bolton—
Yale had o√ered him a position as tutor. Apparently he and the people of Bolton had an understanding that his pastorate was provisional, because within two weeks he was on his way to New Haven. Yet, characteristic of someone for whom no silver lining lacked a cloud, getting the position he wanted proved a trial. He wrote wearily soon after his arrival in New Haven: ''Saturday night, June 6. This week has been a remarkable week with me with respect to despondencies, fears, perplexities, multitudes of cares and distraction of mind; being the week I came hither to New Haven, in order to entrance upon the o≈ce of Tutor of the College. I have now abundant reason to be convinced of the troublesomeness and vexation of the world, and that it never will be another kind of world.''∞
We can only guess at these severe distractions. The most obvious were the disruptions of becoming a tutor, a position he would hold for a little more than two years. When Edwards arrived in June 1724, Yale College was struggling. It had been almost two years since Timothy Cutler's defection, and the trustees had still not managed to find a new rector. They were working their way through a list of Connecticut ministers but could pry none from their parishes. The college limped on without real leadership. The board designed a stopgap system of having local ministers serve as acting rectors on a monthly rotating basis, hardly an e√ective arrangement. That left the school, forty to fifty mostly teenage boys, in the hands of two tutors who were only a few years older.
College students could be unruly, as Jonathan already well knew. Even though the students were to be the future clergy or magistrates of the colony, many took advantage of the freedom from their families to cut loose in the
∞≠≤ ''A Low, Sunk Estate and Condition''
meantime. Yale had perennial problems with drinking and rowdiness. The sudden exodus of Rector Cutler at a commencement season made the situation worse. The trustees strengthened penalties for frequenting taverns, bringing rum into the dorms without permission, and contempt for tutors.≤
The college was particularly out of hand during Jonathan's years as tutor. According to the earliest college history, when in 1726 Yale finally got a resident rector (Jonathan's cousin and former tutor, Elisha Williams), he ''began by degrees, more e√ectually to suppress vice and disorder among the students; and to introduce and settle a number of good customs.'' The reformation took some time because ''the ill habits formerly contracted by the students were not easily and suddenly eradicated.''≥
One can imagine Jonathan striving with deadly earnest to enforce the strict college rules with students who had long since established their lax ways and were not about to give up their independence to the latest and the youngest in a series of tutors. Yale's rules were designed to suppress vice and cultivate piety, two goals Jonathan viewed as demonstrated by all reason to be of overriding eternal importance. A number of his diary entries suggest his concerns with student discipline. In one he commented, ''If I had more of an air of gentleness, I should be much mended.'' In another he resolved, ''When I reprove for faults, whereby I am in any way injured, to defer, till the thing is quite over and done with.''∂
Added to the irritations of disciplining were the burdens of teaching. Tutors taught the whole range of subjects, hearing all the recitations of a class (freshmen, sophomores, etc.) of students. Presumably Jonathan had charge of two classes. The day began at sunrise or at 6 a.m. in the winter, with chapel (prayers, Scripture, and exposition). Then the tutors heard recitations all day, with an hour and a half break for lunch. Evening prayers were from four to five in the afternoon. Then supper, free time, and time for study before lights out at eleven. The college maintained this schedule six days a week. The curriculum for Friday afternoon and Saturday focused on theological study. The Sabbath included the usual two lengthy church services, morning and afternoon, supplemented by explications of Puritan works, such as William Ames' Cases of Conscience.∑ For the students it was a day of rest mainly in the sense that they must abstain from the sports and diversions permitted on other days.
Adjustment to this time-consuming schedule, plus the distractions of discipline, must have been nerve-racking for Jonathan, especially since when left to himself he could easily fill a long day with intellectual pursuits and
''A Low, Sunk Estate and Condition'' ∞≠≥
spiritual disciplines. Apparently he drove himself relentlessly. From his notebooks we know that during these years he was especially productive in broadening his reading and preparing for his own works. During the first year, the college paid him and his fellow tutor, Robert Treat (Yale 1718), extra for organizing and cataloging the library. Edwards doubtless relished this opportunity to peruse so much of the literature of his time and he developed a lengthy catalogue of books he needed to read.
Especially important for him was the opportunity to engage contemporary authors as he continued laying his plans to write a comprehensive defense of Christianity. He is credited with reintroducing Locke's Essay Concerning Human Understanding into the Yale curriculum. His notebooks, especially ''The Mind,'' reveal that he was deeply engaged with Locke, from whom he learned much, despite his essential disagreements. He still sometimes called his ''Miscellanies'' his ''Rational Account,'' referring to the major comprehensive apology for the Christian religion that he was preparing to write. In this notebook he was dealing with a wide range of theological and philosophical themes. He was making, for instance, a new set of entries on ''Deism,'' which he recognized as one of the primary religious-intellectual challenges of the era. He also continued to prepare for treatises on natural science and on ''the Mind,'' and he was still developing his ''Notes on the Apocalypse.'' At Bolton he had begun his ''Notes on Scripture,'' which would become one of his largest and most essential studies.∏
Without a resident rector, commencement was particularly demanding for the tutors. Graduating students had to be prepared to defend their theses in Latin. Discipline was the greater problem because commencement week was a traditional time for the students to kick over the traces. After the ''Commencement Quarter Days'' of the previous year (when Jonathan defended his M.A. thesis), the trustees had to assess students for broken glass in the dormitories. No doubt mortified by the students' rowdiness at the very moment when the eyes of all New England were on Yale, the trustees voted fines for ''any public disturbance by hallooing, singing or ringing of the bell unseasonably, firing guns, or otherways.''π
Commencement week of 1724 precipitated a monumental spiritual crisis for the young tutor. Something happened that cast him into spiritual doldrums from which he did not escape for three distressing years. He recognized the disaster immediately and recalled it long after, but he never indicated its source. Writing at the end of commencement week, he confided to his diary: ''Saturday night, Sept. 12. Crosses of the nature of that, which I met