This week’s selection is from roughly the middle of the Miscellany corpus and is entitled “Humiliation.”  For modern readers, the Edwardsian idea of humiliation may seem rather strange.  Edwards, and earlier Puritans, did not always mean being utterly embarrassed, or slandered, or made to look like a great fool as the word is commonly used today.  Humiliation, rather, was typically spoken of in reference to Gospel humiliation, or the bringing low of a person to the point of repentance and preparation for forgiveness or conversion.  Certainly this may involve some form of embarrassment, but the point in Gospel humilation is to humble the person before God so much so that they came to an understanding of  God’s holiness and majesty and their own unworthiness.  This in hope of the repentance of the person and the turning in faith toward the Triune God.

This definition of humilation is discussed in a roundabout way by Edwards in “Miscellany 735.”  Here Edwards primarily focuses on a common theme in his writings, this being what man is capable of or not in his natural, or unconverted, state.  Edwards affirms that man is capable of seeing the truth and certainty of religion in his natural state, using the example of those unconverted persons who stand before the judgment seat of God upon death and thereby know and see the truth fully, even though such understanding may not convince them of the beauty and loveliness of God and his grace.  Even though they are capable of this, says Edwards, natural man does not “ordinarily” (seemingly allowing for extraordinary cases) come to this understanding before conversion.

The difference, for those post-conversion and those unconverted who are convinced after death, is the illumination of the mind by the presence of God.  For those converted while alive, this illumination is that “divine and supernatural light” which is “immediately imparted to the soul by God” upon reaching that point of Gospel humiliation.  For those who die in a natural state, says Edwards, they are convinced “by the sight of the greatness and majesty of God, which will convince of the infinite greatness of the guilt of sin that is committed against God, and so its proportion to the eternal punishment, and also will convince and assure of other truths that had before been taught concerning God, as his infinite power, his wisdom, his justice, his truth, his holiness, his immutability.”  So Edwards, in fact, presents both senses of humiliation, the Gospel sense and the shame/embarrassment sense.  For those who are converted, they have reached the point of humiliation, repented and turned toward God in faith, and have had their minds and understanding illumined to the truth, certainty, beauty, glory of the Christian religion.  For those who die in a natural state, their understanding are also illumined and they are able to see the truth and certainty of Christianity, but this to their shame and condemnation.

Though brief, this entry is one of the more thoroughly Edwardsian entries that I have come across in employing so many of the theological categories and themes that would define Edwards as a theologian and pastor.  Here is “Miscellany 735″ in full:

735. Humiliation.

‘Tis true that natural men are capable of being convinced of the justice of God in their own damnation, because they will be convinced of it at the day of judgment; and so they are capable of being convinced of the certain truth of the same great things of religion, that natural men will be convinced of at that day. But yet it don’t follow that it ordinarily is so, till saving conversion. The conviction of both will be given at the day of judgment the same way, viz. (1) by strengthening the faculty of understanding, and clear setting forth the reasons and arguments that evince the justice of God in the damnation of sinners, and other great truths of religion; and (2) by the sight of the greatness and majesty of God, which will convince of the infinite greatness of the guilt of sin that is committed against God, and so its proportion to the eternal punishment, and also will convince and assure of other truths that had before been taught concerning God, as his infinite power, his wisdom, his justice, his truth, his holiness, his immutability. For a sight of the greatness of God, with arguments deduced from it, will make ‘em know these things, and many others, though it won’t make ‘em see the beauty and loveliness of these things in God. So that a natural man is capable, while such, to see the truth and certainty of these things, as well as of the justice of God in his own eternal damnation; but it don’t follow that such do ordinarily see them in this world, before conversion. No more can we argue that it is ordinary for them to see God’s justice in their own damnation before conversion.

Works of Jonathan Edwards, Volume 18, The “Miscellanies:” 501-832, ed. Ava Chamberlain (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2002), 360.