children or friends is only virtuous in so far as it is founded on a desire for the general good, which, in his sense, is a desire for the glory of God (ii. 428). He judges actions, that is, not by their tendency, but by their nature; and their nature is equivalent to their logic. His metaphysical theory coincides precisely with his theological view, and is generally expressed in theological language. The love of 'Being in general' is the love of God. The intellectual intuition is the reflection of the inward light, and the recognition of a mathematical truth is but a different phase of the process which elsewhere produces conversion. Intuition is a kind of revelation and revelation is a special intuition. One of his earliest published sermons is devoted to prove the existence of 'a Divine and supernatural light, immediately imparted to the soul by the Spirit of God' (vol. viii., sermon xxvii.). On that fundamental doctrine his whole theological system is based; as his metaphysical system rests on the existence of absolute _a priori_ truths. The knowledge of God sums up all true beliefs, and justifies all virtuous emotions, as the power of God supports all creation at every instant. 'It is by a Divine influence that the laws of nature are upheld, and a constant concurrence of Divine power is necessary in order to our being, moving, or having a being' (v. 419). To be constantly drawing sustenance from the eternal power which everywhere underlies the phenomena of the world is the necessary condition of spiritual life, as to breathe the air is the condition of physical life. The force which this conception, whether true or false, exercises over the imagination, and the depth which it gives to Edwards' moral views, are manifest at every turn. Edwards rises far above those theories, recurring in so many different forms, which place the essence of religion in some outward observances, or in a set of propositions not vitally connected with the spiritual constitution. Edwards' contemporaries, such as Lardner or Sherlock, thought that to be a Christian was to accept certain results of antiquarian research. With a curious _naivete_ they sometimes say that a ploughman or a cobbler could summarily answer the problems which have puzzled generations of critics. Edwards sees the absurdity of hoping that a genuine faith can ever be based on such balancing of historical probabilities. The cobbler was to be awed by the learned man; but how could he implicitly trust a learned man when his soul was at stake, and when learned men differed? To convince the ignorant or the Houssatunnuck Indian, God's voice must speak through a less devious channel. The transcendent glory of Divine things proves their Divinity intuitively; the mind does not indeed discard argument, but it does not want any 'long chain of argument; the argument is but one and the evidence direct; the mind ascends to the truth of the Gospel but by one step, and