Foundations of American Environmental Thought and Action 17
Document 16: Jonathan Edwards on God and Nature (1739)
Like John Ray [see Document 15], the New England theologian Jonathan Edwards attempted to show how
nature—the totality of the many aspects of the creation—was a reflection of God's magnificence. Despite
his conviction that the whole natural world was created for human use, Edwards believed that people had to
live in harmony with the natural world if they were to enjoy its benefits and bask in God's love. According
to Edwards, the contemplation of nature helped to turn people away from evil action. Unlike Hobbes [see
Document 11], Edwards concluded that people, using reason, could deduce civil and moral precepts from the
“nature of things.” Edwards’ writings and sermons set the groundwork for a Protestant aesthetic spirituality (a
belief that the experience of beauty and nature made one sensitive to the presence of God) that was popularized
by the transcendentalists in the nineteenth century [see Documents 36 and 44] and found its way into the early
writings of John Muir [see Document 47].The sense I had of divine things, would often
of a sudden kindle up, as it were, a sweet burning
in my heart; an ardor of soul, that I know not
how to express.
Not long after I first began to experience these
things... I walked abroad alone, in a solitary place
in my father's pasture, for contemplation. And as I
was walking there, and looking up on the sky and
clouds, there came into my mind so sweet a sense of
the glorious majesty and grace of God, that I know
not how to express. I seemed to see them both in
a sweet conjunction; majesty and meekness joined
together; it was a sweet, and gentle, and holy maj-
esty; and also a majestic meekness; an awful sweet-
ness; a high, and great, and holy gentleness.
After this my sense of divine things gradu-
ally increased, and became more and more lively,
and had more of that inward sweetness. The
appearance of every thing was altered; there
seemed to be, as it were, a calm, sweet cast,
or appearance of divine glory, in almost every
thing. God's excellency, his wisdom, his purity
and love, seemed to appear in every thing; in the
sun, moon, and stars; in the clouds and blue sky;
in the grass, flowers, trees; in the water, and all
nature.
Source: Jonathan Edwards, “Personal Narrative,” in
Clarence Faust and Thomas Johnson, eds., Jonathan
Edwards: Representative Selections (New York: American
Book Company, 1935), pp. 60-61.Scythia, without Houses, without Plantations,
without Corn-fields or Vineyards, where the rov-
ing Hords of the savage and truculent Inhabit-
ants, transfer themselves from place to place in
Waggons, as they can find Pasture and Forrage
for their Cattle, and live upon Milk, and Flesh
roasted in the Sun, at the Pomels of their Saddles;
or a rude and unpolished America, peopled with
slothful and naked Indians, instead of well-built
Houses, living in pitiful Huts and Cabbins, made of
Poles set end-ways; then surely the brute Beasts Con-
dition, and manner of Living, to which, what we have
mention’d doth nearly approach, is to be esteem’d
better than Man's and Wit and Reason was in vain
bestowed on him.
Source: John Ray, The Wisdom of God Manifested in the Works
of the Creation, 8th ed. (London: William and John Innys,
1722), pp. 164-65.