He was “Altogether peculiar”: Samuel Miller’s Cautious Appreciation of Jonathan Edwards

Abstract

Old Princeton Seminary (1812-1929) served as a bastion of Westminster Calvinism in a way unrivaled in America. In the nineteenth century, the institution trained more clergy than any other institution. The seminary’s importance to nineteenth century American religious history can hardly be overstated and has been often explored. However, the school’s view on Jonathan Edwards (1703-1758) has been little considered. There appears to be two general assumption amongst modern scholars: first, that Princeton largely adopted an Edwardsean piety; and secondly, that the school made an intentional move away from Edwards, especially his metaphysics, in exchange for Scottish Common-Sense Realism. However, closer inspection reveals something of a via media. In 1837, Samuel Miller (1769-1859), the seminary’s first professor of Ecclesiastical History and Church Government, wrote a biography of Edwards that reveals a cautious appreciation of him both generally and specifically in his philosophical approach. In this article, Miller’s views of Edwards will be considered and at times supplemented by his contemporaries. This essay seeks to shed greater light on the appropriation of Edwards by a major representative of the Reformed tradition in the nineteenth century as well as providing contextual explanations for Princeton’s caution towards Edwards.