The Jonathan Edwards Center at Yale University

The margins of the first several sheets in the "Miscellanies" are badly worn and sometimes tattered. This is especially true of the first leaf, and there is no copy of No. a in the Dwight copies. Not long after JE wrote the essay he copied a large extract from it into the sermon on Isaiah 35:8 (printed in Works, 10, 478–Isaiah 35:79), and about twenty years later he copied another into his "Personal Narrative"; both have been helpful in establishing the text. For the "Personal Narrative" passage and the date of No. a, see above, pp. 76–79. Holiness is a most beautiful and lovely thing. We drink in strange notionsMS: "astrange [sic] notions." In the sermon on Isaiah 35:8 JE read it as a plural: "Men are apt to drink in strange notions of holiness." of holiness from our childhood, as if it were a melancholy, morose, sourThe first three letters are lost at the left margin, but the word is preserved in the sermon. and unpleasant thing; but there is nothing in it but what is sweet and ravishingly lovely. 'Tis the highest beauty and amiableness, vastly above all other beauties. 'Tis a divine beauty, makes the soul heavenly and far purer than anything here on earth; this world is like mire and filth and defilement to that soul which is sanctified. 'Tis of a sweet, pleasant, charming, lovely, amiable, delightful, serene, calm and still nature. 'Tis almost too high a beauty for any creatures to be adorned with; it makes the soul a little, sweet and delightful image of the blessed Jehovah.

Oh, how may angels stand, with pleased, delighted and charmed eyes, and look and look,The second "and look" is a deliberate repetition; when JE copied this sentence into the sermon interlined the second "and look" above a caret. with smiles of pleasure upon their lips, upon that soul that is holy; how may they hover over such a soul, to delight to behold such loveliness! How is it above all the heathen virtues, of a more light, bright and pure nature, more serene and calm, more peaceful and delightsome! What a sweet calmness, what a calm ecstasy, doth it bring to the soul! How doth it make the soul love itself; how doth it make the pure invisible world love it; yea, how doth God love it and delight in it; how do even the whole creation, the sun, the fields and trees love a humble holiness; how doth all the world congratulate, embrace, and sing to a sanctified soul!

Oh, of what a sweet, humble nature is holiness! How peaceful and, loving all things but sin, of how refined and exalted a nature is it! How doth it clear change the soul and make it more excellent than other beings! How is it possible that such a divine thing should be on earth? It makes the soul like a delightful field or garden planted by God, with all manner of pleasant flowers growing in the order in which nature has planted them, that is all pleasant and delightful, undisturbed, free from all the noise of man and beast, enjoying a sweet calm and the bright, calm, and gently vivifying beams of the sun forevermore: where the sun is Jesus Christ; the blessed beams and calm breeze, the Holy Spirit; the sweet and delightful flowers, and the pleasant shrill music of the little birds, are the Christian graces. Or like the little white flower: pure, unspotted and undefined, low and humble, pleasing and harmless; receiving the beams, the pleasant beams of the serene sun, gently moved and a little shaken by a sweet breeze, rejoicing as it were in a calm rapture, diffusing around [a]The location of "most" on the MS shows that a short word is missing from the left margin. most delightful fragrancy, standing most peacefully and lovingly in the midst of the other like flowers round about. How calm and serene is the heaven overhead! How free is the world from noise and disturbance! How, if one were but holy enough, would they of themselves [and]A remnant of the last letter of a short word is visible at the left margin. as it were naturally ascend from the earth in delight, to enjoy God as Enoch did!