Emerson and Edwards

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Edward, one of the greatest American wises, has left a great number of influential works about religions. In his the divine and supernatural light, he explains the two way to gain knowledge, one is from worldly things, and the other is the divine and supernatural light. He indicates the divine and supernatural light is spiritual light that immediately let into the mind by god, can make people feel the excellency of divine.
Drew on Edward’s the divine and super natural light, Emerson’s essay self-reliance give a specific define of genius. The most important characteristic of genius is self-reliance, he points out that "To believe your own thought, to believe that what is true for you in your private heart is true for all men—— that is genius.(1)"
In the divine and supernatural light, Edward begins with introduction to supernatural light, he explains what supernatural light isn’t. Firstly, ordinary people’s feeling of guilty and misery is not supernatural light, it can be from the spirit of god, but it’s not supernatural light, it’s just nature. Supernatural light acts different in unregenerate people and regenerate people, if unregenerate people get supernatural light, it cannot unite to them. But if it act on generate people, the result will be totally different, he “unites himself with the mind of a saint, takes him for his temple, actuates and influences him as a new supernatural principle of life and action.” He also mentions “It is no imagination or idea of an outward light or glory, or any beauty of form or countenance, or a visible luster or brightness of any object”, which differentiate the supernatural light and imagination or visible light. Thirdly, inspiration, which reveals new doctrine and suggests new proposition, is ...

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...he essays reveal that light is got immediately from interior but not outside, which more determined the opinion of self-reliance.
To conclude, the divine and supernatural light talks about such a thing as “a spiritual and divine light, immediately imparted to the soul by God, of different nature from any that is obtained by natural means.” Edward shows how good the light is, and it’s better than human learning. The divine light is also the only thing “has its fruit in a universal holiness of life”, make you joyful and can change the nature of your soul. On the other hand, Emerson essentially advocates self-reliance in an extreme way, he denies all the behavior that disobey individual’s own thought. He gives several example of saint who trust themselves throughout his essay, in order to illustrate only people who trust thyself and speak out their thought can success.

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