Edwards Amasa Park was born at Providence, R. I., in 1808. After a short pastorate of two years he became professor at Amherst, and subsequently at Andover Theological Seminary. He was one of the well-known exponents of the New England Calvinism, and his teachings had a wide influence over the ministers of his generation. His sermons, frequently rewritten, were marked by elegance of style and great moral force. Both as a preacher and teacher he showed largeness of view, depth of thought, and a rare facility of clear and powerful expression. He wrote a number of biographies and other works. He died in 1900.
PARK
1808-1900
THE PROMINENCE OF THE ATONEMENT[1]
For I determined not to know anything among you, save Jesus Christ, and him crucified.—1 Corinthians ii., 2.
Should the apostle who penned this eloquent expression resume his ministry on earth, and should he deign to hold converse with us on the principles of his high calling, and should he repeat his strong words, I am now, as of old, determined not to know anything among you save Jesus Christ, and Him crucified, some of us would feel an impulse to ask him:
"Can your words mean what they appear to imply? You are learned in Rabbinical literature; you have read the Grecian poets, and even quoted from Aratus; you have examined the statuary of Greece, and have made a permanent record of an inscription upon an altar in ancient Athens; you have reasoned on the principles of Aristotle from effect to cause, and have taken rank with the philosophers, as well as orators of the world; and now, you seem to utter your determination to abandon all knowledge save that which concerns the Jew who was crucified. You once said that you had rather speak five words with the understanding, than ten thousand words in an unknown tongue; and here, lest the pithy language of this text should fail of being truly apprehended, we desire to learn its precise meaning in three particulars:
"In the first place, do you intend to assert that our knowledge is controlled by our will? You determined not to know anything save one. Can you by mere choice expel all but one of your old ideas, and make your mind like a chart of white paper in reference to the vast majority of your familiar objects of thought?"