The Jonathan Edwards Center at Yale University

On our status

2010-01-13T17:20:00.001Z

Greetings. This little blog may one rise in the resurrection of the just, or may even be raptured. Until then may I encourage you to follow our links to the JEC website and the blog there.

Thank you

MM

want a Blank Bible without the work?

2008-11-13T16:49:00.003Z

well then today is your lucky day! although some industrious souls have gone to great lengths to create their own version of Jonathan Edwards's Blank Bible (see here), the day has arrived where someone has done the work for you.

Zondervan has just announced the Noteworthy Collection of NIV and TNIV bibles, sporting blank right-hand pages after every left-hand page of text.

check it out!

Jonathan Edwards for Armchair Theologians by James P. Byrd

2008-10-23T14:56:00.004Z

Presenting a fresh view of Jonathan Edwards to the "average Joe" (current American political connotations of that phrase notwithstanding) is always a bit of a trick. For those who have heard of Edwards, all they really know about him is that he was a Puritan (strike 1!) and that he preached a sermon called "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God," which most read in high school (strikes 2 and 3 combined!). Attuned to the odds he is up against, James Byrd, professor at Vanderbilt, takes on this difficult task in his book, Jonathan Edwards for Armchair Theologians.

As i said in the previous post, the Armchair Theologians series is a delightful little series that is described by the publisher as "Written by experts but designed for the novice, the Armchair series provides accurate, concise, and witty overviews of some of the most profound moments and theologians in Christian history." Byrd's volume is no exception. Surveying the broad scope of Edwards's life and work, the author carefully interweaves both, letting Edwards's big ideas frame the overall structure of the book.

Giving them roughly a chapter a piece, topics included in this volume include, in order, Edwards's exploration of divine beauty in particular reference to the "Spider Letter," Revival and Religious Affections, the dismissal from Northampton, Edwards on the Will, Edwards on Original Sin, his two dissertations, and his ever-expanding legacy.

The great value of this book is twofold. First is the skill by which the author eschews the confusing, complex philosophical language often employed by Edwards (esp. on the Will and Original Sin) in order to explain the concepts in plain language. This is not to say that Edwards's works have been dumbed down. Far from it! The complexity of the arguments are retained and key philosophical terms are still defined and used, but the material is presented and illustrated in such a way that one can begin to grasp what Edwards was driving at and responding to without having to have previous experience in Enlightenment philosophy, particularly of the Lockean flavor.

Second, the last chapter on Edwards's legacy is especially helpful in demonstrating the "so what" of Edwards's continued importance today. The author quickly traces Edwards's influence from the abolitionist movement, to 19th century revivalism, to the crusades of 20th century evangelists, finally ending up in the resurgence of traditional Calvinism that has been observed among many modern evangelicals, especially in the younger groups. This chapter proves that the study of Edwards is vital to understanding the unfolding of American history from its pre-Revolution days to the post-9/11 situation that exists today, though there is still much work that needs to be done in this area of Edwards's legacy, both at home in America and abroad.

In short, this book is a wonderful survey of the life and work of Jonathan Edwards and is recommended to a wide variety of readers, whether you've been deeply immersed in Edwards studies for decades, have been away for a while and need a refresher, or if you need that extra nudge to begin wading through the inestimable richness of America's greatest theologian.

p.s. Did i mention that this is a THEOLOGY book with CARTOONS?? While, as George Marsden states in his endorsement, "[Edwards] would have been unhappy about some of the cartoons," the drawings do provide some levity and illustration to the deep concepts being read about. My personal favorite is found on page 162.

two new books

2008-10-12T15:33:00.002Z

two interesting, popular-level books on Jonathan Edwards have recently been published. i hope to be posting reviews of each in the coming weeks, but i thought i would go ahead and draw your attention to them in the meantime.

A Short Life of Jonathan Edwards by George M. Marsden

Marsden is back with an all-new, shorter narrative of the life of Jonathan Edwards. the publisher's description states: "A Short Life of Jonathan Edwards is not an abridgment of Marsden's earlier award-winning study but is instead a completely new narrative based on his extensive research. The result is a concise, fresh retelling of the Edwards story, rich in scholarship yet compelling and readable for a much wider audience, including students."

Jonathan Edwards for Armchair Theologians by James P. Byrd

this fascinating series of books has finally put out a volume on Edwards. if you're unfamiliar with the series, it is self-described as: "written by experts but designed for the novice, the Armchair series provides accurate, concise, and witty overviews of some of the most profound moments and theologians in Christian history." this is Byrd's first volume on Edwards, and quite a welcome one at that if for no other reason than the cartoons found throughout the pages.

Reading Jonathan Edwards by M.X. Lesser

2008-09-16T15:51:00.002Z

Ever since his first one arrived in 1981, M.X. Lesser's annotated bibliographies on the works of and about Jonathan Edwards have been tremendously invaluable to researchers. Earlier this year, Eerdmans released the latest in the series, Reading Jonathan Edwards: An Annotated Bibliography in Three Parts, 1729-2005.

This new volume combines the 1981 work, covering Edwards's works and scholarship from 1729-1978, the 1994 work, covering 1979-1993, and a brand new third work covering 1994-2005. In addition, Lesser has revisited the two earlier works, expanding them by a combined 140 new bibliographical additions, and full introductions accompany each of the three sections.

Most impressive is the third part, which includes 700 entries by itself! 700 new pieces of scholarship in a little over a decade. Of course, this is largely due to the resurgence of interest in Edwards around the 2003 tercentenary celebration of his birth, but 700 is still quite a remarkable number! Imagine, or reminisce, for those of you who have been studying Edwards for some time, the gigantic and tedious task of attempting to do research on this colonial pastor without the contribution of Lesser's bibliographies. What a dark, dark world it would be.

I'd love to hear from others out there who have used Lesser's bibliographies in their study and research. Tell us about your experience with them and offer any tips in using them that you might have picked up.

Watch Jonathan Edwards preaching

2008-09-09T09:45:00.001Z

Here. Sort of.

HT Irish Calvinist

Jonathan Edwards and Scotland Conference (30-31 March 2009)

2008-09-02T07:57:00.001Z

CALL FOR PAPERS

As part of the Scottish Homecoming year, the University of Glasgow is hosting a conference on the relationship between Jonathan Edwards, the colonial American theologian, and Scotland in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, focusing on Edwards’s involvement with Scottish revivalists, the Scottish phase of the Enlightenment, international missions, and related topics, as well as Edwards’s legacy in Scotland. Organized with the assistance of the Jonathan Edwards Center at Yale University, this gathering aims to lead to a renewed appreciation of the fascinating and lasting association of Edwards with Scotland.

Though anyone is invited to submit, paper and session proposals are especially welcome from graduate students and younger faculty and scholars in the United Kingdom and Europe. Themes of papers or sessions can include, but are not limited to:

Revivalism
Evangelical Networks and Theology
Edwards and the Erskines
Missions
The Scottish Enlightenment
The Concert of Prayer
Emigration and the Scots-Irish in America
Current Issues in Edwards Scholarship

Please submit a one-paragraph abstract of your paper proposal by 15 October to:
Kelly Van Andel
k.van-andel.1@research.gla.ac.uk
krvan5@aya.yale.edu

There are limited funds available for travel assistance. Grants of up to £50 will be given to a select number of presenters with a demonstrated need.

HT: Bill Schweizer

Research on Jonathan Edwards

2008-08-22T07:59:00.002Z

Are you currently working on a graduate thesis that concentrates on Edwards? If you are please could you comment below telling us who you are, where you are studying, and how you are approaching JE? We've recently been able to connect people on this blog who are working on similar areas. It might be of use to you. If you have completed recently we would like to hear from you as well.

If you comment below I will consolidate into a blog post.

One possibility is a volume of essays representing the distilled wisdom (!) of recent research.

You can let me know.

Screen grab of new online edition of JE works.

2008-08-21T14:08:00.002Z

If you would like to register for free access to Edwards online please go to

http://jec.amindseye.org/ and to register please visit http://jec.amindseye.org/register.

Sacramental Union in Christ

2008-08-18T09:49:00.000Z

At Stockbridge in 1751 Edwards preached to both the Indian and English congregations. The sermon was composed during the visit – he had not foreseen the need to officiate at the administration of the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper.
The text for the sermon is 1 Corinthians 10:17 – For we being many are one body, and one bread: for we are all partakers of that one bread. Noting the context of the verse Edwards develops four doctrinal aspects which he see in it. First, the christians’ union with Christ; second, the union of Christians with one another; third, the high nature of this union with Christ; finally, how this is ‘exhibited and manifested [in the] partaking of the Lord’s Supper.

He offers this developed doctrine: The Lord’s Supper was instituted as a solemn representation and seal of the holy and spiritual union of Christ’s people [to] Christ, and one to another.

The doctrine of union with Christ is central to Edwards’ applied soteriology, yet there are numerous divergent readings of the unio Christi in Edwards. In this sermon Edwards just outlines his thinking.

This is what Edwards says:
This union begins with a ‘mutual complacence (585)’. Christ loved his people from eternity (he cites here 1 John 4:19; Ephesians 5:25-27) and believers have their hearts drawn to Christ in response. So he says ‘This union of hearts is the first thing, the foundation.’ He then states a threefold analysis of this union, which is relative, legal, and vital.
I think it is of particular note that Edwards does not develop the thoughts concerning the union in the manuscript. The relative, legal, and vital, are stated, then given the barest exposition in the second part of the first proposition. There is a relative union because they are united to Christ as their head; there is a legal union because they are espoused to Christ as one spouse; and a vital union because they receive all spiritual life directly from Christ.
Consequently, ‘they must inevitably’ love one another: ‘being all so strictly united to Christ, they must in many other respects have a very close union with one another (586).’

The result is aesthetic:

‘Consequent on those things, there must be a sweet harmony among all the members as to temper and conversation; and a natural inclination to sweet society and mutual converse one with another. This union of Christians one with another is [represented] most beautifully in several texts of Scripture …’

The second proposition in the sermon concerns the nature of the sacrament as a seal. It is a confirmation God’s love for his people, and their ‘solemn declaration and open testimony and confirmation’ of their faith in the Christ of the covenant. This ‘solemn declaration’ takes place through ‘[t]heir eating and drinking’ because taking the ‘bread and wine’ ‘opening professes their union of heart, their faith and love.’ This eating and drinking is ‘their own free act and deed.’

Edwards makes a number of applications. First, (588) those who do not profess Christ as Lord should not come to the Lord’s Supper. So there are strong echoes of all the problems he experienced in Northampton in the 1740s. Every action of the Lord’s Supper are seals of ‘acceptance’, therefore those who do not accept Christ in their heart should not feign to accept him in their actions.

Moreover, ‘[t]he very notion of a church sitting down together at the Lord’s table is God’s family sitting down at this table as his children. Therefore, the design is not to make men children [who] ben’t admitted into the family that they may be received into the family.’

OK, the first application of this sublime aesthetic theology is negative! There are other applications – ‘Let the approaching feast be indeed to us a feast of love’ (589) – but these applications are clearly less significant than the warning. So the only reading of this lovely sacrament sermon is that Edwards is warning the English congregation that he holds fast to the theology that lost him the pulpit in Northampton.

WJE 26: Catalogues of Books

2008-08-17T22:33:00.005Z

Amazon has Volume 26 of the Yale Works at an unbelievable price. $64.12 which is 33% off the list price. i have never seen any WJE volume at a price like this. only three left (though it says more are coming), so get them while they're hot!

here's a short description of this final volume of the series:

This final volume in The Works of Jonathan Edwards publishes for the first time Edwards’ “Catalogue,” a notebook he kept of books of interest, especially titles he hoped to acquire, and entries from his “Account Book,” a ledger in which he noted books loaned to family, parishioners, and fellow clergy. These two records, along with several shorter documents presented in the volume, illuminate Edwards’ own mental universe while also providing a remarkable window into the wider intellectual and print cultures of the eighteenth-century British Atlantic. An extensive critical introduction places Edwards’ book lists in the contexts that shaped his reading agenda, and the result is the most comprehensive treatment yet of his reading and of the fascinating peculiarities of his time and place.

UPDATE: after those last three sold pretty quickly, Amazon again lists the volume as "IN STOCK."

Only one Jonathan Edwards missing?

2008-08-16T12:29:00.001Z

If we could add Ken Minkema reading a recently transcribed sermon from our JE this could be a perfect day?

Right?

Great News

2008-08-14T17:39:00.002Z

Works of Jonathan Edwards Online 2.0 Registered User Beta Testing

The Works of Jonathan Edwards Online 2.0 (WJE Online 2.0) is available for Registered User’s Beta phase. We invite you to participate in a month-long testing of our new release: a fully searchable digital interface through which anyone can explore Edwards' written thoughts:

Volume 1: Freedom of the Will
Volume 2: Religious Affections
Volume 3: Original Sin
Volume 4: The Great Awakening
Volume 5: Apocalyptic Writings
Volume 6: Scientific and Philosophical Writings
Volume 7: The Life of David Brainerd
Volume 8: Ethical Writings
Volume 9: A History of the Work of Redemption
Volume 10: Sermons and Discourses, 1720-1723
Volume 11: Typological Writings
Volume 12: Ecclesiastical Writings
Volume 13: The "Miscellanies", Entry Nos. a-z, aa-zz, 1-500
Volume 14: Sermons and Discourses, 1723-1729
Volume 15: Notes on Scripture
Volume 16: Letters and Personal Writings
Volume 17: Sermons and Discourses, 1730-1733
Volume 18: The "Miscellanies," 501-832
Volume 19: Sermons and Discourses, 1734-1738
Volume 20: The "Miscellanies," 833-1152
Volume 21: Writings on the Trinity, Grace, and Faith
Volume 22: Sermons and Discourses, 1739-1742
Volume 23: The "Miscellanies," 1153–1360
Volume 24: The Blank Bible
Volume 25: Sermons and Discourses, 1743-1758

Register on Tuesday August 19, 2008 or later to participate in the Beta testing! The participant with the highest number of suggestions, bug reporting and or user-navigation comments WILL RECEIVE A PRIZE in the form of a book.

Check it out!

Explore the Works of Jonathan Edwards Online 2.0 at http://jec.amindseye.org/ and to register please visit http://jec.amindseye.org/register.

Thomas A Schafer

2008-08-13T14:11:00.001Z

Thomas A. Schafer

We were saddened to hear that distinguished Jonathan Edwards scholar Thomas A. Schafer died on August 8, 2008. Professor Schafer was professor (emeritus) of church history of McCormick Theological Seminary, and formerly had taught at Duke University. His decades-long efforts to transcribe and understand Edwards's "Miscellanies" resulted in volume 13 of the Yale Edwards Edition, with an authoritative introduction to the "Miscellanies" as a whole. As part of this study, Schafer carried on a meticulous and comprehensive study of the dates of all of Edwards's early manuscripts. In the near future, the Jonathan Edwards Center will digitally publish Tom's unabridged, and corrected, introduction, which had to be condensed for print publication.

Many have benefited over the years from conversations and correspondence with Professor Schafer, who readily shared his extensive--and probably unparalleled--knowledge of Edwards. In fact, Tom used to joke, in the words of a poet, that "from London to Ephesus, my name has been mentioned in many prefaces." Recent volumes, such as "Jonathan Edwards at Home and Abroad" and "The Cambridge Companion to Jonathan Edwards," were dedicated to him in recognition of his contributions to individual projects as well as to the field as a whole.

Add to this Tom's almost encyclopedic knowledge on a variety of subjects--from church history to Edison recordings to the latest discoveries in human health--and anyone who met him was sure to learn and be entertained. In the Edwards vineyard, we will greatly miss Tom's collegiality, generosity, and good cheer.

The Preaching of Jonathan Edwards

2008-08-12T00:19:00.002Z

The Banner of Truth Trust has just released a title by John Carrick, The Preaching of Jonathan Edwards. Here's the publisher's description:

Jonathan Edwards (1703-58) is widely regarded not only as America’s greatest theologian and philosopher, but also as one of her greatest preachers. It is a remarkable fact, however, that his preaching has been somewhat neglected, both in academic circles and in the Reformed churches. Published in the year that marks the two hundred and fiftieth anniversary of his death, this book successfully straddles the church’s and the academy’s interest in Edwards and supplies that omission.

Dr Carrick demonstrates that Edwards was preaching and writing at a unique moment in history when the Puritan spirit and the spirit of the Enlightenment intersected; he traces the remarkable fall and rise of interest in the great American preacher theologian in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries; he interacts, both positively and critically, with the now complete Yale edition of Edwards’ Works and also with the ever burgeoning field of Edwards scholarship; and he cites extensively from Edwards’ sermons, treatises, and Miscellanies in order to demonstrate the power and the profundity of his preaching and thought.

The author’s main focus is, throughout, primarily homiletical; but interwoven in the homiletical focus are theological, philosophical, historical, and biographical strands. He constantly seeks to place Edwards and his sermons in their New England context – indeed, in their wider eighteenth-century transatlantic context – thus providing, wherever possible, the historical background for Edwards’ sermons. The ‘New York period’, the ‘Great Apostasy’ at Yale, the Bolton interlude, the Yale tutorship, the Boston Lecture of 1731, the Enfield sermon, the Yale Commencement of 1741, the great revivals, the landmark funerals, the Edwards-Stoddard-Williams dynamic, the Communion controversy, the Farewell Sermon, the romance of the Stockbridge years – these are all treated within the context of a systematic analysis of Edwards’ preaching under a number of different themes.

Dr Carrick does not shrink from sounding a note of critique at certain points and he warns against the danger of slavishly imitating the New England preacher. But he is also clearly convinced of Edwards’ extraordinary greatness and of the tremendous value of his sermons for Christians today. ‘Iron sharpens iron’; and the iron of Edwards’ marvelous expositions and applications is sure to sharpen the minds and souls of all those who study them carefully.

Bill Schweitzer

2008-08-07T18:09:00.002Z

Our warm congratulations to Bill Schweitzer, University of Edinburgh, who recently submitted his doctoral thesis. He writes

Thanks for giving me the opportunity to share about ‘Interpreting the Harmony of Reality: Jonathan Edwards’ Theology of Revelation.’ I think my direction could be summed up by the questions ‘what did Edwards mean when he said that God “is a communicative Being,” and ‘what was the overarching project that unifies his work?’ It is most basically a treatment of JE’s thought on revelation, with Edwards’ characteristically radical counterpoint to the deistic critique of revelation functioning as something of an historical sub-plot. But I end up seeing all of Edwards’ theology from the perspective of revelation. My proposal is that Edwards’ unfinished ‘great works’ (all three of them) were all attempts to demonstrate the Trinitarian harmony that marks the several media of revelation. If God is ‘a communicative Being,’ if harmony is his signature attribute, and if all reality is a communication from God, then we should expect to find harmony in and between Scripture, nature, and history. I think that this is ultimately what JE was trying to show to us in all his work.
I have chapters on God’s Communicativeness, Nature and Science, the Necessity of Revelation (including a discussion of Edwards’ innovative relational/communicative argument), Scripture, History, and a concluding chapter that make my case for my theory on Edwards—something I think could be a useful tool, but I know there are other possibilities. One of my recurring themes is how Edwards has a multi-dimensional (having noetic, affectional and beatific elements) concept of revelation; something I think lots of commentators recognise implicitly. I really did not set out to pick fights with anyone, but given my topic I do interact with, for instance Bob Brown; I just think Edwards was more radically opposed to Enlightenment thought than his more nuanced interpretation might suggest. But my real foils are JE’s contemporary antagonists, not only the deists such as Toland, Tindal and Chubb, but also John Locke. One of the funnest things I got to do was to present evidence that Edwards was responding directly to Locke’s Essay in framing his arguments for the necessity of revelation.
As I think happens elsewhere, Edwards’ great fascination with heaven influences his thought on revelation in what I call the ‘redemptive-historical beatific vision’—a concept Ramsey picks up in the appendix to Vol. 8. God is communicating himself to us through the medium of redemptive history, and so even the saints in heaven study what transpires on earth. The advantage in heaven is that these things are interpreted to them by Jesus Christ (see the ‘True Saints’ funeral sermon for Brainerd in Vol. 25). It thus does not surprise me that Edwards carried on a sort of microcosmic approximation of this situation on earth, not only by the History of the Work of Redemption project but also by some little-known revival newsletters, and I think in some way by all his theology. I conclude with a challenge for the church today to take up Edwards’ unfinished project of interpreting all aspects of reality as God's communication of beautiful harmony.

The influence of Jonathan Edwards

2008-08-07T14:30:00.002Z

Dear readers!

I'm trying to track the contemporary use of Edwards - see the Keller post etc. Can anyone help me with statements from pastors and theologians alive today concerning their debt to Edwards? I guess the two biggest 'names' are Keller and Piper - but are there others?

Thanks

Please comment below

Influence of Edwards: Timothy Keller

2008-07-26T10:14:00.005Z

In his book The Reason for God, Timothy Keller says this in his acknowledgements:

'I also owe a deeper sort of acknowledgement to the three people to whom I am most indebted for the fundamental shape of my Christian faith. They are, in order, my wife, Kathy, the British author C. S. Lewis, and the American theologian Jonathan Edwards.

Lewis's words appear in nearly every chapter. It would be wrong not to admit how much of what I think about faith comes from him. Edwards' words appear more seldom, because he has contributed more to the underlying structure of what could be called my 'theology.' Nevertheless, Lewis's and Edwards' thoughts agree and converge in this book in surprising ways.' (241)

Religious Affections book club

2008-06-27T14:31:00.002Z

Religious Affections has been very popular these past couple of days!

Tim Challies, of challies.com, has a regular series on his blog called "Reading Classics Together." It's basically a virtual book club where the assigned weekly reading is discussed in an initial post by Tim and then picked up in the comments section by all those involved.

Starting July 17th, Tim's book club will be going through Edwards's Religious Affections, "all 350+ pages of it." So if you've never read this work but are looking for an excuse to read it, as well as some form of accountability for such a daunting task, then join in on the discussion over at Tim's blog.

The initial "syllabus post" can be found here.

Edwards gets Wordled

2008-06-24T21:58:00.005Z

Speaking of Edwards's Religious Affections, have you heard of Wordle? It's a website that creates a "word cloud" using the words from a particular text. The words used most often are displayed biggest and go down from there. So with that I give you Edwards's Religious Affections in Wordle form:

summer reading with Jonathan Edwards

2008-06-04T13:48:00.003Z

Looking for something interesting and invigorating to read this summer? Our good friend Jonathan Edwards has some advice.

In a letter to Joseph Bellamy, who had asked Edwards about Turretin and Van Mastricht, Edwards says,

Turretin is on polemical divinity; on the Five Points, and all other controversial points; and is much larger in these than Mastricht; and is better for the one that desires only to be thoroughly versed in controversies.

But take Mastricht for divinity in general, doctrine, practice, and controversy; or as an universal system of divinity; and it is much better than Turretin or any other book in the world, excepting the Bible, in my opinion. (from Works, 16:216-218)

So there you have it. The strongest of strong recommendations on what to read this summer. Unfortunately, Van Mastricht's Theoretica-Practica Theologica is not available in English translation (you could perhaps find it in Dutch or Latin). However, all is not lost, as an excerpt of this great and influential work is available under the title, A Treatise on Regeneration.

If you prefer controversies, Francis Turretin's three-volume Institutes of Elenctic Theology is in print from P&R Publications.

Happy reading!

Some of our books

2008-04-15T16:31:00.000Z

From our reprint series ...

2008-04-15T16:24:00.004Z

Edwards On The Will
Allen C.Guelzo
Regular price: $30.00Sale price: $28.00

DESCRIPTION
Jonathan Edwards towered over his contemporaries-a man over six feet tall and a figure of theological stature-but the reasons for his power have been a matter of dispute. Edwards on the Will offers a persuasive explanation. In 1753, after seven years of personal trials, which included dismissal from his Northampton church, Edwards submitted a treatise, Freedom of the Will, to Boston publishers. Its impact on Puritan society was profound. He had refused to be trapped either by a new Arminian scheme that seemed to make God impotent or by a Hobbesian natural determinism that made morality an illusion. He both reasserted the primacy of God's will and sought to reconcile freedom with necessity. In the process he shifted the focus from the community of duty to the freedom of the individual.

Edwards died of smallpox in 1758 soon after becoming president of Princeton; as one obituary said, he was "a most rational . . . and exemplary Christian." Thereafter, for a century or more, all discussion of free will and on the church as an enclave of the pure in an impure society had to begin with Edwards. His disciples, the "New Divinity" men-principally Samuel Hopkins of Great Barrington and Joseph Bellamy of Bethlehem, Connecticut-set out to defend his thought. Ezra Stiles, president of Yale, tried to keep his influence off the Yale Corporation, but Edwards's ideas spread beyond New Haven and sparked the religious revivals of the next decades. In the end, old Calvinism returned to Yale in the form of Nathaniel William Taylor, the Boston Unitarians captures Harvard, and Edwards's troublesome ghost was laid to rest. The debate on human freedom versus necessity continued, but theologians no longer controlled it. In Edwards on the Will, Guelzo presents with clarity and force the story of these fascinating maneuverings for the soul of New England and of the emerging nation.

"Allen Guelzo writes with grace, charm, and even wit about a weighty subject that others have found forbidding. His scholarship is broad and his expositions lucid."
Daniel Walker Howe, University of California at Los Angeles

"Edwards on the Will is an important contribution to the study of Jonathan Edwards's thought. Where earlier scholars have been largely preoccupied with Edwards's 'modernity' or with measuring the social effect of Edwards in the context of the American Revolution, Allen Guelzo demonstrates his intellectual 'legacy' not only to the generation of the Revolution but also beyond. This work will stand as the definitive treatment of the legacy of Edwards's classic treatise on Freedom of the Will."
Harry Stout, Yale University

"This book elevates the study of eighteenth-century New England theology to a new level of sophistication and insight. With a precise, fresh, and lively literary style, Guelzo makes old controversies come alive for a twentieth-century reader. This is intellectual history at its best-learned, animated, and compelling. It is one of the finest studies of theology in America ever written."
E. Brooks Holifield, Emory University

"By tracing the development of one central point of Edwards's doctrine, Guelzo allows us to see the unfolding of the entire history of the Edwardsean school, and, by implication, of American theology, in the period between 1750-1830. This book is a major work of scholarship-thorough, enlightening, intellectually uncompromising."
Philip F. Gura, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill

BUY it here.

The JE experience at Yale

2008-04-03T16:49:00.000Z

Summer Course June 9 - 13, 2008 The World of Jonathan Edwards

SUMMER COURSE JUNE 9-13, 2008 THE WORLD OF JONATHAN EDWARDS

The staff of the Jonathan Edwards Center will present a week-long summer course at the Yale Divinity School examining the life, thought, and legacies of Jonathan Edwards, one of the great theologians in the Christian tradition and one of the most significant figures in American religious history.

The classroom portion of the course will feature lectures and discussions of common readings. There will be ample time allowed for questions and dialogue. Common readings will include selections from printed collections of Edwards’s writings and secondary sources. Also, the course will be integrated with the use of materials located in The Works of Jonathan Edwards Online.

Special features of the course will be a viewing of Edwards’s manuscripts at Yale’s Beinecke Library, and a day-long tour of sites in the Connecticut River Valley relating to Edwards and the Great Awakening. These sites include East Windsor (Edwards’s birthplace) and Enfield, Connecticut (where he preached Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God), and Northampton and Stockbridge, Massachusetts, the towns where he ministered for most of his career.

Instructors: Kenneth P. Minkema, Adriaan C. Neele, Yale University
Caleb J.D. Maskell, Princeton University

Schedule

Monday, 9-11:30
The Post-Reformation Era, Puritanism, and the Young Edwards
JE Reader, “Spider Letter,” “Of Being,” “Beauty of the World,” “The Mind,” “Diary,” “Resolutions,” “Apostrophe to Sarah Pierpont”
Online: A Biographical Sketch, edwards.yale.edu/about-edwards/biography

Tuesday, 9-11:30
Edwards the Theologian
JE Reader, “A History of the Work of Redemption,” “Sinners in the hands of an angry God,” “Freedom of the Will,” “Original Sin,” “Nature of True Virtue”
Online: Edwards as Theologian, edwards.yale.edu/about-edwards/theologian

Wednesday, 9-11:30
The Great Awakening
JE Reader, “Faithful Narrative,” “Religious Affections,” “Personal Narrative”
Stephen Stein, ed., Cambridge Companion to Jonathan Edwards, essays by Kimnach and Stout
Online: JEC Exhibit, “Billy Graham Preaches ‘Sinners,’” edwards.yale.edu/graham.

1:30-3:00
Edwards’s Manuscripts at Beinecke Library

Thursday, 9-11:30
Edwards’s American and Global Legacies
Douglas Sweeney and Allen Guelzo, eds., The New England Theology: From Edwards to Edwards Amasa Park (divide readings among class)
Online: Edwards’s Legacies, edwards.yale.edu/about-edwards/legacy

Friday, 8-4
A Tour of Edwards and Great Awakening Sites

REGISTER NOW http://www.yale.edu/sdqsummerterm/

reviews of the Cambridge Companion to Jonathan Edwards

2008-04-03T16:34:00.002Z

The Cambridge Companion to Jonathan Edwards, Stephen J. Stein ( ed.), Cambridge University Press, 2007 ( ISBN 978-0-521-61805-2), xix+ 342 pp., pb $ 27.99

Mary Coleman of Hartford Seminary writes:

"Stephen J. Stein has done an excellent job of gathering sixteen outstanding essays related to the life and work of Jonathan Edwards. This collection is a very helpful introduction to the current state of scholarship regarding Edwards as well as serving as a wide-ranging review of the developments in that tradition. The individual essays contributed by the three generations of scholars represented in this book go a long way toward orienting any student of Jonathan Edwards to the complexity of the issues involved in any consideration of Edwards's impact on American religious life. The book is a part of the most helpful, many volumed, Cambridge University Companion series."

review in Reviews in Religion & Theology Volume 15 Issue 2 Page 250-251, March 2008

Writing as a history teacher John Fea (Messiah College, Grantham, Pennsylvania) says (History Teacher, Nov 2007, Volume 41, Issue 1), ' Stephen J Stein has gathered an impressive group of scholars ... to provide an excellent overview of Edwards's life and thought. Stein's collection will quickly become the standard introduction to this influential eighteenth-century figure. It should find a place on the bookshelf of anyone who teaches early American history.'

a mighty deluge

2008-03-22T21:55:00.000Z

For he offered a sacrifice, that was sufficient to do away all the guilt of the whole world. Though the guilt of man was like great mountains, whose heads are lifted up to the heavens; yet his dying love, and his merits, appeared as a mighty deluge that overflowed the highest mountains; or like a boundless ocean that swallows them up; or like an immense fountain of light, that with the fullness and redundance of its brightness, swallows up men’s greatest sins, as little motes are swallowed up and hidden in the disk of the sun.

Christ Exalted, 1738, Hickman Works II, 215.

On arguments

2008-03-11T09:43:00.001Z

From a friend:

"One of the struggles that the church continually faces is the temptation to atomistic exegesis of Scripture. This is idea that one text cannot be brought to bear on another. For instance, we sometimes hear it said that we cannot interpret the Old Testament in light of the New Testament. The church has always affirmed that we can bring one text into proximity with another. She has also affirmed that what Scripture teaches expressly and “by good and necessary consequence” are equally authoritative. In other words, what the Bible teaches explicitly and what it teaches implicitly are equally binding. This is related to the idea that we cannot know something as true unless we know it directly or self-evidently. Jonathan Edwards has something to say about that in Miscellanies 1340,

“For therein consists all reason or argumentation whatsoever, viz., in discovering the truth of a proposition whose truth don't appear to our reason immediately or when we consider it alone, but by the help of some other proposition on which it depends. If this be not allowed, we must believe nothing at all but only self-evident propositions; and then we must have done with all such things as arguments...”

So Edwards tells us we can know something as true which we have deduced from some other truth."

Jeff Waddington, Westminster Theological Seminary.

Edwards, aesthetics, and the Eastern tradition.

2008-03-07T15:41:00.002Z

Another article on JE and the Eastern tradition. Michael Gibson concludes that:

'The core argument of this essay has been that Jonathan Edwards reconceptualized the dogmatic loci of Christian theology through an aesthetic lens, and that as a result his theological vision takes on a remarkable resemblance to the Eastern tradition, most closely resembling the thought of Maximus the Confessor. It cannot be suggested that Edwards in fact read Maximus, let alone that he consciously appropriated the vision of Maximus into his own thinking.'

And

' I am suggesting that a philosophical and theological line of thinking that can be traced back to Cappadocian and Eastern tradition had surfaced in Edwards's time, and that it infused the variegated sources of Edwards's thinking. Moreover, the state of theological controversy sparked similar types of theological defense and substantiation: as Maximus faced Origenism, Arianism, monophysitism, Macedonianism—controversies surrounding the definition of the person of Christ, the Trinity, creation—so also Edwards entered the dispute over Socianism, Arminianism, the Trinity, the will, and original sin. In a strange way, these two consummate theologians, though separated by over a millennium, constructed astoundingly similar bodies of theological contemplation that pivoted on the axis of God's glory and beauty.'

Much more needs to be written about this alleged connection - see also the article by McClymond in Helm & Crisp, Jonathan Edwards: Philosophical Theologian. For now just to note this latest article.

Michael Gibson, 'The Beauty of the Redemption of the World: The Theological Aesthetics of Maximus the Confessor and Jonathan Edwards'
in Harvard Theological Review (2008), 101:45-76

Sam Storms on Religious Affections

2008-01-24T20:07:00.000Z

Sam Storms, author of Signs of the Spirit: An Interpretation of Jonathan Edwards's "Religious Affections," will be on the Converse with Scholars program tonight, January 24, discussing Edwards's famous work. The program begins at 10pm EST.

UPDATE: The program is now available for download. Click here to stream, or "right-click, save as" to download.

Thorny Issue: Excursus

2008-01-22T20:55:00.000Z

I have really enjoyed reading Michael’s posts on this “thorny issue” in Edwards’s thought regarding the new spiritual sense he speaks of in A Divine and Supernatural Light. In the last post, Michael called our attention to Fiering’s line that this new spiritual sense is “an infused habit that is identical to holy love and holiness” (Norman S. Fiering, Jonathan Edwards's Moral Thought and Its British Context, 126).

As Michael said, this is an important line to understand. I want to focus on the latter half of the statement, that this infused habit “is identical to love and holiness.” I’ve been reading through Edwards’s Letters and Personal Writings, volume 16 in the Yale series, and there is a particular letter that I think can help further illumine the question at hand.

In letter 66, “To an Unknown Correspondent” (Works, 16, 199-203), Edwards responds to several questions raised by his recent publication of Religious Affections. One of these questions deals with Edwards’s view of the Christian’s partaking of the divine nature as stated in 2 Peter 1:4. In this particular instance, Edwards is responding to a misunderstanding by this unknown correspondent who had taken Edwards’s saying that the Spirit communicates himself to the human’s soul in the Spirit’s “own proper nature” (201; this phraseology is also included in the quotation in Michael’s third post) as equaling the Spirit’s communicating or transferring his very essence to the human soul.

Edwards responds by drawing a distinction between the ideas of nature and essence, concluding that, “That property which is natural to anyone and is eminently his character, I think, is, without abuse of language or going cross to the common use of it, called his proper nature, though [it] is not just the same with his essence” (202). He moves on to put forth that holiness is the attribute which gets closest to the idea of the very nature of the Holy Spirit, and this for two reasons:

“(1) As ‘tis his peculiar beauty and glory and so may in a special manner be called his nature, as brightness may in a peculiar manner be said to be the nature of the sun, and [as] that which is in a peculiar manner the nature of honey is its sweetness. (2) ‘Tis the proper character of the Spirit above all other things, in that office and work of his wherein we are concerned with him. This is that in his nature which he especially manifests and exercises in his office, acts, and operations towards us; and therefore this in his nature is singled out from all other things to denote him by, as he is revealed [to] us; so his name by which he is called in Scripture is the Holy Ghost. And this is that in his nature which he communicates something of to the saints.” (202-203).

So Edwards sees this new spiritual sense as a communication of the very nature of the Holy Spirit to the human. This communication of nature is not to be confused with a communication of the divine essence anymore than rays of light and heat from the sun are a communication of the essence, or being, of the sun to that upon which they fall. Rather, when this “divine and supernatural light” is “immediately imparted to the soul,” it is the communication of the holiness of the Holy Spirit through which the person becomes a partaker of the divine nature, though “immensely less in degree” (303).

This look at the communication of the nature of the Holy Spirit doesn’t answer the question of the nature of the communication of the same, but I think it could be a good jumping off point, particularly in light of Fiering’s comment above. That the infused habit is identical to holy love or holiness becomes more profound and clear when it is understood that it is the very holiness of the Holy Spirit, not some other thing which is merely akin to his holiness, that is communicated or infused to the person. How this holiness is actually communicated to the soul and how the immediate nature of this communication occurs I will leave to Michael.

Thorny Issue 4

2008-01-15T09:13:00.000Z

'The first step in gaining a clear understanding of Edwards' "spiritual sense" must be the realization that in this instance the term "sense" is something of a misnomer. Edwards meant by spiritual sense not only a new capacity for being affected by the things of God, but also a new inclination or a new will directed toward those things. The new sense of the heart brought about by the workings of grace is also a new disposition or an infused habit that is identical to holy love or holiness.' Norman S Fiering, Jonathan Edwards's Moral Thought and Its British Context, 126.

The point of this quotation is to highlight something that I haven't proved yet in this argument. That is, the new principle of grace that Edwards describes in the long quotation in A Divine and Supernatural Light. Edwards includes this line: 'but he acts in the mind of a saint as an indwelling vital principle.' I'll come back to this at a later point, but for now want to underline Fiering's interpretation - the indwelling vital principle is an infused habit of grace.

Thorny Issue: 3

2008-01-14T11:21:00.000Z

The doctrine of A Divine and Supernatural Light reads:

There is a such a thing, as a spiritual and divine light, immediately imparted to the soul by God, of a different nature from any that is obtained by natural means. Works, 17, 410.

Edwards tells us exactly what this divine and supernatural light is (after telling us four things that it is not): '... it may be thus described: a true sense of the divine excellency of the things revealed in the word of God, and a conviction of the truth and reality of them, thence arising.'

For Edwards the divine and supernatural light is a 'true sense of the divine and superlative excellency of the things of religion.' He distinguishes this 'true sense' from 'merely speculative or notional' (413) knowledge. That is, knowledge available to the 'agreement of mankind' in the unregenerate state. This speculative faculty (414) or the 'understanding strictly so-called' is the knowledge of the head and is 'rational judging.' The true sense that arises from the spiritual and divine light finds its seat in the 'will, or inclination, or heart' and is essentially an aesthetic judgement (414). JE doesn't use the word aesthetic - but he does use the vocabulary of aesthetics: loveliness, beauty and sweetness. The new sense is a matter of the heart, it is the apprehension of genuine spiritual enlightenment (413).

This new aesthetic sense is not the conviction of sin that natural (that is unenlightened, unregenerate) men have (410), it is not any impression made upon the imagination (412), it is not the suggesting of new truths 'not contained in the Word of God (412), and it is not every 'affecting view that men have of the things of religion (412). Of course, these negations are of great significance for Edwards' thought, and he expounds their theoretical and practical importance at some length in his later spiritual treatises - in particular in Religious Affections.

The new aesthetic sense arises from the indwelling of the Spirit of God. Edwards doesn't overwork the term 'indwelling', concentrating instead on his own vocabulary. Here is the central discussion:

The Spirit of God acts in a very different manner in the one case, from what he doth in the other. He may indeed act upon the mind of a natural man, but he acts in the mind of a saint as an indwelling vital principle. He acts upon the mind of an unregenerate person as an extrinsic, occasional agent; for in acting upon them, he doth not unite himself to them; for notwithstanding all his influences that they may be the subjects of, they are still sensual, having not the Spirit, Jude 19. But 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. There is this difference, that the Spirit of God, in acting in the soul of a godly man, exerts and communicates himself there in his own proper nature. Holiness is the proper nature of the Spirit of God. The Holy Spirit operates in the minds of the godly, by uniting himself to them, and living in them, and exerting his own nature in the exercise of their faculties. The Spirit of God may act upon a creature, and yet not in acting communicate himself. The Spirit of God may act upon inanimate creatures; as, the Spirit moved upon the face of the waters, in the beginning of the creation; so the Spirit of God may act upon the minds of men many ways, and communicate himself no more than when he acts upon an inanimate creature. For instance, he may excite thoughts in them, may assist their natural reason and understanding, or may assist other natural principles, and this without any union with the soul, but may act, as it were, as upon an external object. But as he acts in his holy influences and spiritual operations, he acts in a way of peculiar communication of himself; so that the subject is thence denominated spiritual. (Works, 17, 411).

This remarkable single paragraph reflects a mainstream concern in Edwards' applied soteriology. The question I want to return to in a later post is the nature of the communication of the Holy Spirit, and the immediate nature of this influence in the soul.

Thorny Issue 2

2008-01-12T10:58:00.001Z

Marsden writes (157):

'This sermon, A Divine and Supernatural Light, encapsulates better than any other single source the essence of his spiritual insight.'

What Marsden does in the rest of his discussion DSL is describe the content of the argument of the sermon. He writes that that 'God communicates to humans, he explained, in an immediate way ...' The result of this immediate divine communication is 'a new spiritual sense.' This gets us to the heart of the theological logic at the heart of the sermon - Marsden then develops his discussion with the practical outworkings of the doctrine. This application is important, but need not detain us at this point. It is important to underline the two ideas that Edwards pushes in the sermon. First, divine grace is immediately communicated. This is the primary point in the sermon, indeed it controls the doctrinal proposition in the discourse. Very little has been written about the immediate nature of divine grace in JE and I hope to show in this series of posts that it is a vital aspect of his understanding of soteriology. In order to do this I will need to look at a couple of secondary texts that do look at immediacy and demonstrate the inadequacy of the treatment they offer.

The second idea in the sermon is the 'new spiritual sense.' If little has been written about immediacy vast tracts of literature exist on the new sense. Much of the latter material is helpful, but would gain vital definition if placed in the historical context of immediate divine grace, and the various other polemical issues with which Edwards was engaging.

The 'rather thorny problem': Divine Grace and Human Integrity

2008-01-10T20:09:00.000Z

In his discussion of Edwards' famous sermon A Divine and Supernatural Light Conrad Cherry highlights one of the most interesting areas in the early writings of Jonathan Edwards:

One is still left with the rather thorny problem, however, of how the Divine Light is related to the human seeing. This is the core of the question we raised at the outset. How is man involved in the affair of redemption when the Holy Spirit is communicated to him? When God's Spirit abides as Light in the human mind, how does it abide there and what is its relation to the human faculties? (p.27 of The Theology of Jonathan Edwards: A Reappraisal)

This fascinating question, ably introduced and partially addressed in Cherry's second chapter entitled 'The Internal Possibility of the Act', is the key to understanding several of JEs' most important texts - including A Divine and Supernatural Light, A Treatise on Grace, God Glorified in Man's Dependence, and Religious Affections.

More soon.

Breaking the Ice

2008-01-06T21:00:00.000Z

I thought it might be fun to begin my contributions to this blog with a little bit of humor. So I present to you the politically correct Jonathan Edwards:

Welcoming Brandon Cozart

2008-01-05T09:31:00.000Z

Today we welcome Brandon Cozart to the JEC blog as a guest blogger. We look forward to his musings over the next few months, and please comment copiously.

> Who are you? Where are you from?

My name is Brandon Cozart and I'm 27 years old. I'm the husband of one wife and the owner of one dog. We live in Charlotte, North Carolina, but I grew up in Dallas, Texas. I was a history major, religious studies minor, at Texas A&M University and graduated in 2003. I am currently finishing up an M.Div (graduating this May!) at Reformed Theological Seminary here in Charlotte.

> When did you start reading Edwards?

Like many people, my first exposure to Edwards was in high school literature class where the only picture presented of Edwards comes from "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God," a terrible tragedy in my opinion. However, I did not have the reaction that most people have with "Sinners," which is to say that I didn't come away scorning the Puritans and early colonial Americans, but rather developed a fond appreciation of the beauty and eloquence of the language and imagery that they, particularly Edwards, used. It wasn't until some years later that I would run into Edwards again, and I don't really remember how it happened. I do remember, however, asking for, and getting, the two volume Hendriksen set of his works one Christmas, early in my undergrad years, and reading a great deal of them. The rest, as they say, is history!

> Favourite JE text?

That's a tough question to answer and I suppose the answer actually depends on what I'm reading at the time! Of the larger works, I'm fascinated by Religious Affections, The Nature of True Virtue, and History of the Work of Redemption. How I wish that Edwards had lived long enough to complete his larger History of Redemption. Of the sermons, "The Excellencies of Christ" and "Heaven, a World of Love" are among my favorites. But I would say that my absolute favorite is "A Divine and Supernatural Light." Again, I love the imagery that Edwards creates in describing the difference between a speculative knowledge and a true sense of the heart of the beauty and loveliness of God, likening the difference to merely having a rational notion that honey is sweet versus actually having a true sense of its sweetness in tasting it and experiencing it. It's beautiful writing.

> Any that really puzzle you?

Any in which Edwards attempts to explain how man, predisposed to love and holiness in the Garden of Eden, came to fall into sin. Edwards would have done well in this realm to follow Calvin's advice in only speaking where Scripture speaks and being silent where Scripture is silent. I could say more, but for brevity's sake I'll refrain!

> What did you think of the Marsden biography?

I absolutely loved Marsden's biography. I think it's a marvel of scholarship, and it was a greatly needed contribution to Edwards studies. Before Marsden's came out I had read Ola Winslow's biography of Edwards and Iain Murray's, and I didn't think either of them gave us a true picture of what Edwards was really like, Winslow's being too negative and Murray's being too appreciative. I think that what Marsden does well is give us as complete a picture of Edwards as we might possibly be able to get, warts and all, detailing every phase of his personal, academic, and theological development, and showing how much Edwards was "a man of his time" in interacting with pretty much every aspect of his contemporary culture, both at home and abroad. I don't know that Marsden's biography is for everyone (I would probably recommend Murray's as an Edwards introduction for more casual readers), but for those who really want an idea of who Edwards was and what life and society were like as America started moving more and more towards revolution, Marsden's work is the one to go to.

>Thanks Brandon.

Paul Helm etc

2008-01-04T19:16:00.001Z

There is an interesting online interview with Paul Helm here. In the interests of full disclosure I should say that Prof Helm was the external examiner for my doctoral studies (and actually gave me the degree!) so I have myriad reasons for praising him. He is - much more importantly - a fine scholar and reader of Edwards. Which makes these comments all the more amusing:

GD: This year marks the 250th anniversary of the death of Jonathan Edwards. What, in your assessment are the some of the key strengths and weaknesses of the great man's theology?

PH: The strength is also the weakness: a confidence in human reason which is in some respects breathtaking (the relentlessness of his argumentation in Freedom of the Will), in other respects ridiculous (his view of the continuity of things and people through time, as expressed in his Great Christian Doctrine of Original Sin). In many ways he is an archetypal 18thcentury figure. Interesting that the influence of the Enlightenment should reach so powerfully into the recesses of New England; there is irony here, an arch-conservative using the ‘latest thought’ (in Edwards’ case Newton and Locke), to assist ole’ time religion. Perhaps there’s a lesson for us.While one cannot but recognise his greatness Edwards has always seemed to me to have been a tiresome person, aristocratic, tactless and remote, and something of a know-all (justifiably perhaps!), but not someone I’d like to have had as a pastor. Sorry, I’m straying from your question.

Prof Helm blogs eruditely at Helm's Deep. When that article on Edwards on the Trinity appears it will feature here!

Ministerial Compensation

2007-12-27T09:12:00.001Z

The Daily Telegraph , 27 December 2007, notes the following with reference to salaries in the Church of England:

In monetary terms, their services are less valued now. A diocesan bishop receives £36,230 a year, and an auxiliary suffragan bishop only £29,560.
advertisement.
That is less than a teacher, though we expect great things of bishops.
But, as we report today, instead of finding ways of attracting better candidates, perhaps by increasing the amount they receive to a level where they might no longer wonder how to pay for the children's shoes, the Church Commissioners, in a secret document, have recommended that more than a fifth of bishops should simply be abolished.

Jonathan Edwards, particularly in the 1740s, was particularly irritated by the level and reliability of his salary payments. It reminded me of these rather idiosyncratic comments from the seventeenth century Cambridge Reformed theologian William Perkins:

'All men are flesh and blood. In that respect they must be allured and won to embrace this vocation by the kinds of arguments which may well persuade flesh and blood. The world has had a careless attitude about this in every age. Consequently in the law, God gave careful instructions for the maintenance of the Levites (Num. 18:26). But especially now, under the gospel, the ministerial calling is poorly provided for, even although it deserves to be rewarded most of all. Certainly it would be an honourable Christian policy to make at least good provision for this calling, so that men of the worthiest gifts might be won for it.

The lack of such provision is the reason why so many young men with unusual ability and great prospects turn to other vocations, especially law. That is where most of the sharpest minds in our nation are employed. Why? Because in legal practice they have all the means for their advance, whereas the ministry, generally speaking, yields nothing but a clear road to poverty.'

From William Perkins, The Art of Prophesying (reprint Edinburgh: 1996), 95.

I wonder what Edwards would make of this argument? It isn't exactly a Pauline theme - Paul was more commonly heard to boast that he was Christ's doulos rather than his well-paid civil servant. Perkins was a fabulous theologian, but this is a very odd argument. Isn't the cross of Christ meant to motivate Christian service? Aren't there myriad other motivations in the Scripture apart from money?

A few from Edwards:

'They [ministers] shall then [at the judgement] receive a glorious reward for the good they have done in their successful faithfulness. The reward their Lord and Master shall bestow upon such ministers when they return to give him an account shall be exceeding excellent.' The Minister Before the Judgment Seat of Christ, in Salvation of Souls, 82.

Edwards' understanding of this issue of motivation comes across clearly in his sermon The Work of the Ministry is Saving Sinners (see Salvation of Souls, Crossway, 157-159). The doctrine of the sermon reads as follows:

'My design from these words is to consider Christ's expending his own blood for the salvation and happiness of the souls of men, in the view both of an inducement and a direction to ministers to exert themselves for the same end.' (159)

What then of 'inducement'?

After a lengthy and intensely theological discussion of the person and work of Christ - the cross represents 'the blood of God' shed for sinners - he writes that '[s]eeing Christ manifested so great a regard to the honor of God in the salvation of souls, surely his ministers ought earnestly to seek that they may be the instruments of promoting of the glory of God in the same thing?' (169)

'If Christ thought the worth of souls to be so great as to answer such labors, such suffering, shall ministers begrudge Christ the same?' (170) ... 'An imitation of Christ in laying down his life for the good of souls is in Scripture in a peculiar manner recommended to ministers.' (171)

Edwards makes many other arguments in the sermon, none relating to a secure income. Can anyone rehabiliate Perkins for me please?

A Christmas Meditation

2007-12-18T15:29:00.000Z

He loved us first when we had no love to him and shall not we follow when he loves us and courts our hearts? He loved us that never did anything for him. Shall we not love him who became poor that we might be rich? ...

If it be so that Christ became poor that we might be rich, then these are exceedingly to blame who mind earthly things and don't seek the true riches. How much soever Christ has laid out himself to make us spiritual[ly] rich and rich in another world there are many men that don't regard it. Christ thought it worth the becoming poor for men's sakes, but many men don't think it worth their troubling themselves about.

They neglect these riches that Christ bought at so dear a rate and they are pursuing of earthly riches. All or most of their concern is what they shall eat, and what they shall drink and wherewith all they shall be clothed. Christ might have kept in heaven where he was for all them, and spared all that cost. Truly, if you choose earthly possessions, money and land, and meat and drink, or houses and clothing, rather than the righteousness and sanctification, and God's love and heavenly glory, the riches which Christ by his poverty has procured, you are like to go without 'em. You must have your house and lands, and meat and drink, and clothing and nothing else. You must "have your portion in this life" [as in]Psalms 17:14.

IV. The doctrine reproves those who are, upon occasion, afraid of becoming poor for Christ's sake when they are called to part with something for the relief of the poor, or for the maintaining the gospel, or to help their brethren and neighbours. They are exceeding careful least they should hurt themselves. They think with themselves that they are forced to labour a great while to get so much, and to part in a minute with what they get by many a hard blow, and have no profit by it. They grudge at it. They think they shall at that rate become poor and run themselves into hardship. They hope to have benefit by Christ poverty. They hope he became poor that they might be rich. But they [are] exceeding cautious that they don't endanger their own being poor for Christ. The blood run free from Christ's veins and out of his heart. He freely shed it for sinners, but anything of theirs' comes hard from them as their blood. There is abundance of this more or less in multitudes of men. It is a common thing to be too grudging, too apt to think about the difficulty and about the danger.

From a 1728 sermon on II Cor 8.9.

With the disclaimer that JE would never have celebrated anything as pagan as Christmas!

Arminian vandals?

2007-12-17T18:13:00.000Z

The JE page on wikipedia is being vandalised. Who would do such a thing?

If it is you, please cease and desist.

Jonathan Edwards: A life

2007-12-17T12:03:00.000Z

From a helpful review of a great book. In the opening section of the review McClymond writes that Marsden's volume on Edwards is like Peter Brown's on Augustine. That must be correct. He concludes:

Jonathan Edwards offers correctives to some common images of Edwards. First, this book should banish forever Perry Miller's myth of the lonely American genius. It embeds Edwards so deeply in his familial, social, cultural, historical, literary, and religious context that it may be impossible ever to extricate him--and that is just as it should be. Second, by placing piety ahead of intellect, this book challenges any notion of Edwards as a thinker with philosophical ideas that can be detached from his theological beliefs. To attempt such a separation is to dismember Edwards's thought, which is held together by his concept of God. Third, Marsden problematizes the image of Edwards as a Calvinist saint. Though Marsden's Edwards is someone whom most thoughtful persons might enjoy speaking with at least once, he is not a person whom many would want to befriend. His uncompromising standards would likely make him attractive only to those who shared his total spiritual commitments (5-6).

What makes Marsden's Edwards seem approachable, though, is his very consciousness of tendencies to pride, self-righteousness, and judgmentalism, and his lifelong efforts to overcome them. Such self-awareness distinguishes this portrayal of Edwards from the serenely self-confident Calvinist that appears in both the admiring and disparaging biographies of the past. Marsden's Edwards--unlike earlier versions--is capable of self-doubt. This internal complexity makes Edwards appear human, and it may be an element in his extraordinary creativity. He is like a demanding piano instructor or symphony maestro who relentlessly drives himself and others to peak performance but secretly wonders if he has been too harsh and strident. Marsden's biography gives a clearer window into Edwards's soul than anything else we are ever likely to read.

From

George M. Marsden, Jonathan Edwards: A Life. Review By: McClymond, Michael J., Church History, 00096407, Mar2007, Vol. 76, Issue 1

Progress in Doctrine

2007-12-08T13:20:00.000Z

'Tis God's design gradually to introduce an increase of light to correct mistakes, and more and more to show his people the way of truth and duty.

From One Great End in Appointing the Gospel Ministry, Works, 25, 445

The Complete Works?

2007-11-22T08:40:00.001Z

Ken is going to be gutted to discover that someone else has transcribed and published all the JE manuscripts. Or else this is not the complete works.

Historic Connecticut Buildings

2007-10-04T13:49:00.000Z

Check out this website....it is the personal site of a guy who very wisely came to the Minkema-Maskell lectures on Jonathan Edwards at the Wood Library in South Windsor last fall.

He's got some great shots and blurbs about historic buildings in CT.

http://historicbuildingsct.blogspot.com/

Greetings from the leafy suburbs of central Jersey!

caleb

Wine

2007-09-27T11:41:00.000Z

J.E. at the ETS

2007-09-24T18:43:00.000Z

Courtesy of The Conventicle.

JEC Hires Adriaan Neele

2007-09-24T18:28:00.000Z

There are big changes afoot at the Jonathan Edwards Center. Caleb Maskell, who has been the Associate Director of the JEC since August 2004 is resigning his post to begin a PhD in Religion in America at Princeton University. Maskell will be replaced by Dr. Adriaan Neele.

Adriaan Neele comes to the JEC from the University of Pretoria where he was a professor on the Faculty of Theology. A scholar of post-reformation studies, Neele has written a book entitled The Art of Living to God: A Study of Method and Piety in the Theoretica-practica theologia of Petrus van Mastricht.

We are very excited to have Adriaan Neele come on board with us. We will be posting an interview with him on our site in the near future. Also, Caleb Maskell will remain on board at the JEC as a research editor. All of his contact information remains the same.

John MacArthur

2007-09-24T17:40:00.000Z

also likes Jonathan Edwards. Here.

Sovereign Grace

2007-09-15T15:00:00.000Z

'Edwards cherished the Calvinist doctrine of the sovereignty of grace. He agreed that Christ died only for the elect and that they alone would experience the supernatural and sovereign "divine influence and operation, by which saving grace is obtained.'

E. Brooks Holifield in 'Edwards as Theologian' in The Cambridge Companion to Jonathan Edwards, 149.

Mary

2007-09-13T16:08:00.000Z

Thanks for the email containing this link. An article on Edwards view of Mary. It is a polemical piece!

Al Mohler's Advice

2007-09-12T17:16:00.000Z

Al Mohler thinks you should invest in the works of Jonathan Edwards and read them. I agree.

Federal Vision

2007-09-08T19:27:00.000Z

I am a curious bystander observing the ongoing debates within some Protestant circles in the USA over the doctrine of the covenants, the nature of sacraments, and other issues. The debate normally surfaces under the heading 'The Federal Vision.' On one side, Douglas Wilson, Peter Leithart, Rich Lusk, Steve Wilkins and numerous others. On the other side a host of OPC, PCA, and other Reformed pastors. Clear so far? If not don't worry. I just want to highlight something in a book called 'The Federal Vision and Covenant Theology' by someone called Guy Prentiss Waters.

The thing that intrigues me is that Prof Waters claims that his anti-Federal Vision position is the position held by Jonathan Edwards. So in the preface I read that Mr Waters 'daughters are, through my wife, descended from the ministries of Solomon Stoddard and Jonathan Edwards. It is my fervent hope that the biblical doctrine preached from that pulpit in Northampton will, by the blessing of the Holy Spirit, thrive in the Reformed churches of my own and my young daughters' generations.' (xv-xvi)

Edwards only gets a couple of mentions in the book. Once where Waters picks up on Leithart's use of Edwards' trinitarianism. The second reference is to Qualifications for Communion (p.289) where JE reflects on sacramental eligibility.

Does this signal the beginning of a new interest in Edwards and the sacraments?

'the public good': ministers and magistrates

2007-09-06T13:30:00.000Z

Edwards' preaching frequently addressed public issues and those with public roles - no shy pietism from Jonathan! Gerald McDermott tracks all sorts of aspects of this in his book One Holy and Happy Society: The Public Theology of Jonathan Edwards (The Pennsylvania State University Press, 1992). In particular, he notes that:

'Edwards did not shrink from telling rulers how they ought to behave. In a 1738 sermon, the pastor-turned-political theorist lectured the handful of magistrates in the congregation (and the voters who elected them) that good rulers would serve the public good, not their own private interests.' (122)

Here is the section from Charity and Its Fruits:

'Especially will a Christian spirit dispose those who stand in a public capacity, such as ministers and magistrates and all public officers, to seek the public good. It will dispose magistrates to act as the fathers of the commonwealth with that care and concern for the public good that the father of a family has for the family, watchful against any public dangers, forward to improve their power to promote the public benefit, not being governed by selfish views in their administrations, seeking only or mainly to enrich themselves, or make themselves great, and advance themselves on the spoils of others as wicked rulers very often do. A Christian spirit will dispose ministers not to seek their own, not merely to seek a maintenance, aiming to get what they can out of their people to enrich themselves and their families, and to clothe themselves with the fleeces of their flock. But a Christian spirit will dispose them mainly to seek the good of their flock, to feed their souls as a good shepherd feeds his flock, and carefully watches over it, to lead it to good pasture, and defend it from wolves and other beasts of prey.' Works, 8, 261-262.

Human Nature

2007-09-05T15:59:00.000Z

'Jonathan Edwards is sometimes criticized for having too dim a view of human nature, but it may be helpful to be reminded that his grandmother was an incorrigible profligate, his great-aunt committed infanticide, and his great-uncle was an ax-murderer.'

George Marsden, Jonathan Edwards: A Life (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2003), 22.

Discovering Jonathan Edwards 1929

2007-09-04T12:21:00.000Z

I'm very glad that Edwards' works are widely available now along with several excellent biographies:

"The necessity of constant study for the work of the ministry remained one of Dr Lloyd-Jones' deepest convictions and was one of the main features of his own daily living. Next to his Bible it was probably Jonathan Edwards' Works which provided the greatest stimulus to him at this date. While still in London he had asked a Welsh Presbyterian Minister for the name of books which would help him prepare for the ministry. One recommendation he received was Protestant Thought Before Kant, written by A.C. McGiffert. Although the book did not live up to his expectation, while reading it he came across the name of Jonathan Edwards for the first time. His interest aroused, Dr Lloyd-Jones relates: 'I then questioned my ministerial adviser on Edwards, but he knew nothing about him. After much searching I at length called at John Evans' bookshop in Cardiff in 1929, having time available as I waited for a train. There, down on my knees in my overcoat in a corner of the shop, I found the two volume 1834 edition of Edwards which I bought for five shillings. I devoured these volumes and literally just read and read them. It is certainly true that they helped me more than anything else.'"

Iain Murray, D. Martyn Lloyd Jones: The First Forty Years 1899-1939 (Edinburgh, 1982), 253-254.

Advice for a Young Preacher

2007-09-03T11:09:00.000Z

In 1973 D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones wrote to a 'young preacher':

'With regard to books that have meant a great deal to me, I think I would have to put at the very top of my list the works of Jonathan Edwards.'

Iain Murray, D. Martyn Lloyd Jones: The Fight of Faith 1939-1981 (Edinburgh, 1990), 420.

Lloyd-Jones at the Beinecke

2007-09-03T10:57:00.000Z

'In this crowded trip in the summer of 1967 I think there was nothing which ML-J personally enjoyed so much as the initial weeks of relaxation in New England. It was his longest visit to that part of the States, and he had the leisure to explore the parts of its history and literature which interested him most. He was fascinated by the new Beinecke Library at Yale, and especially by the room housing the Jonathan Edwards manuscripts where he was welcomed by two of the men responsible for the new Yale edition of Edwards' Works. He spent an afternoon with them in conversation and in examining the preacher's letters and sermon notes. No less memorable was a day spent in Stockbridge - the outpost among the Indians where Edwards went after his dismissal from Northampton. ('I always remember that if Edwards could be ejected by his congregation anyone could!' he was to say at the 'At Home' in September.)

Iain Murray, D. Martyn Lloyd Jones: The Fight of Faith 1939-1981 (Edinburgh, 1990), 575-576.

David Martyn Lloyd-Jones: Edwards for Preachers?

2007-09-01T14:26:00.000Z

"I can simply testify that in my experience the help that I derived in my early years in the ministry from reading the sermons of Jonathan Edwards was immeasurable. And, of course not only his sermons, but also his account of that Great Awakening, that great religious Revival that took place in America in the eighteenth century, and his great The Religious Affections. All that was invaluable because Edwards was an expert in dealing with the states and conditions of the soul. He dealt in a very practical manner with problems arising in a pastoral ministry among people who were passing through the various phases of spiritual experience. This is invaluable to the preacher."

D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Preaching and Preachers (Hodder & Stoughton, 1971) 176.

minkema strikes back

2007-08-23T20:26:00.000Z

on july 22nd, JEC executive director ken minkema was featured in a boston globe story about some long-lost books of massachusetts church records.

a quote from ken: "'I can't emphasize how amazingly important this is,' said Minkema, beaming."

check out the whole article here...

beauty and synthesis

2007-08-15T14:47:00.000Z

Here at the office we get GoogleAlerts on all things relating to Jonathan Edwards. A guy who comes up from time to time is a computer programmer named Jonathan Edwards. A research fellow at MIT, he posts on his blog, Alarming Development, about all sorts of programming futurism.

Usually his posts are way over my head, but today I saw something quite interesting. He posted a response to a book just published by O'Reilly (computer publishing bigdog) called Beautiful Code. The book's basic thesis is that beauty should be a guiding principle of computer programming as the most beautiful things also tend to be the simplest and best things.

Interesting. Absolute. Edwardsean.

However, Jonathan Edwards the MIT programmer takes umbrage at this statement for another very Edwardsean reason: human inability.

Jonathan Edwards, programmer writes:
"A lesson I have learned the hard way is that we aren’t smart enough. Even the most brilliant programmers routinely make stupid mistakes. Not just typos, but basic design errors that back the code into a corner, and in retrospect should have been obvious. The human mind can not grasp the complexity of a moderately sized program, much less the monster systems we build today. This is a bitter pill to swallow, because programming attracts and rewards the intelligent, and its culture encourages intellectual arrogance. I find it immensely helpful to work on the assumption that I am too stupid to get things right. This leads me to conservatively use what has already been shown to work, to cautiously test out new ideas before committing to them, and above all to prize simplicity."
Click here to read the whole post.

This got me to thinking about Jonathan Edwards the theologian, and the relationship between his aesthetics, his treatment of human fallenness, and his sense of the world as being a system for enacting God's redemption for the sake of God's glory. There are so many places to go to ponder this, but I landed at Miscellany 1296, on the New Heavens and New Earth.

Jonathan Edwards, theologian writes:
"The most perfect and beautiful material parts of this lower creation are, in a sort, animated, having a vegetative life, and these parts we see receive a great alteration and are made unspeakably more excellent and beautiful on the presence of the sun. 'Tis probable that the material parts of that most perfect part of all the creation, the heaven of heavens, the paradise of God, are most resembled by the most perfect parts of this world.

Indeed, in some respects the animated parts of this lower, material world are less perfect than some of those that are not animated, particularly in that they are not so durable. Hence, perhaps some may be ready to imagine that all susceptibleness of change in material things is an imperfection of them, as arguing corruptibleness and a being easily destroy[ed], as we see grass, leaves, flowers, and plants in general, that so easily put on a new form, are easily destroyed and sooner decay and come to a dissolution than other things that are hardest, most fixed, and furthest from any such mutability, as gold, diamonds, etc.

But because we see it to be so here, this is no argument that it is so in all other worlds. 'Tis no evidence that hardness and fixedness of substance is necessary to durability. It will certainly be otherwise in heaven. The glorified bodies of the saints will be exceeding far from this fixedness. They (as we must suppose) will be most flexible, movable and agile, most easily susceptive of mutation, both from the acts of the indwelling soul and also from the influence of Christ, who will be as it were the animating soul of that whole world, the common fountain of all life, and animating influence, and yet will be immortal and incorruptible. The fixedness of these inanimate parts of this lower world is really an imperfection, wherein appears most of that chief imperfection of material things, as below the things which are spiritual, even their inert quality, or what philosophers call vis inertiae..."
Click here to read the whole post.

What hath Cambridge to say to Stockbridge? Stockbridge to Cambridge? And who says that theology is esoteric theory......enjoy!

Why Did Graham Preach Sinners?

2007-08-14T20:03:00.000Z

There has been a really wonderful response to our online exhibit about Billy Graham's preaching of Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God. Looking at this week's cover of Time magazine, it seems clear that now is the time to be thinking about the man who was not only the 20th century's more popular evangelist but also the presidential pastor-in-residence.

As such, I'd like to highlight a question that remains in my mind at fifty years distance from Graham's preaching of Sinners: Why did he choose to preach it?

Was he out of sermon ideas?

Did Sinners simply interest him?

Was he trying to get a reaction from a complacent crowd using a surefire rhetorical tactic that he would later regret, as a couple of biographers have noted?

Or was there something more going on, some kind of theological alignment in which Graham showed himself to bear the colors of traditional American theological orthodoxy while modifying it slightly for the sake of his national political context?

This is a question that Andrew Finstuen takes up in his very fine article found on our website as part of the Graham/Sinners exhibit.

Here's a lengthy quote from Andrew's paper:

"...If Graham’s reassurances were ultimately inconsequential to the larger theme of the sermon, his moral gloss on behavioral sins, although brief, was an important departure from the original text. At a point where Edwards commented upon the “torments of hell” that resided in “the very nature of carnal men,” Graham decried the sins of “the people on the Sunset Strip” and of “the people in the gambling dens of iniquity tonight in Los Angeles.” Whereas Edwards was in this passage more alert to sin as a state of being, Graham remarked upon particular sins, such as those of the Sunset Strip—likely a reference to sex and alcohol—and those of the gambling den.

This moralistic tendency was a signature aspect of Graham’s ministry. Both at the Los Angeles Crusade and in his subsequent campaigns and books he often discussed sin as a matter of bad behavior rather than as a constitutive aspect of human character. Sex and alcohol were some of his favorite targets for his diatribes against particular “sins.” For example, sex—which Graham called “America’s greatest sin” in 1955—threatened “the very structure of our society!” Evidence of licentiousness was everywhere. The “outward signs of inward impurity” included “the shifty eye” and the “lewd stare.” Such alarmist comments became less frequent as Graham matured theologically, though he never completely eliminated such hyperbole from his sermons and books. As late as 1965, for example, he warned that immorality would be the undoing of western civilization, observing that the decadent “moral binge” of mid-century superseded even the excesses of pagan Rome.
Graham’s admittedly embellished denunciations of the poor state of American morality masked his concern for the larger problem of concupiscence, the theological term for the sin of unlimited desire. Graham, to be sure, did not provide a full account of this deeper interpretation of desire in 1949. But as his career advanced into the next decade he developed this aspect of his theology of sin. For Graham, the void present among Christians and non-Christians who lacked a personal relationship with Jesus Christ drove them to “search for something” that might give life meaning, peace, and happiness. This search sent humans in all directions, and many Americans, Graham asserted, preferred the “altars of appetite and desire” to the wisdom of God. The outcome of these searches was always the same: emptiness and misery.

Graham did not, however, indict worldly pleasures as such, but the flagrant abuse of pleasure. For example, even sex was not sinful in itself, but rather it was the misuse of sex that concerned Graham. His emphasis on such particular sins likewise veiled his insistence that “right living” had nothing to do with salvation. Although he often appeared to preach a gospel of good behavior, Graham insisted throughout his career, just as Edwards had done in his warning against the morally calculated life, that that no one earned, by behavior or otherwise, the blessing of God. As he definitively stated in his best selling Peace With God in 1953, Christians could not “worship, or moralize [their] way to God.” These subtleties, though, were often lost amidst his own moral jeremiads and the prejudices of his many critics.

Apart from Graham’s condemnation of the Sunset Strip, the second noteworthy departure form “Sinners” was his decision to stop preaching well short of Edwards’s original conclusion...."

Click here to download Finstuen's paper

The Divinity of Christ

2007-07-28T22:40:00.000Z

From "Miscellanies" No. 1349, a lengthy discussion and collection of notes on the Divinity of Christ:

'TRUSTING is abundantly represented as a principal thing in that peculiar respect due to God alone, as a peculiar part of the essence of divine adoration, due to no other than God. And yet how is Christ represented as the peculiar object of the faith and trust of all God's people, of all nations, as having all-sufficiency for them. Trusting in any others is greatly condemned, is a thing than which nothing more is represented as dangerous, provoking to God and bringing his curse on men. Men are abundantly called upon to trust in Christ, not only in the New Testament but the Old, as in the end of the second Psalm and elsewhere.'

Billy Graham Preaches "Sinners In The Hands of An Angry God"

2007-07-23T21:25:00.000Z

In the Fall of 1949, at the height of his famous Los Angeles "Canvas Cathedral" Crusade, Billy Graham preached Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God. That night, America's most famous sermon was preached by the man who was to become America's most famous evangelist. This was no ordinary revival meeting!

The Jonathan Edwards Center has worked in conjunction with the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association and the Billy Graham Center Archives in Wheaton, Illinois to present an engaging digital exhibit on this remarkable event in American religious history.

Check the exhibit out at http://edwards.yale.edu/graham

2003 Desiring God Conference

2007-07-14T09:01:00.001Z

The 2003 Desiring God conference on Edwards is available online here.

"cool trinitarian speculation"

2007-07-14T08:57:00.000Z

Jeff Meyers is enjoying Edwards here.

Matthew Poole: Synopsis Criticorum aliorumque Sacrae Scripturae Interpretum

2007-07-07T12:25:00.000Z

In the "Blank Bible" Edwards references Matthew Poole's Synopsis Criticorum aliorumque Sacrae Scripturae Interpretum 792 times. Poole's work is a massive scholarly work on Scripture. There is a version of the work in the JEC and it is vast.

So here is the interesting suggestion for a doctoral thesis: Examine Edwards use of the SSS (as JE refers to it!) and see how his reading of the SSS influenced his reading of the OT. Most of the references are to OT texts. In particular, how his reading of the SSS can be seen in his OT sermons. So the link between exegesis and homiletics would be clarified.

Any takers? I am working on an article on his use of Doddridge - there are only 303 references to Doddridge and they are nearly all in the NT.

For more on this all see "Blank Bible": Works, 24, 59ff.

A Sweet Flame

2007-07-05T15:27:00.000Z

JE is looking a bit sickly in this new volume - don't you think?

A Sweet Flame: Piety in the Letters of Jonathan Edwards

Author: Haykin, ed., Michael A. G.
Publisher: Reformation Heritage Books
Publish Date: 2007
Cover Type: Paperback
Pages: 169
ISBN: 9781601780119

“A Sweet Flame” introduces readers to the piety of Jonathan Edwards (1703-1758). Dr. Haykin’s biographical sketch of Edwards captures the importance the New England minister placed on Scripture, family piety, and the church’s reliance upon God. The remainder of the book presents 26 selections from various letters written by Edwards, two written by family members at his death, and an appendix drawing upon Edwards’s last will and the inventor of his estate. “In this collection of letters Michael Haykin offers you a behind-the-scenes look into the life of Jonathan Edwards. As you look, you will see him dealing with sick children, trying to make sense out of the conflict with his Northampton congregation, and reveling in the serendipities of friendship. Read these letters and you will find Edwards becoming your own ‘most obliging and affectionate friend in the labors of the gospel.’” --Stephen J. Nichols

“Jonathan Edwards was not only a brilliant theologian, but also a devoted husband, father, pastor, and friend. Underneath it all, he was a man passionate about living in joyful obedience to God. In this highly recommended collection of letters, skillfully edited and annotated by historian Michael Haykin, Edwards’s warm-hearted piety shines through on every page, giving us a glimpse into the heart and mind of this servant of God.” --Justin Taylor

“A rare privilege awaits you. In these pages, you are about to meet one of the great Christians of all time: Jonathan Edwards! Your guide is reliable. Dr. Haykin has gathered some of the choicest letters of Edwards. In them, you will discover the insights of this noble leader on “Piety,” up close and personal. Piety? That is the way we tap the resources God provides, to live for His glory and help others find them, too. Before going on to the high ridges of thought, your escort will sketch the chief events of Edwards’ life. Then, in the letters, you will find Edwards’ views on piety, in his own words. Treasures for all ages are here. Edwards tells how he found heaven within, God’s mighty presence, enabling him to meet every challenge and be more than conqueror. Best of all, he had the radiant hope of being at home with the Lord in the life beyond. Bringing the eternal into practical situations is no mean feat. Edwards, however, accomplishes just that. We see his role as a child, husband, parent, pastor, mentor, and educator—with pungent thoughts on conversion, prayer, the Bible, revival, evangelism, and other vital topics. Each fruit of the Spirit is to be found here, expressed in Edwards’ own words, dem¬onstrated in his life. The selections were chosen wisely. We are all indebted to Dr. Haykin for his outstanding service in making these classics available in such an attractive format. Now, to savor them!” --George S. Claghorn
This product was added to our catalog on Wednesday 16 May, 2007

Did JE expect too much of Northampton?

2007-07-05T12:39:00.000Z

Just came across this article and will post some notes on it if it is interesting.

Jonathan Edwards's Life of David Brainerd and the Northampton Dismissal

John Grigg

Abstract

By the middle of the 1740s, the relationship between Jonathan Edwards and his congregation at Northampton had begun to slowly unravel. Prompted by Edwards's attempts to combat what he saw as a growing lack of spirituality, the debate became focused on the requirements for church membership and communion. Heretofore unnoticed in this debate was the role of Edwards's most popular work, the Life of Brainerd. Although the Life of Brainerd addressed broader questions such as Arminianism and enthusiasm, its central message was a real example of the normative Christian life. Edwards intended this to buttress his position on church membership but the impossible standard set forth in the Life of Brainerd instead contributed to the growing sentiment in the town for his dismissal.

2007-07-03T10:44:00.000Z

Michael McClymond reviews Avihu Zakai's Jonathan Edwards's Philosophy of History here in PDF and here in HTML. The book is also featured by the publisher here. The reviewer is a well-regarded scholar and the review is, for want of a better expression, robust.

Here are a few lines from the review:

'Jonathan Edwards's Philosophy of History is a disappointing book that offers little beyond the existing studies of its topic in book chapters, articles, and dissertations. It is most convincing where least original and least convincing where most original as, especially, in its assertion of Edwards's theologia gloriae. In repudiating what he calls "a particularistic center in history" (p. 254), Zakai dissolves the particularities of Edwards's perspective. Redemptive history loses its sense of drama and becomes predictable. Edwards's intellectual biography receives scant attention. This reader would have liked to know how the euphoria of the Great Awakening and the later disappointments molded Edwards's thinking on hope and history. Edwards was, if nothing else, a complex thinker, and yet the complexity of his thought is not in evidence here. Jonathan Edwards's philosophy of history is still in need of a book-length monograph.'

The Holy Wrath and Vengeance of God

2007-07-02T13:27:00.000Z

From Christ's Example an Inducement to Ministers - text from the online archive

'yea gave himself in both body and soul and offering for sin and as the price of the Et. Happiness of the souls of Men as it were in a fur- nace and that the most terrible the furnace of the holy wrath and vengeance of God for the sins of men He did not die a natural but a violent death and that not an accidental death but he was executed as a male factour. and suffered that Kind of Execution that of all that was then in use in the O was the most painfull and the most Ignominious wherein he suffered the most extreme degree of the Contempt and cruelty of the vilest and worst of men and of all Ranks of men and of devils and which was more than all He suffered the terrible Effects of the holy wrath of God .'

A remarkably clear statement of penal substitutionary atonement.

Filial Obedience

2007-06-30T19:06:00.000Z

'Christ shed his blood in the exercise of a filial obedience to his heavenly Father. He did it in the exercise of a holy submission and entire resignation to the will of God ...'

'Christ's sacrifice an Inducement to Ministers' in Works, 25, 671.

Cambridge Companion Again

2007-06-29T09:46:00.000Z

Harry Stout's article in the Cambridge Companion to Jonathan Edwards examines the relationship between history and revival in Edwards' theology. It is a good summary article, it introduces the material well and it outlines some of the thinking that Stout develops at more length in his introduction to Works, 22. Stout traces Edwards tripartite discussion of history - the history of redemption on earth and the related history of heaven and hell. Stout notes the frequent mention of angels in the story (when will someone write a work on Edwards and angels? PhD thesis someone?) on p.131.

Stout concludes:

'By 1745 the evangelical campaign for the trans-Atlantic world became derailed in the face of renewed war with France, and Edwards would become derailed by his own congregation who dismissed him with rancor on both sides. Edwards would not live to see another awakening, and he went to his grave disappointed and a failure.' (141)

Peter Beck on Edwards on Sin

2007-06-28T18:20:00.000Z

New Article on Edwards: July 2007.

'The fall of man and the failure of Jonathan Edwards.' By: Beck, Peter. Evangelical Quarterly, Jul 2007, Vol. 79 Issue 3, p209-225,

Looking particularly at the detail of Edwards' explanation of Adam's fall and the use of the idea of self-love. Here is the plot spoiler:

'In light of Edwards' profound work, Freedom of the Will, this theological dilemma becomes all the more complex.'

BTW the academic convention for citing Edwards' "Miscellanies" is "Miscellanies" No. ## etc. There is no academic convention for citing a single "Miscellany". The term "Miscellanies" (with the "") is a shorthand adopted by the Yale Edition supported by JE who referred to "Miscell." and Jonathan Edwards Jr. who referred to the "Miscellanies." Schafer writes (Works, 13, 3, n3.) '[t]he word "Miscellanies" is not a plural but a collective noun, and "Miscellany" is not a singular but is identical in meaning with "Miscellanies".

Following Prof Schafer's wisdom is historically informed and honors a giant of scholarship on Edwards. Not many of us would be reading the "Miscellanies" without him! The manuscripts of the "Miscellanies" are amongst the most incredible in the whole collection, and it is a testimony to the extreme labor and dedication of a few people that we have the "Miscellanies", the "Blank Bible" and dozens of other manuscripts available in both letterpress and online editions.

Divine Accommodation

2007-06-27T10:22:00.001Z

I'm reading through Jon Balserak's (insanely expensive) Divinity Compromised: A Study of Divine Accommodation in the Thought of John Calvin (Springer: 2006) for a book review. It is striking how frequently Calvin turns to accommodation in his exposition of Scripture. This is the best extract from Edwards that I could find in which he discusses accommodation in the context of theological mystery:

'I rather wonder that the Word of God contains no more mysteries in it; and I believe 'tis because God is tender of us, and considers the weakness of our sight, and reveals only such things as he sees that man, though so weak a creature, if of an humble and an honest mind, can well enough bear. Such a kind of tenderness we see in Christ towards his disciples, who had many things to say, but forbore, because they could not bear 'em yet. And though God don't depart from truth to accommodate his revelation to our manner of thinking; yet I believe he accommodates himself to our way of understanding in his manner of expressing and representing things, as we are wont to do when we are teaching little children.'

"Miscellanies" No. 583

Colin Gunton Memorial Prize

2007-06-25T15:05:00.000Z

Surely the set topic - the Spirit in the church - lends itself to an Edwardsian theme?

See here.

The Society for the Study of Theology and the International Journal of Systematic Theology offer an annual essay prize in memory of Colin Gunton. The prize for 2006 has been awarded to Dennis Hou, of Thousand Oaks, California, whose winning paper entitled ‘The infinity of God in the biblical theology of Denys the Areopagite’ will be published in a forthcoming issue. The SST and IJST would like to offer their congratulations to the winner, and their thanks to all those who entered the competition.

The topic for the 2007 prize is:

The Spirit in the Church

The winning essay will be awarded a prize of £200 and will be published in IJST; other essays may also be considered for publication, subject to the agreement of their authors.

Essays should be between 7,000 and 9,000 words long, including notes; they should be written in English, and should follow the style guidelines laid out in the ‘Notes to Contributors’ in IJST.

They should not have been published before, or be under consideration for publication elsewhere. Authors should submit FOUR typed and stapled copies of the essay, and ONE copy of an abstract of not more than 100 words. The essay's title should appear on the abstract and all copies of the essay, but the name of the author should only appear on a separate cover sheet, together with the title of the essay. Essays will not be returned; copies may be kept in the SST archive. As the prize is intended to celebrate Colin Gunton's contribution to constructive Christian theology, essays should work within that broad area; they will be judged on academic merit.

The closing date for essays to be received is 1 November 2007. The judges (two nominated by IJST; two by SST) will make their final decision in January 2008, and all authors will be informed of the result shortly thereafter. The winner will be invited to the SST annual conference in 2008, where a presentation of the prize will be made at the conference reception.

The Society may be able to provide some assistance with the costs of attending the conference.
Essays should be submitted to:

Dr Mike HigtonSociety for the Study of TheologyDepartment of TheologyUniversity of ExeterQueen's BuildingQueen's DriveExeter EX4 4QHUnited Kingdom

After Edwards

2007-06-19T12:48:00.000Z

'The legacy of Jonathan Edwards was both profound and widespread. First there were the members of his family - his progeny was numerous. Then there were his disciples. Many Americans had in truth been awakened by the Great Awakening, and a steady stream had come to study at Yale under Jonathan Edwards Jr., and Timothy Dwight, grandson of Jonathan Edwards. His disciples were numerous as well. Prominent among them were Samuel Hopkins, Nathaniel Emmons, and Edwards Bellamy.'

Hughes Oliphant Old, The Reading and Preaching of the Scriptures in the Worship of the Christian Church Volume Six: The Modern Age (Eerdmans, 2007), 139.

On preaching

2007-06-16T10:28:00.000Z

A good way to begin reading Edwards is to start with his sermons. I would recommend this (which is very cheap) and this as initial reading. Of course, we have a brief introduction to the sermons on our website here and we have many of the sermons free online here. Prof Wilson H. Kimnack wrote the main introduction to the sermons in the Yale edition (Volume 10) and also wrote the introduction to volume 25. He also has an essay on the sermons in The Princeton Companion to Jonathan Edwards entitled 'The Sermons: Concept and Execution.'

In order to get an overview of the sermon corpus I highly commend beginning with Kimnach's essay in The Cambridge Companion to Jonathan Edwards called 'Edwards the preacher.' It is the distillation of many years labors in the manuscripts and texts of Edwards' sermons and it is worth its weight in gold. WK offers an historical survey covering Edwards' life and develops some of the central changes and patterns in his preaching. There are many excellent essays in this volume, but it is worth the money to read this one.

Kimnach begins by noting that Edwards began his sermon training listening to his own father in the pulpit and the 'sermon of Edwards's youth was essentially the seventeenth-century Puritan sermon, as busy in its formal structure as the music of Johan Sebastian Bach. His father's baroque sermons could well have over fifty numbered heads (not to mention subheads), though the language was indeed plain (104).'

It is important to know one thing when reading the sermons - the highpoint of Edwards' homiletical endeavor, contrary to what one might naturally assume, was not the end of his life. Rather, the 'second phase of Edwards's preaching career, 1729-42, during which he began to employ the sermon primarily as an instrument of awakening and pastoral leadership, is the period of his most sustained and intensive homiletical effort (110) ... The publication of Edwards's five discourses in 1738 marked the high point of his pastoral preaching, and the sermons of the 1730s, taken as a whole, have a technical mastery and consistency of finish unmatched elsewhere in his career (115).'

This should help you know which years to look at first if you are reading the sermons here.

Communion in the Spirit

2007-06-13T16:54:00.000Z

I read this book when it was a doctoral thesis, but I managed to miss it coming out a few months ago in paperback. I've ordered it and I'm keen to know how significantly Dr Caldwell has developed the argument of the thesis.
I blogged this book previously here.

The book blurb:

This study explores the central connection Edwards drew between his doctrines of religious experience and the Trinity: the person and work of the Holy Spirit.

Edwards envisioned the Spirit's inter-Trinitarian work as the affectionate bond of union between the Father and the Son, a work which, he argued, is reduplicated in a finite way in the work of redemption. Salvation is ultimately all about being drawn in love into the Trinitarian life of the Godhead.

Dr Caldwell takes us through the major regions of Edwards' theology - his Trinitarianism, his doctrine of the end for which God created the world, his Christology, and his doctrines of justification, sanctification and glorification - to demonstrate the centrality of the Holy Spirit throughout his theology.

'a fine piece of work', Douglas Sweeney

A lecture on Edwards

2007-05-30T08:58:00.000Z

Item 26 here is a lecture by Dr. David Calhoun of Covenant Seminary on the Life and Theology of Jonathan Edwards. You can get it as an MP3 or as a transcript. The full html transcript is here - I won't reproduce it on this blog because of the copyright.

Nature of True Virtue in Czech

2007-05-24T20:09:00.000Z

*from Anna Svetlikova, JEC Fellow*

One of the excitements of the Jonathan Edwards Conference in Budapest was the
showcasing of not two, but THREE new Edwards translations.
As mentioned in a previous post Edwards' Nature of True Virtue has been translated into Hungarian. The translation was presented to the world in the heart of Budapest, together with its companion, the Hungarian translation of Religious Affections.

Given this momentum in Eastern Europe, it should not slip under the radar that just a few days before the conference, the Czech publishing house Navrat also released Nature of True Virtue in Czech, translated by Radek Hanzl. What's more, since Czech and Slovak are very similar languages, Nature of True Virtue is now accessible to Slovaks as well!
Check it out at www.navrat.cz.

Harry Stout @ Princeton

2007-05-22T18:33:00.000Z

Harry S. Stout, director of the Jonathan Edwards Center, recently traveled to Princeton to give a lecture on the moral history of the Civil War. As any Edwards buff knows, a trip to Princeton by an Edwardsean is a potentially mortal move...not to be taken lightly!

Stout's moral history of the Civil War, Upon The Altar of the Nation, has elicited much acclaim and accolade (a finalist for this year's Lincoln Prize) as well as some controversy. Stout's application of just war theory to America's most contested war has definitely stirred debate and emotion among many of the nation's leading scholars of the war.

Thanks to the Center for the Study of Religion at Princeton University, you can check out Stout's lecture on the subject and get in on the debate.

View the lecture with the links below:
RealVideo: 56K 350K WM Video: 56K 350K

Budapest Wrapup Forthcoming....

2007-05-15T16:11:00.000Z

hi all. we're back from Budapest. once the whirlwind of things done and things left undone settles, i will publish a real wrap-up of the conference along with some video clips from the talks.

for now, suffice it to say that the conference was a resounding success. gerry mcdermott and the faculty and staff of the Karoli Gaspar University did a fantastic job of bringing the conference to fruition. there were just under 100 people in attendance (though the numbers dwindled by the last sessions when the picture was taken!) and among them representatives of many countries worldwide. it was a significant couple of days for Edwards studies...we have seen once again that Edwards truly is a figure of worldwide significance. a heartening prospect for our little project to be sure.

more to follow....

caleb

Roland Andre Delattre, 1929-2007

2007-04-26T16:03:00.000Z

We were saddened to hear that distinguished Jonathan Edwards scholar Roland Andre Delattre died on April 17th, 2007. Professor of American Studies and Religious Studies at the University of Minnesota, he was the author of the seminal work on Edwardsean aesthetics, Beauty and Sensibility in the Thought of Jonathan Edwards: An Essay in Aesthetics and Theological Ethics. With this important volume, Professor Delattre made a lasting contribution to Edwards studies in the 20th century.

Click here to read his obituary in the Minneapolis Star-Tribune.

And read our post here on beauty.

Religion and the American Mind

2007-04-17T19:47:00.000Z

Jeff Waddington is a PhD candidate at Westminster Theological Seminary in Philadelphia and he has kindly written at our request an extended review of Alan Heimert's Religion and the American Mind. We are posting his review here, along with a notice that we are selling this volume at a nice discount through our online store.

Thanks Jeff.

Religion and the American Mind :
From the Great Awakening to the Revolution
By
Alan H. Heimert
Originally published by Harvard University Press
Cambridge, MA: 1966.
Reprinted as part of The Jonathan Edwards Classic Studies Series
by The Jonathan Edwards Center at Yale University
and
Wipf & Stock Publishers
Eugene, OR: 2006

Introduction

If one can believe the foreword and back cover blurbs of this reprint of the late Alan Heimert’s Religion and the American Mind, the reappearance of his seminal study of the relationship between religion and politics in eighteenth-century America may just prove to be one more piece of evidence demonstrating that resurrections do in fact happen. This book shook the scholarly world when it made its first appearance in 1966. It was panned by many within the historical studies community because it challenged the reigning paradigm of the day. And that paradigm was that the rise of American democracy was fueled inter alia by the “Liberal” clergy of the day. Heimert argued that American democracy arose with the assistance of Evangelical clergy as religion was central to American life at the time. It appears then that Heimert demolished the facile coupling of “Liberal” religion and liberal politics (see Andrew Delbanco’s Foreword).

Jonathan Edwards stands at the heart of the story Heimert tells. While Edwards himself died in 1758, some eighteen years before the signing of the Declaration of Independence, his influence continued on in his disciples well into, and indeed beyond, the era of the Revolution. However the influence was not so straightforward as all that. But this is a fascinating tale well-told. I shall look at the general storyline of the book, then offer some comment on the story itself and upon the place of Jonathan Edwards and his influence within that story.

Christianity and the Rise of American Democracy
Alan Heimert unfolds for us the narrative of the rise of American democracy from the time of the Great Awakening through to the two decades following the Revolution. It had been assumed by many historians of the early American colonies that liberal democracy grew with the fortunes of Liberal Christianity. Heimert showed that this was not the case. Contrariwise, while Liberal clergy eventually gave their support to the Revolution, the impetus for the rebellion came from “Calvinist” clergy who had been influenced by the writings of Jonathan Edwards. As is well known, the Liberal clergy (represented by Charles Chauncy) sparred at length with conservative clergy (such as Jonathan Edwards) over the legitimacy of the Great Awakening.

At the heart of the dispute between pro-Awakening and anti-Awakening clergy was how the unusual phenomenon of the Awakening should be evaluated. Did the odd behavior of the people who came under the teaching and preaching of pro-Awakening clergy signify that the Awakening was dangerous? Was the Awakening dangerous because it roused the passions of the “unwashed” multitudes (p. 93)? As Heimert points out, the dispute between Edwards and Chauncy surrounded the understanding of the human personality or soul. The dispute was in some sense all about faculty psychology (pp. 44-46; 109-110n; 113n; 209-210; 277). Was the human soul ruled by the reason or intellect? Did the intellect rein-in the otherwise potentially unruly passions? Or was the personality an integrated whole made up of the intellect and will that ideally worked together? Chauncy argued that Christianity was a reasonable religion suited to reasonable gentlemen (pp. 278-279). For him the intellect ruled. For Edwards, the human personality was an integration of the intellect and will. The whole personality was fallen in sin and could be restored in regeneration. The Liberal clergy seemed to suggest, if not outright affirm, that while the will was fallen, the intellect was exempt from the effects of the fall.

Debates between Liberal and Calvinist clergy over faculty psychology and the populist nature of the Awakening transmogrified over time into debates about submission to the royal government in Great Britain. And yes, the two sides in the Great Awakening tended to carry forward in the debates that occurred in the colonies during the years leading up to the Revolution. The Liberal clergy tended to be hierarchical in their thinking about society as much as they had been about the faculties of the human soul. And the ostensible heirs to the legacy of Jonathan Edwards fueled the fires of rebellion from pamphlets and pulpit.

So how did the legacy of Jonathan Edwards work itself out in this context? Three writings of Edwards play prominent roles in the days leading up to the American Revolution. The first was Freedom of the Will where Edwards defined freedom as the absence of physical restraint and the ability to follow one’s own inclinations. The second was The Nature of True Virtue in which Edwards argued that only the regenerate could practice true virtue which he defined as love to being in general. The third was An Humble Attempt in which he called for a sweet union of all Christians in prayer for revival. These theological writings were taken up into the colonies-wide discussion about the fortunes of the America and somehow metamorphosed into political tracts for the times. Edwards’ discussion of freedom laid the groundwork for the demand that royal restraints on the colonists be overthrown. It was not possible for the colonists to exercise true virtue when they were enslaved by the Royal government of King George III and his minions in Parliament. And they discovered that there did exist a sweet harmony between colonies and citizens as they united as one nation against royal tyranny.

The Liberal clergy were not completely unsympathetic to the concerns of the “wretched” masses yearning to breathe free. But being the conservatives they were, they were distrustful of passions set aflame and they were zealous to maintain their social prerogatives (pp. 261-262). They were concerned to remind the people that it was a privilege to live under British constitutionalism. While Calvinist clergy did not encourage anarchy, they came to realize that the manifest destiny of the American colonies was independence from the mother country and self-rule. And so we moved through the Great Awakening to the American Revolution. Sides were drawn early on that were on the whole maintained to the decades following the Revolution and thereafter.

Some Comments
Alan Heimert has told a fascinating tale and has presented a cogent case for the fact that Liberal religion and liberal politics were not exactly cozy bed-fellows. He paints a picture of Liberals and Calvinists parting company at the Great Awakening and remaining separate right through to the time of the American Revolution. It is true that some of the Liberal clergy did eventually support the rebellion, but one gets the impression that they did so against their better judgement and only after the tide had so turned against loyalty to the crown. On the other hand, the Calvinist clergy, ostensibly building on the legacy of Jonathan Edwards, fanned the flames not only of revival, but revolution. But the reader can be forgiven if he or she asks how this could have happened? How did a religious debate turn into a political fight? And how was Edwards involved?

First let the obvious be noted. The American Revolution was not the first fight that involved the mixture of politics and religion. The fathers came to these shores with a model of the relation of church and state, known as the “Medieval synthesis” or Christendom, in which the two were distinguished but held the church regnant. Separation would be a later development. It was expected that the church would be upheld and supported by the state. What is surprising is that the very people who fought for the disestablishment of the church (the “Separatists”) in the colonies turned around and pushed for the glorification of the American colonies. There was a sort of bait and switch at work here. Some were cognizant of this phenomenon, others were not at all, and others only faintly. Here is what I mean. The disciples of Jonathan Edwards who fought to remove the privileges of the Congregational churches in New England and the Anglican church in Virginia, for instance, were the same folk who forged a “nation with the soul of a church” (to borrow an expression from Alexis de Tocqueville). The postmillennial eschatological gaze was transferred from the church to the colonies-soon-to-be-new-nation. In other words, there occurred a confusion of the nation with the church. Whereas the first generation may have confused the church with the colony, the Revolution era generation confused the nation for the church. And we still live with this phenomenon in the United States of the twenty-first century.

Second there is the issue of Alan Heimert’s historiographical taxonomy. While it has been the standard move in various religious histories of America to divide Christian churches into Liberal and Evangelical factions, recently Presbyterian church historian Daryl G. Hart has argued for a third category of Confessionalists (see his The Lost Soul of American Protestantism). Hart argues that Liberals and Evangelicals are both varieties of Pietism and that the discussion leaves out an important group of Christians, those who stressed orthodox doctrine. The truth is, Heimert’s categorization could lead one to assume that all Old Lights and Old Sides (those within the Congregational and Presbyterian churches that had problems with the Awakening) were proto-unitarians. This is clearly not the case. It is true that Charles Chauncy did go that way. But not all those opposed to the Great Awakening were drawn to rationalism per se or to heterodoxy. There were questions about different models of the initiation of the Christian life (nurture or conversion) and the significance of doctrine vis-a-vis experience involved here that get passed over when we fail to categorize with greater nuance. One does not have to agree with all of Hart’s conclusions to agree with his point. Heimert’s terms may be misleading in this regard as well. Both the Liberals and the Calvinists came from a Reformed background. The Arminianism of some of the clergy became apparent over time, but denominationally both groups, especially in New England, would have understood themselves (rightly or wrongly) to be Calvinists in the broadest sense of the term.

Thirdly, what is the significance of Jonathan Edwards for the telling of this tale? I would like to answer this question in two ways. First I will comment on the use of Edwards by those who participated in the drama and then second I will make some remarks about Heimert’s treatment of Edwards and his disciples. Edwards is clearly at the epicenter of the rumblings of the Awakening and its secularization in the rise of American democracy. The question arises as to how faithful Edwards’ disciples were to their master. I am inclined to think that he would not have been pleased with the politicization of his theology. This is not to say that theology does not have social consequences. It is just to point out that when Edwards addressed the nature of freedom, that discussion was in the context of the Reformed/Arminian debate, not in the context of relations between the colonies and the mother country. There was an apparent facile equation of spiritual and political freedom. I would also hasten to point out that Edwards’ discussion of true virtue argued for the fact that only the regenerate can exercise true virtue. It would seem that the virtue of the colonists was a constricted love. As good as love for country can be (and in its place, is), Edwards considered patriotism to be an extended form of self-love. It was not indicative of love for being in general (God or God and his creation depending on whose interpretation you follow). And Edwards’ call for unity was issued to Christians in the church international and was meant to foster and encourage concerts of prayer for the revival of the church.

That brings us to my final remarks about how Alan Heimert handles Edwards. Overall Heimert does an admirable job narrating the story he has set out to tell. At points it is captivating and enthralling. And I think he has succeeded in arguing for his main thesis. Liberal clergy were not in the forefront of the American Revolution. The rebellion was fueled, rather, by the pro-Awakening clergy and their descendants. However, Heimert shares at least one characteristic with his mentor and colleague in the American Literature department at Harvard, Perry Miller. Miller thought that Edwards represented a return to a more pristine Calvinism with its stress on predestination as over against an Arminianizing covenant theology. Miller reflected, perhaps in an inchoate fashion, what has come to be known as the “Calvin versus the Calvinists” approach to the issue. Heimert pits Edwards against covenant theology. It has been shown that Edwards was a covenant theologian of the first rank (see Carl Bogue’s Jonathan Edwards and the Covenant of Grace) and a read through his Miscellanies should disabuse anyone of the Miller hypothesis. And the ground-breaking scholarship of Richard Muller (for instance, in his four volume Post-Reformation Reformed Dogmatics) has reminded us that the Reformed tradition embraces many more theologians than just John Calvin (like Edwards’ favorites Peter Van Mastricht and Francis Turretin), as significant as he was (and he was!).

There are other observations I could make, but these should suffice. Alan Heimert challenged the historiographical hegemony of his day. And while Religion and the American Mind was panned in 1966 when it was originally published, it has rightly gained recognition for its insights in the mean time. And with this recent republication at the behest of the Jonathan Edwards Center at Yale University, a new generation of Edwards scholars and scholars of American religious and political history will benefit from Heimert’s study.

Sacrament, signs, and understanding

2007-04-09T13:01:00.000Z

'So the sacraments of the gospel can have proper effect no other way, than by conveying some knowledge. They represent certain things by visible signs. And what is the end of signs, but to convey some knowledge of the things signified? Such is the nature of man, that nothing can come at the heart but through the door of understanding: and there can be no spiritual knowledge of that of which there is not first a rational knowledge. It is impossible that anyone should see the truth or excellency of any doctrine of the gospel, who knows not what the doctrine is. A man cannot see the wonderful excellency and love of Christ in doing such and such things for sinners, unless his understanding be first informed how those things were done. He cannot have a taste of the sweetness and divine excellency of such and such things contained in divinity, unless he first have a notion that there are such and such things.'

'The Importance and Advantage of a Thorough Knowledge of Divine Truth', in The Sermons of Jonathan Edwards: A Reader Edited by Kimnach et al (Yale University Press, 1999), 32

Heaven

2007-04-07T19:53:00.000Z

'The way to heaven is a heavenly life. ... Seek heaven only by Jesus Christ ... If we therefore would improve our lives as a journey towards heaven, we must seek it by him and not by our own righteousness: as expecting to obtain only for his sake, looking to him, having our dependence on him only for the purchase of heaven, and procuring it for us by his merit. And expect strength to walk in a way of holiness, the way that leads to heaven, only from him.'

Jonathan Edwards, 'True Christian's Life a Journey Towards Heaven' in Works, 17, 433.

'vapid, sizy and scarce fluids'

2007-04-06T10:55:00.000Z

The second chapter of the CPJE covers Edwards' Personal Writings. Ken Minkema looks at Edwards' Resolutions, Diary, his apostrophe on Sarah Pierpont, the Personal Narrative, his Account Book, Last Will and Testament and Children's Accounts. The source material is limited and restricted in the time periods that it covers but KM does a great job of unveiling aspects of the personal Edwards. There are some tremendous quotations. For example, the personal reflection in his letter to the trustees of the college of New Jersey in 1757: 'I have a consitution in many respects peculiar unhappy, attended with flacid solids, vapid, sizy and scarce fluids, and a low tide of spirits; often occasioning a kind of childish weakness and contemptibleness of speech, presence and demeanor; with a disagreeable dullness and stiffness, much unfitting me for conversation' [43]. Imagine writing that on your letter of application for a job!

The chapter is well-grounded in the historical context - whether in showing us the commonplace practice of drawing up resolutions, or, in attitudes to slavery and cultural elitism. Edwards comes across as we suspect he might: curious and odd with likeable aspects here and there.

The Cambridge Companion to JE

2007-04-05T15:23:00.000Z

Over the next few weeks I'm hoping to post some comments on the JE companion from CUP. My initial impression is that is represents the best of the current crop of scholarship on various aspects of Edwards' life and thought. There are a number of gaps here and there (it would have been good to have had a chapter on personal piety, though the issues arises here and there) but in general it is an excellent introduction. It will quickly be listed as a standard textbook for college classes on JE, along with Marsden's biography. Considering the terrifying vastness of writing on JE it is a welcome relief to have so much distilled into 350 pages.

The volume is edited by Steve Stein and it reflects his exacting standards. The introduction serves as a useful guide to where we are now with Edwards and how we got to this point. If nothing else this Companion will add further ammunition for those attempting to present a more complex, historical, and interesting Edwards than the one associated with Sinners. As Stein notes '[t]he goal of this Cambridge Companion to Jonathan Edwards is to provide a wide-ranging interdisciplinary encounter with this significant American figure' [9].

The first chapter is a delightful potted biography of JE from the winsome pen of George Marsden. It is a nice overview in 18 pages - even undergraduates will have no excuse. One line that stands out for me is his reference to the significance of Jerusha's death in 1748: 'Jerusha's death brought an end to twenty years of remarkable well-being in the Edwards household and inaugurated some years of painful trials' [33].

JEC in New Haven Register

2007-04-02T14:07:00.000Z

This weekend, the Minkema/Maskell roadshow continues with a two-photo two-page article on the JEC in the New Haven Register. While we can't stand behind the reporting of all the quotes (cf. Maskell's alleged reference to "nuns"), we are happy overall.

Get it while its hot right here.

First Churches, Northampton temporarily closed

2007-03-23T13:54:00.000Z

Recently, the building of the First Churches, Northampton was forced to close its doors due to a rather dramatic event of plaster falling from the ceiling in the midst of a meeting.

Interestingly, even in his own day, Jonathan Edwards' church was no stranger to architectural drama. On March 19th, 1737, Edwards wrote a letter published in the Boston Gazette about a stunning event which he interpreted as "one of the most amazing instances of divine preservation, that perhaps was ever known in the land." (Works 4, 134) On Sunday morning during the congregational worship, the gallery of the meetinghouse (the "upper deck" of the church's seating area) came loose from its joists and came crashing down upon the people seated for worship below. I will let Edwards tell the story:

"...soon after the beginning of the sermon, the whole gallery full of people, with all the seats and timber, suddenly and without any warning sunk, and fell down, with most amazing noise, upon the heads of those that sat under, to the astonishment of the congregation, the house being filled with dolorous shrieking and crying, and nothing else was expected than to find many people dead, and dashed to pieces."

Bad scene. Now for the preservation bit.

"But so mysteriously and wonderfully did it come to pass, that every life was preserved; and though many were greatly bruised, and their flesh torn, yet there is not, as I can understand, one bone broke, or so much as put out of joint among them all. Some that were thought to be almost dead at first, are greatly recovered; and but one young woman seems to remain in dangerous circumstances, by an inward hurt in her breast; but of late there appears more hope of her recovery."

And of course, Edwardsean preservation demands Edwardsean interpretation.

"There is none can give account, or conceive by what means it should come to pass, that people's lives and limbs should be thus preserved, when so great a multitude were thus imminently exposed. It looked as though it were impossible it should be otherwise, than that great numbers should instantly be crushed to death or dashed in pieces: it seems unreasonable to ascribe it to anything else, but the care of providence in disposing the motions of every stick of timber, and the precise place of safety where everyone should sit and fall, when none were in any capacity to take care for their own preservation...

Such an event may be a sufficient argument of a divine providence over the lives of men. We thought ourselves called to set apart a day to be spent in the solemn worship of God, to humble ourselves under such a rebuke of God upon us in the time of public service in God's house by so dangerous and surprising an accident; and to praise his name for so wonderful, and as it were miraculous a preservation; and the last Wednesday was kept by us to that end: and a mercy in which the hand of God is so remarkably evident, may well be worthy to affect the hearts of all that hear it."

There's so much in this interpretation that is classic Edwards. He draws the reader in with calculated, scientific description of joists and plaster, frosts and the spreading of wood (for more of this, see the whole account in Works 4, 133). He describes with cold precision the procession of a horrifying drama that is by all rights going to result in a massive loss of human life. And then, in the midst of such observation, mystery! wonder! rescue! a word from our Sponsor! Edwards uses this narrative to expose the fulcrum point at which the natural physical laws of earthly existence are being held together by absolute providential attention. Suddenly, in such a moment of rupture, he is able to locate himself and his people with pinpoint accuracy on a cosmological stage in the midst of their mundane experience. For Edwards, when the veil is torn, things can be seen more clearly. (What then does this say about his approach to revelation and his ostensible cessationism?)

Also, and I don't think this is too much of a stretch, Edwards weaves his contemporary narrative with narrative allusions to biblical stories, underscoring the importance of God's merciful choice to spare the people by aligning their fate with that of Christ...and urging them to live lives worthy of their callings.

"...though many were greatly bruised and their flesh torn, yet there is not, as I can understand, one bone broke..." (John 19:36, Hosea 6:1, Psalm 34:20)
"...many thought it had been an amazing clap of thunder..." (John 12:29)
"...the care of providence in disposing the motions of every stick of timber..." (Matt 10:28-33)
"...amazing noise...astonishment of the congregation...dolorous shrieking and crying..." (Matt 13:47-50, Rev 18:12-22, among others)
Regarding the destruction of the timber in the meetinghouse (Hab 2:8-14, Zech 5:3-5, et al.)

For Edwards, there is no difficulty in seeing these narratives of judgment and of mercy running together as streams that inform his typological/meta-narrative understanding of the events in the life of his congregation. God has mercy on his wayward people once again, but there are no guarantees that every day will be such a day of mercy. Edwards writes the story using the language that he does to "affect the hearts of all that hear it" and cause them to draw close again to God.

Nature of True Virtue in Hungarian

2007-03-19T15:37:00.000Z

As you hopefully know by now, the JEC is co-sponsoring a conference in Hungary this Spring...Jonathan Edwards in Europe.

In conjunction with the conference, Helikon Publishers have published a Hungarian translation of Edwards' treatise on The Nature of True Virtue. Click here to check it out.

Getaway Sermon (Marty on WJE)

2007-03-14T21:05:00.000Z

We were happy to see Martin Marty's commentary Volume 25 of the Works of Jonathan Edwards edition on the February 20, 2007 MEMO page of the Christian Century.
It is gratifying to see that Marty believes in the enduring importance of JE's life and thought for the 21st century.

We reproduce the article for you below by permission of the Christian Century .

Getaway Sermon by Martin E. Marty

CHRISTOPHER NIEBUHR of the well-known Niebuhr tribe wrote to me recently. He is celebrating the Yale University Press publication of Sermons and Discourses, 1743-1758 (edited by Wilson H. Kimnach), 800 pages of transcribed scripts and notes that make up the 25th and final volume of The Works of Jonathan Edwards. Niebuhr sent me a copy of notes
from the last sermon that Edwards preached to the Indians in Stockbridge, Massachusetts. Edwards had been run out of Northampton’s “Great Awakening” church in a complicated
“Bad Book” fight over ministry to youth, and preached at Stockbridge from 1751 to 1754, when most of the Indian congregation dribbled away. (Of course, Edwards needed translators—John Wauwaumpequunnaunt for the Mohicans and Rebecca Ashley for the Mohawks.) Then, in
1758, this twice-failed cleric moved from Stockbridge to become president of the College of New Jersey, but died soon after he arrived.

Failed cleric? Yale does not invest decades and top scholars do not give their best years and their eyesight transcribing the scribbles of second-bests.
Edwards was this continent’s prime evangelist, awakener, theologian, preacher and more. He inspired a small library full of large books and articles examining him, molecule of ink by molecule of ink. Volume 25 advertises “additional volumes forthcoming,” a signal that not all the scholars are up to speed on this unmatched publishing venture.

Many ministers have taken comfort from the fact that such a great preacher did not always satisfy his own congregation. Christopher did not tell me why he chose to point me toward Edwards’s “stirrup sermon,” presumably preached the day he galloped away and one week after a more official farewell sermon. (Yale also reproduces a picture of Edwards’s barely decipherable original notes.) But in these days of prosperity gospel, positive-thinking and
hooray-for-our-side “Left Behind” sermons, I thought readers might find it bracing to read how Edwards took leave:

WATCH AND PRAY ALWAYS
Luke 21:36 “Watch ye, and pray always.”
I. MANY dreadful things are coming upon this wicked world.
II. The righteous, and they only, shall be thought fit to escape those things that shall come.
III. All at last must be called to appear before Christ.
Christ will come. All must see him. All must [be] brought before him.
IV. The righteous shall be thought worthy to stand before Christ and no others.
First. The righteous worthy.
Second. Wicked not worthy.
V. We should watch and pray always that we may be thought worthy [to stand before Christ].
First. Watch.
Second. Pray.
Third. Always.
[APPLICATION]
What must watch against.
How watch.
What need of watching.
Always.
Prayer.
What pray for.
How pray.

There is no mention of a champagne toast, farewell gift or word of thanks from the congregation. You can be sure that, given this clear word from Edwards, we will 1) Watch and
2) Pray.

Copyright 2007 Christian Century. Reproduced by permission from the Feb 20th, 2007 of the Christian Century.

Abolition of the slave trade

2007-03-06T08:50:00.000Z

An excellent paper by John Coffey on William Wilberforce and the abolition of the slave trade may be found here. JE gets a brief mention, though the author doesn't argue that Wilberforce read Edwards. As far as I can recall without looking it up, I'm fairly sure that he did.

Old friends, new clothes

2007-02-26T18:49:00.000Z

Monergism now presenting Reformation and post-Reformation texts in modern garb.

First you open the cover.

2007-02-19T20:44:00.000Z

This present digital age has ushered in a revolution in the way that information is made available and delivered at all levels of society. The last time that there was a global media revolution this big was when movable type was introduced in China in the 11th century and then taken worldwide by Johannes Gutenberg in the 15th.

This video offers an interesting perspective on the way that times are changing.

Religion and the American Mind

2007-02-17T20:38:00.000Z

It is a source of great pride for us to republish Alan Heimert's volume in our JE reprint series. Please buy a copy here.

We say:

Exploring the richness of American thought and experience in the mid-eighteenth century, Alan Heimert develops the intellectual and cultural significance of the religious divisions and debates engendered by one of the most critical episodes in American intellectual history, the Great Awakening of the 1740’s. The author’s concern throughout is to discover what were the essential issues in a dispute that was not so much a controversy between theologians as a vital competition for the ideological allegiance of the American people. This is not a standard history of any one area of ideas. Mr. Heimert’s sources include nearly everything published in America between 1735. His study, in its range and conception, is an original contribution to an understanding of the relationship between colonial religious thought and the evolution of American history.

JE: Hypertextualist

2007-01-31T19:15:00.000Z

Here's a nice post from Jordan Ballor at the Acton Institute in Grand Rapids, MI about our present project.

We couldn't have put it better ourselves.

Check it out.

Deep Discounts on WJE Volumes

2007-01-30T15:47:00.000Z

I think that I have found the best prices on the web for Yale Works of Jonathan Edwards print volumes. Amazon Canada is selling books at nearly 40% off...this is close to the author discount!

Click here to check it out.

(Thanks to Bill Henard for the tip.)

The Yale Edwards by Alan Heimert

2007-01-19T20:14:00.000Z

The 1985/1986 Winter edition of Early American Literature contains a fascinating article by the late Alan Heimert of Harvard University. Heimert wrote when only seven volumes of the Yale edition were available. That is, seven volumes from 1957 to 1985. The rate of publication was lamentably slow and paralleled the disinterest of both Yale and Princeton in their (in)famous son and President respectively.

Heimert doesn't mince his words. He describes the situation as "a major scandal in American scholarship." Of course, the early volumes had great merit, they "unquestionably helped to inspire the efflorescence of Edwards scholarship in the 1960s and early 1970s, scholarship that has in turn informed the subsequent volumes ..." What is really striking is what was not available even in the late 1980s! No "Miscellanies", no collections of sermons, no "Blank Bible" and no notebooks on controversies. It is astonishing that these vital texts have only become widely available in the last decade.

Moreover, Heimert notes that "even biographical information on Edwards was comparatively scanty in 1957." Now we have the definitive volume by George Marsden (what a wonderful text for introducing Edwards and for guiding college students!) and numerous other biographical works.

Heimert's review of the first few volumes in the Yale Edition is worth reading to underline for a younger generation of scholars the vast strides that were taken in the 1990s. Much remains to be done and doubtless the next generation will offer up numerous revisions of previous studies of Edwards - both his ideas and his historical significance. But what a joy to work on Edwards in 2007 with 25 volumes of the Works in print and the online archive taking accessibility and searchability to a level hardly conceivable in 1986, let alone 1957!

The Jonathan Edwards Center at Yale University

On our status

want a Blank Bible without the work?

Jonathan Edwards for Armchair Theologians by James P. Byrd

two new books

Reading Jonathan Edwards by M.X. Lesser

Watch Jonathan Edwards preaching

Jonathan Edwards and Scotland Conference (30-31 March 2009)

Research on Jonathan Edwards

Screen grab of new online edition of JE works.

Sacramental Union in Christ

WJE 26: Catalogues of Books

Only one Jonathan Edwards missing?

Great News

Thomas A Schafer

The Preaching of Jonathan Edwards

Bill Schweitzer

The influence of Jonathan Edwards

Influence of Edwards: Timothy Keller

Religious Affections book club

Edwards gets Wordled

more summer reading suggestions

summer reading with Jonathan Edwards

Some of our books

From our reprint series ...

The JE experience at Yale

reviews of the Cambridge Companion to Jonathan Edwards

a mighty deluge

On arguments

Edwards, aesthetics, and the Eastern tradition.

Sam Storms on Religious Affections

Thorny Issue: Excursus

Thorny Issue 4

Thorny Issue: 3

Thorny Issue 2

The 'rather thorny problem': Divine Grace and Human Integrity

Breaking the Ice

Welcoming Brandon Cozart

Paul Helm etc

Ministerial Compensation

A Christmas Meditation

Arminian vandals?

Jonathan Edwards: A life

Progress in Doctrine

The Complete Works?

Historic Connecticut Buildings

Wine

J.E. at the ETS

JEC Hires Adriaan Neele

John MacArthur

Sovereign Grace

Mary

Al Mohler's Advice

Federal Vision

'the public good': ministers and magistrates

Human Nature

Discovering Jonathan Edwards 1929

Advice for a Young Preacher

Lloyd-Jones at the Beinecke

David Martyn Lloyd-Jones: Edwards for Preachers?

minkema strikes back

beauty and synthesis

Why Did Graham Preach Sinners?

The Divinity of Christ

Billy Graham Preaches "Sinners In The Hands of An Angry God"

2003 Desiring God Conference

"cool trinitarian speculation"

Matthew Poole: Synopsis Criticorum aliorumque Sacrae Scripturae Interpretum

A Sweet Flame

Did JE expect too much of Northampton?

The Holy Wrath and Vengeance of God

Filial Obedience

Cambridge Companion Again

Peter Beck on Edwards on Sin

Divine Accommodation

Colin Gunton Memorial Prize

After Edwards

On preaching

Communion in the Spirit

A lecture on Edwards