Personal Narrative | Jonathan Edwards

Plot Summary

An enlightening account of Edwards’ life and conversion. It is a defense of “pure spiritual emotion [as distinct] from the horde of imitations” (Perry Miller).

Author and Date

• Jonathan Edwards (1703-1758)
• Last of the Puritans
• “…the first major thinker in American history” (Paul Johnson)
• Attempted a Puritan revival in a changing American
• Attacks two things:
• an optimistic opinion of human beings (not fallen)
• a mechanistic view of the universe that excluded God –
• Edwards accepted the biblical testimony that God acts in history
• saw this action, like Puritan ancestors did, in context of God’s covenant with America
• could be good or ill activity of God
• July 1736: God’s displeasure at sinàdrought
• 1745: worms devour cropsàstinginess to poor
• Compares New England with Pharoah (refusal to repent of sin)
• Only son in the large family of a New England clergyman
• Graduated from Yale at age 16 first in his class
• Well-educated yet open to mystical experiences
• Wrote on everything from spiders to atoms to the mind
• Pastor in Northampton, Massachusetts, from 1726-1750
• Takes over grandfather’s pulpit, which he had held for nearly 60 years
• Believed fundamental sin is ingratitude: all come back to it
• History can only makes sense if it is seen from God’s perspective
• Otherwise, it has no overall purpose: it is just a collection of random facts (no metanarrative)
• Against Enlightenment philosophers (Descartes?, Hume, etc.): All knowledge and wisdom comes from God (Col. 2:3). We need to begin with God and Scripture, not fallible human reason.
• Kant: natural reason ends up in insuperable contradictions (antimonies); reason needs revelation because it is fallen
• Edwards said that everything is related because everything is related to God
• If true, then we can’t have morality without God, or anything else without God
• We don’t see interconnectedness of the world and God because of our sinfulness – and we never see it completely this side of heaven
• Saw history as working in three realms – heaven, earth, and hell
• All three realms are pulsating with life
• Heaven is “a world of love” in which inhabitants watch and participate in goings-on on earth
• Only on that side of eternity (heaven) do we experience enlightenment, to see things as they really are and not “as through a glass darkly” (Bible), as we do now
• this is true Enlightenment
• contra Buddha and philosophies
• His preaching (and that of others) leads to a spiritual revival in the Colonies – saw revival as foretaste of Second Coming of Christ
• The First Great Awakening (1734-35 and 1740-42)
• 1739: Whitefield to Northampton
• Edwards imitates evangelistic style
• Preaches Sinners in the Hands of An Angry God from two pages of notes (mostly extemporaneous)
• Talks about Hell w/in context of evangelism
• But later that same year he also preaches a sermon in same year to young children that says they (and by extension all Christians) should not fear: “If you love Christ, you will be safe from the devil, that roaring lion that goes about seeking whom he may devour. He will not be able to hurt you; you shall be out of his reach.”
• Ejected from his pulpit in 1750
• Great majority of members who dismissed him were older members who became members before Edwards came to the church and didn’t like Edwards’ fame
• Edwards holds up young as role models of faith
• Regularly accused congregation of individual and corporate sin
• Becomes pastor and Indian missionary at Stockbridge (40 miles away)
• Had lots of other offers
• Longstanding interest in Indian missions
• 150/Sunday versus 400/Sunday in Northampton
• Also works at Indian school there
• Lived among Indians, not apart from them
• His son, 6 when they moved, played with Mohican children and never spoke English outside of the house – even thought in Mohican
• He cared to save Indians, not exterminate or move them as many colonials did
• Preached against ill-treatment of Indians
• Said both equal in eyes of God
• No colonial grabs of Indian lands during Edwards’ tenure
• Was the frontier in Edwards’ day
• Indians in area were “Muh-he-cun-nuk” (Mohicans of James Fenimore Cooper’s Last of the Mohicans)
• Town had 250 Mohicans, 60 Mohawks, and a few others
• One (Col. Ephraim Williams) opposed Edwards coming to the pulpit, but thought his fame would at least increase his property values!
• Completes greatest writings, including On the Freedom of the Will
• Elected president of Princeton, but dies only three months after taking office
• Dies of innoculation against smallpox
• Remember Cotton Mather!
• Wrote 15 books
• More than just a theologian; also a philosopher
• Stereotyped as “fire-and-brimstone” preacher, but he preached many more sermons about God’s love
• Messages based more on joy (at God’s bounty; his imparting his own beauty and goodness into individual souls; joyàbeautyàGod is attainable by all) than fear
• Composed between 1756 and 1758

Historical Background

• Puritanism waning
• Revival needed
• Edwards and other preachers before Revolution
• God’s love is available to all, without regard to class or rank
• In tune with Americans’ instinctive disdain of aristocracy
• seeds of revolution planted through pulpits of America
• short jump from “priesthood of all believers” to independence from England
• role of individual conscience
• not all pastors are Patriots; some are Tories; others (Quakers) are pacifists
• revivals transcend sectionalism and unite nation for the first time as “America,” a cohesive (fighting) unit

Themes/Observations

1. Importance of inner conversion (not outward displays of religiosity)

2. Heart is central to true spirituality

3. Beauty of Christ condescending to sinners like us

4. Faith cannot be reduced to ethics or morality, no matter how important

5. Importance of revivalism in American history

6. Personal faith and revival – some say revivals in England spared that country the bloodbath of the French Revolution, where there were no equivalent revivals like that spurred on by the Wesleys, Whitefield, etc.

7. How Sept. 11 helps us to see the reality of evil in the world, and not just the good

8. Others??

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