Jonathan Edwards Essay, Research Paper
Jonathan Edwards
Learning as a child is like writing in stone. Learning when you are
old is as if you were writing in sand. A fitting quote for Jonathan
Edwards, a man who helped define the New World through theology and
philosophy when the struggling New England colonies were still in their
infancy. Through his strong vision he believed the people could not return
to the past nor be satisfied with the present and for this he is a prime
example of a Calvinist and will be remembered among all who study this
early culture as a devoted preacher, an acute philosophical thinker, and a
shepherd of souls.
Jonathan Edwards was born on October fifth 1703 in the city of East
Windsor Connecticut and was the only son among ten daughters.
Edward s father was Timothy Edwards, who was a respectable pastor.
Edwards’ mother was Esther Stoddard. She can be considered more
famous than her husband because she was the daughter of Reverend
Solomon, a Puritan if there ever was one. He was the spiritual leader of
the town of Northampton, Massachusetts for 57 years. Reverend
Stoddard gained fame for winning a debate against Increase Mather on the
validity of the Half-way convenant. The Half-way covenant allowed
non-converters to be baptized, but they could not receive communion.
Two years before Stoddard s death, his grandson Jonathan Edwards rose
from assistant pastor to pastor. Jonathan Edwards spent a lot of his time
fighting against his grandfather s progress, saying he would admit to his
sacrament only those who gave satisfactory evidence of being truly
converted, siding with Mather on the matter. He was dismissed for this
reason in 1750, having alienated his entire congregation.
However Jonathan Edwards did learn much from his grandfather
and father about the importance of studying hard. As soon as he could
hold a pen he was learning to write. His father taught him several
languages such as Greek, Hebrew, and Latin. At the age of six he could
conjugate Latin verbs. At the age of six I learned how to spell my last
name, but up until then I swear we were running neck and neck. His early
mastery of these languages would later help him be an expert Bible scholar
and a powerful Bible messenger. If he lived today he would have spent
most of his time dodging spitwads and generally being mad fun of, as he
would often spend 14 hours a day studying. Starting at the age of twelve,
Jonathan Edwards became an acute observer of nature and wrote for a
naturalist in England an account of his observations on spiders, but
Edwards also loved to study about other insects. He watched insects
closely, especially ants, citing God’s word in Proverbs 6:6, which says, “Go
to the ant, you sluggard; consider its ways and be wise!” and Proverbs
30:25, “Ants are creatures of little strength, yet they store up their food in
the summer.” — saying we should admire the great diligence of the ants.
Edwards was interested in science and living creatures because he felt that
it helped him to understand the mind of the God who made all things with
purpose.
At the age of 13, Jonathan Edwards entered Yale College. It was
there that Edwards studied theology. In 1720 at age 17 Edwards
graduated from Yale, first in his class. Early in his pastoral career,
Edwards struggled with the meaning of true revival and wondered what
he could do to get his congregation to experience revival. His generation
was the second generation of the Puritans and Edwards saw a decline in
the spiritual zeal needed to continue the spread of the kingdom of God.
Edwards became focused on revival stating that they were at war
with a devil that was constantly trying to corrupt their new land. This is
why God’s church can never be satisfied or content. It must always make
every effort to enter through that narrow door of salvation. So Edwards
began a series of sermons with more prayer, in order to wake up the sleepy
congregation that had become too involved with their own business and
everyday life and not with Christ and his kingdom. In 1731, he preached a
message called, “God glorified in man’s dependence.” In it, he attacks the
liberal argument that sin was merely a condition of ignorance. He
believed that human sin was an inherent enmity against God and that
salvation meant a change of heart.
This challenged complacent believers (the modern day equivalent of
Easter and Christmas Christians) to earnestly, sincerely and thoroughly
search their hearts of sins and beg for forgiveness. He believed such
earnest soul searching by individuals was a step toward salvation. In 1733
he preached a message called “A Divine and Supernatural Light.” He
stressed that real Christianity requires encounters with the truth, but that
the truth must be illuminated by the presence of the Holy Spirit and that
only this can produce a sense of divine excellency of the things revealed in
the word of God. One of the effects of this encounter will be a delight in
the glory of God. He stated, “The convert does not merely rationally
believe that God is glorious, but has a sense of the gloriousness of God in
his heart there is a sense of the loveliness of God’s holiness.” Edwards
was writing from personal experience. When he first encountered the
Scripture under the illumination of the Holy Spirit, his life began to
change. Part of this new Spirit-driven concern in the young Edwards at
that time was a fervent interest in revival and the extension of Christ’s
Kingdom.
In the following year, 1734, Edwards began a series of sermons
about justification by faith. The main message was called, “Justification
by faith alone.” He said, “Justification comes not through good works, but
through faith.” He defined faith in terms of total response to Christ, of one
being in Christ. Edwards always stressed the central theme of the
religious experience or “sense of the heart” as he called it.
He believed in not dwelling on the past and stayed away from
causing a stir over how the church may have changed, unlike other
pastors. He did this not out of lack of respect for the past but under the
realization that this was a new era of religion. He was fond of saying
History was the unfolding of God s design and every happening in the
existence of man is properly understood only when we can perceive its
place in the great divine work of redemption. — simply meaning that
change is not horrible.
In the year of 1734, revival began to break out in Northampton,
Massachusetts. It began among the young people who had been drifting
away from the church. If a nation is to be revived spiritually, then it must
first come from its young people. The young are essential for they are not
fixed-minded or corrupt like old people. Young people tend to be more
eager to learn and pure in their desires. Acts 2:17 says, “In the last days,
God says, I will pour out my Spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters
will prophesy, your young men will see visions .” Young people,
especially those of college age were the best ones from which a spiritual
revival could take place. They are the hope of the country and its future.
And even many young people can bring their parents to the Kingdom of
God. Many young people wanted to meet with Edwards personally after
his sermons to have discussions.
In that year of 1734, a great change began to occur among the
people. There was a great and earnest concern about the things of God
and eternal life. An intense conviction of sin was nearly universal among
those responding to the Northampton revival. Deeper sins like pride and
envy were now the focus. Some people were even convicted that they
were not more convicted. That one kind of left me scratching my head. In
his early years, Edwards could not manage with all the small talk needed
for parish visitation. But now many came to Edwards personally to his
office to have Bible study. This revival of 1734 was the spark that was
fanned into flame along the whole East Coast until or about 1743. Some
more of the signs of this great revival were, for one, personal thirst and
desire for God for each individual. Secondly, the sharing of the gospel,
which was previously directed mainly from clergy to laity, now flowed in
new channels—from wives to husbands, even from children to parents.
Over a short period of time, hundreds came to Christ. Towns seemed to be
full of the presence of God. Edwards wrote,
“The town seemed to be full of the presence of God: it was never so full of
love, nor joy, and yet so full of distress as it was then it was a time of joy
in families on account of salvation being brought unto them; parents
rejoicing over their children as new born, and husbands over their wives.”
Edwards wrote about this revival in 1736 in a work called “A Faithful
Narrative of the Surprising Work of God.” He interpreted the religious
revival as evidence of God’s redemptive work in New England. Later he
wrote “The Distinguishing Marks of a Work of the Spirit of God” in 1741
and “Some Thoughts Concerning the Present Revival” in 1743. In both of
these works, he defended the revival as an authentic religious experience.
Edwards was very demanding upon his congregation. But it was in a good
way so that they would be true and sincere to God, who sees and judges
the heart. For instance in 1742, he drew up a covenant for his congregation
to sign, binding them to live their faith visibly. But Jonathan Edwards is
most noted for his famous sermon he delivered in 1741 called “Sinners in
the Hands of an Angry God.” This sermon created spiritual panic among
the congregation who heard it. His key verse was Deuteronomy 32:35
which says, “It is mine to avenge; I will repay. In due time their foot will
slip; their day of disaster is near and their doom rushes upon them.” In this
sermon he stated that the rebellious man is far too small and weak to resist
the judgment of God which was sure to come.
He said in his sermon,
“There is nothing that keeps wicked men at any moment out of hell, but
the mere pleasure of God Hell, the very expression of divine wrath, is
prepared; the fire is made ready; the furnace is hot now; the flames do now
rage and glow Unconverted men walk over the pit of hell on a rotten
covering, and there are innumerable places in this covering so weak that
they will not bear their weight, and these places are not seen.”
The response of the audience? It scared the hell into them with many
screaming and weeping. This sermon has the true meaning of the fire and
brimstone preaching.
In his numerous reaches wondering into the will of God, Edwards
came to two definitive conclusions that changed the way he lived and
taught. The first, was that human history will end several thousand years
after evil is crushed so we may experience every blessing God has given
us.
The second, was that the new world of America would be a major
part of world history between the present and end of the millennium. He
thought it was the closest place to heaven there was. He believed the New
World was discovered in order that the new and most glorious state of
God s church on Earth might commence there, that God might choose to
begin in it a new world of cultural respect when he creates the new heaven
and new Earth. The start of this miracle was supposed to take place in
New England.
His interest in natural science was continued in his mature years.
He advanced a theory of atoms, he demonstrated that the fixed stars are
suns, he made interesting studies on the growth of trees and on the
formation of river channels, he studied the principles of sound, the cause
of colors, and the tendencies of winds, and anticipated Franklin’s discovery
of the nature of the lightning. In one of his comments later in his life,
Edwards said that God had not hidden the treasures of knowledge in
nature to make things difficult for man, but to challenge his inquiring
spirit and curiosity.
On March 22, 1758 Edwards succumbed to a case of small pox
leaving behind his wife, eleven children, and a legacy. That driven quality
a person gets when they know they re capable of something is felt then the
same as it is now and as one of the first to embody that American attitude
and realize things would never be as they were before, his efforts, even
seeing the state of our religion today, have made an imprint on our
culture.
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