Customer Reviews

Works of Jonathan Edwards, Vol. 2 (With a Memoir By Sereno E. Dwight)

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Martyn Lloyd-Jones said that he was "tempted, perhaps foolishly, to compare the Puritans to the Alps, Luther and Calvin to the Himalayas, and Jonathan Edwards to Mount Everest!" (The Puritans: Their Origins and Successors, p. 355). I concur. Nothing in my library holds such a storehouse of wealth, as do these two hefty tomes. Edwards was a brilliant theologian, a zealous evangelist, an astute philosopher, a warm hearted pastor, and an eye-witness (and one of the primary instruments causing) the first Great Awakening. If you want theology at its richest go to Edwards' "End for Which God Created the World." IF you want a passion for souls, read his "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God." If you are interested in well-articulated philosophy at its finest, peruse "The Nature of True Virtue." If you want biography geared to cultivate godliness in your own heart, read "The Life of David Brainerd." If you want pastoral counsel concerning the state of your soul, you will find nothing better than "The Religious Affections." And if you want to know what a REAL revival looks like, study "A Narrative of Surprising Conversions." (And those works are less than half of what is in here!) If my house were burning, I would probably grab for these two books second only to the Bible. To get Edwards is to get theology. So get Edwards!

Jonathan Edwards, The Works of Jonathan Edwards (Peabody, MA, Hendrickson Publishers, Inc, 5th Printing, 2005) Reprinted from an 1834 edition originally printed in Great Britain.

This note essentially deals with most of the Jonathan Edwards Collected Works series available today, except for the 25 volume Yale University Press edition of Edwards works, which is the only true `complete' collection of his writings, as it includes his letters and journals, which, I believe, appear in no other generally available volume. The 25 volume Yale edition, unfortunately for most of us, is practical only for university libraries. Most of the hardcover volumes in this series are priced at [...] from Yale University Press, a few are [...], and Edwards' Blank Bible is priced at [...]. The other side of the coin is that much of what Edwards wrote, such as his letters and voluminous notebooks are simply not available anywhere else.

So, compared to the Yale edition, this edition from Hendrickson Publishers (and any other edition which you can get for under [...] is a real bargain, because it has most of what you really want, and much of what you should have, even if you didn't realize it when you set out to find an edition of Edwards' works. (I believe the complete text in the Yale edition of Edwards' works can be accessed on the Internet at [...])

Of course, the volume has those things for which Edwards is best known, such as many of his sermons, with `Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God' as the first item in Volume 2. The major works you will want in Volume 1 are:

A Careful and Strict Inquiry Into the Prevailing Notions of

the Freedom of the Will

A Dissertation on the Nature of True Virtue

The Great Christian Doctrine of Original Sin Defended

A Treatise Concerning Religious Affections

Narrative of Surprising Conversions

Thoughts on the Revival of Religion in New England

Inquiry Concerning Qualifications for Communion

Misrepresentations Corrected and Truth Vindicated in

Reply to the Rev. Solomon Williams

A History of the Work of Redemption

Five Discourses on the Soul's Eternal Salvation

Of these, Treatise Concerning Religions Affections is Edwards' work which is most commonly read today. It is so much sought after that a an excellent recent book by Sam Storms, Signs of the Spirit, An Interpretation of Jonathan Edwards' Religious Affections literally paraphrases Edwards writing to make it more accessible to modern readers. This work, and many of the other works mentioned above were connected to Edwards' experience with the Great Awakening of 1740--1742, and his subsequent difficulties which lead to his being discharged as pastor in Northampton, Massachusetts. One selection one may be inclined to avoid is Edwards' Memoir, since there is a reward-winning biography of Edwards by George Marsden, published in 2004 (which I will highlight next week). This volume also contains A History of the Work of Redemption, the germ of what Edwards hoped would be his most important work, leading up to the notion that the New England revivals he fostered signaled the new coming of Christ.

The highlight of the second volume is collections of several sermons. To appreciate these, we must remember that Edwards lived closer to the time of Luther and Calvin than he did to the age of radio, film, television, and the Internet. Sermons, printed at Boston printing presses, were one of the main sources of diversion and information for pre-Revolutionary War New Englanders. Relatively speaking, an important sermon was delivered, printed, and distributed about as fast as a viral video today. It is important to note when and where each sermon was delivered. Those delivered in Boston may have had political implications. Those delivered in 1735--1736 and in 1741--1742 were fuel to the two episodes of Great Awakening sparked by Edwards' preaching.

One of Volume 2's contents may seem strange to those not familiar with Edwards' life. This is the Life and Diary of the Rev. David Brainerd. (According to George Marsden, this biography was the second most popular biographical work in America, up to the Civil War, after Ben Franklin's autobiography.) It is an object lesson on a virtuous live, a pastor whom Edwards mentored, and who literally boarded with the Edwards family (as several other young pastors did) before going off to his calling. Before Brainerd died, prematurely, he conducted a mission to the local Indians, a task whose importance we need to be reminded today. Central Massachusetts, in 1740, was literally on the frontier of a global struggle between England and France. The North American Indian tribes were pawns in that struggle. Whether they sided with the French in Quebec or the English in the NE colonies could tip the balance of power on the frontier. Thus, the Puritan missionaries were indirectly contributing to the military balance of power on the frontier. What made it worse for the Reformed Puritans was that the `other side' owed its allegiance to the Catholic Pope, viewed as the `Antichrist' as much in 1740 as he was in 1540. And the anger at the French Catholics was flamed by their persecution of the French Reformed Huguenots, especially after Louis XIV revoked the Edict of Nantes granting religious freedom.

This is not `complete' even of Edwards' published works.(it's missing Edwards' popular letter, Advice to Young Converts.) But as an inexpensive source for most of his major works, it can't be beat.

One cost for having so much of Edwards in two volumes is that the volumes are heavy, the print is very small, in double columns, and the typesetting, from 180 years ago, is distracting. It is also very light on commentary. It does not even give authorship credit for the introductory essay. It does, however, cite the date, place, and occasion for most of the sermons, and it has good citations on references to the Bible. This is the `Joe Friday' edition of Edwards. `Nothing but the facts, Ma'm'.