GOD GLORIFIED IN MAN’S DEPENDENCE

1. God Glorified. The title-page of the original edition of this sermon, the first work published by the author, reads as follows: “God Glorified in the Work of Redemption by the Greatness of Man’s Dependance upon Him, in the Whole of it. Preached on the Publick Lecture in Boston, July 8, 1731. And published at the Desire of several, Ministers and Others, in Boston, who heard it. By Jonathan Edwards A.M. Pastor of the Church of Christ in Northampton. Judges 7. 2.—Lest Israel vaunt themselves against me, saying, mine own hand hath saved me. Boston: Printed by S. Kneeland, and T. Green, for D. Henchman, at the Corner Shop on the South-side of the Town-House. 1731.”

The Public or Thursday Lecture, dating from the ordination of the Rev. John Cotton, in 1633, continued with occasional interruptions till the siege of 1775, later revived and existing, it is claimed, still, or until recently (see Dr. Samuel A. Eliot’s Preface to Pioneers of Religious Liberty in America, Boston, 1903), was famous among the social and religious institutions of colonial Boston. At one time the General Court regularly adjourned for it; that the Governor should keep Christmas and neglect it, was regarded by old Judge Sewall as a matter of grave reproach. The preachers were selected from the most eminent divines, not only of Boston, but throughout the colony. It is recorded, for instance, of Solomon Stoddard, Edwards’s grandfather and predecessor in the Northampton pastorate, that he annually attended the Harvard Commencement and the day after preached the Public Lecture. It was a great honor, therefore, for Edwards, a young man of twenty-seven, to be invited to preach on this foundation.

He himself seems to have fully appreciated both the honor and the opportunity. The original manuscript shows the most careful preparation. In the statement of the Doctrine, for example, there are several erasures and corrections before the right formula is hit upon. The printed sermon shows still more elaboration. Edwards chose as his subject one aspect of a theme which was central and controlling in his thought—God’s sovereignty. His mind had dwelt on this subject in all its bearings from childhood. He had especially meditated upon it as it related to the doctrine of decrees, a doctrine which he found at first revolting, but in the end “exceedingly pleasant, bright, and sweet.” No one since Augustine has emphasized as he has done the absolute sovereignty of God and the corresponding dependence of man. This conception of God’s arbitrary will—arbitrary, not as irrational or unrelated to the divine justice and benevolence, but as being “without restraint, or constraint, or obligation”—was not only the backbone of his system, but its heart, the principle which animates and pulses through the whole of it. It is the ultimate basis alike of his philosophy and of his religious faith. In this his first publication as in the great theological treatises which were his last, he is everywhere the prophet-like champion of this supreme idea in opposition to all those schemes of divinity, generally denominated Arminian, which implied in his view a degree of independence in man inconsistent with the absolute sovereignty he regarded as the distinguishing glory of God.

The sermon created a profound impression, as is evident both from the immediate demand for its publication, indicated on the title-page, and from the commendatory preface to the original edition signed by two of the foremost ministers of Boston, the Rev. Thomas Prince, of the Old South Church, and the Rev. William Cooper, of the Brattle Street Church. “It was with no small difficulty,” these gentlemen write, “that the author’s youth and modesty were prevailed on, to let him appear a preacher in our public lecture, and afterwards to give us a copy of his discourse, at the desire of diverse ministers, and others who heard it. But, as we quickly found him to be a workman that need not be ashamed before his brethren, our satisfaction was the greater, to see him pitching upon so noble a subject, and treating it with so much strength and clearness, as the judicious will perceive in the following composure: a subject which secures to God his great design, in the work of fallen man’s redemption by the Lord Jesus Christ, which is evidently so laid out, as that the glory of the whole should return to him the blessed ordainer, purchaser, and applier; a subject which enters deep into practical religion; without the belief in which, that must soon die in the hearts and lives of men. We cannot, therefore, but express our joy and thankfulness, that the great Head of the Church is pleased still to raise up, from among the children of his people, for the supply of his churches, those who assert and maintain these evangelical principles; and that our churches, notwithstanding all their degeneracies, have still a high value for just principles, and for those who publicly own and teach them. And, as we cannot but wish and pray, that the College in the neighbouring colony, as well as our own, may be a fruitful mother of many such sons as the author; so we heartily rejoice, in the special favour of Providence, in bestowing such a rich gift on the happy church of Northampton, which has, for so many lustres of years, flourished under the influence of such pious doctrines, taught them in the excellent ministry of their late venerable pastor, whose gift and spirit we hope will long live and shine in his grandson, to the end that they may abound in all the lovely fruits of evangelical humility and thankfulness, to the glory of God.”6. It was of mere grace ... for our souls. This passage may serve to illustrate the way Edwards expanded his sermons for the press (see Introduction, p. xxix). The manuscript reads as follows: “The Grace in giving this Gift was great in proportion to our unworthiness, it was given to us who instead of meriting that of G. which is of such Infinite Value merited Infinite Ill of him.” Then follows a space, above and beneath which, between the lines, are the words, “in proportion to the blessedness we have benefit we have given in him.” Continuing: “the giver in giving this gift is great according to the manner of giving. He gave him to us Incarnate he gave him to us slain that he might be a feast to our souls.”

THE REALITY OF SPIRITUAL LIGHT

21. Divine and Supernatural Light. The original title-page of this, the author’s second published sermon, reads as follows: “A Divine and Supernatural Light, Immediately imparted to the Soul by the Spirit of God, shown to be both a Scriptural, and Rational Doctrine; In a Sermon Preach’d at Northampton, and Published at the Desire of some of the Hearers. By Jonathan Edwards, A.M. Pastor of the Church there. Job 28, 20. Whence then cometh wisdom? and where is the place of understanding? Prov. 2, 6. The Lord giveth wisdom. Is. 42, 18. Look ye blind, that ye may see. 2. Pet. 1, 19. Until the day dawn and the day-star arise in your hearts. Boston: Printed by S. Kneeland and T. Green, M,DCC,XXXIV.” The sermon has a preface in which Edwards modestly disclaims any forwardness or vanity in publishing it and begs his readers to peruse it without prejudice on this score, or because of the unfashionableness of the subject. This to the general public. What he says to his own people shows how affectionate their relations to their young minister were at this time and how high his regard was for them; it has a pathetic interest in view of their passionate rejection of him at the last. “I have reason to bless God,” he writes, “that there is a more happy union between us, than that you should be prejudiced against any thing of mine, because ’tis mine.” He felicitates them on having been instructed in such doctrines as those in the sermon from the beginning. “And I rejoice in it,” he adds, “that Providence, in this day of Corruption and Confusion, has cast my lot where such doctrines, that I look upon so much the life and glory of the Gospel, are not only own’d, but where there are so many, in whom the truth of them is so apparently manifest in their experience, that any one who has had the opportunity of acquaintance with them, in such matters, that I have had, must be very unreasonable to doubt of it.”

This is justly regarded as “one of the most beautiful and most eloquent” of Edwards’s sermons (A. V. G. Allen, Jonathan Edwards, p. 67). It was preached at a time when the signs were multiplying of an increased interest in religion among the people of Northampton, preluding the great revival of the next and the following years. The original manuscript bears the date, August, 1733. The death of Mr. Stoddard in 1729 had removed the restraints of a long-established and unquestioned authority, and the results, as Edwards describes them, were deplorable. “It seemed,” he says, “to be a time of extraordinary dullness in religion: licentiousness for some years greatly prevailed among the youth of the town; they were many of them very much addicted to night walking, and frequenting the tavern, and lewd practices, wherein some by their example exceedingly corrupted others.” “But in two or three years ... there began to be a sensible amendment of these evils,” and “at the latter end of the year 1733, there appeared a very unusual flexibleness and yielding to advice” in the young (Narrative of Surprising Conversions). The improved conditions reacted on the preacher and, as a consequence, we have the sermon on Spiritual Light.

The principle enunciated in this sermon is the cardinal and controlling principle of the whole revival. The revival is just its exhibition and the experienced evidence, for Edwards at least, of its truth. Nothing in his account of the movement is more impressive than the way he studies it, tracing minutely the details of the process, wondering at its variety, whereby the Holy Spirit makes real and effectual the divine message (see Allen, op. cit. pp. 143 ff.). There was nothing essentially new in the principle itself; that God directly influences the soul, that the soul is capable of an immediate intuition of divine things, this had been the common teaching of all, and especially of all the Christian, mystics. Indeed, it may be doubted whether religion as a form of personal experience does not universally involve a consciousness of some such transcendent relationship (see W. James, Varieties of Religious Experience, Boston, 1902, passim). What was new in Edwards’s formulation of the doctrine was his manner of defining it, the way in which he relates it to the other parts of his system, his insistence on the supernatural character of this divine illumination, his sharp distinction between common and special grace. His doctrine of supernatural light appears, in fact, as a necessary corollary of his conception of the relation of man and God in the work of redemption expressed in his sermon on Man’s Dependence. It is partly, at least, from this point of view that it seems to him not only scriptural, but reasonable. It was a doctrine intimately connected with his views of conversion. It was on this account no less than because of its emphasis of a mystical rather than a moral or legal principle in religion, that Edwards can speak of the doctrine as “unfashionable.” The tendency of the age was to find more power in the natural constitution of man than he was willing to allow. Historically, however, it is in just this emphasis on the inner experience of the light and life of God in the heart that Edwards makes the transition from the older Calvinism to the more liberal theology of our own day.

The manuscript of this sermon is more than usually full of erasures and insertions, making it almost impossible to read, but suggesting something of the labor and care expended on its composition. It is written on twenty-six pages of the size of the facsimile in this volume, the last page containing only a line and a half. But the printed sermon is more fully elaborated.

RUTH’S RESOLUTION

45. Ruth’s Resolution. This sermon was one of five “Discourses on Various Important Subjects, Nearly concerning the great Affair of the Soul’s Eternal Salvation: viz. I. Justification by Faith Alone. II. Pressing into the Kingdom of God. III. Ruth’s Resolution. IV. The Justice of God in the Damnation of Sinners. V. The Excellency of Jesus Christ. Delivered in Northampton, chiefly in the time of the late wonderful pouring out of the Spirit of God there. By Jonathan Edwards A.M. Pastor of the Church of Christ in Northampton. Deut. iv. 8 [9]—Take heed to thyself, and keep thy soul diligently, lest thou forget the things which thine eyes have seen, and lest they depart from thy heart all the days of thy life. Boston: Printed and sold by S. Kneeland and T. Green, in Queen Street over against the Prison. MDCCXXXVIII.” The first four of these discourses were preached during the revival of 1734-1735 and were selected by the desire of the people as those from which they had derived special benefit; the fifth was selected by Edwards himself at the request of some persons from a neighboring town who heard it, and because he thought that a sermon on the excellency of Christ might appropriately follow the others, which were of an awakening character. They were prefixed to the American reprint of the Narrative of Surprising Conversions, which was first published in England. The cost of their publication was defrayed by the congregation,—a clear evidence of their deep interest, as they were at the time heavily burdened by the expenses of the new meeting-house. See Dwight, Life of Edwards, pp. 140 f.; cf. n. here following, p. 162.The sermon on Ruth’s Resolution has been selected as the shortest of the above discourses to illustrate a type of revival sermon in marked contrast to the sermon on Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God. They all, however, bear out Edwards’s own testimony concerning his preaching: “I have not only endeavored to awaken you, that you might be moved with fear, but I have used my utmost endeavors to win you” (Farewell Sermon). The manuscript of the sermon is dated April, 1735, and it seems to have been printed very nearly as it was written.

THE MANY MANSIONS

59. The Many Mansions. The Ms. of this hitherto unpublished sermon is dated, “The Sabbath after the seating of the New Meeting House, Dec. 25, 1737.” The occasion was one of special interest to the people of Northampton. The old meeting-house, erected in 1661, had become too small for the congregation and dangerously dilapidated; in fact, on a Sunday in March in the year the new building was completed, while Edwards was preaching, just after he had “laid down his doctrines” from the text, “Behold, ye despisers, wonder and perish,” the front gallery, “with a noise like a clap of thunder,” suddenly and dramatically fell. Fortunately—by a special providence, it seemed to Edwards—no one of the hundred and fifty persons, more or less, involved in the catastrophe perished, or even had a bone broken, and only ten were hurt “so as to make any great matter of it.” But the event showed that the building of a new meeting-house had been undertaken none too soon. The question of this new building had been brought forward in the town meeting of the spring of 1733, but it was first decided on in November, 1735, determined in part, no doubt, by the great revival of that year, when sixty, eighty, and a hundred were received into the church on successive communions. It then took two years to complete the structure. Incidentally, sixty-nine gallons of rum, besides numerous barrels of “cyder” and beer, were consumed by the workmen during the erection of the framework alone. Sixty men were engaged at 5s. a day for this part of the work, “they keeping themselves”—as Deacon Hunt’s journal has it—“excepting drinks.”

When the building, like several others of the period, a commodious, oblong structure with a tower, belfry and weather-cock vane at one end of it, was nearly finished, the important matter of seating the congregation was taken up. This also was an affair of the town. It had already been decided at the annual town meeting in the spring to have pews along the walls and “seats” or benches only on both sides of the “alley” (broad aisle). The actual plan of the sittings, still extant, shows pews also around the benches on the floor, separated from the wall-pews by the narrow aisles, and five pews in the gallery. These pews were of the high, square variety, with seats on hinges, and were evidently regarded as places of superior dignity. Towards the end of the year, the town held a series of meetings with especial reference to the seating. The question of primary importance concerned the apportioning of the sittings according to social rank. At the meeting in November, a committee of five of the most prominent citizens was instructed to draw up “their Scheam or Platt for Seating of the meeting House and present it to the Town” for approval. The following month the committee was further instructed by the following votes:

“1. Voted That in Seating the new meeting House the committee have Respect principally to men’s estate.

“2. To have Regard to men’s Age.

“3. Voted that some Regard and Respect [be paid] to men’s usefullness, but in a less Degree.” And that no mistake should be made, a committee of six was appointed to “estimate the pews and seats,” that is, to “dignify” or appraise their social value.

Another connected question concerned the seating of the sexes. At the meeting in November, it was voted that males should be at the south, females at the north, end; the men at the right of the pulpit, the women at the left. At the first meeting in December the town distinctly refused to allow men and their wives to sit together. But this was clearly opposed to the sentiment of some of the more influential members of the community, for at the adjourned meeting four days later, when “The Question was put whether the Committee be forbidden to Seat men & their wives together, Especially Such as Incline to Sit together: It passed in the Negative.” Under this indirect and qualified authorization, married people were for the most part seated together in the pews, but apart on the benches, while in some cases the husband was assigned to a pew and the wife to a bench.

The events and conditions here described are reflected in Edwards’s sermon, especially in what he says of the extent of the “accommodations” in heaven and in his remarks on the “seats of various dignity and different degrees and circumstances of honor and happiness” there, as compared with what we find in houses of worship on earth.

As indicating the size of Edwards’s Northampton congregation, it may be interesting to observe that the seating-plan above referred to contains the names of nearly six hundred persons. And he had his audience all about him. The pulpit, surmounted by a huge sounding board, was in the middle of one of the longer sides of the building, not at the end, as is the custom now. For further particulars, see J. R. Trumbull, History of Northampton, Vol. II, Chap. vi.

This sermon is more fully written out than most of Edwards’s unpublished sermons. In preparing the copy for the present volume, the editor had in mind the general analogy of the other sermons here published. The abbreviations—X (Christ), G. (God), F. H. (Father’s House), etc.—have accordingly been interpreted, and omitted sentences or phrases, indicated in the Ms. by dashes or spaces, have been supplied from the context. All such additions, however, are inserted within square brackets.

SINNERS IN THE HANDS OF AN ANGRY GOD

78. Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God. The full title-page of this, Edwards’s most famous sermon, read in the original edition as follows: “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God. A sermon Preached at Enfield, July 8th 1741. At a time of great Awakenings; and attended with remarkable Impressions on many of the Hearers. By Jonathan Edwards A.M. Pastor of the Church of Christ in Northampton. Amos ix. 2, 3.—Though they dig into Hell, thence shall mine Hand take them; though they climb up to Heaven, thence will I bring them down. And though they hide themselves in the Top of Carmel, I will search and take them out thence; and though they be hid from my Sight in the Bottom of the Sea, thence will I command the Serpent, and he shall bite them. Boston: Printed and Sold by S. Kneeland and T. Green in Queen Street over against the Prison, 1741.”

Benjamin Trumbull in his History of Connecticut (New Haven, 1818), Vol. II, p. 145, records the circumstances under which this sermon was delivered as told to him by Mr. Wheelock, a minister from Connecticut (Enfield, Conn., was at that time included in Hampshire County, Mass.), who heard it. “While the people in neighboring towns,” writes Trumbull, “were in great distress for their souls, the inhabitants of that town were very secure, loose, and vain. A lecture had been appointed at Enfield, and the neighboring people, the night before, were so affected at the thoughtlessness of the inhabitants, and in such fear that God would, in his righteous judgment, pass them by, while the divine showers were falling all around them, as to be prostrate before him a considerable part of it, supplicating mercy for their souls. When the time appointed for the lecture came, a number of the neighboring ministers attended, and some from a distance. When they went into the meeting-house, the appearance of the assembly was thoughtless and vain. The people hardly conducted themselves with common decency. The Rev. Mr. Edwards, of Northampton, preached, and before the sermon was ended, the assembly appeared deeply impressed and bowed down, with an awful conviction of their sin and danger. There was such a breathing of distress and weeping, that the preacher was obliged to speak to the people and desire silence, that he might be heard. This was the beginning of the same great and prevailing concern in that place, with which the colony in general was visited.” The circumstances, thus, under which this sermon was preached were exceptional; the excitement of the Great Awakening was at its height; the congregation to whom the sermon was addressed were notorious for their apathy; Edwards doubtless felt that an exceptionally strong presentation of their danger was necessary to arouse them. And this sermon is probably the most tremendous of its kind ever delivered by a Christian minister.

The kind, however, was by no means exceptional in Edwards’s preaching, particularly at this period. Believing as he did that the decisions of men in this life were fraught with the most momentous issues to all eternity, he held it his bounden duty to present these issues before them in the liveliest manner possible.[16] The Justice of God in the Damnation of Sinners; The Future Punishment of the Wicked Unavoidable and Intolerable; The Eternity of Hell Torments; When the Wicked shall have filled up the Measure of their Sin, Wrath will come upon them to the Uttermost; The End of the Wicked contemplated by the Righteous; or, The Torments of the Wicked in Hell, no occasion of grief to the Saints in Heaven; Wicked Men useful in their Destruction only,—these are among the titles of his sermons. Moreover, there is reason to believe that this very sermon, or its like, was used on other occasions besides the one to which it is explicitly ascribed. There is a tradition[17] that Edwards preached it once when Whitfield had disappointed an audience by not appearing, and that he produced a great effect by it. The manuscript is dated June, 1741, which suggests that it may have been preached in Northampton, or elsewhere, the month before it was attended with such remarkable impressions on the hearers in Enfield. But still more significant is the existence of an undated second sermon from the same text. In this, which was undoubtedly of earlier origin, the thought is somewhat differently worked out: it is less lurid, less fully elaborated, less terrific; but it contains many of the ideas, for example, on the uncertainty of life, the suddenness with which destruction may overtake the sinner, etc., that are found in the Enfield sermon. Edwards was evidently fascinated by the theme; he works it out with the sure touch of a great artist, with the intellectual force of the skilled dialectician. And he proclaims his message with the intensity of conviction of an Old Testament prophet. No wonder his hearers were moved. The effect would certainly have been less great had there been any note or personal vindictiveness in the preaching. But there is nothing of this; it is not in this sense that the sermon can be called “imprecatory.” On the contrary, so far as Edwards’s personal attitude is concerned, it is not difficult to detect in it the pathos and the pity of the gentlest of men weeping over the senseless folly of those who, blind to impending destruction, refuse repeated invitations of safety (cf. Matt. xxiii. 37). For the rest, he is quite impersonal, detached; the truth he preaches is sure, awful, but objective. On the modern reader the sermon is likely to produce a very painful impression, unless he, for his part, reads it in the same impersonal, detached way. It is not only the realism of the presentation, but the harshness of the doctrine, which offends. Edwards, for instance, frequently speaks of the reason why sinners are not immediately cast into hell; but the reason assigned is not the mercy or goodness or love of God, but His mere power and sovereign pleasure. This is one aspect of the truth of the spiritual universe as Edwards sees it. He is not a sentimentalist; he proclaims the truth as he finds it. As far as Edwards himself is concerned, there is nothing in the whole sermon, or in any of his “imprecatory” sermons, so called, half as revolting as Dante’s attitude towards sinners in hell. Take, for instance, the case of Filippo Argenti in the Lake of Mud (Inferno, Canto viii.): “‘Master, I should much like to see him ducked in this broth before we depart from the lake.’ And he to me, ‘Ere the shore allows thee to see it thou shalt be satisfied; it will be fitting that thou enjoy such a desire.’ After this a little I saw such rending of him by the muddy folk that I still praise God therefor, and thank Him for it. All cried, ‘At Filippo Argenti!’ and the raging Florentine spirit turned upon himself with his teeth.”89. The God that holds you ... drop down into hell. This is probably the best remembered paragraph in this all too well remembered sermon. Comparison with the original manuscript shows some interesting variants from the printed text, and at the same time gives evidence of the deliberateness with which the sentences were wrought out with reference to their calculated effect. For both reasons the passage is here reproduced as written.

“You are over the pit of hell in Gods hand very much as one holds a spider or some loathsome Insect over the fire & ’tis nothing but for God to let you go & you fall in.” (Here follow four undecipherable lines, which apparently, however, do not belong in this connection. The passage then continues on the next page of the Ms.) “& this G. that thus holds you in his hand is very angry with you & dreadfully provoked. his wrath burns like fire. you are lothsome and hatefull in his eyes & and worthy to be burnt—he looks upon you as worthy of nothing else but to be cast into the fire you are ten thous. times more loathsome in his eyes than the most noisome insect in the eyes of us men & you have offended him a thous. times so much as ever an obstinate rebel did his prince. & yet you are in his hands & tis nothing at all but his mere pleasure that he keeps you from falling into hell every moment there is no other reason to be given why you did not go to hell last night why you did not wake up in hell after you had closed your eyes to sleep & there is no other reason to be given why you have [not] drop’d since you rose in the morning yea since you sit on here in the house of G. Provoking his pure Eyes by your sinfull wicked manner of attending his Holy worship Yea there is nothing else to be given as the Reason why you don’t this very moment drop down into hell.”

Between the sentences here separated by longer spaces, lines curving from the lower part of the preceding to the upper part of the following are drawn, indicating possibly rhetorical pauses in the delivery and suggesting to the modern reader a succession of waves, wave on wave of horror, each more overwhelming than the one that went before.

The above passage is contained in the manuscript under division I. of the “Application,” division II. beginning, “And consider here more particularly” (p. 89). The four divisions thereafter following correspond roughly to those in the printed edition, but are mere headings, and differ from the six divisions first sketched. Inserted in the manuscript is a loose sheet containing in Edwards’s handwriting a careful outline of the whole sermon, such as he might have made when preparing the sermon for the press or used as notes for preaching. The manuscript of the entire sermon is short, but twenty-two pages of writing and one blank leaf.

A STRONG ROD BROKEN

98. God’s Awful Judgment. The manuscript of this sermon is dated, “On occasion of the death of Col. Stoddard June 1748.” It consists of fifty-two pages of the usual size of Edwards’s manuscript sermons, but with the unusual feature of being written in double columns. The paper used was partly that of letters addressed to Edwards, the writing being in places across the address, and the stamp marks being removed; partly—about twenty pages—pieces of fine, soft paper, deep cut around the upper edges, believed to be scraps of the paper used by Mrs. Edwards and her daughters in making fans. The sermon is evidently written at high pressure, with few corrections and fairly fully. The title-page of the first edition reads as follows: “A Strong Rod broken and withered. A Sermon Preached in Northampton, in the Lord’s Day, June 26. 1748 On the Death of The Honourable John Stoddard, Esq. Often a Member of his Majesty’s Council, For many Years Chief Justice of the Court of Common Pleas for the County of Hampshire, Judge of the Probate of Wills, and Chief Colonel of the Regiment, &c. Who died in Boston June 19. 1748. in the 67th Year of his Age. By Jonathan Edwards A.M. Pastor of the first Church in Northampton. Dan. iv. 35—He doth according to his Will in the Army of Heaven, and among the inhabitants of the Earth; and none can stay his Hand, or say unto Him, What dost thou? Boston Printed by Rogers and Fowle for J. Edwards in Cornhill 1748.”

Colonel Stoddard was the eighth child and fourth son of the Rev. Solomon Stoddard, and therefore Edwards’s uncle on his mother’s side. He was a man of great prominence in all the leading affairs of the town, the county, and the colony. “His life,” says Trumbull (History of Northampton, Vol. II, p. 172), “was the connecting link between the two series of great leaders who controlled the affairs of Western Massachusetts for nearly a century and three-quarters. His predecessors were John Pynchon of Springfield and Samuel Partridge of Hatfield; following him came Joseph Hawley and Caleb Strong of Northampton, and these five men were the leaders in the Colony, the Province and the State.” He was a stalwart upholder of royalty and the royal prerogative, and for this reason had many opponents; but the general esteem in which he was held is evidenced by his many offices and by the fact that he was seventeen times reËlected the representative of the county to the General Court. He was a valued friend of Governor Shirley, in connection with whom there is a characteristic story of him. It is that he once called and asked to see the Governor when the latter had a party dining with him, but declined the servant’s invitation to come in. The company were surprised and shocked at what they regarded as an act of discourtesy to the chief magistrate. “What is the gentleman’s name?” asked the Governor. “I think,” replied the servant, “he told me his name was Stoddard.” “Is it?” said the Governor. “Excuse me, gentlemen, if it is Col. Stoddard, I must go to him.” (From Dwight’s Travels, Vol. I, p. 332, quoted by Trumbull, op. cit. p. 173.) His death removed one of Edwards’s strongest supporters and probably contributed to the tragic issue of the great controversy in which the preacher was now engaged. In this connection it is interesting to find that Colonel Stoddard in 1736 helped to lay out the township of Stockbridge and that he had much to do toward establishing the mission to the Indians there, to the conduct of which Edwards was called after his dismissal from Northampton. Edwards’s sermon is an eulogy, but there is every reason to suppose that it gives on the whole a just impression of Stoddard’s character, services, and attainments. On him, see further Trumbull, op. cit. Vol. II, Chap. xiii.116. Present war. King George’s French and Indian War (1744-1748-9). Colonel Stoddard, as commander of the Hampshire forces, directed the military operations in that part of the country until his death. Major Israel Williams of Hatfield, who later succeeded to the command, writing under date of June 25, 1748, to Secretary Willard, says: “We are now like sheep without a shepherd.... God has been pleased to take him (who was in a great measure our wisdom and strength and glory) from us at a time when we could least spare him.” (Trumbull, op. cit. Vol. II, p. 158.)

FAREWELL SERMON

118. A Farewell Sermon. “A Farewel-Sermon Preached at the first Precinct in Northampton, After the People’s publick Rejection of their Minister, and renouncing their Relation to Him as Pastor of the Church there, On June 22. 1750 Occasion’d by Difference of Sentiments, concerning the requisite Qualifications of Members of the Church, in compleat Standing. By Jonathan Edwards, A.M. Acts xx. 18. Ye know, from the first day that I came into Asia, after what Manner I have been with you, at all Seasons. ver. 20. And how I kept back nothing that was profitable unto you, but have showed you, and have taught you publickly, and from House to House. ver. 26, 27. Wherefore I take you to Record this Day, that I am pure from the Blood of all Men: For I have not shunned to declare unto you all the Counsel of God. Gal. iv. 15, 16. Where is then the Blessedness ye spake of? For I bear you Record, that if it had been possible, ye would have plucked out your own Eyes, and have given them to me. Am I then become your Enemy, because I tell you the Truth? Boston Printed and sold by S. Kneeland over against the Prison in Queen-Street. 1751.”—Title-page of the first edition.

The preface to this sermon is a document so important for the understanding of it, that it is here, as is usual also in other editions, printed in full.Preface. It is not unlikely, that some of the readers of the following sermon may be inquisitive concerning the circumstances of the difference between me and the people of Northampton, that issued in that separation between me and them, which occasioned the preaching of this farewell sermon. There is, by no means, room here for a full account of that matter: but yet it seems to be proper, and even necessary, here to correct some gross misrepresentations, which have been abundantly, and (’tis to be feared) by some affectedly and industriously made, of that difference: such as, that I insisted on persons being assured of their being in a state of salvation, in order to my admitting them into the church; that I required a particular relation of the method and order of a person’s inward experience, and of the time and manner of his conversion, as the test of his fitness for Christian communion; yea, that I have undertaken to set up a pure church, and to make an exact and certain distinction between saints and hypocrites, by a pretended infallible discerning [of] the state of men’s souls; that in these things I had fallen in with those wild people, who have lately appeared in New England, called Separatists; and that I myself was become a grand Separatist; and that I arrogated all the power of judging of the qualifications of candidates for communion wholly to myself, and insisted on acting by my sole authority, in the admission of members into the church, &c.

In opposition to these slanderous representations, I shall at present only give my reader an account of some things which I laid before the council, that separated between me and my people, in order to their having a just and full view of my principles relating to the affair in controversy.

Long before the sitting of the council, my people had sent to the Reverend Mr. Clark of Salem village, desiring him to write in opposition to my principles. Which gave me occasion to write to Mr. Clark, that he might have true information what my principles were. And in the time of the sitting of the council, I did, for their information, make a public declaration of my principles before them and the church, in the meeting-house, of the same import with that in my letter to Mr. Clark, and very much in the same words: and then, afterwards, sent in to the council in writing, an extract of that letter, containing the information I had given to Mr. Clark, in the very words of my letter to him, that the council might read and consider it at their leisure, and have a more certain and satisfactory knowledge what my principles were. The extract which I sent in to them was in the following words:

The council having heard that I had made certain draughts of the covenant, or forms of a public profession of religion which I stood ready to accept of from the candidates for church communion, they, for their further information, sent for them. Accordingly I sent them four distinct draughts or forms, which I had drawn up about a twelvemonth before, as what I stood ready to accept of (any one of them) rather than contend and break with my people.

The two shortest of these forms are here inserted for the satisfaction of the reader. They are as follows.

Such kind of professions as these I stood ready to accept, rather than contend and break with my people. Not but that I think it much more convenient, that ordinarily the public profession of religion that is made by Christians should be much fuller and more particular; and that (as I hinted in my letter to Mr. Clark) I should not choose to be tied up to any certain form of words, but to have liberty to vary the expressions of a public profession the more exactly to suit the sentiments and experience of the professor, that it might be a more just and free expression of what each one finds in his heart.

And moreover it must be noted, that I ever insisted on it, that it belonged to me as a pastor, before a profession was accepted, to have full liberty to instruct the candidate in the meaning of the terms of it, and in the nature of the things proposed to be professed; and to inquire into his doctrinal understanding of these things, according to my best discretion; and to caution the person, as I should think needful, against rashness in making such a profession, or doing it mainly for the credit of himself or his family, or from any secular views whatsoever, and to put him on serious self-examination, and searching his own heart, and prayer to God to search and enlighten him that he may not be hypocritical and deceived in the profession he makes; withal pointing forth to him the many ways in which professors are liable to be deceived.

Nor do I think it improper for a minister in such a case, to inquire and know of the candidate what can be remembered of the circumstances of his Christian experience; as this may tend much to illustrate his profession and give a minister great advantage for proper instructions: though a particular knowledge and remembrance of the time and method of the first conversion to God is not to be made the test of a person’s sincerity, nor insisted on as necessary in order to his being received into full charity. Not that I think it at all improper or unprofitable, that in some special cases a declaration of the particular circumstances of a person’s first awakening and the manner of his convictions, illuminations and comforts, should be publicly exhibited before the whole congregation, on occasion of his admission into the church; though this be not demanded as necessary to admission. I ever declared against insisting on a relation of experience, in this sense (viz., a relation of the particular time and steps of the operation of the Spirit in first conversion), as the term of communion: yet, if by a relation of experiences, he meant a declaration of experience of the great things wrought, wherein true grace and the essential acts and habits of holiness consist; in this sense, I think an account of a person’s experiences necessary in order to his admission into full communion in the church. But that in whatever inquiries are made, and whatever accounts are given, neither minister nor church are to set up themselves as searchers of hearts, but are to accept the serious, solemn profession of the well instructed professor, of a good life, as best able to determine what he finds in his own heart.

These things may serve in some measure to set right those of my readers who have been misled in their apprehensions of the state of the controversy between me and my people, by the forementioned misrepresentations.

Jonathan Edwards.135. But in all probability this will never be again. It is sometimes asserted that Edwards never again occupied the pulpit in Northampton. This is not true. He preached, in fact, twelve Sundays, though, to be sure, not consecutively and only when other supplies could not be secured, before his removal to Stockbridge. There is perhaps more reason for the statement of Dr. Hopkins, quoted by Dwight (op. cit. p. 418), that the town at last—it is thought in November, 1750—voted that he should preach no longer. But the records of town and precinct are alike silent on this matter, the only vote bearing on it being one passed by the precinct in November, “to pay Mr. Edwards £10 old tenor per Sabbath for the time he preached here since he was dismissed.” Trumbull, who has established this fact (History of Northampton, Vol. II, p. 227), says that the last sermon by Edwards in Northampton was in the afternoon of October 13, 1751, from the text Heb. xi. 16. But even this is doubtful; for among the manuscripts in New Haven, Professor Dexter discovered a sermon on 2 Cor. iv. 6 marked as preached in Northampton, May 1755, and in a book of plans of sermons at least three notes of texts and doctrines of the same period marked as designed for Northampton. (F. B. Dexter, The Manuscripts of Jonathan Edwards, p. 8.)145. By which I became so obnoxious. The excitement of the Great Awakening was followed by a period of laxity. In 1744 Edwards was informed that a number of the young people of his congregation, of both sexes, were reading immoral books, which fostered lascivious and obscene conversation. To check the evil, he preached a sermon, of the frankness of which we may judge from the published sermon on “Joseph’s Temptation,” from Heb. xii. 15, 16, and after the service communicated to the brethren of the church the evidence in his possession with a view to further action. A committee of inquiry was appointed to assist the pastor in examining into the affair at a meeting at his house. Edwards then read the names of the young people to be summoned as witnesses or as accused, but without discriminating between the two classes. When the names were thus published, it was found that most of the leading families of the town were implicated. “The town was suddenly all on a blaze.” Many of the heads of families refused to proceed with the investigation; many of the young people summoned to the meeting refused to come, and those who did come acted with insolence. Edwards never thereafter succeeded in reËstablishing his authority. For years not a single candidate appeared for admission to the church. See Hopkins, Life of Edwards (1765), pp. 53 ff. Dwight, op. cit. pp. 299 f., copies Hopkins’s account almost verbatim, but without acknowledgment.146. I have ... meet before him. The company keeping and worldly amusements of the young people were an old grievance with Edwards. Writing of the period before the revival of 1734-1735, he says, “It was their manner very frequently to get together in conventions of both sexes, for mirth and jollity, which they called frolicks; and they would often spend the greater part of the night in them, without any regard to order in the families they belong to.” How the young people amused themselves in these “conventions,” we can only conjecture; it is certain that some, at least, of the parents saw no harm in them. But Edwards’s idea of family government was very different. “He allowed not his children to be from home after nine o’clock at night, when they went abroad to see their friends and companions. Neither were they allowed to sit up much after that time, in his own house, when any came to make them a visit. If any gentleman desired acquaintance with his daughters, after handsomely introducing himself, by properly consulting the parents, he was allowed all proper opportunity for it: a room and fire, if needed; but must not intrude on the proper hours of rest and sleep, or the religion and order of the family.” (Hopkins, op. cit. p. 44.) We have reason to think that some of the “other liberties commonly taken by young people in the land” were calculated to favor anything rather than refinement and spirituality.149. A contentious spirit. History in a general way corroborates the following testimony of Edwards concerning the contentious spirit in the people of Northampton: “There were some mighty contests and controversies among them in Mr. Stoddard’s day, which were managed with great heat and violence; some great quarrels in the church, wherein Mr. Stoddard, great as his authority was, knew not what to do with them. In one ecclesiastical controversy in Mr. Stoddard’s day, wherein the church was divided into two parties, the heat of spirit was raised to such a degree, that it came to hard blows. A member of one party met the head of the opposite party and assaulted him and beat him unmercifully. There has been for forty or fifty years a sort of settled division of the people into two parties, somewhat like the Court and Country party in England (if I may compare small things with great). There have been some of the chief men in the town, of chief authority and wealth, that have been great proprietors of their lands, who have had one party with them. And the other party, which has commonly been the greatest, have been of those who have been jealous of them, apt to envy them, and afraid of their having too much power and influence in town and church. This has been a foundation of innumerable contentions among the people, from time to time, which have been exceedingly grievous to me, and by which doubtless God has been dreadfully provoked, and his Spirit grieved and quenched, and much confusion and many evil works have been introduced.” Letter of July 1, 1751 to Rev. Thomas Gillespie. Cf. Trumbull, History of Northampton, Vol. II, p. 36.

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Footnotes:

[1] See J. A. Stoughton, Windsor Farmes, p. 39 and p. 69 n. Students of heredity may perhaps here find a clew to the character of Edwards’s brilliant, wayward grandson, Aaron Burr.

[2] See H. N. Gardiner, The Early Idealism of Edwards in Jonathan Edwards: a Retrospect, pp. 115-160: Boston, 1901. Cf. J. H. MacCracken, The Sources of Jonathan Edwards’s Idealism, Philos. Rev., xi. 26 ff. (Jan. 1902).

[3] That to the church at Bolton, Conn. But for some reason, not now apparent, he was never installed there. See S. Simpson, Jonathan Edwards—a Historical Review, Hartford Seminary Record. xiv. 11 (November, 1903).

[4] First printed by Dwight, Life of President Edwards, p. 114, and frequently reproduced. It has been compared to Dante’s description of Beatrice, which in pure lyric quality it certainly equals, though it lacks the latter’s sensuous coloring and imaginative idealization. The comparison is made by A. V. G. Allen, The Place of Edwards in History, in Jonathan Edwards: a Retrospect, p. 7; the contrast is pointed out by John De Witt, Stockbridge (1903), Oration, p. 45 (pub. by the Berkshire Conference).

[5] Solomon Clark, Historical Catalogue of the Northampton First Church, pp. 40-67 (Northampton, 1891), prints the list in full.

[6] See note, p. 179.

[7] It is impossible here to go into the history of this famous controversy. Something concerning it will be found in the notes, pp. 172 ff.; Dwight, op. cit., pp. 298-448, prints the documents from Edwards’s Journal in full; the records of the church are silent. It should be stated, perhaps, in fairness to the Northampton people, that the pastoral relation was not then, as is sometimes supposed, regarded as indissoluble; six clergymen were “dismissed” from neighboring churches between 1721 and 1755. Moreover, Edwards, eminent as he undoubtedly was as a preacher, was to them only the parish minister; his great fame as a theologian was established later. Cf. Trumbull, History of Northampton, II, 225. It is also not unreasonable to suppose that the spiritual capacities of the people had been overstimulated. The later repentance of Joseph Hawley (see Dwight, op. cit., p. 421), Edwards’s cousin, who had taken a leading part in the movement against him, concerns only the spirit of the opposition; it does not seriously question the wisdom, under the circumstances, of the separation.

[8] Aaron Burr, the Vice-President of the United States, who killed Alexander Hamilton in a duel, was their son.

[9] See, e.g., the incident recorded by Dwight, op. cit., p. 133, where the rapture lasts for about an hour, accompanied for the greater part of the time “with tears and weeping aloud.”

[10] See F. B. Dexter, The Manuscripts of Jonathan Edwards, p. 7. (Reprinted from the Proceedings of the Mass. Hist. Soc., March, 1901.)

[11] As, e.g., in the great ethical sermon on the Sin of Theft and of Injustice from the text, “Thou shalt not steal.” Works, Worcester reprint, IV, 601.

[12] Examples of this are found in the manuscript sermons on John i. 47 and John i. 41, 42, which are here taken as typical.

[13] Samuel Hopkins, Life of Edwards, p. 48.

[14] As illustrating the expansion in the printed sermon as compared with the manuscript prepared for preaching, see note p. 157.

[15] The next neighbor town.

[16] “If I am in danger of going to hell, I should be glad to know as much as possibly I can of the dreadfulness of it. If I am very prone to neglect due care to avoid it, he does me the best kindness who does most to represent to me the truth of the case, that sets forth my misery and danger in the liveliest manner.”—Sermon on The Distinguishing Marks of a Work of the Spirit of God.

[17] As Professor A. V. G. Allen informs the editor in a letter, Jan. 23, 1904.