Of Greatest Importance: Jonathan Edwards and True Conversion Discerning and applying the scriptural rules concerning true religion which are serviceable to ministers in counseling and conducting souls committed to their care

Jonathan Edwards Conference 2011 The Jonathan Edwards Society Northampton, Mass. October 7, 2011 Rev. Wesley Pastor 1

Introduction As a New England pastor, my singular burden is for souls. Some twenty years ago I planted a church in Vermont, trusting in the gospel, “the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes” [Rom. 1:16], to convert souls even in spiritually parched New England. My burden is that my people might secure safe passage into heaven.

Over time I came to appreciate the challenges of bearing that burden. The gospel and its application, so straightforward in seminary, proved quite complex in the crucible of the pastorate. Marriages between professing Christians failed. Committed congregants nursed persistent and serious sins. Youth, having come to Christ as children, wandered in their teens. This Christianity made no sense. Where was the life-changing power? Had the gospel failed? Or was there some other explanation?

The answer lies in the nature of true religion. Jonathan Edwards, in his masterful Religious Affections, asserted that the resolution of this one issue trumped all others:

There is no question of greater importance to mankind, and that it more concerns every individual person to be well resolved in, than this: What are the distinguishing qualifications of those that are in favor with God, and entitled to his eternal rewards? Or, which comes to the same thing, What is the nature of true religion? and wherein lie the distinguishing notes of that virtue which is acceptable in the sight of God?1

This question consumed Edwards: “It is a subject on which my mind has been peculiarly intent, ever since I first entered on the study of divinity.”2 Edwards felt a pastor’s burden for souls, particularly for helping his people discern the state of their own souls. Yet the nature of true religion was subject to much confusion and dissension. “[T]hough it be of such importance, and though we have clear and abundant light in the word of God to direct us in this matter, yet there is no one point wherein professing Christians differ more one from another.”3 Still, “it is beyond doubt that the Scriptures abound with rules, which may be very serviceable to ministers in coun-

1 Jonathan Edwards, A Treatise Concerning Religious Affections, in The Works of Jonathan Edwards (Carlisle, Penn.: Banner of Truth, 1984), 1:234. 2 Edwards, Religious Affections, 1:234. 3 Edwards, Religious Affections, 1:234. 2 seling and conducting souls committed to their care in things appertaining to their spiritual and eternal state.”4

Today there is pervasive disinterest in and even hostility toward the examination of a person’s Christian profession. Yet there remains no question of greater importance than the nature of true saving faith. Edwards, dubbed “extraordinary” even by Marsden and considered by many the “most brilliant of all American theologians,” is a worthy consultant on this topic.5 We must seek to know something of his “peculiarly intent” mind, to know the “notes of that virtue” abounding in scripture and useful to shepherds in counseling their flock.6 By tracing Edwards’ developing understanding through its historical context to its maturity in Religious Affections, and by understanding these rules ourselves, ministers will be better equipped to apply them, as Edwards did, to the counsel and direction of the souls committed to our care.

Development of Edwards’ Rules Edwards’ understanding developed over three periods roughly corresponding to the frontier phase (1734-39), peak (1740-43) and decline (1744-55) of the First Great Awakening. The first phase was somewhat of a honeymoon period. Edwards called the emerging revival “the foremost act of God since the Reformation and the greatest ever in America.”7 His “lengthy and glowing account,” published in 1737 as A Faithful Narrative of the Surprising Work of God, testified to the powerful movement of God’s Spirit.8

4 Edwards, Religious Affections, 1:263. 5 See George M. Marsden, Jonathan Edwards: A Life (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2003), 1, for the most recent and highly esteemed critical biography of Edwards. Also Murray or Dwight for the perspectives of admirers: Iain H. Murray, Jonathan Edwards: A New Biography (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 1987), xv-xvii; Sereno E. Dwight, The Life of President Edwards (New York: Carvill, 1830; repr., Puritan Reprints, 2007), 2. 6 Edwards, Religious Affections, 1:263. 7 Edwards did acknowledge some corruption in his own church’s revival. In analyzing the awakening, he remarked in a December 1743 letter to a fellow minister in Boston: “[I]n the years 1740 and 1741, the work seemed to be much more pure, having less of a corrupt mixture than in the former great outpouring of the Spirit in 1735 and 1736.” See Jonathan Edwards, An Account of the Revival of Religion in Northampton in 1740-1742, in Jonathan Edwards: On Revival (Carlisle, Penn: Banner of Truth, 1984), 158. Also Marsden, Jonathan Edwards, 169. 8 Marsden, Jonathan Edwards, 163. In the 1738 sermon series later published as Charity and its Fruits, Edwards reported, “The Spirit of God has been poured out wonderfully here. Multitudes have been converted. Scarcely a family has been passed by.” Jonathan Edwards, Charity and Its Fruits: Christian Love as Manifested in the Heart and Life, (ed. Tryon Edwards; Carlisle, Penn.: Banner of Truth, 2000), 49. 3

Such high approbation reflected Edwards’ understanding and observation of the nature of true religion. He described it in his 1734 sermon A Divine and Supernatural Light as “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.”9 This understanding was encapsulated in Charity and Its Fruits: “All the virtue that is saving, and that distinguishes true Christians from others, is summed up in Christian love.”10 Edwards explained:

True love is an ingredient in true and living faith, and is what is most essential and distinguishing in it. … A truly practical or saving faith, is light and heat together, or rather light and love, while that which is only speculative faith, is only light without heat; and, in that it wants spiritual heat or divine love, is in vain, and good for nothing.11

Unlike many of his contemporaries, Edwards recognized that intellectual “light” without the “heat” of love did not meet the scriptural requirements for saving faith.12 The next phase was the perfect laboratory to develop this thesis.

The period 1740-43, corresponding to the main phase of the Awakening, shows an attempt to balance increasingly extreme positions of both the movement’s supporters and its detractors. The Yale controversy in 1741, with students accusing faculty of being unregenerate; the revival meeting “excesses” of shrieking, roaring, trances and dances; and an unscriptural confidence in distinguishing sheep from goats, created a critical need for balance.13

That balance is evident in several works but best exemplified in Edwards’ September 1741 Yale commencement address, published as The Distinguishing Marks of a Work of the Spirit of God.14 Edwards first lists nine signs “which are no evidences that a work is not from the Spirit of God,”

9 Jonathan Edwards, A Divine and Supernatural Light, in Works, 2:14. 10 Edwards, Charity and Its Fruits, 3. 11 Edwards, Charity and Its Fruits, 13. 12 New Lights, like Edwards, saw true religion as chiefly consisting in raised affections produced by the light; Old Lights, most notably Charles Chauncy, placed true religion primarily in enlightened understanding and disdained raised affections. 13 Marsden, Jonathan Edwards, 231-235, 269-284. In the spirit of confident assessment of men’s souls, the wild James Davenport even personally challenged Charles Chauncy’s conversion and status (p.272). 14 Others include Some Thoughts Concerning the Present Revival of Religion in New England and An Account of the Revival of Religion in Northampton in 1740-1742, both published in 1743. 4 a challenge to both Old and New Lights.15 He then enumerates five “distinguishing scripture evidences and marks of a work of the Spirit.”16 Finally, Edwards admonishes the Old Lights to accept the revival as a work of God’s Spirit and not oppose it, and warns the New Lights to avoid excessive behaviors that could discredit the work.17

The final period, 1744-55, saw theological reflection and prodigious publication. Revival fires were dim if not completely extinguished when, in 1746, Edwards published Religious Affections to correct the excesses which, he believed, were largely to blame for quelling the Awakening.18 He devoted the bulk of the work to correcting New Light enthusiasts, at times sounding much like Charles Chauncy, his Old Light nemesis.19

Though Edwards did continue to build on Affections, this work clearly demonstrates a grasp of scriptural rules informed by decades of study and reflection, and experience with thousands of true and false conversions amid two major awakenings.20 To that “most widely read and admired of his theological works” we now turn.21

Understanding Edwards’ Rules Edwards’ magnum opus was organized into three parts. Part I defined and defended the doctrine, principally against the Old Lights, that “true religion, in great part, consists in holy affections.”22 Part II listed “some things which are no signs that affections are gracious, or that they are not.”23

15 Jonathan Edwards, The Distinguishing Marks of a Work of the Spirit of God, in Works, 2:261-266. 16 Jonathan Edwards, The Distinguishing Marks, 2:266-269. These five marks are: a raised esteem for the biblical Jesus, opposition to Satan’s interests, a greater regard for Holy Scripture, a Spirit-wrought conviction about eternal truths, and love to God and man. 17 Jonathan Edwards, The Distinguishing Marks, 2:269-277. 18 Marsden, Jonathan Edwards, 268-290, esp. 283-290. Jonathan Edwards, Letter to the Reverend James Robe, Christian Monthly History 2 (1745); WJE 16:108-10. Accessed online Oct. 3, 2011. 19 Edwards, Religious Affections, 1:245-262. For resemblances to Chauncy, see Section IV of the signs, found in Edwards, Religious Affections, 1:281-288. 20 In 1752, Edwards preached the spirit of Affections in True Grace Distinguished from the Experience of Devils before the Presbyterian Synod of New York. And in 1755 he published that great philosophical treatise The Nature of True Virtue, essentially Affections argued philosophically rather than scripturally. 21 Marsden, Jonathan Edwards, 285. 22 Edwards, Religious Affections, 1:236. 23 Edwards, Religious Affections, 1:245. 5

Though generally balanced, it seems oriented toward correcting New Light excesses.24 Part III is the crux of Edwards’ work.

Broken into fourteen sections, Part III elucidates twelve distinguishing signs, or rules, of truly gracious affections. They are corrective in nature, seeming to spring from the acidic soil of an Awakening gone wrong, seeking to salvage the nature of true religion from the excesses of New Light enthusiasts. The first four focus on grounding more than mark, forming a prolegomena for the remaining eight. The final mark, Christian practice, is clearly the chief sign of gracious affections, thus, the chief apologetic against the enthusiasts. Let us now consider these signs.

Section I: “Affections that are truly spiritual and gracious arise from those influences and operations on the heart, which are spiritual, supernatural and divine.”25 “[A]ll spiritual and gracious affections are attended with and arise from some apprehension, idea, or sensation of mind which is, in its whole nature, different… from all that is or can be in the mind of a natural man.”26 But these are not the “imaginary ideas” of the New Lights, not “secret facts” about future events nor “texts of Scripture sent immediately from God,” but rather the ordinary ideas and means of Scripture itself.27

Section II: “The first ground of gracious affections is the transcendently excellent and amiable nature of divine things, as they are in themselves; and not any conceived relation they bear to self or self-interest.”28 “The saints’ affections begin with God; and self-love has a hand in these affections consequentially and secondarily. On the contrary, false affections begin with self, and an acknowledgment of an excellency in God and an affectedness with it is only consequential

24 Old Lights would have seen the “things” of Part II as marking spiritual immaturity at best and having nothing to do with true religion at worst, whereas New Lights may have viewed them as necessary, validating true religion. Hence, Edwards’ intro to Part II: “[A]s we ought not to reject and condemn all affections, as though true religion did not at all consist in them; so, on the other hand, we ought not to approve of all, as though every one that was religiously affected had true grace, and was therein the subject of the saving influences of the Spirit of God.” See Edwards, Religious Affections, 1:245. 25 Edwards, Religious Affections, 1:264. This rule largely reiterates the thesis of A Divine and Supernatural Light. 26 Edwards, Religious Affections, 1:267. 27 Edwards, Religious Affections, 1:267-274. 28 Edwards, Religious Affections, 1:274. 6 and dependent.”29 This rule contrasts a love for one’s own happiness because of what God does to a simple love for God because of who He is; a love for the benefits rather than the Benefactor.

Section III: “A love to divine things for the beauty and sweetness of their moral excellency is the spring of all holy affections.”30 This rule boils down to one word: holiness. If gracious affections are grounded in God’s divine excellency, they are grounded in the essence of that excellency, holiness. In contrast to New Light enthusiasts’ esteem of God’s greatness in majesty and judgment, “a true love to God must begin with a delight in his holiness and not with a delight in any other attribute.”31

Section IV: “Gracious affections arise from the mind being enlightened rightly and spiritually to apprehend divine things.”32 This corrective asserts that understanding, not imagination, is the grounding for gracious affections.33 Storms is helpful here: “[S]ome claim that their affections are from God because they were aroused by the experience of Scripture texts spontaneously coming to mind. But if the mind is not enlightened by the content of those texts . . . the affections that result are useless.” 34

Having thus grounded the affections, Edwards turns to the conversion signs themselves.

Section V: “Truly gracious affections are attended with a conviction of the reality and certainty of divine things.”35 The first sign of conversion is gospel certainty. The enthusiasts were convinced of their good estate in the gospel, “that their sins are forgiven, or that God loves them and will save them.”36 By contrast, genuine saving affections “see the truth of the gospel; which is the glorious doctrine the word of God contains concerning God, Jesus Christ, the way of salvation by him and the world of glory that he is entered into and purchased for all them who

29 Edwards, Religious Affections, 1:276. 30 Edwards, Religious Affections, 1:278. 31 Edwards, Religious Affections, 1:279, 281. 32 Edwards, Religious Affections, 1:281. 33 See Section I of Part III of Affections. 34 Sam Storms, Signs of the Spirit: An Interpretation of Jonathan Edwards' Religious Affections (Wheaton, Ill.: Crossway, 2007), 97-98. 35 Edwards, Religious Affections, 1:288. 36 Edwards, Religious Affections, 1:289. 7 believe, and not a revelation that such and such particular persons [i.e., themselves] are true Christians and shall go to heaven.”37

Section VI: “Gracious affections are attended with evangelical humiliation.”38 The second mark is evangelical humility, contrasted with the spiritual pride of deluded New Light enthusiasts.39 “[T]he essence of evangelical humiliation consists in such humility as becomes a creature in itself exceeding sinful under a dispensation of grace, consisting in a mean esteem of himself… attended with a mortification of a disposition to exalt himself, and a free renunciation of his own glory. This is a great and most essential thing in true religion”40

Section VII: “Another thing, wherein gracious affections are distinguished from others is that they are attended with a change of nature.”41 The third sign of conversion is real transformation: “[T]he soul is so deeply affected [by conversion] as to be transformed.”42 This is in opposition to those who appear after their “supposed first conversion . . . as selfish, carnal, stupid, and perverse, unchristian, and unsavory as ever.”43

Section VIII: “Truly gracious affections differ from those that are false and delusive in that they naturally beget and promote such a spirit of love, meekness, quietness, forgiveness and mercy as appeared in Christ.”44 The fourth mark is a Christ-like disposition, contrasted with a swaggering boldness issuing from pride.45 Of forgiveness, love and mercy, Edwards says: “The

37 Edwards, Religious Affections, 1:289. 38 Edwards, Religious Affections, 1:294. In lock step with Calvin, Edwards saw humility as a subset of that “great Christian duty of self-denial” (p. 295). See John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion. (ed. John T. McNeill; trans. Ford Lewis Battles; Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1960), 1:689-701. 39 Edwards, Religious Affections, 1:296-302. 40 Edwards, Religious Affections, 1:294. Again, so Calvin: “I was always exceedingly pleased with the saying of Chrysostom, ‘The foundation of our philosophy is humility’; and yet more pleased with that of Augustine, ‘As,’ says he, ‘the rhetorician being asked, what was the first thing in the rules of eloquence, he answered, Delivery; what was the second, Delivery; what was the third, still he answered, Delivery. So if you should ask me concerning the precepts of the Christian religion, I would answer, firstly, secondly, thirdly, Humility.’” Calvin, Institutes, 1:268-269. 41 Edwards, Religious Affections, 1:302. 42 Edwards, Religious Affections, 1:302. 43 Edwards, Religious Affections, 1:302. 44 Edwards, Religious Affections, 1:303. 45 Edwards, Religious Affections, 1:305-306. 8

Scripture is very clear and express concerning the absolute necessity of each of these as belonging to the temper and character of every Christian.”46

Section IX: “Gracious affections soften the heart and are attended with a Christian tenderness of spirit.”47 The fifth sign, tenderheartedness, contrasts a heart increasingly bent on pleasing God with one fearful of God’s displeasure in future punishment.48 “Holy love and hope are principles vastly more efficacious upon the heart to make it tender, and to fill it with a dread of sin or whatever might displease and offend God… than a slavish fear of hell.”49

Section X: “Another thing, wherein those affections that are truly gracious and holy differ from those that are false, is beautiful symmetry and proportion.”50 The sixth rule for identifying gracious affections is balanced virtue. Imbalance reveals itself in various ways, e.g., feeling God-driven to engage in public ministry but not in “secret earnest prayer”; having “hatred and zeal against… some particular sin only”; or affections “up to the clouds,” then “suddenly fall[en] down again.”51

Section XI: “Another great and very distinguishing difference is that the higher gracious affections are raised, the more is a spiritual appetite and longing of soul after spiritual attainments increased; on the contrary, false affections rest satisfied in themselves.”52 The seventh mark of conversion is ambitious godliness, contrasted with complacency in one’s spiritual life. “The more a true saint loves God with a gracious love, the more he desires to love him, and the more uneasy is he at his want of love to him; the more he hates sin, the more he desires to hate it.”53

46 Edwards, Religious Affections, 1:306. 47 Edwards, Religious Affections, 1:307. 48 Edwards, Religious Affections, 1:309. 49 Edwards, Religious Affections, 1:308. 50 Edwards, Religious Affections, 1:309. 51 Edwards, Religious Affections, 1:311. 52 Edwards, Religious Affections, 1:312. 53 Edwards, Religious Affections, 1:312. 9

Section XII-XIV: “Gracious and holy affections have their exercise and fruit in Christian practice, which is a sign of the sincerity of a professing Christian to the eye of his neighbor and brethren and a distinguishing and sure evidence of grace to persons’ own consciences.”54 Edwards devotes three sections to this final and “chief” sign of conversion, Christian practice.55 Christian practice “is universally conformed to, and directed by, Christian rules,” “makes a business of such a holy practice above all things,” and persists “to the end of life.”56 It is chief, first, because it is the pinnacle of the twelve signs, the rest forming its foundation.57 Second, with respect to credibility before others, Edwards notes that Jesus Christ, “who knew best how to give us rules to judge of others, has repeated and inculcated the rule, that we should know them by their fruits.”58 Finally, regarding one’s conscience before God, both Scripture and reason declare practice the highest ground for assurance of faith.59

Religious Affections reflects a lifetime of study, contemplation and observation. But Edwards was not weak on application. How did he apply these rules in his pastorate? How did he instruct his contemporaries to apply them? Perhaps most significantly, how might we apply them today? Let us now address these critical questions.

Application of Edwards’ Rules Edwards approached the application of scriptural rules to the conversion of souls with fitting humility, and cautioned others to do the same. Scripture gives no rules whereby ministers might know with certitude who is Christ’s and who is not. Hence his preface to Part III of Affections: I am far from undertaking to give such signs of gracious affections, as shall be sufficient to enable any certainly to distinguish true affections from false in others or to determine positively which of their neighbors are true professors and which

54 Edwards, Religious Affections, 1:314, 321, 324. 55 Edwards, Religious Affections, 1:314. 56 Edwards, Religious Affections, 1:314. Later, Edwards elaborates: “True saints may be guilty of some kinds and degrees of backsliding. … They can never backslide so as to continue no longer in a way of universal obedience; or so, that it shall cease to be their manner to observe all the rules of Christianity, and do all duties required, even the most difficult, and in the most difficult circumstances. … Nor can they ever fall away so as habitually to be more engaged in other things than in the business of religion; or so that it should become their way and manner to serve something else more than God, with such earnestness and diligence, as still to be habitually devoted and given up to the business of religion, unless the words of Christ can fall to the ground . . . and unless a saint can change his God and yet be a true saint.” (p. 316) 57 Edwards, Religious Affections, 1:316-318. 58 Edwards, Religious Affections, 1:321. Here he references Matt. vii. 16. 59 Edwards, Religious Affections, 1:326-333. 10

are hypocrites. In so doing, I should be guilty of that arrogance which I have been condemning. [It is] beyond doubt that the Scriptures abound with rules which may be very serviceable to ministers…. Yet it is also evident that it was never God’s design to give us any rules by which we may certainly know who of our fellow- professors are his, and to make a full and clear separation between sheep and goats. On the contrary, it was God’s design to reserve this to himself, as his prerogative. And therefore no such distinguishing signs as shall enable Christians or ministers to do this are ever to be expected to the world’s end.60 (Italics mine)

Edwards understood the faithful application of such rules, though fallible, to be essential. His lifelong attention to and promulgation of these rules reflected this conviction, as did his teaching. In Affections, Edwards nuanced each rule, often instructing ministers to apply them as Christ did. In explicating Christ-like disposition, he said:

None will understand me that true Christians have no remains of a contrary spirit and can never, in any instances, be guilty of a behavior not agreeable to [a Christian] spirit. But… there is no true Christian upon earth, but is so under the prevailing power of such a spirit. … [M]inisters and others have no warrant from Christ to encourage persons of a contrary character and behavior to think they are converted because they tell a fair story of illuminations and discoveries. In so doing, they would set up their own wisdom against Christ’s and judge against that rule by which Christ has declared all men should know his disciples.61

As to discerning gracious affections in Christian practice, Edwards wrote:

60 Edwards, Religious Affections, 1:262-263. Edwards offered this more personal reflection in Distinguishing Marks. In begging the “friends of the work” to “more fully consider . . . how far and upon what grounds the rules of the Holy Scriptures will truly justify passing censures upon other professing Christians as hypocrites and ignorant of real religion,” he lamented: “I know there is a great aptness in men who suppose they have had some experience of the power of religion to think themselves sufficient to discern and determine the state of others by a little conversation with them; and experience has taught me that this is an error. I once did not imagine that the heart of man had been so unsearchable as it is. I am less charitable, and less uncharitable, than once I was. I find more things in wicked men that may counterfeit and make a fair show of piety; and more ways that the remaining corruption of the godly may make them appear like carnal men, formalists, and dead hypocrites, than once I knew of. The longer I live, the less I wonder that God challenges it as his prerogative to try the hearts of the children of men and directs that this business should be let alone, till harvest.” Edwards, Distinguishing Marks, 2:275-276. Edwards also recognized that rules could only be applied based on “outward manifestations and appearances,” a method “Scripture plainly intimates . . . is at best uncertain and liable to deceit.” Edwards, Religious Affections, 1:260. 61 Edwards, Religious Affections, 1:307. Concerning the third sign of true conversion, real transformation, Edwards wrote: “Allowances, indeed, must be made for the natural temper, which conversion does not entirely eradicate: those sins which a man by his natural constitution was most inclined to before his conversions he may be most apt to fall into still. But yet conversion will make a great alteration even with respect to these sins. The change wrought in conversion is a universal change: grace changes a man with respect to whatever is in him. … [A]ll sin is mortified, constitutional sins as well as others. If a man before his conversion was, by his natural constitution prone to lasciviousness, or drunkenness, or maliciousness, converting grace will make a great alteration in him, with respect to these evil dispositions, so that however he may be still most in danger of these sins, they shall no longer have dominion over him; nor will they any more be properly his character.” 11

When the Scripture so much insists on our loving one another, as a great sign of godliness, … [we are to understand] the soul’s practicing all the duties of the second table of the law; all which the New Testament tells us again and again a true love one to another comprehends. ... [T]here is no place in the New Testament where the declared design is to give signs of godliness, but that holy practice or keeping Christ’s commandments is the mark insisted on. … [S]urely those things which Christ and his apostles chiefly insisted on in the rules they gave, ministers ought chiefly to insist on in the rules they give.62

Edwards modeled this faithful application in his pastorate. At the height of the Great Awakening, he tenderly counseled his rules in a letter to eighteen-year-old convert Deborah Hathaway, later published as Advice to Young Converts.63 From the pulpit, he often warned professing Christians to examine themselves, thus avoiding deception.64 Indeed, whole sermons were given to exhorting professors to “seek those distinguishing qualifications and affections of soul which neither the devil, nor any unholy being, has or can have.”65 In fact, Edwards was so committed to implementing these rules that it cost him his pastorate.

Solomon Stoddard, Edwards’ maternal grandfather and predecessor, converted the Lord’s Table sacrament to a converting ordinance so that communicant status in the Northampton Church required merely “orthodoxy, moral sincerity, and lack of scandal.”66 Edwards, becoming convinced of the deficiency of these standards while writing Affections, enraged his congregation by adding “heartfelt faith,” resulting in his dismissal shortly thereafter from the church he had faithfully shepherded for over two decades.67 To him these rules were not ultimately about theological precision, but pastoral integrity. The eternal state of souls was inextricably bound to his willingness to apply the scriptural rules articulated in Affections.

62 Edwards, Religious Affections, 1:329. Edwards here references Rom. 13:8,10; Gal. 5:14; Matt. 23:39, 40. 63 Marsden, Jonathan Edwards, 225. Jonathan Edwards, Jonathan Edwards' Resolutions; and, Advice to Young Converts. (ed. Stephen J. Nichols; Phillipsburg, N.J.: P & R Publishing, 2001), 27-36. 64 See Edwards, Divine and Supernatural Light, 2:17. Also Jonathan Edwards, The Unreasonableness of Indetermination in Religion, in Works, 2:59-60. 65 Edwards, True Grace Distinguished from the Experience of Devils, in Works, 2:47-50. See also Jonathan Edwards, A Warning to Professors, in Works, 2:185-190; Jonathan Edwards, Christian Cautions, in Works, 2:173- 185; and “Self Examination and the Lord’s Supper” in Works of Jonathan Edwards Online, Vol. 17, Sermons and Discourses, 1730-1733. 66 Marsden, Jonathan Edwards, 347. 67 Marsden, Jonathan Edwards, 347-348. 12

Edwards employed and advocated the usage of scriptural rules to care for eternal souls. To the extent he has stood firmly on the doctrines of Scripture, we must heed his admonition. But how? New England, indeed the whole world, is hardly Puritan. Ours is a gospel-ignorant, biblically illiterate day, an age of show business.68 Modern evangelicalism has embraced both Old Light standards of intellectual assent and New Light excesses of direct revelation and emotionalism. With the predominance of Higher Life theology and its concomitants, “easy believism” and carnal Christianity, we’ve adapted Stoddard’s criteria for Lord’s Table admission, eschewing heartfelt faith.69 Saving faith has been reduced to the sinner’s prayer and attesting works to community service. Gospel confusion, especially related to the application of grace to one’s soul, dominates the evangelical landscape. How can we contextualize Edward’s (Scripture’s) rules?

Ministers must first be clear on the gospel, particularly the nature of saving faith. We must preach that gospel faithfully and without apology. We must carefully study and boldly proclaim warning passages like James 2:14-26, challenging our people, as Edwards did, to distinguish true grace from the experience of devils.70 We must be unashamed workmen, accurately handling unpopular texts like Matthew 7:15-23, as Edwards did in Affections, where Christ exhorts us to know a tree by its fruits.71

We must also serve the gospel to our parishioners personally. Shepherds must tend the sheep through visitation and counseling, tenderly massaging gospel doctrine into their spiritual pores. We must courageously, yet humbly, tell people hard things, not judging their hearts, but pointing out disparities between the Christian practice demanded by scripture and the practice of their lives. We should expect misunderstanding and resistance, accusations of works theology and even hostility. But we must press on. The souls of our people are at stake and minor ministry flesh wounds, indeed even dismissal, are a small price to pay for an eternal weight of glory.

68 See Neil Postman, Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business. (New York: Penguin, 1985). 69 Higher Life theology promises to alleviate “carnal Christianity” through a second work of grace, something Edwards and Scripture reject. See Edwards, Religious Affections, 1:264-265, for the definition of “spiritual.” 70 Edwards applied James 2:19. See Edwards, True Grace, 2:47-50. 71 Edwards, Religious Affections, 1:324. 13

I have seen these rules applied over the last dozen or so years to great profit both in my church and in my own soul. The thrill of seeing those “very low in grace” and falsely assured being truly transformed is one of inexpressible joy.72 The pleasure of seeing even children and teens ask regularly, even publicly, for prayer for their souls, that God’s “divine and supernatural light” might overtake them, is pure ecstasy. To witness the power of God descending on whole families, causing incontrovertible change in their characters is the reason I entered the ministry. Such has been my delight through applying the rules of scripture.

Nothing essential has changed from Edwards’ day to ours. People are still lost. Professing Christians are still deceived and many still differ on the distinguishing marks. Ministers continue to counsel souls on their eternal state. There remains today no question of greater importance than the nature of true religion. We need to follow the gospel script, insisting on both light and heat as signs of truly gracious affections. Let us humbly serve our people by proclaiming the true gospel, both its doctrinal content and its experiential application to their souls.

72 Edwards, Religious Affections, 1:263. 14

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