“Jonathan Edwards”

Introduction

A. Edwards lived and ministered in the midst of extreme theological change

B. Ebenezer Gay, Pastor of the Old Ship Church in Hingham from 1718 – 1787

C. The Jonathan Edwards Center at Yale and the Edwards Encyclopedia

D. Key dates - http://edwards.yale.edu/files/JE%20Chronology.pdf

1703 Birth in East Windsor, Connecticut. Yale founded.

1712 Religious “awakening” in East Windsor

1716 Begins college, already knowing Greek and Latin

1719 Write a treatise entitled “On Insects”

1720 Graduates Yale, delivers valedictory address

1722 – 23 Pastor of Presbyterian Church in New York City

1724 – Elected to Faculty at Yale

1726 – Leaves Yale to become assistant to his grandfather Solomon Stoddard in Northampton, Massachusetts. Most influential American pulpit outside Boston. Stoddard had reversed earlier Puritan practice re church membership and had argued that the Lord’s Supper was a “converting ordinance.”

1729 – Stoddard dies, Edwards become Senior Pastor (age of 26)

1734 – Revivals break out in numerous places in Connecticut River Valley

1737 – Writes “Narrative of Surprising Conversions”

1741 – Preaches “Sinners in the Hands of An Angry God” for the first time

1742 - Writes “Some Thoughts Concerning the Present Revival of Religion in New England”

1746 – Publishes “Treatise on Religious Affections.” Princeton founded.

1749 – Church membership criterion controversy in Northampton

1750 – Edwards fired but asked to supply the pulpit for the next 9 months 1751 – Becomes minister (largely to Indians) in Stockbridge

1754 – Writes “Freedom of the Will”

1757 – Writes “The Doctrine of Original Sin”

1758 - February 16, assumes office as president of College of New Jersey; February 23, inoculated for smallpox; March 22, dies of complications from inoculation

NOTE: One central focus- how to identify genuine spirituality.

The Treatise on Religious Affections

{The most important book ever written by a human being?}

A. The Background

1. The Great Awakening - The importance and the problems

2. The purpose of the Affections:

"It is by the mixture of counterfeit religion with true, not discerned and distinguished, that the devil has had his greatest advantage against the cause and kingdom of Christ. It is plainly by this means, principally, that he has prevailed against all revivals of religion, since the first founding of the Christian church."

B. The text for the Affections - I Peter 1:8

"Whom having not seen, you love; in whom, though now you see Him not, yet believing, you rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of joy."

C. Part I of the Affections - The nature and importance of "affections"

"True religion, in great part, consists in holy affections."

"But yet it is evident, that religion consists so much in the affections, as that without holy affection there is no true religion. No light in the understanding is good, which does not produce holy affection in the heart."

Summary: You ARE that which you “seek first” (Matthew 6:33)

D. Part II of the Affections - Some NON-signs of true spirituality (12)

1. Deep and powerful affections

2. Effects on the body

3. Fluency in religion

4. Spontaneity (I did not seek this)

5. They follow a certain order

6. Confidence

E. Part III of the Affections - Some signs of true spirituality (12)

1. Supernatural origin - work of the Holy Spirit

2. The motivation in having in Jesus

"Whereas the exercise of true and holy love in the saints arise in another way, They do not first see that God loves them, and then see that he is lovely; but they first see that God is lovely, and that Christ is excellent and glorious; their hearts are first captivated with this view, and then, consequentially, they see God's love, and great favor to them. The saints' affections begin with God."

3. God's moral excellency, holiness, beauty

4. Deepest desire - to love God more

"The more a true saint loves God with a gracious love, the more he desires to love him, and the more uneasy he is at his lack of love to him; the more he hates sin, the more he desires to hate it. The more he thirsts and longs after God and holiness, the more he longs to long, and breathe out his very soul in longings after God."

5. Evangelical obedience – a solution to the justification/sanctification dilemma

F. Some Implications

1. Personal piety, devotions

2. Church membership

3. , missions, and prayer for others

4. Preaching

5. J. I. Packer, Knowing God (InterVarsity, 1973); Fleming Rutledge, The Crucifixion: Understanding the Death of Jesus Christ (Eerdmans, 2015).