Ecclesiastical Writings (The Works of Jonathan Edwards, Vol. 12 | WJE)
Overview
This volume includes four documents by Jonathan Edwards on the nature of the church, documents that reveal his views on ecclesiology, congregational autonomy, ordination, and admission to church membership and to the sacraments. The first document, reprinted here for the first time since the eighteenth century, is Edwards’ defense of his fellow Hampshire County ministers in the Robert Breck controversy of 1735–36. The other three documents relate to Edwards’ efforts to restrict admission to the sacraments at Northampton in 1749–50, actions that ultimately led to his dismissal as pastor: An Humble Inquiry explicates his reasons for refuting his grandfather and predecessor Solomon Stoddard’s open admission policy; Misrepresentations Corrected is Edwards’ response to his cousin Solomon Williams’ criticisms of the Humble Inquiry; and Edwards’ untitled narrative, available before only in Sereno Dwight’s 1829 edition and here newly re-edited, gives details of his final conflict with his Northampton congregation.
The general introduction by David D. Hall places these writings in their contemporary polemical contexts and locates Edwards in a historical framework that highlights his Puritan, congregational heritage and the tensions between lay and clerical piety. It also provides an important reassessment of Edwards’ relationship to Stoddard in the light of Edwards’ experience during and after the Great Awakening.
- Title: Ecclesiastical Writings: A Letter an Humble Inquiry Misrepresentations Corrected “Narrative of Communion Controversy”
- Author: Jonathan Edwards
- Edition: Corrected Edition
- Series: The Works of Jonathan Edwards
- Volume: 12
- Publisher: Yale University Press
- Print Publication Date: 2002
- Logos Release Date: 2014
- Language: English
- Resources: 1
- Format: Digital › Logos Research Edition
- Subjects: Church › Early works to 1800; Congregational churches › Massachusetts--Northampton--Doctrines--Early works to 1800
- ISBNs: 0300058977, 9780300058970
- Resource ID: LLS:EDWARDS12
- Resource Type: text.monograph.collected-work
- Metadata Last Updated: 2022-09-29T23:37:14Z
Jonathan Edwards (1703–1758) is considered one of America’s greatest theologians. While attending Yale College, he encountered the same Calvinism that had influenced his own Puritan upbringing.
Three years after Edwards was ordained as a minister, the First Great Awakening began in his church, which prompted Edwards to study conversion and revival within the context of Calvinism. During the revival, Edwards preached his most famous sermon, “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God,” and penned many of his most popular works, including Distinguishing Marks of a Work of the Spirit of God, A Treatise Concerning Religious Affections, and Life and Diary of the Rev. David Brainerd.
In 1757, Edwards reluctantly became president of the College of New Jersey (Princeton University), where he hoped to complete two major works—an expansion of his treatise on the history of redemption and a study of the harmony of the Old and New Testaments. The Works of Jonathan Edwards (26 vols.) is a massive collection containing five decades’ worth of study and scholarship on and from Edwards.