Fit Preaching: "Fitness" in the Preaching of Jonathon Edwards.
David Owen Filson
14 February 2002

    In the Walt Disney classic, Pollyanna, one cannot but notice the obvious tip of the powdered-wig to one infamous Northampton pulpiteer. In the film, the preacher enters through the side door of a very conspicuously New England-style church-building, leans over his pulpit, leers over his parishioners, and shouts repeatedly, "Death cometh unexpectedly!" The thinly-veiled discomfort on the faces of his hearers represents what some imagine must have been the case for those Northamptonites who sat under the preaching of Jonathan Edwards.

    A more judicious picture of Edwards preaching is the telling entry in his private sermon notebook 45 wherein he reminds himself, "Preach a sermon to children the Sabbath after next to stir 'em up to love the Lord Jesus Christ."1 Despite caricatures to the contrary, this brief statement reveals the ultimate intention of Edwards as a preacher. "Preaching" and being "stirred up to love the Lord Jesus Christ," in Edwards' estimation, were properly suited for each other. The homiletical and the soteriological "fit" together. The goal of this paper is to provide introductory exploration of the concept of "fitness" as a homiletical and soteriological concept in the preaching of Jonathan Edwards. Attention will be briefly given to the philosophical background for Edwards' doctrine of fitness. Next, an overview of the role of "fitness" within Edwards' overall homiletical program will be followed by an introduction to Edwards' soteriological use of "fitness" in his preaching.2

    While not within the scope of this paper, a brief look at "fitness" as a philosophical concept will be helpful. It is well-known that precocious, young Jonathan Edwards came across John Locke's Essay Concerning Human Understanding as his friend, Samuel Hopkins, recounts:

In his second year at college, and the thirteenth of his Age, he read Locke on the Human Understanding, with great delight and profit. His Uncommon Genius, by which he was, as it were by Nature, form'd for closeness of Thought and deep Penetration, now began to exercise and discover itself. Taking that Book into his hand upon some Occasion, not long before his Death, he said to some of his select Friends, who were then with him, That he was beyond Expression entertain'd and Pleas'd with it, when he read it in his Youth at College; that he was as much engaged, and had more Satisfaction and Pleasure in studying it, than the most greedy Miser in gathering up handsful of Silver and Gold from some new discover'd Treasure.3

    Locke's influence upon Edwards has been a much-discussed issue in the twentieth-century revival of scholarly interest in Edwards.4 It is obvious enough that amended Lockean concepts and terminology find a home in such a major work of Edwards', as Religious Affections and Freedom of the Will. More recently, scholars have concerned themselves with the degree to which Edwards interacted with the work of French occasionalist philosopher and theologian, Nicolas Malebranche (1638-1715). Richard A.S. Hall writes, "The current wisdom is that Edwards more than likely derived his metaphysical idealism from the Cambridge Platonists and Malebranche..."5 William Sparkes Morris cautions, "While we cannot be sure that Edwards read Malebranche's Recherche de la Verite, we know that he was early interested in it in one of its many English translations, and also in 'some of Malebranche's writing'."6 Norman Fiering considers it likely that Edwards read Malebranche since his Recherche was a holding of Yale's library during his student years.7

    Whatever the case may be, what concerns this essay is that Occasionalism is, as Steven Nadler writes, "the doctrine that finite created beings have no causal efficacy and that God alone is the true causal agent."8 Nadler continues:

When a needle pricks the skin, the physical event is merely an occasion for God to cause the relevant mental state (pain); a volition in the soul to raise an arm or to think of something is only an occasion for God to cause the arm to rise or the ideas to be present to the mind; and the impact of one billiard ball upon another is an occasion for God to move the second ball.9

    This concept of fitness makes its way into Edwards' philosophical-theological thought, and, as this paper will attempt to show, finds frequent expression in his preaching.

    The late John H. Gerstner praises Edwards' preaching, "Jonathan Edwards was, in my opinion, the greatest preacher, from the standpoint of content of his message, who has appeared in history since apostolic times."10 Edwards' preaching was in the vein of the "Puritan Plain-Style." His sermons, virtually without exception follow the pattern of Exposition, Doctrinal Observations, and Application.11 This is the sermonic form that is "fit" for Edwards' desired outcome in preaching. This is why he tells his congregation, "But God, who knows our nature and circumstances, knows what is most adapted to them. He who made the faculties of our souls, knows what will have the greatest tendency to move them, and to work upon them. He who is striving with us, to bring us to repentance and salvation, uses the fittest and best means."12 Interestingly the title of the sermon is, The Warnings of Scripture Are in the Best Manner Adapted to the Awakening and Conversion of Sinners.

    Much has been written concerning Edwards' hermeneutic, his use of the "spiritual sense," and rhetorical devices in his homiletic.13 Fitness, while more properly a theological device for Edwards, also has homiletical implications. Kimnach writes:

The term [fit] as he [Edwards] uses it, is an ethical-aesthetic description of the relationship between the inherent and external means of an operation, between the two discernible aspects of the same operation which occur simultaneously and are thus not themselves causally related. In the case of conversion, the faith and the converting ordinance are simultaneous, paired aspects of God's single gift. Likewise, preaching, when it is a converting ordinance, is necessarily accompanied by an infusion of supernatural light. If a would-be saint struggles mightily for saving faith, he does not actually "earn" the saving grace, though it would be "fit" that he receive it; likewise, a great and powerful preaching performance (or written sermon) does not, of itself, engender conversion, though it may be so good as to become a "fit" vehicle for the transmission of saving grace. God supplies the Word immediately through the Scripture and the preaching; he has also provided each person with a faculty of understanding and a sense of the heart. It is the task of the preacher to fill the understanding by clearly expounding the Scripture and to "stir up" the heart by introducing the diea of self into the context of the Word. If the logic and rhetoric of the preacher are very effective, and if the auditor is attentive and earnest, it is fitting that God give his Spirit simultaneously to the words, this making them His Word, and to the heart of the auditor, causing a gracious infusion of faith.14

    Here, Edwards is following his Puritan forebears, not only in structure, but also in terms of their view of preaching. It was the preacher of Puritan preachers, William Perkins (1558-1602), who had earlier said, "Then let the gospel be preached in such a way that the Holy Spirit effectually works salvation."15 Thomas Goodwin essentially says the same thing of preaching:

There is the letter, the husk; and there is the spirit, the kernel; and when we by expounding the word do open the husk, out drops the kernel... Now, preaching in a more special manner reveals God's word. When an ointment box is once opened, then it casts its savour about; and when the juice of a medicinal herb is once strained out and applied, then it heals. And so it is the spiritual meaning of the word let into the heart which converts it and turns it to God.16

    Edwards believed that conversion would take place, "by a remarkable pouring out of God's own Spirit, with the plain preaching of the gospel of his Son..."17 It is not that preaching causes conversion or awakening. Rather, effective preaching is, as it were, a fit or suitable condition in which God may cause conversion. Edwards makes this clear in his sermon A Divine and Supernatural Light Immediately Imparted to the Soul:

When it is said that this light is given immediately by God, and not obtained by natural means, hereby is intended that it is given by God without making use of any means that operate by their own power, or a natural force. God makes use of means, but it is not as mediate causes to produce this effect. There are not truly any second causes of it, but it is produced by God immediately. The Word of God is no proper cause of this effect, but is made use of only to convey to the mind the subject matter of this saving instruction, and this indeed it does convey to us by natural force or influence. It conveys to our minds these doctrines. It is the cause of the notion of them in our heads, but not of the sense of their divine excellency in our hearts. Indeed a person cannot have spiritual light without the Word. But that does not argue, that the Word properly causes that light. The mind cannot see the excellency of any doctrine, unless that doctrine be first in the mind. But the seeing of the excellency of the doctrine may be immediately from the Spirit of God, though the conveying of the doctrine or proposition itself may be by the Word. So that the notions which are the subject matter of this light, are conveyed to the mind by the Word of God, but that due sense of the heart, wherein this light formally consists, is immediately by the Spirit of God.18

    Post-reformation divine, FranÙois Turretin concurs:

I say the Spirit does not act without the word. For since (as we have just now intimated) God will here to act in a manner suitable to a rational nature and, according to the apostle, 'faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God' (Rom. 10:17), it is evident that the word ought necessarily to concur with the Spirit for our conversion from the order of God and the constitution of the covenant of grace (Is. 59:21) and without it the Spirit does not work faith in adults.19

    While fitness is certainly an element of Edwards' homiletical theory. It is also, in a sense, a homiletical device. One has only to read the sermons of Edwards to conclude that his congregation understood the many ways fitness finds expression in the sermon.

    In The Eternity of Hell Torments, Edwards uses the fitness concept to describe the suitability that exists between sin and punishment:

Just so, if we saw a proportion between the evil of sin and eternal punishment, i.e. if we saw something in wicked men that should appear as hateful to us, as eternal misery appears dreadful (something that should as much stir up indignation and detestation, as eternal misery does terror), all objections against this doctrine would vanish at once. Though now it seem incredible, [and] though when we hear of such a degree and duration of torments as are held forth in this doctrine and think what eternity is, it is ready to seem impossible that such torments should be inflicted on poor feeble creatures by a Creator of infinite mercy. Yet this arises principally from these two causes: 1. It is so contrary to the depraved inclinations of mankind, that they hate to believe it and cannot bear it should be true. 2. They see not the suitableness of eternal punishment to the evil of sin. They see not that it is no more than proportionable to the demerit of sin.20

    Edwards describes the relationship between the Sabbath and religious duty as "meet" or "suitable."22 There is no fitness between fruitless men and the good of heaven.23 So, fitness as a concept, though not, perhaps, as obvious or thought-provoking as his occasional journeys into rhetorical devices, was an important staple in his homiletic. Fitness becomes a homiletical tool in that it describes theological relationships.

    Nowhere does Edwards find fitness a more usable device than in his soteriology. One sees this manifest in his discussion of Christ as Mediator, and to an even more functional and pervasive degree when he speaks of justification. Of the fitness between the person of the Son and the work of the Son, Edwards writes:

The wisdom of God in choosing his eternal Son, appears, not only in that he is a fit person; but in that he was the only fit person of all persons, whether created or uncreated. No created person, neither man nor angel, was fit for this undertaking. For we have just now shown that he must be a person of infinite holiness - dignity - power - wisdom, infinitely dear to God - of infinite love and mercy; and one that may act of his own absolute right. But no creature, how excellent soever, has any one of these qualifications. - There are three uncreated persons of the Trinity, The Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. And Christ alone of these was a suitable person for a redeemer. It was not meet, that the redeemer should be God the Father. Because he, in the divine economy of the persons of the Trinity, was the person that holds the rights of the God-head, and so was the person offended, whose justice required satisfaction; and was to be appeased by a mediator. It was not meet it should be the Holy Ghost, for in being mediator between the Father and the saints, he is in some sense so between the Father and the Spirit. The saints, in all their spiritual transactions with God, act by the Spirit; or rather, it is the Spirit of God that acts in them. They are the temples of the Holy Ghost. The Holy Spirit dwelling in them is their principle of action, in all their transactings with God. But in these spiritual transactings with God, they act by a mediator. These spiritual and holy exercises cannot be acceptable, or avail anything with God, as from a fallen creature, but by a mediator. Therefore Christ, in being mediator between the Father and the saints, may be said to be mediator between the Father and the Holy Spirit, that acts in the saints. And therefore it was meet, that the mediator should not be either the Father or the Spirit, but a middle person between them both.24

    When Edwards turns his quill to a 1734 sermons series, Justification By Faith Alone, the fitness concept takes its fullest Edwardsian expression. Luther referred to justification by faith alone as that upon which the church would "stand or fall." Calvin, held that justification by faith alone as, "the main hinge upon which the entire Christian religion turned." Edwards, however, gave the church her clearest, most pregnant treatment of the doctrine. In this series on Romans 4:5, "But to him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness," Edwards desired to wrest this doctrine out of the hands of the Arminians by proving that God alone is the justifier of the ungodly:

That justification respects a man as ungodly. This is evident by these words - that justifieth the ungodly, which cannot imply less than that God, in the act of justification, has no regard to anything in the person justified, as godliness or any goodness in him, but that immediately before this act, God beholds him only as an ungodly creature, so that godliness in the person to be justified is not so antecedent to his justification as to be the ground of it. When it is said that God justifies the ungodly, it is as absurd to suppose that our godliness, taken as some goodness in us, is the ground of our justification, as when it is said that Christ gave sight to the blind to suppose that sight was prior to, and the ground of, that act of mercy in Christ. Or as, if it should be said that such an one by his bounty has made a poor man rich, to suppose that it was the wealth of this poor man that was the ground of this bounty towards him, and was the price by which it was procured.25

    To accomplish this, Edwards expands the implications of "fitness" or "meet relations" into the discussion of conditionality. The pertinent question here is, "Does the phrase 'justification by faith alone' intend that faith is the cause of justification?" If so, then obviously, God is not justifying the ungodly. But, this is not the drift of the text says Edwards:

It is evident that the subject of justification is looked upon as destitute of any righteousness in himself, by that expression, it is counted, or imputed to him for righteousness. - The phrase, as the apostle uses it here and in the context, manifestly imports that God of his sovereign grace is pleased in his dealings with the sinner, so to regard one that has no righteousness, that the consequence shall be the same as if he had.26

The word "by" connotes conditionality, asserts Edwards, in such a manner that it would be proper to speak of faith as a condition of justification. But this doesn't fully solve the problem, since, in Edwards's reading of the biblical record, there seem to be levels of conditionality. Edwards suggests a clarification by proposing a distinction between causal conditionality and noncausal conditionality, and thus it becomes proper to speak of Edwards seeking to distinguish between that which is a cause and that which is a condition.28

    It may be helpful to say that there are conditions consequential and conditions attendant. Edwards explains the two types of conditionality - causal and non-causal:

And besides, as the word condition is very often understood in the common use of language, faith is not the only thing in us that is the condition of justification. For by the word condition, as it is very often (and perhaps most commonly) used, we mean anything that may have the place of a condition in a conditional proposition, and as such is truly connected with the consequent, especially if the proposition holds both in the affirmative and negative, as the condition is either affirmed or denied. If it be that with which, or which being supposed, a thing shall be, and without which, or it being denied, a thing shall not be, we in such a case call it a condition of that thing.29

    Edwards had earlier stated, "And indeed the justification of a believer is no other than his being admitted to communion in the justification of this head and surety of all believers..."30 He knew that the only condition of consequent or causal condition was not a condition in the sense that faith is a condition. God alone, through the redemptive work of the surety of the elect is the cause of justification. Yet, it only makes sense that a cause be a necessary condition without which there would be no consequence.

    As for the relationship between faith and justification, Edwards places faith in that category of non-causal. However, he quickly observes that,

But in this sense faith is not the only condition of salvation and justification. For there are many things that accompany and flow from faith, with which justification shall be, and without which, it will not be, and therefore are found to be put in Scripture in conditional propositions with justification and salvation, in multitudes of places.31

    Edwards asserts that faith is a qualification necessary for one to have an interest in the Mediator:

And thus it is that faith is the qualification in any person that renders it meet in the sight of God that he should be looked upon as having Christ's satisfaction and righteousness belonging to him, viz. because it is that in him which, on his part, makes up this union between him and Christ. By what has been just now observed, it is a person's being, according to scripture phrase, in Christ, that is the ground of having his satisfaction and merits belonging to him, and a right to the benefits procured thereby.32

God does not give those that believe a union with or an interest in the Savior as a reward for faith, but only because faith is the soul's active uniting with Christ, or is itself the very act of union, on their part. God sees it fit, that in order to a union being established between two intelligent active beings or persons, so as that they should be looked upon as one, there should be the mutual act of both, that each should receive the other, as actively joining themselves one to another.33

And there is a wide difference between its being suitable that Christ's satisfaction and merits should be theirs who believe, because an interest in that satisfaction and merit is a fit reward of faith - or a suitable testimony of God's respect to the amiableness and excellency of that grace - and its being suitable that Christ's satisfaction and merits should be theirs, because Christ and they are so united, that in the eyes of the Judge they may be looked upon and taken as one.34

    One must understand the relationship between faith and justification as non-causal. The one does not produce the other. In true Edwardsian fashion, he chases this subject further still:

Although, on account of faith in the believer, it is in the sight of God fit and congruous, both that he who believes should be looked upon as in Christ, and also as having an interest in his merits, in the way that has been now explained. Yet it appears that this is very wide from a merit of congruity, or indeed any moral congruity at all to either. There is a twofold fitness to a state. I know not how to give them distinguishing names, otherwise than by calling the one a moral, and the other a natural fitness. A person has a moral fitness for a state, when his moral excellency commends him to it, or when his being put into such a good state is but a suitable testimony of regard to the moral excellency, or value, or amiableness of any of his qualifications or acts. A person has a natural fitness for a state, when it appears meet and condecent that he should be in such a state or circumstances, only from the natural concord or agreeableness there is between such qualifications and such circumstances: not because the qualifications are lovely or unlovely, but only because the qualifications and the circumstances are like one another, or do in their nature suit and agree or unite one to another.35

    Edwards holds that there is nothing whatsoever even approximating moral fitness within man. Again, if there were, God would be justifying those who, at least to some degree, were godly. As stated at the outset, Edwards' desire is to wrest this doctrine of justification by faith alone away from the hands of the Arminians. It is as if his goal is to put the "alone" into justification by faith alone. And, this is where the "alone" is solidified. Faith is not an aspect of some moral fitness within man. Rather, faith, like union with Christ, is an aspect of natural fitness. Obviously, neither faith, nor union with Christ, is inherent in man. They are dual aspects of the gift of grace, comprising a natural fitness for justification.

And it is on this latter account only that God looks on it fit by a natural fitness, that he whose heart sincerely unites itself to Christ as his Savior, should be looked upon as united to that Savior, and so having an interest in him, and not from any moral fitness there is between the excellency of such a qualification as faith, and such a glorious blessedness as the having an interest in Christ. God's bestowing Christ and his benefits on a soul in consequence of faith, out of regard only to the natural concord there is between such a qualification of a soul, and such a union with Christ, and interest in him, makes the case very widely different from what it would be, if he bestowed this from regard to any moral suitableness. For, in the former case, it is only from God's love of order that he bestows these things on the account of faith: in the latter, God does it out of love to the grace of faith itself. - God will neither look on Christ's merits as ours, nor adjudge his benefits to us, till we be in Christ. Nor will he look upon us as being in him, without an active unition of our hearts and souls to him, because he is a wise being, and delights in order and not in confusion, and that things should be together or asunder according to their nature. His making such a constitution is a testimony of his love of order. Whereas if it were out of regard to any moral fitness or suitableness between faith and such blessedness, it would be a testimony of his love to the act or qualification itself. The one supposes this divine constitution to be a manifestation of God's regard to the beauty of the act of faith. The other only supposes it to be a manifestation of his regard to the beauty of that order that there is in uniting those things that have a natural agreement and congruity, and unition of the one with the other.

...From these things we may learn in what manner faith is the only condition of justification and salvation. For though it be not the only condition, so as alone truly to have the place of a condition in a hypothetical proposition, in which justification and salvation are the consequent. Yet it is the condition of justification in a manner peculiar to it, and so that nothing else has a parallel influence with it, because faith includes the whole act of unition to Christ as a Savior.36

    As previously mentioned, Edwards saw other non-causal or attendant conditions of justification. He immediately refers to love to God and neighbor. This is because, from the outset, his intention was to show how "evangelical obedience" is related to justification. Turning his attention to Paul's epistles to the Galatians and Romans, Edwards affirms that man is not justified by the works of the law. He is quick to note, however, that the problem cannot be avoided by insisting that Paul has in mind here the ceremonial law. Edwards, using the same logic of non-causal conditionality, asserts obedience as a non-causal condition, as well. Evangelical obedience, like faith and union with Christ, in no way causes justification. Rather, like faith and union with Christ, there is a meet relation between justification and good works. It is on this basis that Edwards is able to do away with any supposed discrepancy between James and Paul. Through Edwardsian lens, it is as if James in 2:18-24 is declaring the fitness that exists between faith, good works, and ultimately, justification. To be sure, one need only peruse the twelve uncertain signs of gracious affections to realize that obedience does not save. On the other hand, one need only read the twelve positive signs to recognize that, if there are truly gracious affections, there must be attendant obedience.

    The importance of the doctrine of fitness is seen, not only as an oft-used homiletic device to describe relationships between things in his preaching, but also as a polemic, par excellence, as Edwards fought against the dangers of Romanism, Arminianism, and even antinomianism.37 Further, Edwards shows in this sermon series, the importance this doctrine has, for if justification by faith alone is lost, what is actually abdicated is justification by the merit of Christ alone. It is a returning to the covenant of works that man, in whom there resides no moral fitness, should keep it.

It is in this doctrine that the most essential difference lies between the covenant of grace and the first covenant. The adverse scheme of justification supposes that we are justified by our works, in the very same sense wherein man was to have been justified by his works under the first covenant. By that covenant our first parents were not to have had eternal life given them for any proper merit in their obedience, because their perfect obedience was a debt that they owed God. Nor was it to be bestowed for any proportion between the dignity of their obedience, and the value of the reward, but only it was to be bestowed from a regard to a moral fitness in the virtue of their obedience, to the reward of God's favor. A title to eternal life was to be given them, as a testimony of God's pleasedness with their works, or his regard to the inherent beauty of their virtue. And so it is the very same way that those in the adverse scheme suppose that we are received into God's special favor now, and to those saving benefits that are the testimonies of it. I am sensible the divines of that side entirely disclaim the popish doctrine of merit, and are free to speak of our utter unworthiness, and the great imperfection of all our services. But after all, it is our virtue, imperfect as it is, that recommends men to God, by which good men come to have a saving interest in Christ, and God's favor, rather than others. These things are bestowed in testimony of God's respect to their goodness. So that whether they will allow the term merit or no, yet they hold, that we are accepted by our own merit, in the same sense, though not in the same degree, as under the first covenant. But the great and most distinguishing difference between that covenant and the covenant of grace is, that by the covenant of grace we are not thus justified by our own works, but only by faith in Jesus Christ.38

    Further, though not exhaustively addressed in this 1734 sermon series, which helped light revival fires, fitness concerns not only justification but sanctification, as well. For, as "evangelical obedience" find its place along side of faith and union with Christ, the justified believer's fitness results in conformity, or what this writer would call progressive fitness so that fitness carries on in image restoration - proportion between the justified and the justifier.39

    Fitness becomes, then, for Edwards a unifying theme that is applicable at many levels, albeit none, perhaps, so "fit" as it truly puts the "alone" in justification by faith alone.

Visual aid for teaching Edwards' doctrine of justification by faith alone.

Angoff, Charles, ed. Jonathan Edwards: His Life and Influence. Cranbury, NJ: Associated University Press, 1975.

Cherry, Conrad. The Theology of Jonathan Edwards: A Reappraisal. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1966.

Edwards, Jonathan. The Works of Jonathan Edwards, 2 Vols., rpt. 1834 Hickman edition. Carlisle, PA and Edinburgh: The Banner of Truth Trust, 1974.

___. The Works of Jonathan Edwards, Vol. 5, Apocalyptic Writings,. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1977.

___. The Works of Jonathan Edwards, Vol. 8, Ethical Writings, ed. Paul Ramsey. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1989.

___. The Works of Jonathan Edwards,Vol. 10, Sermons and Discourses, 1720-1723. ed., Wilson H. Kimnach. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1992.

___. The Works of Jonathan Edwards, Vol. 17, Sermons and Discourses, 1730-1733, ed. Mark Valeri. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1999.

Fiering, Norman. Jonathan Edwards's Moral Thought in Its British Context. Chapel Hill, N.C., 1981.

Goodwin, Thomas. The Works of Thomas Goodwin, 12 Vols., rpt. 1861-1866, James Nichol edition. Eureka, CA: Tanski Publications, 1996.

Stein, Stephen J., ed. Jonathan Edwards's Writings: Text, Context, Interpretation. Bloomington and Indianapolis, IN: Indiana University Press, 1996.

Gerstner, John H. The Rational Biblical Theology of Jonathan Edwards, Vol. 1. Powhatan, VA: Berea Publications and Orlando, FL: Ligonier Ministries, 1991.

Hatch, Nathan O. and Harry S. Stout. Jonathan Edwards and the American Experience. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988.

Logan, Samuel T. "The Doctrine of Justification in the Theology of Jonathan Edwards," Westminster Theological Journal, 46, (1984), 26-52.

___ "The Hermeneutics of Jonathan Edwards," Westminster Theological Journal, Vol. 43, #1, Fall 1980, 79-96.

Miller, Perry. Jonathan Edwards. New York: William Sloane Associates, Inc., 1949.

Morrise, William Sparkes. The Young Jonathan Edwards: A Reconstruction. Brooklyn: Carlson Publishing, Inc., 1991.

Audi, Robert. The Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995.

Perkins, William. The Art of Prophesying. Carlisle, PA and Edinburgh: The Banner of Truth Trust, 1996.

Smith, John E. Jonathan Edwards: Puritan, Preacher, Philosopher. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1992.

Stein, Stephen. "The Quest for the Spiritual Sense: The Biblical Hermeneutics of Jonathan Edwards," Harvard Theological Review, 70 (1977), 99-113.

Turretin, FranÙois. Institutes of Elenctic Theology, 3 Vols., trans. George Musgrave Giger, ed. James T. Dennison, Jr. Phillipsburg, NJ: Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing, 1992, 1994, and 1997 respectively.

1 Jonathan Edwards, General Introduction in The Works of Jonathan Edwards,Vol. 10, Sermons and Discourses, 1720-1723, ed., Wilson H. Kimnach, (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1992) , 62. Hereafter, Works (Yale), vol., p. On pages 42-129, entitled, The Making of Sermons, of this excellent introduction to the sermons of Edwards, Kimnach explains the role of Edwards' private notebooks in the sermon process. Kimnach indicates that virtually all of these private notebooks are cross-referenced to Edwards" sermon corpus. Return to text

2 This writer intends on using this paper as an embryonic foundation for further exploration in Edwards' homiletics. Return to text

3 Samuel Hopkins cited in John H, Gerstner, The Rational Biblical Theology of Jonathan Edwards, Vol. 1, (Powhatan, VA: Berea Publications and Orlando, FL: Ligonier Ministries, 1991), 9-10. Henceforth, Gerstner, RBTJE, vol.p. Return to text

4 See, Perry Miller, Jonathan Edwards, (New York: William Sloane Associates, Inc., 1949). Miller argued for Edwards as "incurably Lockean," p. 62. Ctr., Conrad Cherry, The Theology of Jonathan Edwards: A Reappraisal, (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1966). Cherry departed from Miller's assessment, and rightly offered a covenantal, Puritan Jonathan Edwards. See also, John E. Smith, Jonathan Edwards: Puritan, Preacher, Philosopher, (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1992), 14-29. Smith assesses Locke's influence upon Edwards and helpfully summarizes on page 26:

That Edwards dissented from Locke at particular points does not affect the force of the total experiential orientation of thought which Edwards encountered in Locke's Essay. Central was the appeal to experience and the idea of having a 'sense of' beauty, holiness or love. Edwards, moreover, was greatly attracted by Locke's contrast between the spectator who has only a 'notional understanding' of something, and the person who, 'being in some way inclined', is engaged by way of attraction or aversion to the object or act in question. Being engaged, for Edwards, meant making an active response in contrast to a spectator who is 'neutral' and passive. If Edwards diverged at all from Locke even at this fundamental level, it could only be in Edwards's having established a more intimate connection between sense and understanding than Locke envisaged.

5 Richard A.S. Hall, Did Berkley Influence Edwards?" in Jonathan Edwards's Writings: Text, Context, Interpretation, ed., Stephen J. Stein, (Bloomington and Indianapolis, IN: Indiana University Press, 1996), 101. Return to text

6 William Sparkes Morrise, The Young Jonathan Edwards: A Reconstruction, (Brooklyn: Carlson Publishing, Inc., 1991.), 135. Return to text

7 Norman Fiering, Jonathan Edwards's Moral Thought in Its British Context, (Chapel Hill, N.C., 1981), 30-45. Return to text

8 Steven Nadler, Nicolas Malebranche in The Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy, ed., Robert Audi, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), 459-60. Return to text

9 Ibid., Occasionalism, 543. Return to text

10 Gerstner, RBTJE, 1.480. Return to text

11 It will be helpful to consider this excellent, albeit lengthy, quotation of Wilson H. Kimnach from the out-of-print, Wilson H. Kimnach, The Brazen Trumpet: Jonathan Edwards's Conception of the Sermon, in Jonathan Edwards: His Life and Influence, ed., Charles Angoff, (Cranbury, NJ: Associated University Press, 1975), 30-32.

The Text - sometimes called the Opening or Explication, though never labeled by Edwards - provides the formal foundation of the sermon. It consisits of a passage from the Bible, sometimes as much as three or four verses, though not infrequently s little as a phrase. Edwards almost always supplies a commentary - defining words, clarifying the context, supplying historical background, and so forth - which anticipates, and culminates in, the statement of the sermon's doctrine. The Text is always in a sense the most "academic" portion of the sermon, yet it has been observed that some of Edwards's most beautiful passages of narration and description occur there, particularly when he is attempting to give a lively portrait of a biblical event.

The statement of doctrine - carefully labeled "Doc." By Edwards - is the evident thematic implication of the examined Scripture text; indeed, Perry Miller has characterized Edwards's doctrinal statements as "the baldest, most obvious," though a little game of guessing the sermon's text from reading it statement of doctrine will soon convince one that Edwards was an ingenious and imaginative textuary. In culminating the explication of the Text, the concise statement of doctrine formulates the thesis of the entire sermon and introduces its formal heart, the Doctrine. Usually consisting a little less than half the body of the sermon, the Doctrine is immediately divided into two, three, or more major propositions, the first one or two of which present an exposition of the doctrinal idea, while the remainder offer the Reasons of the Doctrine. All of these major propositions are subdivided further into numbered subheads, often on three levels of subdivision. As a structure of thought, the Doctrine develops, as often as not, from negation to affirmation, and from assertion to confirmation through appeals to common sense, experience, and the authority of Scripture. Although the term reason and the reputation of the Puritans for "iron logic" have fostered the notion that something approximating modern academic logic exists in the arguments of these sermons, the burden of proof is actually carried by authority - that of the ministerial "voice" and that of the Word of God. The "Logic" is primarily a matter of the methodical formal structure of the sermon and the associational logic of modern advertising. Much of the power of the proof to persuade is, moreover, directly attributable to certain rhetorical and even poetic devices: particularization, repetition, vivid images and metaphors, and pungent phrasing.

All in all, the primary function of the Doctrine division of the sermon is clarification and amplification of the thesis, the statement of doctrine.

The third division of the sermon, the Application or Improvement (always boldly labeled by Edwards), generally accounts for over half the total sermon. Its relationship with the Doctrine division is a little different from that between the Doctrine and the Text. Whereas the Doctrine appears to fulfill and extend the Text, the Application is, in a sense, parallel to the Doctrine, rendering abstract principles as concrete experiences, indicating the point of the Gospel's impingement upon life, and focusing the metaphysical doctrine upon a social, or even personal situation. Application does not extend the theological scope of the Doctrine, but ultimately reduces the doctrinal burden of the sermon to a few specific injunctions. Within, the Application is formally structured much as the Doctrine, the primary divisions being three or four Uses (Instruction, Examination, Exhortation), each of which is divided into numbered subheads. Frequently, the Application concludes with a brief series of Directions.

Text, Doctrine, and Application, if well contrived, fit one another like rings in a pool of water.

12 Works, (Hickman), 2.68. Return to text

13 See, Samuel T. Logan, "The Hermeneutics of Jonathan Edwards," Westminster Theological Journal, Vol. 43, #1, Fall 1980, 79-96. Stephen Stein, "The Quest for the Spiritual Sense: The Biblical Hermeneutics of Jonathan Edwards," Harvard Theological Review, 70 (1977), 99-113. See also, Stein, "The Spirit and the Word: Jonathan Edwards and Scriptural Exegesis," in Jonathan Edwards and the American Experience, eds., Nathan O. Hatch and Harry S. Stout, (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988, 118-30. See also, Stein, "Editor's Introduction," in The Works of Jonathan Edwards, Vol. 5, Apocalyptic Writings, ed. Stephen J. Stein, (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1977), 1-93. See also, John F. Wilson, "Editor's Introduction," in The Works of Jonathan Edwards, Vol. 10, History of the Work of Redemption, ed. John F. Wilson, (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1989), 1-109. Return to text

14 Kimnach, Works, (Yale), 10.203. Return to text

15 William Perkins, The Art of Prophesying, Carlisle, PA and Edinburgh: The Banner of Truth Trust, 1996), 58. Return to text

16 Thomas Goodwin, The Works of Thomas Goodwin, 12 Vols., rpt. 1861-1866, James Nichol edition, (Eureka, CA: Tanski Publications, 1996), 11.364. Return to text

17 Jonathan Edwards, Man's Natural Blindness in Religion in The Works of Jonathan Edwards, 2 Vols., rpt. 1834 Hickman edition, (Carlilse, PA and Edinburgh: The Banner of Truth Trust, 1974), 2.254. Henceforth, Works, (Hickman), vol.p. Return to text

18 Jonathan Edwards, A Divine and Supernatural Light in The Works of Jonathan Edwards, Vol. 10, Sermons and Discourses, 1730-1733, ed. Mark Valeri, (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1999), 416-17. Return to text

19 FranÙois Turretin, Institutes of Elenctic Theology, 3 Vols., trans. George Musgrave Giger, ed. James T. Dennison, Jr., (Phillipsburg, NJ: Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing, 1992, 1994, and 1997 respectively), 2.526. Return to text

20 Works, (Hickman), 2.84. Return to text

21 Ibid. Return to text

22 Ibid., 2.94. Return to text

23 Ibid., 2.126. Return to text

24 Ibid., 2.142. Return to text

25 Ibid., 1.622. Return to text

26 Ibid. Return to text

27 Ibid., 623. Return to text

28 Samuel T. Logan, "The Doctrine of Justification in the Theology of Jonathan Edwards," Westminster Theological Journal, 46, (1984), 32. Return to text

29 Works, (Hickman), 1.623. Return to text

30 Ibid. Return to text

31 Ibid. Return to text

32 Ibid., 625. Return to text

33 Ibid., 626. Return to text

34 Ibid. Return to text

35 Ibid., 626-27. Return to text

36 Ibid., 627. Return to text

37 Logan, Justification, 26-28, 41. Return to text

38 Ibid., 652-53. Return to text

39 Edwards speaks of Christians in the process of sanctification as proportioned Christians in Charity and Its Fruits in Jonathan Edwards, The Works of Jonathan Edwards, Vol. 8, Ethical Writings, ed. Paul Ramsey, (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1989), sermon twelve. Return to text