The Biblical-Experimental Foundations Of Jonathan Edwards’s Theology Of Religious Experience, 1720-1723

By Karin Spiecker Stetina

What is the nature of true religion? Is it a matter of the mind “knowing the truth” (Bruce Milne), is it the experience of the heart being “strangely warmed” ( John Wesley), is it the “pursuit of holiness” (Jerry Bridges)? From the early church to today, Christians have struggled with discerning, describing, and authenticating true religious experience. [1] As a graduate student at Wheaton College during the mid-1990s, I was directly confronted with these issues when revival broke out on campus. As most of the students became consumed with repentance, the promptings of the Holy Spirit, and holiness, the very questions that were once theoretical in nature became very real. [2]

This very question opened eighteenth-century Puritan Jonathan Edwards’s essay, Religious Affections, in 1746. Believing that an understanding of true religion is fundamental for abiding in the way of truth and seeking the advancement of faith, he devoted himself to this subject throughout his life. [3] From his narratives of his own early religious experiences to his later theological accounts of the revivals, Edwards lays out a timeless, biblically grounded understanding of the nature of true religion and guidance in how to express faith in contemporary terms. This article will point out the significance of Edwards’s theology through a three-part focus: (1) showing the biblical, experimental roots of it; (2) briefly pointing out how the later public expressions draw on the early biblical foundation; and (3) providing suggestions for the application of his ideas to our day.

Let us begin with a brief examination of the roots of Edwards’s theology of religious experience. Most Edwardsean scholarship has sought to ground Edwards’s epistemology in his theological or philosophical roots, stereotyping him as a Calvinist, [4] empiricist, [5] pragmatist, [6] or an idealist. [7] While Edwards clearly appreciates great minds like Calvin and Locke, as evident in his later descriptions of religious experience where he brilliantly combines Lockean language with Calvin’s biblical idea of the inner testimony of the Spirit, scholars in the past have overestimated their influence. [8] His theology was not driven by a theological or philosophical system. Edwards should be viewed first and foremost as a biblical pastor who had the unique ability to use philosophy and theology as tools to communicate his experience of God’s saving grace.

So how does Edwards understand the nature of true religion? Religious experience, according to Edwards, consists of the knowledge of God’s glory, love, and grace made manifest by Jesus Christ and supernaturally imparted to the soul. This redemptive work, mediated through the Word and the Holy Spirit, results in a new nature of the soul that transforms the heart, mind, and actions of the Christian after Christ’s righteousness. Holiness is evidence of God’s supernatural work. Edwards’s core concept of the new nature of the soul, which later evolves into the concept of the “sense of the heart,” [9] integrates rational and experiential religion in a biblical experimental theology.

Edwards’s Early View

It is clear that from an early age Jonathan Edwards had a personal concern for matters of religion. Born in 1703, in East Windsor, Connecticut, Edwards was confronted from the beginning with the spirit of revivalism. As the son, grandson, and great-grandson of clergy, it is not surprising that Edwards pursued a career as a pastor. Yet Edwards’s social, intellectual, and familial circumstances seem insufficient in explaining his strong interest in religion. He records that, from that early age, his affections “seemed to be lively and easily moved,” and that he felt in his element when he was occupied in “religious duties,” especially private prayer. [10] It was not until after his time at Yale, however, that Edwards felt confident in his religious conversion.

Edwards was sent to Yale in 1716 to prepare for the ministry. From Edwards’s own writings it is known that the Dummer collection, which included the major works of Calvinists, rationalist metaphysics, and the scientific and “empirical” ideas of Newton and Locke, was an important part of Edward’s education. [11] Samuel Hopkins, a student and close friend of Edwards, even goes as far as to claim that Locke’s Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1690) was more satisfying to Jonathan than “handfuls of silver and gold” are to a greedy miser. [12] It is important to note, however, that textual evidence shows that Edwards did not study Locke until after his pastorate in New York— the place where he lay the foundation for his theology of religious experience. [13]

The New York Experience

The New York period and the months leading up to it (1720-1723) encompassed one of the most “remarkable seasons of awakening” of Edwards’s life. [14] During this time, he came to appreciate the complexity of religious experience. Though his Puritan forefathers had given detailed descriptions of salvation, Edwards found it to be a much more inexplicable process. While in New York, Edwards dedicated himself fully to God and strove to guide his congregants to a similar commitment through preaching the Word in mainly traditional biblical and, at times, experimental terms. [15]

In these early sermons on redemption and sanctification, he describes true religious experience as the result of the imputation of Christ’s righteousness and the impartation of a new divine nature which restores the image of God to the soul. In this process, the mind and the heart are united to Christ through the mediatory work of the Word and Spirit. This new nature gives Christians the desire to serve God alone and enables them to be holy. In glorification, Edwards explains, Christians will be able to enjoy complete transformation and eternal happiness—a biblical truth that provided him with hope. This article will give a brief survey of the correspondence between

Preparation

In his Diary, Edwards records that his spiritual experiences did not follow the exact steps of salvation that he had studied at Yale. He describes his early years at New Haven as a time of preparation for conversion. Edwards believed that God used the extreme stress that he underwent to enable him to abandon “all ways of known outward sin” and to overcome his inner objection to the “horrible” doctrine of God’s absolute sovereignty. Edwards recalls that God “brought [him] nigh to the grave, and shook [him] over the pit of hell.” This speculative knowledge of God’s truth made spiritual truth credible to him. It was only through the Holy Spirit’s divine illumination, however, that he was able to know God’s glory— hearing the “sweet” voice of Christ in the gospel and being prepared to receive Christ as Savior. [16] The infusion of the Spirit afforded him “new apprehensions and ideas of Christ, the work of redemption, and the glorious way of salvation.” His “heart” and “mind” were enlightened to the glories of the gospel and his soul was “diffused” with a “new sense” of God’s glory. [17] later in his career, Edwards describes his spiritual illumination as the beginning of his salvation. [18]

Edwards’s personal understanding of preparation had a tremendous impact on his theology. While he continues to maintain a form of the Puritan doctrine of preparation, he advocates a simplified scheme that focuses on the Spirit’s work in awakening the mind to the divine truths of Scripture. He uses the biblical analogy of light in “Christ, the light of the World” to covertly convey his experience of illumination. He preaches that souls are “naturally like a dark, hideous dungeon,” blind to spiritual things. [19] Echoing his experience, he writes that it is only when sinners are enlightened by the light of Christ that they are able to be “really sensible of the truth of these things.” [20] He explains that most people experience divine illumination as an awakening from the “dead sleep of sin” to the reality of the “unparalleled goodness and a most sweet compassion” of God. [21] The soul, filled with the Holy Spirit, is sensible of God’s glory revealed in the Word and creation and its need for His grace.22 When the heart and mind are illumined, a person realizes the necessity of faith in Christ and repentance of sin. [23]

Conversion

While repentance and dedicating oneself to God are necessary components of salvation, Edwards believed that God would not pardon sin without the application of Christ’s satisfaction and the renewal of the image of God. In a notebook, Edwards writes that his repentance was to no avail without Christ. “We are not forgiven now because our repentance makes any satisfaction, but because thereby we reject the sin and receive the satisfaction already made.” [24] We are saved “on the account of Christ’s activeness in obedience and doing well; he acted Adam’s part over again.” In justification, believers experience forgiveness and restoration because they are united to Christ, His righteousness is imputed, and the image of God is renewed in their soul. [25]

Edwards pinpoints his conversion to January 12, 1723, not long after he had graduated from Yale, while ministering in New York. [26] In his Personal Narrative, he describes at length — in the “sense of the heart” language that he develops later in his career—the impact of Christ’s work through the Word and the Spirit on his soul:

sort of inward, sweet delight in God and divine things, that I have lived much in since, was on reading those words, 1 Tim. 1:17. Now unto the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only wise God, be honour and glory for ever and ever, Amen. As I read the words, there came into my soul, and was as it were diffused through it, a sense of the glory of the Divine Being; a new sense, quite different from any thing I ever experienced before. Never any words of Scripture seemed to me as these words did. I thought with myself, how excellent a Being that was, and how happy I should be, if I might enjoy that God, and be wrapt up to him in heaven, and be as it were swallowed up in him for ever! I kept saying, and as it were singing over these words of Scripture to myself; and went to pray to God that I might enjoy him, and prayed in a manner quite different from what I used to do; with a new sort of affections. [27]

In response to his Spirit-illumined reading of Scripture, Edwards claims, “I made a solemn dedication of myself to God, and wrote it down; giving up myself, and all that I had, to God; to be for the future in no respect my own; to act as one that had no right to himself, in any respect.” [28]

Edwards notes that the new divine nature began to restore his will, affections, and mind after Christ. In a notebook, he writes that regeneration transforms the soul into “a little, sweet and delightful image of the blessed Jehovah.” The restored soul is like a pure “little white flower.” [29] He returns to this aesthetic description in Personal Narrative. [30] From that time onward, Edwards experienced a new sense of divine things and “a sweet burning” in his “heart” that he hardly had the words to describe. [31] He could only explain it as the Spirit transfiguring his thoughts and affections after the image of God. Edwards’s new divine sense resulted in more spiritual insight into the Word and a new love for God.32 He felt the freedom to do what he was originally created to do: serve and glorify God. [33] Edwards resolved to allow this new nature to influence his whole life.

Edwards’s redemption experience had a key role in the development of his theology. His early works are consumed with explaining in biblical terms the effect salvation has on the soul. He told his congregants that the regenerate experiences “adoption, union with Christ, communion with God, the indwelling of the Holy Ghost, the heavenly happiness, (and) the pleasure of the eternal paradise.” [34] Drawing on the description in his Diary, he told his congregants in “Dedication to God” that if they truly commit themselves to God and are justified, they become “a member” of Christ. The redeemed experience “peace of conscience from the apprehension of the pardon of...sins and the imputation of Christ’s righteousness.” [35] Edwards did not, however, try to explain in detail, how Christ’s righteousness is imputed. Like his personal writings, he focuses on the effects of Christ’s work — the enjoyment of Christ’s glory, power, and righteousness. [36]

Some of the clearest examples of Edwards’s integration of his biblically grounded experience into his theology are evident in his discussion of the renewal of the image of God in redemption. For example, in “living to Christ,” Edwards conveys his experience of the Spirit as the new spiritual principle in language that points to his more technical expressions in his later works. Christ, through the Word and Spirit is “communicating and infusing grace and holiness, which is the principle of eternal life.” [37] using the biblical metaphor of light, Edwards writes that “the heavenly image of the Son of God, the brightness of God’s glory, is derived upon the soul” in redemption. [38]

He also uses the sort of aesthetic imagery found in his personal writings, preaching in “Christ, the light of the World” that, in conversion, graces spring forth in the soul like beautiful flowers. [39]

Echoing his encounter, he insists that when Christ enlightens the soul, “he is as it were brought into a new world.” The indwelling of the Spirit allows one to enjoy Christ’s glory and “behold the beauties of this light of the world!” [40] The apprehension of that glory in the Word of God results in the greatest “pleasure and delight.” [41] Throughout his early sermons, Edwards contends that one way to know if Jesus Christ is truly dwelling within is to see if the heart, mind, and will truly love God and desire to serve Him; for the redeemed soul is “born again” and a “new creature.” [42]

Sanctification

The imputation of Christ’s righteousness and the renewal of the image of God was just the beginning of Edwards’s experience of restoration. Edwards describes the New York period as a time of incredible spiritual growth. As the Spirit molded his character after Christ, he began to see spiritual fruit in his life. He longed for heaven where, as Scripture told, he would enjoy complete spiritual transformation and eternal happiness.

Prior to his time in New York, Edwards had feared God’s judgment. Though his rigorous self-examination did not completely end in New York, he began to feel safe in Christ’s love, knowing that the Holy Spirit dwelled in his soul. [43] His Diary describes how Christ administers “hard blows” to the sinful nature in sanctification. These strikes cause the “old man” to “stagger and reel. We thereby get strong ground and footing against him, he is the weaker ever after.” [44] Edwards enjoyed his new liberty from the “old man” and longed for eternity, when he would experience complete freedom to glorify God. [45]

As the Holy Spirit operated within his soul, Edwards notes his increased ability to perceive and respond to the glory of God. In his personal writings he uses imagery of the physical senses to describe what he later designates as his “new spiritual sense” or the “sense of the heart.” The Spirit gives the Christian “such an idea of religion in his mind, wherein he knows, sees and feels that power, that holiness, that purity, that majesty, that love, that excellency, that beauty and loveliness” of God. [46] Edwards compares his spiritual perception to the pleasurable experiences of tasting, hearing, and seeing; he describes it as “sweet and ravishingly lovely,” and compares it to the beauty of flowers and the delightful music of birds. [47] In response to Scripture’s revelation of God’s glory, Edwards recalls that his “heart panted after this, to lie low before God, as in the dust; that I might be nothing, and that God might be all, that I might become as a little child.” [48] The Spirit enabled him to commit his whole self to God. [49]

Edwards found it difficult to explain his new sense of the divine in concrete terms. Later in his career, he uses “sense of the heart” language, describing his spiritual experience as an “inward, sweet sense of these things.” [50] using the metaphors of vision, hearing, and touch that correspond with his earlier descriptions, he writes that it was like a

calm, sweet abstraction of the soul from all the concerns o[f] this world; and sometimes a kind of vision, or fixed ideas and imaginations, of being alone in the mountains, or some solitary wilderness, far from all mankind, sweetly conversing with Christ, and wrapt and swallowed up in God. [51]

As a Christian, Edwards believed the Holy Spirit was giving him a progressively deeper spiritual awareness of God, the world, and himself.

After receiving Christ as Savior, Edwards records in his Diary that he enjoyed the Spirit’s motions to make him holy. [52] He writes in a Miscellany, “how doth it clear change the soul and make it more excellent than other beings.” It becomes “pure, unspotted and undefiled, low and humble, pleasing and harmless.” The redeemed soul seemed to him “lovely,” like “a delightful field or garden planted by God,” capable of emitting the most delightful aroma [53] — almost “too high a beauty for any creatures to be adorned with,” for it transforms the believer after the glorious God. [54]

Edwards pursued holiness with great diligence during his early pastorate, attempting to be like Christ in every way. He desired to exemplify, as Christ did, the qualities laid out in Galatians 5:22-23 and the Sermon on the Mount. [55] Though very critical of himself, his personal writings reflect a growth in his heart, mind, and actions. [56] They suggest that he grew in humility, love, joy, self-control, and devotion to God. [57] The Diary shows how his determination to gain worldly recognition was replaced by a desire to deny himself and be humble. [58] While Edwards often struggled in New York to depend on God’s grace for spiritual growth, his many failed attempts to live righteously on his own taught him that “holiness is entirely throughout, the work of the Spirit of God.” [59] In retrospect, he even acknowledges that he experienced a great increase in holiness. [60] He looked forward to glorification, promised in Scripture, when he would be completely united to Christ and perfectly holy. [61]

In an even more hopeful tone than his personal writings convey, Edwards extols the glorious freedom that the believer experiences in his sermons “Christian liberty” and “Christian Safety.” Quoting almost directly from his Diary, Edwards writes that Christ “gives the body of sin...such a blow on the head as he never recovers, but lies dying by degrees till he quite expires.” [62] As Scripture states, the Christian enjoys “a freedom from the cruel chains of sin and the devil, a perfect freedom from condemnation to eternal punishment, a freedom from the tormenting falls of conscience and twinges of one’s own heart.” [63] This leads to a sense of “rest, satisfaction, and repose in the soul.” [64]

In the context of the sermon, Edwards also indirectly communicates his experience of the growth of the new sense. He writes that “Christ himself, the power and wisdom of God, dwells in the heart of the one and fills his soul with a divine light, a spiritual fragrancy, and heavenly grace.” [65] Having Christ’s divine power within, they should experience a growing knowledge of God and divine things and are fit “for glory.” [66]

Echoing his personal writings, Edwards tells his congregants that the Spirit’s sanctification frees the Christian to do what is truly profitable and pleasurable: to serve and obey God. [67] He encourages them to rededicate themselves to God. Almost verbatim from his Diary, he writes, “Renounce all right in yourself, and humbly tell him that you receive [him] as your whole portion and happiness, and that you will be devoted to his glory. Tell him that you do and will receive his commands...with all the difficulties that do or can possibly attend them.” [68] Edwards holds up Christ, however, rather than himself as the perfect example of being fully dedicated to God.

Again employing the sensory imagery found in his personal writings, Edwards encourages his congregants to recognize the impact of the sanctifying work of the Spirit on their ability to perceive divine beauty and holiness. He explains that faith, or what he later designates the “new sense,” “enlarges” the Christian’s “understanding and clarifies the eye of his soul, so that he can view the highest heavens at a distance and have a delightful prospect of Christ in glory.” [69] Edwards likens the Christian’s growing spiritual knowledge of Christ to a delightful sensory experience. Thus, the Christian is uniquely equipped to perceive “the loveliness of Christ.” “All the loveliness that is to be seen in heaven and earth is only the reflection of the rays of his lovely glory, so there is scarce anything that is glorious, sweet, beautiful and pleasant, but what is used to see the beauty of Christ.” [70] To Edwards, the spiritual perception of Christ’s beauty is beyond any natural sensation.

In sanctification, the soul is “made like unto God in holiness and happiness.” [71] He describes the soul as “lovely,” like “sweet flowers that adorn the face of the earth.” The Spirit causes the sanctified soul to shine with holiness. [72] Indirectly, Edwards shared his own astonishment that God should so highly honor a creature as to conform it to His image [73]; this stunning truth is enough to provide the Christian with hope and happiness.[74]

At the very same time that Edwards was feeling his new passion for God and holiness, he preached sermons describing the conformity of the soul to the image of God. Though only a fragment of “love to Christ” remains, the remnant paints a passionate picture of Christ’s loveliness to evoke a desire to love God alone. [75] Edwards contrasts the limited transitory pleasures of worldly love to the absolute eternal pleasures of divine love. [76] He promises that their heart will be filled with “pleasure,” “rapture,” and an “inexpressible sweetness” that is beyond any natural feeling as they are transformed to Christ’s image. [77]

As Edwards examines himself for exhibited biblical holiness, he urges his congregation to continually examine their lives and begin living in accord with the nature imparted to them. [78] Scripture presents us with a picture of Christ, who is holy. Edwards tells his audience that “holiness is a conformity unto this copy” both in will and in action. [79] They should diligently observe “the life of Christ in the New Testament,” as prescribed in Matthew 11:29. [80] A way to know if one is being sanctified, Edwards tells his congregants, is “if you feel Christ’s Sermon upon the Mount engraven on the fleshly tables ofyour hearts.” [81] In an optimistic tone, Edwards calls them to pursue holiness with their whole lives, proposing a strict diet of the Word and prayer to help them to grow.

Edwards’s Public Expression

By the time Jonathan Edwards left New York in the spring of 1723, he had established a strong scriptural, experimental foundation for his theology. He had personally experienced a restoration of his soul from the state of sin to the state of salvation and felt his whole life being transformed by the Holy Spirit and the Word. Edwards describes his “new sense” of the excellency of God, holiness, and the things of religion that resulted in love and commitment to God. During his New York pastorate, he covertly expounded upon every aspect of his salvation experience. The nature of true religious experience was a topic that Edwards continued to revisit throughout his career, finding new tools to express his biblical understanding to his contemporaries.

When Edwards returned to Yale in the fall of 1723 to complete his Master’s and to begin a tutorship, his goal was to continue to grow in his faith, hope, and love for God. [82] Though he did not see the increase in spirituality that he had hoped for, this time provided Edwards with an opportunity to gain philosophical and theological tools that would help him articulate his view of religious experience that he initiated in New York.

Edwards found the intellectual ideas of Calvin, Locke, Newton, and the likes to be excellent resources for explaining the experience of redemption. Locke’s explanation of sensory experience, in particular, provided Edwards with the technical language to better describe the distinction between natural knowledge and faith. Building on his earlier descriptions, Edwards describes the experience of the Christian as a “new sense of the heart,” “sight or discovery,” or “a lively feeling.” [83] Just as the words of 1 Timothy 1:17 had appeared new to him, Edwards portrays the converted as having a new understanding of spiritual notions. Consequently, the “things of religion” seem “new to them ... preaching is a new thing...the bible is a new book.” [84] While these human constructs were helpful in expressing faith, Edwards’s devotion to the Word, however, kept him from being captivated by them. Even in his most polemical writings, where he was apt to use philosophical and theological systems, Edwards’s theology of religious experience remains rooted in his early biblical, experimental conception. [85]

Edwards’s own biblically grounded experience that he recorded in his Diary of a new “sense of the glory of the Divine being” in his soul endures throughout his career as the core of his theology of religious experience. [86] This is evident in his later public works —especially A Divine and Supernatural Light, A Faithful Narrative of the Surprising Work of God (1737), A Treatise Concerning Religious Affections (1746), The Nature of True Virtue (1755), and The End for Which God Created the World (1765).

Application

If there were more time, we could further explore how Edwards continues his defense of true religion in these important later works. We will leave that, however, for another time and return to some of the initial concerns of this article. How can we discern true religion from false religion? As Charles Spurgeon aptly put it, “Discernment is not simply a matter of telling the difference between what is right and wrong; rather it is the difference between right and almost right.” living in an age where fear, uncertainty, and despair are common experiences, people are searching for hope and meaning in the likes of Oprah Winfrey, Eckard Tolle, and books like The Shack. As Christians, we need discernment so we may be a beacon of light, helping people know true religion — faith in Jesus Christ. Edwards is a tremendous help in this daunting task.

Like us, Edwards was living at a time when Christianity was facing great challenges. Amidst Emotionalism, Idealism, Rationalism, and Secular Moralism, Edwards felt an urgency to know and teach on the nature of true religion. Having personally encountered the reality of sin and grace, Edwards sought to biblically defend the experience of salvation from the threats of these forces. He did so by publicly expressing his biblical experience in the modern concept of the “sense of the heart.” In doing so, however, it is apparent, as Hopkins articulated, that Edwards called “no man,” only God, “father.” [87]

It falls upon us as Christian students, teachers, pastors, and leaders to learn from Edwards how to enjoy and promote “true religion.” By rooting our theology in God’s Spirit-illumined Word, we can stay faithful to God’s revelation of true faith. By knowing the challenges of our day and discovering how to effectively communicate the eternal truths of the Word to our culture, we can seek to be an “instrument” of God’s glory, as was Edwards. [88] let’s follow his model so that we can effectively express the Christian faith to a culture dominated by relativism, pluralism, consumerism, and at times pessimism. Soli Deo Gloria.

Notes

1. The religious experiences of Montanists, the medieval mystics, and the Brethren of the Common life were scrutinized by the Church to determine whether they were authentic.
2. The history of the revival in March of 1995 is described in detail in Accounts of a Campus Revival, edited by Beougher and Dorsett. http://www.wheaton.edu/bgc/ archives/GUIDES/514.htm
3. Religious Affections (Grand Rapids: Reformation Heritage Books, 2009): “But yet, I am humbly, but fully persuaded, we shall never be in the way of truth, nor go on in a way acceptable to God, and tending to the advancement of Christ’s kingdom, till we do so.”
4. Conrad Cherry, The Theology of Jonathan Edwards: A Reappraisal (Bloomington: IU Press, 1996).
5. Perry Miller, Jonathan Edwards (Amherst: university of Massachusetts Press, 1981), 43-68, 186-87.
6. David Jacobson, “Jonathan Edwards and the ‘American Difference’: Pragmatic Reflections on the ‘Sense of the Heart,’” Journal of American Studies 21 (Dec. 1987): 377-85.
7. Wm. Wainwright, “Jonathan Edwards and the Sense of the Heart,” Faith & Philosophy 7, 1 (1990):43-62.
8. For example, in Freedom of the Will, a work that utilizes both rationalist and Calvinist language, Edwards explicitly states that he “should not take it at all amiss, to be called a Calvinist, for distinction’s sake: though I utterly disclaim a dependence on Calvin” (WJE 1:131). Diary, YW 16:762; Resolutions 1, 4, 23, 27, 43, 44, YW 16:753-56.
9. This article uses religious experience, in contrast to Schleiermacher and William James, to provide an intellectual construct that organizes Edwards’s understanding of the experience of God’s grace in salvation. This is not a term that Edwards directly employed—though he often used the term “experience” by itself. Instead, he favored the term “true religion” to refer to the Christian experience.
10. Jonathan Edwards, “Personal Narrative” ( Jonathan Edwards: Representative Selections, ed. by Clarence H. Faust and Thomas H. Johnson [New York, 1935]), 1:liv (hereafter cited as PN).
11. Norman Fiering notes that Edwards’s MS “Catalogue” in the Beinecke Lib., Yale university, has not yet been adequately transcribed or studied. He finds James S. Caskey’s “Jonathan Edwards’ ‘Catalogue’” (B.D. thesis, Chicago Theological Seminary, 1931) useful apart from its inaccuracies. He also finds helpful, but not entirely reliable, Thomas H. Johnson’s article “Jonathan Edwards’ Background of Reading,” Col. Soc. Mass., Trans., 28 (1935):193-222 (Jonathan Edwards’ Moral Thought [Louisville: John Knox Press, 1971], 17, n. 11).
12. Samuel Hopkins, Life and Character of the Late Reverend Mr. Jonathan Edwards (Glasgow: D. Niven, for James Duncan, 1785), 3.
13. The eleventh entry of “The Mind,” is the first time Edwards mentions Locke. There is no clear textual evidence that he had studied Locke prior to this. Schafer has dated the beginning of “The Mind” to around the end of 1723 (Misc., YW 13:15). Misc. aa., “Faith,” could indicate that he had knowledge of Locke in New York. Schafer notes that in this entry Edwards described God in a manner that might suggest that he was familiar with Locke’s concept of complex ideas (YW 13:177). If Shafer’s suggestion is true, however, one would think Edwards would have cited Locke or employed his ideas elsewhere.
14. PN, YW 16:790.
15. Edwards wrote that ministers are to teach “Christ’s laws” and “instruct their flocks.” He sought to do this by conveying in traditional terms his spiritual apprehension of biblical truth. His early sermons contain expressions that resemble his later “sense of the heart” language (Misc. qq, “Ministers,” YW 13:188-89).
16. Diary, YW 16:759; PN YW 16:791.
17. PN, YW 16:792-93.
18. Ibid., 16:793.
19. Light, YW 10:538.
20. Ibid., 10:539.
21. Ibid., 10:540; TRR, YW 10:514.
22. Light, YW 10:539. He wrote how the sinner “often before heard many discourses about religion, about God and Jesus Christ, heaven and hell, free grace and mercy, the excellency of religion and the glorious mysteries of the gospel...now he is enlightened by Christ, he sees with his own eyes and admires and is astonished, as being really sensible of the truth of these things...and how pleasing is the light, how agreeable is it to the eyes” (TRR, YW 10:514).
23. TRR, YW 10:518; Salvation, YW 10:332.
24. Misc. oo, “Satisfaction,” YW 13:188.
25. Misc. s, “Christ’s Righteousness,” YW 13 174.
26. There is some confusion over the dating of his “conversion.” In his Personal Narrative Edwards attributes the turning point to 1721, the year after his graduation. However, his diary and resolutions suggest that in 1722 and 1723 he was still in a state of stress and spiritual depression. Thus it seems more appropriate to date his experience to January 12, 1723, the day that he recalls that he recognized man’s inability and God’s grace and “solemnly renewed his baptismal covenant and self-dedication.”
27. PN, YW 16:792-93.
28. Ibid., 1:1vi. On the same day he wrote in his Resolutions: “Resolved, That no other end but religion shall have any influence at all on any of my actions; and that no action shall be, in the least circumstance, any otherwise than the religious end will carry it” (1:1xii). In his Diary he wrote, “I have been before God, and have given myself, all that I am and have, to God” (1:1xvii).
29. Misc. a, “of Holiness,” YW 13:163-64.
30. The redeemed soul is like a “little white flower as we see in the spring of the years; low and humble on the ground, opening its bosom to receive the pleasant beams of the sun’s glory; rejoicing as it were in a calm rapture; diffusing around a sweet fragrancy; standing peacefully and lovingly, in the midst of other flowers round about; all in like manner opening their bosoms, to drink in the light of the sun” (PN, YW 16:796).
31. Ibid., 16:793.
32. Diary, YW 16:764; PN, YW 16:793.
33. Resolutions 43 and 44, YW 16:756.
34. Glorious, YW 10:396.
35. TLG, YW 10:640.
36. Dedication, YW 10:559.
37. LCA, YW 10:526; Glorious, YW 10:394-95.
38. LCDG, YW 10:573.
39. Light, YW 10:540-41.
40. Ibid., 10:539.
41. WH, YW 10:477-78.
42. Light, YW 10:541: “Christ Jesus by his spiritual light revives the soul and causes it to bring forth fruit.”
43. Diary, YW 16:762, 764; PN, YW 16:801.
44. Diary, YW 16:764.
45. Misc. d, “Of the Comfort Arising From Christ Overcoming the Word, Death and the Devil, Etc.,” YW 13:165-66.
46. Misc. aa, “Faith,” YW 13:177-78: “This way of knowing or believing is very differing from all other kinds of knowledge or belief. It is not by discourse, neither is it by intuition as other intuition. Neither can this kind of faith, or this sort of knowledge, be exercised in any common objects; for there are [in them] no such distinguishing amiable properties. Of such a force as to bear down the mind at such a rate as [do] the divine properties.”
47. Misc. a, “Holiness,” YW 13:164; PN, YW 13:791-92.
48. PN, YW 16:796.
49. Misc. z, “love of God,” YW 13:176-77.
50. PN, YW 16:792-93.
51. Ibid., 16:792.
52. Diary, YW 16:762.
53. Misc. a, “Of Holiness,” YW 13:164; PN, YW 16:791-92.
54. Misc. a, “Of Holiness,” YW 13:163; PN, YW 16:791.
55. Gal. 5:22-23; Resolutions 52, YW 16:757. Mt. 5:1-11; Lk. 6:1-7; Resolutions 45, YW 16:756.
56. If Samuel Hopkins’s estimate is accurate, then it is fair to assume Edwards began to see the positive effect of the Spirit’s indwelling while in New York. Hopkins wrote, “his excellency as a preacher was very much the effect of his great acquaintance with his own heart, his inward sense and high relish of divine truths, and the high exercise of true, experimental religion.... This gave him a taste and discerning, without which he could not have been able to fill his sermons, as he did, with such striking, affecting sentiments, all suited to solemnize, move and rectify the heart of the hearer” (Life and Character, 39-41).
57. Resolutions 58, 62, 63, YW 16:757-58; PN, YW 16:795, 797. Shortly after departing from New York, Edwards wrote about his love for the people there and the joy he experienced fellowshipping with them. He longed for heaven, when he would enjoy perfect love and joy (Diary, YW 16:767-68).
58. Diary, YW 16:766-77: “How much, how exceedingly much, more lovely is a humble, than a proud, disposition! I now plainly perceive it, and am really sensible of it. How immensely more pleasant is a humble delight, than a high thought of myself!... O, that God would fill me with exceeding great humility, and that he would evermore keep me from all pride!”
59. Ibid.
60. PN, YW 16:803-804. Diary, YW 16:766-767; PN, YW 16:790: “I met with that change by which I was brought to those new dispositions, and that new sense of things, that I have since had.”
61. Misc. s, “Christ’s Righteousness,” YW 13:174.
62. TLG, YW 10:637.
63. Liberty, YW 10:626; James 1:25.
64. Christian Safety, YW 10:456.
65. LCDG, YW 10:573.
66. Liberty, YW 10:630; light, YW 10:542.
67. Ibid., 10:627.
68. Dedication, YW 10:559.
69. LCDG, YW 10:572.
70. Love, YW 10:612; WH, YW 10:478.
71. WH, YW 10:472; GE, YW 10:430. “How excellent are they who are sanctified, and have their souls conformed unto him. ’Tis a wonder that a creature should ever be so highly honored, as to be made conformed to the image of God.... Sanctification is as great, yea, a greater favor done to the creature, than glorification: the creature is more honored by being made like unto God in holiness, than in happiness; the image and likeness of God upon the creature exalts it and honors it more, than the fruition of him.”
72. Light, YW 10:540-41.
73. WH, YW 10:472; Love, YW 10:614.
74. GE, YW 10:435: “Communicates himself to you, converses with you as a friend, dwells with you, and in you, by his Holy Spirit.... you are now in some measure sanctified, and have the image of God upon your souls, but hereafter, when God shall receive you, his dear child, into his arms, and shall admit you to the perfect enjoyment of him as your portion, you will be entirely transformed into his likeness, for you shall see him as he is. The consideration of having such a glorious God...is enough to make you despise all worldly afflictions and adversities, and even death itself, and to trample them under your feet.”
75. Love, YW 10:612-13: “The first and greatest motive is the loveliness of Christ. . . . Here is too great a beauty, too divine a loveliness and heavenly fragrancy to belong to any creature. . . . Here, O believers, O lovers of Christ, is a rose for you, to be ravished with the fragrancy of it, for your eyes to be delighted with the infinite beauty of, for you to be delighted to all eternity in the enjoyment of.... This rose and lily is the brightness of God’s glory and the express image of his person, which is so amiable and fragrant that it is the eternal and infinite delight of the Father himself.”
76. Ibid., 10:615: “But the love of Christ is the love of that which is truly above all things excellent and lovely, and therefore the pleasures that result from it must be solid, real, substantial, and never fading.”
77. Ibid., 10:615-17: “And in short, to sum up the whole, the love of Christ has a tendency to fill the soul with an inexpressible sweetness. It sweetens every thought and makes every meditation pleasant; it brings a divine calm upon the mind, and spreads a heavenly fragrancy like Mary’s box of ointment.”
78. TLG, YW 10:642; LCDG, YW 10:572.
79. WH, YW 10:472: “And it is not only a willing as God wills, but also a doing as he doth: in acting holily and justly and wisely and mercifully, like him. It must become natural thus to be, and thus to act; it must be the constant inclination and new nature of the soul, and then the man is holy, and not before.”
80. Ibid., 10:472-73.
81. Ibid., 10:473-74.
82. Diary, YW 16:786.
83. FN, YW 4:171-72, 177: “Conversion is a great and glorious work of God’s power, at once changing the heart and infusing life into the dead soul.” Edwards further elaborated on his understanding of the “sense of the heart” in Misc. 782, “Ideas, Sense of the Heart, Spiritual Knowledge or Conviction, Faith,” YW 18:452-66.
84. FN, YW 4:181.
85. After leaving New York and returning to Yale, in Misc. 37, “Concerning Faith,” Edwards described the difficulty he had in giving a definition for faith. He wrote, “We have no word that clearly and adequately expresses the whole act of acceptance, or closing of the soul or heart with Christ ...if we use metaphorical expressions, such as embrace, love, etc. they are obscure and will not carry the same idea with them to the minds of all.... Another difficulty is to find a word that shall clearly express the whole goodness or righteousness of the Savior and of the gospel...there is a need of both a sense of goodness and reality, to unite the heart to the Savior” (YW 13:219-20). In Misc. 83, “Theology: Abstractions and Apparent Contradictions” (YW 13:249), he wrote how he was forced to use analogical words that he felt were inadequate to describe the supernatural things of religion. He did not intend, however, for these words to supersede the biblical concepts behind them.
86. Diary, YW 16:759; PN, YW 16:792.
87. Hopkins, Life and Character, 3.
88. In a letter “To the Reverend George Whitfield” in February of 1739, Edwards wrote, “But pray, sir, let your heart be lifted up to God for me among others, that God would bestow much of that blessed Spirit on me that he has bestowed on you, and make me also an instrument of his glory” (YW 16:81).