The Sum Of All Blessings: Jonathan Edwards On The Holy Spirit

By W. G. Crampton, Th.D.

W. Gary Crampton, Th.D., is a pastor at Reformed Baptist Church, Richmond, VA, and author of From Paedobaptism to Credobaptism, available at www.rbap.net. This essay borrows from his He Shall Glorify Me: A Study of the Person and Work of the Holy Spirit (Orlando, FL: Xulon Press; Lakeland, FL: Whitefield Press, 2004), and W. Gary Crampton, Meet Jonathan Edwards (Morgan, PA: Soli Deo Gloria, 2004).

Due to his seminal work on the third person of the Trinity, the sixteenth- century Reformer John Calvin (1509-1564) has correctly been dubbed “the theologian of the Holy Spirit.”[1] The Puritans of the next two centuries followed in the wake of the Genevan, further elucidating this great and often neglected subject. The eighteenth-century Puritan divine Jonathan Edwards (1703-1758) has made a large contribution to the study of Pneumatology: the study of the person and work of the Holy Spirit. He believed that the subject had been neglected in his day, and he wrote to correct this problem.[2] In a sermon on Gal. 3:13-14, the Puritan sage preached that “the Holy Spirit or the third person of the Trinity in His operations and fruits is the sum of the blessings that Christ purchased for us in the work of our redemption.” He “is the vital sap which the creatures derive from the true vine.” He is “the holy oil poured on the head, that goes down to the members.”[3] And in another sermon, on 1 Cor. 13:8, he preached that “the Holy Spirit is the great purchase of Christ. God the Father is the person of whom the purchase is made, God the Son is the person who makes the purchase, and the Holy Spirit is the gift purchased. The sum of all those good things in this life, and the life to come, which are purchased for the church is the Holy Spirit. And as this is the great purchase, so it is the great promise of God and Christ.”[4] In these two statements we have somewhat of a précis of Edwards’ doctrine of the Holy Spirit. First, as to His person, the Spirit is divine. He is the Holy Spirit, a title attested by Christ Himself (Jn. 14:16). Second, the Spirit’s work is Christocentric. He is “the sum of the blessings” purchased by Christ for His elect people. The Spirit is sent by Christ to do Christ’s will. In the words of Christ, “He will glorify me” (Jn. 16:14).

Theologians commonly study the doctrine of God under two headings: the being of God (who God is) and the works of God (what God does).[5] Thus it should also be with the study of the Holy Spirit, the third person of the Godhead, and therefore, autotheos, God Himself. We shall see that Edwards’ teaching on this great doctrine is fully orthodox, and in agreement with the teachings of his “favorite creed,” the Westminster Confession of Faith.[6] In an age when strange ideas about the Holy Spirit abound, Edwards’ teaching is a breath of fresh air.

The Being Of The Holy Spirit

The Westminster Shorter Catechism (Q. 4) defines God by means of His attributes: “God is a Spirit, infinite, eternal, and unchangeable, in His being, wisdom, power, holiness, justice, goodness, and truth.” This is Edwards’ view of God as well, and it applies to God the Holy Spirit as well as to the other persons of the Godhead.

1. The Attributes Of The Holy Spirit

Edwards distinguished between God’s moral and natural attributes. The former are those perfections which God exercises as a moral being, which are summed up in His “holiness.” These include God’s holiness, justice, goodness, and truth. God’s natural attributes have to do with his greatness, and include His being infinite, eternal, unchangeable, all-powerful, and omniscient. Edwards believed that the moral attributes are more excellent, since “strength and knowledge do not render any being lovely, without holiness; but more hateful: though they render them more lovely when joined with holiness.”[7]

2. The Holy Spirit As The Third Person Of The Trinity

The Westminster Shorter Catechism (Q. 5-6) teaches that God is one in essence, but exists in three persons: “There is but one only, the living and true God…. There are three persons in the Godhead; the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost; and these three are one God, the same in substance [essence], equal in power and glory.” Edwards agreed. He maintained that the one true and living God “subsists in three persons; Father, Son, and Holy Ghost,” all of whom are equally divine.[8] This view rules out any form of subordinationism (the false doctrine that there is one God, who is the Father; the Son and Holy Spirit are lesser deities, if divine at all) and modalism (the false doctrine that God is one in essence and one in person; there are not three persons in the Godhead, there are only three ways [modes] of referring to the one divine being). The Holy Spirit, then, according to Edwards and Reformed orthodoxy, is a divine person, “equal in power and glory” with the Father and the Son.

The Westminster Confession (2.3) teaches that each member of the Trinity has distinguishing properties: “The Father is of none, neither begotten, nor proceeding; the Son is eternally begotten of the Father; the Holy Ghost eternally proceeding from the Father and the Son.” Again, Edwards agreed. He wrote that “the personal glory of each of the persons in the Trinity is equal, though each one, as they have distinct personalities, have a distinct glory, and so one has a peculiar glory that another has not.”[9]

Edwards also taught the doctrine of “the [eternal] generation of the Son” and “the [eternal] proceeding of the Holy Ghost.”[10] But he enlarged on it along the lines that Augustine had stated in his On the Trinity.[11] According to Edwards, the eternal begotteness of the Son consists in the Father’s having a perfect idea of Himself, which is the Son: “The image of God which God infinitely loves and has His chief delight in, is the perfect idea of God…, [which] is the perfect idea of Himself.” And the “Scriptures tell us that the Son of God is that image.” Moreover, he further taught that the Holy Spirit, as “eternal love,” is that member of the Trinity who eternally proceeds from the Father and the Son in an act of divine and “infinite love and delight” that exists between them. Herein is the divine Trinity. If “God has an idea of Himself,” which as a perfect idea is the Son, there “is really duplicity.” And “if God loves Himself and delights in Himself, there is really a triplicity, three that cannot be confounded, each of which are [sic] the Deity substantially [i.e., in essence].”[12]

God is glorified within Himself these two ways: 1) By appearing, or being manifested to Himself in His own perfect idea; or in the Son, who is the brightness of His glory; 2) By enjoying and delighting in Himself, by flowing forth in infinite love and delight towards Himself; or in the Holy Spirit.[13]

Or, said another way:

The Son is the Deity generated by God’s understanding, or having an idea of Himself; the Holy Ghost is the divine essence flowing out, or breathed forth, in infinite love and delight. Or which is the same, the Son is God’s idea of Himself, and the Spirit is God’s love to and delight in Himself.[14]

According to this view, Edwards can say that “the Father is the Deity subsisting in the prime, unoriginated and most absolute manner, of the Deity in its direct existence.” On the other hand he taught that “the Son is the Deity generated by God’s understanding, or having an idea of Himself and subsisting in that idea.” And that “the Holy Ghost is the Deity subsisting in act, or the divine essence flowing out and breathed forth in God’s infinite love to and delight in Himself.” At the same time he believed that “the whole divine essence does truly and distinctly subsist both in the divine idea and divine love, and that each of them are [sic] properly distinct persons” and fully divine.[15]

According to Edwards then, as with the Westminster divines before him, the Father has eternally been the Father, the Son has eternally been the Son, and the Holy Spirit has eternally been the Spirit. This is the blessed ontological Trinity, ad intra (God within Himself), in which there is no essential subordination of the Son to the Father, or the Holy Spirit to the Father or the Son. The Holy Spirit as the third person of the Trinity is fully divine, and as “divine love,” He is that bond of union which exists within the Godhead.[16]

Edwards did teach, however, that there is an economic aspect of the Trinity in which there is a form of subordination, but it is a subordination of function, not one of essence. In the economic Trinity, each member of the Godhead has a specific function or role to perform in redemptive history. This is the work of God ad extra (outside of Himself). The ad extra work of the Trinity includes creation and providence, which are for the purpose of redemption. It is God the Father who sent the Son into the world to accomplish redemption, and it is God the Father and God the Son who sent the Holy Spirit into the world to apply Christ’s redemptive work.[17] Edwards wrote:

The Father approves and provides the Redeemer, Himself accepts the price for the good purchased, and bestows the good. The Son is the Redeemer and the price that is offered for the purchased good. And the Holy Ghost is the good purchased. The Scriptures seem to intimate that the Holy Spirit is the sum of all that Christ purchased for men (Galatians 3:13-14).[18]

Moreover, there is a perfect harmony that exists between the members of the Trinity in this work: “All persons of the Trinity do concur in all acts ad extra.”[19] Here the fully divine Holy Spirit, although in perfect accord with the Father and the Son, has a subordinate role in redemptive history.

3. Titles Of The Holy Spirit

Scripture ascribes various representations to the Holy Spirit, some of which relate to His person and others to His work. In his “Discourse on the Trinity,” Edwards dealt with a number of these “titles.”[20] God the Spirit, wrote Edwards, is that “divine love” that exists between the members of the Trinity, and He is also the “divine love” which indwells the saints. In 1 Jn. 4:16, we read that “God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God, and God in him.” Since it is the third person of the Trinity who indwells the saints (1 Jn. 3:24; Rom. 8:9-11; 1 Cor. 3:16; 6:19), this verse confirms that the Holy Spirit is “divine love” Himself.

As the “Holy” Spirit, He is both the “holiness of God” and the “holiness of the creature.” As the creator God, the Spirit is the “eternal act and energy of God,” as well as the divine beautifier and communicator of all things. In His office of communicator to the elect, the Spirit is the comforter and delight of their souls. The Spirit is also portrayed in Scripture as a dove, “which is the emblem of love.” And in the baptism of Christ, the dove-like Spirit came upon the Son, “signifying the infinite love of the Father to the Son.”

One of the more prominent symbols of the Holy Spirit is that of “oil,” also used to represent the Spirit as divine love. The Spirit is also referred to as “the water of the fountain of life,” “the river of water of life,” and “the fountain of life and river of God’s pleasures.” Other “similitudes and metaphors that are used of the Holy Ghost,” Edwards notes, are “water, fire, breath, wind…wine, a spring, a river. A being poured out and shed forth, a being breathed forth.” Further, He is also that “Honey from the Rock” which issues forth from Jesus Christ.[21] All of these, Edwards said, speak of the Holy Spirit’s person and work.

4. The Blasphemy Of The Holy Spirit

One of the most controversial issues in the study of Pneumatology is that of the unpardonable sin of blaspheming the Holy Spirit. Traditionally the church has taught that the unpardonable nature of this sin reveals the deity of the Spirit. Edwards agreed. He defined the sin as one that is willfully committed after a person has been convinced by the truth of God’s Word that the Spirit is divine, and then maliciously declares that the Holy Spirit and the Word of God are really “unclean.”[22] At the same time, “he that commits this sin is guilty of reproaching all the persons of the Trinity in their work and office, for the Holy Spirit is the last of them [i.e., the third person] and He by whom both the others act…. He that reproaches the Holy Ghost reproaches each person of the Trinity and their work.”[23]

Because the Holy Spirit is fully divine, the third person of the Trinity, therefore, He is to be accorded the same honor, respect, reverence, and worship that is due to the Father and to the Son. He is not to be subordinated to the other members of the Trinity in their ontological, ad intra relationship. As to the economic association of the Trinity, however, the Spirit has a subordinate role or function in the ad extra work of the Godhead.

The Work Of The Holy Spirit

Having considered briefly Edwards’s view of the being of God the Spirit (who He is), we now come to his view of His work (what He does). As noted above, the work of the Spirit is Christocentric. As Edwards said in his sermon on Gal. 3:13-14: “He is the sum of the blessings that Christ purchased for us in the work of our redemption.” And since “the creation of all things was with an aim and subordination to that great work of Christ as Mediator, viz. the work of redemption,”[24] then the Christocentric work of the Holy Spirit concerns itself with all of God’s works. The God of Scripture (including the Holy Spirit), wrote Edwards, is a “communicating Being.” The “great and universal end of God’s creating the world was to communicate Himself.”[25] Just as the triune God glorifies Himself ad intra by eternally generating the Son (the perfect image of God the Father), and by the eternal procession of the Holy Spirit (who is the bond of love within the Trinity), so also God glorifies Himself ad extra by communicating Himself to His creatures, by communicating His own wisdom and knowledge of Himself through the Son, by means of the work of the Spirit. There is a fitness in God’s plan of redemption, in which the Holy Spirit is the sum of all blessings.[26]

1. The Holy Spirit And Christ

The Christocentricity of the Spirit’s ministry is recognized in His involvement in the life of Christ. As prophesied in the OT, the Spirit first came upon Christ at His conception in the “virgin birth.” Here Christ received the Spirit “without measure,” and He remained with Christ from that time. The Spirit also “anointed” Christ in His baptism, empowering Him for His earthly ministry. The Spirit was with Christ throughout the entirety of his ministry, including His crucifixion, burial, resurrection from the dead, and ascension to the right hand of the Father. The Spirit is the “great thing” and “blessing” of the covenant and the legacy which Christ promised to His disciples prior to His death.[27] It was in virtue of the Spirit’s anointing that “He was accepted and justified as our Mediator (1 Timothy 3:16)…and therefore, the same Holy Ghost, by which He was begotten in the womb of the Virgin Mary, was that by which He was begotten again from the dead in the womb of the earth (1 Peter 3:18).” Moreover, just as it was by the Spirit of God that the human nature of Christ was conceived in the virgin birth, so also it is by the same Spirit that the human and divine natures of Christ are in hypostatic union forevermore.[28]

In perhaps his fullest statement on the Holy Spirit’s relationship to Christ, Edwards wrote:

It was by the eternal Spirit that Christ offered Himself without spot to God. It was by the Holy Spirit many ways. It was by the Holy Spirit that the human nature of Christ was united to the divine Logos, from which arises the infinite value of His blood and righteousness. It was by the eternal Spirit that Christ performed righteousness. It was by the Spirit of God that Christ was perfectly holy and performed perfect righteousness. 

It was by the Holy Spirit not only that His obedience was perfect, but performed with such transcendent love. It was by this Spirit that His sacrifice of Himself was sanctified, being an offering to God in the pure and fervent flame of divine love, which burnt in His heart as well as in the flame of God’s vindictive justice and wrath into which He was cast. And it was this that His obedience and sacrifice was offered with such love to His people that He died for, as implied a perfect union with them, whereby it was accepted for them.[29]

Edwards viewed Jn. 16:8-11 as an important text regarding the Holy Spirit’s ongoing work in glorifying Christ after the latter’s ascension to the right hand of the Father. When the Spirit has come, “He will convict the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment: of sin, because they do not believe in me; of righteousness, because I go to my Father and you see me no more; of judgment, because the ruler of this world is judged.” In a sermon series on 16:8, Edwards spoke of the “three-fold” work of the Holy Spirit. In it he linked the work of the Christ-centered Spirit to the three-fold work of Christ as Prophet, Priest, and King.[30] First, he said, the essence of sin is disbelief in Christ. The Spirit, in accord with Christ’s prophetic role, will convict men of their unbelief. Second, the essence of righteousness is that Christ, in His priestly function, has defeated death in His atoning death, burial, resurrection, and ascension to the Father. The Spirit reveals this to elect sinners. Finally, the Holy Spirit convicts the world of judgment by revealing that Satan, the enemy of God’s elect, has been defeated and judged by Christ’s victorious cross work. This is a part of Christ’s kingly role.[31]

2. The Holy Spirit And Divine Revelation

Edwards, again in accord with the Westminster Assembly, averred that God (including the Holy Spirit) has revealed Himself to man in both general and special revelation. The former is general in audience (all mankind) but limited in content. The latter is more restricted in audience (all who read the Bible) but more detailed and specific in content. Both general and special revelation “are in different senses a divine word, both are the voice of God to intelligent creatures, a manifestation and declaration of Himself to mankind.”[32] Yet, though general revelation and special revelation both are God’s voice to man, and are in harmony, due to its limited nature, general revelation must always be interpreted in light of special revelation. “The book of Scripture,” said Edwards, “is the interpreter of the book of nature.”[33]

Regarding the relationship between general and special revelation, the Westminster Confession (1.1; 4.2) states:

Although the light of nature and the works of creation and providence do so far manifest the goodness, wisdom, and power of God, as to leave men inexcusable; yet are they not sufficient to give that knowledge of God and of His will, which is necessary unto salvation. Therefore it pleased the Lord, at sundry times, and in divers manners, to reveal Himself, and to declare that His will unto His church; and afterwards, for the better preserving and propagating of the truth, and for the more sure establishment and comfort of the church against the corruption of the flesh, and the malice of Satan and of the world, to commit the same wholly unto writing; which makes the Holy Scripture to be most necessary; those former ways of God’s revealing His will unto His people being now ceased. 

After God made all other creatures, He created man, male and female, with reasonable and immortal souls, endued with knowledge, righteousness, and true holiness, after His own image; having the law of God written in their hearts.

Edwards agreed with these perspectives. Like the Westminster divines, he maintained that God the Spirit, in general revelation, has implanted an innate knowledge of Himself in all men. This knowledge, which includes the moral law of God written on men’s hearts, is propositional and ineradicable. This innate knowledge enables man to see the rich revelation of God in creation, which in turn demonstrates the attributes of God.[34] “I am not ashamed,” said Edwards, “to own that I believe that the whole universe, heaven and earth, air and seas…be full of images of divine things, as full as a language is of words.”[35] The beauty of the world is a communication of God’s beauty.[36]

By means of general revelation, the Holy Spirit clearly reveals the God of Scripture to all men, leaving them without excuse. But man in his fallen state continues to suppress the truth which he has and knows to be true. General revelation reveals God as Creator, but it does not reveal Him as Savior. Special revelation is necessary for man to come to a sound and saving knowledge of God. “The light of nature teaches that religion which is necessary to continue in the favor of God that made us,” said Edwards, “but it cannot teach us that religion which is necessary to our being restored to the favor of God, after we have forfeited it.” Therefore, Edwards concluded that due to the insufficiency of general revelation, “plainly appears the necessity of divine [special] revelation.” “Christian divinity…is not evident by the light of nature; it depends on [special] revelation…. It is only the Word of God, contained in the Old and New Testaments, which teaches us Christian divinity.” Scripture “is the fountain whence all knowledge in divinity must be derived.”[37]

Edwards also believed that special revelation was progressive in nature. In his A History of the Work of Redemption he taught that God the Holy Spirit progressively revealed His truth to His people in a continuously enlarging body of propositional, special revelation from the time of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden until the time of the apostles, and that throughout the entirety of the process, the revelation is infallible and inerrant at every stage. Finally, with the close of the apostolic age (prior to the end of the first century), the canon of Scripture was closed, and special revelation is now found only in the 66 books of the Old and New Testaments.[38]

In Miscellany 1358 he wrote:

God [the Holy Spirit] took this care with respect to the [39] books of the Old Testament, that no books should be received by the Jewish church and delivered down in the canon of the Old Testament but what was His Word and owned by Christ. We may therefore conclude that He would still take the same care of His church with respect to the [27 books of the] New Testament.

Edwards also agreed with the Westminster Confession (1.1) that with the close of the canon of Scripture, the charismatic word gifts, which had been previously utilized by the Spirit, desisted: “Those former ways of God’s revealing His will unto His people being now ceased.” According to Edwards, these gifts are not to be considered as “fruits of the Spirit which are always given and continued to the church throughout all ages.” Rather, they were gifts given by the Spirit “from time to time, though not without some considerable intermission, from the beginning of the world till the canon of the Scripture was completed.”

Edwards taught that all of the 66 books of the Bible are fully inspired by the Holy Spirit. The Bible is “the Word of God”; it “is God’s own Word.” In Scripture, “it is not men’s speaking in their own sense of things…but that which is the sense of the Holy Ghost.” In Scripture we have “the mind of God,” the Spirit.[40] God, said Edwards, is “truth itself.” Therefore, if man is to know the truth, there must be a “consistency and agreement of our ideas with the ideas of God.”[41] And those ideas are found in His Word.

Edwards maintained, along with the Westminster Confession (1.6), that:

The whole counsel of God concerning all things necessary for His own glory, man’s salvation, faith, and life, is either expressly set down in Scripture, or by good and necessary consequence may be deduced from Scripture: unto which nothing at any time is to be added, whether by new revelations of the Spirit, or traditions of men.

This is the Reformed principle sola Scriptura. The Spirit-inspired Bible is the Word of God, and it is an all-sufficient Word. The Bible is the sole authority by which all is to be judged. Nothing stands in judgment over the all-sufficient Spirit-inspired Word. It was the design of the Holy Spirit, “when He gave the church the Scriptures…that they should be completely sufficient of themselves, that they should hold forth to us things sufficient for us to know, and they should be sufficiently there exhibited, and that in all important matters, whether in doctrine or practice, the Scriptures should sufficiently explain themselves.”[42]

It is also significant that for Edwards, the inner testimony of the Holy Spirit is essential for one to come to a sound and saving knowledge of God, through Christ, in Scripture. The Spirit corroborates the authority of the Word of God to fallen man. It is necessary for man to have a knowledge of the teaching of Scripture to be saved, but many men may have this knowledge without ever being converted. Without “the divine and supernatural light,” preached Edwards, “immediately imparted to the soul by the Spirit of God,” men are not able to attain a spiritual knowledge of the truth of God’s Word. The Spirit must subdue the heart of fallen man, causing him to embrace the truth of God in Scripture. Not only does the Holy Spirit “immediately” impart the truth of God’s Word “to the soul” of man unto his regeneration (which results in his justification), but it is also the Holy Spirit who continues to illuminate the mind of Christians (after justification) so that they may grow in holiness. In this process, however, the Holy Spirit does not reveal any new information which causes the reader to believe the truth set forth in Scripture. He does not suggest “any new truths or propositions not contained in the Word of God.” Rather, the Spirit so works in the mind of the elect sinner that He causes him to believe and be saved, and then gives him greater understanding of the Scriptures, by shedding more light on the biblical texts so that the new convert may apply the teaching of the Bible in his life.[43]

3. The Decrees Of The Holy Spirit

The Shorter Catechism (Q. 7) maintains that “the decrees of God are, His eternal purpose, according to the counsel of His will, whereby, for His own glory, He has foreordained whatsoever comes to pass.” This is also Edwards’ view. The New England Puritan correctly distinguished between God’s decretive will and His preceptive will (as per Deut. 29:29), teaching that God’s decretive will determines all things that will ever occur, whereas the preceptive will is revealed in God’s Word, which man is enjoined to obey. God’s decretive will is hidden in the mind of God; it is absolute, and determined by God alone. The preceptive will is His revealed will for man, by which man is to live. Man is accountable for the preceptive will, but not for the decretive will. Included in the unalterable decretive will of God the Spirit is the everlasting destiny of all persons, either in heaven or in hell. Further, divine election and reprobation are in no way determined by the foreknowledge of the thoughts or choices of men. The fact that God foreknows all things necessitates His eternal decrees.[44]

Edwards also taught that the sovereignty of God the Spirit in His decretive purposes extends even to the Fall of man, and all other sins as well. Sin “is foreordained in God’s decrees, and ordered in providence…. God decrees all things, and even all sins.” Nothing falls outside of the decretive will of the Holy Spirit of God. This, however, does not mean that He is the author of sin; He is not. He “orders sin,” but does not “author it.”[45] In his Freedom of the Will, Edwards taught (with precise logical consistency) that the fact that God has eternally decreed the end of all things does not undermine the free moral choices of individuals; neither does it impinge upon the responsibility of man. God is sovereign, and man is responsible in God’s decretive will. These truths harmoniously dovetail in God’s divine plan.[46]

4. The Spirit’s Work In Creation

Edwards also concurred with the teaching of the Shorter Catechism (Q. 8-9) that “God executes His decrees in the works of creation and providence,” and that the “work of creation is, God’s making all things of nothing, by the Word of His power, in the space of six days, and all very good.” He agreed with the Catechism that the world was created by God the Spirit, ex nihilo (out of no preexistent material), in a period of six solar days, thus meaning that the world is very young.[47] Moreover, the purpose of creation is for “the work of redemption.” The Holy Spirit was particularly active in this work. In Miscellany 293 Edwards wrote:

It was more especially the Holy Spirit’s work to bring the world to its beauty and perfection out of the chaos, for the beauty of the works is a communication of God’s beauty. The Holy Spirit is the harmony and excellency and beauty of the Deity…therefore it was His work to communicate beauty and harmony to the world, and so we read that it was He that moved upon the face of the waters.

As noted, in Edwards’ view of creation, and especially with regard to God’s elect, the glory of God emanates from Him; it is received by the creature and then returns to Him through the creature: “Here is both an emanation and a remanation. The refulgence shines upon and into the creature, and is reflected back to the luminary [God]. The beams of glory come from God, and are something of God, and are refunded back again to their original. So that the whole is of God, and in God, and to God; and God is the beginning, middle, and end in this affair.”[48] The third person of the Trinity espoused by Edwards, therefore, is far removed from Aristotle’s inactive and unaffected Unmoved Mover.

5. The Spirit’s Work In Providence

The Shorter Catechism (Q. 11) teaches that “God’s works of providence are, His most holy, wise, and powerful preserving and governing all His creatures, and all their actions.” Edwards agreed, maintaining that the Holy Spirit “wisely orders” and “guides” the “wheels of providence” so that all of “the events of providence be not so many distinct independent works of providence, but they are rather so many different parts of one work of providence.”[49]

He also taught that divine providence should more correctly be understood as God the Spirit’s continual work of creation, in which He not only creates all things in the beginning, ex nihilo, but continues to recreate all things in a similar fashion, thereby preserving and governing them. Thus, “the universe is created out of nothing every moment…and if it were not for our imaginations, which hinder us, we might see that wonderful work performed continually.”[50] Edwards believed that nothing exists of its own except God. “God is the sum of all being, and there is no being without His being; all things are in Him, and He in all.”[51] Since God is the original and only pure Being (He is “ens entium,” the Being of beings[52]), and the Creator of all other being, then created being necessarily and immediately falls into non-being, and is in need of a new creation every moment. Therefore,

the existence of created substances, in each successive moment, must be the effect of the immediate agency, will, and power of God…. It will certainly follow from these things, that God’s preserving created things in being is perfectly equivalent to a continued creation, or to His creating those things out of nothing at each moment of their existence. If the continued existence of created things be wholly dependent on God’s preservation, then those things would drop into nothing, upon the ceasing of the present moment, without a new exertion of the divine power to cause them to exist in the following moment…. So that this effect differs not at all from the first creation, but only circumstantially; as in the first creation there had been no such act and effect of God’s power before; whereas, His giving existence afterwards, follows preceding acts and effects of the same kind, in an established order.[53]

Edwards distinguished between creation and providence, while at the same time not separating them. He believed that the universe had its beginning in the first creation, in which God brought something that did not exist before into being, along with numerous (so-called) laws of nature. In His providential dealings, God continues to recreate what was originally created in the beginning, thereby differentiating between the original creation and continuous creation (i.e., providence). There is therefore a permanence to the original creation (along with the establishment of various “dispositions” and “laws”) that is kept intact in God’s work of providential recreation.[54]

6. The Holy Spirit And Soteriology

As a covenant theologian, Edwards taught that when God created Adam, He entered into a covenant of works with him. In this covenant Adam acted as the federal head of the entire human race. As explained by the Westminster Confession (7.2-3; 9.3), “The first covenant made with man was a covenant of works, wherein life was promised to Adam, and in him to his posterity, upon condition of perfect and personal obedience.” Adam, however, disobeyed God and fell in sin, thereby making “himself [and his posterity] incapable of life by that covenant.” Man, “by his fall into a state of sin has wholly lost all ability of will to any spiritual good accompanying salvation.” He is “dead in sin, [and] is not able, by his own strength, to convert himself, or prepare himself thereunto.” In Edwards own words, all of Adam’s “posterity by ordinary generation are partakers of the Fall and the corruption of nature that followed it.”[55] All men are judicially guilty in Adam’s sin, and man is in an ethical state of total depravity, unable to do anything that pleases God. He “stands in absolute need of a Redeemer.”[56]

This being so, as the Westminster Confession (7.3) goes on to say, God entered into a new covenant with His elect: the covenant of grace. In this covenant God “freely offers unto sinners life and salvation by Jesus Christ, requiring of them faith in Him, that they might be saved; and promising to give unto all those that are ordained unto life His Holy Spirit, to make them willing and able to believe.” As Edwards wrote:

The first covenant [of works] failed of bringing men to the glory of God, through man’s instability, whereby he failed of perseverance…. But God had made a second covenant [of grace] in mercy to fallen man, that in the way of this covenant he might be brought to the glory of God, which he failed of under the other [covenant]…. Therefore God introduces another better covenant, committed not to his [Adam’s] strength, but to the strength of one that was mighty and stable [Christ], and therefore is a sure and everlasting covenant.[57]

This covenant of grace, which was originally revealed in Gen. 3:15, was made with Christ, as the second and last Adam, and with all of the elect in Him.[58] Even prior to this covenant there was a supra-temporal, intra-Trinitarian covenant, the covenant of redemption. In this covenant, God “the Father appoints and provides the Redeemer, and Himself accepts the price and grants the thing purchased; the Son is the Redeemer by offering up of Himself, and is the price; and the Holy Ghost immediately communicates to us the thing purchased by communicating Himself, and He is the thing purchased. The sum of all that Christ purchased for [elect] man was the Holy Ghost.”[59]

Clearly in Edwards’ view, if man is going to be saved, it must be God who does the saving. “It is manifest that the Scripture supposes that if ever men are turned from sin, God must undertake it and He must be the doer of it, and that His doing must determine the matter.”[60] God is glorified in the work of redemption in that there is an absolute and universal dependence of the redeemed on Him. And in this great work of salvation, all three members of the Trinity are equally involved. Yet, the Holy Spirit is that member of the Trinity who applies the salvation which Christ purchased for the elect. “Perhaps no theologian,” wrote John Gerstner, “has glorified the Holy Spirit more in the doctrine of redemption” than Jonathan Edwards.[61]

It is the third person of the Godhead who brings about the union with Christ and elect sinners. It is of the Holy Spirit “that we are in Christ Jesus; it is the Spirit of God that gives faith in Him, whereby we receive Him, and close with Him.” It is by the Spirit that the elect “are made partakers of the divine nature, or moral image of God (2 Peter 1:4).” The Holy Spirit is “the sum of the blessings that Christ died to procure, and the subject of gospel promises.”[62] The Spirit of God works “upon” non-believers in “common grace,” but He works “in” believers in “saving grace.” According to Edwards, the Holy Spirit is not only the source of grace in the soul of elect sinners; He is that grace itself. Saving grace “is no other than the Spirit of God itself dwelling and acting in the heart of a saint.”[63]

Although Edwards never wrote a systematic theology per se, outlining the traditional Reformed concept of an ordo salutis (“order of salvation”), his writings attest to the fact that he adhered to such a scheme.[64] The ordo salutis is the logical, inseparable order in which salvation is applied by God to the elect. There is a certain “fitness” to the parts of the ordo salutis.

They are “like links in a chain” or like “strings in concert, if one is struck others sound with it.”[65] As expressed in the Westminster Confession (chapters 10-18, 32-33), the traditional parts of the order of salvation are: Effectual Calling or Regeneration, Conversion (consisting of saving faith and repentance), Justification, Adoption, Sanctification, Perseverance and Assurance, and Glorification. And since Edwards believed that all three persons of the Trinity are equally involved in the work of redemption, and that the Holy Spirit’s economic function is that of the application of the redemption purchased by Christ for the elect, it must be said that the Spirit is involved, in some way, in each step of the ordo salutis.

Edwards taught that there is a universal call which goes out to all men who come under the preaching of the gospel, inviting lost sinners to come to Christ for their salvation. This call is not, however, efficacious. It is only when the Holy Spirit regenerates the hearts of elect sinners, and gives them a “divine and supernatural light,” that they are effectually called by the gospel. They have a “new sense,” an inner “sense” of divine things, by which they “see” God spiritually.[66] “The first act of the Spirit of God…is in spiritual understanding or in the sense of the mind…in the ideas it has of divine things.”[67] When the elect sinner is regenerated, the Holy Spirit graciously acts upon the regenerated individual, causing him to respond to the effectual call in faith and repentance, and he is converted.[68] Justification immediately follows conversion. To be justified is to be approved by God as a proper subject of pardon, with a right to eternal life. Edwards said it this way:

Justification is not only pardon of sin…but in an act or sentence approving of him as innocent and positively righteous, and so having a right to freedom from punishment, and to the reward of positive righteousness…. But the pardon we have in Christ is a freeing persons from the punishment of sin, as an act of justice, and because they are looked upon and accepted as having that which is equivalent to innocence, viz. satisfaction…. Justification consists of imputing righteousness. To pardon sin is to cease to be angry for sin. But imputing righteousness and ceasing to be angry for sin are two things; one is the fountain of the other. God ceases to be angry with the sinner for his sin because righteousness is imputed to him.[69]

The justified individual, who is in union with Christ by the work of the Spirit, and has Christ’s righteousness imputed to him, is now adopted into the family of God.[70]

According to Edwards, it is the Holy Spirit, who infuses grace into the soul of the elect sinner in order to regenerate him and enable him to repent and believe the gospel prior to his conversion and justification, who now, in the ongoing process of sanctification, is united to the soul of the convert and becomes a new “disposition” in him. “But man when he is changed from a sinner to a saint has new principles of perception and action; principles that are entirely diverse and not arising merely from a new disposition of the old or contracted habits as those changes that are wrought by education do. They are principles that are vastly superior to those he had before.”[71] And they are principles infused by the third person of the Godhead. The Spirit “unites Himself with the mind of the saint…as a new supernatural principle of life and action.”[72]

The Spirit of God is a Spirit of love. And therefore when the Spirit of God enters into the soul, love enters. God is love, and he who has God dwelling in him by His Spirit will have love dwelling in him. The nature of the Holy Spirit is love; and it is by communicating Himself, or His own nature, that the hearts of the saints are filled with love or charity. Hence, the saints are said to be “partakers of the divine nature (2 Peter 1:4).”[73]

Holiness is both the goal and the desire of the saint, because it is the Holy Spirit that indwells him, producing godly desires, “holy affections,” in his soul. Edwards believed that “religious affections” are at the center of Christian living and that these affections are one and the same thing with the “fruit of the Spirit.”[74] “True religion,” he wrote, “in great part consists in holy affections.” And of all the affections, love is “the life, essence, and sum of all true religion,” and from this “vigorous, affectionate, and fervent love for God, will necessarily arise other religious affections.” Love is the main and first fruit of the Spirit, and the source of all of the other affections and fruit, because the Holy Spirit is the indwelling divine love Himself.[75]

Edwards also taught that in the ongoing process of the sanctification of the saints, the Holy Spirit utilizes the “means of grace,” which are (primarily) Scripture, the sacraments, and prayer. It is “the Spirit of God” who “causes acts of grace in the soul,” and He does so by means of the ordinances.[76] “God’s Spirit [is] always in some degree attending His ordinances.”[77] Only the Holy Spirit can make the means of grace effectual to the elect.

In a sermon on Heb. 5:12, Edwards preached on “the importance and advantage of a thorough knowledge of divine truth.” Every Christian is enjoined by God the Spirit to make it his business to study the Word of God that he may grow in his “knowledge of divinity”; and the Spirit illumines the mind of the saint enabling him to grow in this knowledge. Biblical knowledge is essential to Christian growth. Thus, it must be the “daily business” of Christians to give themselves to study of the Bible. There is always room “to increase our knowledge of divinity,” and it is the Spirited-Word and the Worded-Spirit[78] that gives such spiritual increase whereby the saints are able to “see” God.[79] Robert Caldwell explains Edwards’ view this way:

From a subjective point of view, “seeing” God entails the following: the mind surveys the great complexity of revealed religion in the Scriptures—God’s holiness, justice, and mercy, Christ’s person and work, the fitness of faith as a means to salvation, the progress of salvation history as revealed in Scripture—and glimpses such a divine harmony among these various objects that the soul is overwhelmed by the beauty it sees, resulting in a divine love for God and Christ. To be sure, the Christian does not “see” God with bodily eyes; neither is this sight a “vision” of Christ in some sort of apparition. Rather the saint “senses” a divine affection for the excellency and glory of God through a contemplation of the gospel and all the wonderful works of redemption. This “sense of the heart” is in essence the Spirit’s divine love communicated to the soul, a love that has Christ as its object. In all this the Spirit is not drawing attention to Himself but rather to the glory of Christ and the excellency of God by being the love and affection that fills the saints’ hearts.[80]

Then too, the sacraments are a means of grace which God the Spirit uses in the sanctification of the Christian. Here as well, however, knowledge of the meaning and purpose of the sacraments, as explained by Scripture, is necessary for there to be growth. The “sacraments of the gospel,” which function as visible sermons, “can have a proper effect no other way than by conveying some knowledge.”[81] And all such knowledge is conveyed by the Spirit of God to the elect. Edwards preached that the Holy Spirit is the spiritual body and blood of Christ that nourishes the saints.[82]

The way the Spirit works in these two means of grace is explained in Miscellany 539:

The means of grace, such as the Word and sacraments, supply the mind with notions, or speculative ideas, of the things of religion, and thus give an opportunity for grace to act in the soul; for hereby the soul is supplied with matter for grace to act upon, when God [the Spirit] is pleased to infuse it…. The more fully we are supplied with these notions, the greater opportunity has grace to act…. Here therefore, is the benefit of frequent and abundant instructions; here is the benefit of study and mediation, and comparing spiritual things with spiritual…. The oftener these notions or ideas are revived, and the more they are upheld in the soul, the greater opportunity for the Spirit of God to infuse grace…. By what has been said, we see the necessity of means of grace in order to the obtaining grace; for without means there could be no opportunity for grace to act…. Neither will God give grace, where there is no opportunity for it to act.

Prayer is the other means of grace which the Spirit utilizes in the sanctification of the saint. One of the marks of a child of God is that he is a praying person. Although prayer is the duty of all men, only the elect are able truly to pray. Hypocrites, preached Edwards, are “deficient in the duty of prayer.” Even though they “may continue for a season in the duty of prayer,” after a while they will “leave it off.” The true “spirit of prayer is no other than God’s own Spirit dwelling in the hearts of the saints. And as this Spirit comes from God, so does it naturally tend to God in holy breathings and pantings.” In this way “the Spirit is said to make intercession for the saints with groanings which cannot be uttered.”[83] Not only is the Spirit the author of genuine prayer, He is also the answer to prayer. He is the “sum of all blessings” and all good things for which the elect pray.[84]

The process of sanctification, as directed by the Spirit of God, will continue eternally. The “Holy Spirit is the great purchase of Christ,” and this “Spirit of Christ is given to His church and people forever, everlastingly to influence them and dwell in them.” He is the “sum of all those good things in this life, and the life to come, which are purchased for the church.”[85]

The fact that the Holy Spirit is given to the church “everlastingly to influence them,” guarantees that the Christian will persevere to the end, and may gain that assurance as well. Perseverance, according to Edwards, is a necessary condition of salvation. It “is not only a necessary concomitant and evidence of a title to salvation, but also a necessary prerequisite to the actual possession of eternal life.” Scripture teaches that men are to exercise care and watchfulness; they have a responsibility to persevere. As Christ taught, “he that endures to the end, the same shall be saved.” At the same time, however, it is not possible that a genuine Christian will not persevere, the reason being that the Holy Spirit dwells in the elect and preserves them to the end.[86]

Assurance of salvation is not the same thing as perseverance. Whereas perseverance teaches that a true believer will never finally fall away from the state of salvation to which God has brought him, assurance has to do with the believer’s confidence of his spiritual state. Edwards taught that there are certain evidences of a work of the Spirit of God in a Christian that will produce in him an assurance that he is converted. “True grace,” he preached, may be “distinguished from the experience of devils.”[87] In a sermon series on “The Parable of the Virgins,” Edwards showed both “wherein true and false Christians agree” and “wherein true and false Christians differ.”[88] The Spirit operates in the believer, revealing certain “distinguishing marks” wherein he may reach a state of assurance that he is a converted person.[89] There is an inner witness of assurance given to the elect by the Spirit, such as “strong and lively exercises of love to God,”[90] yet the surest sign of a good estate is that of Christian “practice.” “Herein chiefly appears the power of true godliness, viz. in its being effectual in practice.” This is the “chief of all marks of grace” given by the Spirit, it is “the sign of signs, and evidence of evidences, that which seals and crowns all other signs.”[91]

As we have seen, Edwards believed that the Spirit-empowered sanctification of the saint would go on forever, even in glorification. Heaven, he commented, is “a progressive state.”[92] Glorification is the final stage of the ordo salutis, and according to Edwards it occurs in two stages. The first stage begins at the death of the individual Christian, when he enters into the disembodied, intermediate state. Stage two occurs at the time of the second advent of Christ, and the final resurrection of the dead. In both stages, it is the Holy Spirit that is the title to the “blessing” received by the saints.[93]

Stage one of glorification begins with the death of the saint, when he is ushered into the presence of God, in Christ. Here he “sees God…with the eye of the soul.”[94] During his earthly pilgrimage, the Christian has certain “views…of the beauty and excellency of God,”[95] but in the state of glorification he is given the “beatific vision,” a face to face view of God, which is mediated by Christ: “All other ways of knowing God are by seeing Him in Christ the Redeemer, the image of the invisible God, and in His works.”[96] And it is by the work of the third person of the Godhead that this vision is brought about. “As it is by the Holy Spirit that a spiritual sight of God is given in this world, so is it the same Holy Spirit by whom the beatific vision is given of God in heaven.”[97]

The second stage of glorification occurs at the time of the general resurrection at the end of this age, when the saints receive their chief reward. It is natural for men to be embodied, and at this time the disembodied children of God are reunited with their bodies. There is a sense in which we must say, commented Edwards, that redemption is incomplete until the resurrection. In this second stage of glorification, the bodies of Christians will be raised both “in exceeding strength” and in “wonderful beauty.” Their bodies “shall be like to Christ’s glorified body.” And thus they will be in these bodies throughout their everlasting state of blessedness.[98] God’s “saints will be progressive in knowledge and happiness to all eternity.”[99] And once again, the Holy Spirit is the person of the Godhead who brings all this to pass.[100]

7. The Holy Spirit And Eschatology

As a postmillennialist, Edwards believed that there would come a time (the millennium), prior to the second advent of Christ and the final state of glorification, when God, in fulfillment of the prophecies of the OT, would pour out His Spirit on His church in such abundance that the truth of the gospel would cover the entire earth. Yet even prior to the millennium there would be an extended time of Holy Spirit driven revivals of the true Christian religion, accompanied by opposition to such revivals. Eventually, by the power of the Spirit, the church would be ready for her millennial, sabbath rest. “The church from Christ’s time to the millennium is in a state of warfare, or her militant state; but during that sabbatism, she shall be in a triumphant state. The proper time of the church’s rest cannot be said to come, till all her enemies are subdued.” During the millennial age, on the other hand, “God’s people in all the different parts of the world, and the whole earth shall become more sensibly, as it were, one family, one holy and happy society.”[101]

Because of this hope, which he believed that he found taught in Scripture, Edwards wrote a treatise (referred to as An Humble Attempt) supporting and calling for a concerted effort on the part of various persons in different places to pray for God to pour out His Spirit on the church and bring about the “latter day glory” prophesied in the Word of God.[102] In An Humble Attempt, he wrote:

It is evident from the Scripture that there is yet remaining a great advancement of the interest of [Christian] religion and the kingdom of Christ in this world, by an abundant outpouring of the Spirit of God, far greater and more extensive than ever yet has been. It is certain, that many things, which are spoken concerning a glorious time of the church’s enlargement and prosperity in the latter days, have never yet been fulfilled…. It is represented as a time of vast increase of knowledge and understanding, especially in divine things.[103]

During this time, Edwards conjectured, “there will probably be an hundred times more of the application of redemption than in all preceding ages put together.”[104] This work of redemptive application, empowered by the Holy Spirit, “will be accomplished by means of the preaching of the gospel, and the use of the ordinary means of grace, and so shall be gradually brought to pass.”[105] Indeed, wrote Edwards, “the apostolic age, or the age in which the apostles lived and preached the gospel, was an age of the greatest outpouring of the Spirit of God which ever was.” But “we have reason from Scripture prophecy to suppose, that at the commencement of that last and greatest outpouring of the Spirit of God, that is to be in the latter ages of the world, the manner of the work will be very extraordinary, and such as never has yet been seen.”[106]

Edwards taught, in accordance with Revelation 20, that near the end of the millennium, just prior to the second advent of Christ and the ushering in of the final state of glorification, there would be a brief time of apostasy, during which Christians would be persecuted. Then Christ would return, and the final state would begin.[107]

Conclusion

In this essay we have surveyed Jonathan Edwards’ doctrine of Pneumatology: the study of the person and work of the Holy Spirit. He taught that “the Holy Spirit or the third person of the Trinity in His operations and fruits is the sum of the blessings that Christ purchased for us in the work of our redemption.” We began with a study of the being of the Spirit, and saw that Edwards believed that the Spirit is a divine person—the third person of the Godhead, possessing all of the attributes of deity. Ontologically speaking (ad intra), He is equal with the Father and the Son. But economically speaking, in the work of God ad extra, He fulfills a subordinate and self-effacing role.

We then proceeded to study the work of the Holy Spirit. Here we saw that Edwards viewed the Holy Spirit’s work as Christocentric, and one that had to do with every aspect of creation and redemption. We first studied the Puritan sage’s thoughts on the Spirit’s relationship with Jesus Christ Himself. This was followed by an analysis of the Spirit’s role in general and special revelation, along with His decrees and His work in creation and providence. Then we surveyed the work of the third person of the Trinity in soteriology, in which He is actively involved in the entirety of the ordo salutis, from effectual calling to glorification. Finally, we studied Edwards’ thoughts on eschatology, seeing that he believed that prior to the second advent of Christ and the final state, the Holy Spirit would bring about a millennial time of Sabbath rest for the church of Jesus Christ. In every aspect of His person and work, Edwards properly concluded, the Holy Spirit is the “sum of all blessings.”

Notes

1. Benjamin B. Warfield, Calvin and Augustine, ed. Samuel G. Craig (Philadelphia: Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Company, 1956), 107.
2. Jonathan Edwards, The Works of Jonathan Edwards, Volume 21, ed. Sang Hyun Lee, Writings on the Trinity, Grace, and Faith (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2003), 110, 146-148.
3. Edwards, sermon on Gal. 3:13-14, cited in John H. Gerstner, The Rational Biblical Theology of Jonathan Edwards (Powhatan, VA: Berea Publications; Orlando, FL: Ligonier Ministries, 1991-1993), 1:519; 2:424.
4. The Works of Jonathan Edwards, Volume 8, ed. Paul Ramsey, Ethical Writings (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1989), 353-354.
5. This is the order in which it is treated in The Westminster Confession of Faith (chapters 2-5).
6. Gerstner, The Rational Biblical Theology of Jonathan Edwards, 1:160. Edwards commented: “As to my subscribing to the substance of the Westminster Confession, there would be no difficulty.” See The Works of Jonathan Edwards, 2 volumes, ed. Edward Hickman (Edinburgh: The Banner of Truth Trust,1984), 1:cxxi.
7. Jonathan Edwards, The Works of Jonathan Edwards, Volume 2, ed. John E. Smith, Religious Affections (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1959), 256-257.
8. John E. Smith, Harry S. Stout, and Kenneth P. Minkema, editors, A Jonathan Edwards Reader (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1995), 292-293; Edwards, Works, 21:113-148.
9. From Jonathan Edwards, Fragment on the Trinity, cited in Amy Plantinga Pauw, The Supreme Harmony of All: The Trinitarian Theology of Jonathan Edwards (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2002), 122.
10. Jonathan Edwards, The Works of Jonathan Edwards, Volume 15, ed. Stephen J. Stein, Notes on Scripture (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1998), 387.
11. Augustine, A Select Library of the Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers of the Christian Church, edited by Philip Schaff (Edinburgh: T&T Clark; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1988), 1-228; William J. Danaher, Jr., The Trinitarian Ethics of Jonathan Edwards (Louisville, KY: Westminster, John Knox Press, 2004), 88-89; Pauw, The Supreme Harmony of All, 44- 45. Several of the Puritans (e.g., Cotton Mather, William Ames, and Richard Baxter), had similar views of the Trinity as those of Augustine and Edwards (see Pauw, The Supreme Harmony of All, 47).
12. Jonathan Edwards, The Works of Jonathan Edwards, Volume 13, ed. Thomas A. Schafer, The “Miscellanies,” a-500 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1994), Miscellany 94.
13. Edwards, Miscellany 448.
14. Edwards, Miscellany 405.
15. Edwards, Works, 21:131.
16. Robert W. Caldwell, III, “The Holy Spirit as the Bond of Union in the Theology of Jonathan Edwards,” Reformation and Revival Journal (13.3, Summer 2003), 44-47.
17. Jonathan Edwards, The Works of Jonathan Edwards, Volume 20, ed. Amy Plantinga Pauw, The “Miscellanies,” 833-1152 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2002), Miscellany 1062; Alexander B. Grosart, editor, Selections From the Unpublished Writings of Jonathan Edwards (Morgan, PA: Soli Deo Gloria, 1992), 49ff.
18. Edwards, Works, 21:189.
19. Edwards, Miscellany 958.
20. Edwards, Works, 21:122-130.
21. Jonathan Edwards, The Works of Jonathan Edwards, Volume 17, ed. Mark Valeri, Sermons and Discourses 1730-1733 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1999), 123-138.
22. Edwards, Miscellanies 355, 475.
23. Jonathan Edwards, The Works of Jonathan Edwards, Volume 18, ed. Ava Chamberlain, The “Miscellanies,” 501-832 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2000), Miscellany 706.
24. From Edwards’ “Blank Bible” note on Ephesians 3:9, cited in Works, 18:200.
25. Edwards, Miscellanies, 332.
26. Edwards, Miscellanies 1062, 1082.
27. Edwards, sermon on Gal. 3:13-14; see also Miscellany 487.
28. Edwards, Miscellany 487, 294.
29. Edwards, Works, 15:575.
30. Jonathan Edwards, The Works of Jonathan Edwards, Volume 14, ed. Kenneth P. Minkema, Sermons and Discourses 1723-1729 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1998), 380ff. For an excellent synopsis of this sermon series and the three-fold work of the Holy Spirit, see Michael A. G. Haykin, Jonathan Edwards: The Holy Spirit in Revival (Webster, NY: Evangelical Press, 2005), 31-41.
31. Edwards, Works, 15:588-592.
32. Jonathan Edwards, The Works of Jonathan Edwards, Volume 23, ed. Douglas A. Sweeney, The “Miscellanies,” 1153-1360 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2004), Miscellany 1340.
33. Jonathan Edwards, The Works of Jonathan Edwards, Volume 11, ed. Wallace E. Anderson, Mason I. Lowance, Jr., and David Watters, Typological Writings (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1993), 106. For Edwards’ view of the harmony of general and special revelation, see his “Images of Divine Things,” Works, 11:51-135; see also Gerald R. McDermott, Jonathan Edwards Confronts the Gods (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000), 110-129.
34. Edward, Miscellanies 268, 533; Jonathan Edwards, The Works of Jonathan Edwards, Volume 6, ed. Wallace E. Anderson, Scientific and Philosophical Writings (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1980), 346, 361-370.
35. Edwards, Works, 11:152.
36. Edwards, Miscellany 293.
37. Edwards, Works (Banner ed.), 2:491, 253, 158, 162.
38. Jonathan Edwards, The Works of Jonathan Edwards, Volume 9, ed. John F. Wilson, A History of the Work of Redemption (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1989).
39. Edwards, Works, 8:356.
40. Grosart, Selections From the Unpublished Writings of Jonathan Edwards, 192, 195, 175.
41. Edwards, Works, 6:341-342.
42. Edwards, Miscellany 535.
43. Edwards, sermon on Matthew 16:17, cited in Works (Banner ed.), 2:12-17.
44. Jonathan Edwards, “The Decrees of God,” in Our Great and Glorious God, ed. Don Kistler (Morgan, PA: Soli Deo Gloria, 2003), 54-83.
45. Edwards, Works (Banner ed.), 2:527-528, 534; 1:217.
46. Jonathan Edwards, The Works of Jonathan Edwards, Volume 1, ed. Paul Ramsey, Freedom of the Will (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1957).
47. Edwards, Miscellany 984; Gerstner, The Rational Biblical Theology of Jonathan Edwards, 2:237.
48. Edwards, Works, 8:531.
49. Edwards, Works, 9:519-520.
50. Edwards, Works, 6:241.
51. Edwards, Miscellany 880.
52. Edwards, Works, 6:215.
53. Jonathan Edwards, The Works of Jonathan Edwards, Volume 3, ed. Clyde A. Holbrook, Original Sin (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1970), 401-402.
54. Sang Hyun Lee, The Philosophical Theology of Jonathan Edwards (Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1988), 63, 69.
55. Edwards, Works, 9:116.
56. Edwards, Miscellany 814.
57. Edwards, Works (Banner ed.), 2:599.
58. Edwards, Works, 9:132-133.
59. Edwards, Works, 21:136.
60. Edwards, Works 21:294.
61. Gerstner, The Rational Biblical Theology of Jonathan Edwards, 2:424.
62. Edwards, sermon on 1 Corinthians 1:29-31, in Works (Banner ed.), 2:3-7.
63. Edwards, Works, 21:153-160, 192.
64. See Gerstner, The Rational Biblical Theology of Jonathan Edwards, 3:1-604.
65. Edwards, Miscellanies 315, 393.
66. Edwards, sermon on Matthew 16:17.
67. Edwards, Miscellany 397.
68. Edwards, Miscellanies 504, 943.
69. Edwards, Miscellany 812.
70. Jonathan Edwards, sermon on Romans 2:10, in The True Believer, ed. Don Kistler (Morgan, PA: Soli Deo Gloria, 2001), 230-315.
71. Edwards, sermon on John 3:3, cited in John H. Gerstner, Jonathan Edwards: Evangelist (Morgan, PA: Soli Deo Gloria, 1995), 129.
72. Edwards, sermon on Matthew 16:17.
73. Edwards, Works, 8:132.
74. John E. Smith, “Religious Affections and the ‘Sense of the Heart,’“ in The Princeton Companion to Jonathan Edwards, ed. Sang Hyun Lee (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2005), 103.
75. Edwards, Works, 2:95, 108ff.
76. Edwards, Miscellany 539.
77. Edwards, Works, 9:143.
78. Conrad Cherry, The Theology of Jonathan Edwards: A Reappraisal (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1990), 45.
79. Jonathan Edwards, sermon on Hebrews 5:12, in To All the Saints of God, ed. Don Kistler (Morgan, PA: Soli Deo Gloria, 2003), 212-241.
80. Caldwell, “The Holy Spirit as the Bond of Union in the Theology of Jonathan Edwards,” 54-55.
81. Edwards, sermon on Hebrews 5:12.
82. Edwards, sermon on Galatians 3:13-14.
83. Edwards, sermon on Job 27:10, in The True Believer, 50-79.
84. Edwards, sermon on Galatians 3:13-14.
85. Edwards, Works, 8:353-354.
86. Edwards, sermon on Job 27:10.
87. Edwards, sermon on James 2:19, in The True Believer, 16-49.
88. Edwards, sermon on Matthew 25:1-12, cited in Gerstner, The Rational Biblical Theology of Jonathan Edwards, 3:337.
89. Jonathan Edwards, The Works of Jonathan Edwards, Volume 4, ed. C. C. Goen, The Great Awakening, (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1972), 215-288.
90. Edwards, Miscellany 686.
91. Edwards, Works, 2:393, 443.
92. Edwards, Works, 8:706.
93. Edwards, sermon on Galatians 3:13-14.
94. Edwards, Works (Banner ed.), 2:900.
95. Jonathan Edwards, sermon on Psalm 73:25, in Altogether Lovely, ed. Don Kistler (Morgan, PA: Soli Deo Gloria, 1997), 1-13.
96. Edwards, Miscellany 777.
97. Edwards, sermon on Romans 2:10.
98. Edwards, Works (Banner ed.), 2:894ff.
99. Edwards, Miscellany 435.
100. Edwards, sermon on Galatians 3:13-14.
101. Jonathan Edwards, The Works of Jonathan Edwards, Volume 5, ed. Stephen J. Stein, Apocalyptic Writings (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1977), 178-179, 446. See Gerald R. McDermott, One Holy and Happy Society (University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1992).
102. Edwards, Works, 5:309-436.
103. Edwards, Works, 5:329, 338.
104. Edwards, Miscellany 911.
105. Edwards, Works, 9:459.
106. Edwards, Works, 4:226, 230.
107. Gerstner, The Rational Biblical Theology of Jonathan Edwards, 3:489-490.