“And Prophecy Shall Cease”: Jonathan Edwards On The Cessation Of The Gift Of Prophecy

By Philip A. Craig

[Philip A. Craig is General Editor of The Banner of Truth Trust, Edinburgh, Scotland.]

This article will trace out the development of the Reformed view of cessationism (the doctrine that revelatory “sign gifts” such as prophecy ceased with the early apostolic church), with particular emphasis on Jonathan Edwards rather than B. B. Warfield as the culminating figure in this development. Edwards invites our attention especially because he is considered by many the theologian of revival par excellence,[1] and encountered a supposed revival of prophecy firsthand during the Great Awakening. This article will further buttress John D. Hannah’s recent claim that contemporary charismatics are misappropriating Edwards’s theology as they seek to justify prophecy as a continuing gift for today.[2]

Despite a renewal of interest in his theology, Edwards’s view of cessationism has been much neglected by evangelicals today. Edwards merits nary a mention, for example, in Wayne Grudem’s recently edited Are Miraculous Gifts For Today?: Four Views.[3] This neglect may have come about because Edwards bases his case for cessationism far more on his understanding of redemptive history and canon than on his exegesis of disputed Scripture passages. I hope to demonstrate that Edwards’s position, a more full-orbed understanding of cessationism than has been suspected, has unfortunately been neglected, much to the endangerment of the contemporary evangelical church.

In order to unpack Edwards’s view of cessationism, I will examine a number of related strands: (1) his distinctive understanding of redemptive history, with the sign gifts operative during the period of the early church’s minority (or immaturity); (2) his understanding of Christian charity as the preeminent spiritual grace; (3) his view of canon and its implications for the supposed continuation of prophecy; (4) his repeated experience with failed prophecies during the Great Awakening; (5) his controversy with Whitefield and also with Davenport and Croswell over so-called revelatory impulses; (6) the Puritan view of prophesying as being intimately connected with preaching as the preeminent means of grace; (7) the impact of the New England Antinomian Controversy on Edwards’s view; (8) his expressed fear that the extreme New Lights marked the emergence of a counterfeit evangelical Christianity; and (9) his view of Scripture’s sufficiency.

Before doing so, however, I will sketch the development of cessationism in the biblical interpretation of both John Calvin and John Owen. I will also provide as background the New England Antinomian Controversy of the 1630s and the Puritan clash with Quakerism during the 1650s in England since the issue of whether prophecy continued as a gift figured largely in both conflicts.

I. The Reformed Background

1. John Calvin

Calvin sets forth an embryonic cessationism. Conceiving of prophets as those who have a “particular revelation,” he observes that “[t]his class either does not exist today or is less commonly seen.”[4] However, after provisionally holding out the possibility that there could be contemporary prophets, Calvin slams the door shut by pointing out in regard to the offices of apostle, prophet and evangelist that “[t]hese three functions were not established in the church as permanent ones, but only for that time during which churches were to be erected where none existed before, or where they were to be carried over from Moses to Christ.”[5]

Paul Elbert accuses Calvin of reductionism in that he restricts the contemporary gift of prophecy to “outstanding inspired preaching, as many have traditionally done.”[6] Elbert fallaciously attributes Calvin’s cessationism to his “very high doctrine of preaching,”[7] though we will see that a high view of preaching does seem to imply a low view of prophecy, and vice versa.

2. John Owen

Among the Puritans, John Owen expands the Reformed understanding of the cessation of prophecy in a 100-page treatise entitled A Discourse on Spiritual Gifts. While stressing that God gives spiritual gifts to Christians, especially ministers for the edification of the church, Owen painstakingly distinguishes between gifts and graces:

These gifts are not saving, sanctifying graces—those were not so in themselves which made the most glorious and astonishing appearance in the world, and which were most eminently useful in the foundation of the church and propagation of the gospel, such as were those that were extraordinary and miraculous.[8]

Owen compares and contrasts spiritual gifts and graces at length. Both are alike in four particulars: they are purchased by Christ’s mediatorial work, wrought by the power of the Holy Ghost, designed for the good and glory of the church, and can be considered a gracious part of Christ’s bounty.[9] He also expounds seven differences between the two. Unlike gifts, graces (1) are fruit of the Spirit (Owen points out that unregenerate men such as Balaam, King Saul and Judas may receive spiritual gifts, but have no graces); (2–4) result from God’s electing love, the application of His covenant, and Christ’s priestly intercession; (5) cannot be utterly lost or taken away; (6) mainly benefit the recipient rather than others, and (7) do not merely illuminate the mind but change the heart with power.[10]

Owen writes:

They differ in their operations: for grace changeth and transformeth the whole soul into its own nature, Isa. xi. 6–8; Rom. vi. 17, xii. 2; 2 Cor. iii. 18. It is a new, a divine nature unto the soul, and … acts itself in faith, love and holiness in all things. But gifts of themselves have not this power nor these operations. They may … make great impressions on [people’s] affections, but they change not the heart, they renew not the mind, they transform not the soul into the image of God.[11]

Owen considered prophecy to be an extraordinary and temporary office in the early church.[12] He defines prophecy as “immediate revelation from Christ by the Holy Ghost.”[13] “Prophets [as officers in the church] … had a temporary and extraordinary ministry in the Church.”[14]

In a crucial passage, Owen distinguishes three biblical usages of “prophesy,” two extraordinary and temporary, the other ordinary and permanent. The two extraordinary usages have to do with “receiv[ing] immediate revelations and directions from the Holy Ghost” regarding the immediate administration of the church, as in the setting apart of Saul and Barnabas, or with “foretelling things to come, by the inspiration of the Holy Ghost,” as in Agabus’s prediction of Paul’s imprisonment. The ordinary usage, mentioned in Rom 12:6, relates to “nothing but teaching or preaching, in the exposition and application of the word.”[15] Owen comments,

[A]s in these extraordinary officers and their gifts did consist the original glory and honour of the churches in an especial manner, and by them was their edification carried on and perfected; so by an empty pretense unto their power, without their order and spirit, the churches have been stained, and deformed, and brought to destruction.[16]

Returning to the ordinary biblical usage of prophecy, Owen quotes 2 Tim 3:16 regarding the profitable uses of Scripture and mentions that “exposition and application of the word … [will increase] the faith, love, obedience and consolation [of the church].”[17] He believes of Paul’s direction in 1 Cor 14:29–33 for the exercise of prophecy that “this direction manifests that the gift was extraordinary, and is now ceased; though there be a continuance of ordinary gifts of the same kind.”[18] He also points out his belief that because the prophets could speak in an orderly fashion and in submission to the judgment of other prophets, that “their spiritual gift is in their own power … not being acted as with an enthusiastical afflation, and carried out of their own power.”[19] In his treatment of the gift of discerning spirits, Owen mentions the strong historical connection in the early church between false prophets and heresy. He cautions,

Now, all their damnable opinions they fathered upon immediate revelations of the Spirit. [Hence the injunction in 1 John 4:1–3.] And this false pretense unto extraordinary spiritual gifts the church was tried and pestered withal so long as there was any occasion to give it countenance,—namely, whilst such gifts were really continued unto any therein.[20]

He maintains that the gift of discerning spirits has ceased, since no pretense to prophetic gifts is any longer asserted “unless by some persons phrenetical and enthusiastical, whose madness is manifest to all.”[21] Claiming that it is now by the more ordinary spiritual gifts that the gospel and church are continued and preserved, Owen points out that in the case of even the apostles, “the preaching of the word, which is the ‘sword of the Spirit’, was the great instrument whereby they wrought out and accomplished their designed work in the conviction and conversion of the souls of men.”[22] Further, he writes, “By virtue of these spiritual gifts, they preached the word ‘in the demonstration of the Spirit and of power.’”[23] Owen continues to wax eloquent about the power of apostolic preaching.

… [W]hen men prophesied, or declared the mind of God from the word by the gift of prophecy, unbelievers did ‘fall down, and, worshipping God, reported that God was in them of a truth,’ 1 Cor. xiv. 24, 25.Theywere sensible of a divine authority, which they could not stand before, or withstand…. From hence also proceeded that life and power for conviction which the word was accompanied with in their dispensation of it. It became shortly to be the arrows of Christ, which were sharp in the hearts of men. As men found an authority in the dispensation of the Word, so they felt and experienced an efficacy in the truths dispensed. By it were their minds enlightened, their consciences awakened, their minds convinced, their lives judged, the secrets of their hearts made manifest … until they cried out in multitudes, ‘Men and brethren, what shall we do?’ Hereby did the Lord Christ in his kingdom and majesty ride prosperously, conquering and to conquer, with the Word of truth, meekness and righteousness, subduing the souls of men unto his obedience,—making them free, ready, willing, in the day of his power. These were the forces and weapons that he used in the establishing of his kingdom, which were mighty through God to the pulling down of strongholds, casting down of imaginations, and every high thing that exalted itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ, 2 Cor. x. 4, 5.[24]

Owen couples a very high view of preaching with a cessationist view of prophecy.

I suspect that Edwards had read Owen’s treatise. Edwards owned a copy of Owen’s complete works; and at two junctures in The Religious Affections quoted Owen directly.[25] At any rate, the emphases of these two theologians—particularly the priority of graces over gifts, the cessation of extraordinary gifts, the growth cycle of the church and the dangers inherent in modern prophecy—are similar. Sinclair Ferguson reaches a similar conclusion:

It might, for example, be assumed that, were Owen to witness the current revival of interest in spiritual gifts, not least in the historic denominations, he would immediately change his view of their cessation…. But this does not follow. Owen knew well that Christians through the centuries had claimed to receive again these apostolic gifts. But this claim disguised the existence of a deep delusion, as far as Owen was concerned, as his constant attacks on “Inner Light” [i.e. Quaker] theology demonstrate. In Owen we see the beginning of the argument which later became part of reformed orthodoxy, that these extraordinary gifts were ‘signs of the apostles’, vindicating their ministry and mission, just as miracles had testified to the divine origin of God’s servants and prophets Moses, Joshua, Elijah, Elisha, Daniel and Christ.[26]

3. The Antinomian Controversy in New England

In the 1630s a controversy, the resolution of which would, more than any other event, help to define American Puritan orthodoxy for the next 100 years, shattered the calm of New England. Anne Hutchinson, having immigrated from England along with her pastor John Cotton, began holding meetings for women during which she expounded his sermons. Before long she expanded her meetings to include men and began criticizing other “legalistic” ministers who preached what she termed a “covenant of works.”

Thomas Weld, the colony’s London agent, left posterity an excellent summary of Hutchinson’s thoroughly antinomian theology, which Weld called “a faire and easye way to heaven.”

For if a man need not be troubled by the law, before faith, but may step to Christ so easily; and then, if his faith be no going out to himself to take Christ, but only a discerning that Christ is his own already, and is only an act of the Spirit upon him, no act of his own done by him; and if he, for his part, must see nothing, do nothing, only if he is to stand still and wait for Christ to do all for him. And then if after faith, the law no rule to walk by, no sorrow or repentance for sin; he must not be pressed to duties; and need never pray, unless moved by the Spirit; and if he falls into sin, he is never the more disliked of God, nor his condition never the worse. And for his assurance, it being given him by the Spirit, he must never let it go; but abide in the height of comfort, though he falls into the grossest sins that he can. Then is their way to life made so easy, if so, no marvel so many like of it.[27]

What made the antinomian controversy so remarkable was Hutchinson’s claims to direct revelation and prophetic powers. She insisted that “God, by an immediate voice of the Spirit to her soul, gave her the ability to distinguish true ministers of the gospel from those … having the Spirit of Antichrist.”[28] At her trial, she refused to retract her denunciation of local Puritan ministers. “She gave personal revelations as her authority and warned the Court that calamity would befall the colony for the Court’s mistreatment of her, ‘for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it’.”[29] Banished from the colony, she herself encountered calamity, murdered in August, 1643 by hostile Indians.[30] The antinomian controversy influenced Jonathan Edwards’s development as a pastor-theologian in two respects. First, as mentioned, the outcome helped to define New England orthodoxy for the next 100 years. Secondly, pastor Thomas Shepard, author of The Parable of the Seven Virgins, led the charge against Hutchinson and Cotton, and it would later be Shepard whom Edwards would quote most frequently in The Religious Affections as a guide to distinguish true Christians from “gospel hypocrites.” Pointing out that Edwards was Shepard’s theological heir rather than Cotton’s as is commonly supposed, Stoever comments:

In particular, Edwards did not share the emphasis on the Spirit’s immediate operation that distinguished Cotton’s position in 1636–1638, nor did he share Cotton’s views about the evidential value of sanctification [in confirming assurance]. On the contrary, amid the excitement of the Great Awakening, Edwards accepted the criteria advanced by Shepard … for discerning the truly regenerate—not, that is, on their own testimony of an immediate word of the Spirit to their hearts, but by universal obedience, in conscience and conversation, to the will of God revealed in scripture.[31]

4. The Puritan Clash with the Quakers in England

Puritanism as a movement of spiritual reformation directed toward the Church of England began in the 1560s but did not attain political ascendancy until the 1640s. Hardly had the Puritans begun consolidating their political power when, in the early 1650s, the Quakers, led by George Fox and James Naylor (or Nayler), began to challenge them at every turn. The major theological issue dividing them was the relationship between the Holy Spirit and the word of God. The Puritans argued for conjunction: the Holy Spirit works in, through and by the word of God. The Quakers contended for disjunction: the Holy Spirit works afresh and communicates new revelations outside Scripture. In practical terms this meant that the Puritans judged the Spirit by the word whereas the Quakers judged the word by the Spirit.[32]

The perceived gravity of the Quaker threat can be grasped by noticing the heavy theological artillery fired against the Quakers. Leading Puritan pastors Richard Baxter, John Bunyan and John Owen all wrote treatises, in which they vigorously attacked the Quakers. Bunyan wrote a treatise, A Vindication of Gospel Truths Opened, to answer Quaker Thomas Burroughs’s charge that Bunyan was a hireling. Bunyan called Quakers heretics for their denial of a number of cardinal Christian doctrines such as the propitiatory atonement, the resurrection and the ascension. He wrote,

They deny the man Christ to be without them, and own Christ no otherwise, but as he is within…. Again, the Quakers make no difference between that light wherewith Christ, as he is God, hath enlightened all; and the Spirit of Christ he gives not to all.[33]

In 1658 John Owen followed with a treatise in Latin against the Quakers, accusing them of embracing the Gnostic heresy.

It is uncertain, however, that Edwards read either Bunyan’s or Owen’s treatise since neither appears in the “catalogue” of books Edwards had either read or hoped to read. It is more likely that Edwards would have run across negative references to the Quakers in Richard Baxter’s writings. Edwards, for example, may have owned a copy of Reliquiae Baxter[34] which contains this blast against Quakers: “These taught that our Scripture was uncertain; that present miracles are necessary to faith; that our ministry is null and without authority, and our worship and ordinances unnecessary or vain.”[35] The same treatise also mentions James Naylor’s reenactment at Bristol of Christ’s triumphal entry, for which he was tried and convicted of blasphemy by Parliament.[36]

There were of course no Quakers in New England during the time of Edwards’s ministry. They did pop up from time to time in colonial New England. Just the same, every reference to the Quakers made by Edwards is scathing. In The Distinguishing Marks of a Work of the True Spirit, Edwards accuses Quakers of rejecting the historical reality of Jesus Christ:

… [T]he person to whom the Spirit gives testimony, and for whom he raises their esteem must be that Jesus who appeared in the flesh, and not another Christ in his stead; nor any mystical, fantastical Christ: such as the light within. This the spirit of Quakers extols, while it diminishes their esteem of and dependence upon an outward Christ—or Jesus as he came in the flesh—and leads them off from him, but the spirit that gives testimony for that Jesus, and leads to him can be no other than the Spirit of God.[37]

Edwards also criticizes the Quakers for deprecating the authority of Scripture by setting the light within above it[38] and castigates Quakers as enthusiasts.[39] Edwards’s view of Quakerism and of the cessation of prophecy are related. The Quaker position was charismatic: Quakers believed that the gift of prophecy had been restored to them so that the importance of preaching paled in significance. James Naylor, after quoting 1 Cor 14:30–33, had these harsh words for Puritan pastors who generally believed that prophecy had ceased:

Saith Antichrist, That was the order in the primitive times, but that prophesying is now ceased, and none shall now prophesy but such as are men of learning, and have been at the university; and have tongues, and study to fit them for that purpose, and have received orders either from the bishop, or are approved by some appointed by authority; and these shall be masters, and bear rule in every parish, none shall reprove or contradict what they say in public.[40]

II. Jonathan Edwards

In 1726 Solomon Stoddard’s congregational church at Northampton, Massachusetts called Jonathan Edwards, his grandson, as its associate pastor. In 1729 Stoddard died, leaving Edwards as the senior pastor of the church. Though there had been five so-called “harvests” under Stoddard’s ministry, the last one had come in 1718, long before Edwards’s call to the church.[41]

Troubled by the spiritual deadness of Northampton, which he attributed to licentiousness and Arminianism, in 1734 Edwards began preaching a series of sermons on justification by faith. These sermons were blessed with a significant revival in his pastorate, though one which would pale beside the Great Awakening of the 1740s. Having witnessed enormous revival under his ministry, Edwards would give much thought not only to a theology of revival but also to the issue of the purported restoration of prophecy.

Before discussing his revival-period writings, however, it is interesting to find Edwards as early as 1734 exploring the nature of spiritual impressions. In his sermon A Divine and Supernatural Light, Edwards defines spiritual enlightenment both negatively and positively. Negatively, it is not to be equated with impressions on the imagination because such can come from Satan as well as from God. Nor does spiritual enlightenment mean inspiration or new revelation.

This spiritual light is not the suggesting of any new truths, or propositions not contained in the Word of God. This suggesting of new truths or doctrines to the mind, independent of any antecedent revelation of these propositions, either in word or writing, is inspiration; such as the apostles and prophets had, and such as some enthusiasts pretend to. But the spiritual light which I am speaking of, is a quite different thing from inspiration.[42]

Edwards then defines spiritual enlightenment positively, as the Puritans had done, in terms of the conjunction between the Spirit and the word of God. He declares, “It reveals no new doctrine, it suggests no new proposition to the mind, it teaches no new thing of God, or Christ, or another world, not taught in the Bible; but only gives a due apprehension of those things that are taught in the word of God.”[43]

Following the “mini-revival” at Northampton in 1735, Edwards was asked by ministers in England to give an account of what had happened. This he did in A Faithful Narrative of Surprising Conversions (1737). After witnessing what he hoped was more than 300 conversions, he wrote of spiritual impressions with greater firsthand experience. In fact, he initially writes favorably of texts of Scripture coming with great power to the minds of those undergoing conversion:

And it seems necessary to suppose that there is an immediate influence of the Spirit of God, oftentimes, in bringing texts of Scripture to the mind. Not that I suppose it is done in a way of immediate revelation, without any use of the memory; but yet there seems plainly to be an immediate and extraordinary influence, in leading their thoughts to such and such passages of Scripture, and exciting them in the memory.[44]

But Edwards is still far from throwing caution to the wind. He mentions two notorious instances of failed prophecies and recounts one in detail, the “strange enthusiastical delusion” of a pious man at South Hadley who “thought himself divinely instructed to direct a poor man in melancholy and despairing circumstances, to say certain words in prayer to God, as recorded in Psal. cxvi.4 for his own relief.”[45] Edwards notes that the self-avowed prophet had been misled in his opinion regarding the restoration of extraordinary gifts of the Holy Spirit and “since exceedingly laments the dishonour he has done to God, and the wound he has given religion in it, and has lain low before God and man for it.”[46] In Charity and its Fruits (1738), Edwards develops his theology of spiritual gifts much further. Continuing in the Reformed tradition, in “Charity More Excellent than the Extraordinary Gifts of the Spirit” he teaches that gifts such as tongues and prophecy are extraordinary and have ceased with the closing of the canon:

They are not bestowed in the way of God’s providential dealing with his children, but only … before the canon of Scripture was complete… .But since canon of the Scripture has been completed, and the Christian church fully founded and established, these extraordinary gifts have ceased.[47]

Edwards acknowledges that extraordinary gifts were “commonly bestowed as tokens of God’s extraordinary favour and love.”[48] Citing Matt 7:22–23, he cautions that extraordinary gifts are common gifts in the sense that God gives them to the regenerate and unregenerate alike. In a manner analogous to Owen’s treatment of gifts and graces, Edwards elaborates nine reasons to support the proposition that charity is superior to extraordinary gifts. The first three reasons are basically the same: the “ordinary” gift of the Holy Spirit given in salvation renovates a person’s nature in the image of Christ, whereas the possession of extraordinary spiritual gifts is no guarantee of regeneration:

A man may have an extraordinary impulse in his mind by the Spirit of God whereby some future thing may be revealed to him; or he may have an extraordinary vision given him, representing some future event; and yet the Spirit may not at all impart himself, in holy nature, by that. But when the Spirit, by his ordinary influences, bestows saving grace, he therein imparts himself to the soul in his holy nature.[49]

Fourth and fifth, while saving grace is what Owen would call a “fruit of election,” the extraordinary gifts are common. They are given even to the unregenerate. Citing Balaam, King Saul, and Judas, Edwards declares,

The grace of God in the heart is a gift of the Holy Ghost peculiar to the saints: it is a blessing that God reserves only for those who are the objects of his special and peculiar love. But the extraordinary gifts of the Spirit are what God sometimes bestows on those whom he does not love, but hates; which is a sure sign that the one is infinitely more precious and excellent than the other.[50]

Sixth, sanctification promotes happiness more than extraordinary gifts do. Seventh, extraordinary gifts were only a means to an end, that of the sanctification of the apostolic church: “The end of all the extraordinary gifts of the Spirit is the conversion of sinners, and the building of saints in that holiness which is the fruit of the ordinary influences of the Holy Ghost.”[51] Edwards does not clarify, as he will later, why that extraordinary influence is no longer necessary. Eighth, extraordinary gifts possessed by the unregenerate will only increase God’s judgment of them because their miraculous gifts are Satanic in origin. Ninth and last, extraordinary gifts, unlike charity, will fail.[52]

Edwards warns that Scripture texts coming to mind proves neither a gift of prophecy, which is a “delusion” anyway, nor assurance of salvation. In marked contrast to his more favorable statement in A Faithful Narrative, Edwards takes a much more guarded view of “Scripture-text” impressions:

And the fact that such impressions are made by texts of Scripture coming suddenly to the mind, alters not the case; for a text of Scripture coming to mind, proves no more to be true than the reading of it. [T]heir coming suddenly to mind does not give them a new meaning, which they had not before.[53]

Edwards’s last argument is eschatological, concerning the church in the glorious latter days. He believes that the sanctifying influences of the Holy Spirit, not extraordinary gifts, will glorify that church and fit it for heaven. His argument is also canonical:

Men’s not having the gift of prophecy, of tongues, of healing, etc. as they had in the apostolic ages will not hinder those being far more glorious times … if the Spirit be poured out in greater measure in his sanctifying influences; for this, as the apostle expressly asserts, is a more excellent way (1 Cor. xii. 31). This is what will make the Church more like the Church in heaven, where charity or love hath a perfect reign, than any number or degree of extraordinary gifts of the Spirit could do…. [W]e have no reason to expect that the extraordinary gifts of the Spirit will be poured out… .For in those times, there is no dispensation to be introduced, and no new Bible to be given. Nor have we any reason to expect that our present Scriptures are to be added to and enlarged.[54]

Edwards sounds many of these same themes in his sermon “The Holy Spirit for Ever to be Communicated to the Saints, in the Grace of Charity, or Divine Love.” Prophecy is a gift involving “immediate inspiration”[55] or “immediate revelation.”[56] He again stresses the provisional nature of the extraordinary gifts: “[T]hese were … bestowed for a season for the introduction and establishment of Christianity in the world, and when this their end was gained, they were all to fail and cease.”[57] As we have seen, the completion of the canon of Scripture necessitated their demise.[58] Moreover, he again uses the means-to-an-end argument against their continuation: “[W]hen the canon of the Scriptures, the great and powerful means of grace, was completed … the extraordinary gifts ceased.”[59] In application, he reiterates that there is no reason to expect restoration of the extraordinary gifts in the latter-day glory of the church. The argument is once more eschatological and canonical:

All these miraculous gifts the apostle seems to call ‘childish things’, in comparison with the nobler fruit of Christian love. They are adapted to the childish state of the church, while holy love is more to be expected in its full-grown and manly state. If the Spirit of God be poured out only in his gracious influences in converting souls, and in kindling divine love in them, this will be enough, without new revelations or miracles, as we may all be convinced by the little we have seen in the late outpouring of the Spirit in this and the neighbouring towns. [The] Scriptures are in themselves a perfect rule for our faith and practice; and as there is no need of a new canon of Scripture, so there is no need of those miraculous gifts, the great object of which was, either to confirm the Scriptures, or to make up for the want of them when as yet they had not been given by the inspiring Spirit.[60]

Edwards closes by admonishing his congregation that these considerations should “make persons exceeding cautious how they give heed to anything that may look like a new revelation, or an extraordinary gift of the Holy Spirit.” He explicitly warns against predictive prophecy, against judging the spiritual state of another person by strong impressions, and presumptuous knowledge of the future. These are, in short, “gross delusions.”[61] He exhorts his congregation to seek the end, not the means, and to draw assurance from divine love transforming the soul, not miraculous gifts.

Let us all, therefore, earnestly seek this blessed fruit of the Spirit, and let us seek that it may abound in our souls; that the love of God may more and more be shed abroad in our hearts; and that we may love the Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity, and love one another as Christ hath loved us. Thus we shall possess the richest of all treasures, and the highest and most excellent of all graces. Having within us that love which is immortal in its nature, we shall have the surest evidence that our immortality will be blessed, and that our hope of eternal life is that good hope which shall never disappoint us.[62]

The last of Edwards’s works to be preached prior to the second phase of the Great Awakening was A History of the Work of Redemption (1739, published posthumously). Edwards’s position on the cessation of prophecy remains the same. After reiterating that the extraordinary gifts pertained only to the apostolic age of miracles, he elaborates on the manner in which these miracles authenticated the gospel in a final way. Notice the adverbial phrases of complete duration he employs to make his point:

This was a great means of the success of the gospel in that age of establishing the Christian church in all parts of the world, and not only in that age but in all ages to the end of the world. For Christianity being by this means established through so great a part of the known world by miracles, it was after that more easily continued by tradition. And then by means of these extraordinary gifts of the Holy Ghost, the apostles and others were enabled to write the New Testament to be an infallible rule of faith and works and manners to the church to the end of the world. And furthermore these miracles stand recorded in those writings as a standing proof and evidence of the truth of the Christian religion to all ages.[63]

Why does Edwards expect no restoration of extraordinary gifts? He explains,

‘Tis observable that it has been God’s manner in every remarkable new establishment of the state of his visible church, to give a remarkable outpouring of his Spirit; so it was on the first establishment of his church, the Jews at their first coming into Canaan under Joshua…. And so it was now in this second settlement of his church in the same land in the time of Ezra. And so it was in the first establishment of the Christian church after Christ’s resurrection.[64]

In short, as he will make more explicit later, no new dispensation to follow the apostolic one should be expected.

He reiterates his high view of Scripture as “that great standing rule which God has given ‘em for the faith, worship and practice of his church in all ages henceforth to the end of the world”[65] and as “the main instrument Christ has made use of to carry on his Work of Redemption in all ages.”[66] Because the canon is complete, “[a]ll the stated means of grace are to remain unaltered until the day of judgment.”[67]

The Great Awakening began in the 1730s. This revival occurred not only in New England but also across the Atlantic in England, Scotland and Ireland. A key event in its spread was George Whitefield’s visit to Northampton in 1740. God used Whitefield mightily in his preaching in the colonies and from Edwards’s pulpit, with Edwards himself reduced to tears. Yet Edwards was disturbed by Whitefield’s practice of relying on impressions, or impulses, in discerning God’s will. Edwards apparently warned Whitefield of the danger of the practice, but Whitefield neither appreciated nor heeded his warning. Several years later, following a vivid impression regarding the calling of his infant son John, Whitefield dedicated the 3-month-old boy to gospel ministry during a service at the Tabernacle. The boy died about a month later. Whitefield’s most sympathetic modern biographer comments on the incident:

Since the days of his conversion, he had referred, at times, to what he called ‘impressions’ on his mind. In some instances these were nothing more than the fervent application to his own circumstances of some Christian truth or promise of the Scriptures, and his assurance of being called of God to the ministry was perhaps the strongest of these ‘impressions’. Nevertheless, there were also other instances in which he allowed himself to be guided by such feelings and it was in this regard that Edwards had admonished him to be more careful. But Whitefield’s worst error in relying on his impressions was this concerning his certainty that his infant son would grow up to be a preacher. Thereafter, in this trying experience—the child’s death and the realization that he had involved his congregation in his mistake—the ‘mistaken parent’ did indeed become ‘more cautious’ and we do not again find him giving heed to his impressions in this way.[68]

Edwards, however, was also troubled by certain aspects of the Great Awakening, particularly counterfeit revival phenomena and the false zeal of a group of radical book-burning antinomians whom historians have called the extreme New Lights.[69] Edwards turned his attention to spiritual discernment between true and false revival in The Distinguishing Marks of a Work of the Spirit of God (1741).Henoted that Satan had abundantly mimicked the extraordinary gifts of the Holy Spirit in the apostolic age (which was of course the greatest of all revivals); hence came the warning of 1 John 4 to test the spirits. Even when spiritual impressions come from the Lord, there were still, according to Edwards, several factors that could cause confusion. The first is that the inspiration is perceived to be direct, when the inspiration is actually indirect.[70] The second is the weakness of human nature, which tends to be overpowered by the experience, and the third is the unreliability of the faculty of imagination. Edwards comments,

Some are ready to interpret such things wrong, and to lay much weight on them, as prophetical visions, divine revelations, and sometimes significations from heaven of what shall come to pass; which the issue, in some instances I have known, has shown to be otherwise. But yet, it appears to me that such things are evidently sometimes from the Spirit of God, though indirectly; that is, their extraordinary frame of mind, and that strong and lively sense of divine things which is the occasion of them, is from his Spirit; and also as the mind continues in its holy frame, and retains a divine sense of the excellency of spiritual things even in its rapture; which holy frame and sense is from the Spirit of God, though the imaginations that attend it are but accidental, and therefore there is commonly something or other in them that is confused, improper and false.[71]

Fourth, Edwards mentions indwelling sin as a factor contributing to confusion.[72] As before, Edwards proclaims that no one should expect direct inspiration since God is not giving new revelation.[73] Interpreting the apostles and prophets who comprise the foundation of the church in Ephesians 2:20 as “all the penmen of sacred Scripture,”[74] Edwards again cautions,

However great a spiritual influence may be, it is not to be expected that the Spirit of God should be given now in the same manner as to the apostles, infallibly to guide them in points of Christian doctrine, so that what they taught might be relied on as a rule to the Christian church. Many godly persons have undoubtedly in this and other ages, exposed themselves to woeful delusions, by an aptness to lay too much weight on impulses and impressions, as if they were immediate revelations from God, to signify something future, or to direct them where to go, and what to do.[75]

Edwards prescribes humility, not spiritual pride. He declines the prophet’s mantle: “Let us not presume that we above all are fit to be advanced as the great instructors and censors of this evil generation; and, in a high conceit of our own wisdom and discerning, assume to ourselves the airs of prophets or extraordinary ambassadors of heaven.”[76] He concludes by repeating many of the same arguments set forth in Charity and its Fruits. First, he uses the teleological argument that the sanctifying influences of the Holy Spirit supersede the extraordinary gifts. Second, in a manner reminiscent of Owen’s claim that latter-day extraordinary gifts would bring the church shame rather than glory, Edwards even employs hyperbole to clinch his point:

Therefore, I do not expect a restoration of these miraculous gifts in the approaching glorious times of the church, nor do I desire it. It appears to me that it would add nothing to the glory of those times, but rather diminish from it. For my part, I had rather enjoy the sweet influences of the Spirit, showing Christ’s spiritual divine beauty, infinite grace, dying love, drawing forth the holy exercises of faith, divine love, sweet complacence, and humble joy in God, one quarter of an hour, than to have prophetical visions and revelations the whole year.[77]

Third, he employs his argument from experience. He urges great caution on the ground that he had seen “very many” prophecies fall to the ground, even under optimum conditions.

I would therefore entreat the people of God to be very cautious how they give heed to such things. I have seen them fail in very many instances, and know by experience that impressions being made with great power, and upon the minds of true, yea eminent saints—even in the midst of extraordinary exercises of grace, and sweet communion with God, and attended with texts of Scripture strongly impressed on the mind—are no sure signs of their being revelations from heaven. I have known such impressions fail, in some instances, attended with all these circumstances.[78]

Finally, he plays his trump card. He employs the canonical argument and leaves us with a memorable image of what it means to surrender the sure guidance of Scripture for prophecy and “new revelation.”

They who leave the sure word of prophecy [i.e., Scripture]—which God has given us as a light shining in a dark place—to follow such impressions and impulses, leave the guidance of the polar star to follow a Jack with a lantern. No wonder therefore that sometimes they are led into woeful extravagances.[79]

In Some Thoughts Concerning the Revival (1742), Edwards defends the Great Awakening, on the one hand, from Old Lights like Charles Chauncey who considered all manifestations of revival to be enthusiasm and, on the other, from extreme New Lights like Davenport and Croswell who made immediate impulses and new revelations their guide. Interestingly, Edwards treats the focus on the epiphenomena of revival (i.e., bodily effects) to be beside the point.

Another way that some err in making history and former observation their rule to judge of this work, instead of the Holy Scripture, is in comparing some external, accidental circumstances of this work, with what has appeared sometimes in enthusiasts; and as they find an agreement in some such things, so they reject the whole work, or at least the substance of it, concluding it to be enthusiasm. So great use has been made to this purpose of many things that are found among the Quakers; however totally and essentially different in its nature this work is, and the principles it is built upon, from the whole religion of the Quakers.[80]

Though this barb is directed toward the Old Lights, Edwards still does not countenance charismatic phenomena in the least. In fact, Some Thoughts contains Edwards’s most extended critique of the same. According to Edwards, the foundational error of the extreme New Lights is their belief that God is still guiding his people by immediate revelation:

And one erroneous principle, than which scarce any has proved more mischievous to the present glorious work of God, is a notion that ‘tis God’s manner now in these days to guide his saints, at least some that are more eminent, by inspiration or immediate revelation; and to make known to ‘em what shall come to pass hereafter, or what it is his will that they should do, by impressions either with or without texts whereby something is made known to them, that is not taught in the Scripture as the words lie in the Bible.[81]

Edwards considers the effect of this belief to the reverence accorded Scripture as nothing less than disastrous. Under this scheme of Satan, the word of God is supplanted by new revelation.

By such a notion the Devil has a great door opened for him; and if once this opinion should come to be fully yielded to and established in the church of God, Satan would have opportunity thereby to set up himself as the guide and oracle of God’s people, and to have his word regarded as their infallible rule, and so to lead ‘em where he would, and to introduce what he pleased, and soon to bring the Bible into neglect and contempt. Late experience in some instances has shown that the tendency of this notion is to cause persons to esteem the Bible as a book that is in a great measure useless.[82]

Edwards expresses astonishment that this Satanic delusion has snared even “many well disposed and religious persons.” Particularly dangerous because it renders them “incorrigible and impregnable in all [their] misconduct,” this error has “exceedingly hindered” the progress of the Great Awakening.[83] Again, he urges great caution on the ground that he had seen many prophecies fall to the ground, even under optimum conditions. He expresses amazement that God’s rebuke of this madness has not been received by the people:

‘Tis enough to astonish one that such multiplied, plain instances of the failing of such revelations in the event don’t open everyone’s eyes. I have seen so many instances of the failing of such impressions, that would almost furnish a history: I have seen them fail … when made with such circumstances as have been fairest and brightest, and most promising. [He enumerates those circumstances], and yet all has most manifestly come to nothing. [O]ne would think it should have been enough to blank [their] expectations; it seems to be a testimony of God, that he has no design of reviving revelations in his church.[84]

Once again, Edwards enlists both the canonical and the teleological arguments. Scripture is our “divine oracles in such abundance and such clearness” and our complete “standing rule.”[85] Sanctifying influences of the Holy Spirit are the “highest” kind of communion with God.[86] He starts a discussion, to be continued in The Religious Affections, regarding the true nature of spiritual discoveries. The Bible does not yield new revelations or new propositions from impulses and impressions. He uses the example of someone taking Acts 9:6 (“Arise, and go into the city; and it shall be told thee what thou must do”) as an expression of God’s will and taking action based on that belief. Such people lay themselves open to deception from the devil or from their own imaginations.[87] He comments,

This is quite a different thing from the Spirit’s enlightening the mind to understand the precepts or propositions of the Word of God, and [to] know what is contained and revealed in them, and what consequences may justly be drawn from them. and to see how they are applicable to our case and circumstances; which is done without any new revelation, only by enabling the mind to understand and apply a revelation already made.[88]

He stresses that God leads his children in the way of sanctification, “through teaching them his statutes and causing them to understand the way of his precepts,” not by new revelations.[89] Edwards compares preaching to praying “in the Spirit” to make the point that God does not now inspire the ipsissima verba of any utterance which is what Edwards previously referred to as “indirect” inspiration.

The gracious assistance of the Holy Spirit in praying and preaching, is not by immediate suggesting of words to the apprehension but by warming the heart and filling it with a great sense of those [holy] things [so] that that sense and those [holy] affections may suggest words. Thus indeed the Spirit of God may be said, indirectly and mediately to suggest words to us, to indite our petitions for us, and to teach the preacher what to say; he fills the heart, and that fills the mouth.[90]

In A Treatise Concerning Religious Affections (1746), Edwards seeks biblical marks to distinguish between true and false conversions, much as Distinguishing Marks had sought biblical tests to differentiate true from false revival. Edwards cites chiefly the writings of Thomas Shepard, the champion of New England Puritan orthodoxy during the Antinomian Controversy.[91]

Edwards gives further support for the idea that one’s views of preaching and prophecy are inversely proportional: a high view of preaching, a dim view of prophesy and vice versa. He again stresses the crucial role played by preaching in the divine gospel economy:

And the impressing of divine things on the hearts and affections of men is evidently one great and main end for which God has ordained that His word delivered in the holy scriptures should be opened, applied, and set home upon men, in preaching. God hath appointed a particular and lively application of His Word to men in the preaching of it, as a fit means to affect sinners with the importance of the things of religion, and their own misery and necessity of a remedy, and the glory and sufficiency of a remedy provided; and to stir up the pure minds of the saints, and quicken their affections by often bringing the great things of religion to their remembrance and setting them before them in their proper colours.[92]

In his enumeration of negative (i.e. nonprobative) marks of conversion, he lists both Bible texts coming to mind[93] and impulses and impressions, particularly those which “legal hypocrites” misinterpret as the Spirit’s direct witness of assurance of salvation.[94] Quoting Calvin, he rejects the idea of “new revelation.”[95] Noteworthy in The Religious Affections are two new arguments which Edwards wields against charismatic phenomena of the Great Awakening. The first is an argument drawn from church history, particularly from Samuel Rutherford’s Spiritual Antichrist, that such charismatic phenomena have been the exclusive domain of heretics and enthusiasts including the Gnostics, Montanists, Thomas Muntzer, and Antinomians including Anne Hutchinson.[96] Edwards warns ministers to guard the flock against such things, particularly in times of revival:

Great and strict therefore should be the watch and guard that ministers maintain against such things, especially at a time of great awakening; for men, especially the common people, are easily bewitched with such things, they having such a glaring and glistering show of high religion. The devil hides his own shape, and appears as an angel of light, that men may not be afraid of him but adore him.[97]

The second argument is drawn from experience. Edwards contends that a counterfeit religion has infiltrated evangelical Christianity through the extreme New Lights. He comments that, “There are multitudes that are deluded with a counterfeit faith from impressions on their imaginations.”[98] Edwards stresses that the proof of true conversion is Christian practice, not “certain transient illuminations and impressions” that “deform” biblical Christianity beyond recognition.[99] He complains that the long-term effect of “visions and immediate strong impulses and impressions” is “to draw men off from the Word of God, and to cause them to reject the gospel, and to establish unbelief and atheism.”[100] Edwards’s argument is the same as that used by the Puritans against the Quakers: charismatics judge the word by the Spirit, not the Spirit by the word.

Finally, in his unpublished sermon on 1 Cor 13:8–13 (May 1748), Edwards reiterates many of these same arguments. He argues that New Testament prophecy was only temporary until the canon of Scripture could be completed.

Prophecy was continued to make up what was lacking in the Revelation the church enjoyed but when once the will of God and the doctrines of the gospel shall be fully revealed [ J the Canon of the SS [sacred scriptures] compleated & that compleat Revelation thoroughly settled [ J these things should vanish away as of no further use [the church having come to an adult state and being] furnished with a perfect & compleat standing Rule sufficient to guide her in all Things without any further Revelations.[101]

Edwards also mentions “that our Bibles nowhere speak of or foretell any further Revelations of the mind & will of God to be given to his Chh. [church].”102 This stands in marked contrast to God’s custom of informing his people in advance when new prophetic revelation is to be expected.[103]

Ephesians 2:20 speaks of the apostles and prophets as the foundation of the church, so that “when the Apostles all are dead this founda. [foundation] is finished.”[104] Edwards complains that “[t]hey that pretend in these days to immediate Rev. [revelation] take upon Thems. [themselves] to be an additional Foundation.”[105] Edwards interprets Rev 22:10–11 to mean “henceforward no more Revelations are to be expected from me [God], no more means of grace, no more means to Reclaim men from sin.”[106] Commenting on the curse at the close of Revelation, Edwards admonishes that “it will be dreadf. [dreadful] Presumption in any to pretend to add to this word by new Revela. [revelation].”[107]

He adduces another argument from church history—surely 1600 years with no new additions to the Christian canon means that canon is irrevocably closed.[108] Finally, the Bible gives no hint of any “new dispensation” following the apostles; the apostolic dispensation is called in Scripture the “last days,” the “fullness of time,” the “ends of the ages.”[109]

Edwards notes that no one in The Great Awakening had claimed the gift of miracles, which by all rights should exist to confirm the new revelations.[110] Edwards rejects the concept of fallible prophecy presented today by Wayne Grudem on the ground that the test of Deuteronomy 18 still applies: One false prophecy indicates a false prophet. The biblical test is one hundred percent accuracy.[111] He mentions that the “separatists” [the extreme New Lights] are the source of “a very great part of the false Conversions.”[112] “Christians should be perhaps more aware of Satan’s devices than ever before.”[113]

Edwards pleads with his congregation to understand the crucial difference between spiritual illumination and immediate revelation so as not to be “eternally undone.”

[H]ere is the most common delusion [of ] great multitudes because tis the words of SS. [sacred scripture]. They say the word of G. [God] is their rule. But the Influence they have is not opening their understanding to understand what was before declared in the SS. But it is to bring the words of SS. to make known some new truth that was not implied in those words before they came to their minds.[114]

Edwards gives a number of examples showing how people with pressing concerns can misuse the Bible in this way. He cites a parent concerned about the salvation of a dead or sick child or of himself, or pondering his son’s calling to ministry.[115] Edwards then explains how the Spirit of God improves texts of Scripture. First, he gives a sense of the importance and excellency of Scriptural truths. Second, he enables the mind to understand them. Third, he leads the heart to embrace and comply with them. Fourth, he makes the reader aware that Scripture promises do have qualifications.[116] He gives two general rules for determining one’s warrant to appropriate a biblical text. First, was the truth declared in the Bible before it came to mind? Second, was it only spiritual blindness and dullness of understanding that kept you from seeing it before?[117] He admonishes his flock not to rest their assurance on “some supposed immediate Revelation that you call the witness of the sp. [Spirit].”[118] Again, as in The Religious Affections, the true test of conversion is Christian practice.[119]

III. Conclusion

Though building on the foundation begun by John Calvin and John Owen, Jonathan Edwards took the development of the Reformed doctrine of cessationism to new heights. The depth and breadth of the arguments Edwards has marshalled against restorationism (the belief in the restoration of apostolic sign gifts such as prophecy) marks out the apogee of cessationism, which is indeed one of the main themes of his writing and a matter of urgent concern for him.

Edwards clearly considered the revival of prophecy, or new revelation, as the gravest threat to the continued revival of the church, which he hoped would usher in the glorious times. This error threatened to undo, for all eternity, “great multitudes” and to make the Bible of little account in the eyes of the average professor.

Edwards’s many arguments against the restoration of prophecy can be summarized as follows. First, in discussing spiritual enlightenment, he presses home the Puritan Reformed view that the Spirit works in, by and through the Word, not by new revelation. Secondly, prophecy was a temporary and extraordinary gift, given only to support the church in its infancy before the canon was completed and to authenticate the new revelation given the apostles. Third, the canon closed with the death of the apostles, has remained closed for over 1600 years, and Scripture gives us no reason to expect new revelation or any new dispensation. Fourth, the sanctifying influences of the Holy Spirit are what will glorify the church and fit it for heaven, not extraordinary gifts; prophecy, far from glorifying the church, is a stumbling block to further revival.

Fifth, Scripture is a sufficient and perfect rule for Christian life and faith. Sixth, preaching, not prophecy, is the prime means of grace appointed by God for the extension of His kingdom. Seventh, failed prophecies abounded during The Great Awakening, often with disastrous results. Eighth, church history as well as Edwards’s experience demonstrates that the elevation of prophecy causes the denigration of Scripture: the church stops following the sure polestar of Scripture and wanders after the jack-o’-lantern of prophecy. Finally, the so-called direct witness of the Holy Spirit had “eternally undone” what he described as “great multitudes” in the Great Awakening by leading them to presume assurance of salvation without any evidence of Christian practice. Indeed, Edwards believes this teaching is producing a counterfeit evangelical Christianity.

With his Puritan Reformed heritage, Edwards takes great pains to reaffirm an emphasis sadly lacking in contemporary evangelicalism, the primacy of the preached word. As Edwards made clear in A Treatise Concerning Religious Affections, it is not prophecy, but preaching that God has appointed to “impress upon sinners their misery and need of a Savior and the glory and sufficiency of Christ.”[120]

Notes

1. J. I. Packer, Quest for Godliness:The Puritan Vision of the Christian Life(Westchester: Crossway, 1992), 315. The author wishes to acknowledge the assistance of Dr. Douglas A. Sweeney and Dante Mably in reviewing this article, though the conclusions reached are of course mine.
2. John D. Hannah, “Jonathan Edwards, the Toronto Blessing, and the Spiritual Gifts: Are the Extraordinary Ones Actually the Ordinary Ones?” TJ NS 17 (1996): 167-89.
3. Wayne Grudem, ed., Are Miraculous Gifts For Today?: Four Views (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1996). Richard B. Gaffin defends the cessationist position.
4. John Calvin, The Institutes of the Christian Religion (ed. John T. McNeill; trans. Ford Lewis Battles; Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1960), 4.3.4.
5. Ibid. Calvin holds to a “dictation” theory of inspiration, although he does not give an independent discussion of the mode of inspiration. See H. Jackson Forstman, Word and Spirit: Calvin’s Doctrine of Biblical Authority (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1962), 52-53, 140, and Edward A. Dowey, Jr., The Knowledge of God in Calvin’s Theology (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1952), 99-102.
6. Paul Elbert, “Calvin and the Spiritual Gifts” in Apostolic Themes (ed. Paul Elbert; Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson, 1982), 127 citing Calvin’s Romans commentary, 269.
7. Ibid., 127, quoting Calvin’s comment that pastors become “the very mouth of God” set forth in the Institutes, 4.1.5.
8. John Owen, The Works of John Owen (ed. William H. Goold; Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 1967), 4:420.
9. Ibid., 425-28.
10. Ibid., 428-38. Owen does point out, however, a mutually beneficial relationship between graces and gifts. “A soul sanctified by saving grace is the only proper soil for the gifts to flourish in. Grace influenceth gifts unto a due exercise, prevents their abuse, stirs them up unto proper occasions, keeps them from being a matter of pride or contention, and subordinates them in all things to the glory of God” (438).
11. Ibid., 437.
12. Ibid., 438-39. Interestingly, Owen entertains as one possibility that the Jewish remnant of the end times will be recovered by an extraordinary ministry or miraculous gifts (440). Perhaps he has in mind the two witnesses of Rev 10.
13. Ibid., 446.
14. Ibid., 450.
15. Ibid., 451-52.
16. Ibid., 453. Though his criticism follows his discussion of prophecy, he is aiming his barb practically at those who like the Church of Rome claim apostolic succession and only theoretically at contemporary prophets. Owen has already mentioned that he knows no one who claims to be a prophet (451) or any minister who claims that his call to ministry came by prophecy (449).
17. Ibid., 469.
18. Ibid., 470. Unfortunately, Owen gives no explanation.
19. Ibid. He views miracles and tongues, however, as involving communication by a “sudden afflatus or extraordinary infusion.” He declares that anyone claiming such gifts today is guilty of “enthusiastic delusion” (518). He is not addressing the issue of whether God still works miracles.
20. Ibid., 471.
21. Ibid., 472. Owen stresses the sufficiency of Scripture to preserve the church from all error and heresies
22. Ibid., 483.
23. Ibid.
24. Ibid., 484.
25. Jonathan Edwards, The Religious Affections (1746; repr., Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 1961), 176 n. 1 and 299 n. 1.
26. Sinclair B. Ferguson, John Owen on the Christian Life (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 1991), 208; cp. Packer, Quest for Godliness, 221.
27. William K. B. Stoever, A Faire and Easye Way to Heaven: Covenant Theology and Antinomianism in Early Massachusetts (Middleton, Conn.: Wesleyan University Press, 1978), 11–12.
28. Ibid., 24.
29. Ibid., 32.
30. Ibid., 33.
31. Ibid., 174-75.
32. Geoffrey F. Nuttall, The Holy Spirit in Puritan Faith and Experience (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1946), 20–33, esp. 30 regarding the dispute at Fen Stanton.
33. John Bunyan, The Works of John Bunyan (1854; repr., Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 1991), 2:184–85.
34. Item 2 in Edwards’s library catalogue.
35. Quoted in Leo Damrosch, The Sorrows of the Quaker Jesus: James Naylor and the Puritan Crackdown on the Free Spirit (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1996), 27.
36. Ibid., 172-73.
37. Jonathan Edwards, The Distinguishing Marks of a Work of the True Spirit (1741; repr., Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 1965), 110.
38. Ibid., 114.
39. Jonathan Edwards, “A History of the Work of Redemption.” Works (ed. John F. Wilson; New Haven: Yale University Press, 1989), 9:467, 431.
40. Quoted in Damrosch, 42.
41. Jonathan Edwards, A Faithful Narrative of Surprising Conversions (1736; repr., Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 1958), 8–9.
42. Jonathan Edwards, The Works of Jonathan Edwards (1834; repr., Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 1974), 2:13.
43. Ibid.
44. Edwards, A Faithful Narrative, 41.
45. Ibid., 70-71.
46. Ibid.
47. Jonathan Edwards, Charity and its Fruits (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 1969), 29.
48. Ibid., 34.
49. Ibid., 36. Similarly to Owen, Edwards goes on to point out that God usually, but not always, gives both extraordinary gifts and sanctification.
50. Ibid., 38.
51. Ibid., 40.
52. Ibid., 41-42.
53. Ibid., 44-45.
54. Ibid., 46-47.
55. Ibid., 308.
56. Ibid., 311.
57. Ibid., 306.
58. Ibid., 312.
59. Ibid., 316.
60. Ibid., 319-20.
61. Ibid., 320-21.
62. Ibid., 321-22.
63. Edwards, “A History of the Work of Redemption,” Works 9:364–65.
64. Ibid., 266.
65. Ibid., 181.
66. Ibid., 182.
67. Ibid., 370.
68. Arnold A. Dallimore, George Whitefield: The Life and Times of the Great Evangelist of the Eighteenth Century Revival (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 1979), 2:168–69.
69. See Leigh Eric Schmidt, “A Second and Glorious Reformation: The New Light Extremism of Andrew Croswell,” William and Mary Quarterly3 43 (1986): 214-44. The extreme New Lights held radically antinomian views: they reduced faith to assurance by the so-called direct witness of the Holy Spirit, believed in justification by “faith” without repentance, and salvation without any evidence of good works following, and rejected the concept of preparation for salvation, a key point of contention during the Antinomian Controversy.
70. The Distinguishing Marks, 97.
71. Ibid., 97-98.
72. Ibid., 101.
73. Therefore, human learning should not be despised (ibid., 141).
74. Ibid., 113.
75. Ibid., 103-4.
76. Ibid., 136.
77. Ibid., 140-41.
78. Ibid., 141.
79. Ibid.
80. Jonathan Edwards, “Some Thoughts Concerning the Revival,” Works (ed. John E. Smith; New Haven: Yale University Press, 1972), 4:313. See also 331 for his statement that Scripture is our fully sufficient guide in these matters.
81. He believed that “this error will defend and support all errors” (ibid., 432).
82. Ibid.
83. Ibid., 432-33.
84. Ibid., 433-34.
85. Ibid., 434.
86. Ibid.
87. Ibid., 439.
88. Ibid., 435.
89. Ibid., 436-37.
90. Ibid., 438. Edwards gives this as the reason why preachers must prepare sermons through study and premeditation. He even says that this gracious assistance of the Holy Spirit in preaching “far excels inspiration.”
91. See William K. B. Stoever, “The Godly Will’s Discerning,” in Jonathan Edwards’s Writings: Text, Context, Interpretation (ed. Stephen J. Stein; Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1996), 85–99.
92. Edwards, Religious Affections, 44.
93. Ibid., 70.
94. Ibid., 102. See his interesting discussion of the “spiritual” application of a Scripture promise on pages 152-53.
95. Ibid., 203.
96. Ibid., 212-13.
97. Ibid., 213.
98. Ibid., 236.
99. Ibid., 284. Edwards continues his attack on the Radical New Lights in A Humble Inquiry (1749).
100. Ibid., 235.
101. Unpublished transcript, 5–6. I wish to acknowledge Dr. Douglas A. Sweeney for bringing this sermon to my attention and making it available for my perusal. The original manuscript is located at The Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library of Yale University.
102. Ibid., 25.
103. Ibid., 25-26.
104. Ibid., 27.
105. Ibid., 30.
106. Ibid., 35.
107. Ibid., 36.
108. Ibid., 41.
109. Ibid., 42-43.
110. Ibid., 52.
111. Ibid., 57.
112. Ibid., 63.
113. Ibid., 64.
114. Ibid., 68-70.
115. The reference implies an older child who needs ministerial training, but one wonders whether Whitefield’s sad experience with the death of his young son lay at the back of Edwards’s mind.
116. Ibid., 74-75.
117. Ibid., 76.
118. Ibid., 79.
119. Ibid., 84-85.
120. Edwards, Religious Affections, 44.