One of the more interesting tidbits in the Sinners saga is that the church at Enfield was not the first congregation to hear this sermon. Edwards preached this sermon to his Northampton congregation in June 1741, though it was a bit different than the Enfield iteration, and did not get near the response that it did there. To my knowledge, the text of the earlier version is not available today, but it was described as being a bit milder and more pastoral than the later version.

Though not representative of Edwards’s vast sermonic corpus, Sinners is quite representative of a certain genre of sermon often referred to as “awakening sermons.” Traditional sermons in the 18th century, and even today, will comprise a handful of points related to a biblical passage or particular topic or theme. Awakening sermons, however, generally harped on one theme, illustrated and repeated as many times as the preacher felt necessary, in as many ways as he felt was necessary. So it is with Sinners. The rhetorical genius of Jonathan Edwards finds little better example than this sermon as he employs a barrage of metaphors and descriptions to describe the one idea of God’s fury toward the damned and the horror they will undergo if they die outside God’s grace. It’s hard to recognize this genius and the literary prowess of this sermon, however, because emotion often overcomes the reader and they cannot see past their horror or disgust at what they are reading. Of course this is the point of the awakening sermon! To be shaken and stirred from one’s present complacency to an understanding of their state in hopes of their turning toward God and Christ for solace and assurance.

Such was the response of the Enfield congregation. Rev. Stephen Williams of Longmeadow, Massachusetts recorded the events of that day in his diary:

went over to Enfd, where we met Dear Mr E- of N. H. – who preachd a most awakening Sermon from those words Deut – 32.35 – and before ye Sermon – was done there was a great moaning – & crying out throughout ye whole House – what shall I do to be Savd – oh I am going to Hell – oh what shall I do for a christ &c &c – so yt ye minister – was obligd to desist – shreiks & crys – were piercing & Amazing – - after Some time of waiting – the congregation were still So yt a prayr was made by Mr W – & after that we descendd from the pulpitt and discoursd – with the people – Some in one place & Some in another – and Amazing & Astonishing – ye powr – God was Seen – & Severall Souls were hopfully – wrought upon yt – night & oh ye cheerfullness & pleasntness of thier countenances – yt receivd comfort – oh yt God – wd strengthen & confirm &c we Sung an hymn & prayd & despersd – ye Assembly.

So great was the response to Edwards’s preaching of this sermon at Enfield, that he “was obligd to desist.” In other words, Edwards did not even get through the whole sermon because the shrieks and cries were so great that he simply could not continue. Edwards, to some degree, accomplished what he set out to do in Enfield, and this sermon continues to evoke similar responses, at least at the emotional level, when it is read today.

So Sinners is an important sermon, one worthy of great study, particularly for its literary quality. But it must be kept in context. It must be remembered that this sermon, and other awakening sermons of the period, had a specific end in being written and preached, and that they were not characteristic of the period either in Edwards’s preaching or in the preaching of much of New England. With all the heightened interest in Edwards studies today, it is my hope that we will finally come around to appreciating Sinners for what it is, which is marvelous, and eschew the mostly unfair treatment and scorn that it has received over the last 268 years, particularly in American high schools and colleges.

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The day got started with an early trek over to the Yale Divinity School where we were to get on the bus at around 8:00AM to get a good start on the day. Most of what we were going to see would be outside, so we were all hoping the rain would hold off. Thankfully, it did. Before getting to the pictures of the trip, here’s a couple showing the room we spent hours in discussing the man himself.

What better place to have a week-long class on Jonathan Edwards than in the Jonathan Edwards Dining Room? Although, the room hardly looked like a dining room at all.

The room was the perfect size for the nine students and two instructors. Seminar-type set up that really aided in fostering meaningful discussion of the texts and concepts.

A close-up of the portrait on the wall. Edwards never sat for this portrait. It was created by an artist in the 19th century, I believe, using the portrait that Edwards did sit for, for the bust, and making up the rest.

The first stop on the trip was East Windsor, Connecticut, which is now called South Windsor (for my purposes here, I’m going to refer to the town as Edwards would have known it, East Windsor; just keep in mind that it is modern South Windsor). Not exactly sure how that works, but there you go. East Windsor was where Edwards was born and grew up, his father Timothy being pastor of the town church. If you’ve looked carefully at the sign, you may notice a glaring omission. While mentioning Edwards’s work at Bolton, Yale, Stockbridge, and Princeton, there is no mention of Northampton, where Edwards pastored from 1726-1750! Perhaps there is some bitterness toward Northampton for ousting East Windsor’s beloved son?

This is the house that now sits on the property where Timothy and Esther’s house stood. Unfortunately, this is not the house that Edwards grew up in. It was amazing, driving through old East Windsor, that so many old houses are still around. The oldest I recall seeing was a house that had been there since 1694. Behind the house that currently exists are the famous woods and swampland that Edwards played in as a boy, and where he and some friends built a prayer closet.

This is the grave of Timothy Edwards, Jonathan’s father. It had been raining all week and all the gravestones we saw were either soaked or partially soaked which did funny things with the legibility of the words on the markers. So these did not come out as well as I would have hoped, but you can still get a sense of them, I hope. Timothy and his wife, Esther, are buried in the graveyard that used to be next to the church where TImothy pastored. More on that in a second. Timothy died, just a few months before Jonathan, in January 1758. This was a traumatic year for the Edwards clan, losing Timothy in January, Jonathan in March, Jonathan’s daughter Esther Edwards Burr in April, and Sarah, Jonathan’s wife, in October.

The grave of Jonathan’s mother, Esther Stoddard Edwards, who died in January 1771 at the age of 99. Quite remarkable for the times! Esther was the daughter of Solomon Stoddard, the highly revered pastor of Northampton, Massachusetts whom Jonathan would succeed. Notice the iconography on the gravestone. Seventeenth and eighteenth colonial gravestone iconography is quite fascinating (and, at times, humorous). In addition to Timothy and Esther being buried in East Windsor, a couple of Edwards’s sisters, of which he had 10, are buried there as well.

Adjacent to the graveyard is a building that now sits where Timothy’s church would have been. The current building is not a church, however. It is a Masonic Lodge. How I would love to get Timothy or Jonathan’s thoughts on that!

This is an interesting site dealing with Edwards’s legacy. As you can tell from the sign, this is the president’s house of a seminary that was established in East Windsor in 1834. This seminary was borne out of a theological controversy in which both sides claimed to be “true Edwardsians.” This conflict is what is known as the “Taylor-Tyler Controversy,” N.W. Taylor, professor at Yale, and his followers on one side, and Bennet Tyler and his followers on the other. Because of what Tyler perceived to be liberalizing tendencies at Yale, he and his group founded a new establishment for the training of pastors and religious thinkers, intentionally doing so in Jonathan Edwards’s hometown. This was their way of proclaiming that they were the true Edwardsians, defending the true, orthodox, Calvinist faith. This seminary was moved in 1865 and is now Hartford Seminary, in Hartford, Connecticut.

Next stop, Enfield, Connecticut. I suppose you could call this the Mecca of Edwardsiana. At least in how we remember him, much to my chagrin, today. Pretty self-explanatory, this is the very place where the church in Enfield stood, in which, on July 8, 1741, Edwards famously preached “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God.” It’s interesting to note that this was not the first time Edwards preached this sermon. He preached it to his congregation in Northampton a couple of months before, but did not get quite the response from them as he did in Enfield.

In Northampton, Massachusetts now, where Edwards pastored from 1726-1750, and where is grandfather, Solomon Stoddard, ministered for an astounding 55 years. This plaque is on the steps of the church that is currently there today, though it’s not the building that Edwards would have known. However, the bottom step and a semi-circular stone in front of the current church are original to the church in the mid-eighteenth century. The church that sits there today has two churches meeting in it, a United Church of Christ congregation, and an American Baptist congregation. Again, it would be interesting to see what Edwards would think of this, especially in regard to the presence of “separatist Baptists.”

The grave of Solomon Stoddard in a nearby cemetery. Not quite as well-kept as some of the other graves we have seen.

Also in the Northampton cemetery is the grave of David Brainerd, a missionary to the Native Americans and good friend of the Edwards family. Brainerd’s journals were edited and published by Jonathan, along with an account of Brainerd’s life, and the resulting Life of David Brainerd was the standard text, in addition to the Bible, for missionaries going into the field. It is still read widely today. A couple of irregularities about this grave marker: first is the curious spelling of Brainerd’s name, which is here spelled “Brainard.” Though it’s believed that both spellings were used, most references use the “e” spelling. This stone also incorrectly lists Brainerd’s death date and age. Brainerd died October 9, 1747, not the 10th, and was 29 years old, not 32.

Buried next to David Brainerd, is Jonathan’s daughter, Jerusha. Jerusha was very beloved of her father, and her death on February 14, 1748 was a great shock to Jonathan and the entire family. The fact that she is buried next to Brainerd, as well as their traveling to Boston a couple of times together unchaperoned, has led to much speculation about whether there were romantic feelings between the two young people. None of this is confirmed, although the two were definitely kindred spirits in terms of piety and religious devotion.

A monument to the Edwards family. Jonathan and Sarah are not buried in Northampton, but the good people of the town saw fit to erect a monument to their memory. A classy gesture by a town who really wanted nothing to do with Edwards after 1750, though Joseph Hawley, Jr., one of Edwards’s most vocal critics, reconciled with Edwards later on. Jonathan and Sarah are listed on the front of this marker, and their ten children occupy the other three sides.

After leaving Northampton we made our way to Stockbridge, Massachusetts, home of the Indian mission in which Edwards was involved from 1751-1758. Our first stop in Stockbridge bore no pictures, unfortunately. We visited the Stockbridge public library where a number of Edwards artifacts are held, but photography was not allowed. The most interesting piece held by the library is the rotating desk that Edwards designed himself and had made for his studies. Very practical. I could use one myself.

The picture is of a sundial marking the place where the Edwards home stood while they were in Stockbridge. Quite quaint.

Our last stop on the tour was the Stockbridge mission house, which is the very house that stood in the eighteenth century, though it has been moved from its original location. This was the home of John Sargeant and Abigail Williams Sargeant, nemeses to Edwards while he was in Stockbridge. The inside of the house (no photos allowed!) gives a good idea of what life was like in the Indian wilderness for the Edwards family, though the Sargeants were probably more well off than the Edwards’ would have been. After Stockbridge, we got on the bus to head back, our tour having ended. However…

What better way to end a photo essay of sites related to Jonathan Edwards than his final resting place? I took these pictures on a trip to Princeton last year. This is the marker of Sarah Edwards, Jonathan’s wife, who died in October 1758, just a little over six months after her husband died. I love the epitaph, “A sincere Friend, a courteous and Obliging Neighbour, A judiciously indulgent Mother, An affectionate and prudent Wife.”

And finally, the grave of Jonathan Edwards himself, buried at Princeton cemetery, being the third president of the, then, College of New Jersey. His epitaph is entirely in Latin, and unfortunately I do not have a transcription or translation of it with me right now. Hopefully I can get back up there sometime and sneak a charcoal rubbing of the epitaph.

It was a great week and a great class (this is all of us on the steps of the church in Northampton). I’m thankful for the opportunity, for the interactions, and for the wonderful experience provided by Ken Minkema and Adriaan Neele of the Jonathan Edwards Center at Yale. There’s talk that there will be a different class related to Edwards offered next year, perhaps a little more narrow than this year’s, so I look forward to that. If you are interested at all in Edwards (why else would you be here!), you should absolutely consider making the trip. You will not regret it.

Of course, Jonathan Edwards was greatly in tune with this emphasis on the new birth, especially seen in his sermon “A Divine and Supernatural Light,” which points to “a new sense of divine things” that comes about through the illuminating work of God’s Spirit upon the soul of an individual. This “new sense” awakens the soul to see things as they really are, namely the majesty and glory of God, the beauty of Christ and his work, and the truth of Scripture and teachings of the Christian religion. Edwards was also no stranger to awakenings, having gone through several “stirrings” and times of “harvest” both in his father’s church in East Windsor and his grandfather’s church in Northampton. Edwards himself pastored through a brief awakening in 1734-35 in Northampton, half a decade before nearly all of the English colonies were caught up in religious fervor.

After 1735, however, many of Edwards’s parishioners went through periods of backsliding, an evident sign to Edwards that the Holy Spirit was drawing back his influence on the congregation. This prompted Edwards to embark on several sermon campaigns, including the “Charity and its Fruits” sermons, a series on the parable of the wise and foolish virgins, and the sermon series on a “History of the Work of Redemption.” These work little effect among the town and Edwards begins to examine more closely the nature of Christian obedience and behavior, realizing that he may have overemphasized the “divine light” aspect of conversion, not giving sufficient attention to the “divine living” aspect of the Christian life and sanctification. Edwards’s treatise on Religious Affections, published in 1746, a few years after the awakenings of 1740-42, displays a much more balanced approach as he meticulously works these ideas out.

The entire game would change, however, with the arrival of a young, charismatic preacher named George Whitefield. Experiencing some success as a preacher in England, Whitefield comes over to the colonies and sets society on fire by sparking a wide series of awakenings throughout the colonies, resulting in the period known as the Great Awakening. Not everyone was caught up in this movement, however, with many clergy denouncing charismatic excesses and a perceived tendency toward antinomianism that seemed to follow the awakenings as they swept through the land. This sparked controversies between Old Lights, those critical of the awakenings, and New Lights, awakening supporters, causing further upheaval.

Edwards attempted to plow a middle road, championing the revivals as a true work of the Spirit of God, but also warning against the few excesses that were reported and observed. He criticizes New Lights for being un-Christian and un-Scriptural at times, and Old Lights for a stale theology and tradition-driven (as opposed to Scripture-driven) critiques of new approaches to preaching, evangelism, and ministry in general. Though Whitefield would be the most successful awakening preacher of the era, Edwards would also find success, largely away from his congregation at Northampton, this being the period where he (in)famously preached “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” at Enfield, Connecticut.

Much more could be said about the Great Awakening, and especially Edwards’s awakening writings (Religious Affections sparked a fascinating and wonderful discussion in the class), but that was the gist of what we discussed in class today.

After formal class and discussion time, we were surprised with another guest lecture, this time by Dr. Walter Kimnach. Dr. Kimnach served as the general editor for the six sermon volumes in the Yale Works of Jonathan Edwards project, personally editing volumes 10 and 25 himself (just as a sidenote, anyone interested in Edwards’s sermons and preaching should absolutely read Dr. Kimnach’s introduction to volume 10). Dr. Kimnach, naturally, spoke to us about Edwards’s methods as a preacher, particularly in how he structured his sermons, beginning formally with Scripture, then moving to an explanation of the doctrine in view, and concluding with a lengthy application section.

With that, the third day of instruction ended, but there was much more to come. Up next: a trip to the Beinecke Library, home to the largest Jonathan Edwards manuscript collection. A geek’s dream come true!

When I was trying to come up with a title for the site, I wanted something that best captured the whole of Jonathan Edwards’s life and ministry. Unfortunately, when most people today think of Edwards they would probably say that, according to the stated criteria, I should have named the site “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God.” One of the greatest tragedies in the American educational system today is the treatment of Edwards in high school English and college introductory literature courses. Typically, all students know of Edwards from these courses is Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God presented as the archetypal milieu of 18th century New England. Even worse, as was the case in a friend’s experience, some classes do not even read Sinners in its entirety, instead reading only the infamous spider passage. The result is scores of students having an incredibly skewed view of Edwards and his theology, colonial American society, and colonial American literature.

A better choice than Sinners, perhaps, is A Divine and Supernatural Light which you can read in its entirety here. This sermon is a wonderful example of the theological themes and trends that characterized the first half of the 18th century in colonial New England, a society so enraptured in the ebbs and flows of evangelical awakenings. Famous in its own right, though not to the degree of Sinners, this sermon speaks about the beauty and sweetness of God in who he is and how he saves humans from his wrath. The “divine light” that Edwards speaks of is “immediately imparted to the soul by God,” and consists in “a true sense of the divine excellency of the things revealed in the Word of God, and a conviction of the truth and reality of them, thence arising.”

This “new sense of divine things,” as Edwards describes it elsewhere, is of utmost importance in his overall theological system. Just as one cannot fully know or comprehend the sweetness of honey without tasting it, neither could one fully know or understand the beauty, loveliness, holiness, majesty, etc. of God without the awakening of the soul that comes through the Holy Spirit’s imparting the divine and supernatural light to that soul. One could certainly have some sort of knowledge of God without this light, what Edwards called “speculative knowledge,” but that knowledge would be insufficient for producing the sort of saving relationship that Edwards so desired all to possess.

The ideas found in this sermon would continue to be expounded upon and used by Edwards throughout his life, finding their fullest treatment in Edwards’s magisterial A Treatise Concerning Religious Affections. Much more than Sinners, A Divine and Supernatural Light offers a glimpse into the truly pastoral and aesthetic side of Edwards’s thought and writings, the meticulous nature that characterized many of his greatest arguments, and a broader sense of what was going on and being discussed culturally at the time of its preaching and publication. If only high schools and introductory college courses would teach this sermon, rather than a horribly imbalanced version of Sinners!

This question becomes even more interesting when, as Kidd reminds us, there was really nothing that extraordinary about the content of the sermon.  “Awakening sermons” were quite common in the period, especially among Calvinist preachers.  These sermons were designed to “shake sinners out of their self-righteous delusions” (104), and would often include graphic descriptions of the plight of the unconverted and their everlasting torment in the fires of hell.  Certainly Sinners fulfilled that qualification to the utmost.  Another point that makes the lasting significance of this sermon quite curious is the fact that a good number of the other Awakening preachers employed lavish preaching styles that may have, at the very least, effected, and at the very most, manipulated, the response they received while preaching.  This was not so for Edwards, however, who was known for his somber deliveries.  A third and final consideration to be made, one that Kidd doesn’t bring up but still bears mentioning, is the fact that the preaching of this sermon that made it famous was not the first time it was preached.  We remember the episode at Enfield, Connecticut on July 8, 1741, but we do not remember that Edwards first preached this sermon to his own Northampton congregation in June of that year as the revival movements were beginning to gain steam.

With these considerations in mind, Kidd offers a two suggestions as to why this sermon has been remembered as the archetype for “awakening sermons” and the most representative work during the period of the Great Awakening.  The first is, of course, the response it received.  It should always be known that Enfield lay in close proximity to the town of Suffield, which, only days before the preaching of July 8, had undergone heightened senses of divine things to the point of there being, in the words of Stephen Williams, “considerable crying among ye people…& a Screaching in ye streets” (104).  Surely these emotional responses were known in Enfield and Enfield may have caught the awakening fever from its neighbor, especially considering that many who had fallen into fits in Suffield may have come over to hear the preaching at Enfield.

The second, and more likely, reason that this sermon is remembered is the grand style of the rhetoric that Edwards used.  Sinners is a masterpiece of imagery and style that is simply unmatched by other awakening sermons of the era.  Kidd says, “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God was brilliant, vivid, and terrifying.  Edwards’s warnings of judgment made the congregation scream for fear of hell” (105).  And he did this, again, through the mere communication of words.  Not through performance or affected style, but simply through the power of his imagery.  George Marsden makes this very point in explaining, “Sinners is so remarkable because Edwards employed so many images and addressed them so immediately to his hearers that they were left with no escape” (Jonathan Edwards: A Life, 222).

It’s interesting, when you talk to the average person about Edwards, the person that only knows Edwards from high school English or Intro to Literature in college, that all they remember is the imagery of the sermon.  Much of this remembered imagery comes from the infamous “spider” passage in which Edwards proclaims, “The God that holds you over the pit of hell, much as one holds a spider, or some loathsome insect, over the fire, abhors you, and is dreadfully provoked….”  Yet the imagery used in this passage is merely one of many metaphors that Edwards uses for the purpose of shaking his hearers out of their sin and into the marvelous light of faith in Christ.  That is why this sermon is so remembered and regarded as exemplar of the period.  The unending barrage of metaphors, the vivid, terrifying imagery, the seriousness of the subject, the carefully crafted and designed rhetoric—all these work together to produce a masterful work in which Edwards, at least on the surface of reaction, achieved the end in which he set out to get.