Well, it’s been about a year since this site started, and that calls for a celebration. To mark this occasion, I will be giving away a hardcopy edition of Volume 2 in the Yale Works of Jonathan Edwards series, A Treatise Concerning Religious Affections.

This book is Edwards’s landmark work on the nature of true Christian experience and is a must-read for any who are interested in Christianity and the religious history of America. In addition to the text of Edwards’s treatise, this volume contains a wonderful introduction by the editor, John E. Smith, as well as several pieces of personal correspondence that shed further light on Edwards’s process in the composition of this great work.

Here is the publisher’s description of this volume and the official giveaway rules can be found after the description.

This volume contains Edwards’ most mature and persistent attempt to judge the validity of the religious development in eighteenth-century America known as the Great Awakening. In developing criteria for such judgment he attacked at the same time one of the fundamental questions facing all religion: how to distinguish genuine from spurious piety? The Awakening created much bitter controversy; on the one side stood the emotionalists and enthusiasts, and on the other the rationalists, for whom religion was essentially a matter of morality or good conduct and the acceptance of properly formulated doctrine. Edwards, with great analytical skill and enormous biblical learning, showed that both sides were in the wrong. He attacked both a “lifeless morality” as too pale as to be the essence of religion, and he rejected the excesses of a purely emotional religion more concerned for sensational effects than for the inner transformation of the self, which was, for him, the center of genuine Christianity.

Official Giveaway Rules:

1. There are two ways to enter the giveaway. (1) Fill out the form below with your name and email address. This method is limited to one entry per person and multiple entries will be discarded. (2) If you have a Twitter account, follow @aDaSLblog and post the following update: RT to win a copy of Religious Affections from @aDaSLblog. One entry per day. http://bit.ly/7rB9RR #aDaSLcontest. This method of entry is limited to one entry per person per day for the duration of the contest.

2. The giveaway will begin on Tuesday, January 5, 2010 and will close at 11:59PM EST, Tuesday, January 19, 2010.

3. One winner will be selected from all eligible entries, and that winner will be announced on this site and notified either by email or through their Twitter account. Upon selection, the winner agrees to send their mailing address to the provided email address, and the book will be shipped at aDaSL’s expense.

4. At the conclusion of the giveaway, all information gathered will be immediately and permanently erased.

5. Any questions concerning this event should be directed to info@adivineandsupernaturallight.com.

Here is one more miscellany on the incarnation of Christ. This time, Edwards muses on the union of the two natures of Christ, identifying the Holy Spirit as the bond which unites these two natures.

764b. INCARNATION OF CHRIST. UNION OF THE TWO NATURES IN CHRIST.

What Christ says in the John 3:33–34, confirms that the Holy Spirit is the bond of union by which the human nature of Christ is united to the divine, so as to be one person. “He that hath received his testimony hath set to his seal that God is true. For he whom God hath sent speaketh the words of God: for God giveth not the Spirit by measure unto him.” Which words may be thus paraphrased: he that hath received my testimony as true, and sets to his seal that I speak true, he therein sets to his seal that God speaks true, for in my speaking of it God speaks it. There is such an union between this human nature that immediately speaks with God’s [words], that the words in being my words are God’s words; which union is the consequence of God’s communicating his Spirit without measure to my human nature, so as to render it the same person with him that is God. Something more is doubtless intended than that he was an inspired person, and spake the Word of God as the prophets did. When Christ says that he that receives his testimony sets to his seal that God is true, because his words were God’s words, he doubtless has respect to something that is peculiar to himself, something that is his own prerogative; and therefore, the reason that he gives for it is something peculiar to him, viz. God’s giving the Spirit not by measure unto him. When he says that he that hears his words hears God’s words, and he that owns him to be true owns God to be true, ’tis most natural to understand him in a sense analogous to what he says elsewhere: “My Father worketh hitherto, and I work”; and “he that hath seen me hath seen the Father” [John 5:17, John 14:9].

Works of Jonathan Edwards, Volume 18, The “Miscellanies:” 501-832, ed. Ava Chamberlain (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2002), 411.

Trevin Wax has posted a prayer on his blog in which he adapted the first 21 entries of Edwards’s famous resolutions. A clever exercise, and a rather affective prayer. Here it is in full:

Lord God Almighty,
I understand that I am unable to do anything without your help,
so I ask you to enable me by your grace to fulfill your will.

Give me grace to do whatever brings most glory and honor to you,
pleasure and profit to me,
and life and love to others.

Help me to number my days,
spending my time wisely,
living my life with all my might while I still have breath.

Humble me in the knowledge that I am chief of sinners;
when I hear of the sins of others,
help me to not look upon them with pride,
but to look upon myself with shame,
confessing my own sins to you.

When I go through difficulties and trials,
remind me of the pains of hell
from which you have already delivered me.

Place people in my path who need my help,
and give me a compassionate and generous spirit.

Fill my heart with such love
that I would never do anything out of a spirit of revenge,
nor lose my temper with those around me.
Hold my tongue when I am tempted to speak evil of others.

Thank you for the gospel and for the hope of glory.
Help me to live in light of these truths every day of my life,
so that when the time of my death arrives,
I will rest assuredly in you,
and you will be most glorified in me.

In Christ’s name…

- Trevin Wax (adapted from the first 21 of Jonathan Edwards’ resolutions)

Continuing the thread from last week, here is another miscellany dealing with the incarnation of Christ. In this entry, Edwards focuses on Christ’s sinlessness.

386. INCARNATION.

Christ, although he was conceived in the womb of one of fallen mankind, yet he was conceived without sin; because he was conceived by the Holy Ghost, which is divine love and holiness itself. That which infinite holiness and love immediately forms, it is impossible that it should have any sin.

Works of Jonathan Edwards, Volume 13, The “Miscellanies:” Entry Nos. a–z, aa–zz, 1–500, ed. Thomas A. Schafer (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1994), 454.

Recently, Yale University Press announced the upcoming publication of a case book for “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God.” This looks like it will be of great value as new generations of readers, and especially students, study this infamous piece. Here is the description provided by the publisher:

Designed specifically for the classroom, this volume presents the accurate and definitive version of Sinners, accompanied by the tools necessary to study and teach this famous American sermon. With an introduction aimed at students and teachers and commentary that draws on fifty years of team editorial experience of Yale’s Works of Jonathan Edwards, it provides both context and interpretation, and addresses the concerns and questions of a twenty-first century audience.

The book contains questions for in-class discussion, a chronology of Edwards’s life, and a glossary. In addition, curricular materials and video mini-presentations are available on a dedicated Web site. This casebook represents an innovative contribution to the art of teaching Edwards to a new generation of readers.

Available Mar 01, 2010

With just a few days left until Christmas, it’s always good to take time to remember the true meaning of the holiday. In this week’s installment of Miscellany Mondays, we have a brief, yet profound, statement on the meaning and purpose of the incarnation of Christ. The idea of Christ’s communion with his church, and the church’s resulting communion with the Triune God is a major theme in Edwards’s work, and one certainly worthy of deeper study.

121. INCARNATION.

Christ took the nature of a creature, not only because the creature’s great love to him desired familiar communion with him, more familiar than his infinite distance would allow, but also because his great love to us caused him to desire familiar communion with us. So he came down to us, and united himself to our nature.

Works of Jonathan Edwards, Volume 13, The “Miscellanies:” Entry Nos. a–z, aa–zz, 1–500, ed. Thomas A. Schafer (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1994), 285.

From the video description: “Scott Anderson, the Director for Networking and Partnerships at Desiring God, talks about the life and death of Jonathan Edwards at Princeton Cemetery.”

Here, Edwards wrestles with the question of whether regeneration (or a disposition of the will toward the things of the Gospel) comes before the act of faith.

27b. CONVERSION.

‘Tis most certain, both from Scripture and reason, that there must be a reception of Christ with the faculties of the soul in order to salvation by him, and that in this reception there is a believing of what we are taught in the gospel concerning him and salvation by him, and that it must be a consent of the will or an agreeableness between the disposition of the soul and those doctrines; so that the disposition is all that can be said to be absolutely necessary. The act cannot be proved to be absolutely necessary; that is, it can’t be proved that there is not the disposition before there is an act because it is said by some that [the fact that] a man can’t be saved before he has actually believed, if he is come to years of discretion, is plain by Scripture. But I say, no plainer than that a man must actually live a holy life before he can be saved; for the Scripture in many places speak as plainly about the necessity of a holy life as of believing. But by those expressions concerning a holy life, we can understand nothing else but a disposition that would naturally exert itself in holy [living] upon occasion; so we say of the believing disposition.

And as sometimes a person has this disposition within ‘em who have in times past felt the quickest: exercises of it, yet may not sensibly feel them for some time; so a man may have the disposition in him for some time before he ever sensibly feels them, for want of occasion and other reasons. ‘Tis the disposition and principle is the thing God looks at. Supposing a man dies suddenly and not in the actual exercise of faith, ’tis his disposition that saves him; for if it were possible that the disposition was destroyed, the man would be damned and all the former acts of faith would signify nothing.

Those particular acts our divines describe may possibly be necessary thus, that it is impossible for such a disposition to be in the mind, in such circumstances, without its being exercised in such particular kind of actions; which must be determined by plain consequence of nature or else by Scripture. The Scripture indeed, in many invitations to Christ, doth make use of the words “come,” “believe,” “trust,” “receive,” which without doubt signify those actions that are aptly represented by these expressions. It need not be doubted but that many of the ancient Jews before Christ were saved without the sensible exertions of those acts in that manner which is represented as necessary by some divines, because they had not those occasions nor were under circumstances that would draw them out; though without doubt they had the disposition, which alone is absolutely necessary now, and at all times and in all circumstances is equally necessary.

This is furthermore certain and evident concerning conversion, or a true reception of Christ, if it be actual: there must be a dying unto sin and an emptying of self that Christ may be all in all, what in the Scripture is called “hating our own life.”

Works of Jonathan Edwards, Volume 13, The “Miscellanies:” Entry Nos. a–z, aa–zz, 1–500, ed. Thomas A. Schafer (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1994), 213-215.

This entry follows closely with a passage in Edwards’s essay “On Being.”

27a. GOD

is a necessary being, because it’s a contradiction to suppose him not to be. No being is a necessary being but he whose nonentity is a contradiction. We have shown that absolute nothing is the essence of all contradictions; but being includes in it all that we call God, who is, and there is none else besides him.

Works of Jonathan Edwards, Volume 13, The “Miscellanies:” Entry Nos. a–z, aa–zz, 1–500, ed. Thomas A. Schafer (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1994), 213.

130. PELAGIANISM.

That there should be an immediate operation of God’s Spirit upon the hearts of the godly, to beget and exercise grace, seems much the most reasonable to me. For seeing man is made for such an end that his business is wholly with God, seeing he is made for nothing but to pay respects to and receive from God, it seems very incongruous to me, that the world should be left altogether without immediate communications from God.

Works of Jonathan Edwards, Volume 13, The “Miscellanies:” Entry Nos. a–z, aa–zz, 1–500, ed. Thomas A. Schafer (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1994), 292-293.