Jonathan Edwards and the Study of His Eighteenth-Century World:

2014 ◽  
pp. 15-35
Author(s):  
Douglas A. Sweeney
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Jonathan Edwards

Edwards and Hutcheson

1951 ◽  
Vol 44 (1) ◽  
pp. 35-53 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. Owen Aldridge
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Moral Sense ◽  
Jonathan Edwards ◽  
Direct Result ◽  
Francis Hutcheson ◽  
General Plan ◽  
Early Eighteenth Century ◽  
The Mind ◽  
Divine Beauty

Although traditionally regarded as an austere clergyman, rigidly circumscribed by narrow doctrinalism, Jonathan Edwards has the distinction of being America's pioneer esthetician. In a Dissertation concerning the Nature of True Virtue he brings together nearly all the theories prevalent in the early eighteenth century concerning the relation of beauty to virtue, and discusses the moral aspects of human passions and conduct. Francis Hutcheson is the philosopher whose influence is most pronounced. In the Dissertation he is mentioned by name three times; the general plan of his theory of moral sense is constantly suggested for comparison, contrast or illustration; fundamental doctrines and corollary principles from his system are specifically stated and attacked; and others of his notions are cited in support of Edwards' own views. It has long been known that Edwards read Hutcheson's work, but the close parallels in his own treatise, making it literally a commentary on Hutcheson, have not been generally recognized. Evidence of the extent of Hutcheson's influence may be found by comparing Edwards' dissertation with his earlier work on The Mind, a discussion of the essence of beauty or harmony in the realms of spirit and of sense. Written while its author was engaged in studying Locke, the discussion contains nearly all of Edwards' original ideas on natural and divine beauty. In the expanded and polished treatise some of the original ideas are modified as a direct result of Hutcheson's concepts, and a complete ethical and aesthetic system is developed to supplant the systems of Hutcheson and other moralists popular at the time.

Jonathan Edwards and Scripture

2018 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
New England ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Biblical Interpretation ◽  
Jonathan Edwards ◽  
Biblical Exegesis ◽  
Western History ◽  
The Bible ◽  
New Research

Jonathan Edwards and Scripture provides a fresh look at the important, burgeoning field of Edwards and the Bible. For too long, Edwards scholars have published new research on Edwards without paying due attention to the work he took most seriously: biblical exegesis. Edwards is recognized as an innovative theologian who wielded tremendous influence on revivalism, evangelicalism, and New England theology, but what is often missed is how much time he devoted to studying and understanding the Bible. He kept voluminous notebooks on Christian Scripture and had plans for major treatises on the Bible before he died. Edwards scholars need to take stock of the place of the Bible in his thought to do justice to his theology and legacy. In fact, more and more experts are recognizing how important this aspect of his life is, and this book brings together the insights of leading Edwards scholars on this topic. This volume seeks to increase our understanding of Edwards’ engagement with Scripture by setting it in the context of seventeenth-century Protestant exegesis and eighteenth-century colonial interpretation. It provides case studies of Edwards’ exegesis in varying genres of the Bible and probes his use of Scripture to develop theology. It also sets his biblical interpretation in perspective by comparing it with that of other exegetes. This book advances our understanding of the nature and significance of Edwards’ work with Scripture and opens new lines of inquiry for students of early modern Western history.

Inward Baptism

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Baird Tipson
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Holy Spirit ◽  
Jonathan Edwards ◽  
John Wesley ◽  
Late Medieval ◽  
Evangelical Christian ◽  
New Birth ◽  
The Holy Spirit ◽  
George Whitefield

Inward Baptism describes theological developments leading up to the great evangelical revivals in the mid-eighteenth century. It argues that Martin Luther’s insistence that a participant’s faith was essential to a sacrament’s efficacy would inevitably lead to the insistence on an immediate, perceptible communication from the Holy Spirit, which evangelicals continue to call the “new birth.” A description of “conversion” through the sacrament of penance in late-medieval Western Christianity leads to an exploration of Luther’s critique of that system, to the willingness of Reformed theologians to follow Luther’s logic, to an emphasis on “inward” rather than “outward” baptism, to William Perkins’s development of a conscience religion, to late-seventeenth-century efforts to understand religion chiefly as morality, and finally to the theological rationale for the new birth from George Whitefield, John Wesley, and Jonathan Edwards. If the average Christian around the year 1500 encountered God primarily through sacraments presided over by priests, an evangelical Christian around 1750 received God directly into his or her heart without the need for clerical mediation, and he or she would be conscious of God’s presence there.

Visualizing Jonathan Edwards

2020 ◽  
pp. 187-196
Author(s):  
Robert L. Boss
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Network Analysis ◽  
Programming Languages ◽  
Digital Humanities ◽  
Jonathan Edwards ◽  
The World ◽  
Python Programming ◽  
Print Publications ◽  
Written Corpus

This article begins by introducing Jonathan Edwards, the eighteenth century American philosopher theologian from Northampton, Massachusetts. Edwards believed that the world of nature had communicative properties, full of types and symbols, and indeed, was a kind of language of God. This article posits that Edwards’ typological language of nature, encapsulated in his notebook “Images of Divine Things” and throughout his written corpus, can be explored through the lense of Digital Humanities and network analysis using Processing and Python programming languages. Next, the article summarizes recent Edwards-focused DH projects by Kenneth Minkema, Michał Choiński, and Michael Keller. The article then recounts the history and development of the Visual Edwards project and how it expands exploration of the 26 volume Yale letterpress edition of The Works of Jonathan Edwards. Features of the Visual Edwards software are introduced briefly, as well as print publications flowing from the project.

Evangelical Devotion and the Transition to Modernity

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
D. Bruce Hindmarsh
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Public Sphere ◽  
Social Movement ◽  
Special Reference ◽  
Small Groups ◽  
Jonathan Edwards ◽  
John Wesley ◽  
Social Forms ◽  
George Whitefield ◽  
Group Experience

The “Quarrel of the Ancients and the Moderns” was critical to the emergence of modernity as an idea in the eighteenth century, and evangelicalism appeared in the midst of this cultural debate over the authority of things past and things new. This chapter explores the question of the extent to which evangelicalism was “modern,” with special reference to John Wesley, George Whitefield, and Jonathan Edwards. Both participants and critics understood there to be something new about the evangelical experience in its intensity and immediacy, and its public presence. The modernity of evangelical devotion was evident above all, however, in its dynamic social forms, uniting small group experience within wider, transnational networks. It had precedents in radical congregationalism, Pietist small groups, and the transdenominational fellowship of Moravians, but these were merged in a new evangelical “connexionalism” under the modern conditions that produced the democratic public sphere. In this respect it shared many of the characteristics of a modern social movement.

Let the Children Come: The Religion of the Protestant Child in Early America

2007 ◽  
Vol 76 (4) ◽  
pp. 750-777 ◽  
Author(s):  
E. Brooks Holifield
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
New England ◽  
Kingdom Of God ◽  
Jonathan Edwards ◽  
Early America ◽  
Sunday Schools ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Middle Colonies ◽  
Special Instruction ◽  
Christian Practices

In 1844, the Congregationalist minister Enoch Pond in Bangor, Maine, reminded his fellow clergy that they had been commissioned not only to feed the sheep of their flocks but also to nurture the lambs. Under no circumstances, he cautioned, would a good minister neglect the children, for both Christian parents and their pastors felt “the deepest anxiety” that the children of American parishes would not “receive that wise government, that faithful discipline, that Christian instruction and restraint, which, by the blessing of God, shall result in their speedy conversion, and bring them early and truly into the fold of Christ.” He called for pastors to pray for the children, to convene meetings of praying parents, to pay attention to children during pastoral visits, to impart special instruction to children from the pulpit, to visit their schools, to institute Sunday schools, to teach children the Bible, and to offer catechetical instruction. The devoted pastor would acquaint himself with children, “enter into their feelings, and interest himself in their affairs; and thus engage their affections, and win their confidence.“Christian clergy in America had long heeded such admonitions. Seventeenth-century Puritan ministers made serious, if sporadic, efforts to teach the catechism, often invited groups of children into their homes for instruction, contended over the implications of the baptismal covenant, and urged parents to teach their offspring religious truths and Christian practices. Eighteenth-century Anglican clergy made similar efforts to instruct children, and their revivalist counter-parts in New England and the Middle Colonies encouraged the conversion of children at younger than customary ages. Jonathan Edwards devoted careful attention to his four-year-old convert Phebe Bartlet, who followed in the path of her converted eleven-year-old brother by announcing, after anguished prayers and cries for mercy, that “the kingdom of God had come” to her.

Evangelical Thought: John Wesley and Jonathan Edwards

1987 ◽  
Vol 19 (2) ◽  
pp. 177-192
Author(s):  
Frederick Dreyer
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Proper Time ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
Jonathan Edwards ◽  
Historical Event ◽  
John Wesley ◽  
John Maynard Keynes ◽  
Intellectual Influence ◽  
The Times ◽  
Do So

Historians suppose that men are ultimately to be understood in terms of their own time. If the age in which people live makes no difference to the way we perceive them, then historical explanation becomes superfluous. The evangelical revival, however, is often regarded as a event that occurs out of its proper time. It is the step-child of eighteenth century studies. For Peter Gay it belongs not to the eighteenth century but to the twelfth. Leslie Stephen denied all affinity between the evangelicals and their enlightened contemporaries: “There could scarcely be said to exist even the relation of contradiction.” To be sure, an affinity with the age was not a claim that the evangelicals insisted upon. No one would wish to number Jonathan Edwards and John Wesley among the philosophes. The merit claimed by the evangelicals was the merit not of thinkers but of believers. Yet, like it or not, the revival is still one of the facts of eighteenth century history. It cannot be wished away or passed off onto some other period. It started in the eighteenth century and it prospered in the eighteenth century. In any census of the times, it is a fair presumption that the saints will out-number the sceptics. Moreover, the revival is something that has to be analyzed in contemporary terms. What John Maynard Keynes once said of ranting politicians in the twentieth century works for ranting preachers in the eighteenth: “Mad men in authority, who hear voices in the air, are distilling their frenzy from some academic scribbler of a few years back.” Faith, like thought, is an historical event that occurs in a specific historical context and ultimately it must be explained in terms of that context. It may be our deepest wish to think like St. Paul, but it is hard to do so in ways that St. Paul would have understood. Few men can insulate themselves against the intellectual influence of their time. In the case of John Wesley and Jonathan Edwards, the recognition of that influence is critical for the interpretation of their thought.

scholarly journals Jonathan Edwards and His Understanding of Revival

Perichoresis ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 17 (s1) ◽  
pp. 37-54
Author(s):  
Dinu Moga
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
North America ◽  
Jonathan Edwards ◽  
Early Age ◽  
God's Word ◽  
Revival Movements ◽  
The Way

Abstract From an early age Jonathan Edwards became intellectually equipped for the task of defining theology of the revival movements of North America. As a revivalist Edwards came from a Calvinistic theological tradition and moved along the plane of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Puritan theology. Through his studies and meditations on God’s Word Edwards realised that the great need of his time was for a change in the way the old doctrine of sovereignty needed to be understood. The realisation of this fact led him to produce an explicitly and consistently Calvinistic theology of revival. For Edwards revival times represented unusual and extraordinary times. In his eyes, revival is a glorious and wonderful working of God when the Spirit of God is poured out in a far greater and more glorious measure.

scholarly journals The Life of The Life of David Brainerd: Agency, Evangelicalism, and Book History

2015 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jennifer Snead
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Recent Work ◽  
Book History ◽  
First Century ◽  
Jonathan Edwards ◽  
John Wesley ◽  
Twenty First Century ◽  
Material Texts ◽  
Editorial Practices

This article describes the editorial practices that Jonathan Edwards and John Wesley brought to their respective editions of The Life of David Brainerd, explains how those practices were informed by their opposing theological stances towards salvation, and traces the circulation and reception of each edition back to those theological stances. Finally, the article invokes classic models of the methodology of book history and recent work on the circulation of nineteenth-century evangelical publications, arguing that an understanding of the kind of theological editing eighteenth-century figures like Edwards and Wesley took can better help us to articulate nineteenth- and twentieth- (and twenty-first) century attitudes and assumptions about agency and material texts.

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