Deborah Hatheway

A young girl named Deborah Hatheway once wrote a letter to the great preacher Jonathan Edwards. Deborah was not a member of Edwards' congregation in Northampton, Mass.; she was from Suffield, Conn. But her church in Suffield had no pastor. The evangelist George Whitefield had been through there to preach, and even Edwards had preached there. Still, they had no pastor. So, in 1741, this young lady wrote to Edwards to ask for his advice to her as a young Christian on how to live the Christian life.

Let's look at this situation from Edwards' perspective. He was very busy. It was the Great Awakening. His church had more than five hundred people and it was growing on a weekly basis. He was in demand as an itinerant preacher, not only up and down the Connecticut River Valley but all across New England. Edwards could really not be busier. Yet, he took the time to go into his study and write a seventeen-paragraph letter to Deborah. It was later reprinted in the nineteenth century as Advice to Young Converts.

Let's pull out some of these pieces of advice from Edwards. We will look at five of the paragraphs of this letter. The first one is the very first paragraph. Here, Edwards encourages Deborah to be extremely earnest in seeking the kingdom of heaven. He says, "For lack of this many persons in a few months after their conversion have begun to lose the sweet and lively sense of spiritual things and can grow cold and flat and dark."

In the second piece of advice, Edwards addresses how Deborah should hear sermons, and he has a very straightforward piece of advice for her: "When you hear sermons hear them for yourself." It's very easy to hear a sermon and say, "Well, I hope so-and-so is listening." Edwards encourages Deborah instead to listen for herself. He writes: "Let the chief intent of your mind be to consider what ways you can apply the things that you are hearing in the sermon. You should ask, 'What improvement should I make based on these things for my own soul's good?'"

The third piece of advice concerns the remaining sin and our remaining sin nature. He writes: "Be always greatly humbled by your remaining sin and never think that you lie low enough for it, but yet don't be at all discouraged or disheartened. Although we are exceeding sinful, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous, the preciousness of whose blood, the merit of whose righteousness and the greatness of whose love and faithfulness infinitely overtop the highest mountains of our sins."

Edwards also encourages Deborah—as she engages in the duty of prayer, as she partakes of the sacrament of the Lord's Supper, or performs any of her duties of divine worship—to come as Mary Magdalene did as recorded in the gospel of Luke. He writes: "Just like her, come and cast yourself down at his feet and kiss them. And pour forth upon him the sweet perfume ointment of divine love, out of a pure and broken heart, as she poured her precious ointment out of her pure, alabaster broken box. Approach worship with a humble and contrite heart."

The final piece of advice is this: "If you would set up religious meetings of young women by yourselves to be attended once in a while, besides the other meetings that you attend, I should think it would be very proper and profitable."