The Works of Edwards in 2 Volumes

Jonathan Edwards’ writings reveal profound insights into theology, philosophy, and the human condition. Today, Stephen Nichols explores the rich content of Edwards’ works and explains why his writings are still relevant to the church today.

Welcome back to another episode of 5 Minutes in Church History. Last week, we were visiting with our friend Jonathan Edwards in his first published sermon, and that got me perusing my shelves and looking at my different volumes and books by Jonathan Edwards. And I landed on The Works of Jonathan Edwards in two volumes published by the Banner of Truth Trust. And I remember exactly when I got these books. I was working on my dissertation on Edwards. I had had a set of these somewhere, and they were missing, and I needed to get them replaced, and I got them replaced. But there's something that you need to know about this two-volume set. It's massive. It's a couple thousand pages. It's a lot of words. It's double column, and it's tiny print. To work through this is quite a feat.

Well, John Gerstner used to have this thing that he would do, that he would offer, he would give someone the two-volume set if they agreed to read it, signed a pledge to that effect, and then in fact, circled back to him when they were completed and had read it. And they would get a little plate that said as much and would be put inside the volumes. And I saw one in a library once that made its way from its owner to a library. But it's The Works of Jonathan Edwards, two volumes. It is full of Edwards’ treatises. It is full of Edwards’ sermons. In fact, last week we were talking about God Glorified in Man's Dependence. Well, that is the very first thing you bump into when you open volume two is Edwards’ first published sermon. Volume one begins with the memoirs of Jonathan Edwards and gives a little biography of Edwards and even traces out his family tree and his siblings and then also his children and all of the interconnections.

These volumes also have some letters from Jonathan Edwards. They have some of his “Miscellanies”—we've talked about those before. These were his notebooks of his miscellaneous thoughts. And he started off labeling them A to Z ,and then he went back and did AA to ZZ. And then he thought, this isn't working very well, so he started numbering them. And by the time he was finished with his notebooks, he was well up into the 1,500s of these "Miscellanies.” They're fascinating. They're on all kinds of topics from Paul to the Psalms, to Plato to Islam even. In fact, in one of these, he says something very interesting about Islam, and I thought would read it for us:

“In this respect the great propagation of the Mahometan religion,”—that's how Islam was referred to in the 1700s—“is a confirmation of revealed religion—and so of the Christian religion in particular, which alone can have any pretext to be a religion revealed by God—as this,”—again—Mahometan religion—“is a great demonstration of the extreme darkness, blindness, weakness, folly, [and] madness of mankind in matters of religion, and shows how greatly they stand in need of a divine guide, and divine grace and strength for their help, such as the gospel reveals. And [that] this [gross] delusion has continued so long to so great an extent, shows how helpless mankind are, under [ignorance and] delusion in matters of religion, and what absolute need they have of extraordinary divine interposition for their relief. And besides, such a miserable and helpless state of mankind, is also exactly agreeable to the representation made in the Christian revelation.”

So, a fascinating analysis and statement that isn't simply pointing out the error of Islam but is reminding us of the need for the gospel. Well, there are so many little gems like that in these two volumes. If you add them to your library shelf, they will keep you busy for many, many days, months—possibly years—to come as you read through the two volumes of Jonathan Edwards. Well, that's Edwards—his two-volume edition, and I'm Steve Nichols, and thanks for listening to 5 Minutes in Church History.