Jonathan Edwards
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The Puritans are encumbered by a caricature of strictness and dourness in our day and age. Their mention calls forth images of judgment, wrath, and superstition, and almost without doubt people look to Jonathan Edwards' sermon "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God" as the paradigm of this group's sentiment. Sadly, this caricature fails to do justice to Edwards and the Puritans, as it captures only a small part of the gospel they preached. Edwards and his Puritan contemporaries knew well the condemnation promised by God for disobedience, but they knew it in light of the great promise of salvation offered by the gospel. Edwards wrote more about the joy, pleasure, and happiness of salvation than anything else, and during the Great Awakening he poured out this message of grace that promises eternal life for undeserving sinners.
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Stephen Nichols
Dr. Stephen J. Nichols is president of Reformation Bible College, chief academic officer for Ligonier Ministries, and a Ligonier Ministries teaching fellow. He is host of the podcasts 5 Minutes in Church History and Open Book. He has written more than twenty books, including Peace, A Time for Confidence, and R.C. Sproul: A Life and volumes in the Guided Tour series on Jonathan Edwards, Martin Luther, and J. Gresham Machen. He is coeditor of The Legacy of Luther and general editor of the Church History Study Bible.
