Edwards writes about the two parts of man: his mind and his heart (or will). Edwards attempts to break down the false dichotomy between the mind and the heart in religion. Edward’s argument is that one must have the will (heart’s affection) to love God, but you must likewise possess a mind (mind’s attention) to know God. You can’t love what you don’t know. This text is also very characteristic of Edwards because of his attempt to reconcile two camps within the Christian faith. Die-hard Puritans believed that religion was something completely mental, and emotions were fickle and should play no part in worship. However, many newly-saved converts believed that worship had to be full of emotion in order for it to be authentic. Edwards, in an attempt to reconcile these two factions, wrote A Treatise on Religious Affection to explain the role of emotion and the will in a relationship with God. Edwards brilliantly explains that the mind and the heart should both be involved in worship, but the moment that one or the other are absent, the congregation should check themselves and their relationships with God. However, Edwards inserts a little caveat, saying that emotion should be constructive, not destructive. Any act of the will that is disruptive to worship should be removed from worship (a very Puritan idea). I would use this text to support the concept of Edward’s focus on the mind and the heart, deviating from many conservative Puritan ideas but remaining Biblical, a very important thing for Edwards.

Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God was written during a period of religious apathy in the Northeast. Edwards, growing concerned about the people’s lack of concern about God and his kingdom, wrote this sermon. Contrary to popular opinion, this sermon is not a fire-and-brimstone jeremiad. High school English students are encouraged to read the first half, but skip the last half of the sermon. This is tragic, because the second half of the sermon explains Edwards’ graphic descriptions of hell and man’s condition: grace. Edwards masterfully uses the shocking images of hell and damnation to force his apathetic listeners into taking God seriously, and why he should be important in their day-to-day lives. According to first-hand accounts, Edwards’ sermon caused such an emotional scene in the church that he had to stop the sermon. He never preached it again. However, the sermon was a one-hit wonder; it propelled the people of Enfield back towards God, forcing them to recognize Jesus as their Savior from well-deserved righteous wrath. I would use this text and it’s accompanying commentary to help shift concept of Edwards away from being a bigoted fire-and-brimstone Calvinist preacher and use it to show the kind heart of a shepherding pastor gently and earnestly seeking safety for his flock.

Surprisingly, Jonathan Edwards had a great impact on feminine speech and, by extension, the feminist movement. It is very surprising that the roots of the American feminist movement lie in the sermons of a Calvinist Puritan pastor. Although Jonathan Edwards called for a return to God and faith and in many ways was a conservative force of his time, he was a forward thinker. In order for us to get a grasp of who Edwards was and how he viewed God and his grace, we must get a grasp of how the Edwards viewed not only God and men, but also women, children and slaves as well. Edwards, due to the economy and their not being much demand for slaves in the American colonies, did not preach much on slavery. However, he did preach that God’s grace extends towards every man, woman and child in creation and he, unlike many of his contemporaries, encouraged women to talk about these spiritual things. This laid the ground for many of the “feminine” movements that rose up throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, including the temperance movement, the abolitionist movement, the child-labor movement and ultimately the feminist movement. I would use this text to show that Edwards’ work has had great repercussions throughout history and continues to affect our lives today.

The extensive use of lights and shadows are important motifs the great sermons of Jonathan Edwards. Although many people believe that Edwards’ use of light and shadow was a spiritual way of how he viewed the world, I would have to say that I would agree…to a point. Edwards uses light and shadow motifs because of his position as a pastor whose job was to be a spiritual compass to his people, but also to teach the truth of the Bible. Teaching the truth of the Bible, I believe, is why he uses so many of these analogies throughout his sermons. Many people forget that much of Hebrew literature is full of light and shadow analogies, and I believe that because of Edwards’ extensive background in the Scriptures, the light/shadow motif is not original material but rather borrowed from numerous passages in the Old and New Testament. I would use this article and use it as an example of how some people can misinterpret Edwards and, in conjunction with several passages of Biblical scripture, refute the idea that Edwards was more poetic than he seemed. Although Edwards was a good writer, he wasn’t original. Just about everything he wrote came from the Bible, including his numerous references to light and shadow.

In “A Faithful Narrative”, Edwards reports of the beginning of the First Great Awakening, sparked (somewhat surprisingly) in a backwater town near Boston, the village of Northampton. Edwards, often deemed the father of the First Great Awakening, chronicles the “amazing works of God” and the explosion of conversions as a result of the conversion of one woman who was “concerned about the state of her soul”. The explosion of conversions surprisingly resulted in not just a local revival, but, in conjunction with several preachers in the South as well as George Whitfield’s preaching in the colonies, helped to spark the First Great Awakening where over one-in-ten Americans experienced conversion.  The most notable thing about the text is Edward’s depiction of the behavior of the public towards the conversion and the work of God in their day to day lives. Edwards tells us about the raw emotions that echoed throughout Northampton at the time, the joy of conversion, the horror of hell and the fear for their neighbors’ souls. Also something worthy of note is that Edwards never claims any responsibility for causing the revival and does not attempt to take credit for any of the conversions. He points to God and says that the Holy Spirit convicted the converts, not his words. This is characteristic of Edwards’ ministry throughout his life: he never personally took credit for any of the revivals happening throughout the colonies. I would use this text to point towards Edwards’ heart and passion for God’s work, as well as including it for its historical value of how the First Great Awakening started in America and how Edwards was used by God to be a part of it.

Edwards’ personal narrative is a very difficult thing to use, but I think I would use it in summation. Edwards’ final thoughts on his life were deliberately skewed to be of value to the next generation, showing and indicating points of wisdom, places where the young could learn from his mistakes and see God’s grace in spite of his foolishness. It was also written to show the power of God and how he worked miracles and, through one man’s life, changed the world. Large portions of Edwards’ testimony, including his conversion experience, are left out of Jonathan Edwards’ Personal Testimony, as is pointed out in this article. I would use this article to reinforce the argument that, even in Edwards’ last days, he had a pastor’s heart, a heart for teaching his people and for guiding them through the hard parts of life and showing them the love of  God, even when they can’t see it themselves.