Works of John Bunyan — by John Bunyan and George Offor— INTRODUCTION Part 5

 

At another time he dreamed that he was in a pleasant place, jovial and rioting, banqueting and feasting his senses, when a mighty earthquake suddenly rent the earth, and made a wide gap, out of which came bloody flames, and the figures of men tossed up in globes of fire and falling down again with horrible cries, shrieks, and execrations, whilst some devils that were mingled with them, laughed aloud at their torments; and whilst he stood trembling at this sight, he thought the earth sunk under him, and a circle of flame enclosed him; but when he fancied he was just at the point to perish, one in white shining raiment descended, and plucked him out of that dreadful place; whilst the devils cried after him, to leave him with them, to take the just punishment his sins had deserved, yet he escaped the danger and leaped for joy when he awoke and found it was a dream.'

Such dreams as these fitted him in after life to be the glorious dreamer of the Pilgrim's Progress, in which a dream is told which doubtless embodies some of those which terrified him in the night visions of his youth.

In the interpreter's house, he is 'led into a chamber where there was one rising out of bed, and as he put on his raiment he shook and trembled. Then said Christian, Why doth this man thus tremble? The Interpreter then bid him tell to Christian the reason of his so-doing. So he began and said, This night, as I was in my sleep I dreamed, and behold the heavens grew exceeding black; also it thundered and lightened in most fearful wise, that it put me into an agony. So I looked up in my dream, and saw the clouds rack at an unusual rate, upon which I heard a great sound of a trumpet, and saw also a man sit upon a cloud, attended with the thousands of heaven—they were all in flaming fire; also the heavens were in a burning flame. I heard then a voice saying, "Arise, ye dead, and come to judgment;" and with that the rocks rent, the graves opened, and the dead that was therein came forth. Some of them were exceeding glad, and looked upward, and some sought to hide under the mountains. Then I saw the man that sat upon the cloud open the book and bid the world draw near. 

Yet there was, by reason of a fierce flame which issued out and came from before him, a convenient distance betwixt him and them, as betwixt the judge and prisoners at the bar. I heard it also proclaimed, "Gather together the tares, the chaff, and stubble, and cast them into the burning lake"; and with that the bottomless pit opened just whereabout I stood, out of the mouth of which there came, in an abundant manner, smoke and coals of fire, with hideous noises. It was also said, "Gather my wheat into the garner"; and with that I saw many caught up and carried away into the clouds, but I was left behind. I also sought to hide, but I could not, for the man that sat upon the cloud still kept his eye upon me; my sins also came into my mind, and my conscience did accuse me on every side. Upon that, I awaked from my sleep.'

No laboured composition could have produced such a dream as this. It flows in such dream-like order as would lead us to infer, that the author who narrates it had, when a boy, heard the twenty-fifth chapter of Matthew read at church, and the solemn impression following him at night assisted in producing a dream which stands, and perhaps will ever stand, unrivaled.

Awful as must have been these impressions upon his imagination, they were soon thrown off, and the mad youth rushed on in his desperate career of vice and folly. Is he then left to fill up the measure of his iniquities? No, the Lord has great work for him to do. HIS hand is not shortened that he cannot save. Bunyan has to be prepared for his work; and if terrors will not stop him, manifested mercies in judgments are to be tried.

'God did not utterly leave me, but followed me still, not now with convictions, but judgments; yet such as were mixed with mercy. For once I fell into a creek of the sea and hardly escaped drowning. Another time I fell out of a boat into Bedford river, but mercy yet preserved me alive. Besides, another time, being in the field with one of my companions, it chanced that an adder passed over the highway, so I, having a stick in my hand, struck her over the back; and having stunned her, I forced open her mouth with my stick, and plucked her sting out with my fingers; by which act, had not God been merciful unto me, I might by my desperateness have brought myself to my end.

Works of John Bunyan — by John Bunyan and George Offor— INTRODUCTION Part 4

 

These reminiscences are alluded to in the prologue of the Holy
War:—

   'When Man soul trampled upon things Divine,
    And wallowed in filth as doth a swine,
    Then I was there, and did rejoice to see
    Diabolus and Man soul so agree.'

The Laureate had read this, and yet considers it the language of a heart that 'never was hardened.' He says that 'the wickedness of the tinker has been greatly overcharged, and it is taking the language of self-accusation too literally to pronounce of John Bunyan, that he was at any time depraved. The worst of what he was in his worst days is to be expressed in a single word, the full meaning of which no circumlocution can convey; and which, though it may hardly be deemed presentable in serious composition, I shall use, as Bunyan himself (no mealy-mouthed writer) would have used it, had it in his days borne the same acceptation in which it is now universally understood;—in that word then, he had been a blackguard.

    The very head and front of his offending
    Hath this extent—no more.'

The meaning of the epithet is admirably explained; but what could Dr. Southey imagine possible to render such a character viler in the sight of God, or a greater pest to society? Is there any vicious propensity, the gratification of which is not included in that character? Bunyan's estimate of his immorality and profaneness prior to his conversion was not made by comparing himself with the infinitely Holy One, but he measured his conduct by that of his more moral neighbors. In his Jerusalem Sinner Saved, he pleads with great sinners, the outwardly and violently profane and vicious, that if HE had received mercy, and had become regenerated, they surely ought not to despair, but to seek earnestly for the same grace. He thus describes himself:—' I speak by experience; I was one of those great sin-breeders; I infected all the youth of the town where I was born; the neighbors counted me so, my practice proved me so: wherefore, Christ Jesus took me first; and, taking me first, the contagion was much allayed all the town over. 

When God made me sigh, they would hearken, and inquiringly say, What's the matter with John? When I went out to seek the bread of life, some of them would follow, and the rest be put into a muse at home. Some of them, perceiving that God had mercy upon me, came crying to him for mercy too.' Can anyone, in the face of such language, doubt that he was most eminently a brand snatched from the fire'; a pitchy burning brand, known and seen as such by all who witnessed his conduct? He pointedly exemplified the character set forth by James, 'the tongue is a fire, a world of iniquity, set on fire of hell' (James 3:6). This was as publicly known before his conversion, as the effects of the wondrous change were openly seen in his Christian career afterward. He who, when convinced of sin, strained his eyes to see the distant shining light over the wicket-gate, after he had gazed upon

      —'The wondrous cross
    On which the Prince of glory died,'

became a luminous beacon, to attract the vilest characters to seek the newness of life; and if there be hope for them, no one ought to despair. Far be it from us to cloud this light, or to tarnish so conspicuous an example. Like a Magdalene or a thief on the cross, his case may be exhibited to encourage hope in every returning prodigal. During this period of his childhood, while striving to harden his heart against God, many were the glimmerings of light which from time to time directed his unwilling eyes to a dread eternity. In the still hours of the night 'in a dream God opened' his ears—the dreadful vision was that 'devils and wicked spirits labored to draw me away with them.' These thoughts must have left a deep and alarming impression upon his mind; for he adds, 'of which I could never be rid.'

The author of his life, published in 1692, who was one of his personal friends, gives the following account of Bunyan's profligacy, and his checks of conscience:—' He himself hath often, since his conversion, confessed with horror, that when he was but a child or stripling, he had but few equals for lying, swearing, and blaspheming God's holy name—living without God in the world; the thoughts of which, when he, by the light of Divine grace, came to understand his dangerous condition, drew many showers of tears from his sorrowful eyes, and sighs from his groaning heart. The first thing that sensibly touched him in this unregenerate state were fearful dreams, and visions of the night, which often made him cry out in his sleep, and alarm the house as if somebody was about to murder him, and being waked, he would start, and stare about him with such a wildness, as if some real apparition had yet remained; and generally, those dreams were about evil spirits, in monstrous shapes and forms, that presented themselves to him in threatening postures as if they would have taken him away, or torn him in pieces. 

At some times they seemed to belch flame, at other times a continuous smoke, with horrible noises and roaring. Once he dreamed he saw the face of the heavens, as it were, all on fire; the firmament crackling and shivering with the noise of mighty thunders, and an archangel flew in the midst of heaven, sounding a trumpet, and a glorious throne was seated in the east, whereon sat one in brightness, like the morning star, upon which he, thinking it was the end of the world, fell upon his knees, and, with uplifted hands towards heaven, cried, O Lord God, have mercy upon me! What shall I do, the day of judgment has come, and I am not prepared! When immediately he heard a voice behind him, exceeding loud, saying, Repent.

Works of John Bunyan — by John Bunyan and George Offor— INTRODUCTION Part 3

 

Bunyan's parents do not appear to have checked, or attempted to counteract, his unbridled career of wickedness. He gives no hint of the kind; but when he notices his wife's father, he adds that he 'was counted godly'; and in his beautiful nonsectarian catechism, there is a very touching conclusion to his instructions to children on their behavior to their parents:—' The Lord, if it is his will, convert our poor parents, that they, with us, maybe the children of God.' These fervent expressions may refer to his own parents; and, connecting them with other evidence, it appears that he was not blessed with pious example. 

Upon one occasion, when severely reproved for swearing, he says—' I wished, with all my heart, that I might be a little child again, that my father might learn me to speak without this wicked way of swearing.' In his numerous confessions, he never expresses pain at having, by his vicious conduct, occasioned grief in his father or mother. From this it may be inferred, that neither his father's example nor precept had checked this wretched propensity to swearing and that he owed nothing to his parents for moral training; but, on the contrary, they had connived at, and encouraged him in, a course of life which made him a curse to the neighborhood in which he lived.

In the midst of all this violent depravity, the Holy Spirit began the work of regeneration in his soul—a long, a solemn, yea, an awful work—which was to fit this poor debauched youth for purity of conduct—for communion with heaven—for wondrous usefulness as a minister of the gospel—for patient endurance of sufferings for righteousness' sake—for the writing of works which promise to be a blessing to the Church in all ages—for his support during his passage through the black river which has no bridge—to shine all bright and glorious, as a star in the firmament of heaven. 'Wonders of grace to God belong.'

During the period of his open profligacy, his conscience was ill at ease; at times the clanking of Satan's slavish chains in which he was hurrying to destruction, distracted him. The stern reality of a future state clouded and embittered many of those moments employed in gratifying his baser passions. The face of the eventful times in which he lived was rapidly changing; the trammels were loosened, which, with atrocious penalties, had fettered all free inquiry into religious truth. Puritanism began to walk upright; and as the restraints imposed upon Divine truths were taken off, in the same proportion restraints were imposed upon impiety, profaneness, and debauchery. A ringleader in all wickedness would not long continue without reproof, either personally, or as seen in the holy conduct of others.

Bunyan very properly attributed to a gracious God, those checks of conscience which he so strongly felt even while he was apparently dead in trespasses and sins. 'The Lord, even in my childhood, did scare and affright me with fearful dreams, and did terrify me with dreadful visions.' 'I often wished that there had been no hell, or that I had been a devil to torment others.' A common childish but demoniac idea. His mind was as 'the troubled sea, when it cannot rest, whose waters cast up mire and dirt.' 'A while after, these terrible dreams did leave me; and with more greediness, according to the strength of nature, I did let loose the reins of my lusts, and delighted in all transgression against the law of God.' 'I was the very ringleader of all the youth that kept me company, into ALL MANNER of vice and ungodliness.'

Dr. Southey and others have attempted to whiten this Blackmore, but the veil that they throw over him is so transparent that it cannot deceive those who are in the least degree spiritually enlightened. He alleges that Bunyan, in his mad career of vice and folly, 'was never so given over to a reprobate mind,' as to be wholly free from compunctions of conscience. This is the case with every depraved character, but he goes further when he asserts that 'Bunyan's heart never was hardened.' 

This is directly opposed to his description of himself:—'I found within me a great desire to take my fill of sin, still studying what sin was yet to be committed; and I made as much haste as I could to fill my belly with its delicates, lest I should die before I had my desire.' He thus solemnly adds, 'In these things, I protest before God, I lie not, neither do I feign this sort of speech; these were really, strongly, and with all my heart, my desires; the good Lord, whose mercy is unsearchable, forgive me my transgressions.' The whole of his career, from childhood to manhood, was, 'According to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience' (Eph 2:2).

Works of John Bunyan — by John Bunyan and George Offor— INTRODUCTION Part 2

 

This poverty-stricken, ragged tinker was the son of a working mechanic at Elston, near Bedford. So obscure was his origin that even the Christian name of his father is yet unknown: he was born in 1628, a year memorable as that in which the Bill of Rights was passed. Then began the struggle against arbitrary power, which was overthrown in 1688, the year of Bunyan's death, by the accession of William III. Of Bunyan's parents, his infancy, and childhood, little is recorded. All that we know is from his own account, and that principally contained in his doctrine of the Law and Grace, and in the extraordinary development of his spiritual life, under the title of Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners. His birth would have shed a luster on the wealthiest mansion, and have imparted additional grandeur to any lordly palace. 

Had royal or noble gossips, and splendid entertainment attended his christening, it might have been pointed to with pride; but so obscure was his birth, that it has not been discovered that he was christened at all; while the fact of his new birth by the Holy Ghost is known over the whole world to the vast extent that his writings have been circulated. He entered this world in a laborer's cottage of the humblest class, at the village of Elstow, about a mile from Bedford. His pedigree is thus narrated by himself:—' My descent was of a low and inconsiderable generation, my father's house being of that rank that is meanest and most despised of all the families in the land.' Bunyan alludes to this very pointedly in the preface to A Few Sighs from Hell:—' I am thine, if thou be not ashamed to own me, because of my low and contemptible descent in the world.'

 His poor and abject parentage was so notorious, that his pastor, John Burton, apologized for it in his recommendation to The Gospel Truths Opened:—'Be not offended because Christ holds forth the glorious treasure of the gospel to thee in a poor earthen vessel, by one who hath neither the greatness nor the wisdom of this world to commend him to thee.' And in his most admirable treatise, on The Fear of God, Bunyan observes—' The poor Christian hath something to answer them that reproach him for his ignoble pedigree and shortness of the glory of the wisdom of this world. True may that man say I am taken out of the dunghill. 

I was born in a base and low estate, but I fear God. This is the highest and most noble; he hath the honor, the life, and glory that is lasting.' In his controversy with the Strict Baptists, he chides them for reviling his ignoble pedigree:—' You closely disdain my person because of my low descent among men, stigmatizing me as a person of THAT rank that need not be heeded or attended unto.' He inquired of his father—'Whether we were of the Israelites or not? for, finding in the Scripture that they were once the peculiar people of God, thought I if I were one of this race, my soul must need to be happy.' This somewhat justifies the conclusion that his father was a Gipsy tinker, that occupation being then followed by the Gipsy tribe. In the life of Bunyan appended to the forged third part of the Pilgrim's Progress, his father is described as 'an honest poor laboring man, who, like Adam unparadised, had all the world before him to get his bread in; and was very careful and industrious to maintain his family.'

Happily for Bunyan, he was born in a neighborhood in which it was a disgrace to any parents not to have their children educated. With gratitude, he records, that 'it pleased God to put it into their hearts to put me to school to learn both to read and to write.' In the neighborhood of his birthplace, a noble charity diffused the blessings of lettered knowledge. To this charity Bunyan was for a short period indebted for the rudiments of education; but, alas, evil associates made awful havoc of those slight unshapen literary impressions which had been made upon a mind boisterous and impatient of discipline. He says—'To my shame, I confess I did soon lose that little I learned, and that almost utterly.' This fact will recur to the reader's recollection when he peruses Israel's Hope Encouraged, in which, speaking of the all-important doctrine of justification, he says—'It is with many that begin with this doctrine as it is with boys that go to the Latin school; they learn till they have learned the grounds of their grammar, and then go home and forget all.'

As soon as his strength enabled him, he devoted his whole soul and body to licentiousness—'As for my own natural life, for the time that I was without God in the world, it was indeed according to the course of this world, and the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience. It was my delight to be taken captive by the devil at his will: being filled with all unrighteousness; that from a child I had but few equals, both for cursing, swearing, lying, and blaspheming the holy name of God.'

It has been supposed, that in delineating the early career of Badman, 'Bunyan drew the picture of his own boyhood.' But the difference is broadly given. Badman is the child of pious parents, who gave him a 'good education' in every sense, both moral and secular; the very reverse of Bunyan's training. His associates would enable him to draw the awful character and conduct of Badman, as a terrible example to deter others from the downward road to misery and perdition.

Works of John Bunyan — by John Bunyan and George Offor— INTRODUCTION Part 1

 

THIS GREAT MAN DESCENDED FROM IGNOBLE PARENTS—BORN IN POVERTY—HIS EDUCATION AND EVIL HABITS—FOLLOWS HIS FATHER'S BUSINESS AS A BRAZIER—ENLISTS AS A SOLDIER—RETURNS FROM THE WARS AND OBTAINS AN AMIABLE, RELIGIOUS WIFE—HER DOWER.

'We have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may be of God, and not of us.'—2 Cor 4:7

'For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord.'—Isaiah 55:8.

'Though ye have lien among the pots, yet shall ye be as the wings of a dove covered with silver, and her feathers with yellow gold.'—Psalm 68:13.

When the Philistine giant, Goliath, mocked the host of Israel and challenged any of their stern warriors to single combat, what human being could have imagined that the gigantic heathen would be successfully met in the mortal struggle by a youth 'ruddy and of a fair countenance?' who unarmed, except with a sling and a stone, gave the carcasses of the hosts of the Philistines to the fouls of the air, and to the wild beasts of the earth.'

Who, upon seeing an infant born in a stable, and laid in a manger, or beholding him when a youth working with his father as a carpenter, could have conceived that he was the manifestation of the Deity in human form, before whom every knee should bow, and every tongue confess Him to be THE ETERNAL?

Father Michael, a Franciscan friar, on a journey to Ancona, having lost his way, sought direction from a wretched lad keeping hogs—deserted, forlorn, his back smarting with severe stripes, and his eyes suffused with tears. The poor ragged boy not only went cheerfully with him to point out his road, but besought the monk to take him into his convent, volunteering to fulfill the most degrading services, in the hope of procuring a little learning, and escaping from 'those filthy hogs.' How incredulously would the friar have listened to anyone who could have suggested that this desolate, tattered, dirty boy, might and would fill a greater than an imperial throne! Yet, eventually, that swine herd was clothed in purple and fine linen, and, under the title of Pope Sixtus V., became one of those mighty magicians who are described in Rogers Italy, as

   'Setting their feet upon the necks of kings,
    And through the worlds subduing, chaining down
    The free, immortal spirit—theirs a wondrous spell.' 

A woman that was 'a loose and ungodly wretch' hearing a tinker lad most awfully cursing and swearing, protested to him that 'he swore and cursed at that most fearful rate that it made her tremble to hear him,' 'that he was the ungodliest fellow for swearing that ever she heard in all her life,' and 'that he was able to spoil all the youth in a whole town if they came in his company.' This blow at the young reprobate made that indelible impression that all the sermons yet he had heard had failed to make. Satan, by one of his own slaves, wounded a conscience that had resisted all the overtures of mercy. The youth pondered her words in his heart; they were good seed strangely sown, and their working formed one of those mysterious steps which led the foul-mouthed blasphemer to bitter repentance; who, when he had received mercy and pardon, felt impelled to bless and magnify the Divine grace with shining, burning thoughts and words. The poor profligate, swearing tinker became transformed into the most ardent preacher of the love of Christ—the well-trained author of The Jerusalem Sinner Saved, or Good News to the Vilest of Men.

How often have the Saints of God been made a most unexpected blessing to others? The good seed of Divine truth has been many times sown by those who did not go out to sow, but who were profitably engaged in cultivating their own graces, enjoying the communion of Saints, and advancing their own personal happiness! Think of a few poor, but pious happy women, sitting in the sun one beautiful summer's day, before one of their cottages, probably each one with her pillow on her lap, dexterously twisting the bobbins to make lace, the profits of which helped to maintain their children. While they are communing on the things of God, a traveling tinker draws near, and, over-hearing their talk, takes up a position where he might listen to their converse while he pursued his avocation. 

Their words distill into his soul; they speak the language of Canaan; they talk of holy enjoyments, the result of being born again, acknowledging their miserable state by nature, and how freely and undeservedly God had visited their hearts with pardoning mercy, and supported them while suffering the assaults and suggestions of Satan; how they had been borne up in every dark, cloudy, stormy day; and how they contemned, slighted, and abhorred their own righteousness as filthy and insufficient to do them any good. The learned discourses our tinker had heard at church had casually passed over his mind like evanescent clouds and left little or no lasting impression. But these poor women, 'methought they spake as actually did make them speak; they speak with such pleasant as of Scripture language, and with such appearance of grace in all they said, that they were to me as if they had found a new world, as if they were people that dwelt alone, and were not to be reckoned among their neighbors' (Num 23:9).

O! how little did they imagine that their pious converse was to be the means employed by the Holy Spirit in the conversion of that poor tinker, and that, by their agency, he was to be transformed into one of the brightest luminaries of heaven; who, when he had entered into rest would leave his works to follow him as spiritual thunder to pierce the hearts of the impenitent, and as heavenly consolation to bind up the broken-hearted; liberating the prisoners of Giant Despair, and directing the pilgrims to the Celestial City. Thus were blessings in rich abundance showered down upon the church by the instrumentality, in the first instance, of a woman that was a sinner, but most eminently by the Christian converse of a few poor but pious women.

Selected Sermons of Jonathan Edwards-Thus far my Letter to Mr. Clark Conclusion

 

In all probability, this will never be again. It is sometimes asserted that Edwards never again occupied the pulpit in Northampton. This is not true. He preached, in fact, twelve Sundays, though, to be sure, not consecutively and only when other supplies could not be secured, before his removal to Stockbridge. There is perhaps more reason for the statement of Dr. Hopkins, quoted by Dwight (op. cit. p. 418), that the town at last—it is thought in November 1750—voted that he should preach no longer. But the records of town and precinct are alike silent on this matter, the only vote bearing on it being one passed by the precinct in November, “to pay Mr. Edwards £10 old tenor per Sabbath for the time he preached here since he was dismissed.”

Trumbull, who has established this fact (History of Northampton, Vol. II, p. 227), says that the last sermon by Edwards in Northampton was in the afternoon of October 13, 1751, from the text Heb. xi. 16. But even this is doubtful; for among the manuscripts in New Haven, Professor Dexter discovered a sermon on 2 Cor. iv. 6 marked as preached in Northampton, May 1755, and in a book of plans of sermons at least three notes of texts and doctrines of the same period marked as designed for Northampton. (F. B. Dexter, The Manuscripts of Jonathan Edwards, p. 8.) 

145. By which I became so obnoxious. The excitement of the Great Awakening was followed by a period of laxity. In 1744 Edwards was informed that a number of the young people of his congregation, of both sexes, were reading immoral books, which fostered lascivious and obscene conversation. To check the evil, he preached a sermon, of the frankness of which we may judge from the published sermon on “Joseph’s Temptation,” from Heb. xii. 15, 16, and after the service communicated to the brethren of the church the evidence in his possession with a view to further action. A committee of inquiry was appointed to assist the pastor in examining the affair at a meeting at his house. 

Edwards then read the names of the young people to be summoned as witnesses or as accused, but without discriminating between the two classes. When the names were thus published, it was found that most of the leading families of the town were implicated. “The town was suddenly all on a blaze.” Many of the heads of families refused to proceed with the investigation; many of the young people summoned to the meeting refused to come, and those who did come acted with insolence. Edwards never thereafter succeeded in re-establishing his authority. For years not a single candidate appeared for admission to the church. See Hopkins, Life of Edwards (1765), pp. 53 ff. Dwight, op. cit. pp. 299 f., copies Hopkins’s account almost verbatim, but without acknowledgment. 

I have ... meet before him. The company keeping and worldly amusements of the young people were an old grievance with Edwards. Writing of the period before the revival of 1734-1735, he says, “It was their manner very frequently to get together in conventions of both sexes, for mirth and jollity, which they called frolics; and they would often spend the greater part of the night in them, without any regard to the order in the families they belong to.” How the young people amused themselves in these “conventions,” we can only conjecture; it is certain that some, at least, of the parents saw no harm in them. But Edwards’s idea of family government was very different. 

“He allowed not his children to be from home after nine o’clock at night when they went abroad to see their friends and companions. Neither were they allowed to sit up much after that time, in his own house, when any came to make them a visit. If any gentleman desired acquaintance with his daughters, after handsomely introducing himself, by properly consulting the parents, he was allowed all proper opportunity for it: a room and fire, if needed; but must not intrude on the proper hours of rest and sleep, or the religion and order of the family.” (Hopkins, op. cit. p. 44.) We have reason to think that some of the “other liberties commonly taken by young people in the land” were calculated to favor anything rather than refinement and spirituality. 

A contentious spirit. History in a general way corroborates the following testimony of Edwards concerning the contentious spirit in the people of Northampton: “There were some mighty contests and controversies among them in Mr. Stoddard’s day, which were managed with great heat and violence; some great quarrels in the church, wherein Mr. Stoddard, great as his authority was, knew not what to do with them. In one ecclesiastical controversy in Mr. Stoddard’s day, wherein the church was divided into two parties, the heat of spirit was raised to such a degree, that it came to hard blows. A member of one party met the head of the opposite party and assaulted him and beat him unmercifully. 

There has been for forty or fifty years a sort of settled division of the people into two parties, somewhat like the Court and Country party in England (if I may compare small things with great). There have been some of the chief men in the town, of chief authority and wealth, that have been great proprietors of their lands, who have had one party with them. And the other party, which has commonly been the greatest, have been of those who have been jealous of them, apt to envy them, and afraid of their having too much power and influence in town and church.

This has been a foundation of innumerable contentions among the people, from time to time, which have been exceedingly grievous to me, and by which doubtless God has been dreadfully provoked, and his Spirit grieved and quenched, and much confusion and many evil works have been introduced.” Letter of July 1, 1751 to Rev. Thomas Gillespie. Cf. Trumbull, History of Northampton, Vol. II, p. 36.

Selected Sermons of Jonathan Edwards-Thus far my Letter to Mr. Clark

 

Northampton, May 7, 1750.

The council had heard that I had made certain draughts of the covenant, or forms of a public profession of religion which I stood ready to accept from the candidates for church communion, they, for their further information, sent for them. Accordingly, I sent them four distinct draughts or forms, which I had drawn up about a twelvemonth before, as what I stood ready to accept (any one of them) rather than contend and break with my people. 

The two shortest of these forms are here inserted for the satisfaction of the reader. They are as follows. 

“I hope I do truly find a heart to give up myself wholly to God, according to the tenor of that covenant of grace which was sealed in my baptism; and to walk in a way of that obedience to all the commandments of God, which the covenant of grace requires, as long as I live.” Another, “I hope I truly find in my heart a willingness to comply with all the commandments of God, which require me to give up myself wholly to him and to serve him with my body and my spirit. And do accordingly now promise to walk in a way of obedience to all the commandments of God, as long as I live.” 

In such kind of professions as these, I stood ready to accept, rather than contend and break with my people. Not but that I think it much more convenient, that ordinarily the public profession of religion that is made by Christians should be much fuller and more particular, and that (as I hinted in my letter to Mr. Clark) I should not choose to be tied up to any certain form of words, but to have the liberty to vary the expressions of a public profession the more exactly to suit the sentiments and experience of the professor, that it might be a more just and free expression of what each one finds in his heart. 

And moreover, it must be noted, that I ever insisted on it, that it belonged to me as a pastor, before a profession was accepted, to have full liberty to instruct the candidate in the meaning of the terms of it, and in the nature of the things proposed to be professed; and to inquire into his doctrinal understanding of these things, according to my best discretion; and to caution the person, as I should think needful, against rashness in making such a profession, or doing it mainly for the credit of himself or his family, or from any secular views whatsoever, and to put him on serious self-examination, and searching his own heart, and prayer to God to search and enlighten him that he may not be hypocritical and deceived in the profession he makes; withal pointing forth to him the many ways in which professors are liable to be deceived. 

Nor do I think it improper for a minister in such a case, to inquire and know of the candidate what can be remembered of the circumstances of his Christian experience; as this may tend much to illustrate his profession and give a minister great advantage for proper instructions: though a particular knowledge and remembrance of the time and method of the first conversion to God are not to be made the test of a person’s sincerity, nor insisted on as necessary in order to his being received into full charity. Not that I think it at all improper or unprofitable, that in some special cases a declaration of the particular circumstances of a person’s first awakening and the manner of his convictions, illuminations, and comforts, should be publicly exhibited before the whole congregation, on the occasion of his admission into the church; though this is not demanded as necessary to admission. 

I ever declared against insisting on a relation of experience, in this sense (viz., a relation of the particular time and steps of the operation of the Spirit in the first conversion), as the term of communion: yet, if by a relation of experiences, he meant a declaration of experience of the great things wrought, wherein true grace and the essential acts and habits of holiness consist; in this sense, I think an account of a person’s experiences necessary in order to his admission into full communion in the church. But that in whatever inquiries are made, and whatever accounts are given, neither minister nor church is to set up themselves as searchers of hearts, but are to accept the serious, solemn profession of the well-instructed professor, of a good life, as best able to determine what he finds in his own heart. 

These things may serve in some measure to set right those of my readers who have been misled in their apprehensions of the state of the controversy between me and my people, by the aforementioned misrepresentations.

 Jonathan Edwards.

 

Selected Sermons of Jonathan Edwards-FAREWELL SERMON 2/2

 

But yet I think my sentiments, as I have expressed them, are as exactly agreeable to what he lays down as if I had been his pupil. Nor do I at all go beyond what Dr. Doddridge plainly shows to be his sentiments, in his Rise and Progress of Religion, his Sermons on Regeneration, and his Paraphrase and Notes on the New Testament. Nor indeed, sir, when I consider the sentiments you have expressed in your letters to Major Pomroy and Mr. Billing, can I perceive but that they come exactly to the same thing that I maintain. You suppose the sacraments are not converting ordinances: but that, ‘as seals of the covenant, they presuppose conversion, especially in the adult; and that it is visible saintship, or, in other words, a credible profession of faith and repentance, a solemn consent to the gospel covenant, joined with a good conversation, and competent measure of Christian knowledge, is what gives a gospel right to all sacred ordinances: but that it is necessary to those that come to these ordinances, and in those that profess a consent to the gospel covenant, that they are sincere in their profession,’ or at least should think themselves so.—

The great thing which I have scrupled in the established method of this church’s proceeding, and which I dare no longer go on in, is their publicly assenting to the form of words rehearsed on occasion of their admission to the communion, without pretending thereby to mean any such thing as any hearty consent to the terms of the gospel covenant, or to mean any such faith or repentance as belong to the covenant of grace, and are the grand conditions of that covenant: it being, at the same time that the words are used, their known and established principle which they openly profess and proceed upon, that men may and ought to use these words and mean no such thing, but something else of a nature far inferior; which I think they have no distinct, determinate notion of; but something consistent with their knowing that they do not choose God as their chief good, but love the world more than him, and that they do not give themselves up entirely to God, but make reserves; and in short, knowing that they do not heartily consent to the gospel covenant, but live still under the reigning power of the love of the world, and enmity to God and Christ.

So that the words of their public profession, according to their openly established use, cease to be of the nature of any profession of gospel faith and repentance, or any proper compliance with the covenant: for ’tis their profession, that the words, as used, mean no such thing. The words used under these circumstances, do at least fail of being a credible profession of these things. I can conceive of no such virtue in a certain set of words, that it is proper, merely on the making of these sounds, to admit persons to Christian sacraments, without any regard to any pretended meaning of these sounds: nor can I think that any institution of Christ has established any such terms of admission into the Christian church. 

It does not belong to the controversy between me and my people, how particular or large the profession should be that is required. I should not choose to be confined to exact limits as to that matter; but rather than contend, I should content myself with a few words, briefly expressing the cardinal virtues or acts implied in hearty compliance with the covenant, made (as should appear by inquiry into the person’s doctrinal knowledge) understandingly; if there were an external conversation agreeable thereto: yea, I should think, that such a person, solemnly making such a profession, had a right to be received as the object of a public charity, however, he himself might scruple his own conversion, on account of his not remembering the time, not knowing the method of his conversion, or finding so much remaining sin, &c. And (if his own scruples did not hinder his coming to the Lord’s table) I should think the minister or church had no right to debar such a professor, though he should say he did not think himself converted; for I call that a profession of godliness, which is a profession of the great things wherein godliness consists, and not a profession of his own opinion of his good estate.”

Selected Sermons of Jonathan Edwards-FAREWELL SERMON 1/2

 

118. A Farewell Sermon. “A Farewell-Sermon Preached at the First Precinct in Northampton, After the People’s public Rejection of their Minister, and renouncing their Relation to Him as Pastor of the Church there, On June 22. 1750 Occasioned by Difference of Sentiments, concerning the requisite Qualifications of Members of the Church, in complete Standing. 

By Jonathan Edwards, A.M. Acts xx. 18. Ye know, from the first day that I came into Asia, after what Manner I have been with you, at all Seasons. ver. 20. And how I kept back nothing that was profitable unto you, but has showed you, and have taught you publicly, and from House to House. ver. 26, 27. Wherefore I take you to Record this Day, that I am pure from the Blood of all Men: For I have not shunned to declare unto you all the Counsel of God. Gal. iv. 15, 16. Where is then the Blessedness ye spake of? For I bear you record, that if it had been possible, ye would have plucked out your own eyes, and have given them to me. Am I then becoming your Enemy, because I tell you the Truth? Boston Printed and sold by S. Kneeland over against the Prison in Queen Street. 1751.”—Title page of the first edition. 

The preface to this sermon is a document so important for the understanding of it, that it is here, as is usual also in other editions, printed in full. 

Preface. It is not unlikely, that some of the readers of the following sermon may be inquisitive concerning the circumstances of the difference between me and the people of Northampton, that issued in that separation between me and them, which occasioned the preaching of this farewell sermon. There is, by no means, room here for a full account of that matter: but yet it seems to be proper, and even necessary, here to correct some gross misrepresentations, which have been abundantly, and (’tis to be feared) by some affectedly and industriously made, of that difference: such as, that I insisted on persons being assured of their being in a state of salvation, in order to my admitting them into the church; that I required a particular relation of the method and order of a person’s inward experience, and of the time and manner of his conversion, as the test of his fitness for Christian communion. 

Yea, that I have undertaken to set up a pure church, and to make an exact and certain distinction between saints and hypocrites, by a pretended infallible discerning [of] the state of men’s souls; that in these things I had fallen in with those wild people, who have lately appeared in New England, called Separatists; and that I myself has become a grand Separatist; and that I arrogated all the power of judging of the qualifications of candidates for communion wholly to myself, and insisted on acting by my sole authority, in the admission of members into the church, &c. 

In opposition to these slanderous representations, I shall at present only give my reader an account of some things which I laid before the council, that separated between me and my people, in order to their having a just and full view of my principles relating to the affair in controversy. 

Long before the sitting of the council, my people had sent to the Reverend Mr. Clark of Salem village, desiring him to write in opposition to my principles. Which gave me the occasion to write to Mr. Clark, that he might have true information about what my principles were. And in the time of the sitting of the council, I did, for their information, make a public declaration of my principles before them and the church, in the meeting-house, of the same import with that in my letter to Mr. Clark, and very much in the same words: and then, afterward, sent into the council in writing, an extract of that letter, containing the information I had given to Mr. Clark, in the very words of my letter to him, that the council might read and consider it at their leisure, and have a more certain and satisfactory knowledge what my principles were. The extract which I sent to them was in the following words: 

“I am often and I don’t know but pretty generally, in the country, represented as of a new and odd opinion with respect to the terms of Christian communion, and as being for introducing a peculiar way of my own. Whereas I don’t perceive that I differ at all from the scheme of Dr. Watts in his book entitled, The Rational Foundation of a Christian Church, and the Terms of Christian Communion; which, he says, is the common sentiment of all reformed churches. I had not seen this book by Dr. Watts’ when I published what I have written on the subject.

Selected Sermons of Jonathan Edwards-A STRONG ROD BROKEN

 

98. God’s Awful Judgment. The manuscript of this sermon is dated, “On the occasion of the death of Col. Stoddard June 1748.” It consists of fifty-two pages of the usual size of Edwards’s manuscript sermons, but with the unusual feature of being written in double columns. The paper used was partly that of letters addressed to Edwards, the writing being in places across the address, and the stamp marks being removed; partly—about twenty pages—pieces of fine, soft paper, deep cut around the upper edges, believed to be scraps of the paper used by Mrs. Edwards and her daughters in making fans. The sermon is evidently written under high pressure, with few corrections, and reasonably fully. The title page of the first edition reads as follows: “A Strong Rod broken and withered. 

A Sermon Preached in Northampton, on the Lord’s Day, June 26. 1748 On the Death of The Honourable John Stoddard, Esq. Often a Member of his Majesty’s Council, For many Years Chief Justice of the Court of Common Pleas for the County of Hampshire, Judge of the Probate of Wills, and Chief Colonel of the Regiment, &c. Who died in Boston on June 19. 1748. in the 67th Year of his Age. By Jonathan Edwards A.M. Pastor of the first Church in Northampton. Dan. iv. 35—He doth according to his Will in the Army of Heaven, and among the inhabitants of the Earth; and none can stay his hand, or say unto Him, What dost thou? Boston Printed by Rogers and Fowle for J. Edwards in Cornhill 1748.” 

Colonel Stoddard was the eighth child and fourth son of the Rev. Solomon Stoddard, and therefore Edwards’s uncle on his mother’s side. He was a man of great prominence in all the leading affairs of the town, the county, and the colony. “His life,” says Trumbull (History of Northampton, Vol. II, p. 172), “was the connecting link between the two series of great leaders who controlled the affairs of Western Massachusetts for nearly a century and three-quarters. His predecessors were John Pynchon of Springfield and Samuel Partridge of Hatfield; following him came Joseph Hawley and Caleb Strong of Northampton, and these five men were the leaders in the Colony, the Province, and the State.” He was a stalwart upholder of royalty and the royal prerogative, and for this reason, had many opponents, but the general esteem in which he was held is evidenced by his many offices and by the fact that he was seventeen times reelected the representative of the county to the General Court. He was a valued friend of Governor Shirley, in connection with whom there is a characteristic story of him. He once called and asked to see the Governor when the latter had a party dining with him, but declined the servant’s invitation to come in. 

The company was surprised and shocked at what they regarded as an act of discourtesy to the chief magistrate. “What is the gentleman’s name?” asked the Governor. “I think,” replied the servant, “he told me his name was Stoddard.” “Is it?” said the Governor. “Excuse me, gentlemen, if it is Col. Stoddard, I must go to him.” (From Dwight’s Travels, Vol. I, p. 332, quoted by Trumbull, op. cit. p. 173.) His death removed one of Edwards’s strongest supporters and probably contributed to the tragic issue of the great controversy in which the preacher was now engaged. In this connection, it is interesting to find that Colonel Stoddard in 1736 helped to lay out the township of Stockbridge and that he had much to do toward establishing the mission to the Indians there, to the conduct of which Edwards was called after his dismissal from Northampton. Edwards’s sermon is a eulogy, but there is every reason to suppose that it gives on the whole a just impression of Stoddard’s character, services, and attainments. On him, see further Trumbull, op. cit. Vol. II, Chap. xiii. 

116. Present war. King George’s French and Indian War (1744-1748-9). As commander of the Hampshire forces, Colonel Stoddard directed the military operations in that part of the country until his death. Major Israel Williams of Hatfield, who later succeeded to the command, writing under the date of June 25, 1748, to Secretary Willard, says: “We are now like sheep without a shepherd... God has been pleased to take him (who was in a great measure our wisdom and strength and glory) from us at a time when we could least spare him.” (Trumbull, op. cit. Vol. II, p. 158.)