The Young Jonathan Edwards

“Being sensible that I am unable to do any thing without God’s help, I do humbly entreat him, by his grace, to enable me to keep these Resolutions, so far as they are agreeable to his will, for Christ’s sake. Remember to read over these Resolutions once a week. 1. Resolved, That I will do whatsoever I think to be most to the glory of God, and my own good, profit, and pleasure, in the whole of my duration; without any consideration of the time, whether now, or never so many myriads of ages hence. Resolved, to do whatever I think to be my duty, and most for the good and advantage of mankind in general. Resolved, so to do, whatever difficulties I meet with, how many soever, and how great soever. 2. Resolved, To be continually endeavouring to find out some new contrivance and invention to promote the forementioned things. 3. Resolved, If ever I shall fall and grow dull, so as to neglect to keep any part of these Resolutions, to repent of all I can remember, when I come to myself again. 4. Resolved, Never to do any manner of thing, whether in soul or body, less or more, but what tends to the glory of God, nor be, nor suffer it, if I can possibly avoid it. 5. Resolved, Never to lose one moment of time, but to improve it in the most profitable way I possibly can. 6. Resolved, To live with all my might, while I do live....

In his 1955 examination of Jonathan Edwards' formative years, Morris undertook a corrective of the prevailing view of Edwards' relation to John Locke. The result is an analysis of the intellectual milieu inhabited by Edwards during the years in which his philosophical vocabulary and his seminal theological concepts evolved. Long an unpublished dissertation, this massive work reflects that most unusual combination of being a pioneering exploration and, most likely, a definitive evaluation. Dr. Kenneth Minkema, Executive Director of the Jonathan Edwards Center, Yale University Other scholars have filled in our picture of Jonathan Edwards' mental world, adding new shades, hues and detail to our view of the young theologian. But no one matches William Morris's Young Jonathan Edwards for comprehension and virtuosity. His study is as rewarding as it is challenging. The Jonathan Edwards Center at Yale University deserves our thanks for bringing this masterpiece back to us. Douglas A. Sweeney, Trinity Evangelical Divinity School Written at the onset of the academic recovery of Jonathan Edwards, William Morris's Chicago dissertation remains the best record of the young Edwards from his years at home and at Yale to his months at the Scots Presbyterian Church in New York, altogether an extensive reconstruction of how he came to think the way he did. That it will be widely available now is a welcome recovery in itself. - M.X. Lesser, Emeritus, Northeastern University William Sparkes Morris wrote The Young Jonathan Edwards as a dissertation at the University of Chicago and completed it in 1955. His dissertation was originally published in 1991 as part of the Chicago Studies in the History of American Religion, edited by Martin Mary and Jerald C. Brauer. Morris died in 1983 at the age of 67.

This compilation of sermons contains thirteen sermons Edwards addressed to children and young adults. Also included is a list of Bible questions for children that Edwards expected his young people to know. For the most part, these messages focus on the importance of obedience, discipline, and seeking God.

Jonathan Edwards lived at a time when many ideas about the world, life, and God were being questioned seriously for the first time in centuries, and his answers to them have left a mark on the way we think today. While he is often remembered as the preacher of a scary sermon about a spider dangling over a fire, he remains significant as one of the greatest thinkers America has produced. Simonetta Carr traces the events of Edwards's life from a young student interested in science to husband and father, pastor, leader of the Great Awakening, missionary, writer, and college president. Colorful illustrations, interesting facts, and a compelling story combine to introduce young readers to this important theologian and life in colonial America.

This book offers a broad-based study of Jonathan Edwards as a religious thinker. Much attention has been given to Edwards in relation to his Puritan and Calvinist forebears. McClymond, however, examines Edwards in relation to his eighteenth-century intellectual context. In each of six chapters, he contextualizes and interprets some text or issue in Edwards within the emergent post-Lockean, post-Newtonian culture of the English-speaking world of the 1700s. Among the topics considered are spiritual perception, metaphysics, contemplation, ethics and morality, and apologetics.

Jonathan Edwards, a Puritan pastor in Colonial America, is remembered for his theological works, his role in the Great Awakening, and his fiery sermons. But Edwards' chief characteristic was his passion for God's glory. That pursuit was guided by seventy resolutions that Edwards set to paper as a young man. In those resolutions, Edwards expressed steely determination combined with heartfelt reliance on divine grace to order his life in ways that were pleasing to God and fruitful for His kingdom on earth. In The Unwavering Resolve of Jonathan Edwards, Dr. Steven Lawson delves into Edwards' writings to uncover the practical ways that Edwards sought to fulfill his resolutions. He then exhorts Christians of today to do likewise, living for God's glory with resolute passion. This book is part of the Long Line of Godly Men Profile series, edited by Dr. Steven Lawson.