by Harry S. Stout. Jonathan Edwards Professor of History, Religious Studies, and American Studies, Yale University
Why is Jonathan Edwards universally regarded as America’s greatest Protestant preacher?
Part of the reason, known to every school child, is that he preached America’s greatest sermon. "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God" has appeared in virtually every anthology of American literature for the past century, and often stands alone as the only sermon included in the text. Even the video-hardened youth of today blanche at the graphic language and exquisite imagery Edwards employed to vivify the horrors of hell. But their reaction pales in comparison to the dread it inspired in the hearts of Edwards’s contemporary listeners, adults and children alike. Add to that Edwards’s certainty that a significant portion of his hearers were, indeed, going to hell, and you have all the marks of the quintessential "fire and brimstone" sermon.
But Edwards the preacher was about far more than fire and brimstone. Yes, hell was a real place in Edwards’s mind, and therefore worthy of continual warning to avoid it at all costs. But this was emphatically not the subject that preoccupied his thoughts and visions. "Heaven" and "love" were the two most important words in Edwards’s sermons and he struggled weekly to bring those realities into the consciousness of his hearers. Edwards was far more concerned that his congregation come to a saving knowledge of God through an awareness of the beauty of God’s great and powerful redemptive love for them. Even a cursory scan of the titles of Edwards’ sermons will make this point forcefully.
Besides being a great preacher, Edwards was also a great writer, and so sermons that he composed three hundred years ago continue to bear the mark of a literary artist, as unique in his own realm as Milton was with verse or Mozart, Edwards’ contemporary, was with music. If not the most spell-binding orator of his age (that accolade certainly goes to George Whitefield), Edwards was among the greatest sermon composers of his age. Through thousands of closely scribbled pages of text, composed over decades of weekly preaching, Edwards etched words of literary brilliance and spiritual depth that continue to impress the scholar and inspire the believer.
For further bibliographic resources:
• The Sermons of Jonathan Edwards: A Reader
• The New England Soul: Preaching and Religious Culture in Colonial New England by Harry S. Stout
