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The Works of Jonathan Edwards
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Jonathan Edwards - The History of Redemption
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Nathan
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Jan 17, 2017 04:22AM
Taking my time through this Covenantal gem buried near the back of Volume 1 of the 2 volume collected works. Banner of Truth hardback edition. Cannot recommend this enough as a guide to God's eternal plan! You must concentrate with his long sentence structure but well worth it.
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I've been through this book twice. He really did an incredible job with the subject! But I had to read the single volume Banner edition of this work. I used to have the two volumes of his works, but I just couldn't read the small print.
Speaking of small text...I read somewhere that Edwards was kept on such a tiny stipend that he could barely afford to furnish himself with paper for his writing. Consequently he wrote everything in minuscule handwriting, filling a page to the very edges, then rotating it 90 degrees and writing across his own scribbles like woven cloth. front and back of every page. In this manner he produced. And the body of his work was very nearly thrown out by the church when discovered because nobody could read it!
It's true. I was at the Beineke Library at Yale and actually held many of his sermons in the palm of my hand. I could pick out a word here and there, but that's about all. One of the guys I was with is part of the 'decoding project', as I call it. He attempts to transcribe unpublished manuscripts. The neat thing is that anyone can be a part of that. Well, anyone except me. You can also go to http://edwards.yale.edu/ and view all his original manuscripts. But even being able to enlarge them, I was still at a loss. Thank God for those who have that ability!
It's an extreme case of what my baby boomer father calls False Economy. Imagine how many people have been blessed by Edwards' teaching and sermons over the years and we may have lost it all due to penny-pinching parishoners.It's certainly a far cry from today's Superstar / Pastor / Author industry, isn't it? I know we're not supposed to name living theologians here in the DTS, so I'll just say most of these not yet departed guys make more from their annual ghost-written book than Edwards probably made in his entire life of faithful pastoring that flock.
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Edwards did all right when it came to a pastor's salary. His books didn't sell as well because getting published back in his day took time. And his publisher was a bit absent minded, oftentimes receiving a manuscript from Edwards and not doing anything with it for months! Since we are on the subject of his books, I would take the opportunity to recommend his Personal Letters, Yale pub. It's the only book I was willing to pay full price to have, but it was well worth it! It brings him down to earth, and shows you that even a man with his piety and brilliance was still, after all, just a man saved by same grace of God that you and I are.
