"Considered by many to be the greatest book by enormously influential American preacher and theologian JONATHAN EDWARDS (1703¿1758), this provocative 1754 work explores the necessity of God¿s grace for the salvaging of the damaged ¿will¿ of humanity and argues that free will is an extension of and connected to the grace of God. What is the nature of morality? Can God be evil? What constitutes sin? How does God¿s foreknowledge of all events impact concepts of morality? How does intent inform our acts of vice and virtue? Still controversial and hotly debated in the 21st century, this demanding evangelistic work¿some call it the best argument for the sovereignty of God¿is among the essential reading of the thinker whose philosophies inspired the 18th-century religious of the Great Awakening, which continues to hugely influence American Protestantism to this day. Freedom of the Will will enthrall and challenge serious readers of the Bible as well as students of theology¿s impact on American history. "

Jonathan Edwards is best known as the theologian of revival. In this, his major study on the theme, he analyses the nature of a genuine work of the Holy Spirit.

The following discourse is intended, not merely as an answer to any particular book written against the doctrine of Original Sin, but as a general defense of that great important doctrine. Nevertheless, I have in this defense taken notice of the main things said against this doctrine, by such of the more noted opposers of it as I have had opportunity to particularly those two late writers, Dr. Turnbull and Dr. Taylor, of Norwich; but especially the latter, in what he has published in those two books of his, the first entitled, The Scripture-Doctrine of Original Sin proposed to free and candid Examination; the other, his Key to the Apostolic Writings

"He was one of distinguished natural abilities, as all are sensible who had acquaintance with him. As a minister of the gospel, he was called to unusual services in that work; and his ministry was attended by very remarkable and unusual events ... He had a peculiar opportunity of acquaintance with the false appearances and counterfeits of religion; was the instrument of a most remarkable awakening ...In the following account, the reader will have an opportunity to see not only what were the external circumstances and remarkable incidents of the life of this person, and how he spent his time from day to day, as to his external behavior; but also what passed in his own heart." —Jonathan Edwards David Brainerd, an early missionary to the American Indians in New York, New Jersey, and eastern Pennsylvania, died in 1747 at the age of twenty-nine at the home of his long-time friend and supporter, the eminent Puritan theologian and preacher Jonathan Edwards. It is thanks to Edwards' careful preservation and thoughtful editing of his friend's Diary and Journal that Brainerd has influenced Christians all over the world for over 250 years. As he labored in what was still the untamed American frontier to bring the Gospel to the Indians, Brainerd faced many challenges, including depression, loneliness, and physical illness. Yet his genuine piety and single-minded devotion to God, both in heart and in practice, form a consistent backdrop to his turbulent inner world. This compilation offers a rare glimpse into the life of a man compelled by God to share His love with others in the most difficult of circumstances.

This volume contains two major works of Jonathan Edwards: an unpublished text of a series of sermons he preached in 1738, known as Charity and Its Fruits, and his Two Dissertations: I. Concerning the End for Which God Created the World and II. On the Nature of True Virtue, published posthumously in 1765. Together these writings set out the principles of Edwards’ ethical reflections. The text of the sermon series is drawn from three sources. The primary text is an early nineteenth-century transcription of Edwards’ sermon booklets now in the Andover-Newton Theological School’s collection. Passages published in Tyron Edwards’ 1852 edition, and partial transcriptions by Joseph Bellamy found in three fragments among his papers, have been used where the Andover copy is incomplete. The Bellamy fragments are reproduced in their entirety in a critical appendix, along with examples showing the editor’s use of the three sources in construing this definitive text for the Yale edition. End of Creation and True Virtue, intended by Edwards to be read together, are shown here to be closely related to Edwards’ other writings. Paul Ramsey’s introduction points out that Edwards returned again and again to these topics in his Miscellanies, where he identifies penultimate versions of both treatises and traces the development of Edwards’ ideas. Thus the reader is able to follow Edwards’ most profound reflections about God and the moral dimensions of his creations. This is one of the most wide-ranging theological and philosophical volumes projected in the Yale edition. The Editor’s Introduction gives a systematic analysis of the theological ethics to be found in these writings and of Edwards’ esteem for the splendor of common morality. Appendices exploring the “moral sense” school, “infused” virtue in Edwards and Calvin, and Edwards’ belief in the never ending increase of holiness and happiness in heaven complete the volume.

The scope of Jonathan Edwards’ book, A History of the Work of Redemption, is vast. From a deep extensive knowledge of Scripture, Jonathan Edwards sets out to survey the whole of the redemptive work of God in history, from the Fall of man to the consummation of all things. A thrilling conclusion Everything in human history from start to finish is subservient to Christ’s work of redemption. Not only can nothing thwart that work, but, in the wisdom of God, all that comes to pass actually serves to advance it. In a series of thirty sermons preached in Northampton, New England, in 1739, Edwards sought to establish his congregation in this mighty truth. Later in his ministry he hoped to write a book expounding the same theme, and was even reluctant to accept the presidency of Princeton College for fear this project would be hindered. Although he did not live to carry out his intention, we can see the substance of what the intended book would have contained in this new edition of the sermons of 1739. Here readers can catch Edward’s vision of the mighty advance of the cause of Christ in the world, and gain encouragement for all gospel labours from the certainty of its triumph.

This volume presents for the first time a comprehensive, readable, and annotated text of the key typological notebooks of Jonathan Edwards: "Images of Divine Things, " "Types Notebook, " and Miscellany 1069, "Types of the Messiah." These three works illustrate the way the eminent eighteenth-century theologian developed his theory of typological exegesis, a theory that helped him to understand the relationship between the Old and New Testaments and to comprehend the correspondence between the natural and the spiritual worlds. Edwards' theories of typology have long fascinated scholars from a variety of fields and have dominated literary studies of his work. These documents illuminate Edwards' epistemology and show clearly his involvement in contemporary philosophical and exegetical trends. Introductions to the documents place Edwards' typology within the context of his period, describe his typological practices, clarify some of the complex problems posed by his ambiguous use of the types throughout his career, and discuss his philosophical defenses of typologizing against the claims of materialists, deists, and rationalists.

In this collection of writings drawn from Jonathan Edwards' essays and topical notebooks, the great American theologian deals with key Christian doctrines including the Trinity, grace, and faith. The volume includes long-established pieces in the Edwards canon, newly reedited from the original manuscripts, as well as documents that have never before been published and that in some cases reveal new aspects of his theology.

This wide-ranging volume covers the final fifteen of the thirty-three years that Jonathan Edwards preached and includes some of his greatest sermons—including his Farewell Sermons to his Northampton congregation. The period is defined by Edwards' inventive strategies to improvise during the delivery of his sermons. Considering dependence on the written text in the pulpit to be a serious failing, he devised a double-columned, outlined format for his sermon manuscripts and continued to use it for the rest of his life. Sermons from this period also include those preached to Mahican and Mohawk Indians at the mission post of Stockbridge, Massachusetts. Edwards’ various writings of 1743–58 map the complex terrain of his spiritual, intellectual, and professional life after the Great Awakening. He deals with topics ranging from the spiritual role of youth in the community to the struggles over communion in his Northampton congregation to the war with the French and their Indian allies.