Selected Sermons of Jonathan Edwards

by Jonathan Edwards

RUTH’S RESOLUTION

45. Ruth’s Resolution. This sermon was one of five “Discourses on Various Important Subjects, Nearly concerning the great Affair of the Soul’s Eternal Salvation: viz. I. Justification by Faith Alone. II. Pressing into the Kingdom of God. III. Ruth’s Resolution. IV. The Justice of God in the Damnation of Sinners. V. The Excellency of Jesus Christ. Delivered in Northampton, chiefly in the time of the late wonderful pouring out of the Spirit of God there. By Jonathan Edwards A.M. Pastor of the Church of Christ in Northampton. Deut. iv. 8 [9]—Take heed to thyself, and keep thy soul diligently, lest thou forget the things which thine eyes have seen, and lest they depart from thy heart all the days of thy life. Boston: Printed and sold by S. Kneeland and T. Green, in Queen Street over against the Prison. MDCCXXXVIII.” The first four of these discourses were preached during the revival of 1734-1735 and were selected by the desire of the people as those from which they had derived special benefit; the fifth was selected by Edwards himself at the request of some persons from a neighboring town who heard it, and because he thought that a sermon on the excellency of Christ might appropriately follow the others, which were of an awakening character. They were prefixed to the American reprint of the Narrative of Surprising Conversions, which was first published in England. The cost of their publication was defrayed by the congregation,—a clear evidence of their deep interest, as they were at the time heavily burdened by the expenses of the new meeting-house. See Dwight, Life of Edwards, pp. 140 f.; cf. n. here following, p. [162].

The sermon on Ruth’s Resolution has been selected as the shortest of the above discourses to illustrate a type of revival sermon in marked contrast to the sermon on Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God. They all, however, bear out Edwards’s own testimony concerning his preaching: “I have not only endeavored to awaken you, that you might be moved with fear, but I have used my utmost endeavors to win you” (Farewell Sermon). The manuscript of the sermon is dated April, 1735, and it seems to have been printed very nearly as it was written.

THE MANY MANSIONS

59. The Many Mansions. The Ms. of this hitherto unpublished sermon is dated, “The Sabbath after the seating of the New Meeting House, Dec. 25, 1737.” The occasion was one of special interest to the people of Northampton. The old meeting-house, erected in 1661, had become too small for the congregation and dangerously dilapidated; in fact, on a Sunday in March in the year the new building was completed, while Edwards was preaching, just after he had “laid down his doctrines” from the text, “Behold, ye despisers, wonder and perish,” the front gallery, “with a noise like a clap of thunder,” suddenly and dramatically fell. Fortunately—by a special providence, it seemed to Edwards—no one of the hundred and fifty persons, more or less, involved in the catastrophe perished, or even had a bone broken, and only ten were hurt “so as to make any great matter of it.” But the event showed that the building of a new meeting-house had been undertaken none too soon. The question of this new building had been brought forward in the town meeting of the spring of 1733, but it was first decided on in November, 1735, determined in part, no doubt, by the great revival of that year, when sixty, eighty, and a hundred were received into the church on successive communions. It then took two years to complete the structure. Incidentally, sixty-nine gallons of rum, besides numerous barrels of “cyder” and beer, were consumed by the workmen during the erection of the framework alone. Sixty men were engaged at 5s. a day for this part of the work, “they keeping themselves”—as Deacon Hunt’s journal has it—“excepting drinks.”

When the building, like several others of the period, a commodious, oblong structure with a tower, belfry and weather-cock vane at one end of it, was nearly finished, the important matter of seating the congregation was taken up. This also was an affair of the town. It had already been decided at the annual town meeting in the spring to have pews along the walls and “seats” or benches only on both sides of the “alley” (broad aisle). The actual plan of the sittings, still extant, shows pews also around the benches on the floor, separated from the wall-pews by the narrow aisles, and five pews in the gallery. These pews were of the high, square variety, with seats on hinges, and were evidently regarded as places of superior dignity. Towards the end of the year, the town held a series of meetings with especial reference to the seating. The question of primary importance concerned the apportioning of the sittings according to social rank. At the meeting in November, a committee of five of the most prominent citizens was instructed to draw up “their Scheam or Platt for Seating of the meeting House and present it to the Town” for approval. The following month the committee was further instructed by the following votes:

“1. Voted That in Seating the new meeting House the committee have Respect principally to men’s estate.

“2. To have Regard to men’s Age.

“3. Voted that some Regard and Respect [be paid] to men’s usefullness, but in a less Degree.” And that no mistake should be made, a committee of six was appointed to “estimate the pews and seats,” that is, to “dignify” or appraise their social value.

Another connected question concerned the seating of the sexes. At the meeting in November, it was voted that males should be at the south, females at the north, end; the men at the right of the pulpit, the women at the left. At the first meeting in December the town distinctly refused to allow men and their wives to sit together. But this was clearly opposed to the sentiment of some of the more influential members of the community, for at the adjourned meeting four days later, when “The Question was put whether the Committee be forbidden to Seat men & their wives together, Especially Such as Incline to Sit together: It passed in the Negative.” Under this indirect and qualified authorization, married people were for the most part seated together in the pews, but apart on the benches, while in some cases the husband was assigned to a pew and the wife to a bench.