Jonathan Edwards and George marsden and god glorified in man's dependence and 1731 and northampton and isaac watts

Jonathan Edwards was called to be his grandfather Solomon Stoddard's pastoral assistant in Northampton, MA late in 1726. His marriage to Sarah Pierpont in July 1727, combined with his new pastoral duties, provided a stability in family and personal life that allowed him scope to develop a pastoral style and theological taste that would guide him in ministry. This essay probes the way Edwards established that style through three interlocking ideas: (1) establishing a pastoral rhythm; (2) the quest for vital piety; and (3) bringing "orderly" singing into worship. Marsden is my guide on these points, and he is becoming an enjoyable and instructive mentor as he fully gets his footing under him.

Edwards Pastoral "Rhythm"

Every job has its unique demands, but most jobs allow enough personal creativity so that a person may put his/her "stamp" on the job. Edwards did so for pastoral ministry. His "day" was normally a 13-hour day, beginning at about 4 or 5 a.m. and continuing through until about 5 or 6 p.m., with breaks for an occasional walk or physical activity (cutting wood) or meal. However, a diary entry from 1734 tells us his priorities: "I judge that it is best, when I am in a good frame for divine contemplation, or engaged in reading the Scriptures, or any study of divine subjects, that ordinarily, I will not be interrupted by going to dinner [midday meal], but will forego my dinner, rather than be broke off" (Marsden, 135). Because he didn't perceive his "gifts" to lie in counseling or meeting the congregation, he would spend little time for this, though he would make himself available for counseling on spiritual things.

His "day" consisted of four kinds of activities: (1) personal devotions and prayers; (2) sermon preparation and writing; (3) broader Scripture study, with copious unrefined notes; and (4) study of contemporary philosophers and theologians. By 1730 he had articulated a very ambitious life goal: "To shew how all arts and sciences, the more they are perfected, the more they issue in divinity, and coincide with it, and appear to be parts of it..." (Marsden, 134). Thus, his interest was not simply in penning what we might call a systematic theology. He had much wider, even polymathic interests. His "breakthrough" in being recognized by the Boston clergy came through an address in Boston in July 1731 entitled "God Glorified in Man's Dependence," which still reads today as a model of clear and vital piety.

Edwards and "Vital Evangelical Piety"

From his earliest writings while "supply" pastor in NYC (1722-23), we see Edwards entranced by the beauties of nature as he develops a theological vocabulary filled with words such as "sweetness" or "delight" or "affections"--language showing how his heart is getting caught up into the realities he feels. But Marsden shows, though not thoroughly enough, that in Northampton Edwards eschewed the way of the more "modern" English/Boston theologians in speaking of the moral life of humans (i.e., stressing human capability in moving toward salvation), and adopted a commitment to an (international) movement stressing the importance of the affections and earning him Marsden's moniker of Reformed Evangelical or Calvinistic Evangelical. Marsden mentions that the philosophy of those speaking of religious affections or vital piety was informed by the thought of Cambridge Platonist Henry More, but there is less about More than is desirable. Maybe Marsden will pick up the theme later, but since the affections will be a central concept for Edwards, it would have been helpful to me had Marsden here showed Edwards' intellectual pedigree in picking up this theme in more precision and detail. For example, how do we know that Edwards discovery of the role of vital piety wasn't also influenced by the Pietist movement of the 17th century, mediated by German immigrants he must have met while in NYC?

Singing a New Song

The most exciting part of Marsden's treatment of Edwards' early Northampton years, however, is his discussion of the way that the "vital piety" people were embracing the new movement in hymn singing led by the English author and hymnologist Isaac Watts. Prior to Watts (early 18th century), Protestant hymn-singing was of Psalms set to meter and led by a precentor who "got things rolling" by setting the tune, singing the first line and having the congregation join in. However, there was nothing to keep people from ranging all over the musical spectrum, so to speak, or even in singing "York" rather than "St. David's (to mention two hymn tunes) as they sung. The result was a rather disorderly chaos of sound, which could only charitably be designated a 'joyful noise to the Lord.' What Watts did was to "paraphrase" Psalms for hymnody, bringing in rhyme and setting his music in three or four parts with precise notes so that orderly form in singing would result. The congregation, indeed, could become a choir.

It was new learning for me to discover that in pushing for this method of hymn-singing (and indeed, hymns and not simply Psalms would be sung), Edwards and others were igniting a so-called "singing controversy" in New England. Reformed pastors such as Benjamin Colman at the famed Brattle Street Church (Cambridge) and the Mathers (Increase and Cotton) endorsed this new way of singing. Opposition to this "regular" singing [i.e., singing according to this "rule"] emerged primarily from lay people who seemed to like the old style just fine and, by the way, had Puritan precedent on their side. As Marsden says, however, those who supported the new method were convinced that "orderly harmonies were supremely rational, but like much else in true religion, rational harmonies pointed to God's beauty and were ultimately designed to move the affections" (144).

Conclusion

By his 30th birthday, then, in October 1733, Edwards had already made a name for himself in the colonies, as well as established a style that would soon lead to a veritable flood of publications. But, in the meantime, there was a most surprising and gratifying "movement" of the Spirit of God in Northampton. The next essay relates that.

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