58 The Colonial and Revolutionary PeriodsThe case is more complicated, however, with the greatest American embodiment
of faith in the eighteenth century, Jonathan Edwards (1703–1758). Edwards was
born in East Windsor, Connecticut. His father and grandfather were both clergy-
men and, even before he went to college, he had decided to follow their example: not
least, because, as he discloses in his Personal Narrative, written some time after 1739,
he had felt “a sense of the glorious majesty and grace of God.” After that, Edwards
explains, “the appearance of everything was altered” since “there seemed to be ... a
calm, sweet cast, or appearance of divine glory, in almost everything.” He felt com-
pelled to meditate, “to sit and view the moon ... the clouds and the sky,” “to behold
the sweet glory of God in these things,” as he puts it, “in the meantime, singing
forth, with a low voice my contemplations of the Creator and Redeemer.” He also
felt compelled to review and discipline the conduct of his life. Some time in
1722–1723, he composed seventy Resolutions designed to improve himself in the
light of his faith. “Being sensible that I am unable to do anything without God’s
help,” he wrote at the start of them, “I do humbly entreat him by his grace, to keep
these Resolutions, so far as they are agreeable to his will, for Christ’s sake.” What
follows very much reflects the old New England habit of seeing death as the defin-
ing, determining event of life. This is a self-help manual of a special kind, shaped by
a belief in human impotence and a profound sense of mortality. The experience of
conversion confirmed what Edwards had, in any event, learned from his deeply
orthodox religious upbringing: that God was the ground and center, not only of
faith, but of all conduct and existence.
Further confirmation came when Edwards moved to Northampton, Massachusetts
to become pastor there. In 1734 he preached a number of sermons stressing the
passivity of the convert before the all-powerful offer of grace from God; and the
sermons provoked a strong reaction among many of his congregation, who appeared
to experience exactly the kind of radical conversion Edwards was preaching about
and had himself undergone. Encouraged to prepare an account of this awakening of
faith in his community, Edwards wrote a pamphlet that then became a book,
A Faithful Narrative of the Surprising Work of God, published in 1737. “Some under
Great Terrors of Conscience have had Impressions on their Imaginations,” Edwards
reported; “they have had ... Ideas of Christ shedding blood for sinners, his blood
Running from his veins.” But, then, having been convinced of their guilt and damna-
tion, and resigning themselves to God’s justice, these same people discovered as
Edwards had the power of God’s grace. Anticipating the Great Awakening that was
to sweep through many parts of the American colonies in the next few years, the
Northampton congregation, many of them, found themselves born again, into a
new life grounded in “the beauty and excellency of Christ” just as their pastor had
been before them.
Both his own personal experience, then, and the “surprising” conversions among
his congregation, were enough to convince Edwards of the supreme importance of
divine grace and human faith. But that did not make him averse to science and
systematic thinking. On the contrary, he made his own contribution to the
philosophical debates of the time. In A Treatise Concerning Religious AffectionsGGray_c01.indd 58ray_c 01 .indd 58 8 8/1/2011 7:54:56 AM/ 1 / 2011 7 : 54 : 56 AM