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‘That good and
sensible man…that great man’.
JOHN WESLEY, Works, vol.10, 1831, pp. 463 and 475
‘Mr. Edwards is a
solid, excellent Christian…I think I have not seen his fellow in all New
England’.
GEORGE WHITEFIELD Journals, October 17, 1740
‘The profoundest
reasoner, and the greatest divine, in my opinion, that America ever
produced’.
SAMUEL DAVIES in a Farewell Sermon at Hanover, Virginia, July 1,
1759, Sermons on Important Subjects, S. Davies, 1824,
Vol.4, pp. 456-7
‘He was, in the
estimation of the writer, one of the most holy, humble and heavenly
minded men, that the world has seen, since the apostolic age’.
ASHBEL GREEN, President of the College of New Jersey, in
Discourses Delivered in the College of New Jersey, 1822, p.317
‘The British Isles
have produced no such writers on divinity in the eighteenth century as
Dickinson and Edwards’.
JOHN ERSKINE, quoted in The Biblical Repertory and Princeton
Review, 1871, p. 98
‘The greatest, wisest,
humblest and holiest of uninspired men’.
A note in John Collett Ryland’s copy of Hopkins’ Life of Edwards,
quoted in The Three Rylands, James Culross, 1897, p. 96 fn
‘Jonathan Edwards
unites comprehensiveness of view, with minuteness of investigation,
beyond any writer I am acquainted with. He was the greatest of the sons
of men. He has none of the graces of writing, I admit: he was acquainted
with no grace but divine.’
ROBERT HALL, Works, Vol. 1, 1866, p.175
‘We cannot take leave
of Edwards, without testifying the whole extent of the reverence that we
bear him. The American divine affords, perhaps, the most wondrous
example in modern times, of one who stood richly gifted both in natural
and spiritual discernment – and we know not what most to admire in him,
whether the deep philosophy that issued from his pen, or the humble and
child-like piety that issued from his pulpit…As the philosopher he could
discern, and discern truly, between the sterling and the counterfeit in
Christianity – still it was as the humble and devoted pastor that
Christianity was made, or Christianity was multiplied, in his hands.’
THOMAS CHALMERS, Works, Vol.14, pp. 316-1 7
‘Never was there a
happier combination of great power with great piety.’
THOMAS CHALMERS, quoted by G. D. Henderson in ‘Jonathan Edwards
and Scotland’, The Evangelical Quarterly, January 1944
‘We have in our annals
no clearer, more transparent, more impressive illustration of an entire
consecration of genius and greatness to the promotion of the Christian
faith.’
EGBERT C. SMYTH, The Congregationalist and Christian World, 3
October 1903, p.458
‘He was distinctly a
great man. He did not merely express the thought of his time, or meet it
simply in the spirit of his tradition. He stemmed it and moulded it…His
time does not explain him.’
F. J. E. WOODBRIDGE, The Philosophical Review, xiii, 1904, p.405
‘Jonathan Edwards
changed what I may call the centre of thought in American theological
thinking…More than to any other man, to Edwards is due the importance
which, in American Christianity, is attributed to the conscious
experience of the penitent sinner, as he passes into the membership of
the Invisible Church...The man we so often call our greatest American
Divine…was indeed inexpressibly great in his intellectual endowment, in
his theological achievement, in his continuing influence. He was
greatest in his attribute of regnant, permeating, irradiating
spirituality. It is at once a present beatitude and an omen of future
good that, in these days of pride in wealth and all that wealth means,
of pride in the fashion of this world which passeth away, we still in
our heart of hearts reserve the highest honor for the great American who
lived and moved and had his being in the Universe which is unseen and
eternal.’
JOHN DE WITT, ‘Jonathan Edwards: A Study’ in Biblical and
Theological Studies by Members of the Faculty of Princeton
Theological Seminary, 1912, pp. 130 and 136
‘Jonathan Edwards,
saint and metaphysician, revivalist and theologian, stands out as the
one figure of real greatness in the intellectual life of colonial
America.’
BENJAMIN B. WARFIELD, Studies in Theology, 1932, p.517
‘No man is more
relevant to the present condition of Christianity than Jonathan
Edwards…He was a mighty theologian and a great evangelist at the same
time…He was pre-eminently the theologian of revival. If you want to know
anything about true revival, Edwards is the man to consult. Revivals
have often started as the result of people reading volumes such as these
two volumes of Edwards’ Works.’
D. MARTYN LLOYD-JONES in The Puritan Experiment in the New
World, The Westminster Conference Papers, 1976, p.103 ff. |
