Sermons by Jonathan Edwards on the Matthean Parables ed. by Kenneth P. Minkema and Adriaan C. Neele (review)

These books are the second and third collections of sermon series by Jonathan Edwards on Matthean parables. Both contain the same introduction by Wilson Kimnach, also found in volume 1. This gives a good introduction to Edwards’s understanding of preaching and surveys how his approach changed over the course of his preaching career.

The six sermons in volume 2, subtitled Divine Husbandman (On the Parable of the Sower and the Seed) are based on Matthew 13:3–7. The well-written “Introduction: Historical Context” by Kenneth Minkema and Adriaan Neele locates Edwards’s sermons within the tradition of sermon series on the Parable of the Sower, events of Edwards’s time, and his own career as a pastor, preacher, and theologian. Edwards preached this series in Northampton in the fall of 1740 after George Whitefield had visited and moved Edwards’s parishioners with his preaching. In these sermons Edwards reflects on the calling and tasks of a preacher and the nature of true conversion.

According to Edwards, a “faithful minister is careful to give to everyone his portion of meat” (35), accommodating his preaching to the differing circumstances, intellectual level, and sensibilities of members of his congregations. Edwards seems to have been thinking here of the different kinds of exhortation suitable for various members of his congregation. Later on he compares them to the different kinds of soil mentioned in the parable. When I read where Edwards states in one sermon that he would have more hope of success preaching to Sodom than to his parishioners at Northampton (49), it seemed to me no wonder that a few years later they voted to have him leave. Edwards distinguishes clergy from lay people by their special calling, yet also unites them, noting that they share a common nature (37). Throughout, Edwards proves himself an able critic of religion, as he repeatedly calls his hearers to self-examination regarding the depth and sincerity of their conversion, and distinguishes between true and false religion. False Christians are interested in God for what God can do for them. True Christians value God’s goodness and love for the beauty of each, regardless of how it may benefit them.

Volume 3, Fish out of Their Element (on the Parable of the Net) was a series of eleven or twelve sermons preached between May and July 1746, based on Matthew 13:47–50. The situation in which these sermons were preached is also excellently sketched in the “Introduction: The Historical Context,” by Kenneth Minkema and Adriaan Neele. These sermons were preached as Edwards was completing his Religious Affections, where he developed his critique of religion at length. According to Edwards, people are by nature sinners. They are in their element in the pursuit of worldly pleasures, honour, or wealth (23). Jesus Christ “seizes sinners while swimming in this element … and by his power draws them out” of it (47–48). This change is the result of an intervention by God. It goes against peoples’ wills as they are sinners, and yet it is agreeable to them as they are converted (48). For Edwards, people are born sinful, and our hearts must be broken for us to accept Christ with true humility. Yet he always gives his parishioners hope, pointing them to Christ, who bore “extreme grief and suffered rage, that sinners might be free” (87).

But this is not simply a one-way street. Edwards notes that “Christ mystical is not complete without [the Church], Eph. 1.23” (58). It is through the Church that God’s “inclination to communicate [his happiness and love] will be perfectly gratified” (65). While Edwards affirms the transcendence, sovereignty, and aseity of God, he also notes in...