29 January 2007

God Glorified (according to Simonson)

Harold Simonson paraphrases from the first person perspective what Edwards was announcing to the (increasingly Arminian) clerical elite before whom Edwards preached "God Glorified in Man's Dependence" in 1731 at age 28. This sermon was the one that launched him into the public sphere of New England.

Let there be no mistake about the position I will henceforth take, Edwards said in effect. The doctrines I will preach are living and intoxicating because they arise from experiential knowledge. Supreme among these doctrines is the one affirming an inscrutable, immutable Deity for adoration, not for mere speculation. Let us never forget that our relationship with the Deity, who is under no obligation to us, is at best a relationship of dependence, regardless of what our works and reason say to the contrary.

--Jonathan Edwards: Theologian of the Heart, p. 36.

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