By the Same Spirit: Edwardsean Pneumatology in the Younger Edwards

Abstract

Jonathan Edwards Jr. (1745–1801) is often portrayed as a spiritless preacher who drove away his congregation with metaphysical abstractions. Accordingly, this received caricature describes Edwards Jr. as distorting the Edwardsean legacy. This negative caricature of Edwards Jr was produced by the early liberalism of the civil war era and has stuck to Edwards Jr. for nearly two hundred years. This thesis provides a greater interaction with the sources, taking into account his upbringing, awakening, tragedy, and pastoral challenges. Notably, Edwards Jr.’s Sermon on the Mount Manuscripts, which cover his whole thirty-year pulpit ministry, are found to be strongly reliant upon his father’s Religious Affections. Furthermore, Edwards Jr.’s systematic theology of the Holy Spirit demonstrates a received pneumatology which is essentially the same as his father’s system. From primary documents this thesis demonstrates how the younger Edwards’s place is relevant to Edwardsean study.