The Other Jonathan Edwards by Gerald McDermott & Ronald Story

Author:Gerald McDermott & Ronald Story
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: University of Massachusetts Press

10

Sermon: “Long-Suffering and Kindness” (1738)

Edwards preached “Long-Suffering and Kindness” as part of the Charity and Its Fruits series he delivered in mid-1738 on I Corinthians 13. The sermon reprised many of his earlier appeals for charity and social harmony, stressing in particular the importance of bearing injuries and insults without retaliating or harboring grudges. He devoted part of the sermon to explaining what injuries especially concerned him, beginning, as usual, with the kinds of economic damage—fraud, deception, oppressing the needy, refusing to settle debts or fulfill agreements—that people would be likely to perpetrate at all social levels of a trading town or province.

He also addressed other forms of injury at some length, mostly involving what later generations would call “hurting words”: unfair criticism, false gossip, deliberate misrepresentations, uncharitable judging, open contempt. Taverns (Northampton and its environs had several) were one source of this kind of hurtful talk, but it also stemmed from the arrogance of authorities, the resentment of those under them, an unwillingness to compromise, and sheer negative attitudes. Hurting words, said Edwards, trigger a desire for revenge that prompts yet more desire for revenge and eventually a hatred that can last indefinitely. The use of “tongues as weapons” does lasting damage, making it all the harder to love one another as Christians should.

Respond instead, counseled Edwards, with meekness and humility in the spirit of Christ. Control your “inward” passions of ill will, remain serene, move the community closer to holy peace. Also, said Edwards, who was possibly his era’s most acute student of human psychology, it will protect you from the psychic pain of a disturbed mind and a bitter heart.

“Long-Suffering and Kindness” contained familiar Edwardsean preaching devices—a string of objections and answers, for example, and illustrations from scripture, including, as was common with Edwards, Christ as an ethical model. The sermon relied heavily on appeals to parishioners’ common sense and personal experience rather than on the judgment of God. It also acknowledged the value of civil law in protecting people from harm—tacit recognition that the words of ministers will not penetrate everyone.

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