Thoughts on Revival in Vol I of the Works - Edwards - IX - Part IV concluded

Required readingThoughts on Revival in Volume I of the Works by Jonathan Edwards (Available from Amazon or free here) - Conclude Part IV by reading Sections IV, V and VI.

My summary.

This week Edwards finishes discussing errors that have attended the great revival of religion.

These last three errors are:

(i) censuring others as unconverted (particularly those ministers who appear cold and lifeless or those who have opposed the revivals);

(ii) lay-exhorting (particularly those who assume ministerial authority);

(iii) singing praises to God without almost any appearance of that reverence and solemnity with which all visible, open acts of divine worship ought to be attended;

What grabbed me

I appreciated Edwards' rebuke of those who judge certain ministers as cold: 'Some have been ready to censure ministers because they seem, in comparison of some other ministers, to be very cold and lifeless in their ministerial performances. But then it should be considered, that, for ought we know, God may hereafter raise up ministers of so much more excellent and heavenly qualifications, and so much more spiritual and divine in their performances, that there may appear as great a difference between them, and those who now seem the most lively, as there is now between them, and others that are called dead and sapless. And those that are now called lively ministers may appear to their hearers, when they compare them with others who shall excel them, as wretchedly mean, and their performances poor, dead, dry things; and many may be ready to be prejudiced against them, as accounting them good for nothing, and, it may be, calling them soul-murderers. What a poor figure may we suppose the most lively of us, and those that are most admired by the people, make in the eyes of one of the saints of heaven, any otherwise than as their deadness, deformity, and rottenness is hid by the veil of Christ's righteousness!'

All ministers are not as warm as they could be!

Next week's reading

Commence Part V by reading Sections I and II.

Now it's your turn
Please post your own notes and thoughts in the comments section below.