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Edwards is best remembered for preaching the sermon “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God,” which greatly affected the congregation at Enfield, Connecticut. on July 8, 1741. The sermon is often held up as an example of the Puritans’ pathological obsession with hell and a God of wrath. In truth, the sermon, excerpted below, is a devout appeal to repentance, made to an audience that had no doubts about the reality of hell and a God who would judge mankind. It is not really typical of Edwards’ sermons, which more often spoke of the love and joy of the Christian life. The excerpts from “Safety, Fulness, and Sweet Refreshment to Be Found in Christ” are probably more typical of Edwards’ preaching. Excerpts from both sermons are reprinted here to show that the preacher of God’s wrath could speak sweetly and eloquently of God’s love.

Samuel Hopkins, Edwards’ friend and first biographer, has left us valuable information about Edwards’ preaching style. According to Hopkins, Edwards was a far cry from the stereotyped ranting, gesturing evangelist. In fact, Edwards’ soft, solemn voice did not lend itself to loud tirades. Edwards was renowned as a preacher because (quoting Hopkins) “his words were so full of ideas, set in such a plain and striking light, that few speakers have been so able to demand the attention of an audience as he. His words often discovered a great degree of inward fervor, without much noise or external emotion, and fell with great weight on the minds of his hearers.” What Edwards lacked in oratorical gifts—Whitefield was the great orator, not Edwards—he made up for with Scripture-based sermons that presented with logic, integrity, and vivid word pictures the need to cling to God.

Edwards went into the pulpit carrying a small booklet, containing the entire text of the sermon he was to preach. He would have already written out the sermon on scraps of paper, which his wife Sarah dutifully had sewn into a booklet. He often berated himself for reading many of his sermons, but he insisted that sound preaching would result if pastors would take the pains to write out their sermons word for word, then commit them to memory before preaching. The sermon extracts below will show that Edwards himself thought through each sermon carefully. They are flawless in their logic and construction. and they attest not only to their creator’s rationality and order, but to his warmth and emotional depth as well. They show that head and heart worked together when Edwards held the pulpit.

ISAIAH 32:2

And a man shall be as an hiding-place from the wind, and a covert from the tempest; as rivers of water in a dry place, as the shadow of a great rock in a weary land.

… There is a provision for the satisfaction and contentment of the thirsty longing soul in Christ, as he is the way to the Father; not only from the fullness of excellency and grace which he has in his own person, but as by him we may come to God, may be reconciled to him, and may be made happy in his favour and love.

The poverty and want of the soul in its natural state consist in its being separated from God, for God is the riches and the happiness of the creature. But we naturally are alienated from God; and God is alienated from us, our Maker is not at peace with us. But in Christ there is a way for a free communication between God and us; for us to come to God, and for God to communicate himself to us by his Spirit. John 14:6. “Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, and the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father but by me.” Ephes. 2:13, 18, 19. “But now in Christ Jesus, ye who sometimes were far off, are made nigh by the blood of Christ. For through him we both have access by one Spirit unto the Father. Now, therefore, ye are no more strangers and foreigners, but fellow-citizens with the saints, and of the household of God.”

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