Christian History Home > Issue 77 > Expect Joy!
Expect Joy!
Edwards found the Christian life sweet and said so often.
Douglas A. Sweeney | posted 1/01/2003 12:00AM
A dour, killjoy Puritan. This is the image many have of Jonathan Edwards. After all, he's that fellow who preached "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God," hanging his listeners over hell by a slender thread, right?
His portrait seems to bear out the judgment. The Joseph Badger painting of Edwards (see p. 11) depicts a man deeply somber, even severe—as if he has never enjoyed a summer day or a chocolate bar.
Edwards, however, enjoyed not only summer days (see p. 40) and chocolate (see p. 2), but also, above all, the Christian life itself. He insisted that believers should expect joy from their religion.
"It would be worth the while to be religious," he preached in one of his favorite sermons, on Proverbs 24:13-14, "if it were only for the pleasantness of it."
Christianity, he argued, brings a new and delightful harmony to social relationships. It "begets love and peace, good will one towards another, brotherly kindness, mutual benevolence, bounty and a feeling of each other's welfare." It "sweetens" ...
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