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Jonathan Edwards's Change of Position On Stoddardeanism
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 10 June 2011
Extract
When Jonathan Edwards was installed as assistant to his grandfather Solomon Stoddard at Northampton in 1727, he not only assumed the major pastoral responsibility for the largest congregation in western Massachusetts, but he also became coadministrator of the “lax” mode of admission to the sacraments that had prevailed at Northampton and throughout the Connecticut River Valley for some thirty years. This system granted both baptism and communion to all persons of age who had historical knowledge of the gospel and were of a “non-scandalous” life, on the grounds that all divinely established ordinances were capable of “begetting” faith. Although Stoddard did not originate the “lax” system, the practice was generally referred to as “Stoddardeanism” because from the time of his celebrated dispute with Increase Mather in 1700 (the so-called “Stoddardean controversy”) Stoddard had been its most systematic, persistent, and influential proponent in New England.
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References
1 see Miller, Perry, “Solomon Stoddard, 1643–1729”, HTR 34 (1941) 277–320CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and also his later development in The New England Mind: From Colony to Province (Cambridge: Harvard University, 1953) chap. 15Google Scholar. Also very helpful are Schafer, Thomas A., “Solomon Stoddard and the Theology of the Revival”, in Henry, Stuart C., ed., A Miscellany of American Christianity: Essays in Honor of H. Shelton Smith (Durham: Duke University, 1963) 328–61Google Scholar, and Walsh, James P., “Solomon Stoddard's Open Communion: A Reexamination”, New England Quarterly 43 (1970) 94–114CrossRefGoogle Scholar. On the English background and sources of Stoddardeanism, see Holifield, E. Brooks, The Covenant Sealed: The Devel opment of Puritan Sacramental Theology in Old and New England, 1570–1720 (New Haven/London: Yale University, 1974)Google Scholar. A recent full-length treatment of Stoddard is Coffman, Ralph J., Solomon Stoddard (Boston: Twayne, 1978)Google Scholar; but cf. the review essay of this book by Davis, Thomas M. in Early American Literature 14 (1979) 110–17.Google Scholar
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16 Ibid.
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38 Thomas A. Schafer, “Jonathan Edwards’ Conception of the Church”, 57.
39 Edwards, Works (Dwight ed.) 1. 412; and elsewhere Edwards spoke of “Mr. Stoddard's known Presbyterian principles” and asserted that “Mr. Stoddard was a Presbyterian and abundantly preached his Presbyterian principles” (Ibid., 352, 359; see also 381). Cf. Edwards's remarks in Humble Inquiry, Works (Worcester ed.) 1.142. But cf. Lucas, Paul R., ‘“An Appeal to the Learned’: The Mind of Solomon Stoddard”, William and Mary Quarterly 30 (1973) 257–92CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and Valley of Discord: Church and Society along the Connecticut River, 163–1725 (Hanover, NH: University Press of New England, 1976) esp. chaps. 7 and 8.Google Scholar
40 Schafer, “Jonathan Edwards's Conception of the Church”, 58. Schafer is quoting Misc. 399.
41 Edwards, Works (Yale ed.) 4. 157.
42 Ola E. Winslow, Jonathan Edwards, 245.
43 Edwards, Works (Dwight ed.), 1. 134.
44 Edwards, Works (Yale ed.) 2. 340.
45 Ibid., 383.
46 Ibid., 383, 392, 397.
47 Ibid., 406–7.
48 Ibid.
49 Ibid., 412.
50 Ibid., 413.
51 Ibid., 416.
52 Ibid., 420.
53 Ibid., 460.
54 Ibid., 420, 422–23.
55 Ibid., 424–25.
56 Ibid., 450.
57 Ibid., 450–51.
58 Ibid., 452, 454.
59 Ibid., 455.
60 Ibid., 455–56, 458–59.
61 Ibid., 460.