His final words were written to his daughter, Lucy: Dear Lucy, it seems to me to be the will of God that I must shortly leave you; therefore give my kindest love to my dear wife, and tell her, that the uncommon union, which has so long subsisted between us, has been of such a nature as I trust is spiritual and therefore will continue forever: and I hope she will be supported under so great a trial, and submit cheerfully to the will of God. And as to my children, you are now to be left fatherless, which I hope will be an inducement to you all to seek a Father who will never fail you.

1. He came from a large family with a pastoral heritage.

Born October 5, 1703, in East Windsor, Connecticut, Edwards grew up in a family dedicated to the purposes of God in an early American context. Edwards was raised, along with ten sisters (each of whom was at least six feet tall), by loving parents, Timothy and Esther. His father, Timothy Edwards, served as pastor of Second Church Windsor.

Edwards was raised in a setting that emphasized the reality of “awakenings.” In the earliest correspondence we have from Edwards—a brief letter he wrote in 1716 at age twelve—he describes recent events in the church of Timothy Edwards, his father:

Through the wonderful mercy and goodness of God there hath in this place been a very remarkable stirring and pouring out of the Spirit of God.

While there was at time tension between Jonathan Edwards and his father (e.g., over the preparationist view of conversion), the younger Edwards had a deep and abiding desire to love and honor his parents that was demonstrated throughout his life.

2. His own conversion and work of sanctification came through much struggle.

As a youth, Edwards struggled with the Calvinistic understanding of the sovereignty of God. He once wrote:

From my childhood up my mind had been full of objections against the doctrine of God’s sovereignty. . . It used to appear like a horrible doctrine to me.

However, in 1721 he came to a “delightful conviction” as he was meditating on 1 Timothy 1:17. He remarked:

As I read the words, there came into my soul, and was as it were diffused through it, a sense of the glory of the Divine Being; a new sense, quite different from anything I ever experienced before. . . I thought with myself, how excellent a Being that was, and how happy I should be, if I might enjoy that God, and be rapt up to him in heaven; and be as it were swallowed up in him for ever! I kept saying, and as it were singing over these words of scripture to myself; and went to prayer, to pray to God that I might enjoy him; and prayed in a manner quite different from what I used to do; with a new sort of affection.

From that point on, Edwards delighted in the sovereignty of God, but still not without spiritual difficulty. In his diary entries and his Personal Narrative, Edwards regularly documents how he swung back and forth between spiritual bliss and despair over his sin on a regular basis. From his very first diary entry on December 18, 1722, Edwards referenced the fact that his conversion experience did not seem to fit the dominant “morphology of conversion,” a specific ordering of steps leading to conversion, as held by New England Puritans. The years between 1722 and 1725 were marked by spiritual highs and lows in his life as recorded in his diary entries. It does appear that Edwards came to a more settled state of heart by the time he went to Northampton in 1726.

3. He pastored his first church when he was 18 years old.

As a recent graduate of Yale, Edwards ministered to a Presbyterian church in New York for eight months. It seems that Edwards enjoyed his time in this post. He wrote:

I came away from New York in the month of April 1723, and had a most bitter parting with Madam Smith and her son. My heart seemed to sink within me, at leaving the family and city, where I had enjoyed so many sweet and pleasant days. I went from New York to Wethersfield by water. As I sailed away, I kept sight of the city as long as I could.

It was not in any way a long pastorate, and we know that after this he went into the academic realm at Yale where he served as a tutor for two years. However, what one can see in words like this is that Edwards—though he can be thought of as intense, overly studious, and socially inept—had a deep and abiding love for the people of God under his care. This would be shown in numerous ways throughout his ministry.

4. He thought highly of his wife, even at a young age.

Jonathan and Sarah met in 1723 in New Haven, Connecticut, when Edwards was twenty years old, a graduate student and tutor at Yale. Sarah was then thirteen years old, and she was the daughter of James Pierrepont, the minister of the New Haven church. In a somewhat atypical love letter and reflection on a budding relationship, Edwards’s God-centered theology shined through. In thinking of the girl who would become his wife in 1727, Edwards remarked:

They say there is a young lady in New Haven who is beloved of that almighty Being, who made and rules the world, and that there are certain seasons in which this great Being, in some way or other invisible, comes to her and fills her mind with exceeding sweet delight, and that she hardly cares for anything, except to meditate on him — that she expects after a while to be received up where he is, to be raised up out of the world and caught up into heaven; being assured that he loves her too well to let her remain at a distance from him always.

There she is to dwell with him, and to be ravished with his love and delight forever. Therefore, if you present all the world before her, with the richest of its treasures, she disregards it and cares not for it, and is unmindful of any pain or affliction. She has a strange sweetness in her mind, and singular purity in her affections; is most just and conscientious in all her actions; and you could not persuade her to do anything wrong or sinful, if you would give her all the world, lest she should offend this great Being.

She is of a wonderful sweetness, calmness and universal benevolence of mind; especially after those seasons in which this great God has manifested himself to her mind. She will sometimes go about from place to place, singing sweetly; and seems to be always of joy and pleasure; and no one knows for what. She loves to be alone, and to wander in the fields and on the mountains, and seems to have someone invisible always conversing with her.

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