Jonathan Edwards is widely regarded not only as America’s greatest theologian and philosopher, but also as one of her greatest preachers. It is a remarkable fact, however, that his preaching has been somewhat neglected, both in academic circles and in the Reformed churches. Published in the year that marks the two hundred and fiftieth anniversary of his death, this book successfully straddles the church’s and the academy’s interest in Edwards and supplies that omission.

Dr. Carrick demonstrates that Edwards was preaching and writing at a unique moment in history when the Puritan spirit and the spirit of the Enlightenment intersected; he traces the remarkable fall and rise of interest in the great American preacher-theologian in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries; he interacts, both positively and critically, with the now complete Yale edition of Edward’s Works and also with the ever-burgeoning field of Edwards scholarship; and he cites extensively from Edward’s sermons, treatises, and Miscellanies in order to demonstrate the power and the profundity of his preaching and thought.

The author’s main focus is, throughout, primarily homiletical; but interwoven in the homiletical focus are theological, philosophical, historical, and biographical strands. He constantly seeks to place Edwards and his sermons in their New England context-indeed, in their wider eighteenth century transatlantic context-thus providing, wherever possible, the historical background for Edwards’ sermons.

The ‘New York period’, the ‘Great Apostasy’ at Yale, the Bolton interlude, the Yale tutorship, the Boston Lecture of 1731, the Enfield sermon, the Yale Commencement of 1741, the great revivals, the landmark funerals, the Edwards-Stoddard-Williams dynamic, the Communion controversy, the Farewell Sermon, the romance of the Stockbridge years-these are all treated within the context of a systematic analysis of Edward’s preaching under a number of different themes.

Dr. Carrick does not shrink from sounding a note of critique at certain points and he warns against the danger of slavishly imitating the New England preacher. But he is also clearly convinced of Edwards’ extraordinary greatness and of the tremendous value of his sermons for Christians today. ‘Iron sharpens iron’; and the iron of Edward’s marvellous expositions and applications is sure to sharpen the minds and souls of all those who study them carefully.

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Review

• Review by George Scipione

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‘What constitutes effective and powerful preaching? If we believe that prayer-soaked biblical preaching “in demonstration of the spirit and of power” (1 Cor.2:4) is the grand battering-ram for the demolishing of the bastions of ignorance and vice, and if we believe such preaching to be the unrivaled means ordained of God for the conversion and edification of men, then careful attention must be given to the biblical answer to the question, “what constitutes effective preaching and why is it so?”

Book Description

Believing that preaching remains of vital importance today, John Carrick argues that its effectiveness can be greatly enhanced if preachers make use of the patterns of communication laid down by God in Scripture for their instruction. He sees in the Bible a sacred rhetoric which the apostles and prophets, and Christ himself, used to awaken, move and persuade their hearers. While depending on the power of the Spirit, the preacher should not neglect any help which Scripture affords.

Sacred rhetoric is based essentially on statements and commands (called in grammar the indicative and the imperative), which, together with exclamations and questions, are of immense significance in the preaching of the Word.

Abundant examples from Scripture and from the preaching of such men as Jonathan Edwards, George Whitefield, Samuel Davies, Asahel Nettleton and Martyn Lloyd-Jones, demonstrate Carrick’s case in The Imperative of Preaching.

Insisting on the critical importance of applying, as well as explaining, the truth of Scripture, Carrick provides an effective critique of redemptive-historical preaching, arguing that this approach seriously neglects the application of the Word of God.

Review

• Review by D. Scott Meadows

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