Reading Edwards Responsibly: Notes on Method, Mystery, and the Moral Task of Scholarship

It’s a strange gift to inherit more than someone meant to leave behind.

Jonathan Edwards wrote voluminously: theological treatises, sermon manuscripts, correspondence, notes, scraps, and reflections. By the time of his death in 1758, much of his output remained unpublished and, in some cases, unfinished. Today, thanks to the extraordinary work of the Yale Edition of The Works of Jonathan Edwards and the open-access digital archive that followed, readers and scholars alike have access to a body of work far exceeding what Edwards himself ever released—or perhaps even imagined releasing.

This access is a gift. But it also poses a problem. How should we read a writer whose private study is now in the public domain? And how do we do so not only as scholars, but as fellow Christians?

In Jonathan Edwards on God and Creation, Oliver Crisp addresses this very question. He acknowledges the richness of the materials Edwards left behind, but also names the challenge they create:

“The assumption here is that the intellectual musings in private notebooks cannot be afforded the same importance as treatises intended for publication by an author, although such works can and do offer the scholar important insights into the inner workings of the mind of a given thinker… [t]hough this may be a fairly uncontroversial assumption, it does pose certain problems when assessing the relative merits of different sorts of material that someone such as Edwards has left his intellectual heirs.” (Crisp:2012, p. 9)

It’s not just a technical matter. It’s also a moral one. Some writings were prepared for print. Others were not. In engaging Edwards today, we do more than interpret—we inherit. And inheritance, if it is to be faithful, requires discernment.

Three Kinds of Writings: Published, Prepared, and Private

To read Edwards well is to face a certain kind of abundance. There is simply too much. And not all of it was meant to be read—at least not in the same way.

Among his writings, a basic but essential distinction emerges. First, there are works Edwards published in his lifetime—texts he prepared, revised, and released with intention. Freedom of the Will and Original Sin are the clearest examples. These are, to borrow Crisp’s phrase, “treatises intended for publication.” Edwards knew these works would represent him.

Second, there are works he prepared for publication but never lived to see through the press. The two dissertations—The End for Which God Created the World and True Virtue—fall into this category. They were discovered among his papers, bound in ribbon, and referenced in correspondence. Their form and content suggest they were ready for wider release. We can, I think, receive them with similar confidence.

But then there is a third category: Edwards’ private materials. These include his Miscellanies, his notebooks on Scripture and philosophy, and many of his sermon outlines and skeletons. These were not written for a reading public. They are rough, fluid, speculative. Some are dazzling. Others are clearly exploratory. Together, they form the inner workshop of a restless theological mind.

It is this last category that raises the sharpest questions. How much weight should we give to these private thoughts? Can we responsibly draw doctrinal conclusions from notes never edited, or ideas never preached?

Crisp warns against treating such materials as doctrinal equals to Edwards’ published works. I agree. The danger is not in reading widely—it is in reading without care. The Yale Edition presents these documents in typographic parity. But we must not forget: not all texts carry the same authorial intent, nor the same theological weight.

Publication and Purpose: The Case of A Faithful Narrative

One historical example is especially instructive: the creation of A Faithful Narrative of the Surprising Work of God.

In 1735, Edwards wrote to Rev. Benjamin Colman in Boston, describing the recent revival in Northampton. The letter was detailed, eight pages long. It passed through several hands—Colman, John Guyse, Isaac Watts—and eventually stirred enough interest in London for someone to suggest publication.

But Edwards did not immediately approve. Guyse hesitated to quote the letter without permission. Colman, in turn, asked Edwards for a fuller and more formal account. Only then did Edwards begin to prepare what would become A Faithful Narrative—a text shaped not just by events but by Edwards’ sense of how they should be told.

The resulting publication was deliberate. Edwards recast the narrative as a formal letter to Colman. He encouraged his congregation to continue in their zeal while he carefully compiled the account. Colman later abridged the text and published it alongside two sermons by William Williams.

What matters here is Edwards’ own restraint. He did not rush to print. He considered form and audience. It did not help matters that publishers abroad made corrections that sought to improve the work but resulted in factual errors. Edwwards saw the printed word as testimony, not just reportage. It reveals something of his instincts: when he chose to publish, he did so with care.

That care should inform how we receive his other works. If he laboured to shape A Faithful Narrative—a work born from active revival—how much more caution should we exercise when handling theological drafts he never submitted for print?

Reading with Responsibility: Method as Christian Practice

So what does responsible reading look like?

Crisp’s method is modest but wise: give priority to the works Edwards prepared for publication. Use the private materials as windows into his theological imagination, not as authoritative statements. Let the Miscellanies supplement, not supplant. Let the sermon outlines illuminate, not define.

This is more than scholarly discipline—it is Christian charity. Edwards was a careful thinker. He revised. He clarified. He held things in tension. To lift his incomplete ideas into settled doctrine risks misrepresenting not just his theology, but his character.

And this is where theological scholarship meets spiritual responsibility. Edwards was not only a thinker. He was a pastor. A husband. A friend. He bore the image of Christ and sought, through his work, to honour God.

To read him well is to remember that. It is to receive his words with gratitude, but also gentleness. To approach his drafts not as doctrinal deposits, but as invitations into a mind still at work—still listening, still revising, still praying.

That posture—one of curiosity and care, of attention and love—is one we might do well to carry not just into our reading of Edwards, but into all our study. And into all our speech about those no longer here to speak for themselves.