The Jonathan Edwards Center at Yale University

On May 30, 1735, Edwards wrote to the Rev. Dr. Benjamin Colman (1673–1747), the urbane and respected pastor of Brattle Street Church in Boston, a letter of eight pages describing the Valley revivals. This is the earliest written account of that event—never published before 1935, when it was included in Jonathan Edwards: Representative Selections, edited by Clarence H. Faust and Thomas H. Johnson.

The original (or JE's personal copy) is in the Andover Collection of Edwards' MSS. Almost every Edwards scholar has stated that it was published immediately, but this cannot be verified. No such entry appears in Charles Evans' American Bibliography or any other bibliography of colonial America, including the recent supplements and The National Index. So far as I am able to determine, the source of the apparently erroneous claim for publication is Dwight, who asserted that Colman published the letter and then forwarded a copy to friends in London (Life of President Edwards, p. 137). Tracy followed Dwight in the mistake (The Great Awakening, p. 18), as did Faust and Johnson, who went so far as to identify the letter of May 30, 1735, with a "unique" eighteen-page pamphlet in the Boston Public Library (Jonathan Edwards: Representative Selections, p. 420). But what they print in their anthology is a transcription of the manuscript letter. An exhaustive search at the BPL failed to turn up anything of a published version; what is there (and elsewhere) is Colman's abridgment of JE's longer letter of Nov 6, 1736, appended to William Williams, The Duty and Interest of a People (Boston, 1736), which is described more fully below. This abridged version of JE's later letter, more than incidentally, runs to eighteen pages. Thomas H. Johnson repeated the error in The Printed Writings of Jonathan Edwards, where on p. 4 he correctly noted the appendix to Williams' sermon but then added: "This is the first draft of A Faithful Narrative." Ola E. Winslow, doubtless misled by all of these, made the same mistake in Jonathan Edwards: Basic Writings (New York, 1966), p. 97; so did Perry Miller in his Jonathan Edwards, p. 136.

If JE's letter of May 30, 1735, was published at all, it could only have been in one of the newspapers, presumably in Boston. I have checked every extant issue of every Boston paper for the last seven months of 1735, and results were negative. It may be, of course, that the letter did appear in one of the issues which could not be located; these are The Boston Gazette for Aug. 25 (No. 817) and The Boston News Letter for July 24–Sept. 18. Since in 1735 the News Letter was only a single half-sheet printed on both sides, it hardly seems likely that it would carry a letter of this length. This leaves only one real possibility unchecked: the piece could be in the Gazette for Aug. 25, but because of the relative lateness of the date I am dubious.

So far as I know, the most accurate account of how Edwards' narrative of the Northampton revival of 1734–35 got into print is Anne Stokely Pratt, Isaac Watts and His Gift of Books to Yale College (New Haven, 1938), pp. 38–47. My account must necessarily parallel hers, but every point has been checked and some new details have been added.

his next letter to a friend and correspondent in London, the Rev. Dr. John Guyse (1680–1761), a Dissenting minister at New Broad Street. Guyse greeted the news with appropriate rejoicing and promptly shared it with his fellow minister, Isaac Watts (1674–1748), also a regular correspondent of Colman's, and with his congregation in a sermon. The congregation was so impressed that it asked to have the sermon printed, and Guyse agreed on condition that he could obtain permission to quote parts of Colman's letter. When Colman received Guyse's request, he wrote to William Williams of Hatfield, Edwards' uncle and neighbor, describing the reception

of revival news in London and suggesting that Edwards write a more detailed account.An extensive search for this letter, dated July 20, 1736, has not been successful. Edwards' response was immediate. He shared these developments with his own congregation, along with appropriate exhortations to sustain their fervor (FN-1; below, p. 210), and after a brief delay caused by illness in his family, began to write.

This explains why the published version of A Faithful Narrative is cast in the form of a letter to Benjamin Colman. Dated November 6, 1736, it reached print primarily through Colman's agency, for Edwards entrusted the whole affair to him (FN-1; below, p. 210). As soon as the lengthy missive arrived, Colman took the liberty of making an "accurate and judicious abridgment," which he attached to a work he had just finished preparing for the press. By a curious coincidence, this latter piece consisted of two sermons preached by William Williams, now past seventy, "at a time of general awakenings"—i.e. during the recent Valley revivals. One sermon is entitled The Duty and Interest of a People, Among Whom Religion Has Been Planted, to Continue Stedfast and Sincere in the Profession and Practice of It from Generation to Generation; the other is Direction for Such as Are Concerned to Obtain a True Repentance and Conversion to God. The second, probably earlier, sermon is clearly the old man's honest effort to contribute to the spreading revival. In spite of allusions here and there betraying a tacit confidence in human ability, his doctrine of conversion approaches that of Edwards: it is God who grants repentance and awakens faith, the Holy Spirit "enabling the soul to understand the truth of the things that the gospel reveals." But the first sermon, much longer and obviously more characteristic of Williams' preaching, appears to be a post-revival attempt to consolidate gains recently realized; it shows the author lapsing into more traditional terminology. The sermon carries its "Arminianism" in its title, appealing to duty and self-interest; and while it makes the customary threats of wrath and exhortations to faith, it also speaks much of "the reasonableness and amiableness of religion." This work of "honored Uncle Williams" was Colman's vehicle for presenting the first account of Edwards' revival to the American public.

The abridgment itself was offered mainly in Edwards' words rather than Colman's summary. It centered on a description of the awakening at Northampton and its spread throughout the Valley;

though it included many details regarding the experiences of the new converts, it omitted much of Edwards' reiteration and excised completely the two case histories. Colman thus reduced to eighteen printed pages what would become later a 132-page book. Isaac Watts testified that the abridging was "so well performed that had it been but twice as long as it is we would never have printed Mr. Edwards's [letter in full]." Letter dated May 31, 1738, to Benjamin Colman; in Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society, 2d ser., 9 (1895), 361. (Hereafter cited as PMHS.) The Mass. Hist. Soc. happily acquired and printed a large number of Watts' letters in 1895. An unsigned paragraph, evidently by Colman, introduced the abridged letter and broached the opinion that "the publishing hereof may be of great use and benefit to souls, and not a little serve the holy end and design of the preceding excellent sermons; even to excite under the blessing and power of the Divine Spirit, a like general concern in towns and churches." At the end was an advertisement: "If the taste here given of Mr. Edwards his excellent letter excite in persons of piety a desire to have the whole of it published; it is hereby notified that subscriptions for that end will be taken."

Williams' sermons, with the extracts from Edwards' narrative appended, were released by the Boston printers in mid-December 1736. On December 17 Colman sent copies of the appendix to his London friends, with a covering letter to Watts:

Watts replied on February 28, 1737, that Colman's extract had exceeded his expectations and given him such "religious pleasure" that he "longed for a more complete account of it." He added:

Again on April 2 Watts wrote to Colman renewing his offer to help underwrite a printing of the entire narrative in Boston "under your corrections, etc., and with any additions you think proper." The Londoners still longed for it "at large." Ibid., p. 356.

The Boston edition proposed by advertisement at the end of Colman's abridgment and urged by Isaac Watts and John Guyse did not appear, for reasons which can only be conjectured. One hint comes from an investigation of the line in Colman's letter of December 17, 1736, quoted above, that Edwards was "not altogether pleased with the liberty we have taken of so general an extract." But Colman was mistaken; it was Uncle Williams who was unhappy. Some time in the spring of 1737 Colman wrote to Edwards a letter (now lost, apparently) apologizing for whatever offense had been caused. Edwards replied on December 17, 1736, quoted above, that Edwards was "not altogether pleased with the liberty we have taken of so general an extract." But Colman was mistaken; it was Uncle Williams who was unhappy. Some time in the spring of 1737 Colman wrote to Edwards a letter (now lost, apparently) apologizing for whatever offense had been caused. Edwards replied on May 19, 1737:

What explosions rocked the Hatfield parsonage when Uncle Williams learned that the piece by his upstart nephew had intruded into his book we do not know, but recalling the long and often bitter rivalry between Williamses and Edwardses may furnish a clue. Is it too much to surmise that the powerful Williams clan, which is known to have had influential friends in Boston, might have insinuated to the entrepreneurs of printing that they should ignore Edwards' narrative?

At all events, Colman decided that in view of the local crossfire and the continuing interest among his friends in London, Edwards' work might be better handled there. He accordingly packed off the entire manuscript, probably around the first of May, before Watts' five-pound subscription arrived. Edwards apparently voiced no objection, for in the same letter that clarified the misunderstanding over the abridgment he said:

He did not suggest what might be omitted in deference to English tastes, an oversight he was later to regret.

Upon receiving the manuscript, Watts and Guyse lost no time getting it to the printer, with the result that the sheets were ready in October. The London editors had written "a large preface" of fourteen pages and supplied the title by which (with variations) the work has been known ever since. Concerning their editorial work on the narrative, Watts informed Colman in a letter of October 13 that he and Dr. Guyse had "both read it over carefully, and have omitted many things in it, and by reading it learn more particularly how judicious your abridgment is, yet upon the whole we thought it

best to publish the larger account and have made such apologies as we thought needful." PMHS, 2d ser., 9, 356–57.

What came from the London press of John Oswald in 1737 is the fullest extant text of A Faithful Narrative; and since the original manuscript evidently has perished, Watts' confession that he "omitted many things" could be very disturbing to the modern scholar. But there are two mitigating circumstances. One is a later statement by Watts himself that "we were afraid to leave out very much, lest we should fall under the same censure that Dr. Colman did in his accurate and judicious abridgment." Letter dated May 31, 1738, to Colman; ibid., p. 360. The other is that one of the bound presentation copies of this first edition came to Yale College, where Edwards inspected it and made several corrections in his own hand. Yale still preserves this volume. The author's handwritten note on the flyleaf, to be sure, is not very reassuring:

J. Edwards

But his annotations on the text of the book are not extensive; the main ones are described below and all are noted in the text of the present edition, along with other variant readings. Further assurance comes from the probability that Edwards exercised some personal oversight of the first American edition, Called "The Third Edition." There were three printings of this in 1738: one "Printed and Sold by S. Kneeland and T. Green, and D. Henchman, in Corn Hill"; another "Printed and Sold by S. Kneeland and T. Green, over against the Prison in Queen Street"; and a third "Printed by S. Kneeland and T. Green, for D. Henchman, in Corn Hill." They are identical except that the first lacks the preface by Watts and Guyse. for it incorporates all the corrections he made in Yale's presentation copy and several more besides. So notwithstanding the loss of the manuscript and some unwarranted emendations in the first printed edition, careful

comparison of these volumes has made possible a reasonably accurate text for most of what Edwards originally wrote.

As for the "apologies" which the London editors felt constrained to make, one hears them mainly in the faintly defensive tone resonating through most of their preface. At one point, for example, they remind readers whose tastes may be offended by some of Edwards' more graphic descriptions that "we must allow every writer his own way; and must allow him to choose what particular instances he would select, from the numerous cases which came before him" (FN-1; below, p. 136). A passage near the end was much too craven to suit Edwards. Watts and Guyse had written:

Edwards marked a demurrer in the margin of Yale's copy and rewrote the paragraph almost completely for the American edition of 1738:

If they wanted to put words in his mouth, he could play the same game! And as for "defects" in his work, the only ones he could see were those introduced gratuitously by foreign editors.

One can sense the Londoners' defensiveness also by the anxiety they displayed for other witnesses to corroborate Edwards' account. Before Watts ever saw the full narrative, he advised Colman that "if some of the neighboring ministers can add anything to make it more

complete, it will be more universally acceptable." Letter dated Feb 28, 1737; in PMHS, 2d ser., 9, 353. After the work was published, Watts' agitation increased. On May 31, 1738, he wrote again:

The following month Watts addressed Elisha Williams, who had already written him a description of the awakening of 1735 in his father's parish at Hatfield (above, pp. 23–25). As if in desperation, Watts pleaded:

Rector Williams' reply, if he sent one, is unknown.

Much of Watts' concern, of course, arose from the legitimate interest which Edwards' narrative aroused among all evangelicals in Great Britain. The curiosity for revival news was high on both sides of the Atlantic throughout the Great Awakening; and Edwards had already noted that "there is no one thing that I know of that God has made such a means of promoting his work amongst us, as the news of others' conversion" (FN-1; below, p. 176). But in the heart of Isaac Watts there seemed to beat, at least during the late 1730s, a muffled ambivalence in the will to believe Edwards' singular testimony. How far Colman shared this ambivalence is hard to say,

but in any case he secured the desired confirmation. On October 11, 1738, six ministers of Hampshire County signed the following attestation: "We take this opportunity to assure you, that the account Mr. Edwards has given in his narrative of our several towns or parishes is true; and that much more of the like nature might have been added with respect to some of them." The testimony, also prefixed to the first American edition of A Faithful Narrative (Boston, 1738), was signed by William Williams of Hatfield, Ebenezer Devotion of Suffield, Stephen Williams of Longmeadow, Peter Reynolds of Enfield, Nehemiah Bull of Westfield, and Samuel Hopkins of West Springfield. In June 1743 it was reprinted in The Christian History, 1, 128. See below, p. 143. Watts acknowledged receipt of the testimony in June 1739, but by that time he could make little use of it. To Colman he wrote:

But no further London edition was to appear until 1791.John Wesley published a 48-page summary ca. 1744; reprinted 1755, See below, pp. 90–91.

Edwards' complaint that his London editors had "published some things diverse from fact" refers in the first instance to their confusion about the geography of New England. On the title page and again in the preface they located "the surprising work of God" in Northampton "and the neighboring towns and villages of New Hampshire," rather than in Hampshire County, Massachusetts. On pages 91 and 125 the Londoners printed "country" where Edwards had written "county." The confusion was persistent, for on September 13, 1736, Watts had written to Colman referring to "the work of God begun in the County of Hampshire (which I also had mistaken for the Province of New Hampshire till your line in Dr. Guyse's letter undeceived me)." PMHS, 2d ser., 9, 349. The deception returned in 1737, as the title page bears witness, so on September 13, 1736, Watts had written to Colman referring to "the work of God begun in the County of Hampshire (which I also had mistaken for the Province of New Hampshire till your line in Dr. Guyse's letter undeceived me)." PMHS, 2d ser., 9, 349. The deception returned in 1737, as the title page bears witness, so on May 31, 1738, Watts had to apologize again.

The blunder which was made in not distinguishing the Province of New Hampshire from the County of Hampshire I take entirely to myself, and I beg your pardon, and the pardon of everyone concerned for it; but as your letter was not just at hand, wherein you gave me warning of something of this kind and I have a map hanging always before me wherein New Hampshire is printed in large letters, and many of the towns wherein this work of God was wrought lying under it along the Connecticut River, without so much as the name of the County of Hampshire anywhere in the map, this unhappily led me astray, and we can now do no more than as you direct blot out the word New in the title and in the book.Ibid., p. 360. See below, p. 128, where JE himself crossed out "New" on the title page of Yale's copy.

Since a presentation copy had gone to Yale College, in his next letter to Rector Elisha Williams, dated June 7, 1738, Watts referred again to "this great work of God in Hampshire, which by the way we have unhappily confounded with New Hampshire by a mistake in a map." Ibid., p. 335.

As for the other "things diverse from fact" which provoked Edwards' complaint on the flyleaf of the Yale copy, one sometimes wonders whether his notation marks a return to an original sense distorted by editorial mishandling or represents a shift in his own thinking. For example, we know that on several occasions Edwards confessed that for all his caution he had been too hasty in pronouncing many conversions genuine. Such doubts found expression as early as May 1737, when he declared in a sermon: "I do not know but I have trusted too much in men, and put too much confidence in the goodness and piety of the town." Sermon on 2 Samuel 20:19, Andover MSS; excerpt in Perry Miller, "Jonathan Edwards' Sociology of the Great Awakening," New England Quarterly, 21 (1948), 61. Thus when he read in the Watts edition of his narrative that upon receiving sixty new church members he had written, "I had very sufficient evidence of the conversion of their souls through divine grace," he crossed out the whole sentence (FN-1; below, p. 157). No hint of this appears in the Boston edition of 1738, which may indicate that Edwards simply took the advantage of retrospect to suppress a premature and ill-considered

judgment. Before coming to this conclusion, however, one should note that Benjamin Colman, who read and edited the narrative before Watts ever saw it, does not include the line in his abridgment. Did he omit it at his own discretion, or is it a gratuitous insertion by the London editors? It seems safe to give Edwards the benefit of the doubt, because his settled conviction on the point was that since conversion is a work of God directly on the human soul, no man can know with certainty the spiritual state of another. The church, in his view, can ask only for a testimony of conversion which in the judgment of Christian charity is credible when supported by the visible reality of a genuinely Christian life.JE put the case most directly in An Humble Inquiry into the Rules of the word of God, Concerning the Qualifications Requisite to a Complete Standing and Full Communion in the Visible Christian Church (Boston, 1749). An imaginative modern treatment is James Carse, Jonathan Edwards and the visibility of God (New York, 1967), esp. ch. 8. See also below, pp. 76, 286–87.

Even more problematical is the quarrel between Edwards and Watts over the course by which a sinner passes from darkness to light, or as some of the eighteenth-century English evangelicals might have put it, whether conversion is gradual or instantaneous. The Watts edition reads:

Edwards crossed out "all at once." Not content with that, for the Boston edition of 1738 he rewrote the whole sentence:

In the Watts edition the same paragraph closes by affirming that the sinner's wandering continues until God reveals to him "the true remedy in a clearer knowledge of Christ and his Gospel." Edwards deleted "a clearer" and substituted "the"; for the Boston edition

he struck the ultimate phrase entirely and put a period after "remedy." Apparently he wished to avoid any language from which readers might infer that conversion is a gradual process."Conversion" should be distinguished from "seeking." The latter not only could and often did extend over a long period, but was actually all a sinner could do. JE was suspicious of conversions not preceded by earnest seeking: "Sudden conversions are very often false" (Sermon on Matthew 13:5 [Nov. 1740], in Yale Collection). Cf. below, pp. 106, 160, 346, 549, 556.

Other changes which Edwards made after he saw his narrative in print seem less consequential. For the most part, they correct minor inaccuracies or reveal differences in emphasis; and since they are all noted in the text of this new edition, the reader may decide for himself what weight each should carry. There is one which is perhaps textually unimportant, but which suggests an interesting nuance for modern urbanites. Of Miss Abigail Hutchinson, the Watts edition says: "She once thought it a pleasant thing to live in the middle of the town, but now, says she, 'I think it much more pleasant to sit and see the wind blowing the trees, and to behold in the country what God has made'" (FN-1; below, p. 195). Edwards crossed out "in the country." Doubtless he did not intend to say so (or did he?), but surely those who spend their days in Megalopolis will be reassured to know that not even Jonathan Edwards thought one needed to withdraw to the country in order to enjoy God and all his works.

In assessing the "errors" of the first edition of A Faithful Narrative, one should not judge Watts and Guyse too harshly. Their explanation and defense of gaffes and misconstructions are logical enough—and spirited! Watts wrote:

Anybody who has ever looked at Edwards' handwriting, or followed the acrimonious controversy over revivalism in the eighteenth century, should be able to sympathize with that!

But even the most egregious errors have had an inexcusably long life. The first London edition was soon exhausted, and Watts ordered a new printing before learning of Edwards' reaction. Although the second edition of 1738 was completely reset, with paragraph topics provided by an unknown hand, the text is identical with the first. Even the title page repeats the confusion in geography, naming New Hampshire in place of Hampshire County. Two reprints appeared in Edinburgh in as many years (1737, 1738), repeating most of the errors of the first London edition except that one obvious ungrammaticism was corrected in 1738. Not even the first American edition of the collected works of Jonathan Edwards (ed. Samuel Austin, 8 vols. [Worcester, 1808–09]) reflected the revisions made by the author, and the same is true of the set edited by Sereno Edwards

Dwight (10 vols. [New York, 1829–30]). Both of these sets in the main follow the English printing of the tract, and except for the grammatical error corrected by the Edinburgh printers, include all its mistakes, even that of sometimes confusing "country" with "county." The ungrammaticism referred to is on p. 75 of FN-1, the phrase "discoveries with God." It should read, of course, "discoveries of God" (below, p. 182) The title of the Dwight edition, moreover, still locates Northampton in New Hampshire instead of Hampshire County, Massachusetts. Since all subsequent reprints of A Faithful Narrative stand at second or further remove from these two standard sets, the present edition is the first to offer an accurate text in modern format of this famous and popular piece.