Major Works

History of the Work of Redemption (1739/74)

INTRODUCTION

In this ambitious series of thirty sermons preached in 1739 and posthumously published, in expanded form, in Scotland, Edwards registers his broad vision of salvific history. He takes the plan to a cosmic level, showing the trinitarian plan of redemption in the covenantal interworkings of the three persons of the Trinity. God’s righteousness consists in God’s faithfulness in fulfilling covenant promises to believers. The covenant of redemption separated all of humanity into elect and reprobate. Human history from Adam’s fall to the final judgement was organized into distinct phases. In describing the projected treatise on this subject to the trustees of the College of New Jersey in 1757, he described it as theology thrown into the form of a narrative, a story. All of Christian doctrine would be organized into a history of heaven, hell, and earth. Tantalizing in its inception and from the large amounts of material he left behind for it, A History of the Work of Redemption remains one of Edwards’s uncompleted “great works.”

We are in the process of preparing this text for publication in the Works of Jonathan Edwards Online, which currently features some 25,000 pages of Edwards manuscripts. Until the text is ready, please click here to download a PDF file of the first sermon from the series.