In trouble and in joy

'The glory of God seemed to be all, and in all, and to swallow up every wish and desire of my heart' - Sarah Edwards.

We have heard much this year about the great American preacher Jonathan Edwards, as 2003 is the 300th anniversary of his birth.

He wrote some of the greatest books and preached some of the most powerful sermons in all of church history. But he himself freely admitted that for a 'visual aid' to illustrate the reality of Christian love, he looked to his wife Sarah. And when he came to write a definitive treatise on how to discern between the true and the false in a religious revival, he used her spiritual experience as the example of the 'highest and purest' he had ever come across. Sarah lived out what he preached.

Born in 1710 in New Haven, Sarah experienced a sense of God's felt presence from a very early age. She was only eight when Jonathan Edwards arrived in New Haven to study at the fledgling Yale College (of which her father had been one of the founders). Five years later in 1723, when Sarah was 13 and Jonathan 20, he penned a description of her that has passed into history. She loved, he said, to walk alone in the country and think of God. She knew that this Creator God loved her personally and feared more than anything else to offend him. She loved to sing to God, and was always full of joy - sometimes unspeakable joy.

Kindred spirit

No wonder Jonathan was enthralled, for he had discovered a kindred spirit. From an early age he too had loved to wander alone in the woods and pray; he thought deeply about God, in fact he thought deeply about everything. Tutoring at Yale at the tender age of twenty, he thought and spoke and wrote like a mature professor. No ordinary girl could have suited him, Sarah was extraordinary. She was not disturbed by the profundity of his religious experience, for she shared it. On the 28th of July 1727 17-year old Sarah married 25-year-old Jonathan. In the years to come many people would stay in their home. All spoke with one voice - the deep love and mutual respect of these two individuals was inviolable.

Earlier in that year, Jonathan had commenced ministry in the congregational church at Northampton, a town of just over a thousand inhabitants. The following year, Sarah's first child was born: she then had ten more children at more or less two-year intervals until she was 40. As well as her ministry as a wife and mother, Sarah excelled at hospitality. She created a warm, relaxed and happy atmosphere in their home, and stamped her own delightful personality upon it. Her gift was to make every visitor feel special, drawing people out in spiritual conversation when they visited the parsonage.

By the spring of 1735 Jonathan Edwards reported that he was seeing 30 conversions a week. 300 people were converted altogether in a six-month period in this, the first revival of his ministry. Excitement in the town was intense, and talk was of little else. Jonathan and Sarah found their home crowded with people wanting spiritual advice. Northampton was not the only town affected: similar scenes were taking place in towns throughout Connecticut, and further afield.

Bitter division

The revival caused bitter division among the ministers of New England: around a third of them dismissed it as merely human emotion and mass hysteria. Jonathan Edwards was realistic enough to understand this reaction. He agreed that a dramatic 'conversion experience' meant precisely nothing unless it was followed by a lifetime of obedience. It could be worse than useless, because the excitement of the 'experience' could lead individuals to believe that they were infallible. 'Revival' could overflow into fanaticism. Heightened excitement could lead people into actions that were misguided, while they claimed it was the guidance of the Holy Spirit. Uneducated people were thrilled by the notion that God would speak directly to them, and make claims that were ineffably silly. Newly converted individuals denounced mature leaders as lacking the Spirit.

And yet the presence of the false did not negate the presence of the true. The revival contained both good and bad. And when Jonathan set out to analyse the unusual scenes that had resulted from this phenomenon called 'revival' he had a case study right by him. For Sarah too had had an extraordinary experience. Indeed, when he returned from a preaching engagement early in 1742, the whole town was wondering whether she would even survive until his return. She had been prostrated physically with religious ecstasy, she had been so taken up with a sensation of the love of God that she had leaped for joy, she had sometimes been unable to stop talking, and at other times unable to speak.

Analysis needed

Typically, Jonathan did not rush to conclusions one way or the other. He was willing to face the possibility it could be due to nervous instability. But he wanted to analyse what had happened. He asked Sarah to sit down and describe every detail. She gave him a precise account of her spiritual experience which had lasted for 17 days from January 19 to February 4 1742. It was, concluded Jonathan, the most intense, pure, unmixed and well-regulated of any he had seen. He went on to explain that the long-term effect in Sarah's life was remarkable. She was now entirely resigned to God. She had given over to God the choice of life or death, for herself and her loved ones. She let God choose comfort or pain. Jonathan lived with Sarah. He, of all people, would know if this was just a passing phase. It was not. He could testify to her continual peace, cheerfulness and joy in the coming months and years.

The reality of Sarah's 'resignation of all to God' would be tested all too soon. While carried away with a sense of the love of God, she had visualised the worst-case scenarios which could befall her. What if the townsfolk turned on her and she was thrown out into the wilderness in the midst of winter? What if her husband turned against her? What if she had to die for Christ? More to the point, what about living the difficult day to day routine uncomplainingly? She was only 32. Having already had seven children, there were four more confinements ahead with all the pain, danger and exhaustion that involved. If God loved her, Sarah could honestly say that she did not care about the rest.

But the remaining years of her life presented her with some challenges she had not imagined. War. Slander and intrigue. Bereavement. Poverty. A move to an isolated Indian settlement. Continued poverty and continued intrigue. How would she respond? This would be the ultimate test of her professed security in the love of God. It was as if every earthly prop were being removed, so that it could be proved that if she had God, she had everything. Her serenity and poise in the face of these challenges demonstrated that her experience had been a reality: 'The whole world, with all its enjoyments and all its troubles seemed to be nothing: My God was my all, my only portion. no possible suffering seemed to be worth regarding: all persecutions and torments a mere nothing.'

Family sorrows

Finally, in the space of a few tragic months, Sarah's son-in-law Aaron, husband Jonathan, and daughter Esther all died. There could be no more painful test of her 'resignation of all to God.' When she heard the shattering news of her husband's premature death, Sarah, crippled with painful arthritis responded with towering faith. In a brief, almost unbearably poignant note to one of her daughters she wrote: 'The Lord has done it: He has made me adore his goodness that we had him so long. But my God lives and he has my heart.'

She had lost the one she loved more than any other: but she still loved the God who had given him - and taken him. Shortly afterwards, Sarah herself succumbed to illness and died, aged only 48. Her life had proved that the Christian can continue praising God 'in trouble and in joy'.

Sharon James

This is taken, with permission, from Sharon's latest book 'In Trouble and in Joy: Four Women who lived for God' (Evangelical Press, 2003), which contains a full biography of Sarah Edwards, and the account of her revival experience. It also has biographies of Margaret Baxter, Anne Steele and Frances Ridley Havergal, with selections from their writings.

Four women who lived for God

Kindred spirit

Bitter division

Analysis needed

Family sorrows

Sharon James

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