Binding: Hardcover Page Count: 304Publisher: Banner of Truth ISBN# : 9780851518947
Availability: Usually Ships the Same Business Day
Description : Some Thoughts on the New England Revival aims to defend an unprecedented period of revival against the unjust words of its critics and the excesses of it friends, both of which, Edwards feared, would quench the Spirit and put a stop to the glorious work. What is a revival? How is it to be recognised? Is it a genuine work of the Spirit of God? If it is, how should it be acknowledged and promoted? These questions are taken up and answered by 'the theologian of revival', who, in God's providence, has supplied future generations of Christians with a sure guide on this vital subject.
"It is agreeable to God's manner of working, when he accomplishes any glorious work in the world, to introduce a new and more excellent state of his church, to begin his work where his church had not been till then, and where no foundation already laid, that the power of God might be the more conspicuous, that the work might appear to be entirely God's, and be more manifestly a creation out of nothing; agreeably to Hosea 1:10, 'And it shall come to pass, that in the place where it was said unto them, Ye are not my people, there it shall be said unto them, Ye are the Sons of the living God.' When God is about to turn the earth into a paradise, he does not begin his work where there is some good growth already, but in a wilderness, where nothing grows and nothing is to be seen but dry sand and barren rocks; that the light may shine out of darkness and the world be replenished from emptiness, and the earth watered by springs from a doughty desert; agreeably to many prophesies of Scripture, as: 'Until the Spirit be poured from on high, and the wilderness be a fruitful field'; 'I will open rivers in high places, and fountains in the midst of the valleys: I will make the wilderness a pool of water and the dry land springs of water. I will plant in the wilderness the cedar, the shittah tree, and the myrtle and oil tree; I will set in the desert the fir tree, and the pine, and the box tree together'; 'I will give waters in the wilderness and rivers in the desert, to give drink to my people, my chosen' (Isa 32:15; 41:18; 43:20)..." (pg. 77)
"No one has tasted and tested the experience of revival like Jonathan Edwards. In this book (as everywhere) he navigates biblically between intellectualism and emotionalism, doctrinaire and doctrineless Christianity, paralyzing self-condemnation and arrogant self-exultation, the presumptuous pursuit of revival and indolent passivity. In my experience Edwards is second only to the Bible." - John Piper
