The legacy of Jonathan Edwards is certainly complex. Within this legacy, one finds, as M.X. Lesser concludes, certain unresolved and haunting dualities between Edwards the mystic and rationalist; philosopher and theologian; poet of the divine and scourger of the wicked.[1] Yet another duality that can be found in Edwards’ thought (hopefully less haunting) is the subject of the divine love of Christ toward the soul of the believer and how that profound love both influences and celebrates love between the sexes. This study will demonstrate that Jonathan Edwards’ concept of feeling love toward the other sex as being a good way to think of Christ’s love toward a holy and beautiful soul is found within his affectionate portrayal of Sarah Pierpont. Thus, it will be argued that Sarah Pierpont is the spiritual portrayal of Jonathan’s idea of a holy and beautiful soul.

Expressions of Puritan Love

Outward Puritan expressions of love in 18^th century New England between wives and husbands, or between persons betrothed, are not particularly known for their romantic qualities. In fact, Puritan love was by no means romantic; but rather, this love and its affections were rational.[2] Within this so-called rational love were Puritan theological perspectives that shaped the ways in which affections were to be understood and expressed.

In contrast to this perspective, however, Jonathan Edwards seems to interpret this Puritan prudery of love as a false dichotomy.[3] He rejects the idea that persons should not love each other inordinately,[4] but that in this love, persons can actually apprehend God’s love more profoundly. “We see,” Edwards says, “how great love the human nature is capable of, not only to God but fellow creatures. How greatly we are inclined to the other sex! Nor doth an exalted and fervent love to God hinder this, but only refines and purifies it.”[5] For Edwards, the idea that one should express hesitant love towards the other sex for the purpose of loving God is to miss the point.

Edwards’ rationale for asserting this refined perspective on love is accomplished by bridging the gap of love between the sexes and comparing it to Christ’s love of a holy and beautiful soul:

Christ has [a] human nature as well as we, and has an inclination to love those that partake of the human [nature] as well as we. That inclination which in us is turned to the other sex, in him is turned to the church, which is his spouse…Therefore when we feel love to anyone of the other sex, ’tis a good way to think of the love of Christ to [a] holy and beautiful soul.[6]

Here, it can be seen that Edwards is departing from the Puritan norm of limiting ones affections for one another and directing them to God. Edwards instead zealously exults this love and its affections by turning to Christ’s love as an example for how persons ought to love each other.

A Holy and Beautiful Soul

When Edwards says in miscellany No. 189, “…when we feel love to anyone of the other sex, ’tis a good way to think of the love of Christ to [a] holy and beautiful soul,” who is he referring too? Further, can we know what Edwards’ definition of a holy and beautiful soul is? The answer to both of these questions can be found in Edwards’ affectionate portrayal of Sarah Pierpont in a romantic apostrophe he wrote to her.[7]

In 1723 the twenty year old Edwards wrote the even younger Sarah a unique piece of poetry, often called the Apostrophe to Sarah Pierpont, in which he describes what a holy and beautiful soul is.[8] But before turning to the letter, it is important to remember at this point that the affectionate love that Edwards exhibits to Sarah is unique within his Puritan context. Two Puritan examples that illustrate a serious contrast to Edwards’ highly romantic language make this point. First, consider the following Puritan perspective written to the Reverend Samuel Whiting:

Church doctors are my witnesses, that here

Affections always kept their proper sphere,

Without those wilder eccentricities,

Which spot the fairest fields of men most wise.[9]

This passage is representative of the Puritan mindset of subjugating romantic affections, and the wild eccentricities that often follow, to the realm of reason. Puritan piety also plays a role in this limiting of loving affections. The idea that too much love and affection for one another could detract from ones love of God was a dilemma within Puritanism. As Puritan historian Edmund Morgan notes, “…ministers hastened to warn husbands and wives that their love for each other required moderation.”[10] Within this moderation was the theological idea that if a person was to celebrate love between the sexes too greatly, it “much benumbs and dims the light of Spirit.”[11] Thus, the Puritan hermeneutic of love was to use discretion for demonstrating affections toward one another.

Secondly, this rationalistic love is also illustrated by the historical courting account between Michael Wigglesworth and his marriage proposal to a certain Mrs. Avery. The proposal is interestingly devoid of loving and passionate language, but rather consists of a cogent and well thought out list of “ten reasons why she should marry him and answering two objections which she had raised to the match.”[12] Yet with both of these accounts one should not presume that passionate and romantic expressions did not exist in Puritan society, but only that the acceptable approach for expressing such emotions was not normative in Puritan prose.

Edwards’ expressions of loving affections are wholly different from the Puritan examples above. His concept of Christ’s love toward a holy and beautiful soul is a romantically aesthetic example of his unique theology. Edwards describes this holy and beautiful soul subsisting in the person of Sarah. His love for Sarah in the letter is, in actuality, a celebration not only of her piety but also of the ideal soul. Although lengthy, the following example from the letter is necessary to apprehend Edwards’ portrayal of Sarah and her spiritual qualities:

…[S]he hardly cares for anything, except to meditate on him—that she expects after a while to be received up where he is, to be raised out of the world and caught up into heaven; being assured that he loves her too well to let her remain at a distance from him always. There she is to dwell with him, and to be ravished with his love, favor and delight, forever. Therefore, if you present all the world before her, with the richest of its treasures, she disregards it and cares not for it, and is unmindful of any pain or affliction. She has a strange sweetness in her mind, and sweetness of temper, uncommon purity in her affections; is most just and praiseworthy in all her actions; and you would give her all the world, lest she should offend this great Being. She is of a wonderful sweetness, calmness and universal benevolence of mind; especially after those times in which this great God has manifested himself to her mind. She will sometimes go about, singing sweetly, from place to [place]; and seems to be always full of joy and pleasure; and no one knows for what.[13]

Here it can be seen that Edwards’ affections for Sarah are expressive of his conception of a beautiful and holy soul as described back in miscellany No. 189. Thus, his significant use of vivid and romantic language such as “ravishing love” and “universal benevolence” reach far beyond the bounds of Puritanism. In fact, the common saying that “Good Puritans controlled their affections even in love letters”[14] seems antithetical to what Edwards is communicating.

There are, however, those who dismiss romantic and idealized perspectives on the nature of the relationship between Edwards and Sarah.[15] For example, Edwardsean scholar George Claghorn accurately says that, “When Edwards penned his meditation, the young minister was contemplating not Sarah Pierpont’s appearance but her religious dedication and way of life” and that “Popular writers have used the piece to create a romantic, idealized picture of the relationship between Jonathan and Sarah…”[16] Claghorn’s commentary, here, should be taken seriously. Admittedly, it could be easy to romanticize Jonathan and Sarah’s relationship to mythical proportions. But would it also be reasonable to ignore that Edwards is actually writing a passionately charged and romantic piece that intimately involves Sarah and was given to her? Furthermore, is Edwards’ language in his letter, in fact, distinctive in his Puritan context, as compared with the other Puritan examples above? Historian and Edwards’ biographer George Marsden seems to think so, he wrote:

Whatever his underlying emotions, he expressed them as pure platonic Christian love. Sarah was his Beatrice. Indeed, Edwards lived in a world of spiritual realties that was in some respects closer to the medieval Dante’s than to our own. Sarah was the perfectly embodied ideal of all that he aspired to be, the pure spiritual being…In any case, Jonathan was sure that in Sarah he had found a kindred spirit.[17]

Marsden’s analysis also seems to be accurate, but more importantly there is supplementary evidence to suggest that Sarah is the representation of the holy and beautiful soul that Edwards’ describes in miscellany No. 189.

In miscellany No. 108, titled, “Excellency of Christ”, Edwards interestingly says in the first lines: “When we behold a beautiful body, a lovely proportion, a beautiful harmony of features of face, delightful airs of countenance and voice, and sweet motion and gesture, we are charmed with it; not under the notion of a corporeal, but a mental beauty.”[18] Here one must be very inquisitive and wonder where, or who, Edwards is drawing this analogy upon. Later in the miscellany when he compares the love and excellencies of Christ to such mental beauty, the issue of the human soul is again referenced: “…when we behold the beauty of [humanity’s] body in its perfection,…we see far the most proper image of the beauty of Christ, when we see beauty in the human soul.”[19] There can be little doubt[20] that the beginning of the miscellany, like that of miscellany No. 189, is referring to Sarah Pierpont.

[2] Edmund S. Morgan, The Puritan Family: Religion and Domestic Relations in Seventeenth-Century New England, rev. ed. (New York: Harper & Row, 1966), 52.

[3] John E. Smith, Harry S. Stout, and Kenneth P. Minkema, eds. A Jonathan Edwards Reader (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1995), editors’ introduction, xxxiii.

[4] Morgan gives an example: “let this caution be minded, that they dont [sic] love inordinately, because death will soon part them.” Morgan, Puritan Family, 49.

[5] Thomas A. Shafer, ed. The “Miscellanies,” a-500, Vol. 13. The Works of Jonathan Edwards, (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1994), 332.

[6] Ibid.

[7] Philip F. Gura, Jonathan Edwards: America’s Evangelical (New York: Hill and Wang, 2005), 43-44.

[8] Perry Miller, Jonathan Edwards (New York: W. Sloane Associates, 1949), 201.

[9] Morgan, Puritan Family, 53.

[10] Quote from Benjamin Wadsworth’s, Well-Ordered Family. Ibid., 48.

[11] Ibid.

[12] Ibid.

[13] George S. Claghorn, ed. Letters and Personal Writings, Vol. 16. The Works of Jonathan Edwards, (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1998), introduction to “on Sarah Pierpont,” 789-90.

[14] Morgan, Puritan Family, 50.

[15] Claghorn, Letters and Personal Writings, WJE, Vol. 16, 745.

[16] Ibid., 745-746.

[17] George M. Marsden, Jonathan Edwards: A Life (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2003), 94.

[18]Schafer, The “Miscellanies” Nos. a-500, WJE, Vol. 13, 278.

[19] Ibid., 280.

[20] Mardsen agrees with this assessment of miscellany No. 108. He says, “It begins with what must be a contemplation on Sarah, but which, as all else in nature, points to ‘the excellencies of Christ.’” Mardsen, Jonathan Edwards, 99.