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Scripture focus
But this shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel; After those days, saith the LORD, I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts.
Jeremiah 31:33 KJV
At a glance
Was Jonathan Edwards a strict Calvinist who rejected covenant theology, as scholar Perry Miller famously argued?
No — Edwards spent his career defending core Calvinist doctrines while also affirming the covenants of grace, works, church, and nation, though he raised the bar for who could receive the Lord's Supper.
Summary of the chapter
The influential historian Perry Miller argued that Edwards “threw over the whole covenant scheme,” returning to a starker, more inscrutable Calvin and thereby becoming, in Miller's phrase, “the first consistent and authentic Calvinist in New England.” McClymond and McDermott contest this: Edwards was certainly a self-described defender of Calvinism against Arminianism throughout his career, from his Yale thesis on justification to Freedom of the Will and Original Sin, yet he never abandoned covenantal categories.
Edwards in fact affirmed the classic Reformed covenants of redemption, works, and grace, along with church and national covenants — though he revised how they operated in practice. Most consequentially, he broke with his grandfather Solomon Stoddard's policy of open communion, insisting after nineteen years of following it that the Lord's Supper was only for those who gave a credible, if never certain, “visibility” of being regenerate.
Edwards also inherited the New England tradition of the national covenant, by which God blesses or judges a whole society according to its collective fidelity — interpreting droughts, blights, and the Great Awakening's dangers alike as divine dealings with a covenant people, while insisting no pastor or observer could ever judge with certainty who among them was truly regenerate.
Key points
- Perry Miller argued Edwards “threw over the whole covenant scheme” to become a raw, un-covenanted Calvinist, but McClymond and McDermott show this overstates the case.
- Edwards defended core Calvinist doctrines — irresistible grace, unconditional election, limited atonement — throughout his career against Arminian rivals.
- Edwards nonetheless affirmed covenants of redemption, works, and grace, as well as church and national covenants, revising rather than rejecting the tradition.
- He broke decisively with Stoddard's open-communion policy, restricting the Lord's Supper to those showing a credible profession and visible signs of regeneration.
- Edwards read New England's national fortunes through a covenantal lens, treating both disasters and revivals as God's dealings with a covenant people.
A line worth remembering
I should not take it all amiss, to be called a Calvinist, for distinction's sake.
McClymond & McDermott The Theology of Jonathan Edwards, ch. 21
Related Scripture
- Genesis 17:7
- Hebrews 8:10
- Galatians 3:17
- Deuteronomy 29:9
For reflection and discussion
- Why does it matter whether Edwards saw himself as continuing or abandoning New England's covenant tradition?
- What was at stake, pastorally, in Edwards's decision to require a credible profession of grace before admitting someone to the Lord's Supper?
- How does the idea of a 'national covenant' — that a whole society is blessed or judged corporately — compare with how you think about God's dealings with nations today?
These notes are an original UECF.NET study companion and are not a reproduction of the book. Read the full chapter — chapter 21, “Edwards's Calvinism and Theology of the Covenants” — in The Theology of Jonathan Edwards by Michael J. McClymond and Gerald R. McDermott (Oxford University Press, 2012).