Elisabeth D. Dodds

Married to a Difficult Man is a comprehensive history/biography about the Colonial American Puritan pastor, Jonathan Edwards, his wife, Sarah, their children, and the times and places they lived.

THE UNION

The story began with the union of Jonathan and Sarah. Edwards was bookish and studious, and while women were not expected to be educated in the 1700's Puritan world, "Sarah had the best training a girl was allowed to have then." She was a "young lady of quality," and was trained well in many skills. She even practiced good posture for many hours - a lost art. Jonathan may have met his match in Sarah's mind, but he was terribly awkward in the area of social graces.

Nonetheless they discovered their shared love for nature and books, which could be enough to keep any union vigorous; but of course there was more to their union. Sarah would be marrying a minister, and with that came unique obligations and responsibilities. It takes an exceptional woman to wed and stay married to a man of the pulpit, particularly a man who disappeared for long periods of time reading, researching, writing, and traveling.

In addition to his "horrendous" working hours, she had to contend with her husband's not uncommon communications and connections with other women in the church, as "the majority of members in the New England church were women."

To be sure, the author makes a major portion of the book about their love and faithfulness to each other. A family friend recalled how Edwards
could trust everything...to the care of Mrs. Edwards with entire safety and undoubting confidence. She was most judicious and faithful mistress, habitually industrious, a sound economist, managing her household affairs with diligence and discretion.
She uniformly paid a becoming deerence to her husband and treated him with entire respect, conforming to his inclination and rendering everything in the family agreeable and pleasant. She accounted it her greatest glory and there wherein she could best serve God and her generation, to be the means of promoting his usefulness and happiness.
In return, Edwards "treated her as a fully mature being (as a person whose conversations entertained him, whose spirit nourished his own religious life, whose presence gave him repose).

RAISING UP CHILDREN

Sarah and Jonathan were blessed with eleven children. Jonathan believed that
as innocent as children seem to be to us, yet...they are naturally very senseless and stupid, being born as the wild ass's colt and need much to awaken them.
At the end of each day, Jonathan dedicated an hour to his family. He educated his children in church history, Latin, Greek, rhetoric, and penmanship. He listened to their lessons and expected them to compose their own prayers. But it was Sarah who trained them up in godly character and self-discipline.
It is impressive to consider what the sole union of Sarah and Jonathan produced. By 1900, the Edwards family could boast (though they probably wouldn't):
13 college presidents
65 professors
100 lawyers
1 dean of a law school
30 judges
66 physicians
1 dean of a medical school
80 holders of public office
3 U.S. senators
3 mayors
3 governors
1 U.S. Treasury Controller
1 U. S. Vice President

THE REVIVAL
There were two religious revivals under Jonathan Edwards, called The Great Awakenings. The colonial settlements of America had quieted into a lull, bored with religion and suspicious of church structure.
The beginnings of the first Great Awakening, in 1734, had fractured and weakened many churches. There was an emotional fervor taking over the town, and Edwards sought to channel it into sensible discernment. He wrote biblical directions to test if conviction was true or empty emotion. When the effect swung in the opposite course, and people wearied in "despair... [with] a terrifying sense of God's anger," Edwards worked to keep the movement well-grounded in truth. He focused their faith into action.
The second revival in 1740-41, occurred when George Whitefield, the English evangelist, visited America. It was also the same time that Edwards wrote his sermon: Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God. It fell on deaf ears when he read it to his own congregation; however, some months later as a guest pastor , he read the same sermon, and there it made history. That sermon may well have changed the face of New England.
But with religious revivals, there was a counter: churches further splintered and "religious experience [was] grotesquely distorted by emotionalism." And with it, a host of false teachers led false converts away.
BACK TO SARAH
The most interesting chapter was on Sarah and her nervous breakdown, which led to either her true "conversion" or further growth in her walk with Christ. Sarah struggled internally, particularly after childbirth. "Her disproportionate responsibilities began to overtax her." She was tempted to think the worst of her husband, her children and herself, and she fought to not reveal:
I'm not as endlessly giving as I appear to be, and this is an impossibly difficult man.
As her husband was frequently away, she carried the management of their large household solely on her own, without relief for her own fears or anxieties. She was crushed by the opinions of others in the congregation, of not only herself but also for her husband. The burdens became heavier. She eventually felt she was wrestling with God.
For Sarah, it was a personal Great Awakening, and when she literally came to, she
stopped straining to please God (and man) and began to live in the assurance of a salvation she didn't have to try to deserve. She stopped pushing herself to be worthy of Edwards' love and from then on had his unreserved admiration.
She recalled how she awoke and:
...was led to reflect on God's mercy to me in giving me, for many years, a willingness to die, and after that...in making me willing to live.
BACK TO JONATHAN
Edwards took on the sinfulness of the community, becoming very liberal in his opinions about trivial matters while stepping on some consciences along the way. He commented on his congregations' owning too few books - evidence for a lack of reading. (I mean, truly reprehensible!) The people were tired of Edward's lectures on his angry God. Sarah came to the defense of her husband by writing a long letter to the church membership, but this mattered not. Edwards wore out his welcome. It was 1750. The colonies were in a bad mood, and Edwards was voted out of his congregation and sent packing.
He was relegated to a missionary of the Mohican Nation, where he preached the gospel and taught the people. He maintained good relations with the Indians and also defended their rights to their homeland. This was the time of the French and Indian War, where the Edwardses were very much on the frontline.
UNFORTUNATELY...
There is much more to the story, but I will cut to the end of Jonathan and Sarah. In 1758, a smallpox epidemic was spreading, and Edwards decided to take a chance on the new inoculation. Jonathan and daughter Esther and her children were agreed to be part of the experiment. Unfortunately, they all contracted smallpox from the medical procedure, and Jonathan succumbed to the disease after all.
Sarah "tried to be prepared or any testing that life might require of her." She found ways to cling to and trust in God. While Esther suffered with the pox, Sarah wrote to her daughter about the loss of Mr. Edwards:
A holy and good God has covered us with a dark cloud. He has made me adore his goodness, that we had [Jonathan] so long. But my God lives; and he has my heart. O what a legacy my husband and your father has left us! We are given to God; and there I am and love to be.
Two weeks later, Esther died.
Not long after, Sarah lost the will to live without her life partner and she died of a broken heart.

FINAL WORDS
While reading, I did not fully appreciate the scope of this work until I started to write a review. I left out so much information. There are several more chapters after Sarah death covering the Edwardses' legacy, which continued for over a century and is amazing when you consider how much an individuals and families can do to alter a nation. Even with their failings and blunders, they affected history, a nation and its people for good. If it wasn't for Pfizer the smallpox experiment, how much more would they have accomplished?
I only gave it three stars because I thought the writing could have been better. That was my only pet peeve.… (más)

According to Dodds, Sarah lent Edwards her copy of Peter van Mastricht's book on covenant theology--so influential on his later thought--while Edwards was courting her. I'm reduced to a puddle by that tidbit.

This book is a bit dated, and it has its moments of speculation and maybe a touch of melodrama, but it doesn't go amiss when telling this family's story. This is a really delightful read, and it made me adore both Jonathan and Sarah, and their marriage, even more. Would definitely read again, and will track down a copy to own.

Favorite line that has a different connotation now than when it was first written: "[Edwards] tried to be less awesome, but it was hard." Indeed.… (más)