Jonathan Edwards: A New Biography

When it first appeared in 1987, this book was the first full-length life of Jonathan Edwards to appear for almost fifty years. In the meantime the Pastor of Northampton, Missionary to the Indians in Stockbridge, and President of the New Jersey College (later Princeton) has been increasingly recognized as the greatest intellectual figure in eighteenth-century America.

Never before has so much material by Edwards or such detailed studies of his thought been available. Yet many of those who have led this renaissance of Edwards studies remain personally out of sympathy with almost every one of their subject’s personal convictions.

Special interest therefore attaches to Iain H. Murrary’s carefully-researched biography. Writing with the easy style, spiritual insight and sympathy with his subject which marks his other biographical works, Murray builds on the older lives of Edwards, but also harvests material from more recent studies.

Iain Murray believes that Edwards cannot be understood apart from his faith. Only when seen first and foremost as a Christian do his life and writings make sense. The integrity of this interpretation is confirmed in this study as Edwards is allowed on point after point to speak for himself.

The result is a biography which is both factually and theologically reliable. Edwards’ theology is set in the context of his everyday life in public and private. His family relationships punctuate the narrative, adding both interest and pathos. This outstanding study is not only an exceptional biography; it also serves as a classic illustration of how the church today can and should learn from its past history.

About the Author

Iain Hamish Murray, born in Lancashire, England, in 1931, was educated at Wallasey Grammar School and King William’s College in the Isle of Man (1945-49). He was converted in 1949 through the ministry at Hildenborough Hall, Tom and Jean Rees’ Christian conference centre in Kent. It was at Hildenborough later that same year that he first met Jean Ann Walters, who was to become his wife (they married in Edgeware on April 23, 1955).

After service with the Cameronians in Singapore and Malaya, he read Philosophy and History at the University of Durham with a view to the ministry of the English Presbyterian Church (his parents’ denomination). It was at Durham that he began to read the Puritans, whose writings were to become a lifelong passion. After a year of private study, he assisted Sidney Norton at St John’s Free Church, Oxford, in 1955–56, and it was here that The Banner of Truth magazine was launched, with Murray as its first editor.

From 1956 he was for three years assistant to Dr Lloyd-Jones at Westminster Chapel and there, with the late Jack Cullum, founded the Banner of Truth Trust in 1957. He left Westminster in 1961 for a nine-year pastorate at Grove Chapel, Camberwell. With the world-wide expansion of the Trust, Iain Murray became engaged full-time in its ministry from 1969 until 1981 when he responded to a call from St Giles Presbyterian Church, Sydney, Australia. Now based again in the UK, he and Jean live in Edinburgh. He has written many titles published by the Trust, in whose work he remains active. He is still writing.