Jonathan Edwards' Preferred Method of Delivery In Preaching

He had extraordinary gifts for the pulpit: I never had opportunity to hear him preach, but have often heard him pray: and I think his manner of addressing himself to God, and expressing himself before him, in that duty, almost inimitable; such (so far as I may judge) as I have very rarely known equaled. He expressed himself with that exact propriety and pertinency, in such significant, weighty, pungent expressions; with that decent appearance of sincerity, reverence and solemnity, and great distance from all affectation, as forgetting the presence of men, and as being in the immediate presence of a great and holy God, than I have scarcely ever known paralleled. And his manner of preaching, by what I have often heard of it from good judges, was no less excellent; being clear and instructive, natural, nervous, forcible, and moving, and very searching and convincing. He nauseated an affected noisiness, and violent boisterousness in the pulpit; and yet much disrelished a flat cold delivery, when the subject of discourse, and matter delivered, required affection and earnestness.1
You can listen to the episode of East of Eden in which Dave Filson, Jeff Waddington and I discuss the history, structure and theology of Edwards' funeral sermon for David Brainard here.
1. Edwards, J. (2006). "True Saints, When absent from the Body, Are Present with the Lord." In W. H. Kimnach & H. S. Stout (Eds.), Sermons and Discourses, 1743–1758 (Vol. 25, p. 245). New Haven; London: Yale University Press.
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