Children and Brimstone: Jonathan Edwards, Families, and Convicted Children

Jonathan Edwards lived in a time when family units were the center of society in a number of ways, especially in the religious culture surrounding the revivals for which he was famous. In his “Faithful Narrative” he gives clear account of the way people of all ages were affected by the conviction toward salvation - telling the stories of a young person who had died and thus spurred on conviction in his contemporaries and also recounting how there were many who were above middle age being converted. (pg. 10.) He also recounts how there were “…near 30…” persons aged 10 to 14 who were converted. Celebration was due to every family during this time of harvest, according to Edwards. He also firmly believed that many of these children that were converted would grow up to be Godly citizens. 

These children’s conversions were noticed and recounted by Edwards, which calls into question his theology surrounding unconverted children. In possibly his most famous sermon, “Sinners In The Hands of An Angry God,” Edwards’ view of human depravity and God’s excellent justice are laid out in convicting language, but he also does something unusual by extending that depravity and justice dichotomy onto the children. 

Edwards asks in what I read as his “altar call” of the sermon, though others may interpret this segment of the sermon differently, of children that, “…Don’t you know that you are going down to hell, to bear the dreadful wrath of that God that is now angry with you every day, and every night?” (pg. 17.)

What in Edwards’ context promotes the idea that Children are held accountable to God in the same way that grown men are accountable to God? Is there anything that promotes his apparent relative comfort with the idea that God condemns children to hell in spite of their age?