I recently started reading Michael Haykin’s little book entitled, A Sweet Flame: Piety in the Letters of Jonathan Edwards.  What a treasure this book is, providing a glimpse into the personal life of Jonathan Edwards (1703-1758) as seen through his correspondence with various persons throughout his lifetime. 

Edwards and his wife, Sarah, had eleven children — ten girls and one boy — of whom a personal friend of Edwards states “reverenced, esteemed, and loved him.”  This is evident in a diary entry by Edwards’s third daughter, Esther Edwards Burr, who wrote:

Last eve I had some free discourse with my father on the great things that concern my best interest.  I opened my difficulties to him very freely and he as freely advised and directed.  The conversation has removed some discouraging doubts that distressed me much in my Christian warfare — He gave me some excellent directions to be observed in secret that tend to keep the soul near to God, as well as others to be observed in a more public way.  What a mercy that I have such a father!  Such a guide!

Edwards’s fourth daughter, Mary, had married a judge and moved a considerable distance away.  In a letter to her Edwards wrote:

Though you are at so great a distance from us, yet God is everywhere.  You are much out of the reach of our care, but you are every moment in His hands.  We have not the comfort of seeing you, but He sees you.  His eye is always upon you.  And if you may but be sensibly nigh to Him, and have His gracious presence, ’tis no matter though you are far distant from us.  I had rather you should remain hundreds of miles distant from us and have God nigh to you by His Spirit, than to have you always with us, and live at a distance from God.

Edwards then gave his beloved daughter some fatherly advice:

I hope that you will maintain a strict and constant watch over yourself and against all temptations:  that you don’t forget and forsake God; and particularly that you don’t grow slack in secret religion. Retire often from this vain world, and all its bubbles, empty shadows, and vain amusements, and converse with God alone; and seek that divine grace and comfort, the least drop of which is worth more than all the riches, gaiety, pleasures, and entertainments of the whole world.

Haykin notes that “Edwards surely has in mind here the way that the world and all its allurements seem so attractive to the young.  The solution is times of solitude and prayer, when the worth of eternal realities may be rightly seen.”

Sound advice indeed!  Have a great weekend.