Charity and Its Fruits (delivered 1738, published 1852) is Jonathan Edwards’s extensive series of sixteen sermons on 1 Corinthians 13, exploring Christian love as the fundamental principle of true religion and foundation for all genuine virtue and holy living.
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Preached during the early stirrings of the Great Awakening in Edwards’s Northampton congregation, this work systematically expounds Paul’s great love chapter, demonstrating how charity (Christian love) represents both the essence of Christian character and the source from which all other graces flow.
Edwards methodically examines charity’s nature as supreme Christian virtue, its various manifestations in holy tempers and conduct, its relationship to other graces, and its eternal permanence contrasted with temporary gifts. He demonstrates how genuine love to God and neighbor distinguishes authentic Christianity from mere formalism or enthusiasm, with charity serving as comprehensive principle organizing all Christian duties and evidencing saving grace. His treatment shows how theological precision serves pastoral purposes, with understanding charity’s nature essential for cultivating genuine godliness.
What distinguishes this work is Edwards’s exceptional integration of doctrinal exposition with practical application and devotional warmth, showing how profound theological truth transforms daily conduct and affections. Unlike purely academic treatments of virtue or sentimental celebrations of love divorced from theological foundations, Edwards demonstrates how proper understanding of divine love revealed in redemption produces genuine human love reflecting God’s character. His treatment is especially valuable for showing how Reformed theology generates warm affectionate religion rather than cold intellectualism.
The work explores charity’s various fruits including humility, gentleness, patience, forgiveness, generosity, and truthfulness, showing how love produces these qualities naturally as expressions of renewed nature. Edwards demonstrates how charity opposes corresponding vices including pride, harshness, impatience, vindictiveness, selfishness, and deception, with love’s presence or absence determining character’s fundamental orientation toward God and neighbor.
Edwards particularly emphasizes charity’s eternal permanence, showing how love alone among spiritual graces continues undiminished into eternity, with faith becoming sight and hope becoming possession while love increases forever. He presents heaven primarily as realm of perfect love where redeemed souls enjoy unhindered communion with God and each other in endless mutual delight, with earthly charity serving as foretaste of eternal felicity.
Author BiographyJonathan Edwards (1703-1758) was colonial America’s greatest theologian and philosopher, whose intellectual brilliance combined profound spiritual experience with rigorous philosophical analysis. Educated at Yale College, Edwards served as pastor in Northampton, Massachusetts, where his preaching helped spark the First Great Awakening before controversies over revival practices and communion standards led to his dismissal.
