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Here is another extract from John Carrick's, 'The Preaching of Jonathan Edwards'. Once again it seems to have great practical relevance to preaching and ministry today.
‘The Yale co-editors point to “a series of seven special meetings at which Edwards preached from July 1740 to August 1741 to specific age cohorts within his congregation: three sermons for children (aged one to fourteen), two for young people (fifteen to twenty-five), and one each for middle-aged people (twenty-six to fifty) and elderly (over fifty). Edwards saw it as his ministerial duty to preach to the specific needs both of his congregation as a whole and of individual groups within it… He knew that different groups among his congregation required special and specific lessons.”
‘There is an obvious connection between Edwards’ tendency to hold special meetings for different categories of hearers and his tendency to address special categories of hearers in his sermons. It is precisely because “different groups among his congregation required special and specific lessons” that he also frequently addressed different categories of hearers in his Applications. In some sermons the different categories are based upon age, gender, and position; in other sermons they are based upon spiritual condition. Again, in certain sermons there is a cross-fertilization of these two broad categories. The clear, tacit supposition in his mind in such categorization of his hearers is that every congregation is a mixed auditory that consists of different groups which occupy different positions and sustain different relationships. As such they were vulnerable to different temptations, susceptible to different sins, and characterized by different duties. They needed, therefore, to be addressed with different admonitions and exhortations. Edwards thus demonstrates here a theory of discriminating application which recognized and addressed these different spiritual needs.’
‘The Yale co-editors point to “a series of seven special meetings at which Edwards preached from July 1740 to August 1741 to specific age cohorts within his congregation: three sermons for children (aged one to fourteen), two for young people (fifteen to twenty-five), and one each for middle-aged people (twenty-six to fifty) and elderly (over fifty). Edwards saw it as his ministerial duty to preach to the specific needs both of his congregation as a whole and of individual groups within it… He knew that different groups among his congregation required special and specific lessons.”
‘There is an obvious connection between Edwards’ tendency to hold special meetings for different categories of hearers and his tendency to address special categories of hearers in his sermons. It is precisely because “different groups among his congregation required special and specific lessons” that he also frequently addressed different categories of hearers in his Applications. In some sermons the different categories are based upon age, gender, and position; in other sermons they are based upon spiritual condition. Again, in certain sermons there is a cross-fertilization of these two broad categories. The clear, tacit supposition in his mind in such categorization of his hearers is that every congregation is a mixed auditory that consists of different groups which occupy different positions and sustain different relationships. As such they were vulnerable to different temptations, susceptible to different sins, and characterized by different duties. They needed, therefore, to be addressed with different admonitions and exhortations. Edwards thus demonstrates here a theory of discriminating application which recognized and addressed these different spiritual needs.’
