I love it when people fall in love.
Like any good girl, I love a good love story, real or imagined.
I squeal with delight when my friends describe their dates. I listen to their engagement stories over and over. I sigh adoringly at their weddings. I especially love to hear what people in love say about one another--the traits they treasure, the characteristics they cherish, the beauty they behold.
And today, while reading about (of all things) the Great Awakening in the colonies, I came across one of the most riveting and sweet descriptions of love I’ve ever encountered. Jonathan Edwards, the great preacher and teacher of the eighteenth century, wrote these words of Sarah Pierrepont, four years before marrying her:
“They say there is a young lady in [New Haven] who is beloved of that Great Being, who made and rules the world, and that there are certain seasons in which this Great Being, in some way or other invisible, comes to her and fills her mind with exceeding sweet delight; and that she hardly cares for any thing, except to meditate on him— that she expects after a while to be received up where he is, to be raised up out of the world and caught up into heaven; being assured that he loves her too well to let her remain at a distance from him always. There she is to dwell with him, and to be ravished with his love and delight for ever. Therefore, if you present all the world before her, with the richest of its treasures, she disregards it and cares not for it, and is unmindful of any pain or affliction. She has a strange sweetness in her mind, and singular purity in her affections; is most just and conscientious in all her conduct; and you could not persuade her to do any thing wrong or sinful, if you would give her all the world, lest she should offend this Great Being. She is of a wonderful sweetness, calmness, and universal benevolence of mind; especially after this Great God has manifested himself to her mind. She will sometimes go about from place to place, singing sweetly; and seems to be always full of joy and pleasure; and no one knows for what. She loves to be alone, walking in the fields and groves, and seems to have some one invisible always conversing with her." (Written in 1723; from The Works of President Edwards, vol. I)
What words to speak of someone! To know, principally, that the beloved is beloved by God, that it is He who “fills her mind with exceedingly sweet delight.” To know that her main preoccupation is with things eternal, that she “hardly cares for anything else,” that she will endure any pain or affliction assured by God’s great love. To say that she has “a strange sweetness,” cares for justice, “is of a wonderful sweetness, calmness, and universal benevolence of mind.” That she sometimes wanders around smiling to herself “singing sweetly; and seems always to be full of joy and pleasure; and no one knows for what.” She simply enjoys the presence of the Lord.
Edwards loves Sarah because she is already loved by God. He admires her constant joy and her childlike sweetness because he knows it is derived from her assurance of the gospel. This is a love sustained not by feelings or emotional connection or shared goals, but by the True Hope and True Love of Christ.
Jonathan and Sarah Edwards were married for 31 years, from 1727 until Edwards’ death in 1758. As he lay dying in Princeton with his wife away in Northhampton, Edwards asked for those with him to “Tell her that the uncommon union which has so long subsisted between us, has been of such a nature as I trust is spiritual, and therefore will continue forever."
Yep, one of the best love stories I’ve heard in a while.
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