Veritas Redux: Evangelical Truths Restored by John Edwards

 

In this blogpost I'm featuring Volume One of John Edwards' planned body of divinity. This volume was dedicated to the doctrine of predestination as understood in Calvinism. The second volume was on the doctrine of justification. I'm not sure what volume 3 was focused on or whether he lived long enough to finish a volume 4. This John Edwards [1637-1716] is not to be confused with the more famous Jonathan Edwards [1703-1758]. Both famous preachers Jonathan Edwards and George Whitefield recommended John Edwards' works. It's unfortunate that John Edwards is mostly forgotten in the theological community. Surprisingly his books are not hosted at www.Monergism.com. I recently finished reading this first volume and I was thoroughly impressed, informed and edified. He presented a good case for infralapsarianism against supralapsarianism. I myself lean slightly toward supra, but because of reading this book, I'm now much more open to supralapsarianism. I only came across this book because it was recommended in the well known popular introduction to Calvinism, The Five Points of Calvinism by David N. Steele. I also read one of [a number of] John Edwards' books in defense of the Trinity.

Below is the the link to the scanned book. Unfortunately, some pages and sentences were hard to read or illegible. But I was able to read about 99% of the book. It's well worth the effort and frustration. His other book "The Arminian Doctrines Condemn'd" is even more illegible. But I nevertheless include the link to it.

In his book, Steele wrote:

This volume is a study of the five points of Calvinism by one of the great Puritan Calvinists of England. John Edwards (1637-1716) was thought to be one of the foremost Calvinists of his time, and this work represents the very nature presentation of his position both positively, by direct reference to Scriptural foundations, and negatively, by contrast with the Arminian point of view. The work is unfortunately out of print and very rare, but it is one of the plainest and most mature presentations of the Calvinistic point of view ever produced. Some publisher would do a great service to the cause of truth by reprinting this work.

Famous Calvinist preacher George Whitefield wrote in a letter to his famous Arminian friend the preacher John Wesley the following:

"But I referred you, at the beginning of this letter, to Dr. Edwards's Veritas Redux, which I recommended to you also in a late letter, with Elisha Coles on God's Sovereignty. Be pleased to read these, and also the excellent sermons of Mr. Cooper of Boston in New England (which I also sent you) and I doubt not but you will see all your objections answered." -from Whitefield's letter to Wesley which can be read HERE or in The Memoirs of Rev. George Whitefield, page 640 here.

Daniel C. Norman in his (2022?) book Saving the Church of England: John Edwards (1637-1716) as Dissenting Conformer wrote:

Works of John Edwards also found a prominent place in the library of Jonathan Edwards. Six of them are listed in Jonathan Edwards’s “Catalogue.” Upon discovering these six to be of value, Jonathan Edwards expressed a desire to acquire Edwards’s other works.125 Jonathan’s father Timothy, pastor of the Congregational Church in East Windsor for nearly sixty-four years also profited from reading John Edwards, seen in citations from Veritas Redux and Theologia Reformata in his manuscript notebooks.126 With the interest of such high-profile ministers in New England, it is not surprising that some of Edwards’s works were printed in Boston.127 Some of his works were taken to Europe as evidenced by translations into German and French.128

Back in England, Edwards continued to be widely read. In the introduction to his A Compleat Body of Speculative and Practical Divinity, Thomas Stackhouse (1677–1752) wrote that of the “almost innumerable” works published as “Bodies of Divinity,” two are “the best known, and most in use,” those written by Edwards and Richard Fiddes (1671–1725). He called Edwards “very Learned” and his frequently footnoted works, “purely Calvinistical.”

Veritas Redux: Evangelical Truths Restored by John Edwards [VOLUME ONE]
https://www.google.com/books/edition/Veritas_Redux_Evangelical_truths_restore/WYuZmGF4oZMC?hl=en&gbpv=0 [SMALLER FILE]
OR
https://archive.org/details/bim_eighteenth-century_veritas-redux-evangelic_edwards-john_1707_1 [LARGER FILE]

Veritas Redux Volume 2 [ on the subject of justification by faith, titled, The Doctrin of Faith and Justification Set in a True Light ]
https://www.google.com/books/edition/Veritas_Redux_Evangelical_truths_restore/437s_w0gk4wC?hl=en&gbpv=0

 
Veritas Redux Volume 3 [ on the subject of sanctification, titled, Theologia Reformata ]
https://www.google.com/books/edition/Veritas_Redux_Evangelical_truths_restore/cvYw8cux4dUC?hl=en&gbpv=0

The Arminian Doctrines Condemn'd by John Edwards
https://books.google.com/books?id=XaOgMhzoudUC&newbks=1&newbks_redir=0&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false