| The 'Distinguishing Marks, ' published in 1741, was based on a sermon Jonathan Edwards preached in Boston during the Great Awakening which spread through New England and the British Isles. In it, he deals firstly, with nine revival characteristics which some were using to discredit the true work of God. One by one, he argues that these phenomena, whether good or bad, should not be employed to discredit an authentic move of the Spirit. In the second part he deals with five revival characteristics which are to be used to verify a true revival; namely, the exaltation of Jesus Christ, the overcoming of Satan's kingdom, a love of the Scriptures, people are convinced of the truth of the Gospel and there is an evident and expressed love to God and man. He concludes in the third part with a summing up and conclusion to the whole. Aside from Edwards conviction that miraculous spiritual gifts, seen in the early church, would not be restored again, the wisdom in these pages can be applied to any professed spiritual revival. The original work is in the public domain and this electronic version was prepared for the The Christian Classics Ethereal Library at http://www.ccel.org/, which is an absolute feast of Christian etexts! Please pay them a visit. You will be enriched by their huge downloadable library of Christian etexts. We are grateful to Harry Plantinga for allowing us to place this great work in the Revival Library. |  |