This book is a collection of miscellaneous essays and lectures published or given publicly by the author over the course of forty years. All of the lectures were given on special occasions, the details of which are stated at the head of the lecture in question. One of the lectures ("Evangelicals and the Oxford Movement") was given as the Evangelical Library Lecture of 1983; one of the essays ("Jonathan Edwards and the Deists") won first prize in the Evangelical Library Essay Competition of 1987 and was published in the Banner of Truth Magazine in 1988; four of the lectures ("The Holy Spirit and Revival"; "Redemptive-Historical Preaching: A Critique"; "The Glory of Creation"; and "The Exclusiveness of Christ") were given at the annual conferences of Greenville Presbyterian Theological Seminary; one of the lectures ("Edwards in the Hands of English Professors") was given at a conference of the Evangelical Theological Society in 2006; and one ("The Extemporaneous Mode of Preaching'') was given as Carrick's inaugural lecture as professor of homiletics at Greenville Seminary in 2009.

This book is a collection of miscellaneous essays and lectures published or given publicly by the author over the course of forty years. All of the lectures were given on special occasions, the details of which are stated at the head of the lecture in question. One of the lectures ("Evangelicals and the Oxford Movement") was given as the Evangelical Library Lecture of 1983; one of the essays ("Jonathan Edwards and the Deists") won first prize in the Evangelical Library Essay Competition of 1987 and was published in the Banner of Truth Magazine in 1988; four of the lectures ("The Holy Spirit and Revival"; "Redemptive-Historical Preaching: A Critique"; "The Glory of Creation"; and "The Exclusiveness of Christ") were given at the annual conferences of Greenville Presbyterian Theological Seminary; one of the lectures ("Edwards in the Hands of English Professors") was given at a conference of the Evangelical Theological Society in 2006; and one ("The Extemporaneous Mode of Preaching'') was given as Carrick's inaugural lecture as professor of homiletics at Greenville Seminary in 2009.

Jonathan Edwards is one of the outstanding figures in the history of the Christian church—he was, quite simply, a man of towering intellect and towering spirituality. But it has been noted, even by his friends and admirers, that his thought is also marked at times by certain idiosyncrasies which inevitably introduce certain complexities into his philosophical-theological system. This study contends that the theme of divine immediacy is the controlling theme and the correlating principle within Edwards’s thought. It analyzes the theme of divine immediacy in the thought of Jonathan Edwards under four major heads: creation, the will, ecclesiology, and spiritual experience. Indeed, Dr. Carrick claims that the theme of the immediacy of God is the Ariadne’s thread, which runs with consistency through the multiple aspects of Edwards’s philosophical, theological, ecclesiological, experiential, and homiletical interests. But sometimes a man’s strength is also his weakness, and it would appear that Edwards’s profound commitment to the concept and the reality of the immediacy of God entails significant problems for his entire philosophical-theological system. Edwards’s concept of divine immediacy finds its supreme expression, surely, in his doctrine of continuous creation; but is it not the case that this doctrine of continuous creation is in conflict with his determinism, that its tendency is to destroy the moral responsibility of man, and that it makes God both the author and the actor of sin? In short, is it not the case that Edwards’s Ariadne’s thread is, in fact, also his Achilles’ heel?