Iain Murray references this poem in the intro to his bio of Edwards.

Anyone have the complete text?

__________________
Kenneth A. Pierce
Senior Minister
Trinity Presbyterian Church (PCA)
5301 Old Canton Rd.
Jackson, MS 39211
(601)977-0774
www.trinitychurchpca.com

FOund it. Good sermon fodder, if anyone's curious:

The Theology of Jonathan Edwards
by Phyllis McGinley

Whenever Mr. Edwards spake
In church about Damnation,
The very benches used to quake
For awful agitation.

Good men would pale and roll their eyes
While sinners rent their garments
To hear him so anatomize
Hell's orgiastic torments,

The blood, the flames, the agonies
In store for frail or flighty
New Englanders who did not please
A whimsical Almighty.

Times were considered out of tune
When half a dozen nervous
Female parishioners did not swoon
At every Sunday service;

And, if they had been taught aright,
Small children, carried bedwards,
Would shudder lest they meet that night
The God of Mr. Edwards.

Abraham's God, the Wrathful One,
Intolerant of error --
Not God the Father or the Son
But God the Holy Terror.

She's fairly accurate. Sinners have every reason to fear God the most of all. The fact that she means this in a satirical manner only deepens the irony of her present occupation, should she be presently dead and, should that death have occured outside the substitution of the Son's work.

In short, if she's dead, she now knows just how right she was.

__________________
Andrew DeShazo, Deacon, Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church, Memphis, TN
"All of us stumble in many ways, but if anyone is never at fault in what he says, then he is mature, able to control his whole body."(James 3:2)