While completing his preparation for the ministry, Jonathan Edwards (1703–1758) wrote seventy resolutions that guided him throughout his life. About twenty years later, he wrote a letter to young Deborah Hatheway, a new convert in a nearby town, advising her concerning the Christian life. These two writings, often reprinted during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, overflow with straightforward and biblically sound advice. This advice is as current today as it was in the 1700s, and it far surpasses the how-to books now overrunning bookstores.