Edwards, Jonathan

Edwards, Jonathan (1703–1758), pastor, theologian, revivalist.Born in East Windsor, Connecticut, Jonathan Edwards enrolled at Yale College in 1716, where he encountered Newtonian science and the philosophy of John Locke and George Berkeley. Adapting Enlightenment thought to Reformed theology, Edwards set out to defend Protestant orthodoxy from “new schemes” of divinity, in the process formulating a version of Calvinist theology, eventually known as “Edwardseanism,” that profoundly influenced American religious life and thought.

After completing his master's studies in 1723 and two years as a college tutor (1724–1726), Edwards joined his grandfather Solomon Stoddard in the ministry at Northampton, Massachusetts. He married Sarah Pierpont, notable for her piety, in 1727; they had eleven children. At Northampton, Edwards established himself as a practitioner and theorist of revival. Focusing his preaching on young people, he oversaw a revival in 1734–1735, which he described in A Faithful Narrative of the Surprising Work of God (1737).

Edwards's most famous sermon, Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God (1741), delivered during the Great Awakening of the 1740s, was a rhetorical masterpiece illustrating the uncertainty of earthly existence. Millennialism and apocalypticism pervaded the new religious awakenings, and Edwards, too, saw them as harbingers of the end times. In this vein, he collaborated with Scottish evangelists in establishing a Concert of Prayer movement, which he described in a 1748 work.

In such sophisticated analyses of revivalism and conversion as Distinguishing Marks of a Work of the Spirit of God (1741) and Some Thoughts Concerning the Present Revival of Religion in New England (1743), Edwards set forth the “signs” of true conversion. His masterful Religious Affections (1746) integrated religious experience in “holy affections,” or a combination of intellect, emotion, and practice.

Meanwhile, however, Edwards's pastorate at Northampton was troubled. He criticized the town's business practices and its factional contention, or “party spirit.” Following the awakening of 1734–1735, Edwards browbeat his congregants for backsliding so rapidly. Beginning in the early 1740s, a series of events alienated Edwards from his flock, including a controversy over covenant renewal, salary disputes, a mishandled disciplinary case, and paternity cases in which Edwards unsuccessfully tried to force marriages. Edwards's 1748 effort to change the requirements for church admission, which threatened community status and eligibility for baptism, prompted a bitter dispute that ended in his dismissal in 1750.

Long a supporter of missionary effort and an advocate of Christianizing and “civilizing” Indians, Edwards in 1751 became a missionary to Mahican and Mohawk Indians at Stockbridge, Massachusetts. He proved a tireless advocate for the Indians, defending them against English land speculators, presenting their grievances to the Massachusetts legislature, and raising funds for their care and education.

While at Stockbridge, Edwards wrote some of his most important treatises. Freedom of the Will (1754), an attempt to reconcile free human agency with God's foreknowledge and predetermination, long remained a central philosophical text. Original Sin (1758), a riposte against Enlightenment views of human nature, posited the fallen state of humankind and its utter dependence on divine grace. Two posthumously published works, The Nature of True Virtue and The End for Which God Created the World, comprised Edwards's ethical thought.

In 1757, Edwards was appointed president of the College of New Jersey at Princeton. However, he died a few months after his arrival from complications of a smallpox inoculation.
See also Colonial Era; Great Awakening, First and Second; Indian History and Culture: From 1500 to 1800; Missionary Movement, The; New England; Protestantism.

Bibliography

Perry Miller , Jonathan Edwards, 1949.
Patricia J. Tracy , Jonathan Edwards, Pastor: Religion and Society in Eighteenth‐Century Northampton, 1980.
Norman Fiering , Jonathan Edwards's Moral Thought and Its British Context, 1981.
George Marsden , Jonathan Edwards: A Life, 2003.

Kenneth P. Minkema