EDWARDS, JONATHAN

American Congregationalist theologian and philosopher, whose writings revitalized Calvinist theology and introduced a Christian idealistic philosophy; b. East Windsor, Conn., Oct. 5, 1703; d. Princeton, N.J., March 22, 1758. He was the son of a Congregationalist pastor and experienced early strivings after piety and a precocious interest in natural science. At Yale (A.B.1720,M.A. 1723), where he was greatly influenced by j. locke's Essay on Human Understanding, he experienced a religious conversion, disposing him to "a new sense of things" and "a sweet delight in God," that was to characterize his later life and writings. In 1727 he was ordained as assistant pastor to his grandfather, Rev. Solomon Stoddard, at Northampton, Mass., and married Sarah Pierrepont. Stoddard had departed from the New England orthodoxy by admitting the unregenerate to the Lord's Supper, seeing it as a means of grace rather than a reward for the faithful, thus carrying the half-way covenant to its logical conclusion. On his grandfather's death in 1729, Edwards succeeded him as pastor, continuing at Northampton until 1750.

A sermon to a ministerial convocation at Boston, stressing that grace is given not primarily for the individual's good, but for God's glory, God Glorified in the Work of Redemption (Boston 1731), marked him as a defender of Calvinism and foreshadowed his more mature thought on grace and virtue. A religious revival began (1734) at Northampton, described by Edwards in A Faithful Narrative of the Surprising Work of God (Boston 1737). Edwards believed that each individual should have a personal dedication to Christ and not merely assent to a body of doctrine, but he opposed arminianism

and the belief that each man was free to choose his own salvation. For Edwards, the revival was a sign of God's grace rather than a means of obtaining it. He was at first well disposed to the great awakening, which began soon afterward, but drew back from its excesses. He was concerned primarily with the pastoral duty of counseling souls to understand and accept God's grace working on them, never a mere revivalist seeking to make converts. In The Distinguishing Marks of a Work of the Spirit of God (Boston 1741) and Some Thoughts concerning the Present Revival of Religion in New England (Boston 1742), he attempted to distinguish true piety from false and to defend the revival movement, in its widest sense, as a genuine work of the Holy Spirit. His great work, A Treatise concerning Religious Affections (Boston 1746), was a penetrating analysis of the difference between gracious affections and fleeting emotions. He held that a genuine change must take place in the heart and that change must show itself in a lifetime of work and worship.

A strict Calvinist himself, as well as a man of sincere personal piety, Edwards had long labored with the problems raised by his grandfather's innovation. As early as 1734 he preached on the dispositions needed to approach the Holy Table, but by 1748 he had concluded that the sacrament was intended by divine ordinance only for "visible professing Christians," excluding those who could not testify to divine regeneration. Edwards, seeking to restore the New England churches to the pure Calvinism

of a congregation of the saints, evoked a storm of protest and was dismissed from his pastoral charge in 1750. Long interested in missionary work among the Indians—he had written an Account of the Life of the Late Reverend Mr. David Brainerd, missionary at Stockbridge, Mass. (Boston 1749)—he accepted (1751) a call as Brainerd's successor. Despite harassment by Northampton enemies, he labored faithfully as pastor and schoolmaster until 1758, finding time also to write his most important works, including A Careful and Strict Enquiry into the Modern Prevailing Notions of That Freedom of Will, Which Is Supposed to Be Essential to Moral Agency (Boston 1754), The Nature of True Virtue, and other philosophic treatises that were published posthumously. In 1757 Edwards accepted a call to become president of Princeton, but died soon after his arrival in January 1758. Publication of the Yale edition of his Works, edited by Perry Miller, was begun in 1957.

Bibliography: Works, ed. s. e. dwight, 10 v. (New York 1829–30); Freedom of the Will, ed. p. ramsey (New Haven 1957); Religious Affections, ed. j. e. smith (New Haven 1959); The Nature of True Virtue (Ann Arbor, Mich. 1960). o. e. winslow, Jonathan Edwards (New York 1940). p. miller, Jonathan Edwards (New York 1949). r. g. turnbull, Jonathan Edwards: The Preacher (Grand Rapids, Mich. 1958). d. j. elwood, The Philosophical Theology of Jonathan Edwards (New York 1960). a. o. aldridge, Jonathan Edwards (New York 1964). p. g. e. miller, Errand into the Wilderness (New York 1957).

[r. k. macmaster]