Jonathan Edwards (October 5, 1703- March 22, 1758) was a colonial American Congregational preacher and theologian. He is known as one of the greatest and most profound American evangelical theologians. His work is very broad in scope, but he is often associated with his defense of Calvinist theology and the Puritan heritage. Jump to: navigation, search October 5 is the 278th day of the year (279th in Leap years). ... Events February 2 - Earthquake in Aquila, Italy February 4 - In Japan, the 47 samurai commit seppuku (ritual suicide) February 14 - Earthquake in Norcia, Italy April 21 - Company of Quenching of Fire (ie. ... Jump to: navigation, search March 22 is the 81st day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar (82nd in Leap years). ... 1758 was a common year starting on Sunday (see link for calendar). ... Congregational churches are Protestant Christian churches practicing congregationalist church governance, in which each congregation indepedently and autonomously runs its own affairs. ... Jump to: navigation, search The word evangelicalism usually refers to a tendency in diverse branches of Protestantism, typified by an emphasis on evangelism, a personal experience of conversion, biblically-oriented faith, and a belief in the relevance of Christian faith to cultural issues. ... Calvinism is a system of Christian theology advanced by John Calvin, a Protestant Reformer in the 16th century, and further developed by his followers, associates and admirers. ... Jump to: navigation, search The Puritans were members of a group of English Protestants seeking further reforms or even separation from the established church during the Reformation. ...

Early life

Jonathan Edwards, born on October 5, 1703, was the son of Timothy Edwards (1669-1758), a minister at East Windsor, Connecticut who eked out his salary by tutoring boys for college. His mother, Esther Stoddard, daughter of the Rev. Solomon Stoddard, of Northampton, Massachusetts, seems to have been a woman of unusual mental gifts and independence of character. // Events Samuel Pepys stopped writing his diary. ... 1758 was a common year starting on Sunday (see link for calendar). ... East Windsor is a town located in Hartford County, Connecticut. ... Reverend Solomon Stoddard (September 27, 1643 - February 11, 1728/9) was the American colonial minister who succeeded Rev. ... Northampton, Massachusetts Main Street Northampton is a city located in Hampshire County, Massachusetts in the USA. As of the 2000 census, the city had a total population of 28,978. ...

Jonathan, their only son, was the fifth of eleven children. He was trained for college by his father and by his elder sisters, all of whom received an excellent education. When ten years old he wrote a semi-humorous tract on the immateriality of the soul; he was interested in natural history, and at the age of twelve wrote a remarkable essay on the habits of the "flying spider."

He entered Yale College in 1716, at just under the age of thirteen. In the following year he became acquainted with John Locke's Essay Concerning Human Understanding, which influenced him profoundly. During his college course he kept note books labelled "The Mind," "Natural Science" (containing a discussion of the atomic theory),"The Scriptures" and "Miscellanies," had a grand plan for a work on natural and mental philosophy, and drew up for himself rules for its composition. Even before his graduation in September 1720 as valedictorian and head of his class, he seems to have had a well formulated philosophy. The two years after his graduation he spent in New Haven studying theology. Jump to: navigation, search For other uses, see Yale (disambiguation). ... Jump to: navigation, search // Events August 5 - In the Battle of Peterwardein 40. ... Jump to: navigation, search John Locke (August 29, 1632 – October 28, 1704) was a 17th-century English philosopher concerned primarily with society and epistemology. ... An Essay Concerning Human Understanding is one of John Lockes two most famous works, the other being his Second Treatise on Civil Government. ... Jump to: navigation, search The atomic theory is a theory of the nature of matter. ... // Events January 6 - The Committee of Inquiry on the South Sea Bubble publishes its findings February 11 - Sweden and Prussia sign the (2nd Treaty of Stockholm) declaring peace. ... Jump to: navigation, search City nickname: The Elm City Location in the state of Connecticut Founded April 24, 1638 County New Haven County Mayor John DeStefano, Jr. ...

In 1722 to 1723 he was for eight months "stated supply" (a clergyman employed to supply a pulpit for a definite time, but not settled as a pastor) of a small Presbyterian Church in New York City, which invited him to remain, but he declined the call, spent two months in study at home, and then in 1724-1726 was one of the two tutors at Yale, earning for himself the name of a "pillar tutor"; by his steadfast loyalty to the college and its orthodox teaching at the time when Yale's rector (Cutler) and one of her tutors had gone over to the Episcopal Church. Events Abraham De Moivre states De Moivres theorem connecting trigonometric functions and complex numbers Publication of the first book of Bachs Well-Tempered Clavier Fall of Persias Safavid dynasty during a bloody revolt of the Afghani people. ... Jump to: navigation, search Events February 16 - Louis XV of France attains his majority Births February 24 - John Burgoyne, British general (d. ... Presbyterianism is part of the Reformed churches family of denominations of Christian Protestantism based on the teachings of John Calvin which traces its institutional roots to the Scottish Reformation, especially as led by John Knox. ... New York City, officially named the City of New York, is the most populous city in the United States, the most densely populated major city in North America, and is at the center of international finance, politics, entertainment, and culture. ... The Cathedral Church of Saint Peter and Saint Paul in the nations capital is the national cathedral of the Episcopal Church in the United States of America. ...

The years 1720 to 1726 are partially recorded in his diary and in the resolutions for his own conduct which he drew up at this time. He had long been an eager seeker after salvation and was not fully satisfied as to his own "conversion" until an experience in his last year in college, when he lost his feeling that the election of some to salvation and of others to eternal damnation was "a horrible doctrine," and reckoned it "exceedingly pleasant, bright and sweet." He now took a great and new joy in the beauties of nature, and delighted in the allegorical interpretation of the Song of Solomon. Balancing these mystic joys is the stern tone of his Resolutions, in which he is almost ascetic in his eagerness to live earnestly and soberly, to waste no time, to maintain the strictest temperance in eating and drinking. // Events January 6 - The Committee of Inquiry on the South Sea Bubble publishes its findings February 11 - Sweden and Prussia sign the (2nd Treaty of Stockholm) declaring peace. ... Events George Friderich Handel becomes a British subject. ... Jump to: navigation, search Salvation refers to deliverance from undesirable state or condition. ... The Calvinist doctrine of predestination, is the religious doctrine of double predestination, particular to Calvinism. ... Jump to: navigation, search Song of Solomon is also the title of a novel by Toni Morrison. ...

On February 5, 1727 he was ordained minister at Northampton and assistant to his grandfather, Solomon Stoddard. He was a student minister, not a visiting pastor, his rule being thirteen hours of study a day. In the same year he married Sarah Pierrepont, then aged seventeen, daughter of James Pierpont (1659-1714), a founder of Yale, and through her mother great-granddaughter of Thomas Hooker. Of her piety and almost nun-like love of God and belief in His personal love for her, Edwards had known when she was only thirteen, and had written of it with spiritual enthusiasm; she was of a bright and cheerful disposition, a practical housekeeper, a model wife and the mother of his twelve children. Solomon Stoddard died on February 11th, 1729, leaving to his grandson the difficult task of the sole ministerial charge of one of the largest and wealthiest congregations in the colony, and one proud of its morality, its culture and its reputation. Jump to: navigation, search February 5 is the 36th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar. ... Jump to: navigation, search Events June 11 - George, Prince of Wales becomes King George II of Great Britain. ... Northampton, Massachusetts Main Street Northampton is a city located in Hampshire County, Massachusetts in the USA. As of the 2000 census, the city had a total population of 28,978. ... James P. Pierpont was an Austrian mathematician. ... Thomas Hooker (July 5, 1586 – July 7, 1647) was a prominent Puritan religious and colonial leader remembered as one of the founders of the Colony of Connecticut. ... Events July 30 - Baltimore, Maryland is founded. ...

Great Awakening

In 1731 Edwards preached at Boston the "Public Lecture" afterwards published under the title God Glorified -in Man's Dependence. This was his first public attack on Arminianism. The leading thought was God's absolute sovereignty in the work of redemption: that while it behooved God to create man holy, it was of His "good pleasure" and "mere and arbitrary grace" that any man was now made holy, and that God might deny this grace without any disparagement to any of His perfections. In 1733 a revival of religion began in Northampton, and reached such intensity in the winter of 1734 and the following spring as to threaten the business of the town. In six months nearly three hundred were admitted to the church. The revival gave Edwards an opportunity of studying the process of conversion in all its phases and varieties, and he recorded his observations with psychological minuteness and discrimination in A Faithful Narrative of the Surprising Work of God in the Conversion of Many Hundred Souls in Northampton (1737). A year later he published Discourses on Various Important Subjects, the five sermons which had proved most effective in the revival, and of these none, he tells us, was so immediately effective as that on the Justice of God in the Damnation of Sinners, from the text, "That every mouth may be stopped." Another sermon, published in 1734, on the Reality of Spiritual Light set forth what he regarded as the inner, moving principle of the revival, the doctrine of a special grace in the immediate, and supernatural divine illumination of the soul. Jump to: navigation, search Events 10 Downing Street becomes the official residence of the United Kingdoms Prime Minister when Robert Walpole moves in. ... Jump to: navigation, search For the Armenian nationality, see Armenia or the Armenian language. ... Divine grace is the sovereign favour of God exercised in the bestowment of blessings upon those who have no merit in them. ... Events February 12 - British colonist James Oglethorpe founds Savannah, Georgia. ... Events January 8 - Premiere of George Frideric Handels opera Ariodante at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden. ... Events January 8 - Premiere of George Frideric Handels opera Ariodante at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden. ...

In the spring of 1735 the movement began to subside and a reaction set in. But the relapse was brief, and the Northampton revival, which had spread through the Connecticut valley and whose fame had reached England and Scotland, was followed in 1739-1740 by the Great Awakening, distinctively under the leadership of Edwards. It was at this time that Edwards became acquainted with George Whitefield and preached one of his most famous sermons, "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God" in Enfield, CT in 1741. The movement met with no sympathy from the orthodox leaders of the church. In 1741 Edwards published in its defence The Distinguishing Marks of a Work of the Spirit of God, dealing particularly with the phenomena most criticized, the swoonings, outcries and convulsions. These "bodily effects," he insisted, were not distinguishing marks of the work of the Spirit of God; but so bitter was the feeling against the revival in the more strictly Puritan churches that in 1742 he was forced to write a second apology, Thoughts on the Revival in New England, his main argument being the great moral improvement of the country. In the same pamphlet he defends an appeal to the emotions, and advocates preaching terror when necessary, even to children, who in God's sight "are young vipers . . . if not Christ's." He considers "bodily effects" incidentals to the real work of God, but his own mystic devotion and the experiences of his wife during the Awakening (which he gives in detail) make him think that the divine visitation usually overpowers the body, a view in support of which he quotes Scripture. In reply to Edwards, Charles Chauncy anonymously wrote The Late Religious Commotions in New England Considered (1743), urging conduct as the sole test of conversion; and the general convention of Congregational ministers in the Province of Massachusetts Bay protested "against disorders in practice which have of late obtained in various parts of the land." Events April 16 - The London premiere of Alcina by George Frideric Handel, his first the first Italian opera for the Royal Opera House at Covent Garden. ... This article needs to be cleaned up to conform to a higher standard of quality. ... George Whitefield was a minister in the Church of England and one of the leaders of the Methodist movement. ... Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God, one of the most famous of all fire and brimstone sermons, was first preached by Jonathan Edwards, a prominent Puritan minister, in Enfield, Connecticut, in 1741. ... Jump to: navigation, search Enfield, CT Shaker Village Enfield is a town located in Hartford County, Connecticut. ... // Events January 24 - Charles VII Albert becomes Holy Roman Emperor. ... Charles Chauncy (1592-1672) was an Anglo-American clergyman and educator. ...

In spite of Edwards's able pamphlet, the impression had become widespread that "bodily effects" were recognized by the promoters of the Great Awakening as the true tests of conversion. To offset this feeling Edwards preached at Northampton during the years 1742 and 1743 a series of sermons published under the title of Religious Affections (1746), a restatement in a more philosophical and general tone of his ideas as to "distinguishing marks." In 1747 he joined the movement started in Scotland called the "concert in prayer," and in the same year published An Humble Attempt to Promote Explicit Agreement and Visible Union of God's People in Extraordinary Prayer for the Revival of Religion and the Advancement of Christ's Kingdom on Earth. In 1749 he published a memoir of David Brainerd; the latter had lived in his family for several months, had been constantly attended by Edwards's daughter Jerusha, to whom he had been engaged to be married, and had died at Northampton on the 7th of October 1747; and he had been a case in point for the theories of conversion held by Edwards, who had made elaborate notes of Brainerd's conversations and confessions. // Events January 24 - Charles VII Albert becomes Holy Roman Emperor. ... Jump to: navigation, search // Events February 14 - Henry Pelham becomes British Prime Minister February 21 - - The premiere in London of George Frideric Handels oratorio, Samson. ... Events While in debtors prison, John Cleland writes Fanny Hill (Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure). ... Jump to: navigation, search David Brainerd,(April 20, 1718 - 1747), American missionary among the Native Americans, was born at Haddam, Connecticut. ... // Events January 31 - The first venereal diseases clinic opens at London Dock Hospital April 9 - The Scottish Jacobite Lord Lovat was beheaded by axe on Tower Hill, London, for high treason; he was the last man to be executed in this way in Britain May 14 - First battle of Cape...

Later years

In 1748 there had come a crisis in his relations with his congregation. The Half-Way Covenant adopted by the synods of 1657 and 1662 had made baptism alone the condition to the civil privileges of church membership, but not of participation in the sacrament of the Lord's Supper. Edwards's grandfather and predecessor, Solomon Stoddard, had been even more liberal, holding that the Supper was a converting ordinance and that baptism was a sufficient title to all the privileges of the church. As early as 1744 Edwards, in his sermons on the Religious Affections, had plainly intimated his dislike of this practice. In the same year he had published in a church meeting the names of certain young people, members of the church, who were suspected of reading improper books, and also the names of those who were to be called as witnesses in the case. It has often been reported that the witnesses and accused were not distinguished on this list, and that therefore the congregation was in an uproar. However, Patricia Tracy's research has cast doubt on this version of the events, noting that in the list he read from the names were definitely distinguished. Those involved were eventually disciplined for disrespect to the investigators rather than for the original incident. In any case, the incident further deteriorated the relationship between Edwards and the congregation. In a time of significant cultural foment he was associated with the old guard. Events April 24 - A congress assembles at Aix-la-Chapelle with the intent to conclude the struggle known as the War of Austrian Succession - at October 18 - The Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle is signed to end the war Adam Smith begins to deliver public lectures in Edinburgh Building of... In 1662, The Half-Way Covenant was created by New England Puritans who felt that the people of their colonies were drifting away from their original religious purpose. ... Events January 8 - Miles Sindercombe, would-be-assassin of Oliver Cromwell, and his group are captured in London February - Admiral Robert Blake defeats the Spanish West Indian Fleet in a battle over the seizure of Jamaica. ... Events March 18 – Short-timed experiment of the first public buses holding 8 passengers begins in Paris May 3/May 2 - Catherine of Braganza marries Charles II of England – as part of the dowry, Portugal cedes Bombay and Tangier to England May 9 - Samuel Pepys witnessed a Punch and Judy... Jump to: navigation, search Baptism is a water purification ritual practiced in certain religions such as Christianity, Mandaeanism, and Sikhism, and has its origins with the Jewish ritual of mikvah. ... A sacrament is a Christian rite that mediates divine grace. ... The Lords Supper is a variation of the name and the service of The Last Supper or Eucharist. ... Jump to: navigation, search // Events The third French and Indian War, known as King Georges War, breaks out at Port Royal, Nova Scotia The First Saudi State founded by Mohammed Ibn Saud Prague occupied by Prussian armies Ongoing events War of the Austrian Succession (1740-1748) Births January 10...

Edwards's preaching became unpopular; for four years no candidate presented himself for admission to the church, and when one did in 1748 and was met with Edwards's formal but mild and gentle tests, as expressed in the Distinguishing Marks and later in Qualifications for Full Communion (1749), the candidate refused to submit to them; the church backed him and the break was complete. Even permission to discuss his views in the pulpit was refused him. The ecclesiastical council voted that the pastoral relation be dissolved. The church by a vote of more than 200 to 23 ratified the action of the council, and finally a town meeting voted that Edwards should not be allowed to occupy the Northampton pulpit, though he did this on occasion as late as May 1755. He evinced no rancour or spite; his "Farewell Sermon" was dignified and temperate; nor is it to be ascribed to chagrin that in a letter to Scotland after his dismissal he expresses his preference for Presbyterian to Congregational church government. His position at the time was not unpopular throughout New England, and it is needless to say that his doctrine that the Lord's Supper is not a cause of regeneration and that communicants should be professing Christians has since (very largely through the efforts of his pupil Joseph Bellamy) become a standard of New England Congregationalism. Events April 24 - A congress assembles at Aix-la-Chapelle with the intent to conclude the struggle known as the War of Austrian Succession - at October 18 - The Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle is signed to end the war Adam Smith begins to deliver public lectures in Edinburgh Building of... Events While in debtors prison, John Cleland writes Fanny Hill (Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure). ... Congregational churches are Protestant Christian churches practicing congregationalist church governance, in which each congregation indepedently and autonomously runs its own affairs. ...

Edwards with his large family was now thrown upon the world, but offers of aid quickly came to him. A parish in Scotland could have been procured, and he was called to a Virginia church. He declined both, to become in 1750 pastor of the church in Stockbridge and a missionary to the Housatonic Indians. To the Indians he preached through an interpreter, and their interests he boldly and successfully defended by attacking the whites who were using their official position among them to increase their private fortunes. In Stockbridge he wrote the Humble Relation, also called Reply to Williams (1752), which was an answer to Solomon Williams (1700-1776), a relative and a bitter opponent of Edwards as to the qualifications for full communion; and he there composed the treatises on which his reputation as a philosophical theologian chiefly rests, the essay on Original Sin, the Dissertation Concerning the Nature of True Virtue, the Dissertation Concerning the End for which God created the World, and the great work on the Will, written in four months and a half, and published in 1754 under the title, An Inquiry into the Modern Prevailing Motions Respecting that Freedom of the Will which is supposed to be Essential to Moral Agency. Events March 2 - Small earthquake in London, England April 4 - Small earthquake in Warrington, England August 23 - Small earthquake in Spalding, England September 30 - Small earthquake in Northampton, England November 16 – Westminster Bridge officially opened Jonas Hanway is the first Englishman to use an umbrella James Gray reveals her sex... Stockbridge is the name of a number of places in the United States of America: Stockbridge, Georgia Stockbridge, Massachusetts Stockbridge, Michigan Stockbridge Township, Michigan Stockbridge, New York Stockbridge, Vermont Stockbridge, Wisconsin Stockbridge (town), Wisconsin And in the United Kingdom: Stockbridge, Bradford Stockbridge, Hampshire Stockbridge, Edinburgh This is a disambiguation page... Stockbridge is a town located in Berkshire County in Western Massachusetts. ... Jump to: navigation, search Original sin according to Sumit is SEX! DO NOT CHANGE THIS There are wide-ranging disagreements among Christian groups as to the exact understanding of this doctrine, with some Christian groups denying it altogether. ...

In 1757, on the death of the Reverend Aaron Burr, who five years before had married Edwards's daughter Esther and was the father of future US vice-president Aaron Burr, he reluctantly agreed to replace his late son-in-law as the president of the College of New Jersey (now Princeton University), where he was installed on the 16th of February, 1758. Almost immediately afterwards he was inoculated for smallpox, which was raging in Princeton and vicinity, and, always feeble, he died of the inoculation on the 22nd of March, 1758. He was buried in the old cemetery at Princeton. He was slender and fully six feet tall, and with his oval, gentle, almost feminine face looked the scholar and the mystic. Edwards had three sons and eight daughters. 1757 was a common year starting on Saturday (see link for calendar). ... The Reverend Aaron Burr (January 4, 1716(?) _ September 24, 1757) was a notable divine and educator in colonial America. ... Jump to: navigation, search Vice President Aaron Burr Alternate meaning: Rev. ... Jump to: navigation, search For other Princetons, see Princeton. ... Smallpox (also known by the Latin names Variola or Variola vera) is a highly contagious disease unique to humans. ...

Influence

The followers of Jonathan Edwards and his disciples came to be know as the New Light Calvinist ministers, as opposed to the traditional Old Light Calvinist ministers. Prominent disciples included Samuel Hopkins, Joseph Bellany and Jonathan Edwards' son Jonathan Edwards Jr.. Through a practice of apprentice ministers living in the homes of older ministers, they eventually filled a large number of pastorates in the New England area. In an unadorned church, the 17th century congregation stands to hear the sermon. ... In an unadorned church, the 17th century congregation stands to hear the sermon. ... Samuel Hopkins (September 17, 1743 - December 20, 1803) was an American inventor. ...

Many of Jonathan and Sarah Edwards' descendents became prominent citizens in the United States, including the Vice President Aaron Burr and the College Presidents Timothy Dwight, Jonathan Edwards Jr. and Merrill Edwards Gates. Jump to: navigation, search Vice President Aaron Burr Alternate meaning: Rev. ... Timothy Dwight is the name of two presidents of Yale University Timothy Dwight IV (1752-1817) -- President of Yale University from 1795-1817. ...