Jonathan Edwards (theologian)
Jonathan Edwards (October 5, 1703 – March 22, 1758) was an American revivalist preacher, philosopher, and Congregationalist theologian.
Jonathan Edwards
Jacob Green (acting)
October 5, 1703[1]
East Windsor, Connecticut, British America
March 22, 1758 (aged 54)[1]
Princeton, New Jersey, British America
- Elizabeth Tuttle (grandmother)
- Eunice Williams (cousin)
Pastor, theologian, missionary
"Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God" (1741)
Religious Affections (1746)
A leading figure of the American Enlightenment, Edwards is widely regarded as one of America's most important and original philosophical theologians. Edwards' theological work is broad in scope but rooted in the paedobaptist (baptism of infants) Puritan heritage as exemplified in the Westminster and Savoy Confessions of Faith. Recent studies have emphasized how thoroughly Edwards grounded his life's work on conceptions of beauty, harmony, and ethical aptness, and how central the Age of Enlightenment was to his mindset.[3] Edwards played a critical role in shaping the First Great Awakening and oversaw some of the first revivals in 1733–35 at his church in Northampton, Massachusetts.[4] His work gave rise to a doctrine known as New England theology.
Edwards delivered the sermon "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God", a classic of early American literature, during another revival in 1741, following George Whitefield's tour of the Thirteen Colonies.[5] Edwards is well known for his many books, such as The End for Which God Created the World and The Life of David Brainerd, which inspired thousands of missionaries throughout the 19th century, and Religious Affections which many Calvinist Evangelicals still read today.[6] Edwards died from a smallpox inoculation shortly after beginning the presidency at the College of New Jersey in Princeton.[7]
Biography[edit]
Early life[edit]
Jonathan Edwards was born on October 5, 1703, the fifth of 11 children and only son of Timothy Edwards (1668–1759), a minister at East Windsor, Connecticut (modern-day South Windsor), who supplemented his salary by tutoring boys for college. His mother, Esther Stoddard, daughter of Rev. Solomon Stoddard of Northampton, Massachusetts, seems to have been a woman of unusual mental gifts and independence of character.[8][9] Timothy Edwards held at least one person in enslavement in the Edwards' household, a black man named Ansars.[10] Jonathan was prepared for college by his father and elder sisters, all of whom received an excellent education. His sister Esther, the eldest, wrote a semi-humorous tract on the immateriality of the soul, which has often been mistakenly attributed to Jonathan.[11]
Later years[edit]
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. Stoddard had been even more liberal, holding that the Lord's Supper was a converting ordinance and that baptism was a sufficient title to all the privileges of the church.[35]
As early as 1744, Edwards, in his sermons on 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 so the entire 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.[37]
Edwards's preaching became unpopular. For four years, no candidate presented himself for admission to the church, and when one eventually did, in 1748, he was met with Edwards's formal 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 between the church and Edwards was complete. Even permission to discuss his views in the pulpit was refused. He was allowed to present his views on Thursday afternoons. His sermons were well attended by visitors but not his own congregation. A council was convened to decide the communion matter between the minister and his people. The congregation chose half the council, and Edwards was allowed to select the other half of the council. His congregation, however, limited his selection to one county where the majority of the ministers were against him. The ecclesiastical council voted by 10 to 9 that the pastoral relation be dissolved.[35]
The church members, 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 continued to live in the town and preach in the church by the request of the congregation until October 1751. In his "Farewell Sermon" he preached from 2 Corinthians 1:14 and directed the thoughts of his people to that far future when the minister and his people would stand before God. In a letter to Scotland after his dismissal, he expresses his preference for Presbyterian to congregational polity. His position at the time was not unpopular throughout New England. His doctrine that the Lord's Supper is not a cause of regeneration and that communicants should be professing Protestants has since (largely through the efforts of his pupil Joseph Bellamy) become a standard of New England Congregationalism.[35]
Edwards was in high demand. A parish in Scotland could have been procured for him, and he was called to a Virginia church. He declined both to become pastor in 1751 of the church in Stockbridge, Massachusetts and a missionary to the Housatonic Indians,[38] taking over for the recently deceased John Sergeant. 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 positions among them to increase their private fortunes. During this time he got to know Judge Joseph Dwight who was trustee of the Indian Schools. In Stockbridge, he wrote the Humble Relation, also called Reply to Williams (1752), which was an answer to Solomon Williams, a relative and a bitter opponent of Edwards as to the qualifications for full communion. He 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 and a half months and published in 1754 under the title, An Inquiry into the Modern Prevailing Notions Respecting that Freedom of the Will which is supposed to be Essential to Moral Agency.[35]
Aaron Burr Sr., Edwards' son-in-law, died in 1757 (he had married Esther Edwards five years before, and they had made Edwards the grandfather of Aaron Burr, later U.S. vice president). Edwards felt himself in "the decline of life", and inadequate to the office, but was persuaded to replace Burr as president of the College of New Jersey (now Princeton University). He was installed on February 16, 1758. He gave weekly essay assignments in theology to the senior class.[39]
