Jonathan Edwards

Jonathan Edwards

Jonathan Edwards is often remembered as the stern Puritan who preached fire and brimstone sermons such as his notorious "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God". Yet Edwards was also America's preeminent thinker of the 18th century. Besides being a moving force in the Great Awakening, Edwards was a relentless speculative scientist, an acute psychologist, a world famous theologian and philosopher.

Edward’s farewell sermon to his Northampton Congregation

Edwards first came to Northampton in 1726 to assist his grandfather, Solomon Stoddard, in his ministry. When Stoddard died in 1729, the young, but brilliant, Jonathan Edwards took his place. Edwards was impressed with John Locke's notion that all knowledge comes through the senses. Although he delivered his sermons in a controlled monotone, the vivid images that he created in the minds of his parishioners unleashed a religious revival in the 1730s, preparing the way for the Great Awakening that swept through all of British North America in the 1740s.

A memorial bronze relief of Jonathan Edwards by Herbert Adams was installed in the First Church in 1900.

Edwards' preaching had been marvelously effective, but he had made serious enemies in the community. There were those who resented Edwards for setting aside the more liberal doctrines of his grandfather, Solomon Stoddard. Others feared that the emotions released by revivals were dangerous. These controversies finally led to his dismissal in 1750 - a decision his congregation later came to regret.

Edwards spent the next six years at the frontier outpost of Stockbridge. It was there that he wrote his most well known theological treatises. Edwards was then selected to become President of what is now Princeton University. It was an honor he did not live to enjoy. He died in 1758 from a smallpox inoculation.

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