Jonathan Edwards
(1703–1758)

Though he also wrote extensively, Jonathan Edwards is remembered mainly as one of the most powerful and persuasive Puritan preachers of colonial New England.

Born in East Windsor, Connecticut, Edwards grew up in an atmosphere of devout Puritan discipline. As a young boy, he is said to have demonstrated his religious devotion by preaching sermons to his playmates from a makeshift pulpit he built behind his home. Edwards also displayed academic brilliance at an early age. By the time he was 12, he had learned to speak Latin, Greek, and Hebrew and had written numerous philosophical and scientific essays. Edward entered Yale at the age of 13 and graduated four years later as the valedictorian of his class. Edwards went on to earn his master's degree in theology.

In 1727, Edwards became the assistant to his grandfather, Solomon Stoddard, who was the pastor of the church at Northampton, Massachusetts—one of the largest and wealthiest congregations in the Puritan world. Edwards became the church pastor two years later when his grandfather died, and he also began preaching as a visiting minister throughout New England. Strongly desiring a return to the simplicity and orthodoxy of the Puritan past, Edwards became one of the leaders of the Great Awakening, a religious revival that swept through the colonies in the 1730s and 1740s.

The Great Awakening did not last long, however, and in 1750 Edwards was dismissed from his position after many members of his congregation had become displeased with his conservative beliefs. Edwards then moved to Stockbridge, Massachusetts, where he preached to Native Americans and wrote a number of theological works. In 1757, Edwards became president of the College of New Jersey (now Princeton University), but he died shortly after taking office.

Although in most of his sermons, books, and essays Edwards appeals to reason and logic, his highly emotional "fire and brimstone" sermon Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God is by far his most famous work. This sermon, which was delivered to a congregation in Enfield, Connecticut, in 1741, and is said to have caused listeners to rise from their seats in a state of hysteria, demonstrates Edwards's tremendous powers of persuasion and captures the religious fervor of the Great Awakening.

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