In 1734–35 the frontier town of Northampton, Massachusetts, experienced a surge in religious conversions, something that had occurred several times before in its eighty-year history. What made this revival (now known as “the Little Awakening”) different was the conviction of the town’s young minister that the holy spirit was undertaking world-shaking work in the wilds of western New England, and his determination to publicize it in A Faithful Narrative of the Surprising Work of God in the Conversion of Many Hundred SoulsA Faithful Narrative of the Surprising Work of God in the Conversion of Many Hundred Souls, a dramatic account that quickly became an inspiration for evangelicals on both sides of the Atlantic.
Jonathan Edwards is recognized today as a great theologian and philosopher, “one of America’s five or six major artists,” in the words of the historian Perry Miller, possessed of “an intelligence which, as much as Emerson’s, Melville’s, or Mark Twain’s, is both an index of American society and a comment upon it.” But during his lifetime Edwards was best known as a leader of what is now called the Great Awakening. Now, in authoritative new texts prepared from first editions and manuscript sources, The Library of AmericaLibrary of America brings together in one volume all of Edwards’s essential writings from and about the Awakening, vivid works whose psychological penetration and spiritual insight still startle with their freshness and force.
The full text of Edwards’s Faithful NarrativeFaithful Narrative, drawn from its first American edition of 1738, is presented here along with The Distinguishing Marks of a Work of the Spirit of GodThe Distinguishing Marks of a Work of the Spirit of God (1741) and Some Thoughts Concerning the Present Revival of Religion in New-EnglandSome Thoughts Concerning the Present Revival of Religion in New-England (1743), longer works written as itinerant preachers like George Whitefield spread the tumult of revivalism throughout the British colonies. Refuting critics who viewed the awakening as spiritually counterfeit and socially disruptive, Edwards employs an extraordinary fusion of enlightenment empiricism and orthodox Calvinism to identify and anatomize the subtle workings of the Spirit in the soul.
Rounding out the volume are “Justification by Faith Alone” and “Pressing into the Kingdom of God,” the sermons that Edwards himself thought responsible for the Little Awakening; later sermons—including the stirring Sinners in the Hands of an Angry GodSinners in the Hands of an Angry God, with its harrowing imagery of the wages of sin—that show the range and evolution of Edwards’s preaching style; revealing letters to Whitefield and other evangelical ministers, as well as his famous pastoral letter to Deborah Hatheway, widely reprinted in the nineteenth century as “advice to Young Converts”; and his Personal NarrativePersonal Narrative, a landmark of eighteenth-century American autobiography that recounts his own conversion experience.
Jonathan Edwards (1703 - 1758)
was a Christian preacher and theologian. Edwards "is widely acknowledged to be America's most important and original philosophical theologian," and one of America's greatest intellectuals. Edwards's theological work is broad in scope, but he was rooted in Reformed theology, the metaphysics of theological determinism, and the Puritan heritage. Recent studies have emphasized how thoroughly Edwards grounded his life's work on conceptions of beauty, harmony, and ethical fittingness, and how central The Enlightenment was to his mindset. 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.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. Edwards is well known for his many books, The End For Which God Created the World, The Life of David Brainerd, which served to inspire thousands of missionaries throughout the 19th century, and Religious Affections, which many Reformed Evangelicals still read today.
Jonathan Edwards was a colonial American Congregational preacher, theologian, and missionary to Native Americans. Edwards "is widely acknowledged to be America's most important and original philosophical theologian."
His work is very broad in scope, but he is often associated with his defense of Reformed theology, the metaphysics of theological determinism, and the Puritan heritage. His famous sermon "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God," is credited for starting the First Great Awakening. Edwards is widely known for his books Religious Affections and The Freedom of the Will. He died from a smallpox inoculation shortly after beginning the presidency at the College of New Jersey (later to be named Princeton University). Edwards is widely regarded as America's greatest theologian.
Jonathan Edwards was the only boy among eleven children. In 1720 he graduated from Yale as the valedictorian of his class. He continued at Yale working on a graduate degree in theology and was saved at the age of seventeen. Edwards was ordained in 1727 and joined his grandfather as an assistant pastor. In 1729 he became pastor of the church in Northampton, Massachusetts, which had some six hundred members. In 1735 God's blessing on his preaching resulted in a great revival with more than three hundred people saved and added to the church. Edwards is considered to be one of the men most responsible for the Great Awakening. His famous sermon, "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God," was first preached in 1741 at Enfield, Massachusetts. In 1750 Edwards was voted out by his church after his attempt to limit church membership to those who made a profession of faith in Christ.
He spent the next seven years as a missionary to the Indians at Stockbridge, Massachusetts. In 1758 he accepted the presidency of the College of New Jersey (now called Princeton). After just weeks on the job, he died from smallpox brought on by an inoculation to protect him from the disease. Jonathan Edwards and his wife had eleven children. He spent one hour each night in conversation and instruction with his family. His daughter Jerusha was engaged to David Brainerd when he died of tuberculosis. Edwards' two most famous literary works are The Life and Diary of David Brainerd (1749) and Freedom of the Will (1754). Edwards is buried in Princeton, New Jersey.
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