Read & Study the Bible Online - Bible Portal
Jonathan Edwards

Jonathan Edwards

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.

... Show more
pleasure will be paid one time or another.
4 likes
Oh, if ever I get to heaven, it will be because God will, and nothing else; for I never did any thing of myself, but get away from God!
3 likes
I had been heaping up my devotions before God, fasting, praying, &c. pretending, and indeed really thinking sometimes, that I was aiming at the glory of God; whereas I never once truly intended it, but only my own happiness. I
3 likes
There is a God in heaven who overrules all things for the best; and this is the comfort of my soul. . .How blessed it is to grow more and more like God!
3 likes
Make me a willow cabin at your gate And call upon my soul within the house. Write loyal cantons of contemned love And sing them loud even in the dead of night. Halloo your name to the reverberate hills And make the babbling gossip of the air Cry out “Olivia!” Oh, you should not rest Between the elements of air and earth, But you should pity me.
3 likes
By innocence I swear, and by my youth, I have one heart, one bosom, and one truth. And that no woman has, nor never none Shall mistress be of it, save I alone. And so, adieu, good madam; never more Will I my master’s tears to you deplore.
3 likes
I pity you.
3 likes
O, sir, I will not be so hard-hearted. I will give out divers schedules of my beauty. It shall be inventoried, and every particle and utensil labeled to my will: as, item, two lips indifferent red; item, two grey eyes, with lids to them; item, one neck, one chin, and so forth.
3 likes
As black as Vulcan in the smoke of war.
3 likes
Christians need constant reminders of how amazingly glorious our great God really is and what his glory means for our lives. Reading
3 likes
People may love a God of their own imaginations, when they are far from loving such a God as reigns in heaven.
3 likes
Indeed, the case very often such, by the seeming calls of Providence, as made it extremely difficult for him to do more than his strength would admit of. Yea, his circumstances and the business of his mission...were such that great fatigues and hardships were altogether inevitable.
3 likes
God will be what will forever entertain the minds of the saints, and the love of God will be their everlasting feast. The redeemed will indeed enjoy other things; they will enjoy the angels, and will enjoy one another; but that which they shall enjoy in the angels, or each other, or in any thing else whatsoever that will yield them delight and happiness, will be what will be seen of God in them.
3 likes
Unless men may come to a reasonable, solid persuasion and conviction of the truth of the gospel, by the internal evidences of it, . . . by a sight of its glory; it is impossible that those who are illiterate, and unacquainted with history, should have any thorough and effectual conviction of it at all. They may without this, see a great deal of probability of it; it may be reasonable for them to give much credit to what learned men and historians tell them. . . . But to have a conviction, so clear, and evident, and assuring, as to be sufficient to induce them, with boldness to sell all, confidently and fearlessly to run the venture of the loss of all things, and of enduring the most exquisite and long continued torments, and to trample the world under foot, and count all things but dung for Christ, the evidence they can have from history, cannot be sufficient.
3 likes
Then let thy love be younger than thyself, Or thy affection cannot hold the bent: For women are as roses, whose fair flower, Being once display'd, doth fall that very hour.
3 likes
Orsino: For, boy, however we do praise ourselves, Our fancies are more giddy and unfirm, More longing, wavering, sooner lost and won, Than women's are. ... For women are as roses, whose fair flow'r Being once display'd doth fall that very hour. Viola: And so they are; alas, that they are so! To die, even when they to perfection grow!
topics: constancy , love , youth  
3 likes
I am sure care's an enemy to life.
3 likes
For youth is bought more oft than begged or borrowed.
3 likes
Does not our lives consist of the four elements?" "Faith, so they say; but I think it rather consists of eating and drinking.
3 likes
There are none in hell but what have been haters of God, and so have procured His wrath and hatred on themselves; and there they shall continue to hate Him forever.
2 likes

Group of Brands