Edwards, Jonathan

Jonathan (1703-1758), a celebrated New England divine and theologian. Born in Windsor, Connecticut, October 5, 1703. Died Princeton, New Jersey, March 22, 1758. Graduated at Yale, 1717. After a short term as a tutor in that institution he became pastor at Northampton, where he remained twenty-three years, participating in revival work. In 1750 he was dismissed by the Northampton church and became a missionary among the Massachusetts Indians. In 1758 he was elected president of Princeton College, and, as stated, died the same year. Edwards had a powerful intellect. He was an impressive preacher, somber and even gloomy in his religious opinions and sentiments, but earnest, unaffected, and nobly conscientious. Of many theological works his Freedom of the Will and Original Sin are most noted. Edwards' life and work were so colored by a somber theology that posterity has not done credit to one of the sweetest spirits of the age. Believing, as he did, that his fellowmen were tottering on the brink of the bottomless pit, no trivial matters were worthy of the attention of an immortal soul; and yet we find in him distinct traces of the future Emerson and his school of calm thinkers. "True religion," said he, "in a great measure consists in holy affections. A love of divine things for the beauty and sweetness of their moral excellency is the spring of all holy affection." See Dwight; Burr