Who was Jonathan Edwards as a Preacher?

Jonathan Edwards never had a chance at being anything other than a preacher, being the son and grandson (on his mother’s side) of a preacher it was bound to happen. The odd part is, he was a great preacher with a large following for some time. In the picture above, Edwards has a stern look on his face. This is face is the same one he has made in every picture I found, I believe it says a lot of his personality, which seems to have been very conservative.



“His childhood education immersed him not only in the study of the Bible and Christian theology but also in classics and ancient languages,” as stated in Jonathan Edwards: Biography. In 1716, Jonathan Edwards began his studies at Yale University. “Edwards engaged all manner of contemporary issues in theology and philosophy. He studied the debates between the orthodox Calvinism of his Puritan forebears and the more "liberal" movements that challenged it, such as Deism, Socinianism, Arianism, and Anglican Arminianism, as well as the most current thought coming out of Europe, such as British empiricism and continental rationalism.” As stated in the same biography as above.

In 1726, Edwards became the pastor of the church in Northampton, Massachusetts where he succeeded his grandfather, Solomon Stoddard. During the First Great Awakening, he gained international fame as a revivalist and “theologian of the heart.” In the Edwards biolography listed above they stated, “Perry Miller, the grand expositor of the New England mind and founder of the Yale edition of the Works of Jonathan Edwards, described Edwards as the first and greatest homegrown American philosopher.” During this time Edwards gained a lot of power, with this he took it too far. In the video it shows a rendition of how Edwards preached “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God.”



In 1750, the church dismissed Jonathan Edwards. After trying to go back to how the church was in his grandfather’s reign and naming the backsliders of the church in the pulpit, the city turned their backs on Edwards. “On June 22, 1750, by vote of two hundred and twenty, Edwards was dismissed from his church and effectively silenced.” as stated in the Norton Anthology: American Literature page 386. “ Although the congregation had difficulty naming an successor to Edwards, they preferred to have no sermons rather than let Edwards preach.” He went on to serve as a missionary for seven years to the Housatonnuck Indians in Stockbridge, Massachusetts. While a missionary, he received a call to become the president of the College of New Jersey which later called Princeton. Three months after his arrival, he died of smallpox due to an implant taken to prevent infection.

So who was Jonathan Edwards as a preacher? He was a good preacher with strong views and classic morals.

Jonathan Edwards. Nina Baym, ed. The Norton Anthology of American Literature: Seventh Edition: Volume A. New York: Norton, 2007. 384-386.