(born Oct. 5, 1703, East Windsor, Conn.—died March 22, 1758, Princeton, N.J.) American theologian. The 5th of 11 children in a strict Puritan home, he entered Yale College at age 13. In 1727 he was named a pastor at his grandfather's church in Northampton, Mass.
His sermons on “Justification by Faith Alone” gave rise to a revival in the Connecticut River valley in 1734, and in the 1740s he was also influential in the Great Awakening. In 1750 he was dismissed from the Northampton church over a disagreement on who was eligible to take communion, and he became pastor in Stockbridge in 1751. He died of smallpox shortly after accepting the presidency of the College of New Jersey (now Princeton University). A staunch Calvinist, he emphasized original sin, predestination, and the need for conversion. His most famous sermon, “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God,” vividly evokes the fate of unrepentant sinners in hell.
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