Edwards, Jonathan
October 5, 1703
Windsor, Connecticut
March 22, 1758
Stockbridge, Massachusetts
Puritan minister, leader of the Great Awakening
"Therefore, let every one that is out of Christ, now awake and fly from the wrath to come."
From Jonathan Edward's "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God."
Jonathan Edwards was a Puritan minister and theologian (a specialist in the study of religion) who became one of the principal leaders of the Great Awakening (a series of religious revivals that swept the American colonies near the middle of the eighteenth century). This movement had a profound effect on American politics and society. Protestant preachers from New England to North Carolina, inflamed by the "spirit of God," set out to "wake up" their congregations, whom they accused of sinful behavior. Edwards became famous for the sermon "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God," in which he terrified his listeners with visions of eternal punishment for unrepentant sinners. Yet Edwards's excessive zeal ultimately led to his undoing. After he imposed harsh rules for admission to his church in Northampton, Massachusetts, he was forced out and sent to a remote Native American mission. During his final years, however, he wrote some of the most important works in American theology.
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