Jonathan Edwards

On October 5, 1703, in East Windsor, Colony of Connecticut, Jonathan Edwards was born into a family deeply rooted in New England Congregational ministry. He entered Yale College at thirteen, graduated in 1720, and quickly gained notice for unusual philosophical and theological ability. A pastoral call in Northampton, Massachusetts, then placed him in one of the most influential pulpits in colonial British America.

Edwards led the Northampton revivals of 1734-1735 and became the best-known intellectual voice of the Great Awakening. His sermon "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God," preached in 1741 at Enfield, turned revival theology into one of the defining texts of colonial Protestantism. Later conflicts over church membership and discipline cost him the Northampton pastorate, but in 1758 he accepted the presidency of the College of New Jersey.

Edwards's writings helped shape evangelical Protestantism, missionary work, and revival culture throughout North America. Institutions such as Princeton and later nineteenth-century revival movements continued to draw on the theological and emotional style he brought to the Great Awakening.