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Edwards lived in an era of dramatic social and intellectual change. Technological advances in manufacturing changed social life, especially in England. Enlightenment thought was beginning to influence the theology of America, emphasizing reason and slighting the traditional Christian view of man’s nature. Deism was popular among intellectuals in Europe and America, and some thinkers were ready to dispense with the supernatural altogether. However, working within a framework of biblical faith, Edwards did not reach the conclusion—as many persons did—that man’s reason would lead him to do the good.

Edwards worked creatively within the Calvinist tradition, believing that a return to orthodoxy would result in a great revival in America. Faced on the one hand with the rising tide of rationalism and on the other hand with religious revivals that often dispensed with reason altogether, Edwards tried to steer a middle course and maintain a balance of reason and emotion, head and heart in the Christian life.

1703 Jonathan Edwards born in East Windsor, Connecticut

1716 Admitted to Yale

1720 Graduates from Yale and studies there for the ministry

1722 Serves as pastor of a New York Presbyterian church for eight months

1724 Elected a tutor at Yale

1726 Called to Northampton church as assistant minister to grandfather Solomon Stoddard.

1727 Marriage to Sarah Pierrepont

1729 Death of Solomon Stoddard

1731 Delivers Public Lecture at First Church, Boston

1734 Beginning of Great Awakening in Northampton

1740 Whitefield briefly joins Edwards in revival preaching

1741 Preaches sermon, “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” at Enfield

1742 Writes Some Thoughts Concerning the Present Revival of Religion

1746 Writes A Treatise Concerning Religious Affections

1747 Death of David Brainerd at Edwards’ home

1748 Beginning of dissension in Edwards’ church

1750 Farewell Sermon at Northampton

1751 Settles in Stockbridge as pastor to settlers and missionary to Indians

1754 Writes Freedom of the Will

1755 Writes Nature of True Virtue

1757 Chosen president of College of New Jersy (Princeton)

1758 Inaugurated president at Princeton

1758 Dies of smallpox March 22

1701 Thomas Bray, representative of Bishop of London, organizes Society for Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts;

1701 Collegiate School (later called Yale) founded

1702 Anne Queen of England (to 1714) Queen Anne’s War (colonial phase of War of Spanish Succession, concluded by Treaty of Utrecht, 1713)

1702 Cotton Mather writes Magnalia Christi Americana, ecclesiastical history of New England

1703 John Wesley born

1704 Death of English philosopher John Locke, a major influence on Edwards Weekly Review, first American newspaper, published in Boston

1707 Act of Union unites England and Scotland under name Great Britain

1707 Isaac Watts’ Hymns and Spiritual Songs alters course of English hymnody

1709 First mass emigration of Germans to America (Pennsylvania)

1709 Piano invented

1710 Bishop George Berkeley’s Principles of Human Knowledge

1711 Steele and Addison publish The Spectator, gentleman’s newspaper with commentary on news, literature, and art

1712 Last execution for witchcraft in England

1712 Newcomen steam pump, new aid to coal mining

1713 Treaty of Utrecht ends War of Spanish Succession

1714 German philosopher Liebniz’ Monadology, a rebuttal to mechanistic views of man

1714 George I, first Hanoverian King of England (to 1727)

1715 Death of Louis XIV of France. Succeeded by great-grandson

1717 Inoculation against smallpox introduced into England by Lady Mary Wortley Montague

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