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.
Jonathan Edwards
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
World Events
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
1719 Protestant dissenters tolerated in Ireland
1719 Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe
1721 Czar Peter the Great of Russia subordinates church to state, replaces Patriarch with Holy Synod
1721 Robert Walpole is Britain’s first Prime Minister (to 1742)
1722 Herrnhut founded as Moravian settlement in Saxony by Count von Zinzendorf
1723 Christianity banned in China
1723 Death of architect Christopher Wren, designer of St. Paul’s cathedral
1726 Gilbert Tennent leads revival in New Jersey
1726 Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels
1727 Death of Isaac Newton, whose work Edwards admired
1727 George II King of England (to 1760)
1729 North and South Carolina created as crown colonies
1731 Expulsion of Protestants from Saltzburg. Many emigrate to America
1732 Birth of George Washington
1732 Georgia established as colony under James Oglethorpe
1732 First edition of Poor Richard’s Almanack published by Benjamin Franklin
1733 J.S. Bach’s B-Minor Mass
1733 John Kay invents flying shuttle used in textile mills
1735 Linnaeus’ Systema Naturae, outlining his system of taxonomy of plants
1735 Freedom of the press established in New England by Zenger case
1736 Witchcraft statutes repealed in England
1736 Joseph Butler’s Analogy of Religion written as rebuttal to Deism
1738 John Wesley’s Aldersgate experience, leading to the Methodist Revival
1739 War of Jenkins’ Ear between England and Spain (to 1742)
1740 Frederick the Great reigns as King of Prussia (to 1786)
1740 Samual Richardson’s Pamela, sometimes regarded as first modern English novel
1741 American Presbyterians split over issue of revivalism
1742 First performance of Handel’s Messiah
1742 Jews expelled from Russia
1744 First Methodist General Conference
1744 King George’s War (colonial phase of War of Austrian Succession, ended in 1748)
1744 Painter and engraver William Hogarth’s illustrations for Marriage a la Mode
1746 College of New Jersey (Princeton) founded
1747 Actor David Garrik becomes manager of Drury Lane Theatre
1747 Samuel Johnson begins publication of his Dictionary of the English Language
1748 Montesquieu’s Spirit of Laws
1749 Henry Fielding’s Tom Jones
1751 Currency Act restricts issuance of paper money in New England
1751 First volume of French Encyclopedia, published as a monument to reason
1754 French and Indian War (to 1763)
1755 David Hume’s Natural History of Religion, denying supernaturalism in religion
1755 Lisbon earthquake kills 30,000 people
1756 Birth of Mozart
1759 Quebec falls to the British
1759 Voltaire’s Candide
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