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Entry for Jonathan Edwards:

[ Page 490 ]

EDWARDS, (JONATHAN,) president of New Jersey college, a most acute metaphysician, and distinguished divine, was born at Windsor, Cotta., Oct. 5, 1703. He was graduated at Yale college in 1720, before he was seventeen years of age. His uncommon genius discovered itself early, and while yet a boy he read Locke on the Human Understanding with a keen relish. Though he took much pleasure in examining the kingdom of nature, yet moral and theological researches yielded him the highest satisfaction. lie lived in college near two years after taking his first degree, preparing himself for the office of the minister of the gospel. In 1722, he went to New York, at the request of a small society of English Presbyterians, and preached a number of months. In 1724, he was appointed a tutor in Yale college, and he continued in that office, till he was invited in 1726, to preach at Northampton, Mass. Here he was ordained as colleague with his grandfather, Mr. Stoddard, February 15, 1727. In 1735, his benevolent labors were attended with very uncommon success; a general impression was made upon the minds of his people by the truths which be proclaimed, and the church was much enlarged. He continued in this place more than twenty-three years. He had been instrumental in cheering many hearts with the joys of religion, and not a few had regarded him with all that affectionate attachment, which is excited by the love of excellence and the sense of obligations, which, can never be repaid. But a spirit of detraction had gone forth, in consequence of his strict views of Christian discipline and purity, and a few leading men of outrageous zeal pushed. forward men of less determined hostility, and he was dismissed by an ecclesiastical council, June 22, 1750.

In this scene of trouble and abuse, when the mistakes and the bigotry of the multitude had stopped their ears, and their passions were without control, Mr. Edwards exhibited the truly Christian spirit. His calmness, and meekness, and humility, and yet firmness and resolution, were the subjects of admiration to his friends. More anxious for his people, than for himself, he preached a most solemn and affecting farewell discourse. He afterwards occasionally supplied the pulpit at times, when no preacher had been procured; but this proof of his superiority to resentment or pride, and this readiness to do good to those who had injured him, met with no return, except a vote of the inhabitants, prohibiting him from ever again preaching for them. Still he was not left without excellent friends in Northampton, and his correspondents in Scotland, having been informed of his dismission, contributed a considerable sum for the maintenance of his family.

In August, 1751, he succeeded Mr. Sergeant as missionary to the Housatonic Indians, at Stockbridge, in Berkshire county. Here he continued six years, preaching to the Indians and the white people; and, as he found much leisure, he prosecuted his theological and metaphysical studies; and produced works which rendered his name famous throughout Europe. Thus was his calamitous removal from Northampton the occasion, under the wise providence of God, of his imparting to the world the most important instructions, whose influence has been extending to the present time, and whose good effects may still be felt for ages. In January; 1758, he reluctantly accepted the office of president of the college in New Jersey as successor of his son-in-law, Mr. Burr; but he had not entered fully upon the duties of this station, before the prevalence of the small pox induced him to be inoculated, and this disease was the cause of his death, Match 22, 1758, aged fifty-four. A short time before he died, as some of his friends, who surrounded his bed to see him breathe his last, were lamenting the loss which the college would sustain, he said, to their astonishment, "Trust in God, and ye need not fear." These were his last words. He afterwards expired with as much composure, as if he had only fallen asleep. He left three sons and seven daughters. His wife, Sarah, daughter of Rev. J. Pierpont, New Haven, whom he married in 1727, in her eighteenth year, died also in 1758. She became pious at the age of five.

President Edwards was equally distinguished by his Christian virtues, and by the extraordinary vigor and penetration of his mind. Though his constitution was delicate, he commonly spent thirteen hours every day in his study. He usually rose between four and five in the morning, and was abstemious, living completely by rule. All his researches were pursued with his pen in his hand, and the number of his miscellaneous writings, which he had left behind him, was above fourteen hundred. They were all numbered and paged, and an index was formed for the whole. He was peculiarly happy in his domestic connexions. Mrs. Edwards, by taking the entire care of his temporal concerns, gave him an opportunity of consecrating all his powers, without interruption, to the labors and studies of the sacred office.

As a preacher, he was not oratorical in his manner, and his voice was rather feeble, though he spoke with distinctness; but his discourses were rich in thought; and, being deeply impressed himself with the truths, which he uttered, his preaching came home to the hearts of his hearers.

Mr. Edwards was uncommonly zealous and persevering in his search after truth. He spared no pains in procuring the necessary aids, and he read all the books which he could procure, that promised to afford him assistance in his inquiries. Re confined himself to no particular sect or denomination, but studied the writings of men whose sentiments were the most opposite to his own. But the Bible claimed his peculiar attention. from that book he derived his religious principles, and not from any human system. The doctrines, which he supported, were Calvinistic, and when these doctrines were in any degree relinquished, or were not embraced in their whole length and breadth, he did not see, where a man could set his foot down, with consistency and safety, short of deism or atheism itself. Yet with all his strict adherence to what he believed to be the truths of heaven, his heart was kind and tender. When Mr. Whitefield preached for him on the Sabbath, the acute divine, whose mighty intellect has seldom been equalled, wept as a child during the whole sermon.

His 1nquiry into the Freedom of the Will, is considered as one of the greatest efforts of the human mind. Those, who embrace the Calvinistic sentiments, have been accustomed to say, that he has forever settled the controversy with the .Arminians by demonstrating the absurdity of their principles. On the other hand, there are those, attached to the general theological doctrines embraced by Edwards, who think that the unavoidable consequences of his metaphysical argument are so contradictory to the common judgment of mankind, as to authorize any one "boldly to cut asunder the knot, which he is unable to unloose." However, if the argument of Edwards be a fallacy, "there must be some way to unravel the puzzle."

Remarks were made on the Essay on the Freedom of the Will by James Dana and Samuel West; the latter was answered by Dr. Edwards. His other works, which are most celebrated, are his book on Original Sin in answer to Taylor, his Treatise on the Affections, his dissertation on the Nature of true Virtue, and that on the End for which God created the World. A splendid edition of his works was published in England, and an edition in eight volumes, intended to be a complete collection of his writings, edited by Dr. Austin, was published in 1809. Another edition, with an ample account of his life, edited by his descendant, Sereno Edwards Dwight, was published in ten vols. 8vo. in 1830.—Hopkins’ Life of Edwards; Life prefixed to his Works; Middleton’s Biog. Evang. iv. 294—317; Jones’s Chris. Biog.; Allen.