The Grandfather of modern Protestant missions.

Jonathan Edwards was the last and greatest of the great New England Puritan preachers. Some historians account him the greatest intellect of the Western Hemisphere before 1900. (The achievements of his descendants are such that the Edwards family used to be cited in psychology textbooks -- and in Ripley's Believe It Or Not column -- as proof that genius is an inherited trait.) I once heard the distinguished Austrian philosopher Herbert Feigl (not a Christian, by the way) lecture on the will and the intellect. Afterwards I said to him, "You were practically quoting from Jonathan Edwards, weren't you?" He said, "Of course. Edwards is the clearest writer available on the subject. If you want to think clearly about the human will, you begin by reading Edwards."



The revival began with Jonathan Edwards in Northampton, Massachusetts. Edwards came from Puritan, Calvinist roots, but emphasized the importance and power of immediate, personal religious experience. Religious experience had to be immediate, he taught. He distrusted hierarchy and catechisms. Scientific inquiry was useless; he taught that only a personal experience can be valid. His sermons were "solemn, with a distinct and careful enunciation, and a slow cadence."[13] His sermons were powerful and attracted a large following. Anglican preacher George Whitefield visited from England; he continued the movement, traveling throughout the colonies and preaching in a more dramatic and emotional style, accepting everyone into his audiences. Both Edwards and Whitefield were slave owners and believed that blacks would acquire absolute equality with whites in the Millennial church.[14]
Winiarski (2005) examines Edwards's preaching in 1741, especially his famous sermon "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God." At this point, Edwards countenanced the "noise" of the Great Awakening, but his approach to revivalism became more moderate and critical in the years immediately following.876