JONATHAN

This article appears in Volume V09, Page 6 of the Encyclopedia Britannica.

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JONATHAN EDWARDS] the younger (1745-1801), second son of
i Besides the younger Jonathan many of Edwards's descendants
the philosopher, born at Northampton, Massachusetts, on the 26th of May 1745, also takes an important place among his followers. He lived in Stockbridge in 17511755 and spoke the language of the Housatonic Indians with ease, for six months studied among the Oneidas, graduated at Princeton in 1765, studied theology at Bethlehem,Connecticut, under Joseph

Bellamy

,was licensed to preach in 1766, was a tutor at Princeton in 17661769, and was pastor of the White Haven Church, New Haven, Connecticut, in 17691795, being then dismissed for the nominal reason that the church could not support him, but actually because of his opposition to the Half-Way Covenant as well as to slavery and the slave trade. He preached at Colebrook, Connecticut, in 17961799 and then became president of Union College, Schenectady, New

York

, where he died on the 1st of August 18o1. His studies of the Indian dialects were scholarly and valuable. He edited his father's incomplete History of the

Work

WORK

of Redemption, wrote in answer to Stephen West, A Dissertation Concerning Liberty and Necessity (1797), which defended his father's

work

WORK

on the Will by a rather strained interpretation, and in answer to Chauncy on universal salvation formulated what is known as the " Edwardean," New England or Governmental theory of the atonement in The Necessity of the Atonement and its Consistency with Free Grace in Forgiveness (1785). His collected works were edited by his grandson Tryon Edwards in two volumes, with memoir (Andover, 1842). His place in the Edwardean theology is principally due to his defence against the Universalists of his father's doctrine of the atonement, namely, that Christ's death, being the equivalent of the eternal punishment of sinners, upheld the authority of the divine law, but did not pay any debt, and made the pardon of all men a possibility with God, but not a necessity.
For estimates of Edwards consult : The Volume of the Edwards Family Meeting at Stockbridge, Massachusetts, September 6-7, A.D. 1870 (Boston, 1871); Jonathan Edwards, a Retrospect, Being the Addresses Delivered in Connecticut with the Unveiling of a Memorial
were great, brilliant or versatile men. Among them were: his son Pierrepont (1750-1826), a brilliant but erratic member of the Connecticut bar, tolerant in religious matters and bitterly hated by stern Calvinists, a man whose personal morality resembled greatly that of Aaron Burr; his grandsons. William Edwards (1770-1851), an inventor of important leather rolling machinery; Aaron Burr the son of Esther Edwards; Timothy Dwight (17521817), son of Mary Edwards, and his brother Theodore Dwight, a Federalist politician, a member, the secretary and the historian of the Hartford Convention; his great-grandsons, Tryon Edwards (18091894) and Sereno Edwards Dwight, theologian, educationalist and author; and his great-great-grandsons, Theodore William Dwight, the jurist, and Timothy Dwight, second of that name to be president of Yale.
in the First Church of Christ in Northampton, Massachusetts, on the One Hundred and Fiftieth Anniversary of his Dismissal from the Pastorate of that Church, edited by H. N. Gardiner (Boston, 1901) ; Exercises Commemorating the Two Hundredth Anniversary of the

Birth

BIRTH (a word common in various forms to Teutonic languages from the root of the verb " to bear ")

of Jonathan Edwards, held at Andover Theological Seminary. October 4-5, 1603 (Andover, 1904) ; and among the addresses de-livered at Stockbridge in October 1903, John De Witt, " Jonathan Edwards: A Study," in the Princeton Theological Review (January, 1904). Also H. C. King, " Edwards as Philosopher and Theologian," in Hartford Theological Seminary Record, vol. xiv. (1903), pp. 23-57; H. N. Gardiner, " The Early Idealism of Jonathan Edwards," in the Philosophical Review, vol. ix. (1900), pp. 573-596 E. C. Smyth, American Journal of Theology, vol. i. (1897), pp. 960-964; Samuel P. Hayes, " An Historical Study of the Edwardean Revivals," in American Journal of Psychology, vol. xiii. (1902), pp. 550 ff. ; J. H. MacCracken, " Philosophical Idealism of Edwards " in Philosophical Review, vol. xi. (1902), pp. 26-42, suggesting that Edwards did not know Berkeley, but Collier, and the same author's Jonathan Edwards' Idealismus (

Halle

, 1899) ; F. J. E. Woodbridge, " Jonathan Edwards," in Philosophical Review, vol. xiii. (1904) pp. 393-408 ; W. H. Squires, Jonathan Edwards and seine Willenslehre (

Leipzig

LEIPZIG

, 1901); Samuel

Simpson

, " Jonathan Edwards, A Historical Review," in Hartford Seminary Record, vol. xiv. (1903), pp. 3-22 ; and The Edwardean, a Quarterly Devoted to the History of Thought in America (Clinton, New

York

, 1903-1904), edited by W. H. Squires, of which only four parts appeared, all devoted to Edwards and all written by Squires. (H. N. G.; R. WE.)

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