属灵人物及作品简介Spiritual People/Works Intro

4月 爱德华滋 April - Jonathan Edwards
爱德华滋(Jonathan Edwards, 1703-1758),是美洲殖民地和美国最伟大的神学家和哲学家,1703年十月五日,生于康涅提克州的温莎(Windsor)。他的父母都是出身于清教徒后代的家庭: 父亲是牧师;母亲是北翰堡屯(Northhampton)第一教会牧师司陶达(Solomon Stoddard)的女儿。 他自幼在家受虔誠的宗教教育熏陶,在十三岁,入耶鲁(Yale) 大学。1720年毕业,继续在校研读神学。

在十七岁时,爱德华滋得到重生的经验。 他读到提摩太前书第一章17节:“但愿尊贵,荣耀,归于那不能朽坏不能看见,永世的君王,独一的神,直到永远,阿们。”他想到将永远享受那样一位神的同在,心中无限喜乐。

1722年八月,那个不足十九岁的青年,还在耶鲁修读神学,受聘任纽约苏格兰长老会的牧师,到1723年五月。1723年一月十二日,爱德华滋“庄严的向神奉献自己”。 而且记下:

“我将自己的生命和一切所有都奉献给神;将来凡事都不自己作主;凡事都不自己行动。我庄严许愿,要惟独以神为我的整个生命和喜乐;在盼望和生活上,决不以别的作为生命的一部分;且以神的话作为我服从神的规范;应竭力抵挡世界,情欲,魔鬼,直到此生尽头。”

那年,获硕士学位(MA)。次年,留在耶鲁任教。不到二年,即于1726年,因病辞职。

1727年,爱德华滋受邀为他外祖父的助理。 同年七月,与撒拉.彼伊本(Sarah Pierrepont)女士结婚。 两年后,司陶达牧师以八十五岁高龄去世。 爱德华滋继任为牧师。

司陶达信仰纯正,讲道有能力,可算福音派信仰,也传扬悔改赦罪的道。 不过,许多年来,他主张一种于圣经真理不合的“半途信约”(Half-Way Covenant):虽然明知某人未得救,也接受守圣餐,以为可以造就他,引他重生。这样,信与不信的界分就混杂了。以致信徒反应淡漠,大多数是不冷不热。但司陶达的声誉很好,新英格兰大多数教会,都接受他的观点,形成风气,以为可以增加信徒人数。

年轻的爱德华滋,和当地其他的教牧,感觉到教会昏睡的情形,对人的灵魂极为关心。 在1734年,他在教会讲台,开始强调传扬福音的重要。 起初,没有显著的影响,但他努力不懈。 在年底以前,看见圣灵奇妙的动工。几年内,翰浦屯附近的村镇,有相当多人皈主,呈现复兴觉醒景象,他的会众有三百多人承认基督的名。 爱德华滋自少年时就长于逻辑分析,表现出深谙科学的治学方法;现在他用于对属灵现象的观察和报导,结果成为一本书,是神希奇的作为纪实(Faithful Narrative of the Surprising Work of God),于1737年,同时在伦敦和波斯顿出版,到1738年末,已经再印了许多版。此书被普遍传诵,为“大觉醒”作了准备。 他观察到,起初是人关心罪行的败坏,以后就注意到罪心的问题,而有深刻的悔改。

在1737年,爱德华滋事奉上的重大转变。 有一次,他照着平常的习惯,乘马到林中祷告默想。 他说:

“我在异象中,看见神子耶稣基督,是那样的荣耀,奇妙,伟大,完全,圣洁,祂满有恩典和慈爱,温柔而谦和。祂的恩典平静而甜蜜,伟大充满天上。基督是那样的超奇完美,超过言语所能形容,足以涵盖所有的思想和观念。我想,如此继续约有一小时之久;在那段时间中,大部分我流泪并放声大哭。我不知如何形容,只能说感觉灵魂灼热,倒空并消没;躺卧在地上,又完全被基督充满;用神圣清洁的爱爱祂;信靠祂,为祂而活;事奉并跟随祂;全然的成圣并成为清洁,有神圣属天的清洁。我有多次大致相同性质的看见,并且有同样的效果。

我也有许多次经历真神第三位的荣耀,作成圣的工作;这神圣的运作中,把神圣的光和生命输送给灵魂。 神的圣灵显现出无限的神圣荣耀泉源和甜美:能够完全的充满灵魂,浇灌甜美的交通,像太阳的荣耀,甘甜而喜乐的注入光和生命。 有时我感到神超奇的话是生命之道;是生命的光;甘美的,超越的,能赐予生命的道;伴随着渴慕神的话,丰富的住在我的心里。 ”(The Works of President Edwards, vol. I)

1740年,怀特腓(George Whitefield, 1714-1770) 由英国来到了美洲殖民地,圣灵的能力与他同在,仿佛猛烈的风扫过,神使用祂的仆人,赐下了灵性的“大觉醒”。神的时候到了。

爱德华滋听到青年布道家怀特腓的盛誉,写了一封情词恳挚的长信,邀请他来讲道,期望对自己和会众的灵命有益处。

1740年十月十七日,怀特腓在新英格兰旅行布道中,到爱德华滋牧养的北翰浦屯教会,在新扩建的宏大教堂讲道。 在他的日记中记载:

十月十七日,星期五。 爱德华滋先生是坚实的,最优越的基督徒,但现在身体软弱。我想,我在全新英格兰地区未见到可以跟他相比的。当我登上他的讲台…提到他们起初的经历,那时他们如何的热心和活泼,牧师和会众都深深哭泣。

当时并不是旅游发达的时代。 那个周末,怀特腓受到爱德华滋牧师的接待,在牧师住宅中。 女主人撒拉,对客人温和有礼,儿女成群(后来共生育十一名儿女,八女三男)。 是一个温暖的模范家庭,给威特腓深刻的印象。

十月十九日,星期日。在爱德华滋先生的家,感到大为满足。他们是我所见过最可爱的夫妇。孩子们并没有穿着绸缎,非常朴素,却显出基督徒简约的榜样。 爱德华滋夫人是以温柔安静为装饰;专谈论神的事,显然是她丈夫的贤慧助手。有好几个月,我没有为自己的婚事祷告了,看到她,使我重新在神前祈求,如果合乎祂的旨意,赐下亚伯拉罕的女儿给我为妻子。

那时,怀特腓二十五岁,爱德华滋比他大了十多岁,在思想上已经相当成熟。 但他对这青年人的爱护推重,是非常难得的。怀特腓的神学观点,转变为改革宗思想,据卫斯理兄弟想,可能是受爱德华滋的影响。

爱德华滋夫人写信给他任牧师的弟弟,说到在北翰浦屯教会聚会的情形:

我看到成千的人,屏息静听,只偶然有掩抑的啜泣。他对未受教育和有良好修养的人,都有影响。据说:他在英国布道的时候,许多矿工听道流泪,在他们乌黑的面颊上留下两条白痕。 …他从灼亮热爱的心讲话,口若悬河,滔滔不绝,几乎无法抗拒。 从听到他传扬基督和救恩,在北翰浦屯,有许多,许多的人,开始有了新的观念,新盼望,新目标,新生命。 …我该告诉你,爱德华滋和有些人,认为他在某些观点上错误;但他大体上的影响那么好,尽可不必计较。

那些“观点”,可能包括对自由意志和预定论意见不同;但他们可以有时间谈论。 到十月二十日,怀特腓离去的时候,爱德华滋骑马远送到温莎,才依依不舍而别。

怀特腓的讲道,听众常是多达数千,没有够大的教堂可以容纳得下,必须在户外讲道。消息一经传出,几十哩范围内,工人放下工具,田野没有人耕作,只有丢下的农具,散落在陇亩间。据参加的人说:成群的马,荡起的烟尘,长达十多哩,可以掩住远山和绿树。

对于“大觉醒”,当时的人持有不同的反应。

自由派的态度,是讥笑和否定。他们保持冰冷的礼仪,枯燥的讲章,对于复兴不感觉兴趣。 这些人以波斯顿第一教会的昌西(Charles Chauncey, 1705-1787)为代表,这些人称为“老亮光”。

另一种则是极端派,激动情感,无秩序,无节制的吵闹,虽然比“旧酵”好一些,但过分的“新酒”,有的人受不了,而给大觉醒带来恶名,招致反对。

还有稳重的中间派,占信徒中的最多数,不反对圣灵的工作,但避免过度的动作,是爱德华滋所主张的,被称为“新亮光”;他们为大觉醒感谢神,分辨灵的真假和悔改的是非,传赦罪的恩惠福音,引导人重生得救,进入神的国。

爱德华滋不是仅守住自己地盘的人,他也游行布道,愿意把福音带到更远的地方。

1741年七月八日,他受邀往恩斐(Enfield, Conneticut)教会传讲信息。 在那里,爱德华滋讲了他著名的“罪人落在忿怒的神手中(Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God)

他关切罪人的灵魂,不愿意人受审判,遭沉沦:

啊,罪人啊! 想想你们在何等的危险当中! 那是一个巨大的烈怒火湖,极广阔的无底坑,满了烈怒的火! 神的忿怒向你们发作,…没有谁能救你脱离这忿怒之火! …

他并不是狂呼大叫的那类人物,只是以平静而侵彻的声音,宣讲神上面来的信息。圣灵动工,会众不能自约的哭泣,有的抱住座椅或教堂的柱子,恐怕就坠入地狱,混乱的情绪,淹没了讲员的语声。他只得停下,叫会众安静不要哭喊,让他讲完信息。

有的人夸张渲染,以为爱德华滋专爱讲硫磺火湖一类的信息,那实在是误会;其实在他留下的一千多篇讲章中,这类信息仅约百分之一。

爱德华滋的名字,时常同美国的“大觉醒”连在一起;但绝不是狂热分子。 他作过纽泽西大学(后为普林斯顿大学)的校长;但绝不是只重知识的学院派人物。 他主张平衡的基督徒:

在今世里,基督徒品德的均衡,难以期望达到完全。由于缺乏教导,判断错误,天生的气质,和许多别样的条件,以致常是不能完全。虽然如此,真基督徒绝不能像假冒为善的宗教人,表现那种丑恶的不相称。

且举例说明我的意思。 在真基督徒有喜乐和安慰,也有属神敬虔的忧愁并为罪悲伤。我们绝不能有属神的忧愁,直到成为基督里的新造;真基督徒的记号之一,是他的忧伤,继续为罪忧伤:“哀恸的人有福了,因为他们必得安慰。”(太五:4)在真宗教里,救恩的喜乐,与照着神的意思为罪忧伤,二者并行。 另一方面,许多假冒为善的人,欢乐而没有战兢。

假冒为善的人,另一种丑恶的不均衡,表现在对待不同的人和不同的事上。 他们对爱的应用来说。 有人极力表现出对神何基督的爱,对人却是分争,嫉妒,好报复,并毁谤。 这全然是假冒为善! “人若说:'我爱神',却恨他的弟兄,就是说谎话的;人若不爱他所看见的弟兄,怎能爱没有看见的神呢?”(约壹四:20)在另一方面,有人似乎很热情友善对人,却不爱神!

也有人爱那些爱他敬他的人,却不爱那些反对不喜欢他的人。 基督徒的爱必须是全面的!“作你们天父的儿子:因为祂叫日头照好人,也照歹人;降雨给义人,也给不义的人。你们若单爱那爱你们的人,有什么赏赐呢?就是税吏不也是这样行吗?”(太五:45,46)

有的爱人顾及他们身体需要,却不爱他们的灵魂。有的装作极爱人的灵魂,却不顾恤人的身体。 (大表演对人的灵魂怜悯慈悲,常是不费分文的事;怜悯人的身体,我们就得拿出钱来!)真基督徒的爱,是兼顾到我们邻舍的灵魂和身体。在马可福音第六章,我们可以看到基督的怜悯。 祂怜悯人的灵魂,使祂教导他们;祂怜悯人的身体,就行神迹,变化五饼二鱼,给众人吃饱。

这样,你就明白我的意思,假宗教的不均衡而缺乏匀称。 我们也能从许多别的方面,看出其不均衡。就如有的人,为了其他基督徒的罪而激动,却不为自己的罪烦恼。 不过,真基督徒,感觉对自己的罪关心,过于别人的罪。当然他为了别人的罪难过,但他常更容易发现而责备自己的罪。也有人热心作属灵的领袖,却没有相等的热心祷告。有的人在基督徒中间,会有宗教热情,在个别独处的时候,却是冷淡。(见Jonathan Edwards, The Experience that Counts

1750年六月二十二日,北翰浦屯教会以二百三十票对二十三票,通过辞退爱德华滋牧师。 那并不是偶然的事件。原来他教会里,一年多来就有所谓“半路信约”信徒的争执:照他外祖父司陶达时代的向例,受过洗礼的人,虽然自己知道他没有悔改重生,也可以领受圣餐,这种信徒称之为“半路信约”,他们的儿女也是如此。后来,爱德华滋觉得那样不对,决定只有真正清楚重生得救,而有良好品德的人,才可以有资格领受圣餐。 为了区分谁合格,谁不合格,自然不得不指明不合格的理由。 爱德华滋不顾情面,只坚持真理。有些放纵情欲的青年,受到指责,家长认为有失体面;其中有的是爱德华滋有名望的亲族。 这样,是大部分会众所不能接受的。 而反对他的人,就乘机煽动。 外祖父错误教训的果子,落在外孙的头上,造成教会辞退忠心服事二十三年多的牧师。

七月一日,四十六岁的爱德华滋,讲了“告别讲道”。 经文是哥林多后书第一章12,14节:“在我们主耶稣的日子”,平静的勉励会众不可分争,“最后,再会。要作完全人,要受安慰,要同心合意,要彼此和睦。如此,仁爱和平的神,必常与你们同在。”(林后一三:11)并提醒大家,有一天都要站在主的面前。 阿们。

一位体弱的牧师,带着一大家的妻子孩子,前途茫茫,何去何从? 爱德华滋等候,仰望主的引导。

在这期间,爱德华滋安静祷告,读书。 他的亲家好友德威特上校(Colonel Timothy Dwight),劝他设立第二教会,并愿分他的薪水支持。但爱德华滋不接受。 而且当他在家的时候,还受原教会的邀请,不定期的代替讲坛(有12篇讲章保留下来)。

在苏格兰的朋友们,奉献寄款支持爱德华滋和家人,并邀请他去苏格兰。 维琴尼亚长老会的戴维斯(Smauel Davies),写信给爱德华滋的朋友,那青年牧师表示,全世界只有爱德华滋最适于领导他们的教会,他愿意再去开荒。

但爱德华滋接受了去树桩桥(Stockbridge)

1751年,他迁移到当时的边远地区树桩桥,在麻萨诸塞州的西部,任公理会教会的牧师,并作为印地安人的宣教士。那是大卫布莱纳(David Brainerd) (1718-1747,爱德华滋女儿Jerusah之未婚夫)曾工作过的地方。

从过去二年的争持,变迁去到那样的新环境,颇像是流放。 但爱德华滋知道是神的旨意,自己没有违背真理原则,对一切横逆都安然接受,无怨无悔,而且能够潜心读书写作,他有好些重要著作,是那时期的作品。

初到的时候,环境有困难,而且有印地安部族战争,和法国入侵的威胁。但爱德华滋靠主安然居住,也接待过访的传道者,也有远道来访的同道。约七年的艰辛工作和教育,渐渐看见工作的果子,教会有发展,也获得印地安人的信任,有多人皈主,并在真理上长进。

1752年爱德华滋的三女,二十岁的以斯帖,嫁给了长老会布尔牧师(Rev. Aaron Burr)。 那时,哈佛大学和耶鲁大学,已经沦为自由派掌握,福音派于1746年,成立了纽泽西大学(后来成为普林斯顿大学),布尔兼任校长,在校务行政之外,还负担教很多课,包括:一个班级的全部课程,全校各班的语文。 1757年二月八日,校园开始有属灵的复兴,如同“大觉醒”的情形。 布尔夫妇欢喜分别写信来报告,爱德华滋认为将对美洲殖民地有长久的良好影响。 但布尔因工作过劳,竟以四十二岁英年,于九月二十四日病逝。

爱德华滋曾去那里,在几届的毕业典礼讲道上。 现在校董会属意他为领导校政的理想人选。 经过友人的劝说,爱德华滋才勉强答应了继任的邀约,于1758年一月,自己先到普林斯顿,二月十六日正式视事,为纽泽西大学校长。他的就任演讲很为动人。听者说:二小时不觉过去。因为普林斯顿地区,曾有天花流行,他遵医嘱接种牛痘预防;哪知却因而受到感染,发高热并喉肿,于三月二十二日逝世,年仅五十四岁,在校长任只有一个多月。

爱德华滋是美国最伟大的思想家,神学家。他的为人持身圣洁,言行如一,品德无疵。其著述立论严谨,析理分明,本于圣经,很少引用其他作品。他着意高举神的至高主权,人的原罪和败坏,神的恩典和荣耀。

爱德华滋的后代繁衍,很多有极高的成就,传为美谈。根据EA Winship在1903年的World's Work杂志撰文统计:“其中有八位大学校长,约一百大学教授,一百多名律师,六十位医生,三十位法官,八十多人任重要官职,二十五位陆海军官,教牧和宣教士几乎难以数计。”到今天的情形如何,更难以查考了。 但他有更多属灵的后裔,影响力无可估计。 其阐述加尔文主义的著作,尤为有力,不仅在美国,亦影响欧洲神学界。在他去世以后,仍然流传不衰。

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Jonathan Edwards (October 5, 1703 – March 22, 1758) was a preacher, theologian, and missionary to Native Americans. Edwards "is widely acknowledged to be America's most important and original philosophical theologian, and one of America's greatest intellectuals.

Edwards's theological work is very broad in scope, but he is often associated with his defense of Reformed theology, the metaphysics of theological determinism, and the Puritan heritage. Edwards played a critical role in shaping the First Great Awakening, and oversaw some of the first fires of revival in 1733-1735 at his church in Northampton, Massachusetts. Edwards's sermon "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God" is considered a classic of early American literature, which he delivered during another wave of revival in 1741, following George Whitefield's tour of the Thirteen Colonies.

Edwards is widely known for his many books: The End For Which God Created the World; The Life of David Brainerd, which served to inspire thousands of missionaries throughout the nineteenth century; and Religious Affections, which many Reformed Evangelicals read even today. Edwards died from a smallpox inoculation shortly after beginning the presidency at the College of New Jersey (later to be named Princeton University), and was the grandfather of Aaron Burr.

Great Awakening

On July 7, 1731, Edwards preached in Boston the "Public Lecture" afterwards published under the title "God Glorified — in Man's Dependence," which was his first public attack on Arminianism. The emphasis of the lecture was on God's absolute sovereignty in the work of salvation: that while it behooved God to create man pure and without sin, it was of his "good pleasure" and "mere and arbitrary grace" for him to grant any person the faith necessary to incline him or her toward holiness; and that God might deny this grace without any disparagement to any of his character.

In 1733, a religious revival began in Northampton and reached such intensity in the winter of 1734 and the following spring as to threaten the business of the town. In six months, nearly three hundred were admitted to the church. The revival gave Edwards an opportunity for studying the process of conversion in all its phases and varieties, and he recorded his observations with psychological minuteness and discrimination in A Faithful Narrative of the Surprising Work of God in the Conversion of Many Hundred Souls in Northampton (1737). A year later, he published Discourses on Various Important Subjects, the five sermons which had proved most effective in the revival, and of these, none, he tells us, was so immediately effective as that on the Justice of God in the Damnation of Sinners, from the text, "That every mouth may be stopped." Another sermon, published in 1734, on the Reality of Spiritual Light set forth what he regarded as the inner, moving principle of the revival, the doctrine of a special grace in the immediate, and supernatural divine illumination of the soul.

By 1735, the revival had spread--and popped up independently--across the Connecticut River Valley, and perhaps as far as New Jersey. However, criticism of the revival began, and many New Englanders feared that Edwards had led his flock into fanaticism. Over the summer of 1735, religious fervor took a dark turn. A number of New Englanders were shaken by the revivals but not converted, and became convinced of their inexorable damnation. Edwards wrote that "multitudes" felt urged--presumably by Satan--to take their own lives. At least two people committed suicide in the depths of their spiritual duress, one from Edwards's own congregation--his uncle, Joseph Hawley II. It is not known if any others took their own lives, but the suicide craze effectively ended the first wave of revival, except in some parts of Connecticut.

However, despite these setbacks and the cooling of religious fervor, word of the Northampton revival and Edwards's leadership role had spread as far as England and Scotland. It was at this time that Edwards was acquainted with George Whitefield, who was traveling the Thirteen Colonies on a revival tour in 1739-1740. The two men may not have seen eye to eye on every detail--Whitefield was far more comfortable with the strongly emotional elements of revival than Edwards was--but they were both passionate about preaching the Gospel. They worked together to orchestrate Whitefield's trip, first through Boston, and then to Northampton. When Whitefield preached at Edwards's church in Northampton, he reminded them of the revival they had experienced just a few years before. This deeply touched Edwards, who wept throughout the entire service, and much of the congregation too was moved. Revival began to spring up again, and it was at this time that Edwards preached his most famous sermon, "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God" in Enfield, Connecticut in 1741. This sermon has been widely reprinted as an example of "fire and brimstone" preaching in the colonial revivals, though the majority of Edwards's sermons were not this dramatic. Indeed, he used this style deliberately. As historian George Marsden put it, "Edwards could take for granted...that a New England audience knew well the Gospel remedy. The problem was getting them to seek it."

The movement met with opposition from conservative Congregationalist ministers. In 1741, Edwards published in its defense The Distinguishing Marks of a Work of the Spirit of God, dealing particularly with the phenomena most criticized: the swoonings, outcries and convulsions. These "bodily effects," he insisted, were not distinguishing marks of the work of the Spirit of God one way or another; but so bitter was the feeling against the revival in the more strictly Puritan churches that, in 1742, he was forced to write a second apology, Thoughts on the Revival in New England, his main argument being the great moral improvement of the country. In the same pamphlet, he defends an appeal to the emotions, and advocates preaching terror when necessary, even to children, who in God's sight "are young vipers… if not Christ's." He considers "bodily effects" incidental to the real work of God, but his own mystic devotion and the experiences of his wife during the Awakening (which he gives in detail) make him think that the divine visitation usually overpowers the body, a view in support of which he quotes Scripture. In reply to Edwards, Charles Chauncy wrote Seasonable Thoughts on the State of Religion in New England in 1743 and anonymously penned The Late Religious Commotions in New England Considered in the same year. In these works he urged conduct as the sole test of conversion; and the general convention of Congregational ministers in the Province of Massachusetts Bay protested "against disorders in practice which have of late obtained in various parts of the land."

In spite of Edwards's able pamphlet, the impression had become widespread that "bodily effects" were recognized by the promoters of the Great Awakening as the true tests of conversion. To offset this feeling, Edwards preached at Northampton, during the years 1742 and 1743, a series of sermons published under the title of Religious Affections (1746), a restatement in a more philosophical and general tone of his ideas as to "distinguishing marks." In 1747, he joined the movement started in Scotland called the "concert in prayer," and in the same year published An Humble Attempt to Promote Explicit Agreement and Visible Union of God's People in Extraordinary Prayer for the Revival of Religion and the Advancement of Christ's Kingdom on Earth. In 1749, he published a memoir of David Brainerd who had lived with his family for several months and had died at Northampton in 1747. Brainerd had been constantly attended by Edwards's daughter Jerusha, to whom he was rumored to have been engaged to be married, though there is no surviving evidence for this. In the course of elaborating his theories of conversion Edwards used Brainerd and his ministry as a case study, making extensive notes of his conversions and confessions.

Later years

In 1747, according to Ola Elizabeth Winslow, his household came to include a slave, "a negro girl named Venus", purchased by Edwards for 80 pounds from Richard Perkins of Newport. In 1748, there had come a crisis in his relations with his congregation. The Half-Way Covenant, adopted by the synods of 1657 and 1662, had made baptism alone the condition to the civil privileges of church membership, but not of participation in the sacrament of the Lord's Supper. Edwards's grandfather and predecessor in the pastorate, Solomon Stoddard, had been even more liberal, holding that the Supper was a converting ordinance and that baptism was a sufficient title to all the privileges of the church. As early as 1744, Edwards, in his sermons on Religious Affections, had plainly intimated his dislike of this practice. In the same year, he had published in a church meeting the names of certain young people, members of the church, who were suspected of reading improper books, and also the names of those who were to be called as witnesses in the case. It has often been reported that the witnesses and accused were not distinguished on this list, and so, therefore, the entire congregation was in an uproar. However, Patricia Tracy's research has cast doubt on this version of the events, noting that in the list he read from, the names were definitely distinguished. Those involved were eventually disciplined for disrespect to the investigators rather than for the original incident. In any case, the incident further deteriorated the relationship between Edwards and the congregation. In a time of significant cultural foment, he was associated with the old guard.

Edwards's preaching became unpopular. For four years, no candidate presented himself for admission to the church, and when one did, in 1748, he was met with Edwards's formal but mild and gentle tests, as expressed in the Distinguishing Marks and later in Qualifications for Full Communion (1749). The candidate refused to submit to them, the church backed him, and the break between the church and Edwards was complete. Even permission to discuss his views in the pulpit was refused him. He was allowed to present his views on Thursday afternoons. His sermons were well attended by visitors, but not his own congregation. A council was convened to decide the communion matter between the minister and his people. The congregation chose half the council, and Edwards was allowed to select the other half of the council. His congregation, however, limited his selection to one county where the majority of the ministers were against him. The ecclesiastical council voted that the pastoral relation be dissolved. The church members, by a vote of more than 200 to 23, ratified the action of the council, and finally a town meeting voted that Edwards should not be allowed to occupy the Northampton pulpit, though he continued to live in the town and preach in the church by the request of the congregation until October 1751. He evinced no rancour or spite; his "Farewell Sermon" was dignified and temperate; he preached from 2 Cor. 1:14 and directed the thoughts of his people to that far future when the minister and his people would stand before God; nor is it to be ascribed to chagrin that in a letter to Scotland after his dismissal he expresses his preference for Presbyterian to Congregational church government. His position at the time was not unpopular throughout New England; his doctrine that the Lord's Supper is not a cause of regeneration and that communicants should be professing Christians has since (very largely through the efforts of his pupil Joseph Bellamy) become a standard of New England Congregationalism.

Edwards, with his large family, was now thrown upon the world, but offers of aid quickly came to him. A parish in Scotland could have been procured, and he was called to a Virginia church. He declined both, to become, in 1750, pastor of the church in Stockbridge and a missionary to the Housatonic Indians. To the Indians, he preached through an interpreter, and their interests he boldly and successfully defended by attacking the whites who were using their official positions among them to increase their private fortunes.

In 1757, on the death of the Reverend Aaron Burr, who five years before had married Edwards's daughter Esther and was the father of future US vice-president Aaron Burr, he reluctantly agreed to replace his late son-in-law as the president of the College of New Jersey (now Princeton University), where he was installed on February 16, 1758.

Almost immediately after becoming president, Edwards being a strong supporter of small pox inoculations, decided to get inoculated himself in order to encourage others to do the same. Unfortunately, never having been in robust health, he died of the inoculation on March 22, 1758. He was buried in Princeton Cemetery. Edwards had three sons and eight daughters.

Legacy

The followers of Jonathan Edwards and his disciples came to be known as the New Light Calvinist ministers, as opposed to the traditional Old Light Calvinist ministers. Prominent disciples included Samuel Hopkins, Joseph Bellamy, Jonathan Edwards's son Jonathan Edwards Jr. and Gideon Hawley. Through a practice of apprentice ministers living in the homes of older ministers, they eventually filled a large number of pastorates in the New England area. Many of Jonathan and Sarah Edwards's descendants became prominent citizens in the United States, including the Vice President Aaron Burr and the College Presidents Timothy Dwight, Jonathan Edwards Jr. and Merrill Edwards Gates. Jonathan and Sarah Edwards were also ancestors of the First Lady Edith Roosevelt, the writer O. Henry, the publisher Frank Nelson Doubleday and the writer Robert Lowell.

Edwards's writings and beliefs continue to influence individuals and groups to this day. Early American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions missionaries were influenced by Edwards's writings, as is evidenced in reports in the ABCFM's journal "The Missionary Herald," and beginning with Perry Miller's seminal work, Edwards enjoyed a renaissance among scholars after the end of the Second World War. The Banner of Truth Trust and other publishers continue to reprint Edwards's works, and most of his major works are now available through the series published by Yale University Press, which has spanned three decades and supplies critical introductions by the editor of each volume. Yale has also established the Jonathan Edwards Project online. Author and teacher, Elisabeth Woodbridge Morris, memorialized him, her paternal ancestor (3rd great grandfather) in two books, The Jonathon Papers (1912), and More Jonathon Papers (1915). In 1933, he became the namesake of Jonathan Edwards College, one of the first of the twelve residential colleges of Yale, and The Jonathan Edwards Center at Yale University was founded to provide scholarly information about Edwards' writings.

Progeny

Edwards's many eminent descendants have led some Progressive Era scholars to view Edwards's progeny as proof of eugenics, though most people today consider eugenics a discredited pseudoscience. That said, no modern scholar would dispute the fact that Edwards's genealogy is indeed impressive, and his descendants have had a disproportionate effect upon American culture. Edwards's biographer George Marsden notes that "the Edwards family produced scores of clergymen, thirteen presidents of higher learning, sixty-five professors, and many other persons of notable achievements."

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