Jonathan Edwards (Magill’s Literary Annual 2004)
At a glance:
- Author: George M. Marsden
- First Published: 2003
- Type of Work: Biography
- Time of Work: 1703-1758
- Setting: Connecticut, Massachusetts, New York, and New Jersey
- Principal Characters: Jonathan Edwards, Sarah Pierpont Edwards, Solomon Stoddard, Colonial John Stoddard, George Whitefield
- Genres: Nonfiction, Biography
- Subjects: New York, North America or North Americans, Colonialism, Religion, New England, Ministry or ministers, Eighteenth century, New Jersey, Connecticut, Mysticism, Clergy, Morality or morals, Calvinism, Massachusetts
- Locales: Connecticut, New York, Massachusetts, New Jersey
Over the centuries, Jonathan Edwards’s name has become synonymous with religious revival and the strict tenets of Calvinism. Most students of American literature are introduced to Edwards’s work through his hellfire-and-brimstone sermon “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God,” in which he paints a horrifying picture of the torments offenders will surely suffer unless they throw themselves on the mercy of God and repent of their wrongdoings. Hell has lost much of its terror for twenty-first century society and has become a mythological concept instead of a real place. Edwards and...
[The entire page is 1968 words long]
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