Edwards, Jonathan (1703-1758) American philosopher and theologian who
studied at Yale and received his bachelor's degree before his 17th birthday.
Edwards' preaching provoked the explosive beginnings of the "Great
Awakening," a religious revivalist movement in the American Colonies of the
1740s. One of the most innovative of colonial philosophers, he was also most
conscientiously tied to the past; he is often referred to as the last Puritan.
The Eternity of Hell Torments (1750) One of Edwards' better known sermons
in which he exhorts sinners to escape eternal torments by considering how
dreadful an eternity of despair would be. "How sinking would it be to you to
endure such pain as you have felt in this world, without any hopes, and to
know that you never should be delivered from it, nor have one minute's
rest!"
