JONATHAN EDWARDS Born at Windsor, Connecticut Windsor for sixty years. 5th Oct. 1703 His father was the Rev. Timothy Edwards, pastor of a church in Became a Student of Yale College, Newhaven, in Graduated B.A. "Licensed” as a Minister of the Gospel "Preached" for eight months to a congregation of English Pres byterians, in the years. Returned to Windsor and passed M.A. at “Yale" 1716 1719-20 1722 1722-23 1723-24 Tutor" at Yale 1724 seq. "Accepted" a "call" to be "Colleague" with his maternal Grand Removed to Stockbridge, Mass., where he preached to the Indians and a few white settlers 1751-52 His treatise on "The Will" published in 1754 Chosen to be President of the College of New Jersey, Princeton . STANFORD LIBR. INTRODUCTION. TEN years ago I crossed the Atlantic in order to consult and arrange with the representatives of JONATHAN EDWARDS, about a complete and really worthy edition of the Works, published and unpublished, of that "master in Israel." Commissioned by Publishers of position and character thereto, and the way having been prepared by correspondence, I had immediate access given me to all the MANUSCRIPTS of Edwards, . . . these having been committed to the keeping of the Rev. Tryon Edwards, D.D., of New London, Connecticut, "as sole permanent trustee, by all the then surviving grandchildren of their author." * Very pleasant, if onerous, was the labour of examining the numerous MSS.; which were found to embrace,- besides papers of rare biographical interest and value, the originals of some of the works already published, and a mass of his ordinary "sermons," in part fully written out, in larger part half-written out, and in largest part in simple "notes," these three classes being of very various worth. The treasure of the whole proved to be a Treatise on Grace, carefully finished and prepared for the press and second to it, if second, an interleaved Bible, containing numerous ANNOTATIONS. Circumstances, which it is not at all needful to state here, have hitherto prevented the carrying out of the scheme of a complete collective edition of the Works but a forlorn hope is indulged, that if the deplorable Civil war were ended, it may yet be achieved under the joint-editorship of the above Rev. Dr Tryon Edwards and myself. Meantime, in response to very frequent and urgent requests addressed to me, I have personally transcribed from the original MSS. now in my possession, the contents of the present volume. * Introduction to Edwards's "Charity and its Fruits; or, Christian Love as mani fested in the Heart and Life." D.D. (London: Nisbet & Co. Edited from the Original MSS. by Tryon Edwards, 1852. 8vo.), page iv.: an inestimable book. |