Jonathan Edwards and Justification by Faith

Abstract

The Great Awakening of 1740–41, which set for a century and a half the basic patterns of American revivalist religion, was itself shaped by earlier outpourings of the Spirit. The most influential of these was undoubtedly the revival of 1734–35 in Jonathan Edwards' congregation at Northampton, a revival which spread widely in western Massachusetts and even south into Connecticut. Edwards' preaching methods were copied and his congregation's conversion experiences emulated not only in the immediate revival but, through Edwards' Faithful Narrative of them, in the Whitefield and subsequent awakenings. The Northampton awakening had been in process of preparation for two or three years under Edwards' preaching. But its first overt manifestation coincided with Edwards' two lectures on justification by faith alone, sermons preached avowedly against Arminianism and in spite of the warnings and censure of some of his influential kinsmen.