1. A Faithful Narrative of the Surprising Work of God, in Works of Jonathan Edwards, vol. 4, The Great Awakening, ed. Goen, C. C. (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1972), 158. Unless otherwise noted, all manuscripts are in the Jonathan Edwards Papers, General Manuscripts 151, The Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University.Google Scholar

2. Daniels, Bruce C., Puritans at Play: Leisure and Recreation in Colonial New England (New York: St. Martin's, 1995), 3.Google Scholar

3. New York, Hill & Wang, 1980.Google Scholar

4. Edwards, Timothy, “Notices of his Father, Richard Edwards, Esq.,” MS in Edwards Collection, Franklin Trask Library, Andover Newton Theological School, Newton Center, Mass., f. 16–, A.Google Scholar

5. Miller, Perry, “Jonathan Edwards' Sociology of the Great Awakening,” New England Quarterly 21 (03. 12. 1948): 62.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

6. Fischer, David Hackett, Growing Old in America (New York: Oxford University Press, 1977), 31–33;Google ScholarFischer, , Albion's Seed: Four British Folkways in America (New York: Oxford University Press, 1989), 103–11.Google Scholar

7. Edwards, MS Sermon on Isa. 3:1–2 (n.d. [1729]). See also MS Sermon on Prov. 28:2 (n.d. [1731]).Google Scholar Attributed dates for Edwards's undated manuscripts are taken from “The ‘Miscellanies’ and Chronological Parallels,” in The Works of Jonathan Edwards, vol. 13, The “Miscellanies,” a–500, ed. Schafer, Thomas A. (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1994), 91–109.Google Scholar

8. Edwards, , The Sorrows of the Bereaved Spread Before Jesus (Boston, 1741), 13–14;Google ScholarA Strong Rod Withered and Broken (Boston, 1748), 12.Google Scholar

9. Edwards, , MS Sermon on Ps. 119:60 (n.d. [1724]).Google Scholar

10. “Diary” for 23 Sept. 1723, in Works of Jonathan Edwards, vol. 16, Letters and Personal Writings, ed. Claghorn, George S. (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1998), 781.Google Scholar

11. “Resolutions,” in ibid., 756; “Diary” for 18 May and 12 Aug. 1723, in ibid., 770, 779.

12. Works of Jonathan Edwards, vol. 6, Scientific and Philosophical Writings, ed. Anderson, Wallace E. (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1980), “Cover Leaf Memoranda,” 192–95;Google Scholarthe quote is from no. 17, page 194. That Jonathan shared his ambition with his parents is indicated not only in the “Resolution” quoted above but also in a sermon written in 1724 by his father, in which Timothy, a habitual doodler, drew a design that revealingly juxtaposed the words “Jonathan,” “London,” and “Corruption” with the words “humble” and “management” written upside down between them (MS, Connecticut Historical Society, Hartford, Conn.) On Edwards's questioning of the “steps” of conversion, see “Diary” for 12 Aug. 1723, in Works of Jonathan Edwards, 16:779.Google Scholar

13. On Elisha Williams, who originally intended to write against Edwards's changed views on church admission and who worked to undermine his authority at the Stockbridge mission, see Winslow, Ola, Jonathan Edwards (New York: MacMillan, 1940), 53–73, 268–92.Google Scholar Winslow speculates that it was Edwards who drew up the list of grievances against Samuel Johnson (ibid., 60). On Cutler, and Edwards's reaction, see ibid., 74–95, and “Quaestio: Peccator Non lustificatur Coram Deo Nisi Per lustitiam Christi Fide Apprehensam,” in Works of Jonathan Edwards, vol. 14, Sermons and Discourses, 1723–1729, ed. Minkema, Kenneth P. (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1997), 47–66.Google Scholar

14. Hopkins, Samuel, The Life and Character of the Late Reverend Jonathan Edwards (Boston, 1765), 56.Google Scholar

15. Works of Jonathan Edwards, 13:18–28, 51–52. See also the MS notebook, “Some Thoughts on Conversion from Various Authors” [ca. 1729–30], in which Edwards marshaled quotes from Puritan authorities that undercut Stoddard's views.Google Scholar

16. The Duty of Hearkening to God's Voice, in The Works of Jonathan Edwards, vol. 10, Sermons and Discourses, 1720–1723, ed. Kimnach, Wilson H. (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1992), 446;Google ScholarMS Sermon on Eccles. 12:1 (n.d. [1731–1732]).Google Scholar

17. “Diary, ” for 22 Feb. 1724, in Works of Jonathan Edwards, 16:785.Google Scholar

18. Lee, Sang Hyun, The Philosophical Theology of Jonathan Edwards (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1988), 34–46.Google Scholar

19. See, for example, Profitable Hearers of the Word, in Works of Jonathan Edwards, 14:276; MS Sermon on Ex. 20:24, n.d [ca. 1729]; “Miscellanies” nos. 116b and 241, in Works of Jonathan Edwards, 13:282–83, 357–58.Google Scholar

20. Faithful Narrative, in Works of Jonathan Edwards, 4:146.

21. Demos, John, A Little Commonwealth: Family Life in Plymouth Colony (New York: Oxford University Press, 1970), 148–50.Google Scholar

22. Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God, in A Jonathan Edwards Reader, eds. Smith, John E., Stout, Harry S., and Minkema, Kenneth P. (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1995), 104.Google Scholar

23. Edwards, MS “Catalogue of Reading,” L. 5v., no. 441. For Edwards on Boston, see letter to Thomas Gillespie, 4 Sept. 1747, in Works of Jonathan Edwards, 16:235.Google Scholar

24. Probably little more than the seventeenth-century rate of two percent. Fischer, Albion's Seed, 103; Growing Old in America, 275–77.Google Scholar

25. MS sermon on Luke 1:17, Aug. 1741, “Meeting of middle-aged people, from 26 to 50.” See also Schieck, William, “Family, Conversion, and the Self in Jonathan Edwards's Faithful Narrative of the Surprising Work of God,” Tennessee Studies in Literature 19 (1974): 79–89.Google Scholar

26. “Miscellanies” no. 849, in The Works of Jonathan Edwards, vol. 20, The “Miscellanies,” 833–1152, ed. Pauw, Amy Plantinga (New Haven: Yale University Press, forthcoming).Google Scholar

27. See, for example, “Miscellanies” nos. 664b, 686, 695, and 729, written between 1736 and 1738Google Scholar(The Works of Jonathan Edwards, vol. 18, The “Miscellanies” 501–832, ed. Chamberlain, Ava [New Haven: Yale University Press, 2000], 202–11, 249, 276–81, 353–57);Google Scholar and the MS nineteen-unit series from the winter of 1737–1738 on Matt. 25:1–12. On the importance of the doctrine of perseverance for Edwards during this time, see ibid., 18–24.

28. See A City on a Hill, in Works of Jonathan Edwards, vol. 19, Sermons and Discourses, 1734–1738, ed. Lesser, M. X. (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2001), 537–59.Google Scholar

29. Ibid., 550.

30. For a transcript of the Bartlett (b. 1679) case, see Preserved Clapp (jury foreman), Jan. 1735/36, General Sessions of the Peace, Hampshire County, Connecticut State Library, Mss. Coll. On the two “parties” in Northampton,Google Scholarsee Tracy, , Jonathan Edwards, Pastor, 45–46,Google Scholarand McDermott, Gerald R., One Happy and Holy Society: The Public Theology of Jonathan Edwards (University Park, Perm.: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1992), 118–25.Google Scholar

31. See also Edwards, MS “Interleaved Bible,” note on Isa. 65:20.Google Scholar

32. The Works of Jonathan Edwards, vol. 2, Religious Affections, ed. Smith, John E. (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1959), 383.Google Scholar

33. Edwards, , MS Sermon on Rev. 14:13, Feb. 1736, “On the death of Mrs. Stoddard.”Google Scholar

34. Edwards to Benjamin Colman, 27 July 1745, in Works of Jonathan Edwards, 16:174. See also the letter to Colman of 9 Mar. 1741 (ibid., 89), in which Edwards hopes that Colman will “bring forth abundant fruit in old age.”

35. Edwards, , MS Sermon on Isa. 65:20 (Dec. 1738).Google Scholar

36. Edwards, , MS Sermon on Luke 2:25–28 (Aug. 1741).Google Scholar

37. Tracy, , Jonathan Edwards, Pastor, 147–70.Google Scholar

38. The sources I have mainly relied on include the Northampton Church Records, book 1; the Northampton Record of Births, Death, and Marriages, 1654–1853; Records of Death, 1653–1884, comp.Google ScholarBuchman, James E.; and Northampton Town Records and Vital Statistics. Ink and handwriting analyses of Edwards's entries in the Church Records are based on the methodology established by Thomas A. Schafer; see Works of Jonathan Edwards, 13:59–90. I would like to thank Katherine Gabriel, Archivist of the First Church of Christ, Northampton, for allowing me to examine the Church Records, and Elise Feeley, Reference Librarian at the Forbes Library, Northampton, for all of her assistance with town sources. On membership totals, see n. 79.Google Scholar

39. Lucas, Paul R., Valley of Discord: Church and Society Along the Connecticut River, 1636–1725 (Hanover, N.H.: University of New England Press, 1976), 136.Google Scholar

40. Similarly, the median admission age in eastern Connecticut churches decreased until the decade of the 1720s, then rose by nearly fifteen years over the next three decades (25.6 to 39.5 in the 1750s). By contrast, the two churches in Andover, Massachusetts, saw declining numbers of people over thirty-five years of age entering from 1711 to 1749.Google Scholar See Grossbart, Stephen R., “Seeking the Divine Favor: Conversion and Church Admissions in Eastern Connecticut, 1711–1832,” William and Mary Quarterly 46 (1989): 719, 721;CrossRefGoogle Scholar and Greven, Philip J. Jr, “Youth, Maturity, and Religious Conversion: A Note on the Ages of Converts in Andover, Massachusetts, 1711–1749,” Essex Institute Historical Collections 108 (1972): 119–34.Google Scholar

41. See Bumsted, J. M., “Religion, Finance, and Democracy in Massachusetts: The Town of Norton as a Case Study,” Journal of American History 57 (03 1971): 817–29;CrossRefGoogle ScholarMoran, Gerald F., “Conditions of Religious Conversion in the First Society of Norwich, Connecticut, 1718–1744,” Journal of Social History 5 (1971): 331–43;CrossRefGoogle ScholarWillingham, William F., “Religious Conversion in the Second Society of Windham, Connecticut, 1723–1743: A Case Study,” Societas 6 (1976): 109–19;Google Scholar and Winiarski, Douglas L., “‘All Manner of Delusions and Errors’: Josiah Cotton and the Religious Transformation of Southeastern New England, 1700–1770” (Ph.D. diss., Indiana University, 2000), 413–22.Google Scholar

42. He lists twenty-six males and thirty-three females; see table 4, below.Google Scholar

43. Twenty-nine men during the 1740s, according to Tracy, Jonathan Edwards, Pastor, 230, n. 10. Of twenty-four identifiable men listed as having settled Southampton, twelve were young people and twelve middle-aged in 1734, and twenty-three were middleaged and one over fifty in 1742.Google Scholar See Andrews, Dorothy and Malanson, Amelia, eds., Southampton: Newtown on the Manhan (Southampton, Mass.: n.p., 1975), 8. From 1746 until after Edwards left, there were no new admissions in the Northampton church.Google Scholar See “Narrative of Communion Controversy,” in The Works of Jonathan Edwards, vol. 12, Ecclesiastical Writings, ed. Hall, David D. (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1994), 508.Google Scholar

44. Conversion and church membership were always distinct in Edwards's reports. In the Faithful Narrative, he estimated that over three hundred had been “savingly converted,” but only 240 were admitted to the church (Works of Jonathan Edwards, 4:157).Google Scholar

45. One hundred and ten of 293 identifiable white male members and eighty-seven of 215 female members, equaling 197 communicants daring from Stoddard's pastorate among a total of 508. This trend continued to Edwards's dismissal, despite his claim that he had been “immediately concerned in the admission of more than three quarters” of the church's membership in 1750 (Misrepresentations Corrected, in Works of Jonathan Edwards, 12:358). At that time, seventy-three of 215 male members and sixty of 169 female members (for a total of 133 in 384) had been admitted under Stoddard. On the error of assuming that Stoddardean converts, brought into the church under a supposedly “lax” mode, were Arminian or Old Light, see Works of Jonathan Edwards, 12:43.Google Scholar

46. Edwards to Thomas Gillespie, 1 07 1751, in Works of Jonathan Edwards, 16:382, 385.Google Scholar

47. See Schafer, Thomas A., “Solomon Stoddard and the Theology of the Revival,” in Henry, Stuart C., ed., A Miscellany of American Christianity (Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 1963), 329–61; and Works of Jonathan Edwards, 12:3–4, n. 5, and 38–43.Google Scholar

48. See Ava Chamberlain, “The Grand Sower of the Seed: Jonathan Edwards's Critique of George Whitefield,” New England Quarterly 70 (Sept. 1997): 368–85.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

49. See, for example, the MS sermons on Prov. 14:34, Amos 8:11, and Matt. 24:43 [ca. 1729]; Jas. 3:16 [ca. 1730]; 2 Sam. 20:19 and Ezek. 20:21–22 (1737); Josh. 24:15–27 (1742); and Jer. 51:5 (1745). See also Edwards's letters to Benjamin Colman, 19 May 1737; to Thomas Prince, 12 Dec. 1743; and to Thomas Gillespie, 1 July 1751, in Works of Jonathan Edwards, 16:66–70, 115–27, and 380–87.Google Scholar For Edwards on business affairs in Northampton, see Valeri, Mark, “The Economic Thought of Jonathan Edwards,” Church History 60 (1991): 37–54.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

50. Edwards to Thomas Gillespie, 1 July 1751, in Works of Jonathan Edwards, 16:383.Google Scholar

51. For Edwards on “second conversion” see MS Sermon on Luke 22:32, 08. 1740; and ”Miscellanies” nos. 840a and 847 (Works of Jonathan Edwards, vol. 20, forthcoming).Google Scholar

52. MS “Statement of Subscribers,” Trask Library, Andover Newton Theological School, Edwards Collection, f. 1750, no. 9.Google Scholar

53. For the period of 1727–46, Tracy has found that of the 268 males who joined the Northampton church, 236 (88 percent) were born to parents residing in Northampton, and 226 of these shared paternal grandfathers. Jonathan Edwards, Pastor, 99, 234–35, n. 21.Google Scholar

54. Edwards, MS Sermon on Isa. 33:14, Dec. 1740.Google Scholar

55. Edwards, , MS Sermon on Luke 1:17 (“To the middle-aged”), Aug. 1741. See also Edwards to William McCulloch, 23 Sept. 1747, in Works of Jonathan Edwards, 16:238; MS Sermon on Mark 16:5, Quarterly Lecture, Nov. 1747.Google Scholar

56. Distinguishing Marks of a Work of the Spirit of God, in Works of Jonathan Edwards, 4:271.Google Scholar

57. Some Thoughts Concerning the Revival, in Works of Jonathan Edwards, 4:505.Google Scholar

58. Cooper, William, The Sin and Danger of Quenching the Spirit (Boston, 1741), 18.Google Scholar

59. Christian History, 13 Aug. 1743, no. 24, 188; 8 Oct. 1743, no. 32, 249.Google Scholar

60. For reports from Scotland, see ibid., 15 Oct. 1743, no. 33, 264; 22 Oct. 1743, no. 34,272,278.

61. Trumbull, James, History of Northampton, 2 vols. (Northampton: Gazette Printing, 1902), 2:234, 206, provides lists of twenty-one of Edwards's likely supporters and detractors.Google ScholarFor the nineteen supporters for whom we have a birth date, four were over fifty and one over sixty in 1740, while the opponents included five over fifty and two over sixty. The median age for the supporters in 1740 was thirty-six, and for the opponents, forty-two.Google Scholar

62. Greven, “Youth, Maturity, and Religious Conversion,” 133–34. The following table extracts information on persons aged fifty or more in six churches in southeastern New England, ca. 1700–69:

Data drawn from Winiarski, “‘All Manner of Error and Delusion,’” 418–20; and Moran,"Conditions of Religious Conversion in the First Society of Norwich,” 334, 336. On the history of controversies in Barnstable County, see Bumsted, J. M., “A Caution to Erring Christians: Ecclesiastical Disorders on Cape Cod, 1717 to 1738,” William and Mary Quarterly 28 (1971): 413–38;CrossRefGoogle Scholar and on Norwich, see Goen, C. C., Revivalism and Separatism in New England, 1740–1800 (Middletown, Conn.: Wesleyan University Press, 1987), 83–85, 195–96, 216–17.Google Scholar

63. Jedry, Christopher M., The World of John Cleaveland: Family and Community in Eighteenth- Century New England (New York: W.W. Norton, 1979), 51–52; Winiarski, “‘All Manner of Error and Delusion’” 264–65.Google Scholar

64. Moran, , “Conditions of Religious Conversion in the First Society of Norwich,” 337;Google ScholarWillingham, “Religious Conversion in the Second Society of Windham,” 114;Google Scholarand Goen, , Revivalism and Separatism in New England, 80.Google Scholar

65. Tracy, , Jonathan Edwards, Pastor, 92–103.Google Scholar See also Greven, Philip J. Jr, Four Generations: Population, Land, and Family in Colonial Andover, Massachusetts (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1970), 133–36;Google Scholar and Boyer, Paul and Nissenbaum, Stephen, Salem Possessed: The Social Origins of Witchcraft (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1974), 89–91.Google Scholar

66. To be exact, 74.3 years old, as calculated by Tracy in Jonathan Edwards, Pastor, 127.Google Scholar

67. Northampton Church Records, book 1.Google Scholar

68. See Tracy, , Jonathan Edwards, Pastor, 162–63;Google ScholarSklar, Kathryn Kish, “Culture Versus Economics: A Case of Fornication in Northampton in the 1740's,” University of Michigan Papers in Women's Studies (May 1978): 35–66;Google Scholarand Edwards to Robert Breck, 7 April 1747, in Works of Jonathan Edwards, 16:221–22. Before 1740, there is only one sermon by Edwards devoted to the issue of family government and the raising of children, but after that date he preached regularly on those topics. See, for example, the sermons on Luke 1:17 (Aug. 1741), Ps. 78:5–7 (1745), Josh. 24:15 (Feb. 1746), and Eph. 6:4 (Feb. 1748). For sermons directed to children, see 2 Kings 2:23–24 (Feb. 1741), Micah 6:9 (Dec. 1742), and 2 Kings 4:18–19 (Feb. 1750).Google Scholar

69. Edwards to John Erskine, 5 07 1750, in Works of Jonathan Edwards, 16:356.Google Scholar

70. Works of Jonathan Edwards, 12:35–38, and Hall, , Worlds of Wonder, Days of Judgment: Popular Religion Belief in Early New England (New York: Knopf, 1989), 152–56, 241–42.Google Scholar

71. Scott Friesen of Yale Divinity School assisted me in inputting and collating the baptismal records, which are located in the Northampton Church Records, book 1, at First Church.Google Scholar

72. Compare this ratio to Stoddard's later remark in The Inexcusableness of Neglecting the Worship of God Under a Pretence of being in an Unconverted Condition (Boston, 1707) that for every person that attended the Lord's Supper four did not (cited in Works of Jonathan Edwards, 12:36, n. 4). Stoddard seems to have meant this to describe general or regional conditions in New England rather than in, or even excepting, Northampton.Google Scholar

73. The chart below gives estimated population totals at various points and the calculated minimal church membership for the same year. These figures suggest that, after the first decade of the eighteenth century, there was an increasing number of “unchurched” individuals in Northampton.Google Scholar

74. Edwards to Gillespie, 1 July 1751, in ibid., 386. See also Edwards to John Erskine, 15 Nov. 1750, in ibid., 363–67, and the MS “Request for a Council from Adherents of Edwards,” n.d. [ca. May 1751]. Aging patterns among female members were similar to those of males, though females tended to be younger in aggregate (table 1).

75. See, for example, Mancha, Rita, “The Woman's Authority: Calvin to Edwards,” Journal of Christian Reconstruction 6 (Winter 1979): 86–98;Google Scholar and Holeman, Warren L., “Jonathan Edwards' Vision—as Viewed through Feminist Hindsight,” Journal of Religious Studies 17 (1991): 1–18.Google Scholar For studies that show Edwards to be a transitional or ambivalent figure in women's history, see Porterfield, Amanda, Feminine Spirituality in America: from Sarah Edwards to Martha Graham (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1980);Google ScholarEllison, Julie, “The Sociology of ‘Holy Indifference’: Sarah Edwards' Narrative,” American Literature 56 (12. 1984): 479–95;CrossRefGoogle ScholarBloch, Ruth H., “Women, Love, and Virtue in the Thought of Edwards and Franklin,” in Oberg, Barbara B. and Stout, Harry S., eds., Benjamin Franklin, Jonathan Edwards, and the Representation of American Culture (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993), 134–51;Google ScholarChamberlain, Ava, “The Immaculate Ovum: Jonathan Edwards and the Construction of the Female Body,” William and Mary Quarterly 57 (April 2000): 289–322.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

76. Miller, , “Jonathan Edwards' Sociology of the Great Awakening,” 66–69.Google Scholar

77. For similar increases in female membership in other New England churches during this period, see Pope, Robert G., The Half-Way Covenant: Church Membership in Puritan New England (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1969), 40–42, 213–18, 279–86;Google ScholarMoran, Gerald F., “‘Sisters in Christ’: Women and the Church in Seventeenth-Century New England,” in Women in American Religion, ed. James, Janet Wilson (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1980), 47–66;Google Scholar and Stout, Harry S. and Brekus, Catherine, “A New England Congregation: Center Church, New Haven, 1638–1989,” in American Congregations, eds. Wind, James P. and Lewis, James W., 2 vols. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994), 1:40–42.Google Scholar

78. See Dunn, , “Saints and Sisters,” 36;Google ScholarMoran, , “Conditions of Religious Conversion in the First Society of Norwich,” 333.Google Scholar

79. Because information on many members is incomplete, providing exact membership totals after 1706 is problematic. Edwards states in the Faithful Narrative that in 1735 the church had 620 members (Works of Jonathan Edwards, 4:157). Of those in membership in 1740, I have been able to identify 508 (82 percent).Google ScholarBy the time he was dismissed in 1750 the male membership had dropped to around 250, the final vote being “about 230” in favor and twenty-three against, from which we can estimate that the total membership was probably around 525 (Edwards to John Erskine, 5 July 1750, in Works of Jonathan Edwards, 16:353). Of these, I have identified 384 (approximately 75 percent). See above, table 1.Google Scholar

80. Edwards, to Gillespie, 1 July 1751, in Works of Jonathan Edwards, 16:385–86.Google Scholar

81. Edwards to Joseph Bellamy, 6 Dec. 1749, in ibid., 307–9.

82. We can consider wealth as a variable by examining real estate tax lists from 1749 (Trumbull, History of Northampton, 2:184–90), which provides values for 260 landholders, with a mean value of £62 and a median of £63. Taking into account all three committees, we find that the majority of the members of each committee were middling sorts, and only two of the wealthiest seven men in town had seats, though all seven were full church members. In addition, using the list of twenty-one of Edwards's likely supporters and twenty-one of his likely opponents (ibid., 2:234, 206) does not yield any great discrepancy, the median assessment for the former being £107.5 and for the latter £95.5.

*Each asterisk indicates a person younger than 50 years of age among the total in each cell.

83. The members are listed in The Works of Jonathan Edwards, 12:518, 522–23.Google Scholar

84. Tracy, , Jonathan Edwards, Pastor, 177. Maj. Pomeroy had long been the moderator of the church committee, and Deac. Pomeroy was the moderator of the precinct committee at the time of Edwards's dismissal.Google Scholar

85. Edwards, to John Erskine, 5 July 1750, in Works of Jonathan Edwards, 16:354.Google Scholar

86. Edwards to Joseph Hawley, 18 Nov. 1754, in ibid., 653.