Jonathan Edwards (October 5, 1703 – March 22, 1758) was an American revivalist preacher, philosopher, and Congregationalist theologian. Edwards is widely regarded as one of America's most important and original philosophical theologians. Edwards's theological work is broad in scope but rooted in the Puritan heritage as exemplified in the Westminster and Savoy Confessions of Faith. Recent studies have emphasized how thoroughly Edwards grounded his life's work on conceptions of beauty, harmony, and ethical aptness, and how central the Age of Enlightenment was to his mindset. Edwards played a critical role in shaping the First Great Awakening and oversaw some of the first revivals in 1733–35 at his church in Northampton, Massachusetts. His work gave rise to a doctrine known as New England theology.
At a 1741 revival in Enfield, Ct, Edwards delivered the sermon "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God", a classic of early American literature, following George Whitefield's tour of the Thirteen Colonies.