Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-77c89778f8-vpsfw Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-23T02:07:50.002Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

12 - The reputation of Edwards abroad

from Part III - Edwards’s legacy and reputation

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 November 2007

Stephen J. Stein
Affiliation:
Indiana University, Bloomington
Get access

Summary

Jonathan Edwards was not just an American. Though living in “the American plantations, ” the theologian was conscious of being an inhabitant of “the British dominions. ” He was a Briton who delighted in the discomfiture of the French and longed for news of “the notions that prevail in our nation. ” Yet he was also a Christian whose sympathies extended beyond British territories “into Holland, Zeeland, and other Protestant countries, and all the visible church of Christ. Edwards had a cosmopolitan dimension, fostered by his grand apocalyptic vision of the future spread of the gospel. So it is not surprising that others saw in him more than an American. For Isaac Taylor, a commentator on his works writing in 1831, there was no doubt that Edwards shared his own English identity. “We claim Edwards as an Englishman, ” asserted Taylor: “he was such in every respect but the accident of birth in a distant province of the empire. ” But Samuel Hopkins, Edwards's first biographer, recognized the complementary truth that Edwards won fame not only in America and Britain but also in the Netherlands and Germany.5 Although Edwards appealed particularly to his compatriots in England, Scotland, and Wales, he enjoyed a European reputation even during his lifetime and eventually gained a measure of celebrity in specific circles elsewhere. Jonathan Edwards was a figure who contributed to intellectual life far beyond New England.

Type
Chapter
Information
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2006

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×