EDWARDS, Rev. Jonathan [1703-1758] -- American clergyman and theologian

The Grandfather of modern Protestant missions.

Jonathan Edwards was the last and greatest of the great New England Puritan preachers. Some historians account him the greatest intellect of the Western Hemisphere before 1900. (The achievements of his descendants are such that the Edwards family used to be cited in psychology textbooks -- and in Ripley's Believe It Or Not column -- as proof that genius is an inherited trait.) I once heard the distinguished Austrian philosopher Herbert Feigl (not a Christian, by the way) lecture on the will and the intellect. Afterwards I said to him, "You were practically quoting from Jonathan Edwards, weren't you?" He said, "Of course. Edwards is the clearest writer available on the subject. If you want to think clearly about the human will, you begin by reading Edwards." [ James Kiefer's Christian Biographies]