Parish Ministry

This chapter surveys Jonathan Edwards’s time as a pastor serving in four congregations, giving particular attention to his years in Northampton, Massachusetts. It begins by considering Edwards’s father, Timothy Edwards, and the challenges of his ministry. These would have shaped Jonathan Edwards as a young man destined to pursue the pastorate. Timothy Edwards also had a significant impact on Jonathan Edwards’s first pastorates in New York and Bolton, Connecticut. The chapter then describes the innovative pastorate of Solomon Stoddard, Jonathan Edwards’s grandfather and predecessor at Northampton, and its attendant controversies—controversies Jonathan Edwards would later inherit as pastor of Northampton. The majority of the chapter explores Edwards’s time at Northampton, from his earliest days of preaching and evangelism to times of revival and success to eventual conflict and expulsion. The chapter closes with a brief look at Edwards’s final years, including his final pastorate at Stockbridge, Massachusetts.