One Holy and Happy Society: The Public Theology of Jonathan Edwards

Jonathan Edwards (1703–58) was arguably this country's greatest theologian and its finest philosopher before the nineteenth century. His school if disciples (the "New Divinity") exerted enormous influence on the religious and political cultures of late colonial and early republican America. Hence any study of religion and politics in early America must take account of this theologian and his legacy.

Yet historians still regard Edward's social theory as either nonexistent or underdeveloped. G...