Jonathan Edwards (1703–1758) was born in East Windsor, Connecticut. He was a dedicated scholar even as a child and was admitted to Yale College when he was only thirteen. Edwards flourished in the rigorous academic setting and devoted himself to the study of theology. Edwards came from a line of noteworthy ministers and was determined to carry on his family's tradition. Edwards moved to Northampton, Massachusetts, where he succeeded his grandfather as minister of the local church, married, and raised a family.

Edwards's goal as a minister was not only to heighten his followers' commitment to religion but to enrich their religious experience. Known for his vivid and fiery sermons, Edwards sought to make religion so moving and real that it was almost a physical experience. Edwards's religious views gained great popularity and began the Great Awakening, a religious revival that swept across the colonies in the 1730s. When he decided, however, to actually name prestigious members of the clergy who were not expressing the proper devotion and reinstate the rite of communion, he was dismissed from his church. Edwards then served as a missionary to the Housatonic Indians and was elected president of the College of New Jersey (now Princeton).