In the winter of 1734, a remote backwater of the British Empire suddenly found itself at the center of God’s great plan for redemption. As the good news made its way through the trans-Atlantic evangelical grapevine, all Protestantism trained its gaze on Northampton, Massachusetts—a stockaded frontier town of roughly 1,200 souls, nestled on the edge of Indian territory in the distant reaches of the Connecticut River Valley—where a religious awakening had ignited and then spread to the neighboring towns and villages, an event as wondrous as it was inexplicable. For delighted English ministers, Northampton’s experience was a sign of “how easy it will be for our blessed Lord to make a full accomplishment of all his predictions concerning his kingdom, and to spread his dominion from sea to sea, through all the nations of the earth.”

For the previous sixty years, Northampton’s townspeople had rejoiced in the ministry of Solomon Stoddard, popularly known as the “Pope of the Connecticut River Valley.” Under his guidance, they had already experienced “five seasons” of heightened religious sensibility. When the great man died in 1729, his grandson and assistant, Jonathan Edwards, took over the town pulpit in his own right. A 1720 Yale graduate, Edwards had already distinguished himself for his intelligence and for his commitment to orthodox Calvinism and experiential Christianity. Before his tragic death at the age of fifty-five from a botched smallpox vaccination, he would compose the works that have earned him the reputation as one of the