for the American and British revivalists. During the Great Awakening, Edwards .
pushed forth the sovereignty of God, the depravity of humankind, the reality of hell, .
and the necessity of a "New Birth" conversion, and he is most notably known for his .
"Old Light" theology. During his best known sermon, "Sinners in the Hands of an .
Angry God," Edwards gives his famous description of the sinner as a loathsome .
spider suspended by a slender thread over a pit of seething brimstone. Jonathan .
Edwards explicitly drew on the thoughts of men like John Locke and Isaac Newton in .
an attempt to make religion rational ( Jonathan Edwards the Younger, pg. 59). .
According to Encyclopedia Britannica, by combining a series of thunderous doctrinal .
sermons, Northampton was shaken like an earthquake. Edwards preaching spread .
all over New England, and hundreds of towns experienced revivals (Evangelism: .
Christ's Imperative Commission, pg. 79). Today, Jonathan Edwards is accepted as an .
effectuate and cultivated rhetorician and as a master preacher.
Latham pg.3.
George Whitefield was born in Gloucester, in the month of December, 1714. .
His father and mother ran an inn. His father passed away when he was only two, so .
he was left to be raised by his mother (George Whitefield's Journals, pg. 37). .
Although Whitefield had been ordained as a minister in the Church of England, he .
later partnered with other Anglican clergymen, most notably John and Charles .
Wesley. Whitefield preached in England, Scotland, Whales, Gibraltar, Bermuda, and .
the American Colonies. During his several trips across the Atlantic, Whitefield .
preached everywhere in the American Colonies, often drawing audiences so large .
that he was obliged to preach outdoors. He preached in the fields to throngs of .
twenty and thirty thousand people. Historians have estimated that twenty-five to fifty .
thousand were added to the churches in New England as result of the revivals .