Religious Revival & founding of Princeton, Columbia, Dartmouth, Rutgers, Brown – Jonathan Edwards’ sermon “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God”

He entered Yale College at age 13 and graduated with honors. He became a pastor, and his sermon, “Sinners in the Hands of An Angry God,” started The Great Awakening Revival. His name wasJonathan Edwards, born OCTOBER 5, 1703. The Great Awakening Revival can be traced back to earlier revivals in Scotland. Scottish minister William Tennent migrated to Pennsylvania in 1718 and together with his son Gilbert Tennent began the Log College in 1726. It was the first American Presbyterian theological seminary in North America, which led to the formation of the College of New Jersey. Rev. Samuel Finley was trustee of the College of New Jersey, which became Princeton University.

The fiery Dutch Reformed minister Theodore Jacobus Frelinghuysen arrived in New Jersey in 1720. Preaching divine outpourings of the Holy Spirit and conversion, Frelinghuysen’s efforts led to formation in 1766 of Queen’s College in New Brunswick, which became Rutgers University. Beginning in 1738, Rev. George Whitefield arrived in Savannah, Georgia. Traveling the Colonies, he preached 18,000 sermons in the next 32years. The Great Awakening Revival helped unite the Colonies prior to the Revolutionary War. Calvinist denominations split between: Traditional “Old Lights” who emphasized structure and ritual; and Revivalist “New Lights” who emphasized personal experience and commitment. The Great Awakening Revival was part of the Pietist movement in Lutheran Churches, it reshaped Presbyterian and Dutch Reformed Churches, and it strengthened evangelical Baptist and Methodist Anglican Churches.