In this study the sources of information are the various genealogies of families in which the descendants of Mr. Edwards play a part, various town histories and church and college publications, but chiefly the biographical dictionaries and encyclopaedias in which the records of the men of the family are chronicled.  It would be impossible to follow out the positions occupied by the various members but for the pride they all feel in recording the fact that they are descendants of Jonathan Edwards.  A good illustration of this may be had in the current announcements of the marvelously popular novel, “Richard Carvel,” in which it is always emphasized that Mr. Winston Churchill, the author, is a descendant of Jonathan Edwards.

Only two Americans established a considerable and permanent reputation in the world of European thought prior to the present century,—­Benjamin Franklin and Jonathan Edwards.  In 1736, Dr. Isaac Watts published in England Mr. Edwards’ account of the beginning of the great awakening in the Connecticut valley.  Here more than a century and a half ago, when the colonies were small, their future unsuspected and the ability of their leaders unrecognized, Jonathan Edwards “erected the standard of Orthodoxy for enlightened Protestant Europe.”  Who can estimate the eloquence of that simple fact?  Almost everything of his which was published in the colonies was speedily republished in England.  Of what other American philosopher and theologian has this been true?  Here are a few of the tributes to Mr. Edwards: 

Daniel Webster:  “The Freedom of the Will” by Mr. Edwards is the greatest achievement of the human intellect.

Dr. Chalmers:  The greatest of theologians.

Robert Hall:  He was the greatest of the sons of men.

Dugald Stewart:  Edwards on the Will never was answered and never will be answered.

Encyclopaedia:  One of the greatest metaphysicians of his age.

Edinburgh Review:  One of the acutest and most powerful of reasoners.

London Quarterly Review:  His gigantic specimen of theological argument is as near to perfection as we may expect any human composition to approach.  He unites the sharpness of the scimetar and the strength of the battle-axe.

Westminster Review:  From the days of Plato there has been no life of more simple and imposing grandeur than that of Jonathan Edwards.

President McCosh, of Princeton:  The greatest thinker that America has produced.

Lyman Beecher:  A prince among preachers.  In our day there is no man who comes within a thousand miles of him.

Griswold’s Prose Writers:  The first man of the world during the second quarter of the eighteenth century.

Hollister’s History of Connecticut:  The most gifted man of the eighteenth century, perhaps the most profound thinker in the world.