EDWARDS, JONATHAN (the younger) (1745 An American theologian, born at North ampton, the second son of :Jonathan Edwards the Elder. Early left an orphan, his education was provided for by friends, and he was graduated at Princeton in 1765. While in college he was con verted, and after graduation studied theology with the friend of his father. Joseph Bellamy, of Bethlehem, Conn. lie was tutor in Princeton, 1767-69; pastor in White Haven, Conn., 1769 95; in Colebrook. Conn., 1795-99; whence he went to the presidency of Union College, Schenec tady. As a theologian his fame rests upon his reply to Channey upon the salvation of all men, in whieli he defended the usual evangelical doc trine; his reply to Samuel West's Essays on Lib erty and Necessity, in which he largely modified his father's theory of the will by giving it a liberal interpretation scarcely reconcilable with its plain meaning: and by his sermons upon the Atone ment. ile took part, in the last work, in the Universalist controversy then raging in New England. The Universalists of the :Murray school had argued upon the basis of the standard Cal vinistic theory of the Atonement, that Christ had satisfied justice in behalf of all those for whom Ile died, and paid their debt before nod.
But Ile had died for all men; therefore all men are saved. Ed\vards rejeeted the conclusion as against the Bible. But he could not deny Ihe minor premise; and he therefore was led to modify the major premise and teach that Christ did not satisfy justice for men so that their debt to Cod was paid, hut was a penal example, ren dering it, not. obligatory upon God to forgive all men, but, consistent will all the interests in volved (which, according to the new theory of virtue, lie must maintain), to foegive repentant sinners. The main idea was borrowed from (troth's, but the ideal basis of the Atonement in the love of God was a new feature. Edwards thus founded the 'New England' or 'govern mental' theory of the Atonement, which main tained its place as the generally accepted theory among Congregationalists and 'New :school' Pres byterians tor well nigh a century. His works were published at Andover (1842). in two vol umes, with a memoir by Tryon Edwards.