Freshman Jonathan Edwards: “…with all my might while I do live.”
When Jonathan Edwards entered Yale at the age of thirteen, he began a career that turned traditional-minded churches upside-down throughout the country. The decisions he made at Yale were the basis for a life that influenced thousands in Europe and America. Upon entering Yale, Edwards decided not to drift along with the general trends on campus, nor to become over-occupied with studying. Instead, he decided to give himself to Jesus and live entirely for Him.
He graduated with highest honors at the age of seventeen, when he was filled with “an inward, secret delight in God.” He then made a list of resolutions that were to shape the rest of his life. He resolved: “never to do anything but what tends to the glory of God, never to lose one moment of time, and to live with all my might while I do live.” Edwards soon found that making resolutions is “to no purpose at all…except we depend on the grace of God, for if it were not for his mere grace, one might be a very good man one day, and a very wicked one the next.” Depending on the grace of God, Edwards kept these resolutions and changed the face of America.
Several years later, when he became pastor of a church in Massachusetts, a revival started which transformed the town. “The town seemed to be full of the presence of God. It never was so full of love, nor so full of joy.”
A larger revival, the Great Awakening, spread across the country in 1740. This movement brought thousands together on New Haven Green to hear the Gospel and changed lives throughout America. Because of Edwards’ influence, the revival was not only a time of emotional stirring, but it also made positive changes in the structure of American society. People who had been bored with religious patterns received Jesus instead, and were filled with joy in worshipping God.
Jonathan Edwards, the student who gave his life to God at Yale, became “the most significant Protestant voice between the Reformation and the twentieth century.” He spent the last years of his life at a small mission serving the Indians in Massachusetts. He was chosen to be president of Princeton but died three months later.
Jonathan Edwards has always puzzled biographers. His life had no phases or changes of philosophy. As a student at Yale, he found the truth in Jesus Christ and spent the rest of his life demonstrating that truth. The resolution that he made at Yale was to “live with all my might while I do live,” and he kept
