This is a paper that was written for my Jonathan Edwards course at Trinity. It's fairly lengthy...but i'm not as thoughtful as Charlie, so the whole thing is here. It deals with the issue of Edwards' firing from his first (and really only) church. I take for granted some awareness of historical events (both of the times and of his life), so if something confuses you, please feel free to ask. Also, I am not a church historian, nor an historian in general, so it is possible that i'm wrong about details...let me know if you see this as well (i don't have the grade yet, but i imagine that i'll make some adjustments to this post when i get his feedback).
Finally, i hope you find this edifying...and i highly recommend reading some Edwards for yourself.
- Sam
p.s. Most of the endnotes aren't worth looking at (for the casual reader), but make sure you check out numbers 7 and 11...