Abstract

From sermons and polemical treatises, Newlin traces the intellectual climate that engendered the Great Awakening of the 1740's and the subsequent drawing of theological lines. Philosophical writings of Samuel Johnson, in the liberal line, and of Jonathan Edwards, in the Orthodox Calvinist line, are adroitly compared, the bulk of the treatment going to Edwards. Of special interest is the influence of Peter Ramus on the Puritan intellectual community. --R. C. N.