Jonathan Parsons

Jonathan Parsons (November 30, 1705 – July 19, 1776) was a Christian New England clergyman during the late colonial period and a supporter of the American Revolution. Born in West Springfield, Massachusetts, he was the youngest son of Ebenezer (Deacon) Parsons (1668-1752) and Margaret Marshfield of Springfield. Though intended for an artisan career, the Rev. Jonathan Edwards, then a tutor at Yale, persuaded young Parsons to prepare for college.

Parsons entered Yale at the age of 20, graduating in 1729. He studied theology with Yale President Elisha Williams and with Edwards, by then minister of the church in nearby Northampton.

Parsons took charge of the Congregational Church at Lyme, Connecticut in 1731. He fell in love with Phebe Griswold, eldest daughter of the town's leading family (her brother, Matthew Griswold, would serve as governor of Connecticut). For the first decade of his career, Parsons was an upstanding member of the colony's religious establishment: Arminian in his theological inclinations and fond of the material benefits of being community leader. It is said that he "had a passion for fine clothes, for gold and silver lace, and ruffled shirt fronts, which distressed some of the good Puritans of his Church."

Like many of his contemporaries, however, Parsons would be swept up in the religious turbulence of the Great Awakening. He suffered increasing doubts about the reality of his conversion and the hazards of works as a basis for salvation. After a "severe and prolonged mental struggle," the "doctrine of salvation by faith burst as a 'new light' on his mind. His preaching was marked by greater earnestness and simplicity. He became, in the words of one contemporary, a "burning and shining light."

One witness to his preaching at Lyme in the late 1730s wrote, "with what astounding terrors have I heard him represent the torments of Hell, and the imminent, amazing danger of the impenitent sinner. With what glowing colors and sweetly surprising language would he paint the glories of Heaven, and describe the holy and elevated joys of immortality. In what melting strains would he represent the sufferings of Christ and his undying love for sinners. . . . Such was the apparent fervor of his spirit, and the tender emotion of his compassionate heart, that he would sometimes appear as a flame of fire, and then all dissolved in tears."

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