was a leading preacher during the great awakening
First Great Awakening The revival began with Jonathan Edwards in Northampton, Massachusetts. Edwards came from Puritan, Calvinist roots, but emphasized the importance and power of immediate, personal religious experience. Religious experience had to be immediate, he taught. He distrusted hierarchy and catechisms. His sermons were "solemn, with a distinct and careful enunciation, and a slow cadence."[13] His sermons were powerful and attracted a large following. Anglican preacher George Whitefield visited from England; he continued the movement, traveling throughout the colonies and preaching in a more dramatic and emotional style, accepting everyone into his audiences. Both Edwards and Whitefield were slave owners and believed that blacks would acquire absolute equality with whites in the Millennial church.[14]