EDWARDS, JOHN: English Calvinist; b. at Hertford Feb. 26, 1637; d. at Cambridge Apr. 16, 1716. He studied at St. John's College, Cambridge (B.A., 1657, M.A., 1661, D.D., 1699). In 1664 he took charge of Trinity Church, Cambridge, but a few years later had to give up his work on account of his Calvinistic views. After having had several charges elsewhere he retired from the ministry in 1687, to devote himself to authorship, and returned to Cambridge in 1697, apparently for the use of the library. Though overestimated by his contemporaries, some of them calling him the St. Paul, or the St. Augustine, or the Calvin of his age, still he deserves high rank as a Calvinist theologian. Of the forty or more works that he published may be mentioned The Socinian Creed (London, 1697); The Preacher (3 vols., 1705-07); Theologia reformata (2 vols., 1713).

 

Bibliography: Biographia Britannica; DNB, xvii. 121-123 (contains full list of Edwards' works).