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. Education and early career 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." Parsons as evangelical leader 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."