Jonathan Edwards, often remembered for stern Puritan sermons such as "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God," was also America’s preeminent thinker of the 18th century, a moving force in the Great Awakening, a relentless speculative scientist, an acute psychologist, and a world famous theologian and philosopher. He came to Northampton in 1726 to assist his grandfather, Solomon Stoddard, and after Stoddard died in 1729, Edwards succeeded him. Influenced by John Locke’s idea that knowledge comes through the senses, Edwards delivered sermons in a controlled monotone but created vivid images that sparked a religious revival in the 1730s and helped prepare the way for the Great Awakening across British North America in the 1740s. Although his preaching was highly effective, controversy grew among those who resented his rejection of his grandfather’s more liberal doctrines and among others who feared the emotions stirred by revivals. These disputes led to his dismissal in 1750, a decision his congregation later regretted. Edwards then spent six years at the frontier outpost of Stockbridge, where he wrote his best known theological treatises, and was later chosen to become President of what is now Princeton University, but he died in 1758 from a smallpox inoculation before he could enjoy the honor.