Jonathan Edwards- Britain’s Greatest Intellect?

I was told the story of an eminent church historian addressing a large gathering of his peers. He told them there had never been greater gathering of American intellectual life than when Jonathan Edwards sat alone in his study in Northampton.
Edwards is of course regularly mentioned in debate as America’s greatest intellectual. But it is clear from reading Edwards that he regarded himself not as American but British. Furthermore America as an entity did not exist in Edwards’ time. It was an extension of Britain.
So should the debate not be whether or not Edwards qualifies as Britain’s greatest intellectual rather than America’s?

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