Samuel Hopkins and Slavery
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
Load more
Recommended publications
-
Edwards on the Will: a Century of American Theological Debate Allen C
Gettysburg College Faculty Books 3-2008 Edwards on the Will: A Century of American Theological Debate Allen C. Guelzo Gettysburg College Follow this and additional works at: https://cupola.gettysburg.edu/books Part of the Christianity Commons, History of Christianity Commons, History of Religion Commons, and the Intellectual History Commons Share feedback about the accessibility of this item. Guelzo, Allen C. Edwards on the Will: A Century of American Theological Debate (Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2008), 1-16. This is the publisher's version of the work. This publication appears in Gettysburg College's institutional repository by permission of the copyright owner for personal use, not for redistribution. Cupola permanent link: https://cupola.gettysburg.edu/books/69 This open access book is brought to you by The uC pola: Scholarship at Gettysburg College. It has been accepted for inclusion by an authorized administrator of The uC pola. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Edwards on the Will: A Century of American Theological Debate Description Jonathan Edwards towered over his contemporaries--a man over six feet tall and a figure of theological stature- -but the reasons for his power have been a matter of dispute. Edwards on the Will offers a persuasive explanation. In 1753, after seven years of personal trials, which included dismissal from his Northampton church, Edwards submitted a treatise, Freedom of the Will, to Boston publishers. Its impact on Puritan society was profound. He had refused to be trapped either by a new Arminian scheme that seemed to make God impotent or by a Hobbesian natural determinism that made morality an illusion. -
It Is Now a Commonplace to Assume Jonathan Edwards's Pastoral Ineptitude in the Period After the Revivals. His Bungling In
“SINGLY, PARTICULARLY, CLOSELY”: EDWARDS AS MENTOR It is now a commonplace to assume Jonathan Edwards’s pastoral ineptitude in the period after the revivals. His bungling in the Bad Book Affair of 1744 sees him naming and shaming the witnesses along with the alleged perpetrators of the scurrilous use of a midwifery manual. He baulks at pastoral visitation of members of his parish, and instead spends long hours each day in his study reading and writing. He finds himself in the middle of pamphlet warfare in the late 1740s when he tries to justify his actions in limiting the qualifications for communion, though it appears no one is listening, or at least no one is reading his defence. He is portrayed in this crisis as mounting a rearguard action to squash lay rights by asserting his patrician, Puritan, and clerical authority over the congregation, despite the fact that he released new energy amongst the laity through his preaching during the revivals. He is ultimately dismissed in 1750 after twenty-three years ministry in Northampton. He has become known as a poor shepherd of the flock, even if a preeminent philosopher and theologian. There is of course substantial evidence to build this case. Samuel Hopkins, a close confidante and responsible for Edwards’s first biography, acknowledges that Edwards was not prone to home visitation given his aversion to small talk.1 Edwards, in his own and others’ estimation, recognised that his own gifting was essentially as a writer, and not as a speaker: ‘his tongue was as the pen.’2 He at first resists -
Biographical Sketches of the Graduates of Yale College..., 1885
BIOGRAPHICAL S KETCHES GRADUATES O F YALE COLLEGE WITH Annalsf o the College History OCTOBER, 1 701—MAY, 1745 BY FRANKLINOW B DITCH DEXTER, M.A. NEW Y ORK HENRY H OLT AND COMPANY 1885 COPYRIGHT, 1 885, BY HENRY H OLT & CO. TUTTLE, M orehouse & TAylor, PRINTERs, NEw Haven, conn. • * ' ' ' , * N - TO T HEODORE DWIGHT WOOLSEY, D.D., LL.D. TENTH P RESIDENT OF YALE COLLEGE THIS V OLUME AS A TRIBUTE OF AFFECTIONATE RESPECT IS GRATEFULLY D EDICATED 3.37% “LETs U Now PRAISE FAMOUS MEN, AND OUR FATHERS THAT BEGAT Us. “THE L ORD HATH WROUGHT GREAT GLORY BY THEM THROUGH HIS GREAT POWER FROM THE BEGINNING. “ALL T HESE WERE HONORED IN THEIR GENERATIONS, AND WERE THE GLORY OF THEIR TIMES. “THEREE B OF THEM, THAT HAVE LEFT A NAME BEHIND THEM, THAT THEIR PRAISES MIGHT BE REPORTED. AND SOME THERE BE, whICH HAVE No MEMO RIAL ; who ARE PERISHED, AS THOUGH THEY HAD NEVER BEEN.” Ecclesiasticus, x liv, 1, 2, 7, 8, 9. Moribus a ntiquis res stat Romana virisque. Ennius. Jucundi a cti labores. Cicero,e d finibus. N z (h P R E F ACE to - & : ^’ BioGRAPHICAL Sketches of the Graduates of Yale College, down W to the year 1767, were prepared, with more or less fullness, by the Hon. R alph Dunning Smyth (Y.C. 1827), of Guilford, Connecti cut, who died in 1874.” The manuscript of these sketches was given to the College by his widow, and has served as the original basis for those now printed; but so much labor has been expended upon the subject-matter by the present compiler, that no part of the work as published can fairly, either as to form or as to sub stance, be represented as Mr. -
The Millennial Impulse in Early American Literature -- Questions for Discussions, Research, and Writing
University of Nebraska - Lincoln DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln Electronic Texts in American Studies Libraries at University of Nebraska-Lincoln 1998 The Kingdom, The Power, & The Glory: The Millennial Impulse in Early American Literature -- Questions for Discussions, Research, and Writing Reiner Smolinski , Editor Georgia State University, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/etas Part of the American Studies Commons Smolinski, Reiner , Editor, "The Kingdom, The Power, & The Glory: The Millennial Impulse in Early American Literature -- Questions for Discussions, Research, and Writing" (1998). Electronic Texts in American Studies. 55. https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/etas/55 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Libraries at University of Nebraska-Lincoln at DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln. It has been accepted for inclusion in Electronic Texts in American Studies by an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln. The Kingdom, The Power, & The Glory: The Millennial Impulse in American Literature Questions for Discussions, Research, and Writing: The following questions are designed to help each student focus on crucial issues in each text during the initial reading process, stimulate class discussion, and suggest essay topics for term papers. For the most part, the answers to these questions require no other reading than the General Introduction and close analysis of the selections themselves. Nevertheless, each set of question is followed by a brief list of sec- ondary sources taken from the Selected Bibliography to accommodate the documentation of research papers. The blank spaces below each question allow for brief written responses and brainstorming exercis- es to outline research papers. -
The New England Theologians
THE NEW ENGLAND THEOLOGIANS JOHN WRIGHT BUCKHAM Pacific School of Religion, Berkeley, California It may be doubted whether any corner of earth, unless it be Scotland, has ever had so metaphysically minded a clergy as New England. The eighteenth-century New England divines, com- mencing with Edwards,were ardent, and some of them very acute, metaphysicians. I The New England theology was chiefly concerned with three great issues-all fundamentally metaphysical and to some extent ethical-arising out of the effort to square the Calvinistic system with the demands of rational and moral thinking. The first of these was the issue between sovereignty and benevolence; the second, that between determinism and freedom; the third, that between total depravity and true virtue. These issues appeared and reappearedin their sermons and writings with what seems to us wearisome persistence-a form, doubtless, of the perseverance of the saints. All of these problems, although not raised de novo by Jonathan Edwards, profoundest of American thinkers, were thrust upon the Americanpeople by his eagerand speculativemind., Edwards left a yawning chasm between his extreme Calvinistic interpretation of the doctrine of sovereignty (including divine decrees) and his representation of God as benevolence-a gulf of which he himself seemed strangely oblivious. It was the task of his pupils and friends, Joseph Bellamy and Samuel Hopkins and their successors, to relate and if possible reconcile these contra- dictory doctrines which Edwards himself treated as if they were I Jonathan Edwards was born at East Windsor, Conn., in 1703; was graduated from Yale College in 1720; pastor at Northampton, Mass., 1727-50; missionary to the Indians at Stockbridge, 1750-58; president of Princeton College from 1758 till his death in the same year. -
“A Heart Uncommonly Devoted to God”: the Life of Jerusha Edwards
CHAPTER 2 “AT HEAR UNCOMMONLY DEVOTED TO GOD”: THE LIFE OF JERUSHA EDWARDS n February 21, 1748, Jonathan Edwards preached what was surely his most difficult funeral sermon, namely, that for his nearly-eighteen-year-old daughter Jerusha (b.1730). Not sur- Oprisingly, it is a very personal sermon, opening to his hearers a window into his heart. Jerusha’s death was the first in his immediate family, and Edwards’ sermon would be the only funeral sermon he preached for any of his immediate family, thus making it unique among his body of funeral messages. We begin with a brief reconstruction of Jerusha’s life, after which a detailed treatment of Edwards’ funeral sermon is offered. In his family Bible, Jonathan Edwards inscribed, “My daughter Jeru- sha was born on a Sabbath day, towards the conclusion of the afternoon exercise, April 26, 1730.”1 Jonathan was twenty-six years old and his wife Sarah (1710–1758) was twenty. They had not yet been married three years and Jerusha was their second daughter. She was named, most likely, after Jonathan’s younger sister who had died barely two months earlier. Edwards was especially close to his younger sibling, both brother and sister sharing many similar dispositions and habits of piety, and it seems that he was also especially fond of his second daughter.2 Edwards described her as “the flower of the family.”3 Most of Jerusha’s biography comes from her father’s pen, although a few other men also help paint a portrait of a young woman of sincere piety and strong character. -
Jonathan Edwards on Education
Acta Theologica 2011:2 KP Minkema “INFORMING OF THE CHILD’S UNDERSTANDING, INFLUENCING HIS HEART, AND DIRECTING ITS PRACTICE”: JONATHAN EDWARDS ON EDUCATION ABSTRACT This article examines the role of education in Jonathan Edwards’ life and legacy, both the education he received in early eighteenth-century New England and his activities as a teacher, among the other vocations he followed. In particular, the methods and principles he employed as a teacher, both of English and Indian children and young people, are distinctive. Next, the essay turns to some selected figures within the Edwardsean tradition to show pedagogical changes and continuities. In one of his “Miscellanies,” Jonathan Edwards, pastor of Northampton, Massachusetts, described a physics lesson he gave to a local thirteen-year- old boy, in which he asserted “that a piece of any matter of two inches square” was “eight times so big as one of but one inch square, or that it might be cut into eight pieces, all of them as big as that of but an inch square.” The boy suspected that his pastor was playing a joke on him, but, Edwards wrote, “I took considerable pains to convince him that I was in earnest,” whereat the lad “cried out of the impossibility and absurdity of it.” To prove his point, Edwards led the boy to the woodshed, picked up a saw and cut “two cubes, one an inch and another two inches square, and let him examine the measures and see that the measures were exact, and that there was no deceit.” He then “cut the two-inch cube into eight equal parts” and handed them to the boy,” who “took the parts one by one and compared them with the one inch cube, and spent some time in counting and comparing.” With the proof in his hands, the boy was still “astonished[,] as though there were some witchcraft in the case.” Kenneth P. -
Web Supplement for Wilson H. Kimnach and Kenneth P
Web supplement for Wilson H. Kimnach and Kenneth P. Minkema, The Material and Social Practices of Intellectual Work: Jonathan Edwards’s Study Small Bookcase Before Edwards could have been able to accumulate any furniture for a permanent study, he would have started, as early as his college years, collecting books. At his death, the size of his library was 837 items, plus 25 copies of books by Edwards himself. While not as large as the libraries of William Byrd II of Virginia or of Cotton Mather and Thomas Prince Sr. of Boston, which each numbered in the thousands, this was a very respectable collection, perhaps slightly larger than the ones kept by many New England ministers of the time.1 In the seventeenth century, as Hugh Amory has found, a New England clergyman typically had “a few hundred titles” in his personal collection.2 But that number was also growing with the generations and with the increased availability and affordability of printed matter. John Sergeant, Edwards’s missionary predecessor at Stockbridge, was typical in the rate at which he grew his library: when he died in 1749 at only thirty-nine years of age, he owned more than 250 books and pamphlets. The library of Edwards’s father Timothy, pastor of East Windsor, Connecticut, who died at the age of eighty-nine only a couple of months before his son, amounted to nearly seven hundred titles at the time it was inventoried.3 Much has been written on the nature and content of Edwards’s library, the sources that influenced him, and those he used in his polemics.4 He had a desire to keep up with the most current authors, even if he did not agree with what they had to say. -
Seth Storrs, Congregationalism, and the Founding of Middlebury College
Seth Storrs, Congregationalism, and the Founding of Middlebury College The role of Seth Storrs in the founding of Middlebury College has not been given much attention; it is time to give him his long-due recognition. By Robert L. Ferm n November 1, 2000, Middlebury College celebrated the two hundredth anniversary of its charter. During its history OMiddlebury College has suffered through some dark times, yet it has survived and become a thriving institution in American higher education. Debts are owed to those who had the vision for this college in Vermont’s wilderness, and to those benefactors during its his- tory who supported its existence and made survival possible.1 The recent year-long celebration of the college’s bicentennial gave primary attention to the roles of the local entrepreneur, Gamaliel Painter (1742–1819), and Timothy Dwight (1752–1817), the president of Yale College. Painter was described as the founder of the college and recognition of that is evidenced in the bestowal of a replica of Painter’s walking stick to every graduate of the college at commencement and to alumni who return for their class reunions. The importance of Dwight’s visit to Middlebury to confer with town officials and give his blessing to the hopes for a college in the village was noted by a group of runners who retraced Dwight’s journey from New Haven, Connecticut, to Mid- dlebury. This further look at the period of the founding has led to a dif- ferent perspective on the college’s origin. This essay addresses three themes that supplement the previous his- toriography and focus on material not covered in earlier accounts. -
Between 1815 and 1818 the Newspaper Connecticut Courant
THE POLITICAL IDEOLOGY OF CONNECTICUT’S STANDING ORDER A dissertation submitted to Kent State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy by Chad D. Lower May, 2013 Dissertation written by Chad D. Lower B.A., The Ohio State University, 1999 M.A., Ashland Theological Seminary, 2005 Ph.D., Kent State University, 2013 Approved by Kim Gruenwald Chair, Doctoral Dissertation Committee Leonne Hudson Members, Doctoral Dissertation Committee Diane Barnes Jerry Lewis Jeffrey Wattles Accepted by Kenneth Bindas Chair, Department of History Ray Craig Dean, College of Arts and Sciences ii TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGMENTS……………………………………….……………………......v CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTION………………………………………….……………1 The Political and Religious Landscape………………….…………..…...5 Historiography……………………………………………………...…..13 Definitions……………………………………………………….……..17 Chapter Overview……………………………………………………....19 Conclusion……………………………………………………………...21 II. CHAPTER ONE: WINDS OF CHANGE…………………..………….23 Part One: The Status Quo of the Established Church…………….…….25 Part Two: Social Changes and the Standing Order…………………….33 Part Three: The Established Church’s Response……………………....52 Part Four: The Dissenter Perspective………………………….……….67 Conclusion………………………………………………………….…..79 III. CHAPTER TWO: THE PILLARS OF THE STANDING ORDER.…..82 Part One: Timothy Dwight: The Beacon at New Haven……….………84 Part Two: David Daggett: The Persuasive Politician………………....107 Part Three: Zephaniah Swift: Judicial Power…………………………118 Conclusion……………………………………………………...……..131 -
New Perspectives on the Northampton Communion Controversy III: Count Vavasor's Tirade and the Second Council, 1751 Douglas L
University of Richmond UR Scholarship Repository Religious Studies Faculty Publications Religious Studies 2014 New Perspectives on the Northampton Communion Controversy III: Count Vavasor's Tirade and the Second Council, 1751 Douglas L. Winiarski University of Richmond, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: http://scholarship.richmond.edu/religiousstudies-faculty- publications Part of the History of Christianity Commons, History of Religion Commons, and the United States History Commons Recommended Citation Winiarski, Douglas L. "New Perspectives on the Northampton Communion Controversy III: Count Vavasor's Tirade and the Second Council, 1751." Jonathan Edwards Studies 4, no. 3 (2014): 353-82. This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Religious Studies at UR Scholarship Repository. It has been accepted for inclusion in Religious Studies Faculty Publications by an authorized administrator of UR Scholarship Repository. For more information, please contact [email protected]. NEW PERSPECTIVES ON THE NORTHAMPTON COMMUNION CONTROVERSY III: COUNT VAVASOR’S TIRADE & THE SECOND COUNCIL, 1751 Douglas L. Winiarski University of Richmond Abstract Jonathan Edwards’ fateful decision to repudiate the church admission practices of his grandfather, Solomon Stoddard, provoked a bitter dispute with his parishioners that led to his dismissal in 1750. Scholars have long debated the meaning of this crucial turning point in Edwards’ pastoral career. For early biographers, the Northampton communion controversy served as an index of eighteenth-century religious decline. More recent studies situate Edwards’ dismissal within a series of local quarrels over his salary, the “Bad Book” affair, conflicts with the Williams family, and the paternity case of Elisha Hawley. -
Jonathan Edwards on Education
Acta Theologica 2011:2 KP Minkema “INFORMING OF THE CHILD’S UNDERSTANDING, INFLUENCING HIS HEART, AND DIRECTING ITS PRACTICE”: JONATHAN EDWARDS ON EDUCATION ABSTRACT This article examines the role of education in Jonathan Edwards’ life and legacy, both the education he received in early eighteenth-century New England and his activities as a teacher, among the other vocations he followed. In particular, the methods and principles he employed as a teacher, both of English and Indian children and young people, are distinctive. Next, the essay turns to some selected figures within the Edwardsean tradition to show pedagogical changes and continuities. In one of his “Miscellanies,” Jonathan Edwards, pastor of Northampton, Massachusetts, described a physics lesson he gave to a local thirteen-year- old boy, in which he asserted “that a piece of any matter of two inches square” was “eight times so big as one of but one inch square, or that it might be cut into eight pieces, all of them as big as that of but an inch square.” The boy suspected that his pastor was playing a joke on him, but, Edwards wrote, “I took considerable pains to convince him that I was in earnest,” whereat the lad “cried out of the impossibility and absurdity of it.” To prove his point, Edwards led the boy to the woodshed, picked up a saw and cut “two cubes, one an inch and another two inches square, and let him examine the measures and see that the measures were exact, and that there was no deceit.” He then “cut the two-inch cube into eight equal parts” and handed them to the boy,” who “took the parts one by one and compared them with the one inch cube, and spent some time in counting and comparing.” With the proof in his hands, the boy was still “astonished[,] as though there were some witchcraft in the case.” Kenneth P.