Brief History of English and American Literature

by Henry A. Beers

The early colonial writers on theology include Charles Chauncy (1589-1672), the second president of Harvard College, who wrote a treatise on Justification, Samuel Willard (1640-1707), whose Complete Body of Divinity was the first folio {595} publication in America; Solomon Stoddard (1643-1729), whose most celebrated work was The Doctrine of Instituted Churches, in which he advocated the converting power of the Lord's Supper; Charles Chauncy (1705-1787), a great-grandson of President Chauncy, celebrated as a stickler for great plainness in writing and speech, and one of the founders of Universalism in New England, whose Seasonable Thoughts was in opposition to the preaching of Whitefield; and Aaron Burr (1716-1757), father of the political opponent and slayer of Alexander Hamilton, and author of The Supreme Deity of Our Lord Jesus Christ. James Blair (1656-1743), of Virginia, the virtual founder and first president of William and Mary College, wrote Our Saviour's Sermon on the Mount, containing one hundred and seventeen sermons. The two Tennents, Gilbert (1703-1764) and William (1705-1777), Samuel Finley (1717-1764), and Samuel Davies (1723-1761) were pulpit orators whose sermons still hold high rank in the homiletic world.

Others of the colonial period distinguished for their ability are: John
Davenport (1597-1670), of New Haven, author of The Saint's Anchor Hold;
Edward Johnson (died 1682), of Woburn, author of The Wonder Working
Providence of Sion's Saviour in New England; Jonathan Dickinson
(1688-1747), the first president of the College of New Jersey (Princeton
University), who published Familiar Letters upon Important Subjects in
Religion, Samuel Johnson (1696-1772), a {596} distinguished advocate of
Episcopacy in Connecticut; Thomas Clap (1703-1767), president of Yale
College, who was the author of the Religious Condition of Colleges;
Samuel Mather (1706-1785), a son of Cotton Mather, among whose works was
An Attempt to Show that America was Known to the Ancients; and Thomas
Chalkley (1675-1749), and John Woolman (1720-1772), both belonging to the
Friends, and whose Journals are admirable specimens of the Quaker
spirit and simplicity.

Some of the leading writers on theology whose activity was greatest about the time of the American Revolution are worthy of study. They are John Witherspoon (1722-1794) who, while he is better known as the sixth president of the College of New Jersey and a political writer of the Revolution, was also the author of Ecclesiastical Characteristics, a satirical work aimed at the Moderate party of the Church of Scotland, and written before he left that country for America; Charles Thomson (1729-1824), who was for fifteen years the secretary of the Continental Congress and published a Translation of the Bible; Elias Boudinot (1740-1821), the first president of the American Bible Society and a leading philanthropist of his time, who wrote The Age of Revelation, a reply to Paine's Age of Reason; Nathan Strong (1748-1816), the editor of The Connecticut Evangelical Magazine and pastor of First Church, Hartford; Isaac Backus (1724-1806), the author of the well-known History of New England with Particular {597} Reference to the Baptists; Ezra Stiles (1727-1795), president of Yale College, who published many discourses and wrote An Ecclesiastical History of New England, which was not completed and never published; William White (1748-1836), Bishop of Pennsylvania for fifty years, who wrote several works on Episcopacy, one of which was Memoir of the Episcopal Church in the United States; and William Linn (1752-1808), who published sermons on the Leading Personages of Scripture History.

Belonging also to the Revolutionary period these should be noted: Mather Byles (1706-1788), a wit and punster of loyalist leanings, some of whose sermons have been many times printed, and who was a kinsman of the Mathers; Jonathan Mayhew (1720-1766), whose Sermon on the Repeal of the Stamp Act was the most famous of his stirring addresses on the political issues already prominent at the time of his death; William Smith (1727-1803), provost of the University of Pennsylvania, who was, not to speak of his other works, the author of several meritorious sermons; Samuel Seabury (1729-1796), the first Protestant Episcopal bishop and author of two volumes of sermons; and Jacob Duché (1739-1798), rector of Christ Church, Philadelphia, who abandoned the American cause, but whose sermons were highly prized.

A quartet of those who gained distinction as writers on doctrine are: Joseph Bellamy (1719-1790), an influential divine of the Edwardean school, and author of The True Religion {598} Delineated; Samuel Hopkins (1721-1803), the advocate of disinterested benevolence as a cardinal principle of theology and author of The System of Doctrines Contained in Divine Revelation; Jonathan Edwards the Younger (1745-1801), president of Union College and author of several discourses, the most celebrated of which are the three on the "Necessity of the Atonement and its Consistency with Free Grace in Forgiveness" (these sermons are the basis of what has since been named the Edwardean theory); and Elhanan Winchester (1751-1797), the Universalist preacher, one of whose chief works was The Universal Restoration.

In the earlier group of theological authorship of the present century, or the national period, taking conspicuous place as doctrinal writers, are: Nathaniel Emmons (1745-1840), one of the foremost of the New School of Calvinistic theology, whose works on the important discussion lasting through a half century are marked by a peculiar force and point; Samuel Stanhope Smith (1750-1819), president of the College of New Jersey and author of Evidences of the Christian Religion; his successor in office, Ashbel Green (1762-1848), whose chief literary labor was bestowed on The Christian Advocate, a religious monthly which he edited for twelve years, and who wrote Lectures on the Shorter Catechism; Henry Ware (1764-1845), the acknowledged head of the Unitarians prior to the appearance of Channing, professor of divinity in Harvard, and author of Letters to Trinitarians and {599} Calvinists; Leonard Woods (1774-1854), professor in Andover for thirty-eight years, author of several able books on the Unitarian controversy; and Wilbur Fisk (1792-1839), the distinguished preacher and educator, and author of The Calvinistic Controversy.

Other theological lights of the early years of the republic are also: John Mitchell Mason (1770-1829), provost of Columbia College, later president of Dickinson College, a prime mover in the founding of Union Theological Seminary, and author of many sermons of a high order; Edward Payson (1783-1827), whose sermons are noted for the same ardent spirituality and beauty that marked his life and pastorate at Portland, Me.; John Summerfield (1798-1825), a volume of whose strangely eloquent sermons was published after his early death; Ebenezer Porter (1772-1834), professor in Andover, whose Lectures on Revivals of Religion are still worthy of consultation; Eliphalet Nott (1773-1866), president of Union College for sixty-two years, whose Lectures on Temperance are accounted among the best literature on that great reform; John Henry Hobart (1775-1830), bishop of the diocese of New York, who was the author of Festivals and Fasts, and one of the founders of the General Theological Seminary in New York; Nathan Bangs (1778-1862), a leading Methodist divine, who wrote a History of the Methodist Episcopal Church and Errors of Hofkinsianism; and Leonard {600} Withington (1789-1885), author of Solomon's Song Translated and Explained, a valuable exegetical work.

In a second group of leading writers on religion, coming nearer the middle of the nineteenth century we find as doctrinal authors: Archibald Alexander (1772-1851), author of Evidences of Christianity; Hosea Ballou (1771-1852), the Universalist preacher and author of An Examination of the Doctrine of Future Retribution; Nathaniel W. Taylor (1786-1859), the author of Lectures on the Moral Government of God, in which there is a marked divergence from the strict school of Calvinistic theologians; Gardiner Spring (1785-1873), a tower of strength in the pulpit of New York for over fifty years, and author of The Bible Not of Man; Alexander Campbell (1788-1865), whose Public Debates contain the record of his distinguished career as a controversialist and mark the formation of the religious society called Disciples of Christ; Robert J. Breckenridge (1800-1871), whose work on The Knowledge of God Objectively and Subjectively Considered gave him great distinction; George W. Bethune (1805-1862), who, besides several hymns, wrote Lectures on the Heidelberg Catechism; and James H. Thornwell (1811-1862), of the Southern Presbyterians, who left an able Systematic Theology.

Those whose works were of a more practical nature are: Samuel Miller (1769-1850), whose most telling book was Letters on Clerical Habits and Manners; Lyman Beecher (1775-1863), the {601} celebrated father of his more celebrated son, and author of Sermons on Temperance; Thomas H. Skinner (1791-1871), professor in Andover and later in Union Theological Seminary, who wrote Aids to Preaching and Hearing, and translated and edited Vinet's Homiletics and Pastoral Theology; Charles G. Finney (1792-1875), of Oberlin, whose Lectures on Revivals embody the principles on which he himself conducted his celebrated evangelistic labors; Francis Wayland (1796-1865), the Baptist divine and author of a text-book on Moral Science, who also wrote The Moral Dignity of the Missionary Enterprise; Ichabod S. Spencer (1798-1854), whose Pastor's Sketches have a perennial interest; Theodore Dwight Woolsey (1801-1889), who, besides other books on the classics and law, published The Religion of the Present and the Future; Bela Bates Edwards (1802-1852), of Andover, whose chief work was that bestowed upon the Quarterly Observer, later the Biblical Repository, and still later as editor of Bibliotheca Sacra; James Waddell Alexander (1804-1859), author of Consolation; or, Discourses to the Suffering Children of God; and George B. Cheever (1807-1890), who wrote several popular books on temperance, one being Deacon Giles's Distillery.

A group of noted writers whose books have special bearing on the Bible are: Moses Stuart (1780-1852), the distinguished Hebraist and author of several commentaries and of a Hebrew {602} Grammar, whose scholarship was one of the chief attractions at Andover; Samuel H. Turner (1790-1861), the distinguished commentator on Romans, Hebrews, Ephesians, and Galatians; Edward Robinson (1794-1863), whose Biblical Researches and New Testament Lexicon mark him as one of the foremost scholars of the century; George Bush (1796-1860), known chiefly as the author of Commentaries on the earlier parts of the Old Testament; Albert Barnes (1798-1870), whose Notes on the Scriptures still have a large place among the more popular works of exegesis; Stephen Olin (1797-1851) and John Price Durbin (1800-1876), both distinguished as educators and pulpit orators of the Methodist Episcopal Church, who each wrote on travels in Palestine and adjoining countries; William M. Thomson (1806-1894), the missionary and author of The Land and the Book, a work of perpetual value; Joseph Addison Alexander (1809-1860), the famous philologist and author of valuable commentaries and a work on New Testament Literature; and George Burgess (1809-1866), who wrote The Book of Psalms in English Verse.