EMMONS, NATHANIEL
(1 May 1745, East Haddam, CT-23 September 1840, Franklin, MA). Education: B.A. Yale College, 1767; studied theology with Nathan Strong, Coventry, CT, and John Smalley, Berlin, CT, 1767-69. Career. Unattached supply preacher, 1769-73; minister, Franklin, MA 1773- 1827.
The twelfth and youngest son of Deacon Samuel Emmons of East Haddam, Connecticut, Nathaniel Emmons grew up to be the most influential Edwardsean of the early nineteenth century. He was not an original thinker, and his pulpit presence was hardly magisterial-he was plump, spoke with a squeaky voice, and chewed tobacco. But he was respected for his keen wit and bold speech. He told his students, of whom he had many, "Have something to say, say it"
His "something to say" was a reaffirmation of the immediate agency of god in the world. Human conduct, whether good or bad, came from God, and even
Adam's inclination to sin was from God. Moral conduct, he said, consisted of exercises of the will, caused ultimately by God. Accused by religious liberals of "blaming God" for sin, he argued that man freely wills his actions-the sin consists of the individual's exercise of will. In a later age his theology, like that of other later-day Edwardseans seems tortured. Men like Emmons sought to be loyal to a religious tradition they traced to Edwards and Calvin, while recognizing the appeal of current "enlightened" thinking about the inherent reasonableness and grandeur of man.
Emmons's greatest influence was through his clerical pupils, who numbered roughly a hundred and made his home a kind of graduate school in theology. Nine of them became professors, and in some cases presidents, of colleges and divinity schools, spreading his influence even further.
Interested in public issues, Emmons was a spirited patriot, and like many other New England divines an opponent of Thomas Jefferson. In his famous "Jereboam" sermon Emmons compared Jefferson to the man "who made Israel to sin." A traditionalist in issues of Congregational polity, Emmons opposed efforts to form a regular statewide association of Congregational ministers in Massachusetts, arguing that association led to episcopacy, which led to papacy.
Such attitudes kept Congregationalism fragmented during the critical early decades of missionary enterprise and western settlement. But in other ways,
Emmons supported missionary activities, serving for many years as president of-the Massachusetts Missionary Society. He was also an early supporter of abolitionism.
In 1827 after fifty-four years of service, Emmons announced to his congregation that he planned to retire. When urged to remain he replied simply that he wanted to quit the pulpit while he "knew enough to do so."
Bibliography
A: Jacob Ide, ed., The Works of Nathaniel Emmons, 6 vols. (Boston, 1842-45)
B: AAP I, 693-706; DAB 6, 150-51; DARB, 150-51; NCAB 5, 141; NCE 5, 308; SH 4, 121; Edwards A. Park, Memoir of Nathaniel Emmons (Boston, 1861).
The twelfth and youngest son of Deacon Samuel Emmons of East Haddam, Connecticut, Nathaniel Emmons grew up to be the most influential Edwardsean of the early nineteenth century. He was not an original thinker, and his pulpit presence was hardly magisterial-he was plump, spoke with a squeaky voice, and chewed tobacco. But he was respected for his keen wit and bold speech. He told his students, of whom he had many, "Have something to say, say it"
His "something to say" was a reaffirmation of the immediate agency of god in the world. Human conduct, whether good or bad, came from God, and even
Adam's inclination to sin was from God. Moral conduct, he said, consisted of exercises of the will, caused ultimately by God. Accused by religious liberals of "blaming God" for sin, he argued that man freely wills his actions-the sin consists of the individual's exercise of will. In a later age his theology, like that of other later-day Edwardseans seems tortured. Men like Emmons sought to be loyal to a religious tradition they traced to Edwards and Calvin, while recognizing the appeal of current "enlightened" thinking about the inherent reasonableness and grandeur of man.
Emmons's greatest influence was through his clerical pupils, who numbered roughly a hundred and made his home a kind of graduate school in theology. Nine of them became professors, and in some cases presidents, of colleges and divinity schools, spreading his influence even further.
Interested in public issues, Emmons was a spirited patriot, and like many other New England divines an opponent of Thomas Jefferson. In his famous "Jereboam" sermon Emmons compared Jefferson to the man "who made Israel to sin." A traditionalist in issues of Congregational polity, Emmons opposed efforts to form a regular statewide association of Congregational ministers in Massachusetts, arguing that association led to episcopacy, which led to papacy.
Such attitudes kept Congregationalism fragmented during the critical early decades of missionary enterprise and western settlement. But in other ways,
Emmons supported missionary activities, serving for many years as president of-the Massachusetts Missionary Society. He was also an early supporter of abolitionism.
In 1827 after fifty-four years of service, Emmons announced to his congregation that he planned to retire. When urged to remain he replied simply that he wanted to quit the pulpit while he "knew enough to do so."
Bibliography
A: Jacob Ide, ed., The Works of Nathaniel Emmons, 6 vols. (Boston, 1842-45)
B: AAP I, 693-706; DAB 6, 150-51; DARB, 150-51; NCAB 5, 141; NCE 5, 308; SH 4, 121; Edwards A. Park, Memoir of Nathaniel Emmons (Boston, 1861).