WOODS, LEONARD
LEONARD (19 June 1774, Princeton, MA-24 August 1854, Andover, MA). Education: B.A., Harvard College, 1796; studied theology with Charles Backus, Somers, CT, 1797. Career: Teacher, Medford, MA, 1798; minister, Second Congregational Church, Newbury (now West Newbury), MA, 1798-1808; professor of Christian theology, Andover Seminary, 1808-46.
A church profits from single-minded leaders, devoted to creating institutions, purifying doctrine, and reforming society. It also depends on men and women of a more conciliatory nature, similarly interested in ideas and institutions but more willing to compromise on disputed issues.
In his lifetime Leonard Woods showed the instinct of both the controversialist and the compromiser. But his contribution as a compromiser early in his career was especially useful. In the early 1800s Congregationalists were not only divided between Calvinists and liberals, but the Calvinists themselves were divided between Old Calvinists and Hopkinsians. The orthodox-liberal split would soon result in two denominations where there had been one. Without cooperation among the Calvinists, there might have been yet another division. Leonard Woods's career was one reason that no such split occurred.
Woods began simply enough by contributing articles to the journals of both Calvinist factions, the Hopkinsian Massachusetts Missionary Magazine and the Old
Calvinist Panoplist. Each group came to admire him so much that in t808, after Unitarian Henry Ware* had been appointed to the divinity chair at Harvard, they each invited him to be theology professor at the seminary that each planned to operate. Woods wisely counseled the two groups to join forces and form Andover Seminary, where he was appointed professor of Christian theology.
During his lifetime Woods taught orthodox theology to a thousand students who later became ministers. His influence was felt also in several societies he helped form: The American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (1810), the American Tract Society (1814), the American Education Society (1815), and the American Temperance Society (1826). While helping to unify the Congregationalists, Ware engaged in several controversies with the Unitarians, the most notable in the 1820s with Henry Ware· on human nature. Ware held that man is naturally good, and that salvation comes through education. Woods held to the traditional Puritan-Calvinist position that man is innately depraved and finds salvation only with divine grace. The debate, known to contemporaries as the "Wood'n Ware" controversy helped sharpen the line of division between Andover and Harvard. Together the men published five volumes of polemics, which Sydney Ahlstrom called, "one of the best theological discussions of human nature in American church history."
Leonard Woods was credited with a "compass of manner ranging from gay to grave." He could take a child on his knee and amuse it by imitating the whippoorwill. Or, when pressed, he could go to theological battle with the conviction of a Christian knight. "If war must come," he remarked before one such contest, "let it be carried on with manliness and courage, with fairness and strength of argument, not with carnal weapons, but with the sword of the Spirit, aiming to overcome and destroy error and sin, and save the souls of men."
In our age such words seem overblown. But they suggest something that was real: the zest for truth that animated theologians in that era of religious turmoil.
Bibliography
A: Letters to Unitarians and Reply to Dr. Ware (Andover, Mass., 1822); Lectures on Infant Baptism (Andover. Mass., 1828); Lectures on the Inspiration of the Scriptures (Andover. Mass., 1829); Memoirs of American Missionaries (Boston, 1833); An Essay on Native Depravity (Boston. 1835); Examination of the Doctrine of Perfection (New York, 1841); Lectures on Church Government (New York, 1844); Lectures on Swedenborgianism (Boston, 1846); Theology of the Puritans (1851); History of the Andover Seminary (Boston. 1885); The Works of Leonard Woods. 5 vols. (Andover. MA, 1850-51).
B: AAP 2.438-44; DAB 20,502; DARB. 530-31; NCAB 9. 121-22; SH 12.420; Williston Walker. Ten New England Leaders (New York. 1901).361-405.
A church profits from single-minded leaders, devoted to creating institutions, purifying doctrine, and reforming society. It also depends on men and women of a more conciliatory nature, similarly interested in ideas and institutions but more willing to compromise on disputed issues.
In his lifetime Leonard Woods showed the instinct of both the controversialist and the compromiser. But his contribution as a compromiser early in his career was especially useful. In the early 1800s Congregationalists were not only divided between Calvinists and liberals, but the Calvinists themselves were divided between Old Calvinists and Hopkinsians. The orthodox-liberal split would soon result in two denominations where there had been one. Without cooperation among the Calvinists, there might have been yet another division. Leonard Woods's career was one reason that no such split occurred.
Woods began simply enough by contributing articles to the journals of both Calvinist factions, the Hopkinsian Massachusetts Missionary Magazine and the Old
Calvinist Panoplist. Each group came to admire him so much that in t808, after Unitarian Henry Ware* had been appointed to the divinity chair at Harvard, they each invited him to be theology professor at the seminary that each planned to operate. Woods wisely counseled the two groups to join forces and form Andover Seminary, where he was appointed professor of Christian theology.
During his lifetime Woods taught orthodox theology to a thousand students who later became ministers. His influence was felt also in several societies he helped form: The American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (1810), the American Tract Society (1814), the American Education Society (1815), and the American Temperance Society (1826). While helping to unify the Congregationalists, Ware engaged in several controversies with the Unitarians, the most notable in the 1820s with Henry Ware· on human nature. Ware held that man is naturally good, and that salvation comes through education. Woods held to the traditional Puritan-Calvinist position that man is innately depraved and finds salvation only with divine grace. The debate, known to contemporaries as the "Wood'n Ware" controversy helped sharpen the line of division between Andover and Harvard. Together the men published five volumes of polemics, which Sydney Ahlstrom called, "one of the best theological discussions of human nature in American church history."
Leonard Woods was credited with a "compass of manner ranging from gay to grave." He could take a child on his knee and amuse it by imitating the whippoorwill. Or, when pressed, he could go to theological battle with the conviction of a Christian knight. "If war must come," he remarked before one such contest, "let it be carried on with manliness and courage, with fairness and strength of argument, not with carnal weapons, but with the sword of the Spirit, aiming to overcome and destroy error and sin, and save the souls of men."
In our age such words seem overblown. But they suggest something that was real: the zest for truth that animated theologians in that era of religious turmoil.
Bibliography
A: Letters to Unitarians and Reply to Dr. Ware (Andover, Mass., 1822); Lectures on Infant Baptism (Andover. Mass., 1828); Lectures on the Inspiration of the Scriptures (Andover. Mass., 1829); Memoirs of American Missionaries (Boston, 1833); An Essay on Native Depravity (Boston. 1835); Examination of the Doctrine of Perfection (New York, 1841); Lectures on Church Government (New York, 1844); Lectures on Swedenborgianism (Boston, 1846); Theology of the Puritans (1851); History of the Andover Seminary (Boston. 1885); The Works of Leonard Woods. 5 vols. (Andover. MA, 1850-51).
B: AAP 2.438-44; DAB 20,502; DARB. 530-31; NCAB 9. 121-22; SH 12.420; Williston Walker. Ten New England Leaders (New York. 1901).361-405.