Emmons, Nathanael

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EMMONS, NATHANAEL

Congregationalist minister; b. East Haddam, Conn., April 20, 1745; d. Franklin, Mass., Sept. 23, 1840. He graduated from Yale in 1767, studied theology under Rev. Nathan Strong of Coventry, Conn., and was ordained in 1773 for the Second Church of Wrentham (now Franklin), Mass. He held this charge for 67 years. Emmons trained divinity students in his home and, besides his voluminous published sermons, contributed theological articles to the religious press. An advocate of home and foreign missions, he edited the Massachusetts Missionary Magazine. He defended the orthodox Calvinist positions of Jonathan edwards and Samuel Hopkins against the Unitarians and Universalists, and supported Congregational polity against the Presbyterians. In politics he was a Federalist, and characterized Thomas Jefferson as Jeroboam in a famous sermon.

Bibliography: Complete Works, 6 v. (Boston 1842), includes an autobiography. e. a. park, Memoir of Nathanael Emmons (Boston 1861).

[r. k. macmaster]