NATHANAEL

See also:

• EMMONS, EBENEZER (1800-1863)
• NATHANAEL EMMONS (1745–1840)

EMMONS (1745–1840)  , American theologian, was born at East Haddam, Connecticut, on the 2oth of April 1745 . He graduated at Yale in 1767, studied theology under the Rev . John Smalley (1734–1820) at Berlin, Connecticut, and was licensed to preach in 1769 . After preaching four years in New York and New Hampshire, he became, in April 1773, pastor of the Second church at Franklin (until 1778 a part of Wrentham, Massachusetts), of which he remained in charge until May 1827, when failing health compelled his relinquishment of active ministerial cares . He lived, however, for many years thereafter, dying of old age at Franklin on the 23rd of September 184o . It was as a theologian that Dr Emmons was best known, and for half a century probably no clergyman in New England exerted so wide an influence . He developed an original system of divinity, somewhat on the structural plan of that of Samuel Hopkins, and, in Emmons's own belief, contained in and evolved from Hopkinsianism . While by no means abandoning the tenets of the old Calvinistic faith, he came to be looked upon as the chief representative of what was then known as the " new school " of theologians . His system declared that holiness and sin are free voluntary exercises; that men act freely under the divine agency; that the slightest transgression deserves eternal punishment; that it is through God's mere grace that the penitent believer is pardoned and justified; that, in spite of total depravity, sinners ought to repent; and that regeneration is active, not passive, with the believer . Emmonsism was spread and perpetuated by more than a hundred clergymen, whom he personally trained . Politically, he was an ardent patriot during the War of Independence, and a strong Federalist afterwards, several of his political discourses attracting wide attention . He was a founder and the first president of the Massachusetts Missionary Society, and was influential in the establishment of Andover Theological Seminary .

More than two hundred of his sermons and addresses were published during his lifetime . His

Works were published in 6 vols . (Boston, 1842; new edition, 1861) . See also the Memoir, by Dr E . A . Park (Andover, 1861) .