se _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 h