e left that country for America; Charles Thomson
(1729-1824), who was for fifteen years the secretary of the Continental
Congress and published a _Translation of the Bible_; Elias Boudinot
(1740-1821), the first president of the American Bible Society and a
leading philanthropist of his time, who wrote _The Age of Revelation_, a
reply to Paine's _Age of Reason_; Nathan Strong (1748-1816), the editor
of _The Connecticut Evangelical Magazine_ and pastor of First Church,
Hartford; Isaac Backus (1724-1806), the author of the well-known _History
of New England with Particular {597} Reference to the Baptists_; Ezra
Stiles (1727-1795), president of Yale College, who published many
discourses and wrote _An Ecclesiastical History of New England_, which
was not completed and never published; William White (1748-1836), Bishop
of Pennsylvania for fifty years, who wrote several works on Episcopacy,
one of which was _Memoir of the Episcopal Church in the United States_;
and William Linn (1752-1808), who published sermons on the _Leading
Personages of Scripture History_.

Belonging also to the Revolutionary period these should be noted: Mather
Byles (1706-1788), a wit and punster of loyalist leanings, some of whose
sermons have been many times printed, and who was a kinsman of the
Mathers; Jonathan Mayhew (1720-1766), whose _Sermon on the Repeal of the
Stamp Act_ was the most famous of his stirring addresses on the political
issues already prominent at the time of his death; William Smith
(1727-1803), provost of the University of Pennsylvania, who was, not to
speak of his other works, the author of several meritorious sermons;
Samuel Seabury (1729-1796), the first Protestant Episcopal bishop and
author of two volumes of sermons; and Jacob Duche (1739-1798), rector of
Christ Church, Philadelphia, who abandoned the American cause, but whose
sermons were highly prized.

A quartet of those who gained distinction as writers on doctrine are:
Joseph Bellamy (1719-1790), an influential divine of the Edwardean
school, and author of _The True Religion {598} Delineated_; Samuel
Hopkins (1721-1803), the advocate of disinterested benevolence as a
cardinal principle of theology and author of _The System of Doctrines
Contained in Divine Revelation_; Jonathan Edwards the Younger
(1745-1801), president of Union College and author of several discourses,
the most celebrated of which are the three on the "Necessity of the
Atonement and its Consistency w