Timothy Dwight IV - Citizendia

Reverend Timothy Dwight, portrait by John Trumbull

Timothy Dwight (May 14, 1752 – January 11, 1817) was an American Congregationalist minister, theologian, educator, and author. John Trumbull ( June 6, 1756 &ndash November 10, 1843) was an American artist during the period of the American Revolutionary Events 1264 - Battle of Lewes: Henry III of England is captured in France making Simon de Montfort the Year 1752 ( MDCCLII) was a Leap year starting on Saturday (link will display the full calendar for European countries but not Great Britain) of Events 1055 - Theodora is crowned Empress of the Byzantine Empire. Year 1817 ( MDCCCXVII) was a Common year starting on Wednesday (link will display the full calendar of the Gregorian calendar (or a Common Congregational churches are Protestant Christian churches practicing Congregationalist church governance, in which each congregation independently Theology is the study of a god or the gods from a religious perspective He was the eighth president of Yale College, from 1795 to 1817.

He matriculated at Yale College at age 13, and received honorary degrees from Princeton University in 1787 and Harvard University in 1810. Princeton University is a private Coeducational research university located in Princeton, New Jersey.

1 Early life
2 Career
3 Legacy
4 References
5 Further reading

Early life

Dwight was the eldest son of merchant and farmer Timothy Dwight III (a graduate of Yale (1744) of Northampton, Massachusetts. Northampton is a city in Hampshire County, Massachusetts, United States. The Dwight family had a long association with Yale College, as it was then known. ^[1] His father was also a major in the Continental Army and served under George Washington. His mother was the third daughter of theologian Jonathan Edwards. This article is about the theologian (b 1703 for other uses of Jonathan Edwards see Jonathan Edwards. He was remarkably precocious, and is said to have learned the alphabet at a single lesson, and to have been able to read the Bible before he was four years old. Etymology According to the Online Etymology Dictionary, the word bible is from Latin biblia, traced from the same word through Medieval Latin and Late Latin

Dwight graduated from Yale in 1769. For two years, he was rector of the Hopkins Grammar School in New Haven, Connecticut. The Hopkins School (or Hopkins Grammar School) is a Co-educational, private Day school, located in New Haven, Connecticut He was a tutor at Yale College from 1771 to 1777. Licensed to preach in 1777, he was appointed by Congress chaplain in General Samuel Holden Parsons's Connecticut Continental Brigade. Samuel Holden Parsons ( May 14 1737 &ndash November 17 1789) was an American lawyer jurist and military leader He served with distinction, inspiring the troops with his sermons and the stirring war songs he composed, the most famous of which is "Columbia".

In 1777, Dwight married Mary, the daughter of New York merchant and banker Benjamin Woolsey]. The City of New York This marriage connected him to some of New York's wealthiest and most influential families. Woolsey had been Dwight's father's Yale classmate, roommate, and intimate friend.

On news of his father's death in the fall of 1778, he resigned his commission and returned to take charge of his family in Northampton. Besides managing the family's farms, he preached and taught, establishing a school for both sexes. During this period, he served two terms in the Massachusetts legislature.

Career

Dwight first came to public attention with his Yale College "Valedictory Address" of 1776, in which he described Americans as having a unique national identity as a new "people, who have the same religion, the same manners, the same interests, the same language, and the same essential forms and principles of civic government. " ^[2]

Declining calls from churches in Beverly and Charlestown, he chose instead to settle from 1783 until 1795 as minister in "Greenfield Hill," a Fairfield, Connecticut parish which would become Southport. Beverly is a city in Essex County, Massachusetts, United States. Charlestown is a part of the city of Boston, Massachusetts located on a peninsula north of Boston proper Fairfield is a town located in Fairfield County, Connecticut, United States. The Southport area of Fairfield Connecticut (settled in 1639 has been designated as a historic district for its harbor churches public buildings and the homesteads of some of the first There he established an academy, which at once acquired a high reputation, and attracted pupils from all parts of the Union. Dwight was an innovative and inspiring teacher, preferring moral suasion over the corporal punishment favored by most schoolmasters of the day. Corporal punishment is the deliberate infliction of pain intended to Punish a person or change his/her behavior

In 1793 Dwight preached a sermon to the General Association of Connecticut entitled a "Discourse on the Genuineness and Authenticity of the New Testament" which when printed the next year became an important tract defending the orthodox faith against Deists and other skeptics.

Dwight was the leader of the evangelical "New Divinity" faction of Congregationalism -- a group closely identified with Connecticut's emerging commercial elite. Evangelicalism is a theological movement tradition and system of beliefs most closely associated with Protestant Christianity, which identifies with the Gospel Although fiercely opposed by religious moderates -- most notably Yale president Ezra Stiles -- he was elected to the presidency of Yale on Stiles's death in 1795. The Rev Ezra Stiles ( November 29, 1727 - May 12, 1795) was a Congregational clergyman Theologian and president of His ability as a teacher, and his talents as a religious and political leader, soon made the college the largest institution of higher education in North America. Dwight had a genius for recognizing able proteges -- among them Lyman Beecher, Nathaniel W. Taylor, and Leonard Bacon, all of whom would become major religious leaders and theological innovators in the ante bellum decades. Lyman Beecher ( October 12, 1775 &ndash January 10, 1863) was a Presbyterian clergyman temperance movement leader and the father Nathaniel William Taylor (1786-1858 was an influential Protestant Theologian of the early 19th century whose major contribution to the Christian faith (and to American religious Leonard Bacon ( February 19, 1802 – December 24, 1881) was an American Congregational preacher and writer

During troubled times at Yale University, then-president Timothy Dwight saw his students drawn to the radical republicanism and “infidel philosophy” of the French Revolution, including the philosophies of Hume, Hobbes, Tindal, and Lords Shaftesbury and Bolingbroke. Between 1797 and 1800, Dwight frequently warned audiences against the threats of this “infidel philosophy” in America. An address to the candidates for the baccalaureate in Yale College called "The Nature and Danger of Infidel Philosophy, Exhibited in Two Discourses, Addressed to the Candidates for the Baccalaureate, In Yale College" was delivered on September 9, 1797. It was published by George Bunce in 1798. This book is credited as one of the embers of the Second Great Awakening.

Dwight was as notable for his political leadership as for his religious and educational eminence. Known by his enemies as "Pope" Dwight, he wielded both the temporal sword (as head of Connecticut's Federalist Party), and spiritual sword (as nominal head of the state's Congregational Church). The Federalist Party (or Federal Party) was an American political party in the period 1792 to 1816 with remnants lasting into the 1820s He led the effort to prevent the disestablishment of the church in Connecticut -- and, when its disestablishment appeared inevitable, encouraged efforts by proteges like Beecher and Bacon to organize voluntary associations to maintain the influence of religion in public life. Fearing that the failure of states to establish schools and the rise of "infidelity" would bring about the destruction of republican institutions, he helped to create a national evangelical movement -- the second "Great Awakening" -- intended to "re-church" America. Dwight was a founder of the Connecticut Academy of Arts & Sciences, the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, and Andover Theological Seminary. The American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (ABCFM was the first American Christian foreign mission agency Andover Theological Seminary, now part of Andover Newton Theological School, is the oldest Graduate school of Theology in the United States.

Dwight was well known as an author, preacher, and theologian. He and his brother, Theodore, were members of a group of writers centered around Yale known as the "Hartford Wits." In verse, Dwight wrote an ambitious epic in eleven books, The Conquest of Canaan, finished in 1774 but not published until 1785, a somewhat ponderous and solemn satire, The Triumph of Infidelity (1788), directed against David Hume, Voltaire and others; Greenfield Hill (1794), the suggestion for which seems to have been derived from John Denham's Coopers Hill; and a number of minor poems and hymns, the best known of which is that beginning "I love thy kingdom, Lord". Theodore Dwight (b Northampton Massachusetts, December 15 1764 - d The Hartford Wits (also called the Connecticut Wits) were a group of American writers centered around Yale University and flourished in the 1780s and 1790s David Hume (26 April 1711 25 August 1776 Scottish Philosopher, Economist, and Historian is an important figure in Western philosophy François-Marie Arouet ( 21 November 1694 30 May 1778) better known by the Pen name Voltaire, was a French Greenfield Hill is a neighborhood of Fairfield Connecticut. Located in the northern part of the town it extends from just south of the Merritt Parkway to the town's Sir John Denham ( 1615 - 10 March 1669) Poet, son of the Chief Baron of Exchequer in Ireland, was born in Dublin, and educated Many of his sermons were published posthumously under the titles Theology Explained and Defended (5 vols. , 1818-1819), to which a memoir of the author by his two sons, W. T. and Sereno E. Dwight, is prefixed, and Sermons by Timothy Dwight (2 vols. Sereno Edwards Dwight ( May 18, 1786 - November 30, 1850) was an American author educator and Congregationalist minister , 1828), which had a large circulation both in the United States and in England. The United States of America —commonly referred to as the England is a Country which is part of the United Kingdom. Its inhabitants account for more than 83% of the total UK population whilst its mainland Probably his most important work, however, is his Travels in New England and New York (4 vols. , 1821-1822), which contains much material of value concerning social and economic New England and New York during the period 1796-1817. History See also History of New England New England's earliest inhabitants were Algonquian -speaking Native Americans including the New York ( is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern regions of the United States and is the nation's third most populous (The term "Cape Cod House" makes its first appearance in this work. This article refers to an architectural style For other meanings of Cape Cod see Cape Cod (disambiguation. )

Dwight died of prostate cancer, and was buried in New Haven's Grove Street Cemetery. Grove Street Cemetery or Grove Street Burial Ground in New Haven Connecticut is located in the center of the Yale University campus Dwight left eight sons: Timothy (1778-1884), a New Haven merchant and philanthropist; James (17__-18__); Benjamin Woolsey Dwight (1780-1850), a New York physician; educator and theologian Sereno Edwards Dwight (1786-1850); and clergyman William Theodore Dwight (1795-1865). Philanthropy is the act of donating money goods services time and/or effort to support a socially beneficial cause with a defined objective and with no financial or material Sereno Edwards Dwight ( May 18, 1786 - November 30, 1850) was an American author educator and Congregationalist minister Dwight's grandson and namesake, "Timothy Dwight the Younger" (1828-1916), served as Yale's president, 1886-1899. Namesake (sometimes "name's sake" is a term used to characterize a person place thing quality action state or idea that is called after or named out of regard to Timothy Dwight V ( November 16, 1828 &ndash May 26, 1916) was president of Yale University from 1886 through 1899 His nephew, Theodore Dwight Woolsey (1801-1889), served as Yale's president between 1846 and 1871. Theodore Dwight Woolsey (1801 - 1889 was a US scholar and educator nephew of Timothy Dwight. Another nephew was Theodore Dwight (1796-1866), an author and journalist. Theodore Dwight ( 3 March 1796 - 16 October 1866) was an American author born in Hartford Connecticut, the son of Theodore

Legacy

Although long dismissed by historians as a reactionary who contributed little to American life, recent scholarship, as it engages the central importance of religion in our culture, is coming to acknowledge his significance as a religious leader and educational innovator. Reactionary (also reactionist) is a derogatory term usually used by the Left wing in regards to movements which oppose radical change in society and seeks a return His influence on the thousands of young men who passed through Yale during his presidency is incalculable.

In the Twentieth Century, Yale named Timothy Dwight College for him and his grandson. Timothy Dwight College, commonly abbreviated and referred to as "TD" is a residential college at Yale University named after two university presidents Timothy

References

^ The History of the Descendants of John Dwight, of Dedham, Massachusetts, Benjamin Dwight, New York, 1874
^ as cited in The Quest for Natinoality; and American Literary Campaign, spencer, Benjamin T. , Syracuse University Press, 1957, p. 3

Contents

Early life

Career

Legacy

References

Further reading