CIVIL MAGISTRATES MUST BE JUST, RULING IN THE FEAR OF GOD, Charles Chauncy
The College of New Jersey is founded by New Side Presbyterians in response to the Great Awakening (it is renamed Princeton in 1896).
1750
Almost a third of the people of Philadelphia, the largest city in America and the second largest in the British Empire, now owe their living to a craft of some kind.
Montesquieu’s The Spirit of Laws is published in English.
1751
The Academy and College of Philadelphia, later to become the University of Pennsylvania, is founded by Benjamin Franklin and other laymen to be a secular institution that specializes in the teaching of utilitarian subjects.
Hume’s Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals is published.
1752
Benjamin Franklin gains worldwide fame with his kite experiment.
1754
Col. George Washington, age 22, and a force of Virginians surrender to the French at Fort Necessity (July 3).
King’s College (renamed Columbia in 1784) opens in New York. It is interdenominational and has no theological faculty.
On June 19, the Albany Convention meets as the first concerted effort to unite the colonies. The Albany “Plan of Union” is approved on July 10, written by Benjamin Franklin. It is rejected by the colonies and by England.
Jonathan Edwards, Sr., publishes his treatise On the Freedom of the Will, considered by many to be the most brilliant American theological study of the century.
1755
Francis Hutcheson’s A System of Moral Philosophy is published in London.
The French and Indian War is the American part of the Seven Year’s War (1755–63). The battles for Niagara, Ticonderoga, and Crown Point in 1759 see major contributions made by the colonists. Montreal and Quebec fall to the British. The British gain control of Detroit. During the war the American economy reaches a point of development to be internally self-sustaining.
1756
THE MEDIATORIAL KINGDOM AND GLORIES OF JESUS CHRIST, Samuel Davies
1760
THE PRESENCE OF GOD WITH HIS PEOPLE, Samuel Dunbar
George III, who will reign until 1820, takes the throne determined to “act like a king.”
1762
Benjamin Franklin publishes his Advice to a Young Tradesman, David Hume publishes the final volume of his widely read History of England in London, and Jean-Jacques Rousseau publishes A Treatise on the Social Contract in Amsterdam.
1763
By the Treaty of Paris, Britain gains all of Canada and Louisiana east of the Mississippi River (Feb. 10).
Patrick Henry argues the “Parson’s Cause” in Virginia after the British disallow a Virginia statute (Dec.).
1764
The College of Rhode Island is founded by the Baptists (it is renamed Brown University in 1804).
1765
The Stamp Act (Mar. 22) and Quartering Act (Mar. 24) are imposed. Nine of the colonies send delegates to the Stamp Act Congress in New York (Oct. 7–25).
Patrick Henry’s fiery “treason” speech in the Virginia House of Burgesses is published as the influential Virginia Resolves (May 29).
1766
THE SNARE BROKEN, Jonathan Mayhew
Queens College is established by the Dutch Reformed Church (it is renamed Rutgers in 1825).
1767
The Townshend Acts (June 29) impose duties on glass, lead, paint, paper, tea, etc.
Adam Ferguson’s Essay on the History of Civil Society is published in Edinburgh.
1768
John Dickinson of Pennsylvania arouses public opinion with his “Letters from a Farmer.”
Beginning in March, merchants in Philadelphia, New York, and Boston debate and adopt nonimportation agreements.
1769
AN HUMBLE INQUIRY, John Joachim Zubly
Daniel Boone leads settlers over the mountains to Kentucky.
Blackstone publishes the last volume of his four-volume work, Commentaries on the Laws of England.
Dartmouth College is founded by Reverend Eleazar Wheelock.
1770
Several Americans are killed in the Boston Massacre (Mar. 5). Samuel Adams publishes a description of the event in “Innocent Blood Crying to God from the Streets of Boston.” The British commander’s defense attorneys John Adams and Josiah Quincy win his acquittal.
1772
The Committee of Correspondence is organized when Samuel Adams calls a Boston town meeting; other towns form similar committees (Nov. 2–Jan. 1773).
1773
AN ORATION UPON THE BEAUTIES OF LIBERTY, John Allen
AN APPEAL TO THE PUBLIC FOR RELIGIOUS LIBERTY, Isaac Backus
The Boston Tea Party: 342 casks of tea are dumped into Boston Harbor from the British ship Dartmouth, by men disguised as Mohawk Indians, after a meeting of 8,000 Bostonians at Old South Church, conducted by Samuel Adams (Dec. 16).
BENJAMIN COLMAN (1673–1747). One of the prominent clergymen of his day, Colman became in 1699 the first pastor of Boston’s Brattle Street Church, where he found himself at odds with Increase and Cotton Mather because of certain of his views that deviated from strict Congregationalism. His B.A. and A.M. degrees were from Harvard, and he was awarded an S.T.D. by the University of Glasgow. In 1724 he declined the presidency of Harvard, but he served as one of its trustees (1717–28) and remained an overseer, in addition to his ministry at Brattle Street Church, until his death. A prolific author with more than ninety published titles to his credit, he was a supporter of the evangelical movement stirred by the Great Awakening and was a commissioner of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in New England and for Parts Adjacent. Thrice married, Colman was survived by his third wife, Mary Frost.
The sermon reprinted here was preached at the Thursday Lecture in Boston on August 13, 1730.
For the Pillars of the Earth are the Lord’s, and He hath set the World upon them.
1 Sam. ii. 8.
he words are part of a raptrous and heavenly song, utter’d by a devout, inspir’d and transported mother in Israel, upon a great and joyful occasion. If the Divine Eternal Spirit please to inspire and speak by a gracious woman, it is the same thing to us, and requires our reverend attention as much, as if he raise up a Moses or an Elias, or make his revelations by a Paul or John.
Samuel, the rare and wonderful son of inspir’d Hannah, never outspake his lovely mother in any of his prayers or acts of praise. Eli would have sat at her feet, and laid himself in the dust, at the hearing of this flowing torrent of fervent devotion from her beauteous lips; and saints thro’ all ages hang on the heavenly music of her tongue.
Great things are here said of GOD, and of his government, in the families and kingdoms of men; and such wise and just observations are made, as are worthy of deep contemplation by the greatest and best of men. Had she like Deborah been the princess of the tribes of Israel, she could not have spoken with more loftiness and majesty, with more authority and command; nor better have address’d the nobles and rulers, the captains and the mighty men; to humble and lay ’em low before GOD.
“She celebrates the Lord GOD of Israel,* his unspotted purity, his almighty power, his unsearchable wisdom, and his unerring justice”:
In the praises of these she joys and triumphs, her heart was exalted and her mouth enlarged.
“She adores the divine sovereignty in its disposals of the affairs of the children of men; in the strange and sudden turns given to them; in the rise & fall of persons, families & countries. “She observes how the strong are soon weakned, and the weak are soon strengthned, when GOD pleases: How the rich are soon impoverish’d,
DUTIES, George Whitefield
