Law and Providence in Joseph Bellamy's New England

The Origins of the New Divinity in Revolutionary America

Mark Valeri author

Format:Hardback

Publisher:Oxford University Press Inc

Published:12th Jan '95

Currently unavailable, and unfortunately no date known when it will be back

Law and Providence in Joseph Bellamy's New England cover

This study of religious thought and social life in early America focuses on the career of Joseph Bellamy (1719-1790), a Connecticut Calvinist minister noted chiefly for his role in originating the New Divinity--the influential theological movement that evolved from the writings of Bellamy's teacher, Jonathan Edwards. Tracing Bellamy's contributions as a preacher, noted controversialist, and church leader from the Great Awakening to the American Revolution, Mark Valeri explores why the New Divinity was so immensely popular. Set in social contexts such as the emergent market economy, the war against France, and the politics of rebellion, Valeri shows, Bellamy's story reveals much about the relationship between religion and public issues in colonial New England.

A superb study. The author has made very significant arguments about Joseph Bellamy, an unduly neglected eighteenth-century theologian, and also about the New Divinity Theology, an unusually important strand of American thought. This is certainly one of the best studies of late eighteenth- or early nineteenth-century theology that I've ever read. I am confident that it will give many readers the delight it has given me. * Mark A. Noll, Wheaton College *

ISBN: 9780195086010

Dimensions: 242mm x 162mm x 23mm

Weight: 551g

224 pages