New England's moral legislator

Grandson of Jonathan Edwards, president of Yale College, writer, teacher, theologian, Timothy Dwight was a major figure in the Second Great Awakening of American Protestantism. He was dubbed by an admirer "the most conspicuous man in New England," but biographers have struggled to comprehend his life. Though a voluminous writer, Dwight left relatively few personal records and his life has been seen, rather as the near-blind Dwight himself saw the world, only dimly, a figure of "lights and shades.". For John R. Fitzmier, the key to imagining Dwight's life as a whole is to be found in Dwight's religious system, "godly federalism," which unified a seemingly disparate set of views and activities. As background to understanding Dwight and his role in Revolutionary and early national America, Fitzmier begins with a biographical study, based wherever possible on manuscript sources and the observations of contemporaries, as well as on textual evidence drawn from Dwight's writings. In the next three chapters, he treats Dwight as preacher, theologian, and historian. Finally, Fitzmier shows how Dwight's three professional activities became constituents of a larger role - that of moralist. Understanding the ways in which his moralism shaped his vision leads to a fuller appreciation of the "godly federalism" that Dwight created and promulgated from the moral high ground of the Yale presidency.