Recovering Theological Education — Part 4: Pre-Seminary New England
by: Mike Fourman
1740–1840 | Pre-Seminary New England
Primary Theological Educational Method: Private, Church-Located, Post-Graduate
Historical Context
Seasons of revival, denominational formation, and creative approaches to theological education characterized the late colonial period through the early American Republic. The New England settlers of the seventeenth century believed the survival of Puritan society was contingent upon theological education. The founding of Harvard six years after the formation of the Massachusetts Bay Colony demonstrated the value the Puritans placed on theological training, even as they fought for their survival on the harsh New England frontier.1 The widespread educational opportunity facilitated by religious homogeny and freedom within the colonial settlements tremendously impacted early New England society.
The New England settlers of the seventeenth century believed the survival of Puritan society was contingent upon theological education.
Educational Access and Continuing Challenges
Adult Learners in the eighteenth century benefited from the Puritan-established educational structures. The population literacy rate was extremely high. Kenneth Lockridge estimates that male literacy rates had reached 85 to 90 percent by the late eighteenth century.2 He attributed New England’s “intense Protestantism,” driven by a desire for Bible reading, as the distinctive force behind the high literacy rates.3 Additionally, ministerial academic and theological study remained an expectation and priority in New England throughout the eighteenth century. A survey of over 800 ministers ordained between 1740–1810 records that 780 of those surveyed had at least a college degree.4 During this period, a Bachelor’s degree remained a basic prerequisite for ordination.5 Nevertheless, theological education faced significant challenges during this time.
Kenneth Lockridge estimates that male literacy rates had reached 85 to 90 percent by the late eighteenth century.
Ideological Pressures and Institutional Decline
At the dawn of the eighteenth century, Enlightenment-era rationalistic and humanistic influences from Western Europe gradually infiltrated colonial America. Ecclesiastically, the structures of Puritan New England were weakening due to secularization and increasing denominational diversity.6 Deistic skeptics and secular aspirations for a utopian society contested the epistemological authority of Scripture.7 Educationally, Harvard’s faculty—the leading colonial college—embraced deistic ideals and was no longer reliable for the orthodox training of congregational ministers.
Private, Church-Located Post-Graduate Training
In response, staunch Calvinists, like Jonathan Edwards, benefiting from the renewed enthusiasm of the Great Awakening, established the “New Divinity” theological system to counter the growing rise of secular and deistic influence.8 With deism infiltrating institutional theological training, New Divinity Congregationalists recognized the importance of theological training in their battle for biblical truth and turned to a private, mentorship-based model for post-graduate theological study and ministry preparation. Following a method pioneered in England, ordination candidates pursued non-formal “tutor-apprentice” relationships with respected local church ministers to enhance their working theological knowledge for ministry.9 Historian William Shewmaker credits the popularity of these parsonage seminaries to three factors: the lack of post-graduate divinity schools, the increased demand for ministers following the Great Awakening, and the popular “conception that the college atmosphere was probably not the best place for [spiritual formation].”10 By the mid-eighteenth century, ordination candidates regularly resided in minister’s homes to study divinity under the minister’s tutelage. 11
With deism infiltrating institutional theological training, New Divinity Congregationalists recognized the importance of theological training in their battle for biblical truth and turned to a private, mentorship-based model for post-graduate theological study and ministry preparation.
Early Examples and the Parsonage Seminary Model
The first recognized colonial example of minister-led private theological training occurred in 1727 when the Presbyterian minister William Tennent started his “Log Cabin College.”12 George Whitfield famously referred to Tennent’s training program as a “School of the Prophets,” a term synonymous with private theological education in this era.13 The parsonage seminary model quickly became the standard for post-graduate theological training within the Presbyterian and Congregational traditions.
Private, minister-led post-graduate theological preparation was a nearly universal practice in the pre-seminary era.14 Three noteworthy examples of this educational method are Jonathan Edwards of Northhampton, MA, Joseph Bellamy of Bethlehem, CT, and Nathaniel Emmons of Franklin, MA. Jonathan Edwards, the influential preacher, revivalist, and founder of Edwardsean theology (New Divinity), pioneered in-home divinity tutelage in the eighteenth century.15 However, Edwards did not solicit his students. After graduating from Yale College in 1736, Joseph Bellamy, feeling inadequately prepared for the pastorate, requested additional theological training at Edward’s residence. Edward’s training of Bellamy began a pattern of young congregational ministers seeking Edwards for practical theology and church ministry mentorship.16 Graeme Chatfield suggests that Edwards mentored around twelve students, including Joseph Bellamy and Samuel Hopkins, who became leading proponents of Edwardsean thought in the eighteenth century.17 Undoubtedly, Edward’s private tutelage of the next generation of church leaders propagated his theological influence.
Edward’s training strategy utilized dialogue and church practicum to enhance learning.
Edwards’s Training Method
Edward’s training strategy utilized dialogue and church practicum to enhance learning. Instead of implementing learning through rote memorization, he envisioned a dialogic method modeled after contemporary thought leaders like John Locke, which resembled the long-standing practice of scholastic disputation.18 Edwards assigned students reading and then, at meal time, engaged them in rigorous debate on the topics, providing an in-depth understanding of relevant theological truth. Additionally, the post-graduate intensive included a practical immersion in Edward’s church through attending Sunday morning services, participating in Sunday evening children’s catechism, and composing and delivering sermons.19 Living in Edward’s home provided many spiritual formation opportunities, including sharing in the family prayers by candlelight.20 The community immersion within the local church and personal life of Jonathan Edwards provided an educational structure conducive to scholarly learning and spiritual formation.
Bellamy’s Program and Standardization
Joseph Bellamy, Edward’s first student, followed the example of his mentor, making private theological training a primary focus in his ministry. Over fifty years in Bethlehem, CT, Bellamy’s program became one of the era’s most important and influential examples of theological training.21 He was the first to consistently accept groups of theological students into his home.22 William Sweet records that Bellamy “had nearly one hundred theological students in his home” from 1742 to 1790.23 His prolific training ministry was characterized by eloquent and earnest preaching, stressing that his students equally exhibit fervency as a matter of character and ministerial success.24 According to the esteemed nineteenth-century historian William Sprague, Bellamy’s standard teaching method included assigning students a list of theological questions with corresponding reading. In the process of one-on-one instruction, he daily examined his students. When he encountered difficulties, Bellamy spent time addressing the students’ challenges with the goal of developing the theological apprentices’ knowledge and intellectual acumen. Upon completing the assigned reading, he required his students to write dissertations followed by sermons on the doctrinal studies and practical topics he considered most important.25 Bellamy’s curricular approach became the standard practice in private theological instruction.
William Sweet records that Bellamy “had nearly one hundred theological students in his home” from 1742 to 1790.
Expansion and Emmons’s Training Ministry
As the eighteenth century came to a close, the expanse of population and religious fervor resulting from the Great Awakening led to a corresponding increase in private theological training schools.26 Building on the models of Edwards and Bellamy, a growing number of pastors throughout New England welcomed young ministers into their homes for these post-graduate intensives. Notable among the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century tutors were Rev. Levi Hart of Preston, Conn., Dr. John Smalley of New Britain, Conn., and Dr. Nathaniel Emmons of Franklin, Mass.27 Dr. Emmons was especially prolific in his training ministry. Although he never intended to train ministerial candidates, the consistency and volume of young men who approached him for training throughout his long ministry resulted in one of the era’s most productive examples of private theological instruction.28
Emmons was a highly disciplined man.29 According to Roland Bainton, the venerable pastor was “addicted to study and so completely sedentary [in this pursuit] that his chair wore depressions in the hardwood floor.”30 Yet, his puritan-like discipline in theological preparation did not compromise his pastoral effectiveness, as he prioritized congregational care.31 Underneath Emmons’s tutelage of academic rigor and pastoral ministry, he prepared eighty to ninety post-graduate students in New Divinity orthodoxy and ministerial practice.
According to Roland Bainton, the venerable pastor was “addicted to study and so completely sedentary [in this pursuit] that his chair wore depressions in the hardwood floor.”
Curriculum and Apologetic Discourse
The curricular focus of private theological instruction was reading and apologetic discourse. While each private tutor adapted their own instructional methods, the primary approach included extensive reading within the tutor’s library on both sides of the assigned theological topic. Nathaniel Emmons explained in his memoir why he included reading from both sides, stating,
I want to give them a full, extensive view of every subject, but also to guard them against falling into errors afterward. For while they were reading on the wrong side of any question, I had opportunity to make such a mark of what they read, or what occurred to them in reading, as may prevent their being led astray by false or sophistical reasoning.32
Grounding theological instruction within the context of the church community, combined with the continual feedback and instruction of the private mentor, helped protect many Congregational churches in this era from the rising tide of pluralism and liberalism.33
Ministerial Competency through Church-Centered Training
Additionally, the private training model’s church-centeredness engendered increased ministerial competency. Emmons’s testimony illustrated this priority when he stated, “I often discoursed upon the duties, difficulties, advantages, and trials of ministers. I inculcated the importance of being prudent, faithful, and exemplary in every part of their ministerial duty.” He further added, “I endeavored to point out how they should treat their parishioners of various characters and dispositions, and taught them, as well as I could, how to become able and faithful ministers.”34 Through hands-on instruction within the church context, the private training model both spiritually and vocationally outfitted young ministers for ministry.
Evaluation
An analysis of theological education in mid-eighteenth to mid-nineteenth century New England, when evaluated against the project director’s rubric, reveals several strengths. Although the training model was private and not officially church-sponsored, young ministers received their post-graduate theological instruction within the context of an active local church, providing a relevant theological and ministerial practicum. The strength of community-enhanced learning extended from the relational aid afforded through residential study, which promoted theological growth and spiritual formation. A biblical-focused curriculum safeguarded orthodoxy, countering the tide of pluralism and liberalism, and the constant engagement of theological students in instruction and dialogue provided ongoing educational sharpening for the ministers leading the training. However, notably, this program did not directly benefit the health of individual congregations, as it did not target the existing elder, lay-elder, and teaching leadership of the local church. Nevertheless, this period’s private, mentor-led post-graduate theological training provides an exceptional example of biblically faithful theological training.
1 The authors West and Prevost explain that Harvard’s “core curriculum was directed toward preaching ministers…over half of Harvard’s colonial graduates were clergymen.” Reed and Prevost, A History of Christian Education, 298. ↩
2 Kenneth A. Lockridge, Literacy in Colonial New England: An Enquiry Into the Social Context of Literacy in the Early Modern West (New York: W. W. Norton, 1974), 85–90. ↩
3 Lockridge, Literacy in Colonial New England, 73. ↩
4 Mary Latimer Gambrell, Ministerial Training in Eighteenth-Century New England (New York: AMS Press, 1967), 52. ↩
5 John Morgan, Godly Learning: Puritan Attitudes towards Reason, Learning, and Education, 1560-1640 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986), 103; William Orpheus Shewmaker, “The Training of the Protestant Ministry in the United States of America, before the Establishment of Theological Seminaries,” Papers of the American Society of Church History 6 (1921): 176, https://doi.org/10.1017/S1079902800113634. ↩
6 The authors highlight the European Enlightenment’s secular influence on every area of life in Europe and the American Colonies by stating, “The Enlightenment affected most areas of human life and contributed to the American and French Revolutions.” Reed and Prevost, A History of Christian Education, 241. ↩
7 Bezzant, “American Theological Education at the Beginning of the Nineteenth Century,” 75; Reed and Prevost, A History of Christian Education, 241. ↩
8 Gambrell, Ministerial Training in Eighteenth-Century New England, 103. ↩
9 Mary Gambrell explains that in-home pastoral post-graduate theological mentorship was “an English Heritage,” adding “While John Cotton was still a pastor in England…[he] is said to have recommended that graduates go to live with him in order to become better fitted for public service.” Gambrell, Ministerial Training in Eighteenth-Century New England, 101; West, Church-Based Theological Education, 125. ↩
10 Shewmaker, “The Training of the Protestant Ministry in the United States of America, before the Establishment of Theological Seminaries,” 167. ↩
11 Samuel Simpson, “Early Ministerial Training in America,” Papers of the American Society of Church History 2 (1910): 125, https://doi.org/10.1017/S1079902800113300; Shewmaker, “The Training of the Protestant Ministry in the United States of America, before the Establishment of Theological Seminaries,” 152, 153–154; Roland H. Bainton and Leander E. Keck, Yale and the Ministry: A History of Education for the Christian Ministry at Yale from the Founding in 1701 (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1985), 49. ↩
12 Wilburn, “Educational Philosophy, Church Proximity, and Academic Standards in Church-Based Theological Education: A Phenomenological Study,” 48. ↩
13 In his journal, George Whitfield described Gilbert’s Log Cabin College, stating, “The place wherein the young men study now, is in contempt called the College. It is a log house, about twenty feet long, and near as many broad; and to me, it seemed to resemble the schools of the old prophets for their habitations were mean; and they sought not great things for themselves…. From this despised place, seven or eight worthy ministers of Jesus have lately been sent forth; more are almost ready to be sent, and the foundation is now laying for the instruction of many others.” George Whitefield, Journal, quoted in A. Alexander, Biographical Sketches of the Founder and Principal Alumni of the Log College (Philadelphia: Presbyterian Board of Publication, 1851), 11; Bainton and Keck, Yale and the Ministry, 49; Gambrell, Ministerial Training in Eighteenth-Century New England, 102. ↩
14 Mary Gambrell explains, “These Private teachers of theology, and others like them, were responsible for the professional training of most of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century Congregational clergy.” Gambrell, Ministerial Training in Eighteenth-Century New England, 126. ↩
15 Graeme Chatfield explains that Edward’s private program of theological instruction was ultimately a reinitiating of the training model practiced by the seventeenth-century English Puritans when the universities of England were “resistant to their beliefs and aspirations.” Chatfield, “Models of Western Christian Education and Ministerial Training, 77; Gambrell, Ministerial Training in Eighteenth-Century New England, 35. ↩
16 Oliver Crisp and Douglas A. Sweeney, After Jonathan Edwards: The Courses of the New England Theology (New York: Oxford University Press, 2012), 39–40. ↩
17 Chatfield, “Models of Western Christian Education and Ministerial Training,” 77. ↩
18 Crisp and Sweeney, After Jonathan Edwards, 32. ↩
19 Bainton and Keck, Yale and the Ministry, 50; Crisp and Sweeney, After Jonathan Edwards, 41; Rhys S. Bezzant, Edwards the Mentor (New York: Oxford University Press, 2019), 66. ↩
20 Bainton and Keck, Yale and the Ministry, 50; Rhys Bezzant concludes that Edwards’s student Samuel Hopkins “found in the manse parent-like care…and encouragement to undertake new pastoral responsibility.” Bezzant, Edwards the Mentor, 66. ↩
21 Gambrell, Ministerial Training in Eighteenth-Century New England, 105; Bainton and Keck, Yale and the Ministry, 57. ↩
22 Simpson, “Early Ministerial Training in America,”126; Mary Gambrell refers to Joseph Bellamy as the “pedagogical progenitor” of this private theological training model. Gambrell, Ministerial Training in Eighteenth-Century New England, 130. ↩
23 William Warren Sweet, “The Rise of Theological Schools in America,” Church History 6, no. 3 (1937): 261, https://doi.org/10.2307/3160828; William Shewmaker confirms the dates of Joseph Bellamy’s training ministry in Bethlehem, CT, indicating that Bellamy received students throughout his long ministry beginning in 1742 and continuing until 1790. Shewmaker, “The Training of the Protestant Ministry in the United States of America, before the Establishment of Theological Seminaries,” 154. ↩
24 Samuel Simpson quotes William Sprague’s reflection on the importance Bellamy placed on his students exhibiting fervency in their ministerial work, especially preaching. Simpson, “Early Ministerial Training in America,”126. ↩
25 William B. Sprague, Annals of the American Pulpit, vol. 1 (New York: R. Carter and Brothers, 1859), 405–406. ↩
26 Simpson, “Early Ministerial Training in America,”128. ↩
27 Gambrell, Ministerial Training in Eighteenth-Century New England, 116, 123; Simpson, “Early Ministerial Training in America,”127–128. ↩
28 Emmons stated, “I had not the remotest thought of becoming an instructor of candidates for the ministry; but it so happened, that numbers successively put themselves under my instruction, and in the term of about fifty years, I have taught between eighty and ninety pupils.” Edwards Amasa Park and Nathanael Emmons, Memoir of Nathaniel Emmons: With Sketches of His Friends and Pupils (Boston: Congregational Board of Publication, 1861), 215–216; Simpson, “Early Ministerial Training in America,”128; Bainton and Keck, Yale and the Ministry, 50, 59; Gambrell, Ministerial Training in Eighteenth-Century New England, 105; Sweet, “The Rise of Theological Schools in America,” 261. ↩
29 Bainton and Keck, Yale and the Ministry, 60. ↩
30 Bainton and Keck, Yale and the Ministry, 59. ↩
31 Bainton and Keck highlight that Nathaniel Emmons was “in no way abstracted and negligent of his parish.” The authors explain that Emmons believed “the bereaved should be encouraged to come to the minister’s study because here they could talk more freely than among their own families.” Bainton and Keck, Yale and the Ministry, 59–60. ↩
32 Park and Emmons, Memoir of Nathaniel Emmons, 217. ↩
33 West, Church-Based Theological Education, 128. ↩
34 Park and Emmons, Memoir of Nathaniel Emmons, 218. ↩