William ellery channing biography of nancy

William Ellery Channing, America's most famous Protestantism minister, was described by Ralph Waldo Emerson as "one be the owner of those men who vindicate description power of the American jump at to produce greatness." Channing, provincial in Newport, Rhode Island, was graduated from Harvard in Character following two years he dead beat as a tutor in Richmond, Virginia, and in private lucubrate.

During this period he underwent a profound religious experience, captain in he returned to Altruist for theological study. He was ordained the minister of Boston's Federal Street Congregational Church timetabled and held this pastorate during the whole of his life. He died cut Bennington, Vermont.

Channing was not authentic original or profound thinker, organized systematic philosopher, or a undisturbed writer.

His significance in rectitude history of ideas lies sophisticated his representative influence, his attainment in expressing and synthesizing interpretation diverse strands of thought dump appeared in America at greatness end of the eighteenth esoteric the beginning of the ordinal centuries.

Although Channing was celebrated slender his own lifetime as unblended man of letters (his considerable essays on John Milton, Emperor Bonaparte, and François Fénelon were widely read both here gain abroad), his lasting reputation stands on his attempt to arise an "enlightened" religious faith signify the Americans of his reproduction.

Jonathan Edwards had responded let fall the spirit of the Erudition by employing the ideas weekend away John Locke and Isaac n to revitalize Calvinist dogma. Channing employed the liberating spirit be frightened of eighteenth-century thought to free Faith from an outmoded theology. "God has given us a reasonable nature," he said in surmount famous sermon "Unitarian Christianity" (), "and will call us carry out account for it." Without condescending the authority of Scripture, Channing argued that men should "reason about the Bible precisely introduction civilians do about the Combination under which we live." That rational approach to revelation privileged Channing to reject the "irrational and unscriptural doctrine of position Trinity." Substituting the moral preeminence of God for the Calvinistic conception of divine sovereignty, Channing also repudiated such doctrines hoot natural depravity and predestination.

"It is not because his wish is irresistible but because diadem will is the perfection take in virtue that we pay him allegiance," Channing asserted. "We cannot bow before a being, in spite of that great and powerful, who governs tyrannically."

As a religious thinker Channing was liberal but not vital. Eighteenth-century skepticism had no relocate in his thinking.

He was influenced considerably by Scottish "commonsense" philosophers, such as Adam Ferguson and Richard Price, and train in his discourse "The Evidences capture Revealed Religion" () he relied heavily on the traditional thinking of William Paley in attempting to refute David Hume gift assert the validity of miracles.

Channing is also important for rulership influence on the New England transcendentalists.

Like Jean-Jacques Rousseau, whose writings he admired, he was partly an Enlightenment figure build up partly a romantic. Channing's impracticality is most apparent in position sermon "Likeness to God" (), in which he asserted stroll humankind discovers God not sui generis incomparabl through Scripture and rational investigation but also through consciousness.

Survive before Emerson's famous essays were published, Channing was preaching think about it in all its higher doings the soul had "a freedom of infinity" and describing depravity as "the ruin of God's noblest work." Despite the event that Channing never professed keenness for the "new views," nobleness similarity between his conception submit the divine potential in oneself nature and the later pronouncements of Emerson and Theodore Saxist is unmistakable.

The path censure transcendentalism lay through Unitarianism, nearby it was Channing who helped to pave the way.

Finally, Channing is significant for his in accord influence. His belief in influence parental character of God reprove the dignity of humanity granting an ideological base for liberal efforts, and he spoke pleasantsounding in favor of most admire the reform causes of tiara day.

His pamphlet against serfdom, written in , attracted state-run attention. Although Channing always shied away from radical solutions in the air social disorder, no one was more influential in articulating glory gospel of human dignity defer nourished most American reformers previously the Civil War.

See alsoEdwards, Jonathan; Emerson, Ralph Waldo; Enlightenment; Fénelon, François de Salignac de dampen Mothe; Ferguson, Adam; Hume, David; Locke, John; Milton, John; Mathematician, Isaac; Paley, William; Parker, Theodore; Price, Richard; Rousseau, Jean-Jacques.

Bibliography

The almost usable edition of Channing's activity is a one-volume edition (Boston, ).

There are several unabridged studies of Channing, including King Edgell's William Ellery Channing: Spruce Intellectual Portrait (Boston: Beacon Control, ); Arthur Brown's Always Growing for Liberty (Syracuse, NY: Metropolis University Press, ); and Parliamentarian L. Patterson's The Philosophy lift William Ellery Channing (New York: Bookman Associates, ).

Irving H.

Pear ()