Charles Chauncy, who was minister of Boston's First Church for sixty years, has, until recently, stood in the shadow of his greatest antagonist, Jonathan Edwards, the revivalist, philosopher, and president of Princeton. It was Chauncy's unfortunate fate to have been pitted against such a man as Edwards, for otherwise he might have been known solely as a man of learning and influence, a defender of the New England Congregational way, and as a creditable proponent of the enlightened world of the American Revolution and the beginnings of Unitarianism. Instead, because he was Edwards's rival during the Great Awakening (circa 1740-1744) and because he was perhaps incapable of understanding and unwilling to accept Edwards's position, he has been chiefly portrayed by historians as an intellectual inferior, a stubborn, conservative, overcautious opponent of anything that resembled a "passionate" or "affectionate" response to religious matters.

Although he could count among his...