1. Basic biographical and genealogical information on Devotion is provided by Dexter, Franklin Bowditch, Biographical Sketches of the Graduates of Yale College, 6 vols. (New York: Henry Holt, 1885–1912), 1: 451–453Google Scholar; and Griggs, Susan Vining, The Devotion Family of Brookline (Brookline, Massachusetts: Brookline Historical Society, 1898).Google Scholar A portrait of Devotion is found in the “Special 1776 Issue” of Time, 4 July 1776.

2. Thornton, John Wingate, ed., The Pulpit of the American Revolution (Boston: Gould & Lincoln, 1860, p. xxxviii,Google Scholar provides a typical generalization: “To the Pulnit, the PURITAN PULPIT, we owe the moral force which won our Independence.” The filiopietism ran riot during the centennial celebration, as in Breed's, W. P. Presbuterians and the Revolution (Philadelphia: Presbyterian Board of Publication. 1876),Google Scholar which implied that there would have been no Washington without Witherspoon. Alice Baldwin's, M. still very helpful New England Clergy and the American Revolution (Durham: Duke University Press, 1928),Google Scholar suffers from a failure to distinguish even New Light from Old Light responses. And such genuinely valuable studies as Mead, Sidney E., “American Protestantism during the Revolutionary Epoch,” in The Lively Experiment (New York: Harper & Row, 1963),Google Scholar and McLoughlin, William C., “The Role of Religion in the Revolution: Liberty of Conscience and Cultural Cohesion in the New Nation.” in Essays on the American Revolution, ed. Kurtz, Stephen G. and Hutson, James H. (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1973),Google Scholar focus so intently on the significance of religious patterns in the 1760s and 1770s for the early national period that the contours of religious development at the time of the Revolution itself are blurred. These and other issues concerning the history of Christians in the Revolution are discussed in Noll, Mark A., “The Church and the American Revolution: Historiographical Pitfalls, Problems, and Progress,” Fides et Historia 8 (Fall 1975): 2–19.Google Scholar

3. Heimert, Alan, Religion and the American Mind from the Great Awakening to the Revolution (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1966).Google Scholar Compare the basically favorable review by McLonghlin, William C., “The American Revolution as a Religious Revival: ‘The Millennium in One Century,’” New England Quarterly 40 (03 1967): 99–110Google Scholar; and the negative comments by Mead, Sidney E., “Through and Beyond the Lines,” Journal of Religion 48 (07 1968): 274–288.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

4. Heimert, , Religion and the American Mind, p. vii.Google Scholar

5. Bailyn, Bernard, “Religion and Revolution: Three Biographical Studies,” Perspectives in Amerian History 4 (1970): 83–169Google Scholar; The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1967).Google Scholar

6. Bailyn, , “Religion and Revolution,” p. 85.Google Scholar

7. Learned, Robert C., “Congregational Churches and Ministers in Windham County, Ct.,” The Congregational Quarterly 30 (04 1884): 154.Google Scholar

8. Willingham, William Floyd, “Wiudham Connecticut: Profile of a Revolutionary Community, 1755–1818” (Ph.D. diss.: Northwestern University, 1972), p. 20.Google Scholar

9. On Windham County's general reception of the New Light and its more liberal politics, see Bushman, Richard L., From Puritan to Yankee: Character and the Social Order in Connecticut, 1690–1765 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1967),Google Scholar passim; Zeichner, Oscar, Connecticut's Years of Controversy, 1750–1776 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1949), p. 27Google Scholar and passim; and Willingham, , “Windbam Connecticut,” pp. i–iiGoogle Scholar and passim.

10. See below, pp. 296–298.

11. The Windham County Association, in which Devotion was active throughout his life, had given a grudging approval to the Separates in 1742, but soon thereafter it expressed itself strongly in opposition to Separate and Baptist practices; “Windham Association Book. Vol. I [1728–1813]” (MS copy, Congregational House, Hartford, Connecticut), pp. 107–108, 119–120, 124, 132, 134.

12. The material in this paragrah is from “Scotland, Connecticut. Congregational Church: Records 1732–1915,” 4 vols. (MS copy, Connecticut State Library, Hartford, Conneeticut), 2: 43–46.

13. “Scotland, Connecticut. Brunswick Separate Church: Records 1746–1846” (MS copy, Connecticut State Library, Hartford, Connecticut), pp. 1–2.

14. An Answer of the Pastor & Brethren of the Third Church in Windham, to Twelve Articles, Exhibited by several of its Separating Members, as Reasons of their Separation: shewing, That said Members have Unhappily Mistook the Occasions of their separation (New London, Connecticut: T. Green, 1747), p. 14.Google Scholar

15. Ibid., pp. 9–10.

16. Compare Edwards, Jonathan, Religious Affections, ed. Smith, John C. (1746; New Haven: Yale University Press, 1959).Google Scholar

17. Compare Jonathan Edwards, Misrepresentations Corrected, and Truth Vindicated, in A Reply to the Rev. Mr. Solomon William's Book, intitled The True State of the Question, in The Works of President Edwards, 8 vols. (1817; New York: Burt Franklin 1968) 8: 215Google Scholar: “There are two competitors for the kingdom of this world, Christ and Satan; the design of a public profession of religion is, to declare on what side men are.”

18. Answer, pp., 2, 4.

19. Ibid., p.l.

20. Ibid., p. 8.

21. Lamed, Ellen D., History of Windham County, Connecticut, 2 vols. (Worcester, Massachusetts: Charles Hamilton, by the author, 1874), 2: 54.Google Scholar

22. Nonseparating New Lights of the Edwardsean stripe were also theoretically indisposed toward separatism. But when it came to a pinch between Separates who preached the New Light and the Old Lights of the established churches, New Lights were likely to side with the Separates, as Joseph Bellamy, for example, did in the controversy involving a separation from the Rev. Joseph Noyes' First Church in New Haven. See Anderson, Glenn Paul, “Joseph Bellamy: The Man and his Work” (Ph.D. diss.: Boston University, 1971), pp. 516–528.Google Scholar

23. The Mutual Obligation upon Ministers, and People, to Hear, and Speak the Word of God [an ordination sermon] (New London: T. Green, 1750), pp. 8–10Google Scholar; compare also The Work of the Gospel MINISTRY a great WORK [an ordination sermon] (New London: T. Green, 1753), p. 25Google Scholar; and Fortitude Love and a Sound Judgment, very needful Qualsfications for the Christian Minister [an ordination sermon] (New Haven: James Parker, 1762), p. 14.Google Scholar

24. Mutual Obligation, pp. 4–5.

25. Fortitude, p. 20.

26. Mutual Obligation, p. 19; Gospel Ministry, p. 18; and A Mourning Piece [a funeral sermon] (Boston: J. Draper, 1755), p. 13.Google Scholar

27. Fortitude, pp. 7, 10, 11. It is worth noting that in terms of Heimert's analysis of the Old Light response to the revolutionary crisis, Devotion's “fortitude” had both led revolutions against oppressive outsiders (“shook off the Chains of Slavery”) and stifled revolutions by upstart insiders (“dissipated a Spirit of Rebellion”).

28. The civil Ruler, a dignify'd Servant of the LORD, but a dying Man (New London: Timothy- Green, 1753), pp. 34, 52.Google Scholar

29. Compare Bellamy, Joseph, Election-Sermon (New London: Timothy Green, 1762), pp. 24, 31:Google Scholar rulers are “to do all in their Power to promote a universal Reformation,” but the mere suppression of vice will be of no avail except the people “repent and return to God thro' Jesus Christ, and become Christians indeed.”

30. The Civil Ruler, pp. 35, 30, 33.

31. Ibid., p. 50.

32. Ibid., p. 51.

33. Bushman, , From Puritan to Yankee, p. 270.Google Scholar

34. “Windham Association Book,” pp. 136–137.

35. Ibid., p. 147.

36. Compare Lovejoy, David S., “Samuel Hopkins: Religion, Slavery, and the Revolution,” New England Quarterly 40 (06 1967): 272–243.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

37. “Estate of Devotion, Ebenezer; Town of Windham; Date 1771; No. 1107,” Probate Records, Connecticut State Library, Hartford, Connecticut.

38. Compare Anderson, , “Joseph Bellamy,” pp. 167–169, 300–302.Google Scholar

39. Compare Hatch, Nathan O., “The Origins of Civil Millennialism in America: New England Clergymen, War with France, and the Revolution,” William and Mary Quarterly, 3d. ser. 31 (07 1974): 407–430.CrossRefGoogle Scholar Hatch has made a signal contribution by showing that religious patriotism was very active as early as the French and Indian Wars and that political and religious categories had intermingled well before the time when England replaced France as the gravest external threat to liberty.

40. Perrin, L., ed., The Records of the General Association of Ye Colony of Connecticut (Hartford: Case, Lockwood & Brainard, 1888), pp. 26, 46–47.Google Scholar

41. “Windham Association Book,” p. 148.

42. Ibid., p. 158.

43. Perrin, , General Association Records, p. 39.Google Scholar

44. The story of the Stamp Act is told with clarity and depth by Edmund, S. and Morgan, Helen M., The Stamp Act Crisis: Prologue to Revolution (Chapel Hill: University North Carolina Press, 1953).Google Scholar Zeichner, , Connecticut's Years of Controversy, chap. 3,Google Scholar “The Stamp Act and the Election of 1766,” describes well Connecticut's involvement in crisis.

45. Compare Reichenbach, Karl H., “The Connecticut Clergy and the Stamp Act,” University of Michigan Historical Essays, ed. Boak, A. E. R. (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1937), pp. 141–158Google Scholar; and Bailyn, , “Religion and Revolution,” pp. 125–138.Google Scholar

46. Connecticut Courant, 16 September 1765, microfilm copy, Connecticut State Library, Hartford, Connecticut.

47. Ibid.

48. Stiles, Ezra, The Literary Diary of Ezra Stiles, ed. Dexter, Franklin Bowditch, 3 vols. (New York: Charles Scribners Sons, 1901), 1: 133, 54–55.Google Scholar

49. Morgan, and Morgan, , Stamp Act Crisis, p. 234.Google Scholar

50. Larned, , Windham County, 2: 54.Google Scholar

51. Zeichner, , Connecticut's Years of Controversy, p. 79.Google Scholar

52. The only mention of Devotion in the official record is in the list of delegates; The Public Records of the Colony of Connecticut, Volume XII: May, 1762, to October, 1767 (Hartford: Case, Lockwood & Brainard, 1881), p. 412.Google Scholar

53. Knox, , The Claim of the Colonies to an exemption from Internal Taxes imposed by Authority of Parliament, examined; in a Letter from a Gentleman in London, to his friend in America (London: W. Johnston, 1765)Google Scholar; Devotion, The Examiner Examined [,] A Letter From a Gentleman in Connecticut to his Friend in London. In Answer to a Letter from a Gentleman in London to his Friend in America (New London: Timothy Green, 1766).Google Scholar

54. The thesis is on Examiner Examined, p. 3; references to slavery and so forth are on pp. 3, 4, 9, 17.

55. Ibid., pp. 7, 15–16.

56. Ibid., pp. 7, 9, 13, 14.

57. Heimert, , Religion and the American Mind, p. 241.Google Scholar

58. “Windham Association Book,” p. 182.

59. Compare Bridenbaugh, Carl, Mitre and Sceptre: Transatlantic Faiths, Ideas, Personalities, and Politics 1689–1775 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1962), pp. 274–277,Google Scholar for the political importance of these consultations.

60. Perrin, , General Association Records, p. 66.Google Scholar

61. Bellamy, , The Half-Way Covenant, a Dialogue (New Haven: Thomas and Samuel Green, 1769)Google Scholar; The Inconsistence of Renouncing the Half-Way Covenant, and yet Retaining the Half-Way Practice (New Haven: Thomas and Samuel Green, 1769)Google Scholar; An Answer (New Haven: T. & S. Green, 1769)Google Scholar; That there is but one Covenant (New Haven: T. & S. Green, 1769)Google Scholar; The Sacramental Controversy Brought to a Point (New Haven: T. & S. Green, 1770)Google Scholar; and A Careful and Strict Examination of the External Covenant (New Haven: Thomas and Samuel Green, 1770).Google Scholar

62. The Half-Way Covenant (New London: Timothy Green, 1769), pp. 7–9Google Scholar; To the Reverend Joseph Bellamy, D.D. Concerning qualifications for Christian communion (New Haven: T. & S. Green, 1770), pp. 8, 21Google Scholar; Second Letter, to the Reverend Joseph Bellamy (New Haven: Thomas and Samuel Green, 1770), p. 17.Google Scholar For fuller discussion of this controversy and its bearing on the nature of clerical patriotism during the Revolution see Noll, Mark Allan, “Church Membership and the American Revolution: An Aspect of Religion and Society in New England from the Revolution to the War for Independence” (Ph.D. diss.: Vanderbilt University, 1975).Google Scholar