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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 10 June 2011
Factual and theological riddles continue to cluster around Charles Chauncy (1705–1787), pastor of the First (“Old Brick”) Church in Boston and the one most deserving of the title “theologian of the American Revolution.” No one knows the exact place of his burial. It has not yet been determined whether he wrote several anonymous treatises attributed to him (including the anti-revivalistic tract A Wonderful Narrative), and in many recent publications and index files of major libraries he is still confused with his great-grandfather of the same name, the second president of Harvard University from 1654 to 1671–72.
1 An inscription on the back of the portrait, photographed before it was relined in 1930, reads, “Carolus Chauncaei Praes:…Harvardiana Cantabrigiae Massachusettensi Ab Anno Mdcliv Ad Anno Obi Mdclxxi Aetatis Lxxiii.” Less distinct is the line of characters below this inscription that appears to date the portrait, but, because of a missing character, could denote 1638, 1678, or 1728; see Burroughs, Alan, ed., Harvard Portraits: A Catalogue of Portrait Paintings at Harvard University (comp. Laura M. Huntsinger under the direction of Edward Waldo Forbes; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1936) 38–39CrossRefGoogle Scholar . Henry Wilder Foote noted that since this inscription is later than the portrait, it cannot be accepted as authoritative, but must be regarded as the record of a mistaken opinion; see his John Smibert, Painter, with a Descriptive Catalogue of Portraits, and Notes on the Work of Nathaniel Smibert (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1950) 265Google Scholar.
2 , Burroughs, Harvard Portraits, 38.Google Scholar
3 Chauncy, Charles, “Life of the Rev. President Chauncy, Written at the request of Dr. Stiles, May 23, 1768,” in Collections of the Massachusetts Historical Society (Boston: Munroe, Francis and Parker, 1809) 10. 178–79.Google Scholar
4 Hill, Hamilton Andrew, History of the Old South Church (2 vols.; Boston, 1890) 1. 327.Google Scholar
5 Chauncy, Charles, “Life of the Rev. President Chauncy,” 10. 178–79Google Scholar . See also Fowler, William Chauncy, Memorials of the Chaunceys (Boston: W. Dutton and Son, 1858) 28Google Scholar.
6 Peabody, Andrew Preston, Harvard Graduates Whom I Have Known (Boston: Houghton-Mifflin and Co., 1880) 251–52.Google Scholar
7 Ibid., 5.
8 , Fowler, Memorials of the Chaunceys, 18.Google Scholar
9 Ibid.
10 See Foote, Henry Wilder, John Smibert, Painter, 265Google Scholar , and , Burroughs, Harvard Portraits, 39Google Scholar , “The yellow and pink coloring in the robe and face is more characteristic of Nathaniel than of John Smibert, whose tones, as well as forms, were usually strong and full-bodied.”
11 The full title of this work is The Mystery hid from Ages and Generations, made manifest by the Gospel-Revelation: or, The Salvation of All Men The Grand Thing aimed at in the Scheme of God, As opened in the New-Testament Writings, and entrusted with Jesus Christ to bring into Effect. In Three Chapters. By One who wishes well to the whole Human Race (London: Printed for Charles Dilly, 1784)Google Scholar.
12 Collections of the Massachusetts Historical Society, 10. 163. The 1752 date is arrived at by comparing the statement given in this letter to Stiles on the “seven year” period of intensive Bible study with the date given in a letter to Nathaniel Chauncy dated 14 April 1754, in which he says: “I have made the Scriptures my sole study for about two years; and I think I have attained to a clearer understanding of them than I ever had before.” See , Fowler, Memorials of the Chaunceys, 70Google Scholar.
13 Kenosis means, literally, an “emptying” (see Phil 2:6). , Chauncy (The Mystery, 123–24)Google Scholar used it in the inclusive sense of the eternal Logos humbling himself by taking on human form and dying upon the cross. In this interpretation, only the “communicable attributes” of the divine agape were exercised by him in his ministry and communicated by him to humans.
14 Ibid., 173.
15 Ibid., 124.
16 Ibid., 175 n. 54.
17 Ibid., 189–90 . , Compare “His regal trust,” 190Google Scholar ; “the Headship of Christ over all things,” 145; “crowned with glory and honour,” 177; “the final subjection of all things to Christ,” 178; “His universal dominion,” 185.
18 See Ezra Stiles: “In his doctrine of the person of Christ he approached the view of the Unitarians of the next generation” (Dexter, Franklin B., ed., The Literary Diary of Ezra Stiles [New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1901] 3. 255)Google Scholar ; “Dr. Chauncy and Dr. Price & Bp Newton, were certainly no Deists, altho' they disbelieved the Athanasian Div. of J. C.” (Diary, 3. 326); “Dr. Chauncy is considered as an Arian as to the Deity of X, & a Socinian as to the Atonement” (ibid.). See also Nathaniel Langdon Frothingham: “As to the doctrine of the Trinity, though the subject had not risen into controversy in his day. I have always supposed that he was non-Nicene on that point.…He was always classed prominently among those who were called ‘liberal’” (quoted by Ellis, Arthur B., History of the First Church in Boston [Boston: Hall and Whiting, 1881] 193)Google Scholar . Compare Wright, C. Conrad, The Beginnings of Unitarianism in America (Boston: Beacon, 1955) 209Google Scholar ; and Smith, H. Shelton, Handy, Robert T., and Loetscher, Leffarts A., American Christianity (2 vols.; New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1960) 1. 382Google Scholar.
19 Walker, Williston, Ten New England Leaders (New York: Silver, Burdett and Co., 1901) 308.Google Scholar
20 A fuller study on the nature and implications of Chauncy's christology is now being written by the authors of the present article. This larger study attempts to demonstrate that his kenotic christology, far from being “a minor twist in his thinking,” is the controlling element of his theology. Chauncy is here found to be thoroughly biblical and orthodox with regard to his doctrines of christology and the Trinity, as well as how he expresses the plight of human beings fallen so deeply into sin that only God through the free bestowal of his grace can and does bring about their redemption. In light of these findings, the widespread interpretation of him as anticipating later Unitarianism is challenged, with the closing suggestion that the phrase “liberal evangelical” better describes Chauncy and his theology than does the term “proto-Unitarian.”
