Thomas Prince (1687-1758), the senior minister of Old South Church in Boston from 1718 until his death in 1758, was a leading American proponent of the new natural sciences and the British Enlightenment. Yet he was a theological conservative who…
In New England, even in the age of newspapers, which began modestly in 1704 with the launch of the Boston News-Letter, the sermon remained a vital public communication medium for the discussion of news. Though most sermons, especially Sunday sermons,…
The New England Weekly Journal was founded in 1727 as a literary paper, along the lines of the Spectator in London and New England Courant in Boston, the newspaper that launched the career of Benjamin Franklin. But the Weekly Journal was more aligned…
John Burt (1716-75) was born in Boston and graduated from Harvard College in 1736. At the time he kept his diary, he was reading theology with a local minister in Boston. He later accepted a call to the pulpit in Bristol, Rhode Island, and spent his…
From 1716 until his death in 1743, William Cooper (1694-1743) was Benjamin Colman’s colleague in ministry at Boston’s Brattle Street Church. Like Colman and like Thomas Prince at Old South Church, Cooper frequently preached on current…
Thomas Prince (1687-1758), born in Sandwich, Massachusetts, was a leading public figure in Boston as senior minister of Old South Church from 1718 until his death. During that forty-year career, Prince was an avid news consumer as well as an…