Lemuel Briant's _The Absurdity and Blasphemy of Depreciating Moral Virtue_, 1749. This was replied to in Massachusetts, by Rev. John Porter of North Bridgewater in _The Absurdity and Blasphemy of Substituting the Personal Righteousness of Men_, etc.; also by a sermon of Rev. Thomas Foxcroft, Dr. Charles Chauncy's colleague; and by Rev. Samuel Niles's _Vindication of Divers Important Gospel Doctrines_. Jonathan Mayhew, son of Experience, wrote his _Sermons_ (pronouncedly Arian) in 1755, and in 1761 two sermons, _Striving to Enter at the Strait Gate_. Other ministers were affected by these unorthodox views, notably Ebenezer Gay, Daniel Shute, and John Rogers. This religious development was cut short by the early death of the leaders and by the Revolutionary contest. Briant died in 1754, Jonathan Mayhew in 1766, and his father in 1758.--See W. Walker, _Hist. of the Congregational Churches in the United States_, chap. viii. [m] Hopkins replied in 1765 to Jonathan Mayhew's sermons of 1761. Mayhew died before he could answer, but Moses Hemenway of Wells, Maine, and also Jedediah Mills of Huntington, Conn, (a New Light sympathizer), answered Hopkins's extreme views in 1767 in _An Inquiry concerning the State of the Unregenerate under the Gospel_. This involved Hopkins in further argumentation in 1769, and drew into the discussion William Hart (Old Light) of Saybrook, and also Moses Mather of Darien, Conn, (also Old Light). This attack upon Hopkins resulted in 1773 in his greatest work, _An Inquiry into the Nature of True Holiness_. The whole question at stake between the Old Calvinists and the followers of the New Divinity was how to class men, morally upright, who made no pretensions to religious experience. [n] West, in his _Essay on Moral Agency_, defended Edwards's _Freedom of the Will_ against the Rev. James Dana of New Haven in 1772, but his _Scripture Doctrine of Atonement_, published in 1785, was his best-known work. In his doctrinal views, he was greatly influenced by Hopkins. Both West and Smalley trained students for the ministry. The latter was the teacher of Nathaniel Emmons. Smalley was settled in what is now New Britain, Conn., from 1757-1820. [o] Emmons died there, in 1840, at the age of ninety-five. Apart from his influence upon the development of doctrine, he did more than any other man to bring back the early independence of the churches and to create the Congregational polity of the present day. [p] To fortify their position, this party cited various acts of Parliament and the Act of Union, 1707, wherein Scotland is distinctly released from subjection to the Church of England,--an exemption, they maintained, that had never formally been extended to the colonies. [q] On January 30, 1750, Jonathan Mayhew preached a forceful sermon upon the danger of being "unmercifully priest-ridden."