Henry Boynton Smith (November 21, 1815 - February 7, 1877), United States theologian, was born in

Portland, Maine Portland is the largest city in the U.S. state of Maine and the seat of Cumberland County. Portland's population was 68,408 in April 2020. The Greater Portland metropolitan area is home to over half a million people, the 104th-largest metropo ...

. He is best known for introducing many Americans to avant-garde German historical scholarship, especially in his ''History of the Church of Christ, in Chronological Tables: A Synchronistic View of the Events, Characteristics, and Culture of Each Period, including the History of Polity, Worship, Literature, and Doctrines: Together with Two Supplementary Tables upon the Church in America; And an Appendix Containing the Series of Councils, Popes, Patriarchs, and Other Bishops, and a Full Index'' (1860). He graduated at Bowdoin College in 1834; studied theology at

Andover Andover may refer to: Places Australia *Andover, Tasmania Canada * Andover Parish, New Brunswick * Perth-Andover, New Brunswick United Kingdom * Andover, Hampshire, England ** RAF Andover, a former Royal Air Force station United States * Andove ...

, where his health failed, at Bangor, and, after a year (1836-1837) as librarian and tutor in Greek at Bowdoin, in Germany at Halle, where he became personally intimate with

August Tholuck Friedrich August Gottreu Tholuck (30 March 1799 – 10 June 1877), known as August Tholuck, was a German Protestant theologian, pastor, and historian, and church leader. Biography Tholuck was born at Breslau, and educated at the gymnasium and ...

and Hermann Ulrici, and in Berlin, under

August Neander Johann August Wilhelm Neander (17 January 178914 July 1850) was a German theologian and church historian. Biography Neander was born at Göttingen as David Mendel. His father, Emmanuel Mendel, is said to have been a Jewish peddler, but August ...

and

Ernst Wilhelm Hengstenberg Ernst Wilhelm Theodor Herrmann Hengstenberg (20 October 1802, in Fröndenberg28 May 1869, in Berlin), was a German Lutheran churchman and neo-Lutheran theologian from an old and important Dortmund family. He was born at Fröndenberg, a Westpha ...

. He returned to America in 1840, was a tutor for a few months (1840-1841) at Bowdoin, and in 1842, shut out from any better place by distrust of his German training and by his frank opposition to

Unitarianism Unitarianism (from Latin ''unitas'' "unity, oneness", from ''unus'' "one") is a nontrinitarian branch of Christian theology. Most other branches of Christianity and the major Churches accept the doctrine of the Trinity which states that there i ...

, he became pastor of the Congregational Church of West Amesbury (now Merrimac), Massachusetts. In 1847-1850 he was professor of

moral philosophy Ethics or moral philosophy is a branch of philosophy that "involves systematizing, defending, and recommending concepts of right and wrong behavior".''Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy'' The field of ethics, along with aesthetics, concerns ...

and metaphysics at Amherst; and in 1850-1854 was Washburn professor of Church history, and in 1854-1874 Roosevelt professor of systematic theology, at Union Theological Seminary, were he also served as the head librarian for the

Burke Library Burke Library of the Union Theological Seminary is located at 3041 Broadway, in the Morningside Heights neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City. Founded in 1838, since 2004 it has been a part of the Columbia University Libraries. Holding over 700 ...

. His health failed in 1874 and he died in New York City on February 7, 1877. His son

Henry Goodwin Smith Henry Goodwin Smith (January 8, 1860 in New YorkSmith, Henry Goodwin
in ''

was also a theologian. Rejecting the Old School version of New England Theology, Smith was one of the foremost leaders of the new school Presbyterians and promoted principles of the so-called "mediating theology"
Vermittlungstheologie
. His theology is most strikingly contained in the Andover address, "Relations of Faith and Philosophy," which was delivered before the Porter Rhetorical Society in 1849. He always made it clear that the ideal philosophy was Christocentric: he said that Reformed theology must "'Christologize'

predestination Predestination, in theology, is the doctrine that all events have been willed by God, usually with reference to the eventual fate of the individual soul. Explanations of predestination often seek to address the paradox of free will, whereby G ...

and decrees, regeneration and sanctification, the doctrine of the Church, and the whole of the

Eschatology Eschatology (; ) concerns expectations of the end of the present age, human history, or of the world itself. The end of the world or end times is predicted by several world religions (both Abrahamic and non-Abrahamic), which teach that nega ...

." For his theology, Smith used the Incarnation as "the structural principle of his theology." In this approach, he followed the mediating theologians.

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