Ezra Stiles
Ezra Stiles was an influential early American Congregationalist minister and the president of Yale University, recognized for his scholarly contributions and deep religious faith. Born in 1727 in New Haven, Connecticut, he graduated from Yale in 1746 and later became the pastor of the Second Congregationalist Church in Newport, a position he held for thirty years. Stiles is notable for writing the charter that established what would become Brown University and for his extensive private papers, which provide insight into New England culture and the events surrounding the Revolutionary War.
Stiles's 1760 sermon, "A Discourse on the Christian Union," called for unity among New England Congregationalists during a period of division, advocating against Anglican dominance and resonating with his audience's desire for harmony. Though he initially resisted the fervor of the patriot cause, his views shifted significantly during the Stamp Act controversy, leading him to become a strong proponent of revolutionary ideals. Despite his conservative values and some outdated beliefs, such as his views on slavery and population dynamics, Stiles played a pivotal role in shaping early American thought and education by introducing scientific disciplines to Yale's curriculum. He passed away in May 1795, leaving behind a legacy as both a religious leader and a scholar.
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Subject Terms
Ezra Stiles
Scholar
- Born: November 29, 1727
- Birthplace: New Haven, Connecticut
- Died: May 12, 1795
Biography
Early American Congregationalist minister and president of Yale University Ezra Stiles was extremely well-respected during his lifetime as a scholar and a man of sincere and devout religious conviction. He wrote the charter establishing the institution that would become Brown University and was librarian of the Redwood Library in Newport, Rhode Island. Stiles’s private papers are extensive and detailed, providing a historically valuable record of New England culture and of events leading up to and during the Revolutionary War. However, despite their voluminous quantity and historical interest, they reveal the limitations of Stiles’s intellect: He had a vast capacity to retain information, but lacked originality.
Born in 1727 in New Haven, Connecticut, Stiles attended Yale in the mid-1740’s, at the same time as Benjamin Franklin. Stiles knew Franklin well and was involved with the electrical experiments Franklin was conducting at the time. He graduated in 1746, joined the Connecticut bar in 1753, and became the Redwood librarian in 1756. He married Elizabeth Hubbard in 1757, the same year he was appointed pastor of the Second Congregationalist Church in Newport. He would hold that position for thirty years, before becoming the president of Yale in 1778. Elizabeth died in 1775, and he remarried in 1782, to the young widow of a Rhode Island friend.
Stiles’s 1760 sermon, A Discourse on the Christian Union, which addresses the rift in Congregationalism caused by the Great Awakening and calls upon New Englanders to abandon differences and unify against the threat of Anglican religious domination, is considered his most finely wrought piece of writing. Published in 1761, the sermon was influential in winning Stiles the Yale presidency. Stiles’s fiery rhetoric appealed to other Old Light Congregationalists, but his outreach to the other side was timely and moderate, finding purchase in a population tired of intradenominational strife. Although there is virtually nothing theologically innovative in the sermon, it spoke perfectly to the psychological temperament of its audience, evoking images of a large future Congregationalist population, united in a nation beloved by God.
Like his opposition to the enthusiastic religious temperament of the Great Awakening, Stiles was opposed to the enthusiasm of the patriot cause toward the beginning of the war, as both disturbed order and threatened his contemplative way of life. However, the Stamp Act controversy changed his mind. His significant knowledge, combined with his prominence and public presence, made him a powerful spokesperson for the revolutionary and federalist ideals of freedom.
His ideas of freedom were markedly conservative, nonetheless. Stiles is often noted for his empirical objectivity, and one of the more interesting contributions from the early 1760’s is his accurate assessment of the white population growth of the new republic. In contrast, Stiles predicted—in the face of all evidence—that the Native American and black populations would decrease, eventually coming near to disappearing. He was slow to recognize slavery as an evil, although he did predict that it would disappear along with the slave population. He was likewise slow to embrace the value of manufacturing, although he was significant in introducing the sciences to Yale’s curriculum and would be admitted to the new American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
The 1760 sermon is also noteworthy for establishing themes that would characterize the remainder of Stiles’s ministerial career: America’s favor by God, the prominence she would attain as a result of that favor, and the value of Biblical authority to resolve religious disputes. Although Stiles valued freedom and wrote about it in ways that motivated his fellow colonial New Englanders to patriotism, his values were grounded in these highly conservative understandings of authority, godliness, and order. He died of a fever in May, 1795.