CHAUNCY, CHARLES (1592-1672), president of Harvard college, was born at Yardley-Bury, England, in Nov. 1592, and at tended Trinity college, Cambridge. He was in turn vicar at Ware and at Marston St. Lawrence, but twice incurred censure from the authorities for nonconformity. His formal recantation in Feb. 1637 caused him lasting self-reproach. In this same year he emi grated to America, where he was an associate pastor at Plymouth, then pastor at Scituate (Mass.), and, from 1654 until his death, president of Harvard college. He died on Feb. 19, 1672. Accord ing to Mather, he was "a most incomparable scholar." His writ ings include : The Plain Doctrine of the Justification of a Sinner in the Sight of God (1659) and Antisynodalia Scripta Americana (1662).
His great-grandson, CHARLES CHAUNCY (1705-1787), a prom inent American theologian, was born in Boston (Mass.), on Jan. I, 1705, and graduated at Harvard in 1721. In 1727 he was chosen as the colleague of Thomas Foxcroft in the First Church of Boston, continuing as pastor until his death. He condemned the "Great Awakening" as an outbreak of emotional extravagance in his sermon Enthusiasm, and in his Seasonable Thoughts on the State of Religion in New England , written in answer to Jonathan Edwards' Some Thoughts Concerning the Present Re vival of Religion in New England (1742). Before and during the War of Independence he ardently supported the patriot party. He died in Boston on Feb. 1o, His publications include : Salvation of All Men, Illustrated and Vindicated as a Scripture Doctrine and Five Dissertations on the Fall and its Con sequences For Charles Chauncy see Cotton Mather's Magnalia Christi Ameri cana (1 702) and W. C. Fowler's Memorials of the Chauncys (1858) . For the younger Chauncy see P. L. Ford's privately printed Bibliotheca Chaunciana (1884), and Williston Walker's Ten New England Leaders (1901).