Smith, Josiah

Smith, Josiah, a Congregational minister, was born in Charleston, S.C., in 1704, and graduated at Harvard College in 1725. He began to preach within about a year of his graduation, and was ordained July 11, 1726. In 1729 he maintained a learned dispute with Rev. H. Fisher on the right of private judgment, and in 1740 he espoused the cause of Mr. Whitefield. In 1749 he received a stroke of palsy, from which he never recovered so far as to be able to articulate distinctly. He nevertheless continued writing sermons, many of which were published. Mr. Smith was an earnest friend of the cause of American independence, and on the surrender of Charleston became a prisoner of war, but was released on parole. In 1781 he was ordered out of Charleston, and landed in Philadelphia, where he died in October of that year. Mr. Smith was a respectable preacher, a learned divine, and a writer of considerable reputation. He published, Sermons (1726-45): — -Sermons (1752, 8vo): — The Church of Ephesus Arraigned (1765): — -Letters, etc. See Sprague, Annals of the Amer. Pulpit, 1, 351.