Williams, Solomon, Dd

Williams, Solomon, D.D.

a Congregational minister, son of the Rev. William Williams, of Hatfield, Mass., was born June 4, 1700. He graduated at Harvard College in 1719, and was ordained pastor of the Church in Lebanon, Conn., Dec. 5, 1722. In 1746 he became involved in a controversy on the nature of justifying faith with the Rev. Andrew Croswell, and in 1751 in another with his cousin, the elder Jonathan Edwards, concerning the Christian sacraments. In the extensive revival of 1740 he showed himself a decided friend to Whitefield, whom he repeatedly welcomed to his pulpit. He died Feb. 29,1776. He published, Substance of Two Discourses on the Occasion of the Death by Drowning of Mr. John Woodward and of the Deliverance of Mr. Samuel Gray (1741): — A Vindication of the Gospel Doctrine of Justification by Faith. (1746), being an answer to the Rev. Andrew Croswell's book, "On Justifying Faith"— The True State of the, Question concerning the Qualifications Necessary to Lawful Communion in the Christian Sacraments (1751), being an answer to the Rev. Jonathan Edwards's "Humble Inquiry," etc., and several occasional Sermons. See Sprague, Annals of the Amer. Pulpit, 1, 321.