Joseph Bellamy

Joseph Bellamy (1719–1790) was an American Congregationalist minister and theologian who played a pivotal role in the development of New England theology during the Great Awakening and its aftermath. A student of Jonathan Edwards, Bellamy synthesized Calvinist orthodoxy with the revivalist impulses of the mid-eighteenth century, producing influential works such as *The Election Sermon* that shaped American Protestant thought on divine sovereignty and human agency. His theological innovations, particularly his doctrine of "moral government" and his defense of the revivals, established him as a leading intellectual figure in the transition from Puritan to evangelical theology in early America.