Griffin, Ed'ward Dorr, D.D., a Presbyterian minister, was born at East Haddam, Conn., Jan. 6, 1770, and graduated at Yale College in 1790 with distin- guished honor. After teacliing for a time at Derby, he studied theology under the guidance of Jonathan Edwards, and was licensed in 1792. He commenced his labors at New Salem, supplied at Farmington, and then was called to the Congregational Church at New Hartford, of whicli he was ordained pastor in 1795. In 1800 he visited New Jersey, and supplied in Orange for a short time, when he accepted a call from Newark, where he was installed pastor in 1801, as colleague to Dr. M'Whorter, whom he succeeded as pastor in 1807. In 1808 he received the degree of D.D. from Union College. In 1809 he was appointed to the Bartlett professorship in Andover, and in 1811 was installed in Park-street Church, Boston. In 1812-13 he delivered his celebrated Park-street lectures. On resigning his charge in Boston he returned to Newark, and was in- stalled in the Second Presljyterian Church in 1815. He interested himself warmly in the cause of the Africans, the American Bible and United Foreign Mission So- cieties. In 1821 he was appointed president of Wil- liams College, and filled that office most ably and ac- ceptably for fifteen years, resigning it in 1836, and re- tiring to Newark, N. J., where he died, Nov. 8, 1837. His ministry was marked by numerous revivals. Dr. Griffin was a man of large intellectual proportions. " The peculiar cast of his preaching and other religious instructions and appeals was formed, more perhaps than that of many other great minds, bj- his cherished habit of precise discrimination on the leading points of the prevalent theology. In his course of teaching in mental philosophy he drew the current distinctions with great accuracy and decision. His theological writings are distinguished by lucid and energetic state- ments of the main points belonging to the theological views of the time, and in such statements his ability
was not surpassed by any man of the age. His taste for those theological distinctions, his high sense of their value, and his facility and satisfaction in using them, gave liis most rhetorical pulpit discourses remarkable internal coherence and compactness, and enabled him to command tlie judgments of his hearers by the force of a very stringent logic. The great prominence and intense light in which he placed some leading points of religious truth constitute the striking feature of his theological discussions. This trait is conspicuous in his Park-street lectures, his work on the Atonement, and some smaller publications on particular points of Christian doctrine. On the whole, the position and influence of Dr. Griffin are widely attested by the pro- found and general respect for his memorj-, and by the evident fruits of his labors. His power of clear, pene- trating, and, at the same time, of lofty and comprehen- sive thought — his skill and force in argument, his rhe- torical genius and culture, his eloquence, his majestic person and manner, all pervaded and controlled bj^ his enlightened religious devotion, performed efficient ser- vice for the Church, and placed him among the great- er lights of his age" (J. W. Yeomans, cited by Sprague). He published The Extent of the Atonement (181d, Timo): — Divine Efficiency (1833, 12mo) : — Causal Power of Re- generation, etc. (1834), and numerous Sermons Ad- dresses, Oi-ations, and Lectures, from 1805 to 1833. — Sprague, Annals, iv, 26 ; Bihliotheca Sacra, Jan. 1858 ; Princeton Review, xi, 404 ; Ain. Bib. Rep. iii, 623 ; N. A. Rev. xxxiv, 119 ; Cooke, Recollections of E. D. Griffin (Boston, 1866, 8vo).
Griffith, Benjamin, a minister prominent among the early Baptists in America. He was born in County Cardigan, South Wales, in 1688, and came to this coun- try in 1710, settling in Montgomery township, Penn. He was baptized in 1711, called to the ministrj' in 1722, and ordained in 1725. He enjoyed a successful minis- trj', labored extensively, and churches still exist that were formed in the field of his itinerant laliors. He published — 1. A Treatise of Church Discipline : — 2. Vindication of the Doctrine of the Resurrection : — 3. An- swer to " The Divine Right of Infant Baptism,'' printed by B. Franklin, 1747. He also wrote An Essay on the Power and Duty of an Association, and left it in MS. It was published in 1832. He died in 1768. (L. E. S.)
Grimslia"W, William, a minister of the Church of England, was born in Lancashire, Eng., in 1708, ed- ucated at Cambridge, and entered into holy orders in 1731. After spending some j'ears as minister of Todmor- den, near Rochdale, he was appointed in 1742 to the per- petual curacy of Haworth, in Yorkshire. In 1745 he entered into a close union with the Methodists, acted as Mr. Wesley's assistant in what was known as the Haworth circuit, and until his death, which occurred in 1763, was the mainstay of the connection in tliat part of the countrj'. Mr. Grimshaw was the author of a Sermon in Defence of the Methodists, printed in 1749, and republished with his biography. " He was of a cheerful, generous turn of mind, very courteous, and open as the day in his conversation with the people wherever he went. He was a natural orator, spoke with great fluency, and preached the Gospel with great ability and approbation." W'esley said of him, " He carries fire wherever he goes." — Myles, Life of Grim- shaw; Crowther, Portraiture of Methodism ; Newton, Memoirs of Grimshaw (Lond. 1799, 12mo) ; Stevens, History of Methodism, i, 258 ; Wesley, Works, iv, 117 ; vi, 750.