Thesis (Ph.D.)--Boston University / This dissertation presents a biography of Nathanael Emmons, 1745-1840, and evaluate his work as a Congregational minister and theologian. To achieve this goal the following sources were used: a published autobiography, manuscript and published sermons and letters, the records of the town of Franklin, Massachusetts where he served as a pastor for fifty-seven years, the records of the church in Franklin, and published memoirs of his life by the editors of his works, Jacob Ide (1842) and Edwards A. Park (1861). No major assessment of Emmons' life and work has appeared since Park's "Memoir." This "Memoir" was both panegyrical and incomplete. The passage of over a hundred years since its publication makes possible new perspectives of interpretation. This dissertation proposes to take advantage of them as well as to utilize data unknown or ignored by previous writers on Emmons [TRUNCATED]