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This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact, and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore, you will see the original copyright references, library stamps (as most of these works have been housed in our most important libraries around the world), and other notations in the work. This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work.As a reproduction of a historical artifact, this work may contain missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.

Congregationalist ministers Charles Chauncy and Jonathan Mayhew were among the most influential social and religious thinkers in Boston in the mid-eighteenth century. This 1987 study argues that Chauncy and Mayhew produced a complex but coherent body of ideas and that these ideas were organized closely and self-consciously around the principle of 'balance'. Writings on society and government are treated alongside theological works, rather than separate from them, and each man's corpus is placed against the background of English ideas as well as within the context of intellectual and social life in Boston. Investigation of the ideas of Chauncy and Mayhew in this way leads to the conclusion that although the two men believed that a cosmic principle of 'balance' organized social and religious life, they believed as well that full philosophical comprehension of this principle was beyond human capability. In order to express their understanding of cosmic order, Chauncy and Mayhew appropriated the metaphor of the 'great chain of being'.