Tennent, Gilbert
Milton J Coalter (Author)
Tennent, Gilbert (05 February 1703-23 July 1764), Presbyterian clergyman, was born in Vinnecash, Ireland, the son of William Tennent, a clergyman, and Katherine Kennedy. Gilbert Tennent began to struggle over the state of his soul in 1717, one year before his father renounced his ordination in the Church of Ireland and emigrated to Philadelphia with his family to rejoin the Presbyterianism of his youth. While pastoring churches in Eastchester (1718-1720) and Bedford (1720-1726), New York, William Tennent served as his son’s spiritual director and private tutor. Gilbert experienced conversion in 1723 and two years later acquired an M.A. from Yale College without any prior formal education, the degree being primarily an acknowledgment of the high level of education he had received under his father’s tutelage. The Philadelphia Presbytery licensed Gilbert Tennent in May 1725. A year later he was ordained in New Brunswick, New Jersey, where he remained pastor from 1726 to 1743...
Encyclopedia Article, 1999
Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1999