MANNING, JAMES: Baptist preacher and educator; b. near Elizabethtown, N. J., Oct. 22, 1738; d. at Providence, R. I., July 29, 1791. He studied at Hopewell Academy in New Jersey, and at Princeton College (B.A., 1762). After about a year of evangelistic preaching in several colonies, he was urged by members of the Philadelphia Association to join them in an effort to establish a Baptist university. At about the same time the association voted its approval of an effort to enlist the entire Baptist body in an effort to found such an institution in Rhode Island. Manning was sent to Rhode Island in 1763 to confer with leading brethren and to promote the enterprise (see Baptists, II., 2, § 3). In 1764 the legislature granted a charter in accordance with which the president and a majority of the trustees must always be Baptists; but all the leading denominations of the colony shall have representation on the board and members of all Evangelical denominations shall be eligible for professorships, etc. Pending the raising of funds and the fixing of the location of the college, Manning accepted the pastorate of the church at Warren, R. I., and conducted there an academy which should prepare the way for the future college. The Calvinistic Baptists of New England had been so zealous for absolute independency that they had never united in associations. In 1767 Manning led in the formation of the Warren Association, which was to become a factor in the struggle for religious liberty and in the promotion of educational and missionary work. In 1770 he led in the negotiations for the permanent location of the college, which resulted in the choice of Providence. He accepted the pastorate of the Providence church,

then in a weak and discouraged condition, and soon brought it to great prosperity. The raising of funds and the erection of college buildings, the duties of administration, heavy teaching duties, and denominational leadership, together with the pastorate, gave him abundant occupation. He sought and secured the help of English Baptists in the equipment and endowment of the college. His college duties were suspended during the war, Rhode Island having been early captured by the British who turned the college buildings into barracks. In 1782. the college was reopened. In 1786 he was chosen by the Rhode Island General Assembly to represent the State in the national convention for the framing of the federal constitution. He used his great influence in favor of the adoption of the constitution by Rhode Island and other New England States, where there was much opposition. He was an eloquent and impressive preacher, master of an elegant and forceful literary style, while his attainments gave him a commanding position among his contemporaries. His theological views were moderately Calvinistic.

A. H. Newman.

Bibliography: R. A. Guild, Life, Times and Correspondence, of . . . James Manning, and the Early Hist. of Brown University, Boston, 1864; W. B. Sprague, Annals of the American Pulpit, vi. 89-97. New York, 1860; F. Piper, Lives of the Leaders of our Church Universal, transl. and ed. H. M. MacCracken, pp. 808-814, Philadelphia, 1879; A. H. Newman, in American Church History Series, vol. ii., ib. 1894.