Stoddard, Sketches of Louisiana (New York, 1811), among those just following the establishment of American dominion.
He was bitterly opposed, however, to the liberal practices that followed the Half-Way Covenant and (after 1677) in particular to "Stoddardeanism," the doctrine of Solomon Stoddard (1643-1729) that all "such Persons as have a good Conversation and a Competent Knowledge may come to the Lord's Supper," only those of openly immoral life being excluded.
His mother, a daughter of the Rev. Solomon Stoddard, of Northampton, Mass., seems to have been a woman of unusual mental gifts and independence of character.
On the 15th of February 1727 he was ordained minister at Northampton and assistant to his grandfather, Solomon Stoddard.
Solomon Stoddard died on the 11th of February 1729, leaving to his grandson the difficult task of the sole ministerial charge of one of the largest and wealthiest congregations in the colony, and one proud of its morality, its culture and its reputation.