Witherspoon, John, 1723-1794 (Personal Name)

His A defence of Christianity against the power of enthusiasm [MI] 1764: t.p. (Blacksmith)

Oxford DNB online, 20 March 2020 (Witherspoon, John (1723-1794), Church of Scotland minister and college head in America, was born on or about 5 February 1723 at Gifford in Yester parish, Haddingtonshire, Scotland; educated at the grammar school in Haddington and at the University of Edinburgh; an anonymous publication entitled Ecclesiastical characteristics, a satire on the politics and the preaching of the moderates, was rumoured to be the work of Witherspoon...Witherspoon followed that with the 1763 publication of the Serious Apology for the Author of the 'Ecclesiastical characteristics', signed by 'The Real Author of that Performance'; he arrived in Princeton in August 1768 to take up a post in the Presbyterian College of New Jersey; In 1776 he was selected to the continental congress meeting in Philadelphia, where he became the only clergyman to sign the Declaration of Independence; died at his home, Tusculum, Princeton, on 15 November 1794)