John Leadley Dagg born in Loudoun County, Virginia, lived to be over 90 years old. He died in June 1884, as one of the most respected men in American Baptist

Baptist

Baptists comprise a group of Christian denominations and churches that subscribe to a doctrine that baptism should be performed only for professing believers , and that it must be done by immersion...

 life, and remains one of the most profound thinkers produced by his denomination. Dagg overcame extraordinary problems – a limited education, near-blindness, and physical disability – to become a great pastor in Philadelphia and elsewhere and then an educator both in Alabama and as president at Mercer University

Mercer University

Mercer University is an independent, private, coeducational university with a Baptist heritage located in the U.S. state of Georgia. Mercer is the only university of its size in the United States that offers programs in eleven diversified fields of study: liberal arts, business, education, music,...

 in Georgia. He was a convinced Calvinist

Calvinism

Calvinism is a Protestant theological system and an approach to the Christian life...

 of an evangelical kind who wrote a winsome English prose. His magnum opus

Magnum opus

Magnum opus , from the Latin meaning "great work", refers to the largest, and perhaps the best, greatest, most popular, or most renowned achievement of a writer, artist, or composer.-Related terms:Sometimes the term magnum opus is used to refer to simply "a great work" rather than "the...

, Manual of Theology (1857), is thought to have been the first systematic theology by a Baptist in America.

External links

• Biographical Sketch at Founders.org
• Biographical Sketch by Georgia Encyclopedia
• Manual of Theology by John L. Dagg
• A Treatise on Church Order by John L. Dagg
• John L. Dagg by Gilson Santos