Lyman Beecher sits with his daughter, Harriet Beecher Stowe and son, Henry Ward Beecher

Lyman Beecher (1775-1863) was the second most influential New Light Calvinist minister in the transitional years from 1815-1840. Beecher fought Bostonian Deists, Universalists, rationalists and liberal Christians in the early years and charges of heresy from Old Light Calvinists in his later years. His magazine, The Spirit Of The Pilgrims, claimed that Calvinism, for example, did not teach infant damnation. Beecher saw New Light Calvinism as God's way of making Calvinism more palatable to the modern world. He endorsed some of Nathaniel Taylor's sermons by publishing them without comment.

He recognized the impact of the salvation theories of Scottish Common Sense Realism that came from especially, Princeton Theological Seminary. In 1812, Hopkinsian salvation theology (also called New England theology) was the most prominent Calvinist salvation theology in America. By 1830, Scottish Common Sense Realsim had assumed the premier position among Protestant ministers.