History of American Christianity — Chapter XI The Great Awaking, Part 1

THE GREAT AWAKENING

It was not wholly dark in American Christendom before the dawn of the Great Awakening.

The censoriousness which was the besetting sin of the evangelists in that great religious movement, the rhetorical temptation to glorify the revival by intensifying the contrast with the antecedent condition, and the exaggerated _revivalism_ ever since so prevalent in the American church,--the tendency to consider religion as consisting mainly in scenes and periods of special fervor, and the intervals between as so much void space and waste time,--all these have combined to deepen the dark tints in which the former state is set before us in history.

The power of godliness was manifest in the earlier days by many infallible signs, not excluding those "times of refreshing" in which the simultaneous earnestness of many souls compels the general attention.

Even in Northampton, where the doctrine of the venerable Stoddard as to the conditions of communion has been thought to be the low-water mark of church vitality, not less than five such "harvest seasons" were within recent memory.

It was to this parish in a country town on the frontier of civilization, but the most important in Massachusetts outside of Boston, that there came, in the year 1727, to serve as colleague to his aged grandfather, Pastor Stoddard, a young man whose wonderful intellectual and spiritual gifts had from his childhood awakened the pious hopes of all who had known him, and who was destined in his future career to be recognized as the most illustrious of the saints and doctors of the American church.

The authentic facts of the boyhood of Jonathan Edwards read like the myths that adorn the legendary Lives of the Saints.

As an undergraduate of Yale College, before the age of seventeen, his reflections on the mysteries of God, and the universe, and the human mind, were such as even yet command the attention and respect of students of philosophy.

He remained at New Haven two years after graduation, for the further study of theology, and then spent eight months in charge of the newly organized Presbyterian church in New York.

[156:1] After this he spent two years as tutor at Yale,--"one of the pillar tutors, and the glory of the college,"--at the critical period after the defection of Rector Cutler to the Church of England.

[156:2] From this position he was called in 1726, at the age of twenty-three, to the church at Northampton.

There he was ordained February 15, 1727, and thither a few months later he brought his "espousèd saint," Sarah Pierpont, consummate flower of Puritan womanhood, thenceforth the companion not only of his pastoral cares and sorrows, but of his seraphic contemplations of divine things.

The intensely earnest sermons, the holy life, and the loving prayers of one of the greatest preachers in the history of the church were not long in bearing abundant fruit.

In a time of spiritual and moral depression, when the world, the flesh, and the devil seemed to be gaining against the gospel, sometime in the year 1733 signs began to be visible of yielding to the power of God's Word.

The frivolous or wanton frolics of the youth began to be exchanged for meetings for religious conference.

The pastor was encouraged to renewed tenderness and solemnity in his preaching.

His themes were justification by faith, the awfulness of God's justice, the excellency of Christ, the duty of pressing into the kingdom of God.

Presently a young woman, a leader in the village gayeties, became "serious, giving evidence," even to the severe judgment of Edwards, "of a heart truly broken and sanctified."

A general seriousness began to spread over the whole town.

Hardly a single person, old or young, but felt concerned about eternal things.

According to Edwards's "Narrative": "The work of God, as it was carried on, and the number of true saints multiplied, soon made a glorious alteration in the town, so that in the spring and summer, anno 1735, the town seemed to be full of the presence of God.

It was never so full of love, nor so full of joy, and yet so full of distress, as it was then.

There were remarkable tokens of God's presence in almost every house.

It was a time of joy in families on the account of salvation's being brought unto them; parents rejoicing over their children as being new-born, and husbands over their wives, and wives over their husbands.

The goings of God were then seen in his sanctuary.

God's day was a delight, and his tabernacles were amiable.

Our public assemblies were then beautiful; the congregation was alive in God's service, every one intent on the public worship, every hearer eager to drink in the words of the minister as they came from his mouth; the assembly in general were from time to time in tears while the Word was preached, some weeping with sorrow and distress, others with joy and love, others with pity and concern for the souls of their neighbors.

Our public praises were then greatly enlivened; God was then served in our psalmody in some measure in the beauty of holiness."

The crucial test of the divineness of the work was given when the people presented themselves before the Lord with a solemn act of thanksgiving for his great goodness and his gracious presence in the town of Northampton, with publicly recorded vows to renounce their evil ways and put away their abominations from before his eyes.

They solemnly promise thenceforth, in all dealings with their neighbor, to be governed by the rules of honesty, justice, and uprightness; not to overreach or defraud him, nor anywise to injure him, whether willfully or through want of care; to regard not only their own interest, but his; particularly, to be faithful in the payment of just debts; in the case of past wrongs against any, never to rest till they have made full reparation; to refrain from evil speaking, and from everything that feeds a spirit of bitterness; to do nothing in a spirit of revenge; not to be led by private or partisan interest into any course hurtful to the interests of Christ's kingdom; particularly, in public affairs, not to allow ambition or partisanship to lead them counter to the interest of true religion.

Those who are young promise to allow themselves in no diversions that would hinder a devout spirit, and to avoid everything that tends to lasciviousness, and which will not be approved by the infinitely pure and holy eye of God.

Finally, they consecrate themselves watchfully to perform the relative duties of parents and children, husbands and wives, brothers and sisters, masters, mistresses, and servants.

So great a work as this could not be hid.

The whole region of the Connecticut Valley, in Massachusetts and Connecticut, and neighboring regions felt the influence of it.

The fame of it went abroad.

A letter of Edwards's in reply to inquiries from his friend, Dr. Colman, of Boston, was forwarded to Dr. Watts and Dr. Guise, of London, and by them published under the title of "Narrative of Surprising Conversions."

A

copy of the little book was carried in his pocket for wayside reading on a walk from London to Oxford by John Wesley, in the year 1738. Not yet in the course of his work had he "seen it on this fashion," and he writes in his journal: "Surely this is the Lord's doing, and it is marvelous in our eyes."

Both in this narrative and in a later work on "The Distinguishing Marks of a Work of the Spirit of God," one cannot but admire the divine gift of a calm wisdom with which Edwards had been endowed as if for this exigency.

He is never dazzled by the incidents of the work, nor distracted by them from the essence of it.

His argument for the divineness of the work is not founded on the unusual or extraordinary character of it, nor on the impressive bodily effects sometimes attending it, such as tears, groans, outcries, convulsions, or faintings, nor on visions or ecstasies or "impressions."

What he claims is that the work may be divine, _notwithstanding_ the presence of these incidents.

[159:1] It was doubtless owing to the firm and judicious guidance of such a pastor that the intense religious fervor of this first awakening at Northampton was marked by so much of sobriety and order.

In later years, in other regions, and under the influence of preachers not of greater earnestness, but of less wisdom and discretion, there were habitual scenes of extravagant and senseless enthusiasm, which make the closing pages of this chapter of church history painfully instructive.

It is not difficult to understand how one of the first places at a distance to feel the kindling example of Northampton should be the neighborhood of Newark.

To this region, planted, as we have seen, with so strong a stock from New England, from old England, and from Scotland, came, in 1708, a youth of twenty years, Jonathan Dickinson, a native of the historic little town of Hatfield, next neighbor to Northampton.

He was pastor at Elizabeth, but his influence and activity extended through all that part of New Jersey, and he became easily the leader of the rapidly growing communion of Presbyterian churches in that province, and the opponent, in the interest of Christian liberty and sincerity, of rigid terms of subscription, demanded by men of little faith.

There is a great career before him; but that which concerns the present topic is his account of what took place "sometime in August, 1739 (the summer before Mr. Whitefield came first into these parts), when there was a remarkable revival at Newark....

This revival of religion was chiefly observable among the younger people, till the following March, when the whole town in general was brought under an uncommon concern about their eternal interests, and the congregation appeared universally affected under some sermons that were then preached to them."

Like scenes of spiritual quickening were witnessed that same season in other parts of New Jersey; but special interest attaches to the report from New Londonderry, Penn.

, where a Scotch-Irish community received as its pastor, in the spring of 1740, Samuel Blair, a native of Ireland, trained in the Log College of William Tennent.

He describes the people, at his first knowledge of them, as sunk in a religious torpor, ignorance, and indifference.

The first sign of vitality was observed in March, 1740, during the pastor's absence, when, under an alarming sermon from a neighbor minister: "There was a visible appearance of much soul-concern among the hearers; so that some burst out with an audible noise into bitter crying, a thing not known in these parts before....

The first sermon I preached after my return to them was from Matthew vi.

33: 'Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness.'

After opening up and explaining the parts of the text, when in the improvement I came to press the injunction in the text upon the unconverted and ungodly, and offered this as one reason among others why they should now first of all seek the kingdom and righteousness of God, viz.

, that they had neglected too long to do so already, this consideration seemed to come and cut like a sword upon several in the congregation; so that while I was speaking upon it they could no longer contain, but burst out in the most bitter mourning.

I desired them as much as possible to restrain themselves from making any noise that would hinder themselves or others from hearing what was spoken; and often afterward I had occasion to repeat the same counsel.

I still advised people to endeavor to moderate and bound their passions, but not so as to resist and stifle their convictions.

The number of the awakened increased very fast.

Frequently under sermons there were some newly convicted and brought into deep distress of soul about their perishing estate.

Our Sabbath assemblies soon became vastly large, many people from almost all parts around inclining very much to come where there was such appearance of the divine power and presence.

I think there was scarcely a sermon or lecture preached here through that whole summer but there were manifest evidences of impressions on the hearers, and many times the impressions were very great and general.

Several would be overcome and fainting; others deeply sobbing, hardly able to contain; others crying in a most dolorous manner; many others more silently weeping, and a solemn concern appearing in the countenances of many others.

And sometimes the soul-exercises of some (though comparatively but very few) would so far affect their bodies as to occasion some strange, unusual bodily motions.

I had opportunities of speaking particularly with a great many of those who afforded such outward tokens of inward soul-concern in the time of public worship and hearing of the Word.

Indeed, many came to me of themselves, in their distress, for private instruction and counsel; and I found, so far as I can remember, that with by far the greater part their apparent concern in public was not just a transient qualm of conscience or merely a floating commotion of the affections, but a rational, fixed conviction of their dangerous, perishing estate....

"In some time many of the convinced and distressed afforded very hopeful, satisfying evidence that the Lord had brought them to true closure with Jesus Christ, and that their distresses and fears had been in a great measure removed in a right gospel way, by believing in the Son of God.

Several of them had very remarkable and sweet deliverances this way.

It was very agreeable to hear their accounts how that when they were in the deepest perplexity and darkness, distress and difficulty, seeking God as poor, condemned, hell-deserving sinners, the scene of recovering grace through a Redeemer has been opened to their understandings with a surprising beauty and glory, so that they were enabled to believe in Christ with joy unspeakable and full of glory."

[162:1] The experience of Gilbert Tennent at New Brunswick had no connection with the first awakening at Northampton, but had important relations with later events.

He was the eldest of the four sons whom William Tennent, the Episcopalian minister from Ireland, had brought with him to America and educated at his Log College.

In 1727 he became pastor of a church at New Brunswick, where he was much impressed with what he saw of the results of the work of the Rev. Theodore Frelinghuysen, who for seven years had been pastor of a neighboring Dutch church.

The example and fraternal counsel of this good man made him sensible of the fruitlessness of his own work, and moved him to more earnest prayers and labors.

Having been brought low with sickness, he prayed to God to grant him one half-year more in which to "endeavor to promote his kingdom with all my might at all adventures."

Being raised up from sickness, he devoted himself to earnest personal labors with individuals and to renewed faithfulness in the pulpit, "which method was sealed by the Holy Spirit in the conviction and conversion of a considerable number of persons, at various times and in different places, in that part of the country, as appeared by their acquaintance with experimental religion and good conversation."

This bit of pastoral history, in which is nothing startling or prodigious, was at least five years previous to the "Surprising Conversions" at Northampton.

There must have been generally throughout the country a preparedness for the Great Awakening.

* * * * * It was in that year (1735) in which the town of Northampton was all ablaze with the glory of its first revival under Edwards that George Whitefield, first among the members of Wesley's "Holy Club" at Oxford, attained to that "sense of the divine love" from which he was wont to date his conversion.

In May, 1738, when the last reflections from the Northampton revival had faded out from all around the horizon, the young clergyman, whose first efforts as a preacher in pulpits of the Church of England had astonished all hearers by the power of his eloquence, arrived at Savannah, urged by the importunity of the Wesleys to take up the work in Georgia in which they had so conspicuously failed.

He entered eagerly into the sanguine schemes for the advantage of the young colony, and especially into the scheme for building and endowing an orphan-house in just that corner of the earth where there was less need of such an institution than anywhere else.

After three months' stay he started on his return to England to seek priest's orders for himself, and funds for the orphans that might be expected sometime in Georgia.

He was successful in both his errands.

He was ordained; he collected more than one thousand pounds for the orphan-house; and being detained in the kingdom by an embargo, he began that course of evangelistic preaching which continued on either side of the ocean until his death, and which is without a parallel in church history.

His incomparable eloquence thronged the parish churches, until the churches were closed against him, and the Bishop of London warned the people against him in a pastoral letter.

Then he went out into the open fields, in the service, as he said, of him "who had a mountain for his pulpit, and the heavens for his sounding-board, and who, when his gospel was refused by the Jews, sent his servants into the highways and hedges."

Multitudes of every rank thronged him; but especially the heathenized and embruted colliers near Bristol listened to the unknown gospel, and their awakened feelings were revealed to the preacher by his observing the white gutters made by the tears that ran down their grimy faces.

At last the embargo was raised, and committing his work to Wesley, whom he had drawn into field-preaching, he sailed in August, 1739, for Philadelphia, on his way to Georgia.

His fame had gone before him, and the desire to hear him was universal.

The churches would not contain the throngs.

It was long remembered how, on those summer evenings, he would take his stand in the balcony of the old court-house in Market Street, and how every syllable from his wonderful voice would be heard aboard the river-craft moored at the foot of the street, four hundred feet away.

At New York the Episcopal church was closed against him, but the pastor of the Presbyterian church, Mr. Pemberton, from Boston, made him welcome, and the fields were free to him and his hearers.

On the way to New York and back, the tireless man preached at every town.

At New Brunswick he saw and heard with profound admiration Gilbert Tennent, thenceforth his friend and yokefellow.

Seeing the solemn eagerness of the people everywhere to hear him, he determined to make the journey to Savannah by land, and again he turned the long journey into a campaign of preaching.

Arriving at Savannah in January, 1740, he laid the foundation of his orphan-house, "Bethesda," and in March was again on his way northward on a tour of preaching and solicitation of funds.

Touching at Charleston, where the bishop's commissary, Dr. Garden, was at open controversy with him, he preached five times and received seventy pounds for his charitable work.

Landing at New Castle on a Sunday morning, he preached morning and evening.

Monday morning he preached at Wilmington to a vast assemblage.

Tuesday evening he preached on Society Hill, in Philadelphia, "to about eight thousand," and at the same place Wednesday morning and evening.

Then once more he made the tour to New York and back, preaching at every halting-place.

A contemporary newspaper contains the following item: "New Castle, May 15th.

This evening Mr. Whitefield went on board his sloop here in order to sail for Georgia.

On Sunday he preached twice in Philadelphia, and in the evening, when he preached his farewell sermon, it is supposed he had twenty thousand hearers.

On Monday he preached at Darby and Chester;

on Tuesday at Wilmington and Whiteclay Creek; on Wednesday, twice at Nottingham; on Thursday at Fog's Manor and New Castle.

The congregations were much increased since his being here last.

The presence of God was much seen in the assemblies, especially at Nottingham and Fog's Manor, where the people were under such deep soul-distress that their cries almost drowned his voice.

He has collected in this and the neighboring provinces about four hundred and fifty pounds sterling for his orphans in Georgia."

Into the feeble but rapidly growing presbyteries and the one synod of the American Presbyterian Church the revival had brought, not peace, but a sword.

The collision was inevitable between the fervor and unrestrained zeal of the evangelists and the sense of order and decorum, and of the importance of organization and method, into which men are trained in the ministry of an established church.

No man, even at this day, can read the "standards" of the Presbyterian Church without seeing that they have had to be strained to admit those "revival methods" which ever since the days of Whitefield have prevailed in that body.

The conflict that arose was not unlike that which from the beginning of New England history had subsisted between Separatist and Nationalist.

In the Presbyterian conflict, as so often in religious controversies, disciplinary and doctrinal questions were complicated with a difference of race.

The "Old Side" was the Scotch and Irish party; the "New Side" was the New England party, to which many of the old-country ministers adhered.

For successive years the mutual opposition had shown itself in the synod; and in 1740, at the synod meeting at Philadelphia, soon after the departure of Whitefield, the real gravamen of the controversy appeared, in the implied and even express impeachment of the spiritual character of the Old Side ministers.

The impeachment had been implied in the coming of the evangelists uninvited into other men's parishes, as if these were mission ground.

And now it was expressed in papers read before the synod by Blair and Gilbert Tennent.

The action of the synod went so far toward sustaining the men of the New Side as to repeal the rule restraining ministers from preaching outside of their own parishes, and as to put on record a thanksgiving for the work of God in the land.

Through all the days of the synod's meeting, daily throngs on Society Hill were addressed by the Tennents and other "hot gospelers" of the revival, and churches and private houses were resounding with revival hymns and exhortations.

Already the preaching and printing of Gilbert Tennent's "Nottingham Sermon" had made further fellowship between the two parties for the time impossible.

The sermon flagrantly illustrated the worst characteristic of the revivalists--their censoriousness.

It was a violent invective on "The Danger of an Unconverted Ministry," which so favorable a critic as Dr. Alexander has characterized as "one of the most severely abusive sermons which was ever penned."

The answer to it came in a form that might have been expected.

At the opening of the synod of 1741 a solemn protestation was presented containing an indictment in seven grave counts against the men of the New Side, and declaring them to "have at present no right to sit and vote as members of this synod, and that if they should sit and vote, the doings of the synod would be of no force or obligation."

The protestation was adopted by the synod by a bare majority of a small attendance.

The presbytery of New Brunswick found itself exscinded by this short and easy process of discipline; the presbytery of New York joined with it in organizing a new synod, and the schism was complete.