A Place for Truth
Studies

Church in the Modern Age

American Church History of the 17th and 18th Centuries

An Overview by Charles R. Biggs

Notes Taken From:

Religious History of the American People, by Sydney Ahlstrom; The Story of Religion in America, by William Warren Sweet; The Great Awakening, by Edwin Gaustad; Dictionary of Christianity in America, eds. Daniel G. Reid, Harry Stout, Bruce Shelley, et al.; Jonathan Edwards and the American Experience, Nathan Hatch and Harry Stout; The Yale Edition of the Works of Jonathan Edwards, Vol. 4: "The Great Awakening," edited by C. C. Goen; Studies in Southern Presbyterian Theology, by Morton Smith; Presbyterians in the South, 3 volumes, by Ernest Trice Thompson.

• Colonial Presbyterianism came from two sources: 1) Presbyterian phase of English Puritanism that migrated to New England in the 17th century; 2) Scottish Presbyterians coming to American by way of North Ireland in the Scotch-Irish immigration of the 18th century.



• Puritanism split into Congregationalists and Presbyterians. Father of the Presbyterian Church in American was Francis Makemie. He was an Ulterman and an itinerant. 1706- Six ministers met in Philadelphia under the direction of Makemie and formed the first American Presbytery (Makemie was the first Moderator). The other men included: Samuel Davies, Jedediah Andrews, & John Watson (protégé of Increase and Cotton Mather).



• 1716 - Presbytery of Philadelphia split into four presbyteries and organized a synod: 1) Long Island, 2) Philadelphia, 3) New Castle (Delaware), and 4) Snow Hill (Maryland and Virginia).



• Scots-Irish Presbyterians of significance: Jonathan Dickinson, graduate of Yale, from Massachusettes, Thomas Craighead, friend of Cotton Mather, and William Tennent. These will be dealt with in more detail later.



• Adopting Act of 1729 - This was passed by the Synod of Philadelphia and first required of ministers in New Castle. This provided that all ministers and licentiates must subscribe to the Westminster Confession of Faith. Ultimately this was to protect Presbyterianism form Arminianism, Socinianism, Deism, Freethinking (Rationalism), etc.



• Half-Way Covenant - Unawakened persons were permitted to become "halfway" Church members and thus there came to be large numbers of people in every church whose relation to the Church was merely formal, or visible (these are 2nd and 3rd generation children of the original Puritans in America). C. C. Goen writes, "The Halfway Covenant was a measure designed to hold within the churches those persons who could not qualify for full membership under the terms of the original ecclesiastical constitution, which provided that only the regenerate were to be received as church members. Following a doctrine of the Federal Theology, according to which the offspring of the regenerate are included in the covenant of grace, the first generation of Puritans in New England presented their children for baptism, the sign and seal of the covenant, fully expecting that when such children reached spiritual maturity they would profess conversion as their parents before them had done. When many members of the second generation found that they could not honestly testify to such and experience, their relationship to the visible church was in considerable doubt. When they began to have children, whom they naturally wanted baptized, the problem became intolerable" (Great Awakening, 12). A Massachusetts synod in 1662 acknowledged that persons baptized in infancy, though not professing Christians, were connected somehow with the visible church and might therefore pass along to their children the same ecclesiastical status. Providing they were of upright life and would accept discipline of the church, they might present their children for baptism; but they could not partake of the Lord's Supper or vote in church affairs. They were halfway, rather than full, members. The struggle to redefine sainthood was led by Solomon Stoddard (1643-1729), the grandfather of Jonathan Edwards. At his pastorate at Northampton, Massachusetts he was discarding the distinction between full and halfway members, baptizing every adult who assented to the articles of faith, and admitting all the baptized to the Lord's Supper.



• Edwards and the Great Awakening in New England - Revival began in December of 1734 in a series of sermons on Justification by Faith Alone preached by pastor Edwards. At the same time a similar revival was in New Jersey among the Presbyterians produced by the preaching of the Tennents: William and Gilbert Tennent. Also, George Whitfield began his first extensive evangelistic tour of America in 1740. 1734-38- Edwards wrote his Narrative of the Surprising Work of God read on both sides of the Atlantic. Meanwhile, Whitfield and the Wesley's were beginning a revival in England. 1740- Whitfield's visit to New England caused a renewed evangelistic activity and Edwards preached Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God in Enfield, Connecticut in 1741. The Great Awakening had begun. Out of the revival came the division of New England ministers into two groups: 1) "New Lights" including Jonathan Edwards who supported the revival, and 2) "Old Lights" those who condemned the revival and looked at the results as temporary; men such as Charles Chauncy.



• Congregational Division - There were now two wings after the Great Awakening: Orthodox and Liberal, or Unitarian. The Liberal School stressed the human "means" in salvation and the Orthodox School led by Jonathan Edwards and his students (discussed later), later to be known as "New England Theology".



• 1758 - Year of Edwards death and publication of his Treatise On Original Sin. This is published in response to Liberals Charles Chauncy and Rev. Samuel Webster. Edwards held to the Sovereignty of God but was convinced that larger recognition be given to man's responsibility- - this would influence the later school called the "New Divinity" or Edwardsian School. The most influential of the New Divinity ministers were: Joseph Bellamy and Samuel Hopkins, followed by the next generation of New Divinity such as Stephen West, John Smalley, Jonathan Edwards, Jr., Nathaniel Emmons, and Timothy Dwight. Bellamy and Hopkins asserted ideas such as General Atonement.



• 1782 - Charles Chauncy came out boldly on the side of of Universalism in a tract called Salvation for all Men Illustrated and Vindicated as a Scriptural Doctrine. Eventually, modified Calvinism or "New Divinity" won the day in Western Massachusetts, while Liberalism won the day in Eastern Massachusetts, in places such as Boston.



• After the Great Awakening, the fifty years following was one of spiritual deadness, religious and moral indifference throughout New England.



• German colonists in Pennsylvania were called Pietists. The founder was Philipp Jakob Spener who taught Bible studies and promoted "true piety". University of Halle became center of the Pietists and Spener was succeeded by Francke. This influence was strongest among the Mennonites, Dunkers and Moravians. This was one of the sources of the revival movement in the Middle Colonies.



• Let us pause for a brief overview of German Pietism and English Methodism: Founder of Pietism- Philipp Jakob Spener (1635-1705) who was trying to combat the stagnant orthodoxy of Post-Reformation Scholastic Lutheranism. A Foundational book for Spener was Pia Desideria, and the educational center of the movement was at the University of Halle. Other key figures which he influenced are: Auguste H. Francke (1663-1727), J. A. Bengel (1687-1752), Nikolaus Ludwig Von Zinzendorf (1700-1760). The result of this movement was The Church of the Brethren Moravian Church. Founder of Methodism- John Wesley (1703-1791) who was trying to change the Rationalistic Deism of Post-Puritan Anglicanism. Wesley's educational center was Oxford University. Other key figures which he influences are: Charles Wesley (1707-1788), George Whitfield (1714-1770), Thomas Coke (1747-1814), Francis Asbury (1745-1816). The resulting churches were the Methodist Church and the Calvinistic Methodists. In both movements there were common emphases: Practical holiness, personal bible study, need for conscious conversion, evangelistic preaching, devotional exercises, relief of the poor and needy, and experience more than doctrine. The Pietist influence on Methodism began in 1735 when the Wesley's met Moravians on a ship to Georgia and were impressed with their "quiet confidence." Methodist societies were eventually established, based on the model of Pietist conventicles.



• Before considering the Great Awakening it is in order to define three very important terms that would "haunt" the landscape of American Christianity from the 18th century to this day: Pietism, Revivalism, and Evangelicalism. Church Historian C. C. Goen writes, "The Great Awakening of the 18th century marks the inauguration of the revival tradition in America." (Great Awakening, 1). Pietism- The extension to individual Christian experience of principles which the Reformers had applied "chiefly, though by no means exclusively, to the areas of doctrine and polity," resulting in a surging reassertion of Christianity's experiential tradition in post-Reformation Protestantism. All Pietists agreed that true Christianity has its main locus in a meaningful relationship of the individual to God. For this reason, they stressed personal repentance and faith, warm devotion, and assurance that they were in truth the children of God. Always strongly biblical and intensely missionary, pietism encouraged lively preaching to persuade unbelievers and complacent church members to commit themselves cordially to the obedience of faith. In short, the character of pietism required it to be aggressively conversionist [see F. Ernest Stoeffler, The Rise of Evangelical Pietism (Leiden, 1965)]. Evangelical/Evangelicalism- This is an umbrella term of many meanings; but in relation to the revivalistic writings of Jonathan Edwards and the American tradition of which they are so largely the fountainhead, evangelicalism may be defined as the perspective from which the Christian life is viewed as beginning with an experience of personal conversion and issuing in a pursuit of personal piety. Thus understood, evangelicalism is opposed to sacramentalism, which regards the Christian life as beginning with the bestowal of grace at baptism, and to all forms of the corpus Christianum, which treats as Christians all who do not deliberately opt out of the church established by the state. It rejects the "mixed multitude" of a territorial church and seeks to gather "true believers" into disciplined companies of committed converts (Great Awakening, 2). Revivalism- Revivalism is a technique of mass evangelism, and as such is peculiarly adapted to producing the all-important conversion experience in great numbers. In this way it both fulfills the missionary-evangelistic imperative of pietism and accelerates the growth of Christianity's evangelical contingent. To Reformed Puritan evangelical pietists of 18th century America, revivalism was more than a one-time "surprising work of God"; it was his gracious gift to those who were turning sinners into saints and thus inaugurating his millennial reign (Great Awakening, 3-4).



• Leaders of the First Great Awakening: William Tennent (1673-1746)- preached in Pennsylvania, was a Presbyterian born in Ireland who built the "Log College" in 1735 to train ministers, many who participated in the Awakening. Theodore J. Frelinghuysen (1691-1748)- Worked in New Jersey and was Dutch Reformed. He was instrumental in forming the Dutch Reformed Church in America. Jonathan Edwards (1703-1758)- Worked in Massachusetts and was Congregational. He was the grandson of Solomon Stoddard and entered Yale University at 13 years of age. After Stoddard's death, he became pastor at Northampton, Mass. He served as a missionary to Indians after being voted out of his pulpit in 1750 because of his disagreement ultimately with the Halfway Covenant of Stoddard. This time in the "wilderness" was his most prolific time of writing. He was the greatest theologian American has ever produced. He died of smallpox inoculation two months after becoming president of Princeton. Gilbert Tennent (1703-1764)- Worked mainly in Pennsylvania and New Jersey and was a Presbyterian. He was the eldest son of William Tennent and trained in the Log College in Bucks County Pennsylvania. He worked with Frelinghuysen, traveled with Whitfield and preached the famous sermon Danger of an Unconverted Ministry. He helped start the College of New Jersey, now know as Princeton University. Shubal Stearns (1706-1771)- Worked in the Southern Colonies and was a Baptist. He was born in Boston and was converted under Whitfield's preaching. In 1758 he formed the Baptist Association in Sandy Creek, North Carolina. Daniel Marshall (1706-1784)- Worked in the Southern Colonies and was Baptist. Born in Windsor, Connecticut and spent two years as missionary to the Indians. Was the brother-in-law and associate of Stearns. He helped organize the Georgia Baptist Association. Eleazer Whitlock (1711-1779)- Worked in Connecticut and was Congregational. He was graduated from Yale and was an associate of Jonathan Edwards. He was founder and first president of Dartmouth College, founded to train Indians as missionaries. Henry Melchior Muhlenberg (1711-1787)- Worked in Pennsylvania and was a Lutheran. He has been called the "Father of American Lutheranism" and was born in Hanover, Germany. He graduated form University of Gottingen and was influenced by Pietism at Halle. He formed the first Lutheran Synod in America. Samuel Blair (1712-1751)- Worked in Pennsylvania and New Jersey and was a Presbyterian. He studied under William Tennent at the Log College and served as pastor in Pennsylvania and New Jersey. Started school in Faggs Manor, Pennsylvania. George Whitfield (1714-1770)- An Anglican who was a member of the Holy Club with Wesley at Oxford. Became the most famous evangelist of his day. He made seven trips to the American colonies and was a catalyst of the First Great Awakening. He knew Edwards, Frelinghuysen, and the Tennents. Samuel Davies (1723-1761)- Presbyterian from Virginia. He studied under Samuel Blair and in 1747 helped form the presbytery in Hanover County, Virginia. He helped found and served as president of the College of New Jersey (Princeton).



• Gilbert Tennent was to be the heart and center of the revival movement among the Presbyterians. He was the son of William Tennent the Presybterian minister at Nashiminy, Bucks County, Pennsylvania who established the Log College. From this college, five prominent Presbyterian revivalists and evangelists founded New Brunswick Presbytery in 1738.



• 1745-1758 - Presbyterians in the colonies were divided into two main groups: "New Side" and "Old Side" Presbyterians from Philadelphia. 1758- Reunion of the Old and New Side Presbyterians. During this time two other branches of Presbyterians entered the colonies: Scotch-Irish groups known as Covenanters- Reformed and Associate Reformed.



• 1700 - Ahlstrom wrote, "Colonial commonwealths of North America were becoming a prosperous extension of British society with a Reformed and Puritan ethos. The South was defined by a "Southern ethic" and the expansion of chattel slavery.



• 1702 - Cotton Mather wrote Magnalia Christi Americana, a biographical and historical record of New England's founders. The ideal of a Holy Commonwealth was fading in North America.



• Half-way Covenant - Enlightenment ("Endarkenment") was eating away at Federal theology- now it was yielding to moralistic individualism. Ministers from 1700-1730s, their outlook was gloomy in pulpit and press because of much declension. There was a resurgence of Pietism among the Dutch and Germans, traceable to John Wesley who inaugurated a revival in Great Britain. George Whitfield would do this in America.



• Jonathan Edwards was "surprised" in 1734 when a revival began in Northampton, Massachusetts. Cotton Mather had prepared the way for Edwards calling for Christians to be "Christian philosophers" (1721) in the book by the same name. Solomon Stoddard, Edwards grandfather had faithfully preached prior to him at Northampton experience five revivals during his pastorate. The revival that started in Western Massachusetts spread eventually to many parts of Massachusetts to Connecticut, and from Connecticut River Valley to Long Island Sound.



• George Whitfield preached all along the East coast in late 1730s and 1740s; from Georgia, South Carolina, to New England; in Anglican, Presbyterian, and Congregational churches to the open streets and fields. He spent days with Edwards and preached at Yale where "light had become darkness."



• Chief Events of the Great Awakening


1. The whirlwind evangelistic campaigns of Whifield, Tennent, and James Davenport. They encouraged itinerants and clerical interlopers to preach as well.



2. The New England ministers were awakened to personal evangelism: exchanges of pulpits, uneducated ministry, itinerant evangelism (rather than merely the office of minister of the Word form the pulpit).

This occurred during the years of 1740-1743. The revival was characterized by flamboyant and highly emotional preaching which made its first appearance in Puritan churches: fainting, weeping, shrieking, wailing, etc. There was preaching, praying, devotional reading which took on a new life. Davenport was considered a radical and railed against "unconverted ministers" in the churches. He was arrested and expelled from New England eventually. He burned books and preached against the "vanites of men" and had some seperatist followers. He defined a conversion experience as an act, immediately upon hearing an evangelical sermon.

• As a result of the Great Awakening regions took on moral and religious reforms- -millennial hopes were kindled. Revival issues created "Old Lights" and "New Lights" schools among ministers. This became the catalyst of the Arminian tradition as well. Charles Chauncy wrote Seasonable Thoughts on the State of Religion in New England, 1743, in response to the Revival and as a primary document toward Unitarianism. Harvard became Liberal in doctrine and the missionary spirit of the Revival promoted Indian missionaries such as David Brainerd and Jonathan Edwards in Stockbridge, Massachusetts.



• The Revival of Seperatism - Prior to the 18th century there was Anne Hutchinson and Roger Williams (1630s). After the Great Awakening the great separatist was James Davenport (mentioned in detail above) from New London. "Strict Congregationalists" did not want to be influenced by Presbyterians and appealed to the Cambridge Platform (1648) doctrinally. They wanted members to convey the conversion experience before they were allowed to be a member of the church. They also objected to laymen testifying before the church, Stoddard's Half-way Covenants, revivalistic doctrines of conversion, etc. Many separatists started churches throughout the North East. Isacc Backus (1724-1806)- he was Congregational as a youth, then became a Baptist. He was saved in 1741 and separated on strict Congregational principles.



• The emphasis on Christian experience and evangelism over doctrine led to agreements over doctrine and polity. The models of the evangelists would serve as a model for later interdenominational fellowship and the blurring of denominational lines and distinctions. Whitfield, Tennent and Edwards were to become the models. Whitfield was Anglican; Tennent was Presbyterian; and Edwards was Congregationalist. They all worked together to achieve the Great Awakening. In New England, the revivals became major means by which people of many diverse types responded to changing moral, religious, intellectual, and social conditions. Richard Bushman has written [From Puritan to Yankee]: "A psychological earthquake had reshaped the human landscape."



• Jonathan Edwards and the Renewal of New England Theology - 1707- John Leverett was made president of Harvard. This would eventually lead the college to the thought of William Ellery Channing and Ralph Waldo Emerson. Yale was established 1701 and lead to the tradition of Edwards, the Dwights, Nathaniel William Taylor, and the Beechers. Yale was committed to conserving the Puritan heritage. The regulations of the institution prescribed to the Westminster Catechism and William Ame's Marrow of Sacred Theology. The new textbooks in science which were used were: Descartes, Newton, and Locke. Samuel Johnson and Jonathan Edwards were to lead the way of the 18th century for Yale influence.



• Samuel Johnson (1696-1772)- From a New Haven family, received a B.A. from Yale. Johnson's great influence was Lord Bacon's Advancement of Learning. Johnson began to question his ministry and beliefs and became a disciple of Bishop Berkley's idealistic system of philosophy, became a moderate Arminian in theology, and was embroiled in a controversy over this with Jonathan Dickinson (Princeton's first president). Johnson was rationlaistic and defended natural law. He said morality was "the same thing as the religion of nature…founded on the first principles of reason and nature." Moral goodness was what man is essentially. He was an outspoken Tory, viewing the episcopate to the colonies as an essential preventive to independence.



• The great Church historian George Bancroft has written: "He that would know the workings of the New England mind in the middle of the 18th century, and the throbbings of its heart, must give his days and nights to the study of Jonathan Edwards." This brings us to the great theologian of America.

Jonathan Edwards and the Great Awakening

• Jonathan Edwards - Born in 1703 in East Windsor Connecticut. He entered Yale at 13 years of age. Samuel Johnson was his tutor. 1720- He discovered John Locke. He was licensed to preach in 1722 and preached at New York. His father, Timothy Edwards (who had married Solomon Stoddard's daughter) had helped him to be confessionally committed to the Westminster Confession of Faith. 1727- He was made a junior colleague of his grandfather Solomon Stoddard. 1729- He was made full-time minister after Stoddard's death at his church in Northampton, Massachusetts. He wrote Justification by Faith and other sermons in 1734 in a rationalistic, Calvinistic manner to confront the growing threat of Arminianism. His famous sermon at Enfield, Connecticut in 1741 was Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God. From 1737-1746 issues dealing with the Awakening were published.



• Edwards became and apologist for experiential religion. He wrote Suprising Work of God in the Conversion of Sinners in 1737, where he describes the incidents (causes and effects) of the revival in detail. He wrote Distinguishing Marks of the Spirit of God in 1741; Some Thoughts Concerning the Present Revival of Religion in 1742. Charles Chauncy contered that these "works of God" were the antinomian and enthusiastic things which had plagued the Puritans. Chauncy's work caused Edwards to write his first theological work A Treatise Concerning the Religious Affections in 1746, in response to his criticism. Chauncy ignored the book and called Edwards a "visionary enthusiast." The treatise by Edwards asks the question "What is True Religion?" He answers: "True religion in great part, consists in Holy Affections." The affections for Edwards is not merely the emotions, passions, or the "will" but that which moves a person from neutrality or mere assent, and inclines the heart to possess or reject something. Love is not merely one of the affections, it is the fountain of all affections.



• In The Religious Affections, Edwards gives 12 signs of true piety and a rightly inclined heart. All of the 12 build upon love to the last which is: "Gracious and holy affections have their exercise and fruit in Christian practice." He avoids Antinomianism on the one hand, and Legalism on the other. He writes, "What makes men partial in their religion is, that they seek themselves and not God, in their religion." The Religious Affections have been most examined by scholars because the "chief critic of Arminianism" was forging a weapon out of Lockean materials which "enlightened" theologians and deists had claimed as their own.



• July 1, 1750 - Edwards preaches his last sermon at Northampton ultimately because of a disagreement with Stoddard's Half-way Convenant and this resulted in the discipline of some of the prominent families of the church. They voted him out of the pulpit and he was "banished" to the "wilderness" of Stockbridge, Massachusetts.



• Edwards becomes a missionary to Indians in Stockbridge and this "freetime" becomes his most prolific time. In 1754 he writes Freedom of the Will. In this work, Edwards shows in a rational way, that "the will is determined by our strongest motive." The next Stockbridge treatise was in 1758 The Great Doctrine of Original Sin Defended. This was going to the press when he died. He reasoned through scriptural exegesis that it was through Adam that sin came into the world and that his fate was the fate of mankind. He opposes Unitarian John Taylor whose critiques were most formidable at the time. He asserts the unity of mankind in Adam- - traditional Augustinianism. He explains that God is continually upholding his creation by upholding them in being… "the natural posterity of Adam, proceeding from him, much as the buds and branches from the stock or root of a tree, should be treated as one with him [Adam]." He explains Adam's fall as one from "original righteousness" wherein man was governed by a higher, supernatural principle, to a state of sin (or natural righteousness), where man's good behavior never breaks out of the circle of self-interest. Since the fall, only a "divine and supernatural light" can lead men out of darkness. Ahlstrom writes: "The metaphysical foundations of Edwards's theology were not, or could not be preserved by New Divinity men who attempted to sustain the tradition." It was not long before Orthodox and Liberal theologians of New England had abandoned the idea of the imputation of Adam's sin.



• Nature of True Virtue was not published until 1764. Ahlstrom writes, "Edwards's highest thought in this moved out of the realm of Lockean psychology and into Christian Platonism." Edwards avoids 18th century moralism and establishes a doctrine of Being as the basis for understanding the nature of sanctified living. He writes: "True virtue consists in benevolence to Being in General…it is that consent, propensity, and union of heart to being in general, that is exercised in a general good will." These notions are published posthumously more clearly in 1765 in Dissertation Concerning the End for which God created the World. William Ellery Channing read this later and called Edwards a pantheist. This is the work that describes Edwards's rational account of the Christian religion. A History of the Work of Redemption (Edwards summa published long after his death in 1774), became Edwards's most popular book of the 19th century. Some have referred to it as " a textbook for Fundamentalists." Edwards became president of Princeton in 1757 and dies of an unsuccessful smallpox inoculation on 22 March 1758. His three most dedicated followers were: Joseph Bellamy, Samuel Hopkins, and Jonathan Edwards, Jr.



• The Five Distinct Aspects of Edwards:


1. Edwards, the Exegetical Preacher - He was the quintessence of Puritanism.



2. Edwards, the New England Polemicist - He wrote on revivals, Arminians, and Church order.



3. Edwards, the Apologist - He was an apologist for strict Reformed doctrine and "New Light" experientialism in an Age of Enlightenment.



4. Edwards, the Christian Ontologist - In True Virtue and God's End he was enraptured in Being in General. These writings placed Edwards in the line of such greats as Plotinus, Malebranche, and Spinoza.



5. Edwards, the Sacred Historian - A History of Redemption

Gaustad's Great Awakening in New England

• The Puritan Covenant idea was biblical: Is. 42:6; Heb. 9:15-17; Rom. 8:3 and it was prominent in the early Church writings of Ireneaus. Covenant Theology was a 16th century phenomenon. The entire theological system was woven around the concept of the divine covenants and was a recognized branch of Calvinistic or Reformed Theology. The Federal School (from the Latin, foedus, covenant) began in 16th century Germany, producing its 17th century representative in John Koch (1603-1669). Covenant theology in England was in the writings of John Preston (1587-1628) and William Ames (1576-1633). This was incorporated in the Westminster Confession of Faith, Chapter VII (1640s).



• Covenant Theological Thought - There were three covenants: 1) Theological; 2) Ecclesiastical; 3) Social and political. The foundation of the covenant was the Covenant of Grace.


1. Theological - Abrahamic-God recognizes the salvation imparted to those foreordained to receive divine, saving grace.



2. Ecclesiastical - Corporate, but not individual, bound together the Father and the body of visible saints.



3. Social and Political - This extended to bind a total society, saints and sinners, to the active dominion of God. Theocratic- or God ruling the Puritan Commonwealth via the covenant.



• Half-way Covenant (in light of these definitions although historically explained further above)- This established because of a fear of declension of peity in the Puritan commonwealth. Visible saints included not only those persons whose profession and practice implied conversion, but also their children…these Congregationalists baptized only those infants whose parents were church members because they could not fully acknowledge the covenant, the baptized children were not full church members. These were admitted to full membership (Lord's Supper) once they evidenced saving grace in their lives. A problem arose when these quasi-church members did not experience this conversion experience. These were not scandalous in life, but could not be classified as visible saints for they could make no profession of such. What happened when they presented their children for baptism? Some responded in negative; others positive such as Richard Mather: "the children of such parents ought to be baptized: the parents as they were born in the covenant, so they continue therein- -being neither cast out, or deserving to be…their children should be included."



• This was caricatured as a "half-way covenant". They decided that if a member of the visible church was not scandalous in life and solemnly owning the covenant of the church even though they had experienced no conversion, their children could be baptized. This changed the church from "visible saints" to those "not scandalous in life." It was very popular in New England, but not universal in all the churches. Halfway covenanters had received one of the signs of the covenant of grace, namely baptism- -they were denied the Lord's Table however. It was soon asked that if these were admitted to baptism, then why not also to the Lord' Supper. It could be a means of converting the unregenerate- -as preaching the word does. Therefore, those of a "blameless life" and "thirsting after righteousness"- - should be admitted to the Supper. This was called "Stoddardeanism" after Stoddard of Northampton, Massachusetts- - the most famous expositor of the practice. He opened wide the churches in an effort to stay the declension of piety within the covenant community.



• Gaustad writes: "As religion became more institutional and less personal, more a product of instruction rather than experience, and more an affair of the intellect than of the emotions, piety waned."



• Toward the end of the 17th century the churches and members were perceived to be declining in piety: preaching and praying had grown dull. There was a growth of rationalism that ridiculed revelation and deistical principles were set forth beginning in the early 17th century. The Enlightenment principles of 17th century New England were mainly used against the growth of Arminianism concentrated in the Church of England. Liberalism appeared within Congregationalism and college students.



• Puritanism was fading in the "modern world" of the 17th century and peace with the world was being made: prosperity, luxury, capital and pride was being gained from economic establishment and the growth of industry. Jeremiads were preached from the pulpit; these were warning sermons- -they preached against sin and luxury perceived by the preachers- - a cry for repentance was heard. Gaustad writes: "[By the beginning of the 18th century] the altered economy and the threat of rationalism, God became less respected as man became more respectable." There was perceived to be a great "dullness in religion" in New England at this time.



• Revivals of the 18th century - prior to the 1740s Great Awakening, Stoddard had written of several "divine harvests" or what he perceived as awakenings of religion throughout Massachusetts and Connecticut colonies. Stoddard opened church doors wide for whoever would enter. The Middle colonies had revivals since 1720 when Dutch Reformed Frelinghuysen's pietistic, evangelical, impassioned preaching had been used to convert men.



• 9-14-1740 - George Whitfield arrived in New England. He was the "grand itinerant" par excellence. In 1738 he had established an orphanage in Georgia which was a penal colony at the time. Many received him, but much of the clergy was opposed to his manner and techniques. Charles Chauncy was one minister who vehemently reacted against the revivals. The revivalist preachers such as Whitfield and Tennent preached against ministers they thought were unconverted and unfit for the gospel ministry. James Davenport has been called the "arch-fanatic" revivalist of the Awakening. He pretended to be able to determine the elect from the damned. He denounced fellow ministers as "blind guides" and "wolves in sheep's clothing." He was eventually exiled from New England.



• From 1741-1742, in the months of the revival's intensity, New England received news of evangelism from the followers of Zinzendorf, Francke, Wesley, Whitfield, Finley, Watts, Frelinghuysen, and Brainerd. 1743 seemed to be the year for evaluation and retrospection, exultation and recrimination of the revivals. The clergy was divided as to whether there had been an actual revival in New England. This promoted an end to the Awakening and to schisms among the clergy into "New Lights" or pro-revivalists, and "Old Lights" or adversaries of the Awakening.



• Jonathan Dickinson was one of the most important "self-critics" of the Great Awakening - - a zealous Presbyterian and able theologian of Elizabethtown, New Jersey. He believed a great deal of "human infirmity" had been mixed with the genuine operation of the Spirit of God. He wrote concerning this in A Display of God's Special Grace in 1742. He called itinerants fanatics who tried to question individual conversions from outward appearances…He warned also against antinomianism arising from the revivals.



• The "Old Lights" were against the Great Awakening because:


1. Itinerant preaching;



2. lay exhorting;



3. censoriousness;



4. church divisions and separations; and



5. doctrinal errors: enthusiasm, antinomianism, and Arminianism.


• Benjamin Doolittle of Northfield described enthusiasm in religion as:


1. a contempt for all reason and argument;



2. faith without foundation;



3. blind impulses and "heated imaginations";



4. great and sudden joy;



5. contempt of all who did not support their experiences;



6. spirit of persecution against all who differ.

Nathan Hatch and Harry Stout's Jonathan Edwards and the American Experience

• Breitenbach's essay on "Piety and Moralism: Edwards and the New Divinity": The New Divinity theologians are: Joseph Bellamy, Samuel Hopkins, Stephen West, Jonathan Edwards, Jr., Nathaniel Emmons, Timothy Dwight, Asa Burton, and Nathaniel William Taylor.



• Those who think that the New Divinity betrayed Edwards are in two camps: 1) Characterizes the Edwardsians as avid metaphysicians and austere hyper-Calvinists who systematized Edwards's thought; 2) The New Divinity ministers are liberalizers and moralizers who were not intent upon accomodating Edwards's Calvinistic creed to the humanitarian, rationalistic spirit of the age, even if it meant compromising essentials of his faith.



• Breitenbach's Thesis- 1) The so-called peculiarities and innovations of the New Divinity reveal Edwards's most creative and important contributions to New England Theology; 2) Edwardsian theology, for all its originality, should be seen as maintaining the fundamental commitment of New England Puritanism to the reconciliation of grace and law. Some scholars today have misunderstood because they continue to impose the piety -versus-moralism paradigm on 18th century New England religious history. This paradigm or interpretation describes a pure theocentric piety descending from the crags of Calvinism by way of Covenant theology and worldly prosperity into the meadows of moralism, Arminianism, and Unitarianism, and losing itself-in the swamps of transcendentalism. Breitenbach's main point is: "The dominant New England theological tradition, the clerical orthodoxy, was one of peity and moralism."



• Edwards wrote against Arminianis in God Glorified in the Work of Redemption, 1731; Justification by Faith Alone sermons, 1734; A Divine and Supernatural Light, 1734. Edwards tried to show that grace is the free gift of a sovereign God, compatible with, but beyond the grasp of natural human capacities.



• "Old Lights"- 1) The Spirit does not subvert the Word by issuing new revelations; 2) God deals with humans as reasonable creatures, making use of knowledge to illuminate the intellect so that true converts always keep their passions and affections under the control of their sanctified reasons; 3) They denied that conversion is always sensible and perceptible…this is shown not by emotions or experience but a changed life.



• Edwards's True Grace Distinguished from the Experience of Devils, 1752 - He attempted to reduce Arminianism and Antinomianism to a common denominator by showing that all the attainments of legal and evangelical hypocrites fall short of true grace because they do not make a change of heart. Breitenbach writes of Edwards's work: "The highest degrees of outward moral virtue, the clearest speculative knowledge of God…all arise from either natural understanding or a heart biased toward self-love.



• Edwards resolved to abolish "Stoddardeanism" from the church and the revivals helped him to establish subjecting giddy converts to "some public regulation" where ministers could compel them to seek evidence of redemption in their godly exercises and affections rather than exclusively in their conversion experiences.



• In order to obliterate Arminianism finally from the Church, Edwards wrote Freedom of the Will in 1754. He wrote that man is determined and accountable- - both at once. Edwards noted that a person never wills contrary to the prevailing inclination of his soul; that is, he never chooses what he does not prefer or love. The unregenerate have all the natural ability they need to love God; nothing is wanting but a will to love God…they never love God until they receive by grace a new habitual inclination of heart.



• Edwards showed a balanced commitment to grace and law in a Dissertation on the Nature of True Virtue, 1750. He attempted to refute secular moralism-he defined virtue as disinterested love to being, so that the holiness of regenerated saints can be said to be truly virtuous. All apparent virtue in the unregenerate, as useful as it may be to society, falls short of this vigorous standard because it can be reduced to some form of self-love or some involuntary natural principle like conscience, understanding, or instinct.



• In Freedom of the Will, Edwards demonstrated that God is a necessarily holy being. In True Virtue he showed the holiness of God is identical to holiness in men…in both cases a disinterested benevolent love to being in general. Dissertation Concerning the End for Which God Created the World, Edwards proved God is benevolent and not selfish when he seeks his own glory rather than the happiness of his creatures.



• By 1758 the New Divinity Principle had emerged into public view. It consists of:


1. God is a benevolent being who is limited by his holiness.



2. God displays his benevolence in permitting and punishing sin.



3. All sin is personal. There is no imputed sin distinct from personal sin.



4. The seat of holiness and sin is in the heart or will-these are acts which are free and voluntary.



5. Grace is a divine operation on the heart, not on the natural understanding. Depravity is confined to the heart and the natural understanding is left unimpaired by the Fall.



6. The affections of the heart is disinterested love to God for his intrinsic amiableness-conversions based on self-love are counterfeit.



7. Love to God precedes faith in the order of justification-or the first act of justifying faith is love, not belief or assurance.



8. Evangelical repentance is a cordial and willing consent to the beauty of the law that damns sinners-this precedes pardon.



9. Evidence of justification is to be found in the lively actings of a holy temper of heart-not in the experience of conversion. Sanctification rather than assurance is the most significant result of conversion.



10. Sinners are accountable moral agents because they have a neutral ability to exercise holiness even though they sin by moral necessity.



11. Because sinners' inability to love God is a voluntary disinclination, they may be justly commanded to do so immediately.



12. These principles can be applied in a practical way to ecclesiastical affairs as tests for the admission of members to communion and as discouragement from a complacent and lethargic reliance on the means of grace.


• Samuel Hopkins(1721-1803)- He was pastor at Newport and Edwards's theological heir apparent. He attempted to make palatable to the post-Revolutionary generation, man's infinite dependence on God by distinguishing between regeneration and conversion. Regeneration was the silent unconscious transformation of the soul by the Holy Spirit while conversion was the regenerate soul's subsequent effort to grow in grace. Anyone might be regenerate without knowing it, and therefore ought to willingly to seek conversion. He attempted to encourage human activity while at the same time maintaining the position that man cannot help himself. Hopkins studied with Edwards at Northampton and was Edwards's first biographer and prime architect of the New Divinity. He was a promoter of millennialism and the "father of abolitionism" in New England. When Edwards became president of Princeton, he left to Hopkins many of his unpublished notebooks and manuscripts. He wrote An Inquiry Concerning the Promises of the Gospel in 1765 in reply to Jonathan Mayhew's Arminian book, and declared that everything done by a sinner before regeneration is wicked and totally unacceptable to God. Hopkins said that while the sinner remains unconverted, the more he attends to the means of grace, the more he aggravates his guilt.



• Hopkins rejected the strivings of the unregenerate, not because strivings are acts but because they are the wrong kind of acts. They are acts of sinful self-love, while God demands acts of disinterested holy love. However, it is still their immediate duty to love God and to be holy. So long as they attend the means of grace, stuffing their understandings with speculative knowledge about God and yet continually love themselves more than him, they do less than their duty and only compound their guilt.



• By the 1770s, there was a reordering of New England Calvinism, now in four groups:


1. Antinomians;



2. Arminians;



3. Old Calvinists;



4. New Divinity Edwardsians.

Evangelical Expansion in the South

• Between Great Awakening and the Revolution, there was population growth in the Tidewater region of the South. The Church of England was disengaging itself from its Puritan past- - adjusting the church to the Spirit of the Enlightenment.



• There were expansions of Americans into the South - The Piedmont (Tidewater tobacco country) was filled in the 18th century with indentured servants, small landowners, and new comers moving from coastal regions of Virginia and the Carolinas.



• After 1730 - Valley between Blue Ridge and Alleghenies began to be settled by Germans and Scotch-Irish coming from Pennsylvania. 1775- there were over 200 Scotch-Irish communities from the Georgia uplands and they were moving into Kentucky and Tennessee. The Great Awakening in the South was an immense missionary enterprise more than a revival. Revivalism was the chief method of church extension.



• Presbyterians in the South - South was affected by the revival movements of the past two centuries…one of the results of this was the development of the common consensus on the Christian religion that marked it the "Bible Belt":


1. Acceptance of the Bible as God's Word;



2. Recognition of man's sinful condition;



3. Conviction that salvation is to be found in Christ alone by faith.


• First permanent settlement in the South was in 1607 in Virginia. During the Colonial period there was not "South" but three different societies: 1) The Chesapeake Society- based on tobacco; 2) The Carolina Society- built on rice and indigo; and 3) The Back Country- still in the process of formation in 1776. The Chesapeake was the oldest and it was a culture planted on the doctrines of the Church of England.



• Francis Makemie - "Father of American Presbyterianism"- His main labors were on the Eastern shore of Virginia and Maryland. He organized the first Presbytery of Philadelphia in 1705 or 1706.



• French Hugenots - Settled in Charleston, S.C. after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes. They were there as early as 1687 according to the records of Caesar Moze. There were also a good number of Scots, Dutch, and New England Puritans who came to South Carolina.



• The Blairs - They maintained an Academy at Fagg's Manor, Chester County, Pennsylvania. Samuel Davies- "Father of Southern Presbyterianism" was educated there and he started the "mother presybtery" of the South: Hanover Presbytery.



• Dec. 3, 1755 - 1st meeting of the Presbytery of Hanover. 1787- an Awakening begins at Hampden-Sydney College in Prince Edward, Virginia. President of the College was John Blair Smith and the revival spread to the sister institution across the Blue Ridge at Liberty Hall Academy (later William and Mary)- Archibald Alexander was converted as a student. He received theological education from William Graham. In 1812 Alexander was called to found Princeton Seminary. He was to serve until 1851 and Charles Hodge was one of his students. Others affected by the revival in Virginia were Moses Hoge (first president of Hampden-Sydney College), John Holt Rice (founder of Union Theological Seminary, Va.), George Addison Baxter (succeeded Rice as professor of theology), and Drury Lacy. Those who would shape the theology of Virginia Presbyterianism.



• The Hampden-Sydney Revival had far-reaching effects on the frontier. James McGready was influenced to evangelize in North Carolina-the revivals spread to Guilford, Co. and Orange Co. in 1791. This evangelistic effort moved into Kentucky. 1798- McGready and other ministers prayed for a revival. The revival finally began with the semi-annual Scottish Sacramental service celebrated in July 1799 at Red River. The revival moved from there to Cumberland County and McGready initiated the Camp Meeting that was to become characteristic of the Great Revival. He invited people to come prepared to camp for a sacramental season at Gasper River. The Great Kentucky Revival was mixed blessings: some were converted but there was also excesses as well, such as howling, barking, shrieking, dancing, weeping, etc.



• The Baptists - One of the most successful evangelistic feat in American history. 1st area of Baptist activity was in the Philadelphia area. The early Baptists in the Middle colonies were Particular (or Calvinistic) or General (or Arminian) Baptists from England. General Baptists settled in Virginia in 1700 and by 1729, two churches had been formed.



• The revivalism of the Great Awakening in New England was transplanted to the Southern Back Country by Shubal Stearns (1706-1771) and Daniel Marshall 1706-1784). They evangelized the Southern Frontier and moved in 1755 to Sandy Creek in Guilford, Co. North Carolina.



• Ahlstrom writes: "The surge of Baptist growth among the rural population in the South is not to be accounted without considering the farmer-preacher, a figure rightly celebrated as one of the most important institutions in the westward expansion of the American people." The farmer-preacher was converted-baptized-had a "call"-moved with family to new area-evangelized others-built a church.



• The Methodists - John and Charles Wesley's conversion and Moravian pietistic practices-itinerant evangelists in the South-preaching in fields rather than churches. Wesley was Arminian and stressed the universal efficacy of the Atonement. Along with Methodism's organized and extremely centralized church polity, Arminianism and Perfectionism became the denomination's most distinctive features. Wesleyanism blended very easily with the other forms of evangelical revivalism that flourished in the 18th and 19th centuries. Francis Asbury was the first Methodist Bishop in America.



• Evangelical Anglicanism - Devereux Jarrett (1733-1801) was the most important person. He was convinced that Anglican worship and doctrine did no violence to his strict knowledge of Reformed principles. He sparked a revival in Virginia. After 1776, he itinerated in dozens of counties of Virginia and North Carolina with a circuit 500-600- miles long. He cooperated with Methodists for revival. Deism, the Revolution, and religious factionalism decimated some of the revival gains.



• Leaders of the Second Great Awakening (1790s-1805):

  Francis Asbury (1745-1816) - Born in England and became a Methodist. In 1784, he was appointed by John Wesley to be Bishop for North America. He differed with Wesley about the American Revolution and he pioneered circuit riding (traveling 300,000 miles on horseback). The Methodist church grew in the U.S. by over 200,000 members under his leadership.

  Timothy Dwight (1752-1817)- Born in Northampton, Massachusetts and was a Congregational. Was Yale College president from 1795-1817 and was the grandson of Jonathan Edwards. A Revival started at Yale while he was there and spread to other colleges.

  James McGready (c. 1758-1817)- From Western Pennsylvania, he was a Presbyterian. He served as pastor in North Carolina and Kentucky. He originated the Camp Meeting in July 1800. He helped found the Cumberland Presbyterian Church.

  Thomas Campbell (1763-1854)- From Scotland and was a Presbyterian. He came to America in 1807 and resigned from the Presbyterian Church. He began independent ministry, which was taken over by his son and the group became the Disciples of Christ.

  Barton W. Stone (1772-1844)- Born in Maryland and was a Presbyterian. He was converted under McGready's preaching and organized the famous camp meeting in Cane Ridge, Kentucky in 1801. He founded the Christian Church, which later merged with the Cambellites.

  Lyman Beecher (1775-1863)- From New Haven, Conn. He was a Presbyterian and president of Lane Seminary from 1832-1852. Was a student of Dwight at Yale and became a pastor and evangelist. He was a noted social reformer-opposed slavery, alcoholic beverages, and dueling. He helped find the American Bible Society. Was father of Henry Ward Beecher and Harriet Beecher Stowe.

  Asahel Nettleton (1783-1844)- from Connecticut and was Congregational. Was called to missionary work abroad but was in poor health and returned to successful revivals in America. He retired early in 1820 and opposed New Haven Theology and Finney's New Measures.

  Nathaniel William Taylor (1786-1858)- Was born in Connecticut and was Congregational. He taught at Yale Divinity School from 1822-1858. Was a student of Dwight at Yale and served as pastor of First Church, New Haven. Was the major developer of New Haven Theology.

  Alexander Campbell (1788-1866)- From Northern Ireland and Presbyterian. Taught and founded Bethany College. Was the son of Thomas Campbell and founded the Disciples of Christ. Merged with followers of Barton Stone in 1832.

  Charles G. Finney (1792-1875)- From Warren, Conn. He was originally Presbyterian and taught at Oberlin College 1835-1866, and was president there from 1851. He was trained in law was converted in 1821. He originated New Measures in evangelism and taught entire sanctification. He opposed Beecher and Nettleton and was an active abolitionist.