52. Chapter 47: The Church Experiences a Great Awakening

CHAPTER 47 The Church Experiences a Great Awakening

1. The Colonies Experience a Spiritual Awakening

You may recall that in the eight­eenth century the winds of Deism and Rationalism blew over Eng­land and blighted the religious life of the churches in that country (ch. 43, sec. 4). They likewise chilled much of the religious life of the churches in America into a deep sleep. In the early part of the eighteenth century religious life in America was at a low ebb. The Puritans who had founded the New England colonies were men and women of a deep religious life and strong religious convictions; their grandchildren had lost nearly all religious fervor.

Then a tremendous change came over the religious life of the col­onies. It has become known as the Great Awakening. A series of re­ligious revivals took place in vari­ous colonies here, there, and every­where. The Great Awakening in America and the Methodist move­ment in England occurred at the same time. Both of these had for their background the influence of the Moravians and of German Pie­tism, of which Spener and Francke were the leaders and the Univer­sity of Halle became the center (ch. 39, sec. 4). The Methodist movement in England and the Great Awakening in America came together in the person of George Whitefield. Later we shall see how this came about.

2. The Work of Frelinghuysen, Tennent, and Edwards

Theodore J. Frelinghuysen, who in the Netherlands had been under German Pietistic influence, arrived in America in 1720 to become the pastor of some Dutch Reformed churches on the frontier in New Jersey, in the valley of the Raritan River. Frelinghuysen was a preach­er of outstanding ability. In his sermons he put all the emphasis on the need of conversion, and his fervent preaching soon bore fruit. Many new members were added to his church. Other churches heard about the remarkable changes brought about by his preaching and requested him to preach to them. In this way the revival spread beyond the valley of the Raritan.

William Tennent was the min­ister of a Presbyterian church in Neshaminy, Pennsylvania. He had four sons: Gilbert, William Jr., John, and Charles. The oldest son, Gilbert, had already been educated by his father for the ministry, when William Tennent built in a corner of his large yard a log cabin to be used as a schoolhouse. In this school, which was nicknamed the "Log College," the Reverend W. Tennent trained his three younger sons and in course of time fifteen other young men for the ministry. He trained his students very thor­oughly in Latin, Greek, and He­brew, in logic and in theology. Above all he stirred in them a fer­vent evangelical spirit. All four of his sons became ministers in the Presbyterian Church and carried on in the spirit of their father. In the year in which his father opened his "Log College," Gilbert Tennent became the minister of a Presbyterian church in the neigh­borhood of the Reverend Theodore Frelinghuysen. The latter helped the young Presbyterian minister in every way. He permitted him to hold services in the churches of the Dutch Reformed. Tennent, of course, used the English language, and to this some of the members of the Dutch Reformed Church objected strongly. But through the warm evangelical preaching of Gil­bert Tennent and the graduates of the Log College, a revival got under way which in course of time ran like a forest fire among the Presby­terians from Long Island to Vir­ginia. The name of Jonathan Edwards is inseparably linked with the Great Awakening in New England. In many ways Jonathan Edwards was the outstanding intellectual figure in colonial America, and one of the greatest minds America has ever produced. He was born in 1703 in East Windsor, Connecticut, where his father was minister of the Congregational Church. He was graduated from Yale at the early age of seventeen years, and in 1727, after several years of further study and of preaching and teach­ing, he became minister of the Congregational church in North­ampton in central Massachusetts. The church was in a state of spiritual deadness. In December 1734 Edwards preached a series of sermons on Justification. These sermons were directed against the tendency toward Arminianism, which was then developing in New England. With great vividness the tall, slender, grave young minister pictured the wrath of God, from which he urged sinners to flee. Soon a great change came over the church and the town of Northamp­ton. In the spring and summer which followed the town seemed to be full of the presence of God. There was scarcely a single person, young or old, who was not con­cerned about the eternal things. During the first year of the revival more than three hundred persons professed conversion.

JONATHAN EDWARDS
Bettmann Archive In the next few years revivals, independent of each other, took place in various parts of New Eng­land. By 1740 the revival move­ment had become general through­out New England. Mass conver­sions were common. Out of a pop­ulation of 300,000 between 25,000 and 50,000 new members were added to the churches. The moral tone of New England was lifted to a higher plane. The revival was attended with strong emotional and physical man­ifestations. Strong men fell as though shot, and women became hysterical. Edwards preached at Enfield, Connecticut, in July, 1741. His subject was: "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God." He had to stop and request silence that he might be heard, for there was such a deep breathing of distress, and loud weeping.

3. George Whitefield and the Great Awakening

George Whitefield had a large share in the Great Awakening. He was born in Gloucester, England, on December 16, 1714. His father was a tavern keeper. The boy grew up in poverty amidst scenes of low morality. But there was in Glouces­ter an endowed school. The young George became a pupil there and prepared himself for college. In 1733 he entered Oxford Univer­sity, where he became a member of the Holy Club. After a serious illness he was converted, and in 1736 he was ordained a minister in the Episcopal Church of Eng­land.

You will remember that White-field labored with the Wesleys to spread the Gospel in England (ch. 40, sec. 6, 7, and 11) . But he did his greatest work in America. From 1738 to 1770 he made seven preaching tours to America. In those years he went up and down the American colonies from New England to Georgia, preach­ing. Wherever he preached huge crowds came to hear him. Some­times he spoke to as many as twenty thousand people. Gifted with marvelous eloquence, he was the greatest preacher of the eight­eenth century and one of the great­est of all time. Through his preach­ing thousands were converted, and the spiritual life of many other thousands was quickened.

Whitefield died September 30, 1770, in Newburyport, Massachu­setts, where he lies buried under the pulpit of the Old South Pres­byterian Church.

4. The Aftermath In time the interest in spiritual things began to grow less, and the revival called the Great Awaken­ing burned itself out. As early as the years 1744 to 1748 Jonathan Edward’s church in Northampton, according to his own statement, was utterly dead. In those years not a single conversion took place. As the revival faded away cer­tain disagreements arose. The Con­gregational ministers in New Eng­land and the Reformed ministers in New York were divided as to its value. Some favored it, others were against it. The Presbyterian Church was split over the question, though later it reunited. The Great Awakening also brought about the development of the New England theology, which in the end led to a great weakening of historic Cal­vinism among the Congregation­alists, the Reformed, and the Pres­byterians. At the same time a liberal tendency began to show itself, especially in the churches of Boston and vicinity, which in the early nineteenth century resulted in the formation of Unitarian churches.

GEORGE WHITEFIELD
Religious News Service The Great Awakening power­fully fostered the spirit of revival­ism, which has been until recent years the outstanding feature of the life of the Church in America.