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The Prophetic Faith of Our Fathers, vol. 4 - Contents
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    V. “Great Awakening” of Mid-Eighteenth Century

    Then, in the middle of the eighteenth century, following a generally acknowledged period of spiritual declension and a low ebb morally, extraordinary efforts were put forth by men aflame for God to induce their fellows to accept the overtures of Christ’s gospel. Such revivals of religion have always stressed pre-eminently the salvation of the individual rather than general social, political, and economic needs. It has been said that society in motion is, in fact, always an individualistic society; it is established communities that tend to embrace institutional religion.PFF4 21.3

    The awakening first started in the middle colonies, and was joined by Jonathan Edwards’ New England revival, which reached out from the little village of Northampton. It spread until the entire Colonial area from north to south and from the seaboard to the utmost fringe of settlement had felt its power. Edwards, the greatest theologian of the Great Awakening, pressed hard on justification by faith, even though some of his sermons were lurid, such as “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God.” Abhorrent as such preaching might appear today, it served to arrest the laxity and religious indifference of the time. This revival spirit was exemplified by such preachers as Frelinghuysen, Blair, and Tennent (the founder of the famous Log College in Neshaminy, Pennsylvania), and others. 18F. G. Beardsley, Religious Progress Through Religious Revivals, p. 7.PFF4 22.1

    Chiefest among those promoting the Great Awakening in America, came to be the eloquent Anglican George Whitefield (1714-1770), of the Evangelical (or Wesleyan) Revival in Britain. The great British revival under John and Charles Wesley not only averted the danger of Deism, and established a great denomination, but also quickened Nonconformist groups to new life. And the Anglicans derived from the Wesleyan movement the spiritual impulse that later established the tract, missionary, and Bible societies, as well as the Sunday school, which constituted the beginning of popular education.PFF4 22.2

    While this Old World revival was overwhelmingly Arminian in tone, the Great Awakening in America was decidedly Calvinistic, although embodying Methodist principles. White-field, though himself a Calvinist, did not preach his Calvinism. Rather, he emphasized the experience of “justification by faith and the new birth, leaving men to find their election by experiencing saving grace.” 19W. A. Candler, op. ctt., p. 77. If he had preached outright Wesleyan Arminianism, he would have aroused controversy and hindered unity. Hence, steering between the two, his message had the widest appeal. Allusions to the resurrection, the second coming of Christ, and the judgment occur frequently in his preaching. Furthermore, the revival enthusiasm of this period (1740) as “partly generated by the widespread belief that the unprecedented movement presaged the imminent coming of the millennium,” was a view promoted by Edwards and many of his followers. 20S. E. Mead, Nathaniel William Taylor, pp. 12, 13.PFF4 22.3

    Invited t6 Georgia by the Wesleys, who had, been in this country, Whitefeeld also preached in Philadelphia, New York, Charleston, Boston, and other centers with increasing success, until multitudes were called back to God through his ministry. But partly because of strife over emotional extravagances, and partly because of the conditions of the succeeding period, the religious quickening was not permanent, and theological controversy followed. The various denominations shared in the harvest of conversions, but the revival brought to the Presbyterians the temporary “New Side”—“Old Side” division. And to New England Congregationalism, the controversy between Calvinism and Arminianism led eventually to the permanent Unitarian schism.PFF4 23.1

    Nevertheless, the Great Awakening had many positive results. Aside from revitalizing religion for thousands and combating frontier irreligion and imported rationalism, it produced significant by—products. It aided indirectly in bringing equal freedom to all religions; it stimulated education, missions, social consciousness, and humanitarianism, and started movements “whose consequences for good in American life are beyond exact calculation.” 21W. W. Sweet, Religion in Colonial America, p. 317. On the Great Awakening, see F. G. Beardsley, Religious Progress, chap. 1; Benjamin Rice Lacy, Jr., Revivals in the Midst_ of the Years, chap. 2; W. A. Canceller, op. cit., chap. 4; W. W. Sweet, Revivalism in America, chaps. 2-4; L. W. Bacon, op. cit., chap. 11; F. L. Chapell, The Great Awakening of 1740; Joseph Tracy, The Great Awakening..PFF4 23.2

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