Awake, then, you that are sleeping in a false peace, awake, ye carnal professors, ye hypocrites that go to church, receive the sacrament, read your Bibles, and never felt the power of God upon your hearts; you that are formal professors, you that are baptized heathens; awake, awake, and do not rest on a false bottom. Blame me not for addressing myself to you; indeed, it is out of love to your souls. I see you are lingering in your Sodom, and wanting to stay there; but I come to you as the angel did to Lot, to take you by the hand. Come away, my dear brethren—fly, fly, fly for your lives to Jesus Christ, fly to a bleeding God, fly to a throne of grace; and beg of God to break your hearts, beg of God to convince you of your actual sins, beg of God to convince you of your original sin, beg of God to convince you of your self-righteousness—beg of God to give you faith, and to enable you to close with Jesus Christ.
George Whitefield, The Method of Grace, September 13th, 1741
America finds its roots in the Calvinist Pilgrims and Separatists who came to the continent in search of religious freedom. They sought to be free from the shackles of the established English church. Through a generation of trial and hardship, they would find success. Believing that true Christian worship was found generally apart from prescribed liturgies and prayer books, free from mandated vesting and adherence to bishops and kings, they flourished in newly settled colonies. They would be guided by called elders, and their rule would be the Scriptures alone, typically the Geneva Bible.
The religious fervor of these settlements would begin to decline by the eighteenth century. The prosperity of the American colonies led to a complacency and a lack of fervor concerning religious devotion. In Europe, the Enlightenment would begin to take its toll on traditional Christianity. A solid understanding of original sin and grace would be replaced with reason and humanism. Even the humble and uneducated people would soon find themselves influenced by these new developments. After sliding into the pit of Deism, the people of Britain and America were primed for a religious awakening.
Many preachers would soon emerge to light the proverbial fire under the heart of their nations, including familiar names like Gilbert Tennent, John Wesley, Jonathan Edwards, and, most notably, George Whitefield.
These men worked mostly within their established denominations. The First Great Awakening was built upon the foundation of Presbyterianism, Congregationalism, and Anglicanism. They saw a downgrade within their own church bodies. Ordained men were embracing Enlightenment ideas. They had begun to despise evangelism and focus more on worldly pursuits. No longer was the care of souls at the forefront of the professional theologian. Particularly in urban areas, they sought instead to improve society through relief efforts and other social programs.
Even among the more traditional minded clergymen, a kind of apathy had taken root. A significant number of old Calvinists were extremely cautious about evangelism. Some would go so far as to say that election unto salvation would come even apart from preaching. They would be some of the fiercest opponents of the large crowds and open-air preaching that was to come.
Since the forces of the Enlightenment and old-guard religion both achieved the same end, namely a religious downgrade, others began to kick against the goads. Jonathan Edwards, a New England professor and minister, could clearly see what was happening in America. He saw a dying people in need of a Savior. There was an urgency to his task that is evident in his preaching.
His most famous sermon was Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God. This is, so far, the most famous sermon in American history. It was once a standard text even in American public grade schools. It is simultaneously the most revered and most reviled of sermons in the English language.
Edwards preached it in Enfield, CT in the summer of 1741. It was delivered earlier to his own congregation in Northampton, MA. The content is stark and vivid. God is a firm and fierce judge who is ready to cast sinners into hell at any moment. The wicked deserve this and at this very moment are already consigned to hellfire. Satan and his imps stand eager to pounce upon the ungodly at any time. The sinner should not feel secure, because death can claim him at any time. Unbelievers are pictured as spiders or insects dangling over a fire. Their fall into the bottomless pit is imminent. There is no hope of escape apart from the finished work of Christ. These strong words hit their mark, and many were moved to convert:
The God that holds you over the pit of hell, much as one holds a spider, or some loathsome insect over the fire, abhors you, and is dreadfully provoked: His wrath towards you burns like fire; He looks upon you as worthy of nothing else, but to be cast into the fire; He is of purer eyes than to bear to have you in His sight; you are ten thousand times more abominable in His eyes, than the most hateful venomous serpent is in ours. You have offended Him infinitely more than ever a stubborn rebel did his prince; and yet it is nothing but His hand that holds you from falling into the fire every moment. It is to be ascribed to nothing else, that you did not go to hell the last night; that you were suffered to awake again in this world, after you closed your eyes to sleep. And there is no other reason to be given, why you have not dropped into hell since you arose in the morning, but that God’s hand has held you up. There is no other reason to be given why you have not gone to hell, since you have sat here in the house of God, provoking His pure eyes by your sinful wicked manner of attending His solemn worship. Yea, there is nothing else that is to be given as a reason why you do not this very moment drop down into hell.
Overwhelmed by what they were hearing, many repented on the spot. They recommitted themselves to Christ. This is where concerns about the First Great Awakening are evident. While you would not see the open and obvious psychological manipulation of later “awakenings,” the questions always looming over these new preachers was whether these conversions were legitimate. Is it truly a case of the Spirit working through the Word, or were people only under the spell of powerful orators?
The First Great Awakening would see the rise of many celebrity pastors like Edwards. Amid the celebrity status, there was always suspicion regarding the conversion of their hearers. Were they simply going through the motions because it was the popular thing to do? Similar questions would also surround men like John Wesley (whom we will discuss in a future article) and George Whitefield.
On December 27th, 1714, in Gloucester, the most famous revivalist of the First Great Awakening was born. George Whitefield would be ordained a deacon in 1736 and would preach his first sermon a week later. He was not assigned a parish. He would soon find himself reaching out to those who would not attend church. He preached in parks and fields. He went to places where men worked long and hard hours to evangelize. In 1738 he came to America to preach in Georgia. In 1739 he returned to Britain in order to secure funding for colonial evangelism. While there, he was ordained to the priesthood.
In 1740 Whitefield was in America and preaching nearly every day. He would travel from New York to South Carolina on horseback, evangelizing wherever he went. Large crowds flocked to hear him. Like Edwards, he preached in a style intended to elicit an emotional response from the crowd. He spoke of a real hell, real consequences for sin, of real grace, and real freedom from the bonds of sin. Although an avowed Calvinist, he was not one of the Old Lights. He firmly believed that the Gospel should be preached to all. Unlike Wesley, he did not subscribe to an Arminian view of salvation. He understood that man’s will was bound. Man had to hear the Word in order to be loosed. He became the first “American” celebrity. No less a figure than Benjamin Franklin came to hear him preach, and Franklin estimated that 30,000 were in attendance on that day. Whitefield’s work would have a lasting effect upon American Christianity.
The die was now cast for a new kind of Protestantism no longer shackled to the strict church structures of the past. Now preaching was for the farmer plowing his field, the miner tooling away with pick and shovel, or the street urchin on a corner in Philadelphia. If the established churches were not going to participate outside of Sunday morning, as these men saw it, then the church would go to them. Its influence at this time was so great that it would embolden the efforts of the soon-to-come Revolution.
The roots of American evangelicalism are found here. It is undoubtable that there were distressing issues among the American population at the time. However, in some estimations, the negative consequences might have outweighed the benefits. Americans were coming back into the church but soon newer measures would be employed that went beyond the techniques of men like Edwards, Wesley, and Whitefield. A more worldly approach would be invented and the blueprint for contemporary evangelism would be drafted. As we study the later awakenings, we will see what happens when new means are deployed, and discernment is abandoned. Can one crack in the foundation of established religion lead to the downfall of many?
