Chapter XIV: The Revival in the New World

[BY THE EDITOR.]

The labours of Whitefield had a remarkable influence upon the extension of the Great Revival in the colonies of America. In these days of mammoth steamships and rapid railways, equipped with drawing-room coaches, travelling has become a pleasant pastime; but a century and a half ago, when the sailing vessel and the old lumbering stage-coach were the most rapid and the chief means of public conveyance, and when these were often uncertain and irregular, subjecting the traveller to frequent and annoying delays, if not disappointments, it must have been a formidable undertaking to cross the Atlantic and to journey through a new country, almost a wilderness, such long distances as from Georgia to Massachusetts. Yet Whitefield, with a zeal and a holy desire in “hunting for souls,” made seven visits to America, crossing the ocean in sailing-vessels thirteen times (“one voyage lasting eleven weeks”), and travelled on his preaching tours almost constantly. In one of these visits he went upwards of 1,100 miles through this then sparsely settled country, and endured hardships and exposures from which a far stronger and more vigorous constitution might well shrink.

As in England, so in the American colonies, the decay of vital godliness which preceded the great awakening had been long and deep. It began in the latter part of the 17th century, and its progress was observed with alarm by many of the notable and godly men of the day. Governor Stoughton, previous to resigning the pulpit for the bench, proclaimed, at Boston, that “many had become like Joash after the death of Jehoiada—rotten, hypocritical, and a lie!” The venerable Torrey of Weymouth, in a sermon before the legislature, exclaimed, “There is already a great death upon religion; little more left than a name to live. It is dying as to the being of it, by the general failure of the work of conversion.”

Mather, in 1700, asserts: “If the begun apostasy should proceed as fast the next thirty years as it has done these last, it will come to that in New England (except the gospel itself depart with the order of it) that churches must be gathered out of churches.” President Willard also published a sermon in the same year on “The Perils of the Times Displayed,” in which he asks, “Whence is there such a prevalency of so many immoralities amongst professors? Why so little success of the gospel? How few thorough conversions to be observed; how scarce and seldom! * * * It has been a frequent observation that if one generation begins to decline, the next that follows usually grows worse; and so on, until God pours out his spirit again upon them.”

It was thirty years before the dawn of the great awakening began to appear, even in the colony of Massachusetts; but there were many godly men in various portions of the American colonies who had not yet bowed the knee to the Baal of worldliness, and who earnestly sought, by great fidelity in the presentation of the truth, to arrest the evil tendency of the times. Among them was that greatest of American theologians, Jonathan Edwards. Beholding the melancholy state of religion, not only at Northampton, but in the surrounding regions, and that this evil tendency was corrupting the Church, he began to preach with greater boldness, more especially with the purpose of keeping error out of the Church than with the design of awakening sinners. He was a man, however, whose convictions were exceedingly strong, and who preached the truth, not simply for the purpose of gaining a worldly victory, but because he loved the truth and the Spirit wrought mightily by it. A surprising work of grace attended his preaching. There was a melting down of all classes and ages, in an overwhelming solicitude about salvation; an absorbing sense of eternal realities and self-abasement and self-condemnation; a spirit of secret and social prayer, followed by a concern for the souls of others; and this awakening was so sudden and solemn, that in many instances it produced loud outcries, and in some cases convulsions. Doubtless this great awakening was as much a surprise to Edwards as to those to whom he ministered. Naturally, such a wonderful work could not be confined to Northampton alone; it began to extend to other places in the colony. Remarkable and widespread as this work of grace was, however, it does not seem to have penetrated through New England generally, until after the arrival of Whitefield. The effect of Whitefield’s preaching in Boston, says his biographer, was amazing. Old Mr. Walter, the successor of Eliot, the apostle to the Indians, declared it was Puritanism revived. So great was the interest that his farewell sermon was attended by twenty thousand persons. “Such a power and presence of God with a preacher, and in religious assemblies,” says Dr. Colman, “I never saw before. Every day gives me fresh proofs of Christ speaking in him.” And this interest, great as it was, seemed, if possible, exceeded at Northampton when Whitefield met Edwards and reminded his people of the days of old. A like success attended Whitefield’s ministry in the town and college of New Haven, and at Harvard College the effect was remarkable. Secretary Willard, writing to Whitefield, says: “That which forebodes the most lasting advantage is the new state of things in the college, where the impressions of religion have been and still are very general, and many in a judgment of charity brought home to Christ. Divers gentlemen’s sons that were sent there only for a more polite education, are now so full of zeal for the cause of Christ and the love of souls as to devote themselves entirely to the study of divinity.” And Dr. Colman wrote Whitefield, of Cambridge: “The college is entirely changed; the students are full of God, and will, I hope, come out blessings in their generation, and I trust are so now to each other. The voice of prayer and praise fills their chambers, and sincerity, fervency, and joy, with seriousness of heart, sit visible on their faces.”

On his return to Boston, in 1745, Whitefield himself gives a similar testimony in regard to the remarkable results of the Revival. He was followed in his labours there by Gilbert Tennent, a Presbyterian from New Jersey. That this was not an overdrawn picture of the work may be inferred from a public testimony given by three of the leading ministers in Boston, the Rev. Messrs. Prince, Webb, and Cooper. Among other things, they said, “The wondrous work of God at this day making its triumphant progress through the land has forced many men of clear minds, strong powers, considerable knowledge, and firmly riveted in * * * * Socinian tenets, to give them all up at once and yield to the adorable sovereignty and irresistibility of the Divine Spirit in His saving operations on the souls of men. For to see such men as these, some of them of licentious lives, long inured in a course of vice and of high spirits, coming to the preaching of the Word, some only out of curiosity, and mere design to get matter of cavilling and banter, all at once, in opposition to their inward resolutions and resistances, to fall under an unexpected and hated power, to have all the strength of their resolution and resistance taken away, to have such inward views of the horrid wickedness not only of their lives but of their hearts, with their exceeding great and immediate danger of eternal misery as has amazed their souls and thrown them into distress unutterable, yea, forced them to cry out in the assemblies with the greatest agonies, and then, in two or three days, and sometimes sooner, to have such unexpected and raised views of the infinite grace and love of God in Christ, as have enabled them to believe in Him; lifted them at once out of their distress; filled their hearts with admiration and joy unspeakable and full of glory, breaking forth in their shining countenances and transporting voices to the surprise of those about them, kindling up at once into a flame of love to God in utter detestation of their former courses and vicious habits,” fairly characterises this wonderful work of God.

Gilbert Tennent, who was pressed into the field by Whitefield, was born in Ireland, and brought to this country by his father, and was educated for the ministry. As a preacher he was, in his vigorous days, equalled by few. His reasoning powers were strong, his language was forcible and often sublime, and his manner of address warm and earnest. His eloquence was, however, rather bold and awful than soft and persuasive, he was most pungent in his address to the conscience. When he wished to alarm the sinner, he could represent in the most awful manner the terrors of the Lord. With admirable dexterity he exposed the false hope of the hypocrite, and searched the corrupt heart to the bottom. Such were some of the qualifications of the man whom Whitefield chose to continue his work in America. He entered on his new labours with almost rustic simplicity, wearing his hair undressed and a large great-coat girt with a leathern girdle. He was of lofty stature and dignified and grave aspect. His career as a preacher in New Jersey had been remarkable, and now in New England his ministry was hardly less successful than that of Whitefield. He actually shook the country as with an earthquake. Wherever he came hypocrisy and Pharisaism either fell before him or gnashed their teeth against him. Cold orthodoxy also started from her downy cushion to imitate or to denounce him. So testifies the author of the “_Life and Times of Whitefield_.”

Whitefield’s first reception in New York was not particularly flattering. He was refused the use of both the church and the court-house. “The commissary of the Bishop,” he says, “was full of anger and resentment, and denied me the use of his pulpit before I asked him for it.” He replied, “I will preach in the fields, for all places are alike to me.” At a subsequent visit he preached there seven weeks with great acceptableness and success. Even his first labours were not wholly in vain. Dr. Pemberton wrote to him that many were deeply affected, and some who had been loose and profligate were ashamed and set upon thorough reformation. The printers also at New York, as at Philadelphia, applied to him for sermons to publish, assuring him “that hundreds had called for them, and that thousands would purchase them.” Of his later visit he says, “Such flocking of all ranks I never saw before.” At New York many of the most respectable gentlemen and merchants went home with him after his sermons to hear something more of the kingdom of Christ.

“At Philadelphia,” says Philip, in his Life and Times of Whitefield, “his welcome was cordial. Ministers and laymen of all denominations visited him, inviting him to preach. He was especially pleased to find that they preferred sermons when not delivered within church walls. It was well they did, for his fame had reached the city before he arrived and this collected crowds which no church could contain. The court-house steps became his pulpit, and neither he nor the people wearied, although the cold winds of November blew upon them night after night.” Previous to one of his visits in Philadelphia, a place was erected in which Whitefield could preach, and its managers offered him £800 annually, with liberty to travel six months in a year wherever he chose, if he would become their pastor. Though pleased with the offer he promptly declined it. He was more pleased to learn that in consequence of a former visit there were so many under soul-sickness that even Gilbert Tennent’s feet were blistered with walking from place to place to see them.

Of his work in Maryland he writes, that he found those who had never heard of redeeming grace. The harvest is promising. “Have Marylanders also received the grace of God? Amazing love. Maryland is yielding converts to Jesus; the Gospel is moving southwards.”

He frequently visited New Jersey (Princeton) College, and there won many young and bright witnesses for Christ. Hearing that sixteen students had been converted at a former visit, he again went thither to fan the flame he had kindled among the students, and says that he had four sweet seasons which resembled old times. His spirits rose at the sight of the young soldiers who were to fight when he fell.

Although at times prejudice ran high against the Indians, Whitefield espoused their cause as a philanthropist, and preached to them through interpreters at the Indian school of Lebanon, under Dr. Wheelock, where the sight of a promising nursery for future missionaries greatly inspired him. And at one of the stations maintained by the sainted Brainerd, he preached, found converted Indians, and saw nearly fifty young ones in one school learning a Bible catechism. In the Indian school at Lebanon he became so interested that he appealed to the public and collected £120 at one meeting for its maintenance. Wherever he went he saw the Redeemer’s stately steps in the great congregations which he addressed.

If there was any one point about which Whitefield’s interest centered in America, it was in the orphan asylum which he aided in establishing in Georgia. This was his “Bethesda.” The prosperity of the orphan home was engraved upon his heart as with the point of a diamond, and it was ever vividly present to him wherever he went. At one of his visits on parting with the inmates he says: “Oh, what a sweet meeting I had with my dear friends! What God has prepared for me I know not; but surely I cannot expect a greater happiness until I embrace the saints in glory! When I parted my heart was ready to break with sorrow, but now it almost bursts with joy. Oh, how did each in turn hang upon my neck, kiss and weep over me with tears of joy! And my own soul was so full of the sense of God’s love, when I embraced one friend in particular, that I thought I should have expired in the place. I felt my soul so full of the sense of Divine goodness that I wanted words to express myself. When we came to public worship, young and old were all dissolved in tears. After service several of my parishioners, all of my family, and the little children returned home crying along the street, and some could not avoid praying very loud. Being very weak in body I laid myself upon a bed, but finding so many in a weeping condition I rose and betook myself to prayer again, but had I not lifted up my voice very high the groans and cries of the children would have prevented me from being heard. This continued for near an hour, till at last, finding their concern rather to increase than to abate, I desired all to retire. Then some or other might be heard praying earnestly in every corner of the house. It happened at this time to thunder and lighten, which added very much to the solemnity of the night. * * * I mention the orphans in particular, that their benefactors may rejoice at what God is doing for their souls.”

It is evident that Whitefield had a very tender heart towards all children. One of his most effective sermons at Webb’s Chapel, Boston, was occasioned by the touching remark of a dying boy, who had heard him the day before. The boy was taken ill after the sermon, and said, “I want to go to Mr. Whitefield’s God”—and expired. This touched the secret place of both the thunder and the tears of Whitefield. He says, “It encouraged me to speak to the little ones, but oh, how were the old people affected when I said, ‘Little children, if your parents will not come to Christ, do you come and go to heaven without them.’” After this awful appeal no wonder that there were but few dry eyes.

Another remarkable evidence of the extent and power of the Revival, and of the versatility of Mr. Whitefield’s talents, is shown in the effect produced upon the negro mind. The intensest interest prevailed among even the poorest slaves. Upon one occasion Whitefield was very ill, and in the hands of the physician to the time when he was expected to preach. Suddenly he exclaimed, “My pains are suspended; by the help of God I will go and preach, and then come home and die!” With some difficulty he reached the pulpit. All were surprised, and looked as though they saw one risen from the dead. He says of himself, “I was as pale as death, and told them they must look upon me as a dying man come to bear my dying testimony to the truths I had formerly preached to them. All seemed melted, and were drowned in tears. The cry after me when I left the pulpit was like the cry of sincere mourners when attending the funeral of a dear departed friend. Upon my coming home, I was laid upon a bed upon the ground near the fire, and I heard them say, ‘He is gone!’ but God was pleased to order it otherwise. I gradually recovered. At this time a poor negro woman insisted upon seeing him when he began to recover. She came in and sat on the ground, and looked earnestly into his face; then she said, in broken accents: “Massa, you jest go to hebben’s gate; but Jesus Christ said, ‘Get you down, get you down; you musn’t come here yet; go first and call some more poor negroes.’” Many colored people came to him asking, “Have I a soul?” Many societies for prayer and mutual instruction were set up. Mr. Seward, a travelling companion of Whitefield,; relates that a drinking club, whereof a clergyman was a member, had a negro boy attending them, who used to mimic people for their diversion. They called on him to mimic Whitefield, which he was very unwilling to do; but they insisted upon it. He stood up and said:—“I speak the truth in Christ, I lie not, unless you repent you will all be damned.” Seward adds, “This unexpected speech broke up the club, which has never met since.”

At Savannah, Charleston, and other southern cities, the Great Revival had a remarkable success. Josiah Smith, an Independent minister of Charleston, published a sermon on the character and preaching of Whitefield, defending his doctrines, his personal character, and describing his manner of preaching. Of Whitefield’s power he says: “He is certainly a finished preacher; a noble negligence ran through his style; the passion and flame of his inspiration will, I trust, be long felt by many. How was his tongue like the pen of a ready writer, touched as with a coal from the altar! With what a flow of words, what a ready profusion of language did he speak to us upon the concerns of our souls! In what a flaming light did he set _our_ eternity before us! How earnestly he pressed Christ upon us! The awe, the silence, the attention, which sat upon the faces of the great audience was an argument, how he could reign over all their powers. Many thought he spake as never man spake before him. So charmed were the people with the manner of his address that they shut up their shops, forgot their secular business, and the oftener he preached the keener edge he seemed to put upon their desires to hear him again. How awfully—with what thunder and sound—did he discharge the artillery of heaven upon us! Eternal themes, the tremendous solemnities of our religion were all alive upon his tongue. He struck at the politest and most modish of our vices, and at the most fashionable entertainments, regardless of every one’s presence but His in whose name he spake with this authority. And I dare warrant if none should go to these diversions until they had answered the solemn questions he put to their consciences, our theatres would soon sink and perish.” Mr. Smith adds that £600 were contributed in Charleston to the orphan house.

The wonderful quickening which the Great Revival gave to benevolent and charitable enterprises deserves at least a passing allusion. Besides sending forth into mission work such men as David Brainerd, and even Jonathan Edwards himself, it also laid the foundation more securely of many of our Christian colleges, and of not a few of our orphan asylums. Whitefield founded his Bethesda upon a tract of land covering about 500 acres, ten miles from Savannah, and laid out the plan of the building, employed workmen, hired a large house, took in 24 orphans, incurred at once the heavy responsibilities of a large family and a larger institution, encouraged, as he says, by the example of Professor Francke. Yet on looking back to this first undertaking he said: “I forgot that Professor Francke built in a populous country and that I was building at the very tail end of the world, which rendered it by far the most expensive part of all his Majesty’s dominions; but had I received more and ventured less, I should have suffered less and others more.” He undertook to provide for his 40 orphans and 60 servants and workmen with no fears nor misgivings of heart. “Near a hundred mouths,” he writes, “are daily to be supplied with food. The expense is great, but our great and good God, I am persuaded, will enable me to defray it.” He spent a winter at Bethesda in 1764, and of the success of his orphanage he says, “Peace and plenty reign at Bethesda; all things go on successfully. God has given me great favour in the sight of the governor, council, and assembly. A memorial was presented for an additional grant of land consisting of about 2,000 acres, and was immediately complied with. Every heart seems to leap for joy at the prospect of its future utility to this and the neighbouring colonies.”

This great religious movement did not progress without stirring up much bitterness. It was even asserted by President Clap, of New Haven, that he came into New England to turn out the generality of their ministers, and to replace them with ministers from England, Ireland, and Scotland. “Such a thought,” replies Whitefield, “never entered my heart, neither has, as I know of, my preaching any such tendency.” It is said of one minister that he went merely to pick a hole in Whitefield’s coat, but confessed that God picked a hole in his heart, and afterward healed it by the blood of Christ. After one of his visits not less than twenty ministers in the neighbourhood of Boston did not hesitate to call Whitefield their spiritual father, tracing their conversion to his preaching. These men immediately entered upon a similar work, spreading the great awakening throughout that colony.

In the progress of this work under Whitefield and others, there were frequent outbursts of wit and grim humor. Thus when pastors were shy of giving Whitefield and his associates a place in their pulpits and the people voted to allow them to preach in their churches, Whitefield said, “The _lord_-brethren of New England could tyrannize as well as the _lord_-bishops of Old England.” The caricatures issued from Boston in regard to the work were designated as half-penny squibs; and a good old Puritan of the city said, “they did not weigh much.”

Of the religion of America Whitefield writes: “I am more and more in love with the good old Puritans. I am pleased at the thought of sitting down hereafter with the venerable Cotton, Norton, Eliot, and that great cloud of witnesses who first crossed the western ocean for the sake of the sacred gospel and the faith once delivered to the saints. At present my soul is so filled that I can scarce proceed.” Again he writes: “It is too much for one man to be received as I have been by thousands. The thoughts of it lay me low but I cannot get low enough. I would willingly sink into nothing before the blessed Jesus—my all in all.” And again, “I love those that thunder out the Word. The Christian world is in a deep sleep, nothing but a loud voice can awaken them out of it. Had we a thousand hands and tongues there is employment enough for them all. People are everywhere ready to perish for lack of knowledge.” To an aged veteran he writes from North Carolina, “I am here hunting in the woods—these ungospelized wilds—for sinners. It is pleasant work, though my body is weak and crazy. But after a short fermentation in the grave, it will be fashioned like unto Christ’s glorious body. The thought of this rejoices my soul and makes me long to leap my seventy years. I sometimes think all will go to heaven before me. Pray for me as a dying man, but, oh, pray that I may not go off as a snuff. I would fain die blazing—not with human glory, but with the love of Jesus.” Such was the spirit filling the great souls of those who were God’s instruments in spreading the revival in America. Mr. Whitefield died at Newburyport, Massachusetts, Sept. 30, 1770, having preached the day before at Exeter, and his body rests in a crypt or tomb beneath the Presbyterian church at that place.

Of the effects of the Great Revival in America, Dr. Abel Stevens says, “The Congregational churches of New England, the Presbyterians and Baptists of the Middle States, and the mixed colonies of the South, owe their late religious life and energy mostly to the impulse given by his [Whitefield’s] powerful ministrations.” * * * In Pennsylvania and New Jersey, where Frelinghuysen, Blair, Rowland, and the two Tennents had been labouring with evangelistic zeal, he was received as a prophet of God, and it was then that the Presbyterian Church took that attitude of evangelical power and aggression which has ever since characterized it.

A single incident will illustrate the effect of the Revival upon unbelievers and skeptics. A noted officer of Philadelphia, who had long been almost an atheist, crept into the crowd one night to hear a sermon on the visit of Nicodemus to Christ. When he came home, his wife not knowing where he had been, wished he had heard what she had been hearing. He said nothing. Another and another of his family came in and made a similar remark till he burst into tears and said, “I have been hearing him and approve of his sermon.” He afterwards became a sincere Christian with the spirit of a martyr.

These etchings of a few scenes and fewer facts indicate the scope, the depth, and the sweep of the Great Revival of the 18th century in America. No attempt has been made to sum up its results, nor has it come within the purpose of this work to give an inward history of the movement, nor to explain the philosophy of it. These intricate questions may be left to philosophers; the Christian delights to know the facts; he will cheerfully wait for the future life to unfold all the mystery and philosophy of the plan and work of salvation. Then, as Whitefield exclaims, “What amazing mysteries will be unfolded when each link in the golden chain of providence and grace shall be seen and scanned by beatified spirits in the kingdom of heaven! Then all will appear symmetry and harmony, and even the most intricate and seemingly most contrary dispensations, will be evidenced to be the result of infinite and consummate wisdom, power, and love. Above all, there the believer will see the infinite depths of that mystery of godliness, ‘God manifested in the flesh,’ and join with that blessed choir, who, with a restless unweariedness, are ever singing the song of Moses and the Lamb.”

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