Video Transcript: Jonathan Edwards and the First Great Awakening - Part 1

We're trying to give the religious picture in colonial America and then we're going to end up by just reversing and looking at the distribution of churches in colonial America. So between the two of those then we've kind of got a sense of what's going on here kind of denominationally in terms of what we've studied and then we'll be able to start today lecture number four the First Great Awakening.

Religious picture in colonial America. So what we said before we left I think was that remember we said that many of the churches by the second third fourth generation churches were basically immigrant churches. Many of the churches by the second third fourth generation were starting to decline and starting to be in trouble. They didn't retain the vitality of what they were when they came in when they came over. The question that we didn't get to is what are the reasons for that? We didn't start that, did we? What are the basic reasons for this decline?

Number one: The first reason is a decline in the fervor of their own members. So that's the first reason why these immigrant churches did not retain their strength. They came over here, one or two generations started to decline and the first reason is the fervor of their own membership started to decrease. Their own members did not retain the fervor or the vitality of the original immigrants who came over. Now we've already seen that with the Puritans, remember we said with the Puritans which came first? Did an increase in wealth cause them to lose their Evangelical fervor or did they lose their Evangelical fervor and that caused them to increase? I don't know what comes first, the chicken or the egg. So that's the first thing that becomes problematic.

The second thing that becomes problematic for these immigrant churches is a number of dissidents who were in their midst. In other words people who stayed in the denomination but they started to have serious disagreements with their denomination with their particular Church. Disagreements could be theological disagreements, disagreements over church polity or how you establish the church, how you set up the church, how you govern the church. But number two there's a lot of dissidents, there's a lot of arguments, there's a lot of people in the church who are unhappy with the church and therefore causing the decline of the church. So that's a second reason.

Reason number three is the impact of the 17th century, 18th century Age of Reason, age of rationality whatever you want to call it. The impact of the Age of Reason or rationality upon the churches and a good example of this of course is deism. Now we'll be talking a lot about deism in another lecture but a good example of this is deism of the 17th century 18th century. Deism is not a religion, it's not a denomination. Deism is a philosophical view, a kind of a religious view. It will evolve into a denomination eventually. But deism as a kind of rationalistic opposition to these immigrant churches is becoming very very strong and picking up in the 18th century in America. Now remember deism is God is up here we're down here and there's no connection between God and us. It's kind of like what you've heard of the clockmaker God. God made the world like a clock maker makes a clock and he wound it up and it's ticking away down here. But there's no connection between God and us. So that kind of very rationalistic approach to religion's rationalistic view of God that is going to have a real impact on a lot of denominations, a lot of churches and a lot of people here in the colonies. So that's number three on our list.

Number four in our list then is that there are now people outside of the church in the colonies. Because places like Rhode Island and Pennsylvania have emphasized religious freedom, not just religious toleration, not just being tolerant of other people but absolutely people are free and that religious freedom meant that a lot of people chose to be atheists or agnostics. They wanted no part of the church, no part of church life at all. Now some of those people, not all obviously small groups but some of those people started to be pretty antagonistic toward the organized church and toward organized religion. So you get an external antagonism not just an indifference toward the church, not just an indifference toward religion, not just an indifference toward the tenets of Christianity. You start to get an antagonism toward Church religion Christianity the doctrines and so forth. We really haven't experienced that before. We've experienced in Europe we've experienced antagonism of one branch of Christianity toward another so we've had a Clash of protestantism and Roman Catholicism and so forth but we haven't experienced the antagonism of people outside the church now really calling the church into question calling Christianity into question. That's kind of new in a sense so that is going to be problematic.

So therefore we are starting in the 18th century in the colonial period many churches are starting to be in trouble. They're not able to sustain the life that they had when they first came over. Now the question is what's going to happen with that but we won't worry about that now. Let me just do the number two distribution of churches in America. Now this is reversing it this is looking not colony by colony and what's happening there this is reversing it and just mentioning the different denominations and where you could find them. So I hope that between one and two you get a bit of a picture of the American Church during the colonial period.

First of all congregational churches. Congregationalism: where do you find this in the colonial period? You find it almost exclusively in New England and you find very little of congregationalism or congregational churches outside of New England. It is kind of a New England product. Number 2, the Anglican Church which will eventually be called The Episcopal church but right now the Anglican Church. Where do you find the Anglican Church? Actually you find the Anglican church spread throughout the colonies. They are fairly dominant in some places like Virginia but you even find the Anglican Church down in Georgia and it's that Anglican Church in Georgia to which John Wesley went. John and Charles Wesley would talk about that perhaps later but anglicanism is kind of spread out.

Presbyterianism was small during the colonial period but it is pretty much spread out throughout the colonies. The Baptists are everywhere so they're spread out throughout The Colony as well. You find Baptist strengths in places like Rhode Island of course. The Roman Catholic Church is quite small and it's concentrated in the Middle Colonies. The Quakers preferred to be called the friends and they are spread throughout the colonies but they are heavy in New England and the middle colonies and that's partly because of course they were welcomed into Rhode Island in such great numbers and welcomed into Pennsylvania in such great numbers as well. Middle Colonies but also New England. The Quakers are finding a home, the Friends are finding a home there. The Lutheran Church—Lutherans are found in the Middle Colonies. Remember, it was Philadelphia, it was Pennsylvania that welcomed German Lutherans and other smaller groups like the Dunkers and so forth. Middle Colonies, but there are Lutherans in Georgia as well, just as there were Anglicans in Georgia. So there are Lutherans in Georgia as well, but basically, the Middle Colonies is where you find the Lutheran Church.

The Dutch Reformed Church that we mentioned—the Dutch Reformed Church is in the Middle Colonies, of course, very heavy in New York. Even though New York became British, it was the first New Netherlands, and so the Dutch Reformed Church—New York, New Jersey. With the First Great Awakening, one of the beginnings of the First Great Awakening is among Dutch Reformed people in New Jersey and New York. The Dutch Reformed—that's where they're concentrated basically.

That's Lecture Three. Are there any questions about Lecture Three and what we're calling denominationalism in the American colonies? By the time of the First Great Awakening, we've got a fair number of denominations in the American colonies. All of them are immigrant churches, they all came over from the old country. They're getting settled in, but some of them are having trouble with their existence for these 4 reasons.

Are there any questions about that?

We are going to journey on to Lecture Four: Jonathan Edwards and the First Great Awakening. If you're following along in the outline, you can see what we're going to do. We're going to take a fairly long time to talk about Jonathan Edwards' life and ministry, then we'll look at other important leaders, reactions to the First Great Awakening, and results of the First Great Awakening.

As usual, this will put us maybe a day or so ahead in our lectures, which is a good thing. If we get a winter like last winter and have to miss a day, we know that we're still ahead of the game.

Jonathan Edwards—there is a lot to say about Jonathan Edwards. There are maybe four or five people in this course I take a fair amount of time talking about biographically because they are so important. They shaped American religious life and American cultural life. I could have you read five or six more biographies, but instead, I’ll give you the biographical highlights.

Jonathan Edwards, a remarkable person. 1703-1758—not a very long life, as we'll see for reasons later. One of the greatest of American-born theologians and philosophers. Some leaders of the church we've mentioned came over as immigrants, but they weren’t born in America. Jonathan Edwards was born here, so we give him that credit. He is certainly one of the greatest.

Notice I've said theologians and philosophers—he had a remarkable ability in both theology and philosophy. He was born in East Windsor, Connecticut, so people from Connecticut can claim him as one of their own.

They soon found out they had a very precocious child on their hands with Jonathan. A couple of good examples—he was fluent in Latin, Greek, and Hebrew and seemed to have mastered them by the time he was 13. That’s impressive—Latin, Greek, and Hebrew by 13. He was born with a special brilliance. He was also very interested in the natural sciences. Remember, we’re talking about the 18th century, so not the tremendous knowledge of the natural sciences we have now, but he was very interested in observation, which would serve him well theologically and philosophically. He entered Yale before he was 13 years old, finishing at 17. Today, we’d say he was trained in the home by his parents in languages, philosophy, theology, and natural sciences.

A couple of things about Yale—when you think of Yale University, you think of New Haven. But when Jonathan Edwards was there, Yale was different. On the left-hand side is Yale University as Jonathan Edwards would have known it—there was a church and, to the right, dormitories and lecture halls. I'm interested in this because I know the Wethersfield Church. Yale began in Wethersfield, Connecticut, before moving to New Haven. This was the church Jonathan Edwards attended because the church was essentially on the campus.

There’s a Jonathan Edwards room in the church, about half the size of this room, with paraphernalia and books he read. It’s a wonderful church, pastored by a Gordon College graduate. At Yale, Edwards worked through his view of science. He was concerned about faith in reason alone. He argued that the laws of nature are derived from God and demonstrate wisdom and love. He worried that people would put faith only in reason and understand science solely through human intellect. He wanted to remind people that the laws of nature come from God and reflect divine wisdom and love. That was the proper way to view science—and theology and philosophy as well. At Yale and beyond, he argued for the theology of John Calvin and the theology of the Puritans.

He will be a great defender of Calvinistic theology and of early Puritan theology because he believes that Calvinistic theology is what best represents the Bible. It's the best interpretation of the biblical word. Then he argues against a growing theology of Jacob Arminius and a growing Deism, which is a rationalistic kind of theology. He argues against that, and he argues against the theology of Jacob Arminius because of Arminius's stress on free will. He argues against the Deists because they don't believe that Jesus is God. He is a very careful scholar, a very careful student, with a clear mind and clear heart. This will be what he is going to argue for and against in his theology and his preaching.

We should just mention, as we see what he's interested in theologically, that the theology of Calvin and the theology of the Puritans had died out in American life and culture. By the time we get to Jonathan Edwards, it had lost its glory days, and Arminian theology was becoming much more prevalent. This theology of free will was becoming much more prevalent. It is Jonathan Edwards who brings pure Calvinist Puritan theology back into American theological life and back into American church life with the First Great Awakening.

Another thing we should mention about Jonathan Edwards is that he talks about his conversion experience. There are a lot of writings of Jonathan Edwards you might want to be familiar with. "Personal Narrative" is one of them, because in "Personal Narrative" he talks about his own religious pilgrimage. Other things to be familiar with are his sermons, of course. His sermons were remarkable. "Personal Narrative" and the sermons of Jonathan Edwards will get you reading good material from him.

Here is how he describes his own conversion experience. He was reared in a Christian home, he knew Christianity, but on January 12, 1723, he wrote:

"I made a solemn dedication of myself to God and wrote it down, giving up myself and all that I had to God, to be for the future in no respect my own, to act as one that had no right to himself in any respect."

In terms of his own conversion experience, he describes it as totally giving himself up to God, letting God own him. He obviously didn’t feel he had done that previously in his life, even though he was reared in a Christian home. In "Personal Narrative," he tells us about this dimension of his life.

Another thing about Jonathan Edwards: in 1727, he decided to move to Northampton, Massachusetts. His grandfather, Solomon Stoddard, was a very important pastor and preacher in Massachusetts. He lived from 1643 to 1729 and was the grandfather of Jonathan Edwards. He had the Congregational Church in Northampton, Massachusetts.

Earlier, Edwards had a quick pastoral ministry in New York, but in 1727, he decided to assist his grandfather in the Northampton Congregational Church. This was a very important move in his life. His grandfather died in 1729, and Jonathan Edwards took over the pastoral ministry of the church upon his grandfather’s death.

Jonathan Edwards was a wonderful pastor and preacher. He married Sarah Pierpont, a lovely woman who also died the same year he did. He had 11 children, which was not uncommon for the 18th century. Susanna Wesley, for example, had 19 children, two of them being John and Charles Wesley. Susanna herself was one of 25 children.

In his life in the church, Edwards studied about 13 hours per day. That might be a good example for students today. All this time in study might seem like it wouldn’t help him bring about a great revival, but actually, it was because of his study and deep knowledge of Scripture that he was able to be used by God to bring about the Great Revival. Study was very important to Jonathan Edwards.

He did own slaves. When you read his biography, you might be taken aback by this. His biographers do not try to hide it. He was part of his culture in that way. Slavery was part of daily life in American society. His biographers note that he treated his slaves very carefully, more like employees than how some slaves were treated, but he did purchase and own slaves. This is problematic for some, but we have to place him in his historical context, as this was still a culture wrestling with the issue of slavery.

Looking at today’s issues, what might people 200 years from now say about us? One issue could be women in ministry. Some churches believe it is biblical, while others say it is not. The church is still struggling through this issue. Now, there are even women Roman Catholic priests. That might be an example of an issue that people in the future will look back on.

The best biography of Jonathan Edwards is by George Marsden. It is the best and most recent biography, about three years old. It’s listed in the syllabus, and it would be a good addition to summer reading.

Regarding his preaching ministry, the definition of preaching from seminary is: "Preaching is God's truth coming through personality." Jonathan Edwards was a great preacher. But it is said of Jonathan Edwards that when he preached, he kept his eye on the rope of the bell in the back of the church. So he just was kind of preaching in that way, kind of preaching like a lawyer. He had a point to make—philosophical, theological, biblical—and so he didn't seem to have an eye on all the congregants, and he didn't seem to use a lot of illustrations. It seemed to be from the biblical text, verse by verse, and that was God's truth coming through personality. But it's very interesting that in some ways, the First Great Awakening began with the preaching of Jonathan Edwards, and the date we usually give, just a round figure date, it's not an exact date, but the date we give for the First Great Awakening is 1734, because of the great preaching of Jonathan Edwards. 

Now, what we're going to see when we talk about the First Great Awakening, we're going to see his exact opposite, exact opposite in terms of preaching, and that's a fellow by the name of George Whitfield. So you couldn't get a more opposite kind of preacher. But if preaching is God's truth coming through personality, then Jonathan Edwards was true to his own personality, and George Whitfield was true to his own personality as well, and God used that kind of preaching. You know, there's nothing worse than seeing a preacher who's trying to be somebody else when he or she is preaching. I mean, they're not themselves. I don't know, they're trying to copy somebody. Why would they do that? Just let God's truth come.

Now, I have a long sermon coming on, so I'm not going to preach. I'm going to give you a five-second break, so take a five-second break. Edwards—we're still working through Jonathan Edwards. We haven't left him yet, and I'm doing this so you don't have to read a 400-page biography of Jonathan Edwards. So I'm saving you. But I love to talk about Jonathan Edwards, so this is no problem.

1734, beginning of the First Great Awakening. People knew about the First Great Awakening, but it became kind of, in a sense, popularized by his book in 1737. He wrote a book called A Faithful Narrative of the Surprising Work of God in the Conversion of Many Hundred Souls in Northampton, 1737. So that Faithful Narrative was a book written about the beginning of the First Great Awakening. People like John Wesley learned about the First Great Awakening in America—we'll talk about Wesley later—but he learned about the First Great Awakening in America through reading Faithful Narrative, by reading what Jonathan Edwards had to say about that.

So there is a remarkable awakening. Hundreds of people are becoming converted. Hundreds of people are coming to the Lord through the ministry of Jonathan Edwards. And then he starts to travel quite a bit because he gets invited to preach, and in his preaching engagements, other people are coming to the Lord and so forth. So we generally put 1734. So things are really moving along, and his church is growing, other churches are growing, and the First Great Awakening is getting started. Now, there's going to be other people involved in the First Great Awakening, but we're just here concentrating on Jonathan Edwards.

Yeah, they are basically—well, first of all, there are people within the church who didn't really realize what Christianity was all about. They're kind of joining the church, but now they're nice people, but they don't realize what Christianity demands of you. And they are also people who have been kind of attackers of the church and attackers of Christianity and so forth. So it's a pretty broad range of people who are being converted here.

So, 1734, First Great Awakening, Jonathan Edwards, things get started. Something else here—we still have to just finish up on Jonathan. But okay, we want to finish up on his story. We've got the First Great Awakening going. There's other people we're going to be talking about.

You remember the Halfway Covenant? The Halfway Covenant was developed from 1657 to 1662. One of the things we mentioned about the Halfway Covenant was that baptism entitled one to church membership. So if you're baptized, you're a member of the church. You might not have to give witness to being a believer in Jesus. It was a way of becoming a member of the church. This was not strict enough for Jonathan Edwards. He believed—therefore, it's very interesting, by the way—he disagreed with his grandfather over this. Now, he and his grandfather were only co-ministers for two years. His grandfather believed that baptism and the Lord's Supper could even be for non-believers because maybe through the work of baptism, or maybe through coming to the Lord's Supper, maybe they'll become believers. Maybe this will be a converting ordinance for them.

Well, this was not strict enough for Jonathan Edwards. Jonathan Edwards believed that the only people who should be baptized are people who can bear witness to the Christian faith in a very clear way, and the only people who take the Lord's Supper should be people who are believers. You shouldn't open up the communion table to non-believers. It's only for the people who believe. So he had real problems with the Halfway Covenant.

Now, remember, the Halfway Covenant is beginning to dominate congregationalism in New England and even begins to dominate the church in Northampton. So here's a sad part of Jonathan Edwards's life. In 1750, he was dismissed from the church. Very sad. He went there to help his grandfather, he took over his grandfather, he led the First Great Awakening from that church. But it's a congregational church, so the congregation decides who the pastor is going to be, and in 1750, they throw him out because of his stand against the Halfway Covenant.

So the question now is, what happens to Jonathan Edwards after they dismiss him? And in 1750, when he's dismissed, was this going to be the lowest point in his life, or is God going to use it for good? Well, what happens is, in 1750, he goes out to Stockbridge, Massachusetts.

No, it basically can include infant baptism if the family is willing to bear witness to the fact that they will raise the child in faith. Because they were Congregationalists, which means they had been Anglicans at one time—Puritans had been Anglicans—and they baptized infants, but there had to be an affirmation from the parents that, "We are going to rear this child in the Christian faith." The Halfway Covenant said that children can be baptized whose parents are not Christians. So it included that. Then it included adults who came into the church who said, "I want to join the church." So, do you have a profession of faith in Christ? "Well, not necessarily, but I'm a good person." "Okay, we'll baptize you, and that'll be church membership." So as far as he was concerned, it all got kind of watered down, and that was the issue with the Halfway Covenant. That was the debate over the Halfway Covenant, and he had a much stricter view of what baptism, the Lord’s Supper, and church membership were all about.

So they threw him out. 1750, he went to Stockbridge. What's in Stockbridge? Well, I mean, beautiful place, I'm sure. I've never been to Stockbridge, but what's in Stockbridge then? Stockbridge was in the wilderness. This is going out into the wilderness here. This is going out to take a small community of believers and kind of pastor them. But also, there would be Native Americans or Indians out in Stockbridge that he could minister to. But where else am I going to go? This was the lowest time in Jonathan Edwards's life. This was a time when he left everything that was near and dear to him and took his family and went out to be a missionary into the wilderness.

So the question is, what happens after that? Jonathan Edwards is at a low time in his life. What happens after that is that he gets to Stockbridge, and he has plenty of time to write. And so he begins to write. Now, he had been writing, of course—publishing sermons, personal narrative, and so forth—he had been writing. But this gives him time to really think through his theology and really think through and write it down. So it actually—what started to be the lowest point in his life actually became some of the most productive points in his life. Do we ever find that to be true in our own lives? That sometimes what seems to be the most difficult time in your life, the most abandoned time in your life, do we find out that sometimes that's a time when God really works in miraculous ways and we come through that better people? Well, Jonathan Edwards came through that as a better person. 

This is one of his writings: A Careful and Strict Inquiry into the Modern Prevailing Notion of that Freedom of the Will, Which is Supposed to be Essential to Moral Agency, Virtue and Vice, Reward and Punishment, Praise and Blame. That’s the title of the book. It’s a book in which he defended predestination and denied the Arminian notion of freedom of the will. So he's ready to enter into a moral and theological battle with people who believed in freedom of the will. That turned out to be a very important time in his life.

Let me just finish off his story, and then I want to see the results of his life and ministry. There he is in Stockbridge, and he's probably going to stay in Stockbridge, but he gets an invitation to go someplace. Because he's such a brilliant thinker, he gets an invitation in 1758 to become the president of Princeton University. Now, we haven’t talked about Princeton yet—we’ve talked about Harvard and Brown, but we haven’t talked about Princeton. We’ll discuss Princeton later in this lecture. But anyways, he gets an invitation to Princeton University to be its president, and in 1758, he moves to Princeton.

We’ll talk about the founding of Princeton, but again, tragedy strikes his life. He had to take a smallpox vaccination so that he wouldn’t be susceptible to smallpox, and he died from the vaccination in 1758. He was only president for about three months at Princeton. So he had a bit of an untimely end. But he, of course, would see it as the providence of God—this was God's timing in his life. The timing seems tragic from a human perspective, but I doubt Jonathan Edwards would look at it that way.

So there he is, Jonathan Edwards, really a remarkable person. Before we leave him, I want to look at the results of his life—what came as a result of the life and ministry of Jonathan Edwards. But before I do, are there any questions about his very rich, very interesting biography?

Well, the First Great Awakening continues after Jonathan Edwards with three other leaders that we’ll talk about. Its results go up to the 1760s and into the beginning of the 1770s, around the time of the Revolutionary War. Then, as we’ll see, there’s a sharp diminishing of religion—people are turning their attention to politics with the Revolution coming. Then, starting in 1800, we have the Second Great Awakening. I like to see all of this happening like a pendulum. The pendulum starts in 1734, swings up into the 1750s and 1760s, then swings over to rationalism, deism, and so forth. But then you have the Second Great Awakening.

Okay, what are the results of the life and ministry of Jonathan Edwards?

The first one we’ve already mentioned—a revival of Calvinism. Calvinism had died down. It was brought here by the Puritans, but by the second, third, fourth generations, the Puritans weren’t what they were meant to be, and Calvinism declined. But it comes back up again in the cultural and religious life of the colonies.

Number two—wonderful balance of the life of the mind and the life of the heart. Jonathan Edwards is a great example of that. That’s the whole person. One of the things we’re combating today, if Jonathan Edwards were around, he could help us with this. He helps us by his own life and ministry. People today often say you have to make a choice: either you’re going to be a brainless Christian and not use your mind, or you’re going to be a rational person and not really believe in all this Christian stuff. But you don’t have to make that choice. The life of the mind and the life of experience go beautifully together. If someone tries to force that choice on you, tell them, “Sorry, that’s a choice I don’t have to make—I’ve chosen to be a whole person.” That’s the balance of the life of the mind and the life of the heart. 

An appreciation that all truth is God’s truth. Remember how he loved the natural world—science, theology, philosophy, ethics, economics. As far as he was concerned, all of this truth is God’s truth, so why not study it all? He’s a perfect example of that.

Another result—the power of preaching from the Scriptures. He is a great example of that, as are the other leaders of the First Great Awakening. Preaching from the Scriptures was very important for Jonathan Edwards—letting the Word of God speak its own word to the hearts and minds of people.

He also had quite a succession. A vice president came from the line of Jonathan Edwards. Many clergymen came from his line. Thirteen presidents of higher learning came from his line, as well as sixty-five professors. So he had not only a theological impact but also a cultural impact.

One final result—he had a lot of followers. He had many people who studied with him, including his own son. These followers got a name: the Edwardians. The Edwardians were second-generation Jonathan Edwards people. They somewhat carried out his theological agenda, but not totally.

There were four key Edwardians who had a tremendous impact on university life, cultural life, and church life:

1. Joseph Bellamy—trained by Jonathan Edwards, a student of his.

2. Samuel Hopkins—also knew Jonathan Edwards personally.

3. Jonathan Edwards Jr.—his own son.

4. Nathaniel Emmons.

Now, let me just say this about the Edwardians. Each one wrote a lot, but as a group, they emphasized more freedom of the will in terms of theology and deemphasized Jonathan Edwards’ predestination. So they held to free will and deemphasized predestination.

Two of them also emphasized that there is no such thing as original sin—original sin, they argued, was only the sin of Adam, not something passed down from generation to generation. They still believed all humanity is sinful, but they argued that people are sinful not because they inherited sin from Adam but because they acted upon their free will and chose to sin. That is something Jonathan Edwards never would have agreed with.

So the Edwardians are important. When you come across their names in your reading, take note of them. See what they’re teaching, but understand that we don’t have time to cover them in depth. Otherwise, we’d be here until June. Okay, have a good day! We’ll see you on Friday.

This is Dr. Roger Green in his teaching on American Christianity. This is session number five on Jonathan Edwards and the First Great Awakening.