3 Enlightenment/Pietism/Great Awakening
The Soil in which Revival can grow
When true faith is challenged, weakened or is corrupted, there isn’t just an effect upon the mind,
but it also affects the world in which we live. And if we are not careful, it can also affect the state
of the church and the culture in which it is called to bear witness. This was certainly the case in
England at the turn of the eighteenth-century.
The supremacy of “reason” infected the Church and trumped any attempt to preach a lively
exercise of faith. In 1760, the Archbishop Drummond of York, coming to investigate an
evangelical preacher, listened to his sermon and said this:
“if you go on preaching such stuff you will drive all your parish mad! Were you to inculcate the
morality of Socrates, it would do more good than canting about the new birth.”
As a result, congregations steadily dwindled and genuine faith slowly died.
The Enlightenment and Its Impact
Where did this thinking come from in the first
place?
We looked last week at how the rise of
Puritanism led to the disenchantment of the
universe. That is, the world became less
magical as people increasingly looked to
God’s Providence over the universe.
Because God is sovereign, things like luck,
fortune, chance and superstition began to go
by the wayside.
By the late 1600s, a new climate of opinion
sweeps Europe. The intellectual elite are
taking significant steps away from the ideas of
the Protestant Reformation. Many of them are
even moving in an anti-Christian direction.
“…[B]y the time Isaac Watts was in his
first ministry, and John Wesley was a boy
at school, the Church of England was a
spiritually flightless bird; shorn of both left
and right wings, it nevertheless prided
itself in having ‘both feet on the ground’
and attempted to make its own heaven of
an increasingly muddy earth.”
David Jeffrey
Historical Setting: Weakening of Christianity
Decline of impact of the Reformation
Debilitating effects of 30 Years War - people were tired of religion on the Continent
Rise of Protestant Scholasticism - dogma over holiness
Bitter fights in England and later persecution of the Puritans
People are increasingly leaving the church - see the church as corrupt
Most of the dominant voices in the church seem out of touch with what the Christian Life looks
like.
• Cerebral/external approach to Christianity
• Tired of religious intolerance
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Background
• Rise of science and the field of natural phenomena
• Time of Galileo Galilei and Francis Bacon
• Rene Descartes and Metaphysics (1598-1650)
• System of thought based on doubting
• Strong scepticism.
• Cogito ergo sum.
Spread of the Ideas
• Movement for the elite
• John Locke (1632-1704)
• strong emphasis on reason
• Growing emphasis on empiricism
• God sent Christ to reveal morality - how to be good. That’s what Christianity is all about
really.
• Life, liberty, and the pursuit of…property
• In Locke’s Letters Concerning Toleration (1689-1692), Essay on Human Understanding
(1690) and The Reasonableness of Christianity (1695), there was a shift away from traditional
understandings of theology and the church towards an increased emphasis on the power and
authority of human reason.
Theologically
• Deism
• This shift is expressed in the influential sermons of the seventeenth-century divine,
Archbishop John Tillotson (1630-1694) who wrote Christianity Not Mysterious. Tillotson
argued that all problems related to the matters of religion could be investigated and ultimately
resolved through the means of common sense and reason. The call of the Christian,
according to Tillotson, was to cultivate a sense of duty and morality rather than focus on such
outdated notions as original sin, substitutionary atonement, revelation and the supernatural
work of the Holy Spirit.1
• Following in Tillotson’s footsteps were theologians such as Samuel Clarke (1675-1729), John
Toland (1670-1722), Anthony Collins (1676-1729), Thomas Woolston (1670-1733)
• Matthew Tindal (1657-1733) who wrote Christianity as Old as Creation where he “defends”
Christianity for the modern age by emphasizing that Jesus is the teacher of common sense.
• Miracles are no longer necessary or important.
• Edward Gibbon - Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire
David Hume (1711-1776)
1
See Mark Noll, The Rise of Evangelicalism (Downers Grove: Inter-Varsity Press, 2003), 40-41.
• Takes on both the Deists and the Christians. Attacks miracles and rejects any sense of God’s
revelation. We live in a closed universe.
• For Hume, miracles do not produce faith, but faith produces miracles.
France/Germany/America
• Voltaire - wants an ethical religion based on nature
• Philosophes or Encyclopédistes
• America - Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Paine
• French Revolution
Basic Enlightenment Principles
Two Central Statements:
1. God has revealed Himself through His works
2. God has not revealed Himself through His Word
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The open book of Nature is the means through which we can know what God is saying
Autonomy of human reason - leads to infallible knowledge.
Apply the scientific method to understand reality
Assumes that Nature is a closed system (don’t need God to be active in this)
Locke - people are by nature free and independent with children being tabula rasa
• Anthropology - denial of “original sin”, people are not innately depraved, but rather we are free
to choose.
Agenda of the Enlightenment
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Morality and benevolence
Promotion of liberty and the pursuit of happiness
Life over the eternal
Liberty over servanthood
Happiness over Holiness
Here and Now over World to Come
Present/Future over the Past (what to avoid)
Virtue over Grace
Salvation by works NOW over Heaven
Science over Faith
• Freedom and Religious toleration.
• Confidence that if you allow people freedom to act, then harmony will result
• Freedom from dogma
• Criticism of the Bible - vs. Inspiration of Scripture
• Emphasize Natural Religion - Christianity is one expression of what is naturally found in the
world
What are the points of continuity with Christianity?
• Most people believe in God, Creation, and immortality
Attempts to Relate to the Enlightenment
• Rise of Rational Supernaturalism
• Revelation affirmed and God does reveal Himself but through morality
• Emphasis on simplicity - doing good and being good
• Little pastoral care - too much attention spent on refuting philosophical challenges of the
Enlightenment.
Attempts to Refute the Enlightenment
• Blaise Pascal - key figure.
• Pours scorn on the whole movement
• Points out the hypocrisy among men - you say you are guided by reason, but you act so
irrationally
• Points out the idolatry of human reason
• William Law - High Church Anglicanism
• Highly personal consciousness of God
• Call to holiness
• Influences evangelicalism
Pietism (1675-1750)
Two concerns:
• Deepening Piety
• Outworking of piety in good works
Background
• Pietism is largely a devotional movement - not challenging doctrine
Forerunner to Pietism
• Johann Arndt (1555-1621)
Two Towering Figures
• Philipp Jakob Spener (1635-1705)
• Collegia pietatis
• ecclesiola in ecclesia
• Convinced that this is the way towards renewal
• Pia Desideria - beginning of Pietist movement where he outlines the 6 planks of German
Pietism:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
Bible Knowledge
Priesthood of all Believers
Good Works
Avoidance of controversy
Better spiritual training of the clergy
Effective Preaching
• August Hermann Francke (1663-1727)
Characteristics of Pietism
Two Weaknesses
• Becomes anti-intellectual
• Becomes legalistic in the second generation
God has no grandchildren, only children.
Renewed Moravian Brethren (Unitas Fratrum)
• Bridge to Evangelicalism
• Key figure - Count Nikolaus Ludwig Von
Zinzendorf (1700-1760)
• In 1721, he purchased his
grandmother’s estate containing the
village of Berthelsdorf.
• Shortly afterwards, he was visited by
a leader of the Moravians - the
spiritual descendants of Jan Hus who
asked if the oppressed Moravians
could take refuge on his estate.
• Zinzendorf agreed and in December
1722, the first Moravians arrived and
were given a plot of land that they
named Herrnhut meaning “The Lord’s
Watch.”
“Did you ever suppose n the beginning that
the Saviour would do as we now really see in
the various Moravian settlements…amongst
the heathen? What a formidable caravan from
our church already stands around the Lamb.”
Zinzendorf, the day before he died.
• Soon Lutheran Pietists joined in on the preaching with the Moravians who were then joined
by even Reformed and Anabaptist preachers!
• July 19, 1727, he organized all the adults into spiritual “bands” of two or three, and then
organized them into small groups which would meet together and pray, exhort and share
one another’s burdens. Slowly, the divisions began to fade. On August 13th, people entered
the church for Communion, sang a hymn, and a revival broke out!
• Round-the-clock prayer ministry began and continued for 100 years!!!!
• The Moravians became the first missionary-sending Protestant church. When Zinzendorf died,
226 missionaries had been sent out from Herrnhut to Greenland, Georgia, Suriname, Guinea,
South Africa, Algeria, Macau, Romania, and Constantinople. One out of every 60 Moravians
became a missionary.
The Rise of Evangelicalism in the Eighteenth-Century
Effects on Christian belief
• Deism
• Clergy preoccupied with apologetics and forgot
about pastoral care
Urbanization and Change
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Urbanization
Rise of middle class
Questioning of authority
Rise of the sovereign self
Technological Change
• Technological advance
• Communication
• Industrialization
Housing Crisis
One practical problem arising from the effects of
rapid industrialization and urbanization was that it
placed tremendous pressure on the infrastructure
of existing cities and their ability to provide housing to a burgeoning population. In the end, it
was the ever-increasing number of urban poor that suffered the greatest.
Social Ills
• Drunkenness
• Gin
• Social effects
Artist, satirist and social commentator, William
Hogarth (1697-1764) captures the desperate social
conditions of the urban poor in his famous work,
Gin Lane.
• Debauchery among the higher orders too
Cruelty
• Animal cruelty
• Hangings at Tyburn Square
The state of religion prior to the outbreak of the Revival
Sleeping Church
• Ineffective in urban areas
• Irrelevant
William Hogarth,
The Sleeping Congregation (1736)
Decaying Church
• Pluralism
• Non-redience
• Literal decay!
Elliot-Binns writes, “Orthodox in views, and blameless in life, they [curates] were content
with a minimum of service, and, having no deep religious convictions, their ministry was
inevitably lacking in inspiration and zeal.”2
G.R. Balleine writes, “If we would understand the work of the Great Revival, this dark side
of the picture must be constantly kept in mind – a people coarse, brutal, ignorant, and a
Church that had forgotten its mission, unspiritual, discredited, useless.”3
Revival breaks out
In the 1730s, a series of disconnected events take place which
begin to transform the spiritual landscape of both Great Britain and
America.
The first stirrings of revival in Britain began in 1734.
Jonathan Edwards (1703-1758)
In late 1734, there occurred a number of seemingly disconnected
episodes which marked the start of the Evangelical Revival. In New England, under the
leadership of Solomon Stoddard in Northampton, Massachusetts, the region began to
experience five short revivals between 1679 and 1718. Between 1720 and 1722, another small
revival broke out. Then, in 1727, the region experienced an earthquake. Pastors far and wide
began to encourage their congregations to repent and to prepare themselves for a special
2
Elliot-Binns, Early Evangelicals, 103.
3
Balleine, Evangelical Party, 21.
movement of the Holy Spirit. Jonathan Edwards emerged as the key leader in what historians
have called, The Great Awakening.
Jonathan Edwards (1703-1758) In June 1734, a young man in Edwards’ church who was
rather popular died unexpectedly. In response, Edwards preached on Psalm 90:5-6, “You sweep
men away in the sleep of death; they are like the new grass of the morning – though in the
morning it springs up new, by evening it is dry and withered.” This sermon served as a catalyst
for the beginnings of a revival. Young people suddenly became serious about faith and began
gathering in small groups to study the Bible and pray together.
In November that same year, Edwards preached a two-part sermon on the topic, “Justification
by Faith” to his Northampton congregation. His sermon argued that “We are justified only by
faith in Christ, and not by any manner of virtue or goodness of our own.”4 The effects of this
sermon were almost immediate. By the beginning of the following year, Northampton
experienced an extraordinary outbreak of religious fervour.
There was scarcely a single person in the town, old or young, left unconcerned about the
great things of the eternal world. Those who were wont to be the vainest, and loosest; and
those who had been most disposed to think, and speak slightly of vital and experimental
religion, were now generally subject to great awakenings. And the work of conversion was
carried on in a most astonishing manner, and increased more and more; souls did, as it
were, come by flocks to Jesus Christ. From day to day, from many months together, might
be seen evident instances of sinners brought out of darkness into marvellous light, and
delivered out of a horrible pit, and from the miry clay, and set upon a rock with a new song of
praise to God in their mouths.”
In the ensuing months, Edwards noticed that more and more people professed faith in Jesus
Christ. What’s more, the town began to change. It exhibited better morals, with church members
valuing Scripture in a deeper way while faithfully observing the Sabbath. The revival that began
in Northampton rapidly spread to thirty-two other towns in the area.
However, by June, 1735, the revival came to an abrupt stop. Only
two days after Edwards wrote his narrative describing the
Surprising Work of God, Edwards’ uncle, Joseph Hawley, a leader
in Northampton, slit his own throat and died.
George Whitefield (1714-1770)
These Moravians had a significant effect on a young preacher
named George Whitefield (1714-1770) who in 1736 began to
apprehend the meaning of free grace in his life. By the summer of
the following year, Whitefield preached his first sermon. The
effects of his preaching were electric.5 Blocked by church leaders
4
Cited in Noll, Rise of Evangelicalism, 77. See also George M. Marsden, Jonathan Edwards: A Life (New Haven:
Yale University Press, 2003), 150-170.
5
See Harry S. Stout, The Divine Dramatist: George Whitefield and the Rise of Modern Evangelicalism (Grand
Rapids: Eerdmans Publishing, 1991), 30-49.
from preaching in their pulpits, Whitefield took to open-air preaching where, to his surprise,
crowds flocked to hear him preach. In February, 1739, 10,000 people came to hear him. A few
months later in London, as many as 60,000 came to hear his sermons.
In 1740, Whitefield made the journey back to New England where huge crowds awaited him
(20,000 in the city of Boston, whose population was only 17,000). In October, 1740, Whitefield
paid a visit to Edwards in Northampton. During his time in the area, another revival broke out.
On October 23, 1740, a farmer named Nathan Cole described the effects that Whitefield had
upon the surrounding region.
GEORGE WHITEFIELD COMES TO MIDDLETOWN6
[Nathan Cole] Now it pleased God to send Mr. Whitefield into this land; and my hearing of his preaching at Philadelphia,
like one of the old apostles, and many thousands flocking to hear him preach the Gospel, and great
numbers were converted to Christ, I felt the Spirit of God drawing me by conviction; I longed to see and
hear him and wished he would come this way. I heard he was come to New York and the Jerseys and
great multitudes flocking after him under great concern for their souls which brought on my concern more
and more, hoping soon to see him; but next I heard he was at Long Island, then at Boston, and next at
Northampton. Then on a sudden, in the morning about 8 or 9 of the clock there came a messenger and
said Mr. Whitefield preached at Hartford and Wethersfield yesterday and is to preach at Middletown this
morning at ten of the clock. I was in my field at work. I dropped my tool that I had in my hand and ran
home to my wife, telling her to make ready quickly to go and hear Mr. Whitefield preach at Middletown,
then ran to my pasture for my horse with all my might, fearing that I should be too late. Having my horse, I
with my wife soon mounted the horse and went forward as fast as I thought the horse could bear; and
when my horse got much out of breath, I would get down and put my wife on the saddle and bid her ride
as fast as she could and not stop or slack for me except I bade her, and so I would run until I was much
out of breath and then mount my horse again, and so I did several times to favour my horse. We
improved every moment to get along as if we were fleeing for our lives, all the while fearing we should be
too late to hear the sermon, for we had twelve miles to ride double in little more than an hour and we went
round by the upper housen parish. And when we came within about half a mile or a mile of the road that
comes down from Hartford, Wethersfield, and Stepney to Middletown, on high land I saw before me a
cloud of fog arising. I first thought it came from the great river, but as I came nearer the road I heard a
noise of horses’ feet coming down the road, and this cloud was a cloud of dust made by the horses’ feet.
It arose some rods into the air over the tops of hills and trees; and when I came within about 20 rods of
the road, I could see men and horses slipping along in the cloud like shadows, and as I drew nearer it
seemed like a steady stream of horses and their riders, scarcely a horse more than his length behind
another, all of a lather and foam with sweat, their breath rolling out of their nostrils every jump. Every
horse seemed to go with all his might to carry his rider to hear news from heaven for the saving of souls.
It made me tremble to see the sight, how the world was in a struggle. I found a vacancy between two
horses to slip in mine and my wife said “Law, our clothes will be all spoiled, see how they look,” for they
were so covered with dust that they looked almost all of a colour, coats, hats, shirts, and horse. We went
down in the stream but heard no man speak a word all the way for 3 miles but every one pressing forward
in great haste; and when we got to Middletown old meeting house, there was a great multitude, it was
said to be 3 or 4,000 of people, assembled together. We dismounted and shook off our dust, and the
ministers were then coming to the meeting house. I turned and looked towards the Great River and saw
the ferry boats running swift backward and forward bringing over loads of people, and the oars rowed
nimble and quick. Everything, men, horses, and boats seemed to be struggling for life. The land and
banks over the river looked black with people and horses; all along the 12 miles I saw no man at work in
his field, but all seemed to be gone. When I saw Mr. Whitefield come upon the scaffold, he looked almost
6
“George Whitefield’s Journals,” published by The Banner of Truth Trust, 1985. pp. 560-562.
angelical; a young, slim, slender youth, before some thousands of people with a bold undaunted
countenance. And my hearing how God was with him everywhere as he came along, it solemnized my
mind and put me into a trembling fear before he began to preach; for he looked as if he was clothed with
authority from the Great God, and a sweet solemn solemnity sat upon his brow, and my hearing him
preach gave me a heart wound. By God’s blessing, my old foundation was broken up, and I saw that my
righteousness would not save me. Nathan Cole
Howell Harris (1714-1773)
In Wales during the late spring of 1735, a young schoolmaster named Howell Harris
(1714-1773) was convinced, during a communion service, that his sins were completely and
truly forgiven in Christ. This prompted Harris to begin open-air preaching.7 In the summer of the
same year, Harris’ countryman, Daniel Rowland (1711-1790) was also converted and took to
itinerant preaching. By the end of 1737, Rowland was preaching to crowds numbering between
fifteen hundred and two thousand. Through the influence of both men, William Williams
(1717-1791) was converted in 1737, left his curacy and became Rowland’s assistant in ministry.
John Wesley (1703-1791)
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Went back to England, storm at sea and was deeply impressed by a bunch of Moravian
Pietists
I went to America to convert the Indians, but oh, who shall convert me? Who, what, is he that
will deliver me from this evil heart of unbelief: I have a fair summer religion. I can talk well, nay
and believe myself, while no danger is near. But let death look me in the face, and my spirit is
troubled. Nor can I say, “to die is gain.”
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Went to a Moravian gathering in Aldersgate Street on the evening of May 24th, 1738,
heard someone reading Luther’s preface to the Epistle of the Romans.
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“About a quarter before nine while he was describing the change which God
works in the heart through faith in Christ, I felt my heart strangely warmed. I felt I
did trust in Christ, Christ alone for my salvation; and an assurance was given me
that He had taken away my sins, even mine, and saved me from the law of sin and
death.”
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Wesley had amazing gifts of organization
Small Group movement – absorbed many revival movements taking place around
England
Began itinerant preaching
Preached to poor, coal miners and factory workers.
Visited prisons
Unbelievable stamina – during the last 50 years of his life, he travelled 225,000 miles
and preached more than 40,000 sermons (an average of 15 per week).
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7
Don Lewis, ed. Dictionary of Evangelical Biography 1730-1860 Volumes 1 & 2 (Peabody: Hendrickson
Publishing, 2004), 522.
Wesley once declared that his purpose was, “To promote, so far as I am able, vital, practical
religion, and by the grace of God, beget, preserve, and increase the life of God in the soul of
men.”
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Founding of the Methodist movement
“Rational enthusiast” – brought together a brilliant mind, Enlightenment thinkings along
with a “lively exercise of faith”
John Berridge (1716-1773) and the
Cambridgeshire Revival
HERE LIE
The earthly remains of
JOHN BERRIDGE
Late Vicar of Everton,
And an itinerant Servant of Jesus Christ,
Who loved his Master, and his work,
And, after running on his errands many years,
Was called up to wait on him above.
Reader,
Art thou born again?
No salvation without a New Birth!
I was born in sin, February, 1716.
Remained ignorant of my fallen state till 1730.
Lived proudly on Faith and Works for Salvation
Till 1754.
Admitted to Everton Vicarage, 1755.
Fled to Jesus alone for refuge, 1756.
Fell asleep in Christ, January 22, 1793.
John Newton and William Wilberforce
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Newton was friendly with Hannah Wilberforce. Her nephew
William Wilberforce aged 8 comes on holiday and is great friends
with John but his mother ends it when she finds John is a friend
of dissenters
1780 – 1807 – Newton ministered in London at St. Mary
Woolnoth
o Popular preacher [mention churchwarden’s ingenious
plan]
o Mentored young men
o More Letter-writing
o Eclectic Society
December 7th, 1785 – William Wilberforce knocks on his door and his fight against
slavery begins. “Without William Wilberforce there would have been no successful
parliamentary campaign in the eighteenth and early nineteenth century for the abolition
of the slave trade. But without John Newton, William Wilberforce would not have been
engaged in such a role…” Jonathan Aitken
“God Almighty has set before me two great objects,
the suppression of the slave trade and the
reformation of manners.”
William Wilberforce
By the end of the eighteenth-century, the spiritual landscape has
radically changed in both England and America
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The “Sleeping Church” has been awakened.
Methodism had established itself and it (and its offspring) would go on to be the most
important evangelistic and missionary impulse for the next two centuries
Political and social reform
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In England
• William Wilberforce and the two great tasks set before him
• Sunday School movement
• Bible societies
• SPCA
• Philanthropy and the Clapham Sect
• Missionary societies
• Baptist Missionary Society (1792)
• London Missionary Society (1795)
• Church Missionary Society (1799)
• Thomas Coke and the Methodist mission to India and America (1786)
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In North America
• Revival, David Brainerd, his journal, and the growth of the missionary movement
• Transformation of African-American attitudes towards Christianity
!