Background

The First Great Awakening was a period of religious revival in the American colonies from about 1730 to 1770; the 1740s may be considered the high point. Across America, traveling preachers called “itinerants” gave guest sermons at churches and even outside in the open air. The sermons were emotionally charged, warning followers to repent of their sins and become “reborn” with a more authentic form of faith.

The doctrines preached in the First Great Awakening were nothing new. The Calvinist view of an undeserving humanity and a judgmental God go back to the 16th century. Rather, it was the manner in which one should express religiosity that was different. These preachers found the traditional churches uninspiring. The men and women who followed the Great Awakening seemed to be rejecting the authority and authenticity of their established churches and their assigned ministers. In fact, it was common to call the Great Awakening preachers the “new lights,” as opposed to the “old lights,” or their traditional pastors. The new lights used very effective speaking and persuasive techniques that encouraged their followers to reject rationality, to trust in their hearts and emotions, to accept God’s awesome power, to interpret the words of the Bible for themselves, and to trust less in the theology of the old lights.

The new lights wept openly, gestured wildly, shouted, spoke in extremes, and were altogether more theatrical and entertaining than their conservative brethren. Conservative and moderate ministers not only thought them unseemly but also worried that they sowed discord and rebellion among their listeners. They were alarmed that the new lights preached among African American slaves and also allowed women to “give testimony” about their faith in public.

The traditional history explanation for the origins of the Great Awakening — that it was a rejection of the secular and even atheistic elements of the very rationalist European Enlightenment — has been revised by historians in recent years. While the Great Awakening affected communities north and south, its impact was greatest in frontier areas, where the populace was both uneducated and not particularly knowledgeable about religion or contemporary thinking. The awakening brought more congregants into the Methodist and Baptist churches, which generally appealed to the working and poorer classes in America.

Many colonists were on the move -— first from their homelands in Europe and then moving out to the frontier in the south and west. In these communities, extended families were not very common, and the living was extremely difficult and precarious with frequent Indian attacks. On the frontier, women were becoming more important and essential to survival, often taking on jobs traditionally done by men. Slaves in southern frontier areas faced terrible living conditions, clearing land and swamps for crops and dying at young ages. Living with the constant threat of death, frontier colonists wanted a stronger spiritual experience.

What effect did the Great Awakening have on the American Revolution? Some historians have argued that it laid the ground for questioning authority generally, which led inevitably to rejecting the monarchy itself. Others have argued that the awakening was rather conservative and never really advocated the rhetoric of freedom, liberty, and questioning of the social structure that motivated the American revolutionaries. For example, while Great Awakening preachers evangelized among slaves, they never advocated for abolition of slavery.

These three sermons by the most famous preachers of the Great Awakening — Gilbert Tennant, Jonathan Edwards, and George Whitfield — demonstrate features and themes of typical Great Awakening sermons.

Sources

Excerpt from Gilbert Tennant, in The Great Awakening: Spiritual Revival in Colonial America, Item #44, (accessed December 9, 2014).

First, I am to inquire into the characters of the old Pharisee-teachers. No, I think the most notorious branch­es of their charac­ter were these: pride, policy, malice, ig­norance, covetousness, and bigotry to human inventions in religious matters.
The old Pharisees were very proud and conceited. They loved the uppermost seats in the synagogues and to be called “Rabbi.” They were masterly and positive in their as­sertions, as if knowl­edge must die with them. They looked upon others who differed from them, and the common people, with an air of disdain and, espe­cially any who had a respect for Jesus and His doctrine. They disliked them and judged them accursed.
The old Pharisee-shepherds were as crafty as foxes. They tried by all means to ensnare our Lord by their cap­tious questions, and to expose Him to the displea­sure of the state while, in the mean­time, by sly and sneaking methods, they tried to secure for them­selves the favor of the Grandees and the people’s displeasure, and this they ob­tained to their satisfaction (John 7:48).
But while they exerted the craft of foxes, they did not forget to breathe forth the cruelty of wolves in a malicious aspersing of the person of Christ, and in a vi­olent opposing of the truths, peo­ple, and power of His religion. Yes, the most stern and strict of them were the ringleaders of the party. Witness Saul’s journey to Damascus, with letters from the chief priest to bring bound to Jerusalem all that he could find of The Way. It’s true that the Pharisees did not proceed to violent measures with our Savior and His disci­ples just at first; but that was not owing to their good na­ture, but their policy, for they feared the people. They must keep the people in their interests. Aye, that was the main chance, the compass that directed all their proceedings and, there­fore, such sly cautious methods must be pursued as might consist herewith. They wanted to root vital re­ligion out of the world, but they found it beyond their thumb.
Although some of the old Pharisee-shepherds had a very fair and strict outside, yet they were ignorant of the New Birth. Witness Rabbi Nicodemus, who talked like a fool about it. Hear how our Lord cursed those plastered hypocrites in Matthew 23: 27–28: “Woe unto you, Scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites; for ye are like whited sepulchres, which indeed appear beautiful outward, but are within full of dead bones and of all uncleanness. Even so ye also ap­pear righteous unto men, but within ye are full of hypocrisy and iniquity.”Aye, if they had but a little of the learning then in fashion, and a fair outside, they were presently put into the priest’s office, though they had no ex­perience of the New Birth. O sad!
The old Pharisees, for all their long prayers and other pious pretenses, had their eyes, with Judas, fixed upon the bag. Why, they came into the priest’s office for a piece of bread. They took it up as a trade and, therefore, endeavored to make the best market of it they could. O shame!
It may be further observed that the Pharisee-teach­ers in Christ’s time were great bigots to small matters in religion. Matthew 23:23: “Woe unto you, Scribes and Pharisees, hyp­ocrites; for ye pay tithe of mind, and anise, and cummin, and have omitted the weightier matters of the Law, judg­ment, mercy, and faith.”The Pharisees were fired with a party-zeal. They compassed sea and land to make a prose­lyte; and yet, when he was made, they made him twofold more the child of hell than themselves. They were also big­oted to human inventions in religious mat­ters. Paul himself, while he was a natural man, was wonderfully zealous for the traditions of the Fathers. Aye, those poor, blind guides, as our Lord testifies, strained at a gnat and swallowed a camel.
And what a mighty respect they had for the Sabbath Day, in­somuch that Christ and His disciples must be charged with the breach thereof for doing works of mercy and necessity! Ah, the rottenness of these hyp­ocrites! It was not so much respect to the Sabbath as malice against Christ; that was the occasion of the charge. They wanted some plausible pretense to offer against Him in order to blacken His character.
And what a great love had they in pretense to those pi­ous prophets who were dead before they were born while, in the meantime, they were persecuting the Prince of Prophets! Hear how the King of the Church speaks to them upon this head, Matthew 23:29–33: “Woe unto you Scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites; be­cause ye build the tombs of the prophets, and garnish the sepulchres of the righteous; and say, If we had been in the days of our fa­thers, we would not have been partakers with them in the blood of the prophets. Ye serpents, ye generation of vipers, how can ye escape the damnation of hell?”

Excerpt from Jonathan Edwards, “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God,” another excerpt:

DEUT. XXXII. 35.

-Their foot shall slide in due time.-

[1] In this verse is threatned the vengeance of God on the wicked unbelieving Israelites, that were God’s visible people, and lived under means of grace; … yet remained, as is expressed, ver. 28. void of counsel, having no understanding in them; ….
[2] The expression that I have chosen for my text, Their foot shall slide in due time; seems to imply the following things, relating to the punishment and destruction that these wicked Israelites were exposed to.
[3] 1. That they were always exposed to destruction, as one that stands or walks in slippery places is always exposed to fall. This is implied in the manner of their destruction’s coming upon them, being represented by their foot’s sliding. The same is express’d, Psal. 73. 18. Surely thou didst set them in slippery places; thou castedst them down into destruction.
[4] 2. It implies that they were always exposed to sudden unexpected destruction. As he that walks in slippery places is every moment liable to fall; he can’t foresee one moment whether he shall stand or fall the next; and when he does fall, he falls at once, without warning. …
[5] 3. Another thing implied is that they are liable to fall of themselves, without being thrown down by the hand of another. As he that stands or walks on slippery ground, needs nothing but his own weight to throw him down.
[6] 4. That the reason why they are not fallen already, and don’t fall now, is only that God’s appointed time is not come. …. God won’t hold them up in these slippery places any longer, but will let them go; and then, at that very instant, they shall fall into destruction; ….
[After describing the pit of hell that they will slide into, Edwards suggests that congregants join the awakening as was done in the neighboring town of Sheffield, Massachusetts.]
[44] And now you have an extraordinary opportunity, a day wherein CHRIST has flung the door of mercy wide open, and stands in the door calling and crying with a loud voice to poor sinners; a day wherein many are flocking to him, and pressing into the kingdom of God; many are daily coming from the east, west, north and south; many that were very lately in the same miserable condition that you are in, are in now an happy state, with their hearts filled with love to him that has loved them and washed them from their sins in his own blood, and rejoycing in hope of the glory of God. How awful is it to be left behind at such a day! To see so many others feasting, while you are pining and perishing! To see so many rejoycing and singing for joy of heart, while you have cause to mourn for sorrow of heart, and howl for vexation of spirit! How can you rest one moment in such a condition? Are not your souls as precious as the souls of the people at * Suffield, where they are flocking from day to day to Christ?

Excerpt from George Whitfield, “The Eternity of Hell Torments”:

Would we now and then draw off our thoughts from sensible objects, and by faith meditate a while on the miseries of the damned, I doubt not but we should, as it were, hear many an unhappy soul venting his fruitless sorrows, in some such piteous moans as these.
“O wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from this body of death!” O foolish mortal that I was, thus to bring myself into these never- ceasing tortures, for the transitory enjoyment of a few short-lived pleasures, which scarcely afforded me any satisfaction, even when I most indulged myself in them. Alas! Are these the wages, these the effects of sin? O damned apostate! First to delude me with pretended promises of happiness, and after several years drudgery in his service, thus to involve me in eternal woe. O that I had never hearkened to his beguiling insinuations! O that I had rejected his very first suggestions with the utmost detestation and abhorrence! O that I had taken up my cross and followed Christ! O that I had never ridiculed serious godliness; and out of a false politeness, condemned the truly pious as too severe, enthusiastic, or superstitious! For I then had been happy indeed, happy beyond expression, happy to all eternity, yonder in those blessed regions where they fit, clothed with unspeakable glory, and chanting forth their seraphic hallelujahs to the Lamb that sitteth upon the throne for ever. But, alas! These reflections come now too late; these wishes now are vain and fruitless. I have not suffered, and therefore must not reign with them. I have in effect denied the Lord that bought me, and therefore justly am I now denied by him. But must I live for ever tormented in these flames? Must this body of mine, which not long since lay in state, was clothed in purple and fine linen, and fared sumptuously every day, must it be here eternally confined, and made the mockery of insulting devils? O eternity! That thought fills me with despair: I must be miserable for ever.”
Come then, all ye self-deluding, self-deluded sinners, and imagine yourselves for once in the place of that truly wretched man I have been here describing. Think, I beseech you by the mercies of God in Christ Jesus, think with yourselves, how racking, how unsupportable the never- dying worm of a self-condemning conscience will hereafter be to you. Think how impossible it will be for you to dwell with everlasting burnings.

Analyze the Evidence

Question

In these sermons, what are the three persuasive techniques the “new lights” used?

Author and Concept Chart

	Describe Persuasive Technique
Tennant
Edwards
Whitefield