Joseph Tracy - The Great Awakening: A History of the Revival of Religion in the Time of Edwards and Whitefield

Joseph Tracy

THE GREAT AWAKENING

A HISTORY OF THE REVIVAL OF RELIGION IN THE TIME OF EDWARDS AND WHITEFIELD

Copyright Joseph Tracy

The Great Awakening

(1842)

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During the year 1840, public meetings were held in some places, and proposed in others, in commemoration of what Edwards called The Revival of Religion in New England in 1740. This first suggested to the author the design of the present work. No history of that revival had ever been attempted. Its importance in itself, and in its influence on the subsequent state of the churches, was universally acknowledged. Yet opinions concerning it were various and discordant, even among evangelical ministers; some thinking it worthy of unmixed eulogy in public celebrations, others speaking of it with only guarded and qualified commendation, and others doubting whether it should not be mentioned rather with censure than otherwise. For the last ten years, too, the advocates of all kinds of measures, new and old, have been asserting that the events and results of that revival justified their several theories and practices. There was, therefore, evident need of a work, which should furnish the means of suitably appreciating both the good and the evil of that period of religious history.

The next question was concerning its possibility. Could materials be found, for the construction of such a work? A slight investigation was sufficient to furnish an answer. The public libraries contain abundant materials, of which some account must now be given.

The leading authority is The Christian History; containing accounts of the Revival and Propagation of Religion in Great Britain and America. It was first suggested by Edwards, in the conclusion of his Thoughts on the Revival of Religion in New England. The first number was issued March 5, 1743, and it was continued, in weekly numbers of eight pages, small octavo, for two years. It was conducted by Thomas Prince, Jr., son of the Rev. Thomas Prince, one of the pastors of the Old South Church. Letters from ministers, giving accounts of the progress and state of religion in their several parishes, compose the greater part of its contents. So far as is known, this was the first periodical for the diffusion of contemporary religious intelligence, ever established. Similar publications were soon after commenced in London and Glasgow. When the publication of the first volume was completed, some copies, remaining in the hands of the publisher, were bound and offered for sale. This volume is not very uncommon; and not unfrequently passes for the whole work. Both volumes are preserved, entire, in the libraries of the Boston Athenaeum and the Massachusetts Historical Society. This work was published for the sake of promoting the revival, and therefore gives accounts which were then esteemed favorable, though it relates many things which no one now would commend.

Whitefields account of his own life, his Journals and his Letters, deserve to be mentioned next. His Journals were originally published in pamphlets, of a moderate size. They appeared as often as he could find time to prepare them for the press, which was often done without sufficient care. He afterwards collected, revised, and published them as one work. In preparing this history, the original, unrevised Journals have been exclusively used; for, as the faults in the first editions produced important effects, it is necessary to know what they were. The account of his life was prefixed to the first Journal that he published, and relates only to its previous years. His letters were collected after his death, and, with some of his sermons and other works of less importance, published in four octavo volumes.

Controversial publications of that day, too numerous to be specified individually, form a third source of information. The most able and best known of these are Edwards Thoughts on the Revival of Religion in New England in 1740, and Chauncys Seasonable Thoughts on the State of Religion in New England. Besides these, about one hundred pamphlets published during the revival, or soon after, have been consulted. The greater part of them have been of service, only as aids in understanding others, by the exhibitions which they give of the spirit of the times. Something has been gleaned from the files of newspapers, preserved by the Massachusetts Historical and American Antiquarian Societies.

The records of churches ought to furnish an important class of documents; but generally, so far as the author has been able to learn, they are either lost, or were badly kept, and furnish no valuable aid. Such has proved to be the fact, in every instance, where the absence of printed documents rendered their aid peculiarly desirable. A few papers from the files of the church in Sturbridge, furnished by the kindness of its late pastor, the Rev. J. S. Clark, is all that has been obtained from such sources. More will doubtless be found, whenever the attention of the pastors of ancient churches shall be effectually drawn to the investigation.

Town histories have usually been written by men who could find but little information on this subject, or who were unable to appreciate its importance, or who supposed such matter would not be valued by those for whom they wrote. Yet they have contributed something.

Backuss Ecclesiastical History of the Baptists in New England is an important authority, though it furnishes little matter peculiar to itself. Backus was one of that class of Separatists which the revival brought into being, and like many others of them, became a Baptist. Of course, he gives those views of the merits of the several parties which the Separatists entertained; and yet he is honest enough to record some faults of his own party, which are not recorded by their opponents.

Trumbulls History of Connecticut gives a valuable account of the revival as it was in that colony, with incidental notices of it in other places. Perhaps his personal friendship for those zealous and active revivalists, Pomroy and Wheelock, with whom he was intimate, and whom he learned to venerate in his youth, may have biased his judgment on some points. Still, he is an unusually candid writer, and his personal acquaintance with the fruits of the revival gives additional importance to his narrative.

A biography of Edwards should contain almost a complete account of the revival; for in no other way can the influence of his mind on the country and on the world be fully shown. His biographers, however, seem not to have found the requisite materials. Yet the industry of the Rev. Dr. S. E. Dwight has collected matter which throws important light on some parts of it.

The author has not been able to obtain the Life of Dr. Buel, or the Life of Gilbert Tennent, which was written by his friend President Finley. A Life of Dr. Bellamy is believed to be still a desideratum. The Memoir of Wheelock despatches the history of his labors in the revival, in a single page of vague generalities. A notice of his life and character in the American Quarterly Register, by the Rev. Dr. Allen, contains valuable extracts from his diary during some of those labors. A well written and impartial history of his life and labors, with copious selections from his writings, for which materials probably exist, would be valuable. There is scarce another man of equal eminence in that age, of the peculiarities of whose character and style of promoting religion we have so little satisfactory information; and yet there is reason to suspect that those peculiarities exerted an important influence.