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CHURCH HISTORY IILesson 25
Let The Winds Blow Thunders RoarThe Great
Awakening in America
There is nothing more important for preaching
than the reading of church history and
biographies Dr M L-J
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Great Awakening 1740-42 . . .
Early stirrings
Theodore Frelinghuysen 1691-1747
Solomon Stoddard 1669-1727
Mathers of Boston
Tennents of Pennsylvania
Jonathan Edwards
This town never was so full of Love, not so full
of Joy, nor so full of distress as it has lately
beenI never saw the Christian spirit in Love to
Enemies so exemplified, in all my Life as I have
seen it within this half-year JE
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2nd trip Oct 31, 1739
1300 miles N/S
50 miles width

• EVANGELICAL
• Authority of scripture
• Necessity of new birth
• Intent to spread the gospel
• True conversion worked out in the believers life

1,000,000 150,000 negro slaves
Thus he had come to a position in which not
denominational adherence but evangelical
soundness was the criterion, and his work had
become non-denominational in character AD, Vol
1, pg 438
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Sarah Pierpoint Edwards to her brother, James
Pierpoint

• He spoke across class distinctions
• He engaged his body while preaching
• He preached from his heart
• He was a devout and godly man

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What about emotional excesses?
New Lights vs. Old Lights
What place emotion in conversion and worship,
both public and private?
1736 Narrative of Surprising Conversions
1741 Distinguishing Marks of the Work of the
Spirit of God
1742 Religious Affections
Sarah Pierpoint Edwards
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Results of the Great Awakening
POSITIVE
1. Conversions
2. Increase in churches and church membership
3. Increase awareness of the necessity of the
new birth
4. No tolerance for an unconverted minister

• Building of new evangelical schools
• Princeton
• Dartmouth
• Rutgers
• Brown

6. Calvinism strengthened and preserved in
American churches for another hundred years
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NEGATIVE
1. The answer to the churches problems lay in
revival alone, thus, men began to use mean to
promote it.
2. Focus on conversion experience rather than
the present and abiding fruit of the Spirit in a
persons life
I had rather wear out than rust out