The first Great Awakening was a tremendous movement of God within the American colonies from about 1720 through about 1740. Many of the colonies had been settled by those seeking religious freedom at great cost. A century later, emphases had shifted from godly living to wealth and prosperity. Visiting preachers were shocked at the deadness and lethargy of the churches.
A number of things were used by God to awaken the church. Evangelist George Whitfield came from England to America numerous times – making seven tours of the colonies and preaching over 18,000 sermons. Hardly a soul in the American colonies was not familiar with Rev. Whitfield. The intellectual underpinning of the first Great Awakening was pastor Jonathan Edwards.
Jonathan Edwards has been called the last great Puritan. He has also been called America’s first great Philosopher. The only son out of twelve children, Jonathan was both the son and grandson of preachers. He was sent to Yale College at age 13, and graduated at age 17. After teaching in New York for a couple of years, Jonathan became the assistant pastor to his grandfather in Northampton, MA, and became the pastor after his grandfather’s death. Edwards was deeply disturbed by the spiritual lethargy of his church. He began preaching on justification by faith and, coupled with the enthusiasm of the Great Awakening, saw many conversions among existing church members as well as from the community around them.
The Great Awakening showed a great deal of unity among the church, among Presbyterians, Congregationalists, Episcopals, Baptists, Methodists, independents. The population of people attending church in the American colonies more than doubled in that time, and spiritual fervor was greatly increased. However, there was an old guard, resistant of the movement and suspicious of the emotional excesses the movement displayed. Edwards was a fierce advocate of the Awakening, preaching sermons and prolifically writing defending the movement. His book ‘Religious Affections’ was an examination, in great detail, of how to tell whether a spiritual movement was indeed of God.
Out of this environment, he wrote the sermon most identified with the Great Awakening, ‘Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God.’ This is a lengthy sermon beginning the text from Deuteronomy 32:35, “In due time their foot will slip.” It’s a hard-hitting sermon filled with ominous overtones and vivid imagery for the unconverted. He delivered the sermon dryly and in monotone, his nearsightedness compelling him to hold the manuscript close to his face.
“All you that never passed under a great change of heart by the mighty power of the Spirit of God upon your souls; all that were never born again, and made new creatures, and raised from being dead in sin...you are thus in the hands of an angry God; ’tis nothing but his mere pleasure that keeps you from being this moment swallowed up in everlasting destruction...The wicked are now walking over the pit of hell on a rotten covering…”
“The God that holds you over the pit of hell, much as one holds a spider, or some loathsome insect, over the fire, abhors you, and is dreadfully provoked; his wrath towards you burns like fire; he looks upon you as worthy of nothing else, but to be cast into the fire; he is of purer eyes than to bear to have you in his sight; you are ten thousand times so abominable in his eyes as the most hateful venomous serpent is in ours. You have offended him infinitely more than ever a stubborn rebel did his prince: and yet 'tis nothing but his hand that holds you from falling into the fire every moment; 'tis to be ascribed to nothing else, that you did not go to hell the last night; that you was suffered to awake again in this world, after you closed your eyes to sleep: and there is no other reason to be given why you have not dropped into hell since you arose in the morning, but that God's hand has held you up…”
Edwards’ sermon sparked a tremendous emotional response. Some wept openly and loudly, often compelling Edwards to stop and ask them to quiet down so he could continue. Others gripped the back of the pews in an attempt to keep from sliding into Hell. Still others fainted. The sermon was used by God to convert great numbers of people, making them see their own spiritual need.
Jonathan Edwards wrote many things: books, pamphlets, essays. He could write an essay on spiders (literally) and switch from that to a detailed treatise on the freedom of the will. His books made him the best-known American scholar in Europe.
In his later years, Edwards was expelled from his congregation. The ‘old guard’ rebelled against him when he insisted on individuals having a small examination to determine their conversion before partaking in Communion. He served as a missionary to Native Americans for a couple of years before he was offered the presidency of the College of New Jersey (later Princeton University). He died a few months later from complications after a smallpox inoculation.
Jonathan Edwards spoke from powerful convictions – convictions that the Christian faith was not something to be merely studied intellectually, but something that should make changes in a person’s behavior and their everyday life. He understood that the beginning of conversion was a complete understanding of one’s own depravity and complete and total dependence upon God.
http://edwards.yale.edu/archive?path=aHR0cDovL2Vkd2FyZHMueWFsZS5lZHUvY2dpLWJpbi9uZXdwaGlsby9nZXRvYmplY3QucGw/Yy4yMTo0Ny53amVv
https://www.christianity.com/church/church-history/timeline/1701-1800/the-great-awakening-11630212.html
