USA > Connecticut > History of Connecticut, Volume I > Part 22
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Edwards felt that there was an organic connection between New- ton's laws of motion and Calvin's law of salvation by faith. Dogma had to be made to rest on the laws of nature, had to be reconciled with Newton's findings. Thus the causal relationship of faith and salvation
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had to be restated. Faith itself must be caused by a higher law and so should be interpreted as a concomitant rather than as a cause of salva- tion.51 Although faith was not an instrument of salvation, Edwards as-
(Courtesy New Haven Chamber of Commerce) NEW HAVEN-CENTER CHURCH
sumed that it was inseparably connected with salvation because of a "natural suitableness."52 His reading of Newton led Edwards to expect that God in his orderliness could combine that which was meet, this combination, then, represented "the natural accord between such
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qualifications and such circumstances"53 but was not a sole or first cause. "Salvation," Edwards held, " ... can be only a manifestation of God's regard, not to the pretensions of individuals, but to 'the beauty of that order that there is in uniting those things that have a natural agree- ment, and congruity, and unition the one with the other.' " Thus, "in the order of causation, a man is not a saint because he is good, but if he is a saint he is caused to be good."54 Edwards was, therefore, forcing a break with the interpretations which had been developed, interpreta- tions which had become comfortable, interpretations which many would rise to defend when the revolution provoked by Edwards reached its height.55
Partially as a result of the sermons of 1734, a revival developed in Northampton which attracted the attention of the Protestant world. It is incorrect, however, to suggest that the awakening was precipitated by Edwards alone. In part it developed out of the ceremony called "owning the covenant" which became a periodic practice of ever in- creasing frequency after the adoption of the Half-Way Covenant.56 This had been adopted when it became apparent that fewer and fewer of the children of the saints were personally encountering the experi- ence of conversion and enabled them and, in turn, their children to be baptized upon "owning" the covenant. It had made them subject to church discipline, which, it had been hoped, would lead to their full conversion. When it did not, ministers, especially after they lost direct control of the government, pressed the people to own or reown the covenant. Gradually this became a communal gesture of fasting and reaffirmation of growing frequency.57 This mode of public confession, foreign to the Puritan idea of private conversion, was utilized repeat- edly by Edwards' grandfather, Stoddard, who, also, offered the sacra- ment of communion as well as that of baptism to those owning the covenant and reaped five "harvests" of conversions before his death. Afterwards it was encumbent upon Edwards to continue to secure this yield. He achieved this in 1735 and gave to his revival "such literary expression that it became the exemplar of what New England had been obscurely tending toward for a hundred years.''58
In 1736, Edwards published his Faithful Narrative of the Sur- prising Work of God in the Conversion of Many Hundreds of Souls
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in Northampton and the Neighboring Towns and Villages. There were three editions and twenty printings of this by 1739, and it was still being used as a handbook of revivalism in Illinois and Wales a hun- dred years later.59 Through the use of two case studies: one of a virgin. the other of a child of four, Edwards demonstrated that the "preaching of God's absolute sovereignty and a conviction of the justice of God in their condemnation were essential links in most conversions."60 More important, Edwards felt that the Northampton experiment proved that "grace comes not as argumentation or as interposition, but as idea. Conversion is a perception, a form of apprehension, derived exactly as Locke said mankind gets all simple ideas, out of sensory ex- perience."61 Edwards could report that "this Town never was so full of Love, nor so full of Joy, nor so full of distress as it has Lately been."62 Ministers of Connecticut went to Northampton to confer with Ed- wards, and, by the end of May, 1736, about twenty parishes had been affected.63
The Great Awakening reached new heights with the visit of George Whitefield in 1740. A convert of Wesley's and excessively en- thusiastic,64 this powerfully persuasive man cleansed Boston and filled the chambers of Harvard with praise and prayer before journeying westward and joining Edwards at Northampton. He reported that he never had "a more gracious meeting" than the one with Edwards.65 The two, however, did not agree on all points. Edwards questioned his guest on the emphasis he gave to impulses and on his readiness to pro- nounce persons unconverted without a careful examination. On the conversion of ministers, a question that was to be of great importance to the awakening in Connecticut, the two were apparently far apart. Whitefield believed that the people should forsake "unconverted min- isters" while Edwards "never questioned that the Lord could use any instrument He chose."66
Whitefield found additional followers in Connecticut and the Great Awakening spread further. Whitefield's visit to Connecticut was begun with a trip to East Windsor on which Edwards accompanied him. There Whitefield was enthusiastically received by the congregation at Edwards' father's church. In Hartford, he preached to a "vast con- course of people." Before completing his journey through Connecticut.
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he had stopped at Wethersfield, Middletown, Wallingford, New Ha- ven, Milford, Stratford, Fairfield, and Norwalk. At Wethersfield, he met Benjamin Pomeroy and Eleazar Wheelock, Davenport's brother-
( Courtesy Conn. State Lio.)
HARWINTON CHURCH (Destroyed by fire, 1950)
in-law. These, with Joseph Bellamy, became the most effective articu- lators of New Light theories. The eloquent Bellamy taught his listen- ers that every sin deserved the eternal curse and damnation of God; the gentlemanly Wheelock preached of the miserable end of the hypo-
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crite in religion; and the brilliant Pomeroy showed the terrors of the Lord in awful array before the sinners. The doctrines they taught were those of the Reformation. These included a concept of regeneration by the supernatural influences of the divine spirit as an absolute necessity for one to enter the Kingdom of Heaven.67 Other ardent supporters of the revival included David Ferris, Timothy Allen, and Jonathan Bar- ber. All of these, except Whitefield, had known each other at Yale.68
As the valley was awakened, Edwards preached throughout the region, demonstrating the method which was to become the vehicle of the movement and explaining the outward or physical manifestations of the deliverance as inherent in the nature of man. At Enfield, in July, 1741, man was portrayed as being suspended over the pit of hell with only God to prevent him from dropping into the blazing inferno. In this most memorable of his sermons, "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God," he played upon the terror of insecurity, and Puritanism, "which had been a fervent rationalism of the covenant" was committed "to a pure passion of the senses." The sight of a person writhing in conver- sion was "found by experience to have an excellent and durable ef- fect." Through this method, it was believed, an idea was transferred through a sense medium to the mind of the perceiver.69
Opposition mounted to the use of terror as a means of redemption, however. Edwards defended the Awakening as the work of God at the commencement at New Haven in September, 1741, when he was hon- ored by Yale for the last time. In his discourse, "The Distinguishing Marks of the Spirit of God," he challenged his detractors to join him in the discussion of the basic issue and outlined the identifying character- istics to certify the authenticity of a divine work. Abuses or extravagances had already begun to creep in, and, in the published version of this work, he warned his followers not to listen to impulses and to overcome their impressions. Experience had taught him, he said, that it was the height of folly for any to attempt to determine whether other souls were sincere and he admonished that saints should not forsake "method" in public sermons. His followers were quickly getting out of control. Edwards had provided an instrument which they did not fully under- stand.70
James Davenport, who was born in Stamford, Connecticut, in
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1717, came to epitomize the excesses of the Great Awakening which aroused the protest of the established order. He was more responsible than anyone for the general discrediting of the revival. After accom- panying Whitefield as an itinerant preacher for a while, this great- grandson of the founder of New Haven forsook his parish in Southold, and, without invitation, visited the parishes along the sound from Stonington to New Haven. He felt that he was a prophet and that di- vine guidance dictated that he follow evangelism. Whitefield and Ten- nent had been along a few months before and had stimulated revivalist spirits. A commercial depression and anxiety concerning the Catholic French in Canada, also, prepared people to be susceptible to Daven- port's ardent exhortation. He left many converts-and divided Con- gregationalism. Davenport denounced those ministers whom he re- garded as unconverted and advised people not to listen to them. "It was better," said Davenport. "to walk ten miles to hear a re- generate lay exhorter than to listen to an unconverted minister."71 With this statement he first urged separation. He believed in the im- mediate intuitive recognition of one converted Christian by another and failed to recognize as such any minister who did not welcome him. Davenport demanded of the Reverend Jewett a full account of his reli- gious experiences. When the minister refused, Davenport pronounced him unconverted, even though Jewett had been responsible for a re- vival in his own parish the year before. The usually tolerant Governor Talcott advised the residents of Saybrook to avoid Davenport; suggested that the ministers deny him their pulpits; and indicated that the safest thing to do might be to send him out of the colony.72
Protection of the Standing Order
Opposition to the itinerants and to Davenport took more definite form when the general consociation of the churches, which had been established by the Saybrook Platform, met in Guilford, November, 1741. This meeting was held at the request of the General Assembly, which was acting on the appeal of a number of ministers and in con- formity with the alarm felt by the Governor, Jonathan Law. It was agreed that it was permissible for someone other than the regular minister to preach if "a considerable number of the people in the
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parish are desirous to hear another minister," provided "the same be orthodox, and sound in faith, and not notoriously faulty in censuring other persons. . . . ' 'Final decision, however, was left with the con- sociation of the county with the provision that the neighboring minis- ters might advise contrary to the local association.73 Perhaps, by this, the consociation might be judged mildly tolerant of the Awakening, but not so the Assembly which took a firm stand at its next session.
The Assembly enacted legislation on the basis of the ministers' recommendations and supplemented this by an amendment the fol- lowing year which made the legislation even more stringent. Both or- dained ministers and itinerant preachers came under the scrutiny of the Assembly. An itinerant, who, without an expressed invitation, preached in a parish, was to post a bond of one hundred pounds as security that he would not repeat the offense. A foreigner or stranger, for a like offense, was to be hurried out of the colony. Under penalty of forfeiting all benefits and all support as established by the laws of the colony, ordained ministers were forbidden to preach outside their own parish unless they were specifically invited. An association was for- bidden to license a candidate to preach outside its own territory or to settle a dispute originating beyond the bounds of its own parish. To give force to the laws, it was provided that an offended minister was to file a complaint with the clerk of the society, and an absence of such complaints against any established minister was a prerequisite for his support through taxes as provided by the laws of the colony. Those against whom complaints were lodged were brought before the As- sembly.74
Under this legislation, the justices of peace at Ripton denounced both Davenport and Pomeroy, who was accompanying him at the time. Since the town was full of Davenport supporters, the trial caused a riotous disturbance lasting through a night and ending only after the intervention of a company of militia. Davenport was judged "dis- turbed in the rational faculties of his mind," and was ordered out of the colony to Long Island. In 1743, he recanted his thesis, in which he differed from all other revival leaders, that God's revelation was con- tinual and might occur in various forms. Charges against Pomeroy were dismissed for lack of evidence.75
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To cure the ills of excessiveness, the Assembly had indulged in its own excesses. If its effort had been confined to restricting the itinerants, the action would have been supported by all but the extremists. There is little doubt that the Awakening had attracted the self-appointed, the yokel, and the charlatan or that there were orgies far too fantastic to be easily credible. If the itinerant did not consciously desire to divide Con- necticut society, still he represented a divisive force and churches had been divided. In a society in which it was believed that religion should coincide with political unity, it would have been accepted that the itinerant should be brought within the legal structure.76 Yet, the right of one minister to close his pulpit to one whom he had owned as a brother, to whom he had given the right hand of fellowship, and whom he could not accuse either of false doctrine or immoral conduct, raised a basic question.77 Many regarded the laws as "contrary to spiritual commands, and to the opinion and practice of all reformers and of all Puritans."78
Edwards was quick to point out that those not "well affected" to the work of the revival would likely do the people more harm than good, yet he felt that much of the enthusiastic work of laymen and of the itinerants deserved to be recognized by the regular clergy.79 Ed- wards consistently attacked the comfortable broadening of the Church through the Half-Way Covenant and the Stoddardean view of the Lord's Supper and always supported the revival as containing good elements leading to valid conversions which justified a larger number of full members. Because of the unpopularity of his views during the reaction against the revival, he felt forced to resign his Northampton pastorate in 1750. Edwards had opposed the Separatist movement, and eventually, after the "leaven of Edwards' teachings had brought a new and invigorated life into the Connecticut Churches," Greene felt that his influence contributed to a union of religious parties.80
Results of the Great Awakening
However, an immediate effect of the official reprisal by the estab- lished order was the separation of members of congregations from the established church. The Saybrook Platform had permitted a Congrega- tional interpretation of the document as well as the generally accepted
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Presbyterian view. Now that this was impossible many found separation necessary. After the Great Awakening, when large numbers continued to defect from the tenets as outlined at Saybrook and threatened to undermine the ecclesiastical society, the Court began to enforce again a colonial law which gave it the exclusive power to approve the in- corporation of a church. The Separatists, as they came to be known. next sought the protection of the Toleration Act, but were denied this. In fact, Separatists who refused to pay taxes for support of the established churches might suffer imprisonment and loss of property.81 Defiantly, the Separatists established their own church and propagated their belief in justification by faith, a personal sense of conversion, and the need for regeneration. Breckway thinks that the Separatists grew stronger in the face of this persecution, with many joining their ranks solely because they were fighting for freedom of conscience. The co- lonial government became more lenient because the dissenters threat- ened to petition the King in 1769. Double taxation continued, however. Shortly before and during the Revolution, Separatists received a more generous measure of toleration as their democratic convictions became popular and honorable rather than scorned.82 In all, thirty or forty Separatist churches were established. Some continued only a short time: others joined the Baptists. A dozen or more continued the battle until they had discredited the Half-Way Covenant, which they opposed violently, and eventually returned to the established church-but not before the schism had touched almost every aspect of Connecticut life.83
The divisions caused by the Great Awakening enabled the Church of England to gain as converts numerous Congregational ministers and laymen. In the half century between the "Dark Day at Yale," when Cut- ler and his companions defected, until the Revolution. the Church of England in Connecticut grew from one priest and one church to about 20 clergy and 46 organized parishes. It became the second largest de- nomination in the colony and by 1774 it included about one-thirteenth of the population. More parishes were established during the forties. during the height of the Awakening, than during any other decade of this half-century. In Reading and Newtown, Anglicans had come to outnumber dissenters from the Church of England by 1762. Letters from Anglican priests to the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel
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attest to the phenomenal growth. In 1748, the first Anglican sermon was preached in Guilford and by the following March there were forty regular hearers. Between 1748 and 1751 the number of communicants
(Courtesy Conn. State Lib.)
ROCKY HILL-CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH
in Stamford more than trebled. Anglican priests at the time felt that the increased membership stemmed from a reaction to the Awakening. There were few Anglican immigrants coming from England during the period and only in one case was the increase attributed to the general
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religiosity of the time. It seemed that most sought stability, peace, and certainty offered by the Church of England in contrast to the quarrels that divided the protagonists and antagonists of the Awakening and even prevailed among the several enthusiastic leaders.84
Miller concludes that a social register of New England might well be derived from a roll of the anti-revivalists. He felt that one group drew its support from "the wealthier and the more aristocratic fam- ilies," from "the rich and the polite," by reminding them that the awakening had "made strong attempts to destroy all property, to make all things common, wives as well as goods."85 Gaustad, however, feels that the Awakening was great and general with no social or geographic boundaries: all classes, both in urban and rural areas, he contends, were touched. Gaustad distinguishes between this feature of the Great Awakening and the frontier revival of the thirties. He considers a myth the belief that the "elect and the élite were synonymous" in New Eng- land in the forties.86
The religious schism does seem reflected in the political alignment of Puritans in the colony. Magistrates and ministers sought to restrain the revival. Some office holders were removed from their jobs and oth- ers failed to be reelected because they were considered friendly to the "New Lights."87 While the group drawing its support from the New Lights did not support indiscriminate separation from the Church, it was opposed to the restrictive legislation passed by the Assembly and thus opposed to those in power. However, Anglicans, too, opposed the power group and yet did not like the enthusiasm of the New Light ad- herents. The parallel between religious and political alignment, then, holds only for old and new light partisans among the Congregational- ists. Conservative Congregationalists were in control in the early stages of the Awakening and the legislation enacted was to maintain society as they desired it. To assure conformity, the schools and seminaries were brought under the strict control of the colony, and ministers, in order to be paid from the taxes of the colony, were to be graduates of Yale, Harvard, or some recognized Protestant college.88
Yale eagerly conformed to the prevailing spirit of the General As- sembly. which had given instructions that the college take special care that its scholars were not affected by the teaching of the New Lights. In
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the same year, the college had expelled one David Brainard for criticiz- ing the prayers of the college preacher as lacking in fervor. The college further held that "those who would not be orderly and submissive, should not be allowed the privileges of the college." When two students did not explain to the satisfaction of college authorities their attending a New Light Church with their parents while home on vacation, they were promptly expelled. Perhaps, because of the furor which the incident caused throughout the colony, but more probably because the religious antagonism was lessening, Yale made only one more attempt to disci- pline its students. The college sought to suppress a reprint of Locke's essay upon "Toleration," which the senior class had printed at its own expense. An attempt to force the students to confess was quickly dropped when one threatened to appeal to the King in Council if his diploma were not granted. It was.89
Official disapproval of the New Lights strengthened the position of the orthodox ministry, and many who had gone along with the awaken- ing in the beginning now turned on it with all their fury. The Rever- end Solomon Williams of Lebanon, a cousin of Jonathan Edwards, argued that the variety of God's way to man did not include "a slavish fear and dread of Him, that it should drive to despair." The orthodox were properly grateful for his extracting a retraction from James Davenport. Many had looked with favor on the movement, but to have persons "singing Hymns or Psalms in Ferry Boats and through the Streets" was too much. Orthodox ministers were called upon to admit their mistakes and look with humility upon the Great Awaken- ing.90
Sentiment against the New Lights began to lessen. Although a move to repeal the laws designed to debar persons from enjoying the liberty "granted by God and tolerated by the King" failed, public opinion was shifting. News of persecution and reports from Connecti- cut Anglicans brought remonstrances from England that the imposition of civil penalties was not the proper way to remedy religious con- troversies. Although the laws regulating the New Lighters were never formally repealed they were not included in the laws of the colony when they were revised in 1750. The Great Awakening passed, but the re- ligious controversy continued into the next century. The Separatists
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were ultimately granted toleration on the eve of the American Revolu- tion and the Saybrook Platform was repealed shortly thereafter. The effect of the Great Awakening extended beyond such religious results as the increased conversions, the sharpening of church doctrine, and the nudge toward religious toleration. It became interwoven in the economic and social disputes which were to divide Connecticut society. A half century of conflict was to obscure these underlying differences. Yet, they emerged in the next century as factors in a formal attempt to reorder Connecticut society.
NOTES-CHAPTER X
1 Miller, New England Mind, pp. 296-97; M. Louise Greene, The Development of Reli- gious Liberty in Connecticut (Boston, 1905) pp. 122-28; Edwin Scott Gaustad, The Great Awakening in New England (New York, c. 1957) p. 13 and passim.
2 Greene, Development of Religious Liberty, p. 128; and see above, ch. VII.
3 Miller, New England Mind, p. 233.
4 Ibid., pp. 226-35; Perry Miller, Jonathan Edwards (New York, c. 1949), (The American Men of Letters' Series), pp. 9-10.
5 Miller, New England Mind, pp. 232-35.
6 Miller, Edwards, p. 11.
7 Ibid .; Greene, Development of Religious Liberty, pp. 133-35.
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