Last updated 27/06/24: Online ordering is currently unavailable due to technical issues. We apologise for any delays responding to customers while we resolve this. For further updates please visit our website: https://www.cambridge.org/news-and-insights/technical-incident
We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 July 2009
Throughout the 1720s and 1730s evangelical preachers sparked revivals from New England to New Jersey. In his long pastorate at Northampton, Massachusetts, Solomon Stoddard reported five “harvests” of souls in the Connecticut Valley. His grandson Jonathan Edwards succeeded him and led a spiritual awakening in 1734 and 1735 resulting in the “Conversion of Many Hundred Souls in Northampton and Neighboring Towns and Villages.” In the late 1720s the pietist minister Jacob Frelinghuysen inspired a renewal of piety among the Dutch Reformed in New York. At the same time the Presbyterian evangelists William and Gilbert Tennent reported revivals in the churches they had established between New Brunswick, New Jersey and Staten Island, New York.1 While sharing a common message, these evangelical revivals remained local, private affairs, contained within specific geographic and denominational boundaries. Although each proclaimed the necessity of a spiritual new birth and the primacy of divine grace in salvation, theawakenings did not expand into a larger, united movement.
1. For a discussion of colonial revivals prior to Whitefield's arrival in 1739, see Gillies, John, Historical Collections relating to Remarkable Periods of the Success of the Gospel, and Eminent Instruments Employed in Promoting it (Glasgow, 1754), pp. 282–297.Google Scholar
2. The concept of a religious public sphere is developed in Breen, T. H., “The Religious Public Sphere” (Paper delivered at George Mason University, 27 04 1990).Google Scholar I am indebted to Breen for providing me with the manuscript prior to its publication as “Retrieving Common Sense: Rights, Liberties, and the Religious Public Sphere in Late Eighteenth-Century America” in Rights in American History, ed. J. F. Pacheo (forthcoming, 1991).Google Scholar
3. For Whitefield's position on the Christian's relation to the world, see Whitefield, George, Sermons on Important Subjects (London, 1828), pp. 242–248.Google Scholar
4. Miller, Perry, Jonathan Edwards (New York, 1949), pp. 136–137.Google Scholar
5. On Whitefield's appropriation of commercial techniques to publicize his revivals see Lambert, Frank, “‘Pedlar in Divinity’: George Whitefield and the Great Awakening, 1737–1745,” The Journal of American History 77 (1990): 812–837.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
6. Breen, , “The Religious Public Sphere,” p. 9.Google Scholar
7. Gillies, John, ed., The Works of the Reverend George Whitefield, M.A. Late of Pembroke College, Oxford, and Chaplain to the Rt. Hon. the Countess of Huntingdon, Containing all His Sermons and Tracts Which Have Already Been Published with a Selected Collection of Letters, 6 vols. (London, 1771), 1: 105; 1: 13.Google Scholar
8. Miller, , Jonathan Edwards, pp. 134–135.Google Scholar
9. Cited in Thomas, Prince Jr, ed., The Christian History, Containing Accounts of the Revival and Propagation of Religion in Great-Britain, America, Etc., For the Year 1743 (Boston, 1744), pp. 279–280.Google Scholar
10. South Carolina Gazette, 18 June 1741.
11. Whitefield, George, Sermons on Various Subjects (Philadelphia, 1740), 2: 29.Google Scholar
12. Hambrick-Stowe, Charles E., The Practice of Piety: Puritan Devotional Discipline in Seventeenth-Centuiy New England (Chapel Hill, N.C., 1982), pp. 54–90.Google Scholar
13. Whitefield, , Sermons on Various Subjects, 2: 30.Google Scholar
14. Whitefield, George, Journals (London, 1960), p. 47.Google Scholar
15. Letter from Will Miller to George Whitefield, 21 September 1756, in Whitefield Manuscript Letters, Evangelical Library, London.
16. Whitefield, , Sermons on Various Subjects, 2: 20–29.Google Scholar
17. Whitefield, , Journals, p. 47.Google Scholar
18. Ibid., p.40.
19. London Daily Advertiser, 19 September 1737.
20. Tax rate assessments for the Whitefield family are located in Parish Records of Gloucester, for St. Mary de Crypt Parish—Churchwardens' Accounts, 1707–1763, Gloucestershire Records Office, Gloucester, England.
21. Whitefield, , Journals, p. 93.Google Scholar
22. Ibid., p. 37.
23. Whitefield, George, A Letter to the Reverend Dr. Chauncy On Account of some Passages relating to the Reverend Mr. Whitefield, In his Book intitled Seasonable Thoughts on the State of Religion in New England (Philadelphia, 1745), p. 27.Google Scholar
24. Gillies, , Works, 3: 35.Google Scholar
25. For the various editions of Whitefield's works see Austin, Roland, “Bibliography of The Works of George Whitefield,” Proceedings of the Wesley Historical Society 10 (1916): 173.Google Scholar
26. See “Publishing in Boston, 1726–1757: The Accounts of Daniel Henchman,” Proceedings of the American Antiquarian Society 66 (Worcester, 1957): 17–36.Google Scholar For London print runs, see Brewer, John, Party Ideology and Popular Politics at the Accession of George III (Cambridge, 1976), p. 146.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
27. Colman, Benjamin, Three Letters to the Reverend Mr. George Whitefield (Philadelphia, 1739), p. 5.Google Scholar
28. Ibid., p. 8, Gilbert Tennent to George Whitefield, New Brunswick, New Jersey, 1 December 1739.
29. For SPG efforts in eighteenth-century America, see Butler, Jon, Awash in a Sea of Faith:Christianizing the American People (Cambridge, Mass., 1990), pp.164–176.Google Scholar See also Ahlstrom, Sydney, A Religious History of the American People (New Haven, 1972), p.221.Google Scholar
30. Whitefield, , Journals, p. 389.Google Scholar
31. Whitefield, George, A Letter From the Reverend Mr. Whitefield from Georgia, to a Friend in London, Shewing the Fundamental Error of a Book, Entituled The Whole Duty of Man (Charles-Town, S.C., 1740), pp. 3–4.Google Scholar
32. Austin, , “Bibliography,” p. 172.Google Scholar
33. Pennsylvania Gazette, 10 April 1740; New York Gazette, 19 May 1740.
34. Quoted in Garden, Alexander, Take Heed How Ye Hear (Charlestown, 1741), p. 6.Google Scholar
35. Gillies, , Works, 1: 179.Google Scholar
36. See Cooper, William's preface to Isaac Chanler, New Converts Exhorted to Cleave to the Lord (Boston, 1740), p. ii.Google Scholar
37. Ibid., pp. 2–4.
38. Abelove, Henry, “Jonathan Edwards's Letter of Invitation to George Whitefield,” William and Mary Quarterly 29 (1972): 488–489.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
39. Husband], [Herman, Remarks on Religion, with the Author's Experience in Pursuit Thereof (Philadelphia, 1761), p. 220.Google Scholar
40. Brauer, Jerald, Protestantism in America: A Narrative History (Philadelphia, 1965), p. 50.Google Scholar
41. Abelove, , “Jonathan Edwards's Letter,” pp. 488–489.Google Scholar
42. For Seward's role as press agent see Seward, William, Journal of a Voyage from Savannah to Philadelphia, and from Philadelphia to England, in 1740 (Boston, 1740).Google Scholar Other traveling companions who handled Whitefield's press affairs included John Syms, Robert Cruttenden, and Whitefield's wife Elizabeth.
43. Chauncy, Charles, A Letter from a Gentleman in Boston to Mr. George Wishart, Concerning the State of Religion in New England (Edinburgh, 1742), p. 2.Google Scholar
44. See O'Brien, Susan, “A Transatlantic Community of Saints: The Great Awakening and the First Evangelical Network, 1735–1755,” American Historical Review 91 (1986), pp. 811–832.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
45. See for example the Boston Gazette, 16 April 1739, 21 May 1739, 18 June 1739, 15 October 1739, 12 November 1739. See also the Virginia Gazette, 19 December 1737, 20 July 1739, 27 July 1739, 21 September 1739.
46. Pennsylvania Gazette, 8 May 1740.
47. See Franklin, Benjamin, The Autobiography and Other Writings (New York, 1986), p. 120.Google Scholar
48. Letter from Timothy Cutler to the bishop of London, Boston, 5 December 1740, in Perry, William S., ed., Historical Collections Relating to the American Colonial Church, 5 vols. (Hartford, Conn., 1873), 3: 347.Google Scholar
49. Whitefield, , Journals, pp. 31, 265.Google Scholar
50. Boston Gazette, 16 July 1739.
51. Ibid., 9 September 1746.
52. Pennsylvania Gazette, 1 May 1740. For Seward's explanation of the Dancing School incident, see Seward, , Journal, pp. 21–22.Google Scholar
53. Pennsylvania Gazette, 1 May 1740.
54. Ibid., 8 May 1740.
55. See Seward, , Journal, p. 16.Google Scholar
56. Chauncy, , Letter from a Gentleman in Boston, p. 3.Google Scholar
57. Boston Gazette, 6 May 1746.
58. Abelove, , “Jonathan Edwards's Letter,” pp. 488–489.Google Scholar
59. Parsons, Jonathan, “An Account of the Revival of Religion at Lyme West Parish,” in Prince, The Christian History, Containing Accounts of the Revival and Propagation of Religion in Great-Britain, America, Etc., For the Year 1744 (Boston, 1745), pp. 125–126.Google Scholar
60. Ibid., pp. 361–368.
61. Letter from Rev. William McCullough to George Whitefield, Cambuslang, Scotland, 14 February 1742, Whitefield Collection, Manuscripts Division, Library of Congress.
62. Husband, , Remarks on Religion, pp. 207–210, 220.Google Scholar
63. See Boston Gazette, 6 May 1746, 27 May 1746, 3 June 1746, 10 June 1746, 17 June 1746.
64. Whitefield discusses the colonial correspondence network throughout his Journals.
65. In particular, Franklin maintained a financial interest in newspapers he helped start from Boston to Charleston, and through them afforded Whitefield access to intercolonial press coverage.
66. Gillies, , Works, 1: 121.Google Scholar
67. Wigglesworth, Edward, A Letter to the Reverend Mr. George Whitefield By Way of Reply to His Answer to the College Testimony against him and his Conduct (Boston, 1745), p. 53.Google Scholar
68. See Whitefield, George, A Letter to the Reverend the President, and Professors, Tutors, and Hebrew Instructor, of Harvard College in Cambridge; In Answer to a Testimony Published by them Against the Reverend Mr. George Whitefield, and his Conduct (Boston, 1745), pp. 11–13.Google Scholar
69. Chauncy objected to Whitefield's violating parish boundaries through his posting advertisements for revival services. See Chauncy, , Letter from a Gentleman in Boston, esp. pp. 5–15.Google Scholar
70. South Carolina Gazette, 5 January 1740.
71. Much of this section is informed by Breen's “The Religious Public Sphere.”
72. Habermas, Jürgen, The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere: An Inquiry into a Category of Bourgeois Society, trans. Bergen, Thomas (Cambridge, Mass., 1989), p. 57.Google Scholar
73. Kernan, Alvin, Printing Technology, Letters and Samuel Johnson (Princeton, 1987), p. 59.Google Scholar
74. Moffitt, Louis, England on the Eve of the Industrial Revolution: A Study of Economic and Social Conditions from 1740 to 1760 with Special reference to Lancashire (London, 1925; reprint 1963), pp. 246–247.Google Scholar
75. Breen, “The Religious Public Sphere.”
76. Smout, T. C., “Born Again at Cambuslang: New Evidence on Popular Religion and Literacy in Eighteenth-Century Scotland,” Past and Present 97 (1982): 121–127.CrossRefGoogle ScholarHall, David D., Worlds of Wonder, Days of Judgment: Popular Religious Beliefs in Early New England (Cambridge, Mass., 1990), pp. 21–70.Google Scholar
77. Breen, “The Religious Public Sphere.” Habermas, , The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere, p. 57.Google Scholar
78. Whitefield, , Journals, p. 97.Google Scholar
79. See Smith, Josiah, The Character, Preaching, etc., of the Reverend Mr. George Whitefield, Impartially Represented and Supported, a Sermon, Preached in Charlestown, South-Carolina, March 26th, 1740 (Boston, 1740).Google Scholar
80. Philalethes, [ Hancock, John,] The Examiner, or Gilbert Against Tennent (Boston, 1743), title page and p. 31.Google Scholar
81. Whitefield, , Journals, p. 35.Google Scholar
82. Chauncy, , Letter from a Gentleman in Boston, p. 17.Google Scholar
83. Gillies, , Works, 1: 50; 5: 30.Google Scholar
84. South Carolina Gazette, 11 February 1745.
85. Caldwell, John, “The Nature, Folly, and Evil of rash and uncharitable Judging. A Sermon Preached at the French Meeting-House in Boston, New England, July the 11th, 1742,” in Bushman, Richard, ed., The Great Awakening Documents on the Revival of Religion, 1740–1745 (Chapel Hill, N.C., 1969), p. 159.Google Scholar
86. Pennsylvania Gazette, 8 May 1740 and 24 July 1740.
87. South Carolina Gazette, 5 January 1740 and 15 March 1740.
88. Ibid., 23 February 1740.
89. See for example ibid., 15 January 1740.
90. New England Weekly Journal, 9 December 1740.
91. Boston Evening-Post, 6 October 1740.
92. Yodelis, M. A., “Boston's First Newspaper War: A ‘Great Awakening’ of Freedom,” Journalism Quarterly 51 (1974): 207–212.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
