The Eighteenth Century—Enlightenment and Evangelicalism

A Century of Turmoil and Revival

 

Enlightenment Philosophy Makes a Splash

--Minimization of the importance of dogma coupled with an emphasis on ethical behavior

--Challenge presented to authority—reason must substantiate all things, or else they fail to prove true and worthy of belief or knowledge

 

            --Intellectual revolution and the birth of secularism

            --Whereas Middle Ages and Reformation subordinated reason to revelation, the Enlightenment subordinates revelation to reason (faith must be reasonable in order to be believed)

                        --Rejection of any authority not grounded in reason (therefore, if government, ecclesiastical or secular, is unreasonable, it is not legitimate authority and can be lawfully overthrown or extinguished

                        --Individual freedom of choice comes first; authority will not stand in the way of the individual’s right to choose (what to believe, what to worship, what to do on the Sabbath, etc)

 

*Emphasis on the free will of man, which will increase man’s personal moral responsibility (contrary to most of the major reformers’ ideas of the bondage of the will)

 

*Religious wars of the 16^th and 17^th centuries lead thinkers to believe that religious bigotry and prejudice is far worse a crime against humanity than is atheism => desire for tolerance (live and let live attitude toward personal beliefs and practices, provided they do not interfere in anyone else’s right to choose their personal beliefs and habits) and a search for truths common to all people in all places (seeds of civil religion)

 

*Newfound faith in the rule of law and order (both legal and physical)

            --modern science develops out of this desire to find peace and harmony in the universe

            --Nicholas Copernicus (1473-1543) devises heliocentric theory of the universe

            --Johan Kepler (1571-1630) affirms Copernicus’ theory, postulating the sun’s magnetic force keeps the planets in their orbits

            --Galileo Galilei (1564-1642) discovers phases of Venus, moons of Jupiter, craters on the moon, proves that the heavens are not crystal spheres orbiting around the earth, and proves that gravity is a constant acceleratory force (views for which he was condemned as a heretic by the Inquisition and forced to recant and live the remainder of his life in penance, even though the pope, Urban VIII (Barberini) was himself a mathematician and knew deep down that Galileo (a friend of his) was correct.

            --Isaac Newton (1642-1727) develops the theory of gravity to explain the motion of the heavenly bodies

                        --Newtonian Physics in effect demystifies the universe and mechanizes it (the universe is a smooth-running, predictable machine, operating on the basis of several “natural laws” of physics)

                        --Thus the “mythical” world of the Middle Ages is replaced by the mechanized universe; supernatural occurrences and miracles are debunked as mere fanciful explanations of natural causes and effects or else are dismissed as patently false or absurd

--The possibility of reasoning one’s way to happiness exists if the world and the universe operate as a predictable machine

            --empirical observation and reason can lead to the discovery of truth

            --man is perfectible by means of reason, not grace (thus, no need of a gracious God); man’s sinfulness is discounted as his reason is exalted; common sense will save him, not supernatural intervention and grace (abolition of the authority of the church, specifically the higher clergy of the RCC, but also the leaders of state Protestant churches)

 

--Close of 17^th century saw some Christians, particularly in England, attempting to use a pseudo-Thomistic approach to harmonize reason and faith (though not many would follow this lead)

           

--Beginning of the 18^th century saw a wide-armed welcome in France for reason and an abandonment of any appeal to Scripture as justification for traditional Christian doctrines

            --any appeal at all to Scripture as premises for one’s argument was seen as an appeal to nonsense (the premise of the French Enlightenment being that miracles and divine revelation are themselves nonsense per se)

            --any appeal to ecclesiastical authority is also rejected as irrelevant (the only authority that truly matters  in the French Enlightenment is reason itself)

 

--John Locke (1632-1704)—English philosopher, prominent during the English Glorious Revolution

            --Belief has a place alongside of reason

            --the revealed testimony of Jesus proves his teaching/moral authority, but the only essential doctrine of Christianity is that Jesus is the Christ (most other traditional theology Locke dismisses as irrelevant to Christianity)—in effect, Jesus is lumped together with other great religious teachers and his divinity is minimized or altogether discounted; interestingly, Locke denies toleration to Catholics and to atheists in his Letter Concerning Toleration (the former for their allegiance to the pope and their reliance on clerical authority, the latter because they do not believe in the supremacy of any divine being, and thus have no foundation for ethical behavior)

            --Revelation is still subordinated to reason in Locke’s thought, because revelation shows that Christianity is reasonable (irrational parts of scripture are cast aside as irrelevant)

 

*Radicals will set aside the entirety of Christian Revelation—the rational parts of the bible are unnecessary; the irrational parts are patently false

            --French philosophes

                        --desired to “reform” and “free” society

                        --Deism—belief in a Supreme Being who did not intervene in the world

                                    --rejection of supernatural revelation and miracles

                                    --a perfect God (cast in Platonic terms) created a perfect world and thus has no need to intervene (God is a watchmaker who creates and winds up the universe and sits back and watches to see what unfolds; God is beneficent, not judgmental; what is needed for a good life is discoverable in nature by use of human reason)

                                    --belief that all human religions are distortions of deism by power-hungry priests and clerics; critical of any established church

                                    --primary religion of the American founders (in various forms)

                                    --Voltaire (1694-1778)—criticizes established churches, jabs at the intolerance of organized Christianity, ridicules theological arguments (e.g., how many angels can dance on the head of a pin?)—“If a God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent one.”

                                    --Denis Diderot (1713-1784)—editor of the French Encyclopedia of 17 volumes that marked the high point of the views of the philosophes

                                                --exalted the supremacy of science

                                                --espouses (liberal) tolerance

                                                --denounces (religious) superstition

                                                --exults in the merits of Deism; criticizes organized Christianity’s social (and political) failures

                                    --Philosophes represented an outsider’s attack on the church, aimed at its very foundations, not specific points of doctrine as other previous critiques by reformers and past heretics had been

                                                --regarded organized Christianity as a sacerdotal scheme to exploit the ignorant

                                                --used the Church’s history of persecution of heretics and infidels as a weapon against the Church

                                                --argued that Christianity had prevented peace and harmony and progress in the world (remembering the devastation of the 30 Years War)

                                                --used “truth” as a weapon against the Church (“We think that the greatest service to be done to men is to teach them to use their reason, only to hold for truth what they have verified and proved,” said Diderot)

                                                            --rejected all premises derived from Church authority or Scripture as unreasonable (Christians are automatically left without a weapon with which to defend themselves)

                                                            --only reason or human experience could “prove” a position

 

Catholic response to the philosophes’ challenge is inadequate

            --appeal to secular authorities to censor any materials or people criticizing the Church’s doctrines or authority

            --unfamiliarity on the part of the clergy with the arguments of the philosophes (so there was no immediate means of response to their challenge to the faith)

 

English Bishop John Butler (1692-1752)

            --points out that life is still full of mystery

            --reason can only offer probabilities, not certainties

            --nature is full of problems, therefore it is not surprising that religion is full of problems

            --problems and perplexities are part of our natural experience and thus show us the ordinary course of nature (problems are natural, not unnatural; we should not try to solve them, but to explain them and accept them?—KTH)

            --human beings normally operate on the basis of probability, so why not do so in matters of religion?  Why concern ourselves with rational proof of religion and still live with probabilities in the realm of natural sciences?

           

*Deism is premised on a false optimism about human nature’s perfectibility (Thomas Jefferson had once postulated that “there was not a man alive today who will not die a Unitarian,” meaning that everyone would have attained the perfection of the Enlightenment within his own generation)

            --Religiously neutral civilization emerges after the Thirty Years War

                        --art, science, education, politics are all freed from any formal alliances with Christianity (state churches will remain, but they will not have the same moral force or ability to compel as they once did)

                        --religion became centered in the heart and the head and the home, not in the society; man can believe what he wants, because no coercive power can touch matters of conscience.  We can compel outward belief, but we cannot compel matters of the heart.

 

The Emergence of Pietism and Evangelicalism

 

Idea develops that the true faith is found not in the formal creeds or decrees of councils but is found instead in the heart, or human experience

 

French Church-State alliance persists in the 17^th century

            --Jesuits hold top spots as teachers and confessors to the powerful; become expert casuists (people skilled in the science of right and wrong; legalists able to find loopholes in matters of moral behavior)

                        --Are very lenient in making concessions for justifying sinful behavior

                        --forgiveness without contrition is handed down quite readily

Cornelius Jansen (1585-1638), Dutch theologian and defender of a more rigorous faith against the laxity of the Jesuits—Jansenism emerges in opposition to the Jesuits

            --based his theology on Augustinian views of sin and grace

            --saw Augustinianism as the means of meeting Calvinist opposition to Catholicism, as well as meeting the Jesuit’s moral laxity

            --seeks to establish a rigid moral code for Catholic clergy premised on Augustinianism

Jansenism is introduced in France in 1633; Antoine Arnauld II becomes leader of the Jansenist cause in 1643 (he’s a prof. at the University of Paris)

            --Arnauld attacks Jesuit laxity without naming names

            --Jesuits respond to his attack with a plea to the pope to condemn Jansenism as Calvinism in Catholic clothing

            --1653, pope does condemn 5 Jansenist propositions

            --Arnauld continues his anti-Jesuit attacks despite the papal opposition

            -           -Seeks the help of Blaise Pascal (French scientist known for his work on hydrolics and atmospheric pressures, convert to Jansenism in 1646)

                        --Pascal had turned to mysticism in 1654; joined the Port-Royal monastery; writes several treatises against the Jesuits

                        --Pascal’s Pensées published posthumously in 1670

                                    --Neither nature nor reason is sure guide to God

                                    --Sees man as the Chimera of the universe (half beast and half angel)

                                    --Reason alone will end up doubting everything except pain and death

                        --Jansenism is forced out of France by the Church and Louis XIV; Jansenists flee to Holland for refuge

 

Pietism: Protestant (Lutheran) response to the hardened “Protestant scholasticism and confessionalism” of the official State Lutheran Churches, where Christian living becomes merely membership in the state church and nothing more

            --Pietism challenges Lutheran state church complacency

            --Personal faith and experience taking place within the heart of the individual (conversion of (already) baptized Christians (and heathens) becomes prominent in the movement

            --Christian living becomes centered in intimate fellowships of believers, not in the state churches of old Christendom

 

Philip Spener (1635-1705):

            --Justification by faith alone is more than a mere doctrinal truth; it entails a spiritual rebirth (“Ye must be born again….”)

            --1669 sermon on the Sermon on the Mount in Frankfurt => many conversions and changes in family life in that city (this sermon comes after several years of calling for repentance and discipleship without many takers in Frankfurt where Spener had been appalled at the moral conditions of the city)

            --Intimate meetings twice-weekly became known as “gatherings of the pious” by outsiders (a kind of derogatory term)

            --emphasis is on being “born again” by a conscious experience

            --advocated bible study groups, strict Christian living, Christian character in the clergy and theological students, and a simple/spiritual form of preaching

 

August Hermann Francke (1663-1727):

            --Invited by Frederick (future king of Prussia) at Spener’s recommendation to be a professor at the new University of Halle (which becomes a center of Pietism under his influence)

            --Had been converted at Leipzig while writing a sermon on John 20:31 when he asked “the God, whom I did not yet know and whom I did not believe, that, if there really is a God, he should save me from this wretched condition.”  God did save him, and he was “suddenly overwhelmed by a flood of joy.”

            --Francke starts a school for the poor, an orphanage, a hospital, etc.

            --Disciples of Francke are among the first Danish missionaries to India in 1705

 

Count Nicholas von Zinzendorf (1700-1760):

            --True Christianity is simple and childlike faith in the blood of Jesus

            --Trained by his grandmother, an admirer of the Pietists

            --Studied law for three years at University of Wittenberg, though yearned to be missionary in his heart

            --1722, Zinzendorf allows a group of Moravian/Bohemian members of the Unitas Fratrum (remnants of the followers of Jan Hus) to take refuge on his lands; this refuge becomes the Moravian community of Herrnhut (which means “the Lord’s Watch)

                        --Herrnhut becomes a community consisting only of Christians; a somewhat social monasticism minus the celibacy vows

                        --Herrnhut members shy away from contact with the world

            --Zinzendorf becomes the leading/guiding spirit of the community after 1727 (David’s death) and he aims to make the Moravian Brethren (United Brethren) a missionary force

            --Zinzendorf had gone to Copenhagen in 1731 and met an enslaved black man from the Dutch West Indies; became concerned for the needs of the slaves there and elsewhere

                        --Moravians become the first large-scale Protestant missionary movement c. 1732 when Moravian Brethren missionaries are sent to the Dutch West Indies and then spread out very quickly thereafter to Greenland, Lapland, Georgia (British Colony), African Guinea Coast, the Hottentots of South Africa, South American Guiana, Ceylon, and Algeria

                        --1737, Zinzendorf is ordained a Moravian minister; his weakness is his penchant for a sentimental religion (without enough of an institution to sustain a large-scale operation?—KTH)  “I have only one passion.  It is He, none but He.”

 

Pietism’s Legacy

--Shift toward a real care of souls

            --preaching and pastoral visitation become central to Christian living

            --music takes a more personal and sentimental role

            --spirituality amongst the laity encouraged as a means to a revived church

--Dominant theme of Christian faith becomes regeneration—most preaching is aimed at getting the believers to be reborn and to fulfill the call of a Christian life

            --experience of rebirth

            --heart religion (“The heart of a man was the scene of a desperate struggle between the powers of good and evil.”—Shelley)

                        --Becomes the fountain of all modern revivalism

Evangelical inheritance from Pietism

            --emotions are emphasized over reason (almost to a fault), therefore there is no thought about God in nature or God in history and thus there is no adequate religious response to growing trends of secularism in Europe and elsewhere, especially since emotional experiences cannot be proven by rational means or methods

            --new birth and spiritual life lived in voluntary association free of state control

            --evangelicals eventually align with the denominational trends in America

 

Evangelical Awakening—Wesleyanism and Revivalism

 

Evangelical Awakening

            --Germany and the Pietists

            --England/British Isles and the Methodists

            --America and the Great Awakening (mostly Calvinists)

Most Evangelicals come out of Britain and the British Colonies

            --1730s-first signs of the Great Awakening

                        --Conversions of the lost at the center of an otherwise Puritan movement

                        --Preaching the gospel more important than church reform

Early 18^th century England was a center of the Enlightenment

            --most religious groups lacked zeal and urged moderation (Anglicans and Nonconformists alike, e.g., Baptists, Congregationalists, etc., moved away from their Puritan moorings)

            --God is approached with a sense of cheerfulness and “gentle awe”; no real concern with humanity’s sinfulness

            --dullness of Puritan sermons during the era; very dry, heavy, and lacking enthusiasm

            --Groups such as the Latitudinarians (which included the Archbishop of Canterbury, John Tillotson (1691-1694) denounce enthusiasm and encourage right conduct, humanity, and tolerance, generosity and moderation (denunciation of emotional expressions of the type usually encouraged by any fervent preachers)

 

John Wesley (1703-1791):

--Background of high-church Anglicanism (dad) and Nonconformist piety (mom)

--Was the 15^th of 19 children of Samuel and Susanna Wesley

            --Susanna taught each one separately

--Saved from a fire at the age of 6, knew from then on that God was with him, and thought of himself as “a brand plucked from the burning.”

--Church Fathers and the Devotional Classics influence him in college

            --from the Greek Fathers, he learned that “perfection” is the goal of the Christian life; perfection is really a “process of disciplined life”, not a state of religious existence

            --from the classic devotional works, he learned the impossibility of being “half a Christian” “I determined, through His grace, to be all devoted to God.”

--1726, Elected a fellow of Lincoln College; ordained an Anglican minister in 1728

--Returns to Oxford after a stint as an assistant at his father’s church in Epworth

            --finds his brother Charles assembling a group of students devoted to maintaining a defense against Deism at the university (group eventually includes another luminary, George Whitefield)

            --John is made their leader, creates a rule of life stressing prayer, bible reading, and frequent attendance at Holy Communion

            --Because of their methodical rules, they attract the derision of their complacent colleagues; were called names such as the Holy Club, Bible moths, Methodists and Reforming Club; obviously the Methodist label becomes the one attaching even today

            --John still lacks an inward peace, though the group is attempting to live the apostolic life, giving to the poor, visiting the sick and imprisoned, etc.

--1735, John and Charles sail to Georgia, Charles as secretary to Oglethorpe and John as the colonial chaplain

            --John disappointed to find that the American Indians are “gluttons, thieves, liars, and murderers,” contrary to the picture of the “noble savages” he had been given in his studies

            --John manages to alienate most of the Anglo colonists because of his devotion to high-church ways, his refusal to officiate at a Nonconformist funeral, and his prohibition of women’s fancy dress and jewelry in church

            --John also falls in love with Sophy Hopkey, but she elopes with his rival; John bars her from Holy Communion, her husband sues John for character defamation, and after the trial dragged on for six months, Wesley leaves Georgia and returns to England 1737

--Contact with the Moravians on voyage to Georgia => Wesley seeking spiritual solace (their peace during a storm on the way to the American colony inspired Wesley)

            --Learns from Peter Bohler (a Moravian leader in London) of the need of rebirth

            --24 May 1738, Aldersgate Street Meeting; reading of Luther’s commentary on the Epistle to the Romans => “About a quarter to nine, while he was describing the change which God works in the heart through faith in Christ, I felt my heart strangely warmed.  I felt that I did trust in Christ, Christ alone, for salvation; and an assurance was given me that he had taken away my sins, even mine, and saved me from the law of sin and death.”

                        --at last Wesley finds the peace he’s been looking for

--Visits Herrnhut in 1738 after his conversion experience

            --has mixed reactions—some are clearly enjoying the fullness of assurance of the Christian faith, while others are basking in their self-righteousness

            --decides not to become a Moravian, particularly because of his negative reaction to the personality cult that was developing around Zinzendorf

--Returns to London to preach—has about the same luck there as he had before his conversion

            --finally stumbles upon Jonathan Edwards’ account of the Awakenings occurring in Massachusetts

 

George Whitefield (1712-1770): goes to Georgia in 1738; returns later that year to be ordained

            --Feb. 1739, begins preaching in open field near Bristol to coal miners

            --strong voice, vivid imagery in his sermons attract the common folk and numerous coal miners seek the mercy of God as a direct result of his preaching; some were so moved by his preaching that Whitefield could see “the white gutters made by their tears” on their blackened faces

            --invites Wesley to join him in Bristol; Wesley hesitates “Having been all my life so tenacious of every point relating to decency and order, I should have thought the saving of souls almost a sin if it had not been done in a church.”

 

--John Wesley goes to Bristol to preach with Whitefield

            --Conversions take place in large numbers, and Methodist Revivals break out

            --Wesley becomes fervent preacher to the poor everywhere (especially because Bohler had told him earlier to “preach faith till you have it and then because you have it, you will preach faith.”  Wesley’s own faith is confirmed by the new faith of his hearers

            --“I look upon all the world as my parish; I judge it my bounden duty, to declare unto all that are willing to hear, the glad tidings of salvation.”

--Wesley marries Molly Vazeille in 1751; she travels with him for 2 years and then grows weary of it and leaves him

--Wesley stresses Arminian doctrines (no one else in the Revivals did)

            --Denies the predestination of the elect of God; instead God wills the salvation of all people and men are given free will to choose or reject the offer of grace

            --belief in predestination, Wesley felt, made God “an arbitrary devil”

--Rejection of predestination => strained relationship with Whitefield (who believed the sovereignty of God rested entirely on the doctrine of predestination and that Arminianism dulled the sense of sinfulness) and thus a split in the Methodist revival into two camps, one Calvinist and one Arminian

 

Methodist societies appear

            --members are still mostly devout Anglicans

            --Christian experience centered around the Methodist societies; confession of sins to one another, submission to the discipline of the leaders, prayer and song

            --Charles Wesley writes over 700 hymns for these society meetings (e.g., “Love Divine, All Loves Excelling,” “Christ the Lord is Risen Today,” “Hark the Herald Angels Sing,” “Jesus Lover of My Soul,” etc.)

            --Societies divided into classes (divisions) => class meetings (smaller than the whole society)

                        --laymen are appointed to serve as Wesley’s personal assistants; these are not ordained ministers and have no right or responsibility in administration of the sacraments; they are directly accountable to Wesley

--1774, Annual Conference is established

            --Assistants moved around frequently by Wesley himself from assignment to assignment; each given basic task of evangelism and Christian education

            --From 1748ff, Methodism was a “church within a Church”

--Francis Asbury sent to America as the first Methodist assistant over here

            --1773, first American Methodist Conference in Philadelphia

                        --recognized need for ordained leaders in the Methodist organization in  America

                        --bishops in England refused to listen to Wesley’s pleas for ordination of some to be Methodist ministers in America => Wesley appointing his own choices of 2 lay ministers, Thomas Vasey and Richard Whatcost and Dr. Thomas Coke as superintendent

            -Methodist Church in America becomes separate denomination in 1784 at Baltimore Christmas Conference; Coke and Asbury are elected superintendents

--English Methodists follow the American lead after Wesley’s death in 1791

 

The American Experience

Old Testament biblical stories are suggested as designs for the new Great Seal of the USA (Moses leading children of Israel out of Egypt; the pillar of cloud by day, fire by night leading Israel in the wilderness)

 

Colonial religious and national diversity from the beginning—by 1646, 18 different languages spoken in the Hudson Valley alone

            --each Christian group wanted freedom to worship according to their own consciences

            --recognition that religious freedom is possible only if granted to everyone

            --cut all ties to the state, no more compulsion as a means of conversion

            --churches will now sink or swim on their own

 

Great Awakening proves crucial in realizing the “new order” in America; convinces many that voluntarism will work and can work

            --Resistance to revival among the Puritans is especially strong (theirs was the old guard, the state church in New England

                        --desired a church of the visible saints

                        --conversion preceded church membership

            --Puritan commitment to a community according to God’s design

                        --civil government holds society together along the lines of God’s will

                        --laws reflect the revealed will of God in scripture and reason and nature

                        --laws must fulfill God’s will in society, advance the “public good”

                        --vote given only to freemen; freemen had to be church members; thus church controlled politics

            --Decline in the 2^nd and 3^rd generations of Puritans’ zeal and ability to testify to grace acting in their souls

                        --1662 Half-Way Covenant allows partial church membership to the “unawakened” (usually enough church membership to attain political office); these so-called could have their children baptized and could participate in congregational gatherings, but could not receive full communion => number of true saints shrinking to very small minority

                        --1691, Franchise is based on property rights, not church membership

Jonathan Edwards: pastor in Northampton, Massachusetts

            --preaches personal conversion as a basis of church membership

            --contrary to “worldly Puritans” who retain a civic responsibility and belief in Divine Providence but who lack the zeal of the converted—these are they who support the cause of liberty in the American Revolution

            --begins a revival in Northampton in Dec. 1734

 

Signs of a Great Awakening in 1720-1740

            --begins with Theodore Frelinghuysen in the Dutch Reformed Church in New Jersey

            --continues with Scotch-Irish Presbyterians in the same area

            --William Tennent’s “Log College” in Pennsylvania produces evangelical preachers who produce revivals in New Jersey and elsewhere in the same region

 

Controversy erupts over the “educated” (Old Sides) versus the “converted” (New Sides) clergy

            --New Sides’ missionaries contribute to a revival in VA among the Presbyterians

            --Baptist New Sides also spread through VA, NC, and SC

 

1739—Whitefield comes to Americas, works his way up through GA going as far north eventually as New York, later is invited to Boston to preach there (sets the trend of major evangelists going to major American cities on their interaries)

            --1740—New England revival meets up with the Middle Atlantic and Southern revival

                        --Great Awakening begins in earnest

                        --Edwards and others begin preaching revival sermons in various towns and villages of the areas (e.g., “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God”, a vivid portrait of the fires of hell and the pains endured by the damned)

                                    --highly emotional responses during the sermons’ delivery

--1741, all the key elements of the revival are in play—visiting preachers, hellfire and brimstone preaching, prayer meetings, and large numbers of converts—and controversies and church splits as well)

 

Isaac Backus:

            --converted after Great Awakening came through Norwich, CT in 1741; did not have any dramatic emotional experience, only was converted while mowing a field “I was enabled by divine light, to see the perfect righteousness of Christ and the freeness and riches of his grace, with such clearness, that my soul was drawn forth to trust him for salvation.”

            --born again without emotion, and only guided by the divine light

            --New Lights separate from parish churches, organize around original Puritan principles of only the converted being given church membership

            --Backus becomes a revivalist

            --Backus becomes a Baptist, helps found the First Baptist Church of Middleborough, MA

            --Helps promote the separation of church and state

                        --becomes a key player in the Warren Association (founded in New England 1769 by Baptists to advance their cause)

                        --experienced persecution (by proxy—his family was attacked; mom, brother, and uncles are imprisoned in Connecticut) => his becoming an ardent opponent of the established system

            --must separate church and state for the sake of America becoming a truly Christian nation

                        --2 governments exist, the one secular (civil) and the other ecclesiastical

                                    --the civil officials have not been empowered by the people to make spiritual decisions for them

                                    --religion is voluntary obedience to God that cannot be coerced

                                    --revivals are seen as a means of getting a majority of the population to willingly and voluntarily surrender to the law of God

                                    --shift of the covenant of grace to individuals only; thus American people in general become the covenant people in general

           

--Enlightenment resistance to coercion in matters of faith and morality, as well

--Revival also fosters idea of freedom, albeit freedom directed by the Spirit, checked by Scripture

            --Rationalists of the Enlightenment and Revivalists of the evangelical movement can unite to promote practical and legal freedom against religious coercion

            --eventually, separation of church and state becomes something taken for granted

            --Lord James Boyce, writing in the 19^th c., “the conception of the church as a spiritual body existing for spiritual purposes, and moving along spiritual paths” grounds the American view of church and state, therefore it does not occur “to the average American that there is any reason why state churches should exist…Compulsion of any kind is contrary to the nature of such a body…it desires no state help…it does not seek for exclusive privileges.”