Jonathan Edwards and the Northampton Revival (1734) - Study Notes

Jonathan Edwards and the Northampton Revival (1734)

• Context and concerns
  • In the 1730s, Jonathan Edwards, the grandson of Solomon Stoddard, was settled as the Congregationalist minister in Northampton, Massachusetts after his grandfather's death.
  • Edwards worried that his people were neglecting traditional Calvinist principles of salvation.
  • He opposed the halfway covenant, even though it was his grandfather's idea, and sought to awaken a sense of dependence on God.
• The revival begins
  • In $1734$, with the state of his congregation seemingly at an all-time spiritual low, Edwards decided it was time for revival.
  • It started with a sermon in Northampton titled 'Justification by Faith Alone', and it caught on.
  • Edwards, along with other ministers in the area, spread the message to other towns.
  • The revival produced about $300$ people who reported conversion experiences.
• Revival traditions and Edwards’ innovation
  • Revival wasn’t new; New England Congregationalists already had a tradition of revival called pulpit exchange: inviting a guest preacher from a neighboring town to exchange pulpits, with the guest preaching on themes of repentance and conversion.
  • Edwards did something new: he published an account of the Northampton revival, turning the revival into a story.
  • He began by describing the town’s low spiritual state, then showed how the revival started to spread almost miraculously and how many were converted.
  • A critical component of his account were conversion narratives.
• Abigail Hutchinson and conversion narratives
  • One conversion narrative centers on Abigail Hutchinson.
  • Edwards notes she came from a rational, ‘understanding’ family and that, in the eighteenth century, the word enthusiasm was a negative term implying excess emotion or fanaticism.
  • Hutchinson’s great terror was that she had sinned against God; her distress persisted for $3$ days, from Thursday until Monday, as she perceived herself guilty of Adam’s sin and defiled by it.
  • On Monday morning, her contemplations and views of Christ filled her with exceedingly joyful peace.
  • Her soul became eager to warn sinners, reflecting a complete transformation from despair to joy.
  • Hutchinson’s transformation illustrates the personal journey toward grace and the desire to share the experience with others.
• Personalization and broader impact of Edwards’ account
  • Edwards was presenting the same kinds of stories New Englanders had long used for church membership, but now these narratives stood on their own as personal journeys toward divine grace.
  • By including conversion narratives, he personalized the work of conversion and made it relatable.
  • The Northampton revival account became an international best-seller: it went through multiple editions in the $1730s$, was published in North America, England, and Scotland, and translated into German for publication across Germany.
  • Edwards found a ready audience among Protestants interested in revival in the 1730s.
• Distinct revival traditions outside New England
  • There were already distinct revival traditions outside New England, notably Scottish and Irish Presbyterians.
  • Presbyterians shared Calvinist beliefs with congregationalists but were governed by boards of elders called presbyters; their revival tradition was the Holy Fair, mass open-air gatherings with communion and sermons on conversion and repentance.
  • In the early eighteenth century, Scottish and Irish immigrants to North America carried the Holy Fair tradition with them.
• Gilbert Tennant and Presbyterian revivalism
  • Gilbert Tennant was an Irish-born Presbyterian, educated in Scotland, who migrated to Pennsylvania and launched revivals in the early $1730s$ that spread across Southeastern Pennsylvania into New Jersey.
  • Edwards had heard of Tennant and read a little about him, and he was partly inspired by Tennant’s revivals.
• Edwards’ style vs. Tennant’s style
  • Edwards’ approach combined pulpit exchanges within the Congregationalist tradition with engagement through the printed word.
  • Tennant’s approach adapted the Holy Fair and applied strong emotional intensity to preaching.
  • Contemporaries described Tennant as a 'son of thunder'—a loud, emotive, and aggressive preaching style aimed at breaking down listeners emotionally to convince them of sin and need for grace toward conversion.
  • Despite stylistic differences, Edwards and Tennant shared similar goals: awakening repentance and conversion and pursuing divine grace, albeit through different methods.
• Significance and broader implications
  • Edwards’ use of published conversion narratives helped universalize the potential for conversion, making it accessible to a broad audience beyond his congregation.
  • The Northampton revival illustrates how revival narratives can be used to shape religious identity, public memory, and transatlantic Protestant discourse through print.
  • The comparison with Tennant highlights how different cultural and geographic contexts produced similar religious aims through different rhetorical and emotional strategies.
• Key terms and concepts
  • halfway covenant: a precedent Edwards opposed though it originated with his grandfather
  • pulpit exchange: practice of inviting guest preachers from neighboring towns to exchange pulpits
  • Holy Fair: Presbyterian revival tradition involving mass open-air gatherings with communion and sermons on conversion
  • conversion narratives: personal stories of conversion used to illustrate and propagate revival experiences
  • enthusiasm: a term used negatively in the eighteenth century to denote excessive emotion or fanaticism
• Ethical, philosophical, and practical implications
  • The balance between rational understanding and emotional religious experience is foregrounded through the critique of enthusiasm and the emphasis on personal conversion narratives.
  • Edwards’ method shows how religious experiences can be standardized, communicated, and scaled through print and storytelling.
  • The global reception of the Northampton revival demonstrates the transatlantic flow of religious ideas and the role of literature in shaping religious movements.