FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   132   133   134   135   136   137   138   139   140   141   142   143   144   145   146   147   148   149   150   151   152   153   154   155   156  
157   158   159   160   161   162   163   164   165   166   167   168   169   170   171   172   173   174   175   176   177   178   179   180   181   >>   >|  
The congregations were much increased since his being here last. The presence of God was much seen in the assemblies, especially at Nottingham and Fog's Manor, where the people were under such deep soul-distress that their cries almost drowned his voice. He has collected in this and the neighboring provinces about four hundred and fifty pounds sterling for his orphans in Georgia." Into the feeble but rapidly growing presbyteries and the one synod of the American Presbyterian Church the revival had brought, not peace, but a sword. The collision was inevitable between the fervor and unrestrained zeal of the evangelists and the sense of order and decorum, and of the importance of organization and method, into which men are trained in the ministry of an established church. No man, even at this day, can read the "standards" of the Presbyterian Church without seeing that they have had to be strained to admit those "revival methods" which ever since the days of Whitefield have prevailed in that body. The conflict that arose was not unlike that which from the beginning of New England history had subsisted between Separatist and Nationalist. In the Presbyterian conflict, as so often in religious controversies, disciplinary and doctrinal questions were complicated with a difference of race. The "Old Side" was the Scotch and Irish party; the "New Side" was the New England party, to which many of the old-country ministers adhered. For successive years the mutual opposition had shown itself in the synod; and in 1740, at the synod meeting at Philadelphia, soon after the departure of Whitefield, the real gravamen of the controversy appeared, in the implied and even express impeachment of the spiritual character of the Old Side ministers. The impeachment had been implied in the coming of the evangelists uninvited into other men's parishes, as if these were mission ground. And now it was expressed in papers read before the synod by Blair and Gilbert Tennent. The action of the synod went so far toward sustaining the men of the New Side as to repeal the rule restraining ministers from preaching outside of their own parishes, and as to put on record a thanksgiving for the work of God in the land. Through all the days of the synod's meeting, daily throngs on Society Hill were addressed by the Tennents and other "hot gospelers" of the revival, and churches and private houses were resounding with revival hymns
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   132   133   134   135   136   137   138   139   140   141   142   143   144   145   146   147   148   149   150   151   152   153   154   155   156  
157   158   159   160   161   162   163   164   165   166   167   168   169   170   171   172   173   174   175   176   177   178   179   180   181   >>   >|  



Top keywords:
revival
 

ministers

 

Presbyterian

 

impeachment

 

evangelists

 
implied
 
parishes
 

Church

 
meeting
 

England


conflict

 

Whitefield

 
country
 

thanksgiving

 
successive
 

adhered

 
churches
 
Philadelphia
 

opposition

 

record


mutual

 

Through

 

addressed

 

difference

 

complicated

 

doctrinal

 

questions

 

Tennents

 

gospelers

 

resounding


throngs

 
Society
 

Scotch

 

ground

 

private

 
disciplinary
 

sustaining

 
mission
 

houses

 
action

Tennent
 

papers

 
expressed
 
repeal
 

appeared

 

express

 
Gilbert
 

gravamen

 
controversy
 

preaching