that one which swept over Presbyterian and
Congregational Churches of New England, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and
Virginia, about the middle of the last century. It is generally known,
and spoken of as "_the great awakening_." Its leading spirits
were such staunch and loyal Calvinists as Jonathan Edwards, the
Tennents, Blair, and others. In the matter of doctrinal preaching and
instruction it was certainly very far in advance of the so-called
revivals of the present day. And yet in many of its direct results it
was anything but salutary. It was the principal cause of the division
of the Presbyterian Church into Old and New School.

Let us hear what some of the eminent theologians of these
Churches say of the results of "the great awakening:"

Dr. Sereno E. Dwight, the biographer of Jonathan Edwards, and one
of his descendants, says: "It is deserving perhaps of inquiry, whether
the subsequent slumbers of the American Church for nearly seventy
years may not be ascribed, in an important degree, to the fatal
reaction of these unhappy measures."

Jonathan Edwards, himself the most zealous and successful
promoter of the whole movement, in 1750, when its fruits could be
fairly tested, writes thus:--"Multitudes of fair and high professors,
in one place and another, have sadly backslidden; sinners are
desperately hardened; experimental religion is more than ever out of
credit with the far greater part, and the doctrines of Grace and those
principles in religion that do chiefly concern the power of godliness
are far more than ever discarded. Arminianism and Pelagianism have
made strange progress within a few years.... Many professors are gone
off to great lengths in enthusiasm and extravagance in their notions
and practices. Great contentions, separations, and confusions in our
religious state prevail in many parts of the land."

The above is from a letter to a friend in Scotland. We give also
a brief quotation from his farewell sermon to his church at
Nottingham:

"Another thing that vastly concerns your future prosperity is
that you should watch against the encroachments of error, and
particularly Arminianism and doctrines of like tendency.... These
doctrines at this day are much more prevalent than they were formerly.
The progress they have made in the land within this seven years
(_i.e._, since the revival), seems to have been vastly greater
than at any time in the like space before. And they are