Chapter VIII: Between Two Extremes
VIII
Between Two Extremes
To his advantage, Whitefield found a unified contingency of ministers to which he could appeal, en masse, for reconciliation and thus initiate a cautious blending process between the New and Old Lights. After Whitefield gained the support of Dr. Sewall, Dr. Colman, Mr. Foxcroft, Mr. Prince, and others with whom Whitefield met in November, other ministers were won over, if not through Whitefield’s responses (outhned in the previous chapter), then by the pamphlets written on his behalf. Thomas Foxcroft and William Hobby both published in Whitefield’s favor, defending him at the expense of their own public images, which were subsequently subjected to ridicule by Boston editorialists who were maintaining the controversy.
Whitefield’s actions that displayed another spirit helped him more than all his arguments and apologizing. The activity of French and Spanish pirates had been increasing, and the impending war with the French displaced the revival controversy from the Boston news. Massachusetts governor William Shirley proposed an expedition to capture the fortified French military port at Cape Breton on the coast of Nova Scotia, just six hundred miles northeast of Boston. The port offered French-government-approved pirates a safe haven that was too close for Boston’s comfort. But New Englanders did not want to sign on after Governor Shirley’s announcement of a campaign in the spring of 1745. Frankly, the political leaders of Boston and New England were having difficulty persuading farmers to enlist in the military for what seemed a remote and uncertain cause. So General Pepperell, who was assigned the command of the Cape Breton expedition, appealed to Whitefield to support the enlistment effort by providing a motto for his flag. After some initial hesitation, Whitefield coined the phrase “Nil Desperandum, Christo Duce” (If Christ be Captain, no fear of a defeat). Then Whitefield preached a sermon that spiritualized the story of David, exhorting potential enlistees that, as soldiers of Christ, they were like David’s men who found success in their battle against God’s enemies. He did, however, turn down a request to go to Louisbourg as the expedition’s military chaplain.
Whitefield played the loyal subject and encouraged loyalty to the British authorities. In so doing, he committed colonists’ blood to the war effort and began redirecting the us/them thinking away from the New versus Old Light controversy and toward Protestants versus Roman Catholics, casting the unified American church community as “good” and the French Catholics as “evil.” After Whitefield pronounced God’s blessing upon the Louisbourg expedition, the men signed up in droves. The fortress fell in six weeks to the delight and encouragement of the New Englanders. Thanksgiving sermons by both New and Old Light ministers responding to the victory displayed a significant unanimity, revealing that the rift between New and Old Lights was healing. Whitefield’s support of the New England governor was out of character with being a conspirator and contradicted accusations of sedition. From 1745 through the rest of his life, Whitefield maintained his voice in public rhetoric regarding war. Shortly thereafter, he did perhaps the best thing he could to cool the religious controversy in Boston: he left town and did not return to New England for two years. Chauncy, Clap, and the other antirevival leaders stopped publishing complaints and went back to their normal business.
After Cape Breton was captured, the New England forces settled in for a hard winter in which hundreds of men died from disease. Had Whitefield with his weak health joined the expedition, he likely would have succumbed to the harsh conditions. Hearing about the struggles, he wrote to the commanding general:
I heartily condole with you on the account of the death of that beloved physician Doctor Bullman, and the other dear souls who are lately hurried away into Eternity. A sad symptom this for poor Cape-Breton, because we have reason to think many of them were good soldiers of JESUS CHRIST, as well as of his present Majesty our precious King George. But what shall we say? GOD’S judgments are like the great deep.
Fortunately for Whitefield, he was more associated with the successful enlistment and victory than he was with the loss of life that occurred during the garrisoning of the fort through the winter. For this, the French got the blame. The loss was the first tragedy at the hands of the French for New England, and would surely be remembered as ministers began to connect the French with satanic designs to conquer the British colonies.
In Whitefield’s absence, the religious controversy found more resolution. William Shurtleff, a respected Boston Puritan, issued a pamphlet that voiced a reasonable view, one that promoted the moderate position and promised harmony to the factions. In late May of 1745, Shurtleff, without explicitly supporting Whitefield, reasoned that the revival, despite its controversy, had not worsened, but actually improved the state of religion in New England. Shurtleff reminded his readers how New Englanders had abandoned the church before the revival, and contrasted it with the religious zeal that now abounded—the churches were filled, and ministers were again excited. Perhaps Shurtleff’s perspective supplied the rationale for a meeting of Boston’s ministers, scheduled for September 19, 1745, which was convened to resolve the divided state of affairs. Issues of newspapers that might describe the proceedings are missing from the historical record, but one editorial mentioned the meeting, “which has occasioned so much talk and writing,” and noted that a number of troublemakers tried to disrupt it. Out of the meeting a statement was published entitled “Convention of New England Ministers,” which charted out the doctrinal positions of a moderate group of ministers. The twenty-four signers rejected excessive enthusiastic practices and staked out what they felt was a reasonable position toward the revivals. Chauncy did not sign the statement, though he had to feel vindicated.
Clearly the Old Lights and New Lights had more in common than not. As a 1745 sermon by Samuel Quincy shows us, many Old Lights actually held doctrinal positions almost identical to Whitefield’s regarding the new birth and regeneration. In his sermon, entitled “Regeneration,” Quincy declares the new birth as a necessity and defines it as a spiritual transformation, requiring a season of growth, authored by the Holy Ghost. He only differed with Whitefield’s position regarding the role of the emotions in conversion and whether a person could approach God on their own or had to wait for the “calling.” Whitefield had conceded this much to Chauncy. Though Whitefield affirmed predestination and calling in his writings, he was less likely to force it on his audiences in person. In practical terms, Whitefield judged any emotional impulse leading toward conversion as evidence of God’s calling, impulses he was skilled in evoking through his persuasive preaching. Clearly, Quincy’s sermon was responding to the radical enthusiasts rather than Whitefield, revealing the middle ground from the Old Light perspective. It was on this middle ground that the New Light moderates could be reconciled with Old Lights, who were recognizing that they indeed benefited from the revival, just as Shurtleff had claimed. The gap between the two groups was more talk than substance, and in time this fact became evident to all.
Whitefield aligned himself with a growing group of moderate ministers who promoted a doctrinal and practical middle ground—ministers who initially embraced the revival but backed off as they saw its enthusiastic abuses. This was a middle ground shared with the Old Lights like Shurtleff and Quincy, although some were slow to admit it. Giving advice to a friend, Whitefield wrote, “Moderate Calvinism I take to be a medium between two extremes.” There would always remain radicals who continued to emphasize enthusiasm and never settle the differences. Whitefield would continue polite relationships with these, as he did with everyone. But in principle, he was a moderate, and he recognized the need for peace with the Old Lights to maintain his popularity as well as social stability.
Before 1740, the people of New England had lost sight of their original vision for their communities, but the revivals had renewed their hope and placed the issue of who was in or out of God’s kingdom on the table of public discussion. Shurtleff was right. The Awakening was good for everyone; through forcing people to take sides, each side was unified within itself. Then, through Whitefield’s example and the “Convention of New England Ministers,” both sides were able to focus on their shared beliefs, as they realized conflict was destructive, and their differences could be successfully managed.
With Whitefield gone and the war with France developing an American theater, the ministers of Boston resolved their issues then worked together against the threat of a common enemy. Now, the entire New England religious community could be counted as “us” facing the threat of “them”—French forces in pursuit of conquest and the Roman Catholic religious system. The popish plots of 1678 and 1715 were back. With the growing reconciliation of Old Lights and moderate New Lights, the Catholic French were transformed into the new them, an enemy with evil intentions in both religion and politics.
As Whitefield’s tour progressed from 1745 to 1747, he led the transformation of the colonial mind in casting the French as the new enemy through the delivery and publication of his war sermons. Other American ministers soon followed his lead, but nothing was published earlier than Whitefield’s “Britain’s Mercies and Britain’s Duties.” Before long, the unified New and Old Lights turned their full attention to the threat of conquest, with their sermons empowered by the residual zeal of the Awakening.
A Political Turn toward National Community
While religion and politics in colonial America had always been married, the peaceful, prosperous society had not demanded activism from the church. Normally, the two existed in a quiet partnership, with the ministers busy with the needs of their flock until political issues called for sermons and persuasion on public issues. The Awakening emphasized the political-religious connection as it challenged the traditional authority structures. Just as the religious factions were reforming the balance of power and dropping charges of conspiracy and heresy, Britain’s war with France supplied a threat that brought them together. Historian Nathan Hatch explains, “In the minds of Old Lights, images of Antichrist shifted from ‘enthusiasm’ to the French menace, and New Lights ceased to be preoccupied with the dangers of an unconverted ministry.”1 There is nothing like a common enemy to align squabbling neighbors, and Whitefield’s return was uncannily timed to help them get past their differences. It would take a few more months for the middle ground to solidify completely, but the “Convention of New England Ministers” had suggested a blueprint. It was only a matter of time before harsh feelings faded and colonies would see the beginning of a “Christian Union” (the title of an influential sermon in 1760).
If there was any lingering doubt among Old Lights about Whitefield’s designs to overthrow New England, he erased it by aligning solidly behind political leaders and lending his persuasive talent as the war with the French commenced. Securing the support of the Christian community would require the demonization of the secular enemy. This was easy considering the French and Catholics had supported the Inquisition, inspired the persecutions of Protestants, and had been plotting to conquer England and reinstall Catholicism as the state religion. Whitefield played upon fears of French conquest and Roman Catholic dominance, which he believed were evil and represented a serious threat to Protestant freedom—and in 1745 it did.
Whitefield had been employing war metaphors in his sermons as early as 1740. He viewed the Christian community as “soldiers lifted under the banner of Christ,” who have “proclaimed open war at our baptism, against the world, the flesh, and the devil.” After Whitefield’s enlistment sermon brought the people to back the Massachusetts governor, Whitefield’s response to the Jacobite rebellion of 1745 further showed the depth of his loyalty to the king and traditional authority structure.
As Whitefield’s 1745–1748 tour progressed, he displayed another spirit wherever he preached. With political connections throughout the colonies, he stayed near the conflict and occasionally stepped into the fray as needed. Great Britain was getting deeper into war with France in Europe, which did not have a particularly large impact on colonial Americans yet, although its news filled pages of the press.
By mid-1745, Whitefield toured the southern colonies and described in his letters to friends how he enjoyed “hunting in the woods after the lost sheep” while traveling through North Carolina and Maryland. When Whitefield arranged a meeting near a town, he wrote of “preaching to thousands, generally twice a day,” showing a continued passionate response among the people. Now he was finally preaching to those he was unable to visit during his 1740 tour. Wherever Whitefield went, almost without exception, large crowds came out for his sermons, and he would not make the same mistakes he made in 1740. The mature Whitefield took care to set his feet on the middle ground between the kind of enthusiasm to which Chauncy objected and a genuine outpouring of God’s spirit as Jonathan Edwards described. Whitefield confessed that “there was much smoke, yet every day I had more and more convincing proof, that a blessed Gospel-fire had been kindled in the hearts both of ministers and people.” By the end of his tour in1746, he declared “the harvest is great in many places.”
Whitefield showed people how to find a middle position in religion and make peace with their enemies. In England, to thwart violence, Whitefield used the court system to stop the mobs and then challenged the origin of the violence with a public exposure of the bishops. His persuasive skill served him in the courtroom, where he did not deny the methodist enthusiasm, but he argued forcefully that their practice was not seditious, keeping the argument in a sphere where he could win. In writing against the bishops who were persecuting methodism, Whitefield used carefully reasoned arguments that were powerfully worded and then published to hold the bishops accountable for their actions. Likewise in America, he apologized for his mistakes and then challenged the doctrinal accusations with solid reasoning. He always appeared reasonable, rational, willing to own up to his faults, and he always published. Whitefield recognized that religious conflicts were not settled in the courts or secret meetings with authorities but in the public sphere, where image was crucial, and public opinion provided the more powerful judgment. He was a man ahead of his time.
Whitefield effectively showed how differences could be reconciled. A walking enigma, he was a priest from the Church of England, representing traditional authority on one hand, yet on the other, he thought and acted like the other Protestant ministers, supporting the people. He was the Calvinist who invited everyone to Christ. He was a Whig, fighting against a powerful and oppressive Church of England for the rights of people to worship as they wished. He praised George II while supporting the parliamentary power of the people. Throughout his life and enterprise we see the reconciliation of opposites. His positions required a personal touch to win over those who opposed him as well as a heavy persuasive hand when charm would not work. He showed the political and religious world how the strategy of taking the best of both positions to fashion a third one moved above mere compromise to form a program of action. As his life progressed, Whitefield evolved into a spiritual statesman for the republican ideology, championing the privileges of the people within the bounds of monarchial authority.
From 1736 to 1744, George Whitefield focused on spreading the new birth to the entire world. But events in Great Britain and America forced him to extend his goals. Expressing these changes directly, Whitefield said:
I hope I shall always think it my bounded duty, next to inviting sinners to the blessed Jesus, to exhort my hearers to exert themselves against the first approaches of Popish tyranny and arbitrary power.
Political maneuverings and war had spawned fears of a Catholic king taking over the throne of England—a king who could be controlled by the pope. Whitefield feared that such a situation could mean that the Catholic Church might severely limit the ability of Protestants to worship freely, or they might even openly oppress them. He was also concerned that public officials, even a king, might use their office to oppress the citizens. The phrase “arbitrary power” circulated widely throughout the colonies and England in the 1700s. It referred to the practices of an official abusing his power to advance his personal goals or their political ideals. Foremost in Whitefield’s mind was the privilege he had to worship as he saw fit. Whitefield felt a call to protect Protestant freedoms as well as British civil liberties: “Alas! alas! what a condition would this land be in, was the protestant interest not to prevail?” In efforts to “exhort his hearers,” he bluntly criticized the French, and even the Church of England, for their violations of religious freedoms. Because of his experience in England with the attempted assassination and the court case, he could envision the Church of England becoming as oppressive as the Catholics. Over the course of the next fifteen years, Whitefield aimed his persuasive arsenal at the French Roman Catholics, as England waged war on two continents (the Seven Years War in Europe and the French and Indian War in the colonies). Then, after the war, he turned his attention to Church of England bishops who continued to arbitrarily limit the religious freedoms of non-Anglican denominations.
Unmistakable republican ideas punctuated Whitefield’s writings from this point until his death. While some historians insist that republicanism began in politics and spread to religion, historian Mark Noll argues that republican ideas also flowed from religion into politics: “Rather than a rhetoric or republican civic humanism spreading out into the religious backwaters of colonial society, the religious backwaters may have been rising to carry republicanism where its leading theorists had not intended it to go.”2 Being an opinion leader, Whitefield was instrumental in merging republican and religious language use, whichever way it tended to flow. Of course, Whitefield was a product of his times and expressed clear Whig and republican tendencies. But since ideologies are founded in religion and then flow into politics (as many historians teach), Whitefield’s influence was clearly established. As this book has shown, Whitefield’s role was more squarely in the spread of ideas rather than as the originator. The next chapter will discuss Whitefield’s increasing use of republican language and how he blended it with theology in his celebrated sermon “Britain’s Mercies and Britain’s Duties.” In his desire to preserve religious freedoms, Whitefield began to include the idea of “liberty” in his messages. The Revolution was still thirty-one years away, so the audiences hearing his messages were the parents of those who actually fought in the Revolution, making Whitefield’s direct influence one step removed. But his teachings held incredible power as parents taught their children the difference between right and wrong, good and evil.