Pentecostal Outpourings: Revival and the Reformed Tradition

PENTECOSTAL

OUTPOURINGS

REVIVAL AND THE REFORMED TRADITION

Edited by Robert Davis Smart,

Michael A. G. Haykin, and Ian Hugh Clary

Reformation Heritage Books

Grand Rapids, Michigan

Pentecostal Outpourings

© 2016 by Robert Davis Smart, Michael A. G. Haykin, and Ian Hugh Clary

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. Direct your requests to the publisher at the following address:

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Printed in the United States of America

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Smart, Robert Davis, editor.

Title: Pentecostal outpourings : revival and the reformed tradition / edited by Robert Davis Smart, Michael A. G. Haykin, and Ian Hugh Clary.

Description: Grand Rapids, Michigan : Reformation Heritage Books, 2016. | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2016001214 (print) | LCCN 2016001404 (ebook) | ISBN 9781601784339 (pbk. : alk. paper) | ISBN 9781601784346 (epub)

Subjects: LCSH: Reformed churches—History. | Evangelical Revival—History.

Classification: LCC BX8932 .P46 2016 (print) | LCC BX8932 (ebook) | DDC 285.09—dc23

LC record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2016001214

For additional Reformed literature, request a free book list from Reformation Heritage Books at the above regular or e-mail address.

Contents

Foreword – Steven J. Lawson

Introduction – Robert Davis Smart

Part 1: Revival in the British Isles

1. The Power of Heaven in the Word of Life: Welsh Calvinistic Methodism and Revival – Eifion Evans

2. Melting the Ice of a Long Winter: Revival and Irish Dissent – Ian Hugh Clary

3. The Lord Is Doing Great Things, and Answering Prayer Everywhere: The Revival of the Calvinistic Baptists in the Long Eighteenth Century – Michael A. G. Haykin

4. Revival: A Scottish Presbyterian Perspective – Iain D. Campbell

Part 2: Revival in America

5. Edwards’s Revival Instinct and Apologetic in American Presbyterianism: Planted, Grown, and Faded – Robert Davis Smart

6. The Glorious Work of God: Revival among Congregationalists in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries – Peter Beck

7. Baptist Revivals in America in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries – Tom J. Nettles

8. Revival and the Dutch Reformed Church in Eighteenth-Century America – Joel R. Beeke

A Concluding Word—A Call to Seek God for Revival Today – Robert Davis Smart

Contributors

Foreword

Addressing the subject of revival from a Reformed perspective, Martyn Lloyd-Jones (1899–1981) commented, There is no subject which is of greater importance to the Christian church at the present time than that of revival. It should be the theme of our constant meditation, preaching and prayers.1 Lloyd-Jones’s deep-seated conviction concerning the crucial importance of revival never wavered throughout his life and ministry. It is what he longed for and sought for the times in which he lived.

It is this very emphasis upon revival that needs to be recaptured in the present. More importantly, its reality needs to be experienced in the church. Biblically and historically speaking, the term revival represents the powerful work of the Holy Spirit in which there is recovered a new awareness of the holiness of God among His people. This heightened knowledge brings in a new season of the conviction of sin, which, in turn, leads to heartrending repentance. This lowly humility ushers in an awakened love for Christ. Believers begin to pursue personal holiness. Love for other believers intensifies. The gospel spreads like wildfire. Sinners are brought to faith in Christ, and the church is enlarged and empowered.

The magisterial Reformer John Calvin (1509–1564) described such a season of vibrant renewal that comes to the church during a time of spiritual declension:

The restoration of the church proceeds solely from the grace of God, who can remove its barrenness as soon as he has imparted strength from heaven; for he who created all things out of nothing, as if they had formerly existed, is able to renew it in a moment…. We are renewed as soon as the Lord has sent down the Spirit from heaven, that we who were wilderness may be cultivated and fertile fields…. Whenever, therefore, the church is afflicted, and when her condition appears to be desperate, let us raise our eyes to heaven, and depend fully on these promises.2

This sovereign work of revival is needed in every generation. The church always stands in need of the restoring work of God that replenishes its members and reenergizes its ministries. In times of spiritual lethargy, God often sends seasons of refreshing by the power of the Holy Spirit. These extraordinary times advance the church in her mission and witness in the world.

May this book, Pentecostal Outpourings, make a much-needed contribution to the church in recovering its vision for a heaven-sent work of grace. May the sovereign Head of the church, Jesus Christ, use these pages to lead His people to prepare themselves to be the recipients of the renewing power of God in this hour.

Steven J. Lawson

President, OnePassion Ministries

Teaching Fellow, Ligonier Ministries

Professor of Preaching, The Master’s Seminary

1. D. M. Lloyd-Jones, foreword to Revive Us Again, ed. Philip E. Hughes (London: Marshall Morgan and Scott, 1947), 5.

2. Commentary on Isaiah 32:15 in Calvin’s Commentaries (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1989), 7:420–21.

Introduction

Robert Davis Smart

There are two dreadful signs of a generation in decline that ought to concern us; namely, it neither knows the Lord nor the great works He has done (Judg. 2:10). So that another generation may arise with knowledge, we have compiled this new deposit of theological and historical interpretations from the Reformed perspective of those seasons in redemptive history wherein God has made Himself known and advanced His kingdom through revival.

We live in an age when the default option is unbelief and when authentic revivals are contested with other narratives and doubt. This is why the Reformed perspective on these extraordinary outpourings of God’s Spirit is helpful. Whereas revival has often been associated with a humanly engineered series of meetings to convert the unsaved and with a fanatical experience that has little to do with the gospel and biblical theology, it is important to offer a brief definition by way of negatives first.

Pentecostal Outpourings demonstrates that revival is a sovereign gift from God in which, for a special season, His normal and true work of advancing His kingdom is sped up or quickened so that more is accomplished through His servants in a shorter period of time. Revivals cannot be merited by us but have been secured by another—Jesus Christ. Jesus tells His disciples that His righteous life and atoning death won for us the promise of My Father (Luke 24:49; Acts 1:4). When Jesus ascended to the Father and sat down at the right hand of God, He poured out His Holy Spirit at Pentecost. This once-for-all historical and redemptive event was not the last time Christ poured out His Spirit in redemptive history. Subsequent outpourings of the Holy Spirit, working by and with the Word, are reviewed in this volume in order that we may seek God earnestly to revive His church once again soon.

Although the authors prize true revivals, we have taken special care to demonstrate that revivals are mixed with counterfeit Christianity and require wise leadership. Quality leadership in the midst of revivals requires discernment, as evil still seeks to work us woe. As subsequent outpourings of God’s Spirit are expected and difficult to interpret, to explain, and to promote, a Reformed perspective on revival will prove helpful until Jesus comes again in glory.

Pentecostal Outpourings depicts these special seasons of mercy in such a way that readers will hope for revivals once more as well as learn from past revival leaders. Wisdom warns against the folly of making so much of the past that we become ungrateful for God’s providence in the present. Do not say, ‘Why were the former days better than these?’ warns the writer of Ecclesiastes. For you do not inquire wisely concerning this (7:10). The intent of our book is to promote the knowledge of God, the gospel of Christ, and the great outpourings of the Spirit through a variety of Reformed authors reflecting and applying historical and biblical lessons for today’s Christian leader.

Each chapter is differentiated by a certain Reformed tradition, historical context, and regional culture where revival occurred, yet each fits within an overall Reformed and biblical interpretation of revival. The authors share a similar motive with the contemporaries of the Great Awakening, who were interlaced in an international and interdenominational network to promote and pray for the advance of the gospel through revival and reformation.

Part 1 begins with revival in the British Isles. In chapter 1, Eifion Evans explains the importance and emergence of the Welsh Calvinistic Methodist witness through eighteenth-century evangelical leaders. He helps the reader understand what is meant by revival and traces the consolidation and decline in the nineteenth century to express the relevance of revival for a church in declension and for the church today.

Ian Hugh Clary focuses in chapter 2 on two Ulster revivals and their relationship to Irish Dissent and includes a briefer discussion of revival among the Methodists during the Evangelical Awakening and the Baptist community in the early part of the nineteenth century. Clary evaluates them and shows their importance for giving a sense of origin and identity to Irish Dissent while demonstrating the value of revival to Irish Protestantism overall.

In chapter 3 Michael A. G. Haykin traces the transition from the English Calvinistic Baptists’ initial aversion to revival to their promotion of it at the end of the eighteenth century. He explains the reason for the Baptist rejection of the Evangelical Revival (also known as the Great Awakening) and shows how Andrew Fuller and John Sutcliff played a major role as leaders, promoting, defending, and praying for revival thereafter.

In a similar way Iain D. Campbell expresses a resistance to the notion of revival among Scottish Presbyterians today in chapter 4. After stating the duty of reformation as distinct from the desire for revival, he accomplishes three objectives. He describes the histories of revival in Scotland, gives perspective on them from within the Scottish Presbyterian tradition, and offers applications for today.

Part 2, Revival in America, begins with a reminder of the influence of Jonathan Edwards, and two authors offer their perspectives on this important theologian’s ecclesiological participation—one viewing Edwards as a Presbyterian, and the other as a Congregationalist. In chapter 5 Robert Davis Smart shows how Jonathan Edwards’s revival instinct and apologetic became intertwined with the history of American Presbyterianism’s rise and fall, her schisms and unions. He demonstrates how the longing for successive outpourings of the Spirit and Edwards’s defense of their legitimacy and value faded in popularity among American Presbyterians by the nineteenth century.

In chapter 6 Peter Beck introduces the reader to two Congregational leaders, separated by sixty years, who sought God for revival and were used in revivals. Beck argues that Jonathan Edwards and Asahel Nettleton, representing the First and Second Great Awakenings, respectively, blaze a trail the modern church must take once more.

Turning from the Presbyterian and Congregational histories, in chapter 7 Tom J. Nettles surveys the Baptists and revivals in America during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. After surveying the salient revivals and the Baptist leaders God greatly used, he ends with an important word for today—namely, that revival became a thing of the past when an emphasis on the individual’s immediate decision and human engineering replaced the previous two centuries of doctrinal knowledge and commitment to genuine revival.

Finally, Joel R. Beeke traces the great works of Christ in the Dutch Reformed churches in the eighteenth-century New World in chapter 8. He accomplishes this by examining the roots of this movement in the sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Dutch Further Reformation and then exploring the revival theology of Theodorus Jacobus Frelinghuysen, showing how it appears in the theology and experiences of ministers of the Dutch Reformed Church later. He concludes with lessons for modern-day ministers and Christian laypeople.

We join with the psalmist in urging fathers to teach their children, that the generation to come might know them, even the children which should be born…that they might set their hope in God, and not forget the works of God (Ps. 78:6–7). We pray with another psalmist, Wilt thou not revive us again: that thy people may rejoice in thee? (Ps. 85:6).

— Part 1 —

Revival in the British Isles

CHAPTER 1

The Power of Heaven in the Word of Life: Welsh Calvinistic Methodism and Revival

Eifion Evans

It may be useful at the outset to justify a chapter on Welsh Calvinistic Methodism on account of its separate identity and lasting significance. In the international maelstrom that the Great Awakening of the eighteenth century encompassed, it would be easy for Methodism to be marginalized. That, however, would result in a misleading portrait of the Methodism that was such an integral part of that Awakening. It would also deprive those who are interested in God’s dealings at such times of several important lessons.

There are reasons for neglecting Welsh affairs. On an international scale, Wales is often assumed by reference to England on account of its close political union. In terms of Christian history, George Whitefield (1714–1770), as an outstanding protagonist of Calvinistic Methodism, has dominated and largely overshadowed his contemporary Welsh counterparts. Yet that brand of Methodism owed much of its relevance to its emergence and distinctive characteristics in Wales. It was with the Welsh leaders that Whitefield had closest theological affinity and among them that he heard the most powerful preaching. Their societies provided the nearest conformity to his ideal for fellowship meetings, and it was from a Welsh town that he found a supportive wife.

The Welsh Methodists were Calvinists to a man. Although their initial experience of revival was a parochial phenomenon, they developed a growing awareness of kinship with God’s seasons of refreshing on an international scale. Gospel success in England, Scotland, and America demonstrated not only the universality of God’s grace but also the similar manner in which God realized His sovereign purpose. This awareness created the expectation that God would prosper His kingdom with fresh visitations from time to time, ushering in a gloriously triumphant gospel day of unparalleled proportions. If travel between the continents was restricted, news from afar was disseminated by the printed word with comparative ease and impressive effect. In this way, Northampton, Massachusetts, was no more remote from the hills and valleys of Wales than London or Glasgow. All in all, such widespread evidence brought confirmation and confidence that this was no strange fire, but a genuine manifestation of God’s saving activity.

An Emerging Calvinistic Methodist Witness

When the Awakening began there was no Calvinistic Methodist denomination. Only gradually did an affiliation of preachers and converts, voluntary societies, and organized structure emerge. Even by the end of the eighteenth century, Welsh Calvinistic Methodism existed only in embryonic form within the womb of an Anglicanism that to a large extent discountenanced it. Its emergence took place amid criticism from within the established church and persecution from often hostile crowds that appeared at services and meetings held by the leaders. Its progress was marked by spiritual emphases that gave Calvinistic Methodism its distinctive nature. Apart from John Wesley’s (1703–1791) minimal encroachment to limited areas in Wales, his Arminian Methodism took hold in that land only after a new century had dawned.

This revival began almost simultaneously in the western and eastern ends of the southern part of the country, respectively at Llangeitho and Trefeca. Neither village could lay claim to notoriety any more than the two future Methodist leaders, Daniel Rowland (1713–1790) and Howel Harris (1714–1773) could. They shared in common a measure of obscurity, an allegiance to Anglicanism, and their indebtedness to Griffith Jones (1684–1761), rector of Llanddowror in another county, Carmarthenshire. Both were converted in 1735—Rowland, an ordained curate, at age twenty-four, and Harris, a village schoolmaster, at age twenty-one. Details about Rowland’s life are meager, but Harris became a profuse, almost meticulous recorder of 284 manuscript journals, still available even though almost indecipherable. Having heard Jones preach, Rowland came under conviction of sin and began to preach God’s law. With advice from a neighboring Nonconformist minister, he began to understand and preach the gospel as well. Remarkable scenes of congregational distress were followed by an unforgettable service when Rowland read from the litany, by Thine agony and bloody sweat, by Thy cross and passion. The message of the cross, distilled in this way, was used by God to release many from their former despair.

Harris, meanwhile, attended the local church at Talgarth, and on Easter Sunday his usual formality was disturbed when the vicar sought to prepare the congregation to partake of the Lord’s Supper with the words, If you are not fit to come to the Lord’s Table, you are not fit to come to Church, you are not fit to live, nor fit to die. Turning these words over in his mind, Harris resolved to change his ways but found his efforts to be in vain. A few weeks later at the isolated Llangasty church not far from his home, he yielded in trust to the Savior and later testified, Tho’ I had been called before, then did Christ come in. His zeal to make Christ known among his neighbors knew no bounds, but to his dismay the vicar disapproved of his efforts. Eventually Harris found succor from the ministry of Thomas Jones (1689–1772), curate of the remote but only moderately distant Cwm-iou, and from the counsel of Griffith Jones.

Within five years others had joined Rowland and Harris, among them Howel Davies (c. 1717–1770) and William Williams (1717–1791), both converted under Harris’s preaching. Davies spent time with Griffith Jones and was ordained an Anglican clergyman in full orders; Williams’s Methodism proved a stumbling block to full ordination, and he remained a deacon for the rest of his life. Davies ministered primarily in the western county of Pembrokeshire; Williams became Rowland’s assistant, the renowned hymnist and early theologian of Welsh Calvinistic Methodism.1

In particular, it was the uncommon success that attended gospel preaching, in terms of power and extent, that gave the work its distinctive and special significance. There was now a spontaneous manifestation of spiritual life appearing independently in different parts of the country simultaneously without prior intimation and spreading geographically without structured sequence. It took place against the backdrop of serious decline in the churches brought about by rationalism, Deism, and legalism. This is not to deny that there had been in prior existence individual testimonies to gospel truth and the availability of sound gospel literature. In January 1741, Harris had reason to lament over the spiritual state of the country: O Lord I cant help mourning over ye Darkness of ye Country O North Wales! North Wales! Thy Guides are blind ye Magistrates are persecutors and ye Instruments for Thee are all weak.2 Such a conclusion was shared by other contemporary and judicious assessors of the work who were concerned with both factual integrity and spiritual evaluation. More recent historians have dismissed this negative portrayal of existing conditions as hagiography or denominational bias. Such revisionism on their part displays a stubborn tendency to dismiss the clear, consistent witness of the leaders of the work. It also amounts to a rejection of God’s sovereignty and grace in man’s salvation. Christ spoke of His generation as wicked and adulterous…faithless and perverse (Matt. 16:4; 17:17), even though a small godly remnant existed that included Simeon and Anna. Similarly, Peter spoke of this untoward generation (Acts 2:40), and Paul of a crooked and perverse generation (Phil. 2:15). This is simply to acknowledge that all history is God’s story, and any interpretation will be deeply flawed that does not take into account the standard of the law and testimony (Isa. 8:20) and the perspective of divine providence.

Writing in 1763, Williams’s judicious historical survey of affairs echoes that of Harris. He traces the manifestation of the Father’s promise, the Holy Spirit poured down afresh as in the days of the Apostles a hundred years before the Reformation from the Papist religion. Following the Reformation and a period of consolidation under the Puritans, however, lukewarmness had crept in among Anglicans and Nonconformists alike, so that hardly any withstood the corruption of the age. This prevailed until the breaking forth of light like the dawn in many parts of the world about the year 1738…in England…Scotland…New England…Georgia…o blessed morning! The Sun shone brightly on Wales…and God alone was its author. Given that early date, Williams was referring to events at Llangeitho and to the success that accompanied Harris’s exhorting at the other end of the country. The term revival was soon adopted by the Welsh Methodists for this remarkable success that they were witnessing. Two decades later Williams could confidently assert that the fresh revival season they were witnessing was the same as happened from the days of the apostles until this time. This is the spirit that fell on New England, Scotland, and wherever a Holy Spirit revival has taken place.3

The term revival was not altogether new. It had been used by Isaac Watts (1674–1748) in the title of his 1731 publication An Humble Attempt toward the Revival of Practical Religion among Christians. Its meaning had been conveyed in the book’s exhortation to the readers: "O let us stir up our hearts, and all that is within us, and strive mightily in prayer and preaching to revive the work of God, and beg earnestly that God by a fresh and abundant effusion of his own Spirit would revive his own work among us."4 Early in 1738 Harris was readg of ye Conversion of many in New Engld had heart boylg wth Love to Xt…o go on wth Thy Work there & here…I cant help praisg Thee &c for this news. By the end of the year he could write, Sure the time here now is like New England.5 Harris was using the same word as early as January 1739 about the work in South Wales. It is found in his reply to Whitefield’s first letter: "There is a great revival in Cardiganshire, thro’ one Mr. D. Rowlands, a Church Clergyman, and he has been much owned and blessed in Caermarthenshire also…. We have also a sweet prospect in Breconshire, and part of Monmouthshire; and in this County [Glamorgan]…the revival prospers…. There is such another in Montgomeryshire. I have been twice there, and there seems to be some shining beams of the Gospel of grace.6 From this latter county a Dissenting minister echoed the word in a letter to Harris written the following month: There is a great revival wherever you have been here."7 For Harris, moreover, the words revival, awakening, and reformation were interchangeable. They were all intended to convey God’s visitation of a community with unusual power attending gospel preaching and resulting in conversions over a wide area, giving sustained reforming effects on a personal and social level. In a letter to John Cennick (1718–1755), Harris could say in February 1742, There seems to be a fresh awakening again.8 During those early years of the 1740s, Harris’s diary bristles with the exciting evidence and prospect of gospel success. Another letter from 1742 notes that there is a Revival in many places, and ’tis few Draw back. I hope there will be a brave Harvest in time, and this is matched by one from 1743: Last Sunday with Rowland. The Power that continues with Him is uncommon…. A Spiritual eye must see and acknowledge that God is there…. Every where there is a Reviving.9 In retrospect four years later he could say, When God first visited me and sent me first to speak to people near 12 years ago, I didn’t know there was a believer living, nor did I as much [as] dream there was a Reformation to go on, or that I was to be a preacher till about 2 years I heard of a clergyman, one Mr. Rowland, then of a young clergyman here in London that preached 4 times a day, Mr. Whitefield; now [I] see how the cloud has spread over the land, so that God only knows where it will end.10

Rowland had come to Calvinist convictions by 1737 and, within a few years, was reckoned to be a strong pillar in ye church of God, a means to keep ye Welsh Methodists from many Errors ye Neibours have fell to.11 Harris came to Calvinist principles early in 1738 while listening to a sermon by Rowland on Proverbs 8:32 and to one by another clergyman, Thomas Lewis (fl. 1731–1749), on John 1:12.12 The hymn writer William Williams, as early as 1742, had composed a hymn on election to be sung in the societies, followed by another hymn on the same theme a few years later. His father had separated from an Arminian congregation in 1740, and at the end of his life Williams could testify to his unswerving commitment to such convictions:

Exhort the young preachers to study, next to the Scriptures, the doctrines of our old celebrated Reformers, as set forth in the Articles of the Church of England, and the three Creeds, namely, the Apostles’ Creed, the Nicene, and the Athanasian. They will see there the great truths of the Gospel, and the deep things of God, set forth in the most excellent and suitable manner. They are a most sound form of words on the high and spiritual things of God. The larger and lesser Catechisms of the Assembly of Divines, with the Confession of Faith, are deserving of the greatest respect and acceptance.13

The Welsh Calvinistic Methodists were conscious of and dependent upon this Reformed heritage and made great use of its rich expression in the Puritan authors of the previous century. The early supporter of Harris, Thomas Jones of Cwm-iou, spoke favorably of the good old Puritan Doctrine,14 and Rowland owned he did depend much on ye old Puritans.15 Writing in 1745 to the Scotsman James Erskine (1679–1754), Harris added his own testimony: I think we all agree with ye Good old orthodox Reformers & Puritans; I have their works in great Esteem.16 Throughout his life Williams delighted in the glory of Christ’s Person, and the great privileges of salvation which came through him. He went on to say, The books of [Thomas Goodwin], Dr [John] Owen, Dr [John] Gill, [Walter] Marshall, [James] Hervey, [James] Ussher, and others, have helped to enliven my understanding of these great truths.17

At first the revival manifested itself in the areas associated with the labors of Rowland and Harris. The success afforded to them by the Holy Spirit brought about two significant developments: the setting up of societies for the welfare of the converts and an itinerant ministry that transcended parochial boundaries. As early as June 1738 Harris was writing tentative rules for the societies, and within a year it was reported that he had thirty such societies under his care, swelling to some fifty a year later. At the same time, Rowland’s societies had the most power [that is, liveliness], though not so good order.18 Issues of discernment and nurture were of particular concern as early as 1740. Harris wrote, I discoursed about grieving and Quenching the Spirit and the Continual need we have of watching over our Selves & the difference between notional and real faith. There was thus an insistence that truth was meant for the heart as well as the brain, and mutual supervision by a disciplined sharing of experiences.19 In this respect the Methodists were not altogether innovators: Martin Luther (1483–1546), Martin Bucer (1491–1551), and the Pietists and Puritans had spontaneously arranged similar gatherings.20

It was Williams who would provide the standard manual for these societies—their nature, purpose, and practice.21 In The Pursuit of an Ideal: the Ordination of 1811, its title states that a society is the best means to keep believers from growing cold. In an article elsewhere I have drawn attention to the importance of this:

It would be easy to miss the significance of his use of the word believers, rather than Methodists. Society members were believers in Christ, relating to Him in a personal and disciplined way. They did not belong to a sect or denomination apart, and the sobriquet Methodist was merely a shorthand convenience to describe their spirituality. In the New Testament the nickname for them was Christians, in the century before their own it was Puritans, now it was Methodists. Their stewards exercised the ministry of grace in a society of separated Christians. They were separated from Episcopacy and Dissent not for organizational, but for spiritual, reasons.22

In turn the matter raised the profound question of identity:

The Methodists believed that their societies were living examples of New Testament churches. It followed that the tyranny of apostolic succession was broken, and authority for ministry was derived from God independently of bishops. Episcopacy, therefore, was not infallible, the Book of Common Prayer had some merit but it was not indispensable, and church buildings were useful but not sacrosanct. Baptism and the Lord’s Supper were means of grace by virtue of God’s Word proclaimed along with the signifying and sealing elements in them, but not ex opere operato. In the minds of the Methodists their infrequent availability, for whatever reason, did not constitute a negation of a church’s existence, merely a temporary absence of some of its privileges.23

It was not only a matter of the church’s privileges, however; it had to do with the nature of the church’s message. In the previously mentioned article, I wrote,

The early fault line between Methodists and their opposers was drawn on the issue of What is a Christian? The Methodists gave priority to an inward, spiritual transaction, since they insisted that the answer was, those who have been born again. Their Anglican contemporaries thought in terms of a national institution and parochial ritual. This implied the concept of a corporate, civil identity, a Christian country with the reigning monarch at its head, and a legislature to define its laws. At a local level, it conferred on those who showed outward conformity with the practices of the parish church a status that was assumed to be Christian irrespective of any spiritual reality. Methodist insistence on personal dealings with God on the basis of biblical teaching, in the categories of sin and atonement, regeneration and sanctification, faith, hope and love was dismissed as unnecessary. Nor was the position of Dissent in general any different. Here there were orthodox teachings and structures that were independent of national or parochial boundaries, but liveliness and authority were absent. Such religion had become theoretically and denominationally exclusive. Intellectual assent to objective truth was deemed an adequate expression of personal faith, and sectarian pride all too often replaced evangelistic zeal for the lost.24

Nowhere did this chasm appear in starker colors than in Williams’s epic poem Theomemphus. Here he relates the experience of a typical Methodist convert who finds no conscience-searching, compelling portrayal of the gospel under the legalistic preaching of such contemporaries. It is only when he comes under the ministry of a Son of thunder, applying the law of God in its spirituality, and of an Evangelist, proclaiming Christ’s atoning death, that he is brought to faith.25

Consolidation and Decline in the Nineteenth Century

With no settled, ordained ministry and only a sporadic church building program, Calvinistic Methodism was utterly dependent