Calvin and Missions - World Evangelical Alliance

McFetridge: Calvinism as an Evangelizing Force (1882) 23
leavened the doctrines of the English Church … The pope could reckon
only upon Spain and Italy as sound and secure, with a few islands and the
Venetian provinces in Dalmatia and Greece … Its converts belonged
chiefly (in France) to the higher ranks, including many of the clergy,
monks, nuns, and even bishops; and the Catholic churches seemed almost
deserted, except by the lower classes.”
From this brief survey we are enabled to perceive something of the wonderful
evangelizing force of this system of belief. It was the only system
able to cope with the great powers of the Romish Church, and over-throw
them; and for two centuries it was accepted in all Protestant countries as
the final account of the relations between man and his Maker. 38 In fact,
there is no other system which has displayed so powerful an evangelizing
force as Calvinism. This becomes still more manifest in the history of the
great revivals with which the Christian Church has been blessed.
Many are accustomed to think that revivals belong particularly to the
Methodist Church, whereas, in fact, that Church has never yet inaugurated
a great national or far-spreading revival. Her revivals are marked with localism;
they are connected with particular churches, and do not make a
deep, abiding and general impression on society. The first great Christian
revival occurred under the preaching of Peter in Jerusalem, who employed
such language in his discourse or discourses as this: “Him, being delivered
by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, ye have taken, and
by wicked hands have crucified and slain.” That is Calvinism rigid enough.
Passing over the greatest revival of modern times, the Reformation, which,
as all know, was under the preaching of Calvinism, we come to our own
land. The era of revivals in this country is usually reckoned from the year
1792, but in 1740 there was a marked revival under the preaching of the
Rev. Jonathan Dickinson, a Presbyterian clergyman. It was about this time
also that George Whitefield, called in his day “the great Methodist,” a clergyman
of the Church of England and an uncompromising Calvinist, was
startling the ungodly in Philadelphia. It is recorded that he threw “a horrid
gloom” over this fashionable and worldly old town, “and put a stop to the
dancing schools, assemblies and every pleasant thing.” Strange, indeed,
that dissipation and vanity are “pleasant things,” while holiness and salvation
from hell are disagreeable things! But this great man, in company with
Gilbert Tennent, a Presbyterian clergyman, of whom Whitefield said, “He
is a son of thunder,” and “hypocrites must either soon be converted or en-
38 Froude, Calvinism, p. 4.