Conceived in Liberty Volume 2 - Ludwig von Mises Institute

hands of an angry God" and the Reverend James Davenport from Long
Island denounced the bulk of the Massachusetts ministry as "unconverted
and . . . leading their people blindfold to hell."
These bitter attacks of course provoked a countermovement in the
churches. The reaction as well as the attacks spread through various denominations.
As we have seen, Whitefield paid no attention to the Anglican
creed and made his appeal to all Calvinists. The polarization in
Massachusetts and New England especially highlights the nature of the
Great Awakening itself. For the opposition to the Great Awakening consisted
of two disparate groups: the conservatives like the Reverend Mr.
Wigglesworth, aghast at the emotionalism and antiintellectualism of the
revival; and the liberals, headed by the Reverend Charles Chauncy of the
First Church of Boston, who opposed virtually everything the Awakening
stood for. The criticisms of the two groups unsurprisingly differed. Wigglesworth
centered his attack on the disorderly individuality of the revival
movement, whereas Chauncy in his Seasonable Thoughts on the State of
Religion in New England (1743) concentrated on its fundamentalist emotionalism.
By the very nature of polarization it was inevitable that the most
thoroughgoing group of critics, the liberals, should take the lead in attacking
the Great Awakening. Epitomizing the liberal-rationalist attack on the
Awakening in the colonies was this statement by "Philaretes" in the South
Carolina Gazette: "As none but rational creatures are capable of religion,
so there is no true religion but in the use of reason ... if we do not make
it our own by understanding the reasons for it ... we offer to God the
sacrifice of fools, in which he has no pleasure."
The Congregational ministry soon split into the "New Lights," who
joined in the Awakening, and the "Old Lights," who opposed it. The
majority of the Massachusetts ministerial convention condemned the revival
for "its errors and disorders," while in Connecticut the general convocation
of the established ministry induced the legislature to prohibit itinerant
preaching. Throughout New England, revivalists were splitting from their
congregations and forming separate churches to become known generally as
Separatists.
Emotions, particularly frenzied emotions, are notoriously fleeting, and the
Old Light counterattack was soon able to crush the New Light movement
even in Northampton, where not a single new member joined the church
from 1744 to 1748. Whitefield's second tour of New England in 1744 was
hardly triumphal. Although he attracted thousands, he was generally rebuffed
and denounced by ministerial associations and by Yale as well as Harvard.
Ironically, Jonathan Edwards was even ousted from his home parish at
Northampton in 1750 when he abandoned the liberal practice of his predecessors
in administering the sacraments to unregenerate members. This was
far too purist even for his own congregation.
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