1.3. OBJETIVOS
2.2.10. PRINCIPIOS RECTORES DE LA CONCILIACIÓN
One example of historical interest in the context of revival arises with Thomas Prince Sr. (1687–1758), a Congregational minister at the prominent Old South Church in Boston and central figure among New England evangelicals participating in an
international Calvinist network.1 On 25 May 1740, on the important occasion of an annual
conference of ministers from Massachusetts Bay, Prince delivered an address entitled ―The Endless Increase of Christ‘s Government,‖ based on the text of Isaiah 9:7—―Of the
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increase of his government there shall be no end.‖2 After setting out a theological
framework concerning Christ‘s eternal existence and mediatory role between humanity and God, Prince spent more than half of his sermon attempting to trace the ―endless increase‖ of Christ‘s dominion on earth and in heaven.
Prince focused primarily on the spread of the gospel in the time of Christ and the apostles. But he also summarized, in sweeping fashion, subsequent ages of the church, casting the chronology in terms of a geographical progression.3 Christians early on were
scattered like seed throughout the Roman Empire. Then the church prospered surprisingly within this field, through three centuries of persecution culminating in the conversion of the emperor, Constantine. The figure of Constantine looms as the only individual whom Prince named after Christ and the apostles. He not only halted persecution, but, in Prince‘s words, he ―openly worships Christ as Lord of all, throws down his crown before him; and not only resigns his whole power and empire to him, but also spreads his kingdom to the remotest nations.‖4 This geographical expansion continued through the centuries, east
through Bohemia, Poland and Russia, north through Germany, Denmark and Scandinavia, and west through the British Isles to the New World. While Prince‘s account offered no characteristic Protestant slight on the Catholic ‗dark ages‘ and limelight on the
Reformation, his geographical sketch still reflected this traditional rendering by deftly avoiding Europe‘s enduring centres of Catholicism, such as Italy, Spain, and France.5 He
left off with a novel interpretation of the course of more recent history, with an eye fixed firmly on stirrings of revival in the New World: ―I shall only here observe, that as in the
2 Thomas Prince, "The Endless Increase of Christ's Government," in Six Sermons by the Late Thomas Prince, A.M. One of the Ministers of the South Church in Boston. Published From His Manuscripts …, ed. John Erskine (Edinburgh: printed by David Paterson, for William Martin, 1785), 1–39.
3 Prince‘s account of Christ‘s government on earth runs for twelve pages (18–29) but includes only three
(25–27) on the history from post-apostolic days to his own.
4 Prince, "Endless Increase," 25–26, quotation at 26. 5 Ibid., 27.
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mysterious depths of wisdom, but in spotless justice, our divine Redeemer has been for several ages removing the light and grace of his kingdom from the eastern parts of the earth; so, like the apparent course of the sun, he comes on and rises on the western regions; and perhaps … he may be now opening a way to enlighten the utmost regions of America: And this may be his chief design in these great events.‖ Prince speculated that this westward march of Christ‘s kingdom would continue, all the way back to its source in Jerusalem, at which point a ―conflagration‖ would usher in the millennial reign of Christ.6
Then in the final section of his sermon, Prince, pondering the enlarging population of heaven from creation to the end of time, included a brief exclamation on the Christian historical era which reflected his theme of progress: ―But what increasing multitudes in every age and nation, since for above 1700 years, have been continually saved, and
transported to him in that growing world above!‖7
William Cooper (1694–1743), Prince‘s Boston colleague at Brattle Street Church, similarly ruminated on history in a conspicuous public place, in this case in a preface to Edwards‘ The Distinguishing Marks Of a Work of the Spirit of God (1741). Alongside a call for the collection of contemporary narratives of religious conversion, he framed Edwards‘ own analysis of revival with a panoramic sketch of the work of God in history. Like Prince, Cooper employed an astronomical image to represent his interpretation. God‘s design, in Cooper‘s view, progressed in stages from the Hebrew patriarchs and Moses through Christ to his own day, with each stage constituting an increase in glory like a
dawning sun which overwhelms or eclipses the light of the stars.8
Within this overall scheme, Cooper represented history from the time of Christ to
6 Ibid., 27–28.
7 Ibid., 29–34, quotation at 32. Prince‘s eschatological framework and cosmic proportions combined with his
keen eye to contemporary events correspond with the historical vision of his friend and ministerial colleague in New England, Jonathan Edwards (see Chap. Three).
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the present as a series of dramatic renewals separated by long stretches of decline. He wrote that after the ―large effusion of the Spirit‖ and dawn of the ―Gospel light‖ at Pentecost, the Holy Spirit gradually withdrew, the effectiveness of the gospel waned, and ―the state of Christianity withered in one place and another.‖ He offered no details on the medieval Church, but for the reader it was clear that corruption persisted until Cooper‘s next historical marker, the Protestant Reformation, when light again ―broke in upon the church, and dispelled the clouds of antichristian darkness that covered it.‖ This high point brought powerful preaching, conversions, and transformed lives. Yet, according to
Cooper, Protestant churches like their ancient counterparts subsequently lapsed into a ―dead and barren time‖ marked by absence of the Spirit‘s influence, few or doubtful conversions, and a listless Christianity. He concluded with a bold assessment of recent events which were the subject of Edwards‘ scrutiny. Cooper echoed what Watts and Guyse had written in relation to the previous Northampton revival: ―The dispensation of grace we are now under is certainly such as neither we nor our fathers have seen; and in some circumstances so wonderful, that I believe there has not been the like since the extraordinary pouring out of the Spirit immediately after our Lord‘s ascension. The
apostolical times seem to have returned upon us….‖9
Finally, as revivals spread in Britain and New England and transatlantic networks strengthened in the early 1740s, evangelical magazines appeared which sought in part to establish the revivals as a central feature of the church‘s history.10 A number of these
searched the Christian past for revival precedents. This was the case with the first
9 Ibid., 216–17. Marsden, Edwards, 235–36, highlights Cooper‘s historical sketch but uses it primarily to
comment on his interpretation of contemporary events and implicit criticism of fellow ministers who did not support the Revival. Cooper‘s historical depiction, in its broad temporal scope, division into progressive ‗dispensations‘, focus on the Spirit‘s role in conversion, reference to particular scriptural texts, and usage of astronomical imagery, mirrors Edwards‘ (Chap. Three).
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publication to appear, beginning in September 1740 under the title, The Christian’s Amusement containing Letters Concerning the Progress of the Gospel both at Home and Abroad etc. Together with an Account of the Waldenses and Albigenses….11 The magazine was produced by
London printer John Lewis, a Calvinist Methodist and member of Whitefield‘s London Tabernacle. Lewis‘s early issues included excerpts from, or recommendations of, sixteenth- and seventeenth-century divinity. Moreover, as the full title indicates, they inferred a pedigree for Methodists by offering stories of medieval groups which experienced persecution from Catholic authorities and which Protestants would come to see as their forebears, courageous preservers of genuine Christianity in ‗dark‘ centuries. After Whitefield adopted the publication as his mouthpiece in 1741 and narratives of the ―present progress of the gospel‖ multiplied, the magazine‘s historical content waned.12
Other magazines similarly preoccupied with accounts of Christianity‘s ‗progress‘ appeared in subsequent years: first William M‘Culloch‘s The Glasgow-Weekly-History Relating to the Late Progress of the Gospel at Home and Abroad… (derived primarily from the London magazine) in 1742; then, in 1743, The Christian History, Containing Accounts of the Revival and Propagation of Religion in Great Britain and America…, published in Boston by Thomas Prince Jr. under the influence of his father, Prince Sr., and finally James Robe‘s The Christian Monthly History or an Account of the Revival and Progress of Religion Abroad and at Home in
Edinburgh.13 Their chief purpose, alongside Lewis‘ London paper, was the dissemination
11 See Susan Durden, "A Study of the First Evangelical Magazines, 1740–1748", Journal of Ecclesiastical History
27, no. 3 (1976): 257 n. 5, and analysis 258–66. Biographical information on Lewis is from Susan Durden, "Transatlantic Communications and Literature in the Religious Revivals, 1735–1745" (Ph.D. diss., University of Hull, 1978), 83 n. 2.
12 Durden, "First Evangelical Magazines": 258–60. Interest in the gospel‘s ―present progress‖ was declared in
the subtitles of the magazine‘s two subsequent incarnations up to 1748, first as The Weekly History and then as The Christian History.
13 For discussions of these magazines (including Lewis‘s in London), see Ibid.; Crawford, Seasons of Grace,
156–57, 172–74, 224; Bruce Hindmarsh, The Evangelical Conversion Narrative: Spiritual Autobiography in Early Modern England (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), 67–72; Frank Lambert, Pedlar in Divinity: George Whitefield and the Transatlantic Revivals, 1737–1770 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994), 73–75;
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of revival news for contemporary encouragement of revival and as an historical record of remarkable events for posterity—the presence of the word ‗History‘ in their titles has primarily to do with the latter intent. James Robe, for example, perceived his task as that of ―a faithful Historian‖ and articulated in a statement of purpose for his Christian Monthly History: ―Hereby God‘s wonderful dealings with His Church in this Age shall be
propagated to many Ages to come … Hereby also proper Materials will be preserved for a History of the State of Religion different from the Transactions of Ecclesiastical
judiciaries.‖14 This posture in itself revealed the editors‘ sense of the importance of the
Revival in a larger historical framework.
But each of these publications more directly attempted to forge a connection between past and present in order to establish evangelical beliefs and practices as part of a long-standing tradition. Susan Durden writes that ―concern for the past, and for the respectability gained by possessing such a pedigree was … a major preoccupation‖ of
these magazines and others which followed.15 Frank Lambert and Mark Noll echo this in
relation to Prince‘s Christian History. Noll cites Prince‘s declared intent to include ―‗the most remarkable Passages Historical and Doctrinal‘ from earlier Christian writers.‖16
Lambert highlights Prince‘s identification of revivals in history as an effort to place contemporary events within ―a rich Puritan and Protestant tradition.‖ He also links the magazine with Prince Sr.‘s Chronological History of New England (1736) which placed the colony‘s history within a narrative stretching back to creation: ―From Prince‘s perspective, something great that had begun in the New Testament and revived in the Reformation was being perfected in New England. During the Great Awakening, Prince situated the
Lambert, Great Awakening, 151–74; Mark A. Noll, The Rise of Evangelicalism: The Age of Edwards, Whitefield and the Wesleys, History of Evangelicalism (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2003), 116–19.
14Christian Monthly History, cited in Durden, "First Evangelical Magazines": 270, 271. 15 Ibid.: 258.
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evangelical revival within his grand historical scheme primarily through the Christian History….‖17 These publications, although not ordered as systematic, chronological
histories, nonetheless exemplify an historical consciousness among revival leaders and, more importantly for this study, an interest to contextualize revival occurrences within a broader historical framework.