REAL EASY, WORRIED CHRISTIAN

                  William Gurnall (1617-1679)

Rest easy, worried Christian. The duel is not between the church and Satan, but between Christ and Satan. These are the champions of the two sides. Gather round and watch the all-wise God joust with His crafty opponent. You shall behold the Almighty smite off this Goliath's head with his own sword, and take this wicked knight in the trap of his own schemes. That faith which ascribes greatness and wisdom to God will shrink up Satan's challenge into a thing of nothing. Unbelief fears Satan as a lion; faith treads upon him as a worm.

COMENTS ON REVIVAL--JONATHON EDWARDS

                                           (1703-1758)

COMMENTS ON REVIVAL BY JONATHON

   EDWARDS IN DISTINGUISHING MARKS

It would not be correct to assert that Edwards here spoke with complete impartiality; he did champion the cause of the revival, earnestly pleading its validity and divinity. Yet even in these exciting days of 1741 a power of discrimination is evident in Edwards which later was given fuller and freer expression. In Distinguishing Marks, Edwards dismissed as irrelevant such things in the revival as its extraordinary intensity, its effects "on the bodies of men," its showy, noisy religiousness, its effects upon men's imaginations, and the ir­regularities, disorders, and errors of some who were associated with it.

These things may, we know from Scripture, accompany a divine work; on the other hand, Edwards stated, they have appeared in situations that were not of God's doing. They are then not trustworthy criteria by which one may judge the contemporary religious scene. Arguing closely from his text, I John 4, Edwards presented a positive statement of valid criteria. The "distinguishing marks" were five: a true revival (i) will cause a greater esteem for Jesus (I John 4:2), (2) will operate against the interest of Satan (4:4, 5), (3) will cause a greater regard for scripture (4:6), (4) will lead persons to truth, convincing them of those things that are true (4:6), and (5) "operates as a spirit of love to God and man" (4:7 f). From his "trial of the spirit" then rushing throughout New England, Edwards judged "that the extraordinary influence that has lately appeared causing an uncommon concern and engagedness of the mind about the things of religion is undoubtedly, in general, from the Spirit of God."⁸

Extended among so many places and over so many months, the revival cannot be a pretense or delusion. As far as the Northampton experiences are concerned, "we must throw by all talk of conversion and Christian experience; and not only so, but we must throw by our Bibles, and give up revealed religion; if this |be not in general the work of God."⁹ In view of this judgment, the commencement speaker warned all "by no means to oppose, or do any thing in the least to clog or hinder, the work; but, on the contrary, do our utmost to promote it." In the coldest, darkest corner of New England, by New Light standards, Edwards had defended the Great Awakening and had spoken harsh words to any that tried to thwart it. He was never invited back.

(From THE GREAT AWAKENING IN NEW ENGLAND BY
EDWIN SCOTT GAUSTAD, Quadrangle Books Edition 1968)