The Rhetoric of the Revival: The Language of the Great Awakening Preachers [1 ed.] 9783666560231, 9783525560235

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New Directions in Jonathan Edwards Studies Edited by Harry S. Stout, Kenneth P. Minkema and Adriaan C. Neele

Volume 1

Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht

Michał Choin´ski

The Rhetoric of the Revival: The Language of the Great Awakening Preachers

Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht

With 5 Figures Bibliographic information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data available online: http://dnb.d-nb.de. ISBN 978-3-525-56023-5 You can find alternative editions of this book and additional material on our Website: www.v-r.de © 2016, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Theaterstraße 13, D-37073 Göttingen/ Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht LLC, Bristol, CT, U.S.A. www.v-r.de All rights reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without prior written permission from the publisher. Printed in Germany. Typesetting by Konrad Triltsch GmbH, Ochsenfurt Printed and bound by Hubert & Co GmbH & Co. KG, Robert-Bosch-Breite 6, D-37079 Göttingen. Printed on aging-resistant paper.

Acknowledgements

This book would not have been possible without the kind help and support I was lucky to receive from so many people. My thanks must go first of all to the supervisor of my doctoral project, Professor Zygmunt Mazur of the Jagiellonian University who guided my research on eighteenth century American culture and literature and offered precious assistance during my work on this book. His careful guidance made the completion of my PhD possible and helped its subsequent transformation into this book. Similarly, I wanted to thank Professor Marta Gibin´ska-Marzec from the Jagiellonian University who taught me about rhetoric and Shakespeare for many years, and who was my MA supervisor. Her seminars encouraged me to continue to pursue new inspirations and shaped my views on language and literature. Professor Kenneth Minkema from the Yale Divinity School made the transition from doctoral dissertation into this book possible, facilitating the process greatly. He also demonstrated great patience by assuaging my doubts and answering a plethora of my questions concerning Jonathan Edwards and colonial culture. Professor Gerard McDermott from Beeson Divinity School encouraged me to continue my work after my doctoral defence and was kind enough to offer helpful feedback on the idea for the book that was being formed as a result. My thanks are also extended to Dr Joel Burnell, director of the Polish Jonathan Edwards Center, whose unfailing friendship and kind encouragement particularly helped me in the last, most intensive stages of my work on the book. This book would not have come to fruition were it not for the support of the John F. Kennedy Institute at the Freie Universität Berlin. The Institute offered me two scholarships to pursue my studies and made their rich library accessible to me in the summers of 2010 and 2014. I am very grateful for the hospitality I received there. Above all, this book would not have been possible without the help of my dear family. I would like to thank my wife Izabel for her inspiration and assistance during my work on the project. She was impressively understanding and helpful when I buried myself in research. I would also like to thank my parents, Krystyna

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Acknowledgements

and Janusz Choin´ski, for their continuous encouragement and kind support. A number of ideas included in the book were born during our inspiring conversations about language, religion and life. Aeddan Shaw was kind enough to go through the draft of the book and offer suggestions on language-related matters, for which I am very grateful. Finally, I wanted to thank my colleagues from the Jagiellonian University, especially my friends, Dobromiła Jagiełła, Marta Gillner-Shaw, Dariusz Hanusiak and Jeremiasz Jagiełła for their unfaltering encouragement and precious moments of comic relief.

Contents

Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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13 18 19 23 25 28 28

From Rhetoric to Preaching . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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Linguistic Approach . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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American Revivalism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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The Rhetoric of the Revival . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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The Preaching Tradition of the Pilgrim Fathers . . . . . . . . The Preaching Tradition of the Second Generation of Settlers The Preaching Tradition of the Third Generation of Settlers . The Phenomenon of the Great Awakening . . . . . . . . . .

The Classical Rhetorical Tradition The Canon of Rhetoric . . . . . Inventio . . . . . . . . . . . . . Dispositio . . . . . . . . . . . . Elocutio . . . . . . . . . . . . . Memory . . . . . . . . . . . . . Delivery . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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55 59 63 66

Jonathan Edwards . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Future Punishment of the Wicked Unavoidable and Intolerable Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Distinguishing Marks of a Work of the Spirit of God . . . . . .

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Contents

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117 124 131 138

Gilbert Tennent . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Danger of an Unconverted Ministry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

147 151

Jonathan Dickinson . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Nature and Necessity of Regeneration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

163 166

Jonathan Parsons . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . A Needful Caution in a Critical Day . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

175 177

Andrew Croswell . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Apostle’s Advice to the Jaylor Improved . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

189 191

Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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George Whitefield . . . . . . . . . . . . What think ye of Christ? . . . . . . . Abraham’s Offering Up His Son Isaac The Conversion of Zaccheus . . . . .

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Introduction

For more than a century, the Great Awakening has been one of the most important topics in the study of prerevolutionary American culture and history. The revival was an undeniably formative event for the colonies (arguably, the most significant alongside the French and Indian War) and its impact on the ecclesiology, religious politics and eschatology of the period was enormous. Thus far, studies devoted to the Great Awakening testify to the significance and complexity of the phenomenon and open up a multitude of research perspectives. Yet, in spite of the abundance of books and articles on the Great Awakening and its social, political and theological consequences, as well as a huge number of publications profiling its prominent preachers like Jonathan Edwards or George Whitefield, relatively little has been written on the very language of early revivalism. Almost 20 years ago, Allen C. Guelzo argued that the “rhetorical meanings of the Awakening are far from well understood” (1997, 162). Few studies dedicated solely to the stylistics of the early colonial revivalism have been completed since. This is surprising, since the language of the sermons was the very means which the proponents of the Awakening employed to promote their views. I believe that by paying attention to the language-related phenomena in the studies on the American revival of the 1740s we can arrive at a much deeper understanding of colonial religious thought. This book attempts to pursue this very topic – it surveys the stylistic and persuasive aspects of the language of the Great Awakening and examines the minutiae of the sermons of its important preachers. As an outside onlooker of American culture I have always found it bewildering how the preachers of this revival, the largest social and religious event in colonial America prior to the Revolution, were able to inform the hearts and minds of thousands of people, to change their mentality and to influence their behaviour so radically. Their words had a fantastic, almost magical power over their audience. This was achieved without social media, without sound reinforcement systems, without the help of spin doctors – the key to the success of ministers like George Whitefield or Jonathan Edwards lay in a most compelling rhetoric, de-

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Introduction

signed to propagate the religious “New Birth”. The study of this type of preaching oratory, the “rhetoric of the revival,” is the main research purpose of this book. Yet this study is not solely concerned with eighteenth century preaching. It touches upon the very language of religion in America. By studying the roots of American awakening preaching we become more aware of present day revivalism, as well as the role of religion in the shaping of the spoken word. Another aim of the study is to understand the mechanisms of rhetoric and the persuasive use of language in New England in the mid-18th century, a period which constituted an important stage in the evolution of oratory in America. Countless awakening sermons and vitriolic religious debates contributed to the shaping of the contemporary rhetorical constitution of America, and gave momentum to the full comprehension of the power of oratory in the evolving colonial society. The book consists of three parts. In the first chapter I discuss the rhetorical process of composition and its significance for the colonial preaching tradition. Elements of classical oratory such as strategies of invention, emotional appeals or the authoritative image of the speaker directly and indirectly shaped the roots of the “rhetoric of the revival” and seem the most apt method for the study of the Great Awakening sermons. The rhetorical approach is augmented by elements of a linguistic method of enquiry, pragmatics. This approach to language analysis allows me later to look at the sermons from a dynamic perspective and to consider their diverse communicative aspects in the addresser-addressee relationship. Finally, I elaborate on the key operative term of this study: the “rhetoric of the revival” and discuss the most important characteristics of awakening preaching in America. In the chapter on the cultural and historical context of the Great Awakening I look diachronically at the development of the early American preaching tradition and briefly describe the shifts in the rhetorical traditions of each generation of settlers preceding the Great Awakening: the Pilgrim Fathers, the second generation of struggling “sustainers” of the Calvinist theocracy and the third generation of the Enlightenment. The evolving colonial preaching tradition is the second, after rhetoric, vital element of background for the “rhetoric of the revival” and the study of the fabric of colonial culture allows to look at the oratory of the Great Awakening preachers also taking into account the social and intellectual context they were a part of. Here, I also discuss the phenomenon of the Great Awakening – its direct causes, its course, and outcomes, paying particular attention to the role of the preachers whose sermons are discussed in the following chapter of the book. The third, essential chapter of the book includes the analyses of ten Great Awakening sermons that help me to illustrate different aspects of the “rhetoric of the revival”. This detailed look at the discourses of George Whitefield, Jonathan Edwards, Gilbert Tennent, Jonathan Parsons, Jonathan Dickinson and Andrew

Introduction

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Croswell allows me to demonstrate how rich and diverse the early colonial tradition was and, at the same time, was the early colonial tradition, and – at the same time – to highlight the similarities between the styles of different preachers. The corpus of 18th revival preaching in America is very rich, thus the choice of the ten sermons to represent the “rhetoric of the revival” had to be made very carefully. The first and most prominent criterion for me was the time of delivery – all ten of the sermons discussed in my study date back to the period between 1739–1745. The second criterion I have adopted in my work concerns the selection of preachers. I have decided to present both the prominent ministers of the New Lights group (like Edwards or Whitefield), as well as those preachers who are perhaps less well known or researched (like Parsons or Dickinson). The third factor that has influenced my selection of sermons is the diversity of rhetorical mechanisms and persuasive techniques employed by these six preachers. For each speaker I have selected sermons which best encapsulate his oratorical talent and stylistic idiosyncrasies – at the same time, my goal was to present as many aspects of the “rhetoric of the revival” as possible. I sought to arrive at a prismatic perspective of the multiplicity of 18th century colonial revival rhetoric while at the same time retaining a focused perspective, allowing for both a close reading and a detailed glance at particular texts. The first preacher whose sermons I analyse is Jonathan Edwards, one of the greatest theological minds born in America. The subchapter on Edwards includes analyses of three sermons. First, I look into how in Future Punishment of the Wicked Unavoidable and Intolerable the preacher employs a wide variety of rhetorical techniques to create rich sensory images designed to elicit an emotional reaction from the audience. In Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God I present another strategy of the Northampton divine – that of transporting the listeners mentally into the created image by means of a deictic shift. In the third sermon selected for the subchapter on Edwards, The Distinguishing Marks of a Work of the Spirit of God, I describe his skill of theological and doctrinal argumentation. The second preacher I dedicate my attention to is George Whitefield, an Anglican minister who was one of the initiators and main promoters of the revival. Here, I have selected three sermons which highlight different aspects of the Grant Itinerant’s pulpit oratory and theological views: in What think ye of Christ? I seek to show how the preacher was able to construct a communicative link with his audience as a ground for his persuasive attempts. The study of Abraham Offering Up His Son Isaac helps me to present how the preacher’s youthful theatrical fascinations influenced his style of preaching, allowing him to switch between the communicative roles of an actor, a storyteller and a minister; and finally The Conversion of Zaccheus has been selected to elaborate on Whitefield’s insistence on personal experience of free grace and its irresistibility. Gilbert Tennent, dubbed the “son of thunder,” is the third preacher whose

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Introduction

rhetoric I discuss. In the subchapter devoted to him I examine his most famous sermon, The Danger of an Unconverted Ministry, which serves to illustrate how the notion of “unconverted preacher” was used to persuasive ends. The fourth preacher I investigate is Jonathan Dickinson, whose Nature and Necessity of Regeneration allows me to demonstrate different ways in which the “rhetoric of revival” explicated the experience of “New Birth” and regeneration. The next subchapter is on Jonathan Parsons, a moderate sympathiser of the movement, whose A Needful Caution in a Critical Day, is an interesting example of a sermon based on a speech-act in which different stylistic elements add to the “cautious” tone of the discourse. Finally, The Apostle’s Advice to the Jaylor Improved, a sermon by Andrew Croswell, one of the two most radical proponents of the Great Awakening, is examined to demonstrate the stylistics of his theological extremism. The book ends with conclusions and suggestions of further research topics in the “rhetoric of the revival”. In my research I have used facsimiles of the early printed versions of sermons accessible via the Early American Imprints series which I worked on during my scholarships at the John F. Kennedy Institute at Freie Universität in Berlin in 2010 and 2014. For the comfort of the reader I have largely adjusted the spelling of quotations from the sermons to the modern standard. As is usually the case with in the case of studies on rhetoric, the references to the works of important classical authors on oratory are made to books and sections, rather than the page numbers of particular editions.

The Classical Rhetorical Tradition

Rhetoric from Tarocchi di Mantegna, 15th century, Italy Photograph ©2016 Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

Rhetoric has always generated somewhat ambivalent attitudes. For some, it was the “queen of all arts”, encompassing numerous branches of literature, education and politics; others have associated it exclusively with manipulation, and have

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The Classical Rhetorical Tradition

seen it as a threat to man’s constant pursuit for truth. Be that as it may, the history of rhetoric is in fact the history of the humanistic evolution and it would be nothing short of reckless than to underestimate its significance. Thus, we will begin our study of the Great Awakening preaching in ancient Greece and Rome, delineating some of the elements of oratory that were appropriated by the Christian sermon tradition and formed the roots of the “rhetoric of the revival”. The codified system of rhetoric goes back to the fifth century B.C., when the first attempts were made to put various practices of courts, political assemblies and ceremonial occasions in writing in Athens and Syracuse (Kennedy 1994, 1). However, as pointed out by Peter Dixon (1990, 7), the sense of the efficiency of the spoken word is much older than the formal study and codification of rhetoric. Some scholars suggest that “as soon as there was speech, a motive and an audience, there was rhetoric” (Platt 1999, 277), and the basic techniques of oral persuasion were “first tried out against Eve – as Milton dramatizes” (Lanham 1991, 131). The system of rhetoric concerns the very human capacity for persuasive speaking and writing and has often been viewed as divinely inspired. The cult of the goddess Persuasion thrived in Athens and the citizens worshipped her by organizing oratory tournaments in which the participants tried to undermine the arguments of their opponents, and to persuade the audience and the judges to recognise their rhetorical superiority. According to Dixon, the annual sacrifices that the people of Athens made to the goddess of Persuasion “gave public and formal expression to the citizens’ delight in discourse, and in the ideals forcefully presented” as “the power of words to move men’s minds and to influence their actions had for the Greeks something magical and divine about it” (1990, 7). The art of oratory was born in a Hellenistic culture which was predominantly oral; in politics, all business was conducted by debate, and in law complaints were brought before magistrates orally. The Greeks depended on rhetoric in their everyday life, as well as in education, especially after the 4th century B. C. when Isocrates, a famous Greek rhetorician, founded his school of oratory. As observed by Brian Vickers, “Isocrates’ importance as the founder of a rhetoric-school is marked by the many similar institutions that sprang up in the ancient world, and his influence on education extended to Renaissance Europe” (1988, 10). Thus, the expansion of rhetoric was also possible due to the role it occupied in the European school curriculum. For centuries to come, rhetoric was not only the basis of the political and judicial spheres of life, but also the basis of education. This omnipresence of rhetoric in the ancient culture provoked a number of lasting debates about its status and also, among others, about its very definition. The problem of what rhetoric actually is has always generated a great deal of controversy. Defining rhetorical treatises for Greek and Roman authors verged on the impossible for a number of reasons. First of all, during the long period of

The Classical Rhetorical Tradition

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the development of the discipline in antiquity, a great many approaches to rhetoric shifted their focus back and forth between versatile aspects of human language, communication, education and arts, and at different times, its different elements were seen as salient and defining. Next, one ought to consider the dubious relationship rhetoric enjoyed in relation to the other disciplines of the trivium: grammar and logic. The three artes liberales simultaneously complement and undermine one another, blurring their boundaries and encroaching upon their respective domains. Finally, in terms of human use of language, rhetoric plays a double role; on the one hand, it offers an array of communicative means which may be used to influence other people, on the other, it provides the orator with a suitable meta-language, an apt system to describe this influence and to understand the functioning of language. This last duality makes oratory a category of both theory and practice – exactly as is the case with rhetoric’s offspring, the art of preaching. Aristotle defined rhetoric as a “faculty of considering all the possible means of persuasion on every subject” (Rhetoric, I.ii.1). He puts the primary emphasis on the fact that rhetoric considers the means of persuasion on any given subject, and consequently he declares it, as an art, not to be limited to a particular class of subjects. This claim has to be viewed in the context of the fierce criticism directed at rhetoric by Plato, who in Phaedrus denies it the status of an art. In this dialogue, Socrates, Plato’s mouthpiece, compares rhetoric to cookery and points out that as a discipline without a subject it might be employed for any purpose, even a malicious one. Plato opposes rhetoric, especially in the Sophist school, because it is not preoccupied with the truth, but with impressions and seeming (doxa). In contrast, Aristotle holds that the ability to argue both sides of a case is not immoral, but in fact turns out to be the best way of appreciating rival arguments, and offers valuable intellectual training. He therefore sees rhetoric as a general art, with strong affinities with dialectic. H. M. Hubbell explains (1920, 368) why the earliest disputes over whether rhetoric was a true art or just a tribe¯ (knack) may seem futile to us: “So long as the rhetorician was a mere declaimer, there was little danger that he would attack any considerable portion of the student class. But the rejuvenated rhetoric of the last days of the Roman republic claimed to be a complete education in itself, supplanting philosophy, or at least reducing philosophy to the position of a handmaid to rhetoric. To combat this new rival, philosophy put forth its utmost strength”. This accounts for the source of the bitter conflict between philosophy and rhetoric that continued well into the 19th century. In the Roman tradition, rhetoric was primarily concerned with the knowledge of beautiful speech that was to generate proper citizens ( just as the speaker was a good man, vir bonus). The orator was also an educator, teaching the patriotic and moral virtues. As argued by Quintilian, one of the most important Roman

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The Classical Rhetorical Tradition

rhetoricans, rhetorica est bene dicendi scientia. Yet, this definition is both ambiguous and problematic, as the word bene simultaneously expresses a few concepts: first of all, it denotes technical, or grammatical correctness, secondly, it stands for aesthetic appropriateness, thirdly, pragmatic effectiveness, and finally, considering the moral dimension of rhetoric, it suggests the positive moral value of the discipline. The fact that the word bene may be understood in so many distinct ways points to a serious inconsistency within rhetoric itself. Aesthetic appropriateness is concerned, primarily, with eloquence and the figurativeness of language use. However, if one sees tropes and figures as conscious violations of the rules governing language (primarily, the rules of grammar, rhetoric’s rival “liberated art”), then the word bene actually may stand for two almost opposite concepts: appropriateness (that is, remaining in accordance with the rules of language) and inappropriateness (that is, the lack of compliance with the rules of the system of language, e. g., by the use of tropes and figures). This dichotomy may lead to two contrasting visions of rhetoric: if one focuses on the appropriateness of language use, one sees the art of oratory as an epistemologically stable model with grammatical suitability at its core. On the other hand, the focus on the figurativeness, that is, inappropriateness, suggests an unstable relationship with logic and grammar and so the system of rhetoric would appear to be primarily grounded in tropes and figures. Rusinek (2003) points to the fact that this dichotomy at the very heart of rhetoric may be perceived in terms of an allegory. In his study concerning the contemporary status of rhetoric, he concludes that the system of rhetoric and the quality of language it describes, rhetoricality, are intertwined and mutually dependent, just as the notions of language appropriateness and inappropriateness are bound together in Quintilian’s definition of oratory. Along an allegorical line, one may point to an interesting attempt at grasping the idea of rhetoric that was proposed in the 5th century A.D. by Martianus Capella, a Carthaginian rhetorician who, in De Nuptiis Philologiae et Mercurii presents an allegorical marriage between Mercury and Philology. During the ceremony, Apollo bestows on the bride seven artes liberales and among them, rhetoric – in S.C. Baldwin’s translation (1928, 93–4): behold a woman of loftiest stature and great assurance, with countenance of radiant splendour, made her solemn entry. Helmeted and crowned with royal majesty, she held ready for defence or for attack weapons that gleamed with the flash of lightning. Beneath her armour the vesture draped Roman-wise about her shoulders glittered with the various light of all figurae, all schemata; and she was cinctured with most precious colores for jewels. The clatter of her weapons as she moved was as if thunder in the crash of a cloud of flame broke with leaping echoes. Nay, it seemed as if, like Jove, she herself could hurl the thunderbolt. For as queen in control of all things she has shown her power to move men whither she pleased, or whence, to bow them to tears, to incite them to

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rage, to transform the mien and feeling as well of cities as of embattled armies and all the hosts of people.

Rhetoric personified is a royal figure. The weapons she wields may be used effectively for both attack and defence, just as the speaker in confirmatio and refutatio, two parts of the model speech structure, is to defend his points and refute his opponent’s arguments. Figures of speech, although described as ornaments, evidently belong to an armoury and perform a twofold function: first, as adornments, second, as persuasive weaponry. Classical stylistics differentiates between four virtues of speaking, virtutes dicendi: correctness, clarity, appropriateness and ornamentation. The last of the four, ornatus in the Roman tradition, not only involves aesthetic pleasure, but also a practical skill to persuade and attract the attention of the audience – the faculty so vividly represented by the allegory. In his comment on Capella’s figure of rhetoric, Vickers points to the “tremendous emotional power” carried by the allegorical figure, which is visible in the words “as if, like Jove, she herself could hurl the thunderbolt” (1970, 84–85). The most salient feature of allegorical rhetoric seems to be the great manipulative force she possesses. The description highlights the deep respect for the power of the spoken word that is expressed in most classical works on the subject. The ability of allegorical rhetoric to mould human emotions and sway people easily from indignation to joy has a bearing on the sermons analyzed in this book. The preaching of the “rhetoric of the revival” affected great crowds of colonist and instigated powerful emotional reactions in thousands of people – the image of a revival minister delivering a sermon to throngs of “awakened” hearers could also easily serve as an illustration for the power of oratory. The above passage from Capella’s De Nuptiis Philologiae et Mercurii provides the reader with yet another interesting insight into the nature of rhetoric. The description itself incorporates a rhetorical figure – it is based on allegory; consequently, one may argue that in Capella’s work rhetoric is described and defined by the very means it offers. The aforementioned dual function of rhetoric, as persuasive speech, on the one hand, and a system of communication, on the other, secured its position as one of the most comprehensive methods of language description. Especially in the second half of the twentieth century, after the “rhetorical” or “discursive” turn in humanities, this faculty of rhetoric proved useful in numerous approaches to communication, as demonstrated by the repesentatives of structuralism (Claude Lévi-Strauss or Roman Jacobson), formalism and meta-narration (Hayden White), poststructuralism ( Jacques Derrida) or cognitive linguistics (Geoge Lakoff or Mark Johnson). Their appropriations of rhetoric or some of its cannonical elements to study not only sheer language ornamentation, but the very framework of human communication and

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The Classical Rhetorical Tradition

cognition, allowed to rediscover the great potentiality of rhetoric as a metalanguage.

The Canon of Rhetoric Traditionally, the study of classical rhetoric is based on the division into five canons: invention, arrangement, style, memory and delivery. The following summary only features those elements of the canon which have played an important role in the shaping of ars praedicandi, the art of preaching, and which are indispensable for an analysis of the Great Awakening preachers’ oratory. Thus, the overview of the canon covers the early and early modern stages of the history of rhetoric, from Greek times to the late 17th century. This choice has been dictated by the material discussed in the book. I intend to demonstrate the evolution of selected aspects of oratory up to the point when they exerted an influence, direct or indirect, on the colonial rhetorical environment of Edwards, Whitefield, Tennent, Dickinson, Parsons and Croswell; investigating their 18th, 19th and 20th century development exceeds the scope of this study. The five components of the canon reflect the consecutive stages of the process of producing a speech. According to the author of Rhetorica ad Herennium, “Invention is the devising of matter, true or plausible, that would make the case convincing. Arrangement is the ordering and distribution of the matter, making clear the place to which each thing is to be assigned. Style is the adaptation of suitable words and sentences to the matter devised. Memory is the firm retention in the mind of the matter, words, and arrangement. Delivery is the graceful regulation of voice, countenance and gesture”1 (I.ii.3). It should be underlined here that inventio, dispositio, elocutio, memoria, pronunciatio are not merely stages of the speech composition, as each of them represented a distinct skill that the orator had to acquire to be successful in persuasion. This framework withstood the test of time, although did not remain unchallenged. The 16th century reform of rhetoric introduced by Peter Ramus, a French teacher of oratory and dialectics, changed the traditional divisions of the process of rhetoric. He decided to reformulate the canon and segregate its elements between logic and rhetoric; he included invention, disposition and memory into logic, leaving rhetoric only with elocution and delivery. This “reform” overturned the classical system of oratory and resulted in the reduction of rhetoric to a matter of figures, thus considerably impoverishing it. As we will see, Ramus’s amendments to the art of oratory were particularly important for the 1 All references to the anonymous Rhetorica ad Herrenium are taken from Marx’s edition (1923).

Inventio

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Puritan preaching tradition and aligned well with the Puritan paradigm of sermon-writing.

Inventio The first part of the process, inventio, was concerned with finding material pertinent to the cause, a suitable argumentative “proof”. Aristotle differentiates between non-artistic and artistic types of proofs. The former, which involve oaths, torture, witness testimony and contracts, do not have to be “invented” by the speaker and do not require any oratorical skills. The latter, on the other hand, offer the speaker a splendid opportunity to manifest his rhetorical prowess. Among the artistic proofs, Aristotle describes ethos (appeal to one’s character), pathos (appeal to strong emotions), logos (appeal to reason). All three proofs are strongly present in the “rhetoric of the revival” and a number of persuasive strategies used by the Great Awakening preachers rely precisely on a combination of authority, emotionality and logic. In classical rhetoric, the orator’s knowledge of the varieties and complexities of human character was the sine qua non of successful persuasion. The comprehensive insight into the hearer’s minds enabled the speaker to project a favourable self-image and shape his arguments in such a way as to appeal to diverse audiences. In ethos, the speaker focuses on promoting his character and knowledge in such a way as to create a positive image of himself in the eyes of the audience and consequently, to increase the persuasive force of other “artistic proofs.” For Aristotle the proof of ethos is particularly important as “we place confidence in the good to a wider extent and with less hesitation, on all subjects generally; but on points where no real accuracy exists, but there is room for doubt, we lay even entire confidence in them” (Rhetoric, I.ii.4). The philosopher sees this appeal as the most potent of the three, believing that the speaker’s character may be called the most effective means of persuasion he possesses; he also emphasises that the positive image of the speaker should mainly be the product of the speech, not his earlier reputation or his social status. The whole second book of Aristotle’s treatise is dedicated to detailed descriptions of the psychological profiles of listeners of various ages, which are followed by elaborations on the emotions that they are most susceptible to. In accordance with the Aristotelian structural outlook on the world, the philosopher’s concept of ethos presumes that it is possible to investigate human nature, classify it and reduce it to a number of types, which may be affected by the discourse.

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The Classical Rhetorical Tradition

As observed by James M. May (1998, 9), Aristotle’s typological-psychological model, anchored in language expression was “incomprehensive to a Roman steeped in the tradition of the mos maiorum, surrounded by a nobility of rank, and influenced by the culture’s general assumptions concerning human nature and character.” On the contrary, the Roman perspective “is succinctly, if somewhat obliquely expressed in Cicero’s De Oratore: ‘Feelings are won over by a man’s dignity [dignitas], achievements [res gestae], and reputation [existimatio].’ Romans believed that different character traits remained unchanged within one family for generations. As observed by the anthropologist Marcel Mauss (1985), one should take the notion of the “inherited” ethos literally, as, from historical perspective, a Roman’s persona, was unchangeably and legally connected to the family name”. At the same time, it was the Roman orator’s obligation to appease the members of the audience and to bring them together. Thus, the Ciceronian tria officia dicendi, three duties of the orator, included conciliare (or delectare). The speaker was to influence the hearers by his truthfulness and trustworthiness, as well as by his “ethos of sympathy”, the evocation of calm and gentle emotions. A few centuries later, St. Augustine, in his De Doctrina Christiana, followed the Ciceronian model of ethos, yet in his synthesis of Ancient and Christian concepts of rhetoric he shifts the emphasis entirely from style onto the speaker’s virtue. It is the life of the speaker, his deeds, not the language portrait emerging from his words that secures him an obedient audience – as St. Augustine writes in Book 4 (Section 59): “But whatever may be the majesty of the style, the life of the speaker will count for more in securing the hearer’s compliance.” Also, the actual message is more important to St. Augustine than the means adopted to convey it, for the speaker acts as a God’s mouthpiece and his oratory is divinely inspired. Thus, St. Augustine’s Christian speaker is a baptised Roman vir bonus, and his deliverance is informed by the Holy Spirit. With the onset of the Renaissance and its insistence on human individualism, ethos began to develop in a different direction. Thomas Wilson, the 16th century English diplomat and privy councillor in the government of Queen Elizabeth I, in his The Arte of Rhetorique (1560) focuses on ethos as an important part of the opening of the speech (following the classical tradition of, for instance, Rhetorica ad Herennium), where the hearer’s goodwill may be gained if the orator speaks properly of himself. He should emphasise his prior good deeds and reputation: “We shall get favour for our own sakes, if we shall modestly set forth our bound duties and declare our service done without suspicion of vaunting, either to the commonwealth, as in serving either in the wars abroad, or else in bearing some office at home concerning the tranquillity of our country, or in helping our friends, kinsfolk, and poor neighbours” (Wilson 1994, 135). Wilson seems to adhere to the Ciceronian manner of promotion of the speaker through his good

Inventio

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deeds, which produces the “ethos of sympathy” – unlike another important thinker of the age, whose infamous treatise The Prince is a handbook of how to create and promote one’s manipulative self-image. The Machiavellian ethos presented there is the ethos of a pragmatic deceiver. The Florentine discusses the character traits that an ideal ruler, who when lacking the necessary chivalric virtues, needs to be able to pretend to have: “a prince should take great care, therefore, that nothing issues from his mouth which is not imbued with the aforementioned qualities. To see him and hear him, he should seem all-merciful, all-trustworthy, all-integrity, all-humanity, all-religion”. Machiavelli’s thought had a strong impact on English culture, as visible in English Renaissance playwriting. Elizabethan drama features a whole multitude of characters who follow Machiavelli’s guidelines, e. g., Shakespeare’s Richard of Gloucester (Richard III), Iago (Othello), Bolingbroke (Richard II) or Marlowe’s King Edward (Edward II) or Barabas (The Jew of Malta); these characters provide an excellent literary illustration of the Renaissance interest in the disjunction between one’s true intentions and the recognition of the “hidden self.” Pathos is the second of the three “artistic proofs” outlined by Aristotle in his treatise. The technique of pathos consists of inducing certain emotions in the audience to secure a favourable reaction to the orator’s words. Through pathos a skilled speaker should be able to put the listeners into a receptive frame of mind, and then shape their emotions, arousing joy or sorrow, love or hatred, resentment or mirth. One of the first uses of language designed to influence the emotions of the listener is to be found in Homer’s Iliad. In Book 24 King Priam tearfully begs his enemy Achilles to return the body of his son Hector to him. This passage is a vivid early Greek illustration of words that may be deployed to mould the emotions of the audience and enforce a certain course of action. Aristotle argues thus that manipulating the emotions of the hearers one may change their beliefs. To him, since emotions are grounded in concepts, by manipulating their underlying beliefs one is able to impact the emotions of the audience and, in turn, affect their judgement. The Roman tradition of pathos was largely connected with figurativeness, various judicial court practices and non-verbal attempts at instigating emotions. The anonymous author of Rhetorica ad Herennium points out (1.v.viii) that the orator ought to use the openings and closings of the oratio to evoke pity (for his disabilities, needs, loneliness and misfortune) and to heap contempt and hatred upon his opponent. There are numerous ways to instigate these emotions, for instance, a feeling of hatred may be produced by demonstrating that the deed was particularly heinous, or intentionally directed against social superiors or against a religious taboo. The Great Awakening preachers commonly used this stratagem and moulded the emotions of the audience by showing how the deeds of the

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The Classical Rhetorical Tradition

unconverted offend God, hoping for the reactions of abhorrence and condemnation from the “awakened”. St. Augustine changes the rhetorical perspective on emotions – as observed by Green (2006), “Pathos ceases to be a matter of the rational or the irrational, but rather a matter of the direction of volition and object of love.” All emotions become the subjective experiences of acts of will, and love becomes the very centre of human experience. Augustine appropriates Cicero for his elaboration of Christian rhetoric and combines his docere (teach), delectare (delight) and flectere (persuade) with different styles of oratory: it is the grand style that carries all language resources redirecting the will of the hearer and evoking pathos. In his The Arte of Rhetorique Thomas Wilson writes that “Affections therefore (called Passions) are none other thing, but a stirring or forcing of the mind, either to desire, or else to detest and loath anything, more vehemently then by nature we are commonly want to do” (1994, 130). Wilson elaborates on how the orator may amplify the emotions of the audience by going through a number of themes: what is done, by whom, against whom etc. He stresses that the hearer’s emotions towards what happens with a culprit are coherent with his judgment of the culprit. In the Aristotelian model of rhetoric, logos, the appeal to reason, plays a crucial role. For Aristotle, unlike Plato, and, to a certain point, unlike for the Sophists, logos is primarily a means of persuasion, a way of influencing the audience by revealing the truth or apparent truth. The Aristotelian emphasis on the importance of logical persuasion establishes the status of rhetoric as a discipline closely related to philosophy and logic, but nonetheless distinct from the two. Similarly to dialectic, rhetoric is concerned with the method, but in oratory the outcome of logical reasoning is employed to persuasive ends; moreover, in rhetoric, the method primarily consists in the use of enthymeme rather than the syllogism. Enthymeme is said to be Aristotle’s basic building block of persuasion. To Aristotle it was also a means of asserting probable, not certain matters, while to Roman rhetoricians it was primarily a syllogism without one premise. The appeal to reason may also be achieved through the use of an example (exemplum) or a maxim (sententia). The former may be taken from history or fable, the latter is a general statement or truth which evokes instantaneous agreement. Apart from the logical appeal, Aristotle lists another quality of exempla: they may help the technique of ethos by emphasising the moral image of the orator: “should the maxim be good, they make the speaker also appear a man of worthy character” (Rhetoric, II.xxii.16). In the rhetorical theory of Hermogenes, the idea of classical stasis plays an important role in the outlying of the rational argumentation. The stasis theory had been designed to enable both sides of an argument to pinpoint the con-

Dispositio

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troversial points of the disagreement and to follow the procedural path of solving an issue. Hermogenes’ inventive stasis involves the use of headings and divisions, thus rendering it more organized and neater than its ancient predecessor. This theory had a particular importance for the development of the early preaching tradition. The last element of inventio was the topos, a “commonplace” where the members of the audience and the speaker could, as it were, meet in their minds. Topica included a “storehouse” of ideas, divided into sections, that could easily be employed by the speaker in his oratio and that could help him to arrive at the complete content of the speech. Topoi offered the orator a choice from a rich collection of symbols, allegories, metaphors, references or structural patterns, like comparison and contrast. Some topics were considered general (koinoi topoi), understandable for everyone and useable for any communicative purpose, some were particular (eide or idioi topoi) and limited to particular contexts and particular types of audience. In general, topica made it much easier for the speaker to compose the speech and work on its content, as it lifted the burden of creativity off his shoulders.

Dispositio Aristotle states in Book III of his treatise that a speech should consist of two parts: the advancement of the thesis and the advancement of proofs. Later in his work, he admits that the nature of rhetoric requires four elements: exordium or introduction, an advanced thesis, proofs and a conclusion (epilogos). Aristotle realizes that the hearers expect the peroration to be reasonable and salient. Therefore, if the speaker wants to win the audience over to his side, he has to organize his speech to make it harmonious, balanced and digestible for the audience. In the Roman tradition, the division of the speech into five parts, exordium, narratio, partitio, confirmatio, conclusio, was generally accepted. The author of Rhetorica ad Herennium summarizes the division in the following way (I.iii.4): The Introduction is the beginning of the discourse, and by it the hearer’s mind is prepared for attention. The Narration or Statement of Facts sets forth the events that have occurred or might have occurred. By means of the Division we make clear what matters are agreed upon and what contested, and announce what points we intend to take up. Proof is the presentation of our arguments, together with their corroboration. Refutation is the destruction of our adversaries’ arguments. The Conclusion is the end of the discourse, framed in accordance with the principles of art.

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The Classical Rhetorical Tradition

A very similar division may be found in Cicero’s De Inventionae (I.vii.9). Both authors point out that the sole structure of the oration may help the speaker to exert pressure on the judge, influence his judgment of the opponents and, what seems most important, persuade him, as well as the audience, to recognize the arguments advanced. In the exordium, the opening, the speaker should present the aim of the speech, put the audience into the right frame of mind, and make them “welldisposed, attentive and receptive”. There are two kinds of exordium, the direct (principium), which uses plain language, and the subtle or indirect (insinuatio). The latter type of opening should be used especially in connection with cases that are highly controversial or downright discreditable. Cicero points out (De Inentionae, I.xv.20-I.xviii.26) that the orator may win the audience’s favour by describing his own character and conduct (using ethos) or lamenting his client’s misfortune (using pathos); other ways of gaining captatio benevolentiae (the audience’s goodwill) involve flattering the judges and drawing the audience into a personal relationship with the orator. These constitute, obviously, universal communicative goals set before the opening section of any longer utterance, sermons included. In the second part of the speech, narratio, the speaker lays out all the facts connected with the case. The description is, however, not an objective statement of the case as a skilled orator can mould the narration to fit his proposition, and challenge the truthfulness of his adversary. Both Cicero in De Inventionae and the author of Rhetorica ad Herennium underline that the narratio should be brief, clear and plausible; what is more, the narrated action ought to be introduced appropriately, with respect to decorum. The presentation of facts may (and should) therefore become a means of persuasion in itself, provided that the speaker recognizes and uses the persuasive opportunities it offers. Propositio, the third part of the speech, ought to be constructed in such a way as to clarify the orator’s argument and make his words more comprehensible. The speaker is expected to set before the audience, as succinctly as possible, the basic problems he will tackle in his speech and divide the discourse into constituent segments. Explicability and comprehensibility were critical. The author of Rhetorica ad Herennium observes thus that an excessive number of headings would confuse the audience too much and advises the orator to use no more than three subsections (I.x.17). Confirmatio or proof, in which the orator gives arguments to support his side of the case, is the very core of the speech: “The entire hope of victory and the entire method of persuasion rest on proof and refutation, for when we have submitted our arguments and destroyed those of the opposition, we have, of course, completely fulfilled the speaker’s function” (Ad Herrenium, I.x.18). Acording to Dixon (1990, 29), classical authors recommended setting the argu-

Elocutio

25

ments “in a military formation, strong ones coming first, the weakest in the centre, and the most powerful bringing up the rear.” Later the ideas about the arrangement of arguments were modified and it was advised that they should advance to a climax, that is, that the speaker ought to marshal his arguments in an ascending order of aptness and importance. In refutatio, often combined with argumentatio, the speaker was to predict the opponent’s arguments and address them before they were even deployed. Peroratio, the final part of the speech, consists of, as argued by Cicero, three elements: “the summing-up; the indignatio or exciting of indignation or ill-will against the opponent; and the conquestio or the arousing of pity and sympathy” (De Inventinae, I.lii.98). In the first stage of peroratio the speaker summarizes the main points of his speech. Indignatio should contain an impressive affirmation or emphatic statement of the speaker’s thesis, and evoke in the audience the emotions that will push them either into indignation or enthusiasm. Cicero claims that the second stage of peroratio, if properly done, ought to “result in arousing great hatred against some person, or violent offence at some action” (De Inventionae, I.liii.100). Conquestio, closing the whole speech, includes an appeal to the tender feelings of the hearers which ought to be based on the proofs of pathos and ethos.

Elocutio The third part of the process of rhetoric concerns the matters of style, tropes and figures. Müller observes that classical elocutio is “responsible for the manifestation of the text as text” and it is the level of elocution that brings the speech into “linguistic existence” (Müller 2006). Indeed, for centuries “ornamentation” has been one of virtutes dicendi and the most salient elements of oratory. In Rhetoric, Aristotle points out that the style used is appropriate if it expresses emotion and character, and if it corresponds to the matter in question, thus introducing the principle of decorum to rhetoric. In his On Qualities of Style, Hermogenes, an Athenian philosopher, explains seven characteristics that ought to be present in an ideal type of style: Clarity, Grandeur, Beauty, Rapidity, Character, Sincerity and Forcefulness, breaking them down to further subtypes. The speaker may use all sorts of stylistic effects and may steer the elocution any way he pleases by managing three basic elements: the thought (ennoia), the approach (methodos) and verbal composition (lexis). The Aristotelian concept of a strict, threefold division of style was widely adopted by Roman rhetoricians. The author of Rhetorica ad Herennium follows it: “The Grand type consists of a smooth and ornate arrangement of impressive words. The Middle type consists of words of a lower, yet not of the lowest and most colloquial, class of words. The

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The Classical Rhetorical Tradition

Simple type is brought down even to the most current idiom and standard speech” (IV.viii.11). In the treatise very little attention is given to the different effects of each type of style and the main emphasis is laid on the qualities of language itself. It was primarily Cicero who first openly correlated the duties of the speaker with the matters of style and dedicated great importance to the pragmatic importance of figures. The Greeks are said to have derived great aesthetic pleasure from artistically elaborated discourse and the sound of words. The rich and impressive ornamentation of the speech was recognized as one of the key features of a good oratio, and thus an elaborate system of rhetorical figures and tropes was devised and implemented. At the same time, the sheer number of divisions and subdivisions may give an impression that devising new figures became a skill in itself. Rhetorica ad Herennium lists sixty-five figures of speech, the first edition of Henry Peacham’s The Garden of Eloquence (1577), contains nearly two hundred. With the medieval defragmentation of rhetoric in Western Europe accompanied by the echoes of the Ramist reforms, oratory was universally equated with style. However, aside from perhaps preaching, there were no amendments to the scheme inherited from antiquity. It was the Renaissance that brought elocutio into a new perspective. In the sixteenth century a number of influential rhetoricians deemed elocutio to be the most important part of rhetoric: Richard Sherry (A Treatise of Schemes and Tropes, 1550; A Treatise of the Figures of Grammar and Rhetorike, 1555), Henry Peacham (The Garden of Eloquence, 1577), or George Puttenham (The Arte of English Poesie, 1589). Their discussions of figures are so broad and exhaustive that they leave little space for other canons of rhetoric and touch upon practically all imaginabe apects of grammar and logic. Properly used verbal ornamentation was thought to be a catalyst of human emotions, and its importance for a successful persuasive appeal of the speech was never underestimated. A clear correlation between emotions and verbal embellishments was brought to light by, among others, the aforementioned Henry Peacham, who ascribed great weight to the emotional and expressive potential of figures and classified them in accordance to their emotional power.2 Without the verbal embellishments and their emotional force, one could hardly talk about the “rhetoric of the revival”. The contemporary “rhetorical turn” in humanities brought the functioning of rhetorical figures to a new perspective. The traditional dichotomy of literal (that is, objective and nonambiguous) versus non-literal (that is, non-objective and 2 A contemporary commentator on rhetoric, Brian Vickers (1988, 326–327) places a lot of emphasis on the emotional potential of figures; to him, figures are grounded in the functioning of the human mind, they mimic different states of the psyche. In consequence, it is only natural that figures may evoke a wide array of emotions as well as indicate the emotional status of the speaker.

Elocutio

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vague) meanings that evolved both from the classical distinction between different rhetorical styles as well as the seventeenth century pursuit after unbiased language of science, and that was strongly present in studies of literature at the beginning of the twentieth century, turned out to be inadequate in view of new understanding of human communication. The idea of figurative language has always antagonized those, who wanted to see language as a transparent system that should correlate meanings in a candid manner. At the end of the seventeenth century, in Book 3, chapter 10 of his Essay Concerning Human Understanding, John Locke argued that one ought to speak of things as they are, for the employment of figurative language generates miscommunication and deceit. Yet, this traditional illusion of objectivism in communication has been largely called into question after the “rhetorical turn” by the contemporary perspectives on language which ascribe figures vital epistemological functions. Not only do they beautify the discourse and express emotions, but also signal the very framework of thinking represented by the speaker. In other words, tropes testify to the way one sees and judges things. Also, figurative language is by no means limited only to poetic or rhetorical contexts. For instance, tropes are ubiquitous in everyday communication and although some instances of figurative language may not be transparent (hardly ever do we realize during an exchange that such idioms as ”deeply-rooted faith” use the plant metaphor to talk about one’s spirituality), yet they testify to human tendency to generate meaning through seminaries and analogies and to the unavoidability of figurativeness - as observed by Terence Eagleton, contemporary British literary theorist “there is more metaphor in Manchester than there is in Marvell” (1983, 6). Especially cognitive linguists like George Lakoff or Samuel Johnson stress that metaphors are pervasive because they form the greater part of understanding in our everyday conversations and in our everyday thinking. Thus, the analysis of figures Andrew Crosswell uses to talk about Christian conversion, does not only allow us to outline his persuasive strategies, but also to point to the way he and other colonial preachers conceptualised their theological ideas. Almost all early modern English rhetoricians honored the classical division between two means of ornamentation: figures and tropes. The former depend on inventive play with syntax and modify the shape or structure of language by arranging words in a patterns or by moulding them into a speech act. Figures usually concern verbal symmetry and parallelisms (like anaphora or epiphora), alterations of grammatical word order (like elipsis), or reduplications and repetitions (alliteration or - again - anaphora). Unlike figures, tropes operate on the connotative level and concern the manipulation with the meanings of words. Early Enlightenment philosopher from Italy, Giambattista Vico distinguished between the four most important tropes: metaphor, metonymy, synecdoche and irony - a division that was popularised in

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The Classical Rhetorical Tradition

the twentieth century by Kenneth Burke, American literary theorist, who identified them as “master tropes”. Each of them bears different reseblance between the signifier and the signified. Metaphors, critical for the creation of imagery, point to the similarity between two objects or notions and present one of them through the attributes of the other. Metonymy and synechdoche are based on contiguity and may substitute an element of an object for the complete whole (pars pro toto). Finally, irony consists in ”implying a meaning opposite to the literal meaning” (Lanham 1991, 92) sometimes with a sarcastic undertone, drawing the recipients into a game and forcing them to see through the pretense of what is communicated literally.

Memory Memory was an indispensible tool for orators. Not only did they have to learn the whole speech off by heart, but they were also forced to prove the masterful acquaintance with the oratio when adjusting it impromptu to changing circumstances: reacting to other speaker’s words, dropping redundant fragments or rearranging the order of arguments. It is not surprising that both Greek and Roman orators cherished memory and the ones who managed great mnemonic feats went down in the history of oratory as examples to emulate. Among them was Seneca the Elder, who could repeat up to two thousand names in the order they were dictated, or two hundred separate verses chosen individually by his pupils backward or forward. The author of Rhetorica ad Herrenium advises a visual mnemonic system to be used by the speaker whereby symbolic objects and elements are visualized in “backgrounds” or scenes. In Book III of his treatise he also suggests that an efficient way of memorizing the speech is to remember it as series of images. Quintilian advises learning a long speech in parts rather than trying to memorize it as a whole; he also suggests annotating sections that are especially difficult, when committing them to memory and murmuring the words aloud as one reads to engage more senses (XI.ii.27–29, XI.ii.32–34). The classical authors advocated “architectural” model of memory, the construction of mental space that helped to organize and reorganize memorized elements; in the Middle Ages, as argued by Mary Carruthers (1990), this tendency evolved into “grid” memory, which consisted of memorizing numbers and then associating different items, like psalms, with consequent digits.

Delivery

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Delivery The fifth canon of rhetoric offers instruction on the delivery of the speech; it concerns bodily gestures, as well as the manipulations of voice, breath, and rhythm which are used to help the orator communicate his ideas more effectively. Aristotle discusses delivery in Book III of Rhetoric. The philosopher emphasizes the importance of volume, pitch and rhythm for successful oratory. The author of Rhetorica ad Herennium provides a much more elaborate description of delivery (Lat. actio), and delineates the figure of voice and the movement of the body during the presentation of the speech. Here, the most important notions of the delivery include volume, stability and flexibility. The last of the three can be further divided into three tones, which the speaker may choose from, abiding by the principle of decorum: the most universal tone, sermo, is relaxed and close to the manner of ordinary speech; contentio is more energetic and exclamatory and should be applied during a debate; finally, the third tone that aims at amplifying the emotions and that is most suitable for the conclusions of speech. To help to evoke proper feelings in the audience, the voice should be reserved, the tone profound and the pauses long. Almost all classical authors point to the connection between delivery and successful control over the audience’s emotions. The words of Qunitilian from Book XI of Institutio Oratoria offer a commentary on this very connection: “For the nature of the speech that we have composed within our minds is not so important as the manner in which we produce it, since the emotion of each member of our audience will depend on the impression made upon his hearing” (11.3.2). The persuasive force of delivery did not rely solely on language; apart from changing his tone of voice and using body language, it was not unusual for the orator to employ all sorts of prompts to enhance his delivery. Quintilian points out (VI.i.30–31) that: Actions as well as words may be employed to move the court to tears. Hence the custom of bringing accused persons into court wearing squalid and unkempt attire, and of introducing their children and parents, and it is with this in view that we see bloodstained swords, fragments of bone taken from the wounds, and garments spotted with blood, displayed by the accusers, wounds (…), scourged bodies bared to the view. The impression produced by such exhibitions is generally enormous, since they seem to bring the spectators face to face with the cruel facts.

This practice developed particularly within the Roman Empire and was often overused. Cicero describes in De Oratore (I.liii.228) how a corrupt official named Servius Galba, in order to instigate pity in the audience, carried a young orphan on his shoulders during his trial, and how a former consul and general Manius Aquillus, who having put on mourning clothes to stand before the judge, ripped

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The Classical Rhetorical Tradition

open the garments to show the scars he bore from the battles he had fought for Rome (II.xlvii.194). With time, the use of “orphans, squalid clothing, bloodstained swords and bone fragments” became so formulaic that such efforts of the speakers “went awry” (Green 2006); as Quintilian relates in Institutio Oratoria (VI.1.40), one child was found crying during the trial because his teacher was pinching him, in another case, two servants were ordered to carry the wax effigy of the dead man into the courtroom at the pathetic climax of the speech, but – since they did not know what the climax was – they kept walking in and out with the statue, causing nothing but laughter. The rhetorical actio of the Great Awakening preaching did not have a medium in which to survive in visual form to our times. One wishes we could watch a recording of George Whitefield in the pulpit, but nothing of this sort is possible. We only have access to verbal accounts of the sermons of particular preachers, with the occasional mention of their delivery skills. Thus, the chapters to follow mention little about delivery, except for citing the anecdotal reports of witnesses that help us visualize the context of the Great Awakening preaching.

From Rhetoric to Preaching

The next vital component of rhetorical theory needed for the discussion of the language of the Great Awakening concerns the transition from classical oratory to the art of preaching. This shift required the appropriation of the elaborate classical model with a few hundred years of tradition into a markedly new context and markedly new mode of communication. The classical model was so comprehensive and covered so many diverse issues what we would now associate with linguistics, literature, sociology or psychology that the evolving preaching tradition could not afford to overlook or dismiss it. Obviously, a direct transplant was impossible, and the founders of pulpit oratory opted for a gradual appropriation. Let us now look at the inclusion of the ideas discussed earlier into the rhetorical framework of the Christian context. First, we need to stress that the principal object of preaching is the Word of the Scripture directed at men. Preaching is believed to have a divinely-human character marked by the actual, non-metaphorical presence of the transcendental in the speaker’s words. As one can read in St. Paul’s letter to the Thessalonians: “For this reason we also constantly thank God that when you received the word of God which you heard from us, you accepted it not as the word of men, but for what it really is, the word of God, which also performs its work in you who believe” (1 Thess. 2:13). The revered task of the propagation of God’s Word imposes on the preacher a great responsibility towards the church, its mission and its members: “He who is hearing you, doth hear me; and who is putting you away, doth put me away; and he who is putting me away, doth put away Him who sent me” (Luke 20: 16). Thus, the sermon carries the authority of the Scripture and may target the conduct and beliefs of individual members in the hope of edifying and maintaining the integrity of the worldly church. Preaching plays a crucial role in delineating the core doctrines of faith to the members of the church, as well as in persuading hostile or ignorant individuals to the Christian faith. Its ultimate objective is breaking the cycle of sin, reassuring believers and converting lost souls. An emotional reaction, even a slight flutter in the hearer’s heart, has often been the goal of the preacher; as observed by St.

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From Rhetoric to Preaching

Augustine, a tear in the listener’s eye is a sign of a persuasive sermon (almost nine centuries later Alan of Lille, the French theologian, would agree with him, adding, after Cicero (Ad Herennium. II. 31. 50), that still nothing dries faster than a tear in one’s eye). Rhetorical pathos, speech calculated for emotional response is, thus, in the very center of almost any preaching endeavor. But the reformation of the hearer and the obedience to the calling of the Scripture have always taken precedence over sheer emotional appeal. St. Augustine insists the preacher must know and comprehend what he is to communicate to his hearers, which in the case of preaching means the Holy Scripture, the Word of God. Thus, the speaker should use his caritas, love and charity, to study the Scripture and search for his inner calling. As such, St. Augustine’s preaching invention relies on the reading of the Bible and its full and complete comprehension. Yet the most influential fragment of St. Augustine’s, De Doctrina Christiana, is the section in which the author discusses the rhetorical models the preacher ought to adopt. Good Christian writers, like the Apostle Paul, should be his direct inspiration, but also, he is encouraged to follow the four virtues of speech (clarity and appropriateness being particularly important) and the three duties of the orator, which determine his use of three styles of speech: “the preacher will use each style as needed,” speaking “in a subdued manner if he teaches, in a moderate manner if he is praising, and in a grand manner if he is moving an adverse mind to conversion” (IV.38). The grand style is responsible for stirring the hearers (thus associated with rhetorical pathos), reshaping their beliefs and moving them to God – in their hearts and their demeanour. It is in these sections that the links between Augustinian model of preaching and the classical scheme of rhetoric are most explicit. St. Augustine derives his inspiration directly from Cicero, appropriating the Roman orator to a new, Christian context, and leaving a considerable portion of his thought intact. The communicative duties of the speaker, his education, the importance of his unadulterated Christian ethos and genuine dedication, as well as the functional significance of the three level style, can all be traced to Roman rhetoric and all become valid building blocks of the medieval preaching tradition. In the early history of Christianity, the controversy around the use of rhetoric for preaching purposes was considerable, since the art of oratory was persistently associated with deceit and manipulation. St. Augustine himself, before his conversion, was a teacher of rhetoric and an experienced user of oratory – he excellently embodies the controversy over the Christian appropriation of the discipline deemed by many as immoral. The works in which he brings Roman rhetoric to the Christian realm of preaching, testify to his deeply practical conviction that oratory is invaluable as a means of defending the faith and its dogmas.

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The attitudes on the matters of style and elocutio were dubious among the authors of medieval tractates on preaching. On the one hand, it was argued that figures and tropes allow the preacher to illustrate the wonder and mystery of God and his verbal artistry is aligned with the way the Spirit of God touches the human soul and elevates it. On the other hand, the opposing view held that eloquence may hinder or distort the influence of the Holy Spirit and is redundant in a genuine preaching communication. This voice may be linked the subsequent birth of the so-called Puritan “plain style”, especially in the mid 16th century. The goal behind the reduction of the verbal flourish was rendering the sermons more comprehensible by the audience, not only in terms of the decrease in excessive figures and tropes, but also the clarity of structure. Obviously, restraint did not mean crudeness or coarseness - as stressed by William Perkins in his Arte of Prophesying (published in English in 1606). It was simply esssential that the speaker should not embrace verbal artistry to make it a goal in itself or a way to show off his wit and education; rather the means of elocutio were to do no more than help the preacher to deliver his message successfully to the audience. Thus, the matter of the speaker’s motivation played a vital role in the discussion of the “plain” style. Opponents of the historical affiliation of rhetoric and homiletics note that, at several points in the New Testament, the preacher is figured as a herald (ke¯ryx) who proclaims the message from God (ke¯rygma), free of oratorical embellishments and cultural accommodation. Because many of the celebrated Church Fathers were also celebrated orators, they struggled to distinguish the Christian preacher from the pagan orator, not so much in terms of his rhetorical methods and practices, but exactly in terms of his motives. Thus, early Christian preaching practice places an emphasis on the speaker’s ethos understood alongside the Roman tradition: “While justifying the preacher’s rhetorical methods, the Church Fathers also note that the example of the preacher’s moral behaviour while away from pulpit often has a greater persuasive force than his verbal eloquence” (Kneidel 2006). As mentioned above, the early Christian preacher is to a large extent a baptized Roman vir bonus. There were a number of different sermon forms in the early medieval preaching tradition. The name of the first one goes back to the Greek noun homilia, “conversation”, and designated a relatively simple and informal oral interpretation of a Scriptural fragment. It stood in marked contrast with more structured and consciously rhetorical forms. At the beginning of the 14th century the sermon took its place as an instructive interlude during mass. The outdoor sermons were also delivered from pulpits built by cathedrals and religious houses for that purpose. Some of these outdoor pulpits, like St. Paul’s Cross in London, featured prominent religious orators of the time. The “thematic” (“universal” or “modern”) sermon with time became a new way of expanding any biblical text or

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religious topic. In such a discourse, the preacher reads a brief Scriptural passage (the “theme”), divides it into smaller constituents (specific words, images, or subjects, usually in groups of three), and continues to make further divisions, which are in turn elaborated on with citations and exempla from Scripture, saints’ lives, and even pagan literature. Unlike the sermons from the very dawn of Christianity, which offered an oral scriptural commentary unrestricted by any form, the “thematic” sermon allowed the preacher to make ample use of his skills in rhetorical invention, arrangement, as well as in Aristotelian logic. The flourishing of medieval ars preaedicandi explains an unprecedented increase in the number of preaching manuals at the beginning of the 13th century. Just like in the case of rhetoric, the education of the spoken word – in this case, the Word – triggered the development of the discipline. These short rhetorics usually contained equally short sample sermons, suggesting that, as in the case of the earlier preaching tradition, emulation was an important element of composition. But the sheer number of these manuals suggests a slow transition of focus from the content of the message onto the methodology of preaching. The rhetorics also helped in establishing the formula of a universal sermon. The arrangement of this formula was described in early 13th century by Thomas of Salisbury’s Summa de Arte Praedicandi. The sermon consisted of an opening prayer for divine assistance and protheme, introduction of the topic, followed by theme, a statement of the Scriptural text and its thematic division. The next element involved the development (prosecutio) of the introduced thematic parts, usually fragmented into sub-sections implicated by the Scriptural citation, followed by a general conclusion. These sermonic headings evoked the skills needed for rhetorical arrangement. For instance, the construction of a good pulpit prologue and an exordium required in fact analogous communicative competence. Similarly, narratio commanded the descriptive ability not different from the one needed for the exposition of themes. It is not surprising therefore that Conley sees the arrangement of this sermon and the further division of its particular elements as bearing the strong influence of Cicero – “this [influence] can be seen most clearly in the similarity between standard format and the standard arrangement of a Ciceronian oration, making allowances for the change of scenario from courtroom to church service” (1990, 97). There is yet another element of the classical theory of invention that was adopted for scholastic method and for sermonic dispositio, namely the topos. In his study of medieval oratory Harry Caplan (1970) stresses that the importance the ancient authors attached to inventio was transported to medieval ars praedicandi together with interest in topoi. The commonplaces that for ancient rhetoricians constituted the storehouse and the thesaurus of ideas became an important source of inspiration for preachers, both in terms of composition and

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amplification. The care with which Cicero outlines eleven categories for the establishment of the legal proof in his Topica, or the insight the author of Rhetorica ad Herennium demonstrates in delineating the commonplaces of amplification, are also visible such 12th century tractates as Liber Quo Ordine Sermo Fieri Debeat by Guilbert de Norgent or Summa de Arte Praedicatoria by Alain de Lille. Caplan (1970, 87) provides an example of an inventional list of ideas, images and allegories that could have been employed by the preacher – the list is taken from a manual by William of Auvergne. This fourteenth century textbook instructs the reader that if the preacher seeks exemplification he should remember that David best represents humility, Job patience and Katherine virginity. For the discussion of different types of sins, division is the best. Derivation applied to Christ requires for the preacher to know that Jesus is Sol because he shines solus. Alain de Lille’s Summa de Arte Praedicandi likewise gives a practical and systematic selection of “commonplace” topics the preacher may draw from such as arrogance, excessive luxury, peace, mercy, obedience and love for God. In the 16th century, under the influence of the Ramist dialectics, a new homiletic scheme was implemented. It advocated the division of the sermon into three structural components: the explication of a Scriptural text, the statement of doctrinal points and the application of these points to the manners of the audience. This text-doctrine-application scheme was popularized in England, among others, in William Perkins’s The Art of Prophesying, and exerted a considerable influence on the English as well as American Puritan preaching style. Erasmus’s Ecclesiastes: On the Art of Preaching, a sixteenth century manual was to help those delivering sermons in vernacular languages. The first section of the book defines the role of the preacher – he has to be able to address hearers who are above him and below him in the social hierarchy, and should show them parental care, guide them and censor them. The echoes of Cicero and St. Augustine are very easily discernible in the emphasis on the education of the preacher, in the case of the former, and in the case of the latter, on the interpretation of biblical signs. Also, Erasmus’s preacher would have his heart transformed by the Holy Spirit, through the study of the Scripture, and he would be able to awaken in his hearers a desire for a pious, sinless life. This view, demoting the old scholasticism, was to have a strong bearing on the development of the art of preaching way beyond the 16th century. The Reformation and the consequent divisions of the church called into question the source of the preacher’s authority. In order to mediate between a preacher’s ecclesiastical and spiritual position, Christian rhetoricians adopted the classical principle that only an elevated speaker is able to elevate the audience (as it is argued by Quintilian in Institutio oratoria, Vi.ii.5–7); at the same time, they bound this notion with the Holy Spirit’s influence: only the preacher whose heart is inflamed by the Spirit is able to inflame the hearts of his listeners. Kneidel

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stresses that the “authority given to the speaker’s ethos – his personality, sense of calling, previous spiritual experiences – in later generations licensed the preaching to groups traditionally occluded from the pulpits of mainstream churches (…) and allowed them to champion social reforms in their sermons” (2006). Also, Luther’s stress on faith as the sole means of salvation redefined the role of the sermon and the “duty” of the preacher, whose function and responsibility became central. There is hardly anything surprising in such reverence for the instution of the preacher in reformed religion, considering the aforementioned predominant belief that only a preacher who was genuinely moved by the Holy Spirit could in turn move his hearers. The influence of the Holy Spirit was the foundation of Christian eloquence, not flamboyant verbosity and thus the preacher, as a God-inspired guide for the congregation, delivering them the inspired message, earned a new sense of veneration and respect. The core of Puritan preaching that emerged from the medieval schemes after the tide of Reformation is encompassed by the fundamental effort to understand God’s Word and explicate it to the hearers. In the Puritan view, the Bible was a unified whole and understanding its every implication was the critical task of humanity. Thus, Puritan preaching was expository by nature – the whole sermon was inextricably bound to the text and was its direct outcome. It is not merely that Puritan preachers were keen to endow their lectures with examples and quotations from the Bible. The sermon and the Scriptural text were, in a way, organically and symbiotically connected. The task of the preacher was thus marked by the unadulterated effort to scrutinize the Scripture and to apply its findings to guide the hearers in their lives. Perkins’ model of sermon structure is a perfect example of a typically Puritan application of logic and systematic organization that characterize the preaching of his time. He proposes that the speaker first reads the text from a canonical, Scriptural source, next, gives the audience the sense and understanding of it, constructs points of the doctrine and finally applies the doctrine to the life of his hearers, using clear language. In his manual for preachers, Perkins also expands on different types of audiences the preacher has to address in his sermon and elaborates on the best ways of reaching to them. Some hearers are “unbelievers who are both ignorant and unteachable”, some “are teachable, but yet ignorant”, some are “humbled” and some “fallen”. Classifying people in accordance with their state of knowledge and level of reformation, ensured that the rhetorical means were well adjusted to the audience, reminding one of the classical concern for kairos, the proper message delivered to proper audience at the proper time. As to its form, the Puritan sermon developed as an amalgam of versatile rhetorical influences, as observed by White (1972, 15), the “basic thrust of Puritan rhetoric was dichotomized into a devotion to logic and a recognition of the tremendous influence of emotions.” A Puritan would seek to evoke a sense of

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regret for sins or joyous anticipation of salvation, but at the same time he would adhere to Aristotle’s belief in the rational character of the human mind, with a particular emphasis on its ability to pass rational judgments, and participate in the deductive processes. It is hardly surprising then that with logic as the modus operandi of the sermonic tradition, Puritans were attracted to Ramus. His method of exploration was based less on Aristotelian logic and syllogisms, and more on the breaking of the general into the particular, and on easily observable, natural axiomatic statements. Ramus also criticized what he saw as an excessive use of figures and tropes that hindered the exposition of truth. Considering such basic principles of the Ramist system, there is little wonder that Puritans developed a liking for it. The method fit both their views on style as well as on the arrangement of the sermon perfectly. The theme of salvation and damnation became central for Puritan preaching and stressing the division line between those few that were predestined for heaven and those that were damned became commonplace. Discriminatory preaching was also an important element of the Puritan model because, to them, it strictly followed the message of the Bible. Halfway through the sixteenth century the preachers sought to determine the patterns of God’s providence for individuals and for communities, thus they encouraged their audiences to engage in incessant self-exploration and to try to determine if they were destined to be among the few individuals heading for salvation. In a sense, just as rhetoric dealt with the management of doubts, so did Reformed preaching. The primary concern of the latter was the burning question: “Will I be saved?”. Emotions were distrusted and utilized only as a reinforcement of the rational thinking. Interestingly, the Puritan preaching scheme also involved the appropriation of the classical oratio model. The opening of the sermo was not directly an exordium in the old sense – rather than rendering the hearers “well-disposed, attentive and receptive” the speaker had to open the communication channel and “lay open” the text of the Scripture. The doctrine of a typical Puritan sermo was like the Ciceronian statement of the case, and reasons, aimed at guiding the listener to a rational realization of faith, could be seen as counterparts of the Ciceronian argumentatio. With time, the three classical duties of the orator blended into one and the Puritan sermonic scheme began metamorphosing into the full appropriation of the classical model (with all its benefits and drawbacks), particularly in the understanding of “persuasion.” It is hardly surprising, therefore, that Solomon Stoddard, an eminent New England preacher of the second and third generation of colonists, sought to liberate the rhetorical style and to “deemphasize the academism of ministerial teaching” (White 1972, 34) by shifting the emphasis of education onto experience. Such considerations became the roots of the “rhetoric of the revival.”

Linguistic Approach

The analysis of 18th century revival preaching poses certain problems, both in terms of the corpus and the method. If one attempted to investigate the language of present day revivalists, one could watch video footage, access exact transcripts, survey the audiences and interview the speakers – all sorts of data would be available, allowing for a broad spectrum of research approaches. In the case of the Great Awakening, nothing like that is possible. Here, there are merely three types of sources that can help to reclaim the oratory from the past: the first one are, obviously, the published versions of the sermons, the second, the surviving notes of the preachers used by them for delivery purposes, and the third, the written accounts of the speakers included in their letters or journals, as well as the reports from witnesses who were present at the delivery. These three sources have their drawbacks. The publications may contain the same rhetorical framework as the sermons delivered live to the colonial audiences, but very often the texts submitted to the publishers included considerable amendments and lengthy alterations. The printed sermons sometimes remind one more of treatises and essays than of speeches. The sketchy notes of the preachers do retain an element of the immediacy and a sense of dynamic relationship with the audience, but are scarce and often fragmentary. Finally, the accounts of the witnesses may be indicative of the hearers’ reactions and the success of the given sermon, yet are often subjective and their authors, as engaged participants of the theological debates, provided biased descriptions of the events. An attempt at analysing the revival must take into account all three types of sources. Another hardship concerns the hermeneutic process and the investigative method. In her prominent study of the history of American meetinghouses, Ola Elizabeth Winslow observes that “sermons are made to be spoken and heard in a given hour, not read when they are cold in print after many generations” (1952, 13). This quotation encapsulates the specific nature of the research on early preaching rhetoric, and points to a potential problem faced by any study focused on rhetorical analysis. An awakening sermon ought not to be read only as a static

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text, but should be investigated as a dynamic product of language. The words of the preachers moved people to tears, instigated religious conversions and moulded the attitudes of the hearers, and all that taking place through the communication channel framed in a complex social and linguistic context. The analytical method apt for the study of early revival rhetoric needs to be able to account for this context and open the sermons up to explicate in dynamic circumstances in which they were brought to life. Rhetoric serves as the basic investigative method of this book. It was also an important element of the ministerial education and of early modern culture in general – in the context of the Great Awakening preaching its importance cannot be overestimated. In a way, rhetoric is the framework of continuity between the past and the present. But exactly because of its permanence by itself it may not suffice to describe all of the communicative stratagems of the preachers. As an element of prescriptive schooling and a category of theory as well as of practice, it lacks all the necessary vocabulary to account for our evolving understanding of human communication. That is the reason why the analysis of the ten sermons complements the rhetorical investigation with the linguistic approach of pragmatics. This allows one to look at the sermons from a dynamic perspective and to investigate them within their communicative context of the addresser-addressee relationship. In consequence, with the aid of pragmatics one is able to recreate and analyze a part of the impact the Great Awakening preachers exercised on their audiences, thus making the sermons less, as it were, “cold in print.” Pragmatics offers a comprehensive model of language “in use” – it studies context–dependent meanings as communicated by the speaker and as interpreted by the listener. As a result, pragmatics provides the analytical basis for the investigation of people’s intended meanings, their assumptions, their communicative goals, and the kinds of actions they perform when they speak – the areas which, at least to a certain extent, traditionally have also been ascribed to rhetoric. The “marriage” of rhetoric and pragmatics seems a fruitful methodological approach to describe both the form of the sermons as well as their communicative functioning. The basic analytical units of pragmatics are utterances that is contextualized, intentional language acts, delivered by particular speakers at particular times and particular places – the meaning they carry is the outcome of the recipients’ interpretative process. Furthermore, unlike those of the more structural approach, who assume that communication amounts to encoding thoughts into words and later decoding them in accordance with certain rules, linguists dealing with pragmatics aim to explain what people communicate, beyond what they literally say, as well as the influence their words have to change reality. The study of these aspects of language was initiated by two 20th century philosophers, J. L Austin and H. P. Grice. The first was intrigued by the performative

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potential of language – its power to “do” different things. He wanted to explain the kind of verbal actions one performs, for instance, during the christening of a ship and explain why a certain formula intentionally uttered in particular circumstances may result in giving the vessel a name. Such speech-acts are commonplace to the delivery of a sermon, be it giving the hearers a promise, scolding them or apologizing to them. The study of speech-acts proves that communication is dependent not only on the semantics of words used in the utterance, but also on the intentions of the speakers, as well as the institutional and social context they are a part of. This allowed Austin to propose, at a certain point, the distinction between different aspects of utterances – the intentional and conventional one (illocutionary), the very utterance of a sentence with a determined sense and reference (locutionary) and the consequential effects of the utterance upon the extra-lingustic reality (perlocutionary). The lectures in which Austin proposed this theory, published posthumously in How to Do Things with Words (1962), provided the basis for the development of pragmatics. Obviously, since human communication is hardly ever simplistic and overt, the pragmatic model of communication had to incorporate the instances of indirect communication. John Searle, American philosopher, showed (1975) that the form of a speech-act and its underlying purpose are not always congruent and explicit. An example of such an indirect speech-act would be the sentence “Tears shed for self are tears of weakness, but tears shed for others are a sign of strength” uttered by Billy Graham in the context of preaching. The speech-act has an affirmative form, but the intentional force behind the utterance expresses the suggestion which aims to change the hearers’ behaviour and, if the addressees properly interpret the intention of the addresser, it will most probably induce them to start showing more compassion and sympathy to their neighbours. Austin’s student, Grice continued the research, but focused more on what is implied in an exchange – the meaning that is generated by beyond “what is said”. The notion of “implicature” forms the core of his contribution to the pragmatic theory and offers the key to the understanding of language exchanges, especially the issues of implied meaning, so vital for all instances of persuasive oratory, like sermons and political speeches. While processing an utterance, the addressee does not infer all of the possible meanings that it might carry and only the ones relevant and intended, since he or she is guided by implicature. It is because of a complicated computing process, rational consideration about the aim and nature of communication that the hearer is able to infer only these meanings that are pertinent to the unfolding exchange. This has great implications for, for instance, the image the speaker projects upon the audience and the authority he wants to build in the speech. All throughout the exchange, diverse components of meaning are inferred by the audience in a mutual effort of audience’s interpretation of the

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speaker’s words and gestures, as well as the speaker’s communicating his or her thoughts. Consequently, implicature has to be considered within the general frame of the nature of exchanges, which are not chaotic and unorganized, but cooperative – each participant recognizes a “common purpose or a set of purposes, or at least mutually accepted direction” (Grice 1989, 26). On the basis of these considerations, Grice came up with, what he calls, the “Cooperative Principle,” which is applicable to all human exchanges – the universal assumptions that others speak to the point, remain truthful and understandable and are economical with words. Users of language perpetually flout these maxims, nonetheless they intuitively presume that all interlocutors will take them as points of reference. And it is exactly in the violation of these rules that often the richness of communication is born – the rhetorical figures to a large extent consist in seemingly redundant embellishments and verbal excess, while diverse rhetorical proofs are at times based on obscuring the meaning. What is important for communication, however, is not the violation of the maxims, but the meaning that is created by the flouting. If a preacher repeats the same rhetorical question three times during a sermon, he may be seemingly uneconomical with words, however, through such verbal surplus, he or she could be aiming to achieve a particular rhetorical effect. Pragmatics also stresses that context is vital for any communicative situation. This includes not only its spatial and temporal conditions, but also, for instance, social differences between the interlocutors or the compositional and metatextual aspects (in the case of a literary text). These factors are also essential for oratory. That is the reason why a complete study of the Great Awakening preaching requires an introduction to the early colonial pulpit tradition, as well as to the colonial culture. Only by taking the full context of the sermons into account, can one attempt at recreating the full impact of the ”rhetoric of the revival” on the participants of the Great Awakening. Since the meaning of language is so strongly context-dependent in the pragmatic approach, all the referential elements of the utterance perform essential functions for the formation of meaning – they often render the communication understandable. Especially in the case of oratory that relies so strongly on the immediate reactions of the hearers and the dynamic relationship between the speaker and the audience, the functioning of such parts of speech as demonstrative (deictic) pronouns becomes vital. Their study is essential to an understanding of how the utterance functions in terms of relational aspect of a text, that is the relationships between different indexical perspectives (which translate into, for instance, diverse narrative viewpoints). Also, deictic expressions take on an important textual role, as they refer the text both to itself and to its constituent elements. Finally, deixis performs a crucial compositional function. It helps the production of a coherent and cohesive discourse in terms of register, syntax and

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style. In almost all of the sermons analyzed in this book, some persuasive strategies of the preachers rely on the modification of indexicality of the utterance – be it the deictic shift between the “reality” of the sermonic imagery and the “reality” of the immediate communicative context (as happens in the case of Edwards’s “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God”) or the changes in perspective of the speaker expressed by the alteration of the pronouns from the individual “I” to the collective “we” (as happens in the case of Whitefield’s sermons). The implications of the pragmatic approach for the study of revival preaching are considerable. The ministers’ actions performed through words – different types of speech acts that are included in sermons, like promising, threatening or giving orders – become more clearly explainable in their immediate context of the relationship between the preacher and the hearers, thanks to the insight offered by pragmatics. What the preacher “does with words”, be it creating an authoritative image or initiating a religious conversion, can be described not only in terms of rhetorical labels and stratagems, but also in terms of the linguistic formulas. So, the pragmatic approach provides a metal language that neatly aligns with the rhetorical approach, and by stressing the performative aspects of language, and the intentional and interpretative character of communication, enhances the analysis of figures and arguments, making it possible to draw a much more comprehensive image of the “rhetoric of the revival”.

American Revivalism

Camp-meeting, Hugh Bridport (1794 – c.1869) Harry T. Petters ”America on Stone” Lithography Collection National Museum of American History, Smithsonian, Washington

The stereotypical associations triggered by the phrase “religious revival” include televangelism, tongue-speaking, mega-churches, miracle-healings, erratic bodily manifestations, and above all, the image of a charismatic preacher delivering a flamboyant, “fire and brimstone” sermon. These stereotypes merely scratch the surface of a multifaceted phenomenon of religion and culture. Controversial as revivalism may be, it constitutes an important element of American identity, as argued by McClymond in Encyclopedia of Religious Revivalism in America, “religious revivals are as American as baseball, blues music, and the stars and

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stripes” (2007, xvii). Since the very origins of American culture, revivalism has been present as one of the key elements of the functioning of religion in the colonies, and later in the USA. Revivals were, are, and most probably, will be shaping the culture and politics of America in the future. William G. McLoughlin, a contemporary commentator on the subject of American revivalism, stresses the affinity between the movement and the roots of the American culture: “Awakenings have been the shaping power of American culture from its inception. The first settlers came to North America in the midst of the great Puritan Awakening in England bringing with them the basic beliefs and values that provided the original core of our culture” (1978, 1). Similarly, Brauer, in his preface to Butler’s study of revivalism (1991, xv) asserts that “revivalism is the most important movement in the history of Protestantism in the United States”. It is evident that by studying the rhetoric of the Great Awakening revival preachers one seeks to uncover the patterns that underpin many elements of contemporary religion in America. In his works, James Edwin Orr looked at the revival as the “outpouring of the Holy Spirit” – a definition that hardly opens itself to academic inquiry. As a revival preacher, he perceived the revival not as a cultural or historical phenomenon, but a visible outcome of the work of God, at the same time, in his publications (e. g. Orr 1978) he gathered rich factual data on global revivalism, stressing its universality. Also McLoughin placed the American revivalism in a larger context (although not as large as Orr), and his idea of a revival was that of a social catalyst – not as a “period of social neurosis”, but a time of “revitalization” and attributed to it the role of a mechanism that propels social changes (1978, 2). The notion of what a revival is and what it is not has long been a topic of debate. Two things can hardly be contested. First, revivalism is predominantly, but not exclusively, a Protestant notion, second, revivalism is uniquely a collective issue. The former is evident when one looks at the history of American revivalism and considers the importance of preaching for the Reformed religion. The latter becomes evident when one looks into the nature of the phenomenon – not every collective act of religious worship is revivalistic, but in order for the revival to take place one needs an assembly, and usually, a preacher to address the gathering and instigate the revival zeal. A typical revival group transgresses social divisions and incorporates people of diverse ethical, educational and cultural backgrounds. The gathering expands quickly and the news about it spreads, sometimes causing further revivals. The outbreak of revival zeal sparks controversy, and in the wake of bodily manifestations, alleged wonders and emotional outbursts, anti-revivalism arises, whose representatives enter into a harsh debate with the proponents of the awakening movement. McClymond’s seven features of a typical revival gathering match the above scheme (2007, xxii). First of all, participants of the revival experience intensified

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emotions, usually “a vivid sense of spiritual things, great joy and faith, deep sorrow over sin, a passionate desire to evangelize others and the heightened feeling of love for God and fellow human beings”. The second characteristic concerns, bodily manifestations, like weeping, shouting, fainting or dancing – exhibited by the participants during the revival worship. The third feature includes extraordinary occurrences, perceived by the group as “signs and wonders” of God’s presence. Next, religious revivals very often raise issues of spiritual discernment, that is they force the participants to distinguish between such matters as human agency and divine inspiration. The fifth characteristic is related to the issues of lay and clerical authority. As the events of a revival challenge the existing patterns of behavior, they also call into question the legitimacy of religious leaders and the existing hierarchy. Also, revivalism causes conflicts and divisions in the church community. Revivals obviously generate a great deal of controversy, and usually spark extensive debates. Most often the emotional character of revivalism is viewed by rational critics as inappropriate and dangerously remote from safe and calm rationality. Revivalism has often been accused of generating unnecessary social uproar and disrupting the discipline and decorum of communal worship. To atheists, who not only oppose the means of revivalism, but also the principal message of salvation through Christ, the flamboyant and excessive behavior of some revivalists often serves as a pretext to question religious worship as such and to suggest its antisocial and disruptive character. Finally, McClymond points out that revivals stimulate the establishment of new associations, organizations and institutions, just as the Great Awakening encouraged the emergence of a new kind of trans-denominational evangelicalism in North America, while the Second Great Awakening inspired numerous voluntary associations dedicated to different social causes. The considerations on the nature of revivalism touch upon the matter of its sources. There is a wide array of theories explaining the origins of revivalism. One may connect them to the economic, social or cultural factors. For example, McLouglin attributed a great deal of revivalist energy to the charisma of preachers (1978), placing on them, rather than on laymen, the main responsibility for the religious momentum. There are also numerous sociological and psychological approaches to the subject. Wacker postulated that revivalism is critical for the formation of personal identity and a sense of belonging (Wacker 2001), a sense of belonging that could also be seen as based on shared emotional experiences and a common frame of behavioral patterns (Sizer 1978). To some, revivals may also be necessary to give a chance to express emotions for those that would normally be forced to repress them (Corrigan 2002). The first Great Awakening (described extensively in Chapter 2), important and impactful as it was in itself for the colonial culture, constituted a stage in the ongoing cycle of American revivalism. Fairly promptly it was followed by the

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Second Great Awakening which spanned the post-Revolutionary period to the 1840s. This second revival was more geographically extensive and religiously diverse when compared to the events of the 1740s. It relied strongly on the expansion of the Baptist and Methodist churches. Also, its organizational context was slightly different. The growth of a modern transportation network, press circulation and the postal system stimulated the rapid expansion of the revival fire, even to the remote locations of the American Frontier. James McGready, a Presbyterian minister, was one of those who paved the way for the Second Great Awakening, and his evocative Calvinist preaching triggered numerous revivals among Scotch-Irish and Scottish Presbyterians. He professed that it is the minister’s direct duty to “awaken the sinner to Christ” (1831, 217) and “convince” him “that the vengeance of God pursues him every moment” while he or she remains out of Christ (1831, 218). Thus, the operations of the Holy Spirit may “open the sinner’s eyes to see it, and makes its penalty thunder so amazingly loud and as it were flash the vengeance of God in the sinner’s face” (1831, 201). It was the Cane Ridge camp, organized by Barton Stone, McGready’s apprentice, that gave momentum to the Second Great Awakening. The interdenominational meeting was attended by 25,000 people who displayed all sorts of bodily manifestations, like hysterical laughter, screaming, falling down, jerking, crying, jumping – all of it happening on a previously unseen, massive scale. After that, Methodists and Baptists continued to organize camp meetings, which became an important element of the revival landscape. The good organization of the Methodist church, combined with systematic itinerant preaching, which advocated an accessible message of salvation with “holy knock-’em down” rhetorical power, left a permanent mark on the American soul at that time. The sermons fell on fertile ground, especially on the frontier; by emphasizing “God’s love, free grace, the ability to accept or reject the gift of salvation and a life of sanctification […], Methodist preachers offered and egalitarian message that was widely popular among the masses” (Kling 2007, 387). In New England, the self-professed heirs of Jonathan Edwards, Lyman Beecher, Timothy Dwight or Nathaniel Taylor defended revivalism and called for a general public “New Birth”. Perhaps the most successful among the Second Great Awakening preachers was Charles Finney, who enjoyed great popularity, especially at the beginning of the 1830s. His “anxious bench” (a place where becoming Christians could receive a prayer), acceptance of women’s voice in the gathering and promotion of social reforms, like abolition, became trademarks for revivalism. The outcomes of the Second Great Awakening were diverse. In terms of the political situation, the loosening of the political structure gave way to new religious groups who sought to deliver the message of the “New Birth” to all in-

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dividuals, undercutting traditional religious practices and institutions. Also, the offshoot of the Second Great Awakening was the establishment of numerous parachurch and voluntary organizations that channeled the revival enthusiasm and energy into a feasible effort to reform the society. The Third Great Awakening spans from the second part of the 19th century to the beginning of the 20th century, thus its social and historical context is directly marked by the Civil War and the painful period of Reconstruction. Also, the Third Great Awakening exhibited a very strong attachment to the social refom movements like abolitionism. Soon after, the Women’s Temperance Movement began advocating prohibition and enouraging women to engage in the crusade against prostitution and pornography. Also, the development of youth organizations such as YMCA, Epworth League or Walther League helped popularizing the revival spirit. The Third Great Awakening moved its focus from the frontier environment to towns and cities and the preachers of the second part of the 19th century, like Dwight Moody, attracted large crowds that shared the revival experience, although maybe not as emotionally excessive as in the case of previous movements. The Third Great Awakening also marked a change in revival rhetoric. As argued by Butler, the “fire and brimstone” rhetoric lost a great deal of its effectiveness: “In general, the hellfire sermons that so successfully attracted souls to Christ for Jonathan Edwards, Glbert Tennet, or George Whitefield did not provide Moody, Torrey, or Chapman with the magnet for gaining converts” (1991, 5). In consequence, “in the first two awakenings, the fires of hell were stoked under the sinner, figuratively speaking, to persuade him into repentance and conversion. In the Third Awakening, the tantalizing light of heaven was used more often than the fires of hell to draw a sinner into the bliss of eternal life” (1991, 5). The first three “great” revivals were followed by a number of further awakenings in the 20th century. It is contestable whether these further episodes of religious fervor may indeed be called “Great Awakenings”, but certainly the spirit of revivalism is by no means extinguished in America. Billy Graham’s astounding success as a preacher, the systematic growth of the Pentecostals, the religious group that is most directly linked with the idea of revival, as well as the development of Charismatics who introduced the revival message to mainline Protestants in the second half of the 20th century, prove that the American revival practice is far from declining. It has become a vital element of the American cultural landscape, continuing the tradition of the “rhetoric of the revival” established in the 18th century.

The Rhetoric of the Revival

Revivalism is a communal pheonmenon, and the presence of a talented speaker has always been its vital component. Without the delivery of such preachers as George Whitefield, Charles Finney or Billy Graham, the revivals deiscussed above would not have taken place. We have established so far the connections between rhetoric and preaching, and commented on the continuity of the revival tradition in America. The “rhetoric of the revival” discussed below is the outcome of this evolution of oratory. The “rhetoric of the revival” concerns a particular mode of preaching in which the speaker employs a wide array of patterns and communicative strategies to initiate religious conversions and spiritual regeneration among the hearers. It constitutes, as it were, the “language” of American revivalism. Obviously, this manner of delivery has undergone numerous transformations over the years, but I wish to argue that it is still possible to delineate its most universal characteristics that were particularly important for the preachers of the First Great Awakening. Revival rhetoric aims to achieve two communicative goals. It seeks to stimulate the instant “New Birth” in nonbelievers and to push those who are already believers to a renewed commitment and a stronger, better rooted faith. The rhetorical mechanisms employed by the preachers usually fulfill these two goals at the same time. What needs to be stressed in particular is the creativity behind the revival preaching. Its rhetorical originality and ingenuity is visible especially in the case of the 18th century speakers who invented a number of communicative models that were appropriated by the next generations. As the preachers of the Great Awakening wanted to turn the clock back and return to the times of pious Pilgrim Fathers and genuine godliness, they propelled the evolution of rhetoric in America. When one reads the Great Awakening sermons, their persuasiveness emerges as one of their primary characteristics. The revival rhetoric relies strongly on all types of persuasion, with a particular emphasis on the emotional appeal. The oratorical mechanisms employed in the sermons aim to evoke emotions such as fear, joy, enthusiasm, disgust, and then to amplify them. Fairly often the emo-

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tions are put on a gradation scale, increasing steadily with the consecutive points of the sermon. In other cases, they are contrasted with each other to form an antithesis. Emotions evoked by the “rhetoric of the revival” are driven by the collective character of the awakening, thus they are not just experienced by an individual member of the audience, but become multiplied by the fact that everyone around the hearer feels in a similar way. The very nature of the revival phenomenon encourages emotional persuasion. What is more, the persuasiveness of the “rhetoric of the revival” depends on the ritualistic character of the experience. The participants know that they are taking part in a religious awakening and they see the enthusiasm of others around them, so they follow the implicit or explicit suggestions of the preacher to complete the rite by sharing the feelings exhibited by their neighbors. When Whitefield, a key Great Awakening preacher, says in a sermon “I see tears in your eyes” – he implicitly reminds the hearers about the proper “revival” reaction to his words and instructs them to be emotional and to exhibit symptoms that they are expected to manifest on account of their participation in a revival service. Next, it is noticeable that revival sermons are permeated with the sense of immediacy. The preachers convince the hearers that the moment of the revival is decisive, not only for the salvation of their individual souls, but also for the collective communal salvation and, not uncommonly, that the revival is a turning point in the sacred history of the church. The hearers are convinced to undergo spiritual reformation here and now. With such a sense of urgency and gravity of the moment, the “rhetoric of the revival” is often confrontational and noncompromising. The first characteristic is visible in the preachers’ approach to whoever is seen as the enemy of the awakening cause. There seems to be a selection of such opponents: the critics of the revival, the sinners who refuse to be converted, the impostors who only pretend to have experienced the “New Birth” and, worst of all, the preachers who exhort without having been properly inspired by the Holy Ghost. These groups are decisively stigmatized and their arguments and views systematically refuted. The revival preachers, thus, cannot afford to settle for any compromise or even partly step down from their orthodox position. First, it would undermine their ethos and credibility in the eyes of the audience, second, in their view, through leniency towards the antagonists of the awakening, the salvation of the hearers, or even the whole church might be jeopardized. The “rhetoric of the revival” is also deeply experiential as it aims to bring the “New Birth” to the hearers and to reform their character. The members of the audience are to experience a number of emotions and an uncommonly extensive and quick surplus of feelings – they cannot just hear and comprehend the message, but need to be engaged and, as it were, take it in. The revival sermon is successful when the hearers are moved, and their reaction is strong enough to cause a permanent change in their behavior patterns and worldview. The ser-

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mons also seek to recreate the experience and emotions of the converted characters from the biblical stories, for example, as George Whitefield does it in his sermon Conversion of Zaccheus. The doctrine of the sermon and its theological message is thus conveyed not necessarily through logically divided arguments, but by the systematic evocation, promotion and amplification of the “New Birth”. The “rhetoric of the revival” is also theatrical. This feature is most directly visible in the sermons of George Whitefield, but the dramatization of preaching is by no means solely the province of the Grand Itinerant. The very central position of the preacher and his leading role makes him the focal point of the communicative context, and the eyes and ears of the audience are fixated on him, just as it happens in the theatre, where the spectators attentively follow the gestures and the words of the leading actors. The speaker assumes the role of a storyteller, when narrating biblical scenes or when describing the severity of God’s punishment that awaits the sinners. Yet, the theatrical nature of the revival rhetoric is visible primarily not in the patterns of description, but in its dialogic nature. The awakening sermons are filled with scenes of exchanges, some taken from the Scripture, some made up by the speaker, like the imagined conversation with a damned soul in Jonathan Edwards’ Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God. These dialogic interludes performed a number of functions. First, they increased the appeal of the sermon and rendered it more vivid, second, they made it easier to imagine the described situations and comprehend the message of the sermon, and third, they often made it possible for the hearer to identify with the characters in the dialogues. The figurativeness of the revival preaching is another of its important characteristics. The elocutio of the sermons was usually concentrated on the patterns of amplification and description. The “rhetoric of the revival” aims at an intensified emotional appeal that can best be achieved through the steady progression to the climax of the sermon. The revival speakers organized their tropes and figures in chains of parallel, or climactic sentences, paraphrasing the message to make sure the members of the audience embraced and remembered it, and endowing the descriptions with adornments, like alliterations. The primary source of inspiration was of course the Bible, yet occasionally the preachers also made references to the everyday experiences of the hearers, thus making the subject matter of the sermon easier to grasp. The topics of revival sermons revolve around a selection of ideas connected with conversion, repentance, damnation, and salvation. In a more fierce strain of preaching, the “fire and brimstone” oratory, especially the themes of hellish torments and perdition were employed by ministers to frighten the hearers into the “New Birth”. But contrary to the common stereotype, the “rhetoric of the revival” was not exclusively about damnation and very often frightening images

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of hellfire were employed to stress the significance of God’s grace and the importance of salvation. That is, they served the rhetorical function of a contrastive counterweight, leaving the hearers no other option, but to yearn for the love of God and to anticipate salvation.

The Preaching Tradition of the Pilgrim Fathers

After the discussion of the rhetorical approach and American revivalism, we need to take a detailed look at the cultural context of colonial Puritanism and the colonial pulpit tradition whose gradual evolution over three generations of settlers led to the emergence of the Great Awakening preaching. The discussion of three generations of colonists prior to the Great Awakening included in this chapter draws strongly on the analysis included in Harry Stout’s New England Soul (1986). In this book, Stout assumes a wide diachronic view of the American preaching tradition and elaborates on its development from the Pilgrim Fathers to the late 18th century, also paying close attention to the revival period and the connection between the Great Awakening and the events of the American Revolution. The foundations for the American preaching tradition were laid even before the Pilgrim Fathers managed to cross the Atlantic and set foot in the New World. In 1630, at some point aboard the ship Arabella, John Winthrop delivered an address later entitled A Model of Christian Charity. In this sermon he outlined the general principles by which the new colony was to be governed, emphasising the overwhelming commitment that the settlers were making. Winthrop advanced the idea of a community structured around faith which was to set an example for the Christian world: “For we must consider that we shall be as a city upon the hill1” and so “the eyes of all people are upon us.” The community of the Pilgrim Fathers was to inspire the rest of mankind with its piety and to offer it guidelines for true holiness. The acceptance of this privilege involved great responsibility. As argued by the preacher, if the settlers lived up to their obligations, the Lord would truly be their protector and would command a blessing on all their ways. Yet, should their efforts fail, God would withdraw his protective care and they would be made an object of ridicule in the eyes of the world. 1 This frequently quoted phrase comes from Matthew 5:14–15: “Ye are the light of the world. A city that is set on a hill cannot be hid. Neither do men light a candle, and put it under a bushel, but on a candlestick; and it giveth light unto all that are in the house.”

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A Model of Christian Charity is based on the idea of the covenant, which played a crucial role in the shaping of the New England community. The concept goes back to the origins of Puritanism2, whereby God entered into covenants with nations, as well as with individuals, and promised to uphold them by his providential might if they observed the terms of obedience contained in the Scripture. New Englanders perceived themselves as a chosen nation, selected by the Almighty to fulfil a sacred quest. Just like the peoples of Israel, they were lost, wandered, and were ultimately bestowed with a pristine land in which they could settle and live in piety. This analogy with the nation of ancient Israel is both significant and recurring in early colonial culture. The preachers of the first generation persistently drew the parallel until it became a part of the New England mentality. This comparison becomes more significant if one considers the fact that the covenant theology entailed the perspective of sacred history, according to which, embattled nations (like the people of Israel or the Pilgrim Fathers) are granted the opportunity to become God’s instruments entrusted with the holy task of preparing the world for messianic deliverance. The first generation of settlers lived by this “hope emanating from the Scriptures and from New England’s enduring identity as an embattled people of the Word who were commissioned to uphold a sacred and exclusive covenant between themselves and God” (Stout 1986, 7). The insistence on this revered and holy mission constituted the framework on which the settlers constructed their identity and sermons turned out to be an ample means of preserving it. Winthrop’s sermon outlines the covenant theology, merging the colony-to-be with the timeline of sacred history, but, as pointed out by Bremer (2008, 127), it does not provide a clear, tangible blueprint for the establishment of the settlement, apart from asserting that “whatever we did or ought to have done when we lived in England, the same must we do and more also where we go.” It is hardly surprising then, that throughout the initial years of the settlement the colonists had to struggle to formulate new patterns of religious and social behaviour, adjusting their Old Continent Puritan way to the reality of the New World. The urge to establish the “perimeter fence between acceptable and unacceptable belief and behavior” (Walsham 2006, 14) led to doctrinal controversies that centred on the extremisms of Roger Williams and Ann Hutchinson, and ultimately resulted in the banishment of the dissenters from the colonial community.

2 Winslow argues that the “naturalness of the covenant idea for Englishmen is clear enough,” since its “roots were deep in Anglo Saxon tradition and practice” (1952, 28). McGiffert (1980) provides an interesting discussion of the concept of the Covenant in Elizabethan England, and Weir (2005) investigates the role played by the Covenant theology on the New England mentality.

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The idea of the community was pivotal for the colonists – its significance is also emphasized in Winthrop’s sermon. The sense of a cooperative mission certainly had practical reasons, as it helped the colonists to stand united in their “errand into wilderness.” Yet, the sense of community was also a direct consequence of the covenant theology. Since the covenant of the whole church is nothing more than an extension of the covenants of individual members, it meant that a covenanted church should comprise only “true believers,” or “visible saints.” The pious community of the settlers struggled to establish a church that would be similarly pious and they were prepared to go to great lengths to preserve it. Consequently, each congregation was a self-sufficient entity that was able to regulate itself independently, solely by virtue of the members’ dedication and the guidance of the preacher. As argued by Gordis (2003), Puritan religion was the religion of the Word, and preaching and reading of the Bible were central to the Puritan’s faith. Similarly, Winslow points out that “to the seventeenth century Englishman – church member or not, religious or not – life on this earth had eternal consequences, and he lived out his span in that unquestioned conviction” (1952, 30), and sermons by “sound, learned, godly ministers” offered the best way to untangle the enigma of life and death to his own satisfaction and to help him employ righteousness in his life – and thus ultimately answer the most puzzling question: “What must I do to be saved?” Yet, at the same time, sermons were “authority” (Stout 1986, 23) and became a means of regulating the social, economic and political aspects of life; thus, preachers became not only the heralds of the Scripture, but also social guardians. A few distinct types of preaching evolved over the early colonial period. Fast sermons were delivered as an expression of repentance, usually after general catastrophes, like earthquakes, or plagues, and they were designed to express people’s submission to the Almighty’s will and their willingness to amend any evils that brought on them the wrath of God. Election sermons, since the first such address delivered by John Cotton in 1634, were a regular element of the New England election procedure. Unlike everyday or fast sermons, they were delivered by preachers on single occasions. Usually, the speakers stressed the need for a uniform, godly community and reminded the gathered about the covenant and their holy mission to be like a “city upon the hill.” This reminder was followed by a warning that, although personal covenants were irrevocable and permanent, the maintenance of the national covenant required responsibility, obedience and revered leaders, and if these depleted, the “errand into wilderness” would become a failure. Bremer (2008, 131) argues that the first colonists’ efforts to construct a pious church of their own resulted in the establishment of a “form of worship that pushed the reform of English liturgy to the point where it was hardly recogniz-

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able.” Usually the community would gather twice a week to listen to the preacher. Services were held in Spartan-like meetinghouses (which also served as sites for council meetings) that were by no means considered consecrated places. Winslow (1952) describes the history of the establishment of the first meetinghouses whose austere construction aimed at capturing the simplicity and purity of the “primitive” Old Testament Church. Their ascetic interior was also the result of the rough living conditions the first settlers had to contend with. During the winter it was not unusual that a baptism could not be performed because the water in the baptismal font froze. Hardly ever could the meeting house honestly be called something more than the “Lord’s Barn,” nonetheless its “position at the centre of the community signified submission to God’s power, the power that came to a people who subordinated all human authorities and institutions to the infallible sola scriptura” (Stout 1986, 14). In New England there was no set prayer book, or a sequence of prayers routinely said during the service. Thomas Lechford (1642) describes the traditional Sabbath celebration. It began with a prayer of about fifteen minutes. Next, the pastor would read and expound upon a chapter of the Scripture, which was followed by psalm-singing3 and then a sermon. Once a month, the morning service would include the Lord’s Supper and bread and wine would be blessed and distributed among the gathered. All members of the community were obliged to come to the meetinghouse, regardless of their membership of the church. Every Puritan sermon followed the structure established by the first generation of colonists and lasted for about two hours. Having expounded on the context and grammar of the Scriptural quotation, the preacher proposed a doctrine and supported it with a number of logically structured proofs – these were followed by the application of the doctrine. Generally, rich and figurative language of the Bible was reduced to a plain style and logic was given priority to verbal excess. Winslow observes that “thanks to the ‘Plaine’ style ideal, colonial preachers also spoke a language the pew could understand” (1952, 110). Thus, in his Preface to A Survey of the Summe of Church Discipline, one of the greatest preachers of the first generation, Thomas Hooker, asserts that he “accounted in the chiefest part of judicious learning, to make a hard point easy and familiar in explication” (1684, 11). Resisting the temptation to engage in elaborate eloquence and remaing plain required training and self-discipline. One of few acceptable sources for metaphors was the Scripture; the first generation preachers refrained from Latin and classical allusions and preferred to use biblical similes and analogies to make their discourses more approachable. Apart from Scrip3 Winslow (1952) observes that the issue of psalm-singing was a bone of contention among the colonists of the first and second generation. The questions of whether singing notes should permissible or not and whether women should be allowed to sing instigated fierce debate.

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tural comparisons, it was not unusual for preachers to incorporate personal and common experiences to explain and propagate “godly affections.” Sermons were traditionally delivered with the aid of notes. The surviving collections of such drafts rtestify to the astonishing amount of time and devotion dedicated, week by week, to the scholarly and pious task of sermon writing. Usually the preachers organised their texts carefully into blocks of thought that continued for a few months – looking more like series of academic lectures or essays than intelligible and approachable speeches.

The Preaching Tradition of the Second Generation of Settlers The settlers of the first generation were creators and visionaries. They tackled the great task of establishing the church of the colonies and taking their first daring steps in – to use a popular phrase from Thomas Morton’s diary – their “New Canaan.” The colonists of the second generation had to live in the shadow of their pious fathers and faced markedly different challenges. They had no Old World “homeland” to turn back to and call their own, in consequence, they invested all their hopes and expectations in New England. Also, with the failure of the Old Continent’s Puritan scheme and the restoration of monarchy in England in 1660, the sacred mission of colonists ceased to be a pious reform that they planned to introduce on their “mother church” from the outside. Yet, however fiercely they battled for the continuity with the pious heritage of the first generation, the changes taking place with time could not be undone. To Perry Miller (1953), the abandonment of the orthodox practices of the immigrant generation was caused by “laxness” that gradually weakened the grace-centred orthodoxy. Such a view is not universally shared. Some commentators, e.g. Cooper (1999) explain this tendency with the cultural shift from the concern for a community onto the concern for an individual (a process parallel to the metamorphosis of the “Puritan” into the “Yankee”). The downfall of the saint-like piety of the first settlers was an unavoidable consequence of their children’s gradual adaptation to the New World and the emergence of the American version of Puritanism. The second generation’s struggle for continuity is well visible in the baptism controversy. As the children of the immigrant settlers grew up, it became apparent that they did not always share the orthodoxy of their parents. According to the Platform of Discipline (also known as the Cambridge Platform, the document securing the theocratic character of the colonies), the settlers of the 1630s limited the privilege of baptism only to children whose parents entered the church by making a “personall & publick confession, & declaring of Gods manner of working upon the soul.” But although the children of the orthodox were recog-

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nised as church members, their own children were not entitled to be baptized, nor were they themselves permitted to partake of the Lord’s Supper, unless, like their parents, they fulfilled the criterion of a “work of grace,” made a public declaration, and became “full” members. The dispute over church admittance escalated and soon it became apparent that the strict obedience to the Platform of Discipline would have decimated the number of church members. Thus, an adjustment was proposed. The middle way, also known as the Half-Way Covenant, was a compromise necessary to prevent the erosion of the first generation’s heritage. It was based on the premise that since the half-members were the posterity of “visible saints,” they carried an element of the pious legacy that guaranteed their future conversion. Thus, provided a child of an orthodox member lived in outward conformity with God’s Word and recognized that the orthodox church was his or her way to salvation, he or she could be recognized as a Half-Way Covenant church member. Such a person would not be allowed to participate in the Lord’s Supper, nor to cast his or her vote in the matters of church, but he or she would still have to obey the decisions of church jurisdiction. Unsurprisingly, the idea of the Half-Way Covenant was condemned by a number of preachers. Some of its critics, like John Davenport, invoked even the authority of Thomas Hooker of the first generation, who claimed strongly that only parents in regular membership could have their children baptized. Setting himself in opposition to Miller’s claim about colonists’ progressive slackness, Hall points out that to “regard this redefinition of baptism as a step towards ‘laxness’ is to ignore patterns of behaviour writ large in town and church records” (2008, 146). The Half-Way Covenant was a necessary move in response to the growing numbers of adults who seemed indifferent to church membership, to having their children baptized, as well as to religious orthodoxy. Obviously, the controversy exercised a considerable influence on preaching practice, particularly in terms of sermon topics. The basic structure of the sermon remained unchanged; apart from the gradual disappearance of the typically Puritan, rigid, Ramist-like dichotomies, which in England served to distinguish the Puritan preaching from the adversary Anglican-Ciceronian rhetoric (Stout 1986, 95), the original homiletic pattern of the first generation was retained. As described by Winslow (1952, 95), the “fare is solid, the reasoning close, the tightwoven texture of logic unrelieved by light moments. There are no anecdotes, only examples from sacred and sometimes profane history. Typically, even these are in scant supply and then only to point warning or confirm faith, never for themselves alone.” The “plain style” was used with its copiousness of points and sub-points, as well as the reluctance for Latin and non-Scriptural references, but at the same time one can also observe a slow drift towards more relaxed constructions. The novelty consisted mainly in the themes and the mood of preaching. The persistent call for the regeneration of sinners, the emphasis on the

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fallen state of mankind, Christ’s offer of redemption, the decline of morality and the wrongdoers’ dependence on grace supplied by a sovereign Lord soon became characterstic of the second generation’s preaching rhetoric. Self-manifesting piety gave way to tenacious moralism. Such mood is very well captured in Michael Wigglesworth’s God’s Controversy with New England (1662). The speaker of the poem asks morbidly: Are these the men that prized libertee To walk with God according to their light, To be as good as he would have them be (…)?

The holy people of New England betrayed their mission and became corruped: Whence cometh it, that Pride, and Luxurie Debate, Deceit, Contention, and Strife, False-dealing, Covetousness, Hypocrisie (With such like Crimes) amingest them are so rife, That one of them doth over-reach another (…)?

Thus, it is God’s will that New England has to repent for the sins of its people: This O New-England hast thou got By riot, & excess (…) Thus must thy worldyness be whipt.

The concern for the perpetual moral decline continued to preoccupy magistrates as well as ministers for years. There is no surprise then that the General Court Synod of 1679 tried to answer two most important questions for the community: “What are the Evils that have provoked the Lord to bring his Judgment on New England?” and “What is to be done that so these Evils way be Reformed?” Their jeremiad-like answer to the first question included a comprehensive list of sins perpetrated by the colonists: “Oaths, and Impercations in ordinary Discourse,” “irreverent behavior in the solemn Worship of God,” “Sabbath-breaking,” the lack of regular prayer in families, “Inordinate Passions, Sinful Heats and Hatreds,” “Intemperance,” the “practice of Health-drinking,” “laying out of hair,” “naked Necks and Arms,” “Naked Breasts,” “Mixed Dancings,” “sinful Company-keeping with light and vain persons,” “unlawful Gaming” and an “abundance of Idleness” (Walker 1893). Apparently, the only way to avoid the full-scale wrath of the Almighty was to repent and return to the godliness of the immigrant generation. The establishment of Harvard was another important factor in the shaping of the New England preaching tradition. It allowed the colonists to gain independence from England with respect to the education of ministers. After a few years, Harvard graduates, born and schooled in America, representing a new, homogeneous set of views, contributed greatly to the intellectual uniformity of

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New England. The training that future preachers received at Harvard was to prepare them to take up spiritual as well as social leadership roles in local communities. Winslow observes that “even after the general level of culture dropped so woefully in the second and third generation, congregations still demanded a scholar as their minister” (Winslow 1952, 84). Every day, students of Harvard were obliged to study the Bible and attend the college chapel. They also acquired knowledge of classical languages (including Hebrew). The future ministers learnt the art of delivering sermons by listening to model preaching and then recreating and emulating it. Students also participated in biweekly speaking performances in which they defended “commonplaces” drawn from “divinity”. These rhetorical, declamative activities were designed to teach them how to talk persuasively and refute heresies. In this way, American ministerial education produced future guardians of religious orthodoxy. A new mode of sermonic rhetoric evolved as a result of King Phillip’s War of 1675–1676, the first large-scale military conflict that took place in the colonies. It was also one of the bloodiest, as it cost the lives of 1 out of every 65 colonists, and 3 out of every 20 natives (Schultz, Touglas 2000, 5). King Phillip’s War was a very hard lesson for the settlers as they faced the brutal truth that, apart from spiritual arms, they also needed physical weapons. In the eyes of the second generation preachers, who complained relentlessly about the moral decline and regretful abandonment of the piety of the immigrant settlers, the war seemed like a longawaited punishment for sins and a visible manifestation of God’s disappointment with his chosen nation. Obviously, the war triggered a change in the mode of the preaching. Prior to the conflict, the preachers spiritualized Christian “souldiery” (the pun in the spelling was widely used), which was perceived in metaphysical terms, as it is best manifested in Urian Oakes’s The Unconquerable, All-Conquering and More than Conquering Souldier (1674) or Joshua Moody’s Souldiery Spiritualized (1674). After the shock caused by King Phillip’s War, the preachers discovered the effectiveness of the appeal based on palpable military rhetoric. If the theme of the fast sermon included the feeling of guilt, fear and shame for the transgression of God’s will, the new artillery election sermons aimed at mobilization and righteous anger against the enemies of Christ. The process of sermon writing entailed strenuous study and self-examination. Edward Taylor, a preacher and poet of the second and the third generation who is particularly renowned for the employment of metaphysical imagery to explain salvation, authored Preparatory Meditations before My Approach to the Lord’s Supper, a series of two hundred and seventeen poems composed as outcomes of his contemplation of various doctrines. The poems constitute a lyrical imprint to Taylor’s spiritual discipline and preparations for the revered task of preaching and administering the Lord’s Supper.

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The second generation, just like the first one, was deeply preoccupied with the problem of salvation. However, the situation in which the chosen nation of the New World was to nurture its “grace” was changing fundamentally with the turn of the century. The theocratic, self-governing state was irrevocably lost. In October 1684, the Massachusetts Bay lost its charter, and became a royal colony where royal laws (including the Tolerance Act) were applied and had to be respected. In consequence, sola scriptura ceased to be the only regulatory rule of the colonists’ lives. The transformations of the socio-political situation of the colonies also informed the election sermons, which till then included the description of human government as perceived from the divine perspective. At the turn of the century, the election sermon, when published, turned into a long treatise, usually of about 40 pages in length. However, in spite of the changes, the myth of the people of New England as a “chosen nation” persisted and continued to serve as a pillar for colonial identity.

The Preaching Tradition of the Third Generation of Settlers The first and the second generations of colonists were rather isolated from the rest of the world whilst the New Englanders of the third generation had to learn to function in the larger Anglo-American world. The connections between the colonies and the rest of the English Crown: the presence of English ruling officials, English laws, increasing trade and military cooperation, tightened the influence of the Old World on the colonies. English culture and politics became strongly visible in colonial literature, laws, science and aesthetics, but they failed to penetrate the colonial identity deep enough to transform its core. In spite of the ubiquitous Englishness, the colonists continued to think of themselves as a chosen nation of God. As pointed out by Stout (1986, 128), “Anglicization (…) gilded the face of New England society but did not transform its soul.” The first half of the eighteenth century was also marked by the inflow of rationalist thought into the colonies. The thinkers of the Enlightenment, like Newton, Locke, and Addison, represented a mode of thinking markedly different from the Puritan one; with more faith put in reason, scientific inquiry and human perfectibility, the developing colonial culture was touched with a spirit of optimism and refreshed intellectual perspectives. One of the first colonial “rational” thinkers was John Wise of Ipswich, who equated reason with biblical authority. In his works, Churches’ Quarrel Espoused (1710) and Vindication of the Government of New England (1717), he argued for the return to a Congregational, more democratic type of colonial government. Yet, it was Benjamin Franklin, who became symbolic of the thriving ideas of the Age of Reason. He rejected Puritan thinking, with its insistence on the hopelessness of human depravity, and as-

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sumed that one’s earthly life should be dedicated to the pursuit of human happiness and self-realization. Franklin’s life is perhaps the fullest embodiment of the “self-made man” myth in American history. Interestingly, his deistic views did not prevent him from becoming a friend to George Whitefield, one of the key proponents of the revivalism of the 1740s. As rationalist works entered the libraries of American colleges, the elegant, scholarly style influenced the ministerial students. The New Englanders also had to learn different, polished rhetoric to communicate with the English authorities. Obviously, these changes did not concern smaller centres so much, but in larger ones the “aesthetics of infinite” was widely exercised (Nicolson 1959). Stout points out (1986, 133) that in sermon-writing, phrases like “stupendous,” “great,” “sublime,” “vast,” “unlimited,” “spacious,” “unbounded” were aimed at evoking an intellectualized emotional (or “sentimental”) response of “happiness,” “pleasure,” “joy,” or, more frequently, “delight.” God began to be occasionally referred to by extra-biblical labels such as the “Almighty Being,” the “Father of Lights,” the “Great Governor of the Universe,” the “Almighty Hand,” or the “Supreme Architect.” Also, with the growing appreciation of reason, a new vision of a more approachable and humane God appeared. In sermons it was not unusual for the Almighty to smile or frown. The new rhetoric and the new intellectual environment did not entail the abandonment of the immigrant generation’s covenant heritage. On the contrary, “almost to a person the ministers continued to rehearse a tradition of discourse grounded on the parallel between New England and Old Israel as peoples in covenant with God” (Hall 2008, 154). Yet, the project for the moral reform of the colonial society was to be compleated through the revival and the “New Birth” of the lost godliness. One of the greatest revivalists of the second and third generation was Solomon Stoddard. During his sixty years of service as a minister, he accomplished five seasons of “revival harvests”: in 1679, 1683, 1692, 1712 and 1718; as a gospel preacher and winner of souls, he was without a peer. It is hardly surprising then that he managed to transform the Northampton parish from a congregation of 14 people to the largest church in the Connecticut Valley. Stoddard joined harsh descriptions of hellfire with inspired calls for trust in Christ’s mercy and constantly swayed his hearers from horror to hope – in some respects, similarly to the first generation preachers. Yet, his technique was less a call for obedience of the covenant laws than a rhetorical operation designed for an emotional catharsis. In this respect Stoddard was a forerunner of the events of the Great Awakening, in which his grandson, Jonathan Edwards was to play the key role. Cotton Mather was among the loudest and most discernible voices of the third generation’s Puritanism. His epic history of New England, Magnalia Christi Americana, assumes the viewpoint of sacred history, and emphasizes the role of

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providence in the creation of the colonies. Mather’s preaching manual, Manductio ad Ministerium, on the other hand, provides an illuminating insight into the ways of the colonial preacher at the beginning of the 18th century. Its author followed a regime of self-discipline (he used to compose his sermons while on his knees) and private Bible study. The sermon would be divided into points and subpoints; it was drafted in an essay-like form and brought to the pulpit or learnt off by heart. Strict rules accompanied the composition process in which the principle of plainness and discourse fragmentation played an essential role. As in the case of earlier generations, the sermon writing remained a strenuous, scholarly task, which had to be preceded by meditation and wide reading. The preacher of the third generation moved away from the pious, scholarly model of the immigrant generation. His college education certainly distinguished him from the rest of the community, but “as compared with his first generation forbears, he was more farmer than student, less a man of large interests that they had been, but still the Big Man of his distinctly smaller world” (Winslow 1952, 200). He was a man of God, but also a man of his parishioners. It was not uncommon for ministers to perform the roles of a physician, judge, scribe, drafter of wills, petitions and other legal papers. Usually, he was also the greatest traveller in a village, although in his voyages he did not go very far away from his parish. Once a month he would attend a country ministers’ meeting; occasionally he would also visit other centres to attend to congregational disputes, Harvard or Yale alumni gatherings, or to settle a legal matter in Boston, Hartford or New Haven. However, he would never be absent long enough to miss the Sabbath. Sola scriptura continued to be the key axiom of New England. Natural calamities were still viewed as a sign of the interventionist God’s dissatisfaction with the ways of colonial life. Timothy Edwards, an 18th century American preacher and father to Jonathan Edwards, was one of those who underlined the fundamentally corrective nature of divine retribution for sins. However, the motifs of terror and damnation were not overused, more abundant were the themes of salvation and service exercised under the banner of the covenant. The third generation ministers repeatedly complained about the diminishing attendance at services, the gradual downfall of the preacher’s authority and the lack of reverence for his position in the community. Thus, they endeavoured to reverse the process of what was for them the evident manifestation of a moral decline, by a persistent emphasis on ministerial authority. Often, printed funeral sermons were used not only to solemnize the demise of a preacher, but also to elevate minister’s moral and social functions – the delivery of such sermons was frequently accompanied by elaborate ceremonies. As such, they constituted yet another symptom of the progressive Anglicization of New England. A good example of such oratory is the funeral sermon for Increase Mather delivered by

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Benjamin Coleman. Coleman praised Mather’s contribution to the spiritual condition of New England, while at the same time emphasising that preachers performed the ever important task of protecting the country’s covenant. Among the colonists, the third generation ministers were often described as God’s “ambassadors.” Their scholarly, revered “ambassadorship” stood in opposition to lay “exhorting” and preaching. An ignorant, uneducated minister or a person without proper learning was thought to pose a threat to the covenant. In contrast, the minister’s college education was a guarantee of the protection of the New England way. It is only with the revival of the 1740s and the birth of the “rhetoric of the revival” that a ministerial education ceased to be viewed as an absolute necessity for exhorting.

The Phenomenon of the Great Awakening The term Great Awakening was first introduced by Joseph Tracy to name a “religious movement” which “began in Northampton in 1734, and continued till 1742, and in many places even longer” (Tracy 1842, 1). Tracy attached particular significance to the events he was investigating mainly because of his background: he was a Congregationalist minister who received his education from Asa Burton of Thetford, a lingering pro-Awakening voice in the post-revival debate. The very name he selected from a great opulence of more or less adequate labels that had been circulating among the participants of the post-awakening debates seems significant in itself. Both words “awakening” and “revival” signify a dynamic change of status – a return to consciousness from a slumber in the case of the former, and a return to life in the case of the latter. They also imply that there is either somebody who “awakes,” or something that is revitalized. What is more, since in the case of both terms the concept of “return” is profiled, they do not suggest the formation of a new idea or object; finally, they create a certain timeline: the assumption is that if something is to be “re”-vived it must have been alive earlier, and if somebody is to wake up, he or she must have been conscious prior to falling asleep. Also, the words “converted” and “conversion,” which were used at that time, carry significant implications; one converts from a wrong theological path, undergoes a spiritual transformation, and begins to follow the orthodoxy instead of incorrect beliefs. These implications are relevant for the understanding of the Great Awakening – its proponents saw the revival as an onset of a massive conversion of the colonies, a part of the process ending in the millennium and the second coming of Christ. People who supported the Great Awakening and participated in its dissemination also perceived it as a beginning of the return to the piety of the

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earlier generations of colonists. For them, it was a re-enactment of the covenant, the founding idea of the colonial religious godliness. The very process of conversion and the change triggered in sinners through revival preaching was of deeply experiential character. People were indeed “awakened” into the awareness of their perilous sinfulness and dependence on the Almighty, and as a result they experienced the “New Birth,” a religious and moral transformation, thus becoming full members of the church. The Calvinists believed that the only factor conditioning their salvation was the work of the Holy Spirit, and without God’s arbitrary intervention man was irreparably and inescapably damned. The sermons delivered by the “awakened” ministers were supposed to contribute to the process of “awakening” people, thus language – or rather a specific use of language, the “rhetoric of the revival” – played a critical role in the shaping of the Great Awakening. The revival of religion was by no means a phenomenon unknown to colonial life. The Great Awakening needs to be studied on the timeline of similar events which appeared in different cities of America (as well as Europe, particularly in Scotland) in 1679, 1683, 1690, 1712, and 1718. Arguably, the most significant and influential revival, very close to the Great Awakening was the religious outbreak of 1735 in Northampton, mentioned in the previous chapter. The revival was piloted by Jonathan Edwards’s grandfather, Solomon Stoddard. This event helped in preparing the ground for the Great Awakening which took place a few years later, on a much wider scale. Kidd goes as far as to label the events of the 1735 the “most influential revival in the history of evangelicalism” (2007, 13). It produced the “harvest” of almost three hundred people who became fully converted within a period of six months. The revival was brought to a sad end when on June 1, 1735 Joseph Hawley, Jonathan Edwards’s uncle, slit his throat while overtaken by revivalist enthusiasm, certain of his own damnation. There are a number of factors which conditioned the outbreak of the Great Awakening. First and foremost, the revival took place during the formation of a new, “modern” society in colonies. The economic growth and the evolution of the social fabric exerted a strong influence on the shape of the Great Awakening. The spirit of Calvinism was not incompatible with the emerging 18th century American ethic of commerce, nor was it hostile to the idea of prosperity, which some colonists saw as a God’s gift for his new “chosen nation.” Also, the means of a modern society, like the accessibility of the everyday, printed word in the form of newspapers, allowed the Great Awakening to thrive and endure. The Great Awakening flourished on the grounds of a theological dispute. The strong faith in Calvinism at the beginning of the 18th century was coming into a more intensive contact with alternative or more progressive worldviews. Thus, American Puritan ministers considered the religious “heresies,” like, Arminianism, which was spreading from the Anglican Church, a dire threat to the

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orthodoxy of the colonies. In all the sermons discussed in the book, Arminianism is presented as a source of the evil which was corrupting the minds of New Englanders. This post-Reformation criticism of extreme Calvinism identified with Jacobus Arminius (1560–1609), a Dutch theologian and a professor at the University of Leyden, was espoused by the leaders of the Church of England which under the direction of Archbishop Laud loosened its connections with Calvinism. The most important reason why the ideas of rationally oriented Arminianism aroused such controversy was its claim that man is not wholly passive in the process of regeneration and actively chooses, or refuses, salvation. This theological drift from determinism was unacceptable to the Calvinist mind. The colonial society was also not free from external threats, like the menace of Catholic France and Spain. New Englanders were afraid that the great “errand” assigned to them by the Holy Spirit would be jeopardized by the pernicious Roman influence. The danger of a military conflict became even more real after the clash over the Louisburg fortress of 1744. Colonists perceived a potential war with France from the millennial perspective – it was an onset of the sacred triumph of the Reformed Church over the “Antichrist” of Rome. All these factors conditioned the Great Awakening, but the actual catalyst or – to draw from the set of metaphors used at that time – a spark that lit the fire of religious “enthusiasm” in the colonies, came from the Old Continent, in the form of a young Anglican preacher, George Whitefield. His unprecedented effectiveness in the pulpit and his innovative rhetorical appeal were influential enough to galvanize the Great Awakening and to encourage the efforts of a number of local revivalists. These included, for example, a Dutch pietist Theodus Frelinghoysen, who effectively cooperated with Gilbert Tennent in the Middle Colonies in spreading the awakening spirit. In 1740 a powerful outbreak of religious zeal took place in Fagg’s Manor in Pennsylvania, in the church of Samuel Blair, where a number of colonists began to manifest the physical symptoms of the awakening. People listening to preachers all throughout the colonies experienced fits, loss of consciousness, panic attacks and states of euphoria verging on delirium. Anti-revivalists looked down on these visible manifestations as symptoms of dangerous “enthusiasm,” fits of madness. They believed that the “enthusiasm” was a hindrance to reason and to the gradual, strenuous process of conversion, which could not take place – as argued by the proponents of the revival – in the twinkling of an eye, through the experience of the “New Birth.” Also, with the rising voices criticizing the “enthusiasm,” the problem of distinguishing between genuine conversions and fake (or Satanically-inspired) ones started to breed controversy. In his account of the revival, Blair (1744) provides a detailed report of what is to be held as “genuine” conversion of one unnamed woman. A look at this case may allow us to better understand the arguments of

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the early proponents and critics of the revival. The woman was convinced that she had neglected Christ and developed a great concern for her salvation. During a meeting of “Society of Private Christians” she attended, she “got an awful View of her Sin and Corruption, and she saw that she was without CHRIST and without Grace.” This realization came as a shock and resulted in an extreme bodily reaction, as “her Exercise and Distress of Soul was such that it made her for a while both Deaf and Blind.” The woman retained the “ordinary Use of her Understanding” and she kept on pursuing salvation. When she joined psalmsinging, it seemed to the gathered “as if she had sung out of her self,” and “it was as if the LORD had put by the Veil and shewed her the open Glory of Heaven.” The woman swayed from hope to despair over her salvation for two years, but claimed to gain most comfort by participating in the Lord’s Supper. With time, it was as if her physicality ceased to matter: “she said it seem’d to her that she was almost all Spirit, and that the Body was quite laid by; and she was sometimes in Hopes that the Union would actually break, and the Soul get quite away.” Kidd (2007, 58–59) observes that “we do not know how much Blair edited her [i. e., the woman’s] account, but the vital mysticism described in this experience seems likely to have been a fair representation of what this young woman and other penitents like her experienced during their conversions.” Blair’s report of the woman is accompanied by two other accounts of revival conversions, one of a sick man and one of a child. For both of them the ”New Birth” was blissful and serene experience. Such reports of the revival played a vital role in the promotion of the Great Awakening. Not only did they encourage the hesitant to join in, but also mobilized the converted, by stressing the experiential aspect of the ”New Birth.” The news of Whitefield’s arrival motivated two ministers from eastern Long Island, James Davenport of Southold and Jonathan Barber of Oyster Ponds, to join the ranks of the most dedicated proponents of the revival. The former was infamous for his separatist practice of personally selecting the parishioners who would be admitted to Lord’s Supper and the latter was known for his visionary wanderings. Soon, the number of cities and villages touched by the revival spirit grew rapidly – in the Elizabethtown divine, Jonathan Dickinson saw the first signals of the revival in his parish, a number of the “awakened” were reported in Charlestown in South Carolina, and in Lyme a more moderate minister, Jonathan Parsons, tried to sustain the awakening fire, eliciting, in the end, a mass religious reaction from his parishioners. It was itinerant preaching that allowed for such rapid spread of the revival. Ministers travelling between parishes and delivering countless awakening sermons (during the Great Awakening, often without consents from the appointed ministers) were strongly criticized by the established clergy and viewed as distrubers of the peace. The idea of itinerancy undermined the structure of ecclesiastical order which had been slowly forming since the time of the first gen-

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eration of colonists. It also offered some unsatisfied parishioners a spiritual “alternative” to the settled ministers, thus further eroding the already weakened bond of trust between the “shepherds” and their “flocks.” In the summer of 1741, the synod started dealing with the revival controversies which were steadily growing in numbers and the Donegal and New Castle Presbyteries took formal actions against the “roaming preachers”. In May 1742 anti-itinerancy laws were introduced to control the revival fire and to prevent the collapse of the church into disorder, but proponents of the revival notoriously refused to abide by them and continued with their illegal practice. Following this regulation, the sheriff of Hartford arrested Davenport and Pomeroy, which caused such a commotion in the city that the militia needed to be summoned (Kidd 2007, 141). Also, it was not uncommon for the preachers who wanted to promote the revival to join their efforts to elicit from the gathered crowds the most enthusiastic responses. Whitefield recalls in his journal (1960, 448) that on November 5, 1740 in Cross’s Basking Ridge congregation, in the morning, Davenport delivered a sermon; in the afternoon the pulpit was taken by another revivalist, Daniel Rogers, and the evening lectures were given by Tennent, followed by Whitefield himself. The reaction of the people was hysterical – one boy started shouting “He is come, He is come!” and many were “weeping, Sighing, Groaning, Sobbing, screeching, crying out.” Most of the congregation stayed in the barn, praying and worshipping all night long with Rogers and Davenport. With time, Davenport and Andrew Croswell, another Connecticut extremist revival preacher, increased their sectarian-like efforts to promote the Great Awakening – the former gathered a large group of followers who were enchanted by his spell and who tried to institutionalize the radical wing of the revival movement by founding a college known as the “Shepard’s Tent.” In the summer of 1740, Davenport pushed his extremism to a new level and tried to work a miracle, by healing a dumb woman, who died the day he said she would be healed, which, as one might expect, the preacher announced as his supernatural success. These unconventional practices made him the target of a wide wave of criticism. At the same time, Croswell, defending Davenport and Whitefield, entered into a bitter conflict with the Anglican commissary of Charlestown, South Carolina. Yet, the most notorious action Davenport was engaged in, the one which irrevocably crossed the line even for a number of the Great Awakening proponents, was a public burning of books on March 6, 1743. The bonfire consumed a number of works the overzealous preacher held as “unconverted” or inappropriate, and whose authors were in fact included among the group of pro-revivalists, though not the extreme ones. On September 2, the court declared Davenport non compus mentis after he was imprisoned and accused by other ministers of slander.

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After 1743 the revival was past its peak; gradually even Davenport and Croswell began to back off from their radicalism and the Great Awakening entered into another, “late” stage as the dust slowly began to settle. Small revivals still occurred and the preachers kept delivering their revival sermons, but the attention was shifted to the beginning of a long exchange of treatises with comments criticizing and praising the Great Awakening. A direct outcome of the revival was the partition of the colonial ministry and the alteration of the colonial ecclesiastical order. As observed by Stout, the “decade 1735–45 may be designed the most critical period in colonial New England’s intellectual and religious history” (1986, 208). The first and most important division line went along the two sides debating the credibility of the revival. The name “New Lights” was ascribed to the supporters of the revival, and the name “Old Lights,” was associated with its critics. The former constituted a considerable group of colonial ministers, and the preaching rhetoric of the six prominent speakers who belonged to this group is the focus of this study. The informal leader of the Old Lights faction and its strongest voice was Charles Chauncy, junior pastor at the First Church in Boston, who undertook the challenge of an impressive theological argument with Jonathan Edwards. The second line of division fractured the New Lights group, separating them into more and less radical proponents of the Great Awakening – the extremists fraction, ranking Davenport, Tennent, Croswell, and more moderate revivalists, like Edwards, Parsons or Coleman. Cornered by extensive criticism, the radical wing of the revival camp often delivered blows which indiscriminately hurt their less extremist sympathizers as well censors. Another direct outcome of the Great Awakening concerned the approach to ministerial education. A number of important critics of the revival were associated with colleges and the institutionalized church, like the rector of Yale, Thomas Clap. Thus, the New Lights favoured the view that New England’s intellectual “elites,” graduates of American colleges, ceased to perform the function ascribed to the “learned religion” by the founders of the colonies. The rise of selftaught gospel ministers and lay exhorters undermined the position of the established clergy and provoked accusations of anti-intellectualism. This scepticism towards the established ecclesiastical order was not entirely unconstructive. The foundation of a number of important educational institutions, like Princeton University, is strictly connected with the revival. The increasing conflict between the New Lights and the Old Lights triggered an avalanche of letters, sermons, pamphlets and treatises. It seems that almost each and every theological argument and observation met with the rebuttal from the other party. The American newspapers, most notably Boston Gazette, thrived on the controversy and kept on printing all the texts submitted to them, in effect, heating up the dispute as the immediate circulation of the materials increased the

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dynamics of the exchange. As a result, the Awakening pushed the religious and public debate in the colonies to a new, much more dynamic and progressive level. Some argued outcomes of the Great Awakening were more far-reaching. In his famous study on the development of the American thought in the eighteenth century (1966), Heimert points to the profound consequences of the revival movement for the events of the 1770s4. To Heimert, the Calvinist political philosophy constitutes a major factor in the development of the local community’s consciousness and in prompting the public discourse to activate and to inform men’s will. In his publication from the 1960s, he argued that “the contributions of the 18th century Calvinism to the making of the American public mind has been allowed to remain unappreciated” (1966, x) because of the lack of emphasis on the revival as a profound stage in the intellectual evolution of America. Contemporary interest in the colonial revivalism and its most important proponents seems to have pushed our understanding of the Great Awakening much further in the 21st century. Heimert’s study profiled the investigation of the Great Awakening for a number of years5. Harry Stout observes (1977) that revival itinerant preaching fashioned “egalitarian rhetoric,” which thirty years later helped to promote the ideas of independence and liberty. Similarly, Gary Nash (1979, 204, 208, 218) suggests that the antiauthoritarianism advanced by itinerant preaching, as well as the crisis of the colonial establishment triggered by the mass revivals, laid the foundations for the resistance spirit of 1776. In his opinion, the revival crisis caused a conflux of converged political, social and economic forces and dis4 A somewhat different idea of the far-reaching political consequences of the Great Awakening was proposed by John Murrin (1983), who argues that “if we are determined to attribute a major political and military upheaval to revival fervor, we would do far better to choose the Civil War, not the Revolution” (1983, 169). To him, it was in 1861, not in 1775, that the descendants of the revivalists “imposed their social vision on their fellow citizens until their reformist ardor drove an angry South to secession” (1983, 169). Interestingly, Christopher Jedrey (1979), as well as Christine Leigh Heyrman (1984) set the focal point of the Great Awakening neither in 1776 nor 1861, but in the colonial past, suggesting that the conservative revivalist movement recognized its roots in earlier religious traditions and practices. 5 The ideas proposed by Heimert did not meet with the uniform agreement of all commentators. Nathan O. Hatch (1977, 25–26) objects to the claim that the Old Light preachers were the advocates of liberal individualism. On the contrary, Hatch claims that they actually protested against the subversion of the established framework of the colonial community embedded in the Half-Way Covenant and the convention of baptism rites. On the other hand, Bruce Tucker (1986) argues that with the transatlantic collaboration of American Awakeners and English Evangelicals, the revival of the 1740s might have actually increased the colonies’ dependence on the British Crown instead of diminishing it. The most powerful and stinging blow to Heimert’s Revival-Revolution theory was delivered in one of John Butler’s articles (1982), whose telling title “Enthusiasm Described and Decried: The Great Awakening as Interpretative Fiction” succinctly summarizes the primary point of the argument – Butler not only questions the integrity of the revival movement, but even its very existence.

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mantled the stratified framework of the colonial society which was later reassembled in a new form and in the new context of Revolutionary disobedience. Most importantly, the Great Awakening left the rhetorical face of colonial America thoroughly transformed. The change in preaching rhetoric was extensive, incorporating the new expectations the audiences had for their preachers together with fresh ways of reaching out to hearers and new manners of delivery. Also, the emergence of the two polarized preaching modes, the rational and the evangelical, marked the next stage in the evolution of American rhetoric. The former, derived from the Old Lights’ preaching, was more balanced, focused on literary cadence and the initial stages of the classical process of composition: inventio and dispositio. The latter, on the other hand, characteristic of the New Lights, was primarily extemporaneous, emotional and rooted in the emphasis on elocutio and actio. This specific awakening oratory that was shaped during the Great Awakening, the “rhetoric of the revival” helped the establishment of the idiosyncratic character of the spoken word in America.

Jonathan Edwards

Jonathan Edwars, John Sartain (1808-1897) Yale University Art Gallery

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Jonathan Edwards was undoubtedly the most eminent and versatile thinker to grace early American history; any label that one might try to pin on him, be it “preacher”, “scientist”, “philosopher”, “theologian”, or “minister”, would hardly do justice to the depth and complexity of his thought. Jonathan Edwards wrote more than a thousand sermons, hundreds of letters and a number of theological treatises and today he remains one of the best studied figures of the American past, with hundreds of books and articles on his life and intellectual heritage published in the past few decades. In spite of this considerable interest, much remains to be said about Edwards. The study of his writings is an all-encompassing intellectual odyssey, and his contemporary readers are faced with numerous challenges. The reconciliation of some of his sermons being the “refined poetry of torture” (to use Harriet Belcher Stowe’s famous description) with the concepts of beauty and love which were so important for his thought would be just one of them. At the same time, there can be no discussion of colonial revivalism without the discussion of Edwards, the Founding Father of the “rhetoric of the revival” and the drafter of America’s most famous sermons. The number of studies dedicated to Edwards’s life is impressive. His first biographies, such as the works of Samuel Hopkins (1804) and Sereno E. Dwight (1830), were written at a time which was too strongly informed by the immediate context of the Second Great Awakening to obtain the necessary objective perspective, yet they still provide an important insight into how the preacher’s output was perceived in the times more adjacent to his own. Possibly the most important, and influential for the investigation of the Great Awakening in general, was the pioneering work of a Harvard historian, Perry Miller (1949). Miller’s emphasis on Edwards as a Lockean philosopher, a modernizer set in the context of colonial America, contributed to the explosion of interest in his thought. The study of Miller has now been regarded by some as too romanticized1, but it shaped the approach to Edwards for many years. Published at approximately the same time, Ola Winslow’s Pulitzer-prize winning biography of Edwards (1940) also provided the contemporary audience with a historical perspective on his life. Both these books were critical for paving the way for modern Edwardsean scholarship. Marsden’s modern biography (2003) presents diverse aspects of Edwards’s life, whilst also taking into account the cultural and intellectual complexity of the world in which he lived. Perhaps the most important for Edwards studies is the monumental work of the Yale scholars who edited and published The Works of Jonathan Edwards, led by Harry Stout as general editor and Kenneth Minkema as executive editor. The series of almost thirty volumes is described by Phillip Gura, 1 Marsden argues that “Miller’s portrait is to Edwards what Hamlet is to the actual Danish prince, a triumph of the imagination” (2003, 61).

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a former editor of Early American Literature, as the “most important such editorial project in American cultural history in the past 50 years” (2004, 149). Edwards’ life is very well documented and there are hardly any stones unturned in the biography of the Northampton divine. Like most people of his age, Edwards was a diligent diary-keeper and an avid letter-writer. His private texts offer a comprehensive insight into his daily struggles and ambitions – thus, they exemplify the life of colonial America. Also, his propensity for self-examination, visible for instance in his Resolutions, allowed for his spiritual growth to be well studied. The textual traces of Edwards’ “eighteenth century spiritual multitasking” (Minkema 2009, 23) – his religious searching, as well as the wealth of documents concerning his public and private affairs allow us to recreate his lifestory with a relatively good level of detail. The story of Edwards’s life brings together almost all of the aspects of the American colonial world. He was born October 5, 1703 at East Windsor, Connecticut into a family with strong ministerial traditions: both his father, Timothy Edwards, and his grandfather on his maternal side, Solomon Stoddard, were wellknown preachers. As a boy, Edwards underwent a strong spiritual reformation that shaped his thought and religious philosophy. Later in his life, he would go back to these experiences in his writings both directly and indirectly. Edwards entered Yale at the age of thirteen – for him the college was a place where he broadened his intellectual horizons and became acquainted with, among others, Locke’s Essay Concerning Human Understanding, a work that had a large influence on the shaping of his thought2. Since his very early years, Edwards’s mind leaned both in the direction of faith and science. Through his early publications he demonstrated not only a sensitivity to the matters of the spirit, but also the curiosity of a scientist and an acute observer of the tangible reality around him. To him, these two domains of knowledge were not mutually exclusive but, in a way, complementary. The phenomena of nature, such as the behavioural patterns of animals or the qualities of light, were a manifestation of the harmony that revealed God’s design. Edwards was ordained a minister at Northampton in the Connecticut River Valley, and an assistant to Solomon Stoddard on February 15, 1727. At that time, he also married Sarah Pierpont, a member of a storied New English clerical family. The spiritual union and the loving marriage of Sarah and Jonathan became almost legendary (cf. Dodds 1971), and was testimony to yet another feature of Edwards’s character – he put the Christian eudaimonia of the virtuous life into genuine and dedicated practice. Two years after Jonathan Edwards’s ap-

2 Morris (2005) draws a picture of Edwards’s intellectual development by looking at his education and surveying the books he read during his studies.

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pointment, the “Pope” of the Connecticut Valley died, leaving his young grandson the pulpit of one of the largest congregations in New England. In 1731 Edwards published one of his most famous sermons, God Glorified in Man’s Dependence in which he attacked the Arminian doctrine and presented himself definitely as the advocate of orthodox Calvinist thinking with its insistence on the complete helplessness of men with regards their salvation. This sermon marks a new chapter in his life, a time of emphasis on doctrine and a new commitment to preaching. Three years later, early symptoms of the religious awakening appeared in the Northampton congregation. Edwards saw people transformed under the influence of his preaching as a result of which almost three hundred new souls were admitted to the church. These events strongly informed his ministry and his perspective on the human conversion process, which he later recorded in A Faithful Narrative of the Surprising Work of God in the Damnation of Sinners (1737). This early “awakening” did not last long. Soon in 1735, the revival fire began to fade away amid an air of controversy. With the arrival of George Whitefield to the colonies four years later and the onset of the Great Awakening, the revival zeal was reignited. Edwards assumed the role not only of one its supporters, but also of its advocate and the staunchest defender of its founding principles. His doctrinal debate with Charles Chauncy, the leading voice of the Old Lights, earned the preacher of Northampton the attention of many New Englanders, both of pro- and anti-revival views. The Distinguishing Marks of a Work of the Spirit of God constitutes an important voice in the revival debate. In this commencement address, later turned into an essay, Edwards systematically and logically delineates the arguments in favour of revivalism, simultaneously refuting the principal arguments advanced by its critics. The dispute between Edwards and Chauncy was in fact a theological and philosophical conflict between two visions on religion: the post-Augustinian “religion of affections” and “rational religion” with its post-Aristotelian (and post-Thomistic) roots. The arguments deployed by both sides concerned the interrelation between emotions and religious experiences and laid the foundations to religious psychology. For Edwards, the key role of the affections in spiritual experience was beyond dispute. Not much later he expanded on these views in a monumental work, Treatise Concerning Religious Affections (1746). A few years later, a serious crack appeared in the relationships between the Northampton preacher and his congregation. Unlike his grandfather, Solomon Stoddard, Edwards did not recognize the Half-Way Covenant and was strongly in favour of the admission to the Lord’s Supper being limited to only those members that complied with the rigorous criteria of “full conversion.” This caused more and more unrest among the members of his congregation. Another bone of contention between Edwards and the parishioners was his decision to read from the pulpit the names of families whose children had been caught reading a

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guidebook for midwives, a book with a potentially corrupting influence for the youth in the eyes of the Puritan community. This provoked harsh criticism expressed by some Northampton citizens, who voted for the dismissal of their preacher. After such a long service in his parish, the expulsion must have been a blow to Edwards as well as to his family. Admirably, in his Farewell sermon ( July 2, 1750) the preacher demonstrated few negative emotions. He moved on to confront a new challenge in his life. After the dismissal, Edwards settled in Stockbridge, and became a missionary among Indians. His work there was very strenuous, as he had to learn how to function in a small town on the outskirts of civilized America, he did not know the language of the native Americans and once again his views were ostracized by some members of the local community. Winslow points out (1940 262) how the scenes of the mission to Stockbridge would seem paradoxical to any outside onlooker: “the log meetinghouse, a handful of grace-faced Indians sitting in straight rows, their blankets drawn close around them; behind the desk, one of the greatest intellects of his time, in a quiet voice saying, it is not good to get drunk.” Combating the adversities did not diminish Edwards’s creativity and dedication for writing, as it was in Stockbridge that he finished his most important theological works on the freedom of will, original sin and true virtue. In 1757, on Aaron Burr’s death, Edwards was offered a chance to return from his “exile” and become the next president of New Jersey College, the future Princeton University. In his letter to the trustees of the university he elaborates on his doubts as to whether he is a suitable candidate for the office and whether he should accept the offer. Ultimately, he agreed and moved to his new home with his family on February 16, 1758. At that time, Edwards was a strong supporter of smallpox inoculations and, right after the appointment, he decided to undergo the procedure to encourage others. He died on March 22, 1758 because of an infection which developed from the inoculation, and was buried in the Princeton Cemetery. Edwards’s legacy is as eclectic as his intellectual pursuits. He was a man of two books: the Bible and the book of nature which surrounded him. It is possible that it was exactly because of this unique blend of theological insight, genuine religious zeal and scientific interest that he was able to pursue so many innovative branches of thought. His writing is a testimony to the flow of new intellectual currents circulating between the Old and the New World and between the Age of Reason and the Puritan faith. Obviously, Edwards combated the Armianist views that allowed human potency to influence salvation. To him, grace was given to people only by the sovereign will of the Almighty. In Edwards’s comments on soteriology one can also discern the influences of Lockean thought and Newtonian physics. Edwards developed an interest in the writing of these thinkers and, in contrast to some proponents of the revivals who rejected the “new

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learning” as fruitless and disruptive to the proper faith, he came up with a theology that was not only well grounded in contemporary knowledge and expressed in the vocabulary of the Enlightenment, but also paved new ways in the direction of, for example, religious psychology. Edwards had his own theological view of the world. To him, its cause-andeffect mechanics fittingly describes nature, but does not conceal the essence of the universe, which – as an idea created by God – has no independent potency of its own and relies on its creator. His acquisition of the Newtonian world of interlocking reasons had to leave sufficient space for the Almighty as a sovereign sustainer of reality. The beauty and the harmony of the world, so important for Edwards, was the manifestation of divine excellence. Human conversion became an affection-oriented apprehension of this excellence, of being reborn and discovering the harmony of the world. A religious revival, the regeneration of a number of people at the same time was something more than just a revelation – it was a step towards the millennium, a building block for the second coming of Christ3. As one might expect, the philosophical views of Edwards had a considerable influence on his preaching, especially the style and the imagery of his discourses. His sermonic method certainly bears the marks of his father’s and his grandfather’s school of preaching. Looking back at Solomon Stoddard and Timothy Edwards, he developed a respect for the power of rhetorical imagery, structural discourse and the power of language to reform human hearts. He also owed a sense of reverence for the mission of a minister to them. In the most comprehensive study of Edwards’s preaching, a book-length introduction to Sermons and Discourses, Kimnach (1992, 27) argues that, “Edwards’s ideal preacher is, then, a figure of commanding intellectual rigor and overwhelming rhetorical power; he strikes a blow for religion simultaneously in the heads and hearts of his auditors, thought with an emphasis upon the heart. In the performance of his duty, he shows that he is the peculiarly designated servant of his Master.” Prominently because of his best known sermon, Sinners in Hands of an Angry God, Jonathan Edwards has often been perceived by the general public as a typical Puritan “fire and brimstone” preacher. Yet, the legend of his hellfire rhetoric gives a one-sided view of his pulpit oratory. Obviously, the themes of terror were not unfamiliar to him, but they constituted only a fraction of his sermonic output, and were not aimed at inducing terror for terror’s sake, but at bringing about the “New Birth” of the congregation. Unchangeably, Edwards’s goal was the salvation of his audience and he adopted all the rhetorical means he deemed necesary to achieve this aim. He sought to appeal to emotions, both positive and 3 For the discussion of beauty in Edwards’s thought see Delattre (2006), and for comments on his theology see McDermott (2000) and Lee (2000).

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negative, and reform the hearts of the listeners. At the same time, his discourse was always searching and experiential. Edwards explored the limits of language and continued to push his discourse to the point where God’s sovereign glory and salvation were visible, palpable and accessible to the hearers. This ability to mediate between the tangible and the intangible, the real and the abstract combined with vivid descriptions of divine retribution and hellfire torments, evolved into a new, appealing form of revival rhetoric. Edwards did not preach like Whitefield. His voice was a “little languid, with a tone of pathos” (Winslow 1940, 129) and, as observed by Samuel Hopkins, “too low for a large assembly, but very distinct and strangely arresting” (quoted in Winslow 1940, 129). Up to the 1740s he used to write the texts of his sermons in full, and only with the Great Awakening did he turn to sketchy notes. The delivery was not the trademark of Edwards. His sermons had another distinguishing quality, namely the “homiletical gift of structure” (Turnbull 1958, 107). Edwards’s preaching reflects his analytical thinking – as pointed out by Winslow “always there is symmetry, orderliness, design” (1940, 136). Still, especially when he acquired some practice in homiletic work, he gained the ability to wield words anyway he pleased. One particular pattern of appeal seems to be inextricably linked to the organizational formula of his preaching, namely intensification. In most of his “awakening” sermons, Edwards gradually builds up the tension and escalates the emotions of the hearers to the point of climactic release. With Edwards, the images of sermons are always in flux, constantly increasing in strength and density. As a result, his preaching is not only dynamic, but also persistent and uncompromising. Edwards’s sermons are also exceptional because of their aesthetic qualities, as argued by Turnbull (1958, 44), “by Puritan standards Edwards’s sermons are works of art.” The patterns of tropes and figures do not only adorn his preaching, but play the key role in the quest for redemption his sermons were to bring to the hearers. The preacher knew that, in view of his shortcomings as an orator, the artistry of language was the greatest asset of his pulpit. Edwards’s preachnig evolved over the years – also under the influence of his readings. Kimnach (2009) traces the development of the preacher’s style in the context of the books he was exposed to, his intellectual environment, and the interdependence of his scientific, theological and homiletic texts. For all its inadequacies, language was viewed by Edwards as a means of deliverance and searching. Interestingly, in the Preface to Discourses on Various Subjects (1738), Edwards himself assumed that his writings lacked necessary “politeness” and “modishness of style.” In his another comment, Kimnach (1992, 24) observes that Edwards rejected “style” (understood as wit and embellished extemporaneous rhetoric), not realizing that in some of his works he actually

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studies it – the “efficacious verbal expressions for which he constantly strove” constitute what he seemed to distance himself from. The sermons discussed in this chapter demonstrate Edwards’s seminal contribution to the “rhetoric of the revival.” They are also a testimony to his skill with language, as well as to his literary intuition. Thus, their study also helps us to understand Edwards’s significance for American literature, philosophy and preaching tradition.

The Future Punishment of the Wicked Unavoidable and Intolerable The Future Punishment of the Wicked Unavoidable and Intolerable was delivered at the peak of the awakening, in April 1741. It is often ranked, alongside Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God, as the greatest achievement of the preacher’s rhetorical imagery and a masterpiece of the terror-awakening sermonic tradition. As observed by White (1972, 178), “in its strategies of argument, style-composition, and disposition, his [Edwards’s] Future Punishment is meticulously and superbly designed to evoke maximum emotional response.” The following subchapter is an attempt at analysing the imagery of the sermon, especially the transitions between images and their communicative function from the point of view of Edwards’s Lock-inspired ideas about language. In order to fully understand Edwards’s genius in the use of language and the powerful imagery in this sermon, one needs to reflect on a few aspects of the preacher’s epistemology. The richness of his figurative language might be traced back directly to Locke’s empirical philosophy, with its emphasis on how the human mind develops and acquires ideas through sensory experience. To Edwards, the world remains in a crucial relationship with its creator, and, as a result, things do not exist substantially, but are fundamentally dependent on the Almighty. There is the constant process of assimilation of the finite to the infinite, though this progression can never be complete because the two can never become one. Still, all the elements of nature are compelling in that they are emanations and the “images” of the excellence, the divine and the ultimate beauty and truth. It is a part of Edwards’s belief that one can recognize and comprehend these elements through the Lockean process of sensory experience. The words in language and the images they refer to may bring one closer to the truth; just like the Scriptural figurative speech brings one closer to the comprehension of salvation. Obviously, Edwards knew that language had its limitations, which he stressed in Freedom of Will:

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Language is indeed very deficient, in regard of terms to express precise truth concerning our minds, and their faculties and operations. Words were first formed to express external things; and those that are applied to express thing internal and spiritual, are almost all borrowed, and used in a sort of figurative sense. Whence they are most of ‘em attended with a great deal of ambiguity and unfixedness in their signification, occasioning innumerable doubts, difficulties and confusions in inquires and controversies about things of this nature. But language is much less adopted to express things in the mind of the incomprehensible Deity, precisely as they are.

These comments reveal a lot about Edwards’s pulpit oratory. The preacher stresses that the meanings of language are, or used to be, essentially embodied, and the communication of abstract notions is obstructed because of the need to appropriate the physical and the tangible to the abstract. This very process is the at the root of Edwards’s rhetorical strategy in The Future Punishment of the Wicked Unavoidable and Intolerable. The method adopted by Edwards in the sermon consists in accessing the abstract through imagery based on sensory experiences. Edwards worked through words and it is language that became his medium for the pursuit of reality, both external and internal. In this perspective, the sensory images of the sermon discussed below turn out to gain a new, performative character. As they cease to be merely ornamental or persuasive oratorical techniques designed to evoke an emotional effect, they become carriers of the fragments of the infinite to finite minds. Kimnach (1988) explains how Edwards’s “pursuit of reality” and the ambition to ascertain God’s relation to the physical creation influenced his preaching style, primarily in terms of three categories: specificity, unity and intensity. The first of them involves the preacher’s power to “fix” the minds of hearers and to clarify relationships between crucial terms and concepts, by means of systematized “old logick,” as well as through images. The “unity” of Edwards’s sermonic craft allowed him to bring together the reality of the Bible and the reality of everyday colonial life. Finally, “intensity” allowed the preacher to make full use of the resources of language and imagination to construct a bridge between the material world and the spiritual world. As a consequence, in his sermons “with the intensity of an inchworm, the mind climbs ever onward and upward, striving to come to imaginative terms with the infinite and the divine” (Kimnach 1988, 114). In the discussed sermon, one can find all three of these categories of Edwards’s preaching style employed for a powerful, unified rhetorical effect. The force of Future Punishment of the Wicked Unavoidable and Intolerable stems from the image of divine anger and retribution. These concepts are expressed by means of numerous tropes such as visual, auditory and kinaesthetic metaphors as well as figures, like assonance, alliteration and antithesis. The former secure the clarity of the preacher’s thought, and the latter, the rhythm of

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the sermon. The cohesive function of figures is at the same time emphatic, as they vivify the images, dictate the tempo and gradually lead to the climax of the discourse. At the same time, the images used by the preacher are deeply emotional. White (1972, 188) points out that in the sermon Edwards tampers with a number of basic, psychological needs: the “wish for change, excitement, adventure; the desire to be secure and comfortable, both psychologically and physically, the need for satisfactory group and self status, the interest in reverence, affection, companionship, loyalty,” and that the words of the preacher are directly connected to the everyday experiences of the hearers. Just like most effective classical rhetoricians, Edwards uses the needs of the listeners against them to deploy a rhetorical stratagem that verges on emotional blackmail. He does all of this with a candid view that only such drastic rhetorical measures can reform the hearts of the unconverted. Edwards opens the sermon with particularly forceful imagery. The first image of God is anthropomorphic and highly dynamic – he manifests his great displeasure and wrath against the sinners: “Behold, I have smitten my hands at thy dishonest gain which thou hast made, and at thy blood which hath been in the midst of thee.” The direct quotation of the words of God renders the passage more vibrant, and the use of physical images of a “hand” and “blood” focuses the hearers’ attention on the physical and the carnal. Also, the Almighty is full of anger and smites his hands, “preparing himself, as it were, to execute wrath answerable to their heinous crimes.” Thus, Edwards points out that this behaviour is similar to the reaction of a human being, who when “seeing or hearing of some horrid offence (…) which very often stirs their spirits and animates them with high resentment (…), will rise up in wrath and smite their hands together, as an expression of the heat of their indignation.” This analogy makes God’s action more understandable from the human perspective, but it also performs an important cohesive function – the words of the Almighty are reinforced by the repetition (e. g., “smitten”) and his portrayal is further rendered more dynamic by the use of numerous verbs associated with rapid and decisive movement, (e. g., “rise up”). Edwards also combines the image with an emotional appeal, as almost all the epithets he uses bear strong negative connotations (e. g., “dreadful catalogue,” “heinous crimes” or “horrid offence”) and add to the communicative strength of the opening section. The preacher emphatically describes the punishment which awaits the sinners. He says that “God himself undertakes to deal with them,” and his retribution needs to be considered in three aspects, the “intolerableness,” the “remedilessness” and the “unavoidableness”. Then he reinforces each of these qualities with an additional statement, e. g., interrogative and direct “can thine heart endure?” The repetitiveness of this short passage and its dynamic character align well with

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the dynamic image from the first section. Although, here paraphrases and duplications occur after each enumerated quality, reinforcing it and, at the same time, drawing on the emotional, figurative portrayal of the wrathful God. In consequence, the hearers are presented with an intricate image of divine retribution, so to speak, repetitively “hammered” into their minds and highlighted, by the sermon’s visual imagery and logical structuring. Edwards divides the doctrine of the sermon into four sections. In the first part, he “shew[s] what is implied in God’s undertaking to deal with impenitent sinners.” The argument at this point is organized in a series of antithetical statements: “God threatens, but they despise his threatenings,” “He offers them mercy, if they will repent and return but they despise his mercy as well as his wrath – God calleth, but they refuse.” The short, monosyllabic “but” becomes the axis of contrast, bringing out the disparity between the actions of the Almighty and of the sinners. The latter remain impervious to the word of God and persistently (as iconically suggested by the repetitive tricolon of antithesis) unaffected by it. This series of contrasts is followed by another significant image, constructed around the metaphor of economy – sins are presented as unpaid debts: “Thus they are continually plunging themselves deeper and deeper in debt, and at the same time imagine they shall escape the payment of the debts and design entirely to rob God of his due.” The image seems to carry vital implications, first, that the sinners have transgressed a certain agreement and a bond of mutual trust, second, that the process of their becoming indebted is continuous and gradual. As a result, the sinners are depicted as cheaters, almost as thieves, who justifiably ought to be punished by the Almighty. This commerce-oriented image is markedly different from the initial portrayal of wrathful God – less corporeal and dynamic and more descriptive. The economic trope is again employed by Edwards soon after its first introduction: “All their sins are written in his book; not one of them is forgotten and every one must be paid.” According to Cowan (1969, 121), the “idea of God’s recording the names of impenitent sinners in a book (…) can hardly be called original; but in the context in which it is employed in the first implication of the text, it is charged with fresh meaning.” The preacher introduces the sense of newness into the cliché, by playing on the double meaning of the word “book”. It could conventionally be interpreted as the book of fate, but also, in accordance with the commerce imagery, a register where the names of debtors are entered. Another important point Edwards makes in the sermon is that the sinners “cannot avoid punishment” since God “hath undertaken to vindicate the honour of his majesty.” The speaker employs a new image – that of the sinners “trampl[ing] […] in the dust […] the honour of God.” Here, the sinners cease to be passive, and turn into active foes of the Lord. This time, the action they

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undertake is dynamic and violent – as is emphasized by the antithetical character of their deed. It is a natural man, who is bound to suffer the inevitable, as dictated by “ashes to ashes, dust to dust,” hence the idea of him trying to reverse this order, and bring the Almighty down into dust verges on heretical absurdity. A change in the presentation of the sinners is also visible in the next section of the doctrine: “Their hearts, while in this world, are very unsubdued. They lift up their heads and conduct themselves very proudly and contemptuously, and often sin with a high hand. They set their mouths against the heavens, and their tongues walk through the earth.” The sinners are portrayed as being guilty of many cardinal sins and engaged in a number of activities which may offend God. Their pride, stubbornness and impurity become their defining features and there is not a single saving quality in them. All of this creates a remorselessly negative image of the sinners – Edwards uses this all-encompassing negativity as the benchmark for a number of his arguments. The subsequent image of the sinners is, in a way, a logical continuation of the previous portrayal. Edwards incorporates military imagery into his discourse: “Notwithstanding all their fair show, and good external carriage, they despise God in their hearts, and have the weapons of war about them, though they carry their swords under their skirts,” and later, “they always continue to oppose and resist God as long as they live in the world; they never lay down the weapons of their rebellion.” Consequently, the Almighty is depicted as a king, who is about to brutally crush the mutiny: “If they will not be willing subjects to the golden sceptre, and will not yield to the attractiveness of his love, they shall be subjects to the force of the iron rod.” The two artefacts of God symbolically represent the two contrastive attitudes he has for the people: that of ruling love and reprimanding dissatisfaction. The positive character of the former is suggested by the noble metal and the royal associations it evokes, the material from which the latter is crafted reminds one of the weapons of war. One should observe that, regardless of his present attitude, God remains the ruler and the possessor of the insignia of sovereign power. The two images turn out to be relatively similar in their implied communicative message – the speaker implicitly portrays the infinite and the spiritual by means of the finite and the earthly; in the previous, commerce-oriented imagery, the sinners have violated the laws of honest barter and fair trade, in this image, they break another human law – that of the servitude and hierarchical obedience to one’s superior. The two images serve the portrayal of the sinners’ as transgressors of moral and legal order of the world. The last section of the doctrine is constructed around a series of contrastive statements concerning the knowledge of the sinners. This time, however, the speaker marks the first element of each antithesis with the word “Now,” and the second with “But,” e. g., “Now they are always questioning whether there be any

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such place as hell. They hear much about it, but it always seems like a dream. Now they are often told of the vanity of the world; but we may as well preach to the beast, to persuade them of the vanity of eternal things.” In each case, the views of the sinners (the finite, human minds) are set against the truth of God (the infinite, divine mind), and each time the shortcomings of the former become emphatically exemplified. The two series of contrasts in one single section of the sermon suggests a continued effort of the sinners to know the infinite and to outwit the Almighty – actions inconceivably erroneous from the Edwardsean viewpoint. The next image vital for the unity of the sermon is also employed in the doctrine. In a series of emphatic, anaphoric sentences that open with “There is no hope” one finds a compelling example of figurative language: “There is no hope that they can deceive God by any false show of repentance […]: for the eyes of God are as flame of fire; they perfectly see through every man; the inmost closet of the heart is all open to him.” The petrifying power of God’s eyes is emphasized by the repetition of the phrase “There is no hope,” whose pessimistically recurring echo deprives the listeners of all prospects to avoid the divine retribution. At the same time, the image, reinforced by the repetition of sounds, foregrounds the figures used in the next part of the sermon. God’s eyes are also metonymic of the Almighty – listening to the words of the preacher, one cannot help to imagine the whole face or silhouette, with one salient element – the frightful eyes of fire. In this way Edwards stimulates the minds of his hearers, inclining them to evoke a representation of God he needs for the successful appeal of his sermon. The figure is a perfect example of how Edwards craftily combines different aspects of an image: discursive, imaginative, and symbolic to create a compelling sensory picture. Edwards does not abandon the image too rapidly, and uses its potential to the fullest. Just a few sections further on, he enumerates different “scenes” where he locates the figurative sinners: “there is no hope that they shall be missed in a crowd at the day of judgement,” “they can have opportunity to hide themselves in some cave or den of the mountains, or in any secret hole of earth,” “neither is there any hope that they will be able to crowd themselves in among the multitude of the saints at the right hand of the Judge.” These images of different figurative “planes” are combined with the previously used image of God’s eyes: regardless of their location, the sinners are subjects to the all-petrifying sight of the Almighty. In the next section, Edwards uses the quotation from the Scripture: “Can thine hands be strong?” to present the sinners’ inability – the “wicked in hell will have no strength of hand to accomplish anything at all for themselves,” “they will not be able in that conflict to overcome their enemy,” “they will have no strength in their hands to do anything to appease God.” The preacher also stresses that they will have “no friend in heaven: none of the saints and angels will befriend them.”

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The strongly negative character of the passage is visible in the repetitive undermining of the sinners’ potency and depriving them of all their faculties – through Edwards’s rhetoric all that they seek and are proud of, their labour and individual strength, is not only called to question, but essentially denied. They are on the verge of figurative dehumanization – deprived of all their constitutive essentials and of the prospect of winning them back, with nothing to sustain their being. After the rebellion against God and the realization of its futility comes the punishment, in the form of imprisonment: “[the sinners] will find no means to break prison and flee,” “In hell they will be reserved in chains of darkness for ever and ever,” “it is beyond any finite power, or the united strength of all wicked men and devils, to unlock, or break open the door of that prison.” In the view of the previous arguments deployed by Edwards, the images of prison seem to be only natural. The logical implication is that the sinners, having perpetrated a crime, or staged a rebellion against authority, and having suffered a defeat must be stripped of their authority and detained to experience punishment for their offense. The prison imagery is yet another means whereby Edwards renders the abstract, theological concept of divine justice and punishment understandable to his listeners in terms of the procedure of earthly justice. The spatial imagery and the anchoring of the rhetorical perspective seem important for Edwards in the sermon. In another section, the preacher once again creates a figurative landscape, hell, in which he can locate the sinners, and which he can verbally zoom in and out, shifting the viewpoint. When perorating about the impossibility of the sinners finding a “resting place” in hell, he uses a number of adjectives and nouns denoting and connoting small size, and contrasts them with the vastness of the figurative hell he verbally constructs: “They will never find […] any secret corner […] where they may have a little respite, a small abatement of the extremity of their torment.” Edwards does not only manipulate the size of the elements in his figurative space, he also combines his imagery with the corporeal experience of thirst: “They never will be able to find any cooling stream or fountain, in any part of that world of torment; no, nor so much as a drop of water to cool their tongues”; instead, “They will be tormented with fire and brimstone; and will have no rest day nor night for ever and ever.” The feeling of thirst, a bodily sensation obviously known to all of his hearers, is prolonged to eternity (as suggested by the repetitive “for ever and ever”) and reinforced by the conventional image of “fire and brimstone.” Also, Edwards noticeably sets the singular, small source of relief – “stream or fountain” against the enormity of hell, further intensifying anxiety among the hearers by means of antithetical discord. From the verbal depiction of hell, the preacher proceeds to the climax of the series of images: “what will it signify for a worm, which is about to be pressed under the weight of some great rock, to be let fall with its whole weight upon it, to

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collect its strength, to […] preserve itself from being crushed by it?” The sinners are finally completely dehumanized and depicted as a base, loathsome creatures. In this image, God’s wrath is presented a physical object, a rock which is about to “crush” the disobedient sinners – it carries a force which is physically destructive and violent (as suggested by the meaning of the word “crush,” but also by its onomatopoeic qualities). The obvious, almost antithetical helplessness of the worm against the overwhelming weight of the rock is quickly projected onto the direct relationship between the sinners and God: “Much more in vain will it be for a poor damned soul, to endeavour to support itself under the weight of the wrath of Almighty God.” The key word for this juxtaposition, the preposition “under,” allows one to map the spatial arrangement and relationship between a worm and a rock onto the relationship between a sinner and God, with analogical hierarchy between them and analogical difference in strength and potency – the Almighty is depicted as a “crushing” rock, and the sinners are figurative “worms.” Further on, Edwards continues with the corporeal imagery, but takes it in a different direction: “yet as soon as they [the sinners] begin to feel that wrath, their hearts will melt and become as water. However they may seem to harden their hearts […] yet the first moment they feel it, their hearts will become like wax before the furnace.” The hearts of the sinners undergo a physical transformation, and the verbs utilized by the preacher suggest the change in their very substance (“harden” and “melt”), and point to purely corporeal experiences. The authority of God and his wrath become factors which can modify the very matter of things while at the same time, since wax melts in high temperatures, the Almighty’s anger becomes associated with the element of fire (which in turn might be taken back to the image of God’s fiery eyes). Edwards also appeals to the audience’s emotions by depicting the lot of the sinners in hell. The preacher asks a vital question (with an extended subiectio): “what (…) will become of them?” and provides an answer: “They will wholly sink down into eternal death.” The sufferings of the damned are depicted in a naturalistic manner: “There will be great struggles, lamentable groans and pantings, and it may be convulsions. These are the struggling of nature to support itself under the extremity of pain,” and in the very next sentence: “there are a few struggles, and throes, and pantings, and it may be a shriek or two, and then nature yields to the violence of torments, sinks down and the body dies.” Edwards creates an image in which the damned experience excruciating agony and the hellish torments lead to their demise. The preacher forces his hearers to visualize the pain of the sinners, and thus he intends to bring them as close as possible to the experience of hell, to make the unknown known. The description symptoms of the pain symptoms, a physical experience common to all his listeners, helps him in achieving his goals. Also, the description is noticeably brief and dense, and thus rendered all the more appealing. The members of the audience become

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onlookers in a verbal spectacle of a painful demise, as the preacher evokes in their minds images of hellish torments. Once again, the infinite is presented from the perspective of the finite. Having elaborated on the extent of pain, Edwards describes the endlessness of infernal torturs. Here, the figure of gradatio, gradual increase, so characteristic for the preacher, allows him to convey to the audience an iconic representation of eternity. First, he commands his hearers: “imagine yourself to be cast into a fiery oven or a great furnace, where your pain would be as much greater than the occasioned by accidentally touching a coal of fire,” then he says: “imagine (…) that your body were to lie there for a quarter of an hour, full of fire, and all the while full of quick sense; what horror would you feel at the entrance of such a furnace!,” next he orders them to envisage that they are to spend twenty four hours in that oven, then one year and then one thousand years. He ends the figurative extension of time with a climactic exclamation: “there would be no end! That after millions of millions of ages, your torment would be no nearer an end, and that you never, never would be delivered.” The emphatic repetitions of negative adverbs, like “never”, help Edwards to communicate the incomprehensible notion of eternity. This rhetorical stratagem may be divided into a few stages – at the onset, the speaker draws on the physical experience of touching a coal on fire, then he extends this readily accessible sensation, to go beyond what the members have experienced – at the same time, continuing the imagery of fire employed earlier in the sermon. All the time, he develops the consecutive elements of the image with an imperative: “imagine.” Through this short command Edwards instructs his audience on how to approach his words – he wishes that they served as a fabric for the images born in their minds. He also sets the timeline for the imagery, again going from readily imaginable and common (the temporal experience of a quarter of an hour or a day), to the uncommon (the temporal experience of a year) and ultimately to the unimaginable (the temporal experience of a millennium). Interestingly, the experience he creates by his rhetorical skill gains a textual substance of its own: “But your torment in hell will be immensely greater than this illustration presents (…) This is the death threatened in the law. This is dying in the highest sense of the word. This is to die sensibly; to die and know it; to be seasonable of the gloom of death (…) this is darkness” (underlining mine). The underlined deictic pronouns not only play meta-textual and cohesive functions, they also point to the imaginative experience evoked by rhetoric, the experience that becomes almost graspable – at the same time, by the sheer act of pointing it out, they reinforce it. This seems to be the rhetorical climax of the sermon, and all further images serve to reinforce the experience of hellish torments and to prevent the audience from forgetting it. The application seems to play a particular role in the reinforcement of the sermon’s imagery: “What hath been said under this doctrine is for thee, O im-

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penitent sinner, O poor wretch, who art in the same miserable state in which thou camest into the world.” An extended apostrophe, consisting of four repetitive addresses, each containing the phrase “for thee,” allows the preacher to engage the listeners, and to shift their communicative role in the speech-act from a passive one, to an active one. Interestingly, the preacher does not address his hearers as one group, but rather issues individualized addresses – in this way, each member of the audience is drawn into a more direct communicative relationship with Edwards and the ideas he proposes. At the same time, the epithets selected by the preacher discredit each individual listener, and set him or her among the ones who will suffer the torments described in the sermon: “for thee, who are yet unconverted, and still remainest an alien and stranger, without Christ and without God in the world. They are for thee, who to this day remainest an enemy to God, and a child of the devil.” This address is followed by another series of images. The first one, “This is the wrath that abideth on thee; this is the hell over which thou hangest and into which thou are ready to drop every day and every night,” is reminiscent of the most famous sermon by Edwards, Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God, but in The Future Punishment of the Wicked Unavoidable and Intolerable the idea of sinners hanging over inferno is not so extensively elaborated on. Edwards also juxtaposes God’s wrath with God’s divine love to men: “For, as great as it [i. e., wrath] is, it is no greater than that love of God, which thou despised. The love of God, and his grace, condescension, and pity to the sinners, in sending his Son into the world to die for them, is every whit as great and wonderful as the inexpressible wrath.” Putting the vivid depiction of hell in the larger context of the Almighty’s love of men seems to be a communicative necessity for Edwards. In the major part of the discourse the preacher instigates fear and abhorrence, which are in this section remedied by God’s charity – here the audience is given a relief from the oppressive imagery. This short sentence is in fact crucial for the communicative success of the whole sermon: without the psychological equilibrium between love and wrath, and without a possible remedy to the sinners’ hopelessness at the sinner’s station, the sermon would only evoke terror – here, the preacher endows it with the power to convert. The final element of Edwards’s figurative strategy in the sermon consists of proving to his listeners their inadequacy, which becomes visible when their skills, abilities and power are contrasted with the omnipotence of God. The preacher achieves the effect by adopting yet a different rhetorical mode – the images of absolutes. He poses a number of rhetorical questions, like “What art thou, when dealt with by the strength, which manages all this vast universe, holds the globe of the earth, directs all the motions of heavenly bodies from age to age, and when the fixed time shall come, will shake it to pieces?” and employs hyperbolical statements, like “The great mountains, the firm rocks, cannot stand before the power

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of God. He can tear the earth in pieces in any moment; yeah he can shatter the whole universe, and dash it to pieces at one blow.” The enumeration of the elements of the landscape which offer no resistance to the power of the Almighty stresses his omnipotence; it also allows the preacher to once again persuasively manipulate the perspective of imagery. With all the listed elements being like disposable objects in the hands of God, the implied portrayal of the Almighty is that of a statue towering above the whole creation. When recounting the spiritual power of God, Edwards uses the language of worldly experiences and once again brings his hearers one step closer to the divine truth. To stress human limitations in the confrontation with divine power, the preacher also employs animal imagery. The wrath of God is conceptualized as “a lion of the forest; an angry wild beast” which can “easily tear such as one as thou [i. e., sinner’s] art in pieces”. By analogy, the sinful member of the audience, the addressee of his words may easily become a victim to a “little thing, a little worm or spider” – the implication that once again points to the absolute supremacy of the Almighty. Finally, the preacher goes back to the imagery of fire, and asks his hearers to visualize a burning building, and an insect consumed by the flames: “You have often seen a spider, or some other noisome insect, when thrown into the midst of a fierce fire, and have observed how immediately it yields to the force of flames.” This last image brings together three vital figurative motifs of the sermon: the symbolism of fire, the helplessness of men and the omnipotence of God. Thus, it serves as a figurative summary of the sermon. This analysis focuses primarily on the imagery of the sermon. Such a detailed look at the evolution of the images and the changes they undergo is necessary to appreciate how meticulous and consistent Edwards was in his rhetorical pursuits. The images bring the hearers closer to the infinite – they render the unreachable reachable, and they do so by constructing a bridge between the physical, and the spiritual, the abstract. Interestingly, with the kaleidoscopic fluctuation of imagery, its changing themes and metaphors, the main focus of the discourse does not change – the stubbornness of the sinners and their inability to reconcile with the Lord remains continuously in the communicative spotlight of the sermon. No matter what metaphorical lenses the speaker and his hearers assume, it is “the wicked” that constitute the centre of the imagery, persistently untransformed and morally deprived. This has an interesting provocative effect on the audience – when seeing their staunch resistance and inability to reform their hearts, the hearer is ready to exclude himself or herself from the sinful group, and to allow himself or herself to be carried away by the power of Edwards’s “rhetoric of the revival.”

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Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God No study of the rhetoric of the Great Awakening preachers would be complete without the analysis of Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God. Most people with at least a passing familiarity with American history and culture would recognize the title of the Enfield sermon and readily associate it with the eighteenth century colonial revivals. One could risk a statement that it is perhaps the best known and most important sermon in the history of America and American literature, as observed by Gallagher: “there will never be an American literature without Sinners” (2000, 202). It is not surprising therefore that, for a number of reasons, a comprehensive analysis of the sermon turns out to be a most challenging task. First, while looking into Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God, one cannot focus solely on the text in question, but also on the abundant critical literature. Numerous aspects of the sermon have already been investigated by almost three generations of commentators, beginning with the publication of the first comprehensive article by Edwin Cady (1949). Unlike other sermons discussed in the book, whose rhetoric is often investigated here for the first time, the following discussion ought to be treated as an attempt to enrich the already existing opulence of critical reflections on Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God. Secondly, because the sermon is very well-known, it has been employed to create a number of stereotypes concerning Edwards. Both visions of the Enfield sermon as categorically “typical” and “atypical” for the preacher seem pitifully reductive in their treatment of a sermon packed with terrifying images of hellfire, as recorded in Robert Lowell’s Mr. Edwards and the Spider, but, at the same time, “full of love and passionate artistry” (Sweeney 2009, 133). Any attempt at analysing the sermon will inevitably involve reflection on these stereotypes. Finally, one has to consider the complexity of the text itself – aside from its rhetorical richness and compelling imagery, one also has to look at the deeper philosophical senses and inexplicit communicative strategies hidden under the verbal layer and interwoven with it. As argued by Davidson (1966, 79), this “extraordinary sermon deserves all the rhetorical and metaphorical analysis one can bring to it, for it is in its way a true work of art.” In his classical essay on rhetorical strategies in the Enfield sermon Cady (1949) discuses the imagery of the sermon. He draws a rather impressionistic line between “cliché” and “fresh” figures, insisting on the fruitlessness of the former and the communicative potency of the latter. Cady also points to the experiential grounding of some images in the sermon, arguing, e. g., that the idea of “sliding” one’s foot was very homely to colonists who at winter would stride through icy roads. Lee Stuart (1976) calls the notoriety of the sermon as a relentlessly negative message of terror into question, and places strong emphasis on the fact that some hearers were “comforted” by the sermon. He argues

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that, since at the end of the sermon the preacher offers his addressees the images associated with salvation, the genius of Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God lies in the transitions between despondency and hope, and the post-climatic rhetorical movement from the former to the latter. The sensual tactility of the sermon constitutes the focus of the analysis by Steel and Delay (1984) – they look into how the preacher manipulatively appeals to the images of, e. g., “touching,” “tasting,” “temperature,” “downward motion” to achieve the intended psychological effect. If Cady (1949) sees imagery as the driving communicative force of the sermon, Rosemary Hearn (1985) argues that the logical structure of Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God is the most salient element of the sermon. To prove this point, she collects different arguments advanced in the “Reasons” section of the discourse and arranges them into syllogistic structures. Lemay (1993) pays special attention to the effect of “immediacy” Edwards achieves in the sermon. He also very insightfully investigates the changes in the syntactic categories of the discourse, in particular, in grammatical tenses and the fluctuating meaning of personal pronouns. An interesting approach to the central image of the sermon was proposed by Lukasik (2000), who looks at it through the perspective of the Edwardsean appropriation of Newtonian physics. The gravitational force which so persistently draws the sinners downward is the ultimate figurative portrayal of the “immediately apprehensive effect of God voluntarily exercising his infinite and divine influence” (Lukasik 2000, 8). Gallagher (2000), trying to “finish” his “business” with Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God, as the title of his article suggests, adds yet another approach – he focuses on the “beat” of the sermon, and on how consecutive structural elements of the discourse serve different persuasive aims. Stout focuses on Edwards’s fragmented notes of the sermon and argues that the two-page long sketch sets the spark to the preacher’s “rhetorical dynamite” (2009, 50). Also, cognitive linguistics has been used to investigate the shifts of the sermon’s imagery and the hermeneutic process behind its reception (Choin´ski 2014). Yet, still the questions asked by Cady more than half a century ago have not been comprehensively answered: “Why, then, was Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God so successful in its mission of reducing previously blasé Enfield, Connecticut, to shuddering terror? Why has it become the classic of hell-fireand-brimstone preaching which so long shut out our view of the tender-minded and philosophic Edwards? (…) what made the sermon so very effective? Where lies the spring of its success?” (1949, 62). This analysis will be another attempt to answer Cady’s questions. It will focus on the process of a “deictic shift,” by means of which Edwards not only, as suggested by Lemay (1993), made certain concepts readily accessible to his hearers, but also rhetorically forced the audience into the experiential framework of the images. This rhetorical effect was achieved by

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Edwards through diverse operations on grammar, imagery as well as the structure of the sermon. Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God was delivered twice. When Edwards read it out for the first time, he did not leave his own Northampton unmoved, but the sermon failed to generate such a powerful effect as during the second delivery. The latter took place on July 8, 1741 in the second meetinghouse of Enfield. Unlike the people of neighbouring Suffield, who underwent a powerful reformation, the congregation in Enfield remained resistant to the numerous attempts of different itinerant preachers to break their spiritual lethargy, and to rekindle the revival fire (Marsden 2003, 219–220). Yet, Edwards’s “rhetoric of the revival” took his listeners’ hearts by storm. Among those gathered to listen was Rev. Steven Williams, who in his diary gave the following account of the sermon’s power (quoted in Medlicott 1980/1 1): We… then went over to Enfield where we meet Dear Mr. E[dwards] of N[orth] H [amptom] He preached a most awakening Sermon from those words [in] Deut. 32.35 and before [the] Sermon was done there was a great moaning & crying out throughout the whole house: what Shall I do to be Saved – oh I am going to Hell – of what shall I do for a Christ, etc. The Shrieks & crys were piercing & Amazing. After Some time of waiting the congregation were still So that a prayer was made by Mr. W[illiams] & after that we descended from the puliptt and discoursed with the people – Some in one place & Some in another and & Amazing the power [of] God was Seen & Severall Souls were hopefully wrought upon that night. Oh the cheerfulness & pleasantness of their countenances that received comfort. Oh that God would strengthen & confirm. We sang an hymn & prayed & dispersed the assembly.

In the sermon Edwards himself delineates the communicative objective behind Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God: the “use of this awful subject may be for awakening unconverted persons in this congregation.” Cady (1949, 63) describes the goal of the sermon in a more extensive way and argues that Edwards sought to “stir the heart, to stimulate the soul, to turn the whole man to a devoted search for the springs of grace within him,” in other words, to exercise the “most powerful use of all weapons of appeal at his command.” In view of the above account, it is apparent that he was more than successful. As pointed out by Marsden (2003, 221), “Sinners is an awakening sermon” – and that was exactly the communicative function it performed. It is neither a prototypical example of “fire and brimstone” preaching which aims to terrorize, nor is it solely a consolation sermon. It is a unique category of the “rhetoric of the revival” in itself. In any analysis of the sermon, one has to consider Edwards’s views on the human condition and the freedom of will – in particular, his insistence on man’s absolute dependence on God, and, in consequence, on the refutation of the Arminian doctrines. These views created the intellectual background for the imagery of the sermon, especially for the central, title image of the sermon. With

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no causation and no will, the sinners in the hands of an angry God, had nothing to support their existence. Edwards’s orthodox preparationism dictated that conversion was unachievable by the sinner alone and had to be fed to the recipient’s heart by, for example, verbal images, originating in the Scripture. The figures of the sermon were the most unobtrusive and most direct vehicles of the abstract concepts Edwards used in his theology. Also, for the contemporary recipients of the sermon, hell and damnation were real and tangible, and as ordinary as, for example, natural calamities. The Bible was the axis of their reality and the Word constituted their all-important point of reference. In consequence, the Scriptural images were not communicatively “fruitless” as they prepared the ground for the rhetorical message carried by more innovative figures. The form of the sermon is a good example of the Puritan homiletic scheme outlined in the second chapter. The hermetic, logical structure serves the preacher as a framework for a wide array of persuasive rhetorical techniques, including the imagery. The majority of the figurative images in the sermon are drawn directly from Deuteronomy 32: 35, “Their foot shall slide in due time.” As expected, at the beginning of the sermon, the preacher “opens” the text of the Bible, explaining its implications that serve him to deploy the doctrine. Edwards’s choice here neatly aids his rhetorical goal – it is not only that the passage concerns the theme of God’s wrath and vengeance on people, but it also foregrounds the cognitive framework for the majority of the figures used in the sermon. As observed by Lukasik (2000, 236), the idea of “sliding” one’s foot succinctly conjoins the “biblical certainty of natural man’s depravity and the scientific certainty of universal gravitation to explicate God’s absolute sovereignty in all things.” But it is not only that, as the idea of “sliding” down to hell, that is, of a descending movement, from the sermon’s onset introduces the notion of vertical architecture of the imagery which frames the central image of the sinners held over hell by the hand of God. This vertical arrangement has, naturally, axiological implications, as it evokes the spatial metaphor: good is up, down is bad. The sinners move downwards, thus they fall into hell not only in terms of figurative space, but also conceptually and morally. In his explanation of the text, Edwards draws on these initial implications, and seeks to explicate and strengthen them – he first stresses that the damned are “always” exposed to the Almighty’s vengeance, second, he observes that they are liable to a “sudden” fall, and they cannot foresee its time, third, they fall down not because somebody pushes them, but because their own weight pulls them down, and finally, they have not fallen so far because God’s “appointed time is not come.” The preacher explains that “God won’t hold them up in these slippery places any longer, but will let them go; and then, at that very instant, they shall fall into destruction; as he that stands in such slippery declining ground on the edge of a pit that he can’t stand alone, when he is let go he immediately falls and is lost.”

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In this fourth implication of the Scriptural text, for the first time the addressees of the sermon are presented with the central image of Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God. It is critical to observe how meticulously Edwards constructs the figurative background of the image. Throughout the sermon, he consistently resorts to words and phrases that imply vertical perspective or vertical movement, like “hold somebody up,” “let somebody go,” “fall into something,” “declining ground” or “the edge of a pit.” One should also notice that God is presented anthropomorphically, and his most salient element is the metonymical hand which exerts a physical, kinaesthetic influence on the sinners – its dynamic force stands in vivid contrast with their passive sinfulness, represented figuratively as their weight, one that unavoidably pulls them down to hell. Just as in a number of other appealing sermons, the preacher renders the spiritual experience more comprehensible by the appeal to the physical. Also, the very wording of the doctrine is persuasive – especially, when juxtaposed with the implications of the Scriptural text the speaker so forcefully lays out to his hearers at the beginning. Edwards stresses the unavoidability of God’s wrath, signalled to the audience especially by the emphatic repetition of the adverb “always”. The preacher stresses the ease with which God can exercise his sovereign power and subdue people. In order to communicate it illustratively, he likens the sinners to rebels. He juxtaposes the earthly and the heavenly: “Sometimes an earthly prince meets with a great deal of difficulty to subdue a rebel, (…) but it is not so with God.” This disjunctive contradiction reinforces the contrast between the power of men and the power of God. To highlight it further, the preacher uses yet another image – “they are as great heaps of light chaff before the whirlwind; or large quantities of dry stubble before devouring flames” – in which God’s power is shown as a series of unstoppable and uncontrollable natural calamities. With each figure, the emotional potential of the images increases, gradually leading the hearers to the rhetorical climax of the speech. It is partly because of this progressive organization of the sermon’s imagery that the “deictic shift” at the end of the sermon may take place. The next image seems to push the emotionality of the discourse even further: “we find it easy to tread on and crush a worm that we see crawling on the earth; so ‘tis easy for us to cut or singe a slender thread that anything hangs by; thus easy is it for God when he pleases to cast his enemies down to hell.” Man is implicitly equated to a loathsome, helpless creature who occupies a descending position in the axiological hierarchy of nature. Edwards asserts that the sinners “deserve” to be cast into hell – in this way he stresses that they are subject to the workings of divine justice. God’s wrath and his hand are in this respect the lawful executors of a well-deserved penalty. The preacher portrays this concept through a symbolic, military image: “The sword of divine justice is every moment brandished over their heads, and ‘tis nothing but the hand of arbitrary mercy, and God’s mere will,

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that holds it back.” Interestingly, the image once again reinforces the vertical framework of the sermon: the authority of the justice comes from a source located “higher” in the hierarchy of beings, thus its legitimacy to bring justice is further morally and spiritually reinforced. The preacher continues his peroration, arguing that the sinners are already under the sentence of the “law of God, that eternal and immutable rule of righteousness that God has fixed between him and mankind,” he also stresses that they are the subjects of the same divine anger as the damned in hell. Here Edwards employs an interesting stylistic technique to stress the immediacy of their damnation by rhetorically “freezing” the image of all the elements that serve the divine retribution. The enumeratio, the listing of parallel syntactic structures and the use of the present tense creates the impression that all the means of the infernal landscape are set in an impatient wait for the sinners: “The wrath of God burns against them, their damnation don’t slumber, the pit is prepared, the fire is made ready, the furnace is now hot, ready to receive them, the flames do now rage and glow. The glittering sword is whet, and held over them, and the pit hath opened her mouth under them.” The suspense is symbolic the sinners’ position and their helplessness. They can do nothing but passively wait for the action of the hand of God, motionless against the verbal canvas of the hellish imagery. Thus, the preacher stresses that the demons of hell are impatiently expecting the sinners: “The devils watch them; they are ever by them, at their right hand; they stand waiting for them, like greedy hungry lions that see their prey, and expect to have it, but are for the present kept back.” Edwards creates a vivid picture of what awaits the wicked in hell. All elements of the inferno – the abyssal landscape as well as the demons dwelling there, remain in active anticipation. The preacher’s perspective is like a verbal camera, an introspective view over hell, registering all its elements. Also, by stressing that all the elements of the hellish creation are fixed on the sinners, the preacher reinforces their feeling of helplessness and the fragility of their condition. The only thing that prevents the wicked men from falling into damnation is the sovereign will of the Almighty, who only temporarily withholds the execution of his wrath. This helps Edwards to prove that his hearers should not trust their present healthy constitution or feeling of safety, as these cannot help them avoid divine retribution. The preacher presents his arguments as well-known truths, (“The manifold and continual experience of the world in all ages, shows that”), and introduces a vivid description, which goes back to the central image of the sermon: “Unconverted men walk over the pit of hell on a rotten covering, and there are innumerable places in this covering so weak that they won’t bear their weight, and these places are not seen. The arrows of death fly unseen at noonday; the sharpest sight can’t discern them.” The speaker gives the threat of damnation a rhetorical form of a commonplace and an analogy. The first image once again situates the

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sinners above hell and their fall is inevitable in the course of time. The arrow image, together with the “sword” of divine justice, belongs to the military imagery of the sermon, and links it to Psalm 91: 5: “Thou shalt not be afraid for the terror by night; nor for the arrow that flieth by day.” Thus, one might say that Edwards once again establishes the force of the image in his preaching both by means of the physical and sensual experience, as well as the authority of the Bible. Edwards stresses that men’s “prudence and care to preserve their own lives” is meaningless. The preacher supports his point here with evidence from the Scripture, and quotes a succinct subiectio, question and answer, from Eccles. 2:16. “How dieth the wise man? as the fool.” Edwards also argues that although some people may flatter themselves to be able to escape damnation, their efforts are futile. The boastful sinner becomes a symbol of a flawed view of salvation, and when the hearers are presented with his erroneous way of thinking they canot but test the mettle of their faith. Notably, at this stage of the sermon the preacher still employs indirect, rather than direct means of addressing his audience. Having elaborated extensively on the hopes one might have about escaping hell, Edwards again emphatically contrasts them with the unavoidable “reality” of damnation. The conjunction “but” signals a communicative turn, and draws the line between the delusional hopes of the finite minds of “natural” men and the infinite, inescapable truth: “But the foolish children of men miserably delude themselves in their own schemes, and in their confidence in their own strength and wisdom; they trust to nothing but a shadow.” Here, the speaker assumes the rhetorical persona of a moral critic, who lectures others. He speaks from the position of authority, which he obviously gains by his social rank as a preacher, but his authority is also the product of sheer language. He assumes the right to pass judgments on others – best visible in his use of the derogative “fools” and the dismissive phrase “but a shadow.” This rhetorical authority strengthens Edwards’s other points, but at the same time, it becomes an argument in itself. In this way the preacher subordinates his hearers, and makes them comprehend their own hopelessness. The emotional despondency of the damned is presented as an overwhelming sense of abandonment: “In short, they [the sinners] have no refuge, nothing to take hold of, all that preserves them every moment is the mere arbitrary will, and uncovenanted unobliged forbearance of an incensed God.” The sentence is quintessential of the part of the sermon in which the message of hopelessness and helplessness of the sinners is persistently forced into the hearers’ mind with every sentence and every rhetorical “beat.” No wonder that Lemay (1993, 189) observes that “even reading Edwards’s sermon is an emotionally exhausting experience.” Edwards offers no consolation or hope in the initial part of the sermon, instead he overpowers his listeners with his rhetoric, and almost literally brings them to the ground.

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In the application of the sermon, Edwards begins to push his discourse in the direction of the deictic shift, and, at the same time, he further intensifies the imagery of the sermon. The very first sentence suggests a minor change in the focus of the preacher’s rhetoric: “The Use may be of Awakening to unconverted persons in this congregation.” The demonstrative pronoun “this” points to the speaker’s immediate communicative context and the group of addressees. Edwards anchors the sermon there, and promptly begins to mix the images from the previous part of the sermon, which he so strenuously constructed, with the reality of the Enfield meetinghouse: “That world of misery, that lake of burning brimstone is extended abroad under you. There is the dreadful pit of the glowing flames of the wrath of God; there is hell’s wide gaping mouth open; and you have nothing to stand upon.” The semantic difference in the proximity between the two deixis “this” and “there” gradually begins to vanish, as the figurative hell and the reality of the Enfield meetinghouse become merged. The deixis of time, rooted in the grammatical present tense (“is”), the personal deixis (“you”), and the spatial deixis (“this,” “there”) become rhetorically transformed. It is not only that the “natural men” of finite minds gain a glimpse of the infinite, as was the case in The Future Punishment of the Wicked Unavoidable and Intolerable presented above, but for the moment of the delivery of this part of the discourse, the congregation gathered to listen to the preacher, in their minds actually become the sinners in the hands of an angry God. Maintaining this effect, the preacher continues to expand his imagery. Earlier on, the listeners witnessed the verbal spectacle of what was happening to the sinners, now the experiences of the damned become their experience, including the sensation of the heaviness of sin: “Your wickedness makes you as it were heavy as lead, and to tend downwards with great weight and pressure towards hell; and if God should let you go, you would immediately sink and swiftly descend and plunge into the bottomless gulf.” The analogy between sin and “lead” emphasizes the sinners’ wickedness, but also gives it a physical character, in consequence, sin becomes more realistic and graspable. The preacher adds to the above yet another rhetorical strategy of pathos. He emphasizes that the whole creation turns against the addressed: “the earth would not bear you one moment; for you are a burden to it; the creation groans with you; the creature is made subject to the bondage of your corruption, not willingly; the sun don’t willingly shine upon you to give you light to serve sin and Satan; the earth don’t willingly yield her increase to satisfy your lusts; nor is it willingly a stage for your wickedness to be acted upon; the air don’t willingly serve you for breath to maintain the flame of life in your vitals, while you spend your life in the service of God’s enemies.” The lengthy enumeration of the elements of nature which will spurn the sinners testifies to their wickedness, and the extent of the shame they should be experiencing. At the same time, the sinners are singled out, and left alone in

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the verbal landscape of the “natural” world. The preacher emphasizes in many ways that the damned are lonely and miserable. At the same time, nature becomes a metaphorical instrument which God uses to execute his vengeance: “There are the black clouds of God’s wrath now hanging directly over your heads, full of the dreadful storm, and big with thunder” and “your destruction would come like a whirlwind, and you would be like the chaff of the summer threshing floor.” One should notice that the word “hanging” in the image of stormy clouds evokes the vertical arrangement indicated earlier in the analysis. Edwards’s consistency in the building of his sermonic imagery allows him to produce a coherent figurative framework for the sermon, as seen in the next image: “The wrath of God is like great waters that are dammed for the present; they increase more and more, and rise higher and higher, till an outlet is given, and the longer the stream is stopped, the more rapid and mighty is its course, when once it is let loose.” The passage obviously recalls the destructive force of the biblical deluge, but at the same time, it is quintessential of Edwards’s figurative strategy, the intensification formula, aimed at overpowering the listeners. A wide selection of alliterations, assonances and consonances (for instance, in “if God should only withdraw his hand from the floodgate, it would immediately fly open, and the fiery floods of the fierceness and wrath of God would rush forth with inconceivable fury”) helps to intensify the image, and to render it more vivid. The preacher also depicts the wrath of God as weapons of war: “The bow of God’s wrath is bent, and the arrow made ready on the string, and Justice bends the arrow at your heart, and strains the bow, and it is nothing but the mere pleasure of God, and that of an angry God, without any promise or obligation at all, that keeps the arrow one moment from being made drunk with your blood.” Once again, these means of war are selected by Edwards to signify the idea of divine justice. Here the preacher attempts to “freeze” the dynamic image. The bow is set straight, and put in the anticipation of the release of an arrow – short phrases at the beginning of the sentences suggest the immediacy of the discharge. One cannot fail to notice that by mentioning “blood” the preacher takes the physicality of the imagery to the next level – he not only makes the bow physical, by the words which denote the resistance of matter confronted with force: “bent,” “bends” and “strains,” among others, but also points to the consequences of the arrowhead piercing the human body, the appearance of blood. The ideas of physical pain and death return to the discourse – in order to strengthen them, the preacher once again employs the deictic shift – “you are thus in the hands of an angry God”. The most forceful image of the sermon, the one that earned it the label of the “Spider sermon” and inspired Robert Lowell, returns to the idea of metaphorical “suspension.” Perry Miller defines this image as “climactic” for the sermon (1949, 145), and Baumgartner finds in it a sense of “metaphysical beauty” (1963, 324).

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Beyond a shadow of a doubt, it increases the emotional force of the discourse, placing more pressure on the audience: “The God that holds you over the pit of hell, much as one holds a spider, or some loathsome insect, over the fire, abhors you, and is dreadfully provoked; his wrath towards you burns like fire; he looks on you as worthy of nothing else, but to be cast into the fire; he is of purer eyes than to bear to have you in his sight; you are ten thousand times so abominable in his eyes as the most hateful venomous serpent is in ours.” Edwards personifies God, ascribing him emotions of “natural men” – the rage and disgust of the Almighty are the outcome of his scrutiny of the sinners (one should notice words connoting the sense of sight in the passage: “to look on sb.,” “purer eyes,” “to have sb. in one’s sight,” “to be sth. in one’s eyes”). The emotions ascribed to God are not ungrounded and impressionistic, Edwards makes them perfectly understandable by suggesting that they are the outcome of the Almighty’s visual inspection of the sinners. The hearers are left to infer that their sinfulness is somehow physically manifested, and in the divine “pure eyes” it is something hideous. This might be viewed as yet another rhetorical technique Edwards uses to debase his hearers – he continues the stratagem with a series repetitive negative statements: “you hang by a slender thread, with the flames of divine wrath flashing about it (…); and you have no interest in any Mediator, and nothing to lay hold of to save yourself, nothing to keep off the flames of wrath, nothing of your own, nothing that you ever have done, nothing that you can do, to induce God to spare you one moment” (emphasis mine). The repetitive series of “nothing” and “no” is a verbal expression of Edwards’s theological emphasis of man’s helplessness in the “natural” world, in particular, the denial of free will and man’s influence on his salvation. The preacher also suggests that the truths advanced in the sermon are inexorable and incontestable – no connections, no physical action, nothing his listeners might undertake will soothe the Almighty’s wrath – as Edwards persistently hammers into the hearers’ minds. Edwards also explains the nature of the Almighty’s wrath. He first stresses that it is the “wrath of the infinite God,” and then likens it to the anger of an earthly ruler. The disproportion between the two is stressed by hyperbolic expressions and emotional comparisons: “All the kings of the earth before God are as grasshoppers, they are nothing and less than nothing: both their love and their hatred is to be despised.” Next, the preacher elaborates on the “fierceness” of divine wrath and this time he gives rhetorical testimony to the Almighty’s fury by using a number of exclamatio (exclamation) and erotema (rhetorical question): “Oh! then what will be the consequence! What will become of the poor worm that shall suffer it! Whose hands can be strong? and whose heart can endure? To what a dreadful, inexpressible, inconceivable depth of misery must the poor creature be sunk, who shall be the subject of this!” – the congeries, accumulation of figures represents the emotional havoc experienced by a person who would try to

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comprehend the power of God’s anger. The preacher also describes the wrath directly by a tricolon of epithets – all three adjectives carry very strong semantic content, and when conjoined together, formulate a powerful portrayal of the Almighty’s wrath. At the same time, Edwards stresses that his hearers are “here (that is, in the reality of the Enfield church, but also implicitly in the figurative reality of the sermon) present, yet remain in an unregenerate state.” Interestingly, this is also one of few passages in the sermon where the preacher offers his listeners some hope: “Now God stands ready to pity you; this is a day of mercy; you may cry now with some encouragement of obtaining mercy: but when once the day of mercy is past, your most lamentable and dolorous cries and shrieks will be in vain.” This brief passage stands out from the persistently pessimistic tone of the sermon. The words of the preacher seem like a surprising, indirect permission for those assembled to cry for mercy, while throughout the rest of the sermon Edwards stresses the purposelessness of any such action. Thus the glimpse of optimism the preacher offers his hearers at this point gains an indirectly performative character – it becomes a call for moral reformation and an impulse for awakening. Also, to make the address more powerful and urgent, Edwards stresses the fading temporality of this chance (in, for instance, “when the day of mercy is past”), and suggests that the time for the hearers to ask forgiveness is now or never, limiting the timeline of the limited space. To provide yet another compelling figurative illustration of man’s helplessness when faced with God’s anger, Edwards extends a quotation from the Scripture into a pragmagraphia, a rhetorical description of an action: “If you cry to God to pity you, he will be so far from pitying you (…), instead of that he’ll only tread you under foot: and though he will know that you can’t bear the weight of omnipotence treading upon you, yet he won’t regard that, but he will crush you under his feet without mercy; he’ll crush out your blood, and make it fly, and it shall be sprinkled on his garments, so as to stain all his raiment.” The execution of the Almighty’s vengeance is depicted in physical and kinaesthetic terms – on the one hand, it goes back to the vertical hierarchy Edwards introduced earlier (God towering over the sinner), on the other, it brings forth the idea of a destructive physical force, as suggested by the words “bear,” “treading” or “crush,” whilst blood which “flies” from the crushed body gives the image additional dynamic quality. God’s omnipotence has substantial, devastating impact on the sinners’ body. Its representation, almost reminiscent of peine forte et dure – the torture of pressing, projects an image of the Almighty as a merciless executioner, who carries out the sentence without a moment of hesitation. Edwards expands his figurative description of anger, and incorporates yet another emotional appeal into the sermon, as he explains to his hearers: “you shall be tormented in the presence of the holy angels, and in the presence of the

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Lamb; and when you shall be in this state of suffering, the glorious inhabitants of heaven shall go forth and look on the awful spectacle.” Gallagher observes (2000, 213) that “The third point gives a synopsis of the four acts of the play Damnation, on its everlasting run at the Celestial Theatre.” Edwards adds to the diverse emotional fabric of the sermon the feeling of despondent shame. The sinners, like any wrongdoers are exposed to public humiliation. Edwards creates a figurative scene in which their torture is considered a spectacle: “when they [i. e., “glorious inhabitants of heaven”] have seen it [i. e., the fierceness of God’s wrath], they will fall down and adore that great power and majesty.” Both the damned and their suffering are objectified, and the prospect of the absolute exposure of their pain to so many viewers might be argued to deprive them of their dignity. Edwards’s rhetoric turns them into objects of embarrassment, reminding one of the criminals publicly put into stocks or gallows, and thus deprived of any intimacy in their suffering. Finally, Edwards hyperbolically stresses the fact that God’s wrath is “everlasting,” and shows the impossibility of the human mind to grasp this concept: “When you look forward, you shall see a long forever, a boundless duration before you, which will swallow up your thoughts, and amaze your soul.” The preacher gives an infinite timeline to the images he forces on his hearers, and manipulates the idea of temporality, just as he manipulates spatial relations with the verticality of imagery and the creation of the figurative “scene,” stretching God’s anger into eternity, taking it beyond “millions and millions of ages.” Edwards utilizes the emotional havoc created through the numerous appeals of pathos, as well as through the imagery of the sermon to reduce the mental distance between the reality of the Enfield church and the figures of the sermon. He observes judgmentally: “And it would be a wonder if some that are now present, should not be in hell in a very short time, before this year is out.” The words “this” and “there,” “now” and “in a short time” once again coalesce – the addressees are transported into figurative framework to share the experience of the suffering of sinners. The preacher then abruptly ends the effect, and tears the two realities apart from each other: “they [the sinners] are crying in extreme misery and perfect despair; but here you are in the land of the living, and in the house of God, and have an opportunity to obtain salvation.” The word “but” becomes the axis for the argumentative turn and reorganizes the discourse. The offering of hope at the end of the sermon, which is so important for the interpretation of Lee Stuart (1976), turns out to be located not only in the final apostrophe, but also in the section discussed, close to the “deictic shift.” Earlier in the sermon, different rhetorical stratagems allow the hearers to envisage and experience the sufferings of the damned, now their unexpected end forces them to compose themselves, and to appreciate the fact that at present their “here” is not “there” of the inferno – in consequence, the sermon turns into the direction of hope, and the prospect of “obtaining salvation.” The fact that such a change

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takes place at the end of the sermon proves that Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God is by no means just a discourse designed to terrorize and frighten. At the final point of the sermon, Edwards introduces an elaborate apostrophe to different groups of people in the audience. He gives the address such a rhetorical form that, while directing his words at the collective audience, at the same time directs them at individuals (thus, by personal appeal, rendering the discourse more forceful). First, the preacher extends a vision of salvation which is set in an open contrast with the prospect of damnation: “To see so many rejoicing and singing for joy of heart, while you have cause to mourn for sorrow of heart, and howl for vexation of spirit! How can you rest one moment in such a condition?” The exclamations and rhetorical questions are aimed at an emotional appeal, but are markedly different from those of the earlier sections of the sermon. Here Edwards does not instigate negative emotions, and aims at enthusiasm and passion among his hearers. Next, with the honorific “sirs”, he addresses the group of the elderly: “Don’t you see how generally persons of your years are passed over and left, in the present remarkable and wonderful dispensation of God’s mercy?” Edwards also directs his words at “young men and women” whom he tells, in a form of a rhetorical question, not to “neglect” their “precious time.” In a semi-flattering manner, he points out that the young people “especially have now an extraordinary opportunity,” which might be interpreted as an attempt at increasing their self-esteem. Edwards also contrasts this praise of the “opportunity” with a more pessimistic vision of what would happen if the young failed to grasp the chance: “it will soon be with you as it is with those persons that spent away all the precious days of youth in sin, and are now come to such a dreadful pass in blindness and hardness.” The third group addressed by the preacher consists of “children that are unconverted” – in this appeal the preacher overtly seeks to frighten his hearers: “don’t you know that you are going down to hell, to bear the dreadful wrath of that God that is now angry with you every day, and every night?” The final address of the preacher is a forceful, emotional and motivational call for action. He briefly reminds his hearers about the dreadful terrors of hell, and asserts: “Therefore let everyone that is out of Christ, now awake and fly from the wrath to come. The wrath of almighty God is now undoubtedly hanging over great part of this congregation: let everyone fly out of Sodom. Haste and escape for your lives, look not behind you, escape to the mountain, lest you be consumed.” The vocabulary Edwards uses in the address fits the imagery used throughout the sermon. He uses the word “fly” in the meaning of “run away from,” but, at the same time, one cannot overlook the fact that its semantics include a very salient idea of the ascending movement. Similarly, the idea of awakening carries such connotations. The hearers are once again set into the framework of the metaphorical up is good/down is bad, and find themselves

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encouraged to rise up to goodness, moving contrary to the gravitational descent associated with sinfulness. Thus, in this final section of the sermon, the preacher forcefully advocates the conceptual reversal of the negative and its transformation into the positive. In terms of the structural persuasiveness of Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God, this final appeal shows the rhetorical genius of Edwards – throughout the whole sermon he accumulates and intensifies a great potential of negative emotions, which is subverted only in the final appeal – it is exactly because of this disproportion that the address turns out to be so forceful. It removes the unbearable mental tension from his hearers’ minds and so becomes in itself a form of salvation. In consequence, the consolation is more likely to achieve the effect of “awakening the congregation,” which the preacher declared at the onset of his discourse. This analysis of Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God does not give an ultimate answer to all of the puzzling questions it presents. One can only speculate whether – to draw on the title of Gallagher’s article (2000) – the critics’ business with “Sinners” will ever be fully “finished.” It seems that only by looking at this sermon from the dynamic, functional angle, and taking into consideration its rhetorical and structural opulence, is one able to comprehend at least a part of the persuasive power of the “rhetoric of the revival” in the Enfield sermon.

The Distinguishing Marks of a Work of the Spirit of God The sermon studied below, The Distinguishing Marks of a Work of the Spirit of God, Applied to That Uncommon Operation That Has Lately Appeared on the Minds of Many of the People of This Land: With a Particular Consideration of the Extraordinary Circumstances with Which This Work is Attended, was delivered as a commencement address at Yale on September 10, 1741. Its printed version, with the preface of William Cooper, was published a year later in Boston “with great enlargements.” Edwards was invited to deliver the public address to account for the numerous revivals taking place at that time, as well as for the notorious misdoings of James Davenport, who seriously damaged the credibility of the awakening. Edwards produced a “raging endorsement” (Marsden 2003, 233) of the revival and successfully countered a large number of arguments raised against it. The analysis below demonstrates how the preacher was able to undermine the accusations of the Old Lights and how he marshalled the arguments of the discourse. Because of the considerable length of the published version of the sermon, the discussion below is limited to only those elements of the speaker’s language which help us to depict the strategies of Edwardsean “rhetoric of the revival” in a doctrinal debate.

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The Distinguishing Marks needs to be discussed in its immediate historical context, which so strongly influenced Edwards’s use of language and selection of arguments. First, we need to remember that the preacher speaks from the position of a defender of the Great Awakening. Obviously, in the sermon, as a means of shielding it, he attacks his opponents directly and indirectly, but his initial communicative position is that of an advocate of the revival. Edwards assumes in a few sections of the sermon the type of discourse characteristic for judicial oratory, in which the speaker’s primary task is to prove that the defendant is not guilty of the alleged crimes. In The Distinguishing Marks the preacher becomes the attorney of the Great Awakening. As observed by White (1972, 183), the sermon’s communicative purpose is to “convince-reinforce-actuate.” This is visible in the diversity of rhetorical proofs and strategies used by the preacher. Obviously, when Edwards was delivering his sermon he had to account for the fact that the Old Lights had a very recent sense of the excesses the Awakening might lead to – as explained by Goen: “It was doubtless a calculated risk to come to New Haven on the heels of James Davenport and speak so calmly of the turbulence that was threatening to engulf the whole colony. But at that time Edwards was attempting to steer between the hard Scylla of Old Light hostility, soon to turn repressive, and the swirling Charybdis of New Light enthusiasm, soon to exceed all bounds of propriety and sound religion” (1972, 56). Thus, the context forced Edwards to deploy calculated and precise rhetorical weapons against the sceptics and to manoeuvre his words in such a way as to refute the criticism and improve the public image of revivalism. The language of the sermon is direct and the arrangement intuitive – Edwards evidently wanted to make his point crystal clear to his listeners, and put the primary emphasis not on the structural complexity, but on the communicative force. After a short explanation of the Scriptural text, the preacher first tries to neutralize the arguments of his opponents. Interestingly, he does not so much refute them, but gradually undermines their basic validity. He seeks to show that from the nine most often discussed flaws in the behaviour of the awakened (like the bodily manifestations, the “terrorizing” sermon rhetoric or the vitriolic religious disputes) none is the indication of “whether it be the work of the Spirit of God or no.” Interestingly, the fact that in his discourse he moves from the negatives to the positives enhances his argumentative position – in the first part of the sermon, he undermines the credibility of his opponents, disarming them and making them more susceptible to the argumentation that is to follow. Next, Edwards enumerates “sure, distinguishing, Scripture evidence” of the work of the Almighty and observes an action may be seen as godly, if it for example, raises the esteem of Jesus as the son of God and saviour of the world, if it leads people to turn from corruption and lust or if it increases the reverence for the Holy Scripture. Finally, he proceeds to the application part in which he

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forcefully concludes that the revivals are “undoubtedly, in the general, from the Spirit of God,” warns the adversaries of the Awakening of the possible consequences of their actions and gives some advice to the sympathizers of the New Lights. The opening of the sermon plays a vital role in the shaping of its overall argumentative strategy. Edwards begins by saying that “The apostolic age, the age in which apostles lived and preached the Gospel, was an age of the greatest outpouring of the Spirit of God that ever was; and that bother as to the extraordinary influences and gifts of the Spirit, in inspiration and miracles, and also as to his ordinary operations, in convincing, converting, enlightening and sanctifying the souls of men.” Such an opening allows the preacher to place the awakenings on the timeline of sacred history, thus opening the field for his further point that the awakenings of the 1740s constitute a stage in the development of the church and a prefiguration of the millennium. In the opening Edwards also contrasts this “outpouring” with the “counterfeits” of the Devil, who “was abundant in mimicking both the ordinary and extraordinary influences of the Spirit of God”. In this way Edwards introduces another source of argumentation that he is planning to draw from – that of a contrast between God’s word and Satan’s plan to subvert it. Through this opposition, the preacher presents the antithesis of the divine truth and corrupted falsity, two concepts which are vital for his examination of the Old Lights’ claims. In the opening part Edwards also explains his communicative objective: “my design therefore at this time is to show what are the true, certain, and distinguishing evidences of a work of the Spirit of God, by which we may proceed safely in judging of any operation we find in ourselves, or see in others.” He also proposes to “take the Scriptures as our guide in such cases.” The tricolon of epithets in the sketch of his design lays emphasis on what the preacher takes as the main focal point of his peroration – the validity of the truthfulness of the revivals. The declaration to centre his attention on the Bible may be argued as serving an explicitly persuasive purpose – at the same time, in a number of sections of the sermon he draws his claims from different sources, like the recent history of the Church, science, human nature or psychology. One may even argue that it is exactly the diversity of the preacher’s argumentation that renders the sermon so effective. Edwards starts the discussion of “negative points” with a proposition that God “wrought in an extraordinary manner (…) as to surprise both men and angels” and reverses its logic – if something is unusual in its nature, it does not mean it cannot come from the Almighty. He also refers to the authority of the Bible without a direct quotation: “The prophesies of Scripture give us reason to think that God has still new things to accomplish, and things to bring to pass that have never yet been seen.” Communicatively, his reasoning is thus reinforced with the

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ad veracundiam, the eristic argument of the appeal to authority. Three sentences later he turns this text into an indirect accusation and an argumentative trap: “We ought not to limit God where he has not limited himself.” This sentence implies the criticism of the “extraordinary” constitutes a voluntary action against the Almighty and his divine providence. Interestingly, the preacher does not yet refer his arguments to his historical context and avoids mentioning the Great Awakening directly. His considerations gain a somewhat universal character, thought, for the audience it was obvious that his words ought to be interpreted in the context of the colonial revival. At the beginning of the sermon, Edwards does not combine this universality with antagonistic rhetoric. He speaks as the collective “we,” and uses the verb “ought to” which indicates a recommendation, rather than obligation. All of this sets the initial mood of the sermon as reproachful and authoritative, but not directly confrontational. Edwards provides a brief characterisation of the “extraordinariness” of the revival: people gained an “extraordinary conviction of the dreadful nature of sin (…), or seem to have extraordinary views of the certainty and glory of divine things,” and “consequently on those apprehensions, are probably moved with very extraordinary affection of fear and sorrow, desire, love or joy,” also the “work that is wrought on people’s minds seems to be carried with very unusual swiftness, and the persons that are thus strangely affected are very many, and many of them are very young.” The description is needed by Edwards to render his discourse more appealing to the audience, as he starts explaining his reasoning through more concrete examples. The quoted passage offers the preacher such a perspective and allows him to present an indirect assessment of the revival. Obviously, as in narratio, the second part of a model judicial speech, the preacher fashions the description in such a way as to make all its details aid his general purpose of defending the Great Awakening. Edwards explicates the reason behind people’s “extraordinary” demeanour – it is a new “sense of things,” an awakened spiritual conscience. To him, such an explanation makes the extraordinary conduct of revivalists perfectly excusable – and it is exactly “extraordinary,” so in no way abnormal or threatening. Another argumentative means adopted by Edwards is retorsio argumenti, turning the alleged argument of his opponents against them: “The extraordinary and unusual degree of influence (…), if in its nature it be agreeable to the rules and marks given in the Scripture, is rather an argument in its favour” – the preacher expounds his point: “for by much the higher degree that is in, which is in its nature agreeable to the rule, and so much the more evident and manifest is that conformity.” Edwards does not simply refute his opponents’ arguments – he questions their very basis and reveals that the criticism of the Great Awakening unavoidably leads to a non sequitur.

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In his next point, Edwards uses the stereotypical behaviour of the elderly as an argument and links it to the Old Lights’ conservative approach: “There is a great aptness in persons to doubt of things that are strange; especially it is difficult for elderly persons, those that have lived a great while in the world, to think that to be right which they have been never used to in their day, and have not heard of in the days of their fathers.” Here, again the preacher does not try to counter the arguments of the other side, but, verging on argumentum ad personam, questions their ability to pass clear and sound judgement. He reinforces his point with an analogy, stating that “in the apostles’ days” the Jews similarly approached the “new” teachings of Christ with a great deal of reservation. Edwards sets the Great Awakening in the context of the history of Christianity, suggested at the onset of the sermon, and goes back beyond the “days of their fathers” to look for historical and Scriptural examples to reinforce his points. The preacher also emphasises that a “work is not to be judged of by any effects on the bodies of men; such as tears, trembling, groans, loud outcries, agonies of body, or the failing of bodily strength”; to prove it he first adopts the biblical evidence: “there is no rule of Scripture given us to judge of spirits by, that does, either expressly and indirectly, exclude such effects on the body.” The Text is once again resourcefully used by Edwards as the ultimate authority and guideline – the common knowledge and human ignorance that may suggest the negative judgement of the physical symptoms of the awakening have to yield to the authority of the Bible. Edwards employs also other means to support his claim. He uses the sense of community and emphatically outlines his reasoning as if it consisted of undeniable facts and logical axioms: “There are none of us but what suppose, and would have been ready to say it, that the misery of hell is doubtless so dreadful, and eternity so vast, that if a person should have a clear apprehension of that misery as it is, it would be more than his feeble frame could bear.” The preacher explains the physical symptoms of the awakening in terms of the relationship between the human mind and the flesh, thus the extraordinary behaviour of the awakened is presented as a perfectly explainable function of the body. Edwards mentions that he focuses here on “human nature” whose laws are to him a source of authority. To make the feelings of the awakened more understandable, the preacher constructs an analogy between the extremity of hell and the battlefield: “We see the nature of man to be such, that when he is in danger of some calamity […], he is ready upon every occasion to think that now it is coming: as when persons’ hearts are full of fear, in time of war, looking on themselves eminently exposed; they are ready to tremble at the shaking of a leaf, and expect the enemy every minute, and to say within themselves, ‘now I shall be slain’.” Edwards gives a very realistic description of what a soldier experiences during battle, of his anxiety, panic and the premonition of death. In the view of the analogy, the bodily manifestations of the revival are explainable through the

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normal impulses of human nature, provided that one accepts the implied premise – the experience of warfare and the apprehension of hell are similar in the way they affect human psyche. Proving this premise is the next argumentative objective of the preacher. To do so, he moves from the imagery of warfare towards typically “fire and brimstone” images. These seem reminiscent of the Enfield sermon he delivered two months earlier: “If we should suppose that a person saw himself hanging over a great pit, full of fierce and glowing flames, by a thread that he knew to be weak […] and saw nothing within reach, that he could take hold of to save him; what distress would he be in?” This particular rhetorical mechanism adopted by the preacher is designed to evoke a strong emotional reaction. Edwards here gives his hearers a figurative insight into the mind of an awakened person and into his or her emotional distress. To reinforce this effect, the preacher employs a series of rhetorical questions, which directly encourage the audience to consider the predicament of the sinner: “And would not he be ready to cry out in such circumstances? How much more those that see themselves in this manner hanging over an infinitely more dreadful pit, or held over in the hand of God, who at the same time seems to be exceedingly provoked?” This whole persuasive stratagem, the proposition followed by two images and a series of rhetorical questions, is one of the most complex techniques Edwards adopted to support the message of this sermon. In the same section, the preacher also employs a different strategy. When he argues that fainting and trembling in religious distress are rationally explainable – “therefore ‘tis not at all strange that God should sometimes give his saints such foretastes of heaven, as to diminish their body strength” – he supports this point by two examples from the Scripture: that of Queen Sheba losing her consciousness before Solomon, and of the jailor who falls trembling before Paul and Silas. These proofs fulfil his initial declaration of taking the text of the Scripture as the authoritative source of what is right and true. Also, the preacher underlines that the “trembling” of the Quakers cannot be accounted for in the same way, as their allegedly fake experiences stand against the “real” awakenings of Saul and the jailor. Edwards asserts that “The root and cause of things is to be looked at, and the nature of the operations and affections that persons’ minds are under, are what are to inquired into, and examined by the rule of God’s Word, and not the motions of the blood and animal spirit.” One cannot help noticing that Edwards extends Scriptural authority by combining it with, on the one hand, his personal views on the validity of certain religious doctrines, and, on the other hand, an extra-Scriptural psychological insight. Edwards also seeks to dismiss the objection that the revival causes needless hubbub and turmoil in the colonies. First, he once again observes that commotion is natural in any emotional situations: “And when was there ever any such

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thing; since the world stood, as a people in general being greatly affected, in any affair whatsoever, without noise or stir? The nature of man will not allow it.” Edwards presents the argument with a rhetorical question and a hyperbolic statement (“since the world stood”), he also bases it on the general assumptions concerning human nature. At the same time, the preacher makes a reference to the first coming of Christ’s kingdom, “by that remarkable pouring out of the Spirit in the apostles’ days, […] occasioned a great stir and ado everywhere.” Such an analogy not only enhanced the credibility of the awakening, as is the case of the earlier sections of the sermon, but also greatly elevated its importance. Edwards presents the revival as a crucial element of the divine plan behind human history – in this view, any contestation of the revival is groundless and naive. The critics of the revival are presented as adversaries of God, who not only try to impose “limitations” on the Almighty, but also seek to hinder his divine plan. In the discussion of another “negative point” concerning the Great Awakening, Edwards assumes the tone of a scientist who has an insight into human psychology. He declares: “I see no manner of need of bringing in the help of the Devil into the account that we give of these things; nor yet of supposing them to be of the same nature with the visions of the prophets” and observes that “human nature, under these vehement and intense exercises and affections of mind, which some persons are the subjects of, is all that needs be brought unto the account.” The declaration is followed by a short descriptive examination of extreme emotions and, what is more pertinent to the point in question, of their impact on human conduct. Edwards appeals to reason, and stresses the logic through, among others, a very orderly, deductive structuring of the passage – he employs diverse arguments and arranges them in such a way as to appeal to hearers with different expectations and different views: this last point aimed at the addressees with strong faith in the “new learning”. Edwards’s approach to the accusations that the revival fosters a solely terrorising type of sermonic oratory is particularly interesting. The preacher himself occasionally made ample use of “hellfire” imagery, so his elaboration on this point may be regarded to a certain extent as the apology for his own style of preaching. Edwards does not try to deny the fact that the proponents of the revival use imagery and language which evokes fear and dread, instead he seeks to explain the source and purpose of such rhetoric. Edwards encourages his hearers to accept the hypothetical assertion that a “hell of such dreadful, and neverending torments” indeed exists physically and makes them recognise the resourcefulness of “hellfire” oratory by asking rhetorical questions: “why is it not proper for those that have the care of souls, to take great pains to make men sensible of it? Why should not they be told so much of the truth as can be?” Edwards also introduces a personal perspective into the discourse: “If I am in

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danger of going to hell, I should be glad to know as much as possible I can of the dreadfulness of it: if I am very prone to neglect due care to avoid it, he does me the best kindness, that does most to represent to me the truth of the case, that sets forth my misery and danger in the liveliest manner.” By doing so, he provides a personal, authoritative comment about the usefulness of hellfire preaching, suggesting its importance for people’s spiritual welfare; what is more, the preacher sets an example for people as to how they should appreciate such sermons. Edwards’s personal insight introduces yet another implication – if people fail to recognise the importance of such preaching, they either consider themselves free of the danger of damnation, or they lack the proper understanding of matters. Clearly, the latter implication might be understood as a personal reprimand. Edwards stresses that ministers should not be criticised for their insistence on the new rhetoric of preaching, as they are fulfilling their duties and seeking to deliver their congregations from sin. At the end of the section, Edwards once again repeats his main line of argumentation – he uses retorsio argumenti and dismisses the alleged accusation against the New Lights: “Some think of it as unreasonable thing to think to fright persons to heaven; but I think it is a reasonable thing to endeavour to fright persons away from hell.” The argument becomes more effective through the use of a reversed parallel construction. Edwards seems to stress that terror is not the communicative objective of “hellfire” rhetoric, it is its by-product, as the ultimate objective of an awakening preacher is the reformation of souls. Finally, to summarize his point, he employs another eristic technique, namely the redefinition of the word “fright”. The preacher suggests that in the context of the awakening preaching it ceases to denote “sudden causeless fear, or groundless surprise” and ought to be connected with a “just fear,” one that people feel when they are concerned with their salvation. A similar point is made by the preacher in the next part of the sermon, in the second “positive evidence” – “The influence of the Spirit of God is yet more abundantly manifested, if persons have their hearts drawn off the world, weaned from the objects of their worldly lusts […] by the sense of the excellently of divine things, and the affection they have to those spiritual enjoyments of another world, that are promised in the Gospel.” This sentence is quintessential for Edwards’s views on the ultimate goal of preaching – delivering people from their sinfulness and evoking in them the “New Birth”. In the third part of “positive evidence,” promoting the idea that a genuine work of the Holy Spirit is accompanied by the greater regard for the Bible, Edwards employs very interesting imagery, this time however, he does not seek to picture men’s helplessness and absolute dependence on God, but aims at emphasising the importance of the Scripture. The preacher manages to do this by manipulating the images associated with the Text. The Bible plays a vital role in the conflict between God and Satan. It is a figurative source of light: “Would the

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prince of darkness, in order to promote his kingdom of darkness, lead men to the sun?” and “The Devil […] has done all that has been in his power to extinguish the light and to draw men off from it.” Thus, the Scripture becomes symbolically combined with the ideas of knowledge and salvation, but Edwards also stresses its different ecclesiastical application. It is Satan’s “constant plague” and the “main weapon which Michael uses in his war with him” – to prove this quality of the Bible, he quotes the Book of Revelations: “’tis “the sword of the Spirit”.” Edwards also observes that every part of the Scripture is a “dart to torment the old serpent: he has felt the stinging smart thousands o times; therefore he is enraged against the Bible.” The excess of figurative periphrases iconically stresses the great significance of the Text. Such figures are not limited to this section of the sermon only, but this passage stands out from the rest of the discourse in terms of the intensity of the imagery. In the “Objection” preceding the application, the preacher goes back to the biblical symbolism of light and issues an extensive warning against “those false prophets, which the Apostle [ John] speaks of, in whom the Devil was transformed into an angel of light.” Edwards warns people not to believe the outward deceptiveness of Christ’s enemies and argues in favour of using the Scriptural “marks” to distinguish between truth and falsity – to this end, the preacher gives a selection of authoritative references from the Bible. The addressees of Edwards’s sermon could have easily associated this last point with the recurrent revival motif of an unconverted preacher as a “wolf in sheep’s clothing.” In the application of the sermon, Edwards makes a number of direct references to the Great Awakening, and to his audience. He emphasizes the extent and duration of the revival: “the work that has been wrought has not been confined to a few towns, in some remoter parts of the land, but has been carried on in many places in all parts of the land, and in most of the principal, and most populous, and public places in it […] and has now been continued for a considerable time” and observes that since so many people witnessed the events, their genuine character cannot be denied. This grounding of the argument in the experience of many, apodixis, allows the preacher to endorse revivalism in yet another way. Edwards also makes ample use of the proof of ethos. Here he employs an appeal to character that is different from the one at the beginning of the sermon, where he increased the credibility of his words through personal insight – in this passage, he achieves a similar effect by talking about his past experience: “And as I am one that, by the providence of God, have for some months past, been much amongst those that have been the subjects of that work […] have been very particularly conversant with great numbers of such […] and have seen the manner and issue of such operations and the fruits of them, for several months together.” Thus, Edwards presents himself as a person who has first-hand knowledge of the revival incidents, while combining personal authority with his

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reputation: “So I look upon myself called on this occasion to give my testimony […] this work has all those marks that have been spoken of.” The preacher’s final address to the supporters and the opponents of the revival not only encapsulates his main points, but also constitutes a direct endorsement of the Great Awakening. Edwards assumes the rhetorical persona of a defender of the revival and its spokesman – he repeats most of the claims made in the main body of the sermon, adding to them also a remark about Solomon Stoddard – yet another rhetorical appeal to authority in the discourse. This time, however, the persuasive effect is not grounded in the institutional and spiritual power of the Scripture, nor is it the preacher’s personal ethos – the authority is based on an appeal to a well-known preacher of New England, his own late grandfather whose preaching was the catalyst of the earlier revivals in Northampton. Edwards also observes that criticism of the Great Awakening is like a “stumbling block” to the coming of Christ, and that those who doubt the genuine character of the revival, are like the Jews who distrusted the teachings of Christ. Finally, he “beg[s]” the opponents of the awakening to withdraw their objections, lest they might become guilty of an “unpardonable sin to the Holy Ghost.” Interestingly, the speech-act of begging serves multiple persuasive purposes – it creates the image of the speaker as a charitable Christian, who humbly takes care of his neighbours, it also allows the preacher to express his concern for human salvation and, most importantly, it associates hostility towards the revival with sinfulness, thus indirectly threatening the Old Lights with grave spiritual consequences of their conduct. His address to the proponents of the revival is a call for moderation and reasonableness, an appeal not to “despise human learning” and to avoid passing “censures upon others that are professing Christians, as hypocrites and ignorant of anything of real religion.” At the same time, he warns the New Lights and advises them to steer clear of “heat” and “angry zeal” in their doctrinal debates and recommends a “good attendance to that excellent rule of prudence Christ has left.” Edwards avoids the ostentatiously confrontational tone of Andrew Croswell and his extremist followers – for all his dedication to the idea of the revival and the “rhetoric of the revival”, his avowal of revivalism in the sermon is organized, calculated and comlex. It was much more effective as an appeal to rational audiences than the aggressive oratory of Croswell. The Distinguishing Marks of a Work of the Spirit of God is a persuasive rhetorical construct and an excellent demonstration of Edwards’s rhetorical skill, both in terms of its logical and emotional appeals. He utilizes a wide array of techniques, like vivid descriptions, diverse argumentative appeals, persuasive proofs and eristic tricks, to produce a compelling justification of the revival, at the same time enriching the “rhetoric of the revival” with yet another type of sermon – a persuasive defence speech.

George Whitefield

George Whitefield, M.A., Elisha Gallaudet (1730-1805) Library of Congress Rare Book and Special Collections Division Washington

There is hardly any preacher more readily associated with the Great Awakening than George Whitefield, the Grant Itinerant. This is perhaps unsurprising in view of his contributions to the advancement of early American revivalism. He rev-

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olutionized the American preaching tradition by laying the foundations for modern evangelicalism. He became America’s first religious celebrity and gained unprecedented fame – alongside the king’s, his name would probably be the only one so widely recognized among the colonists. Whitefield gave the revival an international character – in his lifetime he travelled seven times between England and America and more than a dozen times to Scotland, as well as to Ireland, Bermuda, and Holland. Finally, he pushed the American awakenings in the direction of truly mass revivals, with unparalleled crowds amassing every time he preached. His farewell sermon on his most famous preaching tour of 1739–40 was attended by a crowd of 23,000 people, more than Boston’s entire population at that time. All in all, he preached at least 18,000 times and addressed a few million listeners. These numbers have the capacity to amaze even nowadays, especially when we realize that Whitefield managed to achieve a large proportion of that at a very young age, with little money and usually against the will of the established religious authorities. George Whitefield’s intense life has often been portrayed and commented upon. Arguably, he is the best researched participant of the Great Awakening next to Jonathan Edwards. His first standard biography, Luke Tyerman’s The Life of the Rev. George Whitefield (1877) remained the most important study of his life for a long time (alongside his own autobiographical works, which he produced abundantly, as a rather self-centred individual). Allan Dallimore’s studies (1970, 1980) might be perceived as an attempt to change the negative image of Whitefield as a pompous braggart, which was advocated by the post-revival critics of the Great Awakening. Harry Stout’s Whitefield is the “first AngloAmerican” celebrity (1991, xiii), a “divine dramatist,” whose skilful, theatrical preaching not only prompted the revival, but also played a vital role in the American road to Revolution. A slightly different, but equally significant perspective on Whitefield’s life is presented by Frank Lambert (1993a), who underlines the preacher’s influence on the shaping of public religion and the “processes by which Whitefield and others borrowed merchandising means to attain their evangelical goals” (1993a, 7). Lambert stresses that the preacher’s agenda to utilize newspapers in his evangelical mission, as well the vision of a church beyond parish borders that the Grant Itinerant proposed (and executed, primarily in his preaching tours and moving freely between congregations), introduced a new quality to the perception of religion in the colonies. Whitefield’s life is a story of an individual who dedicated his whole life to one goal – preaching. He was born in England in 1714 and spent most of his childhood in the Bell Inn, which was run by his mother. Since his father died soon after his birth, the family constantly struggled to make ends meet. The inn served as the only source of income for the Whitefields. By helping his mother to run it, the

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future preacher got to know people from all walks of life, and perhaps acquired the communication skills necessary to make exchanges with people from different social backgrounds. These abilities would prove very useful in his prospective preaching career. As a boy, the future Grand Itinerant greedily read plays and skipped classes to practice for school performances. Hardly did he realize back then that this youthful fascination would bear such amazing fruit in his adult life as a preacher, when the drama of the stage would be replaced by the drama of the pulpit and the dialogues from scripts would be substituted by the vivid exchanges of Scriptural characters he would impersonate in the sermons to the delight and amazement of American audiences. The lack of dedication to school duties did not prevent Whitefield from becoming a student at Oxford – although he was far from the top of his class. All the time, however, his life circumstances reminded him of his family’s poverty as he had to make his living by acting as a servant to his wealthier peers – an experience that must have been thoroughly humiliating for the young George. Whitefield’s “New Birth” took place at the university where he joined a group of pious Methodists led by the Wesley brothers, John and Charles. He would pray incessantly, expose himself to frost, and fast to the point when he fainted in his classes. Stout observes in the biography of Whitefield that the preacher at that time fostered the notion that he was a godsend; his “sense of destiny was inevitably tied up with a supernatural deliverer who would pick him up out of his lowly situation and catapult him to apostle-like status” (1986, 4). The future Grand Itinerant finished his studies and was ordained in June 1736. He did not travel to America right after he was granted the right to preach and prior to visiting the colonies he preached around England, also in London, mastering his oratorical craft. Georgia was the destination of Whitefield’s first transatlantic tour. This colony did not provide him with the large audiences he sought, but remained important for the preacher for the rest of his life as the site of an orphan house for wayward boys which he founded. During his future preaching tours on both sides of the Atlantic he would keep collecting money for the institution and raising support for it whenever he could. When the Grand Itinerant came back from America, he found the pulpits and doors of many churches closed to him due to the air of controversy surrounding his name. This notoriety was primarily a direct effect of his subversive criticism of the Church of England. Whitefield did not mince his words and bluntly stigmatized everything he considered unorthodox and sinful. As expected of him, the fact that he was denied access to the pulpits of numerous churches did not prevent him from voicing his harsh criticism, on the contrary, feeling that he managed to stir his adversaries and raise their concern, Whitefield decided to

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move outside church buildings and started preaching virtually anywhere outdoors. This became another key factor in the development of his rhetorical prowess, as it transpired that marketplaces, fields and squares were tailor-made for his theatrical sermonic oratory. The preacher learned how to manage large gatherings outside the confines of church buildings, and developed an insight into the dynamics of crowd control and mass rhetoric appeal. Whitefield’s most successful tour of the American colonies began in 1739, and it was also at that time that he laid the foundations for the Great Awakening. During that excursion the preacher travelled constantly and did not stop anywhere for long, but the news of his planned preaching venues outpaced him. To his amazement and delight, Whitefield saw crowds of thousands materializing in the fields demanding to listen to his sermonic oratory. And all the gathered were swayed by the power of his preaching and the freshness of his method. One particularly interesting, and often quoted account of Whitefield’s performance was written by Nathan Cole, a parish farmer and a carpenter who lived twelve miles from Middleton, where the preacher was to deliver a sermon on October 23, 1740 (Cole 1993): The account of Cole is missing: I was in my field at work; I dropped my tool that I had in my hand and ran home to my wife, telling her to make ready quickly to go and hear Mr. Whitefield […], then run to my pasture for my horse with all my might, fearing that I should be too late…[…] I turned and looked towards the Great River [the Connecticut River] and saw the ferry boats running swift backward and forward bringing over loads of people.

The passage illustrates the enthusiasm accompanying Whitefield’s preaching and gives testimony to his popularity. Also, Cole’s impression of the Grand Itinerant himself is interesting (1993): When I saw Mr. Whitefield come upon the scaffold, he looked almost angelical – a young, slim, slender youth before some thousands of people with a bold, undaunted countenance. And my hearing how God was with him everywhere as he came along, it solemnized my mind and put me into a trembling fear before he began to preach. For he looked as if he was clothed with authority from the Great God, and a sweet solemn solemnity sat upon his brow, and my hearing him preach gave me a heart wound. By God’s blessing my old foundation was broken up, and I saw that my righteousness would not save me.

It is an account of the “awakening” of Cole, the religious experience Whitefield wanted to bring to as many people as possible. Cole’s perception of Whitefield as an almost supernatural being is the outcome of the preacher’s spellbinding oratory – one cannot resist referring the account to the allegory of rhetoric from Capella’s De nuptiis Philologiae et Mercurii described in Chapter I. The parallels are numerous: the sense of authority produced by the two figures, the royal

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splendour and strong emotionality. In fact, both descriptions point to one and the same thing, namely the power of the spoken word to inform the human mind. Whitefield’s rhetorical actio became legendary and one can hardly enumerate all the anecdotes it spawned. David Garrick, a famous actor of the period, is said to have claimed that he would be willing to pay a hundred golden guineas if he could say “Oh” like George Whitefield. Similarly enchanted, Sarah Edwards admitted to her brother, Jonathan Edwards that the preacher from England was a “born orator” (Stout 1986, 126). But perhaps the most telling story of the Grand Itinerant’s rhetorical success is connected with Benjamin Franklin, who, with time, would become a dedicated friend of the preacher and a publisher of his sermons and journals. Initially, Franklin approached the news of Whitefield’s talent with a great dose of incredulity, yet having attended one of the meetings found himself compelled to offer money for the Georgia orphanage; as he writes in his autobiography: “I had in my pocket a handful of copper money, three or four silver dollars, and five pistoles in gold. As he proceeded I began to soften, and concluded to give the coppers. Another stroke of his oratory made me ashamed of that and determined me to give the silver; and he finished so admirably that I emptied my pocket wholly into the collectors’ dish, gold and all” (2003, 161). If such a skeptical mind as Franklin’s was fairly easily convinced by Whitefield’s address, his impact on the believing hearers must have been both immediate and substantial. Out of numerous factors contributing to the Grand Itinerant’s success, his innovative rhetoric seems to be most significant. In his subjective account of the revival, Tracy stresses that Whitefield “preached under the influence of an affecting view of the worth of the soul, and an intense desire that his hearers might be saved,” thus using a “voice of wonderful flexibility, compass and power, and accompanied with the most graceful, impressive and appropriate action” (1842, 45), but it was not just the genuine zeal that allowed him incite the “New Birth” in thousands of people. Whitefield’s sermons were not the outcome of strenuous and meticulous studies – he was simply a born extemporaneous preacher. He used no notes and drew on the method whose efficiency was discovered in 1735 by John Wesley who once accidentally forgot his script. The preacher also employed a lot of gestures, he laughed, cried and sang, transforming the traditional colonial pulpit into a stage. In addition, the Grant Itinerant used spontaneous prayer to gain the attention of his hearers and make them actively involved in the preaching process. Stout argues that “in seeing Whitefield preach, many Americans were for the first time in their lives seeing a form of theatre” (1991, 94). Whitefield also travelled a lot, rendering his oratory a constant novelty to audiences – he was a “heavenly comet1,” passing through endless congregations, 1 As suggested by the title of Harry Stout’s article (1993).

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leaving the track of the awakened behind him. Through his itinerancy the preacher encountered new audiences, leaving his earlier listeners spellbound with his rhetorical method that, on the one hand, appealed to their imagination, and, on the other, allowed him to build a powerful connection with the colonial audience. In consequence, Whitefield did not give his hearers a chance to become bored with his preaching rhetoric and continued his successful quest through the colonies. Whitefield had an outstanding intuition of how to construct a successful promotional campaign for his mission. He understood the significance of the widely accessible written word and ensured that the publishers (like Benjamin Franklin) continued printing his latest texts, thus keeping the revival in the spotlight. The preacher even encouraged the development of a magazine that would help him sustain and spread the revival zeal: “The Weekly History; or an Account of the Most Remarkable Particulars Relating to the Present Progress of the Gospel”. The magazine seemed particularly significant to Whitefield, since the design behind it was also the foundation of an intercontinental revival movement – Whitefield hoped to see such a movement come into being especially after his successful preaching tours in Scotland. The Grand Itinerant’s immense popularity generated numerous controversies. He received three letters with death threats and was once stoned until he lost consciousness. Satirists used the preacher repeatedly as the butt of their drawings and jokes. His ferocious criticism of the established church authorities also did not help his reputation. On both sides of the Atlantic, Whitefield entered into stormy debates with the representatives of the Church of England – Lambert observes that (1993a, 77) as an “Anglican priest who confirmed dissenter claims that his own church was degenerate and oppressive” he gained constant attention and applause from his hearers. Whitefield accused the representatives of the Church of England of neglecting the obligations of true Christians and of abandoning the genuine source of grace – to him, their faith was “dead”. After preaching at the Old South Church in Boston he wrote in his journal (Whitefield 1960, 470): when I got into the pulpit, I saw a great number of ministers sitting around and before me. Coming to these words, “art thou a master in Israel, and knowest not these things? The Lord enabled me to open my mouth boldly against unconverted ministers; for, I am persuaded, the generality of preachers talk of an unknown and unfelt Christ. The reason why congregations have been dead, is because they have dead men preaching to them… How can dead men beget living children?

In 1739, his cooperation with dissenting ministers provoked the wrath of Alexander Garden, the Bishop of London’s Commission in Charlestown, who claimed that Whitefield’s “MOBB-preaching” is far more dangerous than “in-

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nocent amusements” like balls, and forbade Whitefield to preach in the Carolina area. Not surprisingly, the Grand Itinerant ignored the ban and carried on with his revival itinerancy. He also responded with a pamphlet with the engaging and telling title, A letter wherein he vindicates his Asserting that Archbishop Tillotson knew no more of Christianity than Mahoment. Heimert observes that this particular conflict “captured the American imagination” (1966, 36) and for a great many became a symbol of the Grand Itinerant’s unbreakable determination to advocate the revival zeal. It was not only Whitefield’s criticism of the established ministry that generated controversies, but also his attacks on various educational institutions, which – as he believed – ceased to perform their mission. The Grand Itinerant’s famous remark about the “darkness” that crept into the halls of Harvard and the constant criticism of the “letter-learned” gained him a great number of adversaries among college educators. Conflict in this area was hardly avoidable since the erratic emotionality of the revival and the sense of uncontrollability frightened some scholars, or at least made them look suspiciously upon the social turmoil accompanying the Awakening. Interestingly, the Grand Itinerant was able to turn these controversies and accusations to his advantage and his promotional campaign seemed to be fuelled by the very criticism his antagonists wanted to bring him down with. As pointed out by Stout (1991, 120), “his pulpit rhetoric required antagonists.” Whitefield eagerly thrived on controversy and established his position in opposition to his adversaries; in consequence, the more he was criticized and ostracized by his opponents, the more popular he became among the general public. In spite of the stresses and strains connected with his incessant preaching tour, Whitefield refused to rest and pushed himself so hard that, as he writes in his diary, having preached a number of times he often suffered attacks of weakness, chest pains and bloody diarrhoeas. Nonetheless, he disregarded the doctors who advised him to steer clear of the rigours of trans-Atlantic journeys, and continued to preach at all occasions. Whitefield’s lifetime mission was to deliver the word of God to as many people as possible – he simply lived to preach. His dedication to preaching and to the cause of the revival went so far that even the perspective of marriage was viewed by him as a troublesome necessity. He feared greatly that a potential family might obstruct his evangelical mission and draw his attention away from the pulpit. Not surprisingly, with such an attitude on his part, his relationship with Elizabeth Delamotte was not as successful as his preaching endeavours (cf. Galli 1993a). One cannot resist the impression that the preacher married because felt obliged to and the delivery of sermons remained his greatest and sole passion. Importantly, in addition to being an Englishman and a transatlantic evangelical phenomenon, Whitefield never ceased to be “America’s first cultural

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hero” (Stout 1993, 13). After the Great Awakening he repeatedly returned to the colonies, although he could not instigate such mass revivals as at the beginning of the 1740s. He also helped to recruit soldiers for Louisbourg, and supported the American cause even at the onset of the Stamp Act conflict, although he did not live long enough to see the events of 1776. The Grand Itinerant died in the morning on 30 September 1770 in New England. A day earlier, in spite of being exceptionally weak and weary, he decided to deliver his last sermon – when advised “Sir, you are more fit to go to bed than to preach” Whitefield answered with a prayer: “Lord, if I have not yet finished my course, let me go and speak for Thee once more in the fields, seal thy truth and come home and die” (Stout 1993, 14). It seems that his last plea to God was answered. George Whitefield’s legacy is prominent and although he left no organized movement behind him as the Wesleys had done, the new style of delivering sermons he exercised outlived him and grounded a new vision of preaching in America. Also, the revivals he promoted transgressed congregations, endowing the evolving American identity with a sense of integrity that played an important role in the War for Independence. In contrast to the astounding number of sermons Whitefield delivered in his lifetime, today we have at our disposal but a fraction of his preaching output. Less than one hundred discourses by the Grand Itinerant have survived. Luckily, they offer us enough material to examine the most important features of his pulpit oratory and to study his contribution to the “rhetoric of the revival”.

What think ye of Christ? One of the distinguishing features of Whitefield’s pulpit oratory was his ability to connect with his audiences. This is why the Grand Itinerant not only gained his hearers’ goodwill, but also regularly succeeded in making them wholeheartedly believe the doctrine he advocated and follow his words. In his “Directions how to hear sermons,” a sermon delivered on Luke 8:18 (“Take heed, therefore, how ye hear”) Whitefield argues that “For could a preacher speak with the tongue of men and angels, if his audience was prejudiced against him, he would be as sounding brass, or tinkling cymbal.” The Grand Itinerant well understood the communicative importance of having the audience’s hearts on his side – a task at times rather challenging as the preacher’s duty was often to scold and reprimand his flock. The means Whitefield adopted to address his hearers often go back to the mechanisms which classical orators used to win over the support of their audiences. A sermon that well illustrates how craftily the Grand Itinerant formed a bond with his hearers is What think ye of Christ?, delivered on Matthew 22:42 (“What

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think ye of Christ”), after – as stated on the cover page of the text published in 1741 – “he [i. e., Whitefield] was refused the use of all the churches.” The structure of the sermon revolves around four questions the speaker asks his audience: “What think you about the person of Christ?,” “What think you of the manhood or incarnation of Jesus Christ?,” “Was not Abraham justified by works?” and “What think you of Jesus Christ formed in you?” The queries aim at the talking points of the doctrinal dispute, and, as the same time, provide a framework for the arrangement of the sermon. Whitefield’s communicative intention behind them is not to elicit answers from his hearers, but to make them accept what he holds should be given as answers. To, as it were, instruct his hearers, the speaker himself provides proper responses for the four would-be enquiries, and refutes potential counter-arguments. By doing so he gains an ample opportunity to lay out his own doctrinal truths. At the very beginning of the sermon, Whitefield asserts that the “poor, blessed by God, as our present meeting abundantly testifies, receive the gospel, and the common people hear us gladly.” By opening the discourse in this manner, the speaker aims at captatio benevolentiae, captivating the goodwill of the hearers – a crucial element of oratory needed, as we have learned earlier, particularly in the first part of a speech. The preacher clearly pinpoints the target hearers of his words: his audience are the hard-up, rather than the well-off. He does not yet address the hearers directly, but instead emphasizes appreciatively that generally the poor are the most open to the doctrine and the most pious. In the next sentence, “the poor” are contrasted with “those who are sitting in Moses’ chair, and love to wear long robes.” The other group, the rich, are excluded from his audience. The preacher also highlights the antagonism between the two groups as the rich “will be continually crying out against us, as madmen, deceivers of the people, and as acting under the influence of evil spirits.” Such reservations in the very opening of the sermon tell a lot about Whitefield’s notion of an ideal recipient of his sermon – he sides with those that do not belong to what he viewed as the established elite and sees the common members of the society as typical participants of the revival and his most natural audience. The inclusive pronoun “us” in this passage plays a key role for Whitefield’s communicative strategy at the beginning of the sermon. Having introduced two contrasting groups, he uses the pronoun to rank himself among the “poor,” who, on account of their simplicity and poverty (supposedly, exactly because of them), best understand the way of salvation. Whitefield manages to create a communicative community – the use of the pronoun suggests that he and his audience share one lot and have a mutual understanding. The community he constitutes is not phatic or conventional – it is a group of the elected in Christ. Their plight is the result of their adverse economic situation and the malicious treatment they receive from their wealthy neighbours who are blind to the path of salvation.

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The persecution the preacher and the members of the audience allegedly experience for their religious dedication, strengthens the bond between them. Whitefield seems to imply that it is exactly because of their common lot, that they ought to unite for the revival cause. Similarly, the idea of a common enemy allows the preacher to reinforce his relationship with the hearers and imply they should remiain unified against the adversary. At the same time, Whitefield keeps suggesting that he is to act as the guide of the oppressed group (if not its leader) and the revival he advocates is the best means to oppose the oppression. The fact that Whitefield ranks himself together with the audience ascribes him two different communicative roles: that of rhetorical object and rhetorical subject. The former is realized by him becoming a part of the inclusive “we,” the latter is the result of him being anchored in the discourse strong enough to retain saliency in the group. Unlike many preachers of the period, Whitefield does not hide behind his rhetoric, nor does he artificially depersonalize himself in the sermonic discourse, instead all the time his preaching is strongly speaker-oriented. The “we” he uses in his discourse presupposes the existence of his strong “I” that participates in the creation of the communicative community. Interestingly, in the final passages of the analyzed text he abandons the inclusive “we” and adopts the singular pronoun “I,” thus reinforcing his own, individual communicative presence in the discourse. No matter what pronoun (and perspective) is currently employed, it is always George Whitefield, the Grand Itinerant, who remains the focalizing point of the preaching discourse. The division between different groups so forcefully introduced in the first passage of the sermon is persistently used throughout the speech. Whitefield stresses that when subjected to persecution and mockery, the speaker and his “poor” hearers ought to stand by their faith: “In all such cases, we have nothing to do but to search our own hearts, and if we can assure our consciences, before God, that we act with a single eye to his glory, we are cheerfully to go on in our work, and not in the least to regard what men or devils can say against, or do unto us.” Here also the sense of the communal “we”, the bonds of trust and support accompanying it are reinforced by the constant repetition of the pronoun. The preacher steadily adds to the negative characteristics of the people who were excluded from his audience. “Those who are sitting in Moses’ chairs” are put on the same level as devils, thus by implication they become the adversaries of Christ and his followers. At this point of the sermon the division ceases to be a mere contrast, and takes on the characteristics of open hostility. This is implied not only by the word “devils,” active enemies of God, but also by the suggestion that the people from outside the audience do not have to limit themselves to verbal abuses and may actually wrong Whitefield and his followers. At the same time, through a contrastive implicature, the more negative the group from outside the audience becomes, the more godly his hearers turn out to be. If their

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antagonists are associated with “devils,” “the poor” should be associated with the most pious and righteous supporters of the Lord. Here and all throughout the sermon, Whitefield implies the worldview in which categories may be neatly put in binary oppositions, and just as goodness stands in a marked contrast with evil, ”us” with ”them”, so the ”regenerate” can be set against ”unregenerate”. Such thinking, practiced even stronger by the more extreme New Lights, will allow him later to declare that whoever does not support the revival, is against it and thus undermines both the Bible and his or her own salvation. A few passages later, Whitefield expands the group of people whom he castigates, separating them from his audience and the revival communicative community. The speaker observes that “professors are sadly divided in their thoughts about him [i. e., God]; and that not only as to circumstance of his religion, but also of these essence truths which must necessarily be believed and received by us, if ever we hope to be heirs of eternal salvation.” It is not only the possession of wealth and hostility towards “the poor” that characterizes the group from outside his audience, education, being “letter-learned” is another feature of theirs. In Whitefield’s mouth the word “professors” gains highly pejorative meaning; it denotes people who stepped away from what the speaker holds as true, unspoiled faith and who have lost contact with the grassroots of the religious community. By criticizing them Whitefield tries to appeal to the simplicity commonly associated with the beginnings of the church – a strategy that must have been particularly effective while addressing the rural inhabitants of the colonies. At the same time, such statements allowed him to distance himself from the allegedly corrupted intellectual and religious establishment of the colonies. Whitefield draws a strict line between the two groups: “Some, and I fear a multitude which no man can easily number, there are amongst us, who call themselves Christians, and yet seldom or never seriously think of Jesus Christ at all.” These “some” who do not think of God (and do not ask themselves the four questions that frame the sermon) are juxtaposed with the collective “us” that at this point of his discourse denotes Christians. It is crucial to observe that when Whitefield introduces the division, this time he does it in a conspicuously different way. Earlier, the “we” was homogenous, now the phrase “among us” suggests the existence of an internal division, an erosion of unity, as the people who fail to think of Jesus Christ do not constitute a part of the community of Christians. It also implies that they blended themselves in with the rest of the genuinely Christian society. That idea goes back to Whitefield’s and Tennent’s concept of the threat posed by the unconverted ministry and constitutes a frequently used topos of the “rhetoric of the revival.” Whitefield thus suggests they have betrayed the majority, and gone against the bonds of community and faith which join all followers of Christ. He also seeks to make every individual from

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“among us” alert to the false seeming of the unregenerate “wolves in sheep’s clothing.” Having defined and described the group he contrasts with the “poor,” Whitefield suddenly changes the target of his words, and directs them emotionally at the “rich.” The apostrophe is highly figurative – Whitefield uses synathroesmus and heaps together a series of tricolons: “O ye earthly, sensual, carnally-minded professors, however little you may think of Christ now (…), by pursuing the lust of the eye, the lust of the flesh, and the pride of life, yet there is a time coming, when you will wish you had thought of Christ more, and of your profits and pleasures less.” The address is charged with indirect accusations. The speaker emphatically suggests (by the use of parallel structures) that “the professors” are guilty of cardinal sins, like lust and pride, and reminds them of the moment when they will have to pay for their wrongdoing. In this prognosis the preacher seeks to create a vision of an inevitable fall awaiting the “professors,” as suggested by the use of modal verbs “will” and “must”: “For the gay, the polite, the rich also must die as well as others, and leave their pomps and vanities, and all their wealth behind them. And O! what thoughts will you entertain concerning Jesus Christ, in that hour?” Whitefield tries to highlight that all the things his addressees take pride in and enjoy: riches, earthly knowledge and daily pleasures, will inescapably be taken away from them at the hour of their death. The prediction at the same time is to indirectly appeal to the “poor,” who, when hearing the preacher scold the rich, gain the sense of worldly justice and social egalitarianism. They feel better at the expense of the ones who are outside the addressed community, and thus develop liking and resepect towards the speaker who makes them feel this way. All these schemes allow the speaker to prepare the ground for the four topical questions. Whitefield defines his and his addressees’ communicative position, and points to the contextual details of the speech-act; finally, he establishes the common ground between himself and his listeners. Only when these crucial rhetorical requirements are met does he move on to discuss the four doctrinal issues. The answer to the first questions, “What think you about the person of Christ? Whose Son is he?” is an opportunity for Whitefield to criticize the Church of England. He asserts that the ones who deny the doctrine of Jesus Christ being both human and divine, e. g., Arians or Socinians, “cannot be Christians”. What is more, if in the Church of England there are persons willing to undermine the doctrine, they in fact belong “to the synagogue of Satan” and are like a “wolf in sheep’s clothing.” Such strongly negative remarks concerning the members of the Anglican Church must have pleased some colonial audiences, and further moved the speaker closer to his hearers. As before, these words go back to the idea of the unconverted hidden among pious preachers and members of the church. The

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remark ought to be viewed in the larger context of the preacher’s conflict with the established Church of England, as well as of his activities in the colonies – Whitefield drew on trans-Atlantic animosities, and skilfully utilized them for his preaching purposes. In his elaboration on the second question, Whitefield overwhelms his audience with numerous examples of the figure antonomasia, he lists different phrases describing the deity in place of the one most widely used word: “God.” Jesus Christ is referred to as “the only begotten Son of God,” “Light of light,” “very God of very God,” “this everlasting God,” “this Prince of Peace,” “this Ancient of Days.” By referring to the Lord in so many different ways, the preacher characterizes him emphatically and forces the hearers to ponder on various aspects of the Deity. The effect of antonomasia is reinforced by an exclamatory figure, exphonesis, exclamation: “sing, O heavens, and rejoice O earth!,” which implies that the speaker himself is carried away by emotions accompanying his own words. Whitefield shows to his audience an expected ethusiastic reaction which the contemplation of doctrinal matters should evoke, employing paenismus, the rhetorical manifestation of the joy of grace. By doing so the preacher tries to utilize the proof of ethos and construct his image as a devout Christian, experiencing grace and enthusiastically overpowered by this sensation. The strategy becomes more evident when, at the end of the sermon, he uses the figure of optatio, a wish: “I would willingly change status with you for a while, that you might know what it is to have Christ dwelling in your hearts by faith.” Whitefield presents himself as a man of true faith, caring for the salvation of the audience and willing to share his experience with others. In this section of the semon the preacher abandons the inclusive pronoun “we”. Earlier it helped him to blend with his hearers, and to become a part of their community, now, it does not aid his communicative goal as he assumes quite a different role – he seeks to emphasize the fact that he is feeling the joy of grace, while most of his hearers have not yet been granted this priviledge. The singular pronoun “I” becomes contrasted with the repeated “you” and possessive “yours”. It also helps the preacher to stress the individuality of his experience and, this time, highlight the difference between him and his hearers. In consequence, the implication that he is their religious guide and a herald to the awakening becomes reinforced, as Whitefield’s individualized rhetorical ethos renders him eligible to pass moral judgments on others and to call for orthodoxy. The preacher also tries to illustrate the hopelessness of the human condition: “I know no fitness in man, but a fitness to be cast into the lake of fire and brimstone for ever. Our righteousness, in God’s sight, are but as filthy rags.” His words are a reference to a well-known phrase from psalm 6:11 “upon the wicked he shall rain snares, fire and brimstone, and a horrible tempest: [this shall be] the

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portion of their cup,” which became commonplace for the Puritan preachers, especially after the publication of Thomas Vincent’s Fire and Brimstone in Hell (1670), a work describing the fire of London as a manifestation of the wrath of God. Interestingly, Whitefield does not set himself at this point above his audience. Instead of looking down on his hearers, he joins them and once again uses the inclusive pronoun “our,” this time however, the pronoun denotes the whole of humanity, as suggested by a phrase from a previous sentence: “in man.” The preacher wants his congregation to understand a truth concerning the lot of any Christian and his communicative intention in presenting man’s low position is to make the hearers realize that they cannot achieve salvation with their own righteousness and their only chance is gaining and accepting the grace of the Lord. The only respite for sinners lies in the Scripture: “This is gospel, this is glad tidings of great joy to all who feel themselves poor, lost, undone, damned sinners.” Whitefield points out that the principle of salvation through “good works” is too often misunderstood: “What would I give, that this Article was understood and preached by all that have subscribed to it! The ark of the Lord would not then be driven into the wilderness, nor would so many persons dissent from the Church of England.” The wish he makes, an optatio, overtly expresses his concern for the church and its members. In terms of implied message, it is a means of ethos, as Whitefield presents himself as a person concerned with the lot of others. The statement is also another way of demonstrating his critical attitude towards the Church of England. The preacher continues: “but if our clergy will preach only the law, and not show the way of salvation by faith in Christ, the charge of schism at the day of judgment, I fear, will chiefly lie at their door.” The presupposition behind this statement is clear: the preacher himself knows the “way of salvation” and is ready to demonstrate it to the selected few who accompany him. Also, in the quoted passage, the figure of paraensis, a warning of impending evil or catastrophe, helps Whitefield to emphasize that the full regeneration of people is crucial, lest they become subject to the wrath of God. In the final section of the sermon Whitefield uses a number of erotema as well as the figure of epiplexis – he delivers a series of questions aimed at evoking emotions in his hearers and rebuking them: for faith, as well as every other blessing, is the gift of God, but then wait upon God, and who knows but he may have mercy on thee? Why do we not entertain more loving thoughts of Christ? Or do you think he will have mercy on others, and not on you? But are you not sinners? And did not Jesus Christ come into the world to save sinners?

The members of the audience are encouraged to ask and answer these questions in their minds, exciting the sense of responsibility, guilt and gratitutde.

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Whitefield closes the sermon with a threat. At the beginning of the final section he stresses that he has completed his task, and shown the hearers the way of salvation. With a tone of pathos, using another biblical refrence, he declares that it is up to them if they follow his guidelines: “I am free of the blood of you.” His addressees are left to their own devices. A few sentences further the preacher once again recalls the “fire and brimstone”: “(…) but I speak the truth in Christ, I lie not; as sure as fire and brimstone was rained from the Lord out of heaven, to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah, so surely at the great day, shall the vitals of God’s wrath be poured on you.” It is the final element of the general persuasive strategy in the sermon; after flattery and an enthusiastic encouragement, the threat of the wrath of God is to be the concluding retorical means to make the hearers ask themselves the title question of the sermon: What think ye of Christ?

Abraham’s Offering Up His Son Isaac In his biography of George Whitefield, tellingly entitled Divine Dramatist (1991), Harry Stout places great emphasis on how the preacher’s youthful fascination with theatre informed his oratorical skills. The numerous performances on the stages of amateur theatres and the eager reading of dramatic texts shaped the Grand Itinerant’s preaching style, rendering his sermons both particularly impactful and inspiring for colonial audiences. Just one look at Whitefield’s sermons is enough to observe that in terms of their theatricality indeed they stand out from the output of other revival preachers. They turn out to be particularly richly equipped with dialogues, monologues and vivid descriptions, which gives testimony to the verbal spectacle the Grand Itinerant must have presented behind the pulpit. This inventive “theatrical” character of Whitefield’s preaching is one of its unquestionable merits. Interestingly, later in his life Whitefield distanced himself from his past experience as an actor, but not from “theatrical” preaching. Such an aversion is hardly surprising. In his view, the confict between the spoken word of the pulpit and of the stage resulted from the fact that their communicative objectives were to a certain degree rivalrous. They both sought to capture the attention and minds of hearers and spectators, to evoke emotions, to mould attitudes and to incite the audience to embrace one particular worldview. Such power would naturally be approached with reservation by some members of the church. Just like to Plato in Book X of his Republic, to non-conformists the stage “introduced the risk of losing control, of imposing passions, directless feelings over the intellect” (Stout 1991, 23). As a consequence, Whitefield’s acting manuals offered an implicit vision of the world that could not be comfortably reconciled with his

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budding orthodoxy. Still, Whitefield would not become a “Divine Dramatist”, if it were not for his theatrical expertise, which he so skilfully adopted for the pulpit. The sermon discussed below, Abraham’s Offering Up His Son Isaac, demonstrates the extent to which the stage influenced Whitefield’s preaching. The preacher seeks to instigate emotions in his hearers which are powerful enough to ensure their moral and religious transformation by engaging them in the reenactment of the biblical story. Even on the very surface of the text, its structure turns out to emulate the script of a theatrical performance. Whitefield reconstructs the biblical story of Abraham and Isaac as a drama that was to be “acted out” from the pulpit: he endows the text with carefully calibrated dialogues and monologues, and divides the developing plot into scene-like sections, which gradually lead to the “dramatic” climax. But it is not only the organization of the text that reminds one of a theatre play. The very verbal exposition of the sermon is achieved through the combination of sermonic discourse, storytelling and the language of theatre. The division into these three communicative modes is clearly visible in the different roles the speaker assumes in the sermon. Whitefield interchangeably acts as himself, an awakening preacher addressing his audience, as the narrator of events and as an actor of the sermonic “spectacle.” Each of these communicative positions seems to be attached to a different context and perform a different rhetorical function. As an awakening preacher, Whitefield draws on the immediate communicative environment of his utterance – he constantly turns to his hearers and explains the text of the Scripture to them; his primary goal is to influence and reform his addressees. This communicative context is superior to others which are embedded in the speech-act of the Grand Itinerant delivering the sermon. As a storyteller the speaker introduces the background of the story, and provides contexts for the “dramatic” dialogues of the sermon. Finally, as a performer in his own sermonic spectacle, he acts out the dialogues of his characters, which function in the “reality” of the represented world, at the same time, however, they are directed at the actual audience, the addressees of George Whitefield. Quite often in the sermon the above communicative roles overlap and mix; these “transition points” offer the speaker an opportunity to exercise a number of persuasive strategies designed to influence the emotions of the audience. Also, by shifting his roles so often, Whitefield makes sure that the discourse does not lose its dynamic character. Another visible trace for the “dramatization” of the sermon might be the fact that it lays so much emphasis on the emotional suspense and re-living the terrifying ordeal which the patriarch experienced. This aspect of Whitefield’s rhetorical discourse is best visible in the grammatical tense of the verbs he employs as a storyteller and an actor. The persistent use of Present Simple and Present Progressive creates the impression that the plot is unfolding with the

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preacher’s words, and that Abraham’s story is not just a narrative of the past, but a re-enactment of a human drama and guideline for salvation. In consequence, the preacher’s words gain strength and make the story immediate and directly accessible to the audience. Whitefield opens the sermon by asserting that people of “more than common faith” are to be remembered, and emulated, and from the “catalogue of saints (…) the patriarch Abraham shines the brightest”. The preacher presents Abraham as the unquestionable model of Christian charity and a fitting subject of the sermon. After this opening, which may remind the reader of a theatrical prologue, the preacher begins to sketch the background of the “play-within-thesermon”. He meticulously develops every single sentence of the Scriptural text into an elaborate passage of the sermon by adding vivid details, images and insights into the characters’ thoughts. In the first stage of the sermonic drama the Lord addresses Abraham (with what Whitefield calls enthusiasm and amazement, a “holy familiarity”) and commands him to sacrifice his only son. The preacher stresses the gravity of this divine instruction by arranging phrases in a sequence of increasing force, as well as repetitions – he stresses that “this son, this only son, this Isaac, the son of his love, must be taken now, even now, without delay, and be offered up by his own father, for a burnt offering.” These initial verbal reduplications and emphases signal the rhetorical mode the speaker adopts: he intends to deliver a strong sermonic message and the dense use of figures will be one of the means he will adopt to arrive at rhetorical pathos. It is critical to observe that in his creation of the character of Abraham Whitefield does not draw directly from the Scripture. The sermonic drama features a vision of the patriarch as a rational and emotional being which the audience may sympathize with. The terror of what Abraham is to do pushes him into grim considerations, which are presented with a dramatic monologue. The character addresses himself in the “reality” of the sermonic drama, but at the same time his words reveal to the audience the inner emotional struggle accompanying him during his ordeal. Abraham’s emotions are also indicated strongly through the figures Whitefield decides to embellish his discourse with: exclamations suggest horror and desperation, while rhetorical questions imply internal struggle and hesitation. At first Abraham abhors what he is ordered to do: “What! Butcher my own child! It is contrary to the very law of nature.” After the emotional outburst, the preacher presents the patriarch’s inner battle with his thoughts as he systematically considers different aspects of the situation. Abraham juxtaposes the command with God’s earlier promise that through Isaac he would be granted posterity. The killing of his son, atrocious in itself, would also go against the words of the Almighty: “But supposing I could give up

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my own affections, and be willing to part with him, though I love him so dearly, yet if I murder him, what will become of God’s promise?” Abraham also considers the fact that he is the leader of the community: “I am now like a city upon the hill: I shine as a light to the world, in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation.” Whitefield’s audience must have instantaneously recognized the topos of “a city upon the hill” that goes back to the concept of the covenant, so vital for the first generations of colonists. Abraham depicted by the preacher is aware of his role in sacred history, and he cannot reconcile it with God’s most recent command. The patriarch’s last thought is for him the hardest: “But, above all, what will Sarah my wife say? How can I ever return to her again, after I have imbrued my hands in my dear child’s blood?” Abraham knows that his wife would never forgive him the murder of their only child. In the monologue designed by the preacher, Abraham weighs all aspects of his life: the feelings for his son, his future legacy, his social position and responsibilities and his marriage against the word of God. The Grand Itinerant constructs the patriarch who, in his considerations, takes into account the aspects of life well-rooted in the reality of colonial life. The main character of the “playwithin-the-sermon” realizes that in the dramatic choice he faces there is no optimal solution; it is a conflict between his versatile earthly loyalties and the loyalty to God. Ultimately, in spite of his doubts, the patriarch chooses the latter. It’s hard to overlook Whitefield’s creativity in his choice of figures and arguments used to portray the biblical character as a person to a large extent similar to an average hearer of the sermon. Just like the playwrights whose craft he admired in youth, Whitefield employs a variety of language resources to enliven his drama-like discourse. Drawing on the rich rhetorical heritage of the English drama2, he manages to create his own vision of Abraham which is coherent with his communicative goals. In the next scene of the sermonic drama, Abraham and Isaac set off. Whitefield enhances the Scriptural text and minutely describes the circumstances, encouraging the audience to visualize the scene exactly as he does; in consequence, he retains his controlling position of the discourse. The preacher gives the story a timeline: “perhaps it was near the fourth watch of the night, just before break of day, when God said, take now thy son; and Abraham raises up early to do so,” and elaborates on the patriarch’s activities and motives “he saddled his own ass (great men should be humble) and to show the sincerity, though he took two of his men with him, and Isaac his, yet he keeps his design as a secret from them all.” After three days of wandering the father and the son find the place of offering. Whitefield stresses that for Abraham the journey continued to be a time 2 A great number of authors highlight the critical importance of rhetoric for the shaping of English verse and drama, e. g., Joseph 1966, Vickers 1970, 1979, Gibin´ska 1987.

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of ceaseless, internal struggle: “But who can tell what the aged patriarch felt during these three days? Strong as he was in faith, I am persuaded his bowels often yearned over his son Isaac.” The preacher tries to make his hearers see the scene in their minds – twice he employs the phrase “Methinks I see….” These words perform a crucial communicative role in his discourse: they constitute transition points at which the speaker ceases to be only a preacher addressing his hearers, and turns into a narrator of the sermonic drama. What is more, the phrase commits the speaker to the truth of his words; in consequence, the description of the scene that follows is to a certain degree dependent on his ethos, the image of himself he constructs through implications of his discourse. His representation of the biblical story gains credibility in the eyes of the audience simultaneously with his own credibility, which he establishes by presenting himself (directly and indirectly) as an “awakened” preacher who knows the way of salvation. The phrase “Methinks I see” is a recognizable trademark of Whitefield’s preaching, and can be found in almost every single sermon of his (one might wonder if it is not used significantly too often). The preacher sets his narrative perspective as an onlooker, an observer from afar, who describes what he sees to other people: “Methinks I see the old good man walking with his dear child in his hand, and now and then looking on him, loving him, and then turning aside to weep. And perhaps, sometimes he stays a little behind to pour out his heart before God, for he had no mortal to tell his case to.” Presenting the events as if they were taking place simultaneously with his unfolding discourse, Whitefield continually portrays Abraham as a loving father who is full of regret and suffering, and whom the audience ought to show compassion. In his elaboration on the scene, the preacher depicts the patriarch showing affection to Isaac, and struggling with thoughts as to the true aims of the excursion. Interestingly, all throughout the narration the preacher underlines the ominous character of their journey. The hearers obviously knew the ending of the story, but at the same time the solemnity and sadness of the developing narrative persistently highlighted by Whitefield, stressed the hopelessness of the characters who underwent the ordeal. The next episode of the story takes place when Abraham and Isaac arrive at their destination. Whitefield emphasizes the dramatic irony of the situation by pointing out that the patriarch’s son, still unaware of the true aim of the excursion, carries the wood to construct the altar: “Little did Isaac think that he was to be offered on that very wood which he was carrying upon his shoulders.” Interestingly, Whitefield does not see in the wood, as was usually done by early Christian commentators, the prefiguration of Jesus’s cross; he focuses more on the dramatization of the story and its details.

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Again, the perspective of the onlooker allows the preacher to see the elements of the story in the context of the whole. Whitefield praises the innocence of the boy with exclamations (“How beautiful is early piety!”), and twice enthusiastically recalls Isaac’s question about the lamb for the burnt-offering. The patriarch’s exclamatory answer is the climax of the scene and the peak of the gradually surmounting dramatic tension: “with tears in his eyes, and the utmost affection in his heart, [Abraham] cried out ‘Thou art to be the lamb, my Son!’” This exclamation stands out from the rest of the discourse, it signals the dramatic moment of the disclosure of the terrible truth and Abraham’s utmost desperation. At this point Whitefield stops the drama, and uses the emotions thus produced to address one particular group of hearers that were supposedly most affected by the last scene: “Come, all ye tender hearted parents, who know what it is to look over a dying child.” The apostrophe suggests that the speaker is leading his audience to sympathize and empathize with Abraham as his communicative aim is to project the emotions generated by the “play-within-the-sermon” onto their real-life experiences. One cannot overlook that, at the same time, Whitefield abruptly leaves the role of storyteller and actor and assumes his initial communicative position of a preacher. Metadramatic acts such as disrupting a dramatix illusion or pointing to the makings of the fiction were widely exercised in Elizabethan theatre. By addressing the hearers, the preacher also suspends the theatrical experience and moves onto the primary context of his discourse. The apostrophe is followed by another scene that maintains the emotional tension. Once again the preacher tries to make his hearers visualize the distressed father: “methinks I see the tears tickle down the Patriarch Abraham’s cheeks.” The preacher wants his audience to retain the image of crying Abraham as he “acts out” the farewell address: “Adieu, adieu, my son; the Lord gave thee to me, and the Lord calls thee away; blessed be the name of the Lord: adieu, my Isaac, my only son, whom I love as my own soul; adieu, adieu.” Whitefield does not want to lose any opportunity for further dramatization of the discourse; the brief speech is yet another passage he would be able to perform expressively from the pulpit. The repetitive “adieu” points to theatrical clichés of the period. Whitefield uses it five times to stretch out the moment of departure and to prolong the dramatic climax. The scene is also further reinforced with Whitefield’s emotional address to God: “Hasten, O Lord, that blessed time [when “we come and sit down (…) in the kingdom of heaven]! O let thy kingdom come!” Another strategy for escalating the tension is employed by Whitefield a few words later: [Abraham] “stretched forth his hand, and took the knife to slay his son” – the verbal image is suspended, and the discourse “freezes” in anticipation of a solution to the egregious situation. The preacher achieves this effect by describing not the sequence of actions, but one particular image, and thus

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stressing the immediacy of Abraham’s stabbing Isaac: “his arm is now stretched out, the knife is in his hand, and he is about to put it to his dear son’s throat.” This effect ends with a divine intervention: “just as the knife, in all probability, was near his [Isaac’s] throat,” Whitefield shatters the “suspension” with emotional exclamations: “But sing, O heavens! and rejoice, O earth!” The contrast between the highly focalized and “frozen” image of the knife upon Isaac’s throat and an enthusiastic apostrophe to “heaven” and “earth” marks the resolution of the “play-within-the-sermon” and adds to the emotional climax of the sermon. The influence these words were to exert on the hearers is recorded in the very text of the sermon, in the anaphorical phrase: “I see your hearts affected, I see your eyes weep.” To an audience who did not have any opportunity to witness theatrical performances, the means Whitefield adopted in the sermon (combined with his own extraordinary acting skills) must have had a simultaneously illuminating and petrifying effect. However, one ought not to overlook the fact that the two parallel sentences comprize a part of the preacher’s persuasive strategy: on the surface they constitute assertions, but at the same time, implicitly, they serve as a prompting mechanism used to ensure a specific emotional response from the hearers. One might argue that Whitefield indirectly instructs his audience about the way they should respond to his words and manipulates them into an rhetorical ritual, in which the words of the awakening preacher elicit a strongly emotional reaction from the audience: they make them weep, cry and despair. As an excellent rhetorician, Whitefield knew that a highly figurative dramatic discourse is most likely to inform his hearers and thus employed it in his preaching. In consequence, the remark “I see your hearts affected, I see your eyes weep” is also to be seen as a testimony to his success as an orator, as well as a proof of the hearers’ engagement in the revival. In the final sections of the sermon, the preacher draws on the emotional appeal from the “play-within-the-sermon,” and encourages his hearers to appreciate and praise the love of God: “May we not well cry out, Now know we, O Lord, that thou hast loved us, since thou hast not withheld thy Son, thine only Son from us!” The appeal abounds in a wide array of figures: exclamations, apostrophes and rhetorical questions, like “Did you weep just now, when I bid you fancy you saw (…) Isaac laid bound on the altar? Look by faith, behold the blessed Jesus (…) not bound, but nailed on a accursed tree: see how thorns pierce him, and how the blood in purple streams tickle down his sacred temples! Hark how the God of nature groans!” which illustrate the enthusiasm of moral reformation and the “New Birth” Whitefield wanted to trigger in the hearts of his hearers. The vivid description of Christ dying on the cross that quickly follows is aimed at evoking similar emotions of regret and compassion as the account of Abraham’s internal struggle, however, the tension here is multiplied by the accumu-

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lation of expressive rhetorical figures. The difference between Isaac and Jesus is that the latter had to give up his life; Whitefield stresses this fact by triple anaphoric, parallel sentences: “but Jesus has no substitute, Jesus must bleed, Jesus must die.” The sentences are short, they stress the same idea, thus hammering the message into the minds of the hearers. The death of Jesus becomes the main focal point of the discourse and the tragedy of his demise turns into the tragedy of the audience – the hearers are to feel regret and remorse and, in consequence, repent for their wrongdoing, and come clean of their sins. Then, the speaker asks a question about the hearers’ reaction to his words: “Shall I say, refrain your voice from weeping?” and in his answer, he once again indirectly encourages his hearers to visualize the dying Christ: “No, rather let me exhort you look to him whom you have pierced, and mourn, as a woman mourneth for her first-born.” Whitefield stresses that the conclusion to be drawn from the story concerns the “nature of true, justifying faith”: “the Lord Jesus Christ is our righteousness,” and no good works may earn us salvation, “God’s free gift.” In the final section of his sermon, Whitefield addresses the audience a few times, reminding them of the practical applications of his discourse: “Learn, O Saints! From what has been said to sit loose to all your worldly comforts; and stand ready to part with everything, when God shall require it at your hand,” “Labor, for Christ’s sake, labor, ye sons and daughters of Abraham, to resign them [delights] daily in affection to God,” “think, O think of the happiness he [Abraham] enjoys, and how he is incessantly thanking God for tempting (…) him,” “Look up often by the eye of faith, and see him [Abraham] sitting with his dearly beloved Isaac in the world of spirits.” In two of the apostrophes the speaker reinforces his address, by repeating the imperative verb. By directing his words at the hearers, the preacher stresses the role they play in the act of delivery. Also, the connection Whitefield establishes at that point might have made them feel that they were not only passive onlookers, but active participants of his sermonic drama.

The Conversion of Zaccheus Stout observes that Whitefield preached “as if there might be no tomorrow” (Stout 1991, 39). Indeed, the preacher had a unique gift for selecting rhetorical strategies to reach the hearts of his hearer, and to instigate within them the sense of the urgent need for salvation. He achieved that by presenting the doctrine not through elaborate theological considerations, but with what he held as simplicity and honesty in preching. Whitefield disdained intellectual discourse, as well as “letter-learned” people, and felt much better as an itinerant awakener of the rural

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inhabitant of the colonies. The concept of the “New Birth” and the insistence on the crucial importance of God’s grace for one’s salvation were the key elements of Whitefield’s views on faith and conversion; they also exerted a formative impact on his preaching style. The preacher strongly believed that, in order to be saved, man has to undergo an immediate radical change in his actions, a change that would be triggered instantaneously by the workings of grace. All those who did not exhibit the visible evidence of such a transformation, were to be considered and treated as unregenerate. The sermon studied below demonstrates how these views informed the Grand Itinerant’s sermonic discourse. In The Conversion of Zaccheus, a sermon which closes the collection of Whitefield’s discourses published by T. Greene in Boston in 1743, the preacher elaborates on the story of Zaccheus, which serves as an illustration for the workings of free grace. The preacher uses the story as the main source, but does not try to “recreate” it as a “play-within-the-sermon” as is frequently the case in his oratory. The emphasis of his discourse is put not on the story itself, but on its interpretation as an instance of the immediate working of grace. Whitefield seemed to like the tale of Zaccheus and made occasional references to it in a few of his sermons, like The Potter and the Clay, Blind Bartimeus, A Pentinent Heart, The Best New Year’s Gift or The Parisee and Publician. The character of the converted sinner fit the key concepts advocated by the preacher, especially in terms of the sudden “New Birth” and the insistence on the irresistibility of God’s grace. Also, the story offered the preacher a splendid opportunity to emphasize what was for him of utmost importance, that is the personal experience of salvation. In Conversion of Zaccheus the preacher manoeuvres his discourse in such a way as to highlight the workings of divine grace and its impact on Zaccheus. Whitefield aims at characterizing grace – he describes it in detail, and elaborates on how it informs the human heart and mind. Characteristically for his preaching style, Whitefield does not draw directly from the Scriptural story and modifies it to serve as an illustration to his argumentation. First, he lays out the complete context (including its historical aspect) that rendered the conversion very unlikely. By minutely listing the obstacles that lessened the probability of Zaccheus’s “awakening,” the preacher indirectly highlights the implied power of God’s grace – a similar effect is achieved through his lavish use of figures of speech. The story of the conversion begins when “Jesus entered and passed through Jericho.” Whitefield extends and enhances the brief Scriptural sentence: “As the sun in the firmament is continually spreading his benign, quickening, and cheering influences over the natural world; so the Son of righteousness arose with healing under his wings, and was daily and hourly diffusing his gracious influences over the moral world.” The extended, tacky simile stands out from the

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regular sermonic discourse of Whitefield’s. The preacher tells his hearers to ”behold” the scene in their minds, as if they were witnessing a grandeur spectacle. As a result, the hearers of the sermon begin to see the working of grace as an unstoppable, encompassing power and associate it with such mighty natural forces, as the activities of the sun. Whitefield presents the detailed historical context of the story. He stresses that Zaccheus belonged to the group of Roman tax collectors, people notorious for “their abominable extortion.” He also observes that the publican’s “very name […] became so odious, that we find the Pharisees often reproached our Lord, as very wicked, because he was a friend unto and sat down to meat with them.” The preacher highlights that Zaccheus’s position made him an extremely unlikely object of conversion. In this way he accentuates not only the irresistibility of grace, but also the fact that human life is completely dependent on God’s sovereign will. In spite of his station, Zaccheus was drawn to listen to the teachings of Christ. Whitefield also does not miss an opportunity to stress the importance of pulpit oratory for one’s conversion – he makes a reference to his own preaching and the people who assembled to listen to him, thus informing and reinforcing the “awakening” speech-act of his sermon. At the same time, the preacher defines his target audience, which, to him, consists of the hard-up: “I should think it no scandal (supposing it true) to hear it affirmed, that none, but the poor attended my ministry” and stresses that the poor are particularly “dear to [his] soul”: “I rejoice to see them fly to the doctrine of Christ, like the doves to their windows.” The simile is rather conventional (if not tawdry) and draws on the symbolism of doves both as icons of innocence and peace. Whitefield does not address the poor directly, but rather indirectly seeks to achieve captatio benevolentiae, to gain their favour by elevating their station, and suggesting that they may ascend, if not in the earthly social hierarchy, then certainly in the eyes of God. At the same time, to reinforce the communicative effect of his words, Whitefield debases the rich, and asserts that if only they were to come to his preaching, they would be nothing more but “wolves in sheep’s clothing,” and “spoke peace, peace, when there was no peace, and prophesied smoother things than the gospel would allow of.” The words could be easily and readily interpreted by the audience as yet another attack launched by the preacher against the church establishment. Whitefield does not name the nonorthodox ministers directly, but rather surreptitiously distances himself from their preaching style, which – to him – lacked necessary zeal and remained inadequate to “awaken” anybody. The preacher also elaborates on the curiosity that encouraged Zaccheus to listen to the teachings of Christ. In his other texts, Whitefield censures inquisitiveness as a negative motivation to attend preaching, but in this sermon he

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accepts it as a means of the working of grace. After the decision to see Christ and listen to him, the sinful tax collector has to overcome multiple difficulties, among others, his small posture and the fear of how people might react to his presence in the assembly. Whitefield stresses those two apparent “obstacles” that stand in the way of Zaccheus’s conversion, and points out that for a large number of people they would suffice to discourage them from following the way of salvation. Once again, the hearers might have interpreted these words as partly directed at them – in spite of potential obstacles they had to overcome, they came to hear Whitefield’s preaching, so they followed the same path as Zaccheus. All these indirect references to the immediate context of Whitefield delivering the sermon help the preacher to elevate the moment of delivery, and consequently, all its constituent elements: the speaker, his utterance, as well as the audience; this persuasive ploy renders Whitefield’s appeal of ethos more forceful, and gives credibility to his words. Whitefield tries to encourage the audience to sympathize with the “sinful Publican” and admire his motivation in seeking the word of Christ, who is to be looked up to as a symbol of the workings of grace: “Thus, and much more will it [contempt and laughter from other people] be with all those who have an effectual desire to see Jesus in heaven: they will go on from strength to strength, break through every difficulty lying in their way, and care not what men or devils say of or do unto them.” Whitefield wants to create a figure the hearers may feel an affinity with – a sinner driven by the same motivation as theirs, similarly anxious about his wealth and social position. By presenting Zaccheus in this way the preacher lays emphasis on the process of salvation from the perspective of a regular community member, and makes it easier for his hearers to comprehend the workings of free grace. In Whitefield’s rendering of the biblical story, the moment when Zaccheus climbs the tree and beholds Christ, signals when the true power of grace becomes manifest. The preacher highlights it with a series of climactic exclamations: “But sing, O heavens, and rejoice, O earth! Praise, magnify, and adore sovereign, electing, free, preventing love; Jesus the everlasting God, the Prince of peace, who saw Nathanael under the fig-tree, and Zaccheus from eternity.” He employs a series of apostrophes, epithets and periphrases, in consequence, making the exclamations more enthusiastic and increasing their persuasiveness. At this point, Whitefield invites his audience to share his admiration for the change which is taking place in Zaccheus, and encourages them to underscore the experience of the converted sinner. He also stresses that grace is “worthy of the highest admiration”; it is the ultimate good that might be bestowed on man, and every human being is obliged to seek it and cherish it. Whitefield’s apparent communicative objective in this section of the sermon is to portray grace, on the one hand, and to instigate enthusiasm, on the other.

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The preacher also stresses the fact that, when addressed by Jesus, Zaccheus cannot refuse to accept him in his house. The sinful tax collector’s name is written in the “book of life,” and the moment he hears the words of Jesus directed at him, he becomes the subject of the complete influence of free grace. Once again it becomes apparent that, in Whitefield’s view, grace is irresistible and its touch briskly transforms the human soul, not only Zaccheus’s, but also those of the hearers of the sermon: “And if we do God justice, and are effectually wrought on, we must acknowledge there was no more fitness in us than in Zaccheus; and, had not Christ prevented us by his call, we had remained dead in trespasses and sins, and alienated from the divine life, even as others.” Whitefield attempts to make the personal experience of conversion understandable and accessible to everyone. He stresses that the main driving force behind Zaccheus’s conversion was the “efficacious power from God, which sweetly over-ruled his natural will.” The sinful tax collector is incorporated into the divine plan; as free grace begins to operate through his heart and his spirit. The outcome of its influence is happiness and joy, sensations the speaker tries to indicate meta-textually in the discourse through exclamative figures. Together with joy, the converted are granted with “righteousness, sanctification, and eternal redemption.” The preacher elaborates on the immeasurable benefits gained through free grace, and thus tries to instigate enthusiasm among his hearers as well as longing for the spiritual gifts. Whitefield emphatically observes that the joy of the converted does not end, it is “joy unspeakable and full of glory,” unlike a sinner’s laughter, which turns out to be just “laughter of fools,” and at best it is like the “cracking of thorns under a pot; it makes a blaze, but soon goes out.” The comparisons once again serve a descriptive purpose – the preacher aims at characterizing free grace and its impact on the human mind, and by employing extended similes that refer to the colonists’ common experiences and comprehensive ideas, reaches out to his audience. Whitefield dedicates a fair section of the sermon to the description of the change that Zaccheus undergoes right after his “New Birth”. At the same time, the preacher dismisses a potential accusation against his words as a “licentious Antinomian doctrine,” and once again points to the sinful tax collector as a proof of the miraculous working of free grace. He also stresses the fact that Zaccheus readily acknowledged the divinity of Christ, and by doing so he indirectly criticises the heresy. Whitefield elaborates on how free grace transforms the sinner, who understands his own misdemeanour, and willingly offers to give a major part of his wealth to the poor to make up for any financial losses people suffered because of him. The preacher emphatically draws the attention of the audience to Zaccheus’s resolution and his generosity: “Not some small, not the tenth part, but the HALF. Of what? My goods; things that were valuable. MY goods, his own, not another’s. I give: not, I will give when I die, when I can keep

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them no longer; but, I give now, even now.” Whitefield highlights every single word of the Scriptural passage, and repeats it a number of times, thus encouraging his hearers to admire Zaccheus’s dedication and generosity. What the converted sinner decides to do is the outcome of the transformation he undergoes through free grace, and by highlighting his decision to donate his fortune, the speaker expounds the irresistible power of grace to transform the human heart. Whitefield also addresses his hearers, sinners in particular, to take Zaccheus as a model of a good Christian’s conduct. The sinful tax collector ceases to be a mere character of the Scriptural story, and becomes a symbolic figure, all of whose actions, thoughts and experiences become guidelines for the audience. Zaccheus is thus elevated to the level of a living symbol of the immediacy and irresponsibility of grace. At the same time, Whitefield employs a number of emphatic structures and constructs a positive image of himself as a sincere and trustworthy speaker: “To the best of my knowledge I have spoken the truth in sincerity, and the truth as it is in Jesus.” The truthfulness of his words is grounded in the positive image of him as a person, and the speech-act he performs is further reinforced not only by emphatic mechanisms, but also by his strong presence in the discourse. In consequence, the implied complete veracity of his words and his rhetorical ethos become closely intertwined. The members of the audience are disposed to believe him not simply because he is the Grand Itinerant, but also because of the words and phrases he uses in the sermon. Another communicative goal of the speaker is to make his hearers reflect on their own conduct. He asks them a series of questions (the figurative pysma) on their habits and behaviour, like “Were you ever made willing to own, and humble yourselves for, your past offenses? Does your faith work by love, so that you conscientiously lay up, according as God has prospered you, for the support of the poor?” The preacher once again utilises the instructive character of the story of Zaccheus, and leads the hearers to assess the merits of their righteousness as well as to reflect on whether their everyday behaviour is similar to that of the reformed tax collector. If the hearers answer these questions negatively they turn out to be full of “unrighteousness”: “[their] faith being without works is dead: [they] have the devil, not Abraham, for [their] father.” The only way they can redeem themselves is by following the steps of Zaccheus. The questions become a test of the righteousness the hearers are supposed to conduct on their souls. By designing his discourse in such a way, the preacher renders it more dialogic, while the hearers are encourage to build a link between the theological implications of the story of Zaccheus and their own spiritual constitution. A few sentences later, Whitefield uses a number of extended apostrophes directed at his sinful hearers: “Make haste then, O sinners, make haste, and come

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by faith to Christ. Then, this day, even this hour, nay, this moment, if you believe, Jesus Christ shall come and make his eternal abode in your hearts.” The preacher uses the figure of auxesis to stress the fact that at any time in their lives free grace may be bestowed on them and they may become subject to a transformation similar to the one experienced by Zaccheus. Drawing on the quotation from Stout which opens this fragment of the study, one could say there is no “tomorrow” for the sinners, unless they recognize the urgency of the need for grace. Whitefield calls them to follow the path of salvation described in the sermon – like the converted sinner, they ought not to be afraid to face hardships and to struggle with obstacles for the reward they will receive, as the joy-bringing, free grace outweighs all tribulations: “Do not be ashamed to run before the multitude, and to have all manner of evil spoke against you falsely for his sake: one sight of Christ will make amends for all.” The preacher also describes what will happen if the hearers fail to “come to Christ”. They are to be damned and God will be “glorified in [their] destruction.” Whitefield expresses an ardent wish: “O that God would wound you with the sword of his Spirit, and cause his arrows of conviction to stick deep in your hearts! O that he would dart a ray of divine light into your souls! For if you do not feel yourselves lost without Christ (…) your souls are dead; you are not only an image of hell, but in some degree hell itself: you carry hell about with you, and you know it not.” The metaphors the preacher employs in the exclamation are once again used to indirectly describe free grace; all the elements listed among figurative target domains, that is a sword, an arrow and a ray of light share a number of common features: they may penetrate the human body, one cannot protect oneself against them as they pierce it very quickly, they have a similar long, sharp shape and, last, but not least, the first two target domains are weapons of war. Thus, free grace is portrayed as a force that works very quickly and transforms the human heart and mind the moment it reaches its destination, just as in the case of Zaccheus. What is more, one cannot avoid it or resist it, the moment one is “struck” by free grace one’s very essence becomes transformed – one is “born again.” Whitefield benevolently expresses hope that at least some of his hearers will experience this sensation, and will be entitled to say: “I was lost, but I am found; I was dead, but am alive again.” Such hackneyed, intertextual link to the biblical story of the prodigal son, framed in two pairs of antonyms, stressing the profoundity and the extent of the religious transformation, further reinforces the emotional message of the sermon. The very last strategy used by the preacher in the sermon consists of an impersonation of Jesus. Whitefield encourages his hearers to imagine Christ hanging on the cross, addressing the gathered: “Behold my hands and my feet! Look, look into my wounded side, and see a heart flaming with love: love stronger than death. Come into my arms, O sinners, come wash your spotted souls in my

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heart’s blood. See here is a fountain opened for all sin and all uncleanness! See, O guilty souls, how the wrath of God is now abiding upon you: come, haste away, and hide yourselves in the clefts of my wounds.” The address is permeated with a sense of pathos and must have offered the preacher an ample occasion to make use of his acting skills. The speaker draws the hearers’ attention to Christ’s body, and calls upon them to join with him physically, by embracing him and hiding in his wounds. The directness of his words is almost shocking, especially when combined with emotionality of the figurative appeal. Whitefield designs this rhetorical scheme to be the climax of the sermon – having described free grace, its impact on the human mind and the consequences of its rejection, he impersonates the godhead to encourage the hearers to yearn for Jesus’s blessing. The climatic quality of the address is visible in its dynamic use of imperatives and repetitions; also the short sentences used by the preacher give the passage a vibrant and forceful quality, perfect for the final rhetorical push to “awaken” the audience.

Gilbert Tennent

Cover page of Tennent’s The Danger of an Unconverted Ministry, Evans Early American Imprints Collection

The study of Great Awakening pulpit oratory cannot afford to omit an analysis of Gilbert Tennent’s preaching and a discussion of his most famous sermon, The Danger of an Unconverted Ministry. Tennent’s evangelical zeal and dedication to the spreading of the revival earned him the telling nickname “son of thunder”. In

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the sermon chosen for discussion here, the preacher launches a truly thunderous attack on the allegedly unconverted ministers and forcefully describes their destructive impact on the spirituality of the colonies. Because of the assault featured in The Danger of an Unconverted Ministry, the sermon remains critical for the “rhetoric of the revival” as a most illustrative example of its accusatory and divisive aspect. As viewed by preachers like Tennent, the unconverted and unfaithful ministers constituted a vital threat to the colonies and needed to be stigmatized at all cost – no preaching rhetoric was too persuasive or apprehensive to achieve this goal. In spite of Tennent’s importance for the revivals and the shaping of colonial Presbyterianism, his life and preaching have been the subject of only a few publications. The most significant is Milton J. Coalter Jr.’s biography of Tennent (1986) – in this study, the first book-length publication on the “son of thunder’s” life, the author seeks to establish the preacher’s proper place in history, a place that to him has been eclipsed by the numerous publications on Edwards and Whitefield. Coalter highlights Tennent’s independent role in colonial revivalism, but at the same time pays attention to the contextual background of the Middle Colonies. The author struggled with the fact that there were scarcely any sources on Tennent’s past and produced what seems to be the ultimate guide in terms of the preacher’s life, although the notion of pietism mentioned in the title of the book could still offer space for commentary. Tennent has also been the topic of a few unpublished dissertations like those by Frederick W. Brink (1942), Miles D. Harper (1958) and Cheryl Ann Rickards (2003). The last one is dedicated primarily to the “son of thunder’s” preaching oratory. Its author postulates that the success of Tennent’s rhetoric consisted in an amalgam of two modes – the first one aimed at awakening and alarming the sinners, the second aimed at encouraging them to examine their eternal states. Comprehensive as these studies are in their respective areas, they still leave some topics connected with Tennent’s preaching unexplored. Tennent came to America from Ireland at the age of fourteen, in 1717. He was the eldest son of William Tennent, a Presbyterian clergyman. Such a family background certainly encouraged him to take up studies at Yale, from which he graduated at the age of 22; also, at that time the young Tennent and his father established a divinity school, which would later play a significant role in the revivalism of the Middle Colonies. The school came to be known as the Log College, having been named after the log cabin in which the classes were run. A few months later, in 1726, Tennent started his congregation in New Brunswick, New Jersey. There he became strongly influenced by Theodus Jacobus Frelinghuysen, an evangelical to a Dutch reformed congregation in the Raritan Valley, adjacent to Tennent’s parish. Frelinghuysen gained a reputation for being an adamant critic of hypocrisy and a promoter of Reformed Pietism. In

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the colonial theological environment, Puritanism and Reformed Pietism walked parallel and friendly paths, but retained individual focal points: while the former was preoccupied with doctrinal and ecclesiastical purity, the latter, as advocated by Frelinghuysen, grew to be concerned with the heart of religion and Christian practice. Frelinghuysen’s uncompromising devotion aggravated his opponents who questioned the appropriateness of his orthodoxy. Initially, Tennent and Frelinghuysen regarded one another with distrust (cf. Coalter 1986, 12 and ff.), but later became close evangelical partners. Frelinghuysen’s preaching undoubtedly helped in paving the way for the 1740s revivals in the Middle Colonies. When the revival spirit began to spread, and the demand for orthodox ministers grew rapidly, the Log College proved irreplaceable. The graduates of William Tennent’s school were reliable, dedicated and trained well enough to spread the “awakening” around the Middle Colonies. After some time, the students of the Log College, led by Gilbert Tennent and supported by a few Yale graduates, organised themselves into the New Brunswick Presbytery, which had the power to license its own ministers. This caused controversy among the old Presbyterian Synod members, who issued a regulation that prohibited graduates of non-university colleges (such as the Log College) from preaching, if they were not examined and approved a Synod member. The conflict between the different factions of the Presbyterian clergy grew rapidly. The Synod’s movements against the Log College caused a substantial breach in the Presbyterian ranks, dubbed the “Great Schism,” which lasted for seventeen years, and instigated a lingering sense of resentment that remained for much longer. With its radicalism, the Tennent family undeniably contributed to the painful and protracted division into the “Old Side” and the “New Side”. When the revival dust settled, Tennent did make efforts to reconcile the two sides of the conflict. As argued by Bennett (1993), the sacramental sermon Love to Christ, written in 1757, may be seen as an example of the preacher’s overtures to reunite the divided Presbyterian factions. Tennent assumed his role in the New Lights group as a dedicated follower of Whitefield, and looked up to the Grant Itinerant’s spellbinding rhetoric. In 1740 he followed Whitefield in a very successful preaching tour and nourished the “awakening” spirit planted by the Grand Itinerant. Coalter stresses that Tennent and Whitefield became friends and, in spite of the substantial age difference, discovered that their theological and ministerial agendas were hardly distinguishable (1986, 69 and ff.). Yet, very soon, Gilbert Tennent gained his own considerable reputation as an eminent “awakening” preacher. Although well educated, Tennent was not as eminent an intellectual as Edwards, nor was his style of preaching as innovative as Whitefield’s – the power of Tennent’s words lay somewhere else: he was a preacher of great zeal, very strongly dedicated to the propagation of the “New Birth” at all cost. Tennent persistently stressed constantly argued that salvation was a means of escaping eternal pun-

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ishment – he almost literally tried to frighten his hearers into heaven. The preacher also underlined the certainty of damnation for the unconverted and notoriously labelled certain ministers as “unregenerate” in public. Tracy extensively quotes the account of Thomas Prince, a junior pastor of the Old South Church, who heard Gilbert Tennent preach on December 13, 1739, in New North. Prince describes the “son of thunder” and his preaching style in the following manner (quoted in 1830, 144): I found him to be a man of considerable parts and learning; free, gentle, condescending; and, from his own various experience, a reading the most noted writers on experimental, as well as the Scriptures, (…) and his preaching was as searching and arousing as ever I heard. He seemed to have no regard to please the eyes of his hearers with agreeable gesture, not their ears with delivery, not their fancy with language; but to aim directly at their hearts and consciences, to lay open their ruinous delusions, show them their numerous, secret, hypocritical shifts in religion, and drive them out of every deceitful refuge wherein they made themselves easy, with the form of godliness without the power. And many who were pleased in a good conceit of themselves before, now found, to their great distress, they were only self-deceived hypocrites.

Prince seems to be most fascinated by the way Tennent was able to pinpoint the ungodly elements in people and unpardonably criticise them in his discourse (quoted in Tracy 1830, 115): he seemed to have such a lively view of the divine majesty, the spirituality, purity, extensiveness and strictness of his law (…) that the very terrors of God seemed to rise in his mind afresh, when he displayed and brandished them in the eyes of unconciled sinners. And though some could not bear the representation, and avoided his preaching; yet the arrows of convictions, by his ministry, seemed so deeply to pierce the hearts of others, and even some of the most stubborn sinners, as to make them fall down at the feet of Christ, and yield a lowly submission to him.

The mixture of “terror” and “searching”, together with Tennent’s zeal and uncompromising religious dedication, ensured his rhetorical success and earned him recognition among other renewed propagators of the Great Awakening, like George Whitefield. At least at the beginning of the revival upheaval Tennent was unforgiving in his criticism of ministers who disapproved of the Great Awakening and of the mission of the Log College. Also, he did not fear instigating controversies and antagonising the New Lights and the Old Lights alike, but the primary rhetorical assault was directed at those who lacked true conversion. As observed by Coalter (1986, 166), “against individual sinners he sent forth the terrors of the biblical law to expose the rotten foundations of human self-righteousness, and against the church’s Pharisee-infested clergy he levelled a withering assault on unconverted ministers.”

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The year 1744 brought a change in Tennent’s views as he started to distance himself from the most extreme revivalists, like Davenport. The “son of thunder” refrained from giving out the names of the allegedly unconverted preachers in public, and assumed a more polite manner of ministry – Kidd stresses (2007, 147) how at that time the preacher ceased to wear clothes that were reminiscent of John the Baptist and put on proper ministerial robes and a wig. Tennent left New Brunswick and accepted a ministerial position in a newly organised Presbyterian church in Philadelphia, which was primarily comprised of Whitefield’s friends and sympathisers. At that time, the “son of thunder” also “set to work formulating a conceptual balance that could anchor experimental piety on a sound doctrinal foundation and thereby protect it from the winds of uninformed passion and the decay of pharisaic formality” (Coalter 1986, 166). After his father’s death in 1746 and the closing of the Log College, Gilbert Tennent helped to found the College of New Jersey (subsequently renamed Princeton University) – he later travelled to England to solicit funds for the college and became one of its trustees. The preacher also laboured to reunite the divided Presbyterian clergy. In his numerous sermons from that period, e. g., Irenicum Ecclesiastum, Brotherly love Recommended, Danger of Spiritual Pride, Tennent presented the reconciliation of early Jewish and Gentile Christians as a model for Presbyterian union. He died on July 23, 1764 in Philadelphia.

The Danger of an Unconverted Ministry On the 8th March, 1740, in Nottingham (Pennsylvania), Gilbert Tennent delivered a discourse that became the second – next to Jonathan Edwards’ Sinners in the Hand of an Angry God – best known sermon of the Great Awakening. Its title The Danger of an Unconverted Ministry, neatly summarizes the idea advanced by Tennent – in his discourse the preacher launches a fierce attack on the “ungodly” preachers, the “Pharisees”, whose words carried no spiritual value and whose very presence posed a threat to the community of the faithful. The preacher argues that in the wake of this threat more schools like the Log College ought to be set up to train truly converted young men – and if the parishioners are discontented with the words of their preacher and consider him unconverted, they ought to attend churches wherever they feel they are being helped spiritually. Kidd observes that this sermon was like a “dry wind to a smouldering fire” (2007, 60) and especially because of the second postulate of Tennent, the reaching of a compromise and peaceful coexistence of the critics and supporters of the reival very unlikely. The context for the delivery of the sermon partly explains the rhetoric adopted by Tennent. The preacher wanted to convince the Nottingham congregation,

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whose parish was divided between the supporters and the opponents of the revival movement, that they should chose a revival preacher to fill the vacant position after the death of their previous minister, Rev. John Paul (Coalter 1986, 64). The sermon became the “manifesto of the revival party” (Heimert, Miller 1967, 72), and contributed to the acrimonious character of the debate between the Old Lights and the New Lights; it further instigated antagonisms and presented both parties of the dispute with apt arguments against each other. To a large extent, due to this very sermon, the unconverted minister became a symbol of what to Calvinists seemed the “moral malaise” of the colonial society (Heimert 1996, 161), namely, the lack of true conversion and orthodoxy. It is hardly surprising, then, that the issue of the “unconverted” clergy was so persistently explored by, among others, George Whitefield in a number of his revival sermons. Tennent’s background, pietistic influences, zealous ecclesiastical education and deep sympathy for the revival movement, allowed him to employ rhetoric most suitable to fight against the allegedly corrupted ministers. The sermon instantly evoked the general public’s interest. It was not anybody else, but Philadelphia’s most capable businessman, Benjamin Franklin that speedily realized how eager people would be to read Tennent’s accusations and put two editions of the sermon to print by the end of 1740. The sermon was published again in Boston two years later, following the release of its German translation. The interest in the contentious statements of Tennent and the air of controversy surrounding the sermon allowed the publishers to draw easy profit from the raging theological debate of the day. The primary rhetorical force of The Danger of an Unconverted Ministry resides in the way Tennent portrays “ministers-Pharisees” and moulds his arguments against them. The language of the preacher is richly ornamental. He utilises a number of metaphors, biblical references, similes and comparisons, which are all designed at pathos, manipulating the emotions of the hearers, as well as at discrediting the ministers the speaker regarded as “unconverted.” Tennent also places very strong emphasis on what is the best remedy to the problem of the “ungodly” preachers: the parishioners should abandon such ministers and look for genuinely converted ones – a postulate effectively destructive for the established church order. The preacher’s agenda was welcomed with applause as the audiences enjoyed hearing how the decline in piety and the ever-present moral laxness should be attributed not to them, but solely to the very ones who propagated the necessity of moral regeneration. Tennent provided people with a scapegoat at whom they could direct their discontent and whom they could blame for the general abandonment of the first colonists’ piety. The very opening of the sermon introduces the theme explored by the preacher and sets the perspective for the whole discourse: “As a faithful Ministry is a great Ornament, Blessing and Comfort, to the Church of GOD, even the Feet

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of such Messengers are beautiful; So on the contrary, an ungodly Ministry is a great Curse and Judgment: These Caterpillars labour to devour every green Thing.” Tennent contrasts the two groups of preachers, first highlighting the merits of the “godly” ones: they are described by tricolon, a combination of three words, which carry similar, positive connotations: “Ornament, Blessing and Comfort.” Next, he sets them against “Curse and Judgment,” which are associated with the “unconverted” preachers. Understandably, the merits of the converted preachers seem to outweigh the flaws of the unconverted, as the former are listed at the beginning and in greater number. The metaphor used by Tennent, characteristic of his writing style, allows him to draw a negative image of the unconverted ministers, as required by his agenda. The words he selects for his target metaphorical domain – “caterpillars” and “devour” – have pejorative connotations, and help him mould the negative emotional attitude of the addressees as well as prepare them for the disparaging arguments that follow. The preacher metaphorically presents the unconverted ministers as base, destructive vermin, who seek to deprive the rest of the world of its spiritual richness and liveliness (represented by green vegetation), and, implicitly, turn it into barren wasteland. In the next line, by the use of the inclusive pronoun “our” (which denotes here the community of the truly converted Tennent ranks himself in), the preacher links the introductory, general sentence with the immediate context of his utterance: the sight of the people deprived of “faithful” ministers ought to “make all our Powers and Passions mourn, in the most doleful Accents and the most incessant, insatiable and deploring Agonies.” Alliterations and repetitive structures (tricolon of poignant adjectives) make Tennent’s point more emphatic and categorical – he stresses that people exposed to the words of an unconverted preacher are wronged by him, and their unfortunate situation is to be deplored by every true beliver. The preacher reinforces this remark by pointing out that Jesus Christ was “moved with Compassions towards them (i. e., the ones who have an unconverted man as their spiritual leader),” and in his eyes they are like “sheep having no shepherd”. Tennent goes back to this conventional comparison in several sections of the sermon, drawing on a commonly recognised Scriptural metaphor: church is a flock of sheep. Interestingly, by mentioning Christ and his debates with the Pharisees, the preacher sets his consideration in the perspective of the whole history of the church, and renders the presence of the “unconverted ministers” – the Pharisees – an ever-present predicament of Christianity. The implications of his words are highly persuasive as Tennent indirectly signals that the supporters of the revival should be associated with the defenders of the “true” faith and thus effectively elevates their status.

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Just like classical rhetoricians, in the third part of the model oratio, in the next section, the preacher presents the agenda of his discourse. First, he aims to describe the character of the “Old Pharisee-Teachers,” then he plans to elaborate on the situation of people led by the ungodly preachers and finally, he intends to advise such people on what they may do to improve their situation. Following this agenda, Tennent opens the main body of the sermonic speech with an elaborate list of the sins and transgressions of the “Old PhariseeTeachers.” Since at the opening he binds the immediate context of the discourse with the early history of the Church, it becomes apparent that by describing the Pharisees in this section he is in fact constantly yet indirectly depicting the unconverted members of the 18th century clergy. The preacher begins by asserting that the Pharisees were “very proud and conceited” and looked on the common people with an “Air of Disdain.” Next, he accuses them of using the “Craft of Foxes,” and of trying to intimidate Christ with their subversive questions and “sly and sneaking Methods.” The second allegation advanced by Tennent is markedly different from the first. Pride is a sinful trait of character and may be seen as a result of the Pharisees’ attachment to earthly comforts and high social status. By stressing this corrupting attachment, the preacher lays emphasis on the disparity between them and the common people and draws on the sense of social injustice of the latter. The second point of the preacher is an accusation directed at the Pharisees’ use of language and rhetoric. Their “Craft of Foxes” is mingled with the “Cruelty of Wolves” – the former suggesting malicious cunning, the latter brutal malice. The two characteristics make their pulpit oratory particularly threatening for the salvation of other people. The preacher indirectly accuses the clergy of using their rhetorical knowledge and eristic skills to attack Christ and his disciples – their education, which should inspire them to do good and help them understand the Word better is misused and becomes a means of combating the supporters of Christianity. The preacher also observes that the Pharisees were ignorant of the “New Birth” and resistant to true conversion, their faith was superficial and weak. To support this claim he quotes a passage from Mat. 23.27, 28: “for ye are like whited Sepulchres, which indeed appear beautiful outward, but are within full of dead Bones, and of all Uncleanness” stressing that a “little of the Learning then in Fashion” and a “fair Outside” was enough for them to occupy the office of the priest. The most prominent elements of the imagery of the passage: the deadness of their spiritual interior and hypocritical exterior, are recurrent not only in The Danger of an Unconverted Ministry, but in a number of other sermons of Tennent, as well as of his revivalist partners. The preacher introduces a thought that must have been particularly disturbing for the proponents of the revival: some ministers among the clergy might have adopted a mask of holiness, while in reality their hearts remain unfaithful and untransformed.

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In the context of Tennent’s earlier criticism, the hearers may suspect that the Pharisees’ pretence of piety might have been dictated by their desire to obtain a high social position or wealth. The preacher points out that they were greedy (they had their “Eyes (…) fixed upon the Bag”) and “bigoted to human Inventions in religious Matters.” The Pharisees were also guilty of hypocrisy. This last element of the long enumeratio, figurative listing is stressed by the preacher with the use of sarcasm; he exclaims: “And what a mighty Respect had they for the Sabbath-Day forsooth!” The ironic expression of awe and a mocking exclamatio close the long list of sins perpetrated by the Pharisees, whose exaggerated zeal for the Sabbath is another proof of, as the preacher puts it, “Rottenness.” The number of transgressions listed by the preacher is long and endowed with numerous emphatic structures; at this point, he also employs quotations from the Scripture to strengthen his point. In general, in this first part of The Danger of an Unconverted Ministry, Tennent draws a uniformly negative picture of the Pharisees, gradually assembling charges against them and accumulating the accusatory force of his words, which he utilises in the second and third section of the sermon. The vices of the Pharisees are not the only object of Tennent’s criticism. The preacher opens the next part of The Danger of an Unconverted Ministry with a severe criticism of the unconverted men performing the duties of a minister; an observation that fits well into the thematic area indicated in the initial section of the sermon. In this part of the speech Tennent employs a number of interrogative constructions. Through them the addressees become engaged in the communicative act, as they are encouraged to answer the enquiries in their minds. As a result, the preacher and his hearers become united in the search for the responses to the vital questions about faith – this “searching” character of Tennent’s preaching rhetoric allows him to build a communicative bridge with the audience. At first, two interrogative figures captivate the attention of the audience – one erothesis, a rhetorical question, and a subiectio, a question and an answer: “Isn’t it a principal Part of the ordinary Call of GOD to the Ministerial Work, to aim at the Glory of GOD, and in Subordination thereto, the Good of Souls, as their chief Marks in their Undertaking that Work? And can natural Man on Earth do this? No! No!” Tennent also resorts to logos, logical argumentation and constructs an enthymeme, advancing the premises in the form of rhetorical questions: “Are not wicked Men forbid to meddle in Things sacred?” and “Now, are not all unconverted Men wicked Men?” The conclusion that is left for hearers to draw strengthens the point made by the speaker: unconverted, natural men are not allowed to “meddle in Things sacred” and should not be allowed to ministry. Tennent also resorts to eristic argumentum ex concessis, as he seeks to prove that laymen cannot handle the task of looking after other people’s salvation when

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they fail to cater for their own spiritual life: “Is it reasonable to suppose, that they will be earnestly concerned for others Salvation, when they slight their own?” In this way, the preacher does not attack their conduct or motivation, but questions their very basic potency to perform ministerial duties. In view of this argument, nothing they resolve or do (except undergoing full conversion) may grant them the right to guide others to salvation. Radical as it seems, such thinking fits very well into the dichotomous view of the clergy proposed in the opening of The Danger of an Unconverted Ministry. Using an interrogative figura etymologica, that is an arrangement of words with a similar lexical roots (“For can those men be faithful that have no faith?”), Tennent questions the potency of the unconverted men to join the ministry. The figure he employs allows him to stress, by means of a play on words, that the source of true religious devotion is faith, and nothing but faith. Those that lack it may engage in religion encouraged by other people, lured by money or simply led astray – nevertheless, God would never work through them to direct the faithful. Interestingly, the implication behind this argument reinforces the initial dichotomy through which the preacher offers a vision of irreparably divided clergy and points to different forces that may dictate a minister’s conduct – erroneous human actions and temptations further deepen the rift between the converted and unconverted preachers. The next argument deployed against “natural men” who act as divines goes back to the point already suggested earlier in the discourse: they use “polished (…) Wit and Rhetorick” and gild their words with the “specious Names of Zeal, Fidelity, Peace, good Order, and Unity.” Once again, this time more overtly, the preacher targets his opponents’ language. By actually mentioning the word “Rhetorick,” Tennent is able to draw on its negative connotations and make the hearers directly associate the unconverted preacher with manipulation, deceit and learned verbal trickery. Yet, according to Tennent, it is not only the manipulative rhetorical craft that ruins the ministry of the unfaithful – their discourses are “cold and sapless” and “freeze between their Lips.” These phrases, constituting the crux of the argument, draw on the universal metaphor: emotionality is conceptualized as heat and fire, thus cold is to be seen as an opposite of the fiery zeal and religious passion. Tennent criticizes at this point the performance of the preachers who, to him, lacked the vigour and the zeal of the revivalists like Whitefield, and who could not elicit from the audience such powerful reaction as the Grand Itinerant. To add to his negative portrayal of the unconverted ministers, Tennent uses the grim imagery of the “whitened Sepulchers” and criticises the way the unconverted ministers organise their sermons – the “Application of their Discourses is either short, or indistinct, and general. They difference not the Precious from the Vile, and divide not to every Man his Portion, according to the

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Apostolical Direction to Timothy.” Finally, Tennent observes that the style used by the unconverted preachers is too amiable and mild: “They comfort People, before they convince them; sow before they plow; and are busy in raising a Fabirck, before they lay a Foundation.” The metaphors Tennent himself employs suggest a lot about the idea of preaching he advocates. It appears to be a strenuous process of gradual nature – a good preacher needs primarily to, as the “son of thunder” writes, “thrust the Nail of Terror into Sleeping Souls” before he can effectively address the audience. The metaphorical portrayal of the reival preaching implies that in spite of its apparent harshness, with time, it turns out to be constructive and fruitful, as both the activities of ploughing and building a factory suggest that at a certain point spiritual crops might be gathered and pious goods manufactured. Instead of following these productive patterns of communication, the unconverted ministers “keep Driving, Driving to Duty, Duty under this Notion, That it will recommend natural Men to the Favour of GOD; or entitle them to the Promises of Grace and Salvation.” The alliterative repetition of words, epizeuxis, and the phonetic similarity of the two disyllabic words “Driving” and “Duty” generate a particular iconic effect – the preacher not only asserts that the sermons of the unconverted ministers are overtly long and fruitless, but also mocks them by the very form of the lexis. At the same time, the preacher implicitly presents his own oratorical agenda of the “rhetoric of the revival” – the goals he sets for revival preaching and the means he uses to achieve it stand in direct contrast to what is practiced by the unfaithful ministers. Having supported his argument with a quotation from Matthew Pool, an English nonconformist theologian, Tennent asks a number of antithetical rhetorical questions, encouraging, as he says, the audience’s “right Reason” to support his observations. One may see this as an attempt by the preacher to ground his argumentation in logos, and thus to distance himself from the allegedly flawed rhetoric of the unconverted ministers. However, on closer examination, it becomes apparent that this series of rhetorical questions used by the preacher is aimed at a strong emotional appeal rather than logical argumentation. Tennent employs a number of words with strong associations, connotative of different biblical passages and by the use of the antithetical form and contrastive lexis he highlights the rift within the colonial clergy: “Is a blind Man fit to bring others to Life? A mad Man fit to give Counsel in a Matter of Life and Death? a Rebel, an Enemy to GOD, fit to spent on an Embassy of Peace, to bring Rebels into a State of Friendship with GOD? A Leper, or one that has Plague-sores upon him, fit to be a good Physician?” The questions also indirectly characterise the unconverted ministers who are once again portrayed in negative terms: as crippled enemies of the Almighty, who, if entrusted with other people’s spiritual life, are bound to ruin it. The preacher also insinuates that the unconverted may be guided by

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Satan; he asserts that “many instances may be given of Satan’s convincing Persons, by his Temptations.” The hearers may recognize this suggestion and assume that “stone-blind” and “stone-dead” ministers do not only fail to serve Christ properly, but, in fact, act in the service of the archenemy. In the third part of the sermon, Tennent directs his words at the audience: “My Brethren, we should mourn over those, that are destitute of faithful Ministers, and sympathise with them. Our Bowels should be moved with the most compassionate Tenderness, over those dear fainting Souls, that are as Sheep having no Sheppard,” he also asks the audience for a prayer for those that have unconverted ministers: “O! Let us follow the LORD, Day and Night, with Cries, Tears, Pleadings and Groanings upon this Account!” The figure of congeries, an accumulation of synonymic words, demonstrates how elaborate and extended the lamentations and prayers ought to be. At the same time, Tennent attacks the established colonial education and appeals to his hearers to build schools as “Church of God” because the “publick Academies” are so “much corrupted and abused” people should “encourage private Schools, or Seminars of Learning (…) in which those only should be admitted, who upon strict Examination, have the Judgment of a reasonable Charity, the plain Evidences of experimental religion.” One ought to look at these words both in the context of the revival mission of the Log College, as well as the revivalists’ conflict with colonial educators. The praise of the only truly pious educational centers was for Tennant a direct way to promote his revival allies and his religious agenda. Thus, it is hardly surprising that in the sermon that was such a representative manifesto of his views it is in schools like Log College that he finds the remedy for the key colonial moral predicament. In the next set of arguments, the preacher puts greater emphasis on the emotional appeal. He seeks to instigate enthusiasm among his hearers, using a call that one might expect to find in military or political rhetoric: “Let all the Followers of the Lamb stand up and act for GOD against all Opposers: Who is upon GOD’s side? Who?” The indirect address and motivational questions strengthen the sense of community among the recipients, at the same time forcing them to express their support for God, and, consequently, for the Great Awakening. Moving slowly towards the rhetorical climax, the preacher gradually increases the number of figurative comparisons and alliterations to multiply the emotional effect of his words, especially when he elaborates on how removed from the ideal the colonial reality is: “the Swarms of Locusts, the Crowds of Pharisees, that have as covetously as cruelly, crept into the Ministry, in this adulterous Generation.” The description is almost cataclysmic. The preacher stresses that the colonial church has been infiltrated by great number (“swarms” and “crowds”) of its enemies and degenerates rapidly, failing on the covenant.

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The truly converted seem to be, as it were, in the minority and consequently only a powerful mobilization of the faithful may remedy the situation. Another means of pathos used by Tennent consists in impersonating members of an unconverted minister’s congregation, who are pleased with their “unfaithful shepherd”: “O! think the poor Fools, that is a fine Man indeed, our Minister is a prudent charitable Man, he is not always harping upon Terror, and sounding Damnation in our Ears, like some rash-headed Preachers, who by their uncharitable Methods, are ready to put poor People out of their Wits.” This semidialogic section plays an important role in the preacher’s persuasive strategy. Firstly, through sarcastic mockery, he ridicules the thinking of the sceptics’, deepening the divide between the Old Light and the New Light ministers, secondly, the hearers are drawn into an ironic game, confronted with somebody who represents a substantially different mode of thinking, an opponent in the debate. Also, Tennent gains a splendid opportunity to deride and ridicule the preachers whose sermons did not incorporate the modes of the “rhetoric of the revival.” The preacher also advises people on what they could do to defend themselves against the unconverted ministry: it is “both lawful and expedient to go from them [i. e., unfaithful preachers] to hear Godly Persons.” In particular, Tennent highlights the fact that the members of such an unfortunate congregation are entitled to leave their minister lawfully, without any regrets and reservations, just like the “Beasts of the Field seek the best Pastures, and the Fishes of the Ocean seek after the Food they like best.” In view of these animalistic analogies, the approach suggested by the preacher becomes self-explanatory and natural. The reason why the preacher so persistently stresses the legitimisation of such an action concerned its drastic character in the eyes of a contemporary colonist. It meant undermining the bonds of mutual trust between a minister and his congregation, as well as jeopardising the uniformity of the colonial society’s fabric (the preacher refutes this counterargument by addressing the greater, spiritual good of the people). The decisive und uncompromising character of Tennen’s solution to the problem of unconverted ministers is also characterised by an abbreviated defining construction he uses: “whatever is not Faith, is Sin.” In it there is no inbetween, no space for compromise. At the same time, the preacher tries to refute another counterargument that might be advanced against his radical idea – that when the members of a congregation leave their ministers they provoke conflicts and controversies. He argues that when the “aforesaid Practice” is “accompanied with Love, Meekness and Humility” it cannot be the source of antagonisms: “If a person exercising Modesty and Love in his Carriage to his Minister and Neighbors, thro’ Uprightness of Heart, designing nothing but his own greater Good, repairs there frequently where he attains it; is this any reasonable Cause of

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Anger?” The preacher presents the motivation of people leaving their ministers in positive, charitable terms, as an action of a benevolent, good-willed person. Just a few sections further, Tennent again elaborates on the divisions within the Church: “While some are sincere Servants of God, are not many Servants of Satan, under religious Mask? (…) Can Light dwell within Darkness?” Tennent uses contrastive semantics (e. g., “God” and “Satan,” “Light” and “Darkness”) to deepen the antagonisms and lend legitimacy to the possible decision of a congregation to abandon its minister. In one of the final sections of the The Danger of an Unconverted Ministry, the speaker gives three, as he observes, “monstrous Ingredients in Objections” [to his argument about the “greater Good”]: a “Begging of the Question in Debate, rash Judging and Limiting of God.” The preacher’s arguments can be described in terms of eristic strategies – he points out that his opponents should avoid passing prompt judgement as they talk about things they have no knowledge of (what constitutes an eristic argumentum ad hominem). Tennent finishes his sermon with an exhortation and a summary of his main points in the form of an emphatic, direct address to the audience. He once again stresses the divisions among the colonial clergy and the fact that the ministry of an unconverted preacher cannot help the salvation of his congregation: “there is no Probability of your getting Good, by the Ministry of Pharisees. For they are no Sheppards (…) in Christ’s Account.” The “son of thunder” also emphasizes that the unfaithful ministers are ready to strike back against the ones who uncover their hypocrisy: “And with what Art, Rhetorick, and Appearances of Piety, will they varnish their Opposition of Christ’s Kingdom?” These last remarks of the preacher serve as a warning and as the prediction of an inevitable conflict (which Tennent wants his hearers to see in the context of the sacred history of Christianity) and a call to his hearers to follow the observations and guidelines offered in the sermon. Tennent closes his discourse with a quotation from Scripture, which seems like a fitting warning against the hypocritical seeming of the “unconverted ministry”: “And no Marvel; for Satan himself is transformed into an Angel of Light: Therefore it is no great Thing if his Ministers also be Transformed as the Ministers of the Righteousness, whose End shall be according to their Works” (Paul, 2 Cor. 11. 14. 15). Because of this sermon, Tennent secured his position as one of the most dedicated and categorical defenders of the revivalist cause. The warning against the threat from the unconverted ministers and an attempt at stopping their influence on colonial souls turned out to be more important for the preacher than the established ecclesiastical order – its collapse would be acceptable to him, if only it would serve the higher idea of purification. Tennent saw no alternatives to the path he advocated – to him the revival of religion would involve the

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dominance of uncompromising piety, not unity. Like in the case of many other zealous propagators of the Great Awakening, Tennent’s rhetoric is divisive and does not offer an opening for compromise. Interestingly, in The Danger of an Unconverted Ministry the preacher uses this radicalism as the basic rhetorical framework of his sermon, as indicated by his selection of figures and tropes, in particular those based on contrasts and antitheses. His orthodox views allow him to assume an air of categorical rigidity and an unquestionable, almost demagogical, rhetorical authority. Interestingly, he takes this authority for granted and does not take the trouble to justify it; alleviating the danger of the unconverted ministers is for Tennent the utmost priority, and the sole goal of his rhetoric. The preacher seems to be right solely on the basis of the fact that others are wrong – an implied outcome of the dichotomist viewpoint, he assumes all throughout the discourse. All this makes The Danger of an Unconverted Ministry one of the most compelling and illustrative sermons of the “rhetoric of the revival.”

Jonathan Dickinson

Almost twenty years ago Bryan F. LeBeau wrote that Jonathan Dickinson “remains the most underrepresented intellectual and ecclesiastical leader of the eighteenth century” (1997, 1). Little has changed since LeBeau authored these words. There are surprisingly few contemporary academic texts dedicated to Dickinson, in spite of his uniformly acclaimed importance in the shaping of colonial Presbyterianism and his vital importance as the voice of moderation in the fervent Great Awakening dispute. Especially his pulpit oratory remains an unexplored area on the map of the colonial revivalism. This chapter constitutes, to the best knowledge of the author, the first attempt at a detailed analysis of Dickinson’s preaching rhetoric. There is one book-sized study of Dickinson written by LeBeau (1997). It offers a look into the writings of the Elizabethtown divine primarily in the context of American Presbyterianism and the theological disputes he was engaged in. Other noteworthy texts on Dickinson include additional publications of LeBeau, in which he comments on the subscription controversy (1976) or Dickinson’s ordination sermon (1991), as well as an important article by Leigh Eric Schmidt (1985), which features interesting comments on the factors that shaped the preacher’s thought, such as his strong attachment to New England Puritanism and the bitter disappointment at his son’s growing lack of piety. There seem to be a number of reasons for the omission of Dickinson. First, to begin with the mundane, is the relatively small amount of source material. The church of Elizabethtown, New Jersey, in which he was the pastor for almost forty years, burnt to the ground at the end of the 18th century. As a result, most of the documents concerning Dickinson’s life and service were lost. The “private” Dickinson left us very little to dwell on – it is the “public” Dickinson of the published writings that we can say more about. Also, his output remains strongly in the shadow of those revivalists who made it to the main scholarly spotlight, like Edwards or Whitefield. Finally, the fact that to some his name became tantamount to moderation and compromise could have deprived his writings of the edge of controversy needed to spark interest among a wider publicity. As argued

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by Schmidt, Dickinson has always been a “somewhat colorless and unstudied figure – a somewhat unsuccessful middle-of-the-roader in the colorful tapestry of the Awakening years” (1985, 341) With moderation as his trademark, Dickinson assumed the most challenging role in the public debate. His views were always reconciliatory and he constantly sought to avoid radicalism. In a dispute, he would seek compromises – the striving for which required, at the same time, considerable mental flexibility, decisiveness, as well as determination. Dickinson had to stand by what he considered the right course of action and be wary not to get swayed to one or the other side of a conflict. And without a doubt the first part of the 18th century in the colonies was a battleground for a number of clashing outlooks, such as Enlightenment philosophy and the old Puritan way, or revivalism and anti-revivalism. Because of Dickinson’s reconciliatory standpoint, his writings offer an interesting insight into these tensions, and his sermonic voice of moderation reveals a vital aspect of the “rhetoric of revival”. Dickinson was born in 1688 in Hartfield, in the Connecticut River Valley. At the age of sixteen he entered Yale, just a year after its founding. There he received an education that gave him a sound insight into the Reformed religion – a theological framework that proved substantial for his future writings. LeBeau stresses that Dickinson’s college education must also have strongly influenced his pulpit oratory (1997, 10), especially because the preacher learned there of the Puritan agenda of the “plain style” and moderation in the use of figures. After graduation in 1709, Dickinson was ordained as the minister in Elizabethtown where he would spend most of his life. At that time, he also married. By 1717 the Elizabethan divine was the youngest member of the Presbytery as well as the Synod of Philadelphia and he was gradually gaining a very high regard among his contemporaries as a respected spokesman for the church. His guidance turned out to be particularly important in the wake of the subscription controversy. The debate around the subscription to the Westminster Confessions as a mandatory prerequisite for the ministerial office brought the Presbyterian Church to the edge of a crisis. The Confessions were a part of the Westminster Standards introduced by the Westminster Assembly in 1643–1649 to represent the doctrine and polity of the English and Scottish Presbyterian Churches. By proposing such strict requirements for ordination, the Synod of Philadelphia sought to secure the unity of the Church and prevent the inflow of potentially corrupting and erratic theological ideas. To some like Dickinson, however, such a policy was controversial. He believed that the subscription was too imposing, and the strict examination of future ministers was much more effective as a means of securing their orthodoxy and retaining theological concord. Dickinson argued that such an examination would provide valuable feedback as to the candidate’s

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skills and qualifications for ministry. His careful mediations led to the implementation of the Adopting Act in 1729, in which he proposed that should any a candidate have any “scruples” about the articles, the Synod or Presbytery could rule that these were not essential for the doctrine and admit him nonetheless. The document was a compromise that appeased both sides for some time and prevented the deepening of the schism. However, in his assessment of Dickinson’s Adopting Act, Michael Bauman points to the fact that the preacher’s solution to the subscription controversy was only temporary and the “peace that this document fostered, though welcomed and real, was fragile and short-lived” (1998, 466). In the wake of the Awakening in which he would be a major figure, Dickinson again became strongly engaged in public debate. The Elizabethtown divine’s importance in the revival could be argued to parallel that of Jonathan Edwards, although his contribution to the Awakening are of a different nature. Dickinson was the voice of moderation, who defended the idea of stable revivalism against the Old Lights as well as the more extreme New Lights. David Harlan (1983) stresses that Dickinson did not perceive the two sides of the revival dispute as mutually exclusive. Unlike Gilbert Tennent, Dickinson advocated against extreme behavior as well as antagonistic rhetoric, for fear they might irreparably damage the ecclesiastical order. Above all, the tendency to publically stigmatize certain preachers as unconverted caused his concern and objection. His sermon The Dangers of Schism (1739) was a particularly strong voice against these practices – the preacher stressed there that if the parishioners abandon their ministers and migrate freely between parishes, the uniformity and stability of the Church could be threatened. In November 1739 Dickinson invited Whitefield to preach at Elizabethtown. He was impressed by the Grant Itinerant’s sermon and the impact it had on his parishioners. The reaction he observed among the members of his congregation made him believe in the power of revivalist preaching and strengthened his support for the Great Awakening. His further contributions to the movement were aimed at protecting the idea of revivalism without extremities. Yet, this moderation antagonized the more radical proponents of the Great Awakening. Andrew Croswell belonged to the group that most persistently attacked Dickinson for what they saw as “mildness”, destructive for the advancement of the Awakening. Especially, Dickinson’s Display of God’s Special Grace was the object of criticism. Harlan observes (1983) that this text of the Elizabethtown divine seemed particularly attractive to moderates, because it featured a balanced exchange of arguments between a moderate revivalist and a radical revivalist. Understandably, the former wins the debate, but one can hardly omit noticing the delicate sense of reconciliatory unity between both stances. Understandably, such an approach was unacceptable for the more uncompromising revivalists.

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Perhaps the most long-lasting element of Dickinson’s heritage was the institutional embodiment of the awakening, the College of New Jersey, later to become Princeton College. Its foundation was an answer to a growing demand for an establishment that would offer a religious education of a pro-revivalist character. Until 1744 such schooling was available at the Log College, ran by William Tennent. But when its mission was drawing to an end, a group of preachers: Jonathan Dickinson, Aaron Burr, Ebenezer Pemberton and the Tennents, decided to continue the Log College legacy and attempted to establish a new institution, the College of New Jersey. Initially, their plan was unsuccessful. Governor Lewis Morris of New Jersey rejected their request for a charter, but his successor John Hamilton decided to grant his consent. Late May 1747 Dickinson became the first president of the college. The education offered at the future Princeton University was much broader than that of the Log College, and the curriculum included courses in the liberal arts and sciences. With time, the college would become one of the most important educational institutions in America. Dickinson died soon after the founding of the college and the presidency was transferred to Aaron Burr (and later to be taken over by Jonathan Edwards at the beginning of 1758 for two months). He left behind a diverse and rich legacy, spanning from the advancement of the Presbyterian Church, through moderate pro-revivalism, to the mission of the future Princeton University. In all his undertakings, Dickinson above all cherished temperance and harmony. As stressed by Schmidt, “Dickinson longed for an experiential and vital religion but not at the expense of social and religious order” (1985, 350). In terms of the “rhetoric of the revival”, the Elizabethtown divine offered pro-Awakening oratory devoid of antagonizing divisions, but which at the same time was appealing and innovative. This does not mean, however, that he refrained from strong rhetorical appeals – he avoided antagonizing other ministers, but attacked sinfulness and the lack of regeneration as mercilessly as Edwards or Croswell.

The Nature and Necessity of Regeneration The sermon discussed in this chapter, Dickinson’s The Nature and Necessity of Regeneration needs to be placed in the context of the fervent theological disputes between the proponents of the revival and its Anglican critics. In 1740 Daniel Waterland, former Archdeacon of Middlesex, authored a pamphlet Regeneration Stated and Explained in which he argued that the biblical means of regeneration is baptism as it constitutes the only gateway to the spiritual realm accessible to men. Since one’s baptism cannot be repeated, the regeneration takes place only once – and, in consequence, the future conversions in a person’s life are merely

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improvements and cannot be genuinely referred to as “regeneration”. Such reasoning undermined the idea of spiritual conversion through the “New Birth” – the flagship postulate of the revivalists. Dickinson’s responded with The Nature and Necessity of Regeneration, a sermon he delivered in the New York Presbytery in January 1743. In the text, the preacher strives to prove that a change of heart ought not to be dismissed as a means of achieving eternal life and that the principle of “illumination” accompanying the “New Birth” is a God’s way of guiding people into a new state of existence and spiritual renewal. Proving the necessity of regeneration becomes the main objective of Dickinson, and the rhetorical means he adopts to achieve it include both arguments and figures. Especially the latter constitute an interesting contribution to the revival stylistics, as in his sermon Dickinson arrives at a number of creative ways to speak about the conversion and to describe the regeneration process. Two words, the noun “experience” and the adjective “new”, seem to play a vital role in Dickinson’s rhetorical strategy – and not only because of how frequently they occur in the text. The former signals the preacher’s emphasis on the experiential rhetoric, as throughout the sermon Dickinson uses a selection of communicative strategies to explain to his hearers what the regeneration is from the perspective of the converted person. The latter, on the other hand, refers to his presentation of regeneration as an elementary change in the converted person, whose faith is not only invigorated, but whose very essence is made anew on a fundamentally basic level. Dickinson uses these two words as the framework for a number of arguments in the sermon – they encapsulate the essence of the message he seeks to deliver to his audience. Antithetical and contrastive figures seem to play a vital role in the sermon, for the preacher uses them to accentuate the importance of regeneration. In a number of places he sets the conditions of the soul before the awakening against those after it, usually by means of antonyms and lexical items with contrastive connotations. Such arrangements also help in highlighting how fundamental the change is for the converted sinner, as it usually involves a complete transition in his heart and his mind and, as it were, a substitution of one set of characteristics, like spiritual “filth” with a contrastive one such as spiritual “cleanness”. At the beginning of the sermon, Dickinson stresses that the text of Scripture: “I say unto thee, except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God”, should deprive the unregenerate of “false apprehensions and vain hopes of acceptance with God”. Only by undergoing a religious awakening, a “great change wrought in the heart”, can a human being become a partaker of glory and hope to be saved. This categorical importance of the revivalist understanding of regeneration is the foundation of the sermon. Dickinson leaves no doubt that it is the only route to heaven – in consequence, all the rhetorical stratagems that

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follow are aimed at explicating, proving and highlighting this key prerequisite for salvation. Dickinson explicates his understanding of the Kingdom of God. On the one hand, it is a realm of grace, on the other hand it is a realm of glory. All the time, however, he stresses that it cannot be entered by anybody who is unregenerate. In four short clauses he enumerates things that cannot help the sinner in reaching salvation – it is neither “birth”, “external privileges”, “conformity to the ceremonial law” nor the acknowledgement of the preacher as a “teacher sent from god”. All earthly values turn out to be meaningless in the struggle for salvation in the afterlife. Dickinson stresses that the one and only way for redemption is a “change of heart”, which means that one has to be “born again”. The systematic listing of arguments and explanation is followed by an appealing set of persuasive phrases that could remind one of slogans used in political or military purposes: “For those who cannot be Members of the Kingdom of Grace, can never be Partakers of the Kingdom of Glory”; “We must be qualified for that state, or unqualified for this”; “Without Regeneration there can be no salvation”; “We must become new creatures, or perish eternally”. These statements are based on a contrast, pairs of antonymic words or negations, and stand out from the rest of the text as particularly brief. Their balanced conciseness gives them the appearance of memorable, truthful sayings (rhetorical sententia). Also, they succinctly express the message the preacher seeks to convey to his audience – in a way, they put Dickinson’s arguments in a nutshell. Especially, the third “slogan” seems effective, because of the use of figurative homeoteleuton, a repetition of words that have similar endings. Just like in the colonial slogan “No taxation without representation”, the near rhyme binds the words with an analogous last syllable – “regeneration” and “salvation” – together reinforcing a link between two concepts which are so vital for the message of the sermon. To expand on the phenomenon of the awakening more extensively, Dickinson refers to a number of biblical phrases that are used with reference to regeneration; thus, the religious awakening is the outcome of the “seed of God” as it produces a “new man”, it is also connected to the “divine nature” and the “incorruptible seed”. The preacher conceptualizes conversion as a natural process, analogous to the metaphorical growth of a plant springing from a divine seed. On the other hand, the present, unregenerate human condition is nothing short of a disease, as stressed by the quotation from the Bible that he incorporates into his sermon: “the whole head is sick, the whole heart is faint”. Obviously, the implicit message is that conversion is like a cure for the body and the soul. By pointing to the Scriptural sources of these quotations, the speaker presents the phenomenon of regeneration through the “New Birth” as rooted in the biblical tradition, and, consequentially, legitimizes it further.

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But it is not only Biblical authority that strengthens Dickinson’s idea of revival regeneration. The preacher uses a number of illustrative images to explicate the nature of the “New Birth” and its critical importance for one’s salvation. He asks a rhetorical question: “What therefore but corrupt streams, can flow from such a poisoned fountain?” Here, the thoughts and actions of the unconverted are metaphorically presented as a brook that flows out of a polluted spring, and thus carries spiritual contamination. The use of this particular trope suggests two key things about the very conceptualization of the unregenerate state. Just as the spread of the contamination in the stream can hardly be stopped or avoided, so the lack of regeneration unavoidably impacts the actions of the person; similarly, just as the pollutant could not be filtered out of water, so the particles of sinfulness, as it were, permeate the very nature the person, and impact his or her whole being. What is more, this suggests that the lack of regeneration is an absolute, non-negotiable category and an unregenerate person is not a converted person in scalable terms, but in his or her entirety. In consequence, no halfmeasures are acceptable in the saving of the soul – only the sweeping and potent experience of the “New Birth” is powerful enough to help the unregenerate. Next, through a series of anaphoric imperatives, Dickinson addresses his audience directly, constructing a speech-act that is both influential and categorical: “You must not only have a new external conversation; but a new vital principle, if you would be the Children of God indeed. You must be quickened, who are dead in trespasses and sins. You must hear the voice of the son of God and live; and partake of that life, which is the light of men. You must put off the old man; and put on the new man, which after God, is created in knowledge and true holiness (…)”. The emphatic repetition of the modal verb “must” reinforces the obligation the preacher puts on the audience, rendering his message stronger and more persuasive. At the same time, Dickinson repeats the word “new” – this highlights that the religious experience he talks about is not merely a refurbishing, but the permanent remaking of the soul. The preacher also sets this extensive series of imperatives against a pithy threat, “or else you are never like to see the Kingdom of God”, pointing to the effect the hearers’ misconduct may bring upon them. The consequence of the failure to adhere is presented in a notably brief clause (when compared with the elaborate imperative). The brevity of the threat iconically testifies to its persuasive strength, as the rejection from the Kingdom of God becomes the ultimate, dramatic castigation for those who do not follow the guidance of the preacher. This short final clause also functions as the conclusive statement to the whole section of the sermon, providing the closing point to Dickinson’s argument. The obligation-punishment duality the preacher highlights implicitly in this way becomes the benchmark of his reasoning.

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Dickinson also adopts a more dialogic argument. He presents the reasoning of those who hold that the “change” is the outcome of moral “Suasion” alone and undermine the divine foundation of the “New Birth”. The preacher generates an abstract adversary with whom he may engage in a dispute and, importantly, whose arguments he may refute. The very way he introduces those who reason in an unorthodox manner includes a hidden accusation. Dickinson observes, “I know that there are some, who call themselves Christians”. The implicit message behind these words is evident: the preacher surreptitiously denies his adversaries the status of true Christians. By emphasizing that those who disagree with his doctrine are not genuine representatives of religion, he undermines their position as equal partners in a debate, attacks them personally and, as a result, weakens the force of the points they could make. Dickinson’s further reflections on his antagonists only reinforce their negative portrayal. The preacher stresses that those who disagree with his reasoning are gravely mistaken, for they are like “poor proud words” that are only prone to “think well of themselves”. He stresses that they are lost in their reasoning and that pride and ignorance become their distinguishing features. The rhetorical question Dickinson asks at this point – “Can a dead man by the force of persuasion, be prevailed upon, to reassume his life and vital actions?” – points to another way the awakening regeneration is conceptualized, that is, through the image of resurrection. The awakening implies the potency to resume “vital actions”, that is to turn stillness into motion and to substitute death with life. The pair of antonyms used by the preacher: “dead” and “life” formulate the scale on which the state of the soul is visualized by the status of the body. Again, this binary opposition is not scalar, for the two categories are mutually exclusive – one is either alive, that is, awakened and observant of orthodoxy, or one is not. Similar rhetorical questions are constructed on the basis of a few other pairs of antonyms: “cripple” and “raise”, “paralitick” and “walk”, “blind” and “see”, “enmity” and “friendship”, “hatred” and “love”, “habitual opposition to godliness” and “delight in the ways of God”, “polluted” and “clean” or ”rebel and peace”. By placing them closely together the speaker generates a complete fabric of antithetical statements that go back to the Scripture and to his theological writings. They are vital for his illustration of the transition a revival participant undergoes in the process of regeneration, but also they seem to fit well within the stylistics of the revival rhetoric. In fact, this listing of antonyms could be argued to constitute a model reservoir of oppositions, a selection of topics of contrasts, often employed by other Great Awakening preachers in their sermons. Following the resurrection analogy, Dickinson stresses later in the sermon that the source of regeneration may be traced back directly to the same divine power that allowed Christ to come back from the dead. The beginning of the conversion may be “sudden” and “unexpected”, but the outcome “permanent in

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its blessed effects and fruits”. There are two vital implications in this statement. First, it is plain that the preacher identifies God as the source of regeneration, stressing the divine inspiration of revivalism. Second, he delineates the awakening process by stressing that the swift and spontaneous experience, which to some critics of revival might seem superficial, brings about permanent changes in the converted person’s life. This swiftness of the regeneration process is also suggested through the notion of “illumination” Dickinson keeps evoking in the sermon. He uses this phrase to talk about regeneration and the influence of the Holy Spirit upon the converted person. First, it is a process in which light is cast upon a person from a source; in this case, obviously, this source is divine. Also, light universally symbolizes wisdom and inspiration, suggesting that the regeneration process informs the converted person’s understanding by opening it to the celestial. The preacher presents “illumination” as a swift process and gives it a sense of uncontrollability, as if its impact were directed from an agency beyond human capacity. Finally, the depiction of regeneration as “illumination” leads the associations of the audience in the direction of the sense of sight. Dickinson expands on these associations in a number of passages, such as this one: “The Spirit of God dissipates the darkness and stupidity of the mind, and gives such a lively realizing and sensible view of divine things as proves a principle of spiritual life and operation”. The preacher highlights that the new understanding that accompanies “illumination” endows a completely new set of thoughts on the converted person, a new sense of things and a new perspective. With the “New Birth” taking place in the sinner’s heart, the symbolic darkness of sinfulness and ignorance is dispersed and the proper, orthodox perspective is restored. This new vision carries a sense of a discovery, a revelation, which, as argued by Dickinson, allows the converted to renounce his lusts and idols with abhorrence and “groan after deliverance from their remaining power and tyranny”. This transition in the vision and, in consequence, in the mind of the sinner is the key trope for Dickinson’s rhetoric of regeneration. The preacher also seeks to describe the full extent of the change that takes place in the convert. His definition of regeneration as a “new principle, in all powers and faculties of the soul”, allows him to enumerate everything that is thus informed, that is, understanding, will, affections, desires, delights, joys, hopes, appetites, passions, and the “Bent and Bias of their Thoughts and their habitual course of meditation”. The preacher then elaborates on how all these elements are changed and elevated in the process of conversion. What is interesting, when he starts explaining the “operations of the blessed spirit”, he switches to a plural pronoun and assumes the perspective of a spokesman of the converted. This gives his words additional credibility, based on the collective understanding and collective knowledge. The preacher also carefully explains how all the listed emotions and impulses are affected by the “New Birth” and thus renders the re-

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generation experience more accessible and understandable to the audience. The hearers can imagine the effect of the operations of the Holy Spirit upon their soul and mind, and gain an experiential perspective on regeneration, which could make them more eager to embrace it as a result. In The Nature and Necessity of Regeneration, Dickinson emphasizes the significance of revivalism that is devoid of extremism. The preacher has two major reservations towards the radical revivalists which he is eager to share with the audience. First, they place their religion “in certain degrees of heat and flame, in imaginary impulses, raptures, and ecstasies”. The image of erratic, chaotic behavior seems to aggravate Dickinson particularly strongly, as it infringes on the reputation of the whole revival movement. The second reservation refers to the misconduct of those who are in “practice of such a censorious judging of others”. Dickinson puts it plainly that the accusations directed at the allegedly unconverted ministers destroy the reputation of revivalism. Observably, he is careful not to dismiss the idea of the Awakening as such, and draws a very distinct line between the extreme wing and the moderate wing. His assessment of the two groups is also very clear. The former is guilty of abuses and behaviors that may jeopardize the whole Awakening agenda; the latter is free of controversies and carries on with its mission of bringing regeneration to new audiences. The sermon ends with an extensive exhortation to the audience not to “fail of the grace of God, lest to their unspeakable confusion, they at last fall short of his kingdom and glory”. Just like in the classical rhetorical agenda, the concluding remarks of the discourse consist of, on the one hand, a repetition (“You have heard that you must experience this change, or inevitably perish”), and on the other hand, a reinforcement (“Set apart some time every day to meditate upon the vast number of aggravations of your sin, the dreadful weight of your guilt, the horrible wrath of an angry god, which hangs over your heads, and the amazing eternity which you are hasting into”) of the points made earlier. Dickinson briefly reminds his hearers of his earlier arguments and endows them with disturbing descriptions of God’s anger (like the one quoted above), as well as with anaphoric rhetorical questions: “Can you be contended to see your neighbors and acquaintance (…) in the kingdom of God; and yourselves cut out? (…) Can you be contended to lose the blessed society of the glorious God (…) for the execrable company of the devil and his angels?” The questions are provocative and aimed at evoking a sense of unrest in the audience over the prospective loss and humiliation. The preacher uses these emotions to corner the members of the audience into agreement and compliance. The final rhetorical stratagem of the preacher is a call for action. He urges his hearers to give up all “Expectations of Salvation” in their “present state” and do their utmost to undergo regeneration. The hearers are to strive until they feel the “actings of faith in Jesus Christ, a hatred of sin, a love to God and godliness, a life

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of spiritual mindedness”. This last section of the sermon is filled with imperatives – Dickinson emphatically instructs his hearers on what behavior they should avoid and in this final speech-act of the sermon turns all the previous considerations into concrete action. The communicative force of the commands he gives to the audience is obviously the outcome of his controlling ethos as a speaker. He addresses the hearers as one of those who understand the process of regeneration (as he extensively manifested in his sermon), what legitimizes his claim to instruct the congregation about what they ought to do and ought not to do, if they want to achieve salvation. In The Nature and Necessity of Regeneration Dickinson illustratively conveys the experience of the “New Birth” to his hearers – but it is not the only thing that makes this sermon worth attention. Unlike a number of radical revivalists, he prefers to talk about the unconverted sinners who are to be reformed, rather than the ungodly preachers who have infiltrated the colonial clergy. Also, the contrastive figures he makes use of bring in a sense of balanced opposition rather than discordance, and coalesce impressively with his experiential and heartfelt oratory. In consequence, in the sermon Dickinson manages to explicate his understanding of regeneration and to stress its vital importance through language that is more illustrative, than condemning and antagonistic. His oratory is indeed a perfect testimony to his moderate views.

Jonathan Parsons

Jonathan Parsons was a highly effective promoter of the Great Awakening and an equally successful revival preacher. The divine of Lyme and Newburyport is reputed to have delivered a number of sermons which had a profound impact on the morality and spiritual welfare of his congregations and of the people he visited during his itinerancies. The reactions of his hearers often bordered on hysteria – when Parsons entered the pulpit, the pews were repeatedly filled with fits, fainting and crying. Yet, his significance for the Great Awakening is not only as that of a revivalist. With the publication of his famous “account” of the Lyme revival in 1744, Parsons influenced the way the events of the Great Awakening were perceived by his contemporaries. Although not as famous as Edwards, Whitefield or Tennent, Parsons deserves acknowledgement as an important voice of the colonial revivalism and one who made a considerable contribution to the “rhetoric of the revival”. Jonathan Parsons was born in West Springfield (Massachusetts), November 30, 1705 as the youngest son of Ebenezer Parsons and Margaret Marshfield of Springfield. He entered Yale at the age of 20 and graduated four years later, having studied under the supervision of Jonathan Edwards, at that time a tutor in the college. Yale education provided the young Parsons with the necessary theological training and prepared him for his future ministerial mission. In February 1730 Parsons arrived in Lyme, Connecticut, where he was soon asked to take up a position as minister. In those early years the future revivalist manifested an inclination towards Arminianism. It was only after some time that he regained confidence in the sovereignty of God in salvation and turned to the more orthodox views shared by the majority of the Great Awakening proponents. Kidd points out that Parsons must have believed that the “newfound Calvinism made him a much more powerful gospel preacher” (2007,108). His private spiritual awakening, the early symptoms of revival he saw among his parishioners, as well as the echoes of Whitefield’s first successes as a revivalist were formative for Parsons in becoming one of the New Lights.

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In 1740, Parsons received news of Whitefield’s successes as a revival preacher – he also heard the Grand Itinerant preach in, among others, New Haven. Soon after that, he was carried by the religious whirlwind of the Great Awakening. On the 29th March, 1741, Parsons delivered a sermon on Isaiah 60: “Who are these that fly as a cloud, and as the doves to their windows?” which had a petrifying effect on the congregation, an indicator of what his fully developed revival rhetoric might achieve. Parsons kept on delivering more and more sermons as he saw people change their attitudes towards preaching and faith – he also started delivering extra lectures regularly. With the full upsurge of the revival, people began showing physical manifestations of panic and fear while listening to him, and the number of the fully converted members of congregation of Lyme grew rapidly. The preacher also tried to deliver the awakening experience to indivduals on face-to-face terms, dedicating his time to the converted who needed his guidance. As he recalls in his diary, sometimes as many as thirty people came to his study for counsel during one day. His efforts were reaping satisfactory rewards. In his notes one can also read how pleased Parsons was with the effectiveness of his sermons, and how he encouraged those who turned to him for counsel to continue working on their regeneration. The preacher writes in his “account” that “many were awakened, and convictions were deep. People flocked to my study daily, and in great numbers, deeply wounded, and the errand was, to lay open the state of their souls, and receive direction” (quoted in Tracy 1842, 138). Parsons also showed concern for the integrity of the Great Awakening movement – he was afraid that the continual discord among the proponents of the revivals might be used by the opponents of the movement to criticize it. He touched on this topic in the sermon discussed below, and also in his much celebrated lecture delivered in Boston, in 1742, “Wisdom Justified of her Children,” in which he forcefully argued that the “friends of Christ” ought to avoid needless disagreements. However, Parsons was not able to heal the doctrinal conflicts in his own congregation, not to mention the deepening rift amongst the colonial clergy. The tensions in Lyme eventually led to his dismissal from the seat of the minister in 1745. After the ousting, advised by George Whitefield, he directed his attention to a new Presbyterian church in Newburyport in Massachusetts. The former Lyme minister served there for thirty years, securing its expansion to one of the largest congregations in New England. After the revival fires burned out, Parsons still remained friends with George Whitefield, who on his last tour of the colonies visited the Newburyport minister in 1770 and died in his house. On this occasion Parsons delivered the famous funeral sermon for the Grand Itinerant, praising his dedication and oratorical craft.

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Jonathan Parsons secured his place in American history not only as one of the most prominent preachers of the Great Awakening, but also as a supporter of the American struggle for independence. Heimert recalls (1966, 389) that Parsons’s sermon Freedom from Civil and Ecclesiastical Slavery, delivered on March 5, 1774, on the anniversary of the Boston Massacre, can be ranked among the “nobler of pre-Revolutionary Calvinist utterances.” In this discourse he forcefully called upon the members of his congregation to join the Continental Army. Parson’s dedication was not only limited to words – his actions spoke clearly about his priorities in the wake of the pending conflict and when the colonists decided to resist the tea tax, the Newburyport divine organized the young women of his congregation to prepare herbs in place of the contested tea. His offspring followed in his footsteps as Samuel Holden Parsons, one of the preacher’s thirteen children, played an important leadership role during the Revolutionary War and became one of the first judges of the Northwest Territory. Parsons died on July 19, 1776, very shortly after the signing of the Declaration of Independence. He was buried next to his revivalist friend and inspiration, George Whitefield, in the crypt under the pulpit of the meetinghouse of Newburyport. The preacher’s final resting place seems very fitting. Parsons was a master of sermonic craft, and his ability to “awaken” the sleeping souls and reach to the hearts and minds of his audience was emphasized by a number of contemporary accounts of the Great Awakening. The sermon selected for analysis here does not only testify to Parson’s skill in promoting the “New Birth”. I will take a look at A Needful Caution in a Critical Day to show the manner in which the speaker constructs his rhetorical authority by references to the Scripture, the legacy of the Apostles as well as his own experience.

A Needful Caution in a Critical Day The sermon A Needful Caution in a Critical Day, or the Christian urged to Strict Watchfulness that the Contrary Part many have no Evil Thing to say of him, was delivered by Jonathan Parsons in Lyme, on February 4, 1741. The printed version was published and distributed a year later. In its foreword, the preacher explains that the goal behind the sermon was to give his congregation “some cautionary advices”; he also points out that, although some new elements were added in the editing process (making the discourse longer), the “substance of the sermon” – and, therefore, the selection of rhetorical strategies – remains identical to the version he first delivered. The very title of the sermon suggests a lot about its message and persuasive focus. Parsons specifically names the overall speech-act of his discourse – it is a

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warning and an appeal for moral vigilance. The message he delivers is “needful” as well as “critical”, and its implied vital importance for the recipients suggests they should pay full attention and follow it to the letter. It also suggests a a lot about the implied speaker of the sermon. Throughout the sermon Parsons constructs his ethos, his rhetorical persona as a vigilant advisor, a guardian of the ecclesiastical order who has a sound judgment of the present situation, and who wields the power to remedy it. The persuasive image the speaker projected on the audience was vital for his communicative success. If he was to awaken the sleeping souls and lead his hearers to conversion, he must have had the rhetorical presence of trust, authority and leadership. Parsons knew this and sought to fabricate a persona that would suit his goals. The speaker opens the sermon with the text of the Scripture (“That he that is of the contrary part may be ashamed, having no evil thing to say of you,” Titus II.8) and a recollection of a past event – St. Paul leaving Titus on Crete and giving him a set of “Instructions and Rules” which were to “rectify those unhappy mistakes that some of the children of God had fallen into, and, if possible, to prevent future difficulties.” These rules constitute the axis of the sermon – Parsons mentions them persistently in a number of his arguments. Interestingly, by doing so the speaker implicitly adopts for his own sermon the goals of St. Paul’s instructions, when the words of the Apostle become incorporated into his own writing. In this way, the two texts, the apostolic “Instructions and Rules” and the discourse of Parsons, begin to exhibit communicative and authoritative affinity. This would be the first building block of Parsons’s rhetorical authority in the sermon. The preacher provides examples of these rules: “to be subject to principalities and powers, to be zealous in every good work, to do no ill thing, to be gentle and kind, showing all meekness unto all men, to cleave (…) to sound doctrine, and to avoid curious questioning and vain jangling.” They concern people’s conduct, their attitudes towards faith and Christian doctrines, as well as the standard of public debate and communication in the context of religion. Parsons seems to emphasize that the instructions of St. Paul were directed at Christians “in general,” at those “that were settled teachers in the churches both good and bad.” The preacher draws a line between the two groups of “teachers in the churches”: the “good” are “lovers of hospitality, sober, just, holy, temperate,” “attach’d to the truth, able and ready to teach others sound doctrine, and convince those that oppose it” and the “bad” consist of “false teachers or opponents of the grace of God,” “vain talkers and deceivers.” This contrast is strengthened by congeries, a figurative concentration of words with similar connotations, as well as an enumeration. Different as they are, though, the “good” and the “bad” are unified under one umbrella of the apostolic rules – and coalesce into one, common audience for the words of both St. Paul (the original author of the “instructions”) and Parsons (who embeds the apostolic “instructions” into his own discourse).

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Having introduced the “rules” and linked them with the groups of people that should follow them, Parsons explains why the apostolic instructions should be observed in the first place. The moral responsibility is his answer. The “glorious riches of divine grace” taught people to live in the “inward and visible practice of virtue and piety” and to deny “all ungodliness and worldly lusts.” Therefore, the preacher reminds the hearers that they are under obligation “in duty and gratitude, to be exceedingly watchful and diligent in their endeavours” to abide by the apostolic rules. Two implications are relevant here – first, the rules are good and precious to one’s salvation, second, their observance is not just a random impulse, but a steadfast moral obligation. Parsons manages to find words that help him to assume the role of a person upholding the instructions, as well as to rhetorically impose them onto the audience. This power to instruct others is the second foundation of his rhetorical authority in the sermon. Parsons also points out that the apostolic rules were observed by “all the faithful ministers and Christians of Crete, and so of course, all the ministers of the Gospel, or public teacher of the Church and all private Christians, of every age and condition,” and applying the apodixis, he anchors the importance of the instructions given by St. Paul in the experience of a large group of people. At the same time, by the use of figurative auxesis, gradually extending the scope of phrases, the preacher emphatically highlights the power of his language and the significance of the message. Also, through phrases which gradually include larger and larger numbers of people, the speaker manages to suggest a link between the early history of Christianity and contemporary times – effectively, he fixes his language and his preaching in the timeline of Christian oratory. This last implication seems particularly significant in an address to those who still saw the New England colonies as an attempt at the re-enactment of early Church purity. Like the introductory remark on St. Paul, it must have given the audience a sense of integrity and continuity with what they deemed the purest in Christian history. That would be the third source of Parsons’s rhetorical authority in the sermon. The preacher also mentions the “contrary part” – the opponents of the “good” ministers who, when they see people abiding by the rules of St. Paul, will become ashamed, “having no evil thing to say of [them].” Parsons gives here an indirect admonition grounded in the authority of the Scripture – he once again repeats the words of the Bible as an embedded quotation, reinforcing the reliability of the sermon and further elevating the merits of his own words. But it is not only Scriptural authority that Parsons uses for a stronger rhetorical appeal. He persistently places strong emphasis on the responsibility of preachers – they need to be “careful of their doctrine, as well as of their moral character.” The cautionary tone he assumes here adds to his image of a concerned custodian of the moral order, ready to support others with his advice.

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Parsons instructs his hearers that the observance of the Apostolic rules is a very effective way of combating the opponents of the church, as such behaviour overwhelms them with moral superiority and refutes their allegations not with a verbal argument, but with respectful and virtuous conduct. The preacher presents Jesus Christ as the ultimate model that each minister ought to aspire to: “He has set himself as a pattern of labour and patience, meekness and forbearance, compassion and readiness to communicate light and life to his cruelest persecutors, and bitterest enemies.” Parsons stresses that all ministers should do their utmost to emulate Christ and to follow in his steps in all possible ways. At the same time, the preacher warns them of what might happen if they fail to do so. Rhetorical questions, as well as the use of modal verbs and present tenses: Present Simple (“the honour of God (…) is to suffer”) and Present Progressive (“they are watching and waiting”) help Parsons to highlight the immediate inevitability of the assault from the “contrary party,” as well as their continuous determination to attack the converted. Because of that the assult seems more imminent and the preacher’s words more alarming. Parsons points out that ministers are held accountable for the salvation and damnation of their flocks, “for their example and doctrine make great impressions on the minds of the people.” Thus, the responsibility of the preacher is great and the expectations are high. Any sign of bad conduct or failure to comply with orthodoxy will have a devastating impact on the “eternal welfare of immortal souls”. This is because the teachers of the Gospel are not only like the “city upon the hill,” but are “Towers” in this city, for “their good or bad character appears in a more clear view.” Here Parsons extends the Puritan topos of a “city upon the hill” and stresses that the uniqueness and visibility of model ministers should overshadow that of model parishioners. Finally, he observes that a good teacher of the Gospel ought to rid himself of selfishness – the “Self,” as Parsons puts it. To stress this point the preacher once again falls back on the example of Christ and asks a powerful rhetorical question, emphatically juxtaposing “spiritual darkness” mixed with selfishness against “spiritual enlightenment” combined with an “inward sense of Glory.” He imprints the sense of responsibility on the preachers and underlines his own spiritual obligations to the hearers. This naturally, also enhances his ethos of a conscientious and concerned propagator of the orthodox ministry. Parsons suggests that the “publick Teachers” stand for everything that is unacceptable in ministry – not only do they cultivate the most basic errors in the doctrine, but also, when they preach, they fail to connect with people, and to make “due Impressions” on them. Their shortcomings are both of a ecclesiastical and rhetorical nature. Parsons therefore views the idea of inviting unorthodox people into the ministry with a great deal of scepticism and vehemently refutes potential arguments defending unconverted ministers. These alleged arguments

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are grounded in the ludicrous idea that since Judas was one of the apostles spreading the Word, the unconverted may in fact do some good. Parsons mocks such logic and emphatically concludes by saying that “those that give no scriptural evidences of their conversion [should not] become the teachers of the church.” At this point, the preacher changes the mode of argument, and employs a mechanism characteristic of the refutatio – he raises a potential objection to his own line of reasoning, and counters it with an argument that it is impossible to judge whether a given minister is converted or unconverted, and whether the words he delivers from the pulpit might have a positive impact on one’s salvation. Interestingly, the preacher does not aim his words directly at the audience and uses a more general phrase: “if any should object against what has been insisted upon.” This instance of refutatio makes Parsons’s points seem more justifiable, as the rebuttal of potential counterpoints produces the impression that he has considered all aspects of the issue and that the thoughts are the result of unbiased and complete reasoning. The “answer” the speaker gives to the hypothetical counter-argument is a blending of different argumentative strategies: first, he begins by seemingly agreeing with one aspect of the counterargument (“It must be granted that no person can certainly be sure that another is converted”). Next, he guards himself against a potential hyperbolical or heretical travesty of his argument (“it would be daring presumption and arrogance in any man to assume the prerogative of the eternal JEHOVAH to himself in pretending to be the searcher of hearts”). Finally, he gives his proper counterargument, emphatically imbued with a quotation from 1 Corinthians 9: 26 and a metaphorical point: “I conclude therefore, that if a man should represent any of his brethren as espousers of such a doctrine, and contend with them about it, he would fight, not as St. Paul did, but as one that beateth the air, having nothing to quarrel with but a Chimera hatch’d in his own brain.” The speaker asserts that ministers who are unconverted cannot do any good to a human soul, and thinking otherwise is tantamount to “affect[ing] the name of the great God with open contempt” – a transgression one would not dare commit. This way preacher sets an argumentative trap to those that could potentially disagree with him, as any objection to his words would be tantamount to a sacrilege. Such blackmail not only strengthens the point made by the speaker, but also proves its critical importance for the church. Parsons stresses that: “’Tis a day when our holy religion in its power and purity, now gloriously revived, is treated by some in a way of petulant raillery, and by others with groundless cavils.” He cautions the audience about the attack launched at religion – religion that is both his and his hearers’. The acknowledgement of the community, stressed, on the one hand, by the plural possessive pronoun “our”, on the other hand, unified by a common threat, reinforces the bond between Parsons and his audience. Also, by stressing the vitality of the

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revival, the preacher elevates the audience, suggesting that they partake in a historically unique event and their drive for unity should be more powerful that the disruptive criticism of the critics of the revival. Speaking out of authoritative experience, he gives the audience advice on how to combat the criticism: “I know that vital Piety will mock the scoffers tongue, and bear the test of the strictest examiner.” His words go back to the opening remarks of the sermon – genuine Christian piety is suggested as the best shield against the opponents of revivalism and the critics of orthodoxy. This sense of unity with the audience, as well as the directives he gives to the hearers, enhance his authority and the trustworthy image he projects. Parsons imbues his text with an emotional appeal expressed through the figure optatio, a rhetorical wish combined with exclamations: “Oh! That I with all my dear brethren, might be excited, by the bowels of love and tender compassion to the immortal souls of opponents, to show ourselves more shining patterns of good works; in doctrine showing more uncorruptness, gravity, sincerity, and sound speech that cannot be blamed” and “The eyes of the world are upon us!”. The figures elevate the tone of the sermon, filling it with emotions and testifying to how the preacher is overcome with concern for his hearers and the prosperity of true faith. Since such passions normally accompany extreme situations, here they implicitly confirm the “criticality” of the church in colonies. It is also noticeable that the preacher does not include himself in the same group as the audience – this allows him to reinforce his communicative position of an authoritative speaker, somebody directing a word of warning at others who are innocent of the knowledge and the perspective he possesses – the preacher would not have been able to do so, had he incorporated himself in the collective “we.” A few sentences later, Parsons shifts the perspective, and directs the words of the sermon upon himself, using an apostrophe to his own soul: “I charge myself (…) to awake unto greater purity, light, life and zeal. Awake, O stoick soul, awake;” and he concludes: “O, I tremble, I tremble with fear, lest the glorious cause of Lord Jesus (…) should suffer in any measure through my defects!”. Parsons suggests that he himself does not fulfil his strict criterion of piety and devotion, and since he speaks from the presupposed position of moral and devotional superiority, implicitly, his hearers even more lack the necessary level of piety. This use of the humility topos in an apostrophe, vivifies the sermon, but also allows for a new elements of the persuasive ethos of sympathy. It is noticeable that his questioning of his own piety does not suggest that he lacks it in general, on the contrary – he presents himself as a person of humble self-assessment and somebody who knows what true godliness ought to look like. The humility topos is extended in the next sentence and gives the preacher the opportunity to address his hearers directly and ask them for their prayer: “Dear Christians, let me beseech you all, by the bowels of mercy, and all the bonds of

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duty, to pray for me; pray for me brethren especially when you get near the mercy-set, and are brought to speak unto God almost face to face.” This time Parsons sets himself in a subordinate position towards the audience – he ceases to be a moralizer and a judge, and becomes a petitioner, asking them for something they may refuse to give. Paradoxically, such abasement does not undermine the authoritative ethos he constructed earlier – on the contrary, humility and modesty add to his positive image and help him to captivate the audience. In the next section of the sermon, Parsons figuratively elaborates on the “enemies” of true faith. He observes that the sense of grace they observe in others is like a “worm in their consciences” and this is why they are so vehemently opposed to faith. He also implies a link between his adversaries and the Jews, who rejected the teachings of Christ. The presence of the “opposition” is an everpresent predicament of faith, which renders the teachings of Jesus a “stone of stumbling and a rock of offence.” Parsons also enumerates the situations in which Christians strive from faith – as indicated by the anaphoric repetition of the word “sometimes” these occasions are accidental, but their very existence should be a strong encouragement for people to “improve in holiness.” At this point, the preacher falls back on his initial, cautionary tone, at the same time drawing on a more direct link established with his hearers a few sentences earlier, as indicated, among others, by the use of the inclusive pronoun. Parsons stresses that the enemies of faith are mustering their forces for the attack on the converted – they seek to “devour the cause, like fierce and ravenous wolves” and the converted should stay vigilant in order to defend themselves: “therefore, says our savior, guard your life, guard your doctrine, guard your whole deportment.” The tricolon of the three directives is rhetorically appealing – the three sentences are parallel and anaphoric, emphatically bringing the word “guard” into the primary position in the address. Their overall cautionary character fits well into the tone indicated at the opening of the sermon. And so, the preacher issues another warning – and reinforces his image of a concerned warden who warns his hearers against the plotting of Satan and who cares for his embattled congregation. All the above stratagems prepare the ground for the “application” of the sermon. The arrangement of the sermon so far reflects the initial set of apostolic rules, which – as the preacher highlighted at the beginning – have to be followed by all good Christians. Initially, Parsons “caution[s]” and “admonish[es] all Christless sinners,” retaining his authoritative position, yet a few sentences further on he changes the tone and expresses a rhetorical wish: “O, that we were more gentle and patient under provocations, more cautious of giving occasion to the enemies of the truth, and had more of a patient sense of our own carelessness herein.” It is not only the collective “we” that wins the attention of the hearer, but also the sense of egalitarianism accompanying the idea of no one being morally

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flawless (reinforced by the tricolon of semi-parallel structures marked by the repetitive “more”). Parsons also makes a point about the antagonistic character of the doctrinal debate. He gives evidence to prove that the Corinthians did not seem truly pious – at the same time, however, his words could easily be referred to the colonial ministry: [they] “endeavoured to make parties and divisions in the church” or [they] “run into those disorders, which were contrary to the spirit and genius of the gospel, and had a direct tendency to hinder the successes of ordinances.” Using a subiectio, a question and an answer, Parson stresses that in spite of their conduct they were no “strangers to a work of saving grace and upon their souls,” and that one ought not to become blinded with “lust and prejudice” and dwell on the “follies of (one’s) neighbour” and in consequence, “hinder the success of the gospel.” The preacher stresses the sovereign power of the Lord to spread the “table of rich dainties (…) for his own children” the way he pleases and when his hearers undermine it, they engage in a “dreadful conduct.” At the same time, he argues that this claim of his does not mean that the members of the audience should tolerate “disorders” – they must make sure that by doing so they do not find themselves “fighting against God.” The audience must have interpreted his words in the context of the Great Awakening debate and the criticism the radical revivalism received from the Old Lights, as well as from the moderate revivalists. Parsons calls out to look at the wider picture and not to be swayed by the arguments of the critics and sceptics. In the last part of the first “application,” Parsons uses an extended address consisting of numerous apostrophes – in each of them he “beseeches,” “persuades,” “begs,” “charges,” “admonishes” and “warns” his hearers to remain pious. Here, the relationship between the preacher and the audience becomes very dynamic. All the speech-acts not only prove his engagement, but also, put him firmly in the spotlight of the sermon – he issues all the requests to the audience and deals rhetorical cards. A few lines further on, Parsons approaches the audience in a different way and flatters the hearers indirectly, emphasising the role they are to play in the on-going struggle between the critics and defenders of faith: “(…) let me be able to bear record, that, to your power, yeah, and beyond your power you are willing to shut the mouths of the contrary part, and make them ashamed, having no evil thing to say of you.” By emphasising the responsibility the addressees bear and by giving them a challenge to impress others with their virtue, Parsons shifts the focus onto the hearers. His words empower them, ensure that they are on the right side of the barricade and, what is most important, that they possess the means to defend the orthodoxy. Parsons also stresses the need for “private and brotherly exhortations and reproofs”: group prayer and reading of sermons are the obligations of each Christian – “dut[ies] that I have urged and pressed on you from time to time, with

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many serious motives,” and resorts to a number of quotations from the Bible to support his claim. At the same time, he draws a decisive boundary to these actions – a good Christian cannot enter an assembly and appoint himself to “proclaim the laws and orders of the great king” (i. e., God). He observes that “there is no pretence or plea, that I can think, will justify such a practice if it be against the plain intimations of God’s Word.” Such behaviour, to the speaker, verges on vanity. Parsons is cautionary with regards to lay people assuming the roles of ministers on the sole grounds of them deeming themselves fit for the office. Humility should be the trademark of orthodoxy. The preacher issues argumentation defending the uniformity and exclusiveness of ministry whilst simultaneously constructing a rhetorical barricade against the unconverted “publick teachers,” enforcing it with both earthly authority (“conveniences that were set up in Oliver Cromwell’s time”), and divine authority (the “revealed will of God”). The presence of self-appointed “publick teachers” is not the only cause of Parsons’s anxiety and protest, the other is the questionable role that the “human learning” plays in ministry. He first admits that education was of great service to Isaiah and Paul and can be of considerable value, but then contrasts this positive viewpoint with a negative one. The speaker quickly points out that the new learning cannot help in discovering anything significant about faith in the contemporary times, for all that mankind needs is already known – as he hyperbolically asserts: “a thousand new revelations can do no more to establish the truth and reality of these things in our minds and upon our hears, than one standing revelation.” What is more, too large a faith in “human learning” “will throw the door wide open to the greatest impositions and impostors imaginable.” Once again, Parsons speaks from the position of an experienced authority – his words imply that he has an insight into the “new learning” and having investigated and rejected it, he may overtly state that his hearers cannot profit from it. This image of an experienced authority allows him to dictate what is good for his listeners in a very commanding manner – in consequence, they are swayed by his implied knowledge and experience. In the fourth caution, directed against “spiritual pride and self-confidence,” the preacher asserts that generally “novices in Christianity and men of abilities are exceeding apt to be puffed up with exalted thoughts of themselves” which may lead the “Grace of God to ridicule and contempt.” Once again, Parsons cautions his hearers against having too high a consideration of one’s gifts and graces since such overconfidence may ruin one’s faith. He grounds this argument in a historical fact: “this is a wide gate that has been thrown open, in times of great reformation in the church; and so the devil has entered in and spoiled the fields that were laden with the happy prospect of a plentiful crop, and even white already to the harvest.” The metaphors employed here are conventional, like the

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presentation of revivalism as harvesting (thus, souls won to the Lord constiute metaphorical crops) and, as in other points of the “application,” help him reinforce his message. Parsons also appeals to his hearers to avoid “rash judging,” that is, as he explains, “making up a judgment without the evidence which is provided or may be expected in any matter.” The appeal is at the same time an indirect, positive appraisal of rational moderation: “(…) where they judge without this precaution, they do not show themselves rational men, but rash, heady, impatient zealots.” The lack of proper consideration of the matter may either lead to the condemnation of the innocent, or letting a wrongdoer go free. The speaker observes that, in consequence, when one is to judge if a given person is in a state of grace without “scripture marks of grace wrought in” him or her, one judges rashly, “contrary both to the principles of reason, and the manifest intimations of the Gospel.” After all, as people who come into the world are “concluded under sin, and lye open to the pains of eternal damnation,” so one has to wait for visual proof of deliverance from sin to declare his neighbour converted and pious. “Rush judgment” may lead to self-deception as to the positive merits of one’s salvation. It is hardly surprising then that Parsons associates this kind of language with the “other party,” who are guilty of misjudging the converted. Finally, the preacher appeals for moral piety. He addresses his audience directly, with a series of imperatives: “abound in charity, especially to the souls of men,” “let your zeal be flaming, but not reproachful, when you contend for the faith, and endeavor to shut the mouths of gainsayers” or “as good soldiers of Jesus Christ endure hardness.” The vocatives are designed for emotional appeal – the preacher once again assumes an authoritative role over his audience. This time, however, it is not only the moral and spiritual domination – he also speaks from the position of a leader who encourages his subordinates and bolsters them for an impending conflict. His language and imagery (like the transformation into a “soldier of Christ”) remind one of hortative oratory, aimed at evoking enthusiasm. He acknowledges the hardships that lie ahead of his hearers: “Great and solemn are the obligations, dear Christians, lying on you, and great are the difficulties and impediments in your way through the corruption and blindness of your hearts,” but at the same time rhetorically expresses faith in their power to overcome them: “Little children, keep your selves pure; and walk in wisdom towards them that are without; giving none offence, that your professed experiences of the gracious influences of the Holy Spirit, may not bring the work of God into contempt.” A Needful Caution in a Critical Day may not necessarily be fully representative of Jonathan Parsons’s preaching output – during the Great Awakening the minister delivered countless awakening sermonic speeches in which he employed a number of techniques discussed in other chapters of the study. Yet, this par-

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ticular sermon contributes to out deeper understanding of the “rhetoric of the revival.” In A Needful Caution in a Critical Day the preacher does not “argue against,” but he “argues for,” he cautions, instead of terrorising. Jonathan Parsons was a persuasive speaker – as is evident from the variety of rhetorical means he employs in the discourse to, on the one hand, construct his own communicative position and rhetorical authority, and, on the other, to approach the audience, when he deems it necessary for the successful presentation of his arguments. At the same time, he was able to reach a neat compromise between antagonizing opponents, and advising his audience of what they ought to do to gain the upper hand in the doctrinal conflict. His authority was not built through antagonism, but through Scriptural references, whille his emotional appeals through firm convictions and steadfastness – Parsons’s overall aim in the sermon is to reconcile and to warn, and the persuasive means he uses in the sermon fully achieve this goal.

Andrew Croswell

Commentators univocally rank Andrew Croswell among the most radical propagators of the Great Awakening but, at the same time, they allow him to remain in the shadow of James Davenport, the most notorious instigator of revival controversies (cf. Onuf, Stout 1983). Only a few voices differ – in 1771 Thomas Prince satirically observed that “it takes two Davenports to make one Croswell” (1771, 9–10) – and sadly, even today compared to Whitefield, Edwards or even Tennent, the figure of Croswell remains understudied. This omission seems unfounded as Croswell was louder and more unyielding than the other proponents of the Great Awakening, and, with time, grew to symbolize its most radical side. There are a few publications dedicated to Croswell. Clifford Shipton (1951, 386–407) provides a brief but succinct account of Croswell’s life as a Harvard graduate, but does not focus much on his importance for the revival. The preacher’s controversial views and actions are touched upon in Blumsted and Wetering (1976), as well as in Nash (1979), but full attention is given to him only in an exhaustive article by Leigh Eric Schmidt (1986). Also, Thomas Kidd’s study of the Great Awakening (2007), presents Croswell as one of the ministers who contributed to the creation of the wide spectrum of extremism among the New Lights. The study of the “rhetoric of the revival” requires a close look at Croswell, a crafty rhetorician, zealous revivalist and “irrepressible and conspicuous foe of the Standing Order” (Schmidt 1986, 214), which he sought to subvert – and revolutionize – with the power of his ministerial word. Croswell was born in 1709 in Charlestown, Massachusetts into a lower middleclass family; at the age of nineteen he graduated from Harvard and, three years later, he was ordained in the second church of Groton, Connecticut, where he developed the fear of the growing influence of the Church of England and Arminianism. Following the Great Awakening, he joined the ranks of the New Lights and gradually orbited to the extremist wing of the group. Croswell took upon himself the role of Davenport’s and Whitefield’s advocate, defending them fervently in both speech and writing. In one of his writings from

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1742, he calls them the “Luminaries of the Church, and Chief Instruments of a second and glorious Reformation [i. e., the Great Awakening]” and relentlessly dismisses all accusations raised against them. Similarly, in his ferocious defence of the Grand Itinerant against Alexander Garden, Croswell argues that the Church of England was no longer preaching the “Doctrines of Reformation” (Croswell 1741, 6), and that “South Carolina is a Persecuting Country for Religion” (Croswell 1741, 60). Unsurprisingly, Garden’s accusatory rebuttal labelled Croswell’s awakening theology as crypto-Catholic: “For who knows not, that this, of lying aside Reason, is a first Doctrine of Popery, the main Foundation of that terrible Fabrick of ROME!” (Garden 1742, 66). These quotations are only examples of the endless battles Croswell fought under the banner of revivalism. However, one needs to point out that his manner of defending the Great Awakening was much more confrontational than, for example, that of Edwards’s Distinguishing Marks of a Work of the Spirit of God and his aggressive rhetoric pushed the theological disagreement between the Old Lights and the New Lights into a full-scale conflict. Itinerant preaching became Croswell’s way of promoting the revival spirit. In his “heraldry of the gospel” he often joined ranks with other ministers and caused a lot commotion in the parishes he visited, as was the case of Plymouth in 1742. Nathaniel Leonard, whose congregation was then scattered, noted that Croswell managed to create even greater awakening turmoil than Gilbert Tennent who had been in the parish a year earlier: “The Gospel came unto us, not in Word only, but also in Power, and in the HOLY GHOST, and in much Assurance (…) Hundred of Souls were at one Time in the Meeting-House (…) crying out in the utmost Concern, What they should do to be saved! (…) Conversions were so open and publick that we seemed to see Souls dead in Trespasses and Sins, revive and stand up Monuments of divine Grace” (quoted in Prince 1744, 314–315). Not only did the preacher engage himself in extreme actions, as described above, but also rooted his theology in rigid and uncompromising ideas. First and foremost, as he argued in a famous sermon of his, What is Christ to me? (1745), to him the basis of salvation lay in free justification by faith and the rejection of good works. He antagonized the terms and conditions of legal Calvinism by giving unquestionable primacy to sola fide. It is hardly surprising then that he could not find much acknowledgement among the less radical clergymen. To Croswell, faith was of a strongly subjective and individualistic nature. He also argued that it was possible to gain a personal assurance of salvation, which he himself claimed to possess. Croswell believed that the mission of a preacher was to deliver these ideas to people, regardless of legal regulations and parish boundaries. In consequence, the preacher created “theology out of disorder” (Schmidt 1986, 223) and saw nothing wrong in the disturbance of the social order. Although his calls were

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strongly ridiculed and refuted (for example by the anonymous author of A Somber Reply to a Mad Answer (1742), who in this open letter offered a very harsh criticism of Croswell’s ideas), he kept believing in the healing spiritual effect of itinerancy; as he observes in the introduction to What is Christ to me?: “’tis not the Gospel Men Preach, if it is preach’d in Pece; and that whosoever will be a faithful Preacher of the glorious Gospel of Jesus Christ, must (as he hath foretold) have the World of an Enemy, and live in the Wards all the Days of his Life”. Croswell did not fear antagonizing other ministers and rejected the possibility of compromise in the raging revival debate. This was not the only postulate of the preacher that brought erosive effects to the colonial ministry. By sharing his pulpit with lay people, he also suspended the distinction between ministers and their flocks. As a result of that, his congregation was non-hierarchical and those of low social status sang, prayed and experienced the revival enthusiasm alongside the more opulent. Croswell’s tendency to remove the traditional authoritative attire of a minister also contributed to the dissolution of the established order. After 1743, as the Great Awakening storm slowly began to subside, Croswell continued to stand on the emptying barricades of the extremist party and, even when his stoutest revivalist allies like Benjamin Pomeroy, began to move towards more moderate views, he kept on delivering strongly awakening focused sermons like the The Apostle’s Advice to the Jaylor Improved, which is analyzed in detail below. Schmidt (1986, 227–8) observes that after dust settled on the revival, until his death in 1785, Croswell was often derided and portrayed as a narrow-minded relic of the Calvinist extremism. In spite of this, his output did not allow the mocking endeavours of his opponents to succeed: “He made clear that the issues he broached were not so easily dismissed, but instead they cut to the core of the New England piety and theology” (Schmidt 1986, 229).

The Apostle’s Advice to the Jaylor Improved In the sermon The Apostle’s Advice to the Jaylor Improved: being a Solemn Warning Against the Awful Sin of Soul Murder (1744), Croswell touches on a few points vital to his preaching agenda and his activities during the Great Awakening, like, the concept of justification by faith alone, itinerancy and the Old Lights’ criticism of the typically revival rhetoric. Croswell develops these ideas into diverse rhetorical strategies, embellishing his radicalism with a compelling verbal flourish. It seems particularly interesting to see the ways in which the preacher’s extremism is visible in the figures, tropes and arguments he employs in his discourse. The text selected for the sermon: “Do thy self no harm,” Acts XVI. 28., refers to the Scriptural story of St. Paul and Silas who were imprisoned

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in Macedonia. In the wake of an earthquake that destroyed a part of the prison, St. Paul utters these words to prevent the despondent jailor from taking his life. Thus, the Apostle saves the guard who was overcome with desperation when he realized that all those entrusted to his supervision had fled. Croswell constructs the argumentative framework of the sermon around this narrative background, and sets the idea of preventing others from “spiritual suicide” as his overall communicative goal. Croswell’s radical views are suggested first by the very theme and the story he selects for the sermon. The Scriptural narrative features a man in despair, ready to “destroy his Soul and Body.” The intertwining notions of despondency and salvation are important from the very beginning of the sermon, and later on remain persistently recurrent. They touch upon the addressees’ imagination, encouraging them to embrace the speaker’s radical ideas. In a way, the very biblical story behind the doctrine of the sermon gives him a number of communicative opportunities for the propagation of his radicalism. The opening of the sermon is succinct: “The Sacred Story which introduces my Text, is of such a profitable Tendency, that I hope it will not be Time lost, tho’ I should be a good while in telling it, and making Remarks upon it.” This brief opening performs a few communicative functions. First of all, it arranges the audience’s expectations with respect to the content of the sermon through the use of two positive epithets: “sacred history” and “profitable tendency.” Secondly, the preacher sets himself in two communicative roles, that of a storyteller and a commentator of the Scriptural narrative, thus suggesting that the sermon will operate on two contextual levels: the fictive, the narration of the story, and the immediate, the interpretation for the spiritual benefit of the hearers. The presentation of Croswell’s communicative goal is reinforced by a brief description of the feelings of the converted, a passage clearly calculated at evoking the addressees’ attention: “Those who are converted, will have a peculiar Regard and Affection for the Instruments of their Conversion: like Lydia, they will love to be with them, and do them all the kind Offices that lie in their Power, as well as hear the gracious Words which proceed out of their Mouths.” The preacher wants his hearers to examine the idea of regeneration – through the analogy, he stresses its spiritually positive aspects, thus encouraging them to listen attentively, and to participate in the communicative act he initiates. The preacher’s description of the Scriptural events reminds one of the narrative in the model of the classical speech. Croswell arranges the story in such a way as to make it fit the overall goal of the sermon. Yet, unlike George Whitefield, he does not try to enact the characters who appear in the scene, but remains in the communicative positions of a storyteller and an interpreter. The description he uses is not so much a performance of the biblical story, but a background for the arguments deployed in the further sections of the sermon.

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Croswell first tells his hearers of how St. Paul and Silas came across a possessed woman who, on seeing them, cried out: “These Men are the Servants of the most high God which shew us unto the Way of Salvation.” After the description of the incident, the preacher clarifies the passage. He argues that the words of the possessed woman might well be used in the description of every “true and faithful” preacher. The anaphoric enumeration of duties of ministers begins with an assertion that they are “Servants of the most high God,” who sends them on the “Errand of showing onto Men the Way of Salvation.” Croswell points out that they spread the Word among people, “serve God with their Spirits in the Gospel of his Son” and “count not their Lives dear to themselves.” Then the preacher changes the mode of the commentary and asks a rhetorical question: “And if these, and only these, are true Ministers; are not most People as Sheep not having a Shepherd?,” which explores the topic of the revival rhetoric so popular among the New Lights and becomes an anchor for the rhetorical turn in the passage. Of course, Croswell implicitly builds a bridge between the great figures of the Scripture and the “true” converted preachers, especially those that “wander” and deliver the word of God to the people at different locations. This sets the vital point of the sermon, namely the defence of itinerants against the criticism of Connecticut’s magistrates. Croswell rests his argument on the authority of the Bible and the ethos of a preacher whose Scriptural legitimacy cannot be contested – implicitly, the participants of the Awakening and the itinerant preachers are the heirs of this authority and are entitled to use it as a shield against their critics and the unconverted clergy. Croswell’s list of accusations against dishonest ministers is long. He emphatically stresses that “they serve not the Lord Jesus Christ, but their own Bellies,” “they please Men so much, that cannot be the Servants of Christ,” “they have no more Zeal for Christ than his Enemies will bear with” and their teaching of Gospel is erroneous as it causes people to “seek Justification as it were by the Works of the Law.” The enumerated allegations are similarly phrased and concern diverse issues, like improper behaviour, sinfulness, lack of dedication and doctrinal obscurity. Both their sheer number and the lexical affinity they share testify to the overall gravity of the ministerial offences in the colonies and their inaptness for the duties they perform. This extensive enumeration allows the preacher to take on the topic of a division within the ministry, and to stress that the majority of the preachers in the colonies are in fact “unconverted.” The implied lack of genuine zeal in the clergy and the embattlement of the few truly converted preachers constitutes a key point of his extremism. Another important topic Croswell touches upon is the idea of justification by faith, a controversial matter in 18th century Protestant theology. The idea that good works do not help one’s salvation and that faith is the sole condition for grace, was propagated by the most radical members of the

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New Lights group. A number of more moderate clergymen were sceptical of the concept, claiming that it dangerously encouraged licentiousness and a disregard for earthly authorities. One of Croswell’s aims in this sermon is exactly the proliferation of the idea of justification by faith. The division within the clergy and the long list of the unconverted ministers’ faults is reinforced with an extensive apostrophe: “O blessed God, thou Fountain of Light and Truth, with whom is the Residue of the Spirit, cause of the glorious Gospel of Christ to shine into the Souls of such Ministers” and a wish: “Oh, that they may see the Glory of God in the Face of Jesus Christ, and that his Love will constrain them to preach the unsearchable Riches of Christ.” The exclamations illustrate the preacher’s emotional attitude and the grave importance of the topic he touches upon. Furthermore, they allow him to usurp the communicative position of a person entitled to pass judgments on others, and to assess their spiritual and non-spiritual demeanour. The concern for the purity of the clergy and the need for uncompromising cleansing of the ministry constitute an important element of Croswell’s extremism. The preacher endows his call on God with numerous figurative embellishments: he employs epithets and antonomasia (periphrasis), extended phrases describing the diverse aspects of the godhead. Rich verbal ornamentation adds to the force of the preacher’s words, rendering the address both solemn and emotional. Croswell utilizes the symbolism of light as a doorway to knowledge in his address to God (“shin[ing] into the Souls of such Ministers”), stressing that, observably, this light is dynamic – it bursts out (like the “Fountain of Light”) and dazzlingly brings the new spiritual understanding to people and signals the need for urgent spiritual regeneration of the ministry. In the sermon, Croswell also makes a reference to the extremist activities of Davenport and his followers. First, he observes that it is “Devil, who hates Christ’s Ambassadors and who stirs up others to hate them.” Thus, he indirectly accuses the ones who criticize “true Ministers of Christ” of being inspired by Satan and, in consequence, deprives them of the legitimacy to voice their criticism and discredits their communicative position by means of the eristic ad hominem. Croswell also points out that the “Magistrates” who judged St. Paul and Silas used arguments similar to those that were raised against the extremist New Lights itinerating around the New England: “These Men being Jews do exceedingly trouble our City, &c. They the Followers of the meek and peaceable Jesus; they trouble their City!,” and accuses them of falsity: “pretending that the Glory of God, or that Publick Good is what they are driving at, while their own private Interest or Resentment is all that moves them.” Obviously, by extension, the “roaming preacher” are likewise misjudged by the colonial authorities to whom the critical importance of their mission is unbeknownst and who are thus misjudging the New Lights in the same way the Apostles were misjudged.

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From there the preacher moves to discuss the rift between the established social and intellectual elites and those who are “awakened”: the former want to hinder the revival movement and, in spite of being “Men of Learning and Sense”, act as if they were possessed by evil spirits. This remark obviously refer to the conflict between the Old Lights and the New Lights. Croswell reverses the accusation advanced against him and other New Light extremists and bluntly asserts that “every Persecutor is a Madman.” This allows him to attack the critics of revival radicalism with their own weapon. First, it implies that people who “persecute” the radicals and who criticize their actions are not capable of sound judgment, what is more, he suggests that they are afflicted with the very fault they see in others. Second, once again, by setting things in black-and-white contrasts he leaves no space for borderline-cases or exceptions, rendering his position more radical. At the same time, the preacher directs his attack at the “Magistrates” who, as he claims, “would have been more fit for a Bedlam than the Bench”; by doing so, he also undermines the regulations they issue, especially those which to him hindered the spreading of the revival, that is, the anti-itinerancy laws. These methodical accusations towards the authorities implicitly introduce yet another social divide into the sermon, that of “common” people who support the revivalism and the ignorant “elites” who seek to hinder its spreading. Just like Whitefield, who systematically mentioned the hard-up as his direct audience, Croswell sides with the group consisting of ordinary people, whose simplicity is remnant of true faith. It is in his account of the Scriptural story that Croswell stresses the importance of what he holds to be true faith. The preacher observes that the “wicked Jaylor (…) made their [St. Paul’s and Silas’] Feet fast in Stocks, and was barbarous and inhuman to them,” and that their situation was dire. However, when the two prisoners began praying and praising God, that is, performing the practices of the “Religion of a few, which is in the Hidden Man of the Heart, the powerful and sensible operations of the Holy Ghost,” their situation changed. The preacher stresses that it were prayers and hymns that allowed them to cope with the predicament – thus implicitly highlighting the importance of the activities one could associate with revival practices. In the middle of this narrative section, Croswell steps out of the communicative role of a storyteller, and mockingly pretends to criticize St. Paul and Silas in the manner supposedly characteristic for the Old Lights. The preacher argues that these “Men of great Delicacy in Religion” would probably claim that St. Paul and Silas were “imprudent or rash, or else they would never have provoked the Men of Philippi” and that by singing religious hymns at night they went against God who is “God of Order.” The preacher ridicules the arguments of the New Light’s critics, by contrasting them with the Scriptural story. The disparity between the lowly care for order in jail and the high spiritual need for prayer and religious

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singing is presented in such a way that the former is rendered meaningless and irrelevant, and people who give priority to orderliness at the expense of religion are ridiculed. Croswell aims here at an indirect rebuttal of the Old Lights’ charges against him and his revival companions. The earthquake which destroyed the prison of St. Paul and Silas might be viewed as a manifestation of divine wrath, as was usually the case with other natural calamities in the colonies, similarly to how Edwards employs, e. g., the whirlwind and the flood in Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God. The preacher seems to stress that the prayers of the two prisoners were able to remedy their situation and put an end their misery – similarly, when Paul cries to the jailkeeper “Do thy self no Harm” and prevents him from suicide, the “wicked” man undergoes a transformation, a “great Earthquake [was] caused in his Soul,” and poses a question vital for every New England colonist: “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?” This inner earthquake is not a calamity, but a revelation, a conversion of the soul. The jailor rejoiced believing in God, but at the same time was struck by the realization of his divine nature: “He was convinced that the God of Paul and Silas, was the living and true God, great and terrible God, against whom he had sinned, into whose Hands it was a fearful Thing to fall and into whose dreadful Hands he should have fallen had not Paul rescu’d him from himself.” Croswell argues that the conversion may take place instantaneously, in a blink of an eye, and the words he selects seem to imply that it is as powerful as a natural disaster, and shakes the soul of a convert to the very core. In the next passage, Croswell argues that God pronounced “Men, who are most easy and prosperous in their outward Circumstances” to be his “Enemies,” and that he “hath revealed his Wrath from Heaven against them.” The prison-keeper’s epiphany is combined with a figurative, empowering image of an awe-inspiring God, which, by means of strongly connotative epithets, is profiled to fit the climactic tone of this section. It allows Croswell to describe man’s sinfulness, as well as to stress his dependence on the Almighty. At the same time, such an image of God helps the preacher to defend the merits of the “rhetoric of the revival.” Since the Almighty is in controversy with New Englanders, it is legitimate for them to take any actions necessary to remedy the situation, radical and emotional preaching included. The preacher asserts thus that “ministers should compassionately and earnestly call on those who are destroying themselves, not to do themselves any Harm.” In this way Croswell, first, creates a direct connection between the New Lights, who save people from hell and St. Paul, who saved the jailor in the Scriptural story; second, he assures his hearers of the benevolent intentions of the revival ministers and implies that if people fail to listen to the preachers who want to help them, they will be damned and become objects of God’s wrath.

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Here Croswell applies the story to the colonial reality. First, he puts into the hearers’ mouths a question about the addressees of his words: “You will be ready to ask who they are who are so desperately wicked, as to destroy their own Souls,” and himself answers this enquiry with a fervent address: “Thou art the Man, thou art the Woman, whosoever thou art, who art still in a Christless, unconverted State.” This figurative construction allows the preacher to imply that his hearers are oblivious of their unconverted state and that the preaching he practices is essential for making them aware of this dire fact. Also, the form of the address is designed to encompass all those who might be among the addressees of the sermon – Croswell reaches a compromise between the wide inclusiveness of his call and the individual perspective on each member of the audience. Finally, the preacher once again draws a radical boundary between the people who are “unconverted” and the ones who are to be damned, and emphatically includes into the latter every single member of the audience. Croswell’s extremism is also visible in his arguments in favour of the full justification by faith. He emphasizes that “Men destroy Soul and Body both, as Jaylor was about to do. The tendency of such Abominations is to bring the Body swiftly to the Grave, and the soul swiftly to Hell.” This repetition of his earlier observation reinforces his argumentative standpoint: “And as some destroy themselves by their Sins, so others are ruining themselves by their Good Works.” The analogy explicitly sets seemingly antithetic sinfulness and good works on an equal level, proving Croswell’s radicalism. The preacher attacks the “Devil’s Logick,” which stands behind the enthymeme that “if bad Works are the Death of the Soul, then good Works must be the Life of it” and asserts that good works are meaningless if they are not accompanied by “Faith,” for “without Faith it is impossible to please God.” This idea is emphasized by a number of figures and tropes, like, analogies: “The Tree must be Good before the Fruit must be Good,” metaphorical antonomasia: “[people] don’t go to Christ the Physician of Souls, for the Balsam of Gilead, but imagine that they can heal themselves, by their Prayers, Tears, and strict Performance of Duties,” or hyperbolism: “this their Way is their Folly, and will be their Ruin (…) for, could they do a Thousand more good Works as they have done, or ever will do (…) what would all these Doings avail them?” To complete the persuasive appeal, the preacher draws a fearful image of God and renders it more impactful through dense figures: “For all these Things, God’s Anger would not be turned away, but his Hand, his dreadful Hand, would be stretched out against them (…) and there is no such Thing as standing before that God, who is consuming Fire, unless we have God’s righteousness upon us.” Croswell presents the Almighty as destructive and vengeful, implying that his wrath will eradicate those who reject the doctrine of justification by faith. God becomes associated with fire and dynamic, unstoppable force that brings de-

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struction. In consequence, in the view of the preacher’s compelling rhetoric if one cares for his or her salvation, one has no choice but to follow Croswell’s preaching and join the ranks of those who share his radical views. This last implication is also visible in how the preacher modifies the perspective of the discourse and substitutes the initial “I”-“them” relationship, with the inclusive “we.” All the images and arguments Croswell uses in the sermon, implicitly or explicitly, seem to go back to the idea of helplessness and hopelessness of man’s lot on earth. The idea of spiritual suicide, “Soul Murder,” as well as the story of the Apostles’ imprisonment aid the insistence on the absolute human dependence on God. Sinfulness becomes a metaphorical prison, just like the one into which St. Paul and Silas were put, and men are caught in a vicious circle of harming their body and mind. The preacher suggests that pure, experiential “Faith” and earthquake-like conversion constitute the only way to escape this spiritual captivity and the revival rhetoric, just like the very sermon he offers to the audience here and now, may help in granting them liberation from the oppressive sinfulness. In the final sections of the sermon, the preacher focuses more on his hearers; he uses figures directed at the audience and visibly stresses his rhetorical ethos. Interestingly, Croswell also employs a meta-rhetorical commentary and proves that he is well aware of the idiosyncrasies of his preaching and realises that some people may reject it because of its radicalism: “I know that this kind of Preaching is every where spoken against; (…) every sensual Sinner in our Parishes will (…) hate us because we prophecy no good concerning them, but only evil.” One might argue that the preacher attempts to approach the hearers and form a bond with them, by, as it were, seemingly distancing himself from his own radicalism, and proving that he is well aware of the accusations introduced against him. Yet, at the same time, this acknowledgement is in fact an avowal of the “rhetoric of the revival.” In the next section of the sermon the preacher gives it a more direct form: “we should cry aloud, and spare not, but lift our Voices like Trumpets, while we set Hell as naked before them and everlasting Destruction without any Covering, and persuade them by the Terrors of the Lord to flee from the Wrath to come.” One ought to notice that Croswell uses the inclusive pronoun “we” and acts like the representative of the colonial ministry; thus, his words may be interpreted as a persuasive call and an encouragement to the rest of the clergy to share his awakening radicalism. In the sermon, Croswell persistently reminds his hearers that true salvation does not tolerate half-way solutions and good works cannot assure one’s “New Birth”. Metaphorically presenting life as journey, he asserts that: “Why, this [following the ”Duties of Sacred Religion”] is only stepping out of the Road of Vice, into the Road of mere Morality, and both these Roads lead to one place. (…)

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Let me beseech you therefore, not to do yourselves any Harm. O, why will ye die? Why will ye die?” Here Croswell draws on the authority of St. Paul and steps into the role of an apostle who issues a warning to people, preventing them from committing ”Soul-Murder.” The repetition of short questions renders the utterance more dynamic and desperate, as they refer the addressees back to the narrative from the beginning of the sermon. Croswell constructs his rhetorical authority here in a straightforward manner and talks about his knowledge and experience: ”I know the Worth of a Soul, I know what a dreadful Thing it is to have God for an Enemy, and what blessed Thing is to have him for a Friend, and therefore I can’t hold my peace.” The declaratives used by Croswell, the repetitive ”I know,” perform the emphatic function – they strengthen the rhetorical proof of ethos and allow him to place more emphasis on his personal expertise. This way the preacher proves that he fully comprehends his hearers’ situation, that he has excellent understanding of religious experiences and, as implied, offers his audience the best remedy to their predicament. His desperate call for the audience to listen to his words: ”My heart is pained within me; let me intreat you, let me beg of you, as if it were to save my Soul, that you would not murder your own” gives additional credibility to his image and once again encourages them to pay close attention to his words. In the closing, most powerful address of the sermon, Croswell declares that he does not wish to have sinners as his listeners: ”Consider this, all ye that forget God! Consider this especially, ye stout-hearted Sinners, who run upon the thick Bosses of his Buckler; ye Liars, Drunkards, Swearers, Adulterers, Fornicators, who though you have heard the Word of God’s Curse (…) I say nothing more to such hardened and wicked Creatures; but leave them; (…) and turn my self to others who are (…) enquiring with the Jaylor, What must I do to be saved?” The long enumeratio, listing, produces the impression that many people among the audience are sinful and do not fit the genuinely awakening nature of Croswell’s preaching. In consequence, leaving out certain members of the audience allows the speaker to point to a small selected group capable of communicating with him and following his guidelines. Croswell’s appeal is not an inclusive one, but rather an exclusive one, which is further reinforced by his strong emphasis on the rhetorical ethos. Similarly, in a glossa to the printed version of the sermon, Croswell issues an uncompromising statement: ”if it were really so, that all the Ministers were against me, I should know no other Way, but to be against all the Ministers.” One may argue that his criticism of his hearers and his criticism of other ministers constitute two distinct speech-acts – by rejecting all the sinners among his audience, he singles ones those that may expect salvation and those that truly deserve the message he carries to them, while his attack on the colonial ministers, on the other hand, allows him to build favourable, authoritative image in the eyes of the audience and dismiss

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the allegedly corrupt clergy. Both of the points made in the last part of the sermon give good concluding testimony to the divisive character of his radicalism.

Conclusions

A detailed study of the “rhetoric of the revival” sheds some more light on the colonists’ religion, language and mentality. The crowds of the “awakened” were a phenomenon unseen before in New England on this scale and it was this factor, combined with the widespread popularity of central revival figures such as Whitefield, that placed the Awakening at the heart of the colonial public experience. The new format of revival rhetoric advocated by the New Light preachers introduced changes in the generally practiced homiletic scheme. Sermons became the carriers of the “New Birth,” and instant conversion – and its propagation was adopted as the pivotal communicative goal of the New Lights’ preaching oratory. The physical symptoms of conversions, approached by the Old Lights with a great deal of skepticism, testified to the force of the new “rhetoric of the revival” and fits, cries and sudden changes in conduct were the visible outcomes of the preaching success of the ministers. In this respect, the oratory employed by the New Light preachers ought to be considered not only to have been a tool used by the New Lights, but also in itself a critical part of the Great Awakening phenomenon. The events of the 1740s laid the early foundations for modern evangelicalism. The Great Awakening marked the beginning of a series of revivals which appeared (and still keep appearing) in America. One can risk arguing that there would be no prominent contemporary evangelicals like Billy Graham, had it not been for Edwards, Whitefield or Tennent. Graham’s famous re-enactment of Edwards’s Enfield sermon in 1949 proves this long-lasting link, a bond that has strongly rhetorical underpinnings. But the ten analyses of sermons featured in the book exemplify a revival rhetoric that is not only long-lasting and impactful, but also diverse and innovative. George Whitefield’s sermonic style features primarily expressive rhetorical mechanisms, emotional figures and an animated, dialogic style. The Grand Itinerant’s youthful theatrical adventure influenced the formation of his innovative rhetorical style both in terms of actio and inventio, but it was not the sole factor which ensured his significance as one of the founders of the “rhetoric of

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the revival.” Whitfield’s fame and celebrity-like status encouraged a number of ministers to try to emulate his homiletic style – he became a new ministerial model for the New Lights. Jonathan Edwards represents a slightly different rhetorical idiom – he prefers to appeal to his hearers through highly elaborate imagery and structured argumentation. Unlike Whitefield, it were tropes, not figures, that he proved to posess a masterful command of. Gilbert Tennent’s sermon is written in a strongly antagonistic tone which the preacher adopts to attack the doctrinal adversaries. The deep divide between the converted and the allegedly unconverted ministers, which he persistently highlighted, continued to occupy the attention of the ministers of the Great Awakening, and became a recurrent motif in the revivalists’ preaching agenda. Jonathan Parsons represents the milder face of the “rhetoric of the revival.” He adopts a less antagonistic, but nonetheless reprimanding tone of ministerial authority. Dickinson’s moderate discourse shows how creative the revival preachers were in explaining the idea of the “New Birth” and instant conversion. The communication of the very concept of “awakening” required the use of innovative, illustrative metaphors and analogies, which promptly became the common vocabulary of revivalism. Finally, Andrew Croswell’s categorical views reveal yet another aspect underlining the colonial awakening rhetoric: the uncompromising doctrinal agenda, whose radicalism was the outcome of the New Lights’ belief that they were both embattled and solitary in their efforts to “awaken” the colonies against the endeavors of the unconverted “Pharisees.” The “rhetoric of the revival” was aimed at spreading moral reformation, and at bringing the “New Birth” to the whole colonial community. The basic and most visible communicative objective of the revival preachers was the pursuit of an emotional reaction from the hearers, a reaction powerful enough to trigger a deep spiritual transformation. The linguistic creativity which the New Lights manifested seems to be one of the most important characteristics of this new colonial rhetorical mode. The preachers of the Great Awakening sought innovative communicative solutions to achieve their evangelical goals and, as a result, they prompted the evolution of the spoken word in the colonies to a new level. The “rhetoric of the revival” also generated the emergence of a new ethos of the preacher in the colonial world. Itinerancy was at its heart; the ministers were no longer bound to their district and adopted the habit of travelling between parishes. It also became common for ministers to cooperate with one another in order to preach more effectively – this, in turn, allowed them to influence and inspire one another more freely, propelling the fast evolution of the “rhetoric of the revival” and encouraging its referential character. The expressive delivery adopted in particular by Whitefield and his followers also introduced a new quality of delivery to the colonial sermonic scheme. Vivid and vibrant sermons, delivered in a dynamic manner, were particularly appealing to audiences who

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had been accustomed to rigid, conventional Calvinist homiletic patterns and viewed the “rhetoric of the revival” as a completely original form of oratory. At the same time, evangelical radicalism and antagonisms became commonplace for the “rhetoric of the revival.” The preachers who were the proponents of the Great Awakening considered themselves to be defenders of the doctrines of faith against the demoralizing influence of “heresies” like Arminianism. This standpoint enforced a more confrontational mode of rhetoric. The justification of the merits of the Great Awakening at times took on a structural, debating form, as was the case with Edwards, but also a more antagonistic shape, as with Tennent. The split between “us” and “them” was a rhetorical template used in the contexts of the divide between sinners and the converted, the orthodox and the unregenerate, the New Lights and the Old Lights and even the more radical and the more moderate wings of the proponents of the Awakenings. Manipulations with both inclusive and exclusive tones were a potent rhetorical stratagem, psychologically effective in evoking a sense of collective responsibility among the listeners, as well as unity, especially in the wake of an external threat of sinfulness or unorthodoxy. On the other hand, the preachers were seeking for new ways to connect with the audience and to engage them. The construction of the speakers’ rhetorical image as a zealous, trustworthy and authoritative figures that carry the legacy of early Christian preachers was but one recurrent emphasis of the “rhetoric of the revival”. Another one resided in the appeal to the selected group of hearers, in contrasting them with the irreparably unconverted sinners, and by their elevation, in building a new powerful bond of trust. Another important aspect of the rhetoric used by the Great Awakening preachers discussed in the study was its intertextual character. An examination of the ten sermons of Whitefield, Edwards, Tennent, Dickinson, Parsons and Croswell reveals a large number of references to the motifs and concepts that had long functioned in the American homiletic tradition, but also that were creatively appropriated to the communicative needs of the Great Awakening. The notions of a “city upon the hill” or the “sheep without a shepherd” originated from Scripture and quite rapidly became the rhetorical “commonplaces” of the revivalist group and contributed markedly to the uniformity of their preaching. The referential character of the “rhetoric of the revival” was also connected with the meta-rhetorical aspect of this new preaching oratory. The speakers often commented on the very acts of delivery, on the merits of their preaching and switched between different communicative roles within sermons, becoming in turns storytellers, actors, commentators, spiritual guides or castigators – here, the pragmatic method of analysis proved particularly useful. All that makes the Great Awakening sermons impressively dynamic and progressive. It seems that the study of the “rhetoric of the revival” opens up a number of perspectives for further research. The next and most intuitive step would be the

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comparative rhetorical investigation of the oratory of consecutive revivals. The religious awakenings at the beginning of the 19th century drew largely on their 18th century predecessor, and their rhetorical modes echoed the tone and style of the Great Awakening. By looking at the preaching of the next generations of revivalists in a detailed manner, using both rhetoric and linguistic methods of inquiry, we would be able to trace the evolution of the early “rhetoric of the revival” into modern revivalism. Another prospective research direction concerns the methodology applied in the book. My approach to the ten sermons was qualitative, focused on language details and the implications of particular words, figures or utterances in their immediate context. Such an approach seems valuable when one seeks to exemplify versatile aspects of the “rhetoric of the revival” in depth, but its drawback is, obviously, the fact that no volume would be encompassing enough to include similar, extended discussions of a larger number of sermons. Thus, a quantitative research of a large corpus of the Great Awakening sermons could augment the proposals of this study. The stylometric method used in literary and translation studies to attribute texts to authors (cf. Rybicki, Hoover, Kestemont 2014) might be especially helpful in blending the qualitative, detailed, approach to sermons with the quantitative, large-scale, one. Such a statistical analysis of the most commonly used lexical elements, figures or syntactic patterns used by different Great Awakening preachers in a large number of sermons would help in studying the communicative features of the “rhetoric of the revival” on a much wider scale. Finally, the notion of the “rhetoric of the revival” could prove useful in the discussion of not only the evolution of revivalism, but the funtioning of religion in the US. The factors which conditioned the colonial rhetorical setting of the 1740’s cannot be left uninvestigated if one is to reach an understanding of contemporary America. In order to comprehend the present rhetorical complexity of religious discourse used in churches, in politics or in public media, one needs to look closer at its roots, especially the early revival tradition. As a consequence, the “revival” of interest in the rhetorical aspects of the Great Awakening revivalism could offer a significant contribution to understanding the contemporary American mind.

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