A Spark
“Consider what a great forest is set on fire by a small spark” – James 3:5 (NIV).
“Adairville was wherethe spark camethat ignited the Second Great Awakening. The first camp meeting began at Red River Church House” – Ricky Skaggs.
If a woman began shouting in the middle of taking the Lord’s Supper, should she be stopped? Or encouraged?
That is a question a guest preacher may have been wrestling with when he was in charge of the Lord’s Supper at the Red River Meeting House in Logan County, Kentucky in June 1800.
What happened was this. A woman began shouting spontaneously and loudly during the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper at a service in Logan County, Tennessee in June 1800. This led eventually to the Cane Ridge Revival of 1801. That a woman shouting led in some way to the Cane Ridge phenomenon is a historical fact and not under dispute. What could be debated is whether her shouting and what followed afterwards was the work of the Holy Spirit, the flesh or the devil.
I have referred to the Cane Ridge Revival of 1801 in several of my books, the first of these being in Stand Up and Be Counted. That small book offers a biblical rationale for giving an invitation for people to confess Christ publicly after preaching the Gospel. Billy Graham kindly wrote a brief foreword to it. I have since sought to learn all I could about the Cane Ridge Revival, known as America’s “Second Great Awakening”, the first being the New England Awakening that took place mostly in Massachusetts and Connecticut in approximately 1735-1750.
I happened to tell Ricky Skaggs that I was preaching in a Baptist church in Adairville, Kentucky. He wrote back immediately and made the statement above regarding “the spark” that ignited the fire that led to America’s Second Great Awakening. I had forgotten that this small town in Logan county is very near where the old Red River Meeting House was located – a spot of vital importance in American church history. When I arrived at this church I inquired if there might be anyone around who could tell me more about what happened there almost two hundred years ago?
There was. A couple whose property is adjacent to the Red River Meeting House shared a lot of valuable material with me. They had dozens of articles and letters written by eye witnesses of what happened in 1800 – a year priorto the Cane Ridge Revival of 1801. The more I read of what they kindly gave me the more I was gripped. I began to see that what I learned from these papers warranted a chapter in this book. What I discovered is not new to the scholars who have written on this era of American church history. But much I learned was fresh to me. Sadly there are no dates or names on many of the documents, but these copies are in my files and appear authentic to me. It should be noted that some of the people quoted in this chapter were not skillful or educated writers, neither did they always say things as clearly as we would wish.
Because the Red River meeting house is in Logan county and Cane Ridge is in Bourbon county – both being in Kentucky, some hastily assume the two outpourings of the Holy Spirit are one and the same. Whereas the two phenomena are organically connected, they are a year apart and a hundred miles apart. Logan county is approximately one hundred miles west southwest of Bourbon county where Cane Ridge is located. Cane Ridge was where America’s second Great Awakening eventually took place a year later – in August 1801.
It is what happened in the summer of 1800 in Logan county that equally fascinates me – the spark that ignited in the old Red River Meeting House.
James McGready (1763-1817)
One of the important figures that eventually led to the Cane Ridge revival – sparked off initially in 1800 – was James McGready, a 37 year old Presbyterian who moved from North Carolina to Logan county, Kentucky in 1796. It was his ministry that paved the way for what would happen in June 1800. He had been rejected by his church in North Carolina for preaching what was called “revival doctrine”. In a word: he talked about the witness of the Holy Spirit consciously assuring a person that he or she was truly born again. This was perceived by many of his hearers as new teaching – if not heretical, and it did not set well with many Calvinists who assumed that their moral living proved they were truly converted and therefore among God’s elect. McGready never wavered on his Calvinism – believing in Divine election, but stressed that people should have intimacy with God – sometimes called experimental religion. He became the pastor of three churches simultaneously in Logan County – the Red River meeting house, one at Muddy River, near Russellville, the other by Gasper River. The entire membership of the three churches consisted of less than a hundred people, with two or three dozen in each of these small meeting houses. There was constant opposition to his preaching in these places of worship.
McGready spoke, lived and preached before an audience of One. He learned to be unafraid of man and listened to God. One who knew him said of him:
“Like Enoch, he walked with God. Like Jacob, he wrestled with God . . .. Like Elijah, he was jealous for the Lord of hosts. . . He was remarkably plain in his dress and manners. . . He possessed sound understanding and a moderate share of human learning. The style of his sermons was not polished, but perspicuous and pointed; and his manner of addresswas unusually solemn and impressive. . .he was hated, and sometimes bitterly reproached and persecuted, not only by the openly vicious andprofane, but by many nominal Christians, or formal professors, who could not bear heart-searching and penetrating addresses, and the indignation of the Almighty against the ungodly, which, as a son of thunder, he clearly presented to the view of their guilty minds, from the awful denunciations of the word of truth. Although he did not fail to preach Jesus Christ, and Him crucified, he was more distinguished by a talent for depicting the guilty and deplorable situation of impenitent sinners, and the awful consequences of their rebellion against God, without speedy repentance unto life, and a living faith in the blood of sprinkling”.
You must keep in mind that McGready had not been trained in “seeker friendly” type of ministry. The preaching of “hell fire and damnation” was an assumption that lay behind all he taught. He did not think twice about. It was said that McGready “could almost make you feel that the dreadful abyss of perdition lay yawning beneath you and you could almost hear the wails of the lost and see them writhing as they floated on the lurid billows of that hot sea of flame in the world of woe”. One person remarked that his voice “was like a trumpet, you could hear it with ease” several hundred yards away.
What happened in June 1800 was the culmination of McGready’s preaching for the previous four years in Logan county. There were tokens of revival during those years, with a number of people being converted at Red River – but also in the Muddy River and Gasper River Meeting Houses. There were other ministers involved as well at various times during these years, so one must not place undue amount of credit to McGready alone. In fact McGready was not the preacher in the pulpit when the spark ignited, as we will see below. But a great sense of the presence of the Holy Spirit was felt in all his three congregations in the years leading up to June 1800.
McGready placed a strong emphasis on the Lord’s Supper. He managed to get a number of the people to sign a covenant. He presented to the members of his congregations for their approval and signatures a covenant that included these words; to this they affixed their names:
“We unite our supplications to a prayer-hearing God for the outpouring of his Spirit, that his people may be quickened and comforted, and that our children, and sinners generally, may be converted. Therefore, we bind ourselves to observe the third Saturday of each month, for one year, as a day of fasting and prayer for the conversion of sinners in Logan county, and throughout the world. We also engage to spend one half hour every Saturday evening, beginning at the setting of the sun, and one half hour ever Sabbath morning, from the rising of the sun, pleading with God to revive his work”.
The spark
The year 1800 “exceeds all that my eyes ever beheld on earth”, wrote one observer. Rev. McGready planned to have different ministers to speak in services on a Sunday, Monday and Tuesday in June 1800. It was agreed that the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper be carried out on the Monday. “This was the greatest time we had ever seen before. On Monday multitudes were struck down under conviction”. On the previous Sunday a number of Presbyterian ministers plus a Methodist minister participated in the services. A sense of the presence of God reportedly set in. The services that Sunday were said to be “animated and tears flowed freely”.
But nothing extraordinary was noticed until Monday – during the sacrament – when a visiting Presbyterian minister named William Hodge from Sumner County, Tennessee was preaching and conducting the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper and preaching. One reported:
“Many had such clear and heart-piercing views of their sinfulness, and the danger to which they were exposed, that they fell prostrate on the floor, and their cries filled the house. . . those who had been the most outbreaking [sic]sinners were to be seen lying on the floor unable to help themselves, and anxiously inquiring what they should do to be saved . . . persons of all classes, and of all ages, were to be seen in agonies, and heard crying for redemption in the blood of the Lamb”.
Strange as it may seem, by all accounts this outpouring of the Spirit began with a woman shouting loudly and spontaneously during the service centered on the Lord’s Supper. All the documents I have found regarding the Monday service at the Red River Meeting House state what follows or coheres with this account:
“A woman at the extreme end of the house unable to repress the violence of her emotions, gave vent to them in loud cries”.
Another witness reported it this way:
“A woman in the east end of the house got an uncommon blessing, broke through order, and shouted for some time, and then sat down in silence”.
Another account simply states:
“A woman in the east end of the house shouted tremendously”.
There is a consensus that “this was the beginning of that glorious revival of religion in this country, which was so great a blessing in thousands; and from this camp meetings took their rise” (Methodist Magazine 1820, vol. IV).
There was to be an intermission after the Lord’s Supper, but the people did not leave their seats. Instead they “wept in silence all over the house”. An acute sense of the Holy Spirit’s presence reportedly settled on the people. An eye witness named John McGee described his experience in this service, stating that the guest preacher William Hodge “felt such power come on him, that he Quit [sic] his seat and sat down on the floor of the pulpit – I suppose, not knowing what he did.” He quoted Rev. Hodge as saying “a power which caused me to tremble was upon me.” He added:
“There was a solemn weeping all over the house. Having a wish to preach, I strove against my feelings. At length I rose up and told the people I was appointed topreach, but there was a greater than I preaching, and exhorted them to let the Lord God Omnipotent reign in their hearts, and to submit to him, and their souls should live”.
Keep in mind that William Hodge was a visiting preacher, not the pastor, although the pastor Rev. James McGready was in the congregation. Rev. Hodge described what happened next:
“I left the pulpit to go to her [the woman shouting], and as I went along through the people, it was suggested to me: ‘You know these people [being Presbyterians] are much for order – they will not bear this confusion. Go back, and be quiet’. I turned to go back,and was near falling. The power of God was strong upon me; I turned again, and, losing sight of the fear of man, I went through the house, shouting and exhorting with all possible ecstasy and energy, and the floor was soon covered with the slain. Their screams for mercy pierced the heavens, and mercy came down. Some found forgiveness, and many went away from that meeting feeling unutterable agonies of soul for redemption in the blood of Jesus”.
In a word: the woman shouting was the spark.
Some observations
When the preacher “left the pulpit to go to her”, it was possibly to quiet her. Some report that it was to comfort her. It is not clear whether the “suggestion” was in Rev. Hodge’s own mind – from what he called “the fear of man” – or if someone was audibly cautioning him. All we know is that he said, “I turned to go back”. That apparently meant he changed his mind that he approach the woman. Therefore after making a few steps toward the woman he made the decision to go back to the pulpit and sit down. This could have been the crucial, if not the pivotal, moment. He obviously changed his mind about going up to her. To comfort her would have ensured that the work of the Spirit would not be quenched. To quiet her would have been a “Presbyterian” thing to do, to say, “Calm down sister”. Or quietly escort her out of the Meeting House.
But he did not go to her; he did not stop her.
The suggestion, “These people are for order and will not bear this confusion” was probably in his own mind – that he feared what all the people might be thinking when this woman shouted and kept shouting. It was the “fear of man” that put this suggestion in his mind. Even if someone audibly made the suggestion to him, he rejected it. He may have felt he should comfort her; he may have felt he should quiet her to show he wanted “order” and therefore leave no room for allowing confusion. In any case he says that he overcame fear. Perhaps he had wondered what Rev. McGready the pastor might be thinking. We will see below that McGready was somewhat nervous about what happened.
In a word: the guest preacher William Hodge was an unsung hero of what became the Cane Ridge Revival a year later. He deliberately decided notto approach the woman and got over what anyone might think and began exhorting as he did. I would add: it was the Holy Spirit on him that emancipated him from the fear of the people. One can be sure that Hodge exhorting as he did affirmed and comforted the woman who did the shouting.
What we know is that – thankfully – no one stopped the outburst: the spark. Hodge instead proceeded to exhort the people. The result was that many men and women, “overwhelmed with conviction, fell to the floor and would remain prostrate and motionless for hours”. But when they arose “with the shout of victory, they would testify that they were conscious through the experience”. In other words, though on the floor motionless, they were fully aware of what was going on.
After the Red River service, Rev. McGready was said to be surprised and astonished at the apparent confusion in the Meeting House. He asked, “What is to be done?” An elder looking in at the door and seeing all the people on the floor “praising or praying” said, “We can do nothing. If this be of Satan, it will soon come to an end; but if it is of God, our efforts and fears are in vain. I think it is of God, and will join in ascribing glory to His name”. Those who arose from the floor were reportedly “shouting praise for the evidence felt in their own souls of sins forgiven for redeeming grace and dying love”.
It was further reported that “there remained no more place that day for preaching or administering the Supper”. I assume this meant no place for continuingto administer the Supper since it seems to have begun. But after the woman shouted and the people began to scream and fall to the floor, apparently Hodge did not preach his prepared sermon, nor did they finish administering the Supper. The people were so much under the influence of the conscious presence of the Holy Spirit that they did not move. Around forty-five people professed to be converted that evening.
Such was the result of the spark that caused a historic fire in Logan County.
We have observed that Rev. McGready the pastor was not in charge of this service. He possibly would have known the woman – whether she was an upstanding woman of God or an unstable person with emotional problems. To comment on what McGready might have done had he been leading the service would be unprofitable speculation. What we know is, a guest preacher was in charge.
We cannot enter the woman’s mind – whether she was worshipping in ecstasy or feared for her own soul. Either way it was – in my view – God’s conscious presence that precipitated her shouting. The Cane Ridge Revival that followed in 1801 is good evidence of that.
One more comment: it is my opinion that the guest preacher William Hodge would almost certainly have put out the Spirit’s fire had he reached the woman and calmed her down. The Apostle Paul’s word, “Quench not the Spirit” (1 Thess.5:19), is relevant here. Had Rev. Hodge stopped her shouting in front of all present, the atmosphere would have changed abruptly. The weeping would probably have stopped. There probably would have been no people prostrate and motionless on the floor. We would therefore never have heard of the Red River Meeting House. And there would have been no Cane Ridge Revival a year later.
But thanks to Hodge’s “turning back” from approaching the woman, the Spirit was not quenched.
When we get to heaven we can watch a video replay of the whole scenario.
As a consequence of the Monday service at Red River this same sense of the presence of God spread to McGready’s two other congregations. During June, July and August of 1800 the people from all three congregations witnessed the same phenomena. It was always entirely spontaneous. Nobody had prayed for this woman to shout as she did. No one expected this. For all I know, nobody wanted it. But once the woman shouted – and was not stopped, the people began to fall. The exact same thing thus continued all summer in the three Meeting Houses in Logan County. People came in covered wagons to camp and to see what was going on.
Whereas the “falling exercises” that prevailed so extensively in McGready’s three congregations were unprecedented in Logan County, they were not without precedent elsewhere. The same kind of falling was referred to as “swooning” during the New England Awakening. Jonathan Edwards’ wife was in such a state for several days. She said she was overwhelmed from experiencing “my dearness to Him and His nearness to me”.
These “bodily exercises” reappeared the following summer in Cane Ridge, as we will see below.
The horrible fear of being lost
When we who live in Britain or America in the 21stcentury read about these revivals of over two hundred years ago, it is hard to get into the skin of the people who were so emotional. It is natural for us to dismiss it all as irrelevant for our day since these people were uncultured, uneducated and unsophisticated. There is certainly truth to this. But there is another factor we might not have thought about. The preaching of eternal damnation was common but generally made no impact at all until the revival came. The assumption in all that Rev. McGready taught and preached was that if you were not converted – and did not know you were born again by the witness of the Spirit – you would go to hell forever. And yet this preaching alone made little or no impact on society. The frontiersmen in those days who did not go to church were known for their disregard for the church or anything sacred but rather known for their wickedness, debauchery and dishonesty. Not only that; the influence of Thomas Paine, to be examined below, had left many people with the feeling that there is nothing to worry about since the Bible is not true and there is consequently no heaven, no hell, no God. That assumption had spread to the grass roots.
It was the Holy Spirit sovereignly stepping in that changed all this. The famous meeting in Red River – and its spreading to the other congregations – came after three to four years of praying and fasting of the faithful few. Therefore when the Spirit of God came down men and women were – literally – shaken rigid. The fear of being lost – or not being chosen – did not bother people in the world who were uninfluenced by the Spirit. But when the Holy Spirit set in, everything changed. So much so that men actually came to the services to scoff but were themselves stricken by the Spirit and laid flat out on the ground.
It must be realized therefore that both in Red River and in Cane Ridge that the fear of being eternally lost – or in some cases the fear of not being one of God’s elect – surfaced only when the Holy Spirit came in power. This is was what lay behind the groans and their falling down helplessly. They suddenly feared for their own eternal destiny. For that reason the Spirit’s witness that they were saved and not eternally lost gave them ecstatic joy that caused the noise that could be heard. The most important factor was the issue of assurance of salvation. In some cases there were two stages of emotional outburst: (1) the groans that came from the fear of being lost and (2) the overwhelming sense of relief that finally came that one was not going to hell but was saved. The latter was the main thing that caused the loud shouting. The relief, assurance and joy that people received led them to yell to the top of their voices.
This was thus the beginning of “camp meetings”. People travelled from Sumner County in Tennessee, probably following Rev. Hodge, to Logan County, Kentucky. There was only one covered wagon present at the meeting at Red River, but more wagons came to Muddy River. This practice of people coming in covered wagons to camp and stay around rapidly increased from then on.
The Age of Reason
Prior to the movement of the Holy Spirit in Kentucky in the late eighteenth century was a fast growing sense of unbelief in the Bible. What McGready and his fellow Presbyterians fought against was not only skepticism among believers but an ever-increasing atheism in society generally.
Thomas Paine (1737-1809) was born in England. His book The Age of Reason, written largely through the influence of the French atheist Voltaire (1694-1778), became widely read. He came to the British American colonies in 1774. He espoused the position of the colonists in the American Revolution. This gave him considerable acceptance. Paine had learned through his time in France that the French people had strongly rejected religion and sacred things. He then wrote The Age of Reason in 1793-94.It was written against the Bible as being the word of God. It became a popular book and had an extensive circulation – including in Kentucky. As a result, the Bible found a place only in religious families. It was estimated that among “intelligent” people who called themselves Christian toward the close of the eighteenth century that the majority of the population were either professed infidels or skeptically inclined. For example, there were few in the professions of law and science who would avow their belief in the truth of Christianity.
It was during this religious dearth that the revival had its origins in Logan County, Kentucky as well as what we will observe below in Bourbon County, Kentucky. The ministries of men like James McCready had to overcome the prejudices of many people who had succumbed to the influence of Thomas Paine.
It may be wondered, how there could have been a “Bible belt” throughout the South in the past several generations? It was therefore not reason or logic but the power of the Holy Spirit that overcame much of Paine’s influence. Barton Stone, referred to below, would later observe, “The effects of this meeting [referring to the Cane Ridge Revival] through the country were like fire in dry stubble driven by a strong wind”. It was concluded by J. M. Peek in The Christian Review (1852): “Infidelity received its death blow during that revival period”.
The Cane Ridge revival of 1801
The Rev. Barton Stone (1772-1844), a convert of McGready from several years back, became the pastor of a Presbyterian church in Cane Ridge in Bourbon County, Kentucky. Hearing of what was going on among McGready’s three congregations, he traveled to Logan county in the summer of 1800 in to investigate. Stone wrote:
“The scene to me was new, and passing strange. It baffled description. Many, very many fell down, as men slain in battle, and continued for hours together in an apparently breathless and motionless state. . . After lying there for hours, they obtained deliverance . . . With astonishment did I hear men, women and children declaring the wonderful works of God, and the glorious mysteries of the gospel. Their appeals were solemn, heart-penetrating, bold and free. Under such [preaching]many others would fall down into the same state . . .
“My conviction was complete that it was a good work – the work of God; nor has my mind wavered on the subject. Much did I then see, and much have I since seen, that I considered to be fanaticism; but this should not condemn the work. The Devil has always tried to ape the works of God, to bring them into disrepute. But that cannot be a Satanic work which brings men to humble confession and forsaking of sin – to solemn prayer – fervent praise and thanksgiving, and to sincere and affectionate exhortations to sinners to repent and go to Jesus the Saviour”.
While present in Logan County, Barton Stone noticed many covered wagons that carried people from various places to observe these unusual phenomena. He suggested that people meet the following year at Cane Ridge, this being a more suitable place for camp meetings. Word spread quickly. The following summer thousands came in their covered wagons from near and far to meet for fellowship and Bible study. This took place in August 1801. Crowds were estimated from ten to twenty thousand, one observer even estimated thirty thousand.
A general camp meeting began at Cane Ridge on August 6, 1801.That is when people began to arrive in their covered wagons. On the Sunday morning August 9th a Methodist minister, William Burke – some sources state that he was a lay minister – arrived apparently expecting to speak, but received no invitation from the Presbyterians in charge to preach or have any part in the services. Sometime after ten o’clock that morning he found “a convenient place on the body of a fallen tree”. Some reports state that the fallen tree was about fifteen feet above the ground. He began “reading a hymn with an audible voice”, and, Burke reported, by the time “we concluded singing and praying we had around us, standing on their feet, by fair calculation ten thousand people. I gave out my text . . . ‘For we must all stand before the judgment seat of Christ’ (2 Cor.5:10 KJV). Burke stated that “before I concluded my voice was not to be heard for the groans of distress and the shouts of triumph”. The following statement is reported by a Baptist historian, quoting William Burke:
Hundreds fell prostrate to the ground, and work [of the Holy Spirit]continued on that spot till Wednesday afternoon. It was estimated by some that not less than five hundred were at one time lying on the ground in the deepest agonies of distress, and every few minutes rising in shouts of triumph. . . I remained Sunday night, and Monday and Monday night; and during that time there was not a single moment’s cessation, but the work went on, and old and young, men, women, and children, were converted to God. It was estimated that on Sunday and Sunday night there were twenty thousand people on the ground. (This was quoted by historian Frank Masters, 1953, “The Great Revival of 1800 in Kentuky 1799-1803).
This phenomenon continued through Wednesday during which time there were reportedly no fewer than five hundred on the ground at any moment. At first it was feared that these people were dead. Panic set in with some.They had trouble finding a pulse. Sometimes only two beats a minute. But after a few hours without exception these people got up and shouted to the top of their voices with joy and assurance that they were truly saved. It has since been called “America’s Second Great Awakening”. The “sound of Niagara” came to mind as people could hear the shouts of men and women and children from nearly a mile away (reported in William Martin, A Prophet with Honor – authorized biography of Billy Graham). Whereas the Great Awakening in New England lasted for fifteen years or more, the Cane Ridge Revival lasted approximately four days – mainly from Sunday through Wednesday. It shows how much God can accomplish in a very short period of time. On Thursday people began returning to their homes, having to get to their jobs. Barton Stone wrote, “A particular description of this meeting would fill a large volume, and then half would not be told”.
Some concluding observations
The spark referred to in James 3:5 had to do with controlling the tongue. The slightest unguarded comment could be a spark that set a forest on fire.
The spark that ignited the revival in Logan County, Kentucky – leading to the Cane Ridge Revival – could have been extinguished. It is impossible to know whether the preacher William Hodge initially intended to shut up the woman who started shouting or if he was going to comfort her. In either case, he did not approach her but turned back and let her continue. And the rest is history.
I have wondered what kind of vulnerability it might take that you and I would be a spark today. Are we so orderly and sophisticated that our usual way of doing things will put out the Spirit’s fire?
Would you be vulnerable? Would I?
I suspect if a woman shouted in the middle of the Lord’s Supper today – in any church, she would be immediately silenced. I also fear that if I myself were conducting the Lord’s Supper and this happened, I would be very suspicious, very uneasy and very keen to have her stopped. On the other hand, if I had a great sense of the conscious presence of God when this happened, I’d like to think I would not interrupt it. It is very hard to imagine what it was really like in those days.
In the years that followed the Cane Ridge Revival, there emerged diverse opinions theologically. First, not all those involved in the Cane Ridge Revival were Calvinists. Many Methodists joined with the Presbyterians in this meeting. As we saw, William Burke was a Methodist. There were a few Baptists. There were also some ministers both in Logan County and Bourbon County churches that reportedly abandoned their Calvinism. This included Barton Stone who eventually left the Presbyterian church. He became a founder of the Christian Church, also known as the Disciples of Christ. Whereas James McGready never wavered in his theology he never made much of his belief regarding election and predestination. Second, there was a division in the aftermath of Cane Ridge as to whether a minister needed to be educated. Presbyterians were strong on this point – that a minister should be well educated before being ordained. But because of the spontaneity and enablement that characterized much of the preaching that came out of the Cane Ridge Revival, many felt it was quite wrongfor a preacher to be educated.
I myself grew up in Ashland, Kentucky – some one hundred miles from Cane Ridge. The effect of the Cane Ridge Revival went all over Kentucky and into neighboring states. There was still a widespread feeling in my area that preachers did not need to be formally educated. I was influenced by many uneducated evangelists and pastors. None of them (as far as I know) had university degrees. Some of these men helped to shape my thinking as I grew up.
There is a striking similarity between the preaching content in the first Great Awakening in New England and the preaching content in America’s Second Great Awakening: both dealt with the future judgment and people’s final destiny. First, you may recall that James McGready’s preaching in Logan County was described as having an emphasis on hell. God eventually honored this with the spark that ignited the fire that led to the Cane Ridge Revival. Second, Jonathan Edwards’ sermon “Sinners in the hands of an angry God” – preached July 8, 1741 in Enfield, Connecticut – was about eternal punishment in hell. God honored this with such conviction that people held on to church pews and tree trunks to keep from sliding into hell. The world never forgot it. When people think of the New England Awakening they often think of Edwards’s sermon immediately. Third, William Burke took his text in Cane Ridge from 2 Corinthians 5:10 – “We must all stand before the judgment seat of Christ”. God honored Burke’s preaching by thousands being convicted and falling helplessly to the ground – as “men slain in battle”, observed Barton Stone. This is largely what is remembered when people think of the Cane Ridge Revival.
There was another strange phenomenon that came from Cane Ridge: a certain style of preaching. What I did not report above was that there were at times at least five different men preaching simultaneously among the crowds of thousands at Cane Ridge. Some report that there were seven different men preaching – some from tree stumps, some from covered wagons. I am not able to describe this style in writing. These men were not preaching from prepared manuscripts. The best I can do is to say that many preachers in those days not only shouted loudly but needed to take a deep breath between nearly every word or two as they exhorted! It was as though they were gasping for breath as they preached. I honestly suspect that at first this couldhave been a result of the Spirit’s power – the kabodh (Hebrew word for heaviness but often translated glory) on them. But after the revival subsided there were those who needed to keep this up – to prove that they still had the anointing. Or to have the “hoyle” (hwyl) as they would say in Wales!
The Toronto Blessing and Cane Ridge
One further observation. One of the earmarks of the “Toronto Blessing” that emerged in 1994 was the falling, often accompanied with laughter. Joy. This also happened in the Cane Ridge Revival. There were at least three differences. First, the audible groanings and the ecstasy at Red River and Cane Ridge came in the context of the preaching of eternal judgment. When the Holy Spirit endorsed the preaching of people like James McGready the Presbyterian and William Burke the Methodist the people were suddenly seized with conviction of sin and fear of being hopelessly lost and fell helplessly to the ground. Their groanings were so loud that Burke himself said he could not hear his own voice. The phenomena that characterized the Toronto Blessing, so far as I can tell, came apart from the preaching of eternal judgment. This does not invalidate the Toronto Blessing; it is a difference worth noting.
Second, the main result of people falling in Cane Ridge was their getting undoubted assurance of salvation. This came by the immediate and direct witness of the Holy Spirit. There was no intellectual process by which men and women needed to concludethey were saved; that is, no need to reason, e.g., “All who trust Christ’s death on the cross are saved; but I trust Christ’s death, therefore I am saved”. It was an immediate witness of the Spirit that bypassed reason that gave them this assurance. With the Toronto Blessing however, assurance of salvation did not appear to have been a problem for most people to begin with, as far as I know, although this could have been the experience of some. The testimonies varied of those who were affected by the Toronto Blessing. Some laughed uncontrollably for several minutes, sometimes for an hour or more. It was a time of great joy and freedom. Assurance of salvation, then, was not an issue as far as I know; it was an experience that set people free from different kinds of bondage. Some professed physical healing. I know personally of a lot of people who received prophetic words while they were on the floor that changed their lives. I also know of some who did not particularly receive anyconscious feeling; they simply fell because they “couldn’t stand”.
Third, whether in Logan County or Bourbon County, those “falling exercises” were always spontaneous. There was crying, laughing, shouting, jumping, running and barking. The Toronto Blessing – which I supported and still do – was characterized by many of these manifestations except that they came largely – but not entirely – through the laying on of hands. Some criticize the Toronto Blessing because its manifestations mostly followed the laying on of hands. But people criticized the revivals in Logan and Bourbon counties where the manifestations were spontaneous. There have always been the “antis” and there will always be. The lack of spontaneity does not nullify genuineness, but I think it is still a difference between Cane Ridge and Toronto that is worth noting. I would only add that the Toronto Blessing offers an invitation to become vulnerable – to see how earnest one is to get more of God. It can be humbling and embarrassing. Those who are adamantly against and opposed to this – as if waiting for God to knock them down spontaneously – will likely be passed by.
And if one is looking for a biblical basis for such unusual phenomena, consider these words – remembering too that God often offends the mind to reveal the heart:
“God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong” (1 Cor.1:27).
“For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts”(Isa.55:8-9).
In this age of ever-increasing atheism, skepticism, unbelief and absence of emphasis on God’s wrath, the Final Judgment and eternal punishment, I predict it will not be erudition or logic that will turn the tide. It won’t be legislation by Parliament or Congress that will turn things around. Neither will it come by being “seeker friendly” or being overly cautious not to offend people. It will come through the unashamed proclamation of the God of the Bible and bold preaching of the pure Gospel of Jesus Christ – butwith power that is largely unseen today.
We truly need another Great Awakening. We must pray for power like what was observed in the day of John Wesley, Jonathan Edwards and George Whitefield. Raw power similar to what I have written about in this chapter.
How far are we willing to go in our commitment to see the Holy Spirit come in power today? Or is the fear of man a greater influence on us?
How interested are we in being governed by an audience of One?
Are you willing to be the spark that could set a forest on fire?
