The Outbreak of Evangelicalism

This chapter first describes the theology of the leaders of the evangelical awakening on the British Isles, George Whitefield and John Wesley. Both insisted that by preaching the “immediate” revelation of the Holy Spirit during what they called the “new birth,” they were recovering an essential element of primitive Christianity that had been forgotten over the centuries. Both had clear affinities with the conscience theology of William Perkins, yet both distanced themselves from it in important ways. In New England, Jonathan Edwards explored the nature of religious experience more deeply than either Wesley or Whitefield had done, and Edwards proudly claimed his Puritan heritage even as opponents found him deviating from it.

Grace Resolved into Morality?

This chapter looks at the theology of three representative figures—Richard Baxter, Richard Allestree, and Richard Alleine—each of whom offered a particular theological option after the Restoration of Charles II in 1660. Characteristic of this period of time would be a tendency to conflate religion and morality. The Evangelicals would recoil from Allestree’s moralism and eventually discover they had much in common with the theology of Baxter and Alleine

Introduction

This introduction explains the governing argument of the book and how each chapter contributes to that argument. It begins with the rationale for a sacramental understanding of conversion and the practical importance of obtaining forgiveness of sins through the sacrament of penance. It then describes Luther’s grappling with the tension between an instrumental understanding of baptism and one that requires some kind of faith from the recipient. This tension will harden after his death into a great divide between Lutheran and Reformed. The Reformed insistence on an inward baptism by the Holy Spirit will eventually result in evangelicalism.

Can One Turn to One’s Outward Baptism for Assurance of Salvation?

This chapter focuses on a single day during a late-sixteenth-century confrontation between Lutheran and Reformed theologians. As each side argued for its understanding of the meaning of infant baptism, each fastened on a different part of Martin Luther’s teaching. As the theologians argued, the distinction between the traditional understanding of sacramental baptism and something else, an “inward baptism,” became clear. Commitment to an inward baptism, which appeared to the Reformed to be a necessary consequence of Luther’s teaching, would eventually create space for evangelicalism.

Concluding Remarks

Over the roughly two and half centuries covered in this book, an enormous change occurred in the way large groups of Christians confronted their God. Evangelicals in the mid-eighteenth century almost completely abandoned the sacerdotal, ex opere operato understanding of divine–human communication that Christians in the early sixteenth century took for granted. The God of the evangelicals required little ecclesiastical mediation; he was lodged deeply in the human heart....

The “Conscience Religion” of William Perkins

This chapter moves to England to examine the “conscience theology” of the Puritan William Perkins, who stands in here for countless of his Puritan colleagues. Perkins’s treatises outsold Shakespeare’s plays well into the seventeenth century. To read Perkins’s many treatises is to see the encounter between the divine and the human shifting from the sacraments to the human heart.

Luther Insists on Faith

This chapter describes Martin Luther’s critique of late-medieval religiosity, concentrating particularly on his understanding of infant baptism. While a legitimate sacrament in Luther’s eyes, infant baptism appears to coexist uneasily with Luther’s insistence that justification must occur through the instrumentality of faith. Confronted with the writings of the “Enthusiasts,” Luther comes to insist on the sacramental power of the baptismal water.

“Conversion” in Late-Medieval Christianity

This chapter discusses the great indulgence campaigns of the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries. In the centuries before the Protestant Reformation, being solicited for indulgences had become commonplace for Christian men and women. The practice of granting indulgences—perceived abuses of which generated Martin Luther’s Ninety-Five Theses—was tied closely to the sacrament of penance, so a close look at indulgences can uncover the assumptions behind a religiosity that provided access to God through a sacramental system and an ordained priesthood.