The Awakening of 1727 Onward - Part 1 — J. Edwin Orr

The Evangelical Revival and the Great Awakening

Now, anyone who knows anything about the English-speaking world knows that our history was made by a great event in Great Britain. It's called the Evangelical Revival. We associate it with the work of John Wesley and George Whitefield.

But in this country, it's called the Great Awakening. You can't read an ordinary history book without reading about the Great Awakening in America or the Evangelical Revival of the 18th century in Great Britain.

Moral and Social Disorder Before the Revival

But why did they need such a revival? There's a temptation to an historian to paint the picture blacker to show off the bright lights that followed. But I want you to understand, before the days of John Wesley, when John Wesley was a boy, when George Whitefield was a boy, conditions in the English-speaking world were utterly deplorable.

Gambling, Blood Sports, and Public Violence

Now, you can often judge people by their sports. A great British historian, Trevelyan, said society was one vast casino. Gambling was the national pastime. Cup fighting was one of the popular diversions.

The dean of Wales Cathedral had a picture window put in the deanery so that the guests could watch cup fighting from dinner table. Now, you know, of course, that over on the other side of the Atlantic, they talk about Britain as John Bull.

They always have a bulldog. Why a bulldog? The bulldog had an attractable lower jaw. They used to use those dogs to bait bulls. Now, you know, animals are very sensitive in the nose. They have a stronger sense of smell than we have.

In fact, some dogs can't see very far, but they can smell your scent a long way away. But they can be easily hurt. And so, these dogs would fasten their teeth in the nose of the bull. This was bull baiting, another popular sport.

Boxing was without any gloves. They boxed barehanded. But you were allowed to keep your thumb out. And if you'd knock a man's eyeball out on his cheek, that was loudly applauded. These prize fighters used to pound each other to a bloody pulp.

Drunkenness and the Liquor Trade

And this was tremendously popular. Drunkenness was prevalent. Now, English people tend to be beer drinkers, just as Germans do. But with the colonizing of the West Indies, rum and gin became popular. And people became outrageously intoxicated.

London at that time had a population of 600 ,000. But one in every ten, excuse me, one in every six, owed his livelihood to drink. One house in every six in London was devoted to the sale of liquor. What did such hard drinking do to those people?

Sexual Immorality in Theater and Popular Literature

Well, according to Bishop Benson of Gloucester, it made the English people cruel and inhuman. Not only that, the theater was rotten. Addison, a famous writer, said one of the unaccountable things on utter lewdness of the stage and theater.

Sidney and other writers called it coarse, obscene, and scandalous. In fact, the theater was so filthy that most theaters had a brothel alongside. They used the theater for titillation, and then they used the brothel for indulgence.

The popular novel of the time was rotten. Geoffrey said there was never such a mass of rubbish published. Now, isn't it very interesting? The present wave of pornography in this country began some years ago.

Do you remember how it began? It began when a lady, Catherine Windsor, wrote a book called Forever Amber. And this Forever Amber was an historical novel describing the life of this particular period. And, of course, that sort of thing becomes popular with the ungodly.

Industrial Exploitation and the Slave Trade

And now, there seems to be no limit to what people can publish. Not only that, but at that time, industry was inhuman. Women were used in the coal mines. A woman would wear a belt, a leather belt, around her waist with an iron chain fastened at the navel.

And the iron chain passed between her legs to a truck. And she crept on hands and knees, dragging trucks of coal. It's interesting when Parliament finally put a stop to this, they put in horses instead.

And one of the objections to getting the women out of the mines was because they'd have to make bigger mine tunnels. Because you need more space for horses to drag trucks than for women to drag trucks.

The ships coming from Africa to the Western world were full of helpless slaves. I have seen that series called Roots. It wasn't exaggerated. Not at all. Blacks were packed like sardines, neck to ankle, ankle to neck.

These people had never been off the land before. Africans were not seaparing people. They were seasick. They vomited over each other. They were hosed down with salt water. That gave them ulcers. And if they couldn't make it, they were thrown overboard.

Prisons, Executions, and Religious Decline

The prisons were cesspools of iniquity. And one of the sports for Saturday afternoon or Sunday afternoon was to watch hangings. Berkeley, for whom Berkeley, California's name, said, Morality and religion have collapsed to a degree that's been never known in a Christian country.

Corruption and Persecution in the Churches

So you could say there was decline everywhere. You know, what were the churches doing? The churches declined too. The church was corrupt. Butler, the famous apologist, refused to become Archbishop of Canterbury.

He says, the church is too far gone. You'll find that, probably, people, the Puritans, were driven out. I remember when I went to stay at Oxford, I stayed in the Baptist manse at a place called Abingdon, seven miles from Oxford.

Clerical Drunkenness and Unbelief

Why was that Baptist church built there? Because Baptists weren't allowed to live within seven miles of a city. They were persecuted. That's why the Puritans fled the country and came to New England. There was a case where a godly bishop, the Bishop of Chester, rebuked a clergyman for drunkenness.

And the surprised clergyman, he'd never been told off before, he said, but sir, I never get drunk on duty. In other words, he was drunk most of the time except at Holy Communion. He always, he said, I have a conscience.

I never get drunk at Holy Communion. One of the great unbelievers of the day was Lord Bolingbroke. He told the clergy in a meeting in London that the greatest miracle of Christianity was that the preaching of it was committed to such an ungodly bunch as they were.

He said, well, what about the others?