The Emergence of Evangelical Spirituality: The Age of Edwards, Newton, and Whitefield

This volume contains a splendid selection of eighteenth-century evangelical writings. These are grouped under six sections: new life in Christ; the Holy Spirit; Scripture; spiritual practices; love for God; and love for neighbour. Tom Schwanda, who is Associate Professor of Christian Formation at Wheaton College in the United States, introduces the material and the approach taken in the volume as a whole and then offers helpful comments on the topics of each section. The volume is part of the Classics of Western Spirituality series.It is good to see the range of authors represented. The denominational backgrounds include Anglican, Congregational, Methodist, Baptist, Presbyterian, and Moravian. Among the Methodists, the writings of two leading preachers, John Fletcher and Francis Asbury, appear in the section on spiritual practices. John and Charles Wesley had a previous volume in the series devoted to their work. The powerful testimony of a slave who bought his freedom and became a Methodist minister, Richard Allen, appears under ‘new life in Christ’. Another Methodist preacher featured is Thomas Walsh, an Irish itinerant and biblical scholar whose revivalist endeavours and knowledge of Hebrew were highly esteemed by John Wesley.Among the Calvinists whose writings are found in the volume there are Calvinistic Methodists. George Whitefield is well represented, as befits his significance in the eighteenth-century context. A letter from Howell Harris is included in the section on the Holy Spirit. Another letter is from Selina, Countess of Huntingdon. There are two well-known hymns by William Williams, and two by another Welsh hymn-writer, Ann Griffiths, who joined the Calvinistic Methodist movement.The role of women in eighteenth-century evangelicalism is evident in this volume. Almost a quarter of the selections are by women. Apart from those already mentioned, Methodist women featured are Mary [née Bosanquet] Fletcher, recognized as one of the most significant female leaders of her time, Sarah Jones, an American Methodist who had a wide-ranging correspondence, and Hester Ann Rogers, whose husband believed she had been used to bring about the conversion of 2,000 people in Dublin. Letters from each of these women are included.While there is limited ethnic diversity among the authors, there is a piece under ‘love for neighbor’ from Olaudah Equiano, the noted African abolitionist. There is poetry from another African American freed slave, Phyllis Wheatley, including her poem about the death of George Whitefield. One Native American, Samson Occom, is featured. Occom was the most famous Native American of his time and it is appropriate that extracts from his sermons are included. Two of the most influential German Moravians, Count von Zinzendorf and August Spangenburg, both of whom were important in the early development of Methodism, are also represented.The letters, sermons, hymns, diaries, poems, devotional manuals, and tracts that make up this volume show the richness of evangelical spirituality. At a time when much attention is given to spirituality in varied Christian traditions, this resource offers clear evidence of the riches to be found in evangelical writings. Here I have given particular attention to Methodists, but Anglicans—for example, John Newton, William Cowper, William Romaine, Hannah More, Henry Venn, and William Wilberforce—are properly represented, as are Baptists—Anne Steele, Anne Dutton, Henry Alline, William Carey, Andrew Fuller, Samuel Pearce, and Isaac Backus. Congregationalists or Independents include Isaac Watts, Philip Doddridge, Jonathan Edwards, Susanna Anthony, and Samuel Hopkins. William McCulloch, Gilbert Tennent, and John Witherspoon are among the (relatively few) Presbyterians.Those seeking more explanation of the theological differences between eighteenth-century evangelicals (and these were significant) should not expect to find that kind of material in this volume. There are only brief references to controversies: for instance, the introduction to Augustus Toplady notes that he was ‘frequently engaged in bitter controversy with John Wesley and his followers over free will and predestination’. Rather, what emerges from this volume is the common commitment that evangelicals had to robust, lived-out spiritual experience. For those who wish to encounter that first hand, this collection by Tom Schwanda is invaluable. I commend it wholeheartedly.

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