After revival swept through his congregation in the winter of 1807 and 1808, adding over 200 members to his church, Edward Dorr Griffin wrote to his friend, Ashbel Green. He described the revival as follows:
This work, in point of power and stillness, exceeds all that I have ever seen. While it bears down everything with irresistible force, and seems almost to dispense with human instrumentality, it moves with so much silence. . . . The converts are strongly marked with humility and self-distrust: instead of being elated with confident hopes, they are inclined to tremble. Many of them possess deep and discriminating views; and all, or almost all, are born into the distinguishing doctrines of grace.[1]
Characterized by “stillness,” “silence,” and the “distinguishing doctrines of grace,” this revival may seem out of place in the period known as the Second Great Awakening. Many see the First Great Awakening as controlled, orderly, robustly theological, and Calvinistic, epitomized by the theology and leadership of Jonathan Edwards; conversely, the Second Great Awakening is viewed as emotional, wild, atheological, and Arminian, epitomized by frenzied camp meetings on the frontier or Charles Finney’s manipulative “new measures.” The First is seen as a genuine work
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