[A History of American Christianity by Leonard Woolsey Bacon]@TWC D-Link book
A History of American Christianity

CHAPTER XI
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So exclusively does the Westminster institute contemplate the church as an established parish that its "Directory for Worship" contains no provision for so abnormal an incident as the baptism of an adult, and all baptized children growing up and not being of scandalous life are to be welcomed to the Lord's Supper.

It proves the immense power of the Awakening, that this rigid and powerful organization, of a people tenacious of its traditions to the point of obstinacy, should have swung so completely free at this point, not only of its long-settled usages, but of the distinct letter of its standards.
The Episcopal Church of the colonies was almost forced into an attitude of opposition to the revival.

The unspeakable folly of the English bishops in denouncing and silencing the most effective preachers in the national church had betrayed Whitefield into his most easily besetting sin, that of censorious judgment, and his sweeping counter-denunciations of the Episcopalian clergy in general as unconverted closed to him many hearts and pulpits that at first had been hospitably open to him.

Being human, they came into open antagonism to him and to the revival.

From the protest against extravagance and disorder, it was a short and perilously easy step to the rejection of religious fervor and earnestness.


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