Leroy Thomas
HIS 211
Topic A
Jimmy Hampton
June 2, 2014

Jonathan Edwards evoked vivid, terrifying images of the utter corruption of human nature and the terrors awaiting the unrepentant in hell. Jonathan Edwards’s famous description of the sinner as a loathsome spider suspended by a slender thread over a pit of seething brimstone in his best known sermon, “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God.”(1741)
The First Great Awakening also gained impetus from the wide-ranging American travels of an English preacher, George Whitefield. Although Whitefield had been ordained as a minister in the Church of England, he later allied with other Anglican clergymen who shared his evangelical bent, most notably John and Charles Wesley. Together they led a movement to reform the Church of England (much as the Puritans had attempted earlier to reform that church) which resulted in the founding of the Methodist Church late in the eighteenth century. During his several trips across the Atlantic after 1739, Whitefield preached everywhere in the American colonies, often drawing audiences so large that he was obliged to preach outdoors. What Whitefield preached was nothing more than what other Calvinists had been proclaiming for centuries that sinful men and women were totally dependent for salvation on the mercy of a pure, all-powerful God. But Whitefield and many American preachers who eagerly imitated his style presented that message in novel ways. Gesturing dramatically, sometimes weeping openly or thundering out threats of hellfire-and-brimstone, (1741) they turned the sermon into a gripping theatrical performance.

But not all looked on with approval. Throughout the colonies, conservative and moderate clergymen questioned the emotionalism of evangelicals and charged that disorder and discord attended the revivals. They took great exception to itinerants, ministers who, like Whitefield, traveled from one community to another, preaching and all too often criticizing the local clergy. And they took still greater exception when some white women and African Americans shed their subordinate social status long enough to exhort religious gatherings. Evangelical preachers and converts rejoined by lambasting their opponents as cold, uninspiring, and lacking in piety and grace. Battles raged within congregations and whole denominations over this challenge to clerical authority as well as the evangelical approach to conversion from the heart rather than the head.
Benjamin Franklin’s success reflect changing notions about wealth and social position is that no matter where you come from that does not determine your destiny, even thou he come from a poor background he did not let that determined that was where he was going to end up. So he ran away to fulfil his purpose and he made sacrifices to accomplish his goals. The things that he wrote about in his book” The Way to Wealth,” are things I believe we can apply to our life today, for example when he said in the book though I had at first determined to buy stuff for a new coat, I went away resolved to wear my old one a little longer. Reader, if thou wilt do the same, they profit will be as great as mine. Benjamin Franklin: (The Autobiography and Other Writings, p. 188-196.) He made a decision to sacrifice a little longer with what he had unlike use today we have to keep up with latest and have nothing to show for it.

Reference
Henretta, James A., et. al. America: A Concise History. 4th edition Bedford/St. Martins: Boston, 2009.
Primary Sources Packet. Bethel University: McKenzie, TN, 2004. (included with this guide