The churches that seem to be the strongest often have many members who have worked through earlier deceptions about their conversion to arrive at a solid assurance with God. The probing was occasioned by learning that spiritual life in the individual produces noticeable change. The exploration into whether or not they actually have spiritual life altered everything.

In the early 1700s, between 75 and 80 percent of American people attended church meetings regularly. Yet huge numbers among them were unconverted. It was among these people that Awakening doctrines had their greatest effects. In other words, wherever people gathered, within or outside the colonial church buildings, the principle leaders were addressing church members who needed Christ.
What truth, among the many emphasized, had the greatest influence on unconverted church members in The Great Awakening? And who are the unconverted church members in our context who may also need this truth?
The Great Awakening’s Emphasis on Regeneration
When George Whitefield was asked why he so often preached, “Ye must be born again,” he replied, “Because ye must be born again!”
Regeneration, or the new birth, was the prevalent issue of the Great Awakening of the 1740s. As Joseph Tracey said:
This doctrine of the “new birth,” as an ascertainable change, was not generally prevalent in any communion when the revival commenced; it was urged as of fundamental importance, by the leading promoters of the revival; it took strong hold of those whom the revival affected; it naturally led to such questions as the revival brought up and caused to be discussed; its perversions naturally grew into, or associated with, such errors as the revival promoted; it was adapted to provoke such opposition, and in such quarters, as the revival provoked; and its caricatures would furnish such pictures of the revival, as oppressors drew. This was evidently the right key; for it fitted all the wards of the complicated lock.[1]
This doctrine has repeatedly been at the heart of awakenings.
By “regeneration,” we mean the giving of life to dead souls as a sovereign work of the Holy Spirit. Berkhof says it is “that act of God by which the principle of the new life is implanted in man, and the governing disposition of the soul is made holy…and the first holy exercise of this new disposition is secured.”[2] The Lord lived and died for his own, and as King, gifts our dead souls with new life resulting in sight, belief, repentance, and holiness.
J.C. Ryle said in so many words that the awakening preachers of that time believed in an indivisible union between authentic faith and holiness. He writes, “They never allowed for a moment that any church membership or religious profession was the least proof of a man being a Christian if he lived an ungodly life.”[3]
The attention to this truth, fed by their earlier Puritan theology, brought great conviction and massive numbers of conversions when preached and taught with the unction of the Spirit in times of revival. Where it did not bring conviction, it brought anger. Whitefield, who himself was written against in over 240 tracts of various types,[4] said that when you heard middle colonies’ preacher Gilbert Tennent (and his brothers) you were either converted or enraged. According to Gillies’ quoting of Prince in Historical Collections of Accounts of Revival, Tennent is said to have preached in this way:
Such were the convictions wrought in many hundreds in this town by Mr. Tennent’s searching ministry; and such was the case of those many scores of several other congregations as well as mine, who came to me and others for direction under them. And indeed, by all their converse I found, it was not so much the terror as the searching nature of his ministry that was the principal means of their conviction. It was not merely, nor so much, his laying open the terrors of the law and wrath of God, or damnation of hell (for this they could pretty well bear, as long as they hoped these belonged not to them, or they could easily avoid them), as his laying open their many vain and secret shifts and refuges, counterfeit resemblance’s of grace, delusive and damning hopes, their utter impotence, and impending danger of destruction; whereby they found all their hopes and refuges of lies to fail them, and themselves exposed to eternal ruin, unable to help themselves, and in a lost condition. This searching preaching was both the suitable and principal means of their conviction.[5]
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Among the various puzzling questions that concern the organization of the local churches, Dr. Witherow threads his safe way with his usual judiciousness and sound exegetical tact. The nature of the eldership as an undifferentiated ruling-teaching office, the nature of the diaconate as essentially an office of service rather than of “ministry” in its higher sense, the nature of the local presbytery and its functions, the ground and mode of association of the Churches (one of the best chapters), are all judiciously investigated. The only criticism of any moment which we could bring against the findings of this whole half of the volume, would be that the nature of the work of the apostles and the relation to them of their travelling companions do not seem to be exactly realized. Paul was not only a divinely appointed and divinely inspired missionary, he was a travelling missionary-society, and his companions were his helpers in this work. 

In 1889, Thomas Witherow, a Presbyterian minister in Ireland, published, The Form of the Christian Temple: Being a Treatise on the Constitution of the New Testament Church, to promote and defend Presbyterianism as the divinely ordained polity (jure divino) taught in the New Testament. Witherow’s preface expressed his purpose.
The main design of the following treatise is to bring distinctly under the eye of the inquirer those passages of the Holy Scriptures, which are supposed to bear directly or indirectly on the subject of Church Polity; to find out the principles or facts which these passages underlie; and to combine such facts and principles, with the view of ascertaining whether they do, or do not, contain the outlines of a form of Church government.
In the review of Witherow’s book by B. B. Warfield that follows this introduction there are a few things to notice. Warfield readily defended Bishop of Durham Joseph B. Lightfoot (1828-1889) who evaluated the early Greek epistles of Ignatius to be authentic while Witherow questioned them. Warfield maintained great interest in patristics and New Testament studies after leaving Western Seminary even though his work at Princeton was in polemic theology. He said Lightfoot was “the greatest Patristic scholar of the England of our generation,” and in his later years, said Warfield, Lightfoot defended the apostolicity of presbyterianism (TP&RR, 1891, 2:8, 692). Warfield wrote very little about church polity, so his comments in this review are helpful. In the case of graduated levels of church courts (sessions, presbyteries, synods, and assemblies) he thought it was inappropriate to appeal to the Jerusalem Council (Acts 15:2-35).
Let us confess that the New Testament gives us no example of other than congregational presbyteries; and rest our higher courts on the legitimate application in their formation of the same principle of association which was divinely enacted in the congregational government.
Warfield agreed with Witherow’s comment on page 187.
Association, whether of Churches or of rulers, is a Scriptural principle. The association of elders in the government of a local Church—that is, the congregational presbytery, is a divine institution; the association of the rulers of different congregations for managing matters in common—that is, the district presbytery, is simply a matter of agreement and consent, but is the outcome of a principle that has received divine sanction again and again.
With authority from the lower to the higher judicatory, congregation to presbytery, and then to the assembly. Does this make Witherow and Warfield grassroots Presbyterians?
Barry Waugh

The Form of the Christian Temple: Being a Treatise on the Constitution of the New Testament Church. By Thomas Witherow, D.D., LL.D., Professor of Church History in Magee College, Londonderry. Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark; New York: Scribner & Welford, 1889. Pp. xii., 468. 8vo.
We welcome this valuable treatise the more heartily that we fear there is a tendency among us to undervalue the study of Church polity. It may serve to remind us, in the wise words of its author (p. vii.), “that Church polity is an important portion of Christianity.” “Its main principles,” he justly continues, “are divinely revealed; its design is to conserve and to perpetuate truth, as well as to secure decency and order in worship, in instruction, and in administration; while it is often on the side of Church government, and generally under cover of indistinct and uncertain notions regarding it, that minute changes have crept into the Church which have in the course of centuries blossomed out into serious error.” Led by so just a conception of its importance, he has made a careful study of the constitution of the New Testament Church, the conclusion of which may be expressed in these words (although they are not put forward as such): “Presbyterianism has the true bishop, the true episcopal ordination, the true Apostolic Succession, the true commission, and the true ministry” (p. 386).
The volume is divided into two very different parts. The first half is a stringently inductive examination of the New Testament passages bearing on the organization of the Church, with the intention and effect of discovering exactly what the form of the New Testament Church was. Here the controversial element is relegated to the background, although a hint of it may obtrude itself in an occasional bit of dry humor (pp. 119, 167, 168, 196) or in an occasional intrusion into the inductive process of minor items of a more modern flavor. How easy it is to introduce into our speech, regarding the institutions of the first century, traits and forms of statement drawn from our present habits or training, Dr. Witherow illustrates by a quotation from the Tracts for the Times (p. 111, note). How hard it is wholly to avoid it, he illustrates by an occasional slip of his own. Examples are the repeated assertion (e.g., p. 18) that Paul was not appointed apostle until after the death of James of Zebedee; the statement that lay prophets were allowed only “occasionally” to address the Church (p. 34); the assumption that Timothy’s work in Ephesus was “exceptional” (pp. 38, 40). These are, however, rare motes on the surface of a generally successful stream of pure induction.
In the second half of the book the controversial element comes prominently forward, although everywhere kept within due bounds by Dr. Witherow’s unfailing exegetical insight and sober historical sense. Here we have not so much a historical study of the origin of the human additions to the temple, as a polemic examination of the asserted divine sanction for the chief ecclesiastical growths of later times—the priesthood, penance, prelacy, apostolical succession, and the papacy. In the multitude of details which are here brought forward, it is not to be expected that all the opinions expressed will meet universal acceptance—especially when they concern points of confessed difficulty.
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We are called to be faithful to the truth. The enemies of God hate the truth. And they would have us think that to speak the truth is a hateful or dangerous thing. They want us to fear their labels. They want us to fear being called bad names. But whenever the temptation arises, let us not fall back or retreat, but let us pray with Nehemiah, “O God, strengthen my hands.”

Fear can be an instrument for good. The fear of falling to your death may prevent you from standing dangerously close to an edge. This is a healthy fear. But fear can also be used as a weapon to hinder good. The fear of social disapproval may prevent you from doing or saying the right thing. This is misplaced fear. It’s the sort of fear that shouldn’t control our lives, and yet today, many are consumed by it.
The fear of being called a bad name, slapped with a dangerous label, or accused of thinking a wrong thing largely dictates what people can and cannot say, despite how harmless, good, or true it may be.
But if we wish to gain any ground in the public square, we must overcome our misplaced fear of being called bad names. We will be called bad names. That’s a certainty. Jesus was called bad names, but that did not prevent him from doing what was right. He spoke the truth, regardless of opposition because his God-given mission was not defined, dictated, or directed by those attempting to silence him.
It’s no different today. Political and religious discourse is dominated by name-calling in an effort to shut down an opponent without having to grapple with his ideas. We don’t need a debate on “racism” or “hate” because everybody knows these things are wrong. Simply, mark your opponent as a hate-filled racist, and you don’t need to entertain his arguments. We’ve already agreed that both racism and hate are wrong.
But false accusations of “racism” or “hate” are oftentimes only used to silence those who are neither racist nor hateful. It’s only those who reject such labels that the false charge is designed to silence. An out-and-proud racist doesn’t care if you identify his racism. He may even help you do it. As such, it is only those who are not hate-filled racists who are likely to retreat when the accusation is raised.
And when it is raised, it’s not because our opponents care about such things, nor because they genuinely believe we are those things. It’s raised precisely because we are not those things, and they know that we care about not being those things.
In this sense, they’re wielding our own principles against us. They’re beating us with our own moral measuring stick. And falsely so! But what might happen if we stopped caring about their false allegations? What if we stopped caring how that dishonest and morally bankrupt segment of society viewed us? Suddenly, their false accusations would be stripped of all their silencing power.
In the book of Nehemiah, we’re told that the enemies of God wanted to prevent Nehemiah and his men from rebuilding Jerusalem’s defences. Their tactic was to weaken the hands of the workers by manufacturing misplaced fear through a false accusation.
They attempted to do this by accusing Nehemiah and his men of “intending to rebel,” and this, they argued, was why they were rebuilding the wall (Neh. 6:6). The false charge was brought against Nehemiah and his men in the hope that it would “frighten” them from their task. The enemies of God were hoping, through a false label, the workers’ hands would “drop from the work, and it would not be done.”
There is nothing new under the sun. Rather than fairly portraying their political opponents, they resorted to misrepresentations – such as accusing them of extremism, or domestic terrorism, to weaken their hands, thereby, stalling their God-given task.
The same tactic is still employed today. “I don’t want to be considered a bigot,” people think, “so, I best abandon any public defence of what’s now considered a controversial opinion.”
Had Nehemiah and his men caved to the fear of a false label their God-given work would have ended. But unlike many today, Nehemiah and his men did not listen to the false charge, nor did they allow any fear of the consequences hinder their task. Instead, Nehemiah prayed: “O God, strengthen my hands.”
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