by Stephen Fox, Washington UBF
"For Ezra had devoted himself to the study and observance of the Law of the
Lord, and to teaching its decrees and laws in Israel.'' --- Ezra 7:10
Introduction
God used George Whitefield and Jonathan Edwards powerfully in their day. As
the influence of the first great awakening waned, other challenges faced the
infant nation of America. God, it seems, had called America to be a city on a
hill.
Yet, during the period of the revolution and the two decades after, America
faced deep spiritual struggles. The war brought hardships, economic chaos, and
uncertainty which resulted in a kind of moral chaos as well. The expansion west
had begun, and the frontier life led to a situation somewhat like that of
Israel, ``In that day Israel had no king. Each man did what was right in his own
eyes. Many feared that such moral malfunction would spread back into the entire
nation, destroying the piety of the established communities. New England, the
intellectual fountainhead in America, faced a more subtle foe. The French
Rationalist movement, espoused by the leaders of the French revolution and
carried like disease in the soldiers of that country who supported America's
cause, began to spread rapidly through the people and the intellectual
leadership of the nation. Such thinking taught that the Scripture was mere
fable, that divine revelation was non-existent, and that human reason was the
sole judge of right and wrong. The philosophy exalted man and ignored God. It
proclaimed the innate goodness of man, while inviting lawlessness, and tempted
the same men it exalted into debasing self-indulgence and sin. In the face of
these challenges, God did not abandon New England. God raised up Timothy Dwight
as the intellectual, and faithful leader of the second series of revivals in New
England.
The revivals began, in part, at Yale college where God used Dwight to bring
about the conversion of perhaps more than half of the student body of Yale.
These were the men who would lead New England spiritually and in some cases
socially for decades to come. We, of course, in this day face a very similar
situation as Dwight and the church of his day. The universities, that is, the
foundry of leadership in our society, is largely given over to secular humanism,
the exaltation of man above God, and to spiritual apathy among the students. A
nation boasting such and educational foundation will never become or remain a
light of the gospel to all nations. In fact, as we hear loudly proclaimed from
many distant shores, America is exporting not light, but darkness. Yet, through
repentance and faith, God will use this very generation to stand in the place of
leadership, to be salt and light among our own pears, and those who will come
after us so that the university, and thus the leadership of America may be
filled with the vision of God to be a city on a hill, a lamp that will not be
hidden. We must study Dwight to learn how God used him to turn a spiritually
bankrupt university into a city on a hill, and a light to New England and the
world.
Who was Timothy Dwight?
On May 14th, 1752, Mary Edwards Dwight gave birth to her first child,
Timothy. George Washington then was twenty years old; Francois Voltaire was
fifty-eight, and Thomas Jefferson was nine years old. Timothy would spend most
of his life in the halls of academia and began his teaching career early. Once,
when Timothy did not show up for dinner, his worried parents searched earnestly,
only to find him safe and sound under an apple tree with a group of Native
Americans gathered around him. He was teaching them to recite the --- no doubt,
Calvinist --- catechism. He explained to his mother that he had met them on the
street and had asked them if they would like to hear about God and religion.
They went to the orchard to begin, and he had forgotten the time, that was all.
Except that...he was four years old. Timothy was educated both at home and in
schools. From age four to six he learned classic literature at a school and
secretly taught himself Latin. The school closed when he was six, and his mother
took over his studies until he was eleven. Under his mother's direction he
studied geography, history, and grammar. He had already studied the biblical
histories, and proceeded then to study Josephus, Hookes history of Rome,
histories of Greece and England, etc.
At the age of eleven his parents sent him to live with Reverend Enoch Huntington
under whom he continued his study of Latin and Greek. Such was the extent of his
secondary education. What most classical scholars study at the universities,
Timothy had finished by the modern sixth grade. It makes me wonder, ``What did I
do in grade school?'' Timothy entered Yale at thirteen, graduated four years
later, continued at Yale for graduate study, and was later hired as a Tutor at
the college. During his time as a tutor, Dwight's pursuit of knowledge reached a
fever pitch. He stopped exercising in the interest of reserving more time for
his studies. He slept four hours a night, and began to begrudge even the time he
spent eating. In order to maintain his mental edge, he limited himself to twelve
mouthfuls of vegetables for dinner. After about a year of this, his body gave up
the fight and collapsed. He suffered for several months in sickness, at one
point near death, and almost lost the use of his eyes. From this point until the
end of his life he could read only with severe pain and headaches. He needed the
services of an amanuensis to write. That means he dictated everything to another
writer. Although at first it seems a tragedy, the importance of this development
in his life cannot, I think, be underestimated. Dwight was now a fabulous
scholar, who could not read. This turned his interest to people. Rather than
reading, he talked to people, he listened and probed through his questions.
Rather than disappearing into the
study in order to meditate on the complications of contemporary theology, he met
farmers and talked about gardens and politics. Through this long ordeal of his
near fatal illness, and through the all but complete loss of his eyes, Dwight
began to connect his unmatchable intellect to the practical spiritual needs of
his contemporaries. He knew the fear of death, he knew the concerns and passions
of the generation God had called him to serve. Dr. Dwight returned to Yale,
continuing to serve as a Tutor until the death of the then Yale President, Dr.
Daggett. At that time the students petitioned for Timothy, then age twenty-five,
to be made president. He suppressed the petition. Instead, he joined the First
Connecticut Brigade of the Continental Army. He served for approximately one
year, never carried a rifle, serving instead as Chaplain. Although he served for
only one year, it was from this experience that he drew countless of his
illustrations, examples, and insight into the character and plight of man. The
war revealed the character of men in hardship and fear. The presence of death
brought the theology of his early years near to the practical needs of men. This
training, combined with his earlier sickness, secured Dwight's role as a
shepherd, rather than as a metaphysical Calvinist theologian. Such a man, God
would use greatly.
Timothy left the Continental Army for grievous reasons. His parents and family
were suspected of sympathizing with the British. In order to avoid the conflict,
Dwight's father had decided to buy land near the Mississippi river and resettle.
He traveled in advance of the family, died in Mississippi, and two of his sons,
Timothy's brothers, had virtually walked across Georgia to reach safety. Thus,
Timothy, as the eldest, retired from the Army to take care of his mother, and
the two farms. When the farms, and the war, had settled to a reasonable degree
Dwight accepted a call to pastor a community in Greenfield Hill. He began in
1783. His time at Greenfield Hill may be characterized by three aspects:
Pastoring the church, Teaching at an academy he established, and speaking and
writing against Deism. He kept this position until 1795 at which time he
accepted the call to Yale. Although an able pastor for the entire community,
Dwight's true joy seems to have been teaching. Both at Northhampton and at
Greenfield Hill he established schools. Against the current of the times, Dwight
spoke strongly for the education of women along with men, and not in any reduced
fashion. Having been educated himself at the feet of his mother, he knew the
influence such women had on the development of their children. Although many
women were educated in fashion, romance novels, and in proper etiquette, Dwight
thought it ruined them by teaching them only to dream of a world they would
never inhabit.
He claimed that such education focused not on who one is, but rather on who one
appeared to be. Such a person, he thought, might make a good dancer, or
frolicker, but never a good wife. Instead he thought women should be educated in
earnestness and seriousness so that they might more deeply know the gospel and
struggle together with their husbands to raise godly households. In this sense,
Dwight was about 150 years ahead of his time. While preaching and teaching at
Greenfield Hill, Dwight recognized the battle at hand. In 1794 he published ``A
Discourse on the Genuineness and Authenticity of the New Testament'' as a
defense against the French Deistic influence which had spread rapidly through
the young colonies. In 1795 God called, through the Yale Corporation, Dwight to
the presidency of Yale.
Reclaiming Yale College
Of all of Dwight's accomplishments, the most important, in terms of the
spiritual history of America, is his defense of Christianity against French
infidelity, and his attack directly upon the doctrines of atheism, deism, and
Unitarianism. Through his sermons and publications, Dwight provided a light for
the mind of the general populace. But through his influence upon the students
and professors of Yale he profoundly guided the intellectual leadership of New
England for decades after his death. Yale was to be the final testing ground of
forty-three years of shepherd training. Here Dwight would bring to bear his
razor sharp mind, broad education, and practical understanding of humanity on
the guiding and discipline of twenty-two classes of Yale graduates. When Dwight
arrived at Yale, the moral and scholarly atmosphere of the school was, to say
the least, in a valley. Membership in the college church hovered near, well,
near zero. Most undergraduates avowed themselves skeptics. One of the students
of that day later wrote, ``intemperance, profanity, and gambling were common;
yea, and also licentiousness.'' Some of the students had taken to calling each
other not by their given names, but rather by the names of Voltaire, D'Alembert,
Diderot, and of other French and English infidels. The campus supported not one
but two societies dedicated to the reading and distribution of literature by
deist Tom Paine. One might think that in such an atmosphere of ``reason'' and of
worship of the exalted human nature order and self-discipline might have also
been prominent on campus. As with the French revolution, however, such talk in
its practical application degenerated into pleasure seeking, and gratification
of the true nature of humanity. Once, near the end of his term, when the
previous president of Yale had brought a visitor to the chapel for an assembly,
he, being late, found the students yelling, whooping, carousing, and generally
out of control. The president forced his way to the podium and wore himself out
shouting and pounding on the stage with his cane until the cane splintered. It
was some time before order was restored. The guest, I'm sure, was not very
impressed with the men of such a fine institution as Yale. Into such a mess rode
Timothy Dwight.
In that time, the President not only ran the college, but also taught the Senior
class. In Dwight's case, he was also the professor of Divinity. Part of the
senior curriculum was a discussion class consisting of debates on such questions
as capital punishment (an old college staple) foreign immigration (things
haven't changed much) Ought religious tests be required of Civil Officers? Do
specters appear? Is a lie ever justifiable? Is man advancing to a state of
Perfectibility? Now, Yale's laws of that day stated, "If any Scholar shall deny
the Holy Scriptures, or any part thereof, to be of divine authority; or shall
assert and endeaveour to propagate among the Students any error or heresy
subverting the foundations of the Christioan religion, and shall persist
therein, after admonitino, he shall be dismissed.''
In spite of this, most Yale men scoffed at the idea of divine revelation. For
Dwight's first disputation class he requested a list of questions from the
seniors. He would then choose from among the questions the one he thought most
suitable for debate. Even though it was outlawed, the Seniors included the
question, ``Are the Scriptures of the Old and New Testament the word of God?''
It was clearly a test of the new President. Dwight met the challenge head on. He
chose that very question and told the seniors to do their best. He would not
assume that any of the opinions expressed were their own. He did require,
however, that they treat the subject with the respect it deserved. All of the
seniors chose to answer the question negatively. After all of the students had
spoken, Dwight began to critique their arguments, slowly and methodically
showing the class how weak the deist arguments really were. He then proceeded to
answer the question positively in the affirmative, and not only so but also
preached incessantly on the subject for six months in the chapel, and delivered
additional lectures on the subject of Evidences of Divine Revelation. The next
year only one freshman was a professing Christian, none of the sophomores
(typical), one of the junior class, but of the senior class eight to ten.
Dwight's influence had begun. From the class of graduate theology majors Dwight
chose several to train as staff officers in order to help preserve the faith of
students who had escaped the net of infidelity. After seven years of such
preaching, a revival broke out on campus. Of 230 students, one third were
converted. Thirty of these entered the ministry. Others were prominent in New
England life. One of Dwight's disciples later wrote, "Dwight, through the
blessing of God, changed the college from a sink of moral and spiritual
pollution into a residence not only of science and literature, but of morality
and religion, a nursery of piety and virtue, a fountain whence has issued
streams to make glad the city of God.''
Such a change could not be accomplished by preaching alone. Dwight's attitude
toward the students was one of paternal concern. When dealing with miscreant
students, Dwight would call the young man to his office. There he received an
earnest and genuine discussion of the imprudence of his actions. I think it must
have been quite like receiving an entire sermon directed specifically and
personally to you. On one occasion, a student had become so distressed by the
thought of his salvation eluding him, that a student went, late in the evening,
to find Dr. Dwight. Dwight came to the student's room and recited with him, for
some time, the invitations of the gospel, and then prayed for him. ``A sweet
serenity'' overcame him and later turned to full joy as he found confidence of
his salvation in Christ. Another student, so shaken by a professor's correction
that he imagined that he could see his corpse and coffin before him and hell
ready to receive him, went to see Dr. Dwight personally. He also received at
first calmness, and later confidence in Christ. Timothy Dwight provided for the
spiritual life of the students not only through his personal concern and
example, but also through the environment he fostered among the faculty. As the
sciences grew in importance at the universities of America, Dwight convinced the
corporation of Yale to support a professor of Chemistry. Dwight also convinced
them to hire for the position Benjamin Silliman, then a tutor at Yale and
preparing for entrance to the Connecticut bar as a lawyer. He had virtually zero
knowledge of Chemistry. Dwight chose him for his character and for the potential
Dwight saw in him. Another example is the establishment of the professor of
Medical studies. The corporation had nominated Nathan Smith, a man of
unquestioned ability and national esteem. Dwight refused to accept his
nomination because he had fallen under the influence of Deism while studying in
England. Dwight would have nothing of Deism or Infidelity among his professors.
Later, after a sincere and genuine conversion and recantation of his previous
beliefs, Smith was reconsidered for the position, and readily accepted.
Dwight fought hard against the influence of Deism at Yale and in New England for
the rest of his life. As the university grew, however, he and others realized
the need for specialized training for the ministers coming up through the ranks.
They rightly considered that the ministers should be trained more thoroughly
than even lawyers and physicians because the importance of their work and
influence was eternal, rather than temporal. Moreover, Harvard had been lost to
the Unitarian influence as early as 1805 when the overseers of Harvard appointed
a Unitarian to the Professor of Divinity. The next year they elected as
president of Harvard a man with strong inclinations toward the idea. This
election caused no small alarm among the Christian denominations. Such concerns
led to the founding of Andover Seminary. The founding board consulted Dwight on
the appointment of faculty, and the curriculum, and the overall plan of the
seminary. Eventually they asked him to serve on the governing board. So it was
that Dwight's influence spread from Yale to the first theological seminary in
America. Through Dwight, God raised up generations of ministers and shepherds
for the New England people. He preserved the intellectual leadership of the
country for his work to raise up America as a blessing to many nations. We, of
course, are responsible for this generation. We must have a vision for God to
use our prayers and studies to raise up professors and even college presidents
in order to reclaim the university as a place of hallowed ground. Let us pray
for the third great awakening to begin in the campuses of the East Coast as did
the second.
Bibliography
DeWolfe Howe, "Classic Shades,'' Little, Brown, & Co., Boston. 1928.
Charles E. Cuningham, "Timothy Dwight,'' The MacMillan Co., New York. 1942.
Peter Marshall and David Manuel, ``From Sea to Shining Sea,'' Fleming Revell
Co., Tarrytown, NY. 1986.
Source: www.believersweb.org