In the aftermath of the Great Awakening, New England Congregationalism was divided into competing factions, including the followers of Edwards who were known as Edwardsians or New Divinity men. The other two factions included the liberal
Old Lights and the traditional Old Calvinists. The liberals, led by
Charles Chauncy (1705–1787), opposed the irrational enthusiasm of the revivals; this faction advocated
universalism and their successors would become
Unitarians. The traditional Old Calvinists, led by men such as
Moses Mather (1719–1806) and
Ezra Stiles (1727–1795), disagreed with what they considered deviations from orthodox Reformed theology, but this group ceased to exist during the
Second Great Awakening. New Divinity men such as
Joseph Bellamy (1719–1790),
Samuel Hopkins (1721–1803) and
Timothy Dwight (1752–1817) were revivalists who tried to steer a moderate course between Old Lights who opposed revival and radical
New Lights who separated from the established Congregational churches. By the end of the 18th century, most Congregational churches were Edwardsian in orientation. Edwards' distinction between natural ability and moral ability had implications for New Divinity preaching and
evangelism that were departures from traditional Puritan beliefs. For the Puritans, conversion was a gradual process involving spiritual crises, humiliation, and sorrow for sin. Only after these struggles and utilizing the
means of grace (prayer, seeking God, reading the Bible, and attending church) would the individual discern within himself faith and
love for Christ and be encouraged to repent. New Divinity ministers, however, called all sinners to repent and believe the gospel immediately because everyone had the natural ability to do so. There was no reason, they said, to wait for any period of conviction and spiritual struggle. While immediate repentance was criticized by Old Calvinists, there was practically little difference between the two approaches. When asked how to repent, Old Calvinists and New Divinity ministers had the same advice: seek God through the means of grace and in time God might give the seeker new affections and inclinations to believe in Christ. Edwardsians also worked to return Congregational churches to stricter rules regarding who could be admitted to the
Lord's Supper, reversing a trend allowing the non-converted to participate (see
Half-Way Covenant for more information). The New Divinity's theology of religious experience was influenced by Edwards's works
Treatise Concerning Religious Affections and
The Nature of True Virtue. The New Divinity argued that the true Christian seeks the good of all things, including God and other people, above themselves. This was called "disinterested benevolence" because Christian benevolence is never self-serving, unlike the benevolence of the unconverted. Disinterested benevolence was the basis for piety, according to the New Divinity. It originates at conversion when the Holy Spirit was believed to renew the heart so that the convert desires
union with Christ through faith and embraces the way of the
cross, which is self-sacrifice. In this, self-love is eliminated and the convert seeks happiness in God and his creation. For Edwards, a disinterest in one's self and a preoccupation with God's moral excellence was an indication that such a person had been regenerated. Such persons no longer worried over the status of their own souls because their love for God and the contemplation of his
glory made
assurance of one's salvation virtually an afterthought. The theology of disinterested benevolence led
Samuel Hopkins, pastor of
First Congregational Church in Newport, Rhode Island, to oppose
slavery for the good of the enslaved. He wrote several treatises on the subject in the 1770s decades before the
abolition movement gained strength in America. Disinterested benevolence also inspired much of the
missionary activity of the period, such as the creation of the
American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions. Many New Divinity ministers and missionaries were inspired by
The Life of David Brainerd published by Edwards as an account of the ministry of
David Brainerd, a missionary to the
Delaware Indians of New Jersey. Brainerd's life was held up as the ideal of disinterested benevolence.
Principles The main principles of it are either taught or implied in the writings of
Samuel Hopkins. Those principles that are merely implied in the system of Hopkins were unfolded and somewhat modified by his three friends Stephen West,
Nathanael Emmons, and Samuel Spring. As logically connected with each other, and as understood by the majority of its advocates, the system contains the following principles: • Every
moral agent choosing right has the natural power to choose wrong, and choosing wrong has the natural power to choose right. • He is under no obligation to perform an act, unless he has the natural ability to perform it. • Although in the act of choosing, every man is as free as any moral agent can be, yet he is acted upon while he acts freely, and the
divine providence, as well as decree, extends to all his wrong as really as to his right volitions. • All
sin is so overruled by God as to become the occasion of good to the universe. • The holiness and the sinfulness of every moral agent belong to him personally and exclusively, and cannot be
imputed in a literal sense to any other agent. • As the holiness and the sin of man are exercises of his will, there is neither holiness nor sin in his nature viewed as distinct from these exercises (cf.
original sin). • As all his moral acts before
regeneration are certain to be entirely sinful, no promise of regenerating grace is made to any of them. • The impenitent sinner is obligated, and should be exhorted, to cease from all impenitent acts, and to begin a holy life at once. His moral inability to obey this exhortation is not a literal inability (cf.
total depravity), but is a mere certainty that while left to himself, he will sin; and this certainty is no reason for his not being required and urged to abstain immediately from all sin. • Every impenitent sinner should be willing to suffer the punishment that God wills to inflict upon him. In whatever sense he should submit to the divine justice punishing other sinners, in that sense he should submit to the divine justice punishing himself. In whatever sense the punishment of the finally obdurate promotes the highest good of the universe, in that sense he should be submissive to the divine will in punishing himself, if finally obdurate. This principle is founded mainly on the two following. • All holiness consists in the elective preference of the greater above the smaller, and all sin consists in the elective preference of the smaller above the greater, good of sentient beings. • All the moral attributes of God are comprehended in general benevolence, that is essentially the same with general justice, and includes simple, complacential, and composite benevolence; legislative, retributive, and public justice. • The atonement of Christ consists not in his enduring the punishment threatened by the law (see the
satisfaction view of the atonement), nor in his performing the duties required by the law, but in his manifesting and honoring by his pains, and especially by his death, all the divine attributes which would have been manifested in the same and no higher degree by the punishment of the redeemed. (See the
governmental view of the atonement.) • The atonement was made for all men, the non-elect as really as the elect. (See
unlimited atonement.) ==Notable adherents==