On March 8, 1740, the Presbyterian pastor and revivalist Gilbert Tennent preached a controversial sermon in Nottingham, Pennsylvania. Tennent was known for being a fiery, zealous preacher, as this sermon exemplifies.1 His sermon was controversial because Tennent accused fellow ministers in the Presbyterian church of being unsaved. The title was “The Danger of an Unconverted Ministry.” Tennent praised faithful ministers who are a “great Ornament, Blessing, and Comfort, to the Church of God” but maligned ungodly ministers who are a “great Curse and Judgement: These Caterpillars labour to devour every green thing.” 2
Tennent endeavored to show that ministers who do not know Christ deeply are “like a Man who would learn others to swim, before he has learned’d it himself, and so is drowned in the Act, and dies.” 3 Tennent believed that strict orthodoxy is dead if not combined with lively faith. Tennent’s sermon was not only an accusation against so-called unconverted ministers but an apology for the work of the revival, known as the Great Awakening, then beginning to sweep the colonies. Tennent even went so far as to claim that it was “both lawful and expedient to go from them [unconverted ministers] to hear Godly Persons [converted ministers].” 4
This sermon, understandably, aroused vigorous opposition from some fellow pastors. It was published far and wide, even in England. Most pastors do not like to be accused of being unchristian, and Tennent’s opponents were no exception. These men also strongly objected to Tennent, and other revivalists, who preached outside the bounds of their presbytery and who promoted, in their view, harmful revivalistic practices.
When the Philadelphia Synod met in 1741, Tennent and those aligned with his convictions and practice were ejected, creating an initial split in the church between the Old Side, who opposed Tennent and his ilk, and the New Side, who agreed with him.5 The Synod declared “these brethren [!] have no right to be acknowledged as members of this judicatory of Christ.” 6 Tennent’s sermon was not the sole cause of the split but was extremely divisive between ministers and contributed to parishioners having suspicions of their pastors.
Between 1741 and 1749, Tennent and others had a change of heart on the rift and began earnestly seeking reunion. In 1749, he published a plea for reunion to the Synods of New York and Philadelphia, which was magnanimous in tone. The title of this address was “Irenicum ecclesiasticum, or A humble impartial essay upon the peace of Jerusalem, wherein the analogy between Jerusalem and the visible church is in some instances briefly hinted” and was based on sermons preached to his congregation.7 Sermon titles at that time tended to be more expansive and explanatory than today’s titles!
By using the Latin phrase “Irenicum ecclesiasticum” Tennent was drawing on an established literary convention and signaling that he wanted to pursue the peace (irenicum) of the church (ecclesiasticum) in order to heal divisions within it.8 The first sentence of the prefatory address demonstrated Tennent’s inner turmoil over the Old Side-New Side fracture: “THE divided State of the Presbyterian Churches, in this Part of the World, where divine Providence has cast our Lot, has opened a melancholy Prospect to my View for some considerable Space of Time!” 9
In “Irenicum Ecclesiasticum,” which was also widely published, Tennent continued to uphold the cause of revivalism and the necessity of conversion for minister and laity alike, but he also makes a concerted effort for the healing of the church by admitting he was too judgmental in determining that his opponents, who professed faith, were unconverted because they opposed the revival. Though his labors for reunion in 1749 did not meet with immediate success, they were a portent of the eventual healing of the Old Side and New Side in 1758. Tennent was rewarded for his efforts by being named the first moderator of the reunited synod.
Looking back, it is tempting to view the New Side favorably, since they supported the revival and grew numerically, and the Old Side, they claimed, impeded God’s work. But Charles Hodge, in his assessment of the controversy approximately 100 years later in “Constitutional History of the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America” judged the New Side in error. Hodge, who esteemed subjective faith coupled with an indispensable cognitive dimension, said Tennent’s “Unconverted Ministry” sermon was “one of the most terrible pieces of denunciation in the English language.” 10
Tennent’s “Unconverted Ministry” sermon and the responses to it, then and later, illustrate the issues leading to the division and the ensuing fracture between the Old Side and New Side. The formal issue was the place of the presbytery and the synod in the Presbyterian system. The material issue was how revivalism relates to the Westminster Confession of Faith, particularly the balance between doctrinal fidelity and experiential knowledge of Christ.11
Ministerial Calling, Lay Piety, and Revivalism
The Great Awakening was a pervasive renewal of personal and collective Christian piety that swept the British North American colonies from 1739-1745.12 Scholars trace its origins to the continental Pietism of German Protestants led by Philip Jakob Spener and August Hermann Francke. Pietism stressed a person’s individual relationship with God over against adherence to a confession or membership in a church. Pietism found allies in the Church of England like John and Charles Wesley, as well as revivalist George Whitefield. It influenced the great American Puritan Cotton Mather, and some immigrant groups also brought a pietistic faith to America.
Tennent’s father, William Tennent Sr., a Scots-Irish immigrant who came to America in 1718, settled in 1726 in Neshaminy, Pennsylvania, to pastor. Sensing the need for trained clergy to reach settlers in the middle colonies, he started the Log College some time between 1726 and 1735.13 Leonard Trinterud calls the founding of the Log College “the most important event in colonial Presbyterianism.” 14
While it lasted less than 20 years, at the Log College Tennent Sr. trained possibly up to 21 men, including Tennent Sr.’s three younger sons: William Jr., John, and Charles. Gilbert was privately tutored at home and later attended Yale and earned a master’s degree in 1725. Marilyn J. Westerkamp says, “The Tennents were probably the single most important clerical force in the progress of the Great Awakening.” 15
William Tennent Sr. did not name his academy “The Log College.” That derisive title was given to it by opponents in the Presbyterian church. Some of the Scots-Irish immigrant clergy were of the subscriptionist anti-revival party, and they questioned the educational standards of the Log College. They did not consider any minister qualified unless trained in the Old World at Glasgow or Edinburgh or in the New World at Harvard or Yale. Additionally, they had concerns about Tennent Sr. ‘s promotion of revivalism and heart religion.16
The Log College raised the issue of ministerial qualifications, who has the authority to train aspiring ministers, and what educational content they used.17 In contrast to university-acquired degrees, Gilbert Tennent advocated for ministerial candidates to demonstrate not only learning, which was important, but “experiential piety.” What good is head knowledge without heart knowledge?
Several Synod actions indicate these growing tensions within the church over ministerial qualifications and pastoral and congregational piety. To understand these actions, it is necessary to know some background.
In 1729, the Synod passed the Adopting Act, making subscription to the Westminster Standards the doctrinal norm for church officers.18 Subscriptionists argued that the Standards provided an authoritative interpretation of the Bible. The prominent churchman and theologian, Jonathan Dickinson, who was aligned with the anti-subscriptionist side and a moderate revivalist, claimed creeds were helpful in leading to the truth but unhelpful when imposed because then “religion itself, with all its blessed and peaceable Doctrines, is become a subject of Debate, instead of a Rule of Faith and Life.” 19
He was concerned that an unworthy minister could assent to the Westminster Standards but lack vibrant faith in Jesus. Similarly, when applying the same principle to the laity, Tennent, to promote the piety of his congregants, practiced pastoral visitation in a form that went beyond normally accepted practice. He examined parishioners concerning their spiritual experiences to ascertain their conversion status and to promote vigorous forms of devotion and certain assurance of salvation.
Thus, in 1733, the Synod passed a resolution promoting the practice the Westminster Directory had articulated concerning family devotion: “To use some proper means to revive the declining power of godliness, the Synod do earnestly recommend it to all our ministers and members, to take particular care about ministerial visiting of families and press family and secret worship.” 20
The growing anti-revival party was concerned that pietism was too subjective and introspective and undercut ministerial authority. In 1734, the Synod advised presbyteries to be more attentive to candidate’s subscription to the Westminster Standards. Tennent also proposed that presbyteries examine aspiring ministers of their experiential piety. What was becoming an issue was “not one of liberty of conscience versus church power but of a faith enlivened by the working of the Spirit versus a faith ordered by properly ordained ministers and a disciplined body of presbyters.” 21
Several years later, in 1738, the Synod passed a resolution requiring candidates to attend a European or New England school, which the Tennents viewed as an attack on the Log College. This debate over what constituted ministerial and lay piety as well as ministerial training intersected potently with two factors related to the Great Awakening: itineracy and George Whitefield.
Preaching “Out of Bounds” and the Divine Dramatist
Though the Great Awakening is thought to have begun colony-wide in 1739, some local revivals had been occurring for several years.22 For instance, Leonard Trinterud notes that Tennent’s congregations began to “thrill with new life” in 1729, and Trinterud even claimed the “Great Awakening had begun in Presbyterian churches.” 23 The congregational minister Jonathan Edwards had led the Northampton awakening of 1734-1735, and John Rowland, who was one of Tennent Sr.’s students, attended to a gathering of souls in Freehold, New Jersey in 1733. Importantly, “up until 1739, communal revivals of religious fervency were largely the result of individual ministers, using conventional ministerial authority to redirect the patterns of piety in their congregations.” 24
The Tennents and other ministers had also begun to preach in areas outside their allotted area without permission of the Synod or their presbytery. In part, this practice was understandable because Presbyterians were settled far and wide and did not necessarily have a regular minister. What began to arouse the ire of some presbyters was the combination of itineracy with the promotion of an overt emphasis on conversion, suspect evangelistic methods, and factionalism.
The Tennents, along with other itinerants, perceived a spiritual need in the laity and aimed to satisfy that hunger through faithful, probing, heartfelt preaching, even in areas outside their prescribed bounds. One area the Tennents travelled was within the bounds of the Presbytery of Philadelphia. To bring order to their itinerancy, the Presbytery of New Brunswick was created in 1738. Oddly, the Presbytery of New Brunswick was geographically inside the bounds of the Presbytery of Philadelphia,.
In 1739, itinerancy received a major boost when the evangelist George Whitefield toured the colonies for nine months. Whitefield’s popularity was enormous, even famously attracting the approval of the deist Benjamin Franklin, who also benefited from publishing Whitefield’s sermons and portions of his journal. “The Grand Itinerant,” as Whitefield was known, utilized his incredible skills as a preacher and the power of print media to launch the local revivals into a cohesive, colony-wide movement. The celebrated actor David Garrick famously declared, “I would give a hundred guineas if I could say ‘Oh!’ Like Mr. Whitefield.” 25
But Whitefield eschewed the accepted rule of receiving an invitation to preach in a local area. He showed up and preached to anybody who wanted to listen. And many thousands did as they heard about him through paid advertisements, newspaper reports, and word of mouth. In the 18th century, this brand of itinerancy was a direct threat to ecclesiastical authority. Itinerants “bypassed duly constituted ecclesiastical structures and preached directly to the masses.” 26 Whitefield had the advantage of preaching the same sermon or set of sermons in each place, whereas pastors needed to create new messages weekly.
Itinerancy also catered to populist opinions which clergy feared may not be based on biblical truth. The laity were challenging the traditional position of the clergy as authoritative promulgators of the Bible, and discord between clergy and their people concerned many ministers.
Other revivalists followed suit and began preaching outside set ecclesiastical boundaries. Additionally, they preached a pietistic brand of faith like Whitefield and the Tennents, focusing, according to critics, too much on a religion of the heart with undue emphasis placed on private religious experience and not verifiable conduct.27 Some were even unlicensed to preach.
More than once during his nine-month tour, Whitefield met William Sr., William Jr., and Gilbert Tennent, even preaching to “upwards of five thousand people” at Neshaminy in the “meeting house yard.” Whitefield wrote in his journal, “Mr. Tennent and his brethren are appointed to be a Presbytery by the Synod, so that they intend breeding up gracious youths, and sending them out into our Lord’s vineyard….From this despised place, seven or eight worthy ministers of Jesus have lately been sent forth….The devil will certainly rage against them; but the work, I am persuaded, is of God.” 28
In attempting to do God’s work, the Tennents practiced itinerancy and preached a pietistic message. They subscribed to the Westminster Standards, as did their opponents, and were thus orthodox in doctrine, which led to the issue of how the Awakening split the Presbyterian church.
D.G. Hart observes, “To say that the Great Awakening split the church into pro- and anti-revival factions is accurate but misses what may be a better way of describing the different groups in the church. Whitefield’s conduct revealed that those Presbyterians associated with the Log College and in the vicinity of the Presbytery of New Brunswick were revivalists first and Presbyterians second. On the other side were ministers who stressed Presbyterianism as the proper context for revival, meaning that the work of the Spirit needed to be orderly and disciplined, not chaotic and enthusiastic.” 29
Critics of the revival argued that God does things decently and in order. Thus, if the revival is causing friction between ministers or between congregations and their ministers, then that conflict is a sign the revival is not of God. However, pro-revivalists did not utilize a corporate standard but rather an individual one of conversion and zeal for the Lord. As seen from Tennent’s infamous sermon, revivalists claimed those who opposed the revival were unconverted.
Old Siders, however, viewed themselves as faithful Christian ministers who were promoting proper ecclesiastical authority and order. They wondered, if the revival is of God, then how can it eschew the proper order and discipline of God’s own church? What is the relationship between the work of the Spirit and the church structures ordained by God?
Withered and Flourishing Branches Reunite
During the schism the New Side gained more traction among clergy and laity. In 1746 the New Side founded the College of New Jersey (later Princeton). From 1744 to 1758 the number of Old Side ministers declined by six ministers, or 23%, and the New Side added forty-four ministers, a 157% increase.
Many churches in the Old Side Presbytery of Philadelphia requested to come under the jurisdiction of the New Side Presbytery of New Brunswick. In June 1742, 16 churches asked to join the Presbytery of New Brunswick. The New Side experienced few, if any, defections.30 Trinterud aptly called the Old Side “the Withered Branch.” 31 One way to view the New Side’s growth is that the laity opted for its preaching style and focus on individual conversion. The New Side’s victory was, to use Westerkamp’s title, the “Triumph of the Laity.”
Thus, when the schism was healed in the Plan of Union of 1758, the numerical superiority and vitality belonged to the New Side. Its emphases became the predominant model for American Presbyterianism after 1758. The Synods reunited as Synod of New York and Philadelphia under an eight-point plan which addressed itinerancy and revivalism. The document heavily favored the New Side while upholding some Old Side concerns.
Article One reaffirmed adherence to the Westminster Standards and the Westminster Directory. Article Five on ordination highlighted that a candidate must demonstrate “competent satisfaction as to his learning” and, in line with Tennent’s overtures from 1734, “experimental acquaintance with religion.” 32
On the issue of preaching outside the bounds of one’s presbytery, Article Five advocated for a brotherly form of itinerancy: “It shall be esteemed and treated as a censurable evil….if any Presbytery appoint supplies within the bounds of another Presbytery without their concurrence; or if any member officiate in another’s congregation, without asking and obtaining his consent, or the session’s in case the minister be absent; yet it shall be esteemed unbrotherly for any one, in ordinary circumstances, to refuse his consent to a regular member when it is requested.”
The most in-depth article was Article Eight, which was a positive appraisal of the Great Awakening.33 It stressed that a “blessed work of God’s Holy Spirit” had been at work and was entirely necessary for genuine conversion in bringing sinners to saving faith. It acknowledged that God was at work even if conversion “should be attended with unusual bodily commotions or some more exceptionable circumstances.”
It warned, however, that some are deluded who “have visions of the human nature of Jesus Christ, or hear voices, or see external lights, or have fainting and convulsion like fits, and on account of these judge themselves to be truly converted.” The New Side thus distanced themselves from extreme emotional excesses while allowing for physical manifestations followed by a changed life of holiness.
One year later, Tennent preached two sermons at the 1759 Synod, calling for peace and unity. Perhaps sensing that the division was not truly over, he earnestly pleaded, “My reverend fathers and brethren, permit me to excite you to bless God for the union we are at present favoured with, as a religious society; and to intreat you to endeavour pro virili (according to one’s ability) to keep it in the bond of peace.” 34
Even so, despite his plea, the united church faced an uncertain future, particularly in the relationships among ecclesiastical structures, ministerial authority and individual piety, issues that flared up again in the 19th century during the Second Great Awakening.
Chris Crain serves as associate professor of historical and pastoral theology at Erskine Theological Seminary. He is an ordained minister in the Presbyterian Church in America.
1. See Milton J. Coalter, Gilbert Tennent, Son of Thunder: A Case Study of Continental Pietism’s Impact on the First Great Awakening in the Middle Colonies (New York: Greenwood Press, 1986).
2. Gilbert Tennent, “The Danger of an Unconverted Ministry” (1740), 3, accessed June 9, 2026, http://name.umdl.umich.edu/N03758.0001.001.
3. Ibid., 12.
4. Ibid., 18.
5. In 1716 the Synod was comprised of four presbyteries, Philadelphia, New Castle, Long Island and Snow Hill, the last of which was never organized. In 1741 the Old Side became the Synod of Philadelphia and the New Side, the day after the ejection, organized into the “Conjunct Presbyteries of New Brunswick and Londonderry.” In 1745 the split was formalized when the New Side reformed into the Synod of New York which was comprised of the union of the Conjunct Presbyteries and the Presbytery of New York.
6. Quoted from Syndney Ahlstrom, A Religious History of the American People (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1972), 272 (emphasis in original).
7. Leonard Trinterud, The Forming of an American Tradition: A Re-examination of Colonial Presbyterianism (Philadelphia, PA: The Westminster Press, 1949), 145.
8. There are numerous examples of irenic theological and pastoral works prior to Tennent’s sermon: Jeremiah Burroughs, Irenicum (1653), Edward Stillingfleet, Irenicum, A Weapon Salve for the Church’s Wounds (1659 and 1661), Samuel Mather Irenicum: or an Essay for Union (1680), and many more.
9. Gilbert Tennent, “Irenicum Ecclesiasticum” (1749), accessed June 9, 2026, https://quod.lib.umich.edu/cgi/t/text/text-idx?c=evans;cc=evans;rgn=main;view=text;idno=n05110.0001.001.
10. Charles Hodge, Constitutional History of the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America, 2 vols. (Philadelphia: Presbyterian Board of Publication and Sabbath-School Work, 1851), 1:91. See Andrew Hoffecker’s treatment of Hodge’s view on the Old Side-New Side in Charles Hodge: The Pride of Princeton, American Reformed Biographies, eds. D.G. Hart and Sean Michael Lucas (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing Company, 2011), 191-205. Hoffecker examines how Hodge’s view was not without controversy as he opposed his friend and mentor, Archibald Alexander, 206-211.
11. Ahlstrom, 271-272.
12. For a brief but thorough account see Allen Guelzo’s “The Great Awakening (1739-1745)” in Encyclopedia of Religious Revivals in America, Volume One: A-Z, ed. Michael McClymond, (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2007), 191-196.
13. See David B. Calhoun’s “The Log College” in Colonial Presbyterianism: Old Faith in a New Land, Princeton Theological Monograph Series 71, ed. S. Donald Fortson III (Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock, 2007). Calhoun notes that William Sr. was following an established model from Scotland and Ireland of local academies where individualized ministerial preparation occurred because the Irish universities were closed to Presbyterians (49). William Sr. was trained at the University of Edinburgh and a formidable scholar, speaking Latin and proficient in Greek and Hebrew (58).
14. Leonard Trinterud, The Forming of an American Tradition: A Re-examination of Colonial Presbyterianism, 63. Frank Lambert agrees: “Despite the opposition, the seminary influenced American revivalism far beyond what its humble campus would suggest possible,” Inventing the Great Awakening (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1999), 59.
15. Marilyn J. Westerkamp, Triumph of the Laity: Scots-Irish Piety and the Great Awakening, 1625-1760 (New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 1988), 167.
16. For a discussion of Gilbert Tennent and pietism, see C.N. Wilborn, “Gilbert Tennent—Pietist, Preacher, and Presbyterian,” in Colonial Presbyterianism: Old Faith in a New Land, Princeton Theological Monograph Series 71, ed. S. Donald Fortson III (Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock, 2007), 142-145.
17. D.G. Hart, “Old Side/New Side Schism and Reunion,” in Colonial Presbyterianism: Old Faith in a New Land, Princeton Theological Monograph Series 71, ed. S. Donald Fortson III (Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock, 2007), 166.
18. See the article in this series: The Adopting Act: Confessional Subscription and Doctrinal Fidelity as well as S. Donald Fortson III’s “The Adopting Act Compromise” in Colonial Presbyterianism: Old Faith in a New Land, Princeton Theological Monograph Series 71, ed. S. Donald Fortson III (Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock, 2007), 63-86.
19. Quoted in Trinterud, The Forming of an American Tradition: A Re-examination of Colonial Presbyterianism, 51.
20. Ibid., 61.
21. Hart, “Old Side/New Side Schism and Reunion,” 165.
22. Revival traditions were not unknown to the Scottish Presbyterian church. It promoted the revival of faith during the Holy Fairs, which were annual communion season festivals celebrated in the late summer or early fall. The multi-day fairs had fervent preaching, calling for repentance and a renewal of faith, culminating in the fencing of the table, the division of the saved and the lost using communion tokens, and finally the observance of communion. See Leigh Eric Schmidt, Holy Fairs: Scottish Communions and American Revivals in the Early Modern Period (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1989).
23. Trinterud, The Forming of an American Tradition: A Re-examination of Colonial Presbyterianism, 58.
24. Guelzo, “The Great Awakening (1739-1745),” 192.
25. Quoted in Harry Stout, The Divine Dramatist: George Whitefield and the Rise of Modern Evangelicalism (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1991), 237.
26. Lambert, Inventing the “Great Awakening,” 196.
27. Ibid., 190.
28. References to Whitefield’s journal are from Calhoun’s “The Log College,” 51-52.
29. Hart, “Old Side/New Side Schism and Reunion,” 169. The next paragraph follows Hart’s account, 171-172,,,.
30. Statistics taken form Westerkamp, Triumph of the Laity, 198-200.
31. Trinterud, The Forming of an American Tradition: A Re-examination of Colonial Presbyterianism, 135.
32. The Plan of Union of 1758 cited from Records of the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America (Philadelphia: Presbyterian Board of Publication, 1841), 286-7.
33. The eighth article is 468 words and the first seven articles are 758, making the eighth article 38% of the Plan (not including the introductory and closing paragraphs).
34. Gilbert Tennent, “The blessedness of peace-makers represented; and the danger of persecution considered, on Mat. V. 9. preach’d at Philadelphia, the 3d Wednesday in May, 1759, before the Reverend the Synod, of New-York and Philadelphia,” (1759), 48, accessed June 9, 2026, https://quod.lib.umich.edu/cgi/t/text/text-idx?cc=evans;c=evans;idno=n07976.0001.001;seq=18;view=text;rgn=main.