Chapter 9 - THEOLOGY + HISTORY - The Singular Importance of Regeneration in Salvation Theology

Before Scottish Common Sense Realism became the most popular salvation theology, Calvinists and Arminian Evangelicals agreed on the SINGULAR IMPORTANCE OF REGENERATION. Put simply, everyone agreed that regeneration was a supernatural change of disposition of the heart that was evident in a change of affections and power over sin.

Long before Peter Cartwright ran against Abraham Lincoln for the 7th Congressional District in 1846, he was a Methodist Circuit Rider who experienced first hand the Religious excitements of the Second Great Awakening. This story from his autobiography recounts how people Cartwright hoped were saved under his preaching were approached by Calvinist Baptists ministers to determine if they were saved, before they would baptize them into their church.

1803, Stockton Valley, Tennessee:

“Next day we repaired to the old log meeting house, and heard two more water sermons. When they were done preaching, they opened the way for persons to join the church by giving in their experience. One old lady rose, and gave in something for an experience that had happened about ten years before…The preachers urged the people to come forward and give in their experience. O, how I felt! I was afraid that some one of my young converts would break the way, and the rest would then follow, and so I would lose all my converts. At length, one of those young converts rose, and gave his experience, claiming me, under God, as the instrument of his conviction and conversion; then another and another, till twenty-three of them told their experience; every one of them claiming me as the instrument of their salvation. Their experiences were pronounced good, and the right of fellowship freely given, and there was great joy in the camp.

While Cartwright relates the story to illustrate how various denominations on the frontier competed for converts, the significance of the story for us is in 1803, Calvinist and Arminian Evangelicals recognized evidence of regeneration by EXPERIENCE WITH GOD, NOT RATIONAL FAITH IN SCRIPTURE.