Early Life and Spiritual Formation
Descended from Scots Irish ancestors, James McGready was born in 1763 in Pennsylvania. When he was a young child, his parents moved to Guilford County, North Carolina, where he grew up and attended David Caldwell’s academy. He returned to Pennsylvania for ministerial preparation studies at Jefferson College, an institution in Canonsburg that would go on to be part of Washington and Jefferson College in nearby Washington, Pennsylvania near Pittsburgh. It was there that he would hear Dr. John Blair Smith’s detailed account of a powerful revival he had experienced in Virginia. James was immediately fascinated by the subject of revival.
Ministerial Licensing and Early Pastoral Work
James was licensed as a minister by the Presbytery of Redstone on August 13, 1788, and married sometime around 1790. For awhile, James pastored a congregation in Orange County, North Carolina, not far from Guilford. He quickly gained notoriety in the area for his effective preaching and for his intense moral seriousness. He touched people by his prayers and sermons, and at the same time troubled them by his denunciation of anything less than perfect holiness in conduct.
Influence on Future Revival Leaders
From time to time, he would minister at Dr. David Caldwell’s academy, where he had been educated. There, he touched the lives of future revivalists William Hodge would become a protégé of James, while Barton Stone, who was pastor at Cane Ridge during the 1801 camp meeting there, would cofound the Churches of Christ denomination.
Testimony of Barton Stone
Stone would later say of James
Such earnestness such zeal such powerful persuasion, enforced by the joys of heaven and miseries of hell, I had never witnessed before.
My mind was chained by him, and followed him closely in his rounds of heaven, earth, and hell, with feelings indescribable. His concluding remarks were addressed to the sinner to flee the wrath to come without delay. Never before had I comparatively felt the force of truth. Such was my excitement, that had I been standing, I should have probably sunk to the floor under the impression.
Preaching Style and Revival Impact
James McGready did not speak with the same emotional charge and drama as George Whitefield or with the calm power of John Wesley, but in the summers of 1800 and 1801, his ministry left an indelible mark on the history of revivalism.
Tall and almost ungainly, James read from carefully written sermons, just as Jonathan Edwards had, though he lacked Edwards’s intellectual clout. He exhorted with the authority of an Old Testament Prophet with a voice like thunder and the careful, logical argument of the Apostle Paul.
Opposition, Persecution, and Controversy
As the Reverend John Andrews, a fellow minister, put it
The style of his sermons was not polished, but perspicuous and pointed; and his manner of address was unusually solemn and impressive. As a preacher, he was highly esteemed by the humble followers of the Lamb, who relished the precious truths which he clearly exhibited to their view.
But he was hated, and sometimes bitterly reproached and persecuted, not only by the openly vicious and profane, but by many nominal Christians, or formal professors, who could not bear his heart searching and penetrating addresses, and the indignation of the Almighty against the ungodly, which, as a son of thunder, he clearly presented to the view of their guilty minds from the awful denunciations of the World of Truth. His zeal provoked a good deal of controversy and opposition. Some said he was causing his parishioners undue anxiety about their souls.
James even received a letter written in blood that demanded he leave the country or risk his life, and a band of brigands tore out some of the seats in his church and set fire to his pulpit, burning it to ashes.
The following Sunday…
To Be Continued…
Tale Tuesday 054
Date: 29tht August, 2023
Title: : James MacGready
Source: God’s Generals: The Revivalists
Author: Roberts Liardon
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