ABSTRACT
In David Bebbington’s oft-cited book, Evangelicalism in Modern Britain (1989), he argues that activism was a distinctive characteristic of evangelicalism and, indeed, set evangelicalism apart from earlier movements such as puritanism. He argues that the source of this activism was a more robust doctrine of assurance and that this new assurance derived in turn from the new Enlightenment concern with first-hand experience.1 This chapter is concerned in a complementary way to trace the contribution of the Enlightenment to the rise of an articulate and involved laity in eighteenth-century evangelicalism. The focus of the chapter, however, is on the new forms of individualism and private experience that appeared in the eighteenth century rather than epistemology or religious doctrines. Doctrines such as the priesthood of all believers, the Calvinist concept of vocation and the conviction that assurance is of the essence of saving faith contributed significantly to lay activism, but it is also true that larger shifts in the relationship of self to society helped to shape the unique character of evangelicalism.
