Archibald Alexander Comes to Faith.
Have you ever struggled with doubt, or are you currently going through doubts about your faith? Some level of doubt is common among Christians, and you might be surprised that one of the most prominent early American Christian educators has a testimony that began with years of dealing with doubt. Young Archibald Alexander was a small, timid, and easily aggravated child raised by a Christian family in Virginia during the waning days of the First Great Awakening. As a child, that awakening would require some time to take root in his own life. Early on, Alexander viewed the Bible and Christianity as simply all about doing good, and his young religious focus was on merely “becoming better.” During his youth, he tutored under Dr. John B. Smith, a local pastor of some renown, but despite many efforts, young Alexander was beset by doubts and struggled in misery with his salvation, writing about multiple times when he would lie down in anguish over the state of his soul. He was particularly struck by a conversation with a Baptist millwright named Waller, who asked the teenage Alexander if he had heard that one must be ‘born again’ to be saved. When Alexander affirmed that he had indeed heard of that teaching, Waller became even more pointed, asking the youth if he himself had experienced that new birth. Alexander ruefully admitted that he had not, and the conversation ended shortly afterward, but Waller’s question made a searing impact on Alexander’s conscience. [1]
Over the next few months, Alexander continued to grapple with doubt, belief, and the nature of salvation, and he would bemoan the lack of any sort of experience of new birth in his own life. On one such occasion, he recalled a night walk through the woods, “That evening, which I spent in the forest, I was greatly distressed on account of my exceeding hardness of heart, and I rolled on the ground in anguish of spirit, bewailing my insensibility.”[2] Shortly thereafter, however, Alexander reports that he had a divine experience whereby he was “suddenly visited with such a melting of heart as I never had before or since,” but this experience was fleeting; the doubts crept back in within a few hours, and Alexander became convinced that he was an unsaved, unconverted sinner that was justly condemned to hell.
Weeks later, Alexander met another pastor, James Mitchell, who was also touched by the Great Awakening, and the two engaged in conversation about the state of Alexander's soul. Upon hearing Alexander’s confession that he was unconverted and would certainly be lost, and that Alexander had nobody to blame for that condition but himself, Mitchell responded with the Gospel. “Conviction shows our need of Christ,” noted Mitchell, and He is an advocate for sinners before God’s throne who is “able to save to the uttermost all that come unto God by Him.”[3] This discussion brought a "new view" to Alexander, like "life from the dead," and he "entertained a joyful hope that I should yet be saved,” and was so moved that he was unable to speak due to his tears.[4] Following this conversation, Alexander did indeed believe the Gospel, and his life was transformed, and shortly thereafter he began ministry as a young evangelist, then pastor, then president (at age 25!) of Hampden Sydney College, where he served nine years, before his election as the principal and first professor at Princeton Theological Seminary in 1812.[5]
Stirred by those early days of hearing about revival, and his deep and long-unfulfilled hunger for an experience of God, Alexander was never one of the “frozen chosen,” but was instead an advocate for revival and a passionate preacher of the Gospel. The Great Awakening was not just a historical event for Archibald Alexander; it was the crucible in which his faith was refined, his call to ministry affirmed, and his understanding of spiritual truth deepened. His personal journey from fierce doubts to fervent engagement, marked by profound internal struggles and external observations of the revival's power, shaped him into the influential leader and teacher he would become, aiming for genuine spiritual experience while exercising appropriate caution against untoward excesses.
Footnotes:
[1] Archibald Alexander, Thoughts on Religious Experience, clothbound ed. (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 2020), 40.
[2] James W. Alexander, The Life of Archibald Alexander, D.D., LL.D.: First Professor in the Theological Seminary at Princeton, New Jersey (London: Wentworth Press, 2019), 40.
[5] Archibald Alexander, Personal Papers from 1819 to 1851 (Philadelphia, PA: Presbyterian Historical Society, 1851), accessed November 15, 2020, https://history.pcusa.org.