Pre-1700 Revivals
The major revivals known to us today occurred from the Reformation through to modern times. Nevertheless there were movements of the Holy Spirit between the first and the seventeenth century. Revival records before the Reformation appear scant and rare, not having the same impact and extensive influence as their later counterparts.
This scarcity of material may easily be explained. During the first four centuries the church was very often under siege from Roman persecutors and much Christian literature was hidden, lost or destroyed. After this the church entered what has become known as the Dark Ages for a thousand years, until the dawning of the light which led to the Reformation. There was a widening rift between the Spirit-filled religion of Jesus and an alternative Christianity which married various philosophies and pagan ideas to a ritualistic and clergy-dominated organisation. The spiritual fire simply went out!
Nevertheless, during this dark period there were ‘seasons of refreshing’ which occasionally fanned the embers of authentic Christianity. Though literature is in short supply there is sufficient data in the writings of the early church Fathers suggesting there were significant moves of God in the first five centuries. There are occasional references to outpourings of the Spirit during the Dark Ages and the literature becomes more common as the light began to dawn in the 16th century. We plan to put much of this later material on the site shortly.