As an illustration of how remarkably the work was of God and not of
man, we quote without comment the following passages from A Narrative
of Surprising Conversions by Jonathan Edwards. "It is observable
how, at this remarkable day, a spirit of deep
concern would seize upon persons. Some were in the house, and some walking
in the highway; some in the woods, and some in the field; some in conversation,
and some in retirement; some children, and some adults, and some elderly
persons, would sometimes of a sudden be brought under the strongest impressions,
from a sense of the great realities of the other world and eternal things.
But such things, as far as I can learn, were usually, if not ever, impressed
upon men while they were in some way exercising their minds upon the Word
of God or spiritual objects. And for the most part. it has been under the
public preaching of the Word that these lasting impressions have been fastened
upon them.
"A great and earnest concern about the great things of
religion and the eternal world, became universal in all parts of the town,
and among persons of all degrees and all ages; the noise among the dry
bones waxed louder and louder; all other talk but about spiritual and
eternal things, was soon thrown by . . . The minds of people were wonderfully
taken off from the world; it was treated among us as a thing of very little
consequence. They seemed to follow their worldly business more as a part
of their duty, than from any disposition they had to it . . . The only
thing in their view was to get the kingdom of heaven, and everyone appeared
to be pressing into it. The engagedness of their hearts in this great
concern could not be hid, it appeared in their very countenances. It was
then a dreadful thing amongst us to lie out of Christ, in danger every
day of dropping into hell; and what persons' minds were intent upon was
to escape for their lives, and fly from the wrath to come. All would eagerly
lay hold of opportunities for their souls, and were wont very often to
meet together in private houses for religious purposes; and such meetings,
when appointed, were greatly thronged. There was scarcely a single person
in the town, old or young, left unconcerned about the great things of
the eternal world. Those who were wont to be the vainest and loosest,
and those who had been most disposed to think and speak slightly of vital
and experimental religion were now generally subject to great awakenings.
And the work of conversion was carried on in a most astonishing manner,
and increased more and more. Souls did, as it were, come by flocks to
Jesus Christ. From day to day, for many months together, might be seen
evident instances of sinners brought out of darkness into marvellous light.
"Our public assemblies were then beautiful; the congregation was
alive in God's service, every one earnest, intent on the public worship,
every hearer eager to drink in the words of the minister as they came
from his mouth. The assembly in general was, from time to time, in tears
while the Word was preached; some weeping with sorrow and distress, others
with joy and love, others with pity and concern for the souls of their
neighbours . . Those amongst us that had formerly been converted were
greatly enlivened and renewed with fresh and extraordinary incomes of
the Spirit of God; though some much more than others, according to the
measure of the gift of Christ. Many who had before laboured under difficulties
about their own state, had now their doubts removed by more satisfying
experience, and more clear discoveries of God's love."
When man proceeds to the accomplishment of some mighty enterprise, he puts
forth prodigious efforts, as if by the sound of his axes and hammers he
would proclaim his own fancied might, and bear down opposing obstacles.
He cannot work without sweat, and dust, and noise. When God would do a marvellous
work, such as may amaze all heaven and earth, He commands silence all around,
sends forth the still small voice, and then sets some feeble instrument
to work, and straightway it is done! Man toils and pants, and after all
effects but little: the Creator, in the silent majesty of power, noiseless
yet resistless, achieves by a word the infinite wonders of omnipotence!
In order to loose the bands of winter, and bring in the verdure of the pleasant
spring, He does not send forth His angels to hew in pieces the thickened
ice, or to strip off from the mountain's side the gathered snows, or to
plant anew over the face of the bleak earth, flowers fresh from His creating
hand. No! He breathes from His lips a mild warmth into the frozen air; and
forthwith, in stillness but in irresistible power, the work proceeds; the
ice is shivered, the snows dissolve, the rivers resume their flow, the earth
awakes as out of sleep, the hills and the valleys put on their freshening
verdure, the fragrance of earth takes wing and fills the air, till a new
world of beauty rises in silence amid the dissolution of the old!
Such is God's method of working, both in the natural and in the spiritual
world--silent, simple, majestic, and resistless! Such was the Reformation!
Such were the revivals in Scotland under our fathers of the Covenant! Such
was the Kirk o' Shotts on that memorable Pentecost, when the unstudied words
of a timid trembling youth, carried salvation to five hundred souls. Such
was Ayr in its Pentecostal days, when from the lonely church at midnight,
there went up to heaven the broken sighs of that man of prayer, John Welsh.
And such was Northampton in later times, when Jonathan Edwards watched and
prayed for its citizens, and when, from the closet of that holy man, there
went forth the living power that wrought such wonders there! And
is the Lord's hand shortened that it cannot save, or is His ear heavy that
it cannot hear? |