N03467:673
Discourses on various important subjects, nearly concerning the great affair of the soul's eternal…
Discourses on various important subjects, nearly concerning the great affair of the soul's eternal salvation, viz. I. Justification by faith alone. II. Pressing into the Kingdom of God. III. Ruth's resolution. IV. The justice of God in the damnation of sinners. V. The excellency of Jesus Christ. : Delivered at Northampton, chiefly at the time of the late wonderful pouring out of the spirit of God there. / By Jonathan Edwards, A.M. Pastor of the Church of Christ in Northampton. ; [Three lines from Deuteronomy]
Boston: printed by S. Kneeland and T. Green, 1738
Title page typeset from the transcription.
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
Northampton, March 19th. 1737. WE in this Town, were the last Lord's Day the Spectators, and many of us the Subjects, of one of the most amazing Instances of divine Preservation, that perhaps was ever known in the Land: Our Meeting-House is old and deca•'d, so that we have been for some time building a new one, which •s yet▪ unfinished: It has been observed of late, that the House that ⟨p. vi⟩we have hitherto met in has gradually spread at bottom, the Cells and Walls giving way, especially in the Foreside, by reason of the Weight of Timber at top, pressing on the Braces that are inserted into the Posts and Beams of the House. It has so done more than ordinarily this Spring; which seems to have been occasioned by the heaving of the Ground by the extreme Frosts of the Winter past, and its now settling again on that side which is next the Sun, by the Thaws of the Spring: By this means the under-pinning has been considerably disordered, which People were not sensible of, till the ends of the Joists which bore up the front Gallery, by the Walls giving way, were drawn off from the Girts on which they rested; so that in the midst of the public Exercise in the Forenoon, soon after the beginning of Sermon, the whole Gallery full of People, with all the Seats and Timber suddenly and without any Warning sunk, and fell down, with most amazing noise upon the Heads of those that sat under, to the astonishment of the Congregation, the House being filled with dolorous, Shrieking and Crying; and nothing else was expected than to find many People dead, and dashed to pieces. The Gallery in falling seemed to break and sink first in the middle; so that those who were upon it were thrown together in heaps before the front Door: But the whole was so sudden, that many of them that felt knew nothing in the time of it what it was that had befallen them; and others in the Congregation knew not what it was that had happened with so great a Noise […] many thought it had been an amazing Clap of Thunder: The falling Gallery seemed to be broken all to pieces before it got down; so that some that fell with it, as well as those that were under, were buried in the Ruins, and were found pressed under heavy Loads of Timber, and could do nothing to help themselves. But so mysteriously and wonderfully did it come to pass, that every Life was preserved;