Jonathan Edwards

The conversion of Abigail Hutchinson was the beginning of the manifestations that were to take place during the Great Awakening.

“Her mind was so swallowed up with a sense of the glory of God’s truth and other perfections, that she said it seemed as though her life was going…Soon after this she went to a private religious meeting, and her mind was full of a sense and view of the glory of God all the time; and when the exercise was ended, some asked her concerning what she had experienced; and she began to give them an account; but as she was relating it, it revived such a sense of the same things that her strength failed; and they were obliged to take her and lay her on the bed.

At the time of Abigail’s prostration was seen as an emotional overload. The fact is that her faintings were a sign of the activity of the Holy Spirit. They are called being slain in the Spirit, or resting in the Spirit.

This is from the writings of Jonathan Edwards concerning a meeting when the manifestations seemed to be getting out of hand. Remember he was a Calvinist.

“There were some instances of persons lying in a sort of trance, remaining for perhaps a whole twenty four hours motionless, and with their senses locked up; but in the meantime under strong imaginations, as though they went to heaven, and had there a vision of glorious and delightful objects. But when the people were raised to this height, satan took the advantage, and his interposition in many instances soon became very apparent; and a great deal of caution and pains were found necessary to keep the people, many of them from running wild.