Hansen Bible Study

On This Day in Church History

A real event from the story of the church on each calendar day, told with its setting and what came of it, and quoted word for word from sources published before 1931.

On this day · November 6

Jonathan Edwards Writes "A Faithful Narrative"

November 6, 1736 · Northampton, Massachusetts

The setting

Jonathan Edwards was pastor of the church at Northampton. In 1734–1735 the town went through a sudden spiritual awakening, and a Boston minister, Benjamin Colman, asked him for an account.

The story

Edwards first sent a short account on May 30, 1735. It reached Isaac Watts and John Guyse in London, who read it to large audiences. At their request Edwards wrote a much fuller letter, dated November 6, 1736.

In it he described how the town changed. In the spring and summer of 1735, he wrote, there were signs of God's presence in almost every house. Parents rejoiced over children who had come to faith, and husbands and wives over each other. More than three hundred people in the town appeared to become Christians.

“the town seemed to be full of the presence of God: it never was so full of love, nor of joy, and yet so full of distress, as it was then.”

A Faithful Narrative

“There were remarkable tokens of God's presence in almost every house.”

A Faithful Narrative

What happened next

The letter was published in London as a "Narrative of Surprising Conversions," with an introduction by Watts and Guyse. It was read widely, and with deep feeling, by Christians in England, who had seen nothing like it for many years.

Why it matters: A careful, honest account of what God did in one town encouraged believers on two continents to pray for revival.

Source: The Works of Jonathan Edwards, vol. 1 (1834 ed.), Memoir and "A Faithful Narrative of the Surprising Work of God". Public domain.

← Back to today

Church Family Tree

One church, many branches →

Nine eras of church history, a family tree of the major traditions, and how the Pentecostal revival, fed by many Protestant streams, produced the Assemblies of God.

Other days

On This Day in Church History | Hansen Bible Study