As in England, so in the American colonies, the decay of vital godliness which preceded the great awakening had been long and deep. It began in the latter part of the 17th century, and its progress was observed with alarm by many of the notable and godly men of the day. Governor Stoughton, previous to resigning the pulpit for the bench, proclaimed, at Boston, that “many had become like Joash after the death of Jehoiada—rotten, hypocritical, and a lie!” The venerable Torrey of Weymouth, in a sermon before the legislature, exclaimed, “There is already a great death upon religion; little more left than a name to live. It is dying as to the being of it, by the general failure of the work of conversion.” Mather, in 1700, asserts: “If the begun apostasy should proceed as fast the next thirty years as it has done these last, it will come to that in New England (except the gospel itself depart with the order of it) that churches must be gathered out of churches.” President Willard also published a sermon in the same year on “The Perils of the Times Displayed,” in which he asks, “Whence is there such a prevalency of so many immoralities amongst professors? Why so little success of the gospel? How few thorough conversions to be observed; how scarce and seldom! * * * It has been a frequent observation that if one generation begins to decline, the next that follows usually grows worse; and so on, until God pours out his spirit again upon them.” It was thirty years before the dawn of the great awakening began to appear, even in the colony of Massachusetts; but there were many godly men in various portions of the American colonies who had not yet bowed the knee to the Baal of worldliness, and who earnestly sought, by great fidelity in the presentation of the truth, to arrest the evil tendency of the times. Among them was that greatest of American theologians, Jonathan Edwards. Beholding the melancholy state of religion, not only at Northampton, but in the surrounding regions, and that this evil tendency was corrupting the Church, he began to preach with greater boldness, more especially with the purpose of keeping error out of the Church than with the design of awakening sinners. He was a man, however, whose convictions were exceedingly strong, and who preached the truth, not simply for the purpose of gaining a worldly victory, but because he loved the truth and the Spirit wrought mightily by it. A surprising work of grace attended his preaching. There was a melting down of all classes and ages, in an overwhelming solicitude about salvation; an absorbing sense of eternal realities and self-abasement and self-condemnation; a spirit of secret and social prayer, followed by a concern for the souls of others; and this awakening was so sudden and solemn, that in many instances it produced loud outcries, and in some cases convulsions. Doubtless this great awakening was as much a surprise to Edwards as to those to whom he ministered.