Concerning Sarah Edwards' mystical experience?

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RamistThomist

RamistThomist

Puritanboard Clerk
I know it is documented that Sarah Edwards, during the Greater Awakening, lay prostrate for 19 days unable to speak. I was listening to a lecture on this and the speaker claimed that Martyn Lloyd-Jones, in The Puritans (Banner of Truth), asserts that Sarah Edwards was transported across the room, yet Lloyd-Jones, if he indeed said that, didn't give documentation. Can this claim be substantiated?
 
sevenzedek said:
That was before Smith Wigglesworth's time; so I doubt it.
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Mrs. Edwards seems like an interesting lady. It is a sad thing to attribute some type of miracle or strange behavior to her such as laying "prostrate for 19 days unable to speak" much less being "transported across the room".
 
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The former I'd believe, I've been there, not in a weird charismatic way but I remember listening to Paul Washer preach on the Holiness of God and I lay prostrate for hours afterwards, I missed my bible study. The later seems to get weird though. The account of the preaching of Sinner's in the hands of an angry God is that people were holding on to the pillars of the church thinking hell had opened its mouth to swallow them, am I correct, that's what I remember hearing. Paul Washer I have heard accounts of people falling out of their pews once under conviction. In the "Revival Hymn" it speaks of people being knocked unconscious at the weight of their conviction of sin at the preaching of John Wesley. I personally believe it can happen because it did happen in the scriptures, like the Israelites at Sinai or in John's gospel where all the people in the garden of Gethsemane fell on their faces as Jesus said "I am". and that is the power of God that is real. It be nice to have some more substantiation for these accounts. Also at Spurgeon's testing of the acoustics of the new church he said "The Lamb of God that taketh away the sins of the world." And someone repented and was regenerate right there and then who was a construction worker working, I'm pretty sure that account is substantiated.

But bodily transportation just screams occult to me.
 
I'd almost assume that the speaker you listened to misunderstood, that perhaps Sarah Edwards was "transported with joy", but not physically across the room...
 
I think (tentative clearing of throat to insert small contradictory remark) there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in an overly narrow philosophy.

I don't know that it did happen, but writing it off out of hand seems like writing off out of hand that God can still heal people? We don't 'expect' such things to occur; we don't neglect any use of means; we don't base any doctrines on them. But God can do anything, and I will [hope to, by His grace] believe that no matter what I see. Perhaps Mrs. Edwards did levitate. If so, she didn't make much of herself about it, or live without using her legs to walk across a room in expectation of it happening again.

I suppose it makes sense to me that the nearness of God is more powerful physically than gravity -- perhaps that is why we have to die in order to be able to bear the experience of being so near to Him.
 
I'm open-minded on the subject for now. I just browsed through that chapter on Edwards by MLJ. I didn't see it, but I was watching my daughter so I didn't have time to really read it.
 
a mere housewife said:
Perhaps Mrs. Edwards did levitate.
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May I ask what purpose would God have in levitating Mrs. Edwards across the room? I am sorry but In my most humble opinion this would be as close to occult belief which serves no purpose especially if it were witnessed and conveyed to the public. (BTW I do not believe this happened and thus I am not imputing any dispersion on Mrs. Edwards). The closet I have read to any such foolish claims were from Seventh Day Adventists with Ellen White.
 
GloriousBoaz said:
or in John's gospel where all the people in the garden of Gethsemane fell on their faces as Jesus said "I am". and that is the power of God that is real.
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They all fell backwards, a sign of Christ's power over them and warning of His judgment on them, thus further pointing out the dangerous error of the so-called "slaying in the Spirit".



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Dear Earl, I didn't mean to pick a fight with you :-). I heard that about Sarah Edwards once previously, at least -- and I think, twice, but I cannot remember the sources. I don't know enough to either believe or disbelieve it. But I don't like to discount human testimony simply out of hand -- for several reasons, some relating to charity and some to humility, and some to philosophical problems that arise when one only accepts one's own senses as reliable testimony. I don't base doctrine and practice on mere human witness, though. And I do not fathom the way God has taken in my own life -- so I do not expect that I will be able to do so with regard to His ways with others. His word is where He reveals what He wants us to know, and cling to knowing, about Him (I don't do that perfectly, of course; but life in the Lord seems to increasingly tear the things we wrongly cling to out of our hands).

I think it is more to Sarah's credit -- *if* such a thing occurred -- that she remained quite an example in her calling afterwards, as before: and this well known aspect of her history is there as a witness of God's grace in her life whether or not the account of levitation winds up having any trustworthy source. I don't have anything further to add to the discussion, but please know that I value her example as a godly wife, housekeeper, mother, far more than I aspire, or would encourage others to aspire, to levitate (my aspirations in that direction being none at all: I have terrible balance with both feet on the ground :-).
 
I think whoever came up with the anecdote may have misunderstood one of the older meanings of “transport.” It means to have a strong emotion.

Below are some excerpts I found of Sarah Edwards’ own words. She speaks of transports of joy and pacing a room in a “transport.”

I’d say it was likely that she crossed a room in such a transport, not that she was “transported.”

So conscious was I of the joyful presence of the holy Spirit, I could scarely refrain from leaping with transports of joy.

....

After the people had retired, I had a still more lively and joyful sense of the goodness and all-sufficiency of God, of the pleasure of loving him, and of being alive and active in his service, so that, I could not sit still, but walked the room for some time, in a kind of transport.
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While I was thus listening, the consideration of the blessed appearances there were of God's being there with us, affected me so powerfully, that the joy and transport of the preceding night were again renewed.
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The editor further notes:
At this time, Mrs. Edwards had been long, in an uncommon manner, growing in grace, and rising, by very sensible degrees, to higher love to God, weanedness from the world, and mastery over sin and temptation, through great trials and conflicts, and long continued struggling and fighting with sin, and earnest and constant prayer and labour in religion, and engagedness of mind in the use of all means, attended with a great exactness of life; and this growth had been attended, not only with a great increase of religious affections, but with a most visible alteration of outward behaviour; particularly in living above the world, and in a greater degree of steadfastness and strength in the way of duty and self-denial; maintaining the Christian conflict against temptations, and conquering from time to time under great trials; persisting in an unmoved, untouched calm and rest, under the changes and accidents of time, such as seasons of extreme pain, and apparent hazard of immediate death. These transports did not arise from bodily weakness, but were greatest in the best state of health.
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Source:

Her Uncommon discoveries of the Divine Perfections and Glory; and of the Excellency of Christ.
 
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