1742 BENJAMIN COLMAN. On Sustainable Religious Revival - "Negroes" in Great Awakening

Last offered at auction in 1921, this important work issued in the immediate sway of the Great Awakening under Jonathan Edwards, Gilbert and William Tennent, and of course, George Whitefield, whom Benjamin Colman personal introduced and promoted in Boston. 

The work seems to have four aims: 1. To place the regard for the centrality of Christ squarely at the center of God's manifest presence, acting as a balance or tension to the effusion of the Spirit. 2. Describing what it looks like for God to magnify his Christ, i.e. manifest Himself, in such a way that it defends the current revival. 3. Show the danger of opposing a manifestation of Christ's presence. 4. Describe how best one may participate in and promote the ongoing reviving of the work of God through magnifying Christ. 

This last section is superb and in it we feel the weight of aged piety and wisdom. He is the kind of aged saint we should all desire to be. He desires a godly effusion of the Spirit, appreciates the work of grace in the present and upcoming generation, and uses his grey-headed gravitas to exhort to a balanced ministry. He knows that the sound preaching of Christ, and not of the passions merely, is what is sustainable and nourishing to the Church, and which honors the Spirit. 

Of special interest is Colman's comparison of the Law as the old word [not the Old Testament text in sum] and that it was testified by miracles. And that Christ [not the New Testament text in sum] is the new Word and that similarly fire descended, miracles surrounded, verifying Christ as THE Word to the world. And that God's power continues to assist in declaring Christ as the Word. An interesting theological approach which places Law / Christ as WORD and OT and NT text as Word surrounding and describing God's interaction with those WORDS to His people. 

Also of special interest, Colman makes note of the many "Negroes" of families that have been impacted by the revival. These of course would include people like Phillis Wheatley, etc., Wheatley's pastor, Joseph Sewall, and Colman were friends. 

A deeply experimental work and ending with some very practical insights for those preaching and entering the ministry during this season.

Extracts:

"When God magnfies His Word . . . when sinners are convinced and pricked to the heart by it! When the commandment comes with a divine Light and power on their Consciences; when sin by it becomes exceedingly sinful and Moses himself quakes and the hardy Jailer cries out, 'Sirs, what must I do to be saved!?' - But then the mild Reign and Rule of Grace in the Souls of the Regenerate is yet more Magnificent, God having put His law in their hearts, and written it in them, and shed abroad His love. And they become His Temple and Palace, incomparably beyond those of Solomon or Herod! O how does the Enlightened Soul magnify the Word, whose Power it has felt, whose Glory it has seen," etc.,

. . . 

"And now, my dear and Honour'd hearers, I must give in my humble testimony, and a noble one, on behalf of Christ Jesus Our Lord, the Great Head of the Church, and of His grace to you, in the ministry which in my times he has set over you, in this and many other places of our happy land. - That a great number of them have such as in their Doctrine and Conversation have been enabled to magnify the Name and Word of our Lord Jesus to you, in their Preparations for the Pulpit, and to their Manner of Address to God and you from it.And the present Pastors of the Churches (in a Great Number of them) if I am able to judge, do not come short of their worthy predecessors, but are building fair and strong on their foundation, as wise and faithful servants; and God is owning them greatly before you and blessing their Labours. The Blessing of Levi is with them, the Urrum and Thummim, in a happy measure of Light, Zeal, and Sincerity, thro' Free and Sovereign Grace; and they do not serve God and you with unbeaten oil, with what costs them nothing. Their lamps burn bright and clear before you. 

In my age I sit, hear, and admire the labour'd, digested, methodical, enlightening, fervent discourses they bring you, such as they might bring before Kings and Universities, and not be ashamed; and yet all adapted to the poor of the flock and to the lowest understanding among you; even to the very Negroes of your Families, many of whom are become intelligent and serious among us. 

And I humbly trust that after my decease Christ will still be magnified in His preached Gospel among you; - I mean by the rising Ministry, many of whom appear to me to be coming forth into the Ministry of the Sanctuary as with a superior Zeal for the Honour of Christ, and to save themselves and those that hear them. . . . 

And I earnestly exhort these my younger Brethren; together with the very promising, studious, and serious Candidates for the Ministry now in our College, that they emulate the Learning and Labours of the Present Pastors of Churches round about them; and yet more those of the First Fathers of our Country, who with equal Care and Speed founded our Churches, Schools, and Colleges together, and never separated their Bibles and Literature in their preparation for public Serviceableness, but kept the one in reverent subjection to the other. So, my sons, do study your Bibles first and most, and then use all your Acquisitions of human Knowledge, and your peculiar natural gifts and powers, whether of Reasoning or Oratory, to recommend and inforce the lively Oracles of God to the Understanding and to the Affections of those to whom you may be called to minister. For if you go off from studied sermons, you will I fear lose all that the Fathers of those churches have wrought for us; and will come to this People with empty Noise of Address to their passions only, which is not the way of your Bible, nor of the Holy Spirit, who inspir'd it, who by the understanding enters the Heart," 

Etc., Etc.  

Colman, Benjamin. The Great God has Magnified his Word to the Children of Men. A Sermon Preach'd at the Lecture in Boston, April 29, 1742. Boston. Printed by T. Fleet, for D. Henchman. 1742. 32pp.

A good + copy, bound in wraps, very solid, with moderate foxing and toning throughout. Corners turned with some tears, etc., as shown.