Description:

Colonial Massachusetts
Hingham, MA, ca. January 1755
Massachusetts Minister Draws Spiritual Meaning from 1755 New England Earthquake
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[EARTHQUAKES.] [Ebenezer Gay?], Manuscript Document, "Two Discourses On the Story of the Taylors in Acts 16.25-34," delivered at "home [Hingham?], Jany 8, 1755 [1756]" and "at Scituate, Jany 11, 1755 [1756]." 24 pp., 4" x 6.375". String-bound; some bent corners; scattered staining; text is dark and clear. A note on the final leaf indicates it was presented to "Hon Solomon Lincoln of Hingham with the compliments of Daniel J. Bates of Cohasset / Nov 6th 1871." Lincoln (1804-1881) was an attorney, state representative (1829, 1841), state senator (1830-1831), and president of the Webster Bank in Boston (1869-1876). Lincoln wrote a History of the Town of Hingham, Plymouth County, Massachusetts in 1827.

On November 18, 1755, a strong earthquake shook New England. Centered twenty-four miles off the coast of Cape Ann, Massachusetts, the earthquake had a magnitude of 6.0 to 6.3 on the Richter scale, according to modern calculations. The earthquake damaged chimneys, brick buildings, and stone walls in coastal communities from Portland, Maine, to south of Boston, and as far inland as Springfield, Massachusetts, and New Haven, Connecticut. People felt the earthquake as far away as Halifax, Nova Scotia; Lake Champlain, and even South Carolina.

The shaking lasted more than a minute in Boston. As many as 1,500 chimneys were damaged or destroyed, while the gabled ends of fifteen brick buildings were broken out. Church steeples tilted, and a distiller's cistern full of liquor broke apart, destroying its contents.

Coming just weeks after the Great Lisbon earthquake of November 1 (All Saints' Day) rocked the Iberian peninsula, killing as many as 30,000-40,000 people in Portugal and perhaps 10,000 in Morocco, ministers and the devout took the earthquakes as signs of God's displeasure. At least twenty-seven sermons, poems, and accounts of other earthquakes were published in New England in the weeks and months following.

Rev. Ebenezer Gay of Hingham, Massachusetts, is a likely candidate as the author of these two sermons, as they were preached at "home" on January 8, 1756, and three days later at Scituate, which is approximately 7 miles southeast of Hingham. That the sermons were presented in 1871 to Solomon Lincoln, the author of an earlier history of Hingham, who had a particular interest in the ministers of the town also supports the likelihood that Gay was the author. Another possible author is Rev. John Brown (1724-1791) of nearby Cohasset, Massachusetts.

Excerpts
"My Christian Friends. It is with a peculiar Joy that I engage in the Services of the present Day to attempt that you and my Self may join with the People through this extensive Province (at least) in humbly ourselves in the Sight of that Being who is Glorious in Holiness, fearful in Praises, and a God working Wonders up a Reflection upon our late amazing Danger; and to express our Gratitude to the Preserver of Men for our present Respite from Destruction, while the most fearful Devastations in distant Lands have occurred to our Notice." (p2)

"And in order to assist our Meditations on this complicated Occasion of Humiliation & Thanksgiving I could think of no part of the Sacred Oracles more copious & pertinent than that which has been read [Acts 16:25-34]. In Discoursing from which I will attempt in the first Place to lay before you in the most plain instructive Manner the Particulars of this Story; and Secondly make those Practical Reflections which may be pertinent on the present Occasion and fairly deducible from the Text." (p3)

"We now proceed in the Second Place more particularly to discuss those Observations from this Portion of Scripture which are pertinent to employ our Meditations upon this Occasion. Accordingly, in the first Place, the Grand Point which the Jaylor had in View under the tremendous Shock he had received from the Earthquake was his Everlasting Salvation." (p11)

"I am persuaded that we all acknowledge a Divine Power actuating those secondary Causes which were mediately (or if you will instantaneously) productive of this uncommon Event; and If so how easy would it have been to have increased the Force of this Shock, which had it been done a few Degrees further the most of us must inevitably have been plunged into Desolation & Ruin. We have felt just enough to show us that while we were upon the Brink of Ruin God has prevented us with his Mercy. Verily Infinite Gratitude if the Term be any ways applicable to finite Man must be due from us on this Occasion." (p15-16)

Ebenezer Gay (1696-1787) was born in Dedham, Massachusetts, and graduated from Harvard College in 1714. After teaching grammar schools, he became the pastor at Hingham, Massachusetts, in June 1718, and remained in that position for nearly seventy years. In 1719, he married Jerusha Bradford, and they had eleven children. He had a high reputation for scholarship, and Governor Burnet remarked that Gay was one of the two most learned of the clergy in New England. Gay strongly opposed the emotional revivalism of George Whitefield. In 1785, Gay received the degree of Doctor of Divinity from Harvard College. He has been called the father of American Unitarianism. During the American Revolution, Gay retained Tory sentiments and continued to pray for the king and royal family, but he was discrete and maintained his position though most of his parishioners supported independence.

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