You have offended him infinitely more than ever a stubborn rebel did his prince: and yet ’tis nothing but his hand that holds you from falling into the fire every moment; ’tis to be ascribed to nothing else, that you did not go to hell the last night; that you was suffered to awake again in this world, after you closed your eyes to sleep: and there is no other reason to be given why you have not dropped into hell since you arose in the morning, but that God’s hand has held you up; there is no other reason to be given why you han’t gone to hell since you have sat here in the house of God, provoking his pure eyes by your sinful wicked manner of attending his solemn worship: yea, there is nothing else that is to be given as a reason why you don’t this very moment drop down into hell.
Lindsey Jones:
This is imagry is a great example of the how the Great Awakening shifted the view of how people percieved god. Before the Great Awakening. Before the Great Awakening, it was believed that someone could not have a personal relationship with God by themselves. In this passage, it streses the fact that the reader is only not in hell because of their relationship with God. Another issue this passage brings up is the fact that how people attend service is wicked, possibly alluding to the decline in church attendences at this time.