On August 25, 1728, Sarah bore their first child, another Sarah. Childbirth, a biblical image, was especially typical of the afflictive way God dealt with fallen humanity, even in bringing them the best things personally, spiritually, or through history. "Women travail and suffer great pains in bringing children, which is to represent the great persecutions and sufferings of the
church in bringing forth Christ and in increasing the number of his children; and a type of those spiritual pains that are in the soul when bringing forth Christ."32 Jonathan himself had just gone through years of the
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