N03467:351
Discourses on various important subjects, nearly concerning the great affair of the soul's eternal…
Discourses on various important subjects, nearly concerning the great affair of the soul's eternal salvation, viz. I. Justification by faith alone. II. Pressing into the Kingdom of God. III. Ruth's resolution. IV. The justice of God in the damnation of sinners. V. The excellency of Jesus Christ. : Delivered at Northampton, chiefly at the time of the late wonderful pouring out of the spirit of God there. / By Jonathan Edwards, A.M. Pastor of the Church of Christ in Northampton. ; [Three lines from Deuteronomy]
Boston: printed by S. Kneeland and T. Green, 1738
Title page typeset from the transcription.
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
8. We don't know but that God is now gathering in his Elect, before some great and sore Judgment. It has been God's Manner before he casts off a visible People, or brings some great and destroying Judgments upon them, first to gather in his Elect, that they may be secure. So it was before the casting off of the Jews from being God's People: There was first a very remarkable pouring out of the Spirit, and gathering in of the Elect, by the Preaching of the Apostles and Evangelists, as we read in the beginning of the Acts: But after this Harvest, and it's Gleanings were over, the Rest were blinded, and hardened; the Gospel had little Success amongst them, and the Nation was given up, and cast off from being God's People, and their City and Land was destroyed by the Romans▪ in a terrible Manner; and ⟨p. 162⟩they have been cast off by God now for a great many Ages, and still remain a hardened and rejected People. So we read in the beginning of the 7th Chapter of the Revelations, that God, when about to bring destroying Judgments on the Earth, first sealed his Servants in the Forehead: He set his Seal upon the Hearts of the Elect, gave them the saving Influences and Indwelling of his Spirit, by which they were sealed to the Day of Redemption. Rev. 7. 1, 2, 3. And after these Things, I saw four Angels, standing on the four Corners of the Earth, holding the four Winds of the Earth, that the Wind should not blow on the Earth, nor on the Sea, nor on any Tree. And I saw another Angel ascending from the East, having the Seal of the living God: And he cried with a loud Voice, to the four Angels, to whom it was given to hurt the Earth, and the Sea, saying, Hurt not the Earth, neither the Sea, nor the Trees, till we have sealed the Servants of our God in their Foreheads.
8. We don't know but that God is now gathering in his Elect, before some great and sore Judgment. It has been God's Manner before he casts off a visible People, or brings some great and destroying Judgments upon them, first to gather in his Elect, that they may be secure. So it was before the casting off of the Jews from being God's People: There was first a very remarkable pouring out of the Spirit, and gathering in of the Elect, by the Preaching of the Apostles and Evangelists, as we read in the beginning of the Acts: But after this Harvest, and it's Gleanings were over, the Rest were blinded, and harden'd; the Gospel had little Success amongst them, and the Nation was given up, and cast off from being God's People, and their City and Land was destroyed by the Romans in a terrible Manner; and