N03467:366
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.
Some of you have often lamented the Loss of past Opportunities: As particularly the Loss of the Time of Youth, and have been wishing that you had so good an Opportunity again; have been ready to say, O! if I was young again, how would I improve such an Advantage! That Opportunity that you have had in Time past, is irrecoverable; you can never have it again: but God can give you other Advantages of another Sort, that are very great, and he is so doing at this Day. He is now putting a new Opportunity into your Hands; tho' not of the same Kind with that which you once had, and have lost, yet in some Respects as great of another Kind. If you lament, and are ready to cry out of your Folly in neglecting and loosing past Opportunities, then don't be guilty of the Folly of neglecting the Opportunity which God now gives you. This Opportunity you could not have purchased, if you would have given all that you had in the World for it: But God is putting of it into your Hands, of himself, of his own free and sovereign Mercy, without your purchasing ⟨p. 169⟩of it. Therefore when you have it, don't neglect it.
2. It is a great deal more likely with Respect to such Persons than others, that this is their last Time. There will be a last Time of any special Offer of Salvation to impenitent Sinners. God's Spirit shall not always strive with Man, Gen. 6 3. God sometimes continues long knocking at the Doors of wicked Men's Hearts; but there are the last Knocks, and the last Calls, that ever they shall have. And sometimes God's last Calls are the loudest, and then if Sinners don't hearken, God finally leaves them. How long has God been knocking at many of your Doors, that are old in Sin! 'Tis a great deal more likely that these are his last Knocks. You have resisted God's Spirit in Times past, and have hardened your Heart once and again; but God will not be thus dealt with always: There is Danger, that if now, after so long a Time, you won't hearken, he will utterly desert you, and leave you to walk in your own Counsels.