N03467:371
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.
Consider two Things,
1. You have all Manner of Advantages now centring upon you. It is a Time of great Advantage for all; but your Advantages are above others. There is no other Sort of Persons, that have now so great and happy an Opportunity as you have. You have that great Advantage that is common to all that live in this Place, viz. That now it is a Time of the extraordinary pouring out of the Spirit of God; and also have that great Advantage, that you have the awakening Influences of the Spirit of God on you in particular; and besides that, you have this peculiar Advantage, that you are now in your Youth: And added to this, you have another unspeakable Advantage, that you now are under your first Convictions. Happy is he that never has hardened his Heart, and blocked up his own Way to Heaven ⟨p. 171⟩by backsliding, and has now the awakening Influences of God's Spirit, if God does but enable him thoroughly to improve them! Such above all in the World bid fair for the Kingdom of God. God is wont, on such, above any Kind of Persons, as it were easily and readily to bestow the saving Grace and Comforts of his Spirit. Instances of speedy and sudden Conversion are most commonly found among such—Happy are they that have the Spirit of God with them, and never have quenched it, if they did but know the Price they have in their Hands!
If you have a Sense of your Necessity of Salvation, and the great Worth and Value of it, you will be willing to take the surest Way to it, or that which has the greatest Probability of Success; and that certainly is, thoroughly to improve your first Convictions: If you do so, it is not likely that you will fail; there is the greatest Probability that you will succeed What is it not worth to have such an Advantage in ones Hands, for obtaining eternal Life?—The present Season of the pouring out of God's Spirit, is the first such Season that many of you that are now under Awakenings have ever seen, since you came to Years of Understanding: On which Account, and because it is the first Time that you have ever been stir'd up by the Spirit of God your self, 'tis the greatest Opportunity that ever you have had, and probably by far the greatest that ever you will have. There are many here present that wish they had such an Opportunity, but they never can obtain it; they can't buy it for Money; but you have it in your Possession, and can improve it if you will.