N03467:397
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.
IV. When those that we have formerly been conversant with, are turning to God, and to his People, their Example ought to influence us. Their Example should be looked upon as the Call of God to us, to do as they have done. God, when he changes the Heart of one, calls upon another; especially does he loudly call on those that have been their Friends and Acquaintance.—We have been influenced by their Examples in Evil; and shall we cease to follow them, when they make the wisest Choice that ever they made, and do the best Thing that ever they did! If we have been Companions with them in Worldliness, in Vanity, in unprofitable and sinful Conversation, it will be an hard Case, if there must be a Parting now, because we be not willing to be Companions with them in Holiness, and true Happiness. Men are greatly influenced by seeing one another's Prosperity in other Things. If those that they have been much conversant with, grow rich, and obtain any great earthly Advantages, it awakens ⟨p. 181⟩their Ambition, and eager Desire after the like Prosperity: How much more should they be influenced, and stirred up to follow them, and be like them, when they obtain that spiritual and eternal Happiness, that is infinitely more Worth than all the Prosperity and Glory of this World.
IV. When those that we have formerly been conversant with, are turning to God, and to his People, their Example ought to influence us. Their Example should be looked upon as the Call of God to us, to do as they have done. God, when he changes the Heart of one, calls upon another; especially does he loudly call on those that have been their Friends and Acquaintance.—We have been influenced by their Examples in Evil; and shall we cease to follow them, when they make the wisest Choice that ever they made, and do the best Thing that ever they did! If we have been Companions with them in Worldliness, in Vanity, in unprositable and sinful Conversation, it will be an hard Case, if there must be a Parting now, because we be not willing to be Companions with them in Holiness, and true Happiness. Men are greatly influenced by seeing one another's Prosperity in other Things. If those that they have been much conversant with, grow rich, and obtain any great earthly Advantages, it awakens ⟨p. 181⟩their Ambition, and eager Desire after the like Prosperity: How much more should they be influenced, and stirred up to follow them, and be like them, when they obtain that spiritual and eternal Happiness, that is infinitely more Worth than all the Prosperity and Glory of this World.