N03467:398
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.
V. Our Resolutions to cleave to and follow those that are turning to God, and joining themselves to his People, ought to be fixed and strong, because of the great Difficulty of it. If we will cleave to them, and have their God for our God, and their People for our People, we must mortify and deny all our Lusts, and cross every evil Appetite and Inclination, and forever part with all Sin. But our Lusts are many and violent. Sin is naturally exceeding dear to us; to part with it is compared to plucking out our right Eyes. Men may refrain from wanted Ways of Sin, for a little while, and may deny their Lusts in a partial Degree, with less Difficulty; but 'tis heart-rending Work, finally to part with all Sin, and to give our dearest Lusts a Bill of Divorce, utterly to send them away. But this we must do, if we would follow those that are truly turning to God: Yea, we must not only forsake Sin, but must, in a Sense, forsake all the World, Luke 14. 33 Whosoever he be of you, that forsaketh not all that he hath, he cannot be my Disciple. That is, he must forsake all in his Heart, and must come to a thorough Disposition and Readiness, actually to quit all for God, and the glorious spiritual Privileges of his People, whenever the Case may require it; and that without any Prospect of any Thing of the like Nature, or any worldly Thing whatsoever, to make amends for it; and all to go into a strange Country, a Land that has hitherto been unseen; like Abraham, who being called of God, went out of his own Country, and from his Kindred, and from his Father's […] use for a Land that God should show him, not knowing whither he went.
V. Our Resolutions to cleave to and follow those that are turning to God, and joining themselves to his People, ought to be fix'd and strong, because of the great Difficulty of it. If we will cleave to them, and have their God for our God, and their People for our People, we must mortify and deny all our Lusts, and cross every evil Appetite and Inclination, and forever part with all Sin. But our Lusts are many and violent. Sin is naturally exceeding dear to us; to part with it is compared to plucking out our right Eyes. Men may refrain from wanted Ways of Sin, for a little while, and may deny their Lusts in a partial Degree, with less Difficulty; but 'tis heart-rending Work, finally to part with all Sin, and to give our dearest Lusts a Bill of Divorce, utterly to send them away. But this we must do, if we would follow those that are truly turning to God: Yea, we must not only forsake Sin, but must, in a Sense, forsake all the World,