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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 how in the Frame of your Mind, you have thwarted God, in those very Exercises of Mercy towards others, that you are seeking for your self. God's exercising his infinite Grace towards your Neighbours, has put you into an ill Frame, and it may be set you into a mere Tumult of Mind: How justly therefore may God refuse ever to exercise that Mercy towards you! Have you not thus opposed God's showing Mercy to others, even at the very Time when you pretended to be earnest with God for Pity and Help for your self? Yea, and while you was endeavouring to get some Thing wherewith to recommend your self to God? And will you look to God still with a Challenge of Mercy, and contend with him for it notwithstanding? Can you who have such an Heart, and have thus behaved your self, come to God for any other than mere sovereign Mercy?
Consider how in the Frame of your Mind, you have thwarted God, in those very Exercises of Mercy towards others, that you are seeking for your self. God's exercising his infinite Grace towards your Neighbours, has put you into an ill Frame, and it may be set you into a meer Tumult of Mind: How justly therefore may God refuse ever to exercise that Mercy towards you! Have you not thus opposed God's shewing Mercy to others, even at the very Time when you pretended to be earnest with God for Pity and Help for your self? Yea, and while you was endeavouring to get some Thing wherewith to recommend your self to God? And will you look to God still with a Challenge of Mercy, and contend with him for it notwithstanding? Can you who have such an Heart, and have thus behaved your self, come to God for any other than meer sovereign Mercy?
II. If you should be for ever cast off by God, it would be agreeable to your Treatment of Jesus Christ. It would have been just with God if he had cast you off for ever, without ever making you the Offer of a Saviour. ⟨p. 221⟩But God hath not done that; but has provided a Saviour for Sinners, and offered him to you, even his own Son Jesus Christ; who is the only Saviour of Men; all that be not forever cast off are saved by him: God offers Men Salvation through him, and has promised us that if we come to him we shall not be cast off But you have treated, and still treat this Saviour after such a Manner, that if you should be eternally cast off by God, it would be most agreeable to your Behaviour towards him; which appears by this, viz.