N03467:522
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.
2. God's Justice will appear in your greater Destruction. Besides the Guilt that you would have had if a Saviour never had been offered, you bring that great additional Guilt upon you, of most ungratefully refusing offered Deliverance. What more base and vile Treatment of God can there be, than for you, when justly condemned to eternal Misery, and ready to be executed, & God graciously sends his own Son, who comes & knocks at your Door with a Pardon in his Hand, and not only a Pardon, but a Deed of eternal Glory; I say, what can be worse, then for you out of Dislike, and Enmity against God, and his Son, to refuse to accept those Benefits at his Hands! How justly may the Anger of God be greatly incensed and increased by it! When a Sinner thus ungratefully rejects Mercy, his last Error is worse than the first; this is more heinous than all his former Rebellion, and may justly bring down more fearful Wrath upon him.
The Heinousness of this Sin of rejecting a Saviour especially appears in two Things,
1. The Greatness of the Benefits offered; which appears in the Greatness of the Deliverance, which is from inexpressible Degrees of Corruption and Wickedness of Heart and Life, the least Degree of which is infinitely Evil; and from Misery that is everlasting; and in the Greatness and Glory of the Inheritance purchased and offered, Heb. 2. 3. How shall we escape, if we neglect so great Salvation?