N03467:544
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.
And will you not be ashamed, notwithstanding all these Things, still to open your Mouth, to object and cavil about the Decrees of God, and other Things that you can't fully understand.—Let the Decrees of God ⟨p. 240⟩be what they will, that alters not the Case as to your Liberty, any more than if God had only fore known.—And why is God to blame for decreeing Things? How unbecoming an infinitely wise Being, would it have been to have made a World and let Things run at Random, without disposing Events, or fore ordering how they should come to pass? And what is that to you, how God has fore-ordered Things, as long as your constant Experience teaches you, that that don't hinder your Liberty, or your doing what you choose to do. This you know, and your daily Practice and Behaviour amongst Men declares that you are fully sensible of it, with Respect to your self and others. And still to object, because there are some Things in God's Dispensations above your Understanding, is exceeding unreasonable. Your own Conscience charges you with great Guilt, and with those Things that have been mentioned, let the secret Things of God be what they will. Your Conscience charges you with those vile Dispositions, and that base Behaviour towards God, that you would at any Time most highly resent in your Neighbour towards you, and that not a Whit the less for any Concern those secret Counsels and mysterious Dispensations of God, may have in the Matter.—It is in Vain for you to exalt your self against an infinitely great, and holy, and just God: If you continue in it it will be to your eternal Shame and Confusion, when hereafter you shall see at whose Door all the Blame of your Misery lies.
And will you not be ashamed, notwithstanding all these Things, still to open your Mouth, to object and cavil about the Decrees of God, and other Things that you can't fully understand.—Let the Decrees of God ⟨p. 240⟩be what they will, that alters not the Case as to your Liberty, any more than if God had only fore known.—And why is God to blame for decreeing Things? How unbecoming an infinitely wise Being, would it have been to have made a World and let Things run at Random, without disposing Events, or fore ordering how they should come to pass? And what is that to you, how God has fore-ordered Things, as long as your constant Experience teaches you, that that don't hinder your Liberty, or your doing what you choose to do. This you know, and your daily Practice and Behaviour amongst Men declares that you are fully sensible of it, with Respect to your self and others. And still to object, because there are some Things in God's Dispensations above your Understanding, is exceeding unreasonable. Your own Conscience charges you with great Guilt, and with those Things that have been mention'd, let the secret Things of God be what they will. Your Conscience charges you with those vile Dispositions, and that base Behaviour towards God, that you would at any Time most highly resent in your Neighbour towards you, and that not a Whit the less for any Concern those secret Counsels and mysterious Dispensations of God, may have in the Matter.—It is in Vain for you to exalt your self against an infinitely great, and holy, and just God: If you continue in it it will be to your eternal Shame and Confusion, when hereafter you shall see at whose Door all the Blame of your Misery lies.