N03467:758
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.
Commonly Persons Minds immediately before this Discovery of God's Justice are exceeding restless, and in a kind of Struggle and Tumult, and sometimes in mere Anguish; but generally, as soon as they have this Conviction, it immediately brings their Minds to a Calm, and a before unexpected Quietness and Composure; and most frequently, tho' not always, then the pressing weight upon their Spirits is taken away, and a general Hope arises, that some time or other God will be gracious, even before any distinct and particular Discoveries of Mercy; and often they then come to a Conclusion within themselves, that they will lie at God's Feet, and wait his Time, and they rest in that, not being sensible that the Spirit of God has now brought them to a Frame whereby they are prepared for Mercy: for 'tis remarkable that persons, when they first have this sense of the Justice of God, rarely in the time of it, think any thing of its being that Humiliation that they have often heard insisted on, and that others experience.
Commonly Persons Minds immediately before this Discovery of God's Justice are exceeding restless, and in a kind of Struggle and Tumult, and sometimes in meer Anguish; but generally, as soon as they have this Conviction, it immediately brings their Minds to a Calm, and a before unexpected Quietness and Composure; and most frequently, tho' not always, then the pressing weight upon their Spirits is taken away, and a general Hope arises, that some time or other God will be gracious, even before any distinct and particular Discoveries of Mercy; and often they then come to a Conclusion within themselves, that they will lie at God's Feet, and wait his Time, and they rest in that, not being sensible that the Spirit of God has now brought them to a Frame whereby they are prepared for Mercy: for 'tis remarkable that persons, when they first have this sense of the Justice of God, rarely in the time of it, think any thing of its being that Humiliation that they have often heard insisted on, and that others experience.
In many Persons, the first Conviction of the Justice of God in their Condemnation, which they take particular notice of, and probably the first distinct Conviction of it that they have, is of such a Nature, as seems to be above any thing merely legal; Tho' it be after legal Humblings, and much of the sense of their own Helplessness and of the Insufficiency of their own Duties; yet it does not appear to be forced by mere legal