N03467:777
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.
Conversion is a great and glorious Work of God's Power, at once Changing the Heart, and infusing Life into the dead Soul; tho' that Grace that is then implanted does more gradually display it self in some than in others But as to fixing on the precise Time when they put forth the very first Act of Grace, there is a great deal of difference in different Persons; in some it seems to be very discernible when the very Time of this was; but others are more at a loss. In this respect there are very many that don't know the Time, (as has been already observed) that when they have the first Exercises of Grace, don't know that it is the Grace of Conversion, and sometimes don't think it to be so till a long time after: And many, even when they come to entertain great Hope that they are converted if they remember what they experienced in the first Exercises of Grace, they are at a loss whether it ⟨p. 40⟩was any more than a common Illumination; or whether some other, more clear and remarkable Experience, that they had afterwards, was not the first that was of a saving nature And the manner of God's Work on the Soul is (sometimes especially) very mysterious, and 'tis with the Kingdom of God as to it. Manifestation in the Heart of a Convert, as is said▪ Mark 1 26, 27, 28 So is the Kingdom of God, as if a Man should cast Seed into the Ground and should sleep and rise Night and Day, and the Seed should spring, and grow up he knoweth not how; for the Earth bringeth forth of her self first the Blade, then the Ear, then the full Corn in the Ear.
Conversion is a great and glorious Work of God's Power, at once Changing the Heart, and infusing Life into the dead Soul; tho' that Grace that is then implanted does more gradually display it self in some than in others But as to fixing on the precise Time when they put forth the very first Act of Grace, there is a great deal of difference in different Persons; in some it seems to be very discernable when the very Time of this was; but others are more at a loss. In this respect there are very many that don't know the Time, (as has been already observed) that when they have the first Exercises of Grace, don't know that it is the Grace of Conversion, and sometimes don't think it to be so till a long time after: And many, even when they come to entertain great Hope that they are converted if they remember what they experienced in the first Exercises of Grace, they are at a loss whether it