N03467:781
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.
The converting Influences of God's Spirit very commonly bring an extraordinary Conviction of the Reality and Certainty of the great Things of Religion; (tho' in some this is much greater, some time after Conversion, than at first▪) they have that sight and taste of ⟨p. 42⟩the Divinity, or divine Excellency, that there is in the Things of the Gospel, that is more to convince them, than reading many Volumes of Arguments without it. It seems to me that in many Instances amongst us, when the divine Excellency and Glory of the Things of Christianity have been set before Persons, and they have at the same time as it were seen, and tasted, and felt the Divinity of them, they have been as far from doubting of the Truth of them, as they are from doubting whether there be a Sun, when their Eyes are open upon it in the midst of a clear Hemisphere, and the strong Blaze of his Light overcomes all Objections against his Being. And yet many of them, if we should ask them why they believed those Things to be true, would not be able well to express, or communicate a sufficient Reason, to satisfy the Enquirer, and perhaps would make no other Answer but that they se• 'em to be true: But a Person might soon be satisfied, by a particular Conversation with 'em, that what they mean by such an Answer is, that they have intuitively beheld, and immediately felt most illustrious Works, and powerful Evidence of Divinity in them.
Some are thus convinced of the Truth of the Gospel in general, and that the Scriptures are the Word of God: Others have their Minds more especially fixed on some particular great Doctrine of the Gospel, some particular Truths that they are meditating on; or are in a special manner convinced of the Divinity of the Things they are reading of▪ in some portion of Scripture. Some have such Convictions in a much more remarkable manner than others: And there are some that never had such a special Sense of the Certainty of divine Things, impressed upon them with such inward Evidence and Strength, have yet very clear Exercises of Grace; i. e. of Love to God, Repentance and Holiness. And if they be more particularly examined, they appear plainly to have an inward firm Persuasion of the Reality of divine Things, such as they don't use to have before their Conversion. And those that have the most clear Discoveries of divine Truth, in the manner that has been