N03467:800
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.
They are somewhat surprised that they should in this respect find themselves so different from the Idea that they generally had entertained of godly Persons; for tho' Grace be indeed of a far more excellent nature than they imagined; yet those that are godly have much less of it, and much more remaining Corruption, than they thought. They never realized it, that Persons were wont to meet with such Difficulties, after they were once converted. When they are thus exercised with Doubts about their State, through the Deadness of their Frames of Spirit, as long as these Frames last, they are commonly unable to satisfy themselves of the Truth of their Grace, by all their Self-examination. When they hear of the Signs of Grace laid down for 'em to try themselves by, they are often so clouded, that they don't know how to apply them: they hardly know whether they have such and such things in them or no, and whether they have experienced them or not: That which was sweetest, and best, and most distinguishing in their Experiences, they can't recover a sense or Idea of. But on a Return of the Influences of the Spirit of God, to revive the lively Actings of Grace, the Light breaks through the Cloud, and Doubting and Darkness soon vanish away.
They are somewhat surpriz'd that they should in this respect find themselves so different from the Idea that they generally had entertained of godly Persons; for tho' Grace be indeed of a far more excellent nature than they imagin'd; yet those that are godly have much less of it, and much more remaining Corruption, than they thought. They never realized it, that Persons were wont to meet with such Difficulties, after they were once converted. When they are thus exercised with Doubts about their State, through the Deadness of their Frames of Spirit, as long as these Frames last, they are commonly unable to satisfy themselves of the Truth of their Grace, by all their Self-examination. When they hear of the Signs of Grace laid down for 'em to try themselves by, they are often so clouded, that they don't know how to apply them: they hardly know whether they have such and such things in them or no, and whether they have experienced them or not: That which was sweetest, and best, and most distinguishing in their Experiences, they can't recover a sense or Idea of. But on a Return of the Influences of the Spirit of God, to revive the lively Actings of Grace, the Light breaks through the Cloud, and Doubting and Darkness soon vanish away.