N05401:181
Misrepresentations corrected, and truth vindicated. In a reply to the Rev. Mr. Solomon Williams's…
Misrepresentations corrected, and truth vindicated. In a reply to the Rev. Mr. Solomon Williams's book, entitled, The true state of the question concerning the qualifications necessary to lawful communion in the Christian sacraments. / By Jonathan Edwards, M.A. Minister of the Gospel at Stockbridge. ; [Five lines of Scripture texts]Misrepresentations corrected, and truth vindicated. In a reply to the Rev. Mr. Solomon Williams's book, intitled, The true state of the question concerning the qualifications necessary to lawful communion in the Christian sacraments. / By Jonathan Edwards, M.A. Minister of the Gospel at Stockbridge. ; [Five lines of Scripture texts]
Boston: printed by S. Kneeland, 1752
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.
I will tell him what Mr. S. said. Speaking to such as don't come to Christ, living under the Gospel, he said (Safety of Ap. P. 234, 235.) You mayn't think to escape as the Heathen do: Your Load will be heavier, & your Fire will be hotter, and your Judgment sorer, than the Judgment of other Men. God will proportion every Man's Misery to his Iniquity. And as you have enjoyed greater Light and Love, so you must expect more amazing and exquisite Wrath, than other Men: Conscience has more to accuse you of & condemn you for; and so has God: And you will sink down deeper into Hell, than other Men. You are treasuring up a greater Measure of Wrath, than others, against the Day of Wrath. You will wish you had lived in the darkest Corners of the Earth among Scythians and Barbarians. —
And Mr. W. must allow me to remind him of what another Divine has said, and that is himself. In his Sermon on Isa xlv.11. (P. 25, 26.) he says, It's to be feared, there are great Numbers here present, that are in an unconverted, unrenewed, unpardoned State; Strangers from God, and Enemies to him. Yet you now look with great Pity and Compassion on that poor Captive, for ⟨p. 77⟩whom we have now been offering up our earnest Prayers,† who has been so long in so pitiable and sorrowful a Condition, and who is now in the Thickness of Popish Darkness and Superstition.— If you are out of Christ, and destitute of true Faith in him, if your Natures remain unrenewed and unsanctified, what is your State better than hers, which looks so sorrowful and distressing? Rather, is it not worse? When you consider, that in the Fullness of the Means of Grace which you have enjoyed all your Days, you are as far from any saving Knowledge of Jesus Christ, as those who have lived in the Dregs and Abyss of Popish Ignorance, and know not what to believe, but what the Church, that is, Antichrist, tells them. If you die thus, your Misery will be aggravated INCONCEIVABLY beyond theirs: Which Christ has plainly enough shown us, when he upbraided the Cities wherein most of his mighty Works were done, and tells them how much in the Comparison they fall below Tyre and Sidon (Heathen Cities, notorious for Luxury, Debauchery, and the grossest Idolatry) and Sodom; for whom it should be more tolerable, than for them.