N13259:139
Sermons, on the following subjects
Sermons, on the following subjects; The manner in which salvation is to be sought. The unreasonableness of indetermination in religion. Unbelievers contemn the glory of Christ. The folly of looking back in fleeing out of Sodom. The warnings of Scripture in the best manner adapted to the awakening and conversion of sinners. Hypocrites deficient in the duty of prayer. The future punishment of the wicked unavoidable and intolerable. The eternity of hell-torments. The peace which Christ gives his true followers. The perpetuity & change of the Sabbath. / By the late Reverend Mr. Jonathan Edwards, president of the College of New-Jersey.
Hartford: printed by Hudson and Goodwin, 1780
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.
THESE things show that you are yet unsettled, have never yet come to a full determination concerning religion, but are halting between two opinions, and ⟨p. 54⟩therefore are thus unstable in all your ways, and pr• ceed thus by fits and starts in religion, Jam. i. 6. 7. 8. But let him ask in faith, nothing wavering: for he that wavereth is like a wave of the sea, driven with the wind and tossed. For let not that man think that he shall receive any thing of the LORD. A double minded man is unstable in all his ways. If your determination were fixed in religion, you would be more steady in your practice.
4. IT is a sign that you are halting between two opinions, if it be your manner, to balk your duty, whenever any notable difficulty comes in the way, considerably cross to your interest, or very inconsistent with your ease or convenience, or your temporal honour. Whatever zeal you may seem to have, whatever concern about the things of religion, and however strict you be in ordinary; you have never, if this be your manner, come to a full determination; have never fully made choice of religion and the benefits of it, for your only portion; and at best have got no further than king Agrippa, who was almost persuaded to be a christian. Acts, xxvi. 28.—You are in the state of the stony ground hearers, you have no root in yourselves, and like a tree without root, are easily blown down by every wind.
II. I shall conclude with an earnest EXHORTATION to all, no longer to halt between two opinions, but immediately to come to a determination whether to be christians or not. Let me insist upon it, that you now make a choice, whether you will have heaven with a life of universal and persevering obedience for your portion; or hell, with a life spent in the pursuit of this world.—Consider those things which have been said, showing the unreasonableness