N13259:167
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.
3. UNBELIEVERS have no desires after the enjoyment of CHRIST. If they did set any thing by the glory and excellency of CHRIST, they would have some desires after him on account of that excellency: especially when he is offered to them, and is from time to time set forth, as the proper object of their choice and desires. That which men prize, they are wont to desire, especially if it be represented to them as attainable, and as fit and suitable for them. But unbelievers have no desires after the enjoyment of CHRIST. They desire to be delivered from hell, but they desire
THEY have no idea of any happiness to be had in the enjoyment of CHRIST: they cannot conceive what happiness there can be in beholding CHRIST and being with him, in seeing his holiness and contemplating his wonderful grace and divine glory. They have no relish for any such thing, nor appetite after it.
4. THEY show that they set nothing by the glory and excellency of CHRIST, in that they seek not at all a conformity to that glory and excellency. A natural man may seek to be holy, but it is not for holiness sake, it is only that he may escape wrath. He has no desires after holiness, nor is it indeed holiness that he seeks, because he is all the while an enemy to holiness. A natural man has no desires to have his soul conformed to the glorious beauty and excellency of Christ, nor to have his image upon him.