N13259:181
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.
2. HEREBY you may be convinced of your danger. You must needs think, that such guilt will bring great wrath: doubtless GOD is dreadfully provoked by your thus despising Jesus Christ. Dreadful destruction is denounced in scripture against those that despise only the disciples of Christ; Mat. xviii. 6. What destruction then will come on them that despise all the glorious excellency of Christ himself!
CONSIDER that you not only have no value for all the glory and excellency of Christ; but you are enemies to him on that very account. The very ground of that enmity and opposition which there is between your hearts and Jesus Christ, is the glorious perfections and excellencies that there are in Jesus Christ. By being such an holy and excellent Saviour, he is contrary to your lusts and corruptions: If there were a Saviour offered to you that was agreeable to your corrupt nature, such a Saviour you would fall in with the offer of; such a Saviour you would accept. But Christ being a Saviour of such purity, holiness, and divine perfection, this is the cause why you have no inclination to him, but are offended in him.
INSTEAD of being a precious stone in your eyes, he is a stone of stumbling and a rock of offence to you. That he is a Saviour who hath manifested such divine perfections in what he hath done and suffered, is one principal reason why you set nothing by him.—Consider how provoking this must needs be to GOD the Father, who has given his only begotten son for your salvation; and what wrath it merits from the son whom you thus treat. And consider how you will hereafter bear this wrath.