N13259:211
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
Sermon 4: The Folly of looking back, in fleeing out of Sodom.
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.
So it is with wicked men; Psal. lxxiii. 19. How are they brought into desolation in a moment: they are utterly consumed with terrors.—If therefore we linger and look back, we may be suddenly overtaken and seized with destruction.
7. THERE is nothing in Sodom that is worth looking back upon. All the enjoyments of Sodom will soon perish in the common destruction. All will be burnt up. And surely it is not worth the while to look back on things that are perishing and consuming in the flames, as it is with all the enjoyments of sin; they are all appointed to the fire. Therefore it is foolish for any who are fleeing out of Sodom, to hanker any more after them; for when they are burnt up, what good can they do? And is it worth the while for us to return back for the sake of a moment's enjoyment of them, before they are burnt, and so expose ourselves to be burnt up with them?
LOT'S wife looked back because she remembered the pleasant things that she left in Sodom. She hated to leave them; she hankered after them; she could not but look back with a wishful eye upon the city, where she had lived in such ease and pleasure.—Sodom was a place of great outward plenty; they ate the fat and drank the sweet. The •oil where Sodom was built was exceedingly fruitful; it is said to be as the garden of God, Gen. xii. 10. And fullness of bread was one of the sins of the place; Ezek. xvi. 49.