N13259:217
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.
THE use that I would make of this doctrine is to warn those who are in a natural condition to flee out of it, and by no means to look back. While you are out of Christ, you are in Sodom. The whole history of the destruction of Sodom with all its circumstances seems to be inserted in the scriptures for our warning and is set forth for an example, as the apostle Jude says. I• in a lively manner typifies the case of natural men, the destruction of those that continue in a natural state, and the manner of their escape, who flee to Christ. The psalmist when speaking of the appointed punishment of ungodly men seems evidently to refer to the destruction of Sodom in Psal. xi. 6. Upon the wicked GOD shall rain snares, fire and brimstone, and an horrible tempest; this shall be the portion of their cup.
CONSIDER therefore what the state is, that you are to get out of, you that are seeking an interest in Christ: you are to flee out of Sodom. Sodom is the place of your nativity, and the place where you have spent your lives hitherto. You are citizens of that city, which is full of filthiness and abomination before GOD, that polluted and accursed city. You belong to that impure society. You not only live among them, but you are of them, you are some that have committed those abominations, and have so provoked GOD as you have heard. It is you that I have all this while been speaking of under this doctrine; you are the inhabitants of Sodom. Perhaps you may look on your circumstances, as not very dreadful; but you dwell in Sodom.—Though you may be reformed and appear with a clean outside and a smooth face to the world; yet as long as you are in a natural condition, you are impure inhabitants of Sodom.
THE world of mankind is divided into two companies, or as I may say, into two cities: there is the city of Zion, the church of GOD, the holy and beloved city; and there is Sodom that polluted and accursed city, which is appointed to destruction. You belong to the latter of these. How much soever you may look upon yourselves better than some others, yet you are of the same city; the same company, with fornicators, and drunkards, and adulterers, and common swearers, and high-way-men, and pirates, and Sodomites. How much soever you may think yourselves distinguished, as long as you are out of Christ, you belong to the very same society; you are of the company, you join with them, and are no better than they, any otherwise than as you have greater restraints. You are considered in the sight of GOD, as fit to be ranked with them. You and they are altogether the objects of the loathing and abhorrence of GOD, and