N13259:25
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.
NOAH'S undertaking was an undertaking of great difficulty, as it exposed him to the continual reproaches of all his neighbours, for that whole one hundred and twenty years. None of them believed what he told them of a flood which was about to drown the world, as this was a thing the like of which had never been from the beginning of the world to that time. For a man to undertake such a vast piece of work, under a notion that it should be the means of saving him, when the world should be destroyed, it made him the continual laughing stock of the world. When he was about to hire workmen, doubtless all laughed at him, and we may suppose that though the workmen consented to work for wages, ⟨p. 11⟩yet they laughed at the folly of him who employed them. When the ark was begun, we may suppose that every one that passed by and saw such an huge hulk stand there, laughed at it, calling it Noah's folly.
NOAH'S undertaking was an undertaking of great difficulty, as it exposed him to the continual reproaches of all his neighbours, for that whole one hundred and twenty years. None of them believed what he told them of a flood which was about to drown the world, as this was a thing the like of which had never been from the begining of the world to that time. For a man to undertake such a vast piece of work, under a notion that it should be the means of saving him, when the world should be destroyed, it made him the continual laughing stock of the world. When he was about to hire workmen, doubtless all laughed at him, and we may suppose that though the workmen consented to work for wages, ⟨p. 11⟩yet they laughed at the folly of him who employed them. When the ark was begun, we may suppose that every one that passed by and saw such an huge hulk stand there, laughed at it, calling it Noah's folly.
IN these days men are with difficulty brought to do or submit to that which makes them the objects of the reproach of all their neighbours. Indeed if while some reproach them, others stand by them and honour them, this will support them. But it is very difficult for a man to go on in a way, wherein he makes himself the laughing stock of the whole world, and wherein he can find none who do not despise him. Where is the man that can stand the shok of such a trial for twenty years? Much more may I ask, where shall he be found, who will stand it for one hundred and twenty years?