N13259:342
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. HOW is your doing, as you do, consistent with loving GOD above all. If you have not a spirit to love GOD above your dearest earthly friends, and your most pleasant earthly enjoyments; the scriptures are very plain and full in it, that you are not true christians. But if you had indeed such a spirit, would you thus grow weary of the practice of drawing near to him, and become habitually so averse to it, as in a great measure to cast off so plain a duty, which is so much the life of a child of GOD? It is the nature of love to be averse to absence, and to love a near access to those whom we love. We love to be with them; we delight to come often to them, and to have much conversation with them. But when a person, who hath heretofore been wont to converse freely with another, by degrees forsakes him, grows strange, and converses with him but little, and that although the other be importunate with him for the continuance of their former intimacy; this plainly shows the coldness of his heart towards him.
THE neglect of the duty of prayer seems to be inconsistent with supreme love to GOD also upon another account, and that is that it is against the will of GOD so plainly revealed. True love to GOD seeks to please GOD in every thing, and universally to conform to his will.
3. YOUR thus restraining prayer before GOD is not only inconsistent with the love, but also with the fear of GOD. It is an argument that you cast off fear, as is manifest by that text, Job. xv. 4. Yea thou castest off fear and restrainest prayer before God. While you thus live in the transgression of so plain a command of GOD, you evidently show, that there is no fear of GOD before your eyes. Psal. xxxvi. ••. The transgression of the wicked faith within […] heart, that there is no fear of GOD before his eyes.