N13259:356
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.
1. THAT perseverance in the way of duty is necessary to salvation, and is abundantly declared so to be in the holy scriptures; as Isai. lxiv. 5. Thou meetest him that rejoiceth and worketh righteousness, those that remember thee in thy ways: behold, thou art wroth, for we have sinned: in those is continuance and we shall be saved. Heb. x. 38 and 39. Now the just shall live by faith: but if any man draw back, my soul hath no pleasure in him. But we are not of them who draw back unto perdition; but of them that believe to the saving of the soul. Rom. xi 22. Behold therefore the goodness and severity of GOD: on the•• ⟨p. 134⟩which fell, severity; but towards thee, goodness, if thou continue in his goodness; otherwise thou also shalt be cut off. So in many other places.
MANY, when they think they are converted, seem to imagine that their work is done, and that there is nothing else needful in order to their going to heaven.—Indeed perseverance in holiness of life is not necessary to salvation, as the righteousness by which a right to salvation is obtained. Nor is actual perseverance necessary in order to our becoming interested in that righteousness by which we are justified. For as soon as ever a soul hath believed in CHRIST, or hath put forth one act of faith in him, it becomes interested in his righteousness, and in all the promises purchased by it.
BUT persevering in the way of duty is necessary to salvation, as a concomitant and evidence of a title to salvation. There is never a title to salvation without it, though it be not the righteousness by which a title to salvation is obtained. It is necessary to salvation, as it is the necessary consequence of true faith. It is an evidence which universally attends uprightness, and the defect of it, is an infallible evidence of the want of uprightness.