N13259:366
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.
THOSE that are converted, if GOD should forsake them, would soon fall away totally from a state of grace, into a state far more miserable than ever they were in before their conversion. They have no strength of their own to resist those powerful enemies who surround them. Sin and satan would immediately carry them away, as a mighty flood, if GOD should forsake them.—You stand in need of daily supplies from GOD. Without GOD you can receive no spiritual light nor comfort, can exercise no grace, can bring forth no fruit. Without GOD your souls will wither and pine away, and sink into a most wretched state. You continually need the instructions and directions of GOD. What can a little child do in a vast, howling wilderness, without some one to guide it, and to lead it in the right way? Without GOD you will soon fall into snares, and pits, and many fatal calamities.
SEEING therefore you stand in such continual need of the help of GOD, how reasonable is it that you should continually seek it of him, and perseveringly acknowledge your dependence upon him, by resorting to him to spread your needs before him, and to off•• up your requests to him in prayer.—Let us consider how miserable we should be, if we should leave off prayer, and GOD at the same time should leave off ⟨p. 139⟩to take any care of us, or to afford us any more supplies of his grace. By our constancy in prayer we cannot be profitable to GOD; and if we leave it off GOD will sustain no damage: he doth not need our prayers. Job. xxxv. •. 7.—But if GOD cease to care for us and to help us, we immediately •ink: we can do nothing: we can receive nothing without him.