N13259:470
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.
HOWEVER strong such kind of objections against the eternal misery of the wicked, may seem to the carnal, senseless hearts of men, as though it were against GOD'S justice and mercy; yet their seeming strength, and its seeming to be incredible that GOD should give over any of his creatures to such a dreadful calamity as eternal, helpless misery and torment, altogether arises from a want of a sense of the infinite evil, odiousness and provocation, that there is in sin. Hence it seems to us not suitable that any poor creature should be the subject of such misery, because we have no sense of any thing abominable and provoking in any creature answerable to it. If we had, then this infinite calamity would not seem unsuitable. For one thing would but appear answerable and proportionable to another, and so the mind would rest in it as fit and suitable, and no more than what is proper to be ordered by the just, holy and good governor of the world.
THAT this is so, we may be convinced by this consideration, viz. that when we hear or read, as sometimes we do, of very horrid things committed by some men, as for instance, some horrid instance of cruelty, it may be to some poor innocent child, or some holy martyr; when we read or hear how such and such persons delighted themselves in torturing them with lingering torments; what terrible distress the poor, innocent creatures were in, under their hands, for many days together; and their cruel persecutors, having no regard to their shrieks and cries, only sported themselves with their misery, and would not safe even to put an end to their lives:—I say, when we hear or read of such things, we have a sense of the evil of them, and they make a deep impression on our minds. Hence it seems just, and not only so, but every way fit and suitable that GOD should inflict a very terrible punishment on persons who have perpetuated such wickedness: It seems, no way disagreeable to any perfection of the judge of the world; we can think of it without being at all shocked. The reason is, that we have a sense of the evil of their conduct, and a sense of the proportion there is between the evil or demerit of their conduct and the punishment.