N13259:480
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.
THE truth of this proposition will appear by the following particulars.
1. THE scripture every where represents the punishment of the wicked, as implying very extreme pains and sufferings; but a state of annihilation is no state of suffering at all. Persons annihilated have no sense or feeling of pain or pleasure, and much less do they feel that punishment which carries in it an extreme pain or suffering.—They no more suffer to eternity, than they did suffer from eternity.
2. IT is agreeable both to scripture and reason, to suppose, that the wicked will be punished in such a manner, that they shall be sensible of the punishment they are under; that they should be sensible, that now GOD has executed and fulfilled what he threatened, and which they disregarded, and would not believe; that they should know themselves, that justice takes place upon them; that they should see and find, that GOD vindicates that majesty which they despised; that they should see that GOD is not so despicable a being as they thought him to be; that they should be sensible, for what they are punished, while they are under the threatened punishment; that they should be sensible of their own guilt, and should remember their former opportunities and obligations, and should see their own folly and GOD'S justice.—If the eternal punishment threatened be eternal annihilation, ⟨p. 179⟩when it is inflicted, they will never know that it is inflicted; they will never know that GOD is just in their punishment, or that they have their deserts. And how is this agreeable to the scripture, in which GOD threatens that he will repay the wicked to his face, Deut. vii. 10