N13259:496
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.
AND this last is the longest temporal duration, that such a term is ever used to signify. There is no instance of using such a term, for a longer duration, when it signifies a temporal duration: For the duration of the world is doubtless the longest of any of those things, that are temporal, as its beginning was the earliest of any of these things, that are temporal. Therefore when the scripture speaks of things as being before the foundation of the world, it means that they existed from eternity and before the beginning of time. So those things which continue after the end of the world, are eternal things, and are after the end of time.—Doubtless when the temporal world is at an end, there will be an end to temporal things. When the time comes that heaven and earth are shaken and removed, those things that remain will be things that cannot be shaken, but will remain for ever, Heb. xii. 26, 27.—This visible world contains all things that are seen and are temporal; and therefore when that is at an end, there will be an end of all things that are temporal, and therefore the things that remain after that, will be eternal.
BUT the punishment of the wicked will not only remain after the end of the world, but is called everlasting after that, as in the text, These shall go away into everlasting punishment. So in 2 Thes. i. 9, 10. Who shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the LORD and from the glory of his power; when he shall come to be glorified in his saints. &c.—Now ⟨p. 185⟩what can be meant by a thing's being everlasting, after all temporal things are come to an end, but that it is absolutely without end?