N13259:497
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.
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?
2. SUCH expressions are used to set forth the duration of the punishment of the wicked, as are never used in the scriptures of the New-Testament to signify any thing but a proper eternity. It is said not only that that punishment shall be forever, but for ever and ever. Rev. xiv. 11; The smoke of their torment ascendeth up for ever and ever. Rev. xx. 10; shall be tormented day and night, for ever and ever. —Doubtless the New-Testament has some expression to signify a proper eternity, of which it has so often occasion to speak. But it is ignorant of any higher expression than this: if this do not signify an absolute eternity, there is none that does.
3. THE scripture uses the same way of speaking to set forth the eternity of the punishment of the wicked, that it uses to set forth the eternity of the happiness of the righteous, o• the eternity of GOD himself.