N13259:501
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.
4. THE scripture says that wicked men shall not be delivered, till they have paid the uttermost farthing of their debt; Mat. v. 26. Nor till they have paid the last mite; Luke x 5•. i. e. the utmost that is deserved, and all mercy is excluded by this expression. But we have shown that they deserve an infinite, an endless punishment.
5. THE scripture says absolutely, that their punishment shall not have an end. Mark ix. 44. Where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched. Now it will not do to say, That the meaning is, Their worm shall live a great while, or that it shall be a great while before their fire is quenched. If ever the time comes, that their worm shall die; if ever there shall be a quenching of the fire at all, then it is not true, that their worm dieth not, and that the fire is not quenched. For if there be a dying of the worm, and a quenching of the fire, let it be at what time it will, nearer or further off, it is equally contrary to such a regation, is dieth not, it is not quenched.
SECONDLY. THERE are others who allow, that the expressions of the threatenings, do denote a proper eternity, but then, they say, it doth not certainly follow that the punishment will really be eternal; because, say they, GOD may threaten, and yet not fulfil his threatenings. Though they allow that the threatenings are positive, and peremptory, without any reserve, yet they say GOD is not obliged to fulfil absolute, positive threatenings, as he is, absolute promises. Because in promises a right is conveyed, that the creature, to whom the promises are made, will claim; but there is no danger of the creature's claiming any right by a threatening.—Therefore I am now to show that what GOD has positively declared in this