N13259:504
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.
1. IT is self-evidently contrary to the divine truth, positively to declare, any thing to be real, whether pa••, present, or to come, which GOD at the same time knows is not so. Absolutely threatening that any thing shall be, is the same as absolutely declaring, that it is to be. For any to suppose that GOD absolutely declares that any thing will be, which he at the same time knows will not be, is blasphemy, if there be any such thing as blasphemy.
1. IT is selfevidently contrary to the divine truth, positively to declare, any thing to be real, whether pa••, present, or to come, which GOD at the same time knows is not so. Absolutely threatening that any thing shall be, is the same as absolutely declaring, that it is to be. For any to suppose that GOD absolutely declares that any thing will be, which he at the same time knows will not be, is blasphemy, if there be any such thing as blasphemy.
INDEED it is very true, that there is no obligation on GOD, arising from the claim of the creature, as there is in promises. They seem to reckon the wrong way, who suppose the necessity of the execution of the threatening, to arise from a proper obligation on GOD to the creature, to execute, consequent on his threatening. For indeed the certainty of the execution arises the other way; viz. on the obligation there was on the omniscient GOD, in threatening, to conform his threatening to what he knew would be future in execution. Though strictly speaking GOD is not properly obliged to the creature, to execute because he has threatened; yet he was obliged not absolutely to threaten if at the same time he knew, that he should not, or would not fulfil: because this would not have been consistent with his truth.—So that from the truth of GOD, there is an inviolable connection between positive threatenings and execution. They that suppose, that GOD absolutely threatened, or positively declared, that he would do, contrary to what he knew would come to pass, do therein suppose that he absolutely threatened contrary to what he knew to be truth. And how any one can speak ⟨p. 188⟩