N13259:509
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.
2. The doctrine of those who teach that it is not certain, that GOD will fulfil those absolute threatening is blasphemous another way; and that is, as GOD according to their supposition was obliged to make use of a fallacy to govern the world. They own that it is needful that men should apprehend themselves liable to an eternal punishment, that they might thereby be restrained from sin, and that GOD has threatened such a punishment, for the very end that they might believe themselves exposed to it. But what an unworthy opinion does this convey of GOD and his government, of his infinite majesty, and wisdom, and all-sufficiency!—Beside, they suppose that though GOD has made use of such a fallacy, yet it is not such an one but that they have detected him in it. Though GOD intended men should believe it to be certain, that sinners are liable to an eternal punishment; yet they suppose, that they have been so cunning as to find out that it is not certain. And so that GOD hath not laid his design so deep, but that such cunning men as they can discern the cheat and defeat the design: because they have found out, that there is no necessary connection between the threatening of eternal punishment and the execution of that threatening.
2. The doctrine of those who teach that it is not certain, that GOD will fulfil those absolute threatening is blasphemous another way; and that is, as GOD according to their supposition was obliged to make use of a fallacy to govern the world. They own that it is needful that men should apprehend themselves liable to an eternal punishment, that they might thereby be restrained from sin, and that GOD has threatened such a punishment, for the very end that they might believe themselves exposed to it. But what an unworthy opinion does this convey of GOD and his government, of his infinite majesty, and wisdom, and all-sufficiency!—Beside, they suppose that though GOD has made use of such a fallacy, yet it is not such an one but that they have detected him in it. Though GOD intended men should believe it to be certain, that sinners are liable to an eternal punishment; yet they suppose, that they have been so cunning as to find out that it is not certain. And so that GOD hath not laid his design so deep, but that such cunning men as they can discern the cheat and defeat the design: because they have found out, that there is no necessary connexion between the threatening of eternal punishment and the execution of that threatening.