N13259:618
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.
SO that the command of GOD, that every seventh day should be devoted to religious exercises, is founded in the universal state and nature of mankind, as well as other commands; only man's reason is not sufficient, without divine direction, so exactly to determine it: Though perhaps man's reason is sufficient to determine, that it ought not to be much seldomer, nor much oftener than once in seven days.
5. IT further confirms it, that it is the mind and will of GOD, that such a weekly sabbath should for ever be kept, that GOD appears in his word as laying abundantly more weight on this precept concerning the sabbath, than on any precept of the ceremonial law; not only by inserting it in the decalogue, and making it one of the ten commands, which were delivered by GOD with an audible voice, by writing it with his own finger on the tables of stone, which were the work of GOD in the mount, and by appointing it afterwards to be written on the tables which Moses made: but as the keeping of the weekly sabbath is spoken of by the prophets, as that wherein consists a great part of holiness of life; and as it is inserted among moral duties, as particularly in Isa. lviii. 13, 14. If thou turn away thy foot from the sabbath, from doing thy pleasure on my holy day, and call the sabbath a delight, the holy of the Lord, honourable, and shalt honour him, not doing ⟨p. 235⟩thine own ways, nor finding thine own pleasure, nor speaking thine own words: then shalt thou delight thyself in the LORD, and I will cause thee to ride upon the high places of the earth, and feed thee with the heritage of Jacob thy father; for the mouth of the LORD hath spoken it.
5. IT further confirms it, that it is the mind and will of GOD, that such a weekly sabbath should for ever be kept, that GOD appears in his word as laying abundantly more weight on this precept concerning the sabbath, than on any precept of the ceremonial law; not only by inserting it in the decalogue, and making it one of the ten commands, which were delivered by GOD with an audible voice, by writing it with his own finger on the tables of stone, which were the work of GOD in the mount, and by appointing it afterwards to be written on the tables which Moses made: but as the keeping of the weekly sabbath is spoken of by the prophets, as that wherein consists a great part of holiness of life; and as it is inserted among moral duties, as particularly in