N13259:84
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.
5. IF you will not hearken to the many warnings, which are given you of approaching destruction, you will be guilty of more than brutish madness: You will be more brutish than the brutes themselves. The ox knoweth his owner and the ass his master's crib. They know upon whom they are dependent, and whom they must obey, and act accordingly. But you so long as you neglect your own salvation, act as if you knew not GOD, your creator and proprietor, nor your dependence upon him.—The very beasts, when they see signs of an approaching storm, will betake themselves to their dens for shelter. Yet ⟨p. 35⟩you, when abundantly warned of the approaching storm of divine vengeance will not fly to the hiding-place from the storm and the covert from the tempest. The sparrow, the swallow and other birds, when they are forewarned of approaching winter, will betake themselves to a safer climate. Yet you who have been often forewarned of the piercing blasts of divine wrath, will not, in order to escape them, enter into the new Jerusalem, of most mild and salubrious air, though the gate stands wide open to receive you. The very ants will be diligent in summer to lay up for winter. Yet you will do nothing to lay up in store a good foundation against the time to come. Balaam's ass would not run upon a drawn sword, though his master, for the sake of gain, would expose himself to the sword of GOD'S wrath; and so GOD made the dumb ass, both in his words and actions, to rebuke the madness of the prophet. 2. Pet. ii. 16. In like manner you, although you have been often warned that the sword of GOD'S wrath is drawn against you, and will certainly be thrust through you, if you proceed in your present course, still proceed regardless of the consequence.
SO GOD made the very beasts and birds of the old world to rebuke the madness of the men of that day. For they, even all sorts of them, fled to the ark, while the door was yet open; which the men of that day refused to do; GOD hereby thus signifying, that their folly was greater, than that of the very brute creatures.