N13864:875
A history of the work of redemption. Containing the outlines of a body of…
A history of the work of redemption. Containing the outlines of a body of divinity, in a method entirely new. / By the late Reverend Mr. Jonathan Edwards, president of the College of New Jersey[.]
Boston: printed by Draper & Folsom, 1782
A HISTORY Of the WORK of REDEMPTION. › Period 3 › Part 2 › Section 1
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.
It is now a very dark time with respect to the interests of religion, and such a time as this prophesied of in this place; wherein their is but little faith, and a great prevailing of infidelity on the earth. There is now a remarkable fulfilment of that in 2 Pet. iii.3. "Knowing this, that there shall come in the last days scoffers, walking after their own lusts." So Jude, 17.18. "But beloved, remember ye the words which were spoken before of the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ; how that they told you there should be mockers in the last time, who should walk after their own ungodly lusts▪" Whether the times shall be any darker still, or how much darker, before the beginning of this glorious work of God, we cannot tell.
2. There is no reason from the word of God to think any other, ⟨p. 246⟩than that this great work of God will be wrought, though very swiftly, yet gradually. As the children of Israel were gradually brought out of the Babylonish captivity, first one company, and then another, and gradually rebuilt their city and temple; and as the Heathen Roman empire was destroyed by a gradual, though a very swift prevalency of the gospel; so, though there are many things which seem to hold forth as though the work of God would be exceeding swift, and many great and wonderful events should very suddenly be brought to pass, and some great parts of Satan's visible kingdom should have a very sudden fall, yet all will not be accomplished at once, as by some great miracle, as the resurrection of the dead at the end of the world will be all at once; but this is a work which will be accomplished by means, by the preaching of the gospel, and the use of the ordinary means of grace, and so shall be gradually brought to pass. Some shall be converted, and be the means of others conversion. God's Spirit shall be poured out first to raise up instruments, and then those instruments shall be used and succeeded. Doubtless one nation shall be enlightened and converted after another, one false religion and false way of worship exploded after another. By the representation in