N37435:122
The justice of God in the damnation of sinners. Illustrated in a sermon
The justice of God in the damnation of sinners. Illustrated in a sermon. : To which is added a farewell sermon; by Jonathan Edwards, A.M. Delivered at Northampton, June 22d, 1750. After the people's public rejection of him as their minister, and renouncing their relation to him as pastor of the church.
Northampton: printed by Daniel Wright & Co for Simeon Butler, 1797
Title page typeset from the transcription.
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.
Thus I have proposed some things to your consideration, which, if you are not exceeding blind, senseless, and perverse, will stop your month, and convince you that you stand justly condemned before God, and that he would in no wise deal hardly with you, but altogether justly, in denying you any mercy, and in refusing to hear your prayers, let you pray never so earnestly, and never so often, and continue in it never so long; and that God may utterly disregard your tears and moans, your heavy heart, your earnest desires, and great endeavours; and that he may ⟨p. 73⟩cast you into eternal destruction, without any regard to your welfare, denying you converting grace, and giving you over to Satan, and at last cast you into the lake that burns with fire and brimstone, to be there to eternity, having no rest day nor night, for ever glorifying his justice upon you, in the presence of the holy angels, and the presence of the Lamb.
Object. But here many may still object, (for I am sensible it is an hard thing to stop sinners mouth's,) "God shows mercy to others that have done these things as well as I, yea, that have done a great deal worse than I."
Object. But here many may still object, (for I am sensible it is an hard thing to stop sinners mouth's,) "God shews mercy to others that have done these things as well as I, yea, that have done a great deal worse than I."
Ans. 1. That does not prove that God is any way bound to show mercy to you, or them either. If God does bestow it on others, he does not bestow it on them because he is bound to bestow it: He might if he had pleased, with glorious justice, have denied it them. If God bestows it on some, that does not prove that he is bound to bestow it on any; and if he is bound to bestow it on none, then he is not bound to bestow it on you. God is in debt to none; and if he gives to some that he is not in debt to, because it is his pleasure, that does not bring him into debt to others. It alters not the case as to you at all, whether others have it or have it not: You do not deserve damnation the less, than if mercy never had been bestowed on