sinners are not immediately cast into hell; but the reason assigned is not the mercy or goodness or love of God, but His mere power and sovereign pleasure. This is one aspect of the truth of the spiritual universe as Edwards sees it. He is not a sentimentalist; he proclaims the truth as he finds it. As far as Edwards himself is concerned, there is nothing in the whole sermon, or in any of his "imprecatory" sermons, so called, half as revolting as Dante's attitude towards sinners in hell. Take, for instance, the case of Filippo Argenti in the Lake of Mud (_Inferno_, Canto viii.): "'Master, I should much like to see him ducked in this broth before we depart from the lake.' And he to me, 'Ere the shore allows thee to see it thou shalt be satisfied; it will be fitting that thou enjoy such a desire.' After this a little I saw such rending of him by the muddy folk that I still praise God therefor, and thank Him for it. All cried, 'At Filippo Argenti!' and the raging Florentine spirit turned upon himself with his teeth." 89. =The God that holds you ... drop down into hell.= This is probably the best remembered paragraph in this all too well remembered sermon. Comparison with the original manuscript shows some interesting variants from the printed text, and at the same time gives evidence of the deliberateness with which the sentences were wrought out with reference to their calculated effect. For both reasons the passage is here reproduced as written. "You are over the pit of hell in Gods hand very much as one holds a spider or some loathsome Insect over the fire & 'tis nothing but for God to let you go & you fall in." (Here follow four undecipherable lines, which apparently, however, do not belong in this connection. The passage then continues on the next page of the Ms.) "& this G. that thus holds you in his hand is very angry with you & dreadfully provoked. ____ his wrath burns like fire. ____ you are lothsome and hatefull in his eyes & and worthy to be burnt--he looks upon you as worthy of nothing else but to be cast into the fire you are ten thous. times more loathsome in his eyes than the most noisome insect in the eyes of us men ____ & you have offended him a thous. times so much as ever an obstinate rebel did his prince. ____ & yet you are in his hands & tis nothing at all but his mere pleasure that he keeps you from falling into hell every moment ____ there is no other reason to be given why you did not go to hell last night why you did not wake up in hell after you had closed your eyes to sleep & there is no other reason to be given why you have [not] drop'd since you rose in the morning ____ yea since you sit on here in the house of G. Provoking his pure Eyes by your sinfull wicked manner of attending his Holy worship ____ Yea there is nothing else to be given as the Reason why you don't this very moment drop down into hell."