Selected Sermons of Jonathan EdwardsEdwards, Jonathan
Religion
Selected Sermons of Jonathan Edwards
Edwards, Jonathan
Congregational churches -- Sermons; Edwards, Jonathan, 1703-1758; Sermons, American
(2) Consider when you die, if you have no mansion in the house of God in
heaven, you must have your place of abode in the habitation of devils.
There is no middle place between them, and when you go hence, you must go
to one or the other of these. Some have a mansion prepared for them in
heaven from the foundation [of the world]; others are sent away as cursed
into everlasting burnings prepared for the [devil and his angels].
Consider how miserable those must be that shall have their habitation with
devils to all eternity. Devils are foul spirits; God's great enemies.
Their habitation is the blackness of darkness; a place of the utmost
filthiness, abomination, darkness, disgrace and torment. O, how would you
rather ten thousand times have no place of abode at all, have no being,
than to have a place [with devils]!
(3) If you die unconverted, you will have the worse place in hell for
having had a seat or place in God's house in this world. As there are
many mansions, places of different degrees of honor in heaven, so there
are various abodes and places or degrees of torment and misery in hell;
and those will have the worst place there that [dying unconverted, have
had the best place in God's house here]. Solomon speaks of a peculiarly
awful sight that he had seen, that of a wicked man buried that had gone
[from the place of the holy], Eccl. viii. 10. Such as have had a seat in
God's house, have been in a sense exalted up to heaven, set on the gate of
heaven, [if they die unconverted, shall be] cast down to hell.
2. The second exhortation that I would offer from what has been said is to
seek a high place in heaven. Seeing there are many mansions of different
degrees of honor and dignity in heaven, let us seek to obtain a mansion of
distinguished glory. 'Tis revealed to us that there are different degrees
of glory to that end that we might seek after the higher degrees. God
offered high degrees of glory to that end, that we might seek them by
eminent holiness and good works: 2 Cor. ix. 6, "He that sows sparingly
[shall reap also sparingly; and he that soweth bountifully shall reap also
bountifully]." It is not becoming persons to be over anxious about an high
seat in God's house in this world, for that is the honor that is of men;
but we can't too earnestly seek after an high seat in God's house above,
by seeking eminent holiness, for that is the honor that is of God.
'Tis very little worth the while for us to pursue after honor in this
world, where the greatest honor is but a bubble and will soon vanish away,
and death will level all. Some have more stately houses than others, and
some are in higher office than others, and some are richer than others and
have higher seats in the meeting-house than others; but all graves are
upon a level. One rotting, putrefying corpse is as ignoble as another; the
worms are as bold with one carcass as another.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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