Selected Sermons of Jonathan EdwardsEdwards, Jonathan
Religion
Selected Sermons of Jonathan Edwards
Edwards, Jonathan
Congregational churches -- Sermons; Edwards, Jonathan, 1703-1758; Sermons, American
He is not only able to cast wicked men into hell, but he can most easily
do it. Sometimes an earthly prince meets with a great deal of difficulty
to subdue a rebel that has found means to fortify himself, and has made
himself strong by the number of his followers. But it is not so with God.
There is no fortress that is any defence against the power of God. Though
hand join in hand, and vast multitudes of God's enemies combine and
associate themselves, they are easily broken in pieces: they are as great
heaps of light chaff before the whirlwind; or large quantities of dry
stubble before devouring flames. We find it easy to tread on and crush a
worm that we see crawling on the earth; so 'tis easy for us to cut or
singe a slender thread that any thing hangs by; thus easy is it for God,
when he pleases, to cast his enemies down to hell. What are we, that we
should think to stand before him, at whose rebuke the earth trembles, and
before whom the rocks are thrown down!
2. They _deserve_ to be cast into hell; so that divine justice never
stands in the way, it makes no objection against God's using his power at
any moment to destroy them. Yea, on the contrary, justice calls aloud for
an infinite punishment of their sins. Divine justice says of the tree that
brings forth such grapes of Sodom, "Cut it down, why cumbereth it the
ground?" Luke xiii. 7. The sword of divine justice is every moment
brandished over their heads, and 'tis nothing but the hand of arbitrary
mercy, and God's mere will, that holds it back.
3. They are _already_ under a sentence of condemnation to hell. They don't
only justly deserve to be cast down thither, but the sentence of the law
of God, that eternal and immutable rule of righteousness that God has
fixed between him and mankind, is gone out against them, and stands
against them; so that they are bound over already to hell: John iii. 18,
"He that believeth not is condemned already." So that every unconverted
man properly belongs to hell; that is his place; from thence he is: John
viii. 23, "Ye are from beneath:" and thither he is bound; 'tis the place
that justice, and God's word, and the sentence of his unchangeable law,
assigns to him.
They are now the objects of that very _same_ anger and wrath of God, that
is expressed in the torments of hell: and the reason why they don't go
down to hell at each moment is not because God, in whose power they are,
is not then very angry with them; as angry as he is with many of those
miserable creatures that he is now tormenting in hell, and do there feel
and bear the fierceness of his wrath. Yea, God is a great deal more angry
with great numbers that are now on earth, yea, doubtless, with many that
are now in this congregation, that, it may be, are at ease and quiet, than
he is with many of those that are now in the flames of hell.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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