Selected Sermons of Jonathan EdwardsEdwards, Jonathan
Religion
Selected Sermons of Jonathan Edwards
Edwards, Jonathan
Congregational churches -- Sermons; Edwards, Jonathan, 1703-1758; Sermons, American
7. It is no security to wicked men for one moment, that there are no
_visible means of death_ at hand. 'Tis no security to a natural man, that
he is now in health, and that he don't see which way he should now
immediately go out of the world by any accident, and that there is no
visible danger in any respect in his circumstances. The manifold and
continual experience of the world in all ages shows that this is no
evidence that a man is not on the very brink of eternity, and that the
next step won't be into another world. The unseen, unthought of ways and
means of persons' going suddenly out of the world are innumerable and
inconceivable. Unconverted men walk over the pit of hell on a rotten
covering, and there are innumerable places in this covering so weak that
they won't bear their weight, and these places are not seen. The arrows of
death fly unseen at noonday; the sharpest sight can't discern them. God
has so many different, unsearchable ways of taking wicked men out of the
world and sending 'em to hell, that there is nothing to make it appear
that God had need to be at the expense of a miracle, or go out of the
ordinary course of his providence, to destroy any wicked man, at any
moment. All the means that there are of sinners' going out of the world
are so in God's hands, and so absolutely subject to his power and
determination, that it don't depend at all less on the mere will of God,
whether sinners shall at any moment go to hell, than if means were never
made use of, or at all concerned in the case.
8. Natural men's _prudence_ and _care_ to preserve their own _lives_, or
the care of others to preserve them, don't secure 'em a moment. This,
divine providence and universal experience does also bear testimony to.
There is this clear evidence that men's own wisdom is no security to them
from death; that if it were otherwise we should see some difference
between the wise and politic men of the world and others, with regard to
their liableness to early and unexpected death; but how is it in fact?
Eccles. ii. 16, "How dieth the wise man? As the fool."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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