Selected Sermons of Jonathan EdwardsEdwards, Jonathan
Religion
Selected Sermons of Jonathan Edwards
Edwards, Jonathan
Congregational churches -- Sermons; Edwards, Jonathan, 1703-1758; Sermons, American
Your wickedness makes you as it were heavy as lead, and to tend downwards
with great weight and pressure towards hell; and if God should let you go,
you would immediately sink and swiftly descend and plunge into the
bottomless gulf, and your healthy constitution, and your own care and
prudence, and best contrivance, and all your righteousness, would have no
more influence to uphold you and keep you out of hell than a spider's web
would have to stop a falling rock. Were it not that so is the sovereign
pleasure of God, the earth would not bear you one moment; for you are a
burden to it; the creation groans with you; the creature is made subject
to the bondage of your corruption, not willingly; the sun don't willingly
shine upon you to give you light to serve sin and Satan; the earth don't
willingly yield her increase to satisfy your lusts; nor is it willingly a
stage for your wickedness to be acted upon; the air don't willingly serve
you for breath to maintain the flame of life in your vitals, while you
spend your life in the service of God's enemies. God's creatures are good,
and were made for men to serve God with, and don't willingly subserve to
any other purpose, and groan when they are abused to purposes so directly
contrary to their nature and end. And the world would spew you out, were
it not for the sovereign hand of him who hath subjected it in hope. There
are the black clouds of God's wrath now hanging directly over your heads,
full of the dreadful storm, and big with thunder; and were it not for the
restraining hand of God, it would immediately burst forth upon you. The
sovereign pleasure of God, for the present, stays his rough wind;
otherwise it would come with fury, and your destruction would come like a
whirlwind, and you would be like the chaff of the summer threshing floor.
The wrath of God is like great waters that are dammed for the present;
they increase more and more, and rise higher and higher, till an outlet is
given; and the longer the stream is stopped, the more rapid and mighty is
its course, when once it is let loose. 'Tis true, that judgment against
your evil work has not been executed hitherto; the floods of God's
vengeance have been withheld; but your guilt in the mean time is
constantly increasing, and you are every day treasuring up more wrath; the
waters are continually rising, and waxing more and more mighty; and there
is nothing but the mere pleasure of God that holds the waters back, that
are unwilling to be stopped, and press hard to go forward. If God should
only withdraw his hand from the floodgate, it would immediately fly open,
and the fiery floods of the fierceness and wrath of God would rush forth
with inconceivable fury, and would come upon you with omnipotent power;
and if your strength were ten thousand times greater than it is, yea, ten
thousand times greater than the strength of the stoutest, sturdiest devil
in hell, it would be nothing to withstand or endure it.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account