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Edwards's significance to LITR 4326 Early American Literature: |
Edwards's significance to LITR 5431 American Literature: Romanticism |
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Sinners & Personal Narrative
anticipate popular literary forms like the
gothic,
the
sublime,
the individual alone in anture, and comparisons of the self or soul to
natural phenomena. (All become popular with Romanticism in the late
1700s-early 1800s & ever since.) Classic example of sermon genre with which millions of America are familiar. Edwards as Fourth Generation of Puritan or New England history. 1st generation: Bradford, Of Plymouth Plantation (1620s-50s); Winthrop, Model of Christian Charity (1631). Utopian community based on covenant; heroic first generation of immigrant narrative; suffering redeemed for life of community, but members of community abandon Plymouth for western migration and material wealth. (Historical: church members required to "witness" personal salvation to congregation for church membership.) 2nd generation: Mary Rowlandson, Narrative of the Captivity (1682). Conscience over no comparable sufferings to first-generation. (Historical: "Half-Way Covenant," by which children of church members were accepted without personal witness to salvation experience.) 3rd generation: Cotton Mather, Wonders of the Invisible World (1692) + Salem Witch Trials. Church-community in fear of decline turns paranoid, finds evil in and persecutes its own people; religion loses prestige in face of Enlightenment science. (Salem Witch Trials as equivalent to religious warfare.) 4th generation: Jonathan Edwards, Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God (1741) + (First) Great Awakening. Attempt to revive original community and return "Children of Israel" to covenant in face of declining religious zeal and rise of secular materialism. Overall Puritans model USA dominant culture as English-speaking, literate, respectful of "founding" of society, perceptive of decline with prospect of revival. Sets in motion dialectic of spiritual idealism (revival) and secular materialism / scientific naturalism (ongoing). |
Romantics revere human will as heroic and self-determining, but Puritans (Calvinists, Reformed churches) believe human will is only a vain illusion obstructing perception of God's sovereign will. Original sin: people are not born innocent and pure but in a state of sin, from which God may redeem them. Significance: The Puritan attitude toward the human self or soul directly opposes Romantic suppositions of human innocence prior to social corruption. Whereas Romantics presumed that people—esp. children—are naturally good but "fall" into adulthood, Puritans think children have some chance of being saved by learning God's relation to them. Overall, Puritanism (or Calvinism or Reformed Christianity) is America's most sophisticated and rational theology, but its rationality, complexity, lack of finality, and community structure grow increasingly incompatible with the mystical, emotional, triumphal, individualistic Christianity that prevails with the Great Awakenings. Edwards appears as a writer caught between two worlds as he uses a proto-Romantic style to deliver a message that is not Romantic, trying to "save the system" by adapting it to an emotionalistic, individualistic vehicle. Theologically, the denominations that most resemble the Puritans theologically are older “mainline” denominations like the Presbyterians or the United Church of Christ (partly composed of Congregationalist churches founded by Puritans). These older historical American churches are often characterized as "cool" churches with a commitment to social and economic justice, in contrast to the "hot" churches of emergent evangelical denominations that emphasize individual salvation and the prosperity gospel.
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About Jonathan Edwards (1703-58)
Historical terms and conditions of Edwards’s
Sinners:
Edwards and this sermon were essential to the First Great Awakening in a series of Evangelical Protestant "Great Awakenings" throughout American cultural history.
The First Great Awakening occurred mainly
in New England and northern
Great Awakenings were revivals of religious & community feeling that partly reacted against the steady progress of modernization, esp. materialism, secularization, and the erosion of traditional communities. As today, people welcomed improved standards of living but felt threatened by growth, change, mobility, urbanization, science, technology, and other modern forces.
Edwards sought to revive earlier Puritan practices in opposition to the progressive secularism of the Enlightenment and changes to the original Puritan community. For instance, the first American Puritan churches required and convincing individual testimonies of personal salvation for membership, a practice Edwards wished to reinstate. Edwards’s and others’ efforts may be seen as an attempt to save the original religious community of New England, now more than a century old.
Edwards's and others' preaching drew wide attention and many converts. After preaching Sinners, however, Edwards attempted to reinstate earlier Puritan practices. To become full members of the church and take communion, for instance, townspeople were expected to testify to being born again before the congregation, a practice that had fallen into disuse.
However, Edwards's insistence on old-time religion and community eventually became threatening even to those who had supported him, and he was eventually asked to leave as minister at Northampton, Massachusetts. He later became minister to Stockbridge, Massachusetts, and a missionary to the Housatonic Indians. In 1758 he was appointed President of Princeton University, but died that same year from reaction to a smallpox vaccination.
The Great Awakenings may be seen as later phases of the Protestant Reformation. As with revival movements today, they demand churches to be constantly reformed or "born again" so they return to the ways of Christ's Apostles or other revered ancestors. Though Edwards’s Sinners holds to several traditional Puritan theological principles and styles, it is typical in some respects of virtually all Evangelical Protestant revivals:
Emotionalist, individualist religion—working
out "personal relationship" of fear and love between soul
and God
Dissatisfaction with contemporary
religious institutions and community leadership,
desire to return to earlier models.
Redemptive to convulsive social
behavior, often divisive, maybe analogous to birth—produces new
Protestant movements and denominations
.
Millennial or semi-apocalyptic
expectations of God's chastisement of sinners and
deliverance of believers.
Sinners in the Hands of an Angry
God
(1741)
[1] Their foot shall slide in due time--Deuteronomy 32:35 [Old Testament text on which the sermon comments]
[2] In this verse is threatened
the
vengeance of God on the wicked unbelieving Israelites, who were
God's visible people [as the
Puritans were to be God's visible
people in
[3] 1. That they were always exposed [vulnerable] to destruction; as one that stands or walks in slippery places is always exposed to fall. This is implied in the manner of their destruction coming upon them, being represented by their foot sliding. The same is expressed, Psalm 73:18. "Surely thou didst set them in slippery places; thou castedst them down into destruction."
[4] 2. It implies, that they were always exposed to sudden unexpected destruction [sublime]. As he that walks in slippery places is every moment liable to fall, he cannot foresee one moment whether he shall stand or fall the next; and when he does fall, he falls at once without warning: Which is also expressed in Psalm 73:18, 19. "Surely thou didst set them in slippery places; thou castedst them down into destruction: How are they brought into desolation as in a moment!"
[5] 3. Another thing implied is, that they are liable to fall of themselves [original sin predisposes humans thus], without being thrown down by the hand of another; as he that stands or walks on slippery ground needs nothing but his own weight to throw him down.
[6] 4. That the reason why they are not fallen already, and do not fall now, is only that God's appointed time is not come. For it is said, that when that due time, or appointed time comes, their foot shall slide. Then they shall be left to fall, as they are inclined by their own weight. God will not hold them up in these slippery places any longer, but will let them go; and then at that very instant, they shall fall into destruction; as he that stands on such slippery declining ground, on the edge of a pit, he cannot stand alone, when he is let go he immediately falls and is lost.
[7] The observation from the words that I would now insist upon is this. "There is nothing that keeps wicked men at any one moment out of hell, but the mere pleasure of God." By the mere pleasure of God, I mean his sovereign pleasure, his arbitrary will, restrained by no obligation, hindered by no manner of difficulty, any more than if nothing else but God's mere will had in the least degree, or in any respect whatsoever, any hand in the preservation of wicked men one moment. The truth of this observation may appear by the following considerations.
[8] 1. There is no want of power in God to cast wicked men into hell at any moment. Men's hands cannot be strong when God rises up. The strongest have no power to resist him, nor can any deliver out of his hands.—He is not only able to cast wicked men into hell, but he can most easily do it. . . . We find it easy to tread on and crush a worm that we see crawling on the earth; so it is 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? [sublime]
[9] 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
[10] 3. They are already under a sentence of condemnation to hell. . . . [E]very unconverted man properly belongs to hell; that is his place; from thence he is . . . and God's word, and the sentence of his unchangeable law assign to him.
[11] 4. 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 do not go down to hell at each moment, is not because God, in whose power they are, is not then very angry with them; as he is with many miserable creatures now tormented in hell, who 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, who it may be are at ease, than he is with many of those who are now in the flames of hell. So that it is not because God is unmindful of their wickedness, and does not resent it, that he does not let loose his hand and cut them off. God is not altogether such an one as themselves, though they may imagine him to be so. The wrath of God burns against them, their damnation does not slumber; the pit is prepared, the fire is made ready, the furnace is now hot, ready to receive them; the flames do now rage and glow. The glittering sword is whet [sharpened], and held over them, and the pit hath opened its mouth under them. [gothic & sublime]
[12] 5.
The devil stands ready to fall upon them, and seize them as
his own, at what moment God shall permit him. They belong to
him; he has their souls in his possession, and under his dominion. The scripture represents
them as his goods,
Luke 11:12. The
devils watch them; they are ever by them at their right hand; they
stand waiting for them, like greedy hungry lions that see their
prey, and expect to have it, but are for the present kept back.
If God should withdraw his hand, by which they are restrained,
they would in one moment fly upon their poor souls. The old
serpent is gaping for them; hell opens its mouth wide to receive
them; and
if God should
permit it, they would be hastily swallowed up and lost.
[sublime
as overwhelmed]
[13] 6. There are in the souls of wicked men those hellish principles reigning, that would presently kindle and flame out into hell fire, if it were not for God's restraints. There is laid in the very nature of carnal men, a foundation for the torments of hell. [<original sin] There are those corrupt principles, in reigning power in them, and in full possession of them, that are seeds of hell fire. These principles are active and powerful, exceeding violent in their nature, and if it were not for the restraining hand of God upon them, they would soon break out, they would flame out after the same manner as the same corruptions, the same enmity does in the hearts of damned souls, and would beget the same torments as they do in them. The souls of the wicked are in scripture compared to the troubled sea, Isa. 57:20. For the present, God restrains their wickedness by his mighty power, as he does the raging waves of the troubled sea . . . . The corruption of the heart of man is immoderate and boundless in its fury; and while wicked men live here, it is like fire pent up by God's restraints, whereas if it were let loose, it would set on fire the course of nature; and as the heart is now a sink of sin, so if sin was not restrained, it would immediately turn the soul into a fiery oven, or a furnace of fire and brimstone. [hell as proto-gothic]
[14] 7. It is no security to wicked men for one moment, that there are no visible means of death at hand. It is no security to a natural man, that he is now in health, and that he does not 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 this is no evidence, that a man is not on the very brink of eternity, and that the next step will not 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 will not bear their weight, and these places are not seen. The arrows of death fly unseen at noon-day . . . .
[15] 8.
Natural men's prudence and care to preserve their own lives, or
the care of others to preserve them, do not secure them a
moment. To this, divine providence and universal experience
do also bear testimony. 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? even as the fool."
[16] 9. All wicked men's pains and contrivance which they use to escape hell, while they continue to reject Christ, and so remain wicked men, do not secure them from hell one moment. Almost every natural man that hears of hell, flatters himself that he shall escape it . . . .
[17] But the foolish children of men miserably delude themselves in their own schemes, and in confidence in their own strength and wisdom; they trust to nothing but a shadow. The greater part of those who heretofore have lived under the same means of grace, and are now dead, are undoubtedly gone to hell; and it was not because they were not as wise as those who are now alive: it was not because they did not lay out matters as well for themselves to secure their own escape. If we could speak with them, and inquire of them, one by one, whether they expected, when alive, and when they used to hear about hell ever to be the subjects of that misery: we doubtless, should hear one and another reply, "No, I never intended to come here: I had laid out matters otherwise in my mind; I thought I should contrive well for myself: I thought my scheme good. I intended to take effectual care; but it came upon me unexpected . . . .
[18] 10. God has laid himself under no obligation, by any promise to keep any natural man out of hell one moment. God certainly has made no promises either of eternal life, or of any deliverance or preservation from eternal death, but what are contained in the covenant of grace, the promises that are given in Christ, in whom all the promises are yea and amen. But surely they have no interest in the promises of the covenant of grace who are not the children of the covenant, who do not believe in any of the promises, and have no interest in the Mediator of the covenant.
[19] So that, whatever some have imagined and pretended about promises made to natural men's earnest seeking and knocking, it is plain and manifest, that whatever pains a natural man takes in religion, whatever prayers he makes, till he believes in Christ, God is under no manner of obligation to keep him a moment from eternal destruction.
[20] So that, thus it is that natural men are held in the hand of God, over the pit of hell; they have deserved the fiery pit, and are already sentenced to it; and God is dreadfully provoked, his anger is as great towards them as to those that are actually suffering the executions of the fierceness of his wrath in hell, and they have done nothing in the least to appease or abate that anger, neither is God in the least bound by any promise to hold them up one moment; the devil is waiting for them, hell is gaping for them, the flames gather and flash about them, and would fain [want to] lay hold on them, and swallow them up; the fire pent up in their own hearts is struggling to break out: and they have no interest in any Mediator, there are no means within reach that can be any security to them. In short, they have no refuge, nothing to take hold of, all that preserves them every moment is the mere arbitrary will, and uncovenanted, unobliged forbearance of an incensed God. [gothic & sublime]
Application
[21] The use of this awful subject may be for awakening unconverted persons in this congregation. This that you have heard is the case of every one of you that are out of Christ.—That world of misery, that lake of burning brimstone, is extended abroad under you. There is the dreadful pit of the glowing flames of the wrath of God; there is hell's wide gaping mouth open; and you have nothing to stand upon, nor any thing to take hold of, there is nothing between you and hell but the air; it is only the power and mere pleasure of God that holds you up.
[22] You probably are not sensible of this; you find you are kept out of hell, but do not see the hand of God in it; but look at other things, as the good state of your bodily constitution, your care of your own life, and the means you use for your own preservation. But indeed these things are nothing; if God should withdraw his hand, they would avail no more to keep you from falling, than the thin air to hold up a person that is suspended in it.
[23] 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 for 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 does not willingly shine upon you to give you light to serve sin and Satan; the earth does not willingly yield her increase to satisfy your lusts; nor is it willingly a stage for your wickedness to be acted upon; the air does not 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 do not 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 black clouds of God's wrath now hanging directly over your heads, full of the dreadful storm, and big with thunder [gothic & sublime]; 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.
[24] [< sublime > ] 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. It is true, that judgment against your evil works 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 constantly 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 flood-gate, 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.
[25] [extended metaphor > ] The bow of God's wrath is bent, and the arrow made ready on the string, and justice bends [points] the arrow at your heart, and strains the bow, and it is nothing but the mere pleasure of God, and that of an angry God, without any promise or obligation at all, that keeps the arrow one moment from being made drunk with your blood. Thus all you that never passed under a great change of heart, by the mighty power of the Spirit of God upon your souls; all you that were never born again, and made new creatures, and raised from being dead in sin, to a state of new, and before altogether unexperienced light and life, are in the hands of an angry God. However you may have reformed your life in many things, and may have had religious affections, and may keep up a form of religion in your families and closets [rooms], and in the house of God, it is nothing but his mere pleasure that keeps you from being this moment swallowed up in everlasting destruction. However unconvinced you may now be of the truth of what you hear, by and by you will be fully convinced of it. Those that are gone from being in the like circumstances with you, see that it was so with them; for destruction came suddenly upon most of them; when they expected nothing of it, and while they were saying, Peace and safety: now they see, that those things on which they depended for peace and safety, were nothing but thin air and empty shadows.
[26] [gothic & sublime] The God that holds you over the pit of hell, much as one holds a spider, or some loathsome insect over the fire, abhors you, and is dreadfully provoked: his wrath towards you burns like fire; he looks upon you as worthy of nothing else, but to be cast into the fire; he is of purer eyes than to bear to have you in his sight; you are ten thousand times more abominable in his eyes, than the most hateful venomous serpent is in ours. You have offended him infinitely more than ever a stubborn rebel did his prince; and yet it is nothing but his hand that holds you from falling into the fire every moment. It is to be ascribed to nothing else, that you did not go to hell the last night; that you was suffered to awake again in this world, after you closed your eyes to sleep. And there is no other reason to be given, why you have not dropped into hell since you arose in the morning, but that God's hand has held you up. There is no other reason to be given why you have not gone to hell, since you have sat here in the house of God, provoking his pure eyes by your sinful wicked manner of attending his solemn worship. Yea, there is nothing else that is to be given as a reason why you do not this very moment drop down into hell.[27] O sinner! Consider the fearful danger you are in: it is a great furnace of wrath, a wide and bottomless pit, full of the fire of wrath, that you are held over in the hand of that God, whose wrath is provoked and incensed as much against you, as against many of the damned in hell. You hang by a slender thread, with the flames of divine wrath flashing about it, and ready every moment to singe it, and burn it asunder; and you have no interest in any Mediator, and nothing to lay hold of to save yourself, nothing to keep off the flames of wrath, nothing of your own, nothing that you ever have done, nothing that you can do, to induce God to spare you one moment. And consider here more particularly
[28] 1. Whose wrath it is: it is the wrath of the infinite God. [sublime!] If it were only the wrath of man, though it were of the most potent prince, it would be comparatively little to be regarded. The wrath of kings is very much dreaded, especially of absolute monarchs, who have the possessions and lives of their subjects wholly in their power, to be disposed of at their mere will. Prov. 20:2. "The fear of a king is as the roaring of a lion: Whoso provoketh him to anger, sinneth against his own soul." The subject that very much enrages an arbitrary prince, is liable to suffer the most extreme torments that human art can invent, or human power can inflict. But the greatest earthly potentates in their greatest majesty and strength, and when clothed in their greatest terrors, are but feeble, despicable worms of the dust, in comparison of the great and almighty Creator and King of heaven and earth [sublime] . It is but little that they can do, when most enraged, and when they have exerted the utmost of their fury. All the kings of the earth, before God, are as grasshoppers; they are nothing, and less than nothing: both their love and their hatred is to be despised. The wrath of the great King of kings, is as much more terrible than theirs, as his majesty is greater. Luke 12:4, 5. "And I say unto you, my friends, Be not afraid of them that kill the body, and after that, have no more that they can do. But I will forewarn you whom you shall fear: fear him, which after he hath killed, hath power to cast into hell: yea, I say unto you, Fear him."
[29] 2. It is the fierceness of his wrath that you are exposed to. We often read of the fury of God; as in Isaiah lix. 18. "According to their deeds, accordingly he will repay fury to his adversaries." So Isaiah 66:15. "For behold, the Lord will come with fire, and with his chariots like a whirlwind, to render his anger with fury, and his rebuke with flames of fire." And in many other places. So, Rev. 19:15, we read of "the wine press of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God." The words are exceeding terrible. If it had only been said, "the wrath of God," the words would have implied that which is infinitely dreadful: but it is "the fierceness and wrath of God." The fury of God! the fierceness of Jehovah! Oh, how dreadful must that be! Who can utter or conceive what such expressions carry in them! [the sublime] But it is also "the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God." As though there would be a very great manifestation of his almighty power in what the fierceness of his wrath should inflict, as though omnipotence should be as it were enraged, and exerted, as men are wont to exert their strength in the fierceness of their wrath. Oh! then, what will be the consequence! What will become of the poor worms that shall suffer it! Whose hands can be strong? And whose heart can endure? To what a dreadful, inexpressible, inconceivable depth of misery must the poor creature be sunk who shall be the subject of this!
[30] [sublime as use of hyperbole, extremes, inconceivable measures] Consider this, you that are here present, that yet remain in an unregenerate [God-forsaken] state. That God will execute the fierceness of his anger, implies, that he will inflict wrath without any pity. When God beholds the ineffable extremity of your case, and sees your torment to be so vastly disproportioned to your strength, and sees how your poor soul is crushed, and sinks down, as it were, into an infinite gloom; he will have no compassion upon you, he will not forbear the executions of his wrath, or in the least lighten his hand; there shall be no moderation or mercy, nor will God then at all stay his rough wind; he will have no regard to your welfare, nor be at all careful lest you should suffer too much in any other sense, than only that you shall not suffer beyond what strict justice requires. Nothing shall be withheld, because it is so hard for you to bear. Ezek. viii. 18. "Therefore will I also deal in fury: mine eye shall not spare, neither will I have pity; and though they cry in mine ears with a loud voice, yet I will not hear them." Now God stands ready to pity you; this is a day of mercy; you may cry now with some encouragement of obtaining mercy. But when once the day of mercy is past, your most lamentable and dolorous cries and shrieks will be in vain; you will be wholly lost and thrown away of God, as to any regard to your welfare. . . .
[31] How awful [awesome, terrifying] are those words, Isa. 63:3, which are the words of the great God. "I will tread them in mine anger, and will trample them in my fury, and their blood shall be sprinkled upon my garments, and I will stain all my raiment." It is perhaps impossible to conceive of words that carry in them greater manifestations of these three things, vis. contempt, and hatred, and fierceness of indignation. If you cry to God to pity you, he will be so far from pitying you in your doleful case, or showing you the least regard or favour, that instead of that, he will only tread you under foot. And though he will know that you cannot bear the weight of omnipotence treading upon you, yet he will not regard that, but he will crush you under his feet without mercy; he will crush out your blood, and make it fly, and it shall be sprinkled on his garments, so as to stain all his raiment [clothing]. He will not only hate you, but he will have you, in the utmost contempt: no place shall be thought fit for you, but under his feet to be trodden down as the mire of the streets.
[32] The misery you are exposed to is that which
God will inflict
to that
end, that he might show what that wrath of Jehovah is. God hath
had it on his heart to show to angels and men, both how
excellent his love is, and also how terrible his wrath is.
[altogether
sublime!]
Sometimes earthly kings have a mind to show how
terrible their wrath is, by the extreme punishments they would
execute on those that would provoke them. Nebuchadnezzar, that
mighty and haughty monarch of the Chaldean empire, was willing
to show his wrath when enraged with
Shadrach, Meshech, and Abednego; and accordingly gave orders
that the burning fiery
furnace should be heated seven times hotter than it was
before; doubtless, it was raised to the utmost degree of
fierceness that human art could raise it. But the great God is
also willing to show his wrath, and
magnify his awful majesty
and mighty power in the extreme sufferings of his enemies.
Rom. 9:22. "What if God, willing to show his wrath, and to make
his power known, endure with much long-suffering the vessels of
wrath fitted to destruction?" And seeing this is his design, and
what he has determined, even to show how terrible the
unrestrained wrath, the fury and fierceness of Jehovah is, he
will do it to effect. There will be something accomplished and
brought to pass that will be dreadful with a witness. When the
great and angry God hath risen up and executed his awful
vengeance on the poor sinner, and the wretch is actually
suffering the infinite weight and power of his indignation,
then will God call upon
the whole universe to behold that awful majesty and mighty power
that is to be seen in it. Isa. 33:12-14. "And the people shall
be as the burnings of lime, as thorns cut up shall they be burnt
in the fire. Hear ye that are far off, what I have done; and ye
that are near, acknowledge my might. The sinners in
[33] [sublime > ] Thus it will be with you that are in an unconverted state, if you continue in it; the infinite might, and majesty, and terribleness of the omnipotent God shall be magnified upon you, in the ineffable strength of your torments. You shall be tormented in the presence of the holy angels, and in the presence of the Lamb; and when you shall be in this state of suffering, the glorious inhabitants of heaven shall go forth and look on the awful spectacle, that they may see what the wrath and fierceness of the Almighty is; and when they have seen it, they will fall down and adore that great power and majesty. Isa. lxvi. 23, 24. "And it shall come to pass, that from one new moon to another, and from one sabbath to another, shall all flesh come to worship before me, saith the Lord. And they shall go forth and look upon the carcasses of the men that have transgressed against me; for their worm shall not die, neither shall their fire be quenched, and they shall be an abhorring unto all flesh." 4. It is everlasting wrath. It would be dreadful to suffer this fierceness and wrath of Almighty God one moment; but you must suffer it to all eternity. There will be no end to this exquisite horrible misery. When you look forward, you shall see a long for ever, a boundless duration before you, which will swallow up your thoughts, and amaze your soul; and you will absolutely despair of ever having any deliverance, any end, any mitigation, any rest at all. You will know certainly that you must wear out long ages, millions of millions of ages, in wrestling and conflicting with this almighty merciless vengeance; and then when you have so done, when so many ages have actually been spent by you in this manner, you will know that all is but a point to what remains. So that your punishment will indeed be infinite. Oh, who can express what the state of a soul in such circumstances is! All that we can possibly say about it, gives but a very feeble, faint representation of it; it is inexpressible and inconceivable: For "who knows the power of God's anger?"
[34] How dreadful is the state of those that are daily and hourly in the danger of this great wrath and infinite misery! But this is the dismal case of every soul in this congregation that has not been born again, however moral and strict, sober and religious, they may otherwise be. Oh that you would consider it, whether you be young or old! There is reason to think, that there are many in this congregation now hearing this discourse, that will actually be the subjects of this very misery to all eternity. We know not who they are, or in what seats they sit, or what thoughts they now have. It may be they are now at ease . . . . And it would be no wonder if some persons, that now sit here, in some seats of this meeting-house, in health, quiet and secure, should be there before to-morrow morning. Those of you that finally continue in a natural condition, that shall keep out of hell longest will be there in a little time! your damnation does not slumber; it will come swiftly, and, in all probability, very suddenly upon many of you. . . . [B]ut here you are in the land of the living and in the house of God, and have an opportunity to obtain salvation. What would not those poor damned hopeless souls give for one day's opportunity such as you now enjoy!
[35] And now you have an extraordinary opportunity, a day wherein Christ has thrown the door of mercy wide open, and stands in calling and crying with a loud voice to poor sinners; a day wherein many are flocking to him, and pressing into the kingdom of God. Many are daily coming from the east, west, north and south; many that were very lately in the same miserable condition that you are in, are now in a happy state, with their hearts filled with love to him who has loved them, and washed them from their sins in his own blood, and rejoicing in hope of the glory of God. How awful is it to be left behind at such a day! To see so many others feasting, while you are pining and perishing! To see so many rejoicing and singing for joy of heart, while you have cause to mourn for sorrow of heart, and howl for vexation of spirit! How can you rest one moment in such a condition? Are not your souls as precious as the souls of the people at Suffield*, where they are flocking from day to day to Christ? [*“The next neighbor town”—Edwards's note]
[36] Are there not many here who have lived long in the world, and are not to this day born again? and so are aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and have done nothing ever since they have lived, but treasure up wrath against the day of wrath? Oh, sirs, your case, in an especial manner, is extremely dangerous. Your guilt and hardness of heart is extremely great. Do you not see how generally persons of your years are passed over and left, in the present remarkable and wonderful dispensation of God's mercy? You had need to consider yourselves, and awake thoroughly out of sleep. You cannot bear the fierceness and wrath of the infinite God.—And you, young men, and young women, will you neglect this precious season which you now enjoy, when so many others of your age are renouncing all youthful vanities, and flocking to Christ? You especially have now an extraordinary opportunity; but if you neglect it, it will soon be with you as with those persons who spent all the precious days of youth in sin, and are now come to such a dreadful pass in blindness and hardness. And you, children, who are unconverted, do not you know that you are going down to hell, to bear the dreadful wrath of that God, who is now angry with you every day and every night? Will you be content to be the children of the devil, when so many other children in the land are converted, and are become the holy and happy children of the King of kings?
[37] And let every one that is yet out of Christ, and hanging over the pit of hell, whether they be old men and women, or middle aged, or young people, or little children, now harken to the loud calls of God's word and providence. . . . God seems now to be hastily gathering in his elect in all parts of the land; and probably the greater part of adult persons that ever shall be saved, will be brought in now in a little time, and that it will be as it was on the great out-pouring of the Spirit upon the Jews in the apostles' days; the election will obtain, and the rest will be blinded. . . . Now undoubtedly it is, as it was in the days of John the Baptist, the axe is in an extraordinary manner laid at the root of the trees, that every tree which brings not forth good fruit, may be hewn down and cast into the fire.
[38] Therefore, let every one that is out of
Christ, now awake and fly from the wrath to come. The wrath of
Almighty God is now undoubtedly hanging over a great part of
this congregation: Let every one fly out of
