Anyway, a major component of that sermon is that it is of God's mercies that we are not consumed (or maybe that was a major part of Jeremiah's sermon in Lam. 3...). And, that is the truth. We truly are sinners in the hands of an angry God, but God be praised that Jesus has become sin for us, that He has reconciled us to God in order to avoid God's wrath!
So, I had gone online to search for Edwards' sermon to look at it, and came across The Jonathan Edwards Center at Yale University. In introducting that sermon, they have written, "For better or worse, the sermon for which Edwards is probably most famous—or infamous—is the one preached to the congregation of Enfield, Massachusetts (later Connecticut) in July 1741." Immediately, I sensed a negative tone towards it: "better or worse" "famous-or infamous..." So, I continued reading, "Sinners, represents in many persons' minds the bleak, cruel, and hell-bent outlook of Edwards and his Puritan predecessors." Now, what would make them think that Edwards was 'hell-bent?'
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.
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?
I wonder if Edwards was too hard for some of them and they wanted to present a softer picture of him...
3 comments:
thats almost always the case with people today. they look at his sermon and pick out the hardest parts to hear, like the parts you provided or the part where he says "wicked men are like spiders on a web over the pit of hell and the only thing keeping them from falling through is the mercy of God" (my paraphrase). so they will look at that and call him hell bent, the thing they never do is ask why he talked that way. why did he bring up these topics and why did it bring about the biggest revival of u.s. history? they really do not care cuz they just want to paint him out to be some "morose misanthrope"(piper quote).
Anytime you mention numbers you draw me in. This anniversary is also significant to us as Gentiles. Why? 266 divided by 14 is 19, 1 plus 9 is 10 - the Gentile number!
I love it, Alex!
Imagine that a number divisible by twice completion - and then multipled by the number of the Gentiles... I think maybe Edwards might have been predicting the rapture = the double completion (aka the fulness) of the Gentiles! Could it be?!
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