April 14, 2008

• Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God

  Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God

  Jonathan Edwards (1703-1758)

  Enfield, Connecticut

  July 8, 1741

  “Their foot shall slide in due time”"

  Deuteronomy 32:35

  In this verse is threatened the vengeance of God on the wicked
  unbelieving Israelites, who were God’s visible people, and who lived
  under the means of grace; but who, notwithstanding all God’s wonderful
  works towards them, remained (as vers 28.) void of counsel, having no
  understanding in them. Under all the cultivations of heaven, they
  brought forth bitter and poisonous fruit; as in the two verses next
  preceding the text. — The expression I have chosen for my text, their foot shall slide in due time, seems to imply the following things, relating to the punishment and destruction to which these wicked Israelites were exposed.

  1. That they were always exposed 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
     72:18. “Surely thou didst set them in slippery places; thou castedst them down into destruction.”

  2. It implies, that they were always exposed to sudden unexpected
     destruction. 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!”

  3. Another thing implied is, that they are liable to fall of themselves,
     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.
  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 foor 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.

  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.

  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. Sometimes an earthly prince
     meets with a great deal of difficulty to subdue a rebel, who has found
     means to fortify himself, and has made himself strong by the numbers of
     his followers. But it is not so with God. There is no fortress that is
     any defence from 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 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?
  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 13:7. The
     sword of divine justice is every moment brandished over their heads,
     and it is 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 do not 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 3:18. “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 8:23. “Ye are from beneath:” And thither he is bound; it is the place that justice, and God’s word, and the sentence of his unchangeable law assign to him.
  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 bums against them, their
     damnation does not slumber; the pit is prepared, the fire is made
     ready, the fumace is now hot, ready to receive them; the flames do now
     rage and glow. The glittering sword is whet, and held over them, and
     the pit hath opened its mouth under them.

  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.
  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. 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, saying, “Hitherto shalt thou come, but no further;”
     but if God should withdraw that restraining power, it would soon carry
     all before it. Sin is the ruin and misery of the soul; it is
     destructive in its nature; and if God should leave it without
     restraint, there would need nothing else to make the soul perfectly
     miserable. The corruption of the heart of man is immoderate and
     boundless in its fury; and while wicked me 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
     fiery oven, or a furnace of fire and brimstone.
  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; the sharpest sight
     cannot discem them. God has so many different unsearchable ways of
     taking wicked men out of the world and sending them 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
     universally and absolutely subject to his power and determination, that
     it does not depend at all the 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, 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. 2:16. “How dieth the wise man? even as the fool.”
  9. All wicked men’s pains and contrivande 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; he depends upon himself for his own security; he flatters
     himself in what he has done, in what he is now doing, or what he
     intends to do. Every one lays out matters in his own mind how he shall
     avoid damnation, and flatters himself that he contrives well for
     himself, and that his schemes will not fail. They hear indeed that
     there are but few saved, and that the greater part of men that have
     died heretofore are gone to hell; but each one imagines that he lays
     out matters better for his own escape than others have done. He does
     not intend to come to that place of torment; he says within himself,
     that he intends to take effectual care, and to order matters so for
     himself as not to fail.

     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 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; I did not look for it at that time, and in that
     manner; it came as a thief — Death outwitted me: God’s wrath was too
     quick for me. Oh, my cursed foolishness! I was flattering myself, and
     pleasing myself with vain dreams of what I would do hereafter; and when
     I was saying, Peace and safety, then sudden destruction came upon me.”

  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.

  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.

  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 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.

  Application

  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
  take 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.

  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.

  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 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. 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.

  The bow of God’s wrath is bent, and the arrow made ready on the
  string, and justice bends 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 bom 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, 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.

  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.

  O sinner! Consider the fearful danger you are in: it is a great
  fumace 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,

  1. Whose wrath it is: it is the wrath of the infinite
     God. 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. 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.”
  2. It is the fierceness of his wrath that you are exposed to. We often read of the fury of God; as in Isa. 59:18. “According to their deeds, accordingly he will repay fury to his adversaries.” So Isa. 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 that must
     be! Who can utter or conceive what such expressions carry in them! 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!

     Consider this, you that are here present, that yet remain in an
     unregenerate 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
     fastly 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. 8:18. “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. God will have no other
     use to put you to, but to suffer misery; you shall be continued in
     being to no other end; for you will be a vessel of wrath fitted to
     destruction; and there will be no other use of this vessel, but to be
     filled full of wrath. God will be so far from pitying you when you cry
     to him, that it is said he will only “laugh and mock,” Prov. 1:25,26,&c.

     How awful 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, viz.
     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. 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.

  3. 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.
     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, Meshach, 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, endured 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 Zion are afraid; fearfulness hath surprised the
     hypocrites, ” &c.

     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. 66:23,24. “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?”

  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 bom 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
  hear all these things without much disturbance, and are now flattering
  themselves that they are not the persons, promising themselves that
  they shall escape. If we knew that there was one person, and but one,
  in the whole congregation, that was to be the subject of this misery,
  what an awful thing would it be to think of! If we knew who it was,
  what an awful sight would it be to see such a person! How might all the
  rest of the congregation lift up a lamentable and bitter cry over him!
  But, alas! instead of one, how many is it likely will remember this
  discourse in hell? And it would be a wonder, if some that are now
  present should not be in hell in a very short time, even before this
  year is out. 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 tomorrow 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. You have reason to wonder that you are not already in hell. It is
  doubtless the case of some whom you have seen and known, that never
  deserved hell more than you, and that heretofore appeared as likely to
  have been now alive as you. Their case is past all hope; they are
  crying in extreme misery and perfect despair; but 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!

  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?

  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 generaity 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?

  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 hearken to the loud calls of
  God’s word and providence. This acceptable year of the Lord, a day of
  such great favour to some, will doubtless be a day of as remarkable
  vengeance to others. Men’s hearts harden, and their guilt increases
  apace at such a day as this, if they neglect their souls; and never was
  there so great danger of such persons being given up to hardness of
  heart and blindness of mind. 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. If this should be the case with
  you, you will eternally curse this day, and will curse the day that
  ever you was born, to see such a season of the pouring out of God’s
  Spirit, and will wish that you had died and gone to hell before you had
  seen it. 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.

  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 Sodom: “Haste and escape for your lives, look not behind you, escape
  to the mountain, lest you be consumed.”

  • 9:24 am
  • 6 Comments