SINNERS IN THE HANDS OF AN ANGRY GOD
by the
Reverend Jonathan Edwards
A Sermon Preached
at
At a Time of Great Awakenings, and Attended with Remarkable
Impressions on many of the Hearers.
“Their foot shall slide in due time.”
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 Deuteronomy
32:28.) 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, “Surely thou
didst set them in slippery places; thou castedst them
down into destruction. (Psalm 63:18)”
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 “Surely thou didst set them
in slippery places; thou castedst them down into
destruction: How are they brought into desolation as in a moment?” (Psalm
73:18-19)
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
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.
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.
a. 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 defense 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?
b. 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
c. 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. “He that
believeth not is condemned already. ”(John 3:18)
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.
d. 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, and held over them, and the pit
hath opened its mouth under them.
e. 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.
f. 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, (Isaiah 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 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 fiery oven, or a furnace of
fire and brimstone.
g. 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 discern 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.
h. 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? “How dieth the wise man? even
as the fool.” (Ecclesiastes
2:16.)
i.
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; 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.”
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 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.
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
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, 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 were 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 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,
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. “The fear of a king is as
the roaring of a lion: Whoso provoketh him to anger, sinneth against his own soul. (Proverbs 20:2)
” 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. “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. (Luke 12:4-5)”
2. It is the fierceness of
his wrath that you are exposed to. We often read of the fury of God; as in
“According to their deeds, accordingly he will repay fury to his adversaries. (Isaiah 59:18)
” So “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. (Isaiah 66:15)”
And in many other places. So, we read of “the wine press of the
fierceness and wrath of Almighty God. (Revelation
19:15)” 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 worm 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 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. “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. (Ezekiel 8:18)”
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, (Proverbs
1:25-26), etc. ” How awful
are those words, 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. (Isaiah 63:3)
” 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
favor, 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, 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. “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? (Romans 9:22)
” 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. “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
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. “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. (Isaiah
66:23-24)”
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 forever,
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 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 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
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
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 favor 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