Memoirs of Jonathan Edwards in Vol I of the Works - XXIII - Chapter 23

Required reading
Memoirs of Jonathan Edwards in Volume I of the Works by Jonathan Edwards (Available from Amazon or free here) - Read Chapter 23.

My summary.

This week we hear about:

(i) Edwards' severe attack of ague and fever;

(ii) Edwards' dissertations on the End for which God created the World and the Nature of True Virtue;

(iii) the war of 1754 with France and its consequences at Stockbridge;

(iv) Mr Hawley and Mr Brainerd's work with the Indians;

(v) Edwards's Treatise on Original sin;

(vi) further opinion from Edwards regarding morality and liberty of the will.

What grabbed me

I appreciated Edwards' comments about the inability of man to repent: 'Fears of hell tend to convince men of the hardness of their hearts. But then, when they find how hard their hearts are, and how far from a proper sensibility and affection in things of religion; they are kept from properly condemning themselves for it, from the moral necessity, or inability, which attends it. For the very notion of hardness of heart implies moral inability. The harder the heart is, the more dead is it in sin, and the more unable to exert good affections and acts. Thus the strength of sin is made the excuse for sin. And thus I have known many under fears of hell, justifying, or excusing, themselves, at least implicitly, in horrid workings of enmity against God, in blasphemous thoughts, &c.'

Fear of hell does not bring about change in a man's life.  A new heart is required!

Next week's reading
Read Chapter 24.

Now it's your turn
Please post your own notes and thoughts in the comments section below.