September 5, 2019

Five discourses on the soul's eternal salvation in Vol I of the Works - Edwards - XII - Fourth discourse concluded


Required reading
Five discourses on the soul's eternal salvation in Vol I of the Works by Jonathan Edwards - (Available from Amazon or free here) - Conclude the Fourth Discourse (The justice of God).

My summary
Today we conclude the fourth discourse on "That every mouth may be stopped" (Rom. 3:19) by reading the application.

Edwards chiefly directs himself to sinners. 

Firstly, he directs sinners to be convicted of their sin by looking their past life and inquiring at the mouth of conscience and hearing what that has to testify concerning it.

Secondly, Edwards directs sinners to consider, if God should eternally reject and destroy them, what an agreeableness and exact mutual answerableness there would be between God so dealing with them, and their spirit and behaviour.  This is shown by the fact:
1. That if God should eternally destroy you, it would be agreeable to your treatment of God;
2. That it would be agreeable to your treatment of Jesus Christ;
3. That it would be agreeable to your behaviour towards your neighbours;
4. That it would be according to your own foolish behaviour towards yourself.

What grabbed me
A most convicting reading.

I particularly appreciated this answer to the charge that God doesn't answer our prayers: 'Consider how often you have refused to hear God's calls to you, and how just it would therefore be, if he should refuse to hear you when you call upon him. You are ready, it may be, to complain that you have often prayed, and earnestly begged of God to show you mercy, and yet have no answer of prayer: One says, I have been constant in prayer for so many years, and God has not heard me. Another says, I have done what I can; I have prayed as earnestly as I am able; I do not see how I can do more; and it will seem hard if after all I am denied. But do you consider how often God has called, and you have denied him? God has called earnestly and for a long time; he has called and called again in his word, and in his providence, and you have refused. You was not uneasy for fear you should not show regard enough to his calls. You let him call as loud and as long as he would; for your part, you had no leisure to attend to what he said; you had other business to mind; you had these and those lusts to gratify and please, and worldly concerns to attend; you could not afford to stand considering of what God had to say to you. When the ministers of Christ have stood and pleaded with you, in his name, sabbath after sabbath, and have even spent their strength in it, how little was you moved! It did not alter you, but you went on still as you used to do; when you went away, you returned again to your sins, to your lasciviousness, to your vain mirth, to your covetousness, to your intemperance, and that has been the language of your heart and practice, Exod. v. 2. "Who is the Lord, that I should obey his voice?" Was it no crime for you to refuse to hear when God called? And yet is it now very hard that God does not hear your earnest calls, and that though your calling on God be not from any respect to him, but merely from self-love? The devil would beg as earnestly as you, if he had any hope to get salvation by it, and a thousand times as earnestly, and yet be as much of a devil as he is now. Are your calls more worthy to be heard than God's? Or is God more obliged to regard what you say to him, than you to regard his commands, counsels, and invitations to you? What can be more justice than this, Prov. i. 24, &c. " Because I have called, and ye refused, I have stretched out my hand, and no man regarded; but ye have set at nought all my counsel, and would none of my reproof: I will also laugh at your calamity, I will mock when your fear cometh; when your fear cometh as desolation, and your destruction cometh as a whirlwind; when distress and anguish cometh upon you. Then shall they call upon me, but I will not answer; they shall seek me early, but they shall not find me."'

How often has God called on us and we haven't responded? Our hypocrisy is most certain.

Next week's reading
Commence the Fifth Discourse (The excellency of Christ) by reading up to the Application.

Now it's your turn

Please post your own notes and thoughts in the comments section below. 
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