Jonathan Edwards

“Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God”

-Their foot shall slide in due time.-

[1] In this verse is threatned the vengeance of God on the wicked unbelieving Israelites, that were
God’s visible people, and lived under means of grace; and that, notwithstanding all God’s wonderful
works that he had wrought towards that people, yet remained, as is expressed, ver. 28. void of
counsel, having no understanding in them; and that, under all the cultivations of heaven, brought
forth bitter and poisonous fruit; as in the two verses next preceeding the text.

[2] The expression that 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 that these wicked Israelites were
exposed to.

[3] 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’s coming upon them,
being represented by their foot’s sliding. The same is express’d, Psal. 73. 18. Surely thou didst set
them in slippery places; thou castedst them down into destruction.

[4] 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 can’t 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 that Psal. 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?

[5] 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.

[6] 4. That the reason why they are not fallen already, and don’t 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 won’t
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 in such slippery declining ground on the edge of a
pit that he can’t stand alone, when he is let go he immediately falls and is lost.

[7] The observation from the words that I would now insist upon is this,

[8] There is nothing that keeps wicked men, at any one moment, out of hell, but the meer pleasure of
GOD.

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[9] By the meer pleasure of God, I mean his sovereign pleasure, his arbitrary will, restrained by no
obligation, hinder’d 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.

[10] The truth of this observation may appear by the following considerations.

[11] 1. There is no want of power in God to cast wicked men into hell at any moment. Mens hands
can’t be strong when God rises up: The strongest have no power to resist him, nor can any deliver
out of his hands.

[12] 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, that 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. Tho’ 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 ’tis easy for us to cut of 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?

[13] 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 cumbreth it the ground, Luk. 13. 7. The sword of divine
justice is every moment brandished over their heads, and ’tis nothing but the hand of arbitrary
mercy, and God’s meer will, that holds it back.

[14] 3. They are already under a sentence of condemnation to hell. They don’t 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.
Joh. 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. Joh 8. 23. Ye are from beneath. And thither he is
bound; ’tis the place that justice, and God’s word, and the sentence of his unchangeable law assigns
to him.

[15] 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 don’t go down to hell at each moment, is not because God,
in whose power they are, is not then very angry with them; as angry as he is with many of those
miserable creatures that he is now tormenting in hell, and do 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, that it may be are at ease and quiet, than he
is with many of those that are now in the flames of hell.

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[16] So that it is not because God is unmindful of their wickedness, and don’t resent it, that he don’t
let loose his hand and cut them off. God is not altogether such an one as themselves, tho’ they may
imagine him to be so. The wrath of God burns against them, their damnation don’t 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 her mouth
under them.

[17] 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, Luk. 11. 21. 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.

[18] 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, and 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 in ‘em as they do in them. The souls of the wicked are in Scripture compared to the
troubled sea, Isai. 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, and no further; but if
God should withdraw that restraining power, it would soon carry all afore 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
a thing that is immoderate and boundless in its fury; and while wicked men live here, it is like fire
pent up by God’s restraints, whenas 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 restrain’d, it would immediately turn the soul into
a fiery oven, or a furnace of fire and brimstone.

[19] 7. It is no security to wicked men for one moment, that there are no visible means of death at
hand. ‘Tis no security to a natural man, that he is now in health, and that he don’t 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,
shews that this is no evidence that a man is not on the very brink of eternity, and that the next step
won’t 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 won’t bear
their weight, and these places are not seen. The arrows of death fly unseen at noon-day; the
sharpest sight can’t discern them. God has so many different unsearchable ways of taking wicked

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men out of the world and sending ‘em 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 absolutely subject to his power and determination, that it
don’t depend at all less on the meer 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.

[20] 8. Natural men’s prudence and care to preserve their own lives, or the care of others to
preserve them, don’t secure ‘em a moment. This divine providence and universal experience does
also bear testimony to. 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 politick
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? as the fool.

[21] 9. All wicked men’s pains and contrivance they use to escape hell, while they continue to reject
Christ, and so remain wicked men, don’t secure ‘em 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 won’t fail. They hear indeed that there are but
few saved, and that the bigger 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 don’t intend
to come to that place of torment; he says within himself, that he intends to take care that shall be
effectual, and to order matters so for himself as not to fail.

[22] But the foolish children of men do miserably delude themselves in their own schemes, and in
their confidence in their own strength and wisdom; they trust to nothing but a shadow. The bigger
part of those that 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 that are now alive:
it was not because they did not lay out matters as well for themselves to secure their own escape. If
it were so, that we could come to speak with them, and could 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 that
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 my self; 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; O my cursed foolishness! I was flattering my self, and pleasing my self with vain dreams of
what I would do hereafter, and when I was saying peace and safety, then sudden destruction came
upon me.”

[23] 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

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the promises of the covenant of grace that are not the children of the covenant, and that don’t
believe in any of the promises of the covenant, and have no interest in the mediator of the covenant.

[24] So that whatever some have imagined and pretended about promises made to natural men’s
earnest seeking and knocking, ’tis 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.

[25] 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 ‘em 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 meer
arbitrary will, and uncovenanted unobliged forbearance of an incensed God.

APPLICATION.

[26] The use may be of awakening to 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; ’tis only the power and
meer pleasure of God that holds you up.

[27] You probably are not sensible of this; you find you are kept out of hell, but don’t 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.

[28] 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 that so is 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 don’t willingly shine upon you to give you light to serve sin and
Satan; the earth don’t willingly yield her increase to satisfy your lusts; nor is it willingly a stage for
your wickedness to be acted upon; the air don’t 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

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good, and were made for men to serve God with, and don’t 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 spue 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.

[29] 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 stop’d, the more
rapid and mighty is its course, when once it is let loose. ‘Tis true, that judgment against your evil
works has not been executed hitherto; the floods of God’s vengeance have been with-held; but your
guilt in the mean time is constantly increasing, and you are every day treasuring up more wrath;
the waters are continually rising and waxing more and more mighty; and there is nothing but the
meer 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.

[30] 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 meer 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.

[31] Thus are all you that never passed under a great change of heart, by the mighty power of the
SPIRIT of GOD upon your souls; all 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,
(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, and may be
strict in it,) you are thus in the hands of an angry God; ’tis nothing but his meer pleasure that keeps
you from being this moment swallowed up in everlasting destruction.

[32] 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 that they
depended on for peace and safety, were nothing but thin air and empty shadows.

[33] 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 so abominable in his eyes as the most

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hateful venomous serpent is in ours. You have offended him infinitely more than ever a stubborn
rebel did his prince: and yet ’tis nothing but his hand that holds you from falling into the fire every
moment: ‘Tis to be ascribed to nothing else, that you did not go to hell the last night; that you was
suffer’d 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 han’t 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
don’t this very moment drop down into hell.

[34] O sinner! Consider the fearful danger you are in: ‘Tis 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.

[35] And consider here more particularly several things concerning that wrath that you are in such
danger of.

[36] 1. Whose wrath it is: It is the wrath of the infinite GOD. If it were only the wrath of man, tho’ 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, that have the possessions and lives of their
subjects wholly in their power, to be disposed of at their meer 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 their’s, 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 ye shall fear; fear him, which after he hath killed, hath power to cast into hell; yea I say unto
you, fear him.

[37] 2. ‘Tis the fierceness of his wrath that you are exposed to. We often read of the fury of God; as in
Isai. 59. 18.According to their deeds, accordingly he will repay fury to his adversaries. So Isai. 66.
15. For behold, the Lord will come with fire, and with chariots like a whirlwind, to render his anger
with fury, and his rebukes with flames of fire. And so in many other places. So we read of
God’s fierceness. Rev. 19. 15. There we read of the winepress 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 ’tis not only said so, but the fierceness and wrath

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of God: the fury of God! the fierceness of Jehovah! Oh how dreadful must that be! Who can utter or
conceive what such expressions carry in them! But it is not only said so, but the fierceness and wrath
of ALMIGHTY GOD. As tho’ there would be a very great manifestation of his almighty power, in what
the fierceness of his wrath should inflict, as tho’ 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 endure? To what a dreadful, inexpressible, inconceivable depth of misery
must the poor creature be sunk, who shall be the subject of this!

[38] 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 disproportion’d
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 with held, because it’s 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 tho’ 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 only 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 only to be filled full of wrath:
God will be so far from pitying you when you cry to him, that ’tis said he will only laugh and mock,
Prov. 1. 25, 26, etc.

[39] How awful are those words, Isai. 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. ‘Tis 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’ll only tread you under foot: And tho’
he will know that you can’t bear the weight of omnipotence treading upon you, yet he won’t regard
that, but he will crush you under his feet without mercy; he’ll 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.

[40] 3. The misery you are exposed to is that which God will inflict to that end, that he
might shew what that wrath of JEHOVAH is. God hath had it on his heart to shew 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

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that provoke ‘em. 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 order that the burning fiery furnace should be het 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 shew 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 shew 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, to shew how terrible the unmixed, 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. Isai. 33. 12, 13,
14. And the people shall be as the burning 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 etc.

[41] 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. Isai. 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.

[42] 4. ‘Tis 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; ’tis inexpressible and inconceivable: for who knows the power of God’s anger?

[43] How dreadful is the state of those that are daily and hourly in 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

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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 alass! 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, before this year is out. And it would be no wonder if some person that now sits
here in some seat of this meeting-house in health, and quiet and secure, should be there before to
morrow 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 don’t 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. ‘Tis doubtless the case of some that heretofore 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 such opportunity as you now
enjoy!

[44] And now you have an extraordinary opportunity, a day wherein CHRIST has flung the door of
mercy wide open, and stands in the door 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 in now an happy state, with their hearts filled with love to him that has loved
them and washed them from their sins in his own blood, and rejoycing 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 rejoycing 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?

[45] Are there not many here that have lived long in the world, that are not to this day born again,
and so are aliens from the common-wealth 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. Don’t you see how
generally persons of your years are pass’d over and left, in the present remarkable and wonderful
dispensation of God’s mercy? You had need to consider your selves, and wake thoroughly out of
sleep; you cannot bear the fierceness and wrath of the infinite GOD.

[46] And you that are young men, and young women, will you neglect this precious season that you
now enjoy, when so many others of your age are renouncing all youthful vanities, and flocking to

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CHRIST? You especially have now an extraordinary opportunity; but if you neglect it, it will soon be
with you as it is with those persons that spent away all the precious days of youth in sin, and are
now come to such a dreadful pass in blindness and hardness.

[47] And you children that are unconverted, don’t you know that you are going down to hell, to bear
the dreadful wrath of that God that 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?

[48] 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, that is 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 bigger 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 that great outpouring 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 ax is in an extraordinary manner laid at the root of the trees,
that every tree that brings not forth good fruit, may be hewn down, and cast into the fire.

[49] Therefore let everyone that is out of CHRIST, now awake and fly from the wrath to come. The
wrath of almighty GOD is now undoubtedly hanging over great part of this congregation: Let
everyone fly out of Sodom: Haste and escape for your lives, look not behind you, escape to the
mountain, lest you be consumed.

FINIS

Source: Voices of Democracy: The U.S. Oratory Project, The University of Maryland
http://voicesofdemocracy.umd.edu/edwards-sinners-in-the-hands-speech-text/

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