Try ourselves

 We shall apply this doctrine in three uses: first, of inference; second, of trial or self-examination; third, of exhortation.

I. [Use] of Inf. If it be so that none but those that are holy are in the way to heaven, how many poor creatures are there that think they are in the way to heaven who are not? There are many that think that they are undoubtedly in the way to heaven, and without question shall enter there at last, that have not the least grain of true holiness, that manifest none in their lives and conversations, of whom we may be certain that either they have no holiness at all, or that which they have is a dormant, inactive sort—which is in effect to be certain that there is none. There are a great many others that are not so distinctly and plainly perceived, that have nothing but what is external, the shell without the kernel. Vast multitudes are of these two kinds.

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What a pitiable, miserable condition are they in: to step out of this world into an uncertain eternity, with an expectation of finding themselves exceeding happy and blessed in the highest heaven, and all at once find themselves deceived, and are undeceived, finding themselves sinking in the bottomless pit!

II. [Use] of Trial. If none are in the way to heaven but those that are holy, let us try and examine ourselves by this doctrine to see whereabouts we are, and see whether or no we are in the way to heaven. To know which way we are going, whether towards Canaan or Egypt, whether towards heaven or hell; for if we think ourselves in the road to heaven, and are going to the place of torment all the while, and continue deceived, without doubt  fire and brimstone will undeceive us. 

If we find ourselves in the broad way to destruction, how dare we stir a step further? 

If we would know whether we are holy or no, let us try ourselves by these five following things:

First. Meditate on the holiness of God, and see if you cannot see a conformity, a likeness in your mind. There is no likeness or comparison in degree—we speak not of that—but yet there is a likeness in nature between God and the soul of the believer. The holy soul, when it thinks and meditates upon God's nature, finds a pleasure and delight, because there is an agreeableness in his new nature to the divine perfections. If those that think themselves in the way to heaven, that are unholy in the meantime in their hearts, would compare themselves and their nature to the holy nature of God, such a glorious light as the holiness of God would quickly discover their rottenness and unsoundness.

Second. See if you can see any resemblance in your life to the life of Christ. It is not supposed that ever any copy comes near to this original, nor ever will; but yet they may perceive whether the same spirit, the same temper and disposition, in a lesser degree be in them, that was manifested by the life and conversation of Jesus Christ.

Third. Is there an agreeableness between your souls and the Word of God? The Bible is the epistle of Christ that he has written to us; now, if the same epistle is also written in our hearts that is written in the Scriptures, it may be found out by comparing. Have you love to all God's commands and a respect to them in your actions? Is it your delight to obey and hearken to the will of God? Do you obey them of choice? Is it what you would choose to do if God had not threatened to punish the breach of them?

Fourth. Do you find by a comparison a likeness and agreeableness

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between your hearts and lives, and the hearts and lives of those holy men that we [are] assured were such by the Word of God? Do you walk with God as Enoch did, [or] distinguish yourselves by your piety in the midst of wicked examples as Noah did? And when you read the lives of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, and the prophets, wherein holiness is drawn to the life, you may viewing so exact a picture discover whether you have not the root of the matter in you, though it be much obscurer in you than in them. When we read the Psalms of David, we may clearly see what David's holiness was by that spirit that is breathed there; when we read the Epistles of the apostles, we may know what is a truly evangelical spirit, and whether such a spirit reigns in our souls.

Fifth. Do you in a measure imitate the saints and angels in heaven? They spend their duration to the glory of God; they love him above all things, are delighted with the beauties of Jesus Christ, entirely love one another, and hate sin. And those that are holy on earth have also a resemblance and imitation of them: they are of an heavenly temper, of heavenly lives and conversations.

III. [Use of] Exh. Exhort all to holiness. You have heard what holiness is and of the necessity of it, the absolute necessity in order to escaping hell; what we must have or die forever, must be forever forsaken.5 Now, nothing is so necessary to us as holiness; other things may be necessary to discover this life, and things that are necessary men will strive for with all their might, if there is a probability of obtaining of them. How much more is that to be sought after, without which we shall [fare] infinitely worse than die ten thousand deaths!

This is motive enough without any other; for what can be a greater motive than necessity? But besides that, if it were not necessary, the amiable and excellent nature of it is enough to make it worthy the most earnest seeking after.

Holiness is a most beautiful, lovely thing. Men are apt to drink in strange notions of holiness from their childhood, as if it were a melancholy, morose, sour, and unpleasant thing; but there is nothing in it but what is sweet and ravishingly lovely. 

'Tis the highest beauty and amiableness, vastly above all other beauties; 'tis a divine beauty, makes the soul heavenly and far purer than anything here on earth—this world is like mire and filth and defilement [compared] to that soul which is sanctified—'tis of a sweet, lovely, delightful, serene, calm,

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and still nature. 'Tis almost too high a beauty for any creature to be adorned with; it makes the soul a little, amiable, and delightful image of the blessed Jehovah. How may angels stand with pleased, delighted, and charmed eyes, and look and look with smiles of pleasure upon that soul that is holy!

Christian holiness is above all the heathen virtue, of a more bright and pure nature, more serene, calm, peaceful, and delightsome. What a sweet calmness, what a calm ecstacy, doth it bring to the soul! Of what a meek and humble nature is true holiness; how peaceful and quiet. How doth it change the soul, and make it more pure, more bright, and more excellent than other beings.

The forbidden fruit

 Another thing which argues that Adam's posterity were included in the threatening of death, and that our first parents understood, when fallen, that the tempter, in persuading them to eat the forbidden fruit, had aimed at the punishment and ruin of both them and their posterity, and had procured it, is Adam's immediately giving his wife that new name, Eve, or Life, on the promise or intimation of the disappointment and overthrow of the tempter in that matter, by her seed; which Adam understood to be by his procuring life; not only for themselves, but for many of their posterity, and thereby delivering them from that death and ruin which the serpent had brought upon them. Those that should be thus delivered, and obtain life, Adam calls the living: and because he observed, by what God had said, that deliverance and life was to be by the seed of the woman, he therefore remarks, that "she is the mother of all living," and thereupon gives her a new name, calls her Chavah, "Life" (Genesis 3:20).

There is a great deal of evidence, that this is the occasion of Adam's giving his wife her new name. This was her new honor, and the greatest honor, at least in her present state, that the Redeemer was to be of her seed. New names were wont to be given for something that was the person's peculiar honor. So it was with regard to the new names of Abraham, Sarah, and Israel. Dr. Taylor himself (Key, no. 255) observes, that they who are saved by Christ, are called the livers, οἱ ς (II Corinthians 4:11), the living, or, they that live. So we find in the Old Testament, the righteous are called by the name of the living (Psalms 69:28). "Let them be blotted out of the book of the living, and not be written with the righteous." If what Adam meant by her being the mother of all living, was only her being the mother of mankind, and gave her the name Life on

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that account, it were much the most likely that he would have given her this name at first; when God first united them, under that blessing, "Be fruitful and multiply," and when he had a prospect of her being the mother of mankind in a state of immortality, living in deed, living and never dying. But that Adam should at that time give her only the name of Isha, and then immediately on that melancholy change, by their coming under the sentence of death, with all their posterity, having now a new awful prospect of her being the mother of nothing but a dying race, all from generation to generation turning to dust, through her folly: I say, that immediately on this, he should change her name into Life, calling her now the mother of all living, is perfectly unaccountable. Besides, it is manifest, that it was not her being the mother of all mankind, or her relation as a mother, which she stood in to her posterity, but the quality of those she was to be the mother of, which was the thing Adam had in view, in giving his wife this new name; as appears by the name itself, which signifies Life. And if it had been only a natural and mortal life which he had in view, this was nothing distinguishing of her posterity from the brutes; for the very same name of living ones, or living things, is given from time to time in this book of Genesis to them, as in Genesis 1:21, 24, 28; ch. 2:19; ch. 6:19–7:23; 8:1 and many other places in the Bible. Besides, if by Life was not the quality of her posterity meant, there was nothing in it to distinguish her from Adam; for thus she was no more the mother of all living, than he was the father of all living; and she could no more properly be called by the name of Life on any such account, than he: but names are given for distinction. Doubtless Adam took notice of something distinguishing concerning her, that occasioned his giving her this new name. And I think, it is exceeding natural to suppose, that as Adam had given her her first name from the manner of her creation, so he gave her her new name from redemption, and as it were new creation, through a Redeemer, of her seed. And that he should give her this name from that which comforted him, with respect to the curse that God had pronounced on him and the earth, as Lamech named Noah (Genesis 5:29), saying, "This same shall comfort us concerning our work, and toil of our hands, because of the ground which the Lord hath cursed." Accordingly he gave her this new name, not at her first creation, but immediately after the promise of a Redeemer, of her seed. See Genesis 3:15–20.

Now as to the consequence which I infer from Adam's giving his

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wife this name, on the intimation which God had given, that Satan should by her seed be overthrown and disappointed, as to his malicious design, in that deed of his which God then spake of, viz. his tempting the woman; Adam infers from it, that great numbers of mankind should be saved, whom he calls the living; they should be saved from the effects of this malicious design of the old serpent, and from that ruin which he had brought upon them by tempting their first parents to sin; and so the serpent would be, with respect to them disappointed and overthrown in his design. But how is any death or ruin, or indeed any calamity at all brought upon their posterity by Satan's malice in that temptation, if instead of that, all the death and sorrow that was consequent, was the fruit of God's fatherly love, and not Satan's malice, and was an instance of God's free and sovereign favor, such favor as Satan could not possibly foresee? And if multitudes of Eve's posterity are saved, from either spiritual or temporal death, by a Redeemer, of her seed, how is that any disappointment of Satan's design, in tempting our first parents? How came he to have any such thing in view, as the death of Adam's and Eve's posterity, by tempting them to sin, or any expectation that their death would be the consequence, unless he knew that they were included in the threatening?

Some have objected against Adam's posterity's being included in the threatening delivered to Adam, that the threatening itself was inconsistent with his having any posterity: it being that he should die on the day that he sinned.

To this I answer, that the threatening was not inconsistent with his having posterity, on two accounts:

I. Those words, "In the day thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die," according to the use of such-like expressions among the Hebrews, don't signify immediate death, or that the execution shall be within twenty-four hours from the commission of the fact; nor did God by those words, limit himself as to the time of executing the threatened punishment; but that was still left to God's pleasure, Such a phrase, according to the idiom of the Hebrew tongue, signifies no more than these two things:

1. A real connection between the sin and the punishment. So Ezekiel 33:12-13, "The righteousness of the righteous shall not deliver him IN THE DAY of his transgression. As for the wickedness of the wicked, he shall not fall thereby IN THE DAY that he turneth from his wickedness: neither shall the righteous be able to live [. . .] IN THE

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DAY THAT HE SINNETH: [. . .] but for his iniquity that he hath committed, HE SHALL DIE for it." Here 'tis said, that in the day he sinneth, he shall not be able to live, but he shall die; not signifying the time when death shall be executed upon him, but the connection between his sin and death; such a connection as in our present common use of language is signified by the adverb of time, "when"; as if one should say, "According to the laws of our nation, so long as a man behaves himself as a good subject, he may live; but when he turns rebel, he must die": not signifying the hour, day, or month, in which he must be executed, but only the connection between his crime and death.

2. Another thing which seems to be signified by such an expression is, that Adam should be exposed to death for one transgression, without waiting on him to try him the second time. If he eat of that tree, he should immediately fall under condemnation, though afterwards he might abstain ever so strictly. In this respect, the words are much of the same force with those words of Solomon to Shimei (I Kings 2:37), "For it shall be that ON THE DAY that thou goest out, and passest over the brook Kidron, thou shalt know for certain, that thou shalt surely die." Not meaning, that he should certainly be executed on that day, but that he should be assuredly liable to death for the first offense, and that he should not have another trial, to see whether he would go over the brook Kidron a second time.

And then besides,

II. If the words had implied, that Adam should die that very day, within twenty-four or twelve hours, or that moment that he transgressed, yet it will by no means follow, that God obliged himself to execute the punishment in its utmost extent on that day. The sentence was in great part executed immediately; he then died spiritually; he lost his innocence and original righteousness, and the favor of God; a dismal alteration was made in his soul, by the loss of that holy divine principle, which was in the highest sense the life of the soul. In this he was truly ruined and undone that very day; becoming corrupt, miserable and helpless. And I think it has been shewn, that such a spiritual death was one great thing implied in the threatening. And the alteration then made in his body and external state, was the beginning of temporal death. Grievous external calamity is called by the name of "death" in Scripture. Exodus 10:17, "Intreat the Lord that he may take away this death." Not only was Adam's soul ruined that day, but his body was ruined; it lost its beauty and vigor, and

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became a poor dull, decaying, dying thing. And besides all this, Adam was that day undone in a more dreadful sense: he immediately fell under the curse of the law, and condemnation to eternal perdition. In the language of Scripture, he is dead, that is, in a state of condemnation to death; even as our author often explains this language in his exposition upon Romans. In Scripture language, he that believes in Christ, immediately receives life. He passes at that time from death to life, and thenceforward (to use the apostle John's phrase) "has eternal life abiding in him." But yet he don't then receive eternal life in its highest completion; he has but the beginnings of it; and receives it in a vastly greater degree at death: but the proper time for the complete fullness is not till the day of judgment. When the angels sinned, their punishment was immediately executed in a degree: but their full punishment is not till the end of the world. And there is nothing in God's threatening to Adam, that bound him to execute his full punishment at once; nor anything which determines, that he should have no posterity. The law or constitution which God established and declared, determined, that if he sinned, and had posterity, he and they should die: but there was no constitution determining concerning the actual being of his posterity in this case; what posterity he should have, how many, or whether any at all. All these things God had reserved in his own power: the law and its sanction intermeddled not with the matter.

It may be proper in this place also to take some notice of that objection of Dr. Taylor's against Adam's being supposed to be a federal head for his posterity, that it gives him greater honor than Christ, as it supposes that all his posterity would have had eternal life by his obedience, if he had stood; and so a greater number would have had the benefit of his obedience, than are saved by Christ.4 I think, a very little consideration is sufficient to shew, that there is no weight in this objection. For the benefit of Christ's merits may nevertheless be vastly beyond that which would have been by the obedience of Adam. For those that are saved by Christ are not merely advanced to happiness by his merits, but are saved from the infinitely dreadful effects of Adam's sin, and many from immense guilt, pollution and misery by personal sins; also brought to a holy and happy state, as it were through infinite obstacles; and are exalted to a far greater degree of dignity, felicity and glory, than would have been due for Adam's obedience; for aught I know, many

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thousand times so great. And there is enough in the gospel dispensation, clearly to manifest the sufficiency of Christ's merits for such effects in all mankind. And how great the number will be, that shall actually be the subjects of them, or how great a proportion of the whole race, considering the vast success of the gospel, that shall be in that future extraordinary, exempt, and glorious season, often spoken of, none can tell. And the honor of these two federal heads arises not so much from what was proposed to each for his trial, as from their success, and the good actually obtained; and also the manner of obtaining: Christ obtains the benefits men have through him by proper merit of condignity, and a true purchase by an equivalent: which would not have been the case with Adam, if he had obeyed.

I have now particularly considered the account which Moses gives us in the beginning of the Bible, of our first parents, and God's dealings with them, the constitution he established with them, their transgression, and what followed. And on the whole, if we consider the manner in which God apparently speaks to Adam, from time to time; and particularly, if we consider how plainly and undeniably his posterity are included in the sentence of death pronounced on Adam after his fall, founded on the foregoing threatening; and consider the curse denounced on the ground for his sake, and for his and his posterity's sorrow: and also consider what is evidently the occasion of his giving his wife the new name of Eve, and his meaning in it, and withal consider apparent fact in constant and universal events, with relation to the state of our first parents, and their posterity from that time forward, through all ages of the world; I can't but think, it must appear to every impartial person, that Moses' account does, with sufficient evidence, lead all mankind, to whom his account is communicated, to understand that God, in his constitution with Adam, dealt with him as a public person, and as the head of the human species, and had respect to his posterity as included in him: and that this history is given by divine direction, in the beginning of the first-written revelation, to exhibit to our view the origin of the present sinful, miserable state of mankind, that we might see what that was, which first gave occasion for all those consequent wonderful dispensations of divine mercy and grace towards mankind, which are the great subject of the Scriptures, both of the Old and New Testament; and that these things are not obscurely and doubtfully pointed forth, but delivered in a plain account of things, which easily and naturally exhibits them to our understandings.

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And by what follows in this discourse, we may have, in some measure, opportunity to see how other things in the holy Scripture agree to what has been now observed from the three first chapters of Genesis.

Introduction to Yale edition

 GENERAL EDITOR'S NOTE

WITH PAUL RAMSEY'S edition of A Careful and Strict Enquiry into the Modern Prevailing Notions of... Freedom of Will the Editorial Committee for the Works of Jonathan Edwards presents the first volume of the Yale University Press edition. The project, undertaken with the generous support of the Bollingen Foundation, has been launched with the purpose not only of republishing all of the printed works of Edwards but also of publishing the massive manuscript materials in which much of Edwards' most profound thinking and finest prose have been concealed.

It is appropriate that Freedom of the Will should appear as Volume 1, for although it is not the first in the Edwards chronology, it is the work through which his fame has been most widely spread abroad, even to the multitudes who have known the book only by hearsay.

At the outset we hope it will be understood that while we approach this towering edifice with veneration, we do not expect to find among all students a unanimity of interpretation, or uncritical endorsement of Edwards' views. He is too majestic a figure to yield to every observer a single, simple meaning, and was too rigorous a critic himself to demand servile adherence. Hence it is the policy of the Committee to put each volume into the hands of a different editor, for him to expound and evaluate in his own terms. If out of these several treatments various and sometimes contradictory interpretations emerge, we shall greet that result as a documented attestation to the range and complexity of Edwards' mind.

We therefore seek uniformity only in editorial integrity: our aim is meticulous faithfulness to the words of the original text, whether printed or manuscript, within the limits of a format acceptable to modern eyes. Only a few general editing conventions have been established. Apart from these, each editor will cope with special problems as seems best to him according to the demands of his own text.

The very existence of the project is itself testimony to the deepening appreciation in the mid-twentieth century of the importance of Edwards to the intellectual as well as the religious history of America. 

A generation or so ago, outside a restricted circle of professional theologians, he was popularly known only as one who had preached a distasteful and happily outmoded brand of hell-fire and brimstone. There was, in fact, a general disposition to pass him over as an anachronism, as retrograde. 

Recent events in world history have no doubt stimulated drastic re-examination of such complacent assumptions. 

Whether because of that prodding or because of the logic of intellectual development, we find today a new urgency to confront and reinterpret the historic philosophical and theological cruxes with which Edwards grappled so courageously.

This is not to imply that today the precise doctrines that Edwards maintained, in the language in which he cast them, have been or should be extensively revived; indeed it is quite beside the purpose of this edition to promulgate them. But as Professor Ramsey's account of the provenience of the Inquiry and of the immense issues involved in it helps us to comprehend, Edwards—the greatest philosopher-theologian yet to grace the American scene—deserves to be heard. He has waited long for the monument we propose to erect to him, the only one he would have been at all interested in: a clear and fair exhibition of his thought.

Perry Miller

http://edwards.yale.edu/archive?path=aHR0cDovL2Vkd2FyZHMueWFsZS5lZHUvY2dpLWJpbi9uZXdwaGlsby9nZXRvYmplY3QucGw/Yy4wOjEud2plby40NTAyLjQ1MDcuNDUxMQ==

A remedy for every calamity

 806. NEW HEAVENS AND NEW EARTH.

It was proper and natural, considering the nature and end of Christ's redemption, to represent that new state of things that the saints shall enjoy by Christ's redemption as a new heaven and a new earth: for Christ came to restore all things, and that in him there might be a remedy for every calamity that came by the fall. 

One calamity that was the consequence of the fall was the dissolution of the body. There is in Christ a remedy for this calamity; the body is through him restored, and comfort is administered to the saints against the apprehensions of it, by the promises of the resurrection. 

Another calamity that comes by the fall is the dissolution of heaven and earth, our dwelling place. The remedy that is promised in Christ is a new heaven and a new earth, a new and much better habitation and state of things, instead of it; and this is the comfort we have by Christ against this sorrow. 

This restoration is equivalent to a resurrection of heaven and earth, and is more than a mere restoration: for it shall be a far more glorious state of things, not only than is immediately before the dissolution or conflagration, but more glorious than the state of the world was before the fall, as the resurrection of the bodies of the saints is more than a mere restitution. 

For the body shall [not] only return to life, but to a much more glorious state than it was in before its dissolution, yea, a much more glorious state than the body of man was in before the fall; for it shall not be conformed to the body of the first Adam, which was a natural body, but to the body of Christ, which is a spiritual body (see 1 Corinthians 15:44–49). 

Hence this new state of things is called a new heaven and a new earth. 

Christ came to restore all things with respect to the elect that, whatever there is of the ruinous effects of the fall through the whole universe, all might be fully and perfectly healed in Christ; that old things might pass away and all things become new; that man himself might be a new creature, both in his soul by conversion and sanctification, and in his body by the resurrection, and the world as to him might become a new creation; and so not only himself created anew in Christ Jesus, but everything created anew as to him fully and perfectly. Revelation 21:5, "Behold, I make all things new." 

Hence the end of the world, when this shall be perfected, is called the "times of refreshing" and the "times of restitution of all things" (Acts 3:19–21).

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Christ came to restore all things only with respect to the elect. 

The bodies of the wicked will not be restored from the calamity and ruin it fell under by the fall. 

And so the world, as to the wicked, which are far the greater number, will not be restored; but with respect to the elect, it will be restored, for they shall receive a new heaven and a new earth, instead of it. 

If this individual world belonged to the elect as much as their bodies, then would it be requisite that this individual world should be restored, as well as their bodies. But this is not the world that properly belongs to them. This is not their native world. 'Tis not the land of the church. They are not of the world. They ben't the men of this world, but heaven is their country. 

The world as to them is to be restored: for they are to be delivered from all the evil of it, all the calamity that came by the evil state and course of it, and are to be more than restored to all the comfort and benefit they had by its first perfect state. 

Everything in the whole universe is to be new as to them, and to be as well, and better, than if there never had been any sin.

Indians dwindled

 3. We have now greatly departed from God, and are gone far from him. The land in great measure is departed from that purity in its principles and doctrines, and there appears in multitudes a great hankering after Arminian doctrines, which are such principles as do exceedingly tend to eat out the heart and destroy the life of religion.

The sacred order of the ministry in the country is much infected with these principles, as is too notorious to be denied. And the public schools of learning, the nurseries whence the churches throughout the land are supplied with teachers, are considerably tainted with them; so that this disease is seated much in the head, and infects those that are set to be lights and guides to others, and have the place of the eye in the body. And how great our calamity in such a case is, we may learn from that saying of Christ, Matthew 6:22–23, "The light of the body is the eye." And the contrary truths, which are those doctrines of Christianity that do especially concern the power of religion, are very much neglected. There are multitudes of the pulpits in the country from whence there is nothing of 'em to be heard.

Many of those that don't expressly deny 'em, yet seem to look upon 'em of no great importance, and that 'tis best to let them alone, and not to meddle with them in the pulpit, as if the public preaching of them would be an hurtful tendency.

And the work of conversion and experimental piety is very much neglected in the ministry in most of the pulpits, insomuch that things of this nature are grown to be strange things, and any talk about 'em seems strange and unintelligible to great parts of the land. What is chiefly insisted on in most pulpits is morality and things that appertain to natural religion, neglecting those things by which that glorious gospel is chiefly distinguished from heathen philosophy. And of late also there has appeared a great hankering after ceremonies of human invention in the Word of God. Men, growing weary of the pure worship of God as he left it by his

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own institution, they must needs go about to mend it by their own adorning. They dislike the altar of whole stones as God has formed, and therefore lift up their own tools upon it to pollute it.

And there has been for a long time but very little appearance of a work of conversion being carried on in the bigger part of the land. In most places nothing is said or heard about it, either in public or private.

And such things are grown exceeding strange. And religion is become in most places nothing but a mere form, just to keep an old custom of going to meeting and the like; when there is a notorious appearance of an exceeding coldness and deadness towards God, and Christ, and heavenly things, and a great neglect of them, while men's hearts are all engaged on the world.

And innumerable vicious practices have overspread the country in most parts of it, as drunkenness, profane swearing, lasciviousness, huckling,1 chatting,2 and all manner of debauchery.

Now in many towns in the country, profane oaths and curses are common things daily heard in the taverns, streets, and in private companies; whereas in the first times of the country, if a man had been heard to swear a profane oath, great notice would have been taken of [it] as a dreadful thing, an horrid and strange piece of wickedness that had appeared.

And the land has long been exceedingly overspread with a spirit of contention and strife, both in civil and ecclesiastical matters, and the spirit of love that formerly prevailed in the country has in a great measure ceased. And we have for a long time been gradually growing more and more corrupt. Our days of fasting have been a mere mockery. [We] continue still: we justify ourselves in it. Thus have we in this land heretofore cast a reflection on God, {as though we had found some iniquity in him}. And thus we do still. But let us now, in the

Second place,3 consider how unreasonably we cast this reflection on God. For as it was said to the children of Israel, so may it be said unto us, "What iniquity have you found in God that you are gone far away?" There has been a mutual covenant between God and this land, wherein both have been obliged in mutual engagements. And wherein has God failed on his part? In what respect has he been unjust or unfaithful to us? Wherein has he broken covenant with us that we have departed from him, and have so broke

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the yoke and burst the bonds? What is that that God has done towards us that should put us out of conceit of him, that we should not cleave to him, and manifest as high an esteem of him now as heretofore? Wherein has God been hard in his dealings with the land? If we consider God's dealings with the land, we have no cause to complain, but must say that God has been very faithful, and very good and gracious to us, from our first beginnings to this time. As God said of old of Israel, "I have not been a wilderness to Israel" (Jeremiah 2:31), so may he say of us. God was very good to us in our first times, and by a series of many remarkable and wonderful providences protected and defended the land against the Indian natives that then surrounded them, and vastly exceeded them in number, though God had before greatly diminished them to make way. This in some measure may be applied to us (Psalms 105:11 ff.). When they were few in number and strangers, [he] protected us from enemies to our civil and religious privileges, gave us great liberty and great privileges, and continued them to us.

And though the land was long afflicted with wars with the Indians and suffered many great calamities, yet God has caused them gradually to decrease and dwindle. [The] land gradually emptied of 'em, [and] this sore calamity more and more removed. God has removed them to make room for us, taken them away by a strong hand of heaven against them, and by a secret blast, that we might possess their land and enjoy it peaceably.

And so God hath done, till now at length he has given us the whole land for our possession.

And now, of a long time, we have been free from the calamities of war with [the Indians, and] long enjoyed the great blessings of peace; and have set down "everyone under his own vine and under his fig tree," [and] slept in quiet; and have gone to and fro without fear of "the sword of the wilderness," [and] han't got "our bread with the peril of our lives."

And that, though we have dealt very unfaithfully with God in our behavior towards them. It was part of our pretense and covenant, when we came into the land {that was not sown}, to instruct (the Indians). This our pretended design [was] very little done, in comparison of what ought to have been {done for them}. Instead of Christianizing them, we have debauched 'em with strong drink; instead of communicating the glorious gospel that their souls might be saved, we have given 'em that which was poison to both their souls and bodies, and continue still so to do. God might justly have punished us long ago for this by causing them to grow and increase upon us, and wax stronger and stronger to extirpate [us]. But yet so has God's mercy triumphed that {we have been free from the calamities of war, and long enjoyed the great blessings of peace}.

-- 764 --

We have long been growing worse and worse, and have greatly abused the great and distinguishing mercies {God bestowed upon us}. But yet so wonderful has God's goodness and long suffering caused to grow, [that we have] become a great people [and have] increased greatly in wealth and comfortableness of our outward circumstances.

Though [God has] afflicted us, it has been far less than our iniquity {to him}. {God has been} very gentle. [He has] continued our religious privileges and civil so far, that we are distinguished from most people on the face of the earth for {our zeal for religion}.

[We have] deserved to have [been] long ago utterly destroyed. [We] have been very obstinate. [We] often have mocked God with pretenses of humiliation and repentance. [We have] deserved to have all our privileges taken away.

And God hath of late poured out his Spirit wonderfully on this so degenerate and provoking a people.

Thus has God not only been just and faithful in his dealings with us, but abundantly good and gracious, so far have we been from finding any iniquity in God. How aggravated therefore is our behavior towards him in casting so vile a reflection on God.