The express purpose of the third of his Fifteen Sermons is to prove, that men are naturally God's enemies, which words are the title of the sermon. His third inference is; 'From this doctrine you may learn, how dreadful the condition of natural man is:' That is, how dreadful the condition of men is as created by

foreordained whatever comes to pass in time; especially concerning men and angels.'

od by an eternal and immutable decree, out of his mere love, for the praise of his glorious grace, to be manifested in due time, hath elected some angels to glory, and in Christ bath chosen some men to eternal life, and the means thereof, and also according to his sovereign power and the unsearchable counsel of his own with whereby he extendeth or withholdeth favour as he pleaseth, bath passed by, and fore-ordained the rest to dishonour and wrath, to be for their sin inflicted, to the praise of the glory of his justice'

On this subject the reader may further consult various parts of the writings of Edwards, particularly his Miscellaneous Observations, on the Divine Decrees and lection, in the fifth volume of bis works.

• God' says Edwards, decrees all things and even all sins.**** God determines the limits of men's lives ****If the limits of men's lives are determined, men's free actious inust be determined, and even their sins; for their lives often depend on such acts. pp. 378, 379.

The purpose of God in creation, and in his decrees respecting his creatures, is thus explained by Edwards.

• The moral rectitude and fitness of disposition, inclination, or affection of God's heart, does chiefly consist in a respect or regard to himself. infinitely above his regard to all other beings: or in other words bis holiness consists in this.

And if it be thus fit that God should have a supreme regard to himself, then it is fit that this supreme regard should appear in those things by which he makes himself known, or by his word and works; i. e. in what he says, and in what he does. If it be an infinitely amiable thing in God, that he shall have a supreme regard to himself, then it is an amiable thing that he should act as having a chief regard to himself." (Concerning the end for which God created the world. Works, vol. vi. pp. God manifests a su

24, 25.)

Accordingly, Edwards undertakes to prove, that preme and ultimate regard to himself in all his works;' (Ibid

(Ibid. p. 68,) and that God created the world for his name to make his perfections known. and that he made it for his praise.' (Ibid. p. 87.)

Corresponding to these representations; the reprobate, that is far the greater part of mankind are ordained to sin, and to suffer eternal toranents, to the praise of his glorious justice.'

• The rest of mankind [with the exception of the elect] God was pleased, according to the unsearchable counsel of his own will, whereby he extendeth or withholdeth mercy, as he pleaseth FOR THE GLORY OF HIS SOVEREIGN POWER OVER HIS CREATURES, to pass by, and to ordain them to dishonour and wrath for their sin, TO THE PRAISE OF HIS GLORIOUS JUSTICE. (Westminster Assembly's Confession. Ch. iii.

But I forbear. In que ing BLASPHEMY like this, I can hardly avoid feeling, as if I shared in the guilt of uttering it.]

God; they are by their very nature sinners, enemies of God, children of wrath, and justly liable to infinite, eternal, inconceivable torments.

Men are by nature sinners, let us see then how they must be and are regarded by God. I quote from President Edwards' sermon entitled, Sinners in the hands of an angry God.

'So that thus it is, that NATURAL MEN are held in the hands 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 toward them as to those that are actually suffering the execution of the fierceness of his wrath in hell; 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.'*

Again, from the same sermon :

'They are now the objects of the 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 very angry with them; as angry as he is with any of those miserable creatures, that he is now tormenting in hell, and do there feel and bear the fierceness of his wrath.'t

The following words from the same discourse are of course addressed to all the unregenerate, to all those who retain the nature given them by God at their birth, and who have not been born again, in the Calvinistic use of that phrase.

The God who 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 hateful and venomous serpent is in ours."

Thus it is that God regards all his human creatures, in their natural state, that is, as created by him; unless indeed you choose the gross inconsistency and absurdity of putting an atheistical sense upon the words nature and natural, and supposing that that may be by nature, and may be natural, which is not from God. All God's human creatures, as created by him, are 'ten thousand times so abominable in his eyes, as the most ugly and venomous serpent is in ours."

Are my expressions that God will be the eternal enemy and infinite tormentor of a large proportion of his creatures; and the

*

other expressions corresponding to them, objected against? 1 only ask, that they may be compared with those in the passages last quoted, and with a thousand more of a similar character which might be produced from Edwards, (particularly from his sermons on the eternity of hell torments,) and from other Calvinistic writers.

It is abundantly evident from the preceding passages, that, according to the Calvinistic system, God hates men, and will be their eternal tormentor, in consequence of the nature with which they are born. That he hates them not merely on account of what will necessarily flow from this nature, but on account of the nature itself, is particularly shown by another article of Calvinistic belief, that infants are proper subjects of the eternal torments of hell.

This doctrine is repeatedly urged by Calvin:

'And so even infants bring their damnation with them from their mothers' womb; for although they have not yet produced the fruits of their iniquity, they have the seed of it inclosed within them. Nay, their whole nature is, as it were, a seed of sin; so that it cannot be otherwise than odious and abominable to God.'*

In one place he indignantly disavows the opposite opinion. 'As if I denied that the whole race of Adam, was by nature, under a curse, so that even infants before being born to light are liable to eternal death.'t

In the Westminster Assembly's Confession (c. x.) elect infants are spoken of in contradistinction from others, which implies that there are others who are reprobate.

Concerning the case of these poor reprobates, sinners before being moral agents, some more tender-hearted Calvinists have been inclined to believe, that their future condition would not be worse than nonexistence. But Edwards, with proper consistency, gives them up to the full torments of hell.

This former supposition, he says, 'to me, appears plainly a giving up that grand point of the imputation of Adam's sin, both in whole and in part. For it supposes it to be not right, for God to bring any evil on a child of Adam, which is innocent as to personal sin, without paying for it, or balancing it with good; so that still the state of the child shall be as good as could be demanded in justice in case of mere innocence. Which plainly supposes that the child is not exposed to any proper punishment

* Instit. Lib. iv. c. 15. § 10.

+ Append. Lib. de vera Eccles. reform. ratione. in his Tractatus Theolop. 301.

gici

at all. or is not at all in debt to divine justice on account of Adam's sin.*****

'It seems to me pretty manifest that none can, in good consistence with themselves, own a real imputation of the guilt of Adam's first sin to his posterity, without owning that they are justly viewed and treated as sinners, truly guilty and children of wrath on that account; nor unless they allow a just imputation of the whole of the evil of transgression; at least, all that pertains to the essence of that act, as a full and complete violation of the covenant which God had established; even as much as if each one of mankind had the like covenant established with him singly, and had by the like direct and full act of rebellion violated it for himself.*

If indeed, God do create men with a nature which necessarily makes them objects of his vengeance, and for the purpose of exercising this vengeance upon them, it is of no consequence whether the interval between their creation and their sufferings be longer or shorter; whether he keep them in this world an hour or a century. If as moral agents, they can do nothing to deliver themselves from his curse, it is of no consequence whether those on whom his curse is inflicted, are what may be called moral agents or not. If he form men with moral natures wholly inclined to all evil, under an absolute decree of reprobation, he might in equal consistency with justice, form them with such natures and place them in hell by the same act of his sovereignty.t

* Edwards on Original Sin. Works, vol. vi. p. 462.

† [With regard to the punishment to which all men are 'justly liable' by nature, the imagination of Edwards, though not a very active faculty of his mind, absolutely revels and runs riot in its description.

The following is from his Sermon entitled, Men NATURALLY God's enemies.

6

If you continue God's enemy until death, you will always be his enemy. And after death your enmity will have no restraint, but it will break out, and rage without control When you come to be a firebrand of bell, you will be a fire brand in two respects, viz. As you will be all on fire, full of the fire of God's wrath. And also as you will be all on a blaze with spite and malice towards God. You will be as full of the fire of malice, as you will with the fire of divine vengeance; and both will make you full of torment. Then you will appear as you are, a viper indeed You are now a viper, but under great disguise; a wolf in sheep's clothing; but then your mask will be pulled off; you shall lose your garments and walk naked. Rev. xvi. 15 Then will you as a serpent spit poison at God, and vent your rage and malice in fearful blasphemies. Out of that mouth, out of which, when you open it will proceed flames, will also proceed dreadful blasphemies against God. That same tongue, to cool which you will wish for a drop of water, will be eternally employed in cursing and blaspheming God and Christ. Works, vol. vii. p. 198.

The next proposition to be proved a doctrine of Calvinism, is that God has chosen some to be saved out of the common ruin, See the Westminster Assembly's Confession (c.x.)

The horror of this passage is in some degree aggravated, when viewed in connexion with the doctrine of the damnation of infants, and when it is recollected, that this is the description of the future state of many of those little 'vipers'

I quote another passage; -from his sermon on the Punishment of the Wicked.

We can conceive but little of the matter*****But to help your conception, imagine yourself to be cast into a fiery oven, all of a glowing heat, or into the midst of a glowing brick-kiln, or of a great furnace, where your pain would be as much greater, than that occasioned by accidentally touching a coal of fire, as the heat is greater. Imagine also that your body were to lie there for a quarter of an hour, full of fire, as full within and without as a light coal of fire, all the while full of quick sense; what horror would you feel at the entrance of such a furnace! And how long would that quarter of an hour seem to you! If it were to be measured by a glass, how long would the glass seem to be a running! And after you had endured it for one minute, how overbearing would it be to you to think that you had it to endure the other fourteen

But what would be the effect on your soul, if you knew that you must lie there enduring that torment to the full for twenty four hours! And how much greater would be the effect. if you knew you must endure it for a whole year: and how vastly greater still, if you knew that you must endure it for a thousand years. O then, how would your heart sink, if you thought, if you knew, that you must bear it for ever and ever! That there would be no end! That after millions of millions of ages, your torment would be no nearer to an end than ever it was; and that you never, never should be delivered.

But your torment in hell will be immensely greater than this illustra tion represents.' Ibid. pp. 387, 388. Again:

'The wicked in hell will not be able in that conflict to overcome their enemy, and to deliver themselves. God, who will then undertake to deal with them, and will gird himself with might to execute wrath, will be their enemy, and will act the part of an enemy with a witness; and they will have no strength to oppose him.****They will have no power, no might, to resist that omnipotence which will be engaged against them. They will have no strength in their hands to do any thing to appease God, or in the least to abate the fierceness of his wrath. pp 383, 384.

The

'If the strength of all the wicked men on earth, and all the devils in hell were united in one, and thou wert possessed of it all, and if the courage, greatness and stoutness of all their hearts were united in thy single heart, thou wouldst be nothing in the hands of Jehovah If it were all collected, and thou shouldst set thyself to bear as well as thou couldst, all would sink under his great wrath in an instant, and be utterly abolished. Thine hands would drop down at once, and thine heart would melt as wax. great mountains, the firm rocks, eannot stand before the power of God; as fast as they stand, they are tossed hither and thither, and skip like lambs when God appears in his anger. He can tear the earth in pieces in a moment; yea he can shatter the whole universe and dash it to pieces at one blow. How then will thine hands be strong or thine heart endure.' pp. 392, 393.