A letter by Jonathan Edwards
As you desired me to send you, in writing, some directions how to conduct yourself in your Christian course, I would now answer your request. The sweet remembrance of the great things I have lately seen inclines me to do anything in my power to contribute to the spiritual joy and prosperity of God’s people there.
1This letter, to a young woman who had recently made a public profession of faith, is reprinted with some editing from the Memoir in Edwards’ Works, vol 1. It was written in reply to a request for advice as to the best way of maintaining a Christian life.
1. I would advise you to keep up as great earnestness in religion as if you knew yourself to be in a state of nature and were seeking conversion.
We advise persons under conviction to be earnest and violent for the kingdom of heaven; but when they have attained to conversion, they ought not to be less watchful, laborious and earnest in the whole work of religion, but more so, for they are under infinitely greater obligations. For want of this, many persons, in a few months after their conversion, have begun to lose their sweet and lively sense of spiritual things and to grow cold and dark and have “pierced themselves through with many sorrows”. Whereas, if they had done as the Apostle did (Phil 3:12-14), their path would have been “as the shining light, that shineth more and more unto the perfect day”.
2. Do not leave off seeking, striving and praying for the very same things that we exhort unconverted persons to strive for, and a degree of which you have had already in conversion.
Pray that your eyes may be opened, that you may receive sight, that you may know yourself and be brought to God’s footstool, and that you may see the glory of God and Christ, and may be raised from the dead and have the love of Christ shed abroad in your heart. Those who have most of these things have need still to pray for them, for there is so much blindness and hardness, pride and death remaining that they still need to have that work of God wrought upon them, further to enlighten and enliven them, that shall be bringing them out of darkness into God’s marvellous light and be a kind of new conversion and resurrection from the dead. There are very few requests that are proper for an impenitent man that are not also, in some sense, proper for the godly.
3. When you hear a sermon, hear for yourself.
Though what is spoken may be more especially directed to the unconverted or to those that, in other respects, are in different circumstances from yourself, yet let the chief attention of your mind be to consider: In what respect is this applicable to me? And what use ought I to make of this for my own soul’s good?
4. Though God has forgiven and forgotten your past sins, yet do not forget them yourself.
Often remember what a wretched bond-slave you were in the land of Egypt. Often bring to mind your particular acts of sin before conversion, as the blessed Apostle Paul often mentions his old blaspheming, persecuting spirit and his injuriousness to the renewed – humbling his heart and acknowledging that he was “the least of the apostles” and not worthy “to be called an apostle” and the “least of all saints” and the “chief of sinners”. And be often confessing your old sins to God, and let that text be often in your mind: “That thou mayest remember and be confounded, and never open thy mouth any more, because of thy shame, when I am pacified toward thee for all that thou hast done, saith the Lord God” (Ezek 16:63).
5. Remember that you have more cause – on some accounts, a thousand times more – to lament and humble yourself for sins that have been committed since conversion than before.
This is because of the infinitely greater obligations that are upon you to live to God, and to look upon the faithfulness of Christ in unchangeably continuing His loving-kindness, notwithstanding all your great unworthiness since your conversion.
6. Be always greatly abased for your remaining sin and never think that you lie low enough for it, but yet be not discouraged or disheartened by it; for though we are exceeding sinful, yet we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous.
The preciousness of His blood, the merit of His righteousness, and the greatness of His love and faithfulness infinitely overtop the highest mountains of our sins.
7. When you engage in the duty of prayer, or come to the Lord’s Supper, or attend any other duty of divine worship, come to Christ as Mary Magdalene did (Luke 7:37,38).
Come and cast yourself at His feet and kiss them, and pour forth upon Him the sweet-perfumed ointment of divine love out of a pure and broken heart, as she poured the precious ointment out of her pure broken alabaster box.
8. Remember that pride is the worst viper in the heart, the greatest disturber of the soul’s peace and of sweet communion with Christ.
It was the first sin committed and lies lowest in the foundation of Satan’s whole building and is with the greatest difficulty rooted out and is the most hidden, secret and deceitful of all lusts and often creeps insensibly into the midst of religion, sometimes even under the disguise of humility itself.
9. That you may pass a correct judgement concerning yourself, always look upon those as the best discoveries and the best comforts that have most of these two effects:
(1) making you least and lowest and most like a child, and (2) most engaging and fixing your heart in a full and firm disposition to deny yourself for God and to spend and be spent for him.
10. If at any time you fall into doubts about the state of your soul, in dark and dull frames of mind, it is proper to review your past experience; but do not consume too much time and strength in this way.
Rather apply yourself with all your might to an earnest pursuit after renewed experience, new light, and new lively acts of faith and love. One new discovery of the glory of Christ’s face will do more toward scattering clouds of darkness in one minute than examining old experience through a whole year by the best marks that can be given.
11. When the exercise of grace is low and corruption prevails, and by that means fear prevails, do not desire to have fear cast out any other way than by the reviving and prevailing of love in the heart.
By this, fear will be effectually expelled, as darkness in a room vanishes away when the pleasant beams of the sun are let into it.
12. When you counsel and warn others, do it earnestly, affectionately and thoroughly; and when you are speaking to your equals, let your warnings be mixed with expressions of your sense of your own unworthiness and of the sovereign grace that makes you differ.
13. If you would set up religious meetings of young women by yourselves, to be attended once in a while, besides the other meetings that you attend, I should think it would be very proper and profitable.2
14. Under special difficulties, or when you are in great need of, or have great longings after, any particular mercy, for yourself or others, set apart a day for secret prayer and fasting by yourself alone.
And let the day be spent, not only in petitions for the mercies you desire, but in searching your heart and in looking over your past life and confessing your sins before God. Let it not be as is wont to be done in public prayer, but by a very particular rehearsal before God of the sins of your past life, from your childhood hitherto, before and after conversion – with the circumstances and aggravations attending them – and by spreading all the abominations of your heart very particularly, and as fully as possible, before Him.
15. Do not let the adversaries of the cross have occasion to reproach religion on your account.
How holily should the children of God, the redeemed and the beloved of the Son of God, behave themselves. Therefore walk as children of the light and of the day, and adorn the doctrine of God your Saviour. And especially abound in what are called the Christian virtues and be like the Lamb of God: meek and lowly of heart, and full of pure, heavenly and humble love to all. Abound in deeds of love to, and self-denial for, others; and let there be in you a disposition to account others better than yourself.
16. In all your course, walk with God, and follow Christ, as a little, poor, helpless child, taking hold of Christ’s hand, keeping your eye on the marks of the wounds in His hands and side, whence came the blood that cleanses you from sin, and hiding your nakedness under the skirt of the white, shining robes of His righteousness.
17. Pray much for the ministers and the Church of God – especially that He would carry on His glorious work which He has now begun, till the world shall be full of His glory.
2These would be informal gatherings and would in no way be considered as services; they may have consisted of no more than Christian fellowship (Editor).
A Hairbreadth from Eternity^1
Alexander M’Watt
We would now say a few words to the careless, impenitent sinner, who is wholly occupied with the tantalizing and transitory objects of time, and indifferent to the all-important interests of eternity. It is declared, in no uncertain or doubtful terms, that “the wicked shall be turned into hell, and all the nations that forget God” (Ps 9:17). Thus the unpardoned, impenitent sinner shall die the awful second death; his soul and body shall be cast into the place of unutterable woe, there to endure throughout the endless ages of eternity the unmitigated sufferings of an outcast from God. And there he will have no hope of deliverance from the worm that dieth not, and from the fire that is not quenched. Should this not startle him? Should it not arouse him from his stupor, his fatal security, his spiritual indifference?
1The conclusion of a sermon on Jeremiah 33:8: “And I will cleanse them from all their iniquity, whereby they have sinned against Me; and I will pardon all their iniquities, whereby they have sinned, and whereby they have transgressed against Me”. It is reprinted, with slight editing, from The Free Church Pulpit, vol 2. M’Watt (1801-1880), a native of Inverness, was the Disruption minister of Rothes in Morayshire.
Impenitent sinner, you are advancing every moment to the verge of eternity; you do not know whether you are a hairbreadth from it; and the condemnation of God is impending over you. What then more dreadful and alarming than your state? You are now possibly on the very brink of the eternal world – yea, as it were, nodding in your spiritual slumber on the very edge of the burning lake – and you do not know but the next nod may dash you headlong into it. O how can you sleep in your sins? How can you thus slumber and take your rest, when you do not know but the next hour – yea, the next moment – may close your eyes in death and send you into the eternal world, to place you at the bar of an offended God and put you beyond all possibility of relief? Another moment and your life may be gone! Another moment and your soul may be lost!
Ah sinner, what charm is it – what fascination, what delusion – that weds you thus to your sins, shuts your eyes to their manifest consequences and carries you on unconcerned and unalarmed into the gulf of ruin and unending wretchedness? Your condition is fearfully perilous. It is indeed alarmingly dangerous and, if you persist in it, there remains for you nothing “but a certain fearful looking for of judgement and fiery indignation, which shall devour the adversaries” (Heb 10:27).
But perilous as it is, it is my privilege, it is my commission, to announce to you this day that your condition is not altogether desperate. “The Lord’s hand is not shortened that it cannot save; neither is His ear heavy that it cannot hear” (Is 59:1). “Have I any pleasure at all that the wicked should die? saith the Lord God; and not that he should return from his ways and live?” (Ezek 18:23). “As I live, saith the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his way and live: turn ye, turn ye from your evil ways, for why will ye die, O house of Israel?” (Ezek 33:11). “Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts; and let him return unto the Lord, and He will have mercy upon him; and to our God, for He will abundantly pardon” (Is 55:7). Such are the affectionate terms in which “the Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious” is now addressing this wicked and rebellious world, and inviting all its sinful inhabitants to come unto Him that He may be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and iniquities He may remember no more.
May He give you grace to believe and comply with His invitation, so that when you turn unto Him, He may cleanse you from all your iniquity, whereby you have sinned against Him, and pardon all your iniquities whereby you have sinned and whereby you have transgressed against Him. And to His ever-blessed name be all the glory in Christ!
In the beginning of the Christian life, the eye is naturally and properly fixed on those separate acts of transgression upon which we can put our finger – that more external part of our sinfulness which it is our first and easiest duty to put away. But we soon learn, if we are progressive, that all these particular transgressions are but different modes in which the great and primitive sin of human nature manifests itself – are only varied exhibitions of that disinclination and aversion to glorify God and extol Him in the heart, which is the ultimate and original sin of man. He therefore who does not, after putting away swearing, lying and stealing, look down a little lower into his heart and detect the yet subtler ramifications of his corruption, will be likely to degenerate into a mere moralist, instead of becoming one of those spiritually-minded Christians who become more lowly and humble and broken-hearted as they become more and more upright and obedient in their external conduct.
W G T Shedd