BY JONATHAN EDWARDS.
It cannot be unreasonable to suppose that, before God delivers persons from a state of sin and exposedness to eternal destruction, He should give them some considerable sense of the evil He delivers them from; that they may be delivered sensibly, and understand their own salvation, and know something of what God does for them. As men that are saved are in two exceeding different states—first a state of condemnation, and then a state of justification and blessedness; and as God, in the work of the salvation of mankind, deals with them suitably to their intelligent rational nature; so it seems reasonable, and agreeable to God’s wisdom, that men who are saved should be in these two states sensibly; first, that they should sensibly to themselves be in a state of condemnation, and thus in a state of woeful calamity and dreadful misery, and so afterwards sensibly in a state of deliverance and happiness; and that they should be first sensible of their absolute extreme necessity, and afterwards of Christ’s sufficiency and God’s mercy through Him.
And that it is God’s manner of dealing with men, to lead them into a wilderness, before He speaks comfortably to them, and so to order it that they shall be brought into distress, and made to see their own helplessness and absolute dependence on His power and grace, before He appears to work any great deliverance for them, is abundantly manifest by the Scripture. Then is God wont to “repent Himself for His people, when their strength is gone, and there is none shut up or left,” and when they are brought to see that their false gods cannot help them, and that the rock in whom they trusted is vain. Before God delivered the children of Israel out of Egypt, they were prepared for it by being made to see that they were in an evil case, and to cry unto Him because of their hard bondage. So, before they were brought to their rest, and to enjoy the milk and honey of Canaan, God “led them through a great and terrible wilderness, that He might humble them, and teach them what was in their heart, and so do them good in their latter end.” The woman that
had the issue of blood twelve years was not delivered until she had first “spent all her living on physicians, and could not be healed of any,” and so was left helpless, having no more money to spend; and then she came to the Great Physician, without any money or price, and was healed by Him.
The Apostle Paul, before a remarkable deliverance, was “pressed out of measure, above strength, insomuch that he despaired even of life; but had the sentence of death in himself, that he might not trust in himself, but in God that raiseth the dead.” There was first a great tempest, and the ship was covered with the waves and just ready to sink, and the disciples were brought to cry to Jesus, “Lord, save us, we perish”; and then the wind and seas were rebuked, and there was a great calm. The leper, before he is cleansed, must have his mouth stopped by a covering over his upper lip, and was to acknowledge his great misery and utter uncleanness by rending his clothes and crying, “Unclean, unclean.” Joseph, who was sold by his brethren, and therein was a type of Christ, brings his brethren into great perplexity and distress, and brings them to reflect on their sin, and to say, “we are verily guilty,” and at last to resign up themselves entirely into his hands for bondmen; and then reveals himself to them, as their brother and their saviour.
And if we consider those extraordinary manifestations which God made of Himself to saints of old, we shall find that He commonly first manifested Himself in a way which was terrible, and then by those things which were comfortable. So it was with Abraham; first a horror of great darkness fell upon him, and then God revealed Himself to him in sweet promises. So it was with Moses at Mount Sinai; first, God appeared to him in all the terrors of His dreadful majesty, so that Moses said, “I exceedingly fear and quake,” and then He made all His goodness to pass before him. So it was with Elijah; first, there is a stormy wind, and earthquake, devouring fire, and then a still, small, sweet voice. So it was with Daniel, he first saw Christ’s countenance as lightning that terrified him, and caused him to faint away; and then he is strengthened and refreshed with comfortable words. So it was with the Apostle John in Patmos. And there is an analogy observable in God’s dispensations and deliverances which He works for His people, and the manifestations which He makes of Himself to them, both ordinary and extraordinary.
But there are many things in Scripture which more directly show that this is God’s ordinary manner in working salvation for the souls of men, and in the manifestations God makes of Himself and of His mercy in Christ, in the ordinary works of His grace on the hearts of sinners. The servant that owed his prince ten thousand talents is first held to his debt, and the king pronounces sentence of condemnation upon him, and commands him to be sold, and his wife and children, and payment to be made; and thus he humbles him, and brings him to own the whole debt to be just, and then forgives him all. The prodigal son spends all he has, and is brought to see himself in extreme circumstances, and to humble himself and own his unworthiness, before he is relieved and feasted by his father. Old inveterate wounds must be searched to the bottom, in order to healing; and the Scripture compares sin, the wound of the soul, to this, and speaks of healing this wound without thus searching of it as vain and deceitful.
Christ, in the work of His grace on the hearts of men, is compared to rain on the mown grass that is cut down with a scythe, representing His refreshing, comforting influences on the wounded spirit. Our first parents; after they had sinned, were first terrified with God’s majesty and justice, and had their sin with its aggravations set before them by their Judge, before they were relieved by the promise of the Seed of the woman. Christians are spoken of as those “that have fled for refuge to lay hold of a hope set before them,” which representation implies great fear and sense of danger preceding. To the like purpose, Christ is called “a hiding-place from the wind, and a covert from the tempest.” And it seems to be the natural import of the word Gospel, glad tidings, that it is news of deliverance and salvation, after great fear and distress.
And, if it be indeed God’s manner (as I think the foregoing considerations show that it undoubtedly is), before He gives men the comfort of a deliverance from their sin and misery, to give them considerable sense of the greatness and dreadfulness of those evils and their extreme wretchedness by reason of them, surely it is not unreasonable to suppose that persons, at least oftentimes while under these views, should have great distresses and terrible apprehensions of mind.
Especially if it be considered what these evils are that they have a view of, which are no other than great and manifold sins against the infinite majesty of the great Jehovah, and the suffering of the fierceness of his wrath to all Eternity. And the more so still, when we have many plain instances in Scripture of persons that have actually been brought into great distress by such convictions, before they have received saving consolations: as the multitude at Jerusalem, who were “pricked in their heart, and said unto Peter, and the rest of the apostles, ‘Men and brethren what shall we do?'” and the Apostle Paul, who trembled and was astonished before he was comforted; and the jailor, when “he called for a light, and sprang in, and came trembling, and fell down before Paul and Silas, and said, ‘Sirs, what must I do to be saved?'” From these it appears to be very unreasonable in professing Christians to make this an objection against the truth and spiritual nature of the comfortable and joyful affections which any have, that they follow such awful apprehensions and distresses as have been mentioned.