Five Discourses

On Important Subjects, Nearly Concerning The Great Affair Of The Soul’s Eternal Salvation

PREFACE

THE following discourses were all, excepting the last, delivered in the time of the late wonderful work of God’s power and grace in this place, and are now published on the earnest desire of those to whom they were preached. These particular discourses are fixed upon, and designed for the press, rather than others that were delivered in that remarkable season, by their election. What has determined them in their choice, is the experience they hope they have had special benefit to their souls from these discourses. Their desire to have them in their hands from the press has been long manifested, and often expressed to me. Their earnestness in it is evident from this that, though it be a year of the greatest public charge to them that ever has been, by reason of the expense of building a new meeting-house, yet they chose rather to be at this additional expense now, though it be very considerable, than to have it delayed another year. I am fully sensible that their value for these discourses has arisen more from the frame in which they heard them, and the good which, through the sovereign blessing of God, they have received, than any real worth in them. And whatever the discourses are in themselves, yet those who heard them are not to be blamed or wondered at, if that is dear to them, which they hope God has made a means of saving and everlasting benefit. They have much insisted on this argument with me, to induce me to comply with their desire, viz. that they hoped the reading of these discourses would have a tendency in some measure to renew the same effect in them that was wrought in the hearing, and revive the memory of that great work of God, which this town has so much cause ever to remember, [and] which argument has been of principal weight with me, to incline me to think it to be my duty to comply with their desire. Though I cannot say there are no other considerations concurring to induce me to it.

With respect to the discourse on justification, besides the desire of my people to make it public, I have been advised to it by certain reverend gentlemen, my fathers, that happened to be the hearers of it (or, at least, part of it) when preached, whose opinion and advice, in such an affair, I thought should be of as great weight with me as of most that I was acquainted with.

The beginning of the late work of God in this place was so circumstanced, that I could not but look upon it as a remarkable testimony of God’s approbation of the doctrine of justification by faith alone, here asserted and vindicated. — By the noise that had a little before been raised in this county concerning that doctrine, people here seemed to have their minds put into an unusual ruffle. Some were brought to doubt of that way of acceptance with God, which from their infancy they had been taught to be the only way, and many were engaged more thoroughly to look into the grounds of those doctrines in which they had been educated. — The following discourse of justification, that was preached (though not so fully as it is here printed) at two public lectures, seemed to be remarkably blessed, not only to establish the judgments of many in this truth, but to engage their hearts in a more earnest pursuit of justification, in that way that had been explained and defended. At that time, while I was greatly reproached for defending this doctrine in the pulpit, and just upon my suffering a very open abuse for it, God’s work wonderfully broke forth amongst us, and souls began to flock to Christ, as the Savior in whose righteousness alone they hoped to be justified. So that this was the doctrine on which this work in its beginning was founded, as it evidently was in the whole progress of it.

A great objection that is made against the old Protestant doctrine of justification by faith alone, and the scheme of those divines that have chiefly defended it, by those that value themselves upon the new fashioned divinity, is that the scheme is too much encumbered with speculative niceties, and subtle distinctions, that, they say, serve only to involve the subject in endless controversy and dispute. Whereas, their scheme, they suppose, is a plain, easy, and natural account of things. But their prejudice against distinctions in divinity, I humbly conceive, is carried to a great extreme. So great, so general, and loud a cry has been raised by modern philosophers and divines against the subtle distinctions of the schoolmen, for their learned impertinence, that many are ready to start at anything that looks like nice distinction, and to condemn it for nonsense without examination. Upon the same account, we might expect to have St. Paul’s epistles, that are full of very nice distinctions, called nonsense and unintelligible jargon, had not they the good luck to be universally received by all Christians as part of the Holy Scriptures.

Our discovering the absurdity of the impertinent and abstruse distinctions of the school divines, may justly give us a distaste of such distinctions as have a show of learning in obscure words, but convey no light to the mind. But I can see not reason why we should also discard those that are clear and rational, and can be made out to have their foundation in truth, although they may be such as require some diligence and attention of mind clearly to apprehend them. So much of the Scripture scheme of justification as is absolutely necessary to salvation, may be very plain, and level with the understandings of the weakest Christians. But it does not therefore follow, that the Scripture teaches us no more about it that would exceeding profitable for us to know, and by gaining the knowledge of which, we may obtain a more full and clear understanding of this doctrine, and be better able to solve doubts that may arise concerning it, and to defend it from the sophistry and cavils of subtle opposers.

It is so in most of the great doctrines of Christianity, that are looked upon as first principles of the Christian faith, that though they contain something that is easy, yet they also contain great mysteries. There is room for progress in the knowledge of them, and doubtless will be to the end of the world. But it is unreasonable to expect that this progress should be made in the knowledge of things that are high and mysterious, without accurate distinction and close application of thought. It is also unreasonable, to think that this doctrine of the justification of a sinner by a mediator should be without mysteries. We all own it to be a matter of pure revelation, above the light of natural reason, and that it is what the infinite wisdom of God revealed in the gospel mainly appears in, that he has found out such a way of reconciliation of which neither men nor angels could have thought. And after all, shall we expect that this a way, when found out and declared, shall contain nothing but what is obvious to the most cursory and superficial view, and may be fully and clearly comprehended without some diligence, accuracy, and careful distinction?

If the distinctions I have made use of in handling this subject are found to be inconsistent, trivial, and unscriptural niceties, tending only to cloud the subject, I ought to be willing that they should be rejected. But if on due examination they are found both scriptural and rational, I humbly conceive that it will be unjust to condemn them, merely because they are distinctions, under a notion that niceness in divinity never helps it, but always perplexes and darkens it. It is to God’s own revelation that I make my appeal, by which alone we can know in what way he will be pleased again to receive into favor those who have offended him and incurred his displeasure. If there be any part of the scheme here laid down, or any distinction here used, not warranted by Scripture, let it be rejected, and if any opposite scheme can be found that is more easy and plain, having fewer and more rational distinctions, and not demonstrably inconsistent with itself and with the Word of God, let it be received. Let the Arminian scheme of justification by our own virtue be as plain and natural as it will. If at the same time it is plainly contrary to the certain and demonstrable doctrine of the gospel, as contained in the Scriptures, we are bound to reject it, unless we reject the Scriptures themselves as perplexed and absurd, and make ourselves wiser than God, and pretend to know his mind better than himself.

This discourse on justification is printed much larger than it was preached. But the practical discourses that follow have but little added to them, and now appear in that very plain and unpolished dress in which they were first prepared and delivered, which was mostly at a time when circumstances of the auditory they were preached to, were enough to make a minister neglect, forget, and despise such ornaments as politeness and modishness of style and method, when coming as a messenger from God to souls deeply impressed with a sense of their danger of God’s everlasting wrath, to treat with them about their eternal salvation. — However unable I am to preach or write politely, if I would , yet I have this to comfort me under such a defect, that God has showed us he does not need such talents in men to carry on his own work, and that he has been pleased to smile upon and bless a very plain unfashionable way of preaching. And have we not reason to think, that it ever has been, and ever will be, God’s manner, to bless the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe, [and] let the elegance of language and excellency of style be carried to never so great a height, by the learning and wit of the present and future ages?

What is published at the end, concerning the excellency of Christ, is added on my own motion, thinking that discourse on which an evangelical subject would properly follow others that were chiefly awakening, and that something of the excellency of the Savior was proper to succeed those things that were to show the necessity of salvation. I pitched upon that particular discourse, partly because I had been earnestly importuned for a copy of it for the press, by some in another town in whose hearing it was occasionally preached.