"" is a sermon written and
delivered byand is arguably the most recognizable and studied sermon in the western world. He
wrote it out of a kind of despair that the believers he was speaking to (they
were attending church, after all) had not been living as they ought and
were in danger of eternal damnation because they were taking God's promise of grace for
granted.
The passage mention in your question comes from the last section of
the ten enumerations of God's wrath and judgment for those who do not turn to Him and
believe.
God has laid himself under no obligation, by any
promise to keep any natural man out of hell one moment. God certainly has made no promises
either of eternal life, or of any deliverance or preservation from eternal death, but what are
contained in the covenant of grace, the promises that are given in Christ, in whom all the
promises are yea and amen.
The simplest
"translation" is this: God has made no promises and is under no obligation to give
anyone eternal life (in heaven) or keep anyone from eternal damnation (in hell) EXCEPT for
("but for") the promises He has already made.
Those promises of
salvation and grace are contained in such verses as these, found in John 3:16-18:
For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that
whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.For
God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might
be saved.He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth
not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of
God.
Edwards's message was that God does not owe anyone
in the audience (or anyone else, for that matter) a free pass to heaven or from hell other than
the one He has already offered--the "covenant of grace" which these people had been
ignoring. The promises God has made will be honored, either to condemn or to save by
grace.
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