“149. =A contentious spirit.= History in a general way corroborates the following testimony of Edwards concerning the contentious spirit in the people of Northampton: "There were some mighty contests and controversies among them in Mr.”
“2. _'Tis not intended that outward means have no concern in this affair._ As I have observed already, 'tis not in this affair, as it is in inspiration, where new truths are suggested: for here is by this light only given a due apprehension of the same truths that are revealed in the word of God; and therefore it is not given without the word.”
“All the good of the fallen and redeemed creature is concerned in these four things, and cannot be better distributed than into them; but Christ is each of them to us, and we have none of them any otherwise than in him. _He is made of God unto us wisdom_: in him are all the proper good and true excellency of the understanding.”
“All wicked men's _pains_ and _contrivance_ they use to escape _hell_, while they continue to reject Christ, and so remain wicked men, don't secure 'em from hell one moment.”
“And as for the saints, they will be already perfectly delivered from all their before remaining corruption, temptation, and calamities of every kind, and set forever out of their reach; and no deliverance, no happy alteration, will remain to be accomplished in the way of the use of means of grace, under the administrations of ministers.”
“And, at the same time, they will give an account of the ill treatment of such as have not well received them and their messages from Christ: they will meet these, not as they used to do in this world, to counsel and warn them, but to bear witness against them, and as their judges and assessors with Christ, to condemn them.”
“And by these Scriptures it must not only be a different knowledge in degree and circumstances, and different in its effects; but it must be entirely different in nature and kind.”
“And even in the apostles' times, when there was such wonderful success of the gospel, yet wherever they came, there were some that did not believe: Acts xiii. 48, "And when the Gentiles heard this, they were glad, and glorified the word of the Lord; and as many as were ordained to eternal life, believed.”
“And let me be remembered in the prayers of all God's people that are of a calm spirit, and are peaceable and faithful in Israel, of whatever opinion they may be with respect to terms of church communion.”
“And so all things will be adjusted and settled forever between them; every one being sentenced and recompensed according to his works, either in receiving and wearing a crown of eternal joy and glory, or in suffering everlasting shame and pain.”
“And the sum of the blessings which the redeemed shall receive in heaven is that river of water of life that proceeds from the throne of God and the Lamb, Rev. xxii. 1,--which doubtless signifies the same with those rivers of living water explained John vii. 38, 39, which is elsewhere called the "river of God's pleasures.”
“And there are those that belong to the kingdom of darkness, that are without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, strangers from the covenant of promise, having no hope, and without God in the world.”
