Sermon Sunday – Jonathan Edwards – Natural Men in a Dreadful Condition

Natural Men in a Dreadful Condition

by

 Jonathan Edwards
 (1703-1758)

  Dated February, 1753. Preached to the Stockbridge Indians

“Then he called for a light, and sprang in, and came trembling, and fell down before Paul and Silas,
and brought them out, and said, Sirs what must I do to be saved?” — Acts 16:29, 30

We have here and in the context and account of the conversion of the jailer, which is one of the most remarkable instances of the kind in the Scriptures. The jailer before seems not only to have been wholly insensible to the things of religion, but to have been a persecutor, and to have persecuted these very men, Paul and Silas; though he now comes to them in so earnest a manner, asking them what he must do to be saved. We are told in the context that all the magistrates and multitude of the city rose up jointly in a tumult against them, and took them, and cast them into prison, charging the jailer to keep them safely. Whereupon he thrust them into the inner prison, and made their feet fast in the stocks. And it is probable he did not act in this merely as the servant or instrument of the magistrates, but that he joined with the rest of the people in their rage against them. And that he did what he did urged on by his own will, as well as the magistrates’ commands, which made him execute their commands with such rigor. Continue Reading Sermon Sunday – Jonathan Edwards – Natural Men in a Dreadful Condition…