# “Our hearts will be turned inside out” by Jonathan Edwards

- Link: https://tollelege.net/2013/04/03/our-hearts-will-be-turned-inside-out-by-jonathan-edwards/
- Published: 2013-04-03T14:00:55-05:00
- Author: tollelege

“In this world, ministers and their people often meet together to hear of and wait
upon an unseen Lord. But at the judgment, they shall meet in His most immediate 
and visible presence.

Ministers, who now often meet their people to preach to them the King eternal, immortal,
and invisible, to convince them that there is a God and declare to them what manner
of being He is, and to convince them that He governs and will judge the world, and
that there is a future state of rewards and punishments, and to preach to them a
Christ in heaven, at the right hand of God, in an unseen world—shall then meet their
people in the most immediate sensible presence of this great God, Savior, and Judge,
appearing in the most plain, visible, and open manner, with great glory, with all
His holy angels, before them and the whole world.

They shall not meet them to hear about an _absent_ Christ, an _unseen_ Lord, and
_future_ Judge; but to appear before _that Judge_—being set together in the presence
of that supreme Lord—in His immense glory and awful majesty, of whom they have heard
so often in their meetings together on earth…

How highly therefore does it now become us to consider of that time when we must
meet one another before the chief Shepherd! When I must give an account of my stewardship,
of the service I have done for, and the reception and treatment I have had among
the people to whom He sent me. And you must give an account of your own conduct 
towards me, and the improvement you have made of these three and twenty years of
my ministry.

For then both you and I must appear together, and we both must give an account, 
in order to an infallible, righteous and eternal sentence to be passed upon us, 
by Him who will judge us with respect to all that we have said or done in our meeting
here, and all our conduct one towards another in the house of God and elsewhere.

He will try our hearts, and manifest our thoughts, and the principles and frames
of our minds. He will judge us with respect to all the controversies which have 
subsisted between us, with the strictest impartiality, and will examine our treatment
of each other in those controversies. There is nothing covered that shall not be
revealed, nor hid which shall not be known.

All will be examined in the searching, penetrating light of God’s omniscience and
glory, and by Him whose eyes are as a flame of fire. Truth and right shall be made
plainly to appear, being stripped of every veil. And all error, falsehood, unrighteousness,
and injury shall be laid open, stripped of every disguise. Every specious pretense,
every cavil, and all false reasoning shall vanish in a moment, as not being able
to bear the light of that day.

And then our hearts will be turned inside out, and the secrets of them will be made
more plainly to appear than our outward actions do now. Then it shall appear what
the ends are which we have aimed at, what have been the governing principles which
we have acted from, and what have been the dispositions we have exercised in our
ecclesiastical disputes and contests.

Then it will appear whether I acted uprightly, and from a truly conscientious, careful
regard to my duty to my great Lord and Master, in some former ecclesiastical controversies,
which have been attended with exceeding unhappy circumstances and consequences. 
It will appear whether there was any just cause for the resentment which was manifested
on those occasions.

And then our late grand controversy, concerning the qualifications necessary for
admission to the privileges of members, in complete standing, in the visible church
of Christ, will be examined and judged in all its parts and circumstances, and the
whole set forth in a clear, certain, and perfect light.

Then it will appear whether the doctrine which I have preached and published concerning
this matter be Christ’s own doctrine, whether He will not own it as one of the precious
truths which have proceeded from His own mouth, and vindicate and honor as such 
before the whole universe.”

–Jonathan Edwards, “[A Farewell Sermon](https://www.amazon.com/dp/0851513972?tag=toletaupanre-20),”
[_The Works of Jonathan Edwards, Vol. 1._](https://www.amazon.com/dp/0851513972?tag=toletaupanre-20)
Ed. Edward Hickman (Banner of Truth, 1834/1998), 1:ccii, cciv. This [sermon](http://www.ccel.org/ccel/edwards/works1.i.xxvi.html)
from 2 Corinthians 1:14 was preached in Northampton on June 22, 1750.

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