pale drawn face, in which we can trace an equal resemblance to the stern
Puritan forefathers and to the keen sallow New Englander of modern
times. He gives out as his text, 'Sinners shall slide in due time,' and
the title of his sermon is, 'Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God.' For
a full hour he dwells with unusual vehemence on the wrath of the Creator
and the sufferings of the creature. His sentences, generally languid and
complex, condense themselves into short, almost gasping asseverations.
God is angry with the wicked; as angry with the living wicked as 'with
many of those miserable creatures that He is now tormenting in hell.'
The devil is waiting: the fire is ready; the furnace is hot; the
'glittering sword is whet and held over them, and the pit hath opened
her mouth to receive them.' The unconverted are walking on a rotten
covering, where there are innumerable weak places, and those places not
distinguishable. The flames are 'gathering and lashing about' the
sinner, and all that preserves him for a moment is 'the mere arbitrary
will and uncovenanted unobliged forbearance of an incensed God.' But
does not God love sinners? Hardly in a comforting sense. 'The God that
holds you over the pit of hell, much as one holds a spider or some
other loathsome insect over the fire, abhors you, and is dreadfully
provoked; He looks upon you as worthy of nothing else but to be cast
into the fire;... you are ten thousand times as abominable in His eyes
as the most hateful and venomous serpent is in ours.' The comparison of
man to a loathsome viper is one of the metaphors to which Edwards most
habitually recurs (_e.g._ vii. 167, 179, 182, 198, 344, 496). No relief
is possible; Edwards will have no attempt to explain away the eternity
of which he speaks; there will be no end to the 'exquisite horrible
misery' of the damned. You, when damned, 'will know certainly that you
must wear out long ages, millions of millions of ages, in wrestling and
conflicting with this Almighty merciless vengeance: and then when you
have so done, when so many ages have actually been spent by you in this
manner, you will know that all is but a point to what remains.' Nor
might his hearers fancy that, as respectable New England Puritans, they
had no personal interest in the question. It would be awful, he says, if
we could point to one definite person in this congregation as certain to
endure such torments. 'But, alas! instead of one, how many is it likely