will remember this discourse in hell? It would be a wonder if some that
are now present should not be in hell in a very short time, before this
year is out. And it would be no wonder if some persons that now sit here
in some seats of this meeting-house in health, and quiet and secure,
should be there before to-morrow morning.'

With which blessing he dismissed the congregation to their dinners, with
such appetites as might be left to them. The strained excitement which
marks this pleasing production could not be maintained; but Edwards
never shrank in cold blood from the most appalling consequences of his
theories. He tells us, with superlative coolness, that the 'bulk of
mankind do throng' to hell (vii. 226). He sentences infants to hell
remorselessly. The imagination, he admits, may be relieved by the
hypothesis that infants suffer only in this world, instead of being
doomed to eternal misery. 'But it does not at all relieve one's reason;'
and that is the only faculty which he will obey (vi. 461). Historically
the doctrine is supported by the remark that God did not save the
children in Sodom, and that He actually commanded the slaughter of the
Midianitish infants. 'Happy shall he be,' it is written of Edom, 'that
taketh and dasheth thy little ones against the stones' (vi. 255).
Philosophically he remarks that 'a young viper has a malignant nature,
though incapable of doing a malignant action' (vi. 471), and quotes with
approval the statement of a Jewish Rabbi, that a child is wicked as soon
as born, 'for at the same time that he sucks the breasts he follows his
lust' (vi. 482), which is perhaps the superlative expression of the
theory that all natural instincts are corrupt. Finally, he enforces the
only doctrine which can equal this in horror, namely, that the saints
rejoice in the damnation of the wicked. In a sermon called 'Wicked Men
useful in their Destruction only' (vol. viii., sermon xxi.), he declares
that 'the view of the doleful condition of the damned will make them
(the saints in heaven) more prize their own blessedness.' They will
realise the wonderful grace of God, who has made so great a difference
between them and others of the same species, 'who are no worse by nature
than they, and have deserved no worse of God than they.' 'When they
shall look upon the damned,' he exclaims, 'and see their misery, how
will heaven ring with the praises of God's justice towards the wicked,
and His grace towards the sa