We just read Jonathan Edwards for my American Literature discussion group. We all agreed that Edwards’ sermon, Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God, wouldn’t go over too well nowadays. I’m not sure that’s an indictment of the sermon as much as it is of us and our culture. We also read Edwards’ Personal Narrative from which I extracted this quote:

On January 12, 1723, I made a solemn dedication of myself to God, and wrote it down; giving up myself, and all that I had to God; to be for the future in no respect my own; to act as one that had no right to himself, in any respect. And solemnly vowed to take God for my whole portion and felicity; looking on nothing else as any part of my happiness, nor acting as if it were; and his law for the constant rule of my obedience; engaging to fight with all my might against the world, the flesh, and the devil, to the end of my life. But I have reason to be infinitely humbled when I consider how much I have failed of answering my obligation.

How humbled should those of us be who have failed to even attempt such a commitment!