Be not deceived, my friends; he alone is a saint of
God who is a sanctified man; and his passions,--as they are the spring of
his actions, so they are the sphere and seat of his sanctification. Be
not deceived; that man, and no other manner of man, is, or ever will be,
a partaker of God's salvation. You often hear me recommending those
students who have first to subdue their own passions and then the
passions of those who hear them to study Jonathan Edwards' ethical and
spiritual writings. Well, just at this present point, to show you how
well that great man practised what he preached, let me read to you a few
lines from his biographer: 'Few men,' says Henry Rogers, 'ever attained a
more complete mastery over their passions than Jonathan Edwards did. This
was partly owing to the ascendency of his intellect; partly, and in a
still greater degree, to the elevation of his piety. For the subjugation
of his passions he was no doubt very greatly indebted to the prodigious
superiority of his reason. Such was the commanding attitude his reason
assumed, and such the tremendous power with which it controlled the whole
man, that any insurrection among his senses was hopeless; they had their
tenure only by doing fealty and homage to his intellect.
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