A Warning to Professors — Jonathan Edwards

A warning to professors or the great guilt of those who attend on the ordinances of divine worship and yet allow themselves in any known wickedness. This sermon was published in 1788 and it is being narrated on April 1st, 2006 by Tom Sullivan.

The Adultery and Bloodshed of Israel's Idolatry

Ezekiel 23, 37 -39. That they have committed adultery and blood is in their hands and with their idols they have committed adultery, and have also caused their sons whom they bear unto me to pass for them through the fire to devour them.

Moreover this they have done unto me, they have defiled my sanctuary in the same day and have profaned my sabbath. And when they have slain their children to their idols and they came the same day into my sanctuary to profane it, lo thus they have done in the midst of mine house.

Mary Israel and Judah are here represented by two women, Ahola and Aholaba, and their idolatry and treachery towards their covenant God is represented by the adultery of these women. They forsook God who was their husband in the guide of their youth and prostituted themselves to others.

The briefness of Ahola and Aholaba towards God, their husband, is here pointed out by two things, namely adultery and bloodshed. They have committed adultery and blood is in their hands. Number one, they committed adultery with other lovers, namely with their idols.

With their idols they have committed adultery. Number two, they not only committed adultery but they took their children that they bore to God and killed them for their lovers. Their hearts were quite alienated from God, their husband, and they were so bewitched with lust after those other lovers that they took their own children whom they had by their husband and put them to cruel deaths to make a feast with them for their lovers, as it is said in verse 37, and have also caused my sons whom they bear unto me to pass for them through the fire to devour them.

Profaning Sacred Things Through Hypocrisy

But here is a two-fold wickedness of those actions of theirs held forth to us in the words, number one, wickedness of them considered in themselves, for who can express the horrid baseness of this, their treatment of God, their husband?

Number two, an additional wickedness resulting from the jointed of these actions with sacred things. Beside the monstrous wickedness of these actions in themselves considered, they increased their guilt that on the same day they came into God's sanctuary, or that they lived in such wickedness at the same time that they came and attended the holy ordinances of God's house, pretending to worship and adore Him, whom they all the while treated in such a horrid manner.

And so, herein defiled and profaned holy things, as in verse 38 and 39, moreover this they have done unto me, they have defiled my sanctuary in the same day, and have profaned my sabbaths, their children, to their idols, when they came the same day into my sanctuary, to profane it.

In the divine worship allowed themselves unknown wickedness, they are guilty of dreadfully profaning and polluting those ordinances. By a divine ordinance, when the expression is used in its greatest latitude, it is not anything of divine institution or appointment.

Thus we call marriage a divine ordinance, because it was appointed by God. So civil government is called an ordinance of God, Romans 13 .1. Let every soul be subject to the higher powers, for there is no power but of God.

The powers that be are ordained of God, whosoever therefore resisteth the power resisteth the ordinance of God. But the word is more commonly used only for an instituted or appointed way or mean of worship, or as a means to commence or ordinances, so public prayer, singing of praise, word preached or defined ordinances, the setting apart of certain officers of the church, the appointed way of discipline, public confession of scandals, admonition, an excommunication of the house or of public worship, and these are attended in the doctrine.

It is a profanation of these ordinances that is spoken of in the text, sanctuary to profane it. And lo, thus have they done in the midst of mine house, saith God. In the divine worship we are in the especial, Isaiah 7 .10.

Come and stand before me in this house which is called by my name, Psalm 50 verse 2. Come into his presence with singing. In defined ordinances persons have immediate intercourse with God, either in applying to him as in prayer and singing praises, or in receiving from him, waiting solemnly and immediately on him for spiritual good as in hearing the word, or in both applying to God and receiving from him as in the sacraments.

They were appointed on purpose that in them men might converse and hold communion with God, conversing with him. In these ordinances holy and divine things are exhibited and represented. In the preaching of the word, holy doctrines and the divine will are exhibited.

In the sacraments, Christ Jesus and his benefits are represented. In prayer and praise, and in the attendance on the word and sacraments, are represented our faith, love, and obedience. Number two, the end of God's ordinances is holy.

The immediate end is to glorify God in hopes as if. Number three, of divine authority. They are not only conversant about a divine and holy object, and not designed to direct and help us in divine and holy exercises, but they have a divine and holy author.

The infinitely great and holy God hath appointed them, the eternal three and one. Each person in the trinity has been consumed in their institution. God the Father hath appointed them, and that by his own Son.

He had received of the Father, John 12, 49. I have not spoken of myself, but the Father should say in what I should speak, more fully revealed and ratified than by the Spirit, writing by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, and much more sacred than otherwise they would have been.

Ordinances Attended in the Name of Christ

Number four, they are attended in the name of God. Thus we are commanded to do all that we do in word or deed, in the name of Christ. When a true minister preaches, he speaks 411, and he is to be heard as one representing Christ.

So in administering the sacraments, a minister represents a person of Christ. He baptizes in his name, and in the Lord's Supper stands and is dead. In administering church censors, he still acts as the apostle expresses it, in the person of Christ.

2 Peter 2 .10. On the other hand, the congregation in their addresses to God and ordinances, as prayer and praise act in the name of Christ, the Mediator, is having him to represent them, and is coming to God by him.

The Profanation of Ordinances by Allowed Wickedness

Section 2. God's ordinances are dreadfully profaned by those who attend on them and yet allow themselves in ways of wickedness. Persons who come to the house of God, into the holy presence of God, attending the duties and ordinances of his public worship, pretending with others according to divine institution to call on the name of God, to praise him, to hear his word and commemorate Christ's death and who yet at the same time are wickedly and allowedly going on in wicked courses or in any practice contrary to the plain rules of the word of God, they are in greatly profane the holy worship of God, defile the temple of God and those sacred ordinances on which they attend.

The truth of this proposition appears by the following considerations, number one. By attending ordinances and yet living in allowed wickedness, they show great irreverence and contempt of those holy ordinances.

When persons who have been committing known wickedness and yet live in it and have no other design and they go on still in the same, when they come from their wickedness as it were the same day as it is expressed in the text and attend the solemn worship and ordinances of God and then go from the house of God directly to the like allowed wickedness, they hereby express a most irreverent spirit and a horrid manner cast contempt upon God's sacred institutions and on those holy things which we are concerned with in them.

They show that they have no reverence of that God who hath allowed these ordinances. They show a contempt of that divine authority which instituted them. They show a horrible, irreverent spirit towards that God into whose presence they come and with whom they immediately have to do in ordinances and in whose name these ordinances are performed and attended.

They should submit and praise which ordinances were instituted to excel us. After what manner they come before God, that they tear us unclean and filthy. They have been taught many a time that God is of pure eyes and that He behold evil and cannot look on iniquity and how exceedingly He is offended with sin, yet they care not how unclean and abominable they come into His presence.

It shows horrid irreverence and contempt that they are so bold that they are not afraid to come into the presence of God in such a manner, and that they will presume to go out of the presence of God and from an attendance upon holy things again to their sinful practices.

If they had any reverence of God and holy things, an approach into His presence and an attendance on those holy things would leave that upon their minds that they would not dare to go immediately from them to their ways of known wickedness.

It would show a great irreverence in any person towards a king if he should not care how he came into his presence and if he should come in a sordid habit and in a very indecent manner. How much more horrid irreverence does it show for persons willingly and allowedly to defile themselves with that filth which God infinitely hates and so frequently to come into the presence of God.

Religious Profession as Mockery of God

2. By making a show of respect to God in ordinances, and then acting the contrary in their lives, they do but mock God. In attending ordinances, they make a show of respect to God, a desire of grace and of the Word.

They make a show of a teachable spirit and of a readiness to practice according to the instructions given to them for their portion in spiritual life. But by their actions they all the while declare the contrary.

They declare that they have no high esteem of God, but that they despise Him in their hearts. They declare that they are so far from repenting of that they intend to continue in their sins. They declare that they have no desire of that grace and assistance to live in a holy manner for which they prayed, and that they had rather live wickedly.

This is what they choose, and for the present are resolved upon. They declare by their actions that there is no truth in what they pretend in hearing the word preached, that they had a desire to know what the will of God is, that they might be directed in their duty.

For they declare by their actions that they desire not to do the will of God, and that they do not intend any such thing, but intend on the contrary to disobey Him, and that they prefer their carnal interests before His authority and glory.

They declare by their actions that there is no truth in what they pretend in their attendance on the sacraments, that they desire to be fed with spiritual nourishment, and to be conformed and assimilated in Christ, and to have communion with Him.

They show by their practices that they have no regard to Christ, and that they had rather have their lusts. They desire not any assimilation to Christ, but to be different from Him. At the same time, willfully to declare the reverse in actions.

If a rebel or traitor should send addresses to His loyalty and fidelity, and should all the while openly and in the kingsight carry on owning Him, how could his addresses be considered as any other than mockery?

If he should not kneel before His superior and kneel before Him, but at the same time should strike Him or spit in His face, would his bowing and his respectful turns be looked upon in any light before Christ, and said, Hail, King of the Jews, but at the same time spit in His head with a reed?

Thus they kneel before Him, and say, Hail, King of the Jews, wickedness which they know Christ is forbidden, of which He hath declared the greatest hatred, and which are exceedingly repudiated in any other worship, and attend ordinances, and yet will be drunkards and profane swearers, will live in lasciviousness, injustice, or some other known wickedness.

If a man should pray to God to keep him from drunkenness, and at the same time should put the bottle to his own mouth, and drink himself drunk, the absurdity and horror not so visible to us as done by those who make profession of great respect to God, and pray to God from time to time to keep them from sin, yet at the same time have no design to forsake their known sins, but intend the contrary, God seems more plainly than we can see their outward kept from sin, and at the same time to intend to sin, is mockery, as visible to God as if he prayed to be kept from some particular sin which he was at the same time willingly and allowedly committing.

These persons are guilty of a horrid profanation of God's ordinances, for they make them occasions of a greater affront to God, the occasions of showing their impudence and presumption. For he who lives in willful wickedness, and thus not enjoy the ordinances of God, is not guilty of so great presumption as he who attends these ordinances, and yet allows himself in wickedness.

This latter acts as though he came into the presence of God on purpose to affront him. He comes from time to time to hear the will of God, and all the while designs disobedience and goes away and acts directly contrary to it.

A servant would affront his master by willfully disobeying his commands in any wise, but he would affront him much more if he should on every occasion come to him to inquire his will, as though he were ready to do whatever his master would have him do, and then should immediately go away and do the contrary.

Turning Holy Ordinances to Profane Purposes

3. They put the ordinances of God to a profane use. The ordinances of God are holy, as they are set up on purpose. They are the worship of God, instituted for the ends of giving honor and glory to Him and to be means of grace and spiritual good to us.

But those persons who attend these ordinances and yet live in allowed wickedness aim at neither of these ends. Their ordinances neither aim to give honor to God, nor to express any love or esteem or thankfulness, nor do they sincerely seek the good of their own souls.

It is not truly the aim of any such persons to obtain grace or to be made holy. Their actions plainly show that this is not their desire. They choose to be wicked and intend it. It is not, therefore, to these purposes that they improve the holy ordinances of God, but they put them to another and profane use.

They attend ordinances to avoid that discredit which a voluntary and habitual absence from them would cause among those with whom they live, to avoid the punishment of human laws or for their worldly advantage, to make up for other wickedness or for some other carnal purposes.

Thus they profane the ordinances of God by perverting them to profane purposes. 4. When persons thus treat God's holy ordinances, it tends to beget contempt of them and others. When others have been treated without any, they see persons are bold with them, and treat them without any solemnity of spirit or wickedness.

Self-Examination Before the Lord's Supper

You as such as do enjoy the ordinances of divine worship of God, attending on those ordinances which God, by sacred authority, has given you, pretend before God that you are sensible, how unworthily you do the like.

But consider whether you do not horribly defile to His ordinances, allow yourselves unknown sins in yourselves in the week, the very day in which you attend ordinances, unlawedly pleasing, gratifying, not as in perpetrating wickedness in your thoughts, and contriving the further fulfillment of your wickedness.

Yea, are you not guilty of these things, sometimes even in the very time of your attendance on ordinances, when you are in the immediate presence of nations, voluntarily wallowing in known wickedness?

Are not some of you guilty of unlawfully breaking God's holy sabbath about, commandments on the ordinance of worship? Examine yourselves, how do you attend the ordinances of divine worship? You come to the house of God, attend public prayers, singing and preaching of the word, and many of you come to the Lord's Supper, that holy ordinance, instituted for the special commemoration of the greatest and most wonderful of all divine acts towards mankind, for the special and visible representation of the most glorious and wonderful things of our religion, for the most solemn commitment to God, and for special communion with Jesus in the most sacred ordinance.

Examine and see, whether you do not allow yourselves in some way of dealing with your fellow men, which you have sufficient light to know to be evil, or whether you do not allow yourselves in an unequal behavior towards some person or persons of the families to which you respectively belong, as towards your husbands, your wives, your children, your servants, or your neighbors, in your spirit and behavior towards them, or in your talk of them.

Examine whether you do not in some way willingly indulge in unclean appetite, in lesser, grosser acts of uncleanness, or in your discourse, or in your imagination, or do you not give way to a lust after a strong drink, or indulge yourselves in some vicious excess, in gratifying some sensual appetite in meat or drink, or in the act of vanity and extravagance in your conversation?

Do you not, for all your attendance on ordinances, continue in the allowed neglect of your precious souls, neglecting secret prayer, or some known duty of private religion? Or do you not allow yourselves in Sabbath-breaking?

In all these ways are the ordinances of God's sacred worship polluted and profane. Men are apt to act very treacherously and perversely in the matter of self-examination. When they are put upon examining themselves, they very often decline it, and will not enter into any serious examination of themselves at all.

They hear uses of examination insisted on, but put them off to others, and never seriously apply them to themselves. And if they do examine themselves when they are put upon it, they are exceedingly partial to it.

They do not search, and look, and pass a judgment according to truth, but so as unreasonably to favor and justify themselves, if they can be brought to examine themselves at all. Whether they do not allow themselves a known wickedness, or whether they attend on divine ordinances, they will not do it impartially.

Their endeavor will not be, indeed, to know the truth of their case, and to give a true answer to their consciences, but to blind themselves, to persuade and flatter themselves that they do not allow themselves a known sin, whether it be true or not.

Excusing Known Sin as Ignorance

There are two things, especially, wherein persons often act very perversely and falsely in this matter. Number one, persons very often deal very perversely in pretending that the sins in which they live are not known sins.

Nothing is more common, surely, than for a person to flatter himself with this concerning the wickedness in which he lives. Let that wickedness be almost what it may, they will cling to their consciences and endeavor to steal them, that there is no evil in it, or that they do not know that there is any evil in it.

Men's own consciences can best tell how they are wont to do in this matter. There is hardly any kind of wickedness that men commit, but they will pleave thus an excuse for it. They will pleave thus about their cheating and injustice, about their hatred of their neighbors, about their evil speaking, about their revengeful spirit, about their excess of drinking, about their lying, their neglect of secret prayer, their lasciviousness, their unclean dalliances, yea, they will plead excuses for very gross acts of uncleanness as fornication, adultery, and what not.

They have their vain excuses and carnal reasonings in favor of all their evil actions. They will say, What harm, what evil is there in such and such an action? And if there be a plain rule against it, yea, they will plead that their circumstances are peculiar and that they are accepted from the general rule, that their temptation is so great that they are excusable, or some thing will they find to plead.

If it be some thing upon which their lusts are much said, and about which they feel remorse of conscience, they will never leave studying and contriving with all the art and subtlety of which they are masters, till they shall have found out some reason, some excuse, with which they shall be able in some measure to quiet their consciences, and whether after all they shall have made it out to blind conscience or not, yea, they will plead that their argument is good, and it is no sin.

If it be a sin, it is only a sin of ignorance. Some men will plead for the wickedness which they do in the dark. So without doubt some very gross sinners plead to their consciences, as would appear, if we could but look into their hearts, when indeed the strongest argument they have that in such a thing there is no evil, is the strongest lust they have to it, the inordinate desire they have to commit it.

It was the saying of one that we all perish by lawful things, which is as much as to say men commonly live wickedly and go to hell in those ways which they flatter themselves to be lawful. Or at least they flatter themselves that they are sins of ignorance, they do not know them to be unlawful.

Thus I make no doubt some will be apt to do in applying to themselves this use of examination if they can be persuaded to apply it to themselves at all. Whether these things be true of you, let your conscience speak.

You that neglect secret prayer, you that live in secret, unclean, lascivious actions, you that indulge in an inordinate appetite for strong drink, you that defraud or oppress others, you that indulge a spirit of revenge and hatred towards your neighbor, here I desire you to consider two or three things.

Number one, not all sins which one knows not with a certain knowledge to be sinful are justly called sins of ignorance. Men often will excuse themselves for venturing upon a sinful action or practice with this that they know not that it is sinful, which is at most true no otherwise, and as they do not know it to be sinful with a certain knowledge or with the evidence of absolute demonstration, although at the same time it is a sin against their light and against great light.

They have been so taught that they have had light enough to make them sensible that it is displeasing to God and not warranted or allowed by Him. And they do in their consciences think it to be sinful, they are secretly convinced of it, however they may pretend the contrary, and labor to deceive themselves and to persuade themselves that they do not think there is any evil in it.

Those sins which are contrary to sufficient information and instruction, and contrary to the rule dictates of their own consciences, or to the judgment of their own minds, whether there be certain or demonstrative knowledge or no, these are what I would be understood to mean when I speak of known sins.

Such light as this, whether there be absolute certain knowledge or not, is sufficient to render the action utterly inexcusable, and to render it when allowed a horrible profanation and pollution of the holy ordinances of God.

Secondly, it is in vain for persons to pretend that those are sins of ignorance, which they have often and clearly heard testified against from the word of God. It will be found to be so at last. It will be found to be a vain thing for persons who have lived under the light of the gospel and where all manner of iniquity is testified against, that they live in immoral and vicious practices to pretend that they are sins of ignorance, unless the case be very peculiar and extraordinary.

Number three. It is in vain for you to pretend that those are sins of ignorance, of which you would not dare to proceed in the practice if you knew that your soul was to be required of you this night.

Persons do many things for which they plead, and pretend they think there is no evil in them. Who yet would as soon eat fire as do the same, if they knew that they were to stand before the judgment seat of Christ within four and twenty hours?

The Danger of Self-Deception Before Judgment

This shows that persons do not prevaricate when they pretend that their sins are sins of ignorance. Another way in which men deal falsely and perversely in this manner is in pretending that they do not allow themselves in those sins which they practice.

They either pretend that they know them not to be sins, or if they cannot but own that, then they will say they do not allow themselves in them, and so they hope God is not very much provoked by them.

They pretend this, though they make a trade of them. They go on repeating one act after another, without ever seriously repenting of past or resolving against future acts. But take heed that you do not deceive yourselves in this manner.

For such pretenses, however they do something towards stilling your consciences now, will do nothing when you come to stand before your righteous and holy judge. Section 4. Address to such as attend ordinances, and yet allow themselves in known sin.

God's Judgment Against Profaning His Name

Consider how holy and sacred the ordinances of God are, what mockery you are guilty of in making such a show, in such pretenses, in attending ordinances, and yet voluntarily acting the reverse of what you pretend.

Consider that there is no sort of sinners with whom God is so provoked, and who stand so guilty before Him as the profaners of His ordinances. The fire of God's wrath is kindled by none so much as by the polluters of holy things.

They are represented as those who are especially guilty before God in the third commandment. The Lord will not hold Him guiltless, and take His name in vain. Why is this annexed to this command, rather than to any other of the ten?

But because a breach of it especially renders a man guilty in the sight of God. The taking of God's name in vain includes the profanation and pollution of ordinances and holy things. They do in a very dreadful manner take God's name in vain, who attend on His ordinances, and yet live in known sin.

For as we have shown, they manifest a greatest irreverence for Him, and contempt of divine things. They manifest a contempt of His authority, a contempt of the business and design of His ordinances, and a most careless and irreverent spirit in things wherein they have immediate converse with God.

Ordinances as we have shown are attended in the name of God, and therefore by such an attendance on them the name of God is greatly profaned. You that attend ordinances in such a manner, take the name of God so much in vain, that you use it only in mockery, and so as to expose it to Abin-Abihu for offering strange fire before Him.

How did He break forth upon Uzzah for handling the ark with too much irreverence, 2 Samuel 6, 6 and 7? And how did He break forth on the children of Israel at Beth Shemesh for profaning the ark? For we score in ten men, as in 1 Samuel 6, 9, 10, and in the New Testament, that if any man defile the temple of God, him shall God destroy.

For the temple of God is holy, 1 Corinthians 3, 17. There is an emphasis in the expression which they continue, yet it is said, If any man defile the temple of God, him shall God destroy. As if it had been said, there is something peculiar in the case, and God is especially provoked to destroy such, and consume them in the fire of His wrath, and He will indeed destroy them with a destruction especially dreadful.

So God has declared, Galatians 6, 7, that He will not be mocked. In other words, if any presume to mock Him, they will find Him, by experience, to be no contemptible being. God will vindicate His holy majesty from the contempt of those who dare to mock Him, and He will do it actually.

They shall fully find how dreadful a being He is, whose name they have daringly profaned and polluted. Defilers and profaners of ordinances, by known and allowed wickedness, provoke God more than the heathen, who have no ordinances.

Judah's Guilt Compared With Sodom

Thus the wickedness of Judah in Jerusalem is said to be far worse than that of Sodom, though the inhabitants of Sodom were, as we have reason to think, some of the worst of the heathen. See, Ezekiel 16, 46, 47, and so on.

The sin of Sodom is here spoken of as a light thing in comparison with the sins of Judah, which would be the reason that Judah enjoyed holy things which they profaned and polluted, which Sodom had no opportunity to do.

For it is not to be supposed that Judah otherwise arrived to the same path that Sodom had. Consider, therefore, ye who allow yourselves a known wickedness and live in it, who yet come to the house of God and to His ordinances from time to time without any serious design of forsaking your sins, but on the contrary, with an intention of continuing in them, and who frequently go from the house of God to your wicked practices.

Consider how guilty ye have made yourselves in the sight of God, and how dreadfully God is provoked by you. It is a wonder of God's patience that He does not break forth upon you and strike you dead in a moment.

For ye profaned holy things in a more dreadful manner than us had did, when yet God struck Him dead for His error. And whereas He was struck dead for only one offense, ye were guilty of the same sin from week to week, and from day to day.

It is a wonder that God suffers you to live upon earth, that He hath not, with the thunderbolt of His wrath, struck you down to the bottomless pit long ago, ye that are allowedly and voluntarily living in sin, who have gone on hitherto in sin, are still going on, and do not design any other than to go on yet.

It is a wonder that the Almighty Thunder lies still, and suffers you to sit in His house or to live upon earth. It is a wonder that the earth will bear you up, and that hell doth not swallow you up. It is a wonder that fire doth not come down from heaven, or come up from hell, and devour you, that hell flames do not enlarge themselves to reach you, and that their bottomless pit hath not swallowed you up.

The Coming Day of Vengeance

However that you are as yet born with, is no argument that your damnation slumbers. The anger of God is not like the passions of men, that it should be in haste. There is a day of vengeance and recompense appointed for the vessels of wrath.

And when the day shall have come, and the iniquity shall be full, none shall deliver out of God's hand. Then will He recompense, even recompense into your bosoms. A Warning to Professors. By Jonathan Edwards.

Narrated April 10, 2006.