The Works of Jonathan Edwards, Volume Two 174V. Letter to a minister of the Gospel

To a special friend , a minister of the gospel in New Jersey.

The Forks of Delaware, Dec. 24 1744.

REV. AND DEAR BROTHER,

I have little to say to you about spiritual joys , and those blessed refreshments and divine consolations , with which I have been much favoured in times past: but this I can tell you, that if I gain experience in no other point, yet I am sure I do in this, viz. that the present world has nothing in it to satisfy an immortal soul: and hence, that it is not to be desired for itself , but only because God may be seen and served in it. And I wish I could be more patient and willing to live in it for this end , than I can usually find myself to be. It is no virtue I know to desire death, only to be freed from the miseries of life: but I want that divine hope which you observed when I saw you last, was the very sinews of vital religion. Earth can do us no good ; and if there be no hope of our doing good on earth , how can we desire to live in it? And yet we ought to desire, or at least to be resigned, to tarry in it; because it is the will of our all-wise Sovereign. But perhaps these thoughts will appear melancholy and gloomy, and consequently will be very undesirable to you; and therefore I forbear to add. I wish you may not read them in the same circumstances in which I write them. I have a little more to do and suffer in a dark disconsolate world; and then I hope to be as happy as you are. I should ask you to pray for me were I worth your concern. May the Lord enable us both to "endure hardness as good soldiers of Jesus Christ;" and may we "obtain mercy of God to be faithful to the death," in the discharge of our respective trusts!

I am your very unworthy brother,

And humble servant,