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A number of means are employed to encourage these sinners to repent. First,

Edwards stresses the urgency of the appeal. "It is as it were following you, and coming

nearer and nearer, every day. Those fierce flames are as it were already kindled, in that

the wrath of God, yea, the fierceness and wrath of almighty God, burns against you. It is

ready for you: the pit is prepared for you with fire and much wood, and the breath of the

Lord, as a stream of brimstone, doth kindle it."

Edwards uses the urgency with which

Lot fled Sodom as an illustration.

But the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah "was but

a flea bite to that devouring fire and those everlasting burnings that you are in danger

of."

Second, Edwards refers to the work of the Spirit in revival to encourage

repentance. He attributes the cessation of the earlier period of revival to "our sins."

But

God has again begun to pour out his Spirit, he has "come again . . . to manifest his mighty

power and riches of his grace."

Thus, "Now, now is the time! Now is a blessed

opportunity to escape those everlasting burnings! Now God has again set open the same

door, the same fountain, amongst [us], and gives one more happy opportunity for souls to

escape. Now he has set open a wide door, and he stands in the doorway calling and

begging with a loud voice to the sinners of Zion."

There is no guarantee that this period of revival will last. It is possible that the

window of opportunity for repentance is short.

A little while ago it was uncertain whether ever we should see such an
opportunity again. If it should always have continued as it has been for five or six

"Sinners in Zion," 280.

See "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God" for a similar exhortation based on Lot.

"Sinners in Zion," 280.

"Sinners in Zion," 281.