“Deuteronomy XXXII.35 ‘Their foot shall slide in due time.’

In this verse is threatened the vengeance of God on the wicked unbelieving Israelites, who were God’s visible people, and who lived under means of grace, and that, notwithstanding all God’s wonderful works that he had wrought towards that people, yet remained […] void of counsel, having no understanding in them[.]” 

Following the typical structure of the Puritan sermon, Edwards begins with a biblical epigraph, which he immediately expounds. The verse Edwards selects is from an Old Testament passage in Deuteronomy that describes the vengeance that God will visit upon the faithless Israelites, His chosen people, for their wickedness and at His predetermined time. The “means of grace” under which the Israelites lived was the Mosaic law, which bound them to God by a covenant of obedience. Edwards contextualizes the biblical verse, explaining its literal meaning within the Old Testament passage, and then applies the image of losing one’s footing to depict the plight of the unregenerate and heedless sinner, subject to God’s righteous anger, that forms the subject of the sermon.

“The observation from the words that I would now insist upon is this. ‘There is nothing that keeps wicked men, at any one moment, out of hell, but the mere pleasure of God.’” 

This observation forms the “doctrine” of the sermon, which the following sections will prove by logical analysis, supported by scriptural citation. Edwards emphasizes the absolute sovereignty of God’s will, which is restrained by no obligation toward the unregenerate sinner and can cast him effortlessly into hell in an instant if it pleases Him. The wicked are in constant, immediate danger of the eternal torments of hell and can do nothing to secure their safety, other than fully accepting Christ as their only means of salvation.