Jonathan Edwards:
As you would seek the future prosperity of this society, 'tis of vast importance that you should avoid contention.
A contentious people will be a miserable people. The contentions which have been among you, since I first became your pastor, have been one of the greatest burdens I have labored under in the course of my ministry: not only the contentions you have had with me, but those which you have had one with another, about your lands, and other concerns. Because I knew that contention, heat of spirit, evil speaking, and things of the like nature, were directly contrary to the spirit of Christianity, and did in a peculiar manner tend to drive away God's Spirit from a people, and to render all means of grace ineffectual, as well as to destroy a people's outward comfort and welfare.
Let me therefore earnestly exhort you, as you would seek your own future good, hereafter to watch against a contentious spirit. "If you would see good days, seek peace and ensue it" (1 Peter 3:10–11).
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A Farewell Sermon Preached At The First Precinct In Northampton, After The People's Public Rejection Of Their Minister…On June 22, 1750
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