my wickedness, it looks like an abyss infinitely deeper than hell - Edwards

From the book "Words to winners of Souls by H.Bonar" A must read several times.

Hear the confession of Edwards, in regard both to personal and ministerial sins:

[i]"Often I have had very affecting views of my own sinfulness and vileness; very frequently to such a degree as to hold me in a kind of loud weeping, sometimes for a considerable time together, so that I have often been forced to shut myself up. I have had a vastly greater sense of my own wickedness, and the badness of my heart, than ever I had be-fore my conversion. My wickedness, as I am in myself, has long appeared to me perfectly ineffable, swallowing up all thought and imagination. I know not how to express better what my sins appear to me to be than by heaping infinite upon infinite, and multiplying infinite by infinite. When I look into my heart and take a view of my wickedness, it looks like an abyss infinitely deeper than hell. And yet it seems to me that my conviction of sin is exceedingly small and faint: it is enough to amaze me that I have no more sense of my sin. I have greatly longed of late for a broken heart, and to lie low before God."[/i]

Thankyou for sharing this, I find it ever so encouraging to hear how these mighty men of God were also so broken over their own wretched state. So often we lift up these men of God into such high esteem that we forget that they were sinners also.

When I look into my heart and take a view of my wickedness, it looks like an abyss infinitely deeper than hell.

This comment reminded me of Duncan Campbell's testimony of the Lewis Revival. Campbell said that in the church there was an old man crying out "God!, Hell is too good for me, Hell is too good for me".

Oh, that God cause us to break also.

Psalm 51:16-17
For You do not desire sacrifice, or else I would give it;
You do not delight in burnt offering.
The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit,
A broken and a contrite heart—
These, O God, You will not despise.

So often we lift up these men of God into such high esteem that we forget that they were sinners also.

Someone used to have another quote from Edwards pertaining to hell, and the sinfullness of sin-would anyone know where I could possibly find that one as well. I believe it used to be someone's signatur-possibly it may have even been bro Greg.