Wicked Men Inconsistent With Themselves, by Jonathan Edwards. 1738.

Wicked Men Inconsistent With Themselves, by Jonathan Edwards. December 1738. The following is an excerpt from his work.
But whereunto shall I liken this generation? It is like unto children sitting in the markets, and calling unto their fellows, And saying, We have piped unto you, and ye have not danced; we have mourned unto you, and ye have not lamented. For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say, He hath a devil. The Son of man came eating and drinking, and they say, Behold a man gluttonous, and a winebibber, a friend of publicans and sinners. But wisdom is justified of her children.
~ Matthew 11:16-19
Cast away from you all your transgressions, whereby ye have transgressed; and make you a new heart and a new spirit: for why will ye die, O house of Israel? Say unto them, As I live, saith the Lord GOD, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked; but that the wicked turn from his way and live: turn ye, turn ye from your evil ways; for why will ye die, O house of Israel? The fear of a king is as the roaring of a lion: whoso provoketh him to anger sinneth against his own soul. Therefore shall they eat of the fruit of their own way, and be filled with their own devices. His own iniquities shall take the wicked himself, and he shall be holden with the cords of his sins. He shall die without instruction; and in the greatness of his folly he shall go astray. And thou mourn at the last, when thy flesh and thy body are consumed, And say, How have I hated instruction, and my heart despised reproof;
~ Ezekiel 18:31, Ezekiel 33:11, Proverbs 20:2, Proverbs 1:31, Proverbs 5:22-23, Proverbs 5:11-12
They are so in the following respects:
I. The dictates of their darkened understandings are inconsistent with themselves.
II. Their wills are inconsistent with their reason.
III. Their wills are inconsistent with themselves.
IV. Their outward show is inconsistent with their hearts.
V. Their profession is inconsistent with their practice.
VI. Their practice is inconsistent with their hopes.
VII. Their practice is inconsistent with itself.
I. Their understandings are inconsistent with themselves. I do not mean that the faculty of reason and understanding is inconsistent with itself. For the faculty of understanding with which God has endowed man is wholly good and right. It is that wherein the natural image of God consists, and is the excellency of man’s nature. And if the faculty of reason be duly improved, it will lead men right. Light is never inconsistent with itself. But the understandings of natural men are perverted and blinded by sin, and are inconsistent with themselves in two ways:
First, their practical judgment is inconsistent with their own reason. By their practical judgment, I mean that judgment which they make of things that prevail, so as to determine their actions and govern their practice. This in wicked men is in innumerable things contrary to their own reason. For, in forming their judgment of things by which they govern themselves, they do not inquire at the mouth of reason, but at the mouth of their inclinations. Their lusts have a far greater hand in the judgments that they make of things, and by which they govern themselves, than their reason. As for instance, their practical judgment is that the things of this fading world, the enjoyments of this short life, are things of greater importance than the things of the eternal world; and yet if they inquire at the mouth of their own reason, that tells them the contrary. Their reason tells them that it is most plain and evident that eternal things, things that are to last forever, are of vastly greater importance than the things of time.
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