N03467:203
Discourses on various important subjects, nearly concerning the great affair of the soul's eternal…
Discourses on various important subjects, nearly concerning the great affair of the soul's eternal salvation, viz. I. Justification by faith alone. II. Pressing into the Kingdom of God. III. Ruth's resolution. IV. The justice of God in the damnation of sinners. V. The excellency of Jesus Christ. : Delivered at Northampton, chiefly at the time of the late wonderful pouring out of the spirit of God there. / By Jonathan Edwards, A.M. Pastor of the Church of Christ in Northampton. ; [Three lines from Deuteronomy]
Boston: printed by S. Kneeland and T. Green, 1738
Title page typeset from the transcription.
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
1. Our own Obedience being necessary, in order to a Preparation for an actual bestowment of Glory, is no ⟨p. 87⟩Argument that 'tis the Thing, upon the Account of which we are accepted to a Right to it. God may, and does, do many Things to prepare the Saints for Glory, after he has accepted them as the Heirs of Glory. A Parent may do much to prepare a Child for an Inheritance in it's Education, after the Child is an Heir: yea there are many Things necessary to fit a Child for the actual Possession of the Inheritance, that ben't necessary in order to it's having a Right to the Inheritance.
2. If every Thing, that is necessary to prepare Men for Glory, must be the proper Condition of Justification, then perfect Holiness is the Condition of Justification. Men must be made perfectly Holy, before they are admitted to the Enjoyment of the blessedness of Heaven; for there must in no wise enter in there any spiritual Defilement: And therefore when a Saint dies he leaves all his Sin and Corruption, when he leaves the Body.
Object 3. Our Obedience is not only indissolubly connected with Salvation, and Preparatory to it, but the Scripture expressly speaks of bestowing eternal Blessings as Rewards for the good Deeds of the Saints. Math. 10 42. Whosoever shall give to drink, unto one of these little ones, a Cup of cold Water, only in the Name of a Disciple, he shall in no wise lose his Reward. 1 Cor. 3. 8. Every Man shall receive his own Reward, according to his own Labour. And in many other Places. This seems to militate against the Doctrine that has been maintained, two Ways, 1. The bestowing a Reward carries in it a Respect to a moral Fitness, in the Thing rewarded, to the Reward: The very Notion of a Reward being a Benefit bestowed in Testimony of Acceptance of, and respect to, the goodness or amiableness of some Qualification or Work, in the Person rewarded. And besides the Scripture seems to explain it self in this Matter, in