N03467:211
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.
Hence, tho' it be true that the Saints are rewarded for their good Works, yet it is for Christ's sake only, and not for the Excellency of their Works in themselves ⟨p. 92⟩considered, or beheld separately from Christ; for so they have no excellency in God's sight, or acceptableness to him, as has now been shown. 'Tis acknowledged that God in rewarding the Holiness and good Works of Believers, does in some respect give them Happiness as a Testimony of his Respect to the Loveliness of their Holiness and good Works in his Sight; for that is the very Notion of a Reward: But in a very different Sense from what would have been▪ if Man had not fallen; which would have been to bestow eternal Life on Man, as a Testimony of God's Respect to the Loveliness of what Man did, considered as in it self, and as in Man, separately by himself, and not beheld as a Member of Christ: In which Sense also, the Scheme of Justification we are opposing, necessarily supposes, the Excellency of our Virtue to be respected and rewarded; for it supposes a saving Interest in Christ it self to be given as a Reward of it.
Hence, tho' it be true that the Saints are rewarded for their good Works, yet it is for Christ's sake only, and not for the Excellency of their Works in themselves ⟨p. 92⟩considered, or beheld seperately from Christ; for so they have no excellency in God's sight, or acceptableness to him, as has now been shewn. 'Tis acknowledged that God in rewarding the Holiness and good Works of Belivers, does in some respect give them Happiness as a Testimony of his Respect to the Loveliness of their Holiness and good Works in his Sight; for that is the very Notion of a Reward: But in a very different Sense from what would have been▪ if Man had not fallen; which would have been to bestow eternal Life on Man, as a Testimony of God's Respect to the Loveliness of what Man did, considered as in it self, and as in Man, seperately by himself, and not beheld as a Member of Christ: In which Sense also, the Scheme of Justification we are opposing, necessarily supposes, the Excellency of our Virtue to be respected and rewarded; for it supposes a saving Interest in Christ it self to be given as a Reward of it.