N03467:227
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.
To this I answer, That tho' Persons when they are accepted, are not accepted as worthy, yet when they are ⟨p. 102⟩rejected, they are rejected as unworthy. He that don't love Christ above other Things, that treats him with such Indignity, as to set him below earthly Things, shall be treated as unworthy of Christ; his Unworthiness of Christ, especially in that Particular, shall be marked against him, and imputed to him: And tho' he be a professing Christian, and live in the Enjoyment of the Gospel, and has been visibly ingrafted into Christ, and admitted as one of his Disciples, as Judas was, yet he shall be thrust out in Wrath, as a Punishment of his vile Treatment of Christ. The forementioned Words don't imply that if a Man does love Christ above Father and Mother, &c. that he would be worthy; the most they imply is, that such a visible Christian shall be treated, and thrust out, as unworthy. He that believes is not received for the Worthiness, or moral Fitness of Faith; but yet the visible Christian is cast out by God, for the Unworthiness and moral Unfitness of Unbelief. A being accepted as one of Christ's, is not the Reward of Believing; but being thrust out from being one of Christ's Disciples, after a visible Admission as such, is properly a Punishment of Unbelief. John 3. 18, 19. He that believeth on him is not condemned; but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not be••••ed on the Name of the only begotten Son of God: And this is the Condemnation, that Light is come into the World, and Men loved Darkness rather than Light, because their Deeds were Evil. Salvation is promised to Faith as a free Gift, but Damnation is threatened to Unbelief as a Debt, or Punishment due to Unbelief. They that believed in the Wilderness, did not enter into Canaan, because of the Worthiness of their Faith; but God sware in his Wrath that they that believed not should not enter in, because of the Unworthiness of their Unbelief▪ The admitting a Soul to an Union with Christ is an Act of free and sovereign Grace; but an excluding at Death, and at the Day of Judgment, those Professors of Christianity that have had the Offers of a Saviour, and enjoyed great Privileges as God's People, is a judicial Proceeding, and a just Punishment of ⟨p. 103⟩