N03467:275
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.
5. The contrary Scheme of Justification derogates much from the Honour of God, and the Mediator. I have already shown how it diminishes the Glory of the Mediator, in ascribing th•• to Man's Virtue and Goodness, which belongs alone to his Worthiness and Righteousness. By the Apostle's Sense of the Matter it renders Christ needless. Gal. 5 4 Christ is become of no Effect to you, whosoever of you are justified by the Law. If that Scheme of Justification be followed in it's Consequences, it utterly overthrows the Glory of all the great Things that have been contrived, and done, and suffered in the Work of Redemption. Gal 2 21. If Righteousness come by the Law, Christ is dead in vain. It has also been already shown, how it diminishes the Glory of divine Grace; (which is the Attribute God hath especially set himself to glorify in the Work of Redemption;) and so that it greatly diminishes the Obligation to Gratitude in the Sinner that is saved: Yea that, in the Sense of the Apostle, it makes void the distinguishing Grace of the Gospel. Gal. 5 4. Whosoever of you are justified by the Law, are fallen from Grace. It diminishes the Glory of the Grace of God and the Redeemer, and proportionably magnifies Man: It makes him something before God, when indeed he is nothing: It makes the Goodness and Excellency of fallen Man to be something, which I have shown are nothing I have also […] already shown that 'tis contrary to the Truth of God in the Threatening of his holy Law, to justify the Sinner for his Virtue. And whether it were contrary to God's Truth or no, it is a Scheme of Things very unworthy of God, that supposes that God, when about to lift up a poor forlorn Malefactor, condemned to eternal Misery, for sinning against his Majesty, out of his Misery, and to make him unspeakably and eternally happy, by ⟨p. 128⟩bestowing his Son and himself upon him, as it were sets all this to Sale, for the Price of his Virtue and Excellency. I know that those that we oppose do acknowledge that the Price is very disproportionate to the Benefit bestowed; and say that God's Grace is wonderfully manifested in accepting so little Virtue, and bestowing so glorious a Reward, for such imperfect Righteousness.