N03467:56
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.
3. And thus it is that Faith is that Qualification in any Person, that renders it meet in the Sight of God that he should be looked upon as having Christ's Satisfaction and Righteousness belonging to him, viz. because it is that in him, which, on his Part, makes up this Union between him and Christ. By what has been just now observed, 'tis a Person's being, according to Scripture Phrase, in Christ, that is the Ground of having his Satisfaction and Merits belonging to him, and a Right to the Benefits procured thereby: and the Reason of it is plain; 'tis easy to see how a having Christ's Merits and Benefits belonging to us, follows from our having (if I may so speak) Christ himself belonging to us, or a being united to him; and if so it must also be easy to see how, or in what Manner, that, in a Person, that on his Part makes up the Union between his Soul & Christ, should be the Thing on the Account of which God looks on it meet that he should have Christ's Merits belonging to him; and also that it is a very different Thing, for God to assign to a particular Person, a Right to Christ's Merits and Benefits, from Regard to any Qualification in him, in this Respect, from his doing of it for him, out of Respect to the Value or Loveliness of that Qualification, or as a Reward of the Excellency of it.
As there is no Body but what will allow that there is a peculiar Relation between Christ & his true Disciples, ⟨p. 15⟩by which they are in some sense in scripture said to be one; so I suppose there is no Body but what will allow, that there may be something that the true Christian does on his Part, whereby he is active in coming into this Relation or Union, some Act of the Soul of the Christian, that is the Christian's uniting Act, or that which is done towards this Union or Relation, (or whatever any please to call it,) […] the Christian's Part: Now Faith I suppose to be this Act
As there is no Body but what will allow that there is a peculiar Relation between Christ & his true Disciples, ⟨p. 15⟩