N03467:578
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.
But in Jesus Christ, who is both God and Man, these two diverse Excellencies, are sweetly united. He is a Person infinitely exalted in Glory & Dignity. Phil. 2. 6. Being in the Form of God, he thought it not Robbery to be equal with God. There is equal Honour due to him with the Father. John 5. 23.—That all Men should honour the Son, even as they honour the Father. God himself says to him, Thy Throne, O God, is for ever and ever, Heb. 1. 8. And there is the same supreme Respect, and divine Worship, paid to him by the Angels of Heaven, as to God the Father; as there, Verse 6. Let all the Angels of God worship him.
But however he is thus above all, yet he is lowest of all in Humility. There never was so great an Instance of this Virtue, among either Men or Angels, as Jesus. None ever was so sensible of the Distance between God and him, or had a Heart so lowly before God, as the Man Christ Jesus. Matth. 11. 29. What a wonderful Spirit of Humility appeared in him, when he was here upon Earth, in all his Behaviour! In his Contentment in his mean outward Condition, contentedly living in the Family of Joseph the Carpenter, and Mary his Mother, for thirty Years together, and afterwards choosing outward Meanness, Poverty and Contempt, rather than earthly Greatness; in his washing his Disciples Feet, and in all his Speeches and Deportment towards them; in his cheerfully sustaining the Form of a Servant thro' his whole Life, and submitting to such immense Humiliation at Death!
2. In the Person of Christ do meet together, infinite Majesty, and transcendent Meekness. These again are two Qualifications that meet together in no other Person but Christ. Meekness, properly so called, is a Virtue proper only to the Creature: We scarcely ever find Meekness mentioned as a divine Attribute in Scripture; at least not in the New Testament; for thereby seems to be signified, a Calmness and Quietness of Spirit arising from Humility, in mutable Beings, that are naturally liable to be put into a Ruffle, by the Assaults of a tempestuous and injurious World. But Christ being both God and Man, hath both infinite Majesty and superlative Meekness.