N03467:583
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. There meet in the Person of Christ, the deepest Reverence towards God, and Equality with God. Christ, when he was here on Earth, appeared full of holy Reverence towards the Father: He paid the most reverential Worship to him, praying to him with Postures of Reverence. Thus we read of his kneeling down and praying, Matth. 22. 41. This became Christ, as he was one that had taken on him the human Nature. But at the same Time he existed in the divine Nature; whereby his Person was in all Respects equal to the Person of the Father. God the Father hath no Attribute or Perfection, that the Son hath not, in equal Degree, and equal Glory. These Things meet in no other Person but Jesus Christ.
4. There are conjoined in the Person of Christ, infinite Worthiness of Good, and the greatest Patience under Sufferings of Evil. He was perfectly innocent, and deserved no Suffering. He deserved nothing from God, by any Guilt of his own; and he deserved no Ill from Men. Yea, he was not only harmless, and undeserving of Suffering, but he was infinitely worthy, worthy of the infinite Love of the Father, worthy of infinite and eternal Happiness, and infinitely worthy of all possible Esteem, Love, and Service from all Men. And yet he was perfectly patient under the greatest Sufferings, that ever ⟨p. 254⟩were endured in this World. Heb. 6. 15. After he had patiently endured, he obtained the Promise. He suffered not from his Father, for his Faults, but ours; and he suffered from Men▪ not for his Faults, but for those Things, on Account of which, he was infinitely worthy of their Love and Honour; which made his Patience the more wonderful, and the more glorious. 1 Pet. 2. 20, &c. For what Glory […] it if when ye be buffeted for your Faults, ye shall take it patiently? But if when ye do well, and suffer for it, ye take it patiently, this is acceptable with God: For even hereunto were ye called because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an Example, that we should follow his Steps; who did no Sin, neither was Guile found in his Mouth; who when he was reviled, reviled not again, when he suffered he threatened not, but committed himself to him that judgeth righteously: Who his own self, bare our Sins in his own Body, on the Tree, that we being dead to Sin, should live unto Righteousness; by whose Stripes ye were healed. There is no such Conjunction of Innocence, Worthiness, and Patience under Sufferings, as in the Person of Christ.