N03467:62
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.
because he is a wise Being, and delights in Order, and not in Confusion, and that Things should be together or asunder according to their nature; and his making such a Constitution is a testimony of his love of Order: whereas if it were out of regard to any moral Fitness or suitableness between Faith and such Blessedness, it would be a Testimony of his Love to the Act or Qualification it self: The one supposes this divine Constitution to be a Manifestation of God's regard to the Beauty of the act of Faith, the other ⟨p. 19⟩only supposes it to be a Manifestation of his regard to the Beauty of that Order that there is in uniting those Things that have a natural Agreement, and congruity, and unition the one with the other. Indeed a moral Suitableness or Fitness to a State includes a natural; for 'tis never so that if there be a moral Suitableness that a Person should be in such a State, but that there is also a natural Suitableness; but such a natural Suitableness as I have described, by no means necessarily includes a moral.
This is plainly what our Divines intend when they say that Faith don't justify as a Work, or a Righteousness, viz. That it don't justify as a Part of our moral Goodness or Excellency, or that it don't justify as a Work, in the Sense that Man was to have been justified by his Works by the Covenant of Works, which was to have a Title to eternal Life, given him of God in Testimony of his pleasedness with his Works, or his regard to the inherent Excellency and Beauty of his Obedience. And this is certainly what the Apostle Paul means, when he so much insists upon it that we are not justified by works, viz. that we are not justified by them as good Works, or by any goodness, value, or excellency of our Works. For the proof of this I shall at present mention but one Thing, (being like to have occasion to say what shall make it more abundantly manifest afterwards,) and that is, the Apostles, from Time to Time, speaking of our not being justified by Works, as the Thing that excludes all boasting, Eph. 2 9. Rom 3. 27. and Chap. 4. 2. now which way do Works give occasion for boasting, but as good? What do Men use to boast of, but of something they suppose good or excellent? And on what Account do they boast of any Thing, but for the supposed Excellency that is in it?