N03467:63
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.
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?
From these Things we may learn in what manner Faith is the only Condition of Justification and Salvation; for tho' it be not the only Condition, so as alone truly to have the Place of a Condition in an hypothetical Proposition, in which Justification and Salvation are the Consequent, yet it is the Condition of Justification in a ⟨p. 20⟩Manner peculiar to it, and so that nothing else has a parallel Influence with it; because Faith includes the whole Act of Unition to Christ as a Saviour: The entire active uniting of the Soul, or the whole of what is called coming to Christ, and receiving of him, is called Faith in Scripture; and however other Things may be no less excellent than Faith, yet 'tis not the nature of any other Graces or Virtues directly to close with Christ as a Mediator, any further than they enter into the Constitution of justifying Faith, and do belong to its Nature.