N03467:639
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.
And would you choose, not only, that the infinite Greatness and Majesty of your Friend should be as it were mollified and sweetened with Condescension and Grace; but would you also desire to have your Friend in your own Nature, that he might be brought nearer to you? Would you choose a Friend far above you, and yet as it were upon a Level with you too? (Though it be taking with Men to have a near and dear Friend of superior Dignity, yet there is also an Inclination in them to have their Friend a Sharer with them in Circumstances.) Thus is Christ. Though he be the great God, yet […] himself down to be upon a Level […] you, […] become Man as you are, that ⟨p. 280⟩he might not only be your Lord, but your Brother, and that he might be the more fit to be a Companion for such a Worm of the Dust.—This is one End of Christ's taking upon him Man's Nature, that his People might be under Advantages for a more familiar Converse with him, than the infinite Distance of the divine Nature would allow of. And upon this Account the Church longed for Christ's Incarnation, Cant. 8. 1. O thou that wert my Brother, that s•cked the Breasts of my Mother; when I should find thee without, I would kiss thee; yea, I should not be despised. One Design of God in the Gospel, is to bring us to make God the Object of our undivided Respect, that he may engross our Regard every Way, that whatever natural Inclination there is in our Souls, he may be the Centre of it; that God may be all in all▪ But there is an Inclination in the Creature, not only to the Adoration of a Lord and Sovereign, but to Complacence in some one as a Friend, to love and delight in some one that may be conversed with as a Compa••ion. And Virtue and Holiness don't destroy or weaken this Inclination of our Nature. But so hath God contrived in the Affair of our Redemption, that a divine Person may be the Object even of this Inclination of our Nature. And in order hereto, such an one is come down to us, and has taken our Nature, and is become one of us, and calls himself our Friend, Brother, and Companion. Psalm 122. 8. For my Brethren and Companions Sake, will I now say, Peace be within thee.