N03467:75
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.
If it should be accepted as the loveliness of the Person, that would be to accept the Person as in some Degree lovely to God, but this can't be consistent with his still remaining under infinite Guilt, or infinite Unworthiness in God's Sight, which that Goodness has no worthiness to balance. While God beholds the Man as separate from Christ, he must behold him as h• is in himself; and so his Goodness can't be beheld by God, but as taken with his Guilt and Hatefulness, and as put in the Scales with it; and being beheld so, his Goodness is nothing; because there is a finite on the balance against an infinite, whose Proportion to it is nothing: In such a Case, if the Man be looked on as he is in himself, the excess of the Weight in one Scale above another, must be looked upon as the quality of the Man: These Contraries being beheld together, one takes from another, as one Number is subtracted from another; and ⟨p. 25⟩the Man must be looked upon in God's Sight according to the remainder: For here by the Supposition all Acts of Grace of Favour, in not imputing the Guilt as it is, are excluded, because that supposes a Degree of Pardon, and that supposes Justification, which is contrary to what is supposed, viz. that the Sinner is not already justified: and therefore Things must be taken strictly as they are; and so the Man is still infinitely unworthy, and hateful in God's Sight, as he was before, without diminution, because his Goodness bears no proportion to his Unworthiness; and therefore when taken together is nothing.
If it should be accepted as the loveliness of the Person, that would be to accept the Person as in some Degree lovely to God, but this can't be consistent with his still remaining under infinite Guilt, or infinite Unworthiness in God's Sight, which that Goodness has no worthiness to ballance. While God beholds the Man as separate from Christ, he must behold him as h• is in himself; and so his Goodness can't be beheld by God, but as taken with his Guilt and Hatefulness, and as put in the Scales with it; and being beheld so, his Goodness is nothing; because there is a finite on the ballance against an infinite, whose Proportion to it is nothing: In such a Case, if the Man be looked on as he is in himself, the excess of the Weight in one Scale above another, must be looked upon as the quality of the Man: These Contraries being beheld together, one takes from another, as one Number is substracted from another; and