N03467:78
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.
I know that the Answer that will be ready for this is, that we now are not subject to that Constitution that Mankind were at first put under; but that God in Mercy to Mankind has abolished that rigorous Constitution or Law that they were under originally, & has put us under a new Law, and introduced a more mild Constitution; And that the Constitution or Law it self not remaining, there is no need of supposing that the Condemnation of it remains, to stand in the Way of the Acceptance of our Virtue. And indeed there is no other way of avoiding this Difficulty; the Condemnation of the Law must stand in force against a Man 'till he is actually ⟨p. 27⟩interested in the Saviour, that has satisfied and answered the Law, effectually to prevent any Acceptance of his Virtue, before, or in order to such an Interest, unless the Law or Constitution it self be abolished. But the Scheme of those modern Divines by whom this is maintained seems to contain a great deal of Absurdity and Self-Contradiction: they hold that the old Law given to Adam, which requires perfect Obedience is entirely repealed, and that instead of it we are put under a new Law, which requires no more than imperfect, sincere Obedience, in compliance with our poor, infirm, impotent Circumstances since the Fall, whereby we are unable to perform that perfect Obedience that was required by the first Law: for they strenuously maintain that it would be unjust in God to require any Thing of us that is beyond our present Power and Ability to perform; and yet they hold that Christ died to satisfy for the imperfections of our Obedience, that so our imperfect Obedience might be accepted instead of perfect—Now how can these Things hang together.—I would ask what Law these imperfections of our Obedience are a breach of? if they are a breach of no Law, then they ben't Sins; and if they ben't Sins, what need of Christ's dying to satisfy for them? but if they are Sins, and so the breach of some Law, what Law is it? they can't be a breach of their new Law, for that requires no other than imperfect Obedience, or Obedience with imperfections; and they can't be a breach of the old Law, for that they say is entirely abolished, and we never were under it;
I know that the Answer that will be ready for this is, that we now are not subject to that Constitution that Mankind were at first put under; but that God in Mercy to Mankind has abolished that rigorous Constitution or Law that they were under originally, & has put us under a new Law, and introduced a more mild Constitution; And that the Constitution or Law it self not remaining, there is no need of supposing that the Condemnation of it remains, to stand in the Way of the Acceptance of our Vertue. And indeed there is no other way of avoiding this Difficulty; the Condemnation of the Law must stand in force against a Man 'till he is actually