N05663:388
A careful and strict enquiry into the modern prevailing notions of that freedom of…
A careful and strict enquiry into the modern prevailing notions of that freedom of will, which is supposed to be essential to moral agency, virtue and vice, reward and punishment, praise and blame. By Jonathan Edwards, A.M. Pastor of the church in Stockbridge. ; [One line from Romans]A careful and strict enquiry into the modern prevailing notions of that freedom of will, which is supposed to be essential to moral agency, vertue and vice, reward and punishment, praise and blame. By Jonathan Edwards, A.M. Pastor of the church in Stockbridge. ; [One line from Romans]
printed by S. Kneeland, 1754
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.
10. If it was possible for Christ to have failed of doing the Will of his Father, and so to have failed of effectually working out Redemption for Sinners, then the Salvation of all the Saints, who were saved from the Beginning of the World, to the Death of Christ, was not built on a firm Foundation. The Messiah, and the Redemption which He was to work out by his Obedience unto Death, was the Foundation of the Salvation of all the Posterity of fallen Man, that ever were saved. Therefore, if when the Old-Testament Saints had the Pardon of their Sins, and the Favour of God promised them, and Salvation bestowed upon them, still it was possible that the Messiah, when he came, might commit Sin, then all this was on a Foundation that was not firm and stable, but liable to fail; something which it was possible might never be. God did as it were trust to what his Son had engaged and promised to do in▪ future Time; and depended so much upon it, that He proceeded actually to save Men on the Account of it, as tho' it had been already done. But this Trust and Dependence of God, on the Supposition of Christ's being liable to fail of doing his Will, was leaning on a Staff that was weak, and might possibly break. The Saints of old trusted on the Promises of a future Redemption to be wrought out and completed by the Messiah, and built their Comfort upon it: Abraham saw Christ's Day and rejoiced; and he and the other Patriarchs died in the Faith of the Promise of it. (Heb. xi.13.) But on this Supposition, their Faith and their Comfort, and their Salvation, was built on a moveable fallible Foundation▪ Christ was not to them a tried Stone, a sure Foundation; […] in Isa•. xxviii.16. David entirely rested on the Covenant of God with him, concerning the future glorious Dominion and Salvation of the Messiah, of his Seed; says, it was all his Salvation, and all his Desire; and comforts himself that this Covenant was ⟨p. 147⟩an everlasting Covenant, ordered in all Things and sure, 2 Sam. xxiii.5. But if Christ's Virtue might fail, he was mistaken: his great Comfort was not built so sure, as he thought it was, being founded entirely on the Determinations of the Free-Will of Christ's human Soul; which was subject to no Necessity, and might be determined either one Way or the other.