N13864:160
A history of the work of redemption. Containing the outlines of a body of…
A history of the work of redemption. Containing the outlines of a body of divinity, in a method entirely new. / By the late Reverend Mr. Jonathan Edwards, president of the College of New Jersey[.]
Boston: printed by Draper & Folsom, 1782
A HISTORY Of the WORK of REDEMPTION. › Period 1 › Part 3: From the calling of Abraham to Moses.
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.
Thus you see how much more fully the covenant of grace was revealed and confirmed in Abraham's time than ever it had been before; by means of which Abraham seems to have had a more clear understanding and sight of Christ the great Redeemer, and the future things that were to be accomplished by him, than any of the saints that had gone before. Therefore Christ takes notice of it, that Abraham rejoiced to see his day, and he saw it and was glad, john viii.56. So great an advance did it please God now to make in this building, which he had been carrying on from the beginning of the world.
Thus you see how much more fully the covenant of grace was revealed and confirmed in Abraham's time than ever it had been before; by means of which Abraham seems to have had a more clear understanding and sight of Christ the great Redeemer, and the future things that were to be accomplished by him, than any of the saints that had gone before. Therefore Christ takes notice of it, that Abraham rejoiced to see his day, and he saw it and was glad, •ohn viii.56. So great an advance did it please God now to make in this building, which he had been carrying on from the beginning of the world.
III. The next thing that I would take notice of here, is God's preserving the patriarchs for so long a time in the midst of the wicked inhabitants of Canaan, and from all other enemies. The patriarchs Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, were those of whom Christ was to proceed; and they were now separated from the world, that in them his church might be upheld. Therefore, in preserving them, the great design of redemption was uph•ld and carried on. He preserved them, and kept the inhabitants of the land where they sojourned from destroying them; which was a remarkable dispensation of providence. For the inhabitants of the land were at that day exceeding wicked, though they grew more wicked afterwards. This appears by Gen. xv.16. "In the fourth generation they shall come hither again; for the iniquity of the Canaanites is not yet full:" As much as to say, Though it be very great, yet it is not yet full. Their great wickedness also appears by Abraham and Isaac's aversion to their children marrying any of the daughters of