N13864:453
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
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.
1. It was needful to answer the law, that that nature should obey the law, to which the law was given. Man's law could not be answered, but by being obeyed by man. God insisted upon it, that the law which he had given to man should be honoured and submitted to, and fulfilled by the nature of man, otherwise the law could not be answered for men. The words that were spoken, Thou shalt not eat thereof, Thou shalt, or Thou shalt not do thu• or thus, were spoken to the race of mankind, to the human nature; and therefore the human nature must fulfil them.
2. It was needful to answer the law that the nature that sinned ⟨p. 139⟩should die. These words, "Thou shalt surely die," respect the human nature, the same nature to which the command was given, was the nature to which the threatening was directed.
3 God saw […] ▪ that the same world which was the stage of man's fail and ruin▪ should also be the stage of his redemption. We re•d often of his coming into the world to save sinners, and of God's sending him into the world for this purpose. It was needful that he should come into this sinful, miserable undone world, to restore and save it. In order to man's recovery it was needful that he should come down to man, to the world that was man's proper habitation, and that he should tabernacle with us: John i.14, "The Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us."