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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 2 › Part 2 › Section 2
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.
SECT. II.
I NOW proceed to some general observations, concerning those things by which this purchase was made.—And here,
1. I would observe, that whatev•• in Christ had the nature of satisfaction, it was by virtue of the suffering or humiliation that was in it. But whatever had the nature of merit, it was by virtue of the obedience or righteousness there was in it. The satisfaction ⟨p. 146⟩of Christ consists in his answering the demands of law on man, which were consequent on the breach of the law. These were answered by suffering the penalty of the law. The merit of Christ consists in what he did to answer the demands of the law, which were prior to man's breach of the law, or to fulfil what the law demanded before man sinned, which was obedience.
The satisfaction or propitiation of Christ consists either in his suffering evil, or his being subject to abasement. For Christ did not only make satisfaction by proper suffering, but by whatever had the nature of humiliation, and abasement of circumstances. Thus Christ made satisfaction for sin, by continuing under the power of death, while he lay buried in the grave, though neither his body nor soul properly endured any suffering after he was dead. Whatever Christ was subject to that was the judicial fruit of sin, had the nature of satisfaction for sin. But not only proper suffering, but all abasement and depression of the state and circumstances of mankind below its primitive honour and dignity, such as his body's remaining under death, and body and soul remaining separate, and other things that might be mentioned, are the judicial fruits of sin. And all that Christ did in his state of humiliation, that had the nature of obedience or moral virtue or goodness in it, in one respect or another had the nature of merit in it, and was prt of the price with which he purchased happiness for the elect.