N13864:582
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 › IMPROVEMENT. › Section 1
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.
If you can do this by our prayers and good works, Christ might have spared his pains; he might have spared his blood; he might have kept within the bosom of his Father, without coming down into this evil world to be despised, reproached, and persecuted to death; God needed not have busied himself, as he did for four thousand years together, causing so many changes in the state of […] world all that while, in order to the bringing about that which you, as little as you are, can accomplish in a few days, only with the trouble of a few sighs, and groans, and prayers, and some other religious performances. Consider with yourself what greater folly could you have devised to charge upon God than this, to do all those things before and after Christ came into the world so needlessly; when, instead of all this, he might only have called you forth, and committed the business to you, which you think you can do so easily.
If you can do this by our prayers and good works, Christ might have spared his pains; he might have spared his blood; he might have kept within the bosom of his Father, without coming down into this evil world to be despised, reproached, and persecuted to death; God needed not haved busied himself, as he did for four thousand years together, causing so many changes in the state of 〈…〉 world all that while, in order to the bringing about that which you, as little as you are, can accomplish in a few days, only with the trouble of a few sighs, and groans, and prayers, and some other religious performances. Consider with yourself what greater folly could you have devised to charge upon God than this, to do all those things before and after Christ came into the world so needlessly; when, instead of all this, he might only have called you forth, and committed the business to you, which you think you can do so easily.
Alas! how blind are natural men! how sottish are the thoughts they have of things! and especially how vain are the thoughts which they have of themselves! How ignorant of their own littleness and pollution! How do they exalt themselves up to heaven! What great things do they assume to themselves!