Selected Sermons of Jonathan EdwardsEdwards, Jonathan
Religion
Selected Sermons of Jonathan Edwards
Edwards, Jonathan
Congregational churches -- Sermons; Edwards, Jonathan, 1703-1758; Sermons, American
1. We may here observe the marvellous wisdom of God in the work of
redemption. God hath made man's emptiness and misery, his low, lost and
ruined state into which he sunk by the fall, an occasion of the greater
advancement of his own glory, as in other ways, so particularly in this,
that there is now a much more universal and apparent dependence of man on
God. Though God be pleased to lift man out of that dismal abyss of sin and
woe into which he was fallen, and exceedingly to exalt him in excellency
and honor, and to a high pitch of glory and blessedness, yet the creature
hath nothing in any respect to glory of; all the glory evidently belongs
to God, all is in a mere and most absolute and divine dependence on the
Father, Son and Holy Ghost.
And each person of the Trinity is equally glorified in this work: there is
an absolute dependence of the creature on every one for all: all is _of_
the Father, all _through_ the Son, and all _in_ the Holy Ghost. Thus God
appears in the work of redemption as _all in all_. It is fit that he that
is, and there is none else, should be the Alpha and Omega, the first and
the last, the all, and the only, in this work.
2. Hence those doctrines and schemes of divinity that are in any respect
opposite to such an absolute and universal dependence on God, do derogate
from God's glory, and thwart the design of the contrivance for our
redemption. Those schemes that put the creature in God's stead, in any of
the mentioned respects, that exalt man into the place of either Father,
Son or Holy Ghost, in any thing pertaining to our redemption; that,
however they may allow of a dependence of the redeemed on God, yet deny a
dependence that is so absolute and universal; that own an entire
dependence on God for some things, but not for others; that own that we
depend on God for the gift and acceptance of a Redeemer, but deny so
absolute a dependence on him for the obtaining of an interest in the
Redeemer; that own an absolute dependence on the Father for giving his
Son, and on the Son for working out redemption, but not so entire a
dependence on the Holy Ghost for conversion and a being in Christ, and so
coming to a title to his benefits; that own a dependence on God for means
of grace, but not absolutely for the benefit and success of those means;
that own a partial dependence on the power of God for the obtaining and
exercising holiness, but not a mere dependence on the arbitrary and
sovereign grace of God; that own a dependence on the free grace of God for
a reception into his favor, so far that it is without any proper merit,
but not as it is without being attracted, or moved with any excellency;
that own a partial dependence on Christ, as he through whom we have life,
as having purchased new terms of life, but still hold that the
righteousness through which we have life is inherent in ourselves, as it
was under the first covenant; and whatever other way any scheme is
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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