|
Justification:
from Jonathan Edwards:
A
Mini-Theology
- John H. Gerstner
Articulus
stantis aut candentis ecclesiae
("the doctrine by which the church stands or
falls") - so said Martin Luther about justification
by faith alone. John Calvin
agreed, calling justification by faith the
"hinge" of the Reformation. But
was that the historic Christian view?
One
may say generally of the history of the doctrine of
justification that solafideanism
(justification by faith aloneism) was taught
implicitly, but not explicitly, from the beginning of
the church. That is, it was known in the early church
that salvation was by faith alone, but not until the
sixteenth century was the church called upon to define
that teaching more precisely. Those in the church who
had quietly apostatized, opposed this essential truth
(adheres of Tridentine Roman Catholicism), while the
faithful (Protestants) affirmed it. The
Reformers defined and refined the doctrine in the fires
of controversy.
The
historian of doctrine, Louis Berkhof, correctly observed
that in the early church faith "was generally
regarded as the outstanding instrument for the reception
of the merits of Christ, and was often called the sole
means of salvation."1 Faith rather than works was
"repeatedly expressed by the Apostolic Fathers, and
reoccur[s] in the Apologists."'2
The most influential theologian of the early church was
certainly Augustine (354430). Before we consider his
teaching about our crucial doctrine, we note in passing
that the standard creed of the Reformation, the Augsburg
Confession (1530), found solafideanism in Augustine's
mentor and predecessor, Ambrose, under whose preaching
Augustine was converted. Article VI of the Confession
speaks of solafideanism: "The same [justification
by faith] is also taught by the Fathers: For Ambrose
says, 'It is ordained of God that he who believes in
Christ is saved freely receiving."
In
spite of this, many cannot find the doctrine in
Augustine. Many historical theologians interpret him as
confusing justification with sanctification, of which
justification is merely a part.3 This is not accurate,
however. Though Augustine finds justification and
sanctification inseparable, they are not
indistinguishable. Augustinian justification leads into
sanctification, but is not confused with it.
According
to Augustine, man's faith in Christ justifies him.4
Confession of Christ is efficacious for the remission of
sins.5 We are justified by the blood of Christ,6 and we
have no merits which are not the gifts of God.7 Of
course, faith is active through love (fides
quae cantate operatur), but this does not imply that
justification is on the basis of love.
Before
we leave Augustine, a relatively recent Roman Catholic
work requires attention. Father P. Bergauer's Der
Jakobusbrief bei Augustinus (The Epistle of James
According to Augustine) shows clearly that Luther
disagreed not only with the Epistle of James but with
Augustine as well.8 Luther became convinced that James
was opposed to Paul's doctrine of justification by faith
alone and thus dismissed the epistle as non-canonical.
This is wellknown, but Bergauer also notes that in so
doing, Luther was consciously departing from Augustine
as well. We sadly agree with Bergauer that Luther erred
with respect to both James and Augustine. Bergauer's
work confirms, however, what we will shortly note, that
Luther was clearly a solafidean, although without
recognizing that James and Augustine were also. The
Reformer erred, apparently because he could not find
explicit forensic language in either James or Augustine.
Ian
Sellers sees that it is the post-Augustinian movement
which "conflates the immediacy of the act of
justification with the later process of
sanctification."9 Nevertheless, many post
Augustinians kept their concepts clear as we will see
even in the Scholastic era, though many did not.
Some
Roman Catholics like to cry "Forward to the Middle
Ages," thinking that they there find authority for
their antisolafidean doctrine. But Adolf Harnack
insisted that if the medieval church had followed its
favorite teacher, Thomas Aquinas, on justification, the
Reformation would not have been necessary. The great
earlier Scholastic theologian, Anselm, was also
solafidean. He wrote his belief in a tract for the
consolation of the dying, quoted here by A. H. Strong!
"Question.
Dost thou believe that the Lord Jesus died for thee?
Answer. I believe it. Qu. Dost thou thank him for his
passion and death? Ans. I do thank him. Qu. Dost thou
believe that thou canst not be saved except by his
death? Ans. I believe it" And then Anselm addresses
the dying man: "Come then, while life remaineth in
thee: in his death alone place thy whole trust; in
naught else place any trust; to his death commit thyself
wholly, with this alone cover thyself wholly; and if the
Lord thy God will to judge thee, say, "Lord,
between thy judgment and me I present the death of our
Lord Jesus Christ; no otherwise can I contend with
thee.' And if he shall say that thou art a sinner, say
thou: 'Lord, I interpose the death of our Lord Jesus
Christ between my sins and thee. 'If he say that thou
hast deserved condemnation, say: 'Lord, I set the death
of our Lord Jesus Christ between my evil deserts and
thee, and his merits I offer for those which I ought to
have and have not.' If he say that he is wroth with
thee, say: 'Lord, I oppose the death of our Lord Jesus
Christ between thy wrath and me. 'And when thou hast
completed this, say again: 'Lord, I set the death of our
Lord Jesus Christ between thee and me.' " See
Anselm, Opera (Migne), 1:686, 687.
The above
quotation gives us reason to believe that the New
Testament doctrine of justification by faith was
implicitly, if not explicitly, held by many pious souls
through all the ages of papal darkness.10
Thus
medieval Scholastics still taught justification as an
instantaneous act. It was
not until the Council of Trent (15451563) that
justification was officially confirmed as a process
based on human merit derived through divine grace. This
was the article - Session VI, Canon 7 of the Council of
Trent - which led the Roman Catholic Church away from
the orthodox teaching on justification.
For
Luther, Romans 1:17 and Matthew 4:7 taught that the
righteousness of God was his mercy and pardon.
Out went all human merit from indulgences to works of
supererogation. As Article
IV of Melanchthon's
Augsburg Confession,
of which Luther approved, phrased it "Men can be
justified freely on account of Christ through faith,
when they believe that they are received into grace,
and that their sins are remitted on account of
Christ who made satisfaction for sins on our behalf by
his death. God imputes this faith for righteousness in
his own sight." Luther
elsewhere affirms that Christ's righteousness is ours
and our sins are his. Thus, he who was innocent became
guilty of depravity, while we who were depraved became
innocent.
Calvin,
in his Institutes
(3:11,15,20,27), citing Augustine and Peter Lombard,
taught the same doctrine. Though
the Genevan saw union with Christ preceding faith
(whereas for Luther it
followed faith), Berkhof is justified in
saying "however Calvin
may have differed from Luther as to the order of
salvation, he quite agreed with him in the nature and
importance of the doctrine of justification by
faith."" Yet Edward Boehl (18361903)
is correct that Calvin avoided
basing justification on the mystical union which equaled
intercourse with God. However, this does not
justify Boehl in saying that later Reformed theologians
did so identify and thus approached the Lutheran
heretic, Osiander.12 (Osiander held to a belief in
"essential righteousness," where
the Reformed tradition never deviated from the doctrine
of "imputed righteousness.").
Nevertheless,
John Tillotson, Samuel Clarke, and some other Anglicans
did introduce Tridentine thinking into the Church of
England by confusing the inseparability of faith and
works with the meritoriousness of each.
This
same tension toward meritorious righteousness in and by
the justified threatened Puritanism from the beginning.
That Anglican John Donne (1573-1631) and
Congregationalist John Owen (1616-1683), champions
of solafideanism, admitted
infused righteousness while denying any merit in it
shows their sensitivity to the problem.
Christopher Fitzsimmons Allison, in The
Rise of Moralism, traced this English development
into Arminianism and beyond in a somewhat parallel way
to Joseph Haroutunian's American sketch in Piety
Versus Moralism.13
Puritanism
could admit, in fact, insist upon-sanctification
(infused righteousness) as strenuously as imputed
righteousness. It was inseparably connected with it.
The one thing sanctification
did not do, for the
Puritans, was supplant justification.
As we saw, Owen did not
even hesitate to speak of justinia
inhaerens. Righteousness was wrought in a man
because it was first imputed to him. The
evidence that it was imputed to him was its being
wrought in him.
There
is a sense in which Puritans saw righteousness as being
wrought in before being imputed to. This was the
prior union with Christ as the psychological basis of
justification. "The foundation of imputation is
union. Christ and believers actually coalesce into one
mystical person"
How
did Arminianism emerge out of solafideanism? What was
the solafidean offense that led to the departure?
The
offense which some found in solafideanism was that it
taught acceptance by faith only. If this is so, the
Arminians argued, an unsanctified man could go to
heaven, and that could never be. They were partly right,
since an unsanctified man can never go to heaven. But
they were partly wrong, for one justified alone is not
justified by the faith that is alone. Faith is
inseparably connected with works, or sanctification, or
inherent righteousness.
Once again, the error was in a failure to understand the
truth. A correct objection was based on an incorrect
apprehension. How often had the Reformers proclaimed
with James (and Paul) that faith without works was dead.
Justification without sanctification did not exist. As
we have seen, solafideans were not opposed to inherent
righteousness except as a justifying righteousness,
which was precisely what Rome claimed it to be. The
orthodox were as opposed - more opposed - to
Antinomianism than the unorthodox.
Not understanding that solafideanism gave works a proper
role, the Arminians found an improper role for them.
Since works, they felt, had to justify - and sinners had
none - they used faith to bring down works to a sinner's
level. That is, they saw the work of Christ as
satisfying God with the imperfect works of men.
"Christ brought down the market," according to
Richard Baxter.14 Our inadequate righteousness was made
acceptable through Christ.15 Allison says that this was
the imputation of faith of Baxter, Goodwin, and
Woodbridge versus the imputation of Christ's
righteousness of Owen, Eades, Gataker, Walker, and also
of the early Anglicans Hooker, Andrewes, Downame,
Davenant, Donne, Ussher, and Hill.16 Commenting on
Arminianism, A. H. Strong has agreed with other scholars
that the"Wesleyan scheme is inclined to make faith
a work.... This is to make faith the cause and ground,
or at least to add it to Christ's work as a joint cause
and ground, of justification; . . "17
This,
however, is a rather infelicitous way of expressing the
difference. It amounts to a pun on the word impute. The
imputation of Christ's righteousness construes
imputation as a reckoning of, or accrediting to,
Christ's righteousness. The imputation of faith in this
contrast means regarding faith as acceptable which, by
legal definition, it is not. Even the Arminians admitted
that it was not really acceptable to God (as Christ's
righteousness was); but the Son twisted his Father's arm
to make him act as if it were. This soteriological
perversion was called neonomianism (new lawism) because
it was not the perfect law of God which was maintained
but a new, stepped down, imperfect, "lawless"
law of God. So it became a lapse into justification by
works which were not even works.
EDWARDS
ON JUSTIFICATION.
This
was the Arminian import from England that was becoming
fashionable in the colonies, much to the distress of the
solafidean pastor of Northampton. He had already warned
Boston about it in 1731: "Those doctrines and
schemes of divinity that are in any respect opposite to
such an absolute and universal dependence of God, do
derogate from God's glory, and thwart the design of the
contrivances for our redemption."18 In 1734 he felt
constrained to bring the matter home to his own people
in Northampton with his lectures on justification by
faith alone.
The
Nature of Justification.
For
Edwards, justification means being free of guilt and
having a righteousness entitling to eternal life. This
is made plain at the very beginning of the dual lecture
on Romans 4:5.19 Commenting on Romans 8:29, Edwards
says: "In justification viz, the pardon of sins
through Christ's satisfaction and being accepted through
his obedience."20
We become "free of guilt" by receiving
"pardon." Nevertheless justification does not
consist only of pardon, but, says Edwards in Miscellany
812:
It
does not in strictness consist at all in pardon of sin
but in an act or sentence approving of him as innocent
and positively righteous and so having a right to
freedom from punishment and to the reward of positive
righteousness. Pardon as the word is used in other cases
signifies a forgiving one freely though he is not
innocent or has no right to be looked on as such. There
is nothing of his own he has to offer that is equivalent
to innocence, but he justly stands guilty; but
notwithstanding his guilt he is freed from punishment.
But the pardon we have by Christ is a freeing persons
from punishment of sin as an act of justice and because
they are looked upon and accepted as having that which
is equivalent to innocence . . .
Justification consists in imputing righteousness. To
pardon sin is to cease to be angry for sin. But imputing
righteousness and ceasing to be angry are two things.
One is the foundation of the other. God ceases to be
angry with the sinner for his sin because righteousness
is imputed to him....
Persons cannot be justified without a righteousness
consistent with God's truth for it would be a false
sentence. It would be to give sentence concerning a
person that he is approvable as just that is not just
and cannot be approved as such in a true judgment. To
suppose a sinner pardoned without a righteousness
implies no contradiction, but to justify without a
righteousness is self contradictory.
Righteousness.
Though the definition of justification is more
comprehensive, the actual doctrine of the sermons on
Romans 4:5 is that "we are justified only by faith
in Christ, and not by any manner of virtue or goodness
of our own."21 This is, of course, the tenor of the
text used "Now to him that worketh not, but
believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith
is counted for righteousness." The contrast in
Edwards' statement is between "faith in
Christ" and "virtue or goodness of our
own." As Edwards develops the concept, however, the
contrast is not between our faith and our goodness but
between Christ's goodness and our nongoodness.
Referring to our faith is a shorthand way of referring
to Christ's righteousness, which is crucial. The
"merit" is Christ's.22
In
a later sermon on Romans 4:16, Edwards seems to reduce
justification to righteousness, but a "twofold
righteousness": "Nothing else seems to be
intended by it in the New Testament than a persons being
looked upon by God as having a righteousness belonging
to him and God accordingly judging of it meet that he
should be dealt with as such."23 This twofold
righteousness consists of freedom from guilt which the
First Adam enjoyed - and actual fulfillment of a law -
which only the Second Adam achieved. This righteousness
may be performed by the person himself as the First Adam
was supposed to do and the elect angels did. Or it could
be by "some other person who has performed it for
him whose act God sees meet to accept for him, as fallen
men are justified."24
This is important to Edwards because he sees no way of
justification for a person except by righteousness.
"Works are the fixed price of eternal life; it is
fixed by an eternal unalterable rule of
righteousness."25 There can not be justification
without righteousness. Edwards solemnly reiterates the
Reformed emphasis on righteousness in justification by
faith alone. God justifies the "ungodly"26 to
be sure, but Edwards carefully explains this: "We
must indeed be saved on the account of works; but not
our own. It is on account of the works which Christ hath
done for us."27
In
the sermon on Matthew 7:21, Edwards puts the matter
plainly: "God acting the part of a judge determines
and declares that men have a righteousness and as they
are justified by works.."28
The
Romans 4:5 sermon gives us the rationale of imputed
righteousness:
While
from Christ, he must behold him as he is in himself; and
so his goodness cannot be beheld by God, but as taken
with his guilt and hatefulness; and as put in the scales
with it; and being beheld so, his goodness is nothing,
because there is a finite on the balance versus an
infinite, whose proportion to it is nothing.
Though a
respect to that natural suitableness between such a
qualification, and such a state, does go before
justification, yet the acceptance even of faith as any
goodness or loveliness of the believer, follows
justification....But to suppose that God gives a man an
interest in Christ in reward for his righteousness or
virtue is inconsistent with his still remaining under
condemnation 'til he has an interest in Christ... 29
The
Basis of Justification.
So
justification is righteousness,
how ever we come by it.
We do not come by it by
ourselves, but by Christ. How we come by it by Christ is
the question.
Edwards'
answer is clear: Christ's righteousness belongs to the
faithful by virtue of their "natural union"
with him. The
Reformers, especially Calvin, and the Puritans,
especially Owen, also
saw union with Christ as the basis of justification.
Edwards
is, perhaps, even more precise in two ways:
First, he observes that Christ achieves His own
righteousness which, second, becomes ours by union with
Him. Christ "was not justified 'til he had done the
work the Father had appointed him, and kept the Father's
commandments through all the trials: and
then in His resurrection He was justified."30
And in Him we are justified because of the "natural
fitness" of those united to Him possessing what he
achieved for them.
When
it is said that we are not justified by any
righteousness or goodness of our own, what is meant is,
that it is not out of respect to the excellency
or goodness of any qualifications or acts in us
whatsoever, that God judges it meet that this benefit of
Christ should be ours and it is not in any wise, on
account of any excellency or value that there is in
faith, that it appears in the sight of God a meet thing,
that he that believes should have this benefit of Christ
assigned to him, but purely from the relation faith has
to the person in which this benefit is to be had, or as
it unites to that mediator, in and by whom we are
justified.31 Before a person believes, he is not
possessed of this congruity.32
At
this point Edwards goes further than his predecessors by
distinguishing between a "twofold fitness,"33
which he calls natural and moral. He affirms the first
and denies the second as belonging to the believer. The
second is denied because, he reasons, it would imply an
"amiableness" in the believer's faith which it
does not possess A "natural suitableness" is
always included in a "moral," but natural
suitableness "by no means necessarily includes a
moral."(34)
The
Means of Justification.
If
natural fitness or congruity is the basis of
justification, the Edwardsean means to it is faith,
faith alone and uniquely. This is very clear in the
addresses on Romans 4:5. It is brilliantly exhibited in
the later sermon on Romans 4:16, "That the grace of
God in the new covenant eminently appears in this, that
it proposes justification by faith."35 Faith,
according to Miscellany 1280, is not really a
"condition" because Christ is the
"ultimate condition" and besides, there are
other "conditions."36 "Faith is that in
them which God has regard to upon the account of which
God judges it meet that they should be looked upon as
having Christ's righteousness belonging to them . . .
upon the account of which God in his wisdom sees it
proper that they should have an actual communion with
Christ in his righteousness." Continuing he states
that "though we can't be justified without other
graces and shall be justified with them yet we are not
justified by them because they are not what God has
regard to upon the account of which he judges it proper
that men should be looked upon as being in Christ and so
having an interest in his righteousness."37 Nor are
we justified by faith considered as a work ("by
virtue of the goodness or loveliness of it").
As
with Luther and others, the marriage analogy was a
favorite of Edwards.
As when a man offers himself to a woman in marriage; he
doesn't give himself to her as a reward of her receiving
him in marriage: Her receiving him is not considered as
a worthy deed in her, for which he rewards her, by
giving himself to her, but 'tis by her receiving him,
that the union is made, by which she hath him for her
husband: Tis on her part the union itself. The woman, by
virtue of her natural union with the husband as one
flesh, becomes also the possessor of all that belongs to
the man: his position, wealth, and the like So
with the believer: by his natural union with Christ by
the Spirit he becomes the possessor of all the
righteousness of Christ also.38
That faith is
the means is clearest of all in the later Miscellanies
831, 877, and 1250. Almost the last Miscellany, 1354, is
dedicated to this theme.
THE PROOF OF JUSTIFICATION
Granted
that Edwards was correct in his analysis of the biblical
doctrine of justification, what proof does he offer that
it was true? For Edwards, such a question was
impertinent. The Bible is the
Word of God. What it teaches, God teaches.
Against the deists, Edwards argued that each proposition
of revelation did not have to be separately demonstrated
any more than each proposition of sense or history had
to be separately proven.39
In
the sermon on Romans 4:20 he discusses Abraham's faith
as he had elucidated the faith of saints in general in
his exposition of Habakkuk 2:4.40 The theme of this very
early sermon is "That saints do live by
faith."41 The young preacher defined faith as the
soul's acquiescing in the divine sufficiency,
specifically the sufficiency of Jesus Christ. He then
takes up the question of how spiritual life comes by
faith. Faith, he says, entitles one to life. If anyone
fears the shadow of Catholicism there, Edwards hastens
to explain that faith is "that by which the soul is
united to Christ." It is Christ alone who entitles
to life.
The
inspired Word of God everywhere teaches this essential
doctrine. Miscellany 725 had many references to the
doctrine, even in the Old Testament, even in statements
that were cited in evidence against the doctrine. His
more famous lectures on Romans 4:5 abound in biblical
references for this indispensable doctrine, dealing
pointedly with the Roman Catholic claims to the
contrary.
CRUCIALITY OF THE DOCTRINE
Thomas
A. Schafer observes that Jonathan Edwards said much less
about this doctrine in his last twenty years.42 He
shifted his focus from this fruit of Arminianism to its
root in the libertarian, voluntaristic view of the will.
As Edwards concludes in his Freedom of the Will, all
Reformed doctrines were subverted by the Arminian view
of freedom.43 The third part is entitled: "Wherein
Is Inquired, Whether Any Such Liberty of Will as
Arminians Hold, Be Necessary to Moral Agency, Virtue and
Vice, Praise and Dispraise, etc."44 In
it he proved not only that Arminianism was not necessary
to virtue but that it doomed the biblical way of virtue
and salvation. As in "Justification by
Faith" he saw the Arminian way of salvation with
its stress on human righteousness as the end of human
and divine virtue.
There
can be no doubt that this doctrine was as essential for
Edwards as for Paul and the Reformers.
The contrary doctrine, he
insists, citing Romans 9 and 10, is "fatal"
and "another gospel," according to Galatians
1:6. It is the substitution of man's virtue for
Christ's, a legal system for the gospel, the covenant of
works for the covenant of grace.
"I am sensible," he concludes, "the
divines of that side [Arminianism] entirely disclaim the
popish doctrine of merit and are free to speak of our
utter unworthiness, and the great imperfections of all
our services. But after all, they maintain, it is our
virtue, imperfect as it is, that commends men to God....
Whether they allow the term merit or not, we are
accepted by our merit in the same sense as the first
Adam."45
In
his discussion of James and Paul, Edwards notes that
they were using the word justify in different senses,
and he insists that we should alter the words there
"because there is no one doctrine in the whole
Bible more fully asserted."46
EDWARDS' CONTRIBUTIONS
Jonathan
Edwards made many contributions to the historic doctrine
of justification by faith alone.
He continued it as the central doctrine of Christianity
and American Protestantism, affirming it in God
Glorified in Man's Dependence (1731), proving it in Justification
by Faith (1734), establishing its metaphysical
foundation in Freedom
of the Will (1754), and expounding it in numerous
published and unpublished sermons.
He
connected it inseparably with the
covenant of grace, showing that covenant
theology, so far from being "incipient
Arminianism," was the antithesis of it.
In fact, he demonstrated
that Arminianism was founded on a covenant of works
mentality, and was essentially a denial of the gospel
and purely gracious salvation.
In
line with Calvin and Puritanism he saw union with Christ
as the grounds of justification.
And going beyond his own tradition he developed
"fitness," or natural congruity, as the
corollary of union with Christ, sharply contrasting it
with any "moral fitness" in faith or
obedience.
More
sharply than any he saw the sense in which justification
by faith alone rested ultimately on justification by
works - the works of Christ.
He showed that faith justified works rather than works
justifying faith. "Rewards" were explained
thoroughly in solafidean terms, while he annihilated any
concept of merit anywhere except in Jesus Christ.
He
made the doctrine
of justification the centerpiece in evangelism.
God himself confirmed this doctrine by a great awakening
following its preaching.
Edwards' prelude to his most
celebrated evangelistic proclamation
of "Justification
by Faith Alone" cites this:
The
following discourse of justification, that was preached
(though not so fully as it is here printed) at two
public lectures, seemed to be remarkably blessed, not
only to establish the judgments of many in this truth,
but to engage their hearts in a more earnest pursuit of
justification, in that way that had been explained and
defended; and at that time, when I was greatly
reproached for defending this doctrine in the pulpit,
and just upon my suffering a very open abuse for it,
God's work wonderfully brake forth amongst us, and souls
began to flock to Christ, as the Saviour in whose
righteousness alone they hoped to be justified. So that
this was the doctrine on which this work in its
beginning was founded, as it evidently was in the whole
progress of it.47
Notes
1. Berkhof, History of Doctrine, 207.
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid.,211. Berkhof does grant that "in some
passages he [Edwards] evidently rises to a higher
conception."
4. Whitney Oates, ea., The Basic Writings of St.
Augustine (New York: Random House, 1968),2:142.
5. Ibid.,2:215.
6. Ibid., 2:286.
7. Ibid., 2:826.
8. P. Bergauer, Der Jakobusbrief bei Augustinus
(Freiburg, Germany: Herder, Wren, 1962).
9. Ian Sellers, "Justification," in The New
International Dictionary of the Christian Church, ed. J.
D. Douglas (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1978),557.
10. A. H. Strong, Systematic Theology (Old Tappan, NJ.:
Fleming H. Revell, 1907),849.
11. Berkhof, History of Doctrine, 225.
12. Edward Boehl, Justification, trans. C. H. Riedesel
(Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1946), 59.
13. Christopher Fitzsimmons Allison, The Rise of
Moralism (New York: Seabury, 1966).
14. Quoted in Allison, Rise of Moralism, 157.
15. Charles Hodge, Systematic Theology (Greenwood, SC.:
The Attic Press, 1960), 3:133f.
16. Allison, Rise of Moralism, 177.
17. Strong, Systematic Theology, 864.
18. Works (Carter), 4:177.
19. Ibid., 4:64 132. First published in Discourses on
Various lmportant Subjects (Boston: S. Kneeland and T.
Green, 1738).
20. Contribution Lecture, December 7, 1739.
21. Works (Carter), 4:64132 32.
22. See Miscellanies 797 and 829 and sermons on Romans
5:17 and Galatians 4:4, 5.
23. Sermon on Romans 4:16, probably between winter and
summer 1730.
24. Ibid.
25. Works (Carter), 4:371.
26 Ibid.
27. Ibid.
28. Sermon preached before 1733.
29. Gerstner, Steps to Salvation, 76, 77.
30. Works (Carter), 4:66. In
this connection Edwards cites I Peter 3:18 and I Timothy
3:16 in support of his contention.
31. Ibid., 4:69.
32. Ibid.,2:517.
33. Ibid., 4:73.
34. Ibid.
35. Sermon on Romans 4:16 (see note 23).
36 Ibid.
37. Ibid.
38. Quoted in Gerstner, Steps to Salvation, 146.
39. Cherry, Theology of Jonathan Edwards, 203.
40. Outline sermon delivered at Nathan Phelps' home,
December 1743, later in 1753 at Stockbridge Holdings of
Andover Divinity School.
41. Sermon preached before 1733.
42. Thomas A. Schafer, "Jonathan Edwards'
Conception of the Church," Church History, Vol.24,
No. I (March 1955).
43. Freedom of the Will, 431 437.
44. Ibid., 275 333.
45. Sermon on Romans 4:5.
46. Works (Carter), 4:124.
47. Ibid., 4:116
###
This article was printed from
Grace Online Library - www.graceonlinelibrary.org
Please note that every
attempt has been made to obtain the proper permission to
use all of the material posted on our site. If you
intend on reproducing this printed article, you may need
to obtain the proper permission.
|
