Visual Edwards Ideas

Future State

Wed, 19 May 2021 18:59:08 -0500

1. A FUTURE STATE of REWARDS and PUNISHMENTS; for unless there be such a FUTURE STATE, it will certainly follow that, in fact, God maintains no MORAL GOVERNMENT over the world of mankind. For otherwise, 'tis apparent that there is no such thing as rewarding or punishing men according to any visible rule—or indeed, order or method whatsoever. Without this, there may be desires manifested; but there can be no proper laws established, and no authority maintained. Nothing is more manifest than that there is no such thing as a regular, equal dispensing [of] rewards and punishments to men, according to their moral state, in this world. There is nothing in God's disposals towards men in this world to make his distributive justice and judicial equity manifest or visible; but all things are in the greatest confusion. Often the wicked prosper, and are not in trouble as other men; they become mighty in power. Yea, it has commonly been so in all ages, that they have been uppermost in the world. They have the ascendance over the righteous; they are mounted to thrones, while the righteous remain in cottages. And in this world the cause of the just is not vindicated. Many wicked men have the righteous in their power, and trample 'em underfoot, and become their cruel persecutors; and the righteous are oppressed, and suffer all manner of injuriousness and cruelty, while the wicked live and reign in great glory and prosperity.

Term Set A: future, state, moral, government / Term Set B: rewards, punishments

p. Infused Grace

Sun, 16 May 2021 09:47:59 -0500

...For suppose the Spirit of God only to assist the natural powers, then there is something done betwixt them: man's own powers do something, and God's Spirit doth something, but only they work together. Now the part that the Spirit doth, how little soever that be, is infused. So that they that deny INFUSED HABITS own that part of the habit is infused. For they say, the Holy Spirit assists the man in acquiring the habit, so that it is acquired rather sooner than it would be otherwise. So that part of [the] habit is owing to the Spirit—some of the strength of the habit was infused—and another part is owing to the natural powers. Or if you say, not so, but it is all owing to the natural power assisted, how do you mean "assisted"? To act more livelily and vigorously than otherwise? Then that liveliness and vigorousness must be infused, which is a habit and therefore an infused habit; it is grace, and therefore INFUSED GRACE. Grace consists very much in a principle that causes vigorousness and activity in action; this is INFUSION, even in the sense of the opposite party. So that if any operation of the Holy Spirit at all is allowed, the dispute is only, how much is infused. The one says, a great deal; the other says, but little.

Term Set A: infused, infusion / Term Set B: grace, habit

Infused Habits

Fri, 14 May 2021 06:19:00 -0500

73. INFUSED [HABITS].

To say that a man who has no true virtue and no true grace can acquire it by frequent exercises of [it], is as much a contradiction as to say a man acts grace when he has no grace, or that he has it [when] he has it not. For tell me [how] a man that has no true grace within him shall begin to exercise it: before he begins to exercise it, he must have some of it. How shall [he] act virtuously the first time? how came he by that virtue which he then acted? Certainly not [by] exercise of virtue, for it supposes that he never acted virtuously before, and therefore could not get it by acting of it before.

'Tis said that a sinful [man] begins to use himself to act the matter of virtue, and after a while it became habitual to him. I answer, that it may become habitual to him [if] he did; but it can't become habitual to him to act as he never did before, by the means of his using of himself to it. When [was the] time when the man first began to act from a truly virtuous principle? I suppose that it was [the time] that the man first acted true virtue. But [what made] him so to act true virtue, or from a truly virtuous principle, then? Was it because he had used himself to it, when it is...

[Perhaps you will say, the] man got the habit of acting from a virtuous principle from doing...

Term Set A: habit, habitual / Term Set B: virtue, virtuous, principle

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Wed, 5 May 2021 07:25:05 -0500

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18. ADAM'S SIN. It is no more unreasonable that we should be guilty of Adam's first sin

Wed, 21 Apr 2021 20:51:04 -0500

18. ADAM'S SIN. It is no more unreasonable that we should be guilty of Adam's first sin, than that we should be guilty of our own that we have been guilty of in times past. For we are not the same we were in times past, any other way than only as we please to call ourselves the same. For we are anew created every moment; and that that is caused to be this moment, is not the same that was caused to be the last moment, only as there is such a relation between this existence now and a certain existence in time past as we call sameness; such as remembrance, consciousness, love, likeness, a continuation of being both as to time and place without interval, etc.: which relations the sovereign God has constituted stated conditions of derivations of guilt. What relations he will constitute to be such conditions, is entirely at his will and pleasure.

Term Set A: adam, created / Term Set B: continuation, guilt

f. SPIRITUAL HAPPINESS. As we have shown and demonstrated

Wed, 21 Apr 2021 20:09:46 -0500

f. SPIRITUAL HAPPINESS. As we have shown and demonstrated, that, contrary to the opinion of Hobbes (that nothing is substance but matter), that no matter is substance but only God, who is a spirit, and that other spirits are more substantial than matter; so also it is true, that no happiness is solid and substantial but spiritual happiness, although it may seem that sensual pleasures are most real and spiritual only imaginary, as it seems as if sensible matter were only real and spiritual substance only imaginary.

Term Set A: spiritual, sensual, imaginary / Term Set B: pleasures, happiness

Their foot shall slide in due time

Tue, 20 Apr 2021 11:42:21 -0500

Their foot shall slide in due time. Deuteronomy 32:35. In this verse is threatened the vengeance of God on the wicked unbelieving Israelites, that were God's visible people, and lived under means of grace; and that, notwithstanding all God's wonderful works that he had wrought towards that people, yet remained, as is expressed, v. Deuteronomy 32:28, "void of counsel," having no understanding in them; and that, under all the CULTIVATIONS of heaven, brought forth BITTER and POISONOUS FRUIT; as in the two verses next preceding the text.

Term Set A: cultivation, fruit / Term Set B: bitter, poisonous

By original sin

Mon, 19 Apr 2021 19:48:40 -0500

By original sin, as the phrase has been most commonly used by divines, is meant the INNATE sinful DEPRAVITY of the heart. But yet when the doctrine of original sin is spoken of, it is vulgarly understood in that latitude, as to include not only the depravity of NATURE, but the IMPUTATION of ADAM's first sin; or in other words, the liableness or exposedness of Adam's posterity, in the divine judgment, to partake of the punishment of that sin. So far as I know, most of those who have held one of these, have maintained the other; and most of those who have opposed one, have opposed the other: both are opposed by the author chiefly attended to in the following discourse, in his book against original sin: and it may perhaps appear in our future consideration of the subject, that they are closely connected, and that the arguments which prove the one establish the other, and that there are no more difficulties attending the allowing of one than the other.

Term Set A: depravity, nature / Term Set B: imputation, adam

aa. FAITH. There may undoubtedly be such a thing as is called the testimony of faith

Mon, 19 Apr 2021 19:25:18 -0500

aa. FAITH. There may undoubtedly be such a thing as is called the TESTIMONY of faith, and a sort of CERTAINTY of FAITH that is different from REASON, that is, is different from discourse by a chain of arguments, a certainty that is given by the Holy Spirit; and yet such a belief may be altogether agreeable to reason, agreeable to the exactest rules of philosophy. Such ideas of religion may be in the mind, as a man may feel divinity in them, and so may know they are from God, know that religion is of divine original, that is, is divine truth. Yea, this faith may be to the degree of certainty, for he may certainly intuitively see God and feel him in those ideas; that is, he may certainly see that notion he has of God in them. The notion of God, or idea I have of him, is that complex idea of such power, holiness, purity, majesty, love, excellency, beauty, loveliness, and ten thousand other things. Now when a man is certain he sees those things, he is certain he sees that which he calls divine. He is certain he feels those things to which he annexes the term God; that is, he is certain that what he sees and feels, he sees and feels; and he knows that what he then sees and feels is the same thing he used to call God. There is such an idea of religion in his mind, wherein he knows he sees and feels that power, that holiness, that purity, that majesty, that love, that excellency, that beauty and loveliness, that amounts to his idea of God.

Term Set A: testimony, certainty / Term Set B: faith, reason

bb. RESURRECTION. How has the resurrection of Christ any influence on the bodies of believers and on their resurrection

Sun, 18 Apr 2021 10:02:02 -0500

bb. RESURRECTION. How has the resurrection of CHRIST any influence on the BODIES of believers and on their RESURRECTION, by virtue of the UNION that is betwixt them? How shall we give a rational account of it? In order to answer this question, we must first show how can the bodies partake of this union, which are really no more than a stock or a stone. Indeed everything about a man besides the rational soul is no more than a house, ship or coach, but only this: the RATIONAL SOUL has POWER to AFFECT the one and not the other, and the one and not the other has power to affect the rational soul. And how is it possible that a stock or stone should partake of the union to Christ?

Term Set A: rational, soul, union / Term Set B: power, affect, resurrection