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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
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