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honorable, to restore finners to aquires, therefore all his fufferings

conformity to it, as the only poffible way to make them happy. Yea to alter or change this holy law, in any refpect, would be to deny himfelf. Thus our divine Lord faid heaven and earth fhall pafs before one jot or title of it shall fail.

The law of God therefore in its precepts and penalties muft remain as unchangeable as the nature of God himself.

can make no atonement for paft fins, even though in future he committed no fin.

How amazingly dreadful then is the state of a finner, who has broken the holy law of God! Where is the poffibility of his being forgiven? God is unchangeable, his government is perfect and cannot be altered. Nothing prefents but abfolute and everlafting defpair. God alone is able to fay if there is any poffible way, by which fin may arifes merely from their imperfecbe forgiven, confiftent with the intion were they perfect. finite perfection and glory of his would admit of no change, this is character and law. the cafe with the law and government of God, it is perfect and admits of no change.

Human laws are changed, and penalties are remitted; but this

They

If God's law, in all its precepts and penalties, originates from the unchangeable and infinitely perfect nature of God; if all his operations, determinations and government harmonize in forming one uniform, unchanging glorious charafter; then the tranfgreffor of God's law must look in vain for any change in him, or remiffion of thofe penalties which God views infinitely right.

This, O my fellow-finners, this way of forgiveness God has revealed, in the gospel of his Son. He can be just to his own character, law and government, and yet the juftifier of him who believes on his Son. And there is no other name given under heaven among men, by which we can be faved but by the name of Jefus.

The queftion may again be afked, How does it appear that fuch a way of forgiveness and falvation is effected and wrought out by Chrift, · that God can be just to his chargovernment and yet justify and forgive the inner, who believes on his Son?

How can God pardon the tranf-acter, law and greffor and receive him to favor, till he has fuffered the penalties of his law, and not be inconfiftent with himfelf?

If the finner fuffers the penalties, when will they end? While he is a finner, and continues to fin, the penalty of the law grows heavier and heavier upon him; for his obligation to love God, and obey his law, can never in any fituation ceafe. At beft he is but a creature, and if perfectly holy he can render nothing more to God than his due; he can do no work of fupererogation. If under the penalty of the law he can fuffer nothing more than the law re

In attending to this all-important fubject, we must obtain all our light from divine revelation--and on this point it is abundantly explicit and full. All that can now be attempted is to arrange fome of the most important and leading ideas, and leave enlargement to the reader.

1. It appears from the facred writings that the divine law does admit of a fubftitute or public head. In this fituation Adam stood in regard to his pofterity. By divine conftitution they were all involved in his fall, fo that by his disobedi

ence many were made finners. And the contrary feems equally plain, that had he obeyed many would have been made righteous.

2. The fcriptures bring into view the compact or covenant of redemption as being voluntarily entered into between the Father and the Son from eternity, and that thofe, who believe, were chofen in Christ even before the foundation of the world. Thus the undertaking to redeem man from fin and mifery on the part of the Mediator, was voluntary and of free choice.

3. The perfon who undertook the work of redemption was the eternal Son of God: No creature let him be ever fo exalted could be equal to the taík, for he could do no more than his duty. In the holy fcriptures, all the attributes of the God-head and equality with the Father are afcribed to the Son.

4. When every neceffary preparation was made for the Redeemer to enter upon his work, he took upon him the human nature, and was really man as well as God. God manifeft in the flesh, the brightness of the Father's glory and exprefs image of his perfon. He took not upon him the nature of angels, but that nature he came to redeem. As the first Adam had broken the law of God and entailed death upon all his natural feed whofe reprefentative he ftood, fo, that in confequence of his difobedience, they all come into the world with a depraved, finful dif pofition and fo under the curfe. The fecond Adam, our Lord Jefus Chrift, obeyed the law of God as the fubftitute or reprefentative of all his fpiritual feed. His obedience is accepted with God as theirs would have been had they never finned, or the firft Adam

fallen; for perfect obedience, to the divine law, is neceffary in order to eternal life and juftification before God, nor can it be difpenfed with.

But the fpiritual feed, which Chrift reprefents, are children of the firft Adam. They are finners.

They are condemned by the holy law of God. Obedience entitles to life, only where there is no fia: It cannot make atonement and fatisfy the penalty of the law of God. Therefore fomething fur

ther than obedience must be done by the Redeemer or not a finful child of Adam can be faved. The penalty of the law cannot be difpenfed with under the perfect and just government of God.

This the God-man Mediator freely fubmits to fuffer. He gave his foul an offering for fin. He was bruifed for our iniquities, the chaftifement of our peace was upon him, and by his stripes we are healed.

When he hung on the cross, light and comfort from the Godhead were withdrawn and he was treated as a finner. This caufed the bitter cry, "My God, My God, why haft thou forfaken me?"

Thus the human nature of the man Chrift Jefus was facrificed upon the altar of his divinity, which fanctified and gave infinite efficacy to the gift; and to which all preceding facrifices under the Mofaic law pointed. Being a divine perfon united to the God-head his fuffering the penalty gave infinite honor to the holy law of God. I may fay a greater honor than if it had been inflicted in everlasting punishment on the guilty themfelves.

This work being completed by the Redeemer the way is opened for the exercife of divine mercy. God can be juft and yet the juftifi er of him who believes.

But

though the way is open for the ex-| ercife of mercy to all who are united to Chrift by faith; yet man being dead in fin has no heart to believe and to love the holy character of God, and unless fomething ftill more was done would never receive any faving benefit from the atonement.

To remedy this evil and render things pertaining to falvation complete, in confequence of the obedience and death of Chrift, the Holy Spirit is given to renew and fanctify the heart, and apply the benefits of redemption to the foul.

The Mediator himself after rifing from the dead afcended to Heaven there to appear in the prefence of God for us; to afk and receive all that is neceffary to carry on the work of redemption; to fupport and finally bring his people

to eternal life

How wonderful is this plan of faving mercy, how harmonious in all its parts! Mercy and truth meet together; righteoufnefs and peace embrace each other. How aftonishing is divine love! How much it has done! Our obligations to love and obey God are unfpeakably increafed, by the way provided, and freely offered to redeem finners. How aggravatedly dreadful the fin, and how black the ingratitude to refufe fuch offers of love and grace! If he that def pifed Mofes's law died without mercy, of how much forer punishment fhall he be thought worthy who treads under foot the blood of the Son of God?

ZETA.

TO THE EDITORS OF THE CON-
NECTICUT EVANGELICAL MAG-

AZINE. GENTLEMEN,

SINCE the decease of the late Prefident Edwards, there have VOL. II. No. 10.

been many enquiries why the pub. lic were not furnished with a particular account of his life? It is defirable that these enquiries should be gratified. I have taken pains to collect the neceffary materials, but my fuccefs has been retarded by a number of causes, arifing from the particular fituation of thofe by whom the facts, concerning his life, could be furnished, and, from several other unforeseen, and, of courfe, unavoidable obftacles. I have been in poffeffion of the materials but few days, and now, with pleasure communicate them to you.

I am, Gentlemen, &c. February, 12th, 1802. ONATHAN EDWARDS,

Jo

D. D. Prefident of Union College in Schenectady, was the fon of the late Reverend Jonathan Edwards formerly minifter of the church of Chrift in Northampton, in the Commonwealth of Maffachusetts, and afterwards Prefident of the College at Princeton in NewJerfey, and Mrs. Sarah Edwards, daughter of Rev. Mr. Pierpont of New-Haven. He was the second fon of his parents, and was born at Northampton, on the 26th day of May O. S. 1745. However promifing his capacity may have appeared in early childhood, and however ambitious he may have been of excelling at that age when the mind begins to unfold itfelf; this period of his life was attended with a number of fingularly embarraffing circumftances, the tendency of which was to reprefs his exertion, and to difcourage his ambition. In early childhood, he was afflic ted with an imflammatory weaknefs in his eyes which almost entirely prevented his learning to read until a much later period than is common for children in New-England. This weakness resisted ma21

from any English fettlement. Att this place he continued but four months by reafon of the war which broke out between England and France, and extended itself into their colonies. Whilst he was with the Oneida Indians during thisshort time, he made rapid progrefs in acquiring their language, and in engaging their affections. They were fo much pleased with his attainments, and his amiable difpofi tion, that, when they thought their fettlement expofed to inroads from the French, they took him upon their fhoulders, and carried him many miles through the wilderness, to a place which they deemed fecure. After this he never returned to them any more.

ny and long continued applications; until by the shaving of his head, repeated often, und for a long time, the inflammation in fome degree, abated, and he was enabled to apply himself moderately to the rudiments of learning, and to revive in his anxious parents the hope that he would not be entirely loft to the literary world. During his childhood alfo, the unhappy conteft rofe to its height, between his father, and the church and fociety of Northampton, and terminated in their feparation, by the difmiflion of Mr. Edwards. When Mr. Edwards, with his family, removed to Stockbridge, this fon, was but fix years old. In addition to the infirmity in his eyes, new and important difficulties attended him, during his refidence in Stockbridge. There was no school in the settle-fifteenth year, he commenced the ment but one which was common to the Indian children, and the white people-and there were fo few of the latter, either in the fchool, or the town, that he was in danger of forgetting entirely the English tongue. Whilft at fchool here, he learned the language of the Mohekaneew, or Stockbridge Indians fo perfectly, that the natives. frequently obferved" that he spoke exactly like an Indian." This language he retained, in a good degree, through life, and the public is in poffeffion of fome interefting remarks upon it, which he publifh ed a number of years fince.

As his father intended him for a miffionary among the Aborigines, he fent him, in October 1755, when he was but ten years of age, with the Rev. Gideon Hawley, (now of Mafhpee on Cape Cod) to Oughquauga on the Sufquehannah River, to learn the language of the Oneida Indians. Oughquauga was, then, at the distance of about one hundred miles (in the wildernefs,)

In the month of February 1760, ́ when he had almost completed his

study of the Latin language, at a grammar fchool in Princeton, in New-Jersey; and was admitted a member of the College in the fame town, in September of the year following; and in September 1765, he received the degree of Bachelor of Arts. In the year 1763, and whilft he was at College, at a time of general awakening in Princeton, he obtained a hope of his reconciliation to God through Chrift. This was during the Prefidency, and under the impreffive preaching of the late Doctor Finley.

The following dedication of himself to the fervice of God, which was made by him at that time, was found among his papers after his deceafe.

Naffau-Hall, Sept. 17, 1763.

"I Jonathan Edwards, ftudent of the College in New Jerfey, on this seventeenth day of Septemer 1763, being the day before the first

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"Eternal and ever-bleffed God! I defire with the deepest humiliation and abafement of foul, to " come in the name and for the 'fake of Jefus Chrift, and prefent myfelf before thee, fenfible of my infinite unworthinefs to appear before thee, efpecially on fuch an occafion as this, to enter into a covenant with thee. But 'notwithstanding my fins have 'made fuch a feparation between thee and my foul, I befeech thee, through Chrift thy Son, to vouchfafe thy prefence with me and acceptance of the beft facrifice which I can make."

"I do, O Lord, in hopes of 'thy affifting grace, folemnly make an entire and perpetual furrender of all that I am and have unto thee, being determined in thy ftrength to renounce all former 'Lords who have had dominion

6 over me, every luft of the eye, of

the flesh and of the mind, and to ' live entirely devoted to thee and 'thy fervice. To thee do I confecrate the powers of my mind, with whatever improvements thou haft already or fhalt be pleafed hereafter to grant me in the literary way purpofing if it be thy good pleafure to purfue my ftudies affiduously, that I may be better prepared to act in any sphere of

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life in which thou shalt place me. 'I do alfo folemnly dedicate all 'my poffeffions, my time, my in'fluence over others, to be all used for thy glory. To thy direction I refign myfelf and all that I have, trufting all future contingencies in thy hands, and may thy will in all things and not mine be done. Ufe me, O Lord, as an inftrument of thy fervice! I befeech thee, number me among thy people! May I be clothed with the righteousness of thy Son; ever impart to me through him all needful fupplies of thy purifying and cheering fpirit! I befeech thee, O Lord, that thou 'would enable me to live accor

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ding to this my vow, conftantly ? avoiding all fin; and when I fhall 'come to die, in that folemn and awful hour, may I remember this my covenant, and do thou, O Lord, remember it too, and give my departing fpirit an abundant admittance into the realms of blifs! And if when I am laid in the duft, any furviving friend 'fhould meet with this memorial, may it be a means of good to him, and do thou admit him to partake of the bleffings of thy covenant of grace, through Jefus the great Mediator, to whom with thee, O Father, and thy Holy Spirit, be everlasting praifes afcribed, by Saints and Angels! Amen.'

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JONATHAN EDWARDS.

In 1767, he was appointed a tutor in the fame College and continued in this office two years.

Sometime before he had entered upon the ftudy of Divinity, the favorite study of his life, under the inftruction of the late Rev. Jofeph Bellamy, D. D. of Bethlem in Connecticut; and in 1766, O&ober 21ft, had been licenced to preach the Gofpel, by the Affoci

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