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Treatise on Grace
by

Jonathan Edwards

Christian Classics Ethereal Library

About Treatise on Grace by Jonathan Edwards
Title: URL: Author(s): Publisher: Rights: Date Created: Contributor(s): CCEL Subjects: Treatise on Grace http://www.ccel.org/ccel/edwards/treatiseongrace.html Edwards, Jonathan (1703-1758) CCEL Copyright Christian Classics Ethereal Library 08-20-09 Andrew Hanson(Markup) All;

Treatise on Grace

Jonathan Edwards

Table of Contents
About This Book. . Treatise on Grace. Title Page. . . . . CHAPTER I.. . . . CHAPTER II.. . . CHAPTER III.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . p. ii p. 1 p. 1 p. 1 p. 10 p. 17

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Treatise on Grace

Jonathan Edwards

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Treatise on Grace

Jonathan Edwards

Treatise on Grace
by

Jonathan Edwards[SHEWING] THAT COMMON AND SAVING GRACE DIFFER, NOT ONLY IN DEGREE, BUT IN NATURE AND KIND." SUCH phrases as common grace, and special or saving grace, may be understood as signifying either diverse kinds of influence of God's Spirit on the hearts of men, or diverse fruits and effects of that influence. The Spirit of God is supposed sometimes to have some influence upon the minds of men that are not trueChristians, and [it is supposed] that those dispositions, frames, and exercises of their minds that are of a good tendency, but are common to them with the saints, are in some respect owing to some influence or assistance of God's Spirit. But as there are some things in the hearts of true Christians that are peculiar to them, and that are more excellent than any thing that is to be found inothers, so it is supposed that there is an operation of the Spirit of God different, and that the value which distinguishes them is owing to a higher influence and assistance than the virtues of others. So that sometimes the phrase common grace, is used to signify that kind of action or influence of the Spirit of God, to which are owing those religious or moral attainments that are common to both saintsand sinners, and so signifies as much as common assistance; and sometimes those moral or religious attainments themselves that are the fruits of this assistance, are intended. So likewise the phrase, special or saving grace, is sometimes used to signify that peculiar kind or degree of operation or influence of God's Spirit, whence saving actions and attainments do arise in the godly, or, which isthe same thing, special and saving assistance; or else to signify that distinguishing saving virtue itself, which is the fruit of this assistance. These phrases are more frequently understood in the latter sense, viz., nor for common and special assistance, but for common and special, or saving virtue, which is the fruit of that assistance, and so I would be understood by these phrases in thisdiscourse. And that special or saving grace in this sense is not only different from common grace in degree, but entirely diverse in nature and kind, and that natural men not only have not a sufficient degree of virtue to be saints, but that they have no degree of that grace that is in godly men, is what I have now to shew. 1. This is evident by what Christ says in John 3:6, where Christ, speakingof regeneration, says -- "That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit." Now, whatever Christ intends by the terms flesh and spirit in the words, yet this much is manifested and undeniable, that Christ here intends to shew Nicodemus the necessity of a new birth, or another birth than his natural birth, and that, from this argument, that a man that has...