Jonathan Edwards Selected Shor (continued)
salvation from hell, because, forsooth, it is not just to damn us for the want of that which we have not sufficient means to escape; and then after God has given these sufficient means, our improving them well is wholly from ourselves, our own will, and not from God; and the thing wherein Christian virtue consists is wholly and entirely from ourselves.
66. Efficacious grace is not inconsistent with freedom. This appears by 2 Cor. 8:16-17, "Thanks be to God, which put the same earnest care into the heart of Titus for you; for indeed he accepted the invitation; but being more forward, of his own accord he went unto you." So that his forwardness being put into his heart by God, and his being forward of his own accord, are not inconsistent one with the other.
67. According to Arminian principles, men have a good and honest heart, the very thing that is the grand requisite in order to God's acceptance, and so the proper grand condition of salvation, and which is often spoken of in the Scriptures as such, before they have the proper condition of salvation.
See Stebbing, page 48. — This good and honest, meek and humble, sincere heart, they suppose they have before they have faith, repentance, or obedience. Yea, they themselves hold this previous qualification to be the grand and essential requisite in order to God's acceptance, and salvation by Christ; so that they greatly insist that if men have it, they shall be surely saved, though they live and die in ignorance of the gospel, and without faith, and repentance, and holiness, which are necessary in order for salvation, according to them. — (Stebbing, p. 13.)