Jonathan Edwards Selected Shor
But how contrary is this to Scripture! Seeing the Scripture speaks of the gift of virtue, and of the possession of it, as a fruit of God's bounty.
76. A man's conformity to the rule of duty is partly owing to assistance or motive. If his conformity be to ten degrees, and it is in some measure, v.g. to the amount of five degrees, owing to sovereign assistance, then only the remaining five degrees are to be ascribed to the man himself, and therefore are but five degrees of virtue.
77. Dr. Stebbing says, "that a man is indeed both passive and active in his own conversion," and he represents God as partly the cause of man's conversion, and man himself as partly the cause, (p. 208.)
Again, Stebbing says, p. 254. "Faith and regeneration are our works, as well as his gifts, i.e. they arise partly from God and partly from ourselves." But if so, on this scheme, they imply virtue so far only as they are our works.
Men's salvation is attributed wholly and entirely to men in their scheme, and none of the praise of it is due to God, as will most evidently appear, if the matter be considered with a little attention. For, 1. They hold that man's salvation is given as a reward of man's virtue. So is pardon of sin, deliverance from hell, and eternal life and glory in heaven: all is for man's virtue. 2. Rewardable virtue wholly consists in the exercise of a man's own free will. They hold that a man's actions are no farther virtuous nor rewardable, than as they are from man himself. If they are partly from some foreign cause, so far they are not rewardable. It being so, that that virtue which is rewardable in man, is entirely from man himself, hence it is to himself wholly that he is to ascribe his obtaining the reward. If the