Jonathan Edwards Selected Shor
requisite in order to acceptable prayer, as in order to acceptable hearing and believing the Word. It is as much so spoken of. A praying without a good spirit in these and other respects, is represented as no prayer, as ineffectual, and what we have no reason to expect will be answered.
82. If that meekness, etc. depends on some antecedent, selfdetermined act of theirs, and they be determined by that, then their being Christ's, being his sheep, and therein distinguished from others that are not his sheep, is not properly owing to the Father's gift, but to their own gift. The Father's pleasure is not the thing it is to be ascribed to at all, for the Father does nothing in the case decisively. He acts not at all freely in the case, but acts on an antecedent, firm obligation to the persons themselves, but their own pleasure, undetermined by God, is that which disposes and decided in the matter. How impertinent would it be to insist on the gift of the Father in this case, when the thing he speaks of is not from thence!
83. He supposes that the assistance that God gives in order to obedience is giving this good and honest heart (see p. 46, 47, together with p. 40, 45), and therefore, this good and honest heart is not the fruit of our own obedience, but must be the fruit of assistance that precedes our good works, as he often calls it the preventing grace of God. And therefore, if this grace determines the matter, and will certainly be followed with faith and obedience, then all Arminianism and his own scheme, comes to the ground.
84. Stebbing interprets that passage, Luke 18:16-17, which speaks of our being little children and receiving the kingdom of God as little children, of that meekness and humility, etc. that is antecedent to