The Jonathan Edwards Center at Yale University

'Tis evident and certain that we are so much saved on the account of [Christ's]Broken off at the margin; no copy survives. righteousness, that if he had not been righteous, as well as if he had not died, we should unavoidably [have] been damned. This further [is]Ibid. also evident, that Christ by dying only removed the guilt of our sins, and makes us in that respect just as Adam was the first moment he was created. And it [would] be [no]Ibid. more fitting that we should obtain heaven only on that account, than that Adam should be fixed in an unalterable state of happiness the first moment of his creation, without any probation. Now Adam was not to be made happy on the account of his being innocent—if so, he would have [had] his happiness fixed at once without probation—but he was to be fixed in happiness on the account of his activeness in

obedience; not on the account of his not doing ill, but on the account of [his]Ibid. doing well. So for the same reason, we are not to be saved merely on the account of being free from guilt (as Adam was at the first existence) by the death of Christ, but on the account of Christ's activeness in obedience and doing well; he acted Adam's part over again. Now believers are so closely united to Christ that they are the same in the Father's account; and therefore what Christ has done in obedience is the believer's, because he is the same. So that the believer is made happy, because it was so well and worthily done by his Head and Husband. This is a great doctrine of Christianity.

But, you will say, if believers are saved wholly on the account of Christ's righteousness and not at all on their own, then all men must be equally happy in heaven, because Christ's righteousness is the same; he was as righteous for one believer as he was for another. I answer: although every believer has all Christ's righteousness made his own by his union with him, and by the same union is made partaker of Christ's glory as well as his righteousness; yet those that have a stronger faith are more closely united to Christ, and so shall enjoy him, his righteousness and his glory, more intensely, and so shall be more happy, because their sense of happiness will be greater and quicker.