# Jonathan Edwards, Evangelist (John Gerstner)



## RamistThomist (Dec 11, 2017)

The overall scope of the book is Edwards’ take on the ordo salutis, but Gerstner focuses on Edwards’ view of the unregenerate’s seeking salvation. Throughout the text the reader recognizes quips from old John Gerstner sermons. Indeed, one can hear Gerstner’s growl through the text.

As a good Calvinist Edwards denied the unregenerate man can will salvation. But that didn’t mean he couldn’t do anything. He can seek. While God is not bound to save men in response to their seeking, and in fact often saves those who didn’t go seeking, but Edwards notes that God is pleased to save those who seek. As Gerstner notes, “Men are able to seek precisely because they are unable to believe” (Gerstner 73). The Calvinist view of inability refers not to man’s ability to seek but to man’s ability to believe.

We should be clear that there is no merit in seeking. The outward activities of the unregenerate seeker–going to church, keeping the Sabbath, etc.–will damn him as surely as any other activity. There is no merit in these activities, yet some activities are less evil than others. In short, when a man seeks he is seeking to be made willing. He is not (yet) willing to be made willing (81).

But this seems hopeless. Why seek if I can’t will to be saved? Edwards draws upon the story of the lepers. If you sit still (i.e., don’t seek) you will perish eternally. If you seek, you might still perish eternally. But if you seek, you might also live (96ff).

Other sections of the book deal with the Covenant of Redemption (in which Gerstner ties in Edwards’s _End for Which God Created the World_). Gerstner also calls attention to the “bodily effects” of Edwards’ view, but Gerstner doesn’t dwell on it (129, 167).


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## earl40 (Dec 11, 2017)

I have wondered what should we call the grace when a man looks or "seeks" God, and Our Lord leads him to a preacher who preaches The Gospel? Is it saving grace or common grace? In other words,'s does all saving grace follow the moment when one receives faith?


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## RamistThomist (Dec 11, 2017)

I've heard the term preparatory grace floated around, though I don't know too much about it.


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