Sublime

This is what sin does to us. It reduces us to fools who live in ways that deny both God and our own nature. We may not profess to be atheists, but in practice we live purely horizontal, godless lives. The things of this world capture and enslave us. We may go to church and possess a high level of biblical and theological knowledge, but these pursui

two of the great keynotes of the New Testament’s message.

So for Edwards, both personally and pastorally, divine action was bound in how you do things. When everyone is concerned with how they do things, flourishing (of capital or in family life) witnesses to our nearness to God.

as distinct from a summa theologiae.

This Pauline emphasis on union with Christ had been a dominant motif in Calvin’s exposition of the gospel and the Christian life.

God smiles when we trust him completely.

He had also provided a rich exposition of the way this union with Christ works its way out into the Christian life in a mortification (mortificatio) and vivification (vivificatio) that are both internal (in relation to sin and self) and external in the sense that the life of the individual believer and of the community of the congregation are press