Ezekiel 18

The law called for obedience, but though it required brick it gave no straw. But in the Gospel, God with his commands gives power (Ezekiel 18:31). Make a new heart.

(1.) A loss of honor (Revelation 3:11), that no man take your Crown, implying, if the Church of Philadelphia left off her obedience she would lose her Crown; namely, her honor and reputation; apostasy creates infamy; Judas from an apostle to be a traitor, it was a dishonor. (2.)…

As we cannot make ourselves creatures, so not new creatures. Question. But why does God command us to convert ourselves, if we have no power (Ezekiel 18:31)? Make you a new heart. Answer. 1. We once had power.

Christ in the Parable calls some at the 11th hour, Matthew 20:6: and so God calls men to grace in their old age. We must therefore spare these sharp and unsavoury censures, which some unadvisedly cast upon such men; for charity thinks not evil, 1 Corinthians 13, where it may thi…

Thus it stood with you: you deserved to be shut out for ever from God, to have the sword of His justice awakened against you; and He gave His back to the smiters, and His cheeks to them that plucked off the hair; and was content that the sword of justice should awake against Him…

Rule 5. It is the child's happiness, that the wise father's will be his rule, not his own; and for the orphan, the tutor's wit is better than his own will. Our own will is our hell (Ezekiel 18:31): "Why will you die, O house of Israel?" Christ's will is heaven.

Which wish, as relating to disobeying Israel, is a figure, or metaphor borrowed from men, but otherwise shows how acceptable the duty is to God, how obligatory to the creature. 2. By the Lord's expostulations (Ezekiel 18:31): Why will you die, O house of Israel? Verse 32: For I…

David says, it is the property of a wicked man, to borrow, and not to repay (Psalm 37:21). Satisfaction, recompense, and restitution, is the way to life by the appointment of God (Ezekiel 18:7 and 33:15). "If you restore the pledge, and repay that which you have robbed, you shal…

Ans. The clause in the second commandement, of visiting the sinnes of the fathers upon the children, dos not contradict that of Ezek 18:19. The sonne shall not beare the iniquitie of the father, neither shall the father beare the iniquitie of the sonne; the same soule that sinns…

But because such sentences are found in many places of the Scripture; to wit, that God will visit the iniquity of the fathers upon the children: we need seek no such evasion. Neither does the place in Ezekiel (Ezekiel 18:20), 'The son shall not bear the iniquity of his father,'…

As if the Lord should have said; Let them go now and brag of their merits, and let them allege any way but the least show of reason why I should be bound to succor them, and they shall find there is nothing but my free mercy. If any shall object, Objection, that it is injustice…

At least they could not be drawn to make this confession, but with much ado: for they posted over their fault to their predecessors, as if they indeed had borne the punishment of their offences. From there proceeded those complaints recited by Ezekiel; Our fathers have eaten sou…

Here also we may perceive it to be so far off, that the corruption issuing from the fathers, should any way excuse the children; (as the ignorant are usually wont to make this a buckler for their defense) that it rather serves as a means to pull upon them a more heavy punishment…

On the contrary, you have the threatning, Zechariah 5:4 and both together, Proverbs 3:33 The Curse of the Lord is in the house of the wicked, but he Blesseth the habitation of the just. True it is, that both these imply the Childrens treading in the steps of their Parents, accor…

Nor can the certainty of this evidence be called into question, but on such grounds as are derogatory to the glory and honor of God. And this connection of repentance and forgiveness is that principle from whence God convinces a stubborn unbelieving people, that all his wayes an…

Yea, this renuesthe inner man, it cheeres the heart, and keepes it from fainting, though the outward man perish, to looke after the ioyes of this kingdome, which are the things not seene: and therefore Christ herewith comforts his Disciples against the sorrow of afflictiō, sayi…

Here being applied to Christ, we conceive they signify his way, or administration of providence, which he uses with his people, it being by his dispensations that he walks among them. Hence the series of common providence is so often in Scripture called the way of the Lord, as (…

Secondly, of that wrath and eternal death, to which they stand exposed by reason of their sin and guilt. The soul that sins, it shall die (Ezekiel 18:20). And, Cursed is everyone who does not continue in all things that are written in the Book of the Law to do them (Galatians 3:…

Indeed, our Savior threatens the Jews of his time, (Matthew 23:35), that upon them should come all the righteous blood shed upon the earth; from the blood of righteous Abel, to the blood of Zachariah son of Barachias, whom they slew between the temple and the altar: That is, the…

They proclaim their folly; for all their former violence for Heaven is lost. He who runs half the race, and then faints, loses the garland (Ezekiel 18:24): When the righteous turns away from his righteousness, all his righteousness that he has done shall not be mentioned. All me…

But there is a day coming, a dreadful day, when our God shall come, and shall no longer keep silence (Psalm 50:3), a day foretold in the early ages of the world, by Enoch the seventh from Adam (Jude 14-15), when judgment shall be executed upon ungodly sinners for all their hard…

That which the Prophet speaks of father and son, may be applied to husband and wife, and to all other sorts of people (Romans 14:12), If a father does that which is lawful and right, he is just, he shall surely live: if he beget a son that does not so, he shall surely die, his b…

I know and am a witness, says the Lord. 2. Men have Injurious Thoughts of God: 1. They deem his ways unequal, Ezekiel 18:25. Is not my way equal?

Thirdly, By ways is meant temptations and sins; and so this declaring is an act of spiritual contrition or brokenness of heart. Sins, they are properly our ways, as (Ezekiel 18:25) the Lord makes a distinction between my ways and your ways. God has his ways, and we ours.

All that a man has done and suffered, watching, striving, praying, they come to nothing unless we stick to it and persevere. Under the Law a Nazarite was to begin his days of separation again, if he had defiled himself; if he had separated himself for a year, and kept his vow wi…

The Nazarite under the law was to begin again, if the days of his separation were defiled (Numbers 6:12). If he had separated himself for such a while, though he kept almost all his time, yet if he defiled himself before the time was out, he was to begin all again (Ezekiel 18:24…

It is his desire: Oh that there were such a heart in them that they might fear me and keep my commandments, that it may go well with them and theirs for ever (Deuteronomy 5:29). Indeed he has taken a solemn oath: As I live says the Lord, I desire not the [illegible] of a sinner…

And therefore this work of the application of redemption to a lost sinner is harder than the work of creation itself, for as the Lord had nothing then to help him, so he had nothing to hinder him in creating the world; but here the Lord must take [illegible] the heart of stone,…

But now God with his commands gives power; gospel precepts are sweetened with promises. God commands: make yourself a new heart (Ezekiel 18:31). Lord, can I make a new heart? I can as well make a new world.

2. A new heart has a twofold consideration, one as a duty commanded, and two, as a blessing promised. As to the former, (Ezekiel 18:31) make yourselves a new heart and a new spirit, (Jeremiah 4:4) circumcise your heart to the Lord, take away the foreskin of your heart, you men o…

Question 5. Who are these that have the new heart, and so are personally and really within the Covenant of grace. Answer. Because the new spirit is given, when the new heart is given (Ezekiel 36:27; Ezekiel 18:31) Make you a new heart and a new spirit, and many in our times boas…

Indeed he might never have created the world, never have acted without himself: for he was sufficient within himself and stood in need of no declarative glory (Genesis 17:1; Acts 17:25). Fifth, indeed if by necessity of justice, God cannot but punish sin, especially this justice…

Hence, 2. offended justice by the breach of the Covenant of Works in all the three Persons pleads that man should die, and that pleading is most just, and the Law cannot be broken nor repealed. The soul that sins must die (Ezekiel 18), the threatening (Genesis 2:17) must be fulf…

Proof 5. Proof 5 asserts that God has testified by his word and oath that Christ should work a redemption for all men, and that God wills that all come to the knowledge of the truth (1 Timothy 2:4; John 3:17), and has no pleasure in the death of the wicked but rather that they t…

Wherefore if our faith and obedience be imputed unto us, that imputation is only the judgment of God that we are believers and Obedient. The righteousness of the righteous, says the prophet, shall be upon him and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon him, Ezekiel 18:20. As…

There is an imputation unto us of that which is really our own, inherent in us, performed by us, antecedently unto that imputation, and this whether it be Evil or Good. The rule and nature hereof is given and expressed, Ezekiel 18:20. The righteousness of the righteous shall be…

6th Commandment: You shall not kill. He breaks this commandment: who bears malice to another (1 John 3:15); who is given to hastiness (Matthew 5:22); who uses inward fretting and grudging (James 3:14); who is froward of nature, hard to please (Romans 1:31); who is full of rancor…

3, of mitigating or removing temporal calamities: stand in the court of the Lord's house and speak to all the cities of Judah, etc. If so be they will hearken and turn every man from his evil way, that I may repent me of the plague which I have determined to bring upon them beca…

And if it be used in the same sense, there is no more absurdity in supposing that the will of God should be resisted in the one case, than in the other: no more absurdity in the supposition, that God should will the salvation of all men, and yet all should not be saved: than tha…

By Jonathan Edwards, Doctor of Divinity, Pastor of a Church in New Haven. "Come now and let us reason together, says the LORD." (Isaiah 1:18) "Is not my way equal? Are not your ways unequal?" (Ezekiel 18:25) New Haven: Printed by A. Morse, 1790.

Aaron and his sons are to bear the iniquity of the sanctuary, that is, the punishment of their iniquity, in that they were punished, if any of the sanctuary polluted the holy things of God (Leviticus 5:1). The witness who sees and hears a swearing, and does not utter it, he shal…

That the Law was revived, and promulgated anew on Mount Sinai, by the ministry of Moses, with no other than Evangelical and merciful purposes. It is said in one place, that the Lord has no pleasure in the death of him that dies (Ezekiel 18:32): but it is said in another place, t…