"One might think of it, Edwards suggested in a long note, as though 'Adam and all his posterity had coexisted.' and had been constituted by God as one complex person, as a tree is connected to its root or as the members of the body are connected to the head" (455).
God's plan to share happiness with creation, Marsden paraphrasing & quoting Edwards:
"The happiness of humans, then, when rightly understood, is not an ultimate end of creation in any way apart from God and God's glory. 'The beams of glory come from God, and are something of God, and are refunded back to the original. So that the whole is of God, and in God, and to God; and God is the beginning, middle and end in this affair.'That last sentence encapsulated the central premise of his entire thought. It is as though the universe is an explosion of God's glory. Perfect goodness, beauty, and love radiate from God and draw creatures to ever increasing share in the Godhead's joy and delight. 'God's respect to the creature's good, and his respect to himself,' Edwards explained, 'is not divided respect; but both are united in one, as the happiness of the creature aimed at is happiness in union with himself.... The more happiness the greater union: when the happiness is perfect, the union will be perfect. And as the happiness will be increasing to eternity, the union will become more and more strict and perfect; nearer and more like to that between the Father and the Son.' The ultimate end of creation, then, is union in love between God and loving creatures. Because eternity is infinite, this union between God and the saints can be ever increasing, like a line ascending toward and infinite height but never reaching it. So the saints' happiness will continually increase as they are drawn ever closer toward perfect union with God" (463).Marsden, Jonathan Edwards: A Life,ellipsis above is Marsden's
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