N01152:55
The inexcusableness of neglecting the worship of God, under a pretence of being in…
The inexcusableness of neglecting the worship of God, under a pretence of being in an unconverted condition. Showed in a sermon preached at Northampton, the 17th. Decemb. 1707. being the time of the sitting of the Inferior Court. / By Solomon Stoddard, Pastor of Northampton. ; Imprimatur, J. Dudley.The inexcusableness of neglecting the worship of God, under a pretence of being in an unconverted condition. Shewed in a sermon preached at Northampton, the 17th. Decemb. 1707. being the time of the sitting of the Inferiour Court. / By Solomon Stoddard, Pastor of Northampton. ; Imprimatur, J. Dudley.
printed by B. Green. Sold by Samuel Phillips, 1708
Title page typeset from the transcription.
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
7. It cannot be an unlawful thing for men to keep the External Covenant. As the visible People of God have a natural power, so they have a lawful ⟨p. 24⟩power to keep the External Covenant. if they keep the External Covenant they are accepted as a righteous People, Deut. 6. 25. It shall be our righteousness if we observe to do all these Commandments: If they neglect to do any part of the Covenant, they lay themselves open to the judgments of God. God brings War to avenge the quarrel of his Covenant; and this is one part of Gods Covenant, Gen. 17. 10. Circumcision is called the Covenant. So this is one branch of the Covenant. It is required in the second Command, That we worship God in that way which he has appointed: and this is the appointment of God, that his whole visible Church do celebrate the Memorial of the Death of Christ, 1 Cor. 10. 17. We being many do all partake of that one bread. And indeed it is the duty of the Church to require all its Adult orderly Members to come to the Lords-Supper, and it would be very strange that it should be the duty of the Church to require them to come, & censure them for not coming, and yet be their duty to stay away because Unconverted.
8. It is exceeding strange that it should be the Institution of God, that only Converted Persons should come to the Lords-Supper, and yet no more care taken that that Institution should be attended. If it were Gods will that no Unconverted Persons should come, it is much that he does not charge his Church to use their utmost endeavours to discover Secret Hypocrites, and to keep them out of the Church, ⟨p. 25⟩and that he don't command them to pluck up all the Tares that they can discover among the Wheat; as was proposed,