N01152:56
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.
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, Mat. 13. 28. And is it not much that he does not charge Unconverted men, not to meddle with those holy things? & tell them that they must content themselves with Praying & Fasting, and Hearing & being Baptized, but proceed no further: but we find no such injunctions in the Scripture.
9. We have no cause to wonder to find some Divines of our own Nation, and some of other Nations to deny that the Supper is a Converting Ordinance. I find Wendiline, a great Divine in his disputations against the Lutherans acknowledging again & again, that the Sacraments may instrumentally begin Faith in Adult Persons; & in another place, saying, That the Sacraments of confirmation; he means the Passover, and the Lords-Supper may organically begin Faith. Yet there be a great many Divines that do deny this. But this is not to be wondered at, seeing they hold, That Elect Infants that have federal holiness, have at the same time the internal grace of Regeneration. Thus Voetius Statu. Elect. Unte. Conv. And he says, That Dr. Burges does prove by many Divines, that Elect Infants have an initial & seminal Regeneration upon their Baptism; if it were so, no doubt but their actual Conversion would be in early days, before they come to that Age, when persons are wont to be admitted to the Lords Supper.
9. We have no cause to wonder to find some Divines of our own Nation, and some of other Nations to deny that the Supper is a Converting Ordinance. I find Wendiline, a great Divine in his disputations against the Lutherans acknowledging again & again, that the Sacraments may instrumentally begin Faith in Adult Persons; & in another place, saying, That the Sacraments of confirmation; he means the Passover, and the Lords-Supper may organically begin Faith. Yet there be a great many Divines that do deny this. But this is not to be wondred at, seeing they hold, That Elect Infants that have faederal holiness, have at the same time the internal grace of Regeneration. Thus Voetius Statu. Elect. Unte. Conv. And he says, That Dr. Burges does prove by many Divines, that Elect Infants have an initial & seminal Regeneration upon their Baptism; if it were so, no doubt but their actual Conversion would be in early days, before they come to that Age, when persons are wont to be admitted to the Lords Supper.