N01201:195
An appeal to the learned. Being a vindication of the right of visible saints…
An appeal to the learned. Being a vindication of the right of visible saints to the Lords Supper, though they be destitute of a saving work of God's spirit on their hearts: against the exceptions of Mr. Increase Mather. / By Solomon Stoddard, Pastor of Northampton. ; [Two lines from Daniel]
Boston: printed by B. Green for Samuel Phillips, 1709
Title page typeset from the transcription.
Book 3: The Third BOOK. Arguments to prove that Sanctifying Grace is not necessary, in order to…
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.
4. It is no sufficient reason, because the Minister is to say at the administration of the Lords Supper, That this is Christs body which is given for you, and this is his blood which is shed for you: according to the Pattern: Luke 22.19,20. For these words may be spoken to Unregenerate men. As Ministers often do in their Sermons, when they call on Sinners to come to Christ, and when they reprove for sin, and urge them to duties of Obedience: those expressions do not intend that Christ did dye designedly for them, but that his death and satisfaction is offered to them, and shall be made over to them if they accept of Him.
5. Gods not allowing Scandalous persons to come to this Ordinance is no reason. Some Scandalous persons indeed may be far better than Unregenerate persons, yet there may be great reason for the former to be prohibited and not the latter: Scandalous persons are forbidden, partly to bring them in that way to a sight of their evil practices, partly for the ⟨p. 81⟩Vindication of Gods Name, which has been dishonoured by them.
6. The Apostles commanding men to Examine themselves as a preparation for coming to the Lords Supper, can be no reason. If he had said, Let men Examine themselves & so let them fast, we should not have thought that to be a sufficient reason for Unregenerate men to abstain from fasting. And if he had said, That he that Prays unworthily, and Hears the word unworthily, exposes himself to Damnation or Judgment, we should not have looked upon that a sufficient reason for Unregenerate men to refrain from Praying, and Hearing of the Word.