N01201:26
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.
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.
2. That true Believers may eat & drink unworthily. The Apostle doth not speak of unworthy Communicants, but unworthy Communicating. He supposes the Church of Corinth to consist of such as were Believers, yet he supposeth that some of them did eat & drink unworthily: v. 30. He says, For this cause many among you are weak & sickly: yet it doth not follow that they must forbear.
2. That true Believers may eat & drink unworthily. The Apostle doth not speak of unworthy Communicants, but unworty Communicating. He supposes the Church of Corinth to consist of such as were Believers, yet he supposeth that some of them did eat & drink unworthily: v. 30. He says, For this cause many among you are weak & sickly: yet it doth not follow that they must forbear.
3. Natural men may eat & drink without that unworthiness or unmeetness that the Apostle speaks of (1) Because the Apostle doth express this unworthiness to lye in not discerning the Lords body. v. 29. He that eateth & drinketh unworthily, eateth & drinketh Damnation to himself: not discerning the Lords body. That is, not differencing that bread from common bread. (1) Because the worthiness or unworthiness here intended is that which may be known before hand. Therefore he advises them, to Examine themselves, v. 28. But no man can tell by any previous Examination whether he shall eat & drink in saith ⟨p. 7⟩or not. A Godly man if he find the Exercise of faith the night before, or that Morning, may yet in his attending on the Lords-Supper be left unto a Spirit of unbelief; and a Natural man if he finds the Night before that he never had faith, may yet partake in faith. I knew one recommended to our Communion from another Church, as an eminent Saint, who was afterwards fully convinced of being in a State of Nature, and at the Sacrament wrought on, & enabled to believe in Christ. (3) Because the Apostle speaks these words, not to restrain any of the Church of Corinth from coming to the Lords-Supper, but to direct them to come in a right manner, not in that rude & unchristian way that they were wont to come: which he had told them of; v. 20, 21.