N05035:131
An humble inquiry into the rules of the Word of God, concerning the qualifications…
An humble inquiry into the rules of the Word of God, concerning the qualifications requisite to a complete standing and full communion in the visible Christian church. By Jonathan Edwards, A.M. Pastor of the First Church in Northampton. ; With an appendix by Mr. Foxcroft. ; [Ten lines of quotations]An humble inquiry into the rules of the Word of God, concerning the qualifications requisite to a compleat standing and full communion in the visible Christian church. By Jonathan Edwards, A.M. Pastor of the First Church in Northampton. ; With an appendix by Mr. Foxcroft. ; [Ten lines of quotations]
Boston: : Printed & sold by S. Kneeland in Queenstreet, 1749
Title page typeset from the transcription.
An Inquiry into the Qualifications for full Communion in the visibl… › Part 2
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.
When God in the forementioned Place Isai. lxiii. represents himself as trusting Isael's Profession, and saying, Surely they are my People, Children that will not lie; It can't be understood, as if he trusted that they were his People in that Sense, in which the ten Tribes were called God's People after they had given up themselves to Idolatry for two or three Hundred Years together without once repenting: But surely they are my sincere Saints and Children, as they profess to be, Israelites indeed, without Guile; for surely they would not do so evil a Thing as to make a lying Profession. This seems to be the plain Import of the Words: It therefore shows that the Profession they made was of real vital Godliness.
When God in the forementioned Place Isai. lxiii. represents himself as trusting Isael's Profession, and saying, Surely they are my People, Children that will not lie; It can't be understood, as if he trusted that they were his People in that Sense, in which the ten Tribes were called God's People after they had given up themselves to Idolatry for two or three Hundred Years together without once repenting: But surely they are my sincere Saints and Children, as they profess to be, Israelites indeed, without Guile; for surely they would not do so evil a Thing as to make a lying Profession. This seems to be the plain Import of the Words: It therefore shews that the Profession they made was of real vital Godliness.
V. The eight first Verses of the lvi. Chap. of Isaiah, I think, afford good Evidence, that such Qualifications are requisite in order to a due ⟨p. 46⟩coming to the Privileges of a visible Church-State, as I have insisted on.—In the four preceding Chapters we have a Prophecy of Gospel-Times, the blessed State of Things which the Messiah should introduce. The Prophecy of the same Times is continued in the former Part of this Chapter. Here we have a Prophecy of the abolishing of the ceremonial Law, which was a Wall of Separation, that kept two Sorts of Persons, viz. Eunuchs and Gentiles, out from the Ordinances of the Church or Congregation of the Lord (for the Words Congregation and Church are the same) the Place of whose Meeting was in God's House, within God's Walls, (Ver. 5.) and on God's holy Mountain, v. 7. That in the Ceremonial Law, which especially kept out the Gentiles, was the Law of Circumcision; and the Law that the Eunuch shall not enter into the Congregation or Church of the Lord, we have in