N05035:218
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 3
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.
On the whole, it is evident that the very Nation of Israel, not as visible Saints, but as the Progeny of Jacob according to the Flesh, were in some Respect a chosen People, a People of God, a Covenant People, an holy Nation; even as Jerusalem was a chosen City, the City of God, a holy City, and a City that God had engaged by Covenant to dwell in.
Thus a sovereign and all-wise God was pleased to ordain Things with Respect to the Nation of Israel. Perhaps we may not be able to give all the Reasons of such a Constitution; but some of them seem to be pretty manifest; as
Thus a sovereign and alwise God was pleased to ordain Things with Respect to the Nation of Israel. Perhaps we may not be able to give all the Reasons of such a Constitution; but some of them seem to be pretty manifest; as
1. The great and main End of separating one particular Nation from all others, as God did the Nation of Israel, was to prepare the Way for the coming of the Messiah, who was to proceed of that Blood, God's Covenant ⟨p. 88⟩with Abraham & the other Patriarchs implied that the Messiah should be of their […] their Seed according to the Flesh. And therefore it was requisite that their Progeny according to the Flesh should be fenced in by a Wall of Separation, and made God's People. If the Messiah had been born of some of the Professors of Abraham's Religion, but of some other Nation, that Religion being propagated from Nation to Nation, as 'tis now under the Gospel, it would not have answered the Covenant with Abraham, for the Messiah to have been born of Abraham's Seed only in this Sense. The Messiah being by Covenant so related to Jacob's Progeny according to the Flesh, God was pleased, agreeable to the Nature of such a Covenant, to show great Respect to that People on Account of that external carnal Relation. Therefore the Apostle mentions it as one great Privilege, that of them according to the Flesh Christ came,