N05035:301
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.
If it be here said, It is with good Reason that those who are Ignorant or Scandalous alone are supposed to be excepted in God's Command, and Obligations of the Covenant; for the Covenant spoken of in the Objection, is the external Covenant, and this requires only external Duties; which alone are what lie within the Reach of Man's natural Power, and so in the Reach of his legal Power: God don't command or require what Men have no natural Power to perform, and which can't be performed before something else, some antecedent Duty, is performed, which antecedent Duty is not in their natural Power.
I reply, Still Things are but supposed, which should be proved, and which want Confirmation.
I reply, Still Things are but supposed, which should be prov'd, and which want Confirmation.
(1.) It is supposed, that those who have externally (i e. by oral Profession and Promise) entered into God's Covenant, are thereby obliged to no more than the external Duties of that Covenant: which is not proved, and, I humbly conceive, is certainly not the true State of the Case. They who have externally entered into God's Covenant, are by external Profession and Engagements entered into that one only Covenant of Grace, which the Scripture informs us of; and therefore are obliged to fulfil the Duties of that Covenant, which are chiefly internal. The Children of Israel, when they externally entered into Covenant with God at Mount Sinai, promised to perform all the Duties of the Covenant, to obey all the ten Commandments spoken by God in their Hearing, and written in Tables of Stone, which were therefore called the Tables of the Covenant; the Sum of which ten Commands was, to LOVE the Lord their God with all their HEART, and with all their SOUL, and to LOVE their Neighbour as ⟨p. 119⟩