N05401:172
Misrepresentations corrected, and truth vindicated. In a reply to the Rev. Mr. Solomon Williams's…
Misrepresentations corrected, and truth vindicated. In a reply to the Rev. Mr. Solomon Williams's book, entitled, The true state of the question concerning the qualifications necessary to lawful communion in the Christian sacraments. / By Jonathan Edwards, M.A. Minister of the Gospel at Stockbridge. ; [Five lines of Scripture texts]Misrepresentations corrected, and truth vindicated. In a reply to the Rev. Mr. Solomon Williams's book, intitled, The true state of the question concerning the qualifications necessary to lawful communion in the Christian sacraments. / By Jonathan Edwards, M.A. Minister of the Gospel at Stockbridge. ; [Five lines of Scripture texts]
Boston: printed by S. Kneeland, 1752
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.
III. Another Argument against this supposed Rule of allowing and requiring unsanctified Men with moral Sincerity, to come to Sacraments, is this. That Rule, which if fully attended, would naturally bring it to pass, that the greater Part of Communicants would be unfit, even according to that very Rule, cannot be a Divine Rule: But this supposed Rule of moral Sincerity is such a Rule. For if this Rule be universally attended, then all unsanctified Men, who have present Convictions of Conscience sufficient to make 'em morally sincere, must come into the Communion of the Church. But this Conviction & common Religion, if it don't issue in Conversion (as has been observed) commonly vanishes away in a short Time: And yet still these Persons, if not convicted of open Scandal, are left in the Communion of the Church, and remain there, without even moral Sincerity. — Experience gives us abundant Reason to think, that of those who some Time or other have considerable Convictions of Conscience, so as to make 'em for the present to be what is called morally sincere, but few are savingly converted. *And if all these must be admitted (as they must, if this Rule be fully attended) then their Convictions ⟨p. 73⟩going away, and their Sincerity vanishing with it, it will hereby be brought about, that the Lord's Table is chiefly surrounded with the worst Sort of morally insincere Persons, viz. stupid Backsliders, that are in themselves far worse than they were before, according to the Scripture-Account▪ Matth. xii.45. & 2 Pet. ii.20.— And this as the natural Consequence of the forementioned Rule, appointing moral Sincerity to be the Qualification for Communion. Thus this supposed Rule supplants its own Design.
III. Another Argument against this supposed Rule of allowing and requiring unsanctified Men with moral Sincerity, to come to Sacraments, is this. That Rule, which if fully attended, would naturally bring it to pass, that the greater Part of Communicants would be unfit, even according to that very Rule, cannot be a Divine Rule: But this supposed Rule of moral Sincerity is such a Rule. For if this Rule be universally attended, then all unsanctified Men, who have present Convictions of Conscience sufficient to make 'em morally sincere, must come into the Communion of the Church. But this Conviction & common Religion, if it don't issue in Conversion (as has been observed) commonly vanishes away in a short Time: And yet still these Persons, if not convicted of open Scandal, are left in the Communion of the Church, and remain there, without even moral Sincerity. — Experience gives us abundant Reason to think, that of those who some Time or other have consirable Convictions of Conscience, so as to make 'em for the present to be what is called morally sincere, but few are savingly converted.