N05401:184
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.
SECTION IX. A View of what Mr. W. says concerning the public Covenanting of Professors.
SECTION IX. A View of what Mr. W. says concerning the publick Covenanting of Professors.
I. MR. W. often speaks with Contempt, of my supposing it to be a Duty required of such as come to Sacraments, that they should explicitly own the Covenant, and disputes largely against it. (P. 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, and many other Places.) He says concerning me (P. 22. a, b.) 'Tis very unhappy, that this good Gentleman should use the Scripture in such a Manner, to prove a divine Institution which never had an Existence; and after all that is said, is but a mere Imagination and Chimera; it being evident, there never was any such divine Institution for the Church under the Old Testament, binding particular Persons publicly and explicitly to own the Covenant, in order to their enjoying the outward Ordinances of it. —However, it falls out something happily for me▪ that I am not quite alone in this Chimera, but have Mr. W. himself to join me in it; who abundantly asserts the same Thing (P. 5. c. P. 8. a. P. 9. b, c. and many other Places) who uses the Scripture in the same Manner, and supposes the same divine Institution; and who (in P. 5. b, c. of the Treatise in Hand) having stated the following Inquiry, What is that Evidence, which by DIVINE APPOINTMENT the Church is to have, of the Saintship of those who are admitted to the outward Privileges of the Covenant of Grace? makes this Answer to it: The SCRIPTURE has determined the Matter thus, that the open Profession & Declaration of a PERSON's believing in Christ,— and an hearty Consent to the Terms of the Covenant of Grace, and Engagement on his Part to fulfil it, &c. is the sole & entire Ground of that public Judgment, which the Church is to make of the real Saintship of Professors. —'Tis manifest, he can't intend merely that they should be the Posterity of such as thus owned the Covenant, or declared their Consent to it, and so are looked upon as those that owned the Covenant in their Ancestors, at the Beginning of the Covenant-Line ⟨p. 79⟩