In that ye have brought into my sanctuary strangers, uncircumcised in heart, and uncircumcised in flesh, to be in my sanctuary, to pollute it, even my house, when ye offer my bread, the fat and the blood, and they have broken my covenant because of all your abominations.
— Ezekiel 44:7
But unto the wicked God saith, What hast thou to do to declare my statutes, or that thou shouldest take my covenant in thy mouth?
— Psalm 50:16
Thy testimonies are very sure: holiness becometh thine house, O LORD, for ever.
— Psalm 93:5
So shall ye know that I am the LORD your God dwelling in Zion, my holy mountain: then shall Jerusalem be holy, and there shall no strangers pass through her any more.
— Joel 3:17
He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned.
— Mark 16:16
Lectures On The Qualifications For Full Communion In The Church Of Christ, by Jonathan Edwards. The following contains an excerpt from his work.
Thus saith the Lord GOD; No stranger, uncircumcised in heart, nor uncircumcised in flesh, shall enter into my sanctuary, of any stranger that is among the children of Israel.
— Ezekiel 44:9
This latter part of the prophecy of Ezekiel is by all allowed to be a prophecy of the state of the church in gospel times; and here in this chapter, together with the four preceding chapters, the gospel church which should be set up after Christ came is represented in a vision the Prophet had of a very beautiful and magnificent temple or sanctuary. And here in this chapter, when the description of this gospel temple or church is finished, then it is declared who shall, and who shall not, be admitted into this sanctuary or church—viz. only those who are circumcised in heart and the flesh—to partake in the ordinances of the house.
The people and priests are blamed that formerly, during the continuance of the Old Testament sanctuary and temple, they had taken no more care as to this matter but had admitted into the church and sanctuary strangers, uncircumcised in heart and uncircumcised in flesh, when they offered God’s bread, the fat, and the blood, as in the two verses next preceding the text. Here they are blamed that they admitted such as were uncircumcised in heart and in flesh into God’s sanctuary, to partake of God’s bread, the fat, and the blood, i.e. to partake of those sacrifices and ordinances wherein the body and blood of Christ were represented.
This God manifests his great dislike of, calls it an abomination, and foretells in the text that more special care shall be taken to prevent it in the days of the gospel. And here are two qualifications insisted on:
1. That such as are admitted be circumcised in flesh, i.e. that they shall be the subjects of that external ordinance that should come in the room of circumcision, viz. baptism.
2. That not only so, but that they should be circumcised in heart; by which we are to understand that change of heart that was typified by circumcision, i.e. they should be so in profession and in an eye of charity, or in the eye of a Christian judgment.
DOCTRINE. ‘Tis the mind and will of God that none should be admitted to full communion in the church of Christ but such as in profession, and in the eye of a reasonable judgment, are truly saints or godly persons.
This doctrine is undeniably evident from the words of the text: strangers are not to be admitted, i.e. those who are aliens and strangers from the commonwealth of Israel. ‘Tis expressly said that “no stranger, uncircumcised in heart,” shall be admitted. The contrary is spoken of as an abomination, i.e. to admit such as are not visibly circumcised in heart, and don’t profess or pretend to it. Mr. Stoddard himself allows that they should be visibly circumcised in heart. And if any should say this scripture has no particular reference to the Lord’s Supper, I would answer: if it has no particular reference to the Lord’s Supper, yet it plainly and evidently has a reference to a being admitted into the Christian church, and so by consequence has a reference to a being admitted to the ordinances of the church. It says “no stranger, uncircumcised in heart” shall enter into God’s sanctuary, i.e. that sanctuary or temple that Ezekiel had a vision of and had been describing just before; and that is not the Old Testament temple built of timber and stones, but the New Testament temple, i.e. the Christian church. And this is not a thing in controversy that I know of, or a thing that orthodox divines and Christians do doubt of. But ’tis plain that the New Testament sanctuary or temple, or house of God, is his church. The Scripture is plain and abundant in this matter: 1 Timothy 3:15, “That thou mayest know how thou oughtest to behave thyself in the house of God, which is the church of the living God.” 1 Peter 2:5, “Ye also, as lively stones, are built up a spiritual house.” Ephesians 2:20–21, “Ye are built on the foundation of the prophets and apostles, Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner stone; in whom all the building fitly framed together and compacted groweth unto an holy temple to the Lord.” And it might be shown from innumerable other places that the New Testament temple is the Christian church. And therefore, when the Prophet foretells that in the days of the gospel that the priests or ministers of the gospel shall admit none into the temple but those that are visibly circumcised in heart, the meaning must be that they should admit none but such as in profession and visibility are converted.
For by circumcision of heart in Scripture is meant conversion, as is evident by Romans 2:28–29. “He is not a Jew, which is one outwardly; neither is that circumcision, which is outward in the flesh: but he is a Jew, which is one inwardly; and circumcision is that of the heart, in the spirit, and not in the letter; whose praise is not of men, but of God.” ‘Tis evident here, and in many other places that might be mentioned, that by circumcision of heart is here meant conversion of heart and not moral sincerity. So that the doctrine I insist upon is a doctrine very plainly and undeniably taught in the words of the text. They are words of the Most High, wherein he has plainly told us his mind and strictly forbidden the contrary. Those that are not circumcised in heart are expressly forbidden; but to be uncircumcised in heart is evidently the same as to be unconverted.4 Ministers are expressly forbidden to admit those which are not visibly such into the sanctuary, which Ezekiel had a vision of, which is evidently the church of God in the gospel days.
Before I proceed to the more particular proof of the doctrine, I would say in a few words what I intend in it.
When I say communicants ought to be “in the eye of a reasonable judgment” godly persons, I mean not a private but a public judgment. ‘Tis properly a visibility of godliness to the eye of a public charity, and not a private judgment, that gives a person a right to be received as a visible Christian by the public society. The minister in this affair is to act as a public officer in behalf of the church, and not as a private person in his own name; and so in this matter he must not be determined by any skill he may think he has to discern and search men’s hearts. And therefore he must accept the serious profession the person makes of godliness, if there be an agreeable conversation. But only it belongs to him, as a public officer, to instruct the person and to see to it that he has a good degree of doctrinal knowledge, and that he well understands what he professes,5 and that he don’t use the words of his profession by rote and merely as a parrot. But when a minister has diligently instructed and directed a person in his soul’s concerns, and is satisfied of his good doctrinal understanding of things of this nature, and that what he professes he professes understandingly, and he has outward conversation that be agreeable: he must take his serious profession of religion as what properly recommends him to a public charity as a true Christian, whatever his private fears may be from things that can properly be visible to none but himself.
And when I say he must make a profession of godliness, I would inform my hearers that what I call a profession of godliness is not a man’s saying, “I am godly” or “I think I am converted”; but that he shall profess some of the main things wherein godliness consists, such as repentance of sin and faith in Christ, a taking God for his chief good, and giving up himself to him, and the like. Nor do I mean the particular method wherein they were wrought. And when I say he must profess those things, my meaning is not that he must profess that he certainly knows that he finds those things, but we are to understand that he has them so far as he knows his own heart. Then a man may be said to profess a thing, when he professes that he hath it so far as he knows himself.
And therefore, in order to a man’s making such a profession, he must judge in his own conscience that he finds the thing professed in himself. So that this is what I suppose: viz. that in order to the church’s receiving a communicant, he must have a profession and visibility of godliness to the eye of the church’s reasonable charity, and that that is the church’s rule to go by in admitting; but that in order to his own conscientiously offering himself and coming to the Christian sacraments, he must have a visibility of godliness to the eye of his conscience, so that both he and the church must be guided in this matter by his godliness’s being visible. ‘Tis godliness, as visible to the eye of the church’s charity, that is to guide them in admitting; and as to the man himself, ’tis godliness, as visible to the eye of his own conscience, that is to guide his conscience in coming, i.e. the things wherein godliness consists must be visible to his conscience.
One thing more I would observe, viz. that the question is not now to be discussed, wherein godliness does most essentially consist. There is great difference of opinions as to that, and that may make a great difference as to practice, but that is not the present question. But let godliness consist in what it will, that which it mainly consists in must be credibly professed and be visible to the eye of the church’s reason and charity, in order to their admitting persons to their communion.
I shall especially endeavor to prove that in opposition to those who hold that a common faith and moral sincerity, short of true godliness, gives a right and that the sacraments were appointed as converting ordinances. And here, the —
Arg. I. ‘Tis plain by the Scripture, and ’tis owned on all sides, that those who are admitted to the communion of the Christian church must be visible saints. All allow that, which is at once granting the very point in question, for to be visible saints is to be visibly godly men. To be a saint is to be a godly man, and to be visibly a saint is to be visibly a godly man; and to be visibly so is to be so in appearance to the eyes of men: it is to be a godly man as far as men can see and judge.
Visibility has relation to reality. Everything that is visibly gold is not real gold, but that which is gold visibly is real gold to appearance and acceptance. ‘Tis so in everything. There are visibly good men and really good men; there are visibly honest men and really honest men. Now there are more men that are visibly honest men than are really so, but he that is visibly an honest man is to appear, or as to what is visible to others, really an honest man. So he that is visibly another man’s child is, to appearance, that man’s child. So he that is visibly a saint is, to appearance and to the eye and judgment of men, really a saint.
Thus it is according to all use of language and sense of words. If a man should offer money to his neighbor and should be asked whether it be good money, and should be answered that he did not know but it was so visibly—it was good money as to anything that was visible—is not the language plain and obvious that he means that it has the outward appearance of good money, and is real money so far as he can judge?
He that is a visible saint is visibly not a child of the devil. The whole world in Scripture is divided into two companies, viz. the company of Christ and the company of Satan; they that are in the kingdom of Christ and they that are in the kingdom of the devil. Visible saints are those that are visibly of Christ’s company and in his kingdom, but how can a man be visibly in the kingdom of Christ that is not visibly out of the kingdom of the devil? But all such as are not visibly and to appearance converted, are not visibly out of the devil’s kingdom. To be a visible Christian is visibly to have something more than the heathen have, but many of the heathen have morality, and a great degree of it. And to be a visible saint is visibly to have some other sort of faith than the devils in hell have, but they have a doctrinal faith, and that to a very great degree. To be visibly of Christ’s company or church is visibly to have a faith of a higher sort than that of the company of the damned.
Here, if anyone should say, “What need of a profession of godliness? If men are of a good conversation, are we not obliged in charity to hope that they are real saints and to receive ’em as such?” I answer, if it were so indeed, it won’t help the cause that I oppose, for the scheme that I oppose supposes that there is no need of any charitable hope that persons are really godly in order to their being admitted to sacraments, either from their good conversation or anything else; for it supposes the sacraments are converting ordinances and so were appointed as much for the benefit of the ungodly as the godly. They suppose that God has set up his visible church, furnished with ordinances as medicines to heal souls and bring them to conversion, and that men are to be brought into the church in order to be converted; and if so, there is no need of any charitable hope that they are converted already before we admit ’em. If a king should build an hospital and furnish it with medicines for the healing of the sick, what manner of need of a charitable hope that a man is in health already, in order to his being admitted into that hospital to the use of those medicines? Or if he should set up a school to teach children to read, what manner of need of any hope or charity for a child that he can read already, in order to admitting him into the school? So that, according to this scheme of the sacraments’ being converting ordinances, all talk about a good conversation’s giving a right, because there is a good ground of charity that they are godly, is absurd and self-contradictory.
And, indeed, it is impossible to hold that scheme without contradiction; yea, contradiction in the very foundation of it. For they that maintain that scheme, as you well know, lay it down as a first principle that ’tis a being visible saints is the thing that gives a right to sacraments, and they own that to be visible Christians is, in a judgment of rational charity, to be true believers, as all those things are expressly allowed in the Appeal to the Learned. And yet, according to that scheme, men ben’t admitted under that notion of being true believers, and that sacraments are converting ordinances, and that there is no need of so much as a probability of their being truly godly in order to their being admitted; but that if the rule of Christ be attended, more unconverted will be admitted than converted; and therefore, the visibility that Christ requires us to accept is not so much as ordinarily attended with the reality, and if so, it certainly don’t amount to a probability.
Now this is a most fundamental point in this controversy. Here is a most palpable inconsistency in the very foundation, and if the foundation don’t consist together and is overthrown, the whole building must fall. And until those that would maintain that scheme clear this point, nothing can be done for the purpose: for till they establish their foundation, they will only build upon the sand, whatever plausible arguments they produce.
Arg. II ‘Tis most manifest by the Scripture, and what none denies or disputes, that none ought to be admitted into the Christian church but professing Christians. But they that make no profession of godliness, they are not professors of the Christian religion in the Scripture sense. The Christian religion is the religion of Christ, or the religion that Jesus Christ came to teach. But the religion that Christ taught consisted mainly in true piety of heart and life. Indeed, the custom of the present day has called something else the religion of Christ besides this: ’tis customary to call the doctrines of Christianity the Christian religion. But that is nothing to the purpose; the question is what the Scripture represents as the Christian religion, what the Bible informs us is the religion of Jesus Christ.
The Scripture teaches that the religion of Jesus Christ is heart religion, a spiritual religion. The worship that Christ came to teach was worshipping in spirit and in truth. Now in order to men’s professing the religion of Jesus Christ, men must profess that which is the religion of Jesus Christ. But if men profess only the doctrines of religion and the outward services, and leave out what is spiritual, the thing that they profess is not the religion of Jesus Christ, because the most essential things that belong to his religion are left out. To profess a very small part of Christianity only, is not to profess Christianity.
‘Tis unreasonable to say a man professes Christianity, if the whole essence of the Christianity is what he don’t pretend to. ‘Tis so with respect to all professions that mankind make. ‘Tis so with respect to a profession of any art or occupation: no man can properly be said to be a professor of any art if the most essential things that belong to that art are what he don’t pretend to. So if a man professes to be a healthy man, it implies something more than a professing that his extreme parts are sound, because the most essential thing in health is having sound vitals. He that professes only that his hands and feet are well, and don’t pretend but that his head is sick and his vitals rotten, can’t be said to profess to be a healthy man. The thing that they profess who only profess externals is no more the religion of Christ than the hands and feet only are a man.
If to love God with all our heart and soul, and our neighbor as ourselves, be in effect the sum total of the Christian religion, as the Scripture teaches, then those professors that don’t profess those things, they in effect leave out of their profession the sum total of the Christian religion, and so in effect profess nothing.
Undoubtedly, the faith that a man must profess in order to be in the visible church and kingdom of Christ, and not in the visible kingdom of the devil, must be some other faith than that which the devil has. The Scripture teaches us, historical faith and common religion are so far from being the religion of Jesus Christ, that they are abominable to Christ and esteemed worse than nothing to him if offered without grace. ‘Tis lukewarmness that is more hateful to Christ than being quite cold.
To make a public profession of common, superficial religion at the same time that a man don’t pretend to the internal, is in effect to make an open profession of being lukewarm, and so more hateful to Christ than a heathen. And who can believe that Christ, by his own institution, has appointed such a profession as this to be the terms of being received into his church and family and to his table as his friends and children?
The end of God’s appointing a public profession of religion is the putting open honor upon God. But for a man only to profess the superficial part of religion, and at the same time not pretending any other than to be an enemy to God in his heart, is not publicly to honor God but rather to dishonor. For nothing is so much to God’s dishonor as to hold the truth in unrighteousness, to profess to know and believe such and such things of God, and yet to be his enemy. Such professors are more to God’s dishonor than the heathen.
The very design of a profession of religion is to profess to be on Christ’s side, on the side of his friends and not of his enemies.
Christ came into the world to proclaim war with sin and Satan, and all the world is on one side or the other in this war. Now the reason why Christ has appointed a public profession of religion, is that it is fit and reasonable that men that would be received into the company of his friends should openly declare on which side they be; and it would be very unfit and unreasonable for any to expect to be admitted into Christ’s company that at the same time did not pretend but that they were more friends to sin and Satan than to him. If there was war in England between King George and the Pretender, it would be very unreasonable for any to imagine that King George would enlist any into his army in such a war that at the same time did not pretend but that in their hearts they were more for the Pretender than for him.
Ananias and Sapphira, they gave a part to God and kept back a part. But who can believe that Christ, by his institution, has made a profession of doing that which amounts to no more than they did, the condition of being admitted among his disciples?
If a man comes and appears publicly before God, and says, “Here I profess to give thee something; I give thee the meanest part, my outside, but the chief and the best, my heart and soul, I am not willing that thou shouldst have; I keep that for Mammon, for my lusts and for Satan,” who can believe that God has made such a profession as this, or a profession that amounts to no more than this, the terms of being admitted into his house and family?
The matter is so plain, that those that are in the opposite scheme are forced to own that there must be a credible profession of faith and repentance in order to admission into the church. Thus the honored author of the Appeal to the Learned expressly owns that there ought to be a credible profession of faith and repentance, to the just satisfaction of the church, in order to their admission; and that visible saints, such as come to the Lord’s Supper, if they live in such a way as is inconsistent with the living exercise of grace, they don’t live according to their profession.
Arg. III. In order to adult persons’ coming to sacraments, they must covenant with God by their own act. This none pretends to deny, as the matter is most evident, because we are now speaking of adult persons that are capable of acting for themselves. Doubtless, such as are capable to act for themselves ought to act for themselves in this matter, and must covenant with God for themselves in order to their being admitted to the seals of the covenant. If they have been given up to God in covenant in infancy by their parents, when they become adult they ought to make their parents’ act their own.
And the covenant they are to enter into and to own in order to their coming to the sacraments, is doubtless the very same covenant of which those sacraments are seals, and that is the covenant of grace, and not any other covenant distinct from it. Therefore it is evident that every adult person that comes to those seals of the covenant of grace must by his own act own the covenant of grace, and by his own actual profession enter into covenant with God by that covenant. But no man can do this without professing saving faith, for ’tis that, and that only, is the condition of the covenant of grace. There are two parties in this covenant: Christ and the believer. And if a man professes to enter into this covenant, then he professes to become one party in the covenant. But he can’t profess to become a party in the covenant of grace unless he professes to be a believer.
Christ and believers are the two parties united in this covenant, for believing is the only condition of this covenant.
For man to own the covenant is to own man’s part in the covenant. Man’s part in the covenant is faith, and Christ’s part is salvation. He that don’t profess nor pretend to own and comply with his part of this covenant, certainly he don’t own the covenant.
There is nothing that this transaction of covenanting with Christ in the covenant of grace is so often compared to in Scripture as the marriage covenant. In marriage, the two parties covenanting are the bridegroom and his spouse. So in the covenant of grace, the two parties covenanting are Christ and his professed spouse. He that don’t profess nor pretend to be the spouse of Christ, he can’t profess to enter into the marriage covenant with Christ. To suppose any such thing would imply a contradiction. For a man to own the covenant is to profess to make the transaction of that covenant his own. But the transaction of that covenant is that of espousals to Christ. And therefore he that don’t profess espousals to Christ, he don’t profess to make the transaction of that covenant his own, and so don’t own the covenant. For me to own the covenant is to own it as mine. To own a father is to own him as mine. To own a son is to own him as mine. To own an inheritance is to own it as mine. And so a covenant.
In the profession that is made in marriage, the bride professes to yield to the bridegroom’s suit, and to take him for her husband, renouncing all others, and to give up herself to him to be entirely and forever possessed by him as his spouse. But that man professes saving faith that professes thus with respect to Christ, as every man does that professes to enter into covenant with Christ in the covenant of grace.
‘Tis by no other owning the covenant than this that a man makes his parents’ act his own in giving him up to God by baptism in his infancy. We don’t make that act our own but by giving ourselves up wholly to God. But he that professes to give himself up wholly to God, professes true godliness. He that professes only to give up himself in part to God, and to keep back a part, don’t own the covenant of grace. The Scripture reveals no such covenant of grace as that, wherein our part is to give up ourselves only to the halves. There is no such covenant of grace according to which a man may give his outside to God and keep back his heart.
If a man makes a public profession of giving up himself to Christ, meaning only that he gives himself in part—not pretending but that he keeps back his heart principally for other lords and other lovers—’tis exceeding absurd to suppose Christ has appointed such a profession as this as the terms of his being admitted to the privileges of his covenant people: more absurd a great deal than to suppose a prince would accept the profession of a woman that should pretend to enter into a marriage covenant with him, and profess to give herself to him in some sort, and yet not pretending any other than to keep her heart chiefly for others, and giving other men a fuller possession of her and greater intimacy with her than she allows him.
If any shall imagine that such doctrine as this concerning covenanting with God is a new doctrine and new divinity, they are greatly mistaken. It shows their great unacquaintedness with what is, and has been, in the Christian world. For the contrary is true: the notion of owning the covenant without professing a compliance with the terms of it is new doctrine. I can’t understand that there is any such notion of owning the covenant anywhere in the Christian world but in this corner of it, here in New England. And it is a new divinity in New England: for our forefathers, who first brought in the custom of owning the covenant of such as were not in full communion, they never intended anything else but a profession of saving faith, as I am able to show from the printed accounts of the acts of that synod in 1662 that first brought in that custom. And I am able to show out of our own church records, that when that custom was first brought into the church of Northampton, they understood it so; and the covenant they then used to own, as it stands on our church records, is a very full example and express profession of saving faith. And they took the owning the covenant as a hopeful sign of some good thing in ’em, as they say expressly in the records. But now great part of the country has forgotten the meaning of their forefathers, and have gradually brought in a notion of owning the covenant of grace without pretending6 to profess a compliance, which is new divinity, and exceeding unreasonable divinity. For every man that continues in unbelief, continues in a rejection of the covenant of grace, rejects the Mediator of the covenant, sets him at naught. And owning and rejecting are opposite. And therefore if men own the covenant—if there be any meaning to such an expression—they do profess not to reject it or renounce it, as every natural man truly does.
Owning in words is to express the owning of the mind, otherwise the words are without a meaning. It would be horridly to reflect on God, to suppose that God has appointed us to use words any otherwise than as a signification of our minds. But what sort of owning of the mind is that which is without the compliance of the mind, and consistent with the soul’s rejecting and setting at naught? If a man enters into covenant with his neighbor, he professes to comply with that covenant and not to reject it. If a prince sends out a printed instrument, wherein he offers to become bound to bestow such and such privileges to those that will comply with such and such terms, those that come and sign the instrument, they therefore testify their acceptance and compliance with the terms, and so enter into covenant with their prince. There is no professed entering into covenant in such a case, but by compliance with the terms.
And if a man promises that he will walk in a way of obedience to all the commands of God as long as he live, how is that entering into or owning the covenant of grace unless he promises that obedience which the covenant of grace requires, which is a spiritual obedience? If he only promises what a natural man can do, yea, the utmost that he can do, that is not the condition of the covenant of grace, and therefore he don’t enter into covenant with God, if that be all: for always in covenanting there are two parties covenanting, binding themselves one to another, that if one fulfill his part, the other is bound to fulfill his. But if a natural man actually fulfills all that he can promise and all that he can do in a natural state, God is not obliged by the covenant of grace to bestow any mercy on him, for God by the covenant of grace obliges himself to nothing short of that faith that is the condition of the covenant. So that if a natural man promises all that a natural man can do, there is but one party obliged, and so no covenant, for all covenants imply mutual obligations of two parties. And therefore no wonder God says as he does in Psalms 50:16–17, “Unto the wicked God doth say, What hast thou to do to declare my statutes, and that thou shouldst take my covenant into thy mouth? Seeing thou hatest instruction, and castest my words behind thee”; i.e. “What hast thou to do to take my covenant into thy mouth, seeing thou rejectest my covenant and castest it behind thee?”
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