The Jonathan Edwards Center at Yale University

Edwards wrote An Humble Inquiry with great "rapidity" in March and April 1749.Dwight ed., 1, 308. His task was to prove Stoddard wrong for maintaining that the unregenerate or the morally sincere could be accepted into the church and to the Lord's Supper as visible saints. (The issue of the Lord's Supper as a converting ordinance was peripheral to the controversy, the reason being that this concept was secondary to, and consequent upon, the admitting of unregenerate persons to the ordinance.) Point by point, Edwards moved through the arguments advanced by Stoddard, Blake, and other seventeenth-century advocates of a moderate or comprehensive understanding of the church. Taking the contrary position, Edwards maintained that visible saints were those persons who met the conditions of the "covenant of grace." He regarded the visible and the real as qualities that were connected; for him, the "visibility of saintship" signified the reality of grace, or a "real" change of heart.

The central question Edwards posed at the outset and answered in the negative was this: "Whether, according to the rules of Christ, any ought to be admitted to the communion and privileges of members of the visible church of Christ in complete standing, but such as are in profession, and in the eye of the church's Christian judgment, godly or gracious persons?" He went on to clarify his terms, indicating, for example, that "complete standing" applied only to adults and not to infants.

Edwards next clarified the nature of an appropriate profession. Profession was visible, in contrast to the invisibility of "godliness itself." Instead of letting this distinction open out into Stoddardeanism, Edwards argued that profession had to be "explicit" and performed "sincerely." In this connection Edwards discussed appearance versus reality. And here he made a distinction (itself a commonplace within the Congregational tradition) between that which is made manifest to the church as over against that which motivates the candidate; between ecclesiastical right ("in foro ecclesiæ") and experiential foundation. "There is a difference between these." Thus, it is the profession of a belief and the visibility "to the eye of a Christian judgment" that give a person the right before the church, "but it is the real existence of these things, that is what lays a proper and good foundation for his making this profession, and so demanding these privileges."See below p. 177.

By "Christian judgment" Edwards did not mean a species of "negative charity" by which one forbears to censure because he does not know the truth for certain, but rather "a positive judgment, founded on some positive appearance, or visibility, some outward manifestations that ordinarily render the thing probable." He emphasized that probability was not the same as certainty. But for him it mattered that the church achieve the highest possible degree of probability with respect to true holiness in its members, while by no means implying the "pretense of any scheme, that shall be effectual to keep all hypocrites out of the church, and for the establishing in that sense a pure church."See below pp. 78, 180.

Having stated as clearly as possible his definition of the principal terms of the proposition, Edwards proceeded in the second and third sections of the book to defend his anti-Stoddardean position. His eleven reasons occupy more than half of the book. The great length of

this section is to be accounted for by Edwards' tendency to strive for an encyclopedic inclusiveness. In one sense, all eleven reasons for the negative are subdivisions of a single topic, namely, Edwards' interpretation of the biblical teaching on qualifications for full communion.

The first, second, and sixth reasons deal with the question of visible sainthood. Edwards began his discussion of the first reason by assuming "that none ought to be admitted as members of the visible church of Christ but visible saints and professing saints, or visible and professing Christians." Confronting, once again, Stoddard's understanding of visibility, he complained of the absurdity of a "visibility with regard to saintship or holiness" that "had no reference to the reality…as though by visible saints were not meant those who to appearance are real saints." He granted the difference between "real saints" in the "eye of God" and in the judgment of man. The church must rely on external signs and appearances. Even so, these signs must establish the probability of grace. Stoddardeanism violated this principle, for it allowed persons to invoke "words and signs" without "so much as making any pretense to the least degree of sanctifying grace." As Edwards went on to argue in his second reason, any equivocal use of language vitiates the essential nature of public covenanting. The person who enters into an explicit covenant is understood to be complying with it "internally and spiritually."See below pp. 182, 184, 185, 190, 206.

The sixth reason continues the biblical doctrine of visible sainthood by emphasizing the "representations which Christ makes of his visible church." On the whole, according to Edwards, "all Christ's professing disciples…are such as profess a saving interest in him and relation to him." In the parable of the ten virgins, for example, the "lamps signify in general the appearance of grace or godliness." Similarly, in the parable of the "great supper," or (as Edwards calls it) "the marriage which the king made for his son" (Matthew 22 and Luke 14), the wedding garment stands for "true piety," which is the necessary qualification both for salvation and for visible sainthood and participation in the sacraments.See below pp. 225, 226, 227, 228, 229, 230.

Edwards' third reason employed a variation of an argument used by Increase Mather against Stoddard. Stoddard had maintained (and Edwards echoed him in denouncing the Separates) that since God has

given no "certain rule" by which the church can distinguish between true saints and hypocrites, all that may be expected of a prospective member is a historical knowledge of the doctrines of the gospel and a moral sincerity Mather pointed out that it was just as difficult to determine true belief of doctrine as to discriminate true from false professions of faith. Reversing the emphasis, Edwards saw "no good reason why" someone professing right belief could not also profess what was in the heart.See also below pp. 219–20.

Reasons seven and eight are based on an interpretation of the practice of the primitive Christian church. Edwards argued in the seventh reason that the early hearers of the apostles (as recounted in Acts) were first enjoined to repent, then to believe, and finally to profess their belief before being baptized and admitted to the church. He conceded that, in those extraordinary times, the church did not have to inquire so particularly into these matters "as may be expedient in a more ordinary state of things." The eighth reason extends the analysis to all other relevant books in the New Testament, and the conclusion reached is that "the apostles continually in their epistles speak to and of them as supposing and judging them to be gracious persons." This judgment was not "a kind of negative charity," but, insisted Edwards, "a positive judgment that" they were "gracious persons."See below pp. 234, 238, 239.

The fourth, fifth, and ninth reasons add little to Edwards' argument. Number four shows that in the Bible visible saints who are not truly pious are dubbed counterfeits and deceivers. Number five is a brief commentary on Isaiah 56:1-8. Number nine deals with "Christian brotherly love," a theme of much importance to Edwards elsewhere but of incidental importance here.See below pp. 221, 224, 251.

The tenth reason focuses on the significance of the actions of both parties in the administration of the Lord's Supper. The entire ceremony has to do with matters of the heart, with professing that which the parties have truly experienced and confirming and sealing what is reciprocally deemed a reality. Here too the theme of covenant enters, with Edwards arguing that an "explicit covenanting" must precede admission to the Supper. This act of covenanting is identical with the profession of religious faith that is the necessary qualification for full communion.See below p. 257.

The eleventh and final reason has to do with 1 Corinthians 11:28. Did the examination that the verse called for have to do with self-examination or with "discerning the nature of the ordinance," as Stoddard had argued? Edwards, of course, preferred the former interpretation and linked such self-examination to "a living faith" that must exist in the candidate.See below p. 262.

In the final part of the Humble Inquiry Edwards answered twenty objections to his scheme. Here he provided a massive review of his position from different perspectives, thereby clarifying, reemphasizing, and in some cases supplementing his presentation. These twenty objections may be classified into four major categories.

The objections in the first category arise from divergent interpretations of problematic passages of Scripture. This group comprises numbers one through seven. He took up the scriptural analogy of the church as a school, the typological interpretation of the nation of Israel, the Passover as type of the Lord's Supper, the multitudes that John the Baptist baptized (Matthew 3), the verse "many are called but few are chosen" (Matthew 22:14), the parable of the wheat and the tares, and the presence of Judas at Passover and the Lord's Supper. Respecting, this last, Edwards argued that Judas had left before the Lord's Supper was instituted; even if he remained, Jesus had not acted as "searcher of hearts."See below p. 289.

The second category of objections, numbers eight through ten, takes up the difference between "certainty" and "visibility." Edwards did not expect candidates for the sacrament—or the church in judging these candidates—to know for sure who were the regenerate; it was conscientious profession that mattered. The tenth objection concerns the pastoral consequences of heightened scrutiny. Here, in an echo of "Miscellanies" no. 462, Edwards argued that increasing the distress of "persons of a tender conscience" was not too high a price to pay if it helped overcome the "stupidity and hardness of heart" that characterized some who were admitted under the Stoddardean policy. He called for more, not less, self-examination, brushed aside the problem of perplexity, and insisted that assurance of salvation can be obtained.See below pp. 297, 298, 299.

The third category of objections centers on qualifications, the purposes and effects of the sacraments, and the legitimacy of claims to

them. This category includes objections 11 through 13 and number 20. In numbers 13 and 20 Edwards addresses the argument that, because the Lord's Supper has a tendency to promote conversion, it was "appointed" for that purpose. In response, he differentiated what a sacrament may cause circumstantially from the purpose for which it was instituted.

The fourth category comprises objections 14 through 19, all of which are concerned with the nature of a profession. In these objections Edwards dealt with such problems as discriminating true from false profession, guarding against the exclusion of true saints because of overly stringent requirements, and avoiding infiltration of the church by hypocrites. Edwards granted what Stoddard had said so often, that hypocrites could not be excluded from the church. But was it "not better," he asked, "to have a few real living Christians kept back through darkness and scruples, than to open a door for the letting in such universal ruin" as admitting many who were unregenerate?See below p. 310.

This judgment leads into the answer to objection 19 about baptism. Edwards asserted that access to baptism depended on the same "profession of godliness" required of communicants in the Lord's Supper. He repudiated the distinction, formulated not by Stoddard but by the first-generation clergy, between the two sacraments. Edwards also complained of the connection between baptism and family religion. "Why should parents covet the external honor for their children," he exclaimed, "while they are so careless about the spiritual blessing!" Not explicitly, but by the logic of his argument, Edwards repudiated the halfway covenant. Yet he could not do away with all the contradictions that figured in the New England system, for he affirmed that baptized adults who, when they came of age, failed to make the proper profession of faith, ought "not to be cast out of the church or cease to be in any respect its members."See below p. 315. See also JE to Foxcroft (Beinecke Library, Edwards Papers, f. 39), that baptism is of "larger extent than the Lord's Supper."

The Humble Inquiry concludes with an Appendix credited to Thomas Foxcroft, the Boston minister who oversaw publication of the treatise. The Appendix summarizes what had been said by other ministers in the Reformed tradition in favor of limiting the Lord's Supper to visible saints. Three groups of ministers were featured: seventeenth- and eighteenth-century English Nonconformists, some of whom had written sacramental manuals advising communicants on how to approach

the Lord's Supper and others of whom had opposed the Presbyterians Thomas Blake, John Humfrey, and John Timson; the first and second generations of New England divines; and eighteenth-century Scottish Presbyterian ministers, some of them adherents of the Evangelical wing of that Church and others among the Seceders who left it over issues of evangelism and church and state.

Edwards played a part in composing the Appendix. We have to suppose, however, that Foxcroft played the larger role. In a brief note to him dated May 12, 1749, Edwards spoke of sending to the Boston minister "an abstract of your former letter to be added to my book as an appendix, if you please." In the absence of Foxcroft's original draft it cannot be determined what Edwards deleted, compressed, or added. He seems to have felt the limitations of his knowledge, for he referred to himself as "little read in church history." He may also have realized that Foxcroft, who enjoyed wide contacts with English and Scottish evangelicals, was better situated to amass the references that pile up in the Appendix. "You have vastly greater opportunities of full information concerning the present principles and practice in England and Scotland than I," Edwards wrote in May.JE to Thomas Foxcroft, May 12, 1749, May 24, 1749, and June 5, 1749 (Beinecke Library, Edwards Papers, f. 39). In a letter of Nov. 21, 1749 (idem), JE asked the Boston minister to loan him a copy of Richard Baxter's Certain Disputations.

The citations in the Appendix throw into relief an interesting characteristic of the Humble Inquiry, and one that is not accidental. Nowhere in the treatise did Edwards employ the Mathers' arguments against Stoddardeanism or follow them in lamenting apostasy from the principles of the Cambridge Platform and the Congregational tradition. This indifference to older debates has something to do with Edwards' determination to return to the Word of God, as he announced he was doing on the title page of the Humble Inquiry. But it also reminds us that, in contrast to the Separates, he was not seeking to retrieve the more democratic and puristic Congregationalism of the Cambridge Platform. The many citations in the Appendix mislead the reader in this respect, for Edwards was unable to invoke the past without equivocation.The problem that the past presented is revealed in Bellamy's Half-Way Covenant, where, in citing the proponents of the halfway covenant, he intentionally distorted their position.