An Humble Inquiry (1749)

INTRODUCTION

One of Edwards' major statements on the nature of the church, An Humble Inquiry was written to explain and justify his effort to change the profession of faith required for entering into full communion in the late 1740s. His change of position arose from his concern that, under the system inherited from his grandfather and predecessor at Northampton, Solomon Stoddard, nominal believers were being allowed to partake in all the privileges of church membership, which included voting in churchmeeting and partaking of the Lord’s Supper. Behind Edwards’s concern was the old Puritan distinction between the “visible” and “invisible” church, making the visible, gathered church as close to the invisible, truly regenerate (or elect) church as possible. In 1748, after announcing his intent to require a more specific profession of faith than was before required, Edwards set off a bitter controversy in Northampton. An Humble Inquiry was published the following year, but it did little to affect his congregation’s opposition to him or his dismissal, which came in June 1750.