118. A Farewell Sermon. “A Farewell-Sermon Preached at the First Precinct in Northampton, After the People’s public Rejection of their Minister, and renouncing their Relation to Him as Pastor of the Church there, On June 22. 1750 Occasioned by Difference of Sentiments, concerning the requisite Qualifications of Members of the Church, in complete Standing.
By Jonathan Edwards, A.M. Acts xx. 18. Ye know, from the first day that I came into Asia, after what Manner I have been with you, at all Seasons. ver. 20. And how I kept back nothing that was profitable unto you, but has showed you, and have taught you publicly, and from House to House. ver. 26, 27. Wherefore I take you to Record this Day, that I am pure from the Blood of all Men: For I have not shunned to declare unto you all the Counsel of God. Gal. iv. 15, 16. Where is then the Blessedness ye spake of? For I bear you record, that if it had been possible, ye would have plucked out your own eyes, and have given them to me. Am I then becoming your Enemy, because I tell you the Truth? Boston Printed and sold by S. Kneeland over against the Prison in Queen Street. 1751.”—Title page of the first edition.
The preface to this sermon is a document so important for the understanding of it, that it is here, as is usual also in other editions, printed in full.
Preface. It is not unlikely, that some of the readers of the following sermon may be inquisitive concerning the circumstances of the difference between me and the people of Northampton, that issued in that separation between me and them, which occasioned the preaching of this farewell sermon. There is, by no means, room here for a full account of that matter: but yet it seems to be proper, and even necessary, here to correct some gross misrepresentations, which have been abundantly, and (’tis to be feared) by some affectedly and industriously made, of that difference: such as, that I insisted on persons being assured of their being in a state of salvation, in order to my admitting them into the church; that I required a particular relation of the method and order of a person’s inward experience, and of the time and manner of his conversion, as the test of his fitness for Christian communion.
Yea, that I have undertaken to set up a pure church, and to make an exact and certain distinction between saints and hypocrites, by a pretended infallible discerning [of] the state of men’s souls; that in these things I had fallen in with those wild people, who have lately appeared in New England, called Separatists; and that I myself has become a grand Separatist; and that I arrogated all the power of judging of the qualifications of candidates for communion wholly to myself, and insisted on acting by my sole authority, in the admission of members into the church, &c.
In opposition to these slanderous representations, I shall at present only give my reader an account of some things which I laid before the council, that separated between me and my people, in order to their having a just and full view of my principles relating to the affair in controversy.
Long before the sitting of the council, my people had sent to the Reverend Mr. Clark of Salem village, desiring him to write in opposition to my principles. Which gave me the occasion to write to Mr. Clark, that he might have true information about what my principles were. And in the time of the sitting of the council, I did, for their information, make a public declaration of my principles before them and the church, in the meeting-house, of the same import with that in my letter to Mr. Clark, and very much in the same words: and then, afterward, sent into the council in writing, an extract of that letter, containing the information I had given to Mr. Clark, in the very words of my letter to him, that the council might read and consider it at their leisure, and have a more certain and satisfactory knowledge what my principles were. The extract which I sent to them was in the following words:
“I am often and I don’t know but pretty generally, in the country, represented as of a new and odd opinion with respect to the terms of Christian communion, and as being for introducing a peculiar way of my own. Whereas I don’t perceive that I differ at all from the scheme of Dr. Watts in his book entitled, The Rational Foundation of a Christian Church, and the Terms of Christian Communion; which, he says, is the common sentiment of all reformed churches. I had not seen this book by Dr. Watts’ when I published what I have written on the subject.