Hebrews 5:13

Heb. 5:13. For he of whom these things are spoken pertaineth to another tribe, of which no man gave attendance at the altar.

This verse Edwards sees as significant for the Qualifications controversy which led to his dismissal from Northampton:

And as to the words following in the next verse, "For he that eateth and drinketh unworthily, eateth and drinketh judgment to himself, not discerning the Lord's body;" these words by no means make it evident (as some hold) that what the apostle would have them examine themselves about, is whether they have doctrinal knowledge, sufficient to understand, that the bread and wine in the sacrament signify the body and blood of Christ. But on the contrary, to interpret the apostle in this sense only, is unreasonable upon several accounts. (1.) None can so much as go about such an examination, without first knowing that the Lord's body and blood is signified by these elements. For merely a man's putting this question to himself, Do I understand that this bread and this wine signify the body and blood of Christ? supposes him already to know it from previous information; and therefore to exhort persons to go about such an examination, would be absurd. And then (2), it is incredible, that there should be any such gross ignorance appearing in a number of the communicants in the Corinthian church, if we consider what the Scripture informs us concerning that church. As particularly, if we consider what an able and thorough instructor and spiritual father they had had, even the Apostle Paul, who founded that church, brought them out of their Heathenish darkness, and initiated them in the Christian religion, and had instructed them in the nature and ends of gospel ordinances, and continued at Corinth, constantly laboring in word and doctrine for a long while together, no less than a year and six months; and, as we may well suppose, administering the Lord's supper among them every Lord's day; for the apostle speaks of it as the manner of that church, to communicate at the Lord's table with such frequency, 1 Corinthians 16:2. And the Corinthian church, at that day, when the apostle wrote this epistle, was a church noted for excelling in doctrinal knowledge; as is evident by chap. 1 Corinthians 1:5-7, and several other passages in the epistle. Besides, the communicants were expressly told at every communion, every week, when the bread and wine were delivered to them in the administration, that that bread signified the body, and that wine signified the blood of Christ. And then besides (3), the apostle by his argument, chap. 1 Corinthians 10:16, supposes the Corinthians doctrinally acquainted with this subject already. It therefore appears to me much more reasonable, to apprehend the case to be thus. The offensive behavior of the communicants at Corinth gave the apostle reason to suspect, that some of them came to the Lord's table without a proper impression and true sense of the great and glorious things there signified; having no habitual hunger or relish for the spiritual food there represented, no inward, vital and experimental taste for that flesh of the Son of Man, which is meat indeed. The word translated discerning, signifies to discriminate or distinguish. The taste is the proper sense whereby to discern or distinguish food, Job 34:3. And it is a spiritual sense or taste which is that whereby we discern or distinguish spiritual food. Hebrews 5:14, "Those who by reason of use, have their sense exercised to discern both good and evil;" p??? d?a???s??, etc. A word of the same root with that rendered discerning, in 1 Corinthians 11:29. He that has no habitual appetite to and relish of that spiritual food, which is represented and offered at the Lord's table; he that has no spiritual taste, wherewith to perceive any thing more at the Lord's supper, than in common food; or that has no higher view, than with a little seeming devotion to eat bread, as it were in the way of an ordinance, but without regarding in his heart the spiritual meaning and end of it, and without being suitably affected with the dying love of Christ therein commemorated; such a one may most truly and properly be said not to discern the Lord's body. When therefore the apostle exhorts to self-examination as a preparative for the sacramental supper, he may well be understood to put professors upon inquiring whether they have such a principle of faith, by means whereof they are habitually in a capacity and disposition of mind to discern the Lord's body practically and spiritually (as well as speculatively and notionally) in their communicating at the Lord's table. Which is what none can do who have but common grace, or a faith short of that which is justifying and saving. It is only a living faith that capacitates men to discern the Lord's body in the sacrament with that spiritual sensation or spiritual gust, which is suitable to the nature and design of the ordinance, and which the apostle seems principally to intend.

Heb. 5:14