Of fundamentals in a notion referring to practise by H. Hammond.

OF FUNDAMENTALS.

CHAP. I. The Notation of the word Fundamental.

§. 1. IN this inquirie, the lite∣ral notation of the word [Fundamentals] must first be exami∣ned and resolved on, as the Ground∣work of this whole discourse. And herein the most advantageous method and least liable to mistake will be to proceed by these degrees:

§. 2. First,* 1.1 that the word Founda∣tion being a relative, and, as it is used in our present disquisition, a figura∣tive word, it will be needfull to pre∣mise wherein this relation, and where∣in this figure doth consist, it being evident, what Aristotle saith, that the whole being of any relative is 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, in order to that whereto it hath relation, and so likewise that

some primary literal signification is prerequired to that other of Meta∣phorical or Figurative. And accor∣dingly it will here be soon resolved, that a foundation, being primarily of use in Architecture, hath no other literal notation but what belongs to it in relation to an house or other buil∣ding, nor figurative, but what is founded in that and deduced from thence.

* 1.2§. 3. But then secondly, it is not every building to which a foundation referres (some structures being ere∣cted without any foundation) but such as is cemented and fastned to some firm, stable body under ground, i. e. to a foundation; We are taught this di∣stinction by our Saviour, Mat. 7. that an house may be (and is sometimes) set upon the sand (or upon the earth, Lu. 6.49. and is then said to be 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, without a foundation) not alwaies 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉,* 1.3 upon a rock, and though the word 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, build∣ing, be there used of both those, yet the 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, being founded, is applied only to the latter v. 25. And the distant fates of those two sorts of houses, which is there set down, to∣gether

with the character of the Ar∣chitects, the foolish and the wise, will assure us that this which we now in∣sist on, is no nicety, for assoon as e∣ver the rain descended, the floods came, and the windes blew and beat upon that house of the fools erecting, the house fell (and brake to pieces, the fall thereof was great) v. 27. Whereas all the violence and importunitie of the same storms, and windes, and torrents could make no impression on the o∣ther pile of the skilful Architects e∣recting, upon this one account, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, for it was founded upon a rock. And so in like manner the dif∣ference is set by the author to the Hebrews betwixt 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, the moveable tent or tabernacle, and 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, a citie that hath foundations, Heb. 11.10. which is all one with the 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, the kingdome that cannot be shaken or moved, Heb. 12.28.

§. 4.* 1.4 And the difference of build∣ing upon the earth or sand, from that other of superstructing or founding upon a rock, is observable in this, that though the whole body or bulk of the earth or sand be of an heavy, and

stable nature, yet the surfice or upper part of either of them, but especially of the sand, is so light and soluble, that there is no way imaginable to cement or fasten any thing to it, any more then to the aire or water, wheras to a stone or rock, which being it self firm, is also fastned deep within the earth, a superstructure of any pro∣portionable magnitude may be so fastned, that without a 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 or con∣cussion of the earth it self, (which sha∣keth the foundations, Act. 16.26.) the building shall not be shaken, and therefore Coloss. 1.23. 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 built on a foundation, is equivalent to 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, firm, and opposed to 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, moved, and so Christ supposes in another parable, that the gates of 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, the strongest opposition imagi∣nable in nature shall not prevail a∣gainst that house which is thus built, Mat. 16.18.

§. 5. Thirdly then, the figurative or metaphorical notation of this word, and not the primarie or literal, being that which belongs to this place, and yet that bearing a direct proportion to the literal, and so requiring a propor∣tionable relation to some figurative

building or superstructure, in order to which it may be styled a founda∣tion or fundamental, the next, and that indeed the Principal Enquirie will be,* 1.5 what superstructure it is to which this Foundation doth referre, or in respect to which peculiarly any article of Faith may be denominated Fundamental.

§. 6. And to omit the mention of all others, which have no appearance of pretension to this matter,* 1.6 two only fabricks or superstructures there are, which can come into this competiti∣on, each called by the name of 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 or 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 house, The first 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, my fathers house, Joh. 14.2. The se∣cond (with little change) 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, the house of God, 1 Tim. 3.15. The first is evidently Heaven,* 1.7 the place whither Christ was then going, as their harbinger to prepare for them; The second is expresly said to be the Church,* 1.8 in the words immediately subsequent; 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, which is the Church of the living God, the Church of God, in opposition to the Idol-Temples, the Church of the living God, in opposition to the livelesse false deities, the Diana of the

Ephesians and the like, whose pictures were inshrined and adored in those heathen Temples; And each of these are metaphorical buildings (answer∣able to the figurative foundations) and being capable of two sorts of conceptions, either as they are in fieri, in building, or as in facto esse, when they are already built, they may here signifie the replenishing or peopling of these two, 1. bringing saints to heaven, and 2. proselytes in∣to the Church, or else by a Metony∣mie of the adjunct, they may denote 1. that Celestial; and 2. that Christi∣an condition, which is in either of them enjoyed, the state of blisse in the one, and the state of Christian o∣bedience in the other.

§. 7. In proportion then to these two superstructures, two notions of Fundamentals may be conceived, one signifying that whereon our eternal blisse is immediatly, and regularly su∣perstructed, the other whereon our obedience to the faith of Christ, gi∣ving up our names to him, is founded, the one in order to our living happi∣ly and eternally in another world, the other to our living soberly, and just∣ly,

and piously in this world.

§. 8. And if the former were it,* 1.9 wherein our present search were ter∣minated, if the question were, what were now fundamental to blisse or heaven, then 1.* 1.10 there could be no reason to explain the fundamentals, as by consent of parties they are ex∣plained, by the credenda, matters of belief or faith; for though the ac∣knowledgment of Gods veracity, and the explicite, unshaken belief of all that is revealed to him by God, be the strict duty of every Christian, and the disbelieving of any such affirma∣tion of Gods, is sin, and damnable, yet the foundation being that which sup∣ports the superstructure to which it relates immediately, and without the intervention of any thing else, 'tis certain, that eternal blisse is not im∣mediatly superstructed on the most orthodox beliefs; but, as our Saviour saith (if ye know these things, happy are ye if ye doe them) the doing must be first superstructed on the knowing or believing, before any happinesse, or blisse, or heaven can be built on it; and without all question the agenda, the things that are to be done, works

of piety and justice, &c. are as neces∣sarily required to found our blisse, to bring us to heaven, as the belief of any the most pretious Articles can be supposed to be; and therefore it may be justly feared, that the title of Fundamentals, being ordinarily be∣stowed on, and confined to the do∣ctrines of faith, hath occasioned that great scandal, or block of offence in the Church of God, at which so many myriads of solifidians have stumbled, and fallen irreversibly, by conceiving heaven a reward of true opinions, of which, vicious practises, though ne∣ver so habitually and indulgently con∣tinued in, to the last, would never be able to deprive them; which as it hath been the disjoyning of that 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, most excellent yoke, of faith and good works, and hath be∣trayed many knowing men to most unskilful and ridiculous presumpti∣ons, and securities in sin: so can it not well be provided against, without the discovering, and renouncing of this false, and substituting a truer state of this question.

* 1.11§. 9. Secondly, If this were the no∣tion of Fundamentals, there could be

no certain way of judging what are such, the excuse of invincible igno∣rance being, in the farre greatest number of men, ready to be confron∣ted against the necessity of their belie∣ving all the severals of any such sup∣poseable Catalogue; And for that suppletorie of an implicite belief, which is by the Romanist conceived to be of use and sufficient for those, who are not capable of an explicite, what∣soever degree of truth can be con∣ceived to be in that, it must be foun∣ded in the contradictorie to the pre∣sent pretension; for were it once gran∣ted that the belief of such articles were fundamental to heaven, it were not imaginable that they which have not heard, should ever arrive thi∣ther, When that, which by S. Paul's authority is become a known ma∣xime, was before demonstrable in it self, and is so supposed by his argu∣ment, Rom. 10.14. that faith cometh by hearing, and that they cannot be∣lieve what they have not heard. Ma∣ny other inconveniences there are consequent to this stating of this question (and particularly that of which our experience hath given us

evident demonstration, that by those which thus state it, there hath never yet been assigned any definite num∣ber, or Catalogue of Fundamentals in this sense:) but I shall no farther enlarge on them.

* 1.12§. 10. The other notion of Fun∣damentals, is that whereon I shall more confidently pitch (as that which will remove, in stead of multiplying, difficulties, and accord all, which ei∣ther the Scriptures, or the Antients have asserted on this subject) thereby understanding that which was dee∣med necessary to be laid by the A∣postles and other such Master-buil∣ders, as a foundation to the peopling or replenishing (or bringing in prose∣lytes to) the Church, and so to the superstructing Christian obedience a∣mong men; In which respect it is, that as the Church of Corinth (and so any other society that hath received the faith of Christ) is called 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, God's plantation, 1 Cor. 3.9. so it is also called 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 God's building, a structure erected by his artificers.

* 1.13§. 11. That this hath been estee∣med the due and proper acception of

this word, I shall testifie by this one evidence, which I acknowledge to have given me the first hint of this notion, the words of the great Cham∣pion of the Catholick Faith set down in the Councel of Nice,* 1.14 S. Athanasius in Epist: ad Epictetum, where speak∣ing of the Confession of Faith esta∣blished by the Canons of that Coun∣cel against the Arian, and other He∣reticks, he hath these words, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, The faith confessed by the Bishops in that Synod according to the divine Scriptures is of it self sufficient for the averting of all im∣piety, and the establishment of all piety in Christ. These words of that emi∣nent Father of the Church might be of some farther use, toward the due understanding of the articles of the Nicene and Athanasian Creeds, but at the present the advantage of them will be but general, that the way of measuring and defining the necessity of any articles of faith, (the 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, necessaries to be known, as Ju∣stine Martyr speaks, placing under

that head, the Creation of the world, the framing of man, the immortality of the soul, and judgment to come, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉: p. 9.) is by the 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 or sufficiencie of them to enable the tea∣cher to perswade good life, to supplant those vices, which Christ came to ba∣nish out of the world, and to radicate those virtues which he came on pur∣pose to implant among men, which is directly that notion, or Character of Fundamentals, which we have now given, thereby signifying those ar∣ticles of the Faith, on which all the parts of Christian piety and obedience (and none of impiety or disobedience) may be regularly superstructed, or in consequence to which, being once re∣vealed, and believed▪ all rational or considering men, when Christian life is proposed to them, must discern themselves obliged to entertain it, to forsake in every branch their un∣christian courses of sin, and to betake themselves to an uniform obedience to the commands of Christ; From whence, I suppose, it is, that the word 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉,* 1.15 building or edifying, is used every where in the New Te∣stament for improving or advancing

in Christian practise and the duties of good life, as laying the foundation is preaching the faith of Christ among them, 1 Cor. 3.11. On which saith Theophylact, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 &c. After we shall have recei∣ved the Foundation of Faith, i. e. the Faith of Christ, as the Foundation, we build upon it, every one, good actions of all sorts and degrees, as he there spe∣cifies, making the Christian actions of life to be the superstructure, to which this Foundation referres, and in rela∣tion to which, it is called a Founda∣tion. So Theophylact on Heb. 6.1. makes the 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, their being instructed in the Faith of Christ, to be 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, to deal only in the beginning, the ele∣ments, the first and most imperfect rudiments, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, such as novices, beginners, they that are but now upon their entrance, are wont to be conversant in, whereas the superstructing good life on this, is, saith he, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, being carried to perfection; and again in yet plainer words, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉

〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 &c. The Faith is the beginning, and the foundation, and that without which nothing shall or will be firmly built; still making the Faith, or be∣lief of the Articles the foundation, in respect of the 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 the ex∣cellent Christian life, which was by the Apostles, and Christ designed to be built on it.

CHAP. II. The Division of the discourse into four parts, What are Fundamental in General.

§. 1. THe notion of the word being now explained, that which is yet behinde will be regularly redu∣cible to these four heads, First,* 1.16 What those things are in General, and then in particular, to which this notion of Fundamentals belongeth, and withall, what propriety all and each of these have toward the supporting this superstructure, the planting a Church of Christian livers. 2^dly, What are the particular branches of this su∣perstructure. 3^dly, What Doctrines there are infused among Christians, which are most apt to obstruct or in∣tercept the superstructing of Christian life, where the foundation is laid. 4^dly, What things are necessary to the erecting of this superstructure on this foundation already laid, whether in a particular Christian, or especially in a Church, or society of such.

§. 2.* 1.17 The General way of defining what these fundamentals are, must in

reason be taken from the practise of the Apostles, as the interpreter of God's appointment, and judgment in this matter.* 1.18 For it being certain that the Apostles, which had a com∣mission from Christ to preach, and admit disciples over all the world, to bring impenitent Jewes, and Idolatrous Gentiles to the obedience of Christ, were by him also directed in their way, counselled in the choice of the fittest means of performing so great a work, the argument will be infal∣libly conclusive on both sides, posi∣tively, and negatively, that whatever the Apostles joyntly agreed on, at their entrance on their several Pro∣vinces, to be the subject of their first Sermons in all their travails, that was by them (and consequently by God himself) deemed fundamental, in our present sense, and whatever was not by them thought thus necessary, must not by us be obtruded on, or forced into that Catalogue.

* 1.19§. 3. For the clearing of this, it is first evident that there was in the A-Apostles times such a foundation laid (〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉) in every Church, as in that of Corinth, 1 Cor. 3.11.

styled 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, 1 Tim. 6.20.* 1.20 a good depositum or trust, which Timo∣thie had received from the Apostles, for the direction of his ministerie, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, Jude 3.* 1.21 the faith once, or at once delivered to the saints, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, 2 Tim. 1.13. a form, or breviate,* 1.22 or summarie of wholsome words, or sound doctrine, which he had heard from S. Paul, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, one faith, Eph. 4.5▪* 1.23 in proportion to which followeth there 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 one baptisme, where∣in there was made profession of that Faith, and to which none (of years and knowledge) was ever admitted, who had not been sufficiently instru∣cted by the Catechist in every part of this foundation, (which to that end the Catechist received from the Bi∣shop with his short exposition of it, see S. Ambrose, Ep: 35. l. 5.) and being so instructed made open Confession of it, and moreover, by vow obliged him∣self there, to superstruct all Christi∣an practise upon it.

§. 4. Secondly,* 1.24 that this was ap∣proved of by them in common up∣on consultation, (and so seemed good to the holy Ghost and to them,

in order to their end, the bring∣ing of Jewes and Gentiles to repen∣tance) and accordingly was left be∣hinde them, delivered down to the Bishops of all Churches of their plan∣tation, not only as a rule of faith, but as a symbolum, or badge of the A∣postles having planted Christianity a∣mong them. All which is clearly te∣stified by Tertullian, Irenaeus, and other the first writers; See Irenaeus l 1. c. 11. & 19. l. 3. c. 4. Tertullian de virgin: veland: in the beginning, & de Praescription: throughout.

§. 5. Thirdly, that all that was necessary in order to that end (the 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 the disci∣pling all nations) was comprehended in this form or summary,* 1.25 it being cer∣tain that what God did not deem ne∣cessary,* 1.26 was not necessary, and that nothing which was so deem'd by God, was omitted or left behinde by them, whose office and care it was to declare the whole will of God, and to lead o∣thers, as themselves had been led, in∣to all necessary truth.

§. 6. Fourthly, that what we thus affirm of the necessity of these things to the superstructing of Christian

practise, must not so be understood, that the hearing, and believing of each of them be thought absolutely necessary in every single Jew or hea∣then, that he may repent, and convert,* 1.27 and live a Christian life, or without which he cannot, but necessary to the discharge of the Apostolical office, which was to reap whole fields, to bring in whole cities, and nations to Christ.

§. 7. They that were to plant a Church, were to deal with men of se∣veral and distant affections, and tem∣pers and interests, an heterogeneous body made up of a multitude of va∣rious inclinations, and of different habits of sin, and degrees of radica∣tion of those habits, and to each of these some proper application was to be made by those that came on Christ's errand to cure their souls (as Hippocrates advises his Physitian to have 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, mollifying pre∣parations for all turns, and to carry them about with him) and so a whole Dispensatorie was little enough to meet with, and suffice to all their wants, or at least some Catholicon of a transcendent virtue, proportionable

to the obstinacy of any the most de∣sperate maladie: But this confusion of diseases and rapsodie of difficulties was not to be supposed in each single sinner, and consequently there was not the same necessity of the whole tale of Fundamentals, for the conver∣ting or reducing of him.

§. 8. There is no doubt but there were reformed Jewes before Christ's time,* 1.28 whom the pedagogie and rudi∣ments, and imperfect documents of the Law, with those influences, and assistances of God, which were then afforded, brought home unto God, and among them some 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 righ∣teous, and some 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 mercifull men, which had arrived to the abun∣dance of goodness, as they style it, And of this kinde were the Esseni, who though they be not ordinarily conceived to have been Christians, yet are described by Philo, under the name of 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 so very like Christi∣ans, that there is no reason to doubt, but that Christian piety might be in∣fused into some, without the explicite knowledge of all and every of those articles, which yet, in general speak∣ing, or as it was to be planted through

the world, are rightly deemed, and resolved to be Fundamental.

§. 9. Thus 'tis affirmed by Photius, and Evagrius, (and hath as much au∣thority,* 1.29 as their names can give it) that Synesius had embraced the whole Christian Law, so farre as to be ad∣vanced to the dignity of a Bishop, without any clear acknowledging, or believing one main part of our Foun∣dation, that of the Resurrection of the body, and his own 105^t Epistle (wherein he so industriously declines the Bishoprick) hath these words, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, The resur∣rection which you preach and publish, I account sacred, and that which cannot be uttered; and I want much of consen∣ting to the perswasions of the multitude in this matter. And though the Bi∣shops, that thus advanced him, were questioned, saith Photius, for the fact, yet that is no prejudice to (what we now observe from this example, viz) the possibility of the thing. Of which also those Bishops answer is a farther testimony, viz: that they saw such excellent graces in him, that they

could not imagine, that God would long deferre to crown them with the addition of this eminent branch of Christian faith, the clear belief and acknowledgment of the resurrection; And as that fell out according to their expectation, so it is thereby evi∣dent, that that branch of belief was in him supervenient to Christian pra∣ctise, and not all Christian practise built on that.

§. 10. Nay supposing that he that hath not been instructed sufficiently in all, and each branch of the Foun∣dation, were yet with fewer helps brought to the sincere undertaking of the whole Christian obedience, as if a Catechumenus before every one of these articles were explained unto him, should yet resolve (upon read∣ing the Sermon on the Mount) to live a life of the greatest Christian perfection, this person were not in any reason to suffer any diminution, to be deemed the worse, but rather the better for that, (as they, that having not the Law doe yet by nature the things of the Law, are farre from be∣ing disparaged by the Apostle, nay 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, saith Theophylact,

are lookt on as admirable persons, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, that they wanted not the Law, and yet fulfilled the Law;) The danger be∣ing certainly very great to them, that by force of all the divine articles of our Faith are not reduced to Chri∣stian purity, and not to them, who on a weaker foundation doe yet stand firmly rooted, and grounded in the love of Christ.

§. 11. And this is agreeable to what was premised of the nature of a foun∣dation in a material building, that though a tabernacle or moveable buil∣ding may, yet a Temple or stable edi∣fice cannot be supposed to be built and stand firm without an entire foundation, and consequently that this summarie of wholsome words is necessary to the Architects, in order to their superstructing a Pile, their planting a Church of Jewes and Gen∣tiles, though not absolutely so, for the reducing of each single person.

CHAP. III. A particular view of Fundamentals, Jesus Christ indefinitely.

§. 1. I Now proceed to a more par∣ticular view of this Founda∣tion, which is sometimes most com∣pendiously set down in Scripture, ei∣ther under the abbreviature of Jesus Christ,* 1.30 or with the addition of his crucifixion or resurrection, or other remarkable passages concerning him; Or else more largely and explicitely in the Creeds or Confessions of the Ʋniversal Church.

§. 2. For the more compendious, it is S. Paul's affirmation, 1 Cor. 3.11. that Jesus Christ is the one onely Foundation, and no man can lay 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 any other, which is the inter∣pretation of what is elsewhere said, that Jesus Christ himself is 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 the chief corner stone, or a∣gain the 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, head of the cor∣ner, the principal supporter, on which the weight of the structure rests, the foundation of the foundation.

§. 3. In proportion to which it is that the deceivers, or false teachers, or Antichrists, 2 Joh. 7. are expres∣sed

by this Character, they that con∣fesse not Jesus Christ coming in the flesh, This one being a comprehensive article that supposes and contains all others under it.

§. 4. For besides that the Jewes to whom the Gospel was first to be prea∣ched, and to some of whom this cha∣racter of Antichrist was given, belie∣ved in the one Creator of the world already, and so that article concern∣ing the Deity, and the Attributes thereof needed not be preached ei∣ther to them, or to the proselytes from the Gentiles, It is farther ma∣nifest that the belief of Christ being founded on the testimonie of the Fa∣ther, Mat. 3.17. and the doctrine of Christ containing in it the declarati∣on and manifestation of the know∣ledge of the Father, so as he was ne∣ver known to the world before this Son out of his bosome thus revealed him, the belief of Christ must neces∣sarily suppose and pre-require the be∣lief of the Father, and therefore it follows in S. John, v. 9. that he which abides in the doctrine of Christ, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, he hath both the Father and the Son.

§. 5. So again the miracles which Christ did were done in his father's name, and thereby gave all that testi∣mony to his doctrines of piety and re∣formation, which the Father's pro∣claiming them from heaven would have been able to doe.

§. 6. And that being thus suppo∣sed of all in grosse, and so giving a full authoritie to all that should be revealed by Christ, the several parts of the revelations afforded us by him will soon be discerned to be extreme∣ly conducible to this end of reform∣ing men's lives, such as will answer all imaginable objections and excepti∣ons of flesh and blood against it, and make it perfectly reasonable for any rational creature to undertake the service of Christ, and most extremely irrational and unmanly to seek out or to continue in any other service.

§. 7. Such are Christ's promises, divine, unconceivable promises, a blisse to be enjoyed to all eternity, and that by way of return for a weak obedience of some few years; such are his threatnings, most formidable me∣naces of endlesse woe, to them that will still despise the riches of his good∣ness,

and forbearance; Such is the trea∣ty which he negotiates with us, an offer and tender of a reconciliation, a 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, an act of oblivion, of all fore∣past sins, and of a new Covenant, on most moderate, easie terms of syncere (without unsinning) obedience for the future; And Lastly, such are his precepts, a sort of commandments, which are most agreeable, and grate∣full to our reasonable nature, and which tend, beyond all other means or instruments, to the improving and perfecting the most valuable part of us, that which alone denominates us men, and annexing incomprehensible rewards (an eternal weight of glory) to the bare practise of those things, which are at the very present, though they were not commanded, and if they should not be rewarded in an∣other life (I mean abstractively from these enhaunsments of them) infinite∣ly estimable and preferrable before the Contraries, which must farther cost us so extremely dear, if we will choose and pitch our designe upon them, and resolve to go through with that unthrifty purchase.

§. 8. So that this one corner stone,

Jesus Christ is a most competent, ample foundation, on which to super∣struct the largest pile of building, to erect a Church of pious livers, and to bring all rational men within the compasse of it, and it is not imagin∣able what could have been added to this, or what method could probably have been effectual to any man, which is not wrought on by the concurrence of all these.

* 1.31§. 9. This will more evidently ap∣pear, if we compare this one with all other waies which have been used at any time toward this end of indu∣cing, and obliging, and engaging men to good life.

§. 10. In the course of nature, (the first way of Oeconomie▪ under which the world was governed, by a Law written in men's hearts, naturale judi∣catoriū, lumen super nos signatū, a na∣tural judicatorie, a light sealed upon us, in our first composure) though there were a competent revelation of our duty, and a double obligation to per∣form it, 1. that of piety to our ma∣ker, 2. that of reverence to our own souls, the 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, the superiour ru∣ling part of us, and these two im∣proveable

into many other, and thus actually advanced and improved by natural men, upon study and conside∣ration, (and so all the heathen wis∣dome was the farther explaining of those obligations, their natural philo∣sophy was but a kinde of comment on the creation, and is therefore by the Jewes entituled 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 the first word of the Book of Genesis, that story of the creation, and that a most proper groundwork of obedience to that Al∣mighty Creatour, and their moral phi∣losophy, especially that of Epicurus, a consideration of the most ravishing beauty and delight and joy, the result of the practise of every virtue, that of Socrates (which had the Oracle's Testimony and admiration) a comment on the 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, the knowledge of a man's selfe, that of Pythagoras on the 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, the revering of a man's self, and that of Aristotle, the placing of all humane felicity in the continued actions of virtue, and that also a foundation very fit to su∣perstruct virtue upon) yet there were great defects and vacuities and imper∣fections in this Oeconomie.

§. 11. First, the prescribed duties

wanted of their full stature, especi∣ally if compared with Christ's 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 his suppletories and superaddi∣tions.

§. 12. Secondly, there remained very advantageous accesses for tem∣ptations to enter and invade men, the fortifications being very slender to secure their resistance, little know∣ledge of the immortality of the soul, or any thing beyond this life, whe∣ther reward or punishment, no assu∣rance that repentance would be ad∣mitted for any sin, an absolute despe∣ration of any good without the help of purgatives, and a perfect igno∣rance of all means of purging, and many other such wants, which are all abundantly supplied in the Chri∣stian's foundation, Jesus Christ.

§. 13. And upon that account the Apostle could safely challenge the wise men of the heathen world with his 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉; Where is the wise man of the world? 1 Cor. 1.20. Let all the Philosophers, moralists or naturalists, bring forth their richest provisions, shew such engines of approach and batterie, for the supplanting or beat∣ing down of vicious life, for the en∣gaging

men to reform, and live like men, as this foolishness of preaching' this despised, but saving doctrine of the Gospel hath afforded us.

§. 14.* 1.32 So likewise for the Judaical or Mosaical oeconomie, though that brought many additions to the light of Nature, and was a 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, an obscure representation as of that Go∣spel, and promises of everlasting life, so of those precepts which are now most clearly revealed by Christ, yet was that obscurity a very great defect, the shadow was so extremely dark, that the vices of men made advan∣tage of it to shrowd and secure them in their sins.

§. 15. The ceremonie and Law of circumcision &c. which was meant by God sacramentally to impresse the du∣ty of strict purity, to cut off the 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, the superfluity of naugh∣tinesse, all inordinate excessive lusts of the flesh, was yet but a character impressed on the flesh, and did not explicitely descend to the prohibiting of the desires, but was on the contrary made advantage of by lust, Rom. 7.8. and the outward circumcision in the body of a childe of Abraham was

thought to commute for all impu∣ritie.

§. 16. So again the Phylacteries on their wrists and foreheads were look'd on as spells and charms, which would yeild them impunitie for their disobedience, And the strict ordinan∣ces against conversing with Gentiles, lest they should learn and joyn in their abominations, bred more of pride, and contempt, and uncharitable∣nesse to their persons, then of aliena∣tion, or detestation of their sins.

§. 17. And so that way of Oeco∣nomie, in many respects, was not 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 blamelesse; The clear com∣mands and the explicite promises of Christ and the proclaimed necessity of real, substantial fruits of repentance, in stead of the leaves, the arrogance, and hypocrisie of external performan∣ces, were a necessarie suppletorie to the Law of Moses, and to that may belong also the Apostle's 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉; Let all the Scribes, or Doctors of the Law, the searchers or profound interpreters of the scriptures, bring forth such evi∣dences of their efficacie, or good suc∣cesses in the reforming and purifying

of men's lives, as the Apostles had done by these so contemptible despi∣cable means, the Gospel of the Crosse of Christ.

§. 18. I might farther extend the comparison to all possible preten∣ders, the Idolatrous heathens,* 1.33 the cor∣rupters of the Law of Nature, and the Mahomedans, that have super∣structed on, and added to the Law of Moses; But both of these are so scandalously known to have laid grounds for all impuritie, the for∣mer in their mysteries and devotions, the latter in their sensual carnal pa∣radise, the one allowing it their vo∣taries in the present possession, the o∣ther promising it them in a reversion, that I shall not need enlarge on so remote considerations, but conclude and shut up all that might be said on this subject, with that judgment of an heathen Philosopher past on this matter, Chalcidius in his comment on Plato's Timaeus, whose writings have come to us only in Latine, Ratio Dei (no question, in the Original 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 in S. John's style) Deus est, huma∣nis rebus consulens, quae causa est ho∣minibus benè beatéque vivendi, si non

concessum sibi munus à Summo Deo negligant, The reason, or Word of God is God taking care of humane affairs, and is the cause unto men of their li∣ving well and happily, if they doe not neglect that gift granted by the Su∣preme God. A saying that contains in it the summe of our Christian Gospel, (which, it seems by this and other passages, he had gotten a sight of, and understood in the simplicity of it) that Christ the eternal Word or rea∣son of his Father, had two great de∣signes in his prospect, effects of his providence and care of mankinde, the first to bring men to good life, to re∣formation of every evil course, sub∣duing of passions, &c. the second to render them happy hereby so doing, and blessed eternally, and this mana∣ged so powerfully, and effectually for them, that nothing, but their own stupid, and obstinate negligence and contempt of this divine donative, can deprive them of these benefits of it.

CHAP. IV. JESƲS CHRIST Crucified.

§. 1. AND as Jesus Christ indefi∣nitely taken is set down to be this Foundation,* 1.34 so elsewhere is Jesus Christ Crucified, 1 Cor. 1.23. & 2.2. and accordingly the whole Gospel is styled 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, the word which is of the Crosse of Christ, c. 1.18. and that (supposing it be be∣lieved) sufficient to superstruct on it the conversion of the whole world to a new and Christian life, and accor∣dingly it is there styled 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, to those that escape out of the deluge of infidelity, the very power of God, & ver. 24. the power of God, and the wisdome of God, the powerfullest and wisest method to∣ward the accomplishing of this work, which is farther explained Rom. 1.16. by 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, the power of God to salvation to every one that be∣lieveth, to the Jew first, and also to the Gentile. If this doctrine of the Crosse be once received, there is no more wanting to engage and oblige all rational men to that renovation of

their lives, which is oft called 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 saving or delivering them out of their evil waies, and will assuredly bring them to salvation, in the noti∣on, wherein we vulgarly take it.

* 1.35§. 2. That the crosse of Christ hath this propriety may appear by these five effects or branches of it, 1. it is the highest confirmation imaginable of the truth of all that he had deli∣vered from his Father, He laid down his life for the testifying of it. 2. It is the exemplifying (and that is the most Rhetorical argument, the most powerful way of perswading) the highest and hardest part of the Chri∣stian's duty, that of laying down our lives for the truth, resisting unto blood in our 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 our spiri∣tual Olympicks, our striving against sin. 3. It is a sealing that Covenant betwixt God and us, which he came to preach, a Covenant of mercy, and pardon, and everlasting salvation to all that perform the condition of it, and to none else, and that is of all o∣thers the greatest and most effectual engagement to that performance. 4. It is the sacrifice for the sinnes of the whole world, the 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 or means of

expiation or pardon, upon our un∣feigned return and change, and that is absolutely necessary to found our hope, as that hope is necessary to excite our indevours, 5. It was the ceremonie of consecrating Christ our high Priest, to his great Melchisedekian office of blessing us, in which as his resurrecti∣on instated him, so that was by way of reward to his sufferings, Phil. 2.9. and so all that sufficiencie of strength which is required for the turning eve∣ry one from iniquity, Act. 3.25. be∣ing an effect of that blessing of his, the doctrine of his death, from the merit whereof this quickning power doth flow, is a foundation of all cheer∣full attending on his service, to which he is so sure to afford his assistance.

CHAP. V. JESƲS CHRIST raised &c.

* 1.36§. 1. ELsewhere this Foundation is determined to one other single article, that of the resurrection of Christ, Rom. 10.9. which supposing and comprehending the crucifixion under it, and being visibly and un∣deniably wrought by the immediate and omnipotent power of God, and not imputable to any other possible means, was a most illustrious testi∣monie, and conviction of the innocen∣cie of Christ, thus signally vindicated, and rewarded by God, and conse∣quently a confirmation of the truth of all that he had taught, and thus signed with the effusion of his blood.

* 1.37§. 2. Of this one article it is our Sa∣viours affirmation that it was so full matter of conviction to all gainsayers, that they w^ch should not be wrought upon by that, were to expect no far∣ther signs or miracles, & the design of the holy Ghosts coming upon the A∣postles being to fit them for the great work (for which Christ had given them Commission) the testifying and

proclaiming his Resurrection, from thence arises the aggravation and ir∣remissibleness of the sin against the holy Ghost, who had so abundantly convinced the world of Christ's righ∣teousness by his arising and going to his Father. And accordingly in the preaching of S. Peter, Act. 2. this was the doctrine that with such an Em∣phasis he inculcated upon them v. 22. Men of Israel, hear these words — Jesus of Nazareth — ye have nailed with wicked hands and killed, Whom God hath raised up &c. and v. 24. this Jesus hath God raised up, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 of which we all are wit∣nesses, or, whose witnesses we all are, ver. 32. and so made him Lord and Christ, v. 36. And when they heard this they were pricked at the heart, and said, Men and brethren, What shall we doe? And upon this one foundation he immediately superstructs the ex∣hortation to repentance, and coming in by baptisme unto Christ, and three thousand were that day wrought on by that method, v. 41.

§. 3. Beside this,* 1.38 the Resurrection of Christ was a peculiar pawn and pledge of God's raising up our bodies

out of the grave, and (before that time comes) of his quickning our souls out of the most noisome vaults, the habits and customs of sin, wherein they lay putrified,* 1.39 this being an act of the same omnipotent Spirit, by which he raised up Jesus from the dead, and without which it were as hopelesse an attempt for sinners to go about to rise to new life, as it were for dead men to raise themselves out of their graves. And consequently the belief of this, was, in the former of these respects, of special importance to confirm our hopes of another life, on which so many branches of Christian piety so immediately depend (that especially of laying down our lives for Christ's sake) that if our hope in Christ were only that of this life, we could never espouse so cold a service, And in the latter respect it was most proper to quicken our hopes, that up∣on our awaking at Christ's call, and arising (like Lazarus) out of our graves of sin, that Christ, which gives us life▪ would command us to be loosed from our grave-clothes, rescue us by the power of his Spirit from the bands and power of sin, and en∣able

us to live Christianly; Which we could not hope to doe without this power of his Spirit, to prevent and assist us, nor reasonably attempt to doe without this hope.

§. 4.* 1.40 Farther yet the Resurrection of Christ hath the power of a pat∣tern to us, and is so made use of, and typified in baptisme, as an engagement and obligation to us to transcribe that divine copie into our hearts, and to rise to newness of life. And accor∣dingly that seems to be the impor∣tance of the phrase, Rom. 10.9. belie∣ving in the heart that God raised Christ from the dead, there being no more necessary to the superstructing all pie∣ty on that one foundation, but to sink down the belief of that one Article from the brain to the heart, to re∣duce it effectually to practise.

CHAP. VI. Other Articles of Belief in Christ.

* 1.41§. 1. BEside these two, a whole ca∣logue, and climax of Articles we have set down 1 Tim. 3.16. made manifest in or by the flesh, justified by the Spirit, seen of Angels, preached a∣mong the Gentiles, believed on in the world, received up with glory. And these altogether seem to be that 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, truth, v 15. (as elsewhere Faith) of which the Church was 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, a pillar and establishment, to sustain and keep it (as a pillar firmly set up on the basis sustains and up∣holds the fabrick laid upon it) from sinking or falling; For so this truth deposited in the Church, or with the Governours thereof (such as Timothy there) was to be conserved and upheld by that means. And it is farther ob∣servable in that place, that it is called 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, the mysterie of Piety, and that a great one, signifying the price and value of these articles principally to consist in this, that they tend mightily to the begetting of piety in our hearts, and so are the

〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, the articles of our initiati∣on, or of our religion into which we are initiated by baptisme, as the foun∣dation on which all our Christian pra∣ctise (which alone deserves the name of piety, and is opposed to 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 im∣piety) is superstructed and built af∣terward.

§. 2.* 1.42 This will be more visible by surveying the severals [1. 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, God manifest by the stesh.] God was so intent upon this work of revealing and declaring his will to men, in order to bringing home sinners to repentance, so very desirous that men should reform and live, and not sin and perish eternally, that to inforce this on us at the greatest possible advantage, he was pleased himself to assume, and mani∣fest his will, in, or by our Flesh, and so, not only God from heaven, but God visible on earth, to preach refor∣mation among us, and if this be not able to make impression on us, it is not imaginable that all the preaching of men or Angels, that any inferior method should be of force to doe it. From whence it was, that all the De∣vil's countermines in the first ages

were designed purposely against this one Article, the Deity or Godhead of Christ incarnate, making all that he did and suffered here an appearance, no reality, in opposition to which is the [〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉] and [〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉] so oft re∣peated by Ignatius, the reality and verity of Christ's eating, and suffer∣ing, and rising, &c. and every branch of such heresie took off (as farre as it was believed) from the necessity of Christian life, not only by implying him to be an Impostor, if he were not truly what he oft affirmed himself, and was by the Apostles affirmed to be, the Messias, i. e. the eternal son of God, and God blessed forever, but by evacuating that great obligation, and engagement to reform our lives, taken from the authority and God∣head of him, that had sought and sol∣licited it so earnestly, and came down from heaven and assumed our flesh upon that one errand or embassie to reveal himself more convincingly a∣mong us.

§. 3. Had it been only a Prophet, though never so great and extraordi∣narily furnished with signes and won∣ders, he had been but a servant of

God, and there were many experien∣ces and precedents among their fore∣fathers of the resisting of such, but the personal descent of God himself, and his assumption of our flesh to his divinity, more familiarly to insinu∣ate his pleasure to us, to admonish, and invite, and denounce judgments, and even to weep over those that would yet be obstinate, was an en∣forcement beyond all the methods of wisdome, that were ever made use of in the world.

§. 4. For God, I say, himself to doe all this, and to descend so low, to so mean an estate, and to a much mea∣ner usage, a shameful contumelious death, to work this work most effectu∣ally upon men, was a wonderful act of grace & wisdome, a secret, a myste∣rie indeed beyond all former waies, infinitely considerable towards this of turning from every evil.

§. 5.* 1.43 And upon this score the do∣ctrine of the antient and modern A∣rians and Photinians, which so indu∣striously lessens the divinity of Christ in pretense of zeal to God the Father, to whom they will not permit him to be equal, must consequently take off

extremely from this Mysterie of Pie∣ty, this foundation of a good life, laid in the eternal God's coming down to preach it to us; And as it is a direct contradiction to those places, where∣in Christ is called God, Act. 20.28. Tit. 2.13. wherein he and his Father are affirmed to be one, Joh. 10.30. & 1 Joh. 5.7. wherein the known title of the God of Israel (never named in their services, but it was answered by all with 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, God blessed forever) is by the Apostles attributed to Christ, Rom. 9.5. (as also Heb. 13.21. 1 Pet. 4.11. & 5.11. 2 Pet. 3.18. Rev. 1.6.) and which,* 1.44 as Proclus saith, convinceth all the heresies concerning Christ, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, and walls up the newly inven∣ted waies of injury and contumely a∣gainst him, So it is a great diminution and abatement of the force of that fundamental argument, whereon God thought fit, that the renovation of the world should be superstructed, and how much soever the contrary here∣ticks the modern Socinians have pre∣tended to the maintenance of Piety, 'tis certain they have by this taken out one principal stone from the foun∣dation

of it, the 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 here, God made manifest by the flesh, w^ch could not be affirmed of Christ, if he were not first God, before he was thus made manifest by the means of his in∣carnation.

§. 5. The next stone in this founda∣tion is, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉,* 1.45 God's having been justified by the Spirit] i. e. the several waies of conviction, which were used in the world by the Spirit of God, to give authority to all that was revealed by Christ, as the will and commands of God. Such was 1. the visible descent of the Spirit of God upon him at his baptisme, Mat. 3. which (as preparative to his entring on the exercise of his prophetick office, Mat. 5. &c.) was the divine attesta∣tion given from heaven (by voice) to all that he should ever teach.

§. 6. 2^dly. Such was the Spirit's leading him into the wilderness, Mat. ch. 4. to subject him to the Devil's examination, and thereby to give grounds of conviction to him and those infernal powers, that he was the son of God.

§. 7. 3^dly, Such was his power of doing miracles, works of that na∣ture,

as were by all acknowledged to be above the power of men or de∣vils, and only works of the Spirit of God, Thus was his curing of Leprosie, of which the King of Israel saith, Am I a God, that this man sends to me to recover a man of his Leprosie? 1 Kin. 5.7. and which the Jewes proverbi∣ally called the finger of God, and is therefore said to be done 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, for a testimony unto them, Mat. 8.4. an evidence of his divinity; Thus the giving sight to him that was born blinde, which since the world be∣gan, had not been heard of to be done by any, Joh. 9.32. Thus the raising of Lazarus and others, and at last his own resurrection from the grave; All which being wrought by the Spirit of God, and being not o∣therwise possible to be done by any, were the 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 or Judicial way of approving his Commission from God, and his doctrine, against all gainsayers, and so most eminently tends to the impressing the necessity of that refor∣mation, which he came to publish.

§. 8. 4^thly, Such was the descent of the Spirit on the Apostles, authori∣zing them witnesses of the resurrecti∣on,

and preachers of all that truth and will of God, which Christ had in his life revealed to them, which conse∣quently gave an attestation to all that the Apostles should teach, being thus led by the Spirit into all truth, and so was of especiall concernment to the planting of a Church, and en∣forcing that reformation of lives, which the Apostles pressed on all that would not be ruined eternally.

§. 9.* 1.46 The third branch of this my∣sterious divine way of working piety on earth, is the 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 his being seen by Angels, i. e. his divine power discerned and acknowledged and ado∣red by Angels themselves, both good and bad; by the good 1. at his birth, Lu. 2.13. 2^dly, when after his tempta∣tion and fasting they came and mini∣stred unto him, Mat. 4.12. 3^dly, in the trouble and agonie of his soul, be∣fore his death, Joh. 12.29. Lu. 22.43. 4^thly, at, and after his resurrection, Mat. 28.2. And by the bad, both when he was tempted, and when he cast them out of their possessions, o∣beying his command, dreading his power, and believing and confessing him the son of God most high, and

when immediately upon his birth, the oracles, which had before so flou∣rished among the heathens, began to droop and decay, and from giving re∣sponses in Verse, descended to Prose, and within a while were utterly si∣lenced. Which as it was a most re∣gular means to bring all sorts of men, heathens as well as Jewes, to reforma∣tion of all vices, those especially, which they were formerly taught in their Idolatrous worships, and were enslaved to them unwillingly by the tyrannie of those false Gods or devils, which required to be thus worship∣ped, Rom. 8.20. and so continued to doe till they were cast out of their Temples; so was it an huge obliga∣tion on all men to receive and obey him, whom the very devils believed and trembled at, and a testimonie of the greatest force in the mouth of a whole Province of his greatest ene∣mies, that he was, what he assumed to be, the Messias of the world, who if he were not received by consent and readily obeyed, would erect his king∣dome in the destruction of those ene∣mies (an essay of which was thus shewn on the Prince of darkness)

avenge and utterly consume the ad∣versaries.

§. 10. The fourth is,* 1.47 the 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, his being preached among the Gentiles, or Idolatrous nations of the world; The message brought by him from heaven was proclaimed not only to the Jewes, but (both by him∣self and by the Apostles) to all the Gentiles, those that till then had lived in all villanie and impietie, and yet had now by Christ's mercy tendred them upon Reformation, and thereby is all encouragement afforded to the greatest sinners, to forsake, and amend their lives, and by God's mercifull pardon to the times of their igno∣rance, and forepass'd sins, a passage opened to life, and eternitie, for all that will make use of it, and this is the greatest engagement to doe so, and not to forfeit and lose so pretious an opportunity.

§. 11.* 1.48 The fift branch is the 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, his being believed on in the world; the faith of Christ re∣ceived by many both Jewes and Gen∣tiles; Of that people of the Jewes (a most stubborn obdurate people, that had killed the prophets, and stoned them

that were sent) some considerable number repented and came in upon Christ's preaching,* 1.49 about three thou∣sand were added to the Faith at one sermon, Act. 2.42. before the Apostles going out from Jerusalem (which wants but a seventh part of being half the number of those reserved ones of the whole kingdome of the ten tribes, in Elijah's time, which had (secretly) kept out of that Idol-Baal-worship) and so proportionably at other sermons, so that Act. 20.21. we hear of many myriads of believing Jewes, and (taking out of these the Gnostick heretical party) an hundred forty four thousand sealed out of the twelve tribes as faithful servants of God, which had received the faith of Christ, and brought forth fruit ac∣cordingly, Rev. 7. and that, though but a small number in proportion to the greater that remained obstinate, yet above twenty times as many as they in Elijah's time; And when the greater multitude was so terribly destroyed, then the believers of that nation were the onely 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 or remnant of it, and in a manner that whole people, by the conversion of

some, and slaughter of the rest, were soon after, though not at the time of the Apostles resolving on this deposi∣tum, reduced to the Faith, and be∣came Christian.

§. 12. And for the Gentiles,* 1.50 they were contained in the number of those which were present at that sermon, Act. 2.11. and no doubt some of them were wrought on by it, as even in Christ's time, the Gen∣tiles faith is magnified for great, and above the size of what he had found in Israel, and they were peculiarly the violent that took the kingdome of heaven by force, whilest the children of the Kingdome neglected, and were cast out of it; And soon after the A∣postles going out and preaching to all nations, they willingly received the Faith, and forsook their Idols, and within a while all Asia, Act. 19. by S^t Paul's preaching, and other whole nations by each of the other Apostles, and at length the whole Roman Em∣pire became Christian, and the king∣domes of the world became the king∣domes of our Lord and of his Christ, Revel. 11.15. and the Kings of the earth and of the Nations brought

their glory to the Lamb, Rev. 21.24, 26. and to the same purpose Rev. 17.14. & 19.6. and as among the Jewes, so all the world over, those that received not the commands of Christ, and his doctrines of purity and perseverance, were signally destroyed, and they that did, were preserved as a peculiar people unto him, to live, and continue in his obedience.

§. 13. And this great successe on both sides, among Jewes and Gentiles over all the world, (part of it histori∣cally true at the compiling of these articles, and part of it prophetically true then, and fulfilled afterward, the subduing them either by the word of his mouth, the preaching of the Go∣spel, or by the word of his power, the destructions which he sent among them) was a most effectual argument, a soveraign method to give authority to this faith, which was thus prevail∣ing, and becomes the greatest in∣stance of reproach to all libertine pro∣fessors, that they should not purifie their hearts by the faith, when the most impure Idolaters were wrought on to doe so, and a sad certain aboad to all such (after the example of ob∣stinate

Infidels and impure Gnosticks) of both present and future destructi∣ons.

§. 14.* 1.51 The sixt and last stone in this foundation is the 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, his being received up in, or with, or into glory, Christ's ascension or assum∣ption to heaven being an irrefragable argument of conviction to the world, that he died an innocent person. Joh. 16.10. and consequently that what he taught was the will of God and 2truth of heaven, to which he was as∣sumed after his testification of it; To which when these two circumstances are superadded, first, that his assum∣ption being in the sight of many, was also solemnized by the presence of An∣gels, and a voice from heaven, Act. 1.9, 10, 11. (and so 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 in or with glory, after a glorious manner) and secondly, that it was attended with the exercise of divine power, both in the Church by the hands of the A∣postles, and their successors, whom Christ had authorized to succeed him on the earth, and in the world by executing visible judgments on his crucifiers &c. (and so 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 into glory or regal power) this will be

an article of great energie for the planting of Christian faith, and pu∣rity in the world.

CHAP. VII. The Faith in Baptisme.

* 1.52§. 1. WHat hath thus been set down as so many bran∣ches of fundamental belief, and so of the mysterie of Godliness, the ground of initiating or entring men into Christian life, is more summarily compriz'd in the form of baptism, the ceremony of this initiation instituted by Christ, wherein all that were to be baptized, were (if of age, first in∣structed in the doctrine, and then) re∣ceived, In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the holy Ghost. Which are the abbreviature of the larger Catalogue of doctrinals formerly taught, and explained by the Cate∣chist, and those, on which they that administred baptisme, are com∣manded to superstruct all the duties of Christian life, Mat. 28.20. teach∣ing them to observe all things which I have commanded you; the authority

of all and each the persons of the Tri∣nity being purposely engaged on this one great interest, and the gathering disciples and receiving of Proselytes over the world, being design'd to this one grand end, of introducing the practise of Christian virtues among men, who doe therefore in baptisme, sacramentally and federally, i. e. under oath and solemnest vow (as they be∣lieve any thing of these fundamental doctrines of God the Father, Son, and holy Ghost) undertake the perfor∣mance thereof, and if they fail there∣in, are the most faithlesse, perjured persons in the world. And certainly this method is in the designe as pro∣bable, (how improsperous soever the wickedness of men hath rendred the successe of it) as any could have been invented to this end.

CHAP. VIII. Of the Creeds in general, and first of the Apostles Creed.

§. 1. THE method now leads from the more compendious, to the larger and fuller view of this foundation, as it is set down in the Creeds of the Church, and first in that which is called symbolum Apostoli∣cum,* 1.53 the Apostolick badge or mark, (a tessera or token of the Apostles having planted the Faith in any Church) the known summarie of that belief, which had been received from the Apostles.

* 1.54§. 2. For although in their Epistles, which were all written to them which were Christians already, there is not to be expected any complete Cata∣logue of those articles, which they had every where taught, because they were supposed by them to be suffici∣ently known, and might briefly be referred to, as such without any per∣fect enumeration, yet in any city or region, where the Apostles came to plant the faith, it is the affirmation of the first writers of the Church, as

frequently appears in Tertullian, Ire∣naeus, &c. (and there is no reason of doubt of the truth of it) that all those articles, which were thought fit to be laid, as the foundation of Christian life, were by them distinct∣ly delivered; And this being a matter of fact, of which (as of the Canon of scripture, or of this or that book in it) only the records, and stories of the first times are competent judges, that Creed which is delivered down to us by the Antient Churches thus plan∣ted (I mean those of the first three hundred years) and by them entituled to the name the Apostles, and ex∣pounded in the homilies of the Fa∣thers, some extant, others mentioned by Ruffinus, illustres tractatores which had gone before him in that work, is in all reason to be deemed the summe of that Foundation. Of this if any farther evidence be necessary, it will be thus easily made up.

§. 3. The time of forming the Nicene Creed, and the occasion of it, (by way of opposition to those here∣sies which had then broken into the Church) is known to every man. Now before this was formed, it is

certain, that † 1.55 all the Churches of the world, both Eastern and Western had a form of confession of Faith, which they had received from their imme∣diate ancestors, and they from the * 1.56 Apostles themselves.

§. 4. And of this there is no place of doubting, but that it was the very same which we now call the Apostles Creed, not only because there was ne∣ver any other assigned by any, or af∣firmed to have had that general re∣ception, but because the testimonies of the Antients are expresly for this. Ruffinus and Vigilius cont: Eutychen testifie clearly for the Western Church, and Ruffinus again, and Cyrill of Jeru∣salem for the Eastern.

§. 5. And Marcellus Bishop of An∣cyra in the Great Councel of Nice, a famous supporter of the true Faith, (and a great sufferer for it) against the Arians, at his taking his leave of

Pope Julius, leaves behinde him the Confession of his faith, which, saith he, he had received 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 from his predecessors in the Lord, And this was the same with that which we now style the Apostles Creed, as appears in that story, set down by Epiphanius haer: 72. All which will receive yet farther force from that known observation of Saint Austines, that what the Ʋniversal Church holds, and hath not been insti∣tuted by Councels, but alwaies retain'd, is with all reason to be believed to have been delivered by tradition Apostoli∣cal, (there being no other so large an Original to which so universal an ef∣fect may be imputed) li. 4. de bapt: cont: Donat: c. 24. especially when to that we adde Tertullians words of this very matter lib. de velandis vir∣gin: Regula quidem fidei una omnino est, sola immobilis & irreformabilis, Credendi scilicet in unicum Deum, omnipotentem, mundi Creatorem, & filium ejus Jesum Christum, natum ex virgine Maria &c. The Rule of faith is altogether one, and that alone immovable, and unreformable, to wit of believing in one only God, omnipo∣tent,

Creator of the world, and in his son Jesus Christ, born of the virgin Mary &c. Which being a summary reference to this Creed, and that re∣solved to be one over all the world, and that unchangeable, must needs be imputed to that Apostolick original, which alone can pretend to that dig∣nity.

* 1.57§. 6. And that every branch there∣of in several, was a fit and proper ground-work of Christian obedience, wherever it were planted, and all to∣gether sufficient to found the refor∣mation of whole cities, and provinces at once, will be discernible by the most cursorie survey.

§. 7. The Articles 1. of God the Father, the * 1.58 Ruler and Creatour of all the world; 2^dly, of God the Son, both in his titles and offices, and in the passages of his storie, from the Assumption of our flesh to his coming again from heaven to be our Judge; and 3^dly, of God, the holy Ghost, being all amassed together, make up this plain sense, that all the divine (and infinitely wise) waies of oeconomie that God in heaven could think fit to use toward a rational creature, to oblige,

and reduce mankinde to that course of living, which is most perfectly a∣greeable to our nature, and by the mercy of God ordinable to eternal blisse, all the most powerful methods of impressing our duty on us, the authority of the God of heaven, who hath soveraign dominion over all, of God the Son, made up of all humble and charitable waies of condescen∣sion, to invite, and yet of all power, and terrors, to constrain, and engage our obedience (to execute vengeance on those that will not be wooed by him) and of God the holy Ghost, who hath ordained a succession of men, from that time to the end of the world, continually to negotiate this one affair of reducing sinners to re∣pentance: All these, I say, have been so solemnly made use of, and impres∣sed by him, that there wants nothing but care and consideration of our own eternal weal, a tolerance or endurance of being made happy here, and blessed eternally, to bring all that have be∣lieved those articles, to forsake their sinful courses, and sincerely to apply themselves to the obedience of Christ.

* 1.59§. 8. The first stone of this foun∣dation is the consideration and ac∣knowledgment of the one eternal God, under those two great relations of a Father and a Prince, and both those founded in his right to the creature by title of creation; And the one belief and acknowledgment of this intitles him, and engages us to a ready voluntary obedience to, and depen∣dence on him, and prepares for such an universal reception of all that shall ever be revealed to be his will, that every presumptuous, known act of prevarication is no lesse then a 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, a rebellion, like that of the old giants, a fighting against God, a con∣testing with heaven, a resisting his will and our own happiness, and that may be one seasonable degree toward the obliging us to piety.

* 1.60§. 9. The second, and that which brings along with it all the force and authority of the former (as the only Son bearing the person, and employed in the Embassie of the Father) is the acknowledgment of Jesus Christ, who, by being sent into the world to be our King or Lord, and by the di∣vine miraculous way of his entrance

into it, the powers and mighty works, and piety of his life, and the stupen∣dious manner of his passage out of the world, to resume, in his humane, as well as divine, nature, that regal power in heaven, which from all eter∣nity belonged to him as God, is fitly qualified, and prepared to take pos∣session of his inheritance, to rule and reign in our hearts by this faith, and so to recall and reduce immediately all, that cordially believe the true God (who now in this gracious paci∣fick manner comes to treat with them) and to convince all the blinde worshippers of Idol false Gods, of the vanity and villany of their former courses, and so to bring them back to their own peace.

§. 10. Thirdly, the acknowledg∣ment of the holy Ghost,* 1.61 in that great office of Paraclete, or Advocate of Christ, convincing the world of the truth, and divine authority of Christ's message, and then commissionating and assisting the Apostles, and their successors in their continued never-ceasing Embassie to us, to pray us in Christ's stead to lay down our wea∣pons of hostility, and to be reconciled

unto God, to live friendly and filially, i. e. obediently before him, What is it but a continued perpetuated voice from heaven, resounding for ever in our ears? as if it were minutely pro∣claimed in thunder from heaven, to give men no rest in their sins, no quiet from Christ's importunity, till they awake from the lethargick sleep, and arise from so dead, so mortiferous a state, and permit him to give them life.

* 1.62§. 11. That which follows of the Holy Catholick Church, As it is (with the rest) an attendant on this article of the holy Ghost, the end of whose descent was to gather a Church or so∣ciety of holy Christian livers over the whole world, so is it the interpretati∣on of those two parts of the mysterie of piety formerly explicated [Christ's being preached among the Gentiles, and believed on in the world] of the 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, 2 Thess. 2.1. the gathering together of a multitude over the world, among Gentiles, as well as Jewes, to that banner set up by Christ, enrolling themselves in his musters, engaging their faithful obedience to him; And if we will not be made

the mark, and aime of all his arrows, be lookt on as the professed opposers of all his methods, and therein of all piety, and of our own souls, we must think our selves obliged to hasten in∣to that number, and that in respect of the holiness, as well as the assemblies, of the practise, as well as the profes∣sion of Christianity.

§. 12. And the consideration and serious belief of this, that God hath taken such care to anticipate, and pre∣vent every man, to draw him early into his Church, there to instruct and oblige him to all Christian perfor∣mance, to give piety the prepossession, before other competitors (homebred lusts or vitious customs of the world) should be able to pretend to him, and so to engage him in holiness first, and then in blisse, is another argument of great energie to work effectually on mankinde, and recommend this obe∣dience unto them.

§. 13.* 1.63 So likewise the 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, which seems to me (and is else∣where explicated) to belong to the communication, Act. 2.42. as that signifies liberality of the Saints which first received the Faith of Christ, and

as it is there explained by their ha∣ving 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 all things common, v. 44. and that again by selling their possessions, and distributing them to all, as every man had need; v. 45. and again by 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, praising God, and having or exercising charity to all the people, v. 47. (ma∣king their liberality a special branch of their Eucharist, their blessing and worshipping of God) as it is an evi∣dence of the great force that the Go∣spel of Christ had then upon men's souls, melting them into that liberal effusion of all that they had, into an absolute contempt of all that is most doted on in the world, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, possessions of all kindes, and by parting with all indefinitely, throw∣ing themselves absolutely upon God's minutely providence for the sustain∣ing of them (which is directly the Merchant's course in the Gospel, sel∣ling all, and buying, at that vast price, the one hidden Jewel which he had found) so is it an engagement to all that will undertake this profession, to come with preparations of minde some way proportionable to these examples, to exercise that charity to

men, and dependence on God in the things of this world, which shall evi∣dence their 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, that the joyes which they depend on are in another world, and that the either having or wanting here, is no other∣wise considerable, then as it is the opportunity of exercising the seve∣ral graces, which are the properest means to exalt and perfect our Na∣ture, and the way to our immor∣tality.

§. 14. As for the other larger no∣tion of this 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, so as to import the spiritual Ʋnion of Faith and Love between all professors of Christianity, and, (as exercises of that) the Communication of the my∣steries (so ordinarily styled 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉) of Prayers, of Fastings, of Tears, of Sufferings, of Rejoicings, of Thanks∣givings, it must be taken in by analo∣gie with this former, and will also fitly be comprehended under the for∣mer article of the Church (and there∣fore it is, that the Nicene Creed sets [the Holy Catholicke Apostolicke Church] in the place of both these) and therefore need not be farther in∣sisted on here.

* 1.64§. 15. The forgiveness of sins, which now follows, is, being rightly under∣stood, the most eminent branch of this foundation, and the removal of an hindrance which might otherwise obstruct all thought or designe of re∣formation, but being misunderstood is rendred instrumental to the most pre∣sumptuous obstinate security in sin.

* 1.65§. 16. Should it be mistaken for an absolute impunity promised freely by God, or absolutely purchased by Christ either for all men indefinitely, or for some special favorites of hea∣ven, without respect to their reforma∣tion or new obedience, it were the di∣rect foundation of all impenitence to all that either had, or believed them∣selves to have their part in it, and might by all carnal men probably be made use of as such.

§. 17. For to a carnal liver, which were once possessed of this perswasi∣on, that all his sins past and future were absolutely forgiven by the tenure of the Gospel, and that without any condition of change required of him, what imaginable motive is there to perswade him to forsake any one sin, to which he hath the slightest tem∣ptation?

When God is once a fa∣vourer of his grossest sins, or of his person in despite of his sins, all the o∣ther Articles of his belief will sound nothing but mercy and promises to him, and accordingly those that have imbibed this error, have extended the influence thereof to the whole Gospel, which they will not allow to contain any thing but promises, and so all the commands of Christ are at once out∣dated.

§. 18.* 1.66 But when it is rightly under∣stood, and confined within those due limits, which the Gospel every where assignes it, 1. to be the pardon of sins past and forsaken (which belongs not either to future sins, or to any that are not reformed) 2^dly, to be the ad∣mission of sinners to repentance, and so, and by no other means, to for∣giveness, (and therefore John's cere∣mony of admitting Proselytes is cal∣led the baptisme of repentance for the remission of sins) 3^dly, to extend no farther to any sort of sins continued in or unforsaken, then as they are re∣concileable with sincere endevours (and use of the means) to forsake and get victory over them (which though it

secure us of God's favour and pardon to our infirmities and ignorances, doth denounce his wrath against our wil∣ful sins) When it is taken with these restraints and conditions on one side, and is then extended (as the general promulgation extends it) to all the sins of every sinner in the world, who shall by repentance and syncerity of change be rendred capable of it, When that which is mistaken to be particular and absolute, is duly un∣derstood to be general, but conditi∣onate (and to belong to none, who shall not perform the condition, i. e. impartially, and syncerely, and uni∣versally reform his waies according to the rules delivered by Christ, his precepts of Christian purity, extend∣ing to the very heart) then is there a sure ground-work laid of renovation and care for our future lives, and all objections removed, that might pro∣bably obstruct that superstructure.

* 1.67§. 19. As long as we are guilty of any past sin, and have no promise (the only due ground of hope) of re∣mission, whatever our future care be, this desperation of successe chills all our industrie,* 1.68 and we sin on, because

we have sinned, we cast off the care of all future thrift, because we are al∣ready bankrupted.

§. 20.* 1.69 So again while we make no distinction of sins, and deem every in∣vincible infirmity or ignorance (from which we have no hope to be freed in this life) to be as dangerous and mortiferous as the most wilful act, or favoured habit of carnality, another face of the same desperation affrights us, and admonisheth us to provide for our ease, when we cannot for our security, deterres from attempting what we cannot finish, and permits us to be carelesse, when we cannot hope to be prosperous in our care.

§. 21.* 1.70 Nay when we undertake the baptismal vow, and enter on this new life, if, as that baptisme cannot be repeated, so it were impossible that any grosser fall after the first repen∣tance could receive any cure or reme∣dy; the experience of our own frail∣ties, and the consideration of the slipperie place we stand on, of the watchfulness of the tempter, and the advantage he hath from a false partie within us, which is alwaies ready to joyn with him, and betray us, and of

the great difficulty, the moral, though not natural, impossibility, that in so long a work, we should continue so vigilant, as to be obnoxious neither to surprise, nor fall, would be apt (like the news of the Anakims in the way) to discourage us from leaving the accustomed familiar wilderness, and undertaking the unknown voiage to that good land, invironed with so many difficulties: An opinion of the fecibleness or succesfulness of the work being as necessary to found a purpose of undertaking it, as either the authority of commands, or the per∣swasiveness of promises, or pungency of menaces, or prospect of mischiefs upon neglect, can be imagined to be.

* 1.71§. 22. But when all these objections are answered, discouragements remo∣ved, difficulties provided for, (as they are by this Article of Remission of sins, duly explained, and superadded to the former branches of the foun∣dation) they to whom all this is re∣vealed and received with an undoubt∣ing faith, if they doe not presently set about so easie, and so happy a task, which hath so many grains of equity and mercy allowed in the weighing

it out unto us, if they will not be directed into a path so plained and smoothed, that the wayfaring men, though fools, shall not erre therein (that weaknesse, or ignorance, or natural de∣fects, or humane frailties, or any thing that includes not unsynceritie and presumptuous going on in sin, shall be reconcileable with their hopes and God's acceptance) must needs ac∣knowledge themselves in the num∣ber of the blinde people that have eyes, of the provokers that shall not, be∣cause they will not, enter into God's rest, of the sinners that have no excuse for their sin.

§. 23.* 1.72 In the next place the Resur∣rection of the body, which includes and supposes a future state of souls after that of this life (for to what purpose should that world of 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, carkas∣ses, arise, if there were not as nume∣rous a world of souls ready to ani∣mate them, and joyn with them in receiving rewards or punishments for all that the souls have acted by those instruments in this life?) is most ne∣cessary to found, and inforce this Re∣novation; For, if there were nothing after this life, if in the death of a man

there were no 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, cure or remedy, Wisd. 2.1. if the premises of the A∣theist in that chapter had truth in them, his conclusion being founded on those premises, it could not be strange, or irrational for him to pro∣ceed, Come on therefore, let us enjoy the good things that are present, v. 6.

* 1.73§. 24. And if, supposing the im∣mortality of the soul, the body were not ascertain'd to return to that old associate, if that 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, that shop or workhouse of the good or evil spirit, should, with all that hath been wrought in it, be consumed e∣ternally, this would take it much out of the care of the soul, either to stop it in its Career of sin, or to mortifie those affections that are in this earthy part, or to spiritualize and replenish it with good works.

* 1.74§. 25. If the upper soul, that hopes to reign in another world, can so farre preserve that degree of supe∣riority and dignity of its nature, as to reprehend and check what is consen∣ted to by the will or middle faculty, in complyance with the flesh, that inferior and brutish, (as it is, as oft as any sin against conscience is com∣mitted,

and can then hope, that after a few years of sensuality, that impor∣tune rebellious servant shall be eter∣nally cast off, drop into a perpetual impassible nothing, take a long pro∣gresse into a land where all things are forgotten (and consequently the good which hath been acted in that flesh, as well as the evil) this would be some colour for that novel perswa∣sion (a fruitful principle of all carna∣lity) that the man may be regenerate in the sight of God, though he be sold under sin, led captive unto the law of sin, which is in the members.

§. 26. But when the prevaricati∣ons and irregularities of the body,* 1.75 which are not subdued, as well as check'd; mortified, as well as disliked by the soul, shall receive their certain payment in the body (reunited on purpose to the soul, that that which hath merited by compliance, may be rewarded by sympathie) when the flames (that by being inflicted on the body are experimented to afflict, and enter into the soul) shall demonstrate to the soul her close concernment in all that is permitted to come so neer her, then it will appear to be every

man's interest to joyn good perfor∣mances to spiritual purposes and re∣solutions, to act, as well as to designe, to subdue and quell the exorbitances of the flesh, as well as to continue the wouldings of the spirit; And this be∣ing absolutely required to the synce∣rity and reality of our repentance and renovation, which consists not in the strife, or wish, or purpose, but in the actual operations of good life, the be∣lief of the resurrection of the body, which is so instrumental and prepa∣rative to this, must needs be funda∣mental to that, which is superstructed on it; and was therefore deemed fit to be first preached to all men, be∣fore strict Christian performances could reasonably be required of them.

* 1.76§. 27. Lastly, the everlasting life both of body and soul in that future state, whether in blisse or woe, hath with all reason been added as the last stone to this foundation, and in it all the promises and terrors of the Go∣spel, to perswade and drive us to re∣pentance.

* 1.77§. 28. Were the state, wherein we expect our reward for the absti∣nencies,

or riots of this present life, under the prejudices of short, or finite, as it hath the disadvantage of absence and futurity, the promises and threats of Christ would lose much of their virtue and energie, and being by their spiritual and invisible nature rendred so faint in the original, and yet (to make them more so) set to sollicite us at a distance, they would want a competent instrument to collect and convey their rayes succesfully, or so as to affect, or impresse the species with any vigor on a dull, and withall prejudicate faculty. We know a life in reversion is not half so valuable, as that which may at present be entred on, and this not only in the opinion of fools, but of the most prudent pur∣chasers; And unlesse there be some∣what in the duration to inhaunse the value, and to he offered in commuta∣tion, and to reward the patience of the present self-denial, heaven it self would be look'd on jealously, as a pro∣ject to deprive us of our present por∣tions to cheat us of our possessions; But when the losse of every present advantage to flesh and blood, is sure to be repaid in a farre nobler coin, and

to continue to be enjoy'd to all eter∣nity, when beside the liberal harvest of satisfactions for any the most tri∣vial losse or suffering, submitted to upon Christ's command or advise (the hundred fold more in this life) we are secured to reap in another world, e∣verlasting unperishable felicities, and when to the empty, nauseous, afflicting pleasures of sin, for some one shortest moment, attended immediately with a farre more durable shame, and then followed with an immortal, endlesse gnawing death (that is all jawes, but no stomach) shall remain (by way of arrear) a sharp, yet sullen payment to all eternity, when every play or jest of sin, shall engage us in that per∣petual earnest, and after the transitory joy is forgotten or loathed, the irrever∣sible sentence of endlesse woe is ex∣pected, instantly and infallibly to come out, and with it an 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 all the store-houses of ease or mercy sealed up, all drops to cool, or oceans to quench our misery; Then certainly upon this perswasion duly rooted (not in the brain but heart) an ordinary orator may suffice to su∣perstruct an admission of the precepts

of Christ, and induce in a rational creature a willingnesse to be happy here (by a patient bearing of a gentle, desireable yoke) that so he may be blessed eternally.

§. 29. And so we have taken a cursorie view of the several Articles of the most antient and shortest Creed, and therein exemplified the propriety of our definition of Fundamentals, and having the Apostles judgment in their preachings to confirm us in the truth, that the laying of so large a founda∣tion was deemed necessary, to their designe of planting the same fruits in all soils, piety, probity, and purity, in a nation of hypocritical Jewes, and a world of Idolatrous polluted Gentiles, we have already shewed how unne∣cessary it is to enquire, whether any single sinner of either of those pro∣vinces might not possibly be reduced to Christian life, without some one of these explicitely and actually conside∣red, and so have no temptation to in∣large this Chapter by any such consi∣deration.

CHAP. IX. Of the Nicene and Athanasian Creeds together; and severally of the Nicene.

§. 1. HAving view'd the Apostles Creed, and of it premised this one thing, that it was a complete Catalogue of all, that they (being di∣rected by the holy Ghost in their mi∣nisterie) thought fit, to lay the foun∣dation of Christian obedience in every Church, and consequently that there was no more, in their opinion, neces∣sary, in order to this end of working reformation in the world;* 1.78 It will from this datum demonstratively follow, either that there is in the two other Creeds, the Nicene, and Athanasian, nothing materially different from that which the Apostles Creed had con∣tained (nothing really superadded to it) or else that that superaddition was not, in the Apostles estimation, neces∣sary to this end, and consequently that if (at the forming of them) it were by the following Church thought necessary to be thus made, or still continues to be so, this must arise

from some fresh emergent, one, or more, which had been observable in the Church after the Apostles time.

§. 2. And which of these two is the truth, it will not be uneasie to define, For though the omission of some words, which had been retai∣ned in the Apostles Creed,* 1.79 doe not signifie much, (for it is certain that they were (while retained in that) and are still, (now they are left out in following Creeds) eternally and un∣questionably true, in the sense, where∣in the Apostles and their successors understood them) nor indeed any more, then that they were virtually contained in other words still con∣tinued (as the descent to hades, under that of his suffering and burial, and not rising till the third day; and the Communication of Saints, under the Catholick Church, with the Epithet of Apostolick added to it) or else that they were not necessary to be re∣peated, because already familiarly known and confessed, and not que∣stion'd by those hereticks, against whom the variations were designed (as in the Athanasian Creed the Ar∣ticles of the holy Ghost, so largely set

down in four branches in the Nicene Creed, and the three Articles atten∣ding that of the holy Ghost, in the A∣postles Creed, are all omitted) yet those words which in the later Creeds were superadded to the former, were apparently designed by the Compilers for some special use, either by way of addition, or interpretation, to fense the Catholick orthodox Faith from the corruptions, and depravations, or else from the doubtings, and contradictions of hereticks.

* 1.80§. 3. Thus in the Nicene Creed, the two additions in the first Ar∣ticle, the [〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, one] prefixed to [God] and the [〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, and of all things visible and invisible] were, upon prudent deliberation and considering, interposed, the first of them on occasion of the Arians, in one respect, and both of them, in an∣other respect, by reason of the Gno∣stick and Valentinian, and such like following hereticks, whose heathen and Poetical Theologie (taken from Hesiod, and Orpheus, and Philistion) had rendred them necessary. For that those hereticks,* 1.81 beginning with their Simon and Helena, had introduced a

plurality of Gods (and so made the Profession of the Ʋnitie, part of the symbolum that should discriminate the Orthodox from them) and affir∣med that their Aeones or Angels were begotten by Helena (Simon's 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉,* 1.82 first cogitation) and that the world was created by them, and that the God of the Jewes was but one of those Angels (and a great deal of the like) appears by Irenaeus, l. 1. c. 22. And these two intersertions were clear explications of the A∣postles old form, God the Father, Ruler of all, Maker of heaven and earth, which sufficiently contained an ac∣knowledgment of the Ʋnitie (for how else could he be monarch, or, Ruler of all?) and also asserted him the Creator of all the Angels (who were certainly comprehended under the heaven and earth, the phrase of Scripture to denote the world) but yet was capable of more light, by these more explicite words (visible and invisible) to exclude the contra∣dictions of hereticks.

§. 4. And though the Creed in the an∣cient Apostolick form were sufficient for any man to believe & professe, yet

when the Church hath thought meet to erect that additional bulwark a∣gainst hereticks, the rejecting (or de∣nying the truth of) those their ad∣ditions, may justly be deemed an in∣terpretative siding with those antient, or a desire to introduce some new he∣resies, And though good life might have been founded without those ad∣ditions if on such occasions they had never been made, yet the pride or singularity (or heretical designe) of opposing or questioning them (now they are framed) being themselves unreconcileable with Christian cha∣rity, and humility, are destructive of the fabrick directly, and interpreta∣tively of the very foundation, and is therefore justly deemed criminous, and lyable to Censures in the Church of God.

* 1.83§. 5. So likewise the Oneness of our Lord Jesus Christ (as before of the Father referring to the several hypostases in the one eternal, indivi∣sible, divine nature, and the eternity of the Sons generation, and his co∣eternity, and consubstantiality with the Father, when he came down from heaven, and was incarnate &c. for us

men peculiarly (not for Angels) and for our salvation; and lastly the per∣petuity of his kingdome added in the close, all these are assertions equiva∣lent to those, which had been before comprised in the antient, more simple, uncompounded article, but were use∣full to be thus enlarged, and explica∣ted, when the Arians opposed the Apostolick tradition, and by corrupt∣ing, detorted the words of scripture to their sense.

§. 6. This is elswhere more large∣ly shewed (in the note on 1 Joh. 5.7.) And all that will opportunely here be added, is onely this, that they which, according to the Apostles de∣positum, or doctrine in every Church, believed the descent, and incarnation of the eternal God, on purpose to re∣scue mankinde from all impurities, to reveal the whole divine will for the regulating mens lives, to attest it by his death, and evidence it by his resurre∣ction, &c. and at last to come to judge the world according to this determi∣nate rule, had all those branches of Christian faith, which were required to qualifie mankinde to submit to Christ's reformation. And 'tis the

wilfull opposing these more explicite articles, the resisting them, when they are competently proposed from the definition of the Church (and not the not-believing them thus explicitly, when either they are not revealed, or not with that conviction, against which he cannot blamelesly and with∣out pertinacy of his will hold out) that will bring danger of ruine on any.

* 1.84§. 7. That which is added of the holy Ghost [the Lord and giver of life, who proceedeth from the Father and the Son, (supposing with the Western Church, that the [Filió{que}] was found in the first copies, and acts of that Councel) who with the Father and the Son together is worshipped and glori∣fied, who spake by the Prophets] is in like manner an enlargement, and ex∣plication of the more brief Apostolick form, and the substance thereof was comprised formerly in that uncom∣pounded style (fitter then for the be∣lief, and memory of all) but was af∣terward prudently enlarged for the repelling, and preventing the poyson of heretical invaders, the Montanists and Macedonians, &c.

§. 8.* 1.85 And so likewise that addi∣tion of the one Baptisme prefixt to the Remission of sins was on purpose design'd against the Novatians, whose pretensions were considered, and con∣demned in the Councel of Nice; The practises of the Churches in receiving those that had fallen into gross sins after baptisme, had been somewhat different, in some parts milder, as in the Church of Rome, in others more rigid; The Church of Rome had given some liberty for the great offenders, murtherers, adulterers, and such as had fallen to Idol-worship, in time of persecution, viz: that after many years penance they might be restored to the Communion, and peace of the Church, without any new baptisme (such as was used in admitting heathens) only by imposition of hands, or absolution; extending the virtue of baptisme for∣merly received, to the washing away of these sins committed after baptism, in case of sincere repentance and for∣saking of them; This the Novatians disliked, and thereupon brake off, and made a schisme in the Church. And the Councel of Nice taking cognizance of the matter, judged against Nova∣tus

and his followers, that there was place for a second repentance, and not only for that first before Baptisme, as appears by the Canons of that Councel. And this was it, that was referred to, in this more enlarged pas∣sage of their Creed, and the use of it thought very considerable for the re∣ducing of lapst Christians, as the A∣postolical article of remission of sins in∣definitely, had been for the attracting heathens. And this, and all the for∣mer additions, being thus setled by the Ʋniversal Church, were▪ and still are, in all reason, without disputing, to be received, and embraced by the present Church, and every meek mem∣ber thereof, with that Reverence that is due to Apostolick truths, that thankfulness, which is our meet tri∣bute to those sacred champions for their seasonable, and provident pro∣pugning of our faith, with such time∣ly, and necessary application to pra∣ctise that the holy Ghost, speaking to us now, under the times of the New Testament, by the Governours of the Christian Churches (Christ's mediate successors in the Prophetick Pastoral, Episcopal office) as he had formerly

spoken by the Prophets of the Old Testament, sent immediately by him, may finde a cheerful audience, and re∣ceive all uniform submission from us.

§. 9. And this is all that is here necessary to be said of this second Creed.

CHAP. X. Of the Athanasian Creed.

§. 1. OF the Athanasian Creed (as it is usually called) two things will be briefly considerable, 1. The doctrine of it, 2. The curses and damnation denounced against those, who doe not entirely maintain it, without the corruptions, and mix∣tures of the hereticks.

§. 2.* 1.86 The Doctrine is (well-nigh all of it) the asserting the Ʋnity of the Divine nature, and the Trinity of hypostases, whether subsistences▪ as the Greek Church called it, or, as the La∣tine, personae, persons in it, and that in opposition to several novel proposi∣tions, which had by hereticks been introduced in the Church, and so, (as the vices of men suggest lawes) oc∣casioned

such explications, and en∣largements. And of these again (much more then of the Nicene superaddi∣tions) it may be reasonably affirmed, that being the explications of a Fa∣ther of the Church, and not of a whole Ʋniversal Councel, or of the Church representative, they were nei∣ther necessary to be explicitly ac∣knowledged, before they were con∣vincingly revealed, nor simply and absolutely imposeable on any particu∣lar man, any farther then he was a member of some Church, which had actually received Athanasius's expli∣cation (as it is apparent the Western Churches did) or then it appeared concordant with the more authentick Ʋniversal Confessions, as every doctri∣nal proposition of it, will be found to doe.

* 1.87§. 3. As for the Censures annext 1. in the beginning [that except a man keep the Catholick faith (of which this is set down, not as the entire form, but an explication, or interpre∣tation of some parts of it) whole and undefiled, he shall doubtless perish ever∣lastingly] 2^dly, in the middle [he that will be saved, must thus think,] and

[it is necessary to everlasting salvati∣on that he also believe rightly in the incarnation &c.] and 3^dly, in the end [this is the Catholick Faith, which ex∣cept a man believe faithfully he cannot be saved] I suppose they must be in∣terpreted by their opposition to those heresies, that had invaded the Church, & w^ch were acts of carnality in them that broached, and maintained them, against the Apostolick Doctrine, and contradictory to that foundation, which had been resolved on, as neces∣sary to bring the world to the obedi∣ence of Christ, and were therefore to be anathematized after this manner, and with detestation branded, and ba∣nished out of the Church; Not that it was hereby defined to be a damna∣ble sin to fail in the understanding, or believing the full matter of any of those explications, before they were propounded, and when it might more reasonably be deemed not to be any fault of the will, to which this were imputable.

CHAP. XI. Of the Superstructure, and the particular branches thereof.

§. 1. HAving thus briefly taken a view of the Foundation, and therein also of the Superstructure generally considered, together with the proprietie that one of these hath toward the other, the doctrines of be∣lief to the renewing of mens lives, I am now by course to proceed to a more particular view of this Super∣structure, and the several branches of it.

* 1.88§. 2. Where first it must be remem∣bred, that the 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 or filling up, which Christ designed, contrary to the 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 dissolving or abrogating of the Law and the Prophets, is farre from evacuating or annulling the ob∣ligation of any one substantial pre∣cept introduced by the Law of Na∣ture or Moses, but coming as an 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 or suppletorie to all former laws, as a new and more perfect correct edi∣tion of the old Codex, as one general Law for the reforming and highten∣ing

of all Laws, is wholly designed, as may be most ordinable to this end.

§. 3. First in filling up vacuities, turning out shadows and ceremonies, by explicite prescription of the sub∣stantial duties, which those shadows did obscurely represent: 2. In bind∣ing some parts of the yoke closer then they were before thought to be bound upon men, extending the precepts farther then they were thought to extend: 3. In raising them to more elevated degrees of perfection, sinking them deeper then the outward actions to the purity of the very heart: and 4. by promises of the most amiable divine, and terrors of the dismall un∣supportable nature, confirming and binding them all upon us, and not al∣lowing us liberty, or impunity in any indulgent transgression of any branch of this Law thus reformed and im∣proved by him.

§. 4. And this being the result of Christ's designe, 1. the production of a 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, an entire new crea∣ture, a new modelling of the whole soul for the whole space of the future life; and 2. the purpose being to people the whole world, i. e. a com∣munity

of men (whose understandings are not generally deep, and so must be wrought on by means proportion∣able to them) with a colonie of such divine new creatures; and 3. the na∣ture of man (as a rational and volun∣tary agent) requiring that all this be done by way of perswasion, not of violence, to preserve their liberty, which alone could render them ca∣pable either of reward or punishment; and 4. the difficulty being so great, and the improbability of attempting this successfully, It was but reason that a large and a solid foundation should be laid, upon which this so important and weighty a fabrick might probably be erected.

§. 5. But though an uniform uni∣versal obedience to the commands of Christ, which contains every specialty under it (and is not reconcilable with our partiality, the 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, ac∣cepting, as it were, of the person of any sin or virtue, the preferring any one duty to the prejudice of any o∣ther) be that which alone can own the title of the Christian superstru∣cture, without which completely e∣rected, no enumeration of particular

duties will be sufficient, Yet some specialties there are which have a greater propriety to this title,* 1.89 then some others, and to which our Chri∣stian institution gives us more pecu∣liar obligations, And it will not be amisse to mention some of these.

§. 6. First Piety (the Love, and Fear, and Obedience, and Faith, and Worship of the one true God) in oppo∣sition 1. to Idolatry, 2. to Formality, 3. to Hypocrisie, on one side; and then I. to Sacrilege, 2. to Profane∣ness, or Impiety, on the other side;

§. 7. First Piety,* 1.90 or the worship of the true God, the Creator of the world, the God of Israel, as that is opposed to the Idol-worship, whether of devils and souls of men (in the rites of whose religion many of the vilest sins of carnality and luxury were practised) and to the adoration of livelesse, breathlesse pictures, and images, so it is the reforming of the vices, and sottishness that had long overspread the infatuated Gentile world, and so a prime branch of that designe of Christ's coming, and of his sending his Disciples to all nations, to awake them out of this dead sleep, and Le∣thargie

of soul, and by the knowledge of the true God, to bring them to the imitation of, and dependence on him.

* 1.91§. 8. Secondly, as Piety is opposed to slight, negligent, external formal performances, so is it the necessary Christian virtue, proportioned ad∣equately to the omniscience and spiri∣tuality of that infinite deity, the be∣lief whereof is laid as a prime part of the Foundation. And though that in∣ward warmth, if it be any whit in∣tense, will necessarily extend it self to the outward man (as motion that be∣gins in the centre, naturally diffuses it self, and affects uniformly, and shakes every part to the circumference) and consequently oblige the body to at∣tend the soul in all reverences of ad∣dresse to that awfull Majestie, who hath full title to the obediences of ei∣ther (and this, in this conjunction, is farre from meriting any unkinde cen∣sure, or jealousie, the very bodily exer∣cise being affirmed by S. Paul to be 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, profitable for a little, and the fasts, and austerities that were to attend the departure of the Bridegroom, being of this nature directly, and so the Publican's smiting

on his brest being added to his prayer for mercy, on which Christ bestowed that Eulogie) Yet if, as insectile ani∣mals, for want of blood, run all out into legs, so the want or chilness of devotion, and not the intension of it, be that which casts the body into the solemn demure postures; if, is Julian reproacheth Christianity, the striking of the breast, and shaking of the head, the formal outward humiliations be all the zeal and piety of the Christi∣an, this is no farther then Ahab's soft pace, no part of that reformation, that Christ came to work, none of that worship in the spirit, which is the tribute required in the daies of the Messias, and that which the Spiritu∣ality of God, to whom the addresses are made, and of the promises, which are rewards proportioned to our spi∣rits, most strictly exact from us.

§. 9. Thirdly, as Piety is opposed to Hypocrisie and unsincerity,* 1.92 and all falsness or foulness of intensions, espe∣cially to that personated devotion, un∣der which any kinde of impiety, op∣pression, rapine, sedition, &c. is wont to be disguised, and put off more. speciously, so is it a special part of

this superstructure, and as the defi∣ning or opining Godliness to be gain, 1 Tim. 6.5. hath the brand and re∣proach of an heresie, quite contrary to the Christian doctrine and practise, so certainly the designing our obedience to any part of Christ's precepts, as the means to gain to our selves, and de∣fraud others, to sin more securely be∣fore God, or unsuspectedly before men, is of all things most unrecon∣cileable with Christianity; And that so little of this sincere piety is to be met with in the world, the reason is clear, because Christianity is so farre from having its perfect work upon mens hearts, our brains and our tongues being the only parts, that are ordinarily taken up and possessed with it.

* 1.93§. 10. Fourthly, the true Christi∣an Piety looks upon sacrilege with a more perfect aversation, then any for∣mer religion hath done; The first ef∣flux of men's piety after receiving of the faith was the selling, and conse∣crating their possessions, Act. 2. and the detaining of any such sacred por∣tion is looked on (and punished se∣verely) as the defrauding of the Spi∣rit

of God, c. 5.3. And the zeal that is so exhausted, and layed out in animo∣sitie to Idols and Sabbath-breaking, that it can easily support, and put over the Golden wedge, and the Trea∣sures of the Temple, and so likewise the 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, the cheap, charge∣lesse piety that brings no tribute to the offerings of God, (to which anti∣ently it was a scandalous thing for any man to approach empty) that of∣fers all its sacrifices to the Lord, of that which costs it nothing, is farre from any semblance of the Christian reformation, is not ascended so farre as the Natural, the Mosaical, the Heathen, the Mahomedan piety, and is a work of more then Aegyptian darkness, that the excess of light hath brought into the world.

§. 11. Fiftly, the Christian piety is, beyond all other things,* 1.94 diame∣trally opposed to Profaneness & Im∣piety of actions, that 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, noonday Devil, that sins bare∣faced and confident before the eye of heaven, that of the practical Atheists, the 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, which though they acknowledge God in the Creed, yet reject and abandon him in their

actions, and either as Jews, candidates of an earthy Canaan, or as Turks of a carnal paradise, live as if there were never a God in this world, and never a life after it, whatsoever proportion of the foundation is laid in their brains, have none of the superstru∣cture in their hearts.

* 1.95§. 12. A second specialtie, which hath a considerable propriety to this title, is, Obedience to superiors, which though founded in the Law of the first creation, and afterward precisely com∣manded by Moses, hath this note of eminence (above what was formerly) set on it by Christianity, that it is 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, a prime commandment, the very title bestowed by Christ on the love of God, Mat. 22.38. Mar. 12.30. and that with promise (for that it was not the first commandment with promise, is evident by the second of the Decalogue, which hath a pro∣mise annexed to it) and it is a com∣pound of three of those virtues, to which the Beatitudes are peculiarly assigned by Christ, Mat. 5. of Meek∣ness, and Peaceableness, and suffering for righteousness sake, and this bound indefinitely, not only on all under

subjection, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 &c. saith S. Chrysostome, though they be Apostles, or Bishops, or any the most sacred per∣sons; and extended as indefinitely 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, to the most heathen, provoking, oppressing, (as long as they be lawful) powers; and lastly this duty is inlarged by Christ so as to belong to Ecclesiastical (as well as to Civil) superiors, who having the Keyes committed to them by Christ, as to the oeconomi or stewards of his familie, though they be not armed with the secular sword, or any carnal weapons of their warfare, yet obedience is a tribute that belongs to them, Heb. 13. v. 17. as to those that are to give account for mens souls, which they could not be supposed to doe, if they had not authoritie over them: And therefore to make Religion a strata∣gem to undermine, or a banner under which to oppose and violate govern∣ment, is a thing most contrary to this superstructure, most scandalous and reproachful to Christianity.

§. 13. Thirdly, Charitie to all sorts,* 1.96 to all mankinde, to neighbours, to strangers, to our own, and even to God's enemies, Charitie of all sorts, of

giving, of forgiving, of loving, bles∣sing, praying for, of mercy to bodies, of relief to estates, but especially of admonition, and reprehension to souls; Charitie in opposition to injustice, coveting and defrauding others, to faction, division, civil intestine broils, schismes and ruptures in a Church (that special piece of carnalitie, 1 Cor. 3.3.) to judging, anathematizing, damning, denying the peace of the Church to them that are qualified for it; and lastly to all guilt and thirst of blood, all capital punishing of any, but capital malefactors, is a third spe∣cialty of this superstructure, as cer∣tain a badge of this sinking down of Christianity into the heart, as the A∣postolical symbole is of the preaching the Faith among us.

* 1.97§. 14. Fourthly, Puritie is a spe∣cial part of this superstructure, and the circumcision of the heart, the re∣gulating and restraining of all de∣sires of the Flesh within the known limits of conjugal or virginal Cha∣stitie; And this in opposition to 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 of all sorts, the unnatural, ince∣stuous, adulterous conjunctions, those before mariage, or after divorce, and

to the several degrees of these in the very eye (and all that is proportion∣able to that) Mat. 5.28. but especial∣ly in the heart v. 8. And whatsoever mens faith, or their patience, or per∣severance were, any remarkable in∣dulgence to this sin, the seduction of Balaam (in the matter of Peor) or the deeds of the Nicolaitans, Rev. 2.3. were sure to bring judgments and curses upon those first daughters of Christ's love, and if not timely repen∣ted of and reformed, will in all pro∣bability be revenged with the remo∣val of the Candlestick, ploughing up the very foundation, the Profession of the Christian faith in those National Churches that are still in any eminent manner guilty of it. The judgments of God, and utter destructions of ma∣ny Nations, not only those that were rooted out for the implanting of the Jewes, but even of all the Monarchies which are mentioned either by way of story, or prediction in the scripture, are so signally discernible to have been the reward of this sort of sins, espe∣cially of the unnatural Sodomitical impurities; and the honourableness of mariage in all (in order to the avert∣ing

the 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, dishonourable af∣fections, Rom. 1.) is so solemnly re∣commended in the New Testament (in opposition to the impure Gnostick heresie, that was so unkinde to mari∣age, as to make it a work of the De∣vil) that it may be a very opportune caution to all Christian Churches, and Magistrates, not to impose celibacie on whole callings, and great multi∣tudes of men or women, who cannot be discernible or supposeable to have the gift of continence, Nor yet by offering worldly rewards and advan∣tages to all that shall deprive them∣selves of that honourable remedy, to invite the rashest or the worst of men into that state of continual tempta∣tions, which hath caused the shipwrack of so many.

* 1.98§. 15. Fiftly, Contentedness is most eminently one of these specialties, and that both as it is opposed to ambition, covetousness, injustice, uncontentedness, (each of which is a most unchristian sin) and also as it is the maintaining and establishing of Propriety in the world, which though it be not of any huge importance in respect of any considerable advantages, that wealth

and honour can help a Christian to, (who is, or ought to be, raised by Christ to a contempt, and superiority over such mean empty acquisitions as these) yet, as the disturbances which questions of right never fail to bring along with them, are very unhappy, and innumerable, and endless, so the inestimable benefit of peace, and quiet, and vacation for piety, and the instru∣mentalness of riches to works of cha∣rity (even above that more perfect way of absolute despising of wealth, which by giving all at once, disables for many thousand future charities) have rendred it very politick and ne∣cessary in every Christian Common∣wealth, by Laws to settle, and secure Propriety, which he that hath learnt with S. Paul to be content in whatso∣ever estate, will never attempt to in∣vade or violate.

§. 16.* 1.99 Many other branches of this superstructure there are, which it can∣not be necessary to mention here, but above all the taking up of the Cross and following Christ with it on our shoulders: And the vigorous inde∣vour to cast it off from our own shoulders, to fasten it on other mens,

and to shake the foundations of Go∣vernment, in order to any such at∣tempt, is most diametrally contrary to the true Christian temper, an en∣mitie to the cross of Christ.

CHAP. XII. Of the Doctrines that hinder the super∣structing of good life on the Christi∣an belief, first among the Romanists, a Catalogue of them, especially that of the Infallibility of the Church, 2. Among others, 1. that of the So∣lifidian.

§. 1. I Come now to consider what Doctrines there are, infused (discernibly) among Christians, which are most apt to frustrate the fore∣mentioned method, to obstruct, or in∣tercept the cordial superstructing of Christian life, or Renovation, where the Foundation is duly laid. For sup∣posing the Articles of our Christian Faith to be completely taught, and undoubtedly believed, and so the foundation to be purely laid accord∣ing to the Apostles platform; And supposing farther that the several

forementioned branches of the super∣structure be so farre taught and belie∣ved also, as that they are not doubt∣ed to be the virtues prescribed, and preached to men by Christ, It is yet possible, that after all this, some o∣ther Doctrines may inconveniently in∣terpose, and intercept the uses and aimes, to which God hath designed the Faith, and at once obstruct the superstructing of all Christian life up∣on it.

§. 2.* 1.100 Of this sort the Catalogue is (or soon may be) farre larger, then will be fitly inserted in this place. For upon this occasion we might be engaged to enter on the examinati- of the Romish doctrines, 1. of Penan∣ces, 2. of Indulgences, 3. of the Trea∣sury of the Church, made up (beside the blood of Christ) of the supereroga∣ting merits of some, and applied to the benefit, and pardon of others, 4. of the Improvableness of Attrition into Contrition, by the Priests ayde, with∣out the sinners change of life, 5. of Purgatory, 6. of Dispensableness of Oathes, 7. of Arts of Equivocation, 8. of Cessation of Allegiance in sub∣jects to an heretical Prince, and some

others the like; but especially of the Infallibility,* 1.101 and inerrableness, which is assumed, and inclosed by the Ro∣mish Church, without any inerrable ground to build it on, and being taken for an unquestinable Principle, is (by the security it brings along with it) apt to betray men to the foulest whether sins, or errors, when∣soever this pretended Infallible guide shall propose them; And seeing it is just with God to permit those, which thinke they stand so surely, to fall most dangerously, and because what some witty, and subtile men of this, and former ages have been experi∣mented to fall into, may in the fu∣ture possibly become the Romanists case, and because the Assuming of Infallibility is by way of interpreta∣tion the presuming, and affirming e∣very thing to be infallibly true, and good, which they shall ever believe, or teach de fide, or pronounce to be duty (and there is nothing so † 1.102false, or sacrilegious, but it is possible they may

thus teach, or pronounce of it) for these reasons, I say, it will be impos∣sible to free this Doctrine of theirs, which hath so vast, and comprehen∣sive an influence on the opinions and actions of all who have espoused it, from the guilt, of which now we speak, that of hindring the super∣structing of Christian life, and the se∣veral branches thereof, on the Foun∣dation.

§. 3.* 1.103 And if (as the Jesuites define) this Infallibility of the Church be sup∣posed to be seated in the persons, or chair, or succession of Popes, 'tis pre∣sently obvious and clear, that as Al∣main, and Ocham have not thought it irreverent to averre that any such person is deviabilis, haereticabilis, A∣postatabilis, damnabilis, liable to er∣rour,

heresie, Apostasie, damnation it self, So they that believe him an in∣fallible guide, must in consequence to their opinion, if they pursue it, follow him to all these dangers; And when Pope Steven hath been by S. Cyprian accused of heresie, Pope Liberius by S. Athanasius, Pope Honorius by all Christians, when the chairs of those Bishops, which have not secured their persons from notorious impiety of li∣living, that fouler guilt then heresie, (〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, a species of Atheisme, as † 1.104 Nilus truly saith on this occasi∣on) can with no more pretence, or colour of proof secure them from de∣fining of errors, or tolerating of sins, and when the writers of their lives, Onufrius, and Platina, who have told us, how much more then possible the former is, (relating the incests, witch∣crafts, cruelties of Alexander the sixt, the Idolatrous sacrifices of Mar∣cellinus, Coelestins applications to the devil in pursuit of the Papacy, and his disclaiming his part in heaven, so he might obtain that earthy dignity) have given us reason to foresee the possibility also, and all the ill conse∣quences, and aboads of the latter, It

cannot be temerarious or unreasonable to affirm, that what hath been, may be, and in like manner, that the do∣ctrines of any antient heretick may, in some new shape, be imbibed by a Cardinal, and being so, may not for∣sake him when he is made Pope, but beget a desire very consequent to his belief, an appetite of propagating his perswasions, and so that Practises may be allowed, and Articles taught by the Pope, most contrary to the design of this foundation, and the Church that hath imposed on her sons the belief of her Infallibility, draw all that understand it in this sense (for I see another is now affixt to it by some Romanists) and pay this ready obedience to it, into the same snare of heresie, or Impiety, or both.

§. 4.* 1.105 For of this we have too fre∣quent experience, how hard it is to dispossesse a Romanist of any doctrine, or practise of that present Church, for which he hath no grounds either in Antiquity, or Scripture, or Rational deductions from either (but the con∣trary to all these) as long as he hath that one hold, or fortresse, his per∣swasion of the Infallibility of that

Church, which teacheth, or prescribeth it. And indeed it were as unreason∣able for us to accuse, or wonder at this constancy in particular super∣structed errors, be they never so ma∣ny, whilst the 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, this first great comprehensive falsity is main∣tained, as to disclaim the conclusion, when the premises, that duly induce it, are embraced. And then that o∣ther errors, and guilts of the highest nature neither are, nor shall be en∣tertained by those, that are thus qua∣lified for them, must sure be a felicity (to which this doctrine hath no way intitled them) and that for which they can have no security for one hour, but by renouncing that prin∣ciple (which equally obligeth to the belief of truths, and falshoods) em∣bracing of commendable, and vitious practises, worshipping of Christ in Heaven, and under the species of bread, the son, and of the mother of God, when they are once received, and proposed to them by that Church.

§. 5. But in stead of any fuller view of these, I shall mention some few of those, which our closer, and later experience hath made most fa∣miliar

to us, and given us reason to look on with a quickness of sense, and dread, but those such, as being not entred into the Confessions of any national Church, are not properly chargeable either on Papists, or Pro∣testants, but on particular dogmati∣zers on both parties, From whom the doctrines being infusible into all, it will be more necessary to forewarn all of the danger of them.

§. 6. Such is first the perswasion of the Solifidians,* 1.106 that all religion con∣sists in believing aright, that the be∣ing of Orthodox (as that is opposed to erroneous) opinions, is all that is on our part required, to render our con∣dition safe, and our persons acceptable in the sight of God.

§. 7. This is a perswasion frequent∣ly observable in those that are for∣ward to separate from all, who differ in matters of Doctrine from them, who place sanctity in their opinions (as generally hereticks doe) and make the dissents of other men, the chara∣cters of animal, carnal Gospellers: And the influence of this on the mat∣ter in hand [the superstructing Chri∣stian life upon our Faith] is most

evident, For if we should give that perswasion of theirs the greatest ad∣vantage, and suppose the doctrines, in the belief of which they place so much efficacie, to be these very fun∣damental Doctrines, which this Dis∣course hath defined and specified, yet in case the believing of those aright be conceived the one and onely ne∣cessary to salvation, it is evident that the superstructing of good life (the thing to which those doctrines relate, and in respect of which they are sty∣led Fundamental) is ipso facto become unnecessary.

§. 8. For when it shall be once re∣solved that Orthodox opinions are able to secure men of God's favour, and (that being assumed as a prin∣ciple) the search of them, being a work of the brain, shall generally be discernible (as Aristotle observes of the study of the Mathematicks) to have nothing repugnant to passions in it, and when those articles of belief are conveyed to us with such evi∣dence that we have no temptation to doubt of the truth of them, what ar∣gument is there remaining to any ra∣tional man, which can move him so

superfluously, and unnecessarily to set upon that more laborious, and un∣grateful task of mortifying lusts, of subduing of passions, of combating and overcoming the world, of offering vio∣lence to his importunate, vigorous, carnal appetites? If he that is to be baptized, might be admitted to that state of justified Christians, (and therein to a right of inheriting the kingdome of heaven) by a profession of the Articles of his Creed, and an un∣doubted perswasion and belief of the truth of them, what an impertinent tyrannie were it to increase his bur∣then, to refuse and delay his admission, till he should undertake the whole vow, of forsaking the Devil and all his works, of keeping God's holy will and commandements, and walking in the same all the daies of his life? What use even of Prayer, of the Sacra∣ments, of Charity, of Faith it self, in any other notion but that, wherein he considers it and thinks himself assu∣redly possessed of it?

§. 9. The issue is clear, the Solifi∣dian looks upon his Faith or Articles of his belief, as the intire structure, not as the Rudiments or Foundation,

as the utmost accomplishment and end, and not only as the first elements of his task; and so this Perswasion of his most unhappily, but most regu∣larly, obstructs and intercepts the building any more upon it, which, if he conceived himself no farther ad∣vanced, then the laying a few stones, a bare Foundation, he would rational∣ly think himself engaged and obliged to prosecute to a farre greater per∣fection.

§. 10. Hitherto we have considered this perswasion of the Solifidian at the best and fairest advantage, and sup∣posed the Opinions, on which he so relies, to be the true, Christian, Apo∣stolical, and Fundamental Opinions; But if we should proceed farther and consider how many other opinions there are abroad in the world, which being neither Fundamental, nor Apo∣stolical, nor arrived so farre as to any fair probability of truth, doe yet pre∣tend to be the only sanctified neces∣sary doctrines, and such, as every man that believes them is a pure Christian professor, and whosoever questions or examines the truth of them, is to be look'd on as a carnal Gospeller (whose

arguments, though never so unan∣swerable, are to be resisted, as so many temptations) and many of these in their own nature (over and above this Pharisaical opinion of the san∣ctitie of them) very apt to intermit our watch, to slacken our diligence, to give a Supersedeas to industrie, it would be most evident that the So∣lifidian's perswasions doe most direct∣ly and immediately resist God's prin∣cipal design in revealing his truths, obstruct the superstructure of Chri∣stian life on this Foundation.

§. 11. But I shall not inlarge on the mention of these, any farther then they are likely to fall under some o∣ther head of this insuing discourse. Mean while it is worth remembring, what Epiphanius observes of the Pri∣mitive times, that wickedness was the only heresie, that 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 and 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, impious and pious living divided the whole Christian world into Erroneous and Orthodox, by which we are ad∣vertised, how farre we are from per∣forming the engagements of our Chri∣stianity, if we insist so passionately, or so intently on the truth of our be∣liefs, as not to proceed to as vigorous

a pursuit of all just, sober, and godly living, to a strict uniform Regulation of our practise, according to the obli∣gations of our most holy Faith.

CHAP. XIII. Of the Fiduciarie.

§. 1. THE second obstructive, which I shall mention, is that of the Fiduciarie,* 1.107 that having resolved Faith to be the only instrument of his ju∣stification, and excluded good works from contributing any thing toward it, proceeds to define his Faith to be a full perswasion, that the promises of Christ belong to him, or an assurance of his particular election; Which he that doth, and seriously believes him∣self to conclude aright, that he is a true believer, or that the only thing which he is obliged to acquire and arrive to, is this kinde of full assu∣rance, as it excludes all fear or doubt∣ing of his estate, and yet farther as∣serts (as many doe) the prioritie of it (in order of time) before repentance, and so obliges himself to be sure of his election and salvation, before he

repents or amends his life, is fortified and secured by this one deceipt from all obligation that Christian religion can lay upon him to superstruct Chri∣stian practise, or holy living upon his Faith.

§. 2. For 1. if assurance of his good estate be the one necessary,* 1.108 then it is evident that good life, which is a thing formally distinct from that assurance, is not necessary: 2. If his estate be already safe (and if it be not, then his believing it, is the believing a lie, and God's command to believe, is a com∣mand to believe a lie, and so one man is justified and saved meerly by giving credit to a falsitie, and all others re∣jected and damned barely upon their not believing the like falsitie) then it needs no assistance or supply from good life to make it a good estate, or give him grounds to believe it such: 3. If he be justified before he repents and amends his life, then nothing can hinder the continuance of his justified estate, in case he doe not repent at pre∣sent, nor intercept his salvation, in case he doe never repent; and this, not onely by force of that maxime gene∣rally received by these Fiduciaries,

that he that is once justified can never be unjustified, nothing can separate him from the favour of God, or in∣terscind his justified estate, but, with∣out that auxiliarie, by all rules of discourse and consequence, for he that is this day in a good estate without re∣pentance, may be so to morrow by the same reason, and so on, to the last day and hour of his life; Repentance will be no more necessary to the continu∣ance, then to the inchoation of his good estate.

* 1.109§. 3. Or if amendment and good life be affirmed necessary in order to the approving of his faith or justi∣fication either to himself or others, though not to his justification it self, 1. this cannot be reconciled with the Fiduciaries doctrine,* 1.110 For his Faith being a full assurance, includes that approbation of his justification to him∣self, and so he that hath that already, needs not good life to help him to it, and for the approving it to others, that is perfectly extrinsecal, and un∣necessary, and impertinent to his justi∣fication, either in the sight of God, or in his own eyes; for as God judgeth not as man judgeth, so neither can

man's disapproving of any man, be a just reason to move him, who belie∣veth he sins and renounces the faith, if he permit himself to doubt, to ad∣mit any the least beginning of doubt of the goodness of his estate, or truth of his justification: And 2^dly, 'tis God's justification, God's pardon of sin,* 1.111 the promise, or hope of which hath sufficient power to perswade carnal men to forsake sin, and enter the rules of Christian life, and not the appro∣bation of men.

§. 4. 3^dly,* 1.112 In case the Fiduciarie were in the right (as he must be sup∣posed to think himself to be) the men that did not believe him justified, should be unrighteous judges, passing a judgment contrary to God's judg∣ment, and why should the Fiduciarie that supposeth himself to be appro∣ved of God without Repentance, take such pains to approve himself to man's judgment, which the Apostle disclaims being judged by, Rom. 8.33.

§. 5. 4^thly,* 1.113 How can it reasonably be said that good life is necessary to ap∣prove our justification or our Faith, when good life is acknowledged to have nothing to doe in the matter of

justification, and when Faith is so de∣fined as it hath no connotation of re∣pentance or good life? If Faith be a full perswasion of my being justified, the only humane way for me to ap∣prove this to others, i. e. to make o∣thers believe that I am thus perswa∣ded, is to testifie it by word or oath, which is the one means agreed on be∣twixt men to make faith of the truth of any thing which no man knows but my self (and if man were suppo∣sed to know it, it would follow that I should not need means to induce that approbation.)

§. 6. The one other imaginable means of approving it to man, were the testimonie of God either by voice from heaven, or by some other like means of Revelation, or by my doing miracles in God's name, which might impresse some image of divine autho∣rity and veracity upon me; And so still good life is not the proper means for that end of approving us to men, especially if others believe what the Fiduciarie doth, that Faith may be without good works, and good works, as farre as to the eye of man, without Faith, for that being granted it fol∣lows

necessarily, that one cannot prove or approve the other.

§. 7.* 1.114 Thus did the Jew by saying and thinking that he had Abraham to his Father, perswading himself of his particular irrespective election, think it safe first, and consequently prudent to run into all foul sins, and no more to think himself obliged or concerned by John Baptist's, or Christ's, or his Apostles perswasions to bring forth fruits of amendment, immediately before the judgments of God came out against that people, then he had been all the time before; Nor could his belief of God, his expectati∣on of another life (allowed by the Pharisees) his obscure belief in the Messiah promised, the Law, the Pro∣phets, the descent of God from heaven, the raising Jesus from the dead, pre∣vail or gain in upon him, as long as he continued to conceive these pri∣vileges of Abraham's sons to belong unto him.

§. 8.* 1.115 And in like manner the Chri∣stian professor, who hath imbibed this Fiduciarie doctrine, and is confident of his present and unperishable right in the favour of God, when he com∣mits

those sins against which the Go∣spel denounces, that they which doe those things shall not inherit the king∣dome of God, he is, if he acknowledge that part of the Gospel, and retain the belief of his personal election, necessi∣tated to believe those acts, when com∣mitted by him, to cease to be those sins which they would be, when ano∣ther man committed them; And then what necessity soever lies on him that hath that guilt upon him to reform the sins that contract that guilt, he which is supposed not guilty, cannot be so obliged, and 'tis hard to imagine what possible consideration, what mes∣senger from the dead should be able to perswade him to repent, till he hath deposited that premature perswasion of his being in Christ.

* 1.116§. 9. One special ground of the Fiduciaries mis-perswasion is the Do∣ctrine of God's giving Christ for all the Elect, and for none but them, all others being supposed to be left by God in a state of absolute destitution, and dereliction, upon no other fore∣seen demerit, but only the guilt of A∣dam's sin imputed to them, and not removed by Christ.

§. 10. And upon that Doctrine imbibed, 1. it is not unreasonable or difficult for him that is thus perswa∣ded, that supposes his danger to flow from no real sin, or guilt of his own, but only that which being committed by another is imputed to him, to be∣lieve that there is nothing required of him (neither repentance nor good works) but only a full assurance of his own being elected, and rescued in Christ, i. e. a believing his own wishes (an aerial, magical faith) to work his deliverance for him.

§. 11. 2^dly, What should make it necessary for him to repent and amend, who either without respect to any de∣gree of amendment, is supposed to be elected to eternal blisse, or without re∣spect to sin, to be irreversibly reproba∣ted, i. e. to any person thus conside∣red, either as elect, or left, reprobate, and non-elect in the whole masse of lapst mankinde?

§. 12. Nay I might adde, what ob∣ligation can lie on any man so much as to believe (whatsoever the notion of faith be, even to believe he shall be saved) when 'tis supposed by him to be certainly decreed that he shall

be saved, without foresight of, or re∣spect unto this Faith of his?

* 1.117§. 13. Upon these premises it can∣not be unreasonable to conclude, and useful farther to take notice in the next place, that these two doctrines, 1. of Christ's dying for none but the Elect; 2. of God's absolute irrespective decrees of Election and Reprobation, are inconvenient interpositions, which are most apt to obstruct and hinder the building of good life, even where the Foundation thereof is received intire∣ly, and not questioned in any part thereof, Of which I shall therefore farther treat in the two next Chapters.

§. 14. Mean while, as an appendix to this Chapter, it will be just to take notice, that some men have thought it necessary, in the definition of Faith, to change the [Full Assurance] into a milder style of [Relyance] which if it be not joyned with other changes in that doctrine,* 1.118 as in that particular of the Priority of Faith before Repen∣tance, 'tis certainly 1. as erroneous, 2. as liable to the charge of obstruct∣ing good life, as that other doctrine of Assurance hath appeared to be.

* 1.119§. 15. For the first, where there is

no divine Promise, on which to relie, (as to the unreformed sinner remain∣ing such, the whole Bible affordeth none) there what is reliance, but pre∣sumption, reliance on a broken reed, a building, without a foundation? Whereas on the other side if any promise were producible, whereon it were safe to relie, what scruple could the Christian there make against en∣tertaining the fullest assurance? for that without question will be suppor∣ted abundantly by such a promise.

§. 16. For the second, 'tis visible,* 1.120 He that continues unreformed and im∣penitent in his course of sin, and is by the preacher induced to Relie on Christ for his salvation, and is farther taught, that this Reliance is that Faith by which he is justified, and the one thing, that is required of him to his salvation, what necessity can be imagined to lie on that man to re∣form or amend any vice, or to doe any thing, but relie on Christ for the pardon of it, for justification and sal∣vation? 'Tis superfluous to pursue this any farther, which so discernibly falls under the inconveniences that have been shewed to belong to As∣surance,

and are mention'd in the former part of this Chapter, too large∣ly to be here repeated.

CHAP. XIV. Of Christ's dying for none but the Elect.

§. 1. NOW for that doctrine of Christ's dying for none but the Elect, i. e. (according to the opi∣nion of those which thus teach) for a small remnant of the world, As it is asserted without any pretense or co∣lour of scripture-proof, nay in oppo∣sition to as plain distinct affirmations as can be produced for any Article in the Creed, so is it of very ill conse∣quence to the superstructing of good life.

* 1.121§. 2. That Christ's dying for all is the expresse doctrine of the scripture, is elsewhere manifested by the phra∣ses of the greatest latitude, used in this matter, 1. 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 the world, which is a word of the widest extent, and although it be sometimes used more restrainedly, yet never doth, nor can in any reason be interpreted

to signifie a farre smaller dispropor∣tionable part of the world: Secondly, All, which word, though it be some∣times restrained by the matter, and doth not alwaies signifie every per∣son or thing, yet generally it must be extended as farre as the matter is capable of, and must not be restrained without some considerable reason for doing so: Thirdly, Every man, a form of speaking which excludes all exceptions, of which some general phrases are oft capable: Fourthly, those that perish, those that are damn∣ed, those that deny Christ, and pur∣chase to themselves swift damnation, which being added to the number of those which are saved by his death, and acknowledged by all opposers to be so, make up the whole unlimi∣ted number of all mankinde: Fiftly, as many as are fallen in Adam and dead through him, which phrase is by all, but Pelagius and his followers, supposed to comprehend every son of Adam, every branch of his progenie.

§. 3. And accordingly,* 1.122 though the Apostles Creed make no other men∣tion of this, then is contained in sty∣ling Jesus Christ, our Lord, i. e. the

Lord (by title of Redemption) of us all indefinitely, and particularly of every person, who is appointed to make that confession of his faith, i. e. every one that is admitted to ba∣ptisme, yet the Nicene Creed hath in∣serted some words for the farther explication of that Article, [Who for us men and for our salvation came down—] which signifie all mankinde to have their interest in it.

* 1.123§. 4. Nay if it be observed in the Apostles Creed, that the two first ar∣ticles are corresponding and proporti∣onable one to the other, (to [God] in the first Article, [Jesus Christ] in the second; to [Father almighty] in the first, [his only son] in the second; to [maker of heaven and earth] in the first, [our Lord] in the second) we shall have reason to inferre that as [heaven and earth] in the first Ar∣ticle signifie in the greatest latitude, all and every creature in the world to have been created by that Father, so the [Our] in the second Article is set to denote all and every one of us, every man in the world, without any exception, to be redeemed by God the Son.

§. 5.* 1.124 And accordingly the Cate∣chisme of the Church of England esta∣blished by Law, and preserved in our Liturgie as a special part of it, ex∣pounds the Creed in this sense, I be∣lieve in God the Father which made me and all the world; 2. In God the Son who redeemed me and all mankinde; 3. In God the Holy Ghost who sancti∣fieth me and all the elect people of God; Where, as Creation is common to more creatures then redemption, and redemption then sanctification; so Mankinde, to which Redemption be∣longs, as it is farre narrower then the world, or the works of God's creation, so is it farre wider then the catalogue of all the Elect people of God, to whom sanctification belongs.

§. 6.* 1.125 So in other parts of our Li∣turgie, in Consecrating the Eucharist, we have this form of prayer, Al∣mighty God—which — didst give thine only son Jesus Christ to suffer death upon the Cross for our redemption, and made there (by his one oblation of him∣self once offered) a full, perfect, and sufficient sacrifice, oblation and satis∣faction for the sins of the whole world; And accordingly in the administra∣tion

of that Sacrament, the elements are delivered to every communicant in this form, The body of our Lord Jesus Christ which was given for thee- —and, The blood of our Lord Jesus Christ which was shed for thee, preserve thy body and soul into everlasting life; Which supposeth it the doctrine of our Church, avowed and professed, that Christ's death was not only suf∣ficient for all, if God would have so intended and designed it, but that he was actually designed and given for all, not only as many as come to that Sacrament (which yet is wider then the Elect) but us men, or mankinde in general, whose salvation was sought by God by this means.

* 1.126§. 7. So in our Articles also, Christ suffered for us— that he might be a sa∣crifice not only for Original sin, but also for all the actual sins of men, Art: 2. And, by Christ who is the only mediator of God and men— eternal life is proposed to mankinde, Art: 7. And, Christ came as a Lamb— that by the offering of him∣self once made he might take away the sins of the world, Art: 15. And, The oblation of Christ once made is a perfect redemption, propitiation, & satisfaction

for all the sins of the whole world, Ar: 31 All w^ch I have thus largely set down to shew the perfect consonancie of our persecuted Church to the doctrine of Scripture and Antiquity in this point, wheron so much depends for the stating & determining other differences, which have also a special influence on practise.

§. 8. As for the ill consequences to∣ward the obstructing of good life,* 1.127 w^ch are considerable to attend this one do∣ctrine of Christ's dying for none but the Elect, they will be most discernible by attempting the Reformation & change of any vicious Christian that believes that doctrine, or the comfort of any disconsolate despairing Christian, that hath gotten into this hold, and re∣mains fortified in the belief of it.

§. 9. For the former, 'tis evident,* 1.128 and that which he is supposed to be∣lieve, if he believe the Foundation (as I presume him now to doe, when I set the case of a vitious Christian) that there is no salvation to be had for any sinner, but only by the suffer∣ings of Christ, and that redemption by him wrought for such; If therefore a vitious liver, believing that Christ dyed for none but the Elect, shall

have any attempt made on him to reform and amend his life, 'tis certain that one medium to induce him to it, must be a tender of mercy from Christ, of present pardon, and future blisse, upon his Reformation, But if he be able to reply, that that mercy belongs only to the Elect, and he is none of them, it necessarily follows that he that would reduce this stray sheep, must either prove convincingly to him that he is one of the Elect, or else hath no farther to proceed in this at∣tempt.

§. 10. And if he thus attempt to perswade the vitious Christian, that he is one of the Elect, then 1. the very attempt confesses to him that a vitious person, remaining such, may be in the number of the Elect, and from thence he will presently be able to inferre, that then he needs not re∣formation of life to constitute him such, and if so, then reformation of life is not the condition on which only bliss is to be expected, and without which it is not to be had, it being supposed and acknowledged by both parties, that all the Elect shall have it, and so the medium, which was

thought necessary to perswade his re∣formation (the tender of mercy from Christ upon reformation) is already vanished, and consequently 'tis to no purpose to perswade him, that he is one of the Elect, which was useful onely for the inforcing this medium, And so the very making this attempt is destructive to the only end of it.

§. 11. But if this were not the re∣sult of this attempt, yet 2^dly, 'tis in the progresse agreed to be necessary that he perswade this person that he is one of the elect, And what possible me∣dium can he use to prove that to a vitious person? A priori, from any secret decree of God's 'tis certain he cannot demonstrate it, for he hath ne∣ver entred into God's secrets, and 'tis sure the Scripture hath revealed no∣thing of it, Whatsoever it saith of the Book of life, never affirming that par∣ticular man's name is written there; And then the one possible way of at∣tempting it is à posteriori, from the fruits of election, and those are not supposeable in him who is supposed a vitious liver, who lives in that estate (and is by him acknowledged to doe so, for otherwise why should he think

it necessary to reduce him?) wherein he that lives shall not inherit the king∣dome of God. For his proof, whatever it is, will easily be retorted, and the contrary proved, by interrogating, Shall the adulterer, the drunkard, the vicious Christian, inherit the kingdome of God? If he shall, what need I that am now exhorted to reform my life, reform it? If he shall not, then cer∣tainly I that am such, am none of the Elect, for all that are elect shall cer∣tainly inherit the kingdome of God.

§. 12. The onely reserve imagin∣able is, that this vitious Christian be perswaded to believe in Christ, and if he doe so, he shall by that know that he is one of the Elect, and so that his sins shall be pardoned &c. But if this be the method made use of, then 1. this is not the attempting to reform, to work repentance (which was the thing proposed in this first case) but to work faith in him, and with men of those opinions these are two di∣stinct things, faith & repentance, and the former must be before the other, and is resolved to doe the whole bu∣siness without the other, and conse∣quently this is not the way to bring

the sinner to repentance, but rather to assure him that he hath no need of it, his businesse may be done with∣out it.

§. 13. 2^dly, This very attempt of perswading him to believe in Christ (as that signifies the full perswasion that the promises of Christ belong to him) is, supposing that Christ died for none but the Elect, as desperate an attempt as the former, For why should he believe Christ died for him, who died only for the Elect, when he hath no means to perswade him that he is one of the Elect, but great and strong presumptions to the contrary? For to believe that Christ died for him, for whom he died not, is to believe a down-right falsitie, and such is the believing Christ died for him, who both believes that he died only for the Elect, and that he himself is none of that number.

§. 14. And in like manner the for∣mer inconvenience returns again, for if the vitious Christian be advised to believe that Christ died for him, re∣maining such, (and that must be the case, if this faith must precede repen∣tance) it is by that advise presupposed

and granted to him, that Christ, which died only for the Elect, who shall certainly inherit the kingdome of God, died for this vitious person, of whom the Scripture saith, that he shall not inherit the kingdome; And again, if he may believe, what he is advised to believe, that Christ died for him, as now he is, an unreformed Chri∣stian, then what needs he reformation to make him capable of the benefits of his death? And so still it is impos∣sible, where this opinion is imbibed and unremoved, to found any con∣vincing argument, to reform a viti∣ous Christian.

§. 15. But this hath no such ap∣pearance of difficulty to him that hath received the doctrine of Ʋni∣versal, but conditional redemption, of Christ dying for all, that shall per∣form the condition required by him, and to which his grace is ready to enable him. For then how great so∣ever the sins of any unreformed per∣son are, 'tis evident that Christ died for him, because he died for all; that he died for those sins of his, because he died for all sins; Only he must re∣form, and forsake his sins, or else he

shall never receive benefit of his death, And then though there be that plea∣sure in sin, which the habitual sinner cannot be perswaded to part with, unlesse he must, (unlesse he discern the danger of retaining, and the ad∣vantage of parting with it) yet when he hath such arguments as these pro∣posed to him, eternal blisse in ex∣change for short temporary pleasures, assurance of this upon reformation, and an impossibility, and absolute de∣speration without it, the vitious Chri∣stian, if he have advanced no farther then so, and if his habit of sin have not corrupted his principles, may think it reasonable to reform and amend up∣on such terms as these, the Preacher may hope to superstruct good life up∣on such a Foundation.

§. 16.* 1.129 And the like inconvenien∣ces are found to be consequent to this opinion of Christ's dying for none but the Elect, whensoever any comfort is offered to a disconsolate despairing Christian; For it is not possible to give him any comfort, but by fetching it from Christ, And that he shall re∣ceive no benefit from Christ, is the af∣firmation, whereon all his despair is

founded, and the one way of remo∣ving this dismall apprehension, is, to convince him that Christ's death and the benefits thereof, either doe, or, if he perform the condition required of him, shall certainly belong to him.

§. 17. This upon the belief of u∣niversal Redemption is presently so farre done, that if he set industriously and sincerely to perform the commands of Christ, he can have no ground or pretense of doubting, but it shall prove successful to him, and so all that he hath to doe, is to indevour by prayer and use of the means, and by good hope (of which he hath such clear grounds) to qualifie himself for this blessed condition, and in the mean time hath no excuse to continue in this melancholy, mournful posture, who hath so cheerful a prospect before him.

§. 18. But to him that believes Christ died for none but the Elect, and whose comforter is of that opi∣nion also, there is no possible replie to his objections, or satisfaction to his sad abodings: For that no mercy doth or can belong to him, he is resolved, upon this ground, because Christ died

not for him, and the doctrine that Christ died for the Elect yeilds him no relief, because he is verily per∣swaded that he is none of the Elect; and when the number of the Elect is defined to be so small and dispropor∣tionable to the number of the repro∣bate, and so there is really all odds a∣gainst him, that he is not of the num∣ber of the few, when his fears shall help to increase that odds, and make him lesse capable of believing, what is so much lesse probable, when his present despairs, being so contrary to that faith (assurance of his salvation) which alone can justifie, in his opi∣nion, or bear witness to his Election, shall by necessary consequence bear witness against him, and when the scripture, that should, and in this case alone can interpose for his relief, doth certainly affirm nothing of his particular Election; and lastly, when what it saith of Christ's dying for all, is by him misunderstood to belong but to a few, 'tis not imaginable what can be said to this man to per∣swade him that his progresse is not rational, that he doth not well to despair, who hath so slight grounds

to build any hope, and so much weigh∣tier to comply with, and assist his fears in overwhelming him.

§. 20. And then as necessary as hope is to labour, encouragement to quickning of action, so necessary is the belief of Ʋniversal Redemption to the superstructing Christian life, where the foundation of Christian belief is already laid.

CHAP. XV. Of the irrespective decrees of Election and Reprobation.

§. 1. THE same is discernible also, and need not more largely be declared in that doctrine of God's decrees of salvation, and damnation, which hath been taken up by some both of the Romish and Reformed Churches, affixing them to mens par∣ticular entities, absolutely conside∣red, without any respect to all quali∣fications and demeanours; Which, whatsoever else be believed of God or Christ, is (as farre as it is laid to heart, and permitted to have influence on carnal men's practise) a most visible hindrance to the building of good life upon it.

§. 2.* 1.130 The Church of England ha∣ving not so much as named (but pur∣posely avoided the mention of any Decree of Reprobation, and for Electi∣on, or Predestination to life, having set it down in an admirable temper, in order to gratifying all, and not provoking any of the several perswa∣sions,

Art: 7. (as might more largely be made to appear, if it were here seasonable) hath yet providently foreseen the dangerous downfall that from this her doctrine (the affirming no more, nor no more particularly then she doth) is to be expected to curious (as well as carnal) men, i. e. to those that enter into farther specu∣lations herein, (which is the itch of curiosity) and content not themselves with the simplicity of that doctrine, within which this Church hath con∣tained her self. And to prevent par∣ticularly all advantage, that might be taken from hence to the Doctrine of the irrespective decrees, to which is inseparably joyned the confining all the Promises to the Elect, The Ar∣ticle concludes with an earnest ex∣pression of care, and warning to the contrary, that we must receive God's promises in such wise, as they are gene∣rally set forth to us in the holy scri∣pture (as in our doing we are to follow that will of God, which we have ex∣presly declared to us in the word of God) which one passage excludes, and barres out that whole doctrine.

§. 3. As for the particularity of

the dangers,* 1.131 and hindrances of good life, that are directly consequent to this doctrine, they are presently discerned; For if that salvation, which Christ came to purchase for a few, and in like manner that dereliction or repro∣bation that irreversibly involves the farre greater multitude, be not distri∣buted according to the qualifications or performances of men, whether works, or love, or hope, or repentance, or the want of any, or all of these, but only by the absolute irrespective will of God, what rational argument can be produced in any time of tem∣ptation to any sin, (which is the spe∣cial season for such arguments to be offered to any) which may be of force to perswade a reasonable man, or Christian professor, to renounce that present pleasure that comes in competition with duty?

§. 4. Either the promises of Christ, or the terrors of the Lord, or the au∣thority of the commander, must be the Topick whence that argument is drawn, and all force, of any of these is utterly taken off by this doctrine.* 1.132

§. 5. Promises can be of no force,* 1.133 unlesse they be believed to be con∣ditional

promises, and unlesse that du∣ty, which is proposed to be inforced by those promises, be acknowledged to be part of that condition, upon per∣formance of which those promises do, and upon neglect of which, those promises shall not belong to any, And the promises being but a trans∣script of the will and decree of God, a revelation made by Christ of that my∣sterie, or secret, wrapt up before in God's eternal Counsels concerning us, such as the decrees are supposed, such must the promises be concluded to be, If the decrees be believed to be ab∣solute, the promises must be absolute too, and consequently not conditional, which was the one qualification ne∣cessarily required to render them of any force to work on any, to restrain, or invite any that were drawn, or sollicited another way.

§. 6. For why should a man per∣form an ungrateful duty, undertake a difficulty, hazard a danger or diminu∣tion, deny himself any pleasurable en∣joyment, upon a bare intuition of pro∣mises (which by being such are re∣presented with some disadvantage, lie under a considerable prejudice, and

are acknowledged and experimented to be of lesse energie or force to allure or perswade, then present possessions) when he is all the while convinced that all the promises, that he can pos∣sibly have any part in, belong to him absolutely and irrespectively, and shall no more be secured to him upon the performance, then upon the neglect, and omission of that duty?

§. 7.* 1.134 In like manner the Terrors & menaces of scripture are of as little force; For if they fall upon mens per∣sons, and not upon their sins (omissi∣ons or commissions) if they are but the recitations and descriptions of God's decreed wrath, and those decrees and that wrath have no respect to the actual sins of men, but are termina∣ted either in the innocent creature, or the childe of lapsed Adam, i. e. either respect not sin at all, or else none but Original sin, (which is no part of the present deliberation, whether it shall be committed, and I guilty of it or no) then why should terrors restrain me from any sin, when there is any ten∣der of present advantage to invite me to it?

§. 8. All my fear and trembling

will regularly be terminated in the decree, on which all my miserie de∣pends, and not in the sinne, which means me no ill, and consequently the aversion and dislike will naturally be fastned on that severe law, that hath bound me in fatal chains of darkness, before ever I saw light, and if it proceed any farther, may be like∣ly to ascend blasphemously unto, and against that Judge, that hath taken pleasure to enact that law (and so that doctrine may very probably take off from our love of God) but 'tis not imaginable which way this should produce in me any aversion or hatred against sin, which by this doctrine is cleared from being my enemy, from involving me into any mischief, de∣signing the least treachery against me.

* 1.135§. 9. And lastly, for the authori∣ty of God's Commands which forbid sin, and command obedience, it can be no greater with any man toward the undertaking of good life, then that man believes the weight to be, which God layes on the performance of them; And if God heed that no more, then they that espouse the doctrine of

irrespective decrees, must consequent∣ly be supposed to believe him to doe, if in his decreeing his eternal rewards of blisse or woe, he respect not our obedience or disobedience, but distri∣bute both by a rule quite distant from that which is founded in his com∣mands, or revealed will, it will never be thought any neer concernment or interest of ours to regulate our acti∣ons according to those commands, which have certainly much of strict∣nesse in them, much of contrariety to flesh and blood, but nothing of influ∣ence either on our weal or woe, as long as this doctrine is deemed to have any truth in it.

§. 10. And so still the virtue and force of every of these three, which are the common standing induce∣ments and engagements to obedience, is shrewdly allayed, if not wholly lost by this means.

§. 11.* 1.136 And 'tis not the motive of gratitude (which is said to be the on∣ly score, on which the Elect perform their obedience) that can make any considerable difference in this matter, that can be sufficient to perswade him to abstain from any tempting sin, whom

neither promises, nor terrors, nor pre∣cepts had been able to work upon.

§. 12. 1. Because Gratitude being but a return of love in him that hath a quick sense of God's loving him first, cannot have any propriety to the pro∣ducing of that effect in any, till he hath arrived to that sense, nor can it continue to doe it, when that sense is lost. And consequently a great num∣ber of the supposed elect shall be un∣capable of it, both they which are not yet come to this assurance, that they are of that number, and they that under any anguish of minde are returned to affrightments, or doubt∣ings whether they have not been hy∣pocrites, and so reprobates all this while; And as these two sorts (ac∣cording to their doctrine) compre∣hend a great and considerable num∣ber of the very elect, (of whom very few are arrived to that pitch of con∣stant uninterrupted assurance of their election) so Gratitude, by being un∣useful to them that are not thus as∣sured, must be acknowledged unuse∣ful to those who have the greatest want of it, and by being confined to the few, which have this assurance

quick▪ and undisturbed within them, is concluded to have a very narrow and slender province to work on, a very small number of a very small number, a remnant of a remnant, being acknow∣ledged to be unappliable, and so con∣sequently ineffectual to all others.

§. 13. 2^dly, Because one other do∣ctrine there is, which constantly ac∣companies the doctrine of irrespective decrees, which supersedes all farther dispute in this matter, the doctrine of the irresistibility of grace, in work∣ing whatsoever it works, which if it be once acknowledged, there is no∣thing to be affixt to Gratitude (or to any thing else in me) which whatso∣ever it works at any time works by way of perswasion, not violence, and cannot be said so much as to contri∣bute to the working of that, which is supposed to be irresistibly wrought by the Spirit of God.

§. 14. 3^dly, If these two arguments, which are only ad homines, and con∣sider the Elect only in these mens notion of the word, had no kinde of force in them, yet still this of Grati∣tude, which is the one pretended re∣serve, must needs be impertinent∣ly

pretended in this matter.

§. 15. First, because the good life to which the foundation was laid by the Apostles preaching, is not that of a few persons, chosen out of the masse, but of all that receive the Christian profession, of which number there being a large proportion which (according to the tenure of this do∣ctrine) must be supposed to be non-elect, there will not be that matter of thanksgiving to any of them, nor consequently any account, upon which they can be perswaded to make those kinde returns to God, which the Elect were more proba∣bly supposed to have engagement to doe.

§. 16. And secondly, it being Christ's errand, and business into the world, to call not the righteous, or the justified, but the unreformed, or sinners to repentance, to change them who need a change, and who, if they are by this doctrine supposeable to be already from all eternity elected, are not yet before their calling or conversion affirmed to be actually ju∣stified, or received into God's favour (any more then Saul was in the time

of his journey to Damascus, when he breathed out threatnings and slaugh∣ters against the Church) the conclusion must be, that any such unreformed sinner will not be capable of being wrought on by any such considera∣tion of gratitude, and so Christ, not∣withstanding this only reserve, shall be wholly unsuccessful in his aime toward those, who were the princi∣pal designed persons, to whom he came, and predestined the benefits of his coming.

§. 17. Thirdly, this of Gratitude being by those that maintain this do∣ctrine supposed to follow faith or as∣surance of their salvation, 'tis there∣by acknowledged to have no force on those who have not this faith, though they doe believe all the ar∣ticles of their Creed, and so it can be no proper expedient to remove the hindrances which the beliefe of the irrespective decrees hath been said to interpose in the matter in hand▪ or to adapt good life to be superstructed on this (whatsoever it is imaginable to be on any other) Foundation.

CHAP. XVI. Of the Predetermination of all things.

§. 1. AND as the absolute prede∣stination of the persons is able to evacuate all the force of these fundamentals,* 1.137 designed by God as mo∣tives of great energie to induce good life, so certainly is the opinion of God's predetermining and preordain∣ing the means as well as the end, (i. e. all the acts of man's will, the evil as well as the good, and so all the most enormous sins that are or ever shall be committed) most abundantly suffici∣ent to doe it.

§. 2. I say not the doctrine of God's predisposing or preordering, or of his predetermining or decreeing that he will so dispose and order all things that come to passe, whether good or bad, for that looks on the things as done, which are so disposed, and con∣sequently includes not any influence or causality in the production of thē, and so God, that brings light out of darkness, can dispose of the worst things, the foulest sins, the very cru∣cifying

of Christ, so as to bring health and salvation out of them.

§. 3.* 1.138 But betwixt this and prede∣termining that which is so disposed, the difference is wide, as much as be∣twixt a bloody designers suborning his instrument to take away such a man's life, and the Confessors representing the horridness of the fact, and by that means bringing him to repentance; And though Ordinare in Latine, and 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 in Greek be equivocal, and ca∣pable of both these notions, yet or∣daining and decreeing in our English use, is not thus liable to be mistaken.

§. 4. Secondly,* 1.139 I say not the do∣ctrine of God's predetermining his own will, but his predetermining the acts of our will, or our volitions; Great difference there is betwixt these two, as much as betwixt my willing a law∣full thing my self, and my inducing another man to doe that which is un∣lawful.

§. 5. For God doth predetermine his own will, as oft as he decrees to doe this or that, which he might not have decreed to have done, or have decreed to have done the contrary; for when God's will is free to two

things, to make or not to make a world, or such a world, and the like, his decreeing to make it, and to make it such, is the determining of his will, Thus when before all time God might have created man a necessary agent, to will and to doe every thing that he wills and doth, after the same manner as the fire burneth, i. e. so as he could not doe otherwise, yet 'tis evident that God chose to create him after the image of his own liberty, a voluntary free agent that might deliberate and choose, and either doe, or not doe, or doe this or the contrary to it; And so in like manner God may determine his own will not to hinder, but permit what he sees man inclinable to doe, when he might on the other side have chosen to hinder or not to per∣mit; And thus he did when he de∣creed to permit the malice of the Jewes, the covetousness of Judas, the popularity of Pilate to joyn all toge∣ther in the crucifying of Christ, up∣on which it is said, that his hand and his counsel 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 did predeter∣mine this to be done, i. e. Christ to be crucified (which was done by God's predetermining to permit them to doe

what they by the free act of their own wills resolved to doe, if they were not hindred) no way intimating that God predetermined they should doe it.

§. 6. And this predetermination of God's own will is so farre from being the determining of ours, that it is di∣stinctly and visibly the contrary, for supposing God to predetermine that I I shall act freely, and that he will not determine my will to this or that ob∣ject, 'tis certain from thence that my will is free in respect of God, and not predetermined by him, And therefore that ordinary position, that the prede∣termination of God's will hinders not the liberty of ours] which by being understood of God's will predetermi∣ning ours, is most grosly false, and implies a contradiction, a predetermi∣nation and not a predetermination, a liberty and not a liberty to the same thing, is yet most evidently true of God's predetermining his own will, or his own will being predetermined, for that, as it respecteth not our will, (meddleth not with it at all) so it is farre from hindring or taking away the liberty of it, but on the contrary,

it being one act of God's eternal will, and so a predetermination thereof, that man shall be a free agent, and an∣other act of the same divine will, that this or that act of our will shall be permitted and not hindred by God, ei∣ther or both these predeterminations of God's will, necessarily inferres the liberty of ours, which cannot but be free, when God hath predetermined it shall be free.

* 1.140§. 7. Thirdly, I say not the doctrine of God's prescience, his eternal fore∣sight of all that is ever done in the world, For that again supposeth or looketh on the thing as done, which is thus the object of his sight, and hath no kinde of influence or causa∣lity in the production of it.

§. 8. Some difficulty there is in conceiving a thing to be foreseen or foreknown by God, and yet to conti∣nue free to be done or not to be done. And the best way of explicating that difficulty will be, to suppose God's science to be infinitely extended in respect of time, as his presence in re∣spect of place, and though speaking of infinitie, we must acknowledge our understandings to be very imperfect,

all the measures we have to conceive any thing, being finite, and so un∣equal and very unable to compre∣hend that which is infinite, Yet if we will but conceive God's sight or sci∣ence before the creation of the world to be coextended to all and every part of the world, seeing every thing as it is, that which is past as past, future as future, that which is by him pre∣determined, as necessary, and that which is left free, as free, that which is done, and might have been other∣wise, as done freely and contingently, and that which is not yet done, and may or may not be done, as that which is yet free and contingent, there will remain no difficulty in affirming that his prescience or foresight of any action of mine (or rather his science at sight) from all eternity, layes no necessity on any thing to be, which is thus seen to come to passe, any more then my seeing the sun move, hath to doe in the moving of it, it being cer∣tain, and necessary, and antecedent in order of nature, that that have a bee∣ing, that hath a capacity of being seen, and only accidental and extrin∣secal to it, to be seen, when it is, and

so the seeing but an accessary, not a cause of its beeing; and it is most evi∣dent that God's foreseeing doth not include or connotate predetermining, any more then I decree with my in∣tellect, or will with my apprehension, which is as if I should see with my ear, or tast with my eye, i. e. con∣found the most distant faculties.

§. 9. To this may be added, that God being acknowledged to see or foresee every thing as it is, it is as im∣possible that any thing should be in any other manner then he foresees it to be, as that it should not come to passe, when he sees it doth, or foresees it will come to passe; and consequent∣ly that God's foreseeing those things come to passe contingently which doe come to passe contingently, is a most certain proof that there are some con∣tingents in the world; So likewise when God foresees and foretels that Judas will freely and voluntarily, and against all engagements and obligati∣ons to the contrary, betray and sell Christ, that the Jewes would not be gathered by Christ when he was most sollicitous and sedulous in gathering them, 'tis as certainly conclusible

from the argument of God's presci∣ence, that they will voluntarily and freely doe this, and obstinately resist their own good, as that they will doe it at all, the manner being fore∣seen by God, who cannot be deceived, as truly as the thing is foreseen by him.

§. 10. And if there should yet be any doubt (as Socinus and his fol∣lowers, men very well exercised, and skill'd in the 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, removing of those things, which have continued immovable in the Church, have more then doubted) whether God foresee any more then he determines, and consequently whether it may not safely be affirmed, that he doth not foresee all things, because he cannot be conceived to predetermine all things, It will presently appear, that as this is most irrational, so is it most false, irrational to grant an infinite∣ness of God's other attributes and powers, his omnipresence, omnipotence, &c. and to question the infinitie of his science, and apparently false, if only God's predictions to the Prophets be considered, For there we see many things to be foretold, and consequent∣ly

learn them to have been foreseen, which they that make this doubt, doe truly resolve cannot be predetermined by God, and, rather then they will believe them predetermined by him, deny them to be foreseen, viz: the in∣fidelity and sins of men, which God cannot will or decree in their opini∣on, and which they must conse∣quently acknowledge to have been both contingent & future, when they were foretold by him, and not to have lost their nature by being foretold by him.

* 1.141§. 11. Having thus separated this doctrine of God's predetermining all e∣vents, from these 3 other things, w^ch the haste of Disputers have sometimes confounded with it, It will now be presently discernible how noxious & obstructive this doctrine is to the su∣perstructing all good life. For 1. that which is predetermined by God is ab∣solutely necessary and unavoidable, no man hath or can resist any decree of his; The bounds which are placed to the sea by a perpetual decree, Jer. 5.22. are such as it cannot passe, and though the waves tosse themselves, yet can they not prevail, though they roar, yet

can they not passe over, and such is the nature of all decrees of God; And if the actions of men were under any such, (as 1. by the expostulation there, and 2^dly, by the mention of their re∣bellious heart, v. 23. and 3^dly, by the opposition which is set betwixt the sea, that cannot passe the bounds, and the sinner that can, it is most evident they are not) this would necessarily preclude all choise, and then, as Ter∣tullian saith, lib. 2. contr: Marcion: Nec boni nec mali merces jure pensare∣tur ei, qui aut bonus aut malus neces∣sitate fuisset inventus, non voluntate, There would be no reward of good or evil, if men were good or evil by ne∣cessity, and not by choise; and as Justin Martyr, Apol: 2. 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, If mankinde had no power to avoid ill or choose good by free deliberation, it should never be guilty of any thing that was done. And as Tatianus to the same purpose, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 — God therefore gave liberty of choise to men, that the wicked might be justly punished, being wicked by his

own fault, and the righteous commen∣ded, who by the same liberty hath taken care not to transgresse the will of God, So certainly this doctrine must take away all guilt of an accusing, and all solace of a quiet conscience, and in like manner supersede and slacken all in∣dustrie and endevour, which is the lowest degree of that which hath promise to be accepted by Christ, and by fastening all our actions as well as ends by a fatal decree at the foot of God's chair, leave nothing to us to deliberate or attempt, but only to obey our fate, to follow the duct of the starres, or necessity of those irony chains which we are born under.

§. 12. 2^dly, There being little que∣stion made by any, but that God both can and doth whatsoever he will both in heaven and earth, when any thing is acknowledged to be willed by God (as 'tis certain every thing is which is predetermined & preordained by him) it necessarily follows, that whenso∣ever that is done it is done by God, and consequently if that be a sin, God doth, i. e. committeth the sin, and this with∣out any so much as concurrence of any will of mine, but what is also

predetermined by him; Which is evi∣dently the defining God to be both the principal and accessarie in the committing every sin; which when it is once believed, then 1. What pos∣sible way is there for any man to be guilty of sin, which we know is no farther sin, then it was voluntary in him that did it, and he free to have abstain'd, when he did commit it, or at least to have prevented that degree of force or necessity that is fallen up∣on him? And on the other side what possibility of abstaining from sinne, when by God's predetermination of it, 'tis acknowledged inevitable? And when these two are taken away, the possibility of guilt, and the possibi∣lity of innocence, what restraint can the belief of all the Articles of the Creed lay upon any man to flie from evil, or pursue that which is good?

§. 3. 3^dly, The only way of defining of sin, is, by the contrariety to the will of God (as of good by the accor∣dance with that will) and if all things be preordained by God, and so demon∣strated to be will'd by him, it remains that there is no such thing as sin, nor any thing to be abstain'd from, or

avoided by us, nor difference betwixt good and evil, according to that mea∣sure of God's will, which by this do∣ctrine is equally competible to both of them.* 1.142 And if the distinction of his secret and revealed will be here made use of, and only the latter of these conceived to be it, in contrariety to which sin consists, that so there may be a way of sinning against that, whilst the secret will is obeyed and performed; Then, besides the great absurdity of affirming any thing of God's secret will, till by some means or other it be revealed, and then it ceaseth to be (what it is pretended to be) secret, for if it be known it is not secret; and 2^dly, the ridiculousness of making that God's will, which is sup∣posed contrary to his will, for cer∣tainly that which is contrary to his will, is not his will, and therefore the secret being supposed contrary to the revealed, if the revealed will be his will, the secret is not his will, and if the secret be his will, then that which is revealed to be his will, is not his will; and 3^dly, the impiety of oppo∣sing God's words to his thoughts, his revealed commands to his secret de∣crees,

(which is as ill as could be said of any man, and will never incline a∣ny to obey God, which hath such an unhandsome opinion of him) besides these inconveniences, I say, 'tis evi∣dent that intrinsick goodness consists in accordance, and sin in contrariety to the secret will of God, as well as to his revealed, or else God could not be defined infinitely good, or so farre as his thoughts and secrets, but only su∣perficially good, as farre as the outside or appearing part of him, i. e. as farre as he is pleased to reveal himself, which again is perfect blasphemie to imagine, and that which equals God to the most formal and hypocritical professor.

§. 14. 4^thly, This doctrine is destru∣ctive to all that is established among men, to all that is most pretious, 1. to humane nature, to the two faculties that denominate us men, understand∣ing and will, For what use can we have of our understandings, if we cannot doe what we know to be our duty? and if we act not voluntarily, what exercise have we of our wills?

§. 15. 2^dly, To the end of our Crea∣tion, whether subordinate or ultimate;

The subordinate end of our creation is, that we should live virtuously and glorifie God in a voluntary and gene∣rous obedience, either of which other creatures, that act naturally, are not capable of, And God's predetermining all our actions deprives us of this ho∣nour and dignity of our nature, leaves no place of virtue, which is founded in voluntary action, and as Origen saith cont: Cels: l. 4. 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, If you take from virtue the voluntariness, you take away the essence of it. And so this doctrine brings us down to the level of horse and mule, whose mouthes are forcibly holden with bit and bridle, when yet it is one of the commands of that God, that we should not be like those creatures: And so for the ultimate end, a reward and crown in another world, which no irrational creature is capable of, this of prede∣termination of all our actions, which renders us necessary not rational a∣gents, renders us utterly uncapable of that.

§. 16. 3^dly, It is directly contrary to all God's waies, or manner of deal∣ing with us, which is all by rational

waies of perswasion, by proposition of terrors and promises, the danger that we shall incurre by our disobe∣dience, and the infinite advantages that we shall reap by our obedience, and to these is added the authority of the Commander, vindicated from our neglect by the interposition of the greatest signes and wonders, in the hands of his Prophets and of his Son, such as we cannot but wonder when we read them (as in the case of the Israelites coming out of Aegypt, & in the wilderness) that they should not prevail upon them, when yet they did not prevail, And what can be more contrary to rational motives, then predetermination? For as, if they had not that perswasive efficacie in them as to be able to move a rational man, they could not be denomina∣ted rational, so if they were backed with a violence, if they were propo∣sed to us in the name and power of an omnipotent immutable decree, they could never be said motives or perswa∣sives; And so still God's gracious dea∣lings with men being the aids and auxiliaries necessary to us in the pur∣suit of piety, and the one doctrine and

perswasion of God's predetermination of all events, having superseded and cassated all those waies, we have no bottome left, on which to found the least beginning or thought of piety, as long as we continue possessed with that perswasion.

§. 17. 4^thly, This doctrine, if it were true, must necessarily take away all judgement to come, all reward and punishment, which are certainly ap∣portioned to the voluntary actions, and choises of men (and therefore belong not to any but rational crea∣tures) and can no more be awarded to those actions which are predetermi∣ned by God, then to the ascending of the flame, or descending of the stone, which by nature the providence of God are thus predetermined, and act by decree, and not by choise. And when all judgment to come is once va∣nished, all reward to engage obedience, and all terror to restrain disobedience is once removed, and so in effect the three last Articles of the Creed re∣jected also, what hope is there that the remaining Articles should be suf∣ficient to doe it?

§. 18. To these Christian & Theo∣logical

considerations it will not be amisse to adde what care the Writers of Politicks have had to warn us of the noxiousness of this doctrine to all civil governments, which Christian re∣ligion, rightly understood, is so very farre from disturbing, that beyond all other Aphorisms Political, beyond the sagest provisions of the Profoun∣dest Lawgivers, it is (would men but live according to the rules of it) in∣comparably qualified to perpetuate publick weal and peace.

§. 19. But for the doctrine of those, who so mistake Christian religion as to think it is only a chain of fatal decrees, to deny all liberty of man's choise toward good or evil, and to af∣fix all events to God's predetermina∣tion, This, say they, is utterly irrecon∣cileable with the nature of civil go∣vernment, with the foundation thereof laid in Laws, or with the punishments and rewards, which are thought ne∣cessary to the continuance thereof, and Campanella chooseth to instance in Republicâ praesertim liberâ, in a Republick or free state.

§. 20. For when the people, which think their liberty, of which they are

very tender and jealous, to be re∣trench'd or impaired by the restraint of Laws, can farther answer their Ru∣lers, though but in the heart (with∣out proceeding to farther boldness) that they cannot observe their Laws, being led by irresistible decrees to the transgressing of them, the conse∣quence is easie to foresee, the despi∣sing and contemning of Laws, and ha∣ting and detesting of those who are obliged to punish them, when they have offended; which two are soon inflamed, beyond the rate of popular discontents, into actual seditions and tumults, as soon as opportunity shall favour, or opinion of their own strength incourage them to it.

§. 21. That the Turkish Empire hath not yet found the noxious ef∣fects of this poyson, so commonly re∣ceived among them, will, I suppose, be objected against the truth of this; But 'tis visible to what Antidotes this must be imputed, 1. to their igno∣rance and unimprovableness in mat∣ters of knowledge, and rational dis∣course, being generally kept rude, and without all literature (which is the grindstone to sharpen the coulters, to

whet their natural faculties, and to inable them to discourse and deduce natural consequences) 2^dly, To the the manner observed in Governing them, by force, and not by obligation on conscience, by violence, and not by laws; Which way of managerie be∣ing somewhat proportionable to the opinion of fatal decrees, and agreeing with it in this, that it doth really leave nothing to men's choises, is withall as a contrary poyson, a hot thrown after a cold, very proper to abate the energie of it, forcing them as fatally to abstain, as they can deem themselves forced, or impelled to com∣mit any such enormitie.

§. 22. However 'tis manifest that the force they are under is a real force, and that of their fate but an imaginarie conceived one, the one but in their brains, the other on their shoulders, and it is not strange if the irony chains are experimented to have more solidity, and so more effi∣cacie in them, then the contempla∣tive.

§. 23. Sed si Italos, say the Politick writers, But if this doctrine should e∣ver get among the Italians, whose

wits are more acute (and sure the Italians have not inclosed that ex∣cellencie from all the rest of Europe) it would presently put all into confu∣sion, they would soon discern the con∣sequences, and utmost improvements of the opinion, and never stick to cast all on God, as the author of all, and having resolved, with him in Homer, of the

〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉—

that all is chargeable on the superi∣our cause, Jupiter and Fate, inferre regularly with him, (〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉) the blamelesness of the inferiour agent, and so there being no place left for sin or law, immediately be∣lieve and follow their own wishes, turn Libertines, throw off all yoke of men as well as God. In intuition whereof I suppose it was that Plato would not permit in his Common∣wealth any that should affirm God to be the author of all the evils that were committed. And Proclus upon the Timaeus sets them down as a third de∣gree of Atheists, who attribute to God the impressing on men's mindes a necessity of doing whatsoever they doe.

§. 24. 'Tis true where there is any remainder of natural piety, he that believes the doctrine of absolute de∣crees, may be thereby restrained from actually making the conclusions, in∣ferring such impious horrid consequen∣ces (be they never so obvious and re∣gular) of making God the author of sin, and the like; But we know those natural dictates are by unnatural sins effaced in many, and when that one restraint is removed, the conclusion will be as easily believed as the pre∣mises, and where neither boldness nor skill are wanting to deduce it, that Conclusion will again turn Principle, and induce all vitious enormous living, which Laws were designed to re∣strain, but will no longer doe it, when themselves are look'd on as imperti∣nent invaders of liberty, despised first, and then hated.

§. 25. One farther consideration hath been added to this former, that this doctrine being imbibed by Gover∣nours, is very apt to instill into them principles of tyrannie, if it be but by imitating and transcribing from God the notions which they have recei∣ved of him, by doing that themselves

which they believe of him, punishing their subjects by no other rule but of their wills, decreeing their destruction first without intuition of any volun∣tary crime of theirs, and then coun∣ting it a part of their glory to execute such decrees. Thus when Suetonius describes Tiberius as a professed con∣temner of all religion, and from thence was soon improved into the most in∣tolerable tyrant, he renders the ori∣ginal of it, that he believed all things to be wrought by a fatalitie. But these are popular considerations, yet not unfit also to be taken in as ap∣pendent to the former.

* 1.143§. 26. Many artifices there are in∣vented by the necessities of those who have imbraced this doctrine, to inter∣cept and avoid these consequences of it; The two principal I shall name, 1. That sin is a non-entitie, a nothing, and so that all things may be predeter∣mined by God, and yet not sin: 2. That though God be author of the act of sin, yet he is not of the obliquitie of it, as the rider is cause of the horses going, but not of his lameness, or halting, when he goes.

§. 27. For the former of these, which is a perfect phantasie and school

notion, these things may be observed of it, that, besides that it would be 1. very strange▪ that God should damn a multitude of Angels and men for nothing; and 2. very ridiculous, that my swearing to a truth should be an entitie, and my swearing to a falsitie, nothing; eating my own bread, enjoy∣ing my own wife, an entitie, and eat∣ing another man's bread, enjoying an∣other man's wife, nothing; and 3^dly, that which would soon fall back into the grand inconvenience of obstruct∣ing Christian life (for why should a Christian be such a fool, as to be a∣fraid of nothing, to flie and avoid no∣thing?) besides these, I say, it is ap∣parent that they that thus teach, pro∣fesse that sins are predetermined, by name Adam's sin, and Judas's sin, and, if it be driven home, every sin of every other man, as well as any other the most virtuous action. And yet farther, unless it could be gain'd that every virtuous action were nothing also, there would be little advantage in this matter, it being as contrary to judgment to come, to rewarding ac∣cording to works, that one predeter∣mined necessary action, which I could not but doe, should be rewarded, as

that another should be punished, and as certain a prejudice to all diligence, or pursuit of Christian life, that I can∣not choose but doe the good which I doe, as that I cannot but commit the ill that I commit, For although it be very agreeable to the goodness of God to abound in giving grace and ina∣bling to doe good, to prepare, prevent, and assist, and contribute all that can be wanting to us, either to will, or doe, (as it is not competible with it so much as to incline any man to doe evil) and so there is a difference in that respect betwixt the good and the evil, yet to doe all this irresistibly, for a fatal decree of heaven to con∣trive every good action of my life, so as it is impossible for me not to will and act, as God would have me, this is quite contrary to the nature of a voluntary agent, a rational creature, and consequently to that will and de∣cree of God, whereby he predetermined man to be such, and as unreconcile∣able with reward or crown, as punish∣ment is with that which is as much, but no more necessary.

§. 28. As for the distinction be∣twixt the act and the obliquitie, there

is some truth in it,* 1.144 and use to be made of it, so farre as to free God, who is author of all man's power to act, from being in any degree the author of his acting obliquely or crook∣edly, i. e. sinfully.

§. 29. For as it is impossible for us to move either to good or evil, except he that gave us our first beeing and powers, continue them minutely unto us, so he having used all wise and effi∣cacious methods to incline and en∣gage us to make use of his gifts unto his service, and having contributed nothing to our evil choises, but his decree of permitting or not hindring them (and if he should violently hin∣der, that would make us no whit lesse guilty, he that would sin, if he could, is as guilty as if he did; And without that permission of evil, our good choises would neither be good, nor choises, and consequently never be rewarded by him) it is most apparent that he is no author of the obliquities of our wills, but on the contrary that he doth as much to the straightning of them, as without changing our na∣tures (offering violence to our wills, which he hath decreed to remain free)

he could prudently be imagined to doe.

§. 30. But this is no way appliable to this matter of freeing God from being the author of that sin, of which he is acknowledged to predetermine the act; For 1. though a free power of acting good or evil, be perfectly distinct and separable from doing evil, and therefore God, that is the author of one, cannot thence be inferred to be the author of the other, yet the act of sin is not separable from the obliquitie of that act, the act of blas∣phemie from the obliquitie or irregu∣laritie of blasphemie, the least evil thought or word against an infinite good God being as crooked as the rule is streight, and consequently he that predetermines the act, must needs pre∣determine the obliquitie.

§. 31. Nay 2^dly, if there were any advantage to be made of this distin∣ction in this matter, it would more truly be affirm'd on the contrary side, that God is the author of the obliqui∣tie, and man of the act, For God that gives the rule, in transgressing of which all obliquitie consists, doth contribute a great deal though not

to the production of that act, which is freely committed against that rule, yet to the denominating it oblique, for if there were no law, there would be no obliquitie; God that gives the law that a Jew shall be circumcised, thereby constitutes uncircumcision an obliquitie, which, had he not given that law, had never been such; But for the act (as that differs from the powers on one side, and the obliqui∣tie on the other) it is evident that the man is the cause of that, 'tis man that circumciseth, or chooseth to be cir∣cumcised, and so that refuseth to re∣ceive that signe in his flesh, and the act of killing Abel was as perfectly Cain's act, as the offering of his sacri∣fice was, and so in all other acts, espe∣cially of sin, to which God doth not so much as incline, and the Devil can doe no more then perswade any man.

§. 32. To conclude, the obliquitie of any act arising, by way of resul∣tance, from the transgressing of the rule (i. e. doing contrary to God's com∣mand) as inequality ariseth from the adding or substracting an unity from an even number, it necessarily fol∣lows, that he that first gives the law,

and then predetermines the act of transgressing (the disobedience, the doing contrary to) that law, that first forbids eating of the tree of knowledge, and then predetermins Adam's will to choose, and eat what was forbidden, is by his decree guilty of the commis∣sion of the act, and by his law the cause of its being an obliquitie, And indeed if the obliquitie, which ren∣ders the act a sinful act, be it self any thing, it must necessarily follow, that either God doth not predetermine all things, or that he predetermines the obliquitie; And regularity bearing the same proportion of relation to any act of duty, as obliquitie doth to sin, it cannot be imagined that the au∣thor of the sinful act, should not be the author of the obliquitie, as well as the author of the pious act is by the disputers acknowledged to be the author of the regularity of it.

§. 33. The complaint of the Gods in Homer will best shut up this,

〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉.

O, how unjustly mortal men accuse and charge the Gods, saying that their evils are from them, when the truth is, that they by their own wretchless courses bring mischiefs upon themselves, above which their fate, or decree of the Gods can be deem'd to have brought upon them. And accordingly it is one of the excellent lessons of the Pythagore∣ans in their golden verses,

〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉,

This thou must know, that the evils that men fall under, are brought upon them by their own choises, On which even Chrysippus, the Stoick, and great asserter of fate, hath thus commen∣ted, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, Evils, or mischiefs come to every man from himself, it being cer∣tain that by their own incitation they both sin, and suffer, and that according to their own minde and purpose. This being so farre distant from the do∣ctrine of fatality, it may well be won∣dred, how Chrysippus that asserted that, under the name of 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 and 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, the chain, and the decree,

(and defined it▪ saith † 1.145 Gellius, sempi∣terna quaedam, & indeclinabilis series rerum & catena, volvens semetipsa se∣se, & implicans per aeternos consequen∣tiae ordines, ex quibus apta connexá{que} est, an eternal and unavoidable series and chain of things folding and invol∣ving it self within it self by eternal courses of consequence, by which it is framed and connected, Or in his own dialect,* 1.146 that it is 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, a natural complication of all things from all eternal, one thing fol∣lowing another, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, that complication be∣ing such as cannot be changed) could believe himself, or reconcile this com∣ment, or that verse, with his great principles; And indeed † 1.147 Cicero hath past a right sentence of it, Chrysippus astuans laboráns{que} quonam pacto ex∣plicet & fato fieri omnia, & esse ali∣quid in nobis, intricatur— Chrysippus contending and labouring how to recon∣cile these two propositions, that all things are done by fate, and yet that something is in our own power, is in∣tangled, and cannot extricate himself. This Master of the Stoicks was prest,

saith Gellius,* 1.148 with these inconvenient consequences of his doctrine of decrees, that then the sins of men were not to be charged on their wills, but to be im∣puted to a necessity and pressing, which arose from fate, that it must be unjust to make laws for the punishing of offen∣ders, To which he had nothing to say but this, that though, if you look upon the first cause, all is thus fatally decreed, and chain'd, yet the dispositi∣ons of each man's minde are only so farre subject to fate, as is agreeable to their own properties and qualities, as, saith he, when a man tumbles a cy∣lindre or roller down an hill, 'tis cer∣tain that the man is the violent en∣forcer of the first motion of it, but when it is once a tumbling, the qua∣lity and propriety of the thing it self continues, and consummates it. In this witty resemblance of that Stoick these three things must be consider'd, First, that the Cylindre (the instance that he thought fit to pitch on) is an inani∣mate, livelesse trunk, which hath no∣thing of choise, or will in it, Secondly, that neither the weight of the matter, of which 'tis made, nor the round, voluble form of it (which two meet∣ing

with a precipice, or steep declivity doe necessarily continue the motion of it) are any more imputable to that dead, choisless creature, then the first motion of it was supposed to be, and therefore thirdly, that this cannot be a fit resemblance to shew the recon∣cileableness of fate with choise, or the reasonableness of charging on mens wills, what was inevitably produced by their fate, or of punishing them for those acts, which they are necessarily driven to commit▪ To which purpose it may be remembred that neither is the Cylindre charged with sin, whe∣ther by God, or men, nor any punitive law enacted by either against its rol∣ling down the hill, nor indeed are such charges, or such laws ever brought in or enacted against any actions of any other creature, plant, or beast, till you ascend to man, who is supposed to have a will, and not to be under such inevitable, fatal laws, but to be, as that excellent man Pom∣ponius Atticus was wont to say, the forger of his own fate, the framer of his fortune, which yet should be as improper to be applied to, or affirm'd of a man, as of any other creature, if

all his actions were as irreversibly predetermined, as the descent of heavy bodies, or the ascending of light, i. e. if Chrysippus's Cylindre and the mo∣tion thereof were a commodious in∣stance, or resemblance of this matter. But the truth is, the man was acute, and dextrous, could say as much for the reconciling of contradictions, as another, and though this last age hath considered this question very di∣ligently, and had the advantages of the writings of the former ages to assist them, yet he that shall impar∣tially make the comparison, will finde, that the antient Philosophers have written more subtilely in this matter, and are more worth out reading, then any of our modern Schools, (he that shall survey Hierocles on the 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, Ammonius on Aristotles 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, in shewing the nature of con∣tingent, and necessary propositions, & the Christian Philosopher Boethius, lib. 2. de consolatione philosophiae, will, I believe, be convinced of the truth of what I say) and when the Master of them Chrysippus was so unable to speak intelligible sense, or extricate himself in this business, 'twill be lesse

matter of wonder to us, that they w^ch have espoused this 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, should endevour as improsperously to recon∣cile this with other notions of piety, and to extricate themselves out of a Labyrinth not of fewer, but more dif∣ficulties (God having most clearly re∣vealed to Christian, that as he rewar∣deth every man according to his works, so he requireth of him according to what he hath in his power to doe, and not according to what he hath not) as Chrysippus is by Cicero judged to have done.

§. 34. All which being duly con∣sidered, and the absurdities of that distinction (thus applied) betwixt the act and the obliquitie, as manifest, as those of Chrysippus's expedient, in those so many forementioned re∣spects, and the contrary so wide from the truth of Scripture, the attributes of God, and common notions of piety written in men's hearts, and experi∣mented in the government of the world, and lastly so noxious and poy∣sonous to good life, we may certainly conclude with Prosper, that great as∣serter of God's Grace, Resp: ad 14. Ob∣ject: Vincent: Ad praevaricationem le∣gis,

ad neglectum religionis, ad cor∣ruptelam disciplinae, ad desertionem fidei, ad perpetrationem qualiscunque peccati, nulla omnino est Praedestina∣tio Dei. To the forsaking the law, to the neglecting religion, to the corrupting discipline, to deserting the Faith, to the perpetration of whatsoever sin, there is not at all any predestination of God. Si ergo in sanctitate vivitur— If we live in sanctity, grow in virtue and persevere in good purposes, the gift of God is manifest in all this: Si autem ab his receditur,— But if we go back from these, if we passe over to vices and sins, here God sends no evil temptation, forsakes not the desertor, before he be forsaken, and very frequently keeps him that would depart from departing, and causeth him to return, though he be departed. To which may be added that of the Arausican Councel, which was very careful to assert the necessity of Grace, and yet pronounces an ana∣thema against those who affirm any to be by God predetermined to sin.

CHAP. XVII. Of the Spirits acting all things within the man.

§. 1. WHat hath been said of the doctrine of God's de∣crees, fatally passed upon our persons, or our actions, will be farther exten∣ded to the pretensions of the Spirit, and the opinion, that of late begins to diffuse it self among some, that all that is designed or done by them, is the dictate and motion of the Spirit in them.

§. 2. Of this it is evident, that ei∣ther that man, which thus pretends, never commits any act prohibited by the Word of God, and vulgarly called sin, after the minute of such pretension (and then that were a rare charm in∣deed to render him impeccable) or that this is the means of consecrating every sin of his, and so the opinion be∣ing imbibed by one that lives in re∣bellion, murther, adulterie, pride, or schisme, or any other (one or more) grossest sins, the effect must be, that he believe every one of these to be infusions of the Spirit of God, and so

no more fit to be resisted before, nor repented for after the Commission of them, then the most eminent acts of piety should be; And when it is thus become impious to resist any tempta∣tion of our own flesh, which sollicites within us, or of Satan that suggests and whispers within us too, i. e. to omit the acting of any sin, that we are any way inclined to, what place can be left for exhortation to Christi∣an life, as long as I have any tempta∣tion against it?

§. 3. This is a doctrine which a man would think should not finde admis∣sion with any considerable sort of men, and therefore it will be lesse pertinent for this Discourse to take any larger notice of it, yet for the preventing and intercepting any far∣ther growth of it, where it may un∣happily have found any reception, It will not be amisse to adde, and evi∣dence these few things:

§. 4. First concerning the Spirit,* 1.149 which is thus pretended to, That the Descent of the Spirit of God was prin∣cipally for three ends, 1. to give Te∣stimony, that Christ was the Son of God, sent with authority to reveal his

will, and to command our faith and obedience, and (consequently to this) to give the world assurance that the Apostles were sent by him, and to signe the Commission of preaching to all Nations, to propagate what he had taught, 2^dly, to assure all men, that the Rules which Christ gave us, are absolutely necessary to be obser∣ved, to render us capable of those Promises made, those benefits purcha∣sed by him, And 3^dly, that, we being so corrupt by nature, so farre from prone, or inclinable, in our Flesh, to obey those Rules; the Graces of his holy Spirit, accompanying the Reve∣lation, or preaching of his will and word, should incline our corrupt hearts to keep his laws.

§. 5. Secondly, that after the mis∣sion of the Spirit, God was pleased, for posterity,* 1.150 otherwise to expresse his care, and love to mankinde, viz: in giving, and consigning to them his written word for a Rule, and constant directer of life, not leaving him to the duct of his own Inclinations.

§. 6. Thirdly, that God hath made (and continued, through all ages, both of Jewes and Christians) one

sort of men to teach another to learn;* 1.151 Among the Jewes one to preserve knowledge in his lips, and with the same to dispense it, the other to en∣quire, and seek the Law at his mouth, and under the Gospel, Pastors, and Teachers▪ and 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 Rulers set over men for their good; Which is a visible prejudice to the pretended guidance of the Spirit, For if that, by the voice within me, be the standing guide of all my actions, what use of forein teachers, or guides, or necessity of obey∣ing the Apostle when he commands me to obey those that are set over me?

§. 7. Fourthly, that every thing that comes out of the heart of man,* 1.152 is not infused into it, or placed there by God. For besides that from thence proceed many aerial fictions, and phasmes, and Chym••raes, created by the vanity of our own hearts, or se∣duction of evil spirits, and not plan∣ted in them by God or nature, or the duct of God's Spirit, motions and e∣missions of our phansie, and not of our reason, of our sensitive, not hu∣mane nature (and to this all the Ido∣latrie of the antient heathens, and the new phansiful divinity of some pre∣sent

Christians, and the whole reli∣gion of the Mahomedanes is visibly imputable) besides this, I say, it is affirmed by the Apostle,* 1.153 Jam. 3.15, 17. that there is a wisdome (and that must signifie some Codex of directions for practise, some law in the members, opposite to that in the minde) that cometh not from above, as well as a wis∣dome that cometh from above, and in plain terms, that it is earthly, sensual, and devilish, as that Law in the mem∣bers is said to lead the man into capti∣vity to the law of sin which is in the members.

* 1.154§. 8. So again, saith Christ, out of the heart proceed all the things that de∣file a man, evil machinations, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, all the most mischie∣vous designments, by name, murthers, adulteries, fornications, (incestuous and unnatural commissions contai∣ned under the word 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 fornica∣tion, 1 Cor. 5.1.) thefts, false-wit∣nesses, evil speakings, i. e. (as by those few instances is intimated and must be supplied by parity of reason) all the contradictions to the several branches (and degrees of those bran∣ches) of the divine or moral law.

§. 9. Secondly, that to impose on our selves or others by this fallacie,* 1.155 to believe or pretend that whatever our own hearts incite us to doe, what they suggest, or dictate, is the Spirit, or word, or revelation of the will of God within us, is the principle of all villanie (the same that hath alwaies acted in the children of disobedience) inhaunsed and improved with circum∣stances of greater boldness and impu∣dence, then ever the most abominable heathens were guilty of, either in their Oracles or in their mysteries.

§. 10. In their Oracles,* 1.156 though their Idol-priests (who had the inclo∣sure of this cheat) gave responses out of the Caverns of the earth, and set up the devil (by the advantage of his foreseeing some things in their causes, and conjecturing at others) above the omniscient God of heaven, yet they af∣fixed not the answers of their devils to the true God. They worshipped Idols, and disclaimed any portion in the true God, turned all knowledge or profession of him out of their hearts, according to that reasonable propo∣sition of S. Paul, 2 Cor. 6.14, 15. that there is no possible agreement to be

had betwixt light and darkness. But these by their refined pretension, doe (in effect, and by way of necessary consequence, and direct interpretation) turn the God of heaven into that ac∣cursed Spirit, affix on him (receive and deliver as the effata and oracles of God) whatsoever the devil▪ or their own lust, or revenge, or pride, or am∣bition, or covetousness (so many 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, spontaneous devils) can infuse into them, and out of their black hearts, as out of the most noy∣some caverns and dens of the earth (holding intercourse with hell) breath out, and deliver to the world.

* 1.157§. 8. So again in their mysteries, and most secret recesses, and adyta of their religion, their heathen Priests were wont to betray and lead their silly votaries into all the most horrid unnatural sins, as into a special part of the devotions and worships required of them by the Gods, whom they had undertaken to serve, But yet never thought fit to let them out of the dark, out of the retirement, but by banishing the eyes of men gave wit∣ness against themselves, accused those facts, which were not able to bear

the light, (to which the Apostle seems to referre Ephes: 5.13.) and so had the excuse of some bashfulness and self-accusation, and care not to scandalize other men; whilst these that make their own lust, their own malice and revenge the voice of the true God, the Spirit within them, are thereby qualified to act the horrid'st sins avowedly & shamelesly, and have no checks left, (no coldness, but where they have no temptations) no dislikes, no shame, no objections to any thing, but to tenderness, to scrupulosity, to fear of offending, to the doing what they doe in bondage, as they call it, i. e. to all the reliques or embers of conscience remaining in them, and if they can but utterly and finally cast out this fear, they are hereby delive∣red up really to the evil spirit, while they most pretend to the guidance of the good. The pretended Spirit of God within them, by suggesting sins, gives a full confidence and security to commit them▪ and then Scripture and conscience and temper, and a tolerable degree of good nature, any thing lower then the utmost evil, is the thing only to be mortified, the one

piece of criminous carnality to be burnt up.

§. 12. Thus by turning one pin in the machine, the whole scene is shift∣ed, and this voice (as if an 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉) that comes out of our own bel∣lies, being mistaken for the still lan∣guage, in which God was once heard, a congregation of Christians may be soon inspired into a legion of Demo∣niacks, and onely one (but that a teeming fruitful) error be committed all this while, the mistaking our own motions for the incitation of the Spi∣rit of God, which till it be reformed or retracted, it must be a shortness of discourse to think strange, and an in∣justice to charge of any new crime, the infallible consequences of it, and such are all the barefaced villanies in the world.

§. 13. For as he that is so sure and confident of his particular election, as to resolve he can never fall, if he com∣mit those acts, or live in those habits, against which the words of Scripture are plain, that they that doe them shall not inherit eternal life, must necessa∣rily resolve, that what were drunken∣ness or adultery in another, is not so

in him, and nothing but the remo∣ving his Fundamental error can re∣scue him from the superstructive, be it never so grosse, So to this one grand mistake (the judging of God's will by the bent of our own spirits) all vi∣cious enormous practises (even to the taking away of all differences be∣tween good and evil) are regularly consequent, and cannot seem strange to attend daily, where the other hath taken up the lodging.

CHAP. XVIII. Of the Mistakes concerning Repentance.

§. 1. ONE sort of doctrines more I cannot but annex here, though I have elsewhere already in∣sisted on them, and those are the mis∣takes in the Doctrine of Repentance.

* 1.158§. 2. Repentance, whatever that word signifies, (and that is certainly a sincere change, and renovation of minde, a conversion of the sinner to God in a new life, repentance from dead works, Heb. 6.1.) is questionless it to which, on purpose, Christ came to call sinners, His whole Embassie from his Fathers bosome was projected and designed for this grand work, and so certainly all the preachings of all the Apostles were of the same ma∣king, that the Gospel tells us the first-fruits were, Repent &c. And there∣fore it will concern us neerly, not to be mislead in this matter,* 1.159 For should we content our selves with somewhat else under the title, or disguise of Re∣pentance, which is either not-repen∣tance at all, or but an imperfect, un∣sufficient

part of repentance, and by consequence, perswade our selves, that by performing of this, we shall have fully answered Christ's call, done all that he came from heaven to require of us, 'tis visible what an obstacle this is to the rearing that superstructure which was designed to be erected on this foundation.

§. 3. Now to this head will be re∣ferred those that from the misunder∣standing of Rom. 7. (not observing) the custome of that Apostle 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉,* 1.160 figuratively to trans∣ferre to himself, in the first person, what belongs to others) have made it reconcileable with regeneration, or re∣pentance (for those two words cer∣tainly signifie one and the same thing in Scripture) to be in that state which is there described, i. e. to doe what a man allows not, but hates, v. 15. the evil which he would not v. 19. to be brought into capeivity to the law of sin, the law in the members, warring against the law of the minde, v. 23. and, upon the same account, even to be carnal, and sold under sin, v. 14. all which must equally belong to the person which is there represented, of

whom equally in the first person they are all affirm'd.

§. 4. That that chapter is really a representation of one, which hath only the knowledge, not practise of his du∣ty, and consequently, to the sinnes, which he commits, hath the aggra∣vation superadded of committing them against knowledge, against con∣science, against sight of the contrary law, is manifest from the context, and hath † 1.161 elsewhere more seasonably been evidenced, And of this I need not many words to declare, how farr it is from being so much as any part of Repentance, any one of the ingre∣dients in it (being indeed no more then either the work of natural con∣science, or, farther, of the minde in∣structed by the Law of Moses, but that not of force to work the least o∣bedience in the man, but supposed in that text to be joyn'd with all custo∣mary disobedience, and captivity to sin) and consequently that if this be mistaken for that, which it is so farre removed from being natural or legal knowledge of duty, despised and trans∣grest, for sincere obedience to all the commandments of God and the former

of these, by so absurd, irrational a concession, be deemed sufficient to ren∣der his estate safe, whosoever hath arrived to this, this must needs annull, and cassate all the force of all the Ar∣ticles of the Creed (although never so firmly and explicitly believed) to∣ward bringing forth good life, i. e. Re∣pentance, truly understood, this sup∣posititious no-repentance being once contentedly received, and espoused in exchange for it.

§. 5. For who will ever take the pains to maintain a painful,* 1.162 ungrate∣ful, perhaps bloody fight against the Law of sin that is in his members (〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 & 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, which are the works of the penitentiary, on neglect of which, the valiantest combatant may prove a reprobate, 1 Cor. 9.27.) if so much lesse then a 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 or beating the aire, v. 26. a bare dislike, or displeasure of the law of the minde, without ever coming into the field, will serve the turn, to secure him of the crown?

§. 6. So again they that, like the popular Prince,* 1.163 are unwilling to dis∣misse any man without his request, and therefore, when they finde not a

man penitent, if they can but obtain of him, to wish that he were penitent, or to grieve,* 1.164 that he cannot ascend so high as that wish, are content to ac∣cept that wish, or that grief for that Repentance, which alone is the condi∣tion required by Christ to rescue from perishing, What doe these again, but wilfully mistake that for Repentance, nay is by them that affirm it is, pre∣sumed and supposed not to be; For if there had been any thing, that could have approved it self to be Repentance, they had never descended to those low enquiries, after the wish, and the grief, Nay the wish they had Repen∣tance, is founded in the presumption they have it not, and the grief that they have not the wish, is again a concession that they have not so much as that; And if they may be capable of comfort, who are so farre from be∣ing true penitents, reform'd, new li∣vers, that the utmost they are arrived to toward it, is but an empty, ineffe∣ctual wish that they were such (with∣out considering the price, that must be payd, the pleasant, espoused sins, that must be parted with, if their wish were granted) then what need all

that Christian life, those many years of severe devotion, and profitable ser∣vice that the Apostles meant, and all Ministers endevour to superstruct on this foundation?

§. 7. So that frequent practise,* 1.165 though not doctrine of the many, of secure spending in sin the youth, and riper age, and even all the remainder (till the forerunners of death and hell make their close approaches to them) and never doubt but the whole con∣dition required by Christ, the Repen∣tance he came to preach, will in that last scene of their last act, immediatly before the exit, be as opportunely and acceptably performed, as at any other point of their lives, What doe these but evacuate the whole force of the Christian faith, and absolutely re∣solve against building of Christian life upon it.

§. 8. The unreasonableness, and pre∣sumption, the danger, and desperate insecurity of those, that thus project, and in stead of that whole age of vi∣tal actions, which are all little e∣nough, be they never so liberally di∣spensed, and never so duly perform'd, (vastly disproportionable to that e∣ternal

Crown, which we know is ad∣judged, a reward to every man, accor∣ding to his works) have not so much as a thought or designe all their lives long (nor till those last, fearful sum∣mons extort it from them) to advance so farre as attrition and contrition, sorrow, and resolution of amendment, and then have no means to secure them of the truth, and sincerity of these, The unreasonableness, I say, and danger of these is † 1.166 elsewhere largely insisted on, but never suffici∣ently lamented, being that which is the debauching all parts of the world, a presumption, that ingages in all sin, and ruine, ascertains the life to be wholly unprofitable, and hath the luck among all professions of Christi∣ans to have aides and officers diligent to offer it some encouragements; The Romanists have many, formerly named, and their extreme Ʋnction, administred as the dying mans viati∣cum (which S. James mention'd as the ceremony of his recovery) may be added to the Catalogue, And others of severall perswasions have made them other tenders of kindnesse, and being unwilling to discourage such

cunctators, alwaies keep them up in good hope, that if they are not yet cal∣led (for that is the style to expresse any impenitent, obdurate sinner) they may yet with the thief be brought in at the last hour, and so (to omit the desperate gulf they are by these vain hopes, if God shew not miracle, most sadly plunged in) are ascertain'd never to superstruct any vital action, on that Divine foundation, so fitly prepa∣red for it.

§. 9. If there be any,* 1.167 that mistake sorrow for sin, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, (which it is very ordinary to finde in those who carry it to hell with them, and which continues in that state of woe, as Cha∣rity doth in heaven) and confound it with repentance 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, which is never lesse then a conversion, and change of minde, these by obtruding an unsufficient part for the whole, the beginning of a change for the entire work of new life, will fall under the former guilt of obstructing this super∣structure, and so, in a word, will all they, that either through indulgence to others, or fondness to any sinne in themselves, substitute for Repentance any thing that is lesse, then a sincere,

uniform Resolution of New obedience, attended with faithful endevour, and 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, meet, proportionable, wor∣thy fruits of this change forever af∣ter. The several, of such possible, or real mistakes in the ret••il, are not here proper to be insisted on.

CHAP. XIX. Of the necessaries to the superstructing of good life on this Foundation.

§. 1. THere is still a fourth branch of Discourse behinde, which by the laws of the designed method, must now briefly be consider'd, What things are necessary to the erecting of this superstructure on this Foundati∣on, whether in a particular Christian, or especially in a Church, or societie of such.

§. 2. Where by [necessary] I mean not the supernatural necessaries,* 1.168 the preventing, and assisting, and renew∣ing grace of God, which we suppose God ready to annex to the Revelation of his will, in the hearts of all that with obedient humble spirits receive, and sincerely imbrace it; Nor 2^dly, in the Physical notion of necessity, that without which the work cannot pos∣sibly be done, the building be erected, for in this sense, as was said, it cannot be affirmed of all the Articles of the Creed, that they are thus absolutely necessary, i. e. that no man can be ima∣gined to reform his life, so as to be

acceptable to God, but he to whom every of those Articles hath been in∣telligibly revealed; (For of many plain, yet pious Christians 'tis not cer∣tain, that that can truly be now affir∣med, and of the pious Jews before Christ's time, it is not so much as pre∣tended.)

* 1.169§. 3. But by necessary] I mean that which is morally necessary to this end, i. e. very useful and helpful to advance it, and make it most probable to be attained, among men of those tem∣pers, which we are commonly to look for in the world; Meaning also by the end to which these means are or∣dinable, not onely the first act of change, resolution of reforming, but withall the continuance and perseve∣rance in such resolutions, and the bringing forth meet fruits of repen∣tance, and that again, not in a single person only, but in a communitie or multitude of men.

§. 4. And in passing our judgment on this kinde of Necessaries, it will not be modestly nor soberly done, if any of our own wisdome intrude or interpose or be willing to make ad∣ditions to what Christ & his Apostles

have designed,* 1.170 and the Ʋniversal practise of the Church hath succes∣fully used, and recommended to us in this kinde; And therefore all that we have farther to doe, is, to recol∣lect, what things there are which are thus brought down unto us.

§. 5. And that will appear to be a methodical successive observation of these severals, as degrees and steps, preparative the one to the other, and all together, thus orderly used, suffi∣cient through the blessing of God (and more probable then any course we could likely have pitched on) to at∣tain the designed end successfully.

§. 6.* 1.171 A solemn admission of Pro∣selytes, all that either, being of age, desire that admission for themselves, or that, in infancie, are by others pre∣sented to that charitie of the Church, with the desires of the parents, and intercession of sureties, that they may be thus early admitted by baptisme, the Ceremonie of initiating Proselytes, of entring disciples into the school of Christ.

§. 7. If the persons thus admitted be of years of understanding, then some competent degree of instruction

is reasonably to prepare for it, which, if they be baptized in infancie,* 1.172 is timely to attend, and security to be taken for the present, that they shall be brought to the Church in due time, where that is presumed to be ready for them. And b••cause in an established Church, where that instru∣ction is secured on all hands, and so is reasonably presumed to attend ba∣ptisme, the practise of the Church hath alwaie been (transcribed from the Apostles) to bring infant children to baptisme▪ we have all reason to ad∣here to that practise, and to acknow∣ledge with thankefulness the several advantages, which it contributes, to∣ward the end of redeeming us from all iniquitie,* 1.173 and purifying a peculiar people unto Christ.

§. 8. First,* 1.174 on God's part, it secures to the infant a non-imputation of A∣dam's transgression, seals unto him an assurance of God's not proceeding with him according to the strict Co∣venant first made with man, of a per∣fect unsinning obedience, by which we could have no hope to be justified, and on the contrary receives him in∣to a Covenant of Grace, where there

is pardon reached out to all (truly penitent) sinners, and assistance promi∣sed and engaged (and bestowed upon very easie conditions, humility and prayer and affiance in him) and this, in a degree proportionable to what now is required of us, as farre as is truly sufficient, and can reasonably be desired by a rational agent, and as is reconcileable with that liberty, which is necessary to be reserved to the will of man, to make him capable of virtue and vice, and consequently of reward and punishment; And this is a necessary expedient to deliver from the encumbrance and weight of fears, and to beget a lively and a quickning hope, and so 'tis in it self one excellent principle of action, (which slackneth for want of encou∣ragement, and cannot choose but be inlivened by such pregnant grounds of it) and thus it must needs appear to be, whensoever the Infant attains to years and means of understand∣ing it.

§. 9. Secondly, it is the entring the Infant into the Church,* 1.175 where the means of knowledge of duty dwells, and where it is early communicated to

all, and so to this infant as soon as he is capable of receiving it, And the advantage hereof is inestimable, to be thus early taken up and prepossessed by Christ before any other Competi∣tor hath made his claim, or gotten admission or hold or interest in him.

* 1.176§. 10. Thirdly, it is the imposing a band and sacramental obligation up∣on him, an oath, a vow, which being the condition, upon the constant per∣formance whereof all the promises of endlesse blisse are made over to him by God, it is not possible for one that prizeth his own good, to wish it had not been made, or deliberately to re∣scind or disclaim the standing obliged by it, And by this means it layes an absolute necessity on every one that hath been baptized, to undertake the performance of Christ's condition, i. e. of a pious and Christian life.

* 1.177§. 11. Fourthly, it is solemnized with the prayers and benedictions of the Church, which are alwaies of great efficacie to bring down that which is prayed for, but are especi∣ally so, when they are annexed to an Institution of Christ (such as Baptisme is known to be) and the effect of those

benedictions being the preventions, and illuminations, and assistances, and inspirations of God's good Spirit, the heavenly auxiliaries, and secret hand, by which God hath promised to fight against Amalek against sin forever, this together with the former ad∣vantages is very instrumental to∣ward the beginning of this course, and ingaging the infant betimes to a constant perseverance in it. And ac∣cordingly baptisme in the Scripture, and the rest of the particulars which are to attend it, as in some respect they are to be looked on, as privile∣ges, and advantages afforded us by Christ (for such beyond all other things are those, that effectually in∣duce reformation, or Christian life) so are they most frequently conside∣red as bands and obligations, and seals of the Christian's Covenant with Christ, whereby he ingages his soul to a faithful performance of his part of the Covenant, and cannot now without perjurie and Apostasie wil∣fully recede from it.

§. 12.* 1.178 After Baptisme (when that is in infancie received, as now in a Chri∣stian Church we suppose it to be)

succeeds in the next place Instruction and institution in the nature and se∣veral branches of that vow which was made at the Font, and this in such a short, perspicuous, intelligible manner, and in so particular addresse and ap∣plication to every single person (which, with the narrow-mouthed bottle in Quintilian, will not proba∣bly be filled with throwing whole buckets of water over it (to which preaching is most fit to be compared) and therefore requires to be taken single in the hand, and to have that which is needful, warily and with care infused into it) that it is hardly ima∣ginable how a more provident course should be taken, then is by the Church appointed to be used, to convince every young person of his obligation, and to qualifie him judiciously and warily to take that oath in his own person, which was by proxies former∣ly taken for him, and what greater band can lie on any to undertake the duties of Christian life, then the thus surveying and renewing of that oath.

§. 13. And what is thus prepared for in Catechizing is in the third place performed by Confirmation,* 1.179 a most

profitable usage of the Church tran∣scribed from the practise of the A∣postles, which consists in two parts,* 1.180 the childe's undertaking in his own name every part of the baptismal vow (having first approved himself to un∣derstand it) and to that purpose, that he may more solemnly enter this obli∣gation, bringing some Godfather with him, not now (as in baptisme) as his Procurator to undertake for him, but as a witness to testifie his entring this obligation, which one thing being heedfully and piously performed, is the greatest ingagement imaginable to the performance of the matter of the vow (in which all Christian belief and practise is folded up) considering that every act of presumptuous sin, which shall ever be committed against that vow, brings the guilt of formal down∣right perjurie along with it▪ together with the punishment that belongs to that great and criminous guilt, and the forfeiture of his right and claim to all those mercies, which either in Baptisme or Confirmation are made over to him by Christ.

§. 14.* 1.181 The second part of Confir∣mation is the prayer and benediction

of the Bishop, the successour of the A∣postles in this office, and that made more solemn by the Ceremony of Im∣position of hands, a custome indeed of the Jewish parents in blessing their children, but taken up by the Apostles themselves, in stead of that Divine Insufflation, which Christ had used to them in conferring the holy Ghost up∣on them, Joh. 20.22. as an outward signe of the same, as for holy Orders, Act. 6.6 so for Confirmation of be∣lievers after baptisme, Act. 8.18. And the matter of this benediction, and pe∣tition, being the strength of Christ, the daily increase of the manifold gifts of grace, the Spirit of wisdome, understanding, counsel and ghostly strength, of knowledge and true god∣liness and holy fear, as the bestowing of these upon the childe is both the strengthning and ingaging him to all piety, to the Bishop's prayer being thus, by virtue of his office, offered up, and having the suffrages of the whole congregation to joyn with it, and being commenced to God for that boon (the Spirit) which he hath promised to grant to our importunity, it may most reasonably be presumed

to be of force and efficacie with God to bring down that grace which may inable to will and to doe, on all that come duly qualified to receive it.

§. 15. To which I may adde, that this being designed by the Church to certifie those that are thus confirmed of God's favour and gracious goodness toward them, it hath all the advan∣tages that either hope of acceptance and reward, or a grateful sense of mercies received can adde to it, to engage and oblige us to a constant o∣bedience to him.

§. 16. Fourthly,* 1.182 those which are thus confirmed, are thereby supposed to be fit for admission to that other sacrament of the body and blood of Christ, instituted in the close of his last supper: And that,* 1.183 whether it be considered, 1. as an institution of Christ for the solemn commemora∣ting of his death; or 2. as a sacrifice Eucharistical performed by the Chri∣stian to God; or 3. as the 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 communication of the Body and blood of Christ, the means of conveying all the benefits of the crucified Saviour unto all, that come fitly prepared, and qualified for them; or whether 4. as

a federal rite betwixt the soul and Christ, eating and drinking at his table, and thereby engaging our obe∣dience to him; or lastly, as an em∣bleme of the most perfect divine cha∣rity to be observed among all Chri∣stians; In all and every of these re∣spects, I say, it is doubtlesse an in∣strument of great virtue, that hath a peculiar propriety to engage the receiver to persevere in all piety. And that yet farther improved by the fre∣quent iteration, and repetition of that sacrament.

* 1.184§. 17. 1. As it is the commemora∣ting the death of Christ, so it is the professing our selves the disciples of the crucified Saviour, and that inga∣geth us to take up his crosse and follow him, and not to fall off from him for any temptations, or terrors of death it self, but to resist to blood (as Christ did) in our spiritual 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, our O∣lympicks or combates against sin.

* 1.185§. 18. 2^dly, As it is the Eucharisti∣cal Christian sacrifice, so it is formal∣ly the practising of several acts of Christian virtue, 1. of prayer, of thanksgiving, of all kinde of piety towards God; 2. of charity to our

brethren, both that spiritual, of in∣terceding for all men, for Kings, &c. 1 Tim. 2.1. and corporal, in the offer∣torie, for the relief of those that want; and 3. the offering up and so consecra∣ting our selves, our souls and bodies to be a holy, lively, acceptable service to God, the devoting our selves to his service all our daies, And this last a large comprehensive act of piety, which contains all particular branches un∣der it, and is again the repeating of the baptismal vow, and the yet closer binding of this engagement on us.

§. 19. 3^dly, As it is by God designed,* 1.186 and, as an institution of his, blessed and consecrated by him into a sacra∣ment, a holy rite, a means of conveying and communicating to the worthy receiver the benefits of the body and blood of Christ, that pardon of sin and sufficience of strength and grace, which were purchased by his death, and typi∣fied and consigned to us by the sacra∣mental elements, so 'tis again the rid∣ding us of all our discouraging fears, and the animating and obliging of us to make use of that grace, which will carry us (if we doe not wil∣fully betray our succours) victori∣ously

through all difficulties.

* 1.187§. 20. 4^thly, As it is a federal rite betwixt God and us (as eating and drinking both among the Jewes and heathens was wont to be) so 'tis on our part the solemn undertaking of the condition required of us to make us capable of the benefit of God's new Evangelical covenant, and that is syn∣cere performance of all duties prescri∣bed the Christian by Christ, And he that doth no longer expect good from God then he performs that con∣dition, is ipso facto devested of all those fallacious flattering hopes, which pretended to make purifying unne∣cessary, and must now either live purely and piously, or else disclaim e∣ver seeing of God.

* 1.188§. 21. Lastly, As this supper of the Lord is a token and engagement of charity among the disciples of Christ, so it is the supplanting of all the most Diabolical sins, the filthiness of the spirit, the hatred, variance, emu∣lation, strife, revenge, faction, schism, that have been the tearing and rend∣ing of the Church of God (oft-times upon pretense of the greatest piety) but were by Christ, of all other

things, most passionately disclaimed, and cast out of his Temple, And if by the admonitions, which this Em∣bleme is ready to afford us, we can think our selves obliged to return to that charity and peaceable-mindedness, which Christ so frequently and vehe∣mently recommends to us, we have his own promise, that the whole body shall be full of light, Mat. 6. that all other Christian virtues will by way of concomitance or annexation, accom∣pany or attend them in our hearts.

§. 22. And the several happy in∣fluences of all and each of these consi∣derations, especially when they are superadded to the three former grand instruments, and frequently, every month at least,* 1.189 and every great Festi∣vity, called in to reinforce our watch, to remand us to our scrutinie (the examination and search of out hearts and purging out all impurity, that hath been contracted in those inter∣vals) and to renew our vows of tem∣per and vigilance, may very reason∣ably be allowed to have some con∣siderable virtue and efficacy in them, to advance that work, for which Christ came out from the bosome of

his Father, to superstruct the practise of all virtue, where the Faith of Christ is once planted.

§. 23. After these four, which are thus subordinate and preparative the one to the other, the later still bring∣ing with it an addition of weight to the former, Two more there are which are several from, and yet being of continual use, are interweaved and mixt with every of these, and having their distinct energie proper to them∣selves, when they are in conjunction with the former, or added to them, they must needs accumulate and su∣peradde a considerable weight unto them.

* 1.190§. 24. The first is the use of Li∣turgie, the second the word of exhor∣tation among the Jewes, and in the Apostles times, and proportionable to that the sermons or homilies of the Church.

* 1.191§. 25. The Liturgie as it contains the whole daily office, consisting of Confession, prayers, Psalms, hymnes, reading of the scripture of both Te∣staments, Creeds, supplications, inter∣cessions, thanksgivings, injunctions of Gestures and of Ceremonies, and of

Holy-daies, is both the exercise of many parts of Piety, and the conser∣vatory of the Foundation, on which all Piety together is regularly built, and a means of hightning devotion and infusing zeal into it; And the dili∣gent, worthy, continual (in stead of the negligent, formal, rarer) use of it, and the unanimous accord of whole socie∣ties and multitudes herein, would cer∣tainly be very efficacious advancers of all Christian virtue, of piety, of chari∣ty, of purity, over the world, of the two former directly, and of the later by way of diversion, the frequent per∣formance of such offices, obstructing and sealing up the fountains of impu∣rity, and intercepting that leisure, which is necessary to the entertaining the beginnings of it.

§. 26. So for Preaching or exhor∣ting the people by way of Homilie,* 1.192 it appears to have been received from the Jewish by the Christian Church, and by the phrase, by which it is ex∣pressed in the Acts [a word of exhor∣tation to the people] it appears to have been generally imployed in reprehen∣sion of vices and exhortation to vir∣tuous living, And if we survey the

Homilies of the Antient Church (such are those of S. Chrysostome most emi∣nently) we shall discern that as up∣on Festival daies the subject of the Homilie was constantly the business of the Day, the clearing the mysterie, the incarnation of Christ &c. and the recommending the actions or suffer∣ings of the Saint, and raising mens hearts to acknowledge the goodness of God in setting up such exemplary patterns and guides before us, So up∣on other daies, after some short lite∣ral explication of some place of scri∣pture, the custome was, not to raise doctrinal points, according to every preachers judgment or phansie, but presently to fall off to exhortation to temperance, continence, patience, and the like Christian virtues, which ei∣ther the propriety of the Text, or the wants and sins of the auditory, or the times suggested to them. And this so farre from being a fault in their method of preaching, that it was an eminent exemplary piece of Christian prudence, observable and imitable in them, as a means of keeping false or unnecessary definitions out of the Church, which tend to the increase

of disputes and contentions, and whilst they they doe so, are not to the edifi∣cation and benefit, but to the destru∣ction and mischief of the hearers.

§. 27. Of this usage of the Church it is most visible, if it be but by the ill uses which are made of it many times in stirring up seditions, rebelli∣ons, murthers, hatreds, animosities, calumnies, revilings of superiors, &c. in disseminating of heresies, infusing of prejudices &c. what advantage may be had toward the advancement of all parts of Christian life by a due performance of it, 'Tis very much in the power of a popular Orator to re∣present vices in so formidable, yet just appearances, and to set out each vir∣tue in so amiable a form, and to apply this so particularly to those that are concerned to be thus wrought on, that the Covetous person shall flie from, and scatter (most liberally) his beloved Idol, wealth, the rageful per∣son shall finde a calm, the lustful a coldness insensibly infused upon his breast, and the auditor's phansie and sensitive affections being called in to joyn with his reason and the Spirit of God, it will by the blessing of that

Spirit be in the power of meditation, to radicate these seeds, to fix this transient gleam of light and warmth, to confirm inclinations and resolutions of Good (received in at the ear) and give them a durable consistence in the soul.

* 1.193§. 28. Next to this is the spiritual persons being called for (and obey∣ing the summons) to visit the sick, Jam. 5.14. to assist him in the great work of discussing and examining his conscience, of making his search as par∣ticular as it can, whether it be any sin either unreformed, or unsufficient∣ly mortified, which may have laid him under God's present displeasure, and brought that disease, as a piece of di∣scipline, upon him. In this condition the rod of God hath a voice to be heard, and he whose office it is in pub∣lick to explain the oracles of God for the use of the Church, and to apply them to each mans wants, is now to preach on this new text, and expound to the sick man (as farre as by the closest inspection he can judge) the particular meaning of the voice, the interpretation of God's message to him, And if he be not able, like Da∣niel

to interpret Nebuchadnezzar's dream, or Belshazzar's hand-writing on the wall, which was the work of a Prophet extraordinarily inspired, yet he may, without the spirit of di∣vination, discern that affinity and de∣pendence betwixt the man's unrefor∣med sins, and God's hand of punish∣ment, which may be sufficient ground of superstructing Daniel's exhortati∣on of breaking off his sinnes by repen∣tance, and shewing mercy to the poor, by humiliation, sincere resolution and vow of new life, and by meet fruits of such reformation, the highest works of charity and piety, that the patient is capable of. And besides that this method may receive so much force (and probably prove successful) by assistance of those impressions, that the desire of recovering the former health may have upon the patient (when he considers the pardon of sinnes, which ordinarily introduced Christ's corporal cures, and prudent∣ly judgeth how improbable it is, that God, which for any sin committed hath inflicted this disease, should re∣move it before reformation, or if he doth, must doe it as an act of higher

wrath and punishment) Besides this, I say, the time of sickness, or any other affliction, is like the cool of the day to Adam, a season of peculiar propriety for the voice of God to be heard in the mouth of his messengers, and so may, by the assistance of united prayers for God's blessing on his own instruments, be improved into a very advantageous opportunity of begetting or increasing spiritual life in the soul, and cannot without great guilt of unkindness and treachery to that most pretious part be neglected or omitted by us.

* 1.194§. 29. And the analogie holds, though not in the same degree, yet in the proportion, to every other sea∣son or person, who is under the power of any unreformed sin, or is doubtful of the sincerity of the kinde, or suffi∣cience of the degree of his change, and is not so fit or competent a judge of his own estate (if upon no other score but because his own) as any other fel∣low Christian of no deeper judgment then himself, or as the spiritual per∣son, whose office it is to watch for his soul, and is probably furnished with more skill, fidelity & zeal toward the

doing of it, may be deemed to be. And in this case the use of spiritual conference (which is at all times very profitable, yea and pleasant to every diligent humble Christian) is unimagi∣nable and unspeakable, especially if it be free and unrestrained, having all the advantages of the divinest friend∣ship, and withall all the contentments and satisfactions of it (which are ex∣ceedingly great, and agreeable to ra∣tional ingenuous natures) and bear∣ing an image and lively resemblance of that conversation which is among Angels and beatified Saints, a commu∣nication and conjunction of souls, de∣signed to our highest interests and concernments, the countermining and eradicating of sin, mortifying this or that passion, rage, or other sensual de∣sire, and contending for the highest ex∣altation and improvement of our na∣tures, all growth in grace, and the practical knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.

§. 30. Many inhaunsments of this spiritual useful, though more private exercise, might be farther noted, and rules for the more advantageous pra∣ctise of it, especially that there were

some eminent persons, of known abi∣lities, experience, judgment, gravity, fidelity, zeal to all Christian virtue and the good of souls set apart to this one office of spiritual conference, in every Province, and all men rational∣ly convinced of the great benefits that might be reaped by a frequent resort to them in all possible times of need, and of the no kinde of detriment or disadvantage, that they can suffer by it.

* 1.195§. 31. But beyond all these there is another very efficacious method still behinde, of which the Apostle saith, that it was not carnal or weak▪ but mighty to God, or very powerful, for the bringing down of strong holds, for the subduing of the most obstinate, contumacious sinner, and bringing him into the obedience of the faith of Christ, and that is the power and exer∣cise of the Keyes committed to the Apostles & their successors by Christ, the weapons of their warfare, as Saint Paul calls them, the means of dis∣charging their office to the good of souls.

§. 32. For when any baptized, instructed, confirmed, communicated

Christian, which hath participated of the Liturgie and Sermons of the Church, shall in despight of all these obligations (very competent and suffi∣cient to have restrain'd him) break out into any known wilfull scandalous sin, this course is then ready at hand, to be sent as an officer to arrest and reduce him, First the admonitions, fra∣ternal or paternal, of his fellow Chri∣stians, or of the Governors of the Church, then more publike reprehen∣sions and increpations, and upon the unsuccessfulness of all these milder medicaments, the use of that stronger Physick, the Censures of the Church, either 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 for a determinate, shorter space, or else indefinitely, us{que} ad reformationem, untill he reform and return, and then when he doth so, the admitting him to penance, to approve the sincerity of his change by meet fruits of repentance, and then, and not till then, allowing him the benefit, of absolution.

§. 33. The efficacy and usefulness of this last method hath elswhere been shewn at large (in a Tract on that subject) especially upon the score of shame, when he that will live the life

of a heathen, go on unreformed in any open sin, shall not be allowed the ho∣nour of a Christian name, of an ordi∣nary good reputation among men, but be banished and interdicted the enjoyment of those sacred privileges, which the meanest of Christ's flock is allowed by him. What these losses are, is sufficiently known, and set off by the Apostles style, expressing them by 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 and 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, destruction and excision, and the like; As for that other of shame, the efficacy that belongs to it, may be discerned by that antient Apophthegm of * 1.196 Cleobu∣lus, the fift of the sages of Greece, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, that that people are composed to the greatest sobriety, among whom the ci∣tizens stand in more fear of dispraise, then of law; supposing that state to be best qualified, where virtue, and every part of good living, which laws are wont to prescribe, hath ac∣quired so great a credit, and reputa∣tion among all, that without fear of punishment from laws, or Magistrates, the very dread of shame and disgrace shall be able to contain all men with∣in

the bounds of exact living, and awe them from admitting any thing which is foul, or sinful. To which purpose also is that of † 1.197 Hippodamus the Py∣thagorean, that there be three causes of virtue (〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉) and shame is the last of them, of which, saith he, (〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, &c.) good customes are able to infuse a dread into all men, that are 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 well cultivated, and make them 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, to have a reverence, or pudicitious, chaste fear of doing any thing which is ill. And according to this prudential notion of these wise men of the world, is this piece of Christian discipline in∣stituted by our Saviour, to deprive vice of its greatest temptation, the praise of men, to exalt and set up vir∣tue the onely creditable thing, and brand sin as infamous, And if this of shame superadded to the former of losse (and both being met together, as the sinners portion here, perfectly prefiguring the two saddest ingredi∣ents in hell, deprivation of the bliss∣ful vision, and confusion of face) can∣not prove efficacious and successful to the mortifying of unprofitable vice,

the Church doth then give over the patient as desperate; pretends not to any farther methods of working on such obdurate sinners.

* 1.198§. 34. Nor indeed is it reasonable it should, when beside the Foundation (consisting of so many stones, each of them elect and pretious, chosen by the wisdome of heaven for this admirable work of reforming the most obdurate Jew or heathen) this series and suc∣cession of so many powerful methods being farther prescribed by God and administred by the Church, have found so discouraging a reception, that nothing but the violence of storming or battery (the course which God is forced to take for the destroy∣ing, but cannot without changing the course of nature, for the converting of sinners) can hope or pretend to prove successful on them.

* 1.199§. 35. What hath been said of the wise disposition of God in preparing & instituting this series of necessaries for the effecting this great work, the reformation of mens lives (the latter annext to the former, each to adde weight and authority, and to vindi∣cate the contempts of the former)

might more largely be insisted on yet, on a farther designe, to give us a just value of that sacred office, which Christ fixed in the Church in his A∣postles and the Bishops their successors, and honoured it and them in this e∣specially, that he hath put these wea∣pons into their hands, intrusted to, and invested in them the Power of dispensing all these, and by that means rendred them necessary to the plant∣ing and supporting a Church of vital Christians, to the maintaining of pious practise in any community of Professors. But this would soon swell this discourse beyond the limits de∣signed to it.

§. 36.* 1.200 All that is behinde will be by way of Comment on that part of the Church of England's charity, which hath constantly called to God, that he will inspire continually the Ʋniversal Church with the Spirit of truth, unity, and concord, and grant that all they that doe confesse his holy name may agree in the truth of his holy word, and live in unity and godly love.

Notes

• * 1.1

  Foundation is a relative and figurative word.
• * 1.2

  The relation of it to superstru∣cture.
• * 1.3

  Building on the sand, and on a rock.
• * 1.4

  The difference between them.
• * 1.5

  The Superstru∣cture to which Foundation here relates,
• * 1.6

  Two sorts of Superstru∣ctures.
• * 1.7

  Heaven.
• * 1.8

  The Church.
• * 1.9

  Heaven cannot be it, for two Reasons.
• * 1.10

  The first.
• * 1.11

  The second.
• * 1.12

  Fundamental to a Church, to Piety and Christian life.
• * 1.13

  This notion of Fundamental confirmed.
• * 1.14

  by S. Athana∣sius.
• * 1.15

  Edifying.
• * 1.16

  Four branches of discourse proposed.
• * 1.17

  The General way of defining Fundamentals,
• * 1.18

  by what the A∣postles taught every where.
• * 1.19

  The founda∣tion laid, 1 Cor. 3.11.
• * 1.20

  1 Tim. 6.20.
• * 1.21

  Jude 3.
• * 1.22

  2 Tim. 1.13.
• * 1.23

  Eph. 4.5.
• * 1.24

  Approved in common by the Apostles.
• * 1.25

  Comprehen∣sive of all ne∣cessaries —
• * 1.26

  to the planting of a Church;
• * 1.27

  not to the con∣version of eve∣ry particular person.
• * 1.28

  Some Jews re∣duced to good life without this foun∣dation.
• * 1.29

  Synesius a Bi∣shop before he believed the Resurrection▪
• * 1.30

  Jesus Christ the Foun∣dation. 1 Cor. 3.11.
• * 1.31

  The Christian foundation compared with the Na∣tural.
• * 1.32

  with the Ju∣daical.
• * 1.33

  with the hea∣then and Ma∣homedan.
• * 1.34

  Christ cruci∣fied the Foun∣dation.
• * 1.35

  What propriety the Crosse hath to this.
• * 1.36

  Christ's resur¦rection the Foundation.
• * 1.37

  an Argument of the greatest conviction.
• * 1.38

  A pawn of our Resurrection Corporal,
• * 1.39

  and Spiritual.
• * 1.40

  An example of new life to us.
• * 1.41

  The Mysterie of Godliness, 1 Tim. 3.16.
• * 1.42

  God made ma∣nifest by the Flesh.
• * 1.43

  The Arians doctrines a∣gainst it.
• * 1.44

  De Fide p. 53.
• * 1.45

  God justified by the Spirit.
• * 1.46

  God seen of Angels.
• * 1.47

  Preached a∣mong the Gentiles.
• * 1.48

  Believed on among men.
• * 1.49

  the Jewes;
• * 1.50

  the Gentiles.
• * 1.51

  Received up into glory.
• * 1.52

  The Father, Son, and holy Ghost.
• * 1.53

  The Apostles Creed.
• * 1.54

  Proved to be the Apostles.
• † 1.55

  Ecclesia per u∣niversum orbem usque ad sines terrae seminata, & ab Apostolis & à discipulis corum accepit eam fidem quae est in unū Deū patrē omnipotentē &c. Iren: l. 1. c. 2.
• * 1.56

  Quid si neque Apostoli quidem scripturas reliquissent nobis, nonne oportebat Ordinem sequi traditionis, quam tradiderunt iis, quibus constituebant Ecclesias? Cui ordinationi assentiunt mullae gentes barbarorum, quorum qui in Christum credunt, sine chartâ & atramento scriptum habentes in cordibus suis salutare, & ve∣terem eruditionem diligenter custodientes, in unum Deum creden∣tes &c. Iren: l. 3. c. 4.
• * 1.57

  The articles thereof funda∣mental to good life.
• * 1.58

  〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉.
• * 1.59

  The article of God the Fa∣ther.
• * 1.60

  Of God the Son.
• * 1.61

  Of God the holy Ghost.
• * 1.62

  Of the Holy Catholick Church.
• * 1.63

  Of the Com∣munion of Saints.
• * 1.64

  The forgive∣ness of sins;
• * 1.65

  Misinterpre∣ted.
• * 1.66

  Rightly under∣stood.
• * 1.67

  The want of this to Reno∣vation
• * 1.68

  in a first,
• * 1.69

  a second,
• * 1.70

  a third respect.
• * 1.71

  The necessity of it.
• * 1.72

  The belief of the Resurrecti∣on of the Body.
• * 1.73

  Fundamental to Renovation.
• * 1.74

  The want of it very hurtful.
• * 1.75

  The perswasion gainfull.
• * 1.76

  Everlasting life.
• * 1.77

  The necessity of the belief of that.
• * 1.78

  The design of ••••••er Creeds.
• * 1.79

  Defined.
• * 1.80

  Of the Ni∣cene.
• * 1.81

  One God.
• * 1.82

  Of all things visible, and invisible.
• * 1.83

  One Lord Je∣sus Christ, &c.
• * 1.84

  The H. Ghost the Lord and giver of life &c.
• * 1.85

  One baptisme for the Remis∣sion of sins.
• * 1.86

  The Doctrine of the Athana∣sian Creed.
• * 1.87

  The Censures.
• * 1.88

  The generall nature of the Superstruction in five parti∣culars.
• * 1.89

  The special∣ties of it.
• * 1.90

  Piety in oppo∣sition to Ido∣latrie.
• * 1.91

  Piety in oppo∣sition to For∣mality.
• * 1.92

  To Hypocrisie
• * 1.93

  To Sacrilege.
• * 1.94

  To Profane∣ness.
• * 1.95

  Obedience to Superiors.
• * 1.96

  Charitie. e.
• * 1.97

  Puritie.
• * 1.98

  Contentedness·
• * 1.99

  Taking up the Crosse.
• * 1.100

  Doctrines a∣mong the Romanists.
• * 1.101

  The doctrine of Infallibility.
• † 1.102

  Subditos illi (Papae) simpli∣citer obligari ad credendum, adeò irrationabile & blasphemiae plenum est, ut etiam quacunque haeresi pestilentius inveniatur, that subjects should be absolutely and simply bound to believe the Pope, is so irrational and full of blasphemy, that it is found more pe∣stilent then any heresie whatsoever. Wesselus Groningens: de dignit: & potest: Eccl: c. 1. (written about 200 years since.)

  Valdè periclitaretur vita justi si penderet ex vitâ Papae. Wes∣selus Groningens: de dignit: & potest: Eccl: c. 1. the life of a just man would be in very great hazard, if it depended on the life of the Pope.

  Summorum Pontificum plerique pestilenter erraverunt &c. Most of the Popes have erred pestilently. Wesselus Groningens: de dign: & potest: Eccl: c. 1. 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉; What amulet hath the Pope to preserve him from denying God in his words, who so oft doth it in works? Nilus de prim: p. 57.
• * 1.103

  Of the Pope.
• † 1.104

  de Primatu p. 57.
• * 1.105

  The ill effects of it.
• * 1.106

  The perswasi∣on of the Soli∣fidian.
• * 1.107

  The Doctrine of Faith being a full perswa∣sion.
• * 1.108

  Ostructive to good life.
• * 1.109

  The pretended use of good life to the justify∣ing of our Faith,
• * 1.110

  vain in four re∣spects: The First.
• * 1.111

  The second.
• * 1.112

  The third.
• * 1.113

  The fourth.
• * 1.114

  The Jew's pre∣mature perswa∣sion of his good estate.
• * 1.115

  The Christi∣ans.
• * 1.116

  The Fiducia∣rie's ground, Christ's dy∣ing for none but the Elect.
• * 1.117

  Two farther obstructions to good life.
• * 1.118

  Of Faiths be∣ing defined by Reliance.
• * 1.119

  The Error of it.
• * 1.120

  The danger of obstructing good life.
• * 1.121

  Universal Re∣demption the doctrine of Scripture.
• * 1.122

  Of the Creeds. The Nicene.
• * 1.123

  The Aposto∣lick.
• * 1.124

  Of the Church of England, in the Catechism.
• * 1.125

  In the Cōmu∣nion services.
• * 1.126

  In the Articles
• * 1.127

  The ill conse∣quences of the denying it.
• * 1.128

  In the redu∣cing a vitious Christian.
• * 1.129

  In comforting a disconsolate Christian.
• * 1.130

  The Article of our Church.
• * 1.131

  The doctrine of irrespective decrees.
• * 1.132

  Takes off the force
• * 1.133

  1. of Promises,
• * 1.134

  2. of Terrors.
• * 1.135

  3. of Com∣mands.
• * 1.136

  Of Gratitude▪
• * 1.137

  The doctrine of God's pre∣determining all events.
• * 1.138

  Of preorder∣ing.
• * 1.139

  Of God's pre∣determining his own will.
• * 1.140

  Of Gods Pre∣science.
• * 1.141

  The doctrine of Predetermi∣nation noxious to Practise.
• * 1.142

  Revealed and secret will.
• * 1.143

  Sin is not no∣thing.
• * 1.144

  The distincti∣on betwixt the act and the ob∣liquitie.
• † 1.145

  Noct: Att: l. 6. c. 2.
• * 1.146

  li. 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉.
• † 1.147

  de Fato.
• * 1.148

  l. 6. c. 2.
• * 1.149

  Concerning the descent of the Spirit.
• * 1.150

  Gods method in his Church.
• * 1.151

  Teachers and learners.
• * 1.152

  All that comes out of the heart is not from God.
• * 1.153

  Jam. 5.15.17.
• * 1.154

  Mat. 15.18, 19.
• * 1.155

  The belief of it a very noxi∣ous error.
• * 1.156

  Worse then the fallacie of the heathen O∣racles.
• * 1.157

  Or idolatrous Mysteries.
• * 1.158

  Of Repen∣tance▪
• * 1.159

  Dangerousness of mistakes in it▪
• * 1.160

  Misunderstan∣ding Rom. 7.
• † 1.161

  Annot: in Rom: 7.
• * 1.162

  Dangers of it.
• * 1.163

  Wishes of re∣pentance.
• * 1.164

  Sorrow that they doe not wish.
• * 1.165

  Deferring Re∣pentance to Death-bed.
• † 1.166

  Of Death-bed Repentance.
• * 1.167

  Mistake of Sorrow for Repentance.
• * 1.168

  Three kindes of necessaries.
• * 1.169

  Morally neces∣sary to this end.
• * 1.170

  What the Uni∣versal Church of Christ hath thought thus Necessary.
• * 1.171

  1. Baptisme,
• * 1.172

  Of Infants.
• * 1.173

  Benefits of that;
• * 1.174

  The first.
• * 1.175

  The second.
• * 1.176

  The third.
• * 1.177

  The fourth.
• * 1.178

  Catechizing.
• * 1.179

  Confirmation.
• * 1.180

  The first part thereof.
• * 1.181

  The second.
• * 1.182

  The Lord's Supper.
• * 1.183

  In five consi∣derations.
• * 1.184

  The first.
• * 1.185

  The second.
• * 1.186

  The third.
• * 1.187

  The fourth.
• * 1.188

  The fift.
• * 1.189

  The frequency of Receiving it.
• * 1.190

  The use of Li∣turgie.
• * 1.191

  The use of Li∣turgie.
• * 1.192

  Of Preaching.
• * 1.193

  Visitation of the Sick.
• * 1.194

  Spiritual Con∣ference.
• * 1.195

  The power of the Keyes.
• * 1.196

  Stobaeus, ser: 41. p. 268.
• † 1.197

  li. de Republ:
• * 1.198

  This the last Ecclesiastical means.
• * 1.199

  The necessity of Governors in the Church.
• * 1.200

  The Conclu∣sion.