OF Fundamentals IN A NOTION referring to PRACTISE.  
By H. HAMMOND, D. D.  
LONDON, Printed by J. Flesher for Richard Royston, at the Angel in Ivy-lane. M.DC.LIV.   

OF FUNDAMENTALS.  

CHAP. I. The Notation of the word Fundamental.  
§. 1. IN this inquiry, the literal notation of the word [Fundamentals] must first be examined and resolved on, as the Groundwork of this whole discourse. And herein the most advantageous method and least liable to mistake will be to proceed by these degrees:  
§. 2. First, 
Foundation is a relative and figurative word.  that the word Foundation being a relative, and, as it is used in our present disquisition, a figurative word, it will be needful to premise wherein this relation, and wherein this figure doth consist, it being evident, what Aristotle saith, that the whole being of any relative is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, in order to that whereto it hath relation, and so likewise that some primary literal signification is prerequired to that other of Metaphorical or Figurative. And accordingly 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 building, nor figurative, but what is founded in that and deduced from thence.  

The relation of it to superstructure.  §. 3. But than secondly, it is not every building to which a foundation refers (some structures being erected without any foundation) but such as is cemented and fastened to some firm, stable body under ground, i. e. to a foundation; We are taught this distinction 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 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, without a foundation) not always 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, 
Building on the sand, and on a rock.  upon a rock, and though the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, building, be there used of both those, yet the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, 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, together with the character of the Architects, the foolish and the wise, will assure us that this which we now insist on, is no nicety, for assoon as ever the rain descended, the floods came, and the winds blue and beat upon that house of the fools erecting, the house fell (and broke to pieces, the fall thereof was great) v. 27. Whereas all the violence and importunity of the same storms, and winds, and torrents could make no impression on the other pile of the skilful Architects erecting, upon this one account, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, for it was founded upon a rock. And so in like manner the difference is set by the author to the Hebrews betwixt 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, the movable tent or tabernacle, and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, a city that hath foundations, Heb. 11.10. which is all one with the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, the kingdom that cannot be shaken or moved, Heb. 12.28.  
§. 4. 
The difference between them.  And the difference of building 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 than to the air or water, whereas to a stone or rock, which being itself firm, is also fastened deep within the earth, a superstructure of any proportionable magnitude may be so fastened, that without a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or concussion of the earth itself, (which shaketh the foundations, Act. 16.26.) the building shall not be shaken, and therefore Coloss. 1.23. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 built on a foundation, is equivalent to 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, firm, and opposed to 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, moved, and so Christ supposes in another parable, that the gates of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, the strongest opposition imaginable in nature shall not prevail against that house which is thus built, Mat. 16.18.  
§. 5. Thirdly then, the figurative or metaphorical notation of this word, and not the primary or literal, being that which belongs to this place, and yet that bearing a direct proportion to the literal, and so requiring a proportionable relation to some figurative building or superstructure, in order to which it may be styled a foundation or fundamental, the next, and that indeed the Principal Enquirie will be, 
The Superstructure to which Foundation here relates,  what superstructure it is to which this Foundation doth refer, 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 pretention to this matter, 
Two sorts of Superstructures.  two only fabrics or superstructures there are, which can come into this competition, each called by the name of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 house, The first 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, my father's house, Joh. 14.2. The second (with little change) 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, the house of God, 1 Tim. 3.15. The first is evidently Heaven, 
Heaven.  the place whither Christ was then going, as their harbinger to prepare for them; The second is expressly said to be the Church, 
The Church.  in the words immediately subsequent; 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, 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 liveless false deities, the Diana of the Ephesians and the like, whose pictures were enshrined and adored in those heathen Temples; And each of these are metaphorical buildings (answerable 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 signify the replenishing or peopling of these two, 1. bringing saints to heaven, and 2. proselytes into the Church, or else by a Metonymy of the adjunct, they may denote 1. that Celestial; and 2. that Christian condition, which is in either of them enjoyed, the state of bliss in the one, and the state of Christian obedience in the other.  
§. 7. In proportion then to these two superstructures, two notions of Fundamentals may be conceived, one signifying that whereon our eternal bliss is immediately, and regularly superstructed, the other whereon our obedience to the faith of Christ, giving up our names to him, is founded, the one in order to our living happily and eternally in another world, the other to our living soberly, and justly, and piously in this world.  
§. 8. And if the former were it, 
Heaven cannot be it, for two Reasons.  wherein our present search were terminated, if the question were, what were now fundamental to bliss or heaven, than 1. 
The first.  there could be no reason to explain the fundamentals, as by consent of parties they are explained, by the credenda, matters of belief or faith; for though the acknowledgement of God's veracity, and the explicit, unshaken belief of all that is revealed to him by God, be the strict duty of every Christian, and the disbelieving of any such affirmation of Gods, is sin, and damnable, yet the foundation being that which supports the superstructure to which it relates immediately, and without the intervention of any thing else, 'tis certain, that eternal bliss is not immediately superstructed on the most orthodox beliefs; but, as our Saviour saith (if ye know these things, happy are ye if ye do them) the doing must be first superstructed on the knowing or believing, before any happiness, or bliss, 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, etc. are as necessarily required to found our bliss, to bring us to heaven, as the belief of any the most precious Articles can be supposed to be; and therefore it may be justly feared, that the title of Fundamentals, being ordinarily bestowed on, and confined to the doctrines 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 practices, though never so habitually and indulgently continued in, to the last, would never be able to deprive them; which as it hath been the disjoining of that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, most excellent yoke, of faith and good works, and hath betrayed many knowing men to most unskilful and ridiculous presumptions, 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.  

The second.  §. 9 Secondly, If this were the notion of Fundamentals, there could be no certain way of judging what are such, the excuse of invincible ignorance being, in the far greatest number of men, ready to be confronted against the necessity of their believing all the severals of any such supposeable Catalogue; And for that suppletorie of an implicit belief, which is by the Romanist conceived to be of use and sufficient for those, who are not capable of an explicit, whatsoever degree of truth can be conceived to be in that, it must be founded in the contradictory to the present pretention; for were it once granted that the belief of such articles were fundamental to heaven, it were not imaginable that they which have not heard, should ever arrive thither, When that, which by S. Paul's authority is become a known maxim, was before demonstrable in itself, and is so supposed by his argument, Rom. 10.14. that faith cometh by hearing, and that they cannot believe what they have not heard. Many 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 number, or Catalogue of Fundamentals in this sense:) but I shall no farther enlarge on them.  

Fundamental to a Church, to Piety and Christian life.  §. 10. The other notion of Fundamentals, is that whereon I shall more confidently pitch (as that which will remove, in stead of multiplying, difficulties, and accord all, which either the Scriptures, or the Ancients have asserted on this subject) thereby understanding that which was deemed necessary to be laid by the Apostles and other such Master-builders, as a foundation to the peopling or replenishing (or bringing in proselytes to) the Church, and so to the superstructing Christian obedience among 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 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, God's plantation, 1 Cor. 3.9. so it is also called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 God's building, a structure erected by his artificers.  

This notion of Fundamental confirmed.  §. 11. That this hath been esteemed the due and proper acception of this word, I shall testify by this one evidence, which I acknowledge to have given me the first hint of this notion, the words of the great Champion of the Catholic Faith set down in the Council of Nice, 
by S. Athanasius.  S. Athanasius in Epist: ad Epictetum, where speaking of the Confession of Faith established by the Canons of that Council against the Arian, and other Heretics, he hath these words, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, The faith confessed by the Bishops in that Synod according to the divine Scriptures is of itself sufficient for the averting of all impiety, and the establishment of all piety in Christ. These words of that eminent 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 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, necessaries to be known, as Justine Martyr speaks, placing under that head, the Creation of the world, the framing of man, the immortality of the soul, and judgement to come, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉: p. 9) is by the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or sufficiency of them to enable the teacher to persuade good life, to supplant those vices, which Christ came to banish out of the world, and to radicate those virtues which he came on purpose to implant among men, which is directly that notion, or Character of Fundamentals, which we have now given, thereby signifying those articles 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 revealed, 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 unchristian 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 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, 
Edifying.  building or edifying, is used every where in the New Testament for improving or advancing in Christian practice 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, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 etc. After we shall have received 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 specifies, making the Christian actions of life to be the superstructure, to which this Foundation refers, and in relation to which, it is called a Foundation. So Theophylact on Heb. 6.1. makes the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, their being instructed in the Faith of Christ, to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, to deal only in the beginning, the elements, the first and most imperfect rudiments, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, 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, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, being carried to perfection; and again in yet plainer words, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 etc. The Faith is the beginning, and the foundation, and that without which nothing shall or will be firmly built; still making the Faith, or belief of the Articles the foundation, in respect of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the excellent 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 behind will be regularly reducible to these four heads, First, 
Four branches of discourse proposed.  What those things are in General, and then in particular, to which this notion of Fundamentals belongeth, and withal, what propriety all and each of these have toward the supporting this superstructure, the planting a Church of Christian livers. 2dly, What are the particular branches of this superstructure. 3dly, What Doctrines there are infused among Christians, which are most apt to obstruct or intercept the superstructing of Christian life, where the foundation is laid. 4dly, 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. 
The General way of defining Fundamentals,  The General way of defining what these fundamentals are, must in reason be taken from the practice of the Apostles, as the interpreter of God's appointment, and judgement in this matter. 
by what the Apostles taught every where.  For it being certain that the Apostles, which had a commission from Christ to preach, and admit disciples over all the world, to bring impenitent Jews, 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 infallibly conclusive on both sides, positively, and negatively, that whatever the Apostles jointly agreed on, at their entrance on their several Provinces, 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.  

The foundation laid, 1 Cor. 3.11.  §. 3. For the clearing of this, it is first evident that there was in the A-Apostles times such a foundation laid (〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉) in every Church, as in that of Corinth, 1 Cor. 3.11. styled 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, 1 Tim. 6.20. 
1 Tim. 6.20.  a good depositum or trust, which Timothy had received from the Apostles, for the direction of his ministry, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, Judas 3. 
Judas 3.  the faith once, or at once delivered to the saints, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, 2 Tim. 1.13. a form, or breviate, 
2 Tim. 1.13.  or summary of wholesome words, or sound doctrine, which he had heard from S. Paul, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, one faith, Eph. 4.5▪ 
Eph. 4.5.  in proportion to which followeth there 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 one baptism, wherein there was made profession of that Faith, and to which none (of years and knowledge) was ever admitted, who had not been sufficiently instructed by the Catechist in every part of this foundation, (which to that end the Catechist received from the Bishop 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 himself there, to superstruct all Christian practice upon it.  
§. 4. Secondly, 
Approved in common by the Apostles.  that this was approved of by them in common upon consultation, (and so seemed good to the holy Ghost and to them, in order to their end, the bringing of Jews and Gentiles to repentance) and accordingly was left behind them, delivered down to the Bishops of all Churches of their plantation, not only as a rule of faith, but as a symbolum, or badge of the Apostles having planted Christianity among them. All which is clearly testified 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, & the Praescription: throughout.  
§. 5. Thirdly, that all that was necessary in order to that end (the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the discipling all nations) was comprehended in this form or summary, 
Comprehensive of all necessaries—  it being certain that what God did not deem necessary, 
to the planting of a Church;  was not necessary, and that nothing which was so deemed by God, was omitted or left behind by them, whose office and care it was to declare the whole will of God, and to lead others, as themselves had been led, into all necessary truth.  
§. 6. Fourthly, that what we thus affirm of the necessity of these things to the superstructing of Christian practice, must not so be understood, that the hearing, and believing of each of them be thought absolutely necessary in every single Jew or heathen, that he may repent, and convert, 
not to the conversion of every particular person.  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 several and distant affections, and tempers and interests, an heterogeneous body made up of a multitude of various inclinations, and of different habits of sin, and degrees of radication 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 Hypocrates advises his Physician to have 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, mollifying preparations for all turns, and to carry them about with him) and so a whole dispensatory 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 desperate malady: But this confusion of diseases and rhapsody 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 converting or reducing of him.  
§. 8. There is no doubt but there were reform Jews before Christ's time, 
Some Jews reduced to good life without this foundation.  whom the pedagogy and rudiments, 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 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 righteous, and some 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 merciful men, which had arrived to the abundance of goodness, as they style it, And of this kind were the Esseni, who though they be not ordinarily conceived to have been Christians, yet are described by Philo, under the name of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 so very like Christians, that there is no reason to doubt, but that Christian piety might be infused into some, without the explicit knowledge of all and every of those articles, which yet, in general speaking, 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 authority, 
Synesius a Bishop before he believed the Resurrection▪  as their names can give it) that Synesius had embraced the whole Christian Law, so far as to be advanced to the dignity of a Bishop, without any clear acknowledging, or believing one main part of our Foundation, that of the Resurrection of the body, and his own 105t Epistle (wherein he so industriously declines the Bishopric) hath these words, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, The resurrection which you preach and publish, I account sacred, and that which cannot be uttered; and I want much of consenting to the persuasions of the multitude in this matter. And though the Bishops, 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 Bishop's answer is a farther testimony, viz: that they saw such excellent graces in him, that they could not imagine, that God would long defer to crown them with the addition of this eminent branch of Christian faith, the clear belief and acknowledgement of the resurrection; And as that fell out according to their expectation, so it is thereby evident, that that branch of belief was in him supervenient to Christian practice, and not all Christian practice built on that.  
§. 10. Nay supposing that he that hath not been instructed sufficiently in all, and each branch of the Foundation, 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 reading 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 do yet by nature the things of the Law, are far from being disparaged by the Apostle, nay 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, saith Theophylact, are looked on as admirable persons, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, that they wanted not the Law, and yet fulfilled the Law;) The danger being certainly very great to them, that by force of all the divine articles of our Faith are not reduced to Christian purity, and not to them, who on a weaker foundation do 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 foundation in a material building, that though a tabernacle or movable building may, yet a Temple or stable edifice cannot be supposed to be built and stand firm without an entire foundation, and consequently that this summary of wholesome words is necessary to the Architects, in order to their superstructing a Pile, their planting a Church of Jews and Gentiles, 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 particular view of this Foundation, which is sometimes most compendiously set down in Scripture, either under the abbreviature of Jesus Christ, 
Jesus Christ the Foundation. 1 Cor. 3.11.  or with the addition of his crucifixion or resurrection, or other remarkable passages concerning him; Or else more largely and explicitly in the Creeds or Confessions of the Universal Church.  
§. 2. For the more compendious, it is S. Paul's affirmation, 1 Cor. 3.11. that Jesus Christ is the one only Foundation, and no man can lay 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 any other, which is the interpretation of what is elsewhere said, that Jesus Christ himself is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the chief corner stone, or again the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, head of the corner, 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 expressed by this Character, they that confess 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 Jews to whom the Gospel was first to be preached, and to some of whom this character of Antichrist was given, believed in the one Creator of the world already, and so that article concerning the Deity, and the Attributes thereof needed not be preached either to them, or to the proselytes from the Gentiles, It is farther manifest that the belief of Christ being founded on the testimony of the Father, Mat. 3.17. and the doctrine of Christ containing in it the declaration and manifestation of the knowledge of the Father, so as he was never known to the world before this Son out of his bosom thus revealed him, the belief of Christ must necessarily suppose and pre-require the belief of the Father, and therefore it follows in S. John, v. 9 that he which abides in the doctrine of Christ, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, 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 testimony to his doctrines of piety and reformation, which the Father's proclaiming them from heaven would have been able to do.  
§. 6. And that being thus supposed of all in gross, and so giving a full authority to all that should be revealed by Christ, the several parts of the revelations afforded us by him will soon be discerned to be extremely conducible to this end of reforming men's lives, such as will answer all imaginable objections and exceptions 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 bliss to be enjoyed to all eternity, and that by way of return for a weak obedience of some few years; such are his threatenings, most formidable menaces of endless woe, to them that will still despise the riches of his goodness, and forbearance; Such is the treaty which he negotiates with us, an offer and tender of a reconciliation, a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, an act of oblivion, of all forepast sins, and of a new Covenant, on most moderate, easy terms of sincere (without unsinning) obedience for the future; And Lastly, such are his precepts, a sort of commandments, which are most agreeable, and grateful 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 practice of those things, which are at the very present, though they were not commanded, and if they should not be rewarded in another life (I mean abstractively from these enhaunsments of them) infinitely estimable and preferable before the Contraries, which must farther cost us so extremely dear, if we will choose and pitch our design 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 superstruct the largest pile of building, to erect a Church of pious livers, and to bring all rational men within the compass of it, and it is not imaginable 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.  

The Christian foundation compared with the Natural.  §. 9 This will more evidently appear, if we compare this one with all other ways which have been used at any time toward this end of inducing, 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 judicatorium, lumen super nos signatum, a natural judicatory, a light sealed upon us, in our first composure) though there were a competent revelation of our duty, and a double obligation to perform it, 1. that of piety to our maker, 2. that of reverence to our own souls, the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, the superior ruling part of us, and these two improveable into many other, and thus actually advanced and improved by natural men, upon study and consideration, (and so all the heathen wisdom was the farther explaining of those obligations, their natural philosophy was but a kind of comment on the creation, and is therefore by the Jews entitled 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the first word of the Book of Genesis, that story of the creation, and that a most proper groundwork of obedience to that Almighty Creator, and their moral philosophy, especially that of Epicurus, a consideration of the most ravishing beauty and delight and joy, the result of the practice of every virtue, that of Socrates (which had the Oracle's Testimony and admiration) a comment on the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, the knowledge of a man's self, that of Pythagoras on the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, 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 superstruct virtue upon) yet there were great defects and vacuities and imperfections in this Oeconomie.  
§. 11. First, the prescribed duties wanted of their full stature, especially if compared with Christ's 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 his suppletories and superadditions.  
§. 12. Secondly, there remained very advantageous accesses for temptations to enter and invade men, the fortifications being very slender to secure their resistance, little knowledge of the immortality of the soul, or any thing beyond this life, whether reward or punishment, no assurance that repentance would be admitted for any sin, an absolute desperation of any good without the help of purgatives, and a perfect ignorance of all means of purging, and many other such wants, which are all abundantly supplied in the Christian's foundation, Jesus Christ.  
§. 13. And upon that account the Apostle could safely challenge the wise men of the heathen world with his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉; Where is the wise man of the world? 1 Cor. 1.20. Let all the Philosophers, moralists or naturalists, bring forth their richest provisions, show such engines of approach and battery, for the supplanting or beating down of vicious life, for the engaging men to reform, and live like men, as this foolishness of preaching ' this despised, but saving doctrine of the Gospel hath afforded us.  
§. 14. 
with the Judaical.  So likewise for the Judaical or Mosaical economy, though that brought many additions to the light of Nature, and was a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, an obscure representation as of that Gospel, 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 advantage of it to shroud and secure them in their sins.  
§. 15. The ceremony and Law of circumcision etc. which was meant by God sacramentally to impress the duty of strict purity, to cut off the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, the superfluity of naughtiness, all inordinate excessive lusts of the flesh, was yet but a character impressed on the flesh, and did not explicitly 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 child of Abraham was thought to commute for all impurity.  
§. 16. So again the Phylacteries on their wrists and foreheads were looked on as spells and charms, which would yield them impunity for their disobedience, And the strict ordinances against conversing with Gentiles, lest they should learn and join in their abominations, bred more of pride, and contempt, and uncharitableness to their persons, then of alienation, or detestation of their sins.  
§. 17. And so that way of Oeconomie, in many respects, was not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 blameless; The clear commands and the explicit promises of Christ and the proclaimed necessity of real, substantial fruits of repentance, in stead of the leaves, the arrogance, and hypocrisy of external performances, were a necessary suppletorie to the Law of Moses, and to that may belong also the Apostle's 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉; Let all the Scribes, or Doctors of the Law, the searchers or profound interpreters of the scriptures, bring forth such evidences of their efficacy, or good successes in the reforming and purifying of men's lives, as the Apostles had done by these so contemptible despicable means, the Gospel of the Cross of Christ.  
§. 18. I might farther extend the comparison to all possible pretenders, the Idolatrous heathens, 
with the heathen and Mahomedan.  the corrupters of the Law of Nature, and the Mahomedans, that have superstructed on, and added to the Law of Moses; But both of these are so scandalously known to have laid grounds for all impurity, the former in their mysteries and devotions, the latter in their sensual carnal paradise, the one allowing it their votaries in the present possession, the other 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 judgement of an heathen Philosopher passed on this matter, Chalcidius in his comment on Plato's Timaeus, whose writings have come to us only in Latin, Ratio Dei (no question, in the Original 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in S. John's style) Deus est, humanis rebus consulens, quae causa est hominibus 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 living well and happily, if they do not neglect that gift granted by the Supreme God. A saying that contains in it the sum 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 reason of his Father, had two great designs in his prospect, effects of his providence and care of mankind, the first to bring men to good life, to reformation of every evil course, subduing of passions, etc. the second to render them happy hereby so doing, and blessed eternally, and this managed 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. IU. JESUS CHRIST Crucified.  
§. 1. AND as Jesus Christ indefinitely taken is set down to be this Foundation, 
Christ crucified the Foundation.  so elsewhere is Jesus Christ Crucified, 1 Cor. 1.23. & 2.2. and accordingly the whole Gospel is styled 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, the word which is of the Cross of Christ, c. 1.18. and that (supposing it be believed) sufficient to superstruct on it the conversion of the whole world to a new and Christian life, and accordingly it is there styled 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, to those that escape out of the deluge of infidelity, the very power of God, & ver. 24. the power of God, and the wisdom of God, the powerfullest and wisest method toward the accomplishing of this work, which is farther explained Rom. 1.16. by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, the power of God to salvation to every one that believeth, to the Jew first, and also to the Gentile. If this doctrine of the Cross 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 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saving or delivering them out of their evil ways, and will assuredly bring them to salvation, in the notion, wherein we vulgarly take it.  

What propriety the Cross hath to this.  §. 2. That the cross 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 delivered 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 persuading) the highest and hardest part of the Christian's duty, that of laying down our lives for the truth, resisting unto blood in our 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 our spiritual Olympics, 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 others the greatest and most effectual engagement to that performance. 4. It is the sacrifice for the sins of the whole world, the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or means of expiation or pardon, upon our unfeigned return and change, and that is absolutely necessary to found our hope, as that hope is necessary to excite our endeavours, 5. It was the ceremony of consecrating Christ our high Priest, to his great Melchisedekian office of blessing us, in which as his resurrection instated him, so that was by way of reward to his sufferings, Phil. 2.9. and so all that sufficiency of strength which is required for the turning every one from iniquity, Act. 3.25. being an effect of that blessing of his, the doctrine of his death, from the merit whereof this quickening power doth flow, is a foundation of all cheerful attending on his service, to which he is so sure to afford his assistance.   

CHAP. V. JESUS CHRIST raised etc.  

Christ's resurrection the Foundation.  §. 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 undeniably wrought by the immediate and omnipotent power of God, and not imputable to any other possible means, was a most illustrious testimony, and conviction of the innocence of Christ, thus signally vindicated, and rewarded by God, and consequently a confirmation of the truth of all that he had taught, and thus signed with the effusion of his blood.  

an Argument of the greatest conviction.  §. 2. Of this one article it is our Saviour's affirmation that it was so full matter of conviction to all gainsayers, that they which should not be wrought upon by that, were to expect no farther signs or miracles, & the design of the holy Ghosts coming upon the Apostles 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 irremissibleness of the sin against the holy Ghost, who had so abundantly convinced the world of Christ's righteousness 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 Emphasis 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 etc. and v. 24. this Jesus hath God raised up, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of which we all are witnesses, 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 do? And upon this one foundation he immediately superstructs the exhortation to repentance, and coming in by baptism unto Christ, and three thousand were that day wrought on by that method, v. 41.  
§. 3. Beside this, 
A pawn of our Resurrection Corporal,  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 quickening our souls out of the most noisome vaults, the habits and customs of sin, wherein they lay putrified, 
and Spiritual.  this being an act of the same omnipotent Spirit, by which he raised up Jesus from the dead, and without which it were as hopeless 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 upon 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 enable us to live Christianly; Which we could not hope to do without this power of his Spirit, to prevent and assist us, nor reasonably attempt to do without this hope.  
§. 4. 
An example of new life to us.  Farther yet the Resurrection of Christ hath the power of a pattern to us, and is so made use of, and typified in baptism, as an engagement and obligation to us to transcribe that divine copy into our hearts, and to rise to newness of life. And accordingly that seems to be the importance of the phrase, Rom. 10.9. believing in the heart that God raised Christ from the dead, there being no more necessary to the superstructing all piety on that one foundation, but to sink down the belief of that one Article from the brain to the heart, to reduce it effectually to practise.   

CHAP. VI Other Articles of Belief in Christ.  

The Mystery of Godliness, 1 Tim. 3.16.  §. 1. BEside these two, a whole calogue, 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 among the Gentiles, believed on in the world, received up with glory. And these altogether seem to be that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, truth, v 15. (as elsewhere Faith) of which the Church was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, a pillar and establishment, to sustain and keep it (as a pillar firmly set up on the basis sustains and upholds the fabric laid upon it) from sinking or falling; For so this truth deposited in the Church, or with the Governors thereof (such as Timothy there) was to be conserved and upheld by that means. And it is farther observable in that place, that it is called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, the mystery 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 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, the articles of our initiation, or of our religion into which we are initiated by baptism, as the foundation on which all our Christian practice (which alone deserves the name of piety, and is opposed to 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 impiety) is superstructed and built afterward.  
§. 2. 
God made manifest by the Flesh.  This will be more visible by surveying the severals [1. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, 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 enforce this on us at the greatest possible advantage, he was pleased himself to assume, and manifest his will, in, or by our Flesh, and so, not only God from heaven, but God visible on earth, to preach reformation 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 do it. From whence it was, that all the Devil'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 [〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉] and [〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉] so oft repeated by Ignatius, the reality and verity of Christ's eating, and suffering, and rising, etc. and every branch of such heresy took off (as far 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 Godhead of him, that had sought and solicited it so earnestly, and came down from heaven and assumed our flesh upon that one errand or embassy to reveal himself more convincingly among us.  
§. 3. Had it been only a Prophet, though never so great and extraordinarily furnished with signs and wonders, he had been but a servant of God, and there were many experiences and precedents among their forefathers of the resisting of such, but the personal descent of God himself, and his assumption of our flesh to his divinity, more familiarly to insinuate his pleasure to us, to admonish, and invite, and denounce judgements, and even to weep over those that would yet be obstinate, was an enforcement beyond all the methods of wisdom, that were ever made use of in the world.  
§. 4. For God, I say, himself to do all this, and to descend so low, to so mean an estate, and to a much meaner usage, a shameful contumelious death, to work this work most effectually upon men, was a wonderful act of grace & wisdom, a secret, a mystery indeed beyond all former ways, infinitely considerable towards this of turning from every evil.  
§. 5. 
The Arians doctrines against it.  And upon this score the doctrine of the ancient and modern Arians and Photinians, which so industriously lessens the divinity of Christ in pretence of zeal to God the Father, to whom they will not permit him to be equal, must consequently take off extremely from this Mystery of Piety, 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, wherein 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 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, 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, 
De Fide p. 53.  as Proclus saith, convinceth all the heresies concerning Christ, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, and walls up the newly invented ways of injury and contumely against 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 heretics the modern Socinians have pretended to the maintenance of Piety, 'tis certain they have by this taken out one principal stone from the foundation of it, the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 here, God made manifest by the flesh, which could not be affirmed of Christ, if he were not first God, before he was thus made manifest by the means of his incarnation.  
§. 5. The next stone in this foundation is, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, 
God justified by the Spirit.  God's having been justified by the Spirit] i. e. the several ways 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 baptism, Mat. 3. which (as preparative to his entering on the exercise of his prophetic office, Mat. 5. etc.) was the divine attestation given from heaven (by voice) to all that he should ever teach.  
§. 6. 2dly. 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. 3dly, Such was his power of doing miracles, works of that nature, as were by all acknowledged to be above the power of men or devils, and only works of the Spirit of God, Thus was his curing of Leprosy, of which the King of Israel saith, Am I a God, that this man sends to me to recover a man of his Leprosy? 1 Kin. 5.7. and which the Jews proverbially called the finger of God, and is therefore said to be done 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, for a testimony unto them, Mat. 8.4. an evidence of his divinity; Thus the giving sight to him that was born blind, which since the world began, 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 otherwise possible to be done by any, were the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 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 reformation, which he came to publish.  
§. 8. 4thly, Such was the descent of the Spirit on the Apostles, authorising them witnesses of the resurrection, and preachers of all that truth and will of God, which Christ had in his life revealed to them, which consequently gave an attestation to all that the Apostles should teach, being thus led by the Spirit into all truth, and so was of especial concernment to the planting of a Church, and enforcing that reformation of lives, which the Apostles pressed on all that would not be ruined eternally.  
§. 9 
God seen of Angels.  The third branch of this mysterious divine way of working piety on earth, is the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 his being seen by Angels, i. e. his divine power discerned and acknowledged and adored by Angels themselves, both good and bad; by the good 1. at his birth, Lu. 2.13. 2dly, when after his temptation and fasting they came and ministered unto him, Mat. 4.12. 3dly, in the trouble and agony of his soul, before his death, Joh. 12.29. Lu. 22.43. 4thly, 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, obeying 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 flourished among the heathens, began to droop and decay, and from giving responses in Verse, descended to Prose, and within a while were utterly silenced. Which as it was a most regular means to bring all sorts of men, heathens as well as Jews, to reformation of all vices, those especially, which they were formerly taught in their Idolatrous worships, and were enslaved to them unwillingly by the tyranny of those false Gods or devils, which required to be thus worshipped, Rom. 8.20. and so continued to do till they were cast out of their Temples; so was it an huge obligation on all men to receive and obey him, whom the very devils believed and trembled at, and a testimony of the greatest force in the mouth of a whole Province of his greatest enemies, 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 kingdom in the destruction of those enemies (an essay of which was thus shown on the Prince of darkness) avenge and utterly consume the adversaries.  
§. 10. The fourth is, 
Preached among the Gentiles.  the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, 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 Jews, but (both by himself and by the Apostles) to all the Gentiles, those that till then had lived in all villainy and impiety, and yet had now by Christ's mercy tendered them upon Reformation, and thereby is all encouragement afforded to the greatest sinners, to forsake, and amend their lives, and by God's merciful pardon to the times of their ignorance, and forepast sins, a passage opened to life, and eternity, for all that will make use of it, and this is the greatest engagement to do so, and not to forfeit and lose so precious an opportunity.  
§. 11. 
Believed on among men.  The fifth branch is the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, his being believed on in the world; the faith of Christ received by many both Jews and Gentiles; Of that people of the Jews (a most stubborn obdurate people, that had killed the prophets, and stoned them that were sent) some considerable number repent and came in upon Christ's preaching, 
the Jews;  about three thousand 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 kingdom 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 Jews, 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 accordingly, 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, than the believers of that nation were the only 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 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 depositum, reduced to the Faith, and became Christian.  
§. 12. And for the Gentiles, 
the Gentiles.  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 Gentiles 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 kingdom of heaven by force, whilst the children of the Kingdom neglected, and were cast out of it; And soon after the Apostles 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 St Paul's preaching, and other whole nations by each of the other Apostles, and at length the whole Roman Empire became Christian, and the kingdoms of the world became the kingdoms 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 Jews, 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 success on both sides, among Jews and Gentiles over all the world, (part of it historically 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 Gospel, or by the word of his power, the destructions which he sent among them) was a most effectual argument, a sovereign method to give authority to this faith, which was thus prevailing, and becomes the greatest instance of reproach to all libertine professors, that they should not purify their hearts by the faith, when the most impure Idolaters were wrought on to do so, and a sad certain abode to all such (after the example of obstinate Infidels and impure Gnostics) of both present and future destructions.  
§. 14. 
Received up into glory.  The sixth and last stone in this foundation is the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, his being received up in, or with, or into glory, Christ's ascension or assumption 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 2 truth of heaven, to which he was assumed after his testification of it; To which when these two circumstances are superadded, first, that his assumption being in the sight of many, was also solemnised by the presence of Angels, and a voice from heaven, Act. 1.9, 10, 11. (and so 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 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 Apostles, and their successors, whom Christ had authorized to succeed him on the earth, and in the world by executing visible judgements on his crucifiers &c. (and so 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 into glory or regal power) this will be an article of great energy for the planting of Christian faith, and purity in the world.   

CHAP. VII. The Faith in Baptism.  

The Father, Son, and holy Ghost.  §. 1. WHat hath thus been set down as so many branches of fundamental belief, and so of the mystery of Godliness, the ground of initiating or entering men into Christian life, is more summarily comprised in the form of baptism, the ceremony of this initiation instituted by Christ, wherein all that were to be baptised, were (if of age, first instructed in the doctrine, and then) received, 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 Catechist, and those, on which they that administered baptism, are commanded to superstruct all the duties of Christian life, Mat. 28.20. teaching them to observe all things which I have commanded you; the authority of all and each the persons of the Trinity being purposely engaged on this one great interest, and the gathering disciples and receiving of Proselytes over the world, being designed to this one grand end, of introducing the practice of Christian virtues among men, who do therefore in baptism, sacramentally and federally, i. e. under oath and solemnest vow (as they believe any thing of these fundamental doctrines of God the Father, Son, and holy Ghost) undertake the performance thereof, and if they fail therein, are the most faithless, perjured persons in the world. And certainly this method is in the design as probable, (how improsperous soever the wickedness of men hath rendered the success 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 Apostolicum, 
The Apostles Creed.  the Apostolic badge or mark, (a tessera or token of the Apostles having planted the Faith in any Church) the known summary of that belief, which had been received from the Apostles.  

Proved to be the Apostles.  §. 2. For although in their Epistles, which were all written to them which were Christians already, there is not to be expected any complete Catalogue of those articles, which they had every where taught, because they were supposed by them to be sufficiently known, and might briefly be referred to, as such without any perfect 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, Irenaeus, etc. (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 distinctly 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 Ancient Churches thus planted (I mean those of the first three hundred years) and by them entitled to the name the Apostles, and expounded in the homilies of the Fathers, some extant, others mentioned by Ruffinus, illustres tractatores which had gone before him in that work, is in all reason to be deemed the sum 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 heresies which had then broken into the Church) is known to every man. Now before this was form, it is certain, that 
† Ecclesia per universum orbem usque ad sines terrae seminata, & ab Apostolis & à discipulis corum accepit eam fidem quae est in unum Deum patrem omnipotentem etc. Iren: l. 1. c. 2.  all the Churches of the world, both Eastern and Western had a form of confession of Faith, which they had received from their immediate ancestors, and they from the 
* Quid si neque Apostoli quidem scripturas reliquissent nobis, nun 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, & veterem eruditionem diligenter custodientes, in unum Deum credentes etc. Iren: l. 3. c. 4.  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 never any other assigned by any, or affirmed to have had that general reception, but because the testimonies of the Ancients are expressly for this. Ruffinus and Vigilius cont: Eutychen testify clearly for the Western Church, and Ruffinus again, and cyril of Jerusalem for the Eastern.  
§. 5. And Marcellus Bishop of Ancyra in the Great Council 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 behind him the Confession of his faith, which, saith he, he had received 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 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 Austin's, that what the Universal Church holds, and hath not been instituted by Counsels, but always retained, is with all reason to be believed to have been delivered by tradition Apostolical, (there being no other so large an Original to which so universal an effect may be imputed) li. 4. the bapt: cont: Donat: c. 24. especially when to that we add Tertullia's words of this very matter lib. de velandis virgin: 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 etc. The Rule of faith is altogether one, and that alone immovable, and unreformable, to wit of believing in one only God, omnipotent, Creator of the world, and in his son Jesus Christ, born of the virgin Mary etc. Which being a summary reference to this Creed, and that resolved to be one over all the world, and that unchangeable, must needs be imputed to that Apostolic original, which alone can pretend to that dignity.  

The articles thereof fundamental to good life.  §. 6. And that every branch thereof in several, was a fit and proper groundwork of Christian obedience, wherever it were planted, and all together sufficient to found the reformation of whole cities, and provinces at once, will be discernible by the most cursory survey.  
§. 7. The Articles 1. of God the Father, the 
* 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉.  Ruler and Creator of all the world; 2dly, of God the Son, both in his titles and offices, and in the passages of his story, from the Assumption of our flesh to his coming again from heaven to be our Judge; and 3dly, of God, the holy Ghost, being all amassed together, make up this plain sense, that all the divine (and infinitely wise) ways of economy that God in heaven could think fit to use toward a rational creature, to oblige, and reduce mankind to that course of living, which is most perfectly agreeable to our nature, and by the mercy of God ordinable to eternal bliss, all the most powerful methods of impressing our duty on us, the authority of the God of heaven, who hath sovereign dominion over all, of God the Son, made up of all humble and charitable ways of condescension, 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 repentance: All these, I say, have been so solemnly made use of, and impressed 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 believed those articles, to forsake their sinful courses, and sincerely to apply themselves to the obedience of Christ.  

The article of God the Father.  §. 8. The first stone of this foundation is the consideration and acknowledgement 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 acknowledgement of this entitles him, and engages us to a ready voluntary obedience to, and dependence 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 less than a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, a rebellion, like that of the old giants, a fight against God, a contesting with heaven, a resisting his will and our own happiness, and that may be one seasonable degree toward the obliging us to piety.  

Of God the Son.  §. 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 Embassy of the Father) is the acknowledgement of Jesus Christ, who, by being sent into the world to be our King or Lord, and by the divine miraculous way of his entrance into it, the powers and mighty works, and piety of his life, and the stupendious 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 eternity belonged to him as God, is fitly qualified, and prepared to take possession 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 pacific manner comes to treat with them) and to convince all the blind worshippers of Idol false Gods, of the vanity and villainy of their former courses, and so to bring them back to their own peace.  
§. 10. Thirdly, the acknowledgement of the holy Ghost, 
Of God the holy Ghost.  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 Embassy to us, to pray us in Christ's stead to lay down our weapons 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 proclaimed in thunder from heaven, to give men no rest in their sins, no quiet from Christ's importunity, till they awake from the lethargic sleep, and arise from so dead, so mortiferous a state, and permit him to give them life.  

Of the Holy Catholic Church.  §. 11. That which follows of the Holy Catholic 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 society of holy Christian livers over the whole world, so is it the interpretation of those two parts of the mystery of piety formerly explicated [Christ's being preached among the Gentiles, and believed on in the world] of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, 2 Thess. 2.1. the gathering together of a multitude over the world, among Gentiles, as well as Jews, 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 aim of all his arrows, be looked on as the professed opposers of all his methods, and therein of all piety, and of our own souls, we must think ourselves obliged to hasten into that number, and that in respect of the holiness, as well as the assemblies, of the practice, as well as the profession of Christianity.  
§. 12. And the consideration and serious belief of this, that God hath taken such care to anticipate, and prevent every man, to draw him early into his Church, there to instruct and oblige him to all Christian performance, to give piety the prepossession, before other competitors (homebred lusts or vicious customs of the world) should be able to pretend to him, and so to engage him in holiness first, and then in bliss, is another argument of great energy to work effectually on mankind, and recommend this obedience unto them.  
§. 13. 
Of the Communion of Saints.  So likewise the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, which seems to me (and is elsewhere 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 having 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 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 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, praising God, and having or exercising charity to all the people, v. 47. (making their liberality a special branch of their Eucharist, their blessing and worshipping of God) as it is an evidence of the great force that the Gospel 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, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, possessions of all kinds, and by parting with all indefinitely, throwing themselves absolutely upon God's minutely providence for the sustaining of them (which is directly the Merchant's course in the Gospel, selling 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 mind some way proportionable to these examples, to exercise that charity to men, and dependence on God in the things of this world, which shall evidence their 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, that the joys which they depend on are in another world, and that the either having or wanting here, is no otherwise considerable, then as it is the opportunity of exercising the several graces, which are the properest means to exalt and perfect our Nature, and the way to our immortality.  
§. 14. As for the other larger notion of this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, so as to import the spiritual Union of Faith and Love between all professors of Christianity, and, (as exercises of that) the Communication of the mysteries (so ordinarily styled 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉) of Prayers, of Fast, of Tears, of Sufferings, of Rejoices, of Thanksgivings, it must be taken in by analogy with this former, and will also fitly be comprehended under the former article of the Church (and therefore it is, that the Nicene Creed sets [the Holy Catholic Apostolic Church] in the place of both these) and therefore need not be farther insisted on here.  

The forgiveness of sins;  §. 15. The forgiveness of sins, which now follows, is, being rightly understood, the most eminent branch of this foundation, and the removal of an hindrance which might otherwise obstruct all thought or design of reformation, but being misunderstood is rendered instrumental to the most presumptuous obstinate security in sin.  

Misinterpreted.  §. 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 favourites of heaven, without respect to their reformation or new obedience, it were the direct foundation of all impenitence to all that either had, or believed themselves 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 persuasion, 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 persuade him to forsake any one sin, to which he hath the slightest temptation? When God is once a favourer of his grossest sins, or of his person in despite of his sins, all the other 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. 
Rightly understood.  But when it is rightly understood, and confined within those due limits, which the Gospel every where assigns it, 1. to be the pardon of sins past and forsaken (which belongs not either to future sins, or to any that are not reform) 2dly, to be the admission of sinners to repentance, and so, and by no other means, to forgiveness, (and therefore John's ceremony of admitting Proselytes is called the baptism of repentance for the remission of sins) 3dly, to extend no farther to any sort of sins continued in or unforsaken, then as they are reconcileable with sincere endeavours (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 wilful 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 sincerity of change be rendered capable of it, When that which is mistaken to be particular and absolute, is duly understood to be general, but conditionate (and to belong to none, who shall not perform the condition, i. e. impartially, and sincerely, and universally reform his ways according to the rules delivered by Christ, his precepts of Christian purity, extending to the very heart) then is there a sure groundwork laid of renovation and care for our future lives, and all objections removed, that might probably obstruct that superstructure.  

The want of this to Renovation  §. 19 As long as we are guilty of any past sin, and have no promise (the only due ground of hope) of remission, whatever our future care be, this desperation of success chills all our industry, 
in a first,  and we sin on, because we have sinned, we cast off the care of all future thrift, because we are already bankrupted.  
§. 20. 
a second,  So again while we make no distinction of sins, and deem every invincible 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, deters from attempting what we cannot finish, and permits us to be careless, when we cannot hope to be prosperous in our care.  
§. 21. 
a third respect.  Nay when we undertake the baptismal vow, and enter on this new life, if, as that baptism cannot be repeated, so it were impossible that any grosser fall after the first repentance could receive any cure or remedy; the experience of our own frailties, and the consideration of the slippery place we stand on, of the watchfulness of the tempter, and the advantage he hath from a false party within us, which is always ready to join 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 voyage to that good land, environed 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 perswasiveness of promises, or pungency of menaces, or prospect of mischiefs upon neglect, can be imagined to be.  

The necessity of it.  §. 22. But when all these objections are answered, discouragements removed, difficulties provided for, (as they are by this Article of Remission of sins, duly explained, and superadded to the former branches of the foundation) they to whom all this is revealed and received with an undoubting faith, if they do not presently set about so easy, 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 err therein (that weakness, or ignorance, or natural defects, 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 acknowledge themselves in the number of the blind people that have eyes, of the provokers that shall not, because they will not, enter into God's rest, of the sinners that have no excuse for their sin.  
§. 23. 
The belief of the Resurrection of the Body.  In the next place the Resurrection 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 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, carcases, arise, if there were not as numerous a world of souls ready to animate them, and join with them in receiving rewards or punishments for all that the souls have acted by those instruments in this life?) is most necessary to found, and enforce this Renovation; For, if there were nothing after this life, if in the death of a man there were no 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, cure or remedy, Wisd. 2.1. if the premises of the Atheist in that chapter had truth in them, his conclusion being founded on those premises, it could not be strange, or irrational for him to proceed, Come on therefore, let us enjoy the good things that are present, v. 6.  

Fundamental to Renovation.  §. 24. And if, supposing the immortality of the soul, the body were not ascertained to return to that old associate, if that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, that shop or workhouse of the good or evil spirit, should, with all that hath been wrought in it, be consumed eternally, this would take it much out of the care of the soul, either to stop it in its Career of sin, or to mortify those affections that are in this earthy part, or to spiritualise and replenish it with good works.  

The want of it very hurtful.  §. 25. If the upper soul, that hopes to reign in another world, can so far preserve that degree of superiority and dignity of its nature, as to reprehend and check what is consented to by the will or middle faculty, in compliance with the flesh, that inferior and brutish, (as it is, as oft as any sin against conscience is committed, and can then hope, that after a few years of sensuality, that importune rebellious servant shall be eternally cast off, drop into a perpetual impassable nothing, take a long progress 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 persuasion (a fruitful principle of all carnality) 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 prevarications and irregularities of the body, 
The persuasion gainful.  which are not subdued, as well as checked; 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 sympathy) 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 near her, than it will appear to be every man's interest to join good performances to spiritual purposes and resolutions, to act, as well as to design, to subdue and quell the exorbitances of the flesh, as well as to continue the wouldings of the spirit; And this being absolutely required to the sincerity 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 belief of the resurrection of the body, which is so instrumental and preparative to this, must needs be fundamental to that, which is superstructed on it; and was therefore deemed fit to be first preached to all men, before strict Christian performances could reasonably be required of them.  

Everlasting life.  §. 27. Lastly, the everlasting life both of body and soul in that future state, whether in bliss 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 Gospel, to persuade and drive us to repentance.  

The necessity of the belief of that.  §. 28. Were the state, wherein we expect our reward for the abstinencies, 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 energy, and being by their spiritual and invisible nature rendered so faint in the original, and yet (to make them more so) set to solicit us at a distance, they would want a competent instrument to collect and convey their rays successfully, or so as to affect, or impress the species with any vigour on a dull, and withal prejudicated faculty. We know a life in reversion is not half so valuable, as that which may at present be entered on, and this not only in the opinion of fools, but of the most prudent purchasers; And unless there be somewhat in the duration to inhaunse the value, and to he offered in commutation, and to reward the patience of the present self-denial, heaven itself would be looked on jealously, as a project to deprive us of our present portions to cheat us of our possessions; But when the loss of every present advantage to flesh and blood, is sure to be repaid in a far nobler coin, and to continue to be enjoyed to all eternity, when beside the liberal harvest of satisfactions for any the most trivial loss 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, everlasting unperishable felicities, and when to the empty, nauseous, afflicting pleasures of sin, for some one shortest moment, attended immediately with a far more durable shame, and then followed with an immortal, endless gnawing death (that is all jaws, 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 perpetual earnest, and after the transitory joy is forgotten or loathed, the irreversible sentence of endless woe is expected, instantly and infallibly to come out, and with it an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 all the storehouses of ease or mercy sealed up, all drops to cool, or oceans to quench our misery; Then certainly upon this persuasion duly rooted (not in the brain but heart) an ordinary orator may suffice to superstruct an admission of the precepts of Christ, and induce in a rational creature a willingness to be happy here (by a patient bearing of a gentle, desirable yoke) that so he may be blessed eternally.  
§. 29. And so we have taken a cursory view of the several Articles of the most ancient and shortest Creed, and therein exemplified the propriety of our definition of Fundamentals, and having the Apostles judgement in their preachings to confirm us in the truth, that the laying of so large a foundation was deemed necessary, to their design of planting the same fruits in all soils, piety, probity, and purity, in a nation of hypocritical Jews, and a world of Idolatrous polluted Gentiles, we have already showed how unnecessary it is to inquire, whether any single sinner of either of those provinces might not possibly be reduced to Christian life, without some one of these explicitly and actually considered, and so have no temptation to enlarge this Chapter by any such consideration.   

CHAP. IX. Of the Nicene and Athanasian Creeds together; and severally of the Nicene.  
§. 1. HAving viewed the Apostles Creed, and of it premised this one thing, that it was a complete Catalogue of all, that they (being directed by the holy Ghost in their ministry) thought fit, to lay the foundation of Christian obedience in every Church, and consequently that there was no more, in their opinion, necessary, in order to this end of working reformation in the world; 
The design of ●●●er Creeds.  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 contained (nothing really superadded to it) or else that that superaddition was not, in the Apostles estimation, necessary 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 uneasy to define, For though the omission of some words, which had been retained in the Apostles Creed, 
Defined.  do not signify 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 unquestionably true, in the sense, wherein the Apostles and their successors understood them) nor indeed any more, then that they were virtually contained in other words still continued (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 Catholic Church, with the Epithet of Apostolic added to it) or else that they were not necessary to be repeated, because already familiarly known and confessed, and not questioned by those heretics, against whom the variations were designed (as in the Athanasian Creed the Articles of the holy Ghost, so largely set down in four branches in the Nicene Creed, and the three Articles attending that of the holy Ghost, in the Apostles 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 fence the Catholic orthodox Faith from the corruptions, and depravations, or else from the doubtings, and contradictions of heretics.  

Of the Nicene.  §. 3. Thus in the Nicene Creed, the two additions in the first Article, the [〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, one] prefixed to [God] and the [〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, 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 another respect, by reason of the Gnostick and Valentinian, and such like following heretics, whose heathen and Poetical Theology (taken from Hesiod, and Orpheus, and Philistion) had rendered them necessary. For that those heretics, 
One God.  beginning with their Simon and Helena, had introduced a plurality of Gods (and so made the Profession of the Unity, part of the symbolum that should discriminate the Orthodox from them) and affirmed that their Aeones or Angels were begotten by Helena (Simon's 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, 
Of all things visible, and invisible.  first cogitation) and that the world was created by them, and that the God of the Jews 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 Apostles old form, God the Father, Ruler of all, Maker of heaven and earth, which sufficiently contained an acknowledgement of the Unity (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 explicit words (visible and invisible) to exclude the contradictions of heretics.  
§. 4. And though the Creed in the ancient Apostolic form were sufficient for any man to believe & profess, yet when the Church hath thought meet to erect that additional bulwark against heretics, the rejecting (or denying the truth of) those their additions, may justly be deemed an interpretative siding with those ancient, or a desire to introduce some new heresies, And though good life might have been founded without those additions if on such occasions they had never been made, yet the pride or singularity (or heretical design) of opposing or questioning them (now they are framed) being themselves unreconcilable with Christian charity, and humility, are destructive of the fabric directly, and interpretatively of the very foundation, and is therefore justly deemed criminous, and liable to Censures in the Church of God.  

One Lord Jesus Christ, etc.  §. 5. So likewise the Oneness of our Lord Jesus Christ (as before of the Father referring to the several hypostases in the one eternal, indivisible, divine nature, and the eternity of the Sons generation, and his coeternity, and consubstantiality with the Father, when he came down from heaven, and was incarnate etc. for us men peculiarly (not for Angels) and for our salvation; and lastly the perpetuity of his kingdom added in the close, all these are assertions equivalent to those, which had been before comprised in the ancient, more simple, uncompounded article, but were useful to be thus enlarged, and explicated, when the Arians opposed the Apostolic tradition, and by corrupting, detorted the words of scripture to their sense.  
§. 6. This is elsewhere more largely showed (in the note on 1 Joh. 5.7.) And all that will opportunely here be added, is only this, that they which, according to the Apostles depositum, or doctrine in every Church, believed the descent, and incarnation of the eternal God, on purpose to rescue mankind from all impurities, to reveal the whole divine will for the regulating men's lives, to attest it by his death, and evidence it by his resurrection, etc. and at last to come to judge the world according to this determinate rule, had all those branches of Christian faith, which were required to qualify mankind to submit to Christ's reformation. And 'tis the wilful opposing these more explicit 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 blamelessly and without pertinacy of his will hold out) that will bring danger of ruin on any.  

The H. Ghost the Lord and giver of life etc.  §. 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 [Filióque] was found in the first copies, and acts of that Council) who with the Father and the Son together is worshipped and glorified, who spoke by the Prophets] is in like manner an enlargement, and explication of the more brief Apostolic form, and the substance thereof was comprised formerly in that uncompounded style (fitter then for the belief, and memory of all) but was afterward prudently enlarged for the repelling, and preventing the poison of heretical invaders, the Montanists and Macedonians, etc.  
§. 8. 
One baptism for the Remission of sins.  And so likewise that addition of the one Baptism prefixed to the Remission of sins was on purpose designed against the Novatians, whose pretensions were considered, and condemned in the Council of Nice; The practices of the Churches in receiving those that had fallen into gross sins after baptism, 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, murderers, 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 baptism (such as was used in admitting heathens) only by imposition of hands, or absolution; extending the virtue of baptism formerly received, to the washing away of these sins committed after baptism, in case of sincere repentance and forsaking of them; This the Novatians disliked, and thereupon broke off, and made a schism in the Church. And the Council of Nice taking cognizance of the matter, judged against Novatus and his followers, that there was place for a second repentance, and not only for that first before Baptism, as appears by the Canons of that Council. And this was it, that was referred to, in this more enlarged passage of their Creed, and the use of it thought very considerable for the reducing of lapsed Christians, as the Apostolical article of remission of sins indefinitely, had been for the attracting heathens. And this, and all the former additions, being thus settled by the Universal Church, were▪ and still are, in all reason, without disputing, to be received, and embraced by the present Church, and every meek member thereof, with that Reverence that is due to Apostolic truths, that thankfulness, which is our meet tribute to those sacred champions for their seasonable, and provident propugning of our faith, with such timely, and necessary application to practise that the holy Ghost, speaking to us now, under the times of the New Testament, by the Governors of the Christian Churches (Christ's mediate successors in the Prophetic Pastoral, Episcopal office) as he had formerly spoken by the Prophets of the Old Testament, sent immediately by him, may find a cheerful audience, and receive 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 do not entirely maintain it, without the corruptions, and mixtures of the heretics.  
§. 2. 
The Doctrine of the Athanasian Creed.  The Doctrine is (well-nigh all of it) the asserting the Unity of the Divine nature, and the Trinity of hypostases, whether subsistences▪ as the Greek Church called it, or, as the Latin, personae, persons in it, and that in opposition to several novel propositions, which had by heretics been introduced in the Church, and so, (as the vices of men suggest laws) occasioned such explications, and enlargements. And of these again (much more than of the Nicene superadditions) it may be reasonably affirmed, that being the explications of a Father of the Church, and not of a whole Universal Council, or of the Church representative, they were neither necessary to be explicitly acknowledged, before they were convincingly revealed, nor simply and absolutely imposeable on any particular man, any farther than he was a member of some Church, which had actually received Athanasius' explication (as it is apparent the Western Churches did) or than it appeared concordant with the more authentic Universal Confessions, as every doctrinal proposition of it, will be found to do.  

The Censures.  §. 3. As for the Censures annexed 1. in the beginning [that except a man keep the Catholic faith (of which this is set down, not as the entire form, but an explication, or interpretation of some parts of it) whole and undefiled, he shall doubtless perish everlastingly] 2dly, in the middle [he that will be saved, must thus think,] and [it is necessary to everlasting salvation that he also believe rightly in the incarnation etc.] and 3dly, in the end [this is the Catholic Faith, which except a man believe faithfully he cannot be saved] I suppose they must be interpreted by their opposition to those heresies, that had invaded the Church, & which were acts of carnality in them that broached, and maintained them, against the Apostolic Doctrine, and contradictory to that foundation, which had been resolved on, as necessary to bring the world to the obedience of Christ, and were therefore to be anathematised after this manner, and with detestation branded, and banished out of the Church; Not that it was hereby defined to be a damnable 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 propriety that one of these hath toward the other, the doctrines of belief to the renewing of men's lives, I am now by course to proceed to a more particular view of this Superstructure, and the several branches of it.  

The general nature of the Superstruction in five particulars.  §. 2. Where first it must be remembered, that the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or filling up, which Christ designed, contrary to the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 dissolving or abrogating of the Law and the Prophets, is far from evacuating or annulling the obligation of any one substantial precept introduced by the Law of Nature or Moses, but coming as an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or suppletorie to all former laws, as a new and more perfect correct edition of the old Codex, as one general Law for the reforming and hightening 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 explicit prescription of the substantial duties, which those shadows did obscurely represent: 2. In binding some parts of the yoke closer than they were before thought to be bound upon men, extending the precepts farther than they were thought to extend: 3. In raising them to more elevated degrees of perfection, sinking them deeper than the outward actions to the purity of the very heart: and 4. by promises of the most amiable divine, and terrors of the dismal unsupportable nature, confirming and binding them all upon us, and not allowing us liberty, or impunity in any indulgent transgression of any branch of this Law thus reform and improved by him.  
§. 4. And this being the result of Christ's design, 1. the production of a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, an entire new creature, 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 community of men (whose understandings are not generally deep, and so must be wrought on by means proportionable to them) with a colony of such divine new creatures; and 3. the nature of man (as a rational and voluntary agent) requiring that all this be done by way of persuasion, not of violence, to preserve their liberty, which alone could render them capable 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 fabric might probably be erected.  
§. 5. But though an uniform universal obedience to the commands of Christ, which contains every specialty under it (and is not reconcilable with our partiality, the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, accepting, as it were, of the person of any sin or virtue, the preferring any one duty to the prejudice of any other) be that which alone can own the title of the Christian superstructure, without which completely erected, no enumeration of particular duties will be sufficient, Yet some specialties there are which have a greater propriety to this title, 
The specialties of it.  than some others, and to which our Christian institution gives us more peculiar obligations, And it will not be amiss to mention some of these.  
§. 6. First Piety (the Love, and Fear, and Obedience, and Faith, and Worship of the one true God) in opposition 1. to Idolatry, 2. to Formality, 3. to Hypocrisy, on one side; and then I. to Sacrilege, 2. to Profaneness, or Impiety, on the other side;  
§. 7. First Piety, 
Piety in opposition to Idolatry.  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 liveless, breathless 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 design of Christ's coming, and of his sending his Disciples to all nations, to awake them out of this dead sleep, and Lethargy of soul, and by the knowledge of the true God, to bring them to the imitation of, and dependence on him.  

Piety in opposition to Formality.  §. 8. Secondly, as Piety is opposed to slight, negligent, external formal performances, so is it the necessary Christian virtue, proportioned adequately to the omniscience and spirituality of that infinite deity, the belief whereof is laid as a prime part of the Foundation. And though that inward warmth, if it be any whit intense, will necessarily extend itself to the outward man (as motion that begins in the centre, naturally diffuses itself, and affects uniformly, and shakes every part to the circumference) and consequently oblige the body to attend the soul in all reverences of address to that awful Majesty, who hath full title to the obediences of either (and this, in this conjunction, is far from meriting any unkind censure, or jealousy, the very bodily exercise being affirmed by S. Paul to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, 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 Publicans smiting on his breast being added to his prayer for mercy, on which Christ bestowed that Eulogy) Yet if, as insectile animals, for want of blood, run all out into legs, so the want or chillness of devotion, and not the intention 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 Christian, this is no farther than 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 days of the Messias, and that which the Spirituality of God, to whom the addresses are made, and of the promises, which are rewards proportioned to our spirits, most strictly exact from us.  
§. 9 Thirdly, as Piety is opposed to Hypocrisy and unsincerity, 
To Hypocrisy  and all falseness or foulness of intentions, especially to that personated devotion, under which any kind of impiety, oppression, rapine, sedition, etc. is wont to be disguised, and put off more. speciously, so is it a special part of this superstructure, and as the defining or opining Godliness to be gain, 1 Tim. 6.5. hath the brand and reproach of an heresy, quite contrary to the Christian doctrine and practice, so certainly the designing our obedience to any part of Christ's precepts, as the means to gain to ourselves, and defraud others, to sin more securely before God, or unsuspectedly before men, is of all things most unreconcilable 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 far from having its perfect work upon men's hearts, our brains and our tongues being the only parts, that are ordinarily taken up and possessed with it.  

To Sacrilege.  §. 10. Fourthly, the true Christian Piety looks upon sacrilege with a more perfect aversation, than any former religion hath done; The first efflux of men's piety after receiving of the faith was the selling, and consecrating their possessions, Act. 2. and the detaining of any such sacred portion is looked on (and punished severely) as the defrauding of the Spirit of God, c. 5.3. And the zeal that is so exhausted, and laid out in animosity to Idols and Sabbath-breaking, that it can easily support, and put over the Golden wedge, and the Treasures of the Temple, and so likewise the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, the cheap, e piety that brings no tribute to the offerings of God, (to which anciently it was a scandalous thing for any man to approach empty) that offers all its sacrifices to the Lord, of that which costs it nothing, is far from any semblance of the Christian reformation, is not ascended so far as the Natural, the Mosaical, the Heathen, the Mahomedan piety, and is a work of more than Egyptian darkness, that the excess of light hath brought into the world.  
§. 11. Fiftly, the Christian piety is, beyond all other things, 
To Profaneness.  diametrally opposed to Profaneness & Impiety of actions, that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, noonday Devil, that sins bare-faced and confident before the eye of heaven, that of the practical Atheists, the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, 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 superstructure in their hearts.  

Obedience to Superiors.  §. 12. A second speciality, 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 commanded by Moses, hath this note of eminence (above what was formerly) set on it by Christianity, that it is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, 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 promise annexed to it) and it is a compound of three of those virtues, to which the Beatitudes are peculiarly assigned by Christ, Mat. 5. of Meekness, and Peaceableness, and suffering for righteousness sake, and this bound indefinitely, not only on all under subjection, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 etc. saith S. chrysostom, though they be Apostles, or Bishops, or any the most sacred persons; and extended as indefinitely 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, to the most heathen, provoking, oppressing, (as long as they be lawful) powers; and lastly this duty is enlarged by Christ so as to belong to Ecclesiastical (as well as to Civil) superiors, who having the Keys committed to them by Christ, as to the oeconomi or stewards of his family, 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 men's souls, which they could not be supposed to do, if they had not authority over them: And therefore to make Religion a stratagem to undermine, or a banner under which to oppose and violate government, is a thing most contrary to this superstructure, most scandalous and reproachful to Christianity.  
§. 13. Thirdly, Charity to all sorts, 
Charity. e.  to all mankind, to neighbours, to strangers, to our own, and even to God's enemies, Charity of all sorts, of giving, of forgiving, of loving, blessing, praying for, of mercy to bodies, of relief to estates, but especially of admonition, and reprehension to souls; Charity in opposition to injustice, coveting and defrauding others, to faction, division, civil intestine broils, schisms and ruptures in a Church (that special piece of carnality, 1 Cor. 3.3.) to judging, anathematising, 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 specialty of this superstructure, as certain a badge of this sinking down of Christianity into the heart, as the Apostolical symbol is of the preaching the Faith among us.  

Purity.  §. 14. Fourthly, Purity is a special part of this superstructure, and the circumcision of the heart, the regulating and restraining of all desires of the Flesh within the known limits of conjugal or virginal Chastity; And this in opposition to 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of all sorts, the unnatural, incestuous, adulterous conjunctions, those before marriage, or after divorce, and to the several degrees of these in the very eye (and all that is proportionable to that) Mat. 5.28. but especially in the heart v. 8. And whatsoever men's faith, or their patience, or perseverance were, any remarkable indulgence 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 judgements and curses upon those first daughters of Christ's love, and if not timely repent of and reform, will in all probability be revenged with the removal 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 judgements of God, and utter destructions of many Nations, not only those that were rooted out for the implanting of the Jews, 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, especially of the unnatural Sodomitical impurities; and the honourableness of marriage in all (in order to the averting the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, dishonourable affections, Rom. 1.) is so solemnly recommended in the New Testament (in opposition to the impure Gnostick heresy, that was so unkind to marriage, as to make it a work of the Devil) that it may be a very opportune caution to all Christian Churches, and Magistrates, not to impose celibacy on whole callings, and great multitudes of men or women, who cannot be discernible or supposeable to have the gift of continence, Nor yet by offering worldly rewards and advantages to all that shall deprive themselves of that honourable remedy, to invite the rashest or the worst of men into that state of continual temptations, which hath caused the shipwreck of so many.  

Contentedness·  §. 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 aught 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 instrumentalness of riches to works of charity (even above that more perfect way of absolute despising of wealth, which by giving all at once, disables for many thousand future charities) have rendered it very politic and necessary in every Christian Commonwealth, by Laws to settle, and secure Propriety, which he that hath learned with S. Paul to be content in whatsoever estate, will never attempt to invade or violate.  
§. 16. 
Taking up the Cross.  Many other branches of this superstructure there are, which it cannot 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 endeavour to cast it off from our own shoulders, to fasten it on other men's, and to shake the foundations of Government, in order to any such attempt, is most diametrally contrary to the true Christian temper, an enmity to the cross of Christ.   

CHAP. XII. Of the Doctrines that hinder the superstructing of good life on the Christian belief, first among the Romanists, a Catalogue of them, especially that of the Infallibility of the Church, 2. Among others, 1. that of the Solifidian.  
§. 1. I Come now to consider what Doctrines there are, infused (discernibly) among Christians, which are most apt to frustrate the forementioned method, to obstruct, or intercept the cordial superstructing of Christian life, or Renovation, where the Foundation is duly laid. For supposing the Articles of our Christian Faith to be completely taught, and undoubtedly believed, and so the foundation to be purely laid according to the Apostles platform; And supposing farther that the several forementioned branches of the superstructure be so far taught and believed also, as that they are not doubted to be the virtues prescribed, and preached to men by Christ, It is yet possible, that after all this, some other Doctrines may inconveniently interpose, and intercept the uses and aims, to which God hath designed the Faith, and at once obstruct the superstructing of all Christian life upon it.  
§. 2. 
Doctrines among the Romanists.  Of this sort the Catalogue is (or soon may be) far 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 Penances, 2. of Indulgences, 3. of the Treasury of the Church, made up (beside the blood of Christ) of the supererogating merits of some, and applied to the benefit, and pardon of others, 4. of the Improvableness of Attrition into Contrition, by the Priest's aid, without the sinners change of life, 5. of Purgatory, 6. of Dispensableness of Oaths, 7. of Arts of Equivocation, 8. of Cessation of Allegiance in subjects to an heretical Prince, and some others the like; but especially of the Infallibility, 
The doctrine of Infallibility.  and inerrableness, which is assumed, and enclosed by the Romish 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, whensoever this pretended Infallible guide shall propose them; And seeing it is just with God to permit those, which think they stand so surely, to fall most dangerously, and because what some witty, and subtle men of this, and former ages have been experimented to fall into, may in the future possibly become the Romanists case, and because the Assuming of Infallibility is by way of interpretation the presuming, and affirming every 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 
† 
Subditos illi (Papae) simpliciter 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 pestilent than any heresy whatsoever. Wesselus' Groningens: de dignit: & potest: Eccl: c. 1. (written about 200 years since.)  
Valdè periclitaretur vita justi si penderet ex vitâ Papae. Wesselus' 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 etc. Most of the Popes have erred pestilently. Wesselus' Groningens: de dign: & potest: Eccl: c. 1. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉; 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   false, or sacrilegious, but it is possible they may thus teach, or pronounce of it) for these reasons, I say, it will be impossible to free this Doctrine of theirs, which hath so vast, and comprehensive an influence on the opinions and actions of all who have espoused it, from the guilt, of which now we speak, that of hindering the superstructing of Christian life, and the several branches thereof, on the Foundation.  
§. 3. 
Of the Pope.  And if (as the Jesuits define) this Infallibility of the Church be supposed to be seated in the persons, or chair, or succession of Popes, 'tis presently obvious and clear, that as Almain, and Ocham have not thought it irreverent to aver that any such person is deviabilis, haereticabilis, Apostatabilis, damnabilis, liable to error, heresy, Apostasy, damnation itself, So they that believe him an infallible 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 heresy, 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 liliving, that fouler guilt than heresy, (〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, a species of Atheism, as 
† de Primatu p. 57  Nilus truly saith on this occasion) can with no more pretence, or colour of proof secure them from defining of errors, or tolerating of sins, and when the writers of their lives, Onufrius, and Platina, who have told us, how much more than possible the former is, (relating the incests, witchcrafts, cruelties of Alexander the sixth, the Idolatrous sacrifices of Marcellinus, 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 consequences, and abodes of the latter, It cannot be temerarious or unreasonable to affirm, that what hath been, may be, and in like manner, that the doctrines of any ancient heretic may, in some new shape, be imbibed by a Cardinal, and being so, may not forsake him when he is made Pope, but beget a desire very consequent to his belief, an appetite of propagating his persuasions, and so that Practices 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 affixed to it by some Romanists) and pay this ready obedience to it, into the same snare of heresy, or Impiety, or both.  
§. 4. 
The ill effects of it.  For of this we have too frequent experience, how hard it is to dispossess 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 contrary to all these) as long as he hath that one hold, or fortress, his persuasion of the Infallibility of that Church, which teacheth, or prescribeth it. And indeed it were as unreasonable for us to accuse, or wonder at this constancy in particular superstructed errors, be they never so many, whilst the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, this first great comprehensive falsity is maintained, as to disclaim the conclusion, when the premises, that duly induce it, are embraced. And then that other errors, and guilts of the highest nature neither are, nor shall be entertained by those, that are thus qualified for them, must sure be a felicity (to which this doctrine hath no way entitled them) and that for which they can have no security for one hour, but by renouncing that principle (which equally obligeth to the belief of truths, and falsehoods) embracing of commendable, and vicious practices, 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 familiar to us, and given us reason to look on with a quickness of sense, and dread, but those such, as being not entered into the Confessions of any national Church, are not properly chargeable either on Papists, or Protestants, but on particular dogmatizers 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 persuasion of the Solifidians, 
The persuasion of the Solifidian.  that all religion consists in believing aright, that the being of Orthodox (as that is opposed to erroneous) opinions, is all that is on our part required, to render our condition safe, and our persons acceptable in the sight of God.  
§. 7. This is a persuasion frequently observable in those that are forward to separate from all, who differ in matters of Doctrine from them, who place sanctity in their opinions (as generally heretics do) and make the dissents of other men, the characters of animal, carnal Gospelers: And the influence of this on the matter in hand [the superstructing Christian life upon our Faith] is most evident, For if we should give that persuasion of theirs the greatest advantage, and suppose the doctrines, in the belief of which they place so much efficacy, to be these very fundamental Doctrines, which this Discourse hath defined and specified, yet in case the believing of those aright be conceived the one and only necessary 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 styled Fundamental) is ipso facto become unnecessary.  
§. 8. For when it shall be once resolved that Orthodox opinions are able to secure men of God's favour, and (that being assumed as a principle) the search of them, being a work of the brain, shall generally be discernible (as Aristotle observes of the study of the Mathematics) to have nothing repugnant to passions in it, and when those articles of belief are conveyed to us with such evidence that we have no temptation to doubt of the truth of them, what argument is there remaining to any rational man, which can move him so superfluously, and unnecessarily to set upon that more laborious, and ungrateful task of mortifying lusts, of subduing of passions, of combating and overcoming the world, of offering violence to his importunate, vigorous, carnal appetites? If he that is to be baptised, might be admitted to that state of justified Christians, (and therein to a right of inheriting the kingdom of heaven) by a profession of the Articles of his Creed, and an undoubted persuasion and belief of the truth of them, what an impertinent tyranny were it to increase his burden, 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 commandments, and walking in the same all the days of his life? What use even of Prayer, of the Sacraments, of Charity, of Faith itself, in any other notion but that, wherein he considers it and thinks himself assuredly possessed of it?  
§. 9 The issue is clear, the Solifidian looks upon his Faith or Articles of his belief, as the entire 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 Persuasion of his most unhappily, but most regularly, obstructs and intercepts the building any more upon it, which, if he conceived himself no farther advanced, than the laying a few stones, a bare Foundation, he would rationally think himself engaged and obliged to prosecute to a far greater perfection.  
§. 10. Hitherto we have considered this persuasion of the Solifidian at the best and fairest advantage, and supposed the Opinions, on which he so relies, to be the true, Christian, Apostolical, 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 Apostolical, nor arrived so far as to any fair probability of truth, do yet pretend to be the only sanctified necessary 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 looked on as a carnal gospeler (whose arguments, though never so unanswerable, are to be resisted, as so many temptations) and many of these in their own nature (over and above this Pharisaical opinion of the sanctity of them) very apt to intermit our watch, to slacken our diligence, to give a Supersedeas to industry, it would be most evident that the Solifidian's persuasions do most directly and immediately resist God's principal design in revealing his truths, obstruct the superstructure of Christian life on this Foundation.  
§. 11. But I shall not enlarge on the mention of these, any farther than they are likely to fall under some other head of this ensuing discourse. Mean while it is worth remembering, what Epiphanius observes of the Primitive times, that wickedness was the only heresy, that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, impious and pious living divided the whole Christian world into Erroneous and Orthodox, by which we are advertised, how far we are from performing the engagements of our Christianity, if we insist so passionately, or so intently on the truth of our beliefs, as not to proceed to as vigorous a pursuit of all just, sober, and godly living, to a strict uniform Regulation of our practice, according to the obligations of our most holy Faith.   

CHAP. XIII. Of the fiduciary.  
§. 1. THE second obstructive, which I shall mention, is that of the fiduciary, 
The Doctrine of Faith being a full persuasion.  that having resolved Faith to be the only instrument of his justification, and excluded good works from contributing any thing toward it, proceeds to define his Faith to be a full persuasion, that the promises of Christ belong to him, or an assurance of his particular election; Which he that doth, and seriously believes himself 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 kind of full assurance, as it excludes all fear or doubting of his estate, and yet farther asserts (as many do) the priority of it (in order of time) before repentance, and so obliges himself to be sure of his election and salvation, before he reputes or amends his life, is fortified and secured by this one deceit from all obligation that Christian religion can lay upon him to superstruct Christian practice, or holy living upon his Faith.  
§. 2. For 1. if assurance of his good estate be the one necessary, 
Ostructive to good life.  than 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, than his believing it, is the believing a lie, and God's command to believe, is a command to believe a lie, and so one man is justified and saved merely by giving credit to a falsity, and all others rejected and damned barely upon their not believing the like falsity) than 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 reputes and amends his life, than nothing can hinder the continuance of his justified estate, in case he do not repent at present, nor intercept his salvation, in case he do never repent; and this, not only by force of that maxim generally received by these Fiduciaries, that he that is once justified can never be unjustified, nothing can separate him from the favour of God, or interscind his justified estate, but, without that auxiliary, by all rules of discourse and consequence, for he that is this day in a good estate without repentance, 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 continuance, then to the inchoation of his good estate.  

The pretended use of good life to the justifying of our Faith,  §. 3. Or if amendment and good life be affirmed necessary in order to the approving of his faith or justification either to himself or others, though not to his justification itself, 1. this cannot be reconciled with the Fiduciaries doctrine, 
vain in four respects: The First.  For his Faith being a full assurance, includes that approbation of his justification to himself, 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 extrinsical, and unnecessary, and impertinent to his justification, 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 believeth he sins and renounces the faith, if he permit himself to doubt, to admit any the least beginning of doubt of the goodness of his estate, or truth of his justification: And 2dly, 'tis God's justification, God's pardon of sin, 
The second.  the promise, or hope of which hath sufficient power to persuade carnal men to forsake sin, and enter the rules of Christian life, and not the approbation of men.  
§. 4. 3dly, 
The third.  In case the fiduciary were in the right (as he must be supposed to think himself to be) the men that did not believe him justified, should be unrighteous judges, passing a judgement contrary to God's judgement, and why should the fiduciary that supposeth himself to be approved of God without Repentance, take such pains to approve himself to man's judgement, which the Apostle disclaims being judged by, Rom. 8.33.  
§. 5. 4thly, 
The fourth.  How can it reasonably be said that good life is necessary to approve our justification or our Faith, when good life is acknowledged to have nothing to do in the matter of justification, and when Faith is so defined as it hath no connotation of repentance or good life? If Faith be a full persuasion of my being justified, the only humane way for me to approve this to others, i. e. to make others believe that I am thus persuaded, is to testify it by word or oath, which is the one means agreed on betwixt men to make faith of the truth of any thing which no man knows but myself (and if man were supposed 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 testimony 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 impress some image of divine authority 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 fiduciary doth, that Faith may be without good works, and good works, as far as to the eye of man, without Faith, for that being granted it follows necessarily, that one cannot prove or approve the other.  
§. 7. 
The Jew's premature persuasion of his good estate.  Thus did the Jew by saying and thinking that he had Abraham to his Father, persuading 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 persuasions to bring forth fruits of amendment, immediately before the judgements of God came out against that people, than he had been all the time before; Nor could his belief of God, his expectation of another life (allowed by the Pharisees) his obscure belief in the Messiah promised, the Law, the Prophets, the descent of God from heaven, the raising Jesus from the dead, prevail or gain in upon him, as long as he continued to conceive these privileges of Abraham's sons to belong unto him.  
§. 8. 
The Christians.  And in like manner the Christian professor, who hath imbibed this fiduciary doctrine, and is confident of his present and unperishable right in the favour of God, when he commits those sins against which the Gospel denounces, that they which do those things shall not inherit the kingdom of God, he is, if he acknowledge that part of the Gospel, and retain the belief of his personal election, necessitated to believe those acts, when committed by him, to cease to be those sins which they would be, when another man committed them; And than 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 messenger from the dead should be able to persuade him to repent, till he hath deposited that premature persuasion of his being in Christ.  

The Fiduciarie's ground, Christ's dying for none but the Elect.  §. 9 One special ground of the Fiduciaries mis-perswasion is the Doctrine 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 foreseen demerit, but only the guilt of Adam'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 persuaded, 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 believe 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. 2dly, What should make it necessary for him to repent and amend, who either without respect to any degree of amendment, is supposed to be elected to eternal bliss, or without respect to sin, to be irreversibly reprobated, i. e. to any person thus considered, either as elect, or left, reprobate, and non-elect in the whole mass of lapsed mankind?  
§. 12. Nay I might add, what obligation 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 respect unto this Faith of his?  

Two farther obstructions to good life.  §. 13. Upon these premises it cannot 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 entirely, 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 [Reliance] which if it be not joined with other changes in that doctrine, 
Of Faith's being defined by Reliance.  as in that particular of the Priority of Faith before Repentance, 'tis certainly 1. as erroneous, 2. as liable to the charge of obstructing good life, as that other doctrine of Assurance hath appeared to be.  

The Error of it.  §. 15. For the first, where there is no divine Promise, on which to rely, (as to the unreformed sinner remaining such, the whole Bible affordeth none) there what is reliance, but presumption, 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 rely, what scruple could the Christian there make against entertaining the fullest assurance? for that without question will be supported abundantly by such a promise.  
§. 16. For the second, 'tis visible, 
The danger of obstructing good life.  He that continues unreformed and impenitent in his course of sin, and is by the preacher induced to Rely 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 reform or amend any vice, or to do any thing, but rely on Christ for the pardon of it, for justification and salvation? 'Tis superfluous to pursue this any farther, which so discernibly falls under the inconveniences that have been showed to belong to Assurance, and are mentioned in the former part of this Chapter, too largely 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 opinion of those which thus teach) for a small remnant of the world, As it is asserted without any pretence or colour of scripture-proof, nay in opposition to as plain distinct affirmations as can be produced for any Article in the Creed, so is it of very ill consequence to the superstructing of good life.  

Universal Redemption the doctrine of Scripture.  §. 2. That Christ's dying for all is the express doctrine of the scripture, is elsewhere manifested by the phrases of the greatest latitude, used in this matter, 1. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 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 signify a far smaller disproportionable part of the world: Secondly, All, which word, though it be sometimes restrained by the matter, and doth not always signify every person or thing, yet generally it must be extended as far 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 damned, those that deny Christ, and purchase 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 unlimited number of all mankind: 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 progeny.  
§. 3. And accordingly, 
Of the Creeds. The Nicene.  though the Apostles Creed make no other mention of this, then is contained in styling 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 baptism, yet the Nicene Creed hath inserted some words for the farther explication of that Article, [Who for us men and for our salvation came down—] which signify all mankind to have their interest in it.  

The Apostolic.  §. 4. Nay if it be observed in the Apostles Creed, that the two first articles are corresponding and proportionable 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 infer that as [heaven and earth] in the first Article signify 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. 
Of the Church of England, in the Catechism.  And accordingly the Catechism of the Church of England established by Law, and preserved in our Liturgy as a special part of it, expounds the Creed in this sense, I believe in God the Father which made me and all the world; 2. In God the Son who redeemed me and all mankind; 3. In God the Holy Ghost who sanctifieth me and all the elect people of God; Where, as Creation is common to more creatures than redemption, and redemption than sanctification; so Mankind, to which Redemption belongs, as it is far narrower than the world, or the works of God's creation, so is it far wider than the catalogue of all the Elect people of God, to whom sanctification belongs.  
§. 6. 
In the Communion services.  So in other parts of our Liturgy, in Consecrating the Eucharist, we have this form of prayer, Almighty 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 himself once offered) a full, perfect, and sufficient sacrifice, oblation and satisfaction for the sins of the whole world; And accordingly in the administration 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 sufficient 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 than the Elect) but us men, or mankind in general, whose salvation was sought by God by this means.  

In the Articles  §. 7. So in our Articles also, Christ suffered for us— that he might be a sacrifice 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 mankind, Art: 7. And, Christ came as a Lamb— that by the offering of himself 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 which I have thus largely set down to show the perfect consonancy of our persecuted Church to the doctrine of Scripture and Antiquity in this point, whereon so much depends for the stating & determining other differences, which have also a special influence on practice.  
§. 8. As for the ill consequences toward the obstructing of good life, 
The ill consequences of the denying it.  which are considerable to attend this one doctrine 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 remains fortified in the belief of it.  
§. 9 For the former, 'tis evident, 
In the reducing a vicious Christian.  and that which he is supposed to believe, if he believe the Foundation (as I presume him now to do, when I set the case of a vicious Christian) that there is no salvation to be had for any sinner, but only by the sufferings of Christ, and that redemption by him wrought for such; If therefore a vicious liver, believing that Christ died 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 bliss, 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 attempt.  
§. 10. And if he thus attempt to persuade the vicious Christian, that he is one of the Elect, than 1. the very attempt confesses to him that a vicious person, remaining such, may be in the number of the Elect, and from thence he will presently be able to infer, that then he needs not reformation 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 persuade his reformation (the tender of mercy from Christ upon reformation) is already vanished, and consequently 'tis to no purpose to persuade him, that he is one of the Elect, which was useful only for the enforcing this medium, And so the very making this attempt is destructive to the only end of it.  
§. 11. But if this were not the result of this attempt, yet 2dly, 'tis in the progress agreed to be necessary that he persuade this person that he is one of the elect, And what possible medium can he use to prove that to a vicious person? A priori, from any secret decree of God's 'tis certain he cannot demonstrate it, for he hath never entered into God's secrets, and 'tis sure the Scripture hath revealed nothing of it, Whatsoever it saith of the Book of life, never affirming that particular man's name is written there; And then the one possible way of attempting it is à posteriori, from the fruits of election, and those are not supposeable in him who is supposed a vicious liver, who lives in that estate (and is by him acknowledged to do so, for otherwise why should he think it necessary to reduce him?) wherein he that lives shall not inherit the kingdom 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 kingdom of God? If he shall, what need I that am now exhorted to reform my life, reform it? If he shall not, then certainly I that am such, am none of the Elect, for all that are elect shall certainly inherit the kingdom of God.  
§. 12. The only reserve imaginable is, that this vicious Christian be persuaded to believe in Christ, and if he do so, he shall by that know that he is one of the Elect, and so that his sins shall be pardoned etc. But if this be the method made use of, than 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 distinct things, faith & repentance, and the former must be before the other, and is resolved to do the whole business without the other, and consequently this is not the way to bring the sinner to repentance, but rather to assure him that he hath no need of it, his business may be done without it.  
§. 13. 2dly, This very attempt of persuading him to believe in Christ (as that signifies the full persuasion 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 persuade 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 downright falsity, 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 former inconvenience returns again, for if the vicious Christian be advised to believe that Christ died for him, remaining such, (and that must be the case, if this faith must precede repentance) it is by that advise presupposed and granted to him, that Christ, which died only for the Elect, who shall certainly inherit the kingdom of God, died for this vicious person, of whom the Scripture saith, that he shall not inherit the kingdom; And again, if he may believe, what he is advised to believe, that Christ died for him, as now he is, an unreformed Christian, than what needs he reformation to make him capable of the benefits of his death? And so still it is impossible, where this opinion is imbibed and unremoved, to found any convincing argument, to reform a vicious Christian.  
§. 15. But this hath no such appearance of difficulty to him that hath received the doctrine of Universal, but conditional redemption, of Christ dying for all, that shall perform the condition required by him, and to which his grace is ready to enable him. For then how great soever the sins of any unreformed person 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 reform, and forsake his sins, or else he shall never receive benefit of his death, And then though there be that pleasure in sin, which the habitual sinner cannot be persuaded to part with, unless he must, (unless he discern the danger of retaining, and the advantage of parting with it) yet when he hath such arguments as these proposed to him, eternal bliss in exchange for short temporary pleasures, assurance of this upon reformation, and an impossibility, and absolute desperation without it, the vicious Christian, if he have advanced no farther than so, and if his habit of sin have not corrupted his principles, may think it reasonable to reform and amend upon such terms as these, the Preacher may hope to superstruct good life upon such a Foundation.  
§. 16. 
In comforting a disconsolate Christian.  And the like inconveniences 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 receive no benefit from Christ, is the affirmation, whereon all his despair is founded, and the one way of removing this dismal apprehension, is, to convince him that Christ's death and the benefits thereof, either do, or, if he perform the condition required of him, shall certainly belong to him.  
§. 17. This upon the belief of universal Redemption is presently so far done, that if he set industriously and sincerely to perform the commands of Christ, he can have no ground or pretence of doubting, but it shall prove successful to him, and so all that he hath to do, is to endeavour by prayer and use of the means, and by good hope (of which he hath such clear grounds) to qualify 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 opinion also, there is no possible reply 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 yields him no relief, because he is verily persuaded that he is none of the Elect; and when the number of the Elect is defined to be so small and disproportionable to the number of the reprobate, and so there is really all odds against him, that he is not of the number of the few, when his fears shall help to increase that odds, and make him less capable of believing, what is so much less probable, when his present despairs, being so contrary to that faith (assurance of his salvation) which alone can justify, in his opinion, 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 persuade him that his progress is not rational, that he doth not well to despair, who hath so slight grounds to build any hope, and so much weightier to comply with, and assist his fears in overwhelming him.  
§. 20. And then as necessary as hope is to labour, encouragement to quickening of action, so necessary is the belief of Universal 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 men's particular entities, absolutely considered, without any respect to all qualifications and demeanours; Which, whatsoever else be believed of God or Christ, is (as far as it is laid to heart, and permitted to have influence on carnal men's practice) a most visible hindrance to the building of good life upon it.  
§. 2. 
The Article of our Church.  The Church of England having not so much as named (but purposely avoided the mention of any Decree of Reprobation, and for Election, or Predestination to life, having set it down in an admirable temper, in order to gratifying all, and not provoking any of the several persuasions, 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 than she doth) is to be expected to curious (as well as carnal) men, i. e. to those that enter into farther speculations herein, (which is the itch of curiosity) and content not themselves with the simplicity of that doctrine, within which this Church hath contained herself. And to prevent particularly all advantage, that might be taken from hence to the Doctrine of the irrespective decrees, to which is inseparably joined the confining all the Promises to the Elect, The Article concludes with an earnest expression of care, and warning to the contrary, that we must receive God's promises in such wise, as they are generally set forth to us in the holy scripture (as in our doing we are to follow that will of God, which we have expressly declared to us in the word of God) which one passage excludes, and bars out that whole doctrine.  
§. 3. As for the particularity of the dangers, 
The doctrine of irrespective decrees.  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 reprobation that irreversibly involves the far greater multitude, be not distributed 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 temptation to any sin, (which is the special season for such arguments to be offered to any) which may be of force to persuade 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 authority 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. 
Takes off the force   
§. 5. Promises can be of no force, 
1. of Promises,  unless they be believed to be conditional promises, and unless that duty, which is proposed to be enforced by those promises, be acknowledged to be part of that condition, upon performance of which those promises do, and upon neglect of which, those promises shall not belong to any, And the promises being but a transscript of the will and decree of God, a revelation made by Christ of that mystery, or secret, wrapped 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 absolute, the promises must be absolute too, and consequently not conditional, which was the one qualification necessarily required to render them of any force to work on any, to restrain, or invite any that were drawn, or solicited another way.  
§. 6. For why should a man perform an ungrateful duty, undertake a difficulty, hazard a danger or diminution, deny himself any pleasurable enjoyment, upon a bare intuition of promises (which by being such are represented with some disadvantage, lie under a considerable prejudice, and are acknowledged and experimented to be of less energy or force to allure or persuade, then present possessions) when he is all the while convinced that all the promises, that he can possibly 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. 
2. of Terrors.  In like manner the Terrors & menaces of scripture are of as little force; For if they fall upon men's persons, and not upon their sins (omissions 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 terminated either in the innocent creature, or the child 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 tender 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 misery depends, and not in the sin, which means me no ill, and consequently the aversion and dislike will naturally be fastened 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 likely 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, designing the least treachery against me.  

3. of Commands.  §. 9 And lastly, for the authority of God's Commands which forbid sin, and command obedience, it can be no greater with any man toward the undertaking of good life, than that man believes the weight to be, which God lays on the performance of them; And if God heed that no more, than they that espouse the doctrine of irrespective decrees, must consequently be supposed to believe him to do, if in his decreeing his eternal rewards of bliss or woe, he respect not our obedience or disobedience, but distribute both by a rule quite distant from that which is founded in his commands, or revealed will, it will never be thought any near concernment or interest of ours to regulate our actions according to those commands, which have certainly much of strictness in them, much of contrariety to flesh and blood, but nothing of influence 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 inducements and engagements to obedience, is shrewdly allayed, if not wholly lost by this means.  
§. 11. 
Of Gratitude▪  And 'tis not the motive of gratitude (which is said to be the only score, on which the Elect perform their obedience) that can make any considerable difference in this matter, that can be sufficient to persuade him to abstain from any tempting sin, whom neither promises, nor terrors, nor precepts 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 producing of that effect in any, till he hath arrived to that sense, nor can it continue to do it, when that sense is lost. And consequently a great number of the supposed elect shall be uncapable 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 mind are returned to affrightments, or doubtings whether they have not been hypocrites, and so reprobates all this while; And as these two sorts (according to their doctrine) comprehend a great and considerable number of the very elect, (of whom very few are arrived to that pitch of constant uninterrupted assurance of their election) so Gratitude, by being unuseful to them that are not thus assured, must be acknowledged unuseful 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 acknowledged to be unappliable, and so consequently ineffectual to all others.  
§. 13. 2dly, Because one other doctrine there is, which constantly accompanies the doctrine of irrespective decrees, which supersedes all farther dispute in this matter, the doctrine of the irresistibility of grace, in working whatsoever it works, which if it be once acknowledged, there is nothing to be affixed to Gratitude (or to any thing else in me) which whatsoever it works at any time works by way of persuasion, not violence, and cannot be said so much as to contribute to the working of that, which is supposed to be irresistibly wrought by the Spirit of God.  
§. 14. 3dly, If these two arguments, which are only ad homines, and consider the Elect only in these men's notion of the word, had no kind of force in them, yet still this of Gratitude, which is the one pretended reserve, must needs be impertinently 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 mass, but of all that receive the Christian profession, of which number there being a large proportion which (according to the tenure of this doctrine) 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 persuaded to make those kind returns to God, which the Elect were more probably supposed to have engagement to do.  
§. 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 justified, or received into God's favour (any more than Saul was in the time of his journey to Damascus, when he breathed out threatenings and slaughters against the Church) the conclusion must be, that any such unreformed sinner will not be capable of being wrought on by any such consideration of gratitude, and so Christ, notwithstanding this only reserve, shall be wholly unsuccessful in his aim toward those, who were the principal designed persons, to whom he came, and predestined the benefits of his coming.  
§. 17. Thirdly, this of Gratitude being by those that maintain this doctrine supposed to follow faith or assurance of their salvation, 'tis thereby acknowledged to have no force on those who have not this faith, though they do believe all the articles of their Creed, and so it can be no proper expedient to remove the hindrances which the belief 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 predestination of the persons is able to evacuate all the force of these fundamentals, 
The doctrine of God's predetermining all events.  designed by God as motives of great energy to induce good life, so certainly is the opinion of God's predetermining and preordaining 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 sufficient to do 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 pass, whether good or bad, for that looks on the things as done, which are so disposed, and consequently includes not any influence or causality in the production of them, and so God, that brings light out of darkness, can dispose of the worst things, the foulest sins, the very crucifying of Christ, so as to bring health and salvation out of them.  
§. 3. 
Of preordering.  But betwixt this and predetermining that which is so disposed, the difference is wide, as much as betwixt 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 Latin, and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in Greek be equivocal, and capable of both these notions, yet ordaining and decreeing in our English use, is not thus liable to be mistaken.  
§. 4. Secondly, 
Of God's predetermining his own will.  I say not the doctrine 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 lawful thing myself, and my inducing another man to do that which is unlawful.  
§. 5. For God doth predetermine his own will, as oft as he decrees to do 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 do every thing that he wills and doth, after the same manner as the fire burneth, i. e. so as he could not do 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 do, or not do, or do 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 do, when he might on the other side have chosen to hinder or not to permit; And thus he did when he decreed to permit the malice of the Jews, the covetousness of Judas, the popularity of Pilate to join all together in the crucifying of Christ, upon which it is said, that his hand and his counsel 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 did predetermine this to be done, i. e. Christ to be crucified (which was done by God's predetermining to permit them to do what they by the free act of their own wills resolved to do, if they were not hindered) no way intimating that God predetermined they should do it.  
§. 6. And this predetermination of God's own will is so far from being the determining of ours, that it is distinctly 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 object, '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 predetermination of God's will hinders not the liberty of ours] which by being understood of God's will predetermining ours, is most grossly false, and implies a contradiction, a predetermination 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 far from hindering 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 another act of the same divine will, that this or that act of our will shall be permitted and not hindered by God, either or both these predeterminations of God's will, necessarily infers the liberty of ours, which cannot but be free, when God hath predetermined it shall be free.  

Of God's Prescience.  §. 7. Thirdly, I say not the doctrine of God's prescience, his eternal foresight 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 kind of influence or causality in the production of it.  
§. 8. Some difficulty there is in conceiving a thing to be foreseen or foreknown by God, and yet to continue 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 respect of place, and though speaking of infinity, we must acknowledge our understandings to be very imperfect, all the measures we have to conceive any thing, being finite, and so unequal and very unable to comprehend that which is infinite, Yet if we will but conceive God's sight or science 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 predetermined, as necessary, and that which is left free, as free, that which is done, and might have been otherwise, 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, lays no necessity on any thing to be, which is thus seen to come to pass, any more than my seeing the sun move, hath to do in the moving of it, it being certain, and necessary, and antecedent in order of nature, that that have a being, that hath a capacity of being seen, and only accidental and extrinsical to it, to be seen, when it is, and so the seeing but an accessary, not a cause of its being; and it is most evident that God's foreseeing doth not include or connotate predetermining, any more than I decree with my intellect, or will with my apprehension, which is as if I should see with my ear, or taste with my eye, i. e. confound 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 impossible that any thing should be in any other manner than he foresees it to be, as that it should not come to pass, when he sees it doth, or foresees it will come to pass; and consequently that God's foreseeing those things come to pass contingently which do come to pass contingently, is a most certain proof that there are some contingents in the world; So likewise when God foresees and foretells that Judas will freely and voluntarily, and against all engagements and obligations to the contrary, betray and sell Christ, that the Jews would not be gathered by Christ when he was most solicitous and sedulous in gathering them, 'tis as certainly conclusible from the argument of God's prescience, that they will voluntarily and freely do this, and obstinately resist their own good, as that they will do it at all, the manner being foreseen 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 followers, men very well exercised, and skilled in the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, removing of those things, which have continued immovable in the Church, have more then doubted) whether God foresee any more than 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 infiniteness of God's other attributes and powers, his omnipresence, omnipotence, etc. and to question the infinity 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 consequently learn them to have been foreseen, which they that make this doubt, do truly resolve cannot be predetermined by God, and, rather than they will believe them predetermined by him, deny them to be foreseen, viz: the infidelity and sins of men, which God cannot will or decree in their opinion, and which they must consequently 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.  

The doctrine of Predetermination noxious to Practise.  §. 11. Having thus separated this doctrine of God's predetermining all events, from these 3 other things, which the haste of Disputers have sometimes confounded with it, It will now be presently discernible how noxious & obstructive this doctrine is to the superstructing all good life. For 1. that which is predetermined by God is absolutely 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 pass, and though the waves toss themselves, yet can they not prevail, though they roar, yet can they not pass 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 2dly, by the mention of their rebellious heart, v. 23. and 3dly, by the opposition which is set betwixt the sea, that cannot pass the bounds, and the sinner that can, it is most evident they are not) this would necessarily preclude all choice, and then, as Tertullian saith, lib. 2. contr: Martion: Nec boni nec mali merces jure pensaretur ei, qui aut bonus aut malus necessitate fuisset inventus, non voluntate, There would be no reward of good or evil, if men were good or evil by necessity, and not by choice; and as Justin Martyr, Apol: 2. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, If mankind 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, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉— God therefore gave liberty of choice to men, that the wicked might be justly punished, being wicked by his own fault, and the righteous commended, who by the same liberty hath taken care not to transgress 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 industry and endeavour, 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 dust of the stars, or necessity of those irony chains which we are born under.  
§. 12. 2dly, There being little question 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 whensoever that is done it is done by God, and consequently if that be a sin, God doth, i. e. committeth the sin, and this without any so much as concurrence of any will of mine, but what is also predetermined by him; Which is evidently the defining God to be both the principal and accessary in the committing every sin; which when it is once believed, than 1. What possible way is there for any man to be guilty of sin, which we know is no farther sin, than it was voluntary in him that did it, and he free to have abstained, when he did commit it, or at least to have prevented that degree of force or necessity that is fallen upon him? And on the other side what possibility of abstaining from sin, when by God's predetermination of it, 'tis acknowledged inevitable? And when these two are taken away, the possibility of guilt, and the possibility of innocence, what restraint can the belief of all the Articles of the Creed lay upon any man to fly from evil, or pursue that which is good?  
§. 3. 3dly, The only way of defining of sin, is, by the contrariety to the will of God (as of good by the accordance with that will) and if all things be preordained by God, and so demonstrated to be willed by him, it remains that there is no such thing as sin, nor any thing to be abstained from, or avoided by us, nor difference betwixt good and evil, according to that measure of God's will, which by this doctrine is equally compatible to both of them. 
Revealed and secret will.  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 2dly, the ridiculousness of making that God's will, which is supposed contrary to his will, for certainly 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 3dly, the impiety of opposing God's words to his thoughts, his revealed commands to his secret decrees, (which is as ill as could be said of any man, and will never incline any to obey God, which hath such an unhandsome opinion of him) besides these inconveniences, I say, 'tis evident that intrinsic 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 far as his thoughts and secrets, but only superficially good, as far as the outside or appearing part of him, i. e. as far as he is pleased to reveal himself, which again is perfect blasphemy to imagine, and that which equals God to the most formal and hypocritical professor.  
§. 14. 4thly, This doctrine is destructive to all that is established among men, to all that is most precious, 1. to humane nature, to the two faculties that denominate us men, understanding and will, For what use can we have of our understandings, if we cannot do what we know to be our duty? and if we act not voluntarily, what exercise have we of our wills?  
§. 15. 2dly, To the end of our Creation, whether subordinate or ultimate; The subordinate end of our creation is, that we should live virtuously and glorify God in a voluntary and generous obedience, either of which other creatures, that act naturally, are not capable of, And God's predetermining all our actions deprives us of this honour and dignity of our nature, leaves no place of virtue, which is founded in voluntary action, and as Origen saith cont: Cells: l. 4. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, 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 mouths 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 predetermination of all our actions, which renders us necessary not rational agents, renders us utterly uncapable of that.  
§. 16. 3dly, It is directly contrary to all God's ways, or manner of dealing with us, which is all by rational ways of persuasion, by proposition of terrors and promises, the danger that we shall incur by our disobedience, 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 signs 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 Egypt, & 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, than predetermination? For as, if they had not that persuasive efficacy in them as to be able to move a rational man, they could not be denominated rational, so if they were backed with a violence, if they were proposed to us in the name and power of an omnipotent immutable decree, they could never be said motives or persuasives; And so still God's gracious dealings with men being the aids and auxiliaries necessary to us in the pursuit of piety, and the one doctrine and persuasion of God's predetermination of all events, having superseded and cassated all those ways, we have no bottom left, on which to found the least beginning or thought of piety, as long as we continue possessed with that persuasion.  
§. 17. 4thly, This doctrine, if it were true, must necessarily take away all judgement to come, all reward and punishment, which are certainly apportioned to the voluntary actions, and choises of men (and therefore belong not to any but rational creatures) and can no more be awarded to those actions which are predetermined 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 choice. And when all judgement to come is once vanished, 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 rejected also, what hope is there that the remaining Articles should be sufficient to do it?  
§. 18. To these Christian & Theological considerations it will not be amiss to add what care the Writers of Politics have had to warn us of the noxiousness of this doctrine to all civil governments, which Christian religion, rightly understood, is so very far from disturbing, that beyond all other Aphorisms Political, beyond the sagest provisions of the Profoundest Lawgivers, it is (would men but live according to the rules of it) incomparably qualified to perpetuate public 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 choice toward good or evil, and to affix all events to God's predetermination, This, say they, is utterly irreconcilable with the nature of civil government, with the foundation thereof laid in Laws, or with the punishments and rewards, which are thought necessary to the continuance thereof, and Campanella chooseth to instance in Republicâ praesertim liberâ, in a Republic or free state.  
§. 20. For when the people, which think their liberty, of which they are very tender and jealous, to be retrenched or impaired by the restraint of Laws, can farther answer their Rulers, though but in the heart (without proceeding to farther boldness) that they cannot observe their Laws, being led by irresistible decrees to the transgressing of them, the consequence is easy to foresee, the despising and contemning of Laws, and hating 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 encourage them to it.  
§. 21. That the Turkish Empire hath not yet found the noxious effects of this poison, so commonly received 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 ignorance and unimprovableness in matters of knowledge, and rational discourse, being generally kept rude, and without all literature (which is the grindstone to sharpen the coulters, to whet their natural faculties, and to enable them to discourse and deduce natural consequences) 2dly, 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 managery being 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 withal as a contrary poison, a hot thrown after a cold, very proper to abate the energy of it, forcing them as fatally to abstain, as they can deem themselves forced, or impelled to commit any such enormity.  
§. 22. However 'tis manifest that the force they are under is a real force, and that of their fate but an imaginary 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 efficacy in them, than the contemplative.  
§. 23. Sed si Italos, say the Politic writers, But if this doctrine should ever get among the Italians, whose wits are more acute (and sure the Italians have not enclosed that excellency from all the rest of Europe) it would presently put all into confusion, they would soon discern the consequences, 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 
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉—  that all is chargeable on the superior cause, Jupiter and Fate, infer regularly with him, (〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉) the blamelesness of the inferior agent, and so there being no place left for sin or law, immediately believe 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 Commonwealth 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 degree of Atheists, who attribute to God the impressing on men's minds a necessity of doing whatsoever they do.  
§. 24. 'Tis true where there is any remainder of natural piety, he that believes the doctrine of absolute decrees, may be thereby restrained from actually making the conclusions, inferring such impious horrid consequences (be they never so obvious and regular) 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 premises, and where neither boldness nor skill are wanting to deduce it, that Conclusion will again turn Principle, and induce all vicious enormous living, which Laws were designed to restrain, but will no longer do it, when themselves are looked on as impertinent invaders of liberty, despised first, and then hated.  
§. 25. One farther consideration hath been added to this former, that this doctrine being imbibed by Governors, is very apt to instill into them principles of tyranny, if it be but by imitating and transcribing from God the notions which they have received 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 voluntary crime of theirs, and then counting it a part of their glory to execute such decrees. Thus when Suetonius describes Tiberius as a professed contemner of all religion, and from thence was soon improved into the most intolerable tyrant, he renders the original of it, that he believed all things to be wrought by a fatality. But these are popular considerations, yet not unfit also to be taken in as appendent to the former.  

Sin is not nothing.  §. 26. Many artifices there are invented by the necessities of those who have embraced this doctrine, to intercept and avoid these consequences of it; The two principal I shall name, 1. That sin is a non-entity, a nothing, and so that all things may be predetermined by God, and yet not sin: 2. That though God be author of the act of sin, yet he is not of the obliquity 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 fantasy 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 entity, and my swearing to a falsity, nothing; eating my own bread, enjoying my own wife, an entity, and eating another man's bread, enjoying another man's wife, nothing; and 3dly, that which would soon fall back into the grand inconvenience of obstructing Christian life (for why should a Christian be such a fool, as to be afraid of nothing, to fly and avoid nothing?) besides these, I say, it is apparent that they that thus teach, profess that sins are predetermined, by name Adam's sin, and Judas' 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 gained that every virtuous action were nothing also, there would be little advantage in this matter, it being as contrary to judgement to come, to rewarding according to works, that one predetermined necessary action, which I could not but do, should be rewarded, as that another should be punished, and as certain a prejudice to all diligence, or pursuit of Christian life, that I cannot choose but do the good which I do, 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 enabling to do good, to prepare, prevent, and assist, and contribute all that can be wanting to us, either to will, or do, (as it is not compatible with it so much as to incline any man to do evil) and so there is a difference in that respect betwixt the good and the evil, yet to do all this irresistibly, for a fatal decree of heaven to contrive 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 decree of God, whereby he predetermined man to be such, and as unreconcilable with reward or crown, as punishment is with that which is as much, but no more necessary.  
§. 28. As for the distinction betwixt the act and the obliquity, there is some truth in it, 
The distinction betwixt the act and the obliquity.  and use to be made of it, so far 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 crookedly, 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 being and powers, continue them minutely unto us, so he having used all wise and efficacious methods to incline and engage 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 hindering them (and if he should violently hinder, that would make us no whit less 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 straightening of them, as without changing our natures (offering violence to our wills, which he hath decreed to remain free) he could prudently be imagined to do.  
§. 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 obliquity of that act, the act of blasphemy from the obliquity or irregularity of blasphemy, the least evil thought or word against an infinite good God being as crooked as the rule is straight, and consequently he that predetermines the act, must needs predetermine the obliquity.  
§. 31. Nay 2dly, if there were any advantage to be made of this distinction in this matter, it would more truly be affirmed on the contrary side, that God is the author of the obliquity, and man of the act, For God that gives the rule, in transgressing of which all obliquity 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 obliquity; God that gives the law that a Jew shall be circumcised, thereby constitutes uncircumcision an obliquity, 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 obliquity on the other) it is evident that the man is the cause of that, 'tis man that circumciseth, or chooseth to be circumcised, and so that refuseth to receive that sign in his flesh, and the act of kill Abel was as perfectly Cain's act, as the offering of his sacrifice was, and so in all other acts, especially of sin, to which God doth not so much as incline, and the Devil can do no more than persuade any man.  
§. 32. To conclude, the obliquity of any act arising, by way of resultance, from the transgressing of the rule (i. e. doing contrary to God's command) as inequality ariseth from the adding or substracting an unity from an even number, it necessarily follows, 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 commission of the act, and by his law the cause of its being an obliquity, And indeed if the obliquity, which renders the act a sinful act, be itself any thing, it must necessarily follow, that either God doth not predetermine all things, or that he predetermines the obliquity; And regularity bearing the same proportion of relation to any act of duty, as obliquity doth to sin, it cannot be imagined that the author of the sinful act, should not be the author of the obliquity, 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, 
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉,  
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉  
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉.  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 deemed to have brought upon them. And accordingly it is one of the excellent lessons of the Pythagoreans in their golden verses, 
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉,  This thou must know, that the evils that men fall under, are brought upon them by their own choises, On which even Chrysippus, the Stoic, and great asserter of fate, hath thus commented, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, Evils, or mischiefs come to every man from himself, it being certain that by their own incitation they both sin, and suffer, and that according to their own mind and purpose. This being so far distant from the doctrine of fatality, it may well be wondered, how Chrysippus that asserted that, under the name of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, the chain, and the decree, (and defined it▪ saith 
† Noct: Att: l. 6. c. 2.  Gellius, sempiterna quaedam, & indeclinabilis series rerum & catena, volvens semetipsa seize, & implicans per aeternos consequentiae ordines, ex quibus apta connexáque est, an eternal and unavoidable series and chain of things folding and involving itself within itself by eternal courses of consequence, by which it is framed and connected, Or in his own dialect, 
li. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉.  that it is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, a natural complication of all things from all eternal, one thing following another, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, that complication being such as cannot be changed) could believe himself, or reconcile this comment, or that verse, with his great principles; And indeed 
† de Fato.  Cicero hath passed a right sentence of it, Chrysippus astuans laboránsque quonam pacto explicet & fato fieri omnia, & esse aliquid in nobis, intricatur— Chrysippus contending and labouring how to reconcile these two propositions, that all things are done by fate, and yet that something is in our own power, is entangled, and cannot extricate himself. This Master of the Stoics was pressed, saith Gellius, 
l. 6. c. 2.  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 imputed to a necessity and pressing, which arose from fate, that it must be unjust to make laws for the punishing of offenders, To which he had nothing to say but this, that though, if you look upon the first cause, all is thus fatally decreed, and chained, yet the dispositions of each man's mind are only so far subject to fate, as is agreeable to their own properties and qualities, as, saith he, when a man tumbles a cylindre or roller down an hill, 'tis certain that the man is the violent enforcer of the first motion of it, but when it is once a tumbling, the quality and propriety of the thing itself continues, and consummates it. In this witty resemblance of that Stoic these three things must be considered, First, that the Cylindre (the instance that he thought fit to pitch on) is an inanimate, liveless trunk, which hath nothing of choice, 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 meeting with a precipice, or steep declivity do necessarily continue the motion of it) are any more imputable to that dead, choisless creature, than the first motion of it was supposed to be, and therefore thirdly, that this cannot be a fit resemblance to show the reconcileableness of fate with choice, or the reasonableness of charging on men's 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 remembered that neither is the Cylindre charged with sin, whether by God, or men, nor any punitive law enacted by either against its rolling 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 Pomponius 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 affirmed 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' Cylindre and the motion thereof were a commodious instance, 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 diligently, and had the advantages of the writings of the former ages to assist them, yet he that shall impartially make the comparison, will find, that the ancient Philosophers have written more subtilely in this matter, and are more worth out reading, than any of our modern Schools, (he that shall survey Hierocles on the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, Ammonius on Aristotle's 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, in showing the nature of contingent, and necessary propositions, & the Christian Philosopher Boethius, lib. 2. the consolation 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 less matter of wonder to us, that they which have espoused this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, should endeavour as improsperously to reconcile this with other notions of piety, and to extricate themselves out of a Labyrinth not of fewer, but more difficulties (God having most clearly revealed to Christian, that as he rewardeth every man according to his works, so he requireth of him according to what he hath in his power to do, and not according to what he hath not) as Chrysippus is by Cicero judged to have done.  
§. 34. All which being duly considered, and the absurdities of that distinction (thus applied) betwixt the act and the obliquity, as manifest, as those of Chrysippus' expedient, in those so many forementioned respects, 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 experimented in the government of the world, and lastly so noxious and poisonous to good life, we may certainly conclude with Prosper, that great asserter of God's Grace, Resp: ad 14. Object: Vincent: Ad praevaricationem legis, ad neglectum religionis, ad corruptelam disciplinae, ad desertionem fidei, ad perpetrationem qualiscunque peccati, nulla omnino est Praedestinatio 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 pass 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 Council, which was very careful to assert the necessity of Grace, and yet pronounces an anathema 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 decrees, fatally passed upon our persons, or our actions, will be farther extended to the pretensions of the Spirit, and the opinion, that of late begins to diffuse itself 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 either that man, which thus pretends, never commits any act prohibited by the Word of God, and vulgarly called sin, after the minute of such pretention (and then that were a rare charm indeed to render him impeccable) or that this is the means of consecrating every sin of his, and so the opinion being imbibed by one that lives in rebellion, murder, adultery, pride, or schism, 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 repent for after the Commission of them, than the most eminent acts of piety should be; And when it is thus become impious to resist any temptation of our own flesh, which solicits 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 Christian life, as long as I have any temptation against it?  
§. 3. This is a doctrine which a man would think should not find admission with any considerable sort of men, and therefore it will be less pertinent for this Discourse to take any larger notice of it, yet for the preventing and intercepting any farther growth of it, where it may unhappily have found any reception, It will not be amiss to add, and evidence these few things:  
§. 4. First concerning the Spirit, 
Concerning the descent of the Spirit.  which is thus pretended to, That the Descent of the Spirit of God was principally for three ends, 1. to give Testimony, 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 sign the Commission of preaching to all Nations, to propagate what he had taught, 2dly, to assure all men, that the Rules which Christ gave us, are absolutely necessary to be observed, to render us capable of those Promises made, those benefits purchased by him, And 3dly, that, we being so corrupt by nature, so far from prone, or inclinable, in our Flesh, to obey those Rules; the Graces of his holy Spirit, accompanying the Revelation, or preaching of his will and word, should incline our corrupt hearts to keep his laws.  
§. 5. Secondly, that after the mission of the Spirit, God was pleased, for posterity, 
God's method in his Church.  otherwise to express his care, and love to mankind, viz: in giving, and consigning to them his written word for a Rule, and constant director of life, not leaving him to the dust of his own Inclinations.  
§. 6. Thirdly, that God hath made (and continued, through all ages, both of Jews and Christians) one sort of men to teach another to learn; 
Teachers and learners.  Among the Jews one to preserve knowledge in his lips, and with the same to dispense it, the other to inquire, and seek the Law at his mouth, and under the Gospel, Pastors, and Teachers▪ and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 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 foreign teachers, or guides, or necessity of obeying 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, 
All that comes out of the heart is not from God.  is not infused into it, or placed there by God. For besides that from thence proceed many aerial fictions, and phasmes, and Chimaeras, created by the vanity of our own hearts, or seduction of evil spirits, and not planted in them by God or nature, or the dust of God's Spirit, motions and emissions of our fancy, and not of our reason, of our sensitive, not humane nature (and to this all the Idolatry of the ancient heathens, and the new phansiful divinity of some present Christians, and the whole religion of the Mahomedanes is visibly imputable) besides this, I say, it is affirmed by the Apostle, 
Jam. 5.15.17.  Jam. 3.15, 17. that there is a wisdom (and that must signify some Codex of directions for practice, some law in the members, opposite to that in the mind) that cometh not from above, as well as a wisdom that cometh from above, and in plain terms, that it is earthly, sensual, and devilish, as that Law in the members is said to lead the man into captivity to the law of sin which is in the members.  

Mat. 15.18, 19  §. 8. So again, saith Christ, out of the heart proceed all the things that defile a man, evil machinations, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, all the most mischievous designments, by name, murders, adulteries, fornications, (incestuous and unnatural commissions contained under the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 fornication, 1 Cor. 5.1.) thefts, false-witnesses, 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 branches) of the divine or moral law.  
§. 9 Secondly, that to impose on ourselves or others by this fallacy, 
The belief of it a very noxious error.  to believe or pretend that whatever our own hearts incite us to do, what they suggest, or dictate, is the Spirit, or word, or revelation of the will of God within us, is the principle of all villainy (the same that hath always acted in the children of disobedience) enhanced and improved with circumstances of greater boldness and impudence, than ever the most abominable heathens were guilty of, either in their Oracles or in their mysteries.  
§. 10. In their Oracles, 
Worse than the fallacy of the heathen Oracles.  though their Idol-priests (who had the enclosure 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 affixed 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 proposition 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 pretention, do (in effect, and by way of necessary consequence, and direct interpretation) turn the God of heaven into that accursed 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 ambition, or covetousness (so many 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, spontaneous devils) can infuse into them, and out of their black hearts, as out of the most noisome caverns and dens of the earth (holding intercourse with hell) breathe out, and deliver to the world.  

Or idolatrous Mysteries.  §. 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 witness against themselves, accused those facts, which were not able to bear the light, (to which the Apostle seems to refer Ephes: 5.13.) and so had the excuse of some bashfulness and self-accusation, and care not to scandalise 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 & shamelessly, 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 do in bondage, as they call it, i. e. to all the relics or embers of conscience remaining in them, and if they can but utterly and finally cast out this fear, they are hereby delivered 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 than 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 shifted, and this voice (as if an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉) that comes out of our own bellies, being mistaken for the still language, in which God was once heard, a congregation of Christians may be soon inspired into a legion of Demoniacs, and only one (but that a teeming fruitful) error be committed all this while, the mistaking our own motions for the incitation of the Spirit of God, which till it be reform or retracted, it must be a shortness of discourse to think strange, and an injustice to charge of any new crime, the infallible consequences of it, and such are all the barefaced villainies 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 commit those acts, or live in those habits, against which the words of Scripture are plain, that they that do them shall not inherit eternal life, must necessarily resolve, that what were drunkenness or adultery in another, is not so in him, and nothing but the removing his Fundamental error can rescue him from the superstructive, be it never so gross, So to this one grand mistake (the judging of God's will by the bent of our own spirits) all vicious enormous practices (even to the taking away of all differences between 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 insisted on them, and those are the mistakes in the Doctrine of Repentance.  

Of Repentance▪  §. 2. Repentance, whatever that word signifies, (and that is certainly a sincere change, and renovation of mind, 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 Embassy from his Father's bosom was projected and designed for this grand work, and so certainly all the preachings of all the Apostles were of the same making, that the Gospel tells us the first-fruits were, Repent etc. And therefore it will concern us nearly, not to be misled in this matter, 
Dangerousness of mistakes in it▪  For should we content ourselves with somewhat else under the title, or disguise of Repentance, which is either not-repentance at all, or but an imperfect, unsufficient part of repentance, and by consequence, persuade ourselves, 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 referred those that from the misunderstanding of Rom. 7. (not observing) the custom of that Apostle 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, 
Misunderstanding Rom. 7.  figuratively to transfer to himself, in the first person, what belongs to others) have made it reconcileable with regeneration, or repentance (for those two words certainly signify one and the same thing in Scripture) to be in that state which is there described, i. e. to do 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 mind, 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 affirmed.  
§. 4. That that chapter is really a representation of one, which hath only the knowledge, not practise of his duty, and consequently, to the sins, which he commits, hath the aggravation superadded of committing them against knowledge, against conscience, against sight of the contrary law, is manifest from the context, and hath 
† Annot: in Rome 7.  elsewhere more seasonably been evidenced, And of this I need not many words to declare, how far it is from being so much as any part of Repentance, any one of the ingredients in it (being indeed no more than either the work of natural conscience, or, farther, of the mind instructed by the Law of Moses, but that not of force to work the least obedience in the man, but supposed in that text to be joined with all customary disobedience, and captivity to sin) and consequently that if this be mistaken for that, which it is so far removed from being natural or legal knowledge of duty, despised and transgressed, for sincere obedience to all the commandments of God and the former of these, by so absurd, irrational a concession, be deemed sufficient to render his estate safe, whosoever hath arrived to this, this must needs annul, and cassate all the force of all the Articles of the Creed (although never so firmly and explicitly believed) toward bringing forth good life, i. e. Repentance, truly understood, this supposititious no-repentance being once contentedly received, and espoused in exchange for it.  
§. 5. For who will ever take the pains to maintain a painful, 
Dangers of it.  ungrateful, perhaps bloody fight against the Law of sin that is in his members (〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 & 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, 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 less than a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or beating the air, v. 26. a bare dislike, or displeasure of the law of the mind, 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, 
Wishes of repentance.  are unwilling to dismiss any man without his request, and therefore, when they find not a man penitent, if they can but obtain of him, to wish that he were penitent, or to grieve, 
Sorrow that they do not wish.  that he cannot ascend so high as that wish, are content to accept that wish, or that grief for that Repentance, which alone is the condition required by Christ to rescue from perishing, What do these again, but wilfully mistake that for Repentance, nay is by them that affirm it is, presumed and supposed not to be; For if there had been any thing, that could have approved itself to be Repentance, they had never descended to those low inquiries, after the wish, and the grief, Nay the wish they had Repentance, 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 far from being true penitents, reformed, new livers, that the utmost they are arrived to toward it, is but an empty, ineffectual wish that they were such (without considering the price, that must be paid, 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 service that the Apostles meant, and all Ministers endeavour to superstruct on this foundation?  
§. 7. So that frequent practice, 
Deferring Repentance to Deathbed.  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 condition required by Christ, the Repentance he came to preach, will in that last scene of their last act, immediately before the exit, be as opportunely and acceptably performed, as at any other point of their lives, What do these but evacuate the whole force of the Christian faith, and absolutely resolve against building of Christian life upon it.  
§. 8. The unreasonableness, and presumption, the danger, and desperate insecurity of those, that thus project, and in stead of that whole age of vital actions, which are all little enough, be they never so liberally dispensed, and never so duly performed, (vastly disproportionable to that eternal Crown, which we know is adjudged, a reward to every man, according to his works) have not so much as a thought or design all their lives long (nor till those last, fearful summons extort it from them) to advance so far 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 
† Of Deathbed Repentance.  elsewhere largely insisted on, but never sufficiently lamented, being that which is the debauching all parts of the world, a presumption, that engages in all sin, and ruin, ascertains the life to be wholly unprofitable, and hath the luck among all professions of Christians to have aides and officers diligent to offer it some encouragements; The Romanists have many, formerly named, and their extreme Unction, administered as the dying man's viaticum (which S. James mentioned as the ceremony of his recovery) may be added to the Catalogue, And others of several persuasions have made them other tenders of kindness, and being unwilling to discourage such cunctators, always keep them up in good hope, that if they are not yet called (for that is the style to express 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 show not miracle, most sadly plunged in) are ascertained never to superstruct any vital action, on that Divine foundation, so fitly prepared for it.  
§. 9 If there be any, 
Mistake of Sorrow for Repentance.  that mistake sorrow for sin, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, (which it is very ordinary to find in those who carry it to hell with them, and which continues in that state of woe, as Charity doth in heaven) and confound it with repentance 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, which is never less than a conversion, and change of mind, 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 superstructure, and so, in a word, will all they, that either through indulgence to others, or fondness to any sin in themselves, substitute for Repentance any thing that is less, than a sincere, uniform Resolution of New obedience, attended with faithful endeavour, and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, meet, proportionable, worthy fruits of this change forever after. The several, of such possible, or real mistakes in the retail, 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 behind, which by the laws of the designed method, must now briefly be considered, What things are necessary to the erecting of this superstructure on this Foundation, whether in a particular Christian, or especially in a Church, or society of such.  
§. 2. Where by [necessary] I mean not the supernatural necessaries, 
Three kinds of necessaries.  the preventing, and assisting, and renewing 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 embrace it; Nor 2dly, in the Physical notion of necessity, that without which the work cannot possibly 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 imagined to reform his life, so as to be acceptable to God, but he to whom every of those Articles hath been intelligibly revealed; (For of many plain, yet pious Christians 'tis not certain, that that can truly be now affirmed, and of the pious Jews before Christ's time, it is not so much as pretended.)  

Morally necessary to this end.  §. 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 tempers, which we are commonly to look for in the world; Meaning also by the end to which these means are ordinable, not only the first act of change, resolution of reforming, but withal the continuance and perseverance in such resolutions, and the bringing forth meet fruits of repentance, and that again, not in a single person only, but in a community or multitude of men.  
§. 4. And in passing our judgement on this kind of Necessaries, it will not be modestly nor soberly done, if any of our own wisdom intrude or interpose or be willing to make additions to what Christ & his Apostles have designed, 
What the Universal Church of Christ hath thought thus Necessary.  and the Universal practice of the Church hath successfully used, and recommended to us in this kind; And therefore all that we have farther to do, is, to recollect, 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, sufficient through the blessing of God (and more probable than any course we could likely have pitched on) to attain the designed end successfully.  
§. 6. 
1. Baptism,  A solemn admission of Proselytes, all that either, being of age, desire that admission for themselves, or that, in infancy, are by others presented to that charity of the Church, with the desires of the parents, and intercession of sureties, that they may be thus early admitted by baptism, the Ceremony of initiating Proselytes, of entering disciples into the school of Christ.  
§. 7. If the persons thus admitted be of years of understanding, than some competent degree of instruction is reasonably to prepare for it, which, if they be baptised in infancy, 
Of Infants.  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 instruction is secured on all hands, and so is reasonably presumed to attend baptism, the practice of the Church hath alway been (transcribed from the Apostles) to bring infant children to baptism▪ we have all reason to adhere to that practice, and to acknowledge with thankfulness the several advantages, which it contributes, toward the end of redeeming us from all iniquity, 
Benefits of that;  and purifying a peculiar people unto Christ.  
§. 8. First, 
The first.  on God's part, it secures to the infant a non-imputation of Adam's transgression, seals unto him an assurance of God's not proceeding with him according to the strict Covenant first made with man, of a perfect unsinning obedience, by which we could have no hope to be justified, and on the contrary receives him into a Covenant of Grace, where there is pardon reached out to all (truly penitent) sinners, and assistance promised and engaged (and bestowed upon very easy conditions, humility and prayer and affiance in him) and this, in a degree proportionable to what now is required of us, as far 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 quickening hope, and so 'tis in itself one excellent principle of action, (which slackneth for want of encouragement, 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 understanding it.  
§. 9 Secondly, it is the entering the Infant into the Church, 
The second.  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 Competitor hath made his claim, or gotten admission or hold or interest in him.  

The third.  §. 10. Thirdly, it is the imposing a band and sacramental obligation upon him, an oath, a vow, which being the condition, upon the constant performance whereof all the promises of endless bliss 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 rescind or disclaim the standing obliged by it, And by this means it lays an absolute necessity on every one that hath been baptised, to undertake the performance of Christ's condition, i. e. of a pious and Christian life.  

The fourth.  §. 11. Fourthly, it is solemnised with the prayers and benedictions of the Church, which are always of great efficacy to bring down that which is prayed for, but are especially so, when they are annexed to an Institution of Christ (such as Baptism 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 advantages is very instrumental toward the beginning of this course, and engaging the infant betimes to a constant perseverance in it. And accordingly baptism 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 privileges, and advantages afforded us by Christ (for such beyond all other things are those, that effectually induce reformation, or Christian life) so are they most frequently considered as bands and obligations, and seals of the Christian's Covenant with Christ, whereby he engages his soul to a faithful performance of his part of the Covenant, and cannot now without perjury and Apostasy wilfully recede from it.  
§. 12. 
Catechising.  After Baptism (when that is in infancy received, as now in a Christian Church we suppose it to be) succeeds in the next place Instruction and institution in the nature and several branches of that vow which was made at the Font, and this in such a short, perspicuous, intelligible manner, and in so particular address and application to every single person (which, with the narrow-mouthed bottle in Quintilian, will not probably 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 imaginable 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 qualify him judiciously and warily to take that oath in his own person, which was by proxies formerly taken for him, and what greater band can lie on any to undertake the duties of Christian life, than the thus surveying and renewing of that oath.  
§. 13. And what is thus prepared for in Catechising is in the third place performed by Confirmation, 
Confirmation.  a most profitable usage of the Church transcribed from the practice of the Apostles, which consists in two parts, 
The first part thereof.  the child's undertaking in his own name every part of the baptismal vow (having first approved himself to understand it) and to that purpose, that he may more solemnly enter this obligation, bringing some Godfather with him, not now (as in baptism) as his Procurator to undertake for him, but as a witness to testify his entering this obligation, which one thing being heedfully and piously performed, is the greatest engagement imaginable to the performance of the matter of the vow (in which all Christian belief and practice is folded up) considering that every act of presumptuous sin, which shall ever be committed against that vow, brings the guilt of formal downright perjury 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 Baptism or Confirmation are made over to him by Christ.  
§. 14. 
The second.  The second part of Confirmation is the prayer and benediction of the Bishop, the successor of the Apostles in this office, and that made more solemn by the Ceremony of Imposition of hands, a custom 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 upon them, Joh. 20.22. as an outward sign of the same, as for holy Orders, Act. 6.6 so for Confirmation of believers after baptism, Act. 8.18. And the matter of this benediction, and petition, being the strength of Christ, the daily increase of the manifold gifts of grace, the Spirit of wisdom, understanding, counsel and ghostly strength, of knowledge and true godliness and holy fear, as the bestowing of these upon the child is both the strengthening and engaging 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 join 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 efficacy with God to bring down that grace which may enable to will and to do, on all that come duly qualified to receive it.  
§. 15. To which I may add, that this being designed by the Church to certify those that are thus confirmed of God's favour and gracious goodness toward them, it hath all the advantages that either hope of acceptance and reward, or a grateful sense of mercies received can add to it, to engage and oblige us to a constant obedience to him.  
§. 16. Fourthly, 
The Lord's Supper.  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, 
In five considerations.  whether it be considered, 1. as an institution of Christ for the solemn commemorating of his death; or 2. as a sacrifice Eucharistical performed by the Christian to God; or 3. as the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 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 obedience to him; or lastly, as an emblem of the most perfect divine charity to be observed among all Christians; In all and every of these respects, I say, it is doubtless an instrument of great virtue, that hath a peculiar propriety to engage the receiver to persevere in all piety. And that yet farther improved by the frequent iteration, and repetition of that sacrament.  

The first.  §. 17. 1. As it is the commemorating the death of Christ, so it is the professing ourselves the disciples of the crucified Saviour, and that engageth us to take up his cross and follow him, and not to fall off from him for any temptations, or terrors of death itself, but to resist to blood (as Christ did) in our spiritual 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, our Olympics or combats against sin.  

The second.  §. 18. 2dly, As it is the Eucharistical Christian sacrifice, so it is formally the practising of several acts of Christian virtue, 1. of prayer, of thanksgiving, of all kind of piety towards God; 2. of charity to our brethren, both that spiritual, of interceding for all men, for Kings, etc. 1 Tim. 2.1. and corporal, in the offertory, for the relief of those that want; and 3. the offering up and so consecrating ourselves, our souls and bodies to be a holy, lively, acceptable service to God, the devoting ourselves to his service all our days, And this last a large comprehensive act of piety, which contains all particular branches under it, and is again the repeating of the baptismal vow, and the yet closer binding of this engagement on us.  
§. 19 3dly, As it is by God designed, 
The third.  and, as an institution of his, blessed and consecrated by him into a sacrament, 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 typified and consigned to us by the sacramental elements, so 'tis again the ridding 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 do not wilfully betray our succours) victoriously through all difficulties.  

The fourth.  §. 20. 4thly, As it is a federal rite betwixt God and us (as eating and drinking both among the Jews 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 sincere performance of all duties prescribed the Christian by Christ, And he that doth no longer expect good from God than he performs that condition, is ipso facto devested of all those fallacious flattering hopes, which pretended to make purifying unnecessary, and must now either live purely and piously, or else disclaim ever seeing of God.  

The fifth.  §. 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, emulation, strife, revenge, faction, schism, that have been the tearing and rending of the Church of God (ofttimes upon pretence 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 Emblem is ready to afford us, we can think ourselves obliged to return to that charity and peaceable-mindedness, which Christ so frequently and vehemently 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, accompany or attend them in our hearts.  
§. 22. And the several happy influences of all and each of these considerations, especially when they are superadded to the three former grand instruments, and frequently, every month at least, 
The frequency of Receiving it.  and every great Festivity, called in to reinforce our watch, to remand us to our scrutiny (the examination and search of out hearts and purging out all impurity, that hath been contracted in those intervals) and to renew our vows of temper and vigilance, may very reasonably be allowed to have some considerable virtue and efficacy in them, to advance that work, for which Christ came out from the bosom of his Father, to superstruct the practice 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 bringing 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 mixed with every of these, and having their distinct energy proper to themselves, when they are in conjunction with the former, or added to them, they must needs accumulate and superadd a considerable weight unto them.  

The use of Liturgy.  §. 24. The first is the use of Liturgy, the second the word of exhortation among the Jews, and in the Apostles times, and proportionable to that the sermons or homilies of the Church.  

The use of Liturgy.  §. 25. The Liturgy as it contains the whole daily office, consisting of Confession, prayers, Psalms, hymns, reading of the scripture of both Testaments, Creeds, supplications, intercessions, thanksgivings, injunctions of Gestures and of Ceremonies, and of Holidays, is both the exercise of many parts of Piety, and the conservatory of the Foundation, on which all Piety together is regularly built, and a means of heightening devotion and infusing zeal into it; And the diligent, worthy, continual (in stead of the negligent, formal, rarer) use of it, and the unanimous accord of whole societies and multitudes herein, would certainly be very efficacious advancers of all Christian virtue, of piety, of charity, of purity, over the world, of the two former directly, and of the later by way of diversion, the frequent performance of such offices, obstructing and sealing up the fountains of impurity, and intercepting that leisure, which is necessary to the entertaining the beginnings of it.  
§. 26. So for Preaching or exhorting the people by way of Homily, 
Of Preaching.  it appears to have been received from the Jewish by the Christian Church, and by the phrase, by which it is expressed in the Acts [a word of exhortation to the people] it appears to have been generally employed in reprehension of vices and exhortation to virtuous living, And if we survey the Homilies of the Ancient Church (such are those of S. chrysostom most eminently) we shall discern that as upon Festival days the subject of the Homily was constantly the business of the Day, the clearing the mystery, the incarnation of Christ etc. and the recommending the actions or sufferings of the Saint, and raising men's hearts to acknowledge the goodness of God in setting up such exemplary patterns and guides before us, So upon other days, after some short literal explication of some place of scripture, the custom was, not to raise doctrinal points, according to every preachers judgement or fancy, but presently to fall off to exhortation to temperance, continence, patience, and the like Christian virtues, which either the propriety of the Text, or the wants and sins of the auditory, or the times suggested to them. And this so far 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 do so, are not to the edification and benefit, but to the destruction 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, rebellions, murders, hatreds, animosities, calumnies, revile of superiors, etc. in disseminating of heresies, infusing of prejudices etc. 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 represent vices in so formidable, yet just appearances, and to set out each virtue 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 fly from, and scatter (most liberally) his beloved Idol, wealth, the rageful person shall find a calm, the lustful a coldness insensibly infused upon his breast, and the auditor's fancy and sensitive affections being called in to join 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.  

Visitation of the Sick.  §. 28. Next to this is the spiritual persons being called for (and obeying 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 particular as it can, whether it be any sin either unreformed, or unsufficiently mortified, which may have laid him under God's present displeasure, and brought that disease, as a piece of discipline, upon him. In this condition the rod of God hath a voice to be heard, and he whose office it is in public to explain the oracles of God for the use of the Church, and to apply them to each man's wants, is now to preach on this new text, and expound to the sick man (as far 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 Daniel 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 divination, discern that affinity and dependence betwixt the man's unreformed sins, and God's hand of punishment, which may be sufficient ground of superstructing Daniel's exhortation of breaking off his sins by repentance, and showing 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 sins, which ordinarily introduced Christ's corporal cures, and prudently judgeth how improbable it is, that God, which for any sin committed hath inflicted this disease, should remove it before reformation, or if he doth, must do 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 precious part be neglected or omitted by us.  

Spiritual Conference.  §. 29. And the analogy holds, though not in the same degree, yet in the proportion, to every other season or person, who is under the power of any unreformed sin, or is doubtful of the sincerity of the kind, or sufficience 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 fellow Christian of no deeper judgement than himself, or as the spiritual person, 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 unimaginable and unspeakable, especially if it be free and unrestrained, having all the advantages of the divinest friendship, and withal all the contentments and satisfactions of it (which are exceedingly great, and agreeable to rational ingenuous natures) and bearing an image and lively resemblance of that conversation which is among Angels and beatified Saints, a communication and conjunction of souls, designed to our highest interests and concernments, the countermining and eradicating of sin, mortifying this or that passion, rage, or other sensual desire, and contending for the highest exaltation and improvement of our natures, 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 practice of it, especially that there were some eminent persons, of known abilities, experience, judgement, 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 rationally 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 kind of detriment or disadvantage, that they can suffer by it.  

The power of the Keys.  §. 31. But beyond all these there is another very efficacious method still behind, 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 exercise of the Keys committed to the Apostles & their successors by Christ, the weapons of their warfare, as Saint Paul calls them, the means of discharging their office to the good of souls.  
§. 32. For when any baptised, instructed, confirmed, communicated Christian, which hath participated of the Liturgy and Sermons of the Church, shall in despite of all these obligations (very competent and sufficient to have restrained him) break out into any known wilful scandalous sin, this course is then ready at hand, to be sent as an officer to arrest and reduce him, First the admonitions, fraternal or paternal, of his fellow Christians, or of the Governors of the Church, then more public reprehensions and increpations, and upon the unsuccessfulness of all these milder medicaments, the use of that stronger Physic, the Censures of the Church, either 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for a determinate, shorter space, or else indefinitely, usque ad reformationem, until 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 elsewhere been shown 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 honour of a Christian name, of an ordinary 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 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, destruction and excision, and the like; As for that other of shame, the efficacy that belongs to it, may be discerned by that ancient Apophthegm of 
* Stobaeus, ser: 41. p. 268.  Cleobulus, the fifth of the sages of Greece, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, that that people are composed to the greatest sobriety, among whom the citizens 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 acquired so great a credit, and reputation 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 within the bounds of exact living, and awe them from admitting any thing which is foul, or sinful. To which purpose also is that of 
† li. de Republics:  Hippodamus the Pythagorean, that there be three causes of virtue (〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉) and shame is the last of them, of which, saith he, (〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, etc.) good customs are able to infuse a dread into all men, that are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 well cultivated, and make them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, 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 instituted by our Saviour, to deprive vice of its greatest temptation, the praise of men, to exalt and set up virtue the only creditable thing, and brand sin as infamous, And if this of shame superadded to the former of loss (and both being met together, as the sinner's portion here, perfectly prefiguring the two saddest ingredients in hell, deprivation of the blissful vision, and confusion of face) cannot 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.  

This the last Ecclesiastical means.  §. 34. Nor indeed is it reasonable it should, when beside the Foundation (consisting of so many stones, each of them elect and precious, chosen by the wisdom of heaven for this admirable work of reforming the most obdurate Jew or heathen) this series and succession of so many powerful methods being farther prescribed by God and administered 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 destroying, but cannot without changing the course of nature, for the converting of sinners) can hope or pretend to prove successful on them.  

The necessity of Governors in the Church.  §. 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 men's lives (the latter annexed to the former, each to add weight and authority, and to vindicate the contempts of the former) might more largely be insisted on yet, on a farther design, to give us a just value of that sacred office, which Christ fixed in the Church in his Apostles and the Bishops their successors, and honoured it and them in this especially, that he hath put these weapons into their hands, entrusted to, and invested in them the Power of dispensing all these, and by that means rendered them necessary to the planting and supporting a Church of vital Christians, to the maintaining of pious practice in any community of Professors. But this would soon swell this discourse beyond the limits designed to it.  
§. 36. 
The Conclusion.  All that is behind 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 Universal Church with the Spirit of truth, unity, and concord, and grant that all they that do confess his holy name may agree in the truth of his holy word, and live in unity and godly love.    

A Prayer.  

A Prayer.  O Most gracious Lord God, the Creator of all things, but of men and all mankind a tender compassionate father in Jesus Christ, thou that hast enlarged thy designs and purposes of grace and mercy, as the bowels and bloodshedding of thy Son with an earnest desire that every weak or sinful man should partake of that abyss, that infinite treasure of thy bounty, Thou that hast bequeathed to us that Legacy and example of a sacred inviolate Peace, a large diffusive charity, We meekly beseech thee to overshadow with thy heavenly grace the souls of all men over all the world, O Lord, thou lover of souls, to bring home to the acknowledgement and embraces of thy Son all that are yet strangers to that profession, and in whatsoever any of us, who have already received that mercy from thee, may be any way useful or instrumental to that so glorious end, to direct and incline our hearts toward it, to work in us all an holy zeal to thy name, and tender bowels to all those whose eternity is concerned in it. O give us a true serious full comprehension and value of that one great interest of others, as well as ourselves, show us, the meanest of us, some way to contribute toward it, if it be but our daily affectionate prayers for the enlarging of thy kingdom, and the care of approving all our actions so, as may most effectually attract all to this profession. And for all those that have already that glorious name of thy Son called upon them, blessed Lord, that they may at length, according to the many engagements of their profession, depart from iniquity, that that holy city, that new Jerusalem may at length according to thy promise descend from heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for the husband Christ, that that tabernacle of God with men may be illustriously visible among us, that we may be a peculiar people, and thou our God inhabiting in power among us, that we which have so long professed thee, and been instructed by thee, may no longer content ourselves with that form of knowledge, which so often engenders strife, contentions, animosities, separating, and condemning one another, and that most unchristian detestable guilt of blood, but endeavour and earnestly contend for the uniform effectual practice of all the precepts of thy Son, the fruits and power of all Godliness, that all the Princes and people of Christendom, the Pastors and sheep of thy fold may at length in some degree walk worthy of that light and that warmth, that knowledge and those graces, that the sun of righteousness with healing in his wings hath so long poured out upon us. Lord purge & powerfully work out of all hearts that profaneness and Atheisticalness, those sacrilegious thirsts and enormous violations of all that is holy, those unpeaceable, rebellious, mutinous, and withal tyrannising cruel spirits, those prides and haughtinesses, judging and condemning, defaming and despising of others, those unlimited ambitions and covet, joined with the invasion and violation of others rights, those most reproachful excesses and abominable impurities, which to the shame of our unreformed obdurate hearts, do still remain unmortified unsubdued among us, but above all, those infamous hypocrisies of suborning religion to be the engine of advancing our secular designs, or the disguise to conceal the foulest intentions, of bringing down that most sacred name whereby we should be saved, to be the vilest instrument of all carnality, and by the power of thy convincing Spirit, Lord humble and subdue all that exalts itself against the obedience of Christ. And when thou hast cast out so many evil spirits, be pleased thyself to possess and enrich our souls, to plant and root and confirm and secure in us all those precious fruits of piety, and faith, and obedience, and zeal toward thee; of purity, and meekness, and simplicity, and contentedness, and sobriety, in ourselves; of justice, and charity, and peaceableness, and bowels of mercy, and compassion toward all others; that having seriously, and industriously, as our holy vocation engages us, used all diligence to add unto our faith, virtue; and to virtue, patience, and perseverance in all Christian practice, we may adorn that profession, which we have so long depraved, and having had our fruit unto holiness, we may obtain our end everlasting life, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.   

The Contents.  

CHAP. I. THe Notation of the word Fundamental. Page 1  
CHAP. II. The Division of the discourse into four parts, What are Fundamental in general. Page 15  
CHAP. III. A particular view of Fundamentals, Jesus Christ indefinitely. Page 24  
CHAP. IV. Jesus Christ Crucified. Page 35  
CHAP. V. Jesus Christ raised etc. Page 38  
CHAP. VI Other Articles of Belief in Christ. Page 42  
CHAP. VII. The Faith in Baptism. Page 56  
CHAP. VIII. Of the Creeds in general, and first of the Apostles Creed. Page 58  
CHAP. IX. Of the Nicene and Athanasian Creeds together; and severally of the Nicene. Page 82  
CHAP. X. Of the Athanasian Creed. Page 91  
CHAP. XI. Of the Superstructure, and the particular branches thereof. Page 94  
CHAP. XII. Of the Doctrines that hinder the superstructing of good life on the Christian belief, first among the Romanists, a Catalogue of them, especially that of the Infallibility of the Church, 2. Among others, 1. that of the Solifidian. Page 108  
CHAP. XIII. Of the fiduciary. Page 120  
CHAP. XIV. Of Christ's dying for none but the Elect. Page 130  
CHAP. XV. Of the irrespective decrees of Election and Reprobation. Page 145  
CHAP. XVI. Of the Predetermination of all things. Page 156  
CHAP. XVII. Of the Spirits acting all things within the man. Page 192  
CHAP. XVIII. Of the Mistakes concerning Repentance. Page 202  
CHAP. XIX. Of the necessaries to the superstructing of good life on this Foundation. Page 211  
A Prayer. Page 240   
THE END.   

ERRATA.  
PAge 51. line 12. re: Christ  
p. 60. §. 4 l. 9 re: Eutychen  
p. 77. l. 1. after omitted add)  
p. 90. l. 25. after practice add,  
p. 95. l. 17. after the add most  
p. 110. marg: the note subditos-with that next following it, Valdi— belong to p. 111. l. 7. and the word guilt  
p. 111. the note Summorum— belongs to lin. 19 and the word deviabilis  
p. 111. the note 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 belongs to p. 112. l. 16. and the word secure  
p. 114. l. 19 after principle for (put, l. 20. after falsehoods for) put, l. 21. after practices add (l. 23. after bread, add of l. 24. after God add)  
p. 128. l. 4. after not re: but be reasonable  
p. 172. l. 19 after nature add and  
p. 178. l. 10. deal was  
p. 189. l. 20. re: 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉  
p. 198. l. 17. re: §. 11.  
p. 200. l. 5. for if re: of  
p. 204. l. 27. after being add (l. 30. after God add)  
p. 206. lin. 9 after Repentance add which is not repentance  
p. 213. l. 17. after §. 6. re: First  
p. 219. l. 3. for in re: of  
p. 223. l. 7. for service re: sacrifice  
p. 229. l. 26. re: diffused