t r\ THE UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS LIBRARY BYom the collection of Julius Doerner, Chicago Purchased, 1918. 2.3S.3 \SA-0 Digitized by the internet Archive in 2017 with funding from University of iiiinois Urbana-Champaign Aiternates https://archive.org/details/expositionofthir00burn_3 AN EXPOSITION THIRTY-NINE ARTICLES. LONDON: PRINTED BY B A I NE BROTHERS, 38 , GRACECHURCH STREET. AN EXPOSITION OF THE THIRTY-NINE ARTICLES OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND. WRITTEN BY GILBERT, BISHOP OF SARUM. A NEW EDITION. LONDON: PRINTED FOR THOMAS TEGG, No. 73, CHEAPSIDE. MOCCCXL. \ 'S‘=lO TO THE KING Sir, The title of Defender of the Faith, the noblest of all those which belong to this imperial Crown, that has received a new lustre by your Majesty^s carrying it, is that which you have so gloriously acquired, that if your Majesty had not found it among them, what you have done must have secured it to yourself by the best of all claims. We should be as much ashamed not to give it to your Majesty, as we were to give it to those who had been fatally led into the design of overturning that, which has been beyond all the examples in history preserved and hitherto maintained by your Majesty. The Reformation had its greatest support and strength from the Crown of England; while two of your renowned Ancestors were the chief Defenders of it in foreign parts. The blood of England mixing so happily with theirs in your Royal Person, seemed to give the world a sure prognostic of what might be looked for from so great a conjunction. Your Majesty has outdone all expectations; and has brought matters to a state far beyond all our hopes. But amidst the laurels that adorn you, and those applauses that do everywhere follow you, sulfer me. Great Sir, in all humility to tell you, that your work is not yet done, nor your glory complete, till you have employed that power which VI EPISTLE DEDICATORY. God has put in your hands, and before which nothing has been able hitherto to stand, in the supporting and securing this Church, in the bearing down infidelity and impiety, in the healing the wounds and breaches that are made among those who do in common profess this faith, but are unhappily disjointed and divided by some differences that are of less importance; and, above all things, in the raising the power and efficacy of this religion, by a suitable reformation of our lives and manners. How much soever men’s hearts are out of the reach of human authority, yet their lives, and all outward appear- ances, are governed by the example and influences of their Sovereigns. The effectual pursuing of these designs, as it is the greatest of all those glories of which mortals are capable, so it seems to be the only thing that is now wanting, to finish the brightest and perfectest character that will be in history. It was in order to the promoting these ends that I under- took this work; which I do now most humbly lay before your Majesty, with the profoundest respect and submission. May God preserve your Majesty, till you have gloriously finished what you have so wonderfully carried on. All that you have hitherto set about, how small soever the beginnings and hopes were, has succeeded in your hands, to the amaze- ment of the whole world: the most desperate face of affairs has been able to give you no stop. Your Majesty seems born under an ascendant of Provi- dence; and, therefore, how low soever all our hopes are, either of raising the power of religion, or of uniting those who profess it, yet we have been taught to despair of nothing that is once undertaken by your Majesty. EPISTLE DEniCATOllY. Vll Tliis will secure to you the blessing of the present and of all succeeding ages, and a full reward in that glorious and immortal state that is before you: to which, that your Majesty may have a sure, though a late admittance, is the daily and most earnest prayer of. May it please your Majesty, Your Majesty^s most loyal, most obedient, and most devoted Subject and Servant, GI. SARUM, C. G. -1 1 PREFACE. It has been often reckoned among the things that were wanting, that we had not a full and clear explanation of the Thirty-nine Articles, which are the sum of our doctrine, and the confession of our faith. The modesty of some, and the caution of others, may have obliged them to let alone an undertaking, that might seem too assuming for any man to venture on, without a command from those who had authority to give it. It has been likewise often suggested, that those Articles seemed to be so plain a transcript of St. Austin^s doc- trine, in those much disputed points concerning the Decrees of God and \\\q Efficacy of Grace, that they were not expounded by our Divines for that very reason; since the far greater number of them is believed to be now of a different opinion. I should have kept within the same bounds, if I had not been first moved to undertake this work by that great Pre- late who then sate at the helm; and, after that, determined in it by a command that was sacred to me by respect, as well as by duty. Our late Primate lived long enough to see the design finished. He read it over with an exactness that was peculiar to him. He employed some weeks wholly in per- using it; and he corrected it with a care that descended even to the smallest matters, and was such as he thought became the importance of this work. And when that was done, he returned it to me with a letter, that, as it was the last I ever had from him, so it gave the whole such a character, that how much soever that might raise its value with true judges, yet in decency it must be suppressed by me, as being far beyond what any performance of mine could deserve. He gave so favourable an account of it to our late blessed Queen, that X PREFACE. she was pleased to tell me she would find leisure to read it; and the last time that I was admitted to the honour of waiting on her^ she commanded me to bring it to her. But she was soon after that carried to the Source y to the Fountain of lifcy in whose light she now sees both light and truth. So great a breach as was then made upon all our hopes^ put a stop upon this^ as well as upon much greater designs. This work has lain by me ever since ; but has been often not only reviewed by myself, but by much better judges. The late most learned Bishop of Worcester read it very care- fully. He marked everything in it that he thought needed a review; and his censure was in all points submitted to. He expressed himself so well pleased with it to myself, and to some others, that I do not think it becomes me to repeat what he said of it. Both the most reverend Archbishops, with several of the Bishops, and a great many learned Divines, have also read it. I must, indeed, on many accounts, own, that they may be inclined to favour me too much, and to be too partial to me; yet they looked upon this work as a thing of that importance, that I have reason to believe they read it over severely; and if some small corrections may be taken for an indication that they saw no occasion for greater ones, I had this likewise from several of them. Yet after all these approbations, and many repeated desires to me to publish it, I do not pretend to impose this upon the reader as the work of authority. For even our most reverend Metropolitans read it only as private divines, with- out so severe a canvassing of all particulars as must have been expected, if this had been intended to pass for an authorized work under a public stamp. Therefore, my design in giving this relation of the motives that led me first to compose, and now to publish this, is only to justify myself, both in the one and in the other, and to show that I was not led by any presumption of my own, or with any design to dictate to others. In the next place, I will give an account of the method in whicli I executed this design. When I was a Professor of PREFACE. XI Divinity, thirty years ago, I was then oliliged to run over a great many of the systems and bodies of divinity that were writ by the chief men of the several divisions of Christendom. I found many things among them that I could not like; the stiffness of method, the many dark terms, the niceties of logic, the artificial definitions, the heaviness as well as the sharp- ness of style, and the diffusive length of them, disgusted me: I thought the whole might well be brought into less compass, and be made shorter and more clear, less laboured, and more simple. I thought many controversies might be cut off, some being only disputes about words, and founded on mistakes; and others being about matters of little consequence, in which errors are less criminal, and so they may be the more easily borne with. This set me then on composing a great work in divinity; but I stayed not long enough in that station to go through above the half of it. I entered upon the same design again, but in another method, during my stay at London, in the privacy that I then enjoyed, after I had finished the his- tory of our Reformation. These were advantages which made this performance much the easier to me: and, perhaps, the late Archbishop might, from what he knew of the progress I had made in them, judge me the more proper for this under- taking. For after I have said so much to justify my own engaging in such a work, I think I ought to say all I can to justify, or at least to excuse, his making choice of me for it. When I had resolved to try what I could do in this me- thod, of following the thread of our Articles, I considered, that as I was to explain the Articles of this Church, so I ought to examine the writings of the chief Divines that lived either at the time in which they were prepared, or soon after it. When I was about the history of our Reformation, I had laid out for all the books that had been writ within the time comprehended in that period: and I was confirmed in my having succeeded well in that collection, by a printed catalogue, that was put out by one Mansel in the end of Oueen Elizabeth's reign, of all the books that had been printed from the time that printing presses were first set up XU PREFACE. in England to that year. This I had from the present Lord Arehbishop of York; and I saw by it^ that very few books had escaped my search. Those that I had not fallen on^ were not writ by men of name^ nor upon important subjects. I resolved, in order to this work, to bring my inquiry further down. The first, and indeed the much best writer of Queen Eliza- beth’s time, was Bishop Jewel — the lasting honour of the See in which the providence of God has put me, as well as of the age in which he lived; who had so great a share in all that was done then, particularly in compiling the second Book of Homilies, that I had great reason to look on his works as a very sure commentary on our Articles, as far as they led me. From him I carried down my search through Reynolds, Humphreys, Whitaker, and the other great men of that time. Our Divines were much diverted in the end of that reign from better inquiries, by the disciplinarian controversies; and though that Whitgift and Hooker writ on those heads was mugh better than all that came after them, yet they neither satisfied those against whom they writ, nor stopped the writings of their own side. But as waters gush in when the banks are once broken, so the breach that these had made proved fruitful. Parties were formed, secular inte- rests were grafted upon them, and new quarrels followed those that first began the dispute. The contests in Holland con- cerning predestination drew on another scene of contention among us as well as them, which was managed with great heat. Here was matter for angry men to fight it out, till they themselves and the whole nation grew weary of it. The question about the morality of the Fourth Commandment, was an unhappy incident that raised a tiew strife. The controversies with the Church of Rome were for a long while much laid down. The Archbishop of Spalata’s works had appeared with great pomp in King James’s time, and they drew the observation of the learned world much after them ; though his unhappy relapse, and fatal catastrophe, made I'REFACK. Xlll them be less read afterwards than they well deserved to have been. When the progress of the house of Austria began to give their neighbours great apprehensions, so that the Protestant reli- gion seemed to come under a very thick cloud, and upon that jealousies began to arise at home in King Charles’s reign, this gave occasion to two of the best books that we yet have : the one set out by Archbishop Laud, writ with great learning, judgment, and exactness: the other by Chillingworth, writ with so clear a thread of reason, and in so lively a style, that it was justly reckoned the best book that had been writ in our language. It was about the nicest point in Popery, that by which they had made the most proselytes, and that had once imposed on himself, concerning the infallibility of the Church, and the motives of credibility. Soon after that, we fell into the confusions of civil war, in which our Divines suffered so much, that, while they were put on their own defence against those that had broke the peace of the Church and State, few books were written but on those subjects that were then in debate among ourselves concerning the government of the Church, and our Liturgy and ceremo- nies. The disputes about the decrees of God were again man- aged with a new heat. There were also great abstractions set on foot in those times concQxnmg justification by faith; and these were both so subtile, and did seem to have such a tend- ency not only to antinomianism, but to a libertine course of life, that many books were writ on those subjects. That noble work of the Polyglot Bible, together with the collec- tion of the critics, set our divines much on the study of the Scriptures and the Oriental tongues, in which Dr. Pocock and Dr. Lightfoot were singularly eminent. In all Dr. Hammond’s writings, one sees great learning and solid judgment; a just tem- per in managing controversies, and, above all, a spirit of true and primitive piety, with great application to the right under- standing of the Scriptures, and the directing of all to practice. Bishop Pearson on the Creed, as far as it goes, is the perfectest work we have. His learning was profound and exact, his me- XIV PREFACE. thod good^ and his style clear: he was equally happy both in the force of his arguments and in the plainness of his expres- sions. Upon the restoration of the Royal Family and the Churchy the first scene of writing was naturally laid in the late times, and with relation to conformity. But we quickly saw that Popery was a restless thing, and was the standing enemy of our Church: so soon as that showed itself, then our Divines •returned to those controversies, in which no man bare a greater share, and succeeded in it with more honour, than Bishop Stillingfleet, both in his vindication of Archbishop Laud, and in the long-continued dispute concerning the idolatry of the Church of Rome. When the dangers of Popery came nearer us, and became sensible to all persons, then a great number of our Divines engaged in those controversies. They writ short and plain, and yet brought together, in a great variety of small tracts, the substance of all that was contained in the large volumes, writ both by our own Divines and by foreigners. There was in these a solidity of argument, mixed with an agree- ableness in the way of writing, that both pleased and edified the nation; and did very much confound, and at last silence, the few and weak writers that were of the Romish side. The inequality that was in this contest was too visible to be denied; and, therefore, they who set it first on foot, let it fall; for they had other methods, to which they trusted more than to that unsuccessful one of writing. In those treatises, the substance of all our former books is so fully contained, and so well delivered, that in them the doctrine of our Church, as to all controverted points, are both clearly and copiously set forth. The perusing of all this was a large field ; and yet I thought it became me to examine all with a due measure of exact- ness. I have taken what pains I could to digest everything in the clearest method, and in the shortest compass into which I could possibly bring it. So that in what I have done, I am, as to the far greatest part, rather an historian and a collector of what others have writ, than an author myself. This I have performed faithfully, and I hope with some puli FAC K. XV measure of diligence and exactness; yet if, in such a variety, some important matters are forgot, and if others are mis- taken, I am so far from reckoning it an injury to have those discovered, that I will gladly receive any advices of that kind: I will consider them carefully, and make the best use of them I can, for the undeceiving of others, as soon as I am convinced that I have misled them. If men seek for truth in the meekness of Christ, they will fol- low this method in those private and brotherly practices recom- mended to us by our Saviour. But for those that are conten- tious, and do not obey the truth, I shall very little regard any opposition that may come from them. I had no other design in this work, but first to find out the truth myself, and then to help others to find it out. If I succeed to any degree in this design, I will bless God for it; and if I fail in it, I will bear it with the humility and patience that becomes me. But as soon as I see a better work of this kind, I shall be among the first of those who shall recommend that, and disparage this. There is no part of this whole work in which I have laboured with more care, and have writ in a more uncommon method, than concerning 'predestination. For, as my small reading had carried me further in that controversy than in any other whatsoever, both with relation to ancients and mo- derns, and to the most esteemed books in all the different parties; so I weighed the Article with that impartial care that I thought became me; and have taken a method, which is, for aught I know, new, of stating the arguments of all sides with so much fairness, that those, who knew my own opinion in this point, have owned to me, that they could not discover it by anything that I had written. They were inclined to think that I was of another mind than they took me to be, when they read my arguings on that side. I have not, in the explanation of that Article, told what my own opi- nion was; yet here I think it may be fitting to own, that I follow the doctrine of the Greek Church, from which St. Aus- tin departed, and formed a new system. After this declara- tion, I may now appeal both to St. Austin^s disciples, and to XVI PREFACE. the Calvinists, whether I have not stated both their opinions and arguments, not only with truth and candour, but with all possible advantages. One reason, among others, that led me to follow the method I have pursued in this controversy, is to offer at the best means I can for bringing men to a better understanding of one ano- ther, and to a mutual forbearance in these matters. This is at present the chief point in difference between the Luthe- rans and the Calvinists. Expedients for bringing them to an union in these heads, are projects that can never have any good effect: men whose opinions are so different, can never be brought to an agreement; and the settling on some equivocal formularies, will never lay the contention that has arisen con- cerning them: the only possible way of a sound and lasting reconciliation, is to possess both parties with a sense of the force of the arguments that lie on the other side; that they may see they are no way contemptible, but are such as may prevail on wise and good men. Here is a foundation laid for charity: and if to this, men would add a just sense of the difficulties on their own side, and consider that the ill consequences drawn from opinions are not to be charged on all that hold them, unless they do likewise own those consequences; then it would be more easy to agree on some general propositions by which those ill consequences might be condemned, and the doctrine in general settled; leaving it free to the men of the different systems to adhere to their own opinions, but withal obliging them to judge charitably and favourably of others, and to maintain communion with them notwithstanding that diversity. It is a good step even to the bringing men over to an opinion, to persuade them to think well of those who hold it. This goes as it were half way; and if it is not possible to bring men quite to think as we do, yet a great deal is done, both towards that and towards the healing those wounds in which the Church lies a-bleeding, when they come to join in the same communion, and in such acts of worship as do agree with their different persuasions. For as the sacrament of the Eucharist, both Lutherans and Calvinists agreeing in the PREFACE. XVll same devotions and acts of worship, a mere point of specula- tion concerning the manner in which Christ is present ought not to divide those who agree in everything else that relates to the Sacrament; every one in that may be left to the freedom of his own thoughts, since neither opinion has any influence on practice, or on any part either of public worship or of secret devotion. Upon the same account it may be also suggested, that when all parties acknowledge that God is the sovereign Lord of the universe; that he governs it by a providence, from which nothing is hid, and to which nothing can resist; and that he is likewise holy and just, true and faithful, merciful and gra- cious in all his ways ; those who agree about all this should not differ, though they cannot fall into the same methods of reconciling these together. And if they do all agree to bless God for all the good that they either do or receive, and to accuse themselves for all the ill that they either do or suffer; if they agree that they ought to be humble, and to mistrust their own strength, to pray earnestly to God for assistance, and to depend on him, to trust to him, and likewise to employ their own faculties with all possible care and diligence, in the cleansing their hearts, and governing their words and actions; here the great truths of both sides are safe, everything that has an influence on practice is agreed on, though neither side can meet in the same ways of joining all these together. In the Church of Rome the difference is really the same between St. Austin^s disciples and the followers of Molina; and yet, how much soever they may differ and dispute in the schools, their worship being the same, they do all join in it. We of this Church are very happy in this respect; we have all along been much divided, and once almost broken to pieces, while we disputed concerning these matters : but now we are much happier; for, though we know one another’s opinions, we live not only united in the same wor- ship, but in great friendship and love with those of other per- suasions. And the boldness of some among us, who have reflected in sermons, or otherwise, on those who hold Calvin’s h XVlll I’REFACE. system, has been much blamed, and often censured by those who, though they hold the same opinions with them, yet are both more charitable in their thoughts and more discreet in their expressions. But till the Lutherans abate of their rigidity in^ censuring the opinions of the Calvinists, as charging God with all those blasphemous consequences that they think follow the doctrine of absolute decrees: and till the Calvinists in Holland, Swit- zerland, and Geneva, abate also of theirs, in charging the others as enemies to the grace of God, and as guilty of those consequences that they think follow the doctrine of condi- tionate decrees — it is not possible to see that much wished- for agreement come to any good effect. He who believes that an ill consequence is justly drawn from any opinion, is in the right, when he is by that determined against it. But because he thinks he sees that the consequence is clear, and cannot be avoided, he ought not for that to judge so ill of those who hold the opinion, but declare at the same time that they abhor the consequence, that they prevaricate in that declaration, and that they both see the consequence, and own it, though for decency^s sake they disclaim it. He ought rather to think, that either they do not see the consequence, but satisfy themselves with some of those distinctions with which it is avoided; or, that though they do see it, yet they look on that only as an objection which indeed they cannot well answer. They may think, that a point of doctrine may be proved by such convincing arguments that they may be bound to believe it, though there lie objections against it which they cannot avoid, and consequences seem to follow on it which they abhor, and are sure cannot be true, though they cannot clear the matter so well as they wish they could do. In that case, when a man is inclined by strong arguments to an opinion, against which he sees -difficulties which he cannot resolve, he ought either to suspend his assent, or, if he sees a superiority of argument of one side, he may be determined by that, though he cannot satisfy even himself in the objections that are against it: in that case, he ought to reflect on the weakness and defects PREFACE. XIX of his faculties^ wliich cannot rise up to full and comprehen- sive ideas of things, especially in that which relates to the attri- butes of God, and to his counsels or acts. If men can be brought once to apprehend this rightly, it may make proposi- tions for peace and union hopeful and practicable; and till they are brought to this, all such propositions may well be laid aside ; for men^s minds are not yet prepared for that which can only reconcile this difference, and heal this breach. . I shall conclude this Preface with a reply that a very emi- nent Divine among the Lutherans in Germany made to me, when I was pressing this matter of union with the Calvinists upon him, with all the topics with which I could urge it, as necessary upon many accounts, and more particularly with relation to the present state of affairs. He said, he wondered much to see a Divine of the Church of England press that so much on him, when we, notwithstanding the danger we were then in (it was in the year 1686 ,) could not agree our differences. They differed about important matters, con- cerning the attributes of God, and his providence; concerning the guilt of sin, whether it was to be charged on God or on the sinner; and whether men ought to make good use of their faculties, or if they ought to trust entirely to an irresistible grace? These were matters of great moment; but, he said, we in England differed only about forms of government and worship, and about things that were of their own nature indif- ferent; and yet we had been quarrelling about these for above an hundred years, and 'we were not yet grown wdser by all the mischief that this had done us, and by the imminent danger we were then in. . He concluded, let the Churcb of England heal her own breaches, and then all the rest of the reformed Churches will, with great respect, admit of her mediation to heal theirs. I will not presume to tell how I answered this; but I pray God to enlighten and direct all men, that they may consider well how it ought to be answered. ARTICULI RELIGIONIS, Anno 1562. The Articles of our Church were at the same time prepared both in Latin and English; so that both are equally authentical: it is therefore proper to give them here in Latin, since the English of them is only inserted in the following Work. This is the more necessary, because many of the collations set down at the end of the introduction relate to the Latin text. Articuli de quihus convenit inter Archiepiscopos et Episcopos utriusque Provincice et Clerum Univer- sum in Synodo, Londini, Anno 1562, secundum computationem Ecclesice Anglicance, ad tollendam opinionum dissentionem, et consensum in vera Reli- gione jirmandum, Editi Auctoritate serenissimce Regince. Londini, apud Johannem Day, 157L I. De fide in sacro-sanctum Trinitatem. Unus est vivus et verus Deus, asternus, incorporeus, imparti- bilis, impassibilis, immensae potentiae, sapientiae ac bonitatis, creator et conservator omnium, turn visibulum, turn invisibilium. Et in unitate hujus divinae naturae tres sunt personae, ejusdem essentiae, potentiae, ac aeternitatis, Pater, Filius, et Spiritus Sanctus. II. De verboy sive Filio Dei, qui verus homo f actus est, Filius, qui est verbum Patris, ab aeterno a Patre genitus, verus et aeternus Deus, ac Patri consubstantialis, in utero beatae virginis, ex illius substantia naturam humanam as- sumpsit; ita ut duae naturae, divina et humana, integre atque XXll ARTICULI RELIGIONIS. perfecte in unitate personse fuerint inseparabiliter conjunctee, ex quibus est unus Christus, verus Dens et verus homo, qui vere passus est, cmcifixus, mortuus, et sepultus, ut patrem nobis reconciliaret, essetque hostia, non tantum pro culpa originis, verum etiam pro omnibus actualibus hominum peccatis. III. De descensu Cliristi ad Inferos, Quemadmodum Christus pro nobis mortuus est, et sepultus, ita est etiam credendus ad Inferos descendisse. IV. De resurrectione Christi. Christus vere a mortuis resurrexit, suumque corpus cum came, ossibus, omnibusque ad integritatem humanae naturae per- tinentibus, recepit: cum quibus in coelum ascendit, ibique resi- det, quoad extremo die ad judicandos homines reversurus sit. V. De Spiritu Sancto. Spiritus Sanctus, a Patre et Filio procedens, ejusdem est cum Patre et Filio essentiae, majestatis, et gloriae, verus ac aeter- nus Deus. VI. De divinis Scripturis, quod sufficiant ad salutem, ScRiPTURA sacra continet omnia, quae ad salutem sunt neces- saria, ita ut quicquid in ea nec legitur, neque inde probari potest, non sit a quoquam exigendum, ut tanquam articulus fidei creda- tur, aut ad salutis necessitatem requiri putetur. Sacrae Scripturae nomine, eos Canonicos libros Veteris et Novi Testamenti intelligimus, de quorum auctoritate, in Ecclesia nun- quam dubitatum est. De nominibus et numero librorum sacrce Canonicce Scripturae Veteris Testamenti, Genesis. Exodus. Leviticus. Numeri. Deuteron. Josuae. Judicum. Ruth. Prior liber Samuelis. Secundus liber Samuelis. Prior liber Regum. Secundus liber Regum. Prior liber Paralipom. Secundus liber Paralipom. Primus liber Esdrae. Secundus liber Esdrae. Liber Hester. Liber Job. Ain'ICULI IIELIGIONIS. XXlll Psalmi. Proverbia. Ecclesiastes vel Concionator. Cantica Solomonis. IV. Prophetee Majores. XII. Prophetee Minores. Alios autem libros [ut ait Hieronymus) legit quidem Ecclesia, ad exempla vitae, et formandos mores: illos tamen ad dog- mata conjirmanda non adhibet, ut sunt. Tertius liber Esdrae. Quartos liber Esdree. Liber Tobise. Liber Judith. Reliquum libri Hester. Liber Sapientiee. Liber Jesu filii Sirach. Baruch propheta. Canticum trium puerorum. Historia Susannee. De Bel et Dracone. Oratio Manassis. Prior liber Maehabeorum. Secundus liber Maehabeorum. Novi Testamenti omnes libros (ut vulgo recepti sunt) recipi- mus, et habemus pro Canonicis. VII. De Veteri Testamento. Testamentum Vetus Novo contrarium non est, quandoqui- dem tain in Veteri, quam in Novo, per Christum, qui unicus est Mediator Dei et hominum, Deus et homo, eeterna vita humano generi est .proposita. Quare male sentiunt, qui veteres tantum in promissiones temporarias sperasse confingunt. Quanquam lex a Deo data per Mosen (quoad cferemonias et ritus) Christi- anos non astringat, neque civilia ejus prsecepta in aliqua repub- lica necessario recipi debeant, nihil ominus tamen ah obedientia mandatorum (quse moralia vocantur) nullus (quantumvis Chris- tianus) est solutus. VIII. De tribus Symbolis. Symbola tria, Nicaenum, Athanasii, et quod vulgo Apostolo- rum appellator, omnino recipienda sunt, et credenda, nam fir- missimis Scripturarum testimoniis probari possunt. IX. De peccato originali, Peccatum originis non est (ut fabulantur Pelagian!) in imitatione Adami situm, sed est vitium, et depravatio naturae, cujuslibet hominis ex Adamo naturaliter propagati: qua fit, ut ab originali justitia quam longissime distet, ad malum sua natura propendeat, et caro semper adversus spiritum concu- piscat, unde in unoquoque nascentium, iram Dei atque dam- nationem meretur. Manet etiam in renatis haec naturae depravatio. Qua fit, ut affectus carnis, Graece ^p6vr]fia o-apKos, (quod alii sapientiam, alii sensum, alii affectum, alii studium carnis interpretantur,) legi Dei non subjiciatur. Et quan- XXIV ARTICULI RELIGIONIS. quam renatis et credentibus nulla propter Christum est con- demnation peccati tamen in sese rationem habere concupiscen- tiam, fatetur Apostolus. X. De libero ar bitrio. Ea est hominis post lapsum Adte conditio, ut sese naturali- bus suis viribus, et bonis operibus, ad fidem et invocationem Dei convertere ac praeparare non possit. Quare absque gratia Dei (quae per Christum est) nos praeveniente, ut velimus, et cooperante, dum volumus, ad pietatis opera facienda, quae Deo grata sunt et accepta, nihil valemus. XL De hominis justificatione, Tantum propter meritum Domini ab Servatoris nostri Jesu Christi, per fidem, non propter opera, et merita nostra, justi coram Deo reputamur. Quare sola fide nos justificari doctrina est saluberrima, ac consolationis plenissima, ut in homilia de justificatione hominis fusius explicatur. XII. De bonis operibus. Bona opera, quae sunt fructus fidei, et justificatos sequuntur, quanquam peccata nostra expiare, et divini judicii severitatem ferre non possunt; Deo tamen grata sunt, et accepta in Christo, atque ex vera et viva fide necessario profluunt, ut plane ex illis, aeque fides viva cognosci possit, atque arbor ex fructu judicari. XIII. De operibus ante justificationem. Opera quae fiunt ante gratiam Christi, et spiritus ejus afila- tum, cum ex fide Jesu Christi non prodeant, minime Deo grata sunt, neque gratiam (ut multi vocant) de congruo merentur. Immo cum non sunt facta ut Deus ilia fieri voluit et praecepit, peccati rationem habere non dubitamus. XIV. De operibus super erogationis. Opera quae supererogationis appellant, non possunt sine arrogantia et impietate praedicari. Nam illis declarant ho- mines, non tantum se Deo reddere, quae tenentur, sed plus in ejus gratiam facere, quam deberent, cum aperte Christus dicat; cum feceritis omnia quaecunque praecepta sunt vobis, dicite, Servi inutiles sumus. ARTICULI RELIGIONIS. XXV XV. De Christo, qui solus est sine peccato. Christus in nostrae naturee veritate, per omnia similis factus est nobis, excepto peccato, a quo prorsus erat immu- nis, turn in came, turn in spiritu. Venit ut angus, absque macula, qui mundi peccata per immolationem sui semel fac- tam tolleret, et peccatum (ut in quit Johannes) in eo non erat: sed nos reliqui etiam baptizati, et in Christo regenerati, in multis tameri ofFendimus omnes. Et si dixerimus, quod peccatum non habemus, nos ipsos seducimus, et veritas in nobis non est. XVI. De peccato post Baptismum, Non omne peccatum mortale post Baptismum voluntarie perpetratum, est peccatum in Spiritum Sanctum, et irremis- sibile. Proinde lapsis a Baptismo in peccata, locus poeniten- tiee non est negandus. Post acceptum Spiritum Sanctum possumus a gratia data recedere, atque peccare, denuoque per gratiam Dei resurgere, ac resipiscere; ideoque illi damnandi sunt, qui se, quamdiu hie vivant, amplius non posse peccare affirmant, aut vere resipiscentibus veniae locum denegant. XVII. De preedestinatione et electione. Pr^destinatio ad vitam, est seternum Dei propositum, quo ante jacta mundi fundamenta, suo consilio, nobis quidem occulto, constantur decrevit, eos quos in Christo elegit ex hominum genere, a maledicto et exitio liberare, atque (ut vasa in honorem efficta) per Christum, ad eeternam salutem adducere. Unde qui tarn prseclaro Dei beneficio sunt donati, illi spiritu ejus, opportune tempore operante, secundum pro- positum ejus vocantur, vocationi per gratiam parent, justificantur gratis, adoptantur in ffiios Dei, unigeniti ejus Jesu Christi imagini efficiuntur conformes, in bonis operibus sancte ambu- lant, et demum ex Die misericordia pertingunt ad sempiternarn felicitatem. Quemadmodum prsedestinationis et electionis nostrse in Christo pia consideratio, dulcis, suavis, et ineffabilis conso- lationis plena est vere piis, et his qui sentiunt in se vim spiritus Christi, facta carnis, et membra, quee adhuc sunt super terram, mortificantem, animumque ad coelestia et su- perna rapientem; turn quia fidem nostram de seterna salute consequenda per Christum plurimum stabilit atque confir- mat, turn quia amorem nostrum in Deum vehementer accen- dit: ita hominibus curiosis, carnalibus, et spiritu Christi destitutis, ob oculos perpetuo versari prsedestinationis Dei XXVI ARTICULI RELIGIONIS. sententiam, perniciosissimum est prsecipitium, unde illos dia- bolus protrudit, vel in desperationem^ vel in eeque perniciosam impurissimae vitse securitatem ; deinde promissiones divinas sic amplecti oportet^ ut nobis in sacris literis generaliter propo sitae sunt^ et Dei voluntas in nostris actionibus ea sequenda est, quam in verbo Dei habemus, diserte revelatam. XVIII. De speranda ceterna salute tantum in nomine Christi. Sunt et illi anathematizandi, qui dicere audent unumquemque in lege aut secta quam profitetur esse servandum, modo juxta illam et lumen naturae accurate vixerit, cum sacrae literae tantum Jesu Christi nomen praedicent, in quo salvos fieri homines oporteat. XIX. De Ecclesia. Ecclesia Christi visibilis est coetus fidelium, in quo verbum Dei purum praedicatur, et sacramenta, quoad ea quae neces- sario exigantur, juxta Christi institutum recte administrantur. Sicut erravit Ecclesia Hierosolymitana, Alexandrina, et Anti- ochena; ita et erravit Ecclesia Romana, non solum quoad agenda, et caeremoniarum ritus, verum in his etiam quae credenda sunt. XX. De Ecclesice auctoritate. H ABET Ecclesia ritus sive caeremonias statuendi jus, et in fidei controversiis auctoritatem ; quamvis Ecclesiae non licet quicquam instituere, quod verbo Dei scripto adversetur, nec unum scripturae locum sic exponere potest, ut alteri contra- dicat. Quare licet Ecclesia sit divinorum librorum testis et conservatrix, attamen ut adversus eos nihil decernere, ita praeter illos nihil credendum de necessitate salutis debet ob- trudere. XXL De auctoritate Conciliorum Generalium. Generalia Concilia sine jussu et voluntate Principum con- gregari non possunt; et ubi convenerint, quia ex hominibus constant, qui non omnes spiritu et verbo Dei reguntur, et errare possunt, et interdum errarunt etiam in his quae ad Deum perti- nent; ideoque quae ab illis constituuntur, ut ad salutem neces- saria, neque robur habent, neque auctoritatem, nisi ostendi possint e sacris litteris esse desumpta. AIITICULI KELIGIONIS. XXVll XXII. De Purgatorio, Doctrina Romanensium de purgatorio^ de indulgentiis, de veneratione, et adoratione, turn imaginum turn reliquiarum nec noil de invocatione sanctorum, res est futilis, inaniter conficta, et nullis Scripturarum testimoniis innititur: immo verbo Dei contradicit. XXIII. De ministrando in Ecclesia, Non licet cuiquam sumere sibi munus publice prsedicandi, aut administrandi Sacramenta in Ecclesia, nisi prius fuerit ad hcEC obeunda legitime vocatus et missus. Atque illos ligitime vocatos et missos existimare debemus, qui per homines, quibus potestas vocandi ministros, atque mittendi in vineam Domini, publice concessa est in Ecclesia, cooptati fuerint, et adsciti in hoc opus. XXIV. De loquendo in Ecclesia lingua quam populus intelligit. Lingua populo non intellecta, publicas in Ecclesia preces peragere aut Sacramenta admiiiistrare, verbo Dei, et primitivae Ecclesiae consuetudini plane repugnat. XXV. De Sacramentis, Sacramenta, a Christo instituta, no tantum sunt notse pro- fessionis Christianorum, sed certa quaedam potius testimonia, et efiicacia signa gratiae atque bonae in nos voluntatis Dei, per quae invisibiliter ipse in nos operatur, nostramque fidem in se non solum excitat, verum etiam confirmat. Duo a Christo Domino nostro in Evangelio instituta sunt Sacramenta: scilicet, Baptismus, et Coena Domini. Quinque ilia vulgo nominata Sacramenta: scilicet, confirma- tio, poenitentia, ordo, matrimonium, et extrema unctio, pro Sacramentis Evangelicis habenda non sunt, ut quee, parti m a prava Apostolorum imitatione profluxerunt, partim vitae status sunt in Scripturis quidem probati: sed sacramentorum eandein cum Baptismo et Coena Domino rationem non habentes, ut quae signum aliquod visibile, seu caeremoniam, a Deo institutam, non habeant. Sacramenta non in hoc instituta sunt a Christo ut spectaren- tur, aut circumferrentur, sed ut rite illis uteremur, et in his duntaxat qui digne percipiunt salutarem habent elfectum: Glui vero indigne percipiunt, damnationem (ut inquit Paulus) sibi ipsis acquirunt. XXVlll ARTICULI RELIGIONIS. XXVI. De vi institutionum divinarum, quod earn non iollat malitia Ministrorum, Quamvis in Ecclesia visibili, bonis mali semper sunt admixti, atque interdum ministerio verbi et Sacramentorum administra- tioni praesint; tamen cum non suo^ sed Christi nomine agant, ej usque mandate et auctoritate ministrent^ illorum ministerio uti licet^ cum in verbo Dei audiendo^ turn in Sacramentis perci- piendis. Neque per illorum malitiam effectus institutorum Christi tollitur, aut gratia donorum Dei minuitur, qtioad eos qui fide et rite sibi oblata percipiunt^ quae propter institutionem Christi et promissionem efficacia sunt, licet per males adminis- trentur. Ad Ecclesiae tamen disciplinam pertinet, ut in males minis- tros inquiratur, accusenturque ab his, qui eorum flagitia noverint, atque tandem justo convicti judicio deponantur. XXVII. De Baptismo, Baptismus non est tantum professionis signum, ac discrimi- nis nota, qua Christiani a non Christianis discernantur, sed etiam est signum regenerationis, per quod, tanquam per instru- mentum, recte baptismum suscipientes, Ecclesiee inseruntur pro- missiones de remissione peccatorum, atque adoptione nostra in filios Dei per Spiritum Sanctum visibiliter obsignantur, fides con- firmatur, et vi divinse invocationis gratia augetur. Baptismus parvulorum omnino in Ecclesia retinendus est, ut qui cum Christi institutione optime congruat. XXVIII. De Coena Domini. CcENA Domini non est tantum signum mutuee benevolentiae Christianorum inter sese, verum potius est Sacramentum nostrae per mortem Christi redemptionis. Atque adeo, rite, digne, et cum fide sumentibus, panis quern frangimus est communicatio corporis Christi: similiter poculum benedictionis est communicatio sanguinis Christi. Panis et vini tran subs tan tiatio in Eucharistia ex sacris literis probari non potest. Sed apertis Scripturee verbis adversatur, Sacramenti naturam evertit, et multarum superstitionum dedit occasionem. Corpus Christi datur, accipitur, et manducatur in Coena, tan- tum coelesti es spirituali ratione. Medium autem, quo corpus Christi accipitur et manducatur in Coena, fides est. Sacramentum Eucharistioe ex institutione Christi non serva- batur, circumferebatur, elevabatur, nec adorabatur. ARTICULI RELIGIONIS. XXIX XXIX. De manducatione corporis Christi, et impios illud non manducare, Impii, et fide viva destituti, licet carnaliter et visibiliter (ut Augustinus loquitur) corporis et sanguinis Christi Sacramentum dentibus premant, nullo tamen modo Christi participes efficiun- tur. Sed potius tantae rei Sacramentum, seu symbolum, ad judicium sibi manducant et bibunt. XXX. De utraque specie, Calix Domini laicis non est denegandus, utraque enim pars Dominici Sacramenti, ex Christi institutione et preecepto, omni- bus Christianis ex eequo administrari debet. XXXI. De unica Christi oblatione in cruce perfecta, Oblatio Christi semel facta, perfecta est redemptio, propi- tiatio, et satisfactio pro omnibus peccatis totius mundi, tarn ori- ginalibus quam actualibus; neque praeter illam unicam est ulla alia pro peccatis expiatio: unde missarum sacrificia, quibus vulgo dicebatur, sacerdotem offerre Christum in remissionem poenae, aut culpae, pro vivis et defunctis, blasphema figmenta sunt, et perniciosae impostura0. XXXII. De conjugio Sacerdotum. Episcopis, presbyteris, et diaconis nullo mandato divino praeceptum est, ut aut coelibatum voveant, aut a matrimonio abstineant. Licet igitur etiam illis, ut caeteris omnibus Chris- tianis, ubi hoc ad pietatem magis facere judicaverint, pro suo arbitratu matrimonium contrahere. XXXIII. De excommunicatis vitandis, Qui per publicam Ecelesiae denunciationem rite ab unitate Ecclesiae praecisus est, et excommunicatus, is ad universa fide- lium multitudine (donee per poenitentiam publice reconciliatus fuerit arbitrio judicis competentis) habendus est tanquam ethni- cus et publicanus. XXXIV. De traditionibus Ecclesiasticis. Tradittones atque caeremonias easdem, non omnino ne- cessarium est esse ubique, aut prorsus consimiles. Nam ut variee semper fuerunt, et mutari possunt, pro regionum, tern- XXX ARTICULI RELIGIONIS. porum, et morum diversitate^ modo nihil contra verbum Dei instituatur. Traditiones, et cseremonias ecclesiasticas, quae cum verbo Dei non pugnant, et sunt auctoritate publica institutae atque pro- batae, quisquis privato consilio volens^ et data opera, publice violaverit, is ut qui peccat in publicum ordinem Ecclesiae, quique laedit auctoritatem Magistratus, et qui infirmorum fratrum con- scientias vulnerat, publice, ut caeteri timeant, arguendus est. Quaelibet Ecclesia particularis, sive nationalis, auctoritatem habet instituendi, mutandi, aut abrogandi caeremonias, aut ritus ecclesiasticos, humana tantum auctoritate institutos, modo omnia ad aedificationem fiant. XXXV. De Homiliis. Tomus secundus Homiliarum, quarum singulos titulos buic Articulo subjunximus, continet piam et salutarem doctrinam, et his temporibus necessariam, non minus quam prior Tomus Homiliarum, quae editae sunt tempore Edwardi sexti: Itaque eas in Ecclesiis per ministros diligenter, et dare, ut a populo intelligi possint, recitandas esse judicavimus. De nominibus Homiliarum. Of the right Use of the Church. Against peril of Idolatry. Of repairing and beeping clean of Churches. Of good Works. First, — Of Fasting. Against Gluttony and Drunken- ness. Against Excess in Apparel. Of Prayer. Of the Place and Time of Prayer. That Common Prayers and Sa- craments ought to he ministered in a known Tongue. Of the reverent Estimation of God’s Word. Of Alms-doing. Of the Nativity of Christ. Of the Passion of Christ. Of the Resurrection of Christ. . Of the worthy receiving of the Sacrament of the Body and Blood of Christ. Of the Gifts of the Holy Ghost. Of the Rogation-days. Of the state of Matrimony . Of Repentance. Against Idleness. \ A gainst Rebellion. ' XXXVI. De Episcoporum et Ministrorum consecratione. Libellus de consecratione Archiepiscoporum, et Episco- * porum, et de ordinatione Presbyterorum et Diaconorum, editus nuper temporibus Edwardi VI. et auctoritate Parlia- menti illis ipsis temporibus confirmatus, omnia ad ejusmodi consecrationem et ordinationem necessaria continet, et nihil habet, quod ex se sit, aut superstitiosum, aut impium: itaque ARTICIJLI UELIGIONIS. XXXI quicunque juxta ritus illius libri coiisecrati aut ordinati sunt, al3 anno secundo praedicti regis Edwardi^ usque ad hoc tempus, aut in posterum juxta eosdem ritus consecrabuntur, aut ordina- buntur, rite atque ordine, atque legitime statuimus esse^ et fore consecrates et ordinates. XXXVII. De civilibus Magistratibus. Regia Majestas in hoc Angliae regno^ ac caeteris ejus dominiis, summam habet potestatem, ad quam omnium statuum hujus regni, sive illi ecclesiastici sint^ sive civiles, in omnibus causis^ suprema gubernatio pertinet, et nulli externae jurisdictioni est subjecta, nec esse debet. Cum Regiae Majestati summam gubernationem tribuimus, qui- bus titulis intelligimus animos quorundam calumniatorum ofFendi, non damns Regibus nostris, aut verbi Dei, aut Sacramentorum administrationem, quod etiam Injunctiones ab Elizabetha Regina nostra, nuper editae, apertissime testantur: sed earn tan turn praerogativam, quam in sacris Scripturis a Deo ipso, omnibus piis Principibus, videmus semper fuisse attributam: hoc est, ut omnes status atque ordines fidei suae a Deo commissos, sive illi ecclesiastici sint, sive civiles, in officio contineant, et con- tumaces ac delinquentes gladio civili coerceant. Romanus pontifex nullam habet jurisdictionem in hoc regno Angliae. Leges regni possunt Christianos propter capitalia, et gravia crimina, morte punire. Christianis licet, ex mandate magistratus, arma portare, et justa bella administrare. XXXVIII. De illicita bonorum communicatione, Facultates et bona Christianorura non sunt communia, quoad jus et possessionem (ut quidam Anabaptistae false jactant;) debet tamen quisque de his quae possidet, pro facultatum ratione, pauperibus eleemosynas benigne distribuere. XXXIX. De jurejurando. Quemadmodum juramentum vanum et temerarium a Do- mino nostro Jesu Christo, et Apostolo ejus Jacobo, Chris- tianis hominibus interdictum esse fatemur; ita Christianorum Religionem minime prohibere censemus, quin jubente magis- tratu in causa fidei et charitatis jurare liceat, modo id fiat juxta Prophetae doctrinam, in justitia, in judicio, et veritate. XXXll ARTICULI RELIGIONIS. Confirmatio Articulorum. Hic liber antedictorum Articulorum jam denuo approbatus est, per assensum et consensum Serenissimse Reginae Elizabethee Dominee nostrae, Dei gratia Angliae^ Franciae, et Hiberniae Regi- nae, defensoris fidei, &c. retinendus, et per totum regnum Augliae exequendus. Qui Articuli et lecti sunt, et denuo confirmati subscriptione D. Archiepiscopi et Episcoporum superioris domus et totius Cleri inferioris domus, in Convocatione, Anno Domini 1571. CONTENTS. Introduction ......... Heresies gave the rise to larger Articles .... A form of doctrine settled by the Apostles .... Bishops sent round them a declaration of their faith These were afterwards enlarged ...... This done at the Council of Nice ..... Many wild Sects at the beginning of the Reformation . And many complying Papists put them on framing this col- lection .......... The Articles set out at first by the King’s authority A question whether they are only Articles of peace or doctrine They bind the consciences of the Clergy .... The Laity only bound to peace by them .... The subscription to them imports an assent to them, and not only an acquiescing in them ...... But the Articles may have different senses ; and if the words will bear them, there is no prevarication in subscribing them so ......... . This illustrated in the Third Article ..... The various readings of the Articles collated with the MSS. . An account of those various readings ..... Page 1 ib. 2 3 ib. ib. 4 5 6 7 ib. ib. 8 10 ib. 11 18 ARTICLE I. That there is a God, proved by the consent of mankind . 1 9 Obj. 1. Some nations do not believe a Deity. This is answered 20 Obj. 2. It is not the same belief among them all. This is answered ib. The visible world proves a Deity . . . . .21 Time nor number cannot be eternal nor infinite . . .22 Moral arguments to prove that the world had a beginning . 23 Such a regular frame could not be fortuitous . . . ib. Objection from the production of insects answered . . 24 Argument from miracles well attested .... 25 Argument from the idea of God examined . . . . ib. God is eternal, and necessarily exists ..... 26 The unity of the Deity . 27 God is without body ....... 28 Outward manifestations only to declare his presence and authority 29 c XXXIV CONTENTS. Page No successive acts in God ....... 30 Question concerning God’s immanent acts . . . . ib. God has no passions . . . . . . . .31 Phrases in Scripture of these explained . . . . ib. Some thoughts concerning the power and wisdom of God . ib. True ideas of the goodness of God ..... 33 Of creation and annihilation . . . . . .35 Of the providence of God ....... ib. Objections against it answered ...... ib. Whether God does immediately produce all things . . 38 Thought and liberty not proper to matter . . . .39 Whether beasts think, or are only machines . . . . ib. How bodies and spirits are united ..... 40 The doctrine of the Trinity . . *. . . .42 Whether revealed in the Old Testament, or not . . . ib. The doctrine stated ........ 43 Argument from the form of baptism ..... 44 Other arguments for it ....... ib. This was received in the first ages of Christianity . . .46 Some attempt to the stating true ideas of God ... 47 ARTICLE II. Christ, how the Son of God ...... Argument from the beginning of St. John’s Gospel Reflections on the state of the world at that time Arguments from the Epistle to the Philippians Other arguments complicated ...... Argument from adoration due to him . . . . . The silence of the Jews proves this was not then thought to be idolatry by them ....... Argument from the Epistle to the Hebrews . . . . God and man in Christ made one Person . . . . An account of Nestorius’s doctrine . . . . . Christ was to us an expiatory sacrifice . . . ‘ . An account of expiatory sacrifices . . . . . The agonies of Christ explained . ... 49 50 51 52 53 54 56 57 59 60 61 ib. 63 ARTICLE III. Ruffin first published this in the Creed Several senses put on this Article A local descent into hell What may be the true sense of the Article ARTICLE IV. The proof of Christ’s resurrection The Jews in that time did not disprove it 65 ib. 66 68 68 70 CONTENTS. XXXV Page Several proofs of the incredibility of a forgery in this matter . 71 The nature and proof of a miracle . . . . .73 What must be ascribed to good or evil spirits . . . ib. The Apostles could not be imposed on . . . .74 Nor could they have imposed on the world . . . . ib. Of Christ’s ascension . . . . . . .76 Curiosity in these matters taxed ...... ib. The authority with which Christ is now vested . . .78 ARTICLE V. The senses of the word Holy Ghost It stands oft for a person ..... Curiosities to be avoided about procession . The Holy Ghost is truly God .... ARTICLE VI. The controversy about oral tradition . That was soon corrupted ..... Guarded against by revelation .... Tradition corrupted among the Jews The Scripture appealed to by Christ and the Apostles What is well proved from Scripture Objections from the darkness of Scripture answered No sure guard against error, nor against sin The proof of the Canon of the Scripture Particularly of the New Testament These books were early received The Canon of the Old Testament proved Concerning the Pentateuch .... Objections against the Old Testament answered . Concerning the various readings .... The nature and degrees of inspiration . Concerning the historical parts of Scripture . Concerning the reasonings in Scripture Of the apocryphal books ..... 79 80 ib. 82 84 85 86 ib. 87 ib. 91 92 ib. 95 96 98 99 100 101 103 ib. 104 ARTICLE VII. No difference between the Old and New Testament . . 107 Proofs in the Old Testament of the Messias . . . ib. In the Prophets; chiefly in Daniel . . . . .109 The proofs all summed up . . . . . . .112 Objections of the Jews answered . . . . .113 The hopes of another life in the Old Testament . . .114 Our Saviour proved the resurrection from the words to Moses 116 Expiation of sin in the old dispensation . . . .117 Sins then expiated by the blood of Christ . . . . ib. c 2 XXXVl CONTENTS. Of the rites and ceremonies among the Jews Page 118 Of their judiciary laws ..... 120 Of the moral law ...... ib. The principles of morality ..... ib. Of idolatry ....... 121 Concerning the Sabbath ...... 123 Of the Second Table . . . . ♦ . 124 Of not coveting what is our neighbour’s 125 ARTICLE VIII. Concerning the Creed of Athanasius . 126 And the condemning clauses in it . • ib. Of the Apostles’ Creed . . . . • • 128 ARTICLE IX. Different opinions concerning original sin 129 All men liable to death by it . . 130 A corruption spread through the whole race of Adam . 131 Of the state of innocence ..... . 132 Of the effects of Adam’s fall .... . 133 God’s justice vindicated ..... . 134 Of the imputation of Adam’s sin ... St. Austin’s doctrine in this point . 135 . 136 This is opposed by many others . . 138 Both sides pretend their doctrines agree with the Article • 140 ARTICLE X. The true notion of liberty ..... . 141 The feebleness of our present state . ib. Inward assistances promised in the New Covenant . 143 The effect that these have on men . 145 Concerning preventing grace .... . 146 Of its being efficacious or universal • 147 ARTICLE XL Concerning justification ..... , . 148 Concerning faith ...... • . 149 The difference between the Church of England and the Church of Rome in this point ..... . . 151 The conditions upon which men are justified . . 153 The use to be made of this doctrine • • 155 ARTICLE XII. The necessity of holiness ..... . ib. CONTENTS. XXXVll Page Concerning merit . . . . . . . .156 Of the defects of good works ...... 157 ARTICLE XIII. Actions in themselves good, yet may be sins in him who does them . . . . . . . . . .159 Of the seventh chapter to the Romans . . . .160 This is not a total incapacity . . . . . .161 ARTICLE XIV. Of the great extent of our duty . No counsels of perfection Many duties which do not bind at all times It is not possible for man to supererogate Objections against this answered The steps by which that doctrine prevailed 162 163 164 ib. 165 167 ARTICLE XV. Christ’s spotless holiness . . . . . . .168 Of the imperfections of the best of men . . . . .169 ARTICLE XVI. Concerning mortal and venial sin . . . . .170 Of the sin against the Holy Ghost . . . • .171 Of the pardon of sin after baptism 173 That as God forgives, the Church ought also to forgive . ib. Concerning apostacy, and sin unto death . . . .174 ARTICLE XVII. The state of the question . . . The doctrine of the Supralapsarians and Sublapsarians . The doctrine of the Remonstrants and the Socinians This is a controversy that arises out of natural religion The hitory of this controversy both in ancient and modern times . . The arguments of the Supralapsarians .... The arguments of the Sublapsarians ..... The arguments of the Remonstrants ..... They affirm a certain prescience ..... The Socinian’s plea ........ General reflection on the whole matter . . . . The advantages and disadvantages of both sides, and the faults of both ......... In what both do agree .... 177 178 ib. 179 ib. 186 194 195 199 203 ib. 204 206 xxxvin CONTENTS. Page The sense of the Article ....... 207 The cautions added to it . . . . . . . 208 Passages in the Liturgy explained . . . . .209 ARTICLE XVIII. Philosophers thought men might be saved in all religions . 210 So do the Mahometans ....... ib. None are saved but by Christ . . . . . .211 Whether some may not be saved by him, who never heard of him . . . 212 None are in covenant with God, but through the knowledge of Christ .......... 213 But for others, we cannot judge of the extent of the mercies of God ib. Curiosity is to be restrained . . . . . .214 ARTICLE XIX. We ought not to believe that any are infallible, without good authority ......... Just prejudices against some who pretend to it . No miracles brought to prove this . . . . . Proofs brought from Scripture ...... Things to be supposed previous to these .... A circle is not to be admitted ...... The notes given of the true Church ..... These are examined ........ And whether they do agree to the Church of Rome The truth of doctrine must be first settled . . . . A society that has a true baptism, is a true Church Sacraments are not annulled by every corruption We own the baptism and orders given in the Church of Rome And yet justify our separating from them . . . . Objections against private judging ..... Our reasons are given us for that end ..... Our minds are free as our wills are ..... The Church is still visible, but not infallible Of the Pope’s infallibility . That was not pretended to in the first ages The dignity of Sees rose from the cities .... Popes have fallen into heresy ...... Their ambition and forgeries ...... Their cruelty ......... The power of deposing Princes claimed by them as given them by God ........ This was not a corruption only of discipline, but of doctrine . Arguments for the Pope’s infallibility ..... No foundation for it in the New Testament 215 216 217 ib. 218 ib. 219 ib. 220 221 ib. 222 223 ib. 224 ib. 225 226 227 ib. 228 ib. 229 ib. 230 231 232 233 CONTENTS. XXXIX St. Peter never claimed it . Christ’s words to him explained . Of the keys of the kingdom of heaven Of binding and loosing ARTICLE XX. Of Church power in rituals .... The practice of the Jewish Church Changes in these sometimes necessary The practice of the Apostles Subjects must obey in lawful things But superiors must not impose too much The Church has authority, though not infallible Great respect due to her decisions But no absolute submission . . The Church is the depositary of the Scriptures The Church of Rome run in a circle Pgae 233 234 235 ib. . 237 . 238 . 239 . ib. . 240 . ib. . 241 . 242 . 243 . ib. . 244 ARTICLE XXI. Councils cannot be called, but by the consent of Princes The first were called by the Roman Emperors Afterwards the Popes called them . . . . . Then some Councils thought on methods to fix their meeting What makes a Council to be general ..... What numbers are necessary ...... How must they be cited ....... No rules given in Scripture concerning their constitution Nazianzen’s complaints of Councils ..... Councils have been contrary to one another .... Disorders and intrigues in Councils ..... They judge not by inspiration ...... The Churches may examine their proceedings, and judge of them .......... Concerning the Pope’s bull confirming them They have an authority, but not absolute .... Nor do they need the Popes’ bulls ..... The several Churches know their traditions best The Fathers do argue for the truth of the decisions, but not from their authority ....... No prospect of another General Council .... Popes are jealous of them ...... And the world expects little from them .... Concerning the words. Tell the Church .... How the Church is the pillar and ground of truth Christ’s promise, I am with you alway, even to the end of the world ..... ... Of that. It seemed good to the Holy Ghost, and to us . Some General Councils have erred ..... 245 ib. 246 ib. 247 ib. ib. ib. 248 ib. 249 ib. ib. ib. 250 ib. 251 ib. ib. 252 ib. ib. ib. 253 ib. 254 xl CONTENTS. ARTICLE XXII. The doctrine of purgatory ...... Sins once pardoned are not punished Unless with chastisements in this life .... No state of satisfaction after death .... No mention made of that in Scripture But it is plain to the contrary ..... Different opinions among the ancients .... The original of purgatory A passage in Maccabees considered .... A passage in the Epistle to the Corinthians considered . The progress of the belief of purgatory Prayers for the dead among the ancients Endowments for redeeming out of purgatory Whether these ought to be sacred or not The doctrine of pardons and indulgences It is only the excusing from penance .... No foundation for it in Scripture .... General rules concerning idolatry .... Of the idolatry of Heathens • . . . . Laws given to the Jews against it ... . The expostulations of the Prophets .... Concerning the golden calf ..... And the calves at Dan and Bethel .... The Apostles opposed all idolatry .... St. Paul at Athens, and to the Romans The sense of the primitive Fathers upon it . The first use of images among Christians Pictures in Churches for instruction .... Were afterwards worshipped ..... Contests about that ....... Images of the Deity and Trinity .... On what the worship of images terminates . The due worship settled by the Council of Trent . Images consecrated, and how ..... Arguments for worshipping them answered . Arguments against the use or worship of images . The worship of relics ...... A due regard to the bodies of martyrs The progress of superstition ..... No warrant for this in Scripture ..... Hezekiah broke the brazen serpent .... The memorable passage concerning the body of St. Polycarp Fables and forgeries prevailed ..... The souls of the martyrs believed to hover about their tombs Nothing of this kind objected to the first Christians Disputes between Vigilantius and St. Jerome Page 256 ib. ib. 258 259 ib. 261 ib. ib. 263 264 ib. 266 268 269 270 ib. 271 272 ib. 273 274 ib. 275 ib. 277 278 ib. 279 ib. 280 281 282 ib. 283 ib. 285 ib. ib. 286 ib. ib. 287 288 289 ib. CONTENTS. xli Page No invocation of Saints in the Old Testament . . .291 The invocating Angels condemned in the New Testament . 292 No Saints in vocated, Christ only . . . . . . ib. No mention of this in the three first ages .... 293 In the fourth, Martyrs were invocated ..... ib. The progress that this made ...... 294 Scandalous offices in the Church of Rome . . . . ib. Arguments against this invocation ..... 296 An apology for those who began it . . . . . ib. The scandal given by it . . . . . . .298 Arguments for it answered ....... 299 Whether the saints see all things in God . . . . ib. This no part of the communion of Saints . . . . ib. Prayers ought to be directed only to God .... 300 Revealed religion designed to deliver the world from idolatry . ib. ARTICLE XXIII. A succession of pastors ought to be in the church . . .301 This was settled by the Apostles ...... ib. And must continue to the end of the world .... 303 It was settled in the first age of the church . . . . ib. The danger of men’s taking to themselves this authority without a due vocation ....... 304 The difference between means of salvation, and precepts for order’s sake ........ 305 What is lawful authority ....... ib. What may be done upon extraordinary occasions . . .307 Necessity is above rules of order ...... ib. The High-priests in our Saviour’s time . . . .308 Baptism by women ........ ib. ARTICLE XXIV. The chief end of worshipping God .... The practice of the Jews ...... Rules given by the Apostles ..... The practice of the Church ...... Arguments for worshipping in an unknown tongue answered 309 310 311 312 ib. ARTICLE XXV. Difference between sacraments and rites . . 315 Sacraments do not imprint a eharacter . . ib. But are not mere ceremonies . 317 What is necessary to constitute a sacrament . . ib. That applied to Baptism .... . 318 And to the Eucharist ..... . ib. xlii CONTENTS. No mention of seven sacraments before Peter Lombard . Confirmation no sacrament ....... How practised among us ...... . The use of Chrism in it is new ...... Oil early used in Christian rituals . . . . . Bishops only consecrated the Chrism . . . . . In the Greek Church Presbyters applied it . This used in the Western Church, but condemned by the Popes Disputes concerning confirmation . . . . . Concerning penance ........ The true notion of repentance ...... Confession not the matter of a sacrament . . . . The use of confession ........ The Priest’s pardon ministerial ...... And restrained within bounds ...... Auricular confession not necessary . . . . . Not commanded in the New Testament . . . . The beginnings of it in the Church . . . . . Many canons about penance ...... Confession forbid at Constantinople . . . . . The ancient discipline slackened ...... Confession may be advised, but not commanded . . , . The good and bad effects it may have . . . . . Of contrition and attrition ....... The ill effects of the doctrine of attrition . . . . Of doing the penance or satisfaction . . . . . Concerning sorrow for sin ....... Of the ill effects of hasty absolution . . . . Of fasting and prayer ........ Of the form, I absolve thee ....... Of holy orders ......... Of the ancient form of ordinations . . . . . Of delivering the vessel ....... Orders no sacrament ........ Whether Bishops and Priests are of the same order Of marriage ......... It can be no sacrament ....... Intention not necessary ....... How marriage is called a mystery or sacrament Marriage dissolved by adultery ...... The practice of the Church in this matter . . . . Of extreme unction ........ St. James’s words explained ...... Oil much used in ancient rituals ...... Pope Innocent’s Epistle considered . . . . . Anointing used in order to recovery . . . . . Afterwards as the sacrament of the dying . . . . The sacraments are to be used ...... And to be received worthily ...... Page 319 ib. 320 321 ib. 322 ib. ib. 323 ib. 324 ib. 325 ib. 326 327 328 ib. ib. 330 331 ib. ib. 333 ib. 334 ib. 335 336 337 338 ib. 339 340 ib. ib. 342 343 344 345 ib. 347 348 349 350 ib. 351 CONTENTS. xliii ARTICLE XXVI. Sacraments are not effectual as prayers are . Of the doctrine of intention The ill consequences of it . Of a just severity in discipline Particularly towards the Clergy . Page 352 354 ib. 355 356 ARTICLE XXVII. Concerning St. John’s Baptism ..... The Jews used baptism ...... The Christian baptism ...... The difference between it and St. John’s The necessity of baptism ...... It is a precept, but not a mean of salvation . Baptism unites us to the Church ..... It also saves us . St. Peter’s words explained ..... St. Austin’s doctrine of baptism ..... Baptism is a federal stipulation . . . . In what sense it was of more value to preach than to baptize Of infant baptism ....... It is grounded on the law of nature .... And the law of Moses, and warranted in the New Testament In what sense children can be Roly .... It is also very expedient ...... ib. 357 ib. 358 359 ib. 360 361 362 ib. 363 ib. 364 ib. ib. 365 366 ARTICLE XXVIII. The change made in this Article in Queen Elizabeth’s time The explanation of our doctrine ...... Of the rituals in the Passover ...... Of the words, This is my body ...... And, This cup is the New Testament in my blood Of the horror the Jews had at blood . . . . . In what sense only the Disciples could understand our Saviour’s words . . . . . . . . The discourse John vi. explained ...... It can only be understood spiritually ..... Bold figures much used in the East ..... A plain thing needs no great proof ..... Of unworthy receivers, and the effect of that sin . Of the effects of worthy receiving ...... Of federal symbols ........ Of the communion of the body'and blood of Christ Of the like phrases in Scripture ...... Of our sense of the phrase Real Presence .... 368 369 ib. 370 ib. 371 ib. 372 373 374 375 376 377 ib. 378 379 380 xliv CONTENTS. aU Transubstantiation explained .... Of the words of consecration .... Of the consequences of Transubstantiation . The grounds upon which it was believed This is contrary to the testimony of all our faculties, both sense and reason ..... We can be sure of nothing, if our senses do deceive us The objection from believing mysteries answered . The end of all mysteries considered Our doctrine of mystical presence is confessed by those of the Church of Rome St. Austin’s rule about figures .... Presumptions concerning the belief of the ancients in thi matter . . . . . . . They had not that philosophy which this doctrine has forced on the Church of Rome ...... This was not objected by Heathens .... No heresies or disputes arose upon this, as they did on other points ........ Many new rituals unknown to them, have sprung out of this doctrine ........ In particular, the adoring the Sacrament . . . . Prayers in the masses of the Saints inconsistent with it They believed the elements were bread and wine after con secration ........ Many authorities brought for this Eutychians said, Christ’s humanity was swallowed of his divinity ....... The Fathers argue against this from the doctrine of the Eucharist ........ The force of that argument explained .... The Fathers say our bodies are nourished by the sacrament They call it the type, sign, and figure of the body and blood of Christ ....... The prayer of consecration calls it so . That compared with the prayer in the Missal The progress of the doctrine of the Corporal Presence Refiection on the ages in which it grew The occasion on which it was advanced in the Eastern Church ........ Paschase Radbert taught it first . ^ . But many wrote against him .... Afterwards Berengarius opposed it . . . The Schoolmen descanted on it . Philosophy was corrupted to support it Concerning consubstantiation .... It is an opinion that may be borne with The adoration of the Eucharist is idolatry The plea against that considered .... Page 380 382 ib. 383 ib. 384 386 ib. 387 ib. 388 389 391 392 ib. 393 ib. 394 ib. 396 ib. 397 398 399 401 ib. 402 ib. 405 ib. ib. 407 ib. 408 409 ib. 410 ib. CONTENTS. xlv Christ is not to be worshipped, though present Concerning reserving the sacrament Concerning the elevation of it . ARTICLE XXIX. The wicked do not receive Christ The doctrine of the Fathers in this point More particularly St. Austin’s Page 410 411 413 414 ib. 415 ARTICLE XXX. The chalice was given to all Not to the disciples as Priests ...... The breaking of bread explained ..... Sacraments must be given according to the institution . No arguments from ill consequences to be admitted, unless in cases of necessity ....... Concomitance a new notion ^ . . . . . Universal practice for giving the chalice . . . . The case of the Aquarii ....... The first beginning of taking away the cup . . . . The decree of the Council of Constance . . . . 416 417 ib. ib. 418 ib. 419 ib. 420 421 ARTICLE XXXI. The term sacrifice of a large signification .... 422 The primitive Christians denied that they had any sacrifices . 423 The Eucharist has no virtue but as it is a communion . . ib. Strictly speaking, there is only one Priest and one sacrifice in the Christian religion . . . . . . . 425 The Fathers did not think the Eucharist was a propitiatory sacrifice .......... 426 But call it a sacrifice in a larger sense ..... ib. Masses without a communion not known then . . .427 None might be at mass, who did not communicate . . ib. The importance of the controversies concerning the Eucharist 428 ARTICLE XXXII. No divine law against a married Clergy .... 430 Neither in the Old or New Testament, but the contrary . ib. The Church has not power to make a perpetual law against it 431 The ill consequences of such a law ..... 432 No such law in the first ages ...... 433 When the laws for the celibate began ..... ib. The practice of the Church not uniform in it . . . .434 The progress of these laws in England ..... ib. The good and the bad of celibate balanced . . . . 435 xlvi CONTENTS. Page It is not lawful to make vows in this matter .... 436 Nor do they bind when made . . . . . .437 Oaths ill made are worse to be kept ..... ib. ARTICLE XXXIII. A temper to he observed in Church discipline . . . 438 The necessity of keeping it up . . . . . . 439 Extremes in this to be avoided ...... 440 Concerning the delivering any to Satan . . . . ib. The importance of an Anathema . . . . . .441 Of the effect of Church censures . . . . . .442 What it is when they are wrong applied . . . . ib. The causeless jealousy of Church power .... 443 How the Laity was once taken into the exercise of it . . ib. The Pastors of the Church have authority .... 444 Defects in this no just cause of separation .... 445 All these brought in by Popery ...... ib. A correction of them intended at the Reformation . . . 446 ARTICLE XXXIV The obligation to obey Canons and Laws .... 447 The great sin of schism and disobedience . . . . ib. The true notion of scandal . . . . . . .448 The fear of giving scandal no warrant to break established laws .......... 449 Human laws are not unalterable ...... ib. The respect due to ancient Canons ..... 450 The corruptions of the Canon Law ..... ib. Great varieties in rituals . . . . . . .451 Every Church is a complete body ..... ib. ARTICLE XXXV. The occasion of compiling the Homilies We are not bound to everything in them But only to the doctrine ..... This illustrated in the charge of idolatry What is meant by their being necessary for those times ARTICLE XXXVI. The occasion of this Article . . . . . .454 An explanation of the words, Receive ye the Holy Ghost . 455 ARTICLE XXXVII. Queen Elizabeth’s injunctions concerning the supremacy . 457 453 ib. ib. CONTENTS. xlvii The Pope’s universal jurisdiction not warranted by any of the laws of Christ . . . . . ’ . Nor acknowledged in the first ages . . . , . Begun on the occasion of the Arian controversy . Contested in many places ....... The progress that it made ....... The Patriarchal authority founded on the division of the Roman empire, sunk with it . The power exercised by the Kings of Judah in religious matters That is founded on Scriptures ...... Practised in all ages ........ And particularly in England ...... Methods used by Popish princes to keep the ecclesiastical authority under the civil ....... The temporal power is over all persons . . . . And in all causes ........ The importance of the term Head . . . . . The necessity of capital punishments . . . . . The measure of these ........ The lawfulness of war ....... Our Saviour’s words explained ...... In w'hat cases war is just ....... Warranted by the laws of God ...... How a subject may serve in an unlawful war Page 458 ib. 460 ib. 461 462 463 ib. 464 ib. 465 466 ib. 467 468 469 ib. 470 471 ib. 472 ARTICLE XXXVIII. Concerning property and charity . . . . . .472 The proportion of charity to the poor ..... 473 ARTICLE XXXIX. The lawfulness of oaths proved ...... 474 From natural religion and the Scriptures .... 475 The form of swearing among the Jews ..... ib. Our Saviour’s words, and St. James’s, against all swearing, explained ......... 477 When oaths may be lawfully taken ..... 478 AN EXPOSITION OF THE ARTICLES OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND. Articles whereupon it was agreed hy the Archbishops and Bishops of both Provinces and the whole Cleargie, in the Convocation holden at London in the year of our Lorde God 1562^ accord- ing to the Computation of the Church of Englande, for the avoyding of the Diversities of Opinions, and for the stablishing of Consent touching true Religion, Put forth by the Queen’s Authoritie, The Title of these Articles leads me to consider, 1st, The time, the occasion, and the design of compiling them; 2ndly, The authority that is stamped upon them both by Church and State; and the obligation that lies upon all of our communion to assent to them, and more particularly the importance of the subscription to which the Clergy are obliged. As to the first, it may seem somewhat strange to see such a collection of tenets made the standard of the doctrine of a Church, that is de- servedly valued by reason of her moderation: this seems to be a departing from the simplicity of the first ages, which yet we pretend to set up for a pattern. Among them, the owning the behef of the Creeds then received was thought sufiicient: and when some heresies had occasioned a great enlargement to be made in the Creeds, the third General Council thought fit to set a bar against all further additions; and yet all those Creeds, one of which goes far beyond the Ephesine standard, make but one Article of the Thirty-nine of which this book consists. Many of these do also relate to subtile and abstruse points, in which it is not easy to form a clear judgment; and much less can it be convenient to impose so great a collection of tenets upon a whole church, to excommunicate such as affirm any of them to be erroneous, and to reject those from the service of the Church, who cannot assent to every one of these. The negative Articles of No Infallibility, No Supremacy in the Pope, A 2 THE INTRODUCTION. No Transubstantiation, No Purgatory, and the like, give yet a farther colour to exceptions; since it may seem that it was enough not to have mentioned these, which implies a tacit rejecting of them. It may therefore appear to be top rigorous, to require a positive condemning of those points; for a very high degree of certainty is required, to affirm a negative proposition. In order to the explaining this matter, it is to be confessed, that in the beginnings of Christianity, the declaration that was required even of a Bishop^s faith was conceived in very general terms. There was a form settled very early in most Churches: this St. Paul in one place calls, the form of doctrine that was delivered, Rom. vi. 17 . 1 Tim. iv. G. vi. 3; in another place, the form of sound words, 2 Tim. i. 13; which those who were fixed by the Apostles in particular Churches had received from them. These w'ords of his do import a standard, or fixed formulary, by which all doctrines were to be examined. Some have inferred from them, that the Apostles delivered that Creed which goes under their name, everywhere in the same form of words. But there is great reason to doubt of this, since the first apologists for Christianity, when they deliver a short abstract of the Chris- tian faith, do all vary from one another, both as to the order and as to the words themselves; which they would not have done, if the Churches had all received one settled form from the Apostles. They would all have used the same words, and nei- ther more nor less. It is more probable, that in every Church there was a form settled, which was delivered to it by some Apostle, or companion of the Apostles, with some variation: of which at this distance of time, considering how defective the history of the first ages of Christianity is, it is not possible, nor very necessary for us to be able to give a clear account. For instance; in the whole extent or neighbourhood of the Roman empire, it was at first of great use to have this in every Chris- tianas mouth, that our Saviour suffered under Pontius Pilate; because this fixed the time, and carried in it an appeal to records and evidences, that might then have been searched for. But if this religion went at first far to the eastward, beyond all commerce with the Romans, there is not that reason to think that this should have been a part of the shortest form of this doctrine; it being enough that it was related in the Gospel. These forms of the several Churches were preserved with that sacred respect that was due to them: this was esteemed the depositum or trust of a Church, which was chiefly committed to the keeping of the bishop. In the first ages, in which the bishops or clergy of the several Churches could not meet toge- ther in synods, to examine the doctrine of every new bishop, the method upon which the circumstances of those ages put them, was this: the new bishop sent round him, and chiefly to the THE INTRODUCTION. 3 bishops of the more eminent sees, the profession of his faith, according to the form that was fixed in his Church; and when the neighbouring bishops were satisfied in this, they held com- munion with him, and not only owned him for a bishop, but maintained such a commerce with him as the state of that time did admit of. But as some heresies sprung up, there were enlargements made in several Churches, for the condemning those, and for excluding such as held them from their communion. The Coun- cil of Nice examined many of those Creeds, and out of them they put their Creed in a fuller form. The addition made by the Council of Constantinople was put into the Creeds of some par- ticular Churches, several years before that Council met. So that though it received its authority from that Council, yet they rather confirmed an Article which they found in the Creeds of some Churches, than made a new one. It had been an invalu- able blessing, if the Christian religion had been kept in its first simplicity. The Council of Ephesus took care that the Creed, by which men profess their Christianity, should receive no new additions, but be fixed according to the Constantinopolitan standard; yet they made decrees in points of faith, and the fol- lowing Councils went on in their steps, adding still new decrees, with anathematisms against the contrary doctrines; and declar- ing the asserters of them to be under an anathema, that is, under a very heavy curse of being totally excluded from their com- munion, and even from the communion of Jesus Christ. And whereas the new bishops had formerly only declared their faith, they were then required, besides that, to declare, that they received such councils, and rejected such doctrines, together with such as favoured them; who were sometimes mentioned by name. This increased daily. We have a full account of the special declaration that a bishop was obliged to make, in the first Canon of that which passed for the fourth Council of Carthage. But while, by reason of new emergencies, this was swelling to a vast bulk, general and more implicit formularies came to be used, the bishops declaring that they received and would observe all the decrees and traditions of holy Councils and Fathers. And the Papacy coming afterwards to carry everything before it, a formal oath, that had many loose and indefinite words in it, which were very large and comprehensive, was added to all the declarations that had been formerly established. The enlarge- ments of Creeds were at first occasioned by the prevarications of heretics; who having put senses favouring their opinions to the simpler terms in which the first Creeds were proposed, therefore it was thought necessary to add more express words. And this was absolutely necessary as to some points; for it being neces- sary to show that the Christian religion did not bring in that A 2 4 THE INTRODUCTION. idolatry which it condemned in heathens, it was also necessary to state this matter so that it should appear, that they wor- shipped no creature; but that the Person to whom all agreed to pay divine adoration was truly God: and it being found that an equivocation was used in all other words except that of the same substance, they judged it necessary to fix on it, besides some other words that they at first brought in, but which were after- wards corrupted by the glosses that were put on them. At all times it is very necessary to free the Christian religion from the imputations of idolatry; but this was never so necessary, as when Christianity was engaged in such a struggle with Paganism: and since the main article then in dispute with the heathens was idolatry, and the lawfulness of worshipping any besides the great and eternal God, it was of the last importance to the Christian cause to take care, that the heathens might have no reason to believe that they worshipped a creature. There was therefore just reason given to secure this main point, and to put an end to equivocation, by establishing a term which, by the confession of all parties, did not admit of any. It had been a great blessing to the Church, if a stop had been put here; and that those nice descantings, that were afterwards so much pursued, had been more effectually discouraged than they were. But men ever were and ever will be men. Factions were formed, and interests were set up. Heretics had showed so much dissimulation when they were low, and so much cruelty when they prevailed, that it was thought necessary to secure the Church from the dis- turbances that they might give them: and thus it grew to be a rule to enlarge the doctrines and decisions of the Church. So that in stating the doctrines of this Church so copiously, our Reformers followed a method that had been used in a course of many ages. There were, besides this common practice, two particular cir- cumstances in that time, that made this seem to be the more necessary. One was, that at the breaking out of that light, there sprang up with it many impious and extravagant sects, which broke out into most violent excesses. This was no ex- traordinary thing, for we find the like happened upon the first spreading of the Gospel; many detestable sects grew up with it, which tended not a little to the defaming of Christianity, and the obstructing its progress. I shall not examine what influence evil spirits might have both in the one and the other; but one visible occasion of it was, that by the first preaching of the Gos- pel, as also upon the opening the Reformation, an inquiry into the matters of religion being then the subject of men’s studies and discourses, many men of warm and ill-governed imagina- tions, presuming on their own talents, and being desirous to signalize themselves and to have a name in the world, went THE INTRODUCTION. 5 beyond their deptli in study, without the necessary degrees of knowledge, and the yet more necessary dispositions of mind for arriving at a right understanding of ‘divine matters. This hap- pening soon after the Reformation was first set on foot, those whose corruptions were struck at by it, and who both hated and persecuted it on that account, did not fail to lay hold of and to improve the advantage which these sects gave them. They said, that the sectaries had only spoke out what the rest thought; and at last they held to this, that all sects were the natural conse- quences of the Reformation, and of shaking off the doctrine of the infallibility of the Church. To stop those calumnies, the Protestants in Germany prepared that Confession of their Faith which they offered to the Diet at Augsburg, and which carries its name. And, after their example, all the other Churches whieh separated from the Roman communion published the Confessions of their Faith, both to declare their doctrine for the instruction of their own members, and for covering them from the slanders of their adversaries. Another reason that the first Reformers had for their de- scending into so many particulars, and for all those negatives that are in their Confessions, was this: they had smarted long under the tyranny of Popery, and so they had reason to secure themselves from it, and from all those who were leavened with it. They here in England had seen how many had complied . with every alteration both in King Henry and King Edward^s reign, who not only declared themselves to haye been all the '■ while Papists, but became bloody persecutors in Queen Mary^s reign: therefore it was necessary to keep all such out of their body, that they might- not secretly undermine and betray it. Now, since the Church of Rome owns all that is positive in our doctrine, there could be no discrimination made, but by con- demning the most important of those additions that they have brought into the Christian religion, in express words : and though in matters of fact, or in theories of nature, it is not safe to affirm a negative, because it is seldom possible to prove it; yet the fundamental article, upon which the whole Reformation and this our Church depends, is this — that the whole doctrines of the Christian religion are contained in the Scripture, and that there- fore we are to admit no artiele as a part of it till it is proved from Scripture. This being laid down, and well made out, it is not at all unreasonable to affirm a negative upon an examination of all those places of Scripture that are brought for any doc- trine, and that seem to favour it, if they are found not at all to support it, but to bear a different, and sometimes a contrary sense, to that which is offered to be proved by them. So there is no weight in this cavil, which looks plausible to sueh as can- not distinguish common matters from points of faith. This 6 THE INTRODUCTION. may serve in general to justify the largeness and the particulari- ties of this Confession of our Faith. There were some steps made to it in King Henryks time, in a large book that was then pub- lished under the title of The Necessary Erudition, that was a treatise set forth to instruct the nation. Many of the errors of Popery were laid open and condemned in it; but none were obliged to assent to it, or to subscribe it. After that, the wor- ship was reformed, as being that which pressed most; and in that a foundation was laid for the Articles that came quickly after it. How or by whom they were prepared, we do not cer- tainly know: by the remains of that time it appears, that in the alterations that were made there was great precaution used, such as matters of that nature required; questions were framed relating to them; these were given about to many bishops and divines, who gave in their several answers, that were collated and examined very maturely; all sides had a free and fair hear- ing before conclusions were made. In the fermentation that was working over the whole nation at that time, it was not possible that a thing of that nature could have passed by the methods that are more necessary in regular times; and therefore they could not be offered at first to synods or convocations. The corruptions complained of were so beneficial to the whole body of the Clergy, that it is justly to be wondered at that so great a number was prevailed with to concur in reforming them; but without a miracle they could not have been agreed to by the major part. They were prepared, as is most probable, by Cranmer and Ridley, and published by the regal authority. Not as if our kings had pretended to an authority to judge in points of faith, or to decide controversies; but as every private man must choose for himself, and believe according to the convictions of his reason and conscience (which is to be examined and proved in its proper place;) so every prince or legislative power must give the public sanction and authority according to his own persuasion. This makes indeed such a sanction to become a law, but does not alter the nature of things, nor oblige the consciences of the subjects, unless they come under the same persuasions. Such laws have indeed the operation of all other laws; but the doctrines authorized by them have no more truth than they had before, without any such publication. Thus the part that our princes had in the Reformation was only this, that they, being satisfied with the grounds on which it went, received it themselves, and enacted it for their people. And this is so plain and just a consequence of that liberty which every man has of believing and acting according to his own convictions, that when this is well made out, there can be no colour to question the other. It was also remarkable, that the law which stood first in Justinian^s Code, THE INTRODUCTION. 7 was an edict of Theodosius’s; who, finding the Roman empire under great distractions by the diversity of opinions in matter of religion, did appoint that doctrine to be held which was received by Damasus, Bishop of Rome, and Peter, Bishop of Alexandria. Such an edict as that being put in so conspicuous a part of the law, was a full and soon observed precedent for our princes to act according to it. The next thing to be examined is the use of the Articles, and the importance of the subscriptions of the Clergy to them. Some have thought that they are only Articles of Union and Peace; that they are a standard of doctrine not to be contra- dicted or disputed; that the sons of the Church are only bound to acquiesce silently to them; and that the subscription binds only to a general compromise upon those Articles, that so there may be no disputing nor wrangling about them. By this means they reckon, that though a man should dhfer in his opinion from that which appears to be the clear sense of any of the Articles; yet he may with a good conscience subscribe them, if the Article appears to him to be of such a nature, that though he thinks it wrong, ’yet it seems not to be of that consequence but that it may be borne with, and not contradicted. I shall not now examine whether it were more fit for leaving men to the due freedom of their thoughts, that the subscription did run no higher, it being in many cases a great hardship to exclude some very deserving persons from the service of the Church, by requiring a subscription to so many particulars, concerning some of which they are not fully satisfied: I am only now to consider what is the importance of the subscription now required among us, and not what might be reasonably wished that it should be. As to the laity, and the 'whole body of the people, certainly to them these are only the Articles of Church Communion; so that every person who does not think that there is some proposition in them that is erroneous to so high a degree that he cannot hold communion with such as hold it, may and is obliged to continue in our communion: for certainly there may be many opinions held in matters of religion, which a man may believe to be false, and yet may esteem them to be of sb little importance to the chief design of religion, that he may well hold commu- nion with those whom he thinks to be so mistaken. Here a necessary distinction is to be remembered between Articles of Faith and Articles of Doctrine: the one are held necessary to salvation, the other are only believed to be true; that is, to be revealed in the Scriptures, which is a sufficient ground for esteeming them true. Articles of Faith are doctrines that are so necessary to salvation, that without believing them there is not a federal right to the covenant of grace: these are not many; and in the establishment of any doctrine for such, it is neces- 8 THE INTRODUCTION. sary both to prove it from Scripture, and to prove its being necessary to salvation, as a mean settled by the covenant of grace in order to it. We ought not indeed to hold communion with such as make doctrines, that we believe not to be true, to pass for Articles of Faith; though we may hold communion with such as do think them true, without stamping so high an authority upon them. To give one instance of this in an unde- niable particular. In the days of the Apostles there were Judaizers of two sorts: some thought the Jewish nation was still obliged to observe the Mosaical law; but others went further, and thought that such an observation was indispensably neces- sary to salvation. Both these opinions were wrong, but the one was tolerable, and the other was intolerable; because it pre- tended to make that a necessary condition of salvation, which God had not commanded. The Apostles complied with the Judaizers of the first sort, as they became all things to all men, that so they might gain some (1 Cor. ix. 19 — 23) of every sort of men: yet they declared openly against the other, and said, that if men were circumcised, or were willing to come under such a yoke, Christ profited them nothing; and upon that sup- position he had died in vain. From this plain precedent we see what a difference we ought to make between errors in doctrinal matters, and the imposing them as Articles of Faith. We may live in communion with those who hold errors of the one sort, but must not with those of the other. This also shows the tyranny of that Church, which has imposed the belief of every one of her doctrines on the consciences of her votaries, under the highest pains of anathemas, and as Articles of Faith. But whatever those at Trent did, this Church very carefully avoided the laying that weight upon even those doctrines which she receives as true; and therefore, though she drew up a large form of doctrine, yet to all her lay sons this is only a standard of what she teaches, and they are no more to them than Articles of Church Communion. The citations that are brought from those two great primates. Laud and Bramhall, go no further than this: they do not seem to relate to the clergy that sub- scribe them, but to the laity and body of the people. The people, who do only join in communion with us, may well con- tinue to do so, though they may not be fully satisfied with every proposition in them ; unless they should think that they struck against any of the Articles, or foundations of Faith: and, as they truly observe, there is a great difference to be observed in this particular between the imperious spirit of the Church of Rome, and the modest freedom which ours allows. But I come, in the next place, to consider what the Clergy is bound to by their subscriptions. The meaning of every sub- scription is to be taken from the design of the imposer, and THE INTRODUCTION. 9 from the words of the subscription itself. The title of the Arti- cles bears^ that they were agreed upon in convocation, for the avoiding of diversities of opinions, and for the stablishiny consent touching true religion; where it is evident, that a consent in opinion is designed. If we, in the next place, consider the decla- ration that the Church has made in the Canons, we shall find, that though by the fifth Canon, which relates to the whole body of the people, such are only declared to be excommunicated ipso facto who shall affirm any of the Articles to be erroneous, or such as he may not with a good conscience subscribe to; yet the 36th Canon is express for the Clergy, requiring them to subscribe willingly and ex animo ; and acknowledge all and every Article to he agreeable to the word of God: upon which Canon it is that the form of the subscription runs in these words, which seem expressly to declare a maffis own opinion, and not a bare consent to an Article of Peace, or an engagement to silence and submission. The statute of the 13th of Queen Elizabeth, cap. 12, which gives the legal authority to our requiring subscriptions in order to a maffis being capable of a benefice, requires that every Clergyman should read the Articles in the Church, with a declaration of his unfeigned assent to them. These things make it appear very plain, that the sub- scriptions of the Clergy must be considered as a declaration of their own opinion, and not as a bare obligation to silence. There arose, in King James the FirsPs reign, great and warm disputes concerning the decrees of God, and those other points that were settled in Holland by the Synod of Dort against the Remon- strants. Divines of both sides among us appealed to the Arti- cles, and pretended they were favourable to them: for though the first appearance of them seems to favour the doctrine of absolute decrees, and the irresistibility of grace; yet there are many expressions that have another face, and so those of the other persuasion pleaded for themselves from these. Upon this a royal declaration was set forth, in which, after mention is made of those disputes, and that the men of all sides did take the Articles to be for them; order is given for stopping those disputes for the future; and for shutting them in God’s promises, as they be generally set forth in the Holy Scriptures, and the general meaning of the Articles of the Church of England, ac- cording to them; and that no man thereafter should put his own sense or comment to be the meaning of the Article, but should take it in the literal and grammatical sense. In this there has been such a general acquiescing, that the fierceness of these disputes ' has gone off, while men have been left to subscribe the Articles according to their literal and grammatical sense. From which two things are to be inferred: the one is, that the subscription does import an assent to the Article; and the other is, that an 10 THE INTRODUCTION. Article being conceived in such general words that it can admit of different literal and grammatical senses^ even when the senses given are plainly contrary to one another^ yet both may subscribe the Article with a good conscience^ and without any equivoca- tion. To make this more sensible, I shall give an instance of it in an Article concerning which there is no dispute at present. The third Article, concerning Christas descent into hell^ is capable of three different senses, and all the three are both literal and grammatical. The first is, that Christ descended locally into hell, and preached to the spirits there in prison: and this has one great advantage on its side, that those who first pre- pared the Articles in King Edward’s time were of this opinion; for they made it a part of it, by adding in the Article those words of St. Peter as the proof or explanation of it. Now though that period was left out in Queen Elizabeth’s time, yet no declaration was made against it; so that this sense was once in possession, and was never expressly rejected: besides that, it has great' support from the authority of many Fathers, who understood the descent into hell according to this explanation. A second sense, of which that Article is capable, is, that by hell is meant the grave, according to the signification of the original word in the Hebrew : and this is supported by the words of Christ’s descending into the lower parts of the earth; as also by this, that several Creeds that have this Article, have not that of Christ’s being buried; and some, that mention his burial, have not this of his descent into hell, A third sense is, that by hell, according to the signification of the Greek word, is to be meant the place or region of spirits separated from their bodies: so that by Christ’s descent into hell is only to be meant, that his soul was really and entirely disunited from his body, not lying dead in it as in an apoplectical fit, not hovering about it, but that it was translated into' the seats of departed souls. All these three senses differ very much from one another, and yet they are all senses that are literal and grammatical; so that in which of these soever a man conceives the Article, he may sub- scribe it, and he does no way prevaricate in so doing. If men would therefore understand all the other Articles in the same largeness, and with the same equity, there would not be that occasion given for unjust censure that there has been. Where then the Articles are conceived in large and general words, and have not more special and restrained 'terms in them, we ought to take that for a sure indication, that the Church does not intend to tie men up too severely to particular opinions, but that she leaves all to such a liberty as is agreeable with the purity of the faith. And this seems sufficient to explain the title of the Articles, and the subscriptions that are required of the Clergy to them. THE INTRODUCTION. 11 The last thing to he settled is the true reading of the Articles; for there being some small diversity between the printed editions and the manuscripts that were signed by both Houses of Con- vocation, I have desired the assistance both of Dr. Green, the present worthy Master of Corpus Christi College, in Cambridge, and of some of the learned Fellows of that body, that they would give themselves the trouble to collate the printed edi- tions, and their manuscripts, with such a scrupulous exactness as becomes a matter of this importance: which they were pleased to do very minutely. I will set down both the colla- tions as they were transmitted to me; beginning with that which I had from the Fellows four years ago. Article III. These words, said to be left out, are found in the original Articles, signed by the chief Clergy of both provinces, now extant in the manuscript libra- ries of C. C. C. C, in the book called Synodalia: but distin- guished from the rest with lines q/ minium; which lines plainly appear to have been done after- wards, because the leaves and lines of the original are exactly numbered at the end; which number without these lines were manifestly false. In the original these ivords only are found, Testamentum vetus novo contrarium non est, quandoquidem, ^c. The Latin of the original is, Et quanquam renatis et cre- dentibus nulla propter Chris- tum est condemnatio. This Article is not found in the original. Of the going down of Christ into Hell. As Christ died for us, and was buried; so also it is to be believed, that he went down into Hell. [^^for his Body lay in the Grave till his Re- surrection; but his Soul be- ing separate from his Body, remained with the Spirits which were detained in Pri- son ; that is to say, in Hell, and there preached unto them.”] Article VI. The Old Testament is not to be rejected as if it were contrary to the New, but to be retained. Forasmuch as, &c. Article IX. And although there is no Condemnation to them that believe, and are baptized, &c. Article X. Of Ch'ace. The Grace of Christ, or the Holy Ghost, which is given by him, doth, &c. 12 THE INTRODUCTION. Article XVI. Blasphemy against the Holy Ghost. This is not found. The Blasphemy against the Holy Ghost is then committed^ when, &c. Article XIX. This is not found. All men are bound to keep the Precepts of the Moral Law, although the Law given from God, &c. This Article agrees ivith the original; hut these words, The Church hath power to decree Rites and Ceremonies, and Authority in Controversies of Faith, supposed to begin the Article, are not found in any part thereof. In the fourteenth line of this Article, immediately after these words (But yet have not like nature with Baptism and the Lord’s Supper) follows, quo- modo nec pcenitentia, which being marked underneath with minium, is left out in the trans- lation. Article XX. Of the Authority of the Church. It is not lawful for the Church to ordain anything that is contrary to God’s Words written, &c. Article XXVL Of the Sacraments. Sacraments ordained of Christ, &c. . Article XXIX. This Article agrees with the -r r. original, as far as these words Lord s Supper. (and hath given occasion to Supper of the Lord is many Superstitions,) where fol- ^ lows, Christus in coelum as- cendens, corpori suo immortalitatem dedit, naturam non abstu- lit, humanae enim naturae veritatem (juxta Scripturas) perpetuo retinet, quam uno et definito loco esse, et non in multa vel omnia simul loca diffundi oportet; quum igitur Christus in coelum sublatus, ibi usque ad finem saeculi sit permansurus, atque inde, non aliunde (ut loquitur Augustinus) venturus sit, ad judicandum vivos et mortuos, non debet quisquam fideliurn. TliE INTRODUCTION. 1.3 carnis et ejus et sanguinis realem, et corporalem (ut loquuntur) praesentiam in Eucharistia vel credere vel profiteri. These ivords are marked and scrawled over with minium, and the ivords immediately following (Corpus tamen Christi datur, acci- pitur, et manducatur in coena, tantum coelesti et spirituali ration e) are inserted in a different hand just before them, in a line and a half left void; which plainly appears to he done after- wards, by reason the same hand has altered the first number of lines, and, for viginti quatuor, made quatuordecim. The three last Articles, viz. the S9th, Of the Resurrection of the Dead; the 4:0th, that the Souls of Men do neither perish with their bodies (neque otiosi dormiant is added in the original;) and the 42nd, that all shall not be saved at last, are found in the ori- ginal, distinguished only with a marginal line of minium: but the 415^, Of the Millenarians, is wholly left out. The number of Articles does not exactly agree, by reason some are inserted, which are found only in King Edward^s Articles, but none are wanting that are found in the original. Corpus Christi Col. Feb, 4th, 1695-6. Upon examination we judge these to be all the material dif- ferences, that are unobserved, between the original manuscripts and the B. of Salisbury's printed copy. Witness our hands, Jo, Jaggardf\ Rob, Mosse, Fellows of the said College. Will, Lunn, J After I had procured this, I was desirous likewise to have the printed editions collated with the second publication of the Arti- cles in the year 1571; in which the Convocation reviewed those of 1562, and made some small alterations: and these were very lately procured for me by my reverend friend. Dr. Green, which I will set down as he was pleased to communicate them to me. [Note, MS. stands for Manuscript, and Vv,for Print.] Art, 1. MS, and true God, and he is everlasting, without body. Pr. and true God, everlasting, without body. Art, 2, MS, but also for all actual sins of men. Pr. but also for actual sins of men. Art, 3. MS, so also it is to be believed. Pr. so also is it to be believed. Art, 4, MS, Christ did truly arise again. Pr. Christ did truly rise again, MS, until he return to judge all men at the last day. Pr. until he return to judge men at the last day. THB INTRODUCTION. 14 Art» 6. MH, to be believed as an Article of the Faith. Pr. to he believed as an Article of Faith. MS. requisite as necessary to salvation. Pr. requisite or necessary to salvation. MS. in the name of holy Scripture. Pr. in the name of the holy Scripture. MS. but yet doth it not apply. Pr. but yet doth not apply. MS. Baruch. Pr. Baruch the prophet. MS. and account them for canonical. Pr. and account them canonical. Art. 8. MS. by most certain warranties of holy Scripture. Pr. by most certain warrant of holy Scripture. Art, 9. MS. but it is the fault. Pr. but is the fault. MS. whereby man is very far gone from his original righteousness. Pr. whereby man is far gone from original righteous- ness. MS. in them that be regenerated. Pr. in them that are regenerated. Art. De Gratia^, non habetur in MS. Art, 10. MS. a good will and working in us. Pr. a good will and working with us. Art. 14. MS. cannot be taught without arrogancy and impiety. Pr. cannot be taught without arrogancy and iniquity. MS. we be unprofitable servants. Pr. we are unprofitable servants. Art. 15. MS. sin only except. Pr. sin only excepted. MS. to be the Lamb without spot. Pr. to be a Lamb without spot. MS. but we the rest, although baptized, and born again in Christ, yet we all offend. Pr. but all we the rest, although baptized, and if born in Christ, yet offend. Art. De Blasphemia in Sp. Sanct. non est in MS. Art. 16. MS. wherefore the place for penitence. Pr. wherefore the grant of repentance. Art. 17. MS. so excellent a benefit of God given unto them, be called according. Pr. so excellent a benefit of God, be called according. MS. as because it doth fervently kindle their love. Pr. as because it doth frequently kindle their love. THE INTRODUCTION. 15 Art. Chimes ohligantur^ ^c. non est in MS. Art. 18. MS. to frame his life according to the law and the light of nature. Pr. to frame his life according to that law, and the light of nature. Art. 19. MS. congregation of faithful men in the which the pure Word. Pr. congregation of faithful men in which the pure Word. Art. 20. MS. The Church hath power to decree rites or cere- monies, and authority in controversies of faith. And yet. These words are not in the original MS. MS. ought it not to enforce anything. Pr. it ought not to enforce anything. Art. 21. MS. and when they be gathered together (forasmuch. Pr. and ivhen they be gathered (forasmuch. Art. 22. MS. is a fond thing vainly invented. Pr. is a fond thing vainly feigned. Art. 24. MS. in a tongue not understanded of the people. Pr. in a tongue not understood of the people. Art. 25. MS. and effectual signs of grace and God^s good-will towards us. Pr. and effectual signs of grace and God^s will towards us. MS. and extream annoyling. Pr. and extream unction. Art. 26. MS. in their own name, but do minister by ChrisPs commission and authority. Pr. in their own name, hut in Chrisfs, and do minister by his commission and authority. MS. and in the receiving of the Sacraments. Pr. and in the receiving the Sacraments, MS. and rightly receive the Sacraments. Pr. and rightly do receive the Sacraments. Art. 27. MS. from others that be not christened, but is also a sign. Pr. from others that be not christened, but it is also a sign. MS. forgiveness of sin, and of our adoption. Pr. forgiveness of sin, of our adoption. Art. 28. MS. to have amongst themselves. Pr. to have among themselves. partaking MS. the bread which we break is a communion of the body of Christ. 16 THE INTRODUCTION. Pr. the bread which we break is a partaking of the body of Christ, partaking MS, and likewise the cup of blessing is a communion of the blood of Christ. Pr. and likewise the cup of blessing is a partaking of the blood of Christ, MS. or the change of the substance of bread and wine into the substance of ChrisPs body and blood cannot be proved by holy writ, but is repugnant. Pr. or the change of the substance of bread and wine in the supper of the Lord cannot be proved by holy writy but it is repugnant. MS. but the mean whereby the body of Christ is re- ceived. Pr. and the mean whereby the body of Christ is re- ceived. MS, lifted up or worshipped. Pr. lifted up and worshipped. Art. 3 1 . MS. is the perfect redemption. Pr. is that perfect redemption. MS. to have remission of pain or guilt were forged fables. Pr. to have remission of pain and guilt were blasphe- mous fables. Art. 33. MS. that hath authority thereto. Pr. that hath authority thereunto. Art, 34. MS. diversity of countries, times, and men’s manners, Pr. diversity of countries and men^s manners, MS. and be ordained and appointed by common au- thority. Pr. and be ordained and approved by common au- thority. MS. the consciences of the weak brethren. Pr. the consciences of weak brethren. Art, 35. MS. of homilies, the titles whereof we have joined un- der this article, do contain. Pr. of homilies, the several titles whereof we have joined under this article, doth contain. MS. wholesome doctrine, and necessary for this time, as doth the former book which was set forth. Pr. wholesome doctrine, necessary for these times, as doth the former book of homilies which were set forth. MS. and therefore are to be read in our churches by the ministers, diligently, plainly, and distinctly, that they may be understanded of the people. THE INTRODUCTION'. 17 Pr. and therefore ive judge them to be read in churches by the ministers, diligently and distinctly, that they may be understood of the people, MS. ministered in a tongue known. Pr. ministered in a knoivn tongue. Art. De Liby'o Frecationum, non est in MS. Art. 36. MS. in the time of the most noble K. Edward the Sixth. Pr. in the thne of Edivard the Sixth. MS. superstitious or ungodly. Pr. superstitious and ungodly. Art. 37 . MS. whether they be ecclesiastical or not. Pr. whether they be ecclesiastical or civil. MS. the minds of some slanderous folks to be offended. Pr. the minds of some dangerous folks to be offended. MS. we give not to our princes. Pr. we' give not our princes. MS. or of sacraments. Pr. or of the sacraments. MS. the injunctions also lately set forth. Pr. the injunctions also set forth. MS. and serve in the wars. Pr. and serve in lawful wars. Art. 38. MS. every man oughteth of such things. Pr. every man ought of such things. Art. 39. Edw. VI. et qui sequuntur, non sunt in MS. We thi Archbishops and Bishops of either Province of this Realm of England, lawfully gathered together in this Provincial Synod holden at London, with Continuations and Prorogations of the same, do receive, profess, and acknowledge the xxxviii Articles before written in xix Pages going before, to contain true and sound Doctrine, and do approve and ratify the same by the subscription of our hands the xf^ Day of May in the Year of our Lord 15 71 ^ and in the Year of the Reign of our Sovereign Lady Elizabeth by the Grace of God of England, France, and Ireland, Queen, Defender of the Faith, &c. the thirteenth. Matthue Cantuar. Rob. Winton. Jo. Heref. Richarde Ely. Nic. Wigorn. Jo. Sarisburien. Edm. Roffen. N. Bangor. Ri. Cicestren. Thom. Lincoln. Wilhelmus Exon. B 18 THE INTRODUCTION. From these diversities a great diffieulty will naturally arise about this whole matter. The manuscripts of Corpus Christ! are without doubt originals. The hands of the subscribers are well known: they belonged to Archbishop Parker^ and were left by him to that college, and they are signed with a particular care; for at the end of them there is not only a sum of the number of the pages, but of the lines in every page. And though this was the work only of the Convocation of the province of Canterbury, yet the Archbishop of York, with the Bishops of Duresme and Chester, subscribed them likewise; and they were also subscribed by the whole Lower House. But we are not sure that the like care was used in the Convocation anno 1571; for the Articles are only sub- scribed by the Archbishop of Canterbury, and ten Bishops of his province; -nor does the subscription of the Lower House appear. These Articles were first printed in the year 1563, and conform to the present impressions which are still in use among us. So the alterations were then made while the thing was fresh and well known; therefore no fraud nor artifice is to be suspected, since some objections would have been then made, especially by the great party of the complying Papists, who then continued in the Church: they would not have failed to have made much use of this, and to have taken great advantages from it, if there had been any occasion or colour for it; and yet nothing of this kind was then done. One alteration of more importance was made in the year 1571 . Those words of the 20th Article, The Church hath poiver to decree rites or ceremonies, and authority in controversies of faith, were left out both in the manuscripts and in the printed editions, but were afterwards restored according to the Articles printed anno 1563. I cannot find out in what year they were again put in the printed copies. They appear in two several impressions in Queen Elizabeth's time, which are in my hands: it passes commonly that it was done by Archbishop Laud; and his enemies laid this upon him among other things, that he had corrupted the doctrine of this Church by this addition: but he cleared himself of that, as well he might, and, in a speech in the Star Chamber, appealed to the original, and affirmed these words were in it. The true account of this difficulty is this. When the Articles were first settled, they were subscribed by both Houses upon paper; but that being done, they were afterward engrossed in parchment, and made up in form to remain as records. Now, in all such bodies, many alterations are often made after a minute or first draught is agreed on, before the matter is brought to full perfection; so these alterations, as most of them are small and inconsiderable, were made between the time that THE INTRODUCTION. 19 they were lirst suliscribed, and the last voting of them. But the original records, which if extant, would have cleared the whole matter, having been burnt in the fire of London, it is not pos- sible to appeal to them; yet what has been proposed may serve, I hope, fully to clear the difficulty. I now go to consider the Articles themselves. ARTICLE I. OF FAITH IN THE HOLY TRINITY. There is but one living and true God, everlasting, without bodie, parts, or passions, of infinite power, wisdom, and goodness, the Maker and Preserver of all things, both visible and invisible; and in the unity of this Godhead there he three Persons of one substance, power, and eternity, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, The natural order of things required, that the first of all Arti- cles in Religion should be concerning the Being and Attributes of God: for all other doctrines arise out of this. But the title appropriates this to the Holy Trinity; because that is the only part of the Article which peculiarly belongs to the Christian Religion; since the rest is founded on the principles of natural Religion. There are six heads to be treated of, in order to the full opening of all that is contained in this Article. 1. That there is a God. 2. That there is but one God. 3. Negatively, That this God hath neither body, parts, nor passions. 4. Positively, That he is of infinite power, wisdom, and goodness. 5. That he at first created, and does still preserve all things, not only what is material and visible, but also what is spiritual and invisible. 6. The Trinity is here asserted. These being all points of the highest consequence, it is very necessary to state them as clearly, and to prove them as fully, as may be. The first is. That there is a God. This is a proposition which in all ages has been so universally received and believed, some very few instances being only assigned of such as either have denied or doubted of it, that the very consent of so many ages and nations, of such different tempers and languages, so vastly B 2 20 AN EXPOSITION OF ART. I. remote from one another, has been long esteemed a good argu- ment to prove, that either there is somewhat in the nature of man, that by a secret sort of instinct does dictate this to him; or that all mankind has descended from one common stock; and that this belief has passed down from the first man to all his posterity. If the more polite nations had only received this, some might suggest, that wise men had introduced it as a mean to govern human society, and to keep it in order; or, if only the more barbarous had received this, it might be thought to be the effect of their fear, and their ignorance: but since all sorts, as well as all ages of men have received it, this alone goes a great way to assure us of the being of a God. To this two things are objected — first. That some nations, such as Soldania, Formosa, and some in America, have been discovered in these last ages, that seem to acknowledge no Deity. But to this two things are to be opposed: 1st, That those who first discovered these countries, and have given that account of them, did not know them enough, nor understand their language so perfectly as was necessary to enable them to comprehend all their opinions. And this is the more probable, because others, that have writ after them, assure us, that they are not without all sense of religion, which the first discoverers had too hastily affirmed: some prints of religion begin to be observed among those of Soldania, though it is certainly one of the most dege- nerated of all nations. But a second answer to this is. That those nations, of whom these reports are given out, are so extremely sunk from all that is wise or regular, great and good in human nature, so rude and untractable, and so incapable of arts and discipline, that if the reports concerning them are to be believed, and if that weakens the argument from the common consent of mankind on the one hand, it strengthens it on another, while it appears that human nature, when it wants this impression, it wants with it all that is great or orderly in it, and shows a brutality almost as low and base as is that of beasts. Some men are born without some of their senses, and others without the use of reason and memory: and yet those excep- tions do not prove, that the imperfections of such persons are not irregularities against the common course of things; the monstrousness as well as the miseries of persons so unhappily born, tend to recommend more effectually the perfection of human nature. So if these nations, which are supposed to be without the belief of a God, are such a low and degenerated piece of human nature, that some have doubted whether they are a perfect race of men or not, this does not derogate from, but rather confirms the force of this argument, from the general copsent of all nations. A second exception to this argument is, that men have not ART. F. THE XXXIX ART1CI.es. 21 agreed in the same notions concerning the Deity: some believ- ing two Gods, a good and a bad, that are in a perpetual con- test together; others holding a vast number of Gods, either all equal or subaltern to one another; and some believing God to be a corporeal being, and that the sun, moon, and stars, and a great many other beings, are Gods; since then, though all may acknowledge a Deity in general, they are yet subdivided into so many different conceits about it, no argument can be drawn from this supposed consent; which is not so great in reality as it seems to be. But, in answer to this, we must observe, that the constant sense of mankind agreeing in this, that there is a superior Being that governs the world, shows, that this fixed per- suasion has a deep root; though the weakness of several nations being practised upon by designing men, they have in many things corrupted this notion of God. That might have arisen from the tradition of some true doctrines vitiated in the conveyance. Spirits made by God to govern the world by the order and under the direction of the Supreme Mind, might easily come to be looked on as subordinate deities: some evil and lapsed spirits might in a course of some ages pass for evil Gods. The appa- ritions of the Deity under some figures might make these figures to be adored: and God being considered as the supreme Light, this might lead men to worship the sun as his chief vehicle; and so by degrees he might pass for the supreme God. Thus it is easy to trace up these mistakes to what may justly be supposed to be their first source and rise. But still the foundation of them all was, a firm belief of a superior Nature that governed the world. Mankind agreeing in that, an occasion was thereby given, to bad and designing men, to graft upon it such other tenets as might feed superstition and idolatry, and furnish the managers of those impostures with advantages to raise their own authority. But how various soever the several ages and nations of the world may have been as to their more special opinions and rites, yet the general idea of a God remained still unaltered, even amidst all the changes that have happened in the particular forms and doctrines of religion. Another argument for the being of a God is taken from the visible world, in which there is a vast variety of beings curiously framed, and that seemed designed for great and noble ends. In these we see clear characters of God^s eternal power and wisdom. And that is thus to be made out. It is certain, that nothing could give being to itself; so the things which we see, either had their being from all eternity, or were made in time: and either they were from all eternity in the same state, and under the same revolutions of the heavens, as they are at present, or they fell into the order and method in which they do now roll by some happy chance ; out of which all the beauty and useful- 22 AN EXPOSITION OF ART. I. ness of the creation did arise. But if all these suppositions are manifestly false, then it will remain, that if things neither were from all eternity as they now are, nor fell into their present state by chance, then there is a superior Essence, that gave them being, and that moulded them as we see they now are. The first branch of this, that they were not as now they are from all eternity, is to be proved by two sorts of arguments; the one intrinsical, by demonstrating this to be impossible; the other moral, by showing that it is not at all credible. As to the first, it is to be considered, that a successive duration made up of parts, which is called Time, and is measured by a successive rotation of the heavens, cannot possibly be eternal. For if there were eternal revolutions of Saturn in his course of thirty years, and eternal revolutions of days as well a§ years, of minutes as well as hours, then the one must be as infinite as the other; so that the one must be equal to the other, both being infinite ; and yet the latter are some millions of times more than the other: which is impossible. Further: of every past duration, as this is true, that once it was present, so this is true, that once it was to come ; this being a necessary affection of everything that exists in time: if, then, all past durations were all once future, or to be, then we cannot conceive such a succession of durations eternal, since once every one of them was to come. Nor can all this, or any part of it, be turned against us who believe that some beings are immortal, and shall never cease to be; for all those future durations have never actually been, but are still produced of new, and so continued in being. This argument may seem to be too subtile, and it will require some attention of mind to observe and discover the force of it ; but after we have turned it over and over again, it will be found to be a true demonstration. The chief objection that lies against it is, that in the opinion of those who deny that there are any indivisible points of matter, and that believe that matter is infinitely divisible, it is not absurd to say, that one infinite is more than another: for the smallest crumb of matter is infinite, as well as the whole globe of the earth : and therefore the revolutions of Saturn may be infinite, as well as the revolu- ^ tions of days, though the one be vastly more numerous than the other. But there is this difference betwixt the succession of time, and the composition of matter, that those, who deny indivisibles, say, that no one point can be assigned: for if points could be assigned or numbered, it is certain that they could not be infi- nite; for an infinite number seems to be a contradiction: but if the series of mankind were infinite, since this is visibly divided into single individuals, as the units in that series, then here arises an infinite number composed of units or individuals that can be assigned. The same is to be said of minutes, hours. ART. I. THE XXXIX ARTICLES. 23 days, and years; nor can it be said with equal reason, that every portion of time is divisible to infinity, as well as every parcel of matter. It seems evident, that there is a present time ; and that past, present, and to come, cannot be said to be true of any thing all at once : therefore the objection against the assigning points in matter does not overthrow the truth of this argument. But if it is thought that this is rather a sleight of metaphysics that entangles one, than a plain and full conviction, let us turn next to such reasonings as are more obvious, and that are more easily apprehended. The other moral arguments are more sensible as well as they are of a more complicated nature ; and proceed thus : the history of all nations, of all governments, arts, sciences, and even instituted religions, the peopling of nations, the progress of commerce and of colonies, are plain indications of the novelty of the world ; no sort of trace remaining, by which we can believe it to be ancienter than the books of Moses represent it to be. For though some nations, such as the Egyptians and the Chinese, have boasted of a much greater antiquity, yet it is plain we hear of no series of history for all those ages ; so that what they had relating to them, if it is not wholly a fiction, might have been only in astronomical tables, which may be easily run backwards as well as forward. The very few eclipses which Ptolemy could hear of, is a remarkable instance of the novelty of history; since the observing such an extraordinary accident in the heavens, in so pure an air, where the sun was not only observed, but adored, must have been one of the first effects of learning or industry. All these characters of the novelty of the world have been so well considered by Lucretius, and other atheists, that they gave up the point, and thought it evi- dent that this present frame of things had certainly a beginning. The solution that those men, who found themselves driven from this of the world^s being eternal, have given to this dif- ficulty, by saying that all things have run by chance into the combinations and channels in which we see nature run, is so absurd, that it looks like men who are resolved to believe any- thing, how absurd soever, rather than to acknowledge religion. For w^hat a strange conceit is it to think, that chance could settle on such a regular and useful frame of things, and continue so fixed and stable in it; and that chance could do so much at once, and should do nothing ever since? The constancy of the celestial motions; the obliquity of the zodiac, by which different seasons are assigned to different climates; the divisions of this globe into sea and land, into hills and vales; the productions of the earth, w^hether latent, such as mines, minerals, and other fossils ; or visible, such as grass, grain, herbs, flowers, shrubs, and trees ; the small beginnings, and the curious compositions 24 AN EXPOSITION OF ART. 1. of them; the variety and curious structure of insects; the dis- position of the bodies of perfecter animals; and^ above all, the fabric of the body of man, especially the curious discoveries that anatomy and microscopes have given us; the strange beginning and progress of those; the wonders that occur in every organ of sense, and the amazing structure and use of the brain — are all such things, so artificial, and yet so regular, and so exactly shaped and fitted for their several uses, that he who can believe all this to be chance, seems to have brought his mind to digest any absurdity. That all men should resemble one another in the main things, and yet that every man should have a peculiar look, voice, and way of writing, is necessary to maintain order and distinction in society: by these we know men, if we either see them, hear them speak in the dark, or receive any writing from them at a distance; without these, the whole commerce of life would be one continued course of mistake and confusion. This, I say, is such an indication of wisdom, that it looks like a violence to nature to think it can be otherwise. The only colour that has supported this monstrous conceit, that things arise out of chance, is, that it has long passed cur- rent in the world, that great varieties of insects do arise out of corrupted matter. They argue, that if the sun’s shining on a dunghill can give life to such swarms of curious creatures, it is but a little more extraordinary to think, that animals and men might have been formed out of well-disposed matter, under a peculiar aspect of the heavens. But the exacter observations that have been made in this age by the help of glasses, have put an end to this answer, which is the best that Lucretius and other atheists found to rest in. It is now fully made out, that the production of all insects whatsoever is in the way of generation ; heat and corruption do only hatch those eggs, that insects leave to a prodigious quantity everywhere. So that this, which is the only specious thing in the whole plea for atheism, is now given up by the universal consent of all the inquirers into nature. And now to bring the force of this long argument to a head: if this world was neither from all eternity in the state in which it is at present, nor could fall into it by chance or accident, then it must follow, that it was put into the state in which we now see it, by a Being of vast power and wisdom. This is the great and solid argument on which religion rests; and it receives a vast accession of strength from this, that we plainly see matter has not motion in or of itself — every part of it is at quiet till it is put in motion, that is not natural to it ; for many parts of matter fall into a state of rest and quiet; so that motion must bQ put in them by some impulse or other. Matter, after it has passed through the highest refinings and rectifyings ART. I. THE XXXIX ARTICLES. 25 possililc, becomes only more capable of motion than it was before; but still it is a passive principle, and must be put in motion by some other being. This has appeared so necessary even to those who have tried their utmost force to make God as little needful as possible in the structure of the universe, that they have yet been forced to own, that there must have been once a vast motion given to matter by the Supreme Mind. A third argument for the being of a God is, that, upon some great occasions, and before a vast number of witnesses, some persons have wrought miracles; that is, they have put nature out of its course, by some words or signs, that of themselves could not produce those extraordinary effects: and therefore such per- sons were assisted by a Power superior to the course of nature; and by consequence, there is such a Being, and that is God. To this the atheists do first say, that we do not know the secret virtues that are in nature: the loadstone and opium produce wonderful effects: therefore, unless we knew the whole extent of nature, we cannot define what is supernatural and miraculous, and what is not so. But though we cannot tell how far nature may go, yet of some things we may, without hesitation, say they are beyond natural powers. Such were the wonders that Moses wrought in Egypt and in the wilderness, by the speaking a few words, or the stretching out of a rod. We are sure these could not by any natural efficiency produce those wonders. And the like is to be said of the miracles of Christ, particularly of his raising the dead to life again, and of his own resurrection. These we are sure did not arise out of natural causes. The next thing atheists say to this, is to dispute the truth of the facts: but of that I shall treat in another place, when the authority of revealed religion comes to be proved from those facts. All that is neces- sary to be added here is, that if facts, that are plainly superna- tural, are proved to have been really done, then here is another clear and full argument to prove a Being superior to nature, that can dispose of it at pleasure; and that Being must either be God, or some other invisible Being that has a strength superior to the settled course of nature. And if invisible Beings, superior to nature, whether good or bad, are once acknowledged, a great step is made to the proof of the Supreme Being. There is another famed argument taken from the idea of God; which is laid thus: that because one frames a notion of infinite perfection, therefore there must be sUch a Being, from whom that notion is conveyed to us. Tliis argument is also managed by other methods, to give us a demonstration of the being of a God. I am unwilling to say anything to derogate from any argument that is brought to prove this conclusion; but when he, who insists on, this, lays all other arguments aside, or at least slights them as not strong enough to prove the point, this 26 AN EXPOSITION OP ART. 1. naturally gives jealousy, when all those reasons, that had for so many ages been considered as solid proofs, are neglected, as if this only could amount to a demonstration. But, besides, this is an argument that cannot be offered by any to another person, for his conviction; since, if lie denies that he has any such idea, he is without the reach of the argument. And if a man will say that any such idea, which he may raise in himself, is only an aggregate that he makes of all those perfections of which he can form a thought, which he lays together, separating from them every imperfection that he observes to be often mixed with some of those perfections; if, I say, a man will affirm this, I do not see that the inference from any such thought that he has formed within himself, can have any great force to persuade him that there is any such Being. Upon the whole, it seems to be fully proved, that there is a Being that is superior to matter, and that gave both being and order to it, and to all other things. This may serve to prove the being of a God: — it is fit in the next place to consider, with all humble modesty, what thoughts we can, or ought to have of the Deity. That Supreme Being must have its essence of itself necessarily and eternally; for it is impossible that anything can give itself being; so it must be eternal. And though eternity in a succes- sion of determinate durations was proved to be impossible, yet it is certain that something must be eternal; either matter, or a Being superior to it, that has not a duration defined by succes- sion, but is a simple essence, and eternally was, is, and shall be the same. There is nothing contradictory to itself in this notion: it is indeed above our capacity to form a clear thought of it; but it is plain it must be so, and that this is only a defect in our nature and capacity, that we cannot distinctly apprehend that which is so far above us. Such a Being must have also neces- sary existence in its notion; for whatsoever is infinitely perfect, must necessarily exist; since we plainly perceive, that necessary existence is a perfection, and that contingent existence is an im- perfection, which supposes a being that is produced by another, and that depends upon it: and as this superior Being did exist from all eternity, so it is impossible it should cease to be; since nothing, that once has actually a being, can ever cease to be, but by an act of a superior Being annihilating it. But there being nothing superior to the Deity, it is impossible that it should ever cease to be: what was self-existent from all eternity, must also be so to all eternity; and it is as impossible that a simple essence can annihilate itself, as that it can make itself. So much concerning the first and capital article of all religion, the existence and being of a God; which ought not to be proved by any authorities from Scripture, unless from the recitals that are given in it concerning miracles, as was already hinted at. ART. I. THE XXXIX ARTICLES. 27 But as to the authority of such passages in Scripture which affirm that there is a God, it is to be considered, that before we can be bound to submit to them, we must believe three proposi- tions antecedent to that: — 1. That there is a God: 2. That all his words are true: 3. That these are his words. What there- fore must be believed before we acknowledge the Scriptures, cannot be proved out of them. It is then a strange assertion to say, that the being of a God cannot be proved by the light of nature, but must be proved by the Scriptures; since our being assured that there is a God, is the first principle upon which the authority of the Scriptures depends. The second proposition in the Article is. That there is but one God, As to this, the common argument by which it is proved, is the order of the world; from whence it is inferred, that there cannot be more Gods than one, since where there are more than one, there must happen diversity and confusion. This is by some thought to be no good reason; for if there are more Gods, that is, more beings infinitely perfect, they will always think the same thing, and be knit together with an entire love. It is true, in things of a moral nature this must so happen; for beings infinitely perfect must ever agree. But in physical things, capable of no morality — as in creating the world sooner or later, and the different systems of beings, with a thousand other things that have no moral goodness in them — different beings infinitely perfect might have different thoughts. So this argument seems still of great force to prove the unity of the Deity. The other argument from reason to prove the unity of God, is from the notion of a Being infinitely perfect. For a superiority over all other beings comes so naturally into the idea of infinite perfec- tion, that we cannot separate it from it. A being, therefore, that has not all other beings inferior and subordinate to it, cannot be infinitely perfect; whence it is evident, that there is but one God. But besides all this, the unity of God seems to be so frequently and so plainly asserted in the Scripture, that we see it was the chief design of the whole Old Testament, both of Moses and the Prophets, to establish it, in opposition to the false opinions of the heathen concerning a diversity of Gods, This is often repeated in the most solemn words, as. Hear, O Israel; the Lord our God is one God, Deut. vi. 4. It is the first of the Ten Commandments, Thou shalt have no other Gods hut me. And all things in heaven and earth are often said to be made by this one God. Negative words are also often used; There is none other God hut one: besides me there is none else, and I know no other, Isa. xliv. 6. 8: the going after other Gods, is reckoned the highest and the most unpardonable act of idolatry. The New Testament goes on in the same strain. Christ speaks of the only true God, and that he alone ought to 28 AN EXPOSITION OF ART. I. be worshipped and served. All the Apostles do frequently affirm the same thing (John xvii. 3; Matt. iv. 10; 1 Cor. viii. 5, 6;) they make the believing of one God, in opposition to the many Gods of the heathens, the chief article of the Christian religion; and they lay down this as the chief ground of our obligation to mutual love and union among ourselves. That there is one God, one Lord, one Faith, one Baptism, Eph. iv. 4, 5, 6. Now, since we are sure that there is but one Messias, and one doctrine delivered by him, it will clearly follow, that there must be but one God. So the unity of the Divine Essence is clearly proved, both from the order and government of the world, from the idea of infinite perfection, and from those express declarations that are made concerning it in the Scriptures; which last is a full proof to all such as own and submit to them. The third head in this Article is that which is negatively expressed, that God is without body, parts, or passions. In general, all these are so plainly contrary to the ideas of infinite perfection, and they appear so evidently to be imperfections, that this part of the Article will need little explanation. We do plainly perceive that our bodies are clogs to our minds; and all the use, that even the purest sort of body, in an estate con- ceived to be glorified, can be of to a mind, is to be an instru- ment of local motion, or to be a repository of ideas for memory and imagination: but God, who is everywhere, and is one pure and simple act, can have no such use for a body. A mind dwelling in a body, is in many respects superior to it; 3 ^et in some respects is under it. We who feel how an act of our mind can so direct the motions of our body, that a thought sets our limbs and joints agoing, can from thence conceive, how the whole extent of matter should receive such motions as the acts of the Supreme Mind give it; but yet not as a body united to it, or that the Deity either needs such a body, or can receive any trouble from it. Thus far the apprehension of the thing is very plainly made out to us. Our thoughts put some parts of our body in a present motion, when the organization is regular, and all the parts are exact, and when there is no obstruction in those vessels, or passages, through which that heat and those spirits' do pass that cause the motion. We do in this perceive, that a thought does command matter; but our minds are limited to our bodies, and these do not obey them, but as they are in an exact disposition and a fitness to be so moved. Now these are plain imperfections; but removing them from God, we can from thence apprehend that all the matter in the universe may be so entirely subject to the Divine Mind, that it shall move and be whatsoever and wheresoever he will have it to be. This is that which all men do agree in. But many of the philosophers thought that matter, though it ART. I. THE XXXIX ARTICLES. 29 was moved and moulded by God at his pleasure, yet was not made by him, but was self-existent, and was a passive principle, but coexistent to the Deity, which they thought was the active principle: ’from whence some have thought that the belief of two Gods, one good and another bad, did spring; though others imagine, that the belief of a bad God did arise from the corrup- tion of that tradition concerning fallen angels, as was before suggested. The philosophers could not apprehend that things could be made out of nothing, and therefore they believed that matter was coeternal with God. But it is as hard to apprehend how a mind by its thought should give motion to matter, as how it should give it being. A being not made by God is not so easily conceivable to lie under the acts of his mind, as that which is made by him. This conceit plainly destroys infinite perfection, which cannot be in God, if all beings are not from him, and under his authority; besides that successive duration has been already proved inconsistent with eternity. This opinion of the workhs being a body to God, as the mind that dwells in it, and actuates it, is the foundation of atheism: for if it be once thought that God can do nothing without such a body, then as this destroys the idea of infinite perfection, so it makes way to this conceit, that since matter is visible, and God invisible, there is no other God but the vast extent of the universe. It is true, God has often shown himself in visible appearances; but that was only his putting a special quantity of matter into such motions, as should give a great and astonishing idea of his nature, from that appearance; which was both the effect of his power, and the symbol of his presence. And thus what glorious representations soever were made either on Mount Sinai, or in the pillar of the cloud, and cloud of glory, those were no indi- cations of God’s having a body; but were only manifestations, suited to beget such thoughts in the minds of men, that dwelt in bodies, as might lay the principles and foundations of religion deep in them. The language of the Scriptures speaks to the capacities of men, and even of rude men in dark times, in which most of the Scriptures were writ: but though God is spoke of as having a face, eyes, ears, a smelling, hands, and feet, and as coming down to view things on earth, all this is expressed after the manner of men, and is to be understood in a way suitable to a pure Spirit. For the great care that was used, even under the most imperfect state of Revelation, to keep men from framing any image or similitude of the Deity, showed that it was far from the meaning of those expressions, that God had an organized body. These do therefore signify only the several varieties of Providence. When God was pleased with a nation, his face was said to shine upon it; for so a man looks towards those whom he loves. The particular care he takes of them. 30 AN EXPOSITION OF ART. I. and the answering their prayers, is expressed by figures bor- rowed from eyes and ears; the peculiar dispensations of rewards and punishments are expressed by his hands; and the exactness of his justice and wisdom is -expressed by coming down to view the state of human affairs. Thus it is clear that God has no body; nor has \iQ parts, for we can apprehend no parts but of a body; so, since it is certain that God has no body, he can have no parts. Something like parts does indeed belong to spirits, which are their thoughts distinct from their being, and they have a succession of them, and do oft change them. But infi- nite perfection excludes this from the idea of God; successive thoughts, as well as successive duration, seem inconsistent both with eternity and with infinite perfection. Therefore the essence of God is one perfect thought, in which he both views and wills all things: and though his transient acts that pass out of the divine essence, such as creation, providence, -and miracles, are done in a succession of time; yet his immanent acts, his know- ledge and his decrees, are one with his essence. Distinct thoughts are plainly an imperfection, and argue a progress in knowledge, and a deliberation in council, which carry defect and infirmity in them. To conceive how this is in God, is far above our capacity; who, though we feel our imperfection in successive acts, yet cannot apprehend how all things can be both seen and determined by one single thought. But the Divine Essence being so infinitely above us, it is no wonder if we can frame no distinct act concerning its knowledge or will. There is, indeed, a vast difficulty that arises here; for those acts of God are supposed free; “so that they might have been otherwise than we see they are: and then it is not easy to imagine how they should be one with the Divine Essence ; to which necessary existence does certainly belong. It cannot be said that those acts are necessary, and could not be otherwise ; for since all God^s transient acts are the certain effects of his immanent ones, if the immanent ones are necessary, then the transient must be so likewise, and so everything must be neces- sary; a chain of necessary fate must run through the whole order of things;, and God himself then is no free being, but acts by a necessity of nature. This some have thought was no absurdity: God is necessarily just, true, and good, not by any extrinsic necessity, for that would import an outward limitation, which destroys the idea of God ; but by an intrinsic necessity, that arises from his own infinite perfection. Some have from hence thought, that, since God acts by infinite wisdom and goodness, things could not have been otherwise than they are; for what is infinitely wise or good cannot be altered, or made either better or worse. But this seems on the other hand very hard to conceive: for it would follow from thence, that God ART. I. THE XXXIX ARTICLES. .31 could neither have made the world sooner nor later^ nor any other way than now it is ; nor could he have done any one thing otherwise than as it is done. This seems to establish fate, and to destroy industry and all prayers and endeavours. Thus there are such great difficulties on all hands in this matter, that it is much the wisest and safest course to adore what is above our apprehensions, rather than to inquire too curiously, or deter- mine too boldly in it. It is certain that God acts both freely and perfectly ; nor is he a Being subject to change, or to new acts; but he is what he is^ both infinite and incomprehensible: we can neither apprehend how he made, nor how he executes his decrees. So we must leave this difficulty, without pretending that we can explain it, or answer the objections that arise against all the several ways by which divines have endeavoured to resolve it. The third thing under the head I now consider is, God^s being ivithout passions. That will be soon explained. Passion is an agitation that supposes a succession of thoughts, together with a trouble for what is past, and a fear of missing what is aimed at. It arises out of a heat of mind, and produces a vehe- mence of action. Now all these are such manifest imperfections, that it does plainly appear they cannot consist with infinite per- fection. Yet after all this, there are several passions, such as anger, fury, jealousy, and revenge, bowels of mercy, compassion dind pity, joy and sorrow, that are ascribed to God in the com- mon forms of speech that occur often in Scripture, as Vv^as for- merly observed, with relation to those figures that are taken from the parts of a human body. Passion produces a vehemence of action; so, when there is in the providences of God such a vehemence as according to the manner of men would import a passion, then that passion is ascribed to God : when he punishes men for sin, he is said to be angry: when he does that by severe and redoubled strokes, he is said to be full of fury and revenge: when he punishes for idolatry, or any dishonour done himself, he is said to he jealous : when he changes the course of his pro- ceedings, he is said to repent: when his dispensations of provi- dence are very gentle, and his judgments come slowly from him, he is said to have bowels. And thus all the varieties of Provi- dence come to be expressed by all that variety of passions, which among men might give occasion to such a variety of proceeding. The fourth head in this Article is concerning the power, wisdom, and goodness of God; that he is infinite in them. If he can give being to things that are not, and can also give all the possibili- ties of motion, size, and shape, to beings that do exist, here is power without bounds. A power of creating must be infinite, since nothing can resist it. If some things are in their own nature impossible, that does not arise from the want of power in God, which extends to everything that is possible. But that 32 AN EXPOSITION OF ART. I. whicli is supposed to be impossible of its own nature, cannot actually be: otherwise a thing might both be and not be; and it is perceptible to every man that this is impossible. It is not want of power in God, that he cannot lie nor sin: it is the infi- nite purity of the Divine Nature that makes this impossible, by reason of his infinite perfection. Nor is it a want of power in God, that the truth of propositions concerning things that are past, as that yesterday once was, is unalterable. Among impos- sibilities, one is, to take from any being that which is essential to it. God can annihilate every being at his pleasure; for as he gave being with a thought, so he can destroy it with another: and this does fully assert the infinite power of God. But if he has made beings with such peculiar essences, as that matter must be extended and impenetrable, and that it is capable of peculiar surfaces and other modes, which are only its different sizes and shapes, then matter cannot be and yet not be extended; nor can these modes subsist, if the matter of which they are the modes is withdrawn. The infinite power of God is fully believed by those who acknowledge both his power of creating and annihilating ; together with a power of disposing of the whole creation, according to the possibilities of every part or individual of it; though they cannot conceive a possibility of separating the essential properties of any being from itself — that is to say, that it may both be, and not be at the same time; since an essential property is that which cannot be without that substance to which it belongs. The wisdom of God consists first in his seeing all the possi- bilities of things, and then in his knowing all things that either are, or ever were, or shall be. The former is called the know- ledge of simple intelligence or apprehension; the other is called the knowledge of vision. The one arises from the perfection of the Divine Essence, by which he apprehends whatever is possible; the other arises from his own decrees, in which the whole order of things is fixed. But besides these two ideas that we can frame of the knowledge of God, some have ima- gined a third knowledge, which, because it is of a middle order betwixt intelligence and vision, they have called a middle knoiv- ledge; which is the knowing certainly how, according to all the possibilities of circumstances in which free agents might be put, they should choose and act. Some have thought that this was a vain and needless conceit; and that it is impossible that such a knowledge should be certain, or more than conjectural ; and since conjecture implies doubt, it is an imperfect act, and so does not become a Being of infinite perfection. But others have thought, that the infinite perfection of the Divine Mind must go so far as to foresee certainly what free creatures are to do; since upon this foresight only they imagine that the jus- ART. I. THE XXXIX ARTICLES. 33 tice or goodness of God in his providence can be made out or defended. It seemed fit to menti9n tliis upon the present occa- sion; but it will be then proper to inquire more carefully about it^ when the Article of predestination is explained. It is necessary to state the idea of the goodness of God most carefully; for we naturally enough frame great and just ideas of power and wdsdom; but we easily fall into false conceits of good- ness. This is that^ of all the divine perfections, in which we are the most concerned, and so we ought to be the most careful to frame true ideas of it: it is also that, of all God’s attributes, of which the Scriptures speak most copiously. Infinite goodness is a tendency to communicate the divine perfections to all created beings, according to their several capacities. God is original goodness, all perfect and happy in himself, acting and seeing everything in a perfect light; and he having made rational beings capable of some degrees of his light, purity, and perfec- tion, the first and primary act of goodness is to propose to them such means as may raise them to these, to furnish them with them, to move them oft to them, to accept and to assist their sincere endeavours after them. A second act of goodness, which is but in order to the first, is to pity those miseries into which men fall, as long as there is any principle or possibility left in them of their becoming good; to pardon all such sins as men have committed, who turn to the purposes of becoming seriously good; and to pass by all the frailties and errors of those who are truly and upon the main good, though surprise and strong temp- tations prove often too hard for them. These two give us as full an idea as we can have of perfect goodness; whose first aim must be the making us good, and like to that original goodness; pity and pardon coming in but in a subsidiary way, to carry on the main design of making men truly good. Therefore the chief act and design of goodness is the making us truly good; and when any person falls below that possibility, he is no more the object of pity or pardon, because he is no more capable of becoming good. Pardon is offered on design to make us really good; so it is not to be sought for, nor rested in, but in order to a further end, which is the reforming our natures, and the making us partakers of the divine nature. We are not, therefore, to frame ideas of a feeble goodness in God, that yields to impor- tunate cries, or that melts at a vast degree of misery. Tender- ness in human nature, is a great ornament and perfection, neces- sary to dispose us to much benignity and mercy: but, in the common administration of justice, this tenderness must be restrained; otherwise it w’ould slacken the rigour of punishment too much, which might dissolve the order and peace of human societies. But since we cannot see into the truth of men’s hearts, a charitable disposition and a compassionate temper are 34 AN EXPOSITION OF ART. I. necessary, to make men sociable and kind, gentle and humane. God, who sees our hearts, and is ever assisting all our endea- vours to become truly good, needs not this tenderness, nor is he indeed capable of it; for after all its beauty, with relation to the state wherein we are now put, yet in itself it implies imperfec- tion. Nor can the miseries and bowlings of wicked beings, after all the seeds and possibilities of goodness are utterly extinguished in them, give any pity to the Divine Being. These are no longer the object of the primary act of his goodness, and therefore they cannot come under its secondary acts. It is of such great consequence to settle this notion right in our minds, that it well deserves to be so copiously opened; since we now see in what respects God^s goodness is without bounds, and infinite; that is, it reaches to all men, after all sins whatsoever, as long as they are capable of becoming good. It is not a limi- tation of the divine goodness to say, that some men and some states are beyond it; no more than it is a limitation of his power to say, that he cannot sin, or cannot do impossibilities: for a goodness towards persons not capable of becoming good, is a goodness that does not agree with the infinite purity and holiness of God. It is such a goodness, that if it were proposed to the world, it would encourage men to live in sin, and to think that a few acts of homage offered to God, perhaps in our last extremities, could so far please him, as to bribe and corrupt him. This is that which makes idolatry so great a sin, so often forbid by God, and so severely punished, not only as it is inju- rious to the majesty of God, but because it corrupts the ideas or notions of God. Those ideas rightly formed are the bases upon which all religion is built. The seeds and principles of a new and godlike nature spring up in us, as we form ourselves upon the true ideas or notions of God. Therefore, when God is pro- posed to be adored by us under a visible shape or image, all the acts of religion offered to it are only so many pieces of pagean- try, and end in the flatterings and the magnifyings of it with much pomp, cruelty, or lasciviousness, according to the different genius of several nations. So the forming a false notion of the goodness of God, as a tenderness that is to be overcome with importunities and bowlings, and other submissions, and not to be gained only by becoming like him, is a capital and funda- mental error in religion. The next branch of this Article is, God’s creating and 'preserv- ing of all things; and that both material substances, which are visible, and immaterial and spiritual substances, which are invi- sible. God’s creating all things has been already made out. If matter could neither be eternal, nor give itself a being, then it must have its being from God. Creating does naturally import ART. I. TllIC XXXIX ARTICI.ES. 35 infinite power; for that power is clearly without bounds, that can make things out of nothing: a bounded power, which can only shape and mould matter, must suppose it to have a being, before it can work upon it. We cannot indeed form a distinct thought of creation, for we cannot apprehend what nothing is. The nearest approach we can bring ourselves to a true idea of this is, the considering our own thoughts; especially our ideas of mathematical proportions, and the other affections of bodies: those ideas are the modes of a spiritual substance; and there is no likeness nor resemblance between them and the modes of material substances, which are only the occasions of our having those ideas, and not in any wise the matter out of which they are formed. Here seems to be a sort of beings brought out of nothing; but, after all, this is vastly below creation, and is only a faint resemblance of it. With the power of creating, we must also join that of annihi- lating, which is equal to it, and must necessarily be supposed to be in God, because we plainly perceive it to be a perfection. The recalling into nothing a being brought out of nothing, is a neces- sary consequence of infinite power, when it thinks fit so to exert itself. There is a common notion in the world, that things would fall back into nothing of themselves, if they were not pre- served by the same infinite Power that made them: but, without question, it is an act of the same infinite Power to reduce a being to nothing, that it is to bring a being out of nothing: so what- ever has once a being, must of its nature continue still to be, without any new causality or influence. This must be acknow- ledged, unless it can be said, that a tendency to annihilation is the consequent of a created being. But as this would make the preservation of the world tol^e a continued violence to a natural tendency that is in ail things; so there is no more reason to imagine that beings have a tendency to annihilation, than that nothing had a tendency to creation. It is absurd to think that anything can have a tendency to that which is essentially oppo- site to itself, and is destructive of it. The preservation of things, is the keeping the frame of nature and the order of the universe in such a state as is suitable to the purposes of the Supreme Mind. It is true, natural agents must ever keep the course in which they are once put; and the great heavenly orbs, as well as all smaller motions, must ever have rolled on in one constant channel, when they were once put into it: so in this respect it may seem that conservation by a special act is not necessary. But we perceive a freedom in our own natures, and a power that our minds have, not only to move our own bodies, but by them, and by the help of such engines as we can invent, we make a vast change in this earth from what it would be, if it were left un wrought. In a course of some c 2 36 AN EXPOSITION OP ART. I. ages, the whole world, by the natural progress of things, would be a forest. Both earth and air are very much different from what they would be, if men were not free agents, and did not cultivate the earth, and thereby purify the air. The working of mines, minerals, and other fossils, makes also a great change in its bowels; it gives vent to some damps wdiich might much affect the air, and it frees the earth from earthquakes. Thus the industry of man has, in many respects, changed both earth and air very sensibly from what they would have been, if the world had not those inhabitants in it. Nor do we know what natural force other spirits inhabiting in or about it, or at least using subtiler bodies, may have, or in what influences or operations they may exert that force on material substances. Upon all these accounts it is, that the world could not be preserved in a constant and regular state, if the Supreme Mind had not a direc- tion both of men^s wills and actions, and of the course of nature: for unless it is thought that man is really no free agent, but acts in a chain as certainly as other natural agents do, it must be acknow- ledged, that by the interposition of men^s minds, together with their power over matter, the course of the first motion that was given to the universe is so changed, that if there is not a con- stant providence, the frame of nature must go out of the chan- nel into which God did at first put it. The order of things on this earth takes a great turn from the wind, both as to the fruit- fulness of the earth and to the operations on the sea; and has, likewise, a great influence on the purity of the air, and, by con- sequence, on men^s good or ill health; and the wind or the agita- tion of the air, turns so often and so quick, that it seems to be the great instrument of Providence upon which an unconceivable variety of things does naturally depend. I do not deny but that it may be said, that all those changes in the air arise from cer- tain and mechanical, though to us unknown causes ; which may be supported from this, that between the tropics, where the influence of the heavenly bodies is stronger, the wind and weather are more regular; though even that admits of great exceptions; yet it has been the common sense of mankind, that, besides the natural causes of the alterations in the air, they are under a par- ticular influence and direction of Providence; and it is in itself highly probable, to say no more of it. This may either be managed immediately by the acts of the Divine Mind, to which nature readily obeys, or by some subaltern mind, or angel, which may have as natural an efficiency over an extent of matter pro- portioned to its capacity, as a man has over his own body, and over that compass of matter that is within his reach. Which way soever God governs the world, and what influence soever he has over merfls minds, we are sure that the governing and preserving bis own workmanship is so plainly a perfection, that it must ART. I. THE XXXIX ARTICLES. 37 belong to a Being infinitely perfect: and there is such a chain in things, those of the greatest consequence arising often from small and inconsiderable ones, that we cannot imagine a Providence, unless we believe everything to be within its care and view. The only difficulty that has been made in apprehending this, has arisen from the narrowness of men^s minds, who have mea- sured God rather by their own measure and capacity than by that of infinite perfection, which, as soon as it is considered, will put an end to all further doubtings about it. When we per- ceive that a vast number of objects enter in at our eye by a very small passage, and yet are so little jumbled in that crowd that they open themselves regularly, though there is no great space for that neither; and that they give us a distinct apprehension of many objects that lie before us, some even at a vast distance from us, both of their nature, colour, and size ; and by a secret geometry, from the angles that they make in our eye, we judge of the distance of all objects, both from us and from one another; if to this we add the vast number of figures that we receive and retain long and with great order in our brains, which we easily fetch up either in our thoughts or in our discourses; we shall find it less difficult to apprehend how an infinite mind should have the universal view of all things ever present before it. It is true, we do not so easily conceive how free minds are under this Providence, as how natural agents should always move at its directions ; but we perceive that one mind can work upon another. A man raises a sound of words, which carry such signs of his inward thoughts, that by this motion in the air another man’s ear is so struck upon, that thereby an impression is made upon his brain, by which he not only conceives what the other man’s thoughts was, but is very powerfully inclined to consent to it, and to concur with it. All this is a great way about, and could not be easily apprehended by us, if we had not a clear and constant perception of it. Now, since all this is brought about by a motion upon our brains, according to the force with which we are more or less affected, it is very reasonable for us to apprehend that the Supreme Mind can, besides many other ways to us less known, put such motions in our brain, as may give us all such thoughts as it intends to impress upon us, in as strong and effectual a manner as may fully answer all its purposes. The great objection that lies against the power and the good- ness of Providence, from all that evil that is in the world, which God is either not willing or not able to hinder, will be more properly considered in another place : at present it is enough in general to observe, that God’s providence must carry on every- thing according to its nature; and since he has made some free beings capable of thought, and of good and evil, we must believe, that as the course of nature is not oft put out of its channel, unless when some extraordinary thing is to be done, in order 38 AN EXPOSITION OF ART. I. to some great end; so, in the government of free agents, they must be generally left to their liberty, and not put too oft off their bias. This is a hint to resolve that difficulty by, concerning all the moral evil which is, generally speaking, the occasion of most of the physical evil that is in the world. A providence thus settled, that extends itself to all things both natural and free, is necessary to preserve religion, to engage us to prayers, praises, and to a dependence on it, and a submission to it. Some have thought it was necessary to carry this further, and so they make God to be the first and immediate cause of every action or motion. This some modern writers have taken from ^ the schools, and have dressed it in new phrases of general laws, particular wills, and occasional causes; and so they express or explain God’s producing every motion that is in matter, and his raising every sensation, and, by the same parity of reason, every cogitation in minds. This they think arises out of the idea of infinite perfection, and fully answers these words of the Scrip- tures, that in God, we live, move, and have our being. To others, all this seems first unnecessary; for if God has made matter capable of motion, and capable of receiving it from the stroke or impulse that another piece of matter gives it ; this comes as truly from God, as if he did immediately give every motion by an act of his own will. It seems more suitable to the beauty of his workmanship, to think that he has so framed things that they hold on in that course in which he has put them, than to make him perpetually produce every new motion. And the bringing God immediately into everything, may, by an odd reverse of effects, make the world think that everything is done as much without him, as others are apt to imagine that every- thing is done by him. And though it is true, that we cannot distinctly apprehend, how a motion in our brain should raise such a thought as answers to it in our minds; yet it seems more reasonable to think, that God has put us under such an order of being from which that does naturally follow, than that he himself should interpose in every thought. The difficulty of appre- hending how a thing is done, can be no prejudice to the belief of it, when we have the infinite power of God in our thoughts, who may be as easily conceived to have once for all put us in a method of receiving such sensations, by a general law or course of nature, as to give us new ones at every minute. But the greatest difficulty against this is, that it makes God the first physical cause of all the evil that is in the world; which, as it is contrary to his nature, so it absolutely destroys all liberty: and this puts an end to all the distinctions between good and evil, and consequently to all religion. And as for those large expressions that are brought from Scripture, every word in Scripture is not to be stretched to the utmost physical sense to which it can be carried: it is enough if a sense is given to it, that agrees to the scope of it; which is fully AliT. 1. THE XXXIX ARTICLES. 39 answered by acknowledging, that the power and providence of God is over all things, and that it directs everything to wise and good ends — from which nothing is hid, by which nothing is forgot, and to which nothing can resist. This scheme of providence fully agrees with the notion of a Being infinitely perfect, and with all that the Scriptures affirm concerning it; and it lays down a firm foundation for all the acts and exercises of religion. As to the power and providence of God with relation to invi- sible beings, we plainly perceive that there is in us a principle capable of thought and liberty, of which, by all that appears to us, matter is not at all capable: after its utmost refinings by fires and furnaces, it is still passive, and has no self-motion, much less thought, in it. Thoughts seem plainly to arise from a single principle, that has no parts, and is quite another thing than the motion of one subtile piece of matter upon another can be sup- posed to be. If thought is only motion, then no part of us thinks, but as it is in motion; so that only the moving particles, or rather their surfaces, that strike upon one another, do think: but such a motion must end quickly, in the dissipation and evaporation of the whole thinking substance ; nor can any of the quiescent parts have any perception of such thoughts, or any reflection upon them. And to say that matter may have other affections unknown to us besides motion, by which it may think, is to affirm a thing without any sort of reason ; it is rather a flying from an argument, than an answering it: no man has any reason to affirm this, nor can he have any. And besides, all our cogi- tations of immaterial things, proportions, and numbers, do plainly show that we have a being in us distinct from matter, that rises above it, and commands it: w^e perceive we have a freedom of moving and acting at pleasure. All these things give us a clear perception of a being that is in us distinct from matter, of which we are not able to form a complete idea; we having only four perceptions of its nature and operations: — 1. That it thinks: 2. That it has an inward power of choice: 3. That by its will it can move and command the body; and, 4. That it is in a close and entire union with it; that it has a dependence on it, as to ' many of its acts, as well as an authority over it in many other things. Such a being, that has no parts, must be immortal in its nature, for every single being is immortal. It is only the union of parts that is capable of being dissolved; that which has no parts is indissoluble. To this two objections are made: — one is, that beasts seem to have both thought and freedom, though in a lower order: if then matter can be capable of this in any degree, how low soever, a higher rectification of matter may be capable of a higher degree of it. It is therefore certain, that either beasts have no thought or liberty at all, and are only pieces of finely organized matter, capable of many subtile motions 40 AN EXPOSITION OF ART. 1. that come to them from objects without them^ but that they have no sensation nor thought at all about them; or (since how pret- tily soever some may have dressed up this notion, it is that which human nature cannot receive or bear,) there being such evident indications of even high degrees of reason among the beasts, it is more reasonable to imagine, that there may be spirits of a lower order in beasts, that have in them a capacity of thinking and choosing ; but that so entirely under the impressions of matter, that they are not capable of that largeness, either of thought or liberty, that is necessary to make them capable of good or evil, of rewards and punishments ; and that, therefore, they may be perpetually rolling about from one body to another. Another objection to the belief of an immaterial substance in us is, that we feel it depends so entirely on the fabric and state of the brain, that a disorder, a vapour, or humour in it, defaces all our thoughts, our memory, and imagination; and since we find that which we call mind sinks so low upon a disorder of the body, it may be reasonable to believe, that it evaporates, and is quite dissipated upon the dissolution of our bodies: so that the soul is nothing but the livelier parts of the blood, called the animal spirits. In answer to this, we know that those animal spirits are of such an evanid and subtile nature, that they are in a perpetual waste, new ones always succeeding as the former go off ; but we perceive, at the same time, that our soul is a stable and permanent being, by the steadiness of its acts and thoughts — we being for many years plainly the same beings ; and therefore our souls cannot be such a loose and evaporating substance as those spirits are. The spirits are indeed the inward organs of the mind, for memory, speech, and bodily motion; and as these flatten or are wasted, the mind is less able to act. As when the eye or any other organ of sense is weakened, the sensa- tions grow feeble on that side ; and as a man is less able to work, when all those instruments he makes use of are blunted; so the mind may sink upon a decay or disorder in those spirits, and yet be of a nature wholly different from them. How a mind should work on matter, cannot, I confess, be clearly comprehended. It cannot be denied by any, that is not a direct atheist, that the thoughts of the Supreme Mind give impressions and motions to matter. So our thoughts may give a motion, or the determination of motion, to matter, and yet rise from substances wholly different from it. Nor is it incon- ceivable, that the Supreme Mind should have put our minds likewise under such a subordination to some material motions, that out of them peculiar thoughts should arise in us. And though this union is that which we cannot distinctly conceive ; yet there is no difficulty in it, equal to that of our imagining that matter can thirds or move itself. Wc perceive that we our- ART. I. THE XXXIX ARTICLES. 41 selves and the rest of mankind have tliinking principles within us; so from thence it is easy enougli to us to apprehend, that there may be other thinking beings, which either have no bodies at all, but act purely as intellectual substances; or, if they have bodies, that they are so subtilized as to be capable of a vast quickness of motion, such in proportion as we perceive to be in our animal spirits, which in the minute that our minds com- mand them, are raising motions in the remotest parts of our bodies. Such bodies may also be so thin as to be invisible to us : and, as among men, some are good and some bad, and of the bad some seem to be determinedly, and, as to all appearance, incurably bad; so there may have been a time and state of liberty, in which those spirits were left to their choice, whether they would continue in their innocency, or fall from it: and such as continued might be for ever fixed in that state, or exalted to higher degrees in it; and, such as fell from it, might fall irreco- verably into a state of utter apostacy from God, and of rebellion against him. There is nothing in this theory that is incredible; therefore, if the Scriptures have told us anything concerning it, we have no reason to be prejudiced against them upon that account: besides that, there are innumerable histories in many several countries and ages of the world, of extraordinary appari- tions, and other unaccountable performances, that could only have been done b}^ invisible powers. Many of those are so well attested, that it argues a strange pitch of obstinacy to refuse to believe a matter of fact when it is well vouched, and when there is nothing in reason to oppose it, but an un^willingness to believe invisible beings. It is true, this is an argument in which a fabulous humour will go far, and in which some are so credulous as to swallow down everything; therefore all wise men ought to suspend their belief, and not to go too fast: but when things are so undeniably attested, that there is no reason to question the exactness or the credit of the witnesses, it argues a mind unrea- sonably prepossessed to reject all such evidence. All those invisible beings were created by God, and are not to be considered as emanations or rays of his essence, which was a gross conceit of such philosophers as fancied that the Deity had parts. They are beings created by him, and are capable of passing through various scenes, in bodies more or less refined. In this life, the state of our minds receives vast alterations from the state of our bodies, which ripen gradually: and after they are come to their full growth, they cannot hold in that condition long, but sink down much faster than they grew up; some humours or diseases discomposing the brain, which is the seat of the mind, so entirely, that it cannot serve it, at least so far as to reflex acts. So in the next state it is possible that we may at first be in a less perfect condition by reason of this, that we may 42 AN EXPOSITION OF ART. I. have a less perfect body, to which we may be united between our death and the general resurrection; and there may be a time, in which we may receive a vast addition and exaltation in that state, by the raising up of our former bodies, and the reuniting us to them, which may give us a greater compass, and a higher elevation. These things are only proposed as suppositions that have no absurdity in them: so that if they should happen to be the parts of a revealed religion, there is no reason to doubt of it, or to reject it, on such an account. The last branch of this Article is, the assertion of that great doctrine of the Christian religion concerning the Trinity, or Three Persons in one Divine essence. It is a vain attempt to go about to prove this by reason: for it must be confessed, that we should have had no cause to have thought of any such thing, if the Scriptures had not revealed it to us. There are, indeed, prints of a very ancient tradition in the world, of three in the Deity; called the Word or the Wisdom, and the Spirit or the Z/Oi;g, besides the fountain of both these, God: this was believed by those from whom the most ancient philosophers had their doctrines. The author of the Book of Wisdom, Philo, and the Chaldee paraphrasts, have many things that show that they had received those traditions from the former ages; but it is not so easy to determine what gave the first rise to them. It has been much argued, whether this was revealed in the Old Testament or not. Some, from the plural termination of Elohim, which is joined to singular verbs, and from that of the Lord raining fire from the Lord upon Sodom {Jehovah from Jehovah;) from the description of the Wisdom of God in the eighth of the Proverbs, as a Person with God from all eternity; and from the mention that is often made of the Spirit, as well as the Word of God that came to the Prophets; they have, I say, from all these places, and some others, concluded, that this is contained in the Old Testament. Others have doubted of this, and have said that the name Elohim, though of a plural termi- nation, being often joined to a singular verb, makes it reasonable to think it was a singular, which, by somewhat peculiar to that language, might be of a plural termination. Nor have they thought, that since angels carried the name of God, when they went on special deputations from him, the angels being called Jehovah could be very confidently urged. That sublime descrip- tion of the Wisdom of God, in the Proverbs, seems not to them to be a full proof in this matter; for the Wisdom there mentioned seems to be the Wisdom of creation and providence, which is not personal, but belongs to the essence. Nor do they think that those places in the Old Testament in which mention is made of the Word, or of the Spirit of God, can settle this ART. I. THE XXXIX ARTICLES. 43 point; for these may only signify God^s revealing himself to his prophets. Therefore^ whatever secret tradition the Jews might have had among them concerning this^ from whom perhaps the Greeks might have also had it, yet many do not pretend to prove this from ‘passages in the Old Testament alone: though the expositions given to some of them in the New Testament prove to us, w’ho acknowledge it, what w^as the true meaning of those passages; yet take the Old Testament in itself without the New, and it must be confessed, that it will not be easy to prove this Article from it. But there are very full and clear proofs of it in the New Testa- ment; and they had need be both full and clear, before a doc- trine of this nature can be pretended to be proved by them. In order to the making this mystery to be more distinctly intel- ligible, diiferent methods have been taken. By One Substance many do understand a numerical or individual unity of sub- stance; and by Three Persons they understand three distinct subsistences in that essence. It is not pretended by these, that we can give a distinct idea of Person or Subsistence ; only they hold it imports a real diversity in one from another, and even such a diversity from the substance of the Deity itself, that some things belong to the Person which do not belong to the Sub- stance: for the Substance neither begets, nor is begotten; neither breathes, nor proceeds. If this carries in it something that is not agreeable to our notions, nor like anything that we can appre- hend; to this it is said, that if God has revealed that in the Scripture, which is thus expressed, we are bound to believe it, though w'e can frame no clear apprehension about it. God^s eternity, his being all one single act, his creating and preserving all things, and his being everywhere, are things that are abso- lute riddles to us: we cannot bring our minds to conceive them, and yet we must believe that they are so; because we see much greater absurdities must follow upon our conceiving that they should be otherwise. So, if God has declared this inex]5licable thing concerning himself to us, we are bound to believe it though we cannot have any clear idea how it truly is. For there appear as strange and unanswerable difficulties in many other things, which yet we know to be true: so if we are once well assured, that God has revealed his doctrine to us, we must silence all objections against it, and believe it; reckoning that our not understanding it, as it is in itself, makes the difficulties seem to be much greater than otherwise they w^ould appear to be, if we had light enough about it, or were capable of forming a more perfect idea of it while we are in this depressed state. Others give another view of this matter, that is not indeed so hard to be apprehended; but that has an objection against it, that seems as great a prejudice against it, as the difficulty of 44 AN EXPOSITION OP ART. I. apprehending the other way is against that: it is this — they do hold^ that there are three Minds; that the first of these three, who is from that called the Father, did from all eternity by an emanation of essence beget the Son: and by another emanation, that was from eternity likewise, and was as essential to him as the former, both the first and the second did jointly breathe forth the Spirit; and that these are three distinct Minds, every one being God as much as the other: only the Father is the fountain, and is only self-originated. All this is in a good degree intelligible: but it seems hard to reconcile it both with the idea of unity, which seems to belong to a Being of infinite perfection, and with the many express declarations that are made in the Scriptures concerning the unity of God. Instead of going farther into explanations of that which is certainly very far beyond all our apprehensions, and that ought therefore to be let alone, I shall now consider what declarations are made in the Scriptures concerning this point. The first and the chief is in that charge and commission which our Saviour gave to his Apostles, to go and make disciples to him among all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father^ the Son, and the Holy Ghost, Matt, xxviii. 19. By name is meant either an authority derived to them, in the virtue of which all nations were to be baptized; or that the persons so baptized are dedicated to the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. Either of these senses, as it proves them all to be Persons, so it sets them in an equality in a thing that can only belong to the Divine Nature. Baptism is the receiving men from a state of sin and wrath into a state of favour, and into the rights of the sons of God, and the hopes of eternal happiness, and a calling them by the name of God. These are things that can only be offered and assured to men in the name of the great and eternal God; and therefore, since, without any distinction or note of inequality, they are all three set together as Persons in whose name this is to be done, they must be all three the true God; otherwise it looks like a just prejudice against our Saviour, and his whole gospel, that by his express direction the first entrance to it, which gives the visible and federal right to those great blessings that are offered by it, or their initiation into it, should be in the name of two created beings (if the one can be called properly so much as a being, according to their hypothesis,) and that even in an equality with the Supreme and increated Being. The plainness of this charge, and the great occasion upon which it was given, makes this an argument of such force and evidence, that it may justly determine the whole matter. A second argument is taken from this, that we find St. Paul begins or ends most of his Epistles with a salutation in the form of a wish, which is indeed a prayer, or a benediction, in ART. I. THE XXXIX ARTICLES. 45 tlie name of those who are so invocated; in which he wishes the churches Grace, Mercy, and Peace, from God the Father, and the Lord Jesus Christ f which is an invocation of Christ in con- junction with the Father^ for the greatest blessings of favour and mercy: that is a strange strain^ if he was only a creature; which yet is delivered without any mitigation or softening in the most remarkable parts of his Epistles. This is carried farther in the conclusion of the Second Epistle to the Corinthians ; The Gi'ace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the Love of God, and the Fellowship of the Holy Ghost, be with you, 2 Cor. xiii. 14. It is true, this is expressed as a wish, and not in the nature of a prayer, as the common salutations are: but here three great blessings are wished to them as from three fountains, which imports that they are three different Persons, and yet equal ; for though in order the Father is first, and is generally put first, yet here Christ is named, which seems to be a strange reversing of things, if they are not equal as to their essence or substance. It is true, the second is not named here The Father, as elsewhere, but only God: yet since he is mentioned as distinct from Christ and the Holy Ghost, it must be understood of the Father; for when the Father is named with Christ, sometimes he is called God simply, and sometimes God the Father, This argument, from thethreefold salutation, appears yet stronger in the words in which St. John addresses himself to the seven Churches, in the beginning of the Revelation: Grace and peace from him which is, which was, and which is to come; and from the seven spirits which are before his throne : and from Jesus Christ, Rev. i. 4, 5. By the seven spirits must be meant one or more per- sons, since he wishes or declares grace and peace from them: now either this must be meant of angels, or of the Holy Ghost. There are nowhere prayers made, or blessings given, in the* name of angels : this were indeed a worshipping them ; against which there are express authorities, not only in the other books of the New Testament, but in this book in particular : nor can it be imagined that angels could have been named before Jesus Christ, So then it remains, that seven being a number that imports both variety and perfection, and that was the sacred number among the Jew’s, this is a mystical expression; w’hich is no extraordi- nary thing in a book that is all over mysterious : and it imports one Person, from whom all that variety of gifts, administrations, and operations that were then in the Church, did flow; and this is the Holy Ghost, But as to his being put in order before Christ, as upon the supposition of an equality, the going out of * Rom. i. 7. Rom. xvi. 20. 24. 1 Cor. xvi. 23. 1 Cor. i. 3 . 2 Cor. i. 3. Gal. i. 3. Gal. vi. 18. Eph. i. 2. Eph. vi. 23. Phil. i. 2. Phil. iv. 23. Col. i. 2. 1 Thess. i. 1. 1 Thess. v. 28. 2 Thess. i. 2. 2 Thess. iii. 18. 1 Tim. i. 2. 2 Tim. i. 2. Tit. i. 4. Philem. iii. 25. 2 John i. 3. 4G AN EXPOSITION OF ART. I. the common order is no great matter; so, since there was to come after this a full period that concerned Christ, it might be a natural way of writing to name him last. Against all this it is objected, that the designation that is given to the first of these in a circumlocution that imports eternity, shows that the great God, and not the person of the Father, is. to be meant: but then how could St. John, writing to the churches, wish them grace and peace from the^other two? A few verses after this, the same description of eternal duration is given to Christ, and is a strong proof of his eternity, and, by consequence, of his divinity: so what is brought so soon after as a character of the eternity of the Son, may be also here used to denote the eternal Father. These are the chief places in which the Trinity is mentioned altogether. I do not insist on that contested passage of St. John^s Epistle, 1 John V. 7? there are great doubtings made about it; the main ground of doubting being the silence of the Fathers, who never made use of it in the disputes with the Arians and Macedonians. There are very considerable things urged on the other hand, to support the authority of that passage ; yet I think it is safer to build upon sure and indisputable grounds: so I leave it to be maintained by others who are more fully persuaded of its being authentical. There is no need of it. This matter is capable of a very full proof, whether that passage is believed to be a part of the canon or not. It is no small confirmation of the truth of this doctrine, that we are certain it was universally received over the whole Christian church, long before there was either a Christian prince to support it by his authority, or a council to establish it by consent. And, indeed, the Council of Nice did nothing but declare what was the faith of the Christian church, with the addition only of the word consubstantial : for if all the other words of the Creed settled at Nice are acknowledged to be true, that of the Three Persons being of one substance will follow from thence by a just consequence. We know, both by what Tertullian and Novatian writ, wbat was the faith both of the Roman and the African churches. From Ire- nseus we gather the faith both of the Gallican and the Asiatic churches. And the whole proceedings in the case of Samosatenus, that was the solemnest business that passed while the church was under oppression and persecution, give us the most convincing proof possible, not only of the faith of the Eastern churches at that time, but of their zeal likewise in watching against every breach that was made in so sacred a part of their trust and depositum. These things have been fully opened and enlarged on by others, to whom the reader is referred. I shall only desire him to make this reflection on the state of Christianity at that time: the disputes that were then to be managed with the heathens, against ART. I. THE XXXIX ARTICLES. 47 the deifying or worshipping of men, and those extravagant fables concerning the genealogies of their heroes and gods, must have obliged the Christians rather to have silenced and suppressed the doctrine of the Trinity, than to have owned and published it: so that nothing, but their being assured that it was a necessary and fundamental article of their faith, could have led them to own it in so public a manner; since the advantages that the heathen would have taken from it, must be too visible not to be soon observed. The heathens retorted upon them their doctrine of a man^s being a God, and of God’s having a Son; and every one who engaged in this controversy, framed such answers to these objections as he thought he could best maintain. This, as it gave rise to the errors which some brought into the church, so it furnishes us with a copious proof of the common sense of the Christians of those ages, who all agreed in general to the doctrine, though they had many different, and some very erro- neous ways of explaining it among them. I now come to the special proofs concerning each of the Three Persons; but there being other Articles relating to the Son and the Holy Ghost, the proofs of these two will belong more properly to the explanation of those Articles: therefore, all that belongs to this Article is to prove that the Father is truly God: but that needs not be much insisted on, for there is no dispute about it — none deny that he is God; many think that he is so truly God, that there is no other that can be called God besides him, unless it be in a larger sense of the word: and, therefore, I will here conclude all that seems necessary to be said on this first Article ; on which if I have dwelt the longer, it was because the stating the idea of God right, being the fundamental article of all religion, and the key into every part of it, this was to be done with all the fullness and clearness possible. In a word, to recapitulate a little what ha's been said: the liveliest way of framing an idea of God, is to consider our own souls, which are said to be made after the image of God, An attentive reflection on what we perceive in ourselves, will carry us further than any other thing whatsoever, to form just and true thoughts of God. We perceive what thought is, but with that we do also perceive the advantage of such an easy thought as arises out of a sensation, such as seeing or hearing, which gives us no trouble. We think without any trouble of many of the objects that we see all at once, or so near all at once, that the progression from one object to another is scarce perceptible: but the labour of study and of pursuing consequences wearies us ; though the pleasure or the vanity of having found them out com- pensates for the pain they gave us, and sets men on to new inqui- ries. We perceive in ourselves a love of truth, and a vexation when we see. we are in error, or are in the dark; and we feel 48 AN EXPOSITION OF ART. I. that we act the most perfectly, when we act upon the clearest views of truth, and in the strictest pursuance of it; and the more present and regular, the more calm and steady that our thoughts of all things are, that lie in our compass to know, present, past, or to come, we do plainly perceive that we do thereby become perfecter and happier beings. Now, out of all this, we can easily rise up in our thoughts to an idea of a Mind that sees all things by a clear and full intuition, without the possibility of being mistaken; and that ever acts in that light, upon the surest prospect, and with the perfectest reason ; and that does, therefore, always rejoice in everything it does, and has a constant perception of all truth ever present to it. This idea does so genuinely arise from what we perceive both of the perfections and the imperfec- tions of our own minds, that a very little reflection will help us to form it to a very high degree. The perception also that we have of goodness, of a desire to make others good, and of the pleasure of effecting it — of the joy of making any one wiser or better, of making any one^s life easy, and of raising his mind higher — will also help us in the forming of our ideas of God. But in this we meet with much difficulty and disappointment. So this leads us to apprehend, how diffu- sive of itself infinite goodness must needs be ; and what is the eternal joy that infinite love has, in bringing so many to that exalted state of endless happiness. We do also feel a power issuing from us by a thought, that sets our bodies in motion: the varieties in our thoughts create a vast variety in the state of our bodies ; but with this, as that power is limited to our own bodies, so it is often checked by disorders in them, and the soul suffers a great deal from those painful sensations that its union with the body subjects it to. From hence we can easily appre- hend how the Supreme Mind can, by a thought, set matter into what motions it will, all matter being constantly subject to such impressions as the acts of the Divine Mind give it. This absolute dominion over all matter makes it to move, and shapes it accord- ing to the acts of that Mind ; and matter has no power, by any irregularity it falls into, to resist those impressions which do immediately command and govern it; nor can it throw any uneasy sensations into that perfect Being. This conduces also to give us a distinct idea of miracles. All matter is uniform ; and it is only the variety of its motions and texture, that makes all the variety that is in the world. Now, as the acts of the Eternal Mind gave matter its first motion, and put it into that course that we do now call the course of nature; so another act of the same Mind can either suspend, stop, or change that course at pleasure, as he who throws a bowl may stop it in its course, or throw it back if he will ; this being only the altering that impulse which himself gave : so if ART. THE XXXIX ARTICLES. 40 one act of the Infinite Mind puts things in a regular course, another act interposed may change that at pleasure. And thus, with relation to God, miracles are no more difficult than any other act of Providence : they are only more amazing to us, because they are less ordinary, and go out of the common and regular course of things. By all this it appears, how far the observation of what we perceive concerning ourselves may carry us to form livelier and clearer thoughts of God. So much may suffice upon the First Article. ARTICLE II. OF THE WORD OR SON OF GOD, WHICH WAS MADE VERY MAN. The So7i which is the Word of the Father, begotten from Ever- lasting of the Father; the very and Eternal God, of one Substance with the Father, took Man’s Nature in the Womb of the Blessed Virgin of her Substance ; so that two whole and perfect Natures, that is, the Godhead and Manhood, were joined together in one Person, never to be divided: whereof is one Christ, very God and very Man ; who truly suffered, was dead and buried, to reconcile his Father to us, and to be a Sacrifice not only for Original Guilt, but also for actual Sins of Men. There are in this Article five heads to be explained. 1. That the Son or Word is of the same substance with the Father, begotten of him from all eternity. 2. That he took maffis nature upon him in the womb of the blessed Virgin, and of her substance. 3. That the two natures of the Godhead and Manhood, both still perfect, were in him joined in one person never to be divided. 4. That Christ truly suffered, was crucified, dead, and buried. 5. That he was our sacrifice to reconcile the Father to us; and that not only for original guilt, but for actual sins. The first of these leads me to prosecute what was begun in the former Article; and to prove, that the Son, or Woi'd, was from all eternity begotten of the same substance with the Father. It is here to be noted, that Christ is in two respects the Son, and the only begotten Son of God. The one is, as he was man ; the miraculous overshadowing of the blessed Virgin by the Holy Ghost, having, without the ordinary course of nature, formed the first beginnings of Christ’s human body in the womb of the D 50 AN EXPOSITION OF ART. II. Virgin. Thus that miracle being instead of a natural begetting, he may in that respect be called the begotten^ and the only begotten Son of God, The other sense is, that the Word, or the Divine Person, was in and of the substance of the Father, and so was truly God. It is also to be considered, that by the word one substance is to be understood, that this second Person is not a creature of a pure and excellent nature, like God, holy and perfect, as we are called to be; but is truly God as the Father is. Begetting is a term that naturally signifies the relation between the Father and the Son; but what it strictly signifies here, is not possible for us to understand till we comprehend this whole matter : nor can we be able to assign a reason why the emanation of the Son, and not that of the Holy Ghost like- wise, is called begetting. In this we use the Scripture terms, but must confess we cannot frame a distinct apprehension of that which is so far above us. This begetting was from all eter- nity': if it had been in time, the Son and Holy Ghost must have been creatures ; but if they are truly God, they must be eternal, and not produced by having a being given them, but educed of a substance that was eternal, and from which they did eternally spring. All these are the natural consequences of the main Article that is now to be proved ; and when it is once proved clearly from Scripture, these do follow by a natural and neces- sary deduction. The first and great proof of this is taken from the words with which St. John begins his Gospel. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was .God; the same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him; and without him was not anything made that was made, John i. 1, 2, 3. Here it is to be observed, that these words are set down here, before St. John comes to speak of ChrisPs being made in our nature : this passage belongs to another precedent being that he had. The beginning also here is set to import, that it was before creation or time. Now a duration before time is eternal : so tins beginning can be no other than that duration which was before all things that were made. It is also plainly said, over and over again, that all things were made by this Word. A power to create must be infinite ; for it is certain, that a power which can give being is without bounds. And although the word make may seem capable of a larger sense, yet, as in other places of the New Testament, the stricter word create is used and applied to Christ as the Maker of all things in heaven or earth, visible and invisible, so the word make is used through the Old Testament for create; so that God^s making the heaven and the earth is the character frequently given of him to distinguish him from idols and false gods. And of this Word it is likewise said, tliat he was with God, and was ART. II. TIIK XXXIX ARTICLES. 51 God. These words seem very plain, and the place where they are put by St. John, in the front of his Gospel, as it were an inscription upon it, or an introduction to it, makes it very evident that he, who of all the writers of the New Testament has the greatest plainness and simplicity of style, would not have put words here, such as were not to be understood in a plain and literal signification, without any key to lead us to any other sense of them. This had been to lay a stone of stumbling in the very threshold ; particularly to the Jews, who were apt to cavil at Christianity, and were particularly jealous of everything that savoured of idolatry, or of the plurality of Gods. And upon this occasion I desire one thing to be observed, with relation to all those subtile expositions which those who oppose this doctrine put upon many of those places by which we prove it; that they represent the Apostles as magnifying Christ in words that at first sound seem to import his being the true God, and yet they hold, that in all these they had another sense, and a reserve of some other interpretation, of which their words were capable. But can this be thought fair dealing? Does it look like honest men to write thus; not to say, men inspired in what they preached and writ, and not rather like impostors; to use so many sublime and lofty expressions concerning Christ as God, if all these must be taken down to so low a sense as to signify only that he was miraculously formed, and endued with an extraordinary power of miracles, and an authority to deliver a new religion to the world; and that he was, in con- sideration of his exemplary death, which he underwent so patiently, raised up from the grave, and had divine honours conferred upon him? In such an hypothesis as this, the world going in so naturally to the excessive magnifying, and even the deifying of wonderful men, it had been necessary to have prevented any such mistakes, and to have guarded against the belief of them, rather than to have used a continued strain of expressions that seem to carry men violently into them, and that can hardly, nay, very hardly, be softened, by all the skill of critics, to bear any other sense. It is to be considered further, that when St. John writ his Gospel, there were three sorts of men particularly to be considered: — the Jews, w’ho could bear nothing that savoured of idolatry; so no stumbling-block was to be laid in their way, to give them deeper prejudices against Christianity. Next to these were the Gentiles; who having worshipped a variety of gods, were not to be indulged in any- thing that might seem to favour their polytheism. In fact, we find particular caution used in the New Testament against the worshipping angels or saints. How can it, therefore, be imagined that words would have been used, that, in the plain signification that did arise out of the first hearing of them. 52 AN EXPOSITION OF ART. 1 1. imported that a man was God, if this had not been strictly true? The Apostles ought, and must have used a particular care to have avoided all such expressions, if they had not been literally true. The third sort of men, in St. John^s time, were those of whom intimation is frequently given through all the Epistles, who were then endeavouring to corrupt the purity of the Christian doctrine, and to accommodate it so, both to the Jew and to the Gentile, as to avoid the cross and persecution upon the account of it. Church history, and the earliest writers after St. John, assure us, that Ebion and Cerinthus denied the divinity of Christ, and asserted that he was a mere man. Controversy natu- rally carries men to speak exactly; and among human writers, those who let things fall more carelessly from their pens, when they apprehend no danger or difficulty, are more correct, both in their thoughts and in their expressions, when things are disputed: therefore, if we should have no other regard to St. John, but as an ordinary, cautious, and careful man, we must believe that he weighed all his words in that point which was then the matter in question; and to clear- which, we have good ground to believe, both from the testimony of ancient writers, and from the method that he pursues quite through it all, that he writ his Gospel; and that therefore every part of it, but this begin- ning of it more signally, was writ, and is to be understood in the sense which the words naturally import — that the Word tuhich took flesh, and assumed the human nature, had a being before the worlds were made, and that this Word loas God, and made the world. Another eminent proof of this is in St. Paul’s Epistle to the Philippians; in which, when he is exhorting Christians to humility, he gives an argument for it from our Saviour’s example: Phil. ii. 6 — 11. He begins with the dignity of his Person, expressed thus — that he tvas in the form of God, and that he thought it not robbery to be equal with God: then his humiliation comes, that he made himself of no regulation, but took on him the form of a servant (the same word with that used in the former verse:) after which follows his exaltation, and a name or authority above every name or authority is said to be given him; so that all in heaven, earth, and under the earth (which seems to import angels, men, and devils,) should bow at his name, and confess that he is the Lord. Now in this progress that is made in these words, it is plain, that the dignity of Christ’s Person is represented as antecedent both to his humiliation and to his exaltation. It was that which put the value on his humiliation, as his humiliation was rewarded by his exaltation. This dignity is expressed first, that he was in the form of God before he humbled himself: he was certainly in the form of a servant, that is, really a servant, as other scr- ART. II. THE XXXIX ARTICLES. 53 vants are; he was obedient to his parents; he was under tlie authority both of the Romans, of Herod, and of the Sanhedrim: therefore, since his being really a servant is expressed by his being in the form of a servant, his being in the form of God must also import that he was truly God. But the following words, that he thought it not rohherij to he equal, or be held equal (for so the word may be rendered) with God, carry such a natu- ral signification of his being neither a made nor subordinate God, and that his divinity is neither precarious nor by concession, that fuller words cannot be devised for expressing an entire equality. Those who deny this are aware of it, and, therefore, they have put another sense on the words, in the form of God. They think, that they signify his appearing in the world, as one sent in the name of God, representing him, working miracles, and delivering a law in his name: and the words rendered, he thought it not robbery, they render, he did not catch at, or vehe- mently desire to be held in equal honour with God. And some authorities are found in eloquent Greek authors, who use the words rendered he thought it not robbery, in a figurative sense, for the earnestness of desire, or the pursuing after a thing gree- dily, as robbers do for their prey. This rendering represents St. Paul as treating so sacred a point in the figures of a high and seldom used rhetoric, which one would think ought to have been expressed more exactly. But if even this sense is allowed, it will make a strange period, and a very odd sort of an argument to enforce humility upon us, because Christ, though working miracles, did not desire, or snatch at divine adorations, in an equality with God. The sin of Lucifer, and the cause of his fall, is commonly believed to be his desire to be equal to God; and yet this seems to be such an extravagant piece of pride, that it is scarce possible to think that even the sublimest of created beings should be capable of it. To be next to God, seems to be the utmost height to which even the diabolical pride could aspire: so that here, by the sense which the Socinians put on those words, they will import, that we are persuaded to be humble from the example of Christ, who did not affect an equality with God. The bare repeating of this seems so fully to expose and overthrow it, that I think it is not necessary to say more upon this place. The next head of proof is made up of more particulars. All the names, the operations, and even the attributes of God, are in full and plain words given to Christ. He is called God; his blood is said to be the blood of God; God is said to have laid down his life for us; Christ is called the t7'ue God, the great God, the Lord of glory, the King of kings, and the Lord of lords (Acts XX. 28; John iii. 16; v. 20; Titus ii. 13; James ii. 1; Rev. i. 8; xix. 16;) and more particularly the name Jehovah is ascribed 54 AN EXPOSITION OF ART. II. to him in the same word in which the LXX interpreters had translated it throughout the whole Old Testament. So that this constant uniformity of style between the Greek of the New^ and that translation of the Old Testament which was then received, and was of great authority among the Jews, and was yet of more authority among the first Christians, is an argument that carries such a weight with it, that this alone may serve to determine the matter. The creating, the preserving, and the governing of all things, is also ascribed to Christ in a variety of places, but most remarkably when it is said, that hy him ivere all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible; whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by him, and for him: and he is before all things, and by him all things consist. He is said to have hioivn ivhat was in man, to have known men^s secret thoughts, and to have known all things: that as the Father was knoivn of none but of the Son; so none knew the Son but the Father. He pardons sin, seiids the Spirit, gives grace and eternal life; and he shall raise the dead at the last day (Col. i. 16, 17; John ii. 25; Matt , xi. 27j ix. 6; John xv. 26; xiv. 13; v. 25, 26; vi. 39, 40.) When all these things are laid together in that variety of expressions in which they lie scattered in the New Testament, it is not possible to retain any reverence for those books, if we imagine that they are writ in a style so full of approaches to the deifying of a mere man, that without a very critical studying of languages and phrases, it is not possible to understand them otherwise. Idolatry, and a plurality of gods, seem to be the main things that the Scriptures warn us against; and yet there is a pursued thread of passages and discourses that do naturally lead a man to think that Christ is the true God, who yet, accord- ing to these men, only acted in his name, and has now a high honour put on him by him. This carries me to another argument to prove that the Word that was made flesh was truly God. Nothing but the true God can be the proper object of adoration. This is one of those truths that seems almost so evident, that it needs not to be proved. Adoration is the humble prostration of ourselves before God, in acts that own our dependence upon him, both for our being, and for all the blessings that we do either enjoy or hope for, and also in earnest prayers to him for the continuance of these to us. This is testified by such outward gestures and actions as are most proper to express our humility and submis- sion to God. All this has so clear and so inseparable a relation to the only true God as its proper object, that it is scarce pos- sible to apprehend how it should be separated from him, and given to any other. And as this seems evident from the nature of things, so it is not possible to imagine how anything could ART. II. THE XXXIX articles. 55 have been prohibited in more express and positive, and in more frequently repeated words, and longer reasonings, than the offer- ing of divine worship, or any part of it, to creatures. The chief design of the Mosaical religion was to banish all idolatry and polytheism out of the minds of the Jews, and to possess them with the idea of one God, and of one object of worship. The reasons upon which those prohibitions are founded are univer- sal; which are, the unity of God’s essence, and his jealousy in not giving his honour to another. It is not said, that they should not worship any as God, till they had a precept or declaration for it: there is no reserve for any such time; but they are plainly forbid to worship any but the great God, because he was one^ and was jealous of his glory. The New Testament is writ in the same strain: Christ, when tempted of the Devil, answered. Thou shalt tvorship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve, Matt. iv. 10. The Apostles charged all idolaters to forsake those idols, and to serve the living God, Acts xiv. 15; xvii. 29; 1 Thess. i. 9. The Angel refused St. John’s worship, commanding him to worship God, Rev. xix. 10. The Christian faith does in every particular raise the ideas of God and of religion to a much greater purity and sublimity than the Mosaical dispensation had done; so it is not to be imagined, that in the chief design of revealed religion, which was the bringing men from idolatry to the wor- ship of one God, it should make such a breach, and extend it to a creature. All this seems fully to prove the first proposition of this argument, that God is the only proper object of adoration. The next is, that Christ is proposed in the New Testament as the object of divine worship. I do not, in proof of this, urge the instances of those who fell down at Christ’s feet and wor- shipped him, "while he was on earth; for it may be well answered to that, that a prophet was worshipped with the civil respect of falling down before him, among the Jews; as appears in the history of Elijah and Elisha: nor does it appear that those who worshipped Christ had any apprehension of his being God; they only considered him as the Messias, or as some eminent prophet. But the mention that St. Luke (xxiv. 52) makes in his Gospel, of the disciples worshipping Christ at his ascension, comes more home to this matter. All those salutations in the beginning and conclusion of the Epistles, in which grace, mercy, and peace, are wished from God the Father, and the Lord Jesus Christ, are implied invocations of him. It is also plain, that it was to him that St. Paul prayed (2 Cor. xii. 8, 9,) when he was under the temptations of the Devil, as they are commonly understood. Every knee must bow to him: the angels of God worship him, Phil. ii. 10;' Heb. i. 5. All the hosts in heaven are represented in St. John’s visions (Rev. v. 8, to the end,) as falling down prostrate before him, and worshipping him as they 56 AN EXPOSITION OF ART. II. worship the Father, He is proposed as the object of our faith, hope, and love; as the Person whom we are to obey, to pray to, and to praise; so that every act of worship, both external and internal, is directed to him as to its proper object. Butr ^ the instance, of all others, that is the clearest in this point, is in' I the last words of St. Stephen, who was the first martyr, and 1 whose martyrdom is so particularly related by St. Luke: he’ I then, in his last minutes, saw Christ at the right hand of God; ^ and in his last breath he worshipped him in two short prayers,^ that are upon the matter the same with those in which our blessed Saviour worshipped his Father on the cross; Lord Jesusj receive my spirit; Lord, lay not this sin to their charge. Acts vii.i ^59, 60. From this it seems very evident, that if Christ was not the true God, and equal to the Father, then this proto- martyr died in two acts that seem not only idolatrous but also blasphemous; since he worshipped Christ in the same acts in which Christ had worshipped his Father. It is certain, from all this deduction of particulars, that his human nature cannot be worshipped; therefore there must be another nature in him, to which divine worship is due, and on the account of which he is to be worshipped. It is plain, that when this religion was first published, toge- ther with these duties in it as a part of it, the Jews, though implacably set against it, yet never accused it of idolatry; though that charge of all others had served their purposes the best, who intended to blacken and blast it. Nothing would have been so well heard, and so easily apprehended as a just prejudice against it, as this. The argument would have appeared as strong as it was plain: and as the Jews could not be igno- rant of the acts of the Christian worship, when so many fell back to them from it, who were offended at other parts of it; so they had the books, in which it was contained, in their hands. Notwithstanding all which, we have all possible reason to believe that this objection against it was never made by any of them in the first age of Christianity: upon all which I say, it is not to be imagined that they could have been silent on this head, if a mere man had been thus proposed among the Chris- tians as the object of divine worship. The silence of the Apos- tles, in not mentioning nor answering this, is such a proof of the silence of the Jews, that it would indeed disparage all their writings if we could think, that, while they mentioned and answered the other prejudices of the Jews, which in comparison to this are small and inconsiderable matters, they should have passed over this, which must have been the greatest and the plau- siblest of them all, if it was one at all. Therefore, as the silence of the Apostles is a clear proof that the Jews were silent also, jind did not object this; and since their silence could neither ART. II. THE XXXIX ARTICLES. 57 flow from their ignorance, nor their undervaluing of this reli- gion; it seems to be certain, that the first opening of the Chris- tian doctrine did not carry anything in it that could be called the worshipping of a creature. It follows from hence, that the Jews must have understood this part of our religion in such a manner as agreed with their former ideas. So we must examine these: they had this settled among them, that God dwelt in the cloud of glory, and that, by virtue of that inhabitation, divine worship was paid to God as dwelling in the cloud; that it was called God^ God’s Throne, his Holiness, his Face, and the Light of his Countenance : they went up to the temple to worship God, as dwelling there bodily, that is substantially; so bodily sometimes signifies, or in a corporeal appearance. This seems to have been a Person that was truly God, and yet was distinct from that which appeared and spake to Moses; for this seems to be the importance of these words: Behold, I send an Angel before thee to keep thee in the way, and to bring thee to the place which I have prepared: beware of him, and obey his voice, provoke him not; for he will not pardon your transgres- sions; for my name is in him, Exod. xxiii. 20. These words do plainly import a person to whom they belong; and yet they are a pitch far above the angelical dignity. So that Angel must here be understood, in a large sense, for one sent of God; and it can admit of no sense so properly, as, that the Eternal Word, which dwelt afterwards in the man Christ Jesus, dwelt then in that cloud of glory. It was also one of the prophecies received by the Jews, that the glory of the second temple was to exceed the glory of the first. Hag. ii. 9. The chief character of the glory of the first was that inhabitation of the divine presence among them: from hence it follows, that such an inhabitation of God in a creature, by which that creature was not only called God, but that adoration was due to it upon that account, was a notion that could not have scandalized the Jews, and was indeed the only notion that agreed with tlieir former ideas, and that could have been received by them without difficulty or opposi- tion. This is a strong inducement to believe, that this great article of our religion was at that time delivered and understood in that sense. If the Bon or Word is truly God, he must be from all eternity, and must also be of the same substance with the Father, other- wise he could not be God; since a God of another substance, or of another duration, is a contradiction. The last argument that I shall offer is taken from the begin- ning of the Epistle to the Hebrews: to the apprehending the force of which, this must be premised, that all those, who acknowledge that Christ ought to be honoured and worshipped as the Father, must say that this is due to him either because * ■ A 4 f /Vu h EXPOSITION OF ART. II. 0 lie is^ trul y God, or be cause Ji£ i s a person of such a high an d > A ^ exalted di^mty^ that God has, upon the consideration of that . U ^ AS j^dB To be so~worshipped . Now this second notion MA-e^s A ^ fall under another~distinction : that either he was of a ; /ji very sublime order by nature, o^ some angelical being, that, ^ ^ ? though he was created, yet had this high privilege bestowed A Jj 2) A - upon him; ^ that he was a prophet illumin^ited and autho- C‘y^ rized in so particular a manner beyond all others, that, out of a regard to that, he was exalted to this honour of being to be worshipped. One of these must be chosen by all who do not believe him to be truly God: and, indeed, one of these was the Arian, as the other is the Socinian hypothesis. For how much soever the Arians might exalt him in words, yet, if they believed to be a creature made in time, so that once he was not, all \i ;' they said of him can amount to no more but that he was a creature of a spiritual nature; and this is plainly the notion which the Scripture gives us of angels. Artemon, Samosatenus, Photinus, and the Socinians in our days, consider our Saviour So- as a great prophet and lawgiver : and into this they resolve his - dignity. In opposition to both these, that Epistle begins with expressions that are the more severe, beca use they are negative. which are to be understood mor e- ^rictly than positive words. /Ye^ Christ is not only preferred to angels, but is set in opposition to them, as one of another order of beings : — Made so much better any els, as he hath by inheritance obtained a more excellent name than they. For unto which of the angels said he at any time, Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten thee? When s he bring eth in the first-begotten into the world, he saith. And let f ^ ' all the angels of God worship him. Of the angels he saith, Who c~ ifcUiU. tatyufx ' p/yo - pltc cJ'iryti 7 iT CxC. G2 AN EXPOSITION OF art. II. When, therefore, this whole set of phrases, in its utmost extent, is very often, and in a great variety, applied to the death of Christ, it is not possible for us to preserve any reverence for the New Testament, or the writers of it, so far as to think them even honest men, not to say inspired men, if we can imagine, that, in so sacred and important a matter, they could exceed so much as to represent that to be our sacrifice which is not truly so. This is a point which will not bear figures and amplifica- tions; it must be treated of strictly, and with a just exactness of expression. Christ is called the Lamb of God that taketh aivay the sins of the world; he is said, to have borne our sins on his own body ; to have been made sin for us: it is said, that he gave his life a ransom for many; that he was the propitiation for the sins of the whole world; and that we have redemption through his bloody even the remission of our sins. It is said, that he hath reconciled us to his Father in his cross, and in the body of his flesh through death; that he by his own blood entered in once into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption for us; that once in the end of the world hath he appeared to put away sin, by the sacrifice of himself; that he was once offered to bear the sins of many; that we are sanctifled by the offering of the body of Christ once for all: and that, after he had offered one sacriflce for sin, he sat down for ever on the right hand of God. It is said, that we enter into the holiest by the blood of Christ, that is the blood of the neiv covenant, by which we are sanctifled: that he hath sanctifled the pieople with his own blood; and was the great Shepherd of his people, through the blood of the ever- lasting covenant : that we are redeemed with the precious blood of Christ, as of a Lamb without blemish and without spot; and that Christ suffered once for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God.^' In these, and in a great many more passages that lie spread in all the parts of the New Testament, it is as plain as words can make anything, that the death of Christ is proposed to us as our sacrifice and reconciliation, our atonement and redemption. So it is not possible for any man that considers all this to imagine, that Christ’s death v^as only a confirmation of his gospel, a pattern of a holy and patient suf- fering of death, and a necessary preparation to his resurrection; by which he gave us a clear proof of a resurrection, and, by con- sequence, of eternal life, as by his doctrine he had showed us the way to it. By this, all the high commendations of his death amount only to this, that he by dying has given a vast credit and authority to his gospel, which was the powerfullest mean possible to redeem us from sin, and to reconcile us to God. But * John i. 29. 1 Pet. ii. 24. 2 Cor. v. 21. Matt. xx. 28. Rom. iii. 25. 1 John ii. 2. Eph. i. 7. Col. i. 14. 20, 21, 22. Heb. ix. 1 1 , 12, 10, 14. 2G. 28; x. 10. 12. 14. 19.29; xiii. 12. 20. I Pet. i. 19; ii. 24; iii. 18. ART. II. THE XXX IX ARTICLES. this is so contrary to the whole design of the New Testament, and to the true importance of that great variety of phrases in which this matter is set out, that, at this rate of expounding Scripture, we can never know what we may build upon, espe- cially when the great importance of this thing, and of our having right notions concerning it, is well considered. St. Paul does, in his Epistle to the Romans, state an opposition between the death of Christ and the sin of Adam; the ill effects of the one being removed by the other: but he plainly carries the death of Christ much further than that it had only healed the wound that was given by Adam’s sin; for as the judgment teas of one {sin) to condemnation^ the free gift is of many offences to justification^ Rom. V. 12, to the end. But in the other places of the New Testament, Christ’s death is set forth so fully as a propitiation for the sins of the whole world, that it is a very false way of argu- ing to infer, that because in one place that is set in opposition to Adam’s sin, that therefore the virtue of it was to go no farther than to take away that sin. It has indeed removed that, but it has done a great deal more besides. Thus it is plain, that Christ’s death was our sacrifice: the meaning of which is this, that God, intending to reconcile the world to himself, and to encourage sinners to repent and turn to him, thought fit to offer the pardon of sin, together with the other blessings of his gospel, in such a way as should demon- strate both the guilt of sin and his hatred of it; and yet, with that, his love of sinners, and his compassion towards them. A free pardon without a sacrifice had not been so agreeable, neither to the majesty of the great Governor of the world nor the autho- rity of his laws, nor so proper a method to oblige men to that strictness and holiness of life that he designed to bring them to; and therefore he thought fit to offer his pardon, and those other blessings, through a Mediator, who w'as to deliver to the world this new and holy rule of life, and to confirm it by his own unblemished life: and, in conclusion, when the rage of wicked men, who hated him for the holiness both of his life and of his doctrine, did work them up into such a fury as to pursue him to a most violent and ignominious death, he, in compliance with the secret design of his Father, did not only go through that dismal series of sufferings, with the most entire resignation to his Father’s will, and with the highest charity possible towards those who were his most unjust and malicious murderers; but he at the same time underwent great agonies in his mind, Avhich struck him with such an amazement and sorrow even to the death, that upon it he did sweat great drops of blood, and on the cross he felt a withdrawing of those comforts that till then had ever supported him, when he cried out. My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? It is not easy for us to apprehend 64 AN EXPOSITION OF ART. II. in what that agony consisted; for we understand only the agonies of pain, or of conscience : which last arise out of the horror of guilt, or the apprehension of the wrath of God. It is indeed certain, that he who had no sin could have no such horror in him; and yet it is as certain, that he could not be put into such an agony only through the apprehension and fear of that violent death which he was to suffer next day: therefore we ought to conclude, that there was an inward suffering in his mind, as well as an outward visible one in his body. We cannot distinctly apprehend what that was, since he was sure both of his own spotless innocence, and of his Father’s unchangeable love to him: we can only imagine a vast sense of the heinous- ness of sin, and a deep indignation at the dishonour done to God by it; a melting apprehension of the corruption and mise- ries of mankind by reason of sin, together with a never before felt withdrawing of those consolations that had always filled his soul. But what might be further in his agony, and in his last dereliction, we cannot distinctly apprehend; only this we per- ceive, that our minds are capable of great pain as well as our bodies are. Deep horror, with an inconsolable sharpness of thought, is a very intolerable thing. Notwithstanding the bodily or substantial indwelling of the fullness of the Godhead in him, yet he was capable of feeling vast pain in his body: so that he might become a complete sacrifice, and that we might have from his sufferings a very full and amazing apprehension of the guilt of sin, all those emanations of joy, with which the indwelling of the eternal Word had ever till then filled his soul, might then, when he needed them most, be quite withdrawn, and he be left merely to the firmness of his faith, to his patient resignation to the will of his heavenly Father, and to his willing readiness of drinking up that cup which his Father had put in his hand to drink. There remains but one thing to be remembered here, though it will come to be more especially explained when other Articles are to be opened; which is, that this reconciliation, which is ^ jYiade by the death of Christ, between God and man, is not absolute and without conditions. He has established the cove- I nant, and has performed. all that was incumbent on him, as both - the priest and the sacrifice, to do and to suffer; and he offers this to the world, that it may be closed with by them on the terms on which it is proposed; and if they do not accept of it upon these conditions, and perform what is enjoined them, they ^ can have no share in it. AU1\ HI. TIIK XXXIX AIITICLKS. C>:i ARTICLE III. OF THE GOING DOWN OF CHRIST INTO HELL. As Ch7'ist died fo7' us and was buried, so also is it to be believed, that he went down into Hell. This was much fuller when the Articles were first prepared and published in King Edward^s reign; for these words were added to it. That the body of Christ lay in the grave until his resurrec- tion; but his spirit, which he gave up, was with the spirits which were detained in prison, or in hell, and preached to them, as the place in St. Peter testifieth. Thus a determined sense was put upon this Article, which is now left more at large, and is con- ceived in words of a more general signification. In order to the explaining this, it is to be premised, that the Article in the Creed, of ChrisCs descent into hell, is mentioned by no writer before Ruffin, who in the beginning of the fifth century does indeed speak of it; but he tells us, that it was neither in the symbol of the Roman, nor of the Oriental Churches; and that he found it in the symbol of his own Church at Aquileia. But as there was no other Article in that symbol that related to ChrisCs burial; so the words which he gives us, descendit ad inferna, he descended to the lower parts, do very naturally signify burial, according to these words of St. Paul, He ascended; ivhat is it, but that he also descended first to the lower parts of the earth? Eph. iv. 9. And Ruffin himself understood these words in that sense. None of the Fathers in the first ages, neither Irenseus, Tertul- lian, Clemens, nor Origen, in the short abstracts that they give us of the Christian faith, mention anything like this : and in all that great variety of Creeds that was proposed by the many councils that met in the fourth century, this is not in any one of them, except in that which was agreed to at Arimini, and was pretended, though falsely, to have been made at Sirmium: in that it is set down in a Greek word that does exactly answer Ruffin^s Inferna, KaTax66vLa\ and it stood there instead of buried. When it was put in the Creed that carries Athanasiuses name, though made in the sixth or seventh century, the word was changed to 'aS?;?, or Hell: but yet it seems to have been under- stood to signify ChrisCs burial, there being no other word put for it in that Creed. Afterwards it was put into the symbol of the Western Church: that was done at first in the words in which Ruffin had expressed it, as appears by some ancient copies E 66 AN EXPOSITION OF ART. III. of Creeds which ^fe published by the great Primate Usher. We are next to consider, what the importance of these words in themselves is; for it is plain that the use of them in the Creed is not very ancient nor universal. We have a most unquestion- able authority for this, that our Saviour’s soul was in hell. In the Acts of the Apostles, St. Peter, in the first sermon that was preached after the wonderful effusion of the Spirit at Pentecost, applies those words of David, concerning God’s not leaving his soul in hell, nor suffering his Holy One to see corruption, to the resurrection of Christ. Now since, in the composition of a man, there is a body and a spirit, and since it is plain that the raising of Christ on the third day was before that his body in the course of nature was corrupted, the other branch seems to relate to his soul; though it is not to be denied, but that in the Old Testament soul in some places stands for a dead body. But if that were the sense of the word, there would be no opposition in the two parts of this period; the one will be only a redundant repetition of the other; therefore it is much more natural to think, that this other branch, concerning Christ’s soul being left in hell, must relate to that which we commonly understand by soul. If then his soul was not to be left in hell, then from thence it plainly follows, that once it was in hell, and by consequence that Christ’s soul descended into hell. Some very modern writers have thought, that this is to be understood figuratively of the wrath of God due for sin, which Christ bore in his soul, besides the torments that he suffered in his body; and they think, that these are here mentioned by themselves, after the enumeration of the several steps of his bodily sufferings; and this being equal to the torments of hell, as it is that which delivers us from them, might, in a large way of expression, be called a descending into hell. But as neither the word descend, nor hell, are to be found in any other place of Scripture in this sense, nor in any of the ancients, among whom the signification of this phrase is more likely to be found than among moderns; so this being put after buried, it plainly shows that it belongs to a period subsequent to his burial: there is therefore no regard to be had to this notion. Others have thought, that by Christ’s descent into hell is to be understood, his continuing in the state of the dead for some time; but there is no ground for this conceit neither, these words being to be found in no author in that signification. Many of the Fathers thought, that Christ’s soul went locally into hell, and preached to some of the spirits there in prison; that there he triumphed over Satan, and spoiled him (1 Pet. iii. 19,) and carried some souls with him into glory. But the account that the Scriptures give us of the exaltation of Christ, begins it always at his resurrection: nor can it be imagined, that so AUT, in. THE XXXIX ARTICLES. G7 memorable a transaction as this would have been passed over by the three first Evangelists, and least of all by St. John, who, coming after the rest, and designing to supply what was wanting in them, and intending particularly to magnify the glory of Christ, could not have passed over so wonderful an instance of it. We have no reason to think, that such a matter would have been only insinuated in general words, and not have been plainly related. The triumph of Christ over principalities and powers is ascribed by St. Paul to his cross, and was the effect and result of his death. The place of St. Peter seems to relate to the preaching to the Gentile world, by virtue of that inspiration that was derived from Christ; which was therefore called his Spirit: and the spirits in prison were the Gentiles, who were shut up in idolatry as in prison, and so were under the power of the Prince of the power of the air (Eph. ii. 2,) who is called the God of this world (2 Cor. iv. 4;) that is, of the Gentile world; it being one of the ends for which Christ was anointed of his Father, to open the prisons to them that were hound, Isa. Ixi. 1. So then, though there is no harm in this opinion, yet it not being founded on any part of the history of the Gospel, and it being supported only by passages that may well bear another sense, we may lay it aside, notwithstanding the reverence we bear to those that asserted it; and that the rather, because the first Fathers that were next the source say nothing of it. Another conceit has had a great course among some of the latest Fathers and the schoolmen: they have fancied that there was a place to which they have given a peculiar name. Limbus Patrum, a sort of a partition in hell, where ail the good men of the old dispensation, that had died before Christ, were detained ; and they hold that our Saviour went thither, and emptied that place, carrying all the souls that were in it with him into heaven. Of this the Scriptures say nothing; not a word either of the patriarchs going thither, or of Christ’s delivering them out of it; and though there are not in the Old Testament express declara- tions and promises made concerning a future state, Christ having brought life and immortality to light through his gospel; yet all the hints given of it show that they looked for an immediate admission to blessedness after death. So David, Thou wilt shew me the path of life: in thy presence is fullness of joy, and at thy right hand are pleasures for evermore. Thou shall guide me here by thy counsel, and afterwards receive me to glory; Psal. xvi. 11; Acts ii. 31; Psal. Ixxiii. 24. Isaiah (Ivii. 2) says that the righteous when they die enter into peace. In the New Testament there is not a hint given of this; for though some passages may seem to favour Christ’s delivering some souls out of hell, yet there is nothing that by any management can be brought to look this way. 68 AN EXPOSITION OF ART. IV. There is another sense of which these words {descended into heir\ are capable: by hell may be meant the invisible place See Bishop which departed souls are carried after death : for thTcr^ed” Greek word so rendered does now com- monly stand for the place of the damned, and for many ages has been so understood; yet at the time of writing the New Testament, it was among Greek authors used indiffer- ently for the place of all departed souls, whether good or bad; and by it were meant the invisible regions where those spirits were lodged. So if these words are taken in this large sense, we have in them a clear and literal account of our Saviour^s soul descending into hell: it imports, that he was not only dead in a more common acceptation, as it is usual to say a man is dead when there appear no signs of life in him; and that he was not as in a deep ecstasy or fit that seemed death, but that he was truly* dead: that his soul was neither in his body, nor hovering about it, ascending and descending upon it, as some of the Jews fancied souls did for some time after death; but that his soul was really moved out of his body, and carried to those unseen regions of departed spirits, among whom it continued till his resurrection. That the regions of the blessed were known then to the Jews by the name of Paradise, as hell was known by the name of Gehenna, is very clear from Christas last words. To-day thou shall be with me in Paradise; and. Into thy hands do I com- mend my spirit, Luke xxiii. 43. 46. This is a plain and full account of a good sense that may be well put on the words; though, after all, it is still to be remembered, that in the first Creeds that have this Article, that of Christ’s burial not being mentioned in them, it follows from thence, as well as from Ruf- fin’s own sense of it, that they understood this only of Christ’s burial. ARTICLE IV. OF THE RESURRECTION OF CHRIST. Christ did truly rise again from Death, and took again his Body, with Flesh, Bones, and all things appertaining to the Perfection of Man’s Nature, wherewith he ascended into Heaven, and there sitteth, until he return to judge all Men at the Last Day. There are four branches of this Article: — The first is con- cerning the truth of Christ’s resurrection: the second con- cerning the completeness of it; that he took to him again his ART. IV. THE XXXIX ARTICLES. 69 whole body: the third is concerning Ins ascension and continu- ance in heaven: and the fourth is concerning his returning to judge all men at the last day. These things are all so expressly affirmed, and that in so particular a manner, in the New Testa- ment, that if the authority of that book is once well proved, little doubting will remain concerning them. It is punctually told in it, that the body of Christ was laid in the sepulchre: that a stone was laid to the mouth of it: that it was rolled away, and upon that Christ arose and left the death- clothes behind him: that those, who viewed the sepulchre, saw no body there: that in the same body Christ showed himself to his disciples, so that they all knew him; he talked with them, and they did eat and drink with him, and he made Thomas feel to the print of the nails and spear. It is plainly told, that the Apostles looked on, and saw him ascend up to heaven, and that a cloud received him out of their sight. It is also said very plainly, that he shall come again at the last day, and judge all men, both the quick and the dead. So that if the truth of the gospel is once fully proved, it will not be necessary to insist long upon the special proof of these particulars; somewhat will only be necessary to be said in explanation of them. The gospel was first preached, and soon after put in writing; in which these particulars are not only delivered, but are set forth with many circumstances relating to them. The credit of the whole is put on that issue concerning the truth of ChrisCs resurrection ; so that the overthrowing the truth of that, was the overturning the whole gospel, and struck at the credit of it all. This was transacted as well as first published at Jerusalem, where the enemies of it had all possible advantages in their hands: their interest was deeply concerned, as well as their malice was much kindled at it. They had both power and wealth in their hands, as well as credit and authority among the people. The Romans left them at full liberty, as they did the other nations whom they conquered, to order their own concerns as they pleased. And even the Romans themselves began quickly to hate and persecute the Christians: they became the objects of popular fury, as Tacitus tell us. The Romans looked upon Christ as one that set on the Jews to those tumults that were then so common among them, as Suetonius affirms: which shows both how ignorant they were of the doctrine of Christ, and how much they were prejudiced against it. Yet this gospel did spread itself, and was believed by great multitudes, both at Jerusalem and in all Judea; and from thence it was propagated in a very few years to a great many remote countries. Among all Christians the Article of the Resurrection and Ascension of Christ was always looked on as the capital one AN EXPOSITION OF ART. IV. 70 upon which all the rest depended. This was attested by a con- siderable number of men, against whose credit no objection was made; who affirmed, that they all had seen him, and conversed frequently with him after his resurrection; that they saw him ascend up into heaven; and that, according to a promise he had made them, they had received extraordinary powers from him to work miracles in his name, and to speak in divers languages. This last was a most amazing character of a supernatural power lodged with them; and was a thing of such a nature, that it must have been evident to every man whether it was true or false : so that the Apostles relating this so positively, and making such frequent appeals to it, that way of proceeding carries a strong and undeniable evidence of truth in it. These wonders were gathered together in a book, and published in the very time in wffiich they were transacted. The Acts of the Apostles were writ two years after St. Paul was carried prisoner to Rome ; and St. Luke begins that book with the mention of the Gospel that he had for- merly writ, as that Gospel begins with the retention of some other Gospels that were writ before it. Almost all the Epistles speak of the temple of Jerusalem as yet in being; of the Jews as then in peace and prosperity, hating and persecuting the Christians everywhere: they do also frequently intimate the assurance they had of a great deliverance that was to happen quickly to the Christians, and of terrible judgments that were to be poured out on the Jews; which was soon after that accomplished in the most signal manner of anything that is recorded in history. These things do clearly prove, that all the writings of the New Testament were both composed and published in the age in which that matter was transacted. The Jews, who from all the places of their dispersion went frequently to Jerusalem, to keep the great festivities of their religion there, had occasion often to examine, upon the place, the truth of the resurrection and ascen- sion of Christ, and of the effusion of the Holy Ghost: yet, even 'in that infancy of Christianity, in which it had so little visible strength, no proof was so much as ever pretended in opposition to those great and essential points; which being matters of fact, and related with a great variety of circumstances, had been easily confuted, if there had been any ground for it. The great darkness at the time of Christ’s death; the rending the veil of the temple in two, as well as what was more public, the rending of the rocks at his death; his being laid in a new sepulchre, and a watch being set about it — and the watchmen reporting, that while they slept the body of Christ was carried away ; the Apostles breaking out all of the sudden into that variety of tongues on Pentecost; the miracles that they wrought, and the proceedings of the Sanhedrim with them ; were all things so publicly done, that as the discovery ART. IV. THE XXXIX ARTICLES. 7l of falsehood in any one of these was in the power of the Jews, if any such was, so that alone had most effectually destroyed the credit of this religion, and stopped its progress. The writings of the New Testament were at that time no secrets; they w'ere in all men’s hands, and were copied out freely by every one that desired it. We find within an hundred years after that time, both by the Epistle of the church of Smyrna, by Justin and Ireneeus, not to mention Clemens of Rome, who lived in that time, Ignatius and Polycarp, who lived very near it, that the authority of these writings was early received and submitted to; that they were much read, and well known; and that they began very soon to be read at the meetings of the Christians for wor- ship; and were esteemed by the several churches as the great trust and depositum that was lodged with them. So that though, by the negligence of copiers, some small variations might happen among some of the copies; yet as they do all agree in the main, and most signally in those particulars that are mentioned in this Article, so it was not possible for any, that should have had the wickedness to set about it, to have corrupted the New Testament by any additions or alterations — it being so early spread into so many hands, and that in so many different places. When all this matter is laid together, it appears to have as full an evidence to support it as any matter of fact can possibly have. The narration gave great scope to a variety of inquiries; it raised much disputing, opposition, and persecution; and yet nothing was ever pretended to be proved that could subvert its credit. Great multitudes received this doctrine, and died for it, in the age in which the matters of fact upon which its credit was built w^ere well attested, and in which the truth or falsehood of them might have been easily known; which it is reasonable to believe that all men would carefully examine, before they embraced and assented to that which was like to draw on them sufferings that would probably end in death. Those who did spread this doctrine, as well as those who first received it, had no interest beside that of truth to engage them to it. They could expect neither wealth nor greatness from it: they were obliged to travel much, and to labour hard; to wrestle through great difficulties, and to endure many indignities. They saw others die on the account of it, and had reason to look for the like usage themselves. The doctrine that they preached related either to the facts concerning the person of Christ, or to the rules of life which they delivered. These were all pure, just, and good; they tended to settle the world upon the foundations of truth and sincerity, and that sublime pitch of righteousness, of doing as they would be done by; they tended to make men sober and temperate, chaste and modest, meek and humble, merciful and charitable; AN EXPOSITION OF ART. IV, 72 so that from thence there was no colour given for suspecting any fraud or design in it. The worship of God in this religion was pure and simple, free from cost or pomp, from theatrical shows as well as idolatrous rites, and had in it all possible cha- racters becoming the purity of the Supreme Mind. When therefore so much concurs to give credit to a religion, there ought to be evident proofs brought to the contrary, before it can be disbelieved or rejected. So many men forsaking the religion in which they were born and bred, which has always a strong influence even upon the greatest minds; and there being so many particular prejudices, both upon Jews and Gentiles, by the opinions in which they had been bred, and the impressions which had gone deep in them — it could be no slight matter that could overcome all that. The Jews expected a conqueror for their Messias, who should have raised both the honour of their law and their nation, and so were much possessed against one of a mean appearance; and when they saw that their law was to be superseded, and that the Gentiles were to be brought into equal privileges with them- selves, they could not but be deeply prejudiced both against the person and doctrine of Christ. The Philosophers despised divine inspiration, and secret assistances, and had an ill opinion of miracles: and the herd among the Gentiles were so accustomed to pomp and show in their religious performances, that they must have nauseated the Christian simplicity, and the corruption of their morals must have made them uneasy at a religion of so much strictness. All sorts of men lay under very strong prejudices against this religion; nor was there any one article or branch of it that flattered any of the interests, appetites, passions, or vanities of men, but all was very much to the contrary. They were warned to prepare for trials and crosses, and, in particular, for a severe and fiery trial that was speedily to come upon them. There was nothing of the way or manner of impostors that appeared in the methods in which the gospel was propagated. When the Apostles saw that some were endeavouring to lessen them and their authority, they took no fawning ways: they neither flattered nor spared those Churches that were under their care; they charged them home with their faults, and asserted their own character in a strain that showed they were afraid of no discoveries. They appealed to the miracles that they had wrought, and to those gifts and divine virtues of which they were not only possessed themselves, but which were by their ministry conferred on others. The demonstration of the Spirit (1 Cor. ii. 4,) or inspiration that was in them, appeared in the power, that is, in the miracles which accompanied it; and those tlicv wrought operdy in the siglit of many wit- ART. IV. THE XXXIX ARTICLES. 7^ nesses. An uncontested miracle is the fullest evidence that can be given of a divine commission. A miracle is a work that exceeds all the known powers of nature, and that carries in it plain characters of a power superior to any liuman power. We cannot indeed fix the bounds of the powers of nature; but yet we can plainly apprehend what must be beyond them. For instance, we do not know what secret virtues there may be in plants and minerals; but we do know that bare words can have no natural virtue in them to cure dis- eases, much less to raise the dead: we know not what force imagination or credulity may have in critical diseases; but we know that a dead man has no imagination: we know also, that blindness, deafness, and an inveterate palsy, cannot be cured by conceit: therefore, such miracles as the giving sight to a man born blind, speech to the deaf and dumb, and strength to the paralytic; but, most of all, the giving life to the dead, and that not only to persons laid out as dead, but to one that was carried out to be buried, and to another that had been four days dead, and in his grave; — all this was done with a bare word, -without any sort of external application : this, I say, as it is clearly above the force of imagination, so it is beyond the powers of nature. These things were not done in the dark, nor in the presence of a few, in whom a particular confidence was put; but in full day-light, and in the sight of great numbers, enemies as well as friends: and some of those enemies were both the most enraged, and the most capable of making ail possible exceptions to what ■was done. Such were the rulers of the synagogues, and the Pharisees in our Saviour^s time; and yet they could neither deny the facts, nor pretend that there -was any deceit or jugglery in them. We have in this all possible reason to 'conclude, that both the things -were truly done as they are related, and that no just exception was, or could be made to them. If it is pretended, that those wonderful things were done by the power of an evil spirit, that does both acknowledge the truth of the relation, and also its being supernatural. This answer taken from the power of evil spirits, is sometimes to be made use of, when extraordinary things are well attested, and urged in proof of that which upon other reasons we are assured is false. It is certain, that as we have a great power over vast quantities of gross and heavy matter, which by the motion of a very subtile body, our animal spirits, we can master and manage; so angels, good or bad, may, by virtue of subtile bodies, in which they may dwell, or which upon occasion they may assume, do many things vastly above either our force to do, or our imagination to appre- hend how it is done by them. Therefore, an action, that exceeds all the known powers in nature, may yet be done by an evil spirit that is in rebellion against its Maker, and that designs to impose AN EXPOSITION OF ART. IV. 74 upon us by such a mighty performance. But then the measure by which we must judge of this, is by considering what is the end or design driven at in such a wonderful work: if it is a good one, if it tends to reform the manners of men, and to bring them off from magic, idolatry, and superstition, to the worship of one pure and eternal Mind; and if it tends to reform their actions, as well as their speculations and their worship; to turn them from immorality, falsehood, and malice, to a pure, a sincere, and a mild temper; if it tends to regulate society, as well as to per- fect the nature and faculties of every single man ; — then we may well conclude, that no evil spirit can so far depart from its own nature, as to join its forces, and co-operate in such a design; for then the kingdom of Satan could not stand, if he were thus divided against himself (Matt. xii. 25, 26,) according to what our Saviour said, when this was objected against the miracles that he wrought. These are all the general considerations that concur to prove the truth of the history of the gospel, of which the Resurrection and Ascension of Christ are the two main articles; for they, being well proved, give authority to all the rest. As to the Resurrection in particular, it is certain the Apostles could not be deceived in that matter: they saw Christ frequently after he arose from the dead; they met him once with a great company of five hundred with them; they heard him talk and argue with them; he opened the Scriptures to them with so peculiar an energy, that they felt their hearts set on fire, even when they did not yet perceive that it was he himself: they did not at first either look for his resurrection, nor believe those who reported him risen; they made all due inquiry, and some of them went beyond all reasonable bounds in their doubting: so far were they from an easy and soon imposed on credulity. His sufferings and their own fears had so amazed them, that they were con- triving how to separate and disperse themselves, when he at first appeared to them. Men so full of fear, and so far from all hope, are not apt to be easy in believing. So it must be concluded, that either the account which the Apostles gave the world of Christas resurrection is true, or they were gross impostors ; since it is clear, that the circumstances and numbers mentioned in that history, show there could be no deception in it. And it is as little possible to conceive that there could be any imposture in it; for, not to repeat again what has been already said, that they were under no temptations to set about any such deceit, but very much to the contrary; and that there is no reason to think they were either bad enough to enter upon such a design, or capable and skilful enough to manage it — they being many of them illiterate fishermen of Galilee, who had no acquaintance at Jerusalem to furnish them with that which might l)e necessary for executing such a contrivance; the circumstances of that ART. IV. THE XXXIX ARTICLES. ^5 transaction are to be well examined, and then it will appear, that no number of bold and dexterous men, furnished with all advan- tages whatsoever, could have effected this matter. Great numbers had been engaged in the procuring our Saviour to be crucified: the whole Sanhedrim, besides multitudes of the people, who upon all occasions are easily drawn in to engage in tumultuary commotions; all these were concerned to examine the event of this matter. He was buried in a new sepulchre lately hewed out of a rock, so that there was no coming at it by any secret ways: a watch was set; and all this at a time, in which the full moon gave a great light all the night long: and Jerusalem being very full of people, who were then there in great numbers to keep the Passover, that being the second night of so vast a rendezvous, it is reasonable to think that great numbers were walking in the fields, or at least might be so, some later and some earlier. Now if an imposture was to be set about, the guard was to be frightened or mastered, which could not be done without giving the alarm; and that must have quickly brought a multitude upon them. Christ’s body must have been disposed of; some other tomb was to be looked for to lodge it in; the wounds that were in it would have made it to be soon known if found. Here a bold attempt was to be undertaken by a company of poor irresolute men, who must trust one another entirely, other- ways they knew all might be soon discovered. One of their number had betrayed Christ a few days before, another had forsworn him, and all had forsaken him; and yet these men are supposed all of the sudden so firm in themselves, and so sure of one another, as to venture on the most daring thing that was ever undertaken by men, when not a circumstance could ever be found out to fix upon them the least suspicion. The Priests and the Pharisees must be thought a strange stupid sort of creatures, if they did not examine where the Apostles were all that night; besides many other particulars, which might have been a thread to lead them into strict inquiries, unless it was because they believed the report that the watch had brought them of Christ’s rising again. When they had this certain reason to believe it, and yet resolved to oppose it, the only thing they could do was to seem to neglect the matter, and only to decry it in general as an imposture, without going into particu- lars; which certainly they would not have done, if they them- selves had not been but too sure of the truth of it. When all this is laid together, it is the most unreasonable thing imaginable to think that there was an imposture in this matter, when no colour nor shadow of it ever appeared, and when all the circumstances, and not only probabilities, but even moral possibilities, are so full to the contrary. 76 AN EXPOSITION OF ART. IV. The Ascension of Christ has not indeed so full a proof; nor is it capable of it, neither does it need it; for the resurrection well proved, makes that very credible. For this we have only the testimony of the Apostles, who did all attest that they saw it, being all together in an open field: when Christ was walking and discoursing with them, and when he was blessing them, he was parted from them: they saw him ascend, till a cloud received him, and took him out of their sight: and then two angels appeared to them, and assured them, that he should come again in like manner as they had seen him ascend. Acts i. 11. Here is a very particular relation, with many circumstances in it, in which it was not possible for the Apostles to be mistaken; so that there being no reason to suspect their credit, this rests upon that authority. But, ten days after, it received a much clearer proof; when the Floly Ghost was poured out on them in so visible a manner, and with most remarkable effects. Immediately upon it they spoke with divers tongues, and wrought many miracles, and all in the name of Christ. They did often and solemnly disclaim their doing any of those wonderful things by any power of their own: they owned that all they had or did, was derived to them from Jesus of Nazareth, of whose resurrection and ascen- sion they were appointed to be the witnesses. Acts iii. 12. 16. ChrisFs coming again to judge the world at the last day is so often affirmed by himself in the Gospel, and is so frequently mentioned in the writings of his Apostles, that this is a main part of his doctrine: so that his resurrection, ascension, together with the effusion of the Holy Ghost, having in general proved his mission and his whole doctrine, this is also proved by them. Enough seems to be said in proof of all the parts of this Article; it remains only that somewhat should be added in explanation of them. As to the resurrection, it is to little purpose to inquire, whether our Saviour’s body was kept all the while in a com- plete organization, that so by this miracle it might be pre- served in a natural state for his soul to re-enter it; or whether, by the course of nature, the vast number of the inward con- veyances that were in the body were stopped; and if, all of a sudden, when the time of the resurrection came, all was again put in a vital state, fit to be animated by his soul. There must have been a miracle either way; so it is to little purpose to inquire into it. The former, though a continued miracle, yet seems to agree more fully to these words. Thou wilt not suffer thy Holy One to see corruption. It is to as little pur- pose to inquire how our Saviour’s new body was supplied witli blood, since he had lost the greatest part of it on the cross: whether that was again, by the power of God, lirouglit liack into his veins; or whether, as lie himself had formerly said ART. IV. THE XXXIX ARTICLES. 77 that 7iian lives not by bread alone, bat by every ivord that proceeds out of the mouth of God, blood was supplied by miracle; or whether his body, that was then of the nature of a glorified body, though yet on earth, needed the supplies of blood to fur- nish new spirits for serving the natural functions — he eating and drinking so seldom, that we may well believe it was done rather to satisfy his Apostles, than to answer the necessities of nature: these are curiosities that signify so little, if we could certainly resolve them, that it is to no purpose to inquire about them, since we cannot know what to determine in them. This in general is certain, that the same soul returned back to the same body; so that the same man who died, rose again: and that is our faith. We need not trouble ourselves with inquiring how to make out the three days of Christ’s being in a grave; days stand, in the common acceptation, for a portion of a day. We know the Jews were very exact to the rest on the Sabbath, so the body was without question laid in the grave before the sunset on Friday; so that was the first day: the Sabbath was a com- plete one; and a good part of the third day, that is, the night, with which the Jews began to count tlie day, was over before he was raised up. As for his stay on earth forty days, we cannot pretend to give an account of it; whether his body was passing through a slow and physical purification, to be meet for ascending; or whether he intended to keep a proportion between his gospel and the law of Moses; that as he suffered at the time of their killing the Passover, so the effusion of the Holy Ghost was fixed for Pen- tecost, and that therefore he would stay on earth till that time was near, not to put his Apostles upon too long an expectation without his presence; which might be necessary to animate them, till they should be endued with power from on high. As to the manner of his ascension, it is also questioned whether the body of Christ, as it ascended, was so wonderfully changed as to put on the subtilty and purity of an ethereal body; or whether it retains still the same form in heaven that it had on earth; or if it put on a new one: it is more probable that it did; and that the wonderful glory that appeared in his whole countenance and whole person at his transfiguration, was a manifestation of that more permanent glory to which it was to be afterwards exalted. It seems probable from what St. Paul says {that flesh and blood shall not inherit the kingdom of 'God, which relates to our glori- fied bodies, when we shall bear the image of the second, and the heavenly Adam, 1 Cor. xv. 50,) that ChrisPs body has no more the modifications of flesh and blood in it; and that the glory of the celestial body is of another nature and texture than that of the terrestrial, 1 Cor. xv. 40. It is easily imagined how this may AN EXPOSITION OF ART. IV. 78 be, and yet the body to be numericaUy the same; for all matter being uniform, and capable of all sort of motion, and by conse- quence of being either much grosser or much purer, the same portion of matter that made a thick and heavy body here on earth, may be put into that purity and fineness as to be no longer a fit inhabitant of this earth, or to breathe this air, but to be meet to be transplanted into ethereal regions. Christ, as he went up into heaven, so he had the whole government of this world put into his hands, and the whole ministry of angels put under his command, even in his human nature; so that all things are now in subjection to him, 1 Cor. XV. 27, 28. All power and authority is derived from him, and he does whatsoever he pleases both in heaven and earth. In him all fullness dwells. And as the Mosaical tabernacle being filled with glory, the emanations of it did by the Urim and Thummim enlighten and d.irect that people; so out of that fullness that dwelt bodily in Christ, there is a constant emanation of his grace and spirit descending on his Church. He does also inter- cede for us at his Father’s right hand, where he is preparing a place for us. The meaning of all which is this: that as he is vested with an inconceivably high degree of glory, even as man, so the merit of his death is still fresh and entire; and in the virtue of that, the sins of all that come to God through him, claiming to his death as to their sacrifice, and obeying his gospel, are pardoned, and they are sealed by his Spirit until the day of redemption. In conclusion, when all God^s design with this world is accomplished, it shall be set on fire, and all the great parts of which it is composed, as of elements, shall be melted and burnt down; and then, when by that fire’ probably the por- tion of matter which was in the bodies of all who have lived upon earth shall be so far refined and fixed as to become both incor- ruptible and immortal, then they shall be made meet for the souls that formerly animated them, to re-enter every one into his own body, which shall be then so moulded as to be a habit- ation fit to give it everlasting joy or everlasting torment. Then shall Christ appear visibly in some very conspicuous place in the clouds of heaven, where every eye shall see him: he shall appear in his own glory (Luke ix. 26;) that is, in his human glorified body: he shall appear in the glory of his angels, having vast numbers of these about him, attending on him: but, which is above all, he shall appear in his Father^ s glory; that is, there shall be then a most wonderful manifestation of the eternal Godhead dwelling in him ; — and then shall he pass a final sentence upon all that ever lived upon earth, according to all that they have done in the body, whether it be good or bad. The righ- teous shall ascend as he did, and shall meet him in the clouds. ART. V. THE XXXIX ARTICLES. 79 and be for ever with him; and the wicked shall sink into a state of darkness and misery, of unspeakable horror of mind, and everlasting pain and torment. ARTICLE V. OF THE HOLY GHOST. The Holy Ghost proceeding from the Father and the Son, is of one Substance, Majesty, and Glory, with the Father and the Son, very and eternal God. In order to the explaining this Article, we must consider, first. The importance of the term Spirit, or Holy Spirit: secondly. His Procession from the Father, and the Son: and, thirdly. That he is truly God, of the same substance with the Father, and the Son. Spirit signifies wind or breath; and in the Old Testament it stands frequently in that sense: the Spirit of God, or Wind of God, stands sometimes for a high and strong wind, but more frequently it signifies a secret impression made by God on the mind of a prophet: so that the Spirit of God and the Spirit of Prophecy are set in opposition to the vain imagina- tions, the false pretences, or the diabolical illusions, of those who assumed to themselves the name and the authority of a prophet, without a true mission from God. But when God made representations, either in a dream or in an ecstasy, to any person, or imprinted a sense of his will on their minds, together with such necessary characters as gave it proof and authority, this was an illapse from God, as a breathing from him on the soul of the prophet. In the New Testament this word Holy Ghost stands most commonly for that wonderful effusion of those miraculous virtues that was poured out dX Pentecost on the Apostles; by which their spirits were not only exalted with extraordinary degrees of zeal and courage, of authority and utterance, but they were furnished with the gifts of tongues and of miracles. And besides that first and great effusion, several Christians received particular talents and inspirations which are most commonly expressed by the word Spirit or Inspiration. Those inward assistances, by which the frame and temper of men^s minds are changed and renewed, are likewise called the Spirit, or the Holy Spirit, or Holy Ghost. So Christ said to Nicodemus, that except a man was horn of' Water and of the Spirit, he cannot see the kingdom of God (John iii. 3. 5, 6;) and that his heavenly Father would give the Holy Spirit to every one that asked him, Luke xi. 13. By these it is plain 80 AN EXPOSITION OF ART. V- that extraordinary or miraculous inspirations are not meant, for these are not every Christian’s portion: there is no question made of all this. The main question is, whether by Spirit, or Holy Spirit, we are to understand one Person, that is the fountain of all those gifts and operations; or whether by one Spirit, is only to be meant the power of God flowing out and showing itself in many wonderful operations. The adversaries of the Trinity will have the Spirit, or Holy Spirit, to signify no person, but only the divine gifts or operations. But in opposition to this, it is plain, that in our Saviour’s last and long discourse to his disciples, in which he promised to send them his Spirit, he calls him another Com- forter (John xiv. 16. 26,) to be sent in his stead, or to supply his absence; and the whole tenor of the discourse runs on him as a Person: He shall abide with you: he shall guide you into all truth; and shew you things to come. He shall bring all things into your remembrance : he shall convince the world of sin, of righteousness, and of judgment, John xvi. 8. 13. In all these places he is so plainly spoken of, not as a quality or operation, but as a Person, and that without any key or rule to understand the words otherwise, that this alone may serve to determine the matter now in dispute. Christ’s commission to preach and bap- tize in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, does plainly make him a Person, since it cannot be said that we are to be called by the name of a virtue or operation. St. Paul (1 Cor. xii. 4. 8, 9. 11. 13,) does also in a long discourse upon the diversity of gifts, administrations, and operations, ascribe them all to one Spirit, as their author and fountain; of whom he speaks as of a Person, distributing these in order to several ends, and in different measures. He speaks of the Spirit’s searching all things, of his interceding for us, of our grieving the Spirit, by which we are sealed, 1 Cor. ii. 10; Rom. viii. 26. This is the language used concerning a Person, not a quality. All these, says he, worketh that one and the self-same Spirit, dividing to every man severally as he will, Eph. iv. 30. Now it is not to be conceived, how that both our Saviour and his Apostles should use the phrase of a Person so constantly in speaking of the Spirit, and should so critically and in the way of argument pursue that strain, if he is not a Person: they not only insist on it, and repeat it frequently, but they draw an argument from it for union and love, and for mutual condescension and sympathy. Upon all these grounds it is evident, that the Holy Spirit is, in the Scripture, proposed to us as a Person, under whose economy all the various gifts, administrations, and operations that are in the Church, are put. The second particular relating to this Article is, the Procession of this Spirit from the Father and the Son. The word Proces- ART. V. TllF. XXX IX ARTICLES. 81 S1071, or, as tlie schoolmen term it, Spiration, is only made use of in order to the naming this relation of the S 2 rh'it to the Father' and Bon^ in such a manner as may best answer the sense of the word Sph'it: for it must be confessed that we can frame no explicit idea of this matter; and therefore we must speak of it either strictly in Scripture words, or in such words as arise out of them, and that have the same signification with them. It is therefore a vain attempt of the schoolmen to undertake to give a reason why the second Person is said to be generated^ and so is called So??, and the third to proceed, and so is called Spirit. All these subtilties can have no foundation, and signify nothing towards the clearing this matter, which is rather darkened than cleared by a pretended illustration. In a word, as we should never have believed this mystery if the Scripture had not revealed it to us, so we understand nothing concerning it besides what is contained in the Scriptures; and, therefore, if in anything, we must think soberly upon those subjects. The Scriptures call the Second So7i, and the third Spirit; so generation and procession are words that may well be used, but they are words concerning which we can form no distinct conception: we only use them because they belong to the words Son and Spirit. The Spirit, in things that we do understand, is somewhat that pro- ceeds, and the Son is a Person begotten ; we, therefore, believing that the Holy Ghost is a Person, apply the word procession to the manner of his emanation from the Father; though at the same time we must acknowledge that we have no distinct thought concerning it. So much in general concerning procession. It has been much controverted, whether the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father only, or from the Father and the Son. In the first disputes concerning the divinity of the Holy Ghost with the Macedonians, who denied it, there was no other contest, but whether he was truly God or not. When that was settled by the council of Constantinople, it was made a part of the Creed; but it was only said that he proceeded from the Father: and the council of Ephesus soon after that fixed on that Creed, decreeing that no additions should be made to it; yet about the end of the sixth century, in the Western Church, an addition was made to the Article, by which the Holy Ghost was affirmed to proceed from the Son as well as from the Father. And when the Eastern and Western Churches, in the ninth century, fell into a hnmour of quarrelling upon the account of jurisdiction, after some time of anger, in which they seem to be searching for matter to reproach one another with, they found out this differ- ence — The Greeks reproached the Latins for thus adding to the faith, and corrupting the ancient symbol, and that contrary to the decree of a general council: the Latins, on the other hand, F 82 AN EXPOSITION OF ART. V. charged them for detracting from the dignity of the Son; and this became the chief point in controversy between them. Here was certainly a very unhappy dispute ; inconsiderable in its original, but fatal in its consequences. We of this Church, though we abhor the cruelty of condemning the Eastern Churches for such a difference, yet do receive the Creed according to the usage of the Western Churches: and therefore though we do not pretend to explain what procession is, we believe according to the Article, that the Holy Ghost proceeds both from the Father and the Son; because in that discourse of our Saviour’s that contains the promise of the Spirit, and that long description of him as a Person, Christ not only says that the Father will send the Spirit in his name (John xiv. 26,) but adds, that he will send the Spirit; and though he says TvQ'sit, who proceedeth from the Father (John xv. 26,) yet since he sends him, and that he was to supply his room, and to act in his name, this implies a rela- tion, and a sort of subordination in the Spirit to the Son, This may serve to justify our adhering to the Creeds as they had been for many ages received in the Western Church; but we are far from thinking, that this proof is so full and explicit, as to justify our separating from any Church, or condemning it, that should stick exactly to the first Creeds, and reject this addition. The third branch of the Article is, that this Holy Ghost or Person, thus proceeding, is truly God, of the same substance with the Father and the Son. That he is God, was formerly proved by those passages in which the whole Trinity in all the three Persons is affirmed : but besides that, the lying to the Holy Ghost by Ananias and Sapphira, is said to be a lying not unto men but to God (Acts v. 34:) his being called another Comforter ; his teaching all things; his guiding into all truth; his telling things to come; his searching all things, even the deep things of God; his being called the Spirit of the Lord, in opposition to the Spirit of a man; his making intercession for us; his changing us into the same image with Christ — are all such plain characters of his being God, that those who deny that, are well aware of this, that if it is once proved that he is a Person, it will follow that he must be God; therefore all that was said to prove him a Person, is here to be remembered as a proof that he is truly God. So that though there is not such a variety of proofs for this, as there was for the Divinity of the Son, yet the proof of it is plain and clear. And from what was said upon the first Article concern- ing the Unity of God, it is also certain, that if he is God, he must be of one substance, majesty , and glory, with the Father and the Son. AUT. vr. T!IK XXXIX AIITICLKS. 83 ARTICLE VI. OF THE SUFFICIENCY OF HOLY SCRIPTURE FOR SALVATION. Holy Scripture containeth all things necessary to Salvation: so that whatsoever is not read therein^ nor may he proved thereby^ is not to he required of any Man, that it should he believed as an Article of Faith, or to be thought requisite or necessary to Salvation, In the name of the Holy Scripture we do under- stand those Canonical Books of the Old and New Testament, of whose Authority was never any doubt in the Church, OF THE NAMES AND NUMBER OF THE CANONICAL BOOKS. Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, Joshua, Judges, Ruth, The First Book of Samuel, The Second Book of Samuel, The First Book of Kings, The Second Book of Kings, The First Book of Chronicles, The Second Book of Chronicles, The First Book of Esdras, The Second Book of Esdras, The Book of Esther, The Book of Job, The Psalms, The Proverbs, Ecclesiastes or Preacher. Cantica or Song of Solomon, Four Prophets the greater. Twelve Prophets the less. A7id the other Books (as Hierom saith) the Church doth read for Example of Life, and Instruction of Manners; but yet it doth not apply them to establish following : — The Third Book of Esdras, The Fourth Book of Esdras, The Book of Tobias, The Book of Judith, The rest of the Book of Esther, The Book of Wisdom, Jesus the Son of Syrach, any Doctrine, Such are these Baruch the Prophet. The Songof theThree Children. The History of Susanna, Of Bel and the Dragon, The Prayer of Manasses, The First Book of Maccabees, The Second Book oi Maccabees, All the Books of the New Testament as they are commonly received, we do receive, and account them Canonical, In this Article there are two important heads, and to each of them a proper consequence does belong. The first is, that the Holy Scriptures do contain all things necessary to salvation: the negative consequence that ariseth out of that is, that no article that is not either read in it, or that may not be proved by it, is F 2 84 AN EXPOSITION OF ART. VI. to be required to be believed as an article of faith, or to be thought necessary to salvation. The second is, the settling the canon of the Scripture both of the Old and New Testament; and the consequence that arises out of that is, the rejecting the books commonly called Apocryphal, which, though they may be read by the Church for example of life, and instruction of manners, yet are no part of the Canon, nor is any doctrine to be established by them. After the main foundations of religion in general, in the belief of a God, or more specially of the Christian religion in the doc- trine of the Trinity, and of the Death, Resurrection, and Ascen- sion of Christ, are laid down; the next point to be settled is, what is the rule of this faith, where is it to be found, and with whom is it lodged? — The Church of Rome and we do both agree, that the Scriptures are of divine inspiration. Those of that communion acknowledge, that everything which is contained in Scripture is true, and comes from God; but they add to this, that the books of the New Testament were occasionally written, and not with the design of making them the full rule of faith, but many things were delivered orally by the Apostles, which, if they are faithfully transmitted to us, are to be received by us with the same submission and respect that we pay to their writings : and they also believe, that these traditions are conveyed infallibly to us, and that, to distinguish betwixt true and false doctrines and traditions, there must be an infallible authority lodged by Christ with his Church. We on the contrary affirm, that the Scriptures are a complete rule of faith, and that the whole Chris- tian religion is contained in them, and nowhere else: and although we make great use of tradition, especially that which is most ancient and nearest the source, to help us to a clear understand- ing of the Scriptures: yet as to matters of faith we reject all oral tradition, as an incompetent mean of conveying down doctrines to us, and we refuse to receive any doctrine, that is not either expressly contained in Scripture, or clearly proved from it. In order to the opening and proving of this, it is to be con- sidered, what God^s design, in first ordering Moses, and after him all inspired persons, to put things in writing, could be ? It could be no other than to free the world from the uncertainties and impostures of oral tradition. All mankind being derived from one common source, it seems it was much easier in the first ages of the world to preserve the tradition pure, than it could possibly be afterwards: there were only a few things then to be delivered concerning God; as. That he was one spiritual Being, that he had created all things, that he alone was to be worshipped and served; the rest relating to the history of tlie world, and chiefly of the first man that was made in it. Tlierc were also great ART. VI. TllK XXXIX ARTICLES. 83 advantages on the side of oral tradition — the first men were very long-lived, and they saw their own families spread extremely; so that they had on their side both the authority which long life always has, particularly concerning matters of fact, and the credit that parents have naturally with their own children, to secure tradition. Two persons might have conveyed it down from Adam to Abraham; Methuselah lived above three hun- dred years while Adam was 3^et alive, and Sem was almost an hundred when he died, and he lived much above an hundred years in the same time with Abraham, according to the Hebrew. Here is a great period of time filled up by two or three persons; and yet in that time the tradition of those very few things, in which religion was then comprehended, was so universally and entirely corrupted, that it was necessary to correct it by imme- diate revelation to x\braham: God intending to have a peculiar people to himself out of his posterity, commanded him to forsake his kindred and country, that he might not be corrupted with an idolatry, that we have reason to believe was then but begin- ning among them. We are sure his nephew Laban was an ido- later: and the danger of mixing with the rest of mankind was then so great, that God ordered a mark to be made on the bodies of all descended from him, to be the seal of the covenant, and the badge and cognizance of his posterity. By that distinction, and by their living in a wandering and unfixed manner, they were preserved for some time from idolatry; God intending afterwards to settle them in an instituted religion. But though the beginnings of it, I mean the promulgation of the law on Mount Sinai, was one of the most amazing things that ever happened, and the fittest to be orally conveyed down, the law being very short, and the circumstances in the delivery of it most astonishing: and though there were many rites, and seve- ral festivities, appointed chiefly for the carrying down the memory of it; though there was also in that dispensation the greatest advantage imaginable for securing this tradition, all the main acts of their religion being to be performed in one place, and by men of one tribe and family; as they were also all the inhabitants of a small tract of ground, of one language, and by their constitutions obliged to maintain a constant commerce among themselves: they having further a continuance of signal characters of God’s miraculous presence among them — such as the operation of the water of jealousy; the plenty of the sixth year to supply them all the Sabbatical year, and till the harvest of the following year; together with a succession of Prophets that followed one another, either in a constant course, or at least soon after one another: but above all, the presence of God, which appeared in the cloud of glory, and in those answers that were given by the IJrim and Thnmmim — all which must be confessed 86 AN EXPOSITION OF ART. VI. to be advantages on the side of tradition, vastly beyond any that can be pretended to have been in the Christian Church; yet, notwithstanding all these, God commanded Moses to write all their Law, as the Ten Commandments were by the immediate power or finger of God writ on tables of stone. When all this is laid together and well considered, it will appear, that God by a particular economy intended them to secure revealed religion from the doubtfulness and uncertainties of oral tradition. It is much more reasonable to believe, that the Christian reli- gion, which was to be spread to many remote regions, among whom there could be little communication, should have been fixed in its first beginnings by putting it in writing, and not left to the looseness of reports and stories. We do plainly see, that though the methods of knowing and communicating truth are now surer and better fixed than they have been in most of the ages which have passed since the beginnings of this religion; yet in every matter of fact such additions are daily made, as it hap- pens to be reported, and every point of doctrine is so variously stated, that if religion had not a more assured bottom than tra- dition, it could not have that credit paid to it that it ought to have. If we had no greater certainty for religion than report, we could not believe it very firmly, nor venture upon it: so in order to the giving this doctrine such authority as is necessary for attaining the great ends proposed in it, the conveyance of it must be clear and unquestionable; otherwise, as it would grow to be much mixed with fable, so it would come to be looked on as all a fable. Since then oral tradition, when it had the utmost advantages possible on its side, failed so much in the conveyance both of natural religion and of the Mosaical, we see that it can- not be relied on as a certain method of preserving the truths of revealed religion. In our Saviour’s time, tradition was set up on many occasions against him; but he never submitted to it: on the contrary, he reproached the Jews with this, that they had made the Imvs of God of no effect by their traditions ; and he told them, that they ?i7or- shipped God in vain, when they taught for doctrines the command- ments of men. Matt. xv. 3. 6. 9. In all his disputes with the Pharisees he appealed to Moses and the Prophets: he bade them search the Scriptures : for in them, said \\Q,ye think ye have eter- nal life, and they are they which testify of me. Ye think, is, by the phraseology of that time, a word that does not refer to any particular conceit of theirs; but imports, that as they thought, so in them they had eternal life. Our Saviour justifies himself and his doctrine often by words of Scripture, but never once by tra- dition. We see plainly, tliat in our Saviour’s time the tradition of the resurrection was so doubtful among the Jews, tliat tlie Sadducees, a formed party among them, did openly deny it. The ART. VI. THE XXXIX ARTICLES. 87 authority of tradition had likewise imposed two very mischievous errors upon the strictest sect of the Jews, that adhered the most firmly to it: the one was, that they understood the prophecies concerning the Messias sitting on the throne of David YitQVdWyi they thought that, in imitation of David, he was not only to free his own country from a foreign yoke, but that he was to subdue, as David had done, all the neighbouring nations. This was to them a stone of stumbling and a rock of offence; so their adhering to their traditions proved their ruin in all respects. The other error, to which the authority of tradition led them, was their preferring the rituals of their religion to the moral precepts that it contained: this not only corrupted their own manners, while they thought that an exactness of performing, and a zeal in asserting, not only the ritual precepts that Moses gave their fathers, but those additions to them which they had from tradi- tion, that were accounted hedges about the law; that this, I say, might well excuse or atone for the most heinous violations of the rules of justice and mercy: but this had yet another worse effect upon them, while it possessed them with such prejudices against our Saviour and his Apostles, when they came to see that they set no value on those practices that were recommended by tradition, and that they preferred pure and sublime morals even to Mosaical ceremonies themselves, and set the Gentiles at liberty from those observances. So that the ruin of the Jews, their rejecting the Messias, and their persecuting his followers, arose chiefly from this principle that had got in among them, of believing tradition, and of being guided by it. The Apostles, in all their disputes with the Jews, make their appeals constantly to the Scriptures: they set a high character on those of Berea for examining them (Acts xvii. 1 1,) and com- paring the doctrine that they preached with them. In the Epis- tles to the Romans, Galatians, and Hebrews, in which they pursue a thread of argument with relation to the prejudices that the Jews had taken up against Christianity, they never once argue from tradition, but always from the Scriptures: they do not pretend only to disparage modern tradition, and to set up that which was more ancient; they make no such distinction, but hold close to the Scriptures. When St. Paul sets out the advantages thatTimothy had by a religious education,he mentions this, that of a child he had known the holy Scriptures, which were able to make him wise unto salvation, through faith which was in Christ Jesus (2 Tim. hi. 15, 16;) that is, the belief of the Christian religion was a key to give him a right understanding of the Old Testament: and upon this occasion St. Paul adds. All Scripture (that is, the whole Old Testament) is given by divine inspiration; or, as others render the words. All the divinely inspired Scripture is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for cor- rection, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God 88 AN EXPOSITION OF ART. vr. may he perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works. The New Testament was writ on the same design with the Old; that, as St. Luke expresses it, we might know the cei'tainty of those things wherein we have been instructed, Luke i. 4. These things were written, saith St. John, that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing ye might have life through his name, John xx. 31. When St. Peter knew by a special revelation that he was near his end, he writ his Second Epistle, that they might have that as a mean of keeping those things always in remembrance after his death, 2 Pet. i. 15. Nor do the iVpostles give us any hints of their having left anything with the Church, to be conveyed down by an oral tradition, which they themselves had not put in writing. They do some- times refer themselves to such things as they had delivered to particular Churches; but by tradition in the Apostles^ days, and for some ages after, it is very clear, that they meant only the conveyance of the faith, and not any unwritten doctrines: they reckoned the faith was a sacred depositum, which was com- mitted to them, and that was to be preserved pure among them. But it were very easy to show, in the continued succession of all the Christian writers, that they still appealed to the Scrip- tures, that they argued from them, that they condemned all doctrines that were not contained in them; and when at any time they brought human authorities to justify their opinions or expressions, they contented themselves with a very few, and those very late authorities. So that their design in vouching them seems to be rather to clear themselves from the imputa- tion of having innovated anything in the doctrine, or in the ways of expressing it, than that they thought those authorities were necessary to prove them by: for in that case they must have taken a great deal more pains than they did, to have followed up and proved the tradition much higher than they went. We do also plainly see that such traditions as were not founded on Scripture were easily corrupted, and on that account were laid aside by the succeeding ages. Such were the opinion of ChrisPs reign on earth for a thousand years; the saints not seeing God till the resurrection; the necessity of giving infants the Eucharist; the divine inspiration of the Seventy Interpre- ters; besides some more important matters, which in respect to those times are not to be too much descanted upon. It is also plain, that the Gnostics, the Valentinians, and other heretics, began very early to set up a pretension to a tradition delivered by the Apostles to some particular persons, as a key lien. 1. iii, for understanding the secret meanings that might be Tertui.^d^ ill Scripture; in opposition to winch, both Iremeus, Tertullian, and others, make use of two sorts of 27,’ 28 . arguments — the one is, the authority of the Scripture AKT. VI. THE XXXIX ARTICLES. 89 itself, by which tliey confuted their errors; the otlicr is a point of fact, that there was no such tradition. In asserting this, they appeal to tliose Churches which had been founded by the Apostles, and in which a succession of Bishops had been con- tinued down: they say, in these we must search for aiX)stolical tradition. This was not said by them as if they had designed to establish tradition as an authority distinct from, or equal to, the Scriptures; but only to show the falsehood of that pretence of the heretics, and that there was no such tradition for their heresies as they gave out. AYhen this whole matter is considered in all its parts, such as, 1st, That nothing is to be believed as an article of faith, unless it appears to have been revealed by God; 2dly, That oral tradition appears, both from the nature of man, and the experience of former times, to be an incompetent conveyer of truth; 3dly, That some books were written for the conveyance of those matters, which have been in all ages carefully preserved and esteemed sacred; 4thly, That the writers of the first ages do always argue from, and appeal to, these books; and, 5thly, That what they have said without authority from them has been rejected in succeeding ages; — the truth of this branch of our Article is fully made out. If what is contained in the Scripture in express words is the object of our faith, then it will follow, that whatsoever may be proved from thence, by a just and lawful consequence, is also to be believed. Men may indeed err in framing these consequences and deductions; they may mistake or stretch them too far: but though there is much sophistry in the world, yet there is also true logic, and a certain thread of reasoning. And the sense of every proposition being the same, whether expressed always in the same or in different words; then, whatsoever appears to be clearly the sense of any place of Scripture, is an object of faith, though it should be otherwise expressed than as it is in Scrip- ture, and every just inference from it must be as true as the proposition itself is: therefore it is a vain cavil to ask express words of Scripture for every article. That was the method of all the ancient heretics. Christ and his Apostles argued from the words and passages in the Old Testament, to prove such things as agreed with the true sense of them, and so did all the Fathers; and therefore so may we do. The great objection to this is, that the Scriptures are dark: that the same place is capable of different senses, the literal and the mystical; and, therefore, since we cannot understand the true sense of the Scripture, we must not argue from it, but seek for an interpreter of it, on whom we may depend. All sects argue from thence, and fancy that they find their tenets in it; and therefore this can be no sure way of finding out sacred truth. 90 AN EXPOSITION OF ART. VI. since so many do err that follow it. In answer to this, it is to be considered, that the Old Testament was delivered to the whole nation of the Jews, that Moses was read in the syna- gogue, in the hearing of the women and children; that the whole nation was to take their doctrine and rules from it; all appeals were made to the Law and to the Prophets among them; and though the prophecies of the Old Testament were in their style and whole contexture dark, and hard to be understood, yet when so great a question as this. Who was the true Messias ? came to be examined, the proofs urged for it were passages in the Old Testament. Now the question was, how these were to be understood? No appeal was here made to tradition, or to church authority, but only by the enemies of our Saviour. Whereas he and his disciples urge these passages in their true sense, and in the consequences that arose out of them. They did in that appeal to the rational faculties of those to whom they spoke. The Christian religion was at first delivered to poor and simple multitudes, who were both illiterate and weak: the Epistles, which are by much the hardest to be understood of the whole New Testament, were addressed to the whole Churches, to all the Faithful or Saints; that is, to all the Christians in those Churches. These were afterwards read in all their assemblies. Upon this it may reasonably be asked, were these writings clear in that age, or were^ they not? If they were not, it is unac- countable why they were addressed to the whole body, and how they came to be received and entertained as they w.ere. It is the end of speech and writing, to make things to be understood; and it is not supposable, that men inspired by the Holy Ghost, either could not or would not express themselves so as that they should be clearly understood. It is also to be observed, that the new dispensation is opposed to the old, as light is to darkness, an open face to a veiled, and substance to shadows. Since then the Old Testament was so clear, that David, both in the 19th, and most copiously in the 119th Psalm, sets out very fully the light which the laws of God gave them in that darker state, we have much more reason to conclude, that the new dispensation should be much brighter. If there was no need of a certain expounder of Scripture then, there is much less now: nor is there any provision made -in the New for a sure guide; no intimations are given where to find one: from all which we may conclude, that the books of the New Testament were clear in those days, and might well be understood by those to whom they were at first addressed. If they were clear to them, they may be like- wise clear to us: for though we have not a full history of that time, or of the phrases and customs, and particular opinions of that age; yet the vast industry of the succeeding ages, of these two last in particular, has made such discoveries, besides the ART. VI. THE XXXIX ARTICLES. 91 other collateral advantages which learning and a niceness in reasoning has given us, that we may justly reckon, that though some hints in the Epistles, which relate to the particulars of tliat time, may be so lost that we can at best but make conjec- tures about them; yet, upon the whole matter, we may well understand all that is necessary to salvation in the Scripture. We may indeed fall into mistakes as well as into sin; and into errors of ignorance, as well as into sins of ignorance. God has dealt with our understandings as he hath dealt with our wills: lie proposes our duty to us, with strong motives to obe- dience; he promises us inward assistances, and accepts of our sincere endeavours; and yet this does not hinder many from perishing eternally, and others from falling into great sins, and so running great danger of eternal damnation; — and all this is because God has left our wills free, and does not constrain us to be good. He deals with our understandings in the same manner: he has set his will and the knowledge of salvation before us, in writings that are framed in a simple and plain style, in a language that was then common, and is still well understood, that were at first designed for common use; they are soon read, and it must be confessed that a great part of them is very clear; so we have reason to conclude, that if a man reads these care- fully and with an honest mind; if he prays to God to direct him, and follows sincerely what he apprehends to be true, and practises diligently those duties that do unquestionably appear to be bound upon him by them, that then he shall find out enough to save his soul; and that such mistakes as lie still upon him, shall either be cleared up to him by some happy pro- vidence, or shall be forgiven him by that infinite mercy to which his sincerity and diligence is well known. That bad men should fall into grievous errors, is no more strange than that they should commit heinous sins; and the errors of good men, in which they are neither wilful nor insolent, will certainly be forgiven, as well as their sins of infirmity. Therefore all the ill use that is made of the Scripture, and all the errors that are pretended to be proved by it, do not weaken its authority or clearness. This does only show us the danger of studying them with a biassed or corrupted mind, of reading them too carelessly, of being too curious in going farther than as they open matters to us, and in being too implicit in adhering to our education, or in submitting to the dictates of others. So far I have explained the first branch of this Article. The consequence that arises out of it is so clear, that it needs not be proved: that therefore nothing ought to he esteemed an Article of Faithy hut what may he found in it, or proved from it. If this is our rule, our entire and only rule, then such doctrines as are not in it ought to be rejected; and any Church that adds to the 92 AN EXPOSITION OF ART. VI. Christian religion, is erroneous for making such additions, and becomes tyrannical if she imposes them upon all her members, and requires positive declarations, subscriptions, and oaths, con- cerning them. In so doing, she forces such as cannot have com- munion with her, but by affirming what they believe to be false, to withdraw from that which cannot be had without departing from the truth. So all the additions of the five sacraments, of the invocation of angels and saints, of the worshipping of images, crosses, and relics; of the corporal presence in the Eucharist; of the sacrifice offered in it for the dead as well as for the living, together with the adoration offered to it, with a great many more, are certainly errors, unless they can be proved from Scripture: and they are intolerable errors, if as the Scrip- ture is express in opposition to them, so they defile the worship of Christians with idolatry; but they become yet more intolerable, if they are imposed upon all that are in that communion, and if creeds or oaths in which they are affirmed are required of all in their communion. Here is the main ground of justifying or forming ourselves into a distinct body from the Roman Church ; and therefore it is well to be considered. The further discussing of this w'ill come properly in, when other particulars come to be examined. From hence I go to the second branch of this Article, which gives us the Canon of the Scripture. Here I shall begin with the New Testament; for though in order the Old Testament is before the New, yet the proof of the one being more dis- tinctly made out by the concurring testimonies of other writers than can possibly be pretended for the other, and the New giving an authority to the Old, by asserting it so expressly, I shall therefore prove first the Canon of the New Testament. I will not urge that of the testimony of the Spirit, which many have had recourse to : this is only an argument to him that feels it, if it is one at all; and therefore it proves nothing to another person. Besides, the utmost that with reason can be made of this is, that a good man, feeling the very powerful effects of the Christian religion on his own heart, in the reforming his nature, and the calming his con- science, together with those comforts that arise out of it, is convinced in general of the whole of Christianity, by the happy effects that it has upon his own mind: but it does not from this appear, how he should know that such books, and such passages in them, should come from a divine original, or that he should be able to distinguish what is genuine in them from what is spurious. To come therefore to such arguments as may be well insisted upon or maintained: — The Canon of the New Testament, as we now have it, is fully proved from the quotations out of the books of the New ART. VI. THE X.\XIX ARTICLES. 93 Testament, by the writers of the first and second centuries; such as Clemens, Ignatius, Justin, Irengeus, and several others. Papias, who conversed with the disciples of the Apostles, is cited by Eusebius in confirmation of St. Matthew^s Lib. in. Gospel, wdiich he says was writ by him in Hebrew: H’st. c. 39. he is also cited to prove that St. Mark writ his Gospel from St. Peter’s preaching; which is also confirmed by Cle- mens of Alexandria; not to mention later writers. Irenseus says St. Luke writ his Gospel according to St. Paul’s eus. 1. a. preaching; w'hich is supported by some words in St. Hist. c. 15. Paul’s Epistles that relate to passages in that Gospel ; yet cer- tainly he had likewise other vouchers — those w/io from the be- ginning were eye-witnesses and ministers of the word; though the whole might receive its full authority from St. Paul’s appro- bation. St. John writ later than the other three; so the testimonies concerning his Gospel are the fullest and the most particular. Irenseus has laboured the proof of this Lib. Ui. cap. matter with much care and attention: he lived within an hundred years of St. John, and knew Polycarp that was one of his disciples: after him come Tertullian and Ori- Tert. 1. iv. gen, who speak very copiously of the four Gospels; and from them all the ecclesiastical writers have wdth- out any doubting or controversy acknowledged and cap. 25. cited them, without the least shadow of any opposition, except what was made by Marcion and the Manichees. Next to these authorities, we appeal to the catalogues of the books of the New Testament that are given us in the third and fourth centuries by Origen, a man of great industry, and that had examined the state of many churches; by St. Athanasius, by the council of Laodicea and Carthage; and after these synops. we have a constant succession of testimonies, that do ercaru"' deliver these as the Canon universally received. All this laid together does fully prove tliis point; and that the more clearly, when these particulars are considered: — 1st, That the books of the New Testament were read in all their churches, and at all their assemblies; so that this was a point in which it was not easy for men to mistake: 2dly, That this was so near the fountain, that the originals themselves of the Apostles were no doubt so long ])reserved: 3dly, That both the Jew^s, as appears from Justin Martyr, and the Gentiles, as appears by Celsus, knew that these were the books in which the faith of the Christians was cum contained: 4thly, That some question was made touch- Trypho. ing some of them, because there was not that clear or general knowledge concerning them, that there was concerning the others ; yet upon fuller inquiry all acquiesced in them. No doubt was ever made about thirteen of St. Paul’s Epistles; because there were 94 AN EXPOSITION OF ART. VI. particular churches or persons to whom the originals of them were Tertui. de directed ; but the strain and design of that to the Hebrews Presc. c. 36 . being to remove their prejudices^ that high one^ which they had taken up against St. Paul as an enemy to their nation, was to be kept out of view, that it might not blast the good effects which were intended by it; yet it is cited oftener than once by Clemens of Rome; and though the ignorance of many of the orig Ep ad Church, who thought that some passages in it African. favoured the severity of the Novatians, that cut otf 2i Ma^fyn apostates from the hopes of repentance, made them ub.^vi. c? 20 ’. question it, of which mention is made both by Origen, Hie^on^kp. Eusebius, and Jerome, who frequently affirm that the cyr. catech. Latin Church, or the Roman, did not receive it; yet Athanasius reckons both this and the seven General Epistles among the canonical writings. Cyril, of Jerusalem, who had occasion to be well informed about it, says, that he delivers his catalogue from the Church, as she had received it from the Apostles, the ancient bishops, and the governors of the Church; and reckons up in it both the seven General Epistles, and the fourteen of St. Paul. So does Ruffin, and so do the councils of Lao- dicea and Carthage;* the Canons of the former being received into the body of the Canons ■\ of the Universal Church. Iremeus, Origen, and Clemens of Alexandria, J cite the Epistle to the Hebrews fre- quently. Some question was made of the Epistle of St. James, the Second of St. Peter, the Second and Third of St. John and St. Jude^s Epistle: but both Clemens of Rome, § Ignatius, and Origen, cite St. James’s Epistle; Eusebius |1 says it was known to most, and read in most Christian Churches : the like is testified by St. Jerome.^ St. Peter’s Second Epistle is cited by Origen and Firmilian;** and Eusebiustt says it was held very useful even by those who held it not canonical : but since the First Epistle was never questioned by any, the Second that carries so many characters of its genuineness, such as St. Peter’s name at the head of it, the mention of the trans- figuration, and of his being an eye-witness of it, are evident proofs of its being writ by him. I’he Second and Third Epistles of St. John are cited by Irenaeus, Clemens and Dennis of Alexandria, and by Tertullian.JJ The Epistle of St. Jude is also cited by Tertul- lian. Some of those General Epistles were not addressed to any particular body, or church, that might have preserved the * Apud Hieron. f Can. 60. Can. 47. + Iren. 1. iii. c. 38. Orig. 1. iii. et vii. cont. Cels. Dial. con. Mare, et Ep. ad Afric. Clem. Alex. $ Ignat. Ep. ad Eph. Orig. Horn. 13. in Genes. II Eus. Hist. 1. ii. c. 22. 1. iii. c. 24, 25. IF Hieron. Pref. in Ep. Jac. ** Orig. cont. Marcion. Firmil. Ep. 75, ad. Cypr. ff Eus. Hist. 1. iii. c. 3. Iren. l.i. c. 13. Clem. Alex. Strom. 2. Tcrtul.de Came Chr. c. 24. Eus. Hist. 1. vi. c. 24. Tertui. de Cultu Foem. ART. VI. THE XXXIX ARTICLES. 05 originals of them^ but were sent about in the nature of circular letters; so that it is no wonder if they were not received so early, and with such an unanimity, as we find concerning the four Gospels, the Acts of the Apostles, and thirteen of St. Pauhs Epistles. These being first fixed upon by an unquestioned and undisputed tradition, made that here was a standard once ascer- tained to judge the better of the rest: so when the matter was strictly examined, so near the fountain that it was very possible and easy to find out the certainty of it, then in the beginning of the fourth century, the Canon was settled, and universally agreed to. The style and matter of the Revelation, as well as the de- signation of Divine given to the author of it, gave occasion to many questions about it: Clemens of Rome cites it as ciem. in Ep. a prophetical book; Justin Martyr says it was writ by Sust^n.’ cont. John, one of ChrisPs twelve Apostles; Irenseus calls it the Revelation of St. John, the disciple of our Lord, c. so! writ almost in our own age, in the end of Domitian^s i. w!c.24! reign. Melito writ upon it: Theophilus of Antioch, jg Hippolytus, Clemens and Dennis of Alexandria, Ter- i- vii. c. 27. tullian, Cyprian, and Origen, do cite it. And thus the Canon of the New Testament seems to be fully made out by the con- current testimony of the several Churches immediately after the apostolical time. Here it is to be observed, that a great difference is to be made between all this and the oral tradition of a doctrine, in which there is nothing fixed or permanent, so that the whole is only report carried about and handed down; whereas here is a book that was only to be copied out, and read publicly and by all per- sons — between which the difference is so vast, that it is as little possible to imagine how the one should continue pure, as how the other should come to be corrupted. There was never a book of which we have that reason to be assured that it is genuine, that we have here. There happened to be constant disputes among Christians from the second century downward, concern- ing some of the most important parts of this doctrine; and by both sides these books were appealed to: and though there might be some variations in readings and translations, yet no question was made concerning the Canon, or the authenticalness of the books themselves; unless it were by the Manichees, who came indeed to be called Christians by a very enlarged way of speakings since it is justly strange how men who said that the Author of the universe, and of the Mosaical dispensation, was an evil God; and who held that there were two supreme Gods, a good and an evil one — how such men, I say, could be called Christians. The authority of those books is not derived from any judg- ment that the Church made concerning them; but from this, that it was known that they were writ, either by men who were 96 AN EXPOSITION OF ART. VI. themselves the Apostles of Christ, or by those who were their assistants and companions, at whose order, or under whose direction and approbation, it was known that they were written and published. These books were received and known for such, in the very apostolical age itself; so that many of the apostolical men, such as Ignatius and Polycarp, lived long enough to see the Canon generally received and settled. The suffering and depressed state of the first Christians was also such, that as there is no reason to suspect them of imposture, so it is not at all cre- dible that an imposture of this kind could have passed upon all the Christian Churches. A man in a corner might have forged the Sibylline oracles, or some other pieces which were not to be generally used; and they might have appeared soon after, and credit might have been given too easily to a book or writing of that kind; but it cannot be imagined, that in an age in which the belief of this doctrine brought men under great troubles, and in which miracles and other extraordinary gifts were long con- tinued in the Church — that, I say, either false books could have been so early obtruded on the Church as true, or that true books could have been so vitiated as to lose their original purity, while they were so universally read and used, and that so soon; or that the writers of that very age and of the next should have been so generally and so grossly imposed upon, as to have cited spurious writings for true. These are things that could not be believed in the histories or records of any nation; though the value that the Christians set upon these books, and the constant use they made of them, reading a parcel of them every Lord’s day, make this much less supposable in the Christian religion, than it could be in any other sort of history or record whatsoever. The early spreading of the Christian religion to so many remote countries and provinces, the many copies of these books that lay in coun- tries so remote, the many translations of them that w'ere quickly made, do all concur to make the impossibility of any such im- posture the more sensible. Thus the Canon of the New Testa- ment is fixed upon clear and sure grounds. From thence, without any further proof, we may be con- vinced of the Canon of the Old Testament. Christ does fre- quently cite Moses and the Prophets; he appeals to them; and though he charged the Jews of that time, chiefly their teachers and rulers, with many disorders and faults, yet he never once so much as insinuated that they had corrupted their law, or other sacred books; which, if true, had been the greatest of all those abuses that they had put upon the people. Our Saviour cited their books according to tlie translation that was then in credit and common use amongst them. When one asked him which was the great commandment, he answered. How I'eadcfit thou? And he proved the chief things relating to ART. VI. TIIR XXXIX ARTICLES. - 97 himself, his death and resurrection, from tlie prophecies that liad gone before: which ought to have been fulfilled in him. He also cites the Old Testament, by a threefold division of the Law of Moses, the Prophets and the Psalms (Luke xxiv. 44,) accord- ing to the three orders of books into which the Jews had divided it. The Psalms, which was the first among the holy writings, being set for that whole volume, St, Paul says, that to the Jews were committed the oracles of God (Rom.iii. 2:) he reckons that among the chief of their privileges, but he never blames them for being unfaithful in this trust; and it is certain that the Jews have not corrupted the chief of those passages that are urged against them to prove Jesus to have been the Christ. So that the Old Testament, at least the translation of the LXX inter- preters, which was in common use and in high esteem among the Jews in our SaviouPs time, was, as to the main, faithful and uncorrupted. This might be further urged from what St. Paul says concerning those Scriptures which Timothy had learned from a child: these could be no other than the books of the Old Testament. Thus, if the writings of the New Testament are acknowledged to be of divine authority, the full testimony that they give to the books of the Old Testament, does sufficiently prove their authority and genuineness likewise. But to carry this matter yet further. Moses wrought such miracles, both in Egypt, in passing through the Red Sea, and in the wilderness, that, if these .are acknowledged to be true, there can be no question made of his being sent of God, and authorized by him to deliver his will to the Jewish nation. The relation given of those miracles repre- sents them to be such in themselves, and to have been acted so publicly, that it cannot be pretended they were tricks, or that some bold assertors gained a credit to them by affirming them. They were so publicly transacted, that the relations given of them are either downright fables, or they were clear and uncon- tested characters of a prophet authorized of God. Nor is the relation of them made with any of those arts that are almost necessary to impostors. The Jewish nation is all along repre- sented as forward and disobedient, apt to murmur and rebel. The laws it contains, as to the political part, are calculated to advance both justice and compassion, to awaken industry, and yet to repress avarice. Liberty and authority are duly tem- pered. The moral part is pure, and suitable to human nature, though with some imperfections and tolerances which were con- nived at, but yet regulated: and for the religious part, idolatry, magic, and all human sacrifices, were put away by it. When we consider what remains are left us of the idolatry of the Egyptians, and what was afterward among the Greeks and Romans, who were polite and well constituted as to their civil G 98 AxN EXPOSITION OF ART. VI. laws and rules, and may be esteemed the most refined pieces of heathenism; we do find a simplicity and purity, a majesty and gravity, a modesty with a decency in the Jewish rituals, to which the others can in no sort be compared. In the books of Moses, no design for himself appears: his posterity were but in the crowd, Levites without any character of distinction; and he spares neither himself nor his brother, when there was occasion to mention their faults, no more than he does the rest of his countrymen. It is to be further considered, that the laws and policy appointed by Moses settled many rules and rights that must have perpetuated the remembrance of them. The land was to be divided by lot, and every share was to descend in an inheritance: the frequent assemblies at Jerusalem on the three great festivals, the sabbaths, the new moons, the sabbatical year, and the great jubilee, the law of the double tithe, the sacrifices of so many different kinds, the distinctions of meats, the prohibition of eating blood, together with many other particulars, were all founded upon it. Now let it be a little con- sidered, whether the foundation of all this, I mean the five books of Moses, could be a forgery or not? If the Pentateuch was delivered by Moses himself to the Jews, and received by them as the rule both of their religion and policy, then it is not pos- sible to conceive, but that the recital of all that is contained from the book of Exodus to the end of Deuteronomy, was known by them to be true; and this establishes the credit of the whole. But if this is not admitted, then let it be considered, in what time it can possibly be supposed that this imposture could have appeared? There is a continued series of books of their history, that goes down to the Babylonish captivity; so, if there was an imposture of this sort set on foot in that time, all that history must have been made upon it, and an account must have been given of the discovery of those books; otherwise the imposture must have been too weak to have gained credit? whereas, on the contrary, the whole thread of their history represents these books to have been always amongst them. The discovery made in the reign of Josias cannot be supposed to be of this sort: since how much disorder soever the long and wicked reign of Manasses might have brought them under, and what havoc soever might have been made of the writings that were held sacred among them, yet it was impossible tliat a series of forged laws and histories could have been put upon them, of which there was still a continued memory preserved among them; and that they could be brouglit to believe, that a book and a law full of so much history, and of so many various and unusual rites founded u})on it, had been held sacred among them for many ages, if it was l)ut a new invention. Therefore this is an extravagant conceit: so that the book that was then -ur C.'V^^ ‘f 0 ■?, lists r- 'i 1 1 (o I X >tjL^ , ^ kS-^^ ^ 4 7 . oj. -S^tln./VYW'v^ - -sjt ^ ^ "^7 \ (j 4 ao. ;i>e^ AKT. VI. THE XXXIX AliTICLES. ‘)9 found in the '^J'emple (2 Chron. xxxiv. 14,) was either tlie original of the Law written by Moses’s own hand; for so the words may be rendered; or it may be understood of some of the last chapters of Deuteronomy (chap. xxvi. 16, to the end of Deut.,). which seem by the tenor of them to .have been at first a book by them- selves, though afterwards joined to the rest of Deuteronomy; and in the collection that Josias was making, these might be wanting at first; and in these there are such severe threatenings (Deut. xxviii. 36, to the end,) that it was no wonder if a heart so tender as Josias’s was very much affected at the reading them. Upon the whole matter, there is no period in the whole history of the Jews to which any suspicion of such an imposture can be fastened, before the Babylonish captivity; so it must be laid either upon the times of the captivity, or soon after their return out of it. Now, not to observe that men in such circumstances are seldom capable of things of that nature, can it be imagined that a series of books, that run through many ages, could have been framed so particularly, and yet so exactly, that nothing in any concurrent history could ever be brought to disprove any part of it? That such a thing could pass in so short a time upon a whole nation, while so many men remembered, or might well remember, what they had been before the captivity, if they had not all known that it was true, is a most inconceivable thing. These books were so far from being disputed, though we see their neighbours the Samaritans were inch :ed enough to contest everything with them, that all acquiesced in them: and in that second beginning of their being a state, as it is opened in the books of Esdras and Nehemiah, and in Daniel and the three Prophets of the second Temple, all the other books were received among them without dispute; and their law was in such high esteem, that about two hundred years after that, the king of Egypt did, with much entreaty, and at a vast charge, procure a translation of it to be made in Greek. The Jewish nation, as they live much within themselves, where it is safe for them to profess their religion, so they have had the divine authority of their books so deeply infused in them from age to age, that now above sixteen hundred years, though it is not possible for them to practise the main parts of their religion, and though they suffer much for professing it, yet they do still adhere to it, and practise as much of it as they can by the law itself, which ties the chief performances of that religion to one determinate place. This is a firmness which has never yet appeared in any other religion besides the Jewish and the Christian; for all the several shapes of hea- thenism have often changed, and they all went off as soon as G 2 100 AN EXPOSITION OF ART. VI. the government that supported them fell, and that another came in its place: whereas these have subsisted long, not only with- out the support of the civil power, but under many severe per- secutions; which is at least a good moral argument to prove, that these religions had another foundation, and a deeper root, than any other religion could ever pretend to. Yet, after all, it is not to be denied, but that in the collection that was made of the books of the Old Testament after the captivity, by Ezra and others, or after that burning of many of the books of their law under Antiochus Epiphanes, mentioned in the book of Mac- cabees (1 Macc. i. 56,) that some disorder might happen; that there might be such regard had to some copies, as not to alter some manifest faults that were in them, but that, instead of that, they might liave marked on the margin that which was the true reading; and a superstitious conceit might have afterwards crept in, and continued in after ages, of a mystery in that mat- ter, upon their first letting these faults continue in the text with the marginal annotation of the correction of them. There might be also other marginal annotations of the modern names of places set against the ancient ones, to guide the reader^s judgment; and afterwards the modern name might have been writ instead of the ancient one. These are things that might naturally enough hap- pen; and will serve to resolve many objections against the text of the Old Testament. All the numbers of persons as well as of years might also have been writ in numerical letters, though afterwards they came all to be set down in words at large: and while they were in letters, as some might have been worn out and lost in ancient copies, so others were, by the resemblance of some letters, very like to be mistaken ; nor could men^s me- mories serve them so well to correct mistakes in numbers as in other matters. This may show a way to reconcile many seem- ing differences between the accounts that are variously stated in some of the books of the Bible, and between the Hebrew and the Septuagint. In these matters our Church has made no decision; and so divines are left to a just freedom in them. In general we may safely rely upon the care and providence of God, and the industry of men, who are naturally apt to preserve things of that kind entire which are highly valued among them: and therefore we conclude, that the books of the Old Testament are preserved pure down to us, as to all those things for which they were written; that is, in everything tliat is either an object of faith, or a rule of life: and as to lesser matters, which visibly have no relation to either of these, there is no reason to think that every copier was so divinely guided that no small error might surprise liiin. In fact, we know that there are many various readings, which might have arisen AItT. VI. TIIK XXXIX ARTICLES. 101 from tlie haste and carelessness of copiers^ from their guessing wrong that which appeared doubtful or imperfect in the copy, and from a superstitious adhering to some apparent faults, when they found them in copies of a venerable antiquity. But when all those various readings are compared together, it appears, that as they are inconsiderable, so they do not concern our faith nor our morals; the setting which right was the main end of revelation. The most important diversity relates to chronology; but the account of time, especially in the first ages, is of no consequence to our believing right, or to our living well; and therefore, if some errors or mistakes should appear to be among those different readings, these give no just cause to doubt of the whole. And indeed, considering the many ages through which those books have passed, we have much more reason to wonder that they are brought down to us so entire, and so manifestly genuine in all their main and important parts, than that we should see some prints of the frailty of those who copied and preserved them. It remains only upon this head to consider, what inspiration and an inspired book is, and how far that matter is to be car- ried. When we talk with one another, a noise is made in the air that strikes with such vibrations on the ears of others, that, by the motion thereby made on the brain of another, we do convey our thoughts to another person; so that the impres- sion made on the brain is that which communicates our thoughts to another. By this we can easily apprehend how God may make such impressions on men’s brains, as may convey to them such things as he intends to make known to them. This is the general notion of inspiration: in which the man- ner and degree of the impression may make it at the least as certain that the motion comes from God, as a man may be certain that such a thing was told him by such a person, and not by any other. Now there may be different degrees, both of the objects that are revealed, and of the manner of the reve- lation. To some it may be given in charge to deliver rules and laws to men: and because that ought to be expressed in plain wwds, without pomp or ornament, therefore upon such occasions the imagination is not to be much agitated; but the impression must be made so naked, that the understanding may clearly apprehend it; and by consequence, that it may be plainly expressed. In others, the design may be only to employ them in order to the awakening men to observe a law already received and owned: that must be done with such pompous visions of judgments coming upon the violation of those laws, as may very much alarm those to whom they are sent: both the representations and the expressions must be fitted to excite men, to terrify, and so to reform them. Now, because the imagination, whether wlien we are transporteil 102 AN EXPOSITION OF ART. VI. in our thoughts being awake, or in dreams, is capable of having those scenes acted upon it, and of being so excited by them as to utter them with pompous figures, and in a due rapidity; this is another way of inspiration that is strictly CdWadi prophecy in the Old Testament. A great deal of the style used in this must relate to the particulars of the time to which it belongs: many allusions, hints, and forms of speech must be used, that are lively and pro- verbial; which cannot be understood, unless we had all those concurrent helps which are lost even in the next age, if not pre- served in books, and so they must be quite lost after many ages are past, when no other memorials are left of the time in which they were transacted. This must needs make the far greater part of all the prophetic writings to be very dark to us; not to insist upon the peculiar genius of the language in which the Prophets wrote, and on the common customs of those climates and nations to this day, that are very different from our own. A third degree of inspiration might be, when there were no discoveries of future events to be made, but good and holy men were to be inwardly excited by God, to compose such poems, hymns, and discourses, as should be of great use both to give men clearer and fuller apprehensions of divine things, and also insensibly to charm them with a pleasant and exalted way of treating them. And if the providence of God should so order them, in the management of their composures, that it may afterwards appear that predictions were intermixed with them, yet they are not to be called prophets, unless God had revealed to them the mystical intent of such predictions; so that though the Spirit of God prophesied in them, yet they themselves not understanding it, are not to be accounted prophets. Of this last sort are the books of the Psalms, Job, Proverbs, Eccle- siastes, &c. According to the different order of these inspirations was the Old Testament divided into three volumes. The inspira- tion of the New Testament is all to be reduced to the first sort, except the Revelation, which is purely and strictly prophetical. The other parts of the New Testament are writ after a softer and clearer illumination, and in a style suitable to it. Now, because enthusiasts and impostors may falsely pretend to divine commissions and inspirations, it is necessary (both for the unde- ceiving of those who may be misled by a hot and ungoverned imagination, and for giving such an authority to men truly inspired as may distinguish them from false pretenders) that the man thus inspired should have some evident sign or other, either some miraculous action that is visibly beyond the powers of nature, or some particular discovery of somewhat that is to come, which must be so expressed that the accomplishment of it may show it to be beyond the conjectures of the must ART. VI. TllK XXXIX ARTICLKS. 1 0.i sagacious: by one or both of those a man must prove, and the world must be convinced, that he is sent and directed by God. And if such men deliver their message in writing, we must receive such writings as sacred and inspired. In these writings, some parts are historical, some doctrinal, and some elenchtical or argumentative. As to the historical part, it is certain, that whatsoever is delivered to us as a matter truly transacted, must be indeed so: but it is not necessary, when discourses are reported, that the individual words should be set down just as they were said; it is enough if the effect of them is reported; nor is it necessary that the order of time should be strictly observed, or that all the conjunctions in such relation should be understood severely according to their grammatical meaning. It is visible that all the sacred writers write in a diversity of style, according to their different tempers, and to the various impressions that were made upon them. In that, the inspiration left them to the use of their faculties, and to their previous customs and habits. The design of revelation, as to this part of its subject, is only to give such representations of matters of fact, as may both work upon and guide our belief; but the order of time and the strict words having no influence that way, the writers might dispose them and express them variously, and yet all be exactly true: for the conjunctive par- ticles do rather import that one passage comes to be related after another, than that it was really transacted after it. As to the doctrinal parts, that is, the rules of life, which these books set before us, or the propositions that are offered to us in them, we must entirely acquiesce in these, as in the voice of God, who speaks to us by the means of a person, whom he, by his authorizing him in so wonderful a manner, obliges us to hear and believe. But when these writers come to explain or argue, they use many figures that were well known in that age: but because the signifi- cation of a figure is to be taken from common use, and not to be carried to the utmost extent that the words themselves will bear, we must therefore inquire, as much as we can, into the manner and phraseology of the time in which such persons lived; which with relation to the New Testament will lead us far: and by this we ought to govern the extent and importance of these figures. As to their arguings, we are further to consider, that some- times they argue upon certain grounds, and at other times they go upon principles acknowledged and received by those with whom they dealt. It ought never to be made the only way of proving a thing, to found it upon the concessions of those with whom we deal; yet when a thing is once truly proved, it is a just and usual way of confirming it, or at least of silencing those who oppose it, to show that it follows naturally from those opi- nions and principles that are received among them. Since 104 AN EXPOSITION OF ART. VI. therefore the Jews had, at the time of the writing of the New Testament, a peculiar way of expounding many prophecies and passages in the Old Testament, it was a very proper way to convince them, to allege many places according to their key and methods of exposition. Therefore, when divine writers argue upon any point, we are always bound to believe the conclusions that their reasonings end in, as parts of divine revelation: but we are not bound to be able to make out, or even to assent to, all the premises made use of by them in their whole extent; unless it appears plainly that they affirm the premises as expressly as they do the conclusions proved by them. And thus far I have laid down such a scheme concerning inspi- ration and inspired writings, as will afford, to such as apprehend it aright, a solution to most of those difficulties with which we are urged on the account of some passages in the sacred writings. The laying down a scheme that asserts an immediate inspiration, which goes to the style, and to every tittle, and that denies any error to have crept into any of the copies, as it seems on the one hand to raise the honour of the Scriptures very highly, so it lies open on the other hand to great difficulties, which seem insuper- able in that hypothesis: whereas a middle way, as it settles the divine inspiration of these writings, and their being continued down genuine and unvitiated to us, as to all that for which we can only suppose that inspiration was given; so it helps us more easily out of all difficulties, by yielding that which serves to answer them, without weakening the authority of the wdiole. I come in the last place to examine the negative consequence that arises out of this head, which excludes those books com- monly called apocryphal, that are here rejected, from being a part of the Canon: and this will be easily made out. The chief reason that presses us Christians to acknowledge the Old Testament, is the testimony that Christ and his Apostles gave to those books, as they were then received by the Jewish Church; to whom were committed the oracles of God. Now it is not so much as pretended, that ever these books were received among the Jews, or were so much as known to them. None of the writers of the New Testament cite or mention them; neither Philo nor Josephus speaks of them. Josephus on the contrary says, they had only twenty-two books that deserved belief; but that those which were written after the time of Artaxerxes were not of equal credit with the rest; and that in that period they had no prophets at all. The Christian Church was for some ages an utter stranger to those books. Melito, Bishop of Sardis, being desired by Onesimus to give him a perfect catalogue of the books of the Old Testament, took a journey on purpose to the East, to examine this matter at its source; and having, as he says, made an exact inquiry, AIIT. VI. TIIK XXXIX ARTICLES. 105 lie sent him the names of them just as we receive the Canon; of wliich Eusebius says that he has preserved it, be- Euseb. lUst. cause it contained all those books which the Church owned. Origen gives us the same catalogue according to the tradition of the Jews, who divided the Old Testament , . into twenty-two books, according to the letters of their alphabet. Athanasius reckons them up in the same manner to be twenty-two; and he more distinctly says, ‘‘ that he delivered those, as they had received them inEp. Pasch. by tradition, and as they were received by the whole Church of Christ, because some presumed to mix apocryphal books with the divine Scriptures; and therefore he was set on it by the orthodox brethren, in order to declare the canonical books delivered as such by tradition, and believed to be of divine inspiration. It is true,^^ he adds, ‘‘ that besides these there were other books which were not put into the Canon, but yet were appointed by the Fathers to be read by those who first come to be instructed in the way of piety and then he reckons up most of the apocryphal books. Here is the first mention we find of them, as indeed it is very probable they were made at Alexandria, by some of those Jews who lived there in great numbers. Both Hilary and Cyril, of Jerusalem, give us the same catalogue of the books of the Old Testament, and affirm, that they delivered them thus according to the tradition of the ancients. Cyril says, that all other books are to be put in a second order. Gregory Nazianzen reckons up the tv/enty-two books, and adds, that none besides them are genuine. The catech. 4. •’ words that are in the Article are repeated by St. Jerome in several of his prefaces; and that which should determine this whole matter is, that the council of Laodicea, by an can. 95, express Canon, delivers the catalogue of the canonical books as we do, decreeing that these only should be read in the Church. Now the Canons of this council were afterwards received into the code of the Canons of the universal Church; so that here we have the concurring sense of the whole Church of God in this matter. It is true, the book of the Revelation not being reckoned in it, this may be urged to detract from its authority: but it was already proved that that book was received much earlier into the Canon of the Scriptures; so the design of this Canon being to establish the authority of those books that were to be read in the Church, the darkness of the Apocalypse making it appear reasonable not to read it publicly, that may be the reason why it is not mentioned in it, as well as in some later catalogues. Here we have four centuries clear for our Canon, in exclusion to all additions. It were easy to carry this much further down, and to show that these books were never by any express defini- 106 AN EXPOSITION OF ART. VII. tion received into the Canon, till it was done at Trent; and that in all the ages of the Church, even after they came to be much esteemed, there were divers writers, and those gene- rally the most learned of their time, who denied them to be a part of the Canon. At first, many writings were read in the Churches, that were in high reputation, both for the sake of the authors and of the contents of them, though they were never Can 47 lookcd on as a part of the Canon ; such were Clemenses Epistle, the books of Hermas, the Acts of the Mar- tyrs, besides several other things which were read in parti- cular churches; and among these the apocryphal books came also to be read, as containing some valuable books of instruc- tion, besides several fragments of the Jewish history, which were perhaps too easily believed to be true. These, therefore, being usually read, they came to be reckoned among canonical Scriptures: for this is the reason assigned in the third council of Carthage for calling them canonical, because they had received them from their fathers as books that were to be read in churches, and the word canonical was by some in those ages used in a large sense, in opposition to spurious; so that it signi- fied no more than that they were genuine. So much depends upon this article, that it seemed necessary to dwell fully upon it, and to state it clearly. It remains only to observe the diversity between the Articles now established, and those set forth by King Edward. In the latter there was not a catalogue given of the books of Scripture, nor was there any distinction stated between the canonical and the apocryphal books. In those there is. likewise a paragraph, or rather a parenthesis, added after the words proved thereby, in these words. Although sometimes it may be admitted by God^s faithful people as pious, and conducing unto order and decency; which are now left out, because the authority of the Church as to matters of order and decency, which was only intended to be asserted by this period, is more fully explained and stated in the 35 th Article. ARTICLE VII. OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. The Old Testament is not contrary to the Neiv; for both in the Old and New Testament Everlasting Life is offered to Mankind by Christ, who is the only Mediator between God and Man, being both God and Man. Wherefore they are not to he heard. ART. VII. THE XXXIX ARTICLES. 1 ()7 which feign that the old Fathers did look only for Transitory Promises. Although the Law given from God by Moses, as touching Cere- monies and Rites, do not bind Christian Men, nor the Civil Pre- cepts thereof ought of necessity to be received in any Common- wealth, yet notwithstanding no Christian Man whatsoever is free from the Obedience of the Commandments which are called Moral. This Article is made up of the Sixth and the Nineteenth of King Edward^s Articles laid together; only the Nineteenth of King Edward^s has these words after Moral: Wherefore they are not to be heard, which teach that the Holy Scriptures were given to none but to the weak: and brag continually of the Spirit, by which they do pretend that all whatsoever they preach is suggested to them; though manifestly contrary to the Holy Scrip- tures. This whole Article relates to the Antinomians, as these last words were added by reason of the extravagance of some enthusiasts at that time; but that madness having ceased in Queen Elizabeth's time, it seems it was thought that there was no more occasion for those words. There are four heads that do belong to this Article: — First, That the Old Testament is not contrary to the New: Secondly, That Christ was the Mediator in both dispensations, so that salvation was offered in both by him: Thirdly, That the Cere- monial and the judiciary precepts in the Law of Moses do not bind Christians: Fourthly, That the Moral Law does still bind all Christians. To the first of these — the Manichees of old, who fancied that there was a bad as well as a good God, thought that these two great Principles were in a perpetual struggle; and they believed the Old Dispensation was under the bad one, which was taken away by the New, that is, the work of the good God. But they who held such monstrous tenets must needs reject the whole New Testament, or very much corrupt it — since there is nothing plainer, than that the Prophets of the Old foretold the New with approbation; and the writers of the New prove both their com- mission and their doctrine from passages of the Old Testament. This, therefore, could not be affirmed without rejecting many of the books that we own, and corrupting the rest. So this deserves no more to be considered. Upon this occasion it will be no improper digression to consider, what revelation those under the Mosaical Law, or that lived before it, had of the Messias. This is an important matter: it is a great confirmation of the truth of the Christian religion, as it will furnish us with proper arguments against the Jews. It is certain they have long had, and still have, an expectation of a Messias: now the characters and predictions 108 AN EXPOSITION OF ART. VII. concerning this person must have been fulfilled long ago, or the prophecies will be found to be false; and if they do meet and were accomplished in our Saviour’s person, and if no other person could ever pretend to this, then that which is undertaken to be proved will be fully performed. The first promise to Adam after his sin, speaks of an enmity between the seed of the ser- pent and the seed of the woman: It shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel, Gen. hi. 15. The one might hurt the other in some lesser instances, but the other was to have an entire victory at last; which is plainly signified by the figures of bruising the heel, and bruising the head, which was to be per- formed by one who was to bear this character of being the woman’s seed. The next promise was made to Abraham, In thee shall all the families of the earth be blessed, (Gen. xii. 3; xxii. 18; xxvi. 24; xxviii. 14;) this was lodged in his seed or posterity, upon his being ready to offer up his son Isaac. That promise was renewed to Isaac, and after him to Jacob: when he was dying, it was lodged by him in the tribe of Judah, when he prophesied, that the sceptre should not depart from Judah, nor the lawgiver from between his feet, till Shiloh should come; and the gathering of the people, that is, of the Gentiles, was to he to him, Gen. xlix. 10. It is certain that Ten Tribes were lost in their captivity, whereas the tribe of Judah was brought back, and con- tinued to be a political body under their own laws, till a breach was made upon that by the Romans first reducing them to the form of a province, and soon after that destroying them utterly; so that either that prediction was not accomplished, or the Shiloh, the Sent, to whom the Gentiles were to be gathered, came before they lost their sceptre and laws. Moses told the people of Israel, that God ivas to raise up among them a Prophet like unto him, to whom they ought to hearken, otherwise God would require it of them, Deut. xviii. 15. The character of Moses was, that he was a lawgiver, and the author of an entire body of instituted religion ; so they were to look for such a one. Balaam prophesied darkly of one whom he saw at a great distance from his own time; and he spoke of a Star that should come out of Jacob, and a Sceptre out of Israel, (Numb. xxiv. 170 some memorial of which was probably preserved among the Arabians. In the book of Psalms there are many things said of David, which seem capable of a much auguster sense than can be pretended to be answered by any thing that befell himself. What is said in the 2d, the 16th, the 22d, the 45th, the 102d, and the 110th Psalms, affords us copious instances of these. Passages in these Psalms must be stretched by figures that go very high, to think they were all fulfilled in David or Solomon: but in their literal and largest sense they were accomplished in Christ, to whom God said, AR'r. VI 1. THE XXXIX ARTICLES. 10*) Thou art my Sou, this day have I begotten thee. In him thatw'as veritied. Thou wilt not leave my soul in hell, neither wilt thou suffer thy Holy One to see corruption. His hands and his feet were pierced, and lots were cast upon his vesture. Of him it may be strictly said, Thy throne, O God, is for ever and ever. To him that belonged, The Lord said unto my Lord, Sit thou on my right hand, till I make thine enemies thy footstool: And, The Lord sware and will not repent. Thou art a priest for ever after the order of Melchisedeck. The Prophets gave yet more express predictions concerning the Messias. Isaiah did quiet the fears of Ahaz, and of the house of David, by saying, The Lord himself shall give you a sign. Behold, a virgin shall conceive and bear a son, Isa. viii. 14. It was certainly no sign for one that was a virgin to conceive after- wards and bear a son ; therefore the sign or extraordinary thing here promised as a signal pledge of God^s care of the house of David, must lie in this, that one still remaining a virgin should conceive and bear a son; not to insist upon the strict significa- tion of the word in the original. The same prophet did also foretell, that as this Messias, or the Branch, should spring from the stem of Jesse, so also he was to be full of the Spirit of the Lord; and that the Gentiles should seek to him, Isa. xi. 1, 2. 10. In another place he enumerates many of the miracles that should be done by him: he was to give sight to the blind, make the deaf to hear, the lame to walk; Isa. xxxv. 5, 6. He does fur- ther set forth his character; not that of a warrior or conqueror; on the contrary. He was not to cry nor strive, nor break the bruised reed, or quench the smoking flax: he was to bring forth judgment to the Gentiles, and the isles were to wait for his laiv, Isa. xlii. 1 — 4. There is a whole chapter (Isa. liii.) in the same Prophet, setting forth the mean appearance that the Mes- sias was to make, the contempt he was to fall under, and the sufferings he was to bear; and that for the sins of others, which were to be laid on him; so that his soul or life was to be made an offering for sin, in reward of which he was to be highly exalted. In another place (Isa. Ixi.) his mission is set forth, not in the strains of war or of conquest, but of preaching to the poor, setting the prisoners free as in a year of jubilee, and comforting the afflicted and such as mourned. In the two last chapters of that Prophet mention is made more particularly of the Gentiles that were to be called by him, and the isles that were afar off, out of whom God was to take some for Priests and Levites: which showed plainly, that a new dispensation was to be opened by him, in which the Gentiles were to be Priests and Levites, which could not be done while the Mosaical Law stood, that had tied these functions to the tribe of Levi, and to the house of Aaron. Jeremy renewed the promise to the house of David, of a King no AN EXPOSITION OF AUT. VII. that should reign and prosper; in whose days Judah and Israel were to dwell safely, whose\name was to be, the Lord our Right- eousness, Jer. xxiii. 5. It is certain this promise was never lite- rally accomplished; and therefore recourse must be had to a mystical sense. The same Prophet gives a large account of a new covenant that God was to make with the house of Israel, not according to the covenant that he made with their fathers, when he brought them out of Egypt, Jer. xxxi. 31. We have also two characters given of that covenant: one is, that God would put his law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts; that he would be their God, and that they should all be taught of him; the other is, that he would forgive their iniquities, and remember their sin no more. One of these is in opposition to their Law, that consisted chiefly in rituals, and had no promises of inward assistances; and the other is in opposition to the limited pardon that was offered in that dispensation, on the condition of the many sacrifices that they were required to offer. There is a prediction to the same purpose in Ezek. xxxvi. 25. Joel (ii. 28) prophesied of an extraordinary effusion of the Spirit of God on great numbers of persons, old and young, that was to happen before the great and terrible day of the Lord; that is, before the final destruction of Jerusalem. Micah, (v. 2,) after he had fore- told several things of the dispensation of the Messiah, says that he was to come out of Bethlehem Ephratah. Haggai (ii. 6 — 9) encouraged those who were troubled at the meanness of the Temple which they had raised after their return out of the cap- tivity: it had neither the outward glory in its fabric that Solo- mon^s Temple had, nor the more real glory of the Ark, with the Tables of the Law; of fire from heaven on the altar; of a succes- sion of prophets; of the Urim and Thummim, and the cloud between the cherubirns; which last, strictly speaking, was the glory; all which had been in Solomon^s Temple, but were wanting ill that. In opposition to this, the Prophet, in the name of God, promised, that he would in a little while shake the heavens and the earth, and shake all nations — words that import some surprising and great change; upon which the desire of all nations should come, and God will fill the house with his glory; and the glory of this latter house should exceed the glory of the former, for in that place God would give peace. Here is a plain prophecy, that tliis Temple was to have a glory, not only equal, but superior to the glory of Solomon’s Temple. These words are too august to be believed to have been accomplished when Herod rebuilt the Temple with much magnificence; for that was hiothing in comparison of the real glory, of the symbols of the presence of God, that were wanting in it; this cannot answer the words, that the desire of all nadions^wdi^ to come, and that God would give peace in that place. So tliat either tliis prophecy was ART. VII. THE XXXIX ARTICLES. Ill never fulfilled, or somewhat must be assigned during tlie second Temple that will answer those solemn expressions, which are plainly a[)plicable to our Saviour, who was the expectation of the Gentiles^ by whom peace was made, and in whom the eternal word dwelt in a manner infinitely more august than in the cloud of glory. Zechary (ix. 9) prophesied, that their King, by which they under- stood the Messias, was to be meek and lowly, and that he was to make his entrance in a very mean appearance, riding on an ass; but yet, under that, he was to bring salvation to them, and they were to rejoice greatly in him. Malachi (hi. 1) told them, that the Lord whom they sought, even the messenger of the covenant in whom they delighted, should suddenly come into his Temple; and that the day of his coming was to be dreadful : that he was to refine and purify, in particular, the sons of Levi; and a terrible destruction is denounced after that. One character of his coming was, that Elijah the Prophet was to come before that great and dreadful day (Mai. iv. 1,) who should convert many, old and young. Now it is certain that no other person came, during the second Temple, to whom these words can be applied; so that they were not accomplished, unless it was in the person of our Saviour, to whom all these characters do well agree. But to conclude with that prophecy which of all others is the most particular: when Daniel (ix. 24 — 27,) at the end of seventy years^ captivity, was interceding for that nation, an angel was sent to him to tell him, that they were to have a new period of seventy weeks, that is, seven times seventy ^ years, 490 years; and that after sixty-two weeks, Messiah the Prince was to come, and to be cut ojf ; and that then the people of a Prince should destroy the city and the sanctuary: and the end of these was to be as with a food or inundation, 2 ind.deso~ lations were determined to the end of the war. They were to be destroyed by abominable armies, that is, by idolatrous armies; they were to be made desolate, till an utter end or consummation should be made of them. The pomp with which this destruction is set forth, plainly shows, that the final ruin of the Jews by the Roman armies is meant by it. From which it is justly inferred, not only that if that vision was really sent from God by an angel to Daniel, and in consequence to . that was fulfilled, then the Messiah did come, and was cut off during the continuance of Jerusalem and the Temple: but that it happened within a period of time designed in that vision. Time was then computed more certainly than it had been for many ages before. Two great measures were fixed; one at Babylon by Nabonasser, and another in Greece in the Olym- piads. Here a prediction is given almost five hundred years l)efore the accomplishment, with many very nice reckonings in it. I will not now enter upon the chronology of this matter. 112 AN EXPOSITION OF ART. VI r. on which some great men have bestowed their labours very happily. Archbishop Usher has stated this matter so, that the interval of time is clearly four hundred eighty-six years. The covenant was to be confirmed with many for one week, in the midst of which God was to cause the sacrifice and oblation for sin to cease; which seems to be a mystical way of describing the death of Christ, that was to put an end to the virtue of the Judaical sacrifices; so sixty-nine weeks and a half make just four hundred eighty-six years and a half. But without going further into this calculation, it is evident, that during the second Temple the Messias was to come, and to be cut off, and that soon after that a prince was to send an army to destroy both city and sanctuary. The Jews do not so much as pretend that during that Temple the Messias thus set forth did come, or was cut off, so either the prediction failed in the event, or the Messias did come within that period. And thus a thread of the prophecies of the Messias being carried down through the whole Old Testament, it seems to be fully made out, that he was to be of the seed of Abraham, and of the posterity of David; that the tribe of Judah was to be a distinct policy, till he should come: that he should work many miracles: that he was to be meek and lowly: that his function was to con- sist in preaching to the afflicted, and in comforting them: that he was to call the Gentiles, and even the remote islands, to the knowledge of God: that he was to be born of a virgin, and at Bethlehem: that he was to be a new lawgiver, as Moses had been : that he was to settle his followers upon a new covenant, different from that made by Moses: that he was to come during the second Temple: that he was to make a mean, but a joyful entrance to Jerusalem: that he was to be cut off: that the iniqui- ties of us all were to be laid on him : and that his life was to be made an offering for sin ; — but that God was to give him a glo- rious reward for these his sufferings; and that his doctrine was to be internal, accompanied with a free offer of pardon, and of inward assistances; and that after his death the Jews were to fall under a terrible curse, and an utter extirpation. When this is all summed up together — when it appears, that there was never any other person to whom those characters did agree, but that they did all meet in our Saviour — we see what light the Old Testament has given us in this matter. Here a nation that hates us and our religion, who are scattered uj) and down the world, who have been for many ages without their temple and without their sacrifices, without priests and without their genealogies, who yet hold those books among them in a due veneration which furnish us with so full a proof that the Messiah whom they still look for, is the Lord Jesus whom we worship. We do now pro- ceed to other matters. ART. VI r. rilE XXXIX ARTICLES. 11.^ The Jews pretend, that it is a great argument against the autho- rity of the New Testament, because it acknowledges the Old to be from God, and yet repeals the far greater part of the laws enacted in it; though these laws are often said to be laws for ever, and throughout all generations. Now they seem to argue with some advantage who say, that what God does declare to be a law that shall be perpetual by any one prophet, cannot be abrogated or reversed by another, since that other can have no more authority than the former prophet had; and if both are of God, it seems the one cannot make void that which was formerly declared by the other in the name of God. But it is to be con- sidered, that by the phrases of statute for ever, or throughout all generations, can only be meant that such laws were not transient laws, such as were only to be observed whilst they marched through the wilderness, or upon particular occasions; whereas such laws which were constantly and generally to be observed, were to them perpetual. But that does not import, that the Lawgiver himself had parted with all the authority that naturally belongs to him over his own laws: it only says, that the people had no power over such laws to repeal or change them; they were to bind them always: but that puts no limitation on the Lawgiver himself, so that he might not alter his own constitu- tions. Positive precepts, which have no real value in themselves, are of their own nature alterable: and, as in human laws, the words of enacting a law for all future times do only make that to be a perpetual law for the subjects, but do not at all limit the legislative power, which is as much at liberty to abrogate or alter it as if no such words had been in the law; there are also many hints in the Old Testament, which show that the precepts of the Mosaical law were to be altered : many plain intimations are given of a time and state, in which the knowledge of God was to be spread over all the earth; and that God was everywhere to be worshipjDed. Now this was impossible to be done without a change in their law and rituals; it being impossible that all the world should go up thrice a year to worship at Jerusalem, or could be served by priests of the Aaronical family. Circumcision was a distinction of one particular race, which needed not to be continued after all were brought under one denomination, and within the same common privileges. These things hitherto mentioned belong naturally to this part of the Article: yet, in the intention of those who framed it, these v/ords relate to an extravagant sort of enthusiasts that lived in those days, who, abusing some ill-understood phrases concerning justification by Christ without the works of the law, came to set up very wild notions, which were bad in themselves, but much more pernicious in their consequences. They tlierefore fancied that a Christian was tied by no law, as H 114 AN EXPOSITION OF ART. VII. a rule or yoke ; all these being taken away by Christ. They said, indeed, that a Christian by his renovation became a law to himself; he obeyed not any written rule or law, but a new inward nature: and thus as it is said that Sadocus mistook his master Antigonus, who taught his disciples to serve God, not for the hope of a reward, but without any expectations, as if he by that affectation of sublimity had denied that there was any reward, and from thence sprung the sect of the Sadducees; so these men, perhaps at first mistaking the meaning of the New Testament, went wrong only in their notions, and still meant to press the necessity of true holiness, though in another set of phrases, and upon other motives : yet from thence many wild and ungoverned notions arose then, and were not long ago revived among us; all which flowed from their not understanding the importance of the word Law in the New Testament, in which it stands most commonly for the complex of the whole Jewish religion, in opposition to the Christian; as the word Law, when it stands for a book, is meant of the five Books of Moses. The maintaining the whole frame of that dispensation, in opposition to that liberty which the Apostles granted to the Gentiles as to the ritual parts of it, was the controversy then in debate between the Apostles and the Judaizing Christians. They stating that matter aright is a key that will open all those difficulties, which with it will appear easy, and without it insu- perable. In opposition to those who thought then that the Old Testament, having brought the world on to the know- ledge of the Messias, was now of no more use, this Article was framed. The second part of the Article relates to a more intricate matter; and that is, whether in the Old Testament there were any promises made other than transitory or temporal ones, and whether they might look for eternal salvation in that dis- pensation, and upon what account? Whether Christ was the Mediator in that dispensation, or if they were saved by virtue of their obedience to the laws that were then given them? Those who deny that Christ was truly God, think that, in order to the raising him to those great characters in which he is proposed in the New Testament, it is necessary to assert that he gave the first assurances of eternal happiness, and of a free and full pardon of all sins, in his gospel; and that in the Old Testament neither the one nor the other were certainly and distinctly understood. It is true, that if we take the words of the covenant that Moses made between God and the people of Israel strictly and as they stand, they import only temporal blessings: that was a covenant with a body of men and with their posterity, as they were a people engaged to the obedience of that law. Now a ART. Vir. THE XXXIX ARTICLES. 113 national covenant could only be established in temporal promises of public and visible blessings, and of a long continuance of them upon their obedience, and in threatenings of as signal judgments upon the violation of them: but under those general promises of what was to happen to them collectively, as they made up one nation, every single person among them might, and the good men among them did, gather the hopes of a future state. It is clear that Moses did all along suppose the being of God, the creation of the world, and the promise of the Messias, as things fully known and carried down by tradition to his days ; so it seems he did also suppose the knowledge of a future state, which was then generally believed by the Gentiles as well as the Jews, though they had only dark and confused notions about it. But when God was establishing a covenant with the Jewish nation, a main part of which was his giving them the land of Canaan for an inheritance, it was not necessary that eternal rewards or punish- ments should be then proposed to them: but from the tenor of the promises made to their forefathers, and from the general princij^les of natural religion, not yet quite extinguished among them, they might gather this, that, under those carnal promises, blessings of a higher nature were to be understood. And so we see that David had the hope of arriving at the presence of God, and at his right hand, where he believed there was a fullness of joy, and pleasures for evermore (Psal. xvi. 11;) and he puts himself in this opposition to the wdcked, that whereas their portion was in this life, and they left their substance to their chil- dren; he says, that as for him, he should behold God^s face in righteousness, and should be satisfied when he awahed with his likeness (Psal. xvii. 14, 15;) which seems plainly to relate to a state after this life, and to the resurrection. He carries this oppo- sition further in another Psalm, where, after he had said that men in honour did not continue, but were like the beasts that perished — that none of them could purchase immortality for his brother — that he should still live for ever, and not see corruption: they all died and left their wealth to others, and like sheep they were laid in the grave, where death should feed on them: in oppo- sition to which he says, that the upright should have domi- nion over them in the morning (Psal. xlix. 14, 15;) which is clearly a poetical expression for another day that comes after the night of death. As for himself in particular, he says, that God shall redeem my soul (that is, his life, or his body, for in those senses the word soul is used in the Old Testament) from the power of the grave; that is, from continuing in that state of death ; for he shall receive me. This does very clearly set forth David^s belief, both of future happiness, and of the resurrection of his body. To which might be added some other passages in the H 2 AN EXPOSITION OF ART. vir. Ilf) Psalms, Ecclesiastes, Isaiah, and Daniel;* in all which it appears, that the holy men in that dispensation did understand, that under those promises in the Books of Moses that seemed lite- rally to belong to the land of Canaan, and other temporal bless- ings, there was a spiritual meaning hid, which it seems was conveyed down by that succession of Prophets that was among them as the mystical sense of them. It is to this that our Saviour seems to appeal, when the Sad- ducees came to puzzle him with that question of the seven brethren who had all married one wife: he first tells them, they erred, not knoioing the Scriptures (Matt. xxii. 29;) which plainly imports, that the doctrine which they denied was contained in the Scrip- tures: and then he goes to prove it, not from those more express passages that are in the Prophets and holy w'riters, which as some think the Sadducees rejected, but from the Law, which being the source of their religion, it might seem a just prejudice against any doctrine, especially if it was of great consequence, that it was not contained in the Law. Therefore he cites those words that are so often repeated, and that were so much considered by the Jews as containing in them the foundation of God^s love to them, that God said upon many occasions, particularly at his first appearance to Moses, I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob (Matt. xxii. 32; Exod. iii. 6;) w’hich words imported, not only that God had been their God, but still was their God. Now when God is said to be a God to any, by that is meant, that he is their benefactor, or exceeding rich reward, as was promised to Abraham; and that therefore Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, lived unto God, that is, were not dead; but were then in a happy state of life, in which God did reward them, and so was their God. Whether this argument rests here, our Saviour designing only to prove, against the main error of the Sadducees, that we have souls distinct from our bodies, that shall outlive their separation from them, or if it goes further to prove the rising of the body itself, I shall not determine. On the one hand, our Saviour seems to apply himself particularly to prove the resurrection of the body; so we must see how to find here an argument for that, to answer the scope of the whole discourse: yet on the other hand it may be said, that he having proved the main point of the souPs subsisting after death, which is the foundation of all religion; the other point, which was chiefly denied because that was thought false, would be more easily both acknowledged and believed. As for the resurrection of the body, alb that can be brought from hence as an argument to prove it is, that since God was the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and by conse- * Psal. Ixxxiv. 11; Ixxxvii.G; xc. 17; xevi. IJl. Eccl. xi. 9; xii. U. Isa. xxv. ■S; xxvi. 19, Dan. xii. ‘2. Alir. Vll. THE XXXIX ARTICLES. Il7 queiice, their benefactor and rewarder, and yet they were pilgrims on this earth, and suffered many tossings and troubles, that therefore they must be rewarded in another state; or because God promised that to them he would give the land of Canaan, as well as to their seed after them, and since they never had any portion of it in their own possession, that therefore they shall rise again, and with the other saints reign on earth, and have that promise fulfilled in themselves. From all this the assertion of the Article is as to one main point made good — that the old Fathers looked for more than transitory promises: it is also clear, that they looked for a further pardon of sin than that which their law held forth to them in the expiation made by sacrifices. Sins of ignorance, or sins of a lower sort, were those only for which Sin or Trespass- Offerings (Heb. x. 28) were appointed. The sins of a higher order were punished by death, by the hand of Heaven, or by cutting off; so that such as sinned in that kind were to die with- out mercy: yet when David had fallen into the most heinous of those sins, he prays to God for a pardon (Psal. li. 1,2. 16, 17?) according to God^s loving kindness, and the multitude of his tender mercies; for he knew that they were beyond the expiation by sacrifice. The Prophets do often call the Jews to repent of their idolatry and other crying sins, such as oppression, injustice, and murder; with the promise of the pardon of them, even though they were of the deepest dye, as crimson and scarlet; Isa. i. 18. Since then for lesser sins an expiation was appointed by sacrifice, besides their confessing and repenting of it; and since it seems, by St. Paul’s way of arguing, that they held it for a maxim, that ivithoiit shedding of blood there was no remission of sins; this might naturally lead them to think, that there was some other consideration that was interposed in order to the pardoning of those more heinous sins: for a greater degree of guilt seems by a natural proportion to demand a higher degree of sacrifice and expiation. But, after all, whatsoever Isaiah (chap, liii.), Daniel (chap, ix.), or any other Prophet might have understood or meant by those sacrificatory phrases that they use in speaking of the Messiah, yet it cannot be said from the Old Testament, that in that dispensation it was clearly revealed that the Messias was to die, and to become a sacrifice for sin. The Messias was indeed promised under general terms; but there was not then a full and explicit revelation of his being to die for the redemption of mankind: yet, since the most heinous sins were then pardoned, though not by virtue of the sacrifices of that covenant, nor by the other means prescribed in it, we have good reason to affirm, that, according to this Article, life was offered to mankind in the old dispensation by Christ, who was, with relation to obtaining the favour of God and everlasting life, 118 AN EXPOSITION OF ART. VII. the Mediator of that as well as of the new dispensation. In the New Testament he is set in opposition to the old Adam, that as in the one all died, so in the other all were made alive: nor is it anyway incongruous to say, that the merit of his death should by an anticipation have saved those who died before he was born; for that being, in the view of God, as certain before as after it was done, it might be in the divine intention the sacrifice for the old, as well as it is expressly declared to be the sacrifice for the new dispensation. And this being so, God might have pardoned sins in consideration of it, even to those who had no distinct apprehensions concerning it. For as God applies the death of Christ, by the secret methods of his grace, to many persons whose circumstances do render them incapable of the express acts of laying hold on it, the want of those (for instance, in infants and idiots) being supplied by the goodness of God; so, though the revelation that was made of the Messias to the Fathers under the old dispensation, was only in general and pro- phetical terms, of which they could not have a clear and distinct knowledge; yet his death might be applied to them, and their sins pardoned through him, upon their performing such acts as were proportioned to that dispensation, and to the revelation that was then made: and so they were reconciled to God even after sins, for which no sacrifices were appointed by their dis- pensation, upon their repentance, and obedienee to the federal acts and conditions then required, which supplied the want of more express acts with relation to the death of Christ, not then distinctly revealed to them. But though the old Fathers had a conveyance of the hope of eternal life made to them, with a resurrection of their bodies, and a eonfidence in the mercy of God for pardoning the most heinous sins; yet it cannot be denied but that it was as a light that shined in a dark place, till the Day-star did arise, and that Christ brought life and immor- tality to light by his gospel (2 Pet. i. 19;) giving us fuller and clearer discoveries of it, both with relation to our souls and bodies; and that by him also God has declared his righteousness for the remission of sins, through the forbearance of God, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, and through faith in his blood, Rom. hi. 24, 25. The third branch of this Article will not need much explana- tion, as it will bear no dispute, except with Jews, who do not acknowledge the New Testament. The ceremonial parts of the Mosaical Law, which comprehends all both the negative and the positive precepts, were enjoined the Jews either with relation to the worship of God and service at the Temple, or to their persons and course of life. That which is not moral of its own nature, or that had no relation to civil society, was commanded them, to separate ART. Vll. THE XXXIX ARTICLES. 119 them not only from the idolatrous and magical practices of other nations^ but to distinguish them so entirely as to all their customs, even in the rules of eating and of cleanliness, that they might have no familiar commerce with other nations, but live within and among themselves; since that was very likely to cor- rupt them, of which they had very large experience. Some of those rituals were perhaps given them as punishments for their frequent revolts, and were as a yoke upon them, who were so prone to idolatry. They were as rudiments and remembrances to them: they were as it were subdued by a great variety of precepts, which were matter both of much charge and great trouble to them: by these they were also amused; for it seems they did naturally love a pompous exterior in religion : they were also, by all that train of performances which were laid on them, kept in mind both of the great blessings of God to them, and of the obligations that lay on them towards God; and many of those, particularly their sacrifices and washings, were typical. All this was proper and necessary to restrain and govern them, while they were the only people in the world that renounced idolatry, and worshipped the true God: and, therefore, so soon as that of which they had an emblem in the structure of their Temple (of a court of the Gentiles separated with a middle wall of partition from the plaee in which the Israelites worshipped) was to be removed, and that the house of God was to become a house of 'prayer to all nations^ then all those distinctions were to be laid aside, and all that service was to determine and come to an end. The Apostles did declare, that the Gentiles were not to be brought under that heavy yoke, which their fathers were not able to bear; yet the Apostles themselves, as born Jews, and while they lived among the Jews, did continue in the observance of their rites, as long as God seemed to be waiting for the rem- nant of that nation that was to be saved, before his wrath came upon the rest to the uttermost. They went to the Temple, they purified themselves, and, in a word, to the Jews they became Jeivs; and in this compliance the first converts of the Jewish nation continued till the destruction of Jerusalem; after which it became impossible to observe the greatest part of their most important rituals, even all those that were tied to the Temple. But that nation losing its genealogies, and all the other charac- ters that they formerly had of a nation under the favour and protection of God, could no more know, after a few ages, whether they were the seed of Abraham or not, or whether there were any left among them of the tribe of Levi, or of the family of Aaron: so that now all those ceremonies are at an end; many of them are become impossible, and the rest useless. As the whole was abrogated by the authority of the Apostles, who being sent of God, and proving their mission by miracles as 120 AN EXPOSITION OF ART. Vll. well as Moses had done his^ they might well have loosed and dissolved those precepts upon earth, upon which, according to our Saviour’s words, they are to be esteemed as loosed in heaven. The judiciary parts of the Law were those that related to them as they were a society of men, to whom God, by a special command, gave authority to drive out and destroy a wicked race of people, and to possess their land ; which God appointed to be divided equally among them, and that every portion should be as a perpetuity to a family; so that though it might be mort- gaged out for a number of years, yet it was afterwards to revert to the family. Upon this bottom they were at first set; and they were still to be preserved upon it; so that many laws were given them, as they were a civil society, which cannot belong to any other society: and therefore their whole judiciary law, except when any parts of it are founded on moral equity, was a com- plicated thing, and can belong to no other nation, that is not in its first and essential constitution made and framed as they were. For instance, the prohibition of taking use for money, being a mean to preserve that equality which was among them, and to keep any of them from becoming excessively rich, or others from becoming miserably poor, this is by no means to be applied to other constitutions, where men are left to their industry, and neither have their inheritance by a grant from heaven, nor are put by any special appointment of God all upon a level. So that it is certain, and can bear no debate, that the Mosa.ical dispensation, as to all the parts of it that are not of their own nature moral, is determined and abrogated by the gospel. The decisions which the Apostles made in this matter are so clear, and for the proof of them the whole tenor of the Epistles to the Galatians and the Hebrews is so full, that no doubt can rest concerning this, with any man who reads them. The last branch of this Article that remains to be considered, is concerning the Moral Law, by which the Ten Commandments are meant, together with all such precepts as do belong to them, or are corollaries arising out of them. By Moral Law is to be understood, in opposition to Positive, a law which has an antecedent foundation in the nature of things, that arises from eternal reason, is suitable to the frame and powers of our souls, and is necessary for maintaining of human society. All such laws are commanded, because they are in themselves good, and suitable to the state in which God has put us here. The two sources, out of which all the notions of morality flow, are, first, the consideration of ourselves as we are single individuals, and that with relation both to soul and body; and next, the consideration of human society, what is necessary for the peace and order, the safety and happiness, of mankind, 'riicrc Aiir. VII. THE XXX IX ARTICLES. i2i are two orders of moral precepts: some relate to things that of their own nature are inflexibly good or evil, such as truth and falsehood; whereas other things, by a variety of circumstances, may so change their nature, that they may be either morally good or evil. A merciful or generous temper is always a good moral quality, and yet it may run to excesses: there may be many things that are not unalterably moral in themselves, which yet may be fit subjects of perpetual laws about them. For instance; in the degrees of kindred with relation to marriage, there are no degrees but direct ascendants or descendants, that is, parents and children, that by an eternal reason can never marry; for where there is a natural subordination, there can never be such an equality as that state of life requires: but col- lateral degrees, even the nearest, brothers and sisters, are not by any natural law barred marriage, and therefore in a case of necessity they might marry; yet, since their intermarrying must be attended with vast inconveniences, and would tend to the defilement of all families, and hinder the conjunction of mankind by the intermixture of different families, it becomes therefore a fit subject for a perpetual law, to strike a horror at the thought of such commixtures, and so to keep the world pure; which, considering the freedoms in which those of the same family do live, could not be preserved without such a law. It is also the interest of mankind, and necessary for the careful education of the rising generation, that marriages should be for life; for if it were free for married persons to separate at pleasure, the issue of marriages so broken would be certainly much neglected : and since a power to break a marriage would naturally inflame such little quarrellings as may. happen among all persons that live together, which will on the contrary be certainly repressed when they know’ that the marriage cannot be dissolved, and w’hen, by such a dissolution of marriages, the one-half of the human species, I mean woman-kind, is exposed to great miseries, and subject to much tyranny, it is a fit subject for a perpetual law’; so that it is moral in a secondary order. It were easy to give instances of this in many more particulars, and to show that a precept may be said to be moral, w’hen there is a natural suita- bleness in it to advance that w’hich is moral in the first order, and that it cannot be wtII preserved wfithout such a support. It wfill appear w’hat occasion there is for |this 'distinction, w’hen w’e consider the Ten Commandments; which are so many heads of morality, that are instanced in the highest act of a kind; and to which are to be reduced all such acts as by the just propor- tions of morality belong to that order and series of actions. The foundation of morality is religion. The sense of God, that he is, and that he is both a rew’arder and a punisher, is the foundation of religion. Now^ this must be supposed as 122 AN EXPOSITION OF ART. VII. antecedent to his laws, for we regard and obey them from the persuasion that is formed in us concerning the being and the justice of God. The two first Commandments are against the two different sorts of idolatry; which are, the worshipping of false gods, or the worshipping the true God in a corporeal figure: the one is the giving the honour of the true God to an idol, and the other is the depressing the true God to the resem- blance of an idol. These were the two great branches of idolatry, by which the true ideas of God were corrupted. Religion was by them'corrupted in its source. Nobody can question but that it is immoral to worship a false god; it is a transferring the honour, which belongs immediately and singly to the great God, to a creature, or to some imaginary thing which never had a real existence. This is the robbing God of what is due to him, and the exalting another thing to a degree and rank that cannot belong to it. Nor is it less immoral to propose the great and true God to be worshipped under appearances that are deroga- tory to his nature, that tend to give us low thoughts of him, and that make us think him like, if not below ourselves. This way of worshipping him is both unsuitable to his nature, and un- becoming ours; while we pay our adorations to that which is the work of an artificer. This is confirmed by those many express prohibitions in Scripture, to which reasons are added, which show that the thing is immoral in its own nature; it being often repeated, that no similitude of God was ever seen ; and to whom will ye liken me? All things in heaven and earth are often called the work of his hands; which are plain indications of a moral precept, when arguments are framed from the nature of things to enforce obedience to it. The reason given in the very command itself, is taken from the nature of God, who is jealous, that is, so tender of his glory, that he will not sufihr a diminution of it to go unpunished: and if this precept is clearly founded upon natural justice, and the proportion that ought to be kept between all human acts and their objects, then it must be perpetual; and that the rather, because we do plainly see that the Gospel is a refining upon the Law of Moses, and does exalt it to a higher pitch of sublimity and purity; and by consequence, the ideas of God, which are the first seeds and principles of religion, are to be kept yet more pure and undefiled in it, than they were in a lower dispensation. The third precept is against false swearing (Exod. iii. 1;) for the word vain is often used in the Scripture in that sense : and since in all the other Commandments (Lev. xix. 12, &c.) the sin which is named is not one of the lowest, but of the chief sins that relate to that head (Matt. v. 33,) there is no reason there- fore to think, that vain or idle swearing, which is a sin of a lower order, should be here meant, and not rather false swear- ART. VII, THE XXXIX ARTICLES. 123 ing, which is the highest sin of the kind. The morality of this command is very apparent; for since God is the God of truth, and every oath is an appeal to him, therefore it must be a gross wickedness to appeal to God, or to call him to vouch for our lies. The fourth Commandment cannot be called moral in the first and highest sense; for from the nature of things no reason can be assigned, why the seventh day, rather than the sixth, or the eighth, or any other day, should be separated from the common business of life, and applied to the service of God. But it is moral that a man should pay homage to his Maker, and acknowledge him in all his works and ways; and since our senses and sensible objects are apt to wear better things out of our thoughts, it is necesssary that some solemn time should be set apart for full and copious meditations on these subjects. This should be universal, lest, if the time were not the same everywhere, the business of some men might interfere with the devotions of others. It ought to have such an eminent character on it, like a cessation from business; which may both awaken a curiosity to inquire into the reason of that stop, and also may give opportunity for meditations and discourses on those sub- jects. It is also clear, that such days of rest must not return so oft, that the necessary aflfairs of life should be stopped by them, nor so seldom, that the impressions of religion should wear out, if they were too seldom awakened: but what is the proper proportion of time, that can best agree both with men^s bodies and minds, is only known to the great Author of nature. Howsoever, from what has been said, it appears that this is a very fit matter to be fixed by some sacred and perpetual law, and that from the first creation; because there being then no other method for conveying down knowledge, besides oral tra- dition, it seems as highly congruous to that state of mankind, as it is agreeable to the words in Genesis, to believe that God should then have appointed one day in seven for commemo- rating the creation, and for acknowledging the great Creator of all things. But though it seems very clear, that here a per- petual law was given the world for the separating the seventh day; yet it was a mere circumstance, and does not at all belong to the standing use of the law, in what end of the week this day was to be reckoned, whether the first or the last: so that even a less authority than the Apostles, and a less occa- sion than the resurrection of Christ, might have served to have transferred the day. There being in this no breach made on the good and moral design of this law, which is all in it that we ought to reckon sacred and unalterable; the degree of the rest might be also more severely urged under the Mosaical Law, than either before it or after it. Our Saviour having given plain intimations of an abatement of that rigour by this general 124 AN EXPOSITION OF ART. VII. rule, that the Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath (Mark ii. 27,) we, who are called to a state of freedom, are not under such a strictness as the Jews were. Still the law stands for separating the seventh day from the common business of life, and applying it to a religious rest; for acknowledging at first the Creator, and now, by a higher relation, the Redeemer of the world. These four Commandments make the first Table, and were generally reckoned as four distinct Commandments, till the Roman Church, having a mind to make the second disappear, threw it in as an appendix to the first, and then left it quite out in her catechisms; though it is plain that these Commandments relate to two very different matters, the one being in no sort included in the other. Certainly they are much more different than the coveting the neighbour’s wife is from the coveting any of his other concerns: which are plainly two different acts of the same species: and the house being set before the wife in Exo- dus, XX. 17^ (though it comes after it in Deuteronomy, v. 21, which, being a repetition, is to be governed by Exodus, and not Exodus by it,) stands for the whole substance, which is after- wards branched out in the particulars; and so it is clear that there is no colour for dividing this in two: but the first two Commandments relating to things of such a different sort, as is the worshipping of more Gods than one, and the worshipping the true God in an image, ought still to be reckoned as different; and though the reason given for the jealousy and justice of God may relate equally to both, yet that does not make them other- wise one, than as both might be reduced to one common head of idolatry, so that both were to be equally punished. In the second Table this order is to be observed. There are four branches of a man’s property, to which everything that he can call his own may be reduced — his person, his wife and children, his goods, and his reputation; so /there is a negative precept given to secure him in every one of these, against killing, committing adultery, stealing, and bearing false witness: to which, as the chief acts of their kind, are to be reduced all those acts that may belong to those heads; such as injuries to a man in his person, though not carried on nor designed to kill him; every temptation to uncleanness, and all those excesses that lead to it; every act of injustice, and every lie or defamation. To these four are added two fences; the one exterior, the other interior. The exterior is the settling the obedience and order that ought to be observed in families, according to the law of nature: and, by a parity of reason, if families are under a constitution, where the government is made as a common parent, tlie establishing the obedience to tlic civil powers, or to such orders of men who may be made as parents ART. VH. THE XXXTX ARTICLES. 1 25 with relation to matters of religion; this is the foundation of peace and justice^. of the security and happiness of mankind. And therefore it was very proper to begin the second Table, and those laws that relate to human society, with this; without which the world would be like a forest, and mankind like so many savages running wildly through it. The last Commandment is an inward fe nce to the Law; it checks desires, and restrains the thoughts. If free scope should be given to these, as they would very often carry men to unlawful actions, for a man is very apt to do that which he desires, so they must give great disturbance to those that are haunted or overcome by them. And, therefore, as a mean both to secure the quiet of men’s minds, and to preserve the world from the ill effects which such desires might naturally have, this special law is given. Thou shalt not covet. It will not be easy to prove it moral in the strictest sense, yet in a secondary order it may be well called moral; the matter of it being such, both with relation to ourselves and others, that it is a very proper subject for a perpetual law to be made about it. And yet, as St. Paul (Rom. vii. 7) says, he had not known it to be a sin, if it had not been for the law that forbids it; for, after all that can be said, it will not be easy to prove it to be of its own nature moral. Thus, by the help of that distinction of what is moral in a I primary and in a secondary order, the morality of the Ten Com- \ .mandments is demonstrated. That this law obliges Christians as well as Jews, is evident from the whole scope of the New Testament. Instead of dero- gating from the obligation of any part of that law, our Saviour, after he had affirmed that he came not to dissolve the Law, hut to fulfil it, and that heaven and earth might pass away, hut that one tittle of the law shoidd not pass away (Matt. v. 17, 18;) he went through a great many of those laws, and showed how far he extended the commentary he put upon them, and the obliga- tions that he laid upon his disciples, beyond what was done by the Jewish rabbies: all the rest of his Gospel, and the writings of his Apostles, agree with this, in which there is not a tittle that looks like a slackening of it, but a great deal to the con- trary — a strictness that reaches to idle words, to passionate thoughts, and to all impure desires, being enjoined as indispen- sably necessary; for without holiness no man can see the Lord. And thus everything relating to this Article is considered, and I hope both explained and proved. 126 AN EXPOSITION OF ART. Vtll. ARTICLE VIII. OF THE THREE CREEDS. The Three Creeds, Nice Creed, Athanasius’s Creed, and that which is commonly called the Apostles’ Creed, ought thoroughly to he received and believed; for they may he proved hy most certain Warrants of Holy Scripture. Although no doubt seems to be here made of the names or designations given to those Creeds, except of that which is ascribed to the Apostles, yet none of them are named with any exactness: since the article of the Procession of the Holy Ghost, In Anchoreto follows it, is not in the Nicene Creed, but * was used in the Church as a part of it; for so it is in Epiphanius, before the second General Council at Constanti- nople; and it was confirmed and established in that Council: only the article of the Holy Ghost’s proceeding from the Son, was afterwards added first in Spain, anno 44 7^ which spread itself over all the West; so that the Creed here called the Nice Creed, is indeed the Constantinopolitan Creed, together with the addition of filioque made by the Western Church. That which is called Athanasius’s Creed is not his neither; for as it is not among his works, so, that great article of the Christian religion having been settled at Nice, and he and all the rest of the orthodox referring themselves always to the Creed made by that Council, there is no reason to imagine that he would have made a Creed of his own; besides, that not only the Macedo- nian, but both the Nestorian and the Eutychian heresies, are expressly condemned by this Creed : and yet those authorities never being urged in those disputes, it is clear from thence, that no such Creed was then known in the world; as indeed it was never heard of before the eighth century; and then it was given out as the Creed of Athanasius, or as a representation of his doctrine, and so it grew to be received by the Western Church — perhaps the more early, because it went under so great a name, in ages that were not critical enough to judge of what was genuine and what was spurious. There is one great difficulty that arises out of several ex- pressions in this Creed, in which it is said, that whosoever will be saved, must believe it; that the belief of it is necessary to salvation; and that such as do not hold it pure and undefiled, shall without doubt perish everlastingly : where many explana- tions of a mystery hard to be understood are made indispensa- bly necessary to salvation; and it is affirmed, that all such as do ART. vm. Tin-: xxxix articles. 127 not so believe must perish everlastingly. To this two answers are made: 1. That it is only the Christian faith in general that is hereby meant, and not every period and Article of this Creed; so that all those severe expressions are thought to import only the necessity of believing the Christian religion: but this seems forced; for the words that follow, and the Catholic faith is, do so plainly determine the signification of that word to the explanation that comes after, that the word Catholic faith, in the first verse, can be no other than the same word, as it is defined in the third and following verses; so that this answer seems not natural. 2. The common answer in w’hich the most eminent men of this Church, as far as the memory of all such as I have known could go up, have agreed, is this, that these condemnatory expressions are only to be understood to relate to those who, having the means of instruction offered to them, have rejected them, and have stifled their own convictions, holding the truth in unrighteousness, and choosing darkness rather than light: upon such as do thus reject this great article of the Christian doctrine, concerning one God and Three Persons, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, and that other concerning the Incarnation of Christ, by which God and man was so united as to make one person, together with the other doctrines that follow these, are those anathemas denounced; not so as if it were hereby meant, that every man who does not believe this in every tittle must certainly perish, unless he has been furnished with sufficient means of conviction, and that he has rejected them, and hardened himself against them. The wrath of God is revealed against all sin, and the wages of sin is death; so that every sinner has the wrath of God abiding on him, and is in a state of damnation : yet a sincere repent- ance delivers him out of it, even though he lives and dies in some sins of ignorance; which, though they may make him liable to damnation, so that nothing but true repentance can deliver him from it, yet a general repentance, when it is also special, for all known sins, does certainly deliver a man from the guilt of unknown sins, and from the wrath of God due to them. God only knows our hearts, the degrees of our know- ledge, and the measure of our obstinacy, and how far our ignorance is affected or invincible; and therefore he will deal with every man according to what he has received. So that we may believe that some doctrines are necessary to salvation, as well as that there are some commandments necessary for practice; and we may also believe that some errors as well as some sins are exclusive of salvation; — all which imports no more than that we believe such things are sufficiently revealed, and that they are necessary conditions of salvation; but by this we do not limit the mercies of God towards those who are under such darkness as not to be able to see through it, and to 128 AN EXPOSITION OF ART. VIII. discern and acknowledge these truths. It were indeed to be wished, that some express declaration to this purpose were made by those who have authority to do it; but in the meanwhile, this being the sense in which the words of this Creed are uni- versally taken, and it agreeing with the phraseology of the Scrip- ture upon the like occasions, this is that which may be rested upon. And allowing this large explanation of these severe words, the rest of this Creed imports no more than the belief of the doctrine of the Trinity, wdiich has been already proved in treating of the former Articles. As for the Creed called the Apostles’ Creed, there is good reason for speaking so doubtfully of it as the Article does, since it does not appear that any determinate Creed was made by them : none of the first writers agree in delivering their faith in a certain form of words : every one of them gives an abstract of his faith, in words that differ both from one another and from this form. From thence it is clear, that there was no common form deli- vered to all the Churches; and if there had been any tradition, after the times of the Council of Nice, of such a Creed composed by the Apostles, the Arians had certainly put the chief strength of their cause on this, that they adhered to the Apostles’ Creed, in opposition to the innovations of the Nicene Fathers., There is therefore no reason to believe that this Creed was prepared by the Apostles, or that it was of any great antiquity, since Ruffin was the first that published it: it is true, he published it as the Creed of the Church of Aquileia; but that was so late, that neither this nor the other Creeds have any authority upon their own account. Great respect is indeed due to things of such antiquity, and that have been so long in the Church ; but, after all, we receive those Creeds, not for their own sakes, nor for the sake of those who prepared them, but for the sake of the doctrine that is contained in them; because we believe that the doctrine which they declare is contained in the Scriptures, and chiefly that which is the main intent of them, which is to assert and profess the Trinity, therefore do we receive them; though w'e must acknowledge that the Creed ascribed to Athanasius, as it was none of his, so it was never established by any General Council. Aii r. IX. TIIIC XXXIX AIITICLKS. 120 ARTICLE IX. OF ORIGINAL OR BIRTH SIN. Original Sin standeth not in the following of Adam {as the Pela- gians do vainly talk,) but it is the fault or corruption of the nature of every man, that naturally is engendered of the Offsprmg of Adam, whereby man is very far gone from Original Right- eousness, and is of his own nature inclined to evil, so that the Flesh lusteth always contrary to the Spirit, and therefore in every Person born into the World it deserveth God^s Wrath and Damnation: and this Infection of Nature doth remain, yea in them that are regenerated, ivhereby the Lust of the Flesh {called in Greek (fipovrina aapKos, which some do expound the Wisdom, some Sensuality, some the Affection, some the Desire of the Flesh) is not subject to the Law of God. And though there is no Condemnation for them that believe and are baptized, yet the Apostle doth confess. That Concupiscence and Lust hath of itself the nature of Sin. After the first principles of the Christian religion are stated, and the rule of faith and life was settled, the next thing that was to be done, was to declare the special doctrines of this religion; and that first with relation to all Christians, as they are single individuals, for the directing every one of them in order to the working out of his own salvation — which is done from this to the nineteenth Article; and then with relation to them as they compose a society called the Church — which is carried on from the nineteenth to the end. In all that has been hitherto explained, the whole Church of England has been all along of one mind. In this and in some that follow there has been a greater diversity of opinion; but both sides have studied to prove their tenets to be at least not contrary to the Articles of the Church. These different parties have disputed concerning the decrees of God, and those assistances which pursuant to his decrees are afforded to us. But because the foundation of those decrees, and the necessity of those assistances, are laid in the sin of Adam, and in the effects it had on mankind, therefore these controversies begin on this head. The Pelagians and the Socinians agree in saying, that Adam’s sin was personal; that by it, as being the first sin, it is said that sin entered into the world (Rom. v. 12:) but that as Adam was made mortal, and had died whether he had sinned or not; so they think the liberty of human nature is still entire, and that every man is punished for his own sins, I 130 AN EXPOSITION OF ART. IX. and not for the sin of another: to do otherwise_, they say, seems contrary to justice, not to say goodness. In opposition to ^\s, judgment is said to have coine upon many to condemnation through one (either man or sin.) Death is said to have reigned by one, and by one man’s offence; and many are said to be dead through the offence of one, Rom. v. 15. All these passages do intimate that death is the consequence of Adames sin; and that in him, as well as in all others, death was the wages of sin, so also that we die upon the account of his sin. We are said to bear the image of the first Adam, as true Christians bear the image of the second (1 Cor. xv. 49:) now we are sure that there is both a derivation of righteousness, and a communication of inward holiness transferred to us through Christ. So it seems to follow from thence, that there is somewhat both transferred to us, and conveyed down through mankind, by the first Adam; and particularly, that by it we are all made subject to death ; from which we should have been freed if Adam had continued in his first state, and that by virtue of the Tree of Li fe (Gen. iii. 22:) in which some think there was a natural virtue to cure all diseases, and relieve against all accidents, while others do ascribe it to a divine blessing, of which that tree was only the symbol or sacrament ; though the words said after Adames sin, as the reason of driving him out of Paradise, Lest he put forth his hand and take of the Tree of Life, and eat, and live for ever, seem to import that there was a physical virtue in the tree, that could so fortify and restore life as to give immortality. These do also think, that the threatening made to Adam, that upon his eating the forbidden fruit he should surely die, is to be taken literally, and is to be carried no further than to a natural death. This subjec- tion to death, and to the fear of it, brings men under a slavish bondage, many terrors, and other passions and miseries that arise out of it, which they think is a great punishment; and that it is a condemnation and sentence of death passed upon the whole race; and by this they are made sinners, that is, treated as guilty persons, and severely punished. This they think is easily enough reconciled with the notions of justice and goodness in God, since this is only a temporary punishment relating to men^s persons: and we see in the com- mon methods of Providence, that children are in this sort often punished for the sins of their fathers; most men that come under a very ill habit of body, transmit the seeds of diseases and pains to their children. They do also think that the communi- cation of this liableness to death, is easily accounted for; and they imagine, that as the Tree of Life might be a plant that furnished men with an universal medicine, so the forbidden fruit might derive a slow poison into Adam’s body, that might have exalted and inflamed his blood very much, and might. ART. IX. TllK XXXIX ARTICLES. 131 though by a slower operation, certainly have brought on death at the last. Our being thus adjudged to death, and to all the miseries that accompany mortality, they think may be well called the wrath of God, and damnation: so temporary judgrnents are often expressed in Scripture. And to this they add, that Christ has entirely redeemed us from this, by the promise he has given us of raising us up at the last day: and that, therefore, when St. Paul is so copiously discoursing of the resurrection, he brings this in, that as we have borne the image of the first Adam, who was earthly, so we shall also hear the image of the heavenly ; and since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection from the dead: and that as in Adam all die, so in Christ shall all be made alive (1 Cor. xv. 21, 22;) and that this is the universal redemption and reparation that all mankind shall have in Christ Jesus. All this these divines apprehend is conceivable, i,i Ep. ad and no more; therefore they put original sin in this Rom- passim, only, for which they pretend they have all the Fathers with them before St. Austin, and particularly St. Chrysostom and Theo- dore!, from whom all the later Greeks have done little more than copied out their words. This they do also pretend comes up to the words of the Article: for as this general adjudging of all men to die may be called, according to the style of the Scriptures, God^s wrath and damnation; so the fear of death, which arises out of it, corrupts men^s natures, and inclines them to evil. Others do so far approve of all this, as to think that it is a part of original sin : yet they believe it goes much farther, and that there is a corruption spread through the whole race of mankind, which is born with every man. This the experience of all ages teaches us but too evidently; every man feels it in himself, and sees it in others. The Philosophers who were sensible of it, thought to avoid the difficulty that arises from it when it might be urged, that a good God could not make men to be originally depraved and wicked; they, therefore, fancied that all our souls pre-existed in a former and a purer state, from which they fell by descending too much into corporeal pleasure, and so both by a lapse and for a punishment they sunk into grosser bodies, and fell differently, according to the different degrees of the sins they had committed in that state: and they thought, that a virtuous life did raise them up to their former pitch, as a vicious one would sink them lower into more depraved and more miserable bodies. All this may seem plau- sible; but the best that can be said for it is, that it is an hypo- thesis that saves some difficulties, but there is no sort of proofs to make it appear to be true. We neither perceive in our- selves any remembrances of such a state, nor have we any warning given us, either of our fall or of the means of recovering out of it; so, since there is no reason to affirm this to be true, I 2 132 AN EXPOSITION OF ART. IX. we must seek for some other source of the corruption of human nature. The Manichees imputed it to the evil god, and thought it was his work; which some say might have set on St. Austin the more earnestly to look for another hypothesis to reconcile all. But, before we go to that, it is certain, that in Scripture this general corruption of our nature is often mentioned. The imaginations of man’s thoughts are only evil continually. What man is he that liveth and sinneth not? The just man falleth seven times a day. The heart of man is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked; tvho can know it? All that are in Christ must become new creatures: old things must he done away, and everything must become new. God made man upright, but he sought out to himself many inventions. The flesh is weak. The flesh lusteth against the spirit. The carnal mind is enmity to the law of God, and is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be: and they that are in the flesh cannot please God where by flesh is to be meant the natural state of mankind, according to those words. That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit, John iii. 6. These, with many other places of Scripture to the same purpose, when they are joined to the universal experience of all mankind concerning the corruption of our whole race, lead us to settle this point, that in fact it has overrun our whole kind, the contagion is spread over all. Now, this being settled, we are next to inquire how this could happen. We cannot think that God made men so; for it is expressly said, that God made man after his own image, Gen. i. 27. The surest way to find out what this image was at first, is to consider what the New Testament says of it, when we come to be restored to it. We must put on the new man, after the image of him that created him; or, as elsewhere, the new man in righteousness and true holiness, Eph. iv. 22. 24. This then was the image of God, in which man was at first made. Nor ought the image of God to be considered only as an expression that imports only our representing him here on earth, and having dominion over the creatures; for in Genesis (i. 27,28,) the creation of man in the image of God is expressed as a thing different from his dominion over the creatures, which seems to be given to him as a consequent of it. The image of God seems to be this — that the soul of man was a being of another sort and order than all those material beings till then made, which were neither capable of thought nor liberty, in which respect the soul was made after the image of God. But Adam’s soul being put in his body, his brain was a tabula rasa, as white paper, had no impressions in it, but such as either * Gen. vi. 5; viii. 21. I Kings viii. 46. Prov. xxiv. 16. Jer. xvii. 9. 2 Cor. V. 17. Eccl. vii. 29. Gal. v. 17. Rom. viii. 7, 8. ART. IX. THE XXXIX ARTICLES. 1.33 God put in it^ or such as came to him by his senses. A man born deaf and blind, newly come to hear and see, is not a more ignorant and amazed-like creature than Adam must have been, if God had not conveyed some great impressions into him; such as first the acknowledging and obeying him as his Maker, and then the managing his body, so as to make it an instrument by which he could make use of and observe the creation. There is no reason to think that his body was at first inclined to appetite, and that his mind was apt to serve his body, but that both were restrained by supernatural assistances. It is much more natural, and more agreeable to the words of the wise man, to think that God made man upright; that his body craved modestly, and that his mind was both judge and master of those cravings: and, if a natural hypothesis may be offered, but only as an hypothesis, it may be supposed that a man’s blood was naturally low and cool, but that it was capable of a vast inflammation and elevation, by which a man’s powers might be exalted to much higher degrees of knowledge and capacity. The animal spirits receiving their quality from that of the blood, a new and a strong fermentation in the blood might raise them, and, by consequence, exalt a man to a much greater sublimity of thought; but with that it might dispose him to be easily inflamed by appetites and passions; it might put him under the power of his body, and make his body much more apt to be fired at outward objects, which might sink all spiritual and pure ideas in him, and raise gross ones with much fury and rapidity. Hereby his whole frame might be much corrupted; and that might go so deep in him, that all those who descended from him might be defiled by it, as we see madness and some chronical diseases pass from parents to their children. All this might have been natural, and as much the phy- sical effect of eating the forbidden fruit, as it seems immor- tality would have been that of eating the fruit of the Tree of Life: this might have been in its nature a slow poison, which must end in death at last. It may be very easy to make all this appear probable from physical causes. A very small accident may so alter the whole mass of the blood, that in a very few minutes it may be totally changed; so the eating the forbidden fruit might have, by a natural change of things, produced all this. But this is only an ‘hypothesis, and so is left as such. All the assistance that revealed religion can receive from philosophy is to show, that a reasonable hypo- thesis can be offered, upon physical principles, to show the possibility, or rather probability, of any particulars that are contained in the Scriptures. This is enough to stop the mouths of deists, which is all the use that can be made of such schemes. 134 AN EXPOSITION OF ART. IX. To return to the main point of the fall of Adam : — he himself was made liable to death; but not barely to cease to live; for death and life are terms opposite to one another in Scripture. In treating upon these heads, it is said, that the wages of sin is deaths hut the gift of God is eternal life, Rom. vi. 23. And though the addition of the word eternal makes the signification of the one more express, yet, where it is mentioned without that addition, no doubt is to be made but that it is to be so meant: as where it is said, that to be carnally minded is death, hut to he spiritually minded is life and peace (Rom. viii. 6:) and believ- ing, we have life through his name (John xx. 31 :) ye will not come unto me, that ye may have life, John v. 40. So, by the rule of opposites, death ought to be understood as a word of a general signification, which we, who have the comment of the New Testa- ment to guide us in understanding the Old, are not to restrain to a natural death; and, therefore, when we are said to be the ser- vants of sin unto death, we understand much more by it than a natural death. So God^s threatening of Adam with death, ought not to be restrained to a natural death: Adam being thus defiled, all emanations from him must partake of that vitiated state to which he had brought himself. But then the question remains, how came the souls of his posterity to be defiled? for if they were created pure, it seems to be an unjust cruelty to them, to condemn them to such an union to a defiled body as should cer- tainly corrupt them. All that can be said in answer to this, is — That God has settled it as a law in the creation, that a soul should inform a body according to the texture of it, and either conquer it, or be mastered by it, as it should be differently made; and that as such a degree of purity in the texture of it might make it both pure and happy; so a contrary degree of texture might have very contrary effects: and if, with this, God made another general law, that when all things were duly prepared for the propagation of the species of mankind, a soul should be always ready to go into and animate those first threads and beginnings of life; those laws being laid down, Adam, by corrupting his own frame, corrupted the frame of his whole posterity, by the general course of things, and the great law of the creation. So that the suffering this to run through all the race, is no more (only different in degrees and extent) than the suffering the folly or madness of a man to infect his posterity. In these things God acts as the Creator of the world by general rules, and these must not be altered because of the sins and disorders of men; but they are rather to have their course, that so sin may be its own punishment. The defilement of the race being thus stated, a question remains, whether this can be properly called a sin, and such as deserves God’s wrath and damnation? On the one hand, an opposition of nature to AllT. IX. Til 12 XXXIX AllTlCLES. 135 the Divine nature must certainly be hateful to God, as it is the root of much malignity and sin. Such a nature cannot be the oliject of his love, and of itself it cannot be accepted of God: now since there is no mean in God, between love and wrathy acceptation and damnation, if such persons are not in the first order, they must be in the second. Yet it seems very hard, on the other hand, to apprehend, how persons who have never actually sinned, but are only unhappily descended, should be, in consequence to that, under so great a misery. To this several answers are made: some have thought that those who die before they commit any actual sin, have indeed no share in the favour of God, but yet that they pass unto a state in the other world in which they suffer little or nothing. The stating this more clearly will belong to another opinion, which shall be afterwards explained. There is a further question made, whether this vicious incli- nation is a sin, or not? Those of the Church of Rome, as they believe that original sin is quite taken away by baptism, so, find- ing that this corrupt disposition still remains in us, they do from thence conclude, that it is no part of original sin ; but that this is the natural state in which Adam was made at first, only it is in us without the restraint or bridle of supernatural assistances, which was given to him, but lost by sin, and restored to us in baptism. But, as was said formerly, Adam in his first state was made after the image of God, so that his bodily powers were perfectly under the command of his mind: this revolt, that we feel our bodies and senses are always in, cannot be supposed to be God’s workmanship. There are great disputings raised con- cerning the meaning of a long discourse of St. Paul in the seventh of the Romans, concerning a constant struggle that he felt within himself; which some, arguing from the scope of the whole Epistle and the beginning of that chapter, understand only of the state that St. Paul represents himself to have been in while yet a Jew, and before his conversion; whereas others understand it of him in his converted and regenerated state. Very plausible things have been said on both sides; but, with- out arguing anything from words the sense of which is under debate, there are other places which do manifestly express the struggle that is in a good man: — The flesh is weak, though the spirit is ivillmg : the flesh lusteth against the spirit, as the spirit lusteth against the flesh (Gal. v. 17;) we ought to be still morti- fying the deeds of the body; and we feel many sins that do so easily beset us (Rom. viii. 13,) that from these things we have reason to conclude, that there is a corruption in our nature which gives us a bias and propensity to sin. Now there is no reason to think that baptism takes away all the branches and effects of original sin: it is enough if we are by it delivered from the wrath 136 AN EXPOSITION OF ART. IX. of God, and brought into a state of favour and acceptation: we are freed from the curse of death, by our being entitled to a blessed resurrection; and if we are so far freed from the corrup- tion of our nature, as to have a federal right to such assistances as will enable us to resist and repress it, though it is not quite extinct in us so long as we live in these frail and mortal bodies, here are very great effects of our admission to Christianity by baptism, though this should not go so far as to root all inclina- tions to evil out of our nature. The great disposition that is in us to appetite and passion, and that great heat with which they inflame us; the aversion that we naturally have to all the exer- cises of religion, and the pains that must be used to work us up to a tolerable degree of knowledge and an ordinary measure of virtue, shows that these are not natural to us: whereas sloth and vice do grow on us without any care taken about them : so that it appears that they are the natural, and the other the forced, growth of our souls. These ill dispositions are so universally spread through all mankind, and appear so early, and in so great a diversity of all inclinations, that from hence it seems reason- able and just to infer, that this corruption is spread through our whole nature and species by the sin and disobedience of Adam. And beyond this a great many among ourselves think that they cannot go, in asserting of original sin. But there is a farther step made by all the disciples of St. Austin, who believe that a covenant was made with all mankind in Adam, as their first parent; that he was a person constituted by God to represent them all; and that the covenant was made with him so, that, if he had obeyed, all his posterity should have been happy through his obedience; but by his disobedience they were all to be esteemed to have sinned in him, his act being im- puted and transferred to them all. St. Austin considered all man- kind as lost in Adam, and in that he made the decree of election to begin; there being no other reprobation asserted by him, than the leaving men to continue in that state of damnation in wliicli they were by reason of Adam’s sin; so that though by baptism all men were born again, and recovered out of the lost state, yet, unless they were within the decree of election, they could not be saved, but would certainly fall from that state, and perish in a state of sin; but such as were not baptized were shut out from all hope. These words of Christ’s, Except ye be born again of water and of the Spirit, ye cannot enter into the kingdom of God (John iii. 3. 5,) being expounded so as to import the indispen- sable necessity of baptism to eternal salvation, all who were not baptized were reckoned by him among the damned; yet this damnation, as to those who had no actual sin, was so miti- gated, that it seemed to be little more than an exclusion out of heaven, without any suffering or misery, like a state of ART. IX. THE XXXIX ARTICLES. 1^7 sleep and inactivity. Tliis was afterwards dressed up as a divi- sion or partition in hell, called the Limbo of Infants; so by bringing it thus low, they took away much of the horror that this doctrine might otherwise have given the world. It was not easy to explain the way how this was propagated: they wished well to the notion of a soul’s propagating a soul; but that seemed to come too near creation; so it was not received as certain. It was therefore thought, that the body being pro- pagated defiled, the soul was created and infused at the time of conception: and that though God did not create it impure, yet no time was interposed between its creation and infusion; so that it could never be said to have been once pure, and then to have become impure. All this, as it afforded an easy foundation to establish the doctrine of absolute decrees upon it, no care being taken to show how this sin came into the world, whether from an absolute decree or not, so it seemed to have a great founda- tion in that large discourse of St. Paul’s, where, in the fifth of the Romans, he compares the blessings that we receive by the death of Christ, with the guilt and misery that was brought upon us by the sin of Adam. Now it is confessed, that by Christ we have both an imputation or communication of the merits of his death, and likewise a purity and holiness of nature conveyed to us by his doctrine and spirit. In opposition then to this, if the comparison is to be closely pursued, there must be an imputation of sin, as well as a corruption of nature, transfused to us from Adam. This is the more considerable as to the point of imputation, because the chief design of St. Paul’s discourse seems to be levelled at that, since it is begun upon the head of reconciliation and atonement: upon which it follows, that as by one mail sin entered into the ivorld, and death by sin, and so death passed upon all men, for that (or as others render it, in whom) all have sinned, Rom. v. 12, to the end. Now they think it is all one to their point, whether it be rendered for that or in whom; for though the latter words seem to deliver their opinion more precisely, yet it being affirmed that, according toAhe other ren- dering, all who die have sinned, and it being certain that many infants die who have never actually sinned, these must have sinned in Adam, they could sin no other way. It is afterwards said by St. Paul, that by the offence of one many were dead: that the judgment was by one to condemnation: that by one man^s offence death reigned by one: that by the offence of one, judgment came upon all men to condemnation: and that by one man’s disobedience many were made sinners. As these words are positive, and of great importance in themselves, so all this is much the stronger, by the opposition in which every one of them is put to the effects and benefits of Christ’s death; par- ticularly to our justification through him, in which there is 138 AN EXPOSITION OF ART. IX. an imputation of the merits and effects of his deaths that are thereby transferred to us: so that the whole effect of this dis- course is taken away, if the imputation of Adames sin is denied. ' And this explanation does certainly quadrate more entirely to the words of the Article, as it is known that this was the tenet of those who prepared the Articles, it having been the gene- rally received opinion from St. Austin’s days downward. But to many other divines this seems a harsh and unconceiv- able opinion; it seems repugnant to the justice and goodness of God, to reckon men guilty of a sin which they never committed, and to punish them in their souls eternally for that which is no act of theirs; and though we easily enough conceive how God, in the riches of his grace, may transfer merit and blessing from one person to many, this being only an economy of mercy, where all is free, and such a method is taken as may best declare the goodness of God; but in the imputation of sin and guilt, which are matters of strict justice, it is quite otherwise. Upon that head, God is pleased often to appeal to men for the justice of all his ways; and therefore no such doctrine ought to be admitted, that carries in it an idea of cruelty beyond what the blackest tyrants have ever invented; besides that in the Scripture such a method as the punishing children for their father’s sins is often disclaimed (Jer. xxxi. 29,) and it is posi- tively affirmed, that every man that sins is punished, Ezek. xviii. 20. Now though, in articles relating to the nature of God, they acknowledge it is highly reasonable to believe that there may be mysteries which exceed our capacity; yet in moral matters, in God’s federal dealings with us, it seems unreasonable, and con- trary to the nature of God, to believe that there may be a mys- tery contrary to the clearest notions of justice and goodness — such as the condemning mankind for the sin of one man, in which the rest had no share; and as contrary to our ideas of God; and upon that to set up another mystery that shall take away the truth and fidelity of the promises of God — ^justice and goodness being as inseparable from his nature, as truth and fide- lity can be supposed to be. This seems to expose the Christian religion to the scoffs of its enemies, and to objections that are much sooner made than answered: and since the foundation of this is a supposed covenant with Adam as the representative head of mankind, it is strange that a thing of that great conse- quence should not have been more plainly reported in the history of the creation ; but that men should be put to fetch out the know- ledge of so great and so extraordinary a thing,only by some remote consequences. It is no small prejudice against this opinion, that it was so long before it first appeared in the Latin Church ; that it was never received .in the Greek; and that even the Western Church, though perhaps for some ignorant ages it received it. AIIT. IX. THE XXXIX AllTICJ.ES. 139 as it did everytliing else, very implicitly, yet lias been very much divided, both aliout this and many other opinions related to it, or arising out of it. As for those words of St. Paul’s, that are its chief, if not its only foundation, they say many things upon them. First, it is a single proof. Now, when we have not a variety of places proving any point, in which one gives light and leads us to a sure expo- sition of another, we cannot be so sure of the meaning of any one place, as to raise a theory or found a doctrine upon it. They say farther, that St. Paul seems to argue, from that opinion of our having sinned in Adam, to prove that we are justified by Christ. Now it is a piece of natural logic not to prove a thing by another, unless that other is more clear of itself, or at least more clear by its being already received and believed. This cannot be said to be more clear of itself, for it is certainly less credible or conceiv- able than the reconciliation by Christ: nor was this clear from any special revelation made of it in the Old Testament: therefore there is good reason to believe, that it was then a doctrine received among the Jews, as there are odd things of this kind to be found among the Cabbalists, as if all the souls of all mankind had been in Adam’s body. Now when an argument is brought in Scripture to prove another thing by, though we are bound to acknowledge the conclusion, yet we are not always sure of the premises; for they are often founded upon received opinions. So that it is not certain that St. Paul meant to olfer this doctrine to our belief as true, but only that he intended by it to prove our being reconciled to God through the death of Christ; and the medium by which he proved it might be, for aught that appears from the words themselves, only an opinion held true among those to whom he writes. For he only supposes it, but says nothing to prove it; which it might be expected he would have done, if the Jews had made any doubt of it. But farther they say, that when comparisons or oppositions, such as this, are made in Scripture, we are not always to carry them on to an exact equality: we are required not only to he holy as God is holy, but to he perfect as he is perfect, (1 Pet. i. 15, 16; Matt. v. 48;) whereby the as is not to be meant a true equality, but some sort of resemblance and conformity. Therefore those who believe that there is nothing imputed to Adam’s posterity on the account of his sin, but this temporary punishment of their being made liable to death, and to all those miseries that the fear of it, with other concerns about it, bring us under, say that this is enough to justify the comparison that is there stated; and that those who will carry it to be an exact parallel, make a stretch beyond the phraseology of the Scripture, and the use of parables, and of the many comparisons that go 140 AN EXPOSITION OP ART. IX. only to one or more points, but ought not to be stretched to everything. These are the things that other great divines among us have opposed to this opinion. As to its consonancy to the Article, those who oppose it do not deny but that it comes up fully to the highest sense that the words of the Article can import; nor do they doubt, but that those who prepared the Articles, being of that opinion themselves, might perhaps have had that sense of the words in their thoughts: but they add, that we are only bound to sign the Articles in a literal and grammatical sense; since there- fore the words, God’s wrath and damnation^ which are the highest in the Article, are capable of a lower sense, temporary judgments being often so expressed in the Scriptures, therefore they believe the loss of the favour of God, the sentence of death, the troubles of life, and the corruption of our faculties, may be well called God’s wrath and damnation. Besides, they observe, that the main point of the imputation of Adam’s sin to his posterity, and its being considered by God as their own act, not being expressly taught in the Article, here was that moderation observed which the compilers of the Articles have showed on many other occa- sions. It is plain from hence, that they did not intend to lay a burthen on men’s consciences, or oblige them to profess a doc- trine that seems to be hard of digestion to a great many.* The last prejudice that they offer against that opinion is, that the softening the terms of God’s wrath and damnation^ that was brought in by the followers of St. Austin’s doctrine, to such a moderate and harmless notion as to be only a loss of heaven with a sort of inactive sleep, was an effect of their apprehending that the world could very ill bear an opinion of so strange a sound, as that all mankind were to be damned for the sin of one man; and that therefore, to make this pass the better, they miti- gated damnation far below the representation that the Scriptures generally give of it, which propose it as the being adjudged to a place of torment, and a state of horror and misery. Thus I have set down the different opinions in this point with that true indifference that I intend to observe on such other occasions, and which becomes one who undertakes to explain the doctrines of the Church, and not his own; and who is obliged to propose other men’s opinions with all sincerity, and to show what are the senses that the learned men, of dif- ferent persuasions in these matters, have put on the words of the Article: in which one great and constant rule to be observed is, to represent men’s opinions candidly, and to judge • Exod. xxxii. 10, and through the whole Old Testament. Matt. iii. 7. 1 Thess. ii. 10. Luke xxiii. 40. 1 Cor. xi. 29. 1 Pet. iv. 17. Rom. xiii. 2. 2 Cor. vii. 3. John viii. 10, 11. Rom. xiv. 23. ART. X. TFIR XXXIX ARTICLES. 141 as favourably botli of them and their opinions as may be: to bear with one another^ and not to disturb the peace and union of the Church by insisting too much and too peremptorily upon matters of such doubtful disputation; but willingly to leave them to all that liberty to which the Church has left them, and which she still allows them. ARTICLE X. OF FREE-WILL. The Condition of Man after the Fall of Adam is such that he can- not turn and prepare himself, by his own natural strength and good ivorks, to Faith and calling upon God. Wherefore we have no power to do good works pleasant and acceptable to God, with- out the Grace of God by Christ preventing us that we may have a good will, and working with us when we have that good will. We shall find the same moderation observed in this Article that was taken notice of in the former; where all disputes concern- ing the degree of that feebleness and corruption, under which we are fallen by the sin of Adam, are avoided, and only the necessity of a preventing and a co-operating grace is asserted, against the Semipelagians and the Pelagians. But before we enter upon that, it is fitting first to state the true notion of free-wfill, in so far as it is necessary to all rational agents, to make their actions morally good or bad; since it is a principle that seems to rise out of the light of nature, that no man is account- able, rewardable, or punishable, but for that in which he acts freely, without force or compulsion : and so far all are agreed. Some imagine, that liberty must suppose a freedom to do, or not to do, and to act contrariwise at pleasure. To others it seems not necessary that such a liberty should be carried to denominate actions morally good or bad. God certainly acts in the perfectest liberty, yet he cannot sin: Christ had the most exalted liberty, in his human nature, of which a creature was capable, and his merit was the highest, yet he could not sin: angels and glorified saints, though no more capable of rewards, are perfect moral agents, and yet they cannot sin; and the devils, with the damned, though not capable of farther punishment, yet are still moral agents, and cannot but sin: — so this indifFerency to do, or not to do, cannot be the true notion of liberty. A truer one seems to them to be this, that a rational nature is not determined as mere matter, by the impulse and motion of other bodies upon it, but is capable of thought. 142 AN EXPOSITION OF ART. X. and, upon considering the objects set before it, makes reflection, and so chooses. Liberty therefore seems to consist in this inward capacity of thinking, and of acting and choosing upon thought. The clearer the thought is, and the more constantly that our choice is determined by it, the more does a man rise up to the highest acts and sublimest exercises of liberty. A question arises out of this, whether the will is not always determined by the understanding, so that a man does always choose and determine himself, upon the account of some idea or other? If this is granted, then no liberty will be left to our faculties. We must apprehend things as they are proposed to our understanding; for if a thing appears true to us, we must assent to it; and if the will is as blind to the understanding, as the understanding is determined by the light in which the object appears to it, then we seem to be concluded under a fate, or necessity. It is, after all, a vain attempt to argue against every man\s experience: we perceive in ourselves a liberty of turning our minds to some ideas, or from others; we can think longer or shorter of these, more exactly and steadily, or more slightly and superficially, as we please; and in this radical freedom of direct- ing or diverting our thoughts, a main part of our freedom does consist. Often objects as they appear to our thoughts do so affect or heat them, that they do seem to conquer us, and carry us after them; some thoughts seeming as it were to intoxicate and charm us. Appetites and passions, when much fired by objects apt to work upon them, do agitate us strongly; and, on the other hand, the impressions of religion come often into our minds with such a secret force, so much of terror and such secret joy mixing with them, that they seem to master us: yet in all this a man acts freely, because he thinks and chooses for himself ; and though perhaps he does not feel himself so entirely balanced that he is indifferent to both sides, yet he has still such a remote liberty, that he can turn himself to other objects and thoughts, so that he can divert, if not all of the sudden resist, the present impressions that seem to master him. We do also feel, that in many trifles we do act with an entire liberty, and do many things upon no other account, and for no other reason, but because we will do them; and yet more important things depend on these. Our thoughts are much governed by those impressions that are made upon our brain: when an object proportioned to us appears to us with such advantages as to affect us much, it makes such an impression on our brain, that our animal spirits move much towards it; and those thoughts that answer it arise oft and strongly upon us, till either that impression is worn out and flatted, or new and livelier ones are made on us by other objects. In this depressed state in which we now are, the ideas ART. X. TIIK XXXIX AllTICLKS. M3 of wliat is useful or pleasant to our bodies arc strong; they are ever fresh, being daily renewed; and, according to the different construction of men’s blood and their brains, there arises a great variety of inclinations in them. Our animal spirits, that are the immediate organs of thought, being the subtiler parts of our blood, are differently made and shaped, as our blood happens to be acid, salt, sweet, or phlegmatic; and this gives such a bias to all our inclinations, that nothing can work us off from it, but some great strength of thought that bears it down : so learning, chiefly in mathematical sciences, can so swallow up and fix one’s thought, as to possess it entirely for some time; but when that amusement is over, nature will return and be where it was, being rather diverted than overcome by such speculations. The revelation of religion is the proposing and proving many truths of great importance to our understandings, by which they are enlightened, and our wills are guided; but these truths are feeble things, languid and unable to stem a tide of nature, especially when it is much excited and heated: so that in fact we feel, that, when nature is low, these thoughts may have some force to give an inward melancholy, and to awaken in us pur- poses and resolutions of another kind; but when nature recovers itself, and takes fire again, these grow less powerful. The giving those truths of religion such a force that they may be able to subdue nature, and to govern us, is the design of both natural and revealed religion. So the question comes now according to the Article to be, whether a man, by the powers of nature and of reason, without other inward assistances, can so far turn and dispose his own mind, as to believe and to do works 'pleasant and acceptable to God? Pelagius thought that man was so entire in his liberty, that there was no need of any other grace but that of pardon, and of proposing the truths of religion to men’s knowledge, but that the use of these was in every man’s power. Those who were called Semipelagians thought, that an assisting inward grace was necessary to enable a man to go through all the harder steps of religion; but with that they thought, that the first turn or conversion of the will to God was the effect of a man’s own free choice. In opposition to both which, this Article asserts both an assisting and a preventing grace. That there are inward assist- ances given to our powers, besides those outward blessings of Providence, is first to be proved. In the Old Testament, it is true, there were not express promises made by Moses of such assistances; yet it seems both David and Solomon had a full persuasion about it. David’s prayers do everywhere relate to somewhat that is internal: he prays God to open and turn his eyes; to unite and incline his heart; to quicken him; to make him to go; to guide and lead him; to create in him a clean 144 AN EXPOSITION OF ART, X. heart, and renew a right spirit within him, Psal. cxix. 18. 27. 32. 35 ; li. 10. Solomon says, that God gives wisdom; that he directs men’s paths, and giveth grace to the lowly. In the promise that Jeremy gives of a new covenant, this is the character that is given of it; I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts : they shall all know me, from the least of them unto the greatest, Jer. xxxi. 33, 34. Like to that is what Ezekiel pro- mises ; A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you; and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh; and I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes, and ye shall keep my judgments and do them, Ezek. xxxvi. 26, 27. That these prophecies relate to the new dispensation, cannot be questioned, since Jeremy^s words, to which the other are equivalent, are cited and applied to it in the Epistle to the Hebrews. Now the oppo- sition of the one dispensation to the other, as it is here stated, consists in this, that whereas the old dispensation was made up of laws and statutes that were given on tables of stone and in writing, the new dispensation was to have somewhat in it beside that external revelation, which was to be internal, and which should dispose and enable men to observe it. A great deal of our Saviour’s discourse concerning the Spirit, which he was to pour on his disciples, did certainly belong to that extraordinary effusion at Pentecost, and to those wonderful effects that were to follow upon it: yet as he had formerly given this as an encouragement to all men to pray that his heavenly Father would give the Holy Spirit to every one that asked him (Luke xi. 13,) so there are many parts of that his last discourse that seem to belong to the constant necessities of all Christians. It is as unreasonable to limit all to that time, as the first words of it, / go to prepare a place for you; and because I live, ye shall live also, John xiv. 2. The prayer which comes after that dis- course, being extended beyond them to all that should believe in his name through their word, we have no reason to limit these words, I will manifest myself to him; my Father and I will make our abode with him; In me ye shall have peace — to the Apostles only: so that the guidance, the conviction, the comforts of that Spirit, seem to be promises which in a lower order belong to all Christians. St. Paul speaks of the love of God shed abroad in their hearts by the Holy Ghost (Rom. v. 5:) when he was under temptation, and prayed thrice, he had this answer. My grace is sufficient for thee; my strength is made perfect in weakness, 2 Cor. xii. 9. He prays often for the Churches in his Epistles to them, that God would stablish, comfort, and perfect them, enlighten and strengthen them; and this in all that variety of words and phrases that import inward assistances. This is also meant by Christ’s living and dwelling ART. X. THE XXXIX ARTICLES. I ir> in us, and by our being rooted and grounded in him; our being the temples of God, a holy habitation to him through his Spirit; our being sealed by the Spirit of God to the day of redemption; by all those directions to pray for grace to help in time of need, apd to ask wisdom of God, that gives liberally to all men; as also by the phrases of being born of God, and the having his seed abiding in us ', 2Cor. vi. 16; Heb. iv. 16; James i. 5; 1 John iii. 9.) These and many more places^ which return often through the New Testament, seem to put it beyond all doubt, that there are inward communications from God to the powers of our souls; by which we are made both to apprehend the truths of religion, to remember and reflect on them, and to con- sider and follow them more effectually. How these are applied to us is a great difficulty indeed, but it is to little purpose to amuse ourselves about it. God may con- vey them immediately to our souls, if he will; but it is more intelligible to us to imagine that the truths of religion are by a divine direction imprinted deep upon our brain; so that natu- rally they must affect us much, and be oft in our thoughts: and this may' be an hypothesis to explain regeneration or habitual grace by. When a deep impression is once made, there may be a direction from God, in the same way that his providence runs through the whole material world, given to the animal spirits to move towards and strike upon that impression, and so to excite such thoughts as by the law of the union of the soul and body do correspond to it: this may serve for an hypothesis to explain the conveyance of actual grace to us : but these are only pro- posed as hypotheses, that is, as methods or possible ways how such things may be done, and which may help us to apprehend more distinctly the manner of them. Now as this hypothesis has nothing in it but what is truly philosophical, so it is highly congruous to the nature and attributes of God, that if our facul- ties are fallen under a decay and corruption, so that bare instruc- tion is not like to prevail over us, he should by some secret methods rectify this in us. Our experience tells us but too often, what a feeble thing knowledge and speculation is, when it engages with nature strongly assaulted; how our best thoughts fly from us and forsake us : whereas at other times the sense of these things lies with a due weight on our minds, and has ano- ther effect upon us. The way of conveying this is invisible: our Saviour compared it to the wind that bloweth where it listeth; no man knows whence it comes, and whither it goes (John iii. 8;) no man can give an account of the sudden changes of the wind, and of that force with which the air is driven by it, which is otherwise the most yielding of all bodies; to which he adds, so is every one that is born of the Spirit. This he brings to illustrate the meaning of what he had said, that except a man ivas born K 146 AN EXPOSITION OF ART. X. again of water and of the Spirit, he could not enter into the king- dom of God: and to show how real and internal this was, he adds, that which is born of the flesh is flesh; that is, a man has the nature of those parents from whom he is descended, hj flesh being understood the fabric of the human body, animated by the soul: in opposition to which he subjoins, that which is born of the Spi- rit is spirit: that is to say, a man thus regenerated by the ope- ration of the Spirit of God, comes to be of a spiritual nature. With this I conclude all that seemed necessary to be proved, that there are inward assistances given to us in the new dispen- sation. I do not dispute whether these are fitly called grace, for perhaps that word will scarce be found in that sense in the Scrip- tures; it signifying more largely the love and favour of God, without restraining it to this act or effect of it. The next thing to be proved is, that there is a preventing grace, by which the will is first moved and disposed to turn to God. It is certain that the first promulgation of the gospel to the Churches that were gathered by the Apostles, is ascribed wholly to the riches and freedom of the grace of God. This is fully done in the Epistle to the Ephesians, in which their former ignorance and corruption is set forth under the figures of blindness, of being without hope and without God in the world, and dead in trespasses and sins; they following the course of this world, and the prince of the power of the air, and being by nature children of wrath (Eph. ii. 2, 3. 12;) that is, under wrath. I dispute not here concerning the meaning of the word by nature, whether it relates to the cor- ruption of our nature in Adam, or to that general corruption that had overspread heathenism, and was become as it were another nature to them. In this single instance we plainly see, that there was no previous disposition to the first preaching of the gospel at Ephesus: many expressions of this kind, though perhaps not of this force, are in the other Epistles. St. Paul, in his Epistle to the Romans, puts God’s choosing of Abraham upon this, that it was of grace, not of debt, otherwise Abraham might have had whereof to glory, Rom. iv. 2. And when he speaks of God’s casting off the Jews, and grafting the Gentiles upon that stock from which they were cut off, he ascribes it wholly to the goodness of God towards them, and charges them not to be high-minded, but to fear, Rom. xi. 20. In his Epistle to the Corinthians he says, that not many wise, mighty, nor noble, were chosen, but God had chosen the foolish, the weak, and the base things of this world, so that no flesh should glory in his presence (1 Cor. i. 26, 27. 29:) and he urges this farther, in words that seem to be as applicable to particular persons as to communities or churches : Who maketh thee to differ from another? and what hast thou, that thou didst not receive? Now if thou didst receive it, why dost thou glory as if thou ART. X. THE XXXIX ARTICLES. 147 hadst not received it? 1 Cor. iv. 7* From these and many more passages of the like nature it is plain^, that in the promul- gation of the gospel, God was found of them that sought not to him, and heard of them that called not upon him (Isa. Ixv. 1 ;) that is, he prevented them by his favour, while there were no previous dispositions in them to invite it, much less to merit it. From this it may be inferred, that the like method should be used with relation to particular persons. We do find very express instances in the New Testament, of the conversion of some by a preventing grace: it is said, that God opened the heart of Lydia, so that she attended to the things that ivere spoken of Paul, Acts xvi. 14. The conversion of St. Paul himself was so clearly from a preventing grace, that if it had not been miraculous in so many of its circumstances, it would have been a strong argument in behalf of it. These words of Christ seem also to assert it: Without me ye can do nothing: ye have not chosen me, hut I you; and no man can come to me, except the Father which has sent me draw him, John xv. 5. 16. Those who received Christ were horn not of hlood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, hut of the will of God, John'i. 13. God is said to work in us both to will and to do of his own good pleasure (Phil. ii. 13 :) the one seems to import the first beginnings, and the other the progress of a Christian course of life. So far all among us, that I know of, are agreed, though perhaps not as to the force that is in all those places to prove this point. There do yet remain two points in which they do not agree. The one is, the efficacy of this preventing grace: — some think that it is of its own nature so efficacious, that it never fails of converting those to whom it is given; others think that it only awakens and disposes, as well as it enables them to turn to God, but that they may resist it, and that the greater part of mankind do actually resist it. The examining of this point, and the stating the arguments on both sides, will belong more properly to the seventeenth Article. The other head, in which many do differ, is concerning the extent of this preventing grace; for whereas such as do hold it to be efficacious of itself, restrain it to the number of those who are elected and converted by it; others do believe, that as Christ died for all men, so there is an universal grace which is given in Christ to all men, in some degree or other, and that it is given to all baptized Christians in a more eminent degree; and that as all are corrupted by Adam, there is also a general grace given to all men in Christ. This depends so much on the former point, that the discussing the one is indeed the discussing of both; and, therefore, it shall not be further entered upon in this place. K 2 148 AN EXPOSITION OF ART. XI. ARTICLE XL OF THE JUSTIFICATION OF MAN. We are accounted righteous before God only for the Merit of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, by Faith, and not for our own Works or Deservings. Wherefore, that ive are justified by faith only, is a most wholesome Doctrine, and very full of Comfort, as more largely is expressed in the Homily of Justifi- cation. In order to the right understanding this Article^ we must first consider the true meaning of the terms of which it is made up; which arcj Justification, Faith, Faith only, and Good Works; and then, when these are rightly stated, we will see what judg- ments are to be passed upon the questions that do arise out of this Article. Just, or justified, are words capable of two senses: — the one is, a man who is in the favour of God by a mere act of his, or upon some consideration not founded on the holiness or the merit of the person himself: the other is, a man who is truly holy, and as such is beloved of God. The use of this word in the New Testament was probably taken from the term Chasidim among the Jews — a designation of such as observed the external parts of the Law strictly, and were believed to be upon that account much in the favour of God; an opinion being generally spread among them, that a strict observance of the external parts of the law of Moses did certainly put a man in the favour of God. In opposition to which, the design of a great part of the New Testament is to show, that these things did not put men in the favour of God. Our Saviour (John hi. 18) used the word saved in opposition to condemned; and spoke of men who were condemned already, as well as of others who were saved. St. Paul enlarges more fully into many discourses; in which our hemg justified, and the righteousness of God, or his grace towards us, are all terms equivalent to one another. His design in the Epistle to the Romans was to prove that the observance of the Mosaical Law could not justify, that is, could not put a man under the grace or favour of God, or the, righteousness of God, that is, into a state of acceptation with him, as that is opposite to a state of wrath or condemnation: he upon that shows that Abraham was in the favour of God before he was circumcised, upon the account of his trusting to the promises of God, and obeying his commands; and that God reckoned upon these acts of his, as much as if they had been an entire course of obe- dience; for that is the meaning of these words. And it was ART. XI. THE XXXIX ARTICLES. 149 imputed to him for righteousness, Gen. xv. 6; Rom. iv. 3. 22. These promises were freely made to him by God^ when by no previous works of his he had made them to be due to him of debt; therefore that covenant which was founded on those promises, was the justifying of Abraham freely by grace. Upon which St. Paul, in a variety of inferences and expressions, assumes, that we are in like manner justified freely by grace through the redemption in Christ Jesus (Rom. hi. 24:) that God has of his own free goodness offered a new covenant, and new and better promises, to mankind, in Christ Jesus, which whosoever believe as Abraham did, they are justified as he was. So that whosoever will observe the scope of St. PauPs Epistles to the Romans and Galatians will see that he always uses justification in a sense that imports our being put in the favour of God. The Ejhstle to the Galatians was indeed writ upon the occasion of another controversy, which was, whether supposing Christ to be the Messias, Christians were bound to observe the MosaicalLaw, or not: whereas the scope of the first part of the Epistle to the Romans is to show, that we are not justified nor saved by the Law of Moses, as a mean of its own nature capable to recommend us to the favour of God, but that even that Law was a dispensation of grace, in which it was a true faith like Abraham^s that put men in the favour of God; yet in both these Epistles, in which justification is fully treated of, it stands always for the receiving one into the favour of God. In this, the consideration upon which it is done, and the con- dition upon which it is offered, are two very different things. The one is a dispensation of God^s mercy, in which he has regard to his own attributes, to the honour of his laws, and his government of the world: the other is the method in which he applies that to us; in such a manner, that it may have such ends as are both perfective of human nature, and suitable to an infinitely holy Being to pursue. We are never to mix these two together, or to imagine that the condition upon which justification is offered to us, is the consideration that moves God; as if our holiness, faith, or obedience, were the moving cause of our justification; or that justifies us, because he sees that we are truly for though it is not to be denied but that, in some places of the New Testament, justification may stand in that sense, because the word in its true significa- tion will bear it; yet in these two Epistles, in which it is largely treated of, nothing is plainer, than that the design is to show us what it is that brings us to the favour of God, and to a state of pardon and acceptation: so that justification in those places stands in opposition to accusation and condemnation. The next term to be explained is faith; which in the New Testament stands generally for the complex of Christianity, in opposition to the Law, which stands as generally for the com- 150 AN EXPOSITION OF ART. XI. plex of the whole Mosaical dispensation. So that the faith of Christ is equivalent to this, the gospel of Christ; because Christianity is a federal religion, founded, on God^s part, on the promises that he has made to us, and on the rules he has set us; and on our part, on our believing that revelation, our trusting to those promises, and our setting ourselves to follow those rules. The believing this revelation, and that great article of it, of Christ’s being the Son of God, and the true Messias that came to reveal his Father’s will, and to offer himself up to be the sacrifice of this new covenant, is often represented as the great and only condition of the covenant on our part; but still this faith must receive the whole gospel, the precepts as well as the promises of it, and receive Christ as a Prophet to teach, and a King to rule, as well as a Priest to save us. By faith only, is not to be meant faith as it is separated from the other evangelical graces and virtues ; but faith, as it is opposite to the rites of the Mosaical Law: for that was the great question that gave occasion to St. Paul’s writing so fully upon this head: since many Judaizing Christians, as they acknowledged Christ to be the true Messias, so they thought that the Law of Moses was still to retain its force — in opposition to whom St. Paul says, that we are justified by faith, without the works of the Law, Rom. iii. 28; Gal. ii. 16; Rom. ii. 12. It is plain that he means the Mosaical dispen- sation, for he had divided all mankind into those who were in the Law, and those who were without the Law; that is, into Jews and Gentiles. Nor had St. Paul any occasion to treat of any other matter in those Epistles, or to enter into nice abstractions, w^hich became not one that was to instruct the world in order to their sal- vation. Those metaphysical notions are not easily apprehended by plain men not accustomed to such subtilties, and are of very little value when they are more critically distinguished: yet when it seems some of those expressions were wrested to an ill sense and use, St. James (ii. 24) treats of the same matter, but with this great difference, that though he says expressly that a man is justi- fied by his works, and not by faith only ; yet he does not say, by the ivorks of the Law; so that he does not at all contradict St. Paul, the works that he mentions not being the circumcision or ritual observances of Abraham, but his offering up his son Isaac, which St. Paul had reckoned a part of the faith of Abra- ham, This shows that he did not intend to contradict the doc- trine delivered by St. Paul, but only to give a true notion of the faith that justifies — that it is not a bare believing, such as devils are capable of, but such a believing as exerted itself in good works. So that the faith mentioned by St. Paul is the complex of all Christianity; whereas that mentioned by St. James is a bare believing, without a life suitable to it. And as it is certainly true, that we are taken into the favour of God ART. XI. tup: XXXIX ARTICLES. 151 upon our receiving tlie whole gospel, without observing the Mosaical precepts; so it is as certainly true, that a bare pro- fessing or giving credit to the truth of the gospel, without our living suitably to it, does not give us a right to the favour of God. And thus it appears that these two pieces of the New Testament, when rightly understood, do in no wise contradict, but agree well with one another. In the last place, we must consider the signification of good works. By them are not to be meant some .voluntary and assumed pieces of severity, which are nowhere enjoined in the gospel, that arise out of superstition, and that feed pride and hypocrisy; — these are so far from deserving the name of good ivorks, that they have been in all ages the methods of imposture, and of impostors, and the arts by which they have gained credit and authority. By good works, therefore, are meant acts of true holiness, and of sincere obedience to the laws of the gospel. The terms being thus explained, I shall next distinguish between the questions arising out of this matter, that are only about words, and those that are more material and important. If any man fancy that the remission of sins is to be considered as a thing previous to justification, and distinct from it, and acknowledge that to be freely given in Christ Jesus; and that in consequence of this there is such a grace infused, that thereupon the person becomes trulyy?/5^, and is considered as such by God; — this, which must be confessed to be the doctrine of a great many in the Church of Rome, and which seems to be that established at Trent, is indeed very visibly different from the style and design of those places of the New Testament in which this matter is most fully opened. But yet, after all, it is but a question about words; for if that which they call remission of sins, be the same with that which we call justification, and if that which they justification the same with that which we call sanctification, then here is only a strife of words: yet even in this we have the Scriptures clearly of our side; so that we hold the form of sound words, from which they have departed. The Scripture speaks of sanctification, as a thing different from, and subsequent to, jus- tification. Now ye are washed, ye are sanctified, ye are justified, 1 Cor. vi. 11. And since justification, and the being in the love and favour of God, are in the New Testament one and the same thing, the remission of sins must be an act of God^s favour: for we cannot imagine a middle state of being, neither accepted of him nor yet under his wrath, as if the remission of sins were merely an extinction of the guilt of sin, without any special favour. If, therefore, this remission of sins is acknowledged to be given freely to us through Jesus Christ, this is that which we affirm to be justification, though under another name: we do also acknowledge that our- natures must be sanctified and renewed, V 152 AN EXPOSITION OF ART. XI. that so God may take pleasure in us when his image is again visible upon us; and this we call sanctification; which we acknowledge to be the constant and inseparable effect of jus- tification: so that as to this we agree in the same doctrine^ only we differ in the use of the terms; in which we have the phrase of the New Testament clearly with us. But there are two more material differences between us: it is a tenet in the Church of Rome, that the use of the sacraments, if men do not put a bar to them, and if they have only imperfect acts of sorrow accompanying them, does so far complete those weak acts as to justify us. This we do utterly deny, as a doc- trine that tends to enervate all religion: and to make the sacra- ments, that were appointed to be the solemn acts of religion, for quickening and exciting our piety, and for conveying grace to us upon our coming devoutly to them, become means to flatten and deaden us; as if they were of the nature of charms, which if they could be come at, though with ever so slight a preparation, would make up all defects. The doctrine of Sacramental Justi- fication is justly to be reckoned among the most mischievous of all those practical errors that are in the Church of Rome. Since, therefore, this is nowhere mentioned in all those large discourses that are in the New Testament concerning justification, we have just reason to reject it: since also the natural consequence of this doctrine is to make men rest contented in low imperfect acts, when they can be so easily made up by a sacrament, we have just reason to detest it as one of the depths of Satan; the tendency of it being to make those ordinances of the gospel, which were given us as means to raise and heighten our faith and repentance, become engines to encourage sloth and impenitence. There is another doctrine that is held by many, and is still taught in the Church of Rome, not only with approbation, but favour — that the inherent holiness of good men is a thing of its own nature so perfect, that upon the account of it, God is so bound to esteem them just, and to justify them, that he were unjust if he did it not. They think there is such a real con- dignity in it, that it makes men God^s adopted children : whereas we, on the other hand, teach, that God is indeed pleased with the inward reformation that he sees in good men, in whom his grace dwells, that he approves and accepts of their sincerity; but that with this there is still such a mixture, and in this there is still so much imperfection, that even upon this account, if God did straitly mark iniquity, none could stand before him: so that even his aeceptance of this is an act of mercy and grace. This doctrine was commonly taught in the Church of Rome at the time of the Reformation; and, togetlier with it, they reckoned that the chief of those works tliat did justify, were either great or rich endowments, or excessive ART. XI. THE XXXIX ARTICLES. 153 devotions towards images^ saints, and relics; by all which Christ was either forgot quite, or remembered only for form sake, esteemed perhaps as the chief of saints; not to mention the im- j)ious comparisons that were made between him and some saints, and the preferences that were given to them beyond him. In opposition to all this, the Reformers began, as they ought to have done, at the laying down this as the foundation of all Christi- anity, and of all our hopes — that we were reconciled to God merely through his mercy, by the redemption purchased by Jesus Christ; and that a firm believing the Gospel, and a claim- ing to the death of Christ as the great propitiation for our sins, according to the terms on which it is otfered us in the gospel, was that which united us to Christ; that gave us an interest in his death, and thereby justified us. If, in the management of this controversy, there was not so critical a judgment made of the scope of several passages of St. Paul’s Epistles, and if the dispute became afterwards too abstracted and metaphysical, that was the effect of the infelicity of that time, and was the natural consequence of much disputing: therefore, though we do not now stand to all the arguments, and to all the citations and illustra- tions used by them; and though we do not deny but that many of the writers of the Church of Rome came insensibly off from the most practical errors that had been formerly much taught, and more practised among them; and that this matter was so stated by many of them, that, as to the main of it, we have no just exceptions to it: yet, after all, this beginning of the Reformation was a great blessing to the world, and has proved so even to the Church of Rome, by bringing her to a juster sense of the atone- ment made for sins by the blood of Christ, and by taking men off from external actions, and turning them to consider the inward acts of the mind, faith and repentance, as the conditions of our justification. And, therefore, the approbation given here to the homily, is only an approbation of the doctrine asserted and proved in it; which ought not to be carried to every particular of the proofs or explanations that are in it. To be justified^ and to be accounted righteous, stand for one and the same thing in the Article; and both import our being delivered from the guilt of sin, and entitled to the favour of God. These differ from God’s intending from all eternity to save us, as much as a decree differs from the execution of it. A man is then only justified^ when he is freed from wrath, and is at peace with God: and though this is freely offered to us in the gospel through Jesus Christ, yet it is applied to none but to such as come within those qualifications and conditions set before us in the gospel. That God pardons sin, and receives us into favour only through the death of Christ, is so fully expressed in the gospel, as was already made out upon the 154 AN EXPOSITION OF ART. XI. second Article, that it is not possible to doubt of it, if one does firmly believe, and attentively read the New Testament. Nor is it less evident, that it is not offered to us absolutely, and without conditions and limitations. These conditions are 3 repentance, with which remission of sins is often joined; and faith, but a faith that worketh by love, that pur ifieth the heart, and that keeps the commandments of God (Gal. v. 6; Luke xxiv. 47; Acts ii. 38;) such a faith as shows itself to be alive by good works, by acts of charity, and every act of obedience; by which we demonstrate, that we truly and firmly believe the divine authority of our Saviour and his doctrine. Such a faith as this justifies, but not as it is a work or meritorious action, that of its own nature puts us in the favour of God, and makes us truly just; but as it is the condition upon which the mercy of God is offered to us by Christ Jesus; for then we correspond to his design of coming into the world, that he might redeem us from all iniquity, that is, justify us; and purify unto himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works (Tit. ii. 14;) that is, sanctify us. Upon our bringing ourselves, therefore, under these qualifications and conditions, we are actually in the favour of God; our sins are pardoned, and we are entitled to eternal life. Our faith and repentance are not the valuable considerations for which God pardons and justifies; that is done merely for the death of Christ; which God having out of the riches of his grace provided for us, and offered to us, justification is upon those accounts said to be free; there being nothing on our part which either did or could have procured it. But still ' our faith, which includes our hope, our love, our repentance, and our obedience, is the condition that makes us capable of receiving the benefits of this redemption and free grace. And thus it is clear in what sense we believe that we justified both freely and yet through Christ; and also through faith, as the condition indispensably necessary on our part. In strictness of words, we are not justified \jA\ the final sentence is pronounced; till upon our death we are solemnly acquitted of our sins, and admitted into the presence of God; this being that which is opposite to condemnation: yet as a man, who is in that state that must end in condemnation, is said to be condemned already, and the wrath of God is said to abide upon him (John iii. 18,) though he be not yet adjudged to it; so, on the contrary, a man in that state which must end in the full enjoyment of God, is said now to ho justified, and to be at peace with God; because he not only has the promises of that state now belonging to him, when he does perform the conditions required in them ; but is likewise receiving daily marks of God’s favour, the protection of his providence, the ministry of angels, and the inward assistances of his grace and Spirit. ART. XII. THE XXXIX ARTICLES. 155 - This is a doctrine full of comfort; for if we did believe that 7^ >■'. our justification was founded upon our inherent justice, or sane- T \ tification, as the consideration on which we receive it, we should have just cause of fear and dejection; since we could not reason- ably promise ourselves so great a blessing, upon so poor a con- sideration: but when we know that this is only the condition of it, then, when we feel it is sincerely received and believed, and carefully observed by us, we may conclude that we justified ; but we are by no means to think, that our certain persuasion of Christ’s having died for us in particular, or the certainty of our salvation through him, is an act of saving faith, much less that we are justified by it. Many things have been too crudely said upon this subject, which have given the enemies of the Refor- mation great advantages, and have furnished them with muchyj^^^, ^ matter of reproach. We ought to believe firmly, that Christ^^ . . f died for all penitent and converted sinners; and when we leel ? these characters in ourselves, we may from thence justly infer ' ' that he died for us, and that we are of the number of those who shall be saved through him : but yet if we may fall from this state in which we do now feel ourselves, we may and must likewise forfeit those hopes; and, therefore, we must work out our salva- tion with fear and trembling. Our believing that we shall be saved by Christ, is no act of divine faith; since every act of faith must be founded on some divine revelation: it is only a collection and inference that we may make from this general pro- position, that Christ is a propitiation for the sins of those who do truly repent and believe his gospel; and from those reflections and observations that we make on ourselves, by which we con- clude that we do truly both repent and believe. ARTICLE XII. OF GOOD WORKS. Albeit that Good Works, which are the fruits of Faith, and fol- lowing after Justification, cannot 'put away our Sins, and endure the severity of God’s judgment; yet are they pleasing and acceptable to God and Christ, and do spring out necessarily of a true and lively Faith, insomuch that by them a lively Faith may be as evidently known as the Tree discerned by the fruit. That good works are indispensably necessary to salvation; that without holiness no man shall see the Lord; is so fully and frequently expressed in the gospel, that no doubt can be made 156 AN EXPOSITION OF ART. XII. of it by any who reads it: and indeed^ a greater disparagement to the Christian religion cannot be imagined, than to propose the hopes of God’s mercy and pardon barely upon believing, without a life suitable to the rules it gives us. This began early to corrupt the theories of religion, as it still has but too great an influence upon the practice of it. What St. James writ upon this subject must put an end to all doubting about it; and whatever subtilties some may have set up, to separate the considertion of faith from an holy life, in the point of justification^ yet none among us have denied that it was absolutely necessary to salva- tion; and so it be owned as necessary, it is a nice curiosity to examine whether it is of itself a condition of justification, or if it is the certain distinction and constant effect of that faith which justifies. These are speculations of very little consequence, as long as the main point is still maintained — that Christ came to bring us to God, to change our natures, to mortify the old man in us, and to raise up and restore that image of God from which we had fallen by sin. And, therefore, even where the thread of men’s speculations of these matters may be thought too fine, and in some points of them wrong drawn ; yet so long as this founda- tion is preserved, that every one who nameth the name of Christ does depart from iniquity (2 Tim. ii. 19,) so long the doctrine of Christ is preserved pure in this capital and fundamental point. There do arise out of this Article only two points, about which some debates have been made. 1st. Whether the good works of holy men are in themselves so perfect that they can endure the severity of God’s judgment, so that there is no mix- ture of imperfection or evil in them, or not? The Council of Trent has decreed, that men by their good works have so fully satisfied the law of God, according to the state of this life, that nothing is wanting to them. The second point is. Whether these good works are of their own nature meritorious of eter- nal life, or not? The Council of Trent has decreed that they are; yet a long softening is added to the decree, importing, That none ought to glory in himself, hut in the Lord; ivhose goodness is such, that he makes his own gifts to us to be merit in us; and it adds. That because in many things we offend all, every one ought to consider the justice and severity, as well as the mercy and goodness of God; and not to judge himself, even though he should know nothing by himself. So then that in which all are agreed about this matter is, 1. That our works cannot be good or acceptable to God but as we are assisted by his grace and Spirit to do them; so that the real goodness that is in them flows from those assistances which enable us to do them. 2. That God does certainly reward good works: he has promised it, and he is faithful, and cannot lie; nor is he unrighteous to forget our labour of love. So the favour of God ART. XII. THE XXXIX ARTICLES. 157 and eternal happiness is the reward of good works. Mention is also made of a full reward^ of the reward of a righteous man, and of a prophet’s reward, Matt. x. 41, 42. 3. That this reward is ])romised in the gospel, and could not be claimed without that, by any antecedent merit founded upon equality; since our light affliction, which is hut for a moment, ivorketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory, 2 Cor. iv. 17. The points in which we ditfer are, 1. Whether the good works of holy men are so perfect, that there is no defect in them; or, whether there is still some such defect mixed with them, that there is occasion for mercy, to pardon somewhat even in good men? Those of the Church of Rome think that a work cannot be called good, if it is not entirely good; and that nothing can please God in which there is a mixture of sin: whereas we, according to the Article, believe that human nature is so weak and so degenerated, that as far as our natural powers concur in any action, there is still some allay in it; and that a good work is considered by God according to the main both of the action and of the intention of him that does it; and as a father pities his children, so God passes over the defects of those who serve him sincerely, though not perfectly. The imaginations of the heart of man are only evil continually (Gen. vi. 5 :) in many things we offend all, says St. James (hi. 2;) and St. Paul reckons that he had not yet apprehended, but was forgetting the things behind, and reaching to those before, and still pressing forward, Phil. hi. 13, 14. We see, in fact, that the best men in all ages have been com- plaining and humbling themselves even for the sins of their holy things, for their vanity and desire of glory, for the distraction of their thoughts in devotion, and for the aiFection which they bore to earthly things. It were a doctrine of great cruelty, which might drive men to despair, if they thought that no action could please God, in which they were conscious to themselves of some imperfection or sin. The midwives of Egypt feared God, yet they excused themselves by a lie: but God accepted of what was good, and passed over what was amiss in them, and built them houses, Exod. i. 21. St. Austin urges this frequently, that our Saviour, in teaching us to pray, has made this a standing petition. Forgive us our trespasses, as well as that. Give us this day our daily bread; for we sin daily, and do always need a pardon. Upon these reasons we conclude, that somewhat of the man enters into all that men do : we are made up of infirmities, and we need the intercession of Christ, to make our best actions to be accepted of by God : for if he should straitly mark iniquity, who can stand before him? but mercy is with him, and forgive- ness, Psal. cxxx. 3, 4. So that with Hezekiah we ought to pray, that though we are not purified according to the purification of 158 AN EXPOSITION OF ART. XII. the sanctuary, yet 'the good Lord would pardon every one that prepareth his heart to seek God, 2 Chron. xxx. 18, 19. The second question arises out of this, concerning the merit of good works: for upon the supposition of their being, completely good, that merit is founded; which will be acknowledged to be none at all, if it is believed that there are such defects in them that they need a pardon; since where there is_ guilt, there can be no pretension to merit. The word merit has also a sound that is so daring, so little suitable to the humility of a creature, to be used towards a Being of infinite majesty, and with relation to endless rewards, that though we do not deny but that a sense is given to it by many of the Church of Rome, to which no just exception can be made, yet there seems to be somewhat too bold in it, especially when condignity is added to it: and since this may naturally give us an idea of a buying and selling with God, and that there has been a great deal of this put in practice, it is certain that on many respects this word ought not to have been made use of. There is somewhat in the nature of man apt to swell and to raise itself out of measure, and to that no indulgence ought to be given in words that may flatter it; for we ought to subdue this temper by all means possible, both in ourselves and others. On the other hand, though we confess that there is a disorder and weakness that hangs heavy upon us, and that sticks close to us, yet this ought not to make us indulge ourselves in our sins, as if they were the effects of an infirmity that is inse- parable from us. To consent to any sin, if it were ever so small in itself, is a very great sin: we ought to go on, still cleansing ourselves more and more from all filthiness both of the fiesh and of the spirit, and perfecting holiness in the fear of God, 2 Cor. vii. 1. Our readiness to sin should awaken both our diligence to watch against it, and our humility under it. For though we grow not up to a pitch of being above all sin, and of absolute perfection, yet there are many degrees both of purity and per- fection to which we may arrive, and to which we must constantly aspire. So that we must keep a just temper in this matter, neither to ascribe so much to our own works as to be lifted up by reason of them, or to forget our daily need of a Saviour both for pardon and intercession; nor, on the other hand, so far to neglect them, as to take no care about them. The due temper is to make our calling and election sure, and to work out our own salvation with fear and trembling (Phil. ii. 12;) but to do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, ever trusting to him, and giving thanks to God by him. Col. iii. 17* ART. XIII. THE XXXIX AR'ITCLES. 159 ARTICLE XIII. OF WORKS BEFORE JUSTIFICATION. Works done before the Grace of Christ, and the Inspiration of his Spirit, are not pleasant to God; forasmuch as they spring not of Faith in Jesus Christ, neither do they make men meet to receive Grace, or [as the School- Authors say) deserve Grace of Congruity: yea rather, for that they are not done as God hath commanded and ivilled them to he done, we doubt not but that they have the nature of Sin, There is but one point to be considered in this Article, which’ is, whether men can, without any inward assistances from God, do any action that shall be in all its circumstances so good, that it is not only acceptable to God, but meritorious in his sight, though in a lower degree of merit. If what was formerly laid down concerning a corruption that was spread over the whole race of mankind, and that had very much vitiated their faculties, be true, then it will follow from thence, that unassisted nature can do nothing that is so good in itself that it can be pleasant or meritorious in the sight of God. A great difference is here to be made between an external action as it is considered in itself, and the same action as it was done by such a man. An action is called good, from the morality and nature of the action itself; so actions of justice and charity are in themselves good, whatso- ever the doer of them may be : but actions are considered by God, with relation to him that does them, in another light; his prin- ciples, ends, and motives, with all the other circumstances of the action, come into this account; for unless all these be good, let the action in its own abstracted nature be ever so good, it cannot render the doer acceptable or meritorious in the sight of God. Another distinction is also to be made between the methods of the goodness and mercy of God, and the strictness of jus- tice; for if God had such regard to the feigned humiliation of Ahab, as to grant him and his family a reprieve for some time from those judgments that had been denounced against them and him (1 Kings xxi. 29;) and if Jehu’s executing the com- mands of God upon Ahab’s family, and upon the worshippers of Baal, procured him the blessing of a long continuance of the kingdom in his family (2 Kings x. 30, 31,) though he acted in it with a bad design, and retained still the idolatry of the calves set up by Jeroboam; then we have all reason to conclude, according to the infinite mercy and goodness of God, that no man is rejected by him, or denied inward assistances, that is 160 AN EXPOSITION OF art. XIII. making the most of his faculties, and doing the best that he can; but that he who is faithful in his little, shall be made ruler over more. The question is only, whether such actions can be so pure as to be free from all sin, and to merit at God’s hand as being works naturally perfect? For that is the formal notion of the merit of congruity, as the notion of the merit of condignity is, that the work is perfect in the supernatural order. To establish the truth of this Article, beside what was said upon the head of original sin, we ought to consider what St. Paul’s words in the seventh of the Romans do import. Nothing was urged from them on the former Articles, because there is just ground of doubting whether St. Paul is there speaking of himself in the state he was in when he writ it, or whether he is personat- ing a Jew, and speaking of himself as he was while yet a Jew. But if the words are taken in that lowest sense, they prove this, that an unregenerate man has in himself such a principle of cor- ruption, that even a good and a holy law revealed to him cannot reform it; but that, on the contrary, it will take occasion from that very laiv to deceive him, and to slay him, Rom. vii. 11. So that all the benefit that he receives even from that revelation is, that sin in him becomes exceeding sinful (ver. 13,) as being done against such a degree of light, by which it appears that he is carnal, and sold under sin (ver. 14;) and that though his under- standing may be enlightened by the revelation of the law of God made to him, so that he has some inclinations to obey it, yet he does not that which he would, but that which he would not; and though his mind is so far convinced, tliat he consents to the law that it is good, yet he still does that which he would not (ver. 16;) which was the effect of sin that dwelt in him (ver. 1 7 :) and from hence he knew, that in him, that is in his flesh, in his carnal part or carnal state, there dwelt no good thing (ver. 18;) for though to will, that is, to resolve on obeying the law, was present, yet he found not a way to perform that which was good: the good that he wished to do, that he did not; but he did the evil that he wished not to do; which he imputed to the sin that dwelt in him. He found then a law, a bent and a bias within him, that when he wished, resolved, and endeavoured to do good, evil was present with him (ver. 21,) it sprung up naturally within him; for though in his rational powers he might so far approve the law of God as to delight in it, yet he found another law arising upon his mind from his body, which warred against the law of his mind, and brought him into captivity to the law of sin which was in his members (ver. 23 :) all this made him conclude, that he was carnal, and sold under sin; and cry out, O wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this death? (ver. 24.) For this he thanks God, through ART. XIV. THE XXXIX ARTICLES. lf)l our Lord Jesus Christ : and he sums all up in these words, So then, with the mind I myself serve the law of God, but with the flesh the law of sin (ver. 25.) If all this discourse is made by St. Paul of himself, when he had the light which a divinely inspired law gave him, he being educated in the exactest way of that religion, both zealous for the law, and blameless in his own observance of it; we may from thence conclude, how little reason there is to believe that a heathen, or indeed an unregenerated man, can be better than he was, and do actions that are both good in themselves, which it is not denied but that he may do, and do them in such a man- ner that there shall be no mixture or imperfection in them, but that they shall be perfect in a natural order, and be by conse- quence meritorious in a secondary order. By all this we do not pretend to say, that a man in that state can do nothing; or that he has no use of his faculties: he can certainly restrain himself on many occasions; he can do many good works, and avoid many bad ones; he can raise his under- standing to know and consider things according to the light that he has; he can put himself in good methods and good circum- stances ; he can pray, and do many acts of devotion, which though they are all very imperfect, yet none of them will be lost in the sight of God, who certainly will never be wanting to those who are doing what in them lies to make themselves the proper objects of his mercy, and fit subjects for his grace to work upon. Therefore this Article is not to be made use of to discourage men^s endeavours, but only to increase their humility; to teach them not to think of themselves above measure, but soberly; to depend always on the mercy of God, and ever to fly to it. ARTICLE XIV. OF WORKS OF SUPEREROGATION. Voluntary Works, besides, over and above God’s Commandments, which they call Works of Supererogation, cannot he taught without Arrogancy and Impiety. For by them Men do declare, that they do not only render unto God as much as they are bound to do ; but that they do more for his sake than of bounden Duty is required: whereas Christ saith plainly. When ye have done all that are commanded to you, say. We are unprofltable Servants. There are two points that arise out of this Article to be consi- dered — 1st, Whether there are in the New Testament counsels of L 1G2 AN EXPOSITION OF ART. XIV. perfection given ; that is to say, such rules, which do not oblige all men to follow them under the pain of sin (Luke xvii. 10,) but yet are useful to carry them on to a sublimer degree of per- fection than is necessary in order to their salvation : 2nd, Whether men by following these do not more than they are bound to do, and, by consequence, whether they have not thereby a stock of merit to communicate to others. The first of these leads to the second; for if there are no such counsels, then the foundation of supererogation falls. We deny both upon this ground, that the great obligations of loving God with all our hearty soul, strength, and mind, and our neighbour as ourselves, which are reckoned by our Saviour the two great commandments on which hang aU the Law and the Prophets (Matt. xxii. 36 — 40,) are of that extent, that it seems not possible to imagine how anything can be acceptable to God that does not fall within them. Since, if it is acceptable to God, then that obligation to love God so entirely must bind us to it; for if it is a sin not to love God up to this pitch, then it is a sin not to do everything that we imagine will please him: and by consequence, if there is a degree of pleasing God, whether pre- cept or counsel, that we do not study to attain to, we do not love him in a manner suitable to that. It seems a great many in the Church of Rome are aware of this consequence, and, therefore, they have taken much pains to convince the world that we are not bound to love God at all, or, as others more cautiously word it, that we are only bound to value him above all things, but not to have a love of such a vast intention for him. This is a pro- ])osition that, after all their softening it, gives so much horror to every Christian, that I need not be at any pains to confute it. We are farther required in the New Testament, to cleanse ourselves from all filthiness both of the fiesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God (2 Cor. vii. 1 ;) and to reckon ourselves his, and not our own, and that we are bought with a price; and that, therefore, we ought to glorify him both in our bodies and in our spirits, which are his, 1 Cor. vi. 20. These and many more like expressions are plainly precepts of general obligation, for nothing can be set forth in more positive words than these are: and it is not easy to imagine how anything can go beyond them; for if we are Christas property, purchased by him, then we ought to apply ourselves to everything in which his honour, or the honour of his religion, can be concerned, or which will be pleas- ing to him. Our Saviour having charged the Pharisees so often for adding so many of their ordinances to the laws of God, teaching hu fear by the precepts of men, and the Apostles condemning a show of - will-worship and voluntary humility (Col. ii. 18,) seem to belong to this matter, and to be designed on purpose to ART. XIV. Tin-: XXXIX ARTICLES. 1 G3 repress tlie pride and singularities of affected hypocrites. Our Saviour said to him that asked, what he should do that he might have eternal life? Keep the commandments. Matt. xix. 16, 17 . These words I do the rather cite, because they are followed with a passage that, of all others in the New Testament, seems to look the likest a counsel of perfection; for when he who made the question replied, upon our Saviour’s answer, that he had kept all these from his youth up, and added. What lack I yet? to that our Saviour answered. If thou wilt he perfect, go sell all that thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shall have treasure in heaven; and come, and follow me (Matt. xix. 20, 21 :) and by the words that follow, of the difficulty of a rich man’s entering into the kingdom of heaven, this is more fully explained. The meaning of all that whole passage is this: Christ called that person to abandon all, and come and follow him, in such a manner as he had called his Apostles. So that here is no counsel, but a positive command given to that particular person upon this occasion, perfect is only to be meant com- plete, in order to that to which he pretended, which was eter- nal life. And that also explains the word in that period, treasures in heaven, another expression for eternal life, to com- pensate the loss which he would have made by the sale of his possessions. So that here is no counsel, but a special com- mand given to this person, in order to his own attaining eternal life. Nor is it to be inferred from hence, that this is proposed to others in the way of a counsel; for as in cases either of a famine or persecution, it may come to be to some a command to sell all in order to the relief of others, as it was in the first beginnings of Christianity; so in ordinary cases to do it, might be rather a tempting of Providence than a trusting to it, for then a man should p'art with the means of his subsistence, which God has provided for him, without a necessary and pressing occasion. Therefore our Saviour’s words. Sell that ye have, and give alms (Luke xii. 33,) as they are delivered in the strain and peremptoriness of a command, so they must be understood to bind as positive commands do; — not so con- stantly as a negative command does, since in every minute of our life that binds; but there is a rule and order in our obey- ing positive commands. We must not rest on the Sabbath day, if a work of necessity or charity calls us to put to our hands: we must not obey our parents in disobeying a public law: so if we have families, or the necessities of a feeble body and a weak constitution, for which God hath supplied us with that which wdll afford us food convenient for us (Prov. xxx. 8,) W'e must not throw up those provisions, and cast ourselves upon others. Therefore that precept must be moderated and n 2 164 AN EXPOSITION OF ART. XIV, expounded, so as to agree with the other rules and orders that God has set us. A distinction is, therefore, to be made between those things that do universally and equally bind all mankind, and those things that do more specially bind some sorts of men, and that only at some times. , There are greater degrees of charity, gravity, and all other virtues, to which the clergy for instance are more bound than other men; but these are to them precepts, and not coun- sels. And in the first beginnings of Christianity there were greater obligations laid upon all Christians, as well as greater gifts were bestowed on them. It is true, in the point of mar- riage, St. Paul does plainly allow, that such as marry do well, but that such as marry not do better (1 Cor. vii. 38:) but the meaning of that is not as if an unmarried life were a state of perfection, beyond that which a man is obliged to: but only this — that as to the course of this life, and the present distress, and as to the judgment that is to be made of men by their actions, no man is to be thought to do amiss who marries; but yet he who marries not, is to be judged to do better. But yet inwardly and before God this matter may be far otherwise; for he who marries not and burns, certainly does worse than he who marries and lives chastely. But he who, finding that he can limit himself without endangering his purity, though no law restrains him from marrying, yet see- ing that he is like to be tempted to be too careful about the con- cerns of this life if he marries, is certainly under obligations to follow that course of life in which there are fewer temptations, and greater opportunities to attend on the service of God. With relation to outward actions, and to the judgments that from visible appearances are to be made of them, some actions may be said to be better than others, which yet are truly good: but as to the particular obligations that every man is under, with relation to his own state and circumstances, and for which he must answer at the last day, these being secret, and so not subject to the judgments of men, certainly every man is strictly bound to do the best he can: to choose that course of life in which he thinks he may do the best services to God and man. Nor are these free to him to choose or not: he is under obliga- tions, and he sins if he sees a more excellent thing that he might have done, and contents himself with a lower or less valuable thing. St. Paul had wherein to glory; for, whereas, it was lawful for him, as an Apostle, to suffer the Corinthians to supply him in temporals, when he was serving them in spi- ritual things; yet he chose rather for the honour of the gos- pel, and to take away all occasion of censure from those who sought for it, to work with his own hands, and not to be bur- densome to them, Acts xx. 34; 1 Cor. ix. 18; 2 Cor. xii. 13. But in that state of things, though there was no law or outward ART. XIV. THE XXXIX ARTICLES. 1 ()5 o])ligation upon him to spare them, he was under an inward law of doing all things to the glory of God; and by this law he was as much bound as if there had been an outward compulsory law lying upon him. This distinction is to be remembered, between such an obliga- tion as arises out of a man^s particular circumstances, and such other motives as can be only known to a man himself, and such an obligation as may be fastened on him by stated and general rules: he may be absolutely free from the latter of these, and yet be secretly bound by those inward and stronger constraints of the love of God and zeal for his glory. Enough seems to be said to prove that there are no counsels of perfection in the gospel; that all the rules set to us in it are in the style and form of pre- cepts; and that, though there may be some actions of more heroical virtue, and more sublime piety, than others, to which all men are not obliged by equal or general rules, yet such men, to whose circumstances and station they do belong, are strictly obliged by them, so that they should sin if they did not put them in practice. This being thus made out, the foundation of works of super- erogation is destroyed. But if it should be acknowledged that there were such counsels of perfection in the Scripture, there are still two other clear proofs to show, that there can be no such thing as supererogating with God. First, every man not only has sinned, but has still so much corruption about him, as to feel the truth of that of St. James, In many things we offend all, James hi. 2. Now, unless it can be supposed that, by obeying those counsels, a man can comjDensate with Almighty God for his sins, there is no ground to think that he can supererogate. He must first clear' his own score, before he can imagine that anything upon his account can be forgiven or imputed to another: and if the guilt of sin is eternal, and the pretended merit of obeying counsels is only temporary, no temporary merit can take off an eternal guilt. So that it must first be supposed, that a man both is and has been perfect as to the precepts of obligation, before it can be thought that he should have an overplus of merit. The other clear argument from Scripture against works of supererogation is, that there is nothing in the whole New Tes- tament that does in any sort favour them: we are always taught to trust to the mercies of God, and to the death and intercession of Christ, and to work out our oion salvation with fear and trembling, (Phil. ii. 12;) but we are never once directed to look for any help from saints, or to think that we can do anything for another man’s soul in this way. The Psalm (xlix. 7) has it. No man can by any means give a ransom for his brother’s soul: the words of Christ cited in the Article are full and express against it. 1()G AN EXPOSITION OF ART. XIV. The words in the parable of the five foolish virgins and the five wise, may seem to favour it, but they really contradict it; for it was the foolish virgins that desired the wise to give them of their oil; which if any will apply to a supposed communication of merit, they ought to consider that the proposition is made by the foolish, and the answer of the wise virgins is full against it: Not so, lest there be not enough for us and you. Matt. xxv. 9. What follows, of bidding them go to them that sell, and buy for themselves, is only a piece of the fiction of the parable, which cannot enter into any part of the application of it. What St. Paul says of his filling up that which was behind of the afflictions of Christ in his fiesh, for his body’s sake, which is the Church (Col. i. 24,) is, as appears by the words that follow, whereof I am made a minister, only applicable to the edification that the Church received from the sufferings of the Apostles; it being a great confirmation to them of the truth of the gospel, when those who preached it suffered so constantly and patiently for it; by which they both confirmed what they had preached, and set an example to others of adhering firmly to it. And since Christ is related to his Church, as a head to the members, it is in some sort his suf- fering himself, when his members suffer: and that conformity which they ought to express to him as their head, was necessary to make up the due proportion that ought to be between the head and the members. So St. Paul rejoiced in his being made conformable to him: and this, as it is a sense that the words will well bear, so it is certain they are capable of no other sense; for if the sufferings of the Apostles were meritorious in behalf of the other Christians, some plain account must have been given of this in the New Testament, at least to do honour to the memory of such Apostles as had then died for the faith. If it is suggested, that the living Apostles were too modest to claim it to themselves, that will not satisfy; all runs quite in a con- trary style — the mercies of God and the blood of Christ being always repeated, whereas these are never once named. Now, to imagine that there can be anything of such great use to us, in which the Scripture should be not only silent, but should run in a strain totally different from it, is not conceivable; for if in” anything, the gospel ought to be full and explicit in all that which concerns our peace and reconciliation with God, and the means of our escaping his wrath, and obtaining his favour. There is another doctrine that does also belong to this head, which is purgatory, that is not to be entered on here, but is referred to its proper place. Thus it appears, how ill this doctrine of works of supererogation is founded; and upon how many accounts it is evidently false; and yet upon it has been built not only a theory of a communication of those merits, and ART. XIV. THE XXXIX ARTICLES. 167 a treasure in the Churchy but a practice of so foul a nature, that in it the words of our Saviour spoken to the Jews, My house is a house of prayer, hut ye have made it a den of thieves (Mark xi. I7j) are accomplished in a high and most scandalous manner. It has been pretended that this was of the nature of a bank, of which the Pope was the keeper; and that he could grant such bills and assignments upon it as he pleased: this was done in so base and so crying a manner, that all who had any sense of probity in their own Church were ashamed of it. In the primitive Church there were very severe rules made, obliging all that had sinned publicly (and they were afterwards applied to such as had sinned secretly) to continue for many years in a state of separation from the Sacrament, and of penance and discipline. But because all such general rules admit of a great variety of circumstances, taken from men^s sins, their per- sons, and their repentance, there was a power given to all Bishops by the Council of Nice to shorten the time, and to relax the severity of those Canons; and such favour as they saw cause to grant, was called indulgence. This was just and necessary, and was a provision without which no constitution or society can be well governed. But after the tenth century, as the Popes came to take this power in the whole extent of it into their own hands, so they found it too feeble to carry on the great designs that they grafted upon it. They gave it high names, and called it a plenary remission, and the pardon of all sins: which the world was taught to look on as a thing of a much higher nature than the bare excusing of men from discipline and penance. Purgatory was then got to be firmly believed, and all men were strangely possessed with the terror of it: so a deliverance from purgatory, and, by consequence, an im- mediate admission into heaven, was believed to be the certain effect of it. And, to support all this, the doctrine of counsels of perfection, of works of supererogation, and of the communication of those merits, was set up; and to that this was added, that a treasure made up of these was at the Pope^s disposal, and in his keeping. The use that this was put to, was as bad as the forgery itself. Multitudes were by these means engaged to go to the Holy Land, to recover it out of the hands of the Saracens: after- wards they armed vast numbers against the heretics, to extirpate them: they fought also those quarrels which their ambitious pre- tensions engaged them in with emperors and other princes, by the same pay; and, at last, they set it to sale with the same impudence, and almost with the same methods, that mounte- banks use in the vending of their secrets. This was so gross even jn an ignorant age, and among the ruder sort, that it gave the first rise to the Reformation : and as the progress of it was a very signal work of God, so it Was 168 AN EXPOSITION OF ART. XV. in a great measure owing to the scandals that this shameless prac- tice had given the world. And upon this single reason it is that this matter has been more fully examined than was necessary; for the thing is so plain, that it has no sort of difficulty in it. ARTICLE XV. OF CHRIST ALONE WITHOUT SIN. Christ in the truth of our nature was made like unto us in all things {sin only except) from which he was clearly void both in his Flesh and in Spirit, He came to be a Lamb without spot, who, by sacrifice of himself once made, should take away the Sins of the World: and sin, as St. John saith, was not in him. But all we the rest {although baptized and born again in Christ) yet offend in many things; and if we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. This Article relates to the former, and is put here as another foundation against all the works of supererogation : for that doc- trine, with the consequences of it, having given the first occasion to the Reformation, it was thought necessary to overthrow it entirely; and because the perfection of the saints must be sup- posed, before their supererogating can be thought on, that was therefore here opposed. That Christ was holy, without spot and blemish, harmless, undefiled, and separate from sinners (Heb. vii. 26;) that there was no guile in his mouth: that he never did amiss, but went about always doing good, and was as a lamb without spot (1 Pet. i. 19,) is so oft affirmed in the New Testament, that it can admit of no debate. This was not only true in his rational powers, the superior part called the spirit, in opposition to the lower part, but also in those appetites and affections that arise from our bodies, and from the union of our souls to them, called the fiesh. For though in these Christ, having the human nature truly in him, had the appetites of hunger in him, yet the devil could not tempt him by that to distrust God, or to desire a miraculous supply sooner than was fitting: he overcame even that necessary appetite, whensoever there was an occasion given him to do the will of his heavenly Father (John iv. 34 :) he had also in him the aversions to pain and suffering, and the horror at a violent and ignominous death, which are planted in our natures; and in this it was natural to him to wish and to pray that the cup might pass from him. But in this his purity ART. XV‘. TIIR XXXIX ARTICLES. 1G9 appeared the most eminently, that though he felt the weight of his nature to a vast degree, he did, notwithstanding that, limit and conquer it so entirely, that he resigned himself absolutely to his Father’s will: Not my will, but thy will be done. Besides all that has been already said upon the former Articles, to prove that some taint and degree of the original corruption remains in all men; the peculiar character of Christ’s holiness so oft repeated, looks plainly to be a distinction proper to him, and to him only. We are called upon to follow him, to learn of him, and to imitate him without restriction; whereas we are required to follow the Apostles, only as they were the followers of Christ (1 Cor. xi. 1 :) and though we are commanded to be holy as he ivas holy in all manner of conversation (1 Pet. i. 15,) that does no more prove that any man can arrive at that pitch, than our being commanded to be perfect as our heavenly Father is perfect (Matt. v. 48,) will prove that we may become as perfect as God is; the importance of these words being only this, that we ought in all things to make God and Christ our patterns; and that we ought to endeavour to imitate and resemble them all we can. There seems to be a particular design in the contexture and writing of the Scriptures, to represent to us some of the failings of the best men : for though Zacharias and Elizabeth are said to have been blameless (Luke i. 6,) that must only be meant of the exterior and visible part of their conversation, that it was free from blame, and of their being accepted of God: but that is not to be carried to import a sinless purity before God; for we find the same Zachary guilty of misbelieving the message of the angel to him, to such a degree, that he was punished for it with a dumbness of above nine months’ continuance, ver. 20. Per- haps the Virgin’s question to the angel had nothing blame- worthy in it; but our Saviour’s answers to her, both when she came to him in the temple, when he was twelve years old (Luke ii. 49,) and more particularly when she moved him, at the marriage in Cana, to furnish them with wine, look like a repri- mand, John ii. 4. The contentions among the Apostles about the pre-eminence, and in particular the ambition of James and John, cannot be excused (Matt. xx. 20 — 24;) St. Peter’s dis- simulation at Antioch in the Judaizing controversy, and the sharp contention that happened between Paul and Barnabas, are recorded in Scripture (Gal. ii. 11 — 14; Acts xv. 39;) and they are both characters of the sincerity of those who penned them, and likewise marks of the frailties of human nature, even in its greatest elevation, and with its highest advantages. So that all the high characters that are given of the best men, are to be understood either comparatively to others whom they exceeded, or with relation to their outward actions, and the visible parts of AN EXPOSITION OF ART. XVI. 170 their life; or they are to be meant of their zeal and sincerity^ which is valued and accepted of God^ and, as it was to Abraham, is imputed to them for righteousness. Yet this is not to be abused by any to be an encouragement to live in sin; for we may carry this purity and perfection cer- tainly very far, by the grace of God. In every sin that we com- mit, we do plainly perceive that we do it with so much freedom, that we might not have done it: here is still just matter for humiliation and repentance. By this doctrine our Church intends only to repress the pride of vain-glorious and hypocritical men, and to strike at the root of that filthy merchandise that has been brought into the house of God, under the pretence of the per- fection, and even the over-doing or supererogating, of the saints. ARTICLE XVI. OF SIN AFTER BAPTISM. Not every deadly sin willingly committed after Baptism is the Sin against the Holy Ghost, and unpardonable. Wherefore the grant of repentance is not to he denied to such as fall into sin after Baptism. After we have received the Holy Ghost, we may depart from grace given, and fall into sin, and by the grace of God we may arise again and amend our lives. And therefore they are to he condemned, which say they can no more sin as long as they live here, or deny the place of forgive- ness to such as truly repent. Tins Article, as it relates to the sect of the Novatians of old, so it is probable it was made a part of our doctrine, upon the account of some enthusiasts who at that time, as well as some do in our days, might boast their perfection, and join with that part of the character of a Pharisee, this other of an unreasonable rigour of censure and punishment against offenders. By deadly sin in the Article, we are not to understand such sins as in the Church of Rome are called mortal, in opposition to others that are venial: as if some sins, though offences against God, and vio- lations of his law, could be of their own nature such slight things, that they deserved only temporal punishment, and were to be expiated by some piece of penance or devotion, or the communi- cation of the merits of others. The Scripture nowhere teaches us to think so slightly of the majesty of God, or of his law. There is a curse upon every one that continueth not in all thmgs which are written in the book of the law to do them (Gal. iii. 10;) and the same ART. XVI. THE XXXIX ARTICLES. I7l curse must have been on us all, if Christ liad not redeemed us from it: the. wages of sin is death. And St. James asserts, that there is such a complication of all the precepts of the law of God, both with one another, and with the authority of the Lawgiver, that he who offends in one point is guilty of all^ James ii. 10, 11. So since God has in his Word given us such dreadful apprehen- sions of his wrath, and of the guilt of sin, we dare not soften these to a degree below the majesty of the eternal God, and the dignity of his most holy laws. But, after all, we are far from the conceit of the Stoics, who made all sins alike: we acknowledge that some sins of ignorance and infirmity may consist with a state of grace: which is either quite destroyed, or at least much eclipsed and clouded by other sins, that are more heinous in their nature, and more deliberately gone about. It is in this sense that the word deadly sin is to be understood in the Article: for though in the strictness of justice every sin is deadly, yet, in the dispensation of the gospel, those sins are only deadly, that do deeply wound the conscience, and that drive away grace. Another term in the Article needs also to be a little explained — the sin against the Holy Ghost; concerning which, since there is so severe a sentence pronounced by Christ, it is necessary that it be rightly understood; and that can only be done by •considering the occasion of those words, as well as the words themselves, Christ wrought such miracles in the sight of his enemies, that when there was no room left for any other cavil, they betook themselves to that, that he did not cast out devils but by Beelzebub, the prince of devils. Matt. xii. 24. 31. And this was the occasion that led our Saviour to speak of the sin of blasphemy against the Holy Ghost. It was their rejecting the clearest evidence that God could give to prove anything by: the power by which those miracles were wrought, and which was afterwards communicated to the Apostles, is called, through the whole New Testament, the Holy Ghost. By which is not to be meant here the Third Person of the Trinity, but the wonderful effusion of those extraordinary gifts and powers that were then communicated, the economy and dispensation of which is said to be derived from that one Spirit. This was the utmost proof that could be given of truth: and when men set themselves to blaspheme this, and to ascribe the works of Christ to a collusion with the devil, they did thereby so wilfully oppose God, and reproach his power, they did so stifle their owm conviction, and set themselves against the conviction of others, that nothing could be done farther for their conviction; this being the highest degree of evidence and proof : and this was so high an indignity to God, when he descended so far to satisfy their scruples, that it was not to be pardoned; as their AN. EXPOSITION OF ART. XVI. 172 impenitence and incredulity was so obstinate as not to be over- come. Upon this occasion given, our Saviour makes a deference between their blaspheming him, and, instead of owning him to be the Messias, calling him a deceiver, a glutton, and a wine- bibber; of which, upon hearing his doctrine, and seeing his life, they were still guilty: this was indeed a great sin; but yet there were means left of convincing them of the truth of his being the great Prophet sent of God; and by these they might be so far prevailed on as to repent and believe, and so to' obtain pardon: but when they had those means set before them; when they saw plain and uncontested miracles done before them; and when, instead of yielding to them, they set up such an opposi- tion to them, which might have been as reasonably said of every miracle that could have been wrought, then it was not possible to convince them. This is an impious rejecting of the highest method that God himself uses for proving a thing to us. The scorn put upon it, as it flows from a nature so depraved that.it cannot be wrought on, so it is a sin not to be pardoned. All things of extreme severity in a doctrine that is so full of grace and mercy as the gospel is, ought to be restrained as much as may be. From thence we infer, that those dreadful words of our Saviour ought to be restrained to the subject to which they are applied, and ought not to be carried farther. Since miracles have ceased, no man is any more capable of this sin. These terms being thus explained, the question in the Article is now to be explained. There are words in St. John^s Epistle, and elsewhere, that seem to import, that men born of God, that is to say, baptized or regenerated Christians, sin not. Whosoever abideth in him, sinneth not. Whosoever sinneth hath not seen him, neither known him. Whosoever is born of God, doth not commit sin, for his seed remaineth in him; and he cannot sin, for he is born of God, 1 John iii. 6. 9. This is again repeated in the end of that Epistle (v. 18,) together with these words. He that is begotten of God keepeth himself, and that wicked one toucheth him not. As these words seem to import that a true Christian sins not, so in the Epistle to the Hebrews it is said to be impossible to renew again, by repentance, those who fall away after they had been once enlightened, and had tasted of the heavenly gift, had been made partakers of the Holy Ghost, and had tasted the good word of God, and the powers of the world to come, Heb. vi. 4 — 6. Upon these expressions, and some others, though not quite of their force, it was, that in the primitive Church some that fell after baptism were cast out of the communion of the Church; and though they were not cut off from all hopes of the mercy of God, yet they were never restored to the peace of the Church. This was done in ART. XVI. THE XXXIX ARTICLES. 17.5 Tertullian’s time, if what he says on this subject is not to be reckoned as a piece of his Montanism, But soon after there were great contests upon this head, while the Novatians withdrew from the communion of the Church, and believed it was defiled by the receiving of apostates into it: though that was not done so easily as some proposed, but after a long separation and a severe course of penance. Upon this followed all those penitentiary Canons concerning the several measures and degrees of penance, and that not only for acts of apostacy from the Christian religion, but for all other crying sins. According to what has been already said upon the former Arti- cles, it has appeared, that the sanctification of regenerated men is not so perfected in this life, but that there is still a mixture of defects and imperfections left in them: and the state of the new covenant is a continuance of repentance and remission of sins; for as oft as one sins, if he repents truly of it, and forsakes his sins, there is a standing offer of the pardon of all sins; and, therefore, Christ has taught us to pray Forgive us our sins. If there were but one general pardon offered in baptism, this would signify little to those who feel their infirmities, and the sins that do so easily beset them, so apt to return upon them. It was no wonder if the entertaining this conceit brought in a superstitious error in practice among the ancient Christians, of delaying baptism till death, as hoping that all sins were then certainly pardoned — a much more dangerous error than even the fatal one of trusting to a death-bed repentance. For baptism might have been more easily compassed, and there was more offered in the way of argument for building upon it, than has been offered at for a death-bed repentance. St. PeteFs denial, his repentance, and his being restored to his apostolical dignity, seem to be recorded partly on this account, to encourage us, even after the most heinous offences, to return to God, and never to reckon our condition desperate, were our sins ever so many, but as we find our hearts hardened in them into an obstinate impenitency. Our Saviour has made our pardoning the offences that others commit against us, the measure upon which we may expect pardon from God: and he being asked, what limits he set to the number of the faults that we were bound to pardon by the day, if seven was not enough, he carried it up to seventy times seven — a vast number, far beyond the number of offences that any man will in all probability commit against another in a day. But if they should grow up to all that vast number of 490, yet if our bro- ther still turns again and repents (Luke xvii. 4,) we are still bound to forgive. Now since this is joined with what he declared, that if we pardoned our brother his offences, our hea- venly Father would also forgive us (Matt, xviii. 35,) then we AN EXPOSITION OF ART. XVI. 174 may depend upon this, that according to the sincerity of our repentance, our sins are always forgiven us. And if this is the nature of the new Covenant, then the Church, which is a society formed upon it, must proportion the rules both of her com- munion and censure to those set in the gospel: a heinous sin must give us a deeper sorrow, and higher degrees of repentance; scandals must also be taken off and forgiven, when the offending persons have repaired the offence that was given by them, with suitable degrees of sorrow. St. Paul in the beginnings of Chris- tianity, in which it, being yet tender and not well known to the world, was more apt to be both blemished and corrupted, did yet order the Corinthians to receive back into their communion the incestuous person, whom by his own directions they had delivered to Satan (1 Cor. v. 5:) they had excommunicated him, and, by way of reverse to the gifts of the Holy Ghost poured out upon all Christians, he was possessed or haunted with an evil spirit; and yet as St. Paul declares that he forgave him, so he orders them jto forgive him likewise; and he gives a reason for this conduct, from the common principles of pity and huma- nity, lest he should be swallowed up by overmuch sorrow, 2 Cor. ii. 7 * What is in that place mentioned only in a particular instance, is extended to a general rule in the Epistle to the Galatians: If any one is overtaken in a fault, ye which are spiritual restore such a. one in the spirit of meekness, considering thyself, lest thou also be tempted (Gal. vi. 1 :) where both the sup- position that is made, and the reason that is given, do plainly insinuate that all men are subject 'to their several infirmities; so that every man may be overtaken in faults. The charge given to Timothy and Titus (2 Tim. iv. 2; Tit. i. 13,) to rebuke and exhort, does suppose that Christians, and even Bishops and Deacons, were subject to faults that might deserve correction. In that passage cited out of St. JohrPs Epistle (v. IG,) as mention is made of a sin unto death for which they were not to pray, so mention is made, both there and in St. James’s Epistle (v. 15, 16,) of sins for which they were to pray, and which upon their prayers were to be forgiven. All which places do not only express this to be the tenor of the new Covenant, that the sins of regenerated persons were to be pardoned in it, but they are also clear precedents and rules for the Churches to follow them in their discipline. And there- fore those words in St. John, that a man born of God doth not and cannot sin, must be understood in a larger sense, of their not living in the y^ractice of known sins; of their not allowing themselves in that course of life, nor going on deliberately with it. By the sin unto death is meant tlie same thing with tliat apostacy mentioned in the sixth of the Hebrews. Among the ART. XVI. THE XXXIX ARTICLKS. 175 Jews some sins were punished by a total excision or cutting oft', and this probably gave the rise to that designation of a sin unio death. The words in the Epistle to the Hebrews (vi. 6,) do jdainly import those who, being not only baptized, but having also received a share of the extraordinary effusion of the Holy Ghost, had totally renounced the Christian religion, and apos- tatized from the faith, which teas a crucifying of Christ anew. Such apostates to Judaism were thereby involved in the crime and guilt of the crucifying of Christ, and the putting him to oj)en shame. Now persons so apostatizing could not be renewed again by repentance, it not being possible to do anything toward their conviction that had not been already done; and they, harden- ing themselves against all that was offered for their conviction, were arrived at such a degree in wickedness, that it was impos- sil)le to work upon them; there was nothing left to be tried, that had not been already tried, and proved to be ineffectual. Yet it is to be observed, that it was an unjustifiable piece of rigour to apply these words to all such as had fallen in a time of trial and persecution: for as they had not those miraculous means of convictioh, which must be acknowledged to be the strongest, the sensiblest, and the most easily apprehended of all arguments; so they could not sin so heinously as those had done, who, after what they had seen and felt, revolted from the faith. Great difference is also to be made between a deliberate sin, that a man goes into upon choice, and in which he continues; and a sin, that the fears of death and the infirmities of human nature betray him into, and out of which he quickly recovers himself, and for which he mourns bitterly. There was no reason to apply what is said in the New Testament against the wicked apostates of that time, to those who were overcome in the per- secution. The latter sinned grievously; yet it was not in the same kind, nor are they in any sort to be compared to the for- mer. All affectations of excessive severity look like pharisaical hypocrisy; whereas the spirit of Christ, which is made up of humility and charity, will make us look so severely to ourselves, that on that very account we will be gentle even to the failings of others. Yet, on the other hand, the Church ought to endeavour to conform herself so far to her Head, and to this doctrine, as to note those who obey not the gospel, and to have no company with them, that they may he ashamed: yet not so as to hate such a one, or count him as an enemy, but to admonish him as a brother, 2 Thess. hi. 6. 14, 15. Into what neglect or prostitu- tion soever any Church may have fallen in this great point of separating offenders, of making them ashamed, and of keeping others from being corrupted with their ill example and bad influence, that must be confessed to be a very great defect and AN EXPOSITION OF ART. XVII, 3 76 blemish. The Church of Rome had slackened all the ancient rules of discipline^ and had perverted this matter in a most scan- dalous manner; and the world is now sunk into so much cor- ruption, and to such a contempt of holy things, that it is much more easy here to find matter for lamentation, than to see how to remedy or correct it. ARTICLE XVII. OF PREDESTINATION AND ELECTION. Predestination to life is the everlasting purpose of God, whereby (before the foundations of the World were laid) he hath con- stantly decreed by his Counsel, secret to us, to deliver from curse and damnation those whom he hath chosen in Christ out of mankind, and to bring them by Christ unto everlasting Salvation as vessels made to honour. Wherefore they which be endued with so excellent a benefit of God, be called accord- ing to God’s purpose, by his Spirit working in due season. They through grace obey the calling, they be justified freely, they be made Sons of God by adoption, they be made like the Image of his only begotten Son Jesus Christ: they walk reli- giously in good works, and at length, by God’s mercy, they attain to everlasting felicity. As the godly consideration of Predestination and our Election in Christ is full of sweet, pleasant, and unspeakable comfort to godly persons, and such as feel in themselves the working of the Spirit of Christ, mortifying the works of the fiesh and their earthly members, and drawing up their mind to high and heavenly things, as well because it doth greatly establish and confirm their faith of eternal Salvation to be enjoyed through Christ, as because it doth fervently kindle their love towards God: so for curious and carnal persons, lacking the Spirit of Christ, to have continually before their Eyes the sentence of God’s Predestination, is a most dangerous down- fall, whereby the Devil doth thrust them either into despera- tion, or into wretchlesness of most unclean living, no less perilous than desperation. Furthermore, we must receive God’s promises in such wise, as they be generally set forth to us in holy Scripture: and in our doings, that Will of God is to be followed, which we have expressly declared unto us in the Word of God. There are many things in several of the other Articles which depend upon this; and, therefore, I will explain it more fully; ART. XVII. TTTR XXXIX AUTICLKS. 177 for as tills lias given occasion to one of the longest, the sub- tilest, and, indeed, the most intricate of all the questions in divinity, so it will be necessary to open and examine it as fully as the importance and difficulties of it do require. In treating of it, I shall. First, State the question, together with the consequences that arise out of it. Secondly, Give an account of the differences that have arisen upon it. Thirdly, I shall set out the strength of the opinions of the contending parties, with all possible impartiality and exactness. Fourthly, I shall show how far they agree, and how far they differ; and shall show what reason there is for bearing with one anotheFs opinions in these matters; and in the Fifth and last place, I shall consider how far we of this Church are determined by this Article, and how far we are at liberty to follow any of those different opinions. The whole controversy may be reduced to this single point as its head and source: — Upon what views did God form his pur- poses and decrees concerning mankind? Whether he did it merely upon a design of advancing his own glory, and for mani- festing his own attributes, in order to which he settled the great and universal scheme of his whole creation and providence? or whether he considered all the free motions of those rational agents that he did intend to create, and, according to what he foresaw they would choose and do in all the various circum- stances in which he might put them, formed his decrees? Here the controversy begins ; and when this is settled, the three main questions that arise out of it will be soon determined. The first is. Whether both God and Christ intended that Christ should only die for that particular number whom God intended to save? or whether it was intended that he should die for all; so that every man that would, might have the benefit of his death, and that no man was excluded from it, but because he willingly rejected it? The second is. Whether those assistances, that God gives to men to enable them to obey him, are of their own nature so effi- cacious and irresistible that they never fail of producing the effect for which they are given? or, whether they are only sufficient to enable a man to obey God; so that their efficacy comes from the freedom of the will, that either may co-operate with them, or may not, as it pleases? The third is. Whether such persons do, and must certainly persevere, to whom such grace is given? or, whether they may not fall away both entirely and finally from that state? There are also other questions concerning the true notion of liberty, concerning the feebleness of our powers in this AN EXPOSITION OF ART. XVII. 178 lapsed state, with several lesser ones; all which do necessarily take their determination from the decision of the first and main question — about which there are four opinions. The first is of those commonly called Supralapsarians, who think ■ that God does only consider his own glory in all that he does; and that whatever is done arises, as from its first cause, from the decree of God: that in this decree God, considering only the manifestation of his own glory, intended to make the world, to put a race of men in it, to constitute them under Adam as their fountain and head; that he decreed Adames sin the lapse of his posterity, and Christ’s death, together with the salvation or dam- nation of such men as should be most for his own glory: that to those who were to be saved he decreed to give such efficacious assistances as should certainly put them in the way of salvation; and to those whom he rejected he decreed to give such assist- ances and means only as should render them inexcusable: that all men do continue in a state of grace, or of sin, and shall be saved, or damned, according to that first decree: so that God views himself only, and in that view he designs all things singly for his own glory, and the manifesting of his own attributes. The second opinion is of those called the Sublapsarians, who say, that Adam having sinned freely, and his sin being imputed to all his posterity, God did consider mankind, thus lost, with an eye of pity; and having designed to rescue a great number out of this lost state, he decreed to send his Son to die for them, to accept of his death on their account, and to give them such assistances as should be effectual both to convert them to him, and to make them persevere to the end: but for the rest, he framed no positive act about them, only he left them in that lapsed state, without intending that they should have the benefit of Christ’s death, or of efficacious and persevering assistances. The third opinion is of those who are called Remonstrants, Arminians, or Universalists, who think that God intended to create all men free, and to deal with them according to the use that they should make of their liberty: that therefore he, fore- seeing how every one would use it, did upon that decree all things that concerned them in this life, together with their salva- tion and damnation in the next: that Christ died for all men: that sufficient assistances are given to every man, but that all men may choose whether they will use them, and persevere in them, or not. The fourth opinion is of the Socinians, who deny the certain prescience of future contingencies; and, therefore, they think the decrees of God from all eternity were only general: that such as believe and obey the gospel shall be saved, and that such as live and die in sin shall be damned; but that there were no ART. XVir. THE XXXIX ARTICLES. 179 Special decrees made concerning particular persons^ these being only made in time, according to the state in which they are: they do also think, that man is by nature so free and so entire that he needs no inward grace; so they deny a special predes- tination from all eternity, and do also deny inward assistances. This is a controversy that arises out of natural religion: for if it is believed that God governs the world, and that the wills of men are free ; then it is natural to inquire which of these is sub- ject to the other, or how they can be both maintained? whether God determines the will; or, if his Providence follows the motions of the will? Therefore all those that believed a Providence have been aware of this difficulty. The Stoics put all things under a fate; even the gods themselves. If this fate was a necessary series of things, a chain of matter and motion that was fixed and unalterable, then it was plain and downright atheism. The Epicureans set all things at liberty, and either thought that there was no God, or at least that there was no Providence. The Philosophers knew not how to avoid this difficulty, by which we see Tully and others were so differently moved, that it is plain they despaired of getting out of it. The Jews had the Joseph, same question among them; for they could not believe their Law, without acknowledging a Providence; and c. 2. yet the Sadducees among them asserted liberty in jlTd Hb.’2. so entire a manner, that they set it' free from all restraints. On the other hand, the Essenes put all things under an absolute fate; and the Pharisees took a middle way — they asserted the freedom of the will, but thought that all things were governed by a Providence. There are also subtile disputes con- cerning this matter among the Mahometans, one sect asserting liberty, and another fate, which generally prevails among thelh. In the first ages of Christianity, the Gnostics fancied that the souls of men were of different ranks, and that they sprang from different principles, or gods, who ffiade them. Some were carnal, that were devoted to 'perdition; others were spiritual, and were certainly to be saved; others c. 1.’ were animal, of a middle order, capable either of hap- piness or misery. It seems that the Marcionites and i Manichees thought that some souls were made by c.e. the bad god, as others were made by the good. In opposition to all these, Origen asserted, that all souls caPe.^^L^' were by nature equally capable of being either good or bad ; and that the difference among men arose kom. merely from the freedom of the will, and the various use of that freedom: that God left men to this liberty, and rewarded and punished them according to the use of it; yet he asserted a Providence. But as he brought in the Platonical doctrine of pre-existence into the government of the world; and as he 180 AN EXPOSITION OF ART. XVII. explained God’s loving Jacoby and his hating of Esau, before they were born, and had done either good or evil, by this of a regard to what they had done formerly; so he asserted the fall of man in Adam, and his being recovered by grace; but he still maintained an unrestrained liberty in the will. His doctrine, though much hated in Egypt, was generally followed overall the East, particularly in Palestine and at Antioch. St. Gregory, Nazianzen, and St. Basil drew a system of divinity out of his works, in which that which relates to the liberty of the will is very fully set forth: that book was much studied in the orig. Philo- East. Chrysostom, Isidore of Damiete, and Theodoret, with all their followers, taught it so copiously, that it became the received doctrine of the Eastern Church. Jerome was so much in love with Origen, that he translated some parts of him, and set Ruffin on translating the rest. But as he had a sharp quarrel with the bishops of Palestine, so that perhaps dis- posed him to change his thoughts of Origen; for, ever after that, he set himself much to disgrace his doctrine, and he was very severe on Ruffin for translating him; though- Ruffin confesses, Ruffin. that, in translating his works, he took great liberties v^s^com. ill altering several passages that he disliked. One of Ep^ad" Origen’s disciples was Pelagius, a Scottish monk, in Rom. great esteem at Rome, both for his learning and the adSymp,'^' great strictness of his life. He carried these doctrines LTb.’^Ep.*’ farther than the Greek Church had done; so that he 514- was reckoned to have fallen into great errors both by Chrysostom and Isidore (as it is represented by Jansenius, though that is denied by others, who think they meant another of the same name.) He denied that we had suffered any harm b5^the fall of Adam, or that there was any need of inward assist- ances; and he asserted an entire liberty in the will. St Austin, though in his disputes with the Manichees he had said many things on the side of liberty, yet he hated Pelagius’s doctrine, which he thought asserted a sacrilegious liberty, and he set himself to beat down his tenets, which had been but feebly attacked by Jerome. Cassian, a disciple of St. Chrysostom, came to Marseilles about this time, having left Constantinople, perhaps when his master was banished out of it. He taught a middle doctrine, asserting an inward grace, both subject to the freedom of the will; and that all things were both decreed and done according to the prescience of God, in which all future contingents were foreseen: he also taught, that the first con- version of the soul to God was merely an effect of its free choice; so that all preventing grace was denied by him; which came to be the peculiar distinction of those who were afterwards called the Semipelagians. Prosper and Hilary gave an account of this system to St. Austin, upon which he writ against it; and ART. XVII. THE XXXIX ARTICLES. 181 his opinions were defended by Prosper, Fulgentius, Orosius^ and others, as Cassian’s were defended by Faustus, Vincentius, and Gennadius. In conclusion, St. Austin^s opinions did gene- rally prevail in the West; only Pelagius, it seems, retiring to his own country, he had many followers among the Britain s: but German and Lupus, being sent over once and again from France, are said to have conquered them so entirely, that they were all freed from those errors. Whatever they did by their arguments, the writers of their legends took care to adorn their mission with many very wonderful miracles, of which the gathering all the pieces of a calf, some of which had been dressed, and the put- ting them together in its skin, and restoring it again to life, is none of the least. The ruin of the Roman Empire, and the disorders that the Western Provinces fell under by their new and barbarous masters, occasioned in those ages a great decay of learning; so that, few writers of fame coming after that time, St. Austin^s great labours and piety, and the many vast volumes that he had left behind him, gave him so great a name, that few durst contest what had been so zealously and so copiously defended by him: and though it is highly probable that Celestine was not satisfied with his doctrine, yet both he and the other Bishops of Rome, together with many provincial synods, have so often declared his doctrine in those points to be the doctrine of the Church, that this is very hardly got over by those of that communion. The chief and indeed the only material difference that is be- tween St. Austin^s doctrine and that of the Sublapsarians is, that he, holding that with the sacrament of baptism there was joined an inward regeneration, made a difference between the regenerate and the predestmate, which these do not: he thought persons thus regenerate might have all grace, besides that of perseverance ; but he thought that they, not being predestinated, were certainly to fall from that state, and from the grace of regeneration. The other differences are but forced strains, to represent him and the Calvinists as of different principles : he thought that overcoming delectation, in which he put the efficacy of grace, was as irresist- ible, though he used not so strong a word for it, as the Calvinists do; and he thought that the decree was as absolute, and made without any regard to what the free-will would choose, as any of these do. So in the main points — the absoluteness of the decree, the extent of ChrisPs death, the efficacy of grace, and the certainty of perseverance — their opinions are the same, though their ways of expressing themselves do often differ. But if St. Austin^s name and the credit of his books went far, yet no book was more read in the following ages than Cassian’s Collations. There was in them a clear thread of good sense, and a very high strain of piety that run through them; and they were thought the best insti- 182 AN EXPOSITION OF ART. XVII. tutions for a monk to form his mind^ by reading them atten- tively: so they still carried down^ among those who read them, deep impressions of the doctrine of the Greek Church. This broke out in the ninth century, in which Godescalcus, a monk, was severely used by Hincmar, and by the Church of Rhemes, for asserting some of St. Austin^s doctrines; against which Scotus Erigena wrote, as Bertram, or Ratramne, wrote for them. Remigius, Bishop of Lyons, with his Church, did zealously assert St. Austin^s doctrine, not without great sharp- ness, against Scotus. After this the matter slept, till the school- divinity came to be in great credit; and Thomas Aquinas being accounted the chief glory of the Dominican order, he not only asserted all St. Austin^s doctrine ; but added this to it — that whereas formerly it was in general held that the providence of God did extend itself to all things whatsoever, he thought this was done by God’s concurring immediately to the production of every thought, action, motion, or mode; so that God was the first and immediate cause of everything that was done. And, in order to the explaining the joint production of everything by God as the first, and by the creature as the second cause, he thought, at least as his followers have understood him, that by a physical influence the will was predetermined by God to all things, whether good or bad; so that the will could not be said to be free in that particular- instance in sensu composito, though it was in general still free in all its actions in sensn diviso; a distinction so sacred, and so much used among them, that I choose to give it in their own terms, rather than translate them. To avoid the consequence of making God the author of sin, a distinction was made between the positive aet of sin, which was said not to be evil, and the want of its conformity to the law of God, which being a negation was no positive being, so that it was not produced. And thus, though the action was produced jointly by God as the first cause, and by the creature as the second, yet God was not guilty of the sin, but only the creature. This doctrine passed down among the Dominicans, and continues to do so to this day. Scotus, who was a Franciscan, denied this predetermination, and asserted the freedom of the will. Duran- dus denied this immediate coneourse; in which he has not had many followers, except Adola, and some few more. When Luther began to form his opinions into a body, he clearly saw, that nothing did so plainly destroy the doctrine of merit and justification by works, as St. Austin’s opinions: he found also in his works very express authorities against most of the corruptions of the Roman Church: and being of an order that carried his name, and, by consequence, was accustomed to read and reverence his works, it was no wonder if he, without a strict examining of the matter, espoused all his opinions. Most ART. XVII. THE XXXIX ARTICLES. 183 of those of the Church of Rome who wrote against him being of the other persuasions^ any one reading the books of that age would have thought that St. Austin^s doctrine was abandoned by the Church of Rome; so that when Michael Baius, and some others at Louvain^ began to revive it, that became a matter of scandal, and they were condemned at Rome: yet at the Council of Trent the Dominicans had so much credit, that great care was taken, in the penning their decrees, to avoid all reflections upon that doctrine. It was at first received by the whole Jesuit order, so that Bellarmine formed himself upon it, and still adhered to it; but, soon after, that order changed their mind, and left their whole body to a full liberty in those points, and went all quickly over to the other hypothesis, that diflered from the Semipela- gians only in this, that they allowed a preventing grace, but such as ^^as subject to the freedom of the will. Molina and Fonseca invented a new way of explaining God’s foreseeing future contingents, which they called a middle or mean science; by which they taught, that as God sees all things as possible in his knowledge of simple apprehension, and all things that are certainly future, as present in his knowledge of vision; so by this knowledge he also sees the chain of all conditionate futurities, and all the connexions of them, that is, whatsoever would follow upon such or such conditions. Great jealousies arising upon the progress that the order of the Jesuits was making, these opinions were laid hold on to mortify them; so they were complained of at Rome for departing from St. Austin’s doctrine, which, in these points, was generally received as the doctrine of the Latin Church; and many conferences were held before Pope Clement VIII. and the Cardinals, where the point in debate was chiefly. What was the doctrine and tradition of the Church? The advantages that St. Austin’s followers had were such, that before fair judges they must have triumphed over the other; Pope Clement had so resolved: but he dying, though Pope Paul V. had the same intentions, yet he happening then to be engaged in a quarrel with the Venetians about the ecclesiastical immunities, and having put that republic under an interdict, the Jesuits who were there chose to be banished rather than to break the interdict: and their adhering so firmly to the Papal authority, when most of the other orders forsook it, was thought so meritorious at Rome, that it saved them the censure; so, instead of a decision, all sides were commanded to be silent, and to quarrel no more upon those heads. About forty years after that, Jansenius, a doctor of Louvain, being a zealous disciple of St. Austin, and seeing the progress that the contrary doctrines were making, did, with great indus- try, and an equal fidelity, publish a voluminous system of St. Austin’s doctrine in all the several branches of the controversy : 184 AN EXPOSITION OF ART. XVII. and he set forth the Pelagians and the Semipelagians in that work under very black characters ; and, not content with that, he com- pared the doctrines of the modern innovators with theirs. This book was received by the whole party with great applause, as a work that had decided the controversy. But the author having writ with an extraordinary force against the French pretensions on Flanders, which recommended him so much .to the Spanish Court that he was made a Bishop upon it, all those in France who followed St. Austin^s doctrine, and applauded this book, were represented by their enemies as being in the same interest with him, and, by consequence, as enemies to the French greatness; so that the Court of France prosecuted the whole party. This book was at first only prohibited at Rome, as a violation of that silence that the Pope had enjoined: afterwards, articles were picked out of it, and condemned, and all the Clergy of France were required to sign the condemnation of them. These articles were certainly in his book, and were manifest consequences of St. Austin^s doctrine, which was chiefly driven at; though it was still declared at Rome, that nothing was intended to be done in prejudice of St. Austin’s doctrine. Upon this pretence his party have said, that those articles being capable of two senses, the one of which was strained and was heretical, the other of which was clear and according to St. Austin’s doctrine, it must be pre- sumed it was not in that second, but in the other sense, that they were condemned at Rome, and so they signed the condem- nation of them; but then they said, that they were not in Janse- nius’s book in the sense in which they condemned them. Upon that followed a most extravagant question concerning the Pope’s infallibility in matters of fact; it being said on the one side, that the Pope having condemned them as Jansenius’s opinions, the belief of his infallibility obliged them to conclude that they must be in his book; whereas the others with great truth affirmed, that it had never been thought that in matters of fact either Popes or Councils were infallible. At last a new cessation of hostilities upon these points was resolved on; yet the hatred continues, and the war goes on, though more covertly and more indirectly than before. Nor are the Reformed more of a piece than the Church of Rbme upon these points. Luther went on long, as he at first set out, with so little disguise, that whereas all parties had. always pretended that they asserted the freedom of the will, he plainly spoke out, and said the will was not free^ but emlaved: yet before he died he is reported to have changed his mind; for though he never owned that, yet Melancthon, who had been of the same opinion, did freely retract it; for which he was never blamed by Luther. Since that time all the Luthe- rans have gone into the Semipelagian opinions so entirely and ART. XVII. Til 15 XXXIX ARTICLES. 185 so eagerly, that they will neither tolerate nor hold communion with any of the other persuasion. Calvin not only taught St. Austin^s doctrine, but seemed to go on to the Suprulapsarian way; which was more openly taught by Beza, and was gene- rally followed by the Reformed; only the difference between the Supralapsarians and the Sublapsarians was never brought to a decision, divines being in all the Calvinist Churches left to their freedom as to that point. In England the first Reformers were generally in the Sublap- sarian hypothesis; but Perkins and others having asserted the Supralapsarian way, Arminius, a professor in Leyden, writ against him: upon this Gomarus and he had many disputes; and these opinions bred a great distraction over all the United Provinces. At the same time, another political matter occasion- ing a division of opinion, whether the war should be carried on with Spain, or if propositions for a peace or truce should be entertained? it happened that Arminius’s followers were all for a peace, and the others were generally for carrying on the war; which being promoted by the Prince of Orange, he joined to them; and the Arminians were represented as men whose opi- nions and affections leaned to Popery: so that this, from being a doctrinal point, became the distinction of a party, and by that means the differences were inflamed. A great synod met at Dort; to which the divines were sent from hence, as well as from other Churches. The Arminian tenets were condemned; but the difference between the Supralapsarians and Sublapsarians was not meddled with. The divines of this Church, though very moderate in the way of proposing their opinions, yet upon the main adhered to St. Austin’s doctrine. So the breach was formed in Holland; but when the point of state was no more mixed with it, these questions were handled with less heat. Those disputes quickly crossed the seas, and divided us : the Abbots adhered to St. Austin’s doctrine; while Bishop Overal, - but chiefly Archbishop Laud, espoused the Arminian tenets. All divines were by proclamation required not to preach upon these heads; but those that favoured the new opinions were encouraged, and the others were depressed: and unhappy dis- putes falling in at that time concerning the extent of the royal prerogative beyond law, the Arminians having declared them- selves highly for that, they were as much favoured at Court as they were censured in the Parliament; which brought that doc- trine under a very hard character over all the nation. Twisse carried it high to the Supralapsarian hypothesis, which grew to be generally followed by those of that side: l?ut that sounded harshly; and Hobbes grafting afterwards a fate and absolute necessity upon it, the other opinions were again revived; and no political interests falling in with them, as all 186 AN EXPOSITION OF ART. XVII. prejudices against them went off, so they were more calmly debated, and became more generally acceptable than they were before. Men are now left to their liberty in them, and all anger upon those heads is now so happily extinguished, that diversity of opinions about them begets no alienation nor animosity. So far have I prosecuted a short view of the history of this controversy. I come now to open the chief grounds of the different parties; and, first, for the Supralapsarians. They lay this down for a foundation, that God is essentially perfect and independent in all his acts; so that he can consider nothing but himself and his own glory: that therefore he designed everything in and for himself: that to make him stay his decrees till he sees what free creatures will do, is to make him decree dependently upon them; which seems to fall short of infi- nite perfection: that he himself can be the only end of his coun- sels; and that, therefore, he could only consider the manifestation of his own attributes and perfection: that infinite wisdom must begin its designs at that which is to come last in the execution of them; and since the conclusion of all things at the last day will be the manifestation of the wisdom, goodness, and justice of God, we ought to suppose, that God in the order of things designed that first, though in the order of time there is no first nor second in God, this being supposed to be from all eternity. After this great design was laid, all the means in order to the end were next to be designed. Creatures in the sight of God are as nothing, and by a strong figure are said to be less than nothing, and vanity. Now if we in our designs do not consider ants or insects, not to say straws or grains of sand and dust, then what lofty thoughts soever our pride may suggest to us, we must be confessed to be very poor and inconsiderable creatures before God; therefore he himself and his own glory can only be his own end in all that he designs or does. This is the chief basis of their doctrine, and so ought to be well considered. They add to this, that there can be no cer- tain prescience of future contingents: they say it involves a contradiction, that things which are not certainly to be, should be certainly foreseen; for if they are certainly foreseen, they must certainly be: so while they are supposed to be contin- gent, they are yet affirmed to be certain, by saying that tliey are certainly foreseen. When God decrees that anything shall be, it has from that a certain futurition, and as such it is cer- tainly foreseen by him: an uncertain foresight is an act of its nature imperfect, because it may be a mistake, and so is incon- sistent with the divine perfection. And it seems to imply a contradiction to say that a thing happens freely, that is, may be, or may not be, and yet that it is certainly foreseen by God. God cannot foresee things but as he decrees them, and so gives them ART. XVII. THE XXXIX ARTICLES. 187 a futiirition; and, therefore, this prescience antecedent to his decree, must be rejected as a thing impossible. They say fartlier, that conditionate decrees are imperfect in their nature, and that they subject the will and acts of God to a creature : that a conditionate decree is an act in suspense, whether it shall be or not; which is inconsistent with infinite perfection. A general will, or rather a willing that all men should be saved, has also plain characters of imperfection in it: as if God wished somewhat that he could not accomplish, so that his goodness should seem to be more extended than his power. Infinite perfection can wish nothing but what it can execute: and if it is fit to wish it, it is fit also to execute it: therefore all that style that ascribes passions or affections to God, must be understood in a figure; so that when his providence exerts itself in such acts as among us men would be the effects of those passions, then the passions themselves are in the phrase of the Scripture ascribed to God. They say we ought not to measure the punishments of sin by our notions of justice: God afflicts many good men very severely, and for many years in this life, and this only for the manifesta- tion of his own glory, for making their faith and patience to shine; and yet none think that this is unjust. It is a method in which God will be glorified in them. Some sins are punished with other sins, and likewise with a course of severe miseries. If we transfer this from time to eternity, the whole will be then more conceivable: for if God may do for a little time that which is inconsistent with our notions, and with our rules of justice, he may do it for a longer duration ; since it is as impossible that he can be unjust for a day, as for all eternity. As God does everything for himself and his own glory, so the Scriptures teach us everywhere to offer up all praise and glory to God: to acknowledge that all is of him, and to humble ourselves as being nothing before him. Now, if we were elected not by a free act of his, but by what he foresaw that we would be, so that his grace is not efficacious by its own force, but by the good use that we make of it, then the glory and praise of all the good we do, and of God^s purposes to us, were due to ourselves: — he designs, according to the other doctrine, equally well to all men; and all the difference among them will arise neither from God^s intentions to them, nor from his assistances, but from the good use that he foresaw they would make of those favours that he was to give in common to all mankind: — man should have whereof to glory, and he might say, that he himself made himself to differ from others. The whole strain of the Scriptures, in ascribing all good things to God, and in charging us to offer up the honour of all to him, seems very expressly to favour this doctrine; since, if all our good is from God, and is particularly owing to his grace, then good men 188 AN EXPOSITION OF ART. XVII. have somewhat from God that bad men have not; for which they ought to praise him. The style of all the prayers that are used or directed to be used in the Scripture, is for a grace that opens our eyes, that turns our hearts, that makes us to go, that leads us not into temptation, but delivers us from evil. All these phrases do plainly import that we desire more than a power or capacity to act, such as is given to all men, and such as, after we have received it, may be still ineffectual to us. For to pray for such assistances as are always given to all men, and are such that the whole good of them shall wholly depend upon ourselves, would sound very oddly; whereas we pray for some- what that is special, and that we hope shall be effectual. We do not and cannot pray earnestly for that which we know all men, as well as we ourselves, have at all times. Humility and earnestness in prayer seem to be among the chief means of working in us the image of Christ, and of deriving to us all the blessings of heaven. That doctrine which blasts both, which swells us up with an opinion that all comes from ourselves, and that we receive nothing from God but what is given in common with us to all the world, is certainly contrary both to the spirit and to the design of the gospel. To this they add observations from Providence. The world was for many ages delivered up to idolatry ; and since the Christian religion has appeared, we see vast tracts of countries which have continued ever since in idolatry: others are fallen under Mahometanism; and the state of Christendom is, in the Eastern parts of it, under so much ignorance, and the greatest part of the West is under so much corruption, that we must confess the far greater part of mankind has been in all ages left destitute of the means of grace; — so that the promulgating the gospel to some nations, and the denying it to others, must be ascribed to the unsearchable ways of God, that are past finding out. If he tims leaves whole nations in such darkness and corruption, and freely chooses others to communicate the knowledge of himself to them, -then we need not wonder if he should hold the same method with individuals that he does with whole bodies: for the rejecting of whole nations by the lump for many ages, is much more unaccountable than the selecting of a few, and the leaving others in that state of igno- rance and brutality. And whatever may be said of his extend- ing mercy to some few of those who have made a good use of that dim light which they had; yet it cannot be denied but their condition is much more deplorable, and the condition of the others is much more hopeful: so that great numbers of men are born in such circumstances, that it is morally impossible tliat they should not perish in them; whereas others are more happily situated and enlightened. AIIT. XVII. TIIK XXXIX ARTICLES. ISIJ This argument, taken from common ol>servation, l)ecomes much stronger when we consider what the Apostle says, parti- cularly in the Epistles to the Romans (ix. 11) and the Ephe- sians, even according to the exposition of those of the other side. For if God loved Jacob, so as to choose his posterity to be his people, and rejected or hated Esau and his posterity, and if that was according to the purpose and design of his election ; if by the same purpose the Gentiles were to be grafted upon that stock, from which the Jews were then to be cut off; and if the counsel or purpose of God had appeared in particular to those of Ephesus, though the most corrupted, both in magic, idolatry, and immorality, of any in the East; then it is plain, that the applying the means of grace arises merely from a great design that was long hid in God, which did then break out. It is reasonable to believe, that there is a proportion between the application of the means, and the decree itself concerning the end. The one is resolved into the unsearchable riches of God^s grace, and declared to be free and absolute. God^s choosing the nation of the Jews in such a distinction beyond all other nations, is by Moses and the Prophets frequently said not to be on their own account, or on the account of anything that God saw in them, but merely from the goodness of God to them. From all this it seems, say they, as reasonable to believe that the other is likewise free, according to those words of our Saviour, I thank thee, 0 Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent , and hast revealed them unto babes (Matt. xi. 25, 26;) the reason of which is given in the following words. Even so. Father, for it seemed good in thy sight, ver. 21 — 23. What goes before, of Tyre and Sidon, and the land of Sodom, that would have made a better use of his preaching than the towns of Galilee had done among whom he lived, confirms this, that the means of grace are not bestowed on those of whom it was foreseen that they would have made a good use of them; or denied to those who, as was foreseen, would have made an ill use of them: the contrary of this being plainly asserted in those words of our Saviour. It is farther observable, that he seems not to be speaking here of different nations, but of the different sorts of men of the same nation: the more learned of the Jews, the wise and prudent, rejected him, while the simpler, but better sort, the babes, received him; so that the difference between individual persons seems here to be resolved into the good pleasure of God. It is farther urged, that since those of the other side confess, that God by his prescience foresaw what circumstances might be happy, and what assistances might prove efficacious to bad men; then his not putting them in those circumstances, but giving them such assistances only, which, how effectual soever 190 AN EXPOSITION OF ART. XVII. they might be to others, he saw would have no efficacy on them, and his putting them in circumstances, and giving them assistances, which he foresaw they would abuse, if it may seem to clear the justice of God, yet it cannot clear his infinite holi- ness and goodness; which must ever carry him, according to our notions of these perfections, to do all that may be done, and that in the most effectual way, to rescue others from misery, to make them truly good, and to put them in a way to be happy. Since, therefore, this is not always done, according to the other opinion, it is plain that there is an unsearchable depth in the ways of God, which we are not able to fathom. Therefore it must be concluded, that since all are not actually good, and so put in a way to be saved, that God did not intend that it should be so; for who hath resisted his idUI? Rom. ix. 19. The counsel of the Lord standeth fast, and the thoughts of his heart to all generations, Psal. xxxiii. 11. It is true, his laws are his will in one respect: he requires all to obey them; he approves them, and he obliges all men to keep them. All the expressions of his desire that all men should be saved, are to be explained of the will of revelation, commonly called the sign of his will. When it is said. What more could have been done? (Isa. v. 4,) that is to be understood of outward means and blessings: but still God has a secret will of his good pleasure, in which he designs all things ; and this can never be frustrated. From this they do also conclude, that though ChrisFs death was to be offered to all Christians, yet that intentionally and actually he only died for those whom the Father had chosen and given to him to be saved by him. They cannot think that Christ could have died in vain, which St. Paul (Gal. ii. 21) speaks of as a vast absurdity. Now since, if he bad died for all, he should have died in vain with relation to the far greater part of mankind, who are not to be saved by him, they from thence conclude, that all those for whom he died are certainly saved by him. Perhaps with relation to some subaltern blessings, which are through him communicated, if not to all mankind, yet to all Christians, he may be said to have died for all; but as to eternal salvation, they believe his design went no farther than the secret purpose and election of God; and this they think is implied in these words. All that are given m,e of my Father: thine they ivere, and thou gavest them me. He also limits his intercession to those only: / pray not for the world, hut for those that thou hast given me; for they are thine: and all thine are mine, and mine are thine, John xvii. 9, 10. They believe that he also limited to them the extent of his death, and of that sacrifice which he offered in it. It is true, the Christian religion being to be distinguished from the Jewish in this main point, that whereas the Jewish ART. XVII. THE XXXIX ARTICLES. 191 wa^ restrained to Al^raliam’s posterity^ and confined within one race and nation, the Christian was to be preached to tvery crea- ture; universal words are used concerning the death of Christ: but as the words, preaching to every creature, and to all the world (Mark xvi. 15,) are not to be understood in the utmost extent — for then they have never been verified, since the gospel has never yet, for ought that appears to us, been preached to every nation under heaven — but are only to be explained gene- rally of a commission not limited to one or more nations, none being excluded from it; the Apostles were to execute it in going from city to city, as they should be inwardly moved to it by the Holy Ghost: so they think that those large words that are applied to the death of Christ, are to be understood in the same qualified manner; that no nation or sort of men are excluded from it, and that some of all kinds and sorts shall be saved by him. And this is to be carried no farther, without an imputation on the justice of God: for if he has received a sufficient oblation and satisfaction for the sins of the whole world, it is not recon- cileable to justice that all should not be saved by it, or should not at least have the offer and promulgation of it made them, that so a trial may be made whether they will accept of it or not. The grace of God is set forth in Scripture by such figures and expressions as do plainly intimate its efficacy; and that it does not depend upon us to use it, or not to use it, at pleasure. It is said to be a creation; We are created unto good works, and we become new creatures: it is called a regeneration, or a new birth; it is called a quickening and a resurrection, as our for- mer state is compared to a feebleness, a blindness, and a death. God is said to work in us both to will and to do: his people shall be willing in the day of his power: he will ivrite his laws in their hearts, and make them to ivalk in them. Mankind is compared to a mass of clay in the hand of the potter, who of the same lump makes at his pleasure vessels of honour or of dis- honour.^ These passages, this last in particular, do insinuate an absolute and a conquering power in grace; and that the love of God constrains us, as St. Paul speaks expressly. All outward co-action is contrary to the nature of liberty; and all those inward impressions that drove on the Prophets, so that they had not the free use of their faculties, but felt themselves carried they knew not how, are inconsistent with it; yet when a man feels that his faculties go in their method, and that he assents or chooses from a thread of inward convic- tion and ratiocination, he still acts freely, that is, by an inter- nal principle of reason and thought. A man acts as much according to his faculties when he assents to a truth, as when * Eph. ii. 10. 2 Cor. v. 17. Phil. ii. 13. Psal. cx. 3. Jer. xxxi. 33, 34. Ezek. xxxvi. 26, 27. Rom. ix. 21. 192 AN EXPOSITION OF ART, XVII. he chooses what he is to do: and if his mind were so enlight- ened, that he saw as clearly the good of moral things as he per- ceives speculative truths, so that he felt himself as little able to resist the one as the other, he would be no less a free and a rational creature than if he were left to a more unlimited range: nay, the more evidently that he saw the true good of things, and the more that he were determined by it, he should then act more suitably to his faculties, and to the excellence of his nature. For though the saints in heaven, being made perfect in glory, are no more capable of farther rewards, yet it cannot be denied but they act with a more accomplished liberty, because they see all things in a true light, according to that. In thy light ive shall see light (Psal. xxxvi. 9 :) and, therefore, they conclude, that such an overcoming degree of grace, by which a man is made willing through the illumination of his understanding, and not by any blind or violent impulse, is no way contrary to the true notion of liberty. After all, they think, that if a debate falls to be between the sovereignty of God, his acts and his purposes, and the freedom of man^s will, it is modest and decent rather to make the abate- ment on man’s part than on God’s. But they think there is no need of this : they infer, that besides the outward enlightening of a man by knowledge, there is an inward enlightening of the mind, and a secret forcible conviction stamped on it: otherwise what can be meant by the prayer of St. Paul for the Ephesians, who had already heard the gospel preached, and were instructed in it, that the eyes of their understanding being enlightened, they might know what was the hope of his calling, and what the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints, and what was the exceeding greatness of his poiver towards them that believed, Eph. i. 17 — 19. This seems to be somewhat that is both internal and efficacious. Christ compares the union and influence that he communicates to believers, to that union of a head with the members, and of a root with the branches, which imports an internal, a vital, and an efficacious influence. And though the outward means that are oflered may be, and always are, rejected, when not accompanied with this overcoming grace, yet this never returns empty: these outward means coming from God, the resisting of them is said to be the resisting God, the grieving or quenching his Spirit (Actsvii. 51; Eph. iv. 30;) and so in that sense we' resist the grace or favour of God; but we can never withstand him when he intends to overcome us. As for perseverance, it is a necessary consequence of abso- lute decrees and of efficacious grace; for since all depends upon God, and that, as of his own will he begat us, so with him there is neither variableness nor shadow of turning (James i. 17, lb;) tvhom he loves he loves to the erid (John xiii. 1;) and he has ART. XVir. THE XXXIX ARTICLES. 10.3 promised that he ivill never leave nor forsake those to whom he becomes a God (Heb. xiii. 5;) we must from thence conclude, that the purpose and calling of God is without repentance. And, tlicrefore, though good men may fall into grievous sins, to keep them from which there are dreadful things said in Scripture against their falling away, or apostacy; yet God does so uphold them, that though he suffers them often to feel the weight of their natures, yet, of all that are given by the Father to the Son to be saved by him, none are lost. Upon the wliole matter they believe, that God did in himself, and for his own glory, forehiovj such a determinate number, whom he pitched upon, to be the persons in whom he would be both sanctified and glorified: that having thus foreknown them, he predestinated them to be holy, conformable to the image of his Son: that these were to be called, not by a general calling in the sense of these words. Many are codied, hut few are chosen (Matt. XX. 16,) but to be called according to his purpose (Rom. viii. 22, 30;) and those he justified upon their obeying that calling; and he will in conclusion glorify them. Nor are these words only to be limited to the sufferings of good men; they are to be extended to all the effects of the love of God, according to that which follows, that nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ, Rom. ix. 18. The whole reasoning in the ninth of tlie Romans does so plainly resolve all the acts of God^s mercy and justice, his hardening as well as his pardoning, into an absolute freedom and an unsearchable depth, that more express words to that effect can hardly be imagined. It is in general said, that the children being yet unJborn, neither having done good or evil, that the purpose of God according to election might stand, not of works, but of him that calleth; Jacob was loved, and Esau hated (Rom. ix. 11. 13;) that God raised up Pharaoh, that he might shew his power in him (ver. 17 0 w'hen an objection is suggested against all this, instead of an- swering it, it is silenced with this. Who art thou, O man, that repliest against God? (ver. 20:) and all is illustrated with the figure of the potter, and concluded with this solemn question. What if God, willing to shew his wrath, and to make his power known, endured with much long-suffering the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction? ver. 22. This carries the reader to con- sider what is so often repeated in the book of Exodus, concern- ing God^s hardening the heart of Pharaoh, so that he ivould not let his people go, Exod. iv. 21; x. 20; xi. 10; xiv. 8. It is said, that God has made the wicked man for the day of evil, (Prov. xvi. 4;) as it is written on the other hand, that as many believed the gospel as were appointed to eternal life. Acts xiii. 48. Some are said to be written in the hook of life of the Lamb slain before the foundation of the world, or according to God’s purpose N 194 AN EXPOSITION OF ART. XVU before the world begun. Rev. xiii. 8; iii. 5; xx. 12; xxi. 27* Ungodly men are said to te of old ordained to condemnation, and to be given up by God unto vile affections, and to be given over by him to a reprobate mind, Rom. i. 26. 28. Therefore they think that reprobation is an absolute and free act of God, as well as election, to manifest his holiness and justice in them who are under it, as well as his love and mercy is manifested in the elect. Nor can they think with the Sublapsarians, that reprobation is only God’s passing by those whom he does not elect: this is an act unworthy of God, as if he forgot them, which does clearly imply imperfection. And as for that which is said concerning their being fallen in Adam, they argue, that either Adam’s sin, and the connexion of all mankind to him as their head and repre- sentative, was absolutely decreed, or it was not: if it was, then all is absolute — Adam’s sin and the fall of mankind were decreed, and, by consequence, all, from the beginning to tlieend, are under a continued chain of absolute decrees; and then the Supralapsarian and the Sublapsarian hypothesis will be one and the same, only variously expressed. But if Adam’s sin was only foreseen and permitted, then a conditionate decree founded upon prescience is once admitted, so that all that follows turns upon it; and then all the arguments, either against the perfection of such acts or the uncertainty of such a prescience, turn against this; for if they are admitted in any one instance, then they may be admitted in others as well as in that. The Sublapsarians do always avoid to answer this; and it seems they do rather incline to think that Adam was under an absolute decree; and if so, then, though their doctrine may seem, to those who do not examine things nicely, to look more plausible, yet really it amounts to the same thing with the other. For it is all one to say that God decreed that Adam should sin, and that all mankind should fall in him, and that then God should choose out of mankind, thus fallen by his decree, such as he would save, and leave the rest in that lapsed state to perish in it; as it is to say that God, intending to save some and to damn others, did, in order to the carrying this on in a method of justice, decree Adam’s fall, and the fall of mankind in him, in order to the saving of his elect, and the damning of the rest. All that the Sublapsarians say in this particular for themselves is, that the Scripture has not declared anything concerning the fall of Adam in such formal terms, that they can affirm any- thing concerning it. A liberty of another kind seems to have been then in man, when he was made after the image of God, and before he was corrupted by sin: and, therefore, though it is not easy to clear all difficulties in so intricate a matter, yet it seems reasonable to think, that a man in a state of iniiocency was a purer and a freer creature to good tlian now he is. But, Airr. XVII. Tin? XXXIX AIITICLES. i9r> after all, this seems to be only a fleeing from the difficulty, to a less oflfensive way of talking of it; for if the prescience of future contingents cannot be certain unless they are decreed, then God could not certainly foreknow Adames sin, without he had made an absolute decree about it; and that, as was just now said, is the same thing with the Supralapsarian hypothesis; — of which I shall say no more, having now laid together in a small compass the full strength of this argument. I go next to set out, with the same fidelity and exactness, the Remonstrants’ arguments. They begin with this, that God is just, holy, and merciful: that, in speaking of himself in the Scripture with relation to those attributes, he is pleased to make appeals to men, to call them to reason with him: thus his Prophets did often bespeak the Jewish nation : — the meaning of which is, that God acts so that men, according to the notions that they have of those attri- butes, may examine them, and will be forced to justify and approve them. Nay, in these God proposes himself to us as our pattern: we ought to imitate him in them, and, by consequence, we may frame just notions of them. We are required to be holy and merciful, as he is merciful: what, then, can we think of a justice that shall condemn us for a fact that we never com- mitted, and that was done many years before we were born? as also, that designs first of all tq be glorified by our being eternally miserable, and that decrees that we shall commit sins, to justify the previous decree of our reprobation? If those decrees are thus originally designed by God, and are certainly eflectuated, then it is inconceivable how there should be a justice in punish- ing that which God himself appointed by an antecedent and irreversible decree should be done: so this seems to lie hard upon justice. It is no less hard upon infinite holiness to ima- gine, that a Being of purer eyes than that it can behold iniquity (Hab. i. 13,) should by an antecedent decree fix our committing so many sins, in such a manner that it is not possible for us to avoid them: this is to make us to be born indeed under a neces- sity of sin; and yet this necessity is said to flow from the act and decrees of God. God represents himself always in the Scriptures as gracious^ merciful, slow to anger, and abundant in goodness and truth (Exod xxxiv. 6:) it is often said, that he desires that wo man should perish, but that all should come to the knowledge of the truth (2 Pet. iii. 9 :) and this is said sometimes with the solemnity of an oath — As I live, saith the Lord, I take no pleasure in the death of sinners, Ezek. xviii. 32; xxxiii. II. They ask, what sense can such words bear, if we can believe that God did by an absolute decree reprobate so many of them ? If all things that happen do arise out of the decree of God as its first cause, then we must believe that God takes pleasure both in his own decrees and in the execution of them; and, by con- N 2 1D6 AN EXPOSITION OF ART. XVII. sequence, that be takes pleasure in thedeatli of sinners, and that in contradiction to the most express and most solemn words of Scripture. Besides, what can we think of the truth of God, and of the sincerity of those offers of grace and mercy, with the obtestations, the exhortations, and expostulations upon them, that occur so often in Scripture, if we can think, that by ante- cedent acts of God he determined that all these should be inef- fectual; so that they are only so many solemn words that do indeed signify nothing, if God intended that all things should fall out as they do, and if they do so fall out only because he intended it? The chief foundation of this opinion lies in this argument as its basis — that nothing can be believed that con- tradicts the justice, the holiness, the truth, and purity of God; that these attributes are in God according to our notions con- cerning them, only they are in him infinitely more perfect, since we are required to imitate them: whereas the doctrine of abso- lute decrees does manifestly contradict the clearest ideas that we can form of justice, holiness, truth, and goodness. From the nature of God they go to the nature of man; and they think that such an inward freedom, by which a man is the master of his own actions, and can do or not do what he pleases, is so necessary to the morality of our actions, that without it our actions are neither good nor evil, neither capable of reward or punishment. Mad men, or men asleep, are not to be charged with the good or evil of what they do; therefore, at least some degrees of liberty must be left with us, otherwise, why are we praised or blamed for anything that we do? If a man thinks that he is under an inevitable decree, as he will have little remorse for all the evil he does, while he imputes it to that inevitable force that constrains him, so he will naturally conclude that it is to no purpose for him to struggle with impossibilities; and men being inclined both to throw all blame off from them- selves, and to indulge themselves in laziness and sloth, these practices are too natural to mankind to be encouraged by opi- nions that favour them. All virtue and religion, all discipline and industry, must arise from this as their first principle — that there is a power in us to govern our own thoughts and actions, and to raise and improve our faculties. If this is denied, all endeavours, all education, all pains, either on ourselves or others, are vain and fruitless things. Nor is it possible to make a man believe other than this; for he does so plainly perceive that he is a free agent, he feels himself balance matters in his thoughts, and deliberate about them so violently, that he certainly knows he is a free being. This is the image of God that is stamped upon his nature; and though he feels himself often liurried on so impetuously, that he may seem to have lost his freedom in some turns and ART. XVII. THE XXXIX ARTICLES. 197 upon some occasions, yet he feels that he might have restrained tliat heat in its first beginnings: he feels he can divert his thoughts, and master himself in most things, when he sets him- self to it: he finds that knowledge and reflection, that good company and good exercises, do tame and soften him, and that bad ones make him wild, loose, and irregular. From all this they conclude, that man is free, and not under inevitable fate, or irresistible motions either to good or evil. All this they confirm from the whole current of the Scripture, that is full of persuasions, exhortations, reproofs, expostulations, encourage- ments, and terrors; which are all vain and theatrical things, if there are no free powers in us to which they are addressed. To what purpose is it to speak to dead men, to persuade the blind to see, or the lame to run? If we are under an impotence till the irresistible grace comes, and if, when it comes, nothing can withstand it, then what occasion is there for all those solemn discourses, if they can have no effect on us? They cannot render us inexcusable, unless it were in our power to be bettered by them; and to imagine that God gives light and blessings to those whom he before intended to damn, only to make them inexcusable, when they could do them no good, and they will serve only to aggravate their condemnation, gives so strange an idea of that infinite goodness, that it is not fit to express it by those terms which do naturally arise upon it. It is as hard to suppose two contrary wills in God — the one commanding us our duty, and requiring us with the most solemn obtestations to do it, and the other putting a certain bar in our way, by decreeing that we shall do the contrary. This makes God look as if he had a will and a will; though a heart and a heart import no good quality, when applied to men: the one ivill requires us to do our duty, and the other makes it impos- sible for us not to sin : the will for the good is ineffectual, while the will that makes us sin is infallible. These things seem very hard to be apprehended; and whereas the root of true religion is the having right and high ideas of God and of his attributes, here such ideas arise as naturally give us strange thoughts of God: and if they are received by us as originals, upon which we are to form our own natures, such notions may make us grow to be spiteful, imperious, and without bowels, but do not seem proper to inspire us with love, mercy, and compassion: though God is always proposed to us in that view. All preach- ing and instruction does also suppose this: for to what purpose are men called upon, taught, and endeavoured to be persuaded, if they are not free agents, and have not a power over their own thoughts, and if they are not to be convinced and turned by reason? The offers of peace and pardon that are made to all men are delusory things, if they are by an antecedent 198 AN EXPOSITION OF ART. XVII. act of God restrained only to a few, and all others are barred from them. It is farther to be considered, say they, that God having made men free creatures, his governing them accordingly, and making his own administration of the world suitable to it, is no diminu- tion of his own authority; it is only the carrying on of his own creation according to the several natures that he has put in that variety of beings of which this world is composed, and with which it is diversified: therefore, if some of the acts of God, with relation to man, are not so free as his other acts are, and as we may suppose necessary to the ultimate perfection of an independent Being, this arises not from any defect in the acts of God, but because the nature of the creature that he intended to make free is inconsistent with such acts. The Divine Omnipotence is not lessened, when we observe some of his works to be more beautiful and useful than others are; and the irregular productions of nature do not derogate from the order in which all things appear lovely to the Divine Mind. So, if that liberty with which he intended to endue thinking beings is incompatible with such positive acts, and so positive a Provi- dence as governs natural things and this material world, then this is no way derogatory to the sovereignty of his mind. This does also give such an account of the evil that is in the world, as does no way accuse or lessen the purity and holiness of God; since he only suffers his creatures to go on in the free use of those powers that he has given them; about which he exercises a special providence, making some men’s sins to be the immediate punish- ment of their own or of other men’s sins, and restraining them often in a great deal of that evil that they do design, and bringing out of it a great deal of good that they did not design ; but all is done in a way suitable to their natures, without any violence to them. It is true, it is not easy to show how those future contin- gencies, which depend upon the free choice of the will, should be certain and infallible. But we are on other accounts cer- tain that it is so; for we see through the whole Scriptures a thread of very positive prophecies, the accomplishment of which depended on the free will of man; and these predictions, as they were made very precisely, so they were no less punctually accomplished. Not to mention any other prophecies, all those that related to the death and sufferings of Christ were fulfilled by the free acts of the priests and people of the Jews: they sinned in doing it, which proves that they acted in it with their natural liberty. By these and all the other prophecies that are in both Testaments, it must be confessed that these things were certainly foreknown; but where to found that certainty, cannot be easily resolved. The infinite perfection of the Divine Mind ought here to silence all objections. A clear idea, by ART. XVII. THE XXXIX ARTICLES. 199 wliicli we apprehend a thing to be plainly contrary to the attri- butes of God^ is indeed a just ground of rejecting it; and, therefore, they think that they are in the right to deny all such to be in God, as they plainly apprehend to be contrary to justice, truth, and goodness; but if the objection against any- thing supposed to be in God lies only against the manner and the unconceivableness of it, there the infinite perfection of God answers all. It is farther to be considered, that this prescience does not make the effects certain, because they are foreseen; but they are foreseen, because they are to be: so that the certainty of the prescience is not antecedent or causal, but subsequent and eventual. Whatsoever happens, was future before it happened; and since it happened, it was certainly future from all eternity; not by a certainty of fate, but by a certainty that arises out of its being once, from which this truth, that it was future, w^as eternally certain: therefore, the Divine prescience being only the knowing all things that were to come, that does not infer a necessity or causality. The Scripture plainly shows on some occasions a conditionate prescience: God answered David (1 Sam. xxiii. 11, 12,) that Saul had come to Keilah, and that the men of Keilah were to deliver him up: and yet both the one and the other was upon the condition of his staying there; and he going from thence, neither the one or the other ever happened: here was a con- ditionate prescience. Such was Christas saying (Matt. xi. 21. 23,) that those of Tyre and Sidon, Sodom and Gomorrah, would have turned to him, if they had seen the miracles that he wrought in some of the towns of Galilee. Since then this pre- science may be so certain, that it can never be mistaken, nor misguide the designs or providence of God; and since by this both the attributes of God are vindicated, and the due freedom of the will of man is asserted, all difficulties seem to be easily cleared this way. As for the giving to some nations and persons the means of salvation, and the denying these to others, the Scriptures do indeed ascribe that wholly to the riches and freedom of God’s grace; but still they think, that he gives to all men that which is necessary to the state in which they are, to answer the obli- gations they are under in it; and that this light and common grace is sufficient to carry them so far, that God will either accept of it, or give them farther degrees of illumination : from which it must be inferred, that all men are inexcusable in his sight, and that God is always just and clear when he judges (Psal. li. 4 ;) since every man had that which was sufficient, if not to save him, yet at least to bring him to a state of salvation. But besides what is thus simply necessary, and is of itself suf- 200 AN EXPOSITION OF ART. XVII. ficient, there are innumerable favours, like largesses of God^s grace and goodness; these God gives freely as he pleases. And thus the great designs of Providence go on according to the goodness and mercy of God. None can complain, though some have more cause to rejoice and glory in God than others. What happens to nations in a body, may also happen to indi- viduals : some may have higher privileges, be put in happier cir- cumstances, and have such assistances given them as God foresees will become effectual, and not only those which, though they be in their nature sufficient, yet in the event will be ineffectual: every man ought to complain of himself for not using that which was sufficient, as he might have done; and all good men will have matter of rejoicing in God, for giving them what he foresaw would prove effectual. After all, they acknowledge there is a depth in this, of God’s not giving all nations an equal measure of light, nor putting all men into equally happy circumstances, which they cannot unriddle; but still justice, goodness, and truth, are saved; though we may imagine a goodness that may do to all men what is absolutely the best for them: and there they confess there is a difficulty, but not equal to those of the other side. From hence it is that they expound all those passages in the New Testament, concerning the purpose, the election, the fore- knowledge, and the predestination of God, so often mentioned. All those, they say, relate to God’s design of calling the Gentile world to the. knowledge of the Messias: this was kept secret, though hints of it are given in several of the Prophets; so it was a mystery; but it was then revealed, when, according to Christ’s commission to his Apostles to go and teach all nations, they went preaching the gospel to the Gentiles. This was a stumbling-block to the Jews, and it was the chief subject of controversy betwixt them and the Apostles at the time when the Epistles were writ; so it was necessary for them to clear this very fully, and to come often over it. But there was no need of amusing people in the beginnings of Christianity, and in that first infancy of it, with high and unsearchable specula- tions concerning the decrees of God: therefore they observe that the Apostles show, how that Abraham at first, Isaac and Jacob afterwards, were chosen by a discriminating favour, that they and their posterity should be in covenant with God: and upon that occasion the Apostle goes on to show, that God had always designed to call in the Gentiles, though that was not executed but by their ministry. With this key one will find a plain coherent sense in all St. Paul’s discourses on this subject, without asserting antecedent and special decrees as to particular persons. Things that hap- pen under a permissive and directing Providence, may be also in a largeness of expression ascribed to the will and counsel of ART. XVII. THE XXXIX ARTICLES. 201 God; for a permissive and directing will is really a will, though it be not antecedent nor causal. The hardening PharaoJds heart (Exod. vii. 22) may be ascribed to God, though it is said that his heart hardened itself {Ej's.odi.w'm. 15. 19. 32;) because he took occa- sion, from the stops God put in those plagues that he sent upon him and his people, to encourage himself when he saw there was a new respite granted him ; and he who was a cruel and bloody prince, deeply engaged in idolatry and magic, had deserved such judgments for his other sins; so* that he may be well considered as actually under his final condemnation, only under a reprieve, not swallowed up in the first plagues, but preserved in them, and raised up out of them to be alasting monument of the justice of God against such hardened impenitency. Whom he will he hardeneth (Rom. ix. 18,) must be still restrained to such persons as that tyrant was. It is endless to enter into the discussion of all the passages cited from the Scripture to this purpose; this key serving, as they think it does, to open most of them. It is plain these words of our Saviour concerning those whom the Father had given him (John xvii. 12,) are only to be meant of a dispen- sation of Providence, and not of a decree: since he adds. And I have lost none of them, except the son of perdition: for it cannot be said that he was in the decree, and yet was lost. And in the same period in which God is said to work in us both to will and to do (Phil. ii. 13,) we are required to ivo7'k out our oivn salva- tion ivith fear and trembling, Phil. ii. 12. The word rendered ordained to eternal life. Acts xiii. 48, does also signify, fitted or predisposed to eternal life. That question. Who made thee to differ? (1 Cor. iv. 7?) seems to refer to those gifts which, in different degrees and measures, were poured out on the first Christians; in which men were only passive, and discriminated from one another by the freedom of those gifts, without any- thing previous in them to dispose them to them. Christ is said to be the propitiation for the sins of the whole world (1 John ii. 2;) and the wicked are said to deny the Lord that bought them (2 Pet. ii. 1 ;) and his death, as to its extent to all men, is set in opposition to the sin of Adam: so that as by the offence of 07ie, judgment came upon all men to condemnation; so by the righteousness of one, the free gift came upon all men to justification of life, Rom. v. 18. The all of the one side must be of the same extent with the all of the other: so since all are concerned in Adames sin, all must be likewise concerned in the death of Christ. This they urge farther with this argument, that all men are obliged to believe in the death of Christ, but no man can be obliged to believe a lie; therefore it follows that he must have died for all. Nor can it be thought that grace is so efficacious of itself as to deter- mine us, otherwise, why are we required* 7iot to grieve God’s 202 AN EXPOSITION OF ART. XVII. Spirit? Why is it said, Ye do always resist the Holy Ghost ; as your fathers did, so did ye (xicts vii. 51:) How often ivould I have gathered you under my wings, hut ye would not? (Matt, xxiii. 370 What more could I have done in my vineyard, that has not been done in it? Isa. v. 4. These seem to be plain inti- mations of a power in us, by which we not only can, but often do, resist the motions of grace. If the determining efficacy of grace is not acknowledged, it will be yet much harder to believe that we are efficaciously determined to sin. This seems to be not only contrary to the purity and holiness of God, but is so manifestly contrary to the whole strain of the Scriptures that charges sin upon men, that in so copious a subject it is not necessary to bring proofs. O Israel, thou hast destroyed thyself; hut in me is thy help (Hos. xiii. 9;) and. Ye will not come unto me, that ye may have life (John v. 40;) Why will you die, O house of Israel? Ezek. xxxiii. II. And as for that nicety of saying, that the evil of sin consists in a negation, which is not a positive being, so that though God should deter- mine men to the action, that is sinful, yet he is not concerned in the sin of it; they think it is too metaphysical to put the honour of God and his attributes upon such a subtilty: for in sins against moral laws, there seems to be an antecedent immorality in the action itself, which is inseparable from it. But suppose that sin consisted in a negative, yet that privation does imme- diately and necessarily result out of the action, without any other thing whatsoever intervening: so that if God does infallibly determine a sinner to commit the action to which that guilt belongs, though that should be a sin only by reason of a privation that is dependent upon it, then it does not appear but that he is really the author of sin; since, if he is the author of the sinful action, on which the sin depends as a shadow upon its substance, he must be esteemed, say they, the author of sin. And though it may be said, that sin being a violation of God^s law, he himself, who is not bound by his law, cannot be guilty of sin; yet an action that is immoral is so essentially opposite to infinite perfection, that God cannot be capable of it, as being a contradiction to his own nature: nor is it to be sup- posed that he can damn men for that which is the necessary result of an action to which he himself determined them. As for perseverance, the many promises made in the Scrip- tures to them that overcome, that continue steadfast and faithful to the death (Rev. ii. and hi.) seem to insinuate, that a man may fall from a good state. Those famous words in the sixth of the Hebrews do plainly intimate, that such men may so fall away, that it may he impossible to renew them again by repent- ance. And in that Epistle (x. 38,) where it is said. The just shall live by faith; il is added, But if he draiv hack {any man ART. XVII. THE XXXIX ARTICLES. 20.3 is not in tlie original,) my soul shall have no pleasure in him. And it is positively said by the Prophet, When the righteous turneth away from his righteousness, and committeth iniquity, all his righteousness that he hath done shall not be mentioned; in his sin that he hath sinned shall he die, Ezek. xviii. 24. These sup- positions, with a great many more of the same strain that may be brought out of other places, do give us all possible reason to believe that a good man may fall from a good state, as well as that a wicked man may turn from a bad one. In conclusion, the end of all things, the final judgment at the last day, which shall be pronounced according to what men have done, whether good or evil, and their being to be rewarded and punished according to it, seems so eflfectually to assert a freedom in our wills, that they think this alone might serve to prove the whole cause. So far I have set forth the force of the argument on the side of the Remonstrants. As for the Socinians, they make their plea out of what is said by the one and by the other side. They agree with the Remonstrants in all that they say against absolute decrees, and in urging all those consequences that do arise out of them; and they do also agree with the Calvinists in all that they urge against the possibility of a certain prescience of future contingents: so that it will not be necessary to set forth their plea more specially, nor needs more be said in opposition to it, than what was already said as part of the Remonstrants’ plea. Therefore, without dwelling any longer on that, I come now to make some reflections upon the whole matter. It is at first view apparent, that there is a great deal of weight in what has been said of both sides; so much, that it is no wonder if education, the constant attending more to the difficul- ties of the one side than of the other, and a temper some way proportioned to it, does fix men very steadily to either the one or the other persuasion. Both sides have their difficulties, so it will be natural to choose that side where the difficulties are least felt: but it is plain there is no reason for either of them to despise the other, since the arguments of both are far from being con- temptible. It is farther to be observed, that both sides seem to be chiefly concerned to assert the honour of God, and of his attributes. Both agree in this, that whatever is fixed as the primary idea of God, all other things must be explained so as to be consistent with that. Contradictions are never to be admitted; but things may be justly believed, against which objections may be formed that eannot be easily answered. The one side think, that we must begin with the idea of infi- nite perfection, of independency, and absolute sovereignty; and if in the sequel difficulties occur which cannot be cleared, that ought not to shake us from this primary idea of God. 204 AN EXPOSITION OF ART. XVII. Others think, that we cannot frame such clear notions of independency, sovereignty, and infinite perfection, as we can do of justice, truth, holiness, goodness, and mercy: and since the Scripture proposes God to us most frequently under those ideas, they think that we ought to fix on these as the primary ideas of God, and then reduce all other things to them. Thus both sides seem zealous for God and his glory: both lay down general maxims that can hardly be disputed; and both argue justly from their first principles. These are great grounds for mutual charity and forbearance in these matters. It is certain, that one who has long interwoven his thoughts of infinite perfection with the notions of absolute and unchange- - able decrees, of carrying on everything by a positive will, of doing everything for his own glory, cannot apprehend decrees depending on a foreseen free will, a grace subject to it, a merit of Christas death that is lost, and a man^s being at one time loved, and yet finally hated of God, without horror. These things seem to carry in them an appearance of feebleness, of depend- ence, and of changeableness. On the other hand, a man that has accustomed himself to think often on the infinite goodness and mercy, the long-suffer- ing, patience, and slowness to anger, that appears in God; he cannot let the thought of absolute reprobation, or of determining men to sin, or of not giving them the grace necessary to keep them from sin and damnation, enter into his mind, without the same horror that another feels in the reverse of all this. So that the source of both opinions being the different ideas that they have of God, and both these ideas being true — men only mis- taking in the extent of them, and in the consequences drawn from them; here are the clearest grounds imaginable for a mutual for- bearance, for not judging men imperiously, nor censuring them severely upon either side. And those who have at different times of their lives been of both opinions, and who upon the evidence of reason, as it has appeared to them, have changed their persuasions, can speak more affirmatively here ; for they know, that in great sincerity of heart they have thought both ways. Each opinion has some practical advantages on its side. A Calvinist is taught, by his opinions, to think meanly of himself, and to ascribe the honour of all to God; which lays in him a deep foundation for humility: he is also much inclined to secret prayer, and to a fixed dependence on God; which naturally both brings his mind to a good state, and fixes it in it: and so, though perhaps he cannot give a coherent account of the grounds of his watchfulness and care of himself, yet that tem- per arises out of his humility, and his earnestness in prayer. A Remonstrant, on tlie other hand, is engaged to awaken and improve his faculties, to fill his mind with good notions, to raise ART. XVII. THE XXXIX ARTICLES. 205 them in himself by frequent reflection^ and by a constant atten- tion to his own actions: he sees cause to reproach himself for his sins, and to set about his duty to purpose; being assured that it is through his own fault if he miscarries: he has no dreadful terrors upon his mind; nor is he tempted to an undue security, or to swell up in (perhaps) an imaginary conceit of his being unalterably in the favour of God. Both sides have their peculiar temptations as well as their advantages; the Calvinist is tempted to a false security, and sloth ; and the Arminian may be tempted to trust too much to himself, and too little to God : so equally may a man of a calm temper, and of moderate thoughts, balance this matter between both the sides, and so unreasonable it is to give way to a positive and dictating temper in this point. If the Arminian is zealous to assert liberty, it is because he cannot see how there can be good or evil in the world without it: he thinks it is the work of God, that he has made for great ends; and, therefore, he can allow of nothing that he thinks destroys it. If, on the other hand, a Calvinist seems to break in upon liberty, it is because he cannot reconcile it with the sovereignty of God, and the freedom of his grace; ^d he grows to think that it is an act of devotion to offer up the one to save the other. The common fault of both sides is, to charge one another with the consequences of their opinions, as if they were truly their tenets: whereas they are apprehensive enough of these consequences; they have no mind to them; and they fancy that by a few distinctions they can avoid them. But each side thinks the consequences of the other are both worse, and more certainly fastened to that doctrine, than the consequences that are urged against himself are; and so they think they must choose that opinion that is the least perplexed and difficult: not but that ingenious and learned men of all sides confess, that they feel themselves very often pinched in these matters. Another very indecent way of managing these points is, that both sides do too often speak very boldly of God. Some petulant wits, in order to the representing the contrary opinion as absurd and ridiculous, have brought in God, representing him, with indecent expressions, as acting or decreeing, accord- ing to their hypothesis, in a manner that is not only unbecoming, but that borders 'upon blasphemy. From which, though they think to escape by saying that they are only showing what must follow if the other opinion were believed, yet there is a solemnity and gravity of style that ought to be most religiously observed, when we poor mortals take upon us to speak of the glory or attributes, the decrees or operations, of the great God of heaven and earth; and everything relating to this, that is put in a burlesque air, is intolerable. It is a sign of a very daring presumption, to pretend to assign the order of all the 20G AN EXPOSITION OF -ART. XVII. acts of God, the ends proposed in them, and the methods by which they are executed. We, who do not know how our thoughts carry our bodies to obey and second our minds, should not imagine that we can conceive how God may move or bend our wills. The hard thing to digest in this whole matter, is reprobation: they who think it necessary to assert the freedom of election, would fain avoid it: they seek soft words for it, such as the passing by or leaving men to perish: they study to put that on Adames sin, and they take all the methods they can to soften an opinion that seems harsh, and that sounds ill: but howsoever, they will bear all the consequences of it, rather than let the point of absolute election go. On the other side, those who do once persuade themselves that the doctrine of reprobation is false, do not see how they can deny it, and yet ascribe a free election to God. They are once persuaded that there can be no reprobation but what is condi- tionate, and founded on what is foreseen concerning men^s sins; and from this they are forced to say the same thing of election. And both sides study to begin the controversy with that which they think they can the most easily prove; the one at the establish- ing of election, and the other at the overthrowing of reprobation. Some have studied to seek out middle ways; for they, observing that the Scriptures are writ in a great diversity of style in treat- ing of the good or evil that happens to us, ascribing the one to God, and imputing the other to ourselves, teaching us to ascribe the honour of all that is good to God, and to cast the blame of all that is evil upon ourselves, have from thence concluded, that God must have a different influence and causality in the one, from what he has in the other: but when they go to make this out, they meet with great difficulties; yet they choose to bear these rather than to involve themselves in those equally great, if not greater difficulties, that are in either of the other opinions. They wrap up all in two general assertions, that are great prac- tical truths. Let us arrogate no good to ourselves, and impute no evil to God, and so let the whole matter rest. This may be thought by some the lazier, as well as the safer way; which avoids difficulties, rather than answers them; whereas they say of both the contending sides, that they are better at the starting of difficulties than at the resolving of them. Thus far I have gone upon the general, in making such reflec- tions as will appear but too well grounded to those who have with any attention read the chief disputants of both sides. In these great points all agree — that mercy is freely offered to the world in Christ Jesus: that God did freely offer his Son to be our propitiation, and has freely accepted the sacrifice of his death in our stead: whereas he might have condemned every ART. XVII. THE XXXIX ARTICLES. 207 man to have perished for Ids own sins: that God does, in the dispensation of his gospel, and the promulgation of it to the several nations, act according to the freedom of his grace, upon reasons that are to us mysterious and past finding out: that every man is inexcusable in the sight of God: that all men are so far free as to be praiseworthy or blameworthy for the good or evil that they do : that every man ought to employ his faculties all he can, and to pray and depend earnestly upon God for his protec- tion and assistance: that no man in practice ought to think that there is a fate or decree hanging over him, and so become slothful in his duty; but that every man ought to do the best he can, as if there w^ere no such decree, since, whether there is or is not, it is not possible for him to know what it is: that every man ought to be deeply humbled for his sins in the sight of God, without excusing himself by pretending a decree was upon him, or a want of powder in him: that all men are bound to obey the rules set them in the gospel, and are to expect neither mercy nor favour from God, but as they set themselves diligently about that: and, finally, that at the last day all men shall be judged, not accord- ing to secret decrees, but according to their own works. In these ‘great truths, of which the greater part are practical, all men agree. If they would agree as honestly in the practice of them, as they do in confessing them to be true, they W'Ould do that W'hich is much more important and necessary than to speculate and dispute about niceties; by which the world would quickly put on a new face, and then those few, that might delight in curious searches and arguments, would manage them with more modesty and less heat, and be both less positive and less supercilious. I have hitherto insisted on such general reflections as seemed proper to these questions; — I come now, in the last place, to exa- mine how far our Church hath determined the matter, either in this Article or elsewhere: how far she hath restrained her sons, and how far she hath left them at liberty. For those different opinions being so intricate in themselves, and so apt to raise hot disputes, and to kindle lasting quarrels, it will not be suitable to that moderation which our Church hath observed in all other things, to stretch her words on these heads beyond their strict sense. The natural equity or reason of things ought rather to carry us, on the other hand, to as great a comprehensiveness of all sides, as may well consist with the words in which our Church hath expressed herself on those heads. It is not to be denied but that the Article seems to be framed according to St. Austin’s doctrine: it supposes men to be under a curse and damnation, antecedently to 'predestination, from which they are delivered by it; so it is directly against the Supralapsarian doctrine: nor does the Article make any men- tion of reprobation, no, not in a hint; no definition is made 208 AN EXPOSITION OP ART. XVII. concerning it. The Article does also seem to assert the effi- cacy of grace; that in which the knot of the whole difficulty lies, is not defined; that is, whether God’s eternal purpose or decree was made according to what he foresaw his creatures would do, or purely upon an absolute will, in order to his own glory. It is very probable, that those who penned it meant that the deeree was absolute; but yet, since they have not said it, those who subscribe the Articles do not seem to be bound to anything that is not expressed in them: and, therefore, since the Remonstrants do not deny but that God, having foreseen' what all mankind would, according to all the different circum- stances in which they should be put, do or not do, he upon that did, by a firm and eternal decree, lay that whole design in all its branches which he executes in time; they may subscribe this Article without renouncing their opinion as to this matter. On the other hand, the Calvinists have less occasion for scruple; since the Article does seem more plainly to favour them. The three cautions that are added to it do likewise intimate, that St. Austin’s doctrine was designed to be settled by the Article: for the danger of men^s having the sentence of God’s predestination always before their eyes, which may occasion either desperation on the one hand, or the wretchlessness of most unclean living on the other, belongs only to that side; since these mischiefs do not arise out of the other hypothesis. The other two, of taking the promises of God in the sense in which they are set forth to us in holy Scriptures and of folloiving that will of God that is expressly declared to us in the word of God, relate very visibly to the same opinion: though others do infer from these cautions, that the doctrine laid down in the Article must be so understood as to agree with these cautions; and, therefore, they argue, that since absolute predestination cannot consist with them, that, therefore, the Article is to be otherwise explained. They say, the natural consequence of an absolute decree is either pre- sumption or despair; since a man upon that bottom reckons, that which way soever the decree is made, it must certainly be accomplished. They also argue, that because we must receive the promises of God as conditional, we must also believe the decree to be conditional; for absolute decrees exclude conditional promises. An offer cannot be supposed to be made in earnest by him that has excluded the greatest number of men from it by an antecedent act of his own; and if we must only follow the revealed will of God, we ought not to suppose that there is an antecedent and positive will of God, that has decreed our doing the contrary to what he has commanded. Thus the one side argues, that the Article as it lies, in tlie plain meaning of those who conceived it, does very expressly establish tlieir doctrine; and the other argues, from those can- ART. XVII. THK XXXIX ARTICLES. 209 tioiis tliat are added to it, that it ought to be understood so as that it may agree witli these cautions: and both sides find in the Article itself such grounds, that they reckon they do not renounce their opinions by subscribing it. The Remonstrant side have this farther to add, that the universal extent of the death of Christ seems to be very plainly affirmed in the most solemn part of all the offices of the Church; for in the office of Communion, and in the Prayer of Consecration, we own, that Christ, % l/ie one oblation of himself once offered, made there a full, perfect, and sufficient sacrifice, oblation, and satisfaction, for the sins of the ivhole world: though the others say, that by full, peyfect, and sufficient, is not to be understood that Christ’s death was intended to be a complete sacrifice and satisfaction for the whole world, but that in its own value it was capable of being such. This is thought too great a stretch put upon the words. And there are yet more express words in our Church Catechism to this pur- pose; which is to be considered as the most solemn declaration of the sense of the Church, since that is the doctrine in which she instructs all her children; and in that part of it which seems to be most important, as being the short summary of the Apostles’ Creed, it is said, God the Son, who hath redeemed me and all mankind; where all must stand in the same extent of universality as in the precedent and in the following words; the Father, who made me and all the world; the Holy Ghost, who sanctifieth me ayid all the elect people of God; which being to be understood severely, and without exception, this must also be taken in the same strictness. There is another argument brought from the office of baptism, to prove that men may fall from a state of grace and regeneration; for in the whole office, more particularly in the Thanksgiving after the Baptism, it is affirmed, that the person baptized is regenerated by God^s Holy Spirit, and is received for his own child by adoption; now, since it is certain that many who are baptized fall from that state of grace, this seems to import that some of the regenerate may fall away; which though it agrees well with St. Austin’s doctrine, yet it does not agree with the Calvinists’ opinions. Thus I have examined this matter in as short a compass as was possible; and yet I do not know that I have forgot any important part of the whole controversy, though it is large, and has many branches. I have kept, as far as I can perceive, that indifference which I proposed to myself in the prosecuting of this matter; and have not on this occasion declared my own opinion, though I have not avoided the doing it upon other occasions. Since the Church has not been peremptory, but that a latitude has been left to different opinions, I thought it o 210 AN EXPOSITION OF ART. XVIII. became me to make this explanation of the Article such: and, therefore, I have not endeavoured to possess the reader with that which is my own sense in this matter, but have laid the force of the arguments, as well as the weight of the difficulties of both sides before him, with all the advantages that I had found in the books either of the one or the other persuasion. And I leave the choice as free to my reader, as the Church has done. ARTICLE XVIII. OF OBTAINING ETERNAL SALVATION ONLY BY THE NAME OF CHRIST. They also are to be accursed^ that 'presume to say, That every man shall be saved by the Law or Sect lohich he professeth; so that he be diligent to frame his Life according to that Law, and the Light of Nature; for Holy Scripture doth set out unto us only the name of Jesus Christ, whereby men must be saved. The impiety that is condemned in this Article, was first taught by some of the Heathen orators and philosophers in the fourth century, who, in their addresses to the Christian emperors for the tolerance of paganism, started this thought, that, how lively soever it may seem when well set off in a piece of eloquence, will not bear a severe argument — that God is more honoured by the varieties and different methods of worshipping and serv- ing him, than if all should fall into the same way; that this diversity has a beauty in it, and a suitableness to the infinite perfections of God; and it does not look so like a mutual agree- ment or concert, as when all men worship him one way. But this is rather a flash of wit than true reasoning. The Alcoran has carried this matter farther, to the asserting, that all men in all religions are equally acceptable to God, if they serve him faithfully in them. The infusing this into the world, that has a show of mercy in it, made men more easy to receive their law; and they took care by their extreme severity to fix them in it, when they were once engaged: for though they use no force to make men Musselmans, yet they punish with all extremity everything that looks like apostacy from it, if it is once received. The doctrine of Leviathan, that makes law to be religion and religion to be law, that is, that obliges subjects to believe that religion to be true, or at least to follow that which is enacted by the laws of their country, must be ART. XV I II. THE XXXIX ARTICLES. 21 ) built either on this foundation, that there is no sucli thing as revealed religion, but that it is only a political contrivance, or that all religions are equally acceptable to God. Others having observed fhat it was a very small part of man- kind that had the advantages of the Christian religion, have thought it too cruel to damn in their thoughts all those who have not heard of it, and yet have lived morally and virtuously, according to their light and education. And some, to make themselves and others easy, in accommodating their religion to their secular interests, to excuse their changing, and to quiet their consciences, have set up this notion, that seems to have a largeness both of good-nature and charity in it; looks plausible, and is calculated to take in the greatest numbers; they, there- fore, suppose, that God in his infinite goodness will accept equally the services that all his creatures offer to him, according to the best of their skill and strength. In opposition to all which, they are here condemned who think that every man shall be saved by the law or sect which he pro- fesseth: where a great difference is to be observed between the words saved by the law, and saved in the law; the one is con- demned, but not the other. To be saved by a law or sect, signifies, that by the virtue of that law or sect such men who follow it may be saved; whereas to be saved in a law or sect imports only, that God may extend his compassions to men that are engaged in false religions. The former is only condemned by this Article, which affirms nothing concerning the other. In sum ; if we have fully proved that the Christian religion was delivered to the world in the name of God, and was attested by miracles, so that we believe its truth, we must believe every part and tittle of it; and, by consequence, those passages which denounce the wrath and judgments of God against impenitent sinners, and that promise mercy and salvation only upon the account of Christ and his death: we must believe with our hearts, and confess it with our mouths (Rom. x. 9, 10;) we must not be ashamed of Christ, or of his words, lest he should he ashamed of us, when he comes in the glory of his Father, with his holy angels, Mark viii. 38. This, I say, being a part of the gospel, must be as true as the gospel itself is; and these rules must bind all those to whom they are proposed, whether they are enacted by law or not; for if we are assured that they are a part of the law of the King of kings, we are bound to believe and obey them, whether human laws do favour them or not; it being an evident thing, that no subordinate authority can derogate from that which is superior to it: so if the laws of God are. clearly revealed, and certainly conveyed down to us, we are bound by them, and no human law can dissolve this obligation. If God has declared his will to us, it can never be supposed to be free to us to choose whether we 212 AN EXPOSITION ART. XVIII. will obey it or not, and serve him under that or under another form of religion, at our pleasure and choice. We are limited by what God has declared to us, and we must not fancy ourselves to be at liberty after he has revealed^is will to us. As to such to whom the Christian religion is revealed, there no question can be made, for it is certain they are under an indispensable obligation to obey and follow that which is so gra- ciously revealed to them: they are bound to follow it according to what they are in their consciences persuaded is its true sense and meaning. And if for any secular interest they choose to comply with that which they are convinced is an important efror, and is condemned in the Scripture, they do plainly show that they prefer lands, houses, and life, to the authority of God, in whose will, when revealed to them, they are bound to acquiesce. The only difficulty remaining is concerning those who never heard of this religion; whether, or how can they be saved? St. Paul having divided the world into Jews and Gentiles, called by him those who were in the law, and who were without law; he says, those who sinned without laio, that is, out of the Mo- saical dispensation, shall be judged without law (Rom. ii. 121 14, 15,) that is, upon another foot. For, he adds, when the Gentiles, which have not the laiv, do by nature the things con- tained in the law (that is, the moral parts of it,) these, having not the law, are a law unto themselves (that is, their con- sciences are to them instead of a written law;) which shew the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing ivitness, and their thoughts the mean lohile accusing or else excusing one another. This implies, that there are either seeds of knowledge and virtue laid in the nature of man, or that such notions pass among them as are carried down by tradi- tion. The same St. Paul says. How can they call on him in whom they have not believed? and how can they believe in him of whom they have not heard? and how can they hear ivithout a preacher? (Rom. x. 14:) which seems plainly to intimate, that men cannot be bound to believe, and, by consequence, can- not be punished for not believing, unless the gospel is preached to them. St. Peter said to Cornelius, Of a truth I perceive that God is no respecter of persons; but in every nation he that fear- eth God and worketh righteousness, is accepted of him, Acts x. 34, 35. Those places seem to import, that those who make the best use they can of that small measure of light that is given them, shall be judged according to it; and that God will not require more of them than he has given them. This also agrees so well with the ideas which we have both of justice and goodness, that this opinion wants not special colours to make it look well. But, on the other hand, the pardon of sin, and the favour of God, are so positively limited to the believing in AKT. XVI 11. Tin*: XXXIX aiitici.ks. 213 C3irist Jesus; jukI it is so expressly said, that Itiere. is no salva- tion in any other, and that there is none other name (or authority) under heaven given among men, whereby we must he saved (Acts iv. 12;) that the distinction which can only be made in this matter is this, that it is only on the account and in the consider- ation of the death of Christ, that sin is pardoned, and men are saved. This is the only sacrifice in the sight of God; so that whoso- ever are received into mercy, have it through Christ as the chan- nel and conveyance of it. But it is not so plainly said, that no man can be saved, unless he has an explicit knowledge of this, together with a belief in it. • Few in the old dispensation could have that: infants and innocents, or idiots, have it not; and yet it were a bold thing to say, that they may not be saved by it. So it does not appear to be clearly revealed, that none should be saved by the death of Christ, unless they do explicitly both know it and believe in it; since it is certain, that God may par- don sin only upon that score, without obliging all men to believe in it, especially when it is not revealed to them. And here ano- ther distinction is to be made, which will clear this whole matter, and all the difficulties that arise out of it. A great difference is to be made between a federal certainty of salvation, secured by the promises of God, and of this new covenant in Christ Jesus, and the extent to which the goodness and mercy of God may go. None are in the federal state of salvation but Christians: to them is given the covenant of grace, and to them the promises of God are made and offered; so that they have a certainty of it upon their performing those conditions that are put in the promises. All others are out of this promise, to whom the tidings of it were never brought; but yet a great differenoe is to be made between them, and those who have been invited to this covenant, and admitted to the outward profession and the common privileges of it, and that yet have in effect rejected it; these are under such positive denunciations of wrath and judgment, that there is no room left for any charitable thoughts or hopes concerning them; so that if any part of the gospel is true, that must be also true, that they are under con- demnation, for having loved darkness more than light (John iii. 19,) when the light shone upon them, and visited them. But as for them whom God has left in darkness, they are certainly out of the covenant, out of those promises and declarations that are made in it; so that they have no federal right to be saved, neither can we affirm that they shall be saved: but, on the other hand, they are not under those positive denunciations, because they were never made to them; therefore, since God has not declared that they shall be damned, no more ought we to take upon us fo damn them. 214 AN EXPOSITION OF ART. XVIII. Instead of stretching the severity of justice by an inference, we may rather venture to stretch the mercy of God, since that is the attribute which of all others is the most magnificently spoken of in the Scriptures; so that we ought to think of it in the largest and most comprehensive manner. But indeed, the most proper way is for us to stop where the revelation of God stops, and not to be wise beyond what is written; but to leave the secrets of God as mysteries too far above us to examine, or to sound their depth. We do certainly know on what terms we ourselves shall be saved or damned; and we ought to be con- tented with that, and rather study to work out our own salvation with fear and trembling, than to let our minds run out into uncertain speculations concerning the measures and the con- ditions of God^s uncovenanted mercies: we ought to take all possible care that we ourselves come not into condemnation, rather than to define positively of others, who must, or who must not, be condemned. It is, therefore, enough to fix this according to the design of the Article, that it is not free to men to choose at pleasure what religion they will, as if that were left to them, or that all religions were alike: which strikes at the foundation, and undermines the truth of all revealed religion. None are within the covenant of grace but true Christians; and all are excluded out of it, to whom it is offered, who do not receive and believe it, and live according to it. So, in a word, all that are saved, are saved through Christ; but whether all these shall be called to the explicit knowledge of him, is more than we have any good ground to affirm. Nor are we to go into that other question, whether any that are only in a state of nature, live fully up to its light? This is that about which we can have no certainty, no more than whether there may be a common grace given to them all, proportioned to their state, and to the obligations of it. This in general may be safely believed, that God will never be wanting to such as do their utmost endeavours in order to the saving of their souls; but that, as in the case of Cornelius, an angel will be sent, and a miracle be wrought, rather than such a person shall be left to perish. But whether any of tliem do ever arrive at that state, is more than we can determine; and it is a vain attempt for us to endeavour to find it out. ART. XIX. TIIK XXXIX ARTICLES. 215 ARTICLE XIX. OF THE CHURCH. The Visible Church of Christ is a Congregation of faithful Men, in the ivhich the pure Word of God is preached, and the Sacra- ments be duly administered according to Chrisfs Ordinance, in all those things that of necessity are requisite to the same. As the Church of Jerusalem, Alexandria, and Antioch, have erred, so also the Church of Rome hath erred, not only in their living and manner of Ceremonies, but also in matters of Faith. This Article, together with some that follow it, relates to the fundamental difference between us and the Church of Rome; — they teaching that we are to judge of doctrines by the authority and the decisions of the Church; whereas we affirm, that we are first to examine the doctrine, and according to that to judge of the purity of a Church. Somewhat was already said on the Sixth Article relating to this matter: what remains is now to be considered. The whole question is to be reduced to this point — Whether we ought to examine and judge of m.atters of religion, according to the light and faculty of judging that we have; or if we are bound to submit in all things to the decision of the Church? Here the matter must be determined against private judgment by very express and clear authorities, otherwise the other side proves itself. For w’e having naturally a faculty of judging for ourselves, and using it in all other things, this freedom being the greatest of our other rights, must be still asserted, unless it can be made appear that God has in some things put a bar uj)on it by his supreme authority. That authority must be very express, if we are required to submit to it in a point of such vast importance to us. We do also see that men are apt to be mistaken, and are apt likewise willingly to mistake, and to mislead others; and that, particu- larly in matters of religion, the world has been so much imposed upon and abused', that we cannot be bound to submit to any sort of persons implicitly, without very good and clear grounds that do assure us of their infallibility: otherwise we have just reason to suspect, that in matters of religion, chiefly in points in which human interests are concerned, men may either through ignorance and weakness, or corruption and on design, abuse and mislead us; so that the authorities or proofs of this infallibility must be very express; since we are sure no man, nor body of 216 AIV EXPOSITION OF ART. XIX. men, can have it among them but by a privilege from God; and a privilege of so extraordinary a nature must be given, if at all, in very plain, and with Very evident characters; since, without these, human nature cannot and ought not to be so tame as to receive it. We must not draw it from an inference, because we think we need it, and cannot be safe without it, that therefore it must be so; because, if it were not so, great disorders would arise from the want of it. This is certainly a wrong w'ay of arguing. If God has clearly revealed it, we must acquiesce in it, because we are sure, if he has lodged infallibility anywhere, he will certainly maintain his own work, and not require us to believe any one implicitly, and not at the same time to preserve us from the danger of being deceived by him. But we must not presume, from our notions of things, to give rules to God. It were, as we may think, very necessary that miracles should be publicly done from time to time, for convincing every age and succession of men; and that good men should be so assisted as generally to live without sin: these and several other things may seem to us extremely convenient, and even necessary; but tilings are not so ordered for all that. It is also certain, that if God has lodged such an infallibility on earth, it ought not to be in such hands as do naturally heighten our prejudices against it. It will go against the grain to believe it, though all outward appearances looked ever so fair for it; but it will be an inconceivable method of Providence, if God should lodge so wonderful an authority in hands that look so very unlike it, that of all others we should the least expect to find it with them. If they have been guilty of notorious impostures to support their own authority, if they have committed great violences to extend it, and have been for some ages together engaged in as many false, unjust, and cruel practices, as are perhaps to be met with in any history — these are such prejudices, that at least they must be overcome by very clear and unquestionable proofs; and, finally, if God has settled such a power in his Church, we must be distinctly directed to those in whose hands it is put, so that we may fall into no mistake in so important a matter. This will be the more necessary, if there are different pretenders to it; we cannot be supposed to be bound to believe in infallibility in general, unless we have an equal evidence directing us to those with whom it rests, and who have the dispensing of it. These general considerations are of great weight in deciding this question, and will carry us far into some preliminaries, which will appear to be indeed great steps towards the conclusion of the matter. There are three ways by which it may be pretended that infallibility can be proved: — the one is the way of Moses and the Prophets, of Clirist and his Apostles, who, liy clear and AllT. XIX. THE XXXIX ARTICLES. 21 7 unquestionable miracles publicly done and well attested, or by express and circumstantiated prophecies of things to come, that came afterwards to be verified, did evidently demonstrate that they were sent of God. Wheresoever we see such characters, and that a miracle is wrought by men who say they are sent of God, which cannot be denied nor avoided; and if what such persons deliver to us is neither contrary to our ideas of God, and of morality, nor to anything already revealed by God; there we must conclude that God has lodged an infallible authority with them, as long and as far as that character is stamped upon it. That is not pretended here; for though they study to per- suade the world that miracles are still among them, yet they do not so much as say that the miracles are wrought by those with whom this infallibility is lodged, and that they are done to prove them to be infallible. For though God should bestow the gift of miracles upon some particular persons among them, that is no more an argument that their Church is infallible, than the miracles that Elijah or Elisha wrought were arguments to prove that the Jewish Church was infallible. Indeed the public mira- cles that belonged to the whole body, such as the cloud of glory, the answers by the Urim and Thummim, the trial of jealousy, and the constant plenty of the sixth year as preparatory to the sabbatical year, seem more reasonable to infer an infallibility; because these were given to that whole church and, nation. But yet the Jewish Church was far from being infallible all that while; for we see they fell all in a body into idolatry upon several occasions: those public miracles proved nothing but that for which they were given, which was, that Moses was sent of God, and that his law was from God, which they saw was still attested in a continuance of extraordinary characters. If infallibility had been promised by that law, then the continuance of the miracles might have been urged to- prove the continuance of the infallibility; but that, not being promised, the miracles were only a standing proof of the authority of their law, and of God’s being still among them. And thus, though we should not dispute the truth of the many legends, that some are daily bringing forth, which yet we may well do, since they are believed to be true by few among themselves, they being consi- dered, among the greater part of the knowing men of that Church, as arts to entertain the credulity and devotion of the people, and to work upon their fears and hopes, but chiefly upon their purses; all these, I say, when confessed, will not serve to prove that there is an infallibility among them, unless they can prove that these miracles are wrought to prove this infallibility. The second sort of proofs that they may bring is from some passages in Scripture, that seem to import that it was given by 218 AN EXPOSITION OF ART. XIX. Christ to the Church. But though in this dispute all these passages ought to be well considered and answered, yet they ought not to be urged to prove this infallibility, till several other things are first proved; — such as, that the Scriptures are the word of God; that the book of the Scriptures is brought down pure and uncorrupted to our hands; and that we are able to understand the meaning of it; for before we can argue from the parts of any book, as being of divine authority, all these things must be previously certain, and be well made out to us; so that we must be well assured of all those particulars, before we may go about to prove anything by any passages drawn out of the Scriptures. Further, these passages suppose that those to whom this infallibility belongs are a Church : we must then know what a Church is, and what makes a body of men to be a Church, before we can be sure that they are that society to whom this infallibility is given; and since there may be, as we know that in fact there are, great diiferences among several of those bodies of men called Churches, and that they condemn one another as guilty of error, schism, and heresy, we are sure that all these cannot be infallible; for contradictions cannot be true. So then we must know which of them is that society where this infalli- bility is to be found. And if in any one society there should be different opinions about the seat of this infallibility, those cannot be all true, though it is very possible that they may be all false: we must be then well assured in whom this great privilege is vested, before we can be bound to acknowledge it, or to submit to it. So here a great many things must be known, before we can either argue from, or apply those passages of Scripture in which it is pretended that infallibility is promised to the Church: and if private judgment is to be trusted in the inquiries that arise about all these particulars, they being the most important and most difficult matters that we can search into, then it will be thought reasonable to trust it yet much further. It is evident, by their proceeding this way, that both the authority and the sense of the Scriptures must be known ante- cedently to our acknowledging the authority or the infallibility of any Church: for it is an eternal principle and rule of reason, never to prove one thing by another, till that other is first well proved; nor can anything by proved afterwards by that which was proved by it. This is as impossible, as if a father should beget a son, and should be afterwards begotten by that son. Therefore the Scriptures cannot prove the infallibility of the Church, and be afterwards proved by the testimony of the Church. So the one or the other of these must be first settled and proved, before any use can be made of it to prove the other by it. ART. XIX. THE XXXIX ARTICLES. 219 The last way they take to find out this Church by, is from some notes that they pretend are peculiar to her; — Beiiar. contr. such as the name catholic; antiquity; extent; tion; succession of bishops; union among themselves, and with their head; conformity of doctrine with former times; miracles; prophecy; sanctity of doctrine; holiness of life; temporal feli- city; curses upon their enemies; and a constant progress or effi- cacy of doctrine; together with the confession of their adversaries : and they fancy that wheresoever we find these, we must believe that body of men to be infallible. But upon all this endless questions will arise; so far will it be from ending controversies, and settling us upon infallibility. If all these must be believed to be the marks of the infallible Church, upon the account of which we ought to believe it, and submit to it, then two inquiries upon every one of these notes must be discussed, before we can be obliged to acquiesce in the infallibility: first, whether that is a true mark of infallibility, or not? — and next, whether it belongs to the Church which they calf infallible, or not? And then another very intricate question will arise upon the whole, whether they must be all found together? or, how many, or w^hich of them together, will give us the entire characters of the infallible Church? In discussing the questions, whether every one of these is a true mark, or not, no use must be made of the Scriptures; for if the Scriptures have their authority from the testimony, or rather the decisions, of the infallible Church, no use can be made of them till that is first fixed. Some of these notes are such as did not at all agree to the Church in the best and purest times; for then she had but a little extent, a short-lived duration, and no temporal felicity; and she was generally reproached by her adversaries. But out of which of these topics can one hope to fetch an assurance of the infallibility of such a body? Can no body of men continue long in a constant series, and with much prosperity, but must they be concluded to be infallible? Can it be thought that the assuming a name can be a mark ? Why is not the name Christian as solemn as Catholic? Might not the Philosophers have concluded from hence against the first Chris- tians, that they were/ by the confession of all men, the true lovers of wisdom; since they were called Philosophers much more unanimously than the Church of Rome is called Catholic? If a conformity of doctrine with former times, and a sanctity of doctrine, are notes of the Church, these will lead men into inquiries of such a nature, that if they are once allowed to go so far with their private judgment, they may well be suffered to go much farther. Some standard must be fixed on, by which the sanctity of doctrine may be examined; they must also be allowed to examine what was the doctrine of former 220 AN EXPOSITION OF ART. XIX. times: and here it will be natural to begin at the first times — the age of the Apostles, It must, therefore, be first known what was the doctrine of that age, before we can examine the conformity of the present age with it. A succession of bishops is confessed to be still kept up among corrupted Churches. An union of the Church with its head cannot be supposed to be a note, unless it is first made out by some other topics that this Church must have a head, and that he is infallible: for unless it is proved by some other argument that she ought to have a head, she cannot be bound to adhere to him, or to own him; and un- less it is also proved that he is infallible, she cannot be bound absolutely, and without restrictions, to adhere to him. Holiness of life cannot be a mark, unless it is pretended that those in whom the infallibility is are all holy. A few holy men here and there are indeed an honour to any body; but it will seem a strange infer- ence, that because some few in a society are eminently holy, that, therefore, others of that body who are not so, but are, perhaps, as eminently vicious, should be infallible. Somewhat has been already said concerning miracles: the pretence to prophesy falls within the same consideration; the one being as wonderful a communication of omniscience as the other is of omnipotence. For the confession of adversaries, or some curses on them — these cannot signify much, unless they were universal. Fair enemies will acknowledge what is good among their adversaries; but as that Church is the least apt of any society we know, to speak good of those who differ from her, so she has not very much to boast as to others saying much good of her. And if signal pro- vidences have now and then happened, these are such things, and they are carried on with such a depth, that we must acquiesce in the observation of the wisest man of all ages, that the race is not to the swifts nor the battle to the strong; but that time and chance happeneth to all things, Eccl. ix. 11. And thus it appears, that these pretended notes, instead of giving us a clear thread to lead us up to infallibility and to end all controversies, do start a great variety of questions, that engage us into a labyrinth out of which it cannot be easy for any to extricate themselves. But if we could see an end of this, then a new set of questions will come on, when we go to examine all Churches by them — whether the Church of Rome has them all? and if she alone has them so that no other Church has them equally with her, or beyond her? If all these must be discussed before we can settle this ques- tion, which is the true infallible Church? a man must stay long ere he can come to a point in it. Therefore, there can be no other way taken here, but to examine, first, what makes a particular Church? and then, since the Catholic Church is an united body of all particular ART. XIX. THE XXXIX ARTICLES. 221 Cliurclies, wlien the true notion of a particular Church is fixed, it will be easy from that to form a notion of the Catholic Church. It would seem reasonable by the method of all Creeds, in par- ticular of that called the Apostles’ Creed, that we ought first to settle our faith as to the great points of the Christian religion, and from thence go to settle the notion of a true Church; and that we ought not to begin with the notion of a Church, and from thence go to the doctrine. The doctrine of Christianity must be first stated, and from this we are to take our measures of all Churches; and that chiefly with respect to that doctrine which every Christian is bound to believe. Here a distinction is to be made between those capital and fundamental Articles, without which a man cannot be esteemed a true Christian, nor a Church a true Church; and other truths, which being delivered in Scripture, all men are indeed obliged to believe them, yet they are not of that nature that the ignorance of them, or an error in them, can exclude from salvation. To make this sensible: it is a proposition of another sort, that Christ died for sinners, than this, that he died at the third or at the sixth hour. And yet if the second proposition is expressly revealed in Scripture, we are l)ound to believe it, since God has said it, though it is not of the same nature with the other. Here a controversy does naturally arise that wise people are unwilling to meddle with — What Articles are fundamental, and what are not. The defining of fundamental Articles seems, on the one hand, to deny salvation to such as do not receive them all, which men are not willing to do. And, on the other hand, it may seem a leaving men at liberty, as to all other particulars that are not reckoned up among the fundamentals. But after all, the covenant of grace, the terms of salvation, and the grounds on which we expect it, seem to be things of another nature than all other truths, which, though revealed, are not of themselves the means or conditions of salvation. Wheresoever true baptism is, there it seems the essentials of this covenant are preserved: for if we look on baptism as a federal admission into Christianity, there can be no baptism where the essence of Christianity is not preserved. As far then as we believe that any society has preserved that, so far we are bound to receive her baptism, and no further. For unless we consider baptism as a sort of charm, that such words joined with a washing of water make one a Christian; — which seems to be expressly contrary to what St. Peter says of it, that it is not the ivashing away the filth of the fiesh, but the answer of a 222 AN EXPOSITION OP ART. XIX. good conscience towards God that saves us (1 Pet. iii. 21;) — we must conclude, that baptism is a federal thing, in which, after that the sponsions are made, the seal of regeneration is added. From hence it will follow, that all who have a true baptism, that makes men believers and Christians, must also have the true faith as to the essentials of Christianity: the fundamentals of Christianity seem to be all that is necessary to make baptism true and valid. And upon this a distinction is to be made, that will discover and destroy a sophism that is often used on this occasion. A true Church is, in one sense, a society that preserves the essen- tials and fundamentals of Christianity; in another sense, it stands for a society, all whose doctrines are true, that has corrupted no part of this religion, nor mixed any errors with it. A true man is one who has a soul and a body, that are the essential consti- tuents of a man; whereas, in another sense, a man of sincerity and candour is called a true man. Truth, in the one sense imports the essential constitution, and in the other it imports only a quality that is accidental to it. So when we acknowledge that any society is a true Church, we ought to be supposed to mean no other, than that the covenant of grace in its essential constituent parts is preserved entire in that body: and not that it is true in all its doctrines and decisions. The second thing to be considered in a Church is, their asso- ciation together in the use of the Sacraments: for these are given by Christ to the society, as the rites and badges of that body. That which makes particular men believers, is their receiving the fundamentals of Christianity; so that which constitutes the body of the Church, is the profession of that faith, and the use of those sacraments, which are the rites and distinctions of those who profess it. In this likewise a distinction is to be made between what is essential to a sacrament, and what is the exact observance of it according to the institution. Additions to the sacraments do not annul them, though they corrupt them with that adulterate mixture. Therefore, where the sponsions are made, and a wash- ing with water is used with the words of Christ, there we own that there is a true baptism; though there may be a large addi- tion of other rites, which we reject as superstitious, though we do not pretend that they null the baptism. But if any part of the institution is cut off, there we do not own the sacrament to be true; because, it being an institution of Christ’s, it can no more be esteemed a true sacrament, than as it retains all tliat which by the institution appears to be the main and essential part of the action. Upon this account it is, that since Christ appointed bread and wine for his other sacrament, and that he not only blessed both, but distributed 1)oth, with words appropriated to eacli ART. XIX. THE XXXIX ARTICLES. 223 kind, we do not esteem that to ])e a true sacrament, in which either the one or the other of these kinds is withdrawn. But, in the next place, there may be many things necessary in the way of precept and order, both with relation to the sacraments and to the other public acts of worship, in which, though additions or defects are erroneous and faulty, yet they do not annul the sacraments. We think none ought to baptize but men dedicated to the ser- vice of God, and ordained according to that constitution that was settled in the Church by the Apostles ; and yet baptism by laics, or by women, such as is most commonly practised in the Roman Church, is not esteemed null by us, nor is it repeated: because we make a difference between what is essential to a sacrament, and what is requisite in the regular way of using it. None can deny this among us, but those who will question the whole Christianity of the Romish Church, where the midwives do generally baptize; but if this invalidates the baptism, then we must question all that is done among them: persons so bap- tized, if their baptism is void, are neither truly ordained, nor capable of any other act of Church communion. Therefore, men^s being in orders, or their being duly ordained, is not necessary to the essence of the sacrament of baptism, but only to the regularity of administering it; and so the want of it does not void it, but does only prove such men to be under some defects and disorder in their constitution. Thus I have laid down those distinctions that will guide us in the right understanding of this Article. If xve believe that any society retains the fundamentals of Christianity, we do from that conclude it to be a true Church, to have a true baptism, and the members of it to be capable of salvation. But we are not upon that bound to associate ourselves to their communion; for if they have the addition of false doctrines, or any unlawful parts of worship among them, we are not bound to join in that which we are persuaded is error, idolatry, or superstition. If the sacraments that Christ has appointed are observed and ministered by any Church, as to the main of them, according to his institution, we are to own those for valid actions : but we are not for that bound to join in communion with them, if they have adulterated these with many mixtures and additions. Thus a plain difference is made between our owning that a Church may retain the fundamentals of Christianity, a true baptism, and true orders, which are a consequent upon the for- mer, and our joining with that Church in such acts as we think are so far vitiated that they become unlawful for us to do them. Pursuant to this, we do neither repeat the baptism nor the ordinations of the Church of Rome: we acknowledge, that our forefathers were both baptized and ordained in that commu- 224 AN EXPOSITION OF ART. XIX. nion; and we derive our present Christianity or baptism, and our orders, from thence; yet we think, that there were so many unlawful actions, even in those rituals, besides the other corrup- tions of their worship, that we cannot join in such any more. The being baptized in a Church does not tie a man to every thing in that Church; it only ties him to the covenant of grace. The stipulations which are made in baptism, as well as in ordi- nation, do only bind a man to the Christian faith, or to the faith- ful dispensing of that gospel, and of those sacraments, of which he is made a minister: so he who, being convinced of the errors and Corruptions of a Church, departs from them, and goes on in the purity of the Christian religion, does pursue the true effect both of his baptism and of his ordination vows. For these are to be considered as ties upon him only to God and Christ, and not to adhere to the other dictates of that body in which he had his birth, baptism, and ordination. The great objection against all this is, that it sets up a private judgment, it gives particular persons a right of judging Churches; whereas the natural order is, that private persons ought to be subject and obedient to the Church. This must needs feed pride and curiosity, it must break all order, and cast things loose, if every single man, according to his reading and presumption, will judge of Churches and Communions. On this head it is very easy to employ a great deal of popular eloquence, to decry private men^s examining Scriptures, and forming their judgments of things out of them, and not submitting all to the judgment of the Church. But how absurd soever this may seem, all parties do acknowledge that it must be done. Those of the Church of Rome do teach, that a man born in the Greek Church, or among us, is bound to lay down his error, and his communion too, and to come over to them; and yet they allow our baptism, as well as they do the ordinations of tlie Greek Church. Thus they allow private men to judge, and that in so great a point, as what Church and what communion ought to be chosen or forsaken. And it is certain, that to judge of Churches and Communions is a thing of that intricacy, that if private judg- ment is allowed here, there is no reason to deny it its full scope as to all other matters. God has given us rational faculties to guide and direct us; and we must make the most of these that we can: we must judge with our own reasons, as well as see with our own eyes: neither can we, or ought we, to resign up our understandings to any others, unless we are convinced that God has imposed this upon us, by his making them infallible, so that we are secured from error if we follow them. ART. XIX. THE XXXIX ARTICLES. 225 All this we must examine, and be well assured of it, other- wise it will be a very rash, unmanly, and base thing in us, to muffle up our own understandings, and to deliver our reason and faith over to others blindfold. Reason is God’s image in us: and as the use and application of our reason, as well as of the freedom of our wills, are the highest excellences of the rational nature; so they must be always claimed, and ought never to be parted with by us, but upon clear and certain autho- rities in the name of God, putting us implicitly under the dictates of others. We may abuse the use of our reason as well as the liberty of our will, and may be damned for the one as well as the other. But when we set ourselves to make the best use we can of the freedom of our wills, we may and do upon that expect secret assistances. We have both the like promises, direction to the like prayers, and reason to expect the same illumination, to make us see, know, and comprehend the truths of religion, that we have to expect that our powers shall be inwardly strength- ened to love and obey them. David prays that God may open his eyes, as well as that he may make him to go in his ways, Psal. cxix. 18. 35. The promises in the Prophets concerning the gospel dispensation, carry in them the being taught of God, as well as the being made to walk in his ways; and the enlightening the mind, and the eyes of the mind, to know, is prayed for by St. Paul, as well as that Christ may dwell in their hearts, Eph. i. 18; hi. 17. Since, then, there is an assistance of the Divine grace given to fortify the understanding as well as to enable the will, it follows, that our understanding is to be employed by us in order to the finding out of the truth, as well as our will in order to the obeying of it. And though this may have very ill conse- quences, it does not follow from thence that it is not true. No consequences can be worse than the corruption that is in the world, and the damnation that follows upon sin; and yet God permits it, because he has made us free creatures. Nor can any reason be given, why we should be less free in the use of our understanding than we are in the use of our will; or why God should make it to be less possible for us to fall into errors, than it is to commit sins. The wrath of God is as much denounced against men that hold the truth in unrighteousness (Rom. i. 18. 24. 26) as against other sins; and it is reckoned among the heaviest of curses, to he given up to strong delusions, to believe a lie, 2 Thess. ii. 11. Upon all these reasons, therefore, it seems clear, that our understandings are left free to us as well as our wills; and if we observe the style and method of the Scriptures, we shall find in them, all over, a constant appeal to a man’s reason, and to his intellectual faculties. p 226 AN EXPOSITION OP ART. XIX. If the mere dictates of the Church, or of infallible men, had been the resolution or foundation of faith, there had been no need of such a long thread of reasoning and discourse, as both our Saviour used while on earth, and as the Apostles used in their writings. We see the way of authority is not taken, but expla- nations are ofiered, proofs and illustrations are brought to con- vince the mind; which shows that God, in the clearest manifes- tation of his will, would deal with us as with reasonable creatures, who are not to believe but upon persuasion, and are to use our reason in order to the attaining that persuasion. And, therefore, upon the whole matter, we ought not to believe doctrines to be true because the Church teaches them; but we ought to search the Scriptures, and then, according as we find the doctrine of any Church to be true in the fundamentals, we ought to believe her to be a true Church ; and if, besides this, the whole extent of the doctrine and worship, together not only with the essential parts of the sacraments, but the whole administration of them and the other rituals of any- Church, are pure and true — then we ought to account such a Church true, in the largest extent of the word true; and, by consequence, we ought to hold communion with it. Another question may arise out of the first words of this Arti- cle, concerning the visibility of this Church, whether it must be always visible? According to the distinction hitherto made use of, the resolution of this will be soon made. There seem to be promises in the Scriptures, of a perpetual duration of the Chris- tian Church: / will be with you alway, even to the end of the world (Matt, xxviii. 20;) and. The gates of hell shall not prevail against the Church, Matt. xvi. 18. The Jewish religion had a period prefixed, in which it was to come to an end: but the pro- phecies that are among the Prophets concerning the new dispen- sation, seem to import not only its continuance, but its being continued still visible in the world. But as the Jewish dispen- sation was long continued, after they had fallen generally into some very gross errors, so the Christian Church may be visible still, though not infallible. God may preserve the succession of a true Church, as to the essentials and fundamentals of faith, in the world, even though this society should fall into error. So a visible society of Christians in g, true Church, as to the essentials of our faith, is not controverted by us: we do only deny the infallibility of this true Church ; and, therefore, we are not afraid of that question. Where was your Church before Henry the Eighth? We answer, it was where it is now, here in Eng- land, and in the other kingdoms of the world; only it was then corrupted, and it is now pure. There is, therefore, no sort of inconvenience in owning the constant visibility of a constant succession and Church of true Christians — true as to the essentials of the covenant of grace, though not true in all their ART. XIX. THE XXXIX ARTICLES. 227 doctrines. This seems to ])e a part of the glory of the Messias, and of his kingdom, that he shall be still visibly worshipped in the world by a body of men called by his name. But when visibility is thus separated from infallibility, and it is made out that a Church may be a true Church, though she has a large allay of errors and corruptions mixed in her constitution and decisions, there will be no manner of inconvenience in owning a constant visibility, even at the same time that we charge the most eminent part of this visible body with many errors, and with much corruption. So far has the first part of this Article been treated of: from it we pass to the second; which affirms, that as the other Patri- archal and Apostolical Churches, such as Jerusalem, Alexandria, and Antioch, have erred, so the Church of Rome has likewise erred, and that not only in their living, and manner of cere- monies, but also in matters of faith. It is not questioned but that the other Patriarchal Churches have erred; both that where our Saviour himself first taught, and which was governed by two of the Apostles successively, and those which were founded by St. Peter in person, or by proxy, as Church history represents Alexandria and Antioch to have been. Those of the Church of Rome, by whom they are at this day condemned both of heresy and schism, do not dispute this : nor do they dispute that many of their Popes have led bad and flagitious lives: they deny not that the canons, ceremonies, and government of the Church, are very much changed by the influence and authority of their Popes: but the whole question turns upon this, whether the See of Rome has erred in matters of faith, or not? In this, those of that communion are divided. Some, by the Church or See of Rome, mean the Popes person- ally; so they maintain, that they never have, and never can fall into error: whereas, others, by the See of Rome, mean that whole body that holds communion with Rome, which they say cannot be tainted with error. And these separate this from the per- sonal infallibility of Popes: for if a Pope should err, they think that a General Council has authority to proceed against him, and to deprive him ; and thus, though he should err, the See might be kept free from error. I shall upon this Article only consider the first opinion, reserving the consideration of the second to the Article concerning General Councils. As to the Popes, their being subject to error, that must be confessed, unless it can be proved that, by a clear and express privilege granted them by God, they are excepted out of the common condition of human nature. It is further highly pro- bable that there is no such privilege, since the Church continued for many ages before it was so much as pretended to; and that in a time when that See was not only claiming all the rights that p 2 228 AN EXPOSITION OF ART. XIX. belonged to it, but challenging a great many that were flatly denied and rejected — such as the right of receiving appeals from the African Churches; in which reiterated instances, and a bold claim upon a spurious canon, pretended to be of the Council of Nice, were long pursued: but those Churches asserted their authority of ending all matters within themselves. In all this contest infallibility was never claimed; no more than it had been by Victor, when he excommunicated the Asian Churches for observing Easter on the fourteenth day of the moon, and not on the Lord^s day after, according to the custom of the Roman as well as of other Churches. When Pope Stephen quarrelled with St. Cyprian about the rebaptizing of heretics, Cyprian and Firmilian were so far from Euseb Hist submitting to his authority, that they spake of him with Ecci. i. V. ■ a freedom used by equals, and with a severity that showed cyp?’/Ep.^^' tl^ey were far from thinking him infallible. When the whole East was distracted with the disputes occasioned Con. Sard, by the Arian controversy, there was so much partiality ■ ’ ^ ■ in all their councils, that it was decreed that appeals should be. made to Pope Julius, and afterwards to his successors; though here was an oceasion given to assert this infallibility, if it had been thought on, yet none ever spoke of it. Great reverence was paid to that Church, both because they believed it was founded by St. Peter and St. Paul, and chiefly because it W'as the imperial city; for we see that all other Sees had that degree of dignity given them, which by the constitution of the Roman empire was lodged in their cities: and so when Byzance was made the imperial city, and called New Rome, though more commonly Constantinople, it had a patriarchal dignity bestowed on it, and was in all things declared equal to Old Rome, only the point of rank and order excepted. This was decreed in two General Councils, the second and the fourth, in so express a manner, that it alone, before equitable judges, would fully show the sense of the Church in the fourth and fifth century upon Con. Const. this head. When Pope Liberius condemned Athana- coS; chai- sius, and subscribed to Semi-Arianism, this was never ced. c. 28. considered as a new decision in that matter, so that it altered the state of it. No use was made of it, nor was any argument drawn from it. Liberius was universally condemned for what he had done; and when he repented of it and retracted it, he was again owned by the Church. We have in the sixth century a most undeniable instance of the sense of the whole Church in this matter. Pope Honorius was by the Sixth General Council condemned as a Monothe- lite; and this in the presence of the Pope’s legates; and he was anathematized by several of the succeeding Popes. It is to no purpose here to examine whether he was justly or unjustly con- ART. XIX. THE XXXIX ARTICLES. 229 demned; it is enough that the sense both of the Eastern and Western Chureh appeared evidently in that age upon these two points — that a Pope might be a heretie; and that^ Conc. siim- being such, he might be held accursed for it: and in Soin .' l that time there was not any one that suggested, that either he could not fall into heresy, since our Saviour had prayed that St. Peter’s faith might not fail, or that, if he had fallen into it, he must be left to the judgment of God, but that the holy See (according to the fable of P. Marcellin) could be judged by nobody. The confusions that followed for some ages in the western parts of Europe, more particularly in Italy, gave occasion to the bishops of Rome to extend their authority. The emperors at Constantinople, and their exarchs at Ravenna, studied to make them sure to their interest, yet still asserting their authority over them. The new conquerors studied also to gain them to their side; and they managed their matters so dex- terously, that they went on still increasing and extending their authority, till, being much straitened by the kings of the Lom- bards, they were protected by a new conquering family that arose in France in the eighth century; who, to give credit both to their usurpation of that crown, and to the extending their dominions into Italy, and the assuming the empire of the West, did both protect and enrich them, and enlarged their authority — the great- ness of which they reckoned could do them no hurt, as long as they kept the confirmation of their election to themselves. That family became quickly too feeble to hold that power long, and then an imposture was published, of a volume of the Decretal Epistles of the Popes of the first ages; in which they were represented as acting according to those high claims to which they were then beginning to pretend. Those ages were too blind and too ignorant to be capable of searching critically into the truth of this collection: it quickly passed for current; and though some in the beginning disputed it, yet that was soon borne down, and the credit of that work was established. It furnished them with precedents, that they were careful enough not only to follow but to outdo. Thus a work, which is now as universally rejected by the learned men of their own body as spurious, as it was then implicitly taken for genuine, gave the chief foundation during many ages to their unbounded authority: and this furnishes us with a very just prejudice against it, that it was managed with so much fraud and imposture; to which they added afterwards much cruelty and violence — the two worst characters possible, and the least likely to be found joined with infallibility: for it is reasonable enough to apprehend, that if God had lodged such a privilege anywhere, he would have so influenced those who were the depositaries of it, that they should have appeared somewhat like that authority to which they laid claim; and that 230 AN EXPOSITION OF ART. XIX. he would not have forsaken them so, that for above eight hundred years the Papacy, as it is represented by their own writers, is perhaps the worst succession of men that is to be found in history. But now, to come more close to prove what is here asserted in this part of the Article. If all those doctrines which were established at Trent, and that have been confirmed by Popes, and most of them brought into a new creed, and made parts of it, are found to be gross errors — or if but any one of them should be found to be an error — then there is no doubt to be made but that the Church of Rome hath erred; so the proof brought against every one of these is likewise a proof against their infallibility. But I shall here give one instance of an error, which will not be denied by the greater part of the Church of Rome. They have now for above six hundred years asserted, that they had an authority over princes, not only to convict and condemn them of heresy, and to proceed against them with Church censures; but that they had a power to depose them, to absolve their subjects from tlieir oaths of allegiance, and to transfer their dominions to such persons as should undertake to execute their sentences. This they have often put in execution, and have constantly kept up their claim to it to this day. It will not serve them to get clear here, to say, that these were the violent practices of some Popes: what they did in many particular instances may be so turned off, and left as a blemish on the memories of some of them; but the point at present in question is, whether they have not laid claim to this, as a right belonging to their See, as a part of Diet. Papse, St. PetePs authority descended to them? Whether Ep.'oreg. 7 . they have not founded it on his being Christ’s Vicar, post Ep. 55. ^Yio was the King of kings, and Lord of lo7'ds, to whom all power in heaven and in earth was given? Whether they d^Majof'et fouiided it on Jeremy^s being set over nations obed. c. 1. and kingdoms, to root out, pluck down, and to destroy ? and on other places of Scripture; not forgetting that the first words of the Bible are, Li the beginning, and not In the beginnings; from which they inferred, that there is but one principle from whence all power is derived; and that God made two great lights, the Bun to rule by day — which they applied to themselves. This, I say, is the question: whether they did not assume this authority as a power given them by God? As for the applying it to particular instances, to those kings and emperors whom they deposed, that is, indeed, a personal thing, whether they were guilty of heresy or of being favourers of it, or not; and, whether the Popes proceeded against them with too much violence, or not? ART. XIX. THE XXXIX ARTICLES. 231 The point now in question is^ whether they declared this to be a doctrine — that there was an authority lodged with their See for doing such things; and, whether they alleged Scripture and tradition for it? Now this will appear evident to those who will read their bulls; in the preambles of which those quotations will ^onc lat be found, as some of them are in the body of the Canon Law; and it is decreed in it, that the belief of this is 4. ckn. 3. absolutekj necessary to salvation, This was pursued in a course of many ages. General Coun- cils, as they are esteemed among them, have concurred with the Popes both in general decrees asserting this power to be in them, and in special sentences against princes. This became the universally received doctrine of those ages : no univer- card. Per- sity nor nation declaring against it; not so much as one ^ngue^ku divine, civilian, canonist, or casuist writ against it, as tiers etat. Card. Perron truly said. It was so certainly believed, that those writers whom the deposed princes got to undertake their defence, do not in any of their books pretend to call the doc- trine in general in question. Two things were disputed: one was, whether Popes had a direct power in temporals over princes; so that they were as much subject to them as feudatory princes were to their supe- rior lords? This, to which Boniface the Eighth laid claim, was indeed contradicted. The other point was, whether those particulars for which princes had been deposed, such as the giving the investiture to bishoprics, were heresies or not? This was much contested; but the power, in the case of manifest heresy, or of favouring it, to depose princes, and transfer their crowns to others, was never called in question. This was cer- tainly a definition made in their chair, ex cathedra: for it was addressed to all their community, both to laity and clergy; plenary pardons were bestowed with it on those who executed it; the clergy did generally preach the croisades upon it. Princes that were not concerned in him that was deposed, gave way to the publication of those bulls, and gave leave to their subjects to take the cross, in order to the executing of them; and the people did in vast multitudes gather about the standards that were set up for leading on armies to execute them; while many learned men writ in defence of this power, and not one man durst write against it. This argument lies not only against the infallibility of Popes, but against that of General Councils likewise; and also against the authority of oral tradition : for here, in a succession of many ages, the tradition was wholly changed from the doctrine of former times, which had been, that the clergy were subject to princes, and had no authority over them or their crowns. Nor can it be said that that was a point of discipline; for it was 232 AN EXPOSITION OF ART. XIX. founded on an article of doctrine, whether there was such a power in the Popes or not? The prudence of executing or not executing it, is a point of discipline and of the government of the Church ; but it is a point of doctrine, whether Christ has given such an authority to St. Peter and his followers? And those points of speculation, upon which a great deal turns as to practice, are cer- tainly so important, that in them, if in anything, we ought to expect an infallibility: for in this case a man is distracted between two contrary propositions; the one is, that he must obey the civil powers, as set over him by an ordinance of God; so that if he re- sists them, he shall receive in himself damnation ; the other is, that the Pope being ChrisPs Vicar, is to be obeyed when he absolves him from his former oath and allegiance; and that the new prince set up by him, is to be obeyed under the pain of damnation likewise. Here a man is brought into a great strait, and, therefore, he must be guided by infallibility, if in anything. So the whole argument comes to this head — that we must either believe that the deposing power is lodged by Christ in the See of Rome; or we must conclude, with the Article, that they have erred, and, by consequence, that they are not infallible: for the erring in any one point, and at any one time, does quite destroy the claim of infallibility. Before this matter can be concluded, we must consider what is brought to prove it : what was laid down at first must be here remembered, that the proofs brought for a thing of this nature must be very express and clear. A privilege of such a sort, against which the appearances and prejudices are so strong, must be very fully made out before we can be bound to believe it: nor can it be reasonable to urge the authority of any pas- sages from Scripture, till the grounds are shown for which the Scriptures themselves ought to be believed. Those who think that it is in general well proved that there must be an infallibility in the Church, conclude from thence that it must be in the Pope: for if there must be a living speak- ing judge always ready to guide the Church, and to decide controversies, they say this cannot be in the diffusive body of Christians, for these cannot meet to judge; nor can it be in a General Council, the meeting of which depends upon so many accidents, and on the consent of so many princes, that the in- fallibility will lie dormant for some ages, if the General Council is the seat of it. Therefore, they conclude, that since it is cer- tainly in the Church, and can be nowhere else but in the Pope, therefore, it is lodged in the See of Rome: whereas we, on the other hand, think this is a strong argument against the infalli- bility in general, that it does not appear in whom it is vested : and we think that every side does so effectually confute the other, that we believe them all as to that; and think they argue ART. XIX. THE XXXIX ARTICLES. 233 much stronger when tliey prove where it cannot be, than when they pretend to prove where it must be. Tliis, in the point now in hand, concerning the Pope, seems as evident as anything can possibly be; it not appearing, that, after the words of Christ to St. Peter, the other Apostles thought the point was thereby decided, who among them should be the greatest; for that debate was still on foot, and was canvassed among them in the very night in which our Saviour was betrayed. Nor does it appear, that, after the effusion of the Holy Ghost, which certainly inspired them with the full understanding of Christ’s words, they thought there was anything peculiarly given to St. Peter beyond the rest. He was questioned upon his baptizing Cornelius; he was not singly appealed to in the great question of subjecting the Gentiles to the yoke of the Mosaical Law; he delivered his opinion as one of the Apostles; after which St. James summed up the matter, and settled the decision of it. He was charged by St. Paul as guilty of dissimulation in that matter, for which St. Paul withstood him to his face; and he justifies that in an Epistle that is confessed to be writ by divine inspiration. St. Paul does also in the same Epistle plainly assert the equality of his own authority with his; and that he received no authority from him, and owed him no dependence : nor was he ever appealed to in any of the points that appear to have been disputed in the times that the Epistles were written. So that we see no characters of any special infallibility that was in him, besides that which was the effect of the inspiration that was in the other Apostles as well as in him: nor is there a tittle in the Scripture, not so much as by a remote intimation, that he was to derive that authority, whatsoever it was, to any successor, or to lodge it in any particular city or see. The silence of the Scripture in this point seems to be a full proof that no such thing w^as intended by God; otherwise we have all reason to believe that it would have been clearly expressed. St. Peter himself ought to have declared this : and since both Alexandria and Antioch, as well as Rome, pretend to derive from him, and that the succession to those sees began in him, this makes a decision in this point, so much the more necessary. When St. Peter writ his Second Epistle, in which he men- tions a revelation that he had from Christ of his approaching dissolution^ though that was a very proper occasion for declar- ing such an important matter, he says nothing that relates to it, but gives only a new attestation of the truth of Christ’s divine mission, and of what he himself had been a witness to in the Mount, when he saw the excellent glory, and heard the voice out of it, 2 Pet. i. 17- He leaves a provision in writing for *the following ages, but says nothing of any succession or 234 AN EXPOSITION OF AUT. XIX. see. So that here the greatest of all privileges is pretended to be lodged in a succession of bishops, without any one passage in Scripture importing it. Another set of difficulties arise, concerning the persons who have a right' to choose these Popes in whom this right is vested, and w’hat number is necessary for a canonical election? how far simony voids it, and who is the competent judge of that? or who shall judge in the case of two different elections, which has often happened? We must also have a certain rule to know when the Popes judge as private persons, and when they judge infallibly; with whom they must consult, and what solemnities are necesary to make them speak ex cathedra, or infallibly. For if this infallibility comes as a privilege from a grant made by Christ, we ought to expect, that all those necessary circum- stances to direct us in order to the receiving and submitting to it, should be fixed by the same authority that made the grant. Here then are very great difficulties: let us now see what is offered to make out this great and important claim. The chief proof is brought from those words of our Saviour, when upon St. Peter^s confessing, that he was the Christ, the Son of the living God, he said to him. Thou art Peter, and upon this Rock I will build my Church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven; and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. Matt. xvi. 16. 18, 19. This begins with an allusion to his name; and discourses built upon such allusions are not to be understood strictly or grammatically. By the Rock upon which Christ promises to build his Church, many of the Fathers have understood the person of Christ, others have understood the confession of him, or faith in him, which, indeed, is but a different way of expressing the same thing. And it is certain that, strictly speaking, the Church can only be said to be founded upon Christ, and upon his doctrine: but in a secondary sense it may be said to be founded upon the Apostles, and upon St. Peter as the first in order; which is not to be disputed. Now though this is a sense which was not put on these words for many ages; yet, when it should be allowed to be their true sense, it will not prove anything to have been granted to St. Peter but what was common to the other Apostles, who are all called the foundations upon which the Church is built, Eph. ii. 20. That which follows, of the gates of hell not being able to prevail against the Church (Rev. xxi. 14,) may be either understood of death, which is often called the gate to the grave, which is the sense of the word that is rendered hell; and then the meaning of these words will be, that the Church whicli Christ was to raise should never be extinguished, nor die, or ART. XIX. THE XXXIX ARTICLES. 235 come to a period, as the Jewish religion then did; or, according to the custom of the Jews, of holding their courts and councils about their gates, by the gates of hell may be understood the designs and contrivances of the powers of darkness, which should never prevail over the Church to root it out, and destroy it : for the word rendered prevail does signify an entire victory; this only imports, that the Church should be still preserved against all the attempts of hell, but does not intimate that no error was ever to get into it. By the words kingdom of heaven, generally through the whole gospel, the dispensation of the Messias is understood. This appears evidently from the words with which both St. J ohn Bap- tist and our Saviour began their preaching. Repent, for the king- dom of heaven is at hand (Matt. hi. 2; iv. 17;) and the many parables and comparisons that Christ gave of the kingdom of heaven, can only be understood of the preaching of the gospel. This being then agreed to, the most natural and the least forced exposition of those words must be, that St. Peter was to open the dispensation of the gospel. The proper use of a key is to open a door: and as this agrees with these words. He that hath the key of the house of David, that openeth and no man shutteth ; and shutteth and no man openeth (Rev. iii. 7 ;) and with the phrase of the key of knowledge (Luke xi. 52,) by which the lawyers are described; for they had a key with writing-tables given them, as the badges of their profession: so it agrees with the accomplish- ment of this promise in St. Peter, who first opened the gospel to the Jews, after the wonderful effusion of the Holy Ghost; and more eminently when he first opened the door to the Gentiles, preaching to Cornelius, and baptizing him and his household, to which the phrase of the kingdom of heaven seems to have a more particular relation. This dispensation was committed to St. Peter, and seems to be claimed by him as his peculiar privilege in the council at Jerusalem. This is a clear and plain sense of these words. For those who would carry them further, and understand by the kingdom of heaven our eternal happiness, must use many distinctions; otherwise, if they expound them lite- rally, they will ascribe to St. Peter that which certainly could only belong to our Saviour himself : though at the same time it is not to be denied, but that, under the figure of keys, the power of discipline, and the conduct and management of Christians, may be understood. But as to this, all the pastors of the Church have their share in it; nor can it be appropriated to any one person. As for that of binding and loosing, and the confirming in heaven what he should do in earth, whatever it may signify, it is no special grant to St. Peter; for the same words are spoken by our Saviour elsewhere to all the Apostles: so this is given equally to them all. The words binding and loosing are used 236 AN EXPOSITION OF ART. XIX. by the Jewish writers, in the sense of affirming or denying the obligation of any precept of the Law that might be in dispute. So, according to this common form of speech, and the sense for- merly given to the words kingdom of heaven, the meaning of these words must be, that Christ committed to the Apostles the dispensing his gospel to the world, by which he authorized them to dissolve the obligation of the Mosaical Law, and to give other laws to the Christian Church, which they should do under such visible characters of a divine authority, empowering and con- ducting them in it, that it should be very evident that what they did on earth was also ratified in heaven. These words, thus understood, carry in them a clear sense, which agrees with the whole design of the gospel. But whatsoever their sense may be, it is plain that there was nothing given peculiarly to St. Peter by them, which was not likewise given to the rest of the Apos- tles. Nor do these words of our Saviour to St. Peter import anything of a successive infallibility that was to be derived from him with any distinction beyond the other Apostles; unless it were a priority of order and dignity: and whatever that was, there is not so much as a hint given, that it was to descend from him to any See or succession of Bishops, As for our Saviour^s praying that St. Peter’s faith might not fail (Luke xxii. 32;) and his restoring him to his apostolical function, by a thrice repeated charge. Feed my sheep, feed my lambs (John xxi. 15 — 17;) that has such a visible relation to his fall, and to his denying him, that it does not seem necessary to enlarge further on the making it out, or on showing that these words are capable of no other signification, and cannot be carried further. The importance of this argument, rather than the difficulty of it, has made it necessary to dwell fully upon it. So much depends upon it, and the missionaries of the Church of Rome are so well instructed in it, that it ought to be well considered; for how little strength soever there may be in the arguments brought to prove this infallibility, yet the colours are specious, and they are commonly managed both with much art and great confidence. ART. XX. TIIR XXXIX ARTICLKS. 2.57 ARTICLE XX. OF THE AUTHORITY OF THE CHURCH. The Church hath Power to decree Rites or Ceremonies, and Authority in Matters of Faith. And yet it is not lawful for the Church to ordain anything that is contrary to God’s Word written; neither may it so expound one place of Scripture, that it be repugnant to another. Wherefore, although the Church he a Witness and Keeper of Holy Writ, yet as it ought not to decree anything against the same, so besides the same ought it not to enforce anything to he believed for necessity of Salvation. This Article consists of two parts: — the first asserts a power in the Church both to decree rites and ceremonies^ and to judge in matters of faith; the second limits this power over matters of faith to the Scriptures; so that it must neither contradict them, nor add any articles as necessary to salvation to those contained in them. This is suitable to some words that were once in the Fifth Article, but were afterwards left out; instead of which the first words of this Article were put in this place, according to the printed editions; though they are not in the original of the Article signed by both Houses of Convocation, that are yet extant. As to the first part of the Article, concerning the power of the Church either with relation to ceremonies or points of faith, the dispute lies only with those who deny all Church power, and think that Churches ought to be in all things limited by the rules set in Scripture; and that, where the Scriptures are silent, there ought to be no rules made, but that all men should be left to their liberty; and, in particular, that the appointing new ceremo- nies looks like a reproaching of the Apostles, as if their consti- tutions had been so defective, that those defects must be sup- plied by the inventions of men; which they oppose so much the more, because they think that all the corruptions of Popery began at some rites which seemed at first not only innocent but pious; but were afterwards abused to superstition and idolatry, and swelled up to that bulk as to oppress and stifle true religion with their number and weight. A great part of this is in some respect true, yet that we may examine the matter methodically, we shall first consider what power the Church has in those matters: and then, what rules she ought to govern herself by in the use of that power. It is very visible, that in the Gospels and Epistles there are 238 AN EXPOSITION OP ART. XX. but few rules laid down as to ritual matters. In the Epistles there are some general rules given, that must take in a great many cases — such as, Let all things he done to edification, to order, and to peace (Rom. xiv. 19;) and, in the Epistles to Timo- thy and Titus, many rules are given in such general words, as. Lay hands suddenly on no man (1 Cor. xiv. 40) — that in order to the guiding of particular cases by them, many distinctions and specialties were to be interposed to the making them practica- ble and useful. In matters that are merely ritual, the state of mankind in different climates and ages is apt to vary; and the same thing that in one scene of human nature may look grave, and seem fit for any society, may in another age look light, and dissipate men^s thoughts. It is also evident that there is not a system of rules given in the New Testament about all these; and yet a due method in them is necessary to maintain the order and decency that become divine things. This seems to be a part of the gospel liberty, th^t itiis not a law of ordinances (Gal. ii. 4; iv. 9; v. 1 ;) these things being left to be varied according to the diversities of mankind. The Jewish religion was delivered to one nation, and the main parts of it were to be performed in one place. They were also to be limited in rituals, lest they might have taken some prac- tices from their neighbours round about them, and so by the use of their rites have rendered idolatrous practices more familiar and acceptable to them: and yet they had many rites among them in our Saviour’s time, which are not mentioned in any part of the Old Testament ;-^such was the whole constitution of their synagogues, with all the service and officers that belonged to them: they had a Baptism among them, besides several rites added to the Paschal service. Our Saviour reproved them for none of these; he allowed some of them to be the federal rites of his new dispensation; he went to their synagogues; and, though he reproved them for overvaluing their rites, for prefer- ring them to the laws of God, and making these void by their traditions, yet he does not condemn them for the use of them : and while of the greater precepts he says. These things ye ought to have done, he adds, concerning their rites and lesser matters, and not to have left the other undone. Matt, xxiii. 23. If, then, such a liberty was allowed in so limited a religion, it seems highly suitable to the sublimer state of the Christian liberty, that there should be room left for such appointments or alterations as the different state of times and places should require. In hotter countries, for instance, there is no danger in dipping; but if it is otherwise in colder climates, then, since mercy is better than even sacrifice (Hos. vi. 6; Matt. xii. 7?) a more sparing use may be made of water — aspersion may answer the true end of baptism. A stricter or gentler discipline of ART. XX. THE XXXIX ARTICLES. 2.39 offenders must be also proportioned to what the times will bear, and what men can be brought to submit to. The dividing of Christians into such districts, that they may have the best con- veniences to assemble themselves together for worship, and for keeping up of order, the appointing the times as well as the places of worship, are certainly to be fixed with the best regard to present circumstances that may be. The bringing Christian assemblies into order and method is necessary for their solem- nity, and for preventing that dissipation of thought that a diversity of behaviour might occasion. And though a kiss of peace, and an order of deaconesses, were the practices of the apostolical time; yet when the one gave occasion to raillery, and the other to scandal, all the world was, and still is, satisfied with the reasons of letting both fall. Now if Churches may lay aside apostolical practices in matters that are ritual, it is certainly much easier to justify their making new rules for such things ; since it is a higher attempt to alter what was settled by the Apostles themselves, than to set up new rules in matters which they left untouched. Habits and postures are the necessary circumstances of all public meetings: — the times of fast- ing and of prayer, the days of thanksgiving and communions, are all of the same nature. The public confession of sins by scandalous persons; the time and manner of doing it; the previous steps that some Churches have made for the trial of those who were to be received into holy orders, that so by a longer inspection into their behaviour, while in lower orders, they might discover how fit they were to be admitted into the sacred ones; and chiefly the pre- scribing stated forms for the several acts of religious worship, and not leaving that to the capacities or humours, to the inventions, and often to the extravagance of those who are to officiate; — all these things, I say, fall within those general rules given by the Apostles to the Churches in their time; where we find that the Apostles had th^ir customs as well as the Churches of God (1 Cor. xii. 16;) which were then opposed to the innovating and the contentious humours of some factious men. And such a pattern have the Apostles set us of complying with those things that are regularly settled, wheresoever we are, that we find they became all things to all men: to the Jews they became Jews, 1 Cor. ix. 19 — 2.S. Though that was a religion then extin- guished in its obligation by the promulgation of the gospel, and was then fallen- under great corruption; yet, in order to the gaining of some of them, such was the spirit of charity and edification with which the Apostles were actuated, that while they were among them they complied in the practice of those abrogated rites, though they asserted both the liberty of the Gentiles, and even their own, in that matter; it was only a compliance, and not a submission, to their opinions, that made 240 AN EXPOSITION OP ART. XX. them observe days, and distinguish meats, while among them. If then such rites, and the rites of such a Church, were still complied with by inspired men, this is an infallible pattern to us; and lets us see, upon how much stronger reasons we, who are under those obligations to unity and charity with all Chris- tians, ought to maintain the unity of the body, and the decency and order that is necessary for peace and mutual edification. Therefore, since there is not any one thing that Christ has enjoined more solemnly and more frequently than love and charity, union and agreement amongst his disciples; since we are also required to assemble ourselves together (Heli. x. 25,) to consti- tute ourselves in a body, both for worshipping God jointly, and for maintaining of order and love among the society of Chris- tians, we ought to acquiesce in such rules as have been agreed on by common consent, and which are recommended to us by long practice, and that are established by those who have the law- ful authority over us. Nor can we assign any other bounds to our submission in this case, than those that the gospel has limited. We must obey God rather than man (Acts v. 29;) and we must in the first place render to God the things that are God’s, and then give to Ccesar the things that are Caesar’s, Matt. xxii. 21. So that if either Church or State have power to make rules and laws in such matters, they must have this extent given them — that till they break in upon the laws of God and the gospel, we must be bound to obey them. A mean cannot be put here; either they have no power at all, or they have a power that must go to everything that is not forbid by the law of God. This is the only measure that can be given in this matter. But a great difference is here to be made between those rules that both Church and State ought to set to themselves in their enacting of such matters, and the measures of the obe- dience of subjects. The only question in the point of obedience must be, lawful, or unlawful: for expedient or inexpedient ought never to be brought into question, as to the point of obedience; since no inexpediency whatsoever can balance the breaking of order, and the dissolving the constitution and society. This is a consideration that arises out of a man’s apprehensions of the fitness or usefulness of things; in which, though he might be in the right as to the antecedent fitness of them (and yet even there he may be in the wrong, and in com- mon modesty every man ought to think that it is more likely that he should be in the wrong than the governors and rulers of the society;) yet, I say, allowing all this, it is certain that order and obedience are, both in their own nature and in their consequences; to be preferred to all the particular consi- derations of expediency or inexpediency. Yet still those in whose hands the making of those rules is put, ought to carry ART. XX. THE XXXIX ARTICLES. 241 their tlioughts nmcli farther: they ought to consider well the genius of the Christian religion, and, therefore, they ought to avoid everything that may lead to idolatry, or feed superstition ; everything that is apt to be abused to give false ideas of God, or to make the world think that such instituted practices may balance the violation of the laws of God. They ought not to overcharge the worship of God with too great a number of them: the rites ought to be grave, simple, and naturally expressive of that which is intended by them. Vain pomp and indecent levity ought to be guarded against; and, next to the honour of God and religion, the peace and edification of the society ought to be chiefly considered. Due regard ought to be had to what men can bear, and what may be most suitable to the present state of the whole; and, finally, a great respect is due to ancient and established practices. Antiquity does gene- rally beget veneration; and the very changing of what has been long in use does naturally startle many, and discompose a great part of the body. So all changes, unless the expediency of making them is upon other accounts very visible, labour under a great prejudice with the more staid sort of men; for this very reason, because they are changes. But in this matter, no certain or mathematical rules can be given : every one of these that has been named is capable of that variety, by the diversity of times and other circumstances, that since prudence and discretion must rule the use that is to be made of them, that must be left to the conscience and prudence of every person who may be concerned in the management of this authority. He must act as he will answer it to God and to the Church; for he must be at liberty in applying those general rules to particular times and cases. And a temper must be observed: we must avoid a sullen adhering to things because they were once settled, as if points of honour were to be maintained here, and that it looked like a reproaching a constitution, or the wisdom of a former age, to alter what they did; since it is certain, that what was wisely ordered in one time, may be as wisely changed in another: as, on the other hand, all men ought to avoid the imputation of a desultory levity; as if they loved changes for changes’ sake. This might give occasion to our adversaries to triumph over us, and might also fill the minds of the weaker among ourselves with apprehensions and scruples. The next particular asserted in this Article is, that the Church hath authority in matters of faith. Here a distinction is to be made between an authority that is absolute, and founded on infallibility, and an authority of order. The former is very formally diselaimed by our Church; but the second may be well maintained, though we assert no unerring authority. Every single man has a right to search the Scriptures, and Q 242 AN EXPOSITION OF ART. XX. to take his faith from them; yet it is certain that he may be mistaken in it. It is, therefore, a much surer way for numbers of men to meet together, and to examine such differences as ha^^pen to arise; to consider the arguments of all hands, with the importance of such passages of Scripture as are brought into the controversy; and thus to inquire into the whole matter: in which, as it is very natural to think that a great company of men should see further than a less number, so there is all reason to expect a good issue of such deliberations, if men proceed in them with due sincerity and diligence — if pride, faction, and interest, do not sway their councils — and if they seek for truth more than for victory. But what abuses soever may have crept since into the public consultations of the Clergy, the Apostles at first met and con- sulted together upon that controversy which was then moved concerning the imposing the Mosaical Law upon the Gentiles: they ordered the pastors of the Church to be able to convince gainsayers (Titus i. 9; iii. 10,) and not to reject a man as a heretic, till after a first and a second admonition. The most likely method, both to find out the truth and to bring such as are in error over to it, is to consult of these matters in common; and that openly and fairly. For if every good man, that prays earnestly to God for the assistance and direction of his Spirit, has reason to look for it; much more may a body of pastors, brought together to seek out the truth in any point under debate, look for it, if they bring with them sincere and unprejudiced minds, and do pray earnestly to God. In that case, they may expect to be directed and assisted of him. But this depends upon the purity of their hearts, and the earnestness of their endeavours and prayers. When any synod of the Clergy has so far examined a point as to settle their opinions about it, they may certainly decree that such is their doctrine; and as they judge it to be more or less important, they may either restrain any other opinion, or may require positive declarations about it, either of all in their com- munion, or at least of all whom they admit to minister in holy things. This is only an authority of order for the maintaining of union and edification; and in this a body does no more, as it is a body, than what every single individual has a right to do for himself. He examines a doctrine that is laid before him, he forms his own opinion upon it, and pursuant to that, he must judge with whom he can hold communion, and from whom he must separate. When such definitions are made by the body of the pastors of any Church, all persons within that Church do owe great respect to their decision. Modesty must be observed in descanting upon it, and in disputing about it. Every man ART. XX. THE XXXIX ARTICLES. 243 that finds liis own thoughts differ from it^ ought to examine the matter over again, with much attention and care, freeing himself all he can from prejudice and obstinacy; with a just distrust of his own understanding, and an humble respect to the judgment of his superiors. This is due to the considerations of peace and union, and to that authority which the Church has to maintain it. But if, after all possible methods of inquiry, a man cannot master his thoughts, or make them agree with the public decisions, his con- science is not under bonds; since this authority is not absolute, nor grounded upon a promise of infallibility. This is a tenet that, with relation to national Churches and their decisions, is held by the Church of Rome as well as by us; for they place infallibility either in the Pope, or in the universal Church. But no man ever dreamt of infallibility in a particular or national Church: and the point in this Article is only concerning particular Churches; for the head of General Councils comes in upon the next. That no Church can add anything as necessary to salvation, has been already considered upon the Sixth Article. It is certain, that as we owe our hopes of salvation only to Christ, and to what he has done for us; so also it can belong only to him, who procured it to us, to fix the terms upon which we may look for it: nor can any power on earth clog the offers that he makes us in the gospel, with new or other terms than those which we find made there to us. There can be no dispute about this: for unless we believe that there is an infallible autho- rity lodged in the Church, to explain the Scripture, and to declare tradition; and unless we believe that the Scriptures are both obscure and defective, and that the one must be helped by an infallible commentary, and the other supplied by an authentical declarer of tradition; we cannot ascribe an authority to the Church, either to contradict the Scripture, or to add necessary conditions of salvation to it. We own, after all, that the Church is the depository of the whole Scriptures, as the Jews were of the Old Testament: but in that instance of the Jews we may see, that a body of men may be faithful in the copying of a book exactly, and in the handing it down without corrupting it, and yet they may be mistaken in the true meaning of that which they preserve so faithfully. They are expressly called the keepers of the oracles of God (Rom. hi. 2;) and are nowhere reproved for having attempted upon this depositum: and yet for all that fidelity they fell into great errors about some of the most important parts of their religion; which exposed them to the rejecting the Messias, and to their utter ruin. The Church’s being called the witness of holy writ, is not to be resolved into any judgment that they pass upon it as a Q 2 244 AN EXPOSITION OF ART. XX. body of men that have authority to judge and give sentence^ so that the canonicalness or the uncanonicalness of any book shall depend upon their testimony; but is resolved into this, that such successions and numbers of men, whether of the laity or clergy, have in a course of many ages had these books preserved and read among them — so that it was not possible to corrupt that upon which so many men had their eyes, in all the corners and ages of Christendom. And thus we believe the Scriptures to be a book written by inspired men, and delivered by them to the Church, upon the testimony of the Church that at first received it, knowing that those great matters of fact, contained and appealed to in it, were true ; and also upon the like testimony of the succeeding ages, who preserved, read, copied, and translated that book, as they had received it from the first. The Church of Rome is guilty of a manifest circle in this matter: for they say they believe the Scriptures upon the authority of the Church, and they do again believe the autho- rity of the Church, because of the testimony of the Scripture concerning it. This is as false reasoning as can be imagined: for nothing can be proved by another authority, till that authority is first fixed and proved; and, therefore, if the testimony of the Church is believed to be sacred by virtue of a divine grant to it, and that from thence the Scriptures have their credit and authority, then the credit due to the Churches testimony is antecedent to the credit of the Scripture, and so must not be proved by any pas- sages brought from it; otherwise that is a manifest circle. But no circle is committed in our way, who do not prove the Scrip- tures from any supposed authority in the Church that has handed them down to us, but only as they are vast companies of men, who cannot be presumed to have been guilty of any fraud in this matter; it appearing further to be morally impossible for any that should have attempted a fraud in it, to have executed it. When, therefore, the Scripture itself is proved by moral argu- ments of this kind, we may, according to the strictest rules of reasoning, examine what authority the Scripture gives to the pastors of the Church met in lesser or greater Councils. ART. XXI. TIIK XXXIX ARTICLES. 245 ARTICLE XXL OF THE AUTHORITY OF GENERAL COUNCILS.' General Councils may not be gathered together without the Commandment and Will of Princes. And ivhen they be gathered together (forasmuch as they be an Assembly of Men whereof all be not governed with the SjArit and Word of God) they may err, and sometimes have erred even in things pertaining unto God. Wherefore things ordained by them as necessary to Salvation, have neither Strength nor Autho- rity, unless it may be declared that they are taken out of Holy Scriptures. There are two particulars settled in this Article: — the one is^ the power of calling of Councils^ at leasts an assertion that they cannot be called without the will of Princes; the other is^ the authority of General Councils, that they are not infallible, and that some have erred: and, therefore, the inference is justly made, that whatever authority they may have in the rule and government of the Church, their decisions in matters necessary to salvation ought to be examined by the Word of God, and are not to be submitted to, unless it appears that they are con- form to the Scripture. The first of these is thus proved: — clergymen are subject to their princes, according to these words. Let every soul be subject to the higher powers (Rom. xiii. 1 :) if they are then subject to them, they cannot be obliged to go out of their dominions upon the summons of any other; their persons being under the laws and authority of that country to which they belong. This is plain, and seems to need no other proof. It is very visible how much the peace of kingdoms and states is concerned in this point: for if a foreign power should call their Clergy away at pleasure, they might be not only left in a great desti- tution as to religious performances, but their Clergy might be practised upon, and sent back to them with such notions, and upon such designs, that, chiefly supposing the immunity of their persons, they might become, as they often were in dark and ignorant ages, the incendiaries of the world, and the disturbers and betrayers of their countries. This is confirmed by the practice of the first ages, after the Church had the protection of Christian magistrates: in these the Roman emperors called the first General Councils, which is expressly mentioned, not only in the Histories of the Councils, but in their Acts; where 246 AN EXPOSITION OF ART. XXI. we find both the writs that summoned them, and their letters, sometimes to the Emperors, and sometimes to] the Churches, which do all set forth their being summoned by the sacred authority of their Emperors, without mentioning any other. In calling some of these Councils, it does not appear that the Popes ■were much consulted; and in others we find Popes indeed sup- plicating the Emperors to call a Council, but nothing that has so much as a shadow of their pretending to an authority to sum- mon it themselves. This is a thing so plain, and may be so soon seen into by any person who will be at the pains to turn to the editions of the first four General Councils made by themselves, not to mention those that followed in the Greek Church, that the confidence with which it has been asserted that they were summoned by the Popes, is an instance to show us that there is nothing at which men, who are once engaged, will stick when their cause requires it. But even since the Popes have got this matter into their own hands, though they summon the Council, yet they do not pretend to it, nor expect that the world would receive a Council as general, or submit to it, unless the Princes of Christendom should allow of it, and consent to the publication of the bull. So that, by rea- son of this. Councils are now become almost unpracticable things. When all Christendom was included within the Roman empire, then the calling of a Council lay in the breast and power of one man; and, during the ages of ignorance and superstition, the world was so subjected to the Pope^s authority, that Princes durst seldom oppose their summons, or deny their Bishops leave to go when they were so called. But after the scandalous schism in the Popedom, in which there were for a great while two Popes, and at last three at a time. Councils began to pretend that the power of governing the Church, and of censuring, depriving, and making of Popes, was radically in them, as representing the universal Church: so they fell upon methods to have frequent Councils, and that whether both Popes and Princes should oppose it or not; for they declared both the one and the other to be fallen from their dignity, that should attempt to hinder it. Yet they carried the claim of the freedom of elections, and of the other ecclesiastical im- munities, so high, that all that followed upon this was, that the Popes being terrified with the attempts begun at Constance, and prosecuted at Basil and Pisa, took pains to have Princes on their side, and then made bargains and concordates with them, by which they divided all the rights of the Church, at least the pretensions to them, between themselves and the Princes. Matters of gain and advantage were reserved to the See of Rome; but the points of power and jurisdiction were generally given up to the Princes. The temporal authority ART. XXI. THE XXXIX ARTICLES. 247 lias by that means prevailed over the spiritual, as much as the spiritual authority had prevailed over the temporal for several ages before. Yet the pretence of a General Council is still so specious, that all those in the Roman communion that do not acknowledge the infallibility of their Popes, do still support this pretension, that the infallibility is given by Christ to his Church; and that in the interval of Councils it is in the community of the Bishops and Pastors of the Church; and that when a Council meets, then the infallibility is lodged with it; according to that. It seemed good to the Holy Ghost and to us, Acts xv. 28 . The first thing to be settled in every question is the mean- ing of the terms: so we must begin and examine what makes a General Council? whether all the Bishops must be present in person, or by proxy? and what share the laity, or the Princes that are thought to represent their people, ought to have in a Council? It is next to be considered, whether a general cita- tion is enough to make a Council general, were the appearance of the Bishops ever so small at their first opening? It is next to be considered, whether any come thither and sit there as representing others; and if votes ought to be reckoned according to the numbers of the Bishops, or of the others who depute and send them ? and whether nations ought to vote in a body as integral parts of the Church; or every single Bishop by himself? And, finally, whether the decisions of Councils must be unani- mous, before they can be esteemed infallible? or whether the major vote, though exceeding only by one; or if some greater inequality is necessary, such as two-thirds, or any other pro- portion? That there may be just cause of raising scruples upon every one of these, is apparent at first view. It is certain, a bare name cannot qualify a number of Bishops sitting together to be this General Council. The number of Bishops does it not neither. A hundred and fifty was a small number at Con- stantinople: even the famous three hundred and eighteen at Nice were far exceeded by those at Arimini. All the first General Councils were made up, for the most part, of Eastern Bishops; there being a very inconsiderable number of the Wes- tern among any of them; scarce any at all being to be found in some. If this had been the body to whom Christ had left this infallibility, it cannot be imagined but that some definition or description of the constitution of it would have been given us in the Scripture: and the profound silence that is about it gives just occasion to think, that how wise and how good soever such a constitution may be, if well pursued, yet it is not of a divine institution; otherwise somewhat concerning so important a head as this is, must have been mentioned in the Scripture. The natural idea of a General Council, is a meeting of all the Bishops of Christendom, or at least of proxies instructed 248 AN EXPOSITION OF ART. XXI. by them and their clergy. Now if any will stand to this description, then we are very sure that there was never yet a true General Council; which will appear to every one that reads the subscriptions of the Councils. Therefore we must con- clude, that General Councils are not constituted by divine authority; since we have no direction given us from -God, by which we may know what they are, and what is necessary to their constitution. And we cannot suppose that God has granted any privileges, much less infallibility, which is the great- est of all, to a body of men, of whom, or of whose constitution, he has said nothing to us. For suppose we should yield that there were an infallibility lodged in general in the Church dif- fusive, so that the Church in some part or other shall be always preserved from error; yet the restraining this to the greater number of such Bishops as shall happen to come to a Council, they living perhaps near it, or being more capable and more forward to undertake a journey, being healthier, richer, or more aetive than others; or, which is as probable, because it has often fallen out, they being picked out by parties or princes to carry on cabals, and manage such intrigues as may be on foot at the Council: — the restraining the infallibilitj^, I say, to the greater number of such persons, unless there is a divine authority for doing it, is the transferring the infallibility from the whole body to a seleet number of persons, who of them- selves are the least likely to consent to the engrossing this privilege to the majority of their body, it being their interest to maintain their right to it free from intrigue or manage- ment. We need not wonder if such things have happened in the latter ages, when Nazianzen laments the corruptions, the am- bition, and the contentions that reigned in those assemblies in his own time; so that he never desired to see any more of them. He was not only present at one of the General Councils, but he himself felt the etfects of jealousy and violence in it. Further, it will appear a thing incredible, that there is an infallibility in Councils because they are called General, and are assembled out of a great many kingdoms and provinces, when we see them go backward and forward, according to the influences of courts, and of interests directed from thence. AVe know how differently Councils decreed in the Arian con- troversies, and what a variety of them Constantins set up against that at Nice. So it was in the Eutychian heresy, approved in the second Council at Ephesus, but soon after con- demned at Chalcedon. So it was in the business of images, condemned at Constantinople in the East; but soon after, upon another change at court, maintained in the second at Nice; and not long after condemned in a very numerous Council at ART. XXI. THE XXXIX ARTICLES. 249 Francfort. And in the point in hand, as to the authority of Councils, it was asserted at Constance and Basil, but condemned in the Lateran; and was upon the matter laid aside at Trent. Here Avere great numbers of all hands; both sides took the name of General Councils. It will be a further prejudice against this, if we see great vio- lence and disorders entering into the management of some Coun- cils, and craft and artifice into the conduct of others. Numbers of factious and furious monks came to some Councils, and drove on matters by their clamours : so it was at Ephesus. We see gross fraud in the second at Nice, both in the persons set up to represent the absent patriarchs, and in the books and authorities that were vouched for the worship of images. The intrigues at Trent, as they are set out even by Cardinal Pallavicini, were more subtile, but not less apparent, nor less scandalous. Nothing was trusted to a ses- sion, till it was first canvassed in congregations — which were what a committee of the whole house is in our Parliaments — and then every man^s vote was known; so that there was hereby great occasion given for practice. This alone, if there had been no more, showed plainly that they themselves knew they were not guided by the Spirit ofGod, or by infallibility; since a session was not thought safe to be ventured on, but after a long previous canvassing. Another question remains yet to be cleared, concerning their manner of proceeding: — whether the infallibility is affixed to their vote, whatsoever their proceedings may be? or, whether they are bound to discuss matters fully? The first cannot be said, unless it is pretended that they vote by a special inspiration: if the second is allowed, then we must examine both what makes a full discussion, and whether they have made it? If we find opinions falsely represented; if books that are spurious have been relied on; if passages of Scripture, or of the Fathers, on which it appears the stress of the decision has turned, have been manifestly misunderstood and wrested, so that in a more enlightened age no person pretends to justify the authority that determined them, can we imagine that there should be more truth in their conclusions, than we do plainly see was in the premises out of which they were drawn? — So it must either be said that they vote by an immediate inspiration, or all persons cannot be bound to submit to their judgment till they have examined their methods of proceeding, and the grounds on which they went: and when all is done, the ques- tion comes concerning the authority of such decrees after they are made — whether it follows immediately upon their being made, or must stay for the confirmatory bulls. If it must stay for the bull, then the infallibility is not in the Council; and that is only a more solemn way of preparing matters,* in order to the laying them before the Pope. If they are infallible 250 AN EXPOSITION OF ART. XXI. before the confirmation, then the infallibility is wholly in the Council; and the subsequent bull does, instead of confirming their decrees, derogate much from them ; for to pretend to con- firm them, imports that they wanted that addition of authority which destroys the supposition of their infallibility — since what is infallible cannot be made stronger: and the pretending to add strength to it, implies that it is not infallible. Human constitutions may be indeed so modelled, that there must be a joint concurrence before a law can be made: and though it is the last consent that settles the law, yet the previous consents were necessary steps to the giving it the authority of a law. And thus, it is not to be denied, but that, as to the matters of government, the Church may cast herself into such a model, that, as by a decree of the Council of Nice, the Bishops of a province might conclude nothing without the consent of the Metropolitan, so another decree might even limit a General Council to stay for the consent of one or more Patriarchs. But this must only take place in matters of order and govern- ment, which are left to the disposal of the Church, but not in decisions about matters of faith. For if there is an infallibility in the Church, it must be derived from a special grant made by Christ to his Church: and it must go according to the nature of that grant, unless it can be pretended that there is a clause in that grant empowering the Church to dispose of it, and model it at pleasure. For if there is no such power, as it is plain there is not, then Christ’s grant is either to a single person, or to the whole community: if to a single person, then the infallibility is wholly in him, and he is to manage it as he thinks best: for if he calls a Council, it is only an act of his humility and condescension to hear the opinions of many in different corners of the Church, that so he may know all that comes from all quarters; it may also seem a prudent way to make his authority to be the more easily borne and submitted to, since what is gently managed is best obeyed: but, after all, these are only prudential and discreet methods — the infallibi- lity must be only in him, if Christ has by the grant tied him to such a succession. Whereas, on the other hand, if the infallibility is granted to the whole community, or to their representatives, then all the applications that they may make to any one See must only be in order to the execution of their decrees, like the addresses that they make to princes for the civil sanction: but still the infallibility is where Clirist put it — it rests wholly in their decision, and belongs only to that: and any other confirmation that they desire, unless it be restrained singly to the execution of their decrees, is a wound given by themselves to their own infallibility, if not a direct disclaiming of it. ART. XXI. THE XXXIX ARTICLES. 251 When the confirmation of the Council is over, a new diffi- culty arises concerning the receiving the decrees. And here it may be said, that if Christas grant is to the whole community, so that a Council is only the authentical declarer of the tra- dition, the whole body of the Church that is possessed of the tradition, and conveys it down, must have a right to examine the decision that the Council has made, and so is not bound to receive it, but as it finds it to be conformable to tradition. Here it is to be supposed, that every Bishop, or at the least all the Bishops of any national Church, know best the tradition of their own Church and Nation; and so they will have a right to re-examine things after they have been adjudged in a General Council. This will entirely destroy the whole pretension to infallibility; and yet either this ought to have been done after the Councils at Arimini, or the second of Ephesus, or else the world must have received Semi-arianism or Eutychianism implicitly from them. It is also no small prejudice against this opinion, that the Church was constituted, the Scriptures were received, many heresies were rejected, and the persecutions were gone through, in a course of three centuries; in all which time there was nothing that could pretend to be called a General Council. And when the ages came in which Councils met often, neither the Councils themselves, who must be supposed to understand their own authority best, nor those who wrote in defence of their decrees, who must be supposed to be inclined enough to magnify their authority, being of the same side; neither of these, I say, ever pretended to argue for their opinions, from the infallibility of those Councils that decreed them. They do, indeed, speak of them with great respect, as of bodies of men that were guided by the Spirit of God; and so do we of our Reformers, and of those who prepared our Liturgy: but we do not ascribe infallibility to them, and no more did they. Nor did they lay the stress of their arguments upon the autho- rity of such decisions: they knew that the objection might have been made as strong against them, as they could put the argu- ment for them; and, therefore, they offered to waive the point, and to appeal to the Scripture, setting aside the definitions that had been made in Councils both ways. To conclude this argument. If the infallibility is supposed to be in Councils, then the Church may justly apprehend that she has lost it: for as there has been no Council that has pretended to that title, now during one hundred and thirty years, so there is no great proba- bility of our ever seeing another. The charge and noise, the expectations and disappointments of that at Trent, has taught the world to expect nothing from one: they plainly see that 252 AN EXPOSITION OF ART. XXI. the management from Rome must carry everything in a Council: neither princes nor people, no nor the bishops themselves, desire or expect to see one. The claim set up at Rome for infallibility, makes the demand of one seem not only needless there, but to imply a doubting of their authority, when other methods are looked after, which will certainly* be always unacceptable to those who are in possession, and act as if they were infallible: nor can it be apprehended, that they will desire a Council to reform those abuses in discipline, which are all occasioned by that absolute and universal authority of which they are now possessed. So, by all the judgments that can be made from the state of things, from the interests of men, and the last management at Trent, one may, without a spirit of prophecy, conclude, that, unless Christendom puts on a new face, there will be no more General Councils. And so here infallibility is at an end, and has left the Church at least for a very long interval. It remains that those passages should be considered that are brought to support this authority. Christ says. Tell the Church; and if he neglects to hear the Church, let him he unto thee as a heathen man, and a publican. Matt, xviii. 1 7* These words in themselves, and separated from all that went before, seem to speak this matter very fully; but when the occasion of them, and the matter that is treated of in them, are considered, nothing can be plainer than that our Saviour is speaking of such private differences as may arise among men, and of the practice of forgiving injuries, and composing their differences. If thy brother sin against thee — first, private endea- vours were to be used; then, the interposition of friends was to be tried; and, finally, the matter was to be referred to the body, or assembly, to which they belonged: and those who could not be gained by such methods, were no more to be esteemed brethren, but were to be looked on as very bad men, like heathens. They might upon such refractoriness be excommuni- cated, and prosecuted afterwards in temporal courts, since they had by their perverseness forfeited all sort of right to that tenderness and charity that is due to true Christians. This exposition does so fully agree to the occasion and scope of these words, that there is no colour of reason to carry them further. The character given to the Church of Ephesus, in St. Paul’s First Epistle to Timothy (hi. 15,) that it was the pillar and ground of truth, is a figurative expression ; and it is never safe to build upon metaphors, much less to lay much weight upon them. The Jews described their synagogues by such honourable characters, in which it is known how profuse all the Eastern nations are. These are by St. Paul applied to the Church of Ephesus; for he there speaks of the Church where Timotliy ART. XXI. THE XXXIX ARTICLES. 253 was then, in which he instructs him to behave himself well. It has visibly a relation to those inscriptions that were made on pillars which rested upon firm pedestals: but, whatsoever the strict importance of the metaphor may be, it is a metaphor, and therefore it can be no argument. Christ’s promise of the Spirit to his Apostles, that should lead them into all truth, relates visi- bly to that extraordinary inspiration by which they were to be acted, and that was to shew them things to come (John xvi. 13;) so that a succession of prophecy may be inferred from these words, as well as of infallibility. Those words of our Saviour, with which St. Matthew concludes his Gospel, Lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the world (Matt, xxviii. 20,) infer no infallibility, but only a promise of assistance and protection; which was a necessary encourage- ment to the Apostles, when they were sent upon so laborious a commission, that was to involve them in so much danger. God’s being with any, his walking with them, his being in the midst of them, his never leaving nor forsaking them, are expressions often used in the Scripture (2 Cor. vi. 16; Heb. xiii. 5,) which signify no more but God’s w^atchful providence, guiding, supporting, and protecting his people: all this is far from infallibility. The last objection to be proposed is that which seems to relate most to the point in hand, taken from the decree made by a Council at Jerusalem, which begins. It seemed good to the Holy Ghost, and to us (Acts xv. 28;) from which they infer that the Holy Ghost is present with Councils, and that what seems good to them is also approved by the Holy Ghost. But it will not be easy to prove, that this was such a Council as to be a pattern to succeeding ones to copy after it. We find Brethren are here joined with the Apostles themselves: now, since these were no other than the laity, here an inference will be made that will not easily go down. If they sat and voted with the Apostles, it vriW seem strange to deny them the same privilege among Bishops. By Elders here it seems Presbyters are meant; and this will give them an entrance into a General Council, out of which they cannot be well excluded, if the laity are admitted. But here was no citation, no time given to all Churches to send their Bishops or proxies — it was an occasional meeting of such of the Apostles as happened to be then at Jerusalem, who called to them the Elders or Presbyters, and other Christians at Jerusalem; for the Holy Ghost was then poured out so plenti- fully on so many, that no wonder if there were then about that truly Mother Church a great many of both sorts, who were of such eminence that the Apostles might desire them to meet and join with them. The Apostles were divinely assisted in the delivering that commission which our Saviour gave them in charge, to ‘preach 254 AN EXPOSITION OF ART. XXI. to every creature (Mark xvi. 15,) and so were infallibly assisted in the executing of it; yet, when other matters fell in which were no parts of that commission, they no doubt did as St. Paul, who sometimes writ by permission^ as well as at other times by commandment; of which he gives notice by saying. It is J, and not the Lord (1 Cor. vii. 6. 12.) He suggested advices, which to him, according to his prudence and experience, seemed to be well founded; and he offered them with great sincerity: for though he had some reason to think that what he proposed flowed from the Spirit of the Lord (ver. 40,) from that inspiration that was acting him: yet, because that did not appear distinctly to him, he speaks with reserves, and says he gives his judgment as one that had obtained mercy of the Lord to be faithful, ver. 25. So the Apostles here, receiving no inspiration to direct them in this case, but observing well what St. Peter put them in mind of, concerning God’s sending him by a special vision to preach to the Gentiles, and that God had poured out the Holy Ghost on them, even as he had done upon the Apostles, who were Jews by nature, and that he did put no difference in that between Jews and Gen- tiles, purifying the hearts of the Gentiles by faith (Acts xv. 9 ;) they upon this did by their judgment conclude from thence, that what God had done in the particular instance of Cornelius, was now to be extended to all the Gentiles. So by this we see that those words, seemed good to the Holy Ghost, relate to the case of Cornelius ; and those words, seemed good to us, import they resolved to extend that to be a general rule to all the Gentiles. This gives the words a clear and distinct sense, which agrees with all that had gone before : whereas it will otherwise look very strange to see them add their authority to that of the Holy Ghost; which is too absurd to suppose; nor will it be easy to give any other consistent sense to these words. Here is no precedent of a Council, much less of a General one: but a decision is made by men that were in other things divinely inspired, which can have no relation to the judgments of other Councils. And thus it appears, that none of those places which are brought to prove the infallibility of Councils, come up to the point: for so great and so important a matter as this is, must be supposed to be either expressly declared in the Scriptures, or not at all. The Article affirming that some General Councils have erred, must be understood of Councils that pass for such; and that may be called General Councils much better than many others that go by that name: for that at Arirnini was both very numerous, and was drawn out of many different provinces. As to the strict notion of a General Council, there is great reason to believe that there was never any assembly to which it will be found to agree. And for the four General Councils, which ART. XXII. THE XXXIX ARTICLES. 255 this Church declares that she receives^ they are received only because we are persuaded from the Scriptures that their deci- sions were made according to them: — that the Son is truly God^ of the same substance with the Father: — that the Holy Ghost is also truly God: that the divine nature was truly united to the human in Christ; and that in one person: that both natures remained distinct; and that the human nature was not swallowed up of the divine. These truths we find in the Scriptures, and, therefore, we believe them. We reverence those Councils for the sake of their doctrine ; but do not believe the doctrine for the authority of the Councils. There appeared too much of human frailty in some of their other proceedings, to give us such an implicit submission to them, as to believe things only because they so decided them. ARTICLE XXII. OF PURGATORY. The Romish Doctrine concerning Purgatory, Pardons, Worship- ping and Adoration as well of Images as of Relicks, and also Invocation of Saints, is a fond thing, vainly invented, and grounded upon no Warrant of Scripture, hut rather repugnant to the Word of God. There are two small variations in this Article, from that pub- lished in King Edward’s reign. What is here called the Romish doctrine, is there called the doctrine of schoolmen. The plain reason of this is, that these errors were not so fully espoused by the body of the Roman Church, when those Articles were first published, so that some writers that softened matters threw them upon the schoolmen; and, therefore, the Article was cau- tiously worded, in laying them there : but before these that we have now were published, the decree and canons concerning the mass had passed at Trent, in which most of the heads of this Article are either affirmed or supposed; though the formal decree concerning them was made some months after these Articles were published. This will serve to justify that diversity. The second difference is only the leaving out of a severe word. Perniciously repugnant to the word of God was put at first ; but perniciously being considered to be only a hard word, they judged very right in the second edition of them, that it was enough to say repugnant to the word of God. There are in this Article five particulars, that are all ingre- dients in the doctrine and worship of the Church of Rome — 25G AN EXPOSITION OF ART. XXII. Purgatory, Pardons, the Worship of Images, and of Relies, and the Invocation of Saints — that are rejected not only as ill- grounded, brought in and maintained without good warrants from the Scripture, but as contrary to it. The first of these is purgatory; concerning which the doctrine of the Church of Rome is, that every man is liable both to tem- poral and to eternal punishment for his sins; that God, upon the account of the death and intercession of Christ, does indeed pardon sin as to its eternal punishment; but the sinner is still liable to temporal punishment, which he must expiate by acts of penance and sorrow in this world, together with such other suf- ferings as God shall think fit to lay upon him : but if he does not expiate these in this life, there is a state of suffering and misery in the next world, where the soul is to bear the temporal punishment of its sins; which may continue longer or shorter, till the day of judgment: and, in order to the shortening this, the prayers and supererogations of men here on earth, or the intercession of the saints in heaven, but above all things, the sacri- fice of the mass, are of great efficacy. This is the doctrine of the Church of Rome, asserted in the Councils of Florence and Trent. What has been taught among them concerning the nature and the degrees of those torments, though supported by many pre- tended apparitions and revelations, is not to be imputed to the whole body; and is indeed only the doctrine of schoolmen, though it is generally preached and infused into the consciences of the people. Therefore, I shall only examine that which is the established doctrine of the whole Roman Church. And, first, as to the foundation of it, that sins are only pardoned, as to their eternal punishment, to those who being justified by faith have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ (Rom. v. 1,) there is not a colour for it in the Scriptures. Remission of sins is in general that with which the preaching of the gospel ought always to begin; and this is so often repeated without any such reserve, as it is a high assuming upon God and his attributes of good- ness and mercy, to limit these when he has not limited them, but has expressly said that this is a main part of the new cove- nant, that he will remember our sins and iniquities no more, Jer. xxxi. 34; Heb. viii. 12. Now it seems to be a maxim, not only of the law of nations, but of nature, that all offers of pardon are to be understood in the full extent of the words, without any secret reserves or limitations, unless they are plainly expressed. An indemnity being offered by a prince to persuade his subjects to return to their obedience, in the fullest words possible, with- out any reserves made in it, it would be looked on as a very perfi- dious thing, if, when the subjects came in upon it, trusting to it, they should be told that they were to be secured by it against capital punishments, but that, as to all inferior punishments. ART. XXTl. THE XXXIX ARTICLES. 257 they were still at mercy. We do not dispute whether God, if he had thought fit so to do, might not have made this distinction; nor do we deny that the grace of the gospel had been infinitely valuable, if it had offered us only the pardon of sin with relation to its eternal punishment, and had left the temporal punishment on us, to be expiated by ourselves. But then we say, this ought to have been expressed; the distinction ought to have been made betw’een temporal and eternal; and we ought not to have been drawn into a covenant with God, by words that do plainly import an entire pardon and oblivion, upon which there lay a limited sense, that was not to be told the world till it was once well engaged in the Christian religion. Upon these reasons it is that we conclude, that this doctrine not being contained in the Scriptures, is not only without any warrant in them, but that it is contrary to those full offers of mercy, peace, and oblivion, that are made in the gospel; it is contrary to the truth and veracity, and to the justice and goodness of God, to affirm that there are reserves to be understood for punishments, when the offers and promises are made to us in such large and unlimited expressions. Thus we lay our foundation in this matter, which does very fully overthrow theirs. We do not deny but that God does in this world -punish good men for those sins which yet are for- given them through Christ, according to those words in the Psalm, Thou wast a God that forgavest them, though thou tookest vengeance of their inventions (Psal. xcix. 8 :) but this is a consideration quite of another nature. God, in the, govern- ment of this world, thinks fit by his Providence, sometimes to interpose in visible blessings as well as judgments, to show how he protects and favours the good, and punishes the bad; and that the bad actions of good men are odious to him, even though he has received their persons into his favour. He has also in the gospel plainly excepted the government of this world, and the secret methods of his providence, out of the mercy that he has promised, by the warnings that are given to all Christians to prepare for crosses and afflictions in this life. He has made faith and patience in adversities a main condition of this New Covenant: he has declared, that these are not the punishments of an angry God, but the chastisements of a kind and merci- ful Father, who designs by them both to show to the world the impartiality of his justice in punishing some crying sins in a very signal manner, and to give good men deep impressions of their odiousness, to oblige them to a severer repentance for them, and to a greater watchfulness against them; as also, to give the world such examples of resignation and patience under them, that they may edify others by that, as much as by their sins they may have offended them. So that, upon all 258 AN EXPOSITION OF ART. xxir. these accounts, it seems abundantly clear, that no argument can be drawn from the temporal punishments of good men for their sins in this world, to a reserve of others in another state: the one are clearly mentioned and reserved in the offers of mercy that are made in the gospel, whereas the others are not. This being the most plausible thing that they say for this distinction of those twofold punishments, it is plain that there is no foun- dation for it. As for those words of Christ, Ye shall not come out, till ye have paid the uttermost farthing (Matt. v. 26;) from which they would infer, that there is a state in which, after we shall be cast into prison, we are paying off our debts ; this, if an argument at all, will prove too much — that in hell the damned are clearing scores, and that they shall be delivered when all is paid off: for by prison there, that only can be meant, as appears by the whole contexture of the discourse, and by other parables of the like nature. It is a figure taken from a man imprisoned for a great debt; and the continuance of it, till the last farthing is paid, does imply their perpetual continuance in that state, since the debt is too great to be ever paid off. From a phrase in a parable, no consequence is to be drawn beyond that which is the true scope of the parable, which in this particular is only intended by our Saviour to show the severe punishment of those who hate implacably; which is a sin that does certainly deserve Hell, and not Purgatory. Our Saviour^s words concerning the sin against the Holy Ghost, that it is neither forgiven in this life, nor in that ivhich is to come (Matt. xii. 32,) is also urged to prove, that some sins are par- doned in the next life, which are not pardoned in this. But still this will seem a stronger argument against the eternity of Hell torments, than for Purgatory; and will rather import, that the damned may at last be pardoned their sins, since these are the only persons whose sins are not pardoned in this world; for of those who are justified, it cannot be said that their sins are not forgiven them, and such only go to Purgatory: therefore, either this is only a general way of speaking, to exclude all hopes of pardon, and to imply that God^s judgments will pursue such blasphemers, both in this life and in the next; or, if we will understand them more critically, by this life, or this age, and the next, according to a common opinion and phrase of the Jews which is founded on the prophecies, are to be understood the dispensation of the Law, and the dispensation of the Messias; the age to come being a common phrase for the time of the Messias, according to those words in the Epistle to the Hebrews (ii. 5,) He hath not put in subjection to angels the world to come. By the Mosaical Law, sacrifices were only received, and, by consequence, pardon was offered, for sins of a less heinous nature; but those that were more heinous were to lie punished ART. XXII. THE XXXIX ARTICLES. 259 by deatli^ or by cutting off without mercy; whereas a full pro- mise of the pardon of all sins is offered in the gospel: so that the meaning of these words of Christ’s is, that such a blasphemy was a sin not only beyond the pardon offered in the law of Moses, which was the aye that then was, but that it was a sin beyond that pardon which was to be offered by the Messiah in the age to come, that is, in the kingdom of heaven, that was then at hand. But these words can by no means be urged to prove this distinction of temporal and eternal punishment; therefore we must conclude, that since repentance and remission of sins (Luke xxiv. 47) are joined together in the first commission to preach the gospel, and since life, peace, and salvation, are pro- mised to such as believe, that all this is to be understood simply and plainly, without any other limitation or exception than that which is expressed, which is only of such chastisements as God thinks fit to exercise good men with in this life. In the next place, we shall consider what reason we, have to reject the doctrine of Purgatory; as we have already seen how weak the foundation is upon which it is built. The Scripture speaks to us of two states after this life — of happiness and misery; and, as it divides all mankind into good and bad, into those that do good and those that do evil, into believers and unbelievers, righteous and sinners; so it proposes always the end of the one to be everlasting happiness, and the end of the other to be ever- lasting punishment, without the least hint of any middle state after death. So that it is very plain there is nothing said in Scripture of men too good to be damned, but not so good as to be immediately saved. Now, if there had been yet a great deal to be suffered after death, and that there were many very effectual ways to prevent and avoid, or at least to shorten those sufferings ; and if the Apostles knew this, and yet said not a word of it, neither in their first sermons nor in their epistles — here was a great treachery in the discharge of their function, and that to the souls of men, not to warn them of their danger, nor to direct them to the proper methods of avoiding it; but, on the contrary, to speak and write to them just as we can suppose impostors would have done, to terrify those who would not receive their gospel with eternal damnation, but not to say a word to those who received it of their danger, in case they lived not up to that exactness that their religion required, and yet upon the main adhered to it and followed it. This is a method that does not agree with common honesty, not to say inspiration. A fair way of proceeding is to make men sensible of dangers of all sorts, and to show them how to avoid them: the Apostles told their converts, that through much tribulation we must enter into the kingdom of heaven (Acts xiv. 22:) they assured them, that their present sufferings were not worthy to he R 2 260 AN EXPOSITION OF ART. XXII. compared to the glory that was to be revealed (Rom. viii. 18;) and that those light afflictions^ which are for a moment^ wrought for them a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory ^ 2 Cor. iv. 17 . Here^ if they knew anything of Purgatory, a powerful consideration was passed over in silence, that by these afflictions they should be delivered from those torments. This argument goes further than mere silence; though that is very strong. The Scriptures speak always as if the one did immediately follow the other; and that the saints, or true Chris- tians, pass from the miseries of this state to the glories of the next. So does our Saviour represent the matter in the parable of Lazarus and the rich glutton; whose souls were presently carried to their different abodes — the one to be comforted, as the other was tormented. He promised also to the repenting thief. To-day thou shalt be with me in Paradise, Luke xxiii. 43. St. Paul comforts himself, in the apprehension of his dissolution that was approaching, with the prospect of the crown of righ- teousness that should be given him after death (2 Tim. iv. 8 ;) and so he states these two as certain consequents one of another, to be dissolved and to be with Christ, to be absent from the body and present with the Lord (Phil. i. 23; 2 Cor. v. 6. 8;) and he makes it appear that it was no peculiar privilege that he promised to himself, but that which all Christians had a right to expect; for he says in general. This we knoiv, that if our earthly house of this tabernacle be dissolved, we have a building of God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens, 2 Cor. v. 1, 2. In the Epistle to the Hebrews the Patriarchs under the old dispensa- . tion are represented as looking for that city whose builder and founder is God (Heb. xi. 10;) though in that state the manifes- tations of another life were more imperfect than in this, in which life and immortality are brought to light, they being veiled and darkened in that state. And finally, St. John heard a voice commanding him to write. Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord (that is, being true Christians) from henceforth (or imme- diately:) Yea, saith the Spirit, that they may rest from their labours; and their works do follow them. Rev. xiv. 13. From the solemnity with which these words are delivered, they carry in them an evidence sufficient to determine the whole matter. So that we must have very hard thoughts of the sincerity of the writers of the New Testament, and very much disparage their credit, not to say their inspiration, if we can imagine that there are scenes of suffering, and those very dismal ones, to lie gone through, of which they gave the world -no sort of notice, but. spoke in the same style that we do, who believe no such dismal interval between the death of good men and their final blessed- ness. The Scriptures do, indeed, speak of a full reivaxd (2 John ver. 8,) and of different degrees of glory, as one star exceeds ART. XXII. THE XXXIX ARTICLES. 2G1 another (1 Cor. xv. 41;) they do also represent the day of judgment, upon the resurrection of the body, as that which gives the full and entire possession of blessedness; so that from hence some have thought, upon very probable grounds, that the blessed, though admitted to happiness immediately upon their death, yet were not so completely happy as they shall be after the resurrection; and in this there arose a diversity of opinions, which is very natural to all who will go and form systems out of some general hints. Some thought that the souls of good men were at rest, and in a good measure happy, but that they did not see God before the resurrection. Others thought that Christ was to come down and reign visibly upon earth a thousand years before the end of the world; and that the saints were to rise and reign with him, some sooner and some later. Some thought that the last conflagration was so to affect all, that every one was to pass through it, and that it was to give the last and highest purification to those bodies that were then to be glorified; but that the better Christians that any had been, they should feel the less of the pain of that last fire. These opinions were very early entertained in the Church: an itch of intruding too far into things which men did not thoroughly understand, concerning angels, began to disturb the Church even in the days of the Apostles; which made St. Paul charge the Colossians to beware of vain philo- sophy. Plato thought there was a middle sort of men, who, though they had sinned, yet had repented of it, and were in a curable condition, and that they went down for some time into hell, to be purged and absolved by grievous torments. The Jews had also a conceit, that the souls of some men continued for a year going up and down in a state of purgation. From these opinions somewhat of a curiosity in describing the degrees of the next state began pretty early to enter into the Church. As for that opinion of the Platonists, and the fictions of Homer and Virgil, setting forth the complaints of souls departed for their not being relieved by prayers and sacrifices, though these perhaps are the true sources of the doctrine of Purgatory, and of redeeming souls out of it, yet we are not so much concerned in them as in what is represented to us by the author of the second book of the Maccabees, concerning the sacrifice that was offered by Judas Maccabeus for those about whom, after they were killed, they found such things as showed that they had defiled themselves with the idolatry of the heathens. All this is of less authority with us, who do not acknowledge that book to be canonical; according to what was set out in its proper place. And although we set a due value upon some of the apocryphal books, yet others are of a lower character. The first book of Maccabees is a very grave history. 262 AN EXPOSITION OF ART. XXII. writ with much exactness and a true judgment: but the second is the work of a mean writer; he was an abridger of a larger work; and as he has the modesty to ask his readers^ pardon for his defects, so it is very plain to e very one that reads him, that he needs often many grains of allowance. So that this book is one of the least valuable pieces of the Apocrypha; and there are very probable reasons to question the truth of that relation concerning those who were thus prayed for. But because that would occasion too long a digression, we are to make a difference between the story that he relates, and the author’s own reflections upon it; for as we ought not to make any great account of his reflections, these being only his private thoughts — who might probably have imbibed some of the principles of the Greek philosophy, as some of the J ews had done, or he might have believed that notion which is now very generally received by the Jews, that every Jew shall have a share in the world to come, but that such as have lived ill must be purged before they arrive at it; — rit is of much more importance to consider what Judas Maccabeus did (2 Macc. xii. 40;) which even by that relation seems to be no more than this_, that he, finding some things consecrated to the idols of the Jam- nites about the bodies of those who were killed, concluded that to have been the cause of their death; and upon this he and all his men betook themselves to prayer, and besought God that the sin might be wholly put out of remembrance; he exhorted his people to keep themselves, by that example, from the like sin; and he made a collection of a sum of money, and sent it ta Jerusalem to offer a sin-offering before the Lord. So far the mat- ter agrees well enough with the Jewish dispensation. It had appeared in the days of Joshua (chap, vii.) how much guilt the sin of Achan, though but one person, had brought upon the whole congregation; and their law had upon another occasion pre- scribed a sin-offering for the whole congregation, to expiate blood that was shed, when the murderer, could not be discovered; that so the judgments of God might not come upon them, by reason of the cry of that blood. And, by a parity of reason, Judas might have offered such an offering, to free himself and his men from the guilt which the idolatry of a few might have brought upon greater numbers. Such a sacrifice as this might, according to the nature of that law, have been offered; but to offer a sin-offering for the dead was a new thing, without ground, or any intimation of anything like it, in their law: so there is no reason to doubt, but that, if the story is true, Judas offered this sin-offering for the living, and not for the dead. If they had been alive then, by their law no sin-offering could have been made for them; for idolatry was to be punished by cutting off, and not to be expiated by sacrifice: what tlien could not have been done for them if alive, could much less l)c AUT. XXII. THE XXXIX ARTICLES. 2G3 (lone for them after their death. So we have reason to conclude that Judas offered this sacrifice only for the living; and we are not much concerned in the opinion which so slight a writer as the author of that book had concerning it. But whatever might be his opinion, it was far from that of the Roman Church. By this instance of the Maccabees, men who died in a state of mortal sin, and that of the highest nature, had sacrifices offered for them; whereas, according to the doctrine of the Church of Rome, Hell, and not Purgatory, is to be the portion of all such : so this will prove too much, if anything at all, that sacrifices are to be offered for the damned. The design of Judas’s sending to make an offering for them, as that writer states it, was, that their sins might be forgiven, and that they might have a happy resur- rection. Here is nothing of redeeming them out of misery, or of shortening or alleviating their torments: so that the author of that book seems to have been possessed with that opinion, received commonly among the Jews, that no Jew could finally perish; as we find St. Jerome expressing himself with the like partiality for all Christians. But whatever the author’s opinion was, as that book is of no authority, it is highly probable that Judas’s design in that oblation was misunderstood by the histo- rian; and we are sure that even his sense of it differs totally from that of the Church of Rome. A passage in the New Testament is brought as a full proof of the fire' of Purgatory. When St. Paul, in his Epistle to the Corinthians (1 Cor. iii. 10 — 16,) is reflecting on the divisions that were among them, and on that diversity of teachers that formed men into different principles and parties, he compares them to different builders. Some raised upon a rock an edifice like the temple at Jerusalem, of gold and silver, and noble stones, called precious stones; whereas others upon the same rock raised a mean hovel of wood, hay, and stubble; of both he says. Every man^s work shall be made manifest: for the day shall reveal it; because it shall he revealed by fire; for the fire shall try every man’s work of what sort it is. And he adds. If any man’s work abide which he hath built thereupon, he shall receive a reward; and if any manias work shall be burnt, he shall suffer loss, but he himself shall be saved, yet so as by fire. From the first view of these words, it will not be thought strange if some of the ancients, who were too apt to expound places of Scripture according to their first appearance, might fancy, that at the last day all were to pass through a great fire, and to suffer more or less in it; but it is visible that that opinion is far enough from the doctrine of Purgatory. These words relate to a fire that was soon to appear, and that was to try every man’s work. It was to be revealed, and in it every man’s work was to be made manifest. So this can have no relation 264 AN EXPOSITION OF ART. XXI Iv to a secret purgatory fire. The meaning of it can be no other, but that whereas some with the Apostles were building up the Church, not only upon the foundation of Jesus Christ, and the belief of his doctrine, but were teaching men doctrines and rules that were virtuous, good, and great; others at the same time were daubing with a profane mixture both of Judaism and Gen- tilism, joining these with some of the precepts of Christianity; a day would soon appear — which probably is meant of the destruc- tion of Jerusalem and of the Jewish nation; or it may be applied to the persecution that was soon to break out; — in that day, those who had true notions, generous principles, and suitable practices, would weather that storm; whereas others that were entangled with weak and superstitious conceits, would then run a great risk, though their firm believing that Jesus was the Messias would preserve them: yet the weakness and folly of those teachers would appear; their opinions would involve them in such danger, that their escaping would be difficult, like one that gets out of a house that is all on fire round about him. So that these words cannot possibly belong to Purgatory, but must be meant of some signal discrimination that was to be made, in some very dreadful appearances, which would distinguish between the true and the false Apostles; and that could be no other but either in the destruction of Jerusalem, or in the persecution that was to come on the Church; though the first is the more probable. It were easy to pursue this argument further, and to show that the doctrine of Purgatory, as it is now in the Roman Church, was not known in the Church of God for the first six hundred years: that then it began to be doubtfully received. But in an ignorant age, visions, legends, and bold stories, pre- vailed much; yet the Greek Church never received it. Some of the Fathers speak, indeed, of the last probatory fire; but though they did not think the saints were in a state of con- summate blessedness, enjoying the vision of God, yet they Aug. de thought they were in a state of ease and quiet, and heaven. St. Austin speaks in this whole mat- ifncSr very doubtfully: he varies often from himself; he c. 67—69. seems sometimes very positive only for two states; at Other times, as he asserts the last probatory fire, so he seems to think that good souls might suffer some grief in that sequestered state before the last day, upon the account of some of their past sins, and that by degrees they might arise up to their consummation. All these contests were proposed very doubtfully before Gregory the Great’s days; and even then some doubts seem to have been made: but the legends were so copiously played upon all 'those doubts, that this remnant of paganism got at last into the Western Church. It was no wonder that the opinions formerly mentioned, which began ART. XXII. THE XXXIX ARTICLES. 265 to appear in the second age, had produced in the third the prac- tice of praying for the dead; of which we find such full Tertui.de evidence in Tertullian and St. Cyprian’s writings, that the matter of faet is not to be denied. This appears c'^is. cypr.' also in all the ancient Liturgies; and Epiphanius charges Aerius with this of rejecting all prayers for the dead, asking why were they prayed for? The opinions that they fell into concerning the state of departed souls, in the interval between their death and the day of judgment, gave occasion enough for prayer; they thought they were capable of making a progress, and of having an early resurrection. They also had this notion among them, that it was the peculiar privi- lege of Jesus Christ to be above all our prayers; but that no men, not excepting the Apostles, nor the blessed Virgin, were above the prayers of the Church. They thought this was an act of Church communion, that we were to hold even with the saints in heaven, to pray for them. Thus in the apostolical con- stitutions, in the books of the ecclesiastical hierarchy, and in the Liturgies that are ascribed to St. Basil and St. Chrysos- tom, they offer unto God these prayers, which they ecci. mer. thought their reasonable service, for those who were at rest in the faith, their forefathers, fathers, patriarchs, prophets, and apostles, preachers, evangelists, martyrs, confessors, religious persons, and for every spirit perfected in the faith; especially for our most holy, immaculate, most blessed Lady, the Mother of God, the ever Virgin Mary. Particular instances might also be given of this, out of St. Cyprian, St. Ambrose, Nazianzen, and St. Austin; who in that famous and much cited passage Aug. conf. concerning his mother Monica, as he speaks nothing of any temporal pains that she suffered, so he plainly intimates his belief that God had done all that he desired. Thus it will appear to those who have examined all the passages which are brought out of the Fathers, concerning their prayers for the dead, that they believed they were then in heaven, and at rest; and, by conse- quence, though these prayers for the dead did very probably give the chief rise to the doctrine of Purgatory, yet, as they then made them, they were utterly inconsistent with that opinion. Tertullian, who is the first that is cited for them, says. We make oblations for the dead, and we do it for that second nativity of theirs (Natalitia) once a year. The significa- tion of the word Natalitia, as they used it, was the Saint’s day of death, in which they reckoned he was born again to heaven; so, though they judged them there, yet they offered up prayers for them: and when Epiphanius brings in Aerius asking why those prayers were made for the dead? though it had been very natural, and indeed unavoidable, if he had believed purgatory, to have answered, that it was to deliver them from thence; yet 266 AN EXPOSITION OF ^ ART. XXII. he makes no such answer, but only asserts that it had been the practice of the Church so to do. The Greek Church retains that custom, though she has never admitted of Purgatory. Here then an objection may be made to our constitution, that, in this of praying for the dead, we have departed from the practice of the ancients. We do not deny it; both the Church of Rome and we, in another practice of equal antiquity, of giving the Eucharist to infants, have made changes, and let that custom fall. The curiosities in the second century seem to have given rise to those prayers in the third; and they gave the rise to many other disorders in the following centuries. Since, there- fore, God has commanded us, while we are on earth, to pray for one another, and has made that a main act of our charity and Church communion, but has nowhere directed us to pray for those that have finished their course; and since the only pre- tence that is brought from Scripture, of St. PauFs praying that Onesiphorus might find mercy in the day of the Lord, cannot be wrought up into an argument, for it cannot be proved that he was then dead; and since the Fathers reckon this of praying for the dead only as one of their customs, for which they vouch no other warrant but practice; since, also, this has been grossly abused, and has been applied to support a doctrine totally different from theirs — we think that we have as good a plea for not fol- lowing them in this, as we have for not giving infants the sacra- ment; and, therefore, we think it no imputation on our Church, that we do not in this follow a groundless and a much abused precedent, though set us in ages which we highly reverence. The greatest corruption of this whole matter comes in the last place to be considered; which is, the methods proposed for redeeming souls out of Purgatory. If this doctrine had rested in a speculation, we must still have considered it as derogatory to the death of Christ, and the truth of the gospel: but it raises our zeal a little more, when we consider the use that was made of it; and that fears and terrors being by this means infused into men^s minds, new methods were proposed to free them from these — the chief of which was the saying of masses for departed souls. It was pretended, that this being the highest act of the communion of Christians, and the most sublime piece of worship, therefore God was so well pleased with the frequent repetition of it, with the prayers that accom- panied it, and with those that made provisions for men who should be constantly employed in it, that this was a most acceptable sacrifice to God. Upon this followed all those vast endowments for saying masses for departed souls; though in the institution of that sacrament, and in all that is spoken of it in the Scripture, there is not a hint given of this. Sacra- ments are positive precepts, which are to be measured only by ART. XXII. THE XXXIX ARTICLES. 267 the institution^ in which there is not room left for us to carry them further. We are to take, eat and drink, and thereby shew forth the Lord’s death till his second coming — all which has no relation to the applying this to others who are gone off the stage: therefore^ if we can have any just notions either of superstition or of will-worship^ they are applicable here. Men will fancy that there is a virtue in an action, which we are sure it has not of itself, and we cannot find that God has put in it; and yet they, without any authority from God, do set up a new piece of worship, and imagine that God will be pleased with them in every- thing they do or ask, only because they are perverting this piece of worship, clearly contrary to the institution, to be a solitary mass. In the primitive Church, where all the service of the whole assembly ended in a communion, there was a roll read, in which the names of the more eminent saints of the Catholic Church, and of the holy bishops, martyrs, or confessors of every particular Church, were registered. This was an honourable remembrance that was kept up of such as had died in the Lord. When the soundness of any personas faith was brought in sus- picion, his name was not read till that point was cleared; and then either his name continued to be read, or it was quite dashed out. This was thought an honour due to the memory of those who had died in the faith: and in St. Cypriaffs time, in ^ypr. Epist. i. the infancy of this practice, we see he counted the oxon ad ^ pleb. Furnit. leaving a man s name out as a thing that only leit a blot upon him, but not as a thing of any consequence to his soul; for when a priest had died, who had by his last will named another priest the tutor (or guardian) of his children, this seemed to him a thing of such ill example, to put those secular cares upon the minds of the clergy, that he appointed that his name should be no more read in the daily sacrifice; which plainly shows, unless we will tax St. Cyprian with a very unreasonable cruelty, that he considered that only as a small censure laid on his memory, but not as a prejudice to his soul. This gives us a very plain view of the sense that he had of this matter. After this roll was read, then the general prayer followed, as was for- merly acknowledged, for all their souls; and so they went on in the Communion Service. This has no relation to a mass said by a single priest to deliver a soul out of Purgatory. Here, without going far in tragical expressions, we cannot hold saying what our Saviour said upon another occasion. My house is a house of prayer, hut ye have made it a den of thieves, Mark. xi. 17. A trade was set up on this foundation. The world was made believe, that by the virtue of so many masses, which were to be purchased by great endowments, souls were redeemed out of Purgatory; and scenes of visions and appari- tions, sometimes of the tormented, and sometimes of the deli- 268 AN EXPOSITION OF ART. XXII. vered souls, were published in all places: which had so wonder- ful an effect, that in two or three centuries endowments increased to so vast a degree, that if the scandals of the clergy on the one hand, and the statutes of mortmain on the other, had not restrained the profuseness that the world was wrought up to upon this account, it is not easy to imagine how far this might have gone; perhaps to an entire subjecting of the temporalty to the spiritualty. The practices by which this was managed, and the effects that followed on it, we can call by no other name than downright impostures ; worse than the making or vending false coin. When the world was drawn in by such arts to plain bar- gains, to redeem their own souls, and the souls of their ancestors and posterity, so many masses were to be said, and forfeitures were to follow upon their not being said: thus the masses were really the price of the lands. An endowment to a religious use, though mixed with error or superstition in the rules of it, ought to be held sacred, according to the decision given concerning the censers of those that were in the rebellion of Corah (Numb. xvi. 38;) so that we do not excuse the violation of such from sacrilege; yet we cannot think so of endowments, where the only consideration was a false opinion first of Purgatory, and then of redemption out of it by masses — this being expressed in the very deeds themselves. By the same reasons by which pri- vate persons are obliged to restore what they have drawn from others by base practices, by false deeds, or counterfeit coin, bodies are also bound to restore what they have got into their hands by such fraudulent practices; so that the states and princes of Christendom were at full liberty, upon the discovery of these impostures, to void all the endowments that had followed upon them; and either to apply them to better uses, or to restore them to the families from which they had been drawn, if that had been practicable, or to convert them to any other use. This was a crying abuse, which those who have observed the progress that this matter made from the eighth century to the twelfth, cannot reflect on without both amazement and indignation. We are sensible enough, that there are many political reasons and arguments for keeping up the doctrine of Purgatory. But we have not so learned Christ. We ought not to lie even for God, much less for ourselves, or for any other pretended ends of keeping the world in awe and order: therefore all the advan- tages that are said to arise out of this, and all the mischief that may be thought to follow on the rejecting of it, ought not to make us presume to carry on the ends of religion by unlawful methods. This were to call in the assistance of the devil to do the work of God. If the just apprehensions of the wrath of God, and the guilt of sin, together with the fear of everlasting burnings, will not reform the world, nor restrain sinners, wc ART. XXII. THE XXXIX ARTICLES. 269 iHust leave this matter to the wise and unsearchable judgments of God. The next particular in this Article is, the condemning the Romish doctrine concerning Pardons. That is founded on the distinction between the temporal and eternal punishment of sin; and the pardon is of the temporal punishment, which is believed to be done by a power lodged singly in the Pope, derived from those words. Feed my sheep, and To thee will I give the keys of the kingdom of heaven. This may be by him derived, as they teach, not only to Bishops and Priests, but to the inferior orders, to be dispensed by them; and it excuses from penance, unless he who purchases it thinks fit to use his penance in a medicinal way as a preservative against sin. So the virtue of indulgences is the applying the treasure of the Church upon such terms as Popes shall think fit to prescribe, in order to the redeeming souls from Purgatory, and from all other temporal punishments, and that for such a number of years as shall be specified in the bulls; some of which have gone to thousands of years — one I have seen to ten hundred thousand: and as these indulgences are sometimes granted by special tickets, like tallies struck on that treasure, so sometimes they are affixed to par- ticular churches and altars, to particular times or days, chiefly to the year of jubilee: they are also affixed to such things as may be carried about, to Agnus Dei’s, to medals, to rosaries, and scapularies: they are also affixed to some prayers, the devout saying of them being a mean to procure great indulgences. The granting these is left to the Pope’s discretion, who ought to dis- tribute them as he thinks may tend most to the honour of God, and the good of the Church; and he ought not to be too pro- fuse, much less to be too scanty in dispensing them. This has been the received doctrine and practice of the Church of Rome since the twelfth century; and the Council of Trent in a hurry, in its last session, did in very general words approve of the practice of the Church in this matter, and de- creed that indulgences should be continued; only they restrained some abuses, in particular that of selling them; yet even those restraints were wholly referred to the Popes themselves ; so that this crying abuse, the scandal of which had occasioned the first beginnings and progress of the Reformation, was upon the matter established; and the correcting the excesses in it was trusted to those who had been the authors of them, and the chief gainers by them. This point of their doctrine is more fully opened than might, perhaps, seem necessary, if it were not that a great part of the confutation of some doctrines is the exposing of them. For though in ages and places of ignorance these things have been, and still are, practised with great assur- ance, and to very extravagant excesses; yet in countries and AN EXPOSITION OP ART. XXII. 270 ages of more light, when they come to be questioned, they are disowned with an assurance equal to that with which they are practised elsewhere. Among us some will perhaps say, that these are only exemptions from penance, which cannot be denied to be within the power of the Church; and they argue, that though it is very fit to make severe laws, yet the execution of these must be softened in practice. This is all that they pretend to justify; and they give up any further indulgences as an abuse of corrupt times : whereas at the same time a very different doctrine is taught among them, where there is no danger, but much profit, in owning it. All this is only a pretence ; for the episcopal power, in the inflicting, abating, or commuting of penance, is stated among them as a thing wholly different from the power of indulgences. They are derived from different originals; and designed for ends totally different from one another. The one is for the outward discipline of the Church, and the other is for the inward quiet of consciences, and in order to their future state. The one is in every Bishop, and the other is asserted to be peculiar to the Pope. Nor will they escape by laying this matter upon the ignorance and abuses of former times. It was pub- lished in bulls, and received by the whole Church: so that if either the Pope, or the diffusive body of the Church, are infallible, there must be such a power in the Pope; and the decree of the Council of Trent, confirming and approving the practice of the Church in that point, must bind them all. For if this doctrine is false, then their, infallibility must go with it; for in every hypothesis in which infallibility is said to be lodged, whether in the Pope or in Councils, this doctrine has that seal to it. As for the doctrine itself, all that has been already said against the distinction of temporal and eternal punishment, and against Purgatory, overthrows it; since the one is the foundation on which it is built, and the other is that which it pretends to secure men from; and, therefore, this falls with those. All that was said upon the head of the Sufficiency of the Scriptures comes also in here; for if the Scriptures ought to be our rule in anything, it must be chiefly in those matters which relate to the pardon of sin, to the quiet of our consciences, and to a future state. Therefore a doctrine and practice, that have not so much as colours from Scripture in a matter of such conse- quence, ought to be rejected by us upon this single account. If from the Scripture we go to the practice and tradition of the Church, we are sure that this was not thought on for above ten centuries; all the indulgences that were then known being only the abatements of the severity of the penitentiary canons: but in the ages in which aspiring and insolent Popes imposed on ignorant and superstitious multitudes, a jumble was made of indulgences formerly granted, of Purgatory, and of the papal ART. XXII. THE XXXIX ARTICLES. 271 authority, that was then very implicitly submitted to; and so, out of all that mixture, this arose, which was as ill managed as it was ill grounded. The natural tendency of it is not only to relax all public discipline, but also all secret penance, when shorter methods to peace and pardon may be more easily purchased. The vast application to the executing the many trifling perform- ances to which indulgences are granted, has brought in among them such a prostitution of holy things, that either it must be said that those are public cheats, and that they were so from the beginning, or that their virtue is now exhausted, though the bulls that grant them are perpetual; or else a man may on very easy terms preserve himself, and redeem his friends out of Pur- gatory. If the saying a prayer before a privileged altar, or the visiting some churches in the time of jubilee, with those slight devotions that are then enjoined, have such efiicacy in them, it is scarce possible for any man to be in danger of Purgatory. The third head rejected in this Article is the worshipping of images. Here those of the Church of Rome complain much of the charge of idolatry that our Church has laid upon them, so fully and so severely, in the Homilies. Some among our- selves have also thought, that we must either renounce that charge, or that we must deny the possibility of salvation in that Church, and, in consequence to that conclude, that neither the baptism nor the orders of that Church are valid: for since ido- laters are excluded from the kingdom of heaven, they argue, that if there can be no salvation where idolatry is committed by the whole body of a Church, then that can be no Church, and in it there is no salvation. But here we are to consider, before we enter upon the specialties of this matter, that idola- try is a general word, which comprehends many several sorts and ranks of sins under it. As lying is capable of many degrees, from an officious lie 'to the swearing falsely against the life of an innocent man in judgment; the one is the lowest and the other is the highest act of that kind; but all are lying: and yet it would appear an unreasonable thing to urge every- thing that is said of any act in general, and which belongs to the highest acts of it, as if all the inferior degrees did neces- sarily involve the guilt of the highest. There is another dis- tinction to be made between actions, as they signify either of themselves, or by the public constructions that are put on them by those who authorize them, and those same actions as they may be privately intended by particular persons. We, in our weighing of things, are only to consider what actions signify of their own nature, or by public authority, and according to that we must form our judgments about them, and in particular in the point of idolatry: but as for the secret thoughts or inten- tions of men, we must leave these to the judgment of God, AN EXPOSITION OF ART. XXII. 272 who only knows them, and who being infinitely gracious, slow to anger, and ready to forgive, will, we do not doubt, make all the abatements in the weighing men^s actions that there is reason for. But we ought not to enter into that matter; we ought neither to aggravate nor to mollify things too much: we are to judge of things as they are in themselves, and to leave the case of men^s intentions and secret notions to that God, who is to judge them. As for the business of images, we know that the heathens had them of several sorts. Some they believed were real resemblances of those deities that they worshipped: those divinities had been men, and the statues made for them resembled them. Other images they believed had a divine virtue affixed to them, perhaps from the stars, which were believed to be gods; and it was thought that the influences of their aspects and positions were by secret charms called down, and fastened to some figures. Other images were considered as emblems and representations of their deities ; so that they only gave them occasion to represent them to their thoughts. These images, thus of different sorts, were all wor- shipped; some more, some less: they kneeled before them; they prayed to them, and made many oblations to them; they set lights before them, and burnt incense to them; they set them in their temples, market-places, and highways; and they had them in their- houses: they set them off with much pomp, and had many processions to their honour. But in all this, though it is like the vulgar among them might have gross thoughts of those images, yet the philosophers, not only after the Christian reli- gion had obliged them to consider well of that matter, and to express themselves cautiously about it, but even while they were in the peaceable possession of the world, did believe that the deity was not in the image, but was only represented by it; that the deity was worshipped in the image, so that the honour done the image did belong to the deity itself. Here then were two false opinions: the one was concerning those deities themselves, the other was concerning this way of wor- shipping them; and both were blamed — not only the worship- ping a false god, but the worshipping that god by an image. If idolatry had only consisted in the acknowledging a false god, and if the worshipping the true God in an image had not been idolatry, then all the fault of the heathenish idolaters should have consisted in this, that they worshipped a false god, but their worshipping images should not of itself have been an additional fault. But, in opposition to this, what can we think of those full and copious words, in which God did not only forbid the having of false gods, but the making of a graven image, or the likeness of anything in heaven, in earth, or under the earth? The bowing down to it, and the worshipping it, are also forbid: — where, besides the copiousness of these words ART. XXII. THE XXXIX ARTICLES. 273 we are to consider, that Moses, in the rehearsal of that law in Deuteronomy, does over and over again add and insist on this, that theij saw no manner of similitude when God spoke to them, lest they should corrupt themselves, and make to them a graven image, Deut. iv. 12. 15, 16. An enumeration is made of many different likenesses: and after that comes another species of ido- latry, their worshipping the host of heaven: and, therefore, Moses charges them in that chapter, again and again, to take heed, to take good heed to themselves, lest they should forget the covenant of the Lord their God, and make them a graven image (Deut. iv. 23; xii. 30; Levit. xxvi. 1; Deut. xvi. 22;) and he lays the same charge a third time upon them in the same chapter. A special law is also given against the most innocent of all the images that could be made: they were required not only not to have idols, nor graven images, but not to rear up a standing image or pillar ; - nor to set up any image of stone, or any carved stone; — such wer^ the Baitulia , the least tempting or ensnaring of all idols; — they '' ^ were not to bow down before it; and the reason given is. For I r am the Lord your God, The importance of those laws will appear clearer, if they are compared with the practice of those times, and particularly in those symbolical images which were sacred emblems and hieroglyphics, that were not meant to be a true representation of the Divine Being, but were a combination of many symbols, intended to represent at once to the thoughts of the worshipper many of the perfections of God: these were most particularly practised in Egypt, and to them the copious- ness of the Second Commandment seems to have a particular respect; such having been the images which they had lately seen, and which seem the most excusable of all others: — when, I say, all this is laid together, with the Commandment itself, and with those other laws that accompany and explain it, nothing seems more evident, than that God intended to forbid all outward representations that should be set up as the objects of worship. It is also very plain, that the Prophets expostulated with the people of Israel for their carved and molten images, as well as for their false gods : and among the reasons given against images, one is often repeated. To whom will ye liken me? which seems to import, that by these images, they represented the living God. And Isaiah (xl. 18 — 27; xliv. 9 — 21) often, as also both Jere- miah (x. 1 — 16) and Habakkuk (ii. 18 — 20,) when they set forth the folly of making an image, of praying to it, and trusting in it, bring in the greatness and glory of the living God in oppo- sition to these images. Now, though it is possible enough to apprehend how that the Jews might make images, in imitation of the heathen, to represent that God whom they served; yet it is no way credible, that they could have fallen into such a degree of stupidity as to fancy that a piece of wood, which they had s AN EXPOSITION OF ART. XXII. 274 carved into such a figure, was a real Deity. They might think it a god by representation, as the heathens thought their idols were; but more than this cannot be easily apprehended. So that it is most reasonable to think, that they knew the God they had thus made, and prayed to, was only a piece of wood; but they might well fall into that corruption of many of the heathen, of thinking that they honoured God by serving him in such an image. If the sin of the Jews was only their having other gods — and if the worshipping an image was only evil because a false deity was honoured by it — why is image-worship condemned, with reasons that will hold full as strong against the images of the true God as of false gods, if it had not been intended to condemn simply all image-worship? Certainly, if the Prophets had intended to have done it, they could not have expressed themselves more clearly and more fully than they did. To this it is to be added, that it seems very clear, from the history of the golden calf, that the Israelites did not intend, by setting it up, to cast off the true Jehovah, that had brought them out of Egypt, Exod. xxxii. I. 4, 5. They plainly said the con- trary, and appointed a feast to Jehovah. It is probable they thought Moses was either burnt or starved on Mount Sinai, so they desired some visible representation of the Deity, to go before them: they intended still to serve him; but since they thought they had lost their prophet and guide, they hoped that this should have been perhaps as a teraphim to them; yet for all this the calf is called an idol; and they are said to have changed their glory into the similitude of an ox that eateth grass, Acts vii. 41; Psal. cvi. 19, 20. So that here an emblem of the Deity is called an idol. They could take the calf for no other, but as a visible sign or symbol, in which they intended to worship their God of Elohim, and the Lord or Jehovah. Such very probably were also the calves of Dan and Bethel set up by Jeroboam (1 Kings xii. 27 — 33; xvi. 31; 2 Kings x. 28, 29,) who seemed to have no design to change the object of their worship, or the nature of their religion, but only to divert them from going up to Jerusalem, and to furnish them with conveniences to worship the living God nearer home. His design was only to establish the kingdom to himself; and in order to that, we must think that he would venture on no more than was necessary for his purpose. Besides, we do clearly see an opposition made between the calves set up by Jeroboam, and the worship of Baal brought from Tyrus by Ahab. Those who hated that idolatry, such as Jehu and his family, yet continued in the sin of Jeroboam; and they are represented as zealous for Jehovah, though they wor- shipped the calves at Dan and Bethel. These are called idols by Hosea, viii. 4, 5. From all which it seems to be very evident, that the ten tribes still feared and worshipped the true Jehovah. AllT. XXII. THE XXXIX ARTICLES. 2^5 This appears yet more clear from the sequel of their history, when they were carried away by the kings of Assyria, and new inhabitants were sent to people the country, who brought their idols along with them, and did not acknowledge Jehovah the true God; but upon their, being plagued with lions, to prevent this, the king of Assyria sent one of the priests, that had been carried out of the country, who taught them how they should fear the Lord: out of which that mixture arose, that they feared the Lord, and served their own images, 2 Kings xvii. 28. 32. 41. This proves, beyond all contradiction, that the ten tribes did still worship Jehovah in those calves that they had at Dan and Bethel: and thus it appears very clear, that, through the whole Old Testament, the use of all images in worship was expressly forbid ; and that the worshipping them, even when the true God was worshipped by them, was called idolatry. The words in which this matter is expressed are copious and full, and the reasons given for the precept are taken from the nature of God, who could be likened to nothing, and who had showed no simi- litude of himself when he appeared to their fathers, and delivered their law to them. The New Dispensation does in all respects carry the ideas of God and of true religion much higher, and raises them much above those compliances that were in the Old, to men^s senses, and to sensitive natures; and it would seem to contradict the whole design of it, if we could imagine that such things were allowed in it, which were so expressly forbid in the Old. Upon this occasion it is remarkable, that the two fullest passages in the New Testament concerning images, are written upon the occasion of the most refined idolatry that was then in the world, which was at Athens. When St. Paul was there, his spirit was moved within him, when he saw that city/w// of idols: he upon that charges them for thinking that the Godhead was like unto gold or silver, or stone graven by art or man^s device (Acts xvii. 16, 24 — 29;) he argues from the majesty of God, who made the world and all things therein, and was the Lord of heaven and earth, and therefore was not to be worshipped by men’s hands (that is, images made by them,) who needed nothing, since he gives us life, breath (or the continuance of life,) and all things. He therefore condemns that way of worship as an effect of ignorance, and tells them of a day in which God will judge the world. It is certain that the Athenians at that time did not think their images were the proper resemblances of the Divinity. Tully, who knew their theology well, gives us a very different account of the notion that they had of their images. Some images were of no figure at all, but w’ere only stones and pillars that had no particular shape; others were hieroglyphics made up of many several emblems, of which s 2 AN EXPOSITION OF ART. XXII. 276 some signified one perfection of the Deity^ and some another; and others were indeed the figures of men and women; but even in these the wiser among them said they worshipped one Eternal Mind, and under him some inferior beings, demons, and men, who they believed were subordinate to God, and governed this world. So it could not be said of such worshippers, that they thought that the Godhead was like unto their images; since the best writers among them tell us plainly that they thought no such thing. St. Paul therefore only argues in this against image-worship in itself, which does naturally lead men to these low thoughts of God; and which is a very unreasonable thing in all those who do not think so of him. It is contrary to the nature and perfections of God: few men can think God is like to those images, therefore that is a very good argument against all worshipping of them. And we may upon very sure grounds say, that the Athenians had such elevated notions both of God and of their images, that whatsoever was a good argument against image-worship among them, will hold good against all image- worship whatsoever. But as St. Paul stayed long enough at Athens to understand their opinions well, and that no doubt he learned their doctrine very particularly from his convert Dionysius; so at his coming to Corinth from thence, when he had learned from Aquila and Priscilla the state of the Church in Rome, and no doubt had learned, among other things, that the Romans admired the Greeks, and made them their patterns, he, in the beginning of his Epistle to them, having still deep impressions upon his spirit of what he had seen and known at Athens, arraigns the whole Greek philosophy, and especially those among them who professed themselves wise, but became fools; ivho, though they knew God, yet glorified him not as God, nor were thank- ful; but became vain in their imaginations, so tUat their foolish heart was darkened, Rom. i. 20 — 32. They had high spe- culations of the unity and simplicity of the Divine Essence; but they set themselves to find such excuses for the idolatry of the vulgar, that they not only continued to comply with them in the grossest of all their practices, but they studied more laboured defences for them than the ruder multitudes could ever have fallen upon. They knew the true God: for God had showed to them that winch might be known of him; but they held the truth in unrighteousness, and changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image, made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and four-footed beasts, and to creejmig things: whieh seems to be a description of hieroglyphic figures, the most excusable of all those images by which they represented the Deity. This St. Paul makes to be the original of all the corruption and immorality that was spread over the Gentile ART. XXII. THE XXXIX ARTICLES. 277 worlds which came in, partly as the natural consequence of idola- try, of its debasing the ideas of God, and wounding true religion and virtue in its source and first seeds, and partly as an effect of the just judgments of God upon those who thus dishonoured him, that was to a very monstrous degree spread over both Greece and Rome. Of these St. Paul gives us some very enormous instances, with a catalogue of the vices that sprang from those vitiated principles. These two passages, the one of St. PauFs preaching, and the other of his writing, being both applied to those who had the finest speculations among the heathen, do evidently demonstrate how contrary the Christian doctrine is to the worshipping of images of all sorts, how speciously soever that may be disguised. If these things wanted an explanation, we find it given us very fully in all the writings of the Fathers during their disputes with the heathens. They do not only charge them with the false notions that they had of God, the many deities they worshipped, the absurd legends that they had concerning them ; but, in parti- cular, they dwell long upon this of the worshipping God in or by an image, with arguments taken both from the pure and spiritual nature of God, and from the plain revelation he made of his will in this matter. Upon this argument many long citations might be gathered from Justin Martyr, from Clemens of Alexandria, Origen, Tertullian, Cyprian, Arnobius, Minutius Felix, Lactantius, Euse- bius, Ambrose, and St. Austin.* Their reasonings are so clear and so full, that nothing can be more evident than that they con- demned all the use of images in the worship of God; and yet both Celsus, Porphyry, Maximus Tyrius, and Julian, told them very plainly, that they did not believe that the Godhead was like their images, or was shut up within them — they only used them as helps to their imagination and apprehension, that from thence they might form suitable thoughts of the Deity. This did not satisfy the Fathers, who insisted on it to the last, that all such images as were made the objects of worship were idols; so that if in any one thing we have a very full account of the sense of the whole Church for the first four centuries, it is in this mat- ter. They do not speak of it now and then only by the way, as in a digression; in which the heat of argument, or of rheto- ric, may be apt to carry men too far: they set themselves to treat of this argument very nicely; and they were engaged in it with philosophers, who were as good at subtleties and dis- * Just. Mart. Apol. 2. Clem. Alex. Strom. 1. i. 5. Protr. Ong. cont. Cels. 1. ii. 3. 5. 7. Tertull. Apol. Cypr. de Idol. Vanitate. Arnob. lib. v. Minut. Felix Oct. Euseb. Prsep. Evang. 1. iii. Lactan. 1. ii. c. 2. Ambros. Resp. ad Sym.^ August, de Civitate Dei, 1. vii. c. o. Orig. cont. Cels. 1. vii. Euseb. Praep. Evang, 1. iii. c. 7. Max. Tyr. diss. 38, Jul. Frag. Ep. Euseb. Praep. Evang. 1. iv. c. 1. AN EXPOSITION OF ART. XXII. 278 tinctions as other men. This was one of the main parts of the controversy; so, if in any head whatsoever, they writ exactly upon those subjects. They attacked the established religion of the Roman Empire; and this was not to be done with clamour, nor could they offer at it in a plain contradiction to such principles as are consistent with the Christian religion, if the doctrine of the Roman Church is true. Here then we have not only the Scripture but tradition fully of our side. Some pretended Christians, it is true, did very early worship images; but those were the Gnostics, held in detestation by all Iren 1 i orthodox. Irenseus, Epiphanius, and St. Austin c. 24. ‘ ' tell us, that they worshipped the images of Christ, 27. together with Pythagoras, Plato, and Aristotle; nor are they only blamed for worshipping the images of Christ, together with those of the philosophers; but they are particularly blamed for having several sorts of images, and worshipping these as the heathens did; and that among these there was an image of Christ, which they pretended to have had from Pilate. Besides these corrupters of Christianity, there were no others among the Christians of the first ages that worshipped images. This was so well known to the heathens^ that they bring this, among other things, as a reproach against the Christians, that they had no images; which the first apolo- gists are so far from denying, that they answered them, that it was impossible for him who knew God to worship images. But as human nature is inclined to visible objects of worship, so it seems some began to paint the walls of their churches with pic- tures, or at least moved for it. In the beginning of the fourth century this was condemned by the Council of Elliberis, Can. 36 ; It pleases us to have no pictures in churches, lest that ivhich is worshipped should be painted upon the walls. Towards the end Epiph.Ep.ad. of that century, we have an account given us by Epipha- joaii. Hieros. indignation occasioned by a picture that he saw upon a veil at Anablatha. He did not much consider whose picture it was, whether a picture of Christ or of some saint; he positively affirms it was against the authority of the Scriptures, and the Christian religion, and, therefore, he tore it, but supplied that church with another veil. It seems private persons had Euseb H- 1 Christ and the Apostles; which Eusebius Ecci. 1. vii. ' censures, where he reports it as a remnant of heathen- Aug^.'inPsai. If is plain enough, from some passages in St. niMoribus -^^^stin, that he knew of no images in churches in Ecci. Gath, the beginning of the fifth century. It is true, they began to be brought before that time into some of the churches of Pontus and Cappadocia, which was done very probably to draw the heathens, by this piece of conformity to them, to like the Christian worship the better. For that ART. XXII. THE XXXIX ARTICLES. 27^ humour began to work, and appeared in many instances of other kinds as well as in this. It was not possible that people could see pictures in their churches long, without X^aying some marks of respect to them, which grew in a little time to the downright worship of them. A famous instance we have of this in the sixth century: Serenus, Bishop of Marseilles, finding that he could not restrain his people from the worship of images, broke them in pieces; upon which Pope Gregory writ to him, blaming him indeed Greg. Epist. for breaking the images, but commending him for not allowing them to be worshipped. This he prosecutes in a variety of very plain expressions: It is one thing to worship an image, and another thing to learn by it what is to be worshipped : he says, they were set up, not to be worshipped, but to instruct the ignorant; and cites our Saviour’s words. Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve, to prove that it was not lawful to worship the work of men’s hands. We see by a fragment cited in the second Nicene Council, that both Jews and Gentiles took advantage, from the worship of images, to reproach the Christians soon after that time. The Jews were scandalized at their worshipping images, as being expressly against the command of God. The Gentiles had also by it great advantages of turning back upon the Christians all that had been written against their images in the former ages. At last, in the beginning of the eighth century, the famous controversy about the having or breaking of images grew hot. The Churches of Italy were so set on the worshipping of them, that Pope Gregory the Second* gives this for the reason of their rebelling against the Emperor, because of his opposition to images. And here in little more than an hundred years the See of Rome changed its doctrine. Pope Qregory the Second being as positive for the worshipping them, as the first of that name had been against it. Violent contentions arose upon this* head. The breakers of images were charged with Juda- ism, Samaritanism, and Manicheeism; and the worshippers of them were charged with Gentilism and Idolatry. One Gene- ral Council at Constantinople, consisting of about three hun- dred and thirty-eight Bishops, condemned the worshipping them as idolatrous : but another at ' Nice, of three hundred and fifty Bishops, though others say there were only three hundred, asserted the worship of them. Yet as soon as this was known in the West, how active soever the See of Rome was for establishing their worship, a Council of about three hundred Bishops met at Francfort, under Charles the Great, * This is owned by all the historians of that age, Anastasias, Zonaras, Cedrenus, Glycas, Theophanes, Sigebert, Otho, Fris. Urspergensis, Sigonius, Rubens, and Ciaconius. 280 AN EXPOSITION OP ART. XXII. which condemned the Nicene Council, together with the worship of images. The Gallican Church insisted long upon this matter: books were published in the name of Charles the Great against them. A Council held at Paris under his son did also condemn image- worship, as contrary to the honour that is due to God only, and to the commands that he has given us in Scripture. The Nicene Council was rejected here in England, as our histo- rians tell us, because it asserted the adoration of images, which the Church of God abhors. Agobard, Bishop of Lyons, and Claud of Turin, writ against it; the former writ with great vehemence. The learned men of that communion do now acknowledge, that what he writ was according to the sense of the Gallican Church in that age; and even Jonas of Orleans, who studied to moderate the matter, and to reconcile the Gallican Bishops to the See of Rome, yet does himself declare against the worship of images. We are not concerned to examine how it came that all this vigorous opposition to image-worship went off so soon. It is enough to us, that it was once made so resolutely: let those who think it so incredible a thing that Churches should depart from their received traditions, answer this as they can. As for Acta Con. the methods then used, and the arguments that were AJton‘4, 5, then brought to infuse this doctrine into the world, he who will read the history and acts of the Nicene Council, will find enough to incline him to a very bad opinion, both of the men and of their doctrine, though he were ever so much inclined to think well of them. After all, though that Council laid the foundation of image-worship, yet the Church Aquin To 1 Romc has made great improvements in it since, quaest. 25 . ciis! Those of Nice ■ expressed a detestation of an image 54. sect. 2. j^ade to represent the Deity : they go no higher than the images of Christ and the Saints: whereas since that time the Deity and the Trinity have been represented by images and pictures, and that not only by connivance, but by authority in the Church of Rome. Bellarmine,* Suarez, and others, prove the lawfulness of such images from the general practice of the Church. Others go further, and from the caution given in the decree of the Council of Trent concerning the images of God, do infer, that they are allowed by that Council, provided they he decently made. Directions are also given concerning the use of the image of the Trinity in public offices among them. In a word, all their late Doctors agree that they are lawful, and reckon the calling that in question to be not only rashness but an error; and such as have held it unlawful to make such images, were especially * Bellarm. de Imag. 1. ii. c. 8. Suarez. M. 3. Ysambert de Mist. Incarn. ad qusest. 25. dis. 3. Vasquez in 3. Aquin. disp. 103. c. 3. Cajetan. in 3. Aquin. quaest. 25. A. 3. ART. XXII. THE XXXIX ARTICLES. 281 condemned at Rome, December 17, 1690. The varieties of those images, and the boldness of them, are things apt to give horror to modest minds, not accustomed to such attempts. It must be acknowledged, that the old emblematical images of the Egyp- tians, and the grosser ones now used by the Chinese, are much more instructing, and much less scandalous figures. As the Roman Church has gone beyond the Nicene con.Nic. 2. Council in the images that they allow of, so they have ^ct. 7. Act. also gone beyond them in the degrees of the worship that they offer to them. At Nice the worship of images was very positively decreed, with anathemas against those who did it not : a bare honour, they reckoned, was not enough. They thought it was a very valuable argument that was brought from those words of Christ to the devil. Thou shall worship con. nic, the Lord thy God, and him only shall thou serve; that here service is only appropriated to God, but not worship. Among the acts of worship they reckon the oblation of incense and lights; and the reason given by them for all this is, because the honour of the Image, or Type, passes to the Original, or Pro- totype; so that plain and direct worship was to ter mi- Duran, in nate on the image itself: and Durandus passed for 2 ^.” little less than a heretic, because he thought that images is. were worshipped only improperly and abusively, because at their presence we call to mind the object represented by them, which we worship before the image, as if the object itself were before us. The Council of Nice did plainly assert the direct worship of images, but they did as positively declare, that they meant only that it should be an honorary adoration, and not the true Latria, which was only due to God. And, whateA^er some modern representers and expositors of the Roman doctrine may say to soften the harshness of the worship of images, it is very copiously proved, both from the words of the Council of Nice, con. nic. and from all the eminent writers in that communion, 2 * even from the time of Aquinas,* and of the modern schoolmen and writers of controversy, that direct worship ought to be offered to the image itself; this reserve of the Latria to God being an evident proof that all inferior acts of worship were allowed them. But this reserve does no way please the later writers; for Aquinas, and many from him, do teach, that the same acts and degrees of worship which are due to the original are also due to the image: they think an image has such a rela- tion to the original, that both ought to be worshipped by the same act, and that to worship the image with any other sort of acts, is to worship it on its own account, which they think is idolatry: ♦ Aquin. 2. p. q. 25. Art. 3. See to the same purpose, Alex. Hales, Bona- venture, Ricardus de Media villa palud. Almans. Biel Summa Angelica, and many more cited in Bishop Stillingfleet’s Defence of the Charge of Idolatry, Part ii. Chap 2. 282 AN EXPOSITION OF ART. XXII. whereas others, adhering to the Nicene doctrine, think that the image is to be worshipped with an inferior degree; that other- wise idolatry must follow. So here the danger of idolatry is threatened of both sides; and since one of them must be cho- sen, thus it will follow, that let a man do what he can, he must commit idolatry, according to the opinion of some very subtile and learned men among them. con.Trid. The Council of Trent did indeed decline to give a Sess. 25. clear decision in this matter, and only decreed that due worship should be given to images, but did not determine what that due worship was. And though it appears by the decree, that there were abuses committed among them in that matter, yet they only appoint some regulations concerning such images as were to be suffered, and that others were to be removed; but they left the divines to fight out the matter con- cerning the due worship that ought to be given to images. They were then in haste,* and intended to offend no party; as they would not justify all that had been said or done concerning the worship of images, so they would condemn no part of it: yet they confirmed the Nicene Council, and in particular made use of Pont. Rom. that maxim of theirs, that the honour of the Type goes to cij?impS! the Prototype; and thus they left it as they found it. So Rubri. ^}^at the dispute goes on still as hot as ever. The prac- tice of the Roman Church is express for the to be given to images; and, therefore, all that write for it do frequently cite that hymn. Crux Ave spes unica, auge piis justitiam, reisque dona veniam. It is expressly said in the Pontifical, Cruci dehetur Latria, and the prayers used in the consecration of a cross: it is prayed, t that the blessing of that cross on which Christ hung may be in it ; that it may be a healthful remedy to mankind^ a strength- ener of faith, an increaser of good works, the redemption of souls, and a comfort, protection, and defence against the cruelty of our enemies. These, with all the other acts of adoration used among them, seem to favour those who are for a Latria to be given to all those images to the originals of which it is due; and in the like proportion for Dulia and Hyperdulia to other images. It is needless to prosecute this matter further. It seemed necessary to say so much, to justify our Church, which has in her Homilies laid this charge of idolatry very * See Bishop Stilliiigfleet, ut Supra. f In benedictione novae Crucis. Rogamus te Domine, sancte Pater, oninipotens scmpitcrne Deus, ut digneris benedicere hoc lignum Crucis tuae, ut sit remedium salutare generi humano, sit soliditas fidei, profectus bonorum operum, rodem[)tio auimarum, sit solamcn et protectio ac tutela contra saeva jacula luimicorum. Per Dorn. Sanctificetur lignum istud in nomine Patris et Filii ct Spiritus Sancti, ct benedictio illius ligni in quo membra sancta Salvatoris suspcnsa sunt sit in isto ligno, ut orantes inclitjantcsque se propter Deum ante istam cruccrn invcniaut corporis ct animac sanitatem per cundem. ART. XXII. THE XXXIX ARTICLES. 283 severely on the Church of Rome; and this is so high an impu- tation, that those who think it false, as they cannot, with a good conscience, subscribe, or require others to subscribe, the Article concerning the Homilies, so they ought to retract their own sub- scriptions, and to make solemn reparations in justice and honour, for laying so heavy an imputation unjustly upon that whole communion. There is nothing that can be brought from Scripture that has a show of an argument for supporting image-worship, unless it be that of the Cherubims that were in the holiest of all (Heb, ix. 3. 7 ;) and they, as is supposed, were worshipped at least by the High Priest, when he went thither once a year, if not by the whole people. But, first, there is a great difference to be made between a form of worship immediately prescribed by God, and another form that not only has no warrant for it, but seems to be very expressly forbidden. It is plain, the Cherubims were not seen by the people, and so they could be no visible object of worship to them. They were scarce seen by the High Priest himself, for the holiest of all was quite dark- — no light coming into it but what came through the veil from the holy place; and even that had very little light. Nor is there a word* concerning the High PriesPs worshipping either the Ark or the Cherubim. It is true, there is a place in the Psalms that seems to favour this, as it is rendered by the Vulgate, Worship his footstool, for it is holy (Psal. xcix. 8, 9;) but both the Hebrew and the Septua- gint have it, as it is in our translation. Worship at his footstool, for he is holy ; and all the Greek Fathers cite these words so. Many of the Latin Fathers do also cite them according to the Greek; and the last words of the Psalm, in which the same words are repeated, make the sense of it evident; for there it is thus varied, Eocalt ye the Lord our God, and worship at his holy hill, for the Lord our God is holy. These words coming so soon after the former, are a paraphrase to them, and determine their sense. No doubt the High Priest worshipped God, who dwelt between the Cherubims, in that cloud of glory in which he showed himself visibly present in his temple; but there is no sort of reason to think, that, in so majestic a presence, adoration could be offered to anything else; or that after the High Priest had adored the Divine Essence so manifested, he would have fallen to worship the Ark and the Cherubims. This agrees ill with the figure that is so much used in this matter, of a king and his chair of state; for, in the presence of the king, all respects ter- minate in his person, whatsoever may be done in his absence. And thus, this being not so much a precedent, much less an argument for the use of images; and there being nothing else brought from Scripture, that with any sort of wresting can be urged for it; and the sense and practice of the whole Church 284 AN EXPOSITION OF ART. XXII. being so express against it; the progress of it having been so long and so much disputed; the tendency of it to superstition and abuse being by their own confession so visible; the scandal that it gives to Jews and. Mahometans being so apparent; and it carrying in its outward appearances such a conformity (to say at present no more) to heathenish idolatry — we think we have all possible advantages in this argument.’ We adhere to that purity of worship which is in both Testaments so much insisted on; we avoid all scandal, and make no approaches to heathenism; and follow the pattern set us by the primitive Church. And as our simplicity of worship needs not be defended, since it proves itself; so no proofs are brought for the other side, but only a pretended usefulness in outward figures, to raise the mind by the senses to just apprehensions of spiritual objects; which, allowing it true, will only conclude for the historical use of images, but not for the directing our worship towards them. But the eifect is quite contrary to the pretence; for, instead of raising the mind by the senses, the mind is rather sunk by them into gross ideas. The bias of human nature lies to sense, and to form gross imaginations of incorporeal objects; and, therefore, instead of gratifying these, we ought to wean our minds from them, and to raise them above them all we can. Even men of speculation and abstraction feel nature in this grows too hard for them; but the vulgar are apt to fall so headlong into these conceits, that it looks like the laying of snares for them, to furnish them with such methods and helps for their having gross thoughts of spi- ritual objects. The fondness that the people have for images, their readiness to believe the most incredible stories concerning them, the expense they are at to enrich and adorn them, their prostrations before them, their confidence in them, their humble and tender embracing and kissing of them, their pompous and heathenish processions to do them honour, the fraternities erected for particular images, not to mention the more universal and established practice of directing their prayers to them, of setting lights before them, and of incensing them — these, I say, are things too well known, to such as have seen the way of that religion, that they should need to be much enlarged on; and yet they are not only allowed of, but encouraged. Those among them who have too much good sense that they should sink into these foolish apprehensions themselves, yet must not only bear with them, but often comply with them, to avoid the giving of scandal, as they call it; not considering the much greater scan- dal that they give, when they encourage others by their practice to go on in these follies. The enlarging into all the corruptions occasioned by this way of worship would carry me far; but it seems not necessary, the thing is so plain in itself. The next head in this Article is a full instance of it, which ART. XXII. THE XXXIX ARTICLES. 285 is, the Worship of Relics. It is no wonder that great care was taken in the beginnings of Christianity, to show all possible respect and tenderness even to the bodies of the martyrs. There is something of this planted so deep in human nature, that though the philosophy of it cannot be so well made out, yet it seems to be somewhat more than an universal custom : humanity is of its side, and is apt to carry men to the profusions of pomp and cost : all religions do agree in this ; so that we need not wonder if Chris- tians, in the first fervour of their religion, believing the resurrection so firmly as they did, and having a high sense of the honour done to Christ and his religion by the sufferings of the martyrs ; if, I say, they studied to gather theirbones and ashes together, and bury them decently. They thought it a sign of their being joined Ep. ecc. with them in the body, to hold their assemblies at , the places where they were buried: this might be also 1.4. c. 15. considered as a motive to encourage others to follow the cyrii^ub. example that they had given them, even to martyrdom ; Eni^p/in. and, therefore, all the marks of honour were put even vita^dess. upon their bodies that could be thought on, except worship. After the ages of persecution were over, a fondness of having and keeping their relics began to spread itself in many places. Monks fed that humour by carrying them about. We find in St. Aus- tin^s works, that superstition was making a great pro- opere mo- gress in Africa upon these heads, of which he complains frequently. Vigilantius had done it to more purpose in Spain; and did not only complain of the excesses, but of the thing in itself. St. Jerome fell unmercifully upon him for it, and Hieron. adv. sets a high value upon relics, yet he does not speak one to. 2. word of worshipping them: he denies and disclaims it, and seems only to allow of a great fondness for them; and, with most of that age, he was very apt to believe that miracles were oft wrought by them. When superstition is once suffered to mix with religion, it will be still gaining ground, and it admits of no bounds: so this matter went on, and new legends were invented; but when the controversy of image-worship began, it followed that as an accessory. The enshrining of relics occasioned the most excellent sort of images ; and they were thought the best preservatives possible both for soul and body: no presents grew to be more valued than relics; and it was an easy thing for the Popes to furnish the world plentifully that way, but chiefly since the discovery of the catacombs, which has furnished them with stores not to be exhausted. The Council of Trent did in this, as in the point of images — it appointed relics to be venerated, but did not determine the degree; so it left the world in posses- sion of a most excessive dotage upon them. They are used everywhere by them as sacred charms, kissed and worshipped; they are served with lights and incense. 286 AN EXPOSITION OF ART. XXII. In opposition to all this^ we think, that all decent honours are indeed due to the bodies of the saints, which were once the temples of the Holy Ghost (1 Cor. vi. 19;) but since it is said, that God took that care of the body of Moses (Deut. xxxiv. 6,) so as to bury it in such a manner that no man knew of his sepulchre, there seems to have been in this a peculiar caution, guarding against that superstition which the Jews might very probably have fallen into with relation to his body. And this seems so clear an indication of the will of God in this matter, that we reckon we are very safe when we do no further honour to the body of a saint than to bury it. And though that saint had been ever so eminent, not only for his holiness, but even for miracles wrought by him, by his shadow; or even by looking on him; yet the history of the Brazen Seypent shows us, that a fondness even on the instruments that God made use of to work miracles by, degenerates easily to the superstition of burning incense to them: but when that appears it is to be checked, even by breaking that which was so abused. Heze- kiah (2 Kings xviii. 4) is commended for breaking in pieces that noble remain of Moseses time till then preserved; neither its antiquity, nor the signal miracles once wrought by it, could balance the ill use that was then made of it: that good king broke it, for which he might have had a worse name than an Iconoclast if he had lived in some ages. It is true, miracles were of old wrought by Aaron’s rod, by Elisha’s bones (2 Kings xiii. 21) after his death; and the one was preserved, but not wor- shipped: nor was there any superstition that followed on the other. Not a word of this fondness appears in the beginnings of Christianity; though it had been an easy thing at that time to have furnished the world with pieces of our Saviour’s gar- ments, hair, or nails; and great store might have been had of the Virgin’s and the Apostles’ relics; St. Stephen’s and St. James’s bones might have been then parcelled about; and if that spirit had then reigned in the Church, which has been in the Roman Church now above a thousand years, we should have heard of the relics that were sent about from Jerusalem to all the Churches. But when such things might have been had in great abundance, and have been known not to be counterfeits, we hear not a word of them. If a -fondness for relics had been in the Church upon Christ’s ascension, what care would have been taken to have made great collections of them ! Then we see no other care about the body of St. Stephen but to bury it; and not long after that time, upon St. Poly- carp’s martyrdom, when the Jews, who had set on the prose- cution against him, suggested, that if the Christians could gain his body, they would^ perhaps forsake Christ and worship him, they rejected the accusation with horror; for in the epistle AUT. xxn. THE XXXIX ARTICLES. 287 which the Church of Smyrna writ upon liis martyrdom, after they mention tins insinuation, they have those remarkable words, whicli belong both to this head and to that which follows it, of the invocation and worship of saints: — These raen knovj not that we can neither forsake Christ, who suffered for the Ep. Euseb. salvation of all that are saved, the innocent for the^ '^'^-^-^^- guilty, nor worship any other: Him truly being the Son of God we adore; but the martyrs, and disciples, and folloivers of the Lord, we justly love, for that extraordinary good mind which they have expressed toward their King and Master^ of whose happn- ness God grant that we may partake, and that ive may learn by their examples. The Jews had so persuaded the Gentiles of Smyrna of this matter, that they burnt St. Polycarp^s body; but the Christians carried up his bones with much respect, so that it appeared how they honoured them, though they could not wor- ship them; and they buried them in a convenient place, which they intended to make the place where they should hold, by the blessing of God, the yearly commemoration of that birth-day of his martyrdom, with much joy and gladness, both to honour the memory of those who had overcome in that glorious engagement, and to instruct and confirm all others by their example. This is one of the most valuable pieces of true and genuine antiquity; and it shows us very fully the sense of that age, both concerning the relics and the worship of the saints. In the following ages, we find no characters of any other regard to the bones or bodies of the saints, but that they buried them very decently, and did annually commemorate their death, calling it their Birth-day . And it may incline men strongly to suspect the many miracles that were published in the fourth century, as wrought at the tombs or memories of the martyrs, or by their relics, that we hear of none of those in the former three centuries : for it seems there was more occasion for them during the persecution than after it was over; it being much more necessary than to furnish Chris- tians with so strong a motive as this must have been, to resist even to when God was pleased to glorify himself so signally in his saints. This, I say, forces us to fear, that credulity and imagination, or somewhat worse than both these, might have had a large share in those extraordinary things that are related to us by great men in the fourth century. He must have a great disposition to believe wonderful things, that can digest the extraordinary relations that are even in St. Basil, 0141 104- 1 Martyr, m ot. Ambrose, and St. Austin, and most signally m St. Hom. 26 . Jerome; — for instance, that after one had stolen Hila- rion’s body out of Cyprus, and brought it to Palestine, upon which Constantia, that w^ent constantly to his tomb, was ready to have broke her heart; God took c! such pity on her, that as the true body wrought great miracles 288 AN EXPOSITION OF ART. XXII. in Palestine^ so likewise very great miracles continued still to be wrought at the tomb where it was at first laid. One, in respect to those great men, is tempted to suspect that many things might have been foisted into their writings in the following ages. A great many practices of this kind have been made manifest beyond contradiction. Whole books have been made to pass for the writings of Fathers, that do evidently bear the marks of a much later date, where the fraud was carried too far not to be dis- covered. At other times, parcels have been laid in among their genuine productions, which cannot be so easily distinguished, they not being liable to so many critical inquiries as may be made on a larger work. It is a little unaccountable, how so many marvel- chrysost things should be published in that age, and yet Horn. 6. in that St. Chrysostom, who spent his whole life between • ^ ° two of the publickest scenes of the world, Antioch and Constantinople, and was an active and inquisitive man, should not so much as have heard of any such wonderful stories, but should have taken pains to remove a prejudice out of the minds of his hearers that might arise from this, that whereas they heard of many miracles that were wrought in the times of the Apostles, none w^ere wrought at that time; upon which he gives very good reasons why it was so. His saying so positively, that none were wrought at that time, without so much as a salvo for what he might have heard from other parts, shows plainly that he had not heard of any at all; for he was orator enough to have made even looser reports look probable. This does very much shake the credit of those amazing relations that we find in St. Jerome, St. Ambrose, and St. Austin. It is true, there seems to have been an opinion very generally received, both in the East and the West, at that time, which must have very much heightened the growing superstition for relics. It was a remnant both of Judaism and Gentilism, that the souls of the martyrs hovered about their tombs, called their memories; and that, therefore, they might be called upon, and spoke to there. This appears even in the Council of Elliberis, where the superstition of light- ing candles about their tombs in day-light is forbidden: the reason given is, because the spirits were not to be disquieted. Basil, in 40. St. Basil, and the other Fathers, that do so often men- Martyr. going to their memories, do very plainly insinuate their being present at them, and hearing themselves called upon. This may be the reason why, among all tlie saints that are so much magnified in that age, we never find the blessed Virgin so much as once mentioned. They knew not where her body was laid, the)^ had no tomb for her, no, nor any of her relics or utensils. But upon the occasion of .Nes- torius’s denying her to be the Mother of God, and by carrying the opposition to that too far, a superstition for her was set on ART. XXII. THE XXXIX ARTICLES. 28D foot: it made a progress sufficient to balance the slowness of its beginning; the whole world was then filled with very extrava- gant devotions for her; The great noise we find concerning relics in the end of the fourth century, has all the characters of novelty possible in it; for those who speak of it, do not derive it from former times. One circumstance in this is very remarkable, that neither Trypho, Celsus, Lucian, nor Cecilius, do object to the Christians of their time their fondness for dead bodies, or praying about their tombs, which they might well have alleged in opposition to what the Christians charged them with, if there had been any occasion for it; whereas this custom was no sooner begun, than both Julian and Eunapius reproach the Christians for it. Julian, it is true, speaks only of their calling on God lib. lo. con. over sepulchres: Eunapius writ after him: and it Eunap. in seems, in his time, that which Julian sets forth as a ^dess. calling upon God, was advanced to an invocation of them. He says, they heaped together the bones and skulls of men that had been punished for many crimes (it was natural enough for a spiteful heathen to give this representation of their martyrdom,) holding them for gods; and after some scurrilous invectives against them, he adds. They are called martyrs, andjnade the ministers and messengers of prayer to the gods. This seems to be a very evident proof of the novelty of this matter. As for the adoring them, when Vigilantius asked. Why dost thou kiss and adore a little dust put up in fine linen? St. Jerome, though excessively fond of them, denies this very positively, and that in very injurious terms, being offended at the injustice of the reproach. Yet as long as the bodies of the martyrs were let lie quietly in their memories, the fond opinion of their being pre- sent, and hearing what was said to them, made the invocating them look like one man’s desiring the assistance of another good man’s prayer; so that this step seemed to have a fair colour. But when their bodies were pulled asunder, and carried up and down, so that it was believed miracles abounded everywhere about them; and when their bones and relics grew to increase and multiply, so that they had more bones and limbs than God and nature had given them; then new hypotheses were to be found out to justify the calling upon them everywhere, as their relics were spread. St. Jerome, in his careless way, says, ^ieron ad. They followed the Lamb ichither soever he loent; and seems vigilant, to make no doubt of their being, if not everywhere, yet pro mor- in several places at once. But St. Austin, who could follow a consequence much further in his thoughts, though he doubted not but that men were much the better for the prayers of the martyrs, yet he confesses that it passed the strength of his understanding to determine, whether they heard those who called T 290 AN EXPOSITION OF ART. XXII. upon them at their memories, or wheresoever else they were believed to have appeared, or not. But the devotions that are spoken of by all of that age, are related as having been olfered at their memories; so that this seems to have been the general opinion, as well as it was the common practice of that age, though it is no wonder if this conceit once giving some colour and credit to the invocating them, that did quickly increase itself to a gene- ral invocation of them everywhere. And thus a fondness for their relics, joined with the opinion of their relation and nearness to them, did in a short time grow up to a direct worshipping of them; and, by the fruitfulness that always follows superstition, did spread itself further — to their clothes, utensils, and every- thing else that had any relation to them. There was cause given in St. Austin^s time to suspect, that many of the bones which were carried about by monks were de none of their bones, but impostures, which very much opere Mo- shakcs the Credit of the miracles wrought by them, since ■ ■ ■ we have no reason to think that God would support such impostures with miracles; as, on the other hand, there is no reason to think that false relics would have passed upon the world, if miracles had been believed to accompany true ones, unless they had their miracles likewise to attest their value: so, let this matter be turned which way it may, the credit both of relics and of the miracles wrought by them, is not a little shaken by it. But in the following ages we have more than presump- tions, that there was much of this false coin that went abroad in the world. It was not possible to distinguish the false from the true. The freshness of colour and smell, so often boasted, might have been easily managed by art; the varieties of those relics, the different methods of discovering them, the shinings that were said to be about their tombs, with the smells that broke out of them, the many apparitions that accompanied them, and the signal cures that were wrought by them, as they grew to fill the world with many volumes of legends, many more lying yet in the manuscripts in many Churches than have been published; — all these, I say, carry in them such characters of fraud and impos- ture on the one hand, and of credulity and superstition on the other — so much craft, and so much folly — that they had their full effect upon the world, even in contradiction to the clearest evidence possible; the same saints having more bodies and heads than one, in different places, and yet all equally celebrated with miracles. A great profusion of wealth and pomp was laid out in honouring them, new devotions were still invented for them: and though these things are too palpably false to be put upon us now, in ages of more light, where everything will not go down because it is confidently affirmed ; yet, as we know how great a part of the devotion of the Latin Church this continued to be ART. xxn. THE xxxrx ARTICLES. ^ 291 for many ages before the Reformation, so the same trade is still carried on, where the same ignorance and the same superstition does still continue. I come now to consider the last head of this Article, which is the Invocation of Saints, of which much has been already said by anticij^ation ; for there is that connexion between the worship of relics and the invocation of saints, that the treating of the one does very naturally carry one to say somewhat of the other. It is very evident that saints were not invocated in the Old Testa- ment. God being called so oft the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, seems to give a much better warrant for it, than anything that can be alleged from the New Testament. Moses was their lawgiver, and their mediator and intercessor with God; and his intercession, as it had been very effectual for them, so it had showed itself in a very extraordinary instance, of his desiring that his name might be blotted out of the book which he had written (Exod. xxxii. 32,) rather than the people should perish; when God had offered to him, that he would raise up a new nation to himself, out of his posterity. God had also made many pro- mises to that nation by him ; so that it might be natural enough, considering the genius of superstition, for the Jews to have called to him in their miseries to obtain the performance of those promises made by him to them. We may upon this refer the matter to every man^s judgment, whether Abraham and Moses might not have been much more reasonably invocated by the Jews, according to what we find in the Old Testament, than any saint can be under the New? Yet we are sure they were not prayed to. Elijah’s going up to heaven in so miraculous a manner, might also have been thought a good reason for any to have prayed to him : but nothing of that kind was then practised. They understood prayer to be a part of that worship which they owed to God only; so that the praying to any other had been, to a certain degree, the having another God before or besides the true Jehovah. They never prayed to any other; they called upon him, and made mention of no other; the rule was without exception. Call upon me in the time of trouble; I will hear thee, and thou shalt glorify me, Psal. 1. 15. Upon this point there is no dispute. In the New Testament we see the same method followed, with this only exception, that Jesus Christ is proposed as our Mediator; and that not only in the point of redemption, which is not denied by those of the Church of Rome, but even in the point of intercession; for when St. Paul is treating concerning the prayers and supplications that are to be offered for all men, he concludes that direction in these words. For there is one God, and one Mediator between God and man, the "man Christ Jesus, 1 Tim. ii. 5. We think the silence of the New Testa- T 2 292 . AN EXPOSITION OF ART. XXII. ment might be a sufficient argument for this; but these words go farther, and imply a prohibition to address our prayers to God by any other mediator. All the directions that are given us, of trusting in God and praying to him, are upon the matter pro- hibitions of trusting to any other, or of calling on any other. Invocation and faith are joined together: How shall they call on him in ivhom they have not believed? (Rom. x. 14;) so that we ought only to pray to God and to Christ, according to those words. Ye believe in God, believe also in me, John xiv. 1. We do also know, that it was a part of heathenish idolatry to invocate either demons or departed men, whom they considered as good beings subordinate to the Divine Essence, and employed by God in the government of the world; and they had almost the same speculations about them, that have been since introduced into the Church concerning angels and saints. In the condemning all idolatry, no reserve is made in Scripture for this, as being faulty only because it was applied wrong, or that it might be set right when directed better: on the contrary, when some men, under the pretence of humility and of loill-iv or ship (Col. ii. 18,) did, according to the Platonic notions, offer to bring in the worship of angels into the Church of Colosse, pretending, as is probable, that those spirits who were employed by God in the ministry of the gospel, ought, in gratitude for that service, and out of respect to their dignity, to be worshipped; St. Paul condemns all this, without any reserves made for lower degrees of worship: he charges the Christians to beware of that vain philosophy, and not to be deceived by those shows of humility, or the speculations of men who pretended to explain that which they did not know, as intruding into things which they had not seen, vainly puffed up by their fleshly mind. Col. ii. 8. 18. If any degrees of invocating saints or angels had been consistent with the Christian religion, this was the proper place of declaring them; but the condemning that matter so absolutely, looks as a very express prohibition of all sorts of worship to angels. And when St. John fell down to worship the angel that had made him such glorious discoveries upon two several occasions, the answer he had was. See thou do it not; worship God: I am thy fellow-servant. Rev. xix. 10; xxii. 9. It is probable enough that St. John might imagine that the angel, who had made such discoveries to him, was Jesus Christ: but the answer plainly shows, that no sort of worship ought to be offered to angels, nor to any but God. The reason given excludes all sorts of worship, for that cannot be among fellow-servants. As angels are thus forbid to be worshipped, so no mention is made of worshipping or invocating any saints that had died for the faith, such as St. Stephen and St. James. In the Epistle to the Hebrews, they are required to remember them which had ART. XXII. THE XXXIX ARTICLES. 293 the rule over them, and to follow their faith (Hel^. xiii. 7 ;) but not a word of 2 )raying to them. So tliat^ if either the silence of the Scriptures on this head, or if plain declarations to the contrary could, decide this matter, the controversy would soon be at an end. Christ is always proposed to us as the only person by whom we come unto God; and when St. Paul speaks against the worshipping of angels, he sets Christ out in his glory, in opposition to it: For in himdwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily : and ye are complete in him, which is the head of all prin- cipality and power (Col. ii. 9, 10;) pursuing that reason in a great many particulars. From the Scriptures, if we go to the first ages of Christianity, we find nothing that favours this, but a great deal to the con- trary. Irenseus disclaims the invocation of angels. The memo- rable passage of the Church of Smyrna, formerly cited, is a full proof of their sense in this matter. Clemens Alexandri- nus and Tertullian do often mention the worship that tre™— tS- was given to God only by prayer; and so far were they of that time from praying to saints, that they prayed for them, as was formerly explained; they thought they were not yet in the presence of God, so they could not pray to them as long as that opinion continued. That form of praying for them is in the Apostolical Constitutions. In all that collection, which seems to be a work of the fourth or fifth century, there is not a word that intimates their praying to saints. In the Council of Laodicea* there is an express condemnation of those who invo- cated angels: this is called a secret idolatry, and a forsaking of our Lord Jesus Christ. The first apologists for Christianity do arraign the worship of demons, and of such as had once lived on earth, in a style that showed they did not apprehend that the argument could be turned against them for their worshipping either angels or departed saints. When the -Arian controversy arose, the invocation of Christ is urged by Athanasius, Basil, Cyril, and other Fathers, as an evident argument that he was neither made nor created; since they did not pray to angels, or any other creatures; from whence they concluded that Christ was God. These are convincing proofs of the doctrine of the three first, and of a good part of the fourth century. It is true, as was confessed upon the former head, they began with martyrs in the end of the fourth century. They fancied they heard those that called to them; and upon that it was no wonder if they invocated them, and so private prayers to them began. But, as appears both by the Constitutions and * Con. Laod. c. 35. Just. Mart. Apol. 2. Iren. 1. 2. c. 35. Orig. con. Cels. 1.8. Tert.de. Orat. c. 1. Athanas. cent. Arian. Orat. 1.3. 4. Greg. Nazianz. Orat, 40. Greg. Niss. in Basil, cent. Eunap. Basil. Horn. 27. cont. Eunom. 1. 4. Epiph. Haeres. 64.69.78,79. Theod. de Hacr. Fabul. 1.5. c.3. Chr 3 'Sost. de. Trinit. 294 AN EXPOSITION OF ART. XXII. several of the writers of that time, the public offices were yet pre- Aug. con. served pure. St. Austin says plainly. The Gentiles built c.^S con. temples raised altars, ordained priests, and offered sacri- Max. 1. 2z. f 5 ces to their gods : but we do not erect temples to our mar- Aug. de tyrs, as if they were gods ; hut memories as to dead men, 'whose spirits live with God: nor do we erect altars, upon 18 c. 27 . which we sacrifice to martyrs; but to one God only do we offer, to the God of martyrs, and our God ; at which sacrifice they are named in their place and order, as men of God, who, in confessing him, have overcome the world; but they are not invo- cated by the priest that sacrifices. It seems the form of praying for the saints mentioned in the Constitutions was not used in the Churches of Africa in St. Austiffis time ; he says, very positively, that they did not pray for them, but did praise God for them; Aug de express words. Let not the worship of veraRei. dead men be any part of our religion: they ought so to be honoured that we may imitate them,, but not worshipped. God was indeed prayed to in the fifth century, to hear the interces- sion of the saints and martyrs; but there is a great difference between praying to God to favour us on their account, and praying immediately to them to hear us. The praying to them imports either their being everywhere, or their knowing all things; and as it is a blasphemous piece of idolatry to ascribe that to them without a divine communica- tion, so it is a great presumption in any man to fancy that they may be prayed to, and to build so many parts of worship upon it, barely upon some probabilities and inferences, without an express revelation about it: for the saints may be perfectly happy in the enjoyment of God, without seeing all things in him; nor have we any reason to carry that farther than the Scripture has done. But as the invocating of martyrs grew from a calling to them at their memories to a general calling to them in all places, so, from the invocating martyrs, they went on to pray to other saints: yet that was at first ventured on doubtfully, and only in funeral orations; where an address to the dead person to pray for those that were then honouring his memory, might perhaps come in as a figure of pompous eloquence, in which Nazianzen, one of the first that uses it, did often give himself a very great compass; yet he and others soften such figures with this. If there is any sense or knowledge of what we do below. From prayers to God to receive the intercessions of mar- tyrs and saints, it came in later ages to be usual to have Lita- nies to them, and to pray immediately to them; but at first this was only a desire to them to pray for those who did thus invocate them. Ora pro nobis. But so impossible is it to restrain superstition when it has once got head and has prevailed. ART. XXll. THE XXXIX ARTICLES. 295 that in conclusion all things that were asked either of God or Christ came to be asked from the saints, in the same humility both of gesture and expression; in which, if there was any dif- ference made, it seemed to be rather on the side of the blessed Virgin and the saints, as ajopears by the ten Aves for one Pater, and that humble prostration in which all fall down every day to worship her. The prayer used constantly to her, Maria, Mater gratice. Mater miser ic or duB, tu fios ah hoste protege, et hora mortis suscipe, is an immediate acknowledgment of her as the giver of these things; such are. Solve vincla reis, profer lumen ccecis, with many others of that nature. The collection of these swells to a huge bulk: Jure Matris impera Redemptori, is an allowed address to her; not to mention an infinity of most scandalous ones, that are not only tolerated but encouraged in that Church. Altars are consecrated to her honour, and to the honour of other saints; but which is more, the sacrifice of the mass is offered up to her honour, and to the honour of the saints: and, in the form of absolution, the pardon of sins, the increase of grace, and eternal life, are prayed for to the penitent by the virtue of the passion of Christ, and the merits of the blessed Virgin, and of all the saints. The pardon of sins and eternal life are also prayed for from angels, Angelo- rum concio sacra, archangelorum turma inclyta, nostra diluant jam peccata, prcestando supernam cceli gloriam. Many strains of this kind are to be found in the hymns and other public offices of that Church; and though, in the late corrections of their offices, some of the more scandalous are left out, yet those here cited, with a great many more to the same purpose, are still preserved. And the Council of Trent did plainly intend to con- nive at all these things; for they did not restrain the invocation of saints only to be an address to them to pray for us, which is the common disguise with which they study to cover this matter; but, by the Decree of the Council, the flying to their help and assistance, as well as to their intercession, is encouraged: which shows that the Council would not limit this part of their devo- tion to a bare Ora pro nobis: that might have seemed flat and low, and so it might have discouraged it; therefore they made use of words that will go as far as superstition can carry them. So that if the invocating them, if the making vows to them, the dedicating themselves to them; if the flying to them in all dis- tresses, in the same acts, and in the same words that the Scrip- tures teach us to fly to God with; and if all the studied honours of processions and other pompous rites towards their images, that are invented to do them honour; if, I say, all this does amount to idolatry, then we are sure they are guilty of it; since they honour the creature not only besides, but (in the full extent of that phrase) more than the Creator, Rom.i. 25. 296 AN EXPOSITION OF ART. XXII. And now let us see what is the foundation of all these devo- tions, against which we bring arguments that, to speak modestly of them, are certainly such that there should be matters of great weight in the other scale to balance them. Nothing is pretended from Scripture, nor from anything that is genuine, for above three hundred and fifty years after Christ. In a word, the prac- tice of the Church since the end of the fourth century, *and the authority of tradition, of Popes and Councils, must bear this burthen. These are consequences that do not much alfect us; for though we pay great respect to many great men’ that ^flou- rished in the fourth and fifth centuries, yet we cannot compare that age with the three that went before it. Those great men give us a sad account of the corruptions of that time, not only among the laity but the clergy; and their being so flexible in matters of faith, as they appeared to be in the whole course of the Arian controversy, gives us very just reason to suspect the practices of that age, in which the protection and encourage- ments that the Church received from the first Christian Empe- rors were not improved to the best advantage. The justest abatement that we can offer for this corruption, which is too manifest to be either denied or justified, is this — they were then engaged with the heathens, and were much set on bringing them over to the Christian religion. In order to that, it was very natural for them to think of all methods possible to accommodate Christianity to their taste. It was perhaps observed how far the Apostles complied with the Jews, that they might gain them. St. Paul had said, that to the Jeivs he became a Jew; and to them that were without the Law^ that is, the Gentiles, as one without Law; that by all means he might gain some, 1 Cor. ix. 20 — 22. They might think, that if the Jews, who had abused the light of a revealed religion, who had rejected and crucified the Messias, and persecuted his fol- lowers, and had in all respects corrupted both their doctrine and their morals, were waited on and complied with in the observance of that very Law which was abrogated by the death of Christ, but was still insisted on by them as of perpetual obligation; and yet, that after the Apostles had made a solemn decision in the matter, they continued to conform themselves to that Law; all this might be applied with some advantages to this matter. The Gentiles had nothing but the light of nature to govern them; they might seem willing to become Christians, but they still despised the nakedness and simplicity of that religion. And it is reasonable enough to think, that the Emperors and other great men might, in a political view, considering the vast strength of heathenism, press the Bishops of those times to use all imaginable ways to adorn Christianity with such an exterior form of worship as might be most ART. XXII. THE XXXIX ARTICLES. 297 acceptal)lc to them, and might most probably bring them over to it. The Christians had long felt the weight of persecution from them, and were, no doubt, much frightened with the danger of a relapse in Julianas time. It is natural to all men to desire to be safe, and to weaken the numbers of their implacable enemies. In that state of things we do plainly see they began to comply in lesser matters: for, whereas, in the first ages the Christians were often reproached with this, that they had no temples, altars, sacrifices, nor priests, they changed their dialect in all those points; so we have reason to believe that this was carried further. The vulgar are more easily wrought upon in greater points of speculation than in some small ritual matters; because they do not understand the one, and so are not much concerned about it: but the other is more sensible, and lies within their compass. We find some in Palestine kept images in their houses, as Euse- bius tells us ; others began in Spain to light candles by day-light, and to paint the walls of their churches : and though these things were condemned by the Council of Elliberis, yet we see, by what St. Jerome has cited out of Vigilantius, that the spirit of superstition did work strongly among them. We hear of none that writ against those abuses besides Vigilantius; yet Jerome tells us, that many Bishops were of the same mind with him, with whom he is so angry as to doubt whether they deserved to be called Bishops. Most of these abuses had also specious beginnings, and went on insensibly: where they made greater steps, we find an opposition to them. Epiphanius is very severe upon the Collyridians, for their worship- 79. ping the blessed Virgin. And though they did it by offering up a cake to her, yet, if any will read all that he says against that superstition, they will clearly see that no prayers were then offered up to her by the orthodox, and that he rejects the thought of it with indignation. But the respect paid the martyrs, and the opinion that they were still hovering about their tombs, might make the calling to them for their prayers seem to be like one man’s desiring the prayers of other good men ; and when a thing of this kind is once begun, it naturally goes on. Of all this we see a particular account in a discourse writ on pur- pose on this argument — of curing the affections and inclinations of the Greeks — by Theodoret, who may be justly reck- Theod. de oned among the greatest men of antiquity; and in it he affect ^ k a. insists upon this particular, of proposing to them the MartjT. saints and martyrs instead of their gods. And there is no doubt to be made but they found the efl:ects of this compliance: many heathens were every day coming over to the Christian religion; and it might then perhaps be intended to lay those aside, when the heathen were once brought over. 298 AN EXPOSITION OF ART. XXII. To all which this must be added, that the good men of that time had not the spirit of prophecy, and could not foresee what progress this might make, and to what an excess it might grow. They had nothing of that kind in their view: so that between charity and policy, between a desire to bring over multitudes to their faith, and an inclination to secure themselves, it is not at all to be wondered at, by any who considers all the circumstances of those ages, that these corruptions should have got into the Church, and much less, having once got in, they should have gone on so fast, and be carried so far. Thus I have offered all the considerations that arise from the state of things at that time, to show how far we do still preserve the respect due to the Fathers of those ages, even when we con- fess that they were men, and that something of human nature appeared in this piece of their conduct. This can be made no argument for later ages, who, having no heathens among them, are under no temptations to comply with any of the parts of heathenism to gain them. And now that the abuse of 'these mat- ters is become so scandalous, and has spread itself so far, how much soever we may excuse those agesin which we discern the first begin- nings, and as it were the small heads of that which has since over- flowed Christendom, yet we can by no means bear even with those beginnings, which have had such dismal effects; and, therefore, we have reduced the worship of God to the simplicity of the Scripture times, and of the first three centuries; and, for the fourth, we reverence it so much on other accounts, that for the sake of these we are unwilling to reflect too much on this. Another consideration urged for the invocation of saints is, that they seeing God, we have reason to believe that they see in him, if not all things, yet at least all the concerns of the Church of which they are still parts; and they being in a most perfect state of charity, they must certainly love the souls of their brethren here below: so that if saints on earth, whose charity is not yet perfect, do pray for one another here on earth, they in that state of perfection do certainly pray most fervently for them: and as we here on earth do desire the prayers of others, it may- be as reasonable and much more useful to have recourse to their prayers, who are both in a higher state of favour with God, and have a more exalted charity; by which their intercessions will be both more earnest and more prevalent. They think also, that this honour paid the saints, is an honour done to God, who is glorified in them ; and since he is the acknowledged fountain of all, they think that all the worship offered to them ends and terminates in God. They think, as princes are come at by the means of those that are in favour with them, so we ought to come to God by tlie intercession of the saints: that all our prayers to them are to be ART. XXII. THE XXXIX ARTICLES. 299 understood to amount to no more than a desire to them to inter- cede for us; and^ finally, that the offering of sacrifice is an act of Avorship that can indeed be made only to God, but that all other acts of devotion and respect may be given to the saints; and the sublimest degrees of them may be offered to the blessed Virgin, as the mother of Christ, in a peculiar rank by herself : for they range the order of worship into Latria, that is due only to God ; Hyperdulia^ that Ijelongs to the blessed Virgin; and Dulia, that belongs to the other saints. It were easy to retort all this, by putting it into the mouth of a heathen; and showing how well it would fit all those parts of worship that they offered to demons or intelligent spirits, and to deified men among them. This is obvious enough to such as have read what the first apologists for Chris- tianity have writ upon those heads. But to take this to pieces, we have no reason to believe that the saints see all the concerns of the Church. God can make them perfectly happy without this; and if we think the seeing them is a necessary ingredient of perfect happiness, we must from thence conclude, that they do also see the whole chain of providence; otherwise they may seem to be in some suspense, which, according to our notions, is not consistent with perfect happiness. For if they see the persecutions of the Church, and the miseries of Christians, without seeing on to the end in what all that will issue, this seems to be a stop to their entire joy. And if they see the final issue, and know what God is to do, then we cannot ima- gine that they can intercede against it, or indeed for it. To us, who know not the hidden counsels of God, prayer is neces- sary and commanded; but it seems inconsistent with a state in which all these events are known. This which they lay for the foundation of prayers to saints, is a thing concerning which God has revealed nothing to us, and in which we can have no certainty. God has commanded us to pray for one another; to join our prayers together; and we have clear warrants for desiring the intercession of others. It is a high act of charity, and a great instance of the mutual love that ought to be among Christians; it is a part of the communion of the saints: and as they do certainly know, that those whose assistance they •desire understand their wants when they signify them to them, so they are sure that God has commanded this mutual praying one for another. It is a strange thing therefore to argue from what God has commanded, and which may have many good effects, and can have no bad one, to that which he has not commanded; on the contrary, against which there are many plain intimations in Scripture, and which may have many bad effects, and we are not sure that it can have any one that is good. Beside that the solemnity of devotion and prayer is a 300 AN EXPOSITION OF ART. XXII. thing very different from our desiring the prayers of such as are alive, the one is as visibly an act of religious worship as the other is not. God has called himself a jealous God, that will not give his glory to another (Isa. xlii. 8;) and through the whole Scripture, prayer is represented as a main part of the service due to him, and as that in which he takes the most pleasure. It is a sacrifice, and is so called (Psal. cxli. 2; Hos. xiv. 2; Psal. Ixv. 2;) and every other sacrifice can only be accepted of God as it is accompanied with the internal acts of prayers and praises, which are the spiritual sacrifices with which God is well pleased. The only thing which the Church of Rome reserves to God, proves to be the sacrifice of the mass; which, as shall appear upon another Article, is a sacrifice that they have invented, but which is nowhere commanded by God: so that if this is well made out, there will be nothing reserved to God to be the act of their Latria : though it is not to be forgotten, that even the Virgin and the Saints have a share in that sacrifice. The excusing this, from the addresses made to princes by those that are in favour with them, is as bad as the thing itself ; it gives us a low idea of God, and of Christ, and of that good- ness and mercy that is so often declared to be infinite, as if he were to be addressed by those about him, and might not be come to without an interposition; whereas the Scriptures speak always of God as a hearer of prayer, and as ready to accept of and answer the prayers of his people. To seek to other assistances, looks as if the mercies of God were not infi- nite, or the intercessions of Christ were not of infinite efficacy. This is a corrupting of the main design of the gospel, which is to draw our affections wholly to God, to free us from all low notions of him, and from everything that may incline us to idolatry or superstition. Thus I have gone through all the heads contained in this Article. It seemed necessary to explain these with a due copiousness, they being not only points of speculation, in which errors are not always so dangerous, but practical things, which enter into the worship of God, and that run through it. And certainly it is the will of God, that we should preserve it pure from being corrupted with heathenish or idolatrous prac- tices. It seems to be the chief end of revealed religion to deliver the world from idolatry. A great part of the Mosaical Law did consist of rites, of which we can give no other account, that is so like to be true, as, that they were fences and hedges that were intended to keep that nation in the greatest opposi- tion, and at the utmost distance possible, from idolatry: we cannot therefore think that in the Christian religion, in which we are carried to higher notions of God, and to a more spiri- tual way of worshipping him, there should be such .an .approach ART. XXIir. THE XXXIX ARTICLES. 301 to some of tlie worst pieces of Gentilism^ that it seems to be outdone by Christians in some of its most scandalous parts — such as the worship of subordinate gods and of images. These are the cliief grounds upon which we separate from the Roman communion; since we cannot have fellowship with them unless we will join in those acts^ which we look on as direct violations of the First and Second Commandments. God is a jealous God, and therefore we must rather venture on their wrath, how burning soever it may be, than on his, who is a consuming fire. ARTICLE XXIII. OF MINISTERING IN THE CONGREGATION. It is not latvful for any man to take upon him the office of public Preaching, or Ministering the Sacraments in the Congregation, before he he lawfully called and sent to execute the same. And those we ought to judge lawfully called and sent, which be chosen and called to this work by Men who have public authority given unto them, in the Congregation, to call and send Minis- ters into the Lord’s Vineyard, We have two particulars fixed in this Article: — the first is against any that shall assume to themselves, without a lawful vocation, the authority of dispensing the things of God; the second is, the defining, in very general words, what it is that makes a lawful call. As to the first, it will bear no great diffi- culty: we see in the Old Dispensation, that the family, the age, and the qualifications of those that might serve in the priesthood, are very particularly set forth. In the New Tes- tament, our Lord called the twelve Apostles, and sent them out: he also sent out upon another occasion seventy Disciples: and before he left his Apostles he told them, that as his Fa- ther had sent him, so he sent them (John xx. 21;) which seems to import, that as he was sent into the world with this, among other powers, that he might send others in his name, so he likewise empowered them to do the same: and when they went planting churches, as they took some to be companions of labour with themselves, so they appointed others over the parti- eular churches in which they fixed them; such were Epaphras or Epaphroditus at Colosse, Timothy, at Ephesus, and Titus in Crete. To them the Apostles gave authority; otherwise it was a needless thing to write so many directions to them, in order to their conduct. They had the depositum of the faith, with 302 AN EXPOSITION OF ART. XXIII. which they were chiefly intrusted, 2 Tim. i. 13. Concerning the succession in which that was to be continued, we have these words of St. Paul : The things which thou hast heard of me among many witnesses, the same commit thou to faithful men, who shall he able to teach others also, 2 Tim. ii. 2. To them directions are given, concerning all the different parts of their worship; sup- plications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks (1 Tim. ii. 1 — 3;) and also the keeping up the decency of the worship, and the not suffering of women to teach; like the women priests among the heathens, who were believed to be filled with a Bacchic fury, 1 Tim. ii. 12. To them are directed all the qualifications of such as might be made either Bishops or Deacons (1 Tim. iii:) they were to examine them according to these, and either to receive or reject them. All this was directed to Timothy, that he might know how he ought to behave himself in the house of God, 1 Tim. iii. 15. He had authority given him to rebuke and entreat, to honour, and to censure, 1 Tim. v. 1. 3. 17. 19. 22. He was to order what widows might be received into the number, and who should be refused. He was to receive accusations against Elders, or Presbyters, according to directed methods, and was either to censure some, or to lay hands on others, as should agree with the rules that were set him; and, in conclusion, he is very solemnly charged to keep that which was committed to his trust, 1 Tim. vi. 20. He is required rightly to divide the word of truth, to preach the word, to be instant in season and out of season, to reprove, rebuke, and exhort, and to do the work of an Evange- list, and to make full proof of his ministry, 2 Tim. ii. 15 ; iv. 2, 5. Some of the same things are charged upon Titus, whom St. Paul had left in Crete to set in order the things that were wanting, and to ordain Elders in every city. Tit. i. 5. 9. 13. Several of the characters by which he was to try them are also set down: he is charged to rebuke the people sharply, and to speak the things that became sound doctrine; he is instructed concerning the doctrines which he was to teach, and those which he was to avoid; and also how to censure an heretic: he was to admonish him twice (Tit. iii. 10:) and if that did not prevail, he was to reject him, by some public censure. These rules given to Timothy and Titus do plainly import, that there was to be an authority in the Church, and that no man was to assume this authority to himself; according to that maxim, that seems to be founded on the light of nature, as well as it is set down in Scripture as a standing rule agreed to in all times and places. No man taketh this honour to himself, but he that is called of God, as was Aaron, Heb. v. 4. St. Paul, in his Epistles to the Romans and Corinthians (Rom. xii. 6 — 8; 1 Cor. xii. 28,) did reckon up the several orders and functions that God had set in his Church; and in ART. XX 11 1. THE XXXIX ARTICLES. 303 liis Epistle to the Ephesians (Eph. iv. 11 — 13. IG,) he shows^ tliat these were not transient but lasting constitutions.; for there, as he reckons the Apostles, Prophets, Evangelists, Pastors, and Teachers, as the gifts which Christ at his ascension had given to men; so he tells the ends for which they were given— for the perfecting the saints (by perfecting seems to be meant the initiating them by holy mysteries, rather than the compact- ing or putting them in joint; for as that is the proper significa- tion of the word, so it being set first, the other things that come after it make that the strict sense of perfecting ; that is, completing does not 30 well agree with the period,) for the work of the ministry (the whole ecclesiastical or sacred services,) for the edifying the body of Christ (to which instructing, exhorting, comforting, and all the other parts of preaching may well be reduced;) and then the duration of these gifts is defined, till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man. This seems to import the whole state of this life. We cannot think that all this belonged only to the infancy of the Church, and that it was to be laid aside by her when she was further advanced: for when we consider, that in the beginnings of Christianity there was so liberal an effusion of the Holy Spirit poured out upon such great numbers, who had very extraordinary credentials, miraeles, and the gift of tongues, to prove their mis- sion ; it does not seem so necessary in such a time, or rather for the sake of such a time only, to have settled those functions in the Church, and that the Apostles should have ordained elders in every Church, Acts xiv. 23. Those extraordinary gifts that were then, without any authoritative settlement, might have served in that time to have procured to men so qualified all due regards. We have therefore much better reason to conclude, that this was settled at that time chiefly with respect to the following ages, which, as they were to fall off from that zeal and purity that did then reign among them, so they would need rule and government to maintain the unity of the Church, and the order of sacred things. And for that reason chiefly we may conclude, that the Apostles settled order and government in the Church, not so much for the age in which they themselves lived, as once to establish and give credit to constitutions that they foresaw would be yet more necessary to the succeeding ages. This is confirmed by that w^hich is in the Epistle to the He- brews, both concerning those who had ruled over them (Heb. xiii. 7 . 17 ?) and those who were then their guides. St. Peter gives directions to the elders of the Churches to whom he writ, how they ought both to feed and govern the flock (1 Pet. v. 2, 3;) and his charging them not to do it out of covetousness, or with ambition, insinuates that either some were beginning to do so. 304 AN EXPOSITION OF ART. XXIII. or that^ in a spirit of prophecy^ he foresaw that some might fall under such corruptions. This is hint enough to teach us, that though such things should happen, they could furnish no argument against the function. Abuses ought to be corrected^; but upon that pretence the function ought not to be taken away. If from the Scriptures we go to the first writings of Christians, we find that the main subject of St. Clemens^ and St. Ignatius^ Epistles, is to keep the Churches in order and union, in subjec- tion to their pastors, and in the due subordination of all the members of the body one to another. After the first age, the thing grows too clear to need any further proof. The argument for this from the standing rules of order, of decency, of the authority in which the holy things ought to be maintained, and the care that must be taken to repress vanity and insolence, and all the extravagances of light and ungoverned fancies, is very clear. For if every man may assume authority to preach and perform holy functions, it is certain religion must fall into dis- order, and under contempt. Hot-headed men of warm fancies and voluble tongues, with very little knowledge and discretion, would be apt to thrust themselves on to the teaching and govern- ing others, if they themselves were under no government. This would soon make the public service of God to be loathed, and break and dissolve the whole body. A few men of livelier thoughts, that begin to set on foot such ways, might for some time maintain a little credit; yet so many others would follow in at that breach which they had once made on public order, that it could not be possible to keep the society of Christians under any method, if this were once allowed. And therefore, those who in their heart hate the Chris- tian religion, and desire to see it fall under a more general contempt, know well what they do when they encourage all those enthusiasts that destroy order; hoping, by the credit which their outward appearances may give them, to compass that which the others know themselves to be too obnoxious to hope that they can ever have credit enough to 2:)ersuade the world to : whereas those poor deluded men do not see what properties the others make of them. The morals of infidels show that they hate all religions equally, or with this difference, that the stricter any are they must hate them the more; the root of their quarrel being at all religion and virtue. And it is cer- tain, as it is that which those who drive it on see well, and therefore they drive it on, that if once the public order and national constitution of a Church is dissolved, the strength and power, as well as the order and beauty of all religion will soon go after it; for, humanly speaking, it cannot subsist with- out it. ART. XXIII. THE XXXIX ARTICLES. 305 I come in the next place to consider the second part of this Article, which is the definition here given of those that are law- fully called and sent. This is put in very general words, far from that magisterial stiffness in which some have taken upon them to dictate in this matter. The Article does not resolve this into any particular constitution, but leaves the matter open and at large for such accidents as had happened, and such as might still hap- pen. They who drew it had the state of the several Churches before their eyes, that had been differently reformed; and although their own had been less forced to go out of the beaten path than any other, yet they knew that all things among them- selves had not gone according to those rules that ought to be sacred in regular times; necessity has no law, and is a law to itself. This is the difference between those things that are the means of salvation, and the precepts that are only necessary because they are commanded. Those things which are the means, such as faith, repentance, and new obedience, are indispensable — they oblige all men, and at all times alike : because they have a natural influence on us, to make us fit and capable subjects of the mercy of God; but such things as are necessary only by virtue of a command of God, and not by virtue of any real efficiency which they have to reform our natures, do indeed oblige us to seek for them, and to use all our endeavours to have them. But as they of themselves are not necessary in the same order with the first, so much less are all those methods necessary in which we may come at the regular use of them. This distinc- tion shall be more fully enlarged on when the Sacraments are treated of. But to the matter in hand: — that which is simply necessary as a mean to preserve the order and union of the body of Christians, and to maintain the reverence due to holy things is, that no man enter upon any part of the holy ministry without he be chosen and called to it by such as have an autho- rity so to do: that, I say, is fixed by the Article; but men are left more at liberty as to their thoughts concerning the subject of this lawful authority. That which we believe to be lawful authority, is that rule which the body of the Pastors, or Bishops and Clergy, of a Church shall settle, being met in a body under the due respect to the powers that God shall set over them. Rules thus made, being in nothing contrary to the word of God, and duly executed by the particular persons to whom that care belongs, are certainly the lawful authority. Those are, the Pastors of the Church, to whom the care and watching over the souls of the people is committed; and the Prince, or supreme power, comprehends virtually the whole body of the people in him; since according to the constitution of the civil government, the wills of the peo- ple are understood to be concluded by the supreme, and such as u 306 AN EXPOSITION OF ART. XXIII. are the subject of the legislative authority. When a Church is in a state of persecution under those who have the civil authority over her, then the people, who receive the faith, and give both protection and encouragement to those that labour over them, are to be considered as the body that is governed by them. The natural effect of such a state of things is to satisfy the people in all that is done, to carry along their consent with it, and to consult much with them in it. This does not only arise out of a necessary regard to their present circumstances, but from the rules given in the gospel, of not ruling as the kings of the several nations did; nor lording it, or carrying it with a high authority, over God’s heritage (which may be also rendered over their several lots or portions.) But when the Church is under the protection of a Christian magistrate, then he comes to be in the stead of the whole people; for they are concluded in and by him: he gives the protection and encouragement, and therefore great regard is due to him in the exercise of his lawful authority, in which he has a great share, as shall be explained in its proper place. Here then we think this authority is rightly lodged, and set on its proper basis. And in this we are confirmed, because by the decrees of the first General Councils, the concerns of every province were to be settled in the province itself; and so it continued till the usurpations of the papacy broke in everywhere, and disordered this constitution. Through the whole Roman Communion the chief jurisdiction is now in the Pope; only princes have laid checks upon the extent of it; and by appeals, the secular court takes cognizance of all that is done, either by the Pope or the clergy. This we are sure is the effect of usurpation and tyranny: yet since this authority is in fact so settled, we do not pretend to annul the acts of that power, nor the missions or orders given in that Church; because there is among them an order in fact, though not as it ought to be in right. On the other hand, when the body of the clergy comes to be so cor- rupted, that nothing can be trusted to the regular decisions of any synod or meeting called according to their constitution, then, if the prince shall select a peculiar number, and commit to their care the examining and reforming both of doctrine and worship, and shall give the legal sanction to what they shall offer to him — we must confess that such a method as this runs contrary to the established rules, and that, therefore, it ought to be very seldom put in practice, and never, except when the greatness of the occasion will balance this irregularity that is in' it. But still here is an authority both in fact and right; for if the Magistrate has a power to make laws in sacred matters, he may order those to be prepared, by whom and as he pleases. ART. XXTTI. THE XXXIX ARTICLES. 307 Finally, if a company of Christians find the public worship where they live to be so defiled that they cannot with a good conscience join in it, and if they do not know of any place to which they can conveniently go, where they may worship God purely, and in a regular way; — if, I say, such a body, finding some that have been ordained, though to the lower functions, should submit itself entirely to their conduct, or, finding none of those, should by a common consent desire some of their own number to minister to them in holy things, and should upon that beginning grow up to a regulated constitution — though we are very sure that this is quite out of all rule, and could not be done without a very great sin, unless the necessity were great and apparent, yet, if the necessity is real and not feigned, this is not condemned or annulled by the Article: — for when this grows to a constitution, and when it was begun by the consent of a body who are supposed to have an authority in such an extra- ordinary case, whatever some hotter spirits have thought of this since that time; yet we are very sure, that not only those who penned the Articles, but the body of this Church for above half an age after, did, notwithstanding those irregularities, acknow- ledge the foreign Churches so constituted to be true Churches as to all the essentials of a Church, though they had been at first irregularly formed, and continued still to be in an imperfect state. And, therefore, the general words in which this part of the Article is framed, seem to have been designed on purpose to exclude them. Here it is to be considered, that the High-priest among the Jews was the chief person in that dispensation; not only the chief in rule, but he that was by the Divine appointment to officiate in the chief act of their religion, the yearly expiation for the sins of the whole nation; which was a solemn renewing their covenant with God, and by which atonement was made for the sins of that people. Here it may be very reasonably suggested, that since none besides the High-priest might make this atonement, then no atonement was made if any other besides the High-priest should so officiate. To this it is to be added, that God had by an express law fixed the high-priesthood in the eldest of Aaroffis family: and that, therefore, though that being a theocracy, any prophets em- powered of God might have transferred this office from one per- son or branch of that family to another, yet without such an authority no other person might make any such change. But after all this, not to mention the Maccabees, and all their successors of the Asraonean family, as Herod had begun to change the high-priesthood at pleasure, so the Romans not only continued to do this, but in a most mercenary manner they set this sacred function to sale. Here were as great nullities in the High- priests that were in our Saviour^s time, as can be well imagined u 2 308 AN EXPOSITION OF ART. XXIII. to be: for the Jews keeping their genealogies so exactly as they did^ it could not but be well known in whom the right of this office rested^ and they all well knew that he who had it^ pur- chased it; yet these were in fact High-priests^, and since the people could have no other, the atonement was still performed by their ministry. Our Saviour owned Caiaphas, the sacrilegious and usurping High-priest, and as such l[iQ prophesied, John xi. 5 1 ; xviii. 22, 23. This shows that where the necessity was real and unavoidable, the Jews were bound to think that God did, in consideration of that, dispense with his own precept. This may be a just inducement for us to believe, that whensoever God, by his providence, brings Christians under a visible necessity of being either without all order and joint worship, or of joining in an unlawful and defiled worship, or, finally, of breaking through rules and methods in order to the being united in worship and government — that of these three, of which one must be chosen, the last is the least evil, and has the fewest inconveniences hanging upon it, and that therefore it may be chosen. Our Reformers had also in view two famous instances in church history of laymen that had preached and converted nations to the faith. It is true, they came, as they ought to have done, to be regularly ordained, and were sent to such as had authority so to do: so Frumentius preached to the Indians, and was afterwards made a Priest and a Bishop by Athanasius: the King of the Iberians, before he was baptized himself, did convert his subjects; and, as says the historian, he became the Apostle of his country before he himself was initi- ated. It is indeed added, that he sent an embassy to Constan- tine the Emperor, desiring him that he would send priests for the further establishment of the faith there. These were regular practices; but if it should happen that princes or states should take up such a jealousy of their own authority, and should apprehend that the suffering their subjects to go elsewhere for regular ordinations might bring them under some dependence on those that had ordained them, and give them such influence over them, that the prince of such a neigh- bouring and regular Church should by such ordinations have so many creatures, spies, or instruments in their own dominions ; and if upon other political reasons they had just cause of being jealous of that, and should thereupon hinder any such thing — in that case, neither our Reformers, nor their suceessors for near eighty years after those Articles were published, did ever question the constitution of such Churches. We have reason to believe that none ought to baptize but persons lawfully ordained; yet since there has been a practice so universally spread over the Christian Church, of allowing the baptism not only of laics, but of women, to be lawful — ART. XXIV. THE XXXIX ARTICLES. 309 though Ave think that this is directly contrary to the rules given l)y the Apostles; yet, since this has been, in fact, so generally received and practised, Ave do not annul such baptisms, nor rebaptize persons so baptized. Though aa^c knoAV that the ori- ginal of this bad practice AA^as from an opinion of the indispen- sable necessity of baptism to salvation; yet, since it has been so generally received, we have that regard to such a common practice as not to annul it, though Ave condemn it. And thus Avhat thought soever private men, as they are divines, may have of those irregular steps, the Article of the Church is conceived in such large and general Avords, that no man, by subscribing it, is bound up from freer and more comprehensive thoughts. ARTICLE XXIV. OF SPEAKING IN THE CONGREGATION IN SUCH A TONGUE AS THE PEOPLE UNDERSTANDETH. It is a thing plainly repugnant to the Word of God, and the Cus~ tom of the Primitive Church, to have Public Prayer in the Church, or to minister the Sacraments, in a Tongue not under- standed of the People. This Article, though upon the matter very near the same, yet was worded much less positively in those at first set forth by King Edward. It is most fit, and most agreeable to the Word of God, that nothing be read or rehearsed in the Congregation in a Tongue not known unto the People; which St. Paul hath forbidden to be done, unless some be present to interpret. In King Edward^s Articles they took in preaching Avith prayer, but in the present Article this is restrained to prayer. The former only affirms the use of a known tongue to be most fit and agreeable to the word of God; the latter. denies the wor- ship in an unknoAAm tongue to be laAvful, and affirms it to be repugnant to the Word of God; to which it adds, and the Cus- tom of the Primitive Church, This Article seems to be founded on the law of nature. The worship of God is a chain of acts by Avhich Ave acknoAA^- ledge God^s attributes, rejoice in his goodness, and lay claim to his mercies; in all AAdiich, the more AA^e raise our thoughts, the more seriousness, earnestness, and affection that animates 310 AN EXPOSITION OF ART. XXIV. our mind, so much the more acceptably do we serve God, who is a Spirit, and will be worshipped in spirit and in timth, John iv. 23, 24. All the words used in devotion are intended to raise in us the thoughts that naturally belong to such words. And the various acts, which are as it were the breaks in the service, are intended as rests to our minds, to keep us the longer without weariness and wandering in those exercises. One great end of continuance in worship is, that, by the frequent repeating and often going over of the same things, they may come to be deeply rooted in our thoughts. The chief effect that the worship of God has by its own efficiency, is the infixing those things, about which the branches of it are employed, the deeper on our minds; upon which God gives his blessing as we grow to be prepared for it, or capable of it. Now all this is lost if the worship of God is a thread of such sounds as makes the person who offi- ciates a barbarian to the rest. They have nothing but noise and show to amuse them, which, how much soever they may strike upon and entertain the senses, yet they cannot affect the heart, nor excite the mind: so that the natural effect of such a way of worship is to make religion a pageantry, and the public service of God an opera. If from plain sense, and the natural consequences of things, we carry on this argument to the Scriptures, we find the whole practice of the Old Testament was to worship God, not only in a tongue that was understood, for it may be said there was no occasion then to use any other, but that the expressions used in the prayers and psalms that we find in the Old Testa- ment, show they were intended to affect those who were to use them; and if that is acknowledged, then it will clearly follow, that all ought to understand them; for who can be affected with that which he does not understand? So this shows that the eild of public devotion is the exciting and inflaming those who bear a share in it. When Ezra and Nehemiah were instructing the people out of the Law, they took care to have it read distinctly, one giving the sense of it, Neh. viii. 8. After they were long in captivity, though it had not worn out quite the knowledge of the Hebrew, yet the Chaldee was more fami- liar to them; so a paraphrase was made of the Hebrew into that language, though it was rather a different dialect than another language; and by the forms of their prayers, we see that one cried with a loud voice. Stand up, and bless the Lord your God for ever and ever (Neh. ix. 5;) which shows that all did under- stand the service. When the Syriac tongue became more familiar to them, the Jews had their prayers in Syriac; and they did read the Law in their synagogues in Greek, when that language was more familiar to them: when they read the Law in Greek, we have reason to believe that they prayed likewise ART. XXIV. THE XXXIX ARTICLES. 311 in it. In the New Testament we see the gift of tongues was granted to enable the Apostles^ and others^ to go everywhere preaching the gospel^ and performing holy functions, in such a language as might be understood: the world was amazed when every man heard them speak in his own language. One of the general rules given by St. Paul with relation to the w^orship of God is, Let every thing be done to edification. Since then the speaking either to God in the name of the people, or to the people in the name of God, in an unknown tongue, can edify no person; then by this rule it is to be understood to be forbidden. When some who had the gift of tongues did indis- creetly show it in the Church of Corinth, St. Paul was so offended at that, and thought it would appear to the world so indecent, as well as unfruitful, that he bestows a whole chapter upon it; and though a great part of the discourse is against the pretending to teach the people in an unknown tongue (which yet is not near so bad as the reading the word of God to them in a tongue not understood by them, it being much more important that the people should understand the words of the living God than the expositions of men,) yet there are many passages in that chapter that belong to prayer. The reason of the thing is common to both, since, unless the words were understood, they who uttered them spoke only to the air; and how should it be known what was spoken? for if the meaning of the voice was not known, they would be barbarians to one another. As to prayer, he says. If 1 pray in an unknown tongue^ my spirit (that is, the in- spiration or gift that is in me) prayeth; but my understanding (that is, my rational powers) is unfruitful (1 Cor. xiv. 14;) and, therefore, he concludes, that he will both pray and give thanks with the spirit, and with the, under standing also (ver. 15:) he will do it in such a manner, that the inspiration with which he was acted and his rational powers should join together. The reason given for this seems evident enough to determine the whole matter: Else ivhen thou shalt bless with the spirit, how shall he that occupieth the room of the unlearned say. Amen, at thy giving of thanks, seeing he under standeth not ivhat thou sayest? For thou verily givest thanks well, but the other is not edified, ver. 16, 17* In which words it is plain that the people, even the most unlearned among them, were to join in the prayers and praises, and to testify that by saying Amen at the conclusion of them: and in order to their doing this as became reasonable creatures, it was necessary that they should understand what that was which they were to confirm by their Amen. It is also evident, that ,St. Paul judged that the people ought to be edified by all that was said in the Church; and so he says, a little after this. Let all things be done to edifying, ver. 26. After such plain authorities from Scripture, supporting that which seems to be 312 AN EXPOSITION OF ART, XXIV. founded on the light of nature^ we need go no further to prove that which is mainly designed by this Article. The custom of the primitive Church is no less clear in this point. As the Christian religion was spread to different nations, so they all worshipped God in their own tongue. The Syriac, the Greek, and the Latin, were indeed of that extent, that we have no particular history of any Churches that lay beyond the compass of those languages; but there was the same reason for j)utting the worship of God in other languages, that there was for these. That which is drawn from the three languages in which the title on our Saviour’s cross was written is too trifling a thing to deserve an answer; as if a humour of Pilate’s were to be considered as a prophetical warrant, what he did being only designed to make that title to be understood by all who were cont. Cels, then at Jerusalem. There are very large passages, Ep^'Gs’.td^' both in Origen and St. Basil, which mention every Neoces. tonguc’s praisiug of God; and that the gospel being spread to many nations, he was in every nation praised in the language of that nation. This continued so long to be the prac- tice even of the Latin Church, that in the ninth century, when the Slavons were converted, it was considered at Rome, by Pope jenan 8 Ep VIII. in what language they should be allowed to 247. Concii. worship God : and, as it is pretended, a voice was heard, ■ Let every tongue confess to God; upon which that Pope wrote both to the Prince and to the Bishop of the Slavons, allowing them to have their public service in their own tongue. But in the other parts of the Western Church, the Latin tongue continued to be so universally understood by almost all sorts of people, till the tenth or eleventh century, that there was no occasion for changing it; and by that time the Clergy were affecting to keep the people in ignorance, and in a blind dependence upon themselves, and so were willing to make men think that the whole business of reconciling the people to God lay upon them, and that they were to do it for them. A great part of the service of the mass was said so low, that even they who understood some Latin could not be the better for it, in an age in which there was no printing, and so few copies were to be had of the public offices. The Scriptures were likewise kejot from the people, and the service of God was filled with many rites, in all which the Clergy seemed to design to make the people believe that these were sacred charms, of which they only had the secret. So that all the edification which was to be had in the public worship was turned to pomp and show, for the diversion and entertainment of the spectators. In defence of this worship in an unknown tongue, the main argument that is brought is the authority and infallibility of the Church which has appointed it; and since she ought to ART. XXIV. THE XXXIX ARTICLES. 313 be supposed not to have erred, therefore this must be believed to be lawful. We are not much moved with chap. 8. this, especially with the authority of the latter ages; so the other arguments must be considered, which indeed can scarce be called arguments. The modern tongues change so fast, that, they say, if the worship were in them, it must either be often changed, or the phrases would grow old, and sound harshly. A few alterations once in an age will set this matter right; besides that the use of such forms does fix a language, at least as to those phrases that are used in it, wliich grow to be so familiar to our ears by constant use that they do not so easily wear out. It is above eighty years since the present translation of the Bible was made, and above one hundred and forty since our Liturgy was compiled, and yet we perceive no uncouthness in the phrases. The simplicity in which such forms must be drawn, makes them not so subject to alteration as other composures of rhetoric or poetry: but can it be thought any inconveniency now and then to alter a little the words or phrases of our service? Much less can that be thought of weight enough to balance the vaster prejudice of keeping whole nations in ignorance, and of extinguishing devotion by entertaining it with a form of worship that is not understood. Nor can this be avoided by saying, that the people are fur- nished with forms in their own language, into which the great- est part of the public offices are translated: for as this is not done but since the Reformation began, and in those nations only where the scandal that is given by an unknown language might have, as they apprehend, ill effects; so it is only an arti- fice to keep those still in their communion, whom such a gross practice, if not thus disguised, might otherwise drive from them. But still the public worship has no edification in it; nor can those who do not understand it say Amen, according to St. Paul. Finally, they urge the communion of saints, in order to which they think it is necessary that Priests, wffieresoever they go, may be able to officiate, which they cannot do if every nation worships God in its own language. And this was indeed very necessary in those ages in which the See of Rome did by pro- visions, and the other inventions of the Canonists, dispose of the best benefices to their own creatures and servants. That trade would have been spoiled, if strangers might not have been admitted till they had learned the language of the country; and thus, instead of taking care of the people that ought to be edified by the public worship, provision was made at their cost for such vagrant Priests as have been in all ages the scandals of the Church, and the reproaches of religion. 314 AN EXPOSITION OF ART. XXV. ARTICLE XXV. OF THE SACRAMENTS. Sacraments ordained of Christ be not only Badges or Tokens of Christian Merits Profession, but rather they be certain sure Witnesses and effectual Signs of Grace, and God’s Will towards us, by the which he doth work invisibly in us, and doth not only quicken, but also strengthen and confirm our faith in him. There are two Sacraments ordained of Christ our Lord in the Gospel; that is to say. Baptism, and the Supper of the Lord. Those five commonly called Sacraments, that is to say. Confirma- tion, Penance, Orders, Matrimony, and extreme Unction, are not to be counted for Sacraments of the Gospel; being such as have grown partly of the corrupt following of the Apostles, partly are States of Life allowed in the Scriptures, but yet have not like Nature of Sacraments with Baptism and the Lord’s Supper; for that they have not any visible Sign or Ceremony ordained of God. The Sacraments were not ordained of Christ to be gazed upon, or to be carried about, but that we should daily use them. And in such only as ivorthily receive the same they have a whole- some Ejfect or Operation; but they that receive them unwor- thily, purchase to themselves Damnation, as St. Paul saith. There is a great diversity between the form of this Article, as it is now settled, and that published by King Edward, which began in these words: Our Lord Jesus Christ gathered, his people into a society by Sacraments, very few in number, most easily to be kept, and of most excellent signification; that is to say. Baptism, and the Supper of the Lord. There is nothing in that edition instead of the paragraph concerning the other five pretended sacraments. Next comes the paragraph which is here the last, only with the addition of these words after operation : Not as some say, ex opere operate, ivhich terms, as they are strange and utterly unknown to the Holy Scripture, so do they yield a sense which savoureth of little piety, but of much superstition: and, in conclusion, the paragraph comes with which the Article does now begin : so that in all this diversity there is no real difference; for the virtue of the sacraments being put in the worthy receiving, excludes the doctrine of opms operatum as formally as if it had expressly been condemned; and the naming the two sacraments instituted by Christ, is upon the matter the rejecting of all the rest. ART. XXV. THE XXXIX ARTICLES. 315 It was most natural to begin this Article with a description of sacraments in general. This difference is to be put between sacraments and other ritual actions, that whereas other rites are badges and distinctions by which the Christians are known, a sacrament is more than a bare matter of form; and as in the Old Testament, circumcision and propitiatory sacrifices were things of a diflferent nature and order from all the other ritual precepts concerning the cleansings, the distinctions of days, places, and meats. These were indeed precepts given them of God, but they were not federal acts of renewing the covenant, or reconciling themselves to God. By circumcision they received the seal of the covenant, and were brought under the obligation of the whole law; they were by it made debtors to it: and w^hen by their sins they had provoked God’s wrath, they were reconciled to him by their sacrifices, with which atonement was made, and so their sins were forgiven them. The nature and end of those was to be federal acts, in the offering of which the Jews kept to their part of the covenant, and in the accepting of which God maintained it on his part. So we see a plain difference between these and a mere rite, which, though commanded, yet must pass only for the badge of a profession, as the doing of it is an act of obedience to a divine law. Now, in the New Dispensation, though our Saviour has eased us of that law of ordinances^ that grievous yoke, and those beggarly elements which were laid upon the Jews; yet, since we are still in the body, subject to our senses and to sensible things, he has appointed some federal actions, to be both the visible stipulations and professions of our Chris- tianity, and the conveyances to us of the blessings of the gospel. There are two extremes to be avoided in this matter. The one is of the Church of Rome, that teaches, that as some sacra- ments imprint a character upon the soul, which they define to be a physical quality, that is, supernatural and spiritual, so they do all carry along with them such a divine virtue, that by the very receiving them (the o^us operatum) it is conveyed to the souls of those to whom they are applied, unless they them- selves put a bar in the way of it by some mortal sin. In con- sequence of this, they reckon, that by the sacraments given to a man in his agonies, though he is very near past all sense, and so cannot join any lively acts of his mind vfith the sacraments, yet he is justified; not to mention the common practice of giving extreme unction in the last agony, when no appearance of any sense is left. This we reckon a doctrine that is not only without all foundation in Scripture, but that tends to destroy all religion, and to make men live on securely in sin, trusting to this, that the sacraments may be given them when they die. The conditions of the New Covenant are, repentance, faith, and obedience; and we look on this as the corrupting the vitals 316 AN EXPOSITION OF ART. XXV. of this religion, when any such means are proposed by which the main design of the gospel is quite overthrown. The busi- ness of a character is an unintelligible notion. We acknowledge baptism is not to be repeated; but that is not by virtue of a character imprinted in it, but because it being a dedication of the person to God in the Christian religion, what is once so done is to be understood to continue still in that state, till such a person falls into an open apostacy. In case of the repentance of such a person, we, finding that the primitive Church did reconcile, but not rebaptize apostates, do imitate that their practice; but not because of this late and unexplicable notion of a character. We look on all sacramental actions as acceptable to God only with regard to the temper and the inward acts of the persons to whom they are applied, and cannot consider them as medicines or charms, which work by a virtue of their own, whether the person to whom they are applied co-operates with them or not. Baptism is said by St. Peter to save us, not as it is an action that washes us; not the putting aivay the filth of the fiesh, but the answer of a good conscience towards God, 1 Pet. iii. 21. And therefore, baptism, without this profession, is no baptism, but seems to be used as a charm, unless it is said that this answer or profession is implied whensoever baptism is desired. When a person of age desires baptism, he must make those answers and sponsions, otherwise he is not truly baptized; and though his outward making of them be all that can fall under human cognizance, he who does that must be held to be truly baptized, and all the outward privileges of a baptized person must belong to him; yet as to the effect of baptism on the soul of him that is baptized, without doubt that depends upon the sincerity of the professions and vows made by him. The wills of infants are by the law of nature and nations in their parents, and are trans- ferred by them to their sureties; the sponsions that are made on their behalf are considered as made by themselves: but there the outward act is sufficient; for the inward acts of one person cannot be supposed necessary to give the sacrament its virtue in another. In the Eucharist, by our shewing forth our Lord’s death till he comes, we are admitted to the communion of his body and blood (1 Cor. x. 16;) to a share in partnership with other Chris- tians in the effects and merits of his death; but the unworthy receiver is guilty of his body and blood, and brings thereby down judgments upon himself: — so that to fancy a virtue in sacraments that works on the person to whom they are applied, without any inward acts accompanying it, and upon his being only passive, is a doctrine of which we find nothing in the Scriptures; which teach us, that everything we do is only accepted of God with regard to the disposition of mind that he ART. XXV. THE XXXIX ARTICLES. 317 knows us to be in when we go about it. Our prayers and saerifices are so far from being aecepted of God^ that they are abomination to hirn^ if they come from wicked and defiled hearts. The making men believe that sacraments may be effectual to them when they are next to a state of passivity^ not capable of any sensible thoughts of their own, is a sure way to raise the credit of the clergy, and of the sacrament; but, at the same time, it will most certainly dispose men to live in sin, hoping that a few rites, which may be easily procured at their death, will clear all at last. And thus we reject, not without great zeal * against the fatal effects of this error, all that is said of the opus operatum — the very doing of the sacrament: we think it looks more like the incantations of heathenism, than the purity and simplicity of the Christian religion. But the other extreme, that we likewise avoid, is that of sinking the sacraments so low as to be mere rites and cere- monies. St. Peter says. Baptism saves us. St. Paul calls it the laver of regeneration; to which he joins the renewing of the Holy Ghost y Tit. iii. 5. Our Saviour saith. He that believeth and is baptized, shall be saved (Mark xvi. 16;) and. Except ye are born again of water and of the Spirit, ye cannot enter into the kingdom of God, John iii. 5. These words have a sense and signification that rises far above a mere ceremony done to keep up order, and to maintain a settled form. The phrase commu- nion of the body and blood of Christ, is above the nature of an anniversary or memorial feast. This opinion we think is very unsuitable to those high expressions; and we do not doubt but that Christ, who instituted those sacraments, does still accom- pany them with a particular presence in them, and a blessing upon them ; so that we, coming to them with minds well pre- pared, with pure affections and holy resolutions, do certainly receive in and with them particular largesses of the favour and bounty of God. They are not bare and naked remembrances and tokens, but are actuated and animated by a divine blessing that attends upon them. This is what we believe on this head, and these are the grounds upon which we found it. A sacrament is an institution of Christ, in which some mate- rial thing is sanctified by the use of some form or words, in and by which federal acts of this religion do pass on both sides : pn ours, by stipulations, professions, or vows; and on God^s, by his secret assistances: by these we are also united to the body of Christ, which is the Church. It must be instituted by Christ; for though ritual matters, that are only the expressions of our duty, may be appointed by the Church, yet federal acts, to which a conveyance of divine grace is tied, can only be instituted by him who is the Author and Mediator of this New Covenant, and who lays down the rules or conditions of it, and 318 AN EXPOSITION OF ART. XXV. derives the blessings of it by what methods and in what channels he thinks fit. Whatsoever his Apostles settled, was by autho- rity and commission from him; therefore it is not to be denied, but that, if they had appointed any sacramental action, that must be reckoned to be of the same authority, and is to be esteemed Christ’s institution, as much as if he himself, when on earth, had appointed it. Matter is of the essence of a sacrament; for words without some material thing to which they belong, may be of the nature of prayers or vows, but they cannot be sacraments. Receiving a sacrament is on our part our faith plighted to God in the use of some material substance or other; for in this consists the dif- ference between sacraments and other acts of worship. The lat- ter are only acts of the mind declared by words or gestures, whereas sacraments are the application of a material sign, joined with acts of the mind, words, and gestures. With the matter there must be a form; that is, such words joined with it as do appropriate the matter to such an use, and separate it from all other uses, at least in the act of the sacrament. For in any piece of matter alone, there cannot be a proper suitableness to such an end as seems to be designed by sacraments, and, therefore, a form must determine and apply it; and it is highly suitable to the nature of things to believe, that our Saviour, who has instituted the sacrament, has also either instituted the form of it, or given us such hints as to lead us very near it. The end of sacraments is double; the one is by a solemn federal action both to unite us to Christ, and also to derive a secret blessing from him to us ; and the other is to join and unite us by this public profession, and the joint partaking of it, with his body, which is the Church. This is, in general, an account of a sacrament. This, it is true, is none of those words that are made use of in Scripture, so that it has no determined signification given to it in the Word of God; yet it was very early applied by Pliny (Lib. x. Ep. 97) to those vows by which the Christians tied themselves to their religion, taken from the oaths by which the soldiery among the Romans were sworn to their colours or officers; and from that time this term has been used in a sense consecrated to the federal rites of religion. Yet if any will dispute about w'ords, we know how much St. Paul condemns all those curious and vain questions, which have in them the subtilties and oppositions of science falsely so called, 1 Tim. vi. 20. If any will call every rite used in holy things a sacrament, we enter into no such contentions. The rites therefore that we understand, when we speak of sacraments, are the constant federal rites of Christians, which are accompanied by a divine grace and benediction, being instituted by Christ to unite us to him and to his Church: and of such we own that there are two. Baptism and the Sup- ART. XXV. THE XXXIX ARTICLES. 319 “per of the Lord. In Baptism, there is matter, water ; there is a form, the person dipped or washed, with words, I baptize thee in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost (Matt, xxviii. 19:) there is an institution. Go preach and baptize; there is a federal sponsion. The answer of a good conscience (1 Pet. hi. 21 ;) there is a blessing conveyed whth it. Baptism saves us ; there is one Baptism, as there is one body and one spirit ; we are all baptized into one body (Matt. xxvi. 26, 27:) so that here all the constituent and necessary parts of a sacrament are found in Baptism. In the Lord’s Supper, there is bread and wine for the matter: the giving it to be eat and drunk, with the words that our Saviour used in the first Supper, are the form: Do this in remembrance of me, is the institution : Ye shew forth the Lord^s death till he come again (1 Cor. xi. 23 — 27 J is the declaration of the federal act of our part; it is also the communion of the body and of the blood of Christ, that is, the conveyance of the blessings of our partnership in the effects of the death of Christ — and we being many, are one bread and one body, for we are all partakers of that one bread (1 Cor. x. 16, 17:) this shows the union of the Church in this sacrament. Here then we have, in these two sacraments, both matter, form, institution, federal acts, blessings conveyed, and the union of the body in them. All the characters which belong to a sacrament agree fully to them. In the next place we must, by these characters, examine the other pretended sacraments. It is no wonder if, the word sacra- ment being of a large extent, there should be some passages in ancient writers that call other actions so besides Baptism and the Lord’s Supper; for, in a larger sense every holy rite may be so called. But it is no small prejudice against the number of Seven Sacraments, that Peter Lombard, a writer in the twelfth century, is the first that reckons seven of them: from that mystical expression of the Seven Spirits of God, there came a conceit of the sevenfold operation of the Spirit; and it looked like a good illustration of that, to assert Seven Sacraments. This Pope Eugenius (Lib. 3. Dist. 2) put in his instructions to the Armenians, which is published with the Council of Florence; and all was finally settled at Trent. Now there might have been so many fine allusions made on the number seven, and some of the ancients were so much set on such allusions, that, since we hear nothing of that kind from any of them, we may well con- clude, that this is more than an ordinary negative argument against their having believed that there were seven sacraments. To go on in order with them: — The first that we reject, which is reckoned by them the second, is Confirmation. But to explain this, we must consider in what respect our Church receives confirmation, and upon what reasons it is that she does not acknowledge it to be a 320 AN EXPOSITION OF ART. XXV. sacrament. We find that after Philip, the Deacon and Evan- gelist, had converted and baptized some in Samaria, Peter and John were sent thither by the Apostles, who laid their hands on such as were baptized, and prayed that they might receive the Holy Ghost; upon which it is said that they received the Holy Ghost, Acts viii. 12. 14 — 17 . Now, though ordinary functions, when performed by the Apostles, such as their laying on of hands on those whom they ordained or confirmed, had extra- ordinary effects accompanying them; but when the extraordinary effects ceased, the end for which these were at first given being accomplished, the gospel having been fully attested to the world, yet the functions were still continued of confirmation as well as ordination: and as the laying on of hands (Heb. vi. 2,) that is reckoned among the principles of the Christian doctrine, after repentance and faith, and subsequent to baptism, seems very probably to belong to this; so from these warrants we find, in the earliest writings of Christianity, mention of a confirmation after baptism, which for the greater solemnity and awe of the action, and from the precedent of St. Peter and St. John, was reserved to the Bishop, to be done only by him. Upon these reasons we think it is in the power of the Church to require all such as have been baptized to come before the Bishop and renew their baptismal vow, and pray for God’s Holy Spirit to enable them to keep their vow; and upon their doing this, the Bishop may solemnly pray over them, with that ancient and almost natural ceremony of laying his hands upon them, which is only a designation of the persons so prayed over and blessed, that God may seal and defend them with his Holy Spirit; in which, according to the nature of the New Covenant, we are sure that such as do thus vow and pray, do also receive the Holy Spirit, according to the promise that our Saviour has made us. In this action there is nothing but what is in the power of the Church to do, even without any other warrant or precedent. The doing all things to order, and to edifying, will authorize a Church to all this; especially since the now universal practice of infant baptism makes this more necessary than it was in the first times, when chiefly the adult were baptized. It is highly reasonable that they, who gave no actual consent of their own, should come, and, by their own express act, make the stipulations of baptism. It may give greater impressions of awe and respect, when this is restrained to the highest order in the Church. Upon the sincere vows and earnest prayers of persons thus confirmed, we have reason to believe that a proportioned degree of God’s grace and Spirit will be poured out upon them. And in all this we arc much confirmed, when we see such warrants for it in Scripture. A thing so good in itself, that has at least a probable authority ART. XXV. TIIK XXXIX ARTICLES. 321 for it, and was certainly a practice of tlie first ages, is upon very just grounds continued in our Church. Would to God it were as seriously gone about, as it is lawfully established. But after all this, here is no sacrament, no express institution, neither by Christ nor his Apostles; no rule given to practise it, and, which is the most essential, there is no matter here; for the laying on of hands is only a gesture in prayer; nor are there any federal rites declared to belong to it; it being indeed rather a ratifying and confirming the baptism, than any new stipula- tion. To supply all this, the Church of Rome has appointed matter for it. The chrism^ which is a mixture of oil-oliYe and balm (opobalsamum ;) the oil signifying the clearness of a good conscience, and the balm^e. savour of a good reputation. This must be peculiarly blessed b}^ the Bishop, who is the only minis- ter of that function. The form of this sacrament is the apply- ing the chrism to the forehead, with these words, Signo te signo C7'ucis, et confirmo te chrismate salutis, in nomine Patris, Filii, et Spiritus Sancti: I sign thee with the sign of the cross, and con- firm thee with the chrism of salvation, in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. They pretend Christ did insti- tute this; but they say the Holy Ghost, which he breathed on his disciples, being a thing that transcended all sacraments, he settled no determined matter nor form to it, and that the suc- ceeding ages appropriated this matter to it. We do not deny but that the Christians began very early to use oil in holy functions; the climates they lived in making it necessary to use oil much, for stopping the perspiration, that might dispose them the more to use oil in their sacred rites. It is not to be denied, but that both Theophilus and Tertullian, in the end of the second, and the beginning of the third century, do mention it. The JdAutoi/'^' frequent mention of oil, and of anointing in the Scripture, might incline them to this: it was pro- deResur.’ phesied of Christ, that he was to be anointed with cypr. Ep. 7o. the oil of joy and ’gladness above his fellows: and the names of Messias and Christ do also import this; but yet we hold all that to be mystical, and that it is to be meant of that fullness of the Spirit which he received without measure. Upon the same account we do understand those words of St. Paul in the same mystical sense — He that establisheth us ivith you in Christ, and hath anointed us, is God: who hath also sealed us, and given the earnest of the Spirit in our hearts (2 Cor. i. 21, 22;) as also those words of St. John — But ye have an miction from the Holy One, and ye know all things. The a7iointing which ye have received of him abideth in you; and ye need not that any man teach you, but as the same anointing teacheth you all things, 1 John ii. 20. 27. These words do X 322 AN EXPOSITION OF ART. XXV. clearly relate to somewhat that the Christians received imme- diately from God, and so must be understood figuratively; for we do not see the least hint of the Apostles using of oil except to the sick; of which afterwards. So that if this use of oil is con- sidered only as a ceremony of a natural signification, that was brought into the rituals of the Church, it is a thing of another nature; but if a sacrament is made of it, and a divine virtue is joined to that, we can admit of no such thing, without an express institution and declaration in Scripture. Con. Araus. The invention that was afterwards found out, by Cod i'ffir which the Bishop was held to be the only minister of Can. 6. confirmation, even though Presbyters were sulfered Con, Tol. c. 20. . '' n • r ° Vi i to was a piece oi superstition without any colour from Scripture. It was settled that the bishop only might con- secrate the chrism; and though lie was the ordinary minister of confirmation, yet Presbyters were also suffered to do it, the chrism being consecrated by the Bishop. Presbyters thus confirming, was thought like the Deacons giving the Sacrament, though Hieron ad Priests only might consecrate the Eucharist. In the Lucifer. Latin Church, Jerome tells us, that in his time the Bishop only confirmed; and though he makes the reason of this to be rather for doing an honour to them than from any necessity Hilar, ill of the law, yet he positively says, the Bishops went Shet.ut’ round praying for the Holy Ghost on those whom they supra. confirmed. It is said by Hilary, that in Egypt the Presbyters did confirm in the Bishop’s absence; so that custom, joined with the distinction between the consecration and the applying of the chrism, grew to be the universal practice of the Greek Church. The greatness of dioceses, with the increasing numbers of the Christians, made that both in France in the Councils of Orange, and in Spain in the Council of Toledo, the same rule was laid down that the Greeks had begun. In Spain some Priests did consecrate the chrism, but that was severely forbid in one of the Councils of Toledo; yet at Rome the ancient custom was observed of appropriating the whole business of confirma- Greg. Ep. tion to the Bishop, even in Gregory the Great’s time; 1 . 111 . Ep. 9. therefore he reproved the Clergy of Sardinia, because among them the priests did confirm, and he appointed it to be reserved to the Bishop. But when he understood that some of them were offended at this, he writ to the Bishop of Carali, that though his former other order was made according to the ancient practice of the Church of Rome, yet he consented that for the future the Priest might confirm in the Bishop’s absence. But Pope Nicholas, in the ninth century, pressed this with more rigour; for the Bulgarians being then converted to the Chris- tian religion, and their Priests having both baptized and con-, firmed the new converts. Pope Nicholas sent Bishops among AIM\ XXV. THE XXXIX ARTICEES. 323 them, witli orders to confirm even those who had already been confirmed by Priests: upon which, the contest being then on f\)ot l)etween Rome and Constantinople, Photius got it to be decreed in a synod at Constantinople, that the chrism being hallowed by a Bishop, it might be administered by Presbyters: and Photius affirmed, that a Presbyter might do this, as well as baptize or offer at the altar. But Pope Nicholas, with the con- fidence that was often assumed by that See upon as bad grounds, did affirm, that this had never been allowed of. And upon this many of the Latins did, in the progress of their disputes with the Greeks, say, they had no confirmation. This com. rio- has been more enlarged on than was necessary by the ' designed shortness of this work, because all those of the Roman communion among us have now no confirmation, unless a Bishop happens to come amongst them. And, therefore, it is now a common doctrine among them, that though confirmation is a sacrament, yet it is not necessary. About this there were fierce disputes among them about sixty years ago, whether it was necessary for them to have a Bishop here to confirm, according to the ancient custom, or not? The Jesuits, who had no mind to be under any authority but their own, opposed it; for the Bishop being by Pope Eugenius declared to be the ordinary minister of it, from thence it was inferred, that a Bishop was not simply necessary. This was much cen- sured by some of the Gallican Church. If confirmation were considered only as an ecclesiastical rite, we could not dispute the power of the Church about it; but we cannot allow that a sacrament should be thus within the power of the Church; or that a new function of consecrating oil, without applying it, dis- tinct from confirmation, and yet necessary to the very essence of it, could have been set up by the power of the Church; for if sacraments are federal conveyanees of grace, they must be con- tinued according to their first institution, the grace of God being only tied to the actions with which it is promised. We go next to the second of the Sacraments here rejected, which is Penance, that is reckoned the fourth in order among them. Penance, or Penitence, is formed from the Latin trans- lation of a Greek word that signifies a change or renovation of mind; which Christ has made a necessary condition of the new Covenant. It consists in several acts, by all which, when joined together, and producing this real ehange, we become true penitents, and have a right to the remission of sins, which is in the New Testament often joined with repentance, and is its certain consequent. The first act of this repentance is, con- fession to God, before whom we must humble ourselves, and confess our sins to him; upon which we believe that he is faithful, and true to his promises, and just to forgive us our sins, X 2 324 AN EXPOSITION OF ART. XXV. (1 John i. 9;) and if we have wronged others^ or have given pub- lic olfence to the body, or church, to which we belong, we ought to confess our faults (James v. 16) to them likewise; and as a mean to quiet men’s consciences, to direct them to complete their repentance, and to make them more humble and ashamed of their sins, we advise them to use secret confession to their Priest, or to any other minister of GoPs word, leaving this matter wholly to their discretion. When these acts of sorrow have had their due effect in reform- ing the natures and lives of sinners, then their sins are forgiven them: in order to which, we do teach them to pray much, to give alms according to their capacity, and to fast as often as their health and circumstances will admit of; and most indispen- sably to restore or repair, as they find they have sinned against others. And as we teach them thus to look back on what is past, with a deep and hearty sorrow, and a profound shame, so we charge them to look chiefly forward, not thinking that any acts with relation to what is past can, as it were by an account or compen- sation, free us from the guilt of our former sins, unless we amend our lives ai)d change our tempers for the future; the great design of repentance being to make us like God, pure and holy as he is. Upon such a repentance sincerely begun, and honestly pursued, we do in general, as the heralds of God’s mercy, and the minis- ters of his gospel, pronounce to our people daily the offers that are made us of mercy and pardon by Christ Jesus. This we do in our daily service, and in a more peculiar manner before we go to the holy communion. We do also, as we are a body that may be offended with the sins of others, forgive the scandals committed against the Church; and that such as we think die in a state of repentance, may die in the full peace of the Church, we join both absolutions in one; in the last office likewise pray- ing to our Saviour that he would forgive them, and then we, as the officers of the Church, authorized for that end, do forgive all the offences and scandals committed by them against the whole body. This is our doctrine concerning repentance; in all which we find no characters of a sacrament, no more than there is in prayer or devotion. Here is no matter, no appli- cation of that matter by a peculiar form, no institution, and no peculiar federal acts. The scene here is the mind, the acts are internal, the effect is such also; and therefore we do not reckon it a sacrament, not finding in it any of the characters of a sacrament. The matter that is assigned in the Church of Rome, are the acts of the penitent — his confession by his mouth to the Priest, the contrition of his heart, and the satisfaetion of his work in doing the enjoined penance. The aggregate of all these is the mutter; and the form, are the words, Pyo te ahsolvo. Now, ART. XXV. THE XXXIX artici.es. 325 besides what we have to say from every one of these partieulars, the matter of a sacrament must be some visible sign applied to him that receives it. It is, therefore, a very absurd thing to imagine, that a man’s own thoughts, words, or 4 Later, actions, can be the matter of a sacrament: how can coSiTdd.^' this be sanctified or applied to him? It will be a thing sess. h. no less absurd, to make the form of a sacrament to be a practice not much older than four hundred years; since no ritual can be produced, nor author cited, fi)r this form, for above a thousand years after Christ; all the ancient forms of receiving penitents having been by a blessing in the form of a prayer, or a declaration, but none of them in these positive words, I absolve thee. We think this want of matter^ and this new invented form, being without any institution in Scripture, and different from so long a practice of the whole Church, are such reasons, that we are fully justified in denying penance to be a sacrament. But because the doctrine of repentance is a point of the highest importance, there arise several things here that ought to be very carefully examined. As to Confession, we find in the Scriptures, that such as desired St. John’s baptism came confessing their sins (Matt, iii.6;) but that was previous to baptism. We find also that scandalous persons were to be openly rebuked before all (1 Tim. v. 20,) and so to be put to shame; in which, no doubt, there was a confes- sion, and a publication of the sin: but that was a matter of the discipline and order of the Church, which made it necessary to note such persons as walked disorderly, and to have no fellowship with them (2 Thess. iii. 14,) sometimes not so much as to eat with them (1 Cor. v. 11,) who, being Christians, and such as were called brothers, were a reproach to their profession. But besides the power given to the Apostles of binding and loosing, which, as was said on another head, belonged to other matters, we find, that when our Saviour breathed on his Apostles, and gave them the Holy Ghost, he with that told them, that whose soever sins they remitted, they were remitted; and whose soever sins they retained, they were retained, John xx. 23. Since a power of remitting or retaining sins was thus given to them, they infer that it seems reasonable, that, in order to their dispensing it with a due caution, the knowledge of all sins ought to be laid open to them. Some have thought, that this was a personal thing given to the Apostles with that miraculous effusion of the Holy Ghost, with which such a discerning of spirits was communicated to them, that they could discern the sincerity or hypocrisy of those that came before them. By this St. Peter discovered the sin of Ananias and Sapphira (Acts v. 3.9;) and he also saw that Simon of Samaria was in the gall of bitterness, and in the bond of iniquity (Acts viii. 23 ;) so they conclude, that this was a 326 AN EXPOSITION OF ART. XXV. part of that extraordinary and miraculous authority which was given to the Apostles, and to them only. But others, who dis- tinguish between the full extent of this power, and the minis- terial authority that is still to be continued in the Church, do believe that these words may, in a lower and more limited sense, belong to the successors of the Apostles; but they argue very strongly, that if these words are to be understood in their full extent as they lie, a Priest has by them an absolute and unlimited power in this matter, not restrained to conditions or rules; so that if he does pardon or retain sins, whether in that he does right or wrong, the sins must be pardoned or retained accordingly: he may, indeed, sin in using it wrong, for which he must answer to God; but he seems, by the literal meaning of these words, to be clothed with such a plenipotentiary authority, that his act must be valid, though he may be punished for employing it amiss. An ambassador that has full powers, though limited by secret instructions, does bind him that so empowered him by every act that he does pursuant to his powers, how much soever it may go beyond his instructions: for how obnoxious soever that may render him to his master, it does not at all lessen the authority of what he has done, nor the obligation that arises out of it. So these words of Christ’s, if applied to all Priests, must belong to them in their full extent; and if so, the salvation or the damnation of mankind is put absolutely in the Priest’s power. Nor can it be answered, that the conditions of the pardon of sin that are expressed in the other parts of the Gospel are here to be understood, though they are not expressed; as we are said to be saved if we believe, which does not imply that a single act of believing the gospel, without anything else, puts us in a state of salvation. In opposition to this, we answer, that the gospel having so described faith to us as the root of all other graces and virtues, as that which produces them, and which is known by them, all that is promised upon our faith must be understood of a faith so qualified as the gospel represents it; and, therefore, that cannot be applied to this case, where an unlimited authority is so particularly expressed, that no condition seems to be implied in it. If any conditions are elsewhere laid upon us in order to our salvation, then, according to their doctrine, we may say that of them which they say of contrition upon this occasion, that they are necessary when we cannot procure the Priest’s pardon ; but that by it the want of them all may be supplied, and that the obligation to them all is superseded by it: and if any conditions are to be understood as limits upon this power, why are not all the conditions of the gospel, faith, hope, and charity, contrition, and new obedience, made neces- sary in order to the lawful disjiensing of it, as well as confes- ART. XXV. THE XXXIX ARTICLES. 327 sion, attrition, and the doing the penance enjoined? Therefore, since no condition is here named as a restraint upon this general power that is pretended to be given to Priests by those words of our Saviour, they must either be understood as simple and unconditional, or they must be limited to all the conditions that are expressed in the gospel; for there is not the colour of a reason to restrain them to some of them, and to leave out the rest: and thus we think we are fully justified by saying, that by these words our Saviour did indeed fully empower the Apostles to publish his gospel to the world, and to declare the terms of salvation, and of obtaining the pardon of sin, in which they were to be infallibly assisted, so that they could not err in discharging their commission: and the terms of the covenant of grace being thus settled by them, all who were to succeed them were also empowered to go on with the publication of this pardon and of those glad tidings to the world; so that whatsoever they declared in the name of God, conform to the tenor of that which the Apostles were to settle, should be always made good. We do also acknowledge, that the Pastors of the Church have, in the way of censure and government, a ministerial authority to remit or to retain sins, as they are matters of scandal or offence ; though that, indeed, does not seem to be the meaning of those words of our Saviour; and, therefore, we think that the power of pardoning and retaining is only declaratory, so that all the exercises of it are then only effectual, when the declarations of the pardon are made conform to the conditions of the gospel. This doctrine of ours, how much soever decried of late in the Roman Church as striking at the root of the priestly authority, yet has been maintained by some of their best authors, and some of the greatest of their schoolmen. Thus we have seen upon what reason it is that we do not conclude from hence that auricular confession is necessary; in which we think that we are fully confirmed by the practice of many of the ages of the Christian Church, which did not under- stand these words as containing an obligation to secret confes- sion. It is certain, that the practice and tradition of the Church must be relied on here, if in anything, since there was nothing that both clergy and laity were more concerned both to know and to deliver down faithfully, than this, on which the authority of the one and the salvation of the other depended so much. Such a point as this could never have been forgot or mistaken ; many and clear rules must have been given about it: it is a thing to which human nature has so much repugnancy, that it must, in the first forming of Churches, have been infused into them as absolutely necessary in order to pardon and salvation. A Church could not now be formed, according to the doc- trine and practice of the Church of Rome, without very full 328 AN EXPOSITION OF ART. XXV. and particular instructions, both to Priests and people, concern- ing confession and absolution. It is the most intricate part of their divinity, and that which the clergy must be the most ready at. In opposition to all this, let it be considered, that though there is a great deal said in the New Testament concerning sorrow for sin, repentance and remission of sins, yet there is not a word said, nor a rule given, concerning confession to be made to a Priest, and absolution to be given by him. There is, indeed, a passage in St. Jameses Epistle (v. 16,) relating to confession; but it is to one another, not restrained to the Priests; as the word rendered faults seems to signify those offences by which others are wronged, in which case confession is a degree of repa- ration, and so is sometimes necessary; but whatever may be in this, it is certain, that the confession which is there appointed to be made is a thing that was to be mutual among Christians; and it is not commanded in order to absolution, but in order to the procuring the intercession of other good men; and, there- fore, it is added, and pray for one another. By the words that follow, that ye may he healed, joined with those that went before concerning the sick, it seems the direction given by St. James, belongs principally to sick persons; and the conclusion of the whole period shows, that it relates only to the private prayers of good men for one another — the effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much: so that this place does not at all belong to auricular confession or absolution. Nor do there any prints appear, before the apostacies that happened in the persecution of Decius, of the practice even of confessing such heinous sins as had been publicly committed. Then arose the famous contest with the Novatians, concerning the receiving the lapsed into the communion of the Church again. It was concluded not to exclude them from the hopes of mercy, or of reconciliation; yet it was resolved not to do that till they had been kept at a distance for some time from the holy communion: at last they were admitted to make their confession, and so they were received to the communion of the Church. This time was shortened, and many things were passed over, to such as showed a deep and sincere repentance; and one of the characters of a true repentance, upon which they were always treated with a great distinction of favour, was, if they came and first accused themselves. This showed that they were deeply affected with the sense of their sins, when they could not bear the load of them, but became their own accusers, and discovered their sins. There are several canons that make a difference in the degrees and time of the penance, between those who had accused themselves, and those against whom their sins were proved. A great deal of this strain occurs often in the writings of the Fathers, which plainly ART. XXV. THE XXXIX ARTICLES. 329 sliows tliat tliey did not look on the necessity of an enumeration of all their sins as commanded by God; otherwise it would have been enforced with considerations of another nature than that of shortening their penance. The first occasion that was given to the Church to exercise this discipline, was from the frequent apostacies into which many had lapsed during the persecutions; and when these went off, another sort of disorders began to break in upon the Church, and to defile it. Great numbers followed the example of their princes, and became Christians; but a mixed multitude came among them; so that there were many scandals amongst that body, which had been formerly remarkable for the purity of their morals and the strictness of their lives. It was the chief busi- ness of all those Councils that met in the fourth and fifth centu- ries, to settle many rules concerning the degrees and time of penance, the censures both of the clergy and laity, the orders of the penitents, and the methods of receiving them to the communion of the Church. In some of those Councils they denied reconciliation after some sins, even to the last, though the general practice 'was to receive all at their death; but while they were in a good state of health, they kept them long in Daii®us de penance, in a public separation from the common pri- Mo"rinus°de‘ vileges of Christians, and chiefly from the holy sacra- I'oenitentia. ment, and under severe rules, and that for several years, more or fewer, according to the nature of their sins, and the characters of their repentance; of which a free and unextorted confession being one of the chief, this made many prevent that, and come in of their own accord to confess their sins, which was much encouraged and magnified. Confession was at first made publicly; but the inconveniences of that appearing, and particularly many of those sins being capital, instead of a public, there was a private confession prac- tised. The Bishops either attended upon these themselves, or they appointed a penitentiary Priest to receive them: — all was in order to the executing the canons, and for keeping up the discipline of the Church. Bishops were warranted by the Coun- cil of Nice to excuse the severity of the canons, as the occasion should require. The penitents went through the penance imposed, which was done publicly — the separation and penance being visible, even when the sin was kept secret; and when the time of the penance was finished, they received the penitents, by prayer and imposition of hands, into the communion of the Church, and so they were received. This was all the absolution that was known during the first six centuries. Penitents were enjoined to publish such of their secret sins as the penitentiary Priest did prescribe. This happened to give great scandal at Constantinople, w^hen Nectarius was Bishop 330 AN EXPOSITION OF ART. XXV. socr. Hist, there; for a woman being in a course of penance, 1. V. c. 19 . confessed publicly that she had been guilty of adul- tery, committed with a deacon in the Church. It seems by the relation that the historian gives of this matter, that she went beyond the injunctions given her; but whether the fault was in her or in the penitentiary Priest, this gave such offence that Nec- tarius broke that custom. And Chrysostom,* who came soon after him to that See, speaks very fully against secret confession, and advises Christians to confess only to God; yet the practice of secret confession was kept up elsewhere. But it appears, by a vast number of citations from the Fathers, both in different ages and in the different corners of the Church, that though they pressed confession much, and magnified the value of it highly, yet they never urged it as necessary to the pardon of sin, or as a sacrament; they only pressed it as a mean to complete the repentance, and to give the sinner an interest in the prayers of the Church. This may be positively affirmed concerning all the quotations that are brought in this matter, to prove that auri- cular confession is necessary in order to the PriesPs pardon, and that it is founded on those words of Christ, Whose sms ye remit, &c. that they prove quite the contrary — that the Fathers had not that sense of it, but considered it, either as a mean to help the completing of repentance, or as a mean to maintain the purity of the Christian Church, and the rigour of discipline. In the fifth century a practice began, which was no small step to the ruin of the order of the Church. Penitents were suffered, instead of the public penance that had been formerly enjoined, to do it secretly in some monastery, or in any other private place, in the presence of a few good men, and that at the discretion of the Bishop or the confessor; at the end of which, absolution was given in secret. This was done to draw what professions of repentance they could from such persons who would not submit to settled rules: this temper was found neither to lose them quite, nor to let their sins pass without any censure. But in the seventh century all public penance for secret sins was taken quite away. Theodore, Archbishop of Canterbury, is reckoned the first of all the Bishops of the Western Church that did quite take away all public penance for secret sins. Another piece of the ancient severity was also slackened, for they had never allowed penance to men that had relapsed into any sin; though they did not cut them off from all hope of the mercy of God, yet they never gave a second absolution to the relapse. This the Church of Rome has still kept up in one * Thirteen passages out of him cited and explained by Daille de Conf. 1. iv. c. 25. ART. XXV. THE XXXIX ARTICIiES. 331 point, which is lieresy; a relapse being delivered to the seeular arm, witliout admitting him to penance. The ancients did indeed admit such to penance, but they never reconciled them. Yet in the decay of discipline, absolution came to be granted to the relapse, as well as to him that had sinned but once. About the end of the eighth century, the commutation of penance began, and, instead of the ancient severities, vocal jirayers came to be all that was enjoined: so many Paters stood for so many days of fasting, and the rich were admitted to buy off their penance under the decenter name of giving alms. The getting many masses to be said, was thought a devotion by which God was so much honoured, that the commuting penance for masses was much practised. Pilgrimages and wars came on afterwards; and in the twelfth century the trade was set up of selling indulgences. By this it appears, that confession came by several steps into the Church; that in the first ages it was not heard of ; that the apostacies in time of persecution gave the first rise to it; — all which demonstrates, that the primitive Church did not consider it as a thing appointed by Christ to be the matter of a sacrament. It may be in the power of the Church to propose confession, as a mean to direct men in their repentance, to humble them deeper for their sins, and to oblige them to a greater strictness; but to enjoin it as necessary to obtain the pardon of sin, and to make it an indispensable condition, and indeed the most indis- pensable of all the parts of repentance, is beyond the power of the Church: for since Christ is the Mediator of this New Covenant, he alone must fix the necessary conditions of it. In this, more than in anything else, we must conclude that the gospel is express and clear; and therefore so hard a condition as this is, cannot be imposed by any other authority. The obligation to auricular confession is a thing to which mankind is naturally so little dis- posed to submit, and it may have such consequences on the peace and order of the world, that we have reason to believe, that if Christ had intended to have made it a necessary part of repent- ance, he would have declared it in express words, and not have left it so much in the dark, that those who assert it must draw it by inferences from those words. Whose sins ye remit, &c. Some things are of such a nature, that we may justly conclude that either they are not at all required, or that they are commanded in plain terms. As for the good or evil effects that may follow on the obliging men to a strictness in confession, that does not belong to this matter: if it is acknowledged to be only a law of the Church, other considerations are to be examined about it, but if it is pretended to be a law of God, and a part of a sacrament, we must have a divine institution for it; otherwise all the advantages that can possibly be imagined in it, without that. 332 AN EXPOSITION OF ART. XXV. are only so many arguments to persuade us, that there is some- what that is highly necessary to the purity of Christians, of which Christ has not said a word, and concerning which his Apostles have given us no directions. We do not deny but it may be a mean to strike terror in people, to keep them under awe and obedience; it may, when the management of it is in good hands, be made a mean to keep the world in order, and to guide those of weaker judgments more steadily and safely than could be well done any other way. In the use of confession, when proposed as our Church does, as matter of advice and not of obligation, we are very sensible many good ends may be attained; but while we consider those, we must likewise reflect on the mischief that may arise out of it, especially supposing the greater part both of the clergy and laity to be what they ever were, and ever will be, depraved and corrupted. The people will grow to think that the priest is in God’s stead to them ; that their telling their sins to him, is as if they confessed them to God: they will expect to be easily discharged for a gentle penance, with a speedy absolution ; and this will make them as secure as if their consciences were clear, and their sins pardoned; so the remedy being easy and always at hand, they will be encouraged to venture the more boldly on sin. It is no difficult matter to gain a priest, especially if he himself is a bad man, to use them tenderly upon those occasions. On the other hand, corrupt priests will find their account in the dispensing this great power so as to serve their own ends; they will know all people’s tempers and secrets; and how strict soever they may make the seal of confession, to draw the world to trust to it; yet, in bodies so knit together as communities and orders are, it is not possible to know what use they may make of this. Still they know all themselves, and see into the weakness, the passions, and appetites of their people. This must often be a great snare to them, especially in the sup- position that cannot be denied to hold generally true, of their being bad men themselves: great advantages are hereby given to infuse fears and scruples into people’s minds, who being then in their tenderest minutes, will be very much swayed and wrought on by them. A bad priest knows by this whom he may tempt to any sort of sin: and thus the good and the evil of confession, as it is a general law upon all men’s consciences, being weighed one against the other, and it being certain that the far greater part of mankind is always bad, we must conclude, that the evil does so far preponderate the good, that they bear no comparison or proportion to one another. The matter at present under debate is only, whether it is one of the laws of God or not? And it is enough for the present purpose to show that it is no law of God; upon which we do also see very good reason why it ought not to be made a law of the Church; both ART. XXV. THE XXXIX ARTICLES. 333 because it is beyond her authority, wliich can only go to matters of order and discipline, as also because of the vast inconveniences that are like to arise out of it. The next part of repentance is Contrition^ which is a sorrow for sin upon the motives of the love of God, and the hatred of sin joined with a renovation of heart. This is that which we acknowledge to be necessary to complete our repentance: but this consisting in the temper of a man^s mind, and his inward acts, it seems a very absurd thing to make this the matter of a sacrament, since it is of a spiritual and invisible nature. But this is not all that belongs to this head. The casuists of the Church of Rome have made a distinction between a perfect and an imperfect contrition ; — the imperfect they call Attrition; which is any sorrow for sin, though uj^on an inferior motive, such as may be particular to one act of sin, as when it rises from the loss or shame it has brought with it, together with an act formed in detestation of it, without a reso- lution to sin no more. Such a sorrow as this is, they teach, does make the sacrament effectual, and puts a man in a state of justification, though they acknowledge that without the sacra- ment it is not sufficient to justify him. This was settled by the Council of Trent. We think Tnd. Sess. it strikes at the root of all religion and virtue, and is a reversing of the design for -which sacraments were instituted, which was to raise our minds to a high pitch of piety, and to exalt and purify our acts. We think the sacraments are pro- faned when we do not raise our thoughts as high as w^e can in them. To teach men how low they may go, and how small a measure will serve their turn, especially when the great and chief commandment, the consideration of the love of God, is left out, seems to be one of the greatest corruptions in practice of which any Church can be guilty: a slackness in doctrine, especially in so great a point as this, in w^hich human nature is under so fatal a bias, will always bring with it a much greater corruption in practice. This will indeed make many run to the sacrament, and raise its value; but it will rise upon the ruins of true piety and holiness. There are few men that can go long on in very great sins, without feeling great remorses; these are to them rather a burthen that they cannot shake off, than a virtue. Sorrow lying long upon their thoughts may be the beginning of a happy change, and so prove a great blessing to them; all which is destroyed by this doctrine; for if under such uneasy thoughts they go to confession, and are attrite, the sacrament is valid, and they are justified; then the uneasiness goes off, and is turned into joy, without their being anything the better by it. They return to their sins with a new calm and security, because they are taught that their sins are pardoned, and that all scores 334 AN EXPOSITION OF ART. XXV. are cleared. Therefore we conclude, that this doctrine wounds religion in its vitals; and we are confirmed in all this by what appears in practice, and what the best writers that have lived in that communion have said of the abuses that follow on the methods in which this sacrament is managed among them, which do arise mainly out of this part of their doctrine concerning attrition. All that they teach concerning those acts of attrition, or even contrition, is also liable to great abuse in practice : for, as a man may bring forth those acts in words, and not be the better for them; so he may force himself to think them, which is nothing but the framing an inward discourse within himself upon them; and yet these not arising genuinely from a new nature, or a change of temper, such acts can be of no value in the sight of God: yet the whole practice of their Church runs upon those acts, as if a man^s going through them, and making himself think them, could be of great value in the sight of God. The third branch of the matter of this sacrament is the Satis- faction, or the doing the penance; which, by the constant prac- tice of the church for above twelve centuries, was to be performed before absolution could be given, excej^t in extraordinary cases, such as death or martyrdom : but in these latter ages, in which the necessity of confession is carried higher, the obligation to satisfaction or the doing of penance is let fall lower. A distinc- tion is invented, by which confession and contrition, attrition at least, are made essential parts of the sacrament, without which there is no sacrament; as soul and body are essential to the being of a man: and satisfaction is considered only as an integral part; such as an eye or a limb in a man, which is necessary to the order of it, but not to its being. If satisfaction is considered as that which destroys the habits of sin, and introduces the habits of virtue — if it is purgative and medicinal, and changes a maids principles and nature — then it ought to be reckoned the prin- cipal and least dispensable thing of all repentance; for our con- fessing past sins, and sorrowing for them, is only enjoined us as a mean to reform and purify our nature. If we imagine that our acts of repentance are a discounting with God, by so many pious thoughts which are to be set against so many bad ones, this will introduce a sort of a mechanical religion; which will both corrupt our ideas of God, and of the nature of good and evil. The true and generous notion of religion is, that it is a system of many truths, which are of such efficacy, that if we receive them into our minds, and are governed by them, they will rectify our thoughts, and purify our natures; and by making us like God here, they will put us in a sure way to enjoy him eternally hereafter. Sorrow for past sins, and all refiections upon them, are enjoined us as means to make the sense of them go so deep ART. XXV. THE XXXIX ARTICLES. 335 in our minds, as to free ns from all those bad habits that sin leaves in us, and from those ill inclinations that are in our nature. If we, therefore, set up a sorrowing for sin as a mer- chandise with God, by so many acts of one kind to take olf the acts of another, here the true design of our sorrow is turned into a trafficking, by which how much soever priests may gain, or the value of sacraments may seem to rise, religion will certainly lose in its main design — which is the planting a new nature in us, and the making us become like God. Confession and contrition are previous acts that lead to this reformation, which, as they teach, is wrought by the satisfaction: therefore, we must needs condemn that doctrine which makes it less necessary and more dispensable than the other. In the case of death we confess all the riglits of the Church, with relation to a maffis scandals, and his obligations to make public penance, may, and ought to be then forgiven him; but we think it one of the most fatal errors that can creep into any Church, to encourage men to rely on a death-bed repentance. The nature of man leans so much this way, that it is necessary to bend the point as strong as may be to the other hand. ’ The i^romises of the gospel run all upon the condition of repentance; which imports a renovation of the inner man, and a purity of life; so that no repentance can be esteemed true, but as we perceive that it has purified our hearts, and changed our course of life. What God may do with death-bed penitents, in the infinite extent and absoluteness of his mercy, becomes not us to define; but we are sure he has given no promises to such persons in his gospel. And since the function of clergymen is the dispensing of that, we cannot go beyond the limits set us in it; so there is no reason to make this part of repentance less necessary or obligatory than the other, but very much to the contrary. Another exception that we have to the allowed prac- tice of that Church, is the giving absolution before the satis- faction is made; upon its being enjoined and accepted by the penitent. This is so contrary to all ancient rules, that it were a needless labour to go to prove it; the thing being confessed by all: and yet the practice is so totally changed among them, that such as have blamed it, and have attempted to revive the ancient method, have been censured as guilty of an innovation savouring of heresy; because they condemn so general a prac- tice, that it would render the infallibility of the Church very doubtful, if it should be pretended to have erred in so universal a practice. Hasty absolutions, contrary both to the whole design of the gospel, and to the constant practice of the Church for at least twelve centuries, are now the avowed methods of that Church; to which in a great measure all that corruption of morals that 336 AN EXPOSITION OP ART. XXV. is among them owes its rise and continuance. For who can be supposed to set himself against those inclinations to sin that are deeply rooted in his nature^ and are powerfully recom- mended by the pleasure and gain that arises out of vicious practices, if the way to pardon is cast so wide open, that a man may sin as long and as securely as he will, and yet all at once, upon a few acts that he makes himself go through, he may get into a state of grace, and be pardoned and justified? The power that is left to the priest to appoint the penance, is a trust of a high nature, which yet is known to be universally ill applied; so that absolution is generally prostituted among them. The true penance enjoined by the gospel is the forsaking of sin, and the doing acts of virtue. Fasting, prayers, and alms- giving, are acts that are very proper means to raise us to this temper. If fasting is joined with prayer, and if prayer arises out of an inward devotion of mind, and is serious and fervent, then Ave know that it has great efficacy, as being one of the chief acts of our religious service of God, to which the greatest promises are made, and upon which the best blessings do descend upon us. Almsgiving is also a main part of charity, which, when done from a right principle of loving God and our neighbour, is of great value in his sight. But if fasting is only an exercise of the body, and of abstaining so long, and from such things, this may perhaps trouble and pain the body; but bodily exercise pro- fiteth nothing: so, not to mention the mockery of fasting, when it is only a delay of eating, after which all liberties are taken, or an abstinence which is made up with other delicious and inflaming nutritives, these are of no value,ffieing only inventions to deceive men, and to expose religion to mockery. But even severe and afflicting fasting, if done only as a punishment, Avhich, when it is over, the penance is believed to be completed, give such a low idea of God and religion, that from thence men are led to think very slightly of sin, when they know at what price they can carry it off. Such a continuance in fasting in order to prayer, as humbles and depresses nature, and raises the mind, is a great mean to reform the world; but fasting, as a pre- scribed task to expiate our sins, is a scorn put upon religion. Prayer, when it arises from a serious heart that is earnest in it, and when it becomes habitual, is certainly a most effectual mean to reform the world, and to fetch down divine assistances. But to appoint so many vocal prayers to be gone through as a task, and then to tell the world, that the running through these, with few or no inward acts accompanying them, is contrition or attrition, this is more like a design to root out all the impressions of religion, and all sense of that repentance which the gospel requires, than to promote it. This may be a fit task to accustom children to; but it is contrary to the ART. XXV. THE XXXIX ARTICLES. 337 true genius of religion to teach men, instead of that reasonable service that we ought to oflfer up to God, to give him only the labour of the lips, which is the sacrifice of fools. Prayers gone through as a task can be of no value, and can find no accepta- tion in the sight of God. And as St. Paul said, that if he gave all his goods to feed the poor, and had not charity, he was nothing (1 Cor. xiii. 1 — 3:) so the greatest profusion of alrns-giving, when done in a mercenary way, to buy off and to purchase a pardon, is the turning of God^s house from being a house of prayer to be a den of thieves. Upon all these reasons we except to the whole doctrine and practice of the Church of Rome, as to the satisfaction made by doing penance. And in the last place we except to the form of absolution in these words, I absolve thee. We of this Church, who use it only to such as are thought to be near death, cannot be meant to understand anything by it but the full peace and pardon of the Church; for if we meant a pardon with relation to God, we ought to use it upon many other occasions. The par- don that we give in the name of God is only declaratory of his pardon, or supplicatory in a prayer to him for pardon. In this we have the whole practice of the Church till the twelfth century universally of our side. All the Fathers, all the ancient liturgies, all that have writ upon the offices, and the first schoolmen, are so express in this matter, that the thing in fact cannot be denied. Morinus has published so many of their old rituals, that he has put an end to all doubting about it. In the twelfth century some few began to use the words, / absolve thee; yet, to soften this expression, that seemed new and bold, some tempered it with these words, in so far as it is granted to my frailty; and others with these words, as far as the accusation comes from thee, and as the pardon is in me. Yet this form w^as but little practised; so that William, Bishop of Paris, speaks of the form of absolution as given only in a prayer, and not as given in these w’ords, / absolve thee. He lived in the beginning of the fourteenth century ; so that this practice, though begun in other places before that time, yet w^as not knowm long after in so public a city as Paris. But some schoolmen began to defend it, as implying only a declaration of the pardon pronounced by the priest: and this having an air of more authority, and being once justified by learned men, did so universally prevail, that, in little more than sixty years’ time, it became the universal practice of the whole Latin Church. So sure a thing is tradition, and so impossible to be changed, as they pretend, wffien within the compass- of one age the new form, I absolve thee, w'as not so much as generally known; and before the end of it, the old form of doing it in a prayer, with imposition of hands, was quite worn out. The idea that arises 338 AN EXPOSITION OF ART. XXV. naturally out of these words is^ that the Priest pardons sins; and since that is subject to such abuses, and has let in so much cor- ruption upon that Church, we think we have reason not only to deny that Penance is a sacrament, but likewise to affirm, that they have corrupted this great and important doctrine of repent- ance, in all the parts and branches of it. Nor is the matter mended with that prayer that follows the absolution : The pas- Rituaie Ro- siou of OUT Lovd Jcsus Christ, the merits of the blessed Virgin and all the Saints, aiid all the good that thou tent. fiast done, and the evil that thou hast suffered, be to thee for the remission of sins, the increase of grace, and the reward of eternal life. The third Sacrament rejected by this Article is Orders; which is reckoned the sixth by the Church of Rome. We affirm, that Christ appointed a succession of Pastors in dif- ferent ranks, to be continued in his Church, for the work of the gospel, and the care of souls; and that as the Apostles settled the Churches, they appointed different orders of Bishojjs, Priests, and Deacons: and we believe, that all who are dedi- cated to serve in these ministries, after they are examined and judged worthy of them, ought to be separated to them by the imposition of hands, and by prayer. These were the only rites that we find practised by the Apostles. For many ages the Church of God used no other; therefore we acknowledge that Bishops, Priests, and Deacons, ought to be blessed and dedicated to the holy ministry by imposition of hands and prayer; and that then they are received, according to the order and practice settled by the Apostles, to serve in their respective degrees. Men thus separated have thereby authority to perfect the saints or Christians; that is, to perform the sacred functions among them, to minister to them, and to build them up in their most holy faith. And we think no other person, without such a sepa- ration and consecration, can lawfully touch the holy things. In all which we separate the qualifications of the function from the inward qualities of the person; the one not at all depending on the other: the one relating only to the order and the good government of the society, and the other relating indeed to the salvation of him that officiates, but not at all to the validity of his office or service. But in all this we see nothing like a sacrament; here is neither matter, form, nor institution; here is only prayer : the laying on of hands is only a gesture in prayer, that imports the designation of the person so prayed over. In the Greek Haberti Pon- Cliurch there is indeed a different form ; for though Modnus^lir' prayers in their office of Ordination, yet ordinat. Sa- the words that do accompany the imposition of hands are only declaratory: The grace of God that per- ART. XXV. TH]E XXXIX ARTICLES. 339 fects the feeble and heals the weak, promotes this man to be a Dea- con, a Priest, or a Bishop ; let us, therefore, pray for him : by which they pretend only to judge of a divine vocation. All the ancient rituals, and all those that treat of them for the first seven centuries, speak of nothing as essential to Orders but prayer and imposition of hands. It is true, many rites came to be added, and many prayers were used, that went far beyond the first simplicity. But in the tenth or eleventh century a new form was brought in, of delivering the vessels in ordaining Priests; and words were joined with that, giving them power to offer sacrifices to God, and to celebrate masses, and then the Orders were believed to be given by this rite. The delivering of the vessels looked like a matter, and these words were thought the form of the sacrament; and the prayer that was formerly used with the imposition of hands was, indeed, still used, but only as a part of the office; no hands were laid on when it was used. And though the form of laying on of hands was still continued, the Bishop with other Priests laying’ their hands on those they ordained, yet it is now a dumb ceremony, not a word of a prayer being said while they lay on their hands: so that though both prayer and imposition of hands are used in the office, yet they are not joined together. In the conclusion of the office a new benediction was added, ever since the twelfth century: the bishop alone lays on his hands, saying. Receive the Holy Ghost: whose sins ye remit, they are remitted; and whose sins ye retain, they are retained. The number seven was thought to suit the sacraments best, so Orders were made one of them, and of these only Priesthood; where the vessels were declared to be the mat- ter, and the form was the delivering them with the words. Take thou authority to offer up sacrifices to God, and to celebrate masses, both for the living and. the dead; in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. The schoolmen have taken a new way of explaining this whole matter, borrowed from the Eucharist, that is made up of two parts, the consecration of the bread and of the wine; both so necessary, that without the one the other becomes void: so they teach that a Priest has two powers — of consecrating and of absolving ; and that he is ordained to the one by the delivery of the vessels, and to the other by the Bishop’s laying on of hands, with the words. Receive the Holy Ghost; and they make the Bishop and the Priest’s laying on of hands jointly, to be only their declaring, as by a suffrage, that such a person ought to be ordained: so totally have they departed from the primitive forms. If this is a sacrament, and if the sacrament consists in this ' matter and form by them assigned, then, since all the rituals of the Latin Church for the first ten centuries, had no such form Y 2 340 AN EXPOSITION OF ART. XXV. of ordaining Priests, this cannot be the matter and form of a sacrament; otherwise the Church had in a course of so many ages no true orders, nor any sacrament in them. Nor will it serve in answer to this to say, that Christ instituted no special matter nor form here, but has left the specifying those among the other powers that he has given to his Church; for a sacra- ment being an institution of applying a matter designed by God, by a particular form likewise appointed; to say that Christ appointed here neither matter nor form, is plainly to confess that this is no sacrament. In the first nine or ten ages there was no matter at all used, nothing but an imposition of hands with prayer: so that by this doctrine the Church of God was all that while without true orders, since there was nothing used that can be called the matter of a sacrament. Therefore, though we continue this institution of Christ, as he and his Apostles settled it in the Church, yet we deny it to be a sacrament; we also deny all the inferior orders to be sacred, below that of Deacon. The other orders we do not deny might be well, and on good reasons, appointed by the Church as steps through which Clerks might be made to pass, in order to a stricter exa- mination and trial of them, like degrees in universities; but the making them, at least the subdiaconate, sacred, as it is reckoned by Pope Eugenius, is, we think, beyond the power of the Church; for here a degree of orders is made a sacrament, and yet that degree is not named in the Scripture, nor in the first ages. It is true, it came to be soon used with the other inferior orders; but it cannot be pretended to be a sacrament, since no divine institution can be brought for it. And we cannot but observe, that in the definition that Eugenius has given of the sacraments, which is an authentical piece in the Roman Church, where he reckons Priests, Deacons, and Subdeacons, as belonging to the sacrament of orders, he does not name Bishops, though their being of divine institution is not questioned in that Church. Perhaps the spirit with which they acted at that time in Basil offended him so much, that he was more set on depressing than on raising them. In the Council of Trent, in which so much zeal appeared for recovering the dignity oif the episcopal order, at that time so much eclipsed by the papal usurpations, when the sacrament of orders was treated of, they reckon seven degrees of them, the highest of which is that of Priest. So that though they decreed that a Bishop was by the divine institution aliove a Priest, yet they did not decree that the office was an order, or a sacrament. And the schoolmen do generally explain episcopate as being a higher degree or extension of priesthood, rather than a new order or a sacrament: the main tiling in their thoughts being that which, if true, is the greatest of all miracles, the wonderful conversion made in transubstantiatioii, AKT. XXV. THE XXXIX ARTICLES. .341 they seem to tliiiik that lu) order can be above that which qualities a man for so great a performance. I say nothing in this place concerning the power of offering sacrifices, pretended to be given in orders; for that belongs to another Article. The fourth Sacrament here rejected is Marriage; which is reckoned the last by the Roman account. In the point of argu- ment there is less to say here than in any of the other; but there seems to be a very express warrant for calling it a sacrament^ from the translation of a passage in St. PauFs Epistle to the Ephe- sians (v. 32,) in which he makes an allusion, while he treats of marriage, to the mutual relation that is between Christ and his Church, from that state of life, and says. There is a great mystery here: the Vulgate has translated the word my stery\iy sacrament. So, though the words immediately following seem to turn the matter another way, hut I speak concerning Christ and the Church; yet, from the promiscuous use of those two words, and because sacraments were called the mysteries of the Christian religion, the translator, it seems, thought that all mysteries might be called sacraments. But it is so very hard here to find matter, form, a minister, a sacramental effect, that though Pope Eugenius, in that famous decree of his, is very punctual in assigning these, when he explains the other sacraments, yet he wisely passed them all over when he came to this, and only makes a true conseut necessary to the making the sacrament. We do not deny marriage to be an ordinance of God; but we think, that as it was at first made in the state of innocence, so it is still founded on the law of nature: and though the Gos- pel gives rules concerning the duties belonging to this state of life, as it does concerning the duties of parents and children, which is another relation founded on the same law of nature, yet we cannot call it a sacrament; for we find neither matter, form, institution, nor federal acts, nor effects, assigned to it in the gospel, to make us esteem it a sacrament. The matter assigned by the Roman doctors is the inward consent, by which both parties do mutually give themselves to one another: the form they make to be, the words or signs by which this is expressed. Now* it seems a strange thing to make the secret thoughts of men the matter, and their words the form of a sacrament; all mutual compacts being as much * Upon the whole doctrine of the Church of Rome, concerning- the sacra- ments, as it is explained by the schoolmen, I have followed the account given by Honoratus Fabri, in his Summa Theologica, who is dead within these ten years. I knew him at Rome, anno 1685. He was a true philosopher, beyond the liberties allowed him by his order, and studied to reduce their school divinity to as clear ideas as it was capable of. So that in following him I have given the best, and not the worst face of their doctrine. His book was printed at Lyons, anno 1669. 342 AN EXPOSITION OF ART. XXV. sacraments as this; there being no visible material things applied to the parties who receive them ; which is necessary to the being of a sacrament. It is also a very absurd opinion, which may have very fatal consequences, and raise very afflicting scru- ples : if any should imagine that the inward consent is the matter of this sacrament, here is a foundation laid down for voiding every marriage. The parties may, and often do, marry against their wills; and though they profess an outward consent, they do inwardly repine against what they are doing. If after this they grow to like their marriage, scruples must arise, since they know they have not the sacrament: because it is a doctrine in that Church, that as intention is necessary in every sacrament, so here that goes further, the intention being the only matter of this sacrament — so that without it there is no marriage; and yet, since they cannot be married again to complete, or rather to make the marriage, such persons do live only in a state of concubinage. On the other hand, here is a foundation laid down for breaking marriages as often as the parties, or either of them, will solemnly swear that they gave no inward consent, which is often practised at Rome. All contracts are sacred things, but of them all, mar- riage is the most sacred, since so much depends upon it. Meffls words, confirmed by oaths and other solemn acts, must either be binding according to the plain and acknowledged sense of them, or all the security and confidence of mankind is destroyed. No man can be safe if this principle is once admitted — that a man is not bound by his promises and oaths, unless his inward consent went along with them: and if such a fraudulent thing may be applied to marriages, in which so many persons are concerned, and upon which the order of the world does so much depend, it may be very justly applied to all other contracts whatsoever, so that they may be voided at pleasure. A maffls words and oaths bind him by the eternal laws of fidelity and truth; and it is a just pre- judice against any religion whatsoever, if it should teach a doc- trine in which by the secret reserves of not giving an inward consent, the faith which is solemnly given may be broken. Here such a door is opened to perfidy and treachery, that the world can be no longer safe while it is allowed : hereby lewd and vicious persons may entangle others, and in the meanwhile order their own thoughts so that they shall be all the while free. Next to matter and form, we must see for the institution of this sacrament. The Church of Rome think that is strong here, though they feel it to be hardly defensible in the other points that relate to it. They think, that though marriage, as it is a mutual contract, subsists upon the law of nature, yet a divine virtue is put in it by the gospel, expressed in these words. This is a great mystery, or sacrament: so the explain- ing these words determines this controversy. The chief point ART. XXV. THE XXXIX ARTICLES. 34.3 in dispute at that time was, whether the Gentiles were to be reeeived to equal privileges with the Jews, in the dispensation of the Messias? The Jews do not to this day deny but that the Gentiles may be admitted to it; but still they think, that they are to be considered as a distinct body, and in a lower order, the chief dignity being to be reserved to the seed of Abraham. Now St. Paul had in that Epistle, as well as in his other Epistles, asserted, that all were equal in Christ; that he had taken away tlie middle tvall of partition; that he had abolished the ground of the enmity, which was the Mosaical Law, called the Law of Commandments contained in ordinances, that he might make both Jew and Gentile one new man — one entire body of a Church; he being the chief corner-stone, in whom the whole building ivas fitly framed together; and so became a holy habitation to God, Eph. ii. 15, 16. 20, 21. Thus he made use of the figure of a body and of a temple to illustrate this matter; and to show how all Chris- tians were to makeup but one body, and one Church. So when he came to speak of the rules belonging to the several states of human life, he takes occasion to explain the duties of the mar- ried state, by comparing that to the relation that the Church has to Christ; and when he had said that the married couple make but one body and one flesh, which declares that, according to the first institution, every man was to have but one wife, he adds upon that. This is a great mystery : that is, from hence ano- ther mystical argument might be brought, to show that Jew and Gentile must make one body; for since the Church was the spouse of Christ, he must, according to that figure, have but one wife; and, by consequence, the Church must be one; — otherwise the figure will not be answered; unless we suppose Christ to be in a state answering a polygamy, rather than a single marriage. Thus a clear account of these words is given, which docs fully agree to them, and to what follows. But I speak concerning Christ and the Church. This, which is all the foundation of making marriage a sacra- ment, being thus cleared, there remains nothing to be said on this head, but to examine one consequence that has been drawn from the making it a sacrament, which is, that the bond is indissoluble, and that even adultery does not void it. The law of nature or of nations seems very clear, that adultery, at least on the wife^s part, should dissolve it; for the end of marriage being the ascertaining of the issue, and the contract itself being a mutual transferring the right to one another’s person in order to that end, the breaking this contract and destroy- ing the end of marriage does very naturally infer the disso- lution of the bond: and in this both the Attic and Roman laws were so severe, that a man was infamous who did not divorce upon adultery. Our Saviour, when he blamed the Jews 344 AN EXPOSITION OF ART. XXV. for their frequent divorces, established this rule, that whosoever puts away his wife, except it he for fornication, and shall marry another, committeth adultery (Matt. v. 32; xix. 9;) which seems to be a plain and full determination, that in the case of fornica- tion, he may put her away and marry another. It is true, St. Mark (x. 11) and St. Luke (xvi. 18) repeat these words without mentioning this exception ; so some have thought that we ought to bring St. Matthew to them, and not them to St. Matthew. But it is an universal rule of expounding Scriptures, that when a place is fully set down by one inspired writer, and less fully by another, that the place which is less full is always to be expounded by that which is more full; so, though St. Mark and St. Luke report our Saviour’s words generally, without the exception which is twice mentioned by St. Matthew, the other two are to be understood to suppose it: for a general proposi- tion is true when it holds generally ; and exceptions may be under- stood to belong to it though they are not named. The Evangelist that does name them, must be considered to have reported the matter more particularly than the others that do it not. Since then our Saviour has made the exception, and since that excep- tion is founded upon a natural equity that the innocent party has against the guilty, there can be no reason why an exception so justly grounded, and so clearly made, should not take place. Both Tertullian, Basil, Chrysostom, and Epiphanius, allow of a divorce in case of adultery; and in those days they had no other notion of a divorce, but that it was the dissolution of the bond — the late notion of a separation, the tie continuing, ]iot being known till the canonists brought it in. Such a divorce was allowed by the Council of Elliberis. The Council of Arles did, indeed, recommend it to the husband, whose wife was guilty of adultery, not to marry; which did plainly acknow- ledge that he might do it. It was, and still is the constant practice of the Greek Church; and as both Pope Gregory and Pope Zachary allowed the innocent person to marry, so, in a Synod held at Rome in the tenth century, it was still allowed. When the Greeks were reconciled to the Latins in the Council of Florence, this matter was passed over, and the care of it was only recommended by the Pope to the Emperor. It is true, Eugenius put it in his instruction to the Armenians; but though that passes generally for a part of the Council of Flo- rence, yet the Council was over and up before that was given out. This doctrine of the indissolubleness of marriage, even for adultery, was never settled in any Council before that of Trent. The canonists and schoolmen had, indeed, generally gone into that opinion; but not only Erasmus, but both Cajetan and Catherinus, declared themselves for the lawfulness of it: Cajetan, indeed, used a salvo, in case tlie Church had ART. XXV. Till-: XXXIX ARTICLKS. 345 otherwise defined, which did not then appear to him.* So that tliis is a doctrine very lately settled in the Church of Rome. Our Reformers here had prepared a title in the new body of the Canon Law which they had digested, allowing marriage to the innocent party; and upon a great occasion then in debate, they declared it to be lawful by the law of God; and if the opinion, that marriage is a sacrament, falls, the conceit of the absolute indissolubleness of marriage will fall with it. The last Sacrament which is rejected by this Article, that is, the fifth, as they are reckoned up in the Church of Rome, is Extreme Unction. In the commission that Christ gave his Apostles, among the other. powers that were given them to confirm it, one was to cure diseases and heal the sick; pursuant to which St. Mark tells, that they anointed with oil many that ivere sick, and healed them, Mark vi. 13. The prophets used some symbolical actions when they wrought miracles; so Moses used his rod often; Elisha used Elijah^s mantle; our Saviour put his finger into the deaf man^s ear, and made clay for the blind man; and oil being upon almost all occasions used in the Eastern parts, the Apostles made use of it: but no hint is given that this was a sacramental action. It was plainly a miraculous virtue that healed the sick, in which oil was made use of as a symbol accompanying it. It was not prescribed by our Saviour, for anything that appears, as it was not blamed by him neither. It was no wonder, if upon such a precedent, those who had that extraordinary gift did apply it with the use of oil; not as if oil was the sacramental conveyance — it was only used with it. The end of it was miraculous; it was in order to the recovery of the sick, and had no relation to their souls, though with the cure wrought on the body there might sometimes be joined an operation upon the soul: and this appears clearly from St. James’s words. Is any sick among you? let him call for the Elders of the Church; and let them 'pray over him, anointing him ivith oil in the name of the Lord; and the prayer of faith shall save the sick, and the Lord shall raise him up, James v. 14, 15. All hitherto is one period, which is here closed. The following words contain new matter quite of a different kind — and if he have committed sins, they shall he forgiven him. It appears clearly that this was intended for the recovery of the sick person, which is the thing that is positively promised; the other, concerning the pardon of sins, comes in on the bye, and seems to be added only as an acces- sary to the other, which is the principal thing designed by this * Tertul. lib. iv. con. Marcion, c. 34. Basil. Ep. ad Amphil. c. 9. Chrysost. hom. 17. in Matt. Epiph. Haeres. 59. Cath. Cone. Ellib. c. 65. Cone. Arel. c. 10. Cone. Afric. c. 102. Causa. 32. q. 7. In deer. Eug. in Cone. Flor. Erasm. in 1 Ep. ad Cor. vii. Cajetan, in Matt. xix. c. 9. Cathar. in 1 Ep. ad Cor. vii. 1. 5. Annot. 346 AN EXPOSITION OF ART. XXV. whole matter. Therefore, since anointing was in order to heal- ing, either we must say that the gift of healing is still deposited with the Elders of the Church, which nobody affirms, or this oil was only to be used by those who had that special gift; and, therefore, if there are none now who pretend to have it, and if the Church pretends not to have it lodged with her, then the anointing with oil cannot be used any more : and, therefore, those who use it not in order to the recovery of the person, delaying it till there is little or no hope left, use not that unction men- tioned by St. James, but another of their own devising, which they call the sacrament of the dying. It is a vain thing to say, that because saving and raising up are sometimes used in a spiri- tual sense, that therefore the saving the sick here, and that of the hordes raising him up, are to be so meant. For the forgiveness of sin, which is the spiritual blessing, comes afterwards, upon sup- position that the sick person had committed sins — the saving and raising up, must stand in opposition to the sickness: so, since all acknowledge that the one is literal, the other must be so too. The supposition of sin is added, because some persons, upon whom this miracle might have been wrought, might be eminently pious ; and if at any time it was to be applied to ill men who had committed some notorious sins, perhaps such sins as had brought their sickness upon them, these were also to be forgiven. In the use of miraculous powers, those to whom that gift was given were not empowered to use it at pleasure; they were to feel an inward impulse exciting them to it, and they were obliged upon that firmly to believe that God, who had given them the impulse, would not be wanting to them in the execution of it. This confidence in God was the faith of miracles, of which Christ said. If ye have faith as a gram of mustard-seed, ye shall say to this mountain. Remove hence to yonder place; and nothing shall he impossible unto you. Matt. xxi. 21. Of this also St. Paul meant, when he said. If I have all faith, 1 Cor. xiii. 2. So from this we may gather the meaning of the prayer of faith, and the anointing with oil; that if the Elders of the Church, or such others with whom this power was lodged, felt an inward impulse moving them to call upon God in order to a miraculous cure of a sick person, then they were to anoint him with oil in the name of the Lord; that is, by the authority that they had from Christ to heal all manner of diseases; and they were to pray, believing firmly that God would make good that inward motion which he had given them to work this miracle; and in that' case the effect was certain, the sick person would cer- tainly recover, for that is absolutely promised. Every one that was sick was not to be anointed, unless an authority and motion from Christ had been secretly given for doing it; but every one that was anointed was certainly healed. Christ had ART. XXV. THE XXXIX ARTICLES. 347 promised, that ivhatsoever they should ask in his name he would do it, John xiv. 13. His name must be restrained to his autho- rity, or pursuant to such secret motions as they shall receive from him. This is the prayer of faith here mentioned by St. James; it being an earnest application to God to join his omni- potent power to perform a wonderful work, to which a person so divinely qualified felt himself inwardly moved by the Spirit of Christ. The supposition of the sick personas having committed sins, which is added, shows that sometimes this virtue was applied to persons of that eminent piety, that, though all men are guilty in the sight of God, yet they could not be said to have committed sins in the sense in which St. John uses the phrase, signifying by it either that they had lived in the habits of sin, or that they had committed some notorious sin; but if some should happen to be sick, who had been eminent sinners, and those sins had drawn down the judgments of God upon them, which seems to be the natural meaning of these words. If ye have committed sins, then, with his bodily health, he was to receive a much greater blessing, even the pardon *of his sins. And thus the anointing mentioned by St. James, was in order to a miraculous cure, and the cure did constantly follow it: so that it can be no precedent for an extreme unction, that is never given till the recovery of the person is despaired of, and by which it is not pretended that any cure is wrought. The matter of it is oil-olive blessed by the Bishop; the form is the applying it to the five senses, with these words. Per hanc sacram unctionem, et suam piissimam miseri- p^j^uaieRom cordiam indulgeat tibi Deus quicquid peccasti, per con. Trid. visum, auditum, olf actum, gustum, et tactum; — the proper word to every sense being repeated as the organ of that sense is anointed. It is administered by a Priest, and gives the final pardon, with all necessary assistances in the last agony. Here is then an institution, that, if warranted, is matter of great comfort, and, if not warranted, is matter of as great presumption. In the first ages we find mention is made fre- quently of persons that were cured by an anointing with oil.* Oil was then much used in all their rituals, the catechumens being anointed with oil before they were baptized, besides the chrism that was given after it: oil grew also to be used in ordi- nations, and the dead were anointed in order to their burial; so that the ordinary use of oil on other occasions brought it to be very frequently used in their sacred rites: yet how cus- tomary soever the practice of anointing grew to be, we find no mention of any unction of the sick before the beginning of * Cons. Apos. 1. 3. c. 16. 1. vii. c. 42. 44. Tertul. de Bapt. c. 10. Cypr. Ep. 70. Clem. Alex, psedag. 1. xi. c. 8. Dionys. Areop. de Eccles. hier. c. 7,8. 348 AN EXPOSITION OF ART. XXV. the fifth century. This plainly shows that they understood St. Jameses words as relating to a miraculous power, and not to a function that was to continue in the Church, and to he esteemed a sacrament. Innocent That earliest mention of it by Pope Innocent the Ep. i.ad First, how much soever it is insisted on, is really an ■ argument that proves against it, and not for it. For not to enlarge on the many idle things that are in that Epistle, which have made some think that it could not be genuine, and that do very much sink the credit both of the testimony and of the man — for it seems to be well proved to be his; the passage relating to this matter is in answer to a demand that was made to him by the Bishop of Eugubium, whether the sick might be anointed with the oil of the chrism; and whether the Bishop might anoint with it? To these he answers, that no doubt is to'be made but that St. Jameses words are to be understood of the faithful that were sick, who may be anointed by the chrism: which may be used not only by the Priests, but by all Christians, not only in their own necessities, but in the necessities of any of their friends : and he adds, that it was a needless doubt that was made, whe- ther a Bishop might do it; for Presbyters are only mentioned because the Bishop could not go to all the sick; but certainly he who made the chrism itself, might anoint with it. A Bishop asking these questions of another, and the answers which the other gives him, do plainly show that this was no sacrament prac- tised from the beginnings of Christianity; for no Bishop could be ignorant of those. It was, therefore, some newly-begun custom, in which the world was not yet sufficiently instructed. And so it was indeed; for the subject of these questions was not pure oil, such as now they make to be the matter of extreme unction, but the oil of chrism, which was made and kept for other occasions : and it seems very clear, that the miraculous power of healing having ceased, and none being any more anointed in order to that, some began to get a portion of the oil of chrism, which the laity as well as the priests applied both to themselves and to their friends, hoping that they might be cured by it. Nothing else r can be meant by all this, but a superstitious using the chrism, I which might have arisen out of the memory that remained of those who had been cured by oil — as the use of bread in the Eucharist brought in the holy bread, that was sent from one church to another; and as from the use of water in baptism sprung the use of holy water. This then being the clear meaning of those words, it is plain that they prove quite the contrary of that for which they are brought: and though in that Epistle the Pope calls chrism a kind of sacrament, that turns likewise against them — to show that he did not think it was a sacrament, strictly speaking. Besides that, the ancients used that word very AIIT. XXV. TIIK XXXIX ARTICLES. M\) largely, botli for every mysterious doctrine, and for every holy rite that they used. In this very Epistle, when he gives direc- tions for the carrying about that breads which they blessed, and sent about as an emblem of their communion with other Churches, he orders them to be sent about only to the Churches within the city, because he conceived the sacraments were not to be carried a great way off ; so these loaves are called by him not only a kind of sacrament y but are simply reckoned to be sacraments. We hear no more of anointing the sick with the chrism, among all the ancients; which shows, that as that practice was newly begun, so it did not spread far, nor continue long. No mention is made of this, neither in the first three ages nor in the fourth age; though the writers, and particularly the Coun- cils of the fourth age, are very copious in rules concerning the sacraments. Nor in all their penitentiary canons, when they define what sins are to be forgiven, and what not, when men were in their last extremities, is there so much as a hint given concerning the last unction. The Constitutions and the pre- tended Dionysius say not a word of it, though they are very full upon all the rituals of that time in which those works w’ere forged, in the fourth or fifth century. In none of the Lives of the Saints before the ninth century, is there any mention made of their having extreme unction, though their deaths are some- times very particularly related, and their receiving the Eucha- rist is oft mentioned. Nor was there any question made in all that time concerning the persons, the time, and the other cir- cumstances relating to this unction ; which could not have been omitted, especially when almost all that was thought on, or writ of, in the eighth and ninth century, relates to the sacraments and the other rituals of the Church. It is true’, from the seventh century on to the twelfth, they began to use an anointing of the sick, according to that sacram mentioned by Pope Innocent, and a peculiar office Gregor. Me-' was made for it; but the prayers that were used in it show plainly, that it was all intended only in order to their recovery. Of this anointing many passages are found in Bede, and in the other writers and councils of the eighth and ninth jfjgj century. But all these do clearly express the use of it, not as a sacrament for the good of the soul, but as a Euchoi. rite that carried with it health to the body; and so it p- is still used in the Greek Church. No doubt they supported the credit of this with many reports, of which some might be true, of persons that had been recovered upon using it. But because that failed so often that the credit of this rite might suffer much in the esteem of the world, they began in the tenth century to say that it did good to the soul, even when the body 350 AN EXPOSITION OF ART. XXV. was not healed by it; and they applied it to the several parts of the body. This began from the custom of applying it at first to the diseased parts. This was"carried on in the eleventh century; and then in the twelfth, those prayers that had been formerly made for the souls of the sick, though only as a part of the office, the pardon of sin being considered as preparatory to Con! rior! their recovery, came to be considered as the main and £s"s niost essential part of it: then the schoolmen brought it into shape, and so it was decreed to be a sacrament by Pope Eugenius, and finally established at Trent. The argument that they draw from a parity in reason, that because there is a sacrament for such as come into the world, there should be also one for those that go out of it, is very trifling; for Christ has either instituted this to be a sacrament, or it is not one: if he has not instituted it, this pretended fitness is only an argument that he ought to have done somewhat that he has not done. The Eucharist was considered by the ancients as the only viaticum of Christians in their last passage: with them we give that, and no more. Thus it appears upon what reason we reject those five Sacra- ments, though we allow both of confirmation and orders as holy functions derived to us down from the Apostles ; and because there is a visible action in these, though in strictness they cannot be called a sacrament, yet so the thing be rightly understood, we will not dispute about the extent of a word that is not used in Scripture. Marriage is in no respect to be called a sacra- ment of the Christian religion; though, it being a state of such importance to mankind, we hold it very proper, both for the solemnity of it, and for imploring the blessing of (jod upon it, that it be done with prayers and other acts of religious worship : but a great difference is to be made between a pious custom begun and continued by public authority, and a sacrament appointed by Christ. We acknowledge true repentance to be one of the great conditions of the New Covenant, but we see nothing of the nature of a sacrament in it : and for extreme unc- tion, we do not pretend to have the gift of healing among us ; and, therefore, we will not deceive the world, by an office that shall offer at that which we acknowledge we cannot do; nor will we make a sacrament for the good of the soul, out of that which is mentioned in Scripture only as a rite that accompanied the curing the diseases of the body. The last part of this Article, concerning the use of the sacra- ments, consists of two parts: the first is negative, that they are not ordained to be gazed on, or to be carried about, but to be used; and this is so express in the Scripture, that little ques- tion can be made about it. The institution of Baptism is. Go preach and baptize; and the institution of the Eucharist is. ART. XXV. THE XXXIX ARTICLES. 351 Take, eat, and drink ye all of it: wliicli words being set down before those in which tlie consecrating them is believed to be made, This is my body, and This is my blood; and the consecra- tory words being delivered as the reason of command, Take, eat, and drink; — nothing can be more clearly expressed than this, that the Eucharist is consecrated only that it may be used; that it may be eat and drunk. The second part of this period is, that the effect of the sacra- ments comes only upon tlie worthy receiving of them. Of this so much was already said upon the first paragraph of this Arti- cle, that it is not necessary to add any more here. The pretend- ing that sacraments have their effect any other way, is the bring- ing in the doctrine and practice of charms into the Christian religion: and it tends to dissolve all obligations to piety and devotion, to a holiness of life or a purity of temper, when the being in a passive and perhaps insensible state, while the sacra- ments are applied, is thought a disposition sufficient to give them their virtue. Sacraments are federal acts; and those visi- ble actions are intended to quicken us, so that in the use of them we may raise our inward acts to the highest degrees possible, but not to supply their defects and imperfections. Our opinion in this point represents them as means to raise our minds, and to kindle our devotion; whereas the doctrine of the Church of Rome represents them as so many charms, which may heighten indeed the authority of him that administers them, but to extin- guish and deaden all true piety, when such helps are offered, by which the worst of men, living and dying in a bad state, may by a few feint acts, and perhaps by none at all of their own, be well enough taken care of and secured. But as we have not so learned Christ, so neither dare we corrupt his doctrine in its most vital and essential parts. 352 AN EXPOSITION OF ART. XXVI. ARTICLE XXVI. OF THE UNWORTHINESS OF THE MINISTERS WHICH HINDERS NOT THE EFFECT OF THE SACRAMENTS. Although in the Visible Churchy the evil he ever mingled with the good, and sometimes the evil have chief authority in the Minis- tration of the Word and Sacraments : yet for as much as they do not the same in their own Name, but in Christ’s, and do minister by his Commission and Authority, we may use their Ministry both in hearing the Word of God and in receiving the Sacraments. Neither is the Effect of Christ’s Ordinance taken away by their Wickedness: nor the Grace of God’s Gifts diminished from such as by faith and rightly do receive the Sacraments ministered unto them, which be effectual because of Christ’s Institution and Promise, although they be adminis- tered by Evil Men. Nevertheless it appertaineth to the Discipline of the Church, that Inquiry be made of Evil Ministers; and that they he accused by those that have knoivledge of their Offences, and finally being found guilty, by just judgment be deposed. The occasion that was given to this Article^ was the heat of some in the beginnings of the Reformation; who being much offended at the public scandal which was given by the enormous vices that were without any disguise practised by the Roman clergy of all ranks, did from thence revive the conceit of the Donatists, who thought that not only heresy and schism did invalidate sacred functions, but that personal sins did also make them void. It cannot be denied but that there are many passages in St. Cyprian that look this w^ay; and which seem to make the sacra- ments depend as much on the good state that he was in who administered them, as the answer of their other prayers did. In the progress of the controversy with the Donatists, they carried this matter very far; and considered the effect of the sacraments as the answer of prayers: so, since the prayers of a wicked man are abomination to God, they thought the virtue of these actions depended wholly on him that officiated. Against this St. Augustin set himsMf very zealously: he answered all that was brought from St. Cyprian in such a manner, that by it he has set us a pattern, how we ought to separate the just respect that we pay the Fathers from an implicit receiving of all their notions. If this conceit were allowed of, it must go to the secret thoughts and inward state in which he is who ART. XXVI. THE XXXIX ARTICLES. 353 officiates: for if the sacraments are to be considered only as prayers offered up by him, then a man can never be sure that he receives them; since 'it is impossible to see into the hearts or know the secrets of men. Sacraments, therefore, are to be considered only as the public acts of the Church; and though the effect of them, as to him that receives them, depends upon his temper, his preparation and application, yet it cannot be imagined, that the virtue of those federal acts to which Chris- tians are admitted in them, the validity of them, or the bless- ings that follow them, can depend on the secret state or temper of him that officiates. Even in the case of public scandals, though they may make the holy things to be loathed by the aver- sion that will naturally follow upon them; yet, after all, though that aversion may go too far, we must still distinguish between the things that the ministers of the Church do as they are public officers, and what they do as they are private Christians. Their prayers, and everything else that they do, as they are private Christians, have their effect only according to the state and temper that they are in when they offer them up to God; but their public functions are the appointments of Christ, in which they officiate; they can neither make them the better nor the worse, by anything that they join to them. And if miraculous virtues may be in bad men, so that, in the great day, some of those to whom Christ shall say, I never knew you, depart from me, ye that ivork iniquity, may yet say to him. Lord, Lord, have ive not prophesied in thy name, and in thy name have cast out devils, and in thy name have done many wonderful works ? (Matt, vii. 22, 23,) then certainly this may be concluded much more concerning those standing functions and appointments that are to continue in the Church. Nor can any difference be made in this matter between public scandals and secret sins; for if the former make void the sacraments, the latter must do so too. The only reason that can be pretended for the one, will also fall upon the other; for if the virtue of the sacraments is thought to be derived upon them as an answer of prayer; then, since the prayers of hypocrites are as little effectual as the prayers of those who are openly vicious, the inference is good, that if the sacra- ments administered by a scandalous man are without any effect, the sacraments administered by a man that is inwardly corrupted, though that can be only known to God, will be also of no effect: and, therefore, this opinion that was taken up, perhaps from an inconsiderate zeal against the sins and scandals of the clergy, is without all foundation, and must needs cast all men into endless scruples, which can never be cured. The Church of Rome, though they reject this opinion, yet have brought in another very like it, which must needs fill the minds of men with endless distractions and fears; chiefly con- z 354 AN EXPOSITION OF ART. XXVI. sidering of what necessity and efficacy they make the sacraments to be: — they do teach, that the intention of him that gives the sacrament is necessary to the essence of it, so that without it no sacrament can be administered. This was expressly affirmed by Pope Eugenius in his decree, and an anathema passed at Trent against those that deny it. They do, indeed, define it to be only an intention of doing that which the Church intends to do; and though the surest way, they say, is to have an actual intention, yet it is commonly taught among them, that an habitual or virtual intention will serve: but they do all agree in this, that if a priest has a secret intention not to make a sacra- ment, in that case no sacrament is made; and this is carried so oiie of the rubrics of the Missal it is ffiven Miss. Rom. 1 1 •1' • 1 ° 1 Ruhr, de as a rulc, that it a priest who goes to consecrate twelve ten? Hosties, should have a general intention to leave out one of them from being truly consecrated, and should not apply that to any one, but let it run loosely through them all, that in such case he should not consecrate any one of the tw’elve; that loose exception falling upon them all, because it is not restrained to any one particular. And among the Articles that were condemned by Pope Alexander the Eighth, the 7th of December 1690, the 28th runs thus: Valet baptismus collatus a ministro, qui omnem ritum externum formamque baptizandi observat, intus vero in corde suo apud se resolvit, non intendo quod facit Ecclesia. And thus they make the secret acts of a priesPs mind enter so far into those divine appointments, that by his malice, irreligion, or atheism, he can make those sacra- ments, which he visibly blesses and administers, to be only the outward shows of sacraments, but no real ones. We do not pretend that the sacraments are of the nature of charms; so that if a man should in the way of open mockery and profanation go about them, that, therefore, because matter and form are observed, they should be true sacraments: but though we make the serious appearances of a Christian action to be necessary to the making it a sacrament, yet we carry this no further, to the inward and secret acts of the priest, as if they were essential to the being of it. If this is true, no man can have quiet in his mind. It is a profanation for an unbaptized person to receive the Eucharist; so if baptism is not true when a priest sets his intention cross to it, then a man in orders must be in perpetual doubts, whether he is not living in a continual state of sacrilege in administering the other sacraments while he is not yet bap- tized; and if baptism be so necessary to salvation, that no man who is not baptized can hope to be saved, here a perpetual scruple must arise, which can never be removed. Nor can a man be sure but that, when he thinks he is worshipping tlie true body of Jesus Christ, he is committing idolatry, and wor- ART. XXVI. THE XXXIX ARTICLES. 355 shipping only a piece of bread; for it is no more, according to them, if the priest had an intention against consecrating it. No orders are given if an intention lies against them; and then he who passes for a priest is no priest, and all his consecrations and absolutions are so many invalid things, and a continued course of sacrilege. Now what reason soever men may have in this case to hope for the pardon of those sins, since it is certain that the ignorance is invincible; yet here strange thoughts must arise concerning Christ and his gospel, if, in those actions that are made neces- sary to salvation, it should be in the power of a false Christian, or an atheistical bishop or priest, to make them all void, so that by consequence it should be in his power to damn them: for since they are taught to expect grace and justification from the sacraments, if these are no true sacraments which they take for such, but only the shadows and the phantasms of them, then neither grace nor justification can follow upon them. This may be carried so far as even to evacuate the very being of a Church : for a man not truly baptized can never be in orders, so that the whole ordinations of a Church, and the succession of it, may be broke by the impiety of any one priest. This we look on as such a chain of absurdities, that if this doctrine of intention were true, it alone might serve to destroy the whole credit of the Christian religion, in which the sacraments are taught to be both so necessary and so efficacious; and yet all this is made to depend on that which can neither be known nor prevented. The last paragraph of this Article is so clear, that it needs no explanation, and is so evident, that it wants no proof. Eli was severely threatened (1 Sam. iii. 11) for suffering his sons to go on in their vices, when by their means the sacrifice of God was abhorred. God himself struck Nadab and Abihu dead, when they offered strange fire at his altar; and upon that these words were uttered, I will be sanctified in them that come nigh me, and before all the people will I be glorified, Levit. x. 3. Timothy was required to receive an accusation of an elder, when regularly tendered to him, and to rebuke before all those that sinned; and he was charged to withdraw himself from those teachers who consented not to ivholesome words, and that made a gain of godliness, 1 Tim. v. 1. 19, 20; vi. 3 — 5. A main part of the discipline of the primitive Church lay heaviest on the clergy; and such of them as either apostatized, or fell into scandalous sins, even upon their repentance, were indeed received into the peace of the Church, but they were appointed to communicate among the laity, and were never after that admitted to the body of the clergy, or to have a share in their privileges. Certainly there is nothing more incumbent on the whole body of the Church, than that all possible care be taken z 2 356 AN EXPOSITION OF ART. XXVII. to discover the bad practices that may be among the clergy; which will ever raise strong prejudices, not only against their persons, but even against their profession, and against that reli- gion which they seem to advance with their mouths, while in their works, and by their lives, they detract from it, and seem to deny its authority. But after all, our zeal must go along with justice and discretion: fame may be a just ground to inquire upon; but a sentence cannot be founded on it. The laity must discover what they know, that so those who have authority may be able to cut off those that trouble the Churchy Gal. v. 12. Discretion will require, that things which cannot be proved ought rather to be covered than exposed, when nothing but clamour can follow upon it. In sum, this is a part of the government of the Chureh, for which God will reckon severely with those, who, from partial regards, or other feeble or carnal considerations, are defective in that which is so great a part of their duty, and in which the honour of God, and of religion, and the good of souls, as well as the order and unity of the Church, are so highly concerned. ARTICLE XXVII. OF BAPTISM. Baptism is not only a Sign of Profession and Mark of Differ- ence, whereby Christian Men are discerned from others that be not Christened ; but it is also a Sign of Regeneration or New Birth, whereby, as by an Instrument, they that receive Baptism rightly, are grafted into the Church, The Promises of the Forgiveness of Sin, of our Adoption to he the Sons of God by the Holy Ghost, are visibly signed and sealed. Faith is con- firmed and Grace increased by virtue of Prayer to God. The Baptism of young Children is in any wise to be retained in the Church, as most agreeable with the Institution of Christ. When St. John Baptist began first to baptize, we do plainly see, by the first chapter of St. John’s Gospel, that the Jews were not surprised at the novelty of the rite; for they sent to ask who he was? And when he said he was not the Messias, ,nor Elias, nor that Prophet, they asked. Why baptizest thou then? (John i. 25;) which shows, not only that they had clear notions of Baptism, but in particular that they thought that if he had been the Messias, or Elias, or that Prophet, h’e miglit then have baptized. St. Paul does also say, that the Jews were all baptized unto Moses in the cloud, and in the sea, (1 Cor. x. 2;) ART. XXVII. TIIR XXXIX ARTICLES. 357 which seems to relate to some opinion that Jews had^ that by that cloud, and their jiassing through the sea, they w^ere purified from the Egyptian defilements, and made meet to become Moseses disciples. Yet, in the Old Testament, we find no clear warrant for a practice that had then got among the Jews, which is still taught by them, that they were to receive a proselyte, if a male, by baptism, circumcision, and sacrifice ; and if a female, only by baptism and sacrifice. Thus they reckoned, that when any came over from heathenism to their religion, they were to use a washing — to denote their purifying themselves from the nncleanness of their former idolatry, and their entering into a holy religion. And, as they do still teach, that, when the Messias comes, they are all bound to set themselves to repent of their former sins, so it seems they then thought, or at least it would have been no strange thing to them, if the Messias had received such as came to him by baptism. St. John, by baptizing those who came to him, took them obliged to enter upon a course of repentance, and he declared to them the near approach of the Messias, and that the kingdom of God was at hand; and it is very probable, that those who were baptized by Christ, that is, by his Apostles — for though it is expressly said that he bap- tized none, yet what he did by his disciples, he might in a more general sense be said to have done himself — that these, I say, were baptized upon the same sponsions, and with the same declarations, and with no other; for the dispensation of the Messias was not yet opened, nor was it then fully declared that he was the Messias. Howsoever, this was a preparatory initia- tion of such as w^ere fitted for the coming of the Messias; by it, they owned their expectations of him as then near at hand, and they professed their repentance of their sins, and their purposes of doing what should be enjoined them by him. Water w^as a very proper emblem, to signify the passing from a course of defilement to a greater degree of purity, both in doc- trine and practice. Our Saviour in his state of humiliation, as he was subject to the Mosaical Law, so he thought fit to fulfil all the obli- gations that lay upon the other Jews; which, by a phrase used among them, he expresses thus, to fulfil all righteousness. For though our Saviour had no sins to confess, yet that not being known, he might come to profess his belief of the dispensation of the Messias, that was then to appear. But how well soever the Jews might have been accustomed to this rite, and how proper a preparation soever it might be to the manifestation of the Messias; yet the institution of baptism, as it is a federal act of the Christian religion, must be taken from the commis- sion that our Saviour gave to his disciples — to go preach and make disciples to him in all nations (for that is the strict signi- 358 AN EXPOSITION OF ART. XXVII, fication of the word^) baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost; teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you. Matt, xxviii. 19, 20. By the first teaching or making of disciples, that must go before baptism, is to be meant the convincing the world that Jesus is the Christ, the true Messias, anointed of God with a fullness of grace and of the Spirit without measure, and sent to be the Saviour and Redeemer of the world. And when any were brought to acknowledge this, then they were to baptize them, to initiate them to this religion, by obliging them to renounce all idolatry and ungodliness, as well as all secular and carnal lusts, and then they led them into the water; and, with no other garments but what might cover nature, they at first laid them down in the water, as a man is laid in a grave, and then they said those words, I baptize or wash thee in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost; then they raised them up again, and clean garments were put on them; from whence came the phrases of being baptized into Chrisfs death ; of being buried with him by baptism into death; of our being risen with Christ, and of our putting on the Lord Jesus Christ; of putting off the Old Man, and putting on the Neiv: Rom. vi. 3 — 5; Col. ii. 12; iii. 1, 9, 10; Rom. xiii. 14. After baptism was thus performed, the baptized person was to be farther instructed in all the specialties of the Christian religion, and in all the rules of life that Christ had prescribed. This was plainly a different baptism from St. John^s; a pro- fession was made in it, not in general, of the belief of a Messias soon to appear, but in particular, that Jesus was the Messias, The stipulation in St. John’s baptism was repentance ; but here it is the belief of the whole Christian religion. In St. John’s baptism they indeed promised repentance, and he received them into the earnests of the kingdom of the Messias; but it does not appear that St. John either did promise them remission of sins, or that he had commission so to do; for repentance and remission of sins were not joined together till after the resur- rection of Christ, that he appointed that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in his name among all nations, begin- ning at Jerusalem, Luke xxiv. 47* In the baptism of Christ, I mean that which he appointed after his resurrection (for the baptism of his disciples before that time was no doubt the same with St. John’s baptism,) there was to be an instruction given in that great mystery of the Christian religion concerning the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, which those who had only received St. John’s baptism knew not — they did not so much as know that there was a Holy Ghost (Acts xix. 2 — 5;) that is, they knew nothing of the extraordinary effusion of the Holy Ghost. And ART. XXVII. THE XXXIX ARTICLES. 351) it is expressly said, that those of St. John^s baptism, when St. Paul explained to them the difference between the baptism of Christ and that of St. John, that they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. For St. John in his baptism had only initi- ated them to the belief of a Messias; but had not said a word of Jesus as being that Messias. So that this must be fixed, that these two baptisms were different; the one was a dawning or imperfect beginning to the other, as he that administered the one was like the Morning Star before the Sun of Righteousness. Our Saviour had this ordinance (that was then imperfect, and was to be afterwards completed, when he himself had finished all that he came in the world to do) — he had, I say, this visibly in his eye, when he spake to Nicodemus, and told him, that except a man were born again, he could not see (or discern) the kingdom of God, (John iii. 3. 5, 6:) by which he meant that entire change and renovation of a man^s mind, and of all his powers, through which he must pass, before he could discern the true characters of the dispensation of the Messias: for that is the sense in which the kingdom of God does stand almost uni- versally through the whole gospel. When Nicodemus was amazed at this odd expression, and seemed to take it literally, our Saviour answered more fully. Verily, verily, I say unto thee, except a man be born of water, and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. The meaning of which seems to be this, that except a' man came to be renewed by an ablution like the baptism which the Jews used, that imported the out- ward profession of a change of doctrine and of heart; and with that, except he were inwardly changed by a secret power called the Spirit, that should transform his nature, he could not become one of his disciples, or a true Christian; which is meant by his entering into the kingdom of God, or the dispensation of the Messias. Upon this institution and commission given by Christ, we see the Apostles went up and down preaching and baptizing. And so far were they from considering baptism only as a carnal rite, or a low element, above which a higher dispensation of the Spirit was to raise them, that when St. Peter saw the Holy Ghost visibly descend upon Cornelius and his friends, he upon that immediately baptized them; and said. Can any man forbid (or deny) water, that these^ should not be baptized, ivhich have received the Holy Ghost as well as we? Acts x. 44. 47, 48. Our Saviour has also made baptism one of the precepts, though not one of the means, necessary to salvation. A mean is that which does so certainly procure a thing, that it being had, the thing to which it is a certain and necessary mean is also had; and without it the thing cannot be had; there being a natural connexion between it and the end: whereas a precept is aix 360 AN EXPOSITION OF ART. XXVII. institution in which there is no such natural efficiency; but it is positively commanded, so that the neglecting it is a contempt of the authority that commanded it; and, therefore, in obeying the precept, the value or virtue of the action lies only in the obe- dience. This distinction appears very clearly in what our Saviour has said both of faith and baptism. He that believeth and is baptized, shall be saved; and he that believeth not, shall be damned, Mark xvi. 16. Where it appears, that faith is the mean of salvation with which it is to be had, and not without it; since such a believing as makes a man receive the whole gospel as true, and so firmly to depend upon the promises that are made in it, as to observe all the laws and rules that are prescribed by it; such a faith as this gives us so sure a title to all the blessings of this New Covenant, that it is impossible that we should continue in this state, and not partake of them; and it is no less impossible that we should partake of them, unless we do thus believe. It were not suitable to the truth and holiness of the Divine Nature to void a covenant so solemnly made, and that in favour of wicked men, who will not be reformed by it: so faith is the certain and necessary mean of our salvation, and is so put by Christ; since upon our having it we shall be saved, as well as damned upon our not having it. On the other hand, the nature of a ritual action, even when com- manded, is such, that unless we could imagine that there is a charm in it, which is contrary to the spirit and genius of the gospel, which designs to save us by reforming our natures, we cannot think that there can be anything in it that is of itself effectual as a mean ; and, therefore, it must only be considered as a command that is given us, which we are bound to obey, if we acknowledge the authority of the command. But this being an action that is not always in our power, but is to be done by another, it were to put our salvation or damnation in the power of another, to ima- gine that we cannot be saved without baptism: and, therefore, it is only a precept which obliges us in order to our salvation; and our Saviour, by leaving it out when he reversed the words, say- ing only. He that believeth not, without adding, and is not bap- tized, shall be damned, does plainly insinuate that it is not a mean, but only a precept in order to our salvation. As for the ends and purposes of baptism, St. Paul gives us two: the one is, that we are all baptized into one body, loe are made members one of another (1 Cor. xii. 13;) we are admitted to the society of Christians, and to all the rights and privileges of that body, which is the Church. And in order to this, the outward action of baptism, when regularly gone about, is sufficient. We cannot see into the sincerity of men’s hearts ; outward professions and regular actions are all that fall under ART. XXVII. THE XXXIX ARTICLES. 3G1 men’s observation and judgment. But a second end of baptism is internal and spiritual. Of this St. Paul speaks in very high terms, when he says, that God has saved us according to his mercy, by the ivashing of regeneration, and the renewing of the Holy Ghost, Tit. iii. 5. It were a strange perverting the design of these words to say, that somewhat spiritual is to be under- stood by this washing of regeneration, and not of baptism; when as to the word save, that is here ascribed to it, St. Peter gives that undeniably to baptism ; and St. Paul elsewhere, in two diiFerent places (Rom. vi. Col. ii.), makes our baptism to repre- sent our being dead to sin, and buried ivith Christ; and our being risen and quickened ivith him, and made alive unto God; which are words that do very plainly import regeneration. So that St. Paul must be understood to speak of baptism in these words. Here then is the inward effect of baptism; it is a death to sin, and a new life in Christ, in imitation of him, and in conformity to his gospel. So that here is very expressly delivered to us somewhat that rises far above the badge of a profession, or a mark of difference. That does indeed belong to baptism; it makes us the visible memliers of that one body, into which we are baptized, or admitted by baptism ; but that which saves us in it, which both deadens and quickens us, must be a thing of another nature. If baptism were only the receiving us into the society of Christians, there were no need of saying, I baptize thee in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. It were more proper to say, I baptize thee in the name or by the authority of the Church. Therefore these august words, that were dictated by our Lordhimself, shows us that there is somewhat in it that is internal, which comes from God ; that it is an admitting men into some- what that depends only on God, and for the giving of which the authority can only be derived by him. But after all, this is not to be believed to be of the nature of a charm, as if the very act of baptism carried always with it an inward regeneration. Here we must confess, that very early some doctrines arose upon baptism, that we cannot be determined by. The words of our Saviour to Nicodemus were expounded so as to import the absolute necessity of baptism in order to salvation; for it not being observed that the dispensation of the Messias was meant by the kingdom of God, but it being taken to signify eternal glory, that expression of our Saviour’s was understood to import this, that no man could be saved unless he were baptized: so it was believed to be simply necessary to salvation. A natural consequence that followed upon that was, to allow all persons leave to baptize, clergy and laity, men and women, since it seemed necessary to suffer every person to do that without which salvation could not be had. Upon this, these hasty baptisms were used, with- 362 AN EXPOSITION OF ART. XXVII. out any special sponsion on the part of those who desired it: of which it may be reasonably doubted^ whether such a baptism be true, in which no sponsion is made: and this cannot be well answered but by saying, that a general and an implied sponsion is to be considered to be made by their parents while they desire them to be baptized. Another opinion that arose out of the former, was the mixing of the outward and the inward effects of baptism; it being believed, that every person that was horn of the water, was also bor7i of the Spirit; and that the renewing of the Holy Ghost did always accompany the lo ashing of regeneration. And this obliged St. Austin (as was formerly told) to make that difference between the regenerate and the predestinated; for he thought that all who were baptized were also regenerated. St. Peter has stated this so fully, that, if his words are well considered, they will clear the whole matter. He, after he had set forth the miserable state in which mankind was, under the figure of the deluge, in which an ark was prepared for Noah and his family, says upon that. The like figure whereunto, even baptism, doth also now save ns, 1 Pet. iii. 21. Upon which he makes a short digression, to explain the nature of baptism, not the putting away the filth of the fiesh, but the answer (or the demand and interrogation) of a good con- science towards God; by the resurrection of Jesus Christ ivho is gone into heaven. The meaning of all which is, that Christ having risen again, and having then had all power in heaven and in earth given to him, he had put that virtue in baptism, that by it we are saved, as in an ark, from that miserable state in which the world lies, and in which it must perish. But then he explains the way how it saves us; that it is not as a physical action, as it washes away the filthiness of the flesh, or of the body, like the notion that the Gentiles might have of their februations ; or, which is more natural, considering to whom he writes, like the opi- nions that the Jews had of their cleansings after their legal impurities, from which their washings and bathings did abso- lutely free them. The salvation that we Christians have by baptism, is effected by that federation into which we enter, when, upon the demands that are made of our renouncing the devil, the world, and the^c^^, and of our believing in Christ, and our repentance towards God, we make such answers from a good conscience as agree with the end and design of baptism; then, by our thus coming into covenant with God, we are saved in baptism. So that the salvation by baptism is given by reason of the federal compact that is made in it. Now this being made outwardly, according to the rules that are prescribed, that must make the baptism good among men, as to all the outward and visible effects of it: but since it is the answer of a good conscience only that saves, then an answer from a bad conscience, from a ART. XXVII. THE XXXIX ARTICLES. 3G3 hypocritical person, who does not inwardly think, or purpose, according to what he professes outwardly, cannot save, but does on the contrary aggravate his damnation. Therefore our Article puts the efficacy of baptism, in order to the forgiveness of our sins, and to our adoption and salvation, upon the virtue of prayer to God; that is, upon those vows and other acts of devotion that accompany them: so that when the seriousness of the mind accompanies the regularity of the action, then both the outward and inward effects of baptism are attained by it; and we are not only baptized into one body, but are also saved by baptism. So that upon the whole matter baptism is a federal admission into Christianity, in which, on God^s part, all the blessings of the gospel are made over to the baptized; and, on the other hand, the person baptized takes on him, by a solemn profession and vow, to observe and adhere to the whole Christian religion. So it is a very natural distinction to say, that the outward effects of baptism follow it as outwardly performed ; but that the inward effects of it follow upon the inward acts; but this difference is still to be observed between inward acts and outward actions, that when the outward action is fightly performed, the Church must reckon the baptism good, and never renew it; but if one has been wanting in the inward acts, those may be afterwards renewed, and that want may be made up by repentance. Thus all that the Scriptures have told us concerning baptism, ' seems to be sufficiently explained. There remains only one place that may seem somewhat strange. St. Paul says, that Christ sent him not to baptize, but to preach (1 Cor. i. 17;) which- some have carried so far as to infer from thence, that preaching is of more value than baptism. But it is to be considered, that the preaching of the Apostles was of the nature of a promul- gation made by heralds; it was an act of a special authority, by which he in particular was to convert the world from idola- try and Judaism, to acknowledge Jesus to be the true Messias; Acts viii. 26, to the end. Now when men, by the preaching of the Apostles, and by the miracles that accompanied it, were so wrought on as to believe that Jesus ivas the Christ; then, according to the practice of Philip towards the eunuch of Ethiopia, and of St. Paul to his jailor at Philippi (Acts xvi. 31 — 33,) they might immediately baptize them; yet most commonly there was a special instruction to be used, before persons were baptized, who might in general have some conviction, and yet not be so fully satisfied, but that a great deal of more pains was to be taken to carry them on to that full assurance of faith which was necessary. This was a work of much time, and was to be managed by the pastors or teachers of the several Churches: so that the meaning of what St. Paul says was this, that he was 364 AN EXPOSITION OF ART. XXVII. to publish the gospel from city to city^ but could not descend to the particular labour of preparing and instructing of the per- sons to be baptized, and to the baptizing them when so prepared. If he had entered upon this work, he could not have made that progress, nor have founded those churches, that he did. All this is, therefore, misunderstood, when it is applied to such preaching as is still continued in the Church; which does not succeed the apostolical preaching, that was inspired and infal- lible, but comes in the room of that instruction and teaching which was then performed by the pastors of the Church. The last head in this Article relates to the baptism of infants, which is spoken of with that moderation which appears very eminently through the whole Articles of our Church. On this head it is only said to be most agreeable with the institution of Christ, and that, therefore, it is to be in any ways retained in the Church. Now to open this it is to be considered, that though baptism and circumcision do not in every particular come to a parallel, yet they do agree in two things: — the one is, that both were the rites of admission into their respective covenants, and to the rights and privileges that did arise out of them; and the other is, that in them both there was an obligation laid on the persons to the observance of that whole law to which they were so initiated, St. Paul, arguing against circumcision, lays this down as an uncontested maxim, that if a man was circumcised, he became thereby a debtor to the whole laiv, Gal. v. 3. Parents had, by the Jewish constitution, an authority given them to conclude their children under that obligation; so that the soul and will of the child was so far put in the power of the parents, that they could bring them under federal obligations, and thereby procure to them a share in federal blessings. And it is probable that from hence it was, that when the Jews made proselytes, they considered them as having such authority over their children, that they baptized them first, and then circum- cised them, though infants. Now since Christ took baptism from them, and appointed it to be the federal admission to his religion, as circumcision had been in the Mosaical dispensation, it is reasonable to believe, that except where he declared a change that he made in it, in all other respects it was to go on and to continue as before; especially when the Apostles in their first preaching told the Jews, that the promises were made to them and to their chil- dren (Acts ii. 39;) which the Jews must have understood accord- ing to what they were already in possession of, that they could initiate their children into their religion, bring them under the obligations of it, and procure to them a share in those blessings that belonged to it. The law of nature and nations puts children in the power of their parents; they are natu- ART. XXVII. THE XXXIX ARTICLES. SG5 rally tlieir guardians; and if they are entitled to anything, their parents have a right to transact about it, because of the weakness of the child; and what contracts soever they make, by which the child does not lose, but is a gainer, these do certainly bind the child. It is then suitable, both to the constitution of mankind and to the dispensation of the Mosaical covenant, that parents may dedicate their children to God, and bring them under the obligations of the gospel: and if they may do that, then they certainly procure to them with it, or in lieu of it, a share in the blessings and promises of the gospel. So that they may offer their children, either themselves, or by such others of their friends to whom, for that occasion, they transfer that right which they have to transact for and to bind ' their children. All this receives a great confirmation from the decision which St. Paul makes upon a case that must have happened commonly at that time; which was, when one of the parties in a married state, husband or wife, was converted, while the other continued still in the former state of idolatry, or infide- lity. Here then a scruple naturally arose, whether a believer or Christian might still live in a married state with an infidel. Besides the ill usage to which that diversity of religion might give occasion, another difficulty might be made — whether a person defiled by idolatry did not communicate that impurity to the Christian, and whether the children born in such a mar- riage were to be reckoned holy seed, according to the Jewish phrase, or an unholy — unclean children, that is, heathenish children, who were not to be dedicated to God, nor to be admitted into covenant with him: for unclean in the Old Tes- tament, and uncircumcised, signify sometimes the same thing; and so St. Peter said, that in the case of Cornelius, God had showed him, that he should call no man common or unclean. In allusion to all which St. Paul (1 Cor. vii. 14) determines the case, not by an immediate revelation, but by the inferences that he drew from what had been revealed to him: he does appoint the Christian to live with the infidel, and says, that the Christian is so far from being defiled by the infidel, that there is a communication of a blessing that passes from the Christian to the infidel; the one being the better for the prayers of the other, and sharing in the blessings bestowed on the other: the better part was accepted of God, in whom mercy rejoices over judgment. There was a communication of a bless- ing that the Christian derived to the infidel; which at least went so far, that their children were not unclean — that is, shut out from being dedicated to God — but were holy. Now it is to be considered, that in the New Testament, Christians, and Saints or Holy, stand all promiscuously. The purity of the 366 AN EXPOSITION OF ART. XXVII. Christian doctrine, and the dedication by which Christians offer up themselves to God, makes them holy. In Scripture, holiness stands in a double sense: the one is a true and real purity, by which a man^s faculties and actions become holy; the other is a dedicated holiness, when anything is appropriated to God; in which sense it stands most commonly in the Old Testament. So times, places, and not only persons, but even utensils, applied to the service of God, are called holy. In the New Testament, Christian and saint are the same thing; so the saying that children are holy when one of the parents is a Christian, must import this, that the child has also a right to be made holy, or to be made a Christian; and, by consequence, that by the parentis dedication that child may be made holy, or a Christian. Upon these reasons we conclude, that though there is no express precept or rule given in the New Testament for the bap- tism of infants, yet it is most agreeable to the institution of Christ, since he conformed his institutions to those of the Mosaical Law, as far as could consist with his design ; and, therefore, in a thing of this kind, in which the just tenderness of the human nature does dispose parents to secure to their children a title to the mercies and blessings of the gospel, there is no reason to think that this being so fully set forth and assured to the Jews in the Old Testament, that Christ should not have intended to give parents the same comforts and assurances by his gospel, that they had under the Law of Moses. Since nothing is said against it, we may conclude from the nature of the two dispensations, and the proportion and gradation that is between them, that children under the New Testament are a holy seed, as well as they were under the Old; and, by consequence, that they may be now baptized as well as they were then circumcised. If this may be done, then it is very reasonable to say what is said in the Article concerning it, that it ought in any wise to be retained in the Church : for the same humanity that obliges parents to feed their children, and to take care of them while they are in such a helpless state, must dictate, that it is much more incumbent on them, and is as much more necessary as the soul is more valuable than the body, for them to do all that in them lies for the souls of their children, for securing to them a share in the blessings and privileges of the gospel, and for dedicating them early to the Christian religion. The office for baptizing infants is in the same words with that for persons of riper age; because infants being then in the power of their parents, who are of age, are considered as in them, and as binding themselves by the vows that they make in their name. Therefore the office carries on the supposition of an internal regeneration; and in that helpless state the infant is offered up ART. XXVIII. THE XXXIX ARTICLES. 3G7 and dedicated to God: and provided that when he comes to age he takes those vows on himself, and lives like a person so in covenant with God, then he shall find the full effects of baptism; and if he dies in that state of incapacity, he being dedicated to God, is certainly accepted of by him; and by being put in the second Adam, all the bad effects of his having descended from the first Adam are quite taken away. Christ, when on earth, encouraged those who brought little children to him: he took them in his arms, and laid his hands on them, and blessed them, and said. Suffer little children to come unto me, and forbid them not: for of such is the kingdom of God, Matt. xix. 13, 14. What- ever these words may signify mystically, the literal meaning of them is, that little children may be admitted into the dispensation of the Messias, and, by consequence, that they may be baptized. ARTICLE XXVIII. OF THE LORD^S SUPPER. The Supper of the Lord is not only a sign of the Love that Christians ought to have among themselves one to another; but rather it is a Sacrament of our Redemption by Chris fs Death: insomuch, that to such as rightly, worthily, and with Faith, receive the same, the Bread which we break is a partaking of the Body of Christ, and likewise the Cup of Blessing is a par- taking of the Blood of Christ. Transubstantiation [or the Change of the Substance of Bread and Wine) in the Supper of the Lord, cannot be proved by Holy Writ, but it is repugnant to the plain Words of Scripture, overthroweth the Nature of a Sacrament, and hath given Occasion to many Superstitions. The Body of Christ is given, taken, and eaten in the Supper only after a Heavenly and Spiritual Manner; and the mean whereby the Body of Christ is received and eaten in the Supper, is Faith. The Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper ivas not by Christ’s Ordinance reserved, carried about, lifted up, and wor- shipped. In the Edition of these Articles in Edward VI. ^s reign, there ' was another long paragraph against Transubstantiation added in these words: — Forasmuch as the Truth of Man’s Nature requireth that the Body of one and the self-same Man cannot be at one time in divers places, but must needs he in one certain place; therefore the Body of Christ cannot be present at one time in many and divers places : and, because, as Holy Scrip- ture doth teach, Christ was taken up into Heaven, and there 368 AN EXPOSITION OF ART. XXVIII. shall continue unto the End of the World; a Faithful Man ought not either to believe, or openly confess the Real and Bodily Presence, as they term it, of Christ’s Flesh and Blood in the Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper. When these Articles were at first prepared by the Convoca- tion in Queen Elizabeth's reign, this paragraph was made a part of them ; for the original subscription by both Houses of Con- vocation, yet extant, shows this. But the design of the Govern- ment was at that time much turned to the drawing over the body of the nation to the Reformation, in which the old leaven had gone deep; and no part of it deeper than the belief of the corporeal presence of Christ in the sacrament; therefore it was thought not expedient to offend them by so particular a definition in this matter, in which the very word was rejected. It might, perhaps, be also suggested, that here a definition was made that went too much upon the principles of natural philo- sophy; which, how true soever, they might not be the proper subject of an Article of Religion. Therefore it was thought fit to suppress this paragraph: though it was a part of the Article that was subscribed, yet it was not published, but the paragraph that follows. The Body of Christ, &c. was put in its stead, and was received and published by the next Convocation ; which upon the matter was a full explanation of the way of Christas presence in this sacrament — that he is present in a heavenly and spiritual manner, and that faith is the mean by which he is received. This seemed to be more theological; and it does indeed amount to the same thing. But, howsoever, we see what was the sense of the first Convocation in Queen Elizabeth's reign; it differed in nothing from that in King Edward’s time; and, therefore, though this paragraph is now no part of our Articles, yet we are certain that the Clergy at that time did not at all doubt of the truth of it: we are sure it was their opinion, since they subscribed it, though they did not think fit to publish it at first; and though it was afterwards changed for another, that was the same in sense. In the treating of this Article, I shall first lay down the doc- trine of this Church, with the grounds of it; and then I shall examine the doctrine of the Church of Rome, which must be done copiously; for next to the doctrine of infallibility, this is the most valued of all their other tenets; this is the most important in itself, since it is the main part of their worship, and the chief subject of all their devotions. There is not any one thing in which both clergy and laity are more concerned; which is more generally studied, and for which they pretend they have more plausible colours, both from Scripture and the Fathers: and if sense and reason seem to press hard upon it, they reckon, that, as they understand the words of St. Paul, ART. XXVIII. THE XXXIX ARTICLES. 3G9 Every thought must be captivated into the obedience of faith, 2 Cor. X. 5. In order to the expounding our doctrine^ we must consider the occasion and the institution of this sacrament. The Jews were required once a-year to meet at Jerusalem, in remembrance of the deliverance of their fathers out of Egypt. Moses (Exod. xii. 11) appointed that every family should kill a lamb, whose blood was to be sprinkled on their door-posts and lintels, and whose flesh they were to eat; at the sight of which blood thus sprinkled, the destroying angel, that was to be sent out to kill the first-born of every family in Egypt, was to pass over all the houses that were so marked: and from that passing by oi over the Israelites, the lamb was called the Lord’s passover, as being then the sacrifice, and afterwards the memorial, of that passover. The people of Israel were required to keep up the memorial of that transac- tion, by slaying a lamb before the place where God should set his name; and by eating it up that night; they were also to eat with it a sallad of bitter herbs and unleavened bread: and when they went to eat of the lamb, they repeated these words of Moses — that it ivas the Lord’s passover. Now, though the first lamb that was killed in Egypt was indeed the sacrifice upon which God promised to pass over their houses; yet the lambs that were afterwards offered were only the memorials of it, though they still carried that name which was given to the first, and were called the Lord’s passover. So that the Jews were in the paschal supper accustomed to call the memorial of a thing by the name of that of which it was the memorial: and as the deliverance out of Egypt was a type and representation of that greater deliverance that we were to have by the Messias, the first lamb being the sacrifice of that deliverance, and the succeeding lambs the memorials of it; so, in order to this new and greater deliverance, Christ himself was owe passover, that was sacrificed for us : he was the Lamb of God that was both to take away the sins of the world (1 Cor. V. 7; John i. 29; compare Matt. xxvi. 26; Mark xiv. 22,) and was to lead captivity captive; to bring us out of the bondage of sin and Satan into the obedience of his gospel. He therefore chose the time of the passover, that he might be then offered up for us; and did institute .this memorial of it, while he was celebrating the Jewish pascha with his disciples (Luke xxii. 19; 1. Cor. xi. 23;) who were so much accustomed to the forms and phrases of that supper, in which every master of a family did officiate among his household, that it was very natural to them to understand all that our Saviour said or did, according to those forms with which they were acquainted. There were after supper, upon a new covering of the table, loaves of unleavened bread and cups of wine set on it; in which, though the bread was very unacceptable, yet they drank A A AN EXPOSITION OF ART. XXVIII, 370 liberally of the wine: Christ took a portion of that bread, and brake it, and gave it to his disciples, and said. This is my body which is broken for you : do this in remembrance of me. He did not say only. This is my body, but, this is my body broken: so ‘ that his body must be understood to be there in its broken state, if the words are to be expounded literally. And no reason can be assigned why the word broken should be so separated from body; or that the bread should be literally his body, and not literally his body broken: the whole period must be either lite- rally true, or must be understood mystically. And if any will say, that his body cannot be there, but in the same state in which it is now in heaven; and since it is not now broken,nori^ the blood shed or separated from the body there, therefore the words must be understood thus — This is my body which is to be broken. But from thence we argue, that since all is one period, it must be all understood in the same manner; and since it is impossible that broken and shed can be understood literally of the body and blood, that therefore the whole is to be mysti- cally understood: and this appears more evident, since the dis- ciples, who were naturally slow at understanding the easiest mysteries that he opened to them, must naturally have under- stood those words as they did the other words of the paschal supper. This is the Lord’s passover ; that is, this is the memorial of it: and that the rather, since Christ added these words. Do this in remembrance of me. If they had understood them in any other sense, that must have surprised them, and naturally have led them to ask him many questions; which we find them doing upon occasions that were much less surprising, as appears by the questions in the 14th of St. John, that discourse com- ing probably immediately after this institution; whereas no question was asked upon this; so it is reasonable to conclude, that they could understand these words. This is my body, no other way but as they understood that of the lamb. This is the Lord’s passover. And, by consequence, as their celebrating the pascha was a constant memorial of the deliverance out of Egypt, and was a symbolical action by which they had a title to the blessings of the covenant that Moses made with their fathers; it was natural for them to conclude, that after Christ had made himself to be truly that which the first lamb was in type, the true sacrifice of a greater and better passover, they were to com- memorate it, and to communicate in the benefits and effects of it, by continuing that action of taking, blessing, breaking, and dis- tributing of bread, which was to be the memorial and the com- munion of his death in all succeeding ages. This will yet appear more evident from the second part of this institution: — he took the cup and blessed it, and gave it to them, saying. This cup is the New Testament, or New Cove- ART. XXVIII. THE XXXIX ARTICLES. 37l nant, in my blood; drink ye all of it : or, as the other gospels report it, This is my blood of the New Testament, which is shed for many for the remission of sins. As Moses had enjoined the sprinkling of the blood of the lamb, so he himself sprinkled both the book of the law, and all the people, with the blood of calves and of goats, saying. This is the blood of the Testament (or Cove- nant) which God hath enjoined you, Heb. ix. 20. The blood of the paschal lamb was the token of that covenant which God made then with them. The Jews were under a very strict prohibition of eating no blood at all; but it seems by the cxvith Psalm, that when they paid their vows unto God, they took in their hands a cup of sal- vation, that is, of an acknowledgment of their salvation, and so were to rejoice before the Lord. These being the laws and customs of the Jews, they could not ^^dthout horror have heard Christ, when he gave them the cup, say. This is my blood: the prohibition of blood was given in such severe terms, as that God would set his face against him that did eat blood, and cut him off from among his people. Lev. vii. 26, 27; xvii. 14. And this was so often repeated in the books of Moses, that'besides the natural horror which humanity gives at the mention of drinking a man^s blood, it was a special part of their religion to make no use of blood; yet, after all this, the disciples were not startled at it; which shows that they must have understood it in such a way as was agreeable to the law and customs of their country. And since St. Luke and St. Paul report the words that our Saviour said when he gave it, dif- ferently from what is reported by St. Matthew and St. Mark, it is most probable that he spake both the one and the other; that he first said. This is my blood, and then, as a clearer explanation of it, he said. This cup is the New Testament in my blood — the one being a more easy expression, and in a style to which the Jews had been more accustomed. They knew that the blood of the lamb was sprinkled; and by their so doing they entered into a covenant with God: and though the blood was never to be sprinkled after the first passover; yet it was to be poured out before the Lord, in remembrance of that sprinkling in Egypt: in remembrance of that deliverance, they drank of the cup of blessing and salvation, and rejoiced before the Lord. So that they could not understand our Saviour otherwise, than that the cup so blessed was to be to them the assurance of a Neio Testa- ment or Covenant which was to be established by the blood of Christ, and which was to be shed; in lieu of which they were to drink this cup of blessing and praise. According to their customs and phrases, the disciples could understand our SaviouPs words in this sense, and in no other. So that if he had intended that they should have understood A A 2 AN EXPOSITION OF ART. XXVIII. 372 him otherwise, he must have expressed himself in another man- ner; and must have enlarged upon it, to have corrected those notions into which it was otherwise most natural for Jews to have fallen. Here is also to be remembered that which was formerly observed upon the word broken, that if the words are to be expounded literally, then, if the cup is literally the blood of Christ, it must be his blood shed, poured out of his veins, and separated from his body. And if it is impossible to understand it so, we conclude that we are in the right to understand the whole period in a mystical and figurative sense. And, therefore, since a man born and bred a Jew, and more particularly accus- tomed to the paschal ceremonies, could not have understood our Saviour^s words, chiefly at the time of that festivity, otherwise than of a new covenant that he was to make, in which his body was to be broken, and his blood shed for the remission of sins; and that he was to substitute bread and wine to be the lasting memorials of it; in the repeating of which, his disciples were to renew their covenant with God, and to claim a share in the blessings of it; this, I say, was the sense that must naturally have occurred to a Jew; — upon all this we must conclude, that this is the true sense of these words; or that otherwise our Saviour must have enlarged more upon them, and expressed his meaning more particularly. Since, therefore, he said no more than what, according to the ideas and customs of the Jews, must have been understood as has been explained, we must conclude, that it, and it only, is the true sense of them. But we must next consider the importance of a long discourse of our Saviour’s set down by St. John (vi. 32, 33,) which seems such a preparation of his Apostles to understand this institution literally, that the v'eight of this argument must turn upon the meaning of that discourse. The design of that was to show, that the doctrine of Christ was more excellent than the law of Moses; that though Moses gave the Israelites manna from heaven to nourish their bodies, yet, notwithstanding that, they died in the wilderness : but Christ was to give his followers such food that it should give them life; so that if they did eat of it, they should never die: — where it is apparent, that the bread and nourishment must be such as the life was; and that being eternal and spiritual, the bread must be so understood; for it is clearly expressed how that food was to be received — he that believeth on me hath everlasting life, ver. 40. Since then he had formerly said, that the bread which he was to give should make them live for ever; and since here it is said, that this life is given by faith; then this bread must be his doctrine — for this is that whicli faith receiv^es. And when the Jews desired him to give them evermore of that bread, he answered, / am the bread of life: he that comes to ART. XXVIII. THE XXXIX ARTICLES. 373 me shall never hunger; and he that believeth on me shall never thirst, John vi. 47, 48. 51. In these words he tells them, that they received that bread by coming to him, and by believing on him. Christ calls himself that bread, and says, that a man must eat thereof; which is plainly a figure; and if figures are confessed to be in some parts of their discourse, there is no reason to deny that they run quite through it. Christ says, that this bread was his flesh, which he was to give for the life of the world; which can only be meant of his offering himself up upon the cross for the sins of the world. The Jews murmured at this, and said. How can this man give us his flesh to eat? To which our Saviour answers, that except they did eat the flesh and drink the blood of the Son of man, they had no life in them, ver. 53 — 55. Now if these words are to be understood of a literal eating of his flesh in the sacrament, then no man can be saved that does not receive it: it was a natural consequence of the expounding these words of the sacrament, to give it to children, since it is so expressly said that life is not to be had without it. But the words that come next carry this matter farther: Whoso eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, hath eternal life. It is plain that Christ is here speaking of that, without which no man can have life, and by which all who receive it have life: if, therefore, this is to be expounded of the sacrament, none can be damned that does receive it, and none can be saved that receives it not. Therefore, since eternal life does always follow the eating of Chrisfs flesh, and the drinking his blood, and cannot be had without it; then this must be meant of an internal and spiri- tual feeding on him: for, as none are saved without that, so all are saved that have it. This is yet clearer from the words that follow. My flesh is meat indeed, and my blood is drink indeed. It may well be inferred, that Christas flesh is eaten in the same sense in which he says it is meat ; now certainly it is not lite- rally meat; for none do say that the body is nourished by it; and yet there is somewhat emphatical in this, since the word indeed is not added in vain, but to give weight to the expres- sion. It is also said. He that eats my flesh, and drinks my blood, dwells in me, and I in him, ver. 56. Here the description seems to be made of that eating and drinking of his flesh and blood; that it is such as the mutual indwelling of Christ and believers is. Now that is certainly only internal and spiritual, and not carnal or literal; and, therefore, such also must the eating and drinking be. , All this seems to be very fully confirmed from the conclu- sion of 'that discourse, which ought to .be considered as the key to it all; for when the Jews were offended at the hardness of AN EXPOSITION OF ART. XXVIII. 374 Christ’s discourse, he said, It is the Spirit that quickeneth: the flesh proflteth nothing: the words I speak unto you^ they are spirit and they are life (John vi. 63:) which do plainly import, that his former discourse was to be understood in a spiritual sense; that it was a divine spirit that quickened them, or gave them that eternal life of which he Had been speaking; and that fleshy his natural body, was not the conveyer of it. All that is confirmed by the sense in which we find eating and drinking frequently used in the Scriptures, according to what is observed by Jewish writers; they stand for wisdom, learning, and all intellectual apprehensions through which the soul of man is preserved by the perfection that is in them, as the body is preserved by food: so. Buy and eat, eat fat things, drink of wine well reflned. Marc Ne- Maimonidcs also observes, that whensoever eating and vochim. drinking are mentioned in the Book of Proverbs, they are to be understood of wisdom and the law: and after he has brought several places of Scripture to this purpose, he concludes, that because this acceptation of eating occurs so often, and is so manifest, as if it were the primary and most proper sense of the word; therefore, hunger and thirst stand for a privation of wis- dom and understanding , And the Chaldee Paraphrast turns these words. Ye shall draw water out of the wells of salvation, thus. Ye shall receive a new doctrine with joy from some select persons, Isa. xii. 3. Since then the figure of eating and drinking was used among the Jews for receiving and imbibing a doctrine, it was no wonder if our Saviour pursued it in a discourse, in which there are several hints given to show us that it ought to be so understood. It is further observable, that our Saviour did frequently follow that common way of instruction among the Eastern nations, by figures, that to us would seem strong and bold. These were much used in those parts, to excite the attention of the hearers; and they are not always to be severely expounded according to the full extent that the words will bear. The parable of the unjust judge, of the unjust steward, of the ten virgins, of plucking out the right eye and cutting off the right hand or foot, and several others, might be instanced. Our Saviour in these considered the genius of those to whom he spoke: so that these figures must be restrained only to that par- ticular for which he meant them, and must not be stretched to everything to which the words may be carried. We find our Saviour compares himself to a great many things — to a vine, a door, and a way; and, therefore, when the scope of a discourse does plainly run in a figure, we are not to go and descant on every word of it; much less may any pretend to ART. XXV HI. THE XXXIX ARTICLES. 375 say, that sonic parts of it are to be understood literally, and some parts liguratively. For instance, if that chapter of St. John is to be understood literally, then Christ’s flesh and blood must be the nourishment of our bodies, so as to be meat indeed; and that we shall never hunger any more, and never die, after we have eat of it. If, there- fore, all do’ confess that those expressions are to be understood figuratively, then we have the same reason to conclude that the whole is a figure; for it is as reasonable for us to make all of it a figure, as it is for them to make those parts of it a figure which they cannot conveniently expound in a literal sense. From all which it is abundantly clear, that nothing can be drawn from that discourse of our Saviour’s to make it reasonable to believe that the words of the institution of this sacrament ought to be literally understood: on the contrary, our Saviour himself calls the wine, after those words had been used by him, the fruit of the vine; which is as strict a form of speech as can well be imagined, to make us understand that the nature of the wine was not altered: and when St. Paul treats of it in those two chapters, in which all that is left us besides the history of the institution concerning the sacrament is to be found, he calls it five times bread, and never once the body of Christ. In one place he calls it the communion of the body, as the cup is the communion of the blood of Christ (I Cor. x. 16 :) which is rather a saying, that it is in some sort, and after a manner, the body and the blood of Christ, than that it is so strictly speaking. If this sacrament had been that mysterious and unconceiv- able thing which it has been since believed to be, we cannot imagine but that the books of the New Testament, the Acts of the Apostles and their Epistles, should have contained fuller explanations of it, and larger instructions about it. There is enough, indeed, said in them to support the plain and natural sense that we give to this institution ; and because no more is said, and the design of it is plainly declared to be, to remember Christ’s death, and to sheiv it forth till he come, we reckon that by this natural simplicity, in which this matter is delivered to us, we are very much confirmed in that plain and easy signification which we put upon our Saviour’s words. Plain things need not be insisted on; but if the most sublime and wonderful thing in the world seems to be delivered in words that yet are capable of a lower and plainer sense, then, unless there is a concurrence of other circumstances to force us to that higher meaning of them, we ought not to go into it; for simple things prove themselves: whereas the more extra- ordinary that anything is, it requires a fullness and evidence in the proof, proportioned to the uneasiness of conceiving or believing it. AN EXPOSITION OF ART. XXVIII. 376 We do, therefore, understand our Saviour^s institution thus; that as he was to give his body to be broken and his blood to be shed for our sins, so he intended that this his death and suffer- ing should be still commemorated liy all such as look for remis- sion of sins by it, not only in their thoughts and devotions, but in a visible representation; which he appointed should be done in symbols, that should be both very plain and simple, and yet very expressive of that which he intended should be remem- bered by them. Bread is the plainest food that the body of man can receive, and wine was the common nourishing liquor of that country; so he made choice of these materials, and in them appointed a representation and remembrance to be made of his body broken and of his blood shed, that is, of his death and sufferings, till his second coming; and he obliged his followers to repeat this fre- quently. In the doing of it, according to his institution, they profess the belief of his death for the remission of their sins, and that they look for his second coming. This does also import, that as bread and wine are the simplest of bodily nourishments, so his death is that which restores the souls of those that do believe in them. As bread and wine con- vey a vital nourishment to the body, so the sacrifice of his death conveys somewhat to the soul that is vital, that fortifies and exalts it: and as water in baptism is a natural emblem of the purity of the Christian religion, bread and wine in the Eucharist are the emblems of somewhat that is derived to us, that raises our faculties, and fortifies all our powers. St. Paul does very plainly tell us, unworthy that did neither examine nor discern themselves, nor yet discern the Lord^s body, were guilty of the body and blood of the Lord, and did eat and drink their oivn damnation (1 Cor. xi. 27. 29:) that is, such as do receive it without truly believing the Christian religion, without a grateful acknowledgment of ChrisPs death and sufferings, without feeling that they are walking suitably to this religion that they profess, and without that decency and charity which becomes so holy an action; but that receive the bread and wine only as bare bodily nourishments, without considering that Christ has instituted them to be the memorials of his death — such persons are guilty of the body and blood of Christ; that is, they are guilty either of a profanation of the sacrament of his body and blood, or they do in a manner crucify him again, and put him to an open shame; when they are so faulty as the Corinthians were, in observing this holy institution with so little reverence, and with such scandalous disorders as those were for which he reproached them. Of such as did thus profane this institution he says farther, that they do eat and drink their own damnation, or judymeyit; ART. XXVIII. THE XXXIX ARTICLES. 377 tliat is, punisliment; for the word rendered damnation signifies sometimes oidy temporary punishments. So it is said, that judgment (the word is the same) must begin at the house of God (1 Pet. iv. 170 God had sent such judg- ments upon the Corinthians for those disorderly practices of theirs, that some had fallen sick, and others had died, perhaps by reason of their drinking to excess in those feasts. But as God^s judgments had come upon them, so the words that follow show that these judgments were only chastisements, in order to the delivering them from the condemnation under which the world lies; it being said, that when we are judged^ we are chas- tened of the Lord, that we should not be condemned with the ivorld, 1 Cor. xi. 32. Therefore, though God may very justly, and even in great mercy, punish men who profane this holy ordinance; yet it is an unreasonable error, and contrary to the nature of the gospel covenant, to carry this so far as to think that it is an unpardonable sin, which is punished with eternal damnation. We have now seen the ill effects of unworthy receiving; and from hence, according to that gradation that is to be observed in the mercy of God in the gospel, that it not only holds a pro- portion with his justice, but rejoiceth over it, we may well con- clude, that the good effects upon the worthy receiving of it are equal, if not superior, to the bad effects upon the unworthy receiving of it; and that the nourishment which the types, the bread and the ivine, give the body, are answered in the effects that the thing signified by them has upon the soul. In explaining this there is some diversity; some teach that this memorial of the death of Christ, when seriously and devoutly gone about, when it animates our faith, increases our repentance, and inflames our love and zeal, and so unites us to God and to our brethren; that, I say, when these follow it, which it natu- rally excites in all holy and good minds, then they draw down the returns of prayer, and a farther increase of grace in us, according to the nature and promises of the New Covenant; and in this they put the virtue and efficacy of this sacrament. But others think that all this belongs only to the inward acts of the mind, and is not sacramental; and, therefore, they think that the Eucharist is a federal act, in which as on the one hand we renew our baptismal covenant with God, so on the other hand we receive in the sacrament a visible consignation, as in a tradition by a symbol or pledge, of the blessings of the New Covenant, which they think is somewhat superadded to those returns of our prayers, or of other inward acts. This they think answers the nourishment which the body receives from the symbols of bread and wine; and stands in opposition to that of the unworthy receivers being guilty of the AN EXPOSITION OF ART. XXVIII. 378 body and blood of the Lord^ and their eating and drinking that which will bring some judgment upon themselves. This they also found on these words of St. Paul — The cup of blessing that ive bless, is it not the communion of the blood of Christ? the bread which we break, is it not the communion of the body of Christ ? St. Paul considers the bread which was offered by the people as an emblem of their unity; that as there was one loaf^ so they were one body; and that they were all partakers of that one loaf: from hence it is inferred^ that since the word rendered communion signifies a communication in fellowship, or partner- ship^ that^ therefore, the* meaning of it is, that in the sacrament th^re is a distribution made in that symbolical action of the death of Christ, and of the benefits and effects of it. The com- munion of the Holy Ghost (2 Cor. xiii. 14,) is a common shar- ing in the effusion of the Spirit: the same is meant by that. If there is any felloivship of the Spirit (Philip, ii. i; Eph. iii. 9;) that is, if we do all partake of the same Spirit, we are said to have a fellowship in the sufferings of Christ (Philip, iii. 10,) in which every one must take his share. The communication, or fellowship, of the mystery of the gospel, was its being shared equally among both Jews and Gentiles; and the fellowship in which the first converts to Christianity lived, was their liberal distribution to one another, they holding all things in common. In these and some other places it is certain, that communion signifies somewhat that is more real and effectual, than merely men^s owning themselves to be joined together in society; which, it is true, it does also often signify; and, therefore, they con- clude, that as, in bargains or covenants, the ancient method of them before writings were invented was the mutual delivering of some pledges, which were the symbols of that faith which was so plighted, instead of which the sealing and delivering of writings is no)v used among us ; so our Saviour instituted this in com- pliance with our frailty, to give us an outward and sensible pledge of his entering into covenant with us, of which the bread and wine are constituted the symbols. Others think, that by the communion of the body and blood of Christ can only be meant, the joint owning of Christ and of his death in the receiving the sacrament; and that no commu- nication nor partnership can be inferred from it. Because St. Paul brings it in to show the Corinthians how detestable a thing it was for a Christian to join in the idols’ feasts — that it was to be a partaker with devils; so they think that the fellowship or communion of Christians in the sacrament must be of the same nature with the fellowship of devils in acts of idolatry; which consisted only in their associating themselves with those that worshipped idols; for that upon the matter was the wor- shipping of devils; and this seems to be confirmed by that ART. XXVIII. THE XXXIX ARTICLES. 379 which is said of the Jews, that they ivho did eat of the sacrifices lucre partakers of the altar (1 Cor. x. 18. 20;) whieh, it seems, can signify no more but that they professed that religion of whieh the altar was the chief instrument; the sacrifices being offered there. To all this it may be replied, that it is reasonable enough to believe, that aecording to the power which God suffered the devil to exereise over the idolatrous world, there might be some enchantment in the sacrifices offered to idols, and that the devil might have some power over those that did partake of them: and in order to this, St. Paul removed an objection that might have been made, that there could be no harm in their joining to the idol feasts — for an idol was nothing; and so that which was offered to an idol eould contract no defilement from the idol, it being nothing. Now if the meaning of their being partakers ivith devils imports only their joining themselves in acts of fel- lowship with idolaters, then the sin of this would have easily appeared, without such a reinforcing of the matter; for though an idol was nothing^ yet it was still a great sin to join in the acts that were meant to be the worship of this nothing: this was a dishonouring of God, and a debasing of man. But St. Paul seems to carry the argument farther — that how true soever it was that the idol was nothing, that is, a dead and lifeless thing, that had no virtue nor operation, and that, by consequence, could derive nothing to the sacrifice that was offered to it; yet since those idols were the instruments by whieh the devil kept the world in subjection to him, all such as diid partake in their sacri- fices might come under the effects of that magic that might be exerted about their temples or sacrifices; by which the credit of idolatry was much kept up. And though every Christian had a sure defence against the powers of darkness, as long as he continued true to his religion, yet if he went out of that protection into the empire of the devil, and joined in the acts that were as a homage to him, he then fell within the reach of the devil, and might justly fear his being brought into a partnership of those magical possessions or temptations that might be suffered to fall upon such Christians as should associate themselves in so detestable a service. In the same sense it was also said, that all the Israelites who did eat of the sacrifices were partakers of the altar (1 Cor. x. 18;) that is, that all of them who joined in the acts of that religion, such as the offering their peace-offerings, for of those of that kind they might only eat, all these were partakers of the altar; that is, of all the blessings of their religion, of all the expia- tions, the burnt-offerings and sin-offerings, that were offered on the altar for the sins of the whole congregation: for that, as a great stock, went in a common dividend among such as 380 AN EXPOSITION OF ART. XXVIII. observed the precepts of that law, and joined in the acts of wor- ship prescribed by it. Thus it appears, that such as joined in the acts of idolatry became partakers of all that influence that devils might have over those sacrifices; and all that continued in the observances of the Mosaical Law, had thereby partnership in the expiation of the altar: so likewise all Christians who receive this sacrament ivorthily, have by their so doing a share in that which is represented by it, the death of Christ, and the expiation and other benefits that follow it. This seemed necessary to be fully explained; for this matter, how plain soever in itself, has been made very dark by the ways in which some have pretended to open it. With this I conclude all that belongs to the first part of the Article, and that which was first to be explained of our doctrine concerning the sacra- ment: by which we assert a real presence of the body and blood of Christ ; but not of his body as it is now glorified in heaven, but of his body as it was broken on the cross, when his blood was shed and separated from it: — that is, his death, with the merit and effects of it, are in a visible and federal act offered in this sacrament to all worthy believers. By real we understand true, in opposition both to fiction and imagination; and to those shadows that were in the Mosaical dispensation, in which the manna, the rock, the brazen serpent, but most eminently the cloud of glory, were the types and sha- dows of the Messias that was to come, with whom came grace and truth; that is, a most wonderful manifestation of the mercy or grace of God, and a verifying of the promises made under the Law. In this sense we acknowledge a real presence of Christ in the sacrament; though we are convinced that our first Reformers judged right concerning the use of the phrase real presence, that it were better to be let fall than to be continued, since the use of it, and that idea which does naturally arise from the common acceptation of it, may stick deeper, and feed super- stition more, than all those larger explanations that are given to it can be able to cure. But howsoever, in this sense, it is innocent of itself, and may be lawfully used; though, perhaps, it were more cautiously done not to use it, since advantages have been taken from it to urge it farther than we intend it; and since it has been a snare to some. I go in the next place to explain the doctrine of the Church of Rome concerning this sacrament. Transubstantiation does express it in one word ; but that a full idea may be given of this part of their doctrine, I shall open it in all its branches and con- sequences. The matter of this sacrament is not bread wine; for they are annihilated when the sacrament is made: they are only the remote matter out of which it is made; but when the ART. XXVIII. THE XXXIX ARTICLES. 381 sacrament is macle^ they cease to be; and instead of them their out- ward appearances or accidents do only remain; which, though they are no substances, yet are supposed to have a nature and essence of their own, separable from matter; and these appearances, with the body of Christ under them, are the matter of the sacrament. Now, though the natural and visible body of Christ could not be the sacrament of his body, yet they think his real body, being thus veiled under the appearances of bread and wine, may be the sacrament of his glorified body. Yet, it seeming somewhat strange to make a true body the sacrament of itself, they would willingly put the sacrament in the appearances; but that would sound very harsh, to make accidents which are not matter to be the matter of the sacra- ment: therefore, since these words. This is my body, must be literally understood, the matter must be the true body of Christ; so that ChrisCs body is the sacrament of his body, ChrisCs body, though now in heaven, is, as they think, pre- sented in every place where a true consecration is made. And though it is in heaven in an extended state, as all other bodies are, yet they think that extension may be separated from matter, as well as the other appearances or accidents are believed to be separated from it. And whereas our souls are believed to be so in our bodies, that though the whole soul is in the whole body, yet all the soul is believed to be in every part of it; but so that if any part of the body is separated from the rest, the soul is not divided, being one single substance, but retires back into the rest of the body — they apprehend, that ChrisCs body is present after the manner of a spirit, without extension, or the filling of space; so that the space which the appearances possess is still a vacuum, or only filled by the accidents; for a body without extension, as they suppose Christas body to be, can never fill up an extension. Christ’s body in the sacrament is denominated one; yet still as the species are broken and divided, so many new bodies are dmded from one another; every crumb of bread and drop of wine that is separated from the whole is a new body, and yet without a new miracle, all being done in consequence of the first great one that was all at once wrought. The body of Christ continues in this state, as long as the accidents remain in theirs; but how it should alter is not easy to apprehend: the corruption of all other accidents arises from a change in the common substance, out of w’hich new accidents do arise while the old ones vanish; but accidents without a subject may seem more fixed and stable; yet they are not so, but are as subject to corruption as other accidents are: howso- ever, as long as the alteration is not total, though the bread should be both musty and mouldy, and the wine both dead 382 AN EXPOSITION OF ART. XXVIII. and sour, yet, as long as the bread and wine are still so far pre- served, or rather that their appearances subsist, so long the body of Christ remains: but when they are so far altered that they seem to be no more bread and wine, and that they are corrupted either in part or in whole, Christas body is withdrawn, either in' part or in whole. It is a great miracle to make the accidents of bread and wine subsist without a subject; yet the new accidents that arise upon these accidents, such as mouldiness or sourness, come on with- out a miracle, but they do not know how. When the main accidents are destroyed, then the presence of Christ ceases; and a new .miracle must be supposed to produce new matter, for the filling up of that space which the substance of bread and wine did formerly fill, and which was all this while possessed by the accidents. So much of the matter of this sacrament. The form of it is in the words of consecration, which though they sound declarative, as if the thing were already done. This is my body, and This is my blood, yet they believe them to be productive. But whereas the common notion of the form of a sacrament is, that it sanctifies and applies the matter; here the former matter is so far from being consecrated by it, that it is annihilated, and new matter is not sanctified, but brought thither or produced: and whereas, whensoever we say of any thing This is, we suppose that the thing is, as we say it is, before we say it; yet here all the while that this is a-saying, till the last syllable is pronounced, it is not that which it is said to be, but in the minute in which the last syllable is uttered, then the change is made. And of this they are so firmly per- suaded, that they do presently pay all that adoration to it that they would pay to the person of Jesus Christ, if he were visibly present: though the whole virtue of the consecration depends on the intention of a priest; so that he with a cross intention hinders all this series of miracles, as he fetches it all on by letting his intention go along' with it. If it may be said of some doctrines, that the bare exposing them is a most effectual confutation of them ; certainly that is more applicable to this than to any other that can be imagined: for though T have, in stating it, considered some of the most important difficulties which are seen and confessed by the schoolmen themselves, who have poised all these with much exactness and subtlety, yet I have passed over a great many more, with which those that deal in school-divinity will find enough to exercise both their thoughts and their patience. They run out in many subtleties, concerning the accidents both primary and secondary; concerning the ubication, the produc- tion and reproduction of bodies; concerning the penetrability of matter, and the organization of a penetrable body; concern- ART. XXVIII. THE XXXIX ARTICLES. 38.3 ing the way of the destruction of the species; concerning the words of consecration; concerning the water that is mixed witli the wine — whether it is first changed by natural causes into wine; and, since nothing but wine is transubstantiated, wliat becomes of such particles of water that are not turned into wine? what is the grace produced by the sacrament? what is the effect of the presence of Christ so long as he is in the body of the communicant? what is got by his presence, and wliat is lost l)y his absence? In a word, let a man read the shortest body of school divinity that he can find, and he will see in it a vast number of other difficulties in this matter, of which their own. authors are aware, which I have quite passed over. For ' when this doctrine fell into the hands of nice and exact men, they were soon sensible of all the consequences that must needs follow upon it, and have pursued all these with a closeness far beyond anything that is to be found among the writers of our side. But that they might have a salvo for every difficulty, they framed a new model of philosophy; new theories were invented, of substances and accidents, of matter and of spirits, of exten- sion, ubication, and impenetrability; and by the new definitions and maxims to which they accustomed men in the study of phi- losophy, they prepared them to swallow down all this more easily, when they should come to the study of divinity. The infallibility of the Church that had expressly defined it, was to bear a great part of the burden; if the Church was infallible, and if they were that Church, then it could be no longer doubted of. In dark ages, miracles and visions came in abundantly to support it: in ages of more light, the infinite power of God, the words of the institution, it being the testa- ment of our Saviour then dying, and soon after confirmed with his blood, were things of great pomp, and such as were apt to strike men that could not distinguish between the shows and the strength of arguments. But when all our senses, all our ideas of things, rise up so strongly against every part of this chain of wonders, we ought at least to expect proofs suitable to the difficulty of believing such a flat contradiction to our reason as well as to our senses. We have no other notion of accidents, but that they are the different shapes or modes of matter; and that they have no being distinct from the body in which they appear; we have no other notion of a body, but that it is an extended substanee, made up of impenetrable parts, one without another; every one of which fills its proper space; we have no other notion of a body^s being in a place, but that it fills it, and is so in it, as that it can be nowhere else at the same time: and though we can very easily apprehend that an infinite power can both create and annihilate beings at pleasure, yet we cannot appre- 384 AN EXPOSITION OF ART. XXVIII. hend that God does change the essences of things, and so makes them to be contrary to that nature and sort of being of which he has made them. Another argument against transubstantiation is this : God has made us capable to know and serve him ; and, in order to that, he has put some senses in us, which are the conveyances of many subtile motions to our brains, that give us apprehensions of the objects which by those motions are represented to us. When those motions are lively, and the object is in a due distance; when we feel that neither our organs nor our faculties are under any disorder, and when the impression is clear and strong, we are determined by it ; we cannot help being so. When we see the sun risen, and all is bright about us, it is not possible for us to think that it is dark night: no authority can impose it on us: we are not so far the masters of our own thoughts, as to force ourselves to think it, though we would; for God has made us of such a nature, that we are determined by such an evidence, and cannot contradict it. When an object is at too great a distance, we may mistake; a weakness or an ill disposition in our sight may misrepresent it; and a false medium, water, a cloud, or a glass, may give it a tincture or cast, so that we may see cause to correct our first apprehensions in some sensations: but when we have duly examined everything, when we have corrected one sense by another, we grow at last to be so sure, by the constitution of that nature that God has given us, that we cannot doubt, much less believe, in contradiction to the express evidence of our senses. It is by this evidence only that God convinces the world of the authority of those whom he sends to speak in his name: he gives them a power to work miracles, which is an appeal to the senses of mankind ; and it is the highest appeal that can be made; for those who stood out against the conviction of Christ’s miracles, had no cloak for their sins: it is the utmost conviction that God offers, or that man can pretend to. From all which we must infer this, that either our senses in their clearest apprehensions, or rather representations of things, must be infallible, or we must throw up all faith and certainty; since it is not possible for us to receive the evidence that is given us of anything but by our senses: and since we do naturally acquiesce in that evidence, we must acknowledge that God has so made us that this is his voice in us; because it is the voice of those faculties that he has put in us, and is the only way by which w'e can find out truth, and be led by it: and if our faculties fail us in any one thing, so that God should reveal to us anything that did plainly contradict our faculties, he should thereby give us a right to disbelieve them for ever. ART. XXVIII. THE XXXIX ARTICLES. 385 If they can mistake when they bring any object to us with the fullest evidence that they can give, we can never depend upon them, nor be certain of anything because they show it. Nay, we are not, and cannot be bound to believe that, nor any other revelation that God may make to convince us. We can only receive a revelation by hearing or reading, by our ears or our eyes: so, if any part of this revelation destroys the certainty of the evidence of our senses, our eyes, or our ears give us, it destroys itself; for we cannot be bound to believe it upon the evidence of our senses, if this is a part of it, that our senses are not to be trusted. Nor will this matter be healed by saying, that certainly we must believe God more than our senses; and, there- fore, if he has revealed anything to us that is contrary to their evi- dence, we must as to that particular believe God before our senses ; but that as to all other things, where v/e have not an express revelation to the contrary, we must still believe our senses. There is a difference to be made between that feeble evidence that our senses give us of remote objects, or those loose infer- ences that we may make from a slight view of things, and the full evidence that sense gives us; as when we see and smell to, we handle and taste, the same object: this is the voice of God to us; he has made us so that we are determined by it: and as we should not believe a prophet that wrought ever so many miracles, if he should contradict any part of that which God had already revealed; so we cannot be bound to believe a revelation contrary to our sense, because that were to believe God in contradiction to himself; which is impossible to be true: for we should believe that revelation certainly upon an evidence, which itself tells us is not certain; and this is a contradiction. We believe our senses upon this foundation, because we reckon there is an intrinsic certainty in their evi- dence: we do not believe them as we believe another man, upon a moral presumption of his truth and sincerity; but we believe them, because such is the nature of the union of our souls and bodies, which is the work of God, that upon the full impressions that are made upon the senses, the soul does neces- sarily produce, or rather feel, those thoughts and sensations arise with a full evidence, that correspond to the motions of sensible objects upon the organs of sense. The soul has a sagacity to examine these sensations, to correct one sense by another; but when she has used all the means she can, and the evidence is still clear, she is persuaded, and cannot help being so ; she naturally takes all this to be true, because of the necessary connexion that she feels between such sensations and her assent to them. Now, if she should find that she could be mistaken in this, even though she should know this by a divine revelation, all the intrinsic certainty of the evidence B B 386 AN EXPOSITION OF ART. XXVIII. of sense^ and that connexion between those sensations and her assent to them, should be hereby dissolved. To all this another objection may be made from the mysteries of the Christian , religion; which contradict our reason, and yet we are bound to believe them; although reason is a faculty much superior to sense. But all this is a mistake: we cannot be bound to believe anything that contradicts our reason; for the evidence of reason as well as that of sense is the voice of God to us. But as great difference is to be made between a feeble evidence that sense gives us of an object that is at a distance from us, or that appears to us through a false medium — such as a concave or a convex glass — and the full evidence of an object that is before us, and that is clearly apprehended by us; so there is a great difference to be made. between our reasonings upon difficulties that we can neither understand nor resolve, and our reasonings upon clear principles. The one may be false, and the other must be true: we are sure that a thing cannot be one and three in the same respect; our reason assures us of this, and we do and must believe it; but we know that in different respects the same thing may be one and three. And since we cannot know all the possibilities of those different respects, we must believe upon the authority of God revealing it, that the same thing is both one and three; though if a reve- lation should affirm that the same thing were one and three in the same respect, we should not, and, indeed, could not believe it. This argument deserves to be fully opened; for we are sure either it is true, or we cannot be sure that anything else whatso- ever is true. In confirmation of this we ought also to consider the nature and ends of miracles. They put nature out of its channel, and reverse its fixed laws and motions; and the end of God^s giving men a power to work them is, that by them the world may be convinced that such persons are com- missioned by him to deliver his pleasure to them in some par- ticulars. And as it could not become the infinite wisdom of the great Creator to change the order of nature (which is his own workmanship) upon slight grounds, so we cannot suppose that he should work a chain of extraordinary miracles to no purpose. It is not to give credit to a revelation that he is making ; for the senses do not perceive it; on the contrary, they do reject and contradict it ; and the revelation, instead of getting credit from it, is loaded by it, as introducing that which destroys all credit and certainty. In other miracles our senses are appealed to; but here they must be appealed from: nor is there any spiritual end served in working this miracle; for it is acknowledged, that the effects of this sacrament are given upon our due coming to it, inde- pendent upon the corporal presence : so that the grace of ART. XXVIII. THE XXXIX ARTICLES. 387 the sacrament does not always accompany it, since unworthy receivers, tliough according to the Romisli doctrine they receive the true body of Christ, yet they do not receive grace with it; and the grace that is given in it to the worthy receivers stays with them, after that, by the destruction of the species of the bread and wine, the body of Christ is withdrawn. So that it is acknowledged, that the spiritual effect of the sacrament does not depend upon the corporal presence. Here then it is supposed, that God is every day working a great many miracles, in a vast number of different places; and that of so extraordinary a nature, that it must be confessed they are far beyond all the other wonders, even of Omnipotence; and yet all this is to no end, that we can apprehend; neither to any sensible and valuable end; nor to any internal and spiritual one. This must needs seem an amazing thing, that God should work such a miracle on our behalf, and yet should not acquaint us with any end for which he should work it. To conclude this whole argument — we have one great advan- tage in this matter, that our doctrine concerning the sacrament, of a mystical presence of Christ in the symbols, and of the effects of it on the worthy and unworthy receivers, is all acknow- ledged by the Church of Rome; but they have added to this the wonder of the corporal presence; so that we need bring no proof to them at least, for that which we teach concerning it, since it is all confessed by them. But as to that which they have added, it is not necessary for us to give proofs against it; it is enough for us if we show, that all the proofs that they bring for it are weak and unconcluding. They must be very demon- strative, if it is expected, that, upon the authority and evidence of them, we should be bound to believe a thing which they themselves confess to be contfary both to our sense and reason. We cannot by the laws of reasoning be bound to give arguments against it; it is enough if we can show, that neither the words of the institution, nor the discourse in the sixth of St. John, do necessarily infer it; and if we show that those passages can well bear another sense, which is agreeable both to the words themselves and to the style of the Scriptures, and more parti- cularly to the phraseology to which the Jews were accustomed upon the occasion on which this was instituted; and if the words can well bear the sense that we give them — then the other advan- tages that are in it, of its being simple and natural, of its being suitable to the design of a sacrament, and of its having no hard consequences of any sort depending upon it; then, I say, by all the rules of expounding Scripture, we do justly infer that our sense of those words ought to be preferred. This is according to a rule that St. Augustin gives to judge what expressions in Scripture are figurative and what not : B B 2 388 AN EXPOSITION OF ART. XXVIII. Lib. iii. de place seems to command a crime or horrid Doct. Chris, action^ it is figurative; and for an instance of this he cites those words. Except ye eat the flesh and drink the blood of the Son of man^ you have no life in you ; which seems to command a crime and a horrid action ; and, therefore, it is a figure commanding us to communicate in the passion of our Lord, and to lay up in our memory, with delight and profit, that his flesh was crucified and wounded for us.^^ As this was given for a rule by the great doctor of the Latin Church, so the same maxim had been delivered, almost two ages before him, by the great doctor of the Greek Church, Origen, who says, that the Le^t. ' understanding of our Saviours words of eating his flesh and drinking his blood, according to the letter, is a letter that kills.^^ These passages I cite by an anticipation, before I enter upon the inquiry into the sense of the ancient Church concerning this matter; because they belong to the words of the institution, at least to the discourse in St. John: now, if the sense that we give to these words is made good, we need be at no more pains to prove that they are capable of no other sense, since this must prove that to be the only true sense of them. So that for all the arguments that have been brought by us against this doctrine, arising out of the fruitfulness of the matter, we were not bound to use them; for, our doctrine being con- fessed by them, it wants no proof; and we cannot be bound to prove a negative. Therefore, though the copiousness of this matter has afforded us many arguments for the negative, yet that was not necessary; for, as a negative always proves itself, so that holds more especially here, where that which is denied is accompanied with so many and so strange absurdities as do follow from this doctrine. The last topic in this matter is the sense that the ancient Church had of it; for as we certainly have both the Scriptures and the evidence of our senses and reason of our side, so that will be much fortified if it appears that no such doctrine was received in the first and best ages, and that it came in not all at once, but by degrees. I shall first urge this matter by some general presumptions; and then I shall go to plain proofs. But though the presumptions shall be put only as presumptions; yet if they appear to be violent, so that a man cannot hold giving his assent to the conclusion that follows from them, then though they are put in the form of presumptive arguments, yet that will not hinder them from being considered as con- cluding ones. By the stating this doctrine it has appeared how many diffi- culties there are involved in it: these are difficulties tliat are obvious and soon seen; they are not found out by deep inquiry and much speculation; they are soon felt, and arc very hardly ART. XXVIII. THE XXXIX ARTICLES. 389 avoided: and ever since tlie time that this doctrine has been received by the Roman Church, these have been much insisted on; ex])lanations have been olfered to them all; and the whole principles of natural philosophy have been cast into a new mould, that they might ply to this doctrine; at least, those who have studied their philosophy in that system have had such notions put in them, while their minds were yet tender and capa- ble of any impressions, that they have been thereby prepared to this doctrine before they came to it, by a train of philosophical terms and distinctions, so that they were not much alarmed at it, when it came to be set before them. They are accustomed to think that ubication, or the being in a place, is but an accident to a substance; so that the same body^s being in more places, is only its having a few more of those accidents produced in it by God: they are accustomed to think that accidents are beings dilferent from matter: like a sort of clothing to it, which do indeed require the having of a sub- stance for their subject: but yet since they are believed to have a being of their own, God may make them subsist; as the skin of a man may stand out in its proper shape and colour, though there were nothing but air or vacuity within it. They are accustomed to think, that as an accident may be without its proper substance, so substance may be without its proper accidents; and they do reckon extension and impenetra- bility, that is, a body’s so filling a space that no other body can be in the same space with it, among its accidents : so that a body composed of organs and of large dimensions, may be not only all crowded within one wafer, but an entire distinct body may be in every separable part of this wafer — at least in every piece that carries in it the appearance of bread. These, besides many other lesser subtilties, are the evident results of this doctrine; and it was a natural effect of its being received, that their philosophy should be so transformed as to agree to it, and to prepare men for it. Now, to apply this to the matter we are upon, we find none of these subtilties among the ancients. They seem to apprehend none of those difficulties, nor do they take any pains to solve or clear them. They had a philosophical genius, and showed it in all other things: they disputed very nicely concerning the attributes of God, concerning his essence, and the persons of the Trinity: they saw the difficulties concerning the incarnation of the eternal Word, and Christ’s being both God and man: they treated of original sin, of the power of grace, and of the decrees of God. They explained the resurrection of our bodies, and the differ- ent states of the blessed and the damned. They saw the difficulties in all these heads, and were very copious in their explanations of them; and they may be rather 390 AN EXPOSITION OF ART. XXVIII, thought by some too full, than too sparing, in the canvassing of difficulties : but all those were mere speculative matters, in which the difficulty was not so soon seen as on this subject; yet they found these out, and pursued them with that subtilty that showed they were not at all displeased, when occasions were offered them, to show their skill in answering difficulties; which, to name no more, appears very evidently to be St. Augustin’s character. Yet neither he nor any of the other Fathers seem to have been sensible of the difficulties in this matter. They neither state them nor answer them; nor do they use those reserves when they speak of philosophical matters, that men must have used who were possessed of this doctrine: for a man cannot hold it without bringing himself to think and speak otherwise upon all natural things than the rest of mankind do. They are so far from this, that, on the contrary, they deliver themselves in a way that shows they had no such apprehen- sions of things. They thought that all creatures were limited to one place; and from thence they argued against the heathens, who believed that their deities were in every one of those statues which they consecrated to them. From this head they proved the divinity of the Holy Ghost; because he wrought in many different places at once; which he could not do if he were only a creature. They affirm, that Christ can be no more on earth, since he is now in heaven, and that he can be but in one place. They say, that which hath no bounds nor figure, and that can neither be touched nor seen, cannot be a body: that bodies are extended in some place, and cannot exist after the manner of spirits. They argue against the eternity of matter, from this, that nothing could be produced, that had a being before it was pro- duced; and on all occasions they appeal to the testimony of our senses as infallible. They say, that to believe otherwise tended to reverse the whole state of life and order of nature, and to reproach the pro- vidence of God; since it must be said, that he has given the knowledge of all his works to liars and deceivers, if our senses may be false: that we must doubt of our faith, if the testimony of hearing, seeing, and feeling, could deceive us. And in their contests with the Marcionites and others, con- cerning the truth of Christ’s body, they appeal always to the testimony of the senses as infallible: and, even treating of the sacrament, they say, without limitation or exception, that it was bread, as their eyes witnessed, and true wine, that Christ did consecrate to be the memorial of his body and blood; and ART. XXVIII. THE XXXIX ARTICLES. 391 they tell us in tliis very particular^ that we ought not to doubt of the testimony of our senses. Anotlier presumptive proof that the ancients knew nothing of tins doctrine is, that the heathens and the Jews, who charged them, and their doctrine, with everything that they could invent to make both it and them odious and ridiculous, could never have passed over this, in which both sense and reason seemed to be so evidently on their side. They reproach the Christians for believing a God that 'was born, a God of flesh that was crucified and buried: they laughed at their belief of a judgment to come, of endless flames, of a heavenly paradise, and of the resurrection of the body. Those who writ the first Apologies for the Christian religion, Justin Martyr, Tertullian, Origen, Arnobius, and Minutius Felix, have given us a large account of the blasphemies both of Jews and Gentiles against the doctrines of Christianity. Cyril of Alexandria has given us Julianas objections in his own words; who having been not only initiated into the Chris- tian religion, but having read the Scriptures in the Churches, and being a philosophical and inquisitive man, must have been well instructed concerning the doctrine and the sacraments of this religion : and his relation to the Emperor Constantine must have made the Christians concerned to take more than ordinary pains on him. When he made apostacy from the faith, he reproached the Christians with the doctrine of baptism, and laughed at them for thinking that there was an ablution and sanctification in it, conceiving it a thing impossible that water should wash or cleanse a soul; yet neither he nor Porphyry, nor Celsus before them, did charge this religion with the absurdities of transubstantiation. It is reasonable to believe, that if the Christians of that time had any such doctrine among them, it must have been known. Every Christian must have known in what sense those words. This is my body, and This is my blood, were understood among them. All the apostates from Christianity must have known it, and must have published it, to excuse or hide the shame of their apostacy; since apostates are apt to spread lies of them whom they forsake, but not to conceal such truths as are to their prejudice. Julian must have known it; and if he had known it, his judgment was too true, and his malice to the Christian religion too quick, to overlook or neglect the advan- tages which this part of their doctrine gave him. Nor can this be carried off by saying, that the eating of human flesh and the Thyestean suppers, which were objected to the Christians, relate to this: when the Fathers answer that, they tell the heathens that it was a downright calumny and lie; and do not offer any explanations or distinctions taken from their doctrine of the sacrament, to clear them from the mistake and malice 392 AN EXPOSITION OF ART. XXVIII. of this calumny. The truth is, the execrable practices of the Gnostics, who were called Christians, gave the rise to those as well as to many other calumnies; but they were not at all founded on the doctrine of the Eucharist, which is never once mentioned as the occasion of this accusation. Another presumption, from which we conclude that the ancients knew nothing of this doctrine, is, that we find heresies and disputes arising concerning all the other points of religion. There were very few of the doctrines of the Christian religion, and not any of the mysteries of the faith, that did not fall under great objections: but there was not any one heresy raised upon this head; men were never so meek and tame as easily to believe things, when there appeared strong evidence, or at least great pre- sumptions against them. In these last eight or nine centuries, since this doctrine was received, there has been a perpetual opposition made to it, even in dark and unlearned ages in which implicit faith and blind obedience have carried a great sway. And though the secular arm has been employed with great and unrelenting severities to extirpate all that have opposed it; yet all the while many have stood out against it, and have suffered much and long for their rejecting it. Nowit is not to be imagined that such an opposition should have been made to this doctrine, dur- ing the nine hundred years last past, and that for the former eight hundred years there should have been no disputes at all concerning it; and that while all other things were so much ques- tioned, that several Fathers writ, and councils were called to set- tle the belief of them, yet that for about eight hundred years this was the single point that went down so easily, that no treatise was all that while writ to prove it, nor council held to establish it. Certainly the reason of this will appear to be much rather, that since there have been contests upon this point these last nine ages, and that there were none the first eight, this doctrine was not known during those first ages; and that the great silence about it for so long a time, is a very strong presumption that in all that time this doctrine was not thought of. The last of those considerations that I shall offer, which are of the nature of presumptive proofs, is, that there are a great many rites and other practices, that have arisen out of this doc- trine as its natural consequences, which were not thought of for a great many ages, but that have gone on by a perpetual progress, and have increased very fruitfully, ever since this doctrine was received. Such are the elevation, adoration, and processions, together with the doctrine of concomitance, and a vast number of rites and rubrics; the first occasions and beginnings of which are well known. These did all arise from this doctrine, it being natural, especially in the ages of igno- rance and superstition, for men, upon the supposition of Christ’s ART. XXVIII. THE XXXIX ARTICLES. 39:3 lieiiig corporally i^resent, to run out into all possible inventions of pomp and magnificence about this sacrament; and it is very reasonable to think, since these things are of so late and so cer- tain a date, that the doctrine upon which they are founded is not much ancienter. The great simplicity of the primitive forms, not only as they are reported by Justin Martyr and Tertullian in the ages of the poverty and persecutions of the Church, but as they are repre- sented to us in the fourth and fifth centuries by Cyril, of Jeru- salem, the Constitutions, and the pretended Areopagite, have nothing of that air that appears in the later ages. The sacra- ment was then given in both kinds; it was put in the hands of the faithful; they reserved some portions of it — it was given to children for many ages; the laity and even boys were employed to carry it to dying penitents; what remained of it was burnt in som,e places, and consumed by the clergy and by children in other places: the making cataplasms of it, the mixing the wine with ink, to sign the condemnation of heretics, are very clear presumptions that this doctrine was not then known. But above all, their not adoring the sacrament, which is not done to this day in the Greek Church, and of which there is no mention made by all those who writ on the offices of the Church in the eighth and ninth centuries so eopiously; this, I say, of their not adoring it, is, perhaps, more than a presump- tion that this doctrine was not then thought on. But since it was established, all the old forms and rituals have been altered, and the adoring the sacrament is now become the main act of devotion and of religious worship among them. One ancient form is, indeed, still continued, which is of the strongest kind of presumptions that this doctrine came in much later than some other superstitions which we condemn in that Church. In the masses that are appointed on saints^ days, there are some collects in which it is said that the sacrifice is offered up in honour to the saint: and it is prayed, that it may become the more valuable and acceptable, by the merits and intercessions of the saint. Now when a practice will well agree with one opinion, but not at all with another, we have all possible reason to pre- sume at least, that at first it came in under that opinion with which it will agree, and not under another which cannot con- sist with it. Our opinion is, that the sacrament is a federal act of Christianity, in which we offer up our highest devotions to God through Christ, and receive the largest returns from him. It is, indeed, a superstitious conceit to celebrate this to the honour of a saint; but, howsoever, upon the supposition of saints hearing our prayers, and interceding for us, there is still good sense in this: but if it is believed that Christ is corporally present, and that he is offered up in it, it is against all sense. I w^^i^AioO Ik^Uu^ ^ouycCc c- the word transubstantiation. Almaric, in the begin- ning of the thirteenth century, denied in express words the cor- poral presence: he was condemned in the fourth Council of the Lateran as an heretic, and his body was ordered to be taken up and burnt; and in opposition to him transubstantiation was decreed. Yet the schoolmen continued to offer different explana- tions of this for a great while after that; but in conclusion all agreed to explain it as was formerly set forth. It appears, by the crude way in which it was at first explained, that it was a novelty, and that men did not know how to mould and frame it; but at last it was licked into shape, the whole philosophy being cast into such a mould as agreed with it. And, therefore, in the present age, in which that philosophy has lost its credit, great pains are taken to suppress the new and freer way of philosophy, as that which can- not be so easily subdued to support this doctrine as the old one was. And the arts that those who go into the new philosophy take to reconcile their scheme to this doctrine, show that there is nothing that subtile and unsincere men will not venture on: for, since they make extension to be of the essence of matter, and think that accidents are only the modes of matter, which have no proper being of themselves, it is evident, that a body cannot be without its extension, and that accidents cannot subsist without their sub- ject: so that this can be in no sort reconciled to transubstantia- tion; and therefore they would willingly avoid this special man- ner of the presence, and only in general assert that Christ is corporally present. But the decrees of the Lateran and Trent Councils make it evident, that transuhstantiation \s> now a doctrine that is bound upon them by the authority of the Church and of tradition; and that they are as much bound to believe it, as to believe the corporal presence itself. Thus the going off from the simplicity in which Christ did deliver the sacrament, and in which the Church at first received it, into some sublime expressions about it, led men once out of the way, and they still went farther and farther from it. Pious and rhetorical figures, pursued far by men of heated imaginations and of inflamed affections, were followed with explanations invented by colder and more designing men afterwards, and so it increased till it grew by degrees to that to which at last it settled on. ART. XX VIII. THE XXXIX ARTICLES. 409 But after all^ if the doctrine of the corporal presence had rested only in a speculation, though we should have judged those who held it to be very bad philosophers, and no good critics; yet we could have endured it, if it had rested there, and had not gone on to be a matter of practice, by the adoration and pro- cessions, with everything else of that kind, which followed upon it; for this corrupted the worship. The Lutherans believe a consubstantiation, and that both Christas body and blood, and the substance of the elements, are together in the sacrament. That, some explain by an ubiquity which they think is communicated to the human nature of Christ, by which his body is everywhere as well as in the sacrament; whereas others of them think, that since the words of Christ must needs be true in a literal sense, his body and blood is therefore in the sacrament, but in, with, and under, the bread and wine. All this we think is ill-grounded, and is neither agree- able to' the words of the institution, nor to the nature of things. A great deal of that which was formerly set forth in defence of our doctrine falls likewise upon this. The ubiquity communicated to the human nature, as it seems a thing in itself impossible, so it gives no more to the sacrament than to everything else. ChrisCs body may be said to be in everything, or rather every- thing may be said to be his body and blood, as well as the ele- ments in the sacrament. The impossibility of a body’s being without extension, or in more places at once, lies against this, as well as against transubstantiation. But yet, after all, this is only a point of speculation; nothing follows upon it in practice, no adoration is offered to the elements: and, therefore, we judge that speculative opinions may be borne with, when they neither fall upon the fundamentals of Christianity, to give us false ideas of the essential parts of our religion, nor affect our practice; and chiefly when the worship of God is maintained in its purity, for which we see God has expressed so particular a concern, giving it the word which of all others raises in us the most sensible and the strongest ideas, calling \t jealousy — that we reckon we ought to watch over this with much caution. We can very well bear with some ojDinions that we think ill-grounded, as long as they are only matters of opinion, and have no influence neither on men’s morals nor their worship. We still hold communion with bodies of men, that, as we judge, think wrong, but yet do both live well, and maintain the purity of the wor- ship of God. We know the great design of religion is to govern men’s lives, and to give them right ideas of God, and of the ways of worshipping him. All opinions that do not break iu upon these, are things in which great forbearance is to be used; large allowances are to be made for men’s notions in all other things; and therefore we think that neither consubstan- 410 AN EXPOSITION OF ART. XXVIII. tiation not transubstantiation, how ill-grounded soever we take both to be^ ought to dissolve the union and communion of churches; but it is quite another thing, if under either of these opinions an adoration of the elements is taught and practised. This we believe is plain idolatry, when an insensible piece of matter, such as bread and wine, has divine honours paid it; when it is believed to be God, when it is called God, and is in all respects worshipped with the same adoration that is oflered up to Almighty God. This we think is gross idolatry. Many writers of the Church of Rome have acknowledged, that if transubstantiation is not true, their worship is a strain of idola- try beyond any that is practised among the most depraved of all the heathens. The only excuse that is offered in this matter is, that since the declared object of worship is Jesus Christ, believed to be there present^ then, wdiether he is present or not, the worship terminates in him; both the secret acts of the worshippers and the professed doctrine of the Church do lodge it there. And therefore, it may be said, that though he should not be actually present, yet the act of adoration being directed to him, must be accepted of God, as right meant, and duly directed, even though there should happen to be a mistake in the outward applica- tion of it. In answer to this, we do not pretend to determine how far this may be pardoned by God; whose mercies are infinite, and who does certainly consider chiefly the hearts of his crea- tures, and is merciful to their infirmities, and to such errors as arise out of their weakness, their hearts being sincere before him. We ought to consider this action as it is in itself, and not according to men^s apprehensions and opinions about it. If the conceits that the ancient idolaters had, both concerning their gods and the idols that they worshipped, will excuse from idolatry, it will be very hard to say that there were ever any idolaters in the world. Those who worshipped the thought that the great Divinity was lodged there, as in a vehicle or temple; but yet they were not by reason of that misconcep- tion excused from being idolaters. If a false opinion upon which a practice is founded, taken up without any good authority, will excuse meids sins, it will be easy for them to find apologies for everything. If the worship of the elements had been commanded by God, then an opinion concerning it might excuse the carrying of that too far; but there being no command for it, no hint given aliout it, nor any insinuation given of any such practice in the liegin- nings of Christianity; an opinion that men have taken up cannot justify a new practice, of winch neither the first, nor a great many of the following ages knew anything. An opinion ART. XXVIII. THE XXXIX ARTICLES. 411 cannot justify men’s practice founded upon it, if that proves to be false. All the softening that can be given it is, that it is a sin of ignorance; but that does not change the nature of the action, how far soever it may go with relation to the judgments of God: if the opinion is rashly taken up and stiffly maintained, the wor- ship that is introduced upon it is aggravated by the ill founda- tion that it is built upon. We know God by his essence is everywhere; but this will not justify our worshipping any material object upon this pretence, because God is in it: we ought never to worship him towards any visible object, unless he were evidently declaring his glory in it; as he did to Moses in the flaming bush; to the Israelites on Mount Sinai, and in the cloud of glory; or to us Christians in a sublimer manner in the human nature of Jesus Christ. But, by this parity of reason, though we were sure that Christ were in the elements, yet since he is there invisible, as God is by his essence everywhere, we ought to direct no adoration to the elements; we ought only to worship God, and his Son Christ Jesus, in the grateful remembrance of his sufferings for us, which are therein commemorated. We ought not to- suffer our wor- ship to terminate on the visible elements; because, if Christ is in them, yet he does not manifest that visibly to us. Since, therefore, the opinion of tho corporal presence, upon which this adoration is founded, is false; and, since no such worship is so much as mentioned, much less commanded in Scripture; and, since there can be scarce any idolatry in the world so gross as that it shall not excuse itself by some such doctrine, by which all the acts of worship are made to terminate finally in God; we must conclude that this plea cannot excuse the Church of Rome from idolatry, even though their doctrine of the corporal pre- sence were true; but much less if it is false. We do therefore condemn this worship as idolatry, without taking upon us to define the extent of the mercies of God towards all those who are involved in it. If all the premises are true, then it is needless to insist longer on explaining the following paragraph of the Article — that Chrisfs body is received in the sacrament in a heavenly and spiritual man- ner^ and that the mean by which it is received is faith; for that is such a natural result of them, that it appears evident of itself, as being the conclusion that arises out of those premises. The last paragraph is against the reserving, carryiny about, the lifting up, or the worshipping the sacrament. The point concerning the worship, which is the most essential of them, has been already considered. As for the reserving or carrying the sacrament about; it is very visible that the institution is. Take, eat, and drink ye all of it; which does import, that the consuming the elements is a part of the institution, and by 412 AN EXPOSITION OF ART. XXVIII, consequence, that they are a sacrament only as they are dis- tributed and received. It is true, the practice of reserving or sending about the elements began very early; the state of things at first made it almost unavoidable. When there were yet but a few converted to Christianity, and when there were but few priests to serve them, they neither could nor durst meet altoge- ther, especially in the times of persecution : so some parts of the elements wxre sent to the absent, to those in prison, and parti- cularly to the sick, as a symbol of their being parts of the body, and that they were in the peace and communion of the Church. The bread was sent with the wine, and it was sent about by any Eus. Hist. person whatsoever; sometimes by boys; as appears hb. VI. c. 44. famous story of Serapion in the third century. So that the condition of the Christians in that time made that necessary, to keep them all in the sense of their obligation to union and communion with the Church ; and that could not well be done in any other way. But we make a great difference between this practice, when taken up out of necessity, though not exactly conform to the first institution, and the continuing it out of superstition, when there is no need of it. Therefore, instead of consecrating a larger portion of elements than is necessary for the occasion, and the reserving what is over and above; and the setting that out with great pomp on the altar, to be worshipped, or the carrying it about with a vast magnificence in a procession, invented to put the more honour on it; or the sending it to the sick with solemnity; we choose rather to con- secrate only so much as may be judged fit for the number of those who are to communicate. And when the sacrament is over, we do, in imitation of the practice of some of the ancients, consume what is left, that there may be no occasion given either to superstition or irreverence. And for the sick, or the prisoners, we think it is a greater mean to quicken their devo- tion, as well as it is a closer adhering to the words of the insti- tution, to consecrate in their presence: for though we can bear with the practice of the Greek Church, of reserving and sending about the Eucharist, when there is no idolatry joined with it; yet we cannot but think that this is the continuance of a prac- tice which the state of the first ages introduced, and that was afterwards kept up out of a too scrupulous imitation of that time, without considering that the difference of the state of the Christians, in the former and in the succeeding ages, made that what was at first innocently practised (since a real necessity may well excuse a want of exactness in some matters that are only positive) became afterwards an occasion of much superstition, and in conclusion ended in idolatry. Those ill effects that it had, are more than is necessary to justify our practice in reducing this strictly to the first institution. ART. XXIX. THE XXXIX ARTICLES. 41.3 As for tlie lifting up of the Eucharist, there is not a word of it in the Gospel; nor is it mentioned by St. Paul: neither Jus- tin Martyr nor Cyril of Jerusalem speak of it; there is nothing concerning it neither in the Constitutions, nor in the Areopagite. In those first ages, all the elevation that is spoken of, is the lift- ing up of their hearts to God. The elevation of the sacrament began to be practised in the sixth century; for it is mentioned in the Liturgy called St. Chrysostom^s, but believed to be much later than his time. German,* a writer of the Greek Church of the thirteenth century, is the first that descants upon it: he speaks not of it as done in order to the adoration of it, but makes it to represent both Christ’s being lifted up on the cross, and also his resurrection. Ivo of Chartres,t who lived in the end of the eleventh century, is the first of all the Latins that speak of it: but then it was not commonly practised; for the author of the Micrologus, though he wTit at the same time, yet does not mention it, who is yet very minute upon all particulars relating to this sacrament. Nor does Ivo speak of it as done in order to adoration, but only as a form of showing it to the people. Duran d,J a writer of the thirteenth century, is the first that speaks of the elevation as done in order to the adoration. So it appears that our Church, by cutting off these abuses, has restored this sacrament to its primitive simplicity, according to the insti- tution and the practice of the first ages. ARTICLE XXIX. OF THE WICKED WHICH EAT NOT THE BODY OF CHRIST IN THE USE OF THE LORD’s SUPPER. The Wicked, and such as be void of a lively Faith, although they do carnally and visibly press with their Teeth [as St. Austin saith) the Sacrament of the Body and Blood of Christ, yet in nowise are they Partakers of Christ; but rather, to their Con- demnation, do eat and drink the Sign or Sacrament of so great a Thing. This Article arises naturally out of the former, and depends upon it; for if Christ’s body is corporally present in the sacra- ment, then all persons good or bad, who receive the sacrament, do also receive Christ: on the other hand, if Christ is present * Germ. Const, in Theor. tit. 12, Bibl. Patr. f Ivo. Cam. Ep. de Sacr. Missm, t. ii. Bibl. Pat. t Dur. Rat. Div. Offic. lib. iv. de sexta parte Can. 414 AN EXPOSITION OF ART. XXIX. only in a spiritual manner, and if the mean that receives Christ is faith, then such as believe not, do not receive him. So that to prove that the wicked do not receive Christ’s body and blood, is upon the matter the same thing with the proving that he is not corporally present: and it is a very considerable branch of our argument, by which we prove that the Fathers did not believe the corporal presence, because they do very often say that the wicked do not receive Christ in the sacrament. Here the same distinction is to be made, that was mentioned upon the Article of Baptism. The sacraments are to be consi- dered either as they are acts of church communion, or as they are federal acts, by which we enter into covenant with God. With respect to the former, the visible profession that is made, and the action that is done, are all that can fall under human cognizance : so a sacrament must be held to be good and valid, when as to outward appearance all things are done according to the institution; but as to the internal effect and benefit of it, that turns upon the truth of the profession that is made, and the sin- cerity of those acts which do accompany it; for, if these are not seriously and sincerely performed, God is dishonoured, and his institution is profaned. Our Saviour has expressly said, that whosoever eats his flesh, and drinks his blood, has eternal life. From thence we conclude, that no man does truly receive Christ, who does not at the same time receive with him both a right to eternal life, and likewise the beginnings and earnests of it. The sacrament being a federal act, he who dishonours God, and pro- fanes this institution, by receiving it unworthily, becomes highly guilty before God, and draws down judgments upon himself: and as it is confessed on all hands, that the inward and spiritual effects of the sacrament depend upon the state and disposition of him that communicates, so we, who own no other presence but an inward and spiritual one, cannot conceive that the wicked, who believe not in Christ, do receive him. In this point several of the Fathers have delivered themselves very plainly. Origen says,* Christ is the true food: whosoever eats him shall live for ever: of whom no wicked person can eat; for if it were possible that any who continues wicked should eat the word that was made flesh, it had never been written. Whoso eats this bread shall live for ever. This comes after a discourse of the sacra- ment, which he calls the typical and symbolical body, and so it can only belong to it. In another place he says. The good eat the living bread, which came down from heaven; but the wicked eat dead bread, which is death. * Comment, in Matt. c. 15. ART. XXIX. THE XXXIX ARTICLES. 415 Zeno,* Bishop of Verona, who is believed to have lived near Origen^s time, lias these words: There is cause to fear that he in ivhoni the devil divells, does not eat the flesh of our Lord, nor drink his blood, though he seems to communicate with the faithful; since our Lord has said, He that eats my flesh, and drinks my blood, dwells in me, and I in him. St. Jerome says,t They that are not holy in body and spirit, do neither eat the flesh of Jesus nor drink his blood; of which he said, He that eats my flesh, and drinks my blood, hath eternal life. St. Augustin i expresses himself in the very words that are cited in the Article, which he introduces with these words: He that does not abide in Christ, and in whom Christ does not abide, certainly does not spiritually eat his flesh, nor drink his blood, though he may visibly and carnally press with his teeth the sacrament of the body and blood of Christ; but he rather eats and drinks the sacrament of so great a matter to his con- demnation. And in another place he says,§ Neither are they (speaking of vicious persons) to be said to eat the body of Christ, because they are not his members: to which he adds. He that says. Whoso eats my flesh, and drinks my blood, abides in me, and I in him, shoivs ivhat it is, not only in a sacrament, but tridy, to eat the body of Christ and to drink his blood. He has upon another occasion those frequently cited words, speak- ing of the difference between the other disciples and Judas in receiving this sacrament: These did eat the bread that was the Lord {panem Dominum;) but he the bread of the Lord against the Lord [panem Domini contra Dominum.)\\ To all this a great deal might be added to show that this was the doctrine of the Greek Church, even after Damascene’s opinion con- cerning the assumption of the elements into an union with the body of Christ was received among them. But more needs not be said concerning this, since it will be readily granted, that, if we are in the right in the main point of denying the corporal presence, this will fall with it. * Torn. ii. Spicil. Sacr. d’Achery. f In cap. 66, Isaisc. + Tract. 26, in Joan. $ Lib. xxi. de Civ. Dei, c. 25. J| Tract. 54, in Joan. 416 AN EXPOSITION OF ART. XXX. ARTICLE XXX. OF BOTH KINDS. The Cup of the Lord is not to he denied to Lay People. For both Parts of the Sacrament, hy Christ’s Ordinance and Command7nent, ought to he ministered to all Christian Men alike. There is not any one of all the controversies that we have with the Church of Rome^ in which the decision seems more easy and shorter than this. The words of the institution are not only equally express and positive as to both kinds, but the diversity with which that part that relates to the cup is set down, seems to be as clear a demonstration for us as can be had in a matter of this kind, and looks like a special direction given, to warn the Church against any corruption that might arise upon this head. To all such as acknowledge the immediate union of the Eternal Word with the human nature of Christ, and the inspiration by which the apostles were conducted, it must be of great weight to find a specialty marked as to the chalice: of the cup it is said. Drink ye all of it; whereas of the bread it is only said, Take^ eat; so we cannot think the word all was set down without design. It is also said of the cup. And they all drank of it ; which is not said of the bread: we think it no piece of trifling nicety to observe this specialty. The words added to the giving the cup are very particularly emphatical. Take, eat, this is my body which is given for you, is not so full an expression as, Di'ink ye all of this, for this is my blood of the New Testament which is shed for many, for the remission of sins. If the surest way to judge of the extent of any precept, to which a reason is added, is to consider the extent of the reason, and to measure the extent of the precept by that; then since all that do communicate need the remission of sins, and a share in the New Covenant, the reason that our Saviour joins to the distribution of the cup proves that they ought all to receive it. And if that discourse in St. John concerning the eating Christ’s flesh, and the drinking his blood, is to be understood of the sacrament, as most of the Roman Church affirm, then the drinking Christ’s blood is as necessary to eternal life as the eating his flesh : by consequence, it is as necessary to receive the cup as the bread. And it is not easy to apprehend why it should still be necessary to consecrate in both kinds, and not likewise to receive in both kinds. It cannot be pre- ART. XXX. THE XXXIX ARTICLES. 41 7 tended, that since the apostles were all of the sacred order, therefore their receiving in both kinds is no precedent for giv- ing the laity the cup; for Christ gave them both kinds, as they were sinners, who were now to be admitted into covenant with God by the sacrifice of his body and blood. They were in that to show forth his deaths and were to take^ eat, and drink in remembrance of him. So that this institution was delivered to them as they were sinners, and not as they were priests. They were not constituted by Christ the pastors and governors of his Church till after the resurrection, when he breathed on them and laid his hand on them, and blessed them, John xx. 22. So that at this time they were only Christ’s disciples and witnesses; who had been once sent out by him on an extraordinary com- mission, but had yet no stated character fixed upon them. To this it is said, that Christ, by saying Do this, constituted them priests; so that they were no more of the laity when they received the cup. This is a new conceit taken up by the schoolmen, unknown to all antiquity: there is no sort of tra- dition that supports this exposition; nor is there any reason to imagine, that Do this signifies any other than a precept to con- tinue that institution as a memorial of Christ’s death: and Do this takes in all that went before, the taking, the giving, as well as the blessing, and the eating the bread; nor is there any reason to appropriate this to the blessing only, as if by this the consecrating and sacrificing power were conferred on the priests. From all which we conclude, both that the apostles were only disciples at large, without any special characters con- ferred on them, when the Eucharist was instituted; and that the Eucharist was given to them only as disciples, that is, as laymen. The mention that is made in some places of the New Testa- ment only of breaking of bread, can furnish them with no argument; for it is not certain that these do relate to the sacra- ment, or, if they did, it is not certain that they are to be understood strictly; for, by a figure common to the Eastern nations, bread stands for all that belongs to a meal: and if these places are applied to the sacrament, and ought to be strictly understood, they will prove too much, that the sacrament may be consecrated in one kind; and that the breaking of bread, without the cup, may be understood to be a complete sacra- ment.- But when St. Paul spoke of this sacrament, he does so distinctly mention the drinking the cup as well as eating the bread, that it is plain from him how the apostles understood the words and intent of Christ, and how this sacrament was received in that time. From the institution and command, which are express and positive, we go next to consider the nature of sacramental D D 418 AN EXPOSITION OF ART. XXX, actions. They have no virtue in them^, as charms tied either to elements or to words; they are only good because commanded. A different state of things may indeed justify an alteration as to circumstances: the danger of dipping in cold climates, may be a very good reason for changing the form of baptism to sprinkling ; and if climates were inhabited by Christians to which wine could not be brought, we should not doubt but that whensoever God makes a real necessity of departing from any institution of his, he does thereby allow of such a change as that necessity must draw after it ; so we do not condemn the license that is said to have been granted by Pope Innocent the Eighth, to celebrate without wine in Norway; nor should we deny a man the sacrament who had a natural and unconquerable aversion to wine, or that communicated being near his last agonies, and that should have the like aversion to either of the elements. When those things are real and not prefunded, mercy is better than sacrifice. The punctual observ- ance of a sacramental institution does only oblige us to the essen- tial parts of it, and in ordinary cases : the pretence of what may be done, or has been done upon extraordinary occasions, can never justify the deliberate and unnecessary alteration of an essential part of the sacrament. The whole institution shows very plainly, that our Saviour meant that the cup should be consi- dered every whit as essential as bread; and, therefore, we cannot but conclude from the nature of things, that since the sacra- ments have only their effects from their institution, therefore so total a change of this sacrament does plainly evacuate the insti- tution, and, by consequence, destroy the effect of it. All reasoning upon this head is an arguing against the insti- tution; as if Christ and his Apostles had not well enough considered it, but that, 1200 years after them, a consequence should be observed that till then had not been thought of, which made it reasonable to alter the manner of it. The concomitance is the great thing that is here urged; since it is believed that Christ is entirely under each of the elements; and, therefore, it is not necessary that both should be received, because Christ is fully received in any one. But this subsists on the doctrine of transubstanliation, so, if that is false, then here, upon a controverted opinion, an uncontro- verted piece of the institution is altered. And if concomitance is a certain consequence of the doctrine of transubstantiation, then it is a very strong argument against the antiquity of that doctrine, that the world was so long without the notion of con- comitance; and, therefore, if traiisubstaMiation had been sooner received, the concomitance would have been more easily ob- served. The institution of the sacrament seems to be so laid down, as rather to make us consider the body and blood as in a state of separation than of concomitance; the body being ART. XXX. THE XXXIX ARTICLES. 419 represented apart^ and the blood apart; and the body as broken^ and the blood as shed: therefore we consider the design of the sacrament is, to represent Christ to us as dead, and in his cruci- fied but not in his glorified state. And if the opinion be true, that the glorified bodies are of another texture than that of flesh and blood, which seems to be very plainly asserted by St. Paul in a discourse intended to describe the nature of the glorified bodies, then this theory of concomitance will fail upon that account. But whatsoever may be in that, an institution of ChrisPs must not be altered or violated upon the account of an inference that is drawn to conclude it needless. He who instituted it knew best what was most fitting and most reasonable; and we must choose rather to acquiesce in his commands than in our own reasonings. If, next to the institution and the theory that arises from the nature of a sacrament, we consider the practice of the Christian Church in all ages, there is not any one point in which the tra- dition of the Church is more express, and more universal, than in this particular, for above a thousand years after Christ. All the accounts that we have of the ancient rituals, both in Justin Martyr, Cyril of Jerusalem, the Constitutions, and the ^ pretended Areopagite, do expressly mention both kinds catech.* as given separately in the sacrament. All the ancient liturgies, as well those that go under the names of the Apostles, as those which are ascribed to St. Basil and St. ^ Chrysostom, do mention this very expressly; all the offices of the Western Church, both Roman and others; the mis- sals of the later ages, I mean down to the twelfth century: even the Ordo Romanus, believed by some to be a work of the ninth, and by others of the eleventh century, are express in mentioning the distribution of both kinds. All the Fathers, without except- ing one, do speak of it very clearly as the universal practice of their time. They do not so much as give a hint of any difference about it. So that from Ignatius down to Thomas Aqui- ^quin. nas, there is not any one writer that differs from the rest * • i"^ A • 1 <• 1 1 • 6 Johan. V. in this point : and even Aquinas speaks of the taking 53. in sum- away the chalice as the practice only of some churches: other writers of his time had not heard of any of these Churches, for they speak of both kinds as the universal practiee. But besides this general concurrenee, there are some spe- cialties in this matter: in St. Cypriaffs time some thought it was not necessary to use wine in the sacrament; they, therefore, used water only, and were from thence called Aquarii. It seems they found that their morning assemblies were smelled out by the wine used in tlie sacrament; and Christians might be known by the smell of wme that w'as still about them; they, therefore, intended to avoid this, and so they had no wine D D 2 420 AN EXPOSITION OF ART. XXX. among them, which was a much weightier reason than that of the wine sticking upon the beards of the laity. Yet St. Cyprian (Ep. 63, ad Cecil.) condemned this very severely, in a long epis- tle writ upon that occasion. He makes this the main argument, and goes over it frequently, that we ought to follow Christ, and do what he did: and he has those memorable words. If it be not law- ful to loose any one of the least commands of Christ, how much more is it unlawful to break so great and so iveighty a one, that does so very nearly relate to the sacrament of our Lord’s passion, and of our redemption; or by any human institution to change it into that which is quite different from the divine institution. This is so full, that we cannot express ourselves more plainly. Among the other profanations of the Manicheans, this was one, that they came among the assemblies of the Christians, and did receive the bread, but they would not take any wine, Leo. ser. 4. This is mentioned by Pope Leo, in the fifth century; Dewet'^de^' wlfich Pope Gelasius, hearing of it in his time, Consecr. appointed that all persons should either communicate in the sacrament entirely, or be entirely excluded from it; for that such a dividing of one and the same sacrament might not be done without a heinous sacrilege. In the seventh century a practice was begun of dipping the Decret de bread in the wine, and so giving both kinds together. Consecr. This was condemned by the Council of Bracara, as plainly contrary to the gospel: Christ gave his body and blood to his Apostles distinctly, the bread by itself, and the chalice by itself. This is, by a mistake of Gratian’s, put in the Canon Law as a decree of Pope Julius to the Bishops of Egypt. It is probable, that it was thus given first to the sick, and to infants; but though this got among many of the Eastern Churches, and was, it seems, practised in some parts of the West, yet, in the end of the eleventh century. Pope Urban, in concii. cia. ^le Council of Clermont, decreed, that none should communicate without taking the body apart, and the blood apart, except upon necessity, and with caution: to which some copies add, and that by reason of the heresy of Berengarius, that was lately condemned, which said that the figure was completed by one of the kinds. We need not examine the importance or truth of these last words; it is enough for us to observe the continued practice of communicating in both kinds till the twelfth century; and even then, when the opinion of the corporal presence begot a super- stition towards the elements that had not been known in former ages, so that some drops sticking to merits beards, and the spilling some of it, its freezing or becoming sour, grew to be more considered than the institution of Christ; yet for a while they used to suck it up through small quills or pipes (called ART. XXX. THE XXXIX ARTICLES. 421 Fistulce in the Ordo Rornamis,) which answered the Objection from tlie beards. In tlie twelfth century, the bread grew to be given generally d} 2 )t in wine. The writers of that time, though they justify this jiractice, yet they acknowledge it to be contrary to the institu- tion. Ivo of Chartres says, the people did communicate with dipt bread, not by authority, but by necessity, for fear of spilling the blood of Christ. Pope Innocent the Fourth said, that all might have the chalice who were so cautious that nothing of it should be spilt. In the ancient Church, the instance of Serapion is eus. Hist, brought to show that the bread alone was sent to the sick, which he that carried it was ordered to moisten before he gave it him. Justin Martyr (Apol. 2) does plainly insinuate that both kinds were sent to the absent; so some of the wine m.ight be sent to Serapion with the bread: and it is much more reasonable to believe this, than that the bread was ordered to be dipt in ivater; there being no such instance in all history; whereas, there are instances brought to show that both kinds were carried to the sick. St. Ambrose received the bread, but ex- pauiinus in pired before he received the cup. This proves nothing ^itaAmbros. but the weakness of the cause that needs such supports. Nor can any argument be brought from some words concerning the communicating of the sick, or of infants. Rules are made from ordinary, and not from extraordinary practices. The small por- tions of the sacrament that some carried home, and reserved to other occasions, does not prove that they communicated only in one kind. They received in both, only they kept (out of too much superstition) some fragments of the one, which could be more easily, and with less observation, saved and preserved, than of the other: and yet there are instances that they carried off some portions of both kinds. The Greek Church communi- cates during most of the days in Lent, in bread dipt iyWwine; and in the Ordo Romanus there is mention made of a particular com- munion on Good Friday, when some of the bread that had been formerly consecrated was put into a chalice with un consecrated wine. This was a practice that was grounded on an opinion that the unconsecrated wine was sanctified and consecrated by the contact of the bread ; and though they used not a formal conse- cration, yet they used other prayers, which was all that the primi- tive Church thought was necessary even to consecration; it being thought, even so late as Gregory the Great’s time, that the Lord’s Prayer was at first the prayer of consecration. These are all the colours which the studies and the subtilties of this age have been able to produce for justifying conc. Const, the decree of the Council of Constance. That does s^ss. ii. acknowledge, that Christ did institute this sacrament in both 422 AN EXPOSITION OF ART. XXXI. kinds, and that the faithful in the 'primitive Church did receive in both kinds : 'yet a practice being reasonably brought in to avoid some dangers and scandals, they appoint the custom to continue, of consecrating in both kinds, and of giving to the laity only in one kind; since Christ was entire and truly under each kind. They established this practice, and ordered that it should not be altered without the authority of the Church. So late a practice and so late a decree, cannot make void the command of Christ, nor be set in opposition to such a clear and universal practice to the contrary. The wars of Bohemia that followed upon that decree, and all that scene of cruelty which was acted upon John Huss, and Jerome of Prague, at the first establishment of it, show what opposition was made to it even in dark ages, and by men that did not deny transubstantiation. These prove, that plain sense and clear authorities are so strong, even in dark and corrupt times, as not to be easily overcome. And this may be said concerning this matter, that as there is not any one point in which the Church of Rome has acted more visibly contrary to the gospel than in this, so there is not any one thing that has raised higher prejudices against her, that has made more forsake her, and has possessed mankind more against her, than this. This has cost her dearer than any other. ARTICLE XXXI. OF THE ONE OBLATION OF CHRIST FINISHED UPON THE CROSS. The Offering of Christ once made, is that perfect Redemption, Propitiation, and Satisfaction for all the Sins of the whole World, both Original and actual: and there is none other Satisfaction for Sin but that alone: wherefore, in the Sacri- fices of Masses, in the which it was commonly said, that the Priest did offer Christ for the quick and the dead, to have Remission of Pain and Guilt, were blasphemous Fables and dangerous Deceits. It were a mere question of words to dispute concerning the term sacrifice; to consider the extent of that word, and the many various respects in which the Eucharist may be called a sacrifice. In general, all acts of religious worship may be called sacrifices; because, somewhat is in them offered up to God; Let my prayer be set forth before thee as incense, and the lifting up of my hands as the evening sacrifice, Psal. cxli. 2. ART. XXXI. THE XXXIX ARTICLES. 423 The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit : a broken and a contrite heart, () God, thou unit not despise, Psal. li. 17* These show how largely tliis word was used in the Old Testament; so in the New we are exhorted by him (that is, by Christ) to offer the sacrifice of praise to God continually, that is, the fruit of our lips, giving thanks to his name, Heb. xiii. 15. A Christianas dedicating him- self to the service of God, is also expressed by the same word of presenting our bodies a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, Rom. xii. 1. All acts of charity are also called sacrifices, an odour of a siveet smell, a sacrifice acceptable, well pleasing to God, Philip, iv. 1 8. So in this large sense we do not deny that the Eucharist is a sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving ; and our Church calls it so in the office of the Communion. In two other respects it may be also more strictly called a sacrifice. One is, because there is an oblation of bread and wine made in it, which, being sanctified, are consumed in an act of religion. To this many passages in the writings of the Fathers do relate. This was the oblation made at the altar by the people: and though at first the Christians were reproached as having a strange sort of religion, in which they had neither temples, altars, nor sacrifices, because they had not those things in so gross a manner as the heathens had; yet both Clemens Romanus, Ignatius, and all the suc- ceeding writers of the Church, do frequently mention the oblations tliat they made; and in the ancient liturgies they did with particular prayers offer the bread and wine to God, as the great Creator of all things : those were called the gifts or offerings which were offered to God, in imitation of Abel, who offered the fruits of the earth in a sacrifice to God. Both Justin Martyr, Ireneeus, the Constitutions, and all the ancient liturgies, have very express words relating to this. Another respect in which the Eucharist is called a sacri- fice is, because it is a commemoration and a representation to God of the sacrifice that Christ offered for us on the cross: in which we claim to that as to our expiation, and feast upon it as our peace-offering, according to that ancient notion, that covenants were confirmed by a sacrifice, and were con- cluded in a feast on the sacrifice. Upon these accounts we do not deny but that the Eucharist may be well called a sacri- fice; but still it is a commemorative sacrifice, and not pro- pitiatory: that is, we do not distinguish the sacrifice from the sacrament; as if the priesPs consecrating and consuming the elements were in an especial manner a sacrifice, any other way than as the communicating of others with him is one. Nor do we think that the consecrating and consuming the elements is an act that does reconcile God to the quick and the dead: we consider it only as a federal act of professing our belief in the death of Christ, and of renewing our baptismal covenant with 424 AN EXPOSITION OF ART. XXXI. him. The virtue or effects of this are not general; they are limited to those who go about this piece of worship sincerely and devoutly: they^ and they only, are concerned in it, who go about it; and there is no special propitiation made by this service. It is only an act of devotion and obedience in those that eat and drink worthily; and though in it they ought to pray for the whole body of the Church, yet those their prayers do only prevail with God as they are devout intercessions, but not by any peculiar virtue in this action. On the other hand, the doctrine of the Church of Rome is, that the Eucharist is the highest act of homage and honour that creatures can offer up to the Creator, as being an oblation of the Son to the Father; so that, whosoever procures a mass to be said, procures a new piece of honour to be done to God, with which he is highly pleased; and for the sake of which he will be reconciled to all that are concerned in the procuring such masses to be said, whether they be still on earth, or if they are now in purgatory; and that the priest, in offering and consuming this sacrifice, performs a true act of priesthood by reconciling sinners to God. Somewhat was already said of this on the head of Purgatory. It seems very plain, by the institution, that our Saviour, as he blessed the sacrament, said. Take, eat: St. Paul calls it a communion of the body and blood of the Lord; and a partaking of the Lord’s table: and he, through his whole discourse of it, speaks of it as an action of the Church and of all Christians; but does not so much as by a hint intimate anything peculiar to the priest: so that all that the Scripture has delivered to us concerning it, represents it as an action of the whole body, in which the priest has no special share but that of officiating. In the Epistle to the Hebrews there is a very long discourse con- cerning sacrifices and priests, in order to the explaining of ChrisPs being both Priest and Sacrifice. There a priest stands for a person called and consecrated to offer some living sacrifice, and to slay it, and to make reconciliation of sinners to God, by the shedding, offering, or sprinkling the blood of the sacri- fice. This was the notion that the Jews had of a priest; and the Apostle, designing to prove that the death of Christ was a true sacrifice, brings this for an argument, that there was to be another priesthood after the order of Melchisedec. He begins the fifth chapter with settling the notion of a priest according to the Jewish ideas; and then he goes on to prove that Christ was such a priest, called of God and consecrated, Heb. v. 10. But in this sense he appropriates the priesthood of the New Dispensation singly to Christ, in opposition to the many priests of the Levitical Law: And they truly ivere many priests because they were not suffered to continue, by reason of death; AllT. XXX I. THE XXXIX ARTICLES. 425 hut this man, because he continueth ever, hath an unchangeable priesthood, chap. vii. 23, 24. It is clear from the whole thread of that discourse, that, in the strictest sense of the word, Christ himself is the only Priest under the gospel; and it is also no less evident that his death is the only Sacrifice, in opposition to the many oblations that were under the Mosaical Law to take away sin; which appears very plain from these words, JVho needeth not daily, as those High- 2 )riests, to offer up sacrifice, first for his own sins, and then for the people; for this he did once, when he offered up himself, Heb. vii. 27 . He opposes that to the annual expiation made by the Jewish high-priest: Christ entered in once to the holy place, having made redemption for us by his own blood: and having laid down that general maxim, that without shedding of blood there was no remission (ehap. ix. 22,) he says, Christ was offered once to bear the sins of many, ver. 28. He puts a question to show that all sacrifices were now to cease: When the worshippers are once purged, then would not sacrifices cease to be offered? (chap. x. 2:) and he ends with this, as a full conclusion of that part of his dis- course: Every priest stands daily ministering and offering often- times the same sacrifices, which can never take away sin; but this man, after he had offered up one sacrifice for sins, for ever sat down on the right hand of God, ver. 11, 12. Here are not gene- ral words, ambiguous expressions, or remote hints, but a thread of a full and clear discourse, to show that in the strict sense of the words we have but one priest, and likewise but one saerifice under the gospel; therefore, how largely soever those words of priest or sacrifice may have been used, yet, according to the true idea of a propitiatory sacrifice, and of a priest that reconciles sinners to God, they cannot be applied to any acts of our wor- ship, or to any order of men upon earth. Nor ean the value and virtue of any instituted act of religion be carried, by any infer- ences or reasoning, beyond that which is put in them by the institution : and, therefore, since the institution of this sacrament has nothing in it that gives us this idea of it, we cannot set any such value upon it: and since the reconciling sinners to God, and the pardoning of sin, are free acts of his grace, it is there- fore a high presumption in any men to imagine ‘they can do this by any act of theirs, without powers and warrants for it from Seripture. Nor can this be pretended to without assuming a most sacrilegious sort of power over the attributes of God: therefore, all the virtue that can be in the sacrament is, that we do therein gratefully commemorate the saerifice of Christ’s death, and, by renewed acts of faith, present that to God as our saerifice, in the memorial of it whieh he himself has appointed : by so doing, we renew our covenant with God, and share in the effects of that death whieh he suffered for us. All 426 AN EXPOSITION OF ART. XXXI. the ancient liturgies have this as a main part of the office, that being mindful of the death of Christ, or commemorating it, they offered up the gifts. This is the language of Justin Martyr, Ireneeus, Tertullian, Cyprian, and of all the following writers. They do compare this sacrifice to that of Melchisedec, who offered bread and wine; and though the text imports only his giving bread and wine to Abra- ham and his followers, yet they applied that generally to the oblation of bread and wine that was made on the altar: but this shows, that they did not think of any sacrifice made by the offer- ing up of Christ; it was the bread and the wine only which they thought the priests of the Christian religion did offer to God. And, therefore, it is remarkable, that when the Fathers answer the reproach of the heathens, who charged them with irreligion and impiety for having no sacrifices among them, they never answer it by saying, that they offered up a sacrifice of inestimable value to God; which must have been the first answer that could have occurred to a man possessed with the ideas of the Church of Rome. On the contrary, Justin Martyr (Apol. 2) says. They had no other sacrifices but prayers and praises: and in his dialogue with Trypho he confesses, that Christians offer to God obla- tions, according to MalachFs prophecy, when they celebrate the Eucharist, in which they commemorate the Lord^s death. Both Leg. pro. Athenagoras and Minutius Felix justify the Chris- christ. tians for having no other sacrifice but pure hearts, Minut. in. ^ r • 1 • i octav. clean consciences, and a steadfast laith. (Jrigen and con.'^Ssuni. Tcrtullian refute the same objection in the same man- Tert. Apol. they set the prayers of Christians in opposition ciem. Strom, to all the sacrifices that were among the heathens. Arnoi). lib. Clemens of Alexandria and Arnobius write in the same strain; and they do all make use of one topic to justify their offering no sacrifices — that God, who made all things, and to whom all things do belong, needs nothing from his creatures. To multiply no more quotations on this head, Julian in his time objected the same thing to the Christians, which shows then that there was no idea of a sacrifice among them; otherwise he who knew their doctrine and rites, had either not denied so positively as he did their having sacrifices, or at least he had showed how improperly the Eucharist was cyr. Ai. lib. Called One. When Cyril of Alexandria, towards the X. cont. Jui. middle of the fifth century, came to answer this, he insists only upon the inward and spiritual sacrifices that were offered by Christians; which were suitable to a pure and spi- ritual essence, such as the Divinity was, to take pleasure in: and therefore he sets that in op)position to the sacrifices of beasts, birds, and of all other things whatsoever ; nor does he so much as mention, even in a hint, the sacrifice of the ART. XXXI. THE XXXIX ARTICLES. 427 Eucharist; which shows that he did not consider that as a sacri- fice that was propitiatory. Tliese things do so plainly set before us the ideas that the first ages had of this sacrament, that to one who considers them duly, they do not leave so much as a doubt in this matter. All that they may say in homilies, or treatises of piety, concerning the pure offering that, according to Malachi, all Christians offered to God in the sacrament — concerning the sacrifice, and the unbloody sacrifice of Christians — must be understood to relate to the prayers and thanksgivings that accompanied it, to the com- memoration that was made in it of the sacrifice offered once upon the cross, and finally to the oblation of the bread and wine which they so often compare both to Abel’s sacrifice, and to Melchisedec’s offering bread and wine. It w^ere easy to enlarge further on this head, and from all the rituals of the ancients to show, that they had none of those ideas that are now in the Roman Church. They had but one altar in a church, and probably but one in a city: they had but one com- munion in a day at that altar: so far were they from the many altars in every church, and the many masses at every altar, that are now in the Roman Church. They did not know what soli- tary masses were, without a communion. All the liturgies and all the writings of the ancients are as express in this matter as is possible. The whole constitution of their worship and disci- pline shows it. Their worship concluded always with the Eu- charist: such as were not capable of it, as the catechumens^ and those who were doing public penance for their sins, assisted at the more general parts of the worship ; and so much of it was called their mass, because they were dismissed at the conclusion of it. When that was done, then the faithful stayed, and did partake of the Eucharist; and at the conclusion of it they were likewise dis- missed;; from whence it came to be called the mass of the faithful, Thie great rigour of penance was thought to consist chiefly in this, that such penitents might not stay with the faithful to communi- cate. And though this seems to be a practice begun in the third century, yet both from Justin Martyr and Tertullian it is evident, that all the faithful did constantly communicate. There is a canon (Can. 9, Apost.) among those which go under the name of the Apostles, against such as came and assisted in the other parts of the service, and did not partake of the Eucharist. The same thing was decreed by the Council of Antioch; and con. An- it appears by the Constitutions, that a deacon was ‘ appointed to see that no man should go out, and a subdeacon was to see that no woman should go out, during the oblation. The Fathers do frequently lib.’S. ^ ' allude to the word communion, to show that the sacrament was to be common to all. It is true, in St. Chrysostom’s time, the 428 AN EXPOSITION OF ART. XXXI. zeal that the Christians of the former ages had to communicate often^ began to slacken; so that they had thin communions, and few communicants; against which, that Father raises himself with his pathetic eloquence, in words which do show that he had no notion of solitary masses, or of the lawfulness of them: and it is very evident, that the neglect of the sacrament in those who came not to it, and the profanation of it by those who came unworthily, both which grew very scandalous at that time, set that holy and zealous Bishop to many eloquent and sublime strains concerning it, which cannot be understood, without making those abatements that are due to a copious and Asiatic style, when much inflamed by devotion. In the succeeding ages we find great care was taken to suffer none that did not communicate to stay in the Church, and to see Dialog mysteries. There is a rubric for this in the office Cone. Mo- mentioned by Gregory the Great. The writers of the gunt. an. . century go on in the same strain. It was decreed by the Council of Mentz, in the end of Charles the Great’s reign, that no priest should say mass alone; for how could he say. The Lord be with you, or Lift up your hearts, if there was no other person there besides himself? This shows that the prac- tice of solitary masses was then begun, but that it was disliked, waiaf. ' Walfridus Strabus says, that to a lawful mass it was lubus.^^Ec- necessary that there should be a priest, together with cies. c. 22. one to answer, one to offer, and one to communicate: and the author of Micrologus, who is believed to have writ about the end of the eleventh century, does condemn solitary communions, as contrary both to the practice of the ancients and to the several parts of the office; so that till the twelfth cen- tury it was never allowed of in the Roman Church, as to this day it is not practised in any other communion. But then, with the doctrine of Purgatory and Transubstan- tiation mixed together, the saying of masses for other perso'ns, whether alive or dead, grew to be considered as a very meritori- ous thing, and of great efficacy: thereupon great endowments were made, and it became a trade. Masses were sold, and a small piece of money became their price; so that a profane sort of simony was set up, and the holiest of all the institutions of the Christian religion was exposed to sale. Therefore, we, in cutting off all this, and in bringing the sacrament to be, according to its first institution, a communion, have followed the words of our Saviour, and the constant practice of the whole Church for the first ten centuries. So far, all the Articles that relate to this sacrament have been considered. The variety of the matter, and the important con- troversies that have arisen out of it, has made it necessary to enlarge with some copiousness upon the several branches of it. ART. XXXII. TIIK XXXIX ARTICLES. 429 Next to the infallibility of the Church, this is the dearest piece of the doctrine of the Church of Rome, and is that in which both priests and people are better instructed, than in any other point whatsoever: and, therefore, this ought to be studied on our side with a care proportioned to the importance of it; that so we may govern both ourselves and our people aright, in a matter of such consequence, avoiding with great caution the extremes on both hands — both of excessive superstition on the one hand, and of profane neglect on the other; for the nature of man is so moulded, that it is not easy to avoid the one without falling into the other. We are now visibly under the extreme of neglect, and, therefore, we ought to study by all means pos- sible to inspire our people with a just respect for this holy insti- tution, and to animate them to desire earnestly to partake often of it; and in order to that, to prepare themselves seriously to set about it with the reverence and devotion, and with those holy purposes and solemn vows, that ought to accompany it. ARTICLE XXXII. OF THE MARRIAGE OF PRIESTS. Bishops, Priests, and Deacons, are not commanded by God^s Law either to vow the Estate of single Life, or to abstain from Marriage : therefore it is lawful for them, as well as for all Christian Men, to marry at their own Discretion, as they shall judge the same to serve better to Godliness. The first period of this Article, to the word therefore, was all that was published in King Edward^s time. They were content to lay down the assertion, and left the inference to be made as a consequence that did naturally arise ouf of it. There was not any one point that was more severely examined at the time of the Reformation than this; for, as the irregular practices and dissolute lives of both seculars and regulars had very much prejudiced the world against the celibate of the Roman Clergy, which was considered as the occasion of all those disorders;, so, on the other hand, the marriage of the Clergy, and also of those of both sexes who had taken vows, gave great offence. They were represented as persons that could not master their appetites, but that indulged themselves in carnal pleasures and interests. Thus, as the scandals of the unmarried Clergy had alienated the world much from them, so the marriage of most of the Reformers was urged as an ill 430 AN EXPOSITION OF ART. XXXII. character both of them and of the Reformation; as a doetrine of libertinism^ that made the Clergy look too like the rest of the worlds and involved them in the common pleasures, concerns, and passions of human life. The appearances of an austerity of habit, of a severity of life, in watching and fasting, and of avoiding the common pleasures of sense and the delights of life, that were on the other side, did strike the world, and inclined many to think, that what ill conse- quences soever celibate produced, yet that these were much more supportable, and more easy to be reformed, than the ill conse- quences of an unrestrained permission of the Clergy to marry. In treating this matter, we must first consider celibate with relation to the laws of Christ and the gospel ; and then with relation to the laws of the Church. It does not seem contrary to the purity of the worship of God, or of divine performances, that married persons should officiate in them; since, by the law of Moses, priests not only might marry, but the priesthood was tied to descend as an inheritance- in a certain family. And even the high-priest, who was to perform the great function of the annual atonement that was made for the sins of the whole Jewish nation, was to marry, and he derived to his descendants that sacred office. If there was so much as a remote unsuit- ableness between a married state and sacerdotal performances, we cannot imagine that God would by a law tie the priesthood to a family, which by consequence laid an obligation on the priests to marry. When Christ chose his twelve Apostles, some of them were married men; we are sure, at least, that St. Peter was; so that he made no distinction, and gave no preference to the unmarried : our Saviour did nowhere charge them to forsake their wives; nor did he at all represent celibate as necessary to the kingdom of heaven^ or the dispensation of the gospel. He speaks indeed of some that brought themselves to the state of eunuchs for the sake of the gospel; but in that he left all men at full liberty, by saying, Let him receive it that is able to receive it (Matt. xix. 10, 11, 12;) so that in this every man must judge of himself by what he finds himself to be. That is equally recommended to all ranks of men, as they can bear it. St. Paul does affirm, that marriage is honourable in all (Heb. xiii. 4 ;) and to avoid uncleanness, he says. It is better to marry than to burn (1 Cor. vii. 9;) and so gives it as a rule, that every man should have his own wife. Among all the rules or qualifications of bishops or priests that are given in the New Testament, particularly in the Epistles to Timothy (1 Tim. iii. 2. 4, 5. 12) and Titus, there is not a word of the celibate of the Clergy, but plain intimations to the contrary, that they were, and might be married. That of the husband of one wife is repeated in different places: mention is also made of ART. XXXII. THE XXXIX ARTICLES. 431 the ivwes and ckildren of the Clergy, rules being given concern- ing them; and not a word is so much as insinuated, importing that tliis was only tolerated in the beginnings of Christianity, but that it was afterwards to cease. On the contrary, the forbidding to marry (1 Tim. iv. 3) is given as a character of the apostacy of the latter times. We find Aquila, when he went about preaching the gospel, was not only married to Priscilla, but that he carried her about with him: not to insist on that privilege that St. Paul thought he might have claimed, of carrying about with him a sister and a ivife, as well as the other ajjostles, 1 Cor. ix. 5. And thus the first point seems to be fully cleared, that by no law of God the Clergy are debarred from marriage. There is not one word in the whole Scriptures that does so much as hint at it; whereas there is a great deal to the contrary. Marriage being then one of the rights of human nature, to which so many reasons of different sorts may carry both a wise and a good man, and there being no positive precept in the Gospel that, forbids it to the Clergy, the next question is, whether it is in the power of the Church to make a perpetual law, restraining the Clergy from marriage ? It is certain, that no age of the Church can make a law to bind succeeding ages; for whatsoever power the Church has, she is always in pos- session of it; and every age has as much power as any of the former ages had. Therefore if any one age should by a law enjoin celibate to the Clergy, any succeeding age may repeal and alter that law: for, even since the inspiration that conducted the apostles has ceased, every age of the Church may make or change laws in all matters that are within their authority. So it seems very clear, that the Church can make no perpetual law upon this subject. In the next place, it may be justly doubted whether the Church can make a law that shall restrain all the Clergy in any of those natural rights in which Christ has left them free. The adding a law upon this head to the laws of Christ, seems to assume an authority that he has not given the Church. It looks like a pretending to a strain of purity, beyond the rules set us in the gospel; and is plainly the laying a yoke upon us which must be thought tyrannical, since the Author of this religion, who knew best what human nature is capable of, and what it may well bear, has not thought fit to lay it on those whom he sent upon a commission that required a much greater elevation of soul, and more freedom from the entanglements of worldly or domestic concerns, than can be pretended to be necessary for the standing and settled offices in the Church. Therefore we conclude, that it were a great abuse of church power, 'and a high act of tyranny, for any Church, or any age of the Church, to bar men from the services in the Church, 432 AN EXPOSITION OF ART. XXXII. because they either are married, or intend to keep themselves free to marry, or not, as they please. This does indeed bring the body of the Clergy more into a combination among themselves; it does take them in a great measure off from having separate interests of their own; it takes them out of the civil society, in which they have less concern, when they give no pledges to it. And so in ages in which the papacy intended to engage the whole priesthood into its interests against the civil powers, as the immunity and exemptions of the Clergy made them safe in their own persons, so it was necessary to free them from any such encumbrances or append- ages by which they might be in the power or at the mercy of secular princes. This, joined with the belief of their making God with a few words, by the virtue of their character, and of their forgiving sin, was like armour of proof, by which they were invulnerable, and, by consequence, capable of undertaking anything that might be committed to them. But although this may well recommend such a rule to a crafty and designing body of men, in which it is not to be denied that there is a deep and refined policy; yet we have not so learned Christ, nor to handle the word of God, or the authority that he has trusted to us, deceitfully. As for the consequences of such laws, inconveniences are on both hands; as long as men are corrupt themselves, so long they will abuse all the liberties of human nature. If not only common lewdness in all the kinds of it, but even brutal and unnatural lusts, have been the visible consequences of the strict law of celibate; and if this appears so evident in history that it cannot be denied; we think it better to trust human nature with the lawful use of that in which God has not restrained it, than to venture on that which has given occasion to abomina- tions that cannot be mentioned without horror. As for the temptation to covetousness, we think it is neither so great, nor so unavoidable, upon the one hand, as those monstrous ones are on the other. It is more reasonable to expect divine assistances to preserve men from temptations, when they are using those liberties which God has left free to them, than when, by pre- tending to a purity greater than that which he has commanded, they throw themselves into many snares. It is also very evi- dent, that covetousness is an effect of men’s tempers, rather than of their marriage; since the instances of a ravenous covetousness, and of a restless ambition, in behalf of men’s kindred and families, hath appeared as often and as scandalously among the unmarried as among the married Clergy. From these general considerations concerning the power that the Church has to make either a perpetual or an universal law in a thing of this kind, I shall in the next place consider. ART. XXXII. THE XXXIX ARTICLES. 463 in shorty what the Church has done in this matter. In tlie first ages of Christianity, Basilides and Saturninus, and after them both Montanus and Novatus, and the sect of the Encratites, condemned marriage as a state of libertinism that was unbecom- ing the purity required of Christians. Against those, we find the Fathers asserted. the lawfulness of marriage to all Christians, without making a difference between the clergy and the laity. It is true, the appearances that were in Montanus and his fol- lowers, seemed to have engaged the Christians of that age to strain beyond them in those things that gave them their reputa- tion: many of Tertullian^s writings, that critics do now see, were writ after he was a Montanist, which seems not to have been observed in that age, carry the matter of celibate so high, that it is up wonder, if, considering the reputation that he had, a bias was given by these to the following ages in favour of celibate: yet it seemed to give great and just prejudices against the Christian religion, if such as had come into the service of the Church should have forsaken their wives. It is visible how much scan- dal this might have given, and what matter of reproach it would have furnished their enemies with, if they could have charged them with this, that men, to get rid of their wives, and the care of their families, went into orders; that so, under a pretence of a higher degree of sanctity, they might abandon their families. Therefore, great care was taken to prevent this. They were so far from requiring priests to forsake their wives, that such as did it, upon their entering into orders, were severely condemned by the Canons that go under the name of the Apostles. They were also condemned by the Council of Gangra in the fourth century, and by that in Trullo in the seventh age. There are some instances brought of bishops and priests, who are sup- posed to have married after they were ordained; but as there are only few of those, so perhaps they are not well proved. It must be acknowledged, that the general practice was, that men once in orders did not marry; but many bishops in the best ages lived still with their wives. So did the fathers, both of Gregory Nazianzen and of St. Basil. And among the works of Hilary of Poictiers, there is a letter, writ by him in exile to his daughter Abra, in which he refers her to her mother’s instruc- tion in those things which she, by reason of her age, did not then understand; which shows that she was then very young, and so was probably born after he was a bishop. Some proposed in the Council of Nice, that the clergy should depart from their wives; but Paphnu- tius, though himself unmarried, opposed this, as the laying an unreasonably heavy yoke upon them. Heliodorus, a bishop, the author of the first of those love-fables that are now known by the name of romances, being upon that account E E 434 AN EXPOSITION OF ART. XXXII. accused of too much levity, did, in order to the clearing himself of that imputation, move that clergymen should be obliged to live from their wives; which the historian says they were not tied to before, for till then bishops lived with their wives. So that in those days the living in a married state was not thought unbecoming the purity of the sacred functions. A single mar- riage was never objected in bar to a man^s being made bishop or priest. They did not indeed admit a man to orders that had been twice married; but even for this there was a distinction: — if a man had been once married before his baptism, and was once married after his baptism, that was reckoned only a single marriage; for what had been done when in heathenism went for nothing. And Jerome, speaking of bishops who had been twice married, but by this nicety were reckoned to be the husbands of one wife, says. The number of those of this sort in that time could not be reckoned; and that more such bishops might he found than were at the Council of Arimini. Canons grew to be frequently made against the marriage of those in holy orders; but these were positive laws made chiefly in the Roman and African Sy- nods: and since those canons were so often renewed, we may from thence conclude that they were not well kept. When Syne- sius was ordained priest, he tells, in an epistle of his, that he declared openly that he would not live secretly with his wife, as some did; but that he would dwell publicly with her, and wished that he might have many children by her. In the Eastern Church the priests are usually married before they are ordained, and continue afterwards to live with their wives, and to have children by them, without either censure or trouble. In the Western Church we find mention made, both in the Gallican and Spanish Synods, of the wives both of bishops and priests; and they are called Episcopw and Presbyterw. In the Saxon times the clergy in most of the cathedrals of England were openly married; and when Duhstan, who had engaged King Edgar to favour the monks in opposition to the married clergy, pressed them to forsake their wives, they refused to do it, and so were turned out of their benefices, and monks came in their places. Nor was the celibate generally imposed on all the clergy before Gregory the Seventh's time, in the end of the eleventh century. He had great designs for subjecting all temporal princes to the Papacy; and, in order to that, he intended to bring the clergy into an entire depend- ance upon himself, and to separate them wholly from all other interests but those of the ecclesiastical authority: and that he might load the married clergy with an odious name, he called them all Nicolaitans; though the accounts that the ancients give us of that sect say nothing that related to this matter; but a name of an ill sound. goes a great w^ay in an ART. XXXII. THE XXXIX ARTICLES. 435 ignorant age. The writers that lived near that time condemn this severity against the married clergy, as a new and a rash thing, and contrary to the mind of the holy Fathers; and they tax his rigour in turning them all out. Yet Lanfranc among us did not impose the celibate generally on all the clergy, but only on those that lived in cathedrals and in towns; he con- nived at those w^ho served in villages. Anselm carried it far- ther, and imposed it on all the clergy without exception: yet he himself laments that unnatural lusts were become then both common and public; of which Petrus Damiani made great complaints in Gregory the Seventh's time. Bernard, in a sermon preached to the clergy of France, says it was common in his time, and then even bishops with bishops lived in it. The observation that Abbot Panormitan made of the progress of that horrid sin, led him to wish that it might be left free to the clergy to marry as they pleased. Pius the Second said, that there might have been good reasons for imposing the celibate on the clergy; but he believed there were far better reasons for leaving them to their liberty. As a remedy to these more enor- mous crimes, dispensations for concubinate became so common, that, instead of giving scandal by them, they were rather consi- dered as the characters of modesty and temperance; in such concubinary priests the world judged themselves safe from practices on their own families. When we consider those effects that followed on the impos- ing the celibate on the clergy, we cannot but look on them as much greater evils than those that can follow on the leaving it free to them to marry. It is not to be denied but that, on the other hand, the effects of a freedom to marry may be like- wise bad: that state does naturally involve men in the cares of life, in domestic concerns, and it brings with it temptations both to luxury and covetousness. It carries with it too great a disposition to heap up wealth, and to raise families ; and, in a word, it makes the clergy both look too like, and live too like the rest of the world. But when things of this kind are duly balanced, ill effects will appear on both hands: these arise out of the general corruption of human nature, which does so spread itself, that it will corrupt us in the most innocent and in the most necessary practices. There are excesses committed in eating, drinking, and sleeping: our depraved inclinations will insinuate themselves into us in our best actions: even the public worship of God, and all devotion, receive a taint from them. But we must not take away those liberties in which God has left human nature free, and engage men to rules and methods that put a violence upon mankind: this is the less excusable, when we see, in fact, what the consequences of such restraints have been for many ages. E E 2 436 AN EXPOSITION OF ART. XXXII. Yet, after all, though they who marry do well, yet those who marry not do heller, provided they live chaste, and do not hum. That man who subdues his body by fasting and prayer, by labour and study, and that separates himself from the concerns of a family, that he may give himself wholly lo Ihe ministry of the word, and to prayer (Acts vi. 4;) that lives at a distance from the levities of the world, and in a course of native modesty and unaffected severity — is certainly a burning and shining light; he is above the world, free from cares and designs, from aspirings, and all those restless projects which have so long given the world so much scandal; and, therefore, those who allow them- selves the liberty of marriage, according to the laws of God and the Church, are indeed engaged in a state of many temptations, to which, if they give way, tliey lay themselves open to many censures, and they bring a scandal on the Reformation for allow- ing them this liberty, if they abuse it. It remains only to consider, how far this matter is altered by vows; how far it is lawful to make them; and how far they bind when they are made. It seems very unreasonable and tyrannical to put vows on any, in matters in which it may not be in their power to keep them without sin. No vows ought to be made, but in things that are either absolutely in our power, or in things in which we may procure to ourselves those assistances that may enable us to perform them. We have a federal right to the pro- mises that Christ has made us, of inward assistances to enable us to perform those conditions that he has laid on us; and, there- fore, we may vow to observe them, because we may do that which ma}^ procure us aids sufficient for the execution of them. But if men will take up resolutions that are not within those necessary conditions, they have no reason to promise themselves such assistances; and if they are not so absolutely masters of them- selves, as to be able to* stand to them without those helps, and yet are not sure that they shall be given them, then they ought to make no vow in a matter which they cannot keep by their own natural strength, and in which they have not any promise in the gospel that assures them of divine assistances to enable them to keep it. This is, therefore, a tempting of God, when men pre- tend to serve him by assuming a stricter course of life than either he has commanded, or they are able to go through with. And it may prove a great snare to them, when by such rash vows they are engaged into such a state of life, in which they live in eonstant temptations to sin, without either command or promise on which they can rest as to the execution of them. This is to lead themselves into temptation, in opposition to that which our Saviour has made a petition of that prayer which he himself has taught us. Out of this, great distractions of mind, and a variety of different temptations, may, and pro- ART. XXXll. 'I'llK XXXIX ARTICLKS. 437 bably will arise — and tliat the rather, because the vow is made; there l)eing' somewhat iii our natures that will always struggle the harder, because they are restrained. It is certain that every man, who dedicates himself to the service of God, ought to try if he can dedicate himself so entirely to it as to live out of all the concerns and entanglements of life. If he can maintain his purity in it, he wdll be enabled thereby to labour the more effec- tually, and may expect both the greater success here, and a fuller reward hereafter:. But because both his temj)er and his cir- cumstances may so change, that what is an advantage to him in one part of his life may be a snare -and an encumbrance to him in another part of it, he ought, therefore, to keep this matter still in his own power, and to continue in that liberty in which God has left him that so he may do as he shall find it to be most expedient for himself, and for the work of the gospel. Therefore it is to be concluded, that it is unlawful either to impose, or to make such vows. And, supposing that any have been engaged in them, more, perhaps, out of the importunity or authority of others tl^an their own choice, then, though it is certainly a character of a man that shall dwell in God^s holy hill, that though he sivears to his own hni't, yet he changes not (Psal. XV. 4,) he is to consider, whether he can keep such a vow without breaking the commandments of God, or not. If he can, then certainly he ought to have that regard to the name of God that was called upon in the vow, and to the solemni- ties of it, and to the scandals that may follow upon his breaking it, that if he can continue in that state without sinning against God, he ought to do it, and to endeavour all he can to keep his vow, and preserve his purity. But if, after he has used both fasting and prayer, he still finds that the obligation of his vow is a snare to him, and that he cannot both keep it and also keep the commandments of God; then the two obligations, that of the law of God and that of his vow, happening to stand in one anothePs way, certainly the lesser must give place to the greater. Herod’s oath was ill and rashly made, but worse kept, when, for his oath^s sake (2^Iatt. xiv. 9.) he ordered the head of John the Baptist to be cut off. Our Saviour condemns that practice among the Jews, of vowing that to the Corban or treasure of the Temple (Matt. xv. 5,) which they ought to have given to their parents, and imagining that, by such means, they were not obliged to take care of them, or to supply them. The obligation to keep the commandments of God is indis- pensable, and antecedent to any act or vow of ours, and there- fore, it cannot be made void by any vow that we may take upon us: and if we are under a vow, which exposes us to tempta- tions that do often prevail, and that probably will prevail long upon us, then we ought to repent of our rashness in making 438 AN EXPOSITION OF ART. XXXIII. any such vow, but must not continue in the observation of it, if it proves to us like the taking fire into our bosom, or the handling of pitch. A vow that draws many temptations upon us that are above our strength to resist them, is certainly much better liroken and repented of than kept. So that, to conclude, celibate is not a matter fit to be the subject either of a law or a vow; every man must consider himself, and what he is able to receive : He that marries does well, but he that marries not does better. ARTICLE XXXIII. OF EXCOMMUNICATE PERSONS, HOW THEY ARE TO BE AVOIDED. That Person which, by open Denu7icmtion of the Church, is rightly cut off from the Unity of the Church, and Excommu- nicate, ought to be taken of the whole multitude of the Faith- ful as d Heathen and a Publican: until he be openly recon- ciled by Penance, and be received into the Church by a Judge that hath Authority thereunto. All Christians are obliged to a strict purity and holiness of life, and every private man is bound to avoid all unnecessary familiarities with bad and vicious men; both because he may be insensibly corrupted by these, and because the world will be from thence disposed to think, that he takes pleasure in such per- sons, and in their vices. What every single Christian ought to set as a rule to himself, ought to be likewise made the rule of all Christians, as they are constituted in a body under guides and pastors. And as, in general, severe denunciations ought to be often made of the wrath and judgments of God against sinners; so, if any that is called a Brother, that is, a Christian, lives in a course of sin and scandal, they ought to give warning of such a person to all the other Christians, that they may not so much as eat with him, but may separate themselves from him, I Cor. v. II. In this, private persons ought to ayoid the moroseness and affectation of saying. Stand by, for I am holier than thou : if one is overtaken in a fault, then those who are spiritual ought to restore such an one in the spirit of meekness; every one con- sidering himself, lest he be also tempted. Gal. vi. 1. Excessive rigour will be always suspected of hypocrisy, and may drive those on whom it falls either into despair on the one hand, or into an unmanageable licentiousness on the other. ART. XXXIII. THE XXXIX ARTICLES. 439 The nature of all societies must import this^ that they have a power to maintain themselves according to the design and rules of their society. A combination of men, made upon any bottom whatsoever, must be supposed to have a right to exclude out of their number such as may be a reproach to it, or a mean to dissolve it: and it must be a main part of the office and duty of the pastors of the Church to separate the good from the bad, to warn the unruly, and to put from among them wicked per- sons. There are several considerations that show not only the lawfulness but the necessity of such a practice. First, that the contagion of an ill example and of bad prac- tices may not spread too far to the corrupting of others: Evil communications corrupt good manners: their doctrines will eat and spread as a gangrene (2 Tim. ii. 170 therefore, in order to the preserving the purity of those who are not yet corrupted, it may be necessary to note such persons, and to have no com- pany with them, 2 Thess. iii. 14. A second reason relates to the persons themselves that are so separated, that they may be ashamed; that they may be thus pulled out of the fire by the terror of such a proceeding, which ought to be done by mourning over them, lamenting their sins, and praying for them; Jude 23; 1 Cor. v. 2.5.7; 2 Cor. ii. 1, 2, 3. The Apostles made use even of those extraordinary powers that were given to them for this end. St. Paul delivered Hymeneeus and Alexander unto Satan, that they might learn not to blaspheme, 1 Tim. i. 20. And he ordered that the^ incest- uous person at Corinth should he delivered to Satan for the destruction of the fiesh, that the spirit might he saved in the day of the Lord Jesus. Certainly a vicious indulgence to sinners is an encouragement to them to live in sin; whereas, when others about them try all methods for their recovery, and mourn for those sins in which they do, perhaps, glory, and do upon that withdraw themselves from all communication with them, both in spirituals, and as much as may be in temporals likewise, this is one of the last means that can be used in order to the reclaiming of them. Another consideration is, the peace and the honour of the society. St. Paul wished tHat they were cut off that troubled the Churches (Gal. v. 12:) great care ought to be taken, that the name of God and his doctrine he not blasphemed, and to give no occasion to the enemies of our faith to reproach us; as if we designed to make parties to promote our own interests, and to turn religion to a faction: excusing such as adhere to us in other things, though they should break out into the most scan- dalous violations of the greatest of all the commandments of God. Such a behaviour towards excommunicated persons would also have this further good effect — it would give great 440 AN EXPOSITION OF ART. XXXIII. nuthority to that sentence, and fill men’s minds with the awe of it, which must be taken off when it is observed that men converse familiarly with those that are under it. These rules are all founded upon the principles of societies', which, as they associate upon some common designs, so, in order to the pursuing those, must have a power to separate themselves from those who depart from them. In this matter there are extremes of both hands to be avoided: some have thought, that because the Apostles have in general declared such persons to be accursed, or under an anathema, icho preach another gospel, and such as love not the Lord Jesus, to he Anathema Maranatha (1 Cor. xvi. 22;) which is generally under- stood to be a total cutting off, never to be admitted till the Lord comes; that, therefore, the Church may still put men under an anathema, for holding such unsound doctrines as they think make the gospel to become another, in part at least, if not in whole; and that she may thereupon, in imitation of another prac- tice of the Apostles, deliver them over unto Satan, casting them out of the protection of Christ, and abandoning them to the devil; reckoning that the cutting them off from the body of Christ is really the exposing them to the devil, who goes about as a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour. But with what authority soever the Apostles might, upon so great a matter as the changing the gospel, or the not loving the Lord Jesus, denounce an anathema, yet the applying this, which they used so seldom, and upon such great occasions, to every opinion, after a decision is made in it, as it has carried on the notion of the infallibility of the Church, so it has laid a foundation for much uncharitableness, and many animosities; it has widened breaches, and made them incurable; and unless it is certain that the Church which has so decreed cannot err, it is a bold assuming of an authority to which no fallible body of men can have a right. That delivery unto Satan was visibly an act of a miraculous power lodged witli the Apostles ; for as they struck some blind or dead, so they had an authority of letting loose evil spirits on some, to haunt and terrify, or to punish and plague them, that a desperate evil might be cured by an extreme remedy. And, therefore, the Apostles never reckon this among the standing functions of the Church; nor do they give any charge or directions about it. They used it themselves, and but seldom. It is true that St. Paul, being carried by a just zeal against the scandal which the incestuous person at Corinth had cast upon the Christian religion, did adjudge him to this severe degree of censure; but he judged it, and did only order the Corinthians to publish it, as coming from him with the power of our Jjord Jesus Christ ; that so the thing might become the more public, and that the effects of it might be the more conspicuous. 14ie primitive ART. XXXIII. THE XXXIX ARTICLES. 441 Church, that, being nearest the fountain, did best understand tlie nature of cliurch power, and the effects of her censures, thought of nothing, in this matter, but of denying to suffer apostates, or rather scandalous persons, to mix with the rest in the sacrament, or in the other parts of worship. They admitted tliem, upon the profession of their repentance, by an imposition of hands, to share in some of the more general parts of the wor- ship; and even in these they stood by themselves, and at a dis- tance from the rest: and when they had passed through several degrees in that state of mourning, they were by steps received back again to the communion of the Church. This agrees well with all that was said formerly, concerning the nature and the ends of church power; which ivas given for edification, and not for destruction, 2 Cor. x. 8. This is suitable to the designs of the gospel, both for preserving the society pure, and for reclaiming those who are otherwise like to be carried away by the devil in his S7iare. This is to admonish sinners as brethreyi, and not to use them as enemies: whereas the other method looks like a power that designs destruction rather than edification, especially when the secular arm is called in, and that princes are required, under the penalties of deposition and losing their dominions, to extirpate and destroy, and that by the cruellest sort of death, all those whom the Church doth so anathematize. We do not deny but that the form of denouncing or declar- ing anathemas against heresies and heretics is very ancient. It grew to be a form expressing horror, and was applied to the dead as well as to the living. It was understood to be a cut- ting such persons off from the communion of the Church: if they were still alive, they were not admitted to any act of wor- ship; if they were dead, their names were not to be read at the altar among those who were then commemorated. But as heat about opinions increased, and some lesser matters grew to be more valued than the weightier things both of law and gospel, so the adding anathemas to every point in which men differed from one another grew to be a common practice, and swelled up at last to such a pitch, that, in the Council of Trent, a whole Body of Divinity was put into canons, and an anathema was fastened to every one of them. The delivering to Satan was made the common form of excommunication; an act of apos- tolical authority being made a precedent for the standing prac- tice of the Church. Great subtilties were also set on foot con- cerning the force and effect of church censures: — the straining this matter too high, has given occasion to extremes on the other hand. If a man is condemned as an heretic, for that which is no heresy, but is an article founded on the Word of God, his conscience is not at all concerned in any such cen- sure. Great modesty and decency ought indeed to be showed 442 AN EXPOSITION OF ART. XXXIII. by private persons, when they dispute against public decisions; but unless the Church is infallible, none can be bound to impli- cit faith or blind submission. Therefore, an anathema, ill- founded, cannot hurt him against whom it is thundered. If the doctrine upon which the censures and denunciations of the Church are grounded is true, and if it appears so to him that sets himself against it, he who thus despises the pastors of the Church despises Christ; in whose name, and by whose authority, they are acting. But if he is still under convictions of his being in the right, when he is indeed in the wrong, then he is in a state of ignorance, and his sins are sins of ignorance: and they will be judged by that God, who knows the sincerity of all men^s hearts, and sees into their secretest thoughts, how far the ignorance is wilful and affected, and how far it is sincere and invincible. And as for those censures that are founded upon the proofs that are made of certain facts that are scandalous, either the person on whom they are charged knows himself to be really guilty of them, or that he is wronged either by the witnesses or the pastors and judges. If he is indeed guilty, he ought to con- sider such censures as the medicinal provisions of the Church against sin; he ought to submit to them, and to such rebukes and admonitions, to such public confessions, and other acts of self-abasement, by which he may be recovered out of the snare of the devil (2 Tim. ii. 26,) and may repair the public scandal that he has brought upon the profession of Christianity, and recover the honour of it, which he has blemished, as far as lies in him. This is the submitting to those that are over him, and the obeying them as those that watch for his soul, and that must give an account of it, Heb. xiii. 17. But if, on the other hand, any such person is run down by falsehood and calumny, he must submit to that dispensation of God’s providence that has suffered such a load to be laid upon him; he must not betray his integrity; he ought to commit his way to God, and to bear his burden patiently. Such a censure ought not at all to give him too deep an inward concern; for he is sure it is ill-founded, and, therefore, it can have no effect upon his conscience. God, who knows his innocence, will acquit him, though all the world should condemn him. He must indeed submit to that sepa- ration from the body of Christians: but he is safe in his secret appeals to God, who sees not as man sees, but judges right- eous judgment; and such a censure as this cannot be bound in heaven. In the pronouncing the censures of the Church, great care and tenderness ought to be used; for men are not to be rashly cut off from the body of Christ: nothing but a wilful obstinacy in sin, and a deliberate contempt of the rules and orders of tlie Church, can justify this extremity. Scandalous sinners may ART. XXXIII. THE XXXIX ARTICLES. 443 be brought under the medicinal cure of the Churchy and the offender may be denied all the privileges of Christians, till he has repaired the offence that he has given. Here, another extreme has been run into, by men who, being jealous of the tyranny of the Church of Rome, have thought that the world could not be safe from that, unless all church power were destroyed: they have thought, that the ecclesiastical order is a body of men bound by their office to preach the gospel, and to offer the sacraments to all Christians; but that as the gospel is a doctrine equally offered to all, in which every man must take the parti- cular application of the promises, the comforts, and the terrors of it to himself, as he will answer it to God; so they imagine, that the sacraments are in the same promiscuous manner to be offered to all persons ; and that every man is to try and examine himself^ and so to partake of them : but that the Clergy have no authority to deny them to any person, or to put marks of dis- tinction or of infamy on men; and, that therefore, the ancient discipline of the Church did arise out of a mutual compromise of Christians, who, in times of misery and persecution, sub- mitted to such rules as seemed necessary in that state of things; but that now all the authority that the Church hath, is founded only on the law of the land, and is still subject to it. So that what changes or alterations are appointed by the civil authority must take place, in bar to any laws and customs of the Church, how ancient or how universal soever they may be. In answer to this, it is not to be denied but that the degrees and extent of this authority, the methods and the management of it, were at first framed by common consent: in the times of persecution, the laity who embraced the Christian religion were to the Church instead of the magistrate. The whole concerns of religion were supported and protected by them; and this gave them a natural right to be consulted with in all the decisions of the Church. The Brethren were called to join with the Apostles and Elders in that great debate concerning the circumcision of the Gentiles, which was settled at Jeru- salem; and of such practices we find frequent mention in St. Cypriaffis Epistles : the more eminent among the laity were then naturally the patrons of the Churches ; but when the Church came under the protection of Christian princes and magistrates, then the patronage and protection of it fell to them, upon whom the peace and order of the world depended. Yet, though all this is acknowledged, we see plainly, that in the New Testament there are many general rules given for the government and order of the Church. Timothy and Titus were appointed to ordain, to admonish, and rebuke, and that before all. The body of the Christians is required to submit themselves to them, and to obey them ; which is not to be 444 AN EXPOSITION OF ART. XXXIII. carried to an indefinite and boundless degree, but must be limited to that doctrine which they were to teach, and to such things as depended upon it, or tended to its establishment and propagation. From these general heads we see just grounds to assert such a power in the pastors of the Church as is for edifi- cation^ but not for destruction; and, therefore, here is a founda- tion of power laid down ; though it is not to be denied but that, in the application of it, such prudence and discretion ought to be used, as may make it most likely to attain those ends for which it is given. A general consent, in time of persecution, was necessary; otherwise too indiscreet a rigour might have pulled down that which ought to have been built up. If in a broken state of things a common consent ought to be much endeavoured and stayed for, this is much more necessary in a regular and settled time, with relation to the civil authority under whom the whole society is put, according to its constitution. But, it can never be supposed, that the authority of the Pastors of the Church is no other tlian that of a lawyer or a physician to their clients, who are still at their liberty, and are in no sort bound to follow their directions. In particular advices, with relation to their private concerns, where no general rules are agreed on, an authority is not pretended to ; and these may be compared to all other advices, only with this difference, that the Pastors of the Church watch over the soids of their i)eople, and must give an account of them. But when things are grown into method, and general rules are settled, there the consideration of edification and unity, and of maintaining peace and order, are such« sacred obligations on every one that has a true regard for religion, that such as despise all this may be well looked on as heathens and publicans; and they are so much worse than they, as a secret and well-disguised traitor is much more dangerous than an open professed enemy. And though these words of our Saviour, of telling the Church (Matt, xviii. If;) may j^erhaps not be so strictly applicable to this matter, in their primary sense, as our Saviour first spoke them ; yet the nature of things, and the parity of reason, may well lead us to conclude, that though those words did immediately relate to the composing of private differences, and of delating intractable persons to the synagogues, yet they may be well extended to all those public offences which are injuries to the whole body; and may be now applied to the Christian Church, and to the pastors and guides of it, though they related to the synagogue when they were first spoken. It is, therefore, highly congruous, both to the whole design of the Christian religion and to many passages in the New Testa- ment, that there should be rules set for censuring oflcnders, that so they may be reclaimed, or at least ashamed, and that ART. XXXIII. THE XXXIX ARTICLES. 445 others may fear: and as the final sentence of every authority whatsoever^ must be the cutting off from the body all such as continue in a wilful disobedience to the laws of the society; so if any, who call themselves Christians, will live so as to be a reproacli to that which they profess, they must be cut off, and cast out; for if there is any sort of power in the Church, it must terminate in this. This is the last and highest act of their authority; it is like death or banishment by the civil power, which are not proceeded to but upon great occasions, in which milder censures will not prevail, and where the general good of the society requires it; so casting out being the last act of church power, like a parent’s disinheriting a child, it ought to be proceeded in with that slowness, and upon such considerations, as may well justify the rigour of it. A wilful contempt of order and authority carries virtually in it every other irregularity; because it dissolves the union of the body, and destroys that respect by which all the other ends of religion are to be attained; and, when this is deliberate and fixed, there is no other way of proceeding but by cutting off those who a^e so refractory, and who set so ill an example to others. If the execution of this should happen to fall under great disorders, so that many scandalous persons are not censured, and a promiscuous multitude is suffered to break in upon the most sacred performances, this cannot justify private persons, who upon that do withdraw from the communion of the Church: for, after all that has been said, the divine precept is to every man, to try and examine himself, and not to try and censure others. All order and government are destroyed, if private persons take upon them to judge and censure others; or to separate from any body, because there are abuses in the use of this authority. Private confession in the Church of Rome had quite de- stroyed the government of the Church, and superseded all the ancient penitentiary canons; and the tyranny of the Church of Rome had set many ingenious men on many subtle contri- vances, either to evade the force of those canons, to which some regard was still preserved, or to maintain the order of the Church in opposition to the appeals that were made to Rome; and while some pretended to subject all things to the Papal authority, others studied to keep up the ancient rules. The encroachments that the temporal and spiritual Courts were making upon one another, occasioned many disputes; which being managed by such subtle men as the Civilians and Canon- ists were, all this brought in a great variety of cases and rules into the Courts of the Church; so that, instead of the first simplicity, which was evident in the constitution of the Church, not only for the first three centuries, but for a great many 446 AN EXPOSITION OP ART. XXXIV. more that came afterwards, there grew to be so much practice, and so many subterfuges in the rules and manner of proceeding of those Courts, that the Church has long groaned under it, and has wished to see that effected which was designed in the beginnings of the Reformation. The draught of a Reformation of those courts is still extant; that so, instead of the intrica- cies, delays, and other disorders that have arisen from the canon law, we might have another short and plain body of rules, which might be managed, as anciently, by bishops, with the assist- ance of their clergy. But though this is not yet done, and that, by reason of it, ^/le tares grow up with the wheats we ought to let them grow together till the great harvest comes, or at least till a proper harvest may be given to the Church by the provi- dence of God; in which the good may be distinguished and separated from the bad, without endangering the ruin of all; which must certainly be the effect of people’s falling indiscreetly to this before the time. ARTICLE XXXIV. OF THE TRADITIONS OF THE CHURCH. It is not necessary that Traditions and Ceremonies he in all Places one, or utterly like ; for at all times they have been diverse, and may he changed according to the diversity of Countries and Merits Manners, so that nothing he ordained against God'’s Word. Whosoever through his private Judgment, willingly and purposely doth openly break the Traditions and Ceremonies of the Church, which be not repugnant to the Word of God, and be ordained and approved by common Authority, ought to be rebuked openly [that others may fear to do the like) as one that offendeth against the common Order of the Church, and hurteth the Authority of the Magistrate, and woundeth the Consciences of weak Brethren. Every particular or national Church hath Authority to ordain, change, and abolish Ceremonies or Rites of the Church, ordained only by Men’s Atithority ; • so that all things be done to edifying. This Article consists of two branches: the first is, that the Church hath power to appoint such rites and ceremonies as are not contrary to the word of God; and that private persons are bound to conform themselves to their orders: the second is, that it is not necessary that the whole Church sliould meet to determine such matters; the power of doing that being in every ART. XXXIV. THE XXXIX ARTICLES. 447 national Churchy which is fully empowered to take care of itself ; and no rule made in such matters is to be held unalterable, but may be changed upon occasion. As to the first, it hath been already considered, when the first words of the Twentieth Article were explained. There the autho- rity of the Church in matters indifferent was stated and proved. It remains now only to prove, that private persons are bound to conform themselves to such ceremonies, especially when they are also enacted by the civil authority. It is to be considered that the Christian religion was chiefly designed to raise and purify the nature of man, and to make human society perfect; now bro- therly love and charity does this more than any one virtue what- soever: it raises a man to the likeness of God; it gives him a divine and heavenly temper within himself, and creates the ten- derest union and firmest happiness possible among all the socie- ties of men. Our Saviour has so enlarged the obligation to it, as to make it, by the extent he has given it, a great and new commandment, by which all the world may be able to know and distinguish his followers from the rest of mankind: and as all the Apostles insist much upon this in every one of their Epistles, ifot excepting the shortest of them, so St. John, who writ last of them, has dwelt more fully upon it than upon any other duty whatsoever. Our Saviour did particularly intend that his fol- lowers should be associated into one body, and joined together in order to their keeping up and inflaming their mutual love; and therefore he delivered his prayer to them all, in the plural, to show that he intended that they should use it in a body: he appointed baptism as the way of receiving men into this body, and the Eu- charist as a joint memorial that the body was to keep up that of his death. For this end he appointed pastors to teach and keep his followers in a body : and in his last and longest prayer to the Father, he repeats this, that they might be one: that they might be kept in one (body,) and made perfect in one, in five several expressions (John xvii. 11. 21 — 23;) which shows both how necessary a part of his religion he meant this should be, and like- wise intimates to us the danger that he foresaw of his followers departing from it, which made him intercede so earnestly for it. One expression that he has of this union, shows how entire and tender he intended that it should be; for he prayed that the union might be such as that between the Father and himself The Apostles use the figure of a body frequently, to express this union ; than which nothing can be imagined that is more firmly knit together, and in which all the parts do more tenderly sym- pathize with one another. Upon all these considerations we may very certainly gather, that the dissolving this union, the dislocating this body, and the doing anything that may extinguish the love and charity by 448 AN EXPOSITION OF ART. XXXIV. which Christians are to be made so happy in themselves, and so useful to one another, and by which the body of Christians grows much the firmer and stronger, and shines more in the world; that, I say, the doing this upon slight grounds, must be a sin of a very high nature. Nothing can be^a just reason either to carry men to it, or to justify them in it, but the imposing on them unlawful terms of communion; for in that case it is certain, that we must obey God rather than man; that we must seek truth and peace together; and that the rule of keeping a good conscience in all things is laid thus, to do it first towards God^ and then towards man. Acts xxiv. 16. So that a schism that is occasioned by any Churches imposing unlawful terms of communion, lies at their door who impose them, and the guilt is wholly theirs. But without such a necessity, it is certainly, both in its own nature and in its consequences, one of the greatest of sins to create needless disturbances in a Church, and to give occasion to all that alienation of mind, all those rash censures, and unjust judgments, that do arise from such divisions. This receives a very great aggravation, if the civil authority has concurred by a law to enjoin the observance of such indifferent things; for to all their lawful commands we owe an obedience, not only for fear, hut for con- science sake (Horn. xiii. 5 ;) since the authority of the magistrate is chiefly to be employed in such matters. As to things that are either commanded or forbidden of God, the magistrate has only the execution of these in his hands; so that in those, his laws are only the sanctions and penalties of the laws of God. The subject-matter of his authority is about things which are of their own nature indifferent, but that may be made fit and proper means for the maintaining of order, union, and decency in the society; and, therefore, such laws as are made .by him in those things, do certainly bind the conscience, and oblige the subjects to obedience. Disobedience does also give scandal to the weak. Scandal is a block or trap laid in the way of another, by which he is made to stumble and fall. So this figure of giving scan- dal, or the laying a stumbling-block in our brother’s way, is applied to our doing of such actions as may prove the occasions of sin to others. Every man, according to the influence that his example or authority may have over others, who do too easily and implicitly follow him, becomes thereby the more capable of giving them scandal; that is, of drawing them after him to commit many sins: and since. men are under fetters, according to the persuasions tliat they have of things, he who thinks a thing sinful, does sin if he does it, as long as he is under that apprehension; because he deliberately ventures on that which he thinks offends God: even while he doubts of it, or makes a distinction between meats (for the word ren tiered doubts, signifies also the making a difference,) he is damned ART. XXXIV. THE XXXIX ARTICLES. 449 (that is, self-condemned, as acting against his own sense of things) if he does it, Rom. xiv. 23. Another man, that has larger thoughts and clearer ideas, may see that there is no sin in an action about which others may be still in doubt, and so upon his own account he may certainly do it; but if he has reason to believe that his doing that may draw others, who have not such clear notions, to do it after his example, they being still in doubt as to the lawfulness of it, then he gives scandal, that is, he lays a stumbling-block in their way, if he does it, unless he lies under an obligation from some of the laws of God, or of the society to which he belongs, to do it. In that case he is bound to obey ; and he must not then consider the consequences of his actions; of which he is only bound to take care when he is left to him- self, and is at ftill liberty to do, or not to do, as he pleases. This explains the notion of scandal, as it is used in the Epistles; for there being several doubts raised at that time, concerning the lawfulness or obligation of observing the Mosai- cal Law, and concerning the lawfulness of eating meats offered to idols, no general decision was made that went through that matter; the Apostles having only decreed, that the Mosaical Law was not to be imposed on the Gentiles: but not having condemned such as might of their own accord have observed some parts of that law, scruples arose about this; and so here they gave great caution against the laying a stumbling-block (Rom. xiv. 13) in the way of their brethren. But it is visible from this, that the fear of giving scandal does only take place where matters are free, and may be done or not done. But when laws are made, and an order is settled, the fear of giving scandal lies all on the side of obedience; for a man of weight and authority, when he does not obey, gives scruples and jea- lousies to others, who will be apt to collect from his practice that the thing is unlawful. He who does not conform himself to settled orders, gives occasion to others, who see and observe him, to imitate him in it; and thus he lays a scandal or stum- bling-block in their way ; and all the sins which they commit through their excessive respect to him, and imitation of him, are in a very high degree to be put to his account who gave them such occasion of falling. The second branch of this Article is against the unalterable- ness of laws made in matters indifferent; and it asserts the right of every national Church to take care of itself. That the laws of any one age of the Church cannot bind another, is very evident from this, that all legislature is still entire in the hands of those who have it. The laws of God do bind all men at all times; but the laws of the Church, as well as the laws of every state, are only provisions made upon the present state of things, from the fitness or unfitness that appears to be in them • F F 450 AN EXPOSITION OF ART. XXXIV. for the great ends of religion, or for the good of mankind. All these things are subject to alteration; therefore, the power of the Church is in every age entire, and is as great as it was in any one age since the days in which she was under the conduct of men immediately inspired. So there can be no unalterable laws in matters indifferent. In this there neither is nor can be any controversy. An obstinate adhering to things, only because they are ancient, when all the ends for which they were at first introduced do cease, is the limiting the Church in a point in which she ought still to preserve her liberty: she ought still to pursue those great rules in all her orders, of doing all things to edification, with decency, and for 'peace. The only question that can be made in this matter is, whether such general laws as have been made by greater bodies, by General Councils for instance, or by those Synods whose canons were received into the body of the canons of the Catholic Church; whether these, I say, may be altered by national Churches, or whether the body of Christians is so to be reckoned one body, that all the parts of it are bound to submit, in matters indifferent, to the decrees of the body in general? It is certain, that all the parts of the Catholic Church ought to hold a communion, one with another, and mutual com- merce and correspondence together: but this difference is to be observed between the Christian and the Jewish religion, that the one was tied to one nation, and to one place, whereas the Christian religion is universal, to be spread to all nations, among people of different climates and languages, and of different customs and tempers; and, therefore, since the power in indifferent matters is given the Church only in order to edification, every nation must be the proper judge of that within itself. The Roman empire, though a great body, yet was all under one government; and, therefore, all the Councils that were held while that empire stood, are to be considered only as national synods under one civil policy. The Christians of Persia, India, or Ethiopia, were not subject to the canons made by them, but were at full liberty to make rules and canons for themselves. And in the primitive times we see a vast diversity in their rules and rituals. They were so far from imposing general rules on all, that they left the Churches at full liberty: even the Council of Nice made very few rules; that of Constantinople and Ephesus made fewer: and though the abuses that were growing in the fifth century gave occasion to the Council of Chalcedon to make more canons, yet the number of these is but small; so that the tyranny of sub- jecting particular Churches to laws that might be inconvenient for them, was not then brought into the Church. The corruptions that did afterw.ards overspread the Church, togetlier with the Papal usurpations, and the new Canon Law ART. XXXIV. THE XXXIX ARTICLES. 451 that the Popes brought in, which was totally different from the old one, had worn out the remembrance of all the ancient canons; so it is not to be wondered at, if they were not much regarded at the Reformation. They were quite out of practice, and were then scarce known. And as for the subordination of Churches and Sees, together with the privileges and exemp- tions of them, these did all flow from the divisions of the Roman empire into dioceses and provinces, out of which the dignity and the dependencies of their cities did arise. But now that the Roman empire is gone, and that all the laws which they made are at an end, with the authority that made them, it is a vain thing to pretend to keep up the ancient dignities of Sees, since the foundation upon which that was built is sunk and gone. Every empire, kingdom, or state, is an entire body within itself. The magistrate has that authority over all his subjects, that he may keep them all at home, and hinder them from entering into_any consultations or combina- tions but such as shall be under his direction; he may require the pastors of the Church under him to consult together about the best methods for carrying on the ends of religion; but neither he nor they can be bound to stay for the concurrence of other Churches. In the way of managing this, every body of men has somewhat peculiar to itself ; and the pastors of that body are the properest judges in that matter. We know that the several Churches, even while under one empire, had great varieties in their forms, as appears in the different practices of the Eastern and Western Churches; and as soon as the Roman empire was broken, we see this variety did increase. The Gal- lican Churches had their missals different from the Roman; and some Churches of Italy followed the Ambrosian. But Charles the Great, in compliance with the desires of the Pope, got the Gallican Churches to depart from their own missals, and to receive the Roman: which he might the rather do, intending to have raised a new empire; to which a conformity of rites might have been a great step. Even in this Church there was a great variety of usages, which perhaps were begun under the Heptarchy, when the nation was subdivided into several kingdoms. It is therefore suitable to the nature of things, to the autho- rity of the magistrate, and to the obligations of the pastoral care, that every Church should act within herself as an entire and independent body. The Churches owe not only a friendly and brotherly correspondence in one^another, but they owe to their own body government and direction, and such provisions and methods as are most likely to promote the great ends of religion, and to preserve the peace of the society both in Church and State. Therefore we are no other way bound by ancient canons, but as, the same reason still subsisting, we may F F 2 452 AN EXPOSITION OF ART. XXXV see the same cause to continue them that there was at first to make them. Of all the bodies of the world, the Church of Rome has the worst grace to reproach us for departing in some particulars from the ancient canons, since it was her ill conduct that had brought them all into desuetude: and it is not easy to revive again anti- quated rules, even though there may be good reason for it, when they fall under the tacit abrogation which arises out of a long and general disuse of them. ARTICLE XXXV. OF HOMILIES. The Second Book of Homilies, the several Titles whereof we have joined under this Article, doth contain a godly and wholesome Doctrine, and necessary for these Times ; as doth the former Book of Homilies, which ivere set forth in the Time of Edward the Sixth : and therefore vje judge them to he read in Churches by the Ministers, ditigently and distinctly, that they may be understanded of the People. The Names of the Homilies. 1. Of the right Use of the Church. 2. Against peril of Idolatry. 3. Of repairing and keeping clean of Churches. 4. Of good Works. — First, Of Fasting. 5. Against Gluttony and Drunk- enness. 6. Against Excess of Apparel. 7 . Of Prayer. 8. Of the Place and Time of Prayer. 9. That Common Prayers and Sacraments ought to be mi- nistered in a known Tongue. 10. Of the reverent Estimation of God^s Word. 11. Of Alms-doing. 12. Of the Nativity of Christ. 13. Of the Passion of Christ. 14. Of the Resurrection of Christ. 15. Of the worthy receiving of the Sacrament of the Body and Blood of Christ. 16. O/* the Gifts of the Holy Ghost. 17* For the Rogation-days. 18. Of the state of Matrimony. 19. Of Repentance. 20. Against Idleness. 21. Against Rebellion. At the time of the Reformation, as there could not be found at first a sufficient number of preachers to instruct the whole nation, so those that did comply with the changes wliich were then made, were not all well-affected to them; so tliat it was not safe to trust this matter to the capacity of tlie one side. ART. XXXV. THE XXXIX ARTICLES. 453 and to the integrity of otliers; therefore, to supply the defects of some, and to oblige the rest to teach according to tXiQ form of sound doctrine, there were two books of Homilies prepared: the first was published in King Edward’s time; the second was not finished till about the time of his death; so it was not> published before Queen Elizabeth’s time. The design of them was to mix speculative points with practical matters; some explain the doctrine, and others enforce the rules of life and man- ners. These are plain and short discourses, chiefly calculated to possess the nation with a sense of the purity of the gospel, in opposition to the corruptions of Popery; and to reform it from those crying sins that had been so much connived at under Popery, while men knew the price of them, how to compensate for them, and to redeem themselves from the guilt of them, by masses and sacraments, by indulgences and absolutions. In these Homilies the Scriptures are often applied as they were then understood; not so critically as they have been explained since that time. But by this approbation of the two books of Homilies it is not meant, that every passage of Scrip- ture or argument that is made use of in them is always con- vincing, or that every expression is so severely worded, that it may need not a little correction or explanation: all that we pro- fess about them is only, that they contain a godly and loholesome doctrine. This rather relates to the main importance and design of them, than to every passage in them. Though this may be said concerning them, that, considering the age they were written in, the imperfection of our language, and some lesser defects, they are two very extraordinary books. Some of them are better writ than others, and are equal to anything that has been writ upon those subjects since that time. Upon the whole matter, every one who subscribes the Articles ought to read them, otherwise he subscribes a blank: he approves a book implicitly, and binds himself to read it, as he may be required, without knowing anything concerning it. This approbation is not to be stretched so far as to carry in it a spe- cial assent to every particular in that whole volume; but a man must be persuaded of the main of the doctrine that is taught in them. To instance this in one particular: since there are so many of the Homilies that charge the Church of Rome with idolatry, and that from so many different topics, no man who thinks that Church is not guilty of idolatry can with a good conscience subscribe this Article, that the Homilies contain a good and wholesome doctrine, and necessary for these times; for according to his sense, they contain a false and uncharitable charge of idolatry against a Church that they think is not guilty of it; and he will be apt to think that this was done to heighten the 454 AN EXPOSITION OF ART. XXXVI. aversion of the nation to it: therefore, any who have such favourable thoughts of the Church of Rome, are bound, by the force of that persuasion of theirs, not to sign this Article, but to declare against it, as the -authorizing of an accusation against ^ Church which they think is ill-grounded, and is, by conse- quence, both unjust and uncharitable. By necessary for these times, is not to be meant that this was a book fit to serve a turn; but only, that this book was necessary at that time to instruct the nation aright, and so was of great use then: but though the doctrine in it, if once true, must be always true, yet it will not be always of the same necessity to the people. As for instance; there are many discourses in the Epistles of the Apostles, that relate to the controversies then on foot with the Judaizers, to the engagements the Christians then lived in with the heathens, and to those corrupters of Chris- tianity that were in those days. These doctrines were necessary for that time ; but though they are now as true as they were then, yet, since we have no commerce either with Jews or Gentiles, we cannot say that it is as necessary for the present time to dwell much on those matters, as it was for that time to explain them once well. If the nation should come to be quite out of the danger of falling back into Popery, it would not be so neces- sary to insist upon many of the subjects of the Homilies, as it was when they were first prepared. ARTICLE XXXVI. OF CONSECRATION OF BISHOPS AND MINISTERS. The Book of Consecration of Archbishops and Bishops, and order- ing of Priests and Deacons, lately set forth in the time of Edward the Sixth, and confirmed at the same time by Authority of Par- liament, doth contain all things necessary to such Consecration and Ordering; neither hath it any Thing that of itself is super- stitious and ungodly. And, therefore, whosoever are Conse- crated and Ordered according to the Rites of that Book, since the Second Year of the aforenamed King Edward unto this time, or hereafter shall be Consecrated or Ordered according to the same Rites, we decree all such to be rightly, orderly, and lawfully Consecrated and Ordered. As to the most essential parts of this Article, they were already examined, when the pretended sacrament of Orders was explained; where it was proved, that prayer and imposition of hands was all that was necessary to the giving of orders; and ART. XXXVI. THE XXXIX ARTICLES. 455 tliat the forms added in the Roman Pontifical are new, and cannot be held to be necessary, since the CImrcli had subsisted for many ages before those were thought on. So that either our ordinations without those additions are good, or the Church of God was for many ages without true orders. There seems to be here insinuated a ratification of orders that were given before this Article was made; which being done (as the lawyers phrase it) ex post facto, it seems these orders were unlawful when given, and that error was intended to be corrected by this Article. The opening a part of the history of that time will clear this matter. There was a new form of ordinations agreed on by the Bishops in the third year of King Edward; and when the Book of Com- mon Prayer, with the last corrections of it, was authorized by Act of Parliament in the fifth year of that reign, the new Book of Ordinations was also enacted, and was appointed to be a part of the Common Prayer Book, In Queen Mary^s time these Acts were repealed, and those books were condemned by name. When Queen Elizabeth came to the crown. King Edward^s Common Prayer Book was of new enacted, and Queen Mary^s Act was repealed. But the Book of Ordinations was not ex- pressly named, it being considered as a part of the Common Prayer Book, as it had been made in King Edward’s time ; so it was thought no more necessary to mention that office byname, than to mention all the other offices that are in the book. Bishop Bonner set on foot a nicety, that since the Book of Ordinations w^as by name condemned in Queen Mary’s time, and was not by name received in Queen Elizabeth’s time, that, therefore, it was still condemned by law, and that, by consequence, ordina- tions performed according to this book were not legal. But it is visible, that whatsoever might be made out of this, according to the niceties of our law, it has no relation to the validity of ordinations as they are sacred performances, but only as they are legal actions with relation to our constitution. Therefore a declaration was made in a subsequent Parliament, that the Book of Ordination was considered as a part of the Book of Common Prayer; and to clear all scruples or disputes that might arise upon that matter, they by a retrospect declared them to be good; and from that retrospect in the Act of Parliament, the like clause was put in the Article. The chief exception that can be made to the form of giving orders amongst us, is . to those words. Receive ye the Holy Ghost; which as it is no ancient form, it not being above five hundred years old, so it is taken from words of our Saviour that the Church in her best times thought were not to be applied to this. It was proper to him to use them, who had the fulness of the Spirit to give it at pleasure: he made use of it in 456 AN EXPOSITION OF ART. XXXVI. constituting his Apostles the governors of his Church in his own stead; and, therefore, it seems to have a sound in it that is too bold and assuming, as if we could convey the Holy Ghost. To this it is to be answered, that the Churches, both in the East and West, have so often changed the forms of ordination, that our Church may well claim the same power of appointing new forms that others have done. And since the several functions and administrations that are in the Church are by the Apostles said to flow from one and the same Spirit, all of them from the Apostles down to the Pastors and Teachers, we may then reckon that the Holy Ghost, though in a much lower degree, is given to those who are inwardly moved of God to undertake that holy office: so that though that extraordinary effusion that was poured out upon the Apostles, was in them in a much higher degree, and was accompanied with most amazing characters; yet still such as do sincerely offer themselves up, on a divine motion, to this service, receive a lower portion of this Spirit. That being laid down, these words. Receive the Holy Ghost, may be understood to be of the nature of a wish and prayer; as if it were said. May thou receive the Holy Ghost; and so it will better agree with what follows, and be thou a faithful dispenser of the word and sacraments. Or it may be observed, that in those sacred missions the Church and Churchmen consider themselves as acting in 'the name and person of Christ. In baptism it is expressly said, / baptize in the name of the Father, &c. In the Eucharist we repeat the words of Christ, and apply them to the elements, as said by him. So we consider such as deserve to be admitted to those holy functions, as persons called and sent of God; and therefore the Church in the name of Christ sends them; and because he gives a portion of his Spirit to those whom he sends, therefore the Church in his name says. Receive the Holy Ghost. And in this sense, and with this respect, the use of these words may be well justified. ART. XXXVII. THE XXXIX ARTICLES. 457 ARTICLE XXXVII. OF CIVIL MAGISTRATES. The Queen^s Majesty hath the chief Power in this Realm of Ejigland, and other her Dominions^ under ivhom the chief Government of all Estates of this Realm, whether they he Ecclesiastical or Civil, in all Causes doth appertain, and is not, nor ought to be subject to any Foreign Jurisdiction. Where we attribute to the Queen^s Majesty the chief Government, by which Titles we understand the minds of some slanderous Folks to be offended, we give not to our Princes the ministering either of God^s Word or of the Sacraments ; the which thing the Injunctions also lately set forth by Elizabeth our Queen, do most plainly testify; but that only Prerogative ivhich we see to have been given always to all godly princes in Holy Scriptures by God himself, that is. That they should rule all Estates and Degrees committed to their charge by God, whether they be Ecclesiastical or Temporal, and restrain with the Civil Sword the stubborn and Evil-doers. The Bishop of Rome hath no Jurisdiction in this Realm of England. The Laws of the Realm may punish Christian Men with Death for heinous and grievous Offences. It is lawful for Christian Men, at the Commandment of the Magistrate, to wear weapons, and serve in the Wars. This Article was much shorter as it was published in King Edward^s time^ and did run thus: The King of England is supreme head in earth, next under Christ, of the Church of Eng- land and Ireland. Then followed the paragraph against the Pope’s jurisdiction, worded as it is now: to which these words were subjoined, The civil magistrate is ordained and allowed of God; wherefore we must obey him, not only for fear of punish- ment, but also for conscience sake. In Glueen Elizabeth’s time it was thought fitting to take away those prejudices that the Papists were generally infusing into the minds of the people against the term head; which seemed to be the more incongruous, because a woman did then reign; therefore, that was left out, and instead of it the words chief power and chief government were made use of, which do signify the same thing. The Queen did also by her Injunctions offer an explana- tion of this matter; for, whereas, it was given out by those who had complied with everything that had been done both in her 458 AN EXPOSITION OF ART. XXXVIl. father’s and in her brother’s time, but that resolved now to set themselves in opposition to her, that she was assuming a much greater authority than they had pretended to; she upon that ordered that explanation which is referred to in the Article, and is in these words. For certainly her Majesty neither doth nor ever will challenge any authority^ other than that was challenged and lately used by the said noble Kings of famous memory^ King Henry the Eighth and King Edward the Sixth, which is and was of an- cient time due to the imperial crown of this realm; that is, under God to have the sovereignty and rule over all manner of persons born within these realms, dominions and countries, of what estate, either ecclesiastical or temporal, soever they be ; so as no other foreign power shall or ought to have any superiority over them. And if any person that hath conceived any other sense of the said oath, shall accept the same oath with this interpretation, sense, or mean- ing, her Majesty is well pleased to accept every such in that behalf, as her good and obedient subjects ; and shall acquit them of all manner of penalties contained in the said Act, against such as shall peremptorily and obstinately refuse to take the same oath. Thus this matter is opened, as it is both in the Article and in the Injunctions. In order to the treating regularly of this Article, it is first to be proved. That the Pope hath no jurisdic- tion in these kingdoms : 2dly, That our Kings or Queens have it: And, 3dly, The nature and measures of this power and government are to be stated. As for the Pope’s authority, though it is now connected with infallibility, yet it was pretended to, and was advanced for many ages before infallibility was so much as thought on. Nor was the doctrine of their infallibility ever so universally received and submitted to in these western parts, as was that of their universal jurisdiction. They were in possession of it: appeals were made to them : they sent legates and bulls every- where: they granted exemptions from the ordinary jurisdic- tion ; and took Bishops bound to them by oaths, that were penned in the form of oaths and of fealty or homage. This was the first point that our Reformers did begin with, both here and everywhere else ; that so they might remove that which was an insuperable obstruction, till it was first taken out of the way, to every step that could be made toward a reformation. They laid down, therefore, this for their foundation, that all Bishops were by their office and character equal ; and that every one of them had the same authority that any other had, over that flock which was committed to his care: and, there- fore, they said, that the Bishops of Rome had no authority, according to the constitution in which the Churches were settled by the Apostles, but over the city of Rome : and that any further jurisdiction that any ancient Popes might liavc ART. XXXVII. THE XXXIX ARTICLES. 459 had, did arise from the dignity of the city, and the customs and laws of the empire. As for tlieir deriving that authority from St. Peter, it is very plain that the Apostles were all made equal to him ; and that they never understood our Saviour’s words to him as importing any authority that was given to him over the rest, since they continued to the last, while our Saviour was among them, disputing which of them should be the greatest, Matt. XX. 21. 24. 26. The proposition that the mother of James and John made, in which it is evident that they likewise concurred with her, shows, that they did not apprehend that Christ had made any declaration in favour of St. Peter; as by our Saviour’s answer it appears that he had not done, otherwise he would have referred them to what he had already said upon that occasion. By the whole history of the Acts of the Apos- tles, it appears, that the Apostles acted and consulted in com- mon, without considering St. Peter as having any superiority over them. He was called to give an account of his baptizing Cor- nelius (Acts xi. 2, 3;) and he delivered his opinion in the Coun- cil of Jerusalem, without any strain of authority over the rest. Acts XV. 7* 14. 19. St. Paul does expressly deny that the other Apostles had superiority or any jurisdiction over him ; and he says in plain words, that he was the Apostle of the uncircum- cision, as St. Peter was the Apostle of the circumcision (Gal. ii. 7, 8. 11;) and in that does rather claim an advantage over him, since his was certainly the much wider province. He withstood St. Peter to his face, when he thought that he deserved to be blamed ; and he speaks of his own line and share as being sub- ordinate in it to none : and by his saying, that he did not stretch himself beyond his own measure (2 Cor. x. 14,) he plainly insi- nuates, that within his own province he was only accountable to him that had called and sent him. This was also the sense of the primitive Church, that all bishops were brethren, colleagues, fellow-bishops : and though the dignity of that city which was the head of the empire, and the opinion of that Church’s being founded by St. Peter and St. Paul, created a great respect to the Bishops of that See, which was supported and increased by the eminent worth, as well as the frequent martyrdoms of their Bishops ; yet St. Cyprian in his time, as he was against the suffering of any causes to be carried in the way of a complaint for redress to Rome, so he does in plain words say that all De unit. the Apostles were equal in power; and that all Bishops J^^cies. were also equal; since the whole office and episcopate was one entire thing, of which every Bishop had a complete and equal share. It is true, he speaks of the unity of the Roman Church, and of the union of other churches with it; but those words were occasioned by a schism that Novatian had made then at Rome; he being elected in opposition to the rightful Bishop: 460 • AN EXPOSITION OF ART. XXXVII. SO that St. Cyprian does not insinuate anything concerning an authority of the See of Rome over other Sees^ but speaks only of their union under one Bishop, and of the other churches holding a brotherly communion with that Bishop. Through his whole Epistles he treats the Bishops of Rome as his equals, with the titles of brother and colleague. Cone. Nic. first General Council, the authority of the Can. 6. Bishops of the great Sees is stated as equal. The Bishops of Alexandria and Antioch are declared to have, accord- ing to custom^ the same authority over the churches subordinate to them, that the Bishops of Rome had over those that lay about that city. This authority is pretended to be derived only from custom, and is considered as under the limitations and decisions Ep. 12. ad of a General Council. Soon after that the Arian heresy Greg. -^a,s so Spread over the East, that those who adhered to the Nicene faith were not safe in their numbers ; and the Western Churches being free from that contagion (though St. Basil laments that they neither understood their matters, nor were much concerned about them, but were swelled up with pride,) Athanasius, and other oppressed Bishops, fled to the Bishops of Rome, as well as to the other Bishops of the West; it being natural for the oppressed to seek protection wheresoever they can find it: and so a sort of appeals was begun, and they were authorized by the Council of Sardica. But the can%.^S'. effects of this, if it should become a precedent, were ?tant Sn 3 sccond General Council; in which it was decreed, that every 'province should be governed by its own Synod; and that all Bishops should be at first judged by the Bishops of their own province; and from them an appeal was allowed to the Bishops of the diocese; whereas by the canons of Nice no appeal lay from the Bishops of the province. But though this canon of Constantinople allows of an appeal to the Bishops of every such division of the Roman empire as was known by the name of diocese, yet there is an express prohibition of any other or further appeal ; which is a plain repealing of the canon at Sardica. And in that same Council it appears upon what the dignity of the See of Rome was then believed to be founded: for Constantinople being made the seat of the empire, and called New Rome, the Bishops of that See had the same privileges given them that the Bishops of Old Rome had, except only the point of rank, which was preserved to Old Rome because Cone, chai- of the dignity of the city. This was also confirmed at ced. Can. 28. Clialcedon in the middle of the fifth century. This shows, that the authority and privileges of the Bishops of Rome were then considered as arising out of the dignity of that city, and that the order of them was subject to the authority of a General Council. ART. XXXVII. THE XXXIX ARTICLES. 4G1 Tlie African Churches in that time knew notliing conc. Afric. of any superiority that the bishops of Rome had over them: they condemned the making of appeals to them^ Bonifac. et and appointed that such as made them should be excommunicated. The Popes^ who laid that matter much to heart, did not pretend to an universal jurisdiction as St. Peter^s successors by a divine right, they only pleaded a canon of the Council of Nice; but the Africans had heard of no such canon, and so they justified their independence on the See of Rome. Great search was made after this canon, and it was found to be an imposture. So early did the See of Rome aspire to this universal authority, and did not stick at forgery in order to the compassing of it. In the sixth century, when the Emperor Mauritius continued a practice begun by some former Emperors, to give the Bishop of Constantinople the pb. iv. Ep. title of Universal Bishop, Pelage, and after him ss,’ 39 ! Lib. Gregory the Great, broke out into the most patheti- JJ; cal expressions that could be invented against it: he compared it to the pride of Lucifer; and said, that he ivho assumed it was the forerunner of Antichrist; and as he renounced all claim to it, so he affirmed, that none of his prede- cessors had ever aspired to such a power. This is the more remarkable, because the Saxons being con- verted to the Christian religion under this Pope’s direction, we have reason to believe that this doctrine was infused into this Church at the first conversion of the Saxons; yet Pope Gregory’s successor made no exceptions to the giving himself that title, against which his predecessor had declaimed so much: but then the confusions of Italy gave the Popes great advantages to make all new invaders or pretenders enlarge their privileges; since it was a great accession of strength to any party to have them of their side. The Kings of the Lombards began to lie heavy on them; but they called in the Kings of a new conquering family from France, who were ready enough to make new conquests: and when the nomination of the Popes was given to the Kings of that race, it was natural for them to raise the greatness of one who was to be their creature; so they promoted their authority; which was not a little confirmed by an impudent forgery of that time, of the Decretal Epistles of the first Popes, in which they were represented as governing the world with an universal and unbounded authority. This book was a little disputed at first, but was quickly submitted to, and the Popes went on upon that foundation, still enlarging their pretensions. Soon after that was submitted to, it quickly appeared that the pretensions of that See were endless. They went on to claim a power over Princes and their domi- nions; and that first with relation to spiritual matters. They 462 AN EXPOSITION OF ART. XXXVII. deposed them, if they were either heretics themselves, or if they favoured heresy, at least so far as not to extirpate it. From deposing they went to the disposing of their dominions to others: and at last Boniface the Eighth completed their claim; for he decreed, that it was necessary for every man to be subject to the Pope^s authority ; and he asserted a direct dominion over Princes as to their temporals, that they all were subject to him, and held their dominions under him, and at his courtesy. As for the jurisdiction that they claimed over the spiritualty, they exercised it with that rigour, with such heavy taxes and impositions, such exemptions and dispensations, and such a violation of all the ancient canons, that as it grew insupportably grievous, so the management was grossly scandalous, for everything was openly set to sale. By these practices they disposed the world to examine the grounds of that authority, which was managed with so much tyranny and corruption. It was so ill-founded, that it could not be defended but by force and artifices. Thus it appears, that there is no authority at all in the Scripture for this extent of jurisdiction thatthe Popes assumed; that it was not thought on in the first ages; that a vigorous opposition was made to every step of the progress that it made; and that forgery and violence were used to bring the world under it. So that there is no reason now to submit to it. As for the patriarchal authority which that See had over a great part of the Roman empire, that was only a regulation made conform to the constitution of that empire; so that the empire being now dissolved into many different sovereignties, the new Princes are under no sort of obligation to have any regard to the Roman constitution: nor does a nation’s receiving the faith by the ministry of men sent from any See, subject them to that See; for then all must be subject to Jerusalem, since the Gospel came to all the Churches from thence. There was a decision made in the third General Council in the case of the Cypriotic Churches, which pretended that they had been always complete Churches within themselves, and independent; therefore they stood upon this privilege, not to be subject to appeals to any patriarchal See. The Council judged in their favour. So, since the Britannic Churches were converted long before they had any commerce with Rome, they were originally independent : which could not be lost by anything that was afterwards done among the Saxons by men sent over from Rome. This is enough to prove the first point — that the Bishops of Rome had no lawful jurisdiction here among us. The second is, that Kings or Queens have an authority over their subjects in matters ecclesiastical. In the Old Tes- tament, the Kings of Israel intermeddled in all matters of religion: Samuel acknowledged Saul’s authority (1 Sam. xv. 30; xxii. 14;) and Abimelech, though the High-priest, when called ART. XXXVII. THE XXXIX ARTICLES. 463 before Saul, appeared and answered to some tilings that were ol)jeeted to him, that related to the worship of God. Samuel said in express words to Saul, that he was made the head of all the tribes (xv. 17;) and one of these was the tribe of Levi. David made many laws about sacred matters, such as the orders of the courses of the priests, and the time of their attendance at the public service. When he died, and was informing Solomon of the extent of his ai thority, he told him, that the courses of the priests and all the people were to be wholly at his command- ment, 1 Chron. xxiii. 14, 15. Pursuant to which Solomon did appoint them their charges in the service of God: and both the priests and Levites departed not from his commandment in any matter, 2 Chron. viii. 14, 15. He turned out Abiathar from the High-priesPs office; and yet no complaint was made upon it, as if he had assumed an authority that did not belong to him. It is true, both David and Solomon were men that were particularly inspired as to some things; but it does not appear that they acted in those matters by virtue of any such inspiration; they were acts of regal power, and they did them in that capacity, 2 Chron. xvii. 8, 9; x. 8, to the end. Jehoshaphat, Hezekiah, and Josiah, gave many directions and orders in sacred matters: but though the priests withstood Uzziah when he was going to offer incense in the holy place, yet they did not pretend privi- lege, or make opposition to those orders that were issued out by their kings, 2 Chron. xxvii. 16 — 19. Mordecai appointed the feast of Purim, by virtue of the authority that King Ahasuerus gave him; and both Ezra and Nehemiah, by virtue of commis- sions from the Kings of Persia, made many reformations, and gave many orders in sacred matters. Under the New Testament, Christ, by saying. Render to Caesar the things which are CaesaPs, did plainly show, that he did not intend that his religion should in any sort lessen the temporal authority. The Apostles writ to the Churches to obey magistrates, to submit to them, and to pay taxes (Rom. xiii. 6;) they enjoined obedience, whether to the King as supreme, or to others that were sent by him: every soul, without excep- tion, is charged to be subject to the higher powers, ver. 1. The magistrate is ordained of God, and is his minister to encou- rage them to do well, and to punish the evil-doers, 1 Pet. ii. 13, 14. If these passages of Scripture are to be interpreted according to the common consent of the Fathers, churchmen are included within them as well as other persons. There was not indeed great occasion to consider this matter before Constan tineas coming to the empire; for till then the Em- perors did not consider the Christians otherwise than either as enemies, or at best as their subjects at large: and, there- fore, though the Christians made an address to Aurelian in 464 AN EXPOSITION OF ART. XXXVII. the matter of Samosatenus, and obtained a favourable and just answer to it; yet in Constantine’s time, the protection that he gave to the Christian religion led him and his successors to make many laws in ecclesiastical matters, concerning the age, the qua- lifications, and the duties of the Clergy. Many of these are to be found in Theodosius and Justinian’s Code: Justinian added many more in his Novels, Appeals were made to the Emperors against the injustice of Synods; they received them, and appointed such Bishops to hear and try those causes, as hap- pened to be then about their courts. In the Council of Nice, many complaints were given to the Emperor by the Bishops against one another. The Emperors called General Councils by their sum- mons; they sate in them, and confirmed their decrees. This was the constant practice of the Roman Emperors, both in the East and in the West. When the Church came to fall under many lesser sovereignties, those Princes continued still to make laws, to name Bishops, to give investures into benefices, to call Synods, and to do everything that appeared necessary to them for the good government of the Church in their dominions. When Charles the Great was restoring those things that had fallen under much disorder in a course of some ignorant and barbarous ages, and was reviving both learning and good government, he published many Capitulars, a great part of them relating to ecclesiastical matters; nor was any exception taken to that in those ages. The Synods that were then held were for the greatest part mixed assemblies, in which the temporally and the spiritualty sate together, and judged and decreed of all matters in common. And it is certain, that such was the Sanhedrim among the Jews in our Saviour’s time; it was the supreme Court both for spirituals and temporals. In England our Princes began early, and continued long, to maintain this part of their authority. The letters that are pretended to have passed between King Lucius and Pope Eleu- therius, are very probably forgeries; but they are ancient ones, and did for many ages pass for true. Now a forgery is generally calculated to the sense of the age in which it is made. In the Pope’s letter, the King is called God^s Vicar in his king- doms, and is said to belong to his office to bring his subjects to the holy Church, and to maintain, protect, and govern them in it. Both Saxon and Danish Kings made a great many laws about ecclesiastical matters ; and after the Conquest, when the nation grew into a more united body, and came to a more settled constitution, many laws were made concerning these matters, particularly in opposition to those practices that favoured the authority that the Popes were then assuming; such as appeals to Rome, or Bishops going out of the kingdom, with- out the King’s leave. King Alfred’s laws were a sort of text ART. XXXVII. THR XXXIX ARTICLES. 465 for a great while: they contain many laws about sacred matters. The exempting of monasteries from episcopal jurisdiction was granted by some of our Kings at first. William the Conqueror, to perpetuate the memory of his victory over Harold, and to endear himself to the Clergy, founded an abbey in the field where the battle was fought, called Battle- Abbey : and in the charter of the foundation, in imitation of what former Kings had done in their endowments, this clause was put: It shall be also free and quiet for ever from all subjection to Bishops, or the dominion of any other persons. This is an Act that does as immediately relate to the authority of the Church, as any one that we can imagine. The Constitutions of Clarendon were asserted by both King and Parliament, and by the whole body of the Clergy, as the ancient customs of the Kingdom. These relate to the Clergy, and were submitted to by them all, Becket himself not excepted, though he quickly went off from it. It is true, the Papacy got generally the better of the tempo- ral authority in a course of several ages; but at last, the Popes living long at Avignon, together with the great schism that followed upon their return to Rome, did very much sink in their credit, and that stopped the progress they had made before that time ; which had probably subdued all, if it had not been for those accidents. Then the Councils began to take heart, and resolved to assert the freedom of the Church from the papal tyranny. Pragmatic sanctions were made in several nations to assert their liberty. That in France was made with great solemnity. In these, the Bishops did not only assert their own jurisdiction, independent in a great measure of the Papacy, but they likewise carried it so far as to make themselves independent on the civil authority, particularly in the point of elections. This disposed princes generally to enter into agree- ments with the Popes; by which the matter was so transacted, that the Popes and they made a division between them of all the rights and pretensions of the Church. Princes yielded a great deal to the Popes, to be protected by them in that which they got to be reserved to themselves. Great restraints were laid both on the Clergy and likewise on the See of Rome, by the appeals that were brought into the secular courts from the ordinary judgments of the ecclesiastical courts, or from the bulls or powers that legates brought with them. A distinction was found that seemed to save the ecclesiastical authority, at the same time that the secular court was made the judge of it. The appeal did lie upon a pretence that the ecclesiastical judge had committed some abuse in the way of proceeding, or in his sentence: so the appeal was from that abuse; and the secular court was to examine the matter according to the rules and laws of the Church, and not according to the principles or G G 466 AN EXPOSITION OF ART. XXXVII. rules of any other law: but upon that they did either confirm or reverse the sentence. And even those Princes that acknowledge the papal authority, have found out distinctions to put such stops to it as they please; and so to make it an engine to govern their people by, as far as they think fit to give way to it; and to damn such bulls, or void such powers, as they are afraid of. Thus it is evident, that both according to Scripture, and the practice of all ages and countries, the Princes of Christendom have an authority over their subjects in matters ecclesiastical. The reason of things makes also for this:* for if any rank of men are exempted from their jurisdiction, they must thereby cease to be subjects; and if any sort of causes, spiritual ones in par- ticular, were put out of their authority, it were an easy thing to reduce almost everything to such a relation to spirituals, that if this principle were once received, their authority would be very precarious and feeble. Nothing could give Princes stronger and juster prejudices against the Christian religion, than if they saw that the effect of their receiving it must be the withdrawing so great a part of their subjects from their authority; and the put- ting as many checks upon it as those that had the management of this religion should think fit to restrain it by. In a word, all mankind must be under one obedience and one authority. It remains that the measures and the extent of this power be rightly stated. It is certain, first, that this power does not depend upon the Prince’s religion; whether he is a Christian or not; or whether he is of a true or a false religion; or is a good or a bad man. By the same tenure that he holds his sovereignty, he holds this likewise. Artaxerxes had it as well as either David or Solomon, when the Jews were once lawfully his subjects; and the Chris- tians owed the same duty to the Emperors while heathen, that they paid them when Christian. The relations of nature, such as that of a parent and child, husband and wife, continue the same that they were, whatsoever men’s persuasions in matters of reli- gion may be: so do also civil relations, master and servant, prince and subject: they are neither increased nor diminished by the truth of their sentiments concerning religion. All persons are subject to the Prince’s authority, and liable to such punishments as their crimes fall under by law. Every soul is subject to the higher powers: neither is treason less because spoke in a pulpit or in a sermon — it may be more treason for that than otherwise it would be; because it is so public and deliberate, and is delivered in the way in which it may probably have the worst effect. So that as to persons, no great difficulty can lie in this, since every soul is declared to be subject to the higher powers. As to ecclesiastical causes, it is certain, that as the magis- trate cannot make void the laws of nature, such as the autho- ART. XXXVII. THE XXXIX ARTICLES. ' 467 rity of parents over their children, or of husbands over tlieir wives, so neither can he make void the law of God; — that is from a superior authority, and cannot be dissolved by him. Where a thing is positively commanded or forbid by God, the magistrate has no other authority but that of executing the laws of God, of adding his sanctions to them, and of using his utmost industry to procure obedience to them. He cannot alter any part of the doctrine, and make it to be either truer or falser than it is in itself; nor can he either take away or alter the sacraments, or break any of those rules that are given in the New Testament about them; because in all these the authority of God is express, and is certainly superior to his. The only question that can be made, is concerning indifferent things: for instance, in the canons or other rules of the Church, how far they are in the magistrate's power, and in what cases the body of Christians, and of the pas- tors of the Church, may maintain their union among themselves and act in opposition to his laws. It seems very clear, that in all matters that are indifferent, and are determined by no law of God, the magistrate's authority must take place, and is to be ol)eyed. The Church has no authority that she can maintain in opposition to the magistrate, but in the executing the laws of God and the rules of the gospel; in all other things, as she acts under his protection, so it is by his permission. But here a great distinction is to be made between two cases that may hap- pen: — the one is, when the magistrate acts like one that intends to preserve religion, but commits errors and acts of injustice in his management; the other is, when he acts like one that intends to destroy religion, and to divide and distract those that profess it. In the former case, everything that is not sinful of itself, is to be done in compliance with his authority; not to give him umbrage, nor provoke him to withdraw his pro- tection, and to become, instead of a nursing father, a perse- cutor of the Church. But on the other hand, when he declares, or it is visible that his design is to destroy the faith, less regard is to be had to his actions. The people may adhere to their pastors, and to every method that may fortify them in their religion, even in opposition to his invasion. Upon the whole matter, the power of the King in ecclesiastial matters among us is expressed in this Article under those reserves, and with that moderation, that no just scruple can lie against it; and it is that which all the Kings, even of the Roman communion, do assume, and in some places with a much more unlimited authority. The methods of managing it may differ a little; yet the power is the same, and is built upon the same founda- tions. And though the term head is left out by the Article, yet even that is founded on an expression of SamueFs to Saul, as was formerly cited. It is a figure; and all figures may be 4G8 AN EXPOSITION OF ART. XXXVII. used either more loosely or more strictly. In the strictest sense, as the head communicates vital influences to the whole body, Christ is the only head of his Church: he only ought to be in all things obeyed, submitted to, and depended on; and from him all the functions and offices of the Church derive their usefulness and virtue. But as head may in a figure stand for the fountain of order and government, of protection and conduct, the King or Queen may well be called the head of the Church. The next paragraph in this Article is concerning the lawful- ness of capital punishments in Christian societies. It has an appearance of compassion and charity to think that men ought not to be put to death for their crimes, but to be kept alive, that they may repent of them. Some, both ancients and moderns, have thought that there was a cruelty in all capital punishments, that was inconsistent with the gentleness of the gospel; but when we consider that God, in that law which he himself delivered to the Jews by the hand of Moses, did appoint so many capital punishments, even for offences against positive precepts, we cannot think that these are contrary to justice or true goodness; since they were dictated by God himself, who is eternally the same, unalterable in his perfec- tions. This shows that God, who knows most perfectly our frame and disposition, knows that the love of life is planted so deep in our natures, and that it has such a root there, that nothing can work so powerfully on us, to govern and restrain us, as the fear of death. And, therefore, since the main thing that is to be considered in government is the good of the whole body; and since a feeble indulgence and impunity may set mankind loose into great disorders, from which the terror of severer laws, together with such examples as are made on the incorrigible, will naturally restrain them; it seems necessary, for the preservation of mankind and of society, to have recourse ometimes to capital punishments. The precedent that God set in the Mosaical law seems a full justification of such punishments under the gospel. The charity which the gospel prescribes, does not take away the rules of justice and equity, by which we may maintain our pos- sessions, or recover them out of the hands of violent aggressors, only it obliges us to do that in a soft and gentle manner, with- out rigour or resentment. The same charity, though it obliges us, as Christians, not to keep up hatred or anger in our hearts, but to pardon, as to our own parts, the wrongs that are done us; yet it does not oblige us to throw up the order and peace of mankind, and abandon it to the injustice and violence of wicked men. We owe to human society, and to the safety and order of the world, our endeavours to put a stop to the wickedness of men; which a good man may do with great inward ART. XXXVII. THE XXXIX ARTICLES. 4(J9 tenderness to the souls of those whom he prosecutes. It is highly probable, that as nothing besides such a method could stop the progress of injustice and wickedness, so nothing is so likely a mean to bring the criminal to repent of his sins, and to fit him to die as a Christian, as to condemn him to die for his crimes: if anything can awaken his conscience, and strike terror in him, that will do it. Therefore, as capital punishments are necessary to human society, so they are often real blessings to those on whom they fall; and it may be affirmed very positively, that a man who can harden himself against the terrors of death, when they come upon him so solemnly, so slowly, and so cer- tainly, he being in full health, and well able to reflect on the consequences of it, is not like to be wrought on by a longer continuance of life, or by the methods of a natural death. It is not possible to fix rules, to which capital punishments ought to be proportioned. It is certain, that, in a full equality, life only can be set against life; but there may be many other crimes, that must end in the ruin of society, and in the disso- lution of all order, and all the commerce that ought to be among men, if they go unpunished. In this, all princes and states must judge according to the real exigencies and necessities that appear to them. Nor can any general rule be made, save only this, that since man was made after the image of God, and that the life of man is precious, and, when once extinguished it ceases for evermore, therefore all due care and tenderness ought to be had in preserving it; and since the end of government is the preservation of mankind, therefore, the lives of men ought not to be too lightly taken, except as it appears to be necessary for the preservation and safety of the society. Under the gospel, as well as under the law, the magistrate is the minister of God, and has the sword put in his hand ; which he beareth not in vain, for he is appointed to be a revenger, to execute wrath on him that doth evil, Rom. xiii. 4. The natural signification of his carrying the sword is, that he has an autho- rity for punishing capitally; since it is upon those occasions only that he can be said to use the sword as a revenger. Nor can Christian charity oblige a man, whom the law has made to be the avenger of blood, or of other crimes, to refuse to com- ply with that obligation which is laid upon him by the constitu- tion under which he is born: he can only forgive that of which he is the master, but the other is a debt which he owes the soc^sty; and his private forgiving of the wrong done himself does not reach to that other obligation, which is not in his own power to give away. The last paragraph in this Article is concerning the lawful- ness of wars. Some have thought all wars to be contrary to Christian charity, to be inhuman and barbarous; and that AN EXPOSITION OF ART. XXXVII. 470 therefore men onght^ according to the rule set us by our Saviour^ not to resist evil: but, when one injury is done, not only to bear it, but to show a readiness rather to receive new ones; turning the other cheek to him that smites us on the one: going two miles with him that shall compel us to go one with him: and giving our cloak to him that shall take away our coat, Matt. v. 39, 40. It seems just, that, by a parity of reason, societies should be under the same obligations to bear from other societies, that single persons are under to other single persons. This must be acknowledged to be a very great difficulty; for as, on the one hand, the words of our Saviour seem to be very express and full, so, on the other hand, if they are to be understood literally, they must cast the world loose, and expose it to the injustice and insolence of wicked persons, who would not fail to take advantages from such a compliance and submission. Therefore, these words must be considered, first, as addressed to private persons; then, as relating to smaller injuries, which can more easily be borne; and, finally, as phrases and forms of speech, that are not to be carried to the utmost extent, but to be construed with that softening that is to be allowed to the use of a phrase. So that the meaning of that section of our Saviour^s sermon is to be taken thus; — that private persons ought to be so far from pur- suing injuries, to the equal retaliation of an eye for an eye, or a tooth for a tooth, that they ought in many cases to bear injuries, without either resisting them, or making returns of evil for evil; showing a patience to bear even repeated injuries, when the mat- ter is small, and the wrong tolerable. Under all this, secret conditions are to be understood, such as when by such our patience we may hope to overcome evil with good; or at least to show to the world the power that religion has over us, to check and subdue our resentments. In this case, certainly we ought to sacrifice our just rights either of defence or of seeking reparation, to the honour of religion, and to the gaining of men by such an heroical instance of virtue. But it cannot be supposed that our Saviour meant, that good men should deliver themselves up to be a prey to be devoured by bad men; or to oblige his followers to renounce their claims to the protection and reparation of law and justice. In this St. Paul gives us a clear commentary on our Saviour’s words: he reproves the Corinthians /or to laio with one another, and that before unbelievers ; when it was so great a scandal to the Christian religion in its first infancy: he says. Why do not ye take wrong? Why do not ye suffer yourselves to be defrauded? 1 Cor. vi. 6, 7* Yet he does not deny but they might claim their rights and seek for redress; therefore, he pro- poses their doing it by arbitration among themselves, and only urges the scandal of suing before heathen magistrates: so that ART. XXXVII. THE XXXIX ARTICLES. 471 liis reproof did not fall on their suing one another^ but on tlie scandalous manner of doing it. Therefore men are not bound up by the gospel from seeking relief before a Christian Judge, and, by consequence, those words of our Saviour are not to be urged in the utmost extent of which they are capable. If private per- sons may seek reparation of one another, they may also seek reparation of the wrongs that are done by those who are under another obedience: and every prince owes a protection to his peo- ple in such cases; for he heareth not the sword in vain; he is their avenger. He may demand reparation by such forms as are agreed on among nations; and, when that is not granted, he may take such reparation from any that are under that obedience, as may oblige the whole body to repair the injury. Much more may he use the sword to protect his subjects, if any other comes to invade them. For this end chiefly he has both the sword given him, and those taxes paid him, that may enable him to support the charge to which the use of it may put him. And as a private man owes, by the ties of humanity, assistance to a man whom he sees in the hands of thieves and murderers, so princes may assist such other princes as are unjustly fallen upon, both out of humanity to him who is so ill used, and to repress the insolence of an unjust aggressor, and also to secure the whole neighbourhood from the efiects of success in such unlawful conquests. Upon all these accounts we do not doubt but that wars, which are thus origi- nally, as to the first occasion of them, defensive^ though in the progress of them they must be often offensive^ may be lawful, God allowed of wars in that policy which he himself consti- tuted; in which we are to make a great difference between those things that were permitted by reason of the hardness of their hearts, and those things which were expressly commanded of God. These last can never be supposed to be immoral, since commanded by God, whose precepts and judgments are altogether righteous. When the soldiers came to be baptized of St. John, he did not charge them to relinquish that course of life, but only to do violence to no man, to accuse no man falsely, and to he content with' their wages, Luke iii. 14; Acts x. Nor did St. Peter charge Cornelius to forsake his post when he baptized him. The primitive Christians thought they might continue in military employments, in which they preserved the purity of their religion entire; as appears both from Tertul- lian’s works, and from the history of Julianas short reign. But though wars, that are in their own nature only defensive, are lawful, and a part of the protection that princes owe their people; yet unjust wars, designed for making conquests, for the enlargement of empire, and the raising the glory of princes, are certainly public robberies, and the highest acts of injustice and violence possible; in which men sacrifice, to their pride AN EXPOSITION OF ART. XXXVllI. 472 or humour, the peace of the world, and the lives of all those that die in the quarrel, whose blood God will require at their hands. Such princes become accountable to God, in the highest degree imaginable, for all the rapine and bloodshed that is occasioned by their pride and injustice. When it is visible that a war is unjust, certainly no man of conscience can serve in it, unless it be in the defensive part: for though no man can owe that to his prince, to go and murder other persons at his command, yet he may owe it to his country to assist towards its preservation, from being overrun even by those whom his prince has provoked by making war on them unjustly. For even in such a war, though it is unlawful to serve in the attacks that are made on others, it is still lawful for the people of every nation to defend themselves against foreigners. There is no cause of war more unjust, than the propagating the true religion, or the destroying a false one. That is to be left to the providence of God, who can change the hearts of men, and bring them to the knowledge of the truth, when he will. Ambition, and the desire of empire, must never pretend to carry on God’s work. The wrath of man worketh not out the right- eousness of God. And it were better barefacedly to own that men are set on by carnal motives, than to profane religion, and the name of God, by making it the pretence. ARTICLE XXXVIII. OF CHRISTIAN MEn’s GOODS, WHICH ARE NOT COMMON. The Riches and Goods of Christians are not common, as touching the Right, Title, and Possession of the same; as certain Ana- baptists do falsely boast. Notwithstanding, every Man ought of such Things as he possesseth, liberally to give Alms to the Poor, according to his Ability. There is no great difficulty in this Article, as there is no danger to be apprehended that the opinion condemned by it is like to spread. Those may be for it, who find it for them. The poor may lay claim to it, but few of the rich will ever go into it. The whole charge that is given in the Scripture for charity and almsgiving — all the rules that are given to the rich, and to masters, to whom their servants were then properties and slaves — do clearly demonstrate, that the gospel was not designed to introduce a community of goods. And even that fellowship or community which was practised in the first begin- ART. XXXVlll. TllK XXXIX ARTICLES. 473 niiigs of it, was the effect of particular men’s charity, and not of any law that was laid on them. Barnabas having landy sold it and laid the price of it at the Apostles’ Acts iv. 3G, 37. And when St. Peter chid Ananias for having vowed to give in the whole price of his land to that distribution, and then with- drawing a part of it, and, by a lie, pretending that he had brought it all in; he affirmed that the right was still in him, till he by a vow had put it out of his power. When God fed his people by miracle with the manna, there was an equal distribution made; yet when he brought them into the promised land, every man had his property. The equal division of the land was the founda- tion of that constitution; but still every man had a property, and might improve it by his industry, either to the increasing of his stock, the purchasing houses in towns, or buying of estates, till the redemption at the jubilee. It can never be thought a just and equitable thing, that the sober and industrious should be bound to share the fruits of their labour with the idle and luxurious. This would be such an encouragement to those whom all wise governments ought to discourage, and would so discourage those who ought to be encouraged, that all the order of the world must be dissolved if so extravagant a conceit should be entertained.- Both the rich and the poor have rules given them, and there are virtues suitable to each state of life. The rich ought to be sober and thankful, modest and humble, bountiful and charitable, out of the abun- dance that God has given them; and not to set their hearts upon uncertain riches, but to trust in the living God, and to make the best use of them that they can. The poor ought to be patient and industrious, to submit to the providence of God, and to study to make sure of a better portion in another state, than God has thought fit to give them in this world. It will be much easier to persuade the world of the truth of the first part of this Article, than to bring them up to the prac- tice of the second branch of it. We see what particular care God took of the poor in the old dispensation, and what variety of provision was made for them; all which must certainly be carried as much higher among Christians, as the laws of love and charity are raised to a higher degree in the gospel. Christ represents the essay that he gives of the day of judgment, in this article of charity, and expresses it in the most emphatical words possible; as if what is given to the poor were to be reckoned for as if it had been given personally to Christ himself : and in a great variety of other passages this matter is so oft insisted on, that no man can resist it who reads them, ‘ and acknowledges the authority of the New Testament; It is not possible to fix a determined quota, as was done under the Law, in which every family had their peculiar allot- AN EXPOSITION OF ART. XXXIX, 474 ment, which had a certain charge^ specified in the Law that was laid upon it. But under the gospel, as men may be under greater inequalities of fortune than they could have been under the old dispensation; so that vast variety of men^s circum- stances makes that such proportions as would be intolerable burdens upon some, would be too light and disproportioned to the wealth of others. Those words of our Saviour come pretty near the marking out every man^s measure : These have of their abundance cast into the offerings of God ; hut she of her penury hath cast in all the living that she had, Luke xxi. 4. Abundance is superfluity in the Greek, which imports that which is over and above the food that is convenient (Prov. xxx. 8 ;) that which one can well spare and lay aside. Now, by our SaviouPs design, it plainly appears that this is a low degree of charity when men give only out of this : though, God knows, it is far beyond what is done by the greater part of Christians ; whereas that which is so peculiarly acceptable to God is when men give out of their penury, that is, out of what is necessary to them ; when they are ready, especially upon great and crying occasions, even to pinch nature, and straiten themselves within what upon other occasions they may allow themselves ; that so they may distri- bute to the necessities of others who are more pinched, and are in greater extremities. By this every man ought to judge him- self, as knowing that he must give a most particular account to God of that which God hath reserved to himself, and ordered the distribution of it to the poor, out of all that abundance with which he has blessed some far beyond others. ARTICLE XXXIX. OF A CHRISTIAN MAn’s OATH. As we confess that vain and rash Sivearing is forbidden Chris- tian Men by our Lord Jesus Christ, and James his Apostle ; so we judge that the Christian Religion doth not prohibit but that a Man may swear when a, Magistrate requireth, in a Cause of faith and Charity, so it he done according to the Prophefs teaching, in Justice, Judgment, and Truth. An oath is an appeal to God, either upon a testimony that is given, or a promise that is made, confirming the truth of the one, and the fidelity of the other. It is an appeal to God, who knows all things, and will judge all men; so it is an act that acknowledges both his omniscience, and his being the ART. XXXIX. THE XXXIX ARTICLES. 475 Governor of this worlds who will judge all at the last day accord- ing to their deeds, and must be supposed to have a more immediate regard to such acts in which men made him a party. An appeal, truly made, is a committing the matter to God: a false one is an act of open defiance, which must either suppose a denial of his knowing all things, or a belief that he has forsaken the earth, and has no regard to the actions of mortals; or, finally, it is a bold venturing on the justice and wrath of God, for the serving some present end, or the gaining of some present advan- tage: and which of these soever gives a man that brutal confi- dence of adventuring on a false oath, we must conclude it to be a very crying sin ; which must be expiated with a very severe repentance, or will bring down very terrible judgments on those who are guilty of it. Thus, if we consider the matter upon the principles of natural religion, an oath is an act of worship and homage done to God, and is a very powerful mean for preserving the justice and order of the world. All decisions in justice must be founded upon evidence; two must be believed rather than one; therefore, the more terror that is struck into the minds of men, either when they give their testimony, or when they bind themselves by promises, and the deeper that this goes, it will both oblige them to the greater caution in what they say, and to the greater strict- ness in what they promise. Since, therefore, truth and fidelity are so necessary to the security and commerce of the world, and sinee an appeal to God is the greatest mean that can be thought on to bind men to an exactness and strictness in everything with which that appeal is joined; therefore, the use of an oath is fully justified upon the principles of natural religion. This has spread itself so universally through the world, and began so early, that it may well be reckoned a branch of the law and light of nature. We find this was practised by the Patriarchs: Abimelech reckoned that he was safe, if he could persuade Abraham to swear to him by God that he would not deal falsely with him ; and Abraham consented so to sw’ear, Gen. xxi. 23, 24. Either the same Abimelech, or another of that name, desired that an oath might be between Isaac and him; and they sware one to another, chap. xxvi. 31. Jacob did also swear to Laban, chap, xxxi. 53. Thus we find the Patriarchs practising this before the Mosaieal Law. Under that law we find many covenants sealed by an oath; and that was a sacred bond, as appears from the story of the Gibeonites. There was also a special constitution in the Jewish religion, by which one in authority might put others under an oath, and adjure them either to do somewhat, or to declare some truth. The law w^as, that lohen any soul (i. e. man) sinned, and heard the voice of swearing (adjuration,) and was a witness whether he hath seen it, or AN EXPOSITION OF ART. XXXIX. 476 known it, if he do not utter it, then he shall bear his iniquity (Lev. V. 1;) that is, he shall be guilty of perjury. So the form then was, the judge or the parent did adjure all persons to declare their knowledge of any particular. They charged this upon them with an oath or curse, and all persons were then bound by that oath to tell the truth. So Micah came and confessed, upon his mother’s adjuration, that he had the eleven hundred shekels for which he heard her put all under a curse; and upon that she blessed him. Judges xvii. 2. Saul, when he was pursuing the Philistines, put the people under a curse if they should eat any food till night (1 Sam. xiv. 24. 28. 44;) and this was thought to be so obligatory, that the violation of it was capital, and Jonathan was put in hazard of his life upon it. Thus the High- priest put our Saviour under the oath of cursing, when he required him to tell whether he was the Messias or not? Matt, xxvi. 63, 64. Upon which our Saviour was, according to that law, upon his oath; and though he had continued silent till then, as long as it was free to him to speak or not at his pleasure, yet then he was bound to speak, and so he did speak, and owned himself to be what he truly was. This was the form of that constitution ; but if, by practice, it were found that men’s pronouncing the words of the oath them- selves, when required by a person in authority to do it; and that such actions as their lifting up their hand to heaven, or their laying it on a Bible, as importing their sense of the terrors con- tained in that book, were like to make a deeper impression on them than barely the judge’s charging them with the oath or curse; it seems to be within the compass of human authority to change the rites and manner of this oath, and to put it in such a method as might probably work most on the minds of those who were to take it. The institution in general is plain, and the making of such alterations seems to be clearly in the power of any state, or society of men. In the New Testament we find St. Paul prosecuting a discourse concerning the oath which God sware to Abraham, having a greater to swear by, swore by himself (Heb. vi. 13, 14, 15;) and to enforce the importance of that, it is added, an oath of con- firmation (that is, for the affirming or assuring of anything) is the end of all controversy (ver. 16:) which plainly shows us what notion the author of that Epistle had of an oath; he did not con- sider it as an impiety or profanation of the name of God. In St. John’s visions an angel is represented as lifting up his hand, and swearing by him that liveth for ever and ever (Rev. X. 5, 6;) and the Apostles, even in their Epistles, that are acknowledged to be writ liy divine inspiration, do frequently appeal to God in these words, God is ivitness (Rom. i. 1); Gal. i. 20;) which contain the whole essence of an oath. Once Si. ART. XXXIX. THE XXXIX ARTICLES. 477 Paul carries the expression to a form of imprecation, when he calls God to record upon (or against) his soul, 2 Cor. i. 23. These seem to be authorities beyond exception, justifying the use of an oath upon a great occasion, or before a competent authority; according to that prophecy quoted in the Article, which is thought to relate to the times of the Messias — And thou shalt swear, The Lord liveth in truth, in judgment, and in right- eousness: and the nations shall bless themselves in him, and in him shall they glory, Jer. iv. 2. These last words seem evidently to relate to the days of the Messiah: so here an oath religiously taken is represented ag a part of that worship which all nations shall olFer up to God under the new dispensation. Against all this the great objection is, that when Christ is correcting the glosses that the Pharisees put upon the law, whereas they only taught that men should not forswear them- selves, hut perform their oaths unto the Lord: our Saviour says, Stvear not at all: neither by the heaven, nor the earth, nor by Jerusalem, nor by the head: but let your communication he yea, yea, and nay, nay: for whatsoever is more than these cometh of evil. Matt. v. 34 — 37. And St. James, speaking of the endur- ing afflictions, and of the patience of Job, adds. But above all things, my brethren, swear not: neither by the heaven, neither by the earth, neither by any other oath: but let your yea be yea, and your nay, nay : lest ye fall into condemnation, James v. 12. It must be confessed, that these words seem to be so express and positive, that great regard is to be had to a scruple that is founded on an authority that seems to be so full. But according to what was formerly observed of the manner of the judiciary oaths among the Jews, these words cannot belong to them. Those oaths were bound upon the party by the authority of the judge; in which he was passive, and so could not help his being put under an oath ; whereas our Saviour’s words relate only to those oaths which a man took voluntarily on himself, but not to those under which he was bound according to the law of God. If our Saviour had intended to have forbidden all judiciary oaths, he must have annulled that part of the authority of magistrates and parents, and have forbid them to put others under oaths. The word communication, that comes afterwards, seems to be a key to our Saviour’s words, to show that they ought only to be applied to their communication or commerce; to those discourses that pass among men, in which it is but too customary to give oaths a very large share. Or since the words that went before, concerning the performing of vows, seem to limit the discourse to them, the meaning of Swear not at all may be this: be not ready, as the Jews were, to make vows on all occasions, to devote themselves or others. Instead of those, he requires them to use a greater simplicity in their communi- 478 AN EXPOSITION OF THE XXXIX ARTICLES. ART. XXXIX. cation. And St. Jameses words may be also very fitly applied to this, since men in their afflictions are apt to make very indis- creet vows, without considering whether they either can, or pro- bably will pay them ; as if they would pretend by such profuse vows to overcome or corrupt God. This sense will well agree both to our Saviour^s words and to St. Jameses; and it seems most reasonable to believe that this is their true sense, for it agrees with everything else: whereas, if we understand them in that strict sense of condemn- ing all oaths, we cannot tell what to make of those oaths which occur in several passages of St. Paul’s Epistles; and least of all what to say to our Saviour’s own answering upon oath, when adjured. Therefore all rash and vain swearing, all swearing in the communication or intercourse of mankind, is certainly con- demned, as well as all imprecatory vows. But since we have so great authorities from the Scriptures in both Testaments for other oaths, and since that agrees so evidently with the prin- ciples of natural religion, we may conclude with the Article, that a man may swear when a magistrate requireth it. It is added, in a cause of faith and charity; for certainly, in trifling matters, such reverence is due to the holy name of God, that swearing ought to be avoided; but when it is necessary, it ought to be set about with those regards that are due to the great God who is appealed to. A gravity of deportment, and an exactness of weighing the truth of what we say, are highly necessary here; certainly, our words ought to be few, and our hearts full of the apprehensions of the majesty of that God with whom we have to do, before whom we stand, and to whom we appeal, who knows all things, and will bring every work to judgment^ with every secret thing, whether it he good, or whether it he evil. I N D E X. A Abraham, the possibility of a tradition from Adam to him, 85. The occasion and design of a revelation to him, ibid. Absolute decrees. See Decrees. Absolution, in what sense it ought to be pronounced, 324. The bad effects of the hasty absolutions of the Church of Rome, 335. As used in the Church of England, is only declaratory, 337. This agreeable to the practice of the primitive Church, ibid. A prayer used in the Church of Rome after absolution, 338. This does not mend it, ibid. When this practice was introduced, ibid. Abstinence. See Fasting. Action, whether God is the first and immediate cause of every action, 38. What it is that denominates an action good or bad, 159. Distinction between those that are universally binding on all, and such as bind only some sort of men, 164. The judgments to be made of them from appearances, ibid. Acts of the Apostles, when and by whom wrote, 70. Acts, no successive acts in God, 30. Adam, wherein the image of God, in which he was created, con- sisted, 132, 133. Wtoher the death he was threatened with was only natural, 130. 133. Whether by covenant he was constituted to represent all his posterity, 136. Of the propagation of his sin, 137. See Original Sin. Adoration, God only the proper object of it, 55. What it is, ibid. Christ proposed in the New Testament as the object of it, ibid. Ought not to be given to any creature, 56. See Host. Adultery, on the part of the wife, dissolves marriage, 343. This agreeable both to the law of nature and the Gospel, ibid. And to the practice of the primitive Church, 344. The contrary doc- trine of a modern date, ibid. Agobard, Bishop of Lyons, wrote with great vehemence against the worship of images, 280. Ahab, his feigned humiliation rewarded, 159. Air greatly improved by the industry of man, 35. Almaric expressly denied the corporal presence, 408. Is condemned by the Lateran Council, and his body raised and burnt on that account, ibid. Almsgiving, a main part of charity, 336. See Charity. Altar, but one in a church among the primitive Christians, 427. Ambassador, his extensive power, 326. 480 INDEX. Ambrose, the variation of that prayer of consecration which goes under his name from that used in the mass, 401. Ananias, wherein the guilt of his sin lay, 473. Anathemas, the form of denouncing them against heretics very ancient, 441. What was meant by them, ibid. A great number of them denounced by the Council of Trent, ibid. Those ill- founded cannot hurt, 442. See Censures. Angels, good or bad, are capable of doing many things beyond our reach, 73. Are perfect moral agents, and yet cannot sin, 141. Worshipping them expressly forbid in the New Testament, 292. Invocation of them disclaimed in the first ages of Christianity, ibid. Animal spirits, their subtile nature, 40. Their influence on our managing matter, 73. Receive their quality from that of the blood, 133. Are the immediate organs of thought and subtiler parts of the blood, 143. A conjecture how they may excite thought, 145. Annihilation only in the power of God, 35. A common mistake about it rectified, ibid. Created beings have not a tendency to it, ibid. Antiquity not a note of the true Church, 219. Apocrypha. The Christian Churches were for some ages strangers to these books, 104. Were first mentioned by Athanasius, 105. Where and by whom wrote, ibid. Were left out of the canon by the Council of Laodicea, ibid. Were first received into it by that of Trent, 106. Were always denied to be a part of it by the best and most learned writers, ibid. See Maccabees. Apostles were not the authors of the Creed which goes by their name, 2. 128. How far they complied with Judaism, 8. 242. The difficulties they met with in propagating Christianity, 71. Could not be impostors, 72. Nor imposed on, 74. Their being endowed with extraordinary inspiration, no argument for a succes- sion of infallibility, 253. Of the powers with which our Saviour sent them, 301. Were not constituted Priests by our Saviour’s words. Do this, in the Sacrament, 417. Did not derive their authority from St. Peter, being all equal to him, 459. Apparitions, there are many histories of them well attested, 41. To disbelieve all unreasonable, ibid. Apollinarian heresy, what it was, 396. Was confuted by many great men of different ages, ibid. Aquarii, those who used water instead of wine in the sacrament, 419. Their reason for so doing, ibid. Are severely condemned by St. Cyprian, ibid. Aquinas, Thomas, his notion of providence and free-will, 182. His distinction to avoid making God the author of sin, ibid. His doctrine concerning image-worship, 281. Arians, their opinion that Christ is a creature of a spiritual nature, 58. Councils decree differently concerning this, 248. Arminians, their opinions of free-will and predestination, 178. Were condemned by the Synod of Dort, 185. The occasion of their becoming the distinction of a party instead of doctrinal points, ibid. See Remonstrants. NDEX. 481 Artemon held the same opinion of Christ as the Socinians, 58. Articles of the Church of England, objections against them, 1. Rea- sons for their descending to so many particulars, 5. The funda- mental Article of the Reformation, ibid. How or by whom the Articles were prepared, ibid. What the sanction of public autho- rity to them implies, 6. Whether they are Articles of Peace only, or of doctrine, ibid. To the laity, only Articles of Church Com- munion, 7. Distinction between Articles of Faith and Articles of Doctrine, ibid. What the Clergy are bound to by their sub- scriptions, 8. A royal declaration to end disputes about this matter, 9. May have different senses, ibid. This illustrated by the Third Article, ibid. Care taken to settle the true reading of them, 10. Collations of them with MSS., 11 — 17. Difficulty arising from the various readings cleared, 18. Express words of Scripture for each Article not necessary, 89. Several differences of the present from those published in King Edward’s reign, 65, 106, 107, 309,429. The latitude of the Articles, 8, 208, 307. Fundamental Articles ought not to be too strictly determined, 221. The moderation of the Articles, 9, 140, 141, 209, 364, 467. Assistance, ’the doctrine of inward assistances proved from Scripture, 143. How they are conveyed to us, 145. The effect of them, ibid. Athanasius, his account of the books of the Old Testament, 105. And those of the Apocrypha, ibid. Was not author of the Creed which goes by his name, 126. The condemnatory clauses of it. explained, 127. Atheists, their objections to the argument, from the consent of man- kind, for the being of God, answered, 19. Their arguments for the eternity of the world considered, 22. That for its being made by chance answered, 24. Their objections to miracles answered, 25. The notion that the world is a body to God the foundation of Atheism, 29. Attrition, an imperfect contrition, 333. The doctrine of the Church of Rome concerning it, ibid. See Contrition. Augsburg confession of faith, on what occasion it was prepared, 5. Augustin, or Austin, his doctrine of original sin, 136. And of reprobation, ibid. Hated Pelagianism, 180. Wherein he differed from the Sublapsarians, 181. Speaks very doubtfully concerning the state of the soul after death, 264. A famous passage about his mother Monica referred to, 265. His extraordinary relations of miracles not to be credited, 287. His declaration against invo- cation of Saints, 294. Thought that all who were baptized were regenerated, 362. His rule concerning figurative expressions, 387. Auricular Confession. See Confession. Authority of the books of the Old Testament, 87, 97. That of the New, 93, 94. That of the Apocrypha disproved, 105. That of the Church in religious matters not absolute, 215. In relation to ceremonies, 237. Distinction between that which is founded on infallibility and an authority of order, 241. Lawful authority in the Church, what it is, 305. Is subject to the law of the land, 443. H H 482 INDEX. The highest act of their authority, 445. That of the Pope, 458, 459. Of the King in ecclesiastical matters, 462, 466. See Pope, King, Church. B. Baitulia, the least ensnaring of all idols, 273. Baptism, what it is, 44. The danger of delaying it till death, 173. What gave rise to this practice, ibid. What necessary to make it true and valid, 221. That by laics and by women not null, though irregular, 223. The obligation baptism brings us under, 224. Bap- tism no new thing among the Jews in our Saviour’s time, 356. Its institution as a federal act was by Christ, 357. Wherein the Christian differs from that of St. John, 358. What meant by being born of water and of the Spirit, 359. It is a precept, but not a mean necessary to salvation, ibid. The ends and purposes of it, 360. The bad consequences of maintaining the absolute necessity of it, 362. How it becomes effectual to salvation, ibid. Wherein it agrees with circumcision, 364. Baptism of infants most agreeable to the institution of Christ, 366. And to the practice of circumcision under the Old Testament, ibid. Why the office for baptizing infants is the same with that for persons of riper age, ibid. Reasonableness of changing the form to sprink- ling, 418. Basil, St. his opinion of the souls of the martyrs, 288. Beasts are not mere machines, 40. May have spirits of an inferior order, ibid. Begetting, the natural meaning of it, 49. What understood by it when spoken of the Son of God, is beyond our present comprehension, 50. Beginning, what meant by it in the first of St. John’s Gospel, 50. Begotten, and born of God, the meaning of these expressions, 172, 174. Berengarius, his character, 407. Opposed the doctrine of the cor- poral presence, ibid. Had many followers, ibid. Binding and loosing, that power granted equally to all the Apostles, 235. What the Jewish writers meant by it, 236. Bishops, the declaration of their faith was at first in very general terms, 2. Which they sent round them, 3. What obliged them afterwards to make fuller declarations, ibid. A succession of them no certain note of a true Church, 220. Why confirmation was in the earliest ages reserved for the Bishop only, 320. No instruc- tions of celibacy given them in the New Testament, 430. Many of them in the best ages were married, 433. Of their conse- cration, 454. Are all equal by their office and character, 459. Authority of those in great Sees only from custom, 460. See Pope. Blood, a probable conjecture about the natural state of it, 133. Its influence on the animal spirits, ibid. Body, of the state of our Saviour’s body from his death to his resur- rection, 76. Whether it put on a new form in his ascension, 77. Glorified bodies arc of a different texture from those of flesh and blood, 419. See Resurrection. INDEX. 483 Boniface VIII. Pope, claimed a feudatory power in temporals over princes, 231. Brain, the influence of its disorder upon the mind, 40. Our thoughts are governed by impressions made on it, 142.' Bread in the Sacrament, in what sense the body of Christ, 370. When dipping it in the wine became a practice, 420. This con- demned by the Council of Bracara, ibid. C. Calf, golden, what intention the Israelites had in making it, 274. The design of those calves set up by Jeroboam, ibid. See Idolatry, Calvinists, how far they agree with St. Austin about predestination, 181. The peculiar advantages and disadvantages of their opinions on this subject, 204. See Supralapsarians. Canon. See Scriptures. Canons of the Church, what respect due to them for antiquity, 451. The new canon law different from the old, 450. Ancient canons little regarded by the Reformers, ibid. Were brought into desue- tude by the Church of Rome, 452. Cassian, his doctrine concerning predestination, 180. Is opposed and defended by several, ibid. His Collations were in great esteem, 181. Catholic, not a note of the true Church, 219. Celibacy of the Clergy, no rule for it in the Gospel, 430. Not in the power of the Church to order it, 431. The political advan- tages of it, 432. When and by whom it was first introduced, 433. The practice of the Church not uniform in it, 434. Was not imposed on all the Clergy till the end of the eleventh century, ibid. The good and bad consequences of it, 432, 435. Vows not lawful in this matter, 436. And are not binding, though made, 437. See Oath. Censures of the Church, how to behave under them, 442. What right the Laity have to be consulted in them, 443. Are agreea- ble to the design of Christianity, 444. Defects in them no just cause of separation, 445. Popery introduced a great variety of rules concerning them, ibid. A farther reformation in these still wanted, 4.46. Century, the great ignorance that prevailed in the tenth century, 406. Ceremonial law was not designed to be perpetual, 113. The design of its institution, 118, 119. Is now abolished, as become useless and impossible, 119. Ceremonies, the Church has power to appoint them, 238. The prac- tice of the Jewish Church in this matter, ibid. Changes in them sometimes necessary, ibid. The practice of the Apostles, 239. When appointed, ought to be observed if lawful, 241, 447. Cau- tions to be observed in appointing them, 241. Unity among Christians, a great reason for observing them, 447. Cerinthus denied the divinity of Christ in the earliest age of Chris- tianity, 52. Chalice. See Cup. H H 2 484 INDEX. Chance, the absurdity of maintaining that the world was made by it, 23. An argument for this opinion answered, 24. Charity and brotherly love, their great usefulness in the Christian religion, 447. Charity to the poor, of the extent of it, 163. What renders it acceptable to God, 336. Is more particularly recom- mended by the Gospel, 473. Our Saviour’s rule concerning the measure of it, 474. Charles the Great, a council in his time, and books published in his name against image-worship, 280. Introduced the Roman missal into the Galilean Church, 451. Published many Capitulars con- cerning ecclesiastical matters, 464. Cherubims that were in the holiest of all, no argument for image- worship, 283. Children, of their parents’ power over them, 364. In what sense they are said to be holy, 366. Chinese, their alleged antiquity without foundation, 23. Chrism used by the Church of Rome in confirmation, what it is, 321. Might only be consecrated by the Bishop, ibid. Was applied by Presbyters in the Greek Church, 322. Great disputes about it, 323. Christ in two respects the Son of God, 49. In what sense of one substance with the Father, 50. Proofs of his divinity, 50 — 59. This was early denied by Ebion and Cerinthus, 52. Was the Creator of all things, 50. Has all the names, operations, and attributes of God given him, 53. Is proposed in the New Testament as the object of divine worship, 55. This not charged as idolatry by the Jews at that time, 56. The Jews understood this part of our religion in a manner consistent with their former ideas, 57. What those were, ibid. The Arian and Socinian hypothesis concerning him, 58. Is not to be worshipped as an angel or prophet, but as truly God, 59. Took on him the nature of man, ibid. The two natures united in one person, ibid. The design of using the term Person, 60. That there shall be an end to his mediatorial office, 61. But not to his personal glory, ibid. Of the certainty and design of his death, ibid. It was not merely in confirmation of his doctrine, and a pattern of suffering, 62. Atoned for more than Adam’s sin, 63. In what sense his death is said to be our sacrifice, ibid. His agony explained, ibid. The reconciliation made by his death not absolute, and without condi- tions, 64. Of his descent into hell, 65. When and by whom this Article was introduced, ibid. Several different opinions about this, 66, 67. What seems to be the true meaning of it, 68. Proof of his resurrection depends on the authority of the New Testa- ment, 69. Several circumstances concurring to prove it, 69, 74. His ascension not capable of so full a proof, 76. This depends chiefly on the testimony of the Apostles and effusion of the Holy Ghost, ibid. His resurrection was brought about by a miracle, ibid. Curiosity about the manner of it taxed, ibid, flow it may be said he was three days in the grave, 77. The intention of Ills staying forty days after on earth, ibid. Of the manner of INDEX. 485 his ascension, ibid. The great authority with which he is vested, 78. Of his glorious appearance at the last day, ibid. Whether he was the Mediator of the old as well as the new dispensation, 114. His death applied to those who are incapable of expressly laying hold of it, 118. His death the only cause of our justifica- tion, 153. Christ alone was without sin, 168. Of the efficacy and extent of his death, 155, 190. Is our only Mediator in point of intercession as well as redemption, 291. Why he chose to suffer at the time of the Passover, 369. He is the only priest, and his death the only sacrifice, under the Gospel, 425. Christianity gives much purer ideas of God than the Mosaic dispen- sation, 55. The foundation of, 153. Does not lessen the tem- poral authority, 463. Raises the laws of love and charity to a high degree, 473. Does not condemn all oaths, 477. Christians are not exempt from capital punishment for great crimes, 469. In what case may engage in war, 471. Or go to law, ibid. Are not obliged to have their goods in common, 472. May swear on important occasions, 476. Chronology, the diversity of it no sufficient objection to the autho- rity of the Scriptures, 99. Chrysostom, St., mentions nothing of relics, 288. Denies that any miracles were wrought in his time, ibid. Condemns auricular confession, 330. Church ought to proportion her rules of communion and censure to those of the Gospel, 174. Of its authority to establish doctrines, 215. What a true Church is, 222, 226. May be visible, though not infallible, 226. Of her power in appointing ceremonies, 237, 238. And in matters of faith, 236. Can make no new terms of sal- vation, 243. The meaning of Christ’s words Tell the Churchy &c. 252. How the Church is the pillar and ground of truth, ibid. There was to be an authority in the Church, 302. What it is, 305'. The order settled by the Apostles, was for succeeding ages, 303. Every Church an independent body, 45 1 . The respect due from one Church to another, ibid. Wherein her authority in opposition to the civil magistrate consists, 467. Church of Rome owns the positive doctrines of the Church of England, 5. Its tyranny in imposing its doctrines, 8. Their opinions concerning the Scriptures and traditions confuted, 84. Leave the second commandment out of their Catechism, 124. Maintain that original sin is quite taken away by baptism, 135. The consequence of this, ibid. Their doctrine concerning the remission of sins, 151. The use of the Sacraments, 152. And the sufficiency of inherent holiness for justification, ibid. What they call a good work, 157. What they teach concerning the love of God, 162. Their doctrine of supererogation confuted, 165. Their distinction of mortal and venial sin, 165. Just preju- dices against its infallibility, 216 — 236. Their notes of a true Church, 219. These do not agree to their Church, 220. Have erred not only in their living and ceremonies, but in matters of faith also, 227. The influence of the Popes on the canons, cere- 486 INDEX. monies, and government of the Church, ibid. Is guilty of a circle, 218, 244. The absurdity of this, ibid. Their doctrine concern- ing Purgatory, 255. See Purgatory, Concerning pardons, 269. Of indulgences, 270. Of image-worship, 271. Of worshipping of relics, 285. Of the invocation of saints and angels, 291. Of worship in an unknown tongue, 312. Of their five additional Sacraments, 319. Of the intention of the Priest being necessary to the essence of a Sacrament, 354. Of Tran substantiation, 380. Of withholding the cup from the Laity, 416. Of the sacrifice of the Mass, 424. Of the celibacy of the Clergy, 429. Church of England and Rome, wherein they agree, and wherein of different opinions, 129. Answer to the question. Where was your Church before Henry VIII ? 226. See Articles^ Authority. Circumcision, why not necessary to be continued, 113. Of infants under the Old Testament, an argument for infant baptism under the New, 366. Claud of Turin wrote with vehemence against image-worship, 280. Clergy, the import of their subscription to the Articles, 9. Their marriage made an argument against the Reformation, 429. This not contrary to the purity of divine performances, 430. Those in England were married in the Saxon times, 434. Are subject to their Princes in ecclesiastical matters, 462, See Celibacy, Councils. Commandments, or moral law, the nature of it, 121. The two first against idolatry, 122. The morality of them, ibid. The third against not only vain and idle, but false swearing, ibid. The morality of this, 123. The fourth, in what sense moral and rea- sonable, ibid. The rigour of it abated by our Saviour, ibid. These four distinct commandments, 124. Why this division is preferred to that of the Church of Rome, ibid. The order of the second table, ibid. The fifth and tenth, how they are the fences of the intermediate four, ibid. In what sense the last is moral, 125. Of the obligation of this law upon Christians, ibid. Communion of the body and blood of Christ, the meaning of it explained, 378. Concomitance, no sufficient argument for communion only in one kind, 418. Confession of sins, the Scripture account of it, 325. Auricular con- fession not necessary, 327. No authority for it in Scripture, 328. Nor from the practice of the primitive Christians, ibid. The first occasion and progress of it, 329. Gave great scandal at Con- stantinople, ibid. How far the power of the Church extends in this matter, 331. The good and bad effects of it, ibid. Ought to be no law of the Church, because not a law of God, 332. The bad effects of it in the Church of Rome, 332, 445. Confession of adversaries, not a note of the true Church, 220. Confirmation a very ancient practice, and justifiable as used in the Church of England, 319. Reasons why it is no Sacrament, 321. The form of it in the Church of Rome, ibid. Whether tlie Bishop only should confirm, 322. Great disputes about tliis, 323. INDEX. 487 Consecration, the effect of it in the Eucharist, according to the doc- trine of the Church of Rome, 381. The virtue of it depends on the intention of the Priest, 382. By whom a bell was ordered to be rung at the consecration, 404. It was an opinion that the Lord’s prayer was at first the prayer of consecration, 421. Consequences of opinions ought not to be charged as tenets, 205. Constance, Council of, its decree for withholding the cup from the laity, 421. The absurdity of it, and cruelty used to establish it, 422. Constantia, the legend concerning her great respect for Hilarion’s body, 287. Constantinople, Council, made no new additions to the Creed, 3. Said that the Holy Ghost proceeded from the Father only, 81. Condemned image-worship, 279. Consubstantiation, what the Lutherans mean by it, 409. Their doctrine confuted, ibid. Ought not to dissolve the union of Churches where adoration is not joined with it, 410. Contrition, the definition of it, 333. Wherein the Church of Rome make it differ from attrition, ibid. Their doctrine concerning it liable to great abuse, 334. Corporal presence, how the doctrine concerning it came into the Church, 401. The progress of it, 403 — 408. See Transubstan- tiation. Covenant, whether God made one with Adam for his posterity, 136. The tenor of the New Covenant, 174. Covetousness, the precept against it not moral in the strictest sense, 125. Not a crime more peculiar to the married than the unmar- ried Clergy, 432. Councils cannot be called without the consent of Princes, 245. Popes were not always consulted, 246. Have assumed the power of censuring, depriving, and making Popes, ibid. What makes a Council to be general, 247. The numbers necessary, and how cited, ibid. Not of divine institution, because no rules in Scrip- ture concerning them, ibid. Several arguments against their infallibility, 248 — 254. They have been contrary to one another, 248. Disorders and intrigues in Councils, 249. No General Councils pretended in the* first three centuries, 251. No prospect of another General Council, 252. Of the decree of the Council of Jerusalem, 253. Some General Councils have erred, 254. Doc- trines are not to be believed on their authority, 255. Creation imports infinite power, 34, 50. The nearest approach to a true idea of it, 35, 50. Is ascribed to Christ in the New Testa- ment, 54. Creeds were at first conceived in general terms, 2. That which goes by the name of the Apostles’ not made by them, 2, 128. What probably was the first, 2. The occasion of their being enlarged, 3. Those of Nice and Constantinople, ibid. None of the three Creeds named with exactness, 126. That of Nice is the Constantinopolitan, ibid. That of Athanasius not made by him, ibid. That said to be the Apostles’, of no great antiquity, 128. 488 INDEX. Cross, a prayer used in the consecration of a cross, 282. Crucifixion of Christ, and his death owned by all Christians, 61. Denied by the Docetae and Mahomet, ibid. Cup, or Chalice, in the Sacrament, ought to he given to the Laity, 416. This particularly enjoined in the words of institution, ibid. Not to the Clergy only, as Priests, 417. This the practice for above a thousand years, 419. The insufficiency of concomitance and other arguments advanced against it, 418 — 420. Cyprian owned not the infallibility of Pope Stephen, 228. Made the effect of a Sacrament to depend on the good state of the administrator, 352. D. Damnation, to eat and drink their own damnation explained, 476. Damnation sometimes means temporary punishments, 377. Daniel, his prophecy of the Seventy Weeks explained. 111. Death might have been the natural consequence of Adam’s fall, 133. This not to be restrained to a natural death, 134. How this might he transmitted to his posterity, ibid. Prayers for the dead an early practice in the Church, 265. What gave rise to it, ibid. Tertullian’s opinion about it, ibid. The absurdity of masses for the dead, 266. The method of commemorating eminent saints in the primitive times, 267. Death-bed repentance, the trusting to it a fatal error, 173, 335. Decrees of God have been the subject of many disputes, 9, 121. The foundation of the doctrine of absolute decrees, 137. This seems contrary to the nature of God, 138. And exposes the Christian religion, ibid. Upon what views God formed his decrees concerning mankind, 177. Four opinions concerning them, 178. Decretal Epistles of the first Popes, with what view published, 229. Are universally held spurious, ibid. Was a forgery of the eighth century, contrived with little art, 403. Delivery unto Satan, an effect of the extraordinary power of the Apostles, 439, 440. Dipping in Baptism, the danger of it in cold climates, a good reason for sprinkling, 418. The custom of dipping the bread in the wine in the Lord’s Supper, when introduced, 420. Was con- demned by the Council of Bracara, ibid. Discipline in the Church, the nature and necessity of it, 355, 438. That of the primitive Church lay heaviest on the Clergy, 355. Moderation ought to be observed in it, 438. Divorce lawful in case of adultery, 343. Our Saviour’s rule in this case, 344. This agreeable to the opinion of the Fathers, ibid. The contrary was not established till the Council of Trent, ibid. Docetse, a sect that denied the death of Christ, 61. Doctrine, the difference between Articles of Faith and those of doctrine, 7. The tyranny of imposing doctrines, 8. Confor- mity of doctrines with former times not a note of a true Church, 219. INDEX. 489 Donatists, their notions concerning the Sacraments, 352. Dulia and Hyperdulia, degrees of worship paid to images in the Church of Rome, 282. Durandus was censured by the Church of Rome for his opinion of image-worship, 281. E. Earth is greatly improved by man’s industry, 35. The influence of the wind upon it, 36. See World. Eating and drinking their own damnation, the meaning of the phrase, 476. Opinions of several Fathers concerning eating and drink- ing Christ’s body and blood, 414. Ebion denied the divinity of Christ very early, 52. Edward VI., differences of the Articles in his reign from the present, 106, 107, 255, 309, 314, 467, 429, 453, 457. Egyptians, their alleged antiquity without foundation, 23. Elders, who they were at the Council of Jerusalem, 253. Election, of Election and Predestination, 176. See Predestination. Elevation of the host not known in the first ages, 392, 413. What gave rise to it, 392. Was not done at first in order to adoration, 413. Who first mentions it with that view, ibid. Elliberis, Council of, condemned pictures on the walls of churches, 278. Forbid the lighting candles about the tombs of martyrs in day-light, 288. Elizabeth, Queen, gives authority to require subscriptions to the Articles, 9. A royal declaration for taking them in the literal sense, ibid. Her Injunctions concerning supremacy, 457* Elohim, the meaning of it in the Old Testament, 42. Emperors, their authority in ecclesiastical affairs, 464. Endowments were procured by impostures in the Church of Rome, 268. By what means the profuseness of them was restrained, ibid. When they are to be held sacred, ibid. The violation of them, when founded on false opinions, no sacrilege, ibid. Enthusiasts, an extravagant sort of them at the Reformation, 113. Ephesus, Council, their decree concerning the Holy Ghost, 81. Epicureans set all things at liberty, and denied Providence, 179. Epiphanius, his zeal against pictures in churches, 278. Is severe upon the Collyridians for worshipping the blessed Virgin, 297. Epistles, why the general ones were not so early and universally received as the rest of the New Testament, 94. Erudition, a book published called the Necessary Erudition, a pre- liminary to compiling the Articles, 6. Eternity in a succession of determinate durations impossible, 22. Of the world disproved, 23. See World. Eucharist, in what sense it may be called a sacrifice, 422. The virtue of it, to whom limited, 424. The doctrine of the Church of Rome concerning it, ibid. VTierein the virtue of it consists, 425. The importance of the controversy concerning it, 428. See Lord's Supper. 490 INDEX. Eugenius, Pope, does not mention Bishops as belonging to the sacra- ment of orders, 340. Evil, whether God is the author of it, 37. The being of it in the world, how accounted for by the Remonstrants, 197. Liberty cannot be asserted without it, 205. Evil spirits, what sort of miracles they can perform, 73. Eunapius, his spiteful representation of the primitive martyrs, 289. Eutychian heresy was condemned by the Athanasian Creed, 126. What it was, 396. Was confuted by several ancient writers, ibid. The force of their argument explained, 397. Excommunication, the nature of it, and its necessity in some cases, 438, 444. Ought not to be done rashly, 445. Extreme unction no sacrament, 345. A passage in St. James, which seems to favour it, explained, ibid. The design and effects of the anointing by the Apostles and Elders, 346. The matter and form of it used in the Church of Rome, 347. Was not reckoned a sacrament in the first ages of Christianity, 349. When and by whom decreed to be one, 350. Argument for it answered, ibid. F. Fabri Honoratus, the doctrines of the Church of Rome examined in this book, chiefly taken from him, 341. His character, ibid. Faith, the Scriptures the only and complete rule of it, 83. No articles of it to be allowed, but what are proved from Scripture, 89. An objection against this answered, ibid. What is meant by it in the New Testament, 149. How it justifies, 153. Is indispensably necessary to salvation, 154, 360. The nature of justifying faith, 154. Fall of Adam, of its consequences to him and his posterity, 130 — 139. See Sin. Fasting, times of fasting, appointing them in the power of the Church, 239. When joined with prayer, its efficacy, 336. In what cases of no avail, ibid. The absurdity of pretending to expiate sins by it, 337. Fate, the Stoics put all things, even the gods themselves, under it, 179. This downright atheism, ibid. Was maintained by the Es- senes, 179. Isa prevailing opinion among the Mahometans, ibid. Figures in Scripture, how to be explained, 103. Were frequently made use of by Christ, 374. Augustine’s rule for explaining them, 387. Fire of purgatory, the proof alleged for it examined, 263. Forgiving injuries, the necessity and extent of it, 173. Forms were settled very early in most Churches, 2. These not all in the same words, ibid. See Creed, Francfort, Council, condemned the Nicene Council, together with the worship of images, 279. Free-will, wherein it consists, 141. See Liberty. INDEX. 491 Frumentius preached to the Indians before he was ordained, 308. Future state was looked for under the Old Testament, 117. But is brought to a much clearer light by the Gospel, 118. G. Gehenna, hell known by that name among the Jews, 68. Gelasius, Pope, condemns the communicating in one kind only as sacrilege, 420. General Council. See Council. Gentiles, their prejudices against Christianity, 72. German and Lupus reform Britain from Pelagianism, 181. A legen- dary miracle said to be wrought by them, ibid. Gnostics pretended to traditions from the Apostles, 88. Their opi- nion concerning the soul, 179. Were detested by all Christians for idolatry, 278. God, his existence proved from the universal consent of mankind, 19. Objections, that some nations do not believe a Deity, and -that it is not the same belief amongst them all, answered, 20. The visible world, and history of nations, prove a Deity, 21 — 23. Whence the notion of a plurality of gods might take its rise, 21. The argument from miracles considered, 25. And from the idea of God, ibid. This not the most conclusive, ibid. Must be eter- nal, and necessarily exists, 26. His existence ought not to be proved from Scripture, ibid. His unity proved from the order of the world, and from the idea of infinite perfection, 27. From the Scriptures, ibid. Is without body or parts, 28. The origin of the notion of a good and bad God, 29. The world not a body to God, ibid. The outward manifestations and bodily parts ascribed to God in Scripture, how to be understood, ibid. No successive acts in God, 30. Question concerning his immanent acts, ibid. Is without passions, 31. The meaning of Scriptures which ascribe these to him, ibid. Is of infinite power, ibid. Objections to this answered, 32. Wherein his wisdom consists, and a twofold distinction of it, ibid. True ideas of his goodness of great importance, 33. Wherein it consists, ibid. And how limited, 34. Has a power of creating and annihilating, 32, 35. Is the preserver of all things, 35. This a consequence of his being infinitely perfect, ibid. Objection against his provi- dence answered, 37. Whether he does immediately produce all things, 38. Or is the author of evil, ibid. All agree that the Father is truly God, 47. Just notions of him the fundamental article of all religion, 47, 121. The best manner of framing an idea of him, 122. Is the only proper object of adoration, 54. In what sense called the God of Abraham, &c. long after they were dead, 116. Image of God in which man was created, wherein it consisted, 132. Distinction between the methods of his goodness and the strictness of his justice, 159. The doc- trine of the Church of Rome concerning our love of God, 162. His view in forming his decrees, 177. What meant by his 492 INDEX. hardening Pharaoh’s heart, 201. The impiety of speaking too boldly of him, 205. Goods, the unreasonableness of a community of them, 472. Good works. See Works. Gospel condemns all idolatry, 55. The design of it, 71. Refines upon the law of Moses, 122. Government was settled in the Church by the Apostles, 303. The necessity of Church government, 304. Grace, assisting and preventing grace asserted and proved from Scripture, 143 — 147. A probable conjecture concerning the conveyance of actual grace, 145. The efficacy and extent of it, 147, 187, 189, 202. Greek Church, wherein they differed from the Latins, 82. Gregory I. Pope, condemns worshipping of images, 279. Gregory II. declares for them, ibid. Gregory IX. first ordered the adora- tion of the host as now practised, 404. Gregory the Great, his violent opposition to the title of Universal Bishop, 461. H. Head of the Church, in what sense Christ is the only head of the Church, 468. And in what sense the King is called the head, ibid. Hebrews, why the authority of the Epistle to them was doubted, 94. Proofs of its authority, ibid. Heliodorus, a Bishop, author of the first romance, 433. Proposed that clergymen should live from their wives, 434. Hell, three different senses of it, 10. Of Christ’s descent into hell, 65. See Christ. The gates of hell shall not prevail against the Church, the meaning of this, 234. Henry VIII., several steps towards reformation, and the foundation of the Articles, were laid in his time, 5. Heresies occasioned the enlargment of Creeds, 3. Heretics, several of them pretended to traditions from the Apos- tles, 88. When the doctrine of extirpating them took place, 407. Hezekiah commended for breaking the Brazen Serpent, 286. Hilarion, a fabulous story of his body and tomb, 287. Hobbes grafted fate and absolute necessity on the supralapsarian hypothesis, 185. Holiness of life, not a note of the Church, 220. A twofold sense of holiness in Scripture, 366. Holy Ghost, or Holy Spirit, what meant by it in the Old and New Testament, 79. Is properly a distinct person in the Tri- nity, 80. Curiosities about his procession to be avoided, ibid. Decrees of several Churches and Councils about it, 81. The doc- trine of the Church of England concerning it 82. Is truly God, ibid. His testimony not a sufficient argument to prove the canon of the Scriptures, 92. Of the sin against the Holy Ghost, 171, 174. It seemed good to the Holy GhosU to us, the meaning of this, 253. Of the form, Receive ye the Holy Ghost, in ordination, 455. INDEX. 493 Homilies of the Church of England, their names, 452. When and on what account they were composed, ibid. The meaning of the approbation of them, 453. Ought to be read by all who subscribe them, ibid. The meaning of their being said to be necessary for these times, 454. Honorius, Pope, was condemned as a Monothelite, 228. The IVth first appointed the adoration of the host, 404. Host, adoration of it, by whom first introduced, 404. Is plain idolatry, 410. Argument for it answered, ibid. Reserving, carrying it about, and the elevation of it, without foundation in Scripture or primitive practice, 411, 413. Huss, John, met with great cruelty from the Church of Rome, 422. I. James I., King, his declaration concerning the subscription of the Articles, 9. Jansenius published a system of St. Austin’s doctrine, 183. On what account this book was condemned at Rome, 184. Iberians were converted by their King before he was baptized, 308. Idolatry, the necessity of guarding against it at the establishment of Christianity, 4. What makes it a great sin, 34, 122. The Jews were particularly jealous of everything that savoured of it, 51. The design both of the Jewish and Christian religion were to banish it, 55. By what means the seed of Abraham were preserved from it, 85. The nature and immorality of it, 122, 273. General rules concerning it, 272. Several kinds of it among the Heathens, ibid. Was very strictly prohibited among the Jews, 273. This owing chiefly to the Egyptian idolatry, ibid. The expostulations of the Prophets against it, ibid. How practised by the Israelites, 274. Is contrary to the nature and perfections of God, 276. St. Paul condemns the idolatry of the Greeks and Romans, ibid. The refined notions of the Athenians con- cerning it, ibid. Was much condemned by the writers of the first four centuries, 277. Idols, enchantment in sacrifices offered to them, 379. Christians not to partake of them, ibid. Jehu rewarded, though acting with a bad design, 159. Jerome, St., once admired but afterwards opposed Origen’s doctrine, 180. Maintained that no Christian would finally perish, 263. Set a high value on relics, 285. But disclaims the worshipping of them, ibid. Said that the souls of the saints might be in several places at once, 289. Jerom of Prague suffered cruelly by the Roman Catholics, 422. Jesuits, wherein they differed from the Semipelagians, 183. What gave them great merit at Rome, ibid. Jews, their aversion to idolatry and Christianity, 51. Did not charge Christianity with idolatry, 56. Their notions of God, 57. Their notion of the state of the soul after death, 68, 261. Expected the IMessias to be a conqueror, 72, 87. Were always rebellious, 97. Wherein the Jewish and Christian religions 494 INDEX. differed from those of the Heathen, 99. Their objections against the authority of the New Testament, 113. Looked for more than transitory promises, 117. Believed that some sins cannot he expiated by sacrifices, ibid. Of their ceremonial, judiciary, and moral laws, 118, 120, 121. Imagined that the souls of all man- kind were in Adam’s body, 139. The distinguishing points of the Jewish from the Christian religion, 191. Their religion had a period fixed to it, 226. Had many rites not mentioned in the Old Testament, 238. Fell into great errors, though the keepers of the Oracles of God, 243. Believe that every Jew shall have a share in the world to come, 262. They prayed only to God, 291. Of the office of their High-priest, 307. Had their worship in a known tongue, 310. Their authority over ‘their children, 364. Were strictly prohibited the . eating of blood, 371. Their objec- tions to Christianity, 391. Images, the worshipping even the true God by them expressly forbid- den, 274. In churches, when introduced, 278. Great debates about them, 279. Foundation of image-worship laid by the Council of Nice, 281. Is carried much farther by the modern Church of Rome, ibid. Those of the Egyptians and Chinese less . scandalous, ibid. The decision of the Council of Trent in this matter, 282. Reason for enlarging on this subject, ibid. The argument in favour of them drawn from the cherubims answered, 283. The sum of the arguments against them, ibid. The cor- ruptions occasioned by worshipping them, 284. Immaterial substance, proof of its being in us, 39. Its nature and operations, ibid. Objections against it answered, ibid. There may be other intellectual substances which have no bodies, 41. These beings were created by God, and are not rays of his essence, ibid. Imposition of hands a necessary rite in giving orders, 339. Indulgences, the doctrine and practice of the Church of Rome con- cerning them, 269. When introduced and established, ibid. The abuse of them gave rise to the Reformation, ibid. The pre- tences for them examined, 270. No foundation for them in Scripture, or in the first ten centuries, ibid. The natural ill ten- dency of them, ibid. See Pardons. Industry of man of great advantage to the earth and air, 35. Infallibility, proofs of it ought to be very express, 215. Is not to be inferred from the necessity of it, 216. General considerations against it, ibid. Miracles, though necessary, not pretended to support it, 217. The Jewish had a better claim to it than the Roman Church, ibid. Reasons why it cannot be proved from Scripture, ibid. A circle not to be admitted, 218. Notes of the Church no proof of it, 219. Argument against the infallibility both of Popes and General Councils, 231. Proofs from Scrip- ture answered, 234. The importance of this controversy, 236. No determination where it is fixed, 249. Infants are by the law of nature and nations in the power of their parents, 364. Argument from circumcision for infant baptism, ibid. This agreeable to the institution of Christ, 366. INDEX. 495 Infinite, time nor number cannot be infinite, 22. Difference betwixt an infinite succession of time and composition of matter, ibid. Injuries, our Saviour’s words concerning them explained, 470. Innocent I., Pope, his Epistle advanced to favour the chrism, does not prove it, 348. The Vlllth granted license to celebrate the Lord’s Supper without wine in Norway, 418. The IVth said that all might have the cup who were cautious that none of it was spilt, 421. Insects, the arguments for chance from the production of them con- sidered, 24. Insjhration, a general notion of it, 101. Several kinds and degrees of it, ibid. Different styles in those degrees, 102. Distinguished from enthusiasm and imposture by miracles and prophecy, ibid. Of individual words, or strict order of time, not necessary, 103. John, St., the passage concerning the Trinity in his first Epistle doubtful, 46. The beginning of his Gospel explained, 50. This confirmed by the state of the world at that time, 51. Jonas of Orleans wrote against image-worship, 280. Josephus, his account of the books of the Old Testament, 104. Josias, what those books of the law were which were discovered in . his time, 98. Irenaeus, his care to prove the authority of the Gospel, 93. Judgment, private, ought to be allowed in religious matters, 224. Julian the Apostate, though he reproaches the Christians for Baptism, does not charge them with the absurdities of Transubstantiation, 391. Objected that the Christians had no sacrifices, 426. Just, or justified, two senses of these words, 148. Justification, several mistaken notions of it, 1 1 3. Whence they pro- ceeded, 114. The law of Moses not sufficient to justify, 148. The condition of our justification, 149, 151. The difference between St. Paul and St. James on this subject explained, 150. Inherent holiness not the cause of justification, 152. What we ought to believe concerning it, and the proper use to be made of this doctrine, 155. K. Keys, of the power of them committed to St. Peter, 235. Kingdom of Heaven, what meant by it in the Gospel, 235. Kings, their authority founded on Scripture, 462. And practice of the primitive Church, 463. This does not depend on their religion, 466. Cannot make void the laws of God, 467. King of England declared head of the Church, 457. This claimed very early by them, 464. Kiss of Peace, a practice of the apostolic times, why let fall, 239. L. Laity were of great use to the Church in times of persecution, 443. Had a right to be consulted in the decisions of the primi- tive Church, ibid. How far required to submit to the Clergy, 444. 49G INDEX. Languages, the gift of them to the Apostles a strong proof of Christianity, 70. Laodicea, Council, their catalogue of the canonical books, 105. Why the hook of the Revelation was not in it, ibid. Condemned those who invocated angels, 293. Latria, a degree of religious worship, the doctrine and practice of the Church of Rome concerning it, 281, 282. Laud, Archbishop, falsely accused with corrupting the doctrine of the Church, 18. Espoused the Arminian tenets, 185. Law, not binding the consciences of those of a different persuasion, 6. In what sense the laws of the Jews are said to be statutes for ever, 113. Why not always observed, ibid. Errors that flowed from mistaking the word Law in the New Testament, 114. The design of the ceremonial law, 118. It is now abrogated, 119. Judiciary laws of the Jews belonged only to them, 120. What is meant by the moral law, ibid. Laws of the Church in matters indifferent are not unalterable, 449. Lay administrations in the Church not lawful, 301 — 304. Lay baptism, how introduced, 361. Liberius, Pope, condemned Athanasius, and subscribed to Semi- arianism, 228. Liberty, several opinions about it, 141. Wherein it consists, 142. The notions of the Stoics, Epicureans, Philosophers, and Jews, concerning it, 179. That of the Fathers, 179, 180. What coaction is consistent with it, 191. The Remonstrants’ notion of it, 197. Several advantages and temptations that attend the different opinions, 204. See Predestination. Lie, what is the lowest, and what the highest act of that kind, 271. Limbus Infantum, a supposed partition in hell for children that die without baptism, 137. Limbus Patrum, what, 67. Without foundation in Scripture, ibid. Lombard, Peter, the first that reckons seven sacraments, 319. Lord’s Supper, the change made in the Article concerning it in Queen Elizabeth’s reign, 368. The importance of the contro- versy with the Chuch of Rome concerning it, 368, 380. The words of the institution explained, 369 — 374. The design of it, 375. Who are unworthy receivers of it, 376. The danger of this, 376, 413. Of the good effects of worthy receiving, 377* What meant by the communion of the body and blood of Christ, 378. Of receiving it in both kinds, 416. Lucifer, the common notion of his sin, 53. Lucretius owns that the world had a beginning, 23. His argument for chance from the production of insects, answered, 24. Luther, what determined him to embrace St. Austin’s opinions, 182. Whether he asserted free-will, 184. Lutherans have universally gone into the Semipelagian opinions, 184. Their doctrine of Consubstantiatioii, 409. Wherein it differs from Transubstantiation, ibid. INDEX. 497 M. Maccabees, the first book commended, 261. The second of little authority, 262. The argument in favour of purgatory taken from this book confuted, ibid. Macedonians denied the Divinity of the Holy Ghost, 81. This heresy condemned by the Athanasian Creed, 126. Mahomet denied the death of Christ, 61. Mahometans, one sect assert liberty, but the generality fate, 179. Maintain that men of all religions are equally acceptable to God, 210 . Magistrate, the extent of his authority in sacred things, 446. Man, though all resemble one another, yet each have their peculiar difference, 24. Manichees denied the authority of the Gospels, 93. Scarce deserved the name of Christians, 95. Their absurd opinions, ibid. Con- cerning the Old and New Testament, 107. Of original sin, 132. Did not use wine in the sacrament, 420. Marcionites, their opinions, 93, 179. Are opposed by Origin, ibid. Marriage, in what degrees, and why, unlawful, 121. Why it ought to be for life, ibid. The meaning of that passage. Such as marry do well^ hut such as marry not do better, 164, 436. Is no sacra- ment, 341. In what sense a mystery, 342. The bad conse- quences of the Romish doctrine on this subject, ibid. Is dissolved by adultery, 344. The practice of the Church in this matter, ibid. Whether a Christian may marry an infidel, 365. That of the clergy lawful, 429. It is recommended equally to all ranks of men, 430. Is one of the rights of human nature, 431. Several of the Apostles and Fathers of the primitive Church were married, ibid. Martyrs, the regard due to their bodies, 285. This being carried too far, degenerates into superstition, ibid. Mass, the absurdity of saying masses for the dead, 266. This was the occasion of great endowments, ibid. As practised in the Church of Rome not known in the primitive ages, 427. What was under- stood by it in the primitive Church, ibid. Solitary masses not known to them, ibid. The bad effects of them, 267, 428. Matter, of the divisibility of it, 22. A difference between the suc- cession of time and the divisibility of matter, ibid. Is a passive principle, 25, 48. Is not capable of thought, 39. Objections to this answered, 40. How the mind acts on it, we cannot distinctly conceive, ibid. Had its first motion from the Eternal Mind, 48. The great influence of the animal spirits on it, 73. St. Matthew’s and St. Mark’s Gospel, Phpias his account of them, 93. Maurus Rabanus wrote against the corporal presence, 406. Melito, Bishop of Sardis, his account of the books of the Old Testa- ment, 104. Memories of the martyrs, what, 288, 289. Merit of congruity, what meant by it, 160. There is no such merit, ibid. See Works. Messias, the revelation those before and under the law had of one, 498 INDEX. 108. Jews have long had, and still have, an expectation of him, ibid. Proofs of the Messias from the Old Testament, ibid. 109. Daniel very express in this matter, 111. The proofs summed up, 112. The objections of the Jews answered, 113. Metaphor, no good foundation for argument, 253, 258. Middle knowledge, what meant by it, 32, 133. Millennium, an account of it, 261. Mind. See Soul. Ministers, their unworthiness hinders not the effect of the sacraments, 352. Their intention not necessary to the essence of a sacrament, 354. Ought to be censured for their faults, 355. Miracles well attested a proof of the being of a God, 25. A dis- tinct idea of them, 48. The nature and design of them, 73, 386. How to know if they are performed by good or evil spirits, 73. Of those wrought by Moses, 97. The spiteful construction put upon those of our Saviour by the Jews, 172. Are necessary to prove infallibility, 216. The instruments of them not to be superstitiously used, 286. Were not to be attempted without an inward impulse, 346. Are an appeal to our senses, 385. Those that are contrary to our senses not to be believed, 386. The absurdity of those pretended in the Church of Rome, 381, 387. Missals, those of the Gallican Church different from the Roman, 451. Molina and Fonseca invented the middle or mean science, 183. What meant by it, ibid. Moral evil, how reconciled with Providence, 38. The occasion of physical evil, ibid. Moral law. See Commandments. Morality, the sources of it, 120. Two orders of moral precepts, 121. Religion the foundation of it, ibid. Moses, the design of the Mosaical religion, 55. God’s design in or- dering him to put things in writing, 86. His miracles a proof of his divine mission, 97. The design and authority of his writings, 98. His laws not unalterable, 113. Of the covenant he made between God and the Israelites, 114. The several things he sup- posed known, 115. The Jews had better reason to invoke him, than Christians have any saint under the Gospel, 291. Mysteries that contradict reason are not to be believed, 386. N. Natalitia, the day of a saint’s death so called, 265. Nature, though we cannot fix the bounds of it, we can know what goes beyond it, 73. Nazianzen, his complaints of Councils, 248. Necessary, whether God’s acts are so, 30. Necessary Erudition, the title of a book published at the beginning of the Reformation, 6. Necessary existence must belong to God, 26. Necessity justifies breaking through rules of worship, 308. Nectarius, Bishop of Constantinople, what occasioned him to forbid confession, 330. IxNDEX. 499 Negative, why to be maintained in points of faith, and not in matters of fact or theories of nature, 5. Nestorius, his doctrine concerning the person of Christ, 60. Con- cerning the Blessed Virgin, 288. His heresies are condemned in the Athanasian Creed, 126. Nice, Council, composed their Creed out of many former ones, 3. What they determined concerning the Trinity, 46. Asserted the worship of images, 279. Was rejected in England on that ac- count, 289. The history and acts of that Council gave a bad opinion of them, ibid. The nature of that worship they allowed to images, 281. Nicene Creed, an account of it, 126. Nicolaitans, a name of reproach given to the married clergy, 434. Notes, the pretended ones of the true Church examined, 219. Novatians opposed the receiving the lapsed into the Church, 173, 328. . O. Oaths, ill and rashly made, ought not to be kept, 437. What an oath is, 474. A Mse one, what, 475. Oaths were very early used, ibid. Are lawful among Christians, 476. Objections against them answered, 477. All vain and rash swearing condemned, 478, When and in what manner they ought to be taken, ibid. Oil began very early to be used in sacred rites, 321, 347. What probably introduced it, ibid. That used by the Apostles was attended with a miraculous effect, 345. The form of applying it in the Church of Rome, 347. This is of a modern date, 349. Argument from the fitness of it answered, 350. Old Testament. See Scriptures. Opinions, a rule to be observed in representing different opinions, 140. In what case opinion is no excuse for sin, 410. Opus Operatum, or the act of receiving the sacraments not sufficient to convey grace, 315. Orders, the different ranks of them in the Church, 338. No sacra- ment, ibid. What the essentials of them are, ibid. Validity of those of the Church of England, 455. See Pastors. Ordination by laymen valid, 308. The form of it in the Greek Church, 338. In the Church of Rome, ibid. 339. Several regulations about them, 455. The phrase, Receive ye the Holy Ghost, which is used in them, explained and vindicated, ibid. Origen, his care in settling the canon of the New Testament, 93. His opinion of the soul, free-will, and providence, 179. His doc- trine was much followed, 180. Original sin, various opinions about it, 130, 131. What the Scrip- tures teach concerning it, 132, How it may be conveyed, ibid. The consequences of it more than a natural death, 134. The effects of it not quite taken away by baptism, 135. Overal, Bishop, espoused the Arminian tenets, 185. I I 2 500 INDEX. P. Pagans not excused from idolatry because they worshipped the true God under their idols, 410. Papias, who conversed with the Apostles, his account of the Gospels of St. Matthew and St. Mark, 93. Papists. See Church of Rome, Parable, consequences to be drawn from the scope of them, and not from particular phrases, 258. Paradise, what notion the Jews had of it, 68. Pardon of sin, the conditions of it, 33. The doctrine of the Church of Rome concerning pardons, 269. The abuse and bad conse- quences of it, 167, 269. This gave rise to the Reformation, 167, 269. The pretence of their being only an exemption from penance examined, 270. Is without foundation in Scripture or antiquity, ibid. Parents, their authority over their children by the Jewish constitution, 364. This agreeable to Christianity and the law of nature, ibid. Their obligation more particularly to take care of their souls, 366. Paris, Council, condemned image-worship, 280. Passion defined, 31. In what sense ascribed to God, ibid. Its influence, 142. Passover, the original and design of its institution, 369. A type of our deliverance by the Messias, ibid. Pastors, a succession of them ought to be in the Church, 301. This to continue till the end of the world, 303. And did not belong to the infancy of Christianity only, ibid. The danger of taking this office without a due vocation, 304. Who are lawfully called, 305. Lawful authority, what, ibid. Where the jurisdiction is fixed in the Church of Rome, 306. What may be done in cases of necessity, 307. Instances of lay-preachers, 308. Patriarchal authority of the See of Rome is dissolved with that empire, 462. Pelagius, his opinion of original sin, 129. Objections against it, 130. His opinion of liberty, 143, 180. His character, 180. Is opposed by several learned men, ibid. Had many followers in Britain, 181 . Penance, a long one imposed on sinners in the primitive times, 167. Whence the word is derived, 323. The several acts of it, ibid. No characters of a sacrament in it, 324. The doctrine of the Church of Rome concerning it, ibid. No sacrament, because of a modern date, 325. Many canons about it, 329. The ancient discipline slackened, 330. Whether penance is to be performed before absolution, 334. The absurdity of the doctrine of the Church of Rome on this subject, 335. What is the true penance enjoined by the Gospel, 336. Perfection, no counsels of perfection in the New Testament, 162. A passage in the xixth of St. Matthew, which seems to imply this, explained, 163. In what sense we are called to be perfect as God and Christ, 169. The Scripture represents the best of men as imperfect, ibid. This is no encouragement to live in sin, 170. INDEX. 501 Perseverence, a necessary consequence of absolute decrees, 192. Persons, resulting from the conjunction of two natures, what, 59. What meant by Christ’s having one person, 60. Of the per- sonality of the Holy Ghost, 81. Peter, St., of the authority committed to him, 234. Had no supe- riority, 459. Was withstood by St. Paul, ibid. Pharisees asserted free-will and providence, 179. Philosophers, their opinion of matter, 29. Despised revelation, secret assistances, and miracles, 72. Their account of original sin, and the pre-existence of souls, 131. Were puzzled about free-wdll and providence, 179. Were not so gross idolaters as the vulgar among the heathens, 272. Philosophy was new-modelled to explain transubstantiation, 389. Photinus, his opinion of Christ, 58. Pictures in churches condemned by the Council of Elliberis, 278. Soon led to idolatry, 279. Plato, his opinion of the soul after death, 261. Was probably the source of purgatory, ibid. Polycarp, a remarkable passage concerning his body, 286. Popes, when they took the full power of indulgences to themselves, 167. Have been condemned for heresy, 228. Their ambition, forgeries, and cruelties, 229. Of their pretended power over Princes, 230. Arguments against their infallibility, 227, 231. Alleged proofs of it answered, 234. Several absurdities in assert- ing it, ibid. Were not much consulted in calling some Councils, 246. Of the pardons and indulgences granted by them, 269. Have been the most wicked succession of men history has pro- duced, 403. Their authority was pretended to long before their infallibility, 458. Their jurisdiction founded on a forgery, 461, 464. The extent of their claim, and by whom completed, 461 . See Church of Rome, Prayer, what outward gestures proper for it, 54. Prayers for the dead, an early practice in the Church, 265. What gave occasion to it, ibid. Tertullian’s opinion of them, ibid. Why not prac- tised in the Church of England, 266. Prayers in an unknown tongue. See Worship. The great efficacy of prayer with right dispo- sitions, 336. The absurdity of appointing prayers as a task, 337. Preaching of the Apostles, the nature of it, and wherein it differed from that of their successors, 363. Precepts, wherein they differ from the means of salvation, 359. Predestination, the controversy about it reduced to a single point, 177. Three main questions that arise out of it, ibid. Various opinions about it, ibid. History of the controversy concerning it, both in ancient and modern times, 179 — 186. General reflections on the subject, 203. The advantages and disadvantages of the several opinions, 204. Points on wEich all are agreed, 206. How far the Article has determined in this controversy, 207. The design of the cautions added to it, ibid. Passages in the Liturgy concerning it explained, 209. The impartiality observed in treating this subject, ibid. 502 INDEX. Prescience, the notions of the Supralapsarians concerning it, 186, Those of the Sublapsarians, 194. The certainty of it is not causal, but eventual, 199. A conditionate prescience agreeable to Scrip- ture, ibid. Presence, real, the meaning of it as taught by the Church of Eng- land, 380. The doctrine of the Church of Rome concerning it, ibid. The mystical presence is acknowledged by them, 387. Whence the controversy about the matter of the presence took its rise, 405. Preventing grace, proof of it, 146. Of the efficacy and extent of it, 147. See Grace. Priest, the rules concerning the High-Priest of the Jews dispensed with in cases of necessity, 307. The Jewish notion of a Priest, 424. Christ was both a Priest and sacrifice, 425. Primasius, his comparison of the Eucharist, 401. Private judgment, objections against it answered, 254. Is allowed by the Church of Rome, ibid. Procession of the Holy Ghost, we can have no explicit idea of it, 80. Yet ought to be believed, 81. Promises, whether any other than temporary under the old dispen- sation, 114, Those that were national only temporary, ibid. Particular persons had a prospect of a future state, 115. Proofs of this, 117. Prophecy, not a mark of the true Church, 220. Of those relating to the Messias, 107 — 111. Prophetical writings, why dark and obscure, 101. Providence, wherein it consists, 36. How the difficulty of conceiving it may be removed, 37. Objections against it considered, ibid. The necessity of it, 38. Was denied by the Epicureans and Sad- ducees, 179. How the great designs of it are carried on, 200. Punishments, the temporal ones of good men no argument for the reserve of others in another state, 257. The lawfulness and necessity of capital punishments, 468. The measure and extent of them, 469. Purgatory, the doctrine of the Church of Rome concerning it, 255. No foundation for it in Scripture, 256. Arguments for it con- sidered, 257 — 259. Reasons for rejecting it, 259. A middle state not warranted from Scripture, ibid. Different opinions about the state after death, 260. The sources of this doctrine, 261. Argument from Maccabees examined, ibid. A passage from the New Testament alleged in favour of it, considered, 263. Not known for the first six hundred years, 264. Was never received by the Greek Church, ibid. Is a remnant of Paganism, ibid. The great abuses of this doctrine, 268. Political reasons are not sufficient to support it, ibid. R. Radbert, Paschase, the first who asserted and explained the cor- poral presence, 405. Was opposed by all the eminent men of his time, ibid. Ratramne, his account of the real presence, 406. INDEX. 503 Real presence, the meaning of it in the doctrine of the Church of England, 380. The absurdity of the Roinisli doctrine on this head, 380 — 388. See Transuhstantiation. Reconciliation by the death of Christ is not absolute and without conditions, 64. Redemption, the Remonstrants’ notion of its extent, 200. Reformation, why many wild sects sprang up with it, 4. The fun- damental Article on which it depends, 5. The main ground upon which it is justified, 92. What occasioned the first beginnings and progress of it, 269. Reformed, their different opinions concerning free-will and predes- tination, 184. Reformers, reasons for their descending into so many particulars, 5. Put Christianity on its right foundation, 153. Those in England were Sublapsarians, 185. Regeneration, how it may be explained, 145. Relics, whence a superstitious regard for them took its rise, 285. The consequence of enshrining of them, ibid. Were appointed to be venerated by the Council of Trent, ibid. Have no counte- nance from Scripture, 286. Nor from the practice of the first Christians, ibid. No use made of them in the times of persecu- tion, when most necessary, 287. Fables and forgeries invented to support them, ibid, 290. The novelty of the worship of them, 289. Religion, just notions of God the basis of it, 34, 47, 121. The assistance that revealed religion can receive from philosophy, 133. The design of natural and revealed religion, 143, 300. The truths of religion are impressed by a divine direction, 145. Al- coran asserts that all religions are equally acceptable to God, 210. Hobbes makes religion and law to be the same, ibid. The hypothesis of those who would accommodate their religion to their secular interest, 211. These opinions condemned, 211 — 214. All religions are not alike, 214. A true notion of it, 334. Remission of sins, the notion of it under the old dispensation, 117- Not previous to justification, 151. Is an act of God’s favour, 153. The nature of it in the Gospel, 256. Of the power of it committed to the Apostles, 325. In what sense it is continued by their successors, 326. Remonstrants, their opinions concerning free-will and* predestina- tion, 178, 195. Their arguments, 195 — 203. Difficulties obvi- ated by their doctrine, 200. The advantages and disadvantages of it, 204. Repentance not the valuable consideration, but the condition of justification, 154. The true notion of it, 324, 335. The danger of trusting to a death-bed repentance, 335. Reprobation, the Supralapsarians’ notion of it, 193. Is a doctrine hard to be digested, 206. Resurrection, the possibility of it, 41. Of the nature of the body after it, 42. Was denied by the Sadducees, 86. Was believed under the Old Testament, 115, 116. Completes the happiness of a future state, 261. 504 INDEX. Resurrection of Christ. See Christ, Revelation, what it is, and the design of it, 143, 300. That which destroys the evidence of our senses is not to he believed, 385. See Scripture. Revelation of St. John, its authority proved, 95. Why not men- tioned in the catalogue of the Council of Laodicea, 105. Righteousness, the doctrine of the Church of Rome concerning it, 152. That of the Reformed, 153. Rites. See Ceremonies. Rock of the Church, what meant by it, 234. Roman Catholic. See Church of Rome. Ruffin was the first who mentioned the article of Christ’s descent into hell, 65. S. Sabbath is not moral in the highest sense, 123. The reasonable- ness of it, ibid. Of .the change of it, ibid. Works of necessity, or charity, may be done on it, 163. Sacramental actions, the nature of them considered, 417. May be altered as to circumstances, 418. Sacraments, the doctrine of the Church of Rome concerning them, 152,315. Its bad consequences, ibid. Of the essentials of them, 222. Are to be measured only by the institution, 266. Are more than mere ritual acts, 315, 317. Do not justify by the Opus Operatum, 317. A sacrament defined, ibid. Matter is of the essence of it, 318. Must be instituted by Christ, ibid. Pro- testants acknowledged only two, ibid. Lombard, the first who mentions seven of them, 319, Reasons for rejecting the five additional sacraments, 350. Sacraments are ordained to be used, and not to be gazed on and carried about, ibid. Their effect depends on the worthy receiving, and not on the intention of him that dispenses them, 352. Sacraments considered as acts of church-communion, or as federal acts, 414. Sacrifices, expiatory ones, the nature of them, 61. How the death of Christ may be said to be our sacrifice, 63. In a general sense all religious worship may be so called, 422. But one Priest and one sacrifice in the Christian religion, 425. Answer of the Fathers to the Heathens, who charged them with having no sacrifices, 426. Sadducees denied the Resurrection, 86. From whom sprung, and what gave rise to their opinions, 114. Our Saviour’s answer to their puzzling question, 116. Asserted liberty free from all restraints, 179. Saints were not invocated under the Old Testament, 291. More rational foundation for this under the old than under the new dispensation, ibid. Christ the only mediator and intercessor, ibid. This superstition derived from the heathens, 292. When it was introduced, 293. Its progress, 294. The absurdity of it, ibid. Scandalous offices of this kind in the Church of Rome, ibid. INDEX. 505 What they found this practice upon, 296. Arguments for it examined, 297 — 300. Salvation, whether eternal salvation was promised under the Old Testament, 114. Is to he obtained only by the name of Christ, 211. Of those who never heard of the Christian religion, 212. Curiosity in this not to be indulged, 214. How far the Article has determined in it, ibid. Difference between the means of sal- vation and commanded precepts, 305. Samosatenus, his opinion of Christ, 58. Sanctification, what it is, and wherein it differs from justification, 151. Is not perfected in this life, 173. Scandal, the true notion of it, 448. The fear of giving scandal no warrant to break established laws, 449. Schism in the Church, the making it, a great sin, 448. Schoolmen, their vain attempt to explain the Trinity, 81. Their many subtilties in the doctrine of the Eucharist, 383. Their explanation of the real presence, 407. Scot, John, his character, 406. Wrote against the doctrine of the corporal presence, ibid. Scotus, Erigena, wrote against St. Austin’s doctrine of predestina- tion, 182. Scriptures, the being of God ought not to be proved from them, 26. His unity frequently asserted in them, 28. Their style suited to the capacities of those for whom they were writ, 29. Their meaning to be taken from the scope of them, 38. New Testa- ment, when wrote, 70. Was early received, 71. The names and number of the canonical books, 83. Are the only complete rule of faith, 84. Old Testament was always appealed to by Christ and his Apostles, 87, 96. The care taken to preserve them, 87. Just consequences from them are to be believed, 89. Contain all that is necessary to salvation, 91. Are no sure guard against error, ibid. Ought not to be read carelessly, ibid. Proofs of the canon of the New Testament, 93 — 98. Their authority is not founded on the judgment of the Church, 95. That of the Old, 98 — 103. Why divided into three volumes, 102. Why they were called canonical, 106. Sees, whence their privileges and exemptions arose, 451. The vanity of keeping up their ancient dignity, ibid. Semipelagians, their notion of assisting grace and free-will, 143, 180. Senses, their influence on the mind, 284. The importance of their evidence, 384. They determine our judgment of miracles, 385. The foundation of our belief of them, ibid. Where appealed to by the Fathers as infallible, 391. Septuagint was highly esteemed in our Saviour’s time, 97. When, and at whose charge it was wrote, 99. How it may be reconciled to the Hebrew, 100. Serenus, Bishop of Marseilles, his zeal against image-worship, 279. Serpent, Brazen, the breaking it when it came to be superstitiously used, vindicated, 286. Severity ought not to be effected, 175. 506 INDEX. Sin, Adam’s sin said to be personal by the Pelagians and Socinians, 129. Our being liable to death and the miseries of mortality thought by some to be original sin, 130. Experience and Scrip- ture teach an universal corruption, 131, 132. How this came about, 132. God’s justice vindicated in the imputation of Adam’s sin, 134. Whether it deserves damnation, ibid. Church of Rome believe original sin is taken away by baptism, 135. St. Austin’s doctrine concerning it, 136. The manner of its pro- pagation not easy to be explained, 137. Reasons why many are of a different opinion, 138. How they explain the passages of Scripture, and the Article concerning it, 139, 140. What meant by deadly and venial sin, 170. The sin against the Holy Ghost explained, 171. None capable of this sin since miracles have ceased, 172. Of the pardon of sin after baptism, ibid. Is par- doned according to the sincerity of our repentance, 174. What meant by the sin unto death, ibid. Difference to be made between deliberate sins and sins of infirmity, 175. Sins once pardoned not liable to after punishment, 256. Unless with tem- poral chastisements, 257. Of the Apostles power of remitting sins, 325. Whether this be continued in the Church, 326. Socinians, their notion of the death of Christ, 62. Of Adam’s sin, 129. Objections against it, 130. Their doctrine concerning pre- destination, 178. Their opinion of prescience ahd contingencies, ibid. How far they agree with the Remonstrants and Calvinists, 203. Soldania, a most degenerate nation, said to deny the being of a God, 20. Son of God. See Christ. Soul is distinct from matter, 39. What perceptions we have of its nature and operation, ibid. Of the souls of beasts, 40. The soul is not the same with the animal spirits, ibid. How it acts on matter, inconceivable to us, ibid. In some places of Scripture stands for a dead body, 66. Philosophers’ notion of its pre-exist- ence, 131. How defiled by Adam’s sin, 134. Conjectures about its state after death, 259. Various opinions concerning this, 260, 264. Spirits, animal, their nature and use, 40, 142. Ai’e the immediate organs of thought, 143. Spirits, invisible, the probability of their existence, and conjectures about their natu-re, 41. Are not emanations or rays of the Divine essence, ibid. What meant by the spirits in prison, 66. Of the power of evil spirits, 73. See Soul. Stephen, St., worshipped Christ in his last moments, 56. No other care taken of his body but to bury it, 280. No mention made of worshipping him, 292. Stephen, Pope, his infallibility denied by Cyprian and Firmilian, 228. Stephen, Bishop of Autun, the first who introduced the word Tran- substantiation, 408. Stoics, made all sins alike, 171. Put all things under a fate, 179. Sublapsarians, their doctrine concerning predestination, 194. Avoid INDEX. 507 answering the Supralapsarians, and seem in effect not to differ from them, ibid. Subscription, what the Clergy are bound to by their subscription of the Articles, 8. Does import an assent to them, 9. Different persons may subscribe to them in different senses, 10. Suetonius, his account of Christ, 69. Supererogation. See Works. Superstition, the danger of its being suffered to mix with religion, 285. Supralapsarians, the chief basis of their doctrine concerning pre- destination, 186. Their arguments from the absurdity of the contrary opinion, 187. Supremacy of the Pope disproved, 458, 461. That of Kings or Queens asserted, 462, 466. Sw'earing. See Oath. Symbols, federal, the nature of them, 378. T. Temple, how the glory of the second exceeded the first, 110. Thought different from matter and motion, 39. Has no parts, ibid. Whether beasts have thought, ibid. Is governed by impressions made on the brain, 142. Is influenced by the animal spirits, ibid. Time cannot be eternal, 22. Is not divisible to infinity, as matter is, ibid. Timothy and Titus, rules given them concerning Church Govern- ment, 302. Tradition, oral, the regard due to it, 84. The doctrine of the Church of Rome concerning it, ibid. No rule in matters of Faith, ibid. The Scriptures intended to prevent the impostures of it, ibid. No certain way of conveying the articles of religion, 86. Was objected against on many occasions by our Saviour, ibid. The occasion of great errors and ruin of the Jews, 87. The Apostles laid no stress on them, ibid. Arguments of Irenasus and Tertullian against them, 88. Objection from the darkness of Scripture answered, 89. The difference between a settled canon of Scripture and oral tradition, 95. Traditions concerning image-worship departed from, 280. Transubstantiation, a paragraph against it in the Articles in Edw^ard the Vlth’s reign, 367. Why it was afterwards suppressed, 368. The doctrine of the Church of Rome concerning it, 380. The consequences of it, 381. The grounds on which it was believed, 383. Is contrary to our faculties both of sense and reason, 384. It was not received in the first and best ages, 388. Several pre- sumptive proofs of this, 388, 394. The Fathers believed the elements continued to be bread and wine after consecration, 394, 396. By whom it was formed and broached, 396. Several argu- ments against it, 398, 415. How this doctrine crept into the Church, 401. By whom the term was first introduced, 408. Tree of knowledge of good and evil, and the tree of life, conjectures about them, 130, 131, 133. Trent, Council, the disappointments of it, a great probability there 508 NDEX. will never be another, 251. First received the Apocrypha into the canon, 106. Their decree concerning good works, 156. Declined to give a clear’ decision about image-worship, 282. Reasons of this, ibid. Did not determine positively about relics, 285. Did not decree the office of a Bishop an order, or a sacra- ment, 340. Was the first that decreed the indissolubleness of marriage, even for adultery, 344. Decreed extreme unction to be a sacrament, 350. Trinity is not to be proved by reason, 42. Tradition of it very ancient, ibid. Not to be proved by the Old Testament without the New, 43. What meant by one substance, and what by three persons, in explaining it, ibid. The difficulties in it no sufficient reason for not believing it, ibid. Different methods of explaining it, ibid. Several proofs of it, 43, 46. From whence the errors in this doctrine took their rise, 47. Tully, his account of the notion the heathens had of their images, 275. Twisse carried it high to the Supralapsarian hypothesis, 185. V. Valentinians pretended to traditions froni the Apostles, 88. Various readings of the Scriptures, whence they arose, 100. Are inconsiderable, and affect not our faith or morals, 101. ‘Ubiquity of human nature impossible, 409. Vigilantius complains of the worshipping of relics, 285, 289. And of saints and angels, 297. Virgin, blessed, was reprimanded by our Saviour, 169. Why she was not taken notice of in the first age of superstition, 288. Has the preference to God and Christ in the worship of the Church of Rome, 295. Virgins, parable of ten Virgins contradicts supererogation, 166. Visible Church, what it is, 215. Understanding is as free as the will, 225. Union of the Church among themselves, and with their head, is not a note of the true Church, 220. Unity of the Godhead, proofs of it, 27. Is a chief article of the Christian religion, 28. Unity among Christians, the advantages of it, 447. The great sin of dissolving it, ibid. Vows of celibacy unlawful, 437. Of the obligation of them, ibid. See Oath. Usher, Archbishop, his explanation of Daniel’s Seventy Weeks, 112. W. War, in what cases lawful, 471. And when unlawful, 472. Water in Baptism, what it is an emblem of,'357. Will, whether it is always determined by the understanding, 142. Wherein our liberty consists, ibid. The opinions of the Pelagians and Semipelagians concerning it, 143. See Liberty. Winds, their great influence on the earth, 36. Are under a particu- lar direction of providence, ibid. INDEX. 509 Wisdom of God, wherein it consists, 82. Women are not allowed to teach, 302. Works, what is meant by good works, 151. They are indispensably necessary to salvation, 155. The doctrine of the Church of Rome concerning them, 156. None absolutely perfect, ibid. This is the opinion of the best of men in all ages, 157. The absurdity of asserting the merit of good works, 158. The use to be made of the doctrine of the imperfection of good works, ibid. Whether any good works can be performed without divine assistance, 159. Works of supererogation, the foundation of that doctrine destroyed, 165. Its bad consequences, 167. World is not eternal, because time nor number cannot be eternal, or infinite, 22. The novelty of history, a further proof of this, 23. Not made by chance, ibid. Objection from the production of insects answered, 24. Is not a body to God, 29. Is preserved by a’constant Providence, 35. Many changes made in it by the industry of man, 36. Shall be destroyed by fire, 78. Worship of God, what it is, 309. The design of the various acts of it, 310. The Philosophers’ notion that the varieties of worship were acceptable to God, 210. That it should not be in an un- known tongue proved from reason. Scripture, and the practice of the primitive Church, 310, 311. When the present practice of the Church of Rome was introduced, 312. Arguments for it answered, 312, 313. FINIS. POPULAR BOOKS ON THEOLOGY. PRINTED FOR THOMAS TEGG, No. 73, CHEAPSIDE, AND MAY BE PROCURED BY ORDER OF ALL OTHER BOOKSELLERS. Adams’s Private Thoughts on Religion, 18mo. Alleine’s Alarm to Unconverted Sinners, 32mo Ambrose looking unto Jesus, and other Works, 8vo. . . . . Baxter’s Saints’ Everlasting Rest, 8vo. ...... pocket edition, 18mo. Berkeley’s (Bishop) Works, 8vo. ....... Blair’s Sermons, 5 vols. in one, 8vo. . . . . . . - , Lectures on Rhetoric and Belles Lettres, 8vo. . . . . Bolton’s Treatise on Comforting Afflicted Consciences, 18mo. Booth’s (Abraham) Select Works, viz. Reign of Grace, &c. 12mo. . Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress, Notes by Adam Clark, 18mo. . — — Large edition. Plates 8vo. Holy War, new edition, 18mo. Burder’s Village Sermons, new edition, 12mo. . . . . . Burkitt’s Help and Guide to Christian Families, 32mo. Burnett’s Exposition of the Thirty- Nine Articles, 8vo. Butler’s Analogy of Religion, Natural and Revealed, 12mo. Sermons, new edition, 12mo. ....... Buck’s Theological Dictionary, 8vo Calvin’s Liberty of Christian Religion, by Allen, 2 vols. 8vo. Commentary on the Psalms, 2 vols 8vo. . . . . . Theology and Life, by Dunn, 12mo. . . . . . 'Campbell’s (G., D. D.) Lectures on Ecclesiastical History, 8vo. Pulpit Eloquence and Pastoral Cha- racter, 8vo. .......... Dissertation on Miracles, 8vo. — Works, complete in 6 vols. 8vo. Carpenter’s Scripture Natural History, sixth edition, 12mo. . Cave’s Lives of the Father’s, new edition, 3 vols. 8vo. (Oxford) Lives of the Apostles and Primitive Christianity, 8vo. Cecil’s Sermons, new edition, 12mo Charnock on the Divine Attributes, 8vo. Clarke’s (Dr. Adam) Miscellaneous Works, 13 vols. 12mo. — Sermons, 4 vols. 12mo. Promises of Scripture, by Carpenter, 32mo. Coles on God’s Sovereignty, 12mo. ....... Doddridge’s Rise and Progress of Religion, 32mo. .... Dunn’s Selections from the Works of Howe Dwight’s System of Theology, 5 vols. 8vo. ...... 5 vols. pocket edition .... Imperial 8vo. ...... Ellis’s Knowledge of Divine Things, 12mo. ...... Finney’s Sermons on important subjects, 12mo. ...... £ 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 1 0 0 0 0 2 0 1 0 0 0 3 1 0 0 0 0 1 1 1 0 0 s. d. 2 0 2 0 8 0 9 0 3 0 12 0 7 0 7 0 2 0 4 6 4 0 7 0 3 6 3 0 2 0 9 0 4 6 4 6 18 0 1 0 1 0 6 0 7 0 6 0 6 0 2 0 5 0 4 0 8 0 3 0 12 0 18 0 0 0 1 6 4 6 1 6 6 6 10 0 0 0 1 0 6 a 4 0 POPULAR WORKS PRINTED FOR THOMAS TEQO, 7 ^, CMEAPSIDE. Finney’s Lectures to professing Christians, 12mo. ..... on Revivals of Religion, 12mo. .... Fisher’s Marrow of Modern Divinity, 12mo. ..... Fletcher’s Guide to Family Devotion, 15 Plates, 4to. cloth, gilt edges Gill’s Body of Practical Divinity, 2 vols 8vo. Cause of God and Truth, 8vo. ....... Goodwin’s Redemption Redeemed, 8vo. Gurnall’s Christian in Complete Armour, 8vo. ..... Hall’s (Rev. Robert) Select Works, 12mo. ...... Hall’s (Bishop) Select Works, 8vo. cloth. . Hannam’s Pulpit Assistant, new edition, 8vo. ..... Haw'ker’s Evening Portion, new edition ...... Hervey’s Theron and Aspasia, new edition, 8vo. ..... Meditations and Contemplations 8vo. ..... Hinton’s (Rev. James) Guide to Prayer, 8vo. cloth .... Hill’s (Rev. Rowland) Village Dialogues, Cuts, 12mo. — 3 vols. 12mo Hooker’s Ecclesiastical Polity, 2 vols. 8vo Hooker’s Portion of the Soul, 18mo. cloth ...... Howe’s Christian Theology, by Dunn, 12mo. ..... Theological Treatise, by Taylor, 12mo. ..... Leland’s Divine Authority of the Old and New Testaments, 8vo. . View of Deistical Writers, by Edmonds, 8 vo. Massillon’s Sermons, new edition, 8vo. • . Neale’s History of the Puritans, 3 vols. 8vo. ...... Nelson’s Fasts and Festivals of the Church of England, 8vo. (Oxford) . Novum Testamentum Greece, 32mo.' (Glasgow.) ..... Olney Hymns, by Newton and Cowper, 32nio. . . . . . Owen’s Exposition on the Hebrews, new edition, 4 vols. 8vo. cloth . Exercitations prefixed to the Hebrews, now first published, 8vo. cloth ........... Pascal’s Thoughts on Religion, 18mo Pearson’s Exposition of the Creed, 8vo. ....... Porteus’s Lectures on St. Matthew’s Gospel, 8vo. .... Pulpit (The). a Collection of One Hundred and Fifty Sermons, 2 vols. 8vo. Robinson’s Scripture Characters, 8vo. ....... Romaine’s Works, new edition ........ Saurin’s Sermons, translated by Robinson, &c. 3 vols. 8vo. Scott’s (Rev. Thomas) Theological Works, 12mo. (Chiswick) . Septuagint (The) Greek, 2 vols. 32mo. (Glasgow) .... Shepard’s Parable of the 'Pen Virgins, 12mo. Sherlock’s Works, with Summary by Hughes, 5 vols. 8vo. Simpson’s Plea for Religion, new edition, 12mo. .... Sturm’s Reflections on the Works of God, 2 vols. . . ^ . Thorn’s Lectures on the Christian Sabbath, 18mo. . . . . . Tillotson’s Works, with Life, by Burch, 10 vols. 8vo. . . . . •Warburton’s Divine Legation of Moses, 2 vols. 8vo. . . . . Watson’s Scripture History, 12mo. bound ...... Watts’s Guide to Prayer, 32mo. bound Watts’s Death and Heaven, new edition ...... Wesley’s Sermons, with Life, by Drew, 2 vols. 8vo. . . . . Well’s Geography of the Old and New Testaments, new edition, Maps, 8vo. (Oxford) .......... Wheatley’s Illustration of the Common Prayer, 8vo. . . . . Whitfield’s Sermons, Life by Drew, 8vo. ...... Witsiuson the Covenant between God and Man, 2 vols. 8vo. . £ s. d. 0 4 0 0 4 0 0 5 0 1 6 0 1 1 0 0 12 0 0 12 0 0 10 6 0 3 6 0 10 0 0 12 0 0 3 0 0 10 6 0 5 0 0 9 0 0 6 0 0 9 0 0 18 6 0 1 6 0 6 6 0 4 0 0 10 6 0 0 0 12 0 1 7 0 0 10 6 0 5 0 0 2 0 2 16 0 0 14 0 0 2 6 0 9 0 0 9 0 1 1 0 0 12 0 0 18 0 1 16 0 0 8 0 0 12 0 0 6 0 1 17 6 0 4 0 0 12 0 0 3 6 3 3 0 1 8 0 0 4 0 0 16 0 1 6 1 1 0 0 12 0 0 8 0 0 12 0 0 15 0 BALNF. BROTHERS, PRINTERS, GRACECHURCH STREET. London, No. 73, Cheapside, 1845. MR. TECC HAS JUST ISSUED THE FOLLOWING NEW PUBLICATIONS, OF SUFRIUOR CTIARACTF.R, GF.NER AL UTILITY, AND POPULAR INTEREST, ON THE MOST INTER ESTINi; SUHJECTS OF LITERATURE AND SCIENCE. Orders from JMerchajits, for Exportation, of tvhatcvcr magnitude^ executed with Correctness and Despatch. BIBLICAL CRITICISM AND INTERPRETATION. £ s. BOOTHROYD’S FAMILY BIBLE. 3 vols. 4to. . . .33 BROWN’S SELF-INTERPRETING BIBLE. 4to. Maps, &c. . . . 1 10 DICTIONARY OF THE HOLY BIBLE. 8vo. . .09 CONCORDANCE OF THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 18mo. . 0 2 BURDER’S ORIENTAL CUSTOMS. New Edition. By Groser. 8vo. . 0 9 CAMPBELL’S NOTES ON THE GOSPELS. 2vols. 8vo. . . 0 16 CALVIN’S COMMENTARY ON THE PSALMS. 3 vols. 8vo. . . 1 10 CARPENTER’S BIBLICAL COMPANION. Imperial 8vo. . . 0 12 CLARKE’S (DR. ADAM) COMMENTARY ON THE OLD AND NEW TESTAMENTS. 6 vols. Imperial 8vo. . . . ..68 SUCCESSION OF SACRED LITERATURE. 2 vols. 8vo. 0 15 DODDRIDGE’S FAMILY EXPOSITOR. Imperial 8vo. . ..11 FLEURY’S MANNERS of the ANCIENT ISRAELITES. By A. Clarke. 12mo. 0 6 GRAY AND PERCY’S KEY TO THE OLD AND NEAV TESTAMENTS. 8vo. 0 8 HENRY’S COMMENTARY ON THE SCRIPTURES. By Blomfield. 4to. 1 10 HORNE’S (Bp.) COMMENTARY ON THE PSALMS. 8vo. . .08 JENNINGS’S JEWISH ANTIQUITIES. 8vo. . . ..07 JONES’S BIBLICAL CYCLOPEDIA. 8 vo. . . . . 0 16 LELAND’S DIVINE AUTHORITY of the OLD and NEW TESTAMENTS. 8vo. 0 7 LOCKE AND DODD’S COMMON-PLACE BOOK TO THE BIBLE. 8vo. . 0 9 LOWTH’S (Bp.) LITERAL TRANSLATION OF ISAIAH. 8vo. . .07 LECTURES ON HEBREW POETRY. 8vo. . .08 LUTHER ON THE GALATIANS. 8vo. . . . . 0 10 NEWTON’S (Bp.) DISSERTATION ON THE PROPHECIES. 8vo. . 0 8 OWEN’S EXPOSITION OF THE HEBREAVS. 4 vols. 8vo. . . 2 16 EXERCITATIONS PREFIXED TO THE HEBREWS. 8vo. . 0 14 PATRICK, LOWTH, WHITBY, AND LOWMAN’S COMMENTARY ON THE OLD AND NEW TESTAMENTS. 4 vols. Imperial 8vo. . . 4 10 STACKHOUSE’S HISTORY of the BIBLE, New Edit. ByD. Dewar, D.D. Imp. 8vo. 1 10 STUART’S COMMENTARY ON THE ROMANS. 8vo. . .09 HEBREWS. 8vo. . .,09 WHITBY AND LOWMAN’S COMMENTARY on the NEW TESTAMENT. Impl. 1 5 AVINTLE’S TRANSLATION OP DANIEL, with Notes. 8vo. . .08 d. 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 6 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 LIGHT HEADING & BOOKS IN THE PICKWICK STYLE. ADA^ENTURES OF CAPTAIN BOLIO. 32 Engravings. 12mo. PAUL PERIWINKLE, or the PRESS-GANG. 40 En- gravings by Phiz. 8vo. . . ... GRACE DARLING. A Tale. 20 Engravings. 8vo. ARABIAN NIGHTS, 3 vols. 32mo. . CHRONICLES OF CRIME, by Camden Pelham, Esq. Plates by Phiz. 2 vols. 8vo. COLMAN’S BROAD GRINS, with Cuts, Cloth, Gilt Edges DOINGS IN LONDON. 30 Engravings. 10th Edit. 8vo. . . . EGAN’S PILGRIMS OF THE THAMES. 26 Plates. 8vo. . BOOK OF SPORTS AND MIRROR OF LIFE. Cuts, 8vo. GIDEON GILES THE ROPER. By Miller, Plates. 8vo. GODFREY MALVERN. By Miller. Plates. 8vo GRANT’S SKETCHES IN LONDON. 24 Engravings by Phiz. 8vo. HONE’S STRUTT’S SPORTS OF THE PEOPLE OF ENGLAND. 8vo. . EVERY-DAY BOOK AND TABLE BOOK. 3 vols. 8vo. YEAR BOOK. New Edition. Cuts. 8vo. . . , . MORNINGS AT BOW-STREET. Cuts by Cruikshank. Fcap. 8vo. ODDITIES OF LONDON LIFE. 77 Cuts. 2 vols. post 8vo. PICKWICK ABROAD. By Reynolds ; Plates by Phiz, &c. 8vo. PICTURES OF THE FRENCH. Royal 8vo. . . . . PARTERRE OF HISTORICAL ROMANCE, ANECDOTE, &c. 4 vols. 8vo. . PUNCH AND JUDY, with 24 Plates, by Cruikshank. Post 8vo. ROBERT MACAIRE. 18 Plates, by Phiz. Post 8vo. TITMARSH’S COMIC TALES. 20 Plates. 2 vols. post 8vo. . . . WORLD (THE) OF LONDON. By John Fisher Murray, Esq. 12rao. . 0 7 0 1 1 0 0 5 0 0 12 0 1 8 0 0 1 6 0 7 0 0 8 0 0 7 0 0 13 0 0 14 0 0 8 0 0 10 6 1 4 0 0 8 0 0 5 0 1 1 0 0 14 0 0 6 0 0 16 0 0 4 0 0 10 6 1 1 0 0 5 0 THEOLOGY AND ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY. ADAMS’ PRIVATE THOUGHTS ON RELIGION. 18mo. AMBROSE’S (?) LOOKING UNTO JESUS, AND HIS OTHER WORKS. 8vo. ALLEINE’S ALARM TO UNCONVERTED SINNERS. 32mo. BARROAV’S (REV. J.) WHOLE WORKS. 3 vols. 8vo. BAXTER’S SAINTS’ EVERLASTING REST. I8mo. WORKS. 4 vols. Imperial 8vo. ..... BEAN’S FAMILY WORSHIP. New Edition. 18mo. . . . . BLAIR’S (DR. HUGH) SERMONS. 8vo. ..... BOLTON’S TREATISES ON COMFORTING AFFLICTED CONSCIENCES BOOTH’S (REV. ABRAHAM) SELECT WORKS. 12mo. BUCK ON RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE ... . . BUNYAN’S PILGRIM’S PROGRESS. And Life by Adam Clarke With Plates. 8vo. HOLY WAR. New Edition. 18mo. . . , . BORDER’S FIFTY-TWO VILLAGE SERMONS. 12mo. RITES AND CEREMONIES OF RELIGION. 8vo. BURNET’S EXPOSITION OP THE THIRTY-NINE ARTICLES. 8vo. . BUTLER’S (BISHOP) ANALOG!^ OF RELIGION. With Index. 12mo. . SERMONS. 12mo. ..... CALVIN’S INSTITUTES OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION. 2 vols. (Selections from), by the Rev. Samuel Dunn. 12mo. CAMPBELL’S LECTURES ON ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY. 8vo. DISSERTATION ON THE MIRACLES. 8vo. . (D.D.) works now first COLLECTED. 6 vols. 8vo. . PULPIT ELOQUENCE AND PASTORAL CARE. 8vo. CAVE’S PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY. New Edition by Cary. 8vo. CECIL’S SERMONS. Now first collected. I2mo. .... CLARK’S GOSPELS HARMONIZED. With Notes, &c., by Dunn. 8vo. ON THE PROMISES OF SCRIPTURE. 32mo. CLARKE’S (DR. ADAM) CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY. By Dunn. 12mo. . LETTER TO A YOUNG PREACHER, AND TRAVELLER’S PRAYER ...... SERMONS. With great Additions. 4 vols. COLES ON GOD’S SOVEREIGNTY. 12mo. . . . . COOPER’S SERMONS ON THE LEADING DOCTRINES OF THE GOSPEL PRACTICAL AND FAMILIAR DAVIES’S LECTURES ON PROPHECY. 12mo. . . . . DODDRIDGE’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. Imperial 8vo. RISE AND PROGRESS OF RELIGION IN THE SOUL . DUNN’S SELECTIONS FROM THE WORKS OF REV. J. HOWE CALVIN . DWIGHT’S SYSTEM OF THEOLOGY. 5 vols. 8vo. 5 vols. Pocket Edition EDWARDS’S (REV. JONATHAN) THEOLOGICAL WORKS. 2 v. Imp. 8vo. ELLIS’S KNOWLEDGE OF DIVINE THINGS FROM REVELATION £ 0 0 0 I 0 4 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 2 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 I 1 ELSLEY’S ANNOTATIONS ON THE GOSPELS AND ACTS. By Walker. 8vo. EVANS’S SKETCH OF ALL RELIGIONS. New Edition. I2mo. FINNEY’S SERMONS ON IMPORTANT SUBJECTS. 12mo. FISHER’S MARROW OF MODERN DIVINITY. 12rao. . FULLER’S (D.D.) DISCOURSES ON THE BOOK OF GENESIS. 12mo. . FULLER’S HOLY AND PROFANE LIFE. Portraits. 8vo. . . . . GILL’S BODY OF PRACTICAL DIVINITY. 2 vols. 8vo. . . 1 CAUSE OF GOD AND TRUTH. 8vo. . . . . GOODAVIN’S CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY. By Dunn. I2mo. REDEMPTION REDEEMED. New Edition. 8vo. G URN ALL’S CHRISTIAN IN COMPLETE ARMOUR. New Edition, by Campbell. .... .... HALL’S CONTEMPLATIONS ON THE OLD AND NEW TESTAMENTS. 8vo. O^KV. ROBERT) SELECT THEOLOGICAL WORKS. l2mo. HALYBURTON’S THEOLOGICAL WORKS. 8vo. . ... IIANNAM’S PULPIT ASSISTANT. New Edition. 8vo. HAWKER’S (REV. ROBERT) POOR MAN’S MORNING PORTION. 12ino. EVENING PORTION HERVEY’S THERON AND ASPASIO. 8vo. . . . . MEDITATIONS AND CONTEMPLATIONS. 8vo. HILL’S (REV. ROWLAND) VILLAGE DIALOCUES. 31lb Edition. 12nio. HOOKER’S ECCLESIASTICAL POLITY. 2 vols. 8vo s. d. 2 0 8 0 2 0 4 0 3 0 4 0 1 6 8 0 2 6 3 0 1 (j 4 0 12 0 3 0 3 0 12 0 7 0 3 0 3 0 1 0 6 0 8 0 7 0 2 0 7 0 8 0 3 0 8 0 1 6 6 6 2 6 4 0 4 6 3 0 3 0 2 0 1 0 1 6 6 6 6 6 10 0 14 0 10 0 6 0 12 0 5 0 4 0 3 0 5 0 12 0 1 0 12 0 C 6 12 0 14 0 9 0 3 6 14 0 12 0 3 0 3 0 10 G ry 0 G 0 11 G THEOLOGY, &c. cScc., CONTINUED. 5 JENKS’S FAMILY DEVOTION. By Simkon. 12mo. LAWS OF CHRIST RESPECTING Cl VI I. OBEDIENCE, &c. 8vo. LEIGHTON’S (ARCHBISHOP) WORKS. 8vo. .... LECTURES, THEOLOGICAL, &c. MASON’S HELP TO FAMILY AND PRIVATE DEVOTION . SPIRITUAL TREASURY FOR THE CHILDREN OF GOD. 8vo. MASSILLON’S SERMONS. New Edition. 8vo. .... MILNER’S CHURCH HISTORY. By IIaweis. 8vo. . . . . MORE’S (HANNAH) PRACTICAL PIETY. 32mo. MORNING EXERCISES AT CRIPPLEGATE, and GILES IN-THE-FIELDS. New Edition. By J. Nichols. 6 vols. 8vo. .... MOSHEIM’S ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY. 2 vols. 8vo. NEWTON’S (REV. JOHN) THEOLOGICAL WORKS. 8vo. OLNEY HYMNS. By Cowper and Newton. 32mo. . . . . ORTON’S (REV. JOB) PRACTICAL WORKS. 2 vols. 8vo. PALEY’S WORKS. New Edition. 8vo. ..... NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS. By Paxton. 5 vols. 8vo. PASCAL’S THOUGHTS ON RELIGION. 18mo. PEARSON ON THE CREED. A New Edition. By Nichols. 8vo. PITMAN’S SERMONS FOR EVERY SUNDAY IN THE YEAR. 2 vols. . SECOND COURSE. 2 vols. .... PORTEUS’S (BISHOP) LECTURES ON ST. MATTHEW. 8vo. QUESNEL’S REFLECTIONS on the GOSPELS. Essay by Witman, 3 vols. 12mo. ROBERT’S ORIENTAL ILLUSTRATION OF THE SCRIPTURE, 8vo. ROBINSON’S SCRIPTURE CHARACTERS. 8vo. ROMAINE’S THEOLOGICAL WORKS. 8vo. . . i . ROWE’S DEVOUT EXERCISES OP THE HEART SAURIN’S SERMONS. New Edition. By Burdeh. 3 vols. SCOTT’S (REV. THOMAS) THEOLOGICAL WORKS. Chiswick. . SIMPSON’S PLEA FOR RELIGION AND THE SACRED WRITINGS. 12aio. . SPRING’S OBLIGATIONS OP THE WORLD TO THE BIBLE. 32ino. . STURM’S REFLECTIONS ON THE WORKS OF GOD. By Dr. Clarke. 2 vols. THE SABBATH SCHOOL AS IT SHOULD BE. Royal 32mo. TODD’S SABBATH SCHOOL TEACHER ..... WORKS ON SUNDAY TEACHING, &c. 8vo. . . . VENN’S COMPLETE DUTY OF MAN. 12mo. .... WAKE'S (BISHOP) GENUINE APOSTOLICAL EPISTLES. 12uio. WARDEN'S SYSTEM OF REVEALED RELIGION. By Nichols. 8vo. WATTS’ PSALMS AND HYMNS. 32mo. Pocket Edition. . — (Barfield’s Edition.) 8vo. cloth SCRIPTURE HISTORY. I2nio. .... HOPEFUL YOUTH FALLING SHORT OF HEAVEN GUIDE TO PRAYER. 32mo. .... DEATH AND HEAVEN. 32mo. . . . . WESLEY’S SERMONS, Edited by Drew. 2 vols. 8vo. JOURNAL OF HIS LIFE AND TRAVELS. 8vo. WHEATLEY ON THE COMMON PRAYER. 8vo. WILBERFORCE’S PRACTICAL VIEW OF CHRISTIANITY. 32mo. WILLIAMS’S CHRISTIAN PREACHER. By Jackson. 12mo. WITSIUS ON THE COVENANT BETWEEN GOD AND MAN. 2 vols. . £ s. (I 0 3 0 0 IG 0 0 8 0 0 2 6 0 3 0 0 7 0 0 9 0 0 12 0 0 2 6 3 14 0 1 1 0 0 10 6 0 1 6 1 4 0 0 12 0 2 5 0 0 2 6 0 10 6 1 1 0 1 1 0 0 7 0 1 1 0 0 12 0 0 9 0 0 9 0 0 1 6 1 16 0 0 8 0 0 4 6 0 3 0 0 6 0 0 2 6 0 3 0 0 8 0 0 4 0 0 5 0 0 10 6 0 1 6 0 10 6 0 4 0 0 1 0 0 16 0 16 0 15 0 0 9 0 0 8 0 0 2 0 0 4 6 1 4 0 CHEMISTRY, NATURAL HISTORY, BOTANY, MEDICINE, &c. ABERCROMBIE’S POCKET GARDEN- ER’S CALENDAR, 18mo. 2^. BERTHOLLET ON DYEING, by Ure, 12s. BEST’S ART OF ANGLING, by Jackson, 32mo. 2s. 6d. BUCHAN’S DOMESTIC MEDICINE, 8vo. 7s. 6d. BUFFON’S NATURAL HISTORY, New Edition, by Wright, 466 Cuts, 4 vols. IL 4s. CREAM OF SCIENTIFIC KNOWLEDGE; A NOTE-ROOK OF GENERAL INFOR- MATION, 18mo. 3s. DAVY’S AGRICULTURAL CHEMISTRY, 8vo. 9s. GARDENS & MENAGERIE of the ZOO- LOGICAL SOCIETY- 222 Cuts. 2 vols. IMs, GRIFFIN’S SCIENTIFIC MISCELLANY, 8 VO. U. is. HUBER’S OBSERVATIONS ON THE HONEY-BEE, l2mo, 6s. M AWE’S EVERY MAN HIS OWN GAR- DENER, 6s. NATURAL HISTORY of INSECTS. Cuts. 2 vols. 10s. PARKE’S CHEMICAL CATECHISM, bs. RYDGE’S VETERINARY SURGEONS’ MANUAL, 4tli Edition, 6s. THOMSON’S INORGANIC CHEMISTRY, 2 vols. 8 VO. U. .'is, WHITE’S NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE, by Lady Dover, 3s. Gd, MISCELLANEOUS ENGLISH LITERATURE. ABBOT’S HOARY HEAD AND THE VALLEY BELOW, 2s. 6d. ABBOT’S (JACOB AND JOHN) WORKS. II vols. 64mo. Cloth, Gilt, 1/. ANECDOTE BOOK, OR FIVE HUNDRED CURIOUS NARRATIVES, &c. 12mo,3j. BARROW’S HISTORY OF THE MUTINY OF THE BOUNTY, bs. BUCK’S ANECDOTES, MORAL, RELIGIOUS, AND ENTERTAINING. I2mo, 5^. BUCKE’S HARMONIES AND SUBLIMITIES OF NATURE. 3 vols. 8vo, H. IIj.Gc/. BUCKE’S RUINS of ANCIENT CITIES. 2 vis. lOs. BURTON’S ANATOMY OF MELANCHOLY. New Edition, Plates, 8vo. 12^. CAMPBELL’S PHILOSOPHY OF RHETORIC. 8vo, 9f. CHANNING’S (DR. W. E.) WORKS. New Edit. 2 vols. 8vo, 12f. CHILD’S (MRS.) FRUGAL HOUSEWIFE. New Edition, 2s. CHILD’S (MRS.) FAMILY NURSE. Companion to the above, 3#. Gd. CHILD’S (MRS.) MOTHER’S BOOK. 32mo, 2s. COLERIDGE’S SIX MONTHS’ RESIDENCE IN THE WEST INDIES, 5^. COMMON SENSE FOR COMMON PEOPLE. By Martin Doyle, l^. COWPER’S LIFE AND WORKS. By Grim- SHAWE. 8 vols. 21. COWPER’S POEMS. 18mo, cloth, 2f. CROKER’S FAIRY LEGENDS, &c. OF THE SOUTH of' IRELAND, 5s. CYCLOP.®DlA OF POPULAR SONGS. New Edition, 5s. DE FOE’S NOVELS AND MISCELLANEOUS WORKS, 20 vols.. Separately at 5^. Robinson Crusoe complete , 2 vols. — Life and Adven- tures of Captain Singleton. — Fortunes and Mis- fortunes of the famous Moll Flanders. — Life and Adventures of Colonel Jack. — Memoirs of a Cavalier. — New Voyage Round the World. — Memoirs of Captain Carleton and Mrs. Davies. — History of the Plague ; and the Consolidator. — History of the Devil. — Roxana ; or, the For- tunate Mistress. — A System of Magic. — History and Reality of Apparitions. — Religious Court- ship, with an Appendix. — Family Instructor, complete, 2 vols. — Complete Englisli Tradesman, 2 vols. — Memoii’s of Duncan Campbell. — Life of De Foe, &c. DE FOE’S SYSTEM OF MAGIC AND HIS- TORY OF THE BLACK ART, 5«. DE FOE’S SECRETS OF THE INVISIBLE WORLD. AND HISTORY OF APPARI- TIONS, 5^. DIARY OF AN AMERICAN PHYSICIAN, 2s. DOUCE’S ILLUSTRATIONS OF SHAK- SPEARE- 40 Engravings. 8vo, 14^. ELEGANT EXTRACTS, PROSE. 6 vols. 18mo, H. 10#. ELEGANT EXTRACTS, VERSE. 6 vols. 18mo, It. 10#. ENFIELD’S HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY. 8vo, 14#. EPHRAIM HOLDING’S DOMESTIC AD- DRESSES, 32mo, 2#. FERGUSSON’S LECTURES ON MECHANICS, &c., 8vo. 10#. FOX’S BOOK OF MARTYRS. New Edition. By Milner. 8vo, 15s. FOX’S BOOK OK MART YRS Abridged.lOmo, 2#. Gd. FAMILY LIBRARY, THE, IN EIGHTY VOLS. Sold Separately at 5s. Life of Buonaparte, 2 vols. — Life of Alexander the Great. — Lives of British Artists, G vols, — History of the Jews, 3 vols. — Insects, 2 vols. — Court and Camp of Buonaparte. — Life and Voyages of Columbus.— Life of Nelson, by Southey.— Lives of British Physicians.— History of British India, 4 vols.— Demonology and Witchcraft, by Scott.— Life and Travels of Bruce.— Voyages of Colum- bus’s Companions. — Venetian History, 2 vols. — History of the Anglo-Saxons. — Lives of Scottish Worthies, 3 vols.— Tour in South Holland.— Life of Sir Isaac Newton. — Mutiny of the Bounty. —Reformation in England. — Lander’s Travels in Africa, 2 vols. — Salmagundi, by Washington Irving.— Trials of Charles I. and the Regicides. — Brewster’s Natural Magic. — Life of Peter the Great.— Six Months in the West Indies.— Sketch Book, by Irving, 2 vols. — Tytler’s General History, 6 vols.— Croker’s Fairy Legends.— Me- moirs of the Plague, by De Foe and Brayley.— Life and Times of General Washington, 2 vols. — Knickerbocker’s History of New York. — Wesley’s Philosophy, 3 vols.— Segur’s Narrative of Napoleon’s Expedition to Russia, 2 vols. Life of Ali Pasha.— Lives of Banditti and Rob- bers. — Sketches of Imposture, Deception, and Credulity.— History of the Bastille. — History of Gustavus Adolphus. — Chronicles of London Bridge. — Life of Duke of Marlborough.— Life of Cervantes, by Roscoe.— Life of Cicero.— Ruins of Cities, 2 vols. — Life of Richard Cceur de Lion. — Life of Mahomet. — Peril and Suffering, 2 vols. — Eustace’s Classical Tour in Italy, 3 vols. — Lives of Eminent Men. — Jlutiny at the Nore. HAND-BOOK OF HORSEMANSHIP. 12 plates, 18mo. 2s. 6d. HISTORY OF THE MUTINY AT THE NORE. By W. J. Neale, 5#. HONE’S EVERY-DAY BOOK. Numerous Cuts. 2 vols. 8 VO. 16#. HONE’S TABLE BOOK, 8vo. 8#. HONE’S YEAR-BOOK, 8vo. 8#. HOLLAND’SDOMESTIC COOKERY. 12mo, 3#. HOWARD’S BEAUTIES OF BYRON. 18mo, 2#. INCHBALD’S BRITISH THEATRE. 20 vols. 30#. Any Play separately at 1#. IRVING’S (WASHINGTON) SKETCH-BOOK. 2 vols. 10#. KAMES’S ELEMENTS OF CRITICISM, 8vo, 7#. LELAND’S VIEW OF DEISTICAL WRITERS. By Edmonds. 8vo, 12#. LIVE AND LET LIVE. By Miss Sedgwick, 2s. Grf. LOCKE’S ESSAY ON THE HUMAN UNDER- STANDING. 8vo,9#. LOCKE’S EDUCATION. With Notes. By St. John, 12mo, 6#. MANUAL OF ASTROLOGY. New Edition. By Raphael. 8vo, 5s. MASON’S TREATISE ON SELF-KNOWLEDGE. 32mo, 2#. MILITARY REMINISCENCES. By Col. Welsh. 2 vols. 8vo. 16#. MILTON’S POETICAL WORKS. By Sir Egerton Brydges. 1vol. 8vo, 16#. MILTON’S POETICAL WORKS. 18mo, 3#. 6ff. PARADISE LOST. 18mo,2#. SELECT PROSE WORKS AND NOTES. By St. John- 2 vols. 12#. MORE (HANNAH) ON FEMALE EDUCATION. 18mo, Sf. MORE’S (HANNAH) TALES FOR THE COM- MON PEOPLE, 32mo. 2#. 6d. MORE’S (HANNAH) STORIES FOR THE MID- DLE RANKS, 32mo, 2#. Gd. MORE’S (MRS. HANNAH) MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. 2 vols. 8vo, \l. 4s. MORE’S DRAMAS, SEARCH, & ESSAYS, 2#. 6c/. NARRATIVES OF PERIL AND SUFFERING. By Davenport. 2 vols. 10#. OWEN’S BOOK OK ROADS. 18mo. New Edition, 2#. PATTERSON’S BOOK OF ROADS. 8vo, 18#. PHILOSOPHY OF COMMON SENSE, 32mo. 2#, POST CAPTAIN, OR THE WOODEN WALLS WELL MANNED. Royal 32mo, 2#. G.l. MISCELLANEOUS, &c. &c., CONTINUED. 7 hUlD’S ESSAYS ON THE INTELLECTUAL POWERS OF THE HUMAN MIND, with Examination Questions, &c. by the Rev. G. N. WUIGHT, 8vo, 12f. REID’S ESSAY ON THE ACTIVE POWERS OF MAN, AND INQUIRY INTO THE HUMAN MIND ; Essay on Quantity, &c. New Edition, by the Rev. G. N. Wright, 8vo, 12.». RICHMOND’S ANNALS OF THE POOR. 32mo, 2s. SCENES IN SCOTLAND. By Leighton. 12mo,5^. SCENES FROM 'J’HE LIFE OF EDWARD LAS- CELLES, Gent., with Illustrations by G. Cruikshank, 1 vol. 12rao, 12^. SCOTT’S LETTERS ON DEMONOLOGY AND WITCHCRAFT. 12mo, 5j. SCOTT’S MINSTRELSY OF THE SCOTTISH BORDER. 8vo, 7^. ficL SHAKSPEARE’S DRAMATIC WORKS. Dia- mond Edition, 7s. SHAKSPEARE’S DRAMATIC AND POETIC WORKS. 8vo, 10^. 6d. SIGOURNEY’S LETTERS TO MOTHERS, 2^. SIMPSON AND WISE’S READIEST READY RECKONER ever invented, 12mo, bound, 5s. SKETCHES OF IMPOSTURE, DECEPTION, AND CREDULITY, 5j. STEWART’S (DUGALD) PHILOSOPHY OF THE HUMAN MIND. New Edition, with the Latin Quotations, translated by the Rev. G. N. Wright. 8vo, 10^. 6d. SPHINX. A COLLECTION OF 400 ENIGMAS, &c., Is.Grf. THREE EXPERIMENTS OF LIVING. 32mo, 2x. TODD’S STUDENT’S MANUAL. 32mo, 2s. TODD’S LECTURES TO CHILDRP^N. 32rao, 2s. TRUTH MADE SIMPLE. 32mo, 2s. SIMPLE SKETCHES. 32mo, 2s. TREASURY OF WIT AND ANECDOTE. Royal 32mo, 2s. 6d. TRIALS OF CHARLES THE FIRST AND THE REGICIDES. 12mo, 5s. TWO YEARS BEFORE THE MAST. 24mo, 2s. VOCAL COMPANION, OR SINGER’S OWN BOOK, 12mo, 3s. 6d. WARTON’S HISTORY of ENGLISH POETRY. New Edition. 3 vols. 8vo, 11. 16s. WATTS ON THE IMPROVEMENT OF THE MIND. 18rao, 2s. WESLEYANA, A SELECTION FROM WES- LEY’S WRITINGS. 18mo, 3s. WESLEYAN METHODIST CONFERENCE. By Ryerson. 8vo, 2s. AVESLEY’S NATURAL PHILOSOPHY. By Robert Modie. 3 vols. 15s. WESLEY FAMILY. By Dr. A. Clarke, 2 vols. 12s. WONDERS OF HUMAN NATURE. 12mo, 5s. YOUNG ENTHUSIAST IN HUMBLE LIFE, ]8mo, 2s. 6d. YOUNG’S NIGHT THOUGHTS ON LIFE, DEATH, AND IMMORTALITY, 18mo, 2s. SCHOOL BOOKS. ADAM’S ROMAN ANTIQUITIES. New Edition, by Boyd, with Questions, 12mo. 7t. .SSCHYLUS, a New Translation. 18mo. 5s. jESOP’S FABLES. (Chiswick Press.) 3s. 6d. AINSWORTH’S LATIN-ENGLISH DICTION- ARY, by Dymock, 18mo. 7s. ALEXANDER THE GREAT, LIFE OF, by Rev. J. Williams, 5s. ALDERSON’S ORTHOGRAPHICAL EXER- CISES, Is. ANTHON’S HORACE, with English Notes. A New Edition, by Boyd, 7s. 6d. ANTHON’S SALLUST, with English Notes. A New Edition, by Boyd, 12mo, 5s. ANTHON’S CICERO’S ORATIONS, with Eng- lish Notes. A New Edition, by Boyd, 12mo, 6s. ANTHON’S GREEK READER, with English Notes. A New Edition, by Boyd, 12mo, 7s. 6d. ANTHON’S CAISAR’S COMMENTARIES, with Maps and Plates, 12mo, 6s. ANTHON’S GREEK GRAMMAR. New Edition, by Dr. IMajor, King’s College. 12mo, 4s. ANTHON’S GREEK PROSODY. New Edition, by Dr. Major, King’s College, 12mo, 2s. 6d. ANTHON’S LATIN GRAMMAR. New Edition, by Rev. W. Hayes, King’s College, 12mo, 4s. BALDWIN’S ROME. 12mo. 3s. 6d. BALDWIN’S GREECE. 12mo. 4s. BALDWIN’S PANTHEON OF THE HEATHEN DEITIES. 12mo, 5s. Cd. BALDWIN’S FABLES. Cuts. 12mo. 4s. BARROW’S PETER the GREAT, 5s. BLAIR’S LECTURES ON RHETORIC, by Rev. T. Dale. 8vo. 12s. BONNYCASTLE’S SCHOOL BOOKS, edited by Rev. E. C. Tyson, viz. — Arithmetic, 3s, 6d. j Key to Algebra, 4s. 6d. Key to Ditto, 4s. 6d. j Introduction to Mensu- Introduct. to Algebra, j ration, 5s. 4s. 1 Key to Mensuration, 5s. BOWEY’S FRENCH DICTIONARY, 8vo. 12s. BURGESS’S (BISHOP) HEBREW ELEMENTS. 12mo, 6s. BURGESS’S (BISHOP) RUDIMENTS OF HE- BREW GRAMMAR. 7s. CARR’S MANUAL OF ROMAN ANTIQUITIES. 12mo, 6s. 6d. CICERO’S EPISTOL^ AD ATTICUM. 2 vols. I2mo, 12s. CRABB’S DICTIONARY OF GENERAL KNOW- LEDGE. Fourth Edition. 7s. CUDWORTH’S INTELLECTUAL SYSTEM, 4 vols. 8vo, DAVENPORT’S WALKER’S DICTIONARY IN MINIATURE. 18mo, 5s. DUNCAN’S (Rev. Dr.) HEBREW LEXICON AND GRAMMAR. 18mo, 7s. ENFIELD’S SPEAKER. A New Edition. 3s. 6d. ENFIELD’S PROGRESSIVE SPELLING-BOOK. New Edition. Is. 3d. ETON GREEK GRAMMAR, by Homer, 12mo. 4s. FINLAY’S GENERAL SCHOOL ATLAS. Royal 8 VO. Coloured 12s. OUTLINE MAPS. Royal 8vo. 5s. FRENCH CLASSICS FOR SCHOOLS, edited by Ventodillac, 18mo, viz.— Elisabeth. Mme. Cot- LaChaumifere Indienne. TIN. 2s. 6d. Numa Pompilius. Flokian. 5s- Bv Nouveaux Morceaux Choisis de Buffon. 2s. 6d. ELLIS’S LATIN EXERCISES. By Wright. 3s. 6d. GUY’S SCHOOL BOOKS— St. Pierre. 2s. 6d. Choix des Contes Mo- raux de Marmontel. 2s. 6d. Histoire de Pierre le Grand. Voltaire. .5s. Pensees de Pascal. 2s.6d. New Edition. British Primer, 12mo. half-bound, 6d. Spelling Book, 12mo. sheep. Is. 6d. Expositor, 12mo, shp, Is. 6d. British Reader, 12mo, roan, 3s. 6d. School Question Book, with Chart, I2mo. roan, 4s. 6d. SchoolArithmetic,12mo. sheep, 2s. Key to ditto, 1 2mo. roan sheep, 4s. 6d. Pocket Cyclopaedia, 12mo. cloth, 10s. 6d 8 SCHOOL BOOKS, &c., CONTINUED. GEOGRAPHY AND HISTORY. By a Lady. New Edition. By Wright. 12mo, 4^. 6d. GOLDSMITH’S GRAMMAR OF GEOGRAPHY. New Edition. By Wkighti 18mo, 3#. HUTTON’S MATHEMATICS. A New Edition. By Rutherford. 8 vo, IGs. HUTTON’S MATHEMATICAL RECREA- TIONS. By Riddi.e. 8vo, 165. JOHNSON’S ENGLISH DICTIONARY. (Pocket Size.) 25. JONES’S SHERIDAN’S PRONOUNCING DIG- TIONARY, square, 35. 6c(. JOYCE’S COMMERCIAL ARITHMETIC, by Wright, 12mo, 3i. JOYCE’S INTRODUCTION TO THE ARTS AND SCIENCES. 12mo, 35. Gd. [35. 6d. JOYCE’S SCIENTIFIC DIALOGUES. 12mo, KEITH ON THE USE OF THE GLOBES. New Edition, by Wright, 12nio, 65. 6ci. LEMPRIERE’S CLASSICAL DICTIONARY. By Park. ISmo, 75. LENNIE’S ENGLISH GRAMMAR. 18mo, l5. 6d. MADAN’S JUVENAL. 2 vols. 8vo, 145. MANGNALL’S HISTORICAL AND MISCEL- LANEOUS QUESTIONS. 12ino, 45. Gd. MAYOR’S SPELLING-BOOK. 12mo. 15. MEADOWS’S ITALIAN and ENGLISH DIC- TIONARY. 18mo, 75. MEADOWS’S FRENCH AND ENGLISH PRO- NOUNCING DICTIONARY. 18mo. 7s. MEADOWS’S SPANISH AND ENGLISH DIC- TIONARY. 18mo,75. MORRISON’S BOOK-KEEPING. 8vo, 85. MURRAY’S (LINDLEY) SCHOOL-BOOKS, edited by Tyson, viz. — English Gram. 45. English Reader. 12tno, (Abridged). 45. 18mo, l5. Exercises. Introduction to the En- glish Reader. 12mo, 12mo, 25. 6d. Key to the Exercises. 12mo, 25. 6d. 25. Grammar & Exercises. By GARTLEY,18mo,25. NEWTON’S PRINCIPIA MATHEMATICA. 2 vols. Royal 8vo, 11. 5s. NOVUM TESTAMENTUM GRiECE. 32mo, 5f. PARLEY’S UNIVERSAL HISTORY. 45. Cd. PARLEY’S GRAMMAR OF GEOGRAPHY, 45. 6d. PARLEY’S TALES ABOUT GREECE. 45. 6d. PARLEY’S TALES ABOUT ROME. 45. 6d. PARLEY’S MYTHOLOGY OF GREECE. 45. 6d. PERRIN’S ELEMENTS OF FRENCH CON- VERSATION. By Wright. 12mo, I5. 6d. PERRIN’S FRENCH FABLES. 12mo, 25. 6i. PERRIN’S FRENCH SPELLING-BOOK. By Wright. 12mo, 25. PINDitRI CARMINA. Heyne. 32rao. 45. PINNOCK’S ENGLAND. New Edit. 12mo, .'55. 6d. POTTER’S ANTIQUITIES OF GREECE. By Boyd. 12mo. 95. QUESTIONS ON ADAM’S ROMAN ANTIQUI- TIES. By Boyd. I5.8d. RAMSHORN’S DICTIONARY OF LATIN SYNONYMES. 8vo. 7s. SEPTUAGINT (The GREEK). 2 vols. 32mo, 125. SIMSON’S EUCLID, by Rutherford. 18mo, 55. TEGG’S FIRST BOOK FOR CHILDREN, Gd. TOM TELESCOPE’S NEWTONIAN PHILOSO- PHY. Cuts. 45. 6d. TOOKE’S (HORNE) DIVERSIONS OF PUR- LEY. New Edition, by Taylor. 8 vo. 145. TROLLOPE’S (Rev.) GREEK TESTAMENT, 8 vo. 21 5. VALP Y’S LATIN DELECTUS, by Wright. 25. Cd. WALKINGAME’S TUTOR, I2mo. 25. WANOSTROCHT’S RECUEIL CHOISI, New Edit, by Wright, 12mo. 35. WATTS’S VIEW OF SCRIPTURE HISTORY. 12mo, 45. 6d. WRIGHT’S COMMENTARY ON NEWTON’S PRINCIPIA. 2 vols. 11. 8s. WRIGHT’S GREEK-ENGLISH LEXICON.— 18mo, 7s. DICTIONARIES, LEXICONS, &c BROOKES’S GENERAL GAZETTEER, or GEOGRAPHICAL DICTIONARY, 8vo. 125. BROOKES’S GENERAL GAZETTEER in MINIATURE, New Edition, by Findlay, 7s. BROWN’S (REV. JOHN) DICTIONARY OF THE HOLY BIBLE, 8vo. 95. BUCK’S THEOLOGICAL DICTIONARY, New Edition, by Henderson, 8 vo. 145. CALMET’S DICTIONARY of the HOLY BIBLE, by Taylor, Imperial 8vo. H. 4-5. CARPENTER’S DICTIONARY OF SY- NONYMES, 3rd Edition, 18mo, ‘Is.Gd. CRABB’S DICTIONARY OF GENERAL KNOWLEDGE, 4th Edition, 12mo, 7s. CRUDEN’S CONCORDANCE of the OLD AND NEW TESTAMENT, Imperial 8vo. I85. CUNNINGHAM’S (A.) PILKINGTON’S DICTIONARY of PAINTERS, 8vo, 215. DAVENPORT’S WALKER’S PRONOUN- CING DICTIONARY, 18mo. 55. DOLBY’S SHAKSPEARIAN DICTION- ARY, an Index to Shakspeare, 12mo, 7s. Gd. DUNCAN’S (REV. DR.) HEBREW LEXI- CON AND GRAMMAR, 18mo. 7s. DYMOCK’S AINSWORTH’S LATIN- ENGLISH DICTIONARY, 18mo. 75„ GORTON’S TOPOGRAPHICAL DIC- TIONARY of Great Britain, & Atlas, 4 v.725. GURNEY’S DIAMOND DICTIONARY OF THE BIBLE, 24mo. 35. 6rf. GUTHRIE’S GEOGRAPHY IN MINIA- TURE, by Davenport, ISmo, 7s. JOHNSON’S DIAMOND DICTIONARY OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE, 32mo. 25. JOHNSON’S DICTIONARY OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE, 2 vols. 4to. 2Z. 25. JONES’S (STEPHEN) BIOGRAPHICAL DICTIONARY, 18mo. 65. JONES’S BIBLICAL CYCLOPAEDIA, 1 65. LEMPRIERE’S CLASSICAL DICTION- ARY, by Parke, 18mo, 7s. MEADOWS’S ITALIAN-ENGLISH DIC- TIONARY, 18mo, 75. MEADOWS’S FRENCH. ENGLISH PRO- NOUNCING DICTIONARY, 18mo. 75. MEADOWS’S SPANISH-ENGLISH DIG- TIONARY, 18mo. 75. MITCHELL’S PORTABLE CYCLOPA- DIA, 60 Plates, 8vo. H. 15. NUTTALL’S CLASSICAL AND ARCITA- OLOGICAL DICTIONARY, 8vo. 16.v. ROBINSON’S GREEK AND ENGLISH LEXICON OF THE TESTAMENT, Jtvo. I.'i.v. TEGG’S DICTIONARY OF CHRONO- LOGY. 12mo. 65. WALKER’S CRITICAL PRONOUNCING DICTIONARY, 8vo. 7s. AVALKER’S PRONOUNCING DICTION- ARY, and the Key to Proper Names, 8vo. 95. Hradbiiry Kvnns, Prlntors, WliiltdViarB. ^ Xv/X ^ C^/t^* h^sy iAit, iv r-i ^ -/• //#•. /. - /. J8L z , vi' ^ 1 ^ — ' /. f^u. /. /yr^ vT K^ih^ th> . '- — - /. ■Z-t>3. 1 ii ' : 'i '.' ' '-i: ) /'li'tiiv ( ' ,