petent conveyer of truth. 3dly, That fome books were ART. written for the conveyance of those matters, which have VI. been in all ages carefully preferved and esteemed facred. 4thly, That the writers of the firft ages do always argue from, and appeal to, thefe books: And, 5thly, That what they have faid without authority from them has been rejected in fucceeding ages; the truth of this branch of our Article is fully made out. If what is contained in the Scripture in exprefs words is the object of our faith, then it will follow, that whatfoever may be proved from thence, by a juft and lawful confequence, is alfo to be believed. Men may indeed err in framing thefe confequences and deductions, they may miftake or ftretch them too far: but though there is much fophiftry in the world, yet there is alfo true logic, and a certain thread of reafoning. And the fenfe of every propofition being the fame, whether expreffed always in the fame or in different words; then whatsoever appears to be clearly the fenfe of any place of Scripture, is an object of faith, though it fhould be otherwife expreffed than as it is in Scripture, and every juft inference from it must be as true as the propofition itself is: therefore it is a vain cavil to afk exprefs words of Scripture for every Article. That was the method of all the ancient heretics: Chrift and his Apoftles argued from the words and paffages in the Old Teftament, to prove fuch things as agreed with the true fenfe of them, and fo did all the fathers; and therefore fo may we do. The great objection to this is, that the Scriptures are dark, that the fame place is capable of different senses, the literal and the myftical: and therefore, fince we cannot understand the true fenfe of the Scripture, we must not argue from it, but feek for an interpreter of it, on whom we may depend. All fects argue from thence, and fancy that they find their tenets in it: and therefore this can be no fure way of finding out facred truth, fince fo many do err that follow it. In anfwer to this, it is to be confidered, that the Old Teftament was delivered to the whole nation of the Jews; that Mofes was read in the Synagogue, in the hearing of the women and children; that 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 Teftament were in their style and whole contexture dark, and hard to be understood; yet when fo great a question as this, who was the true Meffias ? came ART. to be examined, the proofs urged for it were paffages in VI. the Old Testament. Now the queftion was, how thefe 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 Difciples urge these paffages in their true fenfe, and in the confequences that arofe out of them. They did in that appeal to the rational faculties of thofe to whom they fpoke. The Chriftian religion was at firft delivered to poor and fimple multitudes, who were both illiterate and weak; the Epiftles, which are by much the hardest to be understood of the whole New Teftament, were addreffed to the whole Churches, to all the Faithful or Saints; that is, to all the Chriftians in thofe Churches. Thefe were afterwards read in all their affemblies. Upon this it may reasonably be asked, were thefe writings clear in that age, or were they not? If they were not, it is unaccountable why they were addreffed to the whole body, and how they came to be received and entertained as they were. It is the end of fpeech and writing, to make things to be understood; and it is not fuppofable, that men infpired by the Holy Ghost either could not or would not exprefs themselves fo as that they fhould be clearly understood. It is alfo to be obferved, that the new difpenfation is oppofed to the old, as light is to darkness, an open face to a vailed, and fubftance to fhadows. Since then the Old Testament was fo clear, that David both in the 19th, and moft copioufly in the 119th Pfalm, fets out very fully the light which the laws of God gave them in that darker ftate, we have much more reafon to conclude, that the new difpenfation fhould be much brighter. If there was no need of a certain expounder of Scripture then, there is much lefs now. Nor is there any provifion made in the new for a fure guide; no intimations are given where to find one: from all which we may conclude, that the books of the New Teftament were clear in thofe days, and might well be understood by thofe to whom they were at firft addreffed. If they were clear to them, they may be likewise clear to us: for though we have not a full history of that time, or of the phrafes and cuftoms, and particular opinions of that age; yet the vaft induftry of the fucceeding ages, of thefe two laft in particular, has made fuch difcoveries, befides the other collateral advantages which learning and a niceness in reasoning has given us, that we may juftly reckon, that though fome hints in the Epiftles, which relate to the particulars of that time, may be fo loft, that we we can at best but make conjectures about them; yet, ART. upon the whole matter, we may well understand all that VI. is neceflary to falvation in the Scripture. We may indeed fall into mistakes as well as into fins; and into errors of ignorance, as well as into fins of ignorance. God has dealt with our understandings as he hath dealt with our wills: he proposes our duty to us, with ftrong motives to obedience; he promises us inward affiftances, and accepts of our fincere endeavours: and yet this does not hinder many from perishing eternally, and others from falling into great fins, and fo 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 fame manner; he has fet his will and the knowledge of falvation before us, in writings that are framed in a fimple and plain style, in a language that was then common, and is ftill well understood, that were at firft defigned for common ufe; they are foon read, and it must be confeffed that a great part of them is very clear: fo we have reafon to conclude, that if a man reads these carefully and with an honeft mind; if he prays to God to direct him, and follows fincerely what he apprehends to be true, and practifes diligently thofe duties that do unquestionably appear to be bound upon him by them, that then he shall find out enough to fave his foul; and that fuch mistakes as lie ftill upon him, fhall either be cleared up to him by fome happy providence, or fhall be forgiven him by that infinite mercy, to which his fincerity and diligence is well known. That bad men fhould fall into grievous errors, is no more ftrange, than that they fhould commit heinous fins and the errors of good men, in which they are neither wilful nor infolent, will certainly be forgiven, as well as their fins 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 fhew us the danger of studying them with a biaffed 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 fubmitting to the dictates of others. So far I have explained the first branch of this Article. The confequence that arifes out of it is fo clear, that it needs not be proved: That therefore nothing ought to be efteemed an Article of Faith, but what may be found in it, or proved from it. If this is our rule, our entire and only H 4 rule, ART. rule, then fuch doctrines as are not in it ought to be reVI. jected; and any Church that adds to the Christian religion, is erroneous for making fuch additions, and becomes tyrannical if the impofes them upon all her members, and requires pofitive declarations, fubfcriptions, and oaths, concerning them. In fo doing the forces fuch as cannot have communion with her, but by affirming what they believe to be falfe, 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 faints, of the worthipping of images, croffes, and relics; of the corporal prefence in the Eucharift; of the facrifice 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 Scripture is exprefs in oppofition to them, fo they defile the worship of Chriftians with idolatry: but they become yet moft intolerable, if they are impofed 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 our forming ourselves into a diftinct body from the Roman Church, and therefore it is well to be confidered. The further difcuffing of this will come properly in, when other particulars come to be examined. From hence I go to the fecond branch of this Article, which gives us the Canon of the Scripture. Here I fhall begin with the New Testament; for though in order the Old Teftament is before the New, yet the proof of the one being more diftinctly made out by the concurring teftimonies of other writers, than can poffibly be pretended for the other, and the New giving an authority to the Old, by afferting it fo exprefsly, I fhall therefore prove first the Canon of the New Teftament. I will not urge that of the testimony of the Spirit, which many have had recourfe to this is only an argument to him that feels it, if it is one at all; and therefore it proves nothing to another perfon: befides, the utmost that with reason can be made of this is, that a good man, feeling the very powerful effects of the Chriftian religion on his own heart, in the reforming his nature, and the calming his confcience, together with those comforts that arife out of it, is convinced in general of the whole of Chriftianity, by the happy effects that it has upon his own mind: but it does not from this appear how he should know that fuch books and fuch paffages in them should come from a divine ori VI. ginal, or that he fhould be able to distinguish what is ART, Hift. c. 15. The Canon of the New Teftament, as we now have it, is fully proved from the quotations out of the books of the New Teftament, by the writers of the first and fecond centuries; fuch as Clemens, Ignatius, Juftin, Irenæus, and feveral others. Papias, who converfed with the difciples of the Apoftles, is cited by Eufebius in confirma- Lib. iii. tion of St. Matthew's Gofpel, which he fays was writ by Hift. c. 39. him in Hebrew: he is alfo cited to prove that St. Mark c. 25. writ his Gospel from St. Peter's preaching; which is also confirmed by Clemens of Alexandria; not to mention later writers. Irenæus fays St. Luke writ his Gofpel ac- Euf. 1. ii. cording to St. Paul's preaching; which is fupported by fome words in St. Paul's Epiftles that relate to passages in that Gospel; yet certainly he had likewife other vouchers; those who from the beginning were eye-witnesses and minifters of the word; though the whole might receive its full authority from St. Paul's approbation. St. John writ later than the other three; fo the teftimonies concerning his Gospel are the fulleft and the most particular. Irenæus has Lib. iii. cap. laboured the proof of this matter with much care and attention he lived within an hundred years of St. John, and knew Polycarp that was one of his difciples: after him come Tertullian and Origen, who fpeak very copi- Tert. 1. iv. ously of the four Gofpels; and from them all the ecclefi- cont. Mar. Orig. apud aftical writers have without any doubting or controverfy acknowledged and cited them, without the leaft fhadow Euf. lib. vi. of any oppofition, except what was made by Marcion and cap. 25. the Manichees. II. cap. 1. Conc. Can. 60. Carth. Next to these authorities we appeal to the catalogues of the books of the New Teftament, that are given us in the third and fourth centuries by Origen, a man of great industry, and that had examined the ftate of many churches; by St. Athanafius, by the council of Laodicea Athan, in and Carthage; and after these we have a conftant fuccef- Synopf. fion of teftimonies, that do deliver thefe as the Canon All this laid together does fully iii. c. 47. univerfally received. prove this point; and that the more clearly, when thefe particulars are confidered. 1ft, That the books of the New Teftament were read in all their churches, and at all their affemblies, fo that this was a point in which it was not easy for men to mistake. 2dly, That this was fo near the fountain, that the originals themfelves of the Apoftles were no doubt so long preferved. 3dly, That both the |