the fervice of God. But it is moral that a man fhould ART. pay homage to his Maker, and acknowledge him in all VII. his works and ways: and fince our fenfes and fenfible objects are apt to wear better things out of our thoughts, it is neceffary that fome folemn times fhould be fet apart for full and copious meditations on these subjects: this fhould be univerfal, left, if the time were not the fame every where, the business of fome men might interfere with the devotions of others. It ought to have fuch an eminent character on it, like a ceffation from bufinefs: which may both awaken a curiofity to inquire into the reafon of that ftop, and alfo may give opportunity for meditations and difcourfes on thofe fubjects. It is alfo clear, that fuch days of reft must not return fo oft, that the neceffary affairs of life fhould be stopped by them, nor fo feldom, that the impreffions of religion fhould wear out, if they were too feldom awakened: but what is the proper proportion of time, that can beft agree both with men's bodies and minds, is only known to the great Author of nature. Howfoever, from what has been faid, it appears that this is a very fit matter to be fixed by fome facred and perpetual law, and that from the first creation; because there being then no other method for conveying down knowledge, befides oral tradition, it feems as highly congruous to that ftate of mankind, as it is agreeable to the words in Genefis, to believe that God fhould then have appointed one day in seven for commemorating the creation, and for acknowledging the great Creator of all things. But though it feems very clear, that here a perpetual law was given the world for the feparating the feventh day; yet it was a mere circumftance, and does not at all belong to the standing ufe of the law, in what end of the week this day was to be reckoned, whether the firft or the laft: fo that even a lefs authority than the Apostles, and a lefs occafion than the refurrection of Chrift, might have ferved to have transferred the day. There being in this no breach made on the good and moral defign of this law, which is all in it that we ought to reckon facred and unalterable: the degree of the reft might be alfo more feverely urged under the Mofaical Law, than either before it or after it. Our Saviour having given plain intimations of an abatement of that rigour, by this general rule, that the Sabbath Mark ii. 24. was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath. We, who are called to a state of freedom, are not under fuch a ftrictness as the Jews were. Still the law ftands for feparating a feventh day from the common business of life, and applying it to a religious reft, for acknowledging at ART. at firft the Creator, and now, by a higher relation, the Re deemer of the world. 17. VII. Deut. v. 21. These four Commandments make the first Table, and were generally reckoned as four diftinct Commandments, till the Roman Church having a mind to make the fecond disappear, threw it in as an appendix to the first, and then left it quite out in her catechifms: though it is plain that these Commandments relate to two very different matters, the one being in no fort 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 Exod. xx. acts of the fame fpecies: and the house being fet before the wife in Exodus (though it comes after it in Deuteronomy, which, being a repetition, is to be governed by Exodus, and not Exodus by it) ftands for the whole fubftance, which is afterwards branched out in the particulars; and fo it is clear that there is no colour for dividing this in two: but the first two Commandments relating to things of fuch a different fort, as is the worshipping of more Gods than one, and the worshipping the true God in an image, ought ftill to be reckoned as different: and though the reafon given for the jealousy and juftice of God may relate equally to both, yet that does not make them otherwife one, than as both might be reduced to one common head of idolatry, so that both were to be equally punished. In the fecond Table this order is to be obferved. There are four branches of a man's property, to which every thing that he can call his own may be reduced: his perfon, his wife and children, his goods, and his reputation: fo there is a negative precept given to fecure him in every one of thefe, against killing, committing adultery, ftealing, and bearing falfe witnefs: to which, as the chief acts of their kind, are to be reduced all those acts that may belong to those heads: fuch as injuries to a man in his person, though not carried on nor defigned to kill him; every temptation to uncleannefs, and all thofe exceffes that lead to it; every act of injuftice, and every lie or defamation. To thefe four are added two fences; the one exterior, the other interior. The exterior is the fettling the obedience and order that ought to be obferved in families, according to the law of nature: and, by a parity of reafon, if families are under a conftitution, where the government is made as a common parent, the establishing the obedience to the civil powers, or to fuch orders of men who may be made as parents, with relation to matters of religion: this is the foundation of peace peace and justice, of the fecurity and happiness of man- ART. kind. And therefore it was very proper to begin the fe- VII. cond Table, and thofe laws that relate to human fociety, with this; without which the world would be like a foreft, and mankind, like fo many favages, running wildly through it. The laft Commandment is an inward fence to the Law: it checks defires, and restrains the thoughts. If free scope fhould be given to thefe, as they would very often carry men to unlawful actions, for a man is very apt to do that which he defires, fo they muft give great disturbance to those that are haunted or overcome by them. And therefore as a mean both to fecure the quiet of men's minds, and to preferve the world from the ill effects which fuch defires might naturally have, this fpecial law is given; Thou shalt not covet. It will not be easy to prove it moral in the ftricteft fenfe, yet in a fecondary order it may be well called moral: the matter of it being fuch both with relation to ourselves and others, that it is a very proper fubject for a perpetual law to be made about it. And yet, as St. Paul fays, he had not known it to be Rom. vii., a fin, if it had not been for the law that forbids it; for after all that can be faid, it will not be easy to prove it to be of its own nature moral. Thus, by the help of that diftinction of what is moral in a primary and in a fecondary order, the morality of the Ten Commandments is demonftrated. That this law obliges Chriftians as well as Jews, is evident from the whole fcope of the New Teftament. Inftead of derogating from the obligation of any part of that law, our Saviour after he had affirmed, that he came Mat. v. 17, not to diffolve the Law, but to fulfil it, and that heaven and 18. earth might pass away, but that one tittle of the Law bould not pass away; he went through a great many of those laws, and fhewed how far he extended the commentary he put upon them, and the obligations that he laid upon his Difciples, beyond what was done by the Jewish Rabbies: all the reft of his Gofpel, and the writings of his Apoftles, agree with this, in which there is not a tittle that looks like a flackening of it, but a great deal to the contrary: a ftrictness that reaches to idle words, to paffionate thoughts, and to all impure defires, being enjoined as indifpenfably neceffary; for without holiness no man can fee the Lord. And thus every thing relating to this Article is confidered, and I hope both explained and proved.. ARTICLE reto. ARTICLE VIII. Of the Three Creeds. The Three Czerds, Nice Creed, Athanafius Creed, and that which is commonly called the Apostles Czeed, ought throughlp to be zeteived and believed; for they may be proved by moßk ceztain Wazrants of Holy Scripture. ALTHOUGH LTHOUGH no doubt feems to be here made of the names or defignations given to thofe Creeds, except of that which is afcribed to the Apoftles, yet none of them are named with any exactnefs: fince the article of the Proceffion of the Holy Ghoft, and all that follows it, is In Ancho- not in the Nicene Creed, but was used in the Church as a part of it; for fo it is in Epiphanius, before the fecond General Council at Conftantinople; and it was confirmed and established in that Council: only the article of the Holy Ghoft's proceeding from the Son, was afterwards added first in Spain, anno 447, which spread itself over all the Weft: fo that the Creed here called the Nice Creed is indeed the Conftantinopolitan Creed, together with the addition of filioque made by the Western Church. That which is called Athanafius's Creed is not his neither; for as it is not among his works, fo that great article of the Chriftian religion having been fettled 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; befides, that not only the Macedonian, but both the Neftorian and the Eutychian herefies are exprefsly condemned by this Creed; and yet thofe authorities never being urged in thofe difputes, it is clear from thence, that no fuch 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 Athanafius, or as a reprefentation of his doctrine, and fo it grew to be received by the Western Church; perhaps the more early, because it went under fo great a name, in ages that were not critical enough to judge of what was genuine, and what was fpurious. There is one great difficulty that arifes out of feveral expreffions in this Creed, in which it is faid, that whofoever will be faved, muft believe it; that the belief of it is neceffary VIII. neceffary to falvation; and that fuch as do not hold it pure ART. and undefiled, fhall without doubt perish everlaftingly: where many explanations of a mystery hard to be underftood are made indifpenfably neceffary to falvation; and it is affirmed, that all fuch as do not fo believe mut perifh everlastingly. To this two anfwers are made: 1. That it is only the Chriftian faith in general that is hereby meant, and not every period and article of this Creed; fo that all thofe fevere expreffions are thought to import only the neceffity of believing the Chriftian religion : but this feems forced; for the words that follow, and the Catholic faith is, do fo plainly determine the fignification of that word to the explanation that comes after, that the word Catholic faith, in the firft verfe, can be no other than the fame word, as it is defined in the third and fol lowing verfes; fo that this anfwer feems not natural. 2. The common anfwer in which the most eminent men of this Church, as far as the memory of all fuch as I have known could go up, have agreed, is this, that these condemnatory expreffions are only to be understood to relate to those who, having the means of inftruction offered to them, have rejected them, and have ftifled their own convictions, holding the truth in unrighteousness, and choofing darkness rather than light: upon fuch as do thus reject this great article of the Chriftian doctrine, concerning one God and Three Perfons, Father, Son, and Holy Ghoft, and that other concerning the Incarnation of Christ, by which God and man was fo united as to make one perfon, together with the other doctrines that follow thefe, are thofe anathemas denounced: not fo as if it were hereby meant, that every man who does not believe this in every tittle muft certainly perish, unless he has been furnished with fufficient means of conviction, and that he has rejected them, and hardened himself against them. The wrath of God is revealed againft all fin, and the wages of fin is death: fo that every finner has the wrath of God abiding on him, and is in a ftate of damnation : yet a fincere repentance delivers him out of it, even though he lives and dies in fome fins of ignorance; which though they may make him liable to damnation, fo that nothing but true repentance can deliver him from it; yet a general repentance, when it is alfo fpecial for all known fins, does certainly deliver a man from the guilt of unknown fins, and from the wrath of God due to them. God only knows our hearts, the degrees of our knowledge, and the measure of our obftinacy, and how far our ignorance is affected or invincible; and therefore he will deal with |