He has given you a Tongue as your Glory, SERM. and if you are filent in his Doctrine, you turn VIII. your Glory into a Shame. He has mentioned your Faith and your Profeffion together, as equal Parts of an Homage to him, and a Care about yourselves. If thou believe that Jefus died, and confefs that God raised him again from the Dead, Rom.x. 9. thou shalt be faved; a dumb Believer is like a dumb Bell, all Lumber and no Melody: And the Reason is given for the one as well as the other, that with the Heart Man believes unto Righteoufnefs, and with the Mouth Confeffion is made to Salvation. He that confeffes Chrift be- Matt. x. fore Men, him will the Son of Man confefs be- 32. fore the Angels that are in Heaven.

But, this Duty I have in a publick Manner enforced, and taken all the Rubbish out of the way that fome trifling Objections have thrown into it. I have there fhown how falfe and wicked it is to charge it with a Denial of Christ's Authority, the Sufficiency of the Scriptures, to reprefent it as a Breach of Charity, or a Ruin of Liberty. See twenty-eight Sermons concerning Offences, Revilings, and a Confeffion of the Faith.

(4.) This Profeffion is what we make in Union. with the People of God. The Word μonyí fignifies a fpeaking together, not in Time, but in Substance. We are to speak the fame thing, and 1 Cor. i. be perfectly joined together in the fame Mind 10, and the fame Judgment. With one Mind, and one Mouth, we are to glorify God.

We have our feveral Opinions even about Baptifm itself, but we are united in one common Faith; which is a living diffufive Argument, that the Spirit has done his Office, by leading Believers into all Truth. The Churches of the Reformation without any Concert or Management

have

SERM. have agreed in the Doctrine of the Trinity, and VIII. in their feveral Languages begun with that, as

$3.

fundamental to every other Article. Thus it 1 Cor. xii. appears that we are baptized into one Body, and are made to drink into one Spirit; and as for those who depart from the good old Way, in which fo many Thousands have got to Heaven, we know not what Spirit they are of. They Ezek. xiii. follow their own Spirit, and have feen nothing.

3.

11, 12.

jii. 3.

I

(5.) If Profeffion is a speaking together, then Christians are to know one anothers Minds. thank my God, faith the Apostle, that your Faith is fpoke of throughout the whole World. And, Rom. i. 8. I long to fee you, that I may impart unto you fome fpiritual Gift, to the End you may be eftablished; that is, that I may be comforted together with you by the mutual Faith both of you and me; and when he could no longer forTheff. bear, he fent to know the Faith of the Theffalonians, left by fome Means the Tempter should have tempted them, and his Labour be in vain. I fhould be very loth to have it faid of our Faith, that by long hoarding up, the Ruft and Canker of it witneffes against us. A filent Believer has no Claim to brotherly Kindness and Charity. He fuffers himself to be no greater in the Church, than a Heathen Man or a Publican is out of it. We greet them that love us in the Faith. As the End of the Commandment is Charity, it must be out of a good Confcience and Faith unfeigned. The Brethren that spoke of Gaius teftified of the Truth that was in him, as well as bore Witness of his Charity.

Tit. iii. 15.

1 Tim.i.

5.

3 John

8, 6.

(6.) This joint Profeffion lets us fee, there muft be a confent to fome wholfome Words. I do not mean to the Rumbling or Sound, but to the Senfe contained in them. How dangerous would it be to use the Words of Chrift in Baptifm, as the Ene

Enemies did his Body? i. e. hang them upon a Crofs, ftrain them in all the cruel Ways that can be invented, running their foolish and unlearned Questions into them like fo many Spears, that bring out nothing but Blood and Water?

SER M.

VIII.

I declare, that when I have baptized a Person, I should think myfelf guilty of deceiving the World and insulting the Lord Jefus, if I meant any more than one God, or any fewer than three Perfons. I believe the Form that is put into my Mouth reveals both this Distinction and their Union. If ever this appears to be falfe, I would revoke my Baptifm, and renounce the Words that discovered the Doctrine. This is the plain. and natural Senfe of the Words; and therefore, to twine and torture them with Conjectures and maybe's is making Christ not a Teacher, but a Barbarian, by not uttering Words that are easy to be understood. I never did, and never durft baptize any into three Names, because that would have infinuated three Gods, one Supreme and two Subordinate; I would never make them equal in Devotion that are not equal in Nature; and it. would be as vile to fay that you are baptized into one Perfon and two Powers: The Form mentions three Perfons as plainly as one. I know what God does, it fhall be for ever, nothing can Eccl. îîî. be put to it, nor any thing taken from it, and 14. God does it that Men fhould fear before him. Chrift's own Words would have done without any Explication, if Men had not perverted them : But when four or five Schemes are argued from one and the felf-fame Form, it's Time to look- into the Things that we have wrought; this is putting the Ark of God into the Houfe of Dagon, when Men refift the Truth, being of corrupt Minds, and reprobate concerning the Faith.

(5.)

SERM.

VIII.

(7.) This Profeffion, in which we are all united, was made when we entered either ourfelves or our Children into the Chriftian Faith; 'tis the original Contract; Father, Son, and Holy Ghoft is become our God, and we are his People. Cannot any of us tell whether we were devoted to one God or three? To two Powers or three Perfons? What a Jeft will the World make of our Religion, if the initial Form in which we embrace it is not to be understood or determined?

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May not the Jews infult us, and fay, "We "know that God fpake by Mofes, but as to this Jefus we know not whence he is, and excufe "us in faying fo, for your own Writers know "not what he is. Some of your learned Men "are offended, as our Fathers were, that he "made himself equal with God; we called it blaf"phemy, and you call it rhetorick, but both "Sides are agreed in the main, that he has not "a strict and proper Deity. 'Tis the Unity of "the Godhead that you contend for, and fo do << we. We made his Words Criminal, and you "make them figurative; 'tis pity he had not "his Free-thinkers, his critical Difputants about "him then; for their Diftinctions and Differta-. "tions would have foftened his Doctrine and "faved his Life."

And as to the Holy Spirit, if the Form of Baptifm does not declare both his Deity and his Perfonality, our Chriftian Religion is no longer diftinguished from the Jewish and the Mahometan; but rather fhared between them, and like a Couple of Eagles they are hovering over their Prey to fee which of them fhall have it. For, as I read in Dr. Owen, "All the falfe Ap"prehenfions concerning the Spirit may be re"duced to two Heads: Firft, that of the mo"dern Jews, who affirm the Holy Ghoft to "be

"the influential Power of God; which Conceit is SERM. "entertained and promoted by the Socinians, VIII. " and, fecondly; that of the Mahometans, who "make him an eminent Angel, which Opinion "they got from the Macedonians."

So that inftead of having the Form of Baptism honoured, we fee it used, as its Author was, crucified between two Malefactors. And thus thofe Words that fhould declare us to be Chrif tians, do only diftribute us among the two great Enemies of our Faith. A Form of Words is no better than a Form of Godliness, if you deny the Power. It lets us fee that the Arian Scheme comes not half fo well out of the Mouth of an English Bishop as it would from a Turkish Mufti : 'Tis not the Leffon of the Bible, but the Alkoran. And the Notion of making the Spirit only the influential Power of God, is very little becoming a Diffenting Meeting Houfe, but rather smells rank of the Jewish Synagogue.

But, my Brethren, ftand by your Baptifm; Mic. iv. i. e. walk up and down in the Name of the Fa- 5. → ther, Son, and Holy Ghost, that Name of God that was called upon you. If you either tremble or trifle in the Doctrine of the Trinity, the very Badge of your Chriftianity is gone. This is the main, the adequate, the original Sense of Baptifm. There are indeed feveral Articles of Faith. That you may argue from having your Bodies washed with pure Water; as,

1. The Supremacy of Chrift over his Church. If you comply with this Ordinance, upon his Authority, you pay him as great a Deference as ever Abraham did to the most high God, when

he was circumcifed. Chrift in this acted as a Son Heb. iii. over his own Houfe.

6.

2.