Apostle St. Paul says if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead thou shalt be saved Rom. 8. 9. Where this Article of the Resurrection of Christ from the dead supposes the rest and is here expresly mentioned as the confirmation of the truth of Christ's Mission and Doctrine 2. That it is a very grievous Error to fancy that it is a matter of meer indifference what our belief is in particular and that it is enough that we believe that Christ is the Son of God without obliging our selves to believe all the just and necessary consequences of that Proposition meerly because that one single Act of Faith qualified the first Converts for Baptism when that only is mentioned as the Foundation and Basis of all the rest and does Necessarily include all the other Doctrinal Points that depend upon it 3. That we are obliged to profess our belief of the whole Doctrine of Christianity as it lyes in the writings of the New Testament which is the Rule of Faith and as out of them it is briefly summed up in the Creeds the explication which the Catholick Church has made of that Rule So that as on the one hand after this acknowledgment it is unjust to demand a more particular and distinct account or catalogue of the Fundamental Articles of the Christian Faith necessary to be believed in order to Salvation that being sufficient for the Catholick Church in all Ages which was so in the first so on the other hand to believe less and to reject any part of the Christian Doctrine and teach the contrary is justly chargeable with the guilt of Heresie and is not the effect of wariness but of pride and obstinacy The command of God to believe the Testimony that he has given of his Son and the revelations of his will and the Divine Authority on which they are founded are sufficient Arguments to move us to assent to the truth of them though the matter of them be so far above our comprehension They are Mysteries and necessarily must be such and therefore are to be adored and submitted to with that humility that befits Creatures conscious of their own weaknesses and faileurs and of the infinite and incomprehensible Majesty and perfection of God And if this troubles them they may as well murmur and quarrel and find fault with the dispensations of Providence as obscure and un-intelligible There is enough to satisfie all who will be content with just Proofs of it though not to take away all possible doubt and by this means they must side with the followers of Epicurus in their idle and foolish and impious attempts to raze the very notions of a Deity out of the minds of Men and extinguish and destroy all Religion out of the World This is not imposing upon them or doing violence to their Reason as they object only upon this pretence because the Mysteries of Religion are not as evident and clear to their understanding as visible objects are to the Eye in a clear and full light For then they would cease to be matters of Faith and lose their name and fall under the comprehension of Science And indeed so long as they retain this unreasonable Principle that all the Mysteries of Christian Religion are to be tryed and judged by the narrow Rules of Philosophy and natural Reason which can be no proper medium of proving things only knowable by Revelation they may well pretend that 't is not in their own power to change their Opinions and that 't is not possible for them to bring their understandings to admit them But can they hope that this should justifie their pertinaciousness and excuse them at God's Tribunal Is it not to be feared that the unjust prejudices which they entertain arise from a perverse will and from obstinacy and pride and peevishness and not from any dissatisfactoriness at the inevidence and incertainty of the grounds and motives of their Credibility It is only God who can convince such men by the mighty influences of his Grace and remove these prejudices which obstruct the reception of his truth to whose Mercy we leave them For us let us hold fast our Profession of Faith without wavering for God is faithful who hath called us to the knowledge of his Truth If you understand aright the Principles of the Christian Religion and the Principles of the Protestant Religion it is impossible for you to be debauched and perverted either by Socinian or Jesuit or Sectary All their pretended demonstrations for error and delusion are usually very bold and confident are meer Sophisms and Arguments of deceit tricks and artifices of Wit without any foundation of true Reason in the one or of Scripture or Apostolical Tradition in the other If as I said before the Primitive Christians went to Heaven you may be assured of the same hope of Salvation in the Communion of the Church of England if you add to a sound Faith the practises of a Vertuous and Holy and truly Christian Life and if you perform the Vows you made at your Baptism and renew every time you receive the most blessed Sacrament and so adorn the Primitive Faith with Primitive Purity and Holiness Appendix concerning the Apostles Creed THis form of Faith is called by Irenaeus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or the invariable Rule of Faith received and openly profess'd and acknowledged by the new Convert at his Baptism 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And so in several other places he refers not only to the Christian Faith in general but to a fixt and known rule of it As lib. 1. cap. 19. Cùm teneamus autem nos regulam veritatis And lib. 2. cap. 43. Nusquam transferentes regulam neque errantes ab artifice neque abjicientes fidem This rule of Faith is called somewhere by him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or little body or System of Articles containing the sum and substance of the Christian Religion Tertullian does also often mention the regula fidei as a thing every where known and acknowledged as in his Book against Hermogenes in the beginning de praescript cap. 13. Apol. cap. 47. And in his Book de velandis Virginibus in the beginning Regula quidem fidei una omnino est soia immobilis 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 irreformabilis and is the same with what he calls soon after Lex fidei or the unalterable Law of Faith which admits of no change whereas the Church has a Power in matters of Ecclesiastical Discipline and external behaviour to make what alteration shall be judged most suitable to the rules of Piety Prudence Decency and to variety of Circumstances of places and times and other accidents Hâc lege fidei manente caetera jam disciplinae conversationis admittunt novitatem corrections operante scilicet persiciente usque in finem gratiâ Dei Thus in general there was an explicite rule of Faith
a Doctrine proposed to us as a Matter of Faith Is it any where to be found in the Discourses of our Blessed Saviour preserved in the History of the Gospels Did the Apostles teach it their first Converts Is it agreeable to or founded upon true Apostolick Tradition Is this Tradition un-interrupted and derived down pure from the first Ages of the Church Was it received universally by the whole number of Christians in their time Is it any where to be met with in their Writings either in express terms or by a just and clear and necessary consequence For though the Doctrine of the Christian Religion was Preach'd and received before any word of the New Testament was Penned yet to say the Apostles taught many Points of Doctrine which they did not put down in Writing and much more such Points as consequentially overthrow and destroy the plain sense and letter of the Text is a very groundless and scandalous Supposition And besides the injury done to the Scriptures which contain in them all Points necessary to be believed is confuted by the Authors of it who pretend to fetch Proofs of their fansied tenents out of them There having been that great Veneration shewn to the Inspired Writings in all Ages that Hereticks and other kind of Innovators have chosen rather to bend and warp the Scripture and pervert its true sense and meaning in favour of their tenents than not seem to have the Countenance of its Authority 2. That since the times of the Apostles and the Sealing up of the Canon of Scripture no New Doctrine can or ought to be added as Essential to the Christian Religion For all which is Essential to the Faith was delivered by the Apostles to the Church at first otherwise the Rule of Faith had been imperfect and would have had something wanting to its completion to be supplyed in after-times which is to cast a slur and a blemish upon those first Ages of Christianity which were fully Instructed in all things fit and necessary for Christians to know and believe by the Apostles themselves without the stamp of whose Authority no Doctrine could be Authentick For what ever was believed as necessary derived only from them as the Instruments which Christ made use of to convey his Doctrine to the World which they did fully and carefully and successfully by the mighty aids of his Spirit according to the trust reposed in them They establish'd the belief of the Christian Religion in the hearts of the Faithful They concealed nothing of the mind and will of God Churches were formed and modelled according to their direction and command and Episcopal Government with the inferiour and subordinate Orders settled for the better preservation of Unity and Communion The Faith of Christ was professed and acknowledged as they taught and delivered it Their Writings were among them exactly agreeing in all things with what they had Preach'd and were to be the standing Monuments of the will of Christ Registred by their Pens to direct all succeeding Generations of Christians in their belief and in their practise After their Decease no new Revelation was to be expected only a delivering down of the same Apostolical Doctrine to after-ages in which the Faith nay the Curiosity of all Christians ought to acquiesce 3. That it is not in the Power of the Church in general much less of any particular Church of what denomination soever to lay down any Doctrine as necessary to be believed in order to Salvation but what is expresly revealed or clearly deduced out of the writings of the New Testament and was acknowledged in the first Ages of Christianity For if so they must pretend to the same Authority and produce clear and convictive Evidences of such Revelations to make them credible and lay an Obligation upon the Consciences of all Christians to receive their Propositions under the grievous penalty of otherwise disobeying the voice and will of God This dotage indeed Montanus and such kind of Enthusiasts have been guilty of But their pretensions were rejected as dreams of folly arising from mis-interpretations of Scripture as if there were to be new Revelations made in after-times by way of super-addition and supplement into which errors they were led by their pride and conceitedness and an ill habit and temper of body and the Authority of the Scriptures and the Praescription of the precedent Ages were justly objected against them All that the Church can pretend to is only this not to define and make a new Article of Faith but only to declare what before was revealed and acknowledged though not so clearly understood till the iniquity of the times made it necessary for the Church in a general Council to interpose her Authority in the determination of Controversies of Faith And where this pretence is true her Authority ought to be submitted to and her Proposals embraced That is if the Doctrine proposed be the just and natural result of an Article of Faith expresly revealed in the Scripture and understood in that manner and acknowledged as such by the first Christians Contemporaries and Successors of the Apostles and constantly received from that time downward by the generality of Christians For the opposition of a few after the first and general reception of a necessary truth is not considerable who through prejudice or out of design to raise troubles in the Church or out of Ambition to be the Chiefs of a Faction or through a pretended dissatisfaction at the Mysteriousness of it or through wantonness of Wit and Humour have been so obstinate as not only to refuse to make the same acknowledgment but to maintain the contrary with violence To all which that is to Scripture Apostolick Tradition and universal consent the Fathers Assembled in the four first General Councils had regard in their determinations against the Hereticks of their time They only fixt what was Catholick Doctrine and what was believed in the Ages before they were born They founded their Declarations upon Scripture and universal Tradition And to silence all Disputes and to prevent Schism and to direct their own and after-times in the belief and understanding of the great Mysteries of Faith they reduced the Doctrine of it as it lyes scattered in several parts of Scripture into a form of plain and intelligible words and enlarged themselves in the explication of it as we shall see anon It being the very same Faith which the Apostles Preach'd and which the Scriptures hold out to us All the Anathema's are founded upon that of St. Paul Gal. 1. 8 9. Though we or an Angel from Heaven Preach any other Gospel unto you then what we have Preached unto you let him be accursed If any Man Preach any other Gospel unto you than that you have received let him be accursed And if there cannot be another Gospel there cannot be another Faith The Gospel being the Revelation of God by Christ and that Revelation full and made but once in
in the right if a good Life for that is a Fundamental and most necessary point of Christianity and without which all our belief be it never so Orthodox will signifie nothing added to an entire and found Faith carried them to Heaven we may be secure it is enough for us to follow them and tread in their steps We retain the same Faith the Reformation of the Church of England conformed it self to their Practise and Example Our Church has been the great Eye-sore of Rome ever since and especially of late when they had such mighty hopes of prevailing to which the froward and perverse humour of the Non-Conformists and chiefly the Presbyterian Faction the Original and source of all our Church-divisions have given so great advantage So that the Wise and most Learned King James of Blessed Memory may seem to have been a Prophet in this too That if ever the Pope were brought into England it would be upon the back of a Puritan as well as in that remarkable saying No Bishop no King the truth of which was most sadly justified and made out in the late most bloudy and unnatural Wars and by the most horrid Murder of the best of Princes Charles the Martyr whose Righteous Soul must needs be troubled if any thing of pity which is a troublesom Passion can be supposed to reach the Blessed at our present Distractions and the dismal consequences of them They envy her Beauty and Order the discreet Piety of her Service and the Regularity and exactness of her Discipline and the Apostolicalness of her Government and the flourishing of her Universities This makes them rage and swell and for want of better Proofs and Arguments accuse and arraign as guilty of Heresie and Schism and Innovation the purest and most Apostolical Church of the World But wise and considerate men are not to be frighted out of their Senses and out of their Religion with hard and big words and with reproachful Language The dissolute and debauched may easily be reconciled as the new word is to a Religion that is so favourable to them and gives them hopes of going to Heaven after a careless and wretched Life if upon a Sick Bed they begin to be afraid and profess a little sorrow and can but send for a Priest and be Absolved and the ignorant and weak may be wrought upon by little tricks and pieces of Sophistry and cheated and trapanned out of a Church the Doctrine of which they did not throughly understand For it is impossible for one who understands aright the Grounds and Principles of the Reformation upon which this National Church proceeded ever to renounce her Communion unless he first makes Shipwrack of his Honesty as well as of his Conscience and is swayed wholly by Worldly respects and interests But we need value their Censures the less not only because they are unjust and uncharitable but because they involve the Primitive Christians in the same guilt with us and all the Christian Churches this day in the World that will not own that grand Fundamental Article of the Roman Faith the Pope's Jurisdiction and be content to receive their Christianity from Rome and acknowledge all her determinations to be truly and really as they in the ordinary Court-stile call them Apostolical Let us in the name of God justifie the Doctrine of our Church by the strictness and exemplariness of our Lives as well as by Arguments and Discourses of Reason Let us reform our selves not only from the Errors and Superstitions but from the Vices that are too commonly practised in Catholick Countries as they call them though thanks be to the great industry and kindness and charity of their Missionaries of late they would be content I will not say though perhaps I might justly enough make it their business that Atheism and Profaneness and Debauchery should overspread the Land rather than that the name of the Church of England should be any more in remembrance In times of such defection to Socinianism and Popery on the one hand and to Fanaticism on the other let us take heed to our selves that we be no way byassed or wrought upon to desert the purity and integrity of the Christian Doctrine as it is taught in this Church in any one point of it and withal let us seriously consider and remember that it is not enough to believe it with our hearts unless we make open and publick profession of it with our Mouths Which brings me To the third Proposition That all who are Baptized and consequently are by this Sacrament of Initiation admitted and received into the Communion and Society of Christians are to make profession of this Faith One Faith One Baptism It was the undoubted Practise of the Church in the first Ages that the Candidates of Baptism should make profession of that Faith into which they were to be Baptized some previous time being allowed for their Instruction in the Doctrine of it as Rufinus a Presbyter of Aquileia who Lived almost 1300 Years since in his Exposition upon the Creed assures us for his own time and says it was then an Ancient Custom and so may be justly referred to the very times of the Apostles 'T is to be acknowledged indeed that St. Luke in the History of the Acts of the Apostles gives us this account only in general that the new Converts were required to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ as in the case of the Prison-keeper Converted by the Preaching of St. Paul Acts 16. 31. And that after St. Philip had convinced the Eunuch by Preaching to him Jesus and explaining the Prophesies which fore-told him so as that he desired to become a Proselyte of Christ as he had hitherto been of Moses a Devotion to whose Law had brought him to Jerusalem and had also farther acquainted him that if his request to be Baptized were more than a Complement or Curiosity if it were real and sincere if his Faith proceeded from a thorough conviction of mind he was qualified for Baptism and not otherwise If thou believest with all thy heart thou mayest The Eunuch makes no other Confession but this I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God Acts 8. 37. But then it is evident that in this one Proposition the whole Doctrine of the Creed is virtually contained and that it draws necessarily all the other along with it and that this general belief was deduced into its severals afterwards and that for a more explicite and particular enumeration of the Articles of the Christian Faith we are to have recourse to the Apostolical writings in which they confirm the new Christians in the Faith which they had been taught to believe and acknowledge By all which it may appear that 1. Divine Faith in general is necessary to the Being of a Christian and that without it we to whom the Gospel is Preach'd and made known cannot pretend either to Christianity or to any hope of Salvation For as the