if God brought them forth for his own Perfection it would follow that he was before imperfect and consequently not God and that his Perfections are mutable and perishing Therefore at least some other cause of these must be found out And as for the similitudes in the objection I answer 1. That the fructifying of a Tree is an act of Generation and the ends of it are partly the use for food to superiour sensitive Creatures especially man and partly the propagation of its species because it is mortall Fructification is indeed its perfection but that is because it is not made for it self but for another Sic vos non vobis may be written upon all But God is neither mortall needing a propagation of the species nor is he subservient to any other and finally for its use And as for the Soul it made not the matter of its own body but found it made though in the formation of it it might be so efficient as domicilium sibi fabricare But God made all matter of nothing and gave the World whatsoever it is or hath And therefore was Perfect himself before For an imperfect being could never have been the cause of such a frame Therefore he needed no domicilium for himself nor as an imperfect Part a form to concurr to the constitution of a whole But he is the efficient dirigent and final cause of the World and all things but not the constituent or essential for then the Creature and Creator were all one and God debased and the Creature deified But he is to them a supra-essential cause even more than a form and soul while he is a total efficient of all 3. If all that is in the Objection had been proved it would not at all shake the main design of my present discourse which is to prove that God is our Grand Benefactor and Chief Good and that he is mans ultimate end For if the World were his Body and he both its Efficient and its Soul he would be the cause of all its Good and the Cause would be more excellent than the Effect And if our Souls that never made the matter of our Bodies are yet the noblest part of us and far more excellent than the Body much more would God that made or caused all the Matter and Order in the World be more excellent than that World which he effected And as the Soul is not for the Body as its ultimate end though it be the Life of the Body and its great Benefactor but the Body is finally more for the Soul though the Soul need not the Body so much as the Body needeth the Soul and as the Horse is finally for the Rider and not the Rider for the Horse though the Horse needeth his Master more than the Master doth the Horse for the Horses life is preserved by the Master when the Master is but accommodated in his Journey by his Horse Even so though the World need God and he needeth not the World and God giveth being and life to the World which can give nothing at all to him yet the World is finally for God and not God for the World The noblest and first Being is still the End And the generated part of the World which is not formally eternal but doth oriri interire is it that our dispute doth most concern which the Objection doth no whit invalidate § 5. The same Will of God which was the free efficient is the End of all his Works ad extra Gods Essence hath no Efficient or final Cause but is the efficient and final cause of all things else They proceeded from his Power his Wisdom and his good-will and they bear the Image of his Power Wisdom and Good-will and he loveth his own Image in them and loveth them as they bear his Image and loveth his Image for Himself So that the act of his Love to Himself is necessary though voluntary and so is the act of his Love to his Image and to all the Goodness of the Creature while it is such But he freely and not necessarily made and continueth the Creature in his Image and needeth not the Glass or Image being self-sufficient so that his Creature is the mediate Object his Image on the Creature is the ultimate created Object his own perfections to which that Image relateth is the objectum simpliciter ultimatum his complacency or love is the Actus ultimus and that very act is the object of his precedent act of Creation or volition of the Creatures But all this is spoken according to the narrow imperfect capacity of man who conceiveth of God as having a prius posterius in his acts which is but respectively and denominatively from the order of the objects In short Gods free-will is the Beginning of his works ad extra and the complacency of that will in his works as Good in relation to his own perfections is the END And therefore he is said to Rest when he saw that all his works were Good § 6. Whatsoever is the fullest expression and Glorifying demonstration of God in the Creature must needs be the chief created excellency Because he loveth Himself first and the Creature for Himself And seeing the Creature hath all from him which is good and amiable in it it must needs follow that those parts are most amiable and best which have most of the impression of the Creators excellencies on them Not that he hath greater Perfections to imprint on one Creature than another but the impression of those Perfections is much greater on one than on another § 7. The Happier therefore God will make any Creature the more will be communicate to it of the Image and demonstration of his own goodness and so will both love it the more for his own Image and cause it to love him the more which is the chief part of his Image § 8. The Goodness of God is conceived of by our narrow mindes in three notions as it were in three degrees of altitude The Highest is The infinite perfections of his Essence as such The second is The infinite perfection of his Will as such which is called His Holiness and the Fountain of Morality The third is that one part of his Wills perfection which is his Benignity to his Creatures which we call his Goodness in a lower notion as relative to our selves because he is inclined by it to Do us good This is his Goodness in condescention § 9. Though all this is but one in God yet because our mindes are fain to receive it as in several parts or notions we may therefore not only distinguish them but compare them as the Objects of our Love § 10. Man usually beginneth at the lowest and loveth God first for his Benignity and Love to us before he riseth to the higher acts And this is not an irregular motion of a lapsed Soul in its return to God so be it we make haste in our
whether there be any such or not Because he is not made for any life but this And if God had made Man for no more he would have disposed and obliged him no further We have an understanding to know it and thoughts and hopes and fears and cares about it which are not all in vain and we are plainly in reason obliged to this and more than we do and that Obligation is not vain § 13. XIII If there were no Life of Retribution hereafter Man were more vain and miserable than the Bruits by far and his Reason would but more delude him and torment him But the Consequent is absurd Ergo so is the Antecedent The Major is easily proved by our great experience for the world consisteth partly of men that believe another life and partly of them that do not and Reason maketh them both the more miserable For the former sort which is the most of the world their Reason telleth them that it is their duty to labour for a happiness hereafter and to fear and prevent a future misery and so their expectation would be their meer delusion and their lives would be all spent and ordered in delusion Like a company of men that should run up and down to prepare for a transplantation into the Moon and should cut down timber to build there and provide a stock of cattle to store the grounds there and buy and sell Lands there such would be the life of man in preparing for another world and he would be under a double calamity One by all this fruitless labour and another by his fear of future misery if his labour by temptations should be frustrate and he should miscarry To have Reason to lead a man in such a delusory life and to torment him with the fears of what may befall him after death is sure to be by reason more unhappy than the beasts that have none of this And for the Atheists they are more unhappy too so far as they are rational and considerate For they have no more happiness than the beasts to comfort them while they look for none hereafter and they have in all the way the foresight of their end they fore-know their great probability of sickness and painful tormenting diseases they fore-know the certainty of their death they know how all their sport and pleasure will end and leave them in dolour and how their corps must be rotting and turn to dust they fore-see abundance of crosses in their way they are troubled with cares for the time to come A beast hath none of this fore-knowledge and none of the fore-thoughts of pain or dying but only fearfully flieth from a present danger Moreover the poor Atheist having no certainty of the truth of his own opinion that there is no other life is oft haunted with fears of it and especially when approaching death doth awake both his reason and his fears he then thinks O what if there should be another world where I must live in misery for my sin In despight of him some such fears will haunt him Judge then whether the use of reason be not to make man a more deluded and tormented creature than the bruits if so be there were no life after this But this cannot stand with the methods of our Creator To give us so great an excellency of nature to make us more vain and unhappy than the beasts When he maketh a creature capable and fit for higher things he declareth that he intendeth him for higher things Obj. But even here we have a higher kind of work and pleasure than the Bruits we rule them and they serve us we dwell in Cities and Societies and make provision for the time to come Answ Those Bruits that dwell in Woods and Desarts serve us not and our ruling them is a small addition to our felicity Pride it self can take little pleasure in being the Master of Dogs and Cats Rule doth but adde to care and trouble caeteris paribus it is an easier life to be ruled than to rule And if we take away their lives it is no more than we must undergo our selves and the violent death which we put them too hath usually less pain than our languishing age and sickness and natural death And it is as pleasant to a Bird to dwell in her nest as to us to dwell in Cities and Palaces and they sing as merrily in their way of converse as we in our troublesome Kingdoms and Societies If present pleasure be the highest of our hopes they seem to have as much as we or if there be any difference it is counter-ballanced by the twenty-fold more cares and fears and labours and mental troubles which we are more liable to And our knowledge doth but encrease our sorrow of which next § 14. XIV If there were no life of Retribution the wiser any man were the more miserable would he be and knowledge would be their plague and ignorance the way to their greatest pleasure But the consequence is absurd Ergo so is the antecedent The reason of the consequence is manifest in what is said the Ignorant have nothing to disturb them in their sensual delights The liker to beasts they can be to eat and drink and play and satisfie every lust and never think of a reckoning or of death it self the more uninterrupted would be their delights the fore-thoughts of death or any change would not disturb them their folly which maketh them over-value all the matters of the flesh would encrease their pleasure and felicity for things delight men as they are esteemed rather than as indeed they are But the more wise and knowing men would always see vanity and vexation written upon all the treasures and pleasures of the world and in the midst of their delights would fore-see death coming to cut them off and bring them to a dolorous end So that undoubtedly the most knowing would be the most miserable and though Nature delight in knowing much it would but let in an inundation of vexatious passions on the mind But Knowledge is so great a gift of God and Ignorance so great a blemish unto Nature that it is not by sober reason to be believed that so noble a gift should be given us as a plague and so great a plague and shame of nature as ignorance is should be a blessing or felicity § 15. XV. If the Kings and temporal Governours of the world do extend their Rewards and Punishments as far as to temporal prosperity and adversity life and death in respect to the present ends of Government and this justly then is it meet and just that the Universal King extend his benefits and punishments much further for good or evil as they have respect unto his own Laws and Honour But the antecedent is true Ergo so is the consequent Kings justly take away mens lives for Treason They that look but to the present temporal good or hurt of the Common-wealth do think
errour it is a way that reason teacheth all men in the trying of any questioned point to reduce it to those that are unquestionable and see whether or no they accord with those And to mark the unquestionable Ends of Religion and try how it suiteth its means thereunto And therefore men of all sober professions have their determinate principles and ends by which they try such particular opinions as Christians do by their analogy of faith And in this trial of Christianity I shall tell you what I find it § 1. I find in general that there is an admirable concord between Natural Verity and the Gospel of Christ and that Grace is medicinal to Nature and that where Natural light endeth Supernatural beginneth and that the superstructure which Christ hath built upon Nature is wonderfully adapted to its foundation This is made manifest in all the first part of this Treatise Reason which is our Nature is not destroyed but repaired illuminated elevated and improved by the Christian faith Free-will which is our Nature is made more excellently free by Christianity Self-love which is our Nature is not destroyed but improved by right conduct and help to our attainment of its ends The Natural part of Religion is so far from being abrogated by Christianity that the latter doth but subserve the former Christ is the way to God the Father The duty which we owe by Nature to our Creator we owe him still and Christ came to enable and teach us to perform it the love of God our Creator with all our hearts is still our duty and faith in Christ is but the means to the love of God and the bellows to kindle that holy fire The Redeemer came to recover us to our Creator He taketh not the Book of the Creatures or Nature out of our hands but teacheth us better to read and use it And so it is through all the rest § 2. I find also that the state of this present world is exceeding suitable to the Scripture-character of it that it is exceeding evil and a deluge of sin and misery doth declare its great necessity of a Saviour and sheweth it still to be a place unmeet to be the home and happiness of Saints Of all the parts of God's Creation this earth doth seem to be next to Hell certainly it is greatly defiled with sin and overwhelmed with manifold calamities and though God hath not totally forsaken it nor turned away his mercy as he hath done from Hell yet is he much estranged from it so that those who are not recovered by grace are next to devils And alas how numerous and considerable are they to denominate it an evil world Those that Christ calleth out of it he sanctifieth and maketh them unlike the world and his grace doth not give them a worldly felicity nor settle them in a Rest or Kingdom here but it saveth them from this world as from a place of snares and a company of cheaters robbers and murderers and from a tempestuous Sea whose waves seem ready still to drown us I. I find it is a world of Sin II. And of Temptation III. And of Calamity I. For Sin it is become as it were its nature it liveth with men from the birth to the grave It is an ignorant world that wandereth in darkness and yet a proud self-conceited world that will not be convinced of its ignorance and is never more furiously confident than when it is most deceived and most blind Even natural wisdom is so rare and folly hath the major vote and strength that wise men are wearied with resisting folly and ready in discouragements to leave the foolish world unto it self as an incurable Bedlam so fierce are fools against instruction and so hard is it to make them know that they are ignorant or to convince men of their mistakes and errours The Learner thinks his Teacher doteth and he that hath but wit enough to distinguish him from a bruit is as confident as if he were a Doctor The Learned themselves are for the most part but half-witted men who either take up with lazie studies or else have the disadvantage of uncapable temperatures and wits or of unhappy Teachers and false principles received by ill education which keep out truth so that they are but fitted to trouble the world with their contentions or deceive men by their errors and yet have they not the acquaintance with their ignorance which might make them learn of such as can instruct them but if there be among many but one that is wiser than the rest he is thought to be unfit to live among them if he will not deny his knowledge and own their errours and confess that modesty and order require that either the highest or the major vote are the masters of truth and all is false that is against their opinions It is an Atheistical ungodly world that knoweth not its Maker or forgetteth contemneth and wilfully disobeyeth him while in words it doth confess him and yet an hypocritical world that will speak honourably of God and of vertue and piety of justice and charity while they are neglecting and rejecting them and cannot endure the practice of that which their tongues commend almost all sorts will prefer the life to come in words when indeed they utterly neglect it and prefer the fleshly pleasures of this life They cry out of the vanity and vexation of the world and yet they set their hearts upon it and love it better than God and the world to come they will have some Religion to mock God and deceive themselves which shall go no deeper than the knee and tongue in forms or ceremonies or a dissembled affection and profession But to be devoted absolutely to God in self-resignation obedience and love how rare is it even in them who cannot deny but the Law of Nature it self doth primarily and undeniably oblige them to it Their Religion is but self-condemnation while their tongues condemn their hearts and lives It is a sensual bruitish world and seemeth to have hired out their reason to the service of their appetites and lusts gluttony and excess of drink and sports and plays and gaming with pride and wantonness and fornication and uncleanness and worldly pomp and the covetous gathering of provision for the flesh to satisfie these lusts is the business and pleasure of their lives and if you tell them of Reason or the Law of God to take them off you may almost as well think to reason a hungry Dog from his carrion or a lustful Boar to forbear his lust And it is a Selfish world where every man is as an idol to himself and affected to himself and his own interest as if he were all the world drawing all that he can from others to fill his own insatiable desires loving all men and honouring and esteeming and praising them according to the measure of their esteem of him or their
agreeableness to his opinions ways or interest self-love self-conceit self-esteem self-will and self-seeking is the soul and business of the world And therefore no wonder that it is a divided and contentious world when it hath as many ends as men and every man is for himself and draweth his own way No wonder that there is such variety of apprehensions that no two men are in all things of a mind and that the world is like a company of drunken men together by the ears or of blind men fighting with they know not whom and for they know not what And that ignorant sects and contentious wranglers and furious fighters are the bulkie parts of it And that striving who shall Rule or be Greatest or have his will is the worlds employment It is a dreaming and distracted world that spend their days and cares for nothing and are as serious in following a feather and in the pursuit of that which they confess is vanity and dying in their hands as if indeed they knew it to be true felicity they are like children busie in hunting butterflies or like boys at foot-ball as eager in the pursuit and in over-turning one another as if it were for their lives or for some great desirable prize or liker to a heap of Ants that gad about as busily and make as much ado for sticks and dust as if they were about some magnificent work Thus doth the vain deceived world lay out their thoughts and time upon impertinencies and talk and walk like so many Noctambulo's in their sleep they study and care and weep and laugh and labour and fight as men in a dream and will hardly be perswaded but it is reality which they pursue till death come and awake them Like a Stage-play or a Poppet-play where all things seem to be what they are not and all parties seem to do what they do not and then depart and are all disroab'd and unmask'd such is the life of the most of this world who spend their days in a serious jeasting and in a busie doing nothing It is a malignant world that hath an inbred radicated enmity to all that virtue and goodness which they want they are so captivated to their fleshly pleasures and worldly interests that the first sight approach or motion of reason holiness mortification and self-denial is met by them with heart-rising indignation and opposition in which their fury beareth down all argument and neither giveth them leave considerately to use their own reason or hearken to anothers there are few that are truly wise and good and heavenly that escape their hatred and beastly rage And when Countries have thought to remedy this plague by changing their forms of Government experience hath told them that the vice and root of their calamity lieth in the blindness and wickedness of corrupted nature which no form of Government will cure and that the Doves that are governed by Hawkes and Kites must be their prey whether it be one or many that hath the Sovereignty Yea it is an unthankful world that in the exercise of this malignant cruelty will begin with those that deserve best at their hands He that would instruct them and stop them in their sin and save their souls doth ordinarily make himself a prey and they are not content to take away their lives but they will among their credulous rabble take away the reputation of their honesty and no wisdom or learning was ever so great no innocency so unspotted no honesty justice or charity so untainted no holiness so venerable that could ever priviledge the owners from their rage or make the possessors to escape their malice Even Jesus Christ that never committed sin and that came into the world with the most matchless love and to do them the greatest good was yet prosecuted furiously to a shameful death and not only so but in his humiliation his judgement was taken away and he was condemned as an evil doer who was the greatest enemy to sin that ever was born into the World He was accused of Blasphemy for calling himself the Son of God of Impiety for talking of destroying the Temple and of Treason for saying he was a King And his Apostles that went about the World to save mens Souls and proclaim to them the joyfull tydings of salvation had little better entertainment wherever they came bonds and afflictions did abide them And if they had not been taught to rejoyce in tribulations they could have expected little joy on earth And it was not only Christians that were thus used but honesty in the Heathens was usually met with opposition and reproach as Seneca himself doth oft complain Yea how few have there been that have been famous for any excellency of wit or learning or any addition to the Worlds understanding but their reward hath been reproach imprisonment or death Did Socrates die in his bed Or was he not murdered by the rage of wicked Hypocrites Plato durst not speak his minde for fear of his Masters reward Aristippus left Athens ne bis peccarent in Philosophiam not only Solon but most benefactors to any Common-wealth have suffered for their beneficence Demosthenes Cato Cicero Seneca could none of them save their lives from fury by their great learning or honesty Yea among nominal Christians he that told them of an Antipodes was excommunicated by the Papal Authority for an Heretick And a Savonarola Arnoldus de Villa Nova Paulus Scaliger c. could not be wiser than their Neighbours but to their cost No nor Arias Montanus himself Campanella was fain in prison to compile his New Philosophy and with the pleasure of his inventions to bear the torments which were their sowre sauce Even Galilaeus that discovered so many new Orbs and taught this World the way of clearer acquaintance with its neighbours could not escape the Reverend Justice of the Papalists but must lie in a Prison as if O sapientia had been written on his doors as the old Woman cryed out to Thales when he fell into a ditch while he was by his instrument taking the height of a Starr And Sir Walter Rawleigh could not save his head by his Learned History of the World but must be one part of its History himself nor yet by his great observation how Antipater is taken for a bloody Tyrant for killing Demosthenes and how Arts and Learning have power to disgrace any man that doth evil to the famous Masters of them Peter Ramus that had done so much in Phylosophy for the Learned World was requited by a butcherly barbarous murder being one of the 30000 or 40000 that were so used in the French Massacre And many a holy person perished in the 200000 murdered by the Irish It were endless to instance the ungratefull cruelties of the World and what entertainment it hath given to wise and godly men even those whom it superstitiously adoreth when it hath murdered them And in all
Covenant of Grace confirming his Doctrine by abundant uncontrolled Miracles contemning the World he exposed himself to the malice and fury and contempt of sinners and gave up himself a Sacrifice for our sins and a Ransom for us in suffering death on a Cross to reconcile us to God He was buryed and went in Soul to the Souls departed And the third day he rose again having conquered death And after forty dayes having instructed and authorized his Apostles in their Office he ascended up into Heaven in their sight where he remaineth Glorified and is Lord of all the chief Priest and Prophet and King of his Church interceding for us teaching and governing us by his Spirit Ministers and Word 5. The New Law and Covenant which Christ hath procured made and sealed by his Blood his Sacraments and his Spirit is this That to all them who by true Repentance and Faith do forsake the Flesh the World and the Devil and give up themselves to God the Father Son and Holy Spirit their Creator Redeemer and Sanctifier he will give Himself in these Relations and take them as his reconciled Children pardoning their sins and giving them his grace and title to Everlasting Happiness and will glorifie all that thus persevere But will condemn the unbelievers impenitent and ungodly to everlasting punishment This Covenant he hath commanded his Ministers to proclaim and offer to all the World and to baptize all that consent thereunto to invest them Sacramentally in all these benefits and enter them into his holy Catholick Church 6. The Holy Spirit proceeding from the Father and the Son did first inspire and guide the Prophets Apostles and Evangelists that they might truly and fully reveal the Doctrine of Christ and deliver it in Scripture to the Church as the Rule of our Faith and Life and by abundance of evident uncontrolled Miracles and gifts to be the great witness of Christ and of the truth of his holy Word 7. Where the Gospel is made known the HOLY SPIRIT doth by it illuminate the minds of such as shall be saved and opening and softening their hearts doth draw them to believe in Christ and turneth them from the power of Satan unto God Whereupon they are joyned to Christ the Head and into the Holy Catholick Church which is his Body consisting of all true Believers and are freely justified and made the Sons of God and a sanctified peculiar people unto him and do Love him above all and serve him sincerely in holiness and righteousness loving and desiring the Communion of Saints overcoming the Flesh the World and the Devil and living in Hope of the coming of Christ and of Everlasting life 8. At death the Souls of the Justified go to Happiness with Christ and the Souls of the wicked to misery And at the end of this World the Lord Jesus Christ will come again and will raise the Bodies of all men from the dead and will judge all the World according to the good or evil which they have done And the righteous shall go into Everlasting Life where they shall see Gods Glory and being perfected in Holiness shall love and praise and please him perfectly and be loved by him for evermore and the Wicked shall go into Everlasting punishment with the Devil II. According to this Belief we do deliberately and seriously by unfeigned consent of Will take this One God the infinite Power Wisdom and Goodness the Father Son and Holy Spirit for our only God our reconciled Father our Saviour and our Sanctifyer and resolvedly give up our selves to him accordingly entering into his Church under the hands of his Ministers by the solemnization of this Covenant in the Sacrament of Baptism And in prosecution of this Covenant we proceed to stirre up our DESIRES by daily PRAYER to God in the Name of Christ by the help of the Holy Spirit in the order following 1. We desire the glorifying and hallowing of the Name of God that he may be known and loved and honoured by the World and may be well-pleased in us and we may delight in Him which is our ultimate end 2. That his Kingdom of Grace may be enlarged and his Kingdom of Glory as to the Perfected Church of the sanctified may come That Mankinde may more universally subject themselves to God their Creator and Redeemer and be saved by him 3. That this Earth which is grown too like to Hell may be made liker to the Holy ones in Heaven by a holy conformity to Gods Will and Obedience to all his Laws denying and mortifying their own fleshly desires wills and minds 4. That our Natures may have necessary support protection and provision in our daily service of God and passage through this World with which we ought to be content 5. That all our sins may be forgiven us through our Redeemer as we our selves are ready to pardon wrongs 6. That we may be kept from Temptations and delivered from sin and misery from Satan from wicked men and from our selves Concluding our Prayers with the joyfull Praises of God our Heavenly Father acknowledging his Kingdom Power and Glory for ever III. The Laws of Christian PRACTICE are these 1. That our Souls do firmly adhere to God our Creator Redeemer and Sanctifyer by Faith Love Confidence and Delight that we seek him by desire obedience and hope meditating on himself his word and works of Creation Redemption and Sanctification of Death Judgement Heaven and Hell exercising Repentance and mortifying sin especially atheism unbelief and unholiness hardness of heart disobedience and unthankfulness pride worldliness and flesh-pleasing Examining our hearts about our Graces our Duties and our sins Watchfully governing our thoughts affections passions senses appetites words and outward actions Resisting temptations and serving God with all our faculties and glorifying him in our Hearts our Speeches and our Lives 2. That we worship God according to his Holiness and his Word in Spirit and Truth and not with Fopperies and Imagery according to our own devices which may dishonour him and lead us to Idolatry 3. That we ever use his Name with special Reverence especially in appealing to him by an Oath abhorring prophaneness perjury and breach of Vows and Covenants to God 4. That we meet in Holy Assemblies for his more solemn Worship where the Pastors teach his Word to their Flocks and lead them in Prayer and Praise to God administer the Sacrament of Communion and are the Guides of the Church in Holy things whom the people must hear obey and honour especially the Lords Day must be thus spent in Holiness 5. That Parents educate their Children in the Knowledge and Fear of God and in obedience of his Laws and that Princes Masters and all Superiours govern in Holiness and Justice for the glory of God and the common good according to his Laws And that Children love honour and obey their Parents and all Subjects their Rulers in due subordination unto God 6. That
we do nothing against our Neighbours Life or Bodily welfare but carefully preserve it as our own 7. That no man defile his Neighbours wife nor commit Fornication but preserve our own and others Chastity in thought word and deed 8. That we wrong not another in his Estate by stealing fraud or any other means but preserve our Neighbours Estate as our own 9. That we pervert not Justice by false witness or otherwise nor wrong our neighbour in his Name by slanders backbiting or reproach That we lie not but speak the truth in love and preserve our neighbours right and honour as our own 10. That we be not selfish setting up our selves and our own against our Neighbour and his good desiring to draw from him unto our selves But that we love our Neighbour as our selves desiring his welfare as our own doing to others as regularly we would have them do to us forbearing and forgiving one another loving even our enemies and doing good to all according to our power both for their Bodies and their Souls This is the Substance of the CHRISTIAN RELIGION § 15. II. The summ or Abstract of the Christian Religion is contained in three short Forms The first called The Creed containing the matter of the Christian Belief The second called The Lords Prayer containing the matter of Christian Desires and hope The third called The Law or Decalogue containing the summ of Morall Duties which are as followeth The BELIEF 1. I believe in God the Father Almighty Maker of Heaven and Earth 2. And in Iesus Christ his only Son our Lord who was conceived by the Holy Ghost born of the Virgin Mary suffered under Pontius Pilate was crucified dead and buried descended to Hell the third day he rose again from the dead he ascended into Heaven and sitteth on the right hand of God the Father Almighty from thence he shall come again to judge the quick and the dead 3. I believe in the Holy Ghost the Holy Catholick Church the Communion of Saints the Forgiveness of sins the Resurrection of the body and the Life Everlasting The LORDS PRAYER Our FATHER which art in Heaven hallowed be thy Name Thy Kingdom come Thy will be done on Earth as it is in Heaven Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive them that trespass against us And lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil For thine is the Kingdom the Power and the Glory for ever Amen The Ten COMMANDEMENTS God spake all these words saying I am the Lord thy God which brought thee out of the Land of Egypt out of the house of bondage 1. Thou shalt have no other Gods before me 2. Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven Image or any likeness of any thing in Heaven above or that is in the Earth beneath or that is in the water under the Earth Thou shalt not vow down thy self to them nor serve them For I the Lord thy God am a jealous God visiting the iniquities of the Fathers upon the Children to the third and fourth generation of them that hate me and shewing mercy unto thousands of them that love me and keep my Commandements 3. Thou shalt not take the Name of the Lord thy God in vain for the Lord will not hold him guiltless that taketh his Name in vain 4. Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy six dayes shalt thou labour and do all thy work but the Seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God in it thou shalt not do any work thou nor thy Son nor thy Daughter thy Man-servant nor thy Maid-servant nor thy Cattel nor the Stranger that is within thy gates For in six dayes the Lord made Heaven and Earth the Sea and all that in them is and rested the Seventh day wherefore the Lord blessed the Seventh day and hallowed it 5. Honour thy Father and thy Mother that thy dayes may be long upon the Land which the Lord thy God giveth thee 6. Thou shalt not kill 7. Thou shalt not commit Adultery 8. Thou shalt not Steal 9. Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy Neighbour 10. Thou shalt not covet thy Neighbours House thou shalt not covet thy Neighbours Wife nor his Man-servant nor his Maid-servant nor his Oxe nor his Ass nor any thing that is thy Neighbours § 16. The ten Commandements are summed up by Christ into these two Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart and soul and might and Thou shalt love thy Neighbour as thy self § 17. These Commandements being first delivered to the Jews are continued by Christ as the summ of the Law of Nature only instead of Deliverance of the Jews from Egypt he hath made our Redemption from sin and Satan which was thereby typified to be the fundamental motive And he hath removed the memorial of the Creation-Rest from the seventh day-Sabbath to be kept on the Lords day which is the first with the Commemoration of his Resurrection and our Redemption in the solemn Worship of his holy Assemblies § 18. III. The briefest Summary of the Christian Religion containing the Essentials only is in the Sacramental Covenant of Grace Wherein the Penitent Believer renouncing the Flesh the World and the Devil doth solemnly give up himself to God the Father Son and Holy Spirit as his only God his Father his Saviour and his Sanctifier engaging himself hereby to a Holy life of Resignation Obedience and Love and receiving the pardon of all his sins and title to the further helps of grace to the favour of God and everlasting life This Covenant is first entered by the Sacrament of Baptisme and after renewed in our communion with the Church in the Sacrament of the Body and Blood of Christ So that the Christian Religion is but Faith in God our Creator Redeemer and Sanctifyer producing the hope of Life Everlasting and possessing us with the love of God and Man And all this expressed in the genuine fruits of Patience Obedience and Praise to God and works of Charity and Justice unto Man § 19. That all this Religion might be the better understood received and practised by us the Word of God came down into Flesh and gave us a perfect Example of it in his most perfect Life in perfect holiness and innocency conquering all temptations contemning the honours riches and pleasures of the World in perfect patience and meekness and condescension and in the perfect Love of God and Man When perfect Doctrine is seconded by Perfect Exemplariness of Life there can be no greater Light set before us to lead us out of our state of darkness into the everlasting Light And had it not been a pattern of holy Power Wisdom and Goodness of Self-denyall Obedience and Love of Patience and of Truth and Prudence and of contempt of all inferiour things even of Life it self for the Love of God and for Life eternal it