New Testament it was long before many Churches received the Epist to the Hebrews the second of Peter Jude Revel c. Even in Eusebius days in his Praepar Evangel he sheweth that they were not received by all And of the Old Testament Moses and the Psalms and Prophets have fuller Attestation than the rest And indeed as it is probable that the Chronicles were written in or after Ezra's time at soonest so they do in so many places differ in numbers from the Book of Kings where all would agree with the rest of the History if those numbers were but reduced to those in the Kings that if any man should doubt of the Divine Authority of that Book that thereby he may be the less tempted to question any others I should not think his Error inconsistent with Salvation Put but that man to prove what he saith who asserteth that we have equal Evidence of the Divinity of the Chronicles Canticles Esther as we have of Moses the Prophets the Psalms and the New Testament and you shall quickly find that he did but pretend an equal degree of Certainty which indeed he had not The Papists pretend that they are as certain of the Divinity of the Apocrypha as we are of the rest But they do but pretend a Certainty for Interest and Custom sake XVIII Though it be to be held that Certainly the Holy Writers had no falshoods in Doctrine or History but delivered us the Truth alone yet no one of them delivereth us all the Truth no not of many particular Histories and Speeches of Christ which they mention And therefore we must set them altogether for the understanding of them As in the instance of Christs appearing and the Angels Speeches after his Resurrection And when all 's done we have not all that Christ said and did but all that was necessary to our Faith and Salvation For as Paul citeth Christ saying It is more honourable to give than to receive so John tells us that the World could not contain the Books that should be written we must take heed therefore how far we go with Negatives of such unmentioned things XIX Though all that the Holy Writers have recorded is true and no falshood in the Scripture but what is from the error of Scribes and Translators yet we are not certain that the Writers had not human infirmites in the Phrase Method and Manner of expression It is apparent that their style yea their Gifts were various as Paul oft openeth them 1 Cor. 12. c. Therefore Paul rather than Barnabas was the Chief Speaker And Apollo was more eloquent than others Hence some were of Paul and some of Apollo and some of Cephas And Paul is put to vindicate his ministerial abilities to the Corinthians Therefore though weaker mens gifts put no sinful imperfection into the Scriptures yet a humane natural imperfection of style and order might be more in some than others It is certain that they were not all perfect in Knowledge and Holiness And how far every Sermon which they Preached was free from all that Imperfection any more than Peters carriage Gal. 2. we are uncertain And how far their Writings had a promise of being free from Natural modal imperfections more than their Preachings we know not fully And yet God turned this weakness of theirs to the confirmation of our Faith shewing us that Heavenly power and not human wisdom and ability did his work As Davids sling in conquering Goliath shewed Gods power And out of the mouths of Babes doth God ordain strength and the weak things of the World are used to confound the strong XX. Lastly though all be certainly true which they have recorded yet we have not the same degree of Certainty that no Writer erred through lapse of memory in some less material passage as we have that they infallibly delivered us the Gospel But this I have said so much of already in a small Book called More Reasons for the Christian Religion that I must now refer you thither for the rest Q. But if there be so many things either uncertain or less-certain what is it that we are or may be fully certain of Ans 1. What you are or are not certain of your self you should know if you know your self without my telling you 2. I deny not but you may come to a Certainty of all those things which are never so difficult that have any ascertaining evidence if you live long enough study hard enough and have an extraordinary measure of Divine illumination I do not measure others by my self You may know that which I know not God may bless your studies more as being better men and fitter for his blessing he may give you extraordinary Inspirations or Revelations if he please But I am thankful for my low degree and confess my ignorance 3. But I have told you before what Certainties we have 1. We are certain of things sensible 2. And of our Elicite and Imperate acts 3. And of Natural principles 4. And of clear inferences thence 5. And of the Truth of all the Certain holy Scriptures which are Evidently the Word of God 6. And particularly therein of the plain Historical parts 7. And of all that which is the main design and scope of the Text in any Book or Chapter 8. And of all that which is purposely and often repeated and not only obscurely once spoken on the by 9. Therefore we may be Certain of all that is necessary to Salvation of every Article of the Creed of every Petition in the Lords Prayer and every necessary common duty We may be Certain of the Truth and Sense of all the Covenant of Grace concerning the Father Son and Holy Ghost his Relation to us and our Relation and Duty to him and of the benefits of the Covenant of the necessity and nature of Faith Repentance Hope Love Obedience Patience c. It 's tedious to recite all in a word all that is of common necessity and all how small soever which is plainly revealed and expressed 10. And you may be certain of the fulfilling of much of this Holy Word already by sufficient History and Experience Chap. 7. Inference 1. The true Reason and usefulness of the Christian Simplicity in differencing the Covenant and Principles of Religion from the rest of the holy Scriptures IT hath ever been the use of the Church of God to Catechise men before they were Baptized and therein to teach them the true meaning of the Baptismal Covenant by opening to them the Creed the Lords Prayer and the Decalogue And when they understood this Covenant they were admitted upon consent by Baptism into the Church and accounted Christians and members of Christ without staying to teach them any other part of the Bible no not so much as the Sacrament of the Lords Supper Though indeed the opening of Baptism was the opening of the Life of that Because it is the same Covenant which is Solemnized in both
have several significations So that when Tutors read the same books to their Schollars and teach them the same notions it is not the same conceptions always that they thus communicate VIII And when all is done Recipitur ad modum recipientis It 's two to one but the Learner receiveth their notions with a conception somewhat different from them all And when he thinks that he hath learnt what was taught him and is of his Teachers mind he is mistaken and hath received another apprehension IX And the narrowness of mans mind and thoughts is such that usually there must go many partial conceptions to one thing or Object really indivisible So that few things or nothing rather in the world is known by us with one conception nor with a simplicity of apprehensions answerable to the simplicity of the things And hereby it cometh to pass that Inadequate conceptions make up a great part of our Learning and knowledge And yet worse our words being narrower than our Thoughts we are fain to multiply words more than conceptions so that we must have ten conceptions perhaps of one thing and twenty words perhaps for those ten conceptions And then we grow to imagine the things to be as various as our conceptions yea and our words And so Learning is become confused error and the great and noble Actions of the Phantastical world are a pitiful confused agitation of Phantasms and whether fortuitous or artificial a congress of Atoms sometimes digladiating and sometimes seeming by amicable embraces to compose some excellent piece of Art. And things seem to us to be multiplyed and ordered as our conceptions of them are And the Scotists may yet write as many more Treatises de formalitatibus before men will understand indeed what a conceptus formalis with them is and whether diverse formalities be diverse realities or only ejusdem conceptus inadequati But thus Learning is become like a poppet play or the raising of the dust X. The Entia Rationis being thus exceeding numerous are already confounded with objective Realities and have compounded our common Systems of Logick Metaphysicks and too much of Physicks So that Students must at first see through false Spectacles and Learn by seducing notions and receive abundance of false conceptions as the way to Wisdom and Shadows and Rubbish must furnish their minds under the name of truth though mixt with many real Verities For young men must have Teachers They cannot begin at the foundation and every one learn of himself as if none had ever learnt before him He is like to make but a slow proficient that maketh no use of the Studies and Experience of any that ever learnt before him And he that will learn of others must receive their notions and words as the means of his information XI And when they grow up to be capable of real wisdom O! what a labour is it to cleanse out this rubbish and to unlearn all the errors that we have learnt so that it is much of the happiest Progress of extraordinary successful Studies to find out our old mistakes and set our conceptions in better order one by one Perhaps in one year we find out and reform some two or three and in another year one or two more and so on Even as when at my removal of my Library my Servant sets up all my books and I must take them half down again to set them in their right places XII And the difficulty of the matter is our great Impediment when we come to study things For 1. Their Matter 2. Their Composure 3. Their Numbers 4. Their Order and Relations 5. And their Action and Operation are much unknown to us XIII 1. The substance of Spirits is so little known as tempteth Sadduces to dream that there are none The notion of a Spirit to some through ignorance is taken to be meerly negative as if it signified no more but not corporeal The notion of Immateriality is lubricous and he that knoweth not the true bounds of the signification of Materia knoweth not what it is to be Immaterial The purest Spirit is known only by many inadequate conceptions One must answer the similitude of Matter in fundamental substantiality Another must be answerable to that of Forms of simple Elements and another answerable to Accidents And though nothing be so notorious of Spirits as their Operations and from the Acts we know the Virtues or Powers yet that these Virtues are not Accidents but the very Essential Form and that they are in all Spirits One in Three and many other things concerning their Essentiality are quite overlookt by the greater part of Philosophers and those few that open it do either with Campanella lose it again in a wood of mistaken ill gathered consequences or with Lullius drown it in a multitude of irregular arbitrary notions or with Commenius give us a little undigested with the mixture of crudities and mistakes or with our Learned Dr. Glisson de vitâ Naturae confound Spirits and Bodies and make those Spirits which are the Vital constitutive principle of Compounds to be but the inadequate conception of Bodies as if they were all simply and formally Vital of themselves and for a Body to be inanimate were a contradiction or impossible And they that treat more nobly of Spirits as Mr. Got and many Platonists do it so immethodically and confusedly as greatly disadvantageth the Learner And yet to treat of Bodies without treating of the Spirits that animate or actuate them is a lame deluding unedifying thing As it is to treat of a Kingdom an Army a School without mentioning a King a Captain or a Schoolmaster or as to describe a Gun without any mention of Gunpowder or shooting Or a Clock or Watch without the Poise or Spring or Motion or a Book or words without the sense and so of a Man without a Soul or Reason or a Brute without any Life or Sense I mean when we speak of Compound Beings and not meerly of Corporeity in the notion as abstracted from all Vital moving principles XIV 2. And what the true notion of Matter or Corporeity it self is it is but darkly and uncertainly known how confidently soever some decantate their moles or quantity divisibility or discerptibility and impenetrability Whether Fire be material and divisible and impenetrable and how far Fire and Spirits herein differ and so Spirits and Bodies and how far sensible must enter the definition of Corpus is not easily known XV. 3. Nor do we well know the Nature of the simple Corporeal Elements whether they agree only in materiality quantity and divisibility and impenetrability and whether they differ only in magnitude shape sight and contexture of parts or by any essentiating Formal Virtues or both or as Mr. Got thought by a differencing proper spirit XVI 4. How little of the Divine Artifice is known in the composition of mixt Bodies And we know of no existent Simples in the world that are not found only
it thus with extraordinary diligence but with different successes And Lyra with other old ones turn all quite another way And then come Grotius and Dr. Hammond and contradict both sides and make it all saving a few Verses to have been fulfilled many Ages since And can the unlearned or the unstudied part of Ministers then with any modesty pretend a certainty where so many and such men differ I know it is said Blessed is he that readeth and they that hear the words of this Prophecy and keep those things which are written therein But that proveth no more than 1. That some of it as ch 1 2 3. is plain and commonly intelligible 2. That it is a desirable thing to understand the rest and worthy mens endeavour in due time and rank and he that can attain to certainty may be glad of it I pass by the darkness of many Types and Prophecies of Christ in the Old Testament and how little the Jews or the Apostles themselves till after Christs Resurrection understood them With very many other obscurities which yet are not written in vain nay which make up the true perfection of the whole IX There are very many proverbial Speeches in the Scripture which are not to be understood as the words properly signifie but as the sense of those Proverbs then was among the Jews But disuse hath so totally obliterated the knowledge of the sense of many of them that no man living can certainly understand them X. There are many Texts which have words adapted to the Places the Animals the Utensils the Customs the Coins the Measures the Vegetables c. of that place and time which are some hard and some impossible now to be certainly understood And therefore such as Bochart Salmasius Casaubone Scaliger c. have done well to add new Light to our conjectures but leaving great uncertainty still XI Because the Jewish Law is by Paul plainly said to be ceased or done away it remaineth very difficult to be certain of abundance of passages in the Old Testament how far they are obligatory to us For when they now bind no otherwise than as the continued Law of nature or as reassumed by Christ into his special Law where the latter is not found in the former there is often insuperable difficulty For most lyeth upon the proof of a parity of Reason which puts us upon trying cases hardly tryed unless we knew more of the reason of all those Laws As about Vows and Dispensations Num. 30. about prohibited degrees of Marriage and such like which makes Divines so much differ about the obligation of the Judicials of which see Junius vol. 1. p. 1861 c. de Polit. Mos observ and about Usury Priesthood Magistrates power in Religion and many such XII There are abundance of Texts which only open the substance of the matter in hand to us and say nothing about abundance of difficulties of the manner and many circumstances as the manner of the Divine influx and the Spirits operation on the Soul c. And here all that which is unrevealed must needs be unknown XIII There are many Precepts which were local personal particular and so temporary and bind not universally all Persons at all times afterwards Such as the Rechabites Precepts from their Father and such as the Love Feasts the Kiss of Love Womens Veil and long Hair Mens being uncovered c. Now it is very hard to know in all instances whether the Precepts were thus temporary or universal and durable which makes Divines differ about the Anointing of the Sick the Office of Deacons and Deaconesses the Power of Bishops and Extent of their Diocesses the Eating things strangled and Blood against which Chr. Beckman in his Exercit. hath abundance of shrewd Arguments though few are of his mind In these cases few reach a Certainty and none so full a Certainty as in plainer things XIV It is very hard to be Certain when and how far Examples of holy men in Scripture bind us Though I have elsewhere proved that wherever the Apostles practice was the Execution of their Commission for setling Church Orders in which Christ promised them the help of his Spirit their Practice was obligatory Yet in many instances the obligation of Examples is very doubtful Which occasioneth the Controversies about imitating John Baptist's Life in the Wilderness and Anna and about Lent and about Baptizing by dipping over Head and about the Lords Supper whether it should be Administred to a Family or at Evening only or after Supper or Sitting or in a private House c. And about washing Feet and many Church Orders and Affairs XV. There are many things in Scripture that are spoken but once or twice and that but as on the by and not very plainly And we cannot be so Certain of any Doctrine founded on these as on passages frequently and plainly written XVI There are so many seeming differences in Scripture especially about Numbers as that if they be reconcileable few or none in the World have yet found out the way If we mention them not our selves such paultry Fellows will do it as Bened. Spinosa in his Tractatus Theolog. Polit. I will not cite any but desire the Learned Reader to consider well of what that Learned and Godly man Ludov. Capellus saith in his Critic Sacr. l. c. 10. and l. 6. c. 7 8. I own not his supposition of a better Hebrew Copy used by the Sept. I think an impartial considerer of his instances will confess that as God never promised all or any of the Scribes or Printers of the Bible any infallible Spirit that they should never write or print a word falsly and as it is certain by the various Lections that many such there have been in many and most Books so there is no one Scribe that had a promise above the rest nor any one Hebrew or Greek Copy which any man is sure is absolutely free from such miswritings For how should we be sure of that one above all the rest And I wish the Learned Reader to consider Bibliander's Preface to his Hebr. Grammar and Casaubone's Exercit. 1. § 28. and Pellicanus his Preface to his Coment on the Bible Hierom on Mic. 5.2 is too gross de Matth. 2. Quod Testimonium nec Haebraico nec 70 Interpretibus convenire c. Let him read the rest that will which is harsher he that will not confess miswritings of numbers and some names and words heretofore as well as some misprintings now doth but by his pretended Certainty tempt men to question the rest for the sake of that and injureth the Sacred Word XVII We have not the same degree of Certainty of the Canonicalness or Divineness of every Book of Scripture Though they are all Gods Word they have not all the same Evidence that they are so The New Testament had a fuller Attestation from Heaven for its Evidence to man than most of the Old had And of the
By doing thus the Church notoriously declared that they took not all the Scripture to be equally necessary to be understood but that the Govenant of Grace and the Catechism explaining it is the Gospel it self that is the Essence of it and of the Christian Religion and that all the rest of the Scriptures contain but partly the Integrals and partly the Accidents of that Religion He is the wisest man that knoweth Most and Best and every man should know as much of the Scriptures as he can But if you knew all the rest without this the Covenant of Grace and its explication it would not make you Christians or save you But if you know this truly without all the rest it will. The whole Scripture is of great use and benefit to the Church It is like the body of a man which hath its Head and Heart and Stomach c. And hath also Fingers and Toes and flesh yea Nails and Hair. And yet the Brain and Heart it self fare the better for the rest and would not be so well Seated separate from them Though a man may be a man that loseth even a Leg or Arm. So is it here But it is the Covenant that is our Christianity and the duly Baptized are Christians whatever else they do not understand These are the things that all must know and daily live upon The Creed is but the Exposition of the three Articles of the Baptismal Covenant I believe in God the Father Son and Holy Ghost Though the Jews that had been bred up to a preparing knowledge were quickly baptized by the Apostles upon their Conversion Acts 2. Yet no man can imagine that either the Apostles or other Ministers did use to admit the Ignorant Gentiles into the Covenant of God without opening the meaning of it to them or Baptize them as Christians without teaching them what Christianity is Therefore Reason and the whole Churches subsequent Custom assure us that the Apostles used to expound the three great Articles to their Catechumens And thence it is called The Apostles Creed Marcus Bishop of Ephesus told them in the Florentine Council as you may see Sgyropilus that we have none of the Apostles Creed And Vossius de Symbolis besides many others hath many Arguments to prove that this so called was not formally made by the Apostles Bishop Usher hath opened the changes that have been in it Sandford and Parker have largely de Descensu shewed how it came in as an Exposition of the Baptismal Articles Others stifly maintain that the Apostles made it But the case seemeth plain The Apostles used to call the Baptized to the profession of the same Articles which Paul hath in 1. Cor. 15.1 2 3 c. and varied not the matter All this was but more particularly to profess Faith in God the Father Son and Holy Ghost Two or three further Expository Articles are put into the Creed since Otherwise it is the same which the Apostles used not in the very syllables or forms of words but in the same sense and the words indeed being left free but seldom much altered because of the danger of altering the matter Of all the Antientest Writers not one repeateth the Creed in the same words that we have it nor any two of them in the same with one another Irenaeus once Tertullian twice hath it all in various words but the same sense That of Marcellus in Epiphanius cometh nearest ours called the Apostles and is almost it Afterward in Ruffinus and others we have more of it Yet no doubt but the Western Churches at least used it with little variation still The Nicene Creed is called by some Antients the Apostles Creed too And both were so for both are the same in sense and substance For it is not the very words that are truly fathered on the Apostles About 30â— years a go Mr. Ashwel having published a Book for the Necessity and Honour of the Creed I wrote in the Postscript to my Reformed Pastor Ed. 2. a Corrective of some passages in which he seemeth to say too much for it or at least to depress the Scripture too much in comparison of it But long experience now telleth me that I have more need to acquaint men with the Reasons and Necessity of the Creed Seeing I find a great part of ignorant Religious people much to slight the use of it and say It is not Scripture but the work of man Especially taking offence at the harsh translatiâ—n of that Article He descended into Hell. which from the beginning it 's like was not in It is the Kernel of the Scripture and it is that for which the rest of the Scripture is given us even to afford us sufficient help to understand and consent to the Covenant of Grace that our Belief our Desires and our Practice may be conformed principally to these Summaries It is not every Child or Woman that could have gathered the Essential Articles by themselves out of the whole Scripture if it had not been done to their hands Nor that could have rightly methodized the Rule of our desires or gathered the just heads of natural duty if Christ had not done the first in the Lords Prayer and God the second in the Decalogue Obj. But I believe these only because the Matter of the Creed and the words also of the other two are in the Scripture and not on any other Authority Ans If you speak of the Authority of the Author which giveth them their truth it is neither Scripture nor Tradition but God for whose Authority we must believe both Scripture and them But if you speak of the Authority of the Deliverers and the Evidence of the Delivery be it known to you 1. That the Creed Lords Prayer Decalogue and the Baptismal Covenant have been delivered down to the Church from the Apostles by a distinct Tradition besides the Scripture Tradition Even to all the Christians one by one that were Baptized and admitted to the Lords Table and to every particular Church So that there was not a Christian or Church that was not even Constituted by them 2. Be it known to you that the Church was long in possession of them before it had the Scriptures of the New Testament It 's supposed to be about eight years after Christ's Ascension before Matthew wrote the first Book of the New Testament and near the year of our Lord one hundred before the Revelation was written And do you think that there were no Christians or Churches all that while Or that there was no Baptism Or no Profession of the Christian Faith in distinct Articles No Knowledge of the Lords Prayer and Commandements No Gospel daily preached and practised What did the Church-assemblies think you do all those years No doubt those that had Inspiration used it by extraordinary gifts But that was not all Those that had not did preach the Substance of the Christian Religion contained in these forms and did Pray and Praise God
and celebrate the Lords Supper provoking one another to Love and to good works 3. Be it known to you that these three Summaries come to us with fuller Evidence of Certain Tradition from God than the rest of the Holy Scriptures Though they are equally true they are not equally Evident to us And this I thus prove 1. The Body of the Scriptures were delivered but one way but the Covenant Creed Lords Prayer and Decalogue are delivered two ways They are in the Scripture and so have all the Evidence of Tradition which the Scriptures have And they were besides that delivered to the memories of all Christians If you say that the Creed is not in the Scripture or that the Scripture is not altered as it is I answer 1. That it is in the Scripture as to the matter signified in as plain words even of the same signification 2. There is no alteration made but a small addition which is no disparagement to it because the ancient substance of it is still known and the additions are not new made things but taken out of Scripture And if yet any Heretick should deny that God is Wise and Good and Just and Merciful it were no dishonour to the Creed nor weakening of its certainty to have these attributes yet added to it 2. These Summaries as is said were far ancienter than the rest of the New Testament as written and known and used long before them 3. These Summaries being in every Christians mind and memory were faster held than the rest of the Scriptures Therefore Parents could and did teach them more to their Children You never read that the Catechizers of the people did teach them all the Bible nor equally ask them who Jared or Mehaleel or Lamech was as they did who Christ was Nor put every History into the Catechism but only the Historical Articles of the Creed 4. Therefore it was far easier to preserve the purity of these Summaries than of the whole Body of the Scriptures For that which is in every mans memory cannot be altered without a multitude of reprovers Which makes the Greeks since Photius keep such a stir about Filioque as to think that the Latines have changed Religion and deserved to be separated from for changing that word But no wonder that many hundred various Readings are crept into the Bible and whole Verses and Histories as that of the Adulterous Woman are out in some that are in others For it is harder to keep such a Volume uncorrupt than a few words Though writing as such is a surer way than memory and the whole Bible could never have been preserved by memory Yet a few words might especially when they had those words in writings also 5. Add to this that the Catechistical Summaries aforesaid were more frequently repeated to the people at least every Lords day Whereas in the reading of the Scriptures one passage will be read but seldom perhaps once or twice in a year And so a corruption not so easily observed 6. And if among an hundred Copies of the Scripture ten or twenty only should by the Carelesness of the Scribes be corrupted all the rest who saw not these Copies would not know it and so they might fall into the hands of Posterity when many of the sounder might be lost 7. And Lastly The danger of depravation had no end For in every age the Scripture must be written over anew for every Church and person that would use it And who that knoweth what writing is could expect that one Copy could be written without errors and that the second should not add to the errors of the 1st as Printers now do who print by faulty Copies And though this danger is much less since Printing came up that is but lately And the mischiefs of Wars and Heretical Tyrants burning the truest Copies hath been some disadvantage to us Obj. Thus you seem to weaken the Certain incorruption of the Scriptures Ans No such thing I do but tell you the case truly as it is The wonderful Providence of God and care of Christians hath so preserved them that there is nothing corrupted which should make one Article of faith the more doubtful I assert no more depravation in them than all confess but only tell you how it came to pass and tell you the greater certainty that we have of the Essentials of Religion than of the rest And whereas every man of brains confesseth that many hundred words in Scripture by Variety of Copies are uncertain I only say that it is not so in the Essentials And I do not wonder that Virgil Ovid Horace Cicero c. Have not suffered such depravations For 1. It is not so easy for a Scribes error to pass unseen in oratione ligata as in oratione soluta in verse as in prose 2. And Cicero with the rest was almost only in the hands of Learned men whereas the Scriptures were in the hands of all the Vulgar Women and Children 3. And the Copies of these Authors were comparatively but few Whereas every one almost got Copies of the Scripture that was able And it 's liker that some depravation should be found among ten thousand Copies than among a hundred So that I have proved to you that the Creed Lords Prayer Commandments and Covenant of Baptism are not to be believed only because they are in the Scripture but also because they have been delivered to us by Tradition and so we have them from two hands as it were or ways of Conveyance and the rest of the Scriptures but by one for the most part I will say yet more because it is true and needful If any live among Papists that keep the Scripture from the people or among the poor Greeks Armenians or Abassines where the people neither have Bibles commonly nor can read or if any among us that cannot read know not what is in the Bible yea if through the fault of the Priest any should be kept from knowing that ever there was a Bible in the world Yet if those persons by Tradition receive the baptismal Covenant the Creed Lords Prayer and Commandments as Gods Word and truly believe and Love and Practice them those persons shall be saved For they have Christs promise for it And the very Covenant itself is the Gift of Christ and Life to consenters Whereas he that knoweth all the Scripture can be saved only by consenting to and performing this same Covenant But having greater helps to understand it and so to Believe it and Consent he hath a great advantage of them that have not the Scripture And so the Scripture is an unspeakable mercy to the Church And it is so far from being too little without the supplement of the Papists Traditions and Councils as that the hundredth part of it as to the bulk of words is not absolutely it self of necessity to Salvation Yet I say more If a man that hath the Scripture should doubt of some Books of it whether
they be the Word of God as of Ruth Judges Joshua Chronicles c. Yea if he doubted of all the Old Testament and much of the New yet if he believe so much as containeth all the Covenant of Grace and the foresaid Summaries though he sin and lose much of his helps yet he may and will be saved if he sincerely receive but this much The reason is before given Though no man can believe any thing truly who believeth not all that he knoweth to be Gods Word yet a man may doubt whether one thing be Gods Word who doubteth not of another by several occasions And here you see the Reason why a particular or explicite Belief of all the Scripture it self was never required of all that are baptized nor of all or any man that entered into the Ministry For the wisest Doctor in the world doth not attain so high For no man hath a particular explicite Belief of that which he doth not understand For it is the matter or sence that we believe and we must first know what that sence is before we can believe it to be true And no man in the World understandeth all the Scripture Yea more it is too much to require as necessary to his Ministry a subscription in General that he implicitely believeth all that is in that Bible which you shall shew him For 1. Many faults may be in the Translation if it be a Translation 2. Many errors may be in the Copy as aforesaid Nay such a subscription should not as absolutely necessary be required of him as to all the real Word of God. For if the man by error should doubt whether Job or the Chronicles or Esther were Canonical and none of the rest I would not be he that should therefore forbid him to Preach Christs Gospel I am sure the ancient Church imposed no such terms on their Pastors when part of the new Testament was so long doubted of and when some were chosen Bishops before they were Baptized and when Synesius was chosen a Bishop before he believed the Resurrection I would not have silenced Luther Althamer or others that questioned the Epistle of James What then shall we say of the Roman insolence which thinketh not all the Scripture big enough but Ministers must also subscribe to many additions of their own yea and swear to Traditions and the Expositions of the Fathers and take whole Volumes of Councils for their Religion No wonder if such men do tear the Churches of Christ in pieces 1. By this time I hope you see to what use Baptism and the Summaries of Religion are 2. And of how great use Catechizing is 3. And that Christianity hath its essential parts 4. And how plain and simple a thing true Christianity is which constituteth the Church of Christ And how few things as to knowledge are necessary to make a man a Christian or to Salvation Multitudes of opinions have been the means of turning Pastors and People from the holy and diligent improvement of these few truths in our practice where we have much to do which might take up all our minds and time Chap. VIII Inference 2. Of the use of Catechizing THough it be spoken to in what is said I would have you more distinctly here note the use of Catechizing 1. It collecteth those few things out of many which the Ignorant could not themselves collect 2. It collecteth those necessary things which all must know and believe that will be saved 3. It containeth those Great practical things which we have daily use for and must still live upon which are as Bread and Drink for our food Other things may be well added the more the better which God hath revealed But our Life and our comfort and our Hope is in these 4. And it giveth us the true method or order of holy truths which is a great advantage to understand them Not but that the things themselves have the same orderly respect to one another in the Scripture but they are not delivered in the same order of words Therefore 1. Catechisms should be very skilfully and carefully made The true fundamental Catechism is nothing else but the Baptismal Sacramental Covenant the Creed the Lords Prayer and the Commandments the Summaries of our Belief Desires and Practice And our secondary Catechism must be nothing else but the plain expositions of these the first is a Divine Catechism the second is a Ministerial Expository Catechism And here 1. O that Ministers would be wiser at last than to put their superfluities their controversies and private opinions into their Catechisms and would fit them to the true end and not to the interest of their several sects But the Roman-Trent Catechism and many more of theirs must needs be defiled with their trash and every sect else must put their singularities into their Catechisms so hard is it for the aged decrepit body of the diseased Church for want of a better concoction of the common essentials of Christianity to be free from these heaps of inconcocted crudities and excrementitious superfluities and the many maladies bred thereby I deny not but a useful controversie may be opened by way of Question and Answer But pretend it not then to be what it is not Milk for Babes Him that is weak in the Faith receive but not to doubtful disputations The Servant of the Lord must be apt to teach but must not strive 2. And it is not commonly believed how great skill is needful to make a Catechism that the method may be true and that it may neither be too long for the memory nor too short for the understanding for my part it is the hardest work save one which is the full methodizing and explaining the whole body of Divinity that ever I put my hand to And when all 's done I cannot satisfy my self in it II. Why is not Catechizing more used both by Pastors and Parents I mean not the bare words unexplained without the sence nor the sence in a meer rambling way without a form of words But the words explained O how much fruit would poor Souls and all the Church receive by the faithful performance of this work would God but cure the prophaneness and sloth of unfaithful Pastors and Parents which should do it But I have said so much of this in my Reformed Pastor that I may well forbear more here Chap. IX Inference 3. The true Preservative of puzled Christians from the Errours of false Teachers who vehemently sollicite them to their several parties IT is the common out-cry of the World. How shall we know which side to be on And who is in the right among so many who all with confidence pretend to be in the right Ans Your Preservative is obvious and easie but men usually bestow more labour and cost for Error and Hell than for Truth and Heaven Pretend not to Faith or knowledge before you have it and you are the more safe SUSPEND your judgments