Magistratibus REgia Majesâ—as in hoc Angliae regno ac caeteris ejus dominiis summam habet potestatem ad quam omnium statuum hujus regni sive illi Ecclesiastici sint sive civiles in omnibus causis suprema gubernatio pertinet nulli externae jurisdictioni est subjecta nec esse debet Cum Regiae Majestati summam gubernationem tribuimus quibus titulis intelligimus animos quorundam calumniatorum offendi non damus Regibus nostris aut verbi Dei aut Sacramentorum administrationem quod etiam Injunctiones ab Elizabetha Regina nostra nuper editae apertissime testantur Sed eam tantum praerogativam quam in sacris Scripturis a Deo ipso omnibus piis Principibus videmus semper fuisse attributam hoc est ut omnes status atque ordines fidei suae a Deo commissos sive illi Ecclesiastici sint sive civiles in officio contineant conâ—umaces ac delinquentes gladio civili coerceant Romanus pontifex nullam habet jurisdictionem in hoc regno Angliae Leges Regni possunt Christianos propter capitalia gravia crimina morte punire Christianis licet ex mandato Magisâ—ratus arma portare justa bella administrare De illicita bonorum communicatione FAcultates bona Christianorum non sunt communia quoad jus possessionem ut quidam Anabaptisâ—ae falso jactant debet tamen quisque de his quae possidet pro facultatum ratione pauperibus eleemosynas benigne distribuere De jure jurando QUemadmodum juramentum vanum temerarium a Domino nostro Jesu Christo Apostolo ejus Jacobo Christianis hominibus interdictum esse faâ—emur 〈◊〉 â—hrisâ—ianorum Religionem minime prohibere censemus quin jubente magistratu in causa fidei charitatis jurare liceat modo id fiat juxta Prophetae doctrinam in justitia in judicio veritate Confirmatio Articulorum HIC liber antedictorum Articulorum jam denuo approbatus est per assensum consensum Serenissimae Reginae Elizabethae Dominae nostrae Dei gratia Angliae â—raâ—ciae Hiberniae Reginae defensoris fidel c. retinendus per totum Regnum Angliae exequendus Qui Articuli lecti sunt denuo confirmati subscriptione D. Archiepiscopi Episcoporum superioris domus totius Cleri inferioris domus in Convocatione Anno Domini 1571. THE TABLE of the Contents INâ—roduction Page 1 Hâ—resies gave the Rise to larger Articles Ibid. A Form of Doctrine settled by the Apostles 2 Bâ—shops sent râ—und them a Declaration of their Faith Ibid. These were afterwards enlarged 3 This dâ—ne at the Council of Nice Ibid. Mâ—ny wild Sects at the beginning of the Reformation 4 And many complying-Papists put them on framing this Collection Ibid. The Articles set out at first by the King's Authority 5 A Question whether they are only Articles of Peace or of Dâ—ctrine 6 They bind the Consciences of the Clergy Ibid. The Laity only bound to Peace by them 7 The Subscription to them imports an Assent to them and not only an acquiescing in them 8 But the Articles may have different Senses and if the Words will bear them there is no Prevâ—rication in subscribing them so Ibid. This illustrated in the Third Article 9 The various Readings of the Articles collated with the MSS. Ibid. An Account of those various Readings 16 ARTICLE I. 17 THat there is a God proved by the Consent of Mankind Ibid. Oâ—j 1. Some Nations do not believe a Deity This is answered 18 Obj. 2. It is not the same Belief among them alâ— This is answered Ibid. The Visible World proves a Deity 19 Time nor Number cannot be Eternal nor Infinite Ibid. Moral Arguments to prove that the World had a Beginning 20 Such a Regular Frame could not be fortuitâ—us Ibid. Objection from the Production of Insects answered 21 Argument from Miracles well attested 22 Argument from the Idea of God examined Ibid. God is Eternal and necâ—ssarily exists 23 The Vnity of the Deity Ibid. God is without Body 24 Outward Manifâ—stations only to declare his Presence and Authority 25 No successive Acts in God 26 Question concerning God's immanent Acts Ibid. God has no Pâ—ssions 27 Phrases in Scripture of these explained Ibid. Some Thoughts concerning the Power and Wisdom of God 28 True Ideas of the Goodness of God Ibid. Of Creation and Annihilation 30 Of the Providence of God 31 Objections against it answered 32 Whether God does immediately produce all things 33 Thought and Liberty not proper to Matter 34 Whether Beasts think or are only Machines Ibid. How Bodies and Spirits are united 35 The Doctrine of the Trinity 36 Whether revealed in the Old Testament or not 37 The Doctrine stated Ibid. Argument from the Form of Baptism 38 Other Arguments for it 39 This was received in the First Ages of Christianity 40 Some Attempt to the stating true Ideas of God 41 ARTICLE II. 43 CHrist how the Son of God Ibid. Argument from the Beginning of St. John's Gospel 44 Reflections on the state of the World at that time 45 Arguments from the Epistle to the Philippians Ibid. Other Arguments complicated 46 Argument from Adoration due to him 47 The Silence of the Jews proves this was not then thought to be Idolatry by them 49 Argument from the Epistle to the Hebrews 50 God and Man in Christ made one Person 51 An Account of Nestorius's Doctrine 52 The Truth of Christ's Resurrection Ibid. Christ was to us an Expiatory Sacrifice 53 An Account of Expiatory Sacrifiâ—eâ— 54 The Agonies of Christ explained 55 ARTICLE III. 56 RUffin first published this in the Creed Ibid. Several Senses put on this Article 57 A Local Descent into Hell Ibid. What may be the true sense of the Article 58 ARTICLE IV. 59 THE Proof of Christ's Resurrection Ibid. The Jews in that Time did not disprove it 60 Several Proofs of the Incredibility of a Forgery in this matter 61 The Nature and Proof of a Miracle 62 What must be ascribed to good or evil Spirits 63 The Apostles could not be imposed on Ibid. Nor could they have imposed on the World 64 Of Christ's Ascension 65 Curiosity in these matters taxed Ibid. The Authority with which Christ is now vested 66 ARTICLE V. 68 THE senses of the word Holy Ghost Ibid. It stands oft for a Person 69 Curiosities to be avoided about Procession Ibid. The Holy Ghost is truly God 70 ARTICLE VI. 71 THE Controversy about Oral Tradition 72 That was soon corrupted Ibid. Guarded against by Revelation 73 Tradition corrupted among the Jews 74 The Scripture appealed to by Christ and the Apostles 75 What is well proved from Scripture 76 Objections from the darkness of Scripture answered 77 No sure guard against Error nor against Sin 78 The Proof of the Canon of the Scripture 79 Particularly of the New Testament 80 These Books were early received 81 The Canon of the Old Testament proved 82 Concerning the Pentateuch 83 Objections against the Old Testament answered 84 Concerning the various Readings 85 The nature and degrees of Inspiration 86 Concerning the Historical parts of Scripture 87 Concerning the Reasonings in Scripture 88 Of the Apocryphal Books 89 ARTICLE VII 91 NO difference between the Old and New Testament Ibid. Proofs in the Old Testament of the Messias 92 In the Prophets chiefly in Daniel 94 The Proofs all summed up 95 Objections of the Jews answered 96 The hopes of anotheâ— Life in the Old Testament 97
Deuteronomy The First Book of Chronicles Ecclesiastes or Preacher Ioshua The Second Book of Chronicles Cantica or Song of Solomon Iudges The First Book of Esdras Four Prophets the greater Ruth The Second Book of Esdras Twelve Prophets the less And the other Books as Hierom saith the Church doth read for Example of Life and Instruction of Manners but yet it doth not apply them to Establish any Doctrine Such are these following The Third Book of Esdras The Fourth Book of Esdras The Book of Tobias The Book of Iudith The rest of the Book of Esther The Book oâ— Wisdom Iesus the Son of Syrach Baruch the Prophet The Song of the Three Children The History of Susanna Of Bel and the Dragon The Prayer of Manasses The First Book of Maccabees The Second Book of Maccabees All the Books of the New Testament as they are commonly received we do receive and account them Canonical IN this Article are Two important Heads and to each of them a proper consequence does belong The First is That the Holy Scriptures do contain all things necessary to Salvation The Negative Consequence that ariseth out of that is That no Article that is not either Read in it or that may not be proved by it is to be required to be believed as an Article of Faith or to be thought necessary to Salvation The Second is The settling the Canon of the Scripture both of Old and New Testament and the consequence that arises out of that is The rejecting the Books commonly called Apocryphal which though they may be Read by the Church for Example of Life and Instruction of Manners yet are no part of the Canon nor is any Doctrine to be Established by them After the main Foundations of Religion in General in the belief of a God or more specially of the Christian Religion in the Doctrine of the Trinity and of the Death Resurrection and Ascension of Christ are laid down The next Point to be settled is What is the Rule of this Faith where is it to be found and with whom is it lodged The Church of Rome and We do both agree that the Scriptures are of Divine Inspiration Those of that Communion acknowledge That every thing which is contained in Scripture is true and comes from God but they add to this That the Books of the New Testament were occasionally written and not with the design of making them the full Rule of Faith but that many things were delivered Orally by the Apostles which if they are faithfully Transmitted to us are to be received by us with the same Submission and Respect that we pay to their Writings And they also believe That these Traditions are conveyed down infallibly to us and that to distinguish betwixt true and false Doctrines and Traditions there must be an infallible Authority lodged by Christ with his Church We on the contrary affirm That the Scriptures are a compleat Rule of Faith and that the whole Christian Religion is contained in them and no where else and although we make great use of Tradition especially that which is most Ancient and nearest the Source to help us to a clear understanding of the Scriptures yet as to Matters of Faith we reject all Oral Tradition as an incompetent mean of conveying down Doctrines to us and we refuse to receive any Doctrine that is not either expresly contained in Scripture or clearly proved from it In order to the opening and proving of this it is to be considered what God's design in first ordering Moses and after him all Inspired Persons to put things in Writing could be it could be no other than to free the World from the Uncertainties and Impostures of Oral Tradition All Mankind being derived from one common Source it seems it was much easier in the first Ages of the World to preserve the Tradition pure than it could possibly be afterwards There were only a few things then to be delivered concerning God as That he was one Spiritual Being That he had Created all things That he alone was to be Worshipped and Served the rest relating to the History of the World and chiefly of the first Man that was made in it There were also great advantages on the side of Oral Tradition the first men were very long-liv'd and they saw their own Families spread extreamly so that they had on their side both the Authority which long Life always has particularly concerning Matters of Fact and the credit that Parents have naturally with their own Children to secure Tradition Two Persons might have conveyed it down from Adam so Abraham Methuselah lived above Three hundred years while Adam was yet alive and Sem was almost an hundred when he died and he lived much above an hundred years in the same time with Abraham according to the Hebrew Here is a great period of Time filled up by Two or Three Persons And yet in that Time the Tradition of those very few things in which Religion was then comprehended was so Universally and Intirely corrupted that it was necessary to correct it by immediate Revelation to Abraham God intending to have a peculiar People to himself out of his Posterity commanded him to forsake his Kindred and Country that he might not be corrupted with an Idolatry that we have reason to believe was then but beginning among them We are sure his Nephew Laban was an Idolater And the danger of mixing with the rest of Mankind was then so great that God ordered a Mark to be made on the Bodies of all descended from him to be the Seal of the Covenant and the Badge and Cognisance of his Posterity By that distinction and by their living in a wandring and unfixed manner they were preserved for some time from Idolatry God intending afterwards to settle them in an Instituted Religion But though the Beginnings of it I mean the Promulgation of the Law on Mount Sinai was one of the most amazing things that ever happened and the fittest to be Orally conveyed down the Law being very short and the Circumstances in the delivery of it most astonishing and though there were many Rites and several Festivities appointed chiefly for the carrying down the Memory of it though there was also in that dispensation the greatest advantage imaginable for securing this Tradition all the main Acts of their Religion being to be performed in one Place and by men of one Tribe and Family as they were also all the Inhabitants of a small Tract of Ground of one Language and by their Constitutions oblig'd to maintain a constant Commerce among themselves They having further a continuance of Signal Characters of God's Miraculous Presence among them such as the Operation of the Water of Jealousy the Plenty of the Sixth Year to supply them all the Sabbatical Year and tilâ— the Harvest of the following Year Together with a Succession of Prophets that followed one another either in a constant course or at least soon after one another but
The Stile and Matter of the Revelation as well as the designation of Divine given to the Author of it gave occasion to many Questions about it Clemens of Rome cites it as a Prophetical Book Clem. in Ep. ad Coâ— Justin cont Tryphon Irenaeus l 5. c. 30. Eus. Hist. l. 4. c. 24 26. l. 5. c. 18. l. 7. c. 27. Iustin Martyr says it was writ by Iohn one of Christ's Twelve Apostles Irenaeus calls it the Revelation of St. Iohn the Disciple of our Lord writ almost in our own Age in the End of Domitian's Reign Melito writ upon it Theophilus of Antioch Hyppolitus Clemens and Dennis of Alexandria Tertullian Cyprian and Origen do cite it And thus the Canon of the New Testamentseems to be fullymade outbythe concurrent Testimony of the several Churches immediately after the Apostolicaltime Here it is to be observed that a great difference is to be made between all this and the Oral Tradition of a Doctrine in which there is nothing fixed or permanent so that the whole is only Report carried about and handed down Whereas here is a Book that was only to be copied out and read publickly and by all Persons between which the difference is so vast that it is as little possible to imagine how the one should continue pure as how the other should come to be corrupted There was never a Book of which we have that reason to be assured that it is genuine that we have here There hapned to be constant Disputes among Christians from the Second Century downward concerning some of the most important Parts of this Doctrine and by both sides these Books were appealed to And though there might be some Variations in Readings and Translations yet no question was made concerning the Canon or the Authenticalness of the Books themselves unless it were by the Manichees who came indeed to be called Christians by a very enlarged way of speaking since it is justly strange how men who said that the Author of the Universe and of the Mosaical Dispensation was an Evil God and who held that there were Two Supreme Gods a Good and an Evil one how such men I say could be called Christians The Authority of those Books is not derived from any Judgment that the Church made concerning them but from this That it was known that they were writ either by men who were themselves the Apostles of Christ or by those who were their Assistants and Companions at whose Order or under whose Direction and Approbation it was known that they were written and published These Books were received and known for such in the very Apostolical Age it self so that many of the Apostolical men such as Ignatius and Polycarp lived long enough to see the Canon generally received and settled The suffering and depressed state of the First Christians was also such that as there is no reason to suspect them of Imposture so it is not at all credible that an Imposture of this kind could have passed upon all the Christian Churches A man in a Corner might have forged the Sibylline Oracles or some other Pieces which were not to be generally used and they might have apâ—â—ared soon after and Crâ—dit might have been given too easily to a Book or Writing of that kind But it cannot be imagined that in an Age in which the belief of this Doctrine brought men under great Troubles and in which Miracles and other extraordinary Gifts were long continued in the Church that I say either False Books could have been so early obtruded on the Church as True or that True Books could have been so vitiated as to lose their Original Purity while they were so universally read and used and that so soon or that the Writers of that very Age and of the next should have been so generally and so grosly imposed upon as to have cited Spurious Writings for True These are things that could not be believed in the Histories or Records of any Nation Though the Value that the Christians set upon these Books and the constant use they made of them reading a parcel of them every Lord's Day make this much less supposable in the Christian Religion than it could be in any other sort of History or Record whatsoever The early spreading of the Christian Religion to so many remote Countries and Provinces the many Copies of these Books that lay in Countries so remote the many Translations of them that were quickly made do all concur to make the Impossibility of any such Imposture the more sensible Thus the Canon of the New Testament is fixed upon clear and sure Grounds From thence without any further Proof we may be convinced of the Canon of the Old Testament Christ does frequently cite Moses and the Prophets he appeals to them and though he charged the Iews of that time chiefly their Teachers and Rulers with many Disorders and Faults yet he never once so much as insinuated that they had corrupted their Law or other Sacred Books which if true had been the greatest of all those Abuses that they had put upon the People Our Saviour cited their Books according to the Translation that was then in Credit and common Use amongst them When one asked him which was the great Commandment he answered How readest thou And he proved the chief things relating to himself his Death and Resurrection from the Prophecies that had gone before which ought to have been fulfilled in him He also cites the Old Testament Luke 24.44 by a Threefold Division of the Law of Moses the Prophets and the Psalms according to the Three Orders of Books into which the Iews had divided it The Psalms which was the first among the Holy Writings being set for that whole Volume St. Paul says That to the Iews were committed the Oracles of God Rom. 3.2 He reckons that among the chief of their Privileges but he never blames them for being unfaithful in this Trust and it is certain that the Iews have not corrupted the chief of those Passages that are urged against them to prove Jesus to have been the Christ. So that the Old Testament at least the Translation of the LXX Interpreters which was in common use and in high esteem among the Iews in our Saviour's time was as to the main faithful and uncorrupted This might be further urged from what St. Paul says concerning those Scriptures which Timothy had learned of a Child these could be no other than the Books of the Old Testament Thus if the Writings of the New Testament are acknowledged to be of Divine Authority the full Testimony that they give to the Books of the Old Testament does sufficiently prove their â—uthority and Genuineness likewise But to carry this matter yet further Moses wrought such Miracles both in Egypt in passing through the Red-Sea and in the Wilderness that if these are acknowledg'd to be true there can be no question made of his being sent of God and authorized by
weak and brag continually of the Spirit by which they do pretend that all whatsoever they Preach is suggested to them though manifestly contrary to the Holy Scriptures This whole Article relates to the Antinomians as these last words were added by reason of the Extravagance of some Enthusiasts at that time but that Madness having ceased in Queen Elizabeth's time it seems it was thought that there was no more occasion for those words There are Four heads that do belong to this Article First That the Old Testament is not contrary to the New Secondly That Christ was the Mediator in both Dispensations so that Salvation was offered in both by him Thirdly That the Ceremonial and the Judiciary Precepts in the Law of Moses do not bind Christians Fourthly That the Moral Law does still bind all Christians To the first of these The Manichees of old who fancied that there was a Bad as well as a Good God thought that these Two Great Principles were in a perpetual struggle and they believed the Old Dispensation was under the Bad One which was taken away by the New that is the work of the Good God But they who held such monstrous Tenets must needs reject the whole New Testament or very much corrupt it since there is nothing plainer than that the Prophets of the Old foretold the New with approbation and the Writers of the New prove both their Commission and their Doctrine from Passages of the Old Testament This therefore could not be affirmed without rejecting many of the Books that we own and corrupting the rest So this deserves no more to be considered Upon this occasion it will be no improper Digression to consider what Revelation those under the Mosaical Law or that lived before it had of the Messias This is an Important Matter It is a great Confirmation of the Truth of the Christian Religion as it will furnish us with proper Arguments against the Iews It is certain they have long had and still have an Expectation of a Messias Now the Characters and Predictions concerning this Person must have been fulfilled long ago or the Prophecies will be found to be false and if they do meet and were accomplish'd in our Saviour's Person and if no other Person could ever pretend to this then that which is undertaken to be proved will be fully performed The first Promise to Adam after his Sin speaks of an Enmity between the Seed of the Serpent and the Seed of the Woman Gen. 3.15 It shall bruise thy head and thou shalt bruise his heel The one might hurt the other in some lesser Instances but the other was to have an entire Victory at last which is plainly signified by the Figures of bruising the Heel and bruising the Head which was to be performed by one who was to bear this Character of being the Woman's Seed The next Promise was made to Abraham In thee shall all the families of the earth be blessed Gen. 12.3 Gen. 22.18 Gen. 26.24 Gen. 28.14 Gen. 49.10 This was lodged in his Seed or Posterity upon his being ready to offer up his Son Isaac That Promise was renewed to Isaac and after him to Iacob When he was dying it was lodged by him in the Tribe of Iudah when he prophesied That the Scepter should not depart from Iudah nor the Law-giver from between his feet till Shiloh should come and the gathering of the people that is of the Gentiles was to be to him It is certain the Ten Tribes were lost in their Captivity whereas the Tribe of Iudah was brought back and continued to be a political Body under their own Laws until a Breach was made upon that by the Romans first reducing them to the Form of a Province and soon after that destroying them utterly So that either that Prediction was not accomplished or the Shiloh the Sent to whom the Gentiles were to be gathered came before they lost their Scepter and Laws Moses told the People of Israel That God was to raise up among them a Prophet like unto him Deut. 18.15 to whom they ought to hearken otherwise God would require it of them The Character of Moses was That he was a Lawgiver and the Author of an entire Body of Instituted Religion so they were to look for such a one Numb 24. â—â— Balaam prophesied darkly of one whom he saw as at a great distance from his own time and he spoke of a Star that should come out of Iacob and a Scepter out of Israel Some Memorial of which was probably preserved among the Arabians In the Book of Psalms there are many things said of David which seem capable of a much Auguster Sense than can be pretended to be answered by any thing that befel himself What is said in the 2 d the 16 th the 22 d the 45 th the 102 d and the 110 th Psalms afford us copious Instances of this Passages in these Psalms must be stretched by Figures that go very high to think they were all fulfilled in David or Solomon But in their Literal and largest Sense they were accomplished in Christ to whom God said Thou art my Son this day have I begotten thee In him that was verified Thou wilt not leave my Soul in hell neither wilt thou suffer thy Holy One to see Corruption His hands and his feet were pierced and lots were cast upon his vesture Of him it may be strictly said Thy throne O God is for ever and ever To him that belonged The Lord said unto my Lord Sit thou on my Right-hand till I make thine enemies thy footstool And The Lord sware and will not repent Thou art a Priest for ever after the order of Melchisedeck The Prophets gave yet more express Predictions concerning the Messias Isaiah did quiet the Fears of Ahaz and of the House of David by saying The Lord himself shall give you a sign Behold Isa. 8 1â— a Virgin shall conceive and bear a Son It was certainly no Sign for one that was a Virgin to conceive afterwards and bear a Son therefore the Sign or extroardinary thing here promised as a signal Pledge of God's Care of the House of David must lie in this That one still remaining a Virgin should conceive and bear a Son not to insist upon the strict signification of the Word in the Original The same Prophet did also foretell That as this Messiah or the Branch Isa. 11.1 2. should spring from the Stem of Iesse so also he was to be full of the Spirit of the Lord and that the Gentiles should seek to him ver 10. In another place he enumerates many of the Miracles that should be done by him He was to give sight to the Blind make the Deaf to hear and the Lame to walk Isa. 35. â— 6. He does further set forth his Character not that of a Warrior or Conqueror on the contrary He was not to cry nor strive Isa. 42.1 nor break the bruised
for mutual Condescension and Sympathy Upon all these grounds it is evident that the Holy Spirit is in the Scripture proposed to us as a Person under whose Oeconomy all the various Gifts Administrations and Operations that are in the Church are put The Second Particular relating to this Article is the Procession of this Spirit from the Father and the Son The Word Procession or as the Schoolmen term it Spiration is only made use of in order to the naming this Relation of the Spirit to the Father and Son in such a manner as may best answer the sense of the word Spirit For it must be confessed that we can frame no explicite Idea of this matter and therefore we must speak of it either strictly in Scripture-Words or in such Words as arise out of them and that have the same Signification with them It is therefore a vain Attempt of the Schoolmen to undertake to give a reason why the Second Person is said to be generated and so is called Son and the Third to proceed and so is called Spirit All these Subtilties can have no Foundation and signify nothing towards the clearing this matter which is rather darkned than cleared by a pretended Illustration In a word as we should never have believed this Mystery if the Scripture had not revealed it to us so we understand nothing concerning it besides what is contained in the Scriptures And therefore if in any thing we must think soberly upon those Subjects The Scriptures call the Second Son and the Third Spirit so Generation and Procession are words that may well be used but they are words concerning which we can form no distinct Conception We only use them because they belong to the words Son and Spirit The Spirit in things that we do understand is somewhat that proceeds and the Son is a Person begotten we therefore believing that the Holy Ghost is a Person apply the word Procession to the manner of his Emanation from the Father though at the same time we must acknowledge that we have no distinct Thought concerning it So much in general concerning Procession It has been much controverted whether the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father only or from the Father and the Son In the first Disputes concerning the Divinity of the Holy Ghost with the Macedonians who denied it there was no other Contest but whether he was truly God or not When that was settled by the Council of Constantinople it was made a part of the Creed but it was only said that he Proceeded from the Father And the Council of Ephesus soon after that fixed on that Creed decreeing that no Additions should be made to it Yet about the end of the Sixth Century in the Western Church an Addition was made to the Article by which the Holy Ghost was affirmed to proceed from the Son as well as from the Father And when the Eastern and Western Churches in the Ninth Century fell into an humour of quarrelling upon the account of Jurisdiction after some time of Anger in which they seem to be searching for matter to reproach one another with they found out this difference The Greeks reproached the Latins for thus adding to the Faith and corrupting the Ancient Symbol and that contrary to the Decree of a General Council The Latins on the other hand charged them for detracting from the Dignity of the Son And this became the chief Point in Controversy between them Here was certainly a very unhappy Dispute inconsiderable in its Original but fatal in its Consequences We of this Church though we abhor the Cruelty of condemning the Eastern Churches for such a difference yet do receive the Creed according to the usage of the Western Churches And therefore though we do not pretend to explain what Procession is we believe according to the Article That the Holy Ghost proceeds both from the Father and the Son Because in that Discourse of our Saviour's that contains the Promise of the Spirit and that long Description of him as a Person Christ not only says That the Father will send the Spirit in his name but adds That he will send the Spirit Joh. 14.26 and though he says next who proceedeth from the Father yet since he sends him Joh. 15.26 and that he was to supply his room and to act in his Name this implies a Relation and a sort of Subordination in the Spirit to the Son This may serve to justify our adhering to the Creeds as they had been for many Ages received in the Western Church But we are far from thinking that this Proof is so full and explicite as to justify our Separating from any Church or condemning it that should stick exactly to the first Creeds and reject this Addition The Third Branch of the Article is That this Holy Ghost or Person thus proceeding is truly God of the same Substance with the Father and the Son That he is God was formerly proved by those Passages in which the whole Trinity in all the Three Persons is affirm'd But besides that the lying to the Holy Ghost by Ananias and Saphira is said to be a lying not unto men Act. 5.34 but to God His being called another Comforter his teaching all things his guiding into all truth his telling things to come his searching all things even the deep things of God his being called the Spirit of the Lord in opposition to the spirit of a man his making intercession for us his changing us into the same image with Christ are all such plain Characters of his being God that those who deny that are well aware of this That if it is once proved that he is a Person it will follow that he must be God therefore all that was said to prove him a Person is here to be remembred as a Proof that he is truly God So that though there is not such a variety of Proofs for this as there was for the Divinity of the Son yet the Proof of it is plain and clear And from what was said upon the First Article concerning the Unity of God it is also certain that if he is God he must be of one Substance Majesty and Glory with the Father and the Son ARTICLE VI. Of the Sufficiency of Holy Scriptures for Salvation Holy Scripture containeth all things necessary to Salvation So that whatsoevet is not read therein nor may be proved thereby is not to be required of any Man that it should be believed as an Article of Faith or be thought requisite or necessary to Salvation In the Name of the Holy Scripture we do understand those Canonical Books of the Old and New Testament of whose Authority was never any doubt in the Church Of the Names and Number of the Canonical Books Genesis The First Book of Samuel The Book of Hester Exodus The Second Book of Samuel The Book of Iob Leviticus The First Book of Kings The Psalms Numbers The Second Book of Kings The Proverbs
other Religion besides the Iewish and the Christian For all the several Shapes of Heathenism have often changed and they all went off as soon as the Government that supported them fell and that another came in its place Whereas these have subsisted long not only without the support of Civil Power but under many severe Persecutions which is at least a good Moral Argument to prove that these Religions had another Foundation and a deeper Root than any other Religion could ever pretend to Yet after all it is not to be denied but that in the Collection that was made of the Books of the Old Testament after the Captivity by Ezra and others or after that burning of many of the Books of their Law under Antiochus Epiphanes mentioned in the Book of Maccabees that some disorder might happen 1 Maccab. 1.56 that there might be such regard had to some Copies as not to alter some maniâ—est faults that were in them but that instead of that they might have marked on the Margent that which was the true Reading And a Superstitious conceit might have afterwards crept in and continued in After-Ages of a mysteryin that matter upon their first letting theseFaults continue in the Text with the Marginal Annotation of the Correction of them There might be also other Marginal Annotations of the Modern Names of Places set against the Ancient ones to guide the Reader 's judgment and afterwards the Modern Name might haue been writ instead of the Ancient one These are things that might naturally enough happen And will serve to resolve many Objections against the Text of the Old Testament All the Numbers of Persons as well as of Years might also have been writ in Numerical Letters though afterwards they came all to be set down in words at large And while they were in Letters as some might have been worn out and lost in Ancienter Copies so others were by the resemblance of some Letters very like to be mistaken Nor could Mens Memories serve them so well to correct mistakes in Numbers as in other Matters This may shew a way to reconcile many seeming differences between the Accounts that are variously stated in some of the Books of the Bible and between the Hebrew and the Septuagint In these Matters our Church has made no Decision and so Divines are left to a just freedom in them In general we may safely rely upon the Care and Providence of God and the Industry of Men who are naturally apt to preserve things of that kind entire which are highly valued among them And therefore we conclude That the Books of the Old Testament are preserved pure down to us as to all those things for which they were written that is in every thing that is either an Object of Faith or a Rule of Life And as to lesser Matters which visibly have no Relation to either of these there is no reason to think that every Copier was so divinely guided that no small Error might surprize him In Fact we know that there are many various Readings which might have arisen from the haste and carelesness of Copiers from their guessing wrong that which appeared doubtful or imperfect in the Copy and from a superstitious adhering to some apparent Faults when they found them in Copies of a Venerable Antiquity But when all those variousReadings are compar'd together it appears that as theyare inconsiderable so they do not concern ourFaith nor ourMorals the setting which right was the main end of Revelation The most important diversity relates to Chronology But the account of time especially in the first Ages is of no Consequence to our believing right or to our living well And therefore if some Errors or Mistakes should appear to be among those different Readings these give no just cause to doubt of the whole And indeed considering the many Ages through which those Books have past we have much more reason to wonder that they are brought down to us so entire and so manifestly genuine in all their main and important parts than that we should see some prints of the frailty of those who copied and preserved them It remains only upon this Head to consider what Inspiration and an Inspired Book is and how far that Matter is to be carried When we talk with one another a Noise is made in the Air that strikes with such Vibrations on the Ears of others that by the motion thereby made on the Brain of another we do convey our Thoughts to another person So that the Impression made on the Brain is that which communicates our Thoughts to another By this we can easily apprehend how God may make such Impressions on mens Brains as may convey to them such things as he intends to make known to them This is the General Notion of Inspiration in which the manner and degree of the Impression may make it at the least as certain that the Motion comes from God as a Man may be certain that such a thing was told him by such a person and not by any other Now there may be different degrees both of the Objects that are revealed and of the manner of the Revelation To some it may be given in charge to deliver Rules and Laws to men And because that ought to be expressed in plain words without Pomp or Ornament therefore upon such occasions the Imagination is not to be much agitated but the impression must be made so naked that the Understanding may clearly apprehend it and by consequence that it may be plainly expressed In others the design may be only to employ them in order to the awakening men to observe a Law already received and owned That must be done with such pompous Visions of Judgments coming upon the Violation of those Laws as may very much alarm those to whom they are sent Both the Representations and the Expressions must be fitted to excite men to terrify and so to reform them Now because the Imagination whether when we are Transported in our Thoughts being awake or in Dreams is capable of having those Scenes acted upon it and of being so excited by them as to utter them with pompous Figures and in a due Rapidity This is another way of Inspiration that is strictly called Prophecy in the Old Testament A great deal of the Stile used in this must relate to the particulars of the time to which it belongs Many Allusions Hints and Forms of Speech must be used that are Lively and Proverbial which cannot be understood unless we had all those concurrent helps which are lost even in the next Age if not preserved in Books and so they must be quite lost after many Ages are past when no other Memorials are left of the time in which they were transacted This must needs make the far greater part of all the Prophetick Writings to be very dark to us Not to insist upon the peculiar Genius of the Language in which the Prophets wrote and on the common
Customs of those Climates and Nations to this day that are very different from our own A Third degree of Inspiration might be when there were no discoveries of Future Events to be made but good and holy Men were to be inwardly excited by God to compose such Poems Hymns and Discourses as should be of great use both to give men clearer and fuller apprehensions of Divine things and also insensibly to charm them with a pleasant and exalted way of Treating them And if the Providence of God should so order them in the management of their Composures that it may afterwards appear that Predictions were intermixed with them yet they are not to be called Prophets unless God had revealed to them the mystical intent of such Predictions So that though the Spirit of God Prophesied in them yet they themselves not understanding it are not be accounted Prophets Of this last sort are the Books of the Psalms Iob Proverbs Ecclesiastes c. According to the different Order of these Inspirations was the Old Testament divided into Three Volumes The Inspiration of the New Testament is all to be reduced to the first sort except the Revelation which is purely and strictly Prophetical The other parts of the New Testament are writ after a softer and clearer Illumination and in a Style suitable to it Now because Enthusiasts and Impostors may â—alsly pretend to Divine Commissions and Inspirations it is necessary both for the undeceiving of those who may be mis-led by a hot and ungoverned Imagination and for giving such an Authority to men truly Inspired as may distinguish them from false Pretenders that the man thus Inspired should have some evident Sign or other either some miraculous Action that is visibly beyond the Powers of Nature or some particular discovery of somewhat that is to come which must be so expressed that the accomplishment of it may shew it to be beyond the Conjectures of the most sagacious By one or both of those a Man must prove and the World must be convinced that he is sent and directed by God And if such men deliver their Message in Writing we must receive such Writings as Sacred and Inspired In these Writings some parts are Historical some Doctrinal and some Elenchtical or Argumentative As to the Historical part it is certain that whatsoever is delivered to us as a matter truly transacted must be indeed so But it is not necessary when Discourses are reported that the Individual words should be set down just as they were said it is enough if the effect of them is reported Nor is it necessary that the Order of Time should be strictly observed or that all the Conjunctions in such Relations should be understood severely according to their Grammatical meaning It is visible that all the Sacred Writers write in a diversity of Style according to their different Tempers and to the various Impressions that were made upon them In that the Inspiration left them to the use of their Faculties and to their previous Customs and Habits The design of Revelation as to this part of its Subject is only to give such Representations of Matters of Fact as may both work upon and guide our belief But the Order of Time and the strict words having no influence that way the Writers might dispose them and express them variously and yet all be exactly true For the Conjunctive Particles do rather import that one passage comes to be related after another than that it was really transacted after it As to the Doctrinal parts that is the Rules of Life which these Books set before us or the Propositions that are offered to us in them we must entirely acquiesce in these as in the Voice of God who speaks to us by the means of a Person whom he by his Authorizing him in so wonderful a manner obliges us to hear and believe But when these Writers come to Explain or Argue they use many Figures that were well known in that Age But because the Signification of a Figure is to be taken from common use and not to be carried to the utmost extent that the words themselves will bear we must therefore enquire as much as we can into the Manner and Phraseology of the time in which such Persons lived which with Relation to the New Testament will lead us far And by this we ought to govern the Extent and Importance of these Figures As to their Arguings we are further to consider that sometimes they Argue upon certain Grounds and at other times they go upon Principles acknowledged and received by those with whom they dealt It ought never to be made the only way of proving a thing to found it upon the concessions of those with whom we deal yet when a thing is once truly proved it is a just and usual way of confirming it or at least of silencing those who oppose it to shew that it follows naturally from those Opinions and Principles that are received among them Since therefore the Iews had at the time of the writing of the New Testament a peculiar way of Expounding many Prophecies and Passages in the Old Testament it was a very proper way to convince them to alledge many places according to their Key and Methods of Exposition Therefore when Divine Writers argue upon any point we are always bound to believe the Conclusions that their Reasonings end in as parts of Divine Revelation But we are not bound to be able to make out or even to assent to all the Premises made use of by them in their whole extent unless it appears plainly that they affirm the Premises as expresly as they do the Conclusions proved by them And thus far I have laid down such a Scheme concerning Inspiration and Inspired Writings as will afford to such as apprehend it aright a Solution to most of these difficulties with which we are urged on the account of some passages in the Sacred Writings The laying down a Scheme that asserts an immediate Inspiration which goes to the Stile and to every Tittle and that denies any Error to have crept into any of the Copies as it seems on the one hand to raise the Honour of the Scriptures very highly so it lies open on the other hand to great difficulties which seem insuperable in that Hypothesis whereas a middle way as it settles the Divine Inspiration of these Writings and their being continued down genuine and unvitiated to us as to all that for which we can only suppose that Inspiration was given so it helps us more easily out of all difficulties by yielding that which serves to answer them without weakening the Authority of the whole I come in the last place to examine the Negative Consequence that arises out of this Head which excludes those Books commonly called Apocryphal that are here rejected from being a part of the Canon And this will be easily made out The chief reason that presses us Christians to acknowledge the Old Testament is the
Testimony that Christ and his Apostles gave to those Books as they were then received by the Iewish Church to whom were committed the Oracles of God Now it is not so much as pretended that ever these Books were received among the Iews or were so much as known to them None of the Writers of the New Testament cite or mention them neither Philo nor Iosephus speak of them Iosephus on the contrary says they had only 22 Books that deserved belief but that those which were written after the time of Artaxerxes were not of equal credit with the rest And that in that Period they had no Prophets at all The Christian Church was for some Ages an utter Stranger to those Books Melito Bishop of Sardis being desired by Onesimus to give him a perfect Catalogue of the Books of the Old Testament took a Journey on purpose to the East to examine this matter at its Source And having as he says made an exact Enquiry he sent him the Names of them just as we receive the Canon of which Eusebius says that he has preserved it Euseb. hist l. 4. c. 26. because it contained all those Books which the Church owned Origen gives us the same Catalogue according to the Tradition of the Iews who divided the Old Testament into 22 Books In Psal. 1. according to the Letters of their Alphabet Athanasius reckons them up in the same manner to be 22 and he more distinctly says that he delivered those In Synop. as they had received them by Tradition In Eppasch and as they were received by the whole Church of Christ because some presumed to mix Apocryphal Books with the Divine Scriptures And therefore he was set on it by the Orthodox Brethren in order to declare the Canonical Books delivered as such by Tradition and believed to be of Divine Inspiration It is true he adds That besides these there were other Books which were not put into the Canon but yet were appointed by the Fathers to be read by those who first come to be instructed in the way of Piety And then he reckons up most of the Apocryphal Books Here is the first mention we find of them as indeed it is very probable they were made at Alexandria by some of those Iews who lived there in great Numbers Both Hilary and Cyril of Ierusalem give us the same Catalogue of the Books of the Old Testament and affirm that they delivered them thus according to the Tradition of the Ancients Cyril says That all other Books are to be put in a Second Order Catech. 4. Gregory Nazienzen reckons up the 22 Books and adds that none besides them are genuine The words that are in the Article are repeated by St. Ierom in several of his Prefaces And that which should determine this whole matter is Can. 59. and 60. That the Council of Laodicea by an express Canon delivers the Catalogue of the Canonical Books as we do decreeing that these only should be read in the Church Now the Canons of this Council were afterwards received into the Code of the Canons of the Universal Church so that here we have the concurring sense of the whole Church of God in this matter It is true the Book of the Revelation not being reckoned in it this may be urged to detract from its Authority But it was already proved that that Book was received much Earlier into the Canon of the Scriptures so the design of this Canon being to establish the Authority of those Books that were to be read in the Church the darkness of the Apocalypse making it appear reasonable not to read it publickly that may be the reason why it is not mentioned in it as well as in some later Catalogues Here we have four Centuries clear for our Canon in Exclusion to all Additions It were easy to carry this much further down and to shew that these Books were never by any express definition received into the Canon till it was done at Trent And that in all the Ages of the Church even after they came to be much esteemed there were divers Writers and those generally the most learned of their time who denied them to be a part of the Canon At first many Writings were read in the Churches that were in high reputation both for the sake of the Authors and of the Contents of them though they were never lookt on as a part of the Canon Can. 47. Such were Clemens's Epistle the Books of Hermas the Acts of the Martyrs besides several other things which were read in particular Churches And among these the Apocryphal Books came also to be read as containing some valuable Books of Instruction besides several Fragments of the Iewish History which were perhaps too easily believed to be true These therefore being usually read they came to be reckoned among Canonical Scriptures For this is the reason assigned in the Third Council of Carthage for calling them Canonical because they had received them from their Fathers as Books that were to be read in Churches And the word Canonical was by some in those Ages used in a large sense in opposition to spurious so that it signified no more than that they were genuine So much depends upon this Article that it seemed necessary to dwell fully upon it and to state it clearly It remains only to observe the Diversity between the Articles now Established and those set forth by K. Edward In the latter there was not a Catalogue given of the Books of Scripture nor was there any distinction stated between the Canonical and the Apocryphal Books In those there is likewise a Paragraph or rather a Parenthesis added after the words proved thereby in these words Although sometimes it may be admitted by God's faithful People as Pious and conducing unto Order and Decency Which are now left out because the Authority of the Church as to matters of Order and Decency which was only intended to be asserted by this Period is more fully explained and stated in the 35 th Article ARTICLE VII Of the Old Testament The Old Testament is not contrary to the New For both in the Old and New Testament Everlasting Life is offered to Mankind by Christ who is the only Mediator between God and Man being both God and Man Wherefore they are not to be heard which feign that the Old Fathers did look only for Transitory Promises Although the Law given from God by Moses as touching Ceremonies and Rites do not bind Christian Men nor the Civil-Precepts thereof ought of necessity to be received in any Commonwealth yet notwithstanding no Christian Man whatsoever is free from the Obedience of the Commandments which are called Moral THIS Article is made up of the Sixth and the Nineteenth of King Edward's Articles laid together Only the Nineteenth of King Edward's has these words after Moral Wherefore they are not to be heard which teach that the Holy Scriptures were given to none but to the
Messiah did come and was cut off during the continuance of Ierusalem and the Temple but that it hapned within a Period of Time designed in that Vision Time was then computed more certainly than it had been for many Ages before Two great Measures were fixed one at Babylon by Nabonassor and another in Greece in the Olympiads Here a Prediction is given almost Five hundred Years before the Accomplishment with many very nice Reckonings in it I will not now enter upon the Chronology of this matter on which some Great Men have bestowed their Labours very happily Archbishop Usher has stated this matter so that the Interval of Time is clearly Four hundred eighty six Years The Covenant was to be confirmed with many for one Week in the midst of which God was to cause the Sacrifice and Oblation for Sin to cease which seems to be a Mystical way of describing the Death of Christ that was to put an end to the Virtue of the Iudaical Sacrifices so Sixty nine Weeks and a half make just Four hundred eighty six Years and a half But without going further into this Calculation it is evident That during the Second Temple the Messias was to come and to be cut off and that soon after that a Prince was to send an Army to destroy both City and Sanctuary The Iews do not so much as pretend that during that Temple the Messias thus set forth did come or was cut off so either the Prediction fail'd in the Event or the Messiah did come within that Period And thus a Thread of the Prophecies of the Messias being carried down through the whole Old Testament it seems to be fully made out That he was to be of the Seed of Abraham and of the Posterity of David That the Tribe of Iudah was to be a distinct Policy till he should come That he should work many Miracles That he was to be Meek and Lowly That his Function was to consist in Preaching to the Afflicted and in comforting them That he was to call the Gentiles and even the remote Islands to the knowledge of God That he was to be born of a Virgin and at Bethlehem That he was to be a New Lawgiver as Moses had been That he was to settle his Followers upon a New Covenant different from that made by Moses That he was to come during the Second Temple That he was to make a mean but a joyful Entrance to Ierusalem That he was to be cut off That the Iniquities of us all were to be laid on him and that his Life was to be made an Offering for Sin but that God was to give him a glorious Reward for these his Sufferings and that his Doctrine was to be internal accompanied with a free Offer of Pardon and of Inward Assistances and that after his Death the Iews were to fall under a terrible Curse and an utter Extirpation When this is all summed up together when it appears That there was never any other Person to whom those Characters did agree but that they did all meet in our Saviour we see what Light the Old Testament has given us in this matter Here a Nation that hates us and our Religion who are scattered up and down the World who have been for many Ages without their Temple and without their Sacrifices without Priests and without their Genealogies who yet hold these Books amongthem in adue Veneration which furnish us with so full aproof that the Messiah whom they still look for is the Lord Jesus whom we worship We do now proceed to other matters The Iews pretend That it is a great Argument against the Authority of the New Testament because it acknowledges the Old to be from God and yet repeals the far greater part of the Laws Enacted in it though those Laws are often said to be Laws for ever and throughout all Generations Now they seem to argue with some advantage who say That what God does declare to be a Law that shall be perpetual by any one Prophet cannot be abrogated or reversed by another since that other can have no more Authority than the former Prophet had And if both are of God it seems the one cannot make void that which was formerly declared by the other in the Name of God But it is to be considered That by the Phrases of a Statute for ever or throughout all Generations can only be meant that such Laws were not transient Laws such as were only to be observed whilst they marched through the Wilderness or upon particular occasions whereas such Laws which were constantly and generally to be observed were to them perpetual But that does not Import that the Lawgiver himself had parted with all the Authority that naturally belongs to him over his own Laws It only says That the People had no power over such Laws to repeal or change them They were to bind them always but that puts no limitation on the Lawgiver himself so that he might not alter his own Constitutions Positive Precepts which have no real value in themselves are of their own nature alterable And as in human Laws the words of Enacting a Law for all future times do only make that to be a perpetual Law for the Subjects but do not at all limit the Legislative power which is as much at liberty to abrogate or alter it as if no such words had been in the Law There are also many hints in the Old Testament which shew that the Precepts of the Mosaical Law were to be altered Many plain Intimations are given of a time and state in which the knowledge of God was to be spread over all the Earth And that God was every where to be worshipped Now this was impossible to be done without a Change in their Law and Rituals It being impossible that all the World should go up thrice a Year to worship at Ierusalem or could be served by Priests of the Aaronical Family Circumcision was a distinction of one particular Race which needed not to be continued after all were brought under one denomination and within the same common Privileges These things hitherto mentioned belong naturally to this part of the Article yet in the intention of those who framed it these words relate to an extravagant sort of Enthusiasts that lived in those days who abusing some ill-understood Phrases concerning Justification by Christ without the works of the Law came to set up very wild Notions which were bad in themselves but much more pernicious in their Consequences They therefore fancied that a Christian was tied by no Law as a Rule or Yoke all these being taken away by Christ They said indeed That a Christian by his renovation became a Law to himself he obeyed not any written Rule or Law but a new inward Nature And thus as it is said that Sadocus mistook his Master Antigonus who taught his Disciples to serve God not for the hope of a Reward but without any expectations as if he by
have put our Minds likewise under such a Subordination to some material Motions that out of them peculiar Thoughts should arise in us And though this Union is that which we cannot distinctly conceive yet there is no difficulty in it equal to that of our imagining that Matter can think or move it self We perceive that we our selves and the rest of Mankind have thinking Principles within us so from thence it is easy enough to us to apprehend That there may be other thinking Beings which either have no Bodies at all but act purely as Intellectual Substances or if they have Bodies that they are so subtilised as to be capable of a vast quickness of Motion such in proportion as we perceive to be in our Animal Spirits which in the Minute that our minds command them are raising Motions in the remotest parts of our Bodies Such Bodies may also be so thin as to be invisible to us and as among Men some are Good and some Bad and of the Bad some seem to be determinedly and as to all appearance incurably Bad so there may have been a Time and State of Liberty in which those Spirits were left to their choice whether they would continue in their Innocency or fall from it and such as continued might be for ever fixed in that State or Exalted to higher Degrees in it And such as fell from it might fall irrecoverably into a state of utter Apostacy from God and of Rebellion against him There is nothing in this Theory that is incredible Therefore if the Scriptures have told us any thing concerning it we have no reason to be prejudiced against them upon that account Besides that there are innumerable Histories in many several Countries and Ages of the World of extraordinary Apparitions and other unaccountable Performances that could only have been done by Invisible Powers Many of those are so well attested that it argues a strange pitch of Obstinacy to refuse to believe a Matter of Fact when it is well vouched and when there is nothing in reason to oppose it but an unwillingness to believe Invisible Beings It is true this is an Argument in which a fabulous Humour will go far and in which some are so credulous as to swallow down every thing Therefore all wise men ought to suspend their belief and not to go too fast but when things are so undeniably attested that there is no reason to question the exactness or the credit of the Witnesses it argues a Mind unreasonably prepossessed to reject all such Evidence All those Invisible Beings were created by God and are not to be considered as Emanations or Rays of his Essence which was a gross Conceit of such Philosophers as fancied that the Deity had Parts They are Beings Created by him and are capable of passing through various Scenes in Bodies more or less refined In this Life the State of our Minds receives vast Alterations from the State of our Bodies which ripen gradually And after they are come to their full growth they cannot hold in that condition long but sink down much faster than they grew up some Humours or Diseases discomposing the Brain which is the Seat of the Mind so entirely that it cannot serve it at least so far as to Reflex Acts. So in the next State it is possible that we may at first be in a less perfect condition by reason of this that we may have a less perfect Body to which we may be united between our Death and the General Resurrection and there may be a time in which we may receive a vast Addition and Exaltation in that State by the raising up of our former Bodies and the reuniting us to them which may give us a greater compass and a higher Elevation These things are only proposed as Suppositions that have no Absurdity in them So that if they should happen to be the Parts of a Revealed Religion there is no reason to doubt of it or to reject it on such an Account The Last Branch of this Article is The Assertion of that great Doctrine of the Christian Religion concerning the Trinity or Three Persons in one Divine Essence It is a vain attempt to go about to prove this by Reason For it must be confessed That we should have had no cause to have thought of any such thing if the Scriptures had not Revealed it to us There are indeed Prints of a very Ancient Tradition in the World of Three in the Deity called the Word or the Wisdom and the Spirit or the Love besides the Fountain of both these God This was believed by those from whom the most Ancient Philosophers had their Doctrines The Author of the Book of Wisdom Philo and the Chaldee Paraphrasts have many things that shew that they had received those Traditions from the former Ages but it is not so easy to determine what gave the first rise of them It has been much argued whether this was Revealed in the Old Testament or not some from the Plural Termination of Elohim which is joined to Singular Verbs and from that of the Lord Raining Fire from the Lord upon Sodom Iehovah from Iehovah from the Description of the Wisdom of God in the 8 th of the Proverbs as a person with God from all Eternity and from the mention that is often made of the Spirit as well as the Word of God that came to the Prophets they have I say from all these places and some others concluded that this is contained in the Old Testament Others have doubted of this and have said that the Name Elohim though of a Plural Termination being often joined to a Singular Verb makes it reasonable to think it was a Singular which by somewhat peculiar to that Language might be of a Plural Termination Nor have they thought That since Angels carry the Name of God when they went on special Deputations from him the Angels being called Iehovah could be very confidently urged That Sublime Description of the Wisdom of God in the Proverbs seems not to them to be a full proof in this Matter For the Wisdom there mentioned seems to be the Wisdom of Creation and Providence which is not personal but belongs to the Essence Nor do they think that those places in the Old Testament in which mention is made of the Word or of the Spirit ofGod can settle this Point for these may only signify God's Revealing himself to his Prophets Therefore whatever secret Tradition the Iews might have had among them concerning this from whom perhaps the Greeks might have also had it yet many do not pretend to prove this from passages in the Old Testament alone Though the Expositions given to some of them in the New Testament prove to us who acknowledge it what was the true meaning of those Passages yet take the Old Testament in it self without the New and it must be confessed That it will not be easy to prove this Article from it But there are very
Holy Ghost it must be understood of the Father for when the Father is named with Christ sometimes he is called God simply and sometimes God the Father This Argument from the Threefold Salutation appears yet stronger in the Words in which St. Iohn addresses himself to the Seven Churches in the beginning of the Revelations Rev. 1.4 5. Grace and Peace from him which is which was and which is to come and from the seven Spirits which are before his Throne and from Iesus Christ. By the Seven Spirits must be meant one or more Persons since he wishes or declares Grace and Peace from them Now either this must be meant of Angels or of the Holy Ghost There are no where Prayers made or Blessings given in the Name of Angels This were indeed a worshipping them against which there are express Authorities not only in the other Books of the New Testament but in this Book in particular Nor can it be imagined that Angels could have been named before Iesus Christ So then it remains that Seven being a Number that imports both Variety and Perfection and that was the Sacred Number among the Iews this is a Mystical Expression which is no extraordinary thing in a Book that is all over mysterious And it imports one Person from whom all that variety of Gifts Administrations and Operations that were then in the Church did flow And this is the Holy Ghost But as to his being put in order before Christ as upon the supposition of an Equality the going out of the common order is no great matter so since there was to come after this a full Period that concerned Christ it might be a natural way of Writing to name him last Against all this it is objected That the Designation that is given to the first of these in a Circumlocution that imports Eternity shews that the Great God and not the Person of the Father is to be meant But then how could St. Iohn writing to the Churches wish them Grace and Peace from the other Two A few Verses after this the same Description of Eternal Duration is given to Christ and is a strong Proof of his Eternity and by consequence of his Divinity So what is brought so soon after as a Character of the Eternity of the Son may be also here used to denote the Eternal Father These are the Chief Places in which the Trinity is mentioned all together I do not insist on that contested Passage of St. Iohn's Epistle There are great doubtings made about it 1 Joh. 5.7 The main ground of doubting being the Silence of the Fathers who never made use of it in the Disputes with the Arians and Macedonians There are very considerable things urged on the other hand to support the Authority of that Passage yet I think it is safer to build upon sure and undisputable grounds So I leave it to be maintained by others who are more fully persuaded of its being Authentical There is no need of it This matter is capable of a very full Proof whether that Passage is believed to be a part of the Canon or not It is no small Confirmation of the Truth of this Doctrine that we are certain it was universally received over the whole Christian Church long before there was either a Christian Prince to support it by his Authority or a Council to establish it by Consent And indeed the Council of Nice did nothing but declare what was the Faith of the Christian Church with the addition only of the Word Consubstantial For if all the other Words of the Creed settled at Nice are acknowledged to be true that of the Three Persons being of one Substance will follow from thence by a just consequence We know both by what Tertullian and Novatian writ what was the Faith both of the Roman and the African Churches From Irenaeus we gather the Faith both of the Gallican and the Asiatick Churches And the whole proceedings in the Case of Samosatenus that was the solemnest business that past while the Church was under Oppression and Persecution give us the most convincing Proof possible not only of the Faith of the Eastern Churches at that time but of their Zeal likewise in watching against every Breach that was made in so Sacred a part of their Trust and Depositum These things have been fully opened and enlarged on by others to whom the Reader is referred I shall only desire him to make this Reflection on the state of Christianity at that time The Disputes that were then to be managed with the Heathens against the Deifying or Worshipping of Men and those extravagant Fables concerning the Genealogies of their Heroes and Gods must have obliged the Christians rather to have silenced and supprest the Doctrine of the Trinity than to have owned and published it So that nothing but their being assured that it was a Necessary and Fundamental Article of their Faith could have led them to own it in so publick a manner since the Advantages that the Heathen would have taken from it must be too visible not to be soon observed The Heathens retorted upon them their Doctrine of a Man's being a God and of God's having a Son And every one who engaged in this Controversy framed such Answers to these Objections as he thought he could best maintain This as it gave the Rise to the Errors which some brought into the Church so it furnishes us with a Copious Proof of the common Sense of the Christians of those Ages who all agreed in general to the Doctrine though they had many different and some very Erroneous ways of explaining it among them I now come to the special Proofs concerning each of the Three Persons But there being other Articles relating to the Son and the Holy Ghost the Proofs of these Two will belong more properly to the Explanation of those Articles Therefore all that belongs to this Article is to prove that the Father is truly God but that needs not be much insisted on for there is no dispute about it None deny that he is God many think that he is so truly God that there is no other that can be called God besides him unless it be in a larger sense of the word And therefore I will here conclude all that seems necessary to be said on this first Article on which if I have dwelt the longer it was because the stating the Idea of God right being the Fundamental Article of all Religion and the Key into every part of it this was to be done with all the Fulness and Clearness possible In a word to recapitulate a little what has been said The liveliest way of framing an Idea of God is to consider our own Souls which are said to be made after the Image of God An attentive Reflection on what we perceive in our selves will carry us further than any other thing whatsoever to form just and true Thoughts of God We perceive what Thought is but
not express themselves so as that they should be clearly understood It is also to be observed That the New Dispensation is opposed to the Old as Light is to Darkness an Open Face to a Veiled and Substance to Shadows Since then the Old Testament was so clear that David both in the 19 th and most copiously in the 119 th Psalm sets out very fully the Light which the Laws of God gave them in that darker State we have much more reason to conclude That the New Dispensation should be much brighter If there was no need of a certain Expounder of Scripture then there is much less now Nor is there any Provision made in the New for a sure Guide No Intimations are given where to find one From all which we may conclude That the Books of the New Testament were clear in those days and might well be understood by those to whom they were at first addressed If they were clear to them they may be likewise clear to us For though we have not a full History of that Time or of the Phrases and Customs and particular Opinions of that Age yet the vast Industry of the succeeding Ages of these two last in particular has made such discoveries besides the other collateral advantages which Learning and a Niceness in Reasoning has given us that we may justly reckon that though some Hints in the Epistles which relate to the particulars of that Time may be so lost that we can at best but make conjectures about them yet upon the whole matter we may well understand all that is necessary to Salvation in the Scripture We may indeed fall into Mistakes as well as into Sins And into Errors of Ignorance as well as into Sins of Ignorance God has dealt with our Understandings as he has dealt with our Wiils He proposes our Duty to us with strong Motives to Obedience he promises us inward Assistances and accepts of our sincere Endeavours And yet this does not hinder many from perishng Eternally and others from falling into great Sins and so running great danger of Eternal Damnation and all this is because God has left our Wills free and does not constrain us to be good He deals with our Understandings in the same manner he has set his Will and the knowledge of Salvation before us in Writings that are framed in a simple and plain Stile in a Language that was then common and is still well understood that were at first designed for common Use They are soon read and it must be confessed that a great part of them is very clear So we have reason to conclude that if a man reads these carefully and with an honest Mind if he prays to God to direct him and follows sincerely what he apprehends to be true and practises diligently those Duties that do unquestionably appear to be bound upon him by them that then he shall find out enough to save his Soul and that such Mistakes as lye still upon him shall either be cleared up to him by some happy Providence or shall be forgiven him by that Infinite Mercy to which his Sincerity and Diligence is well known That bad men should fall into grievous Errors is no more strange than that they should commit heinous Sins And the Errors of good men in which they are neither wilful nor insolent will certainly be forgiven as well as their Sins of Infirmity Therefore all the ill use that is made of the Scripture and all the Errors that are pretended to be proved by it do not weaken its Authority or Clearness This does only shew us the danger of Studying them with a biassed or corrupted mind of reading them too carelesly of being too curious in going farther than as they open matters to us and in being too implicite in adhering to our Education or in Submitting to the Dictates of others So far I have explained the First Branch of this Article The Consequence that arises out of it is so clear that it needs not be proved That therefore nothing ought to be esteemed an Article of Faith but what may be found in it or proved from it If this is our Rule our entire and only Rule then such Doctrines as are not in it ought to be rejected and any Church that adds to the Christian Religion is erroneous for making such Additions and becomes Tyrannical if she imposes them upon all her Members and requires positive Declarations Subscriptions and Oaths concerning them In so doing she forces such as cannot have Communion with her but by affirming what they believe to be false to withdraw from that which cannot be had without departing from the Truth So all the Additions of the Five Sacraments of the Invocation of Angels and Saints of the worshipping of Images Crosses and Relicks of the Corporal Presence in the Eucharist of the Sacrifice offered in it for the dead as well as for the living together with the Adoration offered to it with a great many more are certainly Errors unless they can be proved from Scripture and they are intolerable Errors if as the Scripture is express in opposition to them so they defile the Worship of Christians with Idolatry But they become yet most intolerable if they are imposed upon all that are in that Communion and if Creeds or Oaths in which they are affirmed are required of all in their Communion Here is the main ground of justifying our forming our selves into a distinct Body from the Roman Church and therefore it is well to be considered The further discussing of this will come properly in when other Particulars come to be examined From hence I go to the Second Branch of this Article which gives us the Canon of the Scripture Here I shall begin with the New Testament for though in order the Old Testament is before the New yâ—t the Proof of the one being more distinctly made out by the concurring Testimonies of other Writers than can possibly be pretended for the other and the New giving an Authority to the Old by asserting it so expresly I shall therefore prove first the Canon of the New Testament I will not urge that of the Testimony of the Spirit which many have had recourse to This is only an Argument to him that feels it if it is one at all and therefore it proves nothing to another person besides the utmost that with reason can be made of this is that a good man feeling the very powerful Effects of the Christian Religion on his own Heart in the reforming his Nature and the calming his Conscience together with those Comforts that arise out of it is convinced in general of the Whole of Christianity by the happy Effects that it has upon his own Mind But it does not from this appear how he should know that such Books and such Passages in them should come from a Divine Original or that he should be able to distinguish what is Genuine in them from what is Spurious To come
therefore to such Arguments as may be well insisted upon and maintained The Canon of the New Testament as we now have it is fully proved from the Quotations out of the Books of the New Testament by the Writers of the First and Second Centuries such as Clemens Ignatius Iustin Irenaeus and several others Papias who conversed with the Disciples of the Apostles is cited by Eusebius in confirmation of St. Matthew's Gospel which he says was writ by him in Hebrew Lib. 3. Hist. c 39. c. 25. He is also cited to prove that St. Mark writ his Gospel from St. Peter's Preaching which is also confirmed by Clemens of Alexandria not to mention later Writers Irenaeus says St. Luke writ his Gospel according to St. Paul's Preaching Eus. l. 2. Hist. c. 15. which is supported by some Words in St. Paul's Epistles that relate to Passages in that Gospel yet certainly he had likewise other Vouchers those who from the beginning were Eye-witnesses and Ministers of the Word though the whole might receive its full Authority from St. Paul's Approbation St. Iohn writ later than the other Three so the Testimonies concerning his Gospel are the fullest and the most particular Lib. 3. cap. 11. Irenaeus has laboured the Proof of this matter with much Care and Attention He lived within an Hundred years to St. Iohn and knew Policarp that was one of his Disciples After him come Tertullian and Origen who speak very copiously of the Four Gospels Tert. l. 4. cont Mar. cap. 1. Orig. apud Eus. lib. 6. cap. 25. and from them all the Ecclesiastical Writers have without any doubting or Controversy acknowledged and cited them without the least shadow of any Opposition except what was made by Marcion and the Manichees Next to these Authorities we appeal to the Catalogues of the Books of the New Testament that are given us in the Third and Fourth Centuries by Origen a Man of great Industry and that had examined the State of many Churches by St. Athanasius by the Council of Laodicea and Carthage Athan. in Synops. Conc. cap. 60. Carth. 3. c. 47. and after these we have a constant Succession of Testimonies that do deliver these as the Canon universally received All this laid together does fully prove this Point and that the more clearly when these Particulars are considered 1. That the Books of the New Testament were read in all their Churches and at all their Assemblies so that this was a Point in which it was not easy for men to mistake 2 dly That this was so near the Fountain that the Originals themselves of the Apostles were no doubt so long preserved 3 dly That both the Iews as appears from Iustin Martyr and the Gentiles Dial. cum Trypho as appears by Celsus knew that these were the Books in which the Faith of the Christians was contained 4 thly That some question was made touching some of them because there was not that clear or general knowledge concerning them that there was concerning the others yet upon fuller enquiry all acquiesced in them No doubt was ever made about Thirteen of St. Pauls Epistles because there were particulaâ— Churches or Persons to whom the Originals of them were directed Tertul. de Presc cap. â—6 But the Strain and Design of that to the Hebrews being to remove their Prejudices that high one which they had taken up against St. Paul as an Enemy to their Nation was to be kept out of view that it might not blast the good Effects which were intended by it yet it is cited oftner than once by Clemens of Rome And though the Ignorance of many of the Roman Church who thought that some Passages in it favoured the Severity of the Novatians Orig. Ep. ad African Orig. Exhort ad Martyr Eusec Hist. lib. 6. c. 20. Hieron Ep. ad Dardan Cyr. Catech 4. that cut off Apostates from the hopes of Repentance made them question it of which mention is made both by Origen Eusebius and Ierome who frequently affirm that the Latin Church or the Roman did not receive it yet Athanasius reckons both this and the Seven General Epistles among the Canonical Writings Cyril of Ierusalem who had occasion to be well informed about it says that he delivers his Catalogue from the Church as she had received it from the Apostles the Ancient Bishops and the Governors of the Church and reckons up in it both the Seven General Epistles and the Fourteen of St. Paul So does Ruffin and so do the Councils of Laodicea and Carthage Apud Hieron Tom. 4. the Canons of the former being received into the Body of the Canons of the Universal Church Can. 60. Can. 47. Irenaeus Origen and Clemens of Alexandria cite the Epistle to the Hebrews frequently Some question was made of the Epistle of St. Iames Iren. l. 3. c. 38. Orig. l. 3. 7. con Cels. Dial. con Marc. Ep. ad Afric Clem. Alex. Ignat. Ep. ad Ephe. Orig. Hom. 13. in Genes Eus. Hist. l. 2. c. 22. l. 3. c· 24 27. Hieron Pref. in Ep. Jac. Orig. cont Marcion Firmil Ep. 75. ap Cypr. Eus. Hist. l. 3. c. 3. the Second of St. Peter the Second and Third of St. Iohn and St. Iude's Epistle But both Clemens of Rome Ignatius and Origen cite St. Iame's Epistle Eusebius says it was known to most and read in most Christian Churches The like is testified by St. Ierom. St. Peter's Second Epistle is cited by Origen and Firmilian and Eusebius says it was held very useful even by those who held it not Canonical But since the First Epistle was never questioned by any the Second that carries so many Characters of its Genuineness such as St. Peter's Name at the Head of it the mention of the Transfiguration and of his being an Eye-witness of it Iren. l. 1. c. 13. Clem. Alex. Strom. 2. Tertul. de Carne Chr. c. 24. Euseb. Hist. l. 6. c. 24. Tertul. de cultu faem are evident Proofs of its being writ by him The Second and Third Epistles of St. Iohn are cited by Irenaeus Clemens and Dennis of Alexandria and by Tertullian The Epistle of St. Iude is also cited by Tertullian Some of those General Epistles were not addressed to any particular Body or Church that might have preserved the Originals of them but were sent about in the nature of Circular Letters so that it is no wonder if they were not received so early and with such an Unanimity as we find concerning the Four Gospel's the Acts of the Apostles and Thirteen of St. Paul's Epistles These being first fixed upon by an unquestioned and undisputed Tradition made that here was a Standard once ascertained to judge the better of the rest So when the matter was strictly examined so near the Fountain that it was very possible and easy to find out the Certainty of it then in the beginning of the Fourth Century the Canon was settled and universally agreed to
common and that openly and fairly For if every good Man that prays earnestly to God for the Assistance and Direction of his Spirit has reason to look for it much more may a Body of Pastors brought together to seek out the Truth in any point under debate look for it if they bring with them sincere and unprejudiced Minds and do pray earnestly to God In that case they may expect to be directed and assisted of Him But this depends upon the Purity of their Hearts and the Earnestness of their Endeavours and Prayers When any Synod of the Clergy has so far examined a Point as to settle their Opinions about it they may certainly decree that such is their Doctrine And as they judge it to be more or less important they may either restrain any other Opinion or may require positive Declarations about it either of all in their Communion or at least of all whom they admit to minister in Holy Things This is only an Authority of Order for the maintaining of Union and Edification And in this a Body does no more as it is a Body than what every single Individual has a right to do for himself He examines a Doctrine that is laid before him he forms his own Opinion upon it and pursuant to that he must judge with whom he can hold Communion and from whom he must separate When such Definitions are made by the Body of the Pastors of any Church all Persons within that Church do owe great respect to their Decision Modesty must be observed in descanting upon it and in disputing about it Every Man that finds his own thoughts differ from it ought to examine the Matter over again with much attention and care freeing himself all he can from Prejudice and Obstinacy with a just distrust of his own Understanding and an humble respect to the Judgment of his Superiors This is due to the considerations of Peace and Union and to that Authority which the Church has to maintain it But if after all possible methods of Enquiry a Man cannot master his Thoughts or make them agree with the Publick Decisions his Conscience is not under Bonds Since this Authority is not absolute nor grounded upon a promise of Infallibility This is a Tenet that with Relation to National Churches and their Decisions is held by the Church of Rome as well as by us For they place Infallibility either in the Pope or in the Universal Church But no Man ever dreamt of Infallibility in a particular or National Church And the Point in this Article is only concerning particular Churches for the Head of General Councils comes in upon the next That no Church can add any thing as necessary to Salvation has been already considered upon the Sixth Article It is certain that as we owe our hopes of Salvation only to Christ and to what he has done for us so also it can belong only to him who procured it to us to fix the Terms upon which we may look for it Nor can any Power on Earth clog the offers that he makes us in the Gospel with new or other Terms than those which we find made there to us There can be no dispute about this For unless we believe that there is an Infallible Authority lodged in the Church to explain the Scripture and to declare Tradition and unless we believe that the Scriptures are both obscure and defective and that the one must be helped by an Infallible Commentary and the other supplied by an Authentical Declarer of Tradition we cannot ascribe an Authority to the Church either to contradict the Scripture or to add necessary conditions of Salvation to it We own after all That the Church is the Dispositary of the whole Scriptures as the Iews were of the Old Testament But in that Instance of the Iews we may see that a Body of Men may be faithful in the Copying of a Book exactly and in the handing it down without corrupting it and yet they may be mistaken in the true meaning of that which they preserve so faithfully They are expresly called the keepers of the Oracles of God Rom. 3.2 And are no where reproved for having attempted upon this Depositum And yet for all that Fidelity they fell into great Errors about some of the most Important parts of their Religion which exposed them to the rejecting the Messias and to their utter ruin The Church's being called the Witness of Holy Writ is not to be resolved into any Judgment that they pass upon it as a Body of Men that have Authority to Judge and give Sentence so that the Canonicalness or the Uncanonicalness of any Book shall depend upon their Testimony But is resolv'd into this that such Successions and Numbers of Men whether of the Laity or Clergy have in a course of many Ages had these Books preserved and read among them so that it was not possible to corrupt that upon which so many Men had their Eyes in all the Corners and Ages of Christendom And thus we believe the Scripture to be a Book written by inspired Men and delivered by them to the Church upon the Testimony of the Church that at first received it knowing that those great Matters of Fact contained and appealed to in it were true And also upon the like Testimony of the succeeding Ages who Preserved Read Copied and Translated that Book as they had received it from the first The Church of Rome is guilty of a manifest Circle in this Matter For they say they believe the Scriptures upon the Authority of the Church And they do again believe the Authority of the Church because of the Testimony of the Scripture concerning it This is as false reasoning as can be imagined For nothing can be proved by another Authority till that Authority is first fixed and proved And therefore if the Testimony of the Church is believed to be sacred by virtue of a Divine Grant to it and that from thence the Scriptures have their Credit and Authority then the Credit due to the Church's Testimony is Antecedent to the Credit of the Scripture And so must not be proved by any passages brought from it otherwise that is a manifest Circle But no Circle is committed in our way who do not prove the Scriptures from any supposed Authority in the Church that has handed them down to us But only as they are vast Companies of Men who cannot be presumed to have been guilty of any Fraud in this matter it appeared further to be morally impossible for any that should have attempted a Fraud in it to have executed it When therefore the Scripture it self is proved by Moral Arguments of this kind we may according to the strictest Rules of Reasoning examine What Authority the Scripture gives to the Pastors of the Church met in lesser or greater Councils ARTICLE XXI Of the Authority of General Councils General Councils may not be gathered together without the Commandment and Will of
to what was set out in its proper Place And although we set a due value upon some of the Apocryphal Books yet others are of a lower Character The First Book of Maccabees is a very grave History writ with much exactness and a true Judgment but the Second is the Work of a mean Writer He was an Abridger of a larger Work and as he has the Modesty to ask his Readers Pardon for his Defects so it is very plain to every one that reads him that he needs often many grains of allowance So that this Book is one of the least valuable Pieces of the Apocrypha and there are very probable Reasons to question the Truth of that Relation concerning those who were thus prayed for But because that would occasion too long a Digression we are to make a difference between the Story that he relates and the Author 's own Reflections upon it for as we ought not to make any great Account of his Reflections these being only his private Thoughts who might probably have imbibed some of the Principles of the Greek Philosophy as some of the Iews had done or he might have believed that Notion which is now very generally received by the Iews that every Iew shall have a share in the World to come but that such as have lived ill must be purged before they arrive at it It is of much more importance to consider what Iudas Maccabeus did 2 Maccab. 12.40 which even by that Relation seems to be no more than this That he finding some things Consecrated to the Idols of the Iamnites about the Bodies of those who were killed concluded that to have been the cause of their Death And upon this he and all his Men betook themselves to Prayer and besought God that the Sin might be wholly put out of remembrance He exhorted his People to keep themselves by that Example from the like Sin and he made a Collection of a Sum of Money and sent it to Ierusalem to offer a Sin-offering before the Lord. So far the matter agrees well enough with the Iewish Dispensation It had appeared in the days of Ioshua how much guilt the Sin of Achan though but one Person had brought upon the whole Congregation and their Law had upon another Occasion prescribed a Sin-offering for the whole Congregation to expiate Blood that was shed when the Murderer could not be discovered That so the Judgments of God might not come upon them by reason of the cry of that Blood And by a parity of Reason Iudas might have ordered such an Offering to free himself and his Men from the guilt which the Idolatry of a few might have brought upon greater Numbers such a Sacrifice as this might according to the nature of that Law have been offered But to offer a Sin-offering for the Dead was a new thing without ground or any intimation of any thing like it in their Law So there is no reason to doubt but that if the Story is true Iudas offered this Sin-offering for the Living and not for the Dead If they had been alive then by their Law no Sin-offering could have been made for them for Idolatry was to be punished by cutting off and not to be expiated by Sacrifice What then could not have been done for them if alive could much less be done for them after their death So we have reason to conclude that Iudas offered this Sacrifice only for the Living And we are not much concerned in the Opinion which so slight a Writer as the Author of that Book had concerning it But whatever might be his Opinion it was far from that of the Roman Church By this Instance of the Maccabees Men who died in a State of mortal Sin and that of the highest nature had Sacrifices offered for them Whereas according to the Doctrine of the Church of Rome Hell and not Purgatory is to be the Portion of all such So this will prove too much if any thing at all that Sacrifices are to be offered for the Damned The design of Iudas his sending to make an Offering for them as that Writer states it was that their Sins might be forgiven and that they might have a happy Resurrection Here is nothing of Redeeming them out of Misery or of shortening or alleviating their Torment So that the Author of that Book seems to have been possessed with that Opinion received commonly among the Iews That no Iew could finally perish as we find S. Ierom expressing himself with the like partiality for all Christians But whatever the Author's Opinion was as that Book is of no Authority it is highly probable that Iudas's design in that Oblation was misunderstood by the Historian and we are sure that even his sense of it differs totally from that of the Church of Rome A Passage in the New Testament is brought as a full proof of the Fire of Purgatory 1 Cor. 3. from V. 10. to 16. When St. Paul in his Epistle to the Corinthians is reflecting on the Divisions that were among them and on that diversity of Teachers that formed Men into different Principles and Parties he compares them to different Builders Some raised upon a Rock an Edifice like the Temple at Ierusalem of Gold and Silver and noble Stones called precious Stones whereas others upon the same Rock raised a mean Hovel of Wood Hay and Stubble of both he says every man's work shall be made manifest For the day shall reveal it because it shall be revealed by fire for the fire shall try every man's work of what sort it is And he adds If any man's work abide which he hath built thereupon he shall receive a reward and if any man's work shall be burnt he shall suffer loss but he himself shall be saved yet so as by fire From the first view of these words it will not be thought strange if some of the Ancients who were too apt to Expound places of Scripture according to their first appearences might fancy that at the last day all were to pass through a great Fire and to suffer more or less in it But it is visible that that Opinion is far enough from the Doctrine of Purgatory These words relate to a Fire that was soon to appear and that was to try every Man's work It was to be revealed and in it every Man's work was to be made manifest So this can have no relation to a secret Purgatory Fire The meaning of it can be no other but that whereas some with the Apostles were building up the Church not only upon the Foundation of Jesus Christ and the Belief of his Doctrine but were teaching Men Doctrines and Rules that were Vertuous Good and Great Others at the same time were daubing with a profane mixture both of Judaism and Gentilism joining these with some of the Precepts of Christianity a day would soon appear which probably is meant of the destruction of Ierusalem and of the Iewish Nation or
Family did officiate among his Houshold Luke 22.19 1 Cor. 11.23 that it was very Natural to them to understand all that our Saviour said or did according to those Forms with which they were acquainted There were after Supper upon a new covering of the Table Loaves of Unleavened Bread and Cups of Wine set on it in which though the Bread was very unacceptable yet they drank liberally of the Wine Christ took a Portion of that Bread and brake it and gave it to his Disciples and said This is my body which is broken for you Do this in remembrance of me He did not say only this is my body but this is my body broken so that his Body must be understood to be there in its broken State if the Words are to be expounded literally And no reason can be assigned why the Word Broken should be so separated from Body or that the Bread should be literally his Body and not literally his Body broken The whole Period must be either literally True or must be understood mystically And if any will say that his Body cannot be there but in the same state in which it is now in Heaven and since it is not now broken nor is the Blood shed or separated from the Body there therefore the Words must be understood thus This is my Body which is to be broken But from thence we argue that since all is one Period it must be all understood in the same Manner And since it is impossible that Broken and Shed can be understood literally of the Body and Blood that therefore the whole is to be mystically understood and this appears more evident since the Disciples who were naturally slow at understanding the easiest Mysteries that he opened to them must naturally have understood those Words as they did the other Words of the Paschal Supper This is the Lord 's Passover That is this is the Memorial of it And that the rather since Christ added these Words Do this in remembrance of me If they had understood them in any other Sense that must have surprized them and naturally have led them to ask him many Questions Which we find them doing upon Occasions that were much less surprizing as appears by the Questions in the 14th of St. Iohn that discourse coming probably immediately after this Institution Whereas no Question was asked upon this so it is reasonable to conclude that they could understand these Words This is my Body no other way but as they understood that of the Lamb This is the Lord 's Passover And by consequence as their celebrating the Pascha was a constant Memorial of the Deliverance out of Egypt and was a Symbolical Action by which they had a Title to the Blessings of the Covenant that Moses made with their Fathers it was natural for them to conclude that after Christ had made himself to be truly that which the first Lamb was in a Type the true Sacrifice of a greater and better Passover they were to commemorate it and to communicate in the Benefits and Effects of it by continuing that Action of taking blessing breaking and distributing of Bread Which was to be the Memorial and the Communion of his Death in all succeeding Ages This will yet appear more Evident from the Second Part of this Institution he took the Cup and blessed it and gave it to them saying This Cup is the New Testament or New Covenant in my blood drink ye all of it Or as the other Gospels report it This is my blood of the New Testament which is shed for many for the Remission of Sins As Moses had enjoined the sprinkling of the Blood of the Lamb so he himself sprinkled both the Book of the Law and all the People with the Blood of Calves and of Goats Hâ—b 9.20 saying This is the Blood of the New Testament or Covenant which God had enjoined you The Blood of the Paschal Lamb was the Token of that Covenant which God made then with them The Iews were under a very strict Prohibition of eating no Blood at all But it seems by the Psalms that when they payed their Vows unto God they took in their Hands a cup of Salvation that is Psal. 116. of an acknowledgment of their Salvation and so were to rejoice before the Lord. These being the Laws and Customs of the Iews they could not without Horror have heard Christ when he gave them the Cup say This is my Blood The Prohibition of Blood was given in such severe Terms as that God would set his face against him that did eat blood Levit. 7.26 27. Levit. 17.14 and cut him off from among his people And this was so often repeated in the Books of Moses that besides the natural Horror which Humanity gives at the mention of drinking a Man's Blood it was a special Part of their Religion to make no use of Blood yet after all this the Disciples were not startled at it Which shews that they must have understood it in such a way as was agreeable to the Law and Customs of their Country and since St. Luke and St. Paul report the Words that our Saviour said when he gave it differently from what is reported by St. Matthew and St. Mark it is most probable that he spake both the one and the other that he first said This is my Blood and then as a clearer Explanation of it he said This cup is the New Testament in my Blood The one being a more easy Expression and in a style to which the Iews had been more accustomed They knew that the Blood of the Lamb was sprinkled and by their so doing they entred into a Covenant with God And tho' the Blood was never to be sprinkled after the first Passover yet it was to be poured out before the Lord in remembrance of that sprinkling in Egypt In remembrance of that deliverance they drank of the Cup of Blessing and Salvation and rejoiced before the Lord. So that they could not understand our Saviour otherwise than that the Cup so blessed was to be to them the Assurance of a New Testament or Covenant which was to be established by the Blood of Christ and which was to be shed In lieu of which they were to drink this cup of Blessing and Praise According to their Customs and Phrases the Disciples could understand our Saviour's Words in this Sense and in no other So that if he had intended that they should have understood him otherwise he must have expressed himself in another Manner And must have enlarged upon it to have corrected those Notions into which it was otherwise most Natural for Iews to have fallen Here is also to be remembred that which was formerly observed upon the word Broken that if the Words are to be expounded literally then if the Cup is literally the Blood of Christ it must be his Blood shed poured out of his Veins and separated from his Body And if it is
Isa. 12.3 ye shall receive a new Doctrine with joy from some select Persons Since then the Figure of eating and drinking was used among the Iews for receiving and imbibing a Doctrine it was no wonder if our Saviour pursued it in a Discourse in which there are several hints given to shew us that it ought to be so understood It is further observable that our Saviour did frequently follow that common way of Instruction among the Eastern Nations by Figures that to us would seem strong and bold These were much used in those Parts to excite the Attention of the Hearers and they are not always to be severely expounded according to the full Extent that the words will bear The Parable of the unjust Judge of the unjust Steward of the ten Virgins of plucking out the right Eye and cutting off the right Hand or Foot and several others might be instanced Our Saviour in these considered the Genius of those to whom he spoke So that these Figures must be restrained only to that Particular for which he meant them and must not be stretched to every thing to which the Words may be carried We find our Saviour compares himself to a great many Things to a Vine a Door and a Way And therefore when the Scope of a Discourse does plainly run in a Figuâ—e we are not to go and descant on every Word of it much less may any pretend to say that some Parts of it are to be understood literally and some Parts figuratively For instance if that Chapter of St. Iohn is to be understood literally then Christ's Flesh and Blood must be the Nourishment of our Bodies so as to be meat indeed and that we shall never hunger any more and never die after we have eat of it If therefore all do confess that those Expressions are to be understood figuratively then we have the same reason to conclude that the whole is a Figure For it is as reasonable for us to make all of it a Figure as it is for them to make those Parts of it a Figure which they cannot conveniently expound in a literal Sense From all which it is abundantly clear that nothing can be drawn from that Discourse of our Saviour's to make it reasonable to believe that the words of the Institution of this Sacrament ought to be literally understood On the contrary our Saviour himself calls the Wine after those Words had been used by him the Fruit of the Vine which is as strict a Form of Speech as can well be imagined to make us understand that the Nature of the Wine was not altered And when St. Paul treats of it in those two Chapters in which all that is left us besides the History of the Institution concerning this Sacrament is to be found he calls it five times Bread and never once the Body of Christ. 1 Cor. 10.16 In one Place he calls it the Communion of the Body as the Cup is the Communion of the Blood of Christ. Which is rather a saying that it is in some sort and after a manner the Body and the Blood of Christ than that it is so strictly speaking If this Sacrament had been that mysterious and unconceivable Thing which it has been since believed to be we cannot imagine but that the Books of the New Testament the Acts of the Apostles and their Epistles should have contained fuller Explanations of it and larger Instructions about it There is enough indeed said in them to support the plain and natural Sense that we give to this Institution and because no more is said and the design of it is plainly declared to be to remember Christ's death and to shew it forth till he come we reckon that by this natural Simplicity in which this Matter is delivered to us we are very much confirmed in that plain and easy Signification which we put upon our Saviour's words Plain things need not be insisted on But if the most sublime and wonderful Thing in the World seems to be delivered in Words that yet are capable of a lower and plainer Sense then unless there is a concurrence of other Circumstances to force us to that higher meaning of them we ought not to go into it for simple Things prove themselves Whereas the more extraordinary that any thing is it requires a fulness and evidence in the Proof proportioned to the uneasiness of conceiving or believing it We do therefore understand our Saviour's Institution thus that as he was to give his body to be broken and his blood to be shed for our Sins so he intended that this his Death and Suffering should be still commemorated by all such as look for remission of sins by it not only in their Thoughts and Devotions but in a visible Representation Which he appointed should be done in Symbols that should be both very plain and simple and yet very expressive of that which he intended should be remembred by them Bread is the plainest Food that the Body of Man can receive and Wine was the common nourishing Liquor of that Countrey So he made choice of these Materials and in them appointed a Representation and Remembrance to be made of his body broken and of his blood shed that is of his Death and Sufferings till his Second coming And he obliged his Followers to repeat this frequently In the doing of it according to his Institution they profess the Belief of his Death for the Remission of their Sins and that they look for his Second coming This does also import that as Bread and Wine are the simplest of bodily Nourishments â—o his Death is that which restores the Souls of those that do believe in him As Bread and Wine convey a vital Nourishment to the Body so the Sacrifice of his Death conveys somewhat to the Soul that is vital that fortifies and exalts it And as Water in Baptism is a natural Emblem of the Purity of the Christian Religion Bread and Wine in the Eucharist are the Emblems of somewhat that is derived to us that raises our Faculties and fortifies all our Powers St. PÃ ul does very plainly tell us that unworthy receivers that did neither examine nor discern themselves nor yet discern the Lord's Body were guilty of the body and blood of the Lord 1 Cor. 11.27 29. and did eat and drink their own damnation That is such as do receive it without truly believing the Christian Religion without a grateful acknowledgment of Christ's Death and Sufferings without feeling that they are walking suitably to this Religion that they profess and without that decency and charity which becomes so Holy an Action but that receive the Bread and Wine only as bare bodily Nourishments without considering that Christ has instituted them to be the Memorials of his Death such Persons are guilty of the Body and Blood of Christ That is they are guilty either of a Prophanation of the Sacrament of his Body and Blood or they do in a manner Crucify