Part 3 — Quest. LXXXIII. May the people bear a vocal part in worship, or do any more than say, Amen? (continued 3)

15. It destroyeth christian love and concord, while men are taught to censure all others, that use any thing in God's worship which is not particularly in Scripture, and so to censure all true worshippers in the world.

16. Yea, it will tempt men at last to be weary of their own religion, because they will find it an unsatisfactory, uncomfortable, tiresome thing, to do their own superstitious work.

17. And they will tempt all that they draw into this opinion, to be weary of religion also. And truly had not God's part, which is wise, and good, and pleasant, prevailed against the hurtfulness of men's superstition, which is foolish, bad, and unpleasant, religion had ere this been cast off as a wearisome, distracting thing; or, which is as bad, been used but to delude men.

18. Yea, it will tempt men at last to infidelity; for Satan will quickly teach them to argue, that if Scripture be a perfect, particular rule, for forty things that were never there, then it is defective, and is not of God, but an undertaking of that which is not performed, and therefore is but a deceit.

19. And the notoriousness and ridiculousness of this error, will tempt the profane to make religious people a scorn.

20. Lastly, and rulers will be tempted in church and state, to take such persons for intolerable in all societies, and such whose principles are inconsistent with government. And no thanks to this opinion, if they be not tempted to dislike the Scripture itself, and instead of it to fly to the papists' traditions, and the church's legislative sovereignty, or worse.

But here also remember that I charge none with all this, but those before described.

Quest. CXXXVI. How shall we know what parts of Scripture precept or example were intended for universal, constant obligations, and what were but for the time and persons that they were then directed to?

Answ. It is not to be denied, but some things in Scripture, even in the New Testament, are not laws, much less universal and perpetual. And the difference is to be found in the Scripture itself.

1. All that is certainly of universal and perpetual obligation, which is but a transcript of the universal and perpetual law of nature.

2. And all that which hath the express characters of universality and perpetuity upon it; and such are all the substantial parts of the gospel; as, "Except ye repent, ye shall all perish," Luke xiii. 3, 5. "Except a man be born again, he cannot enter into the kingdom of heaven," John iii. 3, 5. "He that believeth in him, shall not perish, but have everlasting life," John iii. 16. "He that believeth and is baptized, shall be saved, and he that believeth not shall be damned," Mark xvi. 16. "Without holiness none shall see God," Heb. xii. 14. "Go, preach the gospel to all nations, baptizing them, &c. teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you," Matt, xxviii. 19, 20. Abundance such texts have the express characters of universality and perpetuity (which many call morality).

3. And with these we may number those which were given to all the churches, with commands to keep them, and propagate them to posterity.

4. And those that have a plain and necessary connexion to these before mentioned.

5. And those which plainly have a full parity of reason with them; and where it is evident that the command was given to those particular times and persons, upon no reasons proper to them alone, but such as were common to all others. I deny not but (as Amesius noteth after others) many ceremonial and temporary laws are urged (when they are made) with natural and perpetual motives: but the reasons of making them were narrower, whatever the reasons of obeying them may be.

On the other side, narrow and temporary precepts and examples, 1. Are void of all these foresaid characters. 2. They are about materials of temporary use. 3. Or they are but the ordering of such customs as were there before, and were proper to those countries. 4. And many speeches are plainly appropriate to the time and persons. 5. And many actions were manifestly occasional, without any intimation of reason or purpose of obliging others to imitation.

For instance, 1. Christ's preaching sometimes on a mountain, sometimes in a ship, sometimes in a house, and sometimes in the synagogues, doth show that all these are lawful in season on the like occasion: but he purposed not to oblige men to any one of them alone.

2. So Christ's giving the sacrament of his body and blood, in an upper room, in a private house after supper, to none but ministers, and none but his family, and but to twelve, and on the fifth day of the week only, and in the gesture of a recumbent, leaning, sitting; all these are plainly occasional, and not intended as obliging to imitation: for that which he made a law of, he separated in his speeches, and commanded them to do it in remembrance of him till his coming. And Paul expoundeth the distinction, 1 Cor. xi. in his practice.

So the promise of the spirit of revelation and miracles is expounded by the event, as the seal of the gospel and Scripture, proper to those times in the main.

So the primitive christians selling their estates, and distributing to the poor, or laying it down at the apostles' feet, was plainly appropriated to that time, or the like occasions, by the reason of it; which was suddenly to show the world what the belief of heaven through the promises of Christ, could make them all, and how much their love was to Christ and one another, and how little to the world; and also by the cessation of it, when the persecutions abated, and the churches came to any settlement; yea, and at first it was not a thing commanded to all, but only voluntarily done.

So the women's veil, and the custom of kissing each other as a token of love, and men's not wearing long hair, were the customs of the country there ordered and improved by the apostles about sacred things; but not introduced into other countries that had no such custom.

So also anointing was in those countries taken for salubrious, and refreshing to the body, and a ceremony of initiation into places of great honour; whereupon it was used about the sick, and God's giving the gift of healing in those times was frequently conjunct with this means. So that hence the anointing of the sick came up; and the ancient christians turned it into an initiating ceremony, because we are kings and priests to God. Now these occasions extend not to those countries where anointing neither was of such use, or value, or signification.

So also Paul's becoming a Jew to the Jews, and being shaved, and purifying himself, and circumcising Timothy, are evidently temporary compliances in a thing then lawful, for the avoiding of offence, and for the furtherance of the gospel, and no obligatory, perpetual laws to us. And so most divines think the eating of things strangled, and blood, were forbidden for a time to them only that conversed with the Jews, Acts xv. Though Beckman have many reasons for the perpetuity, not contemptible.

So the office of deaconesses (and some think of deacons) seemeth to be fitted to that time, and state, and condition of christians. And where the reasons and case are the same, the obligations will be the same. In a word, the text itself will one way or other show us, when a command or example is universally and durably obligatory, and when not.

Quest. CXXXVII. How much of the Scripture is necessary to salvation, to be believed, and understood?

Answ. This question is the more worthy consideration, that we may withal understand the use of catechisms, confessions, and creeds, (of which after,) and the great and tender mercies of God to the weak, and may be able to answer the cavils of the papists against the Scriptures, as insufficient to be the rule of faith and life, because much of it is hard to be understood.

1. He that believeth God to be true, and the Scripture to be his word, must needs believe all to be true which he believeth to be his word.

2. All the Scripture is profitable to our knowledge, love, and practice; and none of it to be neglected, but all to be loved, reverenced, and studied, in due time and order, by them that have time and capacity to do it.

3. All the holy Scriptures, either as to matter or words, are not so necessary, as that no man can be saved, who doth not either believe or understand them; but some parts of it are more necessary than others.

4. It is not of necessity to salvation to believe every book or verse in Scripture, to be canonical, or written by the Spirit of God. For as the papists' canon is larger than that which the protestants own; so if our canon should prove defective of any one book, it would not follow that we could not be saved for want of a sufficient faith. The churches immediately after the apostles' time, had not each one all their writings, but they were brought together in time, and received by degrees, as they had proof of their being written by authorized, inspired persons. The second of Peter, James, Jude, Hebrews, and Revelation, were received in many churches since the rest. And if some book be lost, (as Enoch's prophecy, or Paul's epistle to the Laodiceans, or any other of his epistles not named in the rest,) or if any hereafter should be lost or doubted of, as the Canticles, or the second or third epistles of John, the epistle of Jude, &c. it would not follow, that all true faith and hope of salvation were lost with it.

It is a controversy whether 1 John v. 7, and some other particular verses, be canonical or not, because some Greek copies have them, and some are without them; but whoever erreth in that only, may be saved.

5. There are many hundred or thousand texts of Scripture, which a man may possibly be ignorant of the meaning of, and yet have a saving faith, and be in a state of salvation. For no man living understandeth it all.

6. The holy Scripture is an entire, comely body, which containeth not only the essential parts of the true religion, but also the integral parts, and the ornaments and many accidents; which must be distinguished, and not all taken to be equal.[388]

7. So much as containeth the essentials of true religion, must be understood and believed of necessity to salvation; and so much as containeth the integrals of religion doth greatly conduce to our salvation, both that we may be the surer and the better christians, as having greater helps to both.

The very adjuncts also have their use to make us the more adorned christians, and to promote our knowledge of greater things.

Quest. CXXXVIII. How may we know the fundamentals, essentials, or what parts are necessary to salvation? And is the papists' way allowable that (some of them) deny that distinction, and make the difference to be only in the degrees of men's opportunities of knowledge?

Answ. 1. Those papists' perverseness can mean no better than that Christianity itself is not necessary to salvation, to those that have not opportunity to know it (as Johnson's Rejoinder to me, and Sancta Clara, and many others, plainly intimate); and were that never so true and certain, it were nothing to the question between them and us, which is, What are the essentials of christianity? And what is necessary to salvation, where christianity is necessary? or where the christian religion is made known, and men may come to the knowledge of it, if they will do their best? This is the true state of our controversy with them. And whereas they would make all the parts of christian faith and practice equally necessary, where men have a capacity and ability to know, believe, and practise them, it is a gross deceit, unworthy of men pretending to a mediocrity of knowledge in the nature of religion; and thereby they make all sins and errors as equal as all duties and truths. Whereas, 1. There is no man that hath not some error and some sin.[389] 2. There is no man that doth all that ever he was able to do, to understand all the truth. 3. Therefore there is no man whose errors themselves are not (many of them at least) culpable or sinful. 4. And they that distinguish between mortal and venial sins, and yet will not distinguish between mortal and venial errors, are either blind, or would keep others blind. As it is not so damning a sin for a man to think a vain thought, or to speak a vain word, as not to love God, or holiness; (no, though he was more able to have forborne that idle word, than to have loved God;) so it is not so mortal a sin, (that is, inconsistent with a justified state,) to mistake in a small matter, (as who was the father of Arphaxad, or what year the world was drowned in, &c.) as to blaspheme the Holy Ghost, or deny Jesus Christ to be the Saviour of the world, or to deny that there is a God, or everlasting life, or a difference between good and evil. All sins are not equal in magnitude or danger. Therefore all errors are not equal in magnitude, sinfulness, or danger.

2. And what priest is able to know whom to take for a christian, and baptizable upon such terms as these? Who knoweth just what opportunities of knowledge other men have had, and what impediments? And will they indeed baptize a man that is a heathen, because he had not opportunity to come to the knowledge of christianity? I think they will not. Or will they deny baptism to one that knoweth and believeth only all the articles of the creed, and the chief points of religion, because he knoweth not as much more, as he had opportunity to know? I think not. Do not these men perceive how they condemn themselves? For do they not say themselves, that baptism to the due receiver washeth away sin, and puts the person in a state of life? O when will God deliver his poor church from factious deceivers?

3. Either christianity is something and discernible, or nothing and undiscernible. If the latter, then christians are not to be distinguished from heathens and infidels. If the former, then christianity hath its constitutive parts, by which it is what it is. And then it hath essential parts distinguishable from the rest.

4. The word fundamentals being but a metaphor, hath given room to deceivers and contenders to make a controversy, and raise a dust about it. Therefore I purposely use the word essentials, which is not so liable to men's cavils.

5. Those are the essentials of christianity, which are necessary to the baptism of the adult. Know but that, and you answer all the pratings of the papists, that bawl out for a list of fundamentals. And sure it is not this day unknown in the christian world, either what a christian is, or who is to be baptized: do not the priests know it, who baptize all that are christened in the world? And why is baptism called our christening, if it make us not christians? And why hath Christ promised, that "he that believeth and is baptized, shall be saved," Mark xvi. 16, if that so much faith as is necessary to baptism, will not also serve to a man's state of salvation?

6. The baptismal covenant of grace therefore is the essential part of the gospel, and of the christian religion; and all the rest are the integrals, and accidents or adjuncts.

7. This covenant containeth,

I. Objectively, 1. Things true as such; 2. Things good as such; 3. Things practicable or to be done, as such: the credenda, diligenda, (et eligenda,) et agenda; as the objects of man's intellect, will, and practical power.

The credenda, or things to be known and believed, are, 1. God as God, and our God and Father. 2. Christ as the Saviour, and our Saviour. 3. The Holy Ghost as such, and as the Sanctifier, and our Sanctifier (as to the offer of these relations in the covenant).

The diligenda are the same three Persons in these three relations as good in themselves and unto us, which includeth the grand benefits of reconciliation and adoption, justification, and sanctification, and salvation.

The agenda in the time of baptism that make us christians, are, 1. The actual dedition, resignation, or dedication of ourselves, to God the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost in these relations. 2. A promise or vow to endeavour faithfully to live according to our undertaken relations (though not in perfection); that is, as creatures to their Creator, and their reconciled God and Father; as christians to their Redeemer, their Teacher, their Ruler, and their Saviour; and as willing receivers of the sanctifying and comforting operations of the Holy Spirit.

II. The objects tell you what the acts must be on our part; 1. With the understanding, to know and believe; 2. With the will to love, choose, desire, and resolve; and, 3. Practically to deliver up ourselves for the present, and to promise for the time to come. These are the essentials of the christian religion.

8. The creed is a larger explication of the credenda, and the Lord's prayer of the diligenda, or things to be willed, desired, and hoped for; and the decalogue of the natural part of the agenda.

9. Suffer not your own ignorance, or the papists' cheats, to confound the question about fundamentals, as to the matter, and as to the expressing words. It is one thing to ask, What is the matter essential to christianity? And another, What words, symbols, or sentences are essential to it? To the first, I have now answered you. To the second I say, 1. Taking the christian religion as it is, an extrinsic doctrine in signis, so the essence of it is, words and signs expressive or significant of the material essence. That they be such in specie is all that is essential. And if they say, But which be those words? I answer, 2. That no particular words in the world are essential to the christian religion. For, (1.) No one language is essential to it. It is not necessary to salvation that you be baptized, or learn the creed or Scriptures, in Hebrew, or Greek, or Latin, or English, so you learn it in any language understood. (2.) It is not necessary to salvation that you use the same words in the same language, as long as it hath more words than one to express the same thing by. (3.) It is not necessary to salvation, that we use the same (or any one single) form, method, or order of words, as they are in the creeds, without alteration. And therefore while the ancients did tenaciously cleave to the same symbol or creed, yet they used various words to express it by. (As may be seen in Irenæus, Tertullian, Origen, and Ruffin, elsewhere cited by me; so that it is plain, that by the same symbol they meant the same matter, though expressed in some variety of words.) Though they avoided such variety as might introduce variety of sense and matter.

10. Words being needful, 1. To make a learner understand; 2. To tell another what he understandeth: it followeth that the great variety of men's capacities maketh a great variation in the necessity of words or forms. An Englishman must have them in English, and a Frenchman in French. An understanding man may receive all the essentials in a few words; but an ignorant man must have many words to make him understand the matter. To him that understandeth them, the words of the baptismal covenant express all the essentials of christianity: but to him that understands them not, the creed is necessary for the explication: and to him that understandeth not that, a catechism, or larger exposition, is necessary. This is the plain explication of this question, which many papists seem loth to understand.

Quest. CXXXIX. What is the use and authority of the creed? And is it of the apostles' framing or not? And is it the word of God or not?

Answ. 1. The use of the creed is, to be a plain explication of the faith professed in the baptismal covenant. 1. For the fuller instruction of the duller sort, and those that had not preparatory knowledge, and could not sufficiently understand the meaning of the three articles of the covenant, what it is to believe in God the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, without more words. 2. And for the satisfaction of the church, that indeed men understood what they did in baptism, and professed to believe.

2. The creed is the word of God, as to all the doctrine or matter of it, whatever it be as to the order and composition of words.

3. That is oft by the ancients called the apostles', which containeth the matter delivered by the apostles, though not in a form of words compiled by them.

4. It is certain that all the words now in our creed, were not put in by the apostles, 1. Because some of them were not in till long after their days. 2. Because the ancient formulæ agree not in words among themselves.[390]

5. It is not to be doubted of, but the apostles did appoint and use a creed commonly in their days. And that it is the same with that which is now called the apostles' and the Nicene in the main; but not just the same composure of words, nor had they any such precise composure as can be proved. But this much is easily provable:—

(1.) That Christ composed a creed when he made his covenant, and instituted baptism, Matt, xxviii. 19.

(2.) That in the Jewish church, where men were educated in the knowledge of the Scriptures, and expectation of the Messiah, it was supposed that the people had so much preparatory knowledge, as made them the more capable of baptism, as soon as they did but seriously profess to believe, and consent to the terms of the covenant; and therefore they were presently baptized, Acts ii. 38-40.

(3.) That this could not be rationally supposed among the gentiles, and common, ignorant people of the world. And ignorantis non est consensus. He doth not covenant who understandeth not the covenant, as to what is promised him, and what he promiseth.

(4.) That the apostles baptized, and caused others to baptize many thousands, and settle many churches, before any part of the New Testament was written, even many and many years.

(5.) That the apostles did their work as well and better than any that succeeded them.

(6.) That their successors in the common ministry, did, as far as any church history leadeth us up, instruct and catechise men in the meaning of the baptismal covenant, (which is the christian faith,) before they baptized them: yea, they kept them long in the state of catechumens usually, before they would baptize them. And after baptized but twice a year, at Easter and Whitsuntide (as our liturgy noteth). And they received an account of their tolerable understanding of religion, before they would receive them into the church.

(7.) No doubt then but the apostles did cause the baptizable to understand the three articles of Christ's own creed and covenant, and to give some account of it before they baptized them, ordinarily among the gentiles.

(8.) No doubt therefore but they used many more explicatory words, to cause them to understand those few.

(9.) There is neither proof nor probability, that they used a composure of just the same words, and no more or less: because they had to do with persons of several capacities, some knowing, who needed fewer words, and some ignorant and dull, who needed more: nor is any such composure come down to our hands.

(10.) But it is more than probable, that the matter opened by them to all the catechumens was still the same, when the words were not the same. For God's promises and man's conditions are still the same (where the gospel cometh). Though since by the occasion of heresies, some few material clauses are inserted. For all christians had one christianity, and must go one way to heaven.

(11.) It is also more than probable, that they did not needlessly vary the words, lest it should teach men to vary the matter: but that all christians before baptism, did make the same profession of faith as the sense, and very much the same as to the very words; using necessary caution, and yet avoiding unnecessary preciseness of formality; but so as to obviate damnable heresies, that the christian profession might attain its ends.

(12.) Lastly, no doubt but this practice of the apostles was exemplary, and imitated by the churches, and that thus the essentials of religion were, by the tradition of the creed and baptism, delivered by themselves, as far as christianity went, long before any book of the New Testament was written: and every christian was an impress, or transcript, or specimen of it.[392] And that the following churches using the same creed, (wholly in sense, and mostly in words,) might so far well call it the apostles' creed; as they did both the Western and the Nicene.

Quest. CXL. What is the use of catechisms?

Answ. To be a more familiar explication of the essentials of christianity, and the principal integrals, in a larger manner than the creed, Lord's prayer, and decalogue do; that the ignorant may the more easily understand it. Every man cannot gather out of the Scripture the greatest matters in the true method, as distinct from all the rest: and therefore it is part of the work of the church's teachers, to do it to the hands and use of the ignorant.

Quest. CXLI. Could any of us have known by the Scriptures alone the essentials of religion from the rest, if tradition had not given them to us in the creed, as from apostolical collection?

Answ. Yes: for the Scripture itself telleth us what is necessary to salvation; it describeth to us the covenant of grace, both promises and conditions; and it were strange if so large a volume should not as plainly tell us what is necessary to salvation, as fewer words! The Scripture hath not less than the creed, but more.

Quest. CXLII. What is the best method of a true catechism or sum of theology?

Answ. God willing, I shall tell the church my opinion of that at large, in a peculiar Latin treatise, called "Methodus Theologiæ," which here I cannot do. Only I shall say, that among all the great variety of methods used in these times, I think none cometh nearer the order of the matter, (which is the true commendation of a method,) than those which open theology, 1. In the breviate of the baptismal covenant. 2. In the three explicatory sums, the creed, Lord's prayer, and decalogue, with the added gospel precepts. 3. In the largest form, which is the whole Scripture. And that our common English catechism, and Paræus or Ursine, and many such who use that common easy method, are more truly methodical, than most that pretend to greater accurateness (though I much commend the great industry of such as Dudley, Fenner, Gomarus, and especially George Sohnius).

Quest. CXLIII. What is the use of various church confessions or articles of faith?

Answ. I will pass by the very ill use that is made of them in too many countries, where unnecessary opinions or uncertain are put in, and they that can get into favour with the secular power, take advantage under pretence of orthodoxness and uniformity, truth and peace, to set up their opinions and judgments to be the common rule for all to bow to, though wiser than themselves: and to silence all ministers, and scatter and divide the flocks that will not say or swear as they do, that is, that they are wise men, and are in the right.

The true and commendable use of various church professions, or confessions of faith, is, 1. To be an instruction to the more ignorant how to understand the Scriptures in most of the most weighty points. 2. To be an enumeration of those doctrines, against which no minister shall be allowed to preach, and according to which he is to instruct the people. 3. To be a testimony to all neighbour or foreign churches in a heterodox, contentious, and suspicious age, how we understand the Scriptures, for the confuting of scandals and unjust suspicions, and the maintaining communion in faith, and charity, and doctrine.

Quest. CXLIV. May not the subscribing of the whole Scriptures serve turn for all the aforesaid ends without creeds, catechisms, or confessions?

Answ. 1. By subscribing to the Scriptures you mean either, generally and implicitly, that all in them is true and good (though perhaps you know not what is in it). Or else particularly and explicitly, that every point in it is by you both understood and believed to be true.

In the first sense, it is not sufficient to salvation: for this implicit faith hath really no act in it, but a belief that all that God saith is true; which is only the formal object of faith, and is no more than to believe that there is a God (for a liar is not a God). And this he may do, who never believed in Christ, or a word of Scripture, as not taking it to be God's word; yea, that will not believe that God forbiddeth his beastly life. Infidels ordinarily go thus far.

In the second sense, (of an explicit, or particular actual belief,) the belief of the whole Scripture is enough indeed, and more than any man living can attain to. No man understandeth all the Scripture. Therefore that which no man hath, is to be exacted of all men, or any man, in order to ministration or communion. While, 1. No man can subscribe to any one translation of the Bible, that it is not faulty, being the work of defectible man. 2. And few have such acquaintance with the Hebrew, and Chaldee, and Greek, as to be able to say that they understand the original languages perfectly. 3. And no man that understands the words, doth perfectly understand the matter. It followeth that no man is to be forced or urged to subscribe to all things in the Scriptures, as particularly understood by him, with an explicit faith. And an implicit is not half enough.

2. The true mean therefore is the ancient way, 1. To select the essentials for all christians, to be believed particularly and explicitly. 2. To collect certain of the most needful integrals, which teachers shall not preach against. 3. And for all men moreover to profess in general that they implicitly believe all which they can discern to be the holy canonical Scripture, and that all is true which is the word of God; forbearing each other even about the number of canonical books and texts.

And it is the great wisdom and mercy of God, which hath so ordered it, that the Scripture shall have enough to exercise the strongest, and yet that the weakest may be ignorant of the meaning of a thousand sentences, without danger of damnation, so they do but understand the marrow or essentials, and labour faithfully to increase in the knowledge of the rest.[393]

Quest. CXLV. May not a man be saved that believeth all the essentials of religion, as coming to him by verbal tradition, and not as contained in the holy Scriptures, which perhaps he never knew?

Answ. 1. He that believeth shall be saved, which way ever he cometh by his belief; so be it it be sound as to the object and act; that is, if it contain all the essentials, and they be predominantly believed, loved, and practised.

2. The Scriptures being the records of Christ's doctrine delivered by himself, his Spirit, and his apostles, it is the office of ministers, and the duty of all instructors, to open these Scriptures to those they teach, and to deliver particulars upon the authority of these inspired, sealed records which contain them.

3. They that thus receive particular truths, from a teacher explaining the Scripture to them, do receive them in a subordination to the Scripture, materially, and as to the teacher's part; though not formally, and as to their own part; and though the Scripture authority being not understood by them, be not the formal object of their faith, but only God's authority in general.

4. They that are ignorant of the being of the Scripture, have a great disadvantage to their faith.

5. Yet we cannot say, but it may be the case of thousands to be saved by the gospel delivered by tradition, without resolving their faith into the authority of the Scriptures. For,

1. This was the case of all the christians (as to the New Testament) who lived before it was written; and there are several articles of the creed now necessary, which the Old Testament doth not reveal.[394]

2. This may be the case of thousands in ignorant countries, where the Bible being rare, is to most unknown.[395]

3. This may be the case of thousands of children who are taught their creed and catechism, before they understand what the Bible is.

4. This may be the case of thousands among the papists, where some perverse priests do keep not only the reading, but the knowledge of the Scriptures from the people, for fear lest they should be taught to resolve their faith into it; and do teach them only the articles of faith and catechism, as known by the church's tradition alone.

Quest. CXLVI. Is the Scripture fit for all christians to read, being so obscure?

Answ. 1. The essentials and points necessary to salvation are plain.

2. We are frequently and vehemently commanded to delight in it, and meditate in it day and night; to search it; to teach it our very children, speaking of it at home and abroad, lying down and rising up, and to write it on the posts of our houses, and on our doors, &c.

3. It is suited to the necessity and understanding of the meanest, to give light to the simple, and to make the very foolish wise.[396]

4. The ancient fathers and christians were all of this mind.

5. All the christian churches of the world have been used to read it openly to all, even to the simplest; and if they may hear it, they may read the same words which they hear.

6. God blessed the ignorant Ethiopian eunuch when he found him reading the Scriptures, though he knew not the sense of what he read, and sent him Philip to instruct him and convert him.

7. Timothy was educated in the knowledge of the Scriptures in his childhood.

8. That which is written to and for all men, may be read by all that can; but the Scripture was written to and for all,[397]——&c.

Object. But there are many things in it hard to be understood.

Answ. 1. And there are many things easy to be understood. 2. We never said that men should not use the help of their teachers, and all that they can to understand it. 3. Were not those teachers once ignorant? And yet they did read it by the help of teachers; and so may others. 4. As the king for concord commandeth all the schoolmasters to teach one grammar; so God maketh it the minister's office to instruct people in the Scriptures. And were it not a question unworthy of a schoolmaster, to dispute, Whether the scholars must learn by their book, or by their master? Yea, to conclude that it must be by their master, and not by their book: or that they must never open their book, but when their master is just at hand to teach them. The doctrine of the papists, who tell us that the Scriptures should not be read by the vulgar, it being the rise of all heresies, is so inhuman and impious, as savouring of gross enmity to Scriptures, and to knowledge, that were there no other, it would make the lovers of religion and men's souls to pray earnestly to Christ to save his flocks from such seducers, who so Jewishly use the key of knowledge.

Object. But many wrest the Scriptures to their own destruction, and what heresy is not defended as by their authority?

Answ. 1. And many thousands receive saving knowledge and grace by them. The law of the Lord is perfect, converting the soul. All Scripture is profitable to instruction, &c. to make the man of God perfect. It is the incorruptible seed by which we are born again, and the sincere milk, by which we are nourished.[398]

2. And is it not as true, 1. That the law of the land is abused by every false pretender, lawyer, and corrupt judge? What title so bad, that is not defended in Westminster Hall sometimes, under pretence of law? And what action so bad, that some pretend not law for? What then? Must the law be forbidden the common people for this?

2. Nay, what is so much abused to unrighteousness and sin as reason itself? What heresy or crime do not men plead reason for? Must reason therefore be forbidden the vulgar?

3. Yea, contrarily, this signifieth that law and reason are so far from being things to be forbidden men, that they are indeed those things by which nature and necessity have taught all the world to try and discern right from wrong, good from bad; otherwise good and bad men would not all thus agree in pretending to them, and appealing to their decisions.

4. If many men are poisoned or killed in eating or drinking, if many men's eye-sight is abused to mislead them unto sin, &c. the way is not, to eat nothing but what is put into our mouths; nor to put out our eyes, or wink, and be led only by a priest; but to use both the more cautiously, with the best advice and help that we can get.

5. And do not these deceivers see, that their reason pleadeth as strongly that priests and prelates themselves should never read the Scripture (and consequently that it should be banished out of the world)? For who that is awake in the world can be ignorant, that it is priests and prelates, who have been the leaders of almost all heresies and sects; who differ in their expositions and opinions, and lead the vulgar into all the heresies which they fall into? Who then should be forbidden to read the Scripture, but priests and prelates, who wrest them to their own and other men's destruction?

Quest. CXLVII. How far is tradition and men's words and ministry to be used or trusted in, in the exercise of faith?

Answ. 1. The churches and ministers received the gospel in Scripture from the apostles, and the creed as the summary of faith: and they delivered it down to others, and they to us.

2. The ministers by office are the instructors of the people in the meaning of it; and the keepers of the Scriptures, as lawyers are of the laws of the land.[399]

Quest. CXLVIII. How know we the true canon of Scripture from apocrypha?

Answ. By these means set together: 1. There is, for the most part, a special venerable excellency in the books themselves, which helpeth us in the distinct reception of them.

2. The tradition of infallible church history telleth us, which books they are which were written by men inspired by the Holy Ghost, and who sealed their doctrine with miracles in those times; it being but matter of fact, (which books such men wrote whom God bare witness to,) infallible church history (such as we have to know which are the statutes of the land, and which are counterfeit) is a sufficient notification and proof.

3. The sanctifying Spirit still in all ages and christians, attested the divinity and truth of the doctrine of the main body of the Bible, especially the gospel; and then if we should err about the authority of a particular book, it would not overthrow our faith. It is not necessary to salvation to believe this particular text to be divine, but it is sin and folly to doubt causelessly of the parts, when the Spirit attesteth the doctrine and the body of the book. I pass these things briefly, because I have largelier handled them elsewhere.

Quest. CXLIX. Is the public reading of the Scripture the proper work of a minister? or may a layman ordinarily do it? or another officer?

Answ. In such cases as I before showed that a layman may preach, he may also read the Scriptures. Of which look back.

2. No doubt but it is a work well beseeming the ordained ministers or pastors, and an integral part of their office; and should not be put off by them when they can do it.

3. When they need help the deacons are ordained ministers, authorized to help them in such work, and fittest to do it.

4. Whether in a case of necessity a layman may not ordinarily read the Scripture to the congregation, is a case that I am loth to determine, being loth to suppose such a necessity. But if the minister cannot, and there be no deacon, I cannot prove it unlawful for a layman to do it under the direction of the pastor. I lived some time under an old minister of about eighty years of age, (who never preached himself,) whose eye-sight failing him, and having not maintenance to keep an assistant, he did by memory say the Common-prayer himself, and got a tailor one year, and a thresher or poor day-labourer another year, to read all the Scriptures. Whether that were not better than nothing, I leave to consideration.

And I think it is commonly agreed on, that where there is no minister, it is better for the people to meet and hear a layman read the Scriptures and some good books, than to have no public helps and worship.

Quest. CL. Is it lawful to read the apocrypha, or any good books besides the Scriptures, to the church? As homilies, &c.?

Answ. 1. It is not lawful to read them as God's word, or to pretend them to be the holy Scriptures, for that is a falsehood, and an addition to God's word.

2. It is not lawful to read them scandalously, in a title and manner tending to draw the people to believe that they are God's word, or without a sufficient distinguishing of them from the holy Scriptures.

3. If any one of the apocryphal books, (as Judith, Tobit, Bel and the Dragon, &c.) be as fabulous, false, and bad as our protestant writers (Reignoldus, Amesius, Whitakers, Chamier, and abundance more) affirm them to be, it is not lawful ordinarily to read them, in that honourable way as chapters called lessons are usually read in the assemblies. Nor is it lawful so to read heretical, fabulous, or erroneous books.

But it is lawful to read publicly, apocryphal and human writings, homilies, or edifying sermons, on these conditions following.

1. So be it they be indeed sound doctrine, holy, and fitted to the people's edification.

2. So be it they be not read scandalously without sufficient differencing them from God's book.

3. So they be not read to exclude or hinder the reading of the Scriptures, or any other necessary church duty.

4. So they be not read to keep up an ignorant, lazy ministry that can or will do no better; nor to exercise the minister's sloth, and hinder him from preaching.

5. And especially if authority command it, and the church's agreement require it, as a signification what doctrine it is which they profess.

6. Or if the church's necessities require it; as if they have no minister, or no one that can do so much to their edification any other way.

7. Therefore the use of catechisms is confessed lawful in the church, by almost all.

Quest. CLI. May church assemblies be held where there is no minister? Or what public worship may be so performed by laymen? (As among infidels, or papists, where persecution hath killed, imprisoned, or expelled the ministers.)

Answ. 1. Such an assembly as hath no pastor, or minister of Christ, is not a church, in a political sense, as the word signifieth a society consisting of pastor and flock; but it may be a church in a larger sense, as the word signifieth only a community or association of private christians for mutual help in holy things.

2. Such an assembly ought on the Lord's days, and at other fit times, to meet together for mutual help, and the public worshipping of God, as they may, rather than not to meet at all.

3. In those meetings they may do all that followeth. 1. They may pray together; a layman being the speaker. 2. They may sing psalms. 3. They may read the Scriptures. 4. They may read some holy, edifying writings of divines, or repeat some minister's sermons. 5. Some that are ablest may speak to the instruction and exhortation of the rest, as a master may do in his family, or neighbours to stir up God's graces in each other, as was opened before. 6. And some such may catechise the younger and more ignorant. 7. They may by mutual conference open their cases to each other, and communicate what knowledge or experience they have, to the praise of God and each other's edification. 8. They may make a solemn profession of their faith, covenant, and subjection to God the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost; and all this is better than nothing at all.

But, 1. None of them may do any of this as a pastor, ruler, priest, or office teacher of the church. 2. Nor may they baptize. 3. Nor administer the Lord's supper. 4. Nor excommunicate by sentence (but only executively agree to avoid the notoriously impenitent). 5. Nor absolve ministerially, or as by authority; nor exercise any of the power of the keys, that is, of government. 6. And they must do their best to get a pastor as soon as they are able.

Quest. CLII. Is it lawful to subscribe or profess full assent and consent to any religious books besides the Scripture, seeing all are fallible?

Answ. 1. It is not lawful to profess or subscribe that any book is truer or better than it is; or that there is no fault in any that is faulty; or to profess that we believe any mortal man to be totally infallible in all that he shall write or say, or impeccable in all that he shall do.

2. Because all men are fallible, and so are we in judging, it is not lawful to say of any large and dubious books, in which we know no fault, that there is no fault or error in them: we being uncertain, and it being usual for the best men even in their best writings, prayers, or works to be faulty, as the consequent or effect of our common culpable imperfection. But we may say, that we know no fault or error in it, if indeed we do not know of any.

3. It is lawful to profess or subscribe our assent and consent to any human writing which we judge to be true and good, according to the measure of its truth and goodness; as if church confessions that are sound be offered us for our consent, we may say or subscribe, I hold all the doctrine in this book to be true and good. And by so doing I do not assert the infallibility of the authors, but only the verity of the writing. I do not say that he cannot err, or that he never erreth; but that he erreth not in this, as far as I am able to discern.

Quest. CLIII. May we lawfully swear obedience in all things lawful and honest, either to usurpers, or to our lawful pastors?

Answ. 1. If the question were of imposing such oaths, I would say, that it was many a hundred years before the churches of Christ (either under persecution, or in their prosperity and glory) did ever know of any such practice, as the people or the presbyters swearing obedience to the bishops. And when it came up, the magistracy, princes, and emperors fell under the feet of the pope; and the clergy grew to what we see it in the Roman kingdom, called a church. And far should I be from desiring such oaths to be imposed.

2. But the question being only of the taking such oaths, and not the imposing of them, I say, that, (1.) It is not lawful to swear obedience to a usurper, civil or ecclesiastical, in licitis et honestis; because it is a subjecting ourselves to him, and an acknowledging that authority which he hath not; for we can swear no further to obey the king himself but in things lawful and honest; and to do so by a usurper is an injury to the king, and unto Christ.

(2.) But if the king himself shall command us to swear obedience to a subordinate civil usurper, he thereby ceaseth to be a usurper, and receiveth authority, and it becometh our duty. And if he that was an ecclesiastical usurper, quoad personam, that had no true call to a lawful office, shall after have a call, or if any thing fall out, which shall make it our duty to consent and call him, then the impediment from his usurpation is removed.

(3.) It is not lawful, though the civil magistrate command us to swear obedience even in licitis et honestis, to such a usurper, whose office itself is unlawful, or forbidden by Christ, as he is such an officer. No protestant thinketh it lawful to swear obedience to the pope as pope; nor do any that take lay-elders to be an unlawful office, think it lawful to swear obedience to them as such.

(4.) If one that is in an unlawful ecclesiastical office, be also at once in another that is lawful, we may swear obedience to him in respect of the lawful office. So it is lawful to swear obedience to the pope in Italy, as a temporal prince in his own dominions; and to a cardinal, (as Richelieu, Mazarine, Ximenes, &c.) as the king's ministers, exercising a power derived from him: so it is lawful for a tenant, where law and custom requireth it, to swear fidelity to a lay-elder, as his landlord or temporal lord and master. And so the old nonconformists, who thought the English prelacy an unlawful office, yet maintained that it is lawful to take the oath of canonical obedience, because they thought it was imposed by the king and laws, and that we swear to them not as officers claiming a divine right in the spiritual government, but as ordinaries, or officers made by the king to exercise so much of ecclesiastical jurisdiction under him, as he can delegate; according to the oath of supremacy, in which we all acknowledge the king to be supreme in all ecclesiastical causes; that is, not the supreme pastor, bishop, or spiritual key-bearer or ruler, but the supreme civil ruler of the church, who hath the power of the sword, and of determining all things extrinsic to the pastoral office; and so of the coercive government of all pastors and churches, as well as of other subjects. And if prelacy were proved never so unlawful, no doubt but by the king's command we may swear or perform formal obedience to a prelate, as he is the king's officer. Of the nonconformists' judgment in this, read Bradshaw against Canne, &c.

(5.) But in such a case no oath to inferiors is lawful without the consent of the sovereign power, or at least against his will.

(6.) Though it be a duty for the flock to obey every presbyter, yet if they would make all the people swear obedience to them, all wise and conscionable christians should dissent from the introduction of such a custom, and deny such oaths as far as lawfully they may: that is,

1. If the king be against it, we must refuse it.

2. If he be neutral or merely passive in it, we must refuse, unless some apparent necessity for the church's good require it.

1. Because it savoureth of pride in such presbyters.

2. Because it is a new custom in the church, and contrary to the ancient practice.

3. It is not only without any authority given them by Christ, that they exact such oaths, but also contrary to the great humility, lowliness, and condescension, in which he describeth his ministers, who must be great, by being the servants of all.[400]

4. And it tendeth to corrupt the clergy for the future.

5. And such new impositions give just reason to princes and to the people to suspect that the presbyters are aspiring after some inordinate exaltation, or have some ill project for the advancement of themselves.

(7.) But yet if it be not only their own ambition which imposeth it, but either the king and laws command it, or necessity require it for the avoidance of a greater evil, it may be lawful and a duty to take an oath of obedience to a lawful presbyter or bishop; because, 1. It is a duty to obey them. 2. And it is not forbidden us by Christ to promise or swear to do our duty (even when they may sin in demanding such an oath).

(8.) If an office be lawful in the essential parts, and yet have unlawful integrals, or adjuncts, or be abused in exercise, it will not by such additions or abuses be made unlawful to swear obedience to the officer as such.

(9.) If one presbyter or bishop would make another presbyter or bishop to swear obedience to him without authority, the case is the same as of the usurpers before mentioned.

Quest. CLIV. Must all our preaching be upon a text of Scripture?

Answ. 1. In many cases it may be lawful to preach without a text;[401] to make sacred orations like Gregory Nazianzen's, and homilies like Macarius's, Ephrem Syrus's, and many other ancients, and like our own church homilies.

2. But ordinarily it is the fittest way to preach upon a text of Scripture.[402] 1. Because it is our very office to teach the people the Scripture. The prophets brought a new word or message from God; but the priests did but keep, interpret, and preach the law already received: and we are not successors of the inspired prophets, but as the priests were, teachers of God's received word. And this practice will help the people to understand our office. 2. And it will preserve the due esteem and reverence of the holy Scriptures, which the contrary practice may diminish.

Quest. CLV. Is not the law of Moses abrogated, and the whole Old Testament out of date, and therefore not to be read publicly and preached on?

Answ. 1. The covenant of innocency is ceased cessante subditorum capacitate, as a covenant or promise. And so are the positive laws proper to Adam, in that state, and to many particular persons since.

2. The covenant mixed of grace and works, proper to the Jews, with all the Jewish law as such, was never made to us, or to the rest of the world; and to the Jews it is ceased by the coming and perfecter laws and covenant of Christ.

3. The prophecies and types of Christ, and the promises made to Adam, Abraham, and others, of his coming in the flesh, are all fulfilled, and therefore not useful to all the ends of their first making: and the many prophecies of particular things and persons past and gone are accomplished.

4. But the law of nature is still Christ's law; and that law is much expounded to us in the Old Testament: and if God once, for another use, did say, This is the law of nature, the truth of these words as a divine doctrine and exposition of the law of nature is still the same.

5. The covenant of grace made with Adam and Noah for all mankind, is still in force as to the great benefits and main condition, that is, as to pardon given by it to true penitent believers, with a right to everlasting life, and as to the obligation to sincere obedience for salvation: though not as to the yet future coming of Christ in the flesh. And this law of grace was never yet repealed any further than Christ's coming did fulfil it and perfect it: therefore to the rest of the world, who never can have the gospel or perfecter testament, as christians have, the former law of grace is yet in force. And that is the law, conjoined with the law of nature, which now the world without the church is under: under, I say, as to the force of the law, and a former promulgation made to Adam and Noah, and some common intimations of it in merciful forbearances, pardons, and benefits; though how many are under it as to the knowledge, reception, belief, and obedience of it, and consequently are saved by it, is more than I or any man knoweth.

6. There are many prophecies of Christ and the christian church in the Old Testament yet to be fulfilled, and therefore are still God's word for us.

7. There are many precepts of God to the Jews and to particular persons, given them on reasons common to them with us; where parity of reason will help thence to gather our own duty now.

8. There are many holy expressions, (as in the Psalms,) which are fitted to persons in our condition, and came from the Spirit of God; and therefore as such are fit for us now.

9. Even the fulfilled promises, types, and prophecies, are still God's words, that is, his word given to their several proper uses: and though much of their use be changed or ceased, so is not all: they are yet useful to us, to confirm our faith, while we see their accomplishment, and see how much God still led his church to happiness in one and the same way.

10. On all these accounts therefore we may still read the Old Testament, and preach upon it in the public churches.[403]

Quest. CLVI. Must we believe that Moses's law did ever bind other nations; or that any other parts of the Scripture bound them, or belong to them? or that the Jews were all God's visible church on earth?

Answ. I conjoin these three questions for despatch.

I. 1. Some of the matter of Moses's law did bind all nations; that is, the law of nature as such.

2. Those that had the knowledge of the Jewish law, were bound collaterally to believe and obey all the expositions of the law of nature in it, and all the laws which were given upon reasons common to all the world; (as about degrees of marriage, particular rules of justice, &c.) As if I heard God from heaven tell another that standeth by me, Thou shalt not marry thy father's widow; for it is abominable, I ought to apply that to me, being his subject, which is spoken to another on a common reason.[404]

3. All those gentiles that would be proselytes, and join with the Jews in their policy, and dwelt among them, were bound to be observers of their laws. But, 1. The law of nature as mosaical, did not formally and directly bind other nations. 2. Nor were they bound to the laws of their peculiar policy, civil or ecclesiastical, which were positives. The reason is, (1.) Because they were all one body of political laws, given peculiarly to one political body. Even the decalogue itself was to them a political law. (2.) Because Moses was not authorized or sent to be the mediator or deliverer of that law to any nation but the Jews. And being never in the enacting or promulgation sent or directed to the rest of the world, it could not bind them.

II. As to the second question, Though the Scripture as a writing bound not all the world, yet, 1. The law of nature as such which is recorded in Scripture did bind all. 2. The covenant of grace was made with all mankind in Adam and Noah; and they were bound to promulgate it by tradition to all their offspring. And no doubt so they did; whether by word, (as all did,) or by writing also, (as it is like some did, as Enoch's prophecies were it is like delivered, or else they had not in terms been preserved till Jude's time). 3. And God himself as aforesaid by actual providences, pardoning, and benefits given to them that deserved hell, did in part promulgate it himself. 4. The neighbour nations might learn much by God's doctrine and dealing with the Jews.[405]

III. To the third question, I answer, 1. The Jews were a people chosen by God out of all the nations of the earth, to be a holy nation, and his peculiar treasure, having a peculiar divine law and covenant, and many great privileges, to which the rest of the world were strangers; so that they were advanced above all other kingdoms of the world, though not in wealth, nor worldly power, nor largeness of dominion, yet in a special dearness unto God.[406]

2. But they were not the only people to whom God made a covenant of grace in Adam and Noah, as distinct from the law or covenant of innocency.

3. Nor were they the only people that professed to worship the true God; neither was holiness and salvation confined to them; but were found in other nations. Therefore though we have but little notice of the state of other kingdoms in their times, and scarcely know what national churches (that is, whole nations professing saving faith) there were, yet we may conclude that there were other visible churches besides the Jews. For, 1. No Scripture denieth it; and charity then must hope the best. 2. The Scriptures of the Old Testament give us small account of other countries, but of the Jews alone, with some of their neighbours. 3. Shem was alive in Abraham's days (yea, about 34 years after Abraham's death, and within 12 years of Ishmael's death, viz. till about An. Mundi 2158). And so great and blessed a man as Shem, cannot be thought to be less than a king, and to have a kingdom governed according to his holiness; and so that there was with him not only a church, but a national church, or holy kingdom. 4. And Melchizedec was a holy king and priest; and therefore had a kingdom holily governed; and therefore not only a visible but also a national church (supposing that he was not Shem, as the Jews and Broughton, &c. think; for the situation of his country doth make many desert that opinion). 5. And Job and his friends show that there were churches then besides the Jews. 6. And it is not to be thought that all Ishmael's posterity suddenly apostatized. 7. Nor that Esau's posterity had no church state (for both retained circumcision). 8. Nor is it like that Abraham's offspring by Keturah were all apostates, being once inchurched. For though the special promise was made to Isaac's seed, as the peculiar holy nation, &c. yet not as the only children of God, or persons in a state of salvation. 9. And the passages in Jonah about Nineveh give us some such intimations also. 10. And Japheth and his seed being under a special blessing, it is not like that they all proved apostates. And what was in all other kingdoms of the world is little known to us.

We must therefore take heed of concluding, (as the proud Jews were at last apt to do of themselves,) that because they were a chosen nation privileged above all others, that therefore the Redeemer under the law of grace made to Adam, had no other churches in the world, and that there were none saved but the Jews and proselytes.[407]

Quest. CLVII. Must we think accordingly of the christian churches now, that they are only advanced above the rest of the world as the Jews were, but not the only people that are saved?

Answ. This question being fitter for another place, what hope there is of the salvation of the people that are not christians, I have purposely handled in another treatise, (in my "Method. Theologiæ,") and shall only say now, 1. That those that receive not Christ and the gospel revealed and offered to them cannot be saved.[408] 2. That all those shall be saved (if such there be) who never had sufficient means to know Christ incarnate, and yet do faithfully perform the common conditions of the covenant of grace as it was made with Adam and Noah; and particularly all that are truly sanctified, who truly hate all known sin, and love God as God above all, as their merciful, reconciled, pardoning Father, and lay up all their hopes in heaven, in the everlasting fruition of him in glory, and set their hearts there, and for those hopes deny the interest of the flesh, and all things of this world.[409]

3. But how many or who doth this abroad in all the kingdoms of the world, who have not the distinct knowledge of the articles of the christian faith, it is not possible for us to know.

4. But (as Aquinas and the schoolmen ordinarily conclude this question) we are sure that the church hath this prerogative above all others, that salvation is incomparably more common to christians, than to any others, as their light, and helps, and means are more. The opinions of Justin, and Clem. Alexandr. Origen, and many other ancients, of the heathens' salvation, I suppose is known. In short:

1. It seems plain to me, that all the world that are no christians, and have not the gospel, are not by Christ's incarnation put into a worse condition than they were in before; but may be saved on the same terms that they might have been saved on before.[410]

2. That Christ's apostles were in a state of salvation before they believed the articles of Christ's dying for sin, his resurrection, ascension, the giving of the Holy Ghost, and Christ's coming to judgment, as they are now to be believed.[411]

3. That all the faithful before Christ's coming were saved by a more general faith than the apostles had, as not being terminated in this person, Jesus, as the Messiah, but only expected the Messiah to come.[412]

4. That as more articles are necessary to those that have the gospel, than to those that have it not, and to those since Christ's incarnation that hear of him, than to the Jews before, so before, there were more things necessary even to those Jews, (that had a shorter creed than that which the apostles believed before the resurrection,) than was to the rest of the world that had not promises, prophecies, types, and laws, so particular, distinct, and full as they had.[413]

5. That the promises, covenant, or law of grace, was made to all lapsed mankind in Adam and Noah.[414]

6. That this law or covenant is still of the same tenor, and not repealed.[415]

7. That this covenant giveth pardoning mercy, and salvation, and promiseth victory over Satan, to and by the holy seed.[416]

8. That the condition on man's part, is repentance, and faith in God as a merciful God, thus pardoning sin, and saving the penitent believer. But just how particular or distinct their belief of the incarnation of Christ was to be, is hard to determine.[417]

9. But after Christ's incarnation, even they that know it not, yet are not by the first covenant bound to believe that the Messiah is yet to be incarnate, or the word made flesh; for they are not bound to believe an untruth, and that as the condition of salvation.[418]

10. Men were saved by Christ about four thousand years before he was man, and had suffered, satisfied, or merited as man.

11. The whole course of God's actual providence since the fall, hath so filled the world with mercies contrary to man's demerit, that it is an actual universal proclamation of the pardoning law of grace; which is thereby now become even a law of nature, that is, of lapsed, pardoned nature, as the first was the natural law of innocence.[419]

12. Christ giveth a great deal of mercy to them that never heard of him or know him: and he giveth far more mercy to believers, than they have a particular knowledge and belief of.[420]

13. There is no salvation but by Christ the Saviour of the world; though there be more mercy from Christ, than there is faith in Christ.[421]

14. No man could ever be saved without believing in God as a merciful, pardoning, saving God, though many have been saved who knew not the person of Christ, determinately. For he that cometh to God must believe that God is, and that he is the rewarder of them that diligently seek him; who is no respecter of persons, but in every nation, he that feareth God and worketh righteousness is accepted of him.[422]

15. All nations on earth that have not the gospel, are obliged by God to the use of certain means, and improvement of certain mercies, in order or tendency to their salvation. And it is their sin if they use them not.[423]

16. God hath appointed no means in vain, which men must either not use, or use despairingly. But his command to use any means for any end, containeth (though not an explicit promise, yet) great and comfortable encouragement to use that means in hope.[424]

17. Therefore the world is now in comparison of the catholic church, much like what it was before Christ's incarnation in comparison of the Jews' church; who yet had many ways great advantage, though God was not the God of the Jews only, but also of the gentiles, who had a law written in their hearts, and an accusing or excusing conscience.

18. Those over-doing divines who pretend to be certain that all the world are damned that are not christians, do add to God's word, and are great agents for Satan to tempt men to infidelity, and to atheism itself, and to dissuade mankind from discerning the infinite goodness of God; and occasion many to deny the immortality of the soul, rather than they will believe, that five parts in six of the world now, and almost all before Christ's incarnation, have immortal souls purposely created in them, to be damned, without any propounded means and possibility natural of remedy; and as I know they will pour out their bitter censure on these lines, (which I could avoid if I regarded it more than truth,) so with what measure they mete, it shall be measured to them; and others will damn them as confidently as they damn almost all the world; and I will be bold to censure that they are undoers of the church by over-doing. See more in my "Vindication of God's Goodness."

Quest. CLVIII. Should not christians take up with Scripture wisdom only, without studying philosophy and other heathens' human learning?

Answ. I have already proved the usefulness of common knowledge called human learning, by twenty reasons in my book called "The Unreasonableness of Infidelity," part ii. sect. 23. p. 163, to which I refer the reader; and only say now, 1. Grace presupposeth nature; we are men in order of nature at least before we are saints, and reason is before supernatural revelation. 2. Common knowledge therefore is subservient unto faith: we must know the Creator and his works; and the Redeemer restoreth us to the due knowledge of the Creator: human learning in the sense in question is also divine, God is the author of the light of nature, as well as of grace. We have more than heathens, but must not therefore have less, and cast away the good that is common to them and us; else we must not have souls, bodies, reason, health, time, meat, drink, clothes, &c. because heathens have them. God's works are honourable, sought out of all them that have pleasure therein; and physical philosophy is nothing but the knowledge of God's works. 3. And the knowledge of languages is necessary both for human converse, and for the understanding the Scriptures themselves. The Scriptures contain not a Greek and Hebrew grammar to understand the languages in which they are written, but suppose us otherwise taught those tongues that we may interpret them. 4. The use of the gospel is not to teach us all things needful to be known; but to teach us, on supposition of our common knowledge, how to advance higher to supernatural saving knowledge, faith, love, and practice. Scripture telleth us not how to build a house, to plough, sow, weave, or make our works of art. Every one that learneth his country tongue of his parents hath human learning of the same sort with the learning of Greek and Hebrew; he that learneth not to read, cannot read the Bible. And he that understandeth it not in the original tongues, must trust other men's words that have human learning, or else remain a stranger to it.[425]

But though none but proud fools will deny the need of that human learning which improveth nature, and is subservient to our knowledge of supernatural revelations, yet well doth Paul admonish us, to take heed that none deceive us by vain philosophy; and saith that the wisdom of the world is foolishness with God, and that the knowledge of Christ crucified is the true christian philosophy or wisdom. For indeed the dark philosophers groping after the knowledge of God, did frequently stumble, and did introduce abundance of logical and physical vanities, uncertainties, and falsities, under the name of philosophy, by mere niceties and high pretendings, seeking for the glory of wisdom to themselves; whenas it is one thing to know God's works and God in them, and another thing to compose a system of physics and metaphysics containing abundance of errors and confusion, and jumbling a few certainties with a great many uncertainties and untruths, and every sect pulling down what others asserted, and all of them disproving the methods and assertions of others, and none proving their own. And the truth is, after all latter discoveries, there is yet so much error, darkness, uncertainty, and confusion in the philosophy of every pretending sect, (the Peripatetics, the Stoics, the Pythagoreans and Platonists, much more the Epicureans, the Lullianists, and Cartesians, Telesius, Campanella, Patricius, Gassendus, &c.) that it is a wonder that any that ever thoroughly tried them, can be so weak as to glory much of the certainties and methods of any, which hitherto are so palpably uncertain, and full of certain errors. We may therefore make use of all true human learning, real and organical (and he is the happy scholar who fasteneth upon the certain and the useful parts well distinguished from the rest, and truly useth them to their great and proper ends): but niceties and fooleries which some spend their lives in for mere ostentation, and also uncertain presumptions, should be much neglected; and the great, certain, necessary, saving verities of morality and the gospel must be dearly loved, and thankfully embraced, and studiously learned, and faithfully practised, by all that would prove wise men at last.[426]

Quest. CLIX. If we think that Scripture and the law of nature do in any point contradict each other, which may be the standard by which the other must be tried?

Answ. 1. It is certain that they never do contradict each other. 2. The law of nature is either that which is very clear by natural evidence, or that which is dark, (as degrees of consanguinity unfit for marriage,[427] the evil of officious lies, &c.) 3. The Scriptures also have their plain and their obscurer parts. 4. A dark scripture is not to be expounded contrary to a plain, natural verity. 5. A dark and doubtful point in nature is not to be expounded contrary to a plain and certain scripture. 6. To suppose that there be an apparent contradiction in cases of equal clearness or doubtfulness, is a case not to be supposed; but he that should have such a dream, must do as he would do if he thought two texts to be contradictory, that is, he must better study both till he see his error; still remembering that natural evidence hath this advantage, that it is, 1. First in order; 2. And most common and received by all; but supernatural evidence hath this advantage, that it is for the most part the more clear and satisfactory.[428]

Quest. CLX. May we not look that God should yet give us more revelations of his will, than there are already made in Scripture?

Answ. You must distinguish between, 1. New laws or covenants to mankind, and new predictions or informations of a particular person. 2. Between what may possibly be, and what we may expect as certain or probable. And so I conclude,

1. That it is certain that God will make no other covenant, testament, or universal law, for the government of mankind or the church, as a rule of duty and of judgment. Because he hath oft told us, that this covenant and law is perfect, and shall be in force as our rule till the end of the world.[429]

Object. So it was said of the law of Moses, that it was to stand for ever, yea, of many ceremonies in it.

Answ. 1. It is in the original only, for ages and ages; or to generations and generations, which we translate for ever, when it signifieth but to many generations. 2. It is no where said, of Moses's law as such, that it should continue either till the end of the world, or till the day of judgment, as it is said of the gospel. And, 3. It is not said that he will add no more to the former testament, but contrarily, that he will make a new covenant with them, &c. But here in the gospel he peremptorily resolveth against all innovations and additions.[430]

2. It is certain that God will make no new scripture or inspired word as an infallible, universal rule for the exposition of the word already written. For, 1. This were an addition which he hath disclaimed; and, 2. It would imply such an insufficiency in the gospel to its ends (as being not intelligible) as is contrary to its asserted perfection; and, 3. It would be contrary to that established way for the understanding of the Scripture, which God hath already settled and appointed for us till the end.[431]

3. It is certain that God will give all his servants in their several measures, the help and illumination of his Spirit, for the understanding and applying of the gospel.

4. It is possible that God may make new revelations to particular persons about their particular duties, events, or matters of fact, in subordination to the Scripture, either by inspiration, vision, or apparition, or voice; for he hath not told us that he will never do such a thing. As to tell them, what shall befall them or others; or to say, Go to such a place, or, Dwell in such a place, or, Do such a thing, which is not contrary to the Scripture, nor co-ordinate, but only a subordinate determination of some undetermined case, or the circumstantiating of an action.

5. Though such revelation and prophecy be possible, there is no certainty of it in general, nor any probability of it to any one individual person, much less a promise. And therefore to expect it, or pray for it, is but a presumptuous tempting of God.[432]

6. And all sober christians should be the more cautelous of being deceived by their own imaginations, because certain experience telleth us, that most in our age that have pretended to prophecy, or to inspirations, or revelations, have been melancholy, cracked-brained persons, near to madness, who have proved to be deluded in the end; and that such crazed persons are still prone to such imaginations.

7. Therefore also all sober christians must take heed of rash believing every prophet or pretended spirit, lest they be led away from the sacred rule, and before they are aware, be lost in vain expectations and conceits.

Quest. CLXI. Is not a third rule of the Holy Ghost, or perfecter kingdom of love, to be expected, as different from the reign of the Creator and Redeemer?

Answ. 1. The works ad extra and the reign of the Father, Word, and Spirit are undivided. But yet some things are more eminently attributed to one person in the Trinity, and some to another.[433]

2. By the law and covenant of innocency, the Creator eminently ruled omnipotently. And the Son ruled eminently sapientially, initially under the covenant of promise or grace from Adam till his incarnation and the descent of the Holy Ghost, and more fully and perfectly afterward by the Holy Ghost. And the Holy Ghost ever since doth rule in the saints as the Paraclete, Advocate, or Agent of Christ, and Christ by him, eminently by holy love; which is yet but initially: but the same Holy Ghost by perfect love shall perfectly rule in glory for ever; even as the Spirit of the Father and the Son. We have already the initial kingdom of love by the Spirit, and shall have the perfect kingdom in heaven; and besides the initial and the perfect there is no other. Nor is the perfect kingdom to be expected before the day of judgment, or our removal unto heaven; for our kingdom is not of this world. And they that sell all and follow Christ, do make the exchange for a reward in heaven; and they that suffer persecution for his sake, must rejoice because their reward in heaven is great: and they that relieve a prophet or righteous man for the sake of Christ, and that lose any thing for him, shall have indeed a hundredfold (in value) in this life, but in the world to come eternal life. We shall be taken up in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so shall we ever be with the Lord: and those are the words with which we must comfort one another, and not Jewishly with the hopes of an earthly kingdom. And yet "we look for a new heaven and a new earth wherein dwelleth righteousness, according to his promise." But who shall be the inhabitants, and how that heaven and earth shall differ, and what we shall then have to do with earth, whether to be overseers of that righteous earth (and so to judge or rule the world) as the angels are now over us in this world, are things which yet I understand not.[434]

Quest. CLXII. May we not look for miracles hereafter?

Answ. 1. The answer to quest. clx. may serve to this. 1. God may work miracles if he please, and hath not told us that he never will.[435]

2. But he hath not promised us that he will, and therefore we cannot believe such a promise, nor expect them as a certain thing. Nor may any pray for the gift of miracles.

3. But if there be any probability of them, it will be to those that are converting infidel nations, when they may be partly of such use as they were at first.

4. Yet it is certain, that God still sometimes worketh miracles; but arbitrarily and rarely, which may not put any individual person in expectation of them.

Object. Is not the promise the same to us as to the apostles and primitive christians, if we could but believe as they did?

Answ. 1. The promise to be believed goeth before the faith that believeth it, and not that faith before the promise.

2. The promise of the Holy Ghost was for perpetuity, to sanctify all believers: but the promise of that special gift of miracles, was for a time, because it was for a special use; that is, to be a standing seal to the truth of the gospel, which all after-ages may be convinced of in point of fact, and so may still have the use and benefit of.[436] And Providence (ceasing miracles) thus expoundeth the promise. And if miracles must be common to all persons and ages, they would be as no miracles. And we have seen those that most confidently believed they should work them, all fail.

But I have written so largely of this point in a set disputation in my Treatise called "The Unreasonableness of Infidelity," fully proving those first miracles satisfactory and obligatory to all following ages, that I must thither now refer the reader.

Quest. CLXIII. Is the Scripture to be tried by the Spirit, or the Spirit by the Scripture, and which of them is to be preferred?

Answ. I put the question thus confusedly, for the sake of those that use to do so, to show them how to get out of their own confusion. You must distinguish, 1. Between the Spirit in itself considered, and the Scripture in itself. 2. Between the several operations of the Spirit. 3. Between the several persons that have the Spirit. And so you must conclude,

1. That the Spirit in itself is infinitely more excellent than the Scripture. For the Spirit is God, and the Scripture is but the work of God.

2. The operation of the Spirit in the apostles was more excellent than the operation of the same Spirit now in us; as producing more excellent effects, and more infallible.

3. Therefore the holy Scriptures which were the infallible dictates of the Spirit in the apostles, are more perfect than any of our apprehensions which come by the same Spirit (which we have not in so great a measure).[437]

4. Therefore we must not try the Scriptures by our most spiritual apprehensions, but our apprehensions by the Scriptures: that is, we must prefer the Spirit's inspiring the apostles to indite the Scriptures, before the Spirit's illuminating of us to understand them, or before any present inspirations, the former being the more perfect; because Christ gave the apostles the Spirit to deliver us infallibly his own commands, and to indite a rule for following ages; but he giveth us the Spirit but to understand and use that rule aright.[438]

5. This trying the Spirit by the Scriptures, is not a setting of the Scripture above the Spirit itself; but is only a trying the Spirit by the Spirit: that is, the Spirit's operations in ourselves and his revelations to any pretenders now, by the Spirit's operations in the apostles, and by their revelations recorded for our use. For they, and not we, are called foundations of the church.[439]

Quest. CLXIV. How is a pretended prophet, or revelation, to be tried?

Answ. 1. If it be contrary to the Scripture it is to be rejected as a deceit.[440]

2. If it be the same thing which is in the Scripture, we have it more certainly revealed already; therefore the revelation can be nothing but an assistance of the person's faith, or a call to obedience, or a reproof of some sin; which every man is to believe according as there is true evidence that indeed it is a divine revelation or vision; which if it be not, the same thing is still sure to us in the Scripture.

3. If it be something that is only besides the Scripture, (as about events and facts, or prophecies of what will befall particular places or persons,) we must first see whether the evidence of a divine revelation be clear in it or not; and that is known, 1. To the person himself, by the self-attesting and convincing power of a divine revelation, which no man knoweth but he that hath it (and we must be very cautelous lest we take false conceptions to be such). 2. But to himself and others it is known, (1.) At present by clear, uncontrolled miracles, which are God's attestation; which if men show, we are bound (in this case) to believe them. (2.) For the future, by the event, when things so plainly come to pass, as prove the prediction to be of God. He therefore that giveth you not by certain miracles uncontrolled, a just proof that he is sent of God, is to be heard with a suspended belief; you must stay till the event show whether he say true or not: and not act any thing in the mean time upon an unproved presumption either of the truth or falsehood of his words.[441]

4. If you are in doubt whether that which he speaketh be contrary to God's word or not, you must hear him with a proportionable suspicion, and give no credit to him till you have tried whether it be so or not.

5. It is a dangerous snare and sin to believe any one's prophecies or revelations merely because they are very holy persons, and do most confidently aver or swear it. For they may be deceived themselves. As also to take hysterical or melancholy delirations or conceptions for the revelations of the Spirit of God, and so to father falsehood upon God.

Quest. CLXV. May one be saved who believeth that the Scripture hath any mistake or error, and believeth it not all?

Answ. The chief part of the answer to this must be fetched from what is said before about fundamentals. 1. No man can be saved who believeth not that God is no liar, and that all his word is true; because indeed he believeth not that there is a God.[442]

2. No man can be saved who believeth not the points that are essential to true godliness; nor any man that heareth the word, who believeth not all essential to christianity, or the christian covenant and religion.

3. A man may be saved who believeth not some books of Scripture (as Jude, 2 Peter, 2 John, 3 John, Revelation) to be canonical, or the word of God; so he heartily believe the rest, or the essentials.

4. He that thinketh that the prophets, sacred historians, evangelists, and apostles, were guided to an infallible delivery and recording of all the great, substantial, necessary points of the gospel, but not to an infallibility in every by-expression, phrase, citation, or circumstance, doth disadvantage his own faith as to all the rest; but yet may be saved, if he believe the substance with a sound and practical belief.[443]

Quest. CLXVI. Who be they that give too little to the Scripture, and who too much; and what is the danger of each extreme?

Answ. I. It is not easy to enumerate all the errors on either extreme; but only to give some instances of each. 1. They give too little to the Scripture who deny it to be indited by inspiration of the infallible Spirit of God, and to be wholly true. 2. And they that detract from some parts or books of it while they believe the rest. 3. And they that think it is not given as a law of God, and as a rule of faith and life. 4. And they that think it is not a universal law and rule for all the world, but for some parts only (supposing the predication of it). 5. And they that think it an imperfect law and rule, which must be made up with the supplement of traditions or revelations. 6. And they that think it was adapted only to the time it was written in, and not to ours, as not foreseeing what would be. 7. And they that think it is culpably defective in method. 8. And they that think it culpably defective in phrase, aptness, or elegancy of style. 9. And they that think that it containeth not all that was necessary or fit for universal determination, of that kind of things which it doth at all universally determine of; as e. g. that it made two sacraments, but not all of that kind that are fit to be made, but hath left men to invent and make more of the same nature and use. 10. And those that think that it is fitted only to the learned, or only to the unlearned, only to princes, or only to subjects, &c. 11. And those that think that it is but for a time, and then by alteration to be perfected, as Moses's law was. 12. And those that think that the pope, princes, or prelates, or any men, may change or alter it.[444]

II. Those give too much (in bulk, but too little in virtue) to the Scripture, 1. Who would set them up instead of the whole law and light of nature, as excluding this as useless where the Scripture is.

2. And they that feign it to be instead of all grammars, logic, philosophy, and all other arts and sciences, and to be a perfect, particular rule for every ruler, lawyer, physician, mariner, architect, husbandman, and tradesman, to do his work by.

3. And they that feign it to be fully sufficient to all men to prove its own authority and truth, without the subsidiary use of that church history and tradition which telleth us the supposed matters of fact, and must help us to know what books are canonical and what not; and without historical evidence, that these are the true books which the prophets and apostles wrote, and the miracles and providences which have attested them.[445]

4. And those that think that it is sufficient for its own promulgation, or the people's instruction, without the ministry of man to preserve, deliver, translate, expound, and preach it to the people.

5. And those that think it sufficient to sanctify men, without the concourse of the Spirit's illumination, vivification, and inward operation to that end.[446]

6. And they that say that no man can be saved by the knowledge, belief, love, and practice of all the substantial parts of christianity brought to him by tradition, parents, or preachers, who tell him nothing of the Scriptures, but deliver him the doctrines as attested by miracles and the Spirit without any notice of the book.[447]