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goodness, to put it into the power of man so palpably and openly to alter the paths and inlets to heaven, and to straiten his mercies, unless he had furnished these men with an infallible judgment, and an infallible prudence, and a neverfailing charity, that they should never do it but with great necessity, and with great truth, and without human ends and designs; of which I think no arguments can make us certain, what the primitive church hath done in this case. I shall

afterwards consider, and give an account of it; but, for the present, there is no insecurity in ending there where the apostles ended, in building where they built, in resting where they left us, unless the same infallibility which they had, had still continued, which, I think, I shall hereafter make evident it did not. And, therefore, those extensions of creed, which were made in the first ages of the church, although, for the matter, they were most true, yet because it was not certain that they should be so, and they might have been otherwise, therefore, they could not be in the same order of faith, nor in the same degrees of necessity to be believed with the articles apostolical; and, therefore, whether they did well, or no, in laying the same weight upon them, or whether they did lay the same weight or no, we will afterwards consider.

13. But to return. I consider that a foundation of faith cannot alter; unless a new building be to be made, the foundation is the same still; and this foundation is no other but that which Christ and his apostles laid, which doctrine is like himself, yesterday and to-day, and the same for ever. So that the articles of necessary belief to all (which are the only foundation), they cannot be several in several ages, and to several persons. Nay, the sentence and declaration of the church cannot lay this foundation, or make any thing of the foundation, because the church cannot lay her own founda-. tion; we must suppose her to be a building, and that she relies upon the foundation, which is, therefore, supposed to be laid before, because she is built upon it; or, to make it more explicit, because a cloud may arise from the allegory of building and foundation, it is plainly thus: the church being a company of men obliged to the duties of faith and obedience, the duty and obligation, being of the faculties of will and understanding to adhere to such an object, must pre

suppose the object made ready for them; for as the object is before the act, in the order of nature, and, therefore, not to be produced or increased by the faculty, which being receptive, cannot be active upon its proper object; so the object of the church's faith is, in order of nature, before the church, or before the act and habit of faith, and, therefore cannot be enlarged by the church, any more than the act of the visive faculty can add visibility to the object. So that if we have found out what foundation Christ and his apostles did lay, that is, what body and system of articles simply necessary they taught and required of us to believe, we need not, we cannot go any farther for foundation, we cannot enlarge that system or collection. Now then, although all that they said is true, and nothing of it to be doubted or disbelieved, yet, as all that they said is neither written or delivered (because all was not necessary), so we know that of those things which are written, some things are as far off from the foundation as those things which were omitted; and, therefore, although now accidentally they must be believed by all that know them, yet it is not necessary all should know them; and that all should know them in the same sense and interpretation, is neither probable nor obligatory; but, therefore, since these things are to be distinguished by some difference of necessary and not necessary,-whether or no, is not the declaration of Christ and his apostles, affixing salvation to the belief of some great comprehensive articles, and the act of the apostles rendering them as explicit as they thought convenient, and consigning that creed, made so explicit, as a tessera of a Christian, as a comprehension of the articles of his belief, as a sufficient disposition and an express of the faith of a ‘catechumen,' in order to baptism: whether or no, I say, all this be not sufficient probation that these only are of absolute necessity, that this is sufficient for mere belief in order to heaven, and that, therefore, whosoever believes these articles heartily and explicitly, eòs μével év aur, as St. John's expression is, "God dwelleth in him,"-I leave it to be considered and judged of from the premises. Only this: if the old doctors had been made judges in these questions, they would have passed their affirmative; for to instance in one for all,of this it was said by Tertullian", "Regula quidem fidei una

u Lib. de Veland. Virg.

omnino est sola immobilis et irreformabalis," &c. "Hâc lege fidei manente, cætera jam disciplinæ et conversationis admittunt novitatem correctionis, operante scilicet, et proficiente usque in finem gratia Dei:" This symbol is the one sufficient, immovable, unalterable, and unchangeable rule of faith, that admits no increment or decrement; but if the integrity and unity of this be preserved, in all other things men may take a liberty of enlarging their knowledges and prophesyings, according as they are assisted by the grace of God.'

SECTION II.

Of Heresy, and the Nature of it; and that it is to be accounted according to the strict Capacity of Christian Faith, and not in opinions speculative, nor ever to pious Persons.

1. AND thus I have represented a short draught of the object of faith, and its foundation. The next consideration, in order to our main design, is to consider what was, and what ought to be, the judgment of the apostles concerning heresy: for although there are more kinds of vices than there are of virtues, yet the number of them is to be taken by accounting the transgressions of their virtues, and by the limits of faith we may also reckon the analogy and proportions of heresy, that as we have seen who were called faithful by the apostolical men, we may also perceive who were listed by them in the catalogue of heretics, that we, in our judgments, may proceed accordingly.

2. And, first, the word heresy is used in Scripture indifferently; in a good sense, for a sect or division of opinion, and men following it; or sometimes in a bad sense, for a false opinion, signally condemned: but these kind of people were then called Antichrists and false prophets, more frequently than heretics, and then there were many of them in the world. But it is observable that no heresies are noted 'signanter' in Scripture, but such as are great errors practical, in materiâ pietatis,' such whose doctrines taught impiety, or such who denied the coming of Christ directly or by consequence, not remote or withdrawn, but prime and imme

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diate; and, therefore, in the code de Sanctâ Trinitate et Fide Catholica, heresy is called ασεβὴς δόξα, καὶ ἀθέμιτος διδασκαλία, xaxía," a wicked opinion, and an ungodly doctrine."

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3. The first false doctrine we find condemned by the apostles, was the opinion of Simon Magus, who thought the Holy Ghost was to be bought with money: he thought very dishonourably to the Blessed Spirit; but yet his followers are rather noted of a vice, neither resting in the understanding, nor derived from it, but wholly practical; it is simony, not heresy; though in Simon it was a false opinion, proceeding from a low account of God, and promoted by his own ends of pride and covetousness. The great heresy that troubled them, was the doctrine of the necessity of keeping the law of Moses, the necessity of circumcision; against which doctrine they were therefore zealous, because it was a direct overthrow to the very end and excellency of Christ's coming. And this was an opinion most pertinaciously and obstinately maintained by the Jews, and had made a sect among the Galatians and this was, indeed, wholly in opinion; and against it the apostles opposed two articles of the creed, which served, at several times, according as the Jews changed their opinion, and left some degrees of their error; "I believe in Jesus Christ, and I believe the holy catholic church:" for they therefore, pressed the necessity of Moses' law, because they were unwilling to forego the glorious appellative of being God's own peculiar people; and that salvation was of the Jews, and that the rest of the world were capable of that grace no otherwise but by adoption into their religion, and becoming proselytes. But this was so ill a doctrine, as that it overthrew the great benefits of Christ's coming; for, "if they were circumcised, Christ profited them nothing:" meaning this, that Christ will not be a Saviour to them, who do not acknowledge him for their Lawgiver; and they neither confess him their Lawgiver, nor their Saviour, that look to be justified by the law of Moses, and observation of legal rites: so that this doctrine was a direct enemy to the foundation, and, therefore, the apostles were so zealous against it. Now then, that other opinion, which the apostles met at Jerusalem to resolve, was but a piece of that opinion; for the Jews and proselytes were drawn off from their lees and sediment by degrees, step by step. At first, they would not en

dure any should be saved but themselves and their proselytes. Being wrought off from this height by miracles, and preaching of the apostles, they admitted the Gentiles to a possibility of salvation, but yet so as to hope for it by Moses' law. From which foolery when they were, with much ado, persuaded, and told that salvation was by faith in Christ, not by works of the law, yet they resolved to plough with an ox and an ass still, and join Moses with Christ; not as shadow and substance, but in an equal confederation, Christ should save the Gentiles, if he was helped by Moses,-but, alone, Christianity could not do it. Against this the apostles assembled at Jerusalem, and made a decision of the question, tying some of the Gentiles (such only who were blended by the Jews in communi patria,') to observation of such rites, which the Jews had derived by tradition, from Noah, intending, by this, to satisfy the Jews, as far as might be, with a reasonable compliance and condescension; the other Gentiles who were unmixed, in the meanwhile remaining free, as appears in the liberty St. Paul gave the church of Corinth of eating idol sacrifices (expressly against the decree at Jerusalem), so it were without scandal. And yet, for all this care and curious discretion, a little of the leaven still remained: all this they thought did so concern the Gentiles, that it was totally impertinent to the Jews; still they had a distinction to satisfy the letter of the apostles' decree, and yet to persist in their old opinion; and this so continued, that fifteen Christian bishops in succession were circumcised, even until the destruction of Jerusalem, under Adrian, as Eusebius reports.

4. First, by the way, let me observe, that never any matter of question in the Christian church was determined with greater solemnity, or more full authority of the church, than this question concerning circumcision: no less than the whole college of the apostles, and elders at Jerusalem, and that with a decree of the highest sanction, "Visum est Spiritui Sancto et nobis." Secondly; Either the case of the Hebrews, in particular, was omitted, and no determination concerning them, whether it were necessary or lawful for them to be circumcised, or else it was involved in the decree,

a Eccles. Hist. lib. iv. c. v.

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