VI. had likewise imposed two very mischievous errors upon the ART. strictest sect of the Jews that adhered the most firmly to it: the one was, that they understood the prophecies concerning the Messias sitting on the throne of David' literally: they thought that, in imitation of David, he was not only to free his own country from a foreign yoke, but that he was to subdue, as David had done, all the neighbouring nations. This was to them a stone of stumbling, and a rock of offence; so their adhering to their traditions proved their ruin in all respects. The other error, to which the authority of tradition led them, was their preferring the rituals of their religion to the moral precepts that it contained: this not only corrupted their own manners, while they thought that an exactness of performing, and a zeal in asserting, not only the ritual precepts that Moses gave their fathers, but those additions to them which they had from tradition, that were accounted hedges about the law: that this, I say, might well excuse or atone for the most heinous violations of the rules of justice and mercy but this had yet another worse effect upon them, while it possessed them with such prejudices against our Saviour and his apostles, when they came to see that they set no value on those practices that were recommended by tradition, and that they preferred pure and sublime morals even to Mosaical ceremonies themselves, and set the Gentiles at liberty from those observances. So that the ruin of the Jews, their rejecting the Messias, and their persecuting his followers, arose chiefly from this principle that had got in among them, of believing tradition, and of being guided by it. 11. The apostles, in all their disputes with the Jews, make their appeals constantly to the scriptures; they set a high character on those of Berea for examining them, and comparing the Acts xvii. doctrine that they preached with them. In the Epistles to the Romans, Galatians, and Hebrews, in which they pursue a thread of argument, with relation to the prejudices that the Jews had taken up against Christianity, they never once argue from tradition, but always from the scriptures; they do not pretend only to disparage modern tradition, and to set up that which was more ancient: they make no such distinction, but hold close to the scriptures. When St. Paul sets out the advantages that Timothy had by a religious education, he mentions this, that of a child he had known the holy scriptures, 2 Tim. iii. which were able to make him wise unto salvation, through 15, 16, 17. faith which is in Christ Jesus: that is, the belief of the Christian religion was a key to give him a right understanding of the Old Testament; and upon this occasion St. Paul adds, 'all scripture (that is, the whole Old Testament) is given by divine inspiration; or (as others render the words) all the divinely inspired scripture is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be perfect, throughly furnished unto all good 4 ART. Luke i. 4. 31. works.' The New Testament was writ on the same design with the Old; that, as St. Luke expresses it, we might know the certainty of those things wherein we have been instructed: These things were written,' saith St. John, that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing ye might have life through his name.' When St. Peter knew by a special revelation that he was near his end, he writ his Second Epistle, that they might have that as a mean of 2 Pet.i. 15. keeping those things always in remembrance after his death.' Nor do the apostles give us any hints of their having left any thing with the church, to be conveyed down by an oral tradition, which they themselves had not put in writing: they do sometimes refer themselves to such things as they had delivered to particular churches; but by tradition in the apostles' days, and for some ages after, it is very clear, that they meant only the conveyance of the faith, and not any unwritten doctrines: they reckoned the faith was a sacred depositum which was committed to them; and that was to be preserved pure among them. But it were very easy to shew in the continued succession of all the first Christian writers, that they still appealed to the scriptures, that they argued from them, that they condemned all doctrines that were not contained in them; and when at any time they brought human authorities to justify their opinions or expressions, they contented themselves with a very few, and those very late, authorities: so that their design in vouching them seems to be rather to clear themselves from the imputation of having innovated any thing in the doctrine, or in the ways of expressing it, than that they thought those authorities were necessary to prove them by. For in that case they must have taken a great deal more pains than they did, to have followed up, and proved, the tradition much higher than they went. We do also plainly see that such traditions as were not founded on scripture were easily corrupted, and on that account were laid aside by the succeeding ages. Such were the opinion of Christ's reign on earth for a thousand years; the saints not seeing God till the resurrection; the necessity of giving infants the eucharist; the divine inspiration of the seventy interpreters; besides some more important matters, which in respect to those times are not to be too much descanted upon. It is also plain, that the Gnostics, the Valentinians, and other heretics, began very early to set up a pretension to a tradition delivered by the apostles to some particular persons, as a key for understanding the secret meanings that might be Iren. 1. iii. in scripture; in opposition to which, both Irenæus, Tertullian, and others, make use of two sorts of arguments: the one is Tertul. de the authority of the scripture itself, by which they confuted Presc.cap their errors; the other is a point of fact, that there was no 20, 21, 25, such tradition. In asserting this, they appeal to those churches c. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. 27, 28. which had been founded by the apostles, and in which a suc VI. cession of bishops had been continued down. They say, in ART. these we must search for apostolical tradition. This was not said by them as if they had designed to establish tradition, as an authority distinct from, or equal to, the scriptures: but only to shew the falsehood of that pretence of the heretics, and that there was no such tradition for their heresies as they gave out. When this whole matter is considered in all its parts, such as, 1st, That nothing is to be believed as an article of faith, unless it appears to have been revealed by God. 2dly, That oral tradition appears, both from the nature of man, and the experience of former times, to be an incompetent conveyer of truth. 3dly, That some books were written for the conveyance of those matters, which have been in all ages carefully preserved and esteemed sacred. 4thly, That the writers of the first ages do always argue from, and appeal to, these books: and, 5thly, That what they have said without authority from them has been rejected in succeeding ages; the truth of this branch of our article is fully made out. If what is contained in the scripture in express words is the object of our faith, then it will follow, that whatsoever may be proved from thence, by a just and lawful consequence, is also to be believed. Men may indeed err in framing these consequences and deductions, they may mistake or stretch them. too far: but though there is much sophistry in the world, yet there is also true logic, and a certain thread of reasoning. And the sense of every proposition being the same, whether expressed always in the same or in different words; then whatsoever appears to be clearly the sense of any place of scripture, is an object of faith, though it should be otherwise expressed than as it is in scripture, and every just inference from it must be as true as the proposition itself is therefore it is a vain cavil to ask express words of scripture for every article. That was the method of all the ancient heretics: Christ and his apostles argued from the words and passages in the Old Testament, to prove such things as agreed with the true sense of them, and so did all the fathers; and therefore so may we do. The great objection to this is, that the scriptures are dark, that the same place is capable of different senses, the literal and the mystical: and therefore, since we cannot understand the true sense of the scripture, we must not argue from it, but seek for an interpreter of it, on whom we may depend. All sects argue from thence, and fancy that they find their tenets in it and therefore this can be no sure way of finding out sacred truth, since so many do err that follow it. In answer Deut vi. 3, to this, it is to be considered, that the Old Testament was 18--21. delivered to the whole nation of the Jews; that Moses was read xxxi. 11in the synagogue, in the hearing of the women and children; 13. that whole nation was to take their doctrine and rules from it: Jos. viii. all appeals were made to the law and to the prophets among H 6-9. xi. 32-35. VI. -8, 18. -6. 19-23. xxiv. 2527. 28. xxviii. 23. ART. them and though the prophecies of the Old Testament were in their style and whole contexture dark, and hard to be un2 Ki. xxiii. derstood; yet when so great a question as this, Who was the 2, 21, 24. true Messias? came to be examined, the proofs urged for it Ne. viii. 1 were passages in the Old Testament. Now the question was, Is. viii. 20, how these were to be understood? No appeal was here made xxxiv. 16. to tradition, or to church-authority, but only by the enemies Matt. ii. 4 of our Saviour. Whereas he and his disciples urge these pasLuk. iv. 16 sages in their true sense, and in the consequences that arose -21. vii. out of them. They did in that appeal to the rational faculties of those to whom they spoke. The Christian religion was at first delivered to poor and simple multitudes, who were both Acts xvii. illiterate and weak: the Epistles, which are by much the 2, 3. xviii. hardest to be understood of the whole New Testament, were addressed to the whole churches, to all the faithful or saints; that is, to all the Christians in those churches. These were afterwards read in all their assemblies. Upon this it may reasonably be asked, were these writings clear in that age, or were they not? If they were not, it is unaccountable why they were addressed to the whole body, and how they came to be received and entertained as they were. It is the end of speech and writing, to make things to be understood; and it is not supposable, that men inspired by the Holy Ghost either could not or would not express themselves so as that they should be clearly understood. It is also to be observed, that the new dispensation is opposed to the old, as light is to darkness, an open face to a vailed, and substance to shadows. Since then the Old Testament was so clear, that David, both in the 19th, and most copiously in the 119th Psalm, sets out very fully the light which the laws of God gave them in that darker state, we have much more reason to conclude, that the new dispensation should be much brighter. If there was no need of a certain expounder of scripture then, there is much less Nor is there any provision made in the new for a sure guide; no intimations are given where to find one: from all which we may conclude, that the books of the New Testament were clear in those days, and might well be understood by those to whom they were at first addressed. If they were clear to them, they may be likewise clear to us: for though we have not a full history of that time, or of the phrases and customs, and particular opinions, of that age, yet the vast industry of the succeeding ages, of these two last in particular, has made such discoveries, besides the other collateral advantages which learning and a niceness in reasoning has given us, that we may justly reckon, that though some hints in the Epistles, which relate to the particulars of that time, may be so lost, that we can at best but make conjectures about them ; yet, upon the whole matter, we may well understand all that is necessary to salvation in the scripture. now. We may indeed fall into mistakes as well as into sins; VI. and into errors of ignorance, as well as into sins of ignorance. ART. God has dealt with our understandings as he hath dealt with our wills: he proposes our duty to us, with strong motives to obedience; he promises us inward assistances, and accepts of our sincere endeavours; and yet this does not hinder many from perishing eternally, and others from falling into great sins, and so running great danger of eternal damnation; and all this is because God has left our wills free, and does not constrain us to be good. He deals with our understandings in the same manner; he has set his will and the knowledge of salvation before us, in writings that are framed in a simple and plain style, in a language that was then common, and is still well understood, that were at first designed for common use; they are soon read, and it must be confessed that a great part of them is very clear: so we have reason to conclude, that if a man reads these carefully and with an honest mind; if he prays to God to direct him, and follows sincerely what he apprehends to be true, and practises diligently those duties that do unquestionably appear to be bound upon him by them, that then he shall find out enough to save his soul; and that such mistakes as lie still upon him, shall either be cleared up to him by some happy providence, or shall be forgiven him by that infinite mercy, to which his sincerity and diligence is well known. That bad men should fall into grievous errors, is no more strange, than that they should commit heinous sins: and the errors of good men, in which they are neither wilful nor insolent, will certainly be forgiven, as well as their sins of infirmity. Therefore all the ill use that is made of the scripture, and all the errors that are pretended to be proved by it, do not weaken its authority or clearness. This does only shew us the danger of studying them with a biassed or corrupted mind, of reading them too carelessly, of being too curious in going farther than as they open matters to us; and in being too implicit in adhering to our education, or in submitting to the dictates of others. So far I have explained the first branch of this Article. The consequence that arises out of it is so clear, that it needs not be proved: That therefore nothing ought to be esteemed an article of faith, but what may be found in it, or proved from it. If this is our rule, our entire and only rule, then such doctrines as are not in it ought to be rejected; and any church that adds to the Christian religion, is erroneous for making such additions, and becomes tyrannical if she imposes them upon all her members, and requires positive declarations, subscriptions, and oaths, concerning them. In so doing she forces such as cannot have communion with her, but by affirming what they believe to be false, to withdraw from that which cannot be had without departing from the truth. So all the additions of the five sacraments-of the invocation of angels and saints; of the worshipping of images, crosses, and |