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CHAP. XIX.

CREEDS AND CONFESSIONS OF FAITH.

In our disputes with the Church of Rome, we contend, that the scripture alone is a sufficient rule of faith and practice, and our divines have proved it unanswerably; but when our high church priests argue with dissenters, holy writ is not so highly complimented. It is then very subject to lead us into mistakes, and hard to be understood. It is true, it is infallible, and was given us from heaven to be a light to our feet, and a lamp to our paths; but still it is dark and insufficient without human aid and explication; for though it is exceeding plain to the members of the established church of England, and proves them to be right in every article, ceremony, and habit, it is utterly hidden from those who will not accept of our guidance, and submit to our authority. If they refuse to believe and obey the supplements and improvements of the Bible, therefore, and to accept of the

salvation which is to be had in the church of England and the church of Rome, they shall have no salvation at all. It is fit and orthodox that men should perish for following their consciences, and for understanding the scriptures without the leave of the ordinary!

Thus, when they debate with the papists, they praise the scriptures, inveigh against the imposing of opinions, and speak in the style of dissenters; but when they are pleased to rebuke non-conformists, they borrow the language of papists, urge the authority of our apostolic church and her divine right to judge for others, and deal out hard language, and worse usage, to all that take the same privilege which they do. There is, however, this small difference between the conformists and schismaticsthe one have good pay for being orthodox, the other pay dearly for being in the wrong. If these are not good reasons for delivering schismatics over to Satan, I despair of finding better. In consequence of this power in high churchmen to be the mouthsmen of the Bible, which, if we take their word, cannot speak for itself, they claim a right to make creeds for others, which is what I am now to examine.

I think it but justice to the goodness of God to affirm, that belief or disbelief can neither be a virtue nor a crime, in any one who uses the best means in his power of being informed. If a proposition be evident, we cannot avoid believing it; and where is the merit or piety of a necessary assent?

If it be not evident, we cannot help rejecting it, or doubting it; and where is the crime of not performing impossibilities, or not believing what does not appear to us to be true? Are men who have good eyes, the more righteous for seeing? or do they offend in seeing too well? or do blind men sin, in not distinguishing colours ?

When we clearly see the proof of a proposition, or know that we have God's word for it, our assent is inevitable; but if we neither comprehend it, nor see God's authority for it, and yet swallow it, this is credulity, and not divine faith, which can have nothing less than divine truth for its object. When we are sure that God speaks to us, we readily believe Him, who cannot lie, nor be mistaken, nor deceive us; but when men speak, though from God himself, our belief in them is but human confidence, if we have only their own authority that they had it from God. Their being bishops, their being learned, their meeting together in synods, all this alters not the case. We can judge of their opinions in no other way than as of the opinions of men; and of their decisions, but as of human decisions. When the articles of any creed appear to be contained in scripture, whoever believes that, does, in consequence, believe them; and then such creed is unnecessary: but when we cannot, or think we cannot, find them in scripture, and yet give equal credit to them, we depreciate and profane the divine authority itself, by accepting the

words of man's invention as wiser and more significant than the words of God's own choosing.

We are sure that the scripture-phrases were inspired by the Holy Ghost, and as sure that our own forms and injunctions are human, and framed by priests. It is, therefore, strange that the former should be insufficient and unintelligible, and the latter infallible, and to be embraced and obeyed on the pain of damnation; and that the priests must do what God has, without success, endeavoured to do. Besides, as the imposition of human creeds is contrary to reason, so it is also opposed to charity. They were generally made in a passion, not to edify, but to plague those for whom, or rather against whom, they were intended. They were the engines of wrath and vengeance, nor could they serve any other purpose. Those who believed them already, did not want them; and those who disbelieved them were not the better for them. But this was not the worst of it; for they who did not receive them, against their conscience, were cursed, and they who did, deserved it. So that either the wrath of God on the one hand, or the wrath and cruelty of the clergy on the other, was unavoidable. If people said they believed, and did not, they mocked God, and shipwrecked their souls; and if they did not believe, and expressed their disbelief, though they saved their souls, they provoked their reverend fathers, and were destroyed. Whenever these dictators in faith had a mind to

be mischievous, and to undo one who gave them

good reputation or his ruin by their

signal offence, either by his good bishopric, they began great care for his soul, and so invented a creed for him, which ruined him effectually, by giving him, as they said, to Satan, but in truth, to beggary, stripes, or flames. He, therefore, who had any virtue or religion, was a certain sufferer by these systems of faith, which were contrived for that purpose. The man who had no conscience nor honesty, was not worthy of their anger, or which is most likely, was on the orthodox side, or at least, quickly became a convert to it, being, like themselves, able to swallow any thing.

Thus creeds, as they were the result of revenge, pride, or avarice, were the constant preludes and introductions to ignorance, cruelty, and blood; and the wretched laity were craftily, as well as inhumanly, made the deluded and unnatural instruments of butchering one another, to prove the infallibility of the faithmakers, who, while they were wantonly shedding Christian blood, and dooming to damnation those who called upon the name of the true God, had the shameless assurance to miscall themselves the ambassadors of the meek Jesus. And, indeed, what better could be expected from men so chosen, so unqualified, and so interested, as the members of these general creedmaking councils for the most part were? They were chosen from several places by a majority of