whom he designed to instruct? Doth any good practical discourse want an infallible interpreter, or any system of the principles of Christian faith? Or do we not condemn in others the writing in this style in matters of this nature? And shall we lay that to the charge of the good Spirit of God, which we condemn in one another? Shall we say that he inspired them to write to others, that "they might know the certainty of those things in which they had been instructed" (Luke i. 4); and that they "might believe them, and, believing them, might have life" (John xx. 31); and yet contrived they should be so written as that they could not know the things they writ with any certainty, or obtain life by the perusal of them?

From what hath been discoursed, these corollaries do naturally and plainly follow.

First, That what is not contained in Scripture in such certainty and plainness as that all concerned to believe and know them in order to the obtaining their salvation, may not from Scripture be sufficiently assured that they are plainly and certainly delivered there as necessary articles of Christian faith and duty, cannot be a necessary article of Christian faith, it being proved,

First, to be contrary to the wisdom and goodness of God to require that to be necessary to be believed or done in order to salvation, which he hath not, with sufficient plainness and certainty, declared in Scripture to be thus necessary; for, as Mr. Chillingworth truly saith (chap. ii. sect. civ.), "Nothing is necessary to be believed but what is plainly revealed: for to say that when a place of Scripture, by reason of ambiguous terms, lies indifferent betwixt divers senses, whereof one is true, the other false, that God obliges men, under pain of damnation, not to mistake through error and human frailty, is to make God a tyrant, and to say that he requires us certainly to attain that end, for the attaining whereof we have no certain means.”

Secondly, it is as plainly contrary to the essential properties of a rule of faith; they being these two, that it be plain, and certainly may be understood. And,

Thirdly, it is as clearly opposite to the declaration of God in Scripture, that all things there necessary to salvation are delivered to all concerned, that they may believe them and do them. For God being "willing that all men should be saved, and come to the knowledge of the truth," must be as willing to impart to them the knowledge of those things which are necessary to be known in order to their salvation: Christ being the common Saviour of all men, he must have provided means sufficient for the salvation of all them to whom his gospel was preached he having given to his apostles commission to preach

his gospel to every creature capable of hearing and embracing it, and having said that they who did believe it should be saved, and he that believed it not should be damned, must have obliged and assisted them so to preach it, that every one that heard it might fully learn all that was necessary to be by them believed to salvation; since otherwise the promise of their salvation must depend on a condition impossible to be known; and unbelievers must be damned for what they could not know to be their duty to believe. And,

Lastly, this is proved repugnant to the design of God the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, in revealing to us the things necessary to be believed and done for our salvation: for seeing this end can only be obtained by revealing those things so as that it may plainly and certainly be known by all who are concerned to believe and do them; and seeing every wise agent (and much more an all-wise God) must use the means most effectual to produce their designed end, that is, must deliver them with sufficient certainty and plainness, it follows, that what these have delivered must be delivered so as that all persons concerned to believe and do them may plainly and certainly know the true sense and meaning of them. And hence the excellent Bishop Stillingfleet (Answer to N. O.), after a long discourse of the means whereby to know the sense of Scripture without an infallible guide, having confirmed this doctrine by many solid arguments (pp. 99, 100), concludes thus: "To say that though the apostles and evangelists did deliver the mind of God to the world in their writings, in order to the salvation of mankind; although they were inspired by an infinite wisdom to that end; although all things simply necessary to salvation are contained in their writings; although a person used his sincere endeavour by all moral helps, and the Divine grace assisting him to find out in these writings the things necessary to salvation, yet after all he cannot certainly understand the meaning of them, to me appears so absurd and monstrous a doctrine, so contrary to the honour of the Scriptures and the design of Christianity, that if I had a mind to disparage it, I would begin with this and end with transubstantiation.'

Secondly, Hence, also, it demonstratively follows, that how confidently soever some men may deliver several propositions as necessary to be believed in order to salvation, if they cannot prove them plainly and certainly to be revealed in Holy Scripture, they must be plainly guilty of adding to the word of God, and making that necessary to salvation which our one Lawgiver never made so.

In fine, that this is the avowed doctrine of the Church of England, is evident from her Sixth Article, which saith, "That

the Scripture containeth all things necessary to salvation, so that whatsoever is not read therein, nor can be proved thereby, is not to be required of any man that it should be believed as an article of faith, or be thought requisite or necessary to salvation." And also from her 20th Article, which declares, that though the "church be a witness and keeper of Holy Writ, yet ought it not to decree any thing against the same, or enforce any thing besides the same to be believed, for necessity of salvation." And from the 21st, which adds, that "things ordained by general councils, as necessary to salvation, have neither strength nor authority, unless they can be proved from the Scriptures." And in her form of ordination of bishops and priests, she requires them to profess they are "persuaded that the Holy Scriptures contain sufficiently all doctrine required of necessity for eternal salvation, through faith in Christ;" and that they are determined out of the same Scriptures to teach the people committed to their charge, and to teach nothing as required of necessity to salvation, but that which they shall be persuaded may be contained in and proved by the Scriptures." And in her office for the 17th of November, she requires all her members to make of especial profession this one article, that Christ hath so abundantly taught us all religion and works in the written Word, that we need not believe or do any thing but only that which is there taught us. And in her first Homily on this subject, she teacheth all her children, that in the Holy Scripture is fully contained what we ought to do and what to eschew; what to believe and love, and to expect at God's hand; that from those books we may learn to know God's will and pleasure, as much as for this present life is convenient; that there is nothing spoke in dark mysteries in one place, but the same thing is more familiarly and plainly taught, to the capacity both of the learned and unlearned, in another; and those things in Scripture which are plain to understand and necessary for salvation, every man's duty is to learn them.-Hom. 2.

From all which passages it appears, that it hath been the constant doctrine of the Church of England,

First, That Holy Scripture containeth all things necessary to be believed or done in order to salvation.

Secondly, That what is not read there, nor may be proved thence, must not, by any council, church or person, be required as a doctrine necessary to be believed, or a thing necessary to be done for salvation.

Thirdly, That those things which are necessary to salvation to be believed or done, are so plain in Scripture, that it is every man's duty to learn them thence; and that we may learn them fully, plentifully and abundantly from the Scriptures, may prove

them by them, and may shew that they are taken from the Holy Scriptures; which it is certain we could not do unless they were contained in the Scriptures with sufficient evidence. Hence it is evident, what the excellent Bishop of Salisbury truly saith, that it is "a scandal to the Church of England to suppose that it hath any peculiar doctrines considered as the Church of England;" she having so expressly declared that she knows no other rule but the Gospel, and always appealing to that for the truth of any thing taught by her, and expressly requiring all in her communion to take the Scriptures for their rule of faith and practice; and that consequently the certain truth of any doctrine is not put by our Reformed Church upon its being the doctrine or the peculiar doctrine of the Church, but of the Scriptures.

I conclude in the words of the author of a Letter to Dr. Waterland, p. 16:

"I have the greatest deference for the doctrines of the Church; but then I must suppose that the Church designs to be understood, for otherwise her articles of faith will not be really doctrines, but words only: and as for our own Church of England, I can be very confident that she never once intended to bind any of her members to impossibilities, or expected to have her articles understood in any other than a Scripture sense; and, consequently, not to pin down men to the Athanasian sense, farther than it may be made intelligible and consistent with the true sense of Scripture."

APPENDIX.

Extracts from DR. WHITBY'S "Treatise concerning Original Sin," written in Latin, and translated into English by Henry Heywood. London. 8vo. 1739.

If any one should say that all Adam's other sins are imputed to us, would he not appear to assert what is contrary to common sense? And yet the reason of the thing is the same: for we were as much in the loins of Adam, and he was as much the root of mankind, when he committed his other sins, as when he committed the first; nor was his first act of sin, or the will by which he consented, more ours, naturally, than his other actions or the will by which he consented to them.-Pp. 64, 65.

This opinion is contrary to conscience, which is the intrinsic rule of all human actions; for conscience is the internal judgment a man makes concerning his own actions, whether good or bad, and not concerning those of another. It is not said to accuse, condemn, reprove or torment me for any thing which was done before I was born, but for what I have done which I ought not, and from which I might have abstained. It will discharge the office of a witness with respect to all those sins which are truly mine, but it cannot attest that I did what was done by another some thousand of years before I came into the world. And, lastly, conscience requires repentance for all those sins which are properly my own, and render me liable to punishment: but who ever repented of a crime which was never in his power, or who ever was sorry for a sin committed by another person long before his own existence ?—P. 69.

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It is gathered from the inquiry of Christ's disciples, "Who hath sinned, the blind man or his parents, that he should be born blind?" and Christ's answer, "Neither hath he sinned nor his parents," that neither the opinion of Christ nor his disciples could agree with the modern divinity of the guilt and effects of original sin; for now original sin is by its patrons assigned as the fountain and original of all the miseries we derive from our birth. Why then should Christ, if he also was of the same mind, so plainly deny that sin was any cause of his blindness;