My second argument is this: To make a mere confession of express words of Scripture a sufficient test of knowledge to demand Christian communion, denies that liberty to some Christians, which it indulges to others; nay, it denies the same liberty to a whole community of Christians, or to their Ministers, which it indulges to each Catechumen, or to every single person that offers himself to their communion. I make it appear thus.

"Each single person that offers himself to communion with a particular church, has liberty given him by this rule, to put his own sense on the commands of Christ in demanding of communion; but the Ministers or members of this church, are not allowed this liberty to put their own sense on the commands of Christ about receiving him. Perhaps they know by discourse and conversation, that this person denies some articles of the Christian faith which they think necessary, while he confesses the words of Scripture, and abuses them to a pernicious sense, yet he has liberty to impose himself on their communion, because he thinks he is fit for it in his own sense of Scripture; but they cannot, according to this rule, reject him, though in their sense of Scripture they think him unfit.

"According to his own interpretation of the Bible, he says he owns all the fundamental articles. According to their interpretation, they say he denies some of them; yet this test opens the door of admission to him, whensoever he demands entrance, and does not permit them to shut it.

"They believe the Scripture forbids them to receive such to Christian fellowship, who have not received the Christian faith, yet this rule allows them not to forbid him their fellowship, though they think he denies the faith in some necessary parts of it. They think, according to their sense of the word of God, that he has no appearing right to the kingdom of heaven, and consequently that he has no right to enter into the church or kingdom of Christ on earth; but according to this rule they are bound to admit him, even contrary to their own sentiments and consciences, He has liberty to demand, but they have none to refuse.

"This seems to me like a restraint of the liberty of a multitude of professed Christians, to secure or indulge the liberty of a Catechumen, which is far from impartial justice, in the very nature of things. Now certainly Christ would never impose such a rule of communion on his churches, which should not be reconcileable to common justice, and to that great and general rule of his, Do to others as you would have others do to you.

"My third argument is this: That a child, an ideot, or a very ignorant man, may repeat any short form of confession, drawn up in the express words of Scripture, and say, he believes it; or he may subscribe or assent to any longer form, even the whole Bible itself: but sarely a child, an ideot, or an ignorant person, who have not a real knowledge and un derstanding of the things of christianity, are not fit to be received into a Christian church, nor admitted to the Lord's Supper. There is no formal repetition of a few words by memory, can give any proof of Christian knowledge in the heart; no assent or subscription to a book, as big as the Bible, can make it evident that a man understands five lines of it; yet, if this be the proper test, such ignorant creatures must be received to the noblest and highest ordinance of Christ upon earth.

"Suppose a poor wretch that wants bread, and knows almost nothing of christianity, hears that such a congregation maintain their poor well, and in order to secure a good maintenance, he gets a few Scripture-expressions on the most important points without book; his life has been

obscure, unknown, and (so far as appears) not any way scandalous; he proposes himself to communion with this church, he repeats the creed, or (if he be desired to make a larger confession) he takes up his Bible and says, I believe every word that is contained between these two leathern covers to be true; and I resolve to live according to it. This poor wretch may demand admission according to such principles.

"If you say, there must be some inquiry made, whether he understands the words of Scripture, or no, then there must be some determined sense put upon those words of Scripture as proposed by the church, or as assented to by the communicant; and thereby you depart from your pretended rule, that the express words of Scripture are a sufficient test of knowledge.

"I grant, that after the utmost search and inquiry into Christian profession, and piety of conversation, some Hypocrites will creep into the best-ordered and purest churches; human affairs are so constituted: we cannot know the hearts of men: tares and wheat must grow together till harvest but it is sufficiently plain in Scripture, that they ought not to admit those to Christian communion, who understand not the first principles of christianity; and therefore we ought to seek some satisfactory evidence of a thing that may so easily be found, viz: Christian knowledge, and not bind ourselves to such a rule of admission as can give no evidence, whether a commnicant has Christian knowledge, or no. "I might add under this argument also, that as a child, an ideot, or a person ignorant, or a Heathen may claim communion according to this rule; so a child or a Heathen is a sufficient judge who has knowledge enough to be admitted to the fellowship of a church of Christ; for a child or a Heathen can tell whether the person proposing himself subscribes his Bible, or no; whether he declares his general assent to all the Scripture, or no; or whether he repeats any express words of Scripture aright, or no. As there is no need of any real understanding in communicants upon this principle, so there is no need of any judgment or prudence in the churches of Christ, in order to receive them: no need of Elders or Governors, men of wisdom and discretion to use the keys of the church, where the door is so wide, that half the children in a parish may go into the church at once; and it opens so easily, that a child or a fool can manage it.

"A fourth argument against this test of communion is this: If a mere assent to the express words of Scripture be a sufficient test of Christian knowledge to claim admission into a church, this opens the door for an endless variety of different and contrary opinions and practices, to enter into the same church; multitudes of heresies, that relate both to faith and practice, may swarm in the same communion; truths and errors, fundamental and not fundamental, will be mingled here; errors, tolerable and intolerable; extremely dangerous, if not damnable and destructive, will be admitted: for all that profess them in our age and day, in Protestant nations, will subscribe to the Bible as the sufficient rule of faith and practice; nay, all persons that are not Heathens, Deists, Jens, or Mahometans, may claim a place in the churches of Christ.

Now let us first recount some of those various doctrines that will hereby be encouraged in the same communion, and then consider what will be the inconveniences attending such a mixed community.

First, let us recount the various doctrines and their professors, that will be encouraged in the same communion by this rule.

1. "The Anthropomorphites say, that God hath proper parts, hands, and feet, and eyes, and ears, and is really in the shape of a man, according to the express words of Scripture, taken in a plain literal sense. One of this opinion (as I am informed) lately proposed himself to Christian communion.

2. "The Allegorisis, on the other hand, explain, in a metaphorical and figurative sense, whatsoever expressions they find in Scripture, whose literal sense does not agree with their notions. Upon this principle some that deny the proper sacrifice and satisfaction of Christ say, that his atonement, redemption and sacrifice, are but figurative expressions. Others believe salvation to be obtained only through Jesus Christ, but they mean Christ, or the light within them.

3. "The Arians say, that Jesus Christ was a mere creature, made out of nothing, before all other creatures, and superior to angels, endued with divine power, and called God, and that he assumed flesh without a human soul.

4. "The Sabellians believe, that the blessed Trinity, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, doth by no means intend three proper distinct persons, but is a mere Trinity of names and manifestations, modes and relations in the Godhead or divine nature, and that the Son of God was not properly a person before his incarnation.

5. "The Socinians, derived from the old Samosatenians and Photinians, say, that there is no such Trinity of persons in the divine nature, as the Athanasians and the Schoolmen maintain. That Jesus Christ is a mere man, and had no being before he was conceived of the blessed Virgin. That Christ did not make any proper satisfaction for the sins of That the soul sleeps with the body, and rises with it at the resurrection; and after all, they acknowledge that the light of nature is sufficient to direct men to eternal happiness, and that nothing is to be believed in the sublimest points of religion, but what is to be understood and judged of by our reason.

men.

6. "Enthusiasts, on the other hand, believe that reason is of no use in things of religion. That human learning doth more hurt than good among Christians. That there is no need at all of it for Ministers of the Gospel. That our own labour for our salvation signifies nothing, and therefore they wait for sensible impressions of the Holy Spirit, to move them to the common duties of christianity.

7. "The Pelagians say, that there is no imputed or inherent original sin. That man after his fall, had a proper power and free will in himself to become truly pious, or grossly wicked; and to do either good or evil. That men may obtain the favour of God by the merit of their own good works.

8. " Arminians, or Remonstrants, generally hold, that there is no certain and absolute election or redemption of particular persons unto salvation. That there is no need of the almighty, sovereign, and efficacious influences of the Spirit, in order to conversion. That believers may fall and perish eternally; and that there is no certain perseverance of the saints. 9. "The Antinomians hold, that all true believers were justified from eternity. That an elect person is never chargeable with sin before God. That the moral law of God is not of perpetual obligation to the consciences of believers. That sin can do a believer no real injury.

10. "The strict Calvinists deny every single proposition and peculiar sentiment that I have here mentioned under all the foregoing heads

and call them all errors; and believe the contrary propositions to be divine truths delivered in the Scriptures.

"I might here add a variety of doctrines and sects, that have in former ages troubled and divided the church, viz: the Eutychians, who supposed that the two natures of Christ were so united and blended together, that the human was lost in the divine. The Apollinarians, who taught that Christ brought his flesh from heaven, and that he had no human will, but only a divine will. The Donatists, who required the true church to be without sin or spot. The Origenists, who deny the eternal punishment of sinners, and fancy the devils themselves shall at last be saved.

"I might further reckon up a long train of wild and unaccountable opinions which have no settled name, yet all arise from various senses, that the lusts, or the fancies, or humours, or mistakes of men, have put on the express words of Scripture: but these are sufficient in this place. "I would not be understood here to intend that every person, to whom any of these names may be affixed by men, believes or professes all the doctrines that are ranged under any of these heads: all that I mean by this catalogue is this, that under these several names in our general and common discourse, all these principles or propositions are usually comprehended and understood.

"Note, I have not mentioned the Papists, because they allow not the Bible to be a perfect rule, but build part of their religion on human traditions, and the pretended infallible authority of their church.

"But so many of all those sects of Christians that I have mentioned, as are found in our day, do all take the Bible for their perfect rule of faith and practice, and each of them will subscribe the whole Bible, at least in their own translation of it, and profess to believe all the express words of Scripture: now if any confession of express words of Scripture be a sufficient test of Christian faith, all these persons have this qualification, and cannot be denied Christian communion in any church to which they propose themselves, for want of true Christian knowledge.

"And now I would ask, what a wretched sort of communion is it, that could be maintained in such a church, of such widely different opinions? What fellowship could they have in hearing the same sermons, in joining in the same prayers, and in all sacred offices? What holy harmony, what order, what peace or Christian unity, can be carried on in such a mixed and disagreeing multitude? But I insist no longer on this at present.

"In the prosecution of the fourth argument, I come therefore in the next place to consider, what will be the inconveniencies of making such a large and wide door to the church, and of encouraging such a promiscuous communion: for though all these can never walk and worship together in any peace or order, yet all may be admitted on this foundation. "One great inconvenience is this, viz.: some persons that deny necessary fundamental truths and duties, without which a man cannot enter into the kingdom of heaven, may enter into a church on earth, and claim Christian communion by this rule of admission: for it may perhaps be doubted, whether all necessary particular articles, as well as general ones, are found in express words in the Bible, (which I shall afterwards have occasion to inquire into.) But if all necessary articles were found there expressly, yet the grossest heretics may consent to those expressions, and explain them enly in a metaphorical sense: so the Socinians explain the expressions

of Scripture concerning the sacrifice and atonement of Christ, and make them all mere metaphors, to signify something of a much inferior nature: but be their explications, and their sense of Scripture what it will, yet they may demand Christian communion upon this principle, that they subscribe the Bible, and every expression in it, though they explain the fundamental and essential articles of it quite away by figures and metaphors.

"Indeed this has been the practice of heretics in all ages to run to this refuge, and make the words of Scripture their hiding-place and defence; having learnt well from their subtile teachers, or their own cunning devices, to twist and turn the words of Scripture by figures, and tropes, and distinctions, into their own pernicious sense; and this ever will be the practice of persons, grossly erroneous in the things of religion, that yet would appear to agree with the Scripture, and hold the Christian faith.

66

They may tell you that Christ is their only hope of salvation, and their way to God the Father; but they mean a Christ within, or the remains of the light of reason, and the dictates of a natural conscience.

"They may assure you, they believe the resurrection of Christ from the dead; but they mean nothing but Christ within them, in the rising or awaking of the conscience from stupid and inactive silence.

"They may assent that Christ is God, but mean only a metaphorical God, because he is made a King or Governor of the church.

"They may profess the whole Scripture in their own sense, and in the meantime they may believe such contradictions as these, viz.:

"I believe God worketh all things after the counsel of his own will.-Ephes. i. 11. Yet I believe, that the decrees of God are nothing else but immutable fate, and the necessary connexion of second causes, as Mr. Hobbs.

"I believe that God knoweth all his works from the beginning.-Acts xv. 18. Yet I believe this foreknowledge is nothing else but a perfect sagacity of mind, and immediate contrivance to turn all things that happen to fulfil his own designs, as effectually as if he really foreknew. So a much better man than Mr. Hobbs has explained it.

"I believe, that in the beginning was the word, and the word was God, John i. 1. Yet I believe that Jesus Christ had no being before he was conceived, and born of the Virgin, and that truly and properly he is but a

mere man.

"I believe that we must flee fornication.-1 Cor. vi. 18. But I believe that nothing else is intended in all such texts but spiritual fornication, which is idolatry.

"I believe, that we must keep ourselves from idols, and not practice idolatry.-1 John v. 21. Yet I believe that we may worship the true God by idols or images; for the idolatry which is forbidden in the Scripture signifies only the worship of stones, and stocks, and images, for real and true Gods.

-Heb. xii. 14.

"I believe we are bound to follow peace with all men.— Yet I believe we may contend for the faith so earnestly, as to burn heretics. "I believe we must follow holiness, too, without which no man shall see the Lord.-Heb. xii. 14. Yet I am persuaded sin can do no real hurt to a believer.

"Now who is there that has any value for the honour of the Gospel, for the glory of Christ, for the purity of our religion, and the welfare of the church, that would establish such a test of communion, by which all these sort of persons may claim admission? A church composed of such a va