vate judgment.-But let us hear how he reasons in his own words.

"Established confessions" (agreeable to the word of God) "being human compositions, must either be subject to examination, by the private judgment of those who profess to make the written word of God the only rule of their religion, or else the Church must claim a right of interpreting the Scriptures" (i. e. of making ordinances agreeable to the word of God) "for all her members, exclusive of the rights of private judgment *."

If established confessions, notwithstanding their agreement with the word of God, may be over-ruled by private judgment, it must follow, that the Scripture itself may be over-ruled upon the same principle; unless it can be proved, that the word of God is changed into the word of man, by being transplanted into an established confession.

The Author supposes private judgment entitled to this prerogative, by making the written word the rule of its religion †; and as the Church certainly does the same, so far as her confession is agreeable to the word of God, there will arise, upon the same ground, a right of public judgment to society: which judgment, if it can be controlled by the judgment of an individual, the right here mentioned will be no right, and society will be no society. Unless this right, thus defined, is allowed to the Church, we must suppose the Scripture contrary to itself in respect of the same doctrines; for here we shall have

* P. 23.

+ "The Puritan would be judged by the word of God. If he would speak clearly, he means himself, but is ashamed to say so; and he would have me believe him before a whole Church, that has read the word of God as well as he." Selden. T. T. p. 111. 3d edit.

private judgment, with the word of God in its hand, pleading against an agreement with the word of God; which is nonsense. And what will be the issue? Why, the Church cannot give us a rule of doctrine from the Scripture, because an individual is entitled to make his own use of it; and, as a society cannot receive a rule of doctrine from the private judgment of a single person, unless it be that of the pope, we are to have no public rule at all; consequently, that precept of the Apostle,-let us all walk by the same rule, was unnecessary and groundless.

But he will say, the written word is a rule; meaning, as I presume, the Scripture in its own terms. Now, to say nothing against the bulk of the Scripture, as improper for a Creed or Confession, it is a rule which hath been applied with equal assurance to the heresy of Arius, the novel inventions of Popery, the antichristian philosophy of Socinus, the outrageous practices of the Anabaptists, and the absurd enthusiasm of the Quakers. That it may not be so applied by the teachers of this Church, the Articles are a system, in which the Scripture, as the only rule of religion, is particularly pointed against these and other errors. The rule is still the same as before; only the articles contain an application of it to some particular and necessary cases; without attending to which, this Church must actually be what the Papists represent it to be, a Babel of confusion; and Christianity itself would sink into a chaos. Experience teaches us, that without such an application the Scripture becomes no Scripture, when those men have the handling of it, whose heads are filled with the conceits of some heretical leader, and their hearts inflamed with an enthusiastic zeal of infusing them、 into others. This Author can play with it as he

pleases upon his own principles. If the Church ascertains a scriptural doctrine in short by some equivalent terms of her own, he can oppose to it the Scripture at large in its own terms: If the Scriptures are so express as to require no interpretation, he can have recourse to different senses, leaving the written word for private exposition. Thus he hath the advantage of the Church either way. He hath the merit of setting up the pure word of God against human inventions, and the convenience of adapting it at pleasure to other inventions of himself or his friends.

If a right of determining for all her members is allowed to the Church, he supposes this must exclude the rights of private judgment. But this doth by no means follow: for the Church hath a right of determining, so far only as she determines agreeable to the word of God. An individual can have no rights but what are grounded upon the same agreement with the word of God; therefore, it is absurd to set up one of these rights exclusive of the other, because they coincide, and are in effect but one and the same thing; though always with this difference, that the judgment of society is a judgment of authority, while private judgment is no more than a judgment of discretion or opinion. If this latter is what the Author contends for, it cannot be excluded by the decisions of any authority upon earth: for thoughts are free; and if they are absurd or injurious, they must be accounted for at last to the Searcher of all hearts. will always be impossible, in the nature of things, to exclude such private judgment from examining and determining as it pleases, against all authority, divine as well as human. But then such private judgment will not be authoritative, or binding to others, but will and must be over-ruled in this world by the

It

acts of the society to which it hath joined itself: else there can be no such thing as government or society in the world.

This, indeed, is the genuine consequence of our Author's principle; for he makes private judgment not private but authoritative; asserting, that it " precludes the right of the Church to establish any thing without the previous consent of all her members *." Whence it follows, that society cannot stop the proceedings of an individual, but an individual may stop the proceedings of society, and that all the members of society are in a state of equality: whereas the very idea of a society implies a subordination in bodies corporate as in the body natural; and the Apostle, in the earliest state of the Christian Church, argues at large from one of these to the other, in the 12th chapter of his first epistle to the Corinthians. If this plan of the Author were to take place, and men should arise speaking perverse things as Hymeneus and Philetus, to overthrow the faith of weak Christians, they must be admitted as judges in their own cause; and have it in their power to put a negative upon all their brethren, to prevent the establishment of any such regulations as might affect the well-being of their own perverse opinions: that direction too of the Apostle to the ministers of the Church,-A man that is an heretic, reject †; and that other to the people,Obey them that have the rule over you, whose faith follow, might be blotted out of the Scripture; for the latter would be useless, and the former impracticable. This plan, however, will hardly consist with what the Author allows (or seems to allow) upon another occasion. Single men," he says, may be called

66

Heb. xiii. 17,

upon to correct and even retract their doctrines, not only without offence, but in some cases with advantage to the common faith*" How can this be? for the consent of these single men, who are thus to be called upon, is necessary, before any common faith can be established. Without some common faith, by what standard are their doctrines to be judged of? And without some established constitution of the Church, who shall be the persons appointed to judge them? If the common faith is that revealed in the Scripture, it is equally pretended to by Arians, Socinians, Quakers, Anabaptists, and other Sectaries, amongst whom there is no community of sentiment. The Church, therefore, must apply this rule, without the consent of these single men; or all hope of advantage must be given up, and the common faith left to the mercy of its adversaries.

Here it is pleasant to observe the dexterity of some writers, who find it convenient, as the subject varies, to take both sides of the question. They have the art of saying things in such a manner, by the help of little qualifying clauses, that they shall not appear to have said them at all, if they are pressed with a contradiction. We have an instance of it in this passage. The author seems to grant, that single men may be called upon to retract their doctrines with advantage to the common faith; though, indeed, he doth not say by whom, and it is very hard to guess: however, if it is really his opinion, after what he hath said of the rights of private judgment, that individuals may be censured for their doctrines by any public authority of society; his principle vanishes in a smoke of his own raising. To avoid this he hath