Quest. CXLIII. What is the use of various church confessions or articles of faith?
Answ. I will pass by the very ill use that is made of them in too many countries, where unnecessary opinions or uncertain are put in, and they that can get into favour with the secular power, take advantage under pretence of orthodoxness and uniformity, truth and peace, to set up their opinions and judgments to be the common rule for all to bow to, though wiser than themselves: and to silence all ministers, and scatter and divide the flocks that will not say or swear as they do, that is, that they are wise men, and are in the right.
The true and commendable use of various church professions, or confessions of faith, is, 1. To be an instruction to the more ignorant how to understand the Scriptures in most of the most weighty points. 2. To be an enumeration of those doctrines, against which no minister shall be allowed to preach, and according to which he is to instruct the people. 3. To be a testimony to all neighbour or foreign churches in a heterodox, contentious, and suspicious age, how we understand the Scriptures, for the confuting of scandals and unjust suspicions, and the maintaining communion in faith, and charity, and doctrine.
Quest. CXLIV. May not the subscribing of the whole Scriptures serve turn for all the aforesaid ends without creeds, catechisms, or confessions?
Answ. 1. By subscribing to the Scriptures you mean either, generally and implicitly, that all in them is true and good (though perhaps you know not what is in it). Or else particularly and explicitly, that every point in it is by you both understood and believed to be true.
In the first sense, it is not sufficient to salvation: for this implicit faith hath really no act in it, but a belief that all that God saith is true; which is only the formal object of faith, and is no more than to believe that there is a God (for a liar is not a God). And this he may do, who never believed in Christ, or a word of Scripture, as not taking it to be God's word; yea, that will not believe that God forbiddeth his beastly life. Infidels ordinarily go thus far.
In the second sense, (of an explicit, or particular actual belief,) the belief of the whole Scripture is enough indeed, and more than any man living can attain to. No man understandeth all the Scripture. Therefore that which no man hath, is to be exacted of all men, or any man, in order to ministration or communion. While, 1. No man can subscribe to any one translation of the Bible, that it is not faulty, being the work of defectible man. 2. And few have such acquaintance with the Hebrew, and Chaldee, and Greek, as to be able to say that they understand the original languages perfectly. 3. And no man that understands the words, doth perfectly understand the matter. It followeth that no man is to be forced or urged to subscribe to all things in the Scriptures, as particularly understood by him, with an explicit faith. And an implicit is not half enough.
2. The true mean therefore is the ancient way, 1. To select the essentials for all christians, to be believed particularly and explicitly. 2. To collect certain of the most needful integrals, which teachers shall not preach against. 3. And for all men moreover to profess in general that they implicitly believe all which they can discern to be the holy canonical Scripture, and that all is true which is the word of God; forbearing each other even about the number of canonical books and texts.
And it is the great wisdom and mercy of God, which hath so ordered it, that the Scripture shall have enough to exercise the strongest, and yet that the weakest may be ignorant of the meaning of a thousand sentences, without danger of damnation, so they do but understand the marrow or essentials, and labour faithfully to increase in the knowledge of the rest.391
Quest. CXLV. May not a man be saved that believeth all the essentials of religion, as coming to him by verbal tradition, and not as contained in the holy Scriptures, which perhaps he never knew?
Answ. 1. He that believeth shall be saved, which way ever he cometh by his belief; so be it it be sound as to the object and act; that is, if it contain all the essentials, and they be predominantly believed, loved, and practised.
2. The Scriptures being the records of Christ's doctrine delivered by himself, his Spirit, and his apostles, it is the office of ministers, and the duty of all instructors, to open these Scriptures to those they teach, and to deliver particulars upon the authority of these inspired, sealed records which contain them.
3. They that thus receive particular truths, from a teacher explaining the Scripture to them, do receive them in a subordination to the Scripture, materially, and as to the teacher's part; though not formally, and as to their own part; and though the Scripture authority being not understood by them, be not the formal object of their faith, but only God's authority in general.
4. They that are ignorant of the being of the Scripture, have a great disadvantage to their faith.
5. Yet we cannot say, but it may be the case of thousands to be saved by the gospel delivered by tradition, without resolving their faith into the authority of the Scriptures. For,
1. This was the case of all the christians (as to the New Testament) who lived before it was written; and there are several articles of the creed now necessary, which the Old Testament doth not reveal.392
2. This may be the case of thousands in ignorant countries, where the Bible being rare, is to most unknown.393
3. This may be the case of thousands of children who are taught their creed and catechism, before they understand what the Bible is.
4. This may be the case of thousands among the papists, where some perverse priests do keep not only the reading, but the knowledge of the Scriptures from the people, for fear lest they should be taught to resolve their faith into it; and do teach them only the articles of faith and catechism, as known by the church's tradition alone.
Quest. CXLVI. Is the Scripture fit for all christians to read, being so obscure?
Answ. 1. The essentials and points necessary to salvation are plain.
2. We are frequently and vehemently commanded to delight in it, and meditate in it day and night; to search it; to teach it our very children, speaking of it at home and abroad, lying down and rising up, and to write it on the posts of our houses, and on our doors, &c.
3. It is suited to the necessity and understanding of the meanest, to give light to the simple, and to make the very foolish wise.394
4. The ancient fathers and christians were all of this mind.
5. All the christian churches of the world have been used to read it openly to all, even to the simplest; and if they may hear it, they may read the same words which they hear.
6. God blessed the ignorant Ethiopian eunuch when he found him reading the Scriptures, though he knew not the sense of what he read, and sent him Philip to instruct him and convert him.
7. Timothy was educated in the knowledge of the Scriptures in his childhood.
8. That which is written to and for all men, may be read by all that can; but the Scripture was written to and for all,395 – &c.
Object. But there are many things in it hard to be understood.
Answ. 1. And there are many things easy to be understood. 2. We never said that men should not use the help of their teachers, and all that they can to understand it. 3. Were not those teachers once ignorant? And yet they did read it by the help of teachers; and so may others. 4. As the king for concord commandeth all the schoolmasters to teach one grammar; so God maketh it the minister's office to instruct people in the Scriptures. And were it not a question unworthy of a schoolmaster, to dispute, Whether the scholars must learn by their book, or by their master? Yea, to conclude that it must be by their master, and not by their book: or that they must never open their book, but when their master is just at hand to teach them. The doctrine of the papists, who tell us that the Scriptures should not be read by the vulgar, it being the rise of all heresies, is so inhuman and impious, as savouring of gross enmity to Scriptures, and to knowledge, that were there no other, it would make the lovers of religion and men's souls to pray earnestly to Christ to save his flocks from such seducers, who so Jewishly use the key of knowledge.
Object. But many wrest the Scriptures to their own destruction, and what heresy is not defended as by their authority?
Answ. 1. And many thousands receive saving knowledge and grace by them. The law of the Lord is perfect, converting the soul. All Scripture is profitable to instruction, &c. to make the man of God perfect. It is the incorruptible seed by which we are born again, and the sincere milk, by which we are nourished.396
2. And is it not as true, 1. That the law of the land is abused by every false pretender, lawyer, and corrupt judge? What title so bad, that is not defended in Westminster Hall sometimes, under pretence of law? And what action so bad, that some pretend not law for? What then? Must the law be forbidden the common people for this?
2. Nay, what is so much abused to unrighteousness and sin as reason itself? What heresy or crime do not men plead reason for? Must reason therefore be forbidden the vulgar?
3. Yea, contrarily, this signifieth that law and reason are so far from being things to be forbidden men, that they are indeed those things by which nature and necessity have taught all the world to try and discern right from wrong, good from bad; otherwise good and bad men would not all thus agree in pretending to them, and appealing to their decisions.
4. If many men are poisoned or killed in eating or drinking, if many men's eye-sight is abused to mislead them unto sin, &c. the way is not, to eat nothing but what is put into our mouths; nor to put out our eyes, or wink, and be led only by a priest; but to use both the more cautiously, with the best advice and help that we can get.
5. And do not these deceivers see, that their reason pleadeth as strongly that priests and prelates themselves should never read the Scripture (and consequently that it should be banished out of the world)? For who that is awake in the world can be ignorant, that it is priests and prelates, who have been the leaders of almost all heresies and sects; who differ in their expositions and opinions, and lead the vulgar into all the heresies which they fall into? Who then should be forbidden to read the Scripture, but priests and prelates, who wrest them to their own and other men's destruction?
Quest. CXLVII. How far is tradition and men's words and ministry to be used or trusted in, in the exercise of faith?
Answ. 1. The churches and ministers received the gospel in Scripture from the apostles, and the creed as the summary of faith: and they delivered it down to others, and they to us.
2. The ministers by office are the instructors of the people in the meaning of it; and the keepers of the Scriptures, as lawyers are of the laws of the land.397
Quest. CXLVIII. How know we the true canon of Scripture from apocrypha?
Answ. By these means set together: 1. There is, for the most part, a special venerable excellency in the books themselves, which helpeth us in the distinct reception of them.
2. The tradition of infallible church history telleth us, which books they are which were written by men inspired by the Holy Ghost, and who sealed their doctrine with miracles in those times; it being but matter of fact, (which books such men wrote whom God bare witness to,) infallible church history (such as we have to know which are the statutes of the land, and which are counterfeit) is a sufficient notification and proof.
3. The sanctifying Spirit still in all ages and christians, attested the divinity and truth of the doctrine of the main body of the Bible, especially the gospel; and then if we should err about the authority of a particular book, it would not overthrow our faith. It is not necessary to salvation to believe this particular text to be divine, but it is sin and folly to doubt causelessly of the parts, when the Spirit attesteth the doctrine and the body of the book. I pass these things briefly, because I have largelier handled them elsewhere.
Quest. CXLIX. Is the public reading of the Scripture the proper work of a minister? or may a layman ordinarily do it? or another officer?
Answ. In such cases as I before showed that a layman may preach, he may also read the Scriptures. Of which look back.
2. No doubt but it is a work well beseeming the ordained ministers or pastors, and an integral part of their office; and should not be put off by them when they can do it.
3. When they need help the deacons are ordained ministers, authorized to help them in such work, and fittest to do it.
4. Whether in a case of necessity a layman may not ordinarily read the Scripture to the congregation, is a case that I am loth to determine, being loth to suppose such a necessity. But if the minister cannot, and there be no deacon, I cannot prove it unlawful for a layman to do it under the direction of the pastor. I lived some time under an old minister of about eighty years of age, (who never preached himself,) whose eye-sight failing him, and having not maintenance to keep an assistant, he did by memory say the Common-prayer himself, and got a tailor one year, and a thresher or poor day-labourer another year, to read all the Scriptures. Whether that were not better than nothing, I leave to consideration.
And I think it is commonly agreed on, that where there is no minister, it is better for the people to meet and hear a layman read the Scriptures and some good books, than to have no public helps and worship.
Quest. CL. Is it lawful to read the apocrypha, or any good books besides the Scriptures, to the church? As homilies, &c.?
Answ. 1. It is not lawful to read them as God's word, or to pretend them to be the holy Scriptures, for that is a falsehood, and an addition to God's word.
2. It is not lawful to read them scandalously, in a title and manner tending to draw the people to believe that they are God's word, or without a sufficient distinguishing of them from the holy Scriptures.
3. If any one of the apocryphal books, (as Judith, Tobit, Bel and the Dragon, &c.) be as fabulous, false, and bad as our protestant writers (Reignoldus, Amesius, Whitakers, Chamier, and abundance more) affirm them to be, it is not lawful ordinarily to read them, in that honourable way as chapters called lessons are usually read in the assemblies. Nor is it lawful so to read heretical, fabulous, or erroneous books.
But it is lawful to read publicly, apocryphal and human writings, homilies, or edifying sermons, on these conditions following.
1. So be it they be indeed sound doctrine, holy, and fitted to the people's edification.
2. So be it they be not read scandalously without sufficient differencing them from God's book.
3. So they be not read to exclude or hinder the reading of the Scriptures, or any other necessary church duty.
4. So they be not read to keep up an ignorant, lazy ministry that can or will do no better; nor to exercise the minister's sloth, and hinder him from preaching.
5. And especially if authority command it, and the church's agreement require it, as a signification what doctrine it is which they profess.
6. Or if the church's necessities require it; as if they have no minister, or no one that can do so much to their edification any other way.
7. Therefore the use of catechisms is confessed lawful in the church, by almost all.
Quest. CLI. May church assemblies be held where there is no minister? Or what public worship may be so performed by laymen? (As among infidels, or papists, where persecution hath killed, imprisoned, or expelled the ministers.)
Answ. 1. Such an assembly as hath no pastor, or minister of Christ, is not a church, in a political sense, as the word signifieth a society consisting of pastor and flock; but it may be a church in a larger sense, as the word signifieth only a community or association of private christians for mutual help in holy things.
2. Such an assembly ought on the Lord's days, and at other fit times, to meet together for mutual help, and the public worshipping of God, as they may, rather than not to meet at all.
3. In those meetings they may do all that followeth. 1. They may pray together; a layman being the speaker. 2. They may sing psalms. 3. They may read the Scriptures. 4. They may read some holy, edifying writings of divines, or repeat some minister's sermons. 5. Some that are ablest may speak to the instruction and exhortation of the rest, as a master may do in his family, or neighbours to stir up God's graces in each other, as was opened before. 6. And some such may catechise the younger and more ignorant. 7. They may by mutual conference open their cases to each other, and communicate what knowledge or experience they have, to the praise of God and each other's edification. 8. They may make a solemn profession of their faith, covenant, and subjection to God the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost; and all this is better than nothing at all.
But, 1. None of them may do any of this as a pastor, ruler, priest, or office teacher of the church. 2. Nor may they baptize. 3. Nor administer the Lord's supper. 4. Nor excommunicate by sentence (but only executively agree to avoid the notoriously impenitent). 5. Nor absolve ministerially, or as by authority; nor exercise any of the power of the keys, that is, of government. 6. And they must do their best to get a pastor as soon as they are able.
Quest. CLII. Is it lawful to subscribe or profess full assent and consent to any religious books besides the Scripture, seeing all are fallible?
Answ. 1. It is not lawful to profess or subscribe that any book is truer or better than it is; or that there is no fault in any that is faulty; or to profess that we believe any mortal man to be totally infallible in all that he shall write or say, or impeccable in all that he shall do.
2. Because all men are fallible, and so are we in judging, it is not lawful to say of any large and dubious books, in which we know no fault, that there is no fault or error in them: we being uncertain, and it being usual for the best men even in their best writings, prayers, or works to be faulty, as the consequent or effect of our common culpable imperfection. But we may say, that we know no fault or error in it, if indeed we do not know of any.
3. It is lawful to profess or subscribe our assent and consent to any human writing which we judge to be true and good, according to the measure of its truth and goodness; as if church confessions that are sound be offered us for our consent, we may say or subscribe, I hold all the doctrine in this book to be true and good. And by so doing I do not assert the infallibility of the authors, but only the verity of the writing. I do not say that he cannot err, or that he never erreth; but that he erreth not in this, as far as I am able to discern.
Quest. CLIII. May we lawfully swear obedience in all things lawful and honest, either to usurpers, or to our lawful pastors?
Answ. 1. If the question were of imposing such oaths, I would say, that it was many a hundred years before the churches of Christ (either under persecution, or in their prosperity and glory) did ever know of any such practice, as the people or the presbyters swearing obedience to the bishops. And when it came up, the magistracy, princes, and emperors fell under the feet of the pope; and the clergy grew to what we see it in the Roman kingdom, called a church. And far should I be from desiring such oaths to be imposed.
2. But the question being only of the taking such oaths, and not the imposing of them, I say, that, (1.) It is not lawful to swear obedience to a usurper, civil or ecclesiastical, in licitis et honestis; because it is a subjecting ourselves to him, and an acknowledging that authority which he hath not; for we can swear no further to obey the king himself but in things lawful and honest; and to do so by a usurper is an injury to the king, and unto Christ.
(2.) But if the king himself shall command us to swear obedience to a subordinate civil usurper, he thereby ceaseth to be a usurper, and receiveth authority, and it becometh our duty. And if he that was an ecclesiastical usurper, quoad personam, that had no true call to a lawful office, shall after have a call, or if any thing fall out, which shall make it our duty to consent and call him, then the impediment from his usurpation is removed.
(3.) It is not lawful, though the civil magistrate command us to swear obedience even in licitis et honestis, to such a usurper, whose office itself is unlawful, or forbidden by Christ, as he is such an officer. No protestant thinketh it lawful to swear obedience to the pope as pope; nor do any that take lay-elders to be an unlawful office, think it lawful to swear obedience to them as such.
(4.) If one that is in an unlawful ecclesiastical office, be also at once in another that is lawful, we may swear obedience to him in respect of the lawful office. So it is lawful to swear obedience to the pope in Italy, as a temporal prince in his own dominions; and to a cardinal, (as Richelieu, Mazarine, Ximenes, &c.) as the king's ministers, exercising a power derived from him: so it is lawful for a tenant, where law and custom requireth it, to swear fidelity to a lay-elder, as his landlord or temporal lord and master. And so the old nonconformists, who thought the English prelacy an unlawful office, yet maintained that it is lawful to take the oath of canonical obedience, because they thought it was imposed by the king and laws, and that we swear to them not as officers claiming a divine right in the spiritual government, but as ordinaries, or officers made by the king to exercise so much of ecclesiastical jurisdiction under him, as he can delegate; according to the oath of supremacy, in which we all acknowledge the king to be supreme in all ecclesiastical causes; that is, not the supreme pastor, bishop, or spiritual key-bearer or ruler, but the supreme civil ruler of the church, who hath the power of the sword, and of determining all things extrinsic to the pastoral office; and so of the coercive government of all pastors and churches, as well as of other subjects. And if prelacy were proved never so unlawful, no doubt but by the king's command we may swear or perform formal obedience to a prelate, as he is the king's officer. Of the nonconformists' judgment in this, read Bradshaw against Canne, &c.
(5.) But in such a case no oath to inferiors is lawful without the consent of the sovereign power, or at least against his will.
(6.) Though it be a duty for the flock to obey every presbyter, yet if they would make all the people swear obedience to them, all wise and conscionable christians should dissent from the introduction of such a custom, and deny such oaths as far as lawfully they may: that is,
1. If the king be against it, we must refuse it.
2. If he be neutral or merely passive in it, we must refuse, unless some apparent necessity for the church's good require it.
1. Because it savoureth of pride in such presbyters.
2. Because it is a new custom in the church, and contrary to the ancient practice.
3. It is not only without any authority given them by Christ, that they exact such oaths, but also contrary to the great humility, lowliness, and condescension, in which he describeth his ministers, who must be great, by being the servants of all.398
4. And it tendeth to corrupt the clergy for the future.
5. And such new impositions give just reason to princes and to the people to suspect that the presbyters are aspiring after some inordinate exaltation, or have some ill project for the advancement of themselves.
(7.) But yet if it be not only their own ambition which imposeth it, but either the king and laws command it, or necessity require it for the avoidance of a greater evil, it may be lawful and a duty to take an oath of obedience to a lawful presbyter or bishop; because, 1. It is a duty to obey them. 2. And it is not forbidden us by Christ to promise or swear to do our duty (even when they may sin in demanding such an oath).
(8.) If an office be lawful in the essential parts, and yet have unlawful integrals, or adjuncts, or be abused in exercise, it will not by such additions or abuses be made unlawful to swear obedience to the officer as such.
(9.) If one presbyter or bishop would make another presbyter or bishop to swear obedience to him without authority, the case is the same as of the usurpers before mentioned.
Quest. CLIV. Must all our preaching be upon a text of Scripture?
Answ. 1. In many cases it may be lawful to preach without a text;399 to make sacred orations like Gregory Nazianzen's, and homilies like Macarius's, Ephrem Syrus's, and many other ancients, and like our own church homilies.
2. But ordinarily it is the fittest way to preach upon a text of Scripture.400 1. Because it is our very office to teach the people the Scripture. The prophets brought a new word or message from God; but the priests did but keep, interpret, and preach the law already received: and we are not successors of the inspired prophets, but as the priests were, teachers of God's received word. And this practice will help the people to understand our office. 2. And it will preserve the due esteem and reverence of the holy Scriptures, which the contrary practice may diminish.
Quest. CLV. Is not the law of Moses abrogated, and the whole Old Testament out of date, and therefore not to be read publicly and preached on?
Answ. 1. The covenant of innocency is ceased cessante subditorum capacitate, as a covenant or promise. And so are the positive laws proper to Adam, in that state, and to many particular persons since.
2. The covenant mixed of grace and works, proper to the Jews, with all the Jewish law as such, was never made to us, or to the rest of the world; and to the Jews it is ceased by the coming and perfecter laws and covenant of Christ.
3. The prophecies and types of Christ, and the promises made to Adam, Abraham, and others, of his coming in the flesh, are all fulfilled, and therefore not useful to all the ends of their first making: and the many prophecies of particular things and persons past and gone are accomplished.
4. But the law of nature is still Christ's law; and that law is much expounded to us in the Old Testament: and if God once, for another use, did say, This is the law of nature, the truth of these words as a divine doctrine and exposition of the law of nature is still the same.
5. The covenant of grace made with Adam and Noah for all mankind, is still in force as to the great benefits and main condition, that is, as to pardon given by it to true penitent believers, with a right to everlasting life, and as to the obligation to sincere obedience for salvation: though not as to the yet future coming of Christ in the flesh. And this law of grace was never yet repealed any further than Christ's coming did fulfil it and perfect it: therefore to the rest of the world, who never can have the gospel or perfecter testament, as christians have, the former law of grace is yet in force. And that is the law, conjoined with the law of nature, which now the world without the church is under: under, I say, as to the force of the law, and a former promulgation made to Adam and Noah, and some common intimations of it in merciful forbearances, pardons, and benefits; though how many are under it as to the knowledge, reception, belief, and obedience of it, and consequently are saved by it, is more than I or any man knoweth.
6. There are many prophecies of Christ and the christian church in the Old Testament yet to be fulfilled, and therefore are still God's word for us.
7. There are many precepts of God to the Jews and to particular persons, given them on reasons common to them with us; where parity of reason will help thence to gather our own duty now.
8. There are many holy expressions, (as in the Psalms,) which are fitted to persons in our condition, and came from the Spirit of God; and therefore as such are fit for us now.
9. Even the fulfilled promises, types, and prophecies, are still God's words, that is, his word given to their several proper uses: and though much of their use be changed or ceased, so is not all: they are yet useful to us, to confirm our faith, while we see their accomplishment, and see how much God still led his church to happiness in one and the same way.
10. On all these accounts therefore we may still read the Old Testament, and preach upon it in the public churches.401
Quest. CLVI. Must we believe that Moses's law did ever bind other nations; or that any other parts of the Scripture bound them, or belong to them? or that the Jews were all God's visible church on earth?
Answ. I conjoin these three questions for despatch.
I. 1. Some of the matter of Moses's law did bind all nations; that is, the law of nature as such.
2. Those that had the knowledge of the Jewish law, were bound collaterally to believe and obey all the expositions of the law of nature in it, and all the laws which were given upon reasons common to all the world; (as about degrees of marriage, particular rules of justice, &c.) As if I heard God from heaven tell another that standeth by me, Thou shalt not marry thy father's widow; for it is abominable, I ought to apply that to me, being his subject, which is spoken to another on a common reason.402
3. All those gentiles that would be proselytes, and join with the Jews in their policy, and dwelt among them, were bound to be observers of their laws. But, 1. The law of nature as mosaical, did not formally and directly bind other nations. 2. Nor were they bound to the laws of their peculiar policy, civil or ecclesiastical, which were positives. The reason is, (1.) Because they were all one body of political laws, given peculiarly to one political body. Even the decalogue itself was to them a political law. (2.) Because Moses was not authorized or sent to be the mediator or deliverer of that law to any nation but the Jews. And being never in the enacting or promulgation sent or directed to the rest of the world, it could not bind them.