A Christian Directory, Part 3: Christian Ecclesiastics

2. And all that which hath the express characters of universality and perpetuity upon it; and such are all the substantial parts of the gospel; as, "Except ye repent, ye shall all perish," Luke xiii. 3, 5. "Except a man be born again, he cannot enter into the kingdom of heaven," John iii. 3, 5. "He that believeth in him, shall not perish, but have everlasting life," John iii. 16. "He that believeth and is baptized, shall be saved, and he that believeth not shall be damned," Mark xvi. 16. "Without holiness none shall see God," Heb. xii. 14. "Go, preach the gospel to all nations, baptizing them, &c. teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you," Matt, xxviii. 19, 20. Abundance such texts have the express characters of universality and perpetuity (which many call morality).

3. And with these we may number those which were given to all the churches, with commands to keep them, and propagate them to posterity.

4. And those that have a plain and necessary connexion to these before mentioned.

5. And those which plainly have a full parity of reason with them; and where it is evident that the command was given to those particular times and persons, upon no reasons proper to them alone, but such as were common to all others. I deny not but (as Amesius noteth after others) many ceremonial and temporary laws are urged (when they are made) with natural and perpetual motives: but the reasons of making them were narrower, whatever the reasons of obeying them may be.

On the other side, narrow and temporary precepts and examples, 1. Are void of all these foresaid characters. 2. They are about materials of temporary use. 3. Or they are but the ordering of such customs as were there before, and were proper to those countries. 4. And many speeches are plainly appropriate to the time and persons. 5. And many actions were manifestly occasional, without any intimation of reason or purpose of obliging others to imitation.

For instance, 1. Christ's preaching sometimes on a mountain, sometimes in a ship, sometimes in a house, and sometimes in the synagogues, doth show that all these are lawful in season on the like occasion: but he purposed not to oblige men to any one of them alone.

2. So Christ's giving the sacrament of his body and blood, in an upper room, in a private house after supper, to none but ministers, and none but his family, and but to twelve, and on the fifth day of the week only, and in the gesture of a recumbent, leaning, sitting; all these are plainly occasional, and not intended as obliging to imitation: for that which he made a law of, he separated in his speeches, and commanded them to do it in remembrance of him till his coming. And Paul expoundeth the distinction, 1 Cor. xi. in his practice.

So the promise of the spirit of revelation and miracles is expounded by the event, as the seal of the gospel and Scripture, proper to those times in the main.

So the primitive christians selling their estates, and distributing to the poor, or laying it down at the apostles' feet, was plainly appropriated to that time, or the like occasions, by the reason of it; which was suddenly to show the world what the belief of heaven through the promises of Christ, could make them all, and how much their love was to Christ and one another, and how little to the world; and also by the cessation of it, when the persecutions abated, and the churches came to any settlement; yea, and at first it was not a thing commanded to all, but only voluntarily done.

So the women's veil, and the custom of kissing each other as a token of love, and men's not wearing long hair, were the customs of the country there ordered and improved by the apostles about sacred things; but not introduced into other countries that had no such custom.

So also anointing was in those countries taken for salubrious, and refreshing to the body, and a ceremony of initiation into places of great honour; whereupon it was used about the sick, and God's giving the gift of healing in those times was frequently conjunct with this means. So that hence the anointing of the sick came up; and the ancient christians turned it into an initiating ceremony, because we are kings and priests to God. Now these occasions extend not to those countries where anointing neither was of such use, or value, or signification.

So also Paul's becoming a Jew to the Jews, and being shaved, and purifying himself, and circumcising Timothy, are evidently temporary compliances in a thing then lawful, for the avoiding of offence, and for the furtherance of the gospel, and no obligatory, perpetual laws to us. And so most divines think the eating of things strangled, and blood, were forbidden for a time to them only that conversed with the Jews, Acts xv. Though Beckman have many reasons for the perpetuity, not contemptible.

So the office of deaconesses (and some think of deacons) seemeth to be fitted to that time, and state, and condition of christians. And where the reasons and case are the same, the obligations will be the same. In a word, the text itself will one way or other show us, when a command or example is universally and durably obligatory, and when not.

Quest. CXXXVII. How much of the Scripture is necessary to salvation, to be believed, and understood?

Answ. This question is the more worthy consideration, that we may withal understand the use of catechisms, confessions, and creeds, (of which after,) and the great and tender mercies of God to the weak, and may be able to answer the cavils of the papists against the Scriptures, as insufficient to be the rule of faith and life, because much of it is hard to be understood.

1. He that believeth God to be true, and the Scripture to be his word, must needs believe all to be true which he believeth to be his word.

2. All the Scripture is profitable to our knowledge, love, and practice; and none of it to be neglected, but all to be loved, reverenced, and studied, in due time and order, by them that have time and capacity to do it.

3. All the holy Scriptures, either as to matter or words, are not so necessary, as that no man can be saved, who doth not either believe or understand them; but some parts of it are more necessary than others.

4. It is not of necessity to salvation to believe every book or verse in Scripture, to be canonical, or written by the Spirit of God. For as the papists' canon is larger than that which the protestants own; so if our canon should prove defective of any one book, it would not follow that we could not be saved for want of a sufficient faith. The churches immediately after the apostles' time, had not each one all their writings, but they were brought together in time, and received by degrees, as they had proof of their being written by authorized, inspired persons. The second of Peter, James, Jude, Hebrews, and Revelation, were received in many churches since the rest. And if some book be lost, (as Enoch's prophecy, or Paul's epistle to the Laodiceans, or any other of his epistles not named in the rest,) or if any hereafter should be lost or doubted of, as the Canticles, or the second or third epistles of John, the epistle of Jude, &c. it would not follow, that all true faith and hope of salvation were lost with it.

It is a controversy whether 1 John v. 7, and some other particular verses, be canonical or not, because some Greek copies have them, and some are without them; but whoever erreth in that only, may be saved.

5. There are many hundred or thousand texts of Scripture, which a man may possibly be ignorant of the meaning of, and yet have a saving faith, and be in a state of salvation. For no man living understandeth it all.

6. The holy Scripture is an entire, comely body, which containeth not only the essential parts of the true religion, but also the integral parts, and the ornaments and many accidents; which must be distinguished, and not all taken to be equal.387

7. So much as containeth the essentials of true religion, must be understood and believed of necessity to salvation; and so much as containeth the integrals of religion doth greatly conduce to our salvation, both that we may be the surer and the better christians, as having greater helps to both.

The very adjuncts also have their use to make us the more adorned christians, and to promote our knowledge of greater things.

Quest. CXXXVIII. How may we know the fundamentals, essentials, or what parts are necessary to salvation? And is the papists' way allowable that (some of them) deny that distinction, and make the difference to be only in the degrees of men's opportunities of knowledge?

Answ. 1. Those papists' perverseness can mean no better than that Christianity itself is not necessary to salvation, to those that have not opportunity to know it (as Johnson's Rejoinder to me, and Sancta Clara, and many others, plainly intimate); and were that never so true and certain, it were nothing to the question between them and us, which is, What are the essentials of christianity? And what is necessary to salvation, where christianity is necessary? or where the christian religion is made known, and men may come to the knowledge of it, if they will do their best? This is the true state of our controversy with them. And whereas they would make all the parts of christian faith and practice equally necessary, where men have a capacity and ability to know, believe, and practise them, it is a gross deceit, unworthy of men pretending to a mediocrity of knowledge in the nature of religion; and thereby they make all sins and errors as equal as all duties and truths. Whereas, 1. There is no man that hath not some error and some sin.388 2. There is no man that doth all that ever he was able to do, to understand all the truth. 3. Therefore there is no man whose errors themselves are not (many of them at least) culpable or sinful. 4. And they that distinguish between mortal and venial sins, and yet will not distinguish between mortal and venial errors, are either blind, or would keep others blind. As it is not so damning a sin for a man to think a vain thought, or to speak a vain word, as not to love God, or holiness; (no, though he was more able to have forborne that idle word, than to have loved God;) so it is not so mortal a sin, (that is, inconsistent with a justified state,) to mistake in a small matter, (as who was the father of Arphaxad, or what year the world was drowned in, &c.) as to blaspheme the Holy Ghost, or deny Jesus Christ to be the Saviour of the world, or to deny that there is a God, or everlasting life, or a difference between good and evil. All sins are not equal in magnitude or danger. Therefore all errors are not equal in magnitude, sinfulness, or danger.

2. And what priest is able to know whom to take for a christian, and baptizable upon such terms as these? Who knoweth just what opportunities of knowledge other men have had, and what impediments? And will they indeed baptize a man that is a heathen, because he had not opportunity to come to the knowledge of christianity? I think they will not. Or will they deny baptism to one that knoweth and believeth only all the articles of the creed, and the chief points of religion, because he knoweth not as much more, as he had opportunity to know? I think not. Do not these men perceive how they condemn themselves? For do they not say themselves, that baptism to the due receiver washeth away sin, and puts the person in a state of life? O when will God deliver his poor church from factious deceivers?

3. Either christianity is something and discernible, or nothing and undiscernible. If the latter, then christians are not to be distinguished from heathens and infidels. If the former, then christianity hath its constitutive parts, by which it is what it is. And then it hath essential parts distinguishable from the rest.

4. The word fundamentals being but a metaphor, hath given room to deceivers and contenders to make a controversy, and raise a dust about it. Therefore I purposely use the word essentials, which is not so liable to men's cavils.

5. Those are the essentials of christianity, which are necessary to the baptism of the adult. Know but that, and you answer all the pratings of the papists, that bawl out for a list of fundamentals. And sure it is not this day unknown in the christian world, either what a christian is, or who is to be baptized: do not the priests know it, who baptize all that are christened in the world? And why is baptism called our christening, if it make us not christians? And why hath Christ promised, that "he that believeth and is baptized, shall be saved," Mark xvi. 16, if that so much faith as is necessary to baptism, will not also serve to a man's state of salvation?

6. The baptismal covenant of grace therefore is the essential part of the gospel, and of the christian religion; and all the rest are the integrals, and accidents or adjuncts.

7. This covenant containeth,

I. Objectively, 1. Things true as such; 2. Things good as such; 3. Things practicable or to be done, as such: the credenda, diligenda, (et eligenda,) et agenda; as the objects of man's intellect, will, and practical power.

The credenda, or things to be known and believed, are, 1. God as God, and our God and Father. 2. Christ as the Saviour, and our Saviour. 3. The Holy Ghost as such, and as the Sanctifier, and our Sanctifier (as to the offer of these relations in the covenant).

The diligenda are the same three Persons in these three relations as good in themselves and unto us, which includeth the grand benefits of reconciliation and adoption, justification, and sanctification, and salvation.

The agenda in the time of baptism that make us christians, are, 1. The actual dedition, resignation, or dedication of ourselves, to God the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost in these relations. 2. A promise or vow to endeavour faithfully to live according to our undertaken relations (though not in perfection); that is, as creatures to their Creator, and their reconciled God and Father; as christians to their Redeemer, their Teacher, their Ruler, and their Saviour; and as willing receivers of the sanctifying and comforting operations of the Holy Spirit.

II. The objects tell you what the acts must be on our part; 1. With the understanding, to know and believe; 2. With the will to love, choose, desire, and resolve; and, 3. Practically to deliver up ourselves for the present, and to promise for the time to come. These are the essentials of the christian religion.

8. The creed is a larger explication of the credenda, and the Lord's prayer of the diligenda, or things to be willed, desired, and hoped for; and the decalogue of the natural part of the agenda.

9. Suffer not your own ignorance, or the papists' cheats, to confound the question about fundamentals, as to the matter, and as to the expressing words. It is one thing to ask, What is the matter essential to christianity? And another, What words, symbols, or sentences are essential to it? To the first, I have now answered you. To the second I say, 1. Taking the christian religion as it is, an extrinsic doctrine in signis, so the essence of it is, words and signs expressive or significant of the material essence. That they be such in specie is all that is essential. And if they say, But which be those words? I answer, 2. That no particular words in the world are essential to the christian religion. For, (1.) No one language is essential to it. It is not necessary to salvation that you be baptized, or learn the creed or Scriptures, in Hebrew, or Greek, or Latin, or English, so you learn it in any language understood. (2.) It is not necessary to salvation that you use the same words in the same language, as long as it hath more words than one to express the same thing by. (3.) It is not necessary to salvation, that we use the same (or any one single) form, method, or order of words, as they are in the creeds, without alteration. And therefore while the ancients did tenaciously cleave to the same symbol or creed, yet they used various words to express it by. (As may be seen in Irenæus, Tertullian, Origen, and Ruffin, elsewhere cited by me; so that it is plain, that by the same symbol they meant the same matter, though expressed in some variety of words.) Though they avoided such variety as might introduce variety of sense and matter.

10. Words being needful, 1. To make a learner understand; 2. To tell another what he understandeth: it followeth that the great variety of men's capacities maketh a great variation in the necessity of words or forms. An Englishman must have them in English, and a Frenchman in French. An understanding man may receive all the essentials in a few words; but an ignorant man must have many words to make him understand the matter. To him that understandeth them, the words of the baptismal covenant express all the essentials of christianity: but to him that understands them not, the creed is necessary for the explication: and to him that understandeth not that, a catechism, or larger exposition, is necessary. This is the plain explication of this question, which many papists seem loth to understand.

Quest. CXXXIX. What is the use and authority of the creed? And is it of the apostles' framing or not? And is it the word of God or not?

Answ. 1. The use of the creed is, to be a plain explication of the faith professed in the baptismal covenant. 1. For the fuller instruction of the duller sort, and those that had not preparatory knowledge, and could not sufficiently understand the meaning of the three articles of the covenant, what it is to believe in God the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, without more words. 2. And for the satisfaction of the church, that indeed men understood what they did in baptism, and professed to believe.

2. The creed is the word of God, as to all the doctrine or matter of it, whatever it be as to the order and composition of words.

3. That is oft by the ancients called the apostles', which containeth the matter delivered by the apostles, though not in a form of words compiled by them.

4. It is certain that all the words now in our creed, were not put in by the apostles, 1. Because some of them were not in till long after their days. 2. Because the ancient formulæ agree not in words among themselves.389

5. It is not to be doubted of, but the apostles did appoint and use a creed commonly in their days. And that it is the same with that which is now called the apostles' and the Nicene in the main; but not just the same composure of words, nor had they any such precise composure as can be proved. But this much is easily provable: —

(1.) That Christ composed a creed when he made his covenant, and instituted baptism, Matt, xxviii. 19.

(2.) That in the Jewish church, where men were educated in the knowledge of the Scriptures, and expectation of the Messiah, it was supposed that the people had so much preparatory knowledge, as made them the more capable of baptism, as soon as they did but seriously profess to believe, and consent to the terms of the covenant; and therefore they were presently baptized, Acts ii. 38-40.

(3.) That this could not be rationally supposed among the gentiles, and common, ignorant people of the world. And ignorantis non est consensus. He doth not covenant who understandeth not the covenant, as to what is promised him, and what he promiseth.

(4.) That the apostles baptized, and caused others to baptize many thousands, and settle many churches, before any part of the New Testament was written, even many and many years.

(5.) That the apostles did their work as well and better than any that succeeded them.

(6.) That their successors in the common ministry, did, as far as any church history leadeth us up, instruct and catechise men in the meaning of the baptismal covenant, (which is the christian faith,) before they baptized them: yea, they kept them long in the state of catechumens usually, before they would baptize them. And after baptized but twice a year, at Easter and Whitsuntide (as our liturgy noteth). And they received an account of their tolerable understanding of religion, before they would receive them into the church.

(7.) No doubt then but the apostles did cause the baptizable to understand the three articles of Christ's own creed and covenant, and to give some account of it before they baptized them, ordinarily among the gentiles.

(8.) No doubt therefore but they used many more explicatory words, to cause them to understand those few.

(9.) There is neither proof nor probability, that they used a composure of just the same words, and no more or less: because they had to do with persons of several capacities, some knowing, who needed fewer words, and some ignorant and dull, who needed more: nor is any such composure come down to our hands.

(10.) But it is more than probable, that the matter opened by them to all the catechumens was still the same, when the words were not the same. For God's promises and man's conditions are still the same (where the gospel cometh). Though since by the occasion of heresies, some few material clauses are inserted. For all christians had one christianity, and must go one way to heaven.

(11.) It is also more than probable, that they did not needlessly vary the words, lest it should teach men to vary the matter: but that all christians before baptism, did make the same profession of faith as the sense, and very much the same as to the very words; using necessary caution, and yet avoiding unnecessary preciseness of formality; but so as to obviate damnable heresies, that the christian profession might attain its ends.

(12.) Lastly, no doubt but this practice of the apostles was exemplary, and imitated by the churches, and that thus the essentials of religion were, by the tradition of the creed and baptism, delivered by themselves, as far as christianity went, long before any book of the New Testament was written: and every christian was an impress, or transcript, or specimen of it.390 And that the following churches using the same creed, (wholly in sense, and mostly in words,) might so far well call it the apostles' creed; as they did both the Western and the Nicene.

[391] Heb. v. 11, 12; vi. 1-3.

Quest. CXL. What is the use of catechisms?

Answ. To be a more familiar explication of the essentials of christianity, and the principal integrals, in a larger manner than the creed, Lord's prayer, and decalogue do; that the ignorant may the more easily understand it. Every man cannot gather out of the Scripture the greatest matters in the true method, as distinct from all the rest: and therefore it is part of the work of the church's teachers, to do it to the hands and use of the ignorant.

Quest. CXLI. Could any of us have known by the Scriptures alone the essentials of religion from the rest, if tradition had not given them to us in the creed, as from apostolical collection?

Answ. Yes: for the Scripture itself telleth us what is necessary to salvation; it describeth to us the covenant of grace, both promises and conditions; and it were strange if so large a volume should not as plainly tell us what is necessary to salvation, as fewer words! The Scripture hath not less than the creed, but more.

Quest. CXLII. What is the best method of a true catechism or sum of theology?

Answ. God willing, I shall tell the church my opinion of that at large, in a peculiar Latin treatise, called "Methodus Theologiæ," which here I cannot do. Only I shall say, that among all the great variety of methods used in these times, I think none cometh nearer the order of the matter, (which is the true commendation of a method,) than those which open theology, 1. In the breviate of the baptismal covenant. 2. In the three explicatory sums, the creed, Lord's prayer, and decalogue, with the added gospel precepts. 3. In the largest form, which is the whole Scripture. And that our common English catechism, and Paræus or Ursine, and many such who use that common easy method, are more truly methodical, than most that pretend to greater accurateness (though I much commend the great industry of such as Dudley, Fenner, Gomarus, and especially George Sohnius).

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.