CHAP. VII.

Of the Christian Religion, what it is, and of the Creed.

Q. 1. Now you have laid so good a foundation, by showing the certain truth of the gospel, I would better know what Christianity is? And what it is to be a true Christian.

A. First I must tell you what religion is in general, and then what the christian religion is. Religion is a word that signifieth either that which is without us, the rule of our religion, or that which is within us, our conformity to that rule.

The doctrinal, regulating religion, is the signification of God's will, concerning man's duty to God, and his hopes from God. The inward religion of our souls is our conformity to this revealed, regulating will of God, even our absolute resignation to God, as being his own; our absolute subjection to him, as our absolute sovereign Ruler; and our prevailing love to him, as our chief Benefactor, and as love and goodness itself. Thus religion is our duty to God, and hope from God.

Q. 2. Now what is the christian religion?

Obj. A. The christian religion, as doctrinal, is, the revelation of God's will concerning his kingdom, as our Redeemer; or the redeeming and saving sinful, miserable man by Jesus Christ.

Subj. And the christian religion as it is in us, is the true conformity of our understanding, will, and practice, to this doctrine, or the true belief of the mind, the thankful love and consent of the will, and the sincere obedience of our lives to God, as our reconciled Father in Christ, and to Jesus Christ, as our Saviour, and to the Holy Ghost, as our Sanctifier, to deliver us from the guilt and power of sin, from the flesh, the world, and the devil, from the revenging justice of God, and from everlasting damnation, giving us here a union with Christ, the pardon of our sins, and sanctifying grace, and hereafter everlasting, heavenly glory."

Q. 3. Is there any other religion besides the christian religion? A. There be many errors of men, which they call their religion.

Q. 4. Is there any true religion, besides Christianity?

A. There be divers that have some part of the truth, mixed

"John i. 11, 12, and iii. 16, 21; Acts xxvi. 18; Matt. xxviii. 19, 20; John xiv. 5, and xv. 10; 1 John ii. 3, and v. 2, 3; Rev. xiv. 12.

with error. 1. The heathens acknowledge God, and most of his attributes and perfections, as we do; but they have no knowledge of his will, but what mere nature teacheth them; and they worship many idols, if not devils, as an under sort of Gods. 2. The Jews own only the law of nature and the Old Testament, but believe not in Jesus Christ our Redeemer.

3. The Sadducees, and all Brutists, worship God as the Governor of man in this world, but they believe not a life to come for man.

4. The Pythagorean heathens look for no reward or punishment after death, but by the passing of the soul into some other body on earth, in which it shall be rewarded or punished.

5. The Mahomedans acknowledge one God, as we do: but they believe not in Jesus Christ, as man's Redeemer, but only take him for an excellent, holy prophet; and they believe in Mahomet, a deceiver, as a prophet greater than he.

6. The mere deists believe in God, but not in Jesus Christ, and have only the natural knowledge of his will, as other heathens, but worship not idols, as they do.

Q. 5. Is there but one christian religion?

A. No: true Christianity is one certain thing.

Q. 6. How then are Christians said to be of divers religions? A. Sound Christians hold to christian religion alone, as Christ did institute it: but many others corrupt it; some by denying some parts of it, while they own the rest; and some by adding many corrupting inventions of man, and making those a part of their religion, as the papists do.

Q. 7. Where is the true christian religion, doctrinal, to be found, that we may certainly know which is it indeed?

A. The christian religion containeth, I. The light and law of nature, and that is common to them with others, and is to be found in the nature of all things, as the significations of God's will. II. Supernatural revelation, clearing the law of nature, and giving us the knowledge of the Redeemer, and his grace.

And this is contained, 1. Most fully in the holy Bible. II. Briefly and summarily in the creed, Lord's prayer, and commandments. III. Most briefly of all in the sacraments of baptism and the Lord's supper, and the covenant made and sealed by them.

Q. 8. But are not the articles of our church, and the confessions of churches, their religion?

• Matt. v. 17, and xxiii. 23; Rom. ii. 14; viii. 4, 7, and xiii. 8, 10.

A. Only God's word is our religion as the divine rule: but our confessions, and books, and words, and lives, show how we understand it.

Q. 9. What is the protestant religion?

A. The religion of protestants is mere Christianity: they are called protestants but accidentally, because they protest for mere Scripture Christianity, against the corruptious of popery.

Q. 10. What sorts of false religions are there among Christians?

A. There are more corruptions of religion than can easily be named. The chief of them are of these following sorts:

1. Some of them deny some essential article of faith or practice, as the immortality of the soul, the Godhead, or manhood, or offices, of Christ, or the Holy Ghost, or the Scripture, &c.

II. Some of them pretend new revelations falsely, and set their pretences of the Spirit's inspirations against the sealed word of God.

III. Some of them set up an usurped power of their own, against the office, authority, or sufficiency of the said sealed Scriptures, pretending that they are successors to the apostles, in the power and office of making laws for the universal church, and being the judges of the sense of Scripture; yea, and what is to be taken for God's word, and what not, and judges of all controversies about it. Of these, the papists pretend that the pope and a general council are supreme, visible governors under Christ of all the christian world, and that none may appeal from them to God, to Christ, to the Scripture, or to the day of judgment. Others pretend to such a power in every patriarchal, national, or provincial church. And all of them, instead of a humble, helping, guiding ministry, set up a church leviathan, a silencing Abaddon, and Apollyon, a destroying office, setting up their usurped power above, or equal in effect with, God's word. Q. 11. How come the Scriptures to be God's word, when the bishops' canons are not; and to be so far above their laws?

A. You must know, that God hath two different sort of works to do for the government of his church: the first is legislation, or giving new doctrines and laws: the other is the teaching and guiding the church by the explication and application of these same laws. God is not still making new laws for man, but he is still teaching and ruling them by his laws.P

p Isa. viii. 20; Isa. xxxiii. 22; Jam. iv. 12; Mal. ii. 7, 8; Matt. xxviii. 20.

Accordingly, God hath had two sorts of ministers: one sort for legislation, to reveal new doctrines and laws; and such was Moses under the old administration, and Christ and his commissioned apostles under the new. These were eminent prophets inspired by God infallibly to record his laws, and God attested their office and work by multitudes of evident, uncontrolled miracles. But the laws being sealed, the second sort of ministers are only to teach and apply these same laws and doctrines, and not to reveal new ones. And such were the priests and Levites under Moses, and all the succeeding ministers and bishops of the churches under Christ and the apostles, who are the foundation on which the church is built. And though all church guides may determine of the undetermined circumstances of holy things, by the general laws which God hath given therein, yet to arrogate a power of making a new word of God, or a law that shall suspend our obedience to his laws, or any law for the universal church, whether it be by pope or council, is treasonable usurpation of a government which none but Christ is capable of: and as if one king or council should claim the civil sovereignty of all the earth, which is most unknown to them.

Q. 12. But I pray you tell me how the creed comes to be of so great authority, seeing I find it not in the Bible?

A. It is the very sum and kernel of the doctrine of the New Testament, and there you may find it all, with much more: but it is older than the writing of the New Testament, save that two or three words were added since.

I told you before, 1. That Christ himself did make the nature and terms of Christianity, commissioning his apostles to make all nations his disciples, baptising them into the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost: this is the sum of the creed first made by Christ himself.

2. The apostles were inspired and commissioned to teach men all that Christ commanded. (Matt. xxviii. 19, 20.)

3. To say these three words, 'I believe in the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost,' without understanding them, was easy, but would make no true Christians; therefore, if we had never read more of the apostles' practice, we might justly conclude that those inspired teachers, before they baptised men at age, taught them the meaning of those three articles, and brought them, accordingly, to confess their faith, and this is the creed. And though a man might speak his profession in more or various words, the matter was still the same, and the words made necessary must

not be too many, nor left too much at men's liberty to alter, lest corruption should creep into the common faith. For the baptismal confession was the very symbol, badge, or test by which all Christians were visibly to pass for Christians, and as Christianity must be a known, certain thing, so must its symbol be.

4. And infallible historical tradition assureth us, that accordingly, ever since the apostles' days, before any adults were baptised, they were catechised, and brought to understand and profess these same articles of the faith. And if the Greeks and the Latins used not the same words, they used words of the same signification (two or three words being added since).

Q. 13. Do you not by this set the creed above the Bible?

A. No otherwise than I set the head, heart, liver, and stomach of a man above the whole body, which containeth them and all the rest; or than I set the ten commandments above the whole law of Moses, which includeth them: or than Christ did set, loving God above all, and our neighbour as ourselves, above all that law of which they were the sum. We must not take those for no Christians, nor deny them baptism, who understand and believe not particularly every word in the Bible; as we must those that understand not and believe not the creed.

CHAP. VIII.

Of Believing, what it signifieth in the Creed.

Q. 1. I UNDERSTAND by what you have said, that as man's soul hath three powers, the understanding, the will, and the executive, so religion, being but the true qualifying and guidance of these three powers, must needs consist of three parts. I. Things to be known and believed. II. Things to be willed, loved, and chosen. And III. Things to be done in the practice of our lives; and that the creed is the symbol or sum of so much as is necessary to our Christianity, of the first sort; and the Lord's prayer the rule and summary of the second; and the ten commandments of the third. ¶

I entreat you, therefore, first to expound the creed to me,

4 Heb. xi. 6.