and first the first word of it "I believe," as it belongs to all that followeth.

A. You must first know what the word signifieth in common use. To believe another, signifieth to trust him as true or trusty; and to believe a thing, signifieth to believe that it is true, because a trusty person speaketh it. The things that you must believe to be true, are called the matter, or material object of your faith. The person's trustiness that you believe or trust to, is called the formal object of your faith, for which you trust the person, and believe the thing. The matter is as the body of faith, and the form as its soul. The matter which the church hath believed, hath by God had alterations, and to this day more is revealed to some than to others. But the formal reason of your faith is still and in all the same, even God's fidelity, who, because of his perfection, cannot lie."

Q. 2. How may I be sure that God cannot lie, who is under no law?

A. His perfection is more than a law. 1. We see that God, who made man in his own image, and reneweth them to it, making lying a hateful vice to human nature and conversation: no man would be counted a liar, and the better any man is, the more he hateth it. s

2. No man lieth but either for want of wisdom to know the truth, or for want of perfect goodness, or for want of power to attain his ends by better means. But the infinite, most perfect God hath none of these defects.

Q. 3. But God speaketh to the world by angels and men, and who knows but they may be permitted to lie?

A. When they speak to man as sent by God, and God attested their credibility by uncontrolled miracles or other evidence, if then they should lie, it would be imputable to God, that attesteth their word: of which I said enough to you before. Q. 4. Proceed to open the formal act of faith, which you call trust?

A. As you have noted, that man's soul hath three powers, understanding, will, and executive, so our affiance, or trust in God, extendeth to them all: and so it is in one an assenting trust, a consenting trust, and a practical trust. By the first, we believe the word to be true, because we trust the fidelity of God.

Tit. i. 2; Rom, iii. 4; Num. xxiii. 29.

• Prov. xii. 22; vl. 17; xix. 5, 9, and xiii. 5; John viii. 44, 55; 1 John v. 10; Rev. xxi. 8; Prov. xiv. 5; Col. iii. 9; Heb. vi. 18.

By the second, we consent to God's covenant, and accept his gifts, by trusting to the truth and goodness of the promiser. By the third, we trustingly venture on the costliest duty. t

Q. 5. I pray you open it to me by some familiar similitude? A. Suppose you are a poor man, in danger of a prison, and a king from India sends his son hither, proclaiming to all the poor in England, that if they will come over with his son, he will make them all princes. Some say, he is a deceiver, and not to be believed: others say, a little in hand with our old acquaintance is better than uncertainty in an unknown land: another saith, I know not but a leaky vessel, storms, or pirates, may prevent my hopes. Here are now three questions: 1. Do you believe that he saith true? 2. Do you so far trust him as to consent to go with him? 3. When it comes to it, do you so far trust him as to venture on all the difficulties, and go?

Again, suppose you have a deadly sickness. There are many unable and deceitful physicians in the world; there is one only that can cure you, and offereth to do it for nothing, but with a medicine made of his own blood. Many tell you he is a deceiver; some say others can do it as well; and some say the medicine is intolerable, or improbable. Here are three questions: 1. Do you trust his word by believing him? 2. Do you trust him so as to consent and take him for your physician? 3. Do you trust him so as to come to him, and take his medicine, forsaking all others? I need not apply it; you can easily do it.

Trust, then, or affiance, is the vital, or formal, act of faith; and assenting, consenting, and practice, are the inseparable effects, in which, as it is a saving grace, it is always found.

Q. 6. But is all this meant in the Creed?

A. Yes: 1. The Creed containeth the necessary matter revealed by God, which we must believe. 2. And it mentioneth him to whom we must trust, in our assent, consent, and practice, even God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost.

Q. 7. But is this the faith by which we are justified? Are we justified by believing in God the Father and the Holy Ghost, and the rest of the articles? Some say it is only by believing in Christ's righteousness as imputed to us.

A. Justification is to be spoken of hereafter. But this one

Psalm cxii. 7; Matt. xxvii. 43; Heb. xi.; Eph. i. 12, 13; 2 Tim. i. 12; 1 Tim. iii. 16; Tit. iii. 8; 1 Pet. i. 21; Heb. xi. 39; Acts xxvii. 25.

entire christian faith, is it which God hath made the necessary qualification, or condition, of such as he will justify by and for the merits of Christ's righteousness.

Q. 8. Doth not "I believe," signify that I believe that this God is my God, my Saviour, and my Sanctifier, in particular?

A. It is an applying faith. It signifieth, 1. That you believe his right to be your God. 2. And his offer to be your God. 3. And that you consent to this right and offer, that he may, by special relation, be yours. 4. But it doth not signify that every believer is sure of the sincerity of his own act of believing, and so of his special interest in God, though this is very desirable and attainable.

CHAP. IX.

Of the First Article" I believe in God the Father Almighty, Maker of Heaven and Earth."

Q. 1. SEEING that you before proved that there is a God, from the light of nature, and heathens know it, why is it made an article of faith?

A. The understanding of man is so darkened and corrupted now by sin, that it doth but grope after God, and knoweth him not as revealed in his works alone, so clearly and surely as is needful to bring home the soul to God, in holy love, obedience, and delight but he is more fully revealed to us in the sacred Scripture by Christ and his Spirit, which, therefore, must be herein believed."

Q. 2. What of God doth the Scripture make known better than nature?

A. That there is a God, and what God is, and what are his relations to us, and what are his works, and what are our duties to him, and our hopes from him.*

Q. 3. That there is a God, none but a madman, sure, can doubt: but what of God is so clearly revealed in Scripture? A. 1. His essential attributes; and, 2. The Trinity in one

essence.

Q. 4. Which call you his essential attributes?

A. God is, essentially, life, understanding, and will, or vital * Heb. xi. 6; 1 Tim. ii. 5.

u John xvii. 3.

power, wisdom, and goodness, or love, in one substance, and this in absolute perfection.

Q. 5. But are not all the rest of his attributes essential?

A. Yes; but they are but these same named variously, from their various respects to the creatures; such are his truth, his justice, and his mercy, as he is our Governor; his bounty, as our Benefactor; and his self-sufficiency, eternity, immensity, or infiniteness, his immutability, immortality, invisibility, and very many such respective names, are comprehended in his Perfec

tion.z

Q. 6. I have oft heard of three persons and one God, and I could never understand what it meant, how three can be but one?

A. It is like that is, because you take the word "person' amiss, as if it signified a distinct substance, as it doth of men. Q. 7. If it doth not so, doth it not tend to deceive us that never heard of any other kind of person?

A, The Scripture tells us that there are three, and yet but one God; but it giveth us not a name which may notify clearly so great a mystery, for it is unsearchable and incomprehensible. We are to be baptised into the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. (Matt. xxviii. 29.) And there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Spirit, and these three are one. (1 John v. 7.) But the custom of the Church having used the word "person," having none that clearly expresseth the mystery, it is our part rather to labour to understand it, how a divine person differs from a human, than to quarrel with an improper word. God is one infinite, undivided Spirit; and yet that he is Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, must be believed.

And God hath made so marvellous an impression on all the natures of active beings, of three in one, as to me doth make this mystery of our religion the more easy to be believed; so far is it from seeming a contradiction.

Q. 8. I pray show me some such instances?

A. 1. The sun and all true fire is one substance, having three essential powers, the moving power, the enlightening power, and the heating power. Motion is not light, light is not

y John xiv. 24; Psalm xc. 2.

Mal. iii. 6; Psalm lxxxvi. 5, and cxlv. 17; Prov. xv. 3; Psalm cxxxix. 4, 5, 12, 23; Jer. xxiii. 24; Deut. xxxii. 4.

a Matt. xxviii. 19; 1 John v. 7.

heat, and heat is not motion, or light, yet all are one substance, and, radically, one virtue or power, and yet three as operative.

II. Every plant hath one vegetative principle, which hath essentially a power discretive, as discerning its own nutriment, appetitive, desiring or drawing it in, and motive, and so digestive and assimilative.

III. Every brute hath one sensitive soul, which essentially hath a power of vital, sensitive motion, perception, and appetite. IV. Every man hath one soul in substance, which hath the powers of vegetation, sense, and intellection, or reasoning.

V. The soul of man, as intellective, hath essentially a threefold power, or virtue, mental life for motion and execution, understanding, and will. All active beings are three virtues in one substance.

Q. 9. But these do none of them make three persons?

A. 1. But if all these be undeniable in nature, and prove in God active life, understanding, and will, it shows you that three essentials in one substautial essence is no contradiction. why may not the same be as true of the divine persons.

And

2. And in God, who is an infinite, undivided Spirit, little can we conceive what personality signifieth, and how far those school-men are right or wrong, who say that God's essential self-living, self-knowing, and self-loving, are the Trinity of the persons as in eternal existence; and that the operations and appearances in power, wisdom, and love in creation, incarnation for redemption, and renovation in nature, grace and initial glory, or communion, are the three persons in the second notion as outwardly operative. And how much more than this soever there is, it is no wonder that we comprehend it not; yea, I believe there is yet more in the mystery of the Trinity, because this much is so intelligible.

Q. 10. But is it not strange that God will lay our salvation on the belief of that which we cannot understand; yea, is it not on the bare saying of a word, whose meaning none can know?

A. The doctrine of the Trinity in unity is the very sum of all the christian religion, as the baptismal covenant assureth us; and can we think that Christianity saveth men as a charm, by words not understood? No; the belief of the Trinity is a practical belief. Far be it from us to think that every plain Christian shall be damned, who knoweth not what a person in the Trinity is, as eternally inexistent, when all the divines and