it, that he of himself or by his own instinct did open his mouth to prophesy; but that all prophetical revelations came from God alone, and that whosoever first delivered them was antecedently inspired by him, as it followeth, for the Prophecy came not in old time by the will of man, but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost. That therefore which they delivered was the Word, the Revelation of God; which they assented unto as to a certain and infallible truth, credible upon the immediate testimony of God, and to which the rest of the Believers assented upon the same testimony of God mediately delivered by the hands of the Prophets.

12.

Col. i. 19.

Thus God, who at sundry times, and in divers manners, spake Heb. i. 1. in times past unto the Fathers by the Prophets, and by so speaking propounded the object of Faith both to the Prophets and the Fathers, hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son, Verse 2. and by so speaking hath enlarged the object of Faith to us by him, by which means it comes to be the Faith of Jesus. Thus Rev. xiv. the only begotten Son, who was in the bosom of the Father, the John i. 18. express Image of his Person, he in whom it pleased the Father Heb. i. 3. that all fulness should dwell, he in whom dwelleth all the fulness. of the Godhead bodily, revealed the will of God to the Apostles, who being assured that he knew all things, and convinced that John xvi. he came forth from God, gave a full and clear assent unto those 30. things which he delivered, and grounded their Faith upon his words as upon the immediate testimony of God. I have given John xvii. unto them, saith Christ unto his Father, the words which thou garest me, and they have received them, and have known surely that I came out from thee, and they have believed that thou didst send me. Beside this delivery of these words by Christ to the Apostles, they received the promise of the Spirit of Truth, which John xvi. should guide them into all truth, and teach them all things, and bring all things into their remembrance whatsoever Christ had said unto them. So clearly, so fully, so constantly were they furnished with divine Illuminations and Revelations from God, upon which they grounded their own Faith; that each of them might well make that profession of St. Paul, I know whom I 2 Tim. i. hare believed. Thus the Faith of the Apostles, as of Moses and the Prophets, was grounded upon the immediate Revelations of God.

* [So Philo Judaeus, προφήτης γὰρ δὲ πάντα ὑπηχοῦντος ἑτέρου. Vol. I. ἴδιον μὲν οὐδὲν ἀποφθέγγεται, ἀλλότρια p. 510.]

8.

xiv. 26.

12.

20.

But those Believers to whom the Apostles preached, and whom they converted to the Faith, believed the same truths which were revealed to the Apostles, though they were not so revealed to them as they were unto the Apostles, that is, immediately from God. But, as the Israelites believed those truths which Moses spake, to come from God, being convinced by the constant supply of miracles wrought by the rod which he carried in his hand; so the blessed Apostles, being so plentifully endued from above with the power of miracles, gave sufficient testimony that it was God which spake by their mouths, who so evidently wrought by their hands. They which heard St. Peter call a lame man unto his legs, speak a dead man alive, and strike a living man to death with his tongue, as he did Ananias and Sapphira, might easily be persuaded that it was God who spake by his mouth, and conclude that where they found him in his omnipotency, they might well expect him in his veracity. These were the persons for whom our Saviour next to the Apostles prayed, because by a way next to that of the Apostles they John xvii. believed. Neither pray I for these alone, saith Christ, but for them also who shall believe on me through their word. Thus the Apostles believed on Christ through his own word, and the primitive Christians believed on the same Christ through the Apostles' word, and this distinction our Saviour himself hath clearly made; not that the word of the Apostles was really distinct from the word of Christ, but only it was called theirs, because delivered by their ministry, otherwise it was the same word which they had heard from him, and upon which they 1 John i. 1, themselves believed. That which was from the beginning, saith St. John, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled of the word of life, that which we have seen and heard declare we unto you. And this was the true foundation of Faith, in all them which believed, that they took not the words which they heard from the Apostles to be the words of the men which spake them, no more than they did the power of healing the sick, or raising the dead, and the rest of the miracles, to be the power of them that wrought them; but as they attributed those miraculous works to God working by them, so did they also that saving word to the same God speaking by them. When St. Paul Acts xiii. preached at Antioch, almost the whole city came together to hear the word of God; so they esteemed it, though they knew him a

3.

44.

I

man whom they came to hear speak it. This the Apostle commendeth in the Thessalonians, that when they received the word 1 Thess. ii. of God, which they heard of him, they received it not as the word 13. of man, but (as it is in truth) the word of God; and receiving it so, they embraced it as coming from him who could neither deceive nor be deceived, and consequently as infallibly true; and by so embracing it, they assented unto it, by so assenting to it, they believed it, ultimately upon the testimony of God, immediately upon the testimony of St. Paul, as he speaks himself, because our testimony among you was believed. Thus the Faith 2 Thess. i. of those which were converted by the Apostles was an assent unto the word as credible upon the testimony of God, delivered to them by a testimony Apostolical. Which being thus clearly stated, we may at last descend into our own condition, and so describe the nature of our own Faith, that every one may know what it is to believe.

10.

Although Moses was endued with the power of miracles, and conversed with God in the mount, and spake with him face to face at the door of the Tabernacle; although upon these grounds the Israelites believed what he delivered to them as the word of God; yet neither the miracles nor Moses did for ever continue with them; and notwithstanding his death, they and their posterity to all generations were obliged to believe the same truths. Wherefore it is observable, which St. Stephen saith, he received Acts vii. 38. the lively Oracles to give unto them; the Decalogue he received from the hand of God, written with the finger of God; the rest of the divine patefactions he wrote himself, and so delivered them not a mortal word to die with him, but living Oracles, to Aéyia Sŵvbe in force when he was dead, and oblige the people to a belief, TMa. when his rod had ceased to broach the rocks and divide the seas. Neither did he only tie them to a belief of what he wrote himself, but by foretelling and describing the Prophets which should be raised in future ages, he put a farther obligation upon them to believe their Prophecies as the revelations of the same God. Thus all the Israelites, in all ages, believed Moses; while he lived, by believing his words; after his death, by believing his writings. Had ye believed Moses, saith our Saviour, ye would John v. 46, have believed me; for he wrote of me. But if ye believe not his 47. writings, how shall ye believe my words? Wherefore the Faith of the Israelites in the land of Canaan was an assent unto the

truths of the Law as credible upon the testimony of God, delivered unto them in the writings of Moses and the Prophets. In the like manner is it now with us. John i. 14. first published the Gospel to those who

For although Christ beheld his glory, the

glory as of the only begotten of the Father; although the Apostles first converted those unto the Faith, who heard them speak with tongues they never learned, they never heard before, and discover the thoughts of men they never saw before; who saw the lame to walk, the blind to see, the dead to revive, and the living to expire at their command: yet did not these Apostles prolong their lives by virtue of that power which gave such testimony to their doctrine, but rather shortened them by their constant attestation to the truth of that doctrine farther confirmed by their death. Nor did that power of frequent and ordinary miraculous operations long survive them; and yet they left as great an obligation upon the Church in all succeeding ages to believe all the truths which they delivered, as they had put upon those persons who heard their words and saw their works; because they wrote the same truths which they spake, assisted in writing by the same Spirit by which they spake, and therefore require the same readiness of assent so long as the same truths shall be preserved by those writings. While Moses lived and spake as a mediator between God and the Israelites, they believed his words, and so the Prophets while they preached. When Moses was gone up to Mount Nebo, and there died, when the rest of the Prophets were gathered to their fathers, they believe their writings, and the whole object of their Faith was contained in them. When the Son of God came into the world to reveal the will of his Father, when he made known unto the Apostles, as his friends, all things that he had heard of the Father, then did the Apostles believe the writings of Moses and the Prophets, and the words of Christ, and in these taken John ii. 22. together was contained the entire object of their Faith, and they believed the Scripture, and the word which Jesus had said. When Christ was ascended up into Heaven, and the holy Ghost came down, when the words which Christ had taught the Apostles were preached by them, and many thousand souls converted to the Faith, they believed the writings of the Prophets and the words of the Apostles; and in these two was comprised the complete object of their Faith. When the Apostles themselves

John xv.

15.

departed out of this life, and confirmed the truth of the Gospel preached by the last of sufferings, their death, they left the sum of what they had received, in writing, for the continuation of the Faith in the Churches which they had planted, and the propagation thereof in other places, by those which succeeded them in their ordinary function, but were not to come near them in their extraordinary gifts. These things were written, saith St. Joh. xx. 31. John, the longest liver, and the latest writer, that ye might believe, that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing ye might have life through his name.

Those Christians then which have lived since the Apostles' death, and never obtained the wish of St. Augustin, to see either Christ upon earth, or St. Paul in the pulpit, have believed the writings of Moses and the Prophets, of the Apostles and Evangelists, in which together is fully comprehended whatsoever may properly be termed matter of divine Faith; and so (u) the house- Eph. ii. 20: hold of God is built upon the foundation of the Apostles and Prophets, who are continued unto us only in their writings, and by them alone convey unto us the truths which they received from God, upon whose testimony we believe. And therefore he which put their writings into the definition of Faith, considering Faith as now it stands with us, is none of the smallest of the (x) Schoolmen. From whence we may at last conclude, that the true nature of the Faith of a Christian, as the state of Christ's Church now stands, and shall continue to the end of the World, consists in this, that it is an assent unto truths credible upon the testimony of God delivered unto us in the writings of the Apostles and Prophets.

To believe therefore, as the word stands in the front of the CREED, and not only so, but is diffused through every article and proposition of it, is to assent to the whole and every part of it, as to a certain and infallible truth revealed by God (who by reason of his infinite knowledge cannot be deceived, and by reason of his transcendent holiness cannot deceive) and delivered unto us in the writings of the blessed Apostles and Prophets immediately inspired, moved and acted by God, out of whose writings this brief sum of necessary points of Faith was first (y) collected. And as this is properly to believe, which was our first consideration; so to say I believe, is to make a confession or external expression of the Faith, which is the second consideration propounded.