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much, unless they were universal. Fair enemies will acknowledge what is good among their adversaries: but as that Church is the least apt of any society we know, to speak good of those who differ from her, so she has not very much to boast as to others saying much good of her. And if signal providences have now and then happened, these are such things, and they are carried on with such a depth, that we must acquiesce in the observation of the wisest men of all ages, that the race is not to the swift, nor Eccl. ix. 11. the battle to the strong: but that time and chance happeneth to all things.

And thus it appears, that these pretended notes, instead of giving us a clear thread to lead us up to infallibility and to end all controversies, do start a great variety of questions, that engage us into a labyrinth, out of which it cannot be easy for any to extricate themselves. But if we could see an end of this, then a new set of questions will come on, when we go to examine all Churches by them: whether the Church of Rome has them all? And if she alone has them so, that no other Church has them equally with her or beyond her?

If all these must be discussed before we can settle this question, which is the true infallible Church? a man must stay long ere he can come to a point in it.

Therefore there can be no other way taken here, but to examine first, what makes a particular Church: and then since the Catholic Church is an united body of all particular Churches, when the true notion of a particular Church is fixed, it will be easy from that to form a notion of the Catholic Church.

It would seem reasonable by the method of all Creeds, in particular of that called the Apostles' Creed, that we ought first to settle our faith as to the great points of the Christian religion, and from thence go to settle the notion of a true Church and that we ought not to begin with the notion of a Church, and from thence go to the doctrine.

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The doctrine of Christianity must be first stated, and from this we are to take our measures of all Churches; and that chiefly with respect to that doctrine, which every Christian is bound to believe: here a distinction is to be made between those capital and fundamental Articles, without which a man cannot be esteemed a true Christian, nor a Church a true Church; and other truths, which being delivered in Scripture, all men are indeed obliged to believe them, yet they are not of that nature that the ignorance of them, or an error in them, can exclude from salvation.

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To make this sensible: it is a proposition of another sort, that Christ died for sinners, than this, that he died at the third or at the sixth hour. And yet if the second proposition is expressly revealed in Scripture, we are bound to believe it, since God has said it, though it is not of the same nature with the other.

Here a controversy does naturally arise that wise people are unwilling to meddle with, what Articles are fundamental, and what are not?

The defining of fundamental Articles seems, on the one hand, to deny salvation to such as do not receive them all, which men are not willing to do.

And on the other hand, it may seem a leaving men at liberty, as to all other particulars that are not reckoned up among the fundamentals.

But after all, the covenant of grace, the terms of salvation, and the grounds on which we expect it, seem to be things of another nature than all other truths, which, though revealed, are not of themselves the means or conditions of salvation. Wheresoever true baptism is, there it seems the essentials of this covenant are preserved: for if we look on baptism as a fœderal admission into Christianity, there can be no baptism where the essence of Christianity is not preserved. As far then as we believe that any society has preserved that, so far we are bound to receive her baptism, and no further. For unless we consider baptism as a sort of a charm, that such words joined with a washing with water make one a Christian; which seems to be expressly contrary to what St. Peter 1 Pet. iii. says of it, that it is not the washing away the filth of the flesh, but the answer of a good conscience towards God that saves us; we must conclude, that baptism is a fœderal thing, in which after that the sponsions are made, the seal of regeneration is added.

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From hence it will follow, that all who have a true baptism, that makes men believers and Christians, must also have the true faith as to the essentials of Christianity; the fundamentals of Christianity seem to be all that is necessary to make baptism true and valid. And upon this a distinction is to be made, that will discover and destroy a sophism that is often used on this occasion. A true Church is, in one sense, a society that preserves the essentials and fundamentals of Christianity in another sense it stands for a society, all whose doctrines are true, that has corrupted no part of this religion, nor mixed any errors with it. A true man is one who has a soul and a body, that are the essential constituents of a man: whereas,

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in another sense, a man of sincerity and candour is called a true man. Truth in the one sense imports the essential constitution, and in the other it imports only a quality that is accidental to it. So when we acknowledge that any society is a true Church, we ought to be supposed to mean no other, than that the covenant of grace in its essential constituent parts is preserved entire in that body; and not that it is true in all its doctrines and decisions.

The second thing to be considered in a Church is, their association together in the use of the sacraments. For these are given by Christ to the society, as the rites and badges of that body. That which makes particular men believers, is their receiving the fundamentals of Christianity; so that which constitutes the body of the Church, is the profession of that faith, and the use of those sacraments, which are the rites and distinctions of those who profess it.

In this likewise a distinction is to be made between what is essential to a sacrament, and what is the exact observance of it according to the institution. Additions to the sacraments do not annul them, though they corrupt them with that adulterate mixture. Therefore where the sponsions are made, and a washing with water is used with the words of Christ, there we own that there is a true baptism: though there may be a large addition of other rites, which we reject as superstitious, though we do not pretend that they null the baptism. But if any part of the institution is cut off, there we do not own the sacrament to be true: because it being an institution of Christ's, it can no more be esteemed a true sacrament, than as it retains all that, which by the institution appears to be the main and essential part of the action.

Upon this account it is, that since Christ appointed bread and wine for his other sacrament, and that he not only blessed both, but distributed both, with words appropriated to each kind, we do not esteem that to be a true sacrament, in which either the one or the other of these kinds is withdrawn.

But in the next place, there may be many things necessary in the way of precept and order, both with relation to the sacraments, and to the other public acts of worship, in which though additions or defects are erroneous and faulty, yet they do not annul the sacraments.

We think none ought to baptize but men dedicated to the service of God, and ordained according to that constitution that was settled in the Church by the Apostles; and yet baptism by laics, or by women, such as is most commonly practised in the Roman Church, is not esteemed

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ART. null by us, nor is it repeated: because we make a difference between what is essential to a sacrament, and what is requisite in the regular way of using it.

None can deny this among us, but those who will question the whole Christianity of the Roman Church, where the midwives do generally baptize: but if this invalidates the baptism, then we must question all that is done among them persons so baptized, if their baptism is void, are neither truly ordained, nor capable of any other act of Church-communion. Therefore men's being in orders, or their being duly ordained, is not necessary to the essence of the sacrament of baptism, but only to the regularity of administering it: and so the want of it does not void it, but does only prove such men to be under some defects and disorder in their constitution.

Thus I have laid down those distinctions that will guide us in the right understanding of this Article. If we believe that any society retains the fundamentals of Christianity, we do from that conclude it to be a true Church, to have a true baptism, and the members of it to be capable of salvation. But we are not upon that bound to associate ourselves to their communion: for if they have the addition of false doctrines, or any unlawful parts of worship among them, we are not bound to join in that which we are persuaded is error, idolatry, or superstition.

If the sacraments that Christ has appointed are observed and ministered by any Church as to the main of them, according to his institution, we are to own those for valid actions: but we are not for that bound to join in communion with them, if they have adulterated these with many mixtures and additions.

Thus a plain difference is made between our owning that a Church may retain the fundamentals of Christianity, a true baptism, and true orders, which are a consequent upon the former, and our joining with that Church in such acts as we think are so far vitiated, that they become unlawful to us to do them. Pursuant to this, we do neither repeat the baptism, nor the ordinations of the Church of Rome: we acknowledge that our forefathers were both baptized and ordained in that communion: and we derive our present Christianity or baptism, and our orders from thence: yet we think that there were so many unlawful actions, even in those rituals, besides the other corruptions of their worship, that we cannot join in such any more.

The being baptized in a Church does not tie a man to

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every thing in that Church; it only ties him to the ART. covenant of Grace. The stipulations which are made in baptism, as well as in ordination, do only bind a man to the Christian faith, or to the faithful dispensing of that Gospel, and of those sacraments, of which he is made a minister so he who, being convinced of the errors and corruptions of a Church, departs from them, and goes on in the purity of the Christian religion, does pursue the true effect both of his baptism, and of his ordination vows. For these are to be considered as ties upon him only to God and Christ, and not to adhere to the other dictates of that body, in which he had his birth, baptism, and ordination.

The great objection against all this is, that it sets up a private judgment, it gives particular persons a right of judging Churches: whereas the natural order is, that private persons ought to be subject and obedient to the Church.

This must needs feed pride and curiosity, it must break all order, and cast all things loose, if every single man, according to his reading and presumption, will judge of Churches and Communions.

On this head it is very easy to employ a great deal of popular eloquence, to decry private men's examining of Scriptures, and forming their judgments of things out of them, and not submitting all to the judgment of the Church. But how absurd soever this may seem, all parties do acknowledge that it must be done.

Those of the Church of Rome do teach, that a man born in the Greek Church, or among us, is bound to lay down his error, and his communion too, and to come over to them; and yet they allow our baptism, as well as they do the ordinations of the Greek Church.

Thus they allow private men to judge, and that in so great a point, as what Church and what communion ought to be chosen or forsaken. And it is certain, that to judge of Churches and Communions is a thing of that intricacy, that if private judgment is allowed here, there is no reason to deny it its full scope as to all other matters.

God has given us rational faculties to guide and direct us; and we must make the most of these that we can: we must judge with our own reasons, as well as see with our own eyes: neither can we, or ought we to resign up our understandings to any others, unless we are convinced that God has imposed this upon us, by his making them infallible, so that we are secured from error if we follow them.