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and Sapphira, might eafily be perfuaded that it was God who fpake by his mouth, and conclude that where they found him in his omnipotency, they might well expect him in his veracity. These were the perfons for whom our Saviour next to the Apostles prayed, because by a way next to that of the ApofJohn xvii. tles they believed. Neither pray I for these alone, faith Chrift, but for them alfo who shall believe on me through their word. Thus the Apostles believed on Chrift through his own word, and the primitive Chriftians believed on the fame Chrift through the Apoftles' word, and this diftinction our Saviour himself hath clearly made; not that the word of the Apoftles was really distinct from the word of Christ, but only it was called theirs, becaufe delivered by their ministry, otherwife- it was the fame word which they had heard from him, and upon which they 1 John i. themselves believed, That which was from the beginning, faith St. John, which we have heard, which we have feen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled of the word of life, that which we have feen 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 fpake them, no more than they did the power of healing the fick, or raifing the dead, and the reft of the miracles, to be the power of them that wrought them; but as they attributed thofe miraculous works to God working by them, fo did they also that faving word to the fame God fpeaking by them. When St. Paul preached at Acts xiii. Antioch, almost the whole city came together to hear the word of God; fo they efteemed it, though they knew him a Man whom they came to hear fpeak it. This the Apostle commendeth in the Theffalonians, I Theff. i. that when they received the word of God, which they heard of him, they received it not as the word of Man, but (as it is in truth) the word of God; and receiving

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it fo, they embraced it as coming from him who could neither deceive nor be deceived, and confequently as infallibly true; and by fo embracing it, they affented unto it, by fo affenting to it, they believed it, ultimately upon the teftimony of God, immediately upon the teftimony of St. Paul, as he fpeaks himself, because our teftimony among you was 2 Theff. i. believed. Thus the Faith of thofe which were con- 10. verted by the Apostles was an affent unto the word as credible upon the teftimony of God, delivered to them by a teftimony Apoftolical. Which being thus clearly stated, we may at last descend into our own condition, and fo defcribe the nature of our own Faith, that every one may know what it is to believe.

Although Mofes was endued with the power of miracles, and converfed with God in the mount, and fpake with him face to face at the door of the Tabernacle; although upon these grounds the Ifraelites believed what he delivered to them as the word of God; yet neither the miracles nor Mofes did for ever continue with them; and notwithftanding his death, they and their Pofterity to all generations were obliged to believe the fame truths. Wherefore it is obfervable, which St. Stephen faith, be received the lively Oracles to give unto them; the A&s vii.38. Decalogue he received from the hand of God, written with the finger of God; the reft of the divine patefactions he wrote himself, and fo delivered them not a mortal word to die with him, but living Ora- sólia Zärra. cles, to be in force when he was dead, and oblige the people to a belief, when his rod had ceafed to broach the rocks and divide the feas. Neither did. he only tie them to a belief of what he wrote himfelf, but by foretelling and defcribing the Prophets which fhould be raised in future ages, he put a farther obligation upon them to believe their Prophecies as the revelations of the fame God. Thus all the Ifraelites, in all ages, believed Mofes; while he

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lived, by believing his words; after his death, by John v. 46, believing his writings. Had ye believed Mofes, faith our Saviour, ye would have believed me; for he wrote of me. But if ye believe not his writings, how shall ye believe my words? Wherefore the Faith of the Ifraelites in the land of Canaan was an affent unto the truths of the Law as credible upon the teftimony of God, delivered unto them in the writings of Mofes and the Prophets.

In the like manner is it now with us. For although Chrift first published the Gospel to those John i. 14. who beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father; although the Apoftles first converted those unto the Faith who heard them fpeak with tongues they never learned, they never heard be. fore, and difcover the thoughts of men they never faw before; who faw the lame to walk, the blind to fee, the dead to revive, and the living to expire at their command: yet did not thefe Apostles prolong their lives by virtue of that power which gave fuch teftimony to their doctrine, but rather fhortened them by their conftant atteftation to the truth of that doctrine farther confirmed by their death. Nor did that power of frequent and ordinary miraculous operations long furvive them; and yet they left as great an obligation upon the Church in all fucceeding ages to believe all the truths which they delivered, as they had put upon thofe perfons who heard their words and law their works; because they wrote the fame truths which they spake, affifted in writing by the fame Spirit by which they fpake, and therefore require the fare readiness of affent so long as the fame truths fhall be preferved by those writings. While Mofes lived and fpake as a mediator between God and the Ifraelites, they believed his words, and fo the Prophets while they preached. When Mofes was gone up to mount Nebo, and there died, when the reft of the Prophets were gathered to their fathers, they believed their writings,

and

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 Apoftles, as his friends, all things John xv.15. that he had heard of the Father, then did the Apostles believe the writings of Mofes and the Prophets, and the words of Christ, and in these taken together was contained the entire object of their Faith, and they John ii. 22. believed the Scripture, and the word which Jefus had faid. When Chrift was afcended up into Heaven, and the Holy Ghoft came down, when the words which Chrift had taught the Apostles were preached by them, and many thoufand fouls converted to the Faith, they believed the writings of the Prophets and the words of the Apoftles; and in thefe two was comprised the complete object of their Faith. When the Apostles themselves departed out of this life, and confirmed the truth of the Gofpel preached by the last of fufferings, their death, they left the fum 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 fucceeded them in their ordinary function, but were not to come near them in their extraordinary gifts. These things were writ- Johnxx.31, ten, faith St. John, the longest liver, and the latest writer, that ye might believe, that Jefus is the Chrift, the Son of God, and that believing ye might have life through his name.

Those Chriftians then which have lived fince the Apostles' death, and never obtained the wifh of St. Auguftin, to fee either Chrift upon earth, or St. Paul in the pulpit, have believed the writings of Mofes and the Prophets, of the Apoftles and Evangelifts, in which together is fully comprehended whatsoever may properly be termed matter of divine Faith; and fo (u) the houshold of God is built upon Eph. ii, 20. the foundation of the Apostles and Prophets, who are continued unto us only in their writings, and by

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them alone convey unto us the truths which they received from God, upon whofe teftimony we believe. And therefore he which put their writings into the definition of Faith, confidering Faith as now it ftands with us, is none of the smallest of the (x) School-men. From whence we may at last conclude, that the true nature of the Faith of a Christian, as the state of Chrift's Church now stands, and shall continue to the end of the World, confists in this, that it is an affent unto truths credible upon the testimony of God delivered unto us in the writings of the Apoftles and Prophets.

To believe therefore as the word ftands in the front of the CREED, and not only fo, but is diffused through every article and propofition of it, is to affent 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 tranfcendant holiness cannot deceive) and delivered unto us in the writings of the bleffed Apoftles and Prophets immediately inspired, moved and acted by God, out of whofe writings this brief fum of neceffary points of Faith was firft (y) collected. And as this is properly to believe, which was our first confideration; fo to fay I believe, is to make a confeffion or external expreffion of the Faith, which is the second confideration propounded.

Faith is an habit of the intellectual part of Man, and therefore of itself invisible; and to believe is a fpiritual act, and confequently immanent and internal, and known to no man but him who believ 1 Cor. ii. 11. eth: For what man knoweth the things of a man, fave the fpirit of a man which is in him? Wherefore Chrift being not only the great Apoftle, fent to deliver thefe revealed truths, and fo the Author of our Faith, but also the Head of the Church, whose body confifteth of faithful members, and fo the author of union and communion, which principally hath rela