particle in it, I fincerely, readily, refolvedly fay, I believe.

H

I believe in God.

AVING delivered the nature of Faith, and the act of Belief common to all the Articles of the Creed, that we may understand what it is to believe; we shall proceed to the explication of the Articles themselves, as the most neceffary objects of our Faith, that we may know what is chiefly to be believed. Where immediately we meet with another word as general as the former, and as univerfally concerned in every Article, which is GOD; for if to believe be to affent upon the teftimony of God, as we have before declared, then wherefoever belief is expreffed or implied, there is also the name of God understood, upon whofe teftimony we believe. He therefore whofe authority is the ground and foundation of the whole, his exiftence begins the Creed, as the foundation of that authority. For if there can be no divine Faith without the attestation of God, by which alone it becomes divine, and there can be no fuch atteftation, except there were an existence of the teftifier, then inuft it needs be proper to begin the confetion of our Faith with the agnition of our God. If his (b) name were thought fit to be expreffed in the front of every action, even by the Heathen, because they thought no action profpered but by his approbation; much more ought we to fix it before our confeffion, because without him to believe as we profess, is no less than a contradiction.

Now these words, I believe in God, will require a double confideration; one, of the phrafe or manner of speech; another, of the thing or nature of the truth in that manner expreffed. For to believe with an addition of the prepofition in, is a phrase or expreffion

preffion ordinarily conceived fit to be given to none but to God himself, as always implying, befide a bare act of Faith, an addition of hope, love, and affiance. An obfervation, as I conceive, prevailing especially in the Latin Church, grounded principally upon the authority of (i) St. Auguftin. Whereas among the Greeks, in whofe language the New Teftament was penned, I perceive no fuch conftant diftinction in their deliveries of the Creed; and in the (k) Hebrew language of the Old, from which the Jewish and Chriftian Greeks received that phrase of believing in, it hath no fuch peculiar and accumulative fignification. For it is fometimes attributed to God, the author and original caufe; fometimes to the Prophets, the immediate revealers of the Faith; fometimes it is spoken of miracles, the motives to believe; fometimes of the Law of God, the material object of our Faith. Among all which varieties of that phrase of speech, it is fufficiently apparent that in this confeffion of Faith it is moft proper to admit it in the last acception, by which it is attributed to the material object of belief. For the Creed being nothing elfe but a brief comprehenfion of the most neceffary matters of Faith, whatsoever is contained in it befide the firft word I believe, by which we make confeffion" of our Faith, can be nothing else but part of those verities to be believed, and the act of belief in respect to them nothing but an affent unto them as divinely credible and infallible truths. Neither can we conceive that the ancient Greek Fathers of the Church could have any farther meaning in it, who make the whole body of the Creed to be of the fame nature, as fo many truths to be believed, acknow¬ ledged and confeffed; infomuch as fometimes they ufe not (1) believing in, neither for the Father, Son, nor Holy Ghoft; fometimes ufing it as to them, they (m) continue the fame to the following Articles of, the Catholic Church, the Communion

of

29

of Saints, &c. and (n) generally speak of the Creed as of nothing but mere matter of Faith, without any intimation of hope, (o) love, or any fuch notion included in it. So that believing in, by virtue of the phrase or manner of fpeech, whether we look upon the original use of it in the Hebrew, or the derivative in the Greek, or the sense of it in the first Chris tians in the Latin Church, can be of no farther real importance in the Creed in refpect of God, who immediately follows, than to acknowledge and affert his being or exiftence. Nor ought this to be imagined a flender notion or fmall part of the firft Article of our Faith, when it really is the foundation of this and all the reft; that as the Creed is fundamental in refpect of other truths, this is the Heb. xi. 6. (p) foundation even of the fundamentals: For he that cometh to God must believe that he is. And this I take for a fufficient explication of the phrafe, I believe in God, that is, I believe that God is.

5.

As for the matter or truth contained in these words fo explained, it admits a threefold confideration, first of the notion of God, what is here understood by that name; fecondly, of the Existence of God, how we know or believe that he is; third1 Cor. viii. ly, the Unity of God, in that though there be gods many, and lords many, yet in our Creed we mention him as but one. When therefore we shall have clearly delivered what is the true notion of God in whom we believe, how and by what means we come to affure ourselves of the existence of fuch a Deity, and upon what grounds we apprehend him of fuch a tranfcendent nature that he can admit. no competitor; than may we be conceived to have fufficiently explicated the former part of the firft Article; then may every one understand what he says, and upon what ground he proceeds, when he profeffeth, I believe in God.

The name of God is attributed unto many, but here is to be understood of him who by way of

eminency

Pfal.

and xi. 36.

22.

eminency and excellency bears that name, and therefore is ftyled God of gods; The Lord our God is Deut. x. 17. God of gods, and Lord of lords and in the fame re- cxxxvi. 2. fpect is called the most high God (others being but Dan. ii. 47. inferior, or under him), and (q) God over or above all, Gen. xiv. This eminency and excellency, by which these titles 18, 19, 20, become proper unto him and incommunicable to any Rom. ix. 5. other, is grounded upon the divine nature or ef- Ephef. iv. 6. fence, which all other who are called gods have not, and therefore are not by nature gods. Then when je Gal. iv. 8. knew not God, faith St. Paul, ye did fervice to them which by nature are not gods. There is then a God by nature, and others which are called gods, but by nature are not fo: for either they have no power at ail, because no being, but only in the falfe opinions of deceived men, as the gods of the Heathen; or if they have any real power or authority, from whence fome are (r) called gods in the Scripture, yet have they it not from themselves or of their own nature, but from him who only bath immortality, and confequently only Divinity, and therefore is the only true God. So that the notion of a Deity doth at laft exprefsly fignify a being or nature of (s) infinite perfection; and the infinite perfection of a nature or being confifteth in this, that it be abfolutely and effentially neceffary, an actual being of itself; and potential or caufative of all beings befide itfelf, independent from any other, upon which all things elfe depend, and by which all things elfe are governed. It is true indeed, that to give a perfect definition of God is impoffible, neither can our finite reafon hold any proportion with infinity: but yet a sense of this Divinity we have, and the first and common notion of it confifts in these three particulars, that it is a Being of itself, and independent from any other; that it is that upon which all things which are made depend; that it governs all things. And this I conceive fufficient as to the first confideration, in reference to the notion of a God.

As

As for the existence of fuch a Being, how it comes to be known unto us, or by what means we are affured of it, is not fo unanimoufly agreed upon, as that it is. For although fome have imagined that the knowledge of a Deity is connatural to the Soul of man, fo that every man hath a connate inbred notion of a God; yet I rather conceive the Soul of man to have no connatural knowledge at all, no particular notion of any thing in it from the beginning; but being we can have no affurance of its pre-existence, we may more rationally judge it to receive the first apprehenfions of things by fenfe, and by them to make all rational collections. If then the Soul of man be at the firft like a fair smooth table, without any actual characters or knowledge imprinted in it; if all the knowledge which we have comes fucceffively by fensation, instruction, and rational collection; then must we not refer the apprehenfion of a Deity to any connate notion or inbred opinion; at least we are affured God never chargeth us with the knowledge of him upon that

account.

Again, although others do affirm, that the exiftence of God is a truth evident of itself, fo as whofoever hears but these terms once named, that God is, cannot choose but acknowledge it for a certain and infallible truth upon the first apprehenfion; that as no man can deny that the whole is greater than any part, who knoweth only what is meant by whole, and what by part: fo no man can poffibly deny or doubt of the existence of God, who knows but what is meant by God, and what it is to be; yet can we not ground our knowledge of God's existence upon any fuch clear and immediate evidence: nor were it fafe to lay it upon fuch a ground, because whofoever fhould deny it, could not by this means be convinced; it being a very irrational way of inftruction to tell a man that doubts of this truth, that he muft believe it because it is evident unto