2 Pet. ii. 4.

The neceffity of the belief of this Article appeareth, first, because there can be no Chriftian confolation without this perfuafion. For we have all finned and come short of the glory of God, nay, God himfelf hath concluded all under fin; we must also acknowledge that every finner is a guilty person, and that guilt confifteth in an obligation to endure eternal punishment from the wrath of God provoked by our fins; from whence nothing else can arife but a fearful expectation of everlafting mifery. So long as guilt remaineth on the Soul of Man, so long is he in the condition of the Devils, delivered into chains and referved unto judgement. For we all fell as well as they, but with this difference; remiffion of fins is promised unto us, but to them it is not.

Secondly, It is neceflary to believe the forgiveness of fins, that thereby we may fufficiently esteem God's goodness and our happiness. When Man was fallen into fin, there was no poffibility left him to work out his recovery; that foul which had finned muft of neceffity die, the wrath of God abiding upon him for ever. There can be nothing imaginable in that man which fhould move God not to fhew a demonftration of his juftice upon him; there can be nothing without him which could pretend to rescue him from the fentence of an offended and Almighty God. Glorious therefore muft the goodness of our God appear, who difpenfeth with his Law, who taketh off the guilt, who loofeth the obligation, who imputeth not the fin. This is God's goodnefs, this is man's Pfal. xxxii. happiness. For bleffed is he whofe tranfgreffion is forgiven, whofe fin is covered, bleffed is the man unto whom the Lord imputeth not iniquity. The year of Releafe, the year of Jubilee, was a time of publick joy; and there is no voice like that, Thy fins are forgiven thee. By this a man is rescued from infernal pains, fecured from everlasting flames; by this he is made capable of Heaven, by this he is affured of eternal happiness. Thirdly, It is neceffary to believe the forgiveness of

1

fins, that by the fenfe thereof we may be inflamed with the love of God: for that love. doth naturally follow from fuch a fenfe, appeareth by the Parable in the Gospel, There was a certain creditor which had two Luke vii. debtors; the one owed five hundred pence, and the other 41, 42. fifty. And when they had nothing to pay, be frankly for= gave them both. Upon which cafe our Saviour made this question, Which of them will love him most? He fuppofeth both the Debtors will love him, because the Creditor forgave them both; and he collecteth the degrees of love will anfwer proportionably to the quantity of the debt forgiven. We are the debtors, and our debts are fins, and the creditor is God: the remiffion of our fins is the frank forgiving of our debts, and for that we are obliged to return our love. Fourthly, The true notion of forgiveness of fins is neceffary to teach us what we owe to Chrift, to whom, and how far we are indebted for this forgivenefs. Through this man is preached unto us the forgive- Actsxiii. nefs of fins, and without a furety we had no release. 38. He rendered God propitious unto our perfons, because he gave himfelf as a fatisfaction for our fins. While thus he took off our obligation to punishment, he laid upon us a new obligation of obedience. We are not our own who are bought with a price: we must Cor. v. glorify God in our bodies, and in our fpirits, which are Cor. vil God's. We must be no longer the fervants of men ; we 23. are the fervants of Chrift, who are bought with a price.

19, 20.

Fifthly, It is neceffary to believe remiffion of fins as wrought by the blood of Chrift, by which the Covenant was ratified and confirmed, which mindeth us of a condition required. It is the nature of a Covenant to expect performances on both parts; and therefore if we look for forgivenefs promised, we must perform repentance commanded. Thefe two were always preached together, and those which God hath joined ought no man to put afunder. Chrift did truly appear a Prince and a Saviour, and it was to give re- A&s v. 31. pentance to Ifrael, and forgiveness of fins: he joined

thefe

these two in the Apoftles' commiffion, faying, that Luke xxiv. repentance and remission of fins fhould be preached in bis name among all nations.

47.

From hence every one may learn what he is explicitly to believe and confess in this Article of forgivenefs of fins; for thereby he is conceived to intend thus much I do freely and fully acknowledge and with unfpeakable comfort embrace this as a moft neceffary and infallible truth, that whereas every fin is a tranfgreffion of the Law of God, upon every tranfgreffion there remaineth a guilt upon the person of the tranfgreffor, and that guilt is an obligation to endure eternal punishment, so that all Men being concluded under fin, they were all obliged to fuffer the miseries of eternal death; it pleased God to give his Son, and his Son to give himself, to be a furety for this debt, and to release us from these bonds, and because without fhedding of blood there is no remiffion, he gave his life a facrifice for fin, he laid it down as a ranfom, even his precious blood as a price by way of compenfation and fatisfaction to the will and juftice of God; by which propitiation, God, who was by our fins offended, became reconciled, and being fo, took off our obligation to eternal punishment, which is the guilt of our fins, and appointed in the Church of Chrift the facrament of Baptifm for the firft remiffion, and repentance for the conftant forgiveness, of all following trefpaffes. And thus I believe the forgiveness of Sins.

ARTICLE

TH

ARTICLE XI.

The Refurrection of the Body.

HIS Article was anciently delivered and acknowledged (k) by all Churches, only with this difference, that whereas in other places it was expreffed in general terms, the refurrection of the flesh, they of the Church of Aquileia, by the addition of a Pronoun, propounded it to every fingle believer in a more particular way of expreffion, the refurrection of this flesh. And though we have translated it in our English Creed, the refurrection of the body; yet neither the Greek nor Latin ever delivered this Article in those terms, but in these, the (1) refurrection of the flesh; because there may be ambiguity in the one, in relation to the celeftial and fpiritual bodies, but there can be no collufion in the other. Only it will be neceffary, for fhewing our agreement with the ancient Creeds, to declare that as by Flesh they understood the body of Man, and not any other flesh; fo we, when we tranflate it Body, underftand no other body but fuch a body of flesh, of the fame nature which it had before it was by death feparated from the Soul. And this we may very And this we may very well and properly do, because our Church hath already taken care therein, and given us a fit occasion so to declare ourfelves. For though in the Creed itself, ufed at Morning and Evening Prayer, the Article be thus delivered, the refurrection of the body, yet in the Form of publick Baptifm, where it is propounded by way of queftion to the Godfathers in the name of the Child to be baptized, it runneth thus, Doft thou believe---the refurrection of the flesh? We fee by daily experience that all Men are mortal; that the Body, left by the Soul, the falt and life thereof, putrifieth VOL. I.

and

Page 382.

and confumeth, and, according to the fentence of old, returneth unto duft: but thefe Bodies, as frail and mortal as they are, confifting of this corruptible flesh, are the fubject of this Article, in which we profefs to believe the refurrection of the body.

When we treated concerning the Refurrection of Chrift, we delivered the proper notion and nature of the Refurrection in general, that from thence we might conclude that our Saviour did truly rife from the dead. Being now to explain the Refurrection to come, we shall not need to repeat what we then delivered, or make any addition as to that particular; but, referring the Reader to that which is there explained, it will be neceflary for us only to confider what is the Refurrection to come, who are they which fhall be raised, how we are affured they fhall rife, and in what manner all fhall be performed. And this Refurrection hath fome peculiar difficulties different from those which might seem to obftruct the belief of Chrift's Refurrection. For the Body of the Son of God did never fee corruption; all the parts thereof continued in the fame condition in which they were after his moft precious Soul had left them, they were only depofited in a fepulchre, otherwife the grave had no power over them. But other mortal Bodies, after the Soul hath deferted them, are left to all the fad effects of their mortality: we may say to corruption, Thou art my father; to the worm, Thou art my mother and my fifter; our corps go down to the bars of the pit, and reft together in the duft. Our death is not a fimple diffolution, not a bare feparation of Soul and Body, as Chrift's was, but our whole tabernacle is fully diffolved, and every part thereof crumbled into duft and afhes, fcattered, mingled and confounded with the duft of the earth. is a defcription of a kind of Refurrection in the ProTz2. xxxvii. phet Ezekiel, in which there is fuppofed a valley full of bones, and there was a noife, and behold a shaking, and the bones came together, bone to his bone, the finews

Job xvii. 14, 16.

7, 8, 10.

There

and