SUFFICIENCY OF SCRIPTURE. 253
benefit by it, yet they hold the profession of it on a contrary prac- tice. And for this self-deceiving, attended with eternal ruin, many men are beholding unto such notions as yours about your church, securing salvation within the pale of its external communion, laying little weight on the things which, at the last day, will only stand them in stead. But for Protestants, setting aside their occasional exasperations, when they begin to bethink themselves, they cannot satisfy their own consciences in a resolution not to love them, be- cause of some differences, whom they believe that God loves or may love, notwithstanding those differences from them ; or to renounce all union with them who, they are persuaded, are united unto Christ ; or not to be moderate towards them in this world with whom they expect to live for ever in another. I speak only of them, on all sides, Avho have I'eceived into their hearts, and do express in their lives, the scriptural power and energy of the gospel, who are begotten unto Christ by the word of truth, and have received of his Spirit, pro- mised in the covenant of grace unto all them that believe on him; for, not to dissemble Avith you, I believe all others, as to their pre- sent state, to be in the same condition before God, be they of what church or way they will, though they are not all in the same condi- tion in respect of the means of their spiritual advantage which they enjoy or may do so, they being much more excellent in some societies of Christians than others. This then, to return, is the principle of Protestants, derived down unto them from Christ and his apostles; and hereby are they eminently furnished for the exercise of that moderation which you so much and so deservedly commend. And more fully to tell you my private judgment, which whether it be my own only I do not much concern myself to inquire, but this it is: — Any man in the world who receiveth the Scripture of the Old and New Testament as the word of God, and on that account assents in general to the whole truth revealed in them, worshipping God in Christ, and yielding obedience unto him answerable unto his light and conviction, — not contradicting his profession by any practice in- consistent with true piety, nor owning of any opinion or persuasion destructive to the known fundamentals of Christianity, — though he should have the unhappiness to dissent, in some things, from all the churches that are at this day in the world, may yet have an internal, sii2:)ernatural, saving principle of his faith and obedience, and be un- doubtedly saved. And I am sure it is my duty to exercise modera- tion towards every man concerning whom I have, or ought to have, that persuasion.
2. Some Protestants are of that judgment that external force ought to have no place at all in matters of faith, however laws may be constituted with penalties for the preservation of public outward
254 A VINDICATION OF THE ANIMAD VERSIONS ON FIAT LUX.
order in a nation; most of tliem, that " hsereticidium," or putting men to death for their misapprehensions in the tilings of God, is ab- solutely unlawful; and all of them, that faith is the gift of God, for the communication whereof unto men he hath appointed certain means, whereof external force is none; — unto which two last posi- tions, not only the greatest Protestant but the greatest potentate in Europe hath lately, in his own words, expressive of a heavenly be- nignity towards mankind in their infirmities, declared his royal assent.^ And I shall somewhat question the Protestancy of them whom his authority, example, and reason doth not conclude in these things. For my part, I desire no better, I can give no greater warrant to assert them as the principles of Protestants than what I have now acquainted you with. And it is no small satisfaction unto me to contemplate on the heavenly principle of gospel peace planted in the noble soil of royal ingenuity and goodness; whence fruit may be expected to the great profit and advantage of the whole world. Nor is it easy to discover the natural and genuine tendency of these principles towards moderation. Indeed, in acting according unto them, and in a regu- lar consistency with them, consists the moderation which we treat about. Wherever, then, Protestants use not that moderation towards those that dissent from them, if otherwise peaceable, which the Lord Jesus requires his disciples to exercise towards all them that profess the same common hope with them, the fault is solely in the persons so offending, and is not countenanced from any principles whicli they avow. Whether it be so with those of your church shall now be con- sidered.
1. You have no one principle that you more pertinaciously adhere unto, nor which yields you greater advantage with weak, imstable souls, than that whereby you confine all Christianity within the hounds of your own communion. The Roman church and the ca- tholic are with you one and the same. No privilege of the gospel, you suppose, belongs unto any soul in the world wdio lives not in your communion, and in professed subjection unto the pope. Union with Christ, saving faith here, with salvation hereafter, belongs to no other, — no, not one. This is the moderation of your church, whereunto your outward actings have, for the most part, been suited. Indeed, by this one principle, you are utterly incapacitated to exercise any of that moderation towards those that dissent from you which the gospel