An end of doctrinal controversies which have lately troubled the churches

§. 14. Yet hath not God arbitrarily made Faith more necessary than it is in the true Reason and Aptitude of it to its Ends. He hath not made to all a Faith so necessary of Christ, and his Intercession; and therefore though Infants and Idiots cannot actually believe, they may be saved by Christ: And though those before Christ believed not all that we must now believe, nor the Gentiles before, so much as the Jews, yet neither of them were thereby excluded from Salvation.

§. 14. Yet hath not God arbitrarily made Faith more necessary than it is in the true Reason and Aptitude of it to its Ends. He hath not made to all a Faith so necessary of Christ, and his Intercession; and therefore though Infants and Ideots cannot actually believe, they may be saved by Christ: And though those before Christ believed not all that we must now believe, nor the Gentiles before, so much as the Iews, yet neither of them were thereby excluded from Salvation.

§. 15. Quest. Hath not Christ made the Case of Christians harder than it was before his Incarnation, to Believers, by making so many more Articles of our Faith, and those of necessity to our Salvation?

Ans. No, no more than it is our Misery to accept of more Mercies and Benefits than were offered to others. Our Belief is not of numerous unnecessary difficulties, but it is of such things as we must receive, and be Partakers of; it is the means of our use and fruition: Who would take it for a Misery to believe that the King will give him a Lordship, or that a rich Man will give him so much Money, if he will come and thankfully accept it? Every act of belief is but a means to some Benefit to be received.