The life of faith in three parts, the first is a sermon on Heb.…

1. Think not that the Gospel as written was the first Constitutive or Governing Law of Christ, for the Christian Churches. The Churches were constituted, and the Orders, and Offices, and Government of it settled, and exercised very many years together, before any part of the New Testament was written to them; much more before the writing of the whole. The Apostles had long before taught them what was commanded them by Christ; and had settled them in the order appointed by the Holy Ghost: And therefore you are not to look for the first determination of such doctrines or orders in the Scripture as made thereby; but only for the Records of what was done and established before: For the Apostles being to leave the world, did know the slipperiness of the memory of man, and the danger of changing and corrupting the Christian Doctrine and Orders, if there were not left a sure record of it: And therefore they did that for the sake of posterity.

2. You must not think that all is essential to the Christian Religion, which is contained in the holy Scriptures: Nor that they are only the adequate form or record of that which is strictly and primarily called our Religion, or Christianity. For there are divers particular Books of the New Testament, which contain much more than is essential to Christianity: And many appurtenances, and histories, and genealogies, and circumstances are there recorded, which are indeed subservient helps to our Religion; but are not strictly our Religion it self.

8. As the use of the Scripture must thus be judged of ⟨p. 90⟩according to the purpose of the holy Spirit; so the Perfection of the Scripture must be judged of, in relation to its intended use. It was not written to be a system of Physics, nor Oratory; nor to decide grammatical Controversies about words; but to record in apt expressions the things which God would have men to know, in order to their faith, their duty, and their happiness. And in this respect it is a perfect word. But you must not imagine that it is so far the word of God himself, as if God had showed in it his fullest skill, and made it as perfect in every respect, both phrase and order, as God could do. And if you meet in it with several words, which you think are less grammatical, logical, or rhetorical, than many other men could speak, and which really savour of some humane imperfection, remember that this is not at all derogatory to Christianity; but rather tendeth to the strengthening of our faith: For the Scriptures are perfect to their intended use: And God did purposely choose men of imperfect Oratory, to be his Apostles, that his Kingdom might not be in word, but in power; and that our faith might not be built upon the wisdom and oratory of man, but on the supernatural operations of the Almighty God: As David's sling and stone must kill Goliath: So unlearned men, that cannot out-wit the world to deceive them, shall by the Spirit and Miracles convince them. Looking for that in the Scripture, which God never intended it for, doth tempt the unskilful into unbelief.