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

And if you consider it well, you will find that the miracles of Christ himself, and all those of his Apostles after him, were wrought for the confirmation of Christianity it self immediately, and mostly before the particular Epistles or Books were written; and therefore were only remotely and consequentially for the confirmation of those Books as such: as ⟨p. 93⟩they proved that the Writers of them were guided by the infallible Spirit, in all the proper work of their office; of which the writing of the Scriptures was a part.

1. Therefore settle your belief of Christianity it self; that is, of so much as Baptism containeth, or importeth: This is more easily proved, than the truth of every word in the Scriptures; because there are controversies about the Canon, and the various readings, and such like: And this is the natural method, which Christ and his Spirit have directed us to, and the Apostles and the ancient Churches used. And when this is first soundly proved to you, then you cannot justly take any textual difficulties, to be sufficient cause of raising difficulties to your faith in the essentials: But you may quietly go on in the strength of faith, to clear up all those difficulties by degrees.

I know you will meet with some who think very highly of their own mistakes, and whose unskilfulness in these things is joined with an equal measure of self conceitedness, who will tell you that this method smells of an undervaluing of the Scripture: But I would advise you not to depart from the way of Christ, and his Apostles and Churches, nor to cast your selves upon causeless hinderances, in so high a matter as Saving Faith is, upon the reverence of the words of any perverted factious wrangler, nor to escape the fangs of censorious ignorance. We cannot better justify the holy Scriptures in the true Method, than they can in their false one: And can better build up, when we have laid the right foundation, than they can who begin in the middle, and omit the foundation, and call the superstructure by that name.