The right method for a settled peace of conscience, and spiritual comfort in 32…

The Serpent envying this Happiness of ⟨p. 354⟩the Church, hath no way to undo us, but by drawing us from our Christian simplicity. By the occasion of Heretics quarrels and errors, the Serpent steps in, and will needs be a spirit of Zeal in the Church; and he will so Over-do against Heretics, that he persuades them, they must enlarge their Creed, and add this Clause against one, and that against another, and all was but for the perfecting and preserving of the Christian Faith: And so he brings it to be a Matter of so much Wit to be a Christian (as Erasmus complains) that ordinary heads were not able to reach it. He had got them with a Religious zealous Cruelty to their own and others souls, to lay all their Salvation, and the Peace of the Church upon some unsearchable mysteries about the Trinity, which God either never revealed, or never clearly revealed, or never laid so great a stress upon: Yet he persuades them, that there was Scripture-proof enough for these: Only the Scripture sp••e it but in the premises, or in darker terms, and they must but gather into their Creed the Consequences, and put it into plainer expressions which Heretics might not so easily corrupt, pervert or evade. Was not this Reverend Zeal? and was not the Devil seemingly now a Christian of the most judicious and forward sort? But what got he at this ⟨p. 355⟩one game? 1. He necessitated Implicit Faith even in Fundamentals, when he had got points beyond a vulgar reach among Fundamentals. 2. He necessitated some living Judge for the Determining of Fundamentals quoad nos, though not in se (the Soul of Popish wickedness) that is, what it is in sense that the People must take for Fundamentals. 3. He got a standing Verdict against the perfection and sufficiency of Scripture (and consequently against Christ, his Spirit, his Apostles, and the Christian Faith:) That it will not afford us so much as a Creed or System of Fundamentals, or Points absolutely Necessary to Salvation and Brotherly Communion, in fit or tolerable phrases; but we must mend the language at least. 4. He opened a gap for humane Additions, at which he might afterwards bring in more at his pleasure. 5.

The Serpent envying this Happiness of ⟨p. 354⟩