CXLV expository sermons upon the whole 17th chapter of the Gospel according to St.…

For 1. Where this ignorance of Christ is, there cannot be any historical faith, which is the least degree of faith that can be, and where there is no historical faith there cannot be any justifying, for how can a man trust in Christ for salvation, whom he doth not believe to be, so that historical, or as some ⟨p. 79⟩call it dogmatical faith, whereby we believe that there was a Christ both God and man, is the first stone that must be laid in our Christian building, and without this we have not so much as learned the Alphabet of our Religion, yet this is the case of thousands that have no explicit formal faith in this fundamental Point, I grant they have a traditional form, whereby they say they believe in Christ, but they have no express faith concerning the person and natures of Christ; Now that traditional form is not a reasonable worship of God, as the Scripture expresseth it, Rom. 12. where we are commanded to give up our selves as reasonable sacrifices, But here men are as brute beasts in respect of any express, formal faith, insomuch that hundreds of people if they be asked what they believe concerning Christ, they cannot give any knowing or express answer; Oh how near are such foolish and stupid persons to the very brink of hell• and if you should say, If it be Faith then it cannot be knowledge, Ubi rides, non est fides, and by all faith and knowledge are opposed, but that is to be handled afterwards, viz. how that Faith doth necessarily require knowledge, and yet there is some kind of knowledge that Faith is opposite unto, for the present we conclude, that where there is not some knowledge of Christ there cannot be so much as a bare historical faith, They have no faith that have no knowledge, I know whom I have believed, saith Paul, 2 Tim. 1.12.

For 1. Where this ignorance of Christ is, there cannot be any historical faith, which is the least degree of faith that can be, and where there is no historical faith there cannot be any justifying, for how can a man trust in Christ for salvation, whom he doth not beleeve to be, so that historical, or as some ⟨p. 79⟩call it dogmaticall faith, whereby we beleeve that there was a Christ both God and man, is the first stone that must be laid in our Christian building, and without this we have not so much as learned the Alphabet of our Religion, yet this is the case of thousands that have no explicit formal faith in this fundamental Point, I grant they have a traditional forme, whereby they say they beleeve in Christ, but they have no expresse faith concerning the person and natures of Christ; Now that traditional form is not a reasonable worship of God, as the Scripture expresseth it,