THE INTRODUCTION. Church are only bound to acquiefce filently to them; and that the fubfcription binds only to a general compromife upon those Articles, that fo there may be no difputing nor wrangling about them. By this means they reckon, that though a man fhould differ in his opinion from that which appears to be the clear fenfe of any of the Articles; yet he may with a good confcience fubfcribe them, if the Article appears to him to be of fuch a nature, that though he thinks it wrong, yet it seems not to be of that confequence, but that it may be borne with, and not contradicted. I fhall not now examine whether it were more fit for leaving men to the due freedom of their thoughts, that the fubfcription did run no higher, it being in many cafes a great hardfhip to exclude fome very deferving perfons from the fervice of the Church, by requiring a fubfcription to fo many particulars, concerning fome of which they are not fully fatisfied. I am only now to confider what is the importance of the fubfcriptions now required among us, and not what might be reasonably wished that it fhould be. As to the laity, and the whole body of the people, certainly to them thefe are only the Articles of ChurchCommunion; fo that every perfon who does not think that there is fome propofition in them that is erroneous to fo high a degree, that he cannot hold communion with fuch as hold it, may and is obliged to continue in our communion for certainly there may be many opinions held in matters of religion, which a man may believe to be falfe, and yet may efteem them to be of fo little importance to the chief defign of religion, that he may well hold communion with thofe whom he thinks to be fo mistaken. Here a neceffary diftinction is to be remembered between Articles of Faith and Articles of Doctrine : the one are held neceffary to falvation, the other are only believed to be true; that is, to be revealed in the Scriptures, which is a fufficient ground for efteeming them true. Articles of Faith are doctrines that are fo neceffary to falvation, that without believing them there is not a foederal right to the covenant of grace: thefe are not many, and in the establishment of any doctrine for fuch, it is neceffary both to prove it from Scripture, and to prove its being neceffary to falvation, as a mean fettled by the covenant of grace in order to it. We ought not indeed to hold communion with fuch as make doctrines, that we believe not to be true, to pafs for Articles of Faith; though we may hold communion with fuch as do think them true, without ftamping fo high an authority upon upon them. To give one inftance of this in an undenia ble particular. In the days of the Apostles there were Judaifers of two forts: fome thought the Jewish nation was ftill obliged to obferve the Mofaical law; but others went further, and thought that fuch an obfervation was indifpenfably neceffary to falvation: both thefe opinions were wrong, but the one was tolerable, and the other was intolerable; because it pretended to make that a neceffary condition of falvation, which God had not commanded. The Apoftles complied with the Judaisers of the first fort, as they became all things to all men, that 1 Cor. ix. fo they might gain fome of every fort of men: yet they 19. to 23. declared openly against the other, and said, that if men were circumcifed, or were willing to come under fuch a yoke, Chrift profited them nothing; and upon that fuppofition he had died in vain. From this plain precedent we fee what a difference we ought to make between errors in doctrinal matters, and the impofing them as Articles of Faith. We may live in communion with those who hold errors of the one fort, but must not with those of the other. This alfo fhews the tyranny of that Church, which has impofed the belief of every one of her doctrines on the confciences of her votaries, under the highest pains of anathema's, and as Articles of Faith. But whatever thofe at Trent did, this Church very carefully avoided the laying that weight upon even those doctrines which the receives as true; and therefore though fhe drew up a large form of doctrine; yet to all her lay-fons this is only a ftandard of what the teaches, and they are no more to them than Articles of Church-Communion. The citations that are brought from those two great primates, Laud and Bramhall, go no further than this: they do not feem to relate to the clergy that fubfcribe them, but to the laity and body of the people. The people, who do only join in communion with us, may well continue to do fo, though they may not be fully fatisfied with every propofition in them: unlefs they fhould think that they ftruck against any of the Articles, or foundations of Faith; and, as they truly obferve, there is a great difference to be obferved in this particular between the imperious fpirit of the Church of Rome, and the modeft freedom which ours allows. But I come in the next place to confider what the clergy is bound to by their fubfcriptions. The meaning of every fubfcription is to be taken from the defign of the impofer, and from the words of the fubfcription itfelf. The title of the Articles bears, that they were agreed agreed upon in convocation, for the avoiding of diverfities of Opinions, and for the ftablishing confent touching true Religion. Where it is evident, that a confent in opinion is defigned. If we in the next place confider the declaration that the Church has made in the Canons, we fhall find, that though by the fifth Canon, which relates to the whole body of the people, fuch are only declared to be excommunicated ipfo facto, who fhall affirm any of the Articles to be erroneous, or fuch as he may not with a good confcience fubfcribe to; yet the 36th Canon is exprefs for the clergy, requiring them to fubfcribe willingly, and ex animo; and acknowledge all and every Article to be agreeable to the word of God: upon which Canon it is that the form of the fubfcription runs in these words, which feem exprefsly to declare a man's own opinion, and not a bare confent to an Article of Peace, or an engagement to filence and fubmiffion. The ftatute of the 13th of Queen Elizabeth, cap. 12, which gives the legal authority to our requiring fubfcriptions, in order to a man's being capable of a benefice, requires that every clergyman fhould read the Articles in the Church, with a declaration of his unfeigned affent to them. These things make it appear very plain, that the fubfcriptions of the clergy must be confidered as a declaration of their own opinion, and not as a bare obligation to filence. There arole in King James the Firft's reign great and warm difputes concerning the decrees of God, and thofe other points that were fettled in Holland by the fynod of Dort against the Remonftrants; divines of both fides among us appealed to the Articles, and pretended they were favourable to them: for though the first appearance of them feems to favour the doctrine. of abfolute decrees, and the irrefiftibility of grace; yet there are many expreffions that have another face, and fo thofe of the other perfuafion pleaded for themselves from thefe. Upon this a royal declaration was fet forth, in which after mention is made of thofe difputes, and that the men of all fides did take the Articles to be for them; order is given for stopping those difputes for the future; and for shutting them in God's promifes, as they be generally fet forth in the boly Scriptures, and the general meaning of the Articles of the Church of England, according to them; and that no man thereafter fhould put his own fenfe or comment to be the meaning of the Article, but fhould take it in the literal and grammatical fenfe. In this there has been fuch a general acquiefcing, that the fierceness of these difputes has gone off, while men have been left to fubfcribe the Articles according to their literal and grammatical fenfe. From which two things are to be inferred: the one is, that the fubfeription does import an affent to the Article; and the other is, that an Article being conceived in fuch general words, that it can admit of different literal and grammatical fenfes, even when the fenfes given are plainly contrary one to another, yet both may fubfcribe the Article with a good confcience, and without any equivocation. To make this more fenfible, I fhall give an inítance of it in an Article concerning which there is no difpute at prefent. The third Article concerning Chrift's defcent into bell is capable of three different fenfes, and all the three are both literal and grammatical. The firft is, that Chrift defcended locally into hell, and preached to the fpirits there in prifon; and this has one great advantage on its fide, that thofe who firft prepared the Articles in King Edward's time were of this opinion; for they made it a part of it, by adding in the Article thofe words of St. Peter as the proof or explanation of it. Now though that period was left out in Queen Elizabeth's time; yet no declaration was made against it; fo that this fenfe was once in poffeffion, and was never exprefsly rejected: befides that, it has great fupport from the authority of many Fathers, who understood the defcent into bell according to this explanation. A fecond sense, of which that Article is capable, is' that by bell is meant the grave, according to the fignifica tion of the original word in the Hebrew; and this is fupported by the words of Chrift's defcending into the lower parts of the earth; as alfo by this, that feveral Creeds, that have this Article, have not that of Chrift's being buried; and fome, that mention his burial, have not this of his defcent into bell. A third fenfe is, that by hell, according to the fignification of the Greek word, is to be meant the place or region of fpirits feparated from their bodies: fo that by Christ's defcent into bell is only to be meant, that his foul was really and entirely difunited from his body, not lying dead in it as in an apoplectical fit, not hovering about it, but that it was tranflated into the feats of departed fouls. All these three fenfes differ very much from one another, and yet they are all fenfes that are literal and grammatical; fo that in which of these foever a man conceives the Article, he may fubfcribe it, and he does no way prevaricate in fo doing. If men would therefore underftand all the other Articles in the fame largenefs, and with the fame equity, there would not be that occafion given for unjust ceufure that there has been. Where then the Articles are conceived in large and general words, and have not more special and reftrained terms in them, we ought to take that for a fure indication, that the Church does not intend to tie men up too feverely to particular opinions, but that the leaves all to fuch a liberty as is agreeable with the purity of the faith. And this feems fufficient to explain the title of the Articles, and the fubfcriptions that are required of the clergy to them. The last thing to be fettled is the true reading of the Articles; for there being fome fmall diverfity between the printed editions and the manufcripts that were figned by both houfes of Convocation; I have defired the affiftance both of Dr. Green, the prefent worthy mafter of Corpus Chrifti College in Cambridge, and of fome of the learned fellows of that body; that they would give themselves the trouble to collate the printed editions, and their manuscripts, with fuch a fcrupulous exactness as becomes a matter of this importance: which they were pleased to do very minutely. I will fet down both the collations as they were tranfmitted to me; beginning with that which I had from the fellows four years ago. Thefe words, faid to be left out, are found in the original Articles, figned by the chief clergy of both provinces, now extant in the manufcript libra ries of C. C. C. C. in the book called Synodalia: but diftinguished from the rest with lines of minium; which lines plainappear to bave been done afterwards, because the leaves and lines of the original are exactly numbered at the end; which number without thefe lines were manifeftly falfe. In the original these words only are found, Teftamentum vetus novo contrarium non eft, quandoquidem, &c. ARTICLE III. Of the going down of Chrift into Hell. SChrißt died for us, and was buried; fo alfo it is to be believed, that he went down into ell. (“ Forhis Body lap "in the Grave till his Re"furreaion; but his Soul “being separate from his “Body, zemained with the "Spirits which were de“tained in Prison; thatis “to fap, in Hell, and there "preached unto them."] ARTICLE VI. The Dld Teftament is not to be rejcaed as if it were contrary to the New, but to be zerained. Fozalmuch as, &c. The |