member that as this church is holy, it will be impoffible for us to be living members of it, unlefs we alfo are holy, without which our being outward members of it, will be not only vain, but pernicious, and the highest aggravation of our crime.

Of faints.

II. The larger sense of the word faints, implies all those perfons that are baptized into, and profefs the chriftian faith, and are vifible members of Christ's church. And, as the wheat grows in the fame field with the tares, fo the faint hath an external communion in the fame church with the hypocrite; both are baptized with the fame water, and eat at the fame table the bread and wine, which the Lord hath commanded to be received; they hear the fame doctrine, and openly profefs the fame faith; but they do not communicate in the fame faving grace, nor in that faith which works by love, nor in renovation of the mind and fpirit of finful man. And,

The communion of faints,

In regard to ourfelves,

To God,

Whenever we profefs this belief of the communion of faints, it ought to excite us to endeavour after the greatest purity and fanctity of life, we can poffibly attain; becaufe we must turn from the power of Satan unto God, or we can have no inheritance among them that are sanctified in Christ Jefus. And this profeffion ought also to excite in all true believers the highest gratitude to God, who hath admitted them to fellowship with himself, made them partakers of the divine nature, and chosen them for the places of his abode, and manfions of eternal blifs. Befides, this profeffion ought also to inflame all true believers To our with the highest affection towards one another : neighbour. for if it be natural to have a brotherly love for our brothers and fifters according to the flesh, how much more ought we to have the highest affection for those who are joined to us by a much nobler relation, who are born again by the fame fpiritual birth with us, and live the fame spiritual life, and are endued with the gracious influences of the fame holy Spirit? and therefore if we ought to do good to all men, furely much more to those, who are of the fame houfhold of faith, faints or members of the fame communion, and par

takers

takers of the fame privileges, advantages, and promises with ourselves.

Of Sin.

III. As fin is a tranfgreffion of the law; fo the forgiveness of fins is an article of faith of high importance; becaufe every fin involves guilt, or a debt, to fuffer fuch punishment as the iniquity of the offence deferves in juftice from the lawgiver. And to fay that God cannot juftly punish his own creatures for their rebellion against his laws, is to allow him less power than an earthly prince, or fome inferior magiftrate. And

That fin makes us thus obnoxious to punishment, appears from express scripture, as well as from reason; for, Chrift fays, that he who is angry with his brother with his brother Deferves puwithout a cause, shall be liable to the judgment, &c. and that he who blafphemes against the Holy Ghost, is liable to eternal damnation. But

nishment.

thro' Chrift.

IV. That our fins are forgiven on account of the fatisfaction offered by Christ, is plainly proved from those many texts of fcripture which relate to this matter, Forgiven and which tell us that without shedding of blood there is no remiffion; and that in the end of the world Christ once appeared to put away fin by the facrifice of himself; that by his stripes we are healed,—that his blood was shed for many for the remiffion of fin;-that we have redemption thro' his blood the forgiveness of fin, according to the riches of his grace; neither can this be any way inconfiftent with those fcriptures, which make the love of God to men the inducement of his fending Chrift into the world; he loved and pitied them as his creatures, and in mifery, and was offended with them as finners; and it was a mercy worthy himself to find for them a facrifice equal to his infinite justice and holinefs.

comfort.

The great confolation of a christian centers in the affurance that our fins are blotted out by the merits of Christ; for all have finned and come short of the glory of A chriftian's God; nay God hath concluded all under fin, and unless he himself had fhewn us a way to happiness, we must for ever have remained under perplexities from the sense of our guilt, and fears of God's wrath. On the contrary, this

doctrine

doctrine of forgiveness of fins gives all believers the highest comfort and the greatest sense of the goodness of God, who has thus reconciled mercy to justice, and freely has released those debts we never should have been able to have paid to an offended God.

Raifes our

Gratitude to

Chrift.

Humility.

And we should by these confiderations be inflamed with the most exalted love of God, who has given his love of God. Son to die for us; this fhould raise in us the higheft gratitude to the bleffed Jefus, who became the fon of man, to make us the children of God; and should make us always remember that we are no longer our own, but are bought with a price no less than the blood of Jefus. Wherefore, as God has promised us the forgiveness of our fins on no other condition, but that of our fincere repentance, and our forgiving the trefneighbour. paffes of our brethren against us, we must endeavour daily to die unto fin that we may live unto God, and as we expect forgiveness, we must be ready to forgive them that trefpafs against us.

Love of our

Єtion of the

V. We must believe the refurrection of the boThe refurre dy as a neceffary and infallible truth; that as it is fame body. appointed for all men once to die, fo it is alfo determined that all men should rife from death; a doctrine perfectly agreeable to right reason, and to our natural notions of the attributes of God: as may appear more particularly from what has been before faid, concerning the neceffity and certainty of another life after this; and is evident from the opinion of all the wiser heathens treating on this fubject and the very poets have unanimously agreed in this one particular circumstance, that men after death should not have judgment paffed upon them immediately by God himself, but by juft men appointed for that purpose. Yet,

The generality of the heathens of old, and the Oppofed by infidels of latter times, make this one of their great infidels. objections against chriftianity; upon the pretence of it's impoffibility. The heathens think it contrary to the course of nature, that any thing should return from a state of perfect corruption to it's proper form, or that a body perfectly dead fhould be again restored to life. And it is true that among

among the works of nature, they could never obferve any action or operation, that did or could produce fuch an effect; fo that by natural light we cannot difcover that God will raife the dead; for, that depending upon the will of God, can be no otherways known than by his own declarations; yet this doctrine, when made known by revelation, evidently contains nothing in it contrary to right reafon. For we are to confider the poffibility of things, not fo much depending upon the power of nature, as upon the power of the God of nature. It is nevertheless to be proved by the creation of the world out of nothing; that it is altogether as eafy for God to raise the body again after death, as to create and Proved by form it at first: it being a lefs effect of power to raise a body when refolved into duft, or wherefoever difperfed and destroyed, than to make all things out of nothing by a fingle command.

reason.

thereto.

I know there is a popular objection, which at first view may carry fome difficulty in it against this article of our faith; as for example, how can bodies devour- An objection ed by men-eaters, who live on human flesh, or bodies eaten by fishes, and turned to their nourishment, and those fishes eaten by men, and converted into the substance of their bodies, recover their own bodies at the refurrection of the dead?

Answered.

Wherefore, to clear this difficulty, among many other fufficient proofs it must be confidered, that the body of man is no other than a fucceffive thing, continually lofing fomething of the matter it had before, and gaining new; fo that it is certain from experience, that men frequently change their bodies, and that the body a man hath at any time of his life, is as much his own body, as that which he hath when death separates body and foul. Wherefore, if the matter of the body which a man had at any time of his life be raised, it is as much his own and the fame body as that which he had at his death; which does clearly solve the forementioned difficulty, fince of those bodies he had at any any time before he was eaten are, as much his own as that which was eaten. Moreover let it be confidered, that in like manner as in every grain of corn there is contained a small imper

ceptible

ceptible feed, or natural faculty, which is itself the entire future blade and ear, and in due feason, when all the reft of the grain is corrupted, unfolds itself vifibly into the form; so our prefent mortal and corruptible body may be but the out-coat, as it were, of fome hidden, and at prefent, imperceptible part of nature, which at the refurrection fhall discover itself in it's proper form, by which way alfo in nature there can't poffibly be any confufion of bodies: therefore it is not without fome weight, that St Paul made use of the fame comparison, and that the fame fimilitude is alledged by the antient Fathers of the church. But

From natural princi

ples.

Let us wave these vain and unprofitable speculations, and confider the principles of human nature, the parts whereof we confift, and we shall

find all the reafon imaginable to believe this article of christian faith. For, it is not conceivable that this present life is proportionable to our compofition: the body is framed by God as a companion for our immaterial and immortal fouls, but by reafon of the shortness of our lives they are quickly feparated, fo that many ignobler creatures have a much longer duration; therefore it is very probable, that this is not the only life that belongs to the fons of men, and that therefore the foul continues fo fhort a time with the body, because it fhall take it up again.

Again, fhould we confider ourselves as free agents, capable of doing good or evil, and fo thereby liable to rewards or punishments; it seems probable we shall rife to enjoy the one or fuffer the other; for it is not reasonable to think the foul alone shall be happy or miserable, because the laws that are given to us have not only a refpect to the foul, but to the body alfo, without which the foul can neither do nor fuffer thing in this life. Befides,

any

Should we as we ought confider the things without us, the natural changes and chances in every thing and perfon, will raise the probability of our refurrection from the dead. At night, the day dies and rifes with the next morning; the fummer dies into winter, when the earth becomes a general fepulchre; but when the fpring appears, nature revives and flourishes; the corn lies buried in the ground, and being cor

rupted,