the utmost care of preserving, by prudent order, and mutual forbearance, as much unity in the Church, as we possibly can. Such, indeed, as obstinately deny the fundamental doctrines, or transgress the fundamental precepts of Christianity, ought to be rejected from Christian communion. But to renounce communicating with any others, who are willing to admit us to it on lawful terms, is the way to cut off ourselves, not them, from the body of Christ; who yet, we doubt not, will allow those on both sides to belong to his Church, who, through pardonable passions, or mistakes, will not allow one another to do so.

And as we should maintain communion will all proper persons, we should show our disposition to it in all proper ways; attend on the public instruction-join in the public worship, sacraments, and discipline, which our Lord hath appointed; and keep the whole of them pure from all forbidden, or suspicious alterations or mixtures; avoid, with great care, both giving and taking needless of fence, in respect to these, or any matters; and, by all fit means, "edify one another in love :"8 ing those who are set over us-condescending to those who are beneath us-esteeming and honouring the wise and virtuous-teaching and admonishing the ignorant and faulty-bearing with the weak, relieving the poor, and comforting the afflicted.

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Nor have we communion only with the saints on earth; but are of one city, and one family, with such as have already got safe to heaven. Doubtless they exercise that communion towards us, by loving and praying for their brethren, whom they have left behind them. And we are to exercise it towards them, not by addressing petitions to them, which we are neither authorized to offer, nor have

(8) Rom. xiv. 19. Eph. iv. 16.

any ground to think they can hear; but by rejoicing in their happiness, thanking God for the grace which he hath bestowed on them, and the examples which they have left us; holding their memories in honour, imitating their virtues, and beseeching the disposer of all things, that, having followed them in holiness here, we may meet them in hap. piness hereafter; and become, in the fullest sense,

fellow-citizens with the saints, and of the house"hold of God;"9"having, with all those that “have departed in the true faith of his holy name, "our perfect consummation and bliss, both in body "and soul, in his eternal and everlasting glory, through Jesus Christ our Lord.'1. Amen.

LECTURE XV.

CREED.

Article X. The Forgiveness of Sins.

WE are now come to that Article of the Creed, for which all the preceding ones have been preparing the way; a doctrine of the greatest comfort to believe, and the utmost danger to misapprehend. I shall, therefore, endeavour clearly to explain,

I. The nature of sin, its different kinds, and its guilt.

II. The nature and conditions of the forgiveness promised to it.

I. The nature of sin. Both men and all other beings, endued with sufficient reason, must perceive a difference between different inclinations and actions of their own and others; in consequence of

(9) Eph. ii. 19.

(1) Burial Office.

which they must approve some, as right and good; and disapprove others, as wrong and evil. Now, this distinction, which we are capable of seeing, God must see much more clearly, as his understanding is more perfect than ours. Therefore, he must entirely love what is good, and utterly hate what is evil; and his will must be, that all his rational creatures should practice the former, and avoid the latter. This he makes known to be his will, in some degree, to all men, however ignorant, by natural conscience; and hath more fully made known to us, by the revelation of his holy word: wherein also, besides those things which we of ourselves might have known to be fit, he hath signified his pleasure, that we should observe some further rules, which he knew to be useful and requisite, though we should otherwise not have discerned it. Now the will and pleasure of a person having authority, and God hath absolute authority, is, when sufficiently notified, a law. Those laws

of his, which human reason was able to teach us, are called natural or moral laws; those which he hath added to them, are called positive ones; obedience to both sorts is our duty; transgression of either is sin; whether it be by neglecting what the law commands, which is a sin of omission; or doing what it forbids, which is a sin of commission.

Further, as God hath a right to give us laws, he must have a right to punish us, if we break them. And we all of us feel inwardly, that sin deserves this punishment; which feeling is what we call a sense of guilt. Some sins have more guilt that is, deserve greater punishment than others; because they are either worse in their own nature, or accompanied with circumstances, that aggravate, instead of alleviating them. Thus, if bad actions, known to be such, are done with previous deliberation and contrivance, which are

called wilful or presumptuous sins; they are very highly criminal. But if we do amiss in some smaller matter, through inconsiderateness, or other weakness of mind, or else through a sudden unforeseen attack of temptation; which are usually called sins of infirmity or surprise; these, though real, are yet less offences. And if, lastly, we act wrong through invincible ignorance, that is, have no means of knowing better; then the action is not, strictly speaking, a fault in us, though it be in itself. But if we might, with a reasonable attention, have known our duty, and did not attend, we are justly blameable, even for a careless ignorance, and fully as much for a designed one, as if we had known ever so well.

Another difference in the kinds of sins is this: that though they be only in smaller instances, yet if persons take so little pains to guard against them, that they live in a constant or frequent practice of them, which are called habitual sins; the guilt of these may be full as heavy as that of greater transgressions, provided they be less common. But if they be great, and habitually indulged also, that makes the worst of cases.

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Committing sin can never be a slight matter. For it is acting as our own hearts tell us we ought not. It is, likewise, for the most part, injuring, one way or other, our fellow-creatures; and it is always behaving undutifully and ungratefully to our Creator, who hath sovereign power over us, and shows continual goodness to us. We may sure, therefore, that the punishment due to the least sin, is such as will give us cause to wish from the bottom of our souls, that we had never done it. More enormous ones are of worse desert, according to their degree. And since recompences proportionable to them are not, with any constancy distributed in this world; as certainly, as God is just, they will in the next, unless we ob

tain forgiveness in the mean time. And all will be made miserable, so long as they are wicked.

This is the main of what human abilities, unassisted, seem capable of discovering to us, concerning sin and its consequences; excepting it be, that as we have a natural approbation of what is good, so we have, along with it, a natural proneness to what is evil; an inconsistence, for which reason finds it hard, if possible, to account.

But here, most seasonably, revelation comes in; and teaches, not, indeed, all that we might wish, but all that we need to know of this whole matter; that our first parents were created upright, but soon transgressed a plain and easy command of God, intended for a trial of their obedience; by which they perverted and tainted their minds; forfeited the immortality, which God had designed them; brought disease and death on their bodies; and derived to us the same corrupt nature, and mortal condition, to which they had reduced themselves. An imperfect illustration of this lamentable change, and I give it for no other, we may have from our daily experience, that wretched poverty, fatal distempers, and even vicious inclinations, often descend from parents to their children. Now, the sinful dispositions, which our origin from our primitive parents hath produced in us, are called original sin. And this transgression of theirs may, very consistently with divine justice, occasion, as the Scripture shows it hath, our being condemned, as well as they, to temporal sufferings and death. For even innocent creatures have no right to be exempt from them; and to fallen creatures they are peculiarly instructive and medicinal.

The

same transgression may also, with equal justice, occasion our being exposed to a more difficult trial of our obedience, than we should else have undergone; indeed, than we should be able, by the strength which remains in us, to support. And