A dumb believer is like a dumb bell, all lumber and no melody. The reason is given for the one as well as the other, that with the heart man believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made to salvation. He that confesses Christ before men, him will the Son of man confess before the angels that are in heaven. Matt. x. 32.

But, this duty I have in a public manner enforced, and taken all the rubbish out of the way that some trifling objections have thrown into it. I have there shewn, how false and wicked it is, to charge it with a denial of Christ's authority, or the sufficiency of the Scriptures; to represent it as a breach of charity, or a ruin of liberty. See twenty-eight Sermons concerning offences, revilings, and a confession of the faith.

(4.) This profession, is what we make in union with the people of God. The word hy signifies a speaking together, not in time, but in substance. We are to speak the same thing, and be perfectly joined together, in the same mind and the same judgment. With one mind, and one mouth, we are to glorify God.

We have our several opinions even about baptism itself, but we are united in one common faith; which is a living diffusive argument, that the Spirit has done his office, by leading believers into all truth. The Churches of the reformation, without any concert or management have agreed in the doctrine of the Trinity, and in their several languages begun with that, as fundamental to every oth

er article. Thus it appears that we are baptized into one body, and are made to drink into one spirit. 1 Cor. xii. 13. As for those, who depart from the good old way, in which so many thousands have got to heaven, we know not of what spirit they are. They follow their own spirit, and have seen nothing. Ezek xiii. 3.

(5.) If profession is a speaking together, then Christians are to know one another's minds. "I thank my God, saith the Apostle, that your faith is spoken of throughout the whole world. I long to see you, that I may impart unto you some spiritual gift, to the end ye may be established; that is, that I may be comforted together with you, by the mutu al faith both of you and me." Rom. i. 8, 11, 12. And when he could no longer forbear, he sent to know the faith of the Thessalonians, lest by some means the tempter should have tempted them, and his labour be in vain. I Thess. iii. 3. I should be very loath to have it said of our faith, that by long hoarding up, the rust and canker of it witnesses against us. A silent believer has no claim to brotherly kindness and charity. He suffers himself to be no greater in the Church, than a heathan man or a publican is out of it. We greet them, that love us in the faith. As the end of the commandment is charity, it must be out of a good conscience and faith unfeigned. The brethren that spoke of Gaius, testified of the truth that was in him, as well as bore witness of his charity. 3 John iii. 6.

(6.) This joint profession lets us see, there

must be a consent to some whole some words.

I

do not mean to the rumbling or sound, but to the sense contained in them. How dangerous would it be to use the words of Christ in baptism, as the enemies did his body? i. e. hang them upon a cross, strain them in all the cruel ways that can be invented, running their foolish and unlearned questions into them, like so many spears, that bring out nothing but blood and water?

I declare, that when I have baptized a person, I should think myself guilty of deceiving the world, and insulting the Lord Jesus, if I meant any more than one God, or any fewer than three persons. I believe the form that is put into my mouth, reveals both this distinction and their union. If ever this appears to be false, I will revoke my baptism, and renounce the words that discovered the doctrine. This is the plain and natural sense of the words; and therefore, to twine and torture them with conjectures and may be's, is making Christ not a teacher, but a barbarian, by not uttering words that are easy to be understood. I never did, and never durst baptize any, into three names, because that would have insinuated three Gods, one supreme and two subordinate. I can never make them equal in devotion, that are not equal in nature. It would be as vile to say, that you are baptized into one person and two powers, since the form mentions three persons as plainly as one. I know what God does, shall be for ever; Eccl. iii. 14. nothing can be put to it, nor any thing

taken from it: and God does it, that men should fear before him. Christ's own words would have done, without any explication, if men had not perverted them. But when four or five schemes are argued from one and the self-same form, it is time to look into the things that we have wrought; this is putting the ark of God into the house of Dagon, when men resist the truth, being of corrupt minds, and reprobate concerning the faith.

(7.) This profession, in which we are all united, was made when we entered, either ourselves or our children into the Christian faith. It is the original contract. Father, Son, and Holy Ghost is become our God, and we are his people. Cannot any of us tell, whether we were devoted to one God or three? To two powers or three persons? What a jest will the world make of our religion, if the initial form in which we embrace it, cannot be understood or determined?

May not the Jews insult us, and say, "We "know that God spake by Moses, but as to "this Jesus, we know not whence he is. Ex"cuse us in saying so, for your own writers "know not what he is. Some of your learned "men are offended, as our fathers were, that "he made himself equal with God. We cal"led it blasphemy, and you call it rhetoric; "but both sides are agreed in the main, that " he has not a strict and proper deity. It is "the unity of the Godhead that you contend. "for, and so do we. We made his words crim"inal, and you make them figurative. It is

pity he had not his free-thinkers, his critical disputants about him then; for their distinc"tions and dissertations would have softened "his doctrine and saved his life."

As to the Holy Spirit, if the form of baptism does not declare both his deity and his personality, our Christian religion is no longer distinguished from the Jewish and the Mahometan; but rather shared between them, and like a couple of eagles, they are hovering over their prey, to see which of them shall have it. For, as I read in Dr. Owen. "All "the false apprehensions concerning the Spir"it, may be reduced to two heads: First, that " of the modern Jews, who affirm the Holy "Ghost to be the influential power of God; "which conceit is entertained and promoted "by the Socinians, and, secondly; that of the "Mahometans, who make him an eminent "angel, which opinion they got from the Ma"cedonians."

So that instead of having the form of baptism honoured, we see it used, as its author was, crucified between two malefactors. And thus those words, that should declare us to be Christians, do only distribute us, among the two great enemies of our faith. A form of words, is no better than a form of godliness, if you deny the power. It lets us see, that the Arian scheme comes not half so well, out of the mouth of an English bishop as it would from a Turkish mufti: It is not the lesson of the bible, but the Alkoran. And the notion of making the Spirit only the influential power