LXIII. All that are of the race of Christ, the Scripture nameth them “children of the promise1” which God hath made. The promise of eternal life is the seed of the Church of God. And because there is no attainment of life but through the only begotten Son of God, nor by him otherwise than being such as the Creed apostolic describeth, it followeth that the articles thereof are principles necessary for all men to subscribe unto, whom by baptism the Church receiveth into Christ’s school.
All points of Christian doctrine are either demonstrable conclusions or demonstrative principles. Conclusions have strong and invincible proofs as well in the school of Jesus Christ as elsewhere. And principles be grounds which require no proof in any kind of science, because it sufficeth if either their certainty be evident in itself, or evident by the light of some higher knowledge, and in itself such as no man’s knowledge is ever able to overthrow. Now the principles whereupon we do build our souls have their evidence where they had their original, and as received from thence we adore them, we hold them in reverent admiration, we neither argue nor dispute about them, we give unto them that assent which the oracles of God require.
We are not therefore ashamed of the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ because miscreants in scorn have upbraided us, that the highest point of our wisdom is Believe2. That which is true and neither can be discerned by sense, nor concluded by mere natural principles, must have principles of revealed truth whereupon to build itself, and an habit of faith in us wherewith principles of that kind are apprehended. The mysteries of our religion are above the reach of our understanding3, above discourse of man’s reason, above all that any creature can comprehend. Therefore the first thing required of him which standeth for admission into Christ’s family is belief. Which belief consisteth not so much in knowledge as in acknowledgment of all things that heavenly wisdom revealeth; the affection of faith is above her reach, her love to Godward above the comprehension which she hath of God.
And because only for believers all things may be done, he which is goodness itself loveth them above all. Deserve we then the love of God, because we believe in the Son of God? What more opposite than faith and pride? When God had created all things, he looked upon them and loved them, because they were all as himself had made them. So the true reason wherefore Christ doth love believers is because their belief is the gift of God, a gift than which flesh and blood in this world cannot possibly receive a greater4. And as to love them of whom we receive good things is duty, because they satisfy our desires in that which else we should want; so to love them on whom we bestow is nature, because in them we behold the effects of our own virtue.
Seeing therefore no religion enjoyeth sacraments the signs of God’s love, unless it have also that faith whereupon the sacraments are built; could there be any thing more convenient than that our first admittance to the actual receipt of his grace in the Sacrament of baptism should be consecrated with profession of belief5, which is to the kingdom of God as a key, the want whereof excludeth infidels both from that and from all other saving grace.
We find by experience that although faith be an intellectual habit of the mind, and have her seat in the understanding, yet an evil moral disposition obstinately wedded to the love of darkness dampeth the very light of heavenly illumination, and permitteth not the mind to see what doth shine before it. Men are “lovers of pleasure more than lovers of God6.” Their assent to his saving truth is many times withheld from it, not that the truth is too weak to persuade, but because the stream of corrupt affection carrieth them a clean contrary way. That the mind therefore may abide in the light of faith, there must abide in the will as constant a resolution to have no fellowship at all with the vanities and works of darkness.
“Two covenants there are which Christian men,” saith Isidore, “do make in baptism, the one concerning relinquishment of Satan, the other touching obedience to the faith of Christ7.” In like sort St. Ambrose, “He which is baptized forsaketh the intellectual Pharao, the Prince of this world, saying, Abrenuncio, Thee O Satan and thy angels, thy works and thy mandates I forsake utterly8.” Tertullian having speech of wicked spirits, “These,” saith he, “are the angels which we in baptism renounce9.” The declaration of Justin the Martyr concerning baptism10 sheweth, how such as the Church in those days did baptize made profession of Christian belief, and undertook to live accordingly. Neither do I think it a matter easy for any man to prove, that ever baptism did use to be administered without interrogatories of these two kinds. Whereunto St. Peter (as it may be thought) alluding, hath said11, that the baptism “which saveth” us is not (as legal purifications were) a cleansing of the flesh from outward impurity, but ἐπερώτημα, “an interrogative trial of a good conscience towards God.”
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Footnotes
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[Galat. iv. 28.] ↩
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Apostatæ maledictum, οὐδὲν ὑπὲρ τὸ πίστευσον τη̑ς ὑμετέρας ἐστὶ σοϕίας. Naz. Orat. i. contr. Julian. [§ 97. t. i. 97 B.] ↩
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Ὑπὲρ νου̑ν, ὑπὲρ λόγον, ὑπὲρ κατάληψιν κτιστη̑ς ϕύσεως τὰ ἡμέτερα. Just. Mart. Expos. Fid. [p. 388. Paris. 1615.] ↩
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Matt. xvi. 17; John i. 12, 13. ↩
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“Spiritus Sanctus habitator ejus templi non efficitur quod antist tem non habet veram fidem.” Hieron. adv. Lucif. c. 4. (?) ↩
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[2 Tim. iii. 4.] ↩
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Isid. (of Seville, † 636.) de Offic. Eccles. lib. ii. cap. 24. [p. 612. ed. Du Breul. “Duæ sunt pactiones credentium. Prima pactio est, qua renunciatur diabolo et pompis ejus, et universæ conversationi illius. Secunda pactio est, qua se in Patrem et Filium et Sp. Sanctum credere fatetur.”] ↩
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Ambros. Hexam. lib. i. cap. 4. [“Derelinquit enim et deserit, qui abluitur, intelligibilem illum Pharao principem istius mundi, dicens, Abrenuncio tibi, diabole, et angelis tuis, et operibus tuis, et imperiis tuis.”] ↩
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Tertull. de Spectac. [c. 4. “Cum aquam ingressi Christianam fidem in legis suæ verba profitemur, renunciasse nos diabolo, et pompæ, et angelis ejus, ore nostro contestamur.”] ↩
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Ὅσοι ἂν πεισθω̑σι καὶ πιστεύωσιν ἀληθη̑ ταυ̑τα τὰ ὑϕ’ (ἀϕ’, Bodl. MS. and A.) ἡμω̑ν διδασκόμενα καὶ λεγόμενα εἰ̑ναι, καὶ βιου̑ν οὕτως δύνασθαι ὑπισχνω̑νται, εὔχεσθαί τε καὶ αἰτει̑ν νηστεύοντες παρὰ του̑ Θεου̑ τω̑ν προημαρτημένων ἄϕεσιν διδάσκονται, ἔπειτα ἄγονται ὑϕ’ ἡμω̑ν ἔνθα ὕδωρ ἐστὶ, καὶ τρόπον ἀναγεννήσεως ὃν καὶ ἡμει̑ς αὐτοὶ ἀνεγεννήθημεν ἀναγεννω̑νται. Justin. Apol. [ii. p. 93. ed. 1615. In later editions it is the first Apology.] ↩
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1 Pet. iii. 21. ↩