92 A CHRISTIAN CHURCH. confess his faith in his own words ; or by an open and friendly conference with the ministers, officers, or deputed persons of the church, he must give them satisfaction in whattsense he under- stands the holy scriptures, in momentous and fundamental points : and make it appear that he knows and believes all the necessary articles of christianity : And, as I said before, they must take heed not to make more articles necessary than Christ has done by the ruleof his word, andthey should acknowledge themselves satisfied with such a profession, as may be sufficient to manifest a person to be a Food christian, without descending into nice par- ticularities of opinion, and points of less importance. Whether persons of divided sentiments in lesser matters should be received to fixed or to occasional communion only, shall be discussed afterward. Where there is any just ground of suspicion that a person holds sucherrors, as in the opinion of the church are ex- ceeding dangerous, if not damnable, there surely the church has a right to require that he declare himself free from those errors, and give his sense of scripture in opposition to them, so far as to give satisfaction to the church : But he is not bound to do it in any form of words proposed to him, or imposed upon him by others, but only in words of his own chusing ; because the design of their enquiry, and of his confession, is to profess his own sense of scripture, or his own faith, and not theirs: And the churchmust afterward judge, whether the declared sense of the proposed communicant, or candidate, agree with their sense, sufficient for communion in the special ordinances of the gospel. Hereby the truth and extent of a man's own knowledge is much better found out, than by any form of words whatsoever, human or divine, that can be proposed to him for assent or sub- scription. Hereby the liberty of the person desiring communion is secured from impositions, in that he is not confined to anyeset of words, but has the whole range of his mother-tongue to tell what he believes, and to express his own sense of scripture. Hereby the church also has its full liberty of judging the cha- racter and profession of the person admitted to their communion, whether hebelieve the words of 'scripture in such a sense, as the church thinks necessary to salvation, and sufficient for practising and enjoying this sacred fellowship. This is the way to deal with others, as we would think it reasonable others should deal with us, according to the rule of our blessed Saviour. This is acting according to the professed protestant principle, not to impose on the conscience of others, but to let every one judge for himself concerning his own personal actions, and let the church judge for itself concerning its social actions. Thus by the influence of the blessed Spirit, which is a Spirit of truth and peace, chris- tians may walk together by this rule, to the glory of God and their own edification; and peace and truth may be hoüourably maintained, so far as we are capable in this imperfect state.
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