xxiii. 13. Luke, xi. 52): Woe unto you Scribes and Pharisees; for you have taken away the key of knowledge, and shut up the kingdom of heaven against men. Seeing then the key, by which a passage is opened for us into the kingdom of heaven, is the word of the Gospel, and the interpretation of the law and the Scriptures; where there is no such word, there is no key. And seeing the same word was given to all, and the key which pertains to all, is but one; we say that the power of all ministers, as to binding and loosing, is one and the same; and we say, that even the Pope himself, notwithstanding his flatterers do so sweetly sooth him up with these words (Matt. xvi. 19), "I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven," as if they belonged to him, and to no other mortal under heaven; except he makes it his business to bend and subdue the consciences of men to the word of God; we deny that even he (as I said) can either open or shut, or hath at all the keys; and although he doth teach and instruct the people (which I wish he would sometimes do truly, and at last be persuaded to believe it is at least some part of his duty and office); but yet if he did so, his key would be neither better nor greater than that of others; for who made the difference? who taught him to open more learnedly, or absolve more powerfully, than his brethren?

9. We say, that marriage is honourable and holy in all degrees of men, in patriarchs, in prophets, in holy martyrs, in the ministers of the churches, and in the bishops; and that, as St. Chrysostom saith, it is both lawful and just that he should ascend the episcopal throne with it; and we say as Sozomen did of Sp ridion, and Nazianzen did of his own father, that a pious and industrious bishop is nothing the worse for being married, but rather much the better, and more useful in his ministry. And we say that the law

which by force taketh away this liberty from men, and ties them to a single life against their wills, is, as St. Paul styles it, the doctrine of devils; and that from hence (as is confessed by the bishop of Augusta, Faber, the abbot of Palermo, Latimus, the tripartite work, which is joined to the second tome of the councils and other defenders of the papal party, and which is apparent from the thing itself, and confessed by all histories) an incredible impurity of life and manners, and horrible debaucheries in the ministers of God, have sprung and arisen; so that Pius II. bishop of Rome, was not out, when he said he saw many causes why the clergy should be denied wives, but he saw more and greater causes to allow them wives. again.

10. We receive and embrace all the canonical Scriptures, both of the Old and New Testament; and we give our gracious God most hearty thanks, that he hath set up this light for us, which we ever fix our eyes upon, lest by human fraud, or the snares of the devil, we should be seduced to errors or fables; we own them to be the heavenly voices by which God hath revealed and made known his will to us; in them only can the mind of man acquiesce; in them all that is necessary for our salvation is abundantly and plainly contained, as Origen, St. Augustine, St. Chrysostom, and St. Cyril, have taught us. They are the very might and power of God unto salvation; they are the foundations of the Apostles and Prophets, upon which the church of God is built; they are the most certain and infallible rule by which the church may be reduced, if sha happen to stagger, slip, or err; by which all ecclesiastical doctrines ought to be tried. No law, no tradition, no custom, is to be received or continued, if it be contrary to Scripture; no, though St. Paul

himself, or an angel from heaven, should come and teach otherwise. Gal. i. 8.

11. We receive also and allow the sacraments of the church, that is, the sacred signs and ceremonies which Christ commanded us to use, that he might by them represent to our eyes the mysteries of our salvation, and most strongly confirm the faith we have in his blood, and seal in our hearts his grace; and we call them figures, signs, types, antitypes, forms, seals,' prints or signets, similitudes, examples, images, remembrances, and memorials; with Tertullian, Origen, St. Ambrose, St. Augustine, St. Jerome, St. Chrysostom, St. Basil, and Dionysius, and many other catholic fathers. Nor do we doubt with them, to call them a kind of visible words, the signets of righteousness and the symbols of grace, and clearly affirm, that in the sacrament of the 'Lord's supper, the body and blood of our Lord is truly exhibited to believers; that is, the enlivening flesh of the Son of God; the bread that comes from above, the nourishment of immortality, the grace, the truth, and the life; and that it is the communion of the body and blood of Christ, by the participation of which we are quickened, strengthened, and fed to immortality, and by which we are conjoined, united, and incorporated with Christ, that we may remain in him, and he in us.

12. We acknowledge, that there are two sacraments, properly so called-baptisin and the supper of the Lord; for so many we see were delivered to ús, and consecrated by Christ, and approved by St. Ambrose, St. Augustine, and the ancient fathers.

13. And we say that baptism is the sacrament of the remission of sins, and of that washing which we have in the blood of Christ, and that none are to be denied that sacrament, who will profess the faith of Christ; no, not the infants of Christians, be

cause they are born in sin, and belong to the people of God.

14. We say, that the eucharist is the sacrament or visible symbol of the body and blood of Christ, in which the death and resurrection of Christ, and what he did in his human body, is in a manner represented to our eyes, that we may give him thanks for his death, and our deliverance by it; and that, by' frequenting the sacrament, we may often renew the remembrance of it; and that by the body and blood of Christ we may be nourished into the hope of the resurrection, and of eternal life; and that we may be assured that the body'and blood of Christ hath the same effect in the feeding of our souls, which the bread and wine have in the repairing the decays, of our bodies. To this great and solemn feast the people are to be invited, that they may all communicate together, and may publicly signify and testify both their union and society among themselves, and that hope which they have in Christ Jesus; and therefore if there was any one heretofore, before the private mass was introduced, who would be only a spectator, and yet would abstain from the holy communion, the bishops of Rome in the primitive times, and the ancient fathers, would have excommunicated him as a wicked man and a Pagan; nor was there any Christian man in those times, who communicated alone in the presence of others who were only spectators. So Calixtus long since decreed, that when the consécration was finished, all should communicate if they would not be deprived of the communion of the church, and be shut out of it; for so (saith he) the Apostles ordained, and the holy church of Rome holds. And we say, that both the parts of the sacrament ought to be given to all that come to the holy communion; for so Christ commanded, and the Apostles instituted throughout

the world, and all the ancient fathers and catholic. bishops so practised; and if any one shall do otherwise (saith Gelasius), he commits sacrilege: and therefore our adversaries, who, exploding and rejecting the communion, defend the private mass and a multitude of sacraments, without the authority of the word of God, without any ancient council, without any catholic father, without any example of the primitive church, and without reason; and this against the express command of Christ, and also against all antiquity-in so doing act wickedly and sacrilegiously.

15. We say, that the bread and wine are the holy and heavenly mysteries of the body and blood of Christ, and that in them Christ himself, the true bread of eternal life, is so exhibited to us at present, that we do by faith truly take his body and blood; and yet at the same time we speak not this so as if we thought the nature of the bread and wine were totally changed and abolished, as many in the last ages have dreamt, and as yet could never agree among themselves about this dream. For neither did Christ ever design that the wheaten bread should change its nature, and assume a new kind of divinity, but rather that it might change us; and that, as Theophylact saith, we might be transelemented into his body; for what can be more perspicuous than what St. Ambrose saith on this occasion: The bread and wine are what they were, and yet are changed into another thing? or what Gelasius saith: The substance of the bread and nature of the wine do not cease to be? or than what Theodoret: After the consecration of the mystical symbols, they do not cast off their own proper nature, for they remain in their former substance, and figure, and species? or than what St. Augustine saith: That which you see is bread, and a cup, as your eyes inform you; but that