ON MATTERS OF BELIEF. X©J 



of thinking for themfelves, of examining for them- 

 felves, of followiug their own conviction, which they 

 made ufe of, becaufe they had it, is pofTeffed by their 

 children alfo. I ftill farther aver : that, neither the 

 primitive chriftian community [ecclefia], nor any fiu> 

 ceeding one, had a right, could have a right, to de- 

 termine by a majority, how their fellow-chriftians were 

 to underftand the paffages in the difcourfes of Chrift 

 and the writings of his apoftles which are obfcure and 

 capable of various interpretations ; or to eftablifh forms 

 how they were to exprefs themfelves properly on any 

 article that is not perfpicuous and clear. Chrift him- 

 felf appointed no formulary of belief; even the fym- 

 bol that goes under the name of the apoftles, notwith- 

 landing its very refpeclable age, is well known to be 

 none of their work. And, if the ever increafing num- 

 bers of thofe who proferTed the chriftian faith, made it 

 necefTary to reduce the effential points wherein they 

 all agreed into a brief and compacted fummary of doc- 

 trine, which, at the fame time, might ferve in the in- 

 ftruclion of youth : yet, at leaft, the mode of ex- 

 pounding each particular article, which, in its very 

 nature, admits of divers modes of expofition, fhould 

 be left free ; or we muft maintain, againft all reafon, 

 and againft all that is generally intelligible in the doc- 

 trine of Chrift, that the chriftian religion cannot fub- 

 ftft without a force upon the confciences and an arbi- 

 trary domination over the minds of men : a iliocking 

 aiTertion ; which no one can be capable of making, in 

 whofe foul but the leaft fentiment of what the fpirit 

 and mind of Jefus was, has ever entered. The com- 

 munity therefore never had a right to decide on the 



mode 



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