lower world together.
2. I believe the holy Scriptures, and everything therein
contained, to be the pure and essential word of God; and that,
according to these sacred writings, man, the lord and prince of the
creation, by his disobedience in Paradise, forfeited his innocence
and the dignity of his nature, and subjected himself and all his
posterity to sin and misery.
3. I believe and am fully and entirely satisfied, that God the
Father, out of his infinite goodness and compassion to mankind, was
pleased to send his only Son, the second person in the holy and
undivided Trinity, to meditate for him, and to procure his
redemption and eternal salvation.
4. I believe that God the Son, out of his infinite love, and for
the glory of the Deity, was pleased voluntarily and freely to
descend from heaven, and to take our nature upon him, and to lead
an exemplary life of purity, holiness, and perfect obedience, and
at last to suffer an ignominious death upon the cross, for the sins
of the whole world, and to rise again the third day for our
justification.
5. I believe that the Holy Ghost out of his infinite goodness was
pleased to undertake the office of sanctifying us with his divine
grace, and thereby assisting us with faith to believe, will to
desire, and power to do all those things that are required of us in
this world, in order to entitle us to the blessings of just men
made perfect in the world to come.
6. I believe that these three persons are of equal power, majesty,
and duration, and that the Godhead of the Father, of the Son, and
of the Holy Ghost is all one, and that they are equally uncreate,
incomprehensible, eternal, and almighty; and that none is greater
or less than the other, but that every one hath one and the same
divine nature and perfections.
These, sister, are the doctrines which have been received and
practised by the best men of every age, from the beginning of the
Christian religion to this day, and it is upon this I ground my
faith and hopes of salvation, not doubting but, if my life and
practice have been answerable to them, that I shall be quickly
translated out of this kingdom of darkness, out of this world of
sorrow, vexation and confusion, into that blessed kingdom, where I
shall cease to grieve and to suffer, and shall be happy to all
eternity.
As to my principles in religion, to be as brief as I can, I declare
myself to be a member of Christ’s church, which I take to be a
universal society of all Christian people, distributed under lawful
governors and pastors into particular churches, holding communion
with each other in all the essentials of the Christian faith,
worship, and discipline; and among these I look upon the Church of
England to be the chief and best constituted.
The Church of England is doubtless the great bulwark of the ancient
Catholic or Apostolic faith all over the world; a church that has
all the spiritual advantages that the nature of a church is capable
of. From the doctrine and principles of the Church of England, we
are taught loyalty to our prince, fidelity to our country, and
justice to all mankind; and therefore, as I look upon this to be
one of the most excellent branches of the Church Universal, and
stands, as it were, between superstition and hypocrisy, I therefore
declare, for the satisfaction of you and your friends, as I have
always lived so I now die, a true and sincere, though a most
unworthy member of it. And as to my discontinuance of my
attendance at the public worship, I refer you to my papers, which I
have left with my worthy friend, Mr. Barlow. And thus, my dear
sister, I have given you a short account of my faith, and the
principles of my religion. I come, in the next place, to lay
before you a few meditations and observations I have at several
times collected together, more particularly those since my
retirement to St. Helen’s.
Meditations and Observations relating to the Conduct of Human Life