Synopsis
Excerpt from Did the First Church of Salem Originally Have a Confession of Faith Distinct From Their Covenant?
In his epistle, dedicatory to his Orthodox Evangelist, which he wrote to his parishioners of Ipswich, 1652, John Norton made the following re marks What hath my soul longed or labored for more than that you should be not only babes, but men, both sound and strong in faith; sin cere and distinct, that Christ might not only be formed but perfected that you might not only have a saving but satisfactory knowledge of him, in whom you believe. The end of the Gospel is to be known, the duty and disposition of the believer, is to know. How he had thus dis charged his duty to the people of Ipswich from 1636, may be learned from the principles of divinity taught and illustrated in the aforesaid work.
In his election sermon of 1663, John Higginson observed that the design of the primitive settlers was the avoiding of some special cor ruptions, and the vigorous profession and practice of everything in doctrines, worship and discipline, according to Scripture pattern. After other similar observations, he added, Hence I humbly conceive, that the consent of the Synod here to the confession of Faith by the Assembly of Westminster, and the platform of discipline published in the year 1649, these for the substance of them, have carried with them a declaration of the Faith and order of these churches, and are so looked upon by the reformed Churches abroad, unto which may be added many other books of our divines of the same import.
William Stoughton, in his sermon of 1670, called New England's true interest, spoke of what its founders practiced, as practical piety and holiness; unmixed, spiritual, Gospel worship; sincere and open profession and owning of the truths and ways of Christ. In his ad dress to survivors of the first generation, he observed, as long as you are in this tabernacle, stir them up by putting them in remembrance, that they may be established in all those truths and practices, which to own and abide in hath been New England's glory and must be its preservation and safety in whatever times are coming upon us.
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Excerpt from Did the First Church of Salem Originally Have a Confession of Faith Distinct From Their Covenant? In the next sentence, it intimates, that such treatment of the covenant is unworthy and "perversive of its true character." This seems to have been honestly considered as a needed blister to quicken the perception of truth. But we trust that, on fuller examination, no sufficient morbidness will appear, requiring any such remedy. - We will now endeavor to show that the preceding positions of the volume are correct, and therefore neither errors for misrepresentation, nor unworthiness, nor perversion. To do this, the general divisions, for the most part, adopted by the Sketch, may answer our purpose. I. The avowed principles of the Founders. It is an indisputable fact, in moral as well as intellectual philosophy, that principles will be accounted opinions, and so in the reverse comparison, according to the medium of faith through which they are viewed. As in astronomical science, the power of the sun to attract all the less globes of its system was a grand principle with Copernicus, while his opponents denounced it as the vagary of imagination, so it is with the receivers and rejecters of the great doctrines of religion. The Founders of Naumkeag highly estimated their practical principles of Congregationalism. But they looked on them, in contrast with their principles of Christianity, as the shell to the kernel and the husk to the corn. They could easily discern the difference between these two kinds of principles, and quickly distinguish them both from the loose speculations which drift with every wind. As the decision of their judgment, the principles of religion embalmed in their hearts, were drawn from the wisdom of Inspiration. Could they rise from the dead, and address those who greatly applaud them for doing what they never did, for lightly esteeming the doctrines which they held far more valuable than all worldly honor, they would say to them. However
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