the Christians; then the anathema reaches not the heathens, who had never heard of Christ, and were nothing interested in that dispute.  After all, I am far from blaming even that prefatory addition to the creed, and as far from cavilling at the continuation of it in the Liturgy of the Church, where, on the days appointed, it is publicly read:  for I suppose there is the same reason for it now, in opposition to the Socinians, as there was then against the Arians; the one being a heresy, which seems to have been refined out of the other; and with how much more plausibility of reason it combats our religion, with so much more caution it ought to be avoided:  therefore the prudence of our Church is to be commended, which has interposed her authority for the recommendation of this creed.  Yet to such as are grounded in the true belief, those explanatory creeds, the Nicene and this of Athanasius, might perhaps be spared; for what is supernatural will always be a mystery, in spite of exposition; and for my own part, the plain Apostles’ creed is most suitable to my weak understanding, as the simplest diet is the most easy of digestion.

I have dwelt longer on this subject than I intended, and longer than perhaps I ought; for having laid down, as my foundation, that the Scripture is a rule; that in all things needful to salvation it is clear, sufficient, and ordained by God Almighty for that purpose, I have left myself no right to interpret obscure places, such as concern the possibility of eternal happiness to heathens:  because whatsoever is obscure is concluded not necessary to be known.

But, by asserting the Scripture to be the canon of oar faith, I have unavoidably created to myself two sorts of enemies:  the Papists indeed, more directly, because they have kept the Scriptures from us what they could; and have reserved to themselves a right of interpreting what they have delivered under the pretence of infallibility:  and the Fanatics more collaterally, because they have assumed what amounts to an infallibility, in the private spirit; and have detorted those texts of Scripture which are not necessary to salvation, to the damnable uses of sedition, disturbance, and destruction of the civil government.  To begin with the Papists, and to speak freely, I think them the less dangerous, at least in appearance to our present state; for not only the penal laws are in force against them, and their number is contemptible, but also their peers and commons are excluded from parliament, and consequently those laws in no probability of being repealed.  A general and uninterrupted plot of their clergy, ever since the Reformation, I suppose all Protestants believe; for it is not reasonable to think but that so many of their orders, as were outed from their fat possessions, would endeavour a re-entrance against those whom they account heretics.  As for the late design, Mr Coleman’s letters, for aught I know, are the best evidence; and what they discover, without wiredrawing their sense, or