Salvation

The very sure and lively Christian faith is not only to believe all things of God that are contained in holy Scripture, but also is an earnest trust and confidence in God, that he does regard us, and has care of us, as the father of the child whom he loves, and that he will be merciful unto us for his only son’s sake, and that we have our Saviour Christ, our perpetual advocate and priest, in whose only merits, oblation, and suffering we trust that our offences are continually washed and purged, whenever we, repenting truly, return to him with our whole heart, steadfastly determining with ourselves, through his grace, to obey and serve him in keeping his commandments, and never to turn back again to sin. Such is the true faith that the Scripture does so much commend.

Plant in the garden of your memory, the tree of the holy Cross; it produces a very efficacious medicine against all the suggestions of the devil. Of this most noble and fertile tree, the root is humility and poverty; the bark, labor and penitence; the branches, mercy and justice; the leaves, true honor and modesty; the scent, sobriety and abstinence; the beauty, chastity and obedience; the splendor, right faith and firm hope; the strength, magnanimity and patience; the length, long-suffering and perseverance; the breadth, benignity and concord; the height, charity and wisdom; the sweetness, love and joy; the fruit, salvation and life eternal.

If ever we intend to take one step towards any agreement or unity, it must be by fixing this principle in the minds of all men—that it is of no advantage to any man whatever church or way in Christian religion he be of, unless he personally believe the promises, and live in obedience unto all the precepts of Christ; and that for him who does so, that it is a trampling of the whole gospel under foot to say that his salvation could be endangered by his not being of this or that church or way, especially considering how much of the world has mingled itself into all the known ways that are in it.