Pearson’s _Exposition of the Creed_ (1659) is a well-known theological treatise. He implicitly pursues an Anglican course, citing the Fathers in support of his positions; but he nowhere distinctly defines what authority he attaches to them, or, indeed, formally lays down as a principle that they are his guides at all. Pearson must have been moderate in his ecclesiastical views, or he could not have pursued the course he did during the Commonwealth; and his position as Lecturer at St. Clement’s, Eastcheap, and the association into which he would necessarily be brought with his Puritan brethren, might have the effect of widening his sympathies, and of preventing, in his case, those controversial asperities which embitter the writings of extreme Anglicans. In his article on the Church, he refers to its unity, its perpetuity, its holiness, and its Catholicity, meaning apparently by the Church the aggregate of Christian professors, whether they be good or bad.[427] Under the last head, he touches upon the authority of the Church in the following brief remark:--“They call the Church of Christ the Catholic Church, because it teacheth all things which are necessary for a Christian to know, whether they be things in heaven or things in earth, whether they concern the condition of man in this life, or in the life to come. As the Holy Ghost did lead the Apostles into all truth, so did the Apostles leave all truth unto the Church, which teaching all the same, may be well called Catholic from the universality of necessary and saving truths retained in it.” Even this scarcely amounts to an assertion of Church authority in the Anglican sense; it might be explained consistently with Puritan principles, it never would have satisfied Thorndike or Heylyn, or even Bull. To baptism, however, Pearson attributes great efficacy, coupling it, as Heylyn and others do, with the article on _Forgiveness of Sins_, according to the teaching of the Nicene and other Creeds. Unlike Thorndike, he does not propound any theory of justification in connection with baptism; nor does he, any more than Heylyn, dwell on the subject of justification in any way: he confines himself to the idea of remitting sins, which perhaps, in his opinion, is equivalent to justification. He uses strong expressions in speaking of the Atonement,--referring to “the punishment which Christ, who was our surety, endured,” as “a full satisfaction to the will and justice of God.” “It was a price given to redeem”--something “laid down by way of compensation.” “Although God be said to remit our sins by which we were captivated, yet He is never said to remit the price, without which we had never been redeemed, neither can He be said to have remitted it, because He did require it and receive it.” A Calvinist could scarcely have marked the point more strongly. Pearson also says “that Christ did render God propitious unto us by His blood--that is, His sufferings unto death--who before was offended with us for our