In his sermons on the Creed, instead of confining himself, as Pearson and Heylyn have done, to the exposition of Christian truth, he carefully employs himself in constructing defences of the faith. He begins his task with an exposure of the unreasonableness of infidelity, and with an assertion of the perfectly rational nature of belief in the Gospel. He afterwards dwells, at length, upon proofs of the existence of God; upon the Divinity and excellence of the Christian religion, as compared with the impiety and imposture of Paganism and Mahometanism, and the imperfection of Judaism; and upon the evidence that Jesus is the true Messias. Thus Barrow appears as a Christian advocate. He habitually bases his arguments upon Scripture texts, but he also habitually weaves into these arguments threads of reason, so as to commend what he advances to the understanding of his readers, ever avoiding what is mystical, or merely imaginative. Yet he does not neglect the dogmas of revelation, but brings many of them out with a clearness and precision which has been overlooked by some critics. His disquisition upon the nature of faith is as exhaustive as that of any Puritan, and will be found a wearisome piece of reading by some modern students. He dwells much upon the difficulties of faith, and upon the moral virtue involved in overcoming them; and when we compare his opinions with those of Thorndike and Bull, we discover in him a general similarity to them, in connection with shades of difference. In common with Thorndike, he resolutely opposes the idea that faith consists in any belief of our being pardoned, or in any assurance of salvation, or in any persuasion that a true Christian cannot fall from grace. His representations of the virtuousness of evangelical belief are obviously in harmony with that writer’s statements; and he also, in accordance with them, associates faith and the baptismal covenant, saying, “Faith is nothing else but a hearty embracing Christianity, which first exerteth itself by open declaration and avowal in baptism.”[429] Barrow, however, of all men, requires to be judged, not by isolated expressions, but by a comparison of one part of his teaching with another. Turning, then, to the following passage, which is complete in itself, and which I quote as an example of his diffuse and affluent style, we meet with an account of Christian faith, such as would scarcely have satisfied the demands of Thorndike’s baptismal theology:--“By this faith (as to the first and primary sense thereof) is understood the being truly and firmly persuaded in our minds that Jesus was what He professed Himself to be, and what the Apostles testified Him to be, the Messias, by God designed, foretold, and promised to be sent into the world, to redeem, govern, instruct, and save mankind, our Redeemer and Saviour, our Lord and Master, our King and Judge, the great High Priest, and Prophet of God--the being