II. If they are sound in the faith of the gospel; I mean in the chief and principal doctrines thereof, although they may be ignorant of, or mistaken in matters of less importance. If they have some distinct knowledge and faith concerning these, and other such truths and matters contained in the word of God; as of the state and condition in which man was at first created; how he lost that holy and blessed estate, and the misery into which he brought himself and all his posterity thereby. Concerning themselves, that they are by nature children of wrath, dead in trespasses and sins, and condemned to eternal death; that they are enemies to, and at enmity with, God; that they have neither will nor power by nature to will and to do that which they ought, and which is well-pleasing to God; that they have forsaken God, and are under the curse of the law; and that they are the children, subjects, and servants of the devil, the world, and their own lusts; that God left not all men in this lost state and condition, but provided an all-sufficient remedy, namely, Jesus Christ, and that by an everlasting covenant, entered into with him, in the behalf of men, before the foundation of the world, Tit. i. 2; 2 Tim. i. 9; Prov. viii.: and that, in pursuance thereof, he elected and gave some to Christ, that he might save them out of his mere grace and love. John vi. 37, 40:--That God the Father gave and sent his Son, the second person of the Trinity, to mediate peace between God and man, and to reconcile them to God, by his active and passive obedience;--that Jesus Christ gave himself, and became a propitiation for their sins;--that he assumed our nature into a personal union with himself, whereby there are two natures in one person, by which he was made capable of his mediatorship;--that he, being God and man in one person, took upon himself our guilt and punishment, obeyed the whole law of God, that men had broke, and did always the things that pleased God;--that, when he had finished his active obedience, he became obedient unto the death of the cross, to the wrath of God, and to the curse of the law, Gal. iii. 13; Phil. ii. 8;--that he really died and was buried, lay in the grave, and rose again the third day; and after forty days he ascended into heaven, and sat down at the right hand of God; and that he will come again to judge the quick and the dead;--that he is king, priest, and prophet; a king to give laws unto men, and to command their obedience to him, to rule and govern his subjects, and to reward the obedient, and to punish the disobedient;--that all power in heaven and earth is committed unto him; and that he is coequally and coeternally God with the Father and Holy Spirit;--that as a High Priest he died and made atonement for the sins of his people, and sits in heaven to make intercession, and to appear in the presence of God for them, Heb. vii. 25, and ix. 24;--that there are three persons in the