as a common Axiom in the Canon law; that _Ecclesia non judicat de occultis_,----And----_Cogitationis pænam nemo patitur._----And----_Ob peccatum mere internum Ecclesiastica censura ferri non potest._ And in all Churches every one, of what internal perswasion soever, continues externally at least a member thereof, till the Church's censures do exclude him. §. 37. _Soc._ The Church of _England_ alloweth, assenteth to, and teacheth, what she judgeth evident in the Scripture; for so she ought; what she believes, or assenteth to, I look not after, but what she enjoyns. Now I yield all that obedience in this point, that she requires from me; and so I presume she will acknowledge me a dutiful Son. _Prot._ What obedience when as you deny one of her chiefest, and most fundamental doctrins? _Soc._ If I mistake not her principles, she requires of me no internal belief or assent to any of her doctrins, but only, 1st. _Silence_, or _non-contradiction_ or 2ly, a _conditional belief_, _i.e._ whenever I shall be convinced of the truth thereof. Now in both these I most readily obey her. For the 1st, I have strictly observed it, kept my opinion to my self; unless this my discourse with you hath been a breach of it; but then I was at least a dutiful subject of this Church at the beginning of our discourse; and for the 2d, whether _actual conviction_, or _sufficient proposal_, be made the condition of my assent, or submission of judgment, I am conscious to my self of no disobedience, as to either of these; for an _actual conviction_ I am sure I have not: and, supposing, that I have had a _sufficient proposal_, and do not know it, my obedience, upon the Protestant principles, can possibly advance no further, than it now doth. The _Apostles Creed_ I totally embrace, and would have it the standing bound of a Christian Faith. For other _Creeds_: I suppose, no more belief is necessary to the Articles of the _Nicene Creed_, than is required to those of the _Athanasian_. And, of what kind the necessity is of believing those, Dr. _Stillingfleet_ states on this manner [101]----_That the belief of a thing may be supposed necessary, either as to the matter, because the matter is to be believed in it self necessary; or because of the clear conviction of mens understandings; that, though the matters be not in themselves necessary, yet being revealed by God, they must be explicitly believed: but then, the necessity of this belief doth extend no further, than the clearness of the conviction doth._ Again, _that the necessity of believing any thing arising from the Church's definition_ [upon which motive you seem to press the belief of the Article of _Consubstantiality_] _doth depend upon the Conviction, that whatever the Church defines is necessary to be believed. And, where that is not received as an antecedent principle, the other cannot be supposed._ [Now this principle neither I, nor yet Protestants, accept]. Then he