PART II


An Abstract of his Faith, and the Principles of his Religion &c., which
begins thus:

Dear Sister; I thank you for putting me in mind to make a declaration of
my faith, and the principles of my religion. I find, as you very well
observe, I have been under some reflections upon that account, and
therefore I think it highly requisite that I set that matter right in the
first place. To begin, therefore, with my faith, in which I intend to be
as short and as comprehensive as I can:

1. I most firmly believe that it was the eternal will of God, and the
result of his infinite wisdom, to create a world, and for the glory of
his majesty to make several sorts of creatures in order and degree one
after another; that is to say, angels, or pure immortal spirits; men,
consisting of immortal spirits and matter, having rational and sensitive
souls; brutes, having mortal and sensitive souls; and mere vegetatives,
such as trees, plants, &c.; and these creatures so made do, as it were,
clasp the higher and lower world together.

2. I believe the holy Scriptures, and everything therein contained, to
be the pure and essential word of God; and that, according to these
sacred writings, man, the lord and prince of the creation, by his
disobedience in Paradise, forfeited his innocence and the dignity of his
nature, and subjected himself and all his posterity to sin and misery.