ANIMADVERSIONS On a late BOOK ENTITULED THE REASONABLENESS OF CHRISTIANITY As delivered in the SCRIPTURES OXFORD Printed by Leon. Lichfield for George West and Anthony Piesley MDCXCVII THE PREFACE I Need make no Apology for the following papers The Liberty which the Author of The Reasonableness of Christianity c. has taken in delivering his Thoughts to the World gives every man a right to examine them that proposes no other End than to enquire after Truth which I have endeavoured with as sincere a design as I hope he published them I have followed a method which His Treatise naturally led me into and have chose to build my Observations upon the same Authority on which he hath founded his Rule of Faith that of the Scriptures rather than upon any Systems drawn from them which I must confess my self to be but little acquainted with And this I cannot but agree with him to be the most rational means of silencing all Religious controversies For if all Parties would joyn Issue in this that nothing ought to be required to be believed but what is injoyned by the clear and express declarations of Scripture nor any Article rejected that is there plainly delivered there might be some probable grounds to hope for a happy Conclusion of all disputes of that nature in a very little time For certainly God has not made it very difficult for us to determine what we are to believe how inconceivable soever the manner of some things may appear to us The main design which the Author of the Reasonableness of Christianity c. seems to have had is to lay down such a Scheme of Faith only as he finds delivered in scripture and not to rest satisfied with those Collections of Articles which are to be met with in the Common Systems without any sufficient warrant from scripture And to this End he has run through the Gospels and Acts to discover upon what Terms our Blessed Saviour who first founded and his Apostles who afterwards built up Christianity admitted men into that Religion And having declared at large all that he can find required by them to make a man a Christian which he tells us was only the Believing Jesus to be the Messiah he concludes that nothing ought to be made necessary to be believed now which was not so then nor any Articles imposed upon us which are not injoyned in order to salvation in those parts of scripture which he has considered which alone according to him declare the Conditions upon which men are denominated believers or Christians This way of examining our Faith by the scripture had been an unexceptionable Method for fixing the measure of it if he had omitted no Articles which are there made as necessary to be believed by all Christians as what is observed in His Treatise For that there are others required even to make a man a Christian in these parts of sacred Writ from whence he has extracted his Article of Faith is what I propose to make appear in the following Observations As also to shew that there are some distinct Articles from what are set down in the Gospels and Acts delivered in the Epistles that are absolutely necessary to be believed to salvation in answer to that assertion of our Author P. 295. That it is not in the Epistles that we are to learn what are the Fundamental Articles of Faith with some others of the like nature Which is the Reason that I give the Title of a Vindication of the Epistles to the former part of these Papers In the next place I have consider'd the Reasons our Author has assigned for Christ's coming into the World And how necessary it was to examine both these in order to a more exact consideration of that one Article this Author has so much insisted on the Reader will easily apprehend He tells us in his Vindication p. 6. that he designed the Reasonableness of Christianity c. chiefly for those who were not yet throughly and firmly Christians I shall not dispute the sincerity of his Intention though I find no such Intimation in the Treatise it self Yet a well-meaning Author who has appeared very warmly in defence of it Mr. Bold believes that to be his only design though he tells us he had considered it with very great care and Application This Author also is of opinion that there is nothing more required to make a Man a Christian then the believing Jesus to be the Messias But had he given himself a little more leisure to consider into what faith he himself was baptized or into what he baptizes others he must have acknowledged that the Explicitely believing in Father and Holy Ghost is as much required of every one initiated into Christianity as believing Jesus to be the Messias For the Faith in the Holy Trinity has always been required in order to Baptism Indeed at the first men might be denominated Christians upon the bare believing Jesus to be the Messias yet when there was more revealed concerning Him and consequently a larger faith required they could no more have continued Christians if they had not believed this also than if they had still been altogether unbelievers I shall make no other Observation upon what this Author has urged but this that he has been a little too hasty in concluding that if the Reasonableness of Christianity merits no worse a Character upon any other Account than it does justly deserve for advancing this point P. 52. that Christ and his Apostles did not propound any Article as necessarily to be believed to make a Man a Christian but this that Jesus is the Christ or Messias I think it may with great justice be reputed one of the best books that has been published for at least this sixteen hundred years since I suppose he will hardly deny that Mr Hobbs writ within that space who maintained the very same Assertion as I have farther observed in the following Remarks though I am afraid with a far worse Intention than the Author of the Reasonableness of Christianity c. seems to have had in that Treatise I need reflect no farther upon any thing propounded by this Author not only because his Papers came abroad after the following Remarks were drawn up but because there does not seem to be any thing very material which was not before observed in the Reasonableness of Christianity c. or the Authors Vindication of it I hope there is nothing in the following Papers that will be mistaken for a Reflexion for I am sure there was none designed For I think an Adversary ought to be treated with respect how wide soever his Notions may be from Truth if his design be sincere Which I must confess I cannot but believe of the Author of the Reasonableness of Christianity c. And though I cannot joyn in his opinion yet I think my self obliged to have so much charity as to suppose that he would not maintain what he was
present Purpose if we can produce any Doctrines that are absolutely enjoined to be believed by all Christians and that are either distinct from or more fully exprest than any of those contain'd in the Gospels or Acts as I shall hereafter endeavour to shew there are some of that nature without the Belief of which though we may grant Men might be saved before they were known yet when they were divulged they could no more be stiled true Christians without the Belief of them than if they had not at all believed To instance in a like case None could any longer be called Christians or admitted into that Communion after that form of Baptism was requir'd in the Name of Father Son and Holy Ghost tho' they might have that Denomination before who did not acknowledge their Faith in the Holy Trinity since as none could be Baptized Christians without the Confession of that Faith so none could continue in the Number of Christians that denied it But of this more in its proper place And thus we may be convinced from the Nature of Revelation that all the parts of it have an equal Authority and that where the End of the Revelation was the Glory of God and the Salvation of Mankind as I shall hereafter shew was the Apostles Designs in writing their Epistles there the same Acts of Faith are required of us But before I proceed any farther in the Vindication of these sacred Writings it will be necessary to consider an Objection or rather an Evasion of our Author's in his Vindication of the Reasonableness of Christianity Vindic. p. 19. which may seem to render what has been hitherto urged superfluous since it intimates that he believes as much of the Epistles and in as true a sence as any man whatsoever And for the Proof of this he cites what he had before declared in the Reasonableness of Christianity it self p. 299. These Holy Writers viz. The Pen-men of the Scriptures inspired from above writ nothing but Truth and in most places very weighty Truths to us now for the expounding clearing and confirming the Christian Doctrine and establishing those in it who had embraced it And again p. 299. The other parts of Divine Revelation are Objects of Faith and are so to be received They are Truths of which none that is once known to be such i. e. Revealed may or ought to be disbelieved And if this as he goes on does not satisfy you that I have as high a Veneration for the Epistles as you or any one can have I require you to publish to the World those Passages which shew my contempt of them Indeed if he said no more concerning the Epistles than what is mention'd in these Passages there would not have been so much occasion for a Defense of them But however even these do not seem altogether unexceptionable for though these allow the Truths contain'd in the Epistles to be Objects of our Faith yet they do not suppose them or any parts of them to be more so than any other places of Scripture which have no relation to the Salvation of Mankind and which we are only bound to believe to be true upon the Veracity of God that reveal'd them For that this is all which the Author meant is very plain from what he maintains a little after Vindic. p. 31. viz. That all the rest of the Inspired Writings or if you please Articles are of equal necessity to be believed to make a Man a Christian with what was preacht by our Saviour and his Apostles by which he only means what is recorded in the Gospels and Acts that I deny So that it plainly appears that all the Respect which he professes for the Epistles consists only in this That he believes them to be true but that the Doctrines contain'd in them are no more necessary to be actually believed or to be made fundamental Articles of Faith than any indifferent or Historical Matters in the Bible all which we believe to be true because they are contain'd in that Book which we are fully perswaded is the Word of God So that a bare Assent to them only as they are true is no higher an Act of Faith than the believing that there was such an Apostle as St. Paul and that he was the Author of such Epistles But if our Author does indeed believe that all is true which is contain'd in the Epistles why should he deny that any of the Truths therein mention'd are to be made Fundamentals For methinks it would be no great Imposition to be obliged to believe that as a necessary Article of Faith in order to Salvation which he is already perswaded is a real Truth But besides this is what we contend for that there are Doctrines contain'd in the Epistles that are of equal necessity to be believed to make a Man a Christian with those in the Gospels or in the Acts of the Apostles as being of as great Importance to us and therefore they are also to be believed upon another Ground besides that of meer Revelation And for the Proof of this it will be necessary to consider in the second place the Authority that our Saviour intrusted in his Apostles Which is exprest in their Commission given them by Christ immediately before his Ascension in these words Go and teach all Nations And elsewhere Mat. 28 19. Joh. 20.21 As my Father hath sent me even so send I you Which Commission as it invests them with as full a Power of Teaching whatsoever was necessary to Salvation so it lays as great a necessity upon others of Believing them as if Christ himself had taught in his own Person For whosoever acts by another's Commission acts in his Name and whatever he does by vertue of that Commission it is look'd upon to be his who gave him such Authority Now that the Apostles did not exceed this Authority or teach for Doctrines the Commandments of Men is very evident since it is granted they were Divinely Inspired and taught nothing as necessary to be believ'd but what they received from God So that all that can be here objected seems to be this That the Apostles had no Commission to write any fundamental Doctrines in the Epistles but only in their Sermons which are set down in the Acts of the Apostles If this indeed could be proved it would be a material Objection but if there is not the least shadow of Reason to countenance such a groundless Supposition without shewing that the Apostles did exceed their Commission though at the same time they were Divinely Inspired then we are bound to acknowledge that the Epistles as well as the Acts are an indispensible part of the Rule of our Faith for God himself has put no difference betwixt them But there is yet something more to be observed in the Epistles written by St. Paul which are much the greatest part and that is that he received his Doctrines therein contain'd by a more particular
the Gospels and cannot directly be proved from them So that all our Belief of it must have been by far-fetcht Inferences which very probably we should never have thought of had not the Epistles been written This fore-mention'd Concession of Limborch's seems occasion'd by the Jew 's asserting that all their Religion was contain'd in the five Books of Moses and that they were not obliged to the Observation or absolute necessity of believing any of the rest as part of their Rule of Faith and thereupon he prefers their Religion before the Christian as being much more easily understood because contain'd in a much lesser compass But in Answer to this Limborch was under no necessity in order to prove the Christian superiour to the Jewish Religion on the account of its Brevity to confine all the Articles of Christianity to one or all the Gospels For he might very fairly have denied that Assertion of the Jew for it was only one Sect amongst the Jews that of the Sadducees who were of that Opinion and who gave such Preference to the Books of Moses The Pharisees the more numerous Sect paid the same Respect to all the other Inspired Writings and Prophecies and placed their Religion as much in the Belief of them as in those deliver'd by Moses And indeed if no other Books of the Old Testament were to be received for Canonical or part of the Jewish Revelation they must have but a very small Esteem for the Prophecies concerning their expected Messiah in which a great part of their Religion that wherein their Faith was concerned ought to consist For the believing that the Messiah would come is declar'd by * Porta Mosis p. 176. Maimonides to be one of the Fundamentals of the Jewish Religion But if it be Limborch's Design in this place as indeed it seems to be to vindicate the Honour of our Religion by contracting all the Articles of it into a very narrow Compass that they may be more easily known I think that this does not much advance that End For it seems more for the Honour of God and Religion too that all the parts both of Faith and Practice should be laid down in the largest and plainest Terms imaginable to take off all occasions of Errors and Mistakes Which Men would almost unavoidably fall into if all Matters of Belief and Practice were deliver'd like the Heathen Oracles of Old in a short and consequently obscure Form Indeed it is necessary that there should be a Summary of all the Articles of our Faith which might be easily remembered by every Capacity But it is as necessary also to prevent all Disputes concerning the Meaning of every particular Article that we should have Recourse to a large full and infallible Explanation of them such as is all the parts of Divine Revelation But that the Gospels do not fully and clearly contain every thing that is absolutely necessary to be believed seems plain upon many Accounts 1. For first If in the Gospels or particularly in St. Matthew was contain'd the whole Rule of Faith then the Doctrines therein taught by our Saviour were a sufficient Rule of Faith to the Apostles themselves but if they were not so to them they cannot be said to be so to any others But that they were not so to them before the coming of the Holy Ghost seems plain from their mis-understanding the Reason of Jesus's being the Messiah they thought it was to re-instate the Jews in their Temporal Grandeur and Glory As is evident from that Question they put to our Saviour Lord wilt thou at this time restore the Kingdom to Israel But besides those Words of our Saviour I have many things to say unto you but ye cannot hear them now necessarily suppose that there were other Doctrines yet to be known besides those he had already taught them 2. The Gospels are for the most part Historical and contain an account of our Saviour's miraculous Birth the Miracles which he wrought to confirm his Mission from God his Sufferings Resurrection and Ascension c. are intersperst with many excellent Precepts but contain but few however not all the Matters of Faith 3. Our Saviour generally deliver'd himself very mystically especially about those things which concern'd Himself And left Men rather to draw Conclusions from his Actions for their Belief of him than from any clear Manifestation of himself So that no adequate Rule of Faith could be drawn from the History of Him 4. The Inspired Pen-men of the Gospels were only to draw up the History without their own Remarks upon it and therefore were not in that to tell us what we were to believe any farther than our Saviour had already done through the Course of his Ministry And therefore our Faith is not to be measured by the Gospels only For tho' St. John in the beginning of his Gospel gives us larger Proofs of Christ's Divinity than is to be found in any other parts of the Gospels by introducing our Saviour with such Names and Titles as were usually by the †〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Philo. Lib. de Som. And in another place 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Lib. de Agric. ' o 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Lib. de Som. In some places he calls the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Plotinus hath also done En. 5. lib. 5. c. 3. Jews appropriated to their expected Messiah and by which both they and the Platonists meant a Divine Person and which they were at that time commonly known to signifie yet he has not there deliver'd any adequate Rule of Faith Fifthly and Lastly The Promise which our Blessed Saviour made to his Disciples to send them the Holy Ghost to instruct them farther what they ought to believe concerning Him and to guide them into all Truth which cannot signify bringing all things to their Remembrance but teaching them all things Joh. 14.26 plainly intimates that there was something more required as necessary to be believed which himself had not fully declar'd to them And we no where find nor have we any reason to think that the Disciples themselves who were constantly with our Saviour had any full and distinct Notions of all that was necessary to be believed concerning Him till they had received the Holy Ghost And therefore all that our Saviour himself taught in his own Person or what is revealed in the Gospels only cannot be made any adequate Rule of Faith But however should it be granted That all things necessary to be believed to Salvation are contain'd in the Gospels yet still it might be justly questioned Whether the Epistles also together with the Gospels are not to be looked upon as part of the Rule of Faith and whether the Explanations and Illustrations contain'd in the Epistles of Doctrines more imperfectly set down in the Gospels are not equally to be believed with the Evangelical Writings And therefore though it should be admitted that all or most of the Truths deliver'd in the Epistles are only
And therefore those who deny that Christ died for us in that Sense do in effect deny that he properly died for us at all because they do not assign the true Reasons for it which are declar'd in Scripture But that those Arguments from Scripture of Christ's dying for us and in our stead follow from the easy and natural meaning of those Texts I shall evince from other Expressions in Scripture of the like Nature and from common Customs and Ways of speaking in the World Whereby it will appear that no other Interpretation can possibly be put upon them Thus in the Lamentations Our Fathers have sinned and are not and we have born their Iniquities i. e. Have suffered Punishment for their Sins So Christ's bearing the Sins of many can only be understood of suffering for them So in Ezekiel The Soul that sinneth it shall die Ch. 18. v. 20. the Son shall not bear the iniquity of the Father that is shall not suffer for his Sin And also by one Man's suffering for another is meant a transferring the Punishment upon himself as in the Words of St. Peter to our Blessed Saviour I will lay down my Life for thee i. e. Joh. 13.38 To save or redeem thine And the Expression of Caiphas does also import the same It is expedient for us that one Man should die for the people and that the whole Nation perish not i.e. It is necessary that One should die to free the rest from Destruction And therefore he advised that Christ should be sacrificed to prevent the Ruine of their Nation by the Romans And to the same sense are the words of John If any of the men escape 2 Kiâ—â— 10 2â— he that letteth him go his Life shall be for the Life of him i. e. He shall suffer the Punishment design'd for the other We may add to this the Expressions that occur in Profane Authors that signifie the suffering of one for another For by their expiare orimina or scelus piaculum fieri populum lustrare and the like they generally meant a freeing others from an impending Evil by suffering the Punishment in their stead And this is very plain by a great many Instances in History particularly in that noted one of the Decij who sacrificed themselves for the good of their Country or offered themselves for an Expiation of the rest And this Custom of sacrificing one for all was very common with the Heathens almost in all Ages And they have used such Expressions for it as are used in Scripture to denote the great Piacular Sacrifice for the Sins of the whole World As in the * Euripid. Erecht Tom. 2. p. 468. Ed. Cantab. Tragedian 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That it was not lawful for him to suffer the Destruction of so many things when he might redeem them with the Sacrifice of one Life that of his Daughter And a little after he adds 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That his Daughter would receive abundant Honour by offering her self for a Sacrisice or Expiation to save both the City her Mother Sisters and nearest Relations There might be brought innumerable Instances of this Nature out of the most Ancient Greek and Latin Historians to shew that by a Man's being a Sacrifice they meant a suffering for and in the stead of others to transfer the Faults of others upon himself Which are sufficient to vindicate our interpreting those places of Scripture that mention the Sacrifice of Christ to the sence of a Satisfaction for the Sins of the World since they cannot possibly bear any other Meaning So that the natural Result of all will be this That as the Scripture has in very many places assured us that Christ died for our Sins and in our stead by bearing our Sins in his own Body thereby to deliver us from the Wrath to come and that those are the true Interpretation and Sence of those places which the Words do most naturally import so is it most evident that the End of Christ's Coming into the World was for some other Design than to give us a Title to Immortality And that was to put us in a Condition of saving our selves from Everlasting Misery which we should otherwise most unavoidably have suffered And therefore if either Gospels or Epistles may be allowed to be true that cannot be the only End of Christ's Coming into the World which is assign'd by the Author of the Reasonableness of Christianity For certainly that is the most true and most necessary to be believed which is most agreeable to Divine Revelation What we are to Believe concerning CHRIST I Come now to examine that part of the Reasonableness of Christianity which I proposed in the last place to consider And this relates to our Faith in Christ which the Author makes to consist in the Belief of this one Article That he is the Son of God the Saviour of the World or the Messiah And for the Proof of this he cites very many places of Scripture As Joh. 3.36 He that believeth on the Son hath Eternal Life and he that believeth not the Son shall not see Life And in the next Chapter from the Belief of the Samaritans p. 25 26 c. who said to the Woman We believe not any longer because of thy saying for we have heard our selves and do know that this is indeed the Christ the Saviour of the World And from the words of St. Peter Lord to whom shall we go Thou hast the words of Eternal Life and we believe and are sure that thou art the Messiah the Son of the Living God And from hence he gathers that this was the Faith which distinguisht them from Apostates and Unbelievers and was sufficient to continue them in the Rank of the Apostles And that it was upon the same Profession that Jesus was the Messiah the Son of the living God owned by St. Peter that our Saviour said he would build his Church Matth. 16.18 The Belief of this one Article as the only necessary one to Salvation in the New Covenant is the same with what is maintain'd by Mr. Hobbs and proved after the very same manner as may be seen by any one that will take the Pains to read the Eighteenth Chap. of his Book De Cive which treats of Religion Sect. 5. c. His words are Credere in Christum quid est Vel fidei in Christum quaenam propositio est objectum To which he answers Credere in Christum est nihil aliud quam credere Jesum esse Christum nimirum illum qui secundum Mosis Prophetarum Israelitorum vaticinia venturus erat in hunc mundum ad Instituendum Regnum Dei And then after he has brought very many Proofs out of the Gospels and Acts the very same which our Author has done he tells us that Alia fides ad vitam aeternam praeter