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
Revelation than any of the other Apostles For he was neither instructed by Christ himself while on Earth as not being his Disciple nor had he any account of the Doctrines which he taught from those Apostles who had constantly heard him but he received all his Instructions immediately from Heaven as he himself hath told us in the first Chap. of Gal. 11 and 12. Ver. But I certifie you Brethren that the Gospel which was preached of me is not after man For I neither received it of man neither was I taught it but by the Revelation of Jesus Christ From whence 't is plain that his Doctrines were of equal Authority with what were taught by Christ himself and that the things which he writ as himself testifies of them in the 1 Cor. 14.37 were the Commandments of the Lord i. e. Were of as great necessity to be believed to Salvation as any other parts of Revelation which cannot in the least be doubted if we also consider that Men are to be Judg'd by that Gospel which St. Paul taught at the last Day As he assures us in Rom. 2.16 In the day when God shall judge the secrets of Men by Jesus Christ according to my Gospel which Gospel he must mean that Epistle to be part of for he had taught those at Rome no otherwise than by this Epistle for he never had been there when this was writ nor do we know that he had sent them any Epistle before it But besides the Doctrines which St. Paul has delivered in this Epistle to the Romans are no more than what he had before taught to others as is plain from his own words to the Elders of Ephesus Act. 20.27 That he had not shun'd to declare unto them all the Counsel of God Which he would not have said if he had a Commission to make any thing necessary to be believed to Salvation by others which was not revealed to them thro' his Ministry So that as both what he taught and writ in his Epistles are the same Doctrines so are they both equally Obligatory But Lastly There is this more remarkable of St. Paul that he was the Apostle of the Gentiles and for the most part the first that had preach'd the Gospel amongst them And therefore what he taught could be the only Rule of Faith to them especially till the Gospels were written which none of them were till some time after he had begun to preach the Gospel amongst the Gentiles From whence it follows that as what he taught was the only Rule of Faith to them before they could have the Gospels so neither would his Doctrines after the publishing the Gospels be less necessary to be believed since their Authority would be much rather increased than lessened by the assistance of so great a Foundation as the Gospels to support them What I have here said of St. Paul is not with a Design to lessen the Authority of the other Epistles for they are all Inspired by the same Holy Spirit and are therefore equally necessary to be believed but only as we have a greater Number of his transmitted to us than of all the other Apostles so I thought it most necessary to shew that the reason why we are obliged to believe them to Salvation was as great as can possibly be produced for any thing of that Nature And thus I hope I have made it fully evident that the Apostles had a sufficient Commission from God to make those Doctrines which they taught in their Epistles absolutely necessary to be believed to Salvation And that they did declare some of their Doctrines to be of this Nature I shall come now in a little time to prove And Thirdly The End and Reason for which the Epistles were written will make this more fully appear For to make any thing more firmly believed and assented to there is not only required a certain knowledge of its being Revealed but also of the End for which it was Revealed Now nothing can be more worthy of God and more beneficial to Man than the revealing the Conditions which he has made necessary for our obtaining Happiness and this is fully done in the Covenant of the Gospel And as the Conditions are necessary to be known before we can perform them so God has taken sufficient care to give us a full Revelation of them First In a large History of the Method that Christ made use of for the purchasing our Redemption and the Miracles which he wrought for the Confirmation of his Mission and Doctrine And Secondly In a more full and clear Manifestation by the coming of the Holy Ghost of all those things which were required of us to be believed And this he intrusted to the Apostles who were to that End both Divinely Inspired and had the Power of working Miracles committed to them to establish and confirm the Truth of their Doctrines So that it may be no very great Absurdity to affirm that all things which are necessary to be believed to Salvation are not fully and clearly contain'd in the Gospels Indeed * Tota Religio Christiana omnia illius dogmata fidei praecepta vitae ad salutem necessaria quatuor Evangeliis imo unico Mathaei Evangelio continentur neque ex Epistolis Apostolorum imo nec Apostoli Pauli ullum dogma ad salutem creditu necessarium proferetur quod non antea in Evangelio clare expressum exstat Ausim itaeque dicere etiamsi sola quatuor exstarent Evangelian os perfectum habituros Canonem seu Regulam fidei ac Morum p. 189. Limborch in his Conference with a Learned Jew in his Book De Veritate Religionis Christianae seems to have granted more than he had Authority for in asserting that All the Doctrines of Faith and Practice necessary to Salvation are contain'd in the four Evangelists or even in St. Matthew only and that none of the Epistles of St. Paul or the rest of the Apostles contain any Doctrine necessary to be believed to Salvation which was not clearly and expresly set down before in the Gospels c. Whether all the fundamental Doctrines of Christianity were before laid down in the Gospels is indeed made by some a matter of Dispute but that many of them are not there so plain and intelligible as in the Epistles is none For it may be very justly question'd if the Epistles had not been written whether we should not have remained wholly ignorant of the true meaning of several things in the Gospels Particularly as to the Reasons of the Death and Resurrection of our Saviour for I much doubt whether we should so unanimously have believed that Christ's Death was a Sacrifice for our Sins or that by vertue of his Resurrection alone we should all be raised again at the last day from the alone Declaration of the Gospels Since neither of these can be so clearly proved from the Gospels as from the Epistles the latter of which is I think no where mentioned in
Reason to perswade us to build our Faith upon the Epistles too For it is very absurd to imagine that the very next Ages to the Apostles should be so far imposed upon and so down to the present Time as to receive several of the Doctrines contain'd in the Epistles for fundamental Articles of Faith if they were never design'd either by the Holy Ghost that Inspired them or by the Apostles themselves to be made such So that to assert the contrary is to affirm that either all Christians hitherto have wander'd in the Dark or that they were guilty of very great Folly and Superstition in making those parts of Scripture necessary to be believed to Salvation which were never intended to be so Some of the Epistles have indeed been rejected but so have some of the Gospels too But as this was done but by a very few so were they Men of Heretical Opinions The †Iraen Advers Heres l. 1. c. 26. Ebionites allowed of no more of the Gospels than St. Matthew and rejected all that was writ by St. Paul calling him an Apostate from the Law The * L. 1. C. 29. Marcionites owned but some part of the Epistles of St. Paul to be Canonical but they also denied the Authority of all the Gospels except that of St. Luke and then would admit no more parts of it than would agree with their own Model of Divinity Sed huic quidem says Iraeneus speaking of Marcion quoniam solus manifeste ausus est circumcidere Scripturas c. Which shews what an unpardonable Crime he thought it to be for any Man without a sufficient Warrant for it which can be nothing less than a Divine Commission to pretend to reject any parts of Holy Scripture and to cut them off from the rest which the whole Church had received for Canonical And thus whoever they were that denied the Divine Authority and the necessity of believing all the parts of Scripture such as were also the Valentinians and Manichees with some few others were always looked upon by the Church to be no better than Hereticks There were indeed some of the Primitive Christians that did not receive all the Books of the New Testament for Canonical but the reason was because they were not certain they were writ by the Apostles yet after a little time they were all admitted and universally believed as necessary parts of Faith But now by asserting the necessity of believing the Epistles as part of the Rule of Faith I don't mean that none could ever be saved but who had believed them for what then as our Author well observes would become of those Christians who were fallen asleep before any of the Epistles were written For no question but those who believed all that was taught them and lived up to that Knowledge which their most diligent Enquiries could carry them to should be admitted into Happiness as well as those who had afterwards attained to larger degrees of Faith and Knowledge Since no one can be obliged to believe that which he could not possibly have any knowledge of For should we suppose the Gospel to be spread in some Heathen Parts of the World that had never heard of Christ no Man certainly would be so uncharitable as to deny them Salvation if they believed whatsoever they found there and liv'd up exactly to the Precepts there delivered though they had never heard of the Acts of the Apostles or any of the Epistles or no more than one of the Gospels Or if the Case should be thus that they had no other parts of the New-Testament than barely some of the Epistles if they lived up to them in Matters of Faith and Practice there can no doubt be made but they would be saved So that in Cases of this nature the Argument holds as much for the Epistles as the Gospels and nothing from hence can be drawn to the Prejudice of either But where we have the Priviledge of both and are assured that both are of equal Authority as being equally of Divine Inspiration we are under a necessity of drawing the Articles of our Faith from them both as being a most exact Body of Christian Religion in all the Branches of it But then some may urge That if this should be the Case of those who could attain to the Knowledge of but one part of the Christian Doctrine contain'd in the New Testament that they should as well be saved as those who have all the parts of it and upon that account are required to believe more then certainly the Condition of the other would be much more desirable To this it may be answered That this Objection is of little Force since those are certainly in the safest Condition who have the most Light to guide them For though a wary Traveller may possibly find his way through a very narrow obscure Passage yet those who take the broadest Road are most certain of finding the surest way to their Journeys end But besides the more Evidence we have for our Faith and the greater the Confirmation of it may be by the abundant Repetition of Inspiration and Miracles for the Establishment of it and lastly the more full clear and express the Articles of our Faith are and the oftner God has been pleased to give us an Explanation of them so much the more likely are we to avoid Mistakes to give our unfeigned Assent to them and to suffer them to make more lasting Impressions upon our Minds And thus I hope I have sufficiently Vindicated the Divine Authority of the Epistles and the necessity of making them part of the Rule of Faith that 's required to Salvation And we ought to be the more concerned for the Defense of them because several Doctrines which have been always maintained by the universal Church such as the Doctrine of the Satisfaction and the true Reason of Christ's coming into the World will not so easily be maintained without a Belief of them But if these sacred Writings are esteemed as they are and were really designed to be the infallible Guides to us in our understanding the Mystery of the great Work of our Redemption and for the more clearly stating and explaining of all that is required for our Belief and Practice we are under an absolute necessity to preserve them inviolably and to vindicate the Belief of them as much as of any other parts of Divine Revelation Of the Reason of CHRIST's Coming into the World AND now I come in the next place to examine the Reason our Author assigns for Christ's coming into the World And this we must allow can be understood no way so well as by considering what the Scripture shews we lost by Adam p. 1. For it is on this that the whole Decision of the Case depends Since which way soever it is that the whole Bent of Scripture inclines there we ought to fix our Faith And here also there is no reason why we should dissent from the