Selected quad for the lemma: christian_n
Text snippets containing the quad
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A48904
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A vindication of The reasonableness of Christianity, &c. from Mr. Edwards's reflections
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Locke, John, 1632-1704.
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1695
(1695)
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Wing L2769; ESTC R18275
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16,897
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48
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of all the rest He pretends it is this That all Men ought to understand their Religion This I confess is a Reasoning I did not think of nor would it hardly I fear have been used but by one who had first took up his Opinion from the Recommendation of Fashion or Interest and then sought Topicks to make it good Perhaps the deference due to your Character excused you from the trouble of quoting the Page where I pretend as you say and it is so little like my way of Reasoning that I shall not look for it in a Book where I remember nothing of it and where without your Direction I fear the Reader will scarce find it Though I have not that vivacity of Thought that elevation of Mind which Mr. Ed's demands yet common sense would have kept me from contending that there is but one Article because all Men ought to understand their Religion Numbers of Propositions may be harder to be remembred but 't is the abstruseness of the Notions or obscurity inconsistency or doubtfulness of the Terms or Expressions that makes them hard to be understood And one single Proposition may more perplex the Understanding than twenty other But where did you find I contended for one single Article so as to exclude all the rest You might have remembred that I say p. 44. That the Article of the One only true God was also necessary to be believed This might have satisfied you that I did not so contend for one Article of Faith as to be at defiance with more than one However you insist on the word one with great vigour from p. 108. to 121. And you did well you had else lost all the force of that killing stroke reserved for the Close in that sharp Jest of Vnitarians and a clinch or two more of great moment Having found by a careful perusal of the Preachings of our Saviour and his Apostles that the Religion they proposed consisted in that short plain easie and intelligible Summary which I set down p. 301. in these words Believing Jesus to be the Saviour promised and taking him now raised from the Dead and constituted the Lord and Judge of Men to be their King and Ruler I could not forbear magnifying the Wisdom and Goodness of God which infinitely exceeds the thoughts of ignorant vain and narrow-minded Man in these following words The All-Merciful God seems herein to have consulted the Poor of this World and the Bulk of Mankind THESE ARE ARTICLES that the Labouring and Illiterate Man may comprehend Having thus plainly mentioned more than one Article I might have taken it amiss that Mr. Ed's should be at so much pains as he is to blame me for contending for one Article because I thought more than one could not be understood had he not had many fine things to say in his declamation upon one Article which affords him so much Matter that less than seven pages could not hold it Only here and there as Men of Oratory often do he mistakes the business as p. 115. where he says I urge that there must be nothing in Christianity that is not plain and exactly levelled to all mens Mother Wit I desire to know where I said so or that the very manner of every thing in Christianity must be clear and intelligible every thing must be presently comprehended by the weakest Noddle or else it 's no part of Religion especially of Christianity As he has it p. 119. I am sure it is not in pag. 255. 289. 292. of my Book These therefore to convince him that I am of another Opinion I shall desire some body to read to Mr. Edwards For he himself reads my Book with such Spectacles as make him find Meanings and Words in it neither of which I put there He should have remembred that I speak not of all the Doctrines of Christianity nor all that is published to the World in it but of those Truths only which are absolutely required to be believed to make any one a Christian. And these I find are so plain and easie that I see no Reason why every body with me should not Magnifie the Goodness and Condescension of the Almighty who having out of his free Grace proposed a new Law of Faith to sinful and lost Man hath by that Law required no harder terms nothing as absolutely necessary to be believed but what is suited to Vulgar Capacities and the Comprehension of Illiterate Men. You are a little out again p. 118. where you Ironically say as if it were my sense Let us have but one Article though it be with defiance to all the rest Jesting apart Sir This is a serious Truth That what our Saviour and his Apostles preached and admitted Men into the Church for believing is all that is absolutely required to make a Man a Christian. But this is without any Defiance of all the rest taught in the Word of God This excludes not the belief of any one of those many other Truths contained in the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments which it is the Duty of every Christian to study and thereby build himself up on our most Holy Faith receiving with stedfast Belief and ready Obedience all those things which the Spirit of Truth hath therein revealed But 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 preached by our Saviour and his Apostles that I deny A Man as I have shewn may be a Christian and a Believer without actually believing them Because those whom our Saviour and his Apostles by their Preaching and Discourses converted to the Faith were made Christians and Believers barely upon the receiving what they preached to them I hope it is no derogation to the Christian Religion to say that the Fundamentals of it i. e. all that is necessary to be believed in it by all Men is easie to be understood by all Men. This I thought my self authorized to say by the very easie and very intelligible Articles insisted on by our Saviour and his Apostles which contain nothing but what could be understood by the bulk of Mankind a Term which I know not why Mr. Ed's p. 117. is offended at and thereupon is after his fashion sharp upon me about Captain Tom and his Myrmidons for whom he tells me I am going to make a Religion The making of Religions and Creeds I leave to others I only set down the Christian Religion as I find our Saviour and his Apostles preached it and preached it to and left it for the Ignorant and unlearned Multitude For I hope you do not think how contemptibly soever you speak of the Venerable Mob as you are pleased to dignifie them p. 117. that the Bulk of Mankind or in your Phrase the Rabble are not concerned in Religion or ought not to understand it in order to their Salvation Nor are you I hope acquainted with any