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death_n	adam_n	enter_v	world_n	4,060	5	4.8464	4	false

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A38042	Socinianism unmask'd a discourse shewing the unreasonableness of a late writer's opinion concerning the necessity of only one article of Christian faith, and of his other assertions in his late book, entituled, The reasonableness of Christianity as deliver'd in the Scriptures, and in his vindication of it : with a brief reply to another (professed) Socinian writer / by John Edwards ...	Edwards, John, 1637-1716.	1696 (1696)	Wing E214; ESTC R3296	60,720	171

more And my End is this to hale in Socinianism after a new manner You see what the Musing of this Gentleman comes to and I was so unhappy a man as to find it out to take notice of it and to discover it to the world in a late Discourse which I publish'd and thereby I have extremely exasperated this New Undertaker and his Adherents I do not wonder at it for now their Intrigues are laid open their Racovian Plot is detected and all their Measures are thereby broken But to keep up their hearts a Vindication as it is call'd of this Treachery is publish'd by him who was appointed to be the Chief Tool in this work Here he makes it his business to defend his New Paradox and to shore his Notion up again with some crazy props Throughout the whole he is pleas'd to Criticize with some Magisterialness and Pertness on the Reflections which I made on his book And now it is my turn again to be Critick and I shall discharge the Task with all impartiality and integrity It is true there is nothing of any Moment nothing Weighty and Argumentative in what he hath offered and therefore some in whose Judgment I could confide would have prevailed with me to add no more on this Subject which they were perswaded I had before sufficiently cleared but partly to shew somewhat further the great Danger and Mischief of this Writer's Opinion partly to prevent the Seduction of some well-meaning persons who may be apt to be led away by his smooth Pretences for though his Cavils and Evasions be weak yet they may chance to light into the Hands of some Weak Readers such as are not well establish'd in their notions Wherefore not on the account of his Petty Objections but for the sake of these persons I reassume this Argument and partly to lay open the Wilful Mistakes and Gross Dissimulation as I take it of this Writer and partly to gratifie those Gentlemens expectations who with some impatience seem to long for a Reply I have once again undertaken to employ the Press upon this occasion But the Chief and Principal Design as well as Motive of my appearing again in this Cause is to assert and defend the Christian Faith which this Author hath misrepresented maim'd and abused To which purpose I will set before the Reader the Heads of his pretended Vindication and in the face of the world make it appear how falsly and perfidiously he hath acted in the Cause of Religion And may it be the Readers Prayer as well as it is mine that this Enterprize may tend to the Glory and Honour of God the Father God the Son and God the Holy Ghost Three Glorious Persons in One ever to be Adored Deity and to the Edification of the Christian Church Amen Ian. 27. 1695 6. ERRATA PAge 17. line 1. read World p. 22. l. 18. for Christ. r. Iesus p. 54. l. 20. r. Sylburgius p. 85. l. 9. r. Racovians p. 87. l. 23 after Iesus insert Christ. p. 116. line 3. after done make the other part of the Parenthesis p. 117. l. 18. after if insert the truth were known I believe it would appear that p. 120. l. 17. r. telling p. 125. l 8. r. him p. 128. l. 21. after hath insert had p. 131. l. 13. after religion insert who is so near a-kin to one that is voted a Socinian in the Brief History of the Vnitarians p. 135. l. 11. r. Socinianiz'd A Late WRITER's Unreasonable Opinions CONFUTED CHAP. I. The first General Charge against the Late Writer viz. That he unwarrantably crowds all the Necessary Articles of Faith into One with a design of favouring Socinianism He endeavours to shift off the Enditement but is cast by his own words His wilful mistake about the Article of the Deity He labours in vain to split One Article into Two It is shew'd that besides the bare believing of Jesus to be the Messias it is necessary to know and believe the Fall of Adam whereby Sin and Death entred into the World and were derived to his posterity It is necessary to know and believe Who the Messias is whether he be God or Man or both on which will follow the necessary belief of the Holy Trinity It is requisite to have a right conception concerning our Recovery and Restauration by the Messias i. e. to know what he undertook and did for us and to be acquainted with the Great Privileges bestow'd upon us by him It is of necessity to believe what the Messias requires of Vs. It is undoubted matter of our belief that our Salvation springs from the mere Favour and Grace of God through Christ Jesus and not from any works or merits of ours It is indispensably requisite that we believe the Doctrin of the Resurrection of the Final Judgment and of Eternal Life I Will now betake my self to the Task which is before me after I have told the Reader that I intend not to imitate our Nameless Author in his Childish Flourishes in his Spruce and Starched Sentences and in his Impotent Jestings which are sprinkled up and down his Vindication Nor will I follow him in his Impertinencies and Incoherencies in his trifling Excursions to eke out his two sheets and a half I will not resemble him in his Little Artifices of evading in his weak and feeble Struglings with a Strong Truth I will not personate him in the Confusion and Disorder of his Reply for it seems he had forgot that it is one sign of a Well-bred a Well-taught Man to answer to the first in the first place and so in order I will not imitate him in his Dry Common Places in his Set of Words and Phrases of Sayings and Apothegms which would have serv'd on any other occasion as the Intelligent Reader cannot but take notice Much less will I comply with him in his Angry fits and Passionate Ferments which tho he strives to palliate are easily discernible for he feels himself Wounded and is not able to disguise it I will betake my self I say to the present Concern with great application and mindfulness fully making good my Former Charges against his Book and clearing my own from those sorry Objections and Cavils which he hath since rais'd against it In the whole management I will sincerely acquaint the Reader first with his own words and then offer my Refutation of them and all along I will be careful to banish all Indecent Reflections unless those shall be counted such which are purely grounded on his own expressions and which his Freedom of Language necessarily and unavoidably administers to me The Main Charges are these 1. That he unwarrantably crowded all the Necessary Articles of Faith into One with a design of favouring Socinianism 2. That he shew'd his good will to this Cause by interpreting those Texts which respect the Holy Trinity after the Antitrinitarian mode 3. That he gave proof of his being Socinianiz'd by his utter silence about Christ's

satisfying for us and purchasing Salvation by vertue of his Death when he designedly undertook to enumerate the Advanvantages and Benefits which accrue to mankind by Christ's coming into the World And in the making good of these Particular Charges I shall as I did before evidence to the World that this Writer hath not only a design to cherish Socinianism but at the same time to make way for Atheism I begin with the First on which I will enlarge more than on any of the rest because it comprehends in it several other Particulars and because in discussing of this I shall have opportunity to lay open the Sophistry and Dissimulation of this Vindicator and likewise to discover to the Reader how Mischievous and Pernicious his Design is First it is observable that this Guilty Man would be shifting off the Enditement by excepting against the formality of the Words as if such were not to be found in his Book But when doth he do this In the close of it when his matter was exhausted and he had nothing else to say Vindic. p. 38. Then he bethinks himself of this Salvo whereas he had generally before pleaded to the formal Enditement and had thereby owned it to be True And indeed he can do no other for it was the main work he set himself about to find but One Article of Faith in all the Chapters of the four Gospels and the Acts of the Apostles and accordingly he over and over again declares that there is but that One Truth viz. Iesus is the Messiah necessarily to be assented to by Christians or as he sometimes words it absolutely required to make a man a Christian or a member of Christ. This is the SOLE Doctrin press'd and requir'd to be believ'd in the whole tenour of our Saviour's and his Apostles preaching p. 192. of his Reasonableness of Christianity And again in the same place This was the ONLY Gospel Article of Faith which was Preached to them This he often inculcates having left out several considerable passage in the very Gospels and having thrown aside the Epistles as if they were no part of the New Testament hoping that some of his Readers would be bubbled by this means And when I told him of his One Article he knew well enough that I did not exclude the Article of the Deity for that is a Principle of Natural Religion whereas I only took notice of his passing by and wholly omitting those points which are Evangelical Yet he willfully mistakes me in this p. 27. of his Vindication and saith he doth not deny the necessary belief of a Deity or One only True God and so the belief of the Messias with that makes Two Articles Thus he would perswade the Reader that I misunderstood him and that I tax'd him with setting up One Article when he acknowledges two But the Reader sees his Shuffling for my Discourse did not treat neither doth his Book run that way of Principles of Natural Religion but of the Revealed one and Particularly the Christian. Accordingly this was it which I taxed him with that of all the Principles and Articles of Christianity he chose out but One as necessarily to be believed to make a Man a Christian. And though since he hath tried to split this One into two p. 28. yet he labours in vain for to believe Iesus to be the Messias amounts to the same with believing him to be a King or Ruler his being Anointed i. e. being the Messias including that in it Yet he hath the Vanity to add in great Characters THESE ARE ARTICLES as if the putting them into these Great Letters would make one Article two Such is the fond fancy and conceitedness of the Gentleman whereas in other places he hath formally declared that there is but One Article that is the necessary Matter of Faith This I had just reason to except against and now I will give a farther account of my doing so by shewing that besides that One Fundamental Principle or Article which he so often mentions there are Others that are as necessarily to be believed to make a Man a Christian yea to give him the denomination of a Believer in the sense of the Gospel Several of these I particularly but barely enumerated in my former Discourse and now I will distinctly insist on the most of them and let the Reader see that it is as necessary for a Convert to Christianity to give assent to them as to that other he so frequently specifies This Proposition that by one man sin entred into the World and death by sin and this which follows Death passed upon all men for as much as all men have sinned Rom. 5. 12. and that other that even the Regenerate for the Apostle speaks of himself and the Converted Ephesians are by nature the Children of wrath as well as others Eph. 2. 3. these I say are as absolutely necessary to be known assented to and believed in order to our being Christians as this Proposition Iesus is the Messias or Sent of God For I ask what was the end of his being sent Was it not to Help Mankind to rescue and deliver them from some Evil And where can we be inform'd concerning the Rise and Nature of this Evil but in the Sacred and Inspired Writings And do not these foresaid Texts which we find in St. Paul's Epistles acquaint us with the true Source and Quality of our condition by nature Do they not discover the Root of Mans Misery viz. the Apostacy of Adam for he is that one Man and the dreadful Consequences of it expressed by Death and Wrath And is this set down to no purpose in these Inspired Epistles Is it not requisite that we should know it and believe it Yea is not this absolutely requisite For it is impossible any one should firmly imbrace or so much as seriously attend to the Doctrin of the Messias unless he be persuaded that He stands in need of him And can he be persuaded of this unless he be acquainted with his Degenerate and Miserable State his universal Depravity and innate Proness to what is Vitious and with the true Original of it viz. The voluntary Defection and Fall of our First Parents and with that the loss of our Happiness The word Messias is an insignificant term till we have a belief of this Why then is there a Treatise published to tell the World that the bare belief of a Messias is all that is required of a Christian Again it is not only necessary to know that Iesus is the Messias but also to know and believe who this Iesus this Messias is viz. whether he be God or Man or both For every one will grant that there is a Vast Difference between the one and the other as much as there is betwixt Infinite and Finite and therefore that we may have a due apprehension concerning the Messias it is absolutely necessary that we should believe him to be what he is declared to

Necessary Truths may be distinguish'd from those that are not such by the Nature and High Importance of them by their Immediate respect to the Author and Means of our Salvation Besides I suppose this Flourishing Scribler he knows very well why I give him that particular Title will not deny that the Epistles contain divers Rules of Holy Living several Religious Precepts in order to the practise of Godliness and that these are not so promiscuously and without distinction mixt with other Truths but that they may easily be distinguish'd from them Why then may we not expect to find Necessary Doctrines of Faith in these Writings as well as Instructions concerning the practise of Holiness and the regulating of our Lives And why may we not distinguish between these and the Occasional Matters as well as between the Others and them Nay it is certain that those Necessary doctrines of Faith which were but lightly touch'd upon in the Gospels and the Acts are distinctly and fully explain'd in these Epistles The truth then is that the Gentleman was loth to go any further than the former these latter affrighted him for he knew either by reading them or by hear-say that there were several Other Divine Truths in them which have been generally thought to be Necessary to be believ'd in order to making a man a Christian but our Author had no kindness for them He commands his Readers not to stir a jot further than the Acts. It is not in the Epistles saith he that we are to learn what are the Fundamental Articles of faith p. 295. They were written for resolving of doubts and reforming of mistakes as he saith in the same place and therefore I forbid you to seek for Fundamental doctrines there you will but lose your labour and moreover you will meet in these Writings with several Points which we approve not of and therefore must not admit of because Faustus Socinus hath given us a charge to the contrary But let us hear further what this Vindicator saith to excuse his rejection of the Doctrines contain'd in the Epistles and his putting us off with One Article of Faith What if the Author meaning himself design'd his Treatise as the Title shews chiefly for those who were not yet throughly or firmly Christians purposing to work upon those who either wholly disbeliev'd or doubted of the Truth of the Christian Religion p. 6. Here he comes with his what if's and gives another palpable proof of Counterfeiting and that in Religion Now seeing his Book is sifted and the design of it is laid open he would make us believe that he intended his Piece for Atheists Turks Iews and Pagans and a few Weak Christians for these he must mean by those that wholly disbelieve and those that are not firmly Christians And he would bring in his Title to speak for him but it saith not a word in his behalf for how those that wholly disregard and disbelieve the Scriptures of the New Testament as Gentiles Jews Mahometans and all Atheists do are like to attend to the Reasonableness of Christianity as deliver'd in the Scripture is not to be conceived and therefore we look upon all this as mere Sham and Sophistry He is put hard to it and like one a drowning he fastens on any thing next at hand That is his case as any man may perceive But I ask Why had we not a hint one gentle hint at least of this in all his Book It would have been very useful to the Reader to have been acquainted with his Design No he thinks otherwise for in the same Page he saith Would any one blame his Prudence if he mention'd only those Advantages viz. of Christ's Coming which all Christians especially Socinian Christians are agreed in He hath bethought himself better since he first publish'd his Notions and as the result of that he now begins to resolve what he writ into Prudence I know whence he had this Method and 't is likely he hath taken more than this from the same hands viz. from the Missionary Iesuites that went to preach the Gospel to the people of China We are told that they instructed them in some matters relating to our Saviour they let them know that Iesus was the Messias the Person promised to be sent into the World but they conceal'd his Sufferings and Death and they would not let them know any thing of his Passion and Crucifixion So our Author their humble Imitator undertakes to instruct the World in Christianity with an omission of its Principal Articles and more especially that of the Advantage we have by Christ's Death which was the Prime thing design'd in his Coming into the world This he calls Prudence so that to hide from the people the Main Articles of the Christian Religion to disguise the Faith of the Gospel to betray Christianity it self is according to this Excellent Writer the Cardinal Vertue of Prudence May we be deliver'd then say I from a Prudential Racovian He would clear himself by quoting Rom. 14. 1. Him that is weak in the faith receive ye p. 7. as if that Text authorized him to deceive Novices and Weak Christians as if because they are Infirm therefore he must Strengthen them by Imposing upon them It may be he will say Children must have but few Lessons given them but I answer there is difference between few and only One and there is difference between telling them that there is but One and afterwards hinting that there are More For that must be the meaning of his What if he design'd his Treatise chiefly for those c. What if he first of all tells them that nothing is absolutely requisite to be believed but this that Iesus is the Messias and what if afterwards he intends to let them know that something else is requir'd of them And yet at the same time such is the unaccountable humour of the Gentleman he declares that Nothing more is requir'd of them Here is no bottom for any thing he saith He contradicts himself and imposes falsities upon mens minds he would in one place I remember fancifully please himself by thinking that all his sins which I espie in his book are sins of Omission p. 9. But if this be not one of Commission and that a very Great one it is hard to tell what is He pretends a Design of his Book which was never so much as thought of till he was sollicited by his brethren to vindicate it But now see how his Pious Frauds prosper when he hath attempted it they are displeased with the way he hath taken And no wonder because they cannot but perceive that his Vindication is inconsistent with his Treatise and that by these last Evasions and Collusions he hath in a great measure betray'd their Cause as well as that of Christianity I find that they have only this to excuse him that he did not take Time enough to consider of what he Writ but for my part I think that