fully satisfied was an Error Whether I have said enough to convince him he has been in a mistake I cannot promise For I may fancy that a demonstration to me which may be no proof to others I have endeavoured to represent his sense with the utmost justice and sincerity and if I have any where mistaken it I can only say it was both against my Intention and Knowledge And now I have only thus much to assure my Adversary of that I have not made any Observations upon his Book out of bigottry to a Party or prejudice to any set of opinions For I have no other Interest to serve than that of Truth nor have I any Byass to incline me besides my own Impartial Enquiries And if they have misguided me I shall be very ready to submit to better Information THE CONTENTS I. A Vindication of the Epistles Page 1. II. Of the Reason of Christ's coming into the World pag. 53 III. What we are to believe concerning Christ pag. 64. A VINDICATION Of The Epistles c. WHatsoever Design the Author of The Reasonableness of Christianity might propose in Publishing that Treatise whether it was for the Benefit of those who were not throughly and firmly Christians or to be a General Rule of Faith to all sorts of Men it does not seem to give such satisfaction to an Inquisitive Mind as might prevent all Exceptions against it in relation to either of those Ends. Not only because it introduces a new Scheme of Belief in opposition to the anciently received Doctrine of the Church but because it does not answer the full Sense and Intent of Revelation which is the only Reason and Measure of our Faith I shall not make it my Business to compare it with the Socinian or any other Hypothesis or enquire to what Sect or Party the Author seems most inclined but shall only so far consider his Opinions as they seem to me to be inconsistent with Truth For I cannot think my self obliged to fix any Man to a Party which He will not own himself to be of though some of his Opinions should chance to have a Tendency towards it For that is so unfair as well as an undecent Method of managing a Dispute that instead of stifling the old it may serve only to provoke fresh Opposition and inflame where perhaps milder Reasons might convince And besides since every one that publishes his Thoughts with no other Design than for the Benefit of others or to the End he may be better informed if he be in the wrong has a right to be treated with equal Charity or Humanity at least by others it can certainly be no Prejudice even to the right side to allow him a Civility which he has so just a claim to And therefore I shall think my self concerned to examine the Reasonableness of Christianity with such an impartial Temper as it may justly challenge And to be the more distinct and methodical in my Examination I shall consider the chief Parts of it which are these First To shew the Reason of Christ's coming into the World Which the Author tells us was to restore Mankind to that State p. 3 4 5. c. which was forfeited by the Sin of our First Parents But as he makes Adam's Punishment to consist only in a Temporal Death or a total ceasing to be p. 10. so does he confine the End and Design of our Saviour's coming into the World to the freeing us from such a Death only and restoring us to that Immortality which our First Parents lost Which overthrows the Notion of our Saviour's redeeming us from an Eternity of Torments and makes the effect of Original Guilt no more than becoming subject to Death and so destroys in a great measure the Doctrine of Christ's Satisfaction But how agreeable this will prove to the Tenour of Scripture I shall enquire more hereafter The Second Principal Part of it is to shew what Faith is required to make a Man a Christian And that he asserts to be only the Belief of this one Proposition That Jesus is the Messah p. 30 31 32. c. or which he thinks signifies the same the Son of God He does not deny other Doctrines to be true but maintains that this alone is absolutely necessary to be believed Indeed we all acknowledge this as the Fundamental Article of our Faith as Christians that Jesus is the Messias the Prophet that was to come into the world But here the difference lies between us Whether there is not something more required as necessary to be Believed As that this Messiah was God as well as Man and that through the Merits of his Satisfaction he redeemed us from Eternal Misery c. For the Decision of which we can only appeal to Scripture The Third and Last Part of it which I shall have occasion to take Notice of is this That whatsoever is necessary to be believed to Salvation is contain'd in the Holy Gospels and Acts of the Apostles p. 291 292 c. And that the Epistles which were only occasional Writings and Directions to particular Churches were not design'd to deliver such Fundamental Articles as must necessarily be Believed explicitely by all Christians And therefore an actual Belief of any of the Doctrines therein mentioned is not absolutely required to make a Man a Member of the Christian Church For he thinks a Man may be a Christian and a Believer Vindis p. 31. 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 unto them long before any of the Epistles were written Upon this Supposition the other two Parts of his Treatise are built and therefore it shall be my Business in the first place to prove that there are Doctrines in the Epistles distinct from those delivered in Gospels or Acts which are as absolutely necessary to be Believed and to be made Fundamental Articles of Faith as any other Parts of Revelation It may indeed seem an unnecessary Labour to Vindicate those Sacred Writings which have almost all of them been received from the very first Ages of Christianity with as equal degrees of Assent as all other Parts of Scripture and some of the Doctrines there set down confest to be altogether as necessary to be actually Believed unto Salvation as any whatsoever For what should the reason of all this be if the Epistles were not real and essential Parts of the Rule of Saving Faith Was the Church then Imposed upon or did it of it self enjoin the Belief of any Doctrine as necessary to Salvation when it had no express Commission from God for it For one of these we must grant if the Epistles were not designed to deliver Fundamentals to be actually Believed by all Christians Now if several of the Doctrines contain'd in those Parts of Revelation have all along down from
Reasonableness of Christianity p. 2. that Since these sacred Writings were designed by God for the Instruction of the illiterate Bulk of Mankind in the way to Salvation as well as others of larger Capacities they ought generally and in necessary Points to be understood in the plain direct Meaning of the Words and Phrases such as they may be supposed to have had in the Mouths of the Speakers who used them according to the Language of that Time and Country wherein they lived without putting any artificial and forced Senses upon them Now what we lost by Adam may indeed be seen as our Author urges from the second and third Chapters of Genesis and that was Bliss and Immortality and a perfect State of Righteousness which was without any of the Miseries of Life or fear of Death But what the Punishment of his Transgression was or more properly speaking would have been had not the Messiah been then promised to recover him from his lapsed State and had not the Merits of his future Satisfaction been imputed to him and all his Posterity from his Fall is not so clearly discovered by any part of that History The Sentence denounced against him if he sinned was only this In the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die Gen. 2.17 Now this indeed does threaten the Punishment of Death or Mortality to the Body and does not seem to imply any future Expectation of Eternal Misery for he was from that time subject to a state of Death and Mortality And this is a part of the Punishment which devolves on all his Posterity 1 Cor. 15.22 p. 4. In Adam all die i. e. to use our Author's words by reason of his Transgression all Men are mortal and come to die But though this may be admitted as the natural Meaning of those Words yet it cannot be infer'd from them that the Soul also should be subject to the same Death and Mortality with the Body as our Author contends or that the whole Man should cease to be p. 15. or that By the loss of Men's Souls in Scripture could only be meant the loss of their Lives For besides this Opinion seems wholly precarious and is no way countenanc'd by this other part of the Sentence Cursed is the Ground for thy sake in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy Life in the sweat of thy Face shalt thou eat Bread till thou return unto the Ground for out of it wast thou taken for Dust thou art and to Dust shalt thou return Which words will by no means infer that Conclusion which our Author draws from them p. 7. viz. That his Life should end in the Dust out of which he was made and to which he should return and then have no more Life or Sense than the Dust had out of which he was taken For it is not possible that the Mortality of the Soul should be infer'd from hence Nay the directly contrary seems necessarily implied For the returning unto the Ground for Dust thou art and to Dust shalt thou return can relate only to that part of Man which was formed out of the Dust And therefore if the Soul was of a different Original and of a Divine Extract as we are told in Gen. 2.7 And God formed Man of the Dust of the Ground and breathed into his Nostrils the breath of Life and Man became a living Soul It is plain that the Soul could not be included in the Sentence And therefore by this Sentence of Death or that of to Dust shalt thou return cannot be understood a total ceasing to be or a losing of all Actions of Life and Sense p. 6. which the Reasonableness of Christianity so much contends for But moreover if we are to understand no more of the Nature and Extent of the Sentence than is to be found in the second and third Chapters of Genesis and may have no Recourse to the Gospel Dispensation especially to that part of it deliver'd in the Epistles I would desire to know by what Authority our Author includes the Posterity of Adam in the Punishment p. 6. and makes them subject to Death for his Disobedience since there is not the least mention of them in the Sentence For that seems directly level'd against him and not to include any others in it Indeed our Author proves it from Rom. 5.12 p. 4. By one man Sin entred into the world and Death by Sin But if he has no other Proof for it than from the Epistles this would be no sufficient Reason to make it an Article of our Faith since according to him we are not to fetch any Articles of Faith from the Epistles So that this is all would be left for us to believe as to this that all Men are subject to Death but that God has not indispensibly required us to believe that it was a Punishment due to all Men for Adam's Transgression From whence it appears that the full Extent even of Adam's Punishment cannot be gather'd from the Sentence denounc'd against him which in the plainest Sence of the Words could only threaten Death or Mortality to the Body and not a Death of the same kind to the Soul Nor that even this can be proved from the Nature of the Sentence as we find it recorded in the second and third Chapters of Genesis that Death was entail'd upon all Adam's Posterity for his Offence And therefore it must be from the New Testament where we have more Light and larger Discoveries to guide us that we must expect a clearer Account of the Nature of the Punishment that was due to Adam and what sort of Death it was that his Posterity was freed from by Christ's Coming into the World But by the way since his chief Argument for his Notion of Adam's Punishment is that nothing more is meant in the Sentence denounc'd against him I would desire to know why by Death in that place may not be meant an Eternal Loss of God's Favour in a State of Existence as well as by never Dying in many other places is to be understood an Eternal Enjoyment of Happiness or a Freedom from Eternal Misery For by not Dying in such like places is not meant an Exemption from the common Fate of all Men but only not Dying after that manner which others do who believe not in Christ And if by this Joh. 11.26 He that believeth on me shall never dye or as in another place He that heareth my word and believeth on him that sent me hath everlasting Life and shall not come into condemnation Joh. 5.24 can only be interpreted of an Immortal State of Bliss and Immortality then I see no Reason why the Sentence of Death or Condemnation may not imply an Eternal Loss of that Happiness in a State of Misery especially since I have already shewn that the Mortality of the Soul could not be included in that Sentence of Death denounc'd against Adam And
besides if there have been different degrees of Happiness or Misery in the other World from the very beginning as is evident from the whole Tenour of Scripture and if the Souls of Men have been immortal as may be easily evinc'd from Scripture and Philosophy unless we can prove that any of them have been annihilated by God then we have reason to believe that the Punishment due to Adam and all his sinning Posterity was to have been Eternal Misery From all this it is evident that Adam's Punishment does not appear from Scripture to consist only in a Temporal Death but that as he fell from a State of perfect Obedience as our Author has granted p. 3. and was consequently uncapable of pleasing God so the nature of his Punishment and that which all Mankind should have undergone for all were Sinners will be best known from what the Scripture declares concerning the Reason of Christ's coming into the World And that was to make Satisfaction for the Sins of the whole World and to restore Mankind to the Favour of God by suffering in our stead and being made Sin for us And that this was the true End of his Coming into the World and of his Sufferings is evident from the Predictions concerning him and from the Consent of both Gospels and Epistles The Prophesy of Isaiah is very full and express in assigning the End of Christ's Coming Surely he hath born our Griefs and carried our Sorrows He was wounded for our Transgression Isa 53. and was bruised for our Iniquities He was numbred with the Transgressors and he bore the sin of many and made Intercession for the Transgressors All which are so very plain and intelligible that the Force of them cannot be evaded So that the true End of Christ's Coming was not only to obtain for us Bliss and Immortality which we lost by Adam but also in order to effect that to redeem us from our Sins and the Guilt of them and to deliver us from the Wrath to come by the Propitiatory Sacrifice of himself for us We have also this End of Christ's Coming to save Sinners often mention'd in the Gospels Thou shalt call his Name Emanuel Mat. 1.21 for he shall save his people from their sins And Behold the Lamb of God who taketh away the sins of the World Joh. 1.29 And our Saviour himself hath assured us if we can believe his own Words That God so loved the World that he gave his only begotten Son that whosoever believeth on him should not perish i. e. Should not Die eternally or be for ever Miserable but have everlasting Life For God sent not his Son into the World to condemn the World Joh. 3.16 17. but that the World through him might be saved For would not the Condition of all Mankind have been eternally miserable without Christ's coming into the World but their only Punishment have been only a ceasing to be after Death I think it is neither an Absurdity or Heresy to say That it would have been much more advantagious for Mankind that Christ should never have come into the World since it would have been much better that all Men should have had an End put to their Beings by Death than that part of Mankind only should be saved as it now will be and the rest be Condemned to Eternal Misery though it be by their own Defaults For the Punishment of even all Mankind by such a Death does not seem to bear a sufficient Proportion to the Eternal Misery of but one Soul So that we must allow that Christ's coming into the World was to save those that believe and repent from Eternal Torment in another World or else that his Coming to save us was a general Disadvantage But moreover we have several other Expressions in Scripture Rom. 5.8 of Christ's Dying for us while we were yet Sinners That he was a Propitiation for our Sins He was made Sin for us who knew no Sin 1 John 4.10 2 Coâ— 5.21 Hath redeemed us from the curse of the Law being made a curse for us who his own self bare our Sins in his own Body on the Tree with innumerable others to the same Purpose which do undeniably evince the true End of Christ's Satisfaction viz. That the suffering for our Sins and the Substitution of himself in our stead 1 Thess 1.10 was to deliver us from the Wrath to come Which Expression can signify no otherwise than that Christ by his Meritorious Oblation and Sacrifice of himself hath delivered us from the Eternal Misery which we must otherwise have suffer'd in the World to come For there is no other Wrath which Good Men are exempted from for they are still as much expos'd to the Troubles and Miseries of this Life as before and as much and in the same manner as before subject to Mortality Nor can this mean a Freedom from an eternal ceasing to be after Death for that would make no sense of the word Wrath or the fiery Indignation of God which very emphatically denotes a future Punishment after this Life But was it possible to wrest the Scriptures to any other sence or to make it appear that they do not signify what we pretend they do yet were not Christ's Suffering a Satisfaction for our Sins his manner of Dying can be no way accounted for wherein he seem'd to shew much less Courage and Resolution than either any of his Disciples or the lower Rank of Martyrs They suffer'd Joyfully and with the greatest Resolutions but he felt in himself dreadful Agonies and endured bloudy Sweats and seem'd almost like One in Despair when he cry'd out My God my God why hast thou forsaken me All which can have no good Reason assign'd for them unless we allow that he suffer'd in our stead to satisfy God's Justice and bore our Sins in his own Body and became a Propitiation for us which is what we mean by Satisfaction But we do not hereby mean that Christ suffered the same Punishment which we should have done but only that the Dignity of his Person made his Sufferings equivalent to the Eternal Punishment of a whole World of Sinners Nor will this Notion of Christ's Satisfaction take away the Belief of God's freely forgiving Sinners as some late Socinian Writers have pretended for as Christ freely offer'd himself to suffer for us so God freely without any Desert of ours accepted of his Satisfaction which he was no way obliged to But besides the Types and Representations of our Saviour's Sacrifice for us by the Goat that was slain for a Sin-offering Lev. 16. to make an Attonement for the People and by the Sins of the People being transferr'd upon the Scape-Goat clearly prove that Christ's Satisfaction must be also for our Sins And thus was God's Justice satisfy'd by the Punishment of Sin not in the Persons offending but in the Eternal Son of God who paid the Ransom for them with his own Bloud
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
who were Believers and Christians the occasion and end of writing them could not be to instruct them in that which was necessary to make them Christians Yet this seems rather to strengthen than lessen the force of the Argument that the Apostles had taught those same Doctrines for Fundamentals before which they afterwards communicated as sacred Depositums of their Faith For it is strange to suppose that a Doctrine should cease to be a Fundamental to those who had known it before For though the Epistles might not be written to those who believed all the Truths contain'd in them to instruct them in any thing which they were ignorant of yet it might be for this End to put them in remembrance of all the parts of their Profession to prevent all Disputes that possibly might arise and to remain as exact Rules and Directions how they might convert and instruct others But says our Author p. 294. If those to whom the Epistles were written wanted not such fundamental Articles of the Christian Religion without a Belief of which they could not be saved it cannot be supposed that the sending of such Fundamentals was the reason of the Apostles writing to any of them But how can it be proved that all those the Epistles were written to understood all the Fundamentals of Religion May there not be supposed to be some less knowing amongst them and some who would not throughly believe several Doctrines of Christianity without such an Authority as the Apostles had to convince them of the Truth of them But however if this Argument of Men's knowing the Fundamentals contain'd in the Epistles before they were sent to them may be sufficient to overthrow their Authority the Gospels also I am afraid will not escape much better For we cannot suppose but almost all Christians were very well acquainted with the Doctrines taught by our Saviour before the Gospels were written but 't is to be hoped that they ought not upon that account to be thought less necessary to be believed even by those who had been already converted to the Faith For certainly they cannot be supposed to contain less fundamental Truths because they have deliver'd nothing but what was received before for the Doctrine of our Saviour Nor can it be imagined that the Gospel of St. Luke which was writ with a particular Design to Theophilus who was already a Believer and a Christian should contain less fundamental Truths or less necessary to be believed than those which perhaps were written with a more general Design The Acts were also written to the same Theophilus and therefore if our Author's Argument will prove any thing it must exclude both that and the foremention'd Gospel as well as the Epistles from being any part of the Rule of Faith For they were more certainly written to a Believer and a Christian and One who wanted not the fundamental Articles of Christianity without a Belief of which he could not be saved than can be proved of so much as any of the Epistles And therefore it will follow notwithstanding all our Author has urged to the contrary that it is from the Epistles as well as the Gospels that we are to learn what are the fundamental Articles of Faith For if in the History of the Evangelists and the Acts all things are so plainly set down that no Body can mistake them it must unavoidably be granted That the Apostles tho' Inspired by the Holy Ghost were yet very unfaithful to their Trust in clogging Men's Faith with unnecessary Points of Belief Since they could not be ignorant that what they writ would be as much thought necessary to be believed as what was taught by our Saviour himself And therefore the Apostles ought certainly to be blamed for writing such Doctrines in their Epistles which tho' they were not necessary to be believed might yet give occasion to a great many unwary Christians to think far otherwise and embrace them as firmly as any other Doctrines whatsoever But if it can be proved that the great and principal End of the writing their Epistles was to deliver several Doctrines that should be necessarily believed to Salvation by all who were Converted to the Faith we are obliged to receive them as such And this might be made appear from very many places of them St. Paul thus expresses himself 1 Cor. 14.37 That if any Man think himself to be a Prophet or Spiritual let him acknowledge that the things which I write unto you are the Commandments of the Lord. And in the beginning of the next Chapter Moreover Brethren I declare unto you the Gospel which I preached unto you by which also ye are saved c For I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received how that Christ died for our Sins according to the Scriptures By which Words he re-minds them of a Primary Article of their Faith without the Remembrance of which he shews they have believed in vain For the design of the Apostle's Argument is to acquaint them that they could not be saved without they kept in Memory what he had before Preached unto them v. 2. which was amongst other things the fore-mention'd Article the Belief of which if there is any Force in his Argument he declares to be absolutely necessary to Salvation After this he mentions to them some other Articles which he enjoins them to believe that their Faith might not be in vain And these are the Belief not only of Christ's Resurrection but that by vertue of his rising from the Dead we also should be raised again And also that in Adam all die For since by Man came Death by Man came also the Resurrection of the Dead For as in Adam all die even so in Christ shall all be made alive And these are Articles that are absolutely necessary to be believed for upon these the Apostle lays the great Foundation of Christianity and yet the Two last of them are not to be found either in the Gospels or Acts. There are also other places in the Epistles which are expresly required to be believed to Salvation as Rom. 10.9 For if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead thou shalt be saved And that in Timothy Without controversy great is the Mystery of Godliness that is of the Christian Religion God was manifest in the Flesh And in St. Joh. Epist 1. C. 4. Every Spirit that confesseth that Jesus Christ is come in the Flesh is of God and he that does not confess it is not of God which shews the necessity of believing Christ's Incarnation And again We have seen and do testify that the Father sent the Son to be the Saviour of the world And whosoever shall confess that Jesus is the Son of God God dwelleth in him and he in God which is a distinct act of Faith from believing him to be the Messiah as I shall shew
the King Messiah but that they might be more able to deal with the Hereticks by which he means the Christians it would be more convenient to interpret it of David himself Which is a very fair Confession why they dissented from the Opinions and Interpretations of their Ancestors because they might more strongly oppose the Christians For if they should admit those Interpretations of their ancient Doctors to speak the genuine sence of Scripture they should give too great Advantages to the Christians who by this Means as Dr. Pococke * Ib. hath observed Would be supply'd with Arguments to prove Christ the Son of God and consequently consubstantial with God the Father And if this one Psalm be granted to relate to Christ alone as indeed it is almost impossible to wrest it to any other Sence we cannot but acknowledge him to be GOD begotten of his Father before all Worlds There are also several other places in Scripture which are always applied by the Ancient Jewish Interpreters to our * Vid. Not. in Grot. de Veritat Relig. Christ L. 5. Sect. 21. Saviour which sufficiently shew that they believed he should be GOD As Psal 45. Thy Throne O God is for ever and ever And Isa 25.9 And in that day it shall be said Lo this is our God With several other places of the like nature which being constantly interpreted of our Saviour by the Chaldee Paraphrast and all the Ancient Jewish Interpreters do evidently demonstrate that they believed their Messiah should be GOD notwithstanding the Opposition made against it by the latter Jews But last of all that the Jews did expect their Messiah should be GOD is I think very plain from their objecting Blasphemy to our Saviour when he acknowledg'd himself to be the Son of God when the High-Priest adjur'd him to tell him whether he was so or not For they could never have accus'd him of Blasphemy for saying he was the Son of God if they understood no more by that Expression than being the Messiah and if they expected their Messiah should be no more than a meer Man And it was for this Reason according to †Jure Naturali Gentium l. 2. c. 12. Mr. Selden that they accus'd him of Blasphemy for saying he was the Son of God because they so understood the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or the Word of God by that Expression that for any one to make himself the Son of God in that Notion was nothing less than to profess himself truly GOD which if he was not he was guilty of the highest Blasphemy And to prove this to be the true Meaning of that Expression he cites the Hebrew Commentaries and Philo Judeus who have commonly used the Son of God to signify GOD himself From all which it appears that the most Learned amongst the Jews before and at the Coming of our Saviour did expect their Messiah to be GOD. And that if they did object Idolatry to the Christians afterwards upon supposition that Jesus was the Messiah yet that they differed very widely from the ancient Opinion of the Jews And this Notion of our Saviour's being GOD seems to be the first that his Disciples had concerning him For they had no just Apprehensions of the true Design of his Coming into the World or of his Death and Passion and the Remission of Sins he thereby obtain'd till they had received the Holy Ghost Yet they before that time certainly believed him to be GOD as is most evident from the frequent Acts of Divine Worship which they then paid him and from that Exstatical Exclamation of the Apostle St. Thomas My Lord and my God As tho' this Knowledge of him was on purpose then reveal'd to them to prevent all Disputes that might hereafter possibly arise concerning his Divinity Since it is not to be supposed that if he was not what they really believed him to be truly and essentially GOD but that he himself would have undeceiv'd and prevented their falling into such dangerous Mistakes as must necessarily produce endless Distractions in the Church and bring gross Idolatry into Religion which has been always forbid under the severest Penalty And we never find that any part of Divine Worship was ever allowed to be paid either to Men or Angels as may be seen by the Example of St. Peter and the Angel in the Revelations And as the Divine Titles and Adorations which were particularly directed to our Saviour by his Apostles and others which he never rebuked them for are a Demonstration of his Divinity so also his own Commission which he invested his Disciples with immediately before his Ascension Go ye therefore and teach all Nations Baptizing them in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost is a strong Evidence that he not only permitted but required Divine Worship should be paid to him since it is all Men's Duty to Worship him in whose Name they are Baptized and that he thought it no Robbery to make himself equal with GOD. But if it be urged as a late * Objections against Mr. Edwards 's Causes of Atheism Socinian Author has objected against the Sence of this Text that the Apostles did not always observe this Command in their Baptizing Christians but only made use of the Name of Jesus without mentioning either Father or Holy Ghost which however was always supposed if not mentioned in the Form tho' the Author of the Acts does not take notice of it because his chief Business was to trace the Progress of Christianity in its first Propagation and to shew that none could be Christians or capable of Salvation but who were Baptized into the Name of Christ yet this will not invalidate the Argument but much rather confirm it since none could be admitted for Members of the Church without the Conditions of acknowledging Christ for their Lord and Saviour by a constant Obedience to his Laws and by continual Acts of Devotion and Adoration to him Which sufficiently establish the Divinity of our Saviour For if paying Divine Worship to him may be justified without acknowledging him to be GOD there can be no good Reason assign'd why any Man should be Condemn'd for the Invocation of Saints and Angels For if Christ be not GOD he is a Creature for there is no Medium betwixt them and therefore to Worship such a One is directly contrary both to Natural and Reveal'd Religion and could hardly I think be justified by an absolute Command of God for it is giving his Glory to another And besides Creature-Worship is fully opposite and contradictory to Natural Reason For Adoration necessarily supposes Omnipresence which is an incommunicable Attribute of God himself And since there may be Ten Thousand Petitions offered up at once in so many different places it is impossible he should be acquainted with them unless he be both Omnipresent and Omniscient the one to be present to all Petitions and by the other to fearch
Reasoning as indeed it seems to be it must be sufficient to inforce the necessity of believing Christ to be GOD to make a Man a Christian But again as we cannot deny that we are obliged to believe Christ to be the Son of God because it is required in several places of Scripture and St. John tells us that his Gospel was written for this End that we should believe Jesus to be the Christ and the Son of God so we must also confess him to be GOD because as I have already proved his Divinity is understood by that Expression the ancient Jews both applying it to their expected Messiah and also meaning a Divine Person by it All which seem as fully to require us to believe him to be GOD if we would be Christians as we are in other Passages enjoin'd to acknowledge him to be Christ And Lastly it is most evident that the explicite Belief of Christ's being God is requir'd to make a Man a Christian from the Form of Baptism at our Admission into Christianity in the Name of Father Son and Holy Ghost Where an equal Belief in all is required as being equally partakers of the same Divine Nature and we may as well say that the Father's Divinity as the Son 's is not here implied But this I have spoken to already And here we may add for a great Confirmation of this Truth of Christ's being God that the Vniversal Church as may be gather'd from the most Primitive Writings and the first General Councils hath always asserted His Divinity as being most undoubtedly expressed in Scripture How comes it therefore to pass that if the Belief of Christ's Divinity was not thought clearly Revealed and necessary to Salvation all those that opposed it from the first Ages of the Church to this present time have been Condemn'd and Censur'd for Hereticks * Vid. Bishop Stillingfleet's Rational Ac. of the Prot. Relig. Not as though the sence of the Catholick Church is pretended to be any infallible Rule of interpreting Scripture in all things which concern the Rule of Faith But that it is a sufficient Prescription against any thing that can be alledged out of Scripture that if it appear contrary to the sence of the Catholick Church from the beginning it ought not to be looked upon as the true meaning of Scripture So that if the denying Christ to be GOD is contrary to the received Interpretation of Scripture in the Catholick Church and also inconsistent with the plain meaning of the Words we must conclude that either his Divinity must necessarily be believed even to make a Man a Christian or that the Revelation is not to be regarded But Secondly We must also believe the Incarnation of Christ For every Spirit that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is not of God 1 Ep. Joh. 4.3 and therefore we must acknowledge that he was Man as well as God and that he was made like unto his Brethren that he might be a merciful and a faithful High-Priest in things pertaining to God to make reconciliation for the sins of the people Heb. 2.17 And that this is part of the Mystery of Godliness which is necessary to be believed by all Christians that God was manifest in the flesh 1 Tim. 3.16 And that though he was in the form of God and thought it not Robbery to be equal with God yet made he himself of no Reputation and took upon him the form of a Servant and was made in the likeness of Men and being found in fashion as a Man he humbled himself and became obedient unto Death even the death of the Cross Phil. 2.6 7 8. All which plainly denote to us both his Divine and Humane Nature which we must believe to be united in one Person Agreeable to which are those Words of St. Paul Feed the Church of God which he hath purchased with his own Blood which could only be done by taking the Manhood into God I need not multiply Texts to prove that our Saviour was Man this I suppose none of the Vnitarians will dispute But the difficulty lies in this that he was both God and Man But this also is very frequently and fully asserted in Scripture But Thirdly We must also believe That he died for us and in our stead to free us from the Wrath to come That his Death was a propitiatory Sacrifice for us and That his was the blood of the New Testament as himself testifies of it which was shed for many for the remission of sins Mat. 26.28 And that this is part of the Christian Faith according to St. Paul that he died for our Sins as the Scriptures foretold of him And for this End he saith He was ordained a Preacher to testify that Christ gave himself a ransom for all 1 Tim. 2.6 7. But this I have insisted upon so largely already and shewn that this was the true Reason of his Death from so many Instances in Scripture that I need say no more upon it It is sufficient to shew that this is necessary to be believed since our Salvation depends on the Knowledge of the New Covenant and the Conditions of it and how far we are concern'd both in Faith and Practice In short as the Scripture hath assured us that Christ was the Mediator of the better Covenant and that we must believe in him so must our Belief of him be measured by what is revealed concerning him For Christ himself hath told us That is Life Eternal to know the only true God and Jesus Christ whom he hath sent i.e. The Knowledge of Christ is as much a Condition of Salvation as that of God the Father And the most certain Knowledge of both is to be drawn from Revelation And therefore as we are obliged to believe concerning the Nature of God whatsoever the Scripture has revealed so also we must believe of Christ as the Scripture has made him known to us So that the adequate Measure of our Faith in both must be taken from Scripture For if upon a Supposition of no Revelation we must believe all that of God which Right Reason could dictate to us then certainly since we have a Revelation from God and that Revelation has also obliged us to believe in Christ in order to Salvation we must believe upon the hazard of our Salvation every thing concerning him which is asserted by that Revelation And as in the general Confession of Faith when we say We believe in God the Father c. we are to understand all the other Attributes of God which are made known to us either by Reason or Revelation as that he is Just Good Merciful that he governs all things by his Providence or whatever else can be conceived in a Being infinitely Perfect so when we say We believe in Jesus Christ his only Son our Lord we must also mean by it whatsoever else we can find in Scripture in reference to our clearer understanding that Article as that
proceeds from God it is in vain to say there are Contradictions in it for that is as impossible as that God should not be true But Secondly Why all this Concern for the illiterate and Men of weak Capacities as though it would be so very Prejudicial to them to be obliged to believe what they cannot comprehend For they do not seem to receive any Disadvantage by it more than others For if they are able to search the Scriptures they may know what they are obliged to believe and may as easily believe as Men of greater Reaches and stronger Reasons For the Mysteries of Religion which are incomprehensible are equally so to all Indeed had God made a difference in the necessary Parts of Faith between the Learned and Illiterate and requir'd such particular Articles to be believed to Salvation by all sorts of Men which only the Wisest could understand then the Poor of the World would have just Reason to complain But since he has placed all Men on the same Level and has requir'd no harder Terms of the one than the other we have all the Reason in the World to admire his infinite Wisdom in that he has reveal'd himself as much to the Unlearn'd Bulk of Mankind as to the Wise and Prudent For he that reads may understand may know what God has made necessary to Salvation tho' he can understand what he believes but in part Were we to draw our Belief from a long Train of Deductions and infer every Article of Faith from some one Principle though there might be a Mathematical Certainty for the Truth of such a Religion yet the Men of great strength of Judgment and Intenseness of Thought could only reach the perfect Knowledge of it and the poor labouring and illiterate Man must then most unhappily perish through his Ignorance But as now it is all parts of our Belief are equally intelligible by all and what we cannot comprehend as to the Manner of it we can believe to be true upon the Veracity of him that reveal'd it So that how mysterious soever some things may be which are proposed to our Faith they are not more difficult to the weak than those of stronger Capacities But there is yet in the Third Place more to be said in Defence of our common Faith if we consider the Extent and Limits of it For though we are obliged to believe what in its own Nature is a Mystery yet our Faith does not require us to go into the mysterious Parts of it that is We have no Obligations upon us to believe it as a Mystery As for Instance We are obliged to believe that the Three Divine Persons in the Trinity are one GOD but how they are One or how Three what is the adequate Meaning of their Personal Distinction or how consistent with their Unity Revelation has not made necessary to be believed And so as to the Creation of the World and the Hypostatick Vnion of God-Man we are to believe as Scripture has reveal'd but as to the manner of them by what distinct Act of Omnipotence God made the one or how he united the other our Faith is not to determine And in this Sence it may be granted that we are not obliged to believe farther than our Reason can carry us that must determine us how far and what we are to Believe that is It must decide what is required by Revelation to be Believed and what is to be the Extent of that Belief For we are only enjoin'd to believe Articles of Faith as they are delivered in Scripture without any particular Explanations of the Modes how they may be conceived For though the Articles themselves are necessary to be Believed to Salvation yet any particular Explication of them is not because as we can have no just Idea of them our selves so we have no certainty that any Body else can have And therefore it is a meer Scandal cast upon us that we Believe we know not what for we have a perfect Understanding of what is required to be Believed and the Grounds of our Belief are as cogent as any Evidence of Sense For it is as easy to Believe what God has certainly Reveal'd as what we can apprehend by our Senses We may without any great difficulty understand what we are to Believe but as to the Manner or particular Modes of Existence of those things which are required to be Believed as they are above our Comprehensions so are they not made any Parts of our Faith But lastly Since our Author is of Opinion that it would be so very Advantageous to Mankind in general to have only such a Religion as is very easy to be understood by all sorts of Men we ought to consider how very Intelligble his Rule of Faith is if compared with that of our Church and how Agreeable his One Article is to the Comprehension of vulgar Capacities For he that advances a new Scheme of Faith should take great care that it may not labour under any of those Imperfections for which the other is Condemned Now let us suppose with our Author that the believing Jesus to be the Messiah the Saviour that was to come into the World to be alone necessary to Salvation and let this be proposed to an inquisitive labouring Man that would desire to know a Reason for his Faith Now indeed he might acknowledge that this Proposition Jesus is the Messiah is easy to be remembred but not so easily understood It is then very probable he would enquire what is meant by his being the Messiah If we should tell him that he was the Saviour promised the Question would again recurr What is meant by his being our Saviour or how or from what did he save us If we should say that he was our Saviour by those excellent Precepts which he taught to reform Mankind this would not satisfy because we had most of those Precepts before tho' not so fully explain'd and because this is not consistent with the general Sence of Scripture which tells us that he was our Saviour by suffering for us and in our stead If we should reply that he was indeed put to Death because of our Sins and that we should by the Death of so innocent a Person learn to reform our Lives and follow his Doctrine This would be yet more unintelligible for why should God suffer an innocent Person to be put to Death because the rest of Mankind were Sinners This indeed would be the only Means to encourage Men in their Impieties since there was no safety in a Religious Life And this Reason would also prevent the success of his Doctrine for if all his Design was to prevail with Mankind to receive his Doctrine it would have been much more for his Advantage to have saved himself by a miraculous coming down from the Cross for then there is no question but all Men would have believed what he taught was from God Since this would have been a greater