flatly in the same breath And yet upon that he raises a Complaint of my want of Sincerity For want of Sincerity in one of us we need not go far for an Instance The next Paragraph p. 38. 40. affords us a gross one of it Wherein the Unmasker argues strongly not against any thing I had said but against an Untruth of his own setting up Towards the latter end of the Paragraph p. 40. he has these words It is manifest that the Apostles in their Epistles taught Fundamentals which is contrary to what this Gentleman says that such a thing could not be suppos'd And therefore the Unmasker has taken a great deal of pains to shew that there are Fundamental Doctrines to be found in the Epistles as if I had denied it And to lead the Reader into an Opinion that I had said so he sets down these words could not be suppos'd as if they were my words And so they are but not to that purpose And therefore he did well not to quote the Page lest the Reader by barely turning to the place should have a clear sight of Falshood instead of that Sincerity which he would make the Reader believe is wanting in me My words p. 294. Of the Reasonableness of Christianity are NOR CAN IT BE SUPPOS'D that the sending of such Fundamentals was the reason of the Apostles writing to any of them And a little lower The Epistles therefore being all written to those who were already 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 The thing then that I deny'd was not that there were any Fundamentals in the Epistles For p. 295. I have these express words I do not deny but the great Doctrines of the Christian Faith are dropt here and there and scatter'd up and down in most of them And therefore he might have spared his Endeavours in the next Paragraph to prove that there may be Fundamentals found in the Epistles till he finds some body that denies it And here again I must repeat my usual Question that with this sincere Writer is so often necessary viz. XVII Where it is that I say that it cannot be suppos'd that there are Fundamental Articles in the Epistles If he hopes to shift it off by the word taught which seems fallaciously put in as if he meant that there were some Fundamental Articles taught necessary to be believed to make them Christians in the Epistles which those who they were writ to knew not before in this sense I do deny it and then this will be the XVII Proposition remaining upon him to prove viz. That there are Fundamental Articles necessary to be believed to make a Man a Christian taught in the Epistles which those who they were writ to knew not before The former part of his next Paragraph p. 40. runs thus Hear another feigned Ground of his omitting the Epistles viz. Because the Fundamental Articles are here promiscuously and without distinction mixt with other Truths p. 14. But who sees not that this is a mere Elusion For on the same account he might have forborn to search for Fundamental Articles in the Gospels for they do not lie there together but are dispersed up and down The Doctrinal and Historical Parts are mix'd with one another but he pretends to sever them Why then did he not make a Separation between the Doctrines in the Epistles and those other Matters that are treated of there He has nothing to reply to this and therefore we must again look upon what he has suggested as a cast of his shuffling faculty The Argument contain'd in these words is this A Man cannot well distinguish Fundamental from Non-fundamental Doctrines in the Epistles where they are promiscuously mixed with Non-fundamental Doctrines Therefore he cannot well distinguish Fundamental Doctrines from others in the Gospels and the Acts where they are mixed with Matters of Fact As if he should say one cannot well distinguish a Batchellour of Divinity from other Divines where several of them stand together promiscuously in the same Habit Therefore one cannot distinguish a Batchellour of Divinity from a Billingsgate Orator where they stand together in their distinct habits Or that it is as easie to distinguish â—ine Gold from that of a little lower Allay where several pieces of each are mixed together as it is to distinguish pieces of fine Gold from pieces of Silver which they are mixed among But it seems the Unmasker thinks it is as easie to distinguish between Fundamental and not Fundamental Doctrines in a writing of the same Author where they are promiscuously mixed together as it is to distinguish between a Fundamental Doctrine of Faith and a relation of Matter of Fact where they are intermixedly reported in the same History When he has proved this the Unmasker will have more reason to tax me with Elusion Shuffling and Feigning in the reason I gave for not collecting Fundamentals out of the Epistles Till then all that noise must stand amongst those ridiculous Airs of Triumph and Victory which he so often gives himself without the least Advantage to his Cause or Edification of his Reader though he should a thousand times say that I have nothing to reply In the latter part of this Paragraph he says That necessary Truths Fundamental Principles may be distinguish'd from those that are not such in the Epistolary Writings by the Nature and Importance of them by their immediate respect to the Author and means of our Salvation Answ. If this be so I desire him to give me a definitive Collection of Fundamentals out of the Epistles as I have given one out of the Gospels and the Acts. If he cannot do that 'T is plain he hath here given a distinguishing mark of Fundamentals by which he himself cannot distinguish them But yet I am the Shuffler The Argument in the next Paragraph p. 41. is this Necessary Doctrines of Faith such as God absolutely demands to be believed for Justification may be distinguished from Rules of Holy Living with which they are mixed in the Epistles Therefore Doctrines of Faith necessary and not necessary to be believed to make a Man a Christian may be distinguished as they stand mixed in the Epistles Which is as good sense as to say Lambs and Kids may be easily distinguish'd in the same Pen where they are together by their different Natures Therefore the Lambs I absolutely demand of you as necessary to satisfie me may be distinguish'd from others in the same Pen where they are mix'd without any distinction Doctrines of Faith and Precepts of Practice are as distinguishable as doing and believing And those as easily discernible one from another as thinking and walking But Doctrinal Propositions all of them of Divine Revelation are of the same Authority and of the same Species in respect of the necessity of believing them And will be eternally undistinguishable into necessary and not
as many as there be and yet find but one Or a Man may set himself to find but one and yet find two or more It is no Argument from what a Man has found to prove what was his main Work to find unless where his aim was only to find what there was whether more or less For a Writer may find the Reputation of a poor contemptible Railer Nay of a downright impudent Lyar and yet no body will think it was his main work to find that Therefore Sir if you will not find what 't is like you did not seek you must prove those many confident Assertions you have published which I shall give you in tale whereof this is the second viz. II. That the main Business I set my self about was to find but one Article of Faith In the following part of this Sentence he quotes my own words with the Pages where they are to be found The first time that in either of his two Books against me he has vouchsafed to do so concerning one Article wherewith he has made so much noise My words in pag. 192. of my Reasonableness of Christianity stand thus For that this is the sole Doctrine pressed and required to be believed in the whole tenor of our Saviour's and his Apostles preaching we have shew'd through the whole History of the Evanlists and Acts and I challenge them to shew that there was any other Doctrine upon their assent to which or disbelief of it Men were pronounced Believers or Unbelievers and accordingly received into the Church of Christ as Members of his Body as far as mere Believing could make them so or else kept out This was the only Gospel Article of Faith which was preached to them Out of this Passage the Unmasker sets down these words This is the SOLE Doctrine pressed and required to be believed in the whole tenor of our Saviour's and his Apostles preaching p. 129. this was the ONLY Gospel Article of Faith which was preach'd to them I shall pass by all other Observations that this way of citing these words would suggest and only remark that if he brought these words to prove the immediately preceding Assertion of his viz. That to find but one Article of Faith was the main Work I set my self about This Argument reduced into form will stand thus He who says that this is the sole Doctrine pressed and required to be believed in the whole tenor of our Saviour's and his Apostles Preaching upon their assent to which or disbelief of it Men were pronounced Believers or Unbelievers and accordingly received into the Church of Christ as Members of his Body as far as mere believing could make them so or else kept out sets himself to find out but One Article of Faith as his main Work But the Vindicator did so Ergo If this were the use he would make of those words of mine cited I must desire him to prove the major But he talks so freely and without book every where that I suppose he thought himself by the Privilege of a Declaimer exempt from being called strictly to an Account for what he so loosely says and from proving what he should be called to Account for Rail lustily is a good Rule something of it will stick true or false proved or not proved If he alledges these words of mine to answer my Demand Vind. p. 27. where he found that I contended for one single Article of Faith with the exclusion and defiance of all the rest which he had charged me with I say it proves this as little as the former For to say That I had shew'd through the whole History of the Evangelists and the Acts that this is the sole Doctrine or only Gospel-Article pressed and required to be believed in the whole Tenor of our Saviour and his Apostles Preaching upon their assent to which or disbelieving of it Men were pronounced Believers or Unbelievers and accordingly received into the Church of Christ or kept out is the simple Assertion of a positive Matter of Fact and so carries in it no defiance no nor exclusion of any othâ—r Doctrinal or Historical Truth contained in the Scripture And therefore it remains still on the Unmasker to shew where 't is I express any deâ—iance of any other Truth contain'd in the Word of God or where I exclude any one Doctrine of the Scriptures So that if it be true that I contend for one Article my Contention may be without any defiance or so much as exclusion of any of the rest notwithstanding any thing contained in these words Nay if it should happen that I am in a mistake and that this was not the sole Doctrine which our Saviour and his Apostles preached and upon their assent to which Men were admitted into the Church yet the Unmasker's Accusation would be never the truer for that unless it be necessary that he that mistakes in one Matter of Fact should be at defiance with all other Truths or that he who erroneously says that our Saviour and his Apostles admitted Men into the Church upon the believing him to be the Messiah does thereby exclude all other Truths published to the Jews before or to Christian Believers afterwards If these words be brought to prove that I contended for one Article barely one Article without any defiance or exclusion annext to that Contention I say neither do they prove that as is manifest from the words themselves as well as from what I said elsewhere concerning the Article of One God For here I say this is the only Gospel-Article c. upon which Men were pronounced Believers which plainly intimates some other Article known and believed in the World before and without the Preaching of the Gospel To this the Unmasker thinks he has provided a Salvo in these words Socinianism Unmask'd pag. 6. And when I told him of this one Article he knew well enough that I did not exclude the Article of the Deity for that is a Principle of Natural Religion If it be fit for an Unmasker to perceive what is in debate he would know that the Question is not what he excluded or excluded not but what Articles he charged me to have excluded Taking it therefore to be his meaning which it must be if he meant any thing to the purpose viz. That when he charged me so often and positively for contesting for one Article viz. that Iesus was the Messiah he did not intend to accuse me for excluding the Article of the Deity To prove that he did not so intend it he tells me that I knew that he did not Answ. How should I know it he never told me so either in his Book or otherwise This I know that he said pag. 115. That I contended for one Article with the exclusion of all the rest If then the belief of the Deity be an Article of Faith and be not the Article of Iesus being the Messiah it is one of the rest and if all the rest were
necessary to be believed till there be some other way found to distinguish them than that they are in a Book which is all of Divine Revelation Though therefore Doctrines of Faith and Rules of Practice are very distinguishable in the Epistles yet it does not follow from thence that Fundamental and not Fundamental Doctrines Points necessary and not necessary to be believed to make Men Christians are easily distinguishable in the Epistles Which therefore remains to be proved And it remains incumbent upon him XVIII To set down the Marks whereby the Doctrines deliver'd in the Epistles may easily and exactly be distinguished into Fundamental and not Fundamental Articles of Faith All the rest of that Paragraph containing nothing against me must be bound up with a great deal of the like stuff which the Unmasker has put into his Book to shew the World he does not imitate me in Impertinencies Incoherences and trifling Excursions as he boasts in his first Paragraph Only I shall desire the Reader to take the whole Passage concerning this Matter as it stands in my Reasonableness of Christianity p. 295. I do not deny but the great Doctrines of the Christian Faith are dropt here and there and scatter'd up and down in most of them But 't is not in the Epistles we are to learn what are the Fundamental Articles of Faith where they are promiscuously and without distinction mixed with other Truths and Discourses which were though for Edification indeed yet only occasional We shall find and discern those great and necessary Points best in the Preaching of our Saviour and his Apostles to those who were yet Strangers and ignorant of the Faith to bring them in and convert them to it And then let him read these words which the Unmasker has quoted out of them It is not in the Epistles that we are to learn what are the Fundamental Articles of Faith they were written for the resolving of Doubts and reforming of Mistakes With his Introduction of them in these words He commands the Reader not to stir a jot further than the Acts. If I should ask him where that Command appears he must have recourse to his old shift that he did not mean as he said or else stand Convicted of a malicious Untruth An Orator is not bound to speak strict Truth though a Disputant be But this Unmasker's Writing against me will excuse him from being of the latter And then why may not Falshoods pass for Rhetorical flourishes in one who hath been used to popular Haranguing to which Men are not generally so severe as strictly to examine them and expect that they should always be found to contain nothing but precise Truth and strict Reasoning But yet I must not forget to put upon his Score this other Proposition of his which he has p. 42. and ask him to shew XIX Where it is that I command my Reader not to stir a jot farther than the Acts In the next two Paragraphs p. 42. 46. The Unmasker is at his natural Play of Declaiming without Proving 'T is pity the Mishna out of which he takes his good breeding as it told him that a well-bred and well-taught Man answers to the first in the first place had not given him this Rule too about Order viz. That Proving should go before Condemning Else all the fierce Exaggerations ill Language can heap up are but empty Scurility But 't is no wonder that the Iewish Doctors should not provide Rules for a Christian Divine turn'd Unmasker For where a Cause is to be maintain'd and a Book to be writ and Arguments are not at hand yet something must be found to fill it Railing in such cases is much easier than Reasoning especially where a Man's Parts lie that way The first of these Paragraphs p. 42. he begins thus But let us hear further what this Vindicator saith to excuse his rejection of the Doctrines contained in the Epistles and his putting us off with one Article of Faith And then he quotes these following words of mine What if the Author designed his Treatise as the Title shews chiefly for those who were not yet throughly and firmly Christians purposing to work upon those who either wholly disbelieved or doubted of the Truth of the Christian Religion Answ. This as he has put it is a downright Falshood For the words he quotes were not used by me to excuse my rejection of the Doctrines contained in the Epistles or to prove there was but one Article But as a reason why I omitted the mention of Satisfaction To demonstrate this I shall set down the whole Passage as it is p. 6. of my Vindication where it runs thus But what will become of me that I have not mention'd Satisfaction Possibly this Reverend Gentleman would have had Charity enough for a known Writer of the Brotherhood to have found it by an Innuendo in those words above quoted of laying down his Life for another But every thing is to be strained here the other way For the Author of the Reasonableness of Christianity c. is of necessity to be represented as a Socinian Or else his Book may be read and the Truths in it which Mr. Edwards likes not be received and People put upon examining Thus one as full of happy Conjectures and Suspitions as this Gentleman might be apt to argue But what if the Author designed his Treatise as the Title shews chiefly for those who were not yet throughly or firmly Christians Proposing to work on those who either wholly disbelieved or doubted of the Truth of the Christian Religion To this he tells me p. 43. that my Title says nothing for me i. e. shews not that I designed my Book for those that disbelieved or doubted of the Christian Religion Answ. I thought that a title that professed the Reasonableness of any Doctrine shew'd it was intended for those that were not â—ully satisfied of the Reasonableness of it unless Books are to be writ to convince those of any thing who are convinced already But possibly this may be the Unmasker's way And if one should judge by his manner of treating this Subject with Declamation instead of Argument one would think that he meant it for no body but those who were of his Mind already I thought therefore The Reasonableness of Christianity as deliver'd in the Scripture a proper Title to signifie whom it was chiefly meant for And I thank God I can with satisfaction say it has not wanted its effect upon some of them But the Unmasker proves for all that that I could not design it chiefly for Disbelievers or Doubters of the Christian Religion For says he p. 43. How those that wholly disregard and disbelieve the Scriptures of the New Testament as Gentiles Iews Mahometans and Atheists do I crave leave to put in Theists instead of Atheists for a reason presently to be mention'd are like to attend to the Reasonableness of Christianity as deliver'd in the Scripture is not to be conceived
Apostles if they were but ordinarily fair and prudent Men did in an History publish'd to instruct the World in a new Religion leave out the necessary and Fundamental parts of that Religion But let them be consider'd as inspired Writers under the Conduct of the infallible Spirit of God putting them upon and directing them in the writing of this History of the Gospel and then it is impossible for any Christian but the Unmasker to think that they made any such gross Omissions contrary to the design of their Writing without a Demonstration to convince him of it Now all the reason that our Unmasker gives is this That it is confessed by all intelligent and observing Men that the History of the Scripture is concise and that in relating Matters of Fact many Passages are omitted by the Sacred Penmen Answ. The Unmasker might have spar'd the Confession of intelligent and observing Men after so plain a Declaration of St. Iohn himself Chap. XX. 31. Many other things did Iesus in the presence of his Disciples which are not written in this Book And again XXI 25. There are also many other things that Iesus did the which if they should be written every one I suppose the world could not contain the Books that should be written There needs therefore no opinion of intelligent and observing Men to convince us that the History of the Gospel is so far Concise that a great many Matters of Fact are omitted and a great many less material Circumstances even of those that are set down But will any intelligent or observing Man any one that bears the Name of a Christian have the Impudence to say that the inspired Writers in the relation they give us of what Christ and his Apostles Preach'd to Unbelievers to convert them to the Faith omitted the Fundamental Articles which those Preachers proposed to make Men Christians and without a belief of which they could not be Christians The Unmasker talks after his wonted fashion seems to say something which when examin'd proves nothing to his Purpose He tells us That in some places where the Article of Iesus the Messiah is mention'd alone at the same time other matters of Faith were proposed I ask were these other matters of Faith all the Unmasker's necessary Articles If not what are those other matters of Faith to the Unmasker's Purpose As for Example in St. Peter's Sermon Act. II. Other matters of Faith were proposed with the Article of Iesus the Messiah But what does this make for His Fundamental Articles Were They all propos'd with the Articles of Iesus the Messiah If not Unbelievers were converted and brought into the Church without the Unmasker's necessary Articles Three Thousand were added to the Church by this one Sermon I pass by now St. Luke's not mentioning a Syllable of the greatest part of the Unmasker's necessary Articles and shall consider only how long that Sermon may have been 'T is plain from v. 15. that it began not till about Nine in the Morning and from v. 41. that before Night Three Thousand were converted and Baptized Now I ask the Unmasker whether so small a Number of Hours as St. Peter must necessarily imploy in Preaching to them were sufficient to instruct such a mixed Multitude so fully in all those Articles which he has propos'd as necessary to be believed to make a Man a Christian as that every one of those Three Thousand that were that day Baptized did understand and explicitly believe every one of those his Articles just in the sense of our Unmasker's System Not to mention those remaining Articles which the Unmasker will not be able in twice as many Months to find and declare to us He says That in some places where the Article of Iesus the Messiah is mentioned alone at the same time other matters of Faith were proposed Let us take this for so at present yet this helps not the Unmasker's case The Fundamental Articles that were propos'd by our Saviour and his Apostles necessary to be believed to make Men Christians are not set down but only this single one of Iesus the Messiah Therefore will any one dare to say that they are omitted every where by the Evangelists Did the Historians of the Gospel make their relation so concise and short that giving an account in so many places of the Preaching of our Saviour and his Apostles for the Conversion of the Unbelieving World they did not in any one place nor in in all of them together set down the necessary Points of that Faith which their Unbelieving Hearers were converted to If they did not how can their Histories be called the Gospels of Iesus Christ Or how can they serve to the end for which they were written Which was to publish to the World the Doctrine of Iesus Christ that Men might be brought into his Religion Now I challenge the Unmasker to shew me not out of any one place but out of all the Preachings of our Saviour and his Apostles recorded in the four Gospels and the Acts all those Propositions which he has reckon'd up as Fundamental Articles of Faith If they are not to be found there 't is plain that either they are not Articles of Faith necessary to be believed to make a Man a Christian or else that those inspired Writers have given us an account of the Gospel or Christian Religion wherein the greatest part of Doctrines necessary to be believed to make a Man a Christian are wholly omitted Which in short is to say that the Christianity which is recorded in the Gospels and the Acts is not that Christianity which is sufficient to make a Man a Christian. This as absurd and impious as it is is what our Unmasker charges upon the Conciseness as he is pleased to call it of the Evangelical History And this we must take upon his word Though these inspired Writers tell us the direct contrary For St. Luke in his Preface to his Gospel tells Theophilus that having a perfect knowledge OF ALL THINGS the Design of his Writing was to set them in order that he might know the certainty of those things that were believed amongst Christians And his History of the Acts begins thus The former Treatise i. e. his Gospel have I made O Theophilus of ALL that Iesus began to do and to teach So that how concise soever the Unmasker will have his History to be he professes it to contain ALL that Jesus taught Which ALL must in the narrowest sense that can be given it contain at least all things necessary to make a Man a Christian. 'T would else be a very lame and imperfect History of ALL that Jesus taught if the Faith contained in it were not sufficient to make a Man a Christian. This indeed as the Unmasker hath been pleased to term it would be a very lank Faith a very lank Gospel St. Iohn also says thus of his History of the Gospel Ch. XX. 30 31. Many other signs truly did Iesus in
of something or other And if it be the belief of any thing besides this That Iesus is the Christ or Messias that other thing should be specified and it should be made appear that the Belief that Iesus is the Messiah without the Belief of that other Proposition is not Christian Faith But to this Mr. Edwards answers not Mr. B d in the four following Pages 36 39. has excellently explained the difference between that Faith which constitutes a Man a Christian and that Faith whereby one that is a Christian believes the Doctrines taught by our Saviour and the ground of that difference and therein has fully over-turned this Position that believing Iesus to be the Messiah is but a Step or the first Step to Christianity But to this Mr. Edwards Answers not To the Creed-makers supposing that other Matters of Faith were proposed with this That Iesus is the Messiah Mr. Bold replies That this should be proved viz. That other Articles were proposed as requisite to be believed to make Men Christians And p. 40. he gives a Reason why he is of another Mind viz. Because there is nothing but this recorded which was insisted on for that purpose But to this Mr. Edwards Answers not Mr. Bold p. 42. shews that Rom. X. 9. which the Creed-maker brought against it confirms the Assertion of the Author of the Reasonableness c. concerning the Faith that makes a Man a Christian. But to this Mr. Edwards Answers not The Creed-maker says p. 78. This is the main Answer to the Objection or Query above proposed viz. That Christianity was erected by degrees This Mr. Bold p. 43. proves to be nothing to the purpose by this Reason viz. Because what makes one Man a Christian or ever did make any Man a Christian will at any time to the End of the World make another Man a Christian And asks Will not that make a Christian now which made the Apostles themselves Christians But to this Mr. Edwards Answers not In Answer to his 6th Chapter Mr. Bold p. 45. tells him It was not my Business to discourse of the Trinity or any other particular Doctrines proposed to be believed by them who are Christians And that it is no fair and just Ground to accuse a Man for rejecting the Dotrines of the Trinity and that Jesus is God Because he does not interpret some particular Texts to the same purpose others do But to this Mr. Edwards answers not Indeed he takes notice of these words of Mr. Bold in this Paragraph viz. Hence Mr. Edwards takes occasion to write many Pages about these terms viz. Messiah and Son of God But I do not perceive that he pretends to offer any Proof that these were not Synonymous terms amongst the Iews at that time which is the Point he should have proved if he designed to invalidate what this Author saith about that matter To this the Creed-maker replies p. 257. The Animadverâ—er doth not so much as offer one syllable â—o disprove what I delivered and closely urged on that head Answer What need any Answer to disprove where there is no Proof brought that reaches the Proposition in Question If there had been any such Proof the producing of it in short had been a more convincing Argument to the Reader than so much bragging of what has been done For here are more Words spent for I have not set them all down than would have served to have expressed the Proof of this Proposition viz. That the terms above-mentioned were not Synonymous amongst the Iews if there had been any Proof of it But having already examined what the Creed-maker brags he has closely urged I shall say no more of it here To the Creed-makers making me a Socinian in his Eighth Chapter for not naming Christ's Satisfaction amongst the Advantages and Benefits of Christ's coming into the World Mr. Bold replies 1. That it is no Proof because I promised not to name every one of them And the mention of some is no denial of others 2. He replies That Satisfaction is not so strictly to be termed an Advantage as the effects and fruits of it are and that the Doctrine of Satisfaction instructs us in the way how Christ did by divine Appointment obtain those Advantages for us And this was an Answer that deserved some reply from the Creed-maker But to this he answers not Mr. Bold says right That this is a Doctrine that is of mighty Importance for a Christian to be well acquainted with And I will add to it that it is very hard for a Christian who reads the Scripture with Attention and an unprejudiced Mind to deny the Satisfaction of Christ But it being a term not used by the Holy Ghost in the Scripture and very variously explained by those that do use it and very much stumbled at by those I was there speaking to who were such as I there say who will not take a Blessing unless they be instructed what need they had of it and why it was bestowed upon them I left it with the other disputed Doctrines of Christianity to be looked into to see what it was Christ had taught concerning it by those who were Christians and believed Jesus to be the Saviour promised and sent from God And to those who yet doubted that he was so and made this Objection What need was there of a Saviour I thought it most reasonable to offer such Particulars only as were agreed on by all Christians and were capable of no Dispute but must be acknowledged by every body to be needful This though the Words above-quoted out of p. 254 256. of the Reasonableness of Christianity c. shew to be my Design yet the Creed-maker plainly gives me the Lye and tells me it was not my Design All the World are faithless false treacherous hypocritical Strainers upon their Reason and Conscience Dissemblers Iourney-men mercenary Hirelings except Mr. Edwards I mean all the World that opposes him And must not one think he is mightily beholding to the Excellency and Readiness of his own Nature who is no sooner engaged in Controversie but he immediately finds out in his Adversaries these Arts of Equivocation Lying and Effrontry in managing of it Reason and Learning and acquired Improvements might else have let him have gone on with others in the dull and ordinary way of fair arguing wherein possibly he might have done no great feats Must not a rich and fertile Soyle within and a prompt Genius wherein a Man may readily spie the Propensities of base and corrupt Nature be acknowledged to be an excellent Qualification for a Disputant to help him to the quick Discovery and laying open of the Faults of his Opponents which a Mind otherwise disposed would not so much as suspect Mr. Bold without this could not have been so soon found out to be a Iourney-man a Dissembler an hired Mercenary and stored with all those good Qualities wherein he hath his full share with me But why would he then
for not knowing them why do you fill your Books with such variety of Invectives as if you could never say enough nor bad enough against me for having left out some of them And if it be so dangerous so criminal to miss any of them why is it a folly in me to move you to give me a compleat List If Fundamentals are to be known easie to be known as without doubt they are then a Catalogue may be given of them But if they are not if it cannot certainly be determin'd which are they but the doubtful knowledge of them depends upon guesses why may not I be permitted to follow my guesses as well as you yours Or why of all others must you prescribe your guesses to me when there are so many that are as ready to prescribe as you and of as good Authority The pretence indeed and clamour is Religion and the Saving of Souls But your Business 't is plain is nothing but to over-rule and prescribe and be hearken'd to as a Dictator and not to inform teach and instruct in the sure way to Salvation Why else do you so start and fling when I desire to know of you what is necessary to be believed to make a Man a Christian when this is the only material thing in Controversie between us and my Mistakes in it has made you begin a quarrel with me and let loose your Pen against me in no ordinary way of reprehension Besides in this way which you take you will be in no better a case than I. For another having as good a claim to have his guesses give the rule as you yours or to have his System received as well as you yours he will complain of you as well and upon as good grounds as you do of me and if he have but as much Zeal for his Orthodoxy as you shew for yours in as civil well-bred and Christian-like Language In the next place pray tell me why would it be folly in you to comply with what I require of you Would it not be useful to me to be set right in this Matter if so why is it folly in you to set me right Consider me if you please as one of your Parishioners who after you have resolv'd which Catalogue of Fundamentals to give him either that in your Thoughts of the Causes of Atheism or this other here in your Socinianism Unmask'd for they are not both the same nor either of them perfect asked you are these all Fundamental Articles necessary to be believed to make a Man a Christian and are there no more but these would you answer him that it was folly in you to comply with him in what he desired Is it of no moment to know what is required of Men to be believed without a belief of which they are not Christians nor can be saved And is it folly in a Minister of the Gospel to inform one committed to his Instruction in so material a Point as this which distinguishes Believers from Unbelievers Is it folly in one whose Business it is to bring Men to be Christians and to Salvation to resolve a Question by which they may know whether they are Christians or no and without a resolution of which they cannot certainly know their Condition and the state they are in Is it besides your Commission and Business and therefore a folly to extend your care of Souls so far as this to those who are committed to your Charge Sir I have a Title to demand this of you as if I were your Parishioner You have forced your self upon me for a Teacher in this very Point as if you wanted a Parishioner to instruct and therefore I demand it of you and shall insist upon it till you either do it or confess you cannot Nor shall it excuse you to say it is capriciously required For this is no otherwise capricious than all Questions are capricious to a Man that cannot answer them and such an one I think this is to you For if you could answer it no body can doubt but that you would and that with confidence For no body will suspect 't is the want of that makes you so reserved This is indeed a frequent way of answering Questions by men that cannot otherwise cover the Absurdities of their Opinions and their insolence of expecting to be believed upon their bare words by saying they are capriciously asked and deserved no other Answer But how far soever Capriciousness when proved for saying is not enough may excuse from answering a material Question yet your own words here will clear this from being a capricious Question in me For that those Texts of Scripture which you have set down do not upon your own Grounds contain all the Fundamental Doctrines of Religion all that is necessary to be believed to make a Man a Christian what you say a little lower in this very Page as well as in other places does demonstrate Your words are I think I have sufficiently proved that there are other Doctrines besides that Jesus is the Messiah which are required to be believed to make a Man a Christian why did the Apostles write these Doctrines was it not that those they writ to might give their assent to them This Argument for the necessity of believing the Texts you cite from their being set down in the New Testament you urged thus p. 9. Is this set down to no purpose in these inspired Epistles Is it not requisite that we should know it and believe And again p. 29. They are in our Bibles to that very purpose to be believed If then it be necessary to know and believe those Texts of Scripture you have collected because the Apostles writ them and they were not set down to no purpose And they are in our Bibles on purpose to be believed I have reason to demand of you other Texts besides those you have enumerated as containing Points necessary to be believed because there are other Texts which the Apostles writ and were not set down to no purpose and are in our Bibles on purpose to be believed as well as those which you have cited Another reason of doubting and consequently of demanding whether those Propositions you have set down for Fundamental Doctrines be every one of them necessary to be believed and all that are necessary to be believed to make a Man a Christian I have from your next Argument which join'd to the former stands thus p. 22. Why did the Apostles write these Doctrines Was it not that those they writ to might give their assent to them nay did they not require assent to them Yes verily for this is to be proved from the Nature of the things contained in those Doctrines which are such as had immediate respect to the Occasion Author Way Means and Issue of their Redemption and Salvation If therefore all things which have an immediate respect to the Occasion Author Way Means and Issue of Mens Redemption and Salvation are
those and those only which are necessary to be believed to make a Man a Christian may a Man not justly doubt whether those Propositions which the Unmasker has set down contain all those things and whether there be not other things contain'd in other Texts of Scripture or in some of those cited by him but otherwise understood that have as immediately a respect to the Occasion Author Way Means and Issue of Mens Redemption and Salvation as those he has set down And therefore I have reason to demand a compleater List. For at best to tell us that all things that have an immediate respect to the Occasion Author Way Means and Issue Issue of Mens Redemption and Salvation is but a general Description of Fundamentals with which some may think some Articles agree and others others And the terms immediate respect may give ground enough for difference about them to those who agree that the rest of your Description is right My demand therefore is not a general Description of Fundamentals but for the Reasons abovementioned the particular Articles themselves which are necessary to be believed to make a Man a Christian. It is not my Business at pâ—â—sent to examine the validity of these Arguments of his to prove all the Propositions to be necessary to be believed which he has here in his Socinianism Unmask'd set down as such The use I make of them now is to shew the reason they afford me to doubt that those Propositions which he has given us for Doctrines necessary to be believed are either not all such or more than all by his own rule And therefore I must desire him to give us a compleater Creed that we may know what in his sense is necessary and enough to make a Man a Christian Nor will it be sufficient in this case to do what he tells us that he has done in these words p. 21. I have briefly set before the Reader these Evangelical Truths Those Christian Principles which belong to the very Essence of Christianity and I have reduced most of them to certain Propositions which is a thing the Vindicator called for p. 16. With Submission I think he mistakes the Vindicator What I called for was not that most of them should be reduced to certain Propositions but that all of them should and the reason of my demanding that was plain viz. that then having the Unmasker's Creed in clear and distinct Propositions I might be able to examine whether it was what God in the Scriptures indispensibly required of every Man to make him a Christian that so I might thereby correct the Errors or Defects of what I at present apprehended the Scripture taught me in the case The Unmasker endeavours to excuse himself from answering my Question by another exception against it p. 24. in these words Surely none but this Upstart Racovian will have the confidence to deny that these Articles of Faith are such as are necessary to constitute a Christian as to the Intellectual and Doctrinal part of Christianity such as must IN SOME MEASURE be known and assented to by him Not that a Man is supposed every moment to actually exert his assent and belief for none of the Moral Vertues none of the Evangelical Graces are exerted thus always Wherefore that Question in p. 16. though he says he asks it seriously might have been spared Whether every one of these Fundamentals is required to be believed to make a Man a Christian and such as without the actual belief thereof he cannot be saved Here is seriousness pretended when there is none for the Design is only to Cavil and if he can to expose my Assertion But he is not able to do it for all his Critical Demands are answer'd in these few words viz. That in the Intellectual as well as Moral Endowments are never supposed to be always in act They are exerted upon Occasion not all of them at a time And therefore he mistakes if he thinks or rather as he Objects without thinking that these Doctrines if they be Fundamental and Necessary must be always actually believed No Man besides himself ever started such a thing This terrible long Combate has the Unmasker managed with his own Shadow to confound the Seriousness of my Question and as he says himself is come off not only safe and sound but triumphant But for all that Sir may not a Man's Question be serious though he should chance to express it ill I think you and I were not best to set up for Criticks in Language and Nicety of Expression for fear we should set the World a Laughing Yet for this once I shall take the liberty to defend mine here For I demand in what Expression of mine I said or supposed that a man should every moment actually exert his assent to any Proposition required to be believed Cannot a Man say that the Unmasker cannot be admitted to any Preferment in the Church of England without an actual assent to or Subscribing of the 39 Articles unless it be suppos'd that he must every moment from the time he first read assented to and subscribed those Articles till he received Institution and Induction actually exert his assent to every one of them and repeat his Subscription In the same sense it is literally true that a Man cannot be admitted into the Church of Christ or into Heaven without actually believing all the Articles necessary to make a Man a Christian without supposing that he must actually exert that assent every moment from the time that he first gave it till the moment that he is admitted into Heaven He may Eat Drink make Bargains study Euclid and think of other things between nay sometimes Sleep and neither think of those Articles nor any thing else and yet it be true that he shall not be admitted into the Church or Heaven without an actual assent to them That Condition of an actual assent he has perform'd and until he recall that assent by actual Unbelief it stands good and though a Lunacy or Lethargy should seize on him presently after and he should never think of it again as long as he lived yet it is literally true he is not saved without an actual assent You might therefore have spared your pains in saying That none of the Moral Virtues none of the Evangelical Graces are exerted THUS always till you had met with some body who had said THUS That I did so I think would have enter'd into no bodies thoughts but yours it being evident from p. 298 and 300. of my Book that by Actual I meant Explicit You should rather have given a direct Answer to my Question which I here again seriously ask you viz. Whether IX Those you called Fundamental Doctrines in your Thoughts concerning the Causes of Atheism or those Christian Principles which belong to the very Essence of Christianity so many as you have given us of them in your Socinianism Unmask'd for you may take which of your two
Creeds you please are Just those neither more nor less that are every one of them required to be believed to make a Man a Christian and such as without the actual or since that word displeases you the explicit belief whereof he cannot be saved When you have answer'd this Question we shall then see which of us two is nearest the right But if you shall forbear Railing which I fear you take for arguing against that Summary of Faith which our Saviour and his Apostles taught and which only they propos'd to their Hearers to be believed to make them Christians till you have found another perfect Creed of only necessary Articles that you dare own for such you are like to have a large time of Silence Before I leave the Passage above cited I must desire the Reader to take notice of what he says concerning his List of Fundamentals viz. That these his Articles of Faith necessary to constitute a Christian are such as must IN SOME MEASURE be known and assented to by him A very wary Expression concerning Fundamentals The Question is about Articles necessary to be explicitly believed to make a Man a Christian. These in his List the Unmasker tells us are necessary to constitute a Christian and must IN SOME MEASURE be known and assented to I would now fain know of the Reader whether he understands hereby that the Unmasker means that these his necessary Articles must be explicitly believed or not If he means an explicit Knowledge and Belief why does he puzzle his Reader by so improper a way of speaking for what is as compleat and perfect as it ought to be cannot properly be said to be in some Measure If his in some Measure falls short of explicitly knowing and believing his Fundamentals his necessary Articles are such as a Man may be a Christian without explicitly knowing and believing i. e. are no Fundamentals no necessary Articles at all Thus Men uncertain what to say betray themselves by their great Caution Having pronounced it Folly in himself to make up the defects of my short and therefore so much blam'd Collection of Fundamentals by a full one of his own though his Attempt shews he would if he could he goes on thus p. 22. From what I the Unmasker have said it is evident that the Vindicator is grosly mistaken when he saith Whatever Doctrine the Apostles required to be believed to make a Man a Christian are to be found in those places of Scripture which he has quoted in his Book And a little lower I think I have sufficiently proved that there are other Doctrines besides that which are required to be believed to make a Man a Christian Answ. Whatever you have proved or as you never fail to do boast you have proved will signifie nothing till you have proved one of these Propositions and have shewn either X. That what our Saviour and his Apostles preach'd and admitted Men into the Church for believing is not all that is absolutely required to make a Man a Christian Or That the believing him to be the Messiah was not the only Article they insisted on to those who acknowledg'd one God and upon the belief whereof they admitted Converts into the Church in any one of those many places quoted by me out of the History of the New Testament I say any one For though it be evident throughout the whole Gospel and the Acts that this was the one Doctrine of Faith which in all their Preachings every where they principally drive at Yet if it were not so but that in other places they taught other things that would not prove that those other things were Articles of Faith absolutely necessarily required to be believed to make a Man a Christian unless it had been so said Because if it appears that ever any one was admitted into the Church by our Saviour or his Apostles without having that Article explicitly laid before him and without his explicit assent to it you must grant that an explicit assent to that Article is not necessary to make a Man a Christian Unless you will say that our Saviour and his Apostles admitted Men into the Church that were not qualified with such a Faith as was absolutely necessary to make a Man a Christian which is as much as to say that they allow'd and pronounced Men to be Christians who were not Christians For he that wants what is necessary to make a Man a Christian can no more be a Christian than he that wants what is necessary to make him a Man can be a Man For what is necessary to the being of any thing is Essential to its being and any thing may be as well without its Essence as without any thing that is necessary to its being and so a Man be a Man without being a Man and a Christian a Christian without being a Christian and an Unmasker may prove this without proving it You may therefore set up by your unquestionable Authority what Articles you please as necessary to be believed to make a Man a Christian If our Saviour and his Apostles admitted Converts into the Church without preaching those your Articles to them or requiring an Explicit assent to what they did not Preach and explicitly lay down I shall prefer their Authority to yours and think it was rather by them than by you that God promulgated the Law of Faith and manifested what that Faith was upon which he would receive penitent Converts And though by his Apostles our Saviour taught a great many other Truths for the explaining this Fundamental Article of the Law of Faith that Jesus is the Messiah some whereof have a nearer and some a more remote connexion with it and so cannot be deny'd by any Christian who sees that connexion or knows they are so taught yet an explicit belief of any one of them is no more necessarily required to make a Man a Christian than an explicit belief of all those Truths which have a connexion with the being of a God or are reveal'd by him is necessarily required to make a Man not to be an Atheist Though none of them can be denied by any one who sees that connexion or acknowledges that revelation without his being an Atheist All these Truths taught us from God either by Reà son or Revelation are of great use to enlighten our Minds confirm our Faith stir up our Affections c. And the more we see of them the more we shall see admire and magnifie the Wisdom Goodness Mercy and Love of God in the Work of our Redemption This will oblige us to search and study the Scripture wherein it is contain'd and laid open to us All that we find in the Revelation of the New Testament being the declar'd Will and Mind of our Lord and Master the Messiah whom we have taken to be our King we are bound to receive as Right and Truth or else we are not his Subjects we do not believe him to be the Messiah our
impossible any where to stand The reason whereof is plain Because either the believing Iesus to be the Messiah i. e. the taking him to be our King makes us Subjects and Denizons of his Kingdom i. e. Christians Or else an explicit knowledge of and actual Obedience to the Laws of his Kingdom is what is required to make us Subjects Which I think is what was never said of any other Kingdom For a Man must be a Subject before he is bound to obey Let us suppose it will be said here that an Obedience to the Laws of Christ's Kingdom is what is necessary to make us Subjects of it without which we cannot be admitted into it i. e. be Christians And if so this Obedience must be Universal I mean it must be the same sort of Obedience to all the Laws of this Kingdom Which since no body says is in any one such as is wholly free from Error or Frailty this Obedience can only lie in a sincere disposition and purpose of Mind to obey every one of the Laws of the Messiah deliver'd in the New Testament to the utmost of our Power Now believing right being one part of that Obedience as well as acting right is the other part the Obedience of assent must be implicitly to all that is deliver'd there That it is true But for as much as the particular acts of an explicit assent cannot go any farther than his understanding who is to assent What he understands to be the Truth deliver'd by our Saviour or the Apostles commission'd by him and assisted by his Spirit That he must necessarily believe It becomes a Fundamental Article to him and he cannot refuse his assent to it without renouncing his Allegiance For he that denies any of the Doctrines that Christ has deliver'd to be true denies him to be sent from God and consequently to be the Messiah and so ceases to be a Christian. From whence it is evident that if any more be necessary to be believed to make a Man a Christian than the believing Iesus to be the Messiah and thereby taking him for our King It cannot be any set bundle of Fundamentals culled out of the Scripture with an omission of the rest according as best suits any ones Fancy System or Interest But it must be an explicit belief of all those Propositions which he according to the best of his understanding really apprehends to be contain'd and meant in the Scripture and an implicit belief of all the rest which he is ready to believe as soon as it shall please God upon his use of the means to enlighten him and make them clear to his understanding So that in effect almost every particular Man in this sense has or may have a distinct Catalogue of Fundamentals each whereof it is necessary for him explicitly to believe now that he is a Christian whereof if he should disbelieve or deny any one he would cast off his Allegiance disfranchise himself and be no longer a Subject of Christ's Kingdom But in this sense no body can tell what is Fundamental to another what is necessary for another Man to believe This Catalogue of Fundamentals every one alone can make for himself No body can fix it for him no body can collect or prescribe it to another But this is according as God has dealt to every one the measure of Light and Faith and hath open'd each Man's Understanding that he may understand the Scriptures Whoever has used whaâ— means he is capable of for the informing of himself with a readiness to believe and obey what shall be taught and prescrib'd by Iesus his Lord and King is a true and faithful Subject of Christ's Kingdom and cannot be thought to fail in any thing necessary to Salvation Supposing a Man and his Wife barely by seeing the wonderful things that Moses did should have been perswaded to put themselves under his Government Or by reading his Law and liking it or by any other Motive had been prevail'd on sincerely to take him for their Ruler and Law-giver and accordingly renouncing their former Idolatry and Heathenish Pollutions in token thereof had by Baptism and Circumcision the initiating Ceremonies solemnly enter'd themselves into that Communion under the Law of Moses had they not thereby been made Denizons of the Commonwealth of Israel and invested with all the Privileges and Prerogatives of true Children of Abraham leaving to their Posterity a right to their share in the Promis'd Land though they had died before they had performed any other Act of Obedience to that Law nay though they had not known whose Son Moses was nor how he had deliver'd the Children of Israel out of Egypt nor whither he was leading them I do not say it is likely they should be so far ignorant But whether they were or no 't was enough that they took him for their Prince and Ruler with a purpose to obey him to submit themselves entirely to his Commands and Conduct And did nothing afterwards whereby they disowned or rejected his Authority over them In that respect none of his Laws were greater or more necessary to be submitted to one than another though the matter of one might be of much greater Consequence than of another But a Disobedience to any Law of the least Consequence if it carry with it a disowning of the Authority that made it forfeits all and cuts off such an Offender from that Commonwealth and all the Privileges of it This is the case in respect of other Matters of Faith to those who believe Iesus to be the Messiah and take him to be their King sent from God and so are already Christians 'T is not the opinion that any one may have of the weightiness of the Matter if they are without their own fault ignorant that our Saviour hath revealed it that shall disfranchise them and make them forfeit their Interest in his Kingdom they may be still good Subjects though they do not believe a great many things which Creed-makers may think necessary to be believed That which is required of them is a sincere endeavour to know his Mind declared in the Gospel and an explicit belief of all that they understand to be so Not to believe what he has reveal'd whether in a lighter or more weighty Matter calls his veracity into Question destroys his Mission denies his Authority and is a flat disowning him to be the Messiah And so overturns that Fundamental and Necessary Article whereby a Man is a Christian. But this cannot be done by a Man's Ignorance or unwilful Mistake of any of the Truths published by our Saviour himself or his authorized and inspired Ministers in the New Testament Whilst a Man knows not that it was his Will or Meaning his Allegiance is safe though he believe the contrary If this were not so it is impossible that any one should be a Christian. For in some things we are ignorant and err all not knowing the Scriptures For the holy inspired
Writings being all of the same Divine Authority must all equally in every Article be Fundamental and necessary to be believed if that be a reason that makes any one Proposition in it necessary to be believed But the Law of Faith the Covenant of the Gospel being a Covenant of Grace and not of Natural Right or Debt nothing can be absolutely necessary to be believed but what by this new Law of Faith God of his good pleasure hath made to be so And this 't is plain by the preaching of our Saviour and his Apostles to all that believed not already in him was only the believing the only true God and Iesus to be the Messiah whom he hath sent The performance of this puts a Man within the Covenant and is that which God will impute to him for Righteousness All the other acts of assent to other Truths taught by our Saviour and his Apostles are not what make a Man a Christian but are necessary acts of Obedience to be performed by one who is a Christian and therefore being a Christian ought to live by the Laws of Christ's Kingdom Nor are we without some glimpse of Light why it hath pleased God of his Grace that the believing Iesus to be the Messiah should be that Faith which he would impute to Men for Righteousness 'T is evident from the Scripture that our Saviour despised the Shame and endured the Cross for the Joy that was set before him Which joy 't is also plain was a Kingdom But in this Kingdom which his Father had appointed to him he could have none but voluntary Subjects such as leaving the Kingdom of Darkness and of the Prince of this World with all the Pleasures Pomps and Vanities thereof would put themselves under his Dominion and translate themselves into his Kingdom which they did by believing and owning him to be the Messiah their King and thereby taking him to rule over them For the Faith for which God justiâ—ieth is not an empty Speculation but a Faith joyn'd with Repentance and working by Love And for this which was in effect to return to God himself and to their natural Allegiance due to him and advance as much as lay in them the Glory of the Kingdom which he had promised his Son God was pleased to declare he would accept them receive them to Grace and blot out all their former Transgressions This is evidently the Covenant of Grace as deliver'd in the Scriptures And if this be not I desire any one to tell me what it is and what are the terms of it 'T is a Law of Faith whereby God has promised to forgive all our Sins upon our Repentance and believing something and to impute that Faith to us for Righteousness Now I ask what 't is by the Law of Faith we are required to believe for till that be known the Law of Faith is not distinctly known nor the terms of the Covenant upon which the Almerciful God graciously offers us Salvation And if any one will say this is not known nay is not easily and certainly to be known under the Gospel I desire him to tell me what the greatest Enemies of Christianity can say worse against it For a way propos'd to Salvation that does not certainly lead thither or is propos'd so as not to be known are very little different as to their consequence and Mankind would be left to wander in darkness and uncertainty with the one as well as the other I do not write this for Controversies sake for had I minded Victory I would not have given the Unmasker this new Matter of exception I know whatever is said he must be bawling for his fashionable and profitable Orthodoxy and cry out against this too which I have here added as Socinianism and cast that Name upon all that differs from what is held by those he would recommend his Zeal to in Writing I call it bawling for whether what he has said be Reasoning I shall referr to those of his own Brotherhood if he be of any Brotherhood and there be any that will joyn with him in his Set of Fundamentals when his Creed is made Had I minded nothing but how to deal with him I had tied him up short to his List of Fundamentals without affording him Topicks of declaiming against what I have here said But I have enlarged on this point for the sake of such Readers who with a love of truth read Books of this kind and endeavour to inform themselves in the things of their everlasting concernment It being of greater consideration with me to give any light and satisfaction to one single Person who is really concerned to understand and be convinced of the Religion he professes than what a Thousand fashionable or titular Professors of any sort of Orthodoxy shall say or think of me for not doing as they do i. e. for not saying after others without understanding what is said or upon what Grounds or caring to understand it Let us now consider his Argument to prove the Articles he has given us to be Fundamentals In his Thoughts concerning the Causes of Atheism p. 119. he argues from 1 Tim. iii. 16. where he says Christianity is called a Mystery that all things in Christianity are not plain and exactly level to every common apprehension that every thing in Christianity is not clear and intelligible and comprehensible by the weakest Noddle Let us take this for proved as much as he pleases and then let us see the force of this subtle Disputant's Argument for the necessity there is that every Christian Man should believe those which he has given us for Fundamental Articles out of the Epistles The Reason of that Obligation and the Necessity of every Man and Woman's believing them he has laid in this that they are to be found in the Epistles or in the Bible This Argument for them we have over and over again in his Socinianism Unmask'd as here p. 9. thus Are they set down to no purpose in these inspired Epistles Why did the Apostles write these Doctrines was it not that those they writ to might give their assent to them P. 22. They are in our Bibles for that very purpose to be believed p. 25. Now I ask can any one more directly invalidate all he says here for the necessity of believing his Articles Can any one more apparently write booty than by saying that these his Doctrines these his Fundamental Articles which are after his fashion set down between the 8. and 20. Pages of this his First Chapter are of necessity to be believed by every one before he can be a Christian because they are in the Epistles and in the Bible and yet to affirm that in Christianity i. e. in the Epistles and in the Bible there are Mysteries there are things not plain not clear not intelligible to common apprehensions If his Articles some of which contain Mysteries are necessary to be believed to make a Man a Christian because
they are in the Bible than according to this rule it is necessary for many Men to believe what is not intelligible to them what their Noddles cannot apprehend as the Unmasker is pleased to turn the Supposition of vulgar Peoples understanding the Fundamentals of their Religion into ridicule i. e. it is necessary for many Men to do what is impossible for them to do before they can be Christians But if there be several things in the Bible and in the Epistles that it is not necessary for Men to believe to make them Christians then all the Unmasker's Arguments from their being in the Epistles is no Proof that all his Articles are necessary to be believed to make a Man a Christian because they are set down in the Epistles much less because he thinks they may be drawn according to his Sysâ—em out of what is set down in the Epistles Let him therefore either confess these and the like Questions Why did the Apostles write these was it not that those they writ to might give their assent to them Why should not every one of these Evangelical Truths be believed and imbraced They are in our Bibles for that very purpose and the like to be impertinent and ridiculous Let him cease to propose them with so much ostentation for they can serve only to mislead unwary Readers Or let him unsay what he has said of things not plain to common apprehensions not clear and intelligible Let him recant what he has said of Mysteries in Christianity For I ask with him p. 8. where can we be informed but in the sacred and inspired writings It is ridiculous to urge that any thing is necessary to be explicitly believed to make a Man a Christian because it is writ in the Epistles and in the Bible Unless he confess that there is no Mystery no thing not plain not intelligible to Vulgar understanding in the Epistles or in the Bible This is so evident that the Unmasker himself who p. 119. of his Thoughts concerning the Causes of Atheism thought it ridiculous to suppose that the Vulgar should understand Christianity is here of another Mind And p. 30. says of his Evangelical Doctrines and Articles necessary to be assented to that they are intelligible and plain There is no Ambiguity and Doubtfulness in them They shine with their own light and to an unprejudiced eye are plain evident and illustrious To draw the Unmasker out of the Clouds and prevent his hiding himself in the doubtfulness of his Expressions I shall desire him to say directly whether the Articles which are necessary to be believed to make a Man a Christian and particularly those he has set down for such are all plain and intelligible and such as may be understood and comprehended I will not say in the Unmasker's ridiculous way by the weakest Noddles but by every illiterate Countryman and Woman capable of Church Communion If he says yes Then all Mysteries are excluded out of his Articles necessary to be believed to make a Man a Christian. For that which can be comprehended by every Day-Labourer every poor Spinster that is a Member of the Church cannot be a Mystery And if what such illiterate People cannot understand be required to be believed to make them Christians the greatest part of Mankind are shut out from being Christians But the Unmasker has provided an Answer in these words p. 31. There is says he a difficulty in the Doctrine of the Trinity and several Truths of the Gospel as to the exact manner of the things themselves which we shall never be able to comprehend at least on this side of Heaven But there is no difficulty as to the reality and certainty of them because we know they are revealed to us by God in the Holy Scripture Which Answer of difficulty in the manner and no difficulty in the reality having the appearance of a distinction looks like Learning but when it comes to be applied to the case in hand will scarce afford us sense The Question is about a Proposition to be believed which must first necessarily be understood For a Man cannot possibly give his assent to any Affirmation or Negation unless he understand the terms as they are joyn'd in that Proposition and has a Conception of the thing affirm'd or deny'd and also a Conception of the thing concerning which it is affirm'd or deny'd as they are there put together But let the Proposition be what it will there is no more to be understood than is expressed in the terms of that Proposition If it be a Proposition concerning a Matter of Fact 't is enough to conceive and believe the Matter of Fact If it be a Proposition concerning the manner of the Fact the manner of the Fact must also be believed as it is intelligibly expressed in that Proposition v. g. should this Proposition 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 be offer'd as an Article of Faith to an illiterate Countryman of England he could not believe it Because though a true Proposition yet it being propos'd in words whose meaning he understood not he could not give any assent to it Put it into English he understands what is meant by the Dead shall rise For he can conceive that the same Man who was dead and senseless should be alive again As well as he can that the same Man who is now in a Lethargy should awake again or the same Man that now is out of his sight and he knows not whether he be alive or dead should return and be with him again And so he is capable of believing it though he conceives nothing of the manner how a Man revives wakes or moves But none of these manners of those actions being included in those Propositions the Proposition concerning the Matter of Fact if it imply no contradiction in it may be believed and so all that is required may be done whatever difficulty may be as to the exact manner how it is brought about But where the Proposition is about the manner the belief too must be of the manner v. g. The Article is The Dead shall be raised with spiritual Bodies And then the belief must be as well of this manner of the Fact as of the Fact it self So that what is said here by the Unmasker about the manner signifies nothing at all in the case What is understood to be expressed in each Proposition whether it be of the manner or not of the manner is by its being a Revelation from God to be believed as far as it is understood But no more is required to be believed concerning any Article than is contain'd in that Article What the Unmasker for the removing of Difficulties adds farther in these words But there is no difficulty as to the reality and certainty of the truths of the Gospel Because we know they are revealed to us by God in the Holy Scripture is yet farther from signifying any thing to the purpose than the former The Question is
Epistles which were all written to those who had imbraced the Faith and were all Christians already I thought would not so distinctly shew what were those Doctrines which were absolutely necessary to make Men Christians they being not writ to convert Unbelievers but to build up those who were already Believers in their most holy Faith This is plainly expressed in the Epistle to the Hebrews V. 11 c Of whom i. e. Christ we have many things to say and hard to be utter'd seeing ye are all dull of hearing For when for the time ye ought to be Teachers ye have need that one teach you again which be the first Principles of the Oracles of God and are become such as have need of Milk and not of strong Meat For every one that useth milk is unskilful in the word of righteousness for he is a Babe But strong meat belongeth to him that is of full age even those who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both good and bad Therefore leaving the Principles of the Doctrine of Christ let us go on unto perfection not laying again the foundation of Repentance from dead Works and of Faith towards God and of the Doctrine of Baptism and of laying on of hands and of the resurrection of the Dead and of eternal Iudgment Here the Apostle shews what was his Design in writing this Epistle Not to teach them the Fundamental Doctrines of the Christian Religion but to lead them on to more Perfection That is to greater degrees of Knowledge of the wise Design and wonderful Contrivance and carrying on of the Gospel and the Evidence of it which he makes out in this Epistle by shewing its Correspondence with the Old Testament and particularly with the Oeconomy of the Mosaical Constitution Here I might ask the Unmasker whether those many things which St. Paul tells the Hebrews he had to say of Christ hard to be utter'd to them because they were dull of hearing had not an immediate respect to the Occasion Author Way Means or Issue of their Redemption and Salvation And therefore whether they were such things without the knowledge of which they could not be saved as the Unmasker says of such things p. 23. And the like I might ask him concerning those things which the Apostle tells the Corinthians 1 Ep. Chap. III. 2. that they were not yet able to bear For much to the same purpose he speaks to the Corinthians Ep. 1. Ch. III. as in the above-cited places he did to the Hebrews That he as a wise Master-Builder had laid the Foundation And that Foundation he himself tells us is Iesus the Messiah and that there is no other Foundation to be laid And that in this he laid the Foundation of Christianity at Corinth St. Luke records Act XVIII 4. in these words Paul at Corinth reason'd in the Synagogue every Sabbath-day and testified to the Iews that Iesus was the Messiah Upon which Foundation he tells them there might be a Superstructure But that what is built on the Foundation is not the Foundation I think I need not prove He further tells them that he had desired to build upon this Foundation But withal says he had fed them till then with Milk and not with Meat because they were Babes and had not been able to bear it neither were they yet able And therefore this Epistle we see is almost wholly spent in Reproofs of their Miscarriages and in Exhortations and Instructions relating to Practice and very little said in it for the explaining any part of the great Mystery of Salvation contain'd in the Gospel By these Passages we may see were it not evident to common sence it self from the Nature of things that the design of these Epistles was not to lay the Foundations or teach the Principles of the Christian Religion they being writ to those who had received them and were Christians already The same holds in all the other Epistles And therefore the Epistles seem'd not to me the properest parts of Scripture to give us that Foundation distinct from all the Superstructures built on it Because in the Epistles the latter was the thing propos'd rather than the former For the main intention of the Apostles in writing their Epistles could not be to do what was done already to lay down barely the Foundations of Christianity to those who were Christians already but to build upon it some â—arther Explication of it which either their particular Circumstances or a general evidencing of the Truth Wisdom Excellencies and Privileges c. of the Gospel required This was the reason that perswaded me to take the Articles of Faith absolutely necessary to be received to make a Man a Christian only from the Preachings of our Saviour and his Apostles to the Unconverted World as laid down in the Historical Part of the New Testament And I thought it a good Reason It being past doubt that they in their Preachings proposed to the Unconverted all that was necessary to be believed to make them Christians And also that that Faith upon a Profession whereof any one was admitted into the Church as a Believer had all that was necessary in it to make him a Christian because if it wanted any thing necessary he had necessarily not been admitted unless we can suppose that any one was admitted into the Christian Church by our Saviour and his Apostles who was not yet a Christian or pronounced a Believer who yet wanted something necessary to make him a Believer i. e. was a Believer and not a Believer at the same time But what those Articles were which had been Preach'd to those to whom the Epistles were writ and upon the Belief whereof they had been admitted into the Christian Church and became as they are called Believers Saints Faithful Elect c. could not be collected out of the Epistles This though it were my reason and must be a reason to every one who would make this Enquiry and the Unmasker quotes the place where I told him it was my reason Yet he according to his never erring Illumination flatly tells me p. 38. that it was not and adds Here then is want of Sincerity c. I must desire him therefore to prove what he says p. 38. viz. XV. That by the same Argument that I would perswade that the Fundamentals are not to be sought for in the Epistles he can prove that they are not to be sought for in the Gospels and in the Acts because even these were writ to those that believed And next I desire him to prove what he also says in the same Page viz. XVI That the Epistles being writ to those that believed was not an Argument that I did make use of He tells us p. 38. That it is the Argument whereby I would perswade and in the very same Page a few Lines lower says That it is not the Argument I did make use of Who but an arrant Unmasker would contradict himself so
he does not see this as there is Reason to excuse his Innocence 't would be no hard matter to demonstrate it If that were at present the Question between us But there are a great many other Propositions to be proved by him before we come to that new Matter of Debate But before I quit these Paragraphs I must go on with our Unmasker's Account and desire him to shew where it is XXV That I make it my Business to beat Men off from taking notice of any Divine Truths Next where it is XXVI That I cry down all Articles of Christian Faith but one Next how it appears XXVII That I will not suffer Mankind to look into Christianity Again where it is XXVIII That I labour industriously to keep People in Ignorance Or tell them That there is no necessity of knowing any other Doctrines of the Bible These and several others of the like strain particularly concerning One Article and the Epistles which are his common places are to be found in his 59. and 60. Pages And all this out of a Presumption that his System is the only Christianity And that if Men were not pressed and perswaded to receive that just every Article of it upon pain of Damnation Christianity would be lost And not to do this is to promote Ignorance and contemn the Bible But he fears where no fear is If his Orthodoxy be the truth and conformable to the Scriptures the laying the Foundation only where our Saviour and his Apostles have laid it will not overturn it And to shew him that it is so I desire him again to consider what I said in p. 8. of my Vindication Which because I do not remember he any where takes notice of in his Reply I will here offer again to his consideration Convince but Men of the Mission of Jesus Christ make them but see the Truth Simplicity and Reasonableness of what he himself hath taught and required to be believed by his Followers and you need not doubt but being once fully perswaded of his Doctrine and the Advantages which all Christians agree are received by him such Converts will not lay by the Scriptures But by a constant reading and study of them will get all the Light they can from this Divine Revelation and nourish themselves up in the words of Faith and good Doctrine as St. Paul speaks to Timothy If the reading and study of the Scripture were more pressed than it is and Men were fairly sent to the Bible to find their Religion and not the Bible put into their hands only to find the Opinions of their peculiar Sect or Party Christendom would have more Christians and those that are would be more knowing and more in the right than now they are That which hinders this is that select bundle of Doctrines which it has pleased every Sect to draw out of the Scriptures or their own inventions with an Omission and as our Unmasker would say a Contempt of all the rest These choice Truths as the Unmasker calls his are to be the standing Orthodoxy of that Party from which none of that Church must recede without the forfeiture of their Christianity and the loss of eternal Life But whilst People keep firm to these they are in the Church and the Way to Salvation Which in effect what is it but to incourage ignorance laziness and neglect of the Scriptures For what need they be at the pains of constantly reading the Bible Or perplex their Heads with considering and weighing what is there deliver'd when believing as the Church believes or saying after or not contradicting their Domine or Teacher serves the turn Further I desire it may be consider'd what Name that meer Mock-shew of recommending to Men the study of the Scripture deserves if when they read it they must understand it just as he that would be and they are too apt contrary to the Command of Christ to call their Master tells them If they find any thing in the Word of God that leads them into Opinions that he does not allow If any thing they meet with in Holy Writ seems to them to thwart or shake the received Doctrines the very proposing of their Doubts renders them suspected Reasoning about them and not acquiescing in what ever is said to them is interpreted want of due respect and deference to the Authority of their Spiritual Guides Disrepute and Censures follow And if in pursuance of their own Light they persist in what they think the Scripture teaches them they are turn'd out of the Church deliver'd to Sathan and no longer allow'd to be Christians And is thus a sincere and rightly directed study of the Scriptures that Men may understand and profit thereby incouraged This is the Consequence of Mens assuming to themselves a Power of declaring Fundamentals i. e. of setting up a Christianity of their own making For how else can they turn Men of as unblameable Lives as others of their Members out of the Church of Christ for so they count their Communion for Opinions unless those Opinions were concluded inconsistent with Christianity Thus Systems the Inventions of Men are turn'd into so many opposite Gospels and nothing is truth in each Sect but what just suits with them So that the Scripture serves but like a Nose of Wax to be turn'd and bent just as may sit the contrary Orthodoxies of different Societies For 't is these several Systems that to each Party are the just Standards of Truth and the meaning of the Scripture is to be measur'd only by them Whoever relinquishes any of those distinguishing Points immediately ceases to be a Christian. This is the Way that the Unmasker would have Truth and Religion preserv'd Light and Knowledge propagated But here too the differing Sects giving equal Authority to their own Orthodoxies will be quits with him For as far as I can observe the same Genius seems to influence them all even those who pretend most to freedom the Socinians themselves For when it is observed how positive and eager they are in their Disputes how forward to have their Interpretations of Scripture received for Authentick though to others in several places they seem very much strain'd How impatient they are of Contradiction and with what disrespect and roughness they often treat their Opposers May it not be suspected that this so visible warmth in their present Circumstances and Zeal for their Orthodoxy would had they the Power work in them as it does in others They in their turns would I fear be ready with their Set of Fundamentals which they would be as forward to impose on others as others have been to impose contrary Fundamentals on them This is and always will be the unavoidable effect of intruding on our Saviour's Authority and requiring more now as necessary to be believed to make a Man a Christian than was at first required by our Saviour and his Apostles What else can be expected among Christians but their tearing and being torn
have Suffer'd and risen again from the Dead and that Iesus was the Messiah Act. XVII 2 3. At Corinth That he REASON'D in the Synagogue every Sabbath and PERSWADED the Iews and the Greeks and TESTIFIED that Iesus was the Messiah XVIII 4 5. That Apollos mightily convinced the Iews SHEWING BY THE SCRIPTURES that Iesus was the Messiah XVIII 27. By these and the like places we may be satisfied what it was that the Apostles Taught and Preach'd even this one Proposition that Iesus was the Messiah For this was the sole Proposition they reason'd about this alone they testified and they shew'd out of the Scriptures and of this alone they endeavour'd to convince the Iews and the Greeks that believed one God So that it is plain from hence that St. Luke omitted nothing that the Apostles Taught and Preach'd none of those Doctrines that it was necessary to convince Unbelievers of to make them Christians Though he in most places omitted as was fit the Passages of Scripture which they alledg'd and the Arguments those inspired Preachers used to perswade Men to believe and imbrace that Doctrine Another convincing Argument to shew that St. Luke omitted none of those Fundamental Doctrines which the Apostles any where propos'd as necessary to be believed is from that different account he gives us of their Preaching in other places and to Auditors otherwise dispos'd Where the Apostles had to do with Idolatrous Heathens who were not yet come to the knowledge of the only true God there he tells us they propos'd also the Article of the one Invisible God Maker of Heaven and Earth And this we find recorded in him out of their Preaching to the Lystrians Act. XIV and to the Athenians Act. XVII In the later of which St. Luke to convince his Reader that he out of conciseness omits none of those Fundamental Articles that were any where propos'd by the Preachers of the Gospel as necessary to be believed to make Men Christians sets down not only the Article of Iesus the Messiah but that also of the one invisible God Creator of all things which if any necessary one might this of all other Fundamental Articles might by an Author that affected brevity with the fairest excuse have been omitted as being implied in that other of the Messiah ordained by God Indeed in the Story of what Paul and Barnabas said at Lystra the Article of the Messiah is not mention'd Not that St. Luke omitted that Fundamental Article where the Apostles taught it But they having here begun their Preaching with that of the one living God they had not as appears time to proceed farther and propose to them what yet remain'd to make them Christians But they were by the instigation of the Iews fallen upon and Paul stoned before he could come to open to them this other Fundamental Article of the Gospel This by the way shews the Unmasker's Mistake in his first Particular p. 74. where he says as he does here again in his second Particular which we are now examining that believing Iesus to be the Messiah is the first step to Christianity and therefore this rather than any other was propounded to be believed by all those whom either our Saviour or the Apostles invited to imbrace Christianity The contrary whereof appears here Where the Article of one God is proposed in the first place to those whose Unbelief made such a proposal necessary And therefore if his Reason which he uses again here p. 76. were good viz. That the Article of the Messiah is expresly mention'd alone because it is a leading Article and makes way for the rest this Reason would rather conclude for the Article of one God And that alone should be expresly mentioned instead of the other Since as he argues for the other p. 74. if they did not believe this in the first place viz. That there was one God there could be no hopes that they would attend unto any other Proposal relating to the Christian Religion The Vanity and Falshood of which reasoning viz. That the Article of Jesus the Messiah was every where propounded rather than any other because it was the leading Article we see in the History of St. Paul's Preaching to the Athenians St. Luke mentions more than one Article where more than one was propos'd by St. Paul though the first of them was that leading Article of one God which if not received in the first place there could be no hope they would attend to the rest Something the Unmasker would make of this Argument of a leading Article for want of a better though he knows not what In his first particular p. 74. he makes use of it to shew why there was but that one Article propos'd by the first Preachers of the Gospel and how well that succeeds with him we have seen For this is Demonstration that if there were but that one propos'd by our Saviour and the Apostles there was but that one necessary to be believed to make Men Christians Unless he will impiously say that our Saviour and the Apostles went about Preaching to no purpose For if they propos'd not all that was necessary to make Men Christians 't was in vain for them to Preach and others to Hear if when they heard and believ'd all that was propos'd to them they were not yet Christians For if any Article was omitted in the Proposal which was necessary to make a Man a Christian though they believed all that was proposed to them they could not yet be Christians unless a Man can from an Infidel become a Christian without doing what is necessary to make him a Christian. Further if his Argument of its being a leading Article proves that that alone was propos'd It is a Contradiction to give it as a Reason why it was set down alone by the Historian where it was not proposed alone by the Preacher but other necessary matters of Faith were propos'd with it unless it can be true that this Article of Iesus is the Messiah was propos'd alone by our Saviour and his Apostles because it was a leading Article and was mention'd alone in the History of what they preach'd because it was a leading Article though it were not propos'd alone but jointly with other necessary matters of Faith For this is the use he makes here again p. 76. of his leading Article under his second Particular viz. To shew why the Historians mention'd this necessary Article of Iesus the Messiah alone in places where the Preachers of the Gospel propos'd it not alone but with other necessary Articles But in this latter case it has no shew of a Reason at all It may be granted as reasonable for the Teachers of any Religion not to go any farther where they see the first Article which they propose is rejected where the leading Truth on which all the rest depends is not received But it can be no reason at all for an Historian who writes the History of these first Preachers
Christ's Death and Resurrection of those Substantial Articles i. e. that he should die and rise again But we read in the Acts and in the Epistles that these were formal Articles of Faith afterwards and are ever since necessary to compleat the Christian belief So as to other great Verities the Gospel increased by degrees and was not perfect at once Which furnishes us with a reason why most of the choicest and sublimest truths of Christianity are to be met with in the Epistles of the Apostles they being such Doctrines as were not clearly discover'd and open'd in the Gospels and the Acts. Thus far the Vnmasker I thought hitherto that the Covenant of Grace in Christ Jesus had been but one immutably the same But our Vnmasker here makes two or I know not how many For I cannot tell how to conceive that the Conditions of any Covenant should be changed and the Covenant remain the same Every change of Conditions in my apprehension makes a new and another Covenant We are not to think says the Vnmasker That all the necessary Doctrines of the Christian Religion were clearly publish'd to the World in our Saviour's time not but that all that were necessary for that time were publish'd But some which were necessary for the Succeeding one were not then discover'd or at least not fully Answ. The Unmasker constant to himself speaks here doubtfully and cannot tell whether he should say that the Articles necessary to Succeeding times were discover'd in our Saviour's time or no And therefore that he may provide himself a retreat in the doubt he is in he says they were not clearly publish'd they were not then discover'd or at least not fully But we must desire him to pull off his Mask and to that purpose 1 o. I ask him how he can tell that all the necessary Doctrines were obscurely published or in part discover'd for an obscure publishing a Discovery in part is opposed to and intimated in not clearly published not fully discover'd And if a clear and full Discovery be all that he denies to them I ask XXXVII Which those Fundamental Articles are which were obscurely publish'd but not fully discovered in our Saviour's time And next I shall desire him to tell me XXXVIII Whether there are any Articles necessary to be believed to make a Man a Christian that were not discover'd at all in our Saviour's time and which they are If he cannot shew these distinctly it is plain he talks at random about them But he has no clear and distinct conception of those that were publish'd or not publish'd clearly or obscurely discover'd in our Saviour's time It was necessary for him to say something for those his pretended necessary Articles which are not to be â—ound any where propos'd in the Preaching of our Saviour and his Apostles to their yet Unbelieving Auditors And therefore he says We are not to think all the necessary Doctrines of the Christian Religion were clearly published to the World in our Saviour's time But he barely says it without giving any Reason why we are not to think so It is enough that it is necessary to his Hypothesis He says we are not to think so and we are presently bound not to think so Else from another Man that did not usurp an Authority over our Thoughts it would have requir'd some Reason to make them think that something more was requir'd to make a Man a Christian after than in our Saviour's time For as I take it it is not a very probable much less a self-evident Proposition to be received without Proof That there was something necessary for that time to make a Man a Christian and something more that was necessary to make a Man a Christian in the succeeding time However since this great Master says we ought to think so let us in obedience think so as well as we can till he vouchsafes to give us some Reason to think that there was more requir'd to be believed to make a Man a Christian in the succeeding time than in our Saviour's This instead of removing does but increase the Difficulty For if more were necessary to be believed to make a Man a Christian after our Saviour's time than was during his life how comes it that no more was propos'd by the Apostles in their Preaching to Unbelievers for the making them Christians after our Saviour's Death than there was before Even this one Article that he was the Messiah For I desire the Unmasker to shew me any of those other Articles mentioned in his List except the Resurrection and Ascension of our Saviour which were intervening Matters of Fact evidencing him to be the Messiah that were propos'd by the Apostles after our Saviour's time to their Unbelieving Hearers to make them Christians This one Doctrine that Iesus was the Messiah was that which was propos'd in our Saviour's time to be believed as necessary to make a Man a Christian The same Doctrine was likewise what was propos'd afterwards in the Preaching of the Apostles to Unbelievers to make them Christians I grant this was more clearly propos'd after than in our Saviour's time But in both of them it was all that was propos'd to the Believers of one God to make them Christians Let him shew that there were any other propos'd in or after our Saviour's time to be believed to make Unbelievers Christians If he means by necessary Articles published to the World the other Doctrines contain'd in the Epistles I grant they are all of them necessary Articles to be believed by every Christian as far as he understands them But I deny that they were propos'd to those they were writ to as necessary to make them Christians for this demonstrative Reason Because they were Christians already For Example many Doctrines proving and explaining and giving a farther Light into the Gospel are publish'd in the Epistles to the Corinthians and Thessalonians These are all of Divine Authority and none of them may be disbelieved by any one who is a Christian But yet what was propos'd or publish'd to both the Corinthians and Thessalonians to make them Christians was only this Doctrine that Iesus was the Messiah As may be seen Act. XVII and XVIII This then was the Doctrine necessary to make men Christians in our Saviour's time And this the only Doctrine necessary to make Unbelievers Christians after our Saviour's time The only difference was that it was more clearly propos'd after than before his Ascension The Reason whereof has been sufficiently explain'd But any other Doctrine but this propos'd clearly or obscurely in or after our Saviour's time as necessary to be believed to make Unbelievers Christians That remains yet to be shewn When the Unmasker speaks of the Doctrines that were necessary for the succeeding time after our Saviour he is in doubt whether he should say they were or were not discover'd in our Saviour's time and how far they were then discover'd And therefore he says some of them were
not then â—â—â—cover'd or at least not fully We must here excuse the doubtfulness of his talking concerning the discovery of his other necessary Articles For how could he say they were discover'd or not discover'd clearly or obscurely fully or not fully when he does not yet know them all nor can tell us what those necessary Articles are If he does know them let him give us a List of them and then we shall see easily whether they were at all publish'd or discover'd in our Saviour's time If there are some of them that were not at all discover'd in our Saviour's time let him speak it out and leave shifting And if some of those that were not necessary for our Saviour's time but for the succeeding one only were yet discover'd in our Saviour's time why were they not necessary to be believed in that time But the truth is he knows not what these Doctrines necessary for Succeeding times are and therefore can say nothing positive about their Discovery And for those that he has set down as soon as he shall name any one of them to be of the number of those not necessary for our Saviour's time but necessary for the Succeeding one it will presently appear either that it was discover'd in our Saviour's time And then it was as necessary for his time as the Succeeding Or else that it was not discover'd in his time nor to several Converts after his time before they were made Christians And therefore it was no more necessary to be believed to make a Man a Christian in the Succeeding than it was in our Saviour's time However general Positions and Distinctions without a Foundation serve for shew and to beguile unwary and inattentive Readers 2 o. Having thus minded him that the Question is about Articles of Faith necessary to be explicitly and distinctly believed to make a Man a Christian I then in the next place demand of him to tell me XXXIX Whether or no all the Articles necessary now to be distinctly and explicitly believed to make any Man a Christian were distinctly and explicitly published or discover'd in our Saviour's time And then I shall desire to know of him XL. A Reason why they were not Those that he instances in of Christ's Death and Resurrection will not help him one jot For they are not new Doctrines revealed new Mysteries discovered but Matters of Fact which happen'd to our Saviour in their due time to compleat in him the Character and Predictions of the Messiah and demonstrate him to be the Deliverer promised These are recorded of him by the Spirit of God in holy Writ but are no more necessary to be believed to make a Man a Christian than any other part of Divine Revelation but as far as they have an immediate Connexion with his being the Messiah and cannot be denied without denying him to be the Messiah And therefore this Article of his Resurrection which supposes his Death and such other Propositions as are convertible with his being the Messiah are as they very well may be put for his being the Messiah and as I have shew'd propos'd to be believed in the place of it All that is reveal'd in Scripture has a consequential necessity of being believed by all those to whom it is propos'd Because it is of Divine Authority one part as much as another And in this sense all the Divine Truths in the inspired Writings are Fundamental and necessary to be believed But then this will destroy our Vnmasker's select Number of Fundamental Articles And the choicest and sublimest Truths of Christianity which he tells us are to be met with in the Epistles will not be more necessary to be believed than any which he may think the commonest or meanest Truths in any of the Epistles or the Gospels Whatsoever part of Divine Revelation whether reveal'd before or in or after our Saviour's time whether it contain according to the distinction of our Unmasker's nice palate choice or common sublime or not sublime Truths is necessary to be believed by every one to whom it is propos'd as far as he underâ—tands what is propos'd But God by Iesus Christ has entred into a Covenant of Grace with Mankind a Covenant of Faith instead of that of Works wherein some Truths are absolutely necessary to be explicitly believed by them to make Men Christians and therefore those Truths are necessary to be known and consequently necessary to be propos'd to them to make them Christians This is peculiar to them to make Men Christians For all Men as Men are under a necessary obligation to believe what God proposes to them to be believed But there being certain distinguishing Truths which belong to the Covenant of the Gospel which if Men know not they cannot be Christians and they being some of them such as cannot be known without being propos'd those and those only are the necessary Doctrines of Christianity I speak of without a knowledge of and assent to which no Man can be a Christian. To come therefore to a clear decision of this Controversie I desire the Unmasker to tell me XLI What those Doctrines are which are absolutely necessary to be proposed to every Man to make him a Christian XLII 1 o. Whether they are all the Truths of Divine Revelation contain'd in the Bible For I grant his Argument which in another place he uses for some of them and truly belongs to them all viz. That they were reveal'd and written there on purpose to be believed and that it is indispensibly necessary for Christians to believe them XLIII 2 o. Or whether it be only that one Article of Iesus being the Messiah which the History of our Saviour and his Apostles Preaching has with such a peculiar distinction every where propos'd XLIV 3 o. Or whether the Doctrines necessary to be propos'd to every one to make him a Christian be any set of Truths between these two And if he says this latter then I must ask him XLV What they are that we may see why those rather than any other contain'd in the New Testament are necessary to be propos'd to every Man to make him a Christian And if they are not every one propos'd to him and assented to by him he cannot be a Christian. The Vnmasker makes a great noise and hopes to give his unwary though well-meaning Readers odd Thoughts and strong Impressions against my Book by declaiming against my lank Faith and my narrowing of Christianity to one Article which as he says is the next way to reduce it to none But when it is consider'd it will be found that 't is he that narrows Christianity The Unmasker as if he were Arbiter and Dispenser of the Oracles of God takes upon him to single out some Texts of Scripture and where the words of Scripture will not serve his turn to impose on us his Interpretations and Deductions as necessary Articles of Faith which is in Effect to make them of equal Authority with the
declare which of the Doctrines deliver'd in Holy Writ are and which are not necessary to be believed with an additional Power to add others of his own that he cannot find there and the business is done For unless this be allow'd him his System cannot stand Unless his Interpretations be received for authentick Revelation we cannot have all Doctrines necessary for our time In truth we cannot be Christians For to this only what he says concerning the gradual discovery of the Doctrines of the Gospel tends We are not to think says he that all the necessary Doctrines of the Christian Religion were clearly publish'd to the World in our Saviour's time Not but that all that were necessary for that time were publish'd But some that were necessary for the succeeding one were not then discover'd or at least not fully I must here ask the Unmasker a short Question or two as First XLVI Are not all the Doctrines necessary for our time contain'd in his System Next XLVII Can all the Doctrines necessary for our time be propos'd in the express words of the Scripture When he has answer'd these two plain Questions and an Answer to them I shall expect the World will then see what he designs by Doctrines necessary for our Saviour's time and Doctrines necessary for succeeding times whether he means any thing else by it but the setting up his System as the exact Standard of the Gospel and the true and unalterable Measure of Christianity in which it has climbed to its height Let not good and sincere Christians be deceived nor perplexed by this Maker of another Christianity than what the infallible Spirit of God has lest us in the Scriptures 'T is evident from thence that whoever takes Iesus the Messiah for his King with a Resolution to live by his Laws and does sincerely repent as often as he transgresses any of them is his Subject All such are Christians What they are to know or believe more concerning him and his Kingdom when they are his Subjects he has left upon Record in the great and Sacred Code and Constitutions of his Kingdom I mean in the Holy Scriptures All that is contain'd therein as coming from the God of Truth they are to receive as Truth and imbrace as such But since it is impossible explicitly to believe any Proposition of the Christian Doctrine but what men understand or in any other sense than we understand it to have been deliver'd in An explicit belief is or can be required in no Man of more than what he understands of that Doctrine And thus whatsoever upon fair Endeavours he understands to be contain'd in that Doctrine is necessary to him to be believed Nor can he continue a Subject of Christ upon other terms What he is perswaded is the meaning of Christ his King in any Expression he finds in the Sacred Code That by his Allegiance he is bound to submit his Mind to receive for true or else he denies the Authority of Christ and refuses to believe him nor can be excused by calling any one on Earth Master And hence it is evidently impossible for a Christian to understand any Text in one sence and believe it in another by whomsoever dictated All that is contain'd in the inspired Writings is all of Divine Authority must all be allow'd for such and received for Divine and infallible Truth by every Subject of Christ's Kingdom i. e. every Christian. How comes then the Unmasker to distinguish these Dictates of the Holy Spirit into necessary and not necessary Truths I desire him to produce his Commission whereby he hath the Power given him to tell which of the Divine Truths contain'd in the Holy Scripture are of necessity to be believed and which not Who made him a Judge or Divider between them Who gave him this Power over the Oracles of God to set up one and debase another at his pleasure Some as he thinks sit are the choicest Truths And what I beseech him are the other Who made him a Chuser where no body can pick and chuse Every proposition there as far as any Christian can understand it is indispensibly necessary to be believed And farther than he does understand it it is impossible for him to believe it The Laws of Christ's Kingdom do not require Impossibilities for they are all reasonable just and good Some of the Truths delivered in Holy Writ are very plain 'T is impossible I think to mistake their Meaning And those certainly are all necessary to be explicitely believ'd Others have more Difficulty in them and are not easy to be understood Is the Unmasker appointed Christ's Vicegerent here or the Holy Ghost's Interpreter with Authority to pronounce which of these are necessary to be believ'd and in what Sense and which not The Obscurity that is to be found in several passages of the Scripture the difficulties that cover and perplex the meaning of several Texts demand of every Christian Study Diligence and Attention in reading and hearing the Scriptures in comparing and examining them and receiving what light he can from all manner of helps to understand these Books wherein are contain'd the Words of Life This the Unmaker and every one is to do for himself and thereby find out what is necessary for him to believe But I do not know that the Unmasker is to understand and interpret for me more than I for him If he has such a power I desire him to produce it Till then I can acknowledge no other infallible but that guide which he directs me to himself here in these Words According to our Saviour's promise the Holy Ghost was to be sent in a special manner to enlighten mens minds and to discover to them the great mysteries of Christianity For whether by men he here means those on whom the Holy Ghost was so eminently poured out Act. II. Or whether he means by these Words that special Assistance of the Holy Ghost whereby particular men to the end of the World are to be lead into the Truth by opening their understandings that they may understand the Scriptures for he always loves to speak doubtfully and indefinitely I know no other infallible guide but the Spirit of God in the Scriptures Nor has God left it in my choice to take any Man for such If he had I should think the Unmasker the unlikeliest to be he and the last Man in the World to be chosen for that Guide And herein I appeal to any sober Christian who hath read what the Unmasker has with so little Truth and Decency for 't is not always mens fault if they have not Sense writ upon this Question whether he would not be of the same mind But yet as very an Unmasker as he is he will be extremely apt to call you Names nay to declare you no Christian and boldly affirm you have no Christianity if you will not swallow it just as it is of his Cooking You must take it just as he has been
Man a Christian. Is there any contradiction in it to say There are many Points besides these which Jesus Christ hath taught and revealed which every sincere Christian is indispensibly obliged to endeavour to understand If this be not so It is but for any one to be perfect in Mr. Edward's Creed and then he may lay by the Bible and from thenceforth he is absolutely dispensed with from studying or understanding any thing more of the Scripture But Mr. Edwards's Supremacy is not yet so far established that he will dare to say That Christians are not obliged to endeavour to understand any other Points revealed in the Scripture but what are contained in his Creed He cannot yet well Discard all the rest of the Scripture because he has yet need of it for the compleating of his Creed which is like to secure the Bible to us for some time yet For I will be answerable for it he will not be quickly able to resolve what Texts of the Scripture do and what do not contain Points necessary to be believed So that I am apt to imagine that the Creed-maker upon Second Thoughts will allow that Saying There is but One or there are but Twelve or there are but as many as he shall set down when he has resolved which they shall be necessary to the making a Man a Christian and the saying There are other Points besides contained in the Scripture which every sincere Christian is indispensibly obliged to endeavour to understand and must believe when he knows them to be revealed by Jesus Christ are two Propositions that may consist together without a Contradiction Every Christian is to partake of that Bread and that Cup which is the Communion of the Body and Blood of Christ. And is not every sincere Christian indispensibly obliged to endeavour to understand these Words of our Saviour's Institutions This is my Body and This is my Blood And if upon his serious Endeavour to do it he does understand them in a literal sence that Christ meant that that was really his Body and Blood and nothing else must he not necessarily believe that the Bread and Wine in the Lord's Supper is changed really into his Body and Blood though he doth not know how Or if having his Mind set otherwise he understands the Bread and Wine to be really the Body and Blood of Christ without ceasing to be true Bread and Wine Or else if he understands them that the Body and Blood of Christ are verily and indeed given and received in the Sacrament in a Spiritual manner Or lastly If he understands our Saviour to mean by those words only the Bread and Wine to be a Representation of his Body and Blood In which was soever of these Four a Christian understands these words of our Saviour to be meant by him is he not obliged in that sence to believe them to be true and assent to them Or can he be a Christian and understand these words to be meant by our Saviour in one sence and deny his assent to them as true in that sence Would not this be to deny our Saviour's Veracity and consequently his being the Messiah sent from God And yet this is put upon a Christian where he understands the Scripture in one sence and is required to believe it in another From all which it is evident that to say there is One or any Number of Articles necessary to be known and believed to make a Man a Christian and that there are others contained in the Scripture which a Man is obliged to endeavour to understand and obliged also to assent to as he does understand them is no Contradiction To believe Jesus to be the Messiah and to take him to be his Lord and King let us suppose to be that only which is necessary to make a Man a Christian May it not yet be necessary for him being a Christian to study the Doctrine and Law of this his Lord and King and believe that all that he delivered is true Is there any Contradiction in holding of this But this Creed-maker to make sure Work and not to sail of a Contradiction in Mr. Bold's words misrepeats them p. 241. and quite contrary both to what they are in the Sermon and what they are as set down by the Creed-maker himself in the immediately preceding Page Mr. Bold says There are other Points that Jesus Christ hath taught and revealed which every sincere Christian is indispensibly obliged to understand and which being known to be revealed by Christ he must indispensibly assent to From which the Creed-maker argues thus p. 240. Now if there be other Points and particular Articles and those many which a sincere Christian is obliged and that necessarily and indispensibly to understand believe and assent to then this Writer hath in effect yielded to that Proposition I maintained viz. That the belief of one Article is not sufficient to make a Man a Christian and consequently he runs counter to the Proposition he had laid down Is there no difference I beseech you between being indispensibly obliged to endeavour to understand and being indispensibly obliged to understand any Point T is the first of these Mr. Bold says and 't is the latter of these you argue from and so conclude nothing against him nor can you to your purpose For till Mr. Bold says which he is far from saying that every sincere Christian is necessarily and indispensibly obliged to understand all those Texts of Scripture from whence you shall have drawn your necessary Articles when you have perfected your Creed in the same sence that you do you can conclude nothing against what he hath said concerning that one Article or any thing that looks like running Counter to it For it may be enough to constitute a Man a Christian and one of Christ's Subjects to take Iesus to be the Messiah his appointed King and yet without a Contradiction so that it may be his indispensible Duty as a Subject of that Kingdom to endeavour to understand all the Dictates of his Soveraign and to assent to the Truth of them as far as he understands them But that which the good Creed-maker aims at without which all his necessary Articles fall is that it should be granted him that every sincere Christian was necessarily and indispensibly obliged to understand all those parts of Divine Revelation from whence he pretends to draw his Articles in their true meaning i. e. just as he does But his infallibility is not yet so established but that there will need some proof of that Proposition And when he has proved that every sincere Christian is necessarily and indispensibly obliged to understand those Texts in their true meaning and that his Interpretation of them is that true meaning I shall then ask him whether every sincere Christian is not as necessarily and indispensibly obliged to understand other Texts of Scripture in their true meaning though they have no place in his System For
as well as great Impudence of putting his Name in Print to what is not his or taking it away from what he hath set it to whether it belongs to his Bookseller or Answerer Onely I cannot pass by the palpable falsifying of Mr. B d's Words in the beginning of his Epistle to the Reader without mention Mr. B d's Words are Whereby I came to be furnished with a truer and more just Notion of the main Design of that TREATISE and the Good Creed-maker set them down thus The main Design of MY OWN TREATISE OR SERMON A sure way for such a Champion for Truth to secure to himself the Laurel or the Whetstone This irresistible Disputant who silences all that come in his way so that those that would cannot answer him to make good the mighty Encomiums he has given himself ought one would think to clear all as he goes and leave nothing by the way unanswered for fear he should fall into the Number of those poor baffled Wretches whom he with so much scorn reproaches that they would answer if they could Mr. B d begins his Animadversions with this Remark that our Creed-maker had said That I give it over and over again in these formal Words viz. That nothing is required to be believed by any Christian Man but this That Iesus is the Messiah To which Mr. B d replies p. 4. in these Words Though I have read over the Reasonableness of Christianity c. with some Attention I have not observed those formal Words in any part of that Book nor any Words that are capable of that Construction provided they be consider'd with the Relation they have to and the manifest Dependance they have on what goes before or follows after them But to this Mr. Edwards answers not Whether it was because he would not or because he could not let the Reader judge But this is down upon his Score already and it is expected he should answer to it or else confess that he cannot And that there may be a fair Decision of this Dispute I expect the same Usage from him that he should set down any Proposition of his I have not answer'd to and call on me for an Answer if I can And if I cannot I promise him to own it in Print The Creed-maker had said That it is most evident to any thinking and considerate Person that I purposely omit the Epistolary Writings of the Apostles because they are fraught with other Fundamental Doctrines besides that which I mention To this Mr. B d answers p. 5. That if by Fundamental Articles Mr. Edwards means here all the Propositions delivered in the Epistles concerning just those particular Heads he Mr. Edwards had there mentioned it lies upon him to prove That Jesus Christ hath made it necessary that every Person must have an explicit Knowledge and Belief of all those before he can be a Christian. But to this Mr. Edwards answers not And yet without an Answer to it all his Talk about Fundamentals and those which he pretended to set down in that place under the Name of Fundamentals will signifie nothing in the present case Wherein by Fundamentals were meant such Propositions which every Person must necessarily have an explicit Knowledge and Belief of before he can be a Christian. Mr. B d in the same place p. 6 and 7. very truly and pertinently adds That it did not pertain to my undertaking to enquire what Doctrines either in the Epistles or the Evangelists and the Acts were of greatest moment to be understood by them who are Christians but what was necessary to be known and believed to a Person 's being a Christian. For there are many important Doctrines both in the Gospels and in the Acts besides this That Iesus is the Messiah But how many soever the Doctrines be which are taught in the Epistles if there be no Doctrine besides this That Iesus is the Messiah taught there as necessary to be believed to make a Man a Christian all the Doctrines taught there will not make any thing against what this Author has asserted nor against the Method he hath observed Especially considering we have an Account in the Acts of the Apostles of what those Persons by whom the Epistles were writ did teach as necessary to be believed to Peoples being Christians This and what Mr. B d subjoins That it was not my design to give an Abstract of any of the inspired Books is so true and has so clear Reason in it that any but this Writer would have thought himself concerned to have answered something to it But to this Mr. Edwards answers not It not being it seems a Creed-maker's Business to convince Mens Understanding by Reason but to impose on their Belief by Authority or where that is wanting by Falshoods and Bauling And to such Mr. Bold observes well p. 8. that if I had given the like Account of the Epistles that would have been as little satisfactory as what I have done already to those who are resolved not to distinguish BETWIXT WHAT IS NECESSARY TO BE BELIEVED TO MAKE A MAN A CHRISTIAN AND THOSE ARTICLES WHICH ARE TO BE BELIEVED BY THOSE WHO ARE CHRISTIANS as they can attain to know that Christ hath taught them This Distinction the Creed-maker no where that I remember takes any Notice of unless it be p. 255. where he has something relating hereunto which we shall consider when we come to that place I shall now go on to shew what Mr. Bold has said to what he answers not Mr. Bold farther tells him p. 10. That if he will prove any thing in Opposition to the Reasonableness of Christianity c. it must be this That Jesus Christ and his Apostles have taught that the Belief of some one Article or certain Number of Articles distinct from this That Iesus is the Messiah either as exclusive of or in Conjunction with the Belief of this Article doth constitute and make a Person a Christian But that the Belief of this that Jesus is the Messias alone doth not make a Man a Christian But to this Mr. Edwards irresragably answers nothing Mr. Bold also p. 10. Charges him with his falsly accusing me in these words He pretends to contend for one single Article with the exclusion of all the rest for this reason because all Men ought to understand their Religion And again where he says I aim at this viz. That we must not have any Point of Doctrine in our Religion that the Mob doth not at the very first naming of it perfectly understand and agree to Mr. Bold has quoted my express words to the contrary But to this this answerable Gentleman answers nothing But if he be such a mighty Disputant that nothing can stand in his way I shall expect his direct Answer to it among those other Propositions which I have set down to his Score and I require him to prove if he can The Creed-maker spends Five Pages of his Reflections in a great stir
indispensible necessity Mr. Bold speaks of is not absolute but conditional His words are A Christian must believe as many Articles as he shall attain to know that Iesus Christ hath taught So that he places the indispensible necessity of Believing upon the condition of attaining to know that Christ taught so An endeavour to know what Iesus Christ taught Mr. B dsays truely is absolutely necessary to every one who is a Christian and to believe what he has attained to know that Iesus Christ taught that also he says is absolutely necessary to every Christian. But all this granted as true it is it still remains and eternally will remain to be proved from this which is all that Mr. Bold says that something else is absolutely required to make a Man a Christian besides the unfeigned taking Iesus to be the Messiah his King and Lord and accordingly a sincere resolution to obey and believe all that he commanded and taught The Jailor Acts XVI 30. in Answer to his Question what he should do to be saved was answer'd That he should believe in the Lord Iesus Christ. And the Text says that the Jailor took them the same hour of the night and washed their stripes and was baptized he and all his straight-way Now I will ask our Creed-maker whether St. Paul in speaking to him the Word of the Lord proposed and explained to him all those Propositions and Fundamental Heads of Doctrine which our Creed-maker has set down as necessary to be believed to make a Man a Christian. Let it be consider'd the Jailor was a Heathen and one that seems to have no more Sense of Religion or Humanity than those of that Calling use to have For he had let them alone under the Pain of their Stripes without any Remedy or so much as the ease of washing them from the Day before till after his Conversion which was not till after Midnight And can any one think that between his asking what he should do to be saved and his being baptized which the Text says was the same hour and straightway there was time enough for St. Paul and Silas to explain to him all the Creed-maker's Articles and make such a Man as that and all his house understand the Creed-maker's whole System especially since we hear nothing of it in the Conversion of these or any others who were brought into the Faith in the whole History of the Preaching of our Saviour and the Apostles Now let me ask our Creed-maker whether the Jailor was not a Christian when he was baptized and whether if he had then immediately died he had not been saved without the Belief of any one Article more than what Paul and Silas had then â—aught him Whence it follows that what was then proposed to him to be believed which appears to be nothing but that Iesus was the Messiah was all that was absolutely necessary to be believed to make him a Christian though this hinders not but that afterwards it might be necessary for him indispensibly necessary to believe other Articles when he attained to the Knowledge that Christ had taught them And the reason of it is plain Because the knowing that Christ taught any thing and the not receiving it for true which is believing it is inconsistent with the believing him to be the Messiah sent from God to inlighten and save the World Every word of Divine Revelation is absolutely and indispensibly necessary to be believed by every Christian as soon as he comes to know it to be taught by our Saviour or his Apostles or to be of Divine Revelation But yet this is far enough from making it absolutely necessary to every Christian to know every Text in the Scripture much less to understand every Text in the Scripture and least of all to understand it as the Creed-maker is pleased to put his sence upon it This the good Creed-maker either will not or cannot understand But gives us a List of Articles culled out of the Scripture by his own Authority and tells us those are absolutely necessary to be believed by every one to make him a Christian. For what is of absolute Necessity in Christianity as those he says are he tells us is absolutely requisite to make a Man a Christian. But when he is asked whether these are all the Articles of absolute Necessity to be believed to make a Man a Christian This worthy Divine that takes upon him to be a Successor of the Apostles cannot tell And yet having taken upon him also to be a Creed-maker he must suffer himself to be called upon for it again and again till he tells us what is of absolute Necessity to be believed to make a Man a Christian or confess that he cannot In the mean time I take the liberty to say That every Proposition delivered in the New Testament by our Saviour or his Apostles and so received by any Christian as of Divine Revelation is of as absolute necessity to be assented to by him in the Sence he understands it to be taught by them as any one of those Propositions enumerated by the Creed-maker And if he thinks otherwise I shall desire him to prove it The Reason whereof is this that in divine Revelation the ground of Faith being onely the Authority of the Proposer where that is the same there is no difference in the Obligation or Measure of believing Whatever the Messiah that came from God taught is equally to be believed by every one who receives him as the Messiah as soon as he understands what it was he taught There is no such thing as garbling his Doctrine and making one part of it more necessary to be believed than another when it is understood His saying is and must be of unquestionable Authority to all that receive him as their heavenly King and carries with it an equal Obligation of assent to all that he says as true But since no Body can explicitly assent to any Proposition of our Saviour's as true but in the Sence he understands our Saviour to have spoken it in the same Authority of the Messiah his King obliges every one absolutely and indispensibly to believe every part of the New Testament in that Sence he understands it For else he rejects the Authority of the Deliverer if he refuses his Assent to it in that Sence which he is perswaded it was delivered in But the taking him for the Messiah his King and Lord laying upon every one who is his Subject and Obligation to endeavour to know his Will in all things every true Christian is under an absolute and indispensible necessity by being his Subject to study the Scriptures with an unprejudiced mind according to that Measure of Time Opportunity and Helps which he has that in these sacred Writings he may find what his Lord and Master hath by himself or by the Mouths of his Apostles required of him either to be believed or done The Creed-maker in the following Page 256. hath these Words
vouchsafed to set down you tell us are in the Bible on purpose to be believed What must become of all the rest which you have omitted Are they there not to be believed And must the Reader understand your passing them by to be a publishing to the World your contempt of them If so you have Unmasked your self If not but you may pass by some parts of Scripture nay whole Epistles as you have those of St. Iames and St. Iude without contempt Why may not I without contempt pass by others But because you have a liberty to do what you will and I must do but what you in your good pleasure will allow me But if I ask you whence you have this Privilege above others You will have nothing to say except it be according to your usual Skill in Divining that you know my Heart and the Thoughts that are in it which you find not like yours right and orthodox and good But always evil and perverse such as I dare not own but hypocritically either say nothing of or declare against But yet with all my cunning I cannot hide them from you your all knowing penetration always finds them out You know them or you guess at them as is best for your turn and that 's as good And then presently I am confounded I doubt whether the World has ever had any two-eyed Man your equal for penetration and a quick sight The telling by the Spectators looks what Card he guesses is nothing to what you can do You take the heighth of an Author's Parts by numbring the Pages of his Book You can spy an Heresy in him by his saying not a syllable of it Distinguish him from the Orthodox by his understanding places of Scripture just as several of the Orthodox do You can repeat by heart whole Leaves of what is in his Mind to say before he speaks a word of it You can discover Designs before they are hatch'd and all the Intrigues of carrying them on by those who never thought of them All this and more you can do by the Spirit of Orthodoxy or which is as certain by your own good Spirit of Invention informing you Is not this to be an errant Conjurer But to your Reply You say after my TEDIOUS Collection out of the four Evangelists my passing by the Epistles and neglecting wholly what the Apostles say c. I wondred at first why you mention'd not the Acts here as well as the four Evangelists For I have not as you have in other places observed been sparing of Collections out of the Acts too But there was it seems a Necessity here for your omitting it For that would have stood too near what followed in these words and neglecting wholly what the Apostles say For if it appear'd to the Reader out of your own Confession that I allowed and built upon the Divine Authority of what the Apostles say in the Acts he could not so easily be mislead into an Opinion that I contemned what they say in their Epistles But this is but a slight touch of your Leger-de-main And now I ask the Reader what he will think of a Minister of the Gospel who cannot bear the Texts of Scripture I have produced nor my Quotations out of the four Evangelists This which in his Thoughts of the Causes of Atheism p. 114. was want of Vivacity and Elevation of Mind want of a Vein of Sense and Reason yea and of Elocution too is here in his Socinianism Unmask'd a tedious Collection out of the four Evangelists Those places I have quoted lie heavy it seems upon his Stomach and are too many to be got off But it was my business not to omit one of them that the Reader might have a full view of the whole tenour of the Preaching of our Saviour and his Apostles to the Unconverted Iews and Gentiles and might therein see what Faith they were Converted to and upon their assent to which they were pronounced Believers and admitted into the Christian Church But the Unmasker complains there are too many of them He thinks the Gospel the good News of Salvation tedious from the Mouth of our Saviour and his Apostles He is of opinion That before the Epistles were writ and without believing precisely what he thinks â—it to cull out of them there could be no Christians And if we had nothing but the four Evangelists we could not be saved And yet 't is plain that every single one of the Four contains the Gospel of Iesus Christ and at least they all together contain all that is necessary to Salvation If any one doubt of this I referr him to Mr. Chillingworth for Satisfaction who hath abundantly proved it His following words were he not the same Unmasker all through would be beyond Parallel But let us hear why the Vindicator did not attempt to Collect any Articles out of these Writings He assigns this as one Reason The Epistles being writ to those who were already Believers it could not be supposed that they were writ to them to teach them Fundamentals p. 13 14. Vindic. Certainly no Man would have conjectured that he would have used such an Evasion as this I will say that for him he goes beyond all surmises he is above all Conjectures he hath a faculty which no Creature on Earth can ever fathom Thus far the Unmasker in his Oratorical strain In what follows he comes to his closer reasoning against what I had said His words are Do we not know that the four Gospels were writ to and for Believers as well as Unbelievers Answ. I grant it Now let us see your Inference Therefore what these holy Historians recorded that our Saviour and his Apostles said and preach'd to Unbelievers was said and preach'd to Believers The Discourse which our Saviour had with the Woman of Samaria and her Townsmen was addressed to Believers because St. Iohn writ his Gospel wherein it is recorded as a part of our Saviour's History for Believers as well as Unbelievers St. Peter's Preaching to Cornelius and St. Paul's Preaching at Antioch at Thessalonica at Corinth c. was not to Unbelievers for their Conversion Because St. Luke dedicates his History of the Acts of the Apostles to Theophilus who was a Christian as the Unmasker strenuously proves in this Paragraph Just as if he should say that the Discourses which Caesar records he had upon several Occasions with the Gauls were not addressed to the Gauls alone but to the Romans also because his Commentaries were writ for the Romans as well as others Or that the Sayings of the Ancient Greeks and Romans in Plutarch were not spoke by them to their Contemporaries only because they are recorded by him for the benefit of Posterity I perused the Preachings of our Saviour and his Apostles to the Unconverted World to see what they taught and required to be believed to make Men Christians And these all I set down and leave the World to be judge what they contain'd The
unquestionable Word of God And thus partly in the words of the Scripture and partly in words of his own he makes a Set of Fundamentals with an Exclusion of all the other Truths deliver'd by the Spirit of God in the Bible Though all the rest be of the same Divine Authority and Original and ought therefore all equally as far as they are understood by every Christian to be believed I tell him and I desire him to take notice of it God has no where given him an Authority thus to garble the inspired Writings of the Holy Scriptures Every part of it is his Word and ought every part of it to be believed by every Christian Man according as God shall inable him to understand it It ought not to be narrowed to the Cut of the Vnmasker's peculiar System 'T is a Presumption of the highest Nature for him thus to pretend according to his own Phancy to establish a Set of Fundamental Articles This is to diminish the Authority of the Word of God to set up his own and create a reverence to his System from which the several parts of Divine Revelations are to receive their Weight Dignity and Authority Those Passages of Holy Writ which suit with that are Fundamental Choice Sublime and Necessary The rest of the Scripture as of no great moment is not Fundamental is not necessary to be believed may be neglected or must be tortur'd to comply with an Analogy of Faith of his own making But though he pretend to a certain Set of Fundamentals yet to shew the Vanity and Impudence of that pretence he cannot tell us which they are and therefore in vain contends for a Creed he knows not and is yet no where He neither does and which is more I tell him he never can give us a Collection of his Fundamentals gather'd upon his Principles out of the Scripture with the rejection of all the rest as not Fundamental He does not observe the difference there is between what is necessary to be believed by every Man to make him a Christian and what is requir'd to be believed by every Christian. The first of these is what by the Covenant of the Gospel is necessary to be known and consequently to be propos'd to every Man to make him a Christian The latter is no less than the whole Revelation of God all the Divine Truths contain'd in Holy Scripture which every Christian Man is under a necessity to believe so far as it shall please God upon his serious and constant endeavours to enlighten his Mind to understand them The Preaching of our Saviour and his Apostles has sufficiently taught us what is necessary to be propos'd to every Man to make him a Christian. He that believes him to be the promised Messiah takes Iesus for his King and repenting of his former Sins sincerely resolves to live for the future in obedience to his Laws is a Subject of his Kingdom is a Christian. If he be not I desire the Unmasker to tell me what more is requisite to make him so Till he does that I rest satisfied that this is all that was at first and is still necessary to make a Man a Christian. This though it be contain'd in a few words and those not hard to be understood though it be in one voluntary act of the Mind relinquishing all irregular Courses and submitting it self to the rule of him whom God had sent to be our King and promised to be our Saviour Yet it having relation to the Race of Mankind from the First Man Adam to the End of the World it being a Contrivance wherein God has displaid so much of his Wisdom and Goodness to the corrupt and lost Sons of Men and it being a Design to which the Almighty had a peculiar regard in the whole Constitution and Oeconomy of the Iews as well as in the Prophecies and History of the Old Testament This was a Foundation capable of large Superstructures 1. In explaining the Occasion Necessity Use and End of his coming 2. Next in proving him to be the Person promis'd by a Correspondence of his Birth Life Sufferings Death and Resurrection to all those Prophecies and Types of him which had given the expectation of such a Deliverer and to those Descriptions of him whereby he might be known when he did come 3. In the discovery of the Sort Constitution Extent and Management of his Kingdom 4. In shewing from what we are deliver'd by him and how that Deliverance is wrought out and what are the Consequences of it These and a great many more the like afford great numbers of Truths deliver'd both in the Historical Epistolary and Prophetical Writings of the New Testament wherein the Mysteries of the Gospel hidden from former Ages were discover'd and that more fully I grant after the pouring out of the Holy Ghost upon the Apostles But could no body take Christ for their promised King and resolve to obey him unless he understood all the Truths that concern'd his Kingdom or as I may say Mysteries of State of it The truth of the contrary is manifest out of the plain and uniform Preaching of the Apostles after they had received the Holy Ghost that was to guide them into all Truth Nay after the writing of those Epistles wherein were contain'd the Unmasker's Sublimest Truths They every where propos'd to Unbelievers Iesus the Messiah to be their King Ordain'd of God and to this join'd Repentance And this alone they Preach'd for the Conversion of their Unbelieving Hearers As soon as any one assented to this he was pronounced a Believer And these inspired Rulers of the Church these infallible Preachers of the Gospel admitted him into Christ's Kingdom by Baptism And this after long after our Saviour's Ascension when as our Unmasker expresses it the Holy Ghost was to be sent in a special manner to enlighten mens Minds and to discover to them the great Mysteries of Christianity even as long as the Apostles lived And what others were to do who afterwards were to Preach the Gospel St. Paul tells us 1 Cor. III. 11. Other foundation can no man lay than that is laid even Iesus the Messiah Though upon this Foundation Men might build variously things that would or would not hold the touch Yet however as long as they kept firm to this Foundation they should be saved as appears in the following Verses And indeed if all the Doctrines of the Gospel which are contain'd in the Writings of the Apostles and Evangelists were necessary to be understood and explicitly believed in the true sense of those that deliver'd them to make a Man a Christian I doubt whether ever any one even to this day was a true Christian Though I believe the Unmasker will not deny but that e're this Christianity as he expresses it is by certain steps climbed to its height But for this the Unmasker has found a convenient and wise remedy 'T is but for him to have the Power to