those things bears a Proportion to the Reasons we have to be satisfied of his Credibility and depends not at all on our forming clear and distinct Notions of the things themselves much less on our adjusting what he saith to the Notions we have of other things which are perfectly of another Nature The main Business of Antiquity with relation to these Doctrines is either 1st To shew upon what Occasion other Words than those in which Christ and his Apostles delivered these Doctrines were made use of in asserting and teaching them Or 2dly To shew that the Primitive Christians did manifest that they did believe the Words in which Christ and his Apostles delivered these Doctrines do comprehend a great deal more than what the Opposers of the Divinity of Christ and of the Holy Ghost pretend is the full Sense of them Or 3dly To shew that the Sense in which we understand the Terms in which we ordinarily speak of these Doctrines was the agreed and settled Sense of them in the Christian Church when these Terms were fixed on to be ordinarily used in discoursing of and professing our Belief of these Doctrines Thus the Discourses about Reason and Antiquity do not immediately reach these Doctrines as Christ hath taught them but the way of expressing them when we deliver our selves concerning them in other Words than Christ hath done When we use other Terms in speaking of these Doctrines than Christ hath delivered them in our Words are accommodated to the natural Notions we have of Things And tho these Notions comprehend much more than the Notions do which we oppose yet they do not contain the whole Meaning of Christ as delivered in the Words he hath used for that far surpasses our Capacities So that when all is done we must come to this at last to believe these Doctrines as Christ hath delivered them and for this very Reason because he hath taught them Now before a Person can be brought to this he must believe that Jesus is the Messias And if the due Belief that Jesus is the Messias doth not constitute a Man a Christian I cannot imagine how the Belief of other Articles can constitute him a Christian seeing that Belief is the formal Reason of his believing the other Articles and his believing other Articles is no more but a repeated Belief of that Article in proportion to the Occasions which are administred to him for it Produce as large a Proof as is possible that the Church hath all along taught such a Doctrine that she hath taught it in such Words that she understood those Words in such a Sense before a Person can be satisfied regularly that he is obliged to believe it he must be convinced that Jesus is the Messias and he must be satisfied that that Jesus hath taught it The like may be said as to Reason When you have produced as many Reasons as you can that there may be more Subsistencies than one in the Divine Nature you can neither prove the Necessity nor the Certainty nor the Number of them by Reason But as to all these Matters the Testimony of the Messias must determine our Belief Our Reason doth not only fall short as to the manner how these things are but also as to the Truth and Certainty of them And our Reason cannot assure us that this is all that is imported by and comprehended in the Words in which the Messias hath delivered his Doctrines Mr. Edwards in his Socinian Creed p. 130. doth stile the Proposition discoursed of tho he words it otherwise than it ought to be A Mushroom Notion that hath no Root and Foundation and saith It is probable it will soon decay and come to nothing But this Notion is not of such a late Original as he pretends if Christ and his Apostles are to be credited concerning it And tho I pay Mr. Edwards a great Deference yet I must declare I cannot but prefer their Word to his It is so far from having no Root and Foundation that it is the Root of the New Testament and the Foundation on which the Christian Church is built And whereas be saith It is probable it will soon decay and come to nothing Probabilities are of little Weight when placed in the Ballance against Certainties I am perswaded it will continue safe to the end of the World because the Messias hath undertaken that the Gates of Hell shall not prevail against it Mat. 16.18 If all the Deists Scepticks Socinians c. in the World should pretend to approve of the Proposition discoursed of and that they do believe that Jesus is the Messias I shall not renounce the Proposition on that account But if they continue regardless of oppose or refuse to endeavour to understand and believe the particular Doctrines the Messias hath taught I will maintain in opposition to them all that they do not believe that Jesus is the Messias with such a Faith as is necessary to make a Man a Christian Tho I think I am not mistaken about the Point debated yet I will attend diligently to Scripture and Reason and endeavour to yield a just Submission to them tho offered by the meanest Man living But if Imperious Ramble shall drop from the Learnedest Person in the whole Vniverse touching this Matter it will not be honoured with either of those Titles but be utterly disregarded by Reader Your Faithful Servant S. BOLD A Brief Reply to Mr. Edwards's Brief Reflections c. THE Reverend Mr. Edwards hath caused a Postscript to be tack'd to his Socinian Creed intituled Brief Reflections on a short Discourse of the true Knowledg of Christ Jesus c. That Reverend Author amongst his other Excellencies is taken notice of for his Skill in Critical Learning which requires a guessing Faculty This Talent he hath been pleased to exercise to a considerable Extent in the present Papers termed Brief Reflections c. But as it is often the mishap of those who indulge much to Conjectures that their Guesses are not always right so it happens to Mr. Edwards in the present Case For notwithstanding his Gatherings and Findings and many probable Shows there is not to my particular knowledg one word of Truth in the whole Lump of his Guesses He is every jot as much out in every particular here as he was in his former Writings when he both assured his Reader he could not believe Mr. L. was the Author of the Reasonableness of Christianity c. and substituted his Reasons why he could not believe it and yet he is peremptory in these Papers that that same Gentleman was the Author of that Treatise So that it is evident Mr. Edwards is not so sure in his Guesses no not when he hath declared the Grounds on which they are erected as that either other People or he himself may depend on them as infallible Oracles or of such Credibility that any stress should be laid on them tho he sincerely protests that he intends to give
A REPLY TO Mr. EDWARDS's Brief REFLECTIONS ON A Short Discourse of the True Knowledg of Christ Jesus c. To which is prefixed A PREFACE Wherein something is said concerning Reason and Antiquity in the chief Controversies with the Socinians By S. Bold Rector of Steeple Dorset One is your Master even Christ Mat. 23.10 London Printed for A. and J. Churchill at the Black Swan in Pater-noster-Row 1697. THE PREFACE to the Reader I Have been preaching a considerable time on the Epistle of St. Paul to the Philippians and coming to the 8th Verse of the third Chapter of that Epistle I preached the Sermon on which Mr. Edwards hath bestowed his Reflections I had not any Thoughts of making that Sermon more publick than the other Sermons I had preached on that Epistle till I afterwards found the Proposition laid down in that Sermon most unmercifully traduced by Mr. Edwards in his Books writ against the Reasonableness of Christianity c. The Sermon was published because I thought it did plainly manifest that the Proposition did not impair any of the Doctrines taught in the New Testament but did assert and secure to them all their Authority did preserve them in the Places where Christ had set them and for the Vses for which he intended them The Animadversions were designed to intimate that Mr. Edwards had mistaken or misrepresented the Proposition and to hint that in certain Respects the Considerations Mr. Edwards had offered against the Proposition were deficient But Mr. Edwards hath fancied other things and therefore puts a different Construction on them both I should be inclined to think it something strange that the Proposition discoursed of in the following Papers the Truth of which Proposition the most Ingenious Author of the Reasonableness of Christianity c. hath so fully proved from the Testimony of Christ and his Apostles should be so coarsely treated but that I am very well satisfied that there is no great Cause to wonder that even learned and good Men do differ in their Apprehensions about Matters of no small Moment and that neither Learning nor Piety no nor both together are always strong enough in this imperfect Estate to restrain the Fondness Men have for Notions they have a great while espoused from expressing it self in its Natural Dialect The Primitive Christians had a more honourable Esteem of this Proposition when they thought it of much greater Consequence than their Lives The Christians were at first persecuted not so much for any particular Doctrines they professed to believe but for Jesus's Name sake that is for their owning Jesus to be the Messias And afterwards when the Christians were murdered with a more immediate Respect to particular Doctrines they would not renounce because they knew Jesus whom they believed to be the Messias had taught them or would not embrace Doctrines for which there was no Proof that Christ ever taught them it was the Respect they had to Jesus as the Messias that did dignify their Sufferings and advance them to the Crown of Martyrdom The great Point of Anti-Christianism at least next to a professed disowning Jesus to be the Messias consists in setting up an Authority to make any thing a part of Religion which Jesus Christ hath not authorized And the great Malignity of that lies in this that it involves a tacit denying that Jesus is the Messias Those who are of the Opinion that true Christians are obliged to endeavour to encrease extensively in Knowledg and Faith and yet think that the Belief of more Articles than this that Jesus is the Messias is indispensably necessary to make or constitute a Man a Christian may if they consider Matters well perceive that the Notion of the Absolute Necessity of the Belief of more Articles to make a Man a Christian will prove in its just Consequences very injurious to Christ's Authority For those things the Belief whereof doth constitute a Man a Christian must be the Rule and Measure by which he is to judg and determine what he is to endeavour to know and believe So that whatever he can be obliged to endeavour to know and believe by virtue of his being a Christian must have a clear and plain Connection with every one of those Articles which are absolutely necessary to be believed to make him a Christian It s having ever so plain and immediate a Connection with one or two or more of those Articles will not prove he is obliged to believe it if there be yet more Articles the Belief of which was necessary to make him a Christian because it answers not or comes not up to that entire Rule by which he is to judg whether he be obliged to believe it For in that case it falls as really short of answering the Rule by which he is to proceed as a Person 's judging that a due believing that Jesus is the Messias makes a Man a Christian falls short of the Truth if the Belief of more Articles is indispensably necessary to make him a Christian Thus his knowing that Jesus Christ hath revealed such a Doctrine brings him not under an Obligation to believe it but he may notwithstanding that with-hold his Assent If it shall be said that knowing Christ hath revealed it he is by virtue thereof obliged to believe it with respect to the end for which it is revealed I answer that if a due Belief that Jesus is the Messias do not constitute a Man a Christian a Christian is to judg by all that which is necessarily to be believed to constitute him a Christian of his being obliged to believe any Point to any Purpose in Religion for what is necessary for any Purpose in Religion concerns him as he is a Christian and so is not to be judged of by what doth not constitute him a Christian but by what doth constitute him a Christian be that the Belief of more or fewer Articles Mr. Edwards hath thought fit to reproach the Proposition I speak of as a Socinian Doctrine and a way to extirpate the Christian Religion out of the World and to introduce Infidelity But I think it is the only Point that can with full Assurance be advanced and insisted on effectually and with the greatest Ease and Speed to prostrate the Opposers of Christ's Divinity and of the Doctrine of the ever blessed Trinity and to overthrow all the false and corrupt Notions which disfigure the Christian Church yea which do prevail in the World The Doctrines or Articles which Christians are to endeavour to understand and believe are those which are delivered in the New Testament And the Reason why they are to believe the Doctrines which are taught there is the Authority of Jesus considered as the Messias Whoever believes that Jesus is the Messias must assent to the Truth of every Proposition he knows that Jesus hath taught for his Testimony is the Great Evidence of the Truth of those Propositions If any Man pretends to believe that Jesus is
the Messias and yet will reject or refuse to believe what he knows he hath taught he doth thereby manifest that he is not a true Christian i. e. that he doth not indeed believe that Jesus is the Messias Those who say they would not believe such or such a Doctrine if it were expresly taught in the New Testament do plainly declare they do not own those Books to be divinely inspired And if they should say they would not believe them if Jesus Christ himself did deliver them they would more immediately declare that they do not believe him to be the Messias The Ebionites who out of Design pretended to believe Jesus to be the Messias were so sensible of this that because they would not acknowledg him to be God they rejected the Books of the New Testament and provided themselves another Book which had not that Doctrine in it which they pretended did contain the Doctrines which he taught It hath been the way of those who have set themselves against the Holy Scriptures or some of the Doctrines taught in them either to advance some Doctrines as necessary to be believed which are not taught in those sacred Writings or to alter some of the Doctrines taught in them by annexing their own Sense and Interpretation to the Words in which Jesus Christ and his Apostles delivered them Of this latter sort were those who opposed the Divinity of Christ and the Doctrine of the Trinity which occasioned the Primitive Christians to make it their Business to shew that the Words which Christ and his Apostles used did import a great deal more than what those Persons pretended was the full Sense of them Those false Teachers and their Successors especially those who have of late contended against these Doctrines applied themselves to an Artifice very common amongst them who have set up to combate the Doctrines of our Blessed Saviour and undermine the Christian Religion which is to endeavour to enlarge the Controversy as much as possible that thus they might have the more room to turn in They have by this Means obtained certain unhappy Advantages They have amused and bewildered many of the weaker sort of People They have found out many Evasions and Shifts under which to hide and shelter themselves They have created Persons of prodigious Learning and Parts much unnecessary Trouble Whereas bad they been kept strictly to this one Point that Jesus is the Messias and not suffered to start from that and its immediate Consequence the Controversy would have been brought to a speedy Issue by producing the Messias's own Words For then the utmost they could do would be only to talk of Accents Articles and Copies which I conceive are Topicks they do not much care now to insist on and amongst other Reasons besides their having been so often baffled already because very few Persons in comparison would regard the Debate when those things would be all they could discourse of But they have exceedingly extended the Controversy by prevailing with the Orthodox to fix on other Topicks for Discourse They have greatly indangered the Truth under a Pretence of being revenged on those Terms the Antient Christians had settled for the expressing of their Sense concerning these Doctrines in opposition to those who formerly set themselves against these Doctrines And thus the Controversy is run into Antiquity and Reason By which means the Socinians and the Orthodox have had opportunity to produce very great Proofs of the Strength of their Natural Endowments and their acquired Accomplishments Vpon these Points we have had of late very notable Encounters The Orthodox have all things considered acquitted themselves bravely and with singular Dexterity except some of them falling together by the Ears one with another that their Adversaries might have some breathing Space and a little Diversion to boot but I am apt to suspect that the great Reason why they have done so little Execution is because they have yielded for a while to lay aside the Sword of the Spirit the Testimony of the Messias and have consented to fight their Adversaries at their own Weapons Did I enjoy my former Health I should think it a very pleasant Diversion to see Prizes plaid this way by Persons who are well-skill'd at these sort of Weapons provided the Matters in Debate were of another Nature But in the present Matters these Methods seem to me little other than if David had laid down his Sling and Pouch and had gone forth to fight the huffing Philistine in Saul's Armour Neither Reason nor Antiquity can determine any thing immediately concerning these Doctrines whether they be true or not whether we are to believe them or no. Our Certainty of their Truth depends entirely on the Testimony of Jesus Christ The Proofs that Jesus is the Messias lie level to the Senses or Reason of Mankind And if we have Reason to believe that Jesus is the Messias and are convinced of that his Testimony affords us as good and satisfactory Reason why we should believe what we know he hath taught as the Testimony of our Senses can yield us why we should believe any Proposition which respects their proper Objects Our Reason doth not immediately judg concerning the thing treated of in the Proposition but concerning the Evidence whether it be such as by virtue of it we ought to assent to the Proposition The Reasonableness of our believing any particular Doctrine taught in the New Testament as delivered there depends upon the Reasons we have to believe that Jesus is the Messias And if we are fully satisfied that we have sufficient Reason to believe him to be the Messias our Reason must certify us that it is the most reasonable thing in the World to believe whatever we know he hath taught For could there be any Reason to doubt whether what he hath said is true we could not have sufficient Reason to believe that he is the Messias If we believe him to be the Messias his Testimony is the fullest Evidence we can desire of the Truth of what he hath taught And if we allow the Evidence to be compleat and full tho we cannot form a distinct Idea of the Matter treated of we have all imaginable Reason to believe the Proposition When our Adversaries talk of Reason as to these Matters they seem to mean that the things discoursed of must be brought down to that degree that laying aside Revelation we may form distinct and clear Notions of the things themselves by the sole Exercise of our natural Faculties so that by contemplating them we may find out intrinsick Reasons to believe or assent to the Propositions Christ hath delivered concerning them Which is the absurdest thing that can be For herein they require that the Nature of the things should be altered and they renounce Revelation whilst they pretend to avow and own it And they might with every jot as much Reason require that People should judg of Sounds by their Eyes and of Colours by their
Number you insist on are absolutely necessary to be believed to make People Christians than he hath that any or all of the rest are If not who hath Authority to distinguish in this case where he hath not distinguished so as to determine this and this Article c. are necessarily to be believed to make Men Christians but that and the other Article are not necessary whenas there is the same Authority for Peoples believing the one as the other when known In the next place Mr. Edwards doth particularly and with Earnestness exhort and entreat me to attend and apply my self to what he apprehends of great moment to me on this occasion I shall therefore now more particularly address my self to him Reverend Sir I receive your Exhortation and Counsel with a Gratitude as near as I can proportioned to the Kindness with which you tender it and will endeavour to make a good Use of it depending for Preservation and Stability in the Faith of the Gospel on Jesus as the Messias But Sir it is not the first time I have met with an honest warm Exhortation that hath had no Connection with what has been pretended to be the Ground of it I receive it kindly considered in it self But Sir if any Persons who are not well-disposed shall happen to read it and perceiving on how sandy a Foundation it is built shall conclude all your and perhaps other good Mens fervent Exhortations and pathetick Obtestations are the Effects of Indiscretion and stand upon no better a bottom than this the Damage would not have been very great if this had been communicated privately and not committed to publick view And Sir having pondered John 6.67 I am not satisfied that by going back there is meant an unfeigned well-grounded Belief that Jesus was the Christ or Messias and an entertaining the Doctrines and Articles he taught purely upon his Authority but the direct contrary Nor do I see any Reason to think that that kind of Faith was the Cause of Judas's betraying his Lord but that going away and betraying was from their want of that sort of Faith and Christianity A Reply to Mr. Edwards's Reflections on the Animadversions MR. Edwards employs above two Pages here in relating his Guesses and his Reasons for them and determines I was not the Author of them so that he is willing to excuse me from the crude and shallow things offered in them to the Publick yet he is partly of the Mind I was desired to publish them as my own after they had been transmitted to me And in another Place after he is positive that I was not the Compiler of the Animadversions he saith because he apprehended that he had something for his Advantage with respect to me it is probable I might prick in here and there a fine Flower which seems to be said for no other Reason but to make way for his bringing in as he thought some finer Flowers of his own I will not concern my self about his Guesses nor their Supporters any further than by taking notice of the Reason he gives why I was desired to publish the Animadversions as my own viz. That it might be said that a Man with a Name c. warranted the late Author of the Reasonableness of Christianity c. To which I have this to say That a much more Reverend Rector I am sure I may say DIVINE than the Rector of Steeple hath vouched that strange Notion for which some do decry the Author of the Reasonableness c. and the Animadverter Nor am I afraid or ashamed to subscribe my Name to any one Article I know that Reverend Divine hath taught That Reverend Man had a Name and did with open Face and without a Vizour warrant the Proposition laid down by the Author of the Reasonableness of Christianity c. and contradicted not in my Sermon but in the Books the Animadversions relate to This Reverend Person I speak of was the most Reverend St. John who with open Face and without a Vizour hath taught That whosoever believeth that Jesus is the Christ is born of God 1 John 5.1 which every one I suppose will acknowledg to be as much as to say a Christian Now if the Belief of more Articles was absolutely necessary to make a Person a Christian let a Man believe this with what sort of Faith soever it could not with Truth be said that whosoever believeth that Jesus is the Christ is born of God But I am very confident St. John knew as well what was necessarily to be believed to make a Man a Christian as the most Reverend Man that hath lived since his Days Thus there was no need that I should be desired to publish the Animadversions as my own that the Notion might come forth with a Name for it was openly warranted by a much better Name before As for the unsufferable Blunder Mr. Edwards hath found out in the Epistle to the Reader any one who looks upon the Epistle it self may perceive the right of that Matter reading cursorily instead of cursory as Mr. Edwards hath well and truly observed when it is determined whether the word Treatise doth more properly belong to the Reasonableness of Christianity or to a single Sermon For the Press was out no more in printing that instead of this than it was in the other word Mr. Edwards hath been pleased to rectify Mr. Edwards's endeavour to make the Animadverter contradict himself is just the same with what he did to shew I had in my Sermon contradicted the Proposition I had laid down and that having been answered there is no need of replying to the Charge here being no auxiliary Strength added to it But I like his making those Doctrines taught in the New Testament which are not absolutely necessary to be believed to make Men Christians meer Conveniencies here with respect to those who are Christians no better than I did his making them meerly Ornamental in his Reflections on my Sermon There is no one Doctrine taught in the New Testament but it is absolutely necessary to make up the entire Body of that Revelation Christ hath committed to his Church yet I am not certain that Mr. Edwards will say that it is absolutely necessary to the making of any Man a Christian that he must explicitly know and believe every Doctrine contained in those Writings for then there will be nothing left for Conveniency and Ornament Mr. Edwards saith it is worth the Reader 's observing that notwithstanding he had in 12 Pages together viz. from the 8th to the 20th proved that several Propositions are necessary to believed in order to our being Christians yet this sham-Animadverter attends not to any one of the Particulars which he had mentioned nor offers any thing against them but only in a lumping way dooms them all in these magisterial Words I do not see any Proof he produceth pag. 21. Answ The matter is truly thus The Animadverter did not take much notice of