present Purpose if we can produce any Doctrines that are absolutely enjoined to be believed by all Christians and that are either distinct from or more fully exprest than any of those contain'd in the Gospels or Acts as I shall hereafter endeavour to shew there are some of that nature without the Belief of which though we may grant Men might be saved before they were known yet when they were divulged they could no more be stiled true Christians without the Belief of them than if they had not at all believed To instance in a like case None could any longer be called Christians or admitted into that Communion after that form of Baptism was requir'd in the Name of Father Son and Holy Ghost tho' they might have that Denomination before who did not acknowledge their Faith in the Holy Trinity since as none could be Baptized Christians without the Confession of that Faith so none could continue in the Number of Christians that denied it But of this more in its proper place And thus we may be convinced from the Nature of Revelation that all the parts of it have an equal Authority and that where the End of the Revelation was the Glory of God and the Salvation of Mankind as I shall hereafter shew was the Apostles Designs in writing their Epistles there the same Acts of Faith are required of us But before I proceed any farther in the Vindication of these sacred Writings it will be necessary to consider an Objection or rather an Evasion of our Author's in his Vindication of the Reasonableness of Christianity Vindic. p. 19. which may seem to render what has been hitherto urged superfluous since it intimates that he believes as much of the Epistles and in as true a sence as any man whatsoever And for the Proof of this he cites what he had before declared in the Reasonableness of Christianity it self p. 299. These Holy Writers viz. The Pen-men of the Scriptures inspired from above writ nothing but Truth and in most places very weighty Truths to us now for the expounding clearing and confirming the Christian Doctrine and establishing those in it who had embraced it And again p. 299. The other parts of Divine Revelation are Objects of Faith and are so to be received They are Truths of which none that is once known to be such i. e. Revealed may or ought to be disbelieved And if this as he goes on does not satisfy you that I have as high a Veneration for the Epistles as you or any one can have I require you to publish to the World those Passages which shew my contempt of them Indeed if he said no more concerning the Epistles than what is mention'd in these Passages there would not have been so much occasion for a Defense of them But however even these do not seem altogether unexceptionable for though these allow the Truths contain'd in the Epistles to be Objects of our Faith yet they do not suppose them or any parts of them to be more so than any other places of Scripture which have no relation to the Salvation of Mankind and which we are only bound to believe to be true upon the Veracity of God that reveal'd them For that this is all which the Author meant is very plain from what he maintains a little after Vindic. p. 31. viz. That all the rest of the Inspired Writings or if you please Articles are of equal necessity to be believed to make a Man a Christian with what was preacht by our Saviour and his Apostles by which he only means what is recorded in the Gospels and Acts that I deny So that it plainly appears that all the Respect which he professes for the Epistles consists only in this That he believes them to be true but that the Doctrines contain'd in them are no more necessary to be actually believed or to be made fundamental Articles of Faith than any indifferent or Historical Matters in the Bible all which we believe to be true because they are contain'd in that Book which we are fully perswaded is the Word of God So that a bare Assent to them only as they are true is no higher an Act of Faith than the believing that there was such an Apostle as St. Paul and that he was the Author of such Epistles But if our Author does indeed believe that all is true which is contain'd in the Epistles why should he deny that any of the Truths therein mention'd are to be made Fundamentals For methinks it would be no great Imposition to be obliged to believe that as a necessary Article of Faith in order to Salvation which he is already perswaded is a real Truth But besides this is what we contend for that there are Doctrines contain'd in the Epistles that are of equal necessity to be believed to make a Man a Christian with those in the Gospels or in the Acts of the Apostles as being of as great Importance to us and therefore they are also to be believed upon another Ground besides that of meer Revelation And for the Proof of this it will be necessary to consider in the second place the Authority that our Saviour intrusted in his Apostles Which is exprest in their Commission given them by Christ immediately before his Ascension in these words Go and teach all Nations And elsewhere Mat. 28 19. Joh. 20.21 As my Father hath sent me even so send I you Which Commission as it invests them with as full a Power of Teaching whatsoever was necessary to Salvation so it lays as great a necessity upon others of Believing them as if Christ himself had taught in his own Person For whosoever acts by another's Commission acts in his Name and whatever he does by vertue of that Commission it is look'd upon to be his who gave him such Authority Now that the Apostles did not exceed this Authority or teach for Doctrines the Commandments of Men is very evident since it is granted they were Divinely Inspired and taught nothing as necessary to be believ'd but what they received from God So that all that can be here objected seems to be this That the Apostles had no Commission to write any fundamental Doctrines in the Epistles but only in their Sermons which are set down in the Acts of the Apostles If this indeed could be proved it would be a material Objection but if there is not the least shadow of Reason to countenance such a groundless Supposition without shewing that the Apostles did exceed their Commission though at the same time they were Divinely Inspired then we are bound to acknowledge that the Epistles as well as the Acts are an indispensible part of the Rule of our Faith for God himself has put no difference betwixt them But there is yet something more to be observed in the Epistles written by St. Paul which are much the greatest part and that is that he received his Doctrines therein contain'd by a more particular
hereafter have more occasion to consider He that believeth that Jesus is the Messiah hath eternal Life if what is there required to be believed is singly of it self sufficient to Salvation then it must be so as it is there proposed without any farther Explication of it because there is no Explication proposed to be believed upon the like Promise From whence it will follow that the bare Proposition is alone necessary to be Believed without any other Interpretation if any at all may be admitted than what is agreeable to the particular Humours of Men the unhappy Consequences of which will be endless Wranglings and Distractions For which reason it seems evident that all the Fundamental Parts of Faith cannot be comprehended in those Texts alone which are declared to be of that important Nature unless the full Extent and Meaning was there set down and delivered which I cannot find And therefore it can't be denied but that the other parts of Scripture which relate the Grounds and Reasons of such a Faith which is required to Salvation and that explain the Nature and Extent of it are to be looked upon as equally Obligatory whether exprest in Gospels or Epistles For besides if every Text of Scripture must be looked upon as sufficient to Salvation upon the Belief of which Eternal Life is promised even the very Scripture will hardly be found reconcilable to it self For tho' in some places Salvation is promised to those who believe Jesus to be the Messiah yet in others it is declared to be Life Eternal to know the onely true God as well as Jesus Christ whom he hath sent Both of which places if they must be understood in their limited Sence will be almost found contradictory to each other Because the one proposes a larger Faith to Salvation than is required by the other Wherefore it seems more reasonable to understand these and other places of Scripture of the like nature in that Sence which is applied to Faith Fear of God Love Hope and the like when singly made use of to express the whole Duty of a Christian viz. That one that is endued with such a Faith or such Vertues cannot be defective in the Belief of all other Articles or in the Practice of all other Duties For as any of these Vertues when mention'd alone as sufficient to save us cannot be understood exclusively of all others so when Believing in Christ or any other Proposition of that nature is alone required to make a Man a Christian we ought either to understand it as spoken conditionally upon a supposition of the Belief of all other Articles of the Christian Religion or else as designed to denote that as the believing Jesus to be the Christ is the first step to Christianity so he that is once firmly and throughly convinc'd of that will not deny his assent to any other Article of Faith in the whole Christian Profession that shall be required of him From all which it is natural to infer that there must be other Articles of Faith in the Scriptures that are as absolutely necessary to be Believed to Salvation as those to which Eternal Life is expresly promised and that many of those Texts of Scripture which are required to be believed to Salvation are not of themselves exclusive of all others sufficient for that End So that though it should be granted that there are no Articles of Faith in the Epistles so expresly enjoined to be Believed to Salvation as some delivered in the Gospels and Acts yet it will not follow but that some of them may be of as important a Nature and as much to be thought Fundamentals But however it must be considered Secondly that if it should be granted that no Articles were absolutely necessary to be Believed but what were expresly so declared by the Inspired Writers yet there may be produced some Articles from the Epistles that are as much required to be actually believed to Salvation as any of those delivered in the Gospels or Acts as I shall shew in its proper place So that for both these Reasons some of the Doctrines delivered in the Epistles ought to be as earnestly pressed and enjoined to be explicitely Believed upon hazard of Salvation as any found elsewhere in Scripture There are indeed a great many Truths both in the Gospels and Epistles which are only to be Believed upon the general Ground of Faith which is the Veracity of God But those of a higher Nature which have an immediate Tendency to the Salvation of Mankind and the Method by which our Saviour has obtain'd it for us are to be explicitely Believed by all in order to their Salvation So that in both Gospels and Epistles there is a twofold Faith requir'd the one depends upon the general Ground of our Belief which relies upon the Veracity of God that every thing which he has Revealed is true The other respects the End for which he has Revealed any thing to us and that is only the Eternal Benefit and Happiness of Mankind So that whatsoever in Scripture relates to this End is of more absolute necessity to be Believed to Salvation And this may serve for a General Direction whereby to distinguish fundamental Truths either in Gospels or Epistles or any other parts of Divine Revelation For whatsoever is proposed to our Belief as a necessary Condition in order to our Happiness must be included under this saving Faith And therefore I shall now proceed to shew that the Epistles have as much Right and Title to our Faith as it may be considered in this last sence as any other parts of Revelation since they equally treat of the Covenant of Grace and the Means of Salvation For whatsoever it is that is required of us to be actually believed as a Condition upon which our Happiness depends must be made a Fundamental of our Faith And therefore if the Epistles contain in them any Doctrines of this Nature they cannot be disbelieved without great hazard of our Salvation But First that the Epistles are to be made part of the Rule of Faith by which alone we are to be saved as well as the Gospels or Acts of the Apostles is evident from the Nature of Revelation For if it can be proved that the Epistles are as much a part of Divine Revelation as the other it will be no easy Task to demonstrate that they are not equally to be received especially if it can be made appear that the End of their Revelation was the Eternal Happiness of Mankind which I shall speak to hereafter Now this is the very Reason and Foundation of our Belief of the Christian Religion first that it is Revealed by God and secondly that it has the Attestation of Miracles to confirm it such as can be done by no other Power but Divine For without this we could have no Obligations upon us to believe it because we could have no certain assurance that it came from God But whatsoever is thus
ANIMADVERSIONS On a late BOOK ENTITULED THE REASONABLENESS OF CHRISTIANITY As delivered in the SCRIPTURES OXFORD Printed by Leon. Lichfield for George West and Anthony Piesley MDCXCVII THE PREFACE I Need make no Apology for the following papers The Liberty which the Author of The Reasonableness of Christianity c. has taken in delivering his Thoughts to the World gives every man a right to examine them that proposes no other End than to enquire after Truth which I have endeavoured with as sincere a design as I hope he published them I have followed a method which His Treatise naturally led me into and have chose to build my Observations upon the same Authority on which he hath founded his Rule of Faith that of the Scriptures rather than upon any Systems drawn from them which I must confess my self to be but little acquainted with And this I cannot but agree with him to be the most rational means of silencing all Religious controversies For if all Parties would joyn Issue in this that nothing ought to be required to be believed but what is injoyned by the clear and express declarations of Scripture nor any Article rejected that is there plainly delivered there might be some probable grounds to hope for a happy Conclusion of all disputes of that nature in a very little time For certainly God has not made it very difficult for us to determine what we are to believe how inconceivable soever the manner of some things may appear to us The main design which the Author of the Reasonableness of Christianity c. seems to have had is to lay down such a Scheme of Faith only as he finds delivered in scripture and not to rest satisfied with those Collections of Articles which are to be met with in the Common Systems without any sufficient warrant from scripture And to this End he has run through the Gospels and Acts to discover upon what Terms our Blessed Saviour who first founded and his Apostles who afterwards built up Christianity admitted men into that Religion And having declared at large all that he can find required by them to make a man a Christian which he tells us was only the Believing Jesus to be the Messiah he concludes that nothing ought to be made necessary to be believed now which was not so then nor any Articles imposed upon us which are not injoyned in order to salvation in those parts of scripture which he has considered which alone according to him declare the Conditions upon which men are denominated believers or Christians This way of examining our Faith by the scripture had been an unexceptionable Method for fixing the measure of it if he had omitted no Articles which are there made as necessary to be believed by all Christians as what is observed in His Treatise For that there are others required even to make a man a Christian in these parts of sacred Writ from whence he has extracted his Article of Faith is what I propose to make appear in the following Observations As also to shew that there are some distinct Articles from what are set down in the Gospels and Acts delivered in the Epistles that are absolutely necessary to be believed to salvation in answer to that assertion of our Author P. 295. That it is not in the Epistles that we are to learn what are the Fundamental Articles of Faith with some others of the like nature Which is the Reason that I give the Title of a Vindication of the Epistles to the former part of these Papers In the next place I have consider'd the Reasons our Author has assigned for Christ's coming into the World And how necessary it was to examine both these in order to a more exact consideration of that one Article this Author has so much insisted on the Reader will easily apprehend He tells us in his Vindication p. 6. that he designed the Reasonableness of Christianity c. chiefly for those who were not yet throughly and firmly Christians I shall not dispute the sincerity of his Intention though I find no such Intimation in the Treatise it self Yet a well-meaning Author who has appeared very warmly in defence of it Mr. Bold believes that to be his only design though he tells us he had considered it with very great care and Application This Author also is of opinion that there is nothing more required to make a Man a Christian then the believing Jesus to be the Messias But had he given himself a little more leisure to consider into what faith he himself was baptized or into what he baptizes others he must have acknowledged that the Explicitely believing in Father and Holy Ghost is as much required of every one initiated into Christianity as believing Jesus to be the Messias For the Faith in the Holy Trinity has always been required in order to Baptism Indeed at the first men might be denominated Christians upon the bare believing Jesus to be the Messias yet when there was more revealed concerning Him and consequently a larger faith required they could no more have continued Christians if they had not believed this also than if they had still been altogether unbelievers I shall make no other Observation upon what this Author has urged but this that he has been a little too hasty in concluding that if the Reasonableness of Christianity merits no worse a Character upon any other Account than it does justly deserve for advancing this point P. 52. that Christ and his Apostles did not propound any Article as necessarily to be believed to make a Man a Christian but this that Jesus is the Christ or Messias I think it may with great justice be reputed one of the best books that has been published for at least this sixteen hundred years since I suppose he will hardly deny that Mr Hobbs writ within that space who maintained the very same Assertion as I have farther observed in the following Remarks though I am afraid with a far worse Intention than the Author of the Reasonableness of Christianity c. seems to have had in that Treatise I need reflect no farther upon any thing propounded by this Author not only because his Papers came abroad after the following Remarks were drawn up but because there does not seem to be any thing very material which was not before observed in the Reasonableness of Christianity c. or the Authors Vindication of it I hope there is nothing in the following Papers that will be mistaken for a Reflexion for I am sure there was none designed For I think an Adversary ought to be treated with respect how wide soever his Notions may be from Truth if his design be sincere Which I must confess I cannot but believe of the Author of the Reasonableness of Christianity c. And though I cannot joyn in his opinion yet I think my self obliged to have so much charity as to suppose that he would not maintain what he was
proceeds from God it is in vain to say there are Contradictions in it for that is as impossible as that God should not be true But Secondly Why all this Concern for the illiterate and Men of weak Capacities as though it would be so very Prejudicial to them to be obliged to believe what they cannot comprehend For they do not seem to receive any Disadvantage by it more than others For if they are able to search the Scriptures they may know what they are obliged to believe and may as easily believe as Men of greater Reaches and stronger Reasons For the Mysteries of Religion which are incomprehensible are equally so to all Indeed had God made a difference in the necessary Parts of Faith between the Learned and Illiterate and requir'd such particular Articles to be believed to Salvation by all sorts of Men which only the Wisest could understand then the Poor of the World would have just Reason to complain But since he has placed all Men on the same Level and has requir'd no harder Terms of the one than the other we have all the Reason in the World to admire his infinite Wisdom in that he has reveal'd himself as much to the Unlearn'd Bulk of Mankind as to the Wise and Prudent For he that reads may understand may know what God has made necessary to Salvation tho' he can understand what he believes but in part Were we to draw our Belief from a long Train of Deductions and infer every Article of Faith from some one Principle though there might be a Mathematical Certainty for the Truth of such a Religion yet the Men of great strength of Judgment and Intenseness of Thought could only reach the perfect Knowledge of it and the poor labouring and illiterate Man must then most unhappily perish through his Ignorance But as now it is all parts of our Belief are equally intelligible by all and what we cannot comprehend as to the Manner of it we can believe to be true upon the Veracity of him that reveal'd it So that how mysterious soever some things may be which are proposed to our Faith they are not more difficult to the weak than those of stronger Capacities But there is yet in the Third Place more to be said in Defence of our common Faith if we consider the Extent and Limits of it For though we are obliged to believe what in its own Nature is a Mystery yet our Faith does not require us to go into the mysterious Parts of it that is We have no Obligations upon us to believe it as a Mystery As for Instance We are obliged to believe that the Three Divine Persons in the Trinity are one GOD but how they are One or how Three what is the adequate Meaning of their Personal Distinction or how consistent with their Unity Revelation has not made necessary to be believed And so as to the Creation of the World and the Hypostatick Vnion of God-Man we are to believe as Scripture has reveal'd but as to the manner of them by what distinct Act of Omnipotence God made the one or how he united the other our Faith is not to determine And in this Sence it may be granted that we are not obliged to believe farther than our Reason can carry us that must determine us how far and what we are to Believe that is It must decide what is required by Revelation to be Believed and what is to be the Extent of that Belief For we are only enjoin'd to believe Articles of Faith as they are delivered in Scripture without any particular Explanations of the Modes how they may be conceived For though the Articles themselves are necessary to be Believed to Salvation yet any particular Explication of them is not because as we can have no just Idea of them our selves so we have no certainty that any Body else can have And therefore it is a meer Scandal cast upon us that we Believe we know not what for we have a perfect Understanding of what is required to be Believed and the Grounds of our Belief are as cogent as any Evidence of Sense For it is as easy to Believe what God has certainly Reveal'd as what we can apprehend by our Senses We may without any great difficulty understand what we are to Believe but as to the Manner or particular Modes of Existence of those things which are required to be Believed as they are above our Comprehensions so are they not made any Parts of our Faith But lastly Since our Author is of Opinion that it would be so very Advantageous to Mankind in general to have only such a Religion as is very easy to be understood by all sorts of Men we ought to consider how very Intelligble his Rule of Faith is if compared with that of our Church and how Agreeable his One Article is to the Comprehension of vulgar Capacities For he that advances a new Scheme of Faith should take great care that it may not labour under any of those Imperfections for which the other is Condemned Now let us suppose with our Author that the believing Jesus to be the Messiah the Saviour that was to come into the World to be alone necessary to Salvation and let this be proposed to an inquisitive labouring Man that would desire to know a Reason for his Faith Now indeed he might acknowledge that this Proposition Jesus is the Messiah is easy to be remembred but not so easily understood It is then very probable he would enquire what is meant by his being the Messiah If we should tell him that he was the Saviour promised the Question would again recurr What is meant by his being our Saviour or how or from what did he save us If we should say that he was our Saviour by those excellent Precepts which he taught to reform Mankind this would not satisfy because we had most of those Precepts before tho' not so fully explain'd and because this is not consistent with the general Sence of Scripture which tells us that he was our Saviour by suffering for us and in our stead If we should reply that he was indeed put to Death because of our Sins and that we should by the Death of so innocent a Person learn to reform our Lives and follow his Doctrine This would be yet more unintelligible for why should God suffer an innocent Person to be put to Death because the rest of Mankind were Sinners This indeed would be the only Means to encourage Men in their Impieties since there was no safety in a Religious Life And this Reason would also prevent the success of his Doctrine for if all his Design was to prevail with Mankind to receive his Doctrine it would have been much more for his Advantage to have saved himself by a miraculous coming down from the Cross for then there is no question but all Men would have believed what he taught was from God Since this would have been a greater