who unprovoked mix with the management of their Cause Injuries and ill Language to those they differ from This at least I am sure Zeal or Love for Truth can never permit Falshood to be used in the Defence of it Your Mind I see prepar'd for Truth by resignation of it self not to the Traditions of Men but the Doctrine of the Gospel has made you more readily entertain and more easily enter into the meaning of my Book than most I have heard speak of it And since you seem to me to comprehend what I have laid together with the same Disposition of Mind and in the same Sence that I received it from the Holy Scriptures I shall as a mark of my respect to you give you a particular Account of the Occasion of it The Beginning of the Year in which it was Published the Controversie that made so much noise and heat amongst some of the Dissenters coming one Day accidentally into my Mind drew me by degrees into a stricter and more through Enquiry into the Question about Justification The Scripture was direct and plain that 't was Faith that justified The next Question then was what Faith that was that justified What it was which if a Man believed it should be imputed to him for Righteousness To find out this I thought the right way was to Search the Scriptures and thereupon betook my self seriously to the Reading of the New Testament only to that Purpose What that produced you and the World have seen The first View I had of it seem'd mightily to satisfie my mind in the Reasonableness and Plainness of this Doctrine But yet the general Silence I had in my little Reading met with concerning any such thing awed me with the Apprehension of Singularity Till going on in the Gospel History the whole tenour of it made it so clear and visible that I more wonder'd that every body did not see and imbrace it than that I should assent to what was so plainly laid down and so frequently inculcated in Holy Writ though Systems of Divinity said nothing of it That which added to my Satisfaction was that it led me into a Discovery of the marvellous and divine Wisdom of our Saviour's Conduct in all the Circumstances of his promulgating this Doctrine as well as of the necessity that such a Law-giver should be sent from God for the reforming the Morality of the World Two Points that I must confess I had not found so fully and advantageously explain'd in the Books of Divinity I had met with as the History of the Gospel seem'd to me upon an attentive Perusal to give Occasion and Matter for But the Necessity and Wisdom of our Saviour's opening the Doctrine which he came to publish as he did in Parables and figurative ways of speaking carries such a Thread of Evidence through the whole History of the Evangelists as I think is impossible to be resisted and makes it a Demonstration that the Sacred Historians did not write by concert as Advocates for a bad Cause or to give Colour and Credit to an Imposture they would Usher into the World Since they every one of them in some place or other omit some Passages of our Saviour's Life or Circumstances of his Actions which shew the Wisdom and Wariness of his Conduct and which even those of the Evangelists who have recorded do barely and transiently mention without laying any Stress on them or making the least remark of what Consequence they are to give us our Saviour's true Character and to prove the Truth of their History These are Evidences of Truth and Sincerity which result alone from the Nature of things and cannot be produced by any Art or Contrivance How much I was pleased with the growing Discovery every Day whilst I was employed in this search I need not say The wonderful Harmony that the farther I went disclosed it self tending to the same Points in all the parts of the sacred History of the Gospel was of no small Weight with me and another Person who every Day from the beginning to the end of my search saw the Progress of it and knew at my first setting out that I was ignorant whither it would lead me and therefore every Day asked me what more the Scripture had taught me So far was I from the thoughts of Socinianism or an Intention to write for that or any other Party or to publish any thing at all But when I had gone through the whole and saw what a plain simple reasonable thing Christianity was suited to all Conditions and Capacities and in the Morality of it now with divine Authority established into a legible Law so far surpassing all that Philosophy and humane Reason had attain'd to or could possibly make effectual to all degrees of Mankind I was flatter'd to think it might be of some use in the World especially to those who thought either that there was no need of Revelation at all or that the Revelation of our Saviour required the Belief of such Articles for Salvation which the settled Notions and their way of reasoning in some and want of Understanding in others made impossible to them Upon these two Topicks the Objections seemed to turn which were with most Assurance made by Deists against Christianity But against Christianity misunderstood It seem'd to me that there needed no more to shew them the Weakness of their Exceptions but to lay plainly before them the Doctrine of our Saviour and his Apostles as delivered in the Scriptures and not as taught by the several Sects of Christians This tempted me to publish it not thinking it deserved an Opposition from any Minister of the Gospel and least of all from any one in the Communion of the Church of England But so it is that Mr. Edwards's Zeal for he knows not what for he does not yet know his own Creed nor what is required to make him a Christian could not brook so plain simple and intelligible a Religion But yet not knowing what to say against it and the Evidence it has from the Word of God he thought fit to let the Book alone and fall upon the Author What great Matter he has done in it I need not tell you who have seen and shew'd the Weakness of his Wranglings You have here Sir the true History of the Birth of my Reasonableness of Christianity as delivered in the Scriptures and my Design in publishing it c. What it contains and how much it tends to Peace and Union amongst Christians if they would receive Christianity as it is you have discovered I am SIR Your most humble Servant A. B. My Readers will pardon me that in my Preface to them I make this particular Address to Mr. Bold He hath thought it worth his while to defend my Book How well he has done it I am too much a Party to say I think it so sufficient to Mr. Edwards that I needed not have troubled my self any further about him on the account
Religion disguise the Faith of the Gospel and betray Christianity it self If they did not I am sure I have not For I have not omitted any of the main Articles which they Preached to the Unbelieving World Those I have set down with so much care not to omit any of them that you blame me for it more than once and call it tedious However you are pleased to acquit or condemn the Apostles in the case by your Supream Determination I am very indifferent If you think fit to condemn them for disguising or betraying the Christian Religion because they said no more of Satisfaction than I have done in their Preaching at first to their Unbelieving Auditors Iews or Heathens to make them as I think Christians for that I am now speaking of I shall not be sorry to be found in their Company under what censure soever If you are pleased graciously to take off this your censure from them for this omission I shall claim a share in the same Indulgence But to come to what perhaps you will think your self a little more concerned not to censure than what the Apostles did so long since for you have given instances of being very apt to make bold with the Dead Pray tell me does the Church of England admit People into the Church of Christ at hap-hazard Or without proposing and requiring a Profession of all that is necessary to be believed to make a Man a Christian If she does not I desire you to turn to the Baptism of those of riper Years in our Liturgy Where the Priest asking the Convert particularly whether he believes the Apostles Creed which he repeats to him Upon his Profession that he does and that he desires to be baptized into that Faith without one word of any other Articles Baptizes him and then declares him a Christian in these words We receive this Person into the Congregation of Christ's Flock and sign him with the sign of the Cross in token that he shall not be asham'd to CONTINUE Christ's faithful Soldier and Servant In all this there is not one word of Satisfaction no more than in my Book nor so much neither And here I ask you whether for this omission you will pronounce that the Church of England disguises the Faith of the Gospel However you think fit to treat me yet methinks you should not let your self loose so freely against our first Reformers and the Fathers of our Church ever since as to call them Betrayers of Christianity it self because they think not so much necessary to be believed to make a Man a Christian as you are pleased to put down in your Articles but omit as well as I your main Article of Satisfaction Having thus notably harangued upon the occasion of my saying Would any one blame my Prudence and thereby made me a Socinian a Iesuit and a Betrayer of Christianity it self he has in that answer'd all that such a Miscreant as I do or can say and so passes by all the Reasons I gave for what I did without any other notice or answer but only denying a Matter of Fact which I only can know and he cannot viz. My design in Printing my Reasonableness of Christianity In the next Paragraph p. 45. in answer to these words of St. Paul Rom. XIV 1. Him that is weak in the Faith receive ye but not to doubtful Disputations which I brought as a reason why I mention'd not Satisfaction amongst the Benefits receiv'd by the coming of our Saviour Because as I tell him in my Vindication p. 5. My Reasonableness of Christianity as the title shews was designed chiefly for those who were not yet throughly or firmly Christians He replies and I desire him to prove it XX. That I pretend a design of my Book which was never so much as thought of till I was sollicited by my Brethren to Vindicate it All the rest in this Paragraph being either nothing to this place of the Romans or what I have answer'd elsewhere needs no farther Answer The next two Paragraphs p. 46. â—49 are meant for an Answer to something I had said concerning the Apostles Creed upon the occasion of his chargeing my Book with Socinianism They begin thus This Author of the New Christianity Answ. This New Christianity is as old as the Preaching of our Saviour and his Apostles and a little older than the Unmasker's System Wisely objects that the Apostles Creed hath none of those Articles which I mention'd p. 12 13. Answ. If that Author wisely objects the Unmasker would have done well to have replied wisely But for a Man wisely to reply it is in the first place requisite that the Objection be truly and fairly set down in its full force and not represented short and as will best serve the Answerers turn to reply to This is neither wise nor honest And this first part of a wise Reply the Unmasker has failed in This will appear from my words and the occasion of them The Unmasker had accused my Book of Socinianism for omitting some Points which he urged as necessary Articles of Faith To which I answer'd That he had done so only to give it an ill Name not because it was Socinian for he had no more reason to charge it with Socinianism for the Omissions he mentions than the Apostles Creed These are my words which he should have either set down out of p. 12. which he quotes or at least given the Objection as I put it if he had meant to have clear'd it by a fair Answer But he instead thereof contents himself that I object that the Apostles Creed hath none of those Articles and Doctrines which the Unmasker mention'd Answ. This at best is but a part of my Objection and not to the purpose I there meant without the rest join'd to it which it has pleased the Unmasker according to his laudable way to conceal My Objection therefore stands thus That the same Articles for the Omission whereof the Unmasker charges my Book with Socinianism being also omitted in the Apostles Creed he has no more reason to Charge my Book with Socinianism for the Omissions mention'd than he hath to charge the Apostles Creed with Socinianism To this Objection of mine let us now see how he answers p. 47. Nor does any considerate Man wonder at it i. e. That the Apostles Creed hath none of those Articles and Doctrines which he had mention'd For the Creed is a form of outward Profession which is chiefly to be made in the Publick Assemblies when Prayers are put up in the Church and the Holy Scriptures are read Then this Abridgment of Faith is properly used or when there is not generally time or opportunity to make any Enlargement But we are not to think it expresly contains in it all the necessary and weighty Points all the important Doctrines of Belief it being only designed to be an Abstract Answ. Another indispensible requiquisite in a wise Reply is that it should be
in pieces by one another whilst every Sect assumes to it self a Power of declaring Fundamentals and severally thus narrow Christianity to their distinct Systems He that has a mind to see how Fundamentals come to be fram'd and fashion'd and upon what Motives and Considerations they are often taken up or laid down according to the Humours Interests or Designs of the Heads of Parties as if they were things depending on Mens pleasure and to be suited to their convenience may find an Example worth his notice in the Life of Mr. Baxter Part II. p. 197. 205. Whenever Men take upon them to go beyond those Fundamental Articles of Christianity which are to be found in the Preachings of our Saviour and his Apostles where will they stop Whenever any Set of Men will require more as necessary to be believed to make Men of their Church i. e. in their sense Christians than what our Saviour and his Apostles propos'd to those whom they made Christians and admitted into the Church of Christ however they may pretend to recommend the Scripture to their People in effect no more of it is recommended to them than just comports with what the Leaders of that Sect have resolv'd Christianity shall consist in 'T is no wonder therefore there is so much Ignorance amongst Christians and so much vain outcry against it whilst almost every distinct Society of Christians Magisterially ascribes Orthodoxy to a select Set of Fundamentals distinct from those proposed in the Preaching of our Saviour and his Apostles which in no one Point must be question'd by any of its Communion By this means their People are never sent to the Holy Scriptures that true Fountain of Light but hood-wink'd A Veil is cast over their eyes and then they are bid read the Bible They must make it all chime to their Churches Fundamentals or else they were better let it alone For if they find any thing there against the received Doctrines though they hold it and express it in the very terms the Holy Ghost has deliver'd it in that will not excuse them Heresie will be their lot and they shall be treated accordingly And thus we see how amongst other good effects Creed-making always has and always will necessarily produce and propagate Ignorance in the World however each Party blame others for it And therefore I have often wonder'd to hear Men of several Churches so heartily exclaim against the implicit Faith of the Church of Rome when the same implicit Faith is as much practised and required in their own though not so openly professed and ingenuously owned there In the next Section the Unmasker questions the Sincerity of mine and professes the greatness of his concern for the Salvation of Mens Souls And tells me of my Reflection on him upon that account in the 9th Page of my Vindication Answ. I wish he would for the right Information of the Reader every where set down what he has any thing to say to in my Book or my Defence of it and save me the Labour of repeating it My words in that place are Some Men will not bear that any one should speak of Religion but according to the Model that they themselves have made of it Nay though he proposes it upon the very terms and in the very words which our Saviour and his Apostles preach'd it in yet he shall not escape Censures and the severest insinuations To deviate in the least or to omit any thing contained in their Articles is Heresy under the most invidious Names in fashion and 't is well if he escapes being a downright Atheist Whether this be the Way for Teachers to make themselves hearken'd to as Men in Earnest in Religion and really concern'd for the Salvation of Mens Souls I leave them to consider What Success it has had towards perswading Men of the truth of Christianity their own Complaints of the prevalency of Atheism on the one hand and the number of Deists on the other sufficiently shew I have set down this Passage at large both as a confirmation of what I said but just now as also to shew that the Reflection I there made needed some other Answer than a bare Profession of his regard to the Salvation of Mens Souls The assuming an undue Authority to his own Opinions and using manifest Untruths in the defence of them I am sure is no mark that the directing Men right in the way to Salvation is his chief aim And I wish that the greater Liberties of that sort which he has again taken in his Socinianism Vnmask'd and which I have so often laid open had not confirm'd that Reflection I should have been glad that any thing in my Book had been fairly controverted and brought to the touch whether it had or had not been conâ—uted The matter of it would have deserved a serious debate if any had been necessary in the words of Sobriety and the Charitable temper of the Gospel as I desired in my Preâ—ace And that would not have mis-become the Vnmasker's Function But it did not consist it seems with his Design Christian Charity would not have allow'd those ill-meant Conjectures and groundless Censures which were necessary to his purpose and therefore he took a shorter course than to confute my Book and thereby convince me and others He makes it his business to rail at it and the Author of it that that might be taken for a confutation For by what he has hitherto done arguing seems not to be his Talent And thus far who can but allow his Wisdom But whether it be that Wisdom that is from above first pure then peaceable gentle easie to be intreated full of mercy and good fruits without partiality and without hypocrisie I shall leave to other Readers to judge His saying nothing to that other Reflection which his manner of expressing himself drew from me would make one suspect it favoured not altogether of the Wisdom of the Gospel nor shew'd an over great Care of the Salvation of Souls My Words Vindic. p. 25. are I know not how better to shew my Care of his Credit than by intreating him that when he takes next in hand such a Subject as this wherein the Salvation of Souls is concerned he would treat it a little more seriously and with a little more Candour lest Men should find in his Writings another Cause of Atheism which in this Treatise he has not thought fit to mention Ostentation of Wit in General he has made a Cause of Atheism p. 28. But the World will tell him That frothy light Discourses concerning the serious Matters of Religion and Ostentation of trifling mis-becoming Wit in those who come as Ambassadors from God under the title of Successors of the Apostles in the great Commission of the Gospel is none of the least Causes of Atheism But this advice I am now satisfied by his Second Part of the same Strain was very improper for him and no more reasonable than if one should
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
the Messiah has no more difficulty in it than this Iesus is the promised King and Deliverer Or than this Cyrus was King and Deliverer of Persia Which I think requires not much depth of Hebrew to be understood He that understood this Proposition and took Cyrus for his King was a Subject and a Member of his Kingdom And he that understands the other and takes Iesus to be his King is his Subject and a Member of his Kingdom But if this be as hard as it is to some Men to understand the Doctrine of the Trinity I fear many of the Kings in the World have but few true Subjects To believe Jesus to be the Messiah is as he has been told over and over again to take him for our King and Ruler promised and sent by God This is that which will make any one from a Iew or Heathen to be a Christian. In this sense it is very intelligible to vulgar Capacities Those who so understand and believe it are so far from pronouncing those words as a spell as the Unmasker ridiculously suggests p. 33. that they thereby become Christians But what if I tell the Unmasker that there is one Mr. Edwards who when he speaks his Mind without considering how it will make for or against him in another place thinks this Proposition Iesus is the Messias very easie and intelligible To convince him of it I shall desire him to turn to the 74th Page of his Socinianism Unmask'd where he will find that Mr. Edwards without any great search into Hebrew Extractions interprets Iesus the Messiah to signifie this That Iesus of Nazareth was that eminent and extraordinary Person prophesied of long before and that he was sent and commissioned by God Which I think is no very hard Proposition to be understood But it is no strange thing that that which was very easie to an Unmasker in one place should be terrible hard in another where want of something better requires to have it so Another Argument that he uses to prove the Articles he has given us to be necessary to Salvation p. 22. is because they are Doctrines which contain things that in their Nature have an immediate respect to the Occasion Author Way End Means and Issue of Mens Redemption and Salvation And here I desire him to prove XII That every one of his Articles contains things so immediately relating to the Occasion Author Way Means and Issue of our Redemption and Salvation that no body can be saved without understanding the Texts from whence he draws them in the very same sense that he does And explicitly believing all these Propositions that he has deduced and all that he will deduce from Scripture when he shall please to compleat his Creed Pag. 23. He says of his Fundamentals not without good reason THEREFORE I called them Essential and Integral parts of our Christian and Evangelical Faith And why the Vindicator fleers at these terms p. 18. I know no reason but that he cannot confute the Application of them Answ. One would think by the word therefore which he uses here that in the precedent Paragraph he had produced some reason to justifie his ridiculous use of those terms in his Thoughts concerning Atheism p. 111. But nothing therein will be found tending to it Indeed the foregoing Paragraph begins with these words Thus I have briefly set before the Reader those Evangelical Truths those Christian Principles which belong to the very essence of Christianity Amongst these there is the word Essence But that from thence or any thing else in that Paragraph the Unmasker could with good sense or any sense at all inferr as he does not without good reason THEREFORE I called them the ESSENTIAL and INTEGRAL parts of our Christian and Evangelical Faith requires an extraordinary sort of Logick to make out What I beseech you is your good reason too here upon which you inferr Therefore c For it is impossible for any one but an Unmasker to find one word justifying his use of the terms Essential and Integral But it would be a great restraint to the running of the Unmasker's Pen if you should not allow him the free use of illative Particles where there are no Promises to support them And if you should not take Affirmations without Proof for reasoning you at once strike off above three quarters of his Book and he will often for several Pages togetâ—er have nothing to say As for Example from p. 28. to p. 35. But to shew that I did not without reason say his use of the terms Essential and Integral in the place before quoted was ridiculous I must mind my Reader that pag. 109. of his Thoughts concerning the Causes of Atheism he having said that the Epistolary Writings are fraught with other Fundamentals besides that one which I mention and then having set them down he closes his Catalogue of them thus These are Matters of Faith contain'd in the Epistles and they are Essential and Integral parts of the Gospel it self p. 111. Now what could be more ridiculous than where the question is about Fundamental Doctrines which are the Essentials of Christian Religion without an assent to which a Man cannot be a Christian and so he himself calls them p. 21. of his Socinianism Unmask'd that he should close the List he had made of Fundamental Doctrines i. e. Essential Points of the Christian Religion with telling his Reader These are Essential and Integral parts of the Gospel it self i. e. these which I have given you for Fundamental for Essential Doctrines of the Gospel are the Fundamental and not Fundamental Essential and not Essential parts of the Gospel mixed together For integral parts in all the Writers I have met with besides the Unmasker are contra-distinguished to Essential and signifie such parts as the thing can be without but without them will not be so compleat and entire as with them Just such an accuteness as our Unmasker would any one shew who taking upon him to set down the parts Essential to a Man without the having of which he could not be a Man should name the Soul the Head the Heart Lungs Stomach Liver Spleen Eyes Ears Tongue Arms Legs Hair and Nails and to make all sure should conclude with these words these are Parts contain'd in a Man and are Essential and Integral Parts of a Man himself i. e. they are Parts some without which he cannot be a Man and others which though they make the Man entire yet he may be a Man without them As a Man ceases not to be a Man though he want a Nail a Finger or an Arm which are Integral Parts of a Man Risum teneatis If the Unmasker can make any better sence of his Essential and Integral Parts of the Gospel it self I will ask his Pardon for my Laughing Till then he must not be angry if the Reader and I laugh too Besides I must tell him That those which he has set down are not the
pertinent Now what can there be more impertinent than to confess the Matter of Fact upon which the Objection is grounded but instead of destroying the Inference drawn from that Matter of Fact only amuse the Reader with wrong Reasons why that Matter of Fact was so No considerate Man he says doth wonder that the Articles and Doctrines he mentioned are omitted in the Apostles Creed Because that Creed is a form of outward Profession Answ. A Profession of what I beseech you Is it a Form to be used for Form's sake I thought it had been a Profession of something even of the Christian Faith And if it be so any considerate Man may wonder necessary Articles of the Christian Faith should be lest out of it For how it can be an outward Profession of the Christian Faith without containing the Christian Faith I do not see unless a Man can outwardly profess the Christian Faith in words that do not contain or express it i. e. profess the Christian Faith when he does not profess it But he says 't is a Profession chiefly to be made use of in Assemblies Answ. Do those solemn Assemblies privilege it from containing the necessary Articles of the Christian Religion This proves not that it does not or was not designed to contain all Articles necessary to be believed to make a Man a Christian unless the Unmasker can prove that a From of outward Profession of the Christian Faith that contains all such necessary Articles cannot be made use of in the Publick Assemblies In the Publick Assemblies says he when Prayers are put up by the Church and the Holy Scriptures are read then this Abridgment of Faith is properly used or when there is not generally time or opportunity to make an Enlargement Answ. But that which contains not what is absolutely necessary to be believed to make a Man a Christian can no where be properly used as a form of outward Profession of the Christian Faith and least of all in the solemn Publick Assemblies All the sense I can make of this is That this Abridgment of the Christian Faith i. e. imperfect Collection as the Unmasker will have it of some of the Fundamental Articles of Christianity in the Apostles Creed which omits the greatest part of them is made use of as a form of outward Profession of but part of the Christian Faith in the Publick Assemblies when by reason of reading of the Scripture and Prayers there is not time or opportunity for a full and perfect Profession of it 'T is strange the Christian Church should not find time nor opportunity in Sixteen hundred Years to make in any of her Publick Assemblies a Profession of so much of her Faith as is necessary to make a Man a Christian. But pray tell me has the Church any such full and compleat form of Faith that hath in it all those Propositions you have given us for necessary Articles not to say any thing of those which you have reserved to your self in your own Breast and will not communicate of which the Apostles Creed is only a scanty form a brief imperfect abstract used only to save time in the Croud of other pressing Occasions that are always in hast to be dispatch'd If she has the Unmasker will do well to produce it If the Church has no such compleat form besides the Apostle's Creed any where of Fundamental Articles he will do well to leave talking idlely of this Abstract as he goes on to do in the following words But says he we are not to think that it expresly contains in it all the necessary and weighty Points all the important Doctrines of our Belief it being only designed to be an Abstract Answ. Of what I beseech you is it an Abstract For here the Unmasker stops short and as one that knows not well what to say speaks not out what it is an Abstract of But provides himself a Subterfuge in the generality of the preceding terms of necessary and weighty Points and Important Doctrines jumbled together which can be there of no other use but to cover his Ignorance or Sophistry For the Question being only about necessary Points to what purpose are weighty and important Doctrines join'd to them unless he will say that there is no difference between necessary and weighty Points Fundamental and important Doctrines And if so then the distinction of Points into necessary and not necessary will be foolish and impertinent And all the Doctrines contain'd in the Bible will be absolutely necessary to be explicitly believed by every Man to make him a Christian. But taking it for granted that the diction of Truths contain'd in the Gospel into Points absolutely necessary and not absolutely necessary to be believed to make a Man a Christian is good I desire the Unmasker to tell us what the Apostles Creed is an Abstract of He will perhaps answer that he has told us already in this very Page where he says it is an Abridgment of Faith and he has said true in words but saying those words by rote after others without understanding them he has said so in a sense that is not true For he supposes it an Abridgment of Faith by containing only a few of the necessary Articles of Faith and leaving out the far greater part of them And so takes a part of a thing for an Abridgment of it Whereas an Abridgment or Abstract of any thing is the whole in little and if it be of a Science or Doctrine the Abridgment consists in the essentâ—al or necessary Parts of it contracted into a narrower compass than where it lies diffus'd in the ordinary way of delivery amongst a great number of Transitions Explanations Illustrations Proofs Reasonings Corollaries c. All which though they make a part of the Discourse wherein that Doctrine is deliver'd are lest out in the Abridgment of it wherein all the necessary parts of it are drawn together into a less room But though an Abridgment need to contain none but the essential and necessary parts yet all those it ought to contain Or else it will not be an Abridgment or Abstract of that thing but an Abridgment only of a part of it I think it could not be said to be an Abridgment of the Law contain'd in an Act of Parliament wherein any of the things required by that Act were omitted which yet commonly may be reduced into a very narrow compass when strip'd of all the Motives Ends Enacting Forms c. expressed in the Act it self If this does not satisfie the Unmasker what is properly an Abridgment I shall referr him to Mr. Chillingworth who I think will be allow'd to understand sense and to speak it properly at least as well as the Unmasker And what he says happens to be in the very same Question between Knot the Jesuit and him that is here between the Unmasker and me 'T is but putting the Unmasker in the Jesuit's place and my self if it may be allow'd
course Thread of Inconsistencies which runs quite through his Book That 't is with great justice I put him here in the Jesuits place and address the same Request to him His very next words give me a fresh reason to do it For thus he argues p. 72. May we not expect that those who deal thus with the Creed i. e. Discard all the Articles of it but one will use the same Method in reducing the ten Commandments and the Lord's Prayer Abbreviate the former into one Precept and the latter into one Petition Answ. If he will tell me where this Creed he speaks of is it will be much more easie to answer his Demand Whilst his Creed which he here speaks of is yet no where it is ridiculous for him to ask Questions about it The Ten Commandments and the Lord's Prayer I know where to find in express words set down by themselves with peculiar marks of distinction Which is the Lord's Prayer we are plainly taught by this Command of our Saviour Luk. XI 1. When we pray SAY Our Father c. In the same manner and words we are taught what we should believe to make us his Disciples by his Command to the Apostles what they should Preach Mat. X. 7. As ye go preach SAYING What were they to say Only this the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand Or as St. Luke expresses it IX 2. They were sent to preach the Kingdom of God and to heal the Sick Which what it was we have sufficiently explain'd But this Creed of the Unmasker which he talks of where is it Let him shew it us distinctly set out from the rest of the Scripture If he knows where it is let him produce it or leave talking of it till he can 'T is not the Apostles Creed that 's evident For that Creed he has discarded from being the Standard of Christian Faith and has told the World in words at length That if a Man believes no more than is in express terms in the Apostles Creed his Faith will not be the Faith of a Christian. Nay 't is plain that Creed has in the Unmasker's Opinion the same tendency to Atheism and Irreligion that my Summary has For the Apostles Creed reducing the Forty or perhaps Four hundred Fundamental Articles of his Christian Creed to Twelve and leaving out the greatest part of those necessary ones which he has already and will hereafter in good time give us does as much dispose Men to serve the Decalogue and the Lord's Prayer just so as my reducing those Twelve to Two For so many at least he has granted to be in my Summary viz. The Article of one God Maker of Heaven and Earth and the other of Jesus the Messiah though he every where calls them but ONE Which whether it be to shew with what love and regard to truth he continues and consequently began this Controversie or whether it be to beguile and startle unwary or confirm prejudiced Readers I shall leave to others to judge 'T is evident he thinks his Cause would be mightily maimed if he were forced to leave out the charge of ONE Article and he would not know what to do for Wit or Argument if he should call them two For then the whole weight and edge of his strong and sharp reasoning in his Thoughts concerning the Causes of Atheism p. 122. would be lost There you have it in these words When the Catholick Faith is thus brought down to one single Article it will soon be reduced to none the Unit will dwindle into a Cypher And here again it makes the whole Argument of his Atheistical Speech which he winds up with these convincing words We are glad to hear that Christianity is brought so low by this worthy Pen-man for this is a good Presage that it will dwindle into nothing What! ONE Article and that so brief too We like such a Faith and such a Religion because it is so near NONE But I must tell this Writer of equal Wit Sense and Modesty That this Religion which he thus makes a dull Farce of and calls near none is that very Religion which our Saviour Iesus Christ and his Apostles preach'd for the Conversion and Salvation of Mankind no one Article whereof which they propos'd as necessary to be received by Unbelievers to make them Christians is omitted And I ask him whether it be his Errand as one of our Saviour's Ambassadors to turn it thus into Ridicule For till he has shewn that they Preach'd otherwise and more than what the Spirit of Truth has recorded of their Preaching in their Histories which I have faithfully collected and set down all that he shall say reflecting upon the Plainness and Simplicity of their Doctrine however directed against me will by his Atheistical Rabble of all kinds now they are so well enter'd and instructed in it by him be all turn'd upon our Saviour and his Apostles What tendency this and all his other trifling in so serious a cause as this is has to the propagating of Atheism and Irreligion in this Age he were best to consider This I am sure the Doctrine of but one Article if the Author and finisher of our Faith and those he guided by his Spirit had Preach'd but one Article has no more tendency to Atheism than their Doctrine of one God But the Unmasker every where talks as if the Strength of our Religion lay in the number of its Articles and would be presently routed if it had but a few And therefore he has mustered up a pretty full band of them and has a reserve of the Lord knows how many more which shall be forthcoming upon occasion But I shall desire to mind this Learned Divine who is so afraid what will become of his Religion if it should propose but one or a few Articles as necessary to be believed to make a Man a Christian that the Strength and Security of our Religion lies in the Divine Authority of those who first promulgated the terms of admittance into the Church and not in the Multitude of Articles suppos'd by some necessary to be believed to make a Man a Christian And I would have him remember when he goes next to make use of this strong Argument of ONE dwindling into a Cypher that One is as remote as a Million from none And if this be not so I desire to know whether his way of arguing will not prove Pagan Polytheism to be more remote from Atheism than Christianity He will do well to try the force of his Speech in the Mouth of an Heathen complaining of the tendency of Christianity to Atheism by reducing his great number of Gods to but one which was so near none and would therefore soon be reduced to none The Unmasker seems to be upon the same Topick where he so pathetically complains of the Socinians p. 66. in these words Is it not enough to rob us of our God by denying Christ to be so But must they
of yet owns the Omission of several things that the Apostle said For having expressed this Fundamental Doctrine That Iesus was the Messiah and recorded several of the Arguments wherewith St. Peter urged it for the Conversion of the unbelieving Iews his Auditors he adds v. 40. And with many other words did he testifie and exhort saying Save your selves from this untoward Generation Here he confesses that he omitted a great deal which St. Peter had said to perswade them To what To that which in other words he had just said before v. 38. Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Iesus Christ i. e. Believe Iesus to be the Messiah take him as such for your Lord and King and reform your Lives by a sincere Resolution of Obedience to his Laws Thus we have an account of the Omissions in the Records of Matters of Fact in the New Testament But will the Unmasker say that the preaching of those Articles that he has given us as necessary to be believ'd to make a Man a Christian was part of those Matters of Fact which have been omitted in the History of the New Testament Can any one think that the Corruption and Degeneracy of humane Nature with the true Original of it the Defection of our first Parents the Propagation of Sin and Mortality our Restoration and Reconciliation by Christ's blood the Eminency and Excellency of his Priesthood the Efficacy of his Death the full Satisfaction thereby made to divine Iustice and his being made an all-sufficient Sacrifice for Sin our Iustification by Christ's Righteousness Election Adoption c. were all proposed and that too in the Sense of our Authors System by our Saviour and his Apostles as Fundamental Articles of Faith necessary to be explicitely believed by every Man to make him a Christian in all their Discourses to Unbelievers And yet that the inspired Pen-men of those Histories every where left the mention of these Fundamental Articles wholly out This would have been to have writ not a concise but an imperfect History of all that Iesus and his Apostles taught What an account would it have been of the Gospel as it was first preached and propagated if the greatest part of the necessary Doctrines of it were wholly left out and a Man could not find from one end to the other of this whole History that Religion which is necessary to be believed to make a Man a Christian And yet this is that which under the Notion of their being concise the Vnmasker would perswade us to have been done by St. Luke and the other Evangelists in their Histories And 't is no less than what he plainly says in his Thoughts concerning the Causes of Atheism p. 109. Where to aggravate my Fault in passing by the Epistles and to shew the Necessity of searchin them for Fundamentals he in words blames me But in effect condemns the Sacred History contain'd in the Gospels and the Acts. It is most evident says he to any thinking Man that the Author of the Reasonableness of Christianity purposely omits the Epistolary Writings of the Apostles because they are fraught with other Fundamental Doctrines besides that one which he mentions There we are instructed concerning these grand heads of Christian Divinity Here i. e. in the Epistles says he There are Discoveries concerning Satisfaction c. and in the close of his List of his Grand Heads as he calls them some whereof I have above set down out of him he adds These are the Matters of Faith contained in the Epistles By all which Expressions he plainly signifies that these which he calls Fundamental Doctrines are none of those we are instructed in in the Gospels and the Acts that they are not discover'd nor contain'd in the historical Writings of the Evangelists Whereby he confesses that either our Saviour and his Apostles did not propose them in their Preachings to their unbelieving Hearers or else that the several faithful Writers of their History willfully i. e. unfaithfully every where omitted them in the account they have left us of those Preachings Which could scarce possibly be done by them all and every where without an actual Combination amongst them to smother the greatest and most material parts of our Saviour's and his Apostles Discourses For what else did they if all that the Unmasker has set down in his List be Fundamental Doctrines every one of them absolutely necessary to be believed to make a Man a Christian which our Saviour and his Apostles every where preached to make Men Christians but yet St. Luke and the other Evangelists by a very guilty and unpardonable Conciseness every where omitted them and throughout their whole History never once tell us they were so much as proposed much less that they were those Articles which the Apostles laboured to establish and convince Men of every where before they admitted them to Baptism Nay the far greatest part of them the History they writ does not any where so much as once mention How after such an Imputation as this the Unmasker will clear himself from laying by the four Gospels and the Acts with contempt let him look if my not collecting Fundamentals out of the Epistles had that Guilt in it For I never denied all the Fundamental Doctrines to be there but only said that there they were not easie to be found out and distinguished from Doctrines not Fundamental Whereas our good Vnmasker charges the historical Books of the New Testament with a total Omission of the far greatest part of those Fundamental Doctrines of Christianity which he says are absolutely necessary to be believed to make a Man a Christian. To convince the Reader what was absolutely required to be believed to make a Man a Christian and thereby clear the holy Writers from the Unmasker's Slander any one need but look a little further into the History of the Acts and observe St. Luke's Method in the Writing of it In the beginning as we observed before and in some few other places he sets down at large the Discourses made by the Preachers of Christianity to their unbelieving Auditors But in the Process of his History he generally contents himself to relate what it was their Discourses drive at what was the Doctrine they endeavour'd to convince their unbelieving Hearers of to make them Believers This we may observe is never omitted This is every where set down Thus Acts V. 42. he tells us that daily in the Temple and in every house the Apostles ceased not to teach and to preach IESUS THE MESSIAH The particulars of their Discourses he omits and the Arguments they used to induce Men to believe he omits But never fails to inform us carefully what it was the Apostles taught and preach'd and would have Men believe The account he gives us of St. Paul's Preaching at Thessalonica is this That three Sabbath Days he REASON'D with the Iews out of the Scriptures OPENING and ALLEDGING that the Messiah must needs
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
receive a Prophets reward and he that receiveth a righteous man shall receive a righteous mans reward And whosoever shall give to drink unto one of these little ones a cup of cold water only in the name of a Disciple verily I say unto you he shall in no wise lose his reward And it came to pass when Iesus had made an end of Commanding his twelve Disciples This is the Commission our Saviour gave the Apostles when he sent them abroad to recover and save the lâ—st Sheep of the house of Israel And will any of the Unmasker's intelligent and observing Men say that the History of the Scripture is so concise that any passages any essential any material nay any parts at all of the Apostles Commission are here omitted by the Sacred Penman This Commission is set down so at full and so particularly that S. Matthew who was one of them to whom it was given seems not to have left out one word of all that our Saviour gave them in charge And it is so large even to every particular Article of their Instructions that I doubt not but my citing so much verbatim out of the Sacred Text will here again be troublesome to the Unmasker But whether he will venture again to call it tedious must be as Nature or Caution happen to have the better on 't Can any one who reads this Commission unless he hath the Brains as well as the Brow of an Unmasker alledge that the conciseness of the History of the Scripture has concealed from us those Fundamental Doctrines which our Saviour and his Apostles Preach'd but the Sacred Historians thought fit by consent for unconceivable Reasons to leave out in the Narrative they give us of those Preachings This Passage here wholly confuteth that They could Preach nothing but what they were sent to Preach And that we see is contain'd in these few words Preach saying the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand Heal the Sick cleanse the Lepers raise the Dead cast out Devils i. e. Acquaint them that the Kingdom of the Messiah is come and let them know by the Miracles you do in my Name that I am that King and Deliverer they expect If there were any other necessary Articles that were to be believed for the saving of the lost Sheep they were sent to can one think that St. Matthew who sets down so minutely every Circumstance of their Commission would have omitted the most important and material of it He was an ear Witness and one that was sent And so without supposing him inspired could not be misled by the short account he might receive from others who by their own or others forgetfulness might have drop'd those other Fundamental Articles that the Apostles were order'd to Preach The very like account St. Luke gives us of our Saviours Commission to the Seventy Ch. X. 1 16. After these things the Lord appointed other seventy also and sent them two and two before his face into every city and place whither he himself would come Therefore said he unto them The harvest truly is great but the labourers are few Pray ye therefore the Lord of the hâ—rvest that he would send forth labourers into his harvest Go your ways behold I send you forth as Lambs among Wolves Carry neither purse nor scrip nor shooes and salute no man by the way And into whatsoever house ye enter first say Peace be to this house And if the son of peace be there your peace shall rest upon it if not it shall return to you again And in the same house remain eating and drinking such things as they give for the labourer is worthy of his hire Go not from house to house And into whatsoever city ye enter and they receive you eat such things as are set before you And heal the sick that are therein and SAY VNTO THEM THE KINGDOM OF GOD IS COME NIGH VNTO YOV But in whatsoever city ye enter and they receive you not go your ways out into the streets of the same and say Even the very dust of your city which cleaveth on us we do wipe off against you Notwithstanding be ye sure of this that the Kingdom of God is come nigh unto you But I say unto you that it shall be more tolerable in that day for Sodom than for that city Wo unto thee Chorazin Wo unto thee Bethsaida For if the mighty works had been done in Tyre and Sidon which have been done in you they had a great while ago repented sitting in sackcloth and ashes But it shall be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon at the judgment than for you And thou Capernaum which art exalted to Heaven shalt be thrust down to Hell He that heareth you heareth me and he that despiseth you despiseth me and he that despiseth me despiseth him that sent me Our Saviour's Commission here to the Seventy whom he sent to Preach is so exactly conformable to that which he had before given to the Twelve Apostles that there needs but this one thing more to be observed to convince any one that they were sent to convert their Hearers to this sole belief that the Kingdom of the Messiah was come and that Iesus was the Messiah And that the Historians of the New Testament are not so concise in their account of this Matter that they would have omitted any other necessary Articles of Belief that had been given the Seventy in Commission That which I mean is the Kingdom of the Messiah is twice mentioned in it to be come v. 9. 11. If there were other Articles given them by our Saviour to propose to their Hearers St. Luke must be very fond of this one Article when for conciseness sake leaving out the other Fundamental Articles that our Saviour gave them in charge to Preach he repeats this more than once The Unmasker's Third Particular p. 76. begins thus This also must be thought of that though there are several parts and members of the Christian Faith yet they do not all occur in any one place of Scripture Something is in it whether owing to his Will or Understanding I shall not enquire that the Unmasker always delivers himself in doubtful and ambiguous terms It had been as easie for him to have said There are several Articles of the Christian Faith necessary to be believed to make a Man a Christian as to say as he does here There are several parts and members of the Christian Faith But as an evidence of the clearness of his Notions or the fairness of his Arguing he always rests in generals There are I grant several parts and members of the Christian Faith which do no more occur in any one place of Scripture than the whole New Testament can be said to occur in any one place of Scripture For every Proposition deliver'd in the New Testament for Divine Revelation is a part and member of the Christian Faith But 't is not those parts and members of the Christian Faith
is to establish one of my own or to foster Scepticism by beating down all others For clear Reason or good Sence I do not think our Creed-maker ever had his fellow In the immediate preceding words of the same Sentence he charges me with a great Antipathy against Systems and before he comes to the end of it finds out my Design to be the establishing one of my own So that this my Antipathy against Systems makes me in love with one My Design he says is to establish a System of my own or to foster Scepticism in beating down all others Let my Book if he pleases be my System of Christianity Now is it in me any more fostering Scepticism to say my System is true and others not than it is in the Creed-maker to say so of all other Systems but his own For I hope he does not allow any System of Christianity to be true that differs from his any more than I do But I have spoke against all Systems Answ. And always shall so far as they are set up by particular Men or Parties as the just Measure of every Man's Faith wherein every thing that is contained is required and imposed to be believed to make a Man a Christian Such an Opinion and Use of Systems I shall always be against till the Creed-maker shall tell me amongst the Variety of them which alone is to be received and rested in in the absence of his Creed which is not yet finished and I fear will not as long as I live That every Man should receive from others or make to himself such a System of Christianity as he found most conformable to the Word of God according to the best of his understanding is what I never spake against but think it every one's Duty to Labour for and to take all opportunities as long as he lives by Studying the Scriptures every day to perfect But this I fear will not go easily down with our Author for then he cannot be a Creed-maker for others A thing he shews himself very forward to how able to perform it we shall see when his Creed is made In the mean time talking loudly and at Random about Fundamentals without knowing what is so may stand him in some stead This being all that is new which I think my self concerned in in this Socinian Creed I pass on to his Postscript In the first Page whereof I find these words I found that the Manager of the Reasonableness of Christianity had prevailed with a Gentleman to make a Sermon upon my Refutation of that Treatise and the Vindication of it Such a piece of Impertinency as this might have been born from a fair Adversary But the Sample Mr. Edwards has given of himself in his Socinianism Unmask'd perswades me this ought to be bound up with what he says of me in his Introduction to that Book in these words Among others they thought and made Choice of a Gentleman who they knew would be extraordinary useful to them And he it is probable was as forward to be made use of by them and presently accepted of the Office that was assigned him and more there to the same purpose All which I know to be utterly false 'T is pity that one who relies so entirely upon it should have no better an Invention The Socinians set the Author of the Reasonableness of Christianity c. on Work to write that Book by which Discovery the World being as Mr. Edwards says let into the project that Book is confounded baffled blown off and by this Skilful Artifice there is an end of it Mr. Bold preaches and publishes a Sermon without this irrefragable Gentleman's good Leave and Liking What now must be done to discredit it and keep it from being read Why Mr. Bold too was set on Work by the Manager of the Reasonableness of Christianity c. In your whole Store-house of Stratagems you that are so great a Conquerour Have you but this one Way to destroy a Book which you set your Mightiness against but to tell the World it was a Jobb of Journey-work for some body you do not like Some other would have done better in this new Case had your happy Invention been ready with it For you are not so bashful or reserved but that you may be allowed to be as great a Wit as he who professed himself ready at any time to say a good or a new thing if he could but think of it But in good earnest Sir if one should ask you do you think no Books contain Truth in them which were Undertaken by the Procuration of a Bookseller I desire you to be a little tender in the Point not knowing how far it may reach Ay but such Booksellers live not at the Lower End of Pater-Noster-Row but in Paul's Church-Yard and are the Managers of other-guess Books than The Reasonableness of Christianity And therefore you very rightly subjoin Indeed it was a great Master-Piece of Procuration and we can't but think that Man must speak truth and defend it very Impartially and Substantially who is thus brought on to undertake the Cause And so Mr. Bold's Sermon is found to have neither Truth nor Sence in it because it was Printed by a Bookseller at the lower End of Pater-Noster-Row for that I dare say is all you know of the Matter But that is hint enough for a happy Diviner to be sure of the rest and with Confidence to report that for certain Matter of Fact which had never any being but in the forecasting Side of his Politick Brain But whatever were the Reason that moved Mr. B to Preach that Sermon of which I know nothing This I am sure it shews only the Weakness and Malice I will not say and ill Breeding for that concerns not one of Mr. Edward's Pitch of any one who excepts against it to take notice of any thing more than what the Author has Published Therein alone consists the Errour if there be any and that alone those meddle with who write for the sake of Truth But poor Cavillers have other Purposes and therefore must use other Shifts and make a bustle about something besides the Argument to prejudice and beguile unwary Readers The only Exception the Creed-maker makes to Mr. Bold's Sermon is the Contradiction he imputes to him in saying That there is but one Point or Article necessary to be believed for the making a Man a Christian And that there are many Points besides this which Jesus Christ hath taught and revealed which every sincere Christian is indispensibly obliged to endeavour to understand And That there are particular Points and Articles which being known to be revealed by Christ Christians must indispensibly assent to And where now is there any thing like a Contradiction in this Let it be granted for Example that the Creed-maker's Set of Articles let their Number be what they will when he has sound them all out are necessary to be believed for the making a
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
who is the Author of those Animadversions he is Reflecting on To which I tell him it matters not to a Lover of Truth or a Confuter of Errours who was the Author but what they contain He who makes such a deal of doe about that which is nothing to the Question shews he has but little Mind to the Argument that his hopes are more in the recommendation of Names and prejudice of Parties than in the Strength of his Reasons and the goodness of his Cause A Lover of Truth follows That whoever be for or against it and can suffer himself to pass by no Argument of his Adversary without taking notice of it either in allowing its force or giving it a fair Answer Were the Creed-maker capable of giving such an Evidence as this of his Love of Truth he would not have passed over the Twenty first Pages of Mr. Bold's Animadversions in silence The Falshoods that are therein charged upon him would have required an Answer of him if he could have given any And I tell him he must give an Answer or confess the Falshoods In his 255. p. he comes to take notice of these words of Mr. Bold in the 21. Page of his Animadversions viz. That a Convert to Christianity or a Christian must necessarily believe as many Articles as he shall attain to know that Christ Jesus hath taught Which says the Creed-maker wholly invalidates what he had said before in these words viz. That Iesus Christ and his Apostles did not teach any thing as necessary to be believed to make a Man a Christian but only this one Proposition That Iesus of Nazareth was the Messiah The reason he 〈◊〉 to shew That the former of these Propositions in Mr. Bold invalidates the latter and that the Animadverter contradicts himself stands thus For says he if a Christian must give assent to all the Articles taught by our Saviour in the Gospel and that necessarily then all those Propositions reckon'd up in my late Discourse being taught by Christ or his Apostles are necessary to be believed Answ. And what I beseech you becomes of the rest of the Propositions taught by Christ or his Apostles which you have not reckon'd up in your late Discourse Are not they necessary to be believed if a Christian must give an assent to ALL the Articles taught by our Saviour and his Apostles Sir If you will argue right from that antecedent it must stand thus If a Christian must give an assent to ALL the Articles taught by our Saviour and his Apostles and that necessarily Then all the Propositions in the New Testament taught by Christ or his Apostles are necessarily to be believed This Consequence I grant to be true and necessarily to follow from that antecedent and pra◠〈◊〉 your best of it But withal remeâ—â—ber that it puts an utter end to your select Number of Fundamentals and makes all the Truths delivered in the New Testament necessary to be explicitly believed by every Christian But Sir I must take notice to you that if it be uncertain whether he that Writ the Animadversions be the same Person that Preached the Sermon yet it is very visible that 't is the very same Person that reflects on both Because he here again uses the same Trick in answering in the Animadversions the same thing that had been said in the Sermon viz. By pretending to argue from words as Mr. Bold's when Mr. Bold has said no such thing The Proposition you argue from here is this If a Christian must give assent to all the Articles taught by our Saviour and that necessarily But Mr. Bold says no such thing His words as set down by your self are A Christian must necessarily believe as many Articles as he shall attain to know that Christ Jesus hath taught And is there no difference â—â—â—ween ALL that Christ Iesus hath taught and AS MANY as any one shall attain to know that Christ Iesus hath taught There is so great a difference between these two that one can scarce think even such a Creed-maker could mistake it For one of them admits all those to be Christians who taking Iesus for the Messiah their Lord and King sincerely apply themselves to understand and obey his Doctrine and Law and do believe all that they understand to be taught by him The other shuts out if not all Mankind yet Nine Hundred Ninety Nine of a Thousand of those who profess themselves Christians from being really so For he speaks within Compass who says there is not one of a Thousand if there be any one Man at all who explicitly knows and believes that all that our Saviour and his Apostles taught i. e. All that is delivered in the New Testament in the true â—ence that it is there intended For if giving assent to it in any sence will serve the turn our Creed-maker can have no Exceptions against Socinians Papists Lutherans or any other who acknowledging the Scripture to be the Word of God do yet oppose his System But the Creed-maker goes on p. 255. and endeavours to prove that what is necessary to be believed by every Christian is necessary to be believed to make a Man a Christian in these words But he will say the belief of those Propositions makes not a Man a Christian. Then I say they are not necessary and indispensible for what is absolutely necessary in Christianity is absolutely requisite to make a Man a Christian. Ignorance or something worse makes our Creed-maker always speak doubtfully or obscurely whenever he pretends to argue for here absolutely necessary in Christianity either signifies nothing but absolutely necessary to make a Man a Christian and then it is proving the same Proposition by the same Proposition Or else has a very obscure and doubtful Signification For if I ask him whether it be absolutely necessary in Christianity to obey every one of our Saviour's Commands what will he answer me If he answers NO I ask him which of our Saviour's Commands is it not in Christianity absolutely necessary to obey If he answers YES Then I tell him by his rule there are no Christians because there is no one that does in all things obey all our Saviour's Commands and therein fails to perform what is absolutely necessary in Christianity and so by his rule is no Christian. If he answers Sincere Endeavour to obey is all that is absolutely necessary I reply And so Sincere Endeavour to understand is all that is absolutely necessary Neither perfect Obedience nor perfect Understanding is absolutely necessary in Christianity But his Proposition being put in terms clear and not loose and fallacious should stand thus viz. What is absolutely necessary to every Christian is absolutely requisite to make a Man a Christian But then I deny that he can inferr from Mr. Bold's words that those Propositions i. e. which he has set down as Fundamental or necessary to be believed arâ— absolutely necessary to be believed by every Christian. For that
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