St. Peter principally aimed at and endeavoured to convince them of is evident from hence That they are made use of as Arguments to perswade them of this Fundamental Truth viz. That Iesus was the Messiah whom they ought to take for their Lord and Ruler For whatsoever is brought as an Argument to prove another Truth cannot be thought to be the principal thing aimed at in that argumentation though it may have so strong and immediate a connexion with the Conclusion that you cannot deny it without denying even what is inferr'd from it and is therefore the fitter to be an Argument to prove it But that our Saviour's Crucifixion Death and Resurrection were used here as Arguments to perswade them into a belief of this Fundamental Article that Iesus was the Messiah and not as Propositions of a new Faith they were to receive is evident from hence that they Preach'd here to those who knew the Death and Crucifixion of Iesus as well as Peter And therefore these could not be propos'd to them as new Articles of Faith to be believed But those Matters of Fact being what the Iews knew already were a good Argument joyn'd with his Resurrection to convince them of that truth which he endeavoured to give them a Belief of And therefore he rightly inferred from these Facts joined together this Conclusion the believing whereof would make them Christians Therefore let all the House of Israel know assuredly that God hath made that same Iesus whom ye have crucified Lord and Christ. To the making good this sole Proposition his whole Discourse tended This was the sole Truth he laboured to convince them of This the Faith he endeavoured to bring them into which as soon as they had received with Repentance they were by Baptism admitted into the Church and three Thousand at once made Christians Here St. Luke's own Confession without that of intelligent and observing men which the Unmasker has recourse to might have satisfied him again that in relating matters of Fact many passages are omitted by the sacred Pen-men For says St. Luke here v. 40. And with many other words which are not set down One would at first sight wonder why the Unmasker neglects these demonstrative Authorities of the Holy Pen-men themselves where they own their Omissions to tell us that it is confessed by all intelligent and observing men that in relating matters of Fact many Passages are omitted by the sacred Pen-men St. Iohn in what he says of his Gospel directly professes large Omissions and so does St. Luke here But these Omissions would not serve the Unmasker's turn For they are directly against him and what he would have And therefore he had reason to pass them by For St. Iohn in that passage above-cited Ch. XX. 30 31. tells us that how much soever he had left out of his History he had incerted that which was enough to be believed to eternal Life But these are written that ye might believe and believing ye might have life But this is not all he assures us of viz. That he had recorded all that was necessary to be believed to eternal Life But he in express words tells us what is that ALL that is necessary to be believed to eternal Life and for the Proof of which Proposition alone he writ all the rest of his Gospel viz. That we might believe What Even this That Iesus is the Christ the Son of God and that believing this we might have life through his Name This may serve for a Key to us in reading the History of the New Testament And shew us why this Article that Iesus was the Messiah is no where omitted though a great part of the Arguments used to convince Men of it nay very often thâ— whole Discourse made to lead Men into the Belief of it be entirely omitted The Spirit of God directed them every where to set down the Article which was absolutely necessary to be believed to make Men Christians So that That could no ways be doubted of nor mistaken But the Arguments and Evidences which were to lead Men into this Faith would be sufficient if they were once found any where though scattered here and there in those Writings whereof that infallible Spirit was the Author This preserved the Decorum used in all Histories and avoided those continual large and unnecessary Repetitions which our critical Unmasker might have call'd tedious with juster Reason than he does the Repetition of this short Proposition that Iesus is the Messiah which I set down no oftner in my Book than the Holy Ghost thought fit to insert in the History of the New Testament as concise as it is But this it seems to our Nice Unmasker is tedious tedious and offensive And if a Christian and a Successor of the Apostles cannot bear the being so often told what it was that our Saviour and his Apostles every where preach'd to the Believers of one God though it be contain'd in one short Proposition What cause of Exception and disgust would it have been to Heathen Readers some whereof might perhaps have been as Critical as the Unmasker if this sacred History had in every Page been filled with the repeated Discourses of the Apostles all of them every where to the same purpose viz. to perswade Men to believe that Iesuâ— was the Messiah It was necessary even by the Laws of History as often as their preaching any where was mention'd to tell to what purpose they spoke which being always to convince Men of this one Fundamental Truth 't is no wonder we find it so often repeated But the Arguments and Reasonings with which this one Point is urged are as they ought to be in most places left out A constant Repetition of them had been superfluous and consequently might justly have been blam'd as tedious But there is enough recorded aboundantly to convince any rational Man any one not willfully blind that he is that promised Saviour And in this we have a reason of the Omissions in the History of the New Testament which were no other than such as became prudent as well as faithful Writers Much less did that Conciseness with which the Vnmasker would cover his bold Censure of the Gospels and the Acts and as it seems lay them by with Contempt make the holy Writers omit any thing in the preaching of our Saviour and his Apostles absolutely necessary to be known and believed to make Men Christians Conformable hereunto we shall find St. Luke writes his History of the Acts of the Apostles In the beginning of it he sets down at large some of the Discourses made to the unbelieving Iews But in most other Places unless it be where there was something particular in the Circumstances of the Matter he contents himself to tell to what purpose they spoke Which was every where only this That Iesus was the Messiah Nay St. Luke in the first Speech of St. Peter Act. 11. which he thought fit to give us a great part
the dead which are Characteristical marks of the Messiah and belong peculiarly to him should sometimes in Scripture be put alone as sufficient descriptions of the Messiah And the believing them of him put for believing him to be the Messiah Thus Acts X. our Saviour in Peter's Discourse to Cornelius when he brought him the Gospel is describ'd to be the Messiah by his Miracles Death Resurrection Dominion and coming to judge the quick and the dead These which in my Reasonableness of Christianity I have upon this ground taken the Liberty to call concomitant Articles where they are set alone for the Faith to which Salvation is promis'd plainly signifie the believing Iesus to be the Messiah that Fundamental Article which has the promise of Life And so give no Foundation at all for what the Unmasker says in these words Here one Article of Faith viz. The belief of Christ's Resurrection because it is of so great Importance in Christianity is only mention'd but all the rest must be suppos'd because they are mention'd in other places Answ. If all the rest be of absolute and indispensible Necessity to be believed to make a Man a Christian all the rest are every one of them of equal importance For things of equal Necessity to any end are of equal Importance to that end But here the Truth forced its way unawares from the Unmasker Our Saviour's Resurrection for the reason I have given is truly of great importance in Christianity so great that his being or not being the Messiah stands or falls with it So that these two important Articles are inseparable and in effect make but one For since that time believe one and you believe both Deny one of them and you can believe neither If the Unmasker can shew me any one of the Articles in his List which is not of this great importance mention'd alone with a promise of Salvation for believing it I will grant him to have some colour for what he says here But where is to be found in the Scripture any such Expression as this If thou shalt believe with thy heart the corruption and degeneracy of humane nature thou shalt be saved or the like This place therefore out of the Romans makes not for but against his List of necessary Articles One of them alone he cannot shew me any where set down with a Supposition of the rest as having Salvation promis'd to it Though it be true that that one which alone is absolutely necessary to be superadded to the Belief of one God is in divers places differently expressed That which he subjoins as a Consequence of what he had said is a farther Proof of this And consequently says he if we would give an impartial account of our belief we must consult those places And they are not all together but dispersed here and there Wherefore we must look them out and acquaint our selves with the several particulars which make up our belief and render it entire and consummate Answ. Never was Man constanter to a loose way of talking The Question is only about Articles necessary to be believed to make a Man a Christian And here he talks of the several particulars which make up our belief and render it entire and consummate Confounding as he did before essential and integral parts which it seems he cannot distinguish Our Faith is true and saving when it is such as God by the new Covenant requires it to be But it is not entire and consummate till we explicitely believe all the Truths contained in the Word of God For the whole Revelation of Truth in the Scripture being the proper and entire Object of Faith Our Faith cannot be entire and consummate till it be adequate to its proper Object which is the whole divine Revelation contain'd in the Scripture And so to make our Faith entire and consummate we must not look out those places which he says are not all together To talk of looking out and culling of places is Nonsense where the whole Scripture alone can make up our belief and render it entire and consummate Which no one I think can hope for in this frail State of Ignorance and Error To make the Unmasker speak Sense â— and to the purpose here we must understand him thus That if we will give an impartial Account of the Articles that are necessary to be believed to make a Man a Christian we must consult those places where they are for they are not all together but dispersed here and there wherefore we must look them out and acquaint our selves with the several particulars which make up the Fundamental Articles of our belief and will render a Catalogue of them entire and consummate If his Supposition be true I grant his Method to be reasonable and upon that I join issue with him Let him thus give us an impartial Account of our belief Let him acquaint us with the several particulars which make up a Christian's belief and render it entire and consummate Till he has done this let him not talk thus in the air of a Method that will not do Let him not reproach me as he does for not taking a course by which he himself cannot do what he reviles me for failing in But our hasty Author says he took another course and thereby deceived himself and unhappily deceived others If it be so I desire the Unmasker to take the course he proposes and thereby undeceive me and others and acquaint us with the several particulars which make up a Christian's belief and render it entire and consummate For I am willing to be undeceived But till he has done that and shewn us by the success of it that his course is better he cannot blame us for â—ollowing that course we have done I come now to his Fourth and last particular p. 78. which he says is the main Answer to the Objection and therefore I shall set it down in his own words entire as it stands together This says he must be born in our Minds that Christianity was erected by degrees according to that Prediction and Promise of our Saviour that the Spirit should teach them all things Joh. XIV 26. and that he should guide them into all truth Joh. XVI 13. viz. after his departure and ascension when the Holy Ghost was to be sent in a special manner to enlighten Mens minds and to discover to them the great Mysteries of Christianity This is to be noted by us as that which gives great light in the present case The discovery of the Doctrines of the Gospel was gradual It was by certain steps that Christianity climbed to its heighth We are not to think then that all the necessary Doctrines of the Christian Religion were clearly publish'd to the World in our Saviour's time Not but that all that were necessary for that time were publish'd But some which were necessary for the succeeding one were not then discover'd or at least not fully They had ordinarily no belief before
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
King but cast him off and with the Iews say we will not have this Man reign over us But it is still what we â—ind in the Scripture not in this or that System what we sincerely seeking to know the Will of our Lord discover to be his Mind Where it is spoken plainly we cannot miss it and it is evident he requires our assent where there is obscurity either in the Expressions themselves or by reason of the seeming contrariety of other Passages there a fair endeavour as much as our Circumstances will permit secures us from a guilty Disobedience to his Will or a sinful Error in Faith which way soever our enry resolves the doubt or perhaps leaves it unresolved If he had required more of us in those Points he would have declared his Will plainer to us and discover'd the Truth contain'd in those obscure or seemingly contradictory places as clearly and as uniformly as he did that Fundamental Article that we were to believe him to be the Messiah our King As Men we have God for our King and are under the Law of Reason As Christians we have Iesus the Messiah for our King and are under the Law revealed by him in the Gospel And though every Christian both as a Deist and a Christian be obliged to study both the Law of Nature and the Revealed Law that in them he may know the Will of God and of Jesus Christ whom he hath sent yet in neither of these Laws is there to be found a Select Set of Fundamentals distinct from the rest which are to make him a Deist or a Christian. But he that believes one Eternal invisible God his Lord and King ceases thereby to be an Atheist and he that believes Iesus to be the Messiah his King ordain'd by God thereby becomes a Christian is delivered from the Power of Darkness and is Translated into the Kingdom of the Son of God is actually within the Covenant of Grace and has that Faith which shall be imputed to him for Righteousness and if he continues in his Allegiance to this his King shall receive the reward Eternal Life He that Considers this will not be so hot as the Unmasker to contend for a Number of Fundamental Articles all necessary every one of them to be explicitly believed by every one for Salvation without knowing them himself or being able to enumerate them to another Can there be any thing more absurd than to say there are several Fundamental Articles each of which every Man must explicitly believe upon pain of Damnation and yet not to be able to say which they be The Unmasker has set down no small Number but yet dares not say these are all On the contrary he has plainly confessed there are more but will not i. e. cannot tell what they are that remain behind Nay has given a general Description of his Fundamental Articles by which it is not evident but there may be ten times as many as those he had named and amongst them if he durst or could name them probably several that many a good Christian who died in the Faith and is now in Heaven never once thought of and others which many of as good Authority as he would from their different Systems certainly deny and contradict This as great an Absurdity as it is cannot be otherwise whilst Men will take upon them to alter the terms of the Gospel and when it is evident that our Saviour and his Apostles received Men into the Church and pronounced them Believers for taking him to be the Messiah their King and Deliverer sent by God have the boldness to say this is not enough But when you would know of them what then is enough they cannot tell you The reason whereof is visible viz. Because they being able to produce no other reason for their Collection of Fundamental Articles to prove them necessary to be believed but because they are of Divine Authority and contain'd in the Holy Scriptures and are as the Unmasker says writ there on purpose to be believed they know not where to stop when they have once begun Those Texts that they leave out or from which they deduce none of them being of the same Divine Authority and so upon that Account equally Fundamental with what they have culled out though not so well suited to their particular Systems Hence come those endless and unreasonable Contentions about Fundamentals whilst each censures the Defect Redundancy or Falshood of what others require as necessary to be believed and yet he himself gives not a Catalogue of his own Fundamentals which he will say is sufficient and compleat Nor is it to be wondred since in this way it is impossible to stop short of putting every Proposition divinely revealed into the List of Fundamentals all of them being of Divine and so of equal Authority and upon that account equally necessary to be believed by every one who is a Christian though they are not all necessary to be believed to make any one a Christian For the New Testament containing the Laws of the Messiah's Kingdom in regard of all the Actions both of Mind and Body of all his Subjects every Christian is bound by his Allegiance to him to believe all that he says in it to be true as well as to assent that all that he commands in it is just and good And what Negligence Perverseness or Guilt there is in his mistaking in the one or failing in his obedience to the other That this Righteous Judge of all Men who cannot be deceived will at the last day lay open and reward accordingly 'T is no wonder therefore there has been such fierce Contests and such cruel Havock made amongst Christians about Fundamentals Whilst every one would set up his System upon pain of Fire and Faggot in this and Hell Fire in the other World Though at the same time whilst he is exercising the utmost Barbarities against others to prove himself a true Christian he professes himself so ignorant that he cannot tell or so uncharitable that he will not tell what Articles are absolutely necessary and sufficient to make a Man a Christian. If there be any such Fundamentals as 't is certain there are 't is as certain they must be very plain Why then does every one urge and make a stir about Fundamentals and no body give a List of them But because as I have said upon the usual Grounds they cannot For I will be bold to say that every one who considers the matter will see that either only the Article of his being the Messiah their King which alone our Saviour and his Apostles preach'd to the Unconverted World and received those that believed it into the Church is the only necessary Article to be believed by a Theist to make him a Christian Or else that all the Truths contain'd in the New Testament are necessary Articles to be believed to make a Man a Christian And that between these two it is
about understanding And in what sense they are understood believing several Propositions or Articles of Faith which are to be found in the Scripture To this the Unmasker says there can be no difficulty at all as to their reality and certainty because they are revealed by God Which amounts to no more but this That there is no difficulty at all in understanding and believing this Proposition that whatever is revealed by God is really and certainly true But is the understanding and believing this single Proposition the understanding and believing all the Articles of Faith necessary to be believed Is this all the explicit Faith a Christian need have If so then a Christian need explicitly believe no more but this one Proposition viz. That all the Propositions between the two Covers of his Bible are certainly true But I imagine the Unmasker will not think the believing this one Proposition is a sufficient belief of all those Fundamental Articles which he has given us as necessary to be believed to make a Man a Christian For if that will serve the turn I conclude he may make his Set of Fundamentals as large and express to his System as he pleases Calvinists Arminians Anabaptists Socinians will all thus own the belief of them viz. That all that God has revealed in the Scripture is really and certainly true But if believing this Proposition that all that is reveal'd by God in the Scripture is true be not all the Faith which the Unmasker requires what he says about the reality and certainty of all Truths reveal'd by God removes nothing of the difficulty A Proposition of Divine Authority is found in the Scripture 't is agreed presently between him and me that it contains a real certain truth But the difficulty is what is the Truth it contains to which he and I must assent v. g. The Profession of Faith made by the Eunuch in these words Iesus Christ is the Son of God upon which he was admitted into the Church as a Christian I believe contains a real and certain Truth Is that enough no says the Unmasker p. 87. it includes in it that Christ was God and therefore it is not enough for me to believe that these words contain a real certain truth But I must believe they contain this truth that Jesus Christ is God That the Eunuch spoke them in that sense and in that sense I must assent to them Whereas they appear to me to be spoken and meant here as well as in several other places of the New Testament in this sense viz. That Iesus Christ is the Messiah and in that sense in this place I assent to them The meaning then of these words as spoken by the Eunuch is the difficulty And I desire the Unmasker by the Application of what he has said here to remove that difficulty For granting all Revelation from God to be really and certainly true as certainly it is how does the believing that general truth remove any difficulty about the sense and interpretation of any particular Proposition found in any passage of the Holy Scriptures Or is it possible for any Man to understand it in one sense and believe it in another because it is a Divine Revelation that has reallity and certainty in it Thus much as to what the Unmasker says of the Fundamentals he has given us p. 30. viz. That No true Lover of God and Truth need doubt of any of them For there is no ambiguity and doubtfulness in them If the distinction he has used of difficulty as to the exact manner and difficulty as to the reality and certainty of Gospel Truths will remove all ambiguity and doubtfulness from all those Texts of Scripture from whence he and others deduce Fundamental Articles so that they will be plain and intelligible to every Man in the sense he understands them he has done great Service to Christianity But he seems to distrust that himself in the following words They shine says he with their own light and to an unprejudiced eye are plain evident and illustrious and they would always continue so if some ill minded Men did not perplex and entangle them I see the Matter would go very smooth if the Unmasker might be the sole authentick Interpreter of Scripture He is wisely of that Judge's Mind who was against hearing the Counsel on the other side because they always perplexed the Cause But if those who differ from the Unmasker shall in their turns call him the Prejudiced and Ill-minded Man who perplexes these Matters as they may with as much Authority as he we are but where we were Each must understand for himself the best he can till the Unmasker be received as the only unprejudiced Man to whose Dictates every one without Examination is with an implicit Faith to submit Here again p. 32. The Unmasker puts upon me what I never said and therefore I must desire him to shew where it is that I pretend XI That this Proposition that Jesus is the Messiah is more intelligible than any of those he has named In his Thoughts concerning the Causes of Atheism p. 120. he argues that this Proposition Iesus is the Messiah has more difficulty in it than the Article of the Holy Trinity And his Proofs are worthy of an Unmasker For says he Here is an Hebrew word first to be explain'd or as he has this strong Argument again Socinianism Unmask'd p. 32. Here first the Name Iesus which is of Hebrew extraction though since Grecized must be expounded Answ. Iesus being a proper Name only denoting a certain Person needs not to be expounded of what extraction soever it be Is this Proposition Ionathan was the Son of Saul King of Israel any thing the harder because the three proper Names in it Ionathan Saul and Israel are of Hebrew extraction And is it not as easie and as level to the understanding of the Vulgar as this Arthur was the Son of Henry King of England though neither of these Names be of Hebrew extraction Or cannot any Vulgar Capacity understand this Proposition Iohn Edwards writ a Book Intituled Socinianism Unmask'd till the Name Iohn which is of Hebrew extraction be explained to him If this be so Parents were best beware how hereafter they give their Children Scripture Names if they cannot understand what they say to one another about them till these Names of Hebrew extraction are expounded to them And every Proposition that is in Writings and Contracts made concerning Persons that have Names of Hebrew extractions become thereby as hard to be understood as the Doctrine of the Holy Trinity His next Argument is just of the same size The word Messias must he says be explained too Of what Extraction soever it be there needs no more Explication of it than what our English Bible gives of it where it is plain to any vulgar capacity that it was used to denote that King and Deliverer whom God had promised So that this Proposition Iesus is
Epistles which were all written to those who had imbraced the Faith and were all Christians already I thought would not so distinctly shew what were those Doctrines which were absolutely necessary to make Men Christians they being not writ to convert Unbelievers but to build up those who were already Believers in their most holy Faith This is plainly expressed in the Epistle to the Hebrews V. 11 c Of whom i. e. Christ we have many things to say and hard to be utter'd seeing ye are all dull of hearing For when for the time ye ought to be Teachers ye have need that one teach you again which be the first Principles of the Oracles of God and are become such as have need of Milk and not of strong Meat For every one that useth milk is unskilful in the word of righteousness for he is a Babe But strong meat belongeth to him that is of full age even those who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both good and bad Therefore leaving the Principles of the Doctrine of Christ let us go on unto perfection not laying again the foundation of Repentance from dead Works and of Faith towards God and of the Doctrine of Baptism and of laying on of hands and of the resurrection of the Dead and of eternal Iudgment Here the Apostle shews what was his Design in writing this Epistle Not to teach them the Fundamental Doctrines of the Christian Religion but to lead them on to more Perfection That is to greater degrees of Knowledge of the wise Design and wonderful Contrivance and carrying on of the Gospel and the Evidence of it which he makes out in this Epistle by shewing its Correspondence with the Old Testament and particularly with the Oeconomy of the Mosaical Constitution Here I might ask the Unmasker whether those many things which St. Paul tells the Hebrews he had to say of Christ hard to be utter'd to them because they were dull of hearing had not an immediate respect to the Occasion Author Way Means or Issue of their Redemption and Salvation And therefore whether they were such things without the knowledge of which they could not be saved as the Unmasker says of such things p. 23. And the like I might ask him concerning those things which the Apostle tells the Corinthians 1 Ep. Chap. III. 2. that they were not yet able to bear For much to the same purpose he speaks to the Corinthians Ep. 1. Ch. III. as in the above-cited places he did to the Hebrews That he as a wise Master-Builder had laid the Foundation And that Foundation he himself tells us is Iesus the Messiah and that there is no other Foundation to be laid And that in this he laid the Foundation of Christianity at Corinth St. Luke records Act XVIII 4. in these words Paul at Corinth reason'd in the Synagogue every Sabbath-day and testified to the Iews that Iesus was the Messiah Upon which Foundation he tells them there might be a Superstructure But that what is built on the Foundation is not the Foundation I think I need not prove He further tells them that he had desired to build upon this Foundation But withal says he had fed them till then with Milk and not with Meat because they were Babes and had not been able to bear it neither were they yet able And therefore this Epistle we see is almost wholly spent in Reproofs of their Miscarriages and in Exhortations and Instructions relating to Practice and very little said in it for the explaining any part of the great Mystery of Salvation contain'd in the Gospel By these Passages we may see were it not evident to common sence it self from the Nature of things that the design of these Epistles was not to lay the Foundations or teach the Principles of the Christian Religion they being writ to those who had received them and were Christians already The same holds in all the other Epistles And therefore the Epistles seem'd not to me the properest parts of Scripture to give us that Foundation distinct from all the Superstructures built on it Because in the Epistles the latter was the thing propos'd rather than the former For the main intention of the Apostles in writing their Epistles could not be to do what was done already to lay down barely the Foundations of Christianity to those who were Christians already but to build upon it some â—arther Explication of it which either their particular Circumstances or a general evidencing of the Truth Wisdom Excellencies and Privileges c. of the Gospel required This was the reason that perswaded me to take the Articles of Faith absolutely necessary to be received to make a Man a Christian only from the Preachings of our Saviour and his Apostles to the Unconverted World as laid down in the Historical Part of the New Testament And I thought it a good Reason It being past doubt that they in their Preachings proposed to the Unconverted all that was necessary to be believed to make them Christians And also that that Faith upon a Profession whereof any one was admitted into the Church as a Believer had all that was necessary in it to make him a Christian because if it wanted any thing necessary he had necessarily not been admitted unless we can suppose that any one was admitted into the Christian Church by our Saviour and his Apostles who was not yet a Christian or pronounced a Believer who yet wanted something necessary to make him a Believer i. e. was a Believer and not a Believer at the same time But what those Articles were which had been Preach'd to those to whom the Epistles were writ and upon the Belief whereof they had been admitted into the Christian Church and became as they are called Believers Saints Faithful Elect c. could not be collected out of the Epistles This though it were my reason and must be a reason to every one who would make this Enquiry and the Unmasker quotes the place where I told him it was my reason Yet he according to his never erring Illumination flatly tells me p. 38. that it was not and adds Here then is want of Sincerity c. I must desire him therefore to prove what he says p. 38. viz. XV. That by the same Argument that I would perswade that the Fundamentals are not to be sought for in the Epistles he can prove that they are not to be sought for in the Gospels and in the Acts because even these were writ to those that believed And next I desire him to prove what he also says in the same Page viz. XVI That the Epistles being writ to those that believed was not an Argument that I did make use of He tells us p. 38. That it is the Argument whereby I would perswade and in the very same Page a few Lines lower says That it is not the Argument I did make use of Who but an arrant Unmasker would contradict himself so
me without Vanity in Mr. Chillingworth's the Protestants and Mr. Chillingworth's very words Chap. IV. § 65. will exactly serve for my Answer You trifle affectedly confounding the Apostles Belief of the whole Religion of Christ as it comprehends both what we are to do and what we are to believe with that part of it which contains not Duties of Obedience but only the necessary Articles of simple Faith Now though the Apostles Belief be in the former sense a larger thing than that which we call the Apostles Creed Yet in the latter sense of the word the Creed I say is a full Comprehension of their Belief which you your self have formerly confessed though somewhat fearfully and inconstantly And here again unwillingness to speak the Truth makes you speak that which is hardly sense and call it an Abridgment of some Articles of Faith For I demand those some Articles which you speak of which are they Those that are out of the Creed or those that are in it Those that are in it it comprehends at large and therefore it is not an Abridgment of them Those that are out of it it comprehends not at all and therefore it is not an Abridgment of them If you would call it now an Abridgment of Faith this would be sense and signifie thus much That all the necessary Articles of the Christian Faith are comprised in it For this is the proper Duty of Abridgments to leave out nothing necessary So that in Mr. Chillingworth's judgment of an Abridgment it is not sense to say as you do p. 47. That we are not to think that the Apostles Creed expresly contains in it all the necessary Points of our Belief it being only designed to be an Abstract or an Abridgment of Faith But on the contrary we must conclude it contains in it all the necessary Articles of Faith for that very reason because it is an Abridgment of Faith as the Unmasker calls it But whether this that Mr. Chillingworth has given us here be the nature of an Abridgment or no this is certain that the Apostles Creed cannot be a form of Profession of the Christian Faith if any part of the Faith necessary to make a Man a Christian be left out of it And yet such a Profession of Faith would the Unmasker have this Abridgment of Faith to be For a little lower in the 47. p. he says in express terms That if a Man believe no more than is in express terms in the Apostles Creed his Faith will not be the Faith of a Christian Wherein he does great Honour to the Primitive Church and particularly to the Church of England The Primitive Church admitted converted Heathens to Baptism upon the Faith contain'd in the Apostles Creed A bare Profession of that Faith and no more was required of them to be received into the Church and made Members of Christ's Body How little different the Faith of the Ancient Church was from the Faith I have mentioned may be seen in these words of Tertullian Regula fidei una omnino est sola immobilis irreformabilis Credendi scilicet in unicum deum omnipotentem Mundi conditorem filium ejus Iesum Christum natum ex Virgine Maria Crucifixum sub Pontio Pilato tertia die resuscitatum à Mortuis receptum in Coelis Sedentem nunc ad dextram Patris Venturum judicare vivos Mortuos per carnis etiam resurrectionem Hâc lege fidei manente caetera jam disciplinae conversationis admittunt novitatem correctionis Tert. de Virg. Velan in Principio This was the Faith that in Tertullian's time sufficed to make a Christian. And the Church of England as I have remarked already only proposes the Articles of the Apostles Creed to the Convert to be baptized and upon his Professing a Belief of them asks whether he will be Baptized in THIS FAITH which if we will believe the Unmasker is not the Faith of a Christian. However the Church without any more ado upon the Profession of THIS FAITH and no other Baptizes them into it So that the Ancient Church if the Unmasker may be believed baptized Converts into that Faith which is not the Faith of a Christian. And the Church of England when she Baptizes any one makes him not a Christian. For he that is Baptized only into a Faith that is not the Faith of a Christian I would fain know how he can thereby be made a Christian So that if the Omissions which he so much blames in my Book make me a Socinian I see not how the Church of England will escape that Censure Since those Omissions are in that very Confession of Faith which she proposes and upon a Profession whereof she Baptizes those whom she designs to make Christians But it seems that the Unmasker who has made bold to Unmask her too reasons right that the Church of England is mistaken and makes none but Socinian Christians or as he is pleased now to declare no Christians at all Which if true the Unmasker were best look to it whether he himself be a Christian or no For 't is to be fear'd he was baptized only into that Faith which he himself confesses is not the Faith of a Christian. But he brings himself off in these following words All matters of Faith in some manner may be reduced to this brief Platform of Belief Answ. If that be enough to make him a true and an Orthodox Christian he does not consider whom in this way he brings off with him For I think he cannot deny that all Matters of Faith in some manner may be reduced to that Abstract of Faith which I have given as well as to that brief Platform in the Apostles Creed So that for ought I see by this rule we are Christians or not Christians Orthodox or not Orthodox equally together But yet he says in the next words When he calls it an Abstract or Abbreviature it is implied that there are more Truths to be known and assented to by a Christian in order to making him really so than what we meet with here The quite contrary whereof as has been shewn is implied by its being called an Abstract But what is that to the purpose 'T is not sit Abstracts and Abbreviatures should stand in Unmasker's way They are Sounds Men have used for what they pleased and why may not the Unmasker do so too And use them in a Sense that may make the Apostles Creed be only a broken scrap of the Christian Faith However in great Condescention being willing to do the Apostles Creed what honour he could he says That all Matters of Faith in some manner may be reduced to this brief Platform of Belief But yet when it is set in competition with the Creed which he himself is making for it is not yet finish'd it is by no means to be allow'd as sufficient to make a Man a Christian. There are more Truths to be known and assented to in order to make a
the like Passages in my Book my meaning is so evident that no body but an Unmasker would have said that when I spoke of believing as a bare Speculative assent to any Proposition as true I affirm'd that was all that was required of a Christian for Justification Though that in the strict sense of the word is all that is done in believing And therefore I say as far as meer believing could make them Members of Christ's Body plainly signifying as much as words can that the Faith for which they were justified included something more than a bare assent This appears not only from these words of mine p. 196. St. Paul often in his Epistles puts Faith for the whole Duty of a Christian but from my so often and almost every-where interpreting believing him to be the Messiah by taking him to be our King whereby is meant not a bare idle Speculation a bare notional perswasion of any truth whatsoever floating in our Brains but an active Principle of Life a Faith working by Love and Obedience To take him to be our King carries with it a right disposition of the will to honour and obey him joyn'd to that assent wherewith Believers imbrace this Fundamental Truth that Jesus was the Person who was by God sent to be their King he that was promis'd to be their Prince and Saviour But for all this the Unmasker p. 56. Confidently tells his Reader that I say no such thing His words are But besides this Historical Faith as it is generally call'd by Divines which is giving Credit to Evangelical Truths as barely reveal'd there must be something else added to make up the true Substantial Faith of a Christian. With the assent of the Understanding must be joyn'd the consent or approbation of the Will. All those Divine Truths which the Intellect assents to must be allow'd of by this Elective Power of the Soul True Evangelical Faith is a hearty acception of the Messias as he is offer'd in the Gospel It is a sincere and impartial submission to all things requir'd by the Evangelical Law which is contain'd in the Epistles as well as the other Writings And to this practical assent and choice there must be added likewise a firm Trust and reliance in the blessed Author of our Salvation But this late Undertaker who attempted to give us a more perfect account than ever was before of Christianity as it is deliver'd in the Scriptures brings us no tidings of any such Faith belonging to Christianity or discover'd to us in the Scriptures Which gives us to understand that he verily believes there is no such Christian Faith for in some of his numerous Pages especially 191. and 192 c. where he speaks so much of Belief and Faith he might have taken occasion to insert one word about this compleat Faith of the Gospel Though the places above quoted out of my Reasonableness of Christianity and the whole tenor of the latter part of it shew the falshood of what the Unmasker here says Yet I will set down one Passage more out of it and then ask our Unmasker when he hath read them whether he hath the brow to say again that I bring no tidings of any such Faith My words are Reasonableness of Christianity p. 244. Faith in the Promises of God relying and acquiescing in his Word and Faithfulness the Almighty takes well at our hands as a great mark of Homage paid by us poor frail Creatures to his Goodness and Truth as well as to his Power and Wisdom and accepts it as an Acknowledgment of his peculiar Providence and Benignity to us And therefore our Saviour tells us Iohn XII 44. He that believes on me believes not on me but on him that sent me The Works of Nature shew his Wisdom and Power But 't is his peculiar care of Mankind most eminently discover'd in his Promises to them that shews his Bounty and Goodness And consequently engages their Hearts in Love and Affection to him This oblation of an heart fixed with dependance and affection on him is the most acceptable Tribute we can pay him the Foundation of true Devotion and Life of all Religion What a Value he puts on this depending on his Word and resting satisfied on his Promises we have an example in Abraham whose Faith was counted to him for Righteousness As we have before remarked out of Rom. IV. and his relying firmly on the Promise of God without any doubt of its Performance gave him the Name of the Father of the Faithful And gained him so much favour with the Almighty that he was called the Friend of God The Highest and most Glorious Title can be bestowed on a Creature The great out-cry he makes against me in his two next Sections p. 57. â—60 as if I intended to introduce Ignorance and Popery is to be entertain'd rather as the noise of a petulant Scold saying the worst things she could think of than as the arguing of a Man of sense or sincerity All this mighty Accusation is grounded upon these Falshoods That I make it my great business to beat Men off from Divine Truths That I cry down all Articles of the Christian Faith but one That I will not suffer Men to look into Christianity That I blast the Epistolary Wriâ—ings I shall add no more to what I have already said about the Epistles but those few words out of my Reasonableness of Christianity p. 295. The Epistles resolving Doubts and reforming Mistakes are of great Advantage to our Knowledge and Practise And p. 229. An explicit belief of what God requires of those who will enter into and receive the benefits of the New Covenant is absolutely required The other parts of Divine Revelation are Objects of Faith and are so to be received They are Truths whereof none that is once known to be such i. e. of Divine Revelation may or ought to be disbelieved And as for that other Saying of his That I will not suffer Men to look into Christianity I desire to know where that Christianity is locked up which I will not suffer Men to look into My Christianity I confess is contain'd in the written Word of God And that I am so far from hindring any one to look into that I every where appeal to it and have quoted so much of it that the Unmasker complains of being overlaid with it and tells me 't is tedious All Divine Revelation I say p. 300. requires the Obedience of Faith And that every one is to receive all the parts of it with a docility and disposition prepar'd to imbrace and assent to all Truths coming from God and submit his Mind to whatever shall appear to him to bear that Character I speak in the next Page of Mens endeavouring to understand it and of their interpreting one place by another This and the whole Design of my Book shews That I think it every Christian's Duty to read search and study the Holy Scriptures and make this their
we are speaking of But only such parts and members of the Christian Faith as are absolutely necessary to be believed by every Man before he can be a Christian. And in that sense I deny his Assertion to be true viz. That they do not occur in any one place of Scripture For they do all occur in that first Sermon of St. Peter Act. II. 11. by which Three Thousand were at that time brought into the Church and that in these words Therefore let all the house of Israel know assuredly that God hath made that same Iesus whom you have Crucified Lord and Christ. Repent and be baptized every one of you in the Name of Iesus Christ. Here is the Doctrine of Jesus the Messiah the Lord and of Repentance propos'd to those who already believe one God Which I say are all the parts of the Christian Faith necessary to be received to make a Man a Christian. To suppose as the Unmasker does here that more is required is to beg not prove the Question If he disputes this Collection of mine out of that Sermon of St. Peter I will give him a more authentick Collection of the necessary parts of the Christian Faith from an Author that he will not question Let him look into Act. 20. 20 c. and there he will find St. Paul saying thus to the Elders of Ephesus whom he was taking his last leave of with an Assurance that he should never see them again I have kept back nothing that was profitable unto you But have shew'd you and have taught you publickly and from house to house testifying both to the Iews and also to the Greeks repentance towards God and Faith towards our Lord Iesus Christ. If St. Paul knew what was necessary to make a Christian here it is Here he if he knew how to do it for 't is plain from his words he designed to do it has put it together But there is a greater yet than St. Paul who has brought all the parts of Faith necessary to Salvation into one place I mean our Saviour himself Ioh. XVII 13. in these words This is Life eternal that they might know thee the only true God and Iesus Christ whom thou hast sent But the Unmasker goes on Therefore when in some places only one single part of the Christian Faith is made mention of as necessarily to be imbrac'd in order to Salvation we must be careful not to take it alone but to supply it from several other Places which make mention of other necessary and indispensable points of belief I will give the Reader a plain instance of this Rom. X. 9. If thou shalt believe in thy heart that God hath rais'd him i. e. the Lord Iesus from the dead thou shalt be saved Here one Article of Faith viz. the belief of Christ's resurrection because it is of so great Importance in Christianity is only mention'd But all the rest must be supposed because they are mention'd in other places Answ. One would wonder that any one conversant in holy Writ with ever so little Attention much more that an Expounder of the Scriptures should so mistake the sense and stile of the Scripture Believing Iesus to be the Messiah with a lively Faith i. e. as I have shew'd taking him to be our King with a sincere submission to the Laws of his Kingdom is all that is required to make a Man a Christian for this includes repentance too The believing him therefore to be the Messiah is very often and with great reason put both for Faith and Repentance too which are sometimes set down singly where one is put for both as implying the other And sometimes they are both mention'd and then Faith as contradistinguish'd to Repentance is taken for a simple Assent of the mind to this Truth that Iesus is the Messiah Now this Faith is variously expressed in Scripture There are some particulars in the History of our Saviour allow'd to be so peculiarly appropriated to the Messiah such incommunicable marks of him that to believe them of Iesus of Nazareth was in effect the same as to believe him to be the Messiah and so are put to express it The principal of these is his Resurrection from the dead which being the great and demonstrative Proof of his being the Messiah 't is not at all strange that the believing his Resurrection should be put for believing him to be the Messiah Since the declaring his Resurrection was a declaring him to be the Messiah For thus St. Paul argues Act. XIII 32 33. We declare unto you good tidings or we preach the Gospel to you for so the word signifies how that the promise that was made unto the Fathers God hath fullfilled the same unto us their children in that he hath raised up Iesus again The force of which Argument lies in this that if Iesus was raised from the dead then he was certainly the Messiah And thus the promise of the Messiah was fullfilled in raising Iesus from the dead The like Argument St. Paul useth 1 Cor. XV. 17. If Christ be not raised your faith is vain you are yet in your Sins i. e. If Iesus be not risen from the dead he is not the Messiah your believing it is in vain and you will receive no benefit by that Faith And so likewise from the same Argument of his Resurrection he at Thessalonica proves him to be the Messiah Act. XVII 2 3. And Paul as his manner was went into the Synagogue and three Sabbath Days reasoned with the Jews out of the Scriptures opening and alledging that the Messiah must needs have suffered and risen again from the dead And that this Iesus whom I preach unto you is the Messiah The necessary Connection of these two that if he rose from the dead he was the Messiah And if he rose not from the dead he was not the Messiah The chief Priest and Pharisees that had prosecuted him to Death understood very well who therefore came together unto Pilate saying Sir we remember that that deceiver said whilst he was yet alive after three days I will rise again Command therefore that the Sepulchre be made sure unto the third day least his disciples come by night and steal him away and say unto the people he is risen from the dead So the last error shall be worse than the first The error they here speak of 't is plain was the opinion that he was the Messiah To stop that Belief which his Miracles had procured him amongst the People they had got him put to Death But if after that it should be believed that he rose again from the dead this demonstration that he was the Messiah would but establish what they had laboured to destroy by his Death Since no one who believed his Resurrection could doubt of his being the Messiah 'T is not at all therefore to be wonder'd that his Resurrection his Ascension his Rule and Dominion and his coming to judge the quick and
not then â—â—â—cover'd or at least not fully We must here excuse the doubtfulness of his talking concerning the discovery of his other necessary Articles For how could he say they were discover'd or not discover'd clearly or obscurely fully or not fully when he does not yet know them all nor can tell us what those necessary Articles are If he does know them let him give us a List of them and then we shall see easily whether they were at all publish'd or discover'd in our Saviour's time If there are some of them that were not at all discover'd in our Saviour's time let him speak it out and leave shifting And if some of those that were not necessary for our Saviour's time but for the succeeding one only were yet discover'd in our Saviour's time why were they not necessary to be believed in that time But the truth is he knows not what these Doctrines necessary for Succeeding times are and therefore can say nothing positive about their Discovery And for those that he has set down as soon as he shall name any one of them to be of the number of those not necessary for our Saviour's time but necessary for the Succeeding one it will presently appear either that it was discover'd in our Saviour's time And then it was as necessary for his time as the Succeeding Or else that it was not discover'd in his time nor to several Converts after his time before they were made Christians And therefore it was no more necessary to be believed to make a Man a Christian in the Succeeding than it was in our Saviour's time However general Positions and Distinctions without a Foundation serve for shew and to beguile unwary and inattentive Readers 2 o. Having thus minded him that the Question is about Articles of Faith necessary to be explicitly and distinctly believed to make a Man a Christian I then in the next place demand of him to tell me XXXIX Whether or no all the Articles necessary now to be distinctly and explicitly believed to make any Man a Christian were distinctly and explicitly published or discover'd in our Saviour's time And then I shall desire to know of him XL. A Reason why they were not Those that he instances in of Christ's Death and Resurrection will not help him one jot For they are not new Doctrines revealed new Mysteries discovered but Matters of Fact which happen'd to our Saviour in their due time to compleat in him the Character and Predictions of the Messiah and demonstrate him to be the Deliverer promised These are recorded of him by the Spirit of God in holy Writ but are no more necessary to be believed to make a Man a Christian than any other part of Divine Revelation but as far as they have an immediate Connexion with his being the Messiah and cannot be denied without denying him to be the Messiah And therefore this Article of his Resurrection which supposes his Death and such other Propositions as are convertible with his being the Messiah are as they very well may be put for his being the Messiah and as I have shew'd propos'd to be believed in the place of it All that is reveal'd in Scripture has a consequential necessity of being believed by all those to whom it is propos'd Because it is of Divine Authority one part as much as another And in this sense all the Divine Truths in the inspired Writings are Fundamental and necessary to be believed But then this will destroy our Vnmasker's select Number of Fundamental Articles And the choicest and sublimest Truths of Christianity which he tells us are to be met with in the Epistles will not be more necessary to be believed than any which he may think the commonest or meanest Truths in any of the Epistles or the Gospels Whatsoever part of Divine Revelation whether reveal'd before or in or after our Saviour's time whether it contain according to the distinction of our Unmasker's nice palate choice or common sublime or not sublime Truths is necessary to be believed by every one to whom it is propos'd as far as he underâ—tands what is propos'd But God by Iesus Christ has entred into a Covenant of Grace with Mankind a Covenant of Faith instead of that of Works wherein some Truths are absolutely necessary to be explicitly believed by them to make Men Christians and therefore those Truths are necessary to be known and consequently necessary to be propos'd to them to make them Christians This is peculiar to them to make Men Christians For all Men as Men are under a necessary obligation to believe what God proposes to them to be believed But there being certain distinguishing Truths which belong to the Covenant of the Gospel which if Men know not they cannot be Christians and they being some of them such as cannot be known without being propos'd those and those only are the necessary Doctrines of Christianity I speak of without a knowledge of and assent to which no Man can be a Christian. To come therefore to a clear decision of this Controversie I desire the Unmasker to tell me XLI What those Doctrines are which are absolutely necessary to be proposed to every Man to make him a Christian XLII 1 o. Whether they are all the Truths of Divine Revelation contain'd in the Bible For I grant his Argument which in another place he uses for some of them and truly belongs to them all viz. That they were reveal'd and written there on purpose to be believed and that it is indispensibly necessary for Christians to believe them XLIII 2 o. Or whether it be only that one Article of Iesus being the Messiah which the History of our Saviour and his Apostles Preaching has with such a peculiar distinction every where propos'd XLIV 3 o. Or whether the Doctrines necessary to be propos'd to every one to make him a Christian be any set of Truths between these two And if he says this latter then I must ask him XLV What they are that we may see why those rather than any other contain'd in the New Testament are necessary to be propos'd to every Man to make him a Christian And if they are not every one propos'd to him and assented to by him he cannot be a Christian. The Vnmasker makes a great noise and hopes to give his unwary though well-meaning Readers odd Thoughts and strong Impressions against my Book by declaiming against my lank Faith and my narrowing of Christianity to one Article which as he says is the next way to reduce it to none But when it is consider'd it will be found that 't is he that narrows Christianity The Unmasker as if he were Arbiter and Dispenser of the Oracles of God takes upon him to single out some Texts of Scripture and where the words of Scripture will not serve his turn to impose on us his Interpretations and Deductions as necessary Articles of Faith which is in Effect to make them of equal Authority with the
Testimonies which contain what our Saviour and his Apostles preach'd and required assent to to make Men Believers I shall think my Omissions let them be what they will no Faults in the present Case Whatever Doctrines Mr. Edwards would have to be believed to make a Man a Christian he will be sure to find them in those Preachings and famous Testimonies of our Saviour and his Apostles I have quoted And if they are not there he may rest satisfied that they were not propos'd by our Saviour and his Apostles as necessary to be believed to make Men Christ's Disciples From which words any one but an Unmasker would have understood my Answer to be That all that was necessary to be believed to make Men Christians might be found in what our Saviour and the Apostles propos'd to Unbelievers for their Conversion But the two Passages abovemention'd as well as a great many others in the Evangelists being none of those I had no reason to take notice of them But the Unmasker having out of his good pleasure put it once upon me as he does in his Thoughts of the Causes of Atheism p. 107. That I was an Epitomizer of the Evangelical Writings though every one may see I make not that my Business yet `t is no matter for that I must always be accountable to that fancy of his But when he has proved XLVIII That this is not as just a reason for my omitting them as several other obvious Passages and famous Testimonies in the Evangelists which I there mention for whose Omission he does not blame me I will undertake to give him another Reason which I know not whether he were not better let alone The next Proof of my being a Socinian is that I take the Son of God to be an expression used to signifie the Messiah Slichtingius and Socinus understood it so and therefore I am the Unmasker says a Socinian Just as good an Argument as that I believe Iesus to be a Prophet and so do the Mahometans therefore I am a Mahometan Or thus The Unmaskert holds that the Apostles Creed does not contain all things necessary to Salvation and so says Knot the Jesuit Therefore the Unmasker is a Papist Let me turn the Tables and by the same Argument I am Orthodox again For two Orthodox Pious and very Eminent Prelates of our Church whom when I follow Authorities I shall prefer to Slichtingius and Socinus understand it as I do and therefore I am Orthodox Nay it so falls out that if it were of force either way the Argument would weigh most on this side Since I am not wholly a Stranger to the Writings of these two Orthodox Bishops but I never read a Page in either of those Socinians The never sufficiently admir'd and valued Archbishop Tillotson's words which I quoted the Unmasker says do not necessarily import any such thing I know no words that necessarily import any thing to a Caviller But he was known to have such clear Thoughts and so clear a Stile so far from having any thing doubtful or fallacious in what he said that I shall only set down his words as they are in his Sermon of Sincerity p. 2. to shew his meaning Nathaniel says he being satisfied that he our Saviour was the Messiah he presently owned him for such calling him THE SON OF GOD and the King of Israel The words of the other Eminent Prelate the Bishop of Ely whom our Church is still happy in are these To be the Son of God and to be Christ being but different Expressions of the same thing Witness p. 14. And p. 10. It is the very same thing to believe that Iesus is the Christ and to believe that Iesus is the Son of God express it how you please This ALONE is the Faith which can regenerate a man and put a divine Spirit into him that it makes him a Conqueror over the World as Iesus was Of this the Unmasker says that this Reverend Author speaking only in a general way represents these two as the same thing viz. That Iesus is the Christ and that Jesus is the Son of God because these Expressions are applied to the same person and because they are both comprehended in one general Name viz. Jesus Answ. The Question is whether these two Expressions the Son of God and the Messiah in the Learned Bishop's Opinion signifie the same thing If his Opinion had been asked in the Point I know not how he could have declar'd it more clearly For he says they are Expressions of the same thing and that it is the very same thing to believe that Iesus is the Messiah and to believe that he is the Son of God Which cannot be so if Messiah and Son of God have different Significations For then they will make two distinct Propositions in different Sences which it can be no more the same thing to believe than it is the same thing to believe that Mr. Edwards is a Notable Preacher and a Notable Railer or than it is to believe one Truth and all Truths For by the same Reason that it is the same thing to believe two distinct Truths it will be the same thing to believe two thousand distinct Truths and consequently all Truths The Unmasker that he might seem to say something says that the Reverend Author represents these as the same thing Answ. The Unmasker never fails like Midas to turn every thing he touches into his own Metal The Learned Bishop says very directly and plainly that to be the Son of God and to be the Messiah are Expressions of the same thing And the Unmasker says he represents these Expressions as one thing For `t is of Expressions that both the Bishop and he speak Now Expressions can be one thing but one of these two ways Either in Sound and so these two Expressions are not one Or insignification and so they are And then the Unmasker says but in other words what the Bishop had said before viz. That these two to be the Son of God and to be the Messiah are Expressions of the same thing Only the Unmasker has put in the word Represents to amuse his Reader as if he had said something and so indeed he does after his fashion i. e. obscurely and fallaciously which when it comes to be examined is but the same thing under shew of a difference Or else if it has a different meaning is demonstratively false But so it be obscure enough to deceive a willing Reader who will not be at the pains to examine what he says it serves his turn But yet as if he had said something of weight he gives Reasons for putting Represents these two Expressions as one thing in stead of saying these two are but different Expressions of the same thing The First of his Reasons is Because the Reverend Author is here speaking only in a General way Answ. What does the Vnmasker mean by a General way The Learned Bishop speaks of two particular
as many as there be and yet find but one Or a Man may set himself to find but one and yet find two or more It is no Argument from what a Man has found to prove what was his main Work to find unless where his aim was only to find what there was whether more or less For a Writer may find the Reputation of a poor contemptible Railer Nay of a downright impudent Lyar and yet no body will think it was his main work to find that Therefore Sir if you will not find what 't is like you did not seek you must prove those many confident Assertions you have published which I shall give you in tale whereof this is the second viz. II. That the main Business I set my self about was to find but one Article of Faith In the following part of this Sentence he quotes my own words with the Pages where they are to be found The first time that in either of his two Books against me he has vouchsafed to do so concerning one Article wherewith he has made so much noise My words in pag. 192. of my Reasonableness of Christianity stand thus For that this is the sole Doctrine pressed and required to be believed in the whole tenor of our Saviour's and his Apostles preaching we have shew'd through the whole History of the Evanlists and Acts and I challenge them to shew that there was any other Doctrine upon their assent to which or disbelief of it Men were pronounced Believers or Unbelievers and accordingly received into the Church of Christ as Members of his Body as far as mere Believing could make them so or else kept out This was the only Gospel Article of Faith which was preached to them Out of this Passage the Unmasker sets down these words This is the SOLE Doctrine pressed and required to be believed in the whole tenor of our Saviour's and his Apostles preaching p. 129. this was the ONLY Gospel Article of Faith which was preach'd to them I shall pass by all other Observations that this way of citing these words would suggest and only remark that if he brought these words to prove the immediately preceding Assertion of his viz. That to find but one Article of Faith was the main Work I set my self about This Argument reduced into form will stand thus He who says that this is the sole Doctrine pressed and required to be believed in the whole tenor of our Saviour's and his Apostles Preaching upon their assent to which or disbelief of it Men were pronounced Believers or Unbelievers and accordingly received into the Church of Christ as Members of his Body as far as mere believing could make them so or else kept out sets himself to find out but One Article of Faith as his main Work But the Vindicator did so Ergo If this were the use he would make of those words of mine cited I must desire him to prove the major But he talks so freely and without book every where that I suppose he thought himself by the Privilege of a Declaimer exempt from being called strictly to an Account for what he so loosely says and from proving what he should be called to Account for Rail lustily is a good Rule something of it will stick true or false proved or not proved If he alledges these words of mine to answer my Demand Vind. p. 27. where he found that I contended for one single Article of Faith with the exclusion and defiance of all the rest which he had charged me with I say it proves this as little as the former For to say That I had shew'd through the whole History of the Evangelists and the Acts that this is the sole Doctrine or only Gospel-Article pressed and required to be believed in the whole Tenor of our Saviour and his Apostles Preaching upon their assent to which or disbelieving of it Men were pronounced Believers or Unbelievers and accordingly received into the Church of Christ or kept out is the simple Assertion of a positive Matter of Fact and so carries in it no defiance no nor exclusion of any othâ—r Doctrinal or Historical Truth contained in the Scripture And therefore it remains still on the Unmasker to shew where 't is I express any deâ—iance of any other Truth contain'd in the Word of God or where I exclude any one Doctrine of the Scriptures So that if it be true that I contend for one Article my Contention may be without any defiance or so much as exclusion of any of the rest notwithstanding any thing contained in these words Nay if it should happen that I am in a mistake and that this was not the sole Doctrine which our Saviour and his Apostles preached and upon their assent to which Men were admitted into the Church yet the Unmasker's Accusation would be never the truer for that unless it be necessary that he that mistakes in one Matter of Fact should be at defiance with all other Truths or that he who erroneously says that our Saviour and his Apostles admitted Men into the Church upon the believing him to be the Messiah does thereby exclude all other Truths published to the Jews before or to Christian Believers afterwards If these words be brought to prove that I contended for one Article barely one Article without any defiance or exclusion annext to that Contention I say neither do they prove that as is manifest from the words themselves as well as from what I said elsewhere concerning the Article of One God For here I say this is the only Gospel-Article c. upon which Men were pronounced Believers which plainly intimates some other Article known and believed in the World before and without the Preaching of the Gospel To this the Unmasker thinks he has provided a Salvo in these words Socinianism Unmask'd pag. 6. And when I told him of this one Article he knew well enough that I did not exclude the Article of the Deity for that is a Principle of Natural Religion If it be fit for an Unmasker to perceive what is in debate he would know that the Question is not what he excluded or excluded not but what Articles he charged me to have excluded Taking it therefore to be his meaning which it must be if he meant any thing to the purpose viz. That when he charged me so often and positively for contesting for one Article viz. that Iesus was the Messiah he did not intend to accuse me for excluding the Article of the Deity To prove that he did not so intend it he tells me that I knew that he did not Answ. How should I know it he never told me so either in his Book or otherwise This I know that he said pag. 115. That I contended for one Article with the exclusion of all the rest If then the belief of the Deity be an Article of Faith and be not the Article of Iesus being the Messiah it is one of the rest and if all the rest were
excluded certainly that being one of All the rest must be excluded How then he could say I knew that he excluded it not i. e. meant not that I excluded it when he positively says I did exclude it I cannot tell unless he thought that I knew him so well that when he said one thing I knew that he meant another and that the quite contrary He now it seems acknowledges that I affirmed that the Belief of the Deity as well as of Iesus being the Messiah was required to make a Man a Believer The Believing in one God the Father Almighty Maker of Heaven and Earth is one Article and in Iesus Christ his only Son our Lord is another Article These therefore being two Articles and both asserted by me to be required to make a Man a Christian let us see with what truth or ingenuity the Unmasker could apply besides that above-mention'd these following Expressions to me as he does without any exception Why then must there be one Article and no more pag. 115. Going to make a Religion for his Mermidons he contracts all into one Article and will trouble them with no more pag. 117. Away with Systems away with Creeds let us have but one Article though it be with the defiance of all the rest pag. 118. Thus we see why he reduces all Belief to that one Article before rehearsed pag. 120. And all this without any the least Exception of the Article of a Deity as he now pretends Nor could he indeed as is evident from his own words pag. 121 122. To conclude This Gentleman and his Fellows are resolved to be Unitarians they are for one Article of Faith as well as one Person in the Godhead But if these learned Men were not prejudiced they would perceive that when the Catholick Faith is thus brought down to one single Article it will soon be reduced to none the Unite will dwindle into a Cypher By which the Reader may see that his Intention was to persuade the World that I reduced ALL BELIEF the CATHOLICK FAITH they are his own words to One Single Article and no more For if he had given but the least hint that I allowed of Two all the wit and strength of Argument contained in Unitarians Unite and Cypher with which he winds up all had been utterly lost and dwindled into palpable Nonsence To demonstrate that this was the sence he would be understood in we are but to observe what he says again pag. 50. of his Socinianism Unmask'd where he tells his Readers That I and my Friends have new-modell'd the Apostles Creed yea indeed have presented them with ONE Article instead of TWELVE And hence we may see what Sincerity there is in the Reason he brings to prove that he did not exclude the Article of the Deity For says he p. 6. That is a Principle of Natural Religion Answ. Ergo He did not in positive words without any exception say I reduced All Belief the Catholick Faith to one single Article and no more But to make good his Promise not to resemble me in the little Artifices of Evading he wipes his Mouth and says at the bottom of this Page But the Reader sees his the Vindicator's shuffling Whilst the Article of One God is a part of ALL Belief a part of the Catholick Faith ALL which he affirm'd I excluded but the one Article concerning the Messiah every one will see where the shuffling is And if it be not clear enough from those words themselves let those above quoted out of pag. 50. of his Socinianism Unmask'd where he says That I have new-modell'd the Apostles Creed and presented the World with ONE Article instead of TWELVE be an Interpretation of them For if the Article of One Eternal God Maker of Heaven and Earth be one of the Article of the Apostles Creed and the one Article I presented them with be not that 't is plain he did and would be understood to mean that by my one Article I excluded that of the One Eternal God which Branch soever of Religion either Natural or Revealed it belongs to I do not endeavour to persuade the Reader as he says p. 6. that he misunderstood me but yet every body will see that he mis-represented me And I challenge him to say that those Expressions above quoted out of him concerning One Article in the obvious sence of the words as they stand in his Accusation of me were true This flies so directly in his Face that he labours mightily to get it off and therefore adds these words My Discourse did not treat neither doth his Book run that way of Principles of Natural Religion but of the Revealed and particularly the Christian Accordingly this was it which I taxed him with That of all the Principles and Articles of Christianity he chose out but One as necessary to be believed to make a Man a Christian. Answ. His Book was of Atheism which one may think should make his Discourse treat of Natural Religion But I pass by that and bid him tell me where he taâ—ed me That of all the Principles and Articles of Christianity I chose out but One Let him shew in all his Discourse but such a word or any thing said like one Article of Christianity and I will grant that he meant particularly but spoke generally misled his Reader and left himself a Subterfuge But if there be no Expression to be found in him tending that way all this is but the covering of one Falshood with another which thereby only becomes the grosser Though if he had in express words taxed me That of all the Principles and Articles of the Christian Religion I chose out but one that would not at all help him till he further declares that the Belief of One God is not an Article of the Christian Religion For of ALL the Articles of the Christian Religion he says I chose but One which not being that of a Deity his words plainly import that that was left out among the rest unless it be possible for a Man to chuse but One Article of the Christian Religion viz. That Iesus is the Messiah and at the same time to chuse Two Articles of the Christian Religion viz. That there is One Eternal God and that Iesus is the Messiah If he had spoken clearly and like a fair Man he should have said That he taxed me with chusing but One Article of Revealed Religion That had been plain and direct to his purpose But then he knew the Falshood of it would be too obvious for in the seven Pages wherein he taxes me so much with One Article Christianity is several times named though not once to the purpose he here pretends But Revelation is not so much as once mentioned in them nor as I remember in any of the Pages he bestows upon me To conclude the several Passages above quoted out of him concerning one sole Article are all in general terms without any the least limitation
he is assoil'd and he is the same Unmasker he was before But let us hear him out on the Argument he was upon for his repetitions on it are not yet done His next words are Unm. It is clear then that you found your ONE Article on this that it is suited to the vulgar Capacities Whereas the other Articles mentioned by me are obscure and ambiguous and therefore surpass the comprehension of the illiterate Answ. The latter part indeed is now the first time imputed to me But all the rest is nothing but an unproved repetition though usher'd in with it is clear then words that should have a Proof going before them Unm. But yet you pretend that you have forgot that any such thing was said by you Answ. I have indeed â—orgot and notwithstanding all your pains by so many repetitions to beat it into my Head I fear I shall never remember it Unm. Which shews that you are careless of your words and that you forget what you write Answ. So you told me before and this repeating of it does no more convince me than that did Unm. What shall we say to such an oblivious Author Answ. Shew it him in his Book or else he will never be able to remember that it is there nor any body else bâ— able to find it Unm. He takes no notice of what falls from his own Pen. Answ. So you have told him more than once Try him once with shewing it him amongst other things which fell from his own Pen and see what then he will say That perhaps may refresh his Memory Unm. And therefore within a Page or two he confutes himself and gives himself the Lye Answ. 'T is a Fault he deserves to be told of over and over again But he says he shall not be able to find the two Pages wherein he gives himself the Lye unless you set down their Numbers and the words in them which confute and which are consuted I beg my Reader 's pardon for laying before him so large a pattern of our Unmasker's new fashioned Stuff his fine Tissue of argumentation not easily to be match'd but by the same Hand But it lay altogether in p. 26 27 28. and it was fit the Reader should have this one instance of the Excellencies he promises in his first Paragraph in opposition to my Impertinencies Incoherencies weak and feeble struglings Other Excellencies he there promised upon the same ground which I shall give my Reader a tast of in fit places Not but that the whole is of a piece and one cannot miss some of them in every Page But to transcribe them all would be more than they are worth If any one desires more plenty I send him to his Book it self But saying a thousand times not being proving once it remains upon him still to shew VII Where in my Reasonableness of Christianity I pretend that I contend for one single Article with the exclusion of all the rest because all Men ought to understand their Religion And in the next place where it is that I say VIII That there must be nothing in Christianity that is not plain and exactly level to all Mens Mother Wit Let us now return to his 8th Page For the bundling together as was fit all that he has said in distant places upon the Subject of One Articl has made me trespass a little against the Iewish Character of a well-bred Man recommended by him to me out of the Mishna Though I propose to my self to follow him as near as I can step by step as he proceeds In the 110th and 111th Pages of his Thoughts concerning the Causes of Atheism he gave us a List of his Fundamental Articles Upon which I thus applied my self to him Vind. p. 5. Give me leave now to ask you seriously whether these you have here set down under the title of Fundamental Doctrines are such when reduced to Propositions that every one of them is required to make a Man a Christian and such as without the actual belief thereof he cannot be saved If they are not so every one of them you may call them Fundamental Doctrines as much as you please they are not of those Doctrines of Faith I was speaking of which are only such as are required to be actually believed to make a Man a Christian And again Vindic. p. 18. I asked him whether just these neither more nor less were those necessary Articles To which we have his Answer Socinianism Unmask'd p. 8 c. From p. 8. to 20. he has quoted near Forty Texts of Scripture of which he saith p. 21. Thus I have briefly set before the Reader those Evangelical Truths those Christian Principles which belong to the very Essence of Christianity I have proved them to be such and I have reduced most of them to certain Propositions which is a thing the Vindicator called for Answ. Yes But that was not all the Vindicator called for and had reason to expect For I asked whether those the Unmasker gave us in his Thoughts concerning the Causes of Atheism were the Fundamental Doctrines without an actual Belief whereof a Man could not be a Christian just all neither more nor less This I had reason to demand from him or from any one who questions that part of my Book and I shall insist upon till he does it or confesses he cannot For having set down the Articles which the Scripture upon a diligent search seem'd to me to require as necessary and only necessary I shall not lose my time in examining what another says against those Fundamentals which I have gather'd out of the Preachings of our Saviour and his Apostles till he gives me a List of his Fundamentals which he will bide by that so by comparing them together I may see which is the true Catalogue of Necessaries For after so serious and diligent a search which has given me Light and Satisfaction in this great Point I shall not quit it and set my self on float again at the demand of any one who would have me be of his Faith without telling me what it is Those Fundamentals the Scripture has so plainly given and so evidently determin'd that it would be the greatest folly imaginable to part with this Rule for asking and give up my self blindly to the Conduct of one who either knows not or will not tell me what are the Points necessary to be believed to make me a Christian. He that shall find fault with my Collection of Fundamentals only to unsettle me and not to give me a better of his own I shall not think worth minding till like a fair Man he puts himself upon equal terms and makes up the Defects of mine by a compleat one of his own For a deficiency or error in one necessary is as fatal and as certainly excludes a Man from being a Christian as in an hundred When any one offers me a compleat Catalogue of his Fundamentals he does not unreasonably demand me
to quit mine for nothing I have then one that being set by mine I may compare them and so be able to chuse the true and perfect one and relinquish the other He that does not do this plainly declares that without shewing me the certain way to Salvation he expects that I should depend on him with an implicit Faith whilst he reserves to himself the liberty to require of me to believe what he shall think fit as he sees Occasion and in effect says thus Distrust those Fundamentals which the Preaching of our Saviour and his Apostles have shew'd to be all that is necessary to be believed to make a Man a Christian and though I cannot tell you what are those other Articles which are necessary and sufficient to make a Man a Christian yet take me for your Guide and that is as good as if I made up in a compleat List the Defects of your Fundamentals To which this is a sufficient Answer Si quid novisti rectius imperti si non his ut ere mecum The Unmasker of his own accord p. 110. of his Thoughts concerning the Causes of Atheism sets down several which he calls Fundamental Doctrines I ask him whether those be all For answer he adds more to them in his Socinianism Unmask'd But in a great pet refuses to tell me whether this Second List of Fundamentals be compleat And instead of answering so reasonable a Demand pays me with ill Language in these words pag. 22. subjoyn'd to those last quoted If what I have said will not content him I am sure I can do nothing that will and therefore if he should Capriciously require any thing more it would be as great folly in me to comply with it as it is in him to move it If I did ask a Question which troubles you be not so angry you your self were the occasion of it I proposed my Collection of Fundamentals which I had with great care sought and thought I had found clear in the Scripture you tell me no it is imperfect and offer me one of your own I ask whether that be perfect Thereupon you grow into Choler and tell me 't is a foolish Question Why then I think it was not very wise in you so forwardly to offer one unless you had had one ready not liable to the same exception Would you have me so foolish to take a List of Fundamentals from you who have not yet one for your self nor are yet resolved with your self what Doctrines are to be put in or left out of it Farther pray tell me if you had a settled Collection of Fundamentals that you would stand to why should I take them from you upon your word rather than from an Anabaptist or a Quaker or an Arminian or a Socinian or a Lutheran or a Papist who I think are not perfectly agreed with you or one another in Fundamentals and yet there is none amongst them that I have not as much reason to believe upon his bare word as an Unmasker who to my certain knowledge will make bold with Truth If you set up for Infallibility you may have some claim to have your bare word taken before any other but the Pope But yet if you do demand to be an unquestionable Proposer of what is absolutely necessary to be believed to make a Man a Christian you must perform it a little better than hitherto you have done For it is not enough sometimes to give us Texts of Scripture Sometimes Propositions of your own framing and sometimes Texts of Scripture out of which they are to be framed as p. 14. you say These and the like places afford us such Fundamental and Necessary Doctrines as these And again p. 16. after the naming several other Texts of Scripture you add which places yield us such Propositions as these and then in both places set down what you think fit to draw out of them And Page 15. you have these words And here likewise it were easie to shew that Adoption Iustification Pardon of Sins c. which are Privileges and Benefits bestow'd upon us by the Messiah are Necessary Matters of our Belief By all which as well as the whole frame wherein you make shew of giving us your Fundamental Articles it is plain that what you have given us there is nothing less than a compleat Collection of Fundamentals even in your own Opinion of it But Good Sir why is it a foolish Question in me you have found fault with my Summary for being short The defect in my Collection of Necessary Articles has raised your Zeal into so severe Censures and drawn upon me from you so heavy a Condemnation that if half that you have said of me be true I am in a very ill case for having so curtailed the Fundamental Doctrines of Christianity Is it folly then for me to ask from you a compleat Creed If it be so dangerous as certainly it is to fail in any necessary Article of Faith why is it folly in me to be instant with you to give me them all Or why is it folly in you to grant so reasonable a Demand a short Faith defective in Necessaries is no more tolerable in you than in me nay much more inexcuseable if it were for no other reason but this that you rest in it your self and would impose it on others and yet do not your self know or believe it to be compleat For if you do why dare you not say so and give it us all entire in plain Propositions and not as you have in great measure done here give only the Texts of Scripture from whence you say necessary Articles are to be drawn which is too great an uncertainty for Doctrines absolutely necessary For possibly all Men do not understand those Texts alike and some may draw Articles out of them quite different from your Systeme and so though they agree in the same Texts may not agree in the same Fundamentals and till you have set down plainly and distinctly your Articles that you think contain'd in them cannot tell whether you will allow them to be Christians or no. For you know Sir several Inferences are often drawn from the same Text and the different Systems of dissenting I was going to say Christians but that none must be so but those who receive your Collection of Fundamentals when you please to give it them Professors are all founded on the Scripture Why I beseech you is mine a foolish Question to ask What are the necessary Articles of Faith 'T is of no less consequence than nor much different from the Jaylor's Question in the 16th of the Acts What shall I do to be saved and that was not that ever I heard counted by any one a foolish Question You grant there are Articles necessary to be believed for Salvation would it not then be Wisdom to know them nay is it not our Duty to know and believe them If not why do you with so much outcry reprehend me
Writings being all of the same Divine Authority must all equally in every Article be Fundamental and necessary to be believed if that be a reason that makes any one Proposition in it necessary to be believed But the Law of Faith the Covenant of the Gospel being a Covenant of Grace and not of Natural Right or Debt nothing can be absolutely necessary to be believed but what by this new Law of Faith God of his good pleasure hath made to be so And this 't is plain by the preaching of our Saviour and his Apostles to all that believed not already in him was only the believing the only true God and Iesus to be the Messiah whom he hath sent The performance of this puts a Man within the Covenant and is that which God will impute to him for Righteousness All the other acts of assent to other Truths taught by our Saviour and his Apostles are not what make a Man a Christian but are necessary acts of Obedience to be performed by one who is a Christian and therefore being a Christian ought to live by the Laws of Christ's Kingdom Nor are we without some glimpse of Light why it hath pleased God of his Grace that the believing Iesus to be the Messiah should be that Faith which he would impute to Men for Righteousness 'T is evident from the Scripture that our Saviour despised the Shame and endured the Cross for the Joy that was set before him Which joy 't is also plain was a Kingdom But in this Kingdom which his Father had appointed to him he could have none but voluntary Subjects such as leaving the Kingdom of Darkness and of the Prince of this World with all the Pleasures Pomps and Vanities thereof would put themselves under his Dominion and translate themselves into his Kingdom which they did by believing and owning him to be the Messiah their King and thereby taking him to rule over them For the Faith for which God justiâ—ieth is not an empty Speculation but a Faith joyn'd with Repentance and working by Love And for this which was in effect to return to God himself and to their natural Allegiance due to him and advance as much as lay in them the Glory of the Kingdom which he had promised his Son God was pleased to declare he would accept them receive them to Grace and blot out all their former Transgressions This is evidently the Covenant of Grace as deliver'd in the Scriptures And if this be not I desire any one to tell me what it is and what are the terms of it 'T is a Law of Faith whereby God has promised to forgive all our Sins upon our Repentance and believing something and to impute that Faith to us for Righteousness Now I ask what 't is by the Law of Faith we are required to believe for till that be known the Law of Faith is not distinctly known nor the terms of the Covenant upon which the Almerciful God graciously offers us Salvation And if any one will say this is not known nay is not easily and certainly to be known under the Gospel I desire him to tell me what the greatest Enemies of Christianity can say worse against it For a way propos'd to Salvation that does not certainly lead thither or is propos'd so as not to be known are very little different as to their consequence and Mankind would be left to wander in darkness and uncertainty with the one as well as the other I do not write this for Controversies sake for had I minded Victory I would not have given the Unmasker this new Matter of exception I know whatever is said he must be bawling for his fashionable and profitable Orthodoxy and cry out against this too which I have here added as Socinianism and cast that Name upon all that differs from what is held by those he would recommend his Zeal to in Writing I call it bawling for whether what he has said be Reasoning I shall referr to those of his own Brotherhood if he be of any Brotherhood and there be any that will joyn with him in his Set of Fundamentals when his Creed is made Had I minded nothing but how to deal with him I had tied him up short to his List of Fundamentals without affording him Topicks of declaiming against what I have here said But I have enlarged on this point for the sake of such Readers who with a love of truth read Books of this kind and endeavour to inform themselves in the things of their everlasting concernment It being of greater consideration with me to give any light and satisfaction to one single Person who is really concerned to understand and be convinced of the Religion he professes than what a Thousand fashionable or titular Professors of any sort of Orthodoxy shall say or think of me for not doing as they do i. e. for not saying after others without understanding what is said or upon what Grounds or caring to understand it Let us now consider his Argument to prove the Articles he has given us to be Fundamentals In his Thoughts concerning the Causes of Atheism p. 119. he argues from 1 Tim. iii. 16. where he says Christianity is called a Mystery that all things in Christianity are not plain and exactly level to every common apprehension that every thing in Christianity is not clear and intelligible and comprehensible by the weakest Noddle Let us take this for proved as much as he pleases and then let us see the force of this subtle Disputant's Argument for the necessity there is that every Christian Man should believe those which he has given us for Fundamental Articles out of the Epistles The Reason of that Obligation and the Necessity of every Man and Woman's believing them he has laid in this that they are to be found in the Epistles or in the Bible This Argument for them we have over and over again in his Socinianism Unmask'd as here p. 9. thus Are they set down to no purpose in these inspired Epistles Why did the Apostles write these Doctrines was it not that those they writ to might give their assent to them P. 22. They are in our Bibles for that very purpose to be believed p. 25. Now I ask can any one more directly invalidate all he says here for the necessity of believing his Articles Can any one more apparently write booty than by saying that these his Doctrines these his Fundamental Articles which are after his fashion set down between the 8. and 20. Pages of this his First Chapter are of necessity to be believed by every one before he can be a Christian because they are in the Epistles and in the Bible and yet to affirm that in Christianity i. e. in the Epistles and in the Bible there are Mysteries there are things not plain not clear not intelligible to common apprehensions If his Articles some of which contain Mysteries are necessary to be believed to make a Man a Christian because
they are in the Bible than according to this rule it is necessary for many Men to believe what is not intelligible to them what their Noddles cannot apprehend as the Unmasker is pleased to turn the Supposition of vulgar Peoples understanding the Fundamentals of their Religion into ridicule i. e. it is necessary for many Men to do what is impossible for them to do before they can be Christians But if there be several things in the Bible and in the Epistles that it is not necessary for Men to believe to make them Christians then all the Unmasker's Arguments from their being in the Epistles is no Proof that all his Articles are necessary to be believed to make a Man a Christian because they are set down in the Epistles much less because he thinks they may be drawn according to his Sysâ—em out of what is set down in the Epistles Let him therefore either confess these and the like Questions Why did the Apostles write these was it not that those they writ to might give their assent to them Why should not every one of these Evangelical Truths be believed and imbraced They are in our Bibles for that very purpose and the like to be impertinent and ridiculous Let him cease to propose them with so much ostentation for they can serve only to mislead unwary Readers Or let him unsay what he has said of things not plain to common apprehensions not clear and intelligible Let him recant what he has said of Mysteries in Christianity For I ask with him p. 8. where can we be informed but in the sacred and inspired writings It is ridiculous to urge that any thing is necessary to be explicitly believed to make a Man a Christian because it is writ in the Epistles and in the Bible Unless he confess that there is no Mystery no thing not plain not intelligible to Vulgar understanding in the Epistles or in the Bible This is so evident that the Unmasker himself who p. 119. of his Thoughts concerning the Causes of Atheism thought it ridiculous to suppose that the Vulgar should understand Christianity is here of another Mind And p. 30. says of his Evangelical Doctrines and Articles necessary to be assented to that they are intelligible and plain There is no Ambiguity and Doubtfulness in them They shine with their own light and to an unprejudiced eye are plain evident and illustrious To draw the Unmasker out of the Clouds and prevent his hiding himself in the doubtfulness of his Expressions I shall desire him to say directly whether the Articles which are necessary to be believed to make a Man a Christian and particularly those he has set down for such are all plain and intelligible and such as may be understood and comprehended I will not say in the Unmasker's ridiculous way by the weakest Noddles but by every illiterate Countryman and Woman capable of Church Communion If he says yes Then all Mysteries are excluded out of his Articles necessary to be believed to make a Man a Christian. For that which can be comprehended by every Day-Labourer every poor Spinster that is a Member of the Church cannot be a Mystery And if what such illiterate People cannot understand be required to be believed to make them Christians the greatest part of Mankind are shut out from being Christians But the Unmasker has provided an Answer in these words p. 31. There is says he a difficulty in the Doctrine of the Trinity and several Truths of the Gospel as to the exact manner of the things themselves which we shall never be able to comprehend at least on this side of Heaven But there is no difficulty as to the reality and certainty of them because we know they are revealed to us by God in the Holy Scripture Which Answer of difficulty in the manner and no difficulty in the reality having the appearance of a distinction looks like Learning but when it comes to be applied to the case in hand will scarce afford us sense The Question is about a Proposition to be believed which must first necessarily be understood For a Man cannot possibly give his assent to any Affirmation or Negation unless he understand the terms as they are joyn'd in that Proposition and has a Conception of the thing affirm'd or deny'd and also a Conception of the thing concerning which it is affirm'd or deny'd as they are there put together But let the Proposition be what it will there is no more to be understood than is expressed in the terms of that Proposition If it be a Proposition concerning a Matter of Fact 't is enough to conceive and believe the Matter of Fact If it be a Proposition concerning the manner of the Fact the manner of the Fact must also be believed as it is intelligibly expressed in that Proposition v. g. should this Proposition 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 be offer'd as an Article of Faith to an illiterate Countryman of England he could not believe it Because though a true Proposition yet it being propos'd in words whose meaning he understood not he could not give any assent to it Put it into English he understands what is meant by the Dead shall rise For he can conceive that the same Man who was dead and senseless should be alive again As well as he can that the same Man who is now in a Lethargy should awake again or the same Man that now is out of his sight and he knows not whether he be alive or dead should return and be with him again And so he is capable of believing it though he conceives nothing of the manner how a Man revives wakes or moves But none of these manners of those actions being included in those Propositions the Proposition concerning the Matter of Fact if it imply no contradiction in it may be believed and so all that is required may be done whatever difficulty may be as to the exact manner how it is brought about But where the Proposition is about the manner the belief too must be of the manner v. g. The Article is The Dead shall be raised with spiritual Bodies And then the belief must be as well of this manner of the Fact as of the Fact it self So that what is said here by the Unmasker about the manner signifies nothing at all in the case What is understood to be expressed in each Proposition whether it be of the manner or not of the manner is by its being a Revelation from God to be believed as far as it is understood But no more is required to be believed concerning any Article than is contain'd in that Article What the Unmasker for the removing of Difficulties adds farther in these words But there is no difficulty as to the reality and certainty of the truths of the Gospel Because we know they are revealed to us by God in the Holy Scripture is yet farther from signifying any thing to the purpose than the former The Question is
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
necessary to be believed till there be some other way found to distinguish them than that they are in a Book which is all of Divine Revelation Though therefore Doctrines of Faith and Rules of Practice are very distinguishable in the Epistles yet it does not follow from thence that Fundamental and not Fundamental Doctrines Points necessary and not necessary to be believed to make Men Christians are easily distinguishable in the Epistles Which therefore remains to be proved And it remains incumbent upon him XVIII To set down the Marks whereby the Doctrines deliver'd in the Epistles may easily and exactly be distinguished into Fundamental and not Fundamental Articles of Faith All the rest of that Paragraph containing nothing against me must be bound up with a great deal of the like stuff which the Unmasker has put into his Book to shew the World he does not imitate me in Impertinencies Incoherences and trifling Excursions as he boasts in his first Paragraph Only I shall desire the Reader to take the whole Passage concerning this Matter as it stands in my Reasonableness of Christianity p. 295. I do not deny but the great Doctrines of the Christian Faith are dropt here and there and scatter'd up and down in most of them But 't is not in the Epistles we are to learn what are the Fundamental Articles of Faith where they are promiscuously and without distinction mixed with other Truths and Discourses which were though for Edification indeed yet only occasional We shall find and discern those great and necessary Points best in the Preaching of our Saviour and his Apostles to those who were yet Strangers and ignorant of the Faith to bring them in and convert them to it And then let him read these words which the Unmasker has quoted out of them It is not in the Epistles that we are to learn what are the Fundamental Articles of Faith they were written for the resolving of Doubts and reforming of Mistakes With his Introduction of them in these words He commands the Reader not to stir a jot further than the Acts. If I should ask him where that Command appears he must have recourse to his old shift that he did not mean as he said or else stand Convicted of a malicious Untruth An Orator is not bound to speak strict Truth though a Disputant be But this Unmasker's Writing against me will excuse him from being of the latter And then why may not Falshoods pass for Rhetorical flourishes in one who hath been used to popular Haranguing to which Men are not generally so severe as strictly to examine them and expect that they should always be found to contain nothing but precise Truth and strict Reasoning But yet I must not forget to put upon his Score this other Proposition of his which he has p. 42. and ask him to shew XIX Where it is that I command my Reader not to stir a jot farther than the Acts In the next two Paragraphs p. 42. 46. The Unmasker is at his natural Play of Declaiming without Proving 'T is pity the Mishna out of which he takes his good breeding as it told him that a well-bred and well-taught Man answers to the first in the first place had not given him this Rule too about Order viz. That Proving should go before Condemning Else all the fierce Exaggerations ill Language can heap up are but empty Scurility But 't is no wonder that the Iewish Doctors should not provide Rules for a Christian Divine turn'd Unmasker For where a Cause is to be maintain'd and a Book to be writ and Arguments are not at hand yet something must be found to fill it Railing in such cases is much easier than Reasoning especially where a Man's Parts lie that way The first of these Paragraphs p. 42. he begins thus But let us hear further what this Vindicator saith to excuse his rejection of the Doctrines contained in the Epistles and his putting us off with one Article of Faith And then he quotes these following words of mine What if the Author designed his Treatise as the Title shews chiefly for those who were not yet throughly and firmly Christians purposing to work upon those who either wholly disbelieved or doubted of the Truth of the Christian Religion Answ. This as he has put it is a downright Falshood For the words he quotes were not used by me to excuse my rejection of the Doctrines contained in the Epistles or to prove there was but one Article But as a reason why I omitted the mention of Satisfaction To demonstrate this I shall set down the whole Passage as it is p. 6. of my Vindication where it runs thus But what will become of me that I have not mention'd Satisfaction Possibly this Reverend Gentleman would have had Charity enough for a known Writer of the Brotherhood to have found it by an Innuendo in those words above quoted of laying down his Life for another But every thing is to be strained here the other way For the Author of the Reasonableness of Christianity c. is of necessity to be represented as a Socinian Or else his Book may be read and the Truths in it which Mr. Edwards likes not be received and People put upon examining Thus one as full of happy Conjectures and Suspitions as this Gentleman might be apt to argue But what if the Author designed his Treatise as the Title shews chiefly for those who were not yet throughly or firmly Christians Proposing to work on those who either wholly disbelieved or doubted of the Truth of the Christian Religion To this he tells me p. 43. that my Title says nothing for me i. e. shews not that I designed my Book for those that disbelieved or doubted of the Christian Religion Answ. I thought that a title that professed the Reasonableness of any Doctrine shew'd it was intended for those that were not â—ully satisfied of the Reasonableness of it unless Books are to be writ to convince those of any thing who are convinced already But possibly this may be the Unmasker's way And if one should judge by his manner of treating this Subject with Declamation instead of Argument one would think that he meant it for no body but those who were of his Mind already I thought therefore The Reasonableness of Christianity as deliver'd in the Scripture a proper Title to signifie whom it was chiefly meant for And I thank God I can with satisfaction say it has not wanted its effect upon some of them But the Unmasker proves for all that that I could not design it chiefly for Disbelievers or Doubters of the Christian Religion For says he p. 43. How those that wholly disregard and disbelieve the Scriptures of the New Testament as Gentiles Iews Mahometans and Atheists do I crave leave to put in Theists instead of Atheists for a reason presently to be mention'd are like to attend to the Reasonableness of Christianity as deliver'd in the Scripture is not to be conceived
And therefore we look upon this as all meer Sham and Sophistry Answ. Though the Unmasker teaches good breeding out of the Mishna yet I thought he had been a Minister of the Gospel and had taught Christianity out of the Scripture Why Good Sir would you teach Iews and Mahometans Christianity out of the Talmud and Alcoran because they are the Books that at present they attend to and believe Or would you laying by the Authority of all Books Preach Religion to Infidels in your own Name and by your own Authority laying aside the Scripture Is it not to be conceived no not by a Christian Divine that the way to make Unbelievers Christians is to shew them the Reasonableness of the Religion contained in the Scripture But it seems the Unmasker has a peculiar way of Preaching and propagating Christianity without the Scripture as some Men have a peculiar way of disputing without Reason In the beginning of this Paragraph p. 43. the Unmasker that is always a fair Interpreter of my meaning and never fails to know it better than I do tells me That by those that wholly disbelieve I must mean Atheists Turks Iews and Pagans and by those that are not firmly Christians a few weak Christians But did our Unmasker never hear of Unbelievers under a denomination distinct from that of Atheists Turks Iews and Pagans Whilst the Pulpit and the Press have so often had up the Name of Theists or Deists has that Name wholly scaped him 'T was these I chiefly designed and I believe no body of all that read my Vindication but the Unmasker mistook me if he did But there at least p. 9. he might have found the Name as of a sort of Unbelievers not unknown amongst us But whatever he thought it was convenient and a sort of Prudence in him when he would perswade others that I had not a Design which I say I had to lessen as much as he could and cover the need of any such Design and so make it that I could not intend my Book to work upon those that disbelieved or did not firmly believe by insinuating there were few or none such amongst us Hence he says that by those that are not throughly and firmly Christians I mean a FEW weak Christians as well as under those who wholly disbelieve he left the Theists out of my meaning I am very glad to hear from the Unmasker that there are but few weak Christians few that have Doubts about the Truth of Christianity amongst us But if there be not a great number of Deists and that the preventing their increase be noâ— worth every true Christian's Care and Endeavours those who have been so loud against them have been much to blame and I wish to God there were no reason for their Complaints For these therefore I take the liberty to say as I did before that I chiefly designed my Book And shall not be asham'd of this Sophistry as you call it if it can be Sophistry to alledge a Matter of Fact that I know Till you have Arguments to convince me that you know my intention in publishing it better than I do my self And I shall think it still no blameable Prudence however you exclaim against Prudence as perhaps you have some reason that I mention'd only those Advantages that all Christians are agreed in And that I observed that command of the Apostle Rom. XIV 1. Him that is weak in the Faith receive ye but not to doubtful Disputations without being a Socinian I think I did not amiss that I offer'd to the belief of those that stood off that and only that which our Saviour and his Apostles preach'd for the reducing the Unconverted World And would any one think he in earnest went about to perswade Men to be Christians who should use that as an Argument to recommend the Gospel which he has observed Men to lay hold on as an Objection against it To urge such Points of Controversie as Necessary Articles of Faith when we see our Saviour and the Apostles urged them not as necessary to be believed to make Men Christians is by our own Authority to add Prejudices to Prejudices and to block up our own way to those Men whom we would have access to and prevail upon I have repeated this again out of the 7th Page of my Vindication where there is more to the same purpose That the Reader may see how fully the Unmasker has answer'd it Because I said Would any one blame my Prudence if I mention'd only those Advantages which all Christians are agreed in The Unmasker adds p. 44. Socinian Christians and then as if the naming of that had gained him his Point he goes on victoriously thus He has bethought himself better since he first Publish'd his Notions and as the result of that he now begins to resolve what he writ into Prudence I know whence he had this Method and 't is likely he has taken more than this from the same hands viz. from the Missionary Iesuits that went to Preach the Gospel to the People of China We are told that they instructed them in some Matters relating to our Saviour they let them know that Iesus was the Messias the Person promised to be sent into the World But they conceal'd his Sufferings and Death and they would not let them know any thing of his Passion and Crucifixion So our Author their humble Imitator undertakes to instruct the World in Christianity with an omission of its Principal Articles and more especially that of the Advantage we have by Christ's Death which was the prime thing design'd in his coming into the World This he calls Prudence So that to hide from the People the main Articles of the Christian Religion to disguise the Faith of the Gospel to betray Christianity it self is according to this excellent Writer the Cardinal Virtue of Prudence May we be deliver'd then say I from a Prudential Racovian And there ends the ratling for this time not to be outdone by any Piece of Clock-work in the Town When he is once set a going he runs on like an Alarm always in the same strain of noisy empty Declamation wherein every thing is suppos'd and nothing prov'd till his own weight has brought him to the Ground And then being wound up with some new Topick takes another run whether it makes for or against him it matters not he has laid about him with ill Language let it light where it will and the Vindicator is paid off That I may keep the due distance in our different ways of Writing I shall shew the Reader that I say not this at random but that the place affords me occasion to say so He begins this Paragraph with these words p. 42. Let us hear farther what this Vindicator says to excuse his rejection of the Doctrines contain'd in the Epistles This rejection of the Doctrines contain'd in the Epistles was the not mentioning the Satisfaction of Christ amongst those Advantages
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
spoil us of all the other Articles of Christian Faith but one Have a better heart good Sir for I assure you no body can rob you of your God but by your own consent Nor spoil you of any of the Articles of your Faith If you look for them where God has placed them in the Holy Scripture and take them as he has framed and fashion'd them there there you will always find them safe and sound But if they come out of an Artificer's Shop and be of humane Invention I cannot answer for them They may for ought I know be nothing but an Idol of your own setting up which may be pull'd down should you cry out never so much Great is Diana of the Ephesians He who considers this Argument of one and none as managed by the Unmasker and observes his Pathetical way of reasoning all through his Book must confess that he has got the very Philosopher's Stone in disputing That which would be worthless Lead in others he turns into pure Gold His Oratory changes its Nature and gives it the noble Tincture So that what in plain reasoning would be Nonsence let him but put it into a Speech or an Exclamation and there it becomes strong Argument Whether this be not so I desire Mode and Figure may decide And to those I shall desire he would reduce the Proofs which p. 73. he says he has given of these following Propositions viz. XXIX That I have corrupted Mens Minds XXX That I have depraved the Gospel XXXI That I have abused Christianity For all these three p. 73. he affirms of me without Proof and without Honesty Whether it be from confusion of Thought or unfairness of Design either because he has not clear distinct notions of what he would say or finds it not to his purpose to speak them clearly out or both together so it is that the Unmasker very seldom but when he rails delivers himself so that one can certainly tell what he would have The Question is what is absolutely necessary to be believed by every one to make him a Christian. It has been clearly made out from an exact Survey of the History of our Saviour and his Apostles that the whole aim of all their Preaching every where was to convince the unbelieving World of these two great Truths First That there was one Eternal invisible God Maker of Heaven and Earth And next That Iesus of Nazareth was the Messiah the promised King and Saviour And that upon Mens believing these two Articles they were Baptized and admitted into the Church i. e. received as Subjects of Christ's Kingdom and pronounced Believers From whence it unavoidably follows that these two are the only Truths necessary to be believed to make a Man a Christian. This Matter of Fact is so evident from the whole tenor of the four Gospels and the Acts And presses so hard that the Unmasker who contends for a great number of other Points necessary to be believed to make a Man a Christian thinks himself concern'd to give some Answer to it But in his usual way full of Uncertainty and Confusion To clear this Matter he lays down four Particulars The First is p. 74. That the believing Iesus to be the promised Messiah was the first step to Christianity The Second p. 76. That though this one Proposition viz. of Jesus the Messiah be mentioned alone in some places yet there is reason to think and be perswaded that at the same time other Matters of Faith were proposed The Third p. 76. That though there are several Parts and Members of the Christian Faith yet they do not all occur in any one place of Scripture The Fourth p. 78. That Christianity was erected by degrees These particulars he tells us p. 74. he offers to clear an Objection To see therefore whether they are pertinent or no we must examine what the Objection is as he puts it I think it might have been put in a few words This I am sure it ought to have been put very clear and distinct But the Unmasker has been pleased to give it us p. 73. as followeth Because I designed these Papers for the satisfying of the Reader 's Doubts about any thing occurring concerning the Matter before us and for the establishing of his wavering Mind I will here before I pass to the Second general Head of my Discourse answer a Query or Objection which some and not without some shew of Ground may be apt to start How comes it to pass they will say that this Article of Faith viz. That Iesus is the Messiah or Christ is so often repeated in the New Testament Why is this sometimes urged without the mentioning of any other Article of Belief Doth not this plainly shew that this is all that is requir'd to be believed as necessary to make a Man a Christian May we not inferr from the frequent and sole repetition of this Article in several places of the Evangelists and the Acts that there is no other Point of Faith of absolute necessity but that this alone is sufficient to constitute a Man a true Member of Christ. By which he shews that he is uncertain which way to put the Objection so as may be easiest to get rid of it And therefore he has turn'd it several ways and put several Questions about it As First Why this Article of Faith viz. That Jesus is the Messiah is so often repeated in the New Testament His next Question is Why is this sometimes urged without the mentioning any other Article of Belief which supposes that sometimes other Articles of Belief are mentioned with it The Third Question is May we not infer from the frequent and sole repetition of this Article in several places of the Evangelists and Acts. Which last Question is in effect Why is this so frequently and alone repeated in the Evangelists and the Acts i. e. in the Preachings of our Saviour and his Apostles to Unbelievers For of that he must give an account if he will remove the difficulty Which three though put as one yet are three as distinct Questions and demand a Reason for three as distinct Matters of Fact as these three are viz. frequently proposed Sometimes propos'd alone and always propos'd alone in the Preachings of our Saviour and his Apostles for so in truth it was all through the Gospels and the Acts to the unconverted Believers of one God alone These three Questions being thus jumbled together in one Objection let us see how the Four particulars he mentions will account for them The first of them is this The believing of Iesus to be the promised Messias was says he the first step to Christianity Let it be so what do you infer from thence The next words shew Therefore this rather than any other Article was propounded to be believed by all those whom either our Saviour or his Apostles invited to imbrace Christianity Let your Premises be never so true and your Deduction of this
the presence of his Disciples which are not written in this Book So far his History is by his own Confession concise But these says he are written that ye might believe that Iesus is the Messiah the Son of God and that believing ye might have life through his Name As concise as it was there was yet if the Apostle's word may be taken for it against the Unmâ—sker's enough contain'd in his Gospel for the procuring of eternal life to those who believed it And whether it was that one Article that he there sets down viz. That Iesus was the Messiah or that Set of Articles which the Unmâ—sker gives us I shall leave to this Modern Divine to resolve And if he thinks still that all the Articles he has set down in his Roll are necessary to be believed to make a Man a Christian I must desire him to shew them to me in St. Iohn's Gospel or else to convince the World that St. Iohn was mistaken when he said that he had written his Gospel that Men might believe that Iesus is the Messiah the Son of God and that believing they might have life thorugh his Name So that granting the History of the Scripture to be so concise as the Unmasker would have it viz. That in some places the infallible Writers recording the Discourses of our Saviour and his Apostles omitted all the other Fundamental Articles propos'd by them to be believed to make Men Christians but this one that Iesus was the Messiah Yet this will not remove the Objection that lies against his other Fundamentals which are not to be found in the Histories of the Four Evangelists nay which are not to be found in every one of them If every one of them contains the Gospel of Jesus Christ and consequently all things necessary to Salvation Whether this will not be a new ground of Accusation against me and give the Unmasker a right to charge me with laying by three of the Gospels with contempt as well as he did before charge me with a contempt of the Epistles must be left to his soveraign Authority to determine Having shew'd that allowing all he says here to be as he would have it yet it clears not the Objection that lies against his Fundamentals I shall now examine what truth there is in what he here pretends viz. that though the one Article that Jesus is the Messiah be mention'd alone in some places yet we have reason to be perswaded from the conciseness of the Scripture History that there were at the same time join'd with it other necessary Articles of Faith in the Preaching of our Saviour and his Apostles It is to be observed that the Unmasker builds upon this false Supposition that in some places other necessary Articles of Faith join'd with that of Iesus the Messiah are by the Evangelists mention'd to be propos'd by our Saviour and his Apostles as necessary to be believed to make those they Preach'd to Christians For his saying that in some places that one necessary Article is mention'd alone implies that in other places it is not mention'd alone but join'd with other necessary Articles And then it will remain upon him to shew XXXVI In what place either of the Gospels or of the Acts other Articles of Faith are join'd with this and propos'd as necessary to be believed to make Men Christians The Unmasker 't is probable will tell us that the Article of Christ's Resurrection is sometimes join'd with this of the Messiah as particularly in that first Sermon of St. Peter Acts II. by which there were Three Thousand added to the Church at one time Answ. This Sermon well consider'd will explain to us both the Preaching of the Apostles what it was that they propos'd to their unbelieving Auditors to make them Christians and also the manner of St. Luke's recording their Sermons 'T is true that here are deliver'd by St. Peter many other Matters of Faith besides that of Iesus being the Messiah For all that he said being of Divine Authority is Matter of Faith and may not be disbelieved The first Part of his Discourse is to prove to the Iews that what they had observed of Extraordinary at that time amongst the Disciples who spake variety of Tongues did not proceed from Wine but from the Holy Ghost And that this was the pouring out of the Spirit prophesied of by the Prophet Ioel. This is all Matter of Faith and is written that it might be believed But yet I think that neither the Unmasker nor any body else will say that this is such a necessary Article of Faith that no Man could without an explicit belief of it be a Christian Though being a Declaration of the Holy Ghost by St. Peter it is so much a Matter of Faith that no body to whom it is now propos'd can deny it and be a Christian. And thus all the Scripture of the New Testament given by Divine Inspiration is Matter of Faith and necessary to be believed by all Christians to whom it is propos'd But yet I do not think any one so unreasonable as to say that every Proposition in the New Testament is a Fundamental Article of Faith which is required explicitly to be believed to make a Man a Christian Here now is a matter of Faith join'd in the same Sermon with this Fundamental Article that Iesus is the Messiah And reported by the Sacred Historian so at large that it takes up a Third part of St. Peter's Sermon recorded by St. Luke And yet it is such a matter of Faith as is not contain'd in the Unmasker's Catalogue of necessary Articles I must ask him then whether St. Luke were so concise an Historian that he would so at large set down a matter of Faith propos'd by St. Peter that was not necessary to be believed to make a Man a Christian and wholly leave out the very mention of all the Unmasker's additional necessary Articles if indeed they were necessary to be believed to make Men Christians I know not how any one could charge the Historian with greater unfaithfulness or greater folly But this the Unmasker sticks not at to preserve to himself the Power of appointing what shall and what shall not be necessary Articles and of making his System the Christianity necessary and only necessary to be received The next thing that St. Peter proceeds to in this his Sermon is to declare to the Unbelieving Iews that Iesus of Nazareth who had done Miracles amongst them whom they had Crucified and put to Death and whom God had raised again from the Dead was the Messiah Here indeed our Saviour's Crucifixion Death and Resurrection are mentioned And if they were no where else recorded are matters of Faith which with all the rest of the New Testament ought to be believed by every Christian to whom it is thus propos'd as a part of Divine Revelation But that these were not here propos'd to the Unbelieving Iews as the Fundamental Articles which
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
unquestionable Word of God And thus partly in the words of the Scripture and partly in words of his own he makes a Set of Fundamentals with an Exclusion of all the other Truths deliver'd by the Spirit of God in the Bible Though all the rest be of the same Divine Authority and Original and ought therefore all equally as far as they are understood by every Christian to be believed I tell him and I desire him to take notice of it God has no where given him an Authority thus to garble the inspired Writings of the Holy Scriptures Every part of it is his Word and ought every part of it to be believed by every Christian Man according as God shall inable him to understand it It ought not to be narrowed to the Cut of the Vnmasker's peculiar System 'T is a Presumption of the highest Nature for him thus to pretend according to his own Phancy to establish a Set of Fundamental Articles This is to diminish the Authority of the Word of God to set up his own and create a reverence to his System from which the several parts of Divine Revelations are to receive their Weight Dignity and Authority Those Passages of Holy Writ which suit with that are Fundamental Choice Sublime and Necessary The rest of the Scripture as of no great moment is not Fundamental is not necessary to be believed may be neglected or must be tortur'd to comply with an Analogy of Faith of his own making But though he pretend to a certain Set of Fundamentals yet to shew the Vanity and Impudence of that pretence he cannot tell us which they are and therefore in vain contends for a Creed he knows not and is yet no where He neither does and which is more I tell him he never can give us a Collection of his Fundamentals gather'd upon his Principles out of the Scripture with the rejection of all the rest as not Fundamental He does not observe the difference there is between what is necessary to be believed by every Man to make him a Christian and what is requir'd to be believed by every Christian. The first of these is what by the Covenant of the Gospel is necessary to be known and consequently to be propos'd to every Man to make him a Christian The latter is no less than the whole Revelation of God all the Divine Truths contain'd in Holy Scripture which every Christian Man is under a necessity to believe so far as it shall please God upon his serious and constant endeavours to enlighten his Mind to understand them The Preaching of our Saviour and his Apostles has sufficiently taught us what is necessary to be propos'd to every Man to make him a Christian. He that believes him to be the promised Messiah takes Iesus for his King and repenting of his former Sins sincerely resolves to live for the future in obedience to his Laws is a Subject of his Kingdom is a Christian. If he be not I desire the Unmasker to tell me what more is requisite to make him so Till he does that I rest satisfied that this is all that was at first and is still necessary to make a Man a Christian. This though it be contain'd in a few words and those not hard to be understood though it be in one voluntary act of the Mind relinquishing all irregular Courses and submitting it self to the rule of him whom God had sent to be our King and promised to be our Saviour Yet it having relation to the Race of Mankind from the First Man Adam to the End of the World it being a Contrivance wherein God has displaid so much of his Wisdom and Goodness to the corrupt and lost Sons of Men and it being a Design to which the Almighty had a peculiar regard in the whole Constitution and Oeconomy of the Iews as well as in the Prophecies and History of the Old Testament This was a Foundation capable of large Superstructures 1. In explaining the Occasion Necessity Use and End of his coming 2. Next in proving him to be the Person promis'd by a Correspondence of his Birth Life Sufferings Death and Resurrection to all those Prophecies and Types of him which had given the expectation of such a Deliverer and to those Descriptions of him whereby he might be known when he did come 3. In the discovery of the Sort Constitution Extent and Management of his Kingdom 4. In shewing from what we are deliver'd by him and how that Deliverance is wrought out and what are the Consequences of it These and a great many more the like afford great numbers of Truths deliver'd both in the Historical Epistolary and Prophetical Writings of the New Testament wherein the Mysteries of the Gospel hidden from former Ages were discover'd and that more fully I grant after the pouring out of the Holy Ghost upon the Apostles But could no body take Christ for their promised King and resolve to obey him unless he understood all the Truths that concern'd his Kingdom or as I may say Mysteries of State of it The truth of the contrary is manifest out of the plain and uniform Preaching of the Apostles after they had received the Holy Ghost that was to guide them into all Truth Nay after the writing of those Epistles wherein were contain'd the Unmasker's Sublimest Truths They every where propos'd to Unbelievers Iesus the Messiah to be their King Ordain'd of God and to this join'd Repentance And this alone they Preach'd for the Conversion of their Unbelieving Hearers As soon as any one assented to this he was pronounced a Believer And these inspired Rulers of the Church these infallible Preachers of the Gospel admitted him into Christ's Kingdom by Baptism And this after long after our Saviour's Ascension when as our Unmasker expresses it the Holy Ghost was to be sent in a special manner to enlighten mens Minds and to discover to them the great Mysteries of Christianity even as long as the Apostles lived And what others were to do who afterwards were to Preach the Gospel St. Paul tells us 1 Cor. III. 11. Other foundation can no man lay than that is laid even Iesus the Messiah Though upon this Foundation Men might build variously things that would or would not hold the touch Yet however as long as they kept firm to this Foundation they should be saved as appears in the following Verses And indeed if all the Doctrines of the Gospel which are contain'd in the Writings of the Apostles and Evangelists were necessary to be understood and explicitly believed in the true sense of those that deliver'd them to make a Man a Christian I doubt whether ever any one even to this day was a true Christian Though I believe the Unmasker will not deny but that e're this Christianity as he expresses it is by certain steps climbed to its height But for this the Unmasker has found a convenient and wise remedy 'T is but for him to have the Power to
declare which of the Doctrines deliver'd in Holy Writ are and which are not necessary to be believed with an additional Power to add others of his own that he cannot find there and the business is done For unless this be allow'd him his System cannot stand Unless his Interpretations be received for authentick Revelation we cannot have all Doctrines necessary for our time In truth we cannot be Christians For to this only what he says concerning the gradual discovery of the Doctrines of the Gospel tends We are not to think says he that all the necessary Doctrines of the Christian Religion were clearly publish'd to the World in our Saviour's time Not but that all that were necessary for that time were publish'd But some that were necessary for the succeeding one were not then discover'd or at least not fully I must here ask the Unmasker a short Question or two as First XLVI Are not all the Doctrines necessary for our time contain'd in his System Next XLVII Can all the Doctrines necessary for our time be propos'd in the express words of the Scripture When he has answer'd these two plain Questions and an Answer to them I shall expect the World will then see what he designs by Doctrines necessary for our Saviour's time and Doctrines necessary for succeeding times whether he means any thing else by it but the setting up his System as the exact Standard of the Gospel and the true and unalterable Measure of Christianity in which it has climbed to its height Let not good and sincere Christians be deceived nor perplexed by this Maker of another Christianity than what the infallible Spirit of God has lest us in the Scriptures 'T is evident from thence that whoever takes Iesus the Messiah for his King with a Resolution to live by his Laws and does sincerely repent as often as he transgresses any of them is his Subject All such are Christians What they are to know or believe more concerning him and his Kingdom when they are his Subjects he has left upon Record in the great and Sacred Code and Constitutions of his Kingdom I mean in the Holy Scriptures All that is contain'd therein as coming from the God of Truth they are to receive as Truth and imbrace as such But since it is impossible explicitly to believe any Proposition of the Christian Doctrine but what men understand or in any other sense than we understand it to have been deliver'd in An explicit belief is or can be required in no Man of more than what he understands of that Doctrine And thus whatsoever upon fair Endeavours he understands to be contain'd in that Doctrine is necessary to him to be believed Nor can he continue a Subject of Christ upon other terms What he is perswaded is the meaning of Christ his King in any Expression he finds in the Sacred Code That by his Allegiance he is bound to submit his Mind to receive for true or else he denies the Authority of Christ and refuses to believe him nor can be excused by calling any one on Earth Master And hence it is evidently impossible for a Christian to understand any Text in one sence and believe it in another by whomsoever dictated All that is contain'd in the inspired Writings is all of Divine Authority must all be allow'd for such and received for Divine and infallible Truth by every Subject of Christ's Kingdom i. e. every Christian. How comes then the Unmasker to distinguish these Dictates of the Holy Spirit into necessary and not necessary Truths I desire him to produce his Commission whereby he hath the Power given him to tell which of the Divine Truths contain'd in the Holy Scripture are of necessity to be believed and which not Who made him a Judge or Divider between them Who gave him this Power over the Oracles of God to set up one and debase another at his pleasure Some as he thinks sit are the choicest Truths And what I beseech him are the other Who made him a Chuser where no body can pick and chuse Every proposition there as far as any Christian can understand it is indispensibly necessary to be believed And farther than he does understand it it is impossible for him to believe it The Laws of Christ's Kingdom do not require Impossibilities for they are all reasonable just and good Some of the Truths delivered in Holy Writ are very plain 'T is impossible I think to mistake their Meaning And those certainly are all necessary to be explicitely believ'd Others have more Difficulty in them and are not easy to be understood Is the Unmasker appointed Christ's Vicegerent here or the Holy Ghost's Interpreter with Authority to pronounce which of these are necessary to be believ'd and in what Sense and which not The Obscurity that is to be found in several passages of the Scripture the difficulties that cover and perplex the meaning of several Texts demand of every Christian Study Diligence and Attention in reading and hearing the Scriptures in comparing and examining them and receiving what light he can from all manner of helps to understand these Books wherein are contain'd the Words of Life This the Unmaker and every one is to do for himself and thereby find out what is necessary for him to believe But I do not know that the Unmasker is to understand and interpret for me more than I for him If he has such a power I desire him to produce it Till then I can acknowledge no other infallible but that guide which he directs me to himself here in these Words According to our Saviour's promise the Holy Ghost was to be sent in a special manner to enlighten mens minds and to discover to them the great mysteries of Christianity For whether by men he here means those on whom the Holy Ghost was so eminently poured out Act. II. Or whether he means by these Words that special Assistance of the Holy Ghost whereby particular men to the end of the World are to be lead into the Truth by opening their understandings that they may understand the Scriptures for he always loves to speak doubtfully and indefinitely I know no other infallible guide but the Spirit of God in the Scriptures Nor has God left it in my choice to take any Man for such If he had I should think the Unmasker the unlikeliest to be he and the last Man in the World to be chosen for that Guide And herein I appeal to any sober Christian who hath read what the Unmasker has with so little Truth and Decency for 't is not always mens fault if they have not Sense writ upon this Question whether he would not be of the same mind But yet as very an Unmasker as he is he will be extremely apt to call you Names nay to declare you no Christian and boldly affirm you have no Christianity if you will not swallow it just as it is of his Cooking You must take it just as he has been
will in that one place be reasonable Till then this ridiculous Cant will be a Foundation too weak to sustain that Usurpation that is raised upon it 'T is not that I do not think every one should be perswaded of the Truth of those Opinions he professes 'T is that I contend for And 't is that which I fear the great Sticklers for Orthodoxy often fail in For we see generally that Numbers of them exactly jump in a whole large Collection of Doctrines consisting of Abundance of particulars as if their Notions were by one common Stamp printed on their Minds even to the least Lineament This is very hard if not impossible to be conceived of those who take up their Opinions only from Conviction But how fully soever I am perswaded of the Truth of what I hold I am in common Justice to allow the same Sincerity to him that differs from me And so we are upon equal Terms This Perswasion of Truth on each side invests neither of us with a right to censure or condemn the other I have no more reason to treat him ill for differing from me than he has to treat me ill for the same cause Pity him I may inform him fairly I ought but contemn malign revile or any otherwise prejudice him for not thinking just as I do that I ought not My Orthodoxy gives me no more Authority over him than his for every one is Orthodox to himself gives him over me When the Word Orthodoxy which in effect signifies no more but the Opinions of my Party is made use of as a pretence to domineer as ordinarily it is it is and always will be ridiculous He saith I hate even with a deadly hatred all Catechisms and Confessions all Systems and Models I do not remember that I have once mentioned the Word Catechism either in my Reasonableness of Christianity or Vindication But he knows I hate them deadly and I know I do not And as for Systems and Models all that I say of them in the Pages he quotes to prove my Hatred of them is only this viz. p. 8. of my Vindication Some Men had rather you should write booty and cross your own Design of removing Mens Prejudices to Christianity than leave out one Title of what they put into their Systems Some Men will not bear it that any one should speak of Religion but according to the Model that they themselves have made of it In neither of which places do I speak against Systems or Models but the ill use that some Men make of them He tells me also in the same place p. 104. that I deride Mysteries But for this he hath quoted neither words nor place And where he does not do that I have reason from the frequent Liberties he takes to impute to me what no where appears in my Books to desire the Reader to take what he says not to be true For did he mean fairly he might by quoting my Words put all such Matters of Fact out of doubt and not force me so often as he does to demand where it is as I do now here again LI. Where it is that I deride Mysteries His next Words p. 104. are very remarkable They are O how he the Vindicator grins at the Spirit of Creed making p. 18. Vind. the very thoughts of which do so haunt him so plague and torment him that he cannot rest till it be conjured down And here by the way seeing I have mention'd his rancour against Systematick Books and Writings I might represent the Misery that is coming upon all Booksellers if this Gentleman and his Correspondents go on sucâ—essfully Here is an effectual Plot to undermine Stationers-Hall for all Systems and Bodies of Divinity Philosophy c. must be cashier'd Whatever looks like System must not be bought or sold. This will fall heavy on the Gentlemen of St. Paul 's Church-yard and other places Here the Politick Unmasker seems to threaten me with the Posse of Paul's Church-yard because my Book might lessen their Gain in the Sale of Theological Systems I remember that Demetrius the Shrinemaker which brought no small gain to the Crafts-men whom he called together with the Workmen of like Occupation and said to this purpose Sirs Ye know that by this Craft we have our Wealth Moreover ye see and hear that this Paul hath perswaded and turned away much People saying that they be no Gods that are made with hands so that this our Craft is in danger to be set at naught And when they heard these Sayings they were full of wrath and cried out saying Great is Diana of the Ephesians Have you Sir who are so good at Speech-making as a worthy Successor of the Silver-smith regulating your Zeal for the Truth and your writing of Divinity by the Profit it will bring made a Speech to this purpose to the Craftsmen and told them that I say Articles of Faith and Creeds and Systems in Religion cannot be made by Mens Hands or Fancies But must be just such and no other than what God hath given us in the Scriptures And are they ready to cry out to your content Great is Diana of the Ephesians If you have well warm'd them with your Oratory 't is to be hoped they will heartily join with you and bestir themselves and choose you for their Champion to prevent the Misery you tell them is coming upon them in the loss of the Sale of Systems and Bodies of Divinity For as for Philosophy which you name too I think you went a little too far Nothing of that kind as I remember hath been so much as mention'd But however some sort of Orators when their hands are in omit nothing true or false that may move those that they would work upon Is not this a worthy Imployment and becoming a Preacher of the Gospel to be a Sollicitor for Stationers-Hall and make the Gain of the Gentlemen of Paul's Church-yard a Consideration for or against any Book writ concerning Religion This if it were ever thought on before no body but an Unmasker who lays all open was ever so foolish as to Publish But here you have an account of his Zeal The views of Gain are to measure the truths of Divinity Had his Zeal as he pretends in the next Paragraph no other aims but the defence of the Gospel 't is probable this Controversie would have been managed after another fashion Whether what he says in the next p. 105. to excuse his so oâ—ten pretending to know my Heart and Thoughts will satisfie the Reader I shall not trouble my self By his so often doing it again in his Socinianism Unmask'd I see he cannot write without it And so I leave it to the Judgment of the Readers whether he can be allow'd to know other Mens thoughts who in many Occasions seems not well to know his own The Railing in the remainder of this Chapter I shall pass by as I have done a great deal of the same
Example To make use of the Instance above-mentioned is not every sincere Christian necessarily and indispensibly obliged to endeavour to understand these Words of our Saviour This is my body and this is my blood that he may know what he receives in the Sacraments Does he cease to be a Christian who happens not to understand them just as the Creed-maker does Or may not the old Gentleman at Rome who has somewhat the ancienter Title to Infallibility make Transubstantiation a Fundamental Article necessarily to be believed there as well as the Creed-maker here makes his Sence of any disputed Text of Scripture a Fundamental Article necessary to be believed Let us suppose Mr. Bold had said that instead of one point the Right Knowledge of the Creed-makers One Hundred Points when he has resolved on them doth constitute and make a Person a Christian yet there are many other Points Jesus Christ hath taught and revealed which every sincere Christian is indispensibly obliged to endeavour to understand and to make a due use of For this I think the Creed-maker will not deny From whence in the Creed-maker's Words I will thus argue 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 and believe and assent to then this Writer doth in effect yield to that Proposition which I maintained viz. That the Belief of those one hundred Articles is not sufficient to make a Man a Christian. For this is that which I maintain That upon this ground the Belief of the Articles which he has set down in his List are not sufficient to make a Man a Christian and that upon Mr. Bold's Reason which the Creed-maker insists on against one Article viz. because there are many other Points Jesus Christ hath taught and revealed which every sincere Christian is as necessarily and indispensibly obliged to endeavour to understand and make a due use of But this Creed-maker is cautious beyond any of his Predecessors He will not be so caught by his own Argument and therefore is very shy to give you the precise Articles that every sincere Christian is necessarily and indispensibly obliged to understand and give his assent to Something he is sure there is that he is indispensibly obliged to understand and assent to to make him a Christian but what that is he cannot yet tell So that whether he be a Christian or no he does not know and what other People will think of him from his treating of the serious things of Christianity in so trifling and scandalous a way must be left to them In the next Paragraph p. 242. The Creed-maker tells us Mr. Bold goes on to confute himself in saying a true Christian must assent unto this that Christ Jesus is God But this is just such another Confutation of himself as the before-mentioned i. e. as much as a Falshood substituted by another Man can be a confutation of a Man's self who has spoken Truth all of a piece For the Creed-maker according to his sure way of baffling his Opponents so as to leave them nothing to answer hath here as he did before changed Mr. Bold's words which in the 35. p. quoted by the Creed-maker stand thus When a true Christian understands that Christ Jesus hath taught that He is a God he must assent unto it Which is true and conformable to what he had said before that every sincere Christian must endeavour to understand the Points taught and revealed by Jesus Christ which being known to be revealed by him he must assent unto The like piece of Honesty the Creed-maker shews in the next Paragraph p. 243. where he charges Mr. Bold with saying that a true Christian is as much obliged to believe that the Holy Spirit is God as to believe that Iesus is the Christ p. 40. In which place Mr. Bold's words are When a true Christian understands that Christ Jesus hath given this Account of the Holy Spirit viz That he is God He is as much obliged to believe it as he is to believe that Iesus is the Christ. Which is an uncontestable Truth but such an one as the Creed-maker himself saw would do him no Service and therefore he mingles it and leaves out half to make it serve his turn But he that should give a Testimony in the slight Affairs of Men and their Temporal Concerns before a Court of Judicature as the Creed-maker does here and almost every where in the great Affairs of Religion and the Everlasting Concern of Souls before all Mankind would lose his Ears for it What therefore this worthy Gentleman alledges out of Mr. Bold as a Contradiction to himself being only the Creed-maker's Contradiction to Truth and clear Matter of Fact needs no other Answer The rest of what he calls Reflections on Mr. Bold's Sermon being nothing but either rude and mis-becoming Language of him Or pitiful Childish Application to him to change his Perswasion at the Creed-maker's Intreaty and give up the Truth he hath owned in Courtesie to this doubty Combatant shews the Ability of the Man Leave off begging the Question and superciliously presuming that you are in the right and instead of that shew it by Argument And I dare answer for Mr. Bold you will have him and I promise you with him one Convert more But Arguing is not it seems this notable Disputant's way If Boasting of himself and contemning others false Quotations and feigned Matters of Fact which the Reader neither can know nor is the Question concerned in if he did know will not do there is an end of him He has shewn his excellency in scurrilous Declamation and there you have the whole of this unanswerable Writer And for this I appeal to his own Writings in this Controversie if any judicious Reader can have the patience to look them over In the beginning of his Reflections on Mr. Bold's Sermon he confidently tells the World That he had found that the Manager of the Reasonableness of Christianity had prevailed on Mr. Bold to Preach a Sermon upon his Reflections c. And adds And we cannot but think that that Man must speak the truth and defend it very impartially and substantially who is thus brought on to undertake the Cause And at the latter end he Addresses himself to Mr. Bold as one that is drawn off to be an under Journey-man Worker in Socinianism In his gracious Allowance Mr. Bold is seemingly a Man of some relish of Religion and Piety p. 244. He is forced also to own him to be a Man of Sobriety and Temper p. 245. A very good rise to give him out to the World in the very next words as a Man of a profligate Conscience For so he must be who can be drawn off to Preach or Write for Socinianism when he thinks it a most dangerous Errour who can dissemble with himself and choak his inward Perswasions as the Creed-maker insinuates that Mr. Bold
does in the same Address to him p. 248. and write contrary to his Light Had the Creed maker had reason to think in earnest that Mr. Bold was going off to Socinianism he might have reasoned with him fairly as with a Man running into dangerous Errour Or if he had certainly known that he was by any By-ends prevailed on to undertake a Cause contrary to his Conscience he might have some Reason to tell the World as he does p. 239. That we cannot think he should speak truth who is thus brought to undertake the Cause If he does not certainly know that Mr. Bold was THUS brought to undertake the Cause he could not have shewn a more Villainous and Unchristian Mind than in publishing such a Character of a Minister of the Gospel and a worthy Man upon no other Grounds but because it might be subservient to his ends He is engaged in a Controversie that by Argument he cannot maintain Nor knew any other way from the beginning to attack the Book he pretends to write against but by crying out Socinianism a Name he knows in great Disgrace with all other Sects of Christians and therefore sufficient to deterr all those who approve and condemn Books by hearsay without examining their Truth themselves from perusing a Treatise to which he could affix that imputation Mr. Bold's Name who is publickly known to be no Socinian he foresees will wipe off that false Imputation with a great many of those who are led by Names more than Things This seems exceedingly to trouble him and he labours might and main to get Mr. Bold to quit a Book as Socinian which Mr. Bold knows is not Socinian because he has read and considered it But though our Creed-maker be mightily concerned that Mr. B d should not appear in the Defence of it Yet this concern cannot raise him one jot above that Honesty Skill and good Breeding which appears towards others He manages this Matter with Mr. B d as he has done the rest of the Controversie just in the same strain of Invention Civility Wit and good Sence He tells him besides what I have above set down that he is drawn off to debase himself and the post i. e. the Ministry he is in p. 245. That he hath said very ill things to the lessening and impairing yea to the defaming of that knowledge and belief of our Saviour and of the Articles of Christianity which are necessarily required of us p. 245. That the Devout and Pious whereby he means himself for one and none is his own beloved Wit and Argument observing that Mr. Bold is come to the necessity of but ONE Article of Faith they expect that he may in time hold that NONE is necessary p. 248. That if he writes again in the same strain be will write rather like a Turkish Spy than a Christian Preacher That he is a Backslider and Sailing to Racovia with a side Wind Than which what can there be more Scurrilous or more Malicious And yet at the same time that he outrages him thus beyond not only what Christian Charity but common Civility would allow in an ingenuous Adversary he makes some awkward Attempts to sooth him with some ill timed Commendations And would have his under-valuing Mr. Bold's Animadversions pass for a Complement to him Because he for that reason pretends not to believe so crude and shallow a thing as he is pleased to call it to be his A notable Contrivance to gain the greater Liberty of Railing at him under another Name when Mr. B d's it seems is too well known to serve him so well to that purpose Besides it is of good use to fill up three or four Pages of his Reflections a great Convenience to a Writer who knows all the ways of baffling his Opponents but Argument and who always makes a great deal of stir about Matters foreign to his Subject which whether they are granted or denied make nothing at all to the Truth of the Question on either side For what is it to the Shallowness or Depth of the Animadversions who writ them Or to the Truth or Falshood of Mr. B d's Defence of the Reasonableness of Christianity whether a Lay-man or a Church-man a Socinian or one of the Church of England answer'd the Creed-maker as well as he Yet this is urged as a matter of great weight But yet in reality it amounts to no more but this that a Man of any Denomination who wishes well to the Peace of Christianity and has observed the horrible Effects the Christian Religion has felt from the Impositions of Men in Matters of Faith may have reason to defend a Book wherein the Simplicity of the Gospel and the Doctrine proposed by our Saviour and his Apostles for the Conversion of Unbelievers is made out though there be not one Word of the distinguishing Tenents of his Sect in it But that all those who under any Name are for imposing their own Orthodoxy as necessary to be believed and persecuting those who dissent from them should be all against it is not perhaps very strange One thing more I must observe of the Creed-maker on this Occasion In his Socinian Creed Ch. VI. The Author of the Reasonableness of Christianity c. And his Book must be judged of by the Characters and Writings of those who entertain or commend his Notions A professed Unitarian has defended it therefore he is a Socinian The Author of A Letter to the Deists speaks well of it Therefore he is a Deist Another as an Abettor of the Reasonableness of Christianity he mentions p. 125. whose Letters I have never seen And his Opinions too are I suppose set down there as belonging to me Whatever is bad in the Tenets or Writings of these Men infects me But the Mischief is Mr. Bold's Orthodoxy will do me no good But because he has defended my Book against Mr. Edwards all my Faults are become his and he has a mighty Load of Accusations laid upon him Thus contrary Causes serve so good a Natured so Charitable and Candid a Writer as the Creed-maker to the same purpose of Censure and Railing But I shall desire him to figure to himself the Loveliness of that Creature which turns every thing into Venom What others are or hold who have expressed favourable thoughts of my Book I think my self not concerned in What Opinions others have published make those in my Book neither true nor false and he that for the sake of Truth would confute the Errors in it should shew their Falshood and Weakness as they are there But they who write for other Ends than Truth are always busie with other Matters and where they can do nothing by Reason and Argument hope to prevail with some by borrowed Prejudices and Party Taking therefore the Animadversions as well as the Sermon to be his whose Name they bear I shall leave to Mr. B d himself to take what Notice he thinks fit of the little Sence
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
venture upon Mr. Edwards who is so very quick-sighted in these matters and knows so well what villainous Man is capable of I should not here in this my Vindication have given the Reader so much of Mr. Bold's Reasoning which though clear and strong yet has more Beauty and Force as it stands in the whole Piece in his Book Nor should I have so often repeated this Remark upon each Passage viz. to this Mr. Edwards answers not had it not been the shortest and properest Comment could be made on that triumphant Paragraph of his which begins in the 128. page of his Socinian Creed wherein amongst a great deal of no small strutting are these Words By their profound silence they acknowledge they have nothing to reply He that desires to see more of the same noble strain may have recourse to that eminent Place Besides it was fit the Reader should have this one taste more of the Creed-maker's Genius who passing by in silence all these clear and apposite Replies of Mr. Bold loudly complains of him p. 259. That where he Mr. Bold finds something that he dares not object against he shifts it off And again p. 260. That he doth not make any offer at Reason there is not the least shadow of an Argument As if he were only hired to say something against me the Creed-maker though not at all to the purpose And truly any Man may discern a Mercenary Stroke all along with a great deal more to the same purpose For such Language as this mixed with Scurrility neither fit to be spoken by nor of a Minister of the Gospel make up the remainder of his Postscript But to prevent this for the future I demand of him That if in either of his Treatises there be any thing against what I have said in my Reasonableness of Christianity which he thinks not fully answer'd he will set down the Proposition in direct Words and note the Page of his Book where it is to be found And I promise him an Answer to it For as for his Railing and other Stuff besides the Matter I shall hereafter no more trouble my self to take notice of it And so much for Mr. Edwards THere is another Gentleman and of another sort of Make Parts and Breeding who as it seems ashamed of Mr. Edwards's Way of handling Controversies in Religion has had something to say of my Reasonableness of Christianity c. And so has made it necessary for me to say a Word to him before I let these Papers go out of my Hand It is the Author of The Occasional Paper Numb 1. The 2 3 and 4 Pages of that Paper gave me great hopes to meet with a Man who would examine all the Mistakes which come abroad in Print with that Temper and Indifferency that might set an exact Pattern for Controversie to those who would approve themselves to be sincere Contenders for Truth and Knowledge and nothing else in the Disputes they engaged in Making him Allowance for the Mistakes that Self-Indulgence is apt to impose upon Humane Frailty I am apt to believe he thought his Performances had been such But I crave leave to observe That good and candid Men are often misled from a fair unbiassed pursuit of Truth by an over-great Zeal for something that they upon wrong Grounds take to be so And that it is not so easie to be a fair and unprejudiced Champion for Truth as some who profess it think it to be To acquaint him with the Occasion of this Remark I must desire him to read and consider his 19th Page and then to tell me 1. Whether he knows that the Doctrine proposed in the Reasonableness of Christianity c. was borrowed as he says from Hobbs's Leviathan For I tell him I borrowed it only from the Writers of the Four Gospels and the Acts and did not know that those words he quoted out of the Leviathan were there or any thing like them Nor do I know yet any farther than as I believe them to be there from his Quotation 2. Whether affirming as he does positively this which he could not know to be true and is in it self perfectly false were meant to encrease or lessen the Credit of the Author of the Reasonableness of Christianity c. in the Opinion of the World Or is consonant with his own Rule p. 3. of putting candid Constructions on what Adversaries say Or with what follows in these words The more Divine the Cause is still the greater should be the Caution The very Discoursing about Almighty God or our Holy Religion should compose our Passions and inspire us with Candour and Love It is very indecent to handle such Subjects in a manner that betrays Rancour and Spite These are Fiends that ought to vanish and should never mix either with a Search after Truth or the Defence of Religion 3. Whether the Propositions which he has out of my Book inserted into his 19th Page and says are consonant to the words of the Leviathan were those of all my Book which were likeliest to give the Reader a true and fair Notion of the Doctrine contained in it If they were not I must desire him to remember and beware of his Fiends Not but that he will find those Propositions there to be true But that neither he nor others may mistake my Book this is that in short which it says 1. That there is a Faith that makes Men Christians 2. That this Faith is the Believing Iesus of Nazareth to be the Messiah 3. That the Believing Iesus to be the Messiah includes in it a receiving Him for our Lord and King promised and sent from God And so lays upon all his Subjects an absolute and indisble necessity of assenting to all that they can attain the Knowledge that he taught and of a sincere Obedience to all that he commanded This whether it be the Doctrine of the Leviathan I know not This appears to me out of the New Testament from whence as I told him in the Preface I took it to be the Doctrine of our Saviour and his Apostles And I would not willingly be mistaken in it If therefore there be any other Faith besides this absolutely requisite to make a Man a Christian I shall here again desire this Gentleman to inform me what it is i. e. to set down all those Propositions which are so indispensibly to be believed for 't is of simple Believing I perceive the Controversie runs that no Man can be a Believer i. e. a Christian without an Actual Knowledge of and an Explicit Assent to them If he shall do this with that Candour and Fairness he declares to be necessary in such Matters I shall own my self obliged to him For I am in earnest and I would not be mistaken in it If he shall decline it I and the World too must conclude that upon a review of my Doctrine he is convinced of the Truth of it and is satisfied that I am in the
right For it is impossible to think that a Man of that Fairness and Candour which he solemnly Prefaces his Discourse with should continue to condemn the Account I have given of the Faith which I am persuaded makes a Christian And yet he himself will not tell me when I earnestly demand it of him as desirous to be rid of my Error if it be one what is that more which is absolutely required to be believed by every one before he can be a Believer i. e. what is indispensibly necessary to be known and explicitly believed to make a Man a Christian. Another thing which I must desire this Author to examine by those his own Rules is What he says of me p. 30. where he makes me to have a Prejudice against the Ministry of the Gospel and their Office from what I have said p. 260 261 270. of my Reasonableness c. concerning the Priests of the World in our Saviour's time which he calls bitter Reflections If he will tell me what is so bitter in any of those Passages which he has set down that is not true or ought not to be said there and give me the Reason why he is offended at it I promise him to make what Reparation he shall think fit to the Memory of those Priests whom he with so much Good-nature Patronizes near Seventeen Hundred Years after they have been out of the World and is so tenderly concerned for their Reputation that he excepts against that as said against them which was not For one of the three Places he sets down was not spoken of Priests But his making my mentioning the Faults of the Priests of old in our Saviour's time to be an Exposing the Office of the Ministers of the Gospel now and a Vilifying those who are employed in it I must desire him to examine by his own Rules of Love and Candour and to tell me whether I have not reason here again to mind him of his FIENDS and to advise him to beware of them And to shew him why I think I have I crave leave to ask him those Questions 1. Whether I do not all along plainly and in express words speak of the Priests of the World preceding and in our Saviour's time Nor can my Argument bear any other sence 2. Whether all I have said of them be not true 3. Whether the representing truly the Carriage of the Iewish and more-especially of the Heathen Priests in our Saviour's time as my Argument required can expose the Office of the Ministers of the Gospel now or ought to have such an Interpretation put upon it 4. Whether what he says of the Ayr and Language I use reaching farther carry any thing else in it but a Declaration that he thinks some Men's Carriage now hath some affinity with what I have truly said of the Priests of the World before Christianity and that therefore the Faults of those should have been let alone or touch'd more gently for fear some should think these now concerned in it 5. Whether in truth this be not to accuse them with a Design to draw the Envy of it on me Whether out of Good-will to them or to me or both let him look This I am sure I have spoke of none but the Priests before Christianity both Iewish and Heathen And for those of the Iews what our Saviour has pronounced of them justifies my Reflections from being bitter And that the Idolatrous Heathen Priests were better than they I believe our Author will not say And if he were Preaching against them as opposing the Ministers of the Gospel I suppose he would give as ill a Character of them But if any one extends my Words farther than to those they were spoke of I ask whether that agrees with his Rules of Love and Candour I shall impatiently expect from this Author of The Occasional Paper an Answer to these Questions and hope to find them such as becomes that Temper and Love of Truth which he professes I long to meet with the Man who laying aside Party and Interest and Prejudice appears in Controversie so as to make good the Character of a Champion of Truth for Truth 's sake A Character not so hard to be known whom it belongs to as to be deserved Whoever is truly such an one his Opposition to me will be an Obligation For he that proposes to himself the convincing me of an Error only for Truth 's sake cannot I know mix any Rancour or Spite or Ill-will with it He will keep himself at a distance from those Fiends and be as ready to hear as offer Reason And two so disposed can hardly miss Truth between them in a fair Enquiry after it at least they will not lose Good-breeding and especially Charity a Vertue much more necessary than the attaining of the Knowledge of obscure Truths that are not easie to be found and probably therefore not necessary to be known The unbiassed Design of the Writer purely to defend and propagate Truth seems to me to be that alone which legitimates Controversies I am sure it plainly distinguishes such from all others in their Success and Usefulness If a Man as a sincere Friend to the Person and to the Truth labours to bring another out of Error there can be nothing more beautiful nor more beneficial If Party Passion or Vanity direct his Pen and have an Hand in the Controversie there can be nothing more unbecoming more prejudicial nor more odious What Thoughts I shall have of a Man that shall as a Christian go about to inform me what is necessary to be believed to make a Man a Christian I have declared in the Preface to my Reasonableness of Christianity c. nor do I find my self yet alter'd He that in Print finds fault with my imperfect Discovery of that wherein the Faith which makes a Man a Christian consists and will not tell me what more is required will do well to satisfie the World what they ought to think of him FINIS
impossible any where to stand The reason whereof is plain Because either the believing Iesus to be the Messiah i. e. the taking him to be our King makes us Subjects and Denizons of his Kingdom i. e. Christians Or else an explicit knowledge of and actual Obedience to the Laws of his Kingdom is what is required to make us Subjects Which I think is what was never said of any other Kingdom For a Man must be a Subject before he is bound to obey Let us suppose it will be said here that an Obedience to the Laws of Christ's Kingdom is what is necessary to make us Subjects of it without which we cannot be admitted into it i. e. be Christians And if so this Obedience must be Universal I mean it must be the same sort of Obedience to all the Laws of this Kingdom Which since no body says is in any one such as is wholly free from Error or Frailty this Obedience can only lie in a sincere disposition and purpose of Mind to obey every one of the Laws of the Messiah deliver'd in the New Testament to the utmost of our Power Now believing right being one part of that Obedience as well as acting right is the other part the Obedience of assent must be implicitly to all that is deliver'd there That it is true But for as much as the particular acts of an explicit assent cannot go any farther than his understanding who is to assent What he understands to be the Truth deliver'd by our Saviour or the Apostles commission'd by him and assisted by his Spirit That he must necessarily believe It becomes a Fundamental Article to him and he cannot refuse his assent to it without renouncing his Allegiance For he that denies any of the Doctrines that Christ has deliver'd to be true denies him to be sent from God and consequently to be the Messiah and so ceases to be a Christian. From whence it is evident that if any more be necessary to be believed to make a Man a Christian than the believing Iesus to be the Messiah and thereby taking him for our King It cannot be any set bundle of Fundamentals culled out of the Scripture with an omission of the rest according as best suits any ones Fancy System or Interest But it must be an explicit belief of all those Propositions which he according to the best of his understanding really apprehends to be contain'd and meant in the Scripture and an implicit belief of all the rest which he is ready to believe as soon as it shall please God upon his use of the means to enlighten him and make them clear to his understanding So that in effect almost every particular Man in this sense has or may have a distinct Catalogue of Fundamentals each whereof it is necessary for him explicitly to believe now that he is a Christian whereof if he should disbelieve or deny any one he would cast off his Allegiance disfranchise himself and be no longer a Subject of Christ's Kingdom But in this sense no body can tell what is Fundamental to another what is necessary for another Man to believe This Catalogue of Fundamentals every one alone can make for himself No body can fix it for him no body can collect or prescribe it to another But this is according as God has dealt to every one the measure of Light and Faith and hath open'd each Man's Understanding that he may understand the Scriptures Whoever has used whaâ— means he is capable of for the informing of himself with a readiness to believe and obey what shall be taught and prescrib'd by Iesus his Lord and King is a true and faithful Subject of Christ's Kingdom and cannot be thought to fail in any thing necessary to Salvation Supposing a Man and his Wife barely by seeing the wonderful things that Moses did should have been perswaded to put themselves under his Government Or by reading his Law and liking it or by any other Motive had been prevail'd on sincerely to take him for their Ruler and Law-giver and accordingly renouncing their former Idolatry and Heathenish Pollutions in token thereof had by Baptism and Circumcision the initiating Ceremonies solemnly enter'd themselves into that Communion under the Law of Moses had they not thereby been made Denizons of the Commonwealth of Israel and invested with all the Privileges and Prerogatives of true Children of Abraham leaving to their Posterity a right to their share in the Promis'd Land though they had died before they had performed any other Act of Obedience to that Law nay though they had not known whose Son Moses was nor how he had deliver'd the Children of Israel out of Egypt nor whither he was leading them I do not say it is likely they should be so far ignorant But whether they were or no 't was enough that they took him for their Prince and Ruler with a purpose to obey him to submit themselves entirely to his Commands and Conduct And did nothing afterwards whereby they disowned or rejected his Authority over them In that respect none of his Laws were greater or more necessary to be submitted to one than another though the matter of one might be of much greater Consequence than of another But a Disobedience to any Law of the least Consequence if it carry with it a disowning of the Authority that made it forfeits all and cuts off such an Offender from that Commonwealth and all the Privileges of it This is the case in respect of other Matters of Faith to those who believe Iesus to be the Messiah and take him to be their King sent from God and so are already Christians 'T is not the opinion that any one may have of the weightiness of the Matter if they are without their own fault ignorant that our Saviour hath revealed it that shall disfranchise them and make them forfeit their Interest in his Kingdom they may be still good Subjects though they do not believe a great many things which Creed-makers may think necessary to be believed That which is required of them is a sincere endeavour to know his Mind declared in the Gospel and an explicit belief of all that they understand to be so Not to believe what he has reveal'd whether in a lighter or more weighty Matter calls his veracity into Question destroys his Mission denies his Authority and is a flat disowning him to be the Messiah And so overturns that Fundamental and Necessary Article whereby a Man is a Christian. But this cannot be done by a Man's Ignorance or unwilful Mistake of any of the Truths published by our Saviour himself or his authorized and inspired Ministers in the New Testament Whilst a Man knows not that it was his Will or Meaning his Allegiance is safe though he believe the contrary If this were not so it is impossible that any one should be a Christian. For in some things we are ignorant and err all not knowing the Scriptures For the holy inspired