Excellencies he ascribes to himself or Faults he blames in me in the management of the Dispute between us any further than as particular Passages of his Book as I come to examine them shall suggest unavoidable Remarks to me I think the World does not so much concern it self about him or me that it need be told in that Inventory he has given of his own good Parts in his first Paragraph which of us two has the better hand at Flourishes Iesting and Common-Places If I am as he says pag. 2. troubled with angry Fits and passionate Ferments which though I strive to palliate are easily discernable c. and he be more laudably Ingenuous in the openness of that Temper which he shews in every Leaf I shall leave to him the entire glory of boasting of it Whatever we brag of our Performances they will be just as they are however he may think to add to his by his own Encomiums of them The difference in Stile Order Coherence good Breeding for all those amongst others the Unmasker mentions the Reader will observe whatever I say of them and at best they are nothing to the question in hand For though I am a Tool Pert Childish Starch'd Impertinent Incoherent Trifling Weak Passionate c. Commendations I meet with before I get to the 4th Page besides what follows as Upstart Racovian p. 24. Flourishing Scribler p. 41. Dissembler 106. Pedantick 107. I say although I am all this and what else he liberally bestows on me in the rest of his Book I may have truth on my side and that in the present case serves my turn Having thus placed the Laurels upon his own Head and sung Applause to his own Performance he pag. 4. enters as he thinks upon his Business which ought to be as he confesses pag. 3. to make good his former charges The first whereof he sets down in these words That I unwarrantably crowded all the necessary Articles of Faith into one with a design of favouring Socinianism If it may be permitted to the subdued to be so bold with one who is already Conqueror I desire to know where that Proposition is laid down in these terms as laid to my Charge Whether it be true or false shall if he pleases be hereafter examined But it is not at present the Matter in question There are certain Propositions which he having affirm'd and I denied are under debate between us And that the Dispute may not run into an endless ramble by multiplying of new before the Points in contest are decided those ought first to be brought to an issue To go on therefore in the order of his Socinianism Unmask'd for p. 3. he has out of the Mishna taught me good Breeding to answer the First first and so in order the next thing he has against me is p. 5. which that the Reader may understand the force of I must inform him that in the 105. p. of his Thoughts concerning the Causes of Atheism he said that I give this plausible conceit as he calls it over and over again in these formal words viz. That nothing is required to be believed by any Christian man but this that Iesus is the Messiah This I denied To make it good Socinianism Unmask'd p. 5. he thus argues First It is observable that this guilty Man would be shifting off the Indictment by excepting against the formality of Words as if such were not to be found in his Book But when doth he do this in the close of it when his Matter was exhausted and he had nothing else to say Vind. p. 38. then he bethinks himself of this salvn c. Answ. As if a Falshood were ever the less a Falshood because it was not opposed or would grow into a Truth if it were not taken notice of before the 38th Page of the Answer I desire him to shew me these formal words over and over again in my Reasonableness of Christianity Nor let him hope to evade by saying I would be shifting by excepting against the formality of the words To say that I have over and over again those formal words in my Book is an Assertion of a Matter of Fact let him produce the words and justifie his Allegation or confess that this is an Untruth publish'd to the World And since he makes so bold with Truth in a Matter visible to every Body let the World be Judge what Credit is to be given to his Allegations of Matters of Fact in things foreign to what I have Printed and that are not capable of a Negative Proof A sample whereof the Reader has at the entrance in his Introductiâ—â— Page A 4 and the three or four following Pages Where he affirms to the World not only what I know to be false but what every one must see he could not know to be true For he pretends to know and deliver my Thoughts And what the Character is of one that confidently affirms what he does not know no body need be told But he adds I had before Pleaded to the Indictment and thereby owned it to be true This is to make good his Promise p. 3. to keep at a distance from my feeble strugglings Here this strong Arguer must prove that what is not answer'd or deny'd in the very beginning of a Reply or before the 38th Page is owned to be true In the mean time till he does that I shall desire such of my Readers as think the Unmasker's Veracity worth the examining to see in my Vindication from p. 26. to 31. wherein is contain'd what I have said about one Article whether I have owned what he charged me with on that Subject This Proposition then remains upon him still to be proved viz. I. That I have over and over again these formal words in my Reasonableness of Christianity viz. That nothing is required to be believed by any Christian Man but this That Iesus is the Messiah He goes on pag. 5. And indeed he could do no other for it was the main Work he set himself about to find but one Article of Faith in all the Chapters of the four Evangelists and the Acts of the Apostles This is to make good his Promise pag. 3. To clear his Book from those sorry Objections and Cavils I had raised against it Several of my sorry Objections and Cavils were to represent to the Reader that a great part of what he said was nothing but Suspicions and Conjectures and such he could not but then own them to be But now he has rid himself of all his Conjectures and has raised them up into direct positive Affirmations which being said with Confidence without Proof who can deny but he has clear'd throughly clear'd that part from my sorry Objections and Cavils He says it was the main Work I set my self about to find but one Article of Faith This I must take the liberty to deny And I desire him to prove it A Man may set himself to find two or
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
or restriction and as they stand in him fit to persuade the Reader that I excluded all other Articles whatsoever but that one of Iesus the Messiah And if in that sence they are not true they are so many Falshoods of his repeated there to mislead others into a wrong Opinion of me For if he had had a mind his Readers should have been rightly informed why was it not as easie once to explain himself as so often to affirm it in general and unrestrained terms This all the boasted strength of the Unmasker will not be able to get him out of This very well becomes one who so loudly charges me with Shuffling Having repeated the same thing over and over again in as general terms as was possible without any the least limitation in the whole Discourse to have nothing else to plead when required to prove it but that it was meant in a limited sence in an Unmasker is not shuffling For by this way he may have the convenience to say and unsay what he pleases to vent what stuff he thinks for his turn and when he is called to an Account for it reply He meant no such thing Should any one publish that the Unmasker had but One Article of Faith and no more viz. That the Doctrines in fashion and likely to procure Preferment are alone to be received That all his Belief was comprised in this one single Article And when such a Talker was demanded to prove his Assertion should he say he meant to except his Belief of the Apostles Creed Would he not notwithstanding such a Plea be thought a shuffling Lyar And if the Unmasker can no otherwise prove those universal Propositions above-cited but by saying he meant them with a tacit restriction for none is expressed they will still and for ever remain to be accounted for by his Veracity What he says in the next Paragraph p. 7. of my splitting One Article into Two is just of the-same force and with the same ingenuity I had said That the Belief of One God was necessary which is not now denied I had also said That the Belief of Iesus of Nazareth to be the Messiah together with those concomitant Articles of his Resurrection Rule and coming again to Judge the World was necessary p. 291. And again p. 301. That God had declared whoever would believe Iesus to be the Saviour promised and take him now raised from the Dead and constituted the Lord and Judge of all Men to be their King and Ruler shall be saved This made me say These and Those Articles in words of the plural number more than once Evidence enough to any but a Caviller that I contended not for one single Article and no more And to mind him of it I in my Vindication reprinted one of those places where I had done so and that he might not according to his manner overlook what does not please him the words THESE ARE ARTICLES were printed in great Characters Whereupon he makes this Remark p. 7. And though since he has tried to split this One into Two pag. 28. yet he labours in vain For to believe Iesus to be the Messiah amounts to the same with believing him to be King and Ruler his being Anointed i. e. being the Messiah including that in it Yet he has the vanity to add in great Characters THESE ARE ARTICLES as if the putting them into these great letters would make One Article Two Answ. Though no Letters will make One Article Two yet that there is One God and Jesus Christ his only Son our Lord who rose again from the Dead ascended into Heaven and sitteth at the Right-Hand of God shall come to judge the Quick and the Dead are more than One Article and may very properly be called THESE ARTICLES without splitting One into Two What in my Reasonableness of Christianity I have said of One Article I shall always own and in what sence I said it is easie to be understood and with a Man of the least Candour whose Aim was Truth and not Wrangling it would not have occasion'd one word of Dispute But as for this Unmasker who made it his business not to convince me of any Mistakes in my Opinion but barely to mis-represent me my business at present with him is to shew the World that what he has captiously and scurrilously said of me relating to One Article is false and that he neither has nor can prove one of those Assertions concerning it above-cited out of him in his own words Nor let him pretend a Meaning against his direct Words Such a Caviller as he who would shelter himself under the pretence of a Meaning whereof there are no Footsteps whose Disputes are only Calumnies directed against the Author without examining the Truth of Falshood of what I had published is not to expect the Allowances one would make to a fair and ingenuous Adversary who shew'd so much Concern for Truth that he treated of it with a Seriousness due to the weightiness of the Matter and used other Arguments besides Obloquy Clamour and Falshoods against what he thought Error And therefore I again positively demand of him to prove these words of his to be true or confess that he cannot Viz. III. That I contend for One Article of Faith with the exclusion and defiance of all the rest Two other Instances of this sort of Arguments I gave in the 29th Page of my Vindication out of the 115th and 119th Pages of his Thoughts concerning the Causes of Atheism and I here demand of him again to shew since he has not thought fit hitherto to give any Answer to it IV. Where I urge that there must be nothing in Christianity that is not plain and exactly levelled to all Mens Mother Wit and every common Apprehension Or where he finds in my Reasonanableness of Christianity this other Proposition V. That the very manner of every thing in Christianity must be clear and intelligible every thing must immediately be comprehended by the weakest Noddle or else it is no part of Religion espicially of Christianity These things he must prove that I have said I put it again upon him to shew where I said them or else to confess the Forgery For till he does one or t'other he shall be sure to have these with a large Catalogue of other Falshoods laid before him Pag. 25. of his Socinianism Unmask'd he endeavours to make good his saying that I set up One Article with defiance of all the rest in these words For what is excluding them wholly but defying them Wherefore seeing he utterly excludes all the rest by representing them as USELESS to the making â— Man a Christian which is the design of his whole Undertaking it is manifest that he defies them Answ. This at least is manifest from hence that the Unmasker knows not or cares not what he says For whoever but he thought that a bare Exclusion or passing by was Defiance If he understands it so
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
those and those only which are necessary to be believed to make a Man a Christian may a Man not justly doubt whether those Propositions which the Unmasker has set down contain all those things and whether there be not other things contain'd in other Texts of Scripture or in some of those cited by him but otherwise understood that have as immediately a respect to the Occasion Author Way Means and Issue of Mens Redemption and Salvation as those he has set down And therefore I have reason to demand a compleater List. For at best to tell us that all things that have an immediate respect to the Occasion Author Way Means and Issue Issue of Mens Redemption and Salvation is but a general Description of Fundamentals with which some may think some Articles agree and others others And the terms immediate respect may give ground enough for difference about them to those who agree that the rest of your Description is right My demand therefore is not a general Description of Fundamentals but for the Reasons abovementioned the particular Articles themselves which are necessary to be believed to make a Man a Christian. It is not my Business at pâ—â—sent to examine the validity of these Arguments of his to prove all the Propositions to be necessary to be believed which he has here in his Socinianism Unmask'd set down as such The use I make of them now is to shew the reason they afford me to doubt that those Propositions which he has given us for Doctrines necessary to be believed are either not all such or more than all by his own rule And therefore I must desire him to give us a compleater Creed that we may know what in his sense is necessary and enough to make a Man a Christian Nor will it be sufficient in this case to do what he tells us that he has done in these words p. 21. I have briefly set before the Reader these Evangelical Truths Those Christian Principles which belong to the very Essence of Christianity and I have reduced most of them to certain Propositions which is a thing the Vindicator called for p. 16. With Submission I think he mistakes the Vindicator What I called for was not that most of them should be reduced to certain Propositions but that all of them should and the reason of my demanding that was plain viz. that then having the Unmasker's Creed in clear and distinct Propositions I might be able to examine whether it was what God in the Scriptures indispensibly required of every Man to make him a Christian that so I might thereby correct the Errors or Defects of what I at present apprehended the Scripture taught me in the case The Unmasker endeavours to excuse himself from answering my Question by another exception against it p. 24. in these words Surely none but this Upstart Racovian will have the confidence to deny that these Articles of Faith are such as are necessary to constitute a Christian as to the Intellectual and Doctrinal part of Christianity such as must IN SOME MEASURE be known and assented to by him Not that a Man is supposed every moment to actually exert his assent and belief for none of the Moral Vertues none of the Evangelical Graces are exerted thus always Wherefore that Question in p. 16. though he says he asks it seriously might have been spared Whether every one of these Fundamentals is required to be believed to make a Man a Christian and such as without the actual belief thereof he cannot be saved Here is seriousness pretended when there is none for the Design is only to Cavil and if he can to expose my Assertion But he is not able to do it for all his Critical Demands are answer'd in these few words viz. That in the Intellectual as well as Moral Endowments are never supposed to be always in act They are exerted upon Occasion not all of them at a time And therefore he mistakes if he thinks or rather as he Objects without thinking that these Doctrines if they be Fundamental and Necessary must be always actually believed No Man besides himself ever started such a thing This terrible long Combate has the Unmasker managed with his own Shadow to confound the Seriousness of my Question and as he says himself is come off not only safe and sound but triumphant But for all that Sir may not a Man's Question be serious though he should chance to express it ill I think you and I were not best to set up for Criticks in Language and Nicety of Expression for fear we should set the World a Laughing Yet for this once I shall take the liberty to defend mine here For I demand in what Expression of mine I said or supposed that a man should every moment actually exert his assent to any Proposition required to be believed Cannot a Man say that the Unmasker cannot be admitted to any Preferment in the Church of England without an actual assent to or Subscribing of the 39 Articles unless it be suppos'd that he must every moment from the time he first read assented to and subscribed those Articles till he received Institution and Induction actually exert his assent to every one of them and repeat his Subscription In the same sense it is literally true that a Man cannot be admitted into the Church of Christ or into Heaven without actually believing all the Articles necessary to make a Man a Christian without supposing that he must actually exert that assent every moment from the time that he first gave it till the moment that he is admitted into Heaven He may Eat Drink make Bargains study Euclid and think of other things between nay sometimes Sleep and neither think of those Articles nor any thing else and yet it be true that he shall not be admitted into the Church or Heaven without an actual assent to them That Condition of an actual assent he has perform'd and until he recall that assent by actual Unbelief it stands good and though a Lunacy or Lethargy should seize on him presently after and he should never think of it again as long as he lived yet it is literally true he is not saved without an actual assent You might therefore have spared your pains in saying That none of the Moral Virtues none of the Evangelical Graces are exerted THUS always till you had met with some body who had said THUS That I did so I think would have enter'd into no bodies thoughts but yours it being evident from p. 298 and 300. of my Book that by Actual I meant Explicit You should rather have given a direct Answer to my Question which I here again seriously ask you viz. Whether IX Those you called Fundamental Doctrines in your Thoughts concerning the Causes of Atheism or those Christian Principles which belong to the very Essence of Christianity so many as you have given us of them in your Socinianism Unmask'd for you may take which of your two
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
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
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
I shew'd that the World received by his coming This appears by the words he here quotes as my excuse for that omission In which place I also produced some Passages in my Book which sounded like it some words of Scripture that are used to prove it But this will not content him I am for all that a Betrayer of Christianity and Contemner of the Episâ—les Why Because I did not out of them name Satisfaction If you will have the truth of it Sir there is not any such word in any one of the Epistles or other Books of the New Testament in my Bible as Satisfying or Satisfaction made by our Saviour and so I could not put it into my Christianity as deliver'd in the Scripture If mine be not a true Bible I desire you to furnish me with one that is more Orthodox or if the Translators have hid that main Article of the Christian Religion they are the betrayers of Christianity and Contemners of the Epistles who did not put it there and not I who did not take a word from thence which they did not put there For truly I am not a Maker of Creeds nor dare add either to the Scripture or to the Fundamental Articles of the Christian Religion But you will say Satisfaction though not named in the Epistles yet may plainly be collected out of them Answ. And so it may out of several places in my Reasonableness of Christianity some whereof which I took out of the Gospels I mention'd in my Vindication p. 5. and others of them which I took out of the Epistles which I shall point out to you now As p. 74. I say the Design of our Saviour's coming was to be OFFERED up And p. 158. I speak of the Work of our REDEMPTION words which in the Epistles are taken to imply Satisfaction And therefore if that be enough I see not but I may be free from betraying Christianity But if it be necessary to Name the word Satisfaction and he that does not so is a Betrayer of Christianity you will do well to consider how you will acquit the Holy Apostles from that bold Imputation which if it be extended as far as it will go will scarce come short of Blasphemy For I do not remember that our Saviour has any where named Satisfaction or implied it plainer in any words than those I have quoted from him And he I hope will scape the Intemperance of your Tongue You tell me I had my Prudence from the Missionary Iesuits in China who conceal'd our Saviour's Suffering and Death because I undertake to ininstruct the World in Christianity with an omission of its Principal Articles And I pray Sir from whom did you learn your Prudence when taking upon you to teach the Fundamental Doctrines of Christianity in your Thoughts concerning the Causes of Atheism you left out several that you have been pleased since to add in your Socinianism Unmask'd Or if I as you say here betray Christianity by this Omission of this Principal Article What do you who are a Professed Teacher of it if you omit any principal Article Which your Prudence is so wary in that you will not say you have given us all that are necessary to Salvation in that List you have last published I pray who acts best the Jesuit whose humble Imitator you say I am you or I when pretending to give a Catalogue of Fundamentals you have not reduced them to direct Propositions but have left some of them indefinite to be collected as every one pleases and instead of telling us it is a perfect Catalogue of Fundamentals plainly shuffle it off and tell me p. 22. If that will not content me you are sure you can do nothing that will If I require more it is Folly in you to comply with me One part of what you here say I own to you savours not much of the Skill of a Jesuit You confess your inability and I believe it to be perfectly true That if what you have done already which is nothing at all will not content me you are sure you can do nothing that will content me or any reasonable Man that shall demand of you a compleat Catalogue of Fundamentals But you make it up pretty well with a Confidence becoming one of that Order For he must have rub'd his Forehead hard who in the same Treatise where he so severely condemns the Imperfection of my List of Fundamentals confesses that he cannot give a compleat Catalogue of his own You publish to the World in this 44 and the next Page that I hide from the People the main Articles of the Christian Religion I disguise the faith of the Gospel betray Christianity it self and imitate the Iesuits that went tâ— Preach the Gospel to the People of China by my Omission of its principal or main Articles Answ. I know not how I disguise the Faith of the Gospel c. in imitation of the Jesuits in China unless taking Men off from the Inventions of Men and recommending to them the Reading and Study of the Holy Scripture to find what the Gospel is and requires be a disguising of the Faith of the Gospel a betraying of Christianity and an imitating of the Iesuits Besides Sir if one may ask you in what School did you learn that prudent warineâ—s and reserve which so eminently appears p. 24. of your Socinianism Unmask'd in these words These Articles meaning those which you had before enumerated as Fundamental of Faith are such as must IN SOME MEASURE be known and assented to by a Christian such as must GENERALLY be received and imbraced by him You will do well the next time to set down how far your Fundamentals must be known assented to and received to avoid the suspicion that there is a little more of Jesuitism in these Expressions in some measure known and assented to and generally receiv'd and imbraced than what becomes a sincere Protestant Preacher of the Gospel For your speaking so doubtfully of knowing and assenting to those which you give us for Fundamental Doctrines which belong as you say to the very essence of Christianity will hardly scape being imputed to your want of Knowledge or want of Sincerity And indeed the word General is in familiar use with you and stands you in good stead when you would say something you know not what as I shall have occasion to remark to you when I come to your 91 Page Further I do not remember where it was that I mention'd or undertook to set down all the principal or main Articles of Christianity To change the â—â—rms of the Question from Articles necessary to be believed to make a Man a Christian into principal or main Articles looks a little Jesuitical But to pass by that The Apostles when they went to preach the Gospel to People as much Strangers to it as the Chineses were when the Europeans came first amongst them Did they hide from the People the main Articles of the Christian
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
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
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
Expressions applied to our Saviour But was his Discourse never so general how could that alter the plain Signification of his words viz. That those two are but different Expressions of the same thing 2 o. Because these Expressions are applied to the same person Answ. A very demonstrative Reason is it not that therefore they cannot be different Expressions of the same thing 3 o. And because they are both comprehended in one general Name viz. Iesus Answ. It requires some Skill to put so many Falshoods in so few words For neither both nor either of these Expressions are comprehended in the Name Iesus And that Iesus the Name of a particular Person should be a general Name is a discovery reserv'd to be found out by this new Logician However general is a Learned Word which when a Man of Learning has used twice as a Reason of the same thing he is cover'd with Generals He need not trouble himself any farther about sence he may safely talk what Stuâ—â— he pleases without the least Suspicion of his Reader Having thus strongly proved just nothing he proceeds and tells us p. 91. Yet it does not follow thence but that if we will speak strictly and closely we must be forced to confess they are of different Significations By which words if his words have any Signification he plainly allows that the Bishop meant as he says that these two are but different Expressions of the same thing But withal tells him that if he will speak closely and strictly he must say they are of different Significations My concernment in the case being only that in the Passage alledg'd the Reverend Author said that the Son of God and the Messiah were different Expressions of the same thing I have no more to demand after these words of the Unmasker he has granted all I would have But shall leave it to the decisive Authority of this Superlative Critick to determine whether this Learned Bishop or any one living besides himself can understand the Phrases of the New Testament and speak strictly and closely concerning them Perhaps his being yet alive may preserve this Eminent Prelate from the malicious driveling of the Unmasker's Pen which has bespotted the Ashes of two of the same Order who were no mean Ornaments of the English Church And if they had been now alive no body will doubt but the Unmasker would have treated them after another fashion But let me ask the Unmasker whether if either of these Pious Prelates whose words I have above quoted did understand that Phrase of the Son of God to stand for the Messiah which they might do without holding any one Socinian tenet he will dare to pronounce him a Socinian This is so ridiculous an Inference that I could not but laugh at it But withal tell him Vindic. p. 23. That if the sence wherein I understand those Texts be a Mistake I shall be beholding to him to set me right But they are not popular Authorities or frightful Names whereby I judge of Truth or Falshood To which I subjoin these words You â—ill now no doubt applaud your Conjectures the Point is gain'd and I am openly a Socinian Since I will not disown that I think the Son of God was a Phrase that among the Iews in our Saviour's time was used for the Messiah though the Socinians understand it in the same sence And therefore I must certainly be of their Perswasion in every thing else I admire the accuteness force and fairness of your Reasoning and so I leave you to triumph in your Conjectures Nor has he sailed my expectation For here p. 91. of his Socinianism Unmask'd he upon this erects his Comb and Crows most mightily We may says he from hence as well as other Reasons pronounce him the same with those Gentlemen i. e. as he is pleased to call them my good Patrons and Friends the Racovians which you may perceive he is very apprehensive of and thinks that this will be reckon'd a good Evidence of his being what he denied himself to be before The Point is gain'd saith he and I am openly Socinian He never utter'd truer words in his life and they are the Confutation of all his Pretences to the contrary This Truth which unwarily dropt from his Pen confirms what I have laid to his Charge Now you have Sung your Song of Triumph 't is fit you should gain your Victory by shewing XLIX How my understanding the Son of God to be a Phrase used amongst the Iews in our Saviour's time to signifie the Messiah proves me to be a Socinian Or if you think you have proved it already I desire you to put your Proof into a Syllogism For I confess my self so dull as not to see any such Conclusion deducible from my understanding that Phrase as I do even when you have proved that I am mistaken in it The places which in the New Testament shew that the Son of God stands for the Messiah are so many and so clear that I imagine no body that ever consider'd and compar'd them together could doubt of their meaning unless he were an Vnmasker Several of them I have Collected and set down in my Reasonableness of Christianity p. 25 26 27. 29. 34 35 36. 41. 50 51. 53 54. 60. 95. 101. First Iohn the Baptist Joh. I. 20. when the Iews sent to know who he was confessed he himself was not the Messiah But of Iesus he says v. 34. after having several ways in the foregoing Verses declar'd him to be the Messiah And I saw and bare record that this is the SON OF GOD. And again Chap. III. 26 36. he declaring Iesus to be and himself not to be the Messiah he does it in these Synonymous terms of the Messiah and the Son of God as appears by comparing v. 28. 35 36. Nathanael owns him to be the Messiah in these words Ioh. I. 50. Thou art the SON OF GOD Thou art the King of Israel Which our Saviour in the next Verse calls Believing a term all through the History of our Saviour used for owning Iesus to be the Messiah And for confirming that Faith of his that he was the Messiah our Saviour further adds that he should see greater things i. e. Should see him do greater Miracles to evidence that he was the Messiah Luke the 4 th 41. And Devils also came out of many crying Thou art the Messiah the Son of God and he rebuking them suffered them not to speak And so again St. Mark tells us Chap. III. 11 12. That unclean Spirits when they saw him fell down before him and cried saying Thou art the Son of God And he strictly charged them that they should not make him known In both these places which relate to different times and different occasions the Devils declare Iesus to be the Son of God ` T is certain whatever they meant by it they used a Phrase of a known Signification in that Country And what may we reasonably think they
viz. as the Unmasker tells us here that it included or signified God and that Philip who we read at Samaria preach'd 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Messiah i. e. instructed them who the Messiah was had here taken pains only to instruct him that this God was Iesus the Messiah and to bring him to assent to that Proposition Whether this be Natural to conceive I leave to the Reader The Tautology on which the Unmasker builds his whole Objection will be quite removed if we take Christ here for a proper Name in which way it is used by the Evangelists and Apostles in other places and particularly by St. Luke as Act. II. 28. III. 6. 20. IV. 10. XXIV 24 c. In two of these places it cannot with any good sence be taken otherwise for if it be not in Act. III. 6. and IV. 10. used as a proper Name we must read those places thus Iesus the Messiah of Nazareth And I think it is plain in those others cited as well as in several other places of the New Testament that the word Christ is used as a proper Name We may easily conceive that long before the Acts were writ the Name of Christ was grown by a familiar use to denote the Person of our Saviour as much as Iesus This is so manifest that it gave a Name to his Followers who as St. Luke tells us XI 26. were were called Christians And that if Chronologists mistake not Twenty Years before St. Luke writ his History of the Apostles And this so generally that Agrippa a Iew uses it Act. XXVI 28. And that Christ as the proper Name of our Saviour was got as far as Rome before St. Luke writ the Acts appears out of Suetonius l. 5. And by that Name he is called in Tacitus Ann. l. 15. 'T is no wonder then that St. Luke in Writing this History should sometimes set it down alone sometimes join'd with that of Iesus as a proper Name which is much easier to conceive he did here than that Philip propos'd more to the Eunuch to be believed to make him a Christian than what in other places was propos'd for the Conversion of others or than what he himself propos'd at Samaria His 7th Chapter is to prove that I am a Socinian because I omitted Christ's Satisfaction That Matter having been answer'd p. 147. where it came properly under consideration I shall only observe here that the great stress of his Argument lies as it did before not upon my total omission of it out of my Book but on this that I have no such thing in the place where the Advantages of Christ's coming are purposely treated of from whence he will have this to be an unavoidable Inference viz. That I was of Opinion that Christ came not to satisfie for us The reason of my omission of it in that place I told him was because my Book was chiefly designed for Deists and therefore I mention'd only those Advantages which all Christians must agree in and in omitting of that comply'd with the Apostle's Rule Rom. XIV To this he tells me â—latly that was not the design of my Book Whether the Unmasker knows with what design I publish'd it better than I my self must be left to the Reader to judge For as for his Veracity in what he knows or knows not he has given so many Instances of it that I may safely referr that to any body One Instance more of it may be found in this very Chapter where he says I pretend indeed p. 5. that in another place of my Book I mention Christ's restoring all Mankind from the state of Death and restoring them to Life and his laying down his Life for another as our Saviour Professes he did These few words this Vindicator hath picked up in his Book since he wrote it This is all through his whole Treatise that he hath drop'd concerning that Advantage of Christ's Incarnation i. e. Christ's Satisfaction Answ. But that this is not all that I drop'd through my whole Treatise concerning that Advantage may appear by those places above-mentioned p. 157. where I say that the design of Christ's coming was to be offered up and speak of the Work of Redemption which are Expressions taken to imply our Saviour's Satisfaction But the Unmasker thinking I should have quoted them if there had been any more besides those mention'd in my Vindication upon that Presumption sticks not boldly to affirm that there were no more and so goes on with the Veracity of an Unmasker If affirming would do it nothing could be wanting in his Cause that might be for his Purpose Whether he be as good at proving this Consequence amongst other Propositions which remain upon him to be proved will try viz. L. That if the Satisfaction of Christ be not mentioned in the place where the Advantages of Christ's coming are purposely treated of then I am of Opinion that Christ came not to satisfie for us which is all the Argument of his 7th Chapter His last Chapter as his first begins with a Commendation of himself Particularly it boasts his freedom from Bigolism Dogmatizing Censoriousness and Vncharitableness I think he hath drawn himself so well with his own Pen that I shall need referr the Reader only to what he himself has writ in this Controversie for his Character In the next Paragraph p. 104. he tells me I laugh at Orthodoxy Answ. There is nothing that I think deserves a more serious Esteem than right Opinion as the Word signifies if taken up with the Sense of Love and Truth But this way of becoming Orthodox has always Modesty accompanying it and a fair Acknowledgment of Fallibility in our selves as well as a Supposition of Error in others On the other side there is nothing more ridiculous than for any Man or Company of Men to assume the Title of Orthodoxy to their own set of Opinions as if Infallibility were annexed to their Systems and those were to be the standing Measure of Truth to all the World from whence they erect to themselves a power to censure and condemn others for differing at all from the Tenets they have pitch'd upon The Consideration of humane Frailty ought to check this Vanity But since it does not but that with a sort of Allowance it shews it self in almost all religious Societies the playing the trick round sufficiently turns it into ridicule For each Society having an equal right to a good Opinion of themselves a Man by passing but a River or a Hill loses that Orthodoxy in one Company which puâ—â—ed him up with such Assurance and Insolence in another and is there with equal Justice himself expos'd to the like Censures of Error and Heresie which he was so forward to lay on others at Home When it shall appear that Infallibility is intailed upon one set of Men of any Denomination or Truth confined to any Spot of Ground the Name and Use of Orthodoxy as now it is in Fashion every where
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
as well as great Impudence of putting his Name in Print to what is not his or taking it away from what he hath set it to whether it belongs to his Bookseller or Answerer Onely I cannot pass by the palpable falsifying of Mr. B d's Words in the beginning of his Epistle to the Reader without mention Mr. B d's Words are Whereby I came to be furnished with a truer and more just Notion of the main Design of that TREATISE and the Good Creed-maker set them down thus The main Design of MY OWN TREATISE OR SERMON A sure way for such a Champion for Truth to secure to himself the Laurel or the Whetstone This irresistible Disputant who silences all that come in his way so that those that would cannot answer him to make good the mighty Encomiums he has given himself ought one would think to clear all as he goes and leave nothing by the way unanswered for fear he should fall into the Number of those poor baffled Wretches whom he with so much scorn reproaches that they would answer if they could Mr. B d begins his Animadversions with this Remark that our Creed-maker had said That I give it over and over again in these formal Words viz. That nothing is required to be believed by any Christian Man but this That Iesus is the Messiah To which Mr. B d replies p. 4. in these Words Though I have read over the Reasonableness of Christianity c. with some Attention I have not observed those formal Words in any part of that Book nor any Words that are capable of that Construction provided they be consider'd with the Relation they have to and the manifest Dependance they have on what goes before or follows after them But to this Mr. Edwards answers not Whether it was because he would not or because he could not let the Reader judge But this is down upon his Score already and it is expected he should answer to it or else confess that he cannot And that there may be a fair Decision of this Dispute I expect the same Usage from him that he should set down any Proposition of his I have not answer'd to and call on me for an Answer if I can And if I cannot I promise him to own it in Print The Creed-maker had said That it is most evident to any thinking and considerate Person that I purposely omit the Epistolary Writings of the Apostles because they are fraught with other Fundamental Doctrines besides that which I mention To this Mr. B d answers p. 5. That if by Fundamental Articles Mr. Edwards means here all the Propositions delivered in the Epistles concerning just those particular Heads he Mr. Edwards had there mentioned it lies upon him to prove That Jesus Christ hath made it necessary that every Person must have an explicit Knowledge and Belief of all those before he can be a Christian. But to this Mr. Edwards answers not And yet without an Answer to it all his Talk about Fundamentals and those which he pretended to set down in that place under the Name of Fundamentals will signifie nothing in the present case Wherein by Fundamentals were meant such Propositions which every Person must necessarily have an explicit Knowledge and Belief of before he can be a Christian. Mr. B d in the same place p. 6 and 7. very truly and pertinently adds That it did not pertain to my undertaking to enquire what Doctrines either in the Epistles or the Evangelists and the Acts were of greatest moment to be understood by them who are Christians but what was necessary to be known and believed to a Person 's being a Christian. For there are many important Doctrines both in the Gospels and in the Acts besides this That Iesus is the Messiah But how many soever the Doctrines be which are taught in the Epistles if there be no Doctrine besides this That Iesus is the Messiah taught there as necessary to be believed to make a Man a Christian all the Doctrines taught there will not make any thing against what this Author has asserted nor against the Method he hath observed Especially considering we have an Account in the Acts of the Apostles of what those Persons by whom the Epistles were writ did teach as necessary to be believed to Peoples being Christians This and what Mr. B d subjoins That it was not my design to give an Abstract of any of the inspired Books is so true and has so clear Reason in it that any but this Writer would have thought himself concerned to have answered something to it But to this Mr. Edwards answers not It not being it seems a Creed-maker's Business to convince Mens Understanding by Reason but to impose on their Belief by Authority or where that is wanting by Falshoods and Bauling And to such Mr. Bold observes well p. 8. that if I had given the like Account of the Epistles that would have been as little satisfactory as what I have done already to those who are resolved not to distinguish BETWIXT WHAT IS NECESSARY TO BE BELIEVED TO MAKE A MAN A CHRISTIAN AND THOSE ARTICLES WHICH ARE TO BE BELIEVED BY THOSE WHO ARE CHRISTIANS as they can attain to know that Christ hath taught them This Distinction the Creed-maker no where that I remember takes any Notice of unless it be p. 255. where he has something relating hereunto which we shall consider when we come to that place I shall now go on to shew what Mr. Bold has said to what he answers not Mr. Bold farther tells him p. 10. That if he will prove any thing in Opposition to the Reasonableness of Christianity c. it must be this That Jesus Christ and his Apostles have taught that the Belief of some one Article or certain Number of Articles distinct from this That Iesus is the Messiah either as exclusive of or in Conjunction with the Belief of this Article doth constitute and make a Person a Christian But that the Belief of this that Jesus is the Messias alone doth not make a Man a Christian But to this Mr. Edwards irresragably answers nothing Mr. Bold also p. 10. Charges him with his falsly accusing me in these words He pretends to contend for one single Article with the exclusion of all the rest for this reason because all Men ought to understand their Religion And again where he says I aim at this viz. That we must not have any Point of Doctrine in our Religion that the Mob doth not at the very first naming of it perfectly understand and agree to Mr. Bold has quoted my express words to the contrary But to this this answerable Gentleman answers nothing But if he be such a mighty Disputant that nothing can stand in his way I shall expect his direct Answer to it among those other Propositions which I have set down to his Score and I require him to prove if he can The Creed-maker spends Five Pages of his Reflections in a great stir
worse than Silence His words are p. 258. It may be questioned from what he the Animadverter hath the confidence to say p. 31. viz. There is no Enquiry in the Reasonableness of Christianity concerning Faith subjectively considered but only objectively c. And thus having set down Mr. B d's Words otherwise than they are for Mr. Bold does not say there is no Enquiry i. e. no Mention for so the Creed-maker explains Enquiries here For to convince Mr. Bold that there is an Enquiry i. e. Mention of Subjective Faith he alledges That Subjective Faith is spoken of in the 191. and 192. pages of my Book But Mr. Bold says not that Faith considered subjectively is not spoken of any where in the Reasonableness of Christianity c. But That the Author 's Enquiry and Search i. e. the Author's Search or Design of his Search was not concerning Christian Faith considered subjectively And thus the Creed-maker imposing on his Reader by perverting Mr. Bold's Sence from what was the Intention of my Enquiry and Search to what I had said in it he goes on after his scurrilous fashion to insult in these words which follow I say it may be guessed from this what a Liberty this Writer takes to assert what he pleases Answ. To assert what one pleases without Truth and without Certainty is the worst Character can be given a Writer And with Falshood to charge it on another is no mean Slander and Injury to a Man's Neighbour And yet to these shameful Arts must he be driven who finding his strength of managing a Cause to lie only in Fiction and Falshood has no other but the dull Billinsgate way of covering it by endeavouring to divert the Reader 's Observation and Censure from himself by a confident repeated Imputation of that to his Adversary which he himself is so frequent in the Commission of And of this the Instances I have given are a sufficient Proof In which I have been at the Pains to set down the Words on both Sides and the Pages where they are to be found for the Reader 's full Satisfaction The Cause in Debate between us is of great Weight and concerns every Christian That any Evidence in the Proposal or Defence of it can be sufficient to conquer all Men's Prejudices is a Vanity to imagine But this I think I may justly demand of every Reader that since there are great and visible Falshoods on one side or the other for the Accusations of this kind are positive and frequent he would examine on which Side they are And upon that I will venture the Cause in any Reader 's Judgment who will be but at the pains of turning to the Pages marked out to him And as for him that will not do that I care not much what he says The Creed-maker's following words p. 258. have the Natural Mark of their Author They are these How can this Animadverter come off with peremptory declaring that Subjective Faith is not enquired into in the Treatise of the Reasonableness of Christianity c. When in another place p. 35 and 36. he averrs That Christian Faith and Christianity consider'd Subjectively are the same Answ. In which words there are two manifest â—ntruths The one is That Mr. Bold peremptorily declares that Subjective Faith is not inquired into i. e. Spoken of in the Reasonableness of Christianity c. Whereas Mr. Bold says in that place p. 31. If he i. e. the Author had not said one word concerning Faith subjectively considered The Creed-maker's other Untruth is his saying That the Animadverter averrs p. 35. 36. that Christian Faith and Christianity considered subjectively are the same Whereas 't is evident that Mr. Bold arguing against these words of the Creed-maker The belief of Iesus being the Messiah was one of the first and leading Acts of Christian Faith speaks in that place of an act of Faith as these words of his demonstrate Now I apprehend that Christian Faith and Christianity consider'd subjectively and an ACT of Christian Faith I think cannot be understood in any other sence are the very same I must therefore desire him to set down the words wherein the Animadverter peremptorily declares LIII That subjective Faith is not enquired into or spoken of in the Treatise of the Reasonableness of Christianity c. And next to produce the words wherein the Animadverter averrs LIV. That Christian Faith and Christianity consider'd subjectively are the same To the Creed maker's saying That the Author of the Reasonableness of Christianity c. brings us no tidings of Evangelical Faith belonging to Christianity Mr. Bold replies That I have done it in all those Pages where I speak of taking and accepting Iesus to be our King and Ruler and particularly he sets down my words out of p. 301. But to this Mr. Edwards Answers not The Creed-maker says p. 59. of his Socinianism Unmasked that the Author of the Reasonableness of Christianity tells men again and again that a Christian Man or Member of Christ needs not know or believe any more than that one individual Point To which Mr. Bold thus replies p. 33. If any Man will shew me those words in any part of the Reasonableness c. I shall suspect I was not awake all the time I was reading that Book And I am as certain as one awake can be that there are several Passages in that Book directly contrary to these words And there are some Expressions in the Vindication of the Reasonableness c. one would think if Mr. Edwards had observed them they would have prevented that Mistake But to this Mr. Edwards answers not Mr. Bold p. 34. takes notice that the Creed-maker had not put the Query or Objection right which he says some and not without some shew of ground may be apt to start And therefore Mr. Bold puts the Query right viz. Why did Jesus Christ and his Apostles require assent to and belief of this one Article alone viz. That Iesus is the Messiah to constitute and make a Man a Christian or true Member of Christ as it is abundantly evident they did from the Reasonableness of Christianity if the belief of more Articles is absolutely necessary to make and constitute a Man a Christian. But to this Mr. Edwards answers not And therefore I put the Objection or Query to him again in Mr. Bold's words and expect an Answer to it viz. LV. Why did Iesus Christ and his Apostles require assent to and belief of this one Article alone viz. That Jesus is the Messiah to make a Man a Christian as it is abundantly evident they did from all their Preaching recorded throughout the whole History of the Evangelists and Acts if the belief of more Articles be absolutely necessary to make a Man a Christian The Creed-maker having made believing Iesus to be the Messiah only one of the first and leading Acts of Christian Faith Mr. Bold p. 35. rightly tells him That Christian Faith must be the belief
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