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
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
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
unquestionable Word of God And thus partly in the words of the Scripture and partly in words of his own he makes a Set of Fundamentals with an Exclusion of all the other Truths deliver'd by the Spirit of God in the Bible Though all the rest be of the same Divine Authority and Original and ought therefore all equally as far as they are understood by every Christian to be believed I tell him and I desire him to take notice of it God has no where given him an Authority thus to garble the inspired Writings of the Holy Scriptures Every part of it is his Word and ought every part of it to be believed by every Christian Man according as God shall inable him to understand it It ought not to be narrowed to the Cut of the Vnmasker's peculiar System 'T is a Presumption of the highest Nature for him thus to pretend according to his own Phancy to establish a Set of Fundamental Articles This is to diminish the Authority of the Word of God to set up his own and create a reverence to his System from which the several parts of Divine Revelations are to receive their Weight Dignity and Authority Those Passages of Holy Writ which suit with that are Fundamental Choice Sublime and Necessary The rest of the Scripture as of no great moment is not Fundamental is not necessary to be believed may be neglected or must be tortur'd to comply with an Analogy of Faith of his own making But though he pretend to a certain Set of Fundamentals yet to shew the Vanity and Impudence of that pretence he cannot tell us which they are and therefore in vain contends for a Creed he knows not and is yet no where He neither does and which is more I tell him he never can give us a Collection of his Fundamentals gather'd upon his Principles out of the Scripture with the rejection of all the rest as not Fundamental He does not observe the difference there is between what is necessary to be believed by every Man to make him a Christian and what is requir'd to be believed by every Christian. The first of these is what by the Covenant of the Gospel is necessary to be known and consequently to be propos'd to every Man to make him a Christian The latter is no less than the whole Revelation of God all the Divine Truths contain'd in Holy Scripture which every Christian Man is under a necessity to believe so far as it shall please God upon his serious and constant endeavours to enlighten his Mind to understand them The Preaching of our Saviour and his Apostles has sufficiently taught us what is necessary to be propos'd to every Man to make him a Christian. He that believes him to be the promised Messiah takes Iesus for his King and repenting of his former Sins sincerely resolves to live for the future in obedience to his Laws is a Subject of his Kingdom is a Christian. If he be not I desire the Unmasker to tell me what more is requisite to make him so Till he does that I rest satisfied that this is all that was at first and is still necessary to make a Man a Christian. This though it be contain'd in a few words and those not hard to be understood though it be in one voluntary act of the Mind relinquishing all irregular Courses and submitting it self to the rule of him whom God had sent to be our King and promised to be our Saviour Yet it having relation to the Race of Mankind from the First Man Adam to the End of the World it being a Contrivance wherein God has displaid so much of his Wisdom and Goodness to the corrupt and lost Sons of Men and it being a Design to which the Almighty had a peculiar regard in the whole Constitution and Oeconomy of the Iews as well as in the Prophecies and History of the Old Testament This was a Foundation capable of large Superstructures 1. In explaining the Occasion Necessity Use and End of his coming 2. Next in proving him to be the Person promis'd by a Correspondence of his Birth Life Sufferings Death and Resurrection to all those Prophecies and Types of him which had given the expectation of such a Deliverer and to those Descriptions of him whereby he might be known when he did come 3. In the discovery of the Sort Constitution Extent and Management of his Kingdom 4. In shewing from what we are deliver'd by him and how that Deliverance is wrought out and what are the Consequences of it These and a great many more the like afford great numbers of Truths deliver'd both in the Historical Epistolary and Prophetical Writings of the New Testament wherein the Mysteries of the Gospel hidden from former Ages were discover'd and that more fully I grant after the pouring out of the Holy Ghost upon the Apostles But could no body take Christ for their promised King and resolve to obey him unless he understood all the Truths that concern'd his Kingdom or as I may say Mysteries of State of it The truth of the contrary is manifest out of the plain and uniform Preaching of the Apostles after they had received the Holy Ghost that was to guide them into all Truth Nay after the writing of those Epistles wherein were contain'd the Unmasker's Sublimest Truths They every where propos'd to Unbelievers Iesus the Messiah to be their King Ordain'd of God and to this join'd Repentance And this alone they Preach'd for the Conversion of their Unbelieving Hearers As soon as any one assented to this he was pronounced a Believer And these inspired Rulers of the Church these infallible Preachers of the Gospel admitted him into Christ's Kingdom by Baptism And this after long after our Saviour's Ascension when as our Unmasker expresses it the Holy Ghost was to be sent in a special manner to enlighten mens Minds and to discover to them the great Mysteries of Christianity even as long as the Apostles lived And what others were to do who afterwards were to Preach the Gospel St. Paul tells us 1 Cor. III. 11. Other foundation can no man lay than that is laid even Iesus the Messiah Though upon this Foundation Men might build variously things that would or would not hold the touch Yet however as long as they kept firm to this Foundation they should be saved as appears in the following Verses And indeed if all the Doctrines of the Gospel which are contain'd in the Writings of the Apostles and Evangelists were necessary to be understood and explicitly believed in the true sense of those that deliver'd them to make a Man a Christian I doubt whether ever any one even to this day was a true Christian Though I believe the Unmasker will not deny but that e're this Christianity as he expresses it is by certain steps climbed to its height But for this the Unmasker has found a convenient and wise remedy 'T is but for him to have the Power to
declare which of the Doctrines deliver'd in Holy Writ are and which are not necessary to be believed with an additional Power to add others of his own that he cannot find there and the business is done For unless this be allow'd him his System cannot stand Unless his Interpretations be received for authentick Revelation we cannot have all Doctrines necessary for our time In truth we cannot be Christians For to this only what he says concerning the gradual discovery of the Doctrines of the Gospel tends We are not to think says he that all the necessary Doctrines of the Christian Religion were clearly publish'd to the World in our Saviour's time Not but that all that were necessary for that time were publish'd But some that were necessary for the succeeding one were not then discover'd or at least not fully I must here ask the Unmasker a short Question or two as First XLVI Are not all the Doctrines necessary for our time contain'd in his System Next XLVII Can all the Doctrines necessary for our time be propos'd in the express words of the Scripture When he has answer'd these two plain Questions and an Answer to them I shall expect the World will then see what he designs by Doctrines necessary for our Saviour's time and Doctrines necessary for succeeding times whether he means any thing else by it but the setting up his System as the exact Standard of the Gospel and the true and unalterable Measure of Christianity in which it has climbed to its height Let not good and sincere Christians be deceived nor perplexed by this Maker of another Christianity than what the infallible Spirit of God has lest us in the Scriptures 'T is evident from thence that whoever takes Iesus the Messiah for his King with a Resolution to live by his Laws and does sincerely repent as often as he transgresses any of them is his Subject All such are Christians What they are to know or believe more concerning him and his Kingdom when they are his Subjects he has left upon Record in the great and Sacred Code and Constitutions of his Kingdom I mean in the Holy Scriptures All that is contain'd therein as coming from the God of Truth they are to receive as Truth and imbrace as such But since it is impossible explicitly to believe any Proposition of the Christian Doctrine but what men understand or in any other sense than we understand it to have been deliver'd in An explicit belief is or can be required in no Man of more than what he understands of that Doctrine And thus whatsoever upon fair Endeavours he understands to be contain'd in that Doctrine is necessary to him to be believed Nor can he continue a Subject of Christ upon other terms What he is perswaded is the meaning of Christ his King in any Expression he finds in the Sacred Code That by his Allegiance he is bound to submit his Mind to receive for true or else he denies the Authority of Christ and refuses to believe him nor can be excused by calling any one on Earth Master And hence it is evidently impossible for a Christian to understand any Text in one sence and believe it in another by whomsoever dictated All that is contain'd in the inspired Writings is all of Divine Authority must all be allow'd for such and received for Divine and infallible Truth by every Subject of Christ's Kingdom i. e. every Christian. How comes then the Unmasker to distinguish these Dictates of the Holy Spirit into necessary and not necessary Truths I desire him to produce his Commission whereby he hath the Power given him to tell which of the Divine Truths contain'd in the Holy Scripture are of necessity to be believed and which not Who made him a Judge or Divider between them Who gave him this Power over the Oracles of God to set up one and debase another at his pleasure Some as he thinks sit are the choicest Truths And what I beseech him are the other Who made him a Chuser where no body can pick and chuse Every proposition there as far as any Christian can understand it is indispensibly necessary to be believed And farther than he does understand it it is impossible for him to believe it The Laws of Christ's Kingdom do not require Impossibilities for they are all reasonable just and good Some of the Truths delivered in Holy Writ are very plain 'T is impossible I think to mistake their Meaning And those certainly are all necessary to be explicitely believ'd Others have more Difficulty in them and are not easy to be understood Is the Unmasker appointed Christ's Vicegerent here or the Holy Ghost's Interpreter with Authority to pronounce which of these are necessary to be believ'd and in what Sense and which not The Obscurity that is to be found in several passages of the Scripture the difficulties that cover and perplex the meaning of several Texts demand of every Christian Study Diligence and Attention in reading and hearing the Scriptures in comparing and examining them and receiving what light he can from all manner of helps to understand these Books wherein are contain'd the Words of Life This the Unmaker and every one is to do for himself and thereby find out what is necessary for him to believe But I do not know that the Unmasker is to understand and interpret for me more than I for him If he has such a power I desire him to produce it Till then I can acknowledge no other infallible but that guide which he directs me to himself here in these Words According to our Saviour's promise the Holy Ghost was to be sent in a special manner to enlighten mens minds and to discover to them the great mysteries of Christianity For whether by men he here means those on whom the Holy Ghost was so eminently poured out Act. II. Or whether he means by these Words that special Assistance of the Holy Ghost whereby particular men to the end of the World are to be lead into the Truth by opening their understandings that they may understand the Scriptures for he always loves to speak doubtfully and indefinitely I know no other infallible guide but the Spirit of God in the Scriptures Nor has God left it in my choice to take any Man for such If he had I should think the Unmasker the unlikeliest to be he and the last Man in the World to be chosen for that Guide And herein I appeal to any sober Christian who hath read what the Unmasker has with so little Truth and Decency for 't is not always mens fault if they have not Sense writ upon this Question whether he would not be of the same mind But yet as very an Unmasker as he is he will be extremely apt to call you Names nay to declare you no Christian and boldly affirm you have no Christianity if you will not swallow it just as it is of his Cooking You must take it just as he has been