behind them some certain Measures of Belief since their Authority and the certain Evidence of their Inspiration would have very great Influence on those who were not yet Christians that they might be more easily perswaded to embrace Christianity and also might be of vast Importance for the preventing all Differences that might arise about the Meaning of the Gospels and lastly would be of perpetual use for the teaching all sorts of Christians more easily to comprehend the Method Reasons and Grounds of the great Work of our Redemption The two last of which are more fully laid down and explain'd in the Epistles than in any other parts of Holy Writ And if the Knowledge of them is necessary to Salvation then it will be as necessary to believe those places of Scripture where they are most fully stated and most clearly delivered For since there is no part of Scripture where we are told how we were Redeemed why Christ Redeemed us and from what so clearly and expresly as in the Epistles we must have Recourse to them for our right understanding of those Doctrines And therefore there both was an absolute necessity for the writing of the Epistles and also is for our firm Belief of them as necessary to Salvation And thus far I hope we have established the Divine Authority of the Epistles and the absolute necessity of believing several of the Doctrines deliver'd in them But it must yet be confessed that all that has been proved will be little to the Purpose if it can be shewn in the Fourth Place that the Doctrines deliver'd in the Epistles are contradictory to those in the Gospels But this I don 't find in the least pretended for it would be in vain to shew Contradictions in them after they are allowed to be of Divine Inspiration As for there being several things above our Reason in the Epistles the same Objection may be made against the Gospels but this cannot be sufficient to invalidate the Authority of either of them The Gospels and Epistles both teach the same Christianity And tho' some Points of Faith are more fully and clearly laid down in one than the other and some things requir'd to be believed in the Epistles which are not mention'd in the Gospels yet they do not disagree in any one Particular But both tend to one and the same End the advancing the Happiness of Mankind And this leads me to consider the Fifth Argument whereby it may appear whether or no the Epistles are necessary to be believed and that is the Matter they contain For this is the only Plea remaining why they should be rejected because the Matters which they treat of are of no Concern to us that they have no relation to the Salvation of Mankind and therefore cannot be thought necessary to be believed upon that account which is the great End of Revelation For here the great stress of the Controversy lies whether the Doctrines deliver'd in the Epistles are of such Importance as will make them necessary to be believed or to be an indispensible part of the Rule of Faith But I hope I have already made it appear that there are several Doctrines of this Nature in the Epistles from the Apostle's Design in writing them and from those Texts I have before produced from them and therefore I shall not insist any more upon this Head But our Author objects that if there are any fundamental Articles in the Epistles yet they are so promiscuously deliver'd with other Truths that they are not to be distinguished from them And this he now tells us was the reason why he did not go through the Writings in the Epistles Vindic. p. 14. to collect the fundamental Articles of Faith as he had through the Preaching of our Saviour and his Apostles because those fundamental Articles were in those Epistles promiscuously and without distinction mixt with other Truths And therefore we shall find and discern those great and necessary Points best in the Preaching of our Saviour and the Apostles to those who were yet ignorant of the Faith and unconverted But how are these Fundamental Points to be found in the Gospels and Acts better than in the Epistles Are there in them nothing but Fundamentals Or are not these Fundamentals mixt with other Truths of a quite different Nature that have no respect to Man's Salvation And if so as is very apparent what mighty Advantage have the Gospels beyond the Epistles upon this account Matters of Faith and Matters of Practice Fundamentals and Things indifferent are promiscuously mixt together in both But yet there is no great difficulty in discerning one from another in them For the meanest Capacity can easily apprehend a difference between those things which are proposed to our Belief and those to our Practice what are those which have a near respect to the Covenant of Grace and the Means of Salvation and those which are more forreign to that End And this difference is as easily perceived in the Epistles as in the Gospels because the Terms of Salvation are as plainly and clearly set down in one as the other But it is objected that several Things in the Epistles are differently interpreted and consequently cannot be absolutely necessary to be believed to Salvation because Men are not agreed in their Opinions concerning them To this it may be answered first That some Men are of different Opinions in their Interpretations of several places of the Gospels as well as of the Epistles But secondly it may be observed that the great and fundamental Truths in both have been always understood in one and the same Sence by the whole Catholick Church and those who have dissented from the universally received Interpretation have been accounted Enemies to the true Christian Faith For in these Cases Mistakes are generally wilful and it is not easy to interpret any Doctrines in Scripture differently from what the Church has already done if we take the most easy and natural Meaning of it For the Sense of Fundamentals is not so obscure but a willing Mind may easily apprehend it But Lastly We may add to all this the Consent of the Universal Church in all Ages for the necessity of believing the Epistles and several Articles delivered in them as necessary to Salvation For they have been hitherto esteemed by all Orthodox Christians as part of the Canon of Scripture or Rule of Saving Faith and received and believed accordingly And if this Argument will be of no Force to convince us of the necessity of believing them to Salvation we must at the same time part with one very good Reason for our belief of the Holy Gospels For this is alleged for an Argument by our Church in the Sixth Article for our belief of all the received parts of Scripture that there has never been any doubt of their Authority in the Church And if this universal Consent will be an Argument for the Gospels it cannot also be denied to be a very great
Reason to perswade us to build our Faith upon the Epistles too For it is very absurd to imagine that the very next Ages to the Apostles should be so far imposed upon and so down to the present Time as to receive several of the Doctrines contain'd in the Epistles for fundamental Articles of Faith if they were never design'd either by the Holy Ghost that Inspired them or by the Apostles themselves to be made such So that to assert the contrary is to affirm that either all Christians hitherto have wander'd in the Dark or that they were guilty of very great Folly and Superstition in making those parts of Scripture necessary to be believed to Salvation which were never intended to be so Some of the Epistles have indeed been rejected but so have some of the Gospels too But as this was done but by a very few so were they Men of Heretical Opinions The †Iraen Advers Heres l. 1. c. 26. Ebionites allowed of no more of the Gospels than St. Matthew and rejected all that was writ by St. Paul calling him an Apostate from the Law The * L. 1. C. 29. Marcionites owned but some part of the Epistles of St. Paul to be Canonical but they also denied the Authority of all the Gospels except that of St. Luke and then would admit no more parts of it than would agree with their own Model of Divinity Sed huic quidem says Iraeneus speaking of Marcion quoniam solus manifeste ausus est circumcidere Scripturas c. Which shews what an unpardonable Crime he thought it to be for any Man without a sufficient Warrant for it which can be nothing less than a Divine Commission to pretend to reject any parts of Holy Scripture and to cut them off from the rest which the whole Church had received for Canonical And thus whoever they were that denied the Divine Authority and the necessity of believing all the parts of Scripture such as were also the Valentinians and Manichees with some few others were always looked upon by the Church to be no better than Hereticks There were indeed some of the Primitive Christians that did not receive all the Books of the New Testament for Canonical but the reason was because they were not certain they were writ by the Apostles yet after a little time they were all admitted and universally believed as necessary parts of Faith But now by asserting the necessity of believing the Epistles as part of the Rule of Faith I don't mean that none could ever be saved but who had believed them for what then as our Author well observes would become of those Christians who were fallen asleep before any of the Epistles were written For no question but those who believed all that was taught them and lived up to that Knowledge which their most diligent Enquiries could carry them to should be admitted into Happiness as well as those who had afterwards attained to larger degrees of Faith and Knowledge Since no one can be obliged to believe that which he could not possibly have any knowledge of For should we suppose the Gospel to be spread in some Heathen Parts of the World that had never heard of Christ no Man certainly would be so uncharitable as to deny them Salvation if they believed whatsoever they found there and liv'd up exactly to the Precepts there delivered though they had never heard of the Acts of the Apostles or any of the Epistles or no more than one of the Gospels Or if the Case should be thus that they had no other parts of the New-Testament than barely some of the Epistles if they lived up to them in Matters of Faith and Practice there can no doubt be made but they would be saved So that in Cases of this nature the Argument holds as much for the Epistles as the Gospels and nothing from hence can be drawn to the Prejudice of either But where we have the Priviledge of both and are assured that both are of equal Authority as being equally of Divine Inspiration we are under a necessity of drawing the Articles of our Faith from them both as being a most exact Body of Christian Religion in all the Branches of it But then some may urge That if this should be the Case of those who could attain to the Knowledge of but one part of the Christian Doctrine contain'd in the New Testament that they should as well be saved as those who have all the parts of it and upon that account are required to believe more then certainly the Condition of the other would be much more desirable To this it may be answered That this Objection is of little Force since those are certainly in the safest Condition who have the most Light to guide them For though a wary Traveller may possibly find his way through a very narrow obscure Passage yet those who take the broadest Road are most certain of finding the surest way to their Journeys end But besides the more Evidence we have for our Faith and the greater the Confirmation of it may be by the abundant Repetition of Inspiration and Miracles for the Establishment of it and lastly the more full clear and express the Articles of our Faith are and the oftner God has been pleased to give us an Explanation of them so much the more likely are we to avoid Mistakes to give our unfeigned Assent to them and to suffer them to make more lasting Impressions upon our Minds And thus I hope I have sufficiently Vindicated the Divine Authority of the Epistles and the necessity of making them part of the Rule of Faith that 's required to Salvation And we ought to be the more concerned for the Defense of them because several Doctrines which have been always maintained by the universal Church such as the Doctrine of the Satisfaction and the true Reason of Christ's coming into the World will not so easily be maintained without a Belief of them But if these sacred Writings are esteemed as they are and were really designed to be the infallible Guides to us in our understanding the Mystery of the great Work of our Redemption and for the more clearly stating and explaining of all that is required for our Belief and Practice we are under an absolute necessity to preserve them inviolably and to vindicate the Belief of them as much as of any other parts of Divine Revelation Of the Reason of CHRIST's Coming into the World AND now I come in the next place to examine the Reason our Author assigns for Christ's coming into the World And this we must allow can be understood no way so well as by considering what the Scripture shews we lost by Adam p. 1. For it is on this that the whole Decision of the Case depends Since which way soever it is that the whole Bent of Scripture inclines there we ought to fix our Faith And here also there is no reason why we should dissent from the
Explanations of something before Revealed in the Gospels yet since the Authors of them were Divinely Inspired they are to be received as part of the Rule of Faith as well as the Gospels themselves since an infallible divine Explanation of a Doctrine is as necessary to be believed as the Doctrine it self So that if it should be granted that this was one End of writing the Epistles to set those Things in a clearer Light which were before taught by our Saviour yet this will not be sufficient to invalidate their Authority or render them less necessary to be believed For thus far * Verum tanta est erga genus hominum benignitas divina ut quae in Evangeliis plene ac perfecte tradita sunt etiam in Apostolorum Epistolis saepius repeti à variis objectionibus Vindicari ad majorem fidelium in fide confirmationem ac constantiam singulari Providentia voluerit ibid. Limborch seems to have granted That though all the Doctrines of Christianity are fully and perfectly deliver'd in the Gospels yet God has so much expressed his Goodness towards Mankind as to take care by a particular Providence that they should be very often repeated in the Epistles that they might be freed from all Objections to the greater strengthning and confirming Believers in the Faith And thus it seems very evident for many Reasons that the Gospels alone are not to be made the Measure of our Faith Nor will the Acts of the Apostles together with the Gospels afford us a full and clear Scheme of whatsoever is necessary to be believed For these also are chiefly Historical and contain an account of the Mission of the Holy Ghost of the Miracles that were done by the Apostles of the Converts they made to Christianity and where they Preacht but we have not there any full and large account of their Doctrines We are indeed told that they Preacht Faith in Christ Jesus Act. 20.21 and Repentance towards God But few or no particulars of those Duties or how far they extended which seem on purpose reserved for the Epistles where they are more fully treated of But it is urged That if the Apostles Creed is a Summary of all that is necessary to be believed and if all the Articles of that are to be found in the Gospels and Acts of the Apostles then it is in them alone that we are to look for Fundamentals To this it may be answered That it can indeed hardly be denied but that we may draw most of the Articles of the Apostles Creed from the Gospels and the Acts of the Apostles but these are not to be looked upon as the only Fundamentals unless we also firmly believe the natural Consequences and Conclusions from them and the frequent Explanations of them which are set down in the other parts of Revelation To instance only in the first Article I believe in God the Father Almighty Maker of Heaven and Earth Now we cannot be supposed to be confin'd by this to the believing just so much of Him and no more For we are to understand by these Words whatsoever is implied in them and whatsoever else the Scripture has reveal'd to us concerning Him And the like Rule must be observed in all the other Articles And besides this is justly believed to be the first Fundamental of all Reveal'd Religion which is supposed in our Creed that the Scriptures are of Divine Inspiration and that whatsoever is there laid down as necessary to Salvation must be believed as such And upon this it is that the Creed is built So that as we must believe That Summary of our Faith to be taken from Revelation so also that the only true Explanation of it is to be found there For necessary Deductions from such Truths are as much Fundamentals as the Principles from which they are drawn So that we cannot in a true Sence believe all the Articles of our Creed unless we also are perswaded that those places of Scripture which contain a full and express Explanation of them are necessary parts of our Faith But our Author urges That if all p. 297. or most of the Truths declared in the Epistles were to be received and believed as Fundamental Articles what then became of those Christians that were fallen asleep as St. Paul witnesseth in the 1 Cor. many were before those things in the Epistles were revealed to them Most of the Epistles not being written till above Twenty Years after our Saviour's Ascension and some after Thirty To this we may answer First That some of the Epistles were written before some of the Gospels particularly that of St. John which was not writ till almost Threescore Years after our Saviour's Ascension So that this Argument will exclude that Gospel from containing any part of the Fundamentals of Faith as well as the Epistles Secondly It is to be considered that a great many of the Epistles as the first and second to the Thessalonians which were writ sooner than Twenty Years after Christ's Ascension as also the first and second to the Corinthians to the Galatians and Romans were all written before the History of the Acts of the Apostles which is continued to the time of St. Paul's being first at Rome which was not till near Thirty Years after our Saviour's Ascension and therefore that History which takes in all that time cannot be thought to be of greater Authority than those Epistles which were writ much sooner So that this Argument if it is at all to the Purpose must give the Preference to some of the Epistles at least before the Acts of the Apostles But Thirdly It cannot be supposed but that many Christians were fallen asleep before the writing any of the Gospels since St. Matthew's Gospel which was the first was not written till about Eleven Years after our Saviour's Ascension So that neither can this Argument be any Prejudice to the Authority of the Epistles And therefore Fourthly It remains that all the Rule of Faith to the Believing Christians that were Converted for some Years after our Saviour's Ascension must be taken from what was taught by the Apostles And therefore if what they then taught was the Rule of Faith to those who were Converted to Christianity it is very reasonable to suppose that the Epistles which without doubt contain the very same Doctrines which they then taught are now to be received as absolutely necessary to be believed For this we may be certain of that the contrary can never be proved that the Apostles upon their receiving the Holy Ghost taught the very same Doctrines wherever they Preacht which they afterwards deliver'd in their Epistles And therefore if they writ no other Doctrines than what they taught and what they taught were Fundamentals then what they writ must be the same too And if this should be granted which the Author of the Reasonableness of Christianity so much contends for p. 294. That the Epistles being all written to those
ANIMADVERSIONS On a late BOOK ENTITULED THE REASONABLENESS OF CHRISTIANITY As delivered in the SCRIPTURES OXFORD Printed by Leon. Lichfield for George West and Anthony Piesley MDCXCVII THE PREFACE I Need make no Apology for the following papers The Liberty which the Author of The Reasonableness of Christianity c. has taken in delivering his Thoughts to the World gives every man a right to examine them that proposes no other End than to enquire after Truth which I have endeavoured with as sincere a design as I hope he published them I have followed a method which His Treatise naturally led me into and have chose to build my Observations upon the same Authority on which he hath founded his Rule of Faith that of the Scriptures rather than upon any Systems drawn from them which I must confess my self to be but little acquainted with And this I cannot but agree with him to be the most rational means of silencing all Religious controversies For if all Parties would joyn Issue in this that nothing ought to be required to be believed but what is injoyned by the clear and express declarations of Scripture nor any Article rejected that is there plainly delivered there might be some probable grounds to hope for a happy Conclusion of all disputes of that nature in a very little time For certainly God has not made it very difficult for us to determine what we are to believe how inconceivable soever the manner of some things may appear to us The main design which the Author of the Reasonableness of Christianity c. seems to have had is to lay down such a Scheme of Faith only as he finds delivered in scripture and not to rest satisfied with those Collections of Articles which are to be met with in the Common Systems without any sufficient warrant from scripture And to this End he has run through the Gospels and Acts to discover upon what Terms our Blessed Saviour who first founded and his Apostles who afterwards built up Christianity admitted men into that Religion And having declared at large all that he can find required by them to make a man a Christian which he tells us was only the Believing Jesus to be the Messiah he concludes that nothing ought to be made necessary to be believed now which was not so then nor any Articles imposed upon us which are not injoyned in order to salvation in those parts of scripture which he has considered which alone according to him declare the Conditions upon which men are denominated believers or Christians This way of examining our Faith by the scripture had been an unexceptionable Method for fixing the measure of it if he had omitted no Articles which are there made as necessary to be believed by all Christians as what is observed in His Treatise For that there are others required even to make a man a Christian in these parts of sacred Writ from whence he has extracted his Article of Faith is what I propose to make appear in the following Observations As also to shew that there are some distinct Articles from what are set down in the Gospels and Acts delivered in the Epistles that are absolutely necessary to be believed to salvation in answer to that assertion of our Author P. 295. That it is not in the Epistles that we are to learn what are the Fundamental Articles of Faith with some others of the like nature Which is the Reason that I give the Title of a Vindication of the Epistles to the former part of these Papers In the next place I have consider'd the Reasons our Author has assigned for Christ's coming into the World And how necessary it was to examine both these in order to a more exact consideration of that one Article this Author has so much insisted on the Reader will easily apprehend He tells us in his Vindication p. 6. that he designed the Reasonableness of Christianity c. chiefly for those who were not yet throughly and firmly Christians I shall not dispute the sincerity of his Intention though I find no such Intimation in the Treatise it self Yet a well-meaning Author who has appeared very warmly in defence of it Mr. Bold believes that to be his only design though he tells us he had considered it with very great care and Application This Author also is of opinion that there is nothing more required to make a Man a Christian then the believing Jesus to be the Messias But had he given himself a little more leisure to consider into what faith he himself was baptized or into what he baptizes others he must have acknowledged that the Explicitely believing in Father and Holy Ghost is as much required of every one initiated into Christianity as believing Jesus to be the Messias For the Faith in the Holy Trinity has always been required in order to Baptism Indeed at the first men might be denominated Christians upon the bare believing Jesus to be the Messias yet when there was more revealed concerning Him and consequently a larger faith required they could no more have continued Christians if they had not believed this also than if they had still been altogether unbelievers I shall make no other Observation upon what this Author has urged but this that he has been a little too hasty in concluding that if the Reasonableness of Christianity merits no worse a Character upon any other Account than it does justly deserve for advancing this point P. 52. that Christ and his Apostles did not propound any Article as necessarily to be believed to make a Man a Christian but this that Jesus is the Christ or Messias I think it may with great justice be reputed one of the best books that has been published for at least this sixteen hundred years since I suppose he will hardly deny that Mr Hobbs writ within that space who maintained the very same Assertion as I have farther observed in the following Remarks though I am afraid with a far worse Intention than the Author of the Reasonableness of Christianity c. seems to have had in that Treatise I need reflect no farther upon any thing propounded by this Author not only because his Papers came abroad after the following Remarks were drawn up but because there does not seem to be any thing very material which was not before observed in the Reasonableness of Christianity c. or the Authors Vindication of it I hope there is nothing in the following Papers that will be mistaken for a Reflexion for I am sure there was none designed For I think an Adversary ought to be treated with respect how wide soever his Notions may be from Truth if his design be sincere Which I must confess I cannot but believe of the Author of the Reasonableness of Christianity c. And though I cannot joyn in his opinion yet I think my self obliged to have so much charity as to suppose that he would not maintain what he was
the Apostles time been reputed necessary to be Believed to Salvation then certainly they ought not to be denied to be absolutely subservient to that End without the Proof of one or all of these things First That the Authors were not Divinely Inspired But this is already granted us by our Author that they were Holy Writers inspired from above p. 297. who writ nothing but Truth But what sort of Truth he here means shall hereafter be enquired into Or Secondly That the Apostles had no Authority or Commission to deliver any thing for a necessary Article of Faith But there can be no pretence for such an Assertion since it is granted by our Author that their Doctrine as delivered in the Acts does require our actual Belief Since then what they taught in their Preaching was of so great Authority why should not their Writings be of the same Consequence especially since they are allowed by our Author to be of Divine Inspiration If then the want of sufficient Commission does not seem to be an Argument against the Doctrines contain'd in the Epistles it must be made appear in the Third Place before they should be rejected that none of the Doctrines were writ with any design that all Christians should be necessarily required to believe them to Salvation But how can this be proved Are there any such hints in the Epistles themselves or have we any foot-steps of a Tradition that informs us that the Apostles left them to be received with such an Indifference For if neither of these can be shewn or if the contrary is evident Namely that the Apostles did not submit their Doctrines to Mens choice whether they would Believe them or not without hazarding their Salvation and if it appear from the design of the Epistles and from many places of them which I shall hereafter mention that they did enjoin the explicite Belief of several of their Doctrines without which Men could not be saved then we have still the more reason to be confirmed in acknowledging them for Fundamentals of our Faith Fourthly Then there must be some Contradiction in the Epistles to the other parts of Scripture that can prevent their Doctrines from being as necessary to be Believed as any other the most important parts of Revelation But as this can never be made appear so it is not possible to suppose that the Epistles should contain Contradictions if we allow what our Author has granted p. 297. that they were Divinely inspired Then Fifthly and Lastly The only Plea remaining why the Doctrines delivered in the Epistles are not to be received with the same degrees of Assent with those in the Gospels and Acts or that particular Article so much insisted upon in the Reasonableness of Christianity must be because they are none of them of equal necessity to be known to make a Man a Christian But how does this appear Are there no great and fundamental Truths inserted in the Epistles as well as in the Gospels Vindic. p. 16. But it is urged That they are promiscuously set down and have no such Mark of Distinction as his Article is found to have in the Gospels and Acts. But this Objection seems too precarious For I question not but I shall make it appear that there are Doctrines in the Epistles that are as much distinguished by the great importance which they are declared to be of and by the necessity that is laid upon all Christians of actually Believing them by the Inspired Writers as any other universally acknowledg'd Article of our Faith Indeed they are mixt with other things which are not of such immediate concern to us but so are the Doctrines contain'd in the Gospels And therefore if this is a Prejudice to one it must be so equally to the other Indeed this seems objected That though the Apostles were Divinely Inspired in their Epistolary Writings and although they had a Divine Commission to teach what was necessary to Salvation yet their Commission did not extend to the making any other Article necessary to Salvation than what our Saviour had already declared to be sufficient for it And this is manifest from the whole Tenour of the Epistles where there are no Doctrines proposed to be Believed upon the absolute Promise of Salvation and nothing declar'd to be so much a Fundamental distinct from what is deliver'd in the Gospels or Acts as that we cannot be saved without an explicite Belief of it Since therefore the Apostles have not laid such stress upon any Doctrines in their Epistles we ought not to do it And therefore of what use soever the Epistles may be to us otherwise for the resolving Doubts and reforming Mistakes which are of great Advantage to our Knowledge and Practice p. 295.297 as also for the expounding clearing and confirming the Christian Doctrine and establishing those in it who had embraced it yet there can be no distinct Truths contain'd in them of so great Consequence in order to Salvation as there are in the Gospels and Acts were all that is necessary to be Believed to make a Man a Christian is declared to be sufficient to that End and Eternal Life proposed upon such a Faith and Eternal Damnation denounced upon a Disbelief which are not annex'd to any of the Doctrines in the Epistles And therefore we must be very unwary Christians to lay a greater force upon any Doctrines than the Apostles have done or make any Terms of Salvation or Church-Communion absolutely necessary which were never by the Apostles so declared For an Answer to this it will be material to Examine first whether nothing is absolutely necessary to be Believed to Salvation but what is declared to be so or whether any Doctrine upon which Salvation is proposed is singly of it self sufficient for it And this seems to be a Query of no small importance For if this is made the only Rule whereby to judge of Fundamentals viz. A Doctrine's being expresly declared to be necessary to be actually Believed to Salvation we should I fear by this means raise several Exceptions against a great part of Religion For if this must universally hold in matters of Faith it must also in those of Practice most of which would unavoidably lose their Force and Obligation if the Observance of no other Duties was required of us but such alone as the Scripture had declared to be absolutely necessary to Salvation In like manner if in matters of Faith nothing is to be required for a Fundamental but what is so proposed and to which Salvation is expresly annexed and promised it would very probably make way for a very unintelligible Faith in which Christians could not possibly agree For if nothing more is to be Believed as necessary to Salvation than what is so proposed then it will follow that no more than the bare Proposition which is declared to be of that great Importance is to be assented to As suppose in that Proposition which I shall
Revealed to us we are under a necessity to believe upon the Veracity of Him that Revealed it And here we are not so to divide our Belief as to confine it to one part of Revelation and deny it to another unless we are assured that it has different degrees of Evidence For this would destroy the force of Revelation and resolve all Religion into the Wills and Humours of Men. There are indeed as has been before observed different Acts of Faith required of us according to the different Matter of Revelation But where the Matter is of as great importance in one place as in another there also must our Assent be equal Unless we can prove that there is not the same certainty for the Revelation i e. That there is not the same Testimony of Divine Miracles to assure us of the Truth of it But here it is not material to examine Whether the Apostles work'd Miracles to evince the Truth of their Doctrines in the Epistles It is enough that their Miracles attested their Divine Mission and were sufficiently demonstrative that their Doctrines had a Divine Authority and Original and were confirmed by a Divine Power For the Design of their Miracles was not to give Authority to such a particular Doctrine only but to testify in general that they had a Commission from God to teach what was necessary to be believed or practiced to Salvation Now that the Apostles wrought many Miracles such as were before done by our Saviour for the Confirmation of their Mission and Doctrines is undeniably evident from the whole History of the Acts where they are said to heal the Sick raise the Dead and to be endued with all other supernatural Gifts which might be sufficient to convince the World that they received their Mission and Authority from God But to what End should the Apostles work Miracles if after all their Doctrines which they deliver'd for Fundamentals were not absolutely necessary to be believed Now Miracles are never wrought but to convince Men of some great Truths which would be of great Importance to them and which perhaps they would not otherwise be induced to believe If therefore the Apostles had such a Power of working Miracles committed to them to confirm the Truth of their Doctrines we are under as great Obligations to make them Articles of our Faith especially if they were designed for such as any other parts of Holy Writ Now what Reason have we to believe the Holy Gospels but only the undeniable Attestation of Miracles But are there not the same for the Confirmation of the Epistles too That is Were not the Authors Divinely Inspired and did they not work Miracles to shew that they were so If then it be granted that the Apostles had this supernatural Power given them to be an unquestionable Evidence of their Inspiration this alone is sufficient to enforce our actual Belief of the Doctrines in the Epistles as much as in the Gospels unless we can shew that the Apostles were not Inspired when they writ them or that their Power of working Miracles to convince the World that they were so was then ceased or else that they did not design any Doctrines in them to be necessary to be believed But if none of these can with any tolerable Reason be pretended there can be little excuse for our not admitting them as necessary and fundamental Parts of the Rule of Faith And this moreover ought to make us very cautious how we rejected them because if we deny such an Authority to the Epistles as requires an absolute necessity of believing any of the Doctrines as therein contain'd we shall have no very strong Arguments remaining whereby to defend those of the Gospels which have only the Authority of Inspirations confirmed by Miracles so that they must unavoidably stand or fall together For if it be granted that the Evidence for the Truth of both be the same and the same Divine Authority stampt upon both we cannot deny that the Measures of our Belief must be equally taken from them both where the Matter is of the same importance And this will necessarily lead us to these Conclusions First That whatsoever we are firmly assured is Revealed by God we are obliged to believe it upon his Veracity since he neither can or will Reveal any thing but what is undeniably true Secondly That whatsoever is made by this Revelation a fundamental Article of our Faith we cannot be ignorant of without great hazard of our Salvation Thirdly and Lastly For the true Knowledge of any Article of Faith we must not judge of it from some particular Place but from the universal Consent and Harmony of Revelation And now since the Epistles must be granted to be a particular Revelation I would ask to what End there should be this Revelation and several Doctrines therein deliver'd which concern both our Faith and Practice if there was no necessity for them in order to Salvation 1 Cor. 14.37 Why should the Inspired Writers give any Instructions to a Church for the Commandments of God if yet without the least hazard of Salvation they might be ignorant of them For it does not seem consistent with the End or Nature of Revelation which under the Christian Dispensation was designed only for the eternal Advantage of Mankind that no parts of it deliver'd in the Epistles which are all of them of Divine Revelation should be absolutely necessary for that End and that those who had the Name and Benefit of Christians should not be indispensably obliged to form their Faith or govern their Practice according to its Directions Certainly any one that reads and considers the Epistles impartially must judge that the Authors did design some parts of them at least for Rules to guide Men in the way to Happiness without the Observance of which those to whom they should be known could not be saved For if all the Instructions in the Epistles might be safely disregarded then their Inspiration was in vain Since if Men might be as easily saved without them the Revelation must be confest to be superfluous If it be said that the Doctrines were only writ for the use of particular Churches yet that though it should be granted which there is no reason for will prove nothing unless it appears that there were no general Directions designed which are of the same importance to all Christians now that they could be of to any particular Church then for certainly what was necessary to be believed to Salvation by the Members of a Church in the Apostles days must be so now and to the end of the World If it be demanded that if there are any such Fundamentals in the Epistles as we contend for we should draw out a Scheme of them just so many and no more that are to be explicitely believed to Salvation and which will equally oblige all Mankind tho' we should not be able to satisfy this Demand yet it will be sufficient to our
present Purpose if we can produce any Doctrines that are absolutely enjoined to be believed by all Christians and that are either distinct from or more fully exprest than any of those contain'd in the Gospels or Acts as I shall hereafter endeavour to shew there are some of that nature without the Belief of which though we may grant Men might be saved before they were known yet when they were divulged they could no more be stiled true Christians without the Belief of them than if they had not at all believed To instance in a like case None could any longer be called Christians or admitted into that Communion after that form of Baptism was requir'd in the Name of Father Son and Holy Ghost tho' they might have that Denomination before who did not acknowledge their Faith in the Holy Trinity since as none could be Baptized Christians without the Confession of that Faith so none could continue in the Number of Christians that denied it But of this more in its proper place And thus we may be convinced from the Nature of Revelation that all the parts of it have an equal Authority and that where the End of the Revelation was the Glory of God and the Salvation of Mankind as I shall hereafter shew was the Apostles Designs in writing their Epistles there the same Acts of Faith are required of us But before I proceed any farther in the Vindication of these sacred Writings it will be necessary to consider an Objection or rather an Evasion of our Author's in his Vindication of the Reasonableness of Christianity Vindic. p. 19. which may seem to render what has been hitherto urged superfluous since it intimates that he believes as much of the Epistles and in as true a sence as any man whatsoever And for the Proof of this he cites what he had before declared in the Reasonableness of Christianity it self p. 299. These Holy Writers viz. The Pen-men of the Scriptures inspired from above writ nothing but Truth and in most places very weighty Truths to us now for the expounding clearing and confirming the Christian Doctrine and establishing those in it who had embraced it And again p. 299. The other parts of Divine Revelation are Objects of Faith and are so to be received They are Truths of which none that is once known to be such i. e. Revealed may or ought to be disbelieved And if this as he goes on does not satisfy you that I have as high a Veneration for the Epistles as you or any one can have I require you to publish to the World those Passages which shew my contempt of them Indeed if he said no more concerning the Epistles than what is mention'd in these Passages there would not have been so much occasion for a Defense of them But however even these do not seem altogether unexceptionable for though these allow the Truths contain'd in the Epistles to be Objects of our Faith yet they do not suppose them or any parts of them to be more so than any other places of Scripture which have no relation to the Salvation of Mankind and which we are only bound to believe to be true upon the Veracity of God that reveal'd them For that this is all which the Author meant is very plain from what he maintains a little after Vindic. p. 31. viz. That all the rest of the Inspired Writings or if you please Articles are of equal necessity to be believed to make a Man a Christian with what was preacht by our Saviour and his Apostles by which he only means what is recorded in the Gospels and Acts that I deny So that it plainly appears that all the Respect which he professes for the Epistles consists only in this That he believes them to be true but that the Doctrines contain'd in them are no more necessary to be actually believed or to be made fundamental Articles of Faith than any indifferent or Historical Matters in the Bible all which we believe to be true because they are contain'd in that Book which we are fully perswaded is the Word of God So that a bare Assent to them only as they are true is no higher an Act of Faith than the believing that there was such an Apostle as St. Paul and that he was the Author of such Epistles But if our Author does indeed believe that all is true which is contain'd in the Epistles why should he deny that any of the Truths therein mention'd are to be made Fundamentals For methinks it would be no great Imposition to be obliged to believe that as a necessary Article of Faith in order to Salvation which he is already perswaded is a real Truth But besides this is what we contend for that there are Doctrines contain'd in the Epistles that are of equal necessity to be believed to make a Man a Christian with those in the Gospels or in the Acts of the Apostles as being of as great Importance to us and therefore they are also to be believed upon another Ground besides that of meer Revelation And for the Proof of this it will be necessary to consider in the second place the Authority that our Saviour intrusted in his Apostles Which is exprest in their Commission given them by Christ immediately before his Ascension in these words Go and teach all Nations And elsewhere Mat. 28 19. Joh. 20.21 As my Father hath sent me even so send I you Which Commission as it invests them with as full a Power of Teaching whatsoever was necessary to Salvation so it lays as great a necessity upon others of Believing them as if Christ himself had taught in his own Person For whosoever acts by another's Commission acts in his Name and whatever he does by vertue of that Commission it is look'd upon to be his who gave him such Authority Now that the Apostles did not exceed this Authority or teach for Doctrines the Commandments of Men is very evident since it is granted they were Divinely Inspired and taught nothing as necessary to be believ'd but what they received from God So that all that can be here objected seems to be this That the Apostles had no Commission to write any fundamental Doctrines in the Epistles but only in their Sermons which are set down in the Acts of the Apostles If this indeed could be proved it would be a material Objection but if there is not the least shadow of Reason to countenance such a groundless Supposition without shewing that the Apostles did exceed their Commission though at the same time they were Divinely Inspired then we are bound to acknowledge that the Epistles as well as the Acts are an indispensible part of the Rule of our Faith for God himself has put no difference betwixt them But there is yet something more to be observed in the Epistles written by St. Paul which are much the greatest part and that is that he received his Doctrines therein contain'd by a more particular
Revelation than any of the other Apostles For he was neither instructed by Christ himself while on Earth as not being his Disciple nor had he any account of the Doctrines which he taught from those Apostles who had constantly heard him but he received all his Instructions immediately from Heaven as he himself hath told us in the first Chap. of Gal. 11 and 12. Ver. But I certifie you Brethren that the Gospel which was preached of me is not after man For I neither received it of man neither was I taught it but by the Revelation of Jesus Christ From whence 't is plain that his Doctrines were of equal Authority with what were taught by Christ himself and that the things which he writ as himself testifies of them in the 1 Cor. 14.37 were the Commandments of the Lord i. e. Were of as great necessity to be believed to Salvation as any other parts of Revelation which cannot in the least be doubted if we also consider that Men are to be Judg'd by that Gospel which St. Paul taught at the last Day As he assures us in Rom. 2.16 In the day when God shall judge the secrets of Men by Jesus Christ according to my Gospel which Gospel he must mean that Epistle to be part of for he had taught those at Rome no otherwise than by this Epistle for he never had been there when this was writ nor do we know that he had sent them any Epistle before it But besides the Doctrines which St. Paul has delivered in this Epistle to the Romans are no more than what he had before taught to others as is plain from his own words to the Elders of Ephesus Act. 20.27 That he had not shun'd to declare unto them all the Counsel of God Which he would not have said if he had a Commission to make any thing necessary to be believed to Salvation by others which was not revealed to them thro' his Ministry So that as both what he taught and writ in his Epistles are the same Doctrines so are they both equally Obligatory But Lastly There is this more remarkable of St. Paul that he was the Apostle of the Gentiles and for the most part the first that had preach'd the Gospel amongst them And therefore what he taught could be the only Rule of Faith to them especially till the Gospels were written which none of them were till some time after he had begun to preach the Gospel amongst the Gentiles From whence it follows that as what he taught was the only Rule of Faith to them before they could have the Gospels so neither would his Doctrines after the publishing the Gospels be less necessary to be believed since their Authority would be much rather increased than lessened by the assistance of so great a Foundation as the Gospels to support them What I have here said of St. Paul is not with a Design to lessen the Authority of the other Epistles for they are all Inspired by the same Holy Spirit and are therefore equally necessary to be believed but only as we have a greater Number of his transmitted to us than of all the other Apostles so I thought it most necessary to shew that the reason why we are obliged to believe them to Salvation was as great as can possibly be produced for any thing of that Nature And thus I hope I have made it fully evident that the Apostles had a sufficient Commission from God to make those Doctrines which they taught in their Epistles absolutely necessary to be believed to Salvation And that they did declare some of their Doctrines to be of this Nature I shall come now in a little time to prove And Thirdly The End and Reason for which the Epistles were written will make this more fully appear For to make any thing more firmly believed and assented to there is not only required a certain knowledge of its being Revealed but also of the End for which it was Revealed Now nothing can be more worthy of God and more beneficial to Man than the revealing the Conditions which he has made necessary for our obtaining Happiness and this is fully done in the Covenant of the Gospel And as the Conditions are necessary to be known before we can perform them so God has taken sufficient care to give us a full Revelation of them First In a large History of the Method that Christ made use of for the purchasing our Redemption and the Miracles which he wrought for the Confirmation of his Mission and Doctrine And Secondly In a more full and clear Manifestation by the coming of the Holy Ghost of all those things which were required of us to be believed And this he intrusted to the Apostles who were to that End both Divinely Inspired and had the Power of working Miracles committed to them to establish and confirm the Truth of their Doctrines So that it may be no very great Absurdity to affirm that all things which are necessary to be believed to Salvation are not fully and clearly contain'd in the Gospels Indeed * Tota Religio Christiana omnia illius dogmata fidei praecepta vitae ad salutem necessaria quatuor Evangeliis imo unico Mathaei Evangelio continentur neque ex Epistolis Apostolorum imo nec Apostoli Pauli ullum dogma ad salutem creditu necessarium proferetur quod non antea in Evangelio clare expressum exstat Ausim itaeque dicere etiamsi sola quatuor exstarent Evangelian os perfectum habituros Canonem seu Regulam fidei ac Morum p. 189. Limborch in his Conference with a Learned Jew in his Book De Veritate Religionis Christianae seems to have granted more than he had Authority for in asserting that All the Doctrines of Faith and Practice necessary to Salvation are contain'd in the four Evangelists or even in St. Matthew only and that none of the Epistles of St. Paul or the rest of the Apostles contain any Doctrine necessary to be believed to Salvation which was not clearly and expresly set down before in the Gospels c. Whether all the fundamental Doctrines of Christianity were before laid down in the Gospels is indeed made by some a matter of Dispute but that many of them are not there so plain and intelligible as in the Epistles is none For it may be very justly question'd if the Epistles had not been written whether we should not have remained wholly ignorant of the true meaning of several things in the Gospels Particularly as to the Reasons of the Death and Resurrection of our Saviour for I much doubt whether we should so unanimously have believed that Christ's Death was a Sacrifice for our Sins or that by vertue of his Resurrection alone we should all be raised again at the last day from the alone Declaration of the Gospels Since neither of these can be so clearly proved from the Gospels as from the Epistles the latter of which is I think no where mentioned in
who were Believers and Christians the occasion and end of writing them could not be to instruct them in that which was necessary to make them Christians Yet this seems rather to strengthen than lessen the force of the Argument that the Apostles had taught those same Doctrines for Fundamentals before which they afterwards communicated as sacred Depositums of their Faith For it is strange to suppose that a Doctrine should cease to be a Fundamental to those who had known it before For though the Epistles might not be written to those who believed all the Truths contain'd in them to instruct them in any thing which they were ignorant of yet it might be for this End to put them in remembrance of all the parts of their Profession to prevent all Disputes that possibly might arise and to remain as exact Rules and Directions how they might convert and instruct others But says our Author p. 294. If those to whom the Epistles were written wanted not such fundamental Articles of the Christian Religion without a Belief of which they could not be saved it cannot be supposed that the sending of such Fundamentals was the reason of the Apostles writing to any of them But how can it be proved that all those the Epistles were written to understood all the Fundamentals of Religion May there not be supposed to be some less knowing amongst them and some who would not throughly believe several Doctrines of Christianity without such an Authority as the Apostles had to convince them of the Truth of them But however if this Argument of Men's knowing the Fundamentals contain'd in the Epistles before they were sent to them may be sufficient to overthrow their Authority the Gospels also I am afraid will not escape much better For we cannot suppose but almost all Christians were very well acquainted with the Doctrines taught by our Saviour before the Gospels were written but 't is to be hoped that they ought not upon that account to be thought less necessary to be believed even by those who had been already converted to the Faith For certainly they cannot be supposed to contain less fundamental Truths because they have deliver'd nothing but what was received before for the Doctrine of our Saviour Nor can it be imagined that the Gospel of St. Luke which was writ with a particular Design to Theophilus who was already a Believer and a Christian should contain less fundamental Truths or less necessary to be believed than those which perhaps were written with a more general Design The Acts were also written to the same Theophilus and therefore if our Author's Argument will prove any thing it must exclude both that and the foremention'd Gospel as well as the Epistles from being any part of the Rule of Faith For they were more certainly written to a Believer and a Christian and One who wanted not the fundamental Articles of Christianity without a Belief of which he could not be saved than can be proved of so much as any of the Epistles And therefore it will follow notwithstanding all our Author has urged to the contrary that it is from the Epistles as well as the Gospels that we are to learn what are the fundamental Articles of Faith For if in the History of the Evangelists and the Acts all things are so plainly set down that no Body can mistake them it must unavoidably be granted That the Apostles tho' Inspired by the Holy Ghost were yet very unfaithful to their Trust in clogging Men's Faith with unnecessary Points of Belief Since they could not be ignorant that what they writ would be as much thought necessary to be believed as what was taught by our Saviour himself And therefore the Apostles ought certainly to be blamed for writing such Doctrines in their Epistles which tho' they were not necessary to be believed might yet give occasion to a great many unwary Christians to think far otherwise and embrace them as firmly as any other Doctrines whatsoever But if it can be proved that the great and principal End of the writing their Epistles was to deliver several Doctrines that should be necessarily believed to Salvation by all who were Converted to the Faith we are obliged to receive them as such And this might be made appear from very many places of them St. Paul thus expresses himself 1 Cor. 14.37 That if any Man think himself to be a Prophet or Spiritual let him acknowledge that the things which I write unto you are the Commandments of the Lord. And in the beginning of the next Chapter Moreover Brethren I declare unto you the Gospel which I preached unto you by which also ye are saved c For I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received how that Christ died for our Sins according to the Scriptures By which Words he re-minds them of a Primary Article of their Faith without the Remembrance of which he shews they have believed in vain For the design of the Apostle's Argument is to acquaint them that they could not be saved without they kept in Memory what he had before Preached unto them v. 2. which was amongst other things the fore-mention'd Article the Belief of which if there is any Force in his Argument he declares to be absolutely necessary to Salvation After this he mentions to them some other Articles which he enjoins them to believe that their Faith might not be in vain And these are the Belief not only of Christ's Resurrection but that by vertue of his rising from the Dead we also should be raised again And also that in Adam all die For since by Man came Death by Man came also the Resurrection of the Dead For as in Adam all die even so in Christ shall all be made alive And these are Articles that are absolutely necessary to be believed for upon these the Apostle lays the great Foundation of Christianity and yet the Two last of them are not to be found either in the Gospels or Acts. There are also other places in the Epistles which are expresly required to be believed to Salvation as Rom. 10.9 For if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead thou shalt be saved And that in Timothy Without controversy great is the Mystery of Godliness that is of the Christian Religion God was manifest in the Flesh And in St. Joh. Epist 1. C. 4. Every Spirit that confesseth that Jesus Christ is come in the Flesh is of God and he that does not confess it is not of God which shews the necessity of believing Christ's Incarnation And again We have seen and do testify that the Father sent the Son to be the Saviour of the world And whosoever shall confess that Jesus is the Son of God God dwelleth in him and he in God which is a distinct act of Faith from believing him to be the Messiah as I shall shew
in its proper place These Places of Scripture now mention'd are sufficient to shew that there are Doctrines in the Epistles that are required to be explicitely believed And the Apostles did certainly design this End in writing their Epistles as in the 2 Cor. 1.13 For we write none other things unto you than what you read or acknowledge and I trust you shall acknowledge even to the end And in the second Epistle to the Thessalonians Chap. 2. Ver. 15. Therefore Brethren stand fast and hold the Traditions which ye have been taught whether by Word or our Epistle All which Places with innumerable others which might be cited to the same Purpose undeniably prove that the Apostles enjoin'd the Belief of what they writ in their Epistles as necessary to Salvation And it would be absurd to imagine that the Apostles should fill their Writings with any of the Doctrines of Christianity if they did not impose a Necessity upon Men of believing them And here it is not material whether the Epistles were written to those who were already Christians and whether design'd to teach them any Doctrines to instruct them in what was necessary to make them Believers but it is sufficient that they could not continue true Christians or Believers without acknowledging the Doctrines there deliver'd for fundamental Articles of Faith and necessary to be believed by all Christians But however the word Christians is often used ambiguously and is promiscuously given to all who are Baptized into the Christian Faith And therefore tho' most of the Epistles might be written to those who were called Christians yet they might not be throughly so i. e. They might not have a perfect knowledge of all the Articles of Faith As is particularly plain in the Thessalonians by St. Paul's first Epistle to them Chap. 3. Ver. 10. Night and day praying exceedingly that we might see your face and might perfect that which is lacking in your Faith So that our Author's Argument from the Epistles being written to those who were already Christians is also upon this account very insufficient to weaken their Authority But he farther urges That the Epistles were writ upon particular Occasions p. 295. and without those Occasions had not been writ and so cannot be thought necessary to Salvation But how can it be proved that all the Epistles were writ upon particular Occasions For the contrary seems plain in several of the Epistles For though they were directed to particular Churches yet were they design'd for whole Provinces as the Epistles to the Corinthians were intended for the Province of Achaia That to the Galatians for a whole Country and those directed to the Thessalonians and Philippians were design'd for the two Provinces of Macedonia It being usual with the Apostle to give such Preheminence to the Metropolis of any Province as to direct to that what he intended for the whole Which is sufficient to shew that those Epistles were not writ upon any particular Occasion to those Churches they were sent to since they obliged a great Number equally with them Nor can we suppose them to be design'd for those particular Provinces only tho' they should be known to others for if they only were obliged by them then no one could be required to observe them any longer than he continued in such a Province For if they affected none out of the Province then those who went from that to another must also be freed from all Obligations to them which is too absurd to imagine The like Observations may be made upon other Epistles The first Epistle of St. Peter is directed to the Strangers scattered throughout Pontus Galatia Cappadocia Asia and Bithynia His second Epistle is likewise General and so are the Epistles of St. James and St. Jude But there is nothing that can be more General than the first Epistle of St. John which tho' occasion'd by some new raised Heresies yet is directed to all Christians to give them true Notions of the Divinity and eternal Existence of the Son of God which are proved at large in that Epistle in Opposition to all Heresies that then were or that possibly might arise concerning them For all which reasons it is evident that a great many of the Epistles were design'd for all Christians in general Those indeed to the Romans and the Hebrews seem to have some things in them which particularly relate to those Churches But yet there are a great many Truths in them of general use and importance which seem to be design'd on purpose for all Christians in general But to look a little back upon the Epistle to the Hebrews which if well considered cannot be denied to contain some Doctrines absolutely necessary to be believed to Salvation by all Christians if this may be granted that the same Faith was required after Conversion both from Jew and Gentile For the design of that Epistle was not only to convince the Jews that the Reason of the Ceremonial Law was ceased and consequently that they ought to discontinue their observance of it and that the Aaronical Priesthood was abolished by our Saviour's Entering upon his Priestly Office but also to obviate which the Author has done with very great care two Conceptions which Men might be tempted to have of our Saviour The one was to think him some Angelical Being the other some great Prophet like Moses or superior to him Now the Author of that Epistle does plainly deny our Saviour to be of that sort and order of Beings that either Angels or Moses was in the first second and third Chapters c. He does not only set him above them all in a Style that imports Superiority and Pre-eminence but does it in a set of Phrases that shew him to be of another Nature than they And to evince the Truth of this a great part of this Epistle was design'd For there was a Sect amongst the Jewish Converts to Christianity that were not only for continuing the Observation of the Mosaick Institutions but who also opposed the Divinity of our Saviour and against these the Apostle seems professedly to argue in this Epistle Which if looked upon to be writ with this Design is as full a Proof for the Divinity of our Saviour and the necessity of believing it to Salvation or without which Church-Communion cannot be maintain'd as need be desired for any thing of that Nature But besides this Epistle to the Hebrews there is no question but the very first Christians thought almost all the Doctrines in every Epistle of general Concern by their constant reading them every Lord's Day in all their publick Assemblies which was done not only amongst those to whom they were written but also amongst all those who had Copies of them And that an Epistle which was writ to one Church should also be read amongst others which would never have been commanded if they were writ upon particular Occasions to any Church is enjoin'd expresly by St. Paul himself in his Epistle
Evidence for the Truth of his Doctrine than his Death could possibly be But if we should say that he Died to gain us an Immortality which we lost by Adam yet this would not put a stop to his Enquiry for if this was all he Died for what should be the Meaning of those places in Scripture where he is said to be made Sin for us to free us from the Wrath to come For the frequent Repetition of his suffering for our Sins necessarily supposes that there was some severe Punishment due to them which we should otherwise have suffered But if upon his farther Enquiry why this one Article should only be required necessarily to be believed we should inform him that this is all that is required in the Gospels and Acts of the Apostles and that we are not obliged to an explicite Belief of any Doctrines delivered in other parts of the New Testament yet this would never satisfy because as he would easily perceive the Falsity of the former so it would be difficult to convince him of the other if he was perswaded that the Epistles had as great an Authority stampt upon them by being Divinely Inspired as any other parts of Scripture and that the Apostles had the same Commission from God in the writing their Epistles as in any other parts of their Ministry And Lastly If this Illiterate Man should demand Whether this Messiah is Man or God and whether we are not obliged to believe him to be God because Scripture has in divers places asserted his Divinity and because in the Form of Baptism by which we are made Christians He is represented as equal to God the Father if he should be answered That if those places meant any thing it must be some other Sence than we generally understand by them or at least that they do not require an actual Belief of that Doctrine to Salvation or that it is not material what we believe our Saviour to be so long as we acknowledge him to be the Messiah yet this would run him still into greater Perplexities and make him throw aside all in general rather than take up with such a Partial Religion For whatsoever is irreconcilable with all the parts of Revelation will never perswade any Considering Man to Embrace it that believes there is an Equal Authority from God for the whole Such a Scheme of Faith which our Author has drawn up I am afraid will give no better Satisfaction to those who are for searching the Scriptures to see whether these things are so The Holy Bible especially the New Testament is not so very large but that the Knowledge of it particularly where our Salvation is concern'd may be easily attain'd by the meanest Capacities Nor are there such Intricacies in the Matters of Faith but that a willing Mind may see sufficient Reason for assenting to them not because he can comprehend the Depths of them but because he perceives it is his Duty to Believe them since God that cannot Lie has assuredly Reveal'd them and made them necessary to be Believed in order to Salvation And why may not Almighty God that has contrived such a Salvation for us as our greatest Wisdom could never have discovered oblige us to the Belief of some things which our deepest Reasons cannot now comprehend Indeed we might with very great Reason complain if God had laid a necessity upon us of clearly Understanding whatsoever he has required of us to Believe I mean as to the Manner of it because he has not been pleased to explain the Manner But since all that he has enjoin'd us is only a firm Belief of whatsoever he has Reveal'd we ought in all Humility to submit our selves to his Wisdom and wait for a fuller Intuition into those Mysteries in the other World which we must be Ignorant of in this And there is no Question to be made but that a great many Things are hid from our present Views and which yet are required of us to be Believed on purpose to heighten our Desires after those higher Degrees of Knowledge which are particularly reserv'd for the next Life It seems indeed very plain that we are under an Obligation to make nothing more necessary to be Believed than what is clearly laid down in Scripture or necessarily to be drawn from it But this also is as certain that we ought not to deny any thing to be an Article of Faith which the Scripture has made such especially if it be clearly delivered For it is God's Word alone that must guide us in those Cases and it is as dangerous to detract from it as to add to it And thus I have Examined those Parts of the Reasonableness of Christianity which seem'd to me to be Erroneous as for those that treat of the Necessity of Revelation the Conditions of Repentance Good Works c. they seem to carry an Air of Piety along with them and to be writ with such strength of Judgment as may be suppos'd that the Author had thought more upon them than upon any other Parts of that Treatise FINIS POSTSCRIPT WHen these Papers were just coming Abroad there appear'd a Second Vindication of the Reasonableness of Christianity c. by the Author of it I was under Apprehension that some Arguments might be there propounded which ought to be consider'd But since I find they are chiefly directed against Mr. Edwards Reflections which tho' I have not Read I presume are different from these Observations by the Passages cited from them I did not think my self concern'd to examine them especially since they required more Time than the Press would allow If I have urged any Arguments that have been manag'd already by Others it is more than I knew What I have mention'd of Mr. Hobbs was with no Design to possess the Reader with Prejudices against the Author of the Reasonableness of Christianity but only to shew that the same Doctrine had been maintain'd before our Author appear'd for it Tho' I don't believe he Borrow'd it from thence since he hath declared the contrary If in that or any thing else I have fall'n upon the same Notion with the Ingenious Author of the Occasional Paper Numb I. it is more than I did or could design since these Remarks were Drawn up long before that came Abroad ERRATA PAg. 4. lin 7. read in the Gospels p. 14. l. 28. r. reject them ibid. l. 33. r. Inspiration p. 20. l. 5. del it p. 35. l. 10. del the p. 44. in Not. r. commata p. 62. l. 1. r. Crimina p. 63. l. 12. for those are r. that is p. 69. l. 24. r. Apostle