as many as there be and yet find but one Or a Man may set himself to find but one and yet find two or more It is no Argument from what a Man has found to prove what was his main Work to find unless where his aim was only to find what there was whether more or less For a Writer may find the Reputation of a poor contemptible Railer Nay of a downright impudent Lyar and yet no body will think it was his main work to find that Therefore Sir if you will not find what 't is like you did not seek you must prove those many confident Assertions you have published which I shall give you in tale whereof this is the second viz. II. That the main Business I set my self about was to find but one Article of Faith In the following part of this Sentence he quotes my own words with the Pages where they are to be found The first time that in either of his two Books against me he has vouchsafed to do so concerning one Article wherewith he has made so much noise My words in pag. 192. of my Reasonableness of Christianity stand thus For that this is the sole Doctrine pressed and required to be believed in the whole tenor of our Saviour's and his Apostles preaching we have shew'd through the whole History of the Evanlists and Acts and I challenge them to shew that there was any other Doctrine upon their assent to which or disbelief of it Men were pronounced Believers or Unbelievers and accordingly received into the Church of Christ as Members of his Body as far as mere Believing could make them so or else kept out This was the only Gospel Article of Faith which was preached to them Out of this Passage the Unmasker sets down these words This is the SOLE Doctrine pressed and required to be believed in the whole tenor of our Saviour's and his Apostles preaching p. 129. this was the ONLY Gospel Article of Faith which was preach'd to them I shall pass by all other Observations that this way of citing these words would suggest and only remark that if he brought these words to prove the immediately preceding Assertion of his viz. That to find but one Article of Faith was the main Work I set my self about This Argument reduced into form will stand thus He who says that this is the sole Doctrine pressed and required to be believed in the whole tenor of our Saviour's and his Apostles Preaching upon their assent to which or disbelief of it Men were pronounced Believers or Unbelievers and accordingly received into the Church of Christ as Members of his Body as far as mere believing could make them so or else kept out sets himself to find out but One Article of Faith as his main Work But the Vindicator did so Ergo If this were the use he would make of those words of mine cited I must desire him to prove the major But he talks so freely and without book every where that I suppose he thought himself by the Privilege of a Declaimer exempt from being called strictly to an Account for what he so loosely says and from proving what he should be called to Account for Rail lustily is a good Rule something of it will stick true or false proved or not proved If he alledges these words of mine to answer my Demand Vind. p. 27. where he found that I contended for one single Article of Faith with the exclusion and defiance of all the rest which he had charged me with I say it proves this as little as the former For to say That I had shew'd through the whole History of the Evangelists and the Acts that this is the sole Doctrine or only Gospel-Article pressed and required to be believed in the whole Tenor of our Saviour and his Apostles Preaching upon their assent to which or disbelieving of it Men were pronounced Believers or Unbelievers and accordingly received into the Church of Christ or kept out is the simple Assertion of a positive Matter of Fact and so carries in it no defiance no nor exclusion of any othâ—r Doctrinal or Historical Truth contained in the Scripture And therefore it remains still on the Unmasker to shew where 't is I express any deâ—iance of any other Truth contain'd in the Word of God or where I exclude any one Doctrine of the Scriptures So that if it be true that I contend for one Article my Contention may be without any defiance or so much as exclusion of any of the rest notwithstanding any thing contained in these words Nay if it should happen that I am in a mistake and that this was not the sole Doctrine which our Saviour and his Apostles preached and upon their assent to which Men were admitted into the Church yet the Unmasker's Accusation would be never the truer for that unless it be necessary that he that mistakes in one Matter of Fact should be at defiance with all other Truths or that he who erroneously says that our Saviour and his Apostles admitted Men into the Church upon the believing him to be the Messiah does thereby exclude all other Truths published to the Jews before or to Christian Believers afterwards If these words be brought to prove that I contended for one Article barely one Article without any defiance or exclusion annext to that Contention I say neither do they prove that as is manifest from the words themselves as well as from what I said elsewhere concerning the Article of One God For here I say this is the only Gospel-Article c. upon which Men were pronounced Believers which plainly intimates some other Article known and believed in the World before and without the Preaching of the Gospel To this the Unmasker thinks he has provided a Salvo in these words Socinianism Unmask'd pag. 6. And when I told him of this one Article he knew well enough that I did not exclude the Article of the Deity for that is a Principle of Natural Religion If it be fit for an Unmasker to perceive what is in debate he would know that the Question is not what he excluded or excluded not but what Articles he charged me to have excluded Taking it therefore to be his meaning which it must be if he meant any thing to the purpose viz. That when he charged me so often and positively for contesting for one Article viz. that Iesus was the Messiah he did not intend to accuse me for excluding the Article of the Deity To prove that he did not so intend it he tells me that I knew that he did not Answ. How should I know it he never told me so either in his Book or otherwise This I know that he said pag. 115. That I contended for one Article with the exclusion of all the rest If then the belief of the Deity be an Article of Faith and be not the Article of Iesus being the Messiah it is one of the rest and if all the rest were
Religion disguise the Faith of the Gospel and betray Christianity it self If they did not I am sure I have not For I have not omitted any of the main Articles which they Preached to the Unbelieving World Those I have set down with so much care not to omit any of them that you blame me for it more than once and call it tedious However you are pleased to acquit or condemn the Apostles in the case by your Supream Determination I am very indifferent If you think fit to condemn them for disguising or betraying the Christian Religion because they said no more of Satisfaction than I have done in their Preaching at first to their Unbelieving Auditors Iews or Heathens to make them as I think Christians for that I am now speaking of I shall not be sorry to be found in their Company under what censure soever If you are pleased graciously to take off this your censure from them for this omission I shall claim a share in the same Indulgence But to come to what perhaps you will think your self a little more concerned not to censure than what the Apostles did so long since for you have given instances of being very apt to make bold with the Dead Pray tell me does the Church of England admit People into the Church of Christ at hap-hazard Or without proposing and requiring a Profession of all that is necessary to be believed to make a Man a Christian If she does not I desire you to turn to the Baptism of those of riper Years in our Liturgy Where the Priest asking the Convert particularly whether he believes the Apostles Creed which he repeats to him Upon his Profession that he does and that he desires to be baptized into that Faith without one word of any other Articles Baptizes him and then declares him a Christian in these words We receive this Person into the Congregation of Christ's Flock and sign him with the sign of the Cross in token that he shall not be asham'd to CONTINUE Christ's faithful Soldier and Servant In all this there is not one word of Satisfaction no more than in my Book nor so much neither And here I ask you whether for this omission you will pronounce that the Church of England disguises the Faith of the Gospel However you think fit to treat me yet methinks you should not let your self loose so freely against our first Reformers and the Fathers of our Church ever since as to call them Betrayers of Christianity it self because they think not so much necessary to be believed to make a Man a Christian as you are pleased to put down in your Articles but omit as well as I your main Article of Satisfaction Having thus notably harangued upon the occasion of my saying Would any one blame my Prudence and thereby made me a Socinian a Iesuit and a Betrayer of Christianity it self he has in that answer'd all that such a Miscreant as I do or can say and so passes by all the Reasons I gave for what I did without any other notice or answer but only denying a Matter of Fact which I only can know and he cannot viz. My design in Printing my Reasonableness of Christianity In the next Paragraph p. 45. in answer to these words of St. Paul Rom. XIV 1. Him that is weak in the Faith receive ye but not to doubtful Disputations which I brought as a reason why I mention'd not Satisfaction amongst the Benefits receiv'd by the coming of our Saviour Because as I tell him in my Vindication p. 5. My Reasonableness of Christianity as the title shews was designed chiefly for those who were not yet throughly or firmly Christians He replies and I desire him to prove it XX. That I pretend a design of my Book which was never so much as thought of till I was sollicited by my Brethren to Vindicate it All the rest in this Paragraph being either nothing to this place of the Romans or what I have answer'd elsewhere needs no farther Answer The next two Paragraphs p. 46. â—49 are meant for an Answer to something I had said concerning the Apostles Creed upon the occasion of his chargeing my Book with Socinianism They begin thus This Author of the New Christianity Answ. This New Christianity is as old as the Preaching of our Saviour and his Apostles and a little older than the Unmasker's System Wisely objects that the Apostles Creed hath none of those Articles which I mention'd p. 12 13. Answ. If that Author wisely objects the Unmasker would have done well to have replied wisely But for a Man wisely to reply it is in the first place requisite that the Objection be truly and fairly set down in its full force and not represented short and as will best serve the Answerers turn to reply to This is neither wise nor honest And this first part of a wise Reply the Unmasker has failed in This will appear from my words and the occasion of them The Unmasker had accused my Book of Socinianism for omitting some Points which he urged as necessary Articles of Faith To which I answer'd That he had done so only to give it an ill Name not because it was Socinian for he had no more reason to charge it with Socinianism for the Omissions he mentions than the Apostles Creed These are my words which he should have either set down out of p. 12. which he quotes or at least given the Objection as I put it if he had meant to have clear'd it by a fair Answer But he instead thereof contents himself that I object that the Apostles Creed hath none of those Articles and Doctrines which the Unmasker mention'd Answ. This at best is but a part of my Objection and not to the purpose I there meant without the rest join'd to it which it has pleased the Unmasker according to his laudable way to conceal My Objection therefore stands thus That the same Articles for the Omission whereof the Unmasker charges my Book with Socinianism being also omitted in the Apostles Creed he has no more reason to Charge my Book with Socinianism for the Omissions mention'd than he hath to charge the Apostles Creed with Socinianism To this Objection of mine let us now see how he answers p. 47. Nor does any considerate Man wonder at it i. e. That the Apostles Creed hath none of those Articles and Doctrines which he had mention'd For the Creed is a form of outward Profession which is chiefly to be made in the Publick Assemblies when Prayers are put up in the Church and the Holy Scriptures are read Then this Abridgment of Faith is properly used or when there is not generally time or opportunity to make any Enlargement But we are not to think it expresly contains in it all the necessary and weighty Points all the important Doctrines of Belief it being only designed to be an Abstract Answ. Another indispensible requiquisite in a wise Reply is that it should be
who unprovoked mix with the management of their Cause Injuries and ill Language to those they differ from This at least I am sure Zeal or Love for Truth can never permit Falshood to be used in the Defence of it Your Mind I see prepar'd for Truth by resignation of it self not to the Traditions of Men but the Doctrine of the Gospel has made you more readily entertain and more easily enter into the meaning of my Book than most I have heard speak of it And since you seem to me to comprehend what I have laid together with the same Disposition of Mind and in the same Sence that I received it from the Holy Scriptures I shall as a mark of my respect to you give you a particular Account of the Occasion of it The Beginning of the Year in which it was Published the Controversie that made so much noise and heat amongst some of the Dissenters coming one Day accidentally into my Mind drew me by degrees into a stricter and more through Enquiry into the Question about Justification The Scripture was direct and plain that 't was Faith that justified The next Question then was what Faith that was that justified What it was which if a Man believed it should be imputed to him for Righteousness To find out this I thought the right way was to Search the Scriptures and thereupon betook my self seriously to the Reading of the New Testament only to that Purpose What that produced you and the World have seen The first View I had of it seem'd mightily to satisfie my mind in the Reasonableness and Plainness of this Doctrine But yet the general Silence I had in my little Reading met with concerning any such thing awed me with the Apprehension of Singularity Till going on in the Gospel History the whole tenour of it made it so clear and visible that I more wonder'd that every body did not see and imbrace it than that I should assent to what was so plainly laid down and so frequently inculcated in Holy Writ though Systems of Divinity said nothing of it That which added to my Satisfaction was that it led me into a Discovery of the marvellous and divine Wisdom of our Saviour's Conduct in all the Circumstances of his promulgating this Doctrine as well as of the necessity that such a Law-giver should be sent from God for the reforming the Morality of the World Two Points that I must confess I had not found so fully and advantageously explain'd in the Books of Divinity I had met with as the History of the Gospel seem'd to me upon an attentive Perusal to give Occasion and Matter for But the Necessity and Wisdom of our Saviour's opening the Doctrine which he came to publish as he did in Parables and figurative ways of speaking carries such a Thread of Evidence through the whole History of the Evangelists as I think is impossible to be resisted and makes it a Demonstration that the Sacred Historians did not write by concert as Advocates for a bad Cause or to give Colour and Credit to an Imposture they would Usher into the World Since they every one of them in some place or other omit some Passages of our Saviour's Life or Circumstances of his Actions which shew the Wisdom and Wariness of his Conduct and which even those of the Evangelists who have recorded do barely and transiently mention without laying any Stress on them or making the least remark of what Consequence they are to give us our Saviour's true Character and to prove the Truth of their History These are Evidences of Truth and Sincerity which result alone from the Nature of things and cannot be produced by any Art or Contrivance How much I was pleased with the growing Discovery every Day whilst I was employed in this search I need not say The wonderful Harmony that the farther I went disclosed it self tending to the same Points in all the parts of the sacred History of the Gospel was of no small Weight with me and another Person who every Day from the beginning to the end of my search saw the Progress of it and knew at my first setting out that I was ignorant whither it would lead me and therefore every Day asked me what more the Scripture had taught me So far was I from the thoughts of Socinianism or an Intention to write for that or any other Party or to publish any thing at all But when I had gone through the whole and saw what a plain simple reasonable thing Christianity was suited to all Conditions and Capacities and in the Morality of it now with divine Authority established into a legible Law so far surpassing all that Philosophy and humane Reason had attain'd to or could possibly make effectual to all degrees of Mankind I was flatter'd to think it might be of some use in the World especially to those who thought either that there was no need of Revelation at all or that the Revelation of our Saviour required the Belief of such Articles for Salvation which the settled Notions and their way of reasoning in some and want of Understanding in others made impossible to them Upon these two Topicks the Objections seemed to turn which were with most Assurance made by Deists against Christianity But against Christianity misunderstood It seem'd to me that there needed no more to shew them the Weakness of their Exceptions but to lay plainly before them the Doctrine of our Saviour and his Apostles as delivered in the Scriptures and not as taught by the several Sects of Christians This tempted me to publish it not thinking it deserved an Opposition from any Minister of the Gospel and least of all from any one in the Communion of the Church of England But so it is that Mr. Edwards's Zeal for he knows not what for he does not yet know his own Creed nor what is required to make him a Christian could not brook so plain simple and intelligible a Religion But yet not knowing what to say against it and the Evidence it has from the Word of God he thought fit to let the Book alone and fall upon the Author What great Matter he has done in it I need not tell you who have seen and shew'd the Weakness of his Wranglings You have here Sir the true History of the Birth of my Reasonableness of Christianity as delivered in the Scriptures and my Design in publishing it c. What it contains and how much it tends to Peace and Union amongst Christians if they would receive Christianity as it is you have discovered I am SIR Your most humble Servant A. B. My Readers will pardon me that in my Preface to them I make this particular Address to Mr. Bold He hath thought it worth his while to defend my Book How well he has done it I am too much a Party to say I think it so sufficient to Mr. Edwards that I needed not have troubled my self any further about him on the account
for not knowing them why do you fill your Books with such variety of Invectives as if you could never say enough nor bad enough against me for having left out some of them And if it be so dangerous so criminal to miss any of them why is it a folly in me to move you to give me a compleat List If Fundamentals are to be known easie to be known as without doubt they are then a Catalogue may be given of them But if they are not if it cannot certainly be determin'd which are they but the doubtful knowledge of them depends upon guesses why may not I be permitted to follow my guesses as well as you yours Or why of all others must you prescribe your guesses to me when there are so many that are as ready to prescribe as you and of as good Authority The pretence indeed and clamour is Religion and the Saving of Souls But your Business 't is plain is nothing but to over-rule and prescribe and be hearken'd to as a Dictator and not to inform teach and instruct in the sure way to Salvation Why else do you so start and fling when I desire to know of you what is necessary to be believed to make a Man a Christian when this is the only material thing in Controversie between us and my Mistakes in it has made you begin a quarrel with me and let loose your Pen against me in no ordinary way of reprehension Besides in this way which you take you will be in no better a case than I. For another having as good a claim to have his guesses give the rule as you yours or to have his System received as well as you yours he will complain of you as well and upon as good grounds as you do of me and if he have but as much Zeal for his Orthodoxy as you shew for yours in as civil well-bred and Christian-like Language In the next place pray tell me why would it be folly in you to comply with what I require of you Would it not be useful to me to be set right in this Matter if so why is it folly in you to set me right Consider me if you please as one of your Parishioners who after you have resolv'd which Catalogue of Fundamentals to give him either that in your Thoughts of the Causes of Atheism or this other here in your Socinianism Unmask'd for they are not both the same nor either of them perfect asked you are these all Fundamental Articles necessary to be believed to make a Man a Christian and are there no more but these would you answer him that it was folly in you to comply with him in what he desired Is it of no moment to know what is required of Men to be believed without a belief of which they are not Christians nor can be saved And is it folly in a Minister of the Gospel to inform one committed to his Instruction in so material a Point as this which distinguishes Believers from Unbelievers Is it folly in one whose Business it is to bring Men to be Christians and to Salvation to resolve a Question by which they may know whether they are Christians or no and without a resolution of which they cannot certainly know their Condition and the state they are in Is it besides your Commission and Business and therefore a folly to extend your care of Souls so far as this to those who are committed to your Charge Sir I have a Title to demand this of you as if I were your Parishioner You have forced your self upon me for a Teacher in this very Point as if you wanted a Parishioner to instruct and therefore I demand it of you and shall insist upon it till you either do it or confess you cannot Nor shall it excuse you to say it is capriciously required For this is no otherwise capricious than all Questions are capricious to a Man that cannot answer them and such an one I think this is to you For if you could answer it no body can doubt but that you would and that with confidence For no body will suspect 't is the want of that makes you so reserved This is indeed a frequent way of answering Questions by men that cannot otherwise cover the Absurdities of their Opinions and their insolence of expecting to be believed upon their bare words by saying they are capriciously asked and deserved no other Answer But how far soever Capriciousness when proved for saying is not enough may excuse from answering a material Question yet your own words here will clear this from being a capricious Question in me For that those Texts of Scripture which you have set down do not upon your own Grounds contain all the Fundamental Doctrines of Religion all that is necessary to be believed to make a Man a Christian what you say a little lower in this very Page as well as in other places does demonstrate Your words are I think I have sufficiently proved that there are other Doctrines besides that Jesus is the Messiah which are required to be believed to make a Man a Christian why did the Apostles write these Doctrines was it not that those they writ to might give their assent to them This Argument for the necessity of believing the Texts you cite from their being set down in the New Testament you urged thus p. 9. Is this set down to no purpose in these inspired Epistles Is it not requisite that we should know it and believe And again p. 29. They are in our Bibles to that very purpose to be believed If then it be necessary to know and believe those Texts of Scripture you have collected because the Apostles writ them and they were not set down to no purpose And they are in our Bibles on purpose to be believed I have reason to demand of you other Texts besides those you have enumerated as containing Points necessary to be believed because there are other Texts which the Apostles writ and were not set down to no purpose and are in our Bibles on purpose to be believed as well as those which you have cited Another reason of doubting and consequently of demanding whether those Propositions you have set down for Fundamental Doctrines be every one of them necessary to be believed and all that are necessary to be believed to make a Man a Christian I have from your next Argument which join'd to the former stands thus p. 22. Why did the Apostles write these Doctrines Was it not that those they writ to might give their assent to them nay did they not require assent to them Yes verily for this is to be proved from the Nature of the things contained in those Doctrines which are such as had immediate respect to the Occasion Author Way Means and Issue of their Redemption and Salvation If therefore all things which have an immediate respect to the Occasion Author Way Means and Issue of Mens Redemption and Salvation are
Creeds you please are Just those neither more nor less that are every one of them required to be believed to make a Man a Christian and such as without the actual or since that word displeases you the explicit belief whereof he cannot be saved When you have answer'd this Question we shall then see which of us two is nearest the right But if you shall forbear Railing which I fear you take for arguing against that Summary of Faith which our Saviour and his Apostles taught and which only they propos'd to their Hearers to be believed to make them Christians till you have found another perfect Creed of only necessary Articles that you dare own for such you are like to have a large time of Silence Before I leave the Passage above cited I must desire the Reader to take notice of what he says concerning his List of Fundamentals viz. That these his Articles of Faith necessary to constitute a Christian are such as must IN SOME MEASURE be known and assented to by him A very wary Expression concerning Fundamentals The Question is about Articles necessary to be explicitly believed to make a Man a Christian. These in his List the Unmasker tells us are necessary to constitute a Christian and must IN SOME MEASURE be known and assented to I would now fain know of the Reader whether he understands hereby that the Unmasker means that these his necessary Articles must be explicitly believed or not If he means an explicit Knowledge and Belief why does he puzzle his Reader by so improper a way of speaking for what is as compleat and perfect as it ought to be cannot properly be said to be in some Measure If his in some Measure falls short of explicitly knowing and believing his Fundamentals his necessary Articles are such as a Man may be a Christian without explicitly knowing and believing i. e. are no Fundamentals no necessary Articles at all Thus Men uncertain what to say betray themselves by their great Caution Having pronounced it Folly in himself to make up the defects of my short and therefore so much blam'd Collection of Fundamentals by a full one of his own though his Attempt shews he would if he could he goes on thus p. 22. From what I the Unmasker have said it is evident that the Vindicator is grosly mistaken when he saith Whatever Doctrine the Apostles required to be believed to make a Man a Christian are to be found in those places of Scripture which he has quoted in his Book And a little lower I think I have sufficiently proved that there are other Doctrines besides that which are required to be believed to make a Man a Christian Answ. Whatever you have proved or as you never fail to do boast you have proved will signifie nothing till you have proved one of these Propositions and have shewn either X. That what our Saviour and his Apostles preach'd and admitted Men into the Church for believing is not all that is absolutely required to make a Man a Christian Or That the believing him to be the Messiah was not the only Article they insisted on to those who acknowledg'd one God and upon the belief whereof they admitted Converts into the Church in any one of those many places quoted by me out of the History of the New Testament I say any one For though it be evident throughout the whole Gospel and the Acts that this was the one Doctrine of Faith which in all their Preachings every where they principally drive at Yet if it were not so but that in other places they taught other things that would not prove that those other things were Articles of Faith absolutely necessarily required to be believed to make a Man a Christian unless it had been so said Because if it appears that ever any one was admitted into the Church by our Saviour or his Apostles without having that Article explicitly laid before him and without his explicit assent to it you must grant that an explicit assent to that Article is not necessary to make a Man a Christian Unless you will say that our Saviour and his Apostles admitted Men into the Church that were not qualified with such a Faith as was absolutely necessary to make a Man a Christian which is as much as to say that they allow'd and pronounced Men to be Christians who were not Christians For he that wants what is necessary to make a Man a Christian can no more be a Christian than he that wants what is necessary to make him a Man can be a Man For what is necessary to the being of any thing is Essential to its being and any thing may be as well without its Essence as without any thing that is necessary to its being and so a Man be a Man without being a Man and a Christian a Christian without being a Christian and an Unmasker may prove this without proving it You may therefore set up by your unquestionable Authority what Articles you please as necessary to be believed to make a Man a Christian If our Saviour and his Apostles admitted Converts into the Church without preaching those your Articles to them or requiring an Explicit assent to what they did not Preach and explicitly lay down I shall prefer their Authority to yours and think it was rather by them than by you that God promulgated the Law of Faith and manifested what that Faith was upon which he would receive penitent Converts And though by his Apostles our Saviour taught a great many other Truths for the explaining this Fundamental Article of the Law of Faith that Jesus is the Messiah some whereof have a nearer and some a more remote connexion with it and so cannot be deny'd by any Christian who sees that connexion or knows they are so taught yet an explicit belief of any one of them is no more necessarily required to make a Man a Christian than an explicit belief of all those Truths which have a connexion with the being of a God or are reveal'd by him is necessarily required to make a Man not to be an Atheist Though none of them can be denied by any one who sees that connexion or acknowledges that revelation without his being an Atheist All these Truths taught us from God either by Reà son or Revelation are of great use to enlighten our Minds confirm our Faith stir up our Affections c. And the more we see of them the more we shall see admire and magnifie the Wisdom Goodness Mercy and Love of God in the Work of our Redemption This will oblige us to search and study the Scripture wherein it is contain'd and laid open to us All that we find in the Revelation of the New Testament being the declar'd Will and Mind of our Lord and Master the Messiah whom we have taken to be our King we are bound to receive as Right and Truth or else we are not his Subjects we do not believe him to be the Messiah our
in pieces by one another whilst every Sect assumes to it self a Power of declaring Fundamentals and severally thus narrow Christianity to their distinct Systems He that has a mind to see how Fundamentals come to be fram'd and fashion'd and upon what Motives and Considerations they are often taken up or laid down according to the Humours Interests or Designs of the Heads of Parties as if they were things depending on Mens pleasure and to be suited to their convenience may find an Example worth his notice in the Life of Mr. Baxter Part II. p. 197. 205. Whenever Men take upon them to go beyond those Fundamental Articles of Christianity which are to be found in the Preachings of our Saviour and his Apostles where will they stop Whenever any Set of Men will require more as necessary to be believed to make Men of their Church i. e. in their sense Christians than what our Saviour and his Apostles propos'd to those whom they made Christians and admitted into the Church of Christ however they may pretend to recommend the Scripture to their People in effect no more of it is recommended to them than just comports with what the Leaders of that Sect have resolv'd Christianity shall consist in 'T is no wonder therefore there is so much Ignorance amongst Christians and so much vain outcry against it whilst almost every distinct Society of Christians Magisterially ascribes Orthodoxy to a select Set of Fundamentals distinct from those proposed in the Preaching of our Saviour and his Apostles which in no one Point must be question'd by any of its Communion By this means their People are never sent to the Holy Scriptures that true Fountain of Light but hood-wink'd A Veil is cast over their eyes and then they are bid read the Bible They must make it all chime to their Churches Fundamentals or else they were better let it alone For if they find any thing there against the received Doctrines though they hold it and express it in the very terms the Holy Ghost has deliver'd it in that will not excuse them Heresie will be their lot and they shall be treated accordingly And thus we see how amongst other good effects Creed-making always has and always will necessarily produce and propagate Ignorance in the World however each Party blame others for it And therefore I have often wonder'd to hear Men of several Churches so heartily exclaim against the implicit Faith of the Church of Rome when the same implicit Faith is as much practised and required in their own though not so openly professed and ingenuously owned there In the next Section the Unmasker questions the Sincerity of mine and professes the greatness of his concern for the Salvation of Mens Souls And tells me of my Reflection on him upon that account in the 9th Page of my Vindication Answ. I wish he would for the right Information of the Reader every where set down what he has any thing to say to in my Book or my Defence of it and save me the Labour of repeating it My words in that place are Some Men will not bear that any one should speak of Religion but according to the Model that they themselves have made of it Nay though he proposes it upon the very terms and in the very words which our Saviour and his Apostles preach'd it in yet he shall not escape Censures and the severest insinuations To deviate in the least or to omit any thing contained in their Articles is Heresy under the most invidious Names in fashion and 't is well if he escapes being a downright Atheist Whether this be the Way for Teachers to make themselves hearken'd to as Men in Earnest in Religion and really concern'd for the Salvation of Mens Souls I leave them to consider What Success it has had towards perswading Men of the truth of Christianity their own Complaints of the prevalency of Atheism on the one hand and the number of Deists on the other sufficiently shew I have set down this Passage at large both as a confirmation of what I said but just now as also to shew that the Reflection I there made needed some other Answer than a bare Profession of his regard to the Salvation of Mens Souls The assuming an undue Authority to his own Opinions and using manifest Untruths in the defence of them I am sure is no mark that the directing Men right in the way to Salvation is his chief aim And I wish that the greater Liberties of that sort which he has again taken in his Socinianism Vnmask'd and which I have so often laid open had not confirm'd that Reflection I should have been glad that any thing in my Book had been fairly controverted and brought to the touch whether it had or had not been conâ—uted The matter of it would have deserved a serious debate if any had been necessary in the words of Sobriety and the Charitable temper of the Gospel as I desired in my Preâ—ace And that would not have mis-become the Vnmasker's Function But it did not consist it seems with his Design Christian Charity would not have allow'd those ill-meant Conjectures and groundless Censures which were necessary to his purpose and therefore he took a shorter course than to confute my Book and thereby convince me and others He makes it his business to rail at it and the Author of it that that might be taken for a confutation For by what he has hitherto done arguing seems not to be his Talent And thus far who can but allow his Wisdom But whether it be that Wisdom that is from above first pure then peaceable gentle easie to be intreated full of mercy and good fruits without partiality and without hypocrisie I shall leave to other Readers to judge His saying nothing to that other Reflection which his manner of expressing himself drew from me would make one suspect it favoured not altogether of the Wisdom of the Gospel nor shew'd an over great Care of the Salvation of Souls My Words Vindic. p. 25. are I know not how better to shew my Care of his Credit than by intreating him that when he takes next in hand such a Subject as this wherein the Salvation of Souls is concerned he would treat it a little more seriously and with a little more Candour lest Men should find in his Writings another Cause of Atheism which in this Treatise he has not thought fit to mention Ostentation of Wit in General he has made a Cause of Atheism p. 28. But the World will tell him That frothy light Discourses concerning the serious Matters of Religion and Ostentation of trifling mis-becoming Wit in those who come as Ambassadors from God under the title of Successors of the Apostles in the great Commission of the Gospel is none of the least Causes of Atheism But this advice I am now satisfied by his Second Part of the same Strain was very improper for him and no more reasonable than if one should
have Suffer'd and risen again from the Dead and that Iesus was the Messiah Act. XVII 2 3. At Corinth That he REASON'D in the Synagogue every Sabbath and PERSWADED the Iews and the Greeks and TESTIFIED that Iesus was the Messiah XVIII 4 5. That Apollos mightily convinced the Iews SHEWING BY THE SCRIPTURES that Iesus was the Messiah XVIII 27. By these and the like places we may be satisfied what it was that the Apostles Taught and Preach'd even this one Proposition that Iesus was the Messiah For this was the sole Proposition they reason'd about this alone they testified and they shew'd out of the Scriptures and of this alone they endeavour'd to convince the Iews and the Greeks that believed one God So that it is plain from hence that St. Luke omitted nothing that the Apostles Taught and Preach'd none of those Doctrines that it was necessary to convince Unbelievers of to make them Christians Though he in most places omitted as was fit the Passages of Scripture which they alledg'd and the Arguments those inspired Preachers used to perswade Men to believe and imbrace that Doctrine Another convincing Argument to shew that St. Luke omitted none of those Fundamental Doctrines which the Apostles any where propos'd as necessary to be believed is from that different account he gives us of their Preaching in other places and to Auditors otherwise dispos'd Where the Apostles had to do with Idolatrous Heathens who were not yet come to the knowledge of the only true God there he tells us they propos'd also the Article of the one Invisible God Maker of Heaven and Earth And this we find recorded in him out of their Preaching to the Lystrians Act. XIV and to the Athenians Act. XVII In the later of which St. Luke to convince his Reader that he out of conciseness omits none of those Fundamental Articles that were any where propos'd by the Preachers of the Gospel as necessary to be believed to make Men Christians sets down not only the Article of Iesus the Messiah but that also of the one invisible God Creator of all things which if any necessary one might this of all other Fundamental Articles might by an Author that affected brevity with the fairest excuse have been omitted as being implied in that other of the Messiah ordained by God Indeed in the Story of what Paul and Barnabas said at Lystra the Article of the Messiah is not mention'd Not that St. Luke omitted that Fundamental Article where the Apostles taught it But they having here begun their Preaching with that of the one living God they had not as appears time to proceed farther and propose to them what yet remain'd to make them Christians But they were by the instigation of the Iews fallen upon and Paul stoned before he could come to open to them this other Fundamental Article of the Gospel This by the way shews the Unmasker's Mistake in his first Particular p. 74. where he says as he does here again in his second Particular which we are now examining that believing Iesus to be the Messiah is the first step to Christianity and therefore this rather than any other was propounded to be believed by all those whom either our Saviour or the Apostles invited to imbrace Christianity The contrary whereof appears here Where the Article of one God is proposed in the first place to those whose Unbelief made such a proposal necessary And therefore if his Reason which he uses again here p. 76. were good viz. That the Article of the Messiah is expresly mention'd alone because it is a leading Article and makes way for the rest this Reason would rather conclude for the Article of one God And that alone should be expresly mentioned instead of the other Since as he argues for the other p. 74. if they did not believe this in the first place viz. That there was one God there could be no hopes that they would attend unto any other Proposal relating to the Christian Religion The Vanity and Falshood of which reasoning viz. That the Article of Jesus the Messiah was every where propounded rather than any other because it was the leading Article we see in the History of St. Paul's Preaching to the Athenians St. Luke mentions more than one Article where more than one was propos'd by St. Paul though the first of them was that leading Article of one God which if not received in the first place there could be no hope they would attend to the rest Something the Unmasker would make of this Argument of a leading Article for want of a better though he knows not what In his first particular p. 74. he makes use of it to shew why there was but that one Article propos'd by the first Preachers of the Gospel and how well that succeeds with him we have seen For this is Demonstration that if there were but that one propos'd by our Saviour and the Apostles there was but that one necessary to be believed to make Men Christians Unless he will impiously say that our Saviour and the Apostles went about Preaching to no purpose For if they propos'd not all that was necessary to make Men Christians 't was in vain for them to Preach and others to Hear if when they heard and believ'd all that was propos'd to them they were not yet Christians For if any Article was omitted in the Proposal which was necessary to make a Man a Christian though they believed all that was proposed to them they could not yet be Christians unless a Man can from an Infidel become a Christian without doing what is necessary to make him a Christian. Further if his Argument of its being a leading Article proves that that alone was propos'd It is a Contradiction to give it as a Reason why it was set down alone by the Historian where it was not proposed alone by the Preacher but other necessary matters of Faith were propos'd with it unless it can be true that this Article of Iesus is the Messiah was propos'd alone by our Saviour and his Apostles because it was a leading Article and was mention'd alone in the History of what they preach'd because it was a leading Article though it were not propos'd alone but jointly with other necessary matters of Faith For this is the use he makes here again p. 76. of his leading Article under his second Particular viz. To shew why the Historians mention'd this necessary Article of Iesus the Messiah alone in places where the Preachers of the Gospel propos'd it not alone but with other necessary Articles But in this latter case it has no shew of a Reason at all It may be granted as reasonable for the Teachers of any Religion not to go any farther where they see the first Article which they propose is rejected where the leading Truth on which all the rest depends is not received But it can be no reason at all for an Historian who writes the History of these first Preachers
receive a Prophets reward and he that receiveth a righteous man shall receive a righteous mans reward And whosoever shall give to drink unto one of these little ones a cup of cold water only in the name of a Disciple verily I say unto you he shall in no wise lose his reward And it came to pass when Iesus had made an end of Commanding his twelve Disciples This is the Commission our Saviour gave the Apostles when he sent them abroad to recover and save the lâ—st Sheep of the house of Israel And will any of the Unmasker's intelligent and observing Men say that the History of the Scripture is so concise that any passages any essential any material nay any parts at all of the Apostles Commission are here omitted by the Sacred Penman This Commission is set down so at full and so particularly that S. Matthew who was one of them to whom it was given seems not to have left out one word of all that our Saviour gave them in charge And it is so large even to every particular Article of their Instructions that I doubt not but my citing so much verbatim out of the Sacred Text will here again be troublesome to the Unmasker But whether he will venture again to call it tedious must be as Nature or Caution happen to have the better on 't Can any one who reads this Commission unless he hath the Brains as well as the Brow of an Unmasker alledge that the conciseness of the History of the Scripture has concealed from us those Fundamental Doctrines which our Saviour and his Apostles Preach'd but the Sacred Historians thought fit by consent for unconceivable Reasons to leave out in the Narrative they give us of those Preachings This Passage here wholly confuteth that They could Preach nothing but what they were sent to Preach And that we see is contain'd in these few words Preach saying the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand Heal the Sick cleanse the Lepers raise the Dead cast out Devils i. e. Acquaint them that the Kingdom of the Messiah is come and let them know by the Miracles you do in my Name that I am that King and Deliverer they expect If there were any other necessary Articles that were to be believed for the saving of the lost Sheep they were sent to can one think that St. Matthew who sets down so minutely every Circumstance of their Commission would have omitted the most important and material of it He was an ear Witness and one that was sent And so without supposing him inspired could not be misled by the short account he might receive from others who by their own or others forgetfulness might have drop'd those other Fundamental Articles that the Apostles were order'd to Preach The very like account St. Luke gives us of our Saviours Commission to the Seventy Ch. X. 1 16. After these things the Lord appointed other seventy also and sent them two and two before his face into every city and place whither he himself would come Therefore said he unto them The harvest truly is great but the labourers are few Pray ye therefore the Lord of the hâ—rvest that he would send forth labourers into his harvest Go your ways behold I send you forth as Lambs among Wolves Carry neither purse nor scrip nor shooes and salute no man by the way And into whatsoever house ye enter first say Peace be to this house And if the son of peace be there your peace shall rest upon it if not it shall return to you again And in the same house remain eating and drinking such things as they give for the labourer is worthy of his hire Go not from house to house And into whatsoever city ye enter and they receive you eat such things as are set before you And heal the sick that are therein and SAY VNTO THEM THE KINGDOM OF GOD IS COME NIGH VNTO YOV But in whatsoever city ye enter and they receive you not go your ways out into the streets of the same and say Even the very dust of your city which cleaveth on us we do wipe off against you Notwithstanding be ye sure of this that the Kingdom of God is come nigh unto you But I say unto you that it shall be more tolerable in that day for Sodom than for that city Wo unto thee Chorazin Wo unto thee Bethsaida For if the mighty works had been done in Tyre and Sidon which have been done in you they had a great while ago repented sitting in sackcloth and ashes But it shall be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon at the judgment than for you And thou Capernaum which art exalted to Heaven shalt be thrust down to Hell He that heareth you heareth me and he that despiseth you despiseth me and he that despiseth me despiseth him that sent me Our Saviour's Commission here to the Seventy whom he sent to Preach is so exactly conformable to that which he had before given to the Twelve Apostles that there needs but this one thing more to be observed to convince any one that they were sent to convert their Hearers to this sole belief that the Kingdom of the Messiah was come and that Iesus was the Messiah And that the Historians of the New Testament are not so concise in their account of this Matter that they would have omitted any other necessary Articles of Belief that had been given the Seventy in Commission That which I mean is the Kingdom of the Messiah is twice mentioned in it to be come v. 9. 11. If there were other Articles given them by our Saviour to propose to their Hearers St. Luke must be very fond of this one Article when for conciseness sake leaving out the other Fundamental Articles that our Saviour gave them in charge to Preach he repeats this more than once The Unmasker's Third Particular p. 76. begins thus This also must be thought of that though there are several parts and members of the Christian Faith yet they do not all occur in any one place of Scripture Something is in it whether owing to his Will or Understanding I shall not enquire that the Unmasker always delivers himself in doubtful and ambiguous terms It had been as easie for him to have said There are several Articles of the Christian Faith necessary to be believed to make a Man a Christian as to say as he does here There are several parts and members of the Christian Faith But as an evidence of the clearness of his Notions or the fairness of his Arguing he always rests in generals There are I grant several parts and members of the Christian Faith which do no more occur in any one place of Scripture than the whole New Testament can be said to occur in any one place of Scripture For every Proposition deliver'd in the New Testament for Divine Revelation is a part and member of the Christian Faith But 't is not those parts and members of the Christian Faith
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
to quit mine for nothing I have then one that being set by mine I may compare them and so be able to chuse the true and perfect one and relinquish the other He that does not do this plainly declares that without shewing me the certain way to Salvation he expects that I should depend on him with an implicit Faith whilst he reserves to himself the liberty to require of me to believe what he shall think fit as he sees Occasion and in effect says thus Distrust those Fundamentals which the Preaching of our Saviour and his Apostles have shew'd to be all that is necessary to be believed to make a Man a Christian and though I cannot tell you what are those other Articles which are necessary and sufficient to make a Man a Christian yet take me for your Guide and that is as good as if I made up in a compleat List the Defects of your Fundamentals To which this is a sufficient Answer Si quid novisti rectius imperti si non his ut ere mecum The Unmasker of his own accord p. 110. of his Thoughts concerning the Causes of Atheism sets down several which he calls Fundamental Doctrines I ask him whether those be all For answer he adds more to them in his Socinianism Unmask'd But in a great pet refuses to tell me whether this Second List of Fundamentals be compleat And instead of answering so reasonable a Demand pays me with ill Language in these words pag. 22. subjoyn'd to those last quoted If what I have said will not content him I am sure I can do nothing that will and therefore if he should Capriciously require any thing more it would be as great folly in me to comply with it as it is in him to move it If I did ask a Question which troubles you be not so angry you your self were the occasion of it I proposed my Collection of Fundamentals which I had with great care sought and thought I had found clear in the Scripture you tell me no it is imperfect and offer me one of your own I ask whether that be perfect Thereupon you grow into Choler and tell me 't is a foolish Question Why then I think it was not very wise in you so forwardly to offer one unless you had had one ready not liable to the same exception Would you have me so foolish to take a List of Fundamentals from you who have not yet one for your self nor are yet resolved with your self what Doctrines are to be put in or left out of it Farther pray tell me if you had a settled Collection of Fundamentals that you would stand to why should I take them from you upon your word rather than from an Anabaptist or a Quaker or an Arminian or a Socinian or a Lutheran or a Papist who I think are not perfectly agreed with you or one another in Fundamentals and yet there is none amongst them that I have not as much reason to believe upon his bare word as an Unmasker who to my certain knowledge will make bold with Truth If you set up for Infallibility you may have some claim to have your bare word taken before any other but the Pope But yet if you do demand to be an unquestionable Proposer of what is absolutely necessary to be believed to make a Man a Christian you must perform it a little better than hitherto you have done For it is not enough sometimes to give us Texts of Scripture Sometimes Propositions of your own framing and sometimes Texts of Scripture out of which they are to be framed as p. 14. you say These and the like places afford us such Fundamental and Necessary Doctrines as these And again p. 16. after the naming several other Texts of Scripture you add which places yield us such Propositions as these and then in both places set down what you think fit to draw out of them And Page 15. you have these words And here likewise it were easie to shew that Adoption Iustification Pardon of Sins c. which are Privileges and Benefits bestow'd upon us by the Messiah are Necessary Matters of our Belief By all which as well as the whole frame wherein you make shew of giving us your Fundamental Articles it is plain that what you have given us there is nothing less than a compleat Collection of Fundamentals even in your own Opinion of it But Good Sir why is it a foolish Question in me you have found fault with my Summary for being short The defect in my Collection of Necessary Articles has raised your Zeal into so severe Censures and drawn upon me from you so heavy a Condemnation that if half that you have said of me be true I am in a very ill case for having so curtailed the Fundamental Doctrines of Christianity Is it folly then for me to ask from you a compleat Creed If it be so dangerous as certainly it is to fail in any necessary Article of Faith why is it folly in me to be instant with you to give me them all Or why is it folly in you to grant so reasonable a Demand a short Faith defective in Necessaries is no more tolerable in you than in me nay much more inexcuseable if it were for no other reason but this that you rest in it your self and would impose it on others and yet do not your self know or believe it to be compleat For if you do why dare you not say so and give it us all entire in plain Propositions and not as you have in great measure done here give only the Texts of Scripture from whence you say necessary Articles are to be drawn which is too great an uncertainty for Doctrines absolutely necessary For possibly all Men do not understand those Texts alike and some may draw Articles out of them quite different from your Systeme and so though they agree in the same Texts may not agree in the same Fundamentals and till you have set down plainly and distinctly your Articles that you think contain'd in them cannot tell whether you will allow them to be Christians or no. For you know Sir several Inferences are often drawn from the same Text and the different Systems of dissenting I was going to say Christians but that none must be so but those who receive your Collection of Fundamentals when you please to give it them Professors are all founded on the Scripture Why I beseech you is mine a foolish Question to ask What are the necessary Articles of Faith 'T is of no less consequence than nor much different from the Jaylor's Question in the 16th of the Acts What shall I do to be saved and that was not that ever I heard counted by any one a foolish Question You grant there are Articles necessary to be believed for Salvation would it not then be Wisdom to know them nay is it not our Duty to know and believe them If not why do you with so much outcry reprehend me
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
pertinent Now what can there be more impertinent than to confess the Matter of Fact upon which the Objection is grounded but instead of destroying the Inference drawn from that Matter of Fact only amuse the Reader with wrong Reasons why that Matter of Fact was so No considerate Man he says doth wonder that the Articles and Doctrines he mentioned are omitted in the Apostles Creed Because that Creed is a form of outward Profession Answ. A Profession of what I beseech you Is it a Form to be used for Form's sake I thought it had been a Profession of something even of the Christian Faith And if it be so any considerate Man may wonder necessary Articles of the Christian Faith should be lest out of it For how it can be an outward Profession of the Christian Faith without containing the Christian Faith I do not see unless a Man can outwardly profess the Christian Faith in words that do not contain or express it i. e. profess the Christian Faith when he does not profess it But he says 't is a Profession chiefly to be made use of in Assemblies Answ. Do those solemn Assemblies privilege it from containing the necessary Articles of the Christian Religion This proves not that it does not or was not designed to contain all Articles necessary to be believed to make a Man a Christian unless the Unmasker can prove that a From of outward Profession of the Christian Faith that contains all such necessary Articles cannot be made use of in the Publick Assemblies In the Publick Assemblies says he when Prayers are put up by the Church and the Holy Scriptures are read then this Abridgment of Faith is properly used or when there is not generally time or opportunity to make an Enlargement Answ. But that which contains not what is absolutely necessary to be believed to make a Man a Christian can no where be properly used as a form of outward Profession of the Christian Faith and least of all in the solemn Publick Assemblies All the sense I can make of this is That this Abridgment of the Christian Faith i. e. imperfect Collection as the Unmasker will have it of some of the Fundamental Articles of Christianity in the Apostles Creed which omits the greatest part of them is made use of as a form of outward Profession of but part of the Christian Faith in the Publick Assemblies when by reason of reading of the Scripture and Prayers there is not time or opportunity for a full and perfect Profession of it 'T is strange the Christian Church should not find time nor opportunity in Sixteen hundred Years to make in any of her Publick Assemblies a Profession of so much of her Faith as is necessary to make a Man a Christian. But pray tell me has the Church any such full and compleat form of Faith that hath in it all those Propositions you have given us for necessary Articles not to say any thing of those which you have reserved to your self in your own Breast and will not communicate of which the Apostles Creed is only a scanty form a brief imperfect abstract used only to save time in the Croud of other pressing Occasions that are always in hast to be dispatch'd If she has the Unmasker will do well to produce it If the Church has no such compleat form besides the Apostle's Creed any where of Fundamental Articles he will do well to leave talking idlely of this Abstract as he goes on to do in the following words But says he we are not to think that it expresly contains in it all the necessary and weighty Points all the important Doctrines of our Belief it being only designed to be an Abstract Answ. Of what I beseech you is it an Abstract For here the Unmasker stops short and as one that knows not well what to say speaks not out what it is an Abstract of But provides himself a Subterfuge in the generality of the preceding terms of necessary and weighty Points and Important Doctrines jumbled together which can be there of no other use but to cover his Ignorance or Sophistry For the Question being only about necessary Points to what purpose are weighty and important Doctrines join'd to them unless he will say that there is no difference between necessary and weighty Points Fundamental and important Doctrines And if so then the distinction of Points into necessary and not necessary will be foolish and impertinent And all the Doctrines contain'd in the Bible will be absolutely necessary to be explicitly believed by every Man to make him a Christian. But taking it for granted that the diction of Truths contain'd in the Gospel into Points absolutely necessary and not absolutely necessary to be believed to make a Man a Christian is good I desire the Unmasker to tell us what the Apostles Creed is an Abstract of He will perhaps answer that he has told us already in this very Page where he says it is an Abridgment of Faith and he has said true in words but saying those words by rote after others without understanding them he has said so in a sense that is not true For he supposes it an Abridgment of Faith by containing only a few of the necessary Articles of Faith and leaving out the far greater part of them And so takes a part of a thing for an Abridgment of it Whereas an Abridgment or Abstract of any thing is the whole in little and if it be of a Science or Doctrine the Abridgment consists in the essentâ—al or necessary Parts of it contracted into a narrower compass than where it lies diffus'd in the ordinary way of delivery amongst a great number of Transitions Explanations Illustrations Proofs Reasonings Corollaries c. All which though they make a part of the Discourse wherein that Doctrine is deliver'd are lest out in the Abridgment of it wherein all the necessary parts of it are drawn together into a less room But though an Abridgment need to contain none but the essential and necessary parts yet all those it ought to contain Or else it will not be an Abridgment or Abstract of that thing but an Abridgment only of a part of it I think it could not be said to be an Abridgment of the Law contain'd in an Act of Parliament wherein any of the things required by that Act were omitted which yet commonly may be reduced into a very narrow compass when strip'd of all the Motives Ends Enacting Forms c. expressed in the Act it self If this does not satisfie the Unmasker what is properly an Abridgment I shall referr him to Mr. Chillingworth who I think will be allow'd to understand sense and to speak it properly at least as well as the Unmasker And what he says happens to be in the very same Question between Knot the Jesuit and him that is here between the Unmasker and me 'T is but putting the Unmasker in the Jesuit's place and my self if it may be allow'd
he does not see this as there is Reason to excuse his Innocence 't would be no hard matter to demonstrate it If that were at present the Question between us But there are a great many other Propositions to be proved by him before we come to that new Matter of Debate But before I quit these Paragraphs I must go on with our Unmasker's Account and desire him to shew where it is XXV That I make it my Business to beat Men off from taking notice of any Divine Truths Next where it is XXVI That I cry down all Articles of Christian Faith but one Next how it appears XXVII That I will not suffer Mankind to look into Christianity Again where it is XXVIII That I labour industriously to keep People in Ignorance Or tell them That there is no necessity of knowing any other Doctrines of the Bible These and several others of the like strain particularly concerning One Article and the Epistles which are his common places are to be found in his 59. and 60. Pages And all this out of a Presumption that his System is the only Christianity And that if Men were not pressed and perswaded to receive that just every Article of it upon pain of Damnation Christianity would be lost And not to do this is to promote Ignorance and contemn the Bible But he fears where no fear is If his Orthodoxy be the truth and conformable to the Scriptures the laying the Foundation only where our Saviour and his Apostles have laid it will not overturn it And to shew him that it is so I desire him again to consider what I said in p. 8. of my Vindication Which because I do not remember he any where takes notice of in his Reply I will here offer again to his consideration Convince but Men of the Mission of Jesus Christ make them but see the Truth Simplicity and Reasonableness of what he himself hath taught and required to be believed by his Followers and you need not doubt but being once fully perswaded of his Doctrine and the Advantages which all Christians agree are received by him such Converts will not lay by the Scriptures But by a constant reading and study of them will get all the Light they can from this Divine Revelation and nourish themselves up in the words of Faith and good Doctrine as St. Paul speaks to Timothy If the reading and study of the Scripture were more pressed than it is and Men were fairly sent to the Bible to find their Religion and not the Bible put into their hands only to find the Opinions of their peculiar Sect or Party Christendom would have more Christians and those that are would be more knowing and more in the right than now they are That which hinders this is that select bundle of Doctrines which it has pleased every Sect to draw out of the Scriptures or their own inventions with an Omission and as our Unmasker would say a Contempt of all the rest These choice Truths as the Unmasker calls his are to be the standing Orthodoxy of that Party from which none of that Church must recede without the forfeiture of their Christianity and the loss of eternal Life But whilst People keep firm to these they are in the Church and the Way to Salvation Which in effect what is it but to incourage ignorance laziness and neglect of the Scriptures For what need they be at the pains of constantly reading the Bible Or perplex their Heads with considering and weighing what is there deliver'd when believing as the Church believes or saying after or not contradicting their Domine or Teacher serves the turn Further I desire it may be consider'd what Name that meer Mock-shew of recommending to Men the study of the Scripture deserves if when they read it they must understand it just as he that would be and they are too apt contrary to the Command of Christ to call their Master tells them If they find any thing in the Word of God that leads them into Opinions that he does not allow If any thing they meet with in Holy Writ seems to them to thwart or shake the received Doctrines the very proposing of their Doubts renders them suspected Reasoning about them and not acquiescing in what ever is said to them is interpreted want of due respect and deference to the Authority of their Spiritual Guides Disrepute and Censures follow And if in pursuance of their own Light they persist in what they think the Scripture teaches them they are turn'd out of the Church deliver'd to Sathan and no longer allow'd to be Christians And is thus a sincere and rightly directed study of the Scriptures that Men may understand and profit thereby incouraged This is the Consequence of Mens assuming to themselves a Power of declaring Fundamentals i. e. of setting up a Christianity of their own making For how else can they turn Men of as unblameable Lives as others of their Members out of the Church of Christ for so they count their Communion for Opinions unless those Opinions were concluded inconsistent with Christianity Thus Systems the Inventions of Men are turn'd into so many opposite Gospels and nothing is truth in each Sect but what just suits with them So that the Scripture serves but like a Nose of Wax to be turn'd and bent just as may sit the contrary Orthodoxies of different Societies For 't is these several Systems that to each Party are the just Standards of Truth and the meaning of the Scripture is to be measur'd only by them Whoever relinquishes any of those distinguishing Points immediately ceases to be a Christian. This is the Way that the Unmasker would have Truth and Religion preserv'd Light and Knowledge propagated But here too the differing Sects giving equal Authority to their own Orthodoxies will be quits with him For as far as I can observe the same Genius seems to influence them all even those who pretend most to freedom the Socinians themselves For when it is observed how positive and eager they are in their Disputes how forward to have their Interpretations of Scripture received for Authentick though to others in several places they seem very much strain'd How impatient they are of Contradiction and with what disrespect and roughness they often treat their Opposers May it not be suspected that this so visible warmth in their present Circumstances and Zeal for their Orthodoxy would had they the Power work in them as it does in others They in their turns would I fear be ready with their Set of Fundamentals which they would be as forward to impose on others as others have been to impose contrary Fundamentals on them This is and always will be the unavoidable effect of intruding on our Saviour's Authority and requiring more now as necessary to be believed to make a Man a Christian than was at first required by our Saviour and his Apostles What else can be expected among Christians but their tearing and being torn
of yet owns the Omission of several things that the Apostle said For having expressed this Fundamental Doctrine That Iesus was the Messiah and recorded several of the Arguments wherewith St. Peter urged it for the Conversion of the unbelieving Iews his Auditors he adds v. 40. And with many other words did he testifie and exhort saying Save your selves from this untoward Generation Here he confesses that he omitted a great deal which St. Peter had said to perswade them To what To that which in other words he had just said before v. 38. Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Iesus Christ i. e. Believe Iesus to be the Messiah take him as such for your Lord and King and reform your Lives by a sincere Resolution of Obedience to his Laws Thus we have an account of the Omissions in the Records of Matters of Fact in the New Testament But will the Unmasker say that the preaching of those Articles that he has given us as necessary to be believ'd to make a Man a Christian was part of those Matters of Fact which have been omitted in the History of the New Testament Can any one think that the Corruption and Degeneracy of humane Nature with the true Original of it the Defection of our first Parents the Propagation of Sin and Mortality our Restoration and Reconciliation by Christ's blood the Eminency and Excellency of his Priesthood the Efficacy of his Death the full Satisfaction thereby made to divine Iustice and his being made an all-sufficient Sacrifice for Sin our Iustification by Christ's Righteousness Election Adoption c. were all proposed and that too in the Sense of our Authors System by our Saviour and his Apostles as Fundamental Articles of Faith necessary to be explicitely believed by every Man to make him a Christian in all their Discourses to Unbelievers And yet that the inspired Pen-men of those Histories every where left the mention of these Fundamental Articles wholly out This would have been to have writ not a concise but an imperfect History of all that Iesus and his Apostles taught What an account would it have been of the Gospel as it was first preached and propagated if the greatest part of the necessary Doctrines of it were wholly left out and a Man could not find from one end to the other of this whole History that Religion which is necessary to be believed to make a Man a Christian And yet this is that which under the Notion of their being concise the Vnmasker would perswade us to have been done by St. Luke and the other Evangelists in their Histories And 't is no less than what he plainly says in his Thoughts concerning the Causes of Atheism p. 109. Where to aggravate my Fault in passing by the Epistles and to shew the Necessity of searchin them for Fundamentals he in words blames me But in effect condemns the Sacred History contain'd in the Gospels and the Acts. It is most evident says he to any thinking Man that the Author of the Reasonableness of Christianity purposely omits the Epistolary Writings of the Apostles because they are fraught with other Fundamental Doctrines besides that one which he mentions There we are instructed concerning these grand heads of Christian Divinity Here i. e. in the Epistles says he There are Discoveries concerning Satisfaction c. and in the close of his List of his Grand Heads as he calls them some whereof I have above set down out of him he adds These are the Matters of Faith contained in the Epistles By all which Expressions he plainly signifies that these which he calls Fundamental Doctrines are none of those we are instructed in in the Gospels and the Acts that they are not discover'd nor contain'd in the historical Writings of the Evangelists Whereby he confesses that either our Saviour and his Apostles did not propose them in their Preachings to their unbelieving Hearers or else that the several faithful Writers of their History willfully i. e. unfaithfully every where omitted them in the account they have left us of those Preachings Which could scarce possibly be done by them all and every where without an actual Combination amongst them to smother the greatest and most material parts of our Saviour's and his Apostles Discourses For what else did they if all that the Unmasker has set down in his List be Fundamental Doctrines every one of them absolutely necessary to be believed to make a Man a Christian which our Saviour and his Apostles every where preached to make Men Christians but yet St. Luke and the other Evangelists by a very guilty and unpardonable Conciseness every where omitted them and throughout their whole History never once tell us they were so much as proposed much less that they were those Articles which the Apostles laboured to establish and convince Men of every where before they admitted them to Baptism Nay the far greatest part of them the History they writ does not any where so much as once mention How after such an Imputation as this the Unmasker will clear himself from laying by the four Gospels and the Acts with contempt let him look if my not collecting Fundamentals out of the Epistles had that Guilt in it For I never denied all the Fundamental Doctrines to be there but only said that there they were not easie to be found out and distinguished from Doctrines not Fundamental Whereas our good Vnmasker charges the historical Books of the New Testament with a total Omission of the far greatest part of those Fundamental Doctrines of Christianity which he says are absolutely necessary to be believed to make a Man a Christian. To convince the Reader what was absolutely required to be believed to make a Man a Christian and thereby clear the holy Writers from the Unmasker's Slander any one need but look a little further into the History of the Acts and observe St. Luke's Method in the Writing of it In the beginning as we observed before and in some few other places he sets down at large the Discourses made by the Preachers of Christianity to their unbelieving Auditors But in the Process of his History he generally contents himself to relate what it was their Discourses drive at what was the Doctrine they endeavour'd to convince their unbelieving Hearers of to make them Believers This we may observe is never omitted This is every where set down Thus Acts V. 42. he tells us that daily in the Temple and in every house the Apostles ceased not to teach and to preach IESUS THE MESSIAH The particulars of their Discourses he omits and the Arguments they used to induce Men to believe he omits But never fails to inform us carefully what it was the Apostles taught and preach'd and would have Men believe The account he gives us of St. Paul's Preaching at Thessalonica is this That three Sabbath Days he REASON'D with the Iews out of the Scriptures OPENING and ALLEDGING that the Messiah must needs
who is the Author of those Animadversions he is Reflecting on To which I tell him it matters not to a Lover of Truth or a Confuter of Errours who was the Author but what they contain He who makes such a deal of doe about that which is nothing to the Question shews he has but little Mind to the Argument that his hopes are more in the recommendation of Names and prejudice of Parties than in the Strength of his Reasons and the goodness of his Cause A Lover of Truth follows That whoever be for or against it and can suffer himself to pass by no Argument of his Adversary without taking notice of it either in allowing its force or giving it a fair Answer Were the Creed-maker capable of giving such an Evidence as this of his Love of Truth he would not have passed over the Twenty first Pages of Mr. Bold's Animadversions in silence The Falshoods that are therein charged upon him would have required an Answer of him if he could have given any And I tell him he must give an Answer or confess the Falshoods In his 255. p. he comes to take notice of these words of Mr. Bold in the 21. Page of his Animadversions viz. That a Convert to Christianity or a Christian must necessarily believe as many Articles as he shall attain to know that Christ Jesus hath taught Which says the Creed-maker wholly invalidates what he had said before in these words viz. That Iesus Christ and his Apostles did not teach any thing as necessary to be believed to make a Man a Christian but only this one Proposition That Iesus of Nazareth was the Messiah The reason he 〈◊〉 to shew That the former of these Propositions in Mr. Bold invalidates the latter and that the Animadverter contradicts himself stands thus For says he if a Christian must give assent to all the Articles taught by our Saviour in the Gospel and that necessarily then all those Propositions reckon'd up in my late Discourse being taught by Christ or his Apostles are necessary to be believed Answ. And what I beseech you becomes of the rest of the Propositions taught by Christ or his Apostles which you have not reckon'd up in your late Discourse Are not they necessary to be believed if a Christian must give an assent to ALL the Articles taught by our Saviour and his Apostles Sir If you will argue right from that antecedent it must stand thus If a Christian must give an assent to ALL the Articles taught by our Saviour and his Apostles and that necessarily Then all the Propositions in the New Testament taught by Christ or his Apostles are necessarily to be believed This Consequence I grant to be true and necessarily to follow from that antecedent and pra◠〈◊〉 your best of it But withal remeâ—â—ber that it puts an utter end to your select Number of Fundamentals and makes all the Truths delivered in the New Testament necessary to be explicitly believed by every Christian But Sir I must take notice to you that if it be uncertain whether he that Writ the Animadversions be the same Person that Preached the Sermon yet it is very visible that 't is the very same Person that reflects on both Because he here again uses the same Trick in answering in the Animadversions the same thing that had been said in the Sermon viz. By pretending to argue from words as Mr. Bold's when Mr. Bold has said no such thing The Proposition you argue from here is this If a Christian must give assent to all the Articles taught by our Saviour and that necessarily But Mr. Bold says no such thing His words as set down by your self are A Christian must necessarily believe as many Articles as he shall attain to know that Christ Jesus hath taught And is there no difference â—â—â—ween ALL that Christ Iesus hath taught and AS MANY as any one shall attain to know that Christ Iesus hath taught There is so great a difference between these two that one can scarce think even such a Creed-maker could mistake it For one of them admits all those to be Christians who taking Iesus for the Messiah their Lord and King sincerely apply themselves to understand and obey his Doctrine and Law and do believe all that they understand to be taught by him The other shuts out if not all Mankind yet Nine Hundred Ninety Nine of a Thousand of those who profess themselves Christians from being really so For he speaks within Compass who says there is not one of a Thousand if there be any one Man at all who explicitly knows and believes that all that our Saviour and his Apostles taught i. e. All that is delivered in the New Testament in the true â—ence that it is there intended For if giving assent to it in any sence will serve the turn our Creed-maker can have no Exceptions against Socinians Papists Lutherans or any other who acknowledging the Scripture to be the Word of God do yet oppose his System But the Creed-maker goes on p. 255. and endeavours to prove that what is necessary to be believed by every Christian is necessary to be believed to make a Man a Christian in these words But he will say the belief of those Propositions makes not a Man a Christian. Then I say they are not necessary and indispensible for what is absolutely necessary in Christianity is absolutely requisite to make a Man a Christian. Ignorance or something worse makes our Creed-maker always speak doubtfully or obscurely whenever he pretends to argue for here absolutely necessary in Christianity either signifies nothing but absolutely necessary to make a Man a Christian and then it is proving the same Proposition by the same Proposition Or else has a very obscure and doubtful Signification For if I ask him whether it be absolutely necessary in Christianity to obey every one of our Saviour's Commands what will he answer me If he answers NO I ask him which of our Saviour's Commands is it not in Christianity absolutely necessary to obey If he answers YES Then I tell him by his rule there are no Christians because there is no one that does in all things obey all our Saviour's Commands and therein fails to perform what is absolutely necessary in Christianity and so by his rule is no Christian. If he answers Sincere Endeavour to obey is all that is absolutely necessary I reply And so Sincere Endeavour to understand is all that is absolutely necessary Neither perfect Obedience nor perfect Understanding is absolutely necessary in Christianity But his Proposition being put in terms clear and not loose and fallacious should stand thus viz. What is absolutely necessary to every Christian is absolutely requisite to make a Man a Christian But then I deny that he can inferr from Mr. Bold's words that those Propositions i. e. which he has set down as Fundamental or necessary to be believed arâ— absolutely necessary to be believed by every Christian. For that
indispensible necessity Mr. Bold speaks of is not absolute but conditional His words are A Christian must believe as many Articles as he shall attain to know that Iesus Christ hath taught So that he places the indispensible necessity of Believing upon the condition of attaining to know that Christ taught so An endeavour to know what Iesus Christ taught Mr. B dsays truely is absolutely necessary to every one who is a Christian and to believe what he has attained to know that Iesus Christ taught that also he says is absolutely necessary to every Christian. But all this granted as true it is it still remains and eternally will remain to be proved from this which is all that Mr. Bold says that something else is absolutely required to make a Man a Christian besides the unfeigned taking Iesus to be the Messiah his King and Lord and accordingly a sincere resolution to obey and believe all that he commanded and taught The Jailor Acts XVI 30. in Answer to his Question what he should do to be saved was answer'd That he should believe in the Lord Iesus Christ. And the Text says that the Jailor took them the same hour of the night and washed their stripes and was baptized he and all his straight-way Now I will ask our Creed-maker whether St. Paul in speaking to him the Word of the Lord proposed and explained to him all those Propositions and Fundamental Heads of Doctrine which our Creed-maker has set down as necessary to be believed to make a Man a Christian. Let it be consider'd the Jailor was a Heathen and one that seems to have no more Sense of Religion or Humanity than those of that Calling use to have For he had let them alone under the Pain of their Stripes without any Remedy or so much as the ease of washing them from the Day before till after his Conversion which was not till after Midnight And can any one think that between his asking what he should do to be saved and his being baptized which the Text says was the same hour and straightway there was time enough for St. Paul and Silas to explain to him all the Creed-maker's Articles and make such a Man as that and all his house understand the Creed-maker's whole System especially since we hear nothing of it in the Conversion of these or any others who were brought into the Faith in the whole History of the Preaching of our Saviour and the Apostles Now let me ask our Creed-maker whether the Jailor was not a Christian when he was baptized and whether if he had then immediately died he had not been saved without the Belief of any one Article more than what Paul and Silas had then â—aught him Whence it follows that what was then proposed to him to be believed which appears to be nothing but that Iesus was the Messiah was all that was absolutely necessary to be believed to make him a Christian though this hinders not but that afterwards it might be necessary for him indispensibly necessary to believe other Articles when he attained to the Knowledge that Christ had taught them And the reason of it is plain Because the knowing that Christ taught any thing and the not receiving it for true which is believing it is inconsistent with the believing him to be the Messiah sent from God to inlighten and save the World Every word of Divine Revelation is absolutely and indispensibly necessary to be believed by every Christian as soon as he comes to know it to be taught by our Saviour or his Apostles or to be of Divine Revelation But yet this is far enough from making it absolutely necessary to every Christian to know every Text in the Scripture much less to understand every Text in the Scripture and least of all to understand it as the Creed-maker is pleased to put his sence upon it This the good Creed-maker either will not or cannot understand But gives us a List of Articles culled out of the Scripture by his own Authority and tells us those are absolutely necessary to be believed by every one to make him a Christian. For what is of absolute Necessity in Christianity as those he says are he tells us is absolutely requisite to make a Man a Christian. But when he is asked whether these are all the Articles of absolute Necessity to be believed to make a Man a Christian This worthy Divine that takes upon him to be a Successor of the Apostles cannot tell And yet having taken upon him also to be a Creed-maker he must suffer himself to be called upon for it again and again till he tells us what is of absolute Necessity to be believed to make a Man a Christian or confess that he cannot In the mean time I take the liberty to say That every Proposition delivered in the New Testament by our Saviour or his Apostles and so received by any Christian as of Divine Revelation is of as absolute necessity to be assented to by him in the Sence he understands it to be taught by them as any one of those Propositions enumerated by the Creed-maker And if he thinks otherwise I shall desire him to prove it The Reason whereof is this that in divine Revelation the ground of Faith being onely the Authority of the Proposer where that is the same there is no difference in the Obligation or Measure of believing Whatever the Messiah that came from God taught is equally to be believed by every one who receives him as the Messiah as soon as he understands what it was he taught There is no such thing as garbling his Doctrine and making one part of it more necessary to be believed than another when it is understood His saying is and must be of unquestionable Authority to all that receive him as their heavenly King and carries with it an equal Obligation of assent to all that he says as true But since no Body can explicitly assent to any Proposition of our Saviour's as true but in the Sence he understands our Saviour to have spoken it in the same Authority of the Messiah his King obliges every one absolutely and indispensibly to believe every part of the New Testament in that Sence he understands it For else he rejects the Authority of the Deliverer if he refuses his Assent to it in that Sence which he is perswaded it was delivered in But the taking him for the Messiah his King and Lord laying upon every one who is his Subject and Obligation to endeavour to know his Will in all things every true Christian is under an absolute and indispensible necessity by being his Subject to study the Scriptures with an unprejudiced mind according to that Measure of Time Opportunity and Helps which he has that in these sacred Writings he may find what his Lord and Master hath by himself or by the Mouths of his Apostles required of him either to be believed or done The Creed-maker in the following Page 256. hath these Words