Evidence for the Truth of his Doctrine than his Death could possibly be But if we should say that he Died to gain us an Immortality which we lost by Adam yet this would not put a stop to his Enquiry for if this was all he Died for what should be the Meaning of those places in Scripture where he is said to be made Sin for us to free us from the Wrath to come For the frequent Repetition of his suffering for our Sins necessarily supposes that there was some severe Punishment due to them which we should otherwise have suffered But if upon his farther Enquiry why this one Article should only be required necessarily to be believed we should inform him that this is all that is required in the Gospels and Acts of the Apostles and that we are not obliged to an explicite Belief of any Doctrines delivered in other parts of the New Testament yet this would never satisfy because as he would easily perceive the Falsity of the former so it would be difficult to convince him of the other if he was perswaded that the Epistles had as great an Authority stampt upon them by being Divinely Inspired as any other parts of Scripture and that the Apostles had the same Commission from God in the writing their Epistles as in any other parts of their Ministry And Lastly If this Illiterate Man should demand Whether this Messiah is Man or God and whether we are not obliged to believe him to be God because Scripture has in divers places asserted his Divinity and because in the Form of Baptism by which we are made Christians He is represented as equal to God the Father if he should be answered That if those places meant any thing it must be some other Sence than we generally understand by them or at least that they do not require an actual Belief of that Doctrine to Salvation or that it is not material what we believe our Saviour to be so long as we acknowledge him to be the Messiah yet this would run him still into greater Perplexities and make him throw aside all in general rather than take up with such a Partial Religion For whatsoever is irreconcilable with all the parts of Revelation will never perswade any Considering Man to Embrace it that believes there is an Equal Authority from God for the whole Such a Scheme of Faith which our Author has drawn up I am afraid will give no better Satisfaction to those who are for searching the Scriptures to see whether these things are so The Holy Bible especially the New Testament is not so very large but that the Knowledge of it particularly where our Salvation is concern'd may be easily attain'd by the meanest Capacities Nor are there such Intricacies in the Matters of Faith but that a willing Mind may see sufficient Reason for assenting to them not because he can comprehend the Depths of them but because he perceives it is his Duty to Believe them since God that cannot Lie has assuredly Reveal'd them and made them necessary to be Believed in order to Salvation And why may not Almighty God that has contrived such a Salvation for us as our greatest Wisdom could never have discovered oblige us to the Belief of some things which our deepest Reasons cannot now comprehend Indeed we might with very great Reason complain if God had laid a necessity upon us of clearly Understanding whatsoever he has required of us to Believe I mean as to the Manner of it because he has not been pleased to explain the Manner But since all that he has enjoin'd us is only a firm Belief of whatsoever he has Reveal'd we ought in all Humility to submit our selves to his Wisdom and wait for a fuller Intuition into those Mysteries in the other World which we must be Ignorant of in this And there is no Question to be made but that a great many Things are hid from our present Views and which yet are required of us to be Believed on purpose to heighten our Desires after those higher Degrees of Knowledge which are particularly reserv'd for the next Life It seems indeed very plain that we are under an Obligation to make nothing more necessary to be Believed than what is clearly laid down in Scripture or necessarily to be drawn from it But this also is as certain that we ought not to deny any thing to be an Article of Faith which the Scripture has made such especially if it be clearly delivered For it is God's Word alone that must guide us in those Cases and it is as dangerous to detract from it as to add to it And thus I have Examined those Parts of the Reasonableness of Christianity which seem'd to me to be Erroneous as for those that treat of the Necessity of Revelation the Conditions of Repentance Good Works c. they seem to carry an Air of Piety along with them and to be writ with such strength of Judgment as may be suppos'd that the Author had thought more upon them than upon any other Parts of that Treatise FINIS POSTSCRIPT WHen these Papers were just coming Abroad there appear'd a Second Vindication of the Reasonableness of Christianity c. by the Author of it I was under Apprehension that some Arguments might be there propounded which ought to be consider'd But since I find they are chiefly directed against Mr. Edwards Reflections which tho' I have not Read I presume are different from these Observations by the Passages cited from them I did not think my self concern'd to examine them especially since they required more Time than the Press would allow If I have urged any Arguments that have been manag'd already by Others it is more than I knew What I have mention'd of Mr. Hobbs was with no Design to possess the Reader with Prejudices against the Author of the Reasonableness of Christianity but only to shew that the same Doctrine had been maintain'd before our Author appear'd for it Tho' I don't believe he Borrow'd it from thence since he hath declared the contrary If in that or any thing else I have fall'n upon the same Notion with the Ingenious Author of the Occasional Paper Numb I. it is more than I did or could design since these Remarks were Drawn up long before that came Abroad ERRATA PAg. 4. lin 7. read in the Gospels p. 14. l. 28. r. reject them ibid. l. 33. r. Inspiration p. 20. l. 5. del it p. 35. l. 10. del the p. 44. in Not. r. commata p. 62. l. 1. r. Crimina p. 63. l. 12. for those are r. that is p. 69. l. 24. r. Apostle
behind them some certain Measures of Belief since their Authority and the certain Evidence of their Inspiration would have very great Influence on those who were not yet Christians that they might be more easily perswaded to embrace Christianity and also might be of vast Importance for the preventing all Differences that might arise about the Meaning of the Gospels and lastly would be of perpetual use for the teaching all sorts of Christians more easily to comprehend the Method Reasons and Grounds of the great Work of our Redemption The two last of which are more fully laid down and explain'd in the Epistles than in any other parts of Holy Writ And if the Knowledge of them is necessary to Salvation then it will be as necessary to believe those places of Scripture where they are most fully stated and most clearly delivered For since there is no part of Scripture where we are told how we were Redeemed why Christ Redeemed us and from what so clearly and expresly as in the Epistles we must have Recourse to them for our right understanding of those Doctrines And therefore there both was an absolute necessity for the writing of the Epistles and also is for our firm Belief of them as necessary to Salvation And thus far I hope we have established the Divine Authority of the Epistles and the absolute necessity of believing several of the Doctrines deliver'd in them But it must yet be confessed that all that has been proved will be little to the Purpose if it can be shewn in the Fourth Place that the Doctrines deliver'd in the Epistles are contradictory to those in the Gospels But this I don 't find in the least pretended for it would be in vain to shew Contradictions in them after they are allowed to be of Divine Inspiration As for there being several things above our Reason in the Epistles the same Objection may be made against the Gospels but this cannot be sufficient to invalidate the Authority of either of them The Gospels and Epistles both teach the same Christianity And tho' some Points of Faith are more fully and clearly laid down in one than the other and some things requir'd to be believed in the Epistles which are not mention'd in the Gospels yet they do not disagree in any one Particular But both tend to one and the same End the advancing the Happiness of Mankind And this leads me to consider the Fifth Argument whereby it may appear whether or no the Epistles are necessary to be believed and that is the Matter they contain For this is the only Plea remaining why they should be rejected because the Matters which they treat of are of no Concern to us that they have no relation to the Salvation of Mankind and therefore cannot be thought necessary to be believed upon that account which is the great End of Revelation For here the great stress of the Controversy lies whether the Doctrines deliver'd in the Epistles are of such Importance as will make them necessary to be believed or to be an indispensible part of the Rule of Faith But I hope I have already made it appear that there are several Doctrines of this Nature in the Epistles from the Apostle's Design in writing them and from those Texts I have before produced from them and therefore I shall not insist any more upon this Head But our Author objects that if there are any fundamental Articles in the Epistles yet they are so promiscuously deliver'd with other Truths that they are not to be distinguished from them And this he now tells us was the reason why he did not go through the Writings in the Epistles Vindic. p. 14. to collect the fundamental Articles of Faith as he had through the Preaching of our Saviour and his Apostles because those fundamental Articles were in those Epistles promiscuously and without distinction mixt with other Truths And therefore we shall find and discern those great and necessary Points best in the Preaching of our Saviour and the Apostles to those who were yet ignorant of the Faith and unconverted But how are these Fundamental Points to be found in the Gospels and Acts better than in the Epistles Are there in them nothing but Fundamentals Or are not these Fundamentals mixt with other Truths of a quite different Nature that have no respect to Man's Salvation And if so as is very apparent what mighty Advantage have the Gospels beyond the Epistles upon this account Matters of Faith and Matters of Practice Fundamentals and Things indifferent are promiscuously mixt together in both But yet there is no great difficulty in discerning one from another in them For the meanest Capacity can easily apprehend a difference between those things which are proposed to our Belief and those to our Practice what are those which have a near respect to the Covenant of Grace and the Means of Salvation and those which are more forreign to that End And this difference is as easily perceived in the Epistles as in the Gospels because the Terms of Salvation are as plainly and clearly set down in one as the other But it is objected that several Things in the Epistles are differently interpreted and consequently cannot be absolutely necessary to be believed to Salvation because Men are not agreed in their Opinions concerning them To this it may be answered first That some Men are of different Opinions in their Interpretations of several places of the Gospels as well as of the Epistles But secondly it may be observed that the great and fundamental Truths in both have been always understood in one and the same Sence by the whole Catholick Church and those who have dissented from the universally received Interpretation have been accounted Enemies to the true Christian Faith For in these Cases Mistakes are generally wilful and it is not easy to interpret any Doctrines in Scripture differently from what the Church has already done if we take the most easy and natural Meaning of it For the Sense of Fundamentals is not so obscure but a willing Mind may easily apprehend it But Lastly We may add to all this the Consent of the Universal Church in all Ages for the necessity of believing the Epistles and several Articles delivered in them as necessary to Salvation For they have been hitherto esteemed by all Orthodox Christians as part of the Canon of Scripture or Rule of Saving Faith and received and believed accordingly And if this Argument will be of no Force to convince us of the necessity of believing them to Salvation we must at the same time part with one very good Reason for our belief of the Holy Gospels For this is alleged for an Argument by our Church in the Sixth Article for our belief of all the received parts of Scripture that there has never been any doubt of their Authority in the Church And if this universal Consent will be an Argument for the Gospels it cannot also be denied to be a very great
Reason to perswade us to build our Faith upon the Epistles too For it is very absurd to imagine that the very next Ages to the Apostles should be so far imposed upon and so down to the present Time as to receive several of the Doctrines contain'd in the Epistles for fundamental Articles of Faith if they were never design'd either by the Holy Ghost that Inspired them or by the Apostles themselves to be made such So that to assert the contrary is to affirm that either all Christians hitherto have wander'd in the Dark or that they were guilty of very great Folly and Superstition in making those parts of Scripture necessary to be believed to Salvation which were never intended to be so Some of the Epistles have indeed been rejected but so have some of the Gospels too But as this was done but by a very few so were they Men of Heretical Opinions The †Iraen Advers Heres l. 1. c. 26. Ebionites allowed of no more of the Gospels than St. Matthew and rejected all that was writ by St. Paul calling him an Apostate from the Law The * L. 1. C. 29. Marcionites owned but some part of the Epistles of St. Paul to be Canonical but they also denied the Authority of all the Gospels except that of St. Luke and then would admit no more parts of it than would agree with their own Model of Divinity Sed huic quidem says Iraeneus speaking of Marcion quoniam solus manifeste ausus est circumcidere Scripturas c. Which shews what an unpardonable Crime he thought it to be for any Man without a sufficient Warrant for it which can be nothing less than a Divine Commission to pretend to reject any parts of Holy Scripture and to cut them off from the rest which the whole Church had received for Canonical And thus whoever they were that denied the Divine Authority and the necessity of believing all the parts of Scripture such as were also the Valentinians and Manichees with some few others were always looked upon by the Church to be no better than Hereticks There were indeed some of the Primitive Christians that did not receive all the Books of the New Testament for Canonical but the reason was because they were not certain they were writ by the Apostles yet after a little time they were all admitted and universally believed as necessary parts of Faith But now by asserting the necessity of believing the Epistles as part of the Rule of Faith I don't mean that none could ever be saved but who had believed them for what then as our Author well observes would become of those Christians who were fallen asleep before any of the Epistles were written For no question but those who believed all that was taught them and lived up to that Knowledge which their most diligent Enquiries could carry them to should be admitted into Happiness as well as those who had afterwards attained to larger degrees of Faith and Knowledge Since no one can be obliged to believe that which he could not possibly have any knowledge of For should we suppose the Gospel to be spread in some Heathen Parts of the World that had never heard of Christ no Man certainly would be so uncharitable as to deny them Salvation if they believed whatsoever they found there and liv'd up exactly to the Precepts there delivered though they had never heard of the Acts of the Apostles or any of the Epistles or no more than one of the Gospels Or if the Case should be thus that they had no other parts of the New-Testament than barely some of the Epistles if they lived up to them in Matters of Faith and Practice there can no doubt be made but they would be saved So that in Cases of this nature the Argument holds as much for the Epistles as the Gospels and nothing from hence can be drawn to the Prejudice of either But where we have the Priviledge of both and are assured that both are of equal Authority as being equally of Divine Inspiration we are under a necessity of drawing the Articles of our Faith from them both as being a most exact Body of Christian Religion in all the Branches of it But then some may urge That if this should be the Case of those who could attain to the Knowledge of but one part of the Christian Doctrine contain'd in the New Testament that they should as well be saved as those who have all the parts of it and upon that account are required to believe more then certainly the Condition of the other would be much more desirable To this it may be answered That this Objection is of little Force since those are certainly in the safest Condition who have the most Light to guide them For though a wary Traveller may possibly find his way through a very narrow obscure Passage yet those who take the broadest Road are most certain of finding the surest way to their Journeys end But besides the more Evidence we have for our Faith and the greater the Confirmation of it may be by the abundant Repetition of Inspiration and Miracles for the Establishment of it and lastly the more full clear and express the Articles of our Faith are and the oftner God has been pleased to give us an Explanation of them so much the more likely are we to avoid Mistakes to give our unfeigned Assent to them and to suffer them to make more lasting Impressions upon our Minds And thus I hope I have sufficiently Vindicated the Divine Authority of the Epistles and the necessity of making them part of the Rule of Faith that 's required to Salvation And we ought to be the more concerned for the Defense of them because several Doctrines which have been always maintained by the universal Church such as the Doctrine of the Satisfaction and the true Reason of Christ's coming into the World will not so easily be maintained without a Belief of them But if these sacred Writings are esteemed as they are and were really designed to be the infallible Guides to us in our understanding the Mystery of the great Work of our Redemption and for the more clearly stating and explaining of all that is required for our Belief and Practice we are under an absolute necessity to preserve them inviolably and to vindicate the Belief of them as much as of any other parts of Divine Revelation Of the Reason of CHRIST's Coming into the World AND now I come in the next place to examine the Reason our Author assigns for Christ's coming into the World And this we must allow can be understood no way so well as by considering what the Scripture shews we lost by Adam p. 1. For it is on this that the whole Decision of the Case depends Since which way soever it is that the whole Bent of Scripture inclines there we ought to fix our Faith And here also there is no reason why we should dissent from the
fully satisfied was an Error Whether I have said enough to convince him he has been in a mistake I cannot promise For I may fancy that a demonstration to me which may be no proof to others I have endeavoured to represent his sense with the utmost justice and sincerity and if I have any where mistaken it I can only say it was both against my Intention and Knowledge And now I have only thus much to assure my Adversary of that I have not made any Observations upon his Book out of bigottry to a Party or prejudice to any set of opinions For I have no other Interest to serve than that of Truth nor have I any Byass to incline me besides my own Impartial Enquiries And if they have misguided me I shall be very ready to submit to better Information THE CONTENTS I. A Vindication of the Epistles Page 1. II. Of the Reason of Christ's coming into the World pag. 53 III. What we are to believe concerning Christ pag. 64. A VINDICATION Of The Epistles c. WHatsoever Design the Author of The Reasonableness of Christianity might propose in Publishing that Treatise whether it was for the Benefit of those who were not throughly and firmly Christians or to be a General Rule of Faith to all sorts of Men it does not seem to give such satisfaction to an Inquisitive Mind as might prevent all Exceptions against it in relation to either of those Ends. Not only because it introduces a new Scheme of Belief in opposition to the anciently received Doctrine of the Church but because it does not answer the full Sense and Intent of Revelation which is the only Reason and Measure of our Faith I shall not make it my Business to compare it with the Socinian or any other Hypothesis or enquire to what Sect or Party the Author seems most inclined but shall only so far consider his Opinions as they seem to me to be inconsistent with Truth For I cannot think my self obliged to fix any Man to a Party which He will not own himself to be of though some of his Opinions should chance to have a Tendency towards it For that is so unfair as well as an undecent Method of managing a Dispute that instead of stifling the old it may serve only to provoke fresh Opposition and inflame where perhaps milder Reasons might convince And besides since every one that publishes his Thoughts with no other Design than for the Benefit of others or to the End he may be better informed if he be in the wrong has a right to be treated with equal Charity or Humanity at least by others it can certainly be no Prejudice even to the right side to allow him a Civility which he has so just a claim to And therefore I shall think my self concerned to examine the Reasonableness of Christianity with such an impartial Temper as it may justly challenge And to be the more distinct and methodical in my Examination I shall consider the chief Parts of it which are these First To shew the Reason of Christ's coming into the World Which the Author tells us was to restore Mankind to that State p. 3 4 5. c. which was forfeited by the Sin of our First Parents But as he makes Adam's Punishment to consist only in a Temporal Death or a total ceasing to be p. 10. so does he confine the End and Design of our Saviour's coming into the World to the freeing us from such a Death only and restoring us to that Immortality which our First Parents lost Which overthrows the Notion of our Saviour's redeeming us from an Eternity of Torments and makes the effect of Original Guilt no more than becoming subject to Death and so destroys in a great measure the Doctrine of Christ's Satisfaction But how agreeable this will prove to the Tenour of Scripture I shall enquire more hereafter The Second Principal Part of it is to shew what Faith is required to make a Man a Christian And that he asserts to be only the Belief of this one Proposition That Jesus is the Messah p. 30 31 32. c. or which he thinks signifies the same the Son of God He does not deny other Doctrines to be true but maintains that this alone is absolutely necessary to be believed Indeed we all acknowledge this as the Fundamental Article of our Faith as Christians that Jesus is the Messias the Prophet that was to come into the world But here the difference lies between us Whether there is not something more required as necessary to be Believed As that this Messiah was God as well as Man and that through the Merits of his Satisfaction he redeemed us from Eternal Misery c. For the Decision of which we can only appeal to Scripture The Third and Last Part of it which I shall have occasion to take Notice of is this That whatsoever is necessary to be believed to Salvation is contain'd in the Holy Gospels and Acts of the Apostles p. 291 292 c. And that the Epistles which were only occasional Writings and Directions to particular Churches were not design'd to deliver such Fundamental Articles as must necessarily be Believed explicitely by all Christians And therefore an actual Belief of any of the Doctrines therein mentioned is not absolutely required to make a Man a Member of the Christian Church For he thinks a Man may be a Christian and a Believer Vindis p. 31. without actually believing them because those whom our Saviour and his Apostles by their Preaching and Discourses converted to the Faith were made Christians and Believers barely upon the receiving what they Preached unto them long before any of the Epistles were written Upon this Supposition the other two Parts of his Treatise are built and therefore it shall be my Business in the first place to prove that there are Doctrines in the Epistles distinct from those delivered in Gospels or Acts which are as absolutely necessary to be Believed and to be made Fundamental Articles of Faith as any other Parts of Revelation It may indeed seem an unnecessary Labour to Vindicate those Sacred Writings which have almost all of them been received from the very first Ages of Christianity with as equal degrees of Assent as all other Parts of Scripture and some of the Doctrines there set down confest to be altogether as necessary to be actually Believed unto Salvation as any whatsoever For what should the reason of all this be if the Epistles were not real and essential Parts of the Rule of Saving Faith Was the Church then Imposed upon or did it of it self enjoin the Belief of any Doctrine as necessary to Salvation when it had no express Commission from God for it For one of these we must grant if the Epistles were not designed to deliver Fundamentals to be actually Believed by all Christians Now if several of the Doctrines contain'd in those Parts of Revelation have all along down from
the Apostles time been reputed necessary to be Believed to Salvation then certainly they ought not to be denied to be absolutely subservient to that End without the Proof of one or all of these things First That the Authors were not Divinely Inspired But this is already granted us by our Author that they were Holy Writers inspired from above p. 297. who writ nothing but Truth But what sort of Truth he here means shall hereafter be enquired into Or Secondly That the Apostles had no Authority or Commission to deliver any thing for a necessary Article of Faith But there can be no pretence for such an Assertion since it is granted by our Author that their Doctrine as delivered in the Acts does require our actual Belief Since then what they taught in their Preaching was of so great Authority why should not their Writings be of the same Consequence especially since they are allowed by our Author to be of Divine Inspiration If then the want of sufficient Commission does not seem to be an Argument against the Doctrines contain'd in the Epistles it must be made appear in the Third Place before they should be rejected that none of the Doctrines were writ with any design that all Christians should be necessarily required to believe them to Salvation But how can this be proved Are there any such hints in the Epistles themselves or have we any foot-steps of a Tradition that informs us that the Apostles left them to be received with such an Indifference For if neither of these can be shewn or if the contrary is evident Namely that the Apostles did not submit their Doctrines to Mens choice whether they would Believe them or not without hazarding their Salvation and if it appear from the design of the Epistles and from many places of them which I shall hereafter mention that they did enjoin the explicite Belief of several of their Doctrines without which Men could not be saved then we have still the more reason to be confirmed in acknowledging them for Fundamentals of our Faith Fourthly Then there must be some Contradiction in the Epistles to the other parts of Scripture that can prevent their Doctrines from being as necessary to be Believed as any other the most important parts of Revelation But as this can never be made appear so it is not possible to suppose that the Epistles should contain Contradictions if we allow what our Author has granted p. 297. that they were Divinely inspired Then Fifthly and Lastly The only Plea remaining why the Doctrines delivered in the Epistles are not to be received with the same degrees of Assent with those in the Gospels and Acts or that particular Article so much insisted upon in the Reasonableness of Christianity must be because they are none of them of equal necessity to be known to make a Man a Christian But how does this appear Are there no great and fundamental Truths inserted in the Epistles as well as in the Gospels Vindic. p. 16. But it is urged That they are promiscuously set down and have no such Mark of Distinction as his Article is found to have in the Gospels and Acts. But this Objection seems too precarious For I question not but I shall make it appear that there are Doctrines in the Epistles that are as much distinguished by the great importance which they are declared to be of and by the necessity that is laid upon all Christians of actually Believing them by the Inspired Writers as any other universally acknowledg'd Article of our Faith Indeed they are mixt with other things which are not of such immediate concern to us but so are the Doctrines contain'd in the Gospels And therefore if this is a Prejudice to one it must be so equally to the other Indeed this seems objected That though the Apostles were Divinely Inspired in their Epistolary Writings and although they had a Divine Commission to teach what was necessary to Salvation yet their Commission did not extend to the making any other Article necessary to Salvation than what our Saviour had already declared to be sufficient for it And this is manifest from the whole Tenour of the Epistles where there are no Doctrines proposed to be Believed upon the absolute Promise of Salvation and nothing declar'd to be so much a Fundamental distinct from what is deliver'd in the Gospels or Acts as that we cannot be saved without an explicite Belief of it Since therefore the Apostles have not laid such stress upon any Doctrines in their Epistles we ought not to do it And therefore of what use soever the Epistles may be to us otherwise for the resolving Doubts and reforming Mistakes which are of great Advantage to our Knowledge and Practice p. 295.297 as also for the expounding clearing and confirming the Christian Doctrine and establishing those in it who had embraced it yet there can be no distinct Truths contain'd in them of so great Consequence in order to Salvation as there are in the Gospels and Acts were all that is necessary to be Believed to make a Man a Christian is declared to be sufficient to that End and Eternal Life proposed upon such a Faith and Eternal Damnation denounced upon a Disbelief which are not annex'd to any of the Doctrines in the Epistles And therefore we must be very unwary Christians to lay a greater force upon any Doctrines than the Apostles have done or make any Terms of Salvation or Church-Communion absolutely necessary which were never by the Apostles so declared For an Answer to this it will be material to Examine first whether nothing is absolutely necessary to be Believed to Salvation but what is declared to be so or whether any Doctrine upon which Salvation is proposed is singly of it self sufficient for it And this seems to be a Query of no small importance For if this is made the only Rule whereby to judge of Fundamentals viz. A Doctrine's being expresly declared to be necessary to be actually Believed to Salvation we should I fear by this means raise several Exceptions against a great part of Religion For if this must universally hold in matters of Faith it must also in those of Practice most of which would unavoidably lose their Force and Obligation if the Observance of no other Duties was required of us but such alone as the Scripture had declared to be absolutely necessary to Salvation In like manner if in matters of Faith nothing is to be required for a Fundamental but what is so proposed and to which Salvation is expresly annexed and promised it would very probably make way for a very unintelligible Faith in which Christians could not possibly agree For if nothing more is to be Believed as necessary to Salvation than what is so proposed then it will follow that no more than the bare Proposition which is declared to be of that great Importance is to be assented to As suppose in that Proposition which I shall
And therefore those who deny that Christ died for us in that Sense do in effect deny that he properly died for us at all because they do not assign the true Reasons for it which are declar'd in Scripture But that those Arguments from Scripture of Christ's dying for us and in our stead follow from the easy and natural meaning of those Texts I shall evince from other Expressions in Scripture of the like Nature and from common Customs and Ways of speaking in the World Whereby it will appear that no other Interpretation can possibly be put upon them Thus in the Lamentations Our Fathers have sinned and are not and we have born their Iniquities i. e. Have suffered Punishment for their Sins So Christ's bearing the Sins of many can only be understood of suffering for them So in Ezekiel The Soul that sinneth it shall die Ch. 18. v. 20. the Son shall not bear the iniquity of the Father that is shall not suffer for his Sin And also by one Man's suffering for another is meant a transferring the Punishment upon himself as in the Words of St. Peter to our Blessed Saviour I will lay down my Life for thee i. e. Joh. 13.38 To save or redeem thine And the Expression of Caiphas does also import the same It is expedient for us that one Man should die for the people and that the whole Nation perish not i.e. It is necessary that One should die to free the rest from Destruction And therefore he advised that Christ should be sacrificed to prevent the Ruine of their Nation by the Romans And to the same sense are the words of John If any of the men escape 2 Kiâ—â— 10 2â— he that letteth him go his Life shall be for the Life of him i. e. He shall suffer the Punishment design'd for the other We may add to this the Expressions that occur in Profane Authors that signifie the suffering of one for another For by their expiare orimina or scelus piaculum fieri populum lustrare and the like they generally meant a freeing others from an impending Evil by suffering the Punishment in their stead And this is very plain by a great many Instances in History particularly in that noted one of the Decij who sacrificed themselves for the good of their Country or offered themselves for an Expiation of the rest And this Custom of sacrificing one for all was very common with the Heathens almost in all Ages And they have used such Expressions for it as are used in Scripture to denote the great Piacular Sacrifice for the Sins of the whole World As in the * Euripid. Erecht Tom. 2. p. 468. Ed. Cantab. Tragedian 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That it was not lawful for him to suffer the Destruction of so many things when he might redeem them with the Sacrifice of one Life that of his Daughter And a little after he adds 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That his Daughter would receive abundant Honour by offering her self for a Sacrisice or Expiation to save both the City her Mother Sisters and nearest Relations There might be brought innumerable Instances of this Nature out of the most Ancient Greek and Latin Historians to shew that by a Man's being a Sacrifice they meant a suffering for and in the stead of others to transfer the Faults of others upon himself Which are sufficient to vindicate our interpreting those places of Scripture that mention the Sacrifice of Christ to the sence of a Satisfaction for the Sins of the World since they cannot possibly bear any other Meaning So that the natural Result of all will be this That as the Scripture has in very many places assured us that Christ died for our Sins and in our stead by bearing our Sins in his own Body thereby to deliver us from the Wrath to come and that those are the true Interpretation and Sence of those places which the Words do most naturally import so is it most evident that the End of Christ's Coming into the World was for some other Design than to give us a Title to Immortality And that was to put us in a Condition of saving our selves from Everlasting Misery which we should otherwise most unavoidably have suffered And therefore if either Gospels or Epistles may be allowed to be true that cannot be the only End of Christ's Coming into the World which is assign'd by the Author of the Reasonableness of Christianity For certainly that is the most true and most necessary to be believed which is most agreeable to Divine Revelation What we are to Believe concerning CHRIST I Come now to examine that part of the Reasonableness of Christianity which I proposed in the last place to consider And this relates to our Faith in Christ which the Author makes to consist in the Belief of this one Article That he is the Son of God the Saviour of the World or the Messiah And for the Proof of this he cites very many places of Scripture As Joh. 3.36 He that believeth on the Son hath Eternal Life and he that believeth not the Son shall not see Life And in the next Chapter from the Belief of the Samaritans p. 25 26 c. who said to the Woman We believe not any longer because of thy saying for we have heard our selves and do know that this is indeed the Christ the Saviour of the World And from the words of St. Peter Lord to whom shall we go Thou hast the words of Eternal Life and we believe and are sure that thou art the Messiah the Son of the Living God And from hence he gathers that this was the Faith which distinguisht them from Apostates and Unbelievers and was sufficient to continue them in the Rank of the Apostles And that it was upon the same Profession that Jesus was the Messiah the Son of the living God owned by St. Peter that our Saviour said he would build his Church Matth. 16.18 The Belief of this one Article as the only necessary one to Salvation in the New Covenant is the same with what is maintain'd by Mr. Hobbs and proved after the very same manner as may be seen by any one that will take the Pains to read the Eighteenth Chap. of his Book De Cive which treats of Religion Sect. 5. c. His words are Credere in Christum quid est Vel fidei in Christum quaenam propositio est objectum To which he answers Credere in Christum est nihil aliud quam credere Jesum esse Christum nimirum illum qui secundum Mosis Prophetarum Israelitorum vaticinia venturus erat in hunc mundum ad Instituendum Regnum Dei And then after he has brought very many Proofs out of the Gospels and Acts the very same which our Author has done he tells us that Alia fides ad vitam aeternam praeter
Reasoning as indeed it seems to be it must be sufficient to inforce the necessity of believing Christ to be GOD to make a Man a Christian But again as we cannot deny that we are obliged to believe Christ to be the Son of God because it is required in several places of Scripture and St. John tells us that his Gospel was written for this End that we should believe Jesus to be the Christ and the Son of God so we must also confess him to be GOD because as I have already proved his Divinity is understood by that Expression the ancient Jews both applying it to their expected Messiah and also meaning a Divine Person by it All which seem as fully to require us to believe him to be GOD if we would be Christians as we are in other Passages enjoin'd to acknowledge him to be Christ And Lastly it is most evident that the explicite Belief of Christ's being God is requir'd to make a Man a Christian from the Form of Baptism at our Admission into Christianity in the Name of Father Son and Holy Ghost Where an equal Belief in all is required as being equally partakers of the same Divine Nature and we may as well say that the Father's Divinity as the Son 's is not here implied But this I have spoken to already And here we may add for a great Confirmation of this Truth of Christ's being God that the Vniversal Church as may be gather'd from the most Primitive Writings and the first General Councils hath always asserted His Divinity as being most undoubtedly expressed in Scripture How comes it therefore to pass that if the Belief of Christ's Divinity was not thought clearly Revealed and necessary to Salvation all those that opposed it from the first Ages of the Church to this present time have been Condemn'd and Censur'd for Hereticks * Vid. Bishop Stillingfleet's Rational Ac. of the Prot. Relig. Not as though the sence of the Catholick Church is pretended to be any infallible Rule of interpreting Scripture in all things which concern the Rule of Faith But that it is a sufficient Prescription against any thing that can be alledged out of Scripture that if it appear contrary to the sence of the Catholick Church from the beginning it ought not to be looked upon as the true meaning of Scripture So that if the denying Christ to be GOD is contrary to the received Interpretation of Scripture in the Catholick Church and also inconsistent with the plain meaning of the Words we must conclude that either his Divinity must necessarily be believed even to make a Man a Christian or that the Revelation is not to be regarded But Secondly We must also believe the Incarnation of Christ For every Spirit that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is not of God 1 Ep. Joh. 4.3 and therefore we must acknowledge that he was Man as well as God and that he was made like unto his Brethren that he might be a merciful and a faithful High-Priest in things pertaining to God to make reconciliation for the sins of the people Heb. 2.17 And that this is part of the Mystery of Godliness which is necessary to be believed by all Christians that God was manifest in the flesh 1 Tim. 3.16 And that though he was in the form of God and thought it not Robbery to be equal with God yet made he himself of no Reputation and took upon him the form of a Servant and was made in the likeness of Men and being found in fashion as a Man he humbled himself and became obedient unto Death even the death of the Cross Phil. 2.6 7 8. All which plainly denote to us both his Divine and Humane Nature which we must believe to be united in one Person Agreeable to which are those Words of St. Paul Feed the Church of God which he hath purchased with his own Blood which could only be done by taking the Manhood into God I need not multiply Texts to prove that our Saviour was Man this I suppose none of the Vnitarians will dispute But the difficulty lies in this that he was both God and Man But this also is very frequently and fully asserted in Scripture But Thirdly We must also believe That he died for us and in our stead to free us from the Wrath to come That his Death was a propitiatory Sacrifice for us and That his was the blood of the New Testament as himself testifies of it which was shed for many for the remission of sins Mat. 26.28 And that this is part of the Christian Faith according to St. Paul that he died for our Sins as the Scriptures foretold of him And for this End he saith He was ordained a Preacher to testify that Christ gave himself a ransom for all 1 Tim. 2.6 7. But this I have insisted upon so largely already and shewn that this was the true Reason of his Death from so many Instances in Scripture that I need say no more upon it It is sufficient to shew that this is necessary to be believed since our Salvation depends on the Knowledge of the New Covenant and the Conditions of it and how far we are concern'd both in Faith and Practice In short as the Scripture hath assured us that Christ was the Mediator of the better Covenant and that we must believe in him so must our Belief of him be measured by what is revealed concerning him For Christ himself hath told us That is Life Eternal to know the only true God and Jesus Christ whom he hath sent i.e. The Knowledge of Christ is as much a Condition of Salvation as that of God the Father And the most certain Knowledge of both is to be drawn from Revelation And therefore as we are obliged to believe concerning the Nature of God whatsoever the Scripture has revealed so also we must believe of Christ as the Scripture has made him known to us So that the adequate Measure of our Faith in both must be taken from Scripture For if upon a Supposition of no Revelation we must believe all that of God which Right Reason could dictate to us then certainly since we have a Revelation from God and that Revelation has also obliged us to believe in Christ in order to Salvation we must believe upon the hazard of our Salvation every thing concerning him which is asserted by that Revelation And as in the general Confession of Faith when we say We believe in God the Father c. we are to understand all the other Attributes of God which are made known to us either by Reason or Revelation as that he is Just Good Merciful that he governs all things by his Providence or whatever else can be conceived in a Being infinitely Perfect so when we say We believe in Jesus Christ his only Son our Lord we must also mean by it whatsoever else we can find in Scripture in reference to our clearer understanding that Article as that