150 The Reasonableness of Christianity, ing. Something in man they imagined might escape the grave; but a perfect complete life, of an eternal duration, after this, was what entered little into their thoughts and less into their persuasions. And they were so far from being clear herein, that we see no na tion of the world publicly professed it, and built upon it: no religion taught it; and it was no-where made an article of faith, and principle of religion, until Jesus Christ came; of whom it is truly said, that he, at his appearing, " brought life and immortality to light.'* And that not only in the clear revelation of it, and in instances shown of men raised from the dead; but he has given us an unquestionable assurance and pledge of it in his own resurrection and ascension into heaven. How has this one truth changed the nature of things in the world, and given the advantage to piety over all that could tempt or deter men from it! The philoso phers, indeed, showed the beauty of virtue; they set her off so, as drew men's eyes and approbation to her; but leaving her unendowed, very few were willing to espouse her. The generality could not refuse her their esteem and commendation; but still turned their backs on her, and forsook her, as a match not for their turn.
But now there being put into the scales on her side, " an exceeding and immortal weight of glory;" interest is come about to her, and virtue now is visibly the most enriching purchase, and by much the best bargain. That she is the perfection and excellency of our nature; that she is herself a reward, and will recommend our names to future ages, is not all that can now be said of her. It is not strange that the learned heathens satisfied not many with such airy commendations. It has an other relish and efficacy to persuade men, that if they live well here, they shall be happy hereafter. Open their eyes upon the endless, unspeakable joys of another life, and their hearts will find something solid and powerful to move them. The view of heaven and hell will cast a slight upon the short pleasures and pains of this pre sent state, and give attractions and encouragements to virtue which reason and interest, and the care of our selves, cannot but allow arid prefer. Upon this foundaas delivered in the Scriptures. 151 tion, and upon this only, morality stands firm, and may defy all competition. This makes it more than a name; a substantial good, worth all our aims and en deavours; and thus the gospel of Jesus Christ has deli vered it to us.
5. To these I must add one advantage more by Jesus Christ, and that is the promise of assistance. If we do what we can, he will give us his Spirit to help us to do what, and how we should. It will be idle for us, who know not how our own spirits move and act us, to ask in what manner the Spirit of God shall work upon us. The wisdom that accompanies that Spirit knows better than we, how we are made, and how to work upon us. If a wise man knows how to prevail on his child, to bring him to what he desires; can we suspect that the spirit and wisdom of God should fail in it; though we perceive or comprehend not the ways of his operation? Christ has promised it, who is faithful and just; and we cannot doubt of the performance. It is not requisite on this occasion, for the enhancing of this benefit, to enlarge on the frailty of our minds, and weakness of our constitutions; how liable to mistakes, how apt to go astray, and how easily to be turned out of the paths of virtue. If any one needs go beyond himself, and the testimony of his own conscience in this point; if he feels not his own errours and passions always tempting, and often prevailing, against the strict rules of his duty; he need but look abroad into any stage of the world, to be convinced. To a man under the difficulties of his nature, beset with temptations, and hedged in with prevailing custom; it is no small encouragement to set himself seriously on the courses of virtue, and practice of true religion; that he is from a sure hand, and an Almighty arm, promised assistance to support and carry him through.
There remains yet something to be said to those, wh# will be ready to object, " If the belief of Jesus of Na- " zareth to be the Messiah, together with those con- " comitant articles of his resurrection, rule, and com- " ing again to judge the world, be all the faith required, " as necessary to justification, to what purpose were " the epistles written; I say, if the belief of those many 152 The Reasonableness of Christianity, " doctrines contained in them be not also necessary to " salvation; and what is there delivered a Christian " may believe or disbelieve, and yet, nevertheless, be a * member of Christ's church, and one of the faithful?" To this I answer, that the epistles are written upon several occasions: and he that will read them as he ought, must observe what it is in them, which is princi pally aimed at; find what is the argument in hand, and how managed; if he will understand them right, and profit by them. The observing of this will best help us to the true meaning and mind of the writer; for that is the truth which is to be received and believed; and not scattered sentences in scripture-language, accom modated to our notions and prejudices. We must look into the drift of the discourse, observe the cohe rence and connexion of the parts, and see how it is consistent with itself and other parts of scripture; if we will conceive it right. We must not cull out, as best suits our system, here and there a period or verse; as if they were all distinct and independent aphorisms; and make these the fundamental articles of the Christian faith, and necessary to salvation; unless God has made them so. There be many truths in the bible, which a good Christian, may be wholly ignorant of, and so not believe: which, perhaps, some lay great stress on, and call fundamental articles, because they are the distin guishing points of their communion. The epistles, most of them, carry on a thread of argument, which, in the style they are writ, cannot every- where be observed without great attention, and to consider the texts as they stand, and bear a part in that, is to view them in their due light, and the way to get the true sense of them. JThey were writ to those who were in the faith, and true Christians already: and so could not be de signed to teach them the fundamental articles and points necessary to salvation. The epistle to the Romans was writ to all " that were at Rome, beloved of God, called " to be saints, whose faith was spoken of through the " world," chap. i. 7, 8. To whom St. Paul's first epistle to the Corinthians was, he shows, chap. i. 2, 4, &c. " Unto the church of God which is at Corinth, *c to them that are sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to at delivered in the Scriptures. 153 '< be saints; with all them that in every place call upon " the name of Jesus Christ our Lord, both theirs and a ours. I thank my God always on your behalf, for the " grace of God which is given you by Jesus Christ; that " in every thing ye are enriched by him, in all utterance, " and in all knowledge: even as the testimony of Christ " was confirmed in you. So that ye come behind in " no gift; waiting for the coming of our Lord Jesus " Christ." And so likewise the second was, %c To the tf church of God at Corinth, with all the saints in " Achaia," chap. i. 1. His next is to the churches of Galatia. That to the Ephesians was, " To the saints " that were at Ephesus, and to the faithful in Christ " Jesus." So likewise,, " To the saints and faithful " brethren in Christ at Colosse, who had faith in Christ " Jesus, and love to the saints. To the church of the *' Thessalonians. To Timothy his son in the faith. " To Titus his own son after the common faith. To " Philemon his dearly beloved, and fellow-labourer." And the author to the Hebrews calls those he writes to " Holy brethren, partakers of the heavenly calling," chap. iii. 1. From whence it is evident, that all those whom St. Paul writ to, were brethren, saints, faithful in the church, and so Christians already; arid therefore, wanted not the fundamental articles of the Christian re ligion; without a belief of which they could not be saved; nor can it be supposed, that the sending of such fundamentals was the reason of the apostle's writing to any of them. To such also St. Peter writes, as is plain from the first chapter of each of his epistles. Nor is it hard to observe the like in St. James's and St. John's epistles. And St. Jude directs his thus: *' To them " that are sanctified by God the Father, and preserved " in Jesus Christ, and called/1 The epistles, there^ fore, being all written to those who were already be-v lievers and Christians, the occasion and end of writing them could not be to instruct them in that which was necessary to make them Christians. This, it is plain, they knew and believed already; or else they could not have been Christians and believers. And they were writ upon particular occasions; and without those occasions, 154 The Reasonableness of Christianity, had not been writ; and so cannot be thought necessary to salvation: though they resolving doubts, and re forming mistakes, are of great advantage to our know ledge and practice. I do not deny, but the great doc trines of the Christian faith are dropt here and there, and scattered up and down in most of them. But it is not in the epistles we are to learn what are the funda mental articles of faith, where they are promiscu ously and without distinction mixed with other truths, in discourses that were (though for edification, indeed, yet) only occasional. We shall find and discern those great and necessary points best, in the preaching of our Saviour and the apostles, to those who were yet strangers, and ignorant of the faith; to bring them in, and convert them to it. And what that was, we have seen already, out of the history of the evangelists, and the acts; where they are plainly laid down, so that nobody can mistake them. The epistles to particular churches, besides the main argument of each of them, (which was some present concernment of that particular church, to which they severally were addressed,) do in many places explain the fundamentals of the Christian religion, and that wisely; by proper accommodations to the appre hensions of those they were writ to; the better to make them imbibe the Christian doctrine, and the more easily to comprehend the method, reasons, and grounds of the great work of salvation. Thus we see, in the epistle to the Romans, adoption (a custom well known amongst those of Rome) is much made use of, to explain to them the grace and favour of God, in giving them eternal life; to help them to conceive how they became the children of God, and to assure them of a share in the kingdom of heaven, as heirs to an inheritance. Whereas the setting out, and confirming the Christian faith to the Hebrews, in the epistle to them, is by illusions and arguments, from the ceremonies, sacrifices, and oeco- nomy of the jews, and references to the records of the Old Testament. And as for the general epistles, they, we may see, regard the state and exigencies, and some peculiarities of those times. These holy writers, in spired from above, writ nothing but truth; and in most as delivered in the Scriptures places, very weighty truths to us now; for the ex pounding, clearing, and confirming of the Christian doc trine, and establishing those in it who had embraced it. But yet every sentence of theirs must not be taken up, and looked on as a fundamental article, necessary to salvation; without an explicit belief whereof, no-body could be a member of Christ's church here, nor be ad mitted into his eternal kingdom hereafter. If all, or most of the truths declared in the epistles, were to be received and believed as fundamental articles, what then became of those Christians who were fallen asleep (as St. Paul witnesses in his first to the Corinthians, many were) before these things in the epistles were revealed to them? Most of the epistles not being written till above twenty years after our Saviour's ascension, and some after thirty.
But farther, therefore, to those who will be ready to say, " May those truths delivered in the epistles, which " are not contained in the preaching of our Saviour " and his apostles, and are therefore, by this account, " not necessary to salvation; be believed or disbelieved, " without any danger? May a Christian safely question « or doubt of them? " To this I answer, That the law of faith, being a co venant of free grace, God alone can appoint what shall be necessarily believed by every one whom he will justify. What is the faith which he will accept and ac count for righteousness, depends wholly on his good pleasure. For it is of grace, and not of right, that this faith is accepted. And therefore he alone can set the measures of it: and what he has so appointed and de clared is alone necessary. No-body can add to these fundamental articles of faith; nor make any other ne cessary, but what God himself hath made, and declared to be so. And what these are which God requires of those who will enter into, and receive the benefits of the new covenant, has already been shown. An explicit belief of these is absolutely required of all those to whom the gospel of Jesus Christ is preached, and salva tion through his name proposed.
156 The Reasonableness of Christianity, . The other parts of divine revelation are objects of faith, and are so to be received. They are truths, whereof no one can be rejected; none that is once known to be such, may, or ought to be disbelieved. For to acknowledge any proposition to be of divine re velation and authority; and yet to deny, or disbelieve it; is to offend against this fundamental article and ground of faith, that God is true. But yet a great many of the truths revealed in the gospel, every one does, and must confess, a man may be ignorant of; nay, disbelieve, without danger to his salvation: as is evident in those, who, allowing the authority, differ in the interpretation and meaning of several texts of scripture, not thought fundamental: in all which, it is plain, the contending parties on one side or the other, are ignorant of, nay, disbelieve the truths delivered in holy writ; unless contrarieties and contradictions can be contained in the same words; and divine revelation can mean contrary to itself.
Though all divine revelation requires the obedience of faith, yet every truth of inspired scriptures is not one of those, that by the law of faith is required to be ex plicitly believed to justification. What those are, we have seen by what our Saviour and his apostles proposed to, and required in those whom they converted tothefaith. Those are fundamentals, which it is not enough not to disbelieve: every one is required actually to assent to them. But any other proposition contained in the scrip ture, which God has not thus made a necessary part of the law of faith, (without an actual assent to which, he will not allow any one to be a believer,) a man may be ignorant of, without hazarding his salvation by a defect in his faith. He believes all that God has made neces sary for him to believe, and assent to; and as for the rest of divine truths, there is nothing more required of him, but that he receive all the parts of divine revelation, with a docility and disposition prepared to embrace and assent to all truths coming from God; and submit his mind to whatsoever shall appear to him to bear that cha racter. Where he, upon fair endeavours, understands as delivered in the Scriptures* 157 it not, how can he avoid being ignorant? And where he cannot put several texts, and make them consist to gether, what remedy? He must either interpret one by the other, or suspend his opinion. He that thinks that more is, or can be required of poor frail man in matters of faith, will do well to consider what absurdities he will run into. God, out of the infiniteness of his mercy, has dealt "with man, as a compassionate and tender Father. He gave him reason, and with it a law: that could not be otherwise than what reason should dictate! unless we should think, that a reasonable creature should have an unreasonable law. But, considering the frailty of man, apt to run into corruption and misery, he pro mised a Deliverer, whom in his good time he sent; and then declared to all mankind, that whoever would be lieve him to be the Saviour promised, and take him now raised from the dead^ and constituted the Lord and Judge of all men, to be their King and Ruler, should be saved. This is a plain intelligible proposition: and the all-merciful God seems herein to have consulted the poor of this world, and the bulk of mankind. These are articles that the labouring and illiterate man may \ H; comprehend. This is a religion suited to vulgar capa cities; and the state of mankind in this world, destined to labour and travel. The writers and wranglers in re ligion fill it with niceties, and dress it up with notions* which they make necessary and fundamental parts of it; as if there were no way into the church, but through the academy or lyceum. The greatest part of mankind have not leisure for learning and logic, and superfine distinctions of the schools. Where the hand is used to the plough and the spade, the head is seldom elevated to sublime notions, or exercised in mysterious reason ing. It is well if men of that rank (to say nothing of the other sex) can comprehend plain propositions, and a short reasoning about things familiar to their minds* \ and nearly allied to their daily experience. Go beyond this, and you amaze the greatest part of mankind; and may as well talk Arabic to a poor day-labourer, as the notions and language that the books and disputes of re ligion are filled with; and as soon you will be under- 158 The Reasonableness of Christianity.
stood. The dissenting congregation are supposed by their teachers to be more accurately instructed in mat ters of faith, and better to understand the Christian re ligion, than the vulgar conformists, who are charged with great ignorance; how truly, I will not here deter mine. But I ask them to tell me seriously, " Whether " half their people have leisure to study? Nay, Whe- " ther one in ten, of those who come to their meetings " in the country, if they had time to study them, do " or can understand the controversies at this time so " warmly managed amongst them, about ( justifica- " tion,' the subject of this present treatise? " I have talked with some of their teachers, who confess them selves not to understand the difference in debate between them. And yet the points they stand on, are reckoned of so great weight, so material, so fundamental in reli gion, that they divide communion, and separate upon them. Had God intended that none but the learned scribe, the disputer, or wise of this world, should be Christians, or be saved, thus religion should have been prepared for them, filled with speculations and niceties, obscure terms, and abstract notions. But men of that expectation, men furnished with such acquisitions, the apostle tells us, 1 Cor. i. are rather shut out from the simplicity of the gospel; to make way for those poor, ignorant, illiterate, who heard and believed promises of a Deliverer, and believed Jesus to be him; who could conceive a man dead and made alive again; and believe that he should, at the end of the world, come again and pass sentence on all men, according to their deeds. That the poor had the gospel preached to them; Christ makes a mark, as well as business of his mission, Matt, xi. 5. And if the poor had the gospel preached to them, it was, without doubt, such a gospel as the poor could understand; plain and intelligible; and so it was, as we have seen, in the preachings of Christ and his apostles.
VINDICATION OF THE REASONABLENESS OF CHRISTIANITY, &c FROM MR. EDWARDS'S REFLECTIONS.
VINDICATION OF THE REASONABLENESS OF MY Book had not been long out, before it fell under the correction of the author of a Treatise, entitled, " Some Thoughts concerning the several Causes arid " Occasions of Atheism, especially in the present " Age." No contemptible adversary, I'll assure you; since, as it seems, he has got the faculty to heighten every thing that displeases him, into the capital crime of atheism; and breathes against those, who come in his way, a pestilential air, whereby every the least dis temper is turned into the plague, and becomes mortal. For whoever does not just say after Mr. Edwards, can not, it is evident, escape being an atheist, or a promoter of atheism. I cannot but approve of any one's zeal, to guard and secure that great and fundamental article of all religion and morality, " That there is a God:" but 162 A Vindication of the atheism being a crime, which, for its madness as well as guilt, ought to shut a man out of all sober and civil society, should be very warily charged on any one, by deductions and consequences, which he himself does not own, or, at least, do not manifestly and unavoidably flow from what he asserts. This caution, charity, I think, obliges us to: and our author would possibly think him self hardly dealt with, if, for neglecting some of those rules he himself gives, p. 31 and 34, against atheism, he should be pronounced a promoter of it: as rational a charge, I imagine, as some of those he makes; and as fitly put together, as " the Treatise of the Reasonableness " of Christianity, &c." brought in among the causes of atheism. However I shall not much complain of him, since he joins me, p. 104, with no worse com pany, than two eminently pious and learned * prelates of our church, whom he makes favourers of the same conceit, as he calls it. But what has that conceit to do with atheism? Very much. That conceit is of kin to socinianism, and socinianism to atheism. Let us hear Mr. Edwards himself. He says, p. 113, I am " all over " socinianized:" and therefore, my book fit to be placed among the causes of atheism. For in the 64th, and following -pages, he endeavours to show, That " a " socinian is an atheist;" or, lest that should seem harsh, " one that favours the cause of atheism," p. 75. For so he has been pleased to mollify, now it is published as a treatise, what was much more harsh, and much more confident in it, when it was preached as a sermon. In this abatement, he seems a little to comply with his own advice, against his fourth cause of atheism; which we have in these words, p. 34, u Wherefore, that we may " effectually prevent this folly in ourselves, let us banish " presumption, confidence, and self-conceit; let us ex- "' tirpate all pride and arrogance; let us not list ourselves 44 in the number of capricious opinionators."
I shall leave the socinians themselves to answer his charge against them, and shall examine his proof of my being a socinian. It stands thus, p. 112, " When he" * Bp. Taylor, and the Author of <f The Naked Truth/' Reasonableness of Christianity, $$c. 163 (the author of the Reasonableness of Christianity, &£.) " proceeds to mention the advantages and benefits of " Christ's coming into the world, and appearing in the " flesh, he hath not one syllable of his satisfying for us; " or, by his death, purchasing life or salvation, or any " thing that sounds like it. This, and several other " things, show, that he is all over socinianized." Which in effect is, that because I have not set down all that this author perhaps would have done, therefore I am a socinian. But what if I should say, I set down as much as my argument required, and yet am no socinian? Would he, from my silence and omission, give me the lie, and say 1 am one? Surmises that may be overturned by a single denial, are poor arguments, and such as some men would be ashamed of: at least, if they are to be permitted to men of this gentleman's skill and zeal, who knows how to make a good use of conjectures, suspicions, and uncharitable censures in the cause of God; yet even there too (if the cause of God can need such arts) they require a good memory to keep them from recoiling upon the author. He might have taken notice of these words in my book, (page 9 of this vol.) " From this estate of death, JESUS CHRIST RESTORES " all mankind to life." And a little lower, " The life " which Jesus Christ restores to all men/' And p. 109, " He that hath incurred death for his own transgression, 66 cannot LAY DOWN HIS LIFE FOR ANOTHER, as our " Saviour professes he did." This, methinks, SOUNDS SOMETHING LIKE " Christ's purchasing life for us by his " death." But this reverend gentleman has an answer ready; it was not in the place he would have had it in, it was not where I mention the advantages and benefits of Christ's coming. And therefore, I not having there one syllable of Christ's purchasing life and salvation for us by his death, or any thing that sounds like it: this and several other things that might be offered, show that I am " all over socinianized." A very clear and inge nuous proof, and let him enjoy it.