else to plead, when required to prove it, but that it was meant in a limited sense, in an unmasker, is not shuffling. For, by this way, he may have the convenience to say, and unsay, what he pleases; to vent what stuff he thinks for his turn; and, when he is called to account for it, reply, He meant no such thing. Should any one publish, that the unmasker had but "one article of faith, and no more," viz. That the doctrines in fashion, and likely to procure preferment, are alone to be received; that all his belief was comprised in this "one single article:" and, when such a talker was demanded to prove his assertion, should he say, he meant to except his belief of the Apostles' Creed: would he not, notwithstanding such a plea, be thought a shuffling liar? And, if the unmasker can no otherwise prove those universal propositions above cited, but by saying, he meant them with a tacit restriction, (for none is expressed) they will still, and for ever remain to be accounted for, by his veracity.

What he says in the next paragraph, p. 7, of my "splitting one article into two," is just of the same force, and with the same ingenuity. I had said, That the belief of one God was necessary; which is not denied: I had also said, "That the belief of Jesus of Nazareth to be the Messiah, together with those concomitant articles of his resurrection, rule, and coming again to judge the world, was necessary," p. 151. And again, p. 157, "That God had declared, whoever would believe Jesus 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 made me say, "These, and those articles" (in words of the plural number) more than once; evidence enough to any but a caviller, that I "contend not for one single article, and no more." And to mind him of it, I, in my Vindication, reprinted one of those places, where I had done so; and, that he might not, according to his manner, overlook what does not please him, the words, these are articles, were printed in great characters. Whereupon he makes this remark, p. 7, "And though since

he has tried to split this one into two, p. 28, "yet he labours in vain: for to believe Jesus to be the Messiah, amounts to the same with believing him to be King and Ruler; his being anointed, (i. e. being the Messiah) including that in it: yet he has the vanity to add in great characters, these are articles; as if the putting them into these great letters would make one article two."

Ans. Though no letters will make one article two; yet that there is one God, and Jesus Christ his only Son our Lord, who rose again from the dead, ascended into heaven, and sitteth at the right hand of God, shall come to judge the quick and the dead, are in the Apostles' Creed, set down as more than one article, and therefore may, very properly, be called these articles, without splitting one into two.

What, in my Reasonableness of Christianity, I have said of one article, I shall always own; and in what sense I have said it, is easy to be understood; and with a man of the least candour, whose aim was truth, and not wrangling, it would not have occasioned one word of dispute. But as for this unmasker, who makes it his business, not to convince me of any mistakes in my opinion, but barely to misrepresent me; my business at present with him is, to show the world, that what he has captiously and scurrilously said of me, relating to one article, is false; and that he neither has nor can prove one of those assertions concerning it, above cited out of him, in his own words. Nor let him pretend a meaning against his direct words: such a caviller as he, who would shelter himself under the pretence of a meaning, whereof there are no footsteps; whose disputes are only calumnies directed against the author, without examining the truth or falsehood of what I had published; is not to expect the allowances one would make to a fair and ingenuous adversary, who showed so much concern for truth, that he treated of it with a seriousness due to the weightiness of the matter, and used other arguments besides obloquy, clamour, and falsehoods, against what he thought error. And therefore I again positively demand of him to prove

these words of his to be true, or confess that he cannot; viz.

III. "That I contend for one article of faith, with the exclusion and defiance of all the rest."

Two other instances of this sort of arguments I gave in the 175th page of my Vindication, out of the 115th and 119th pages of his Thoughts concerning the Causes of Atheism; and I here demand of him again to show, since he has not thought fit hitherto to give any answer to it,

IV. "Where I urge, that there must be nothing in Christianity that is not plain, and exactly levelled to all men's mother-wit, and every common apprehension."

Or, where he finds, in my Reasonableness of Christianity, this other proposition:

V. "That the very manner of every thing in Christianity must be clear and intelligible; every thing must immediately be comprehended by the weakest noddle; or else it is no part of religion, especially of Christianity."

These things he must prove that I have said: I put it again upon him to show where I said them, or else to confess the forgery: for till he does one or the other, he shall be sure to have these, with a large catalogue of other falsehoods, laid before him.

Page 26 of his Socinianism unmasked, he endeavours to make good his saying, that "I set up one article, with defiance to all the rest," in these words: "for what is excluding them wholly, but defying them? Wherefore, seeing he utterly excludes all the rest, by representing them as useless to the making a man a Christian, which is the design of his whole undertaking, it is manifest that he defies them."

Answ. This at least is manifest from hence, that the unmasker knows not or cares not what he says.

For whoever, but he, thought, that a bare exclusion, or passing by, was defiance? If he understands so, I would advise him not to seek preferment. For exclusions will happen; and if every exclusion be defiance, a man had need be well assured of his own good temper, who shall not think his peace and charity in danger, amongst so many enemies that are at defiance with him? Defiance, if, with any propriety, it can be spoken of an article of faith, must signify a professed enmity to it. For, in its proper use, which is to persons, it signifies an open and declared enmity, raised to that height, that he, in whom it is, challenges the party defied to battle, that he may there wreak his hatred on his enemy, in his destruction. So that, "my defiance of all the rest" remains still to be proved.

But, secondly, there is another thing manifest from these words of his, viz. that notwithstanding his great brags in his first paragraph, his main skill lies in fancying what would be for his turn, and then confidently fathering it upon me. It never entered into my thoughts, nor, I think, into any body's else, (I must always except the acute unmasker, who makes no difference between useful and necessary) that all but the fundamental articles of the Christian faith were useless to make a man a Christian; though if it be true, that the belief of the fundamentals alone (be they few or many) is all that is necessary to his being made a Christian, all that may any way persuade him to believe them, may certainly be useful towards the making him a Christian: and therefore here again I must propose to him, and leave it with him to be showed where it is,

VI. "I have represented all the rest as useless to the making a man a Christian ?" And how it appears, that "this is the design of my whole undertaking."

In his Thoughts concerning the Causes of Atheism he says, page 115, "What makes him contend for one single article, with the exclusion of all the rest? He pretends it is this, that all men ought to understand their religion." This reasoning I disowned, p. 174

of my Vindication, and intimated, that he should have quoted the page where I so pretended.

To this, p. 26, he tells me with great confidence, and in abundance of words, as we shall see by and by, that I had done so; as if repetition were a proof. He had done better to have quoted one place where I so pretend. Indeed, p. 27, for want of something better, he quotes these words of mine out of p. 157 of the Reasonableness of Christianity: "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 comprehend." I ask, whether it be possible for one to bring any thing more direct against himself? The thing he was to prove was, that "I contended for one single article, with the exclusion of all the rest," because I pretended, that all men ought to understand their religion;" i. e. the reason I gave, why there was to be "but one single article in religion, with the exclusion of all the rest," was, because men ought to understand their religion. And the place he brings, to prove my contending upon that ground, "for one single article, with the exclusion of all the rest," is a passage wherein I speak of more than one article, and say, "these articles." Whether I said, "these articles" properly or improperly, it matters not, in the present case; (and that we have examined in another place) it is plain I meant more than one article, when I said, "these articles ;" and did not think, that the labouring and illiterate man could not understand them, if they were more than one: and therefore I pretended not, that there must be but one, because by illiterate men more than one could not be understood. The rest of this paragraph is nothing but a repetition of the same assertion, without proof, which, with the unmasker, often passes for a way of proving, but with nobody else.

But, that I may keep that distance, which he boasts there is betwixt his and my way of writing, I shall not say this without proof. One instance of his repetition, of which there is such plenty in his book, pray take here. His business, p. 26, is to prove, that "I pretended that I contended for one single article, with