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object of faith, our faith cannot be entire and consummate, until it be adequate to its proper object, which is the whole divine revelation contained in the Scripture: and so, to make our faith entire and consummate, we must not look out those places, which, he says, are not all together. To talk of looking out, and culling of places, is nonsense, where the whole Scripture alone can make up our belief, and render it entire and consummate:" which no one, I think, can hope for, in this frail state of ignorance and error. To make the unmasker

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speak sense and to the purpose here, we must understand him thus: "That if we will give an impartial account" of the articles that are necessary to be believed to make a man a Christian, "we must consult those places where they are; for they are not all together, but dispersed here and there; wherefore we must look them out," and acquaint ourselves with the several particulars, which make up the fundamental articles of our belief, and will render a catalogue of them entire and consummate. If his supposition be true, I grant his method to be reasonable, and upon that I join issue with him. Let him thus "give an impartial account of our belief; let him acquaint us with the several particulars which make up a Christian's belief; and render it entire and consummate.' Until he has done this, let him not talk thus in the air of a method that will not do let him not reproach me, as he does, for not taking a course, by which he himself cannot do, what he reviles me for failing in. "But our hasty author," says he, "took another course, and thereby deceived himself, and unhappily deceived others." If it be so, I desire the unmasker to take the course he proposes, and thereby undeceive me and others; and "acquaint us with the several particulars which make up a Christian's belief, and render it entire and consummate;" for I am willing to be undeceived: but until he has done that, and shown us by the success of it that his course is better, he cannot blame us for following that course we have done.

I come now to his fourth and last particular, p. 78,

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which, he says, “ is the main answer to the objection ;" and therefore I shall set it down in his own words, entire, as it stands together. This," says he, "must be borne in our minds, that Christianity was erected by degrees, according to that prediction and promise of our Saviour, that the Spirit should teach them all things,' John xiv. 26, and that he should guide them into all truth. John xvi. 13, viz. after his departure and ascension, when the Holy Ghost was to be sent in a special manner, to enlighten men's minds, and to discover to them the great mysteries of Christianity. This is to be noted by us, as that which gives great light in the present case. The discovery of the doctrines of the Gospel was gradual. It was by certain steps, that Christianity climbed to its height. We are not to think then, that all the necessary doctrines of the Christian religion were clearly published to the world in our Saviour's time. Not but that all that were necessary for that time, were published, but some which were necessary for the succeeding one, were not then discovered, or, at least, not fully. They had ordinarily no belief, before Christ's death and resurrection, of those substantial articles, i. e. that he should die and rise again : but we read in the Acts, and in the epistles, that these were formal articles of faith afterwards, and are ever since necessary to complete the Christian belief. So as to other great verities, the Gospel increased by degrees, and was not perfect at once. Which furnishes us with a reason why most of the choicest and sublimest truths of Christianity are to be met with in the epistles of the apostles, they being such doctrines as were not clearly discovered and opened in the Gospels and the Acts." Thus far the unmasker.

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I thought hitherto, that the covenant of grace in Christ Jesus had been but one, immutably the same: but our unmasker here makes two, or I know not how many. For I cannot tell how to conceive, that the conditions of any covenant should be changed, and the covenant remain the same; every change of conditions, in my apprehension, makes a new and another covenant.

We are not to think, says the unmasker, "That all the necessary doctrines of the Christian religion were clearly published to the world in our Saviour's time; not but that all that were necessary for that time were published: but some, which were necessary for the succeeding one, were not then discovered, or, at least, not fully." Answ. The unmasker, constant to himself, speaks here doubtfully, and cannot tell whether he should say, that the articles necessary to succeeding times were discovered in our Saviour's time, or no; and therefore, that he may provide himself a retreat, in the doubt he is in, he says, "They were not clearly published; they were not then discovered, or, at least, not fully." But we must desire him to pull off his mask, and to that purpose,

1. I ask him how he can tell, that all the necessary doctrines were obscuredly published, or in part discovered? For an obscure publishing, a discovery in part, is opposed to, and intimated in, "not clearly published, not fully discovered." And, if a clear and full discovery be all that he denies to them, I ask,

XXXVII." Which those fundamental articles are, which were obscurely published," but not fully discovered in our Saviour's time?

And next I shall desire him to tell me,

XXXVIII. Whether there are any articles necessary to be believed to make a man a Christian, that were not discovered at all in our Saviour's time: and which they are?

If he cannot show these distinctly, it is plain he talks at random about them; but has no clear and distinct conception of those that were published, or not published, clearly or obscurely discovered in our Saviour's time. It was necessary for him to say something for those his pretended necessary articles, which are not to be found any where proposed in the preaching of our

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Saviour and his apostles, to their yet unbelieving auditors; and therefore, he says, "We are not to think all the necessary doctrines of the Christian religion were clearly published to the world in our Saviour's time." But he barely says it, without giving any reason, why 66 we are not to think so." It is enough that it is necessary to his hypothesis. He says, we are not to think so," and we are presently bound not to think so. Else, from another man, that did not usurp an authority over our thoughts, it would have required some reason to make them think,. that something more was required to make a man a Christian after, than in our Saviour's time. For, as I take it, it is not a very probable, much less a self-evident proposition, to be received without proof, that there was something necessary for that time to make a man a Christian, and something more, that was necessary to make a Christian in the succeeding time.

However, since this great master says, "we ought to think so," let us in obedience think so as well as we can until he vouchsafes to give us some reason to think, that there was more required to be believed to make a man a Christian, in the succeeding time, than in our Saviour's. This, instead of removing, does but increase the difficulty: for if more were necessary to be believed to make a man a Christian after our Saviour's time than was during his life; how comes it, that no more was proposed by the apostles, in their preaching to unbelievers, for the making them Christians, after our Saviour's death, than there was before; even this one article," that he was the Messiah?" For I desire the unmasker to show me any of those articles mentioned in his list, (except the resurrection and ascension of our Saviour, which were intervening matters of fact, evidencing him to be the Messiah) that were proposed by the apostles, after our Saviour's time, to their unbelieving hearers, to make them Christians. This one doctrine, "that Jesus was the Messiah," was that which was proposed in our Saviour's time to be believed, as necessary to make a man a Christian: the same doctrine

was, likewise, what was proposed afterwards, in the preaching of the apostles to unbelievers, to make them Christians.

I grant, this was more clearly proposed after, than in our Saviour's time: but in both of them it was all that was proposed to the believers of one God, to make them Christians. Let him show, that there were any other proposed in or after our Saviour's time, to be believed to make unbelievers Christians. If he means, by "necessary articles published to the world," the other doctrines contained in the epistles; I grant, they are all of them necessary articles to be believed_by every Christian, as far as he understands them. But I deny, that they were proposed to those they were writ to, as necessary to make them Christians, for this demonstrative reason; because they were Christians already. For example, many doctrines proving, and explaining, and giving a farther light into the Gospel, are published in the epistles to the Corinthians and Thessalonians. These are all of divine authority, and none of them may be disbelieved by any one who is a Christian; but yet what was proposed or published to both the Corinthians and Thessalonians, to make them Christians, was only this doctrine, "That Jesus was the Messiah: as may be seen, Acts xvii. xviii. This, then, was the doctrine necessary to make men Christians, in our Saviour's time; and this the only doctrine necessary to make unbelievers Christians, after our Saviour's time. The only difference was, that it was more clearly proposed after than before his ascension: the reason whereof has been sufficiently explained. But any other doctrine but this, proposed clearly or obscurely, in or after our Saviour's time, as necessary to be believed to make unbelievers Christians, that remains yet to be shown.

When the unmasker speaks of the doctrines that were necessary for the succeeding time after our Saviour, he is in doubt, whether he should say they were or were not discovered in our Saviour's time; and how far they were then discovered: and therefore he says, "Some of them were not then discovered, or, at least,

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