do so. I took not my sense of those texts from those writers, but from the scripture itself, giving light to its own meaning, by one place compared with another : what in this way appears to me its true meaning, I shall not decline, because I am told that it is so understood by the racovians, whom I never yet read; nor embrace the contrary, though the " generality of divines" I more converse with should declare for it. If the sense, wherein I understand those texts, be a mistake, I shall be beholden to you, if you will set me right. But they are not popular authorities, or frightful names, whereby I judge of truth or falsehood. You will now, no doubt, applaud your conjectures; the point is gained, and Í am openly a socinian, since I will not disown, that I think the Son of God was a phrase, that among the jews, in our Saviour's time, was used for the Messiah, .though the socinians understand it in the same sense; and therefore I must certainly be of their persuasion in every thing else. I admire the acuteness, force, and fairness of your reasoning, and so I leave you to triumph in your conjectures. Only I must desire you to take notice, that that ornament of our church, and every way eminent prelate, the late archbishop of Canterbury, understood that phrase in the same sense that I do, without being a socinian. You may read what he says concerning Nathanael, in his first "Sermon of Sincerity," published this year: his words are these, p. 4, " And being satisfied that he [our Saviour] was the Messiah, "he presently owned him for such, calling him the "SON of GOD, and the King of Israel."

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Though this gentleman knows my thoughts as perfectly as if he had for several years past lain in my bosom, yet he is mightily at a loss about my person: as if it at all concerned the truth contained in my book, what hand it came from. However, the gentleman is mightily perplexed about the author. Why, sir, what if it were writ by a scribbler of Bartholomew-fair drolls, with all that flourish of declamatory rhetoric, and all that smartness of wit and jest about captain Tom, unitarians, units, and cyphers, &c. which are to be found between pages 115 and 123 of a book that came out

during the merry time of rope dancing, and puppet plays? What is truth, would, I hope, nevertheless be truth in it, however oddly spruced up by such an author: though perhaps, it is likely some would be apt to say, such merriment became not the gravity of my subject, and that I writ not in the style of a graduate in divinity. I confess (as Mr. Edwards rightly says) my fault lies on the other side, in a want of " vivacity and elevation:" and I cannot wonder, that one of his character and palate, should find out and complain of my flatness, which has so over-charged my book with plain and direct texts of scripture, in a matter capable of no other proofs. But yet I must acknowledge his excess of civility to me; he shows me more kindness than I could expect or wish, since he prefers what I say to him myself to what is offered to him from the word of God; and makes me this compliment, that I begin to mend, about the close, i. e. when I leave off quoting of scripture and the dull work was done, of "going through "the history of the Evangelists and Acts," which he computes, p. 105, to take up three quarters of my book. Does not all this deserve, at least, that I should, in return, take some care of his credit? Which I know not how better to do, than by entreating 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 and misbecoming wit in those who come as ambassadors from God, under the title of successors of the apostles, in the great commission of the gospel; are none of the least causes of atheism.

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Some men have so peculiar a way of arguing, that one may see it influences them in the repeating another man's reasoning, and seldom fails to make it their own. In the next paragraph I find these words: "what makes

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"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, I confess, is a reasoning I did not think of; nor could it hardly, I fear, have been used but by one who had first took up his opinion from the recommendation of fashion or interest, and then sought topics to make it good. Perhaps the deference due to your character, excused you from the trouble of quoting the page, where Į pretend, as you say; and it is so little like my way of reasoning, that I shall not look for it in a book where I remember nothing of it, and where, without your di rection, I fear the reader will scarce find it. Though I have not "that vivacity of thought, that elevation of "mind," which Mr. Edwards demands, yet common sense would have kept me from contending that there is but one article, because all men ought to understand their religion. Numbers of propositions may be harder to be remembered, but it is the abstruseness of the notions, or obscurity, inconsistency, or doubtfulness of the terms or expressions that makes them hard to be understood; and one single proposition may more perplex the understanding than twenty others. But where did you find "I contended for one single article, so as to exclude "all the rest?" You might have remembered that I say, p. 1, 17, That the article of the one only true God, was also necessary to be believed. This might have satisfied you, that I did not so contend for one article of faith, as to be at defiance with more than one. However, you insist on the word one with great vigour, from p. 108 to 121. And you did well, you had else lost all the force of that killing stroke reserved for the close, in that sharp jest of unitarians, and a clench or two more of great moment.

Having found, by a careful perusal of the preachings of our Saviour and his apostles, that the religion they proposed, consisted in that short, plain, easy and intelligible summary which I set down, p. 157, in these words: " Believing Jesus to be the Saviour promised, and taking him, now raised from the dead, and constituted "the Lord and Judge of men, to be their King and

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"Ruler;" I could not forbear magnifying the wisdom and goodness of God (which infinitely exceeds the thoughts of ignorant, vain, and narrow-minded man) in these following words: "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.” Having thus plainly mentioned more than one article, I might have taken it amiss, that Mr. Edwards should be at so much pains as he is, to blame me for "con

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tending for one" article; because I thought more than one could not be understood; had he not had many fine things to say in his declamation upon one article, which affords him so much matter, that less than seven pages could not hold it. Only here and there, as men of oratory often do, he mistakes the business, as p. 115, where he says, "I urge, that there must be nothing in christianity that is not plain, and exactly levelled to "all men's mother-wit." I desire to know where I said so, or that "the very manner of every thing in "christianity must be clear and intelligible, every thing "must be presently comprehended by the weakest nod"dle, or else it is no part of religion, especially of christianity;" as he has it, p. 119. I am sure it is not

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in p. 133-136, 149-151, of my book: these, therefore, to convince him that I am of another opinion, I shall desire somebody to read to Mr. Edwards, for he himself reads my book with such spectacles, as make him find meanings and words in it, neither of which I put there. He should have remembered, that I speak not of all the doctrines of christianity, nor all that is published to the world in it; but of those truths only, which are absolutely required to be believed to make any one a christian. And these, I find, are so plain and easy, that I see no reason why every body, with me, should not magnify the goodness and condescension of the Almighty, who having, out of his free grace, proposed a new law of faith to sinful and lost man; hath, by that law, required no harder terms, nothing as absolutely necessary to be believed, but what is suited to vulgar capacities, and the comprehension of illiterate men.

You are a little out again, p. 118, where you ironically say, as if it were my sense, "Let us have but one

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article, though it be with defiance to all the rest.” Jesting apart, sir, this is a serious turn, that what our Saviour and his apostles preached, and admitted men into the church for believing, is all that is absolutely required to make a man a christian. But this is, without any "defiance to all the rest," taught in the word of God. This excludes not the belief of any of those many other truths contained in the scriptures of the Old and New Testaments, which it is the duty of every christian to study, and thereby build himself up in our most holy faith; receiving with stedfast belief, and ready obedience, all those things which the spirit of truth hath therein revealed. But that all the rest of the inspired writings, or, if you please," articles, are of equal "necessity" to be believed to make a man a christian, with what was preached by our Saviour and his apostles, that I deny. A man, as I have shown, may be a christian and believer, 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 to them.

I hope it is no derogation to the christian religion, to say, that the fundamentals of it, i. e. all that is necessary to be believed in it, by all men, is easy to be understood by all men. This I thought myself authorized to say, by the very easy and very intelligible arti cles, insisted on by our Saviour and his apostles; which contain nothing but what could be understood by the bulk of mankind: a term which, I know not why, Mr. Edwards, p. 117, is offended at ; and thereupon is, after his fashion, sharp upon me about captain Tom and his myrmidons, for whom, he tells me, I am "going to "make a religion." The making of religions and creeds I leave to others. I only set down the christian religion as I find our Saviour and his apostles preached it, and preached it to, and left it for, the "ignorant and un"learned multitude." For I hope you do not think, how contemptibly soever you speak of the "venerable