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places, very weighty truths to us now; for the expounding, clearing, and confirming of the chriftian doctrine, and establishing thofe in it who had embraced it. yet every fentence of theirs muft not be taken up, and looked on as a fundamental article, neceffary to falvation; without an explicit belief whereof, no-body could be a member of Chrift's church here, nor be admitted into his eternal kingdom hereafter. If all, or most of the truths declared in the epiftles, were to be received and believed as fundamental articles, what then became of those chriftians who were fallen afleep (as St. Paul witneffes in his firft to the corinthians; many were) before these things in the epiftles were revealed to them? Most of the epiftles not being written till above twenty years after our Saviour's afcenfion, and fome after thirty.

But farther, therefore, to those who will be ready to fay, May those truths delivered in the epiftles, which are not contained in the preaching of our Saviour and "his apoftles, and are therefore, by this account, not

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neceffary to falvation; be believed, or disbelieved " without any danger? May a chriftian fafely question "or doubt of them?"

To this I anfwer, That the law of faith, being a covenant of free grace, God alone can appoint what fhall be neceffarily believed by every one whom he will juftify. What is the faith which he will accept and account 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 fet the measures of it and what he has fo appointed and declared, is alone neceffary. No body can add to these fundamental articles of faith; nor make any other neceffary, but what God himself hath made, and declared to be fo. 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 abfolutely required of all those to whom the gospel of Jefus Chrift is preached, and falvation through his Name propofed.

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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 fuch, may, or ought to be difbelieved. For to acknowledge any propofition to be of divine revelation 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 confefs, a man may be ignorant of; nay, difbelieve, without danger to his falvation: as is evident in those, who, allowing the authority, differ in the interpretation and meaning of feveral texts of scripture, not thought fundamental in all which, it is plain, the contending parties on one fide or the other, are ignorant of, nay, difbelieve the truths delivered in holy writ; unless contrarieties and contradictions can be contained in the fame words; and divine revelation can mean contrary to itself.

Though all divine revelation requires the obedience of faith, yet every truth of infpired fcriptures is not one of thofe, that by the law of faith is required to be ex-> plicitly believed to juftification. What thofe are, we have feen by what our Saviour and his apoftles propofed to, and required in those whom they converted to the faith. Those are fundamentals, which it is not enough not to difbelieve every one is required actually to affent to them. But any other propofition contained in the fcripture, which God has not thus made a neceffary part of the law of faith, (without an actual affent to which, he will not allow any one to be a believer) a man may be ignorant of, without hazarding his falvation by a defect. in his faith. He believes all that God has made neceffary for him to believe, and affent to; and as for the reft of divine truths, there is nothing more required of him, but that he receive all the parts of divine revelation, with a docility and difpofition prepared to embrace and affent to all truths coming from God; and fubmit his mind to whatsoever shall appear to him to bear that character. Where he, upon fair endeavours, underftands; it not, how can he avoid being ignorant? And where

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he cannot put several texts, and make them confist together, what remedy? He muft either interpret one by the other, or fufpend his opinion. He that thinks that more is, or can be required of poor frail man in matters of faith will do well to confider what abfurdities he will run into. God, out of the infinitenefs of his mercy, has dealt with man, as a compaffionate and tender Father. He gave him reason, and with it a law that 'could not be otherwife than what reafon fhould dictate; unless we should think, that a reafonable creature fhould have an unreasonable law. But, confidering the frailty of inan, apt to run into corruption and misery, he promised a Deliverer, whom in his good time he fent; and then declared to all mankind, that whoever would believe him to be the Saviour promifed, and take him now raised from the dead, and conftituted the Lord and Judge of all men, to be their King and Ruler, should be faved. This is a plain intelligible propofition; and the all-merciful God feems herein to have confulted the poor of this world, and the bulk of mankind. Thefe are articles that the labouring and illiterate man may comprehend. This is a religion fuited to vulgar capacities; and the state of mankind in this world, destined to labour and travel. The writers and wranglers in religion fill it with niceties, and dress it up with notions, which they make neceffary 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 leifure for learning and logic, and fuperfine diftinctions of the fchools. Where the hand is ufed to the plough and the fpade, the head is feldom elevated to fublime notions, or exercised in mysterious reasoning. It is well if men of that rank (to fay nothing of the other fex) can comprehend plain propofitions, and a fhort reafoning 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 religion are filled with; and as foon you will be underflood. The diffenting congregation are fuppofed by

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their teachers to be more accurately inftructed in matters of faith, and better to understand the christian religion, than the vulgar conformifts, who are charged with great ignorance; how truly, I will not here determine. But I afk them to tell me feriously," Whether "half their people have leifure to ftudy? Nay, Whe"ther one in ten, of those who come to their meetings. "in the country, if they had time to ftudy them, do or <c can understand the controverfies at this time fo warmly managed amongst them, about " "juftifica"tion," the fubject of this prefent treatife? I have talked with fome of their teachers, who confefs themfelves not to understand the difference in debate between them. And yet the points they ftand on, are reckoned of fo great weight, fo material, fo fundamental in religion, that they divide communion, and feparate upon them. Had God intended that none but the learned fcribe, the difputer, or wife of this world, fhould be christians, or be faved, thus religion fhould have been prepared for them, filled with speculations and niceties, obfcure terms, and abftract notions. But men of that expectation, men furnished with fuch acquifitions, the apoftle tells us, 1 Cor. i. are rather fhut out from the fimplicity of the gofpel; to make way for those poor ignorant, illiterate, who heard and believed promifes of a Deliverer, and believed Jefus 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 gofpel preached to them; Christ makes a mark, as well as bufinefs of his miffion, Matt. And if the poor had the gofpel preached to them, it was, without doubt, fuch a gospel as the poor could understand; plain and intelligible: and fo it was, as we have feen, in the preachings of Chrift and his apostles!

xi. 5.

A

VINDICATION

OF THE

REASONABLENESS

O F

CHRISTIANITY, &c.

FROM MR. EDWARDS's

REFLECTIONS.

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