as they had received with repentance, they were by baptifm admitted into the church, and three thousand at once were made chriftians.

Here St. Luke's own confeffion, without that "of intelligent and obferving men," which the unmasker has recourfe to, might have fatisfied him again, "that in relating matters of fact, many paffages "were omitted by the facred pen-men." For, fays St. Luke here, ver. 40, "And with many other words,"

which are not fet down.

One would, at first fight, wonder why the unmasker neglects thefe demonftrative authorities of the holy penmen themselves, where they own their omiffions, to tell us, that it is "confeffed by all intelligent and obferving men, that in relating matters of fact, many paffages are omitted by the facred pen-men." St. John, in what he fays of his gofpel, directly profeffes large omiffions, and fo does St. Luke here. But thefe omiffions would not ferve the unmafker's turn; for they are directly against him, and what he would have: and therefore he had reason to pass them by. For St. John, in that paffage above-cited, chap. xx. 30, 31, tells us, that how much foever he had left out of his hiftory, he had inferted that which was enough to be believed to eternal life: " but thefe are written, that ye might be"lieve, and, believing, ye might have life." But this is not all he affures us of, viz. that he had recorded all that was neceffary to be believed to eternal life: but he, in express words, tells us what is that ALL, that is neceffary to be believed to eternal life; and for the proof of which propofition alone, he writ all the reft of his gofpel, viz. that we might believe. What? even this : That Jefus is the Chrift, the Son of God," and that, believing this, we might have life through his

name."

This may serve for a key to us, in reading the history of the New Teftament; and fhow us why this article, that Jefus was the Meffiah, is no-where omitted, though a great part of the arguments used to convince men of it, nay, very often the whole difcourfe, máde to lead men into the belief of it, be intirely omitted. The

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The Spirit of God directed them every-where to fet down the article, which was abfolutely neceffary to be believed to make men chriftians; fo that that could no ways be doubted of, nor mistaken: but the arguments and evidences, which were to lead men into this faith, would be fufficient, if they were once found any where, though fcattered here and there, in those writings, whereof that infallible Spirit was the author. This preferved the decorum ufed in all hiftories, and avoided those continual, large, and unneceffary repetitions, which our critical unmasker might have called tedious, with jufter reason than he does the repetition of this fhort propofition, that Jefus is the Messiah; which I fet down no oftener in my book, than the Holy Ghost thought fit to infert it in the hiftory of the New Teftament, as concife as it is. But this, it seems to our nice unmasker, is " tedious, tedious and offenfive." And if a chriftian, and a fucceffor of the apoftles, cannot bear the being fo often told, what it was that our Saviour and his apoftles every-where preached to the believers of one God, though it be contained in one short propofition; what cause of exception and disgust would it have been to heathen readers, fome whereof might, perhaps, have been as critical as the unmasker, if this facred history had, in every page, been filled with the repeated difcourfes of the apoftles, all of them everywhere to the fame purpose, viz. to perfuade men to believe, that Jefus was the Meffiah? It was neceffary, even by the laws of hiftory, as often as their preaching any where was mentioned, to tell to what purpose they fpoke; which being always to convince men of this one fundamental truth, it is no wonder we find it so often repeated. But the arguments and reafonings with which this one point is urged, are, as they ought to be, in most places, left out. A conftant repetition of them. had been fuperfluous, and confequently might juftly have been blamed as "tedious." But there is enough recorded abundantly to convince any rational man, any one not wilfully blind, that he is that promised Saviour. And, in this, we have a reafon of the omiffions in the hiftory of the New Testament; which were no other

than

than fuch as became prudent, as well as faithful writers. Much lefs did that concifenefs (with which the unmafker would cover his bold cenfure of the Gofpels and the Acts, and, as it feems, lay them by with contempt) make the holy writers omit any thing, in the preaching of our Saviour and his apoftles, abfolutely neceffary to be known and believed to make men chriftians.

Conformable hereunto, we shall find St. Luke writes his history of the Acts of the apostles. In the begining of it, he fets down at large fome of the discourses made to the unbelieving jews. But in moft other places, unless it be where there was fomething particular in the circumstances of the matter, he contents himself to tell to what purpose they spoke; which was every-where only this, that Jefus was the Meffiah. Nay, St. Luke, in the first speech of St. Peter, Acts ii, which he thought fit to give us a great part of, yet owns the omiffion of feveral things that the apoftle faid. For, having expreffed this fundamental doctrine, that Jefus was the Meffiah, and recorded several of the arguments wherewith St. Peter urged it, for the converfion of the unbelieving jews, his auditors, he adds, ver. 40, "And "with many other words did he testify and exhort, saying, Save yourselves from this untoward generation." Here he confeffes, that he omitted a great deal which St. Peter had faid to perfuade them, To what? To that which, in other words, he had just said before, ver. 38, "Repent and be baptized every one of you "in the name of Jefus Chrift," i. e. Believe Jefus to be the Meffiah, take him as fuch for your Lord and King, and reform your lives by a fincere refolution of obedience to his laws.

Thus we have an account of the omiffions in the records of matters of fact in the New Teftament. But will the unmafker fay, That the preaching of those articles that he has given us, as neceffary to be believed to make a man a christian, was part of those matters of fact, which have been omitted in the hiftory of the New Testament? Can any one think, that "the corruption "and degeneracy of human nature, with the true "original of it, (the defection of our first parents) the propagation

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"propagation of fin and mortality, our reftoration and "reconciliation by Chrift's blood, the eminency and "excellency of his pricfthood, the efficacy of his death, "the full fatisfaction thereby made to divine juftice, "and his being made an all-fufficient facrifice for fin,. "our juftification by Chrift's righteoufnefs, election,

adoption," &c. were all proposed, and that too, in the sense of our author's system, by our Saviour and his apostles, as fundamental articles of faith, neceffary to be explicitly believed by every man, to make him a chriftian, in all their difcourfes to unbelievers; and yet that the infpired pen-men of thofe hiftories every-where left the mention of these fundamental articles wholly out? This would have been to have writ, not a concife, but an imperfect hiftory of all that Jefus and his apoftles taught.

What an account would it have been of the gospel, as it was first preached and propagated, if the greateft part of the neceffary doctrines of it were wholly left out, and a man could not find, from one end to the other of this whole hiftory, that religion which is neceffary to be believed to make a man a chriftian? And yet this is that, which, under the notion of their being concife, the unmafker would perfuade us to have been done by St. Luke and the other evangelifts, in their hiftories. And it is no lefs than what he plainly fays, in his "Thoughts concerning the caufes of atheism," p. 109, where, to aggravate my fault, in paffing by the epiftles, and to fhow the neceffity of fearching in them for fundamentais, he in words blames me; but in effect condemns the facred history contained in the Gofpels and the Acts. "It is moft evident," fays he, "to any thinking man, that the author of the Reasonablenefs of Christianity, purpofely omits the epiftolary writings of the apoftles, because they are fraught with other fundamental doctrines, befides that one which he mentions. There "we are inftructed concerning thefe grand heads of "chriftian divinity." Here, i. e. in the epiftles, fays he, "there are difcoveries concerning fatisfaction,' &c. And, in the clofe of his lift of grand heads, as he calls them, fome whereof I have above fet down out

"

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of

of him, he adds, "Thefe are the matters of faith con"tained in the epiftles." By all which expreffions he plainly fignifies, that thefe, which he calls fundamental doctrines, are none of those we are inftructed in, in the Gospels and the Acts; that they are not discovered nor contained in the hiftorical writings of the evangelists: whereby he confeffes, that either our Saviour and his apostles did not propose them in their preachings to their unbelieving hearers; or elfe, that the feveral faithful writers of their hiftory, wilfully, i. e. unfaithfully, every-where omitted them in the acccount they have left us of those preachings; which could fcarce poffibly be done by them all, and every-where, without an actual combination amongst them, to fmother the greatest and most material parts of our Saviour's and his apostles difcourfes. For what else did they, if all that the unmasker has fet down in his lift be fundamental' doctrines; every one of them abfolutely neceffary to be believed to make a man a christian, which our Saviour and his apoftles every-where preached, to make men christians? but yet St. Luke, and the other evangelists, by a very guilty and unpardonable conciseness, everywhere omitted them, and throughout their whole history, never once tell us, they were fo much as propofed, much lefs, that they were thofe articles which the apoftles laboured to establish and convince men of every-where, before they admitted them to baptism ? Nay the far greatest part of them, the hiftory they writ does not any where fo much as once mention? How, after fuch an imputation as this, the unmafker will clear himself from laying by the four Gofpels and the Acts with contempt, let him look; if my not collecting fundamentals out of the epiftles had that guilt in it. For I never denied all the fundamental doctrines to be there, but only faid, that there they were not easy to be found out, and diftinguished from doctrines not fundamental. Whereas our good unmasker charges the hiftorical books of the New Teftament with a total omiffion of the far greateft part of thofe fundamental doctrines of chriftianity, which he says, are absolutely neceffary to be believed to make a man a chriftian.

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To