mifreprefented his meaning; let it be fo: Where is the irreligion of it? Thus it is: the power of making a religion for others, (and those that make creeds do that) being once got into any one's fancy, muft at last make all oppofitions to those creeds and creed-makers irreli gion. Thus we fee, in process of time, it did in the church of Rome: but it was in length of time, and by gentle degrees. The unmafker, it feems, cannot ftay, is in hafte, and at one jump leaps into the chair. He has given us yet but a piece of his creed, and yet that's enough to fet him above the state of human mistakes or frailties; and to mention any such thing in him, is to do irreligiously. "We may further fee," fays the unmasker, p. 110, "how counterfeit the vindicator's gravity is, whilst he "condemns frothy and light difcourfes," p. 173. Vindic. And " yet, in many pages together, most irreverently treats a great part of the apoftolical writings, and throws -afide the main articles of religion, as unneceffary." Anfwer in my Vindic. p. 170, you may remember thefe words: "I require you to publish to the world those paffages, which fhow my contempt of the epiftles." Why do you not (especially having been fo called upon to do it) fet down those words, wherein "I moft ir"reverently treat a great part of the apoftolical writings?" At least, why do you not quote thofe many pages wherein I do it? This looks a little fufpiciously, that you cannot: and the more because you have, in this very page, not been sparing to quote places which you thought to your purpose. I muft take leave, therefore, (if it may be done without irreligion) to affure the reader, that this is another of your many mistakes in matters of fact, for which you have not fo much as the excufe of inadvertency: for, as he fees, you have been minded of it before. But an unmafker, fay what you will to him, will be an unmasker ftill. He clofes what he has to fay to me, in his Socinianifm unmasked, as if he were in the pulpit, with an ufe of exhortation. The falfe infinuations it is filled with make the conclufion of a piece with the introduction. As he fets out, fo he ends, and therein fhows wherein. he he places his ftrength. A cuftom of making bold with truth is fo feldom curable in a grown man, and the unmasker shows fo little fenfe of fhame, where it is charged upon him, beyond a poffibility of clearing himself, that no-body is to trouble themselves any farther about that part of his eftablished character. Letting therefore that alone to nature and custom, two fure guides, I fhall only intreat him, to prevent his taking railing for argument, (which I fear he too often does) that upon his entrance, every-where, upon any new argument, he would fet it down in fyllogifm; and when he has done that (that I may know what is to be answered) let him then give vent, as he pleafes, to his noble vein of wit and oratory. The lifting a man's self up in his awn opinion, has had the credit, in former ages, to be thought the lowest degradation that human nature could well fink itself to. Hence, fays the wife man, Prov. xxvi. 5, "Answer a "fool according to his folly, left he be wife in his own "conceit :" hereby fhowing, that felf-conceitedness is a degree beneath ordinary folly. And therefore he there provides a fence against it, to keep even fools from finking yet lower, by falling into it. Whether what was not fo in Solomon's days be now, by length of time, in ours, grown into a mark of wisdom and parts, and an evidence of great performances, I fhall not inquire. Mr. Edwards, who goes beyond all that ever I yet met with, in the commendation of his own, beft knows why he fo extols what he has done in this controversy. For fear the praises he has not been fparing of, in his Socinianifm unmasked, fhould not fufficiently trumpet out his worth, or might be forgotten; he, in a new piece, intitled, "the Socinian creed," proclaims again his mighty deeds, and the victory he has established to himself by them, in these words: "But he and "his friends (the one-article men) seem to have made fatisfaction, by their profound filence lately, whereby they acknowledge to the world, that they have nothing to fay in reply to what I laid to their charge, and fully "proved againft them, &c." Socinian creed, p. 128. This fresh teftimony of no ordinary conceit, which Mr. Edwards Edwards hath, of the excellency and ftrength of his reafoning, in his Socinianifm unmasked, I leave with him and his friends, to be confidered of at their leisure: and, if they think I have misapplied the term of conceitednefs, to fo wife, underflanding, and every way accomplished a difputant, (if we may believe himself) I will teach them a way how he, or any body elfe, may fully convince me of it. There remains on his score, marked in this reply of mine, feveral propofitions to be proved by him. If he can find but arguments to prove them, that will bear the fetting down in form, and will fo publish them, I will allow myself to be mistaken. Nay, which is more, if he, or any body, in the 112 pages of his Socinianifm unmasked, can find but ten arguments that will bear the teft of fyllogifm, the true touchstone of right arguing; I will grant, that that treatife deferves all those commendations he has bestowed upon it, though it be made up more of his own panegyric, than a confutation of me. In his focinian creed, (for a creed-maker he will be; and whether he has been as lucky for the focinians as for the orthodox, I know not) p. 120, he begins with me, and that with the fame conquering hand and skill, which can never fail of victory; if a man has but wit enough to know what propofition he is able to confute, and then make that his adverfary's tenet. But the repetitions of his old fong concerning one article, the epiftles, &c. which occur here again, I fhall only fet down, that none of thefe excellent things may be lost, whereby this acute and unanfwerable writer has fo well deferved his own commendations: viz. "That I fay, "there is but one fingle article of the chriftian truth. neceffary to be believed and affented to by us, p. 121. "That I flight the chriftian principles, curtail the arti"cles of our faith, and ravith chriftianity itself from " him, p. 123. And that I turn the epiftles of the apoftles into wafte paper," p. 127. Thefe and the like flanders I have already given an answer to, in my reply to his former book. Only one new one here I cannot pass over in filence, because of the remarkable profanenefs which feems to me to be in it; VOL. VI. C c which, which, think, deferves public notice. In my Reasonablenefs of Chriftianity," I have laid together thofe paffages of our Saviour's life, which feemed to me moft eminently to fhow his wifdom, in that conduct of himself, with that referve and caution which was neceffary to preserve him, and carry him through the appointed time of his ministry. Some have thought I had herein done confiderable fervice to the chriftian religion, by removing thofe objections which fome were apt to make from our Saviour's carriage, not rightly understood. This creed-maker tells me, p. 127, "That "I make our Saviour a coward:" a word not to be applied to the Saviour of the world by a pious or difcrete chriftian, upon any pretence, without great neceffity, and fure grounds! If he had fet down my words, and quoted the page, (which was the leaft could have been done to excufe fuch a phrafe) we fhould then have feen which of us two this impious and irreligious epithet, given to the holy Jefus, has for its author. În the mean time, I leave it with him, to be accounted for, by his piety, to thofe, who by his example fhall be encouraged to entertain fo vile a thought, or use so profane an expreffion of the Captain of our falvation, who freely gave himself up to death for us. He alfo fays in the fame page, 127, "That I every"where ftrike at fyftems, the defign of which is to "eftablish one of my own, or to fofter fcepticism, by "beating down all others." " For clear reason, or good fenfe, I do not think our creed-maker ever had his fellow. In the immediately preceding words of the fame fentence he charges me with a great antipathy against fyftems;" and, before he comes to the end of it, finds out my design to be the " eftablishing one of my own." So that this, my antipathy againft fyftems" makes me in love with My defign, he says, is to establish a system of my own, or to fofter fcepticifm, in beating down all "others." Let my book, if he pleafes, be my system of chriftianity. Now is it in me any more foftering fcepticism to fay my fyftem is true, and others not, than it is in the creed-maker to fay fo of all other fyftems one. but 7 but his own? For I hope he does not allow any system ; But I have spoken against all fyftems. Anfw. And always fhall, fo far as they are fet up by particular men, or parties, as the just measure of every man's faith wherein every thing that is contained, is required and imposed to be believed to make a man a chriftian: fuch an opinion and ufe of fyftems I fhall always be against, until the creed-maker fhall tell me, amongst the variety of them, which alone is to be received and rested in, in the absence of his creed; which is not yet finished, and, I fear, will not, as long as I live. That every man fhould receive from others, or make to himself fuch a fyftem of christianity, as he found moft conformable to the word of God, according to the best of his underftanding, is what I never spoke againft: but think it every one's duty to labour for, and to take all opportunities, as long as he lives, by studying the scriptures every day, to perfect. But this, I fear, will not go eafily down with our author; for then he cannot be a creed-maker for others: a thing he fhows himself very forward to be; how able to perform it, we fhall fee when his creed is made. In the mean time, talking loudly and at random, about fundamentals, without knowing what is fo, may stand him in fome ftead. This being all that is new, which I think myself concerned in, in this focinian creed, I pafs on to his Postfcript. In the first page whereof, I find these words: "I found that the manager of the Reasonableness of christianity had prevailed with a gentleman to make "a fermon upon my refutation of that treatise, and the "vindication of it." Such a piece of impertinency, as this, might have been born from a fair adversary: but the fample Mr. Edwards has given of himself, in his Socinianifm unmasked, perfuades me this ought to be bound up with what he fays of me in his introduction. to that book, in these words: "Among others, they thought and made choice of a gentleman, who, they "knew, would be extraordinary useful to them. And Cc 2 " he |