railing in the remainder of this chapter I shall pass by, as I have done a great deal of the same strain in his book: only to show how well he understands or represents my sense, I shall set down my words, as they are in the pages he quotes, and his inferences from them.

Socinianism Unmasked,

p. 108.

"The professed divines of England, you must know, are but a pitiful sort of folks with this great Racovian rabbi. He tells us plainly, that he is not mindful of what the generality of divines declare for, p. 171. He labours so concernedly to ingratiate himself with the mob, the multitude (which he so often talks of) that he has no regard to these. The generality of the rabble are more considerable with him than the generality of divines.”

Vindication, p. 171. I know not but it may be true that the anti-Trinitarians and Racovians understand those places as I do; but it is more than I know, that they 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.

He tells me here of the generality of divines. If he had said of the church of England, I could have understood him: but he says, "The professed divines of England;" and there being several sorts of divines in England, who, I think, do not every where agree in their interpretations of Scripture; which of them is it I must have regard to, where they differ? If he cannot tell me that, he complains here of me for a fault, which he himself knows not how to mend.

Socinianism Unmasked,

p. 109.

"This author, as demure and grave as he. would sometimes seem to be, can scoff at the matters of faith contained in the apostles' epistles, p. 169."

Vindication, p. 169. The list of materials for his creed, (for the articles are not yet formed) Mr. Edwards closes, p. 111, with these words: "These are the matters of faith contained in the epistles; and they are essential and integral parts of the Gospel itself." What! just these, neither more nor less? If you are sure of it, pray let us have them speedily, for the reconciling of differences in the Christian church, which has been so cruelly torn about the articles of the Christian faith, to the great reproach of Christian charity, and scandal of our true religion.

Does the vindicator here "scoff at the matters of faith contained in the epistles ?" or show the vain pretences of the unmasker; who undertakes to give us, out of the epistles, a collection of fundamentals, without being able to say, whether those he sets down be all

or no?

Vindication, p. 176. I hope you do not think, how contemptibly soever you speak of the venerable mob, as you are pleased to dignify them, p. 117, that the bulk of mankind, or, in your phrase, the rabble,

are not concerned in religion; or ought not to understand it, in order to their salvation. I remember the Pharisees treated the common people with contempt; and said, "Have any of the rulers, or of the Pharisees, believed in him? But this people, who know not the law, are cursed." But yet these, who, in the censure of the Pharisees, were cursed, were some of the poor, or, if you please to have it so, the mob, to whom the Gospel

was preached by our Saviour, as he tells John's disciples, Matth. xi. 5.

Where the profaneness of this is, I do not see; unless some unknown sacredness of the unmasker's person make it profaneness to show, that he, like the Pharisees of old, has a great contempt for the common people, i. e. the far greater part of mankind; as if they and their salvation were below the regard of this elevated rabbi. But this, of profaneness, may be well borne from him, since in the next words my mentioning another part of his carriage is no less than irreligion.

Vindication, p. 173. 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

Socinianism Unmasked,

p. 110. "Ridiculously and irreligiously he pretends," that I prefer what he saith to me to what is offered to me from the word of God, p. 173.

work was done "of going through the history of the Evangelists and the Acts," which he computes, p. 105, to take up three quarters of my book.

The matter of fact is as I relate it, and so is beyond pretence; and for this I refer the reader to the 105th and 114th pages of his Thoughts concerning the Causes of Atheism. But had I mistaken, I know not how he could have called it irreligiously. Make the worst of it that can be, how comes it to be irreligious? What is there divine in an unmasker, that one cannot pretend, (true or false) that he prefers what I say, to what is offered him from the word of God, without doing it irreligiously? Does the very assuming the power to define articles, and determine who are, and who are not Christians, by a creed not yet made, erect an unmasker presently into God's throne, and bestow on him the title of Dominus Deusque noster, whereby offences against him come to be irreligious acts? I have

misrepresented his meaning; let it be so: 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, must at last make all oppositions to those creeds and creed-makers irreligion. Thus we see, in process of time, it did in the church of Rome: but it was in length of time, and by gentle degrees. The unmasker, it seems, cannot stay, is in haste, and at one jump leaps into the chair. He has given us yet but a piece of his creed, and yet that is enough to set him above the state of human mistakes or frailties; and to mention any such thing in him is to do irreligiously.

"We may further see," says the unmasker, p. 110, "how counterfeit the vindicator's gravity is, whilst he condemns frothy and light discourses," p. 173, Vindic. And "yet, in many pages together, most irreverently treats a great part of the apostolical writings, and throws aside the main articles of religion, as unnecessary." Answer, In my Vindic. p. 170, you may remember these words: "I require you to publish to the world those passages, which show my contempt of the epistles." Why do you not (especially having been so called upon to do it) set down those words, wherein "I most irreverently treat a great part of the apostolical writings?" At least, why do you not quote those many pages wherein I do it? This looks a little suspiciously, 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 must take leave, therefore, (if it may be done without irreligion) to assure the reader, that this is another of your many mistakes in matters of fact, for which you have not so much as the excuse of inadvertency: for, as he sees, you have been minded of it before. But an unmasker, say what you will to him, will be an unmasker still.

He closes what he has to say to me, in his Socinianism unmasked, as if he were in the pulpit, with an use of exhortation. The false insinuations it is filled with make the conclusion of a piece with the introduction. As he sets out, so he ends, and therein shows wherein

he places his strength. A custom of making bold with truth is so seldom curable in a grown man, and the unmasker shows so little sense of shame, where it is charged upon him, beyond a possibility of clearing himself, that nobody is to trouble themselves any farther about that part of his established character. Letting therefore that alone to nature and custom, two sure guides, I shall only entreat 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 set it down in syllogism; and when he has done that (that I may know what is to be answered) let him then give vent, as he pleases, to his noble vein of wit and oratory.

The lifting a man's self up in his own opinion, haš had the credit, in former ages, to be thought the lowest degradation that human nature could well sink itself to. Hence, says the wise man, Prov. xxvi. 5, " Answer a fool according to his folly, lest he be wise in his own conceit:" hereby showing, that self-conceitedness is a degree beneath ordinary folly. And therefore he there provides a fence against it, to keep even fools from sinking yet lower, by falling into it. Whether what was not so 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 shall not inquire. Mr. Edwards, who goes beyond all that ever I yet met with, in the commendation of his own, best knows why he so extols what he has done in this controversy. For fear the phrases he has not been sparing of, in his Socinianism unmasked, should not sufficiently trumpet out his worth, or might be forgotten; he, in a new piece entitled, the Socinian Creed, proclaims again his mighty deeds, and the victory he has establish ed to himself by them, in these words: "But he and his friends (the one-article men) seem to have made satisfaction, by their profound silence lately, whereby they acknowledge to the world, that they have nothing to say in reply to what I laid to their charge, and fully proved against them," &c. Socinian Creed, p. 128. This fresh testimony of no ordinary conceit, which Mr.