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no more, nor no less, than what is in his system. He hath put himself into the throne of Christ, and pretends to tell you which are, and which are not the indispensable laws of his kingdom: which parts of his divine revelation you must necessarily know, understand, and believe, and in what sense; and which you need not trouble your head about, but may pass by, as not necessary to be believed. He will tell you, that some of his necessary articles are mysteries, and yet (as he does, p. 115, of his " Thoughts concerning the causes of atheism") that they are easy to be understood by any man, when explained to him. In answer to that I demanded of him, "Who was to explain them? The "papists, I told him, would explain some of them one way, and the reformed another; the remonstrants "and anti-remonstrants give them different senses; " and probably the trinitarians and unitarians will pro"fess, that they understand not each other's explica"tions." But to this, in his reply, he has not vouchsafed to give me any answer; which yet I expect, and I will tell him why; because, as there are different explainers, there will be different fundamentals. And therefore unless he can show his authority to be the sole explainer of fundamentals, he will in vain make such a pother about his fundamentals. Another explainer, of as good authority as he, will set up others against them. And what then shall we be the better for all this stir and noise of fundamentals? All the effect of it will be just the same it has been these thousand years and upwards; schisms, separations, contentions, animosities, quarrels, blood and butchery, and all that train of mischiefs, which have so long harassed and defamed christianity, and are so contrary to the doctrines, spirit, and end of the gospel; and which must still continue as long as any such unmasker shall take upon him to be the dispenser and dictator to others of fundamentals; and peremptorily to define which parts of divine revelation are necessary to be believed, and which christians may with safety dispense with, and not believe.

To conclude, what was sufficient to make a man a christian in our Saviour's time, is sufficient still, viz. the

taking him for our King and Lord, ordained so by God. What was necessary to be believed by all christians in our Saviour's time, as an indispensable duty, which they owed to their lord and master, was the believing all divine revelation, as far as every one could understand it: and just so it is still, neither more nor less. This being so, the unmasker may make what use he pleases of his notion, "that christianity was erected by degrees," it will no way (in that sense, in which it is true) turn to the advantage of his select, fundamental, necessary doctrines.

The next chapter has nothing in it but his great bugbear, whereby he hopes to fright people from reading my book, by crying out Socinianism, Socinianism ! Whereas I challenge him again, to show one word of socinianism in it. But, however, it is worth while to write a book to prove me a socinian. Truly, I did not think myself so considerable, that the world need be troubled about me, whether I were a follower of Socinus, Arminius, Calvin, or any other leader of a sect among christians. A christian I am sure I am, because I believe" Jesus to be the Messiah," the King and Saviour promised and sent by God: and, as a subject of his kingdom, I take the rule of my faith and life from his will, declared and left upon record in the inspired writings of the apostles and evangelists in the New Testament; which I endeavoured to the utmost of my power, as is my duty, to understand in their true sense and meaning. To lead me into their true meaning, I know (as I have above declared) no infallible guide, but the same Holy Spirit, from whom these writings at first came. If the unmasker knows any other infallible interpreter of scripture, I desire him to direct me to him until then, I shall think it according to my master's rule, not to be called, nor to call any man on earth, Master. No man, I think, has a right to prescribe to me my faith, or magisterially to impose his interpretations or opinions on me: nor is it material to any one what mine are any farther than they carry their own evidence with them. If this, which I think makes me of no sect, entitles me to the name of a papist, or a

socinian, because the unmasker thinks these the worst and most invidious he can give me and labours to fix them on me for no other reason, but because I will not take him for my master on earth, and his system for my gospel: I shall leave him to recommend himself to the world by this skill, who, no doubt, will have reason to thank him for the rareness and subtilty of his discovery. For I think, I am the first man that ever was found to be at the same time a socinian, and a factor for Rome. But what is too hard for such an unmasker? I must be what he thinks fit; when he pleases, a papist; and when he pleases, a socinian; and when he pleases, a mahometan: and probably, when he has considered a little better, an atheist; for I hardly escaped it when he writ last. My book, he says, had a tendency to it; and if he can but go on, as he has done hitherto, from surmises to certainties, by that time he writes next, his discovery will be advanced, and he will certainly find me an atheist. Only one thing I dare assure him of, that he shall never find, that I treat the things of God or religion so, as if I made only a trade or a jest of them. But let us now see, how at present he proves me a socinian.

His first argument is, my not answering for my leaving out Matt. xxviii. 19, and John i. 1, page 82, of his Socinianism unmasked. This he takes to be a confession, that I am a socinian. I hope he means fairly, and that if it be so on my side, it must be taken for a standing rule between us, that where any thing is not answered, it must be taken for granted. And upon that score I must desire him to remember some passages of my Vindication, which I have already, and others, which I shall mind him of hereafter, which he passed over in silence, and had nothing to say to: which therefore, by his own rule, I shall desire the reader to observe, that he has granted.

This being premised, I must tell the unmasker, that I perceive he reads my book with the same understanding that he writes his own. If he had done otherwise, he might have seen, that I had given him a reason for my omission of those two, and other "plain and obvious

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passages, and famous testimonies in the evangelists," as he calls them; where I say, p. 166," That if I have " left out none of those passages or testimonies, which " contain what our Saviour and his apostles preached "and required assent to, to make men believers, I "shall think my omissions (let them be what they will) "no faults in the present case. Whatever doctrines "Mr. Edwards would have to be believed, to make a man a christian, he will be sure to find them in those preachings, and famous testimonies, of our Saviour "and his apostles, I have quoted. And if they are not "there, he may rest satisfied, that they were not proposed, by our Saviour and his apostles, as necessary "to be believed to make men Christ's disciples." From which words, any one, but an unmasker, could have understood my answer to be, that all that was necessary to be believed to make men christians, might be found in what our Saviour and his apostles proposed to unbelievers for their conversion: but the two passages above mentioned, as well as a great many others in the evangelists, being none of those, I had no reason to take notice of them. But the unmasker having, out of his good pleasure, put it once upon me, as he does in his " Thoughts of the causes of atheism," p. 107, that I was an " epitomiser of the evangelical writings," though every one may see I make not that my business; yet it is no matter for that, I must be always accountable to that fancy of his. But when he has proved,

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XLVIII. That this is not as just a reasoning for my omitting them, as several other obvious passages and famous testimonies in the evangelists, which I there mention, for whose omission he does not blame me;

I will undertake to give him another reason, which I

know not whether he were not better let alone.

The next proof of my being a socinian, is, that I take the Son of God to be an expression used to signify the Messiah. Slichtingius and Socinus understood it so ;

and therefore I am, the unmasker says, a socinian. Just as good an argument, as that I believe Jesus to be a prophet, and so do the mahometans; therefore I am a mahometan: or thus, the unmasker holds, that the apostles creed does not contain all things necessary to salvation; and so says Knot the jesuit; therefore the unmasker is a papist. Let me turn the tables, and by the same argument I am orthodox again. For two orthodox, pious, and very eminent prelates of our church, whom, when I follow authorities, I shall prefer to Slichtingius and Socinus, understand it as I do; and therefore I am orthodox. Nay, it so falls out, that if it were of force either way, the argument would weigh most on this side; since I am not wholly a stranger to the writings of those two orthodox bishops; but I never read a page in either of those socinians. The never sufficiently admired and valued archbishop Tillotson's words, which I quoted, the unmasker says, "do not "necessarily import any such thing." I know no words that necessarily import any thing to a caviller. But he was known to have such clear thoughts, and so clear a style, so far from having any thing doubtful or fallacious in what he said, that I shall only set down his words as they are in his sermon of sincerity, p. 2, to show his meaning: "Nathanael," says he, 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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The words of the other eminent prelate, the bishop of Ely, whom our church is still happy in, are these: "To "be the Son of God, and to be Christ, being but "different expressions of the same thing:" witness p. 14. And p. 10, "It is the very same thing to believe "that Jesus is the Christ," and to believe," that Jesus "is the Son of God, express it how you please." "This "alone is the faith which can regenerate a man, and

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put a divine Spirit into him, that it makes him a "conqueror over the world, as Jesus was." Of this the unmasker says, that this reverend author, " speaking "only in a general way, represents these two as the same thing," viz. that Jesus is the Christ, and that

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