culous calling mine a lank faith, I desire him to consider what he will now call his own. Mine is next to none, because, as he says, it is but one article. If that reasoning be good, his is not far from none; it consists but in two articles, which is next to one, and very little more remote from none than one is. If any one had but as much wit as the unmasker, and could be but as smart upon the number two, as he has been upon an unit, here were a brave opportunity for him to lay out his parts; and he might make vehement complaints against one, that has thus "cramped our faith, corrupt"ed men's minds, depraved the gospel, and abused "christianity." But if it should fall out, as I think it will, that the unmasker's two articles should prove to be but one; he has saved another that labour, and he stands painted to himself with his own charcoal.

The unmasker would have the Son of God, in the confession of the eunuch, to signify something different from the Messiah: and his reason is, because else it would be an absurd tautology. Ans. There are many exegetical expressions put together in scripture, which, though they signify the same thing, yet are not absurd tautologies. The unmasker here inverts the proposition, and would have it to signify thus: "The Son of "God is Jesus the Messiah;" which is a proposition so different from what the apostles proposed, every-where else, that he ought to have given a reason why, when, every-where else, they made the proposition to be, of something affirmed of Jesus of Nazareth, the eunuch should make the affirmation to be of something concerning the Son of God: as if the eunuch knew very well, what the Son of God signified, viz. as the unmasker tells us here, that it included or signified God; and that Philip (who, we read, at Samaria preached Tov Xpisov, the Messiah, i. e. instructed them who the Messiah was) had here taken pains only to instruct him that this God was Jesus the Messiah, and to bring him to assent to that proposition. Whether this be natural to conceive, I leave to the reader.

The tautology, on which the unmasker builds his whole objection, will be quite removed if we take

Christ here for a proper name, in which way it is used by the evangelists and apostles in other places, and particularly by St. Luke, in Acts ii. 38, iii. 6, 20, iv. 10, xxiv. 24, &c. In two of these places it cannot, with any good sense, be taken otherwise; for, if it be not in Acts iii. 6, and iv. 10, used as a proper name, we must read those places thus, "Jesus the Messiah of Nazareth." And I think it plain in those others cited, as well as in several other places of the New Testament, that the word Christ is used as a proper name. We may easily conceive, that long before the Acts were writ, the name of Christ was grown, by a familiar use, to denote the person of our Saviour, as much as Jesus. This is so manifest, that it gave a name to his followers; who, as St. Luke tells us, xi. 26, were called christians; and that, if chronologists mistake not, twenty years before St. Luke writ his history of the apostles: and this so generally, that Agrippa, a jew, uses it, Acts xxvi. 28. And that Christ, as the proper name of our Saviour, was got as far as Rome, before St. Luke writ the Acts, appears out of Suetonius, 1. 5; and by that name he is called in Tacitus, Ann. 1. 15. It is no wonder then, that St. Luke, in writing this history, should sometimes set it down alone, sometimes joined with that of Jesus, as a proper name: which is much easier to conceive he did here, than that Philip proposed more to the eunuch to be believed to make him a christian, than what, in other places, was proposed for the conversion of others, or than what he himself proposed at Samaria.

His 7th chapter is to prove, that I am a socinian, because I omitted Christ's satisfaction. That matter having been answered, p. 265, where it came properly under consideration, I shall only observe here, that the great stress of his argument lies as it did before, not upon my total omission of it out of my book, but on this, that "I have no such thing in the place where the

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advantages of Christ's coming are purposely treated "of;" from whence he will have this to be an unavoidable inference, viz. "That I was of opinion, that "Christ came not to satisfy for us." The reason of my omission of it in that place, I told him, was because

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my book was chiefly designed for deists: and therefore I mentioned only those advantages, which all christians must agree in; and, in omitting of that, complied with the apostle's rule, Rom. xiv. To this he tells me flatly, that was not the design of my book. Whether the unmasker knows with what design I published it better than myself, must be left to the reader to judge: for as for his veracity in what he knows, or knows not, he has given so many instances of it, that I may safely refer that to any body. One instance more of it may be found in this very chapter, where he says, "I pretend "indeed, page 163, that in another place of my book, "I mention Christ's restoring all mankind from the "state of death, and restoring them to life and his laying down his life for another, as our Saviour pro" fesses he did. These few words this vindicator has picked up in his book since he wrote it. This is all, through his whole treatise, that he hath dropped concerning that advantage of Christ's incarnation; i. e, "Christ's satisfaction." Answ. But that this is not all that I have dropped through my whole treatise, concerning that advantage, may appear by those places above mentioned, p. 163, where I say, that the design of Christ's coming was to be offered up, and speak of the work of redemption; which are expressions taken to imply our Saviour's satisfaction. But the unmasker thinking I should have quoted them, if there had been any more, besides those mentioned in my vindication, upon that presumption sticks not boldly to affirm, that there were no more; and so goes on with the veracity of an unmasker. If affirming would do it, nothing could be wanting in his cause, that might be for his purpose. Whether he be as good at proving, this consequence (among other propositions, which remain upon him to be proved) will try, viz.

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L. That if the satisfaction of Christ be not mentioned in the place where the advantages of Christ's coming are purposely treated of, then I am of opinion, that Christ came not to satisfy for us: Which is all the argument of his 7th chapter.

His last chapter, as his first, begins with a commendation of himself; particularly, it boasts his freedom from bigotism, dogmatizing, censoriousness, and uncharitableness. I think he hath drawn himself so well with his own pen, that I shall need refer the reader only to what he himself has wrote in this controversy, for his character.

In the next paragraph, p. 104, he tells me, "I laugh "at orthodoxy." Answ. There is nothing that I think. deserves a more serious esteem than right opinion, (as the word signifies,) if taken up with the sense and love of truth. But this way of becoming orthodox has always modesty accompanying it, and a fair acknowledgment of fallibility in ourselves, as well as a supposition of errour in others. On the other side there is nothing more ridiculous, than for any man, or company of men, to assume the title of orthodoxy to their own set of opinions, as if infallibility were annexed to their systems, and those were to be the standing measure of truth to all the world; from whence they erect to themselves a power to censure and condemn others, for differing at all from the tenets they have pitched upon. The consideration of human frailty ought to check this vanity; but since it does not, but that, with a sort of allowance, it shows itself in almost all religious societies, the playing the trick round sufficiently turns it into ridicule. For each society having an equal right to a good opinion of themselves, a man by passing but a river, or a hill, loses that orthodoxy in one company, which puffed him up with such assurance and insolence in another; and is there, with equal justice, himself exposed to the like censures of errour and heresy, which he was so forward to lay on others at home. When it shall appear, that infallibility is intailed upon one set of men of any denomination, or truth confined to any spot of ground, the name and use of orthodoxy, as now it is in fashion every-where, will in that one place be reasonable. Until then, this ridiculous cant will be a foundation too weak to sustain that usurpation that is raised upon it. It is not that I do not think every one should be per

suaded of the truth of those opinions he professes. It is that I contend for; and it is that which I fear the great sticklers for orthodoxy often fail in. For we see generally that numbers of them exactly jump in a whole large collection of doctrines, consisting of abundance of particulars; as if their notions were, by one common stamp, printed on their minds, even to the least lineament. This is very hard, if not impossible, to be conceived of those who take up their opinions only from conviction. But, how fully soever I am persuaded of the truth of what I hold, I am in common justice to allow the same sincerity to him that differs from me; and so we are upon equal terms. This persuasion of truth on each side, invests neither of us with a right to censure or condemn the other. I have no more reason to treat him ill for differing from me, than he has to treat me ill for the same cause. Pity him, I may; inform him fairly, I ought; but contemn, malign, revile, or any otherwise prejudice him for not thinking just as I do, that I ought not. My orthodoxy gives me no more authority over him, than his (for every one is orthodox to himself) gives him over me. When the word orthodoxy (which in effect signifies no more but the opinions of my party) is made use of as a pretence to domineer (as ordinarily it is,) it is, and always will be, ridiculous.

He says, "I hate, even with a deadly hatred, all cate"chisms and confessions, all systems and models." I do not remember, that I have once mentioned the word catechism, either in my Reasonableness of christianity, or Vindication; but he knows "I hate them deadly," and I know I do not. And as for systems and models, all that I say of them, in the pages he quotes to prove my hatred of them, is only this, viz. in my Vindication, p. 164, 165, "Some had rather you should write booty, "and cross your own design of removing men's prejudices "to christianity, than leave out one tittle of what they

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put into their systems.-Some men will not bear it, "that any one should speak of religion, but according "to the model that they themselves have made of it." In neither of which places do I speak against systems or models, but the ill use that some men make of them.