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writ nothing bu: truth, and in most places very weighty truths to us now; for the expounding, clearing, and confirming of the Chrif tian doctrine, and establishing thofe in it who had embraced it. But yet every fentence of theirs must not be taken up and looked on as a fundamental article neceffary to falvation; without an explicit belief wherof, nobody could be a member of Chrift's church here, nor be adnitted into his eternal kingdom hereafter. If all, or most of the truths declared in the epiftles, were to be received and believed as fundamental articles, what then became of thofe Chriftians who vere fallen afleep (as St. Paul witnesses, in his firft to the Corinthians, many were) before these things in the epiftles were revealed tothem? most of the epiftles not being written tilb above twenty yars after our Saviour's afcenfion, and fome after thirty.

But farther, therefore, to thofe who will be ready to fay, May thofe truths delivered in the epiftles, which are not contained in the preaching of ourSaviour and his apoftles, and are therefore by this account not necffary to falvation, be believed or disbelieved without any danger? May a Chriftian fafely queftion or doubt of them? To this I anwer, That the law of faith being a covenant of free grace, God one can appoint what fhall be neceffarily believed by every one, whom he will juftify. What is the faith which he wil accept, and account for righteoufnefs, depends wholly on his good pleafure; fe it is of grace, and not of right, that this faith is accepted. And herefore he alone can fet the measures of it; and what he has fo apointed and declared is alone neceffary. Nobody can add to these andamental articles of faith, nor make any other neceffary, but wht God himself hath made and declared to be fo. And what thefe re, which God requires of thofe who will enter into, and receive he benefits of, the new covenant, has already been fhewn. An expcit belief of thefe is abfolutely required of all thofe to whom th gospel of Jefus Chrift is preached, and falvation through his nam propofed.

The other part of divine revelation arc objects of faith, and are fo to be received They are truths, whereof no one can be rejected none thats once known to be fuch may or ought to ba difbelieved; for acknowledge any propofition to be of divino revelation and autority, and yet to deny or difbelieve it, is to of fend against this fudamental article, and ground of faith, that God is true. But yet great many of the truths revealed in the gospel, every one does, ad muft confefs, a man may be ignorant of; nay, difbelieve withouidanger to his falvation as is evident in those, who, allowing the uthority, differ in the interpretation and meaning of feveral tex of fcripture, not thought fundamental: in all which, it is plain, he contending parties, on one fide or the other, are ignorant of, ny, difbelieve the truths delivered in holy writ, unless contrarities ad contradictions can be contained in the fame words, and divine velation can mean contrary to itself.

Though

Though all divine revelation requires the obedience of faith, yet every truth of infpired fcriptures is not one of thofe that by the law of faith is required to be explicitly believed to juftification What those are, we have seen by what our Saviour and his apoftles propofed to, and required in thofe whom they converted to the faith, Those are fundamentals, which it is not enough not to disbelieve; every one is required actually to affent to them. But any other propofition contained in the fcripture, which God has not thus made a neceffary part of the law of faith (without an actual affent to which he will not allow any one to be a believer), a man may be ignorant of, without hazarding his falvation by a defect in his faith, He believes all that God has made neceffary for him to believe and affent to; and as for the reft of divine truths, there is nothing more required of him, but that he receive all the parts of divine revela, tion, with a docility and difpofition prepared to embrace and affent to all truths coming from God; and submit his mind to whatfoever fhall appear to him to bear that character. Where he upon fair endeavours, underftands it not, how can he avoid being ignorant? And where he cannot put feveral texts, and make them confift together, what remedy? He must either interpret one by the other, or fufpend his opinion. He that thinks that more is, or can be, required of poor frail man in matters of faith, will do well to confider what abfurdities he will run into. God, out of the infinite nefs of his mercy, has dealt with man as a compaffionate and tender father. He gave him reafon, and with it a law, that could not be otherwife than what reafon fhould dictate, unlefs we fhould think that a reasonable creature fhould have an unreafonable law. But confidering the frailty of man, apt to run into corruption and mifery, he promised a deliverer, whom in his good time he fent; and then declared to all mankind, that whoever would believe him to be the Saviour promised, and take him now raised from the dead, and conftituted the lord and judge of all men, to be their king and ruler, fhould be faved. This is a plain intelligible propofition; and the all-merciful God feems herein to have confulted the poor of this world, and the bulk of mankind: these are articles that the labouring and illiterate man may comprehend. This is a religion. fuited to vulgar capacities, and the ftate of mankind in this world, destined to labour and travel. The writers and wranglers in religion fill it with niceties, and drefs it up with notions, which they make neceffary and fundamental parts of it; as if there were no way into the church, but through the academy or lycæum. The greatest part of mankind have not leifure for learning and logick, and fuperfine diftinctions of the fchools. Where the hand is used to the plough and the fpade, the head is feldom elevated to fublime notions, or exercised in mysterious reafonings. It is well if men of that rank (to fay nothing of the other fex) can comprehend plain propofitions, and a fhort reasoning about things familiar to their minds, and nearly allied to their daily experience. Go beyond this, and you amaze the greateft part of mankind; and may as wel!

talk

talk Arabick to a poor day-labourer, as the notions and language that the books and difputes of religion are filled with, and as foon you will be underftood. The diffenting congregations are fuppofed by their teachers to be more accurately inftructed in matters of faith, and better to understand the Chriftian religion, than the vulgar conformifts, who are charged with great ignorance; how truly I will not here determine. But I ask them to tell me feriously, Whether half their people have leisure to study? nay, Whether one in ten of thofe who come to their meetings in the country, if they had time to ftudy, do or can understand the controverfies at this time fo warmly managed amongst them, about juftification, the fubject of this prefent treatife? I have talked with fome of their teachers, who confefs themselves not to understand the difference in debate between them: and yet the points they ftand on are reckoned of fo great weight, fo material, fo fundamental in religion, that they divide communion, and feparate upon them, Had God intended that none but the learned fcribe, the difputer or wife of this world, fhould be Chriftians, or be faved; thus religion fhould have been prepared for them, filled with fpeculations and niceties, obfcure terms, and abstract notions. But men of that expectation, men furnished with fuch acquifitions, the apoftle tells us, 1 Cor. i. are rather shut out from the fimplicity of the gofpel, to make way for those poor, ignorant, illiterate, who heard and believed the promifes of a deliverer, and believed Jefus to be him; who could conceive a man dead and made alive again, and believe that he should, at the end of the world, come again, and pass fentence on all men, according to their deeds. That the poor had the gospel preached to them, Chrift makes a mark, as well as bufinefs, of his miffion, Matt. xi. 5. And if the poor had the gospel preached to them, it was, without doubt, fuch a gospel as the poor could underftand, plain and intelligible: and fo it was, as we have feen, in the preachings of Chrift and his apostles.

A DISCOURSE

CONCERNING

The Unalterable Obligations of NATURAL RELIGION,

AND

The Truth and Certainty of the CHRISTIAN REVELATION.

THE INTRODUCTION.

*

AVING in a former difcourfe endeavoured to lay firmly the firft foundations of religion, in the certainty of the exiftence and of the attributes of God, by proving feverally and diftin&tly,

That fomething muft needs have exifted from eternity and how great foever the difficulties are, which perplex the conceptions and apprehenfions we attempt to frame of an eternal duration; yet they neither ought nor can raise in any man's mind any doubt or fcruple concerning the truth of the affertion itself, that "fomething has really been eternal."

That there must have exifted from eternity fome one unchangeable and independent being; because, to suppose an eternal fucceffion of merely dependent beings, proceeding one from another in an endless progreffion without any original independent cause at all, is fuppofing things, that have in their own nature no neceffity of exifting, to be from eternity caufed or produced by nothing; which is the very fame abfurdity and exprefs contradiction as to suppose them produced by nothing at any determinate time.

That that unchangeable and independent being, which has exifted from eternity, without any external cause of its existence, must be felf-exiftent, that is, neceffarily-exifting.

That it muft of neceffity be infinite or every where prefent; a being moft fimple, uniform, invariable, indivifible, incorruptible, and infinitely removed from all fuch imperfections as are the known qualities and infeparable properties of the material world.

That it muft of neceffity be but one; becaufe, to fuppofe two, or more, different felf-exiftent independent principles, may be reduced to a direct contradiction.

That it must neceffarily be an intelligent being.

Demonftration of the being and attributes of God.

That

That it must be free and voluntary, not a neceffary agent.

That this being muft of neceffity have infinite power; and that in this attribute is included, particularly, a poffibility of creating or producing things, and also a poffibility of communicating to creatures the power of beginning motion, and a poffibility of enduing them with liberty or freedom of will; which freedom of will is not inconfiftent with any of the divine attributes.

That he must of neceffity be infinitely wife.

And, laftly, that he muft neceffarily be a being of infinite goodnefs, juftice, and truth, and all other moral perfections; fuch as become the fupreme governor and judge of the world.

It remains now, in order to complete my defign of proving and eftablishing the truth and excellency of the whole fuperftructure of our moft holy religion; that I proceed, upon this foundation of the certainty of the being and attributes of God, to demonftrate in the next place the unalterable obligations of natural religion, and the certainty of divine revelation; in oppofition to the vain arguings of certain vicious and profane men, who, merely upon account of their incredulity, would be thought to be ftrict adherers to reafon, and fincere and diligent inquirers into truth; when indeed, on the contrary, there is but too much caufe to fear, that they are not at all fincerely and really defirous to be fatisfied in the true state of things, but only feck, under the pretence and cover of infidelity, to excufe their vices and debaucheries, which they are fo ftrongly inflaved to, that they cannot prevail with themselves upon any account to forfake them; and yet a rational fubmitting to fuch truths, as juft evidence and unanfwerable reafon would induce them to believe, muft neceffarily make them uneafy under thofe vices, and felf-condemned in the practice of them. It remains therefore (I day) in order to finish the defign I propofed to myfelf, of establishing the truth and excellency of our holy religion, in oppofition to all fuch vain pretenders to reafon as thefe; that I proceed, at this time, by a continuation of the fame method of arguing by which I before demonftrated the being and attributes of God, to prove diftimétly the following propofitions.

I. That the fame necellary and eternal different relations, that different things bear one to another; and the fame confequent fitnefs or unfitnefs of the application of different things or different relations one to another, with regard to which the will of God always and neceffarily does determine itfelf to choose to act only what is agreeable to juftice, equity, goodnefs, and truth, in order to the welfare of the whole univerfe; ought likewife conftantly to determine the wills of all fubordinate rational beings, to govern all their actions by the fame rules, for the good of the public in their refpective flations. hat is; thefe eternal and neceffary differences of things make it fit and reafonable for creatures fo to act; they caufe it to be their duty, or lay an obligation upon them, fo to do, even feparate from the confideration of thele rules being the pofitive will

or

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