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To this I anfwer, That the epiftles were written upon feveral occafions; and he that will read them as he ought must observe what it is in them is principally aimed at; find what is the argument in hand, and how managed, if he will understand them right, and profit by them. The obferving of this will beft help us to the true meaning and mind of the writer; for that is the truth which is to be received and believed, and not fcattered fentences in a fcripturelanguage accommodated to our notions and prejudices. We must look into the drift of the difcourfe, obferve the coherence and connexion of the parts, and fee how it is confiftent with itself, and other parts of Scripture, if we will conceive it right. We must not cull out, as beft fuits our system, here and there a period or a verse, as if they were all diftinct and independent aphorifins; and make thefe the fundamental articles of the Chriftian faith, and necessary to falvation, unlefs God has made them fo. There be many truths in the Bible, which a good Chriftian may be wholly ignorant of, and fo not believe, which, perhaps, fome lay great ftrefs on, and call fundamental articles, because they are the diftinguishing points of their communion. The epiftles, moft of them, carry on a thread of argument, which in the ftyle they are writ cannot every where be obferved without great attention. And to confider the texts, as they ftand and bear a part in that, is to view them in their due light, and the way to get the true fenfe of them. They were writ to those who were in the faith, and true Chriftians already; and fo could not be defigned to teach them the fundamental articles and points neceflary to falvation: the epiftle to the Romans was writ to all that were at Rome, beloved of God, called to be the faints, whofe faith was spoken of through the world," chap. i. 7, 8. To whom St. Paul's firft epiftle to the Corinthians was, he fhews, chap. i. 2, 4. &c. "Unto the church of God which is at Corinth, "to them that are fanctified in Chrift Jefus, called to be faints; "with all them that in every place call upon the name of Jefus "Christ our Lord, both theirs and ours. I thank my God always "on your behalf, for the grace of God which is given you by Jefus "Chrift; that in every thing ye are enriched by him in all utter"ance, and in all knowledge: even as the teftimony of Christ was "confirmed in you. So that ye come behind in no gift; waiting "for the coming of the Lord Jefus Chrift." And fo likewife the fecond was, "To the church of God at Corinth, with all the faints "in Achaia," chap. i, 1. His next is to the "churches of Galatia.” That to the Ephefians was, "To the faints that were at Ephefus, "and to the faithful in Chrift Jefus." So likewife," To the "faints and faithful brethren in Chrift at Coloffe, who had faith "in Chrift Jefus, and love to the faints. To the church of the "Theffalonians. To Timothy his fon in the faith. To Titus "his own fon after the common faith. To Philemon his dearly "beloved, and fellow-labourer." And the author to the Hebrews, calls thofe he writes to, "holy brethren, partakers of the heavenly calling," chap. iii. 1. From whence it is evident, that all thofe

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whom St. Paul wrote to, were "brethren, faints, faithful in the "church," and fo "Chriftians" already, and therefore wanted not the fundamental articles of the Chriftian religion; without a belief of which they could not be faved: nor can it be fupposed, that the fending of fuch fundamentals was the reafon of the apoftle's writing to any of them. To fuch alfo St. Peter writes, as is plain from the first chapter of each of his epiftles. Nor is it hard to obferve the like in St. James and St. John's epiftles. And St. Jude directs his thus: "To them that are fanctified by God the Father, and preferv"ed in Jefus Chrift, and called." The epiftles therefore being all written to those who were already believers and Chriftians, the occafion and end of writing them could not be to inftruct them in that which was neceffary to make them Chriftians. This, it is plain, they knew and believed already; or elfe they could not have been Chriftians and believers. And they were writ upon particular occafions; and without thofe occafions had not been writ, and fo cannot be thought neceffary to falvation; though they, refolving doubts, and reforming mistakes, are of great advantage to our knowledge and practice. I do not deny, but the great doctrines of the Chriftian faith are dropt here and there, and fcattered up and down in most of them. But it is not in the epiftles we are to learn what are the fundamental articles of faith, where they are promifcuously, and without diftinction, mixed with other truths in difcourfes that were (though for edification indeed, yet) only occafional. We fhall find and difcern thofe great and neceffary points beft in the preaching of our Saviour and the apoftles, to those who were yet ftrangers, and ignorant of the faith, to bring them in, and convert them to it. And what that was, we have feen already out of the history of the Evangelifts, and the Acts; where they are plainly laid down, fo that nobody can miftake them. The epiftles to particular churches, befides the main argument of each of them (which was some prefent concernment of that particular church to which they feverally were addreffed) do in many places explain the fundamentals of the Chriftian religion; and that wifely, by proper accommodations to the apprehenfions of thofe they were writ to, the better to make them imbibe the Chriflian doctrine, and the more eafily to comprehend the method, reafons, and grounds of the great work of falvation. Thus we fee in the epiftle to the Romans adoption (a custom well known amongst thofe of Rome) is much made ufe of, to explain to them the grace and favour of God, in giving them eternal life; to help them to conceive how they became the children of God, and to affure them of a fhare in the kingdom of heaven, as heirs to an inheritance. Whereas the fetting out, and confirming the Chriftian faith to the Hebrews, in the epiftle to them, is by allufions and arguments, from the cercmonies, facrifices, and economy of the Jews, and reference to the records of the Old Teftament. And as for the general epiftles, they, we may fee, regard the ftate and exigencies, and fome peculiarities of thofe times. Thefe holy writers, infpired from above,

writ nothing but truth, and in moft places very weighty truths to us now; for the expounding, clearing, and confirming of the Chriftian doctrine, and, eftablishing 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 whereof, nobody could be a member of Chrift's church here, nor be admitted 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 Christians who were fallen afleep (as St. Paul witneffes, in his first to the Corinthians, many where) before these things in the epiftles were revealed to them? moft of the epiftles not being written till above twenty years after our Saviour's afcenfion, and fome after thirty.

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

The other parts of divine revelation are objects of faith, and are fo to be received. They are truths, whereof no one can be rejected; none that is once known to be fuch may or ought to be difbelieved; for to acknowledge any propofition to be of divine revelation and authority, and yet to deny or difbelieve it, is to of fend against this fundamental article, and ground of faith, that God is true. But yet a great many of the truths revealed in the gospel, every one does, and muft confefs, a man may be ignorant of; nay, difbelieve without danger to his falvation: as is evident in those, who, allowing the authority, differ in the interpretation and meaning of feveral texts of fcripture, not thought fundamental: in all which, it is plain, the contending parties, on one fide or the other, are ignorant of, nay, difbelieve the truths delivered in holy writ, unless contrarieties and contradictions can be contained in the fame words, and divine revelation can mean contrary to itself.

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Though all divine revelation requires the obedience of faith, yet every truth of infpired fcriptures is not one of those 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 apostles proposed to, and required in thofe whom they converted to the faith. Thofe are fundamentals, which it is not enough not to difbelieve; 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 aflent 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 revelation, with a docility and difpofition prepared to embrace and affent to all truths coming from God; and fubmit his mind to whatfoever shall appear to him to bear that character. Where he, upon fair endeavours, understands it not, how can he avoid being ignorant? And where he cannot put several texts, and make them confift together, what remedy? He muft 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 infinitenefs 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, unless we fhould think that a reasonable creature fhould have an unreasonable law. confidering the frailty of man, apt to run into corruption and mifery, he promifed a deliverer, whom in his good time he fent; and then declared to all mankind, that whoever would believe him to be the Saviour promifed, 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: thefe are articles that the labouring and illiterate man may comprehend. This is a religion fuited to vulgar capacities, and the state of mankind in this world, deftined 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 or logick, and fuperfine diftinctions of the fchools. Where the hand is used to the plough and the spade, the head is feldom elevated to fublime notions, or exercited in myfterious reafonings. It is well if men of that rank (to fay nothing of the other fex) can comprehend plain. propofitions, and a fhort reafoning 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 well

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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 understood. 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 conformists, who are charged with great ignorance; how truly I will not here determine. But I afk 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 study, do or can understand the controverfies at this time fo warmly managed amongst them, about justification, 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 fhut 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 gofpel preached to them, it was, without doubt, fuch a gospel as the poor could understand, plain and intelligible: and fo it was, as we have feen, in the preachings of Chrift and his apoftles.

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