324 A Second Vindication of the The Spirit of God directed them everywhere to set down the article, which was absolutely necessary to be believed to make men Christians; so that that could no ways be doubted of, nor mistaken: but the arguments and evidences, which were to lead men into this faith, would be sufficient, if they were once found any where, though scattered here and there, in those writ ings, whereof that infallible Spirit was the author. This preserved the decorum used in all histories, and avoided those continual, large, and unnecessary repeti tions, which our critical unmasker might have called tedious, with juster reason than he does the repetition of this short proposition, that Jesus is the Messiah; which I set down no oftener in my book, than the Holy Ghost thought fit to insert it in the history of the New Testament, as concise as it is. But this, it seems to our nice unmasker, is " tedious, tedious and offensive."
And if a Christian, and a successor of the apostles, can not bear the being so often told, what it was that our Saviour and his apostles every-where preached to the believers of one God, though it be contained in one short proposition; what cause of exception arid disgust would it have been to heathen readers, some whereof might, perhaps, have been as critical as the unmasker, if this sacred history had, in every page, been filled with the repeated discourses of the apostles, all of them every where to the same purpose, viz. to persuade men to be lieve, that Jesus was the Messiah? It was necessary, even by the laws of history, as often as their preaching any where was mentioned, to tell to what purpose they spoke; which being always to convince men of this one fundamental truth, it is no wonder we find it so often repeated. But the arguments and reasonings with which this one point is urged, are, as they ought to be, in most places, left out. A constant repetition of them had been superfluous, and consequently might justly have been blamed as " tedious." But there is enough recorded abundantly to convince any rational man, any one riot wilfully blind, that he is that promised Saviour.
And, in this, we have a reason of the omissions in the history of the New Testament; which were no other Reasonableness of Christianity > &;c. 325 than such as became prudent, as well as faithful writers. Much less did that conciseness (with which the uiimasker would cover his bold censure of the Gospels and the Acts, and, as it seems, lay them by with contempt) make the holy writers omit any thing, in the preaching of our Saviour and his apostles, absolutely necessary to be known and believed to make men Christians.
Conformable hereunto, we shall find St. Luke writes his history of the Acts of the Apostles. In the begin ning of it, he sets down at large some of the discourses made to the unbelieving jews. But in most other places, unless it be where there was something particular in the circumstances of the matter, he contents himself to tell to what purpose they spoke: which was every where only this, that Jesus was the Messiah. Nay, St. Luke, in the first speech of St. Peter, Acts ii. which he thought fit to give us a great part of, yet owns the omission of several things that the apostle said. For, having expressed this fundamental doctrine, that Jesus was the Messiah, and recorded several of the arguments wherewith St. Peter urged it, for the conversion of the unbelieving jews, his auditors, he adds, ver. 40, " And " with many other words did he testify and exhort, " saying, Save yourselves from this untoward genera " tion." Here he confesses, that he omitted a great deal which St. Peter had said to persuade them, To what? To that which, in other words, he had just said before, ver. 38, " Repent and be baptized every one of you in " the name of Jesus Christ," i. e. Believe Jesus to be the Messiah, take him as such for your Lord and King, and reform your lives by a sincere resolution of obe dience to his laws.
Thus we have an account of the omissions in the re cords of matters of fact in the New Testament. But will the unmasker say, That the preaching of those articles that he has given us, as necessary to be believed to make a man a Christian, was part of those matters of fact, which have been omitted in the history of the New Testament? Can any one think3 that " the corruption " and degeneracy of human nature, with the true " original of it, (the defection of our first parents,) the 326 A Second Vindication of the " propagation of sin and mortality, our restoration and " reconciliation by Christ's blood, the eminency and " excellency of his priesthood, the efficacy of his death, " the full satisfaction thereby made to divine justice, " and his being made an all-sufficient sacrifice for sin, " our justification by Christ's righteousness, election, " adoption," &c. were all proposed, and that too, in the sense of our author's system, by our Saviour and his apostles, as fundamental articles of faith, necessary to be explicitly believed by every man, to make him a Christian, in all their discourses to unbelievers; and yet that the inspired penmen of those histories every-where left the mention of these fundamental articles wholly out? This would have been to have writ, not a concise, but an imperfect history of all that Jesus and his apostles taught.
What an account would it have been of the gospel, as it was first preached and propagated, if the greatest part of the necessary doctrines of it were wholly left out, and a man could not find, from one end to the other of this whole history, that religion which is necessary to be be lieved to make a man a Christian? And yet this is that, which, under the notion of their being concise, the unmasker would persuade us to have been done by St. Luke and the other evangelists, in their histories. And it is no less than what he plainly says, in his " Thoughts " concerning the causes of atheism," p. 109, where, to aggravate my fault, in passing by the epistles, and to show the necessity of searching in them for fundamen tals, he in words blames me; but in effect condemns the sacred history contained in the Gospels and the Acts. " It is most evident," says he, " to any thinking man, " that the author of the Reasonableness of Christianity, " purposely omits the epistolary writings of the apostles, " because they are fraught with other fundamental " doctrines,, besides that one which he mentions. There " we are instructed concerning these grand heads of " Christian divinity." Here, i. e. in the epistles, says he, " there are discoveries concerning satisfaction," &c. And, in the close of his list of grand heads, as he calls them, some whereof I have above set down out Reasonableness of Christianity, fyc. 327 of him, he adds, " These are the matters of faith con-" tained in the epistles." By all which expressions he plainly signifies, that these, which he calls fundamental doctrines, are none of those we are instructed in, in the Gospels and the Acts; that they are not discovered nor contained in the historical writings of the evangelists: whereby he confesses, that either our Saviour and his apostles did not propose them in their preachings to their unbelieving hearers; or else, that the several faithful writers of their history, wilfully, i. e. unfaith fully, every- where omitted them in the account they have left us of those preachings; which could scarce possibly be done by them all, and every-where, without an actual combination amongst them, to smother the greatest and most material parts of our Saviour's and his apostles 'discourses. For what else did they, if all that the unmasker has set down in his list be fundamental doctrines; every one of them absolutely necessary to be believed to make a man a Christian, which our Saviour and his apostles every-where preached, to make men Christians? but yet St. Luke, and the other evangelists, by a very guilty and unpardonable conciseness, every where omitted them, and throughout their whole history, never once tell us, they were so much as pro posed, much less, that they were those articles which the apostles laboured to establish and convince men of every-where, before they admitted them to baptism?
Nay the far greatest part of them, the history they writ does not any- where so much as once mention? Flow, after such an imputation as this, the unmasker will clear himself from laying by the four Gospels and the Acts with contempt, let him look; if my not collecting fun damentals out of the epistles had that guilt in it. For I never denied all the fundamental doctrines to be there, but only said, that there they were not easy to be found out, and distinguished from doctrines not fundamental. Whereas our good unmasker charges the historical books of the New Testament with a total omission of the far greatest part of those fundamental doctrines of Christianity, which he says, are absolutely necessary to be believed to make a man a Christian.
328 A Second Vindication of the To convince the reader what was absolutely required to be believed to make a man a Christian, and thereby clear the holy writers from the un masker's slander, any one need but look a little farther into the history of the Acts, and observe St. Luke's method in the writing of it. In the beginning (as we observed before), and in some few other places, he sets down at large the dis courses made by the preachers of Christianity, to their unbelieving auditors. But in the process of his history, he generally contents himself to relate* what it was their discourses drive at; what was the doctrine they endea voured to convince their unbelieving hearers of, to make them believers. This we may observe, is never omitted. This is every-where set down. Thus, Acts v. 42, he tells us, that " daily in the temple, and in " every house, the apostles ceased not to teach, and to " preach JESUS THE MESSIAH." The particulars of their discourses he omits, and the arguments they used to induce men to believe, he omits; but never fails to inform us carefully, what it was the apostles taught and preached, and would have men believe. The account he gives us of St. Paul's preaching at Thessalonica, is this: That " three sabbath-days he REASONED with " the jews 'out of the scriptures, OPENING and AL-" LEGiNGj that the Messiah must needs have suffered,, " and risen again from the dead; and that Jesus was " the Messiah; Acts xvii. 2, 3. At Corinth, that he " REASONED in the synagogue every sabbath, and PER-" SUADED the jews and the Greeks, and TESTIFIED " that Jesus was the Messiah; " xviii. 4, 5. That " Apollos mightily convinced the jews, SHOWING BY " THE SCRIPTURES, that Jesus was the Messiah; " xviii. 28.
By these, and the like places, we may be satisfied what it was, that the apostles taught and preached, even this one proposition, That Jesus was the Messiah: for this was the sole proposition they reasoned about; this alone they testified, and they showed out of the scrip tures; and of this alone they endeavoured to convince the jews and the Greeks, that believed one God. So that it is plain from hence, that St. Luke omitted no- Reasonableness of Christianity ', <§*c< 329 thing, that the apostles taught and preached; none of those doctrines that it was necessary to convince unbe lievers of, to make them Christians; though he, in most places, omitted, as was fit, the passages of scripture which they alleged, and the arguments those inspired preachers used to persuade men to believe and embrace that doctrine.
Another convincing argument, to show that St. Luke omitted none of those fundamental doctrines, which the apostles any-where proposed as necessary to be believed, is from that different account he gives us of their preaching in other places, and to auditors otherwise disposed. Where the apostles had to do with idolatrous heathens, who were not yet come to the knowledge of the only true God, there, he tells us, they proposed also the article of the one invisible God, maker of heaven and earth: and this we find recorded in him out of their preaching to the Lystrians, Acts xiv. and to the Athenians, Acts xvii. In the latter of which St. Luke, to convince his reader, that he, out of con ciseness, omits none of those fundamental articles, that were any-where proposed by the preachers of the gospel, as necessary to be believed to make men Christians, sets down not only the article of Jesus the Messiah, but that also of the one invisible God, creator of all things; which, if any necessary one might, this of all other fun damental articles might, by an author that affected brevity, with the fairest excuse, have been omitted, as being implied in that other, of the Messiah ordained by God. Indeed in the story of what Paul and Barnabas said at Lystra, the article of the Messiah is not mention ed. Not that St. Luke omitted that fundamental arti cle, where the apostles taught it: but, they having here begun their preaching with that of the one living-God, they had not, as appears, time to proceed farther, and propose to them what yet remained to make them Christians: all that they could do, at that time, was, to hinder the people from sacrificing to them. And, be fore we hear any more of their preaching, they were, by the instigation of the jews, fallen upon, and Paul stoned.
330 A Second Vindication of the This, by the way, shows the unmasker's mistake in his first particular, p. 74, where he says (as he does here again, in the second particular, which we are now examining-) that " believing Jesus to be the Messiah is " the first step to Christianity; and therefore this, " rather than any other, was propounded to be be-" lieved by all those, whom either our Saviour, or the " apostles, invited to embrace Christianity." The contrary whereof appears here; where the article of one God is proposed in the first place, to those whose unbelief made such a proposal necessary. And there fore, if his reason (which he uses again here, p. 76) were good, viz. That the article of the Messiah is ex pressly mentioned alone, " because it is a leading arti-" cie, and makes way for the rest," this reason would rather conclude for the article of one God; and that alone should be expressly mentioned, instead of the other. Since, as he argues for the other, p. 74, " If " they did not believe this, in the first place," viz. that there was one God, " there could be no hopes " that they would attend unto any other proposal, re-" lating to the Christian religion. The vanity and falsehood of which reasoning, viz. that " the article of " Jesus the Messiah was every-where propounded, ra-" ther than any other, because it was the leading arti-" cle," we see in the history of St. Paul's preaching to the Athenians. St. Luke mentions more than one arti cle, where more than one was proposed by St. Paul; though the first of them was that leading article of one God, which if not received, " in the first place3 there " could be no hope they would attend to the rest."
Something the unmasker would make of this argu ment, of a leading article, for want of a better, though he knows not what. In his first particular, p. 74, he makes use of it to show, why there was but that one article proposed by the first preachers of the gospel; and how well that succeeds with him, we have seen. For this is demonstration, that if there were but that one proposed by our Saviour and the apostles, there was but that one necessary to be believed to make men Christians; unless he will impiously say, that our Reasonableness of Christianity, 8$c. 331 Saviour and the apostles went about preaching to no purpose: for if they proposed not all that was necessary to make men Christians, it was in vain for them to preach, and others to hear; if when they heard and be lieved all that was proposed to them, they were not yet Christians: for if any article was omitted in the pro posal, which was necessary to make a man a Christian, though they believed all that was proposed to them, they could not yet be Christians; unless a man can, from an infidel, become a Christian, without doing what was necessary to make him a Christian.
Further, if his argument, of its being a leading arti cle, proves, that that alone was proposed, it is a con tradiction to give it as a reason, why it was set down alone by the historian, where it was not proposed alone by the preacher, but other necessary " matters of faith " were proposed with it; " unless it can be true, that this article, of " Jesus is the Messiah," was proposed alone by our Saviour and his apostles, because it was a leading article, and was mentioned alone in the history of what they preached, because it was a leading article, though it were not proposed alone, but jointly with other necessary matters of faith. For this is the use he makes here again, p. 76, of his leading article, under his second particular, viz. to show why the historians mentioned this necessary article of Jesus the Messiah alone, in places where the preachers of the gospel pro posed it not alone, but with other necessary articles.
But, in this latter case, it has no show of a reason at all. It may be granted as reasonable for the teachers of any religion not to go any farther, where they see the first article which they propose is rejected; where the leading truth, on which all the rest depends, is not received. But it can be no reason at all for an historian, who writes the history of these first preachers, to set down only the first and leading article, and omit all the rest, in instances where more were not only proposed, but believed and embraced, and upon that the hearers and believers admitted into the church. It is not for historians to put any distinction between leading, or A Second Vindication of the not leading articles; but, if they will give a true and useful account of the religion, whose original they are writing, and of the converts made to it, they must tell, not one, but all those necessary articles, upon assent to which, converts were baptized into that religion, and admitted into the church. Whoever says otherwise, accuses them of falsifying the story, misleading the rea ders, and giving a wrong account of the religion which they pretend to teach the world, and to preserve and propagate to future ages. This (if it were so) no pre tence of conciseness could excuse or palliate.
There is yet remaining one consideration, which were sufficient of itself to convince us, that it was the sole article of faith which was preached; and that if there had been other articles necessary to be known and be lieved by converts, they could not, upon any pretence of conciseness, be supposed to be omitted: and that is the commissions of those, that were sent to preach the gospel. Which since the sacred historians mention., they cannot be supposed to leave out any of the mate rial and main heads of those commissions.
St. Luke records it, chap. iv. 43, that our Saviour says of himself, ** I must go into the other towns to " tell the good news of the kingdom; for (a? TSTO) " upon this errand am I SENT/' This St. Mark calls simply preaching. This preaching, what it contained, St. Matthew tells us, chap. iv. 23, " And Jesus went " about all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, and " preaching the good news of the kingdom, and heal-" ing all manner of sickness and all manner of diseases " among the people." Here we have his commission, or end of his being sent, and the execution of it; both terminating in this, that he declared the good news, that the kingdom of the Messiah was come; and gave them to understand by the miracles he did, that he himself was he. Nor does St. Matthew seem to affect such conciseness, that he would have left it out, if the gospel had contained any other fundamental parts necessary to be believed to make men Christians. For he here says, " All manner of sickness, and all manner of dis- Reasonableness of Christianity, 8$c. 383 " eases," when either of them might have been better left out, than any necessary article of the gospel, to make his history concise.
We see what our Saviour was sent for. In the next place, let us look into the commission he gave the apostles, when he sent them to preach the gospel. We have it in the tenth of St. Matthew, in these words: " Go not into the way of the gentiles, and into any " city of the Samaritans enter ye not. But go rather " to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. And as ye " go, PREACH, SAYING, THE KINGDOM of HEAVEN " is AT HAND. Heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, t( raise the dead, cast out devils: freely have ye re-" ceived, freely give. Provide neither gold, nor silver, " nor brass in your purses, nor scrip in your journey; " neither two coats, neither shoes, nor yet staves, (for " the workman is worthy of his meat.) And into " whatsoever city, or town, ye shall enter, inquire who " in it is worthy, and there abide until ye go thence. u And when ye come into any house salute it. And " if the house be worthy, let your peace come upon it; " and if it be not worthy, let your peace return to " you. And whosoever shall not receive you, nor " hear your words; when ye depart out of that house, " or city, shake off the dust of your feet. Verily I " say unto you, it shall be more tolerable for the land " of Sodom and Gornorrha, in the day of judgment, " than for that city. Behold I send you forth as sheep, " in the midst of wolves: be ye therefore wise as ser-" pents, and harmless as doves. But beware of men; " for they will deliver you up to the councils, and they " will scourge you in their synagogues. And ye shall " be brought before governors and kings for my sake, " for a testimony against them and the gentiles. But " when they deliver you up, take no thought, how or " what ye shall speak: for it shall be given you in that " same hour, what ye shall speak. For it is not ye " that speak, but the spirit of your Father, which " speaketh in you. And the brother shall deliver up " the brother to death, and the father the child, and " the children shall rise up against the parents, and " cause them to be put to death. And ye shall be hated 334 A Second Vindication of the " of all men, for my name's sake: but he that en-" dureth to the end shall he saved. But when they per-" secute you in this city, flee ye into another; for verily 66 I say unto you, ye shall not have gone over the cities " of Israel until the Son of man be come. The disciple " is not above his master, nor the servant above his " lord. It is enough for the disciple, that he be as " his master, and the servant as his lord. If they have " called the master of the house Beelzebub, how much " more shall they call them of his household? Fear them " not therefore; for there is nothing covered, which " shall not be revealed; and hid, that shall not be t( known. What I tell you in darkness, that speak ye in " light; and what ye hear in the ear, that preach ye " upon the house-tops. And fear not them which kill " the body, but are not able to kill the soul: but rather " fear him, which is able to destroy both soul and body " in hell. Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing?