that what you have given us there is nothing less than a complete collection of fundamentals, even in your own opinion of it.

But, good sir, Why is it a foolish question in me? You have found fault with my summary for being short: the defect in my collection of necessary articles has raised your zeal into so severe censures, and drawn upon me, from you, so heavy a condemnation, that, if half you have said of me be true, I am in a very ill case, for having so curtailed the fundamental doctrines of Christianity. Is it folly, then, for me to ask from you a complete creed? If it be so dangerous (as certainly it is) to fail in any necessary article of faith, Why is it folly in me to be instant with you, to give me them all? Or why is it folly in you to grant so reasonable a demand? A short faith, defective in necessaries, is no more tolerable in you than in me; nay, much more inexcusable, if it were for no other reason but this, that you rest in it yourself, and would impose it on others; and yet do not yourself know or believe it to be complete. For if you do, why dare you not say so, and give it us all entire, in plain propositions; and not, as you have in a great measure done here, give only the texts of Scripture, from whence, you say, necessary articles are to be drawn? Which is too great an uncertainty for doctrines, absolutely necessary. For, possibly all men do not understand those texts alike, and some may draw articles out of them quite different from your system; and so, though they agree in the same texts, may not agree in the same fundamentals: and, till you have set down plainly and distinctly your articles, that you think contained in them, cannot tell whether you will allow them to be Christians, or no. For you know, sir, several inferences are often drawn from the same text; and the different systems of dissenting (I was going to say Christians, but that none must be so, but those who receive your collection of fundamentals, when you please to give it them) professors are all founded on the Scripture.

Why, I beseech you, is mine a foolish question to ask, "What are the necessary articles of faith ?" It is of no less consequence than, nor much different from, the

jailor's question in the sixteenth of the Acts, "What shall I do to be saved?" And that was not, that ever I heard, counted by any one a foolish question. You grant, there are articles necessary to be believed for salvation: Would it not then be wisdom to know them? Nay, is it not our duty to know and believe them? If not, why do you, with so much outcry, reprehend me, for not knowing them? Why do you fill your books with such variety of invectives, as if you could never say enough, nor bad enough, against me, for having left out some of them? And, if it be so dangerous, so criminal to miss any of them, Why is it a folly in me, to move you to give me a complete list?

If fundamentals are to be known, easy to be known, (as, without doubt, they are) then a catalogue may be given of them. But, if they are not, if it cannot certainly be determined, which are they, but the doubtful knowledge of them depends upon guesses, Why may not I be permitted to follow my guesses, as well as you yours? Or why, of all others, must you prescribe your guesses to me, when there are so many that are as ready to prescribe as you, and of as good authority? The pretence, indeed, and clamour is religion, and the saving of souls: but your business, it is plain, is nothing but to over-rule and prescribe, and be hearkened to as a dictator; and not to inform, teach, and instruct in the sure way to salvation. Why else do you so start and fling, when I desire to know of you, what is necessary to be believed to make a man a Christian, when this is the only material thing in controversy between us; and my mistake in it has made you begin a quarrel with me, and let loose your pen against me in no ordinary way of reprehension?

Besides, in this way which you take, you will be in no better a case than I. For another having as good a claim to have his guesses give the rule as you yours; or to have his system received, as well as you yours he will complain of you as well, and upon as good grounds, as you do of me; and (if he have but as much zeal for his orthodoxy as you show for yours) in as civil, well-bred, and Christian-like language.

In the next place, pray tell me, Why would it be folly in you to comply with what I require of you? Would it not be useful to me, to be set right in this matter? If so, Why is it folly in you to set me right? Consider me, if you please, as one of your parishioners, who (after you have resolved which catalogue of fundamentals to give him, either that in your Thoughts of the Causes of Atheism, or this other here, in your Socinianism unmasked; for they are not both the same, nor either of them perfect) asked you, "Are these all fundamental articles necessary to be believed to make a man a Christian; and are there no more but these?" Would you answer him, that it was folly in you to comply with him in what he desired? Is it of no moment to know, what is required of men to be believed; without a belief of which they are not Christians, nor can be saved? And is it folly in a minister of the Gospel, to inform one committed to his instruction, in so material a point as this, which distinguishes believers from unbelievers? Is it folly in one, whose business it is to bring men to be Christians, and to salvation, to resolve a question, by which they may know, whether they are Christians or no; and, without a resolution of which, they cannot certainly know their condition, and the state they are in? Is it besides your commission and business, and therefore a folly, to extend your care of souls so far as this, to those who are committed to your charge?

Sir, I have a title to demand this of you, as if I were your parishioner: you have forced yourself upon me for a teacher, in this very point, as if you wanted a parishioner to instruct: and therefore I demand it of you, and shall insist upon it, till you either do it, or confess you cannot. Nor shall it excuse you to say it is capriciously required. For this is no otherwise capricious, than all questions are capricious to a man that cannot answer them; and such an one, I think, this is to you. For, if you could answer it, nobody can doubt but that you would, and that with confidence for nobody will suspect it is the want of that makes you so reserved. This is, indeed, a frequent way of answering questions, by men, that cannot otherwise

cover the absurdities of their opinions, and their insolence of expecting to be believed upon their bare words, by saying they are capriciously asked, and deserve no other answer.

But how far soever capriciousness (when proved, for saying is not enough) may excuse from answering a material question, yet your own words here will clear this from being a capricious question in me. For that those texts of Scripture which you have set down do not, upon your own grounds, contain all the fundamental doctrines of religion, all that is necessary to be believed to make a man a Christian, what you say a little lower, in this very page, as well as in other places, does demonstrate. Your words are, "I think I have sufficiently proved, that there are other doctrines besides that [Jesus is the Messiah] which are required to be believed to make a man a Christian; Why did the apostles write these doctrines? Was it not, that those they writ to might give their assent to them?" This argument, for the necessity of believing the texts you cite from their being set down in the New Testament, you urged thus, p. 9, "Is this set down to no purpose in these inspired epistles? Is it not requisite that we should know it and believe? And again, p. 29, "they are in our Bibles to that very purpose, to be believed." If then it be necessary to know and believe those texts of Scripture you have collected, because the apostles writ them, and they were not "set down to no purpose: and they are set down in our Bibles on purpose to be believed:" I have reason to demand of you other texts besides those you have enumerated, as containing points necessary to be believed; because there are other texts which the apostles writ, and were not "set down to no purpose, and are in our Bibles, on purpose to be believed," as well as those which you have cited.

Another reason of doubting, and consequently of demanding, whether those propositions you have set down for fundamental doctrines be every one of them necessary to be believed, and all that are necessary to be believed to make a man a Christian, I have from your next argument; which, joined to the former, stands thus,

p. 22: "Why did the apostles write these doctrines? Was it not that those they writ to might give their assent to them? Nay, did they not require assent to them? Yes, verily, for this is to be proved from the nature of the things contained in these doctrines, which are such as had immediate respect to the occasion, author, way, means, and issue, of their redemption and salvation." If therefore all "things which have an immediate respect to the occasion, author, way, means, and issue of men's redemption and salvation," are those and those only, which are necessary to be believed to make a man a Christian; may a man not justly doubt, whether those propositions, which the unmasker has set down, contain all those things, and whether there be not other things contained in other texts of Scripture, or in some of those cited by him, but otherwise understood, that have as immediate a "respect to the occasion, author, way, means, and issue of men's redemption and salvation," as those he has set down? and therefore I have reason to demand a completer list. For at best, to tell us of "all things that have an immediate respect to the occasion, author, way, means, and issue of men's redemption and salvation," is but a general description of fundamentals, with which some may think some articles agree, and others, others and the terms, "immediate respect," may give ground enough for difference about them, to those who agree that the rest of your description is right. My demand therefore is not a general description of fundamentals, but, for the reasons above-mentioned, the particular articles themselves, which are necessary to be believed to make a man a Christian.

It is not my business at present, to examine the validity of these arguments of his, to prove all the propositions to be necessary to be believed, which he has here, in his Socinianism unmasked, set down as such. The use I make of them now, is to show the reason they afford me to doubt, that those propositions, which he has given us, for doctrines necessary to be believed, are either not all such, or more than all, by his own rule: and therefore, I must desire him to give us a completer