but I may be free from betraying Christianity; but if it be necessary to name the word Satisfaction, and he that does not so is a betrayer of Christianity, you will do well to consider, how you will acquit the holy apostles from that bold imputation; which if it be extended as far as it will go, will scarce come short of blasphemy: for I do not remember, that our Saviour has any where named satisfaction, or implied it plainer in any words, than those I have quoted from him; and he, I hope, will escape the intemperance of your tongue.

You tell me, I had my "prudence from the missionary Jesuits in China, who concealed our Saviour's sufferings and death, because I undertake to instruct the world in Christianity, with an omission of its principal articles." And I pray, sir, from whom did you learn your prudence, when, taking upon you to teach the fundamental doctrines of Christianity, in your Thoughts concerning the Causes of Atheism, you left out several, that you have been pleased since to add in your Socinianism unmasked? Or, if I, as you say here, betray Christianity by this omission of this principal article; what do you, who are a professed teacher of it, if you omit any principal article, which your prudence is so wary in, that you will not say you have given us all that are necessary to salvation, in that list you have last published? I pray, who acts best the Jesuit, (whose humble imitator, you say, I am) you or I? when, pretending to give a catalogue of fundamentals, you have not reduced them to direct propositions, but have left some of them indefinite, to be collected as every one pleases: and instead of telling us it is a perfect catalogue of fundamentals, plainly shuffle it off, and tell me, p. 22, “If that will not content me, you are sure you can do nothing that will: if I require more, it is folly in you to comply with me?" One part of what you here say, Iown to you, savours not much of the skill of a Jesuit. You confess your inability, and I believe it to be perfectly true that if what you have done already (which is nothing at all) "will not content me, you are sure, you can do nothing that will content me," or any reasonable man that shall demand of you a complete catalogue of

fundamentals. But you make it up pretty well, with a confidence becoming one of that order. For he must have rubbed his forehead hard, who in the same treatise, where he so severely condemns the imperfection of my list of fundamentals, confesses that he cannot give a complete catalogue of his own.

You publish to the world in this 44th, and the next page, that "I hide from the people the main articles of the Christian religion; I disguise the faith of the Gospel, betray Christianity itself, and imitate the Jesuits that went to preach the Gospel to the people of China, by my omission of its principal or main articles."

Answ. I know not how I disguise the faith of the Gospel, &c. in imitation of the Jesuits in China; unless taking men off from the inventions of men, and recommending to them the reading and study of the holy Scripture, to find what the Gospel is, and requires, be "a disguising the faith of the Gospel, a betraying of Christianity, and imitating the Jesuits." Besides, sir, if one may ask you, In what school did you learn that prudent wariness and reserve, which so eminently appears, p. 24, of your Socinianism unmasked, in these words: "These articles" (meaning those which you had before enumerated as fundamental articles) of faith, "are such as must in some measure be known and assented to by a Christian, such as must generally be received and embraced by him?" You will do well the next time to set down how far your fundamentals must be known, assented to, and received; to avoid the suspicion, that there is a little more of Jesuitism in these expressions," in some measure known and assented to, and generally received and embraced," than what becomes a sincere protestant preacher of the Gospel. For your speaking so doubtfully of knowing and assenting to those, which you give us for fundamental doctrines, which belong (as you say) to the very essence of Christianity, will hardly escape being imputed to your want of knowledge, or want of sincerity. And indeed, the word "general" is in familiar use with you, and stands you in good stead, when you would say something, you

know not what; as I shall have occasion to remark to you, when I come to your 91st page.

Further, I do not remember where it was, that I mentioned or undertook to set down all the " principal or main articles of Christianity." To change the terms of the question, from articles necessary to be believed to make a man a Christian, into principal or main articles, looks a little Jesuitical. But to pass by that: the apostles, when they "went to preach the Gospel to people" as much strangers to it as the Chinese were when the Europeans came first amongst them, "Did they hide from the people the main articles of the Christian religion, disguise the faith of the Gospel, and betray Christianity itself?" If they did not, I am sure I have not: for I have not omitted any of the main articles, which they preached to the unbelieving world. Those I have set down, with so much care, not to omit any of them, that you blame me for it more than once, and call it tedious. However you are pleased to acquit or condemn the apostles in the case, by your supreme determination, I am very indifferent. If you think fit to condemn them for " disguising or betraying the Christian religion," because they said no more of satisfaction than I have done, in their preaching at first to their unbelieving auditors, Jews or heathens, to make them, as I think, Christians, (for that I am now speaking of) I shall not be sorry to be found in their company, under what censure soever. If you are pleased graciously to take off this your censure from them, for this omission, I shall claim a share in the same indulgence.

But to come to what, perhaps, you will think yourself a little more concerned not to censure, and what the apostles did so long since; for you have given instances of being very apt to make bold with the dead: Pray tell me, does the church of England admit people into the church of Christ at hap-hazard? or without proposing and requiring a profession of all that is necessary to be believed to make a man a Christian? If she does not, I desire you to turn to the baptism of those of riper years in our liturgy where the priest, asking

the convert particularly, whether he believes the Apostles' Creed, which he repeats to him; upon his profession that he does, and that he desires to be baptized into that faith, without one word of any other articles, baptizes him; and then declares him a Christian in these words: "We receive this person into the congregation of Christ's flock, and sign him with the sign of the cross, in token that he shall not be ashamed-to continue Christ's faithful soldier and servant." In all this there is not one word of satisfaction, no more than in my book, nor so much neither. And here I ask you, Whether for this omission you will pronounce that the church of England disguises the faith of the Gospel? However you think fit to treat me, yet methinks you should not let yourself loose so freely against our first reformers and the fathers of our church ever since, as to call them "Betrayers of Christianity itself;" because they think not so much necessary to be believed to make a man a Christian, as you are pleased to put down in your articles; but omit, as well as I, your "main article of satisfaction."

Having thus notably harangued upon the occasion of my saying, "Would any one blame my prudence ?" and thereby made me a "Socinian, a Jesuit, and a betrayer of Christianity itself," he has in that answered all that such a miscreant as I do or can say; and so passes by all the reasons I gave for what I did; without any other notice or answer, but only denying a matter of fact, which I only can know, and he cannot, viz. my design in printing my Reasonableness of Christianity.

In the next paragraph, p. 45, in answer to the words of St. Paul, Rom. xiv. 1," Him that is weak in the faith receive ye, but not to doubtful disputations;" which I brought as a reason why I mentioned not satisfaction amongst the benefits received by the coming of our Saviour; because, as I tell him in my Vindication, p. 164, my Reasonableness of Christianity, as the title shows," was designed chiefly for those who were not yet thoroughly or firmly Christians." He replies, and I desire him to prove it,

XX.

"That I pretend a design of my book, which was never so much as thought of, until I was solicited by my brethren to vindicate it."

All the rest in this paragraph, being either nothing to this place of the Romans, or what I have answered elsewhere, needs no farther answer.

The next two paragraphs, p. 46-49, are meant for an answer to something I had said concerning the Apostles' Creed, upon the occasion of his charging my book with Socinianism. They begin thus:

This author of the new Christianity" [Answ. This new Christianity is as old as the preaching of our Saviour and his apostles, and a little older than the unmasker's system] "wisely objects, that the Apostles' Creed hath none of those articles which I mention," p. 591, &c. Answ. If that author wisely objects, the unmasker would have done well to have replied wisely. But for a man wisely to reply, it is in the first place requisite, that the objection be truly and fairly set down in its full force, and not represented short, and as will best serve the answerer's turn to reply to. This is neither wise nor honest and this first part of a wise reply the unmasker has failed in. This will appear from my words, and the occasion of them. The unmasker had accused my book of Socinianism, for omitting some points, which he urged as necessary articles of faith. To which I answered, That he had done so only "to give it an ill name, not because it was Socinian; for he had no more reason to charge it with Socinianism, for the omissions he mentions, than the Apostles' Creed." These are my words, which he should have either set down out of p. 67, which he quotes, or at least given the objection as I put it, if he had meant to have cleared it by a fair answer. But he, instead thereof, contents himself that "I object, that the Apostles' Creed hath none of those articles and doctrines which the unmasker mentioned." Answ. This at best is but a part of my objection, and not to the purpose which I there meant, without the rest joined to it; which it has pleased the unmasker, according to