is concerned: a consequence too absurd for any sober and considering man to admit; and so I need not say more of it, but may pass on to a new article. VIII. Another pretended rule or criterion for determining fundamentals, is universality of agreement among Christians so called to throw out what is disputed, and to retain only what all agree in. A rule as uncertain in its application and use, as it is false in its main ground: for how shall any one know what all sects and denominations of Christians agree in, or how long they shall do so? Or if that could be known, are we to be guided by the floating humours, fancies, follies of men, or by the unerring wisdom of God? What article of faith is there which has not heretofore, or may not again be disputed? Or what creed can there be pitched upon, be it ever so short, that can please all, or that some perverse sect or other may not controvert? The Romanists allow the Church governors to augment the number of fundamentals at discretion by their definitions: on the other hand, these Universalists, still worse, seem to allow any the wildest sectaries to abridge the number as they please, (by disputations,) and not for themselves only, but for all Christendom: for whatever is disputed by any of them, is by the supposition to be thrown out as unnecessary or non-fundamental. A strange expedient for healing differences: a remedy much worse than the disease. It must be owned that a comprehension or coalition of religious parties is a thing very desirable in itself; and so far y Quidam toto theologiæ systemate, ac notorie fundamentalibus articulis dissentiunt. -Ad (quam) classem referimus Socinianos, et qui hisce proxime accedunt; tum plerasque Anabaptistarum familias, Tremulos, seu Quackeros, et qui Fanaticorum nomen merentur: qui articulos quos Protestantes palmarios habent, negant, aut detorquent, et velut evacuant; ut amoto nucleo, inania tantum putamina remaneant. Sic ut theologiæ systema ab istis formatum a nostro plane abeat, et vix circa alia inter eos conveniat quam quæ ex ipso naturalis rationis lumine cognita sunt. -Circa quos, quamdiu hypothesibus suis innituntur, nobiscum conciliandos satagere, vesaniæ proximum, ac plane inutile duco &c.— Ex quo et illud consequitur, rationem istos valde fugisse, qui concilia tionem harum quoque sectarum quas tetigimus, cum Protestantibus moliti sunt, eoque fine vel symbolum Apostolicum, vel aliam laxissimam formulam proposuerunt.--Nam si formula concordiæ ita laxe concipiatur, ut eadem quibusvis sectariis ad palatum sit, theologia emerget oppido quam jejuna ac mutila, et quam parum e solido Christianismo retineat. Puffendorf, Jus feciale Divin. sect. xvi. p. 82. z Præstat salutiferam veritatem vel inter pugnas et contradictiones retinere, quam mendacio, altam inter quietem, indormire. Sed nec ejusmodi concordiæ ratio est ineunda quæ vel Christianæ religionis indoli repugnet, vel plures calamitates generet quam illæ ipsæ dissensiones, non lacessitæ et irritatæ, prodicebant. Puffendorf, ibid. sect. iii. as it can be effected by throwing out circumstantials and retaining only essentials, it is well worthy of every good man's thoughts and care but to attempt the doing it by relaxing the rule for essentials, or leaving us no rule at all, or what is next to none, is a wild undertaking. If it may be called uniting, it is uniting in nothing but a cold indifference towards the weighty concerns of God and a world to come, which of course will be accompanied with so much the warmer pursuit of secular emoluments; for, in the same proportion as religious fervours abate, secular will succeed in their room. I forbear to be more particular in answer to this so popular pretence, because the learned Spanheim is beforehand with me, and has in a manner exhausted the argument under nine several articlesa. To recite what he says, at length, would be trespassing too far upon your patience, and to abridge what is so close and so well written would be doing it an injury, and much impairing its force. So I pass on to another head. IX. There is another pretence, which proceeds upon a like bottom with what I last mentioned, but is looser still, and much more extravagant. For as that pitched upon the universal agreement of Christians so called, for its mark or rule to steer by, so this still fetching a wider compass, pitches upon the universal agreement of the whole race of mankind (or of the soberer part at least) in all ages, for its measure of fundamentals. Throw out all that has been disputed, not only between Christian and Christian, but between Christians and Pagans, or between Christians and Jews, or Mahometans, and make a short creed of the remainder, and there is your list of fundamentals, your terms of communion, reducible to five articles of natural religion b, as is pretended. 1. The existence of a Deity. 2. Some kind of worship to be paid him. 3. The practice of moral virtue. 4. Repentance a Frid. Spanheim. tom. iii. 1332, 1333, 1334. Compare Hoornbeeck, Socin. Confut. p. 193, 206, &c. Buddæus, Miscellan. Sacr. tom. i. p. 320, &c. Turretin. de Fundam. p. 13. b Herbert de Religione Gentilium, c. i. sect. 15. de Veritate, p. 268, &c. de Causis Errorum, p. 31. Longe processit E. Herbertus, vir illustris, in suis de veritate, et causis errorum scriptis: in quibus e necessa riorum censu fidem Christianam dispunxit, eaque solummodo capita quæ prudentiores Gentilium admiserunt, in fundamentalibus habuit, qualia videlicet; 1. Esse Deum. 2. Colendum eundem. 3. Virtuti operam dandam. 4. A peccatis resipiscendum. 5. Denique præmia et poenas post hanc vitam expectandas. Frid. Spanheim. vol. iii. p. 1294. Conf. Kortholt de Trib. Impost. magn. p. 11. for sins past. 5. Belief of a future state of rewards and punish ments. I shall not here waste your time in confuting a notion which confutes itself, and which ought rather to be exploded at once with abhorrence, than seriously answered. If infidelity in the worst sense, carried up to apostasy c, is not a fatal delusion, or if Christianity itself is not a necessary term of communion, it is in vain to attempt to prove any thing, or to say any thing upon the subject of fundamentals. But from hence we may observe what mazes of error the minds of men (and sometimes men of excellent sense otherwise) are exposed to, when once they recede from true and sound principles, and are set afloat to follow their own wanderings. The effect is natural, as error is infinite, and knows no bounds: and when vain presumption once gets the ascendant, and makes men full of themselves, God leaves them to themselves, and to their own inventions. X. There is one pretence more which I have reserved for the last place, being as loose as any, and yet carrying so fair a face with it, that it may be most apt to deceive. It is to throw off all concern for a right faith, as insignificant, and to comprise all fundamentals in the single article of a good life, as they call it; to which some are pleased to add faith in the Divine promises d. Well: but can we say any thing too much, or too high, in commendation of a good life, the flower and perfection of all religion, and the brightest ornament of every rational mind? I do not say that we can ever think or speak too highly of it, provided only that it be rightly understood: but the more valuable a thing it is, the greater care should be taken to understand what it means, c Infidelitatis species quatuor. 1. Gentilismus, materialiter maxima infidelitas, sed formaliter levior quam Judaismus. 2. Judaismus est gravior infidelitas, quia acceperunt figuram evangelii, quæ erat quasi aurora respectu diei evangelicæ. 3. Hæresis, gravissima infidelitas, quæ renititur fidei claræ. 4. Apostasia est fastigium hæreseos; scilicet generalis defectio a fide. Rog. Boyle, Summ. Theolog. Christian. p. 204. d Nonnulli eo usque restringunt fundamenta religionis, ut dicant, præ ter obedientiam mandatis divinis, et positam in promissis evangelicis fiduciam, fundamentale nihil esse. Turretin. p. 13, 14. Conf. Hoornbeeck, tom. i. p. 176. Minus recte assertum aliis hoc criterium fieret; ea sola censeri debere necessaria, vel fundamentalia, quæ practica, quæ ad vitam et mores faciunt, quæ accommodata ad studium pietatis excitandum. Unde quosdam, nostra ætate, fiducia promissionum, et præceptorum obedientia totum Christianismum circumscripsisse con stat. Frid. Spanh. tom. iii. p. 1334. : and not to repose ourselves on an empty name, instead of a real thing. There is not a more equivocal or ambiguous phrase than this of a good life: every different sect almost has its own peculiar idea of it and though they may perhaps agree in some few generals, yet none of them agree in all the particulars that should go in to make up the one collective notion or definition of it. Jews, Turks, Pagans, and Infidels, as well as Christians, all talk of a good life, and each in their own sense: and the several denominations of Christians, as Papists and Protestants, believers and half believers, the soberest churchmen and the wildest sectaries, all equally claim a title to what they call a good life e. But do they all mean the same thing by it? No certainly: and there lies the fallacy. To be a little more particular, it is observable, that the infamous Apelles, of the Marcionite tribe, in the second century, (a man that discarded the prophecies of the Old Testament, and who denied the real humanity, or incarnation, of our blessed Lord, yet) pleaded this for a salvo, or cover for all his execrable doctrines, that a good life, together with a reliance upon Christ crucified, was sufficient for every thing. It is certain that he left out of his idea of a good life one essential ingredient of it, viz. a sincere love of truth, accompanied with an humble submission of his own conceits to the plain and salutary doctrine of the Gospel. So again, professed Deists have put in their claims, along with others, to the title of a good life, and have valued themselves upon it 5, under a total contempt of all revealed religion. It is manifest, they must have left out of their idea of a good life, the best ingredient of it; namely, the obedience of faith. No doubt but moral probity is in itself an excellent quality, and I should be apt to value even a Turk, a Jew, or a Pagan, who enjoys it in any competent degree, more than the most orthodox Christian who is a stranger to it: but still it is but a part (though : e❝Salmeron, Costerus, Acosta, are "so ingenuous as to confess expressly, "that a life apparently good and "honest is not proper to any one sect, "but common to Jews, Turks, and "Heretics and St. Chrysostom is as Iplain and large to my purpose as any of them. It is too plain, that arguing from the pretended holiness "of men's lives to the goodness of "their cause or opinion, is a paralogism "which hath advanced Arianism, Pelagianism, and other heresies of old, 66 66 66 "Mahometanism, Familism, and Ana baptism of late; and, unless God of "his infinite mercy prevent, may ruin "Christendom now." Thomas Smith, Preface to his Translation of Daille's Apology, p. 31. f Euseb. Eccl. Histor. v. c. 13. p. 226. g Haud crucient animum quæ circa relligionem vexantur lites; sit modo vita proba. Baro. Herbert. apud Kortholt. p. 20. an essential part) of a good life, in the proper Christian sense; for nothing comes up to the true and full notion of a good life, but universal righteousness both in faith and manners h. A right belief (in fundamentals at least) is implied and included in true obedience, as believing is submitting to Divine authority, and is obeying the commands of God. It is a vain thing therefore to speak of a good life, as separate from saving belief, or knowledge, where such knowledge may be had k. The pretence to it carries this twofold absurdity along with it: it supposes the end already attained without the previous necessary means, and makes the whole to subsist without the essential parts. In short, there is no judging of a good life, but by considering first what it contains, and whether it answers its true idea or definition, or means only a partial obedience. A belief of fundamentals ought to make part of the idea, ordinarily at least: which therefore must be determined before we can form a just estimate of a good life. To deny or disbelieve the fundamental articles of Christianity, is a contradiction to the very nature and notion of true Christian obedience, and will always be a stronger argument against the supposition of a good life, than any other circumstances can be for it. Or if we may sometimes charitably hope or believe that such and such persons, erring fundamentally, and propagating their errors, are yet strictly honest men, and accepted by the great Searcher of hearts, as holding what is sufficient for them, and as doing the best they can; yet this can be no rule for the Church to proceed by, which must judge by the nature and tendency of the doctrines, what is fundamental in an abstract view to the Christian fabric, as before intimated. As to what is so in a relative view to particular persons, God only is judge, and not we; and therefore to him we should leave it. Having thus, my Reverend Brethren, recited, and competently examined the several improper or erroneous rules suggested by |