principle of the Reformation) no degree of uniformity of faith can be requisite to salvation.

V

Answer. (1.) If the essential principle of the Reformation justified individuals in maintaining what was contrary to the truth revealed by Christ, the Reformation would be indefensible; but I deny that the Reformers held this principle. Their conduct proves the reverse, for, as I have before shown, and shall hereafter prove more fully, they refused to hold communion with such as they judged heretics, and by their reception of the Athanasian creed, maintained the necessity of believing the truth revealed by Jesus Christ. (2.) If the conclusion of the objection be defended as a truth, independently of its supposed connexion with the Reformation, then it follows that Christianity is only a name; for if no truth revealed by Christ can now be certainly ascertained, or if it is lawful to deny it, the Gospel must be either obsolete or false. Therefore the conclusion leads directly to the subversion of religion. But if it be admitted that any truth revealed by Christ can now be ascertained, it must be necessary to believe that truth. Therefore the principle must be admitted.

III. It is impossible to defend the Reformation, except by maintaining the right of private judgment as above.

Answer. (1.) This objection cannot proceed from the friends of the reformed, because it would at once, without proceeding another step, prove the Reformation unjustifiable. Accordingly, it is advanced by Romanists, and by those who maintain that the societies of the Reformation have acted tyranically and inconsistently, in requiring belief in any creeds. (2.) I deny the fact, and shall hereafter justify the Reformation on different grounds altogether.

IV. If the belief of particular doctrines be held necessary to salvation, the infidel may reasonably object that Christianity cannot be true; for, had it been designed for the salvation of men, it could not have failed in its object, and been the subject of perpetual dispute among its adherents.

▾ See chapter xii. sect. iii. and part II. chapter vi.

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Answer. (1.) I deny the consequence; for it sufficiently vindicates the merciful design of God, if the means of salvation be offered to men, without any compulsion on them to avail themselves of those means. It was not the design of God to

force men to believe and be saved, but to draw them by the persuasive power of divine grace. Therefore if Christianity be rejected or perverted by some men, while it is received by others, it does not fail of its design. (2.) Many disputes among Christians are consistent with uniform belief in the truth certainly revealed by Jesus Christ.

V. Christian truth has no existence external to the mind of each individual. It is not the letter, but the sense of the Bible, and that sense only exists in our own minds. Therefore it is impossible to affirm that any individual does not maintain the truth, because the persuasion of his own mind is the truth.

Answer. (1.) If the sense of each individual mind is truth, then those who hold Christ to be a mere man believe the truth; and those who hold the contrary, believe the truth also; that is, contradictory propositions are both true; which is absurd, and destroys the very nature of truth. (2.) Every proposition relating to Christianity is either true or false, antecedently to its being presented to the mind of man. Therefore the judg

ment of the mind does not affect the truth or falsehood of Christian doctrines.

VI. It is cruel and inhuman to deny salvation to those who merely hold erroneous doctrines.

Answer. (1.) It is not unreasonable that Christ should require belief in the truth revealed by him, because he had a right to offer salvation to man on whatever terms he pleased. Now, belief in the truth revealed by him is not an impossible condition, because though it might be impossible for any man to constrain his own judgment to be different from what it actually is, and though it would be cruel in any other man to attempt to force him to change it, yet the difficulty is at an end, when the authority of God decides what is true; because however inclined our judgment may have been to the contrary, there is

now a reason which is irresistibly convincing; namely, the infallibility of God himself. Consequently it is not impossible to believe the truth certainly revealed by Christ, and it cannot be cruel or unreasonable in Him to require belief in it. (2.) It has been before observed, that every difference in matters of religion does not infer heresy, and the distinctions there made, exempt many from the operation of this principle.

VII. Heretics are not more offensive to God, than those who are guilty of offences against the moral law; but the latter do not necessarily cease to be members of the church, therefore the former may also be members of the church.

Answer. The wicked not excommunicated are only externally, and therefore imperfectly, members of the church, and will not receive salvation except they repent. Heretics who are not excommunicated openly, by their own act, or by the act of the church, are in the same state. But if separated from the communion of the church, they are not even externally members of it, like those who are justly excommunicated for their sins.

VIII. Those who upheld the Mosaic law after the decree of the apostles in the Council of Jerusalem, were heretics; and yet the apostles held communion with them (Acts xxi. 20). Therefore they formed part of the church.

Answer. The apostles had not decreed the abolition of legal observances as related to the Jews, but only to the Gentiles; but those who were zealous of the law in this place were Jews. Therefore they were not disobedient to the apostles.

W

[It is obvious that this answer presumes the objection to be made in behalf of heresy in the strictest sense, viz., the pertinacious refusal to believe what is known to be divinity taught. It does not meet the plea that it is hard to punish men for not believing that God has revealed certain doctrines. But then, on the other hand, that plea does not lie against the author's doctrine, limited as it has been in the outset of his statement. The ground of punishment of heresy is not the fact that a portion of revealed truth is not received as such, but the disposition which is the producing The evidence of the truth being the same, the difference is in the recipient, and therefore punishable.]

cause.

IX. We are forbidden to judge other men's doctrines to be heretical or false by the following passage: "Who art thou that judgest another man's servant? to his own master he standeth or falleth; yea, he shall be holden up: for God is able to make him stand. One man esteemeth one day above another; another esteemeth every day alike. Let every man be fully persuaded in his own mind” (Rom. xiv. 4, 5).

Answer. These differences of opinion related to matters in which difference was justifiable, not to matters of faith clearly revealed by Christ. In such matters of opinion we grant, that it is unlawful to condemn our neighbours; but "If any man preach any other gospel than that has been preached, let him be anathema" (Gal. i. 9); and "If any man come unto you, and bring not this doctrine, receive him not into your house" (2 John 10). Therefore we are bound to reject heretics, and consequently must have some means and some right to determine what is heresy.

X. "In a great house there are not only vessels of gold and of silver, but also of wood and earth; and some to honour, and some to dishonour," &c. (2 Tim. ii. 20). The apostle here includes heretics and false teachers in the church, having just before spoken of Hymenæus and Philetus (v. 17).

Answer. Assuming that the apostle here speaks of heretics as "vessels of wood and earth" made to "dishonour," he only refers to those who having not yet been openly separated, or excommunicated, are imperfectly in the church; and, even of these, he declares, that they are to "dishonour," that is, to destruction. A fortiori then all those who are openly separated from the church.

XI. Sincerity, or a full persuasion that our interpretation of God's law is right, is always sufficient to justify us in God's sight, even if we are in error. (This is the principle of Hoadly and his disciples.)

Answer. I reply with Rogers, that if this alone be in all

* Visible and Invisible Church, part i. c. 6.

cases sufficient, then no one is strictly bound to obey any laws of Christ in the meaning he intended in them; no plainness is sufficient to oblige us to understand them, and there can be no such thing as a culpable mistake. Even he who rejects Christianity because he is persuaded it is false, must be as acceptable to God, as he who accepts it because he believes it true. Yet our Saviour denounced heavy woes against those who rejected him (Matt. xi. 21; Mark xvi. 16). I maintain, on the contrary, as a self-evident position, that Christians are bound to obey the laws and believe the doctrine of Christ, and that nothing but natural incapacity, or blameless ignorance, can be pleaded in excuse for their not doing so.

APPENDIX TO CHAP. V.

ON THE DOCTRINE OF FUNDAMENTALS,

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Dr. Waterland, in his discourse on Fundamentals, observes, that since the beginning of the seventeenth century this subject has passed through many learned and judicious hands, most of them complaining of the perplexities appearing in it, but all bearing testimony to the great weight and importance of it." According to certain theologians of Holland, Germany, and Geneva, quoted by him, the questions of toleration, heresy, secession, schism, union of churches, excommunication, &c. all depend on distinguishing fundamentals in religion. It appears, I think, on examining various controversies which have almost entirely turned on this point, that the perplexity so much and so justly complained of, has arisen, and must continue to prevail, from the use of the term "Fundamental." This term is capable of so many meanings as applied to Christian doctrine, and it actually is, has been, and must continue to be, used in so great a diversity of senses, that it is morally impossible to avoid perplexity while it is employed in controversy. As an ambiguous

y Waterland's Works, by Van Mildert, vol. viii. p. 87.