and indispensably obliged to endeavour to understand these words of our Saviour, "This is my body, and this is my blood," that he may know what he receives in the sacrament? Does he cease to be a Christian, who happens not to understand them just as the creedmaker does? Or may not the old gentleman at Rome (who has somewhat the ancienter title to infallibility) make transubstantiation a fundamental article necessary to be believed there, as well as the creed-maker here make his sense of any disputed text of Scripture a fundamental article necessary to be believed?

f

Let us suppose Mr. Bold had said, that instead of one point, the right knowledge of the creed-maker's one hundred points (when he has resolved on them) doth constitute and make a person a Christian; yet there are many other points Jesus Christ hath taught and revealed, which every sincere Christian is indispensably obliged to endeavour to understand, and to make a due use of; for this, I think, the creed-maker will not deny. From whence, in the creed-maker's words, I will thus argue: "Now if there be other points, and particular articles, and those many, which a sincere Christian is obliged, and that necessarily and indispensably, to understand, and believe, and assent to; then this writer doth, in effect, yield to that proposition which I maintained, viz. That the belief of those one hundred articles is not sufficient to make a man a Christian:" for this is that which I maintain, that upon this ground the belief of the articles, which he has set down in his list, are not sufficient to make a man a Christian; and that upon Mr. Bold's reason, which the creed-maker insists on against one article, viz. because there are many other points Jesus Christ hath taught and revealed, which every sincere Christian is as necessarily and indispensably obliged to endeavour to understand, and make a due use of.

But this creed-maker is cautious, beyond any of his predecessors. He will not be so caught by his own argument; and therefore is very shy to give you the precise articles that every sincere Christian is necessarily and indispensably obliged to understand and give his assent

to. Something he is sure there is, that he is indispensably obliged to understand and assent to, to make him a Christian; but what that is he cannot yet tell. So that whether he be a Christian or no, he does not know ; and what other people will think of him, from his treating of the serious things of Christianity in so trifling and scandalous a way, must be left to them.

In the next paragraph, p. 242, the creed-maker tells us, Mr. Bold goes on to confute himself, in saying, “A true Christian must assent unto this, that Christ Jesus is God." But this is just such another confutation of himself as the before-mentioned, i. e. as much as a falsehood, substituted by another man, can be a confutation of a man's self, who has spoken truth all of a piece. For the creed-maker, according to his sure way of baffling his opponents, so as to leave them nothing to answer, hath here, as he did before, changed Mr. Bold's words, which in the 35th page, quoted by the creedmaker, stand thus: "When a true Christian understands, that Christ Jesus hath taught that he is God, he must assent unto it:" which is true, and conformable to what he had said before, that every sincere Christian must endeavour to understand the points taught and revealed by Jesus Christ; which being known to be revealed by him, he must assent unto.

The like piece of honesty the creed-maker shows in the next paragraph, p. 243, where he charges Mr. Bold with saying, "That a true Christian is as much obliged to believe, that the Holy Spirit is God, as to believe that Jesus is the Christ," p. 40. In which place, Mr. Bold's words are: "When a true Christian understands, that Christ Jesus hath given this account of the Holy Spirit, viz. that he is God; he is as much obliged to believe it, as he is to believe, that Jesus is the Christ:" which is an incontestable truth, but such an one as the creed-maker himself saw would do him no service; and therefore he mangles it, and leaves out half to serve his turn. But he that should give a testimony in the slight affairs of men, and their temporal concerns, before a court of judicature, as the creed-maker does here, and almost every where, in

the great affairs of religion, and the everlasting concern of souls, before all mankind, would lose his ears for it. What, therefore, this worthy gentleman alleges out of Mr. Bold, as a contradiction to himself, being only the creed-maker's contradiction to truth, and clear matter of fact, needs no other answer.

The rest of what he calls Reflections on Mr. Bold's Sermon being nothing but either rude and misbecoming language of him; or pitiful childish application to him, to change his persuasion at the creed-maker's entreaty, and give up the truth he hath owned, in courtesy to this doughty combatant; shows the ability of the man. Leave off begging the question, and superciliously presuming that you are in the right; and, instead of that, show by argument: and I dare answer for Mr. Bold, you will have him, and I promise you, with him, one convert more. But arguing is not, it seems, this notable disputant's way. If boasting of himself, and contemning of others, false quotations, and feigned matters of fact, which the reader neither can know, nor is the question concerned in, if he did know, will not do; there is an end of him: he has shown his excellency in scurrilous declamation; and there you have the whole of this unanswerable writer. And for this, I appeal to his own writings in this controversy, if any judicious reader can have the patience to look them

over.

In the beginning of his Reflections on Mr. Bold's Sermon, he confidently tells the world, "that he had found that the manager of the Reasonableness of Christianity had prevailed on Mr. Bold to preach a sermon upon his reflections," &c. And adds, "And we cannot but think, that that man must speak the truth, and defend it very impartially and substantially, who is thus brought on to undertake the cause." And at the latter end he addresses himself to Mr. Bold, as one that is drawn off, to be an under journeyman-worker in Socinianism. In his gracious allowance, "Mr. Bold is, seemingly, a man of some relish of religion and piety," p. 244. He is forced also to own him to be a man of sobriety and temper,

p. 245. A very good rise to give him out to the world, in the very next words, as a man of a profligate conscience: for so he must be, who can be drawn off to preach or write for Socinianism, when he thinks it a most dangerous error; who can "dissemble with himself, and choke his inward persuasions," (as the creedmaker insinuates that Mr. Bold does, in the same address to him, p. 248) and write contrary to his light. Had the creed-maker had reason to think in earnest, that Mr. Bold was going off to Socinianism, he might have reasoned with him fairly, as with a man running into a dangerous error; or if he had certainly known, that he was by any by-ends prevailed on to undertake a cause contrary to his conscience, he might have some reason to tell the world, as he does, p. 239, "That we cannot think he should speak truth, who is thus brought to undertake the cause." If he does not certainly know, that "Mr. Bold was thus brought to undertake the cause," he could not have shown a more villanous and unchristian mind, than in publishing such a character of a minister of the Gospel, and a worthy man, upon no other grounds, but because it might be subservient to his ends. He is engaged in a controversy, that by argument he cannot maintain; nor knew any other way, from the beginning, to attack the book he pretends to write against, but by crying out Socinianism; a name he knows in great disgrace with all other sects of Christians, and therefore sufficient to deter all those who approve and condemn books by hearsay, without examining their truth themselves, from perusing a treatise, to which he could affix that imputation. Mr. Bold's name, (who is publicly known to be no Socinian) he foresees, will wipe off that false imputation, with a great many of those who are led by names more than things. This seems exceedingly to trouble him, and he labours, might and main, to get Mr. Bold to quit a book as Socinian, which Mr. Bold knows is not Socinian, because he has read and considered it. But though our creed-maker be mightily concerned, that Mr. B-d should not appear in the defence of it; yet this concern cannot raise him one jot above that

honesty, skill, and good breeding, which appear towards others. He manages this matter with Mr. B-d as he has done the rest of the controversy; just in the same strain of invention, civility, wit, and good sense. He tells him, besides what I have above set down, “That he is drawn off to debase himself, and the post, i. e. the ministry he is in," p. 245. "That he hath said very ill things, to the lessening and impairing, yea, to the defaming of that knowledge and belief of our Saviour, and of the articles of Christianity, which are necessarily required of us," p. 245. "That the devout and pious," (whereby he means himself: for one and none is his own beloved wit and argument) "observing that Mr. Bold is come to the necessity of but one article of faith, they expect that he may in time hold that none is necessary," p. 248. "That if he writes

again in the same strain, he will write rather like a Turkish spy than a Christian preacher; and that he is a backslider, and sailing to Racovia with a side wind:" than which, what can there be more scurrilous, or more malicious? And yet at the same time that he outrages him thus, beyond not only what Christian charity, but common civility, would allow in an ingenuous adversary, he makes some awkward attempts to soothe him with some ill-timed commendations; and would have his undervaluing Mr. Bold's animadversions pass for a compliment to him; because he, for that reason, pretends not to believe so crude and shallow a thing (as he is pleased to call it) to be his. A notable contrivance to gain the greater liberty of railing at him under another name, when Mr. B—d's, it seems, is too well known to serve him so well to that. purpose. Besides, it is of good use to fill up three or four pages of his Reflections; a great convenience to a writer, who knows all the ways of baffling his opponents, but argument; and who always makes a great deal of stir about matters foreign to his subject; which, whether they are granted or denied, make nothing at all to the truth of the question on either side. For what is it to the shallowness or depth of the Animadversions, who writ them? Or to the truth or falsehood of Mr.