This cardinal question of the sufficiency of the scriptures ought to be considered, as having been long since decisively settled. It is one of the principal questions which was ardently debated, more than two hundred years ago, between the Protestants and Papists; and it was little to have been expected that; at this time of day, professed Protestants would entrench themselves upon the ground, as Unitarians actually have done,* from which the Papists have been so triumphantly driven. It is however a most striking instance of the meeting of opposite extremes: Upon this topick, I can hardly do better; than to present the following quotations from a great cliampion of the Protestant cause, whose authority on some points you would undoubtedly very highly values

"I pray tell me," says Chillingworth, "why cannot Heresies be sufficiently discovered, condemned, and avoided by them which believe scripture to be the rule of faith? If scripture be sufficient to inform us what is the Faith, it must of necessity also be sufficient to teach us what is Heresy; seeing Heresy is nothing but a manifest deviation from, or opposition to the Faith. That which is straight will plainly. teach us what is crooked; and one contrary cannot but manifest the other. Though we pretend not to certain means of not erring in interpreting all scripture, particularly such places as are obscure and ambiguous, yet this, methinks, should be no impediment, but that we may have certain means of not erring in and about the sense of those places which are so plain and clear that they need no interpreters: And in such we say our faith is contained. If you ask me, how I can be sure that I know the true meaning of these places? I ask you again, can you be sure that you un

* I am fully aware that the orthodox have been violently charged with a derelic tion of this principle, because they make use of creeds; and Unitarians, in opposing creeds, have claimed the honour of "contending for the liberty of being Protestants." Every well informed person however knows, that the Protestants held the principle, not to the exclusion of creeds drawn from the scriptures, but in opposition to "unwritten tradition" and "papal infallibility." While they held the scriptures to be the only and sufficient rule of faith, all the Protestant churches had their creeds.-The Unitarian argument, in misapplying the principle, is to this effect: The scriptures are sufficiently full and plain as the rule of faith for all men; therefore no man, or body of men, has a right to say what doc trines the scriptures teach!

derstand what I, or any man clsc says?-God be thanked that we have sufficient means to be certain enough of the truth of our faith. But the privilege of not being in possibility of erring, that we challenge not, because we have as little reason as you, to do so; and you have none at all. If you ask, seeing we may possibly err, how can we be assured we do not? I ask you again, seeing your eye-sight may deceive you, how can you be sure you see the sun when you do see it? Perhaps you may be in a dream, and perhaps you and all the men in the world have been so, when they thought they were awake, and then only awake, when they thought they dreamt.-A pretty sophism this, that whosoever possibly may err, cannot be certain that he doth not err. A judge may possibly err in judgment; can he therefore never have assurance, that he hath judged right. A traveller may possi bly mistake his way; must I therefore be doubtful whether I am in the right way from my hall to my chamber.

"Methinks, so subtle a man as you are, should easily apprehend a wide difference between authority to do a thing, and infallibility in doing it, and again, between a conditional infallibility and an absolute. The former, the Doctor, [Potter] together with the Articles of the Church of England, attributeth to the church, nay to particular churches, and I subscribe to his opinion: That is, an authority of determining controversies of faith, according to plain and evident scripture, and universal tradition, and infallibility while they proceed according to this rule. As, if there should arise an heretick that should call in question Christ's passion and resurrection, the church had authority to decide this controversy, and infallible direction how to do it, and to excommunicate this man, if he should persist in his errour,

"The ground of your errour here is, your not distinguishing between actual certainty and absolute infallibility. Geometricians are not infallible in their own science; yet they are very certain of those things which they see demonstrated: and carpenters are not infallible, yet certain of the straightness of those things which agree with their rule and square. So though the church be not infallibly certain that in all her definitions, whereof some are about disputable and ambiguous matters,

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she shall proceed according to her rule; yet being certain of the infallibility of her rule, and that in this and that thing she doth manifestly proceed according to it; she may be certain of the truth of some particular decrees, and yet not be certain that she shall never decree but what is true.

"Protestants, believing scripture to be the word of God, may be certain enough of the truth and certainty of it. For what if they say the Catholick Church, much more themselves, may err in some unfundamental points, is it therefore consequent, they can be certain of none such? What if a wiser man than I may mistake some obscure place of Aristotle, may I not therefore, without any arrogance or inconsequence conceive myself certain that I understand him in some plain places which carry their sense before them?-We pretend not at all to any assurance that we cannot err, but only to a sufficient certainty that we do not err, but rightly understand those things that are plain, whether fundamental or not fundamental. I do heartily acknowledge and believe the articles of our faith to be in themselves truths as certain and infallible, as the very common principles of geometry or metaphysicks."*

These pertinent and forcible reasonings and remarks, which were long ago employed against the Papists, are now of equal pertinence and force against the Unitarians; and they now as well explain and vindicate the principles and views of the orthodox, as they then did those of the Protestants.

But you say further, p. 27. "It is also important to recollect the character of those men, against whom the apostolick anathema was directed. They were men who knew distinctly what the apostles taught, and yet opposed it; and who endeavoured to sow division, and to gain followers in the churches which the apostles had planted. These men, resisting the known instructions of the authorized and inspired teachers of the gospel, and discovering a factious, selfish, mercenary spirit, were justly excluded as unworthy the christian name. But what in common with these men, have the christians whom Dr. Worcester and his friends denounce?

*

Chillingworth's Works, Chap. ii, Sec. 127, 145, 152, 160, 162. Chap. ii,

Scc. 26, 50.

Do these oppose what they know to be the doctrine of Christ and his apostles?"

I ask you, sir, hew those men "knew distinctly" what the apostles taught? We have now the writings of the apostles, the same which were then communicated to the churches;. but, according to you and your friends, no uninspired man can know distinctly what they teach. Were those, who resisted the known instructions of the authorised and inspired teachers of the gospel, themselves inspired men? If not, what right have you to say that they knew what the apostles taught, any better than uninspired men now may know? Will you say that, besides having the writings of the apostles, they had the advantages of hearing the apostles preach and converse? How do you know that such was the fact with all, if it were with some of them? Besides, if the apostles could not write intelligibly, who shall say that they could preach or converse intelligibly? It should seem indeed, that the adversaries of Paul and his doctrine dreaded his writings more than his preaching and conversation. "His letters, said they, are weighty and powerful; but his bodily presence is weak, and his speech contemptible."

But further, if those men did know distinctly what the apostles taught, did they however know that the apostles were "inspired" men? Is it not on the contrary certain, that of Paul in particular, they denied both the inspiration and apostolick commission? Will you take it upon you to say, that in this they were not honest? Paul himself, while a zealous pharisce, verily thought, notwithstanding all the signs and wonders" which had been exhibited, that he ought to do many things contrary to the name of Jesus of Nazareth. Why then might not those false teachers and others who opposed themselves to Paul, verily think that they ought to oppóse him and his doctrine ?

If there is any force in what you state upon this point, it lies in this assumption: that those whom the apostles excluded from fellowship, as false christians and hereticks, were guilty of opposing and rejecting doctrines, which they knew to have been delivered under the authority of divine inspiration; and on this account were "justly excluded as unworthy

the christian name:" but now there are no such characters,none who reject or oppose what they know to be divinely revealed truth. Here, as in other parts of your writings, you seem to take it for granted, that mankind are much better now, than they were in the days of the apostles. Then their depravity was such, that they would deny and resist what they knew to be divine truth; but now, no man will do this. What warrant have you for this assumption? What evidence that the heart is not now as "deceitful and desperately wicked" as ever it was? If men could once reject what they knew to be the truth of God, why may they not now?

Is it however certain, that the opposers of Jesus and his apostles, all of them if any, rejected what they knew to be divine truth? On the contrary, is it not evident, that, in most instances at least, though the evidence before them was clear and abundant, yet they found means to make themselves believe, that Jesus and his apostles were not "authorized and inspired teachers," and that the doctrines taught by them were not true. Jesus upon the cross prayed, "Father forgive them, for they know t what they do." Paul testifies that had they known, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory; and of himself says," that what he did, while “breathing out threatening and slaughter against the disciples of the Lord,” he "did ignorantly in unbelief." It was generally so, no doubt, with those who opposed the truth in those ancient days. It is just so now. It will hardly be denied, by any considerate man, that, in christian lands, the advantages for knowing the truth are as great now, as they were in Judea, or in any part of the world, in the days of Christ and his apostles. Where then is the mighty difference between those who now reject the truth, and those by whom it was then rejected. And if such were not then entitled to the privileges of christian fellowship, by what rea soning, or by what sophistry can it be made to appear, that they are now entitled to these privileges.

The apostles, by your own admission, excluded them: and it is not to be forgotten, that they enjoined it also upon the churches to exclude them. Many passages to this effect have already been cited, and many more might be adduced. The