274 L RATIONAL DEFENCE OF THE COSPEL. ESERM.. XV!, know little of the religion of Christ,. or of the sacred name into which they were baptized. Now that we may act and speak as becomes persons enduedwith reason; I thought it necessary at first to give some account what this gospel is, that you, might know and understand the religion which you profess ; and if 'ye will glory in the name of Christian, ye may be able to tell what it is you mean by christianity. By reading the books of the New Testament, wherein the gospel is contained, you will find this to be the sum and substanceof it, viz. that it is a. wise,- a- holy, and a gracious constitution of God for the recovery of sinful man, by sending his own Son Jesus Christ into the flesh, to obey his law which man had broke-n, to make a proper atonement for sin by his death; and thus to procure the favour of Grid, and eternal happiness, for all that be- lieve and repent, and receive this offered salvation; to- gether with a promise of the holy Spirit to work this faith and repentance in their hearts,. to renew their sinful natures unto holiness, to form them on earth fit for this happiness, and to bring them to the full possession of it in heaven. J have shewn, in the next place, what St. Paul meant, when he told the Romans he was not ashamed of this gospel : He was neither ashamed to believe it as a man, nor to profess it as a christian, nor to preach it to others as aminister, nor to defend it as agood soldier of Christ, nor to suffer and die for it as a martyr. The third thing which I proposed, was to make it ap pear, that all the occasions of shame, which men, of in- fidelity pretend' to raise from this gospel, may be an- swered upon the fair and just principles of reason and argument. The first sort of reproaches are these which are cast upon the doctrines of the gospel, and I hope I have rolled them away. I repeat no more of these things, but proceed to the next sort of Occasions of shame, and these are such as are supposed to arise froni the professors of this gospel; and I shall endeavour to shed- you also how they may be answered. They are chiefly_ these four: I. Some will say, " The professors of this gospel in the beginning were the weak, and foolish, and mean things of this world ; but it was despised by the wise, it
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