QUESTION II. 44ß believed in order to salvation. Surely it was not a fundamental article for Peter to know, and believe the sufferings and death of Christ as a sacrifice for sin, and his resurrection from the dead, at that time when he rebuked our Saviour himself, because he spake of his dying ; Mat. xvi. 22. And when none of the apos- tles knew what risingfrom the dead should mean, as Mark ix. 10. yet the belief of the death and resurrection of Christ was certainly a fundamental article, and necessary to salvation in a 'little time afterward ; and is become necessary to christianity itself ; 1 Cor. xv. 14, 17. I Christ he not risen, then is our Preaching vain, and your faith is also vain, ye are yet in your sins. The doctrine of the divinity of Christ therefore may not be supposed to be a fundamental article in the time-of Christ's life, because we have reason to believe the apostles were in a state of grace and salvation, before there is any sufficient evi- ' deuce of their faith therein : But it will not follow thence, that the same doctrine either is or is not a fundamental, after it has been more fully and clearly revealed by the complete writings of the New Testament : And indeed a truth ought to be revealed very plainly and with convincing evidence, before it can be ever called a fundamental. It has been the constant method of divine wisdom in all ages, to communicate to man the glorious discoveries of the grace of God by slow and gentle degrees, and not to overwhelm eurfaculties at once with a flood of divine light. IIe knows the áveakness of our frame, he knows how dark are our understand- ings, how feeble our judgments, how many and great our natu- ral prejudices, and how hard it is to surmount them; and he de- mands our belief in measures answerable to his discoveries. It is according to the growing evidence of any divine revelation, and the gradual advantages that any man has to know and un- derstand that revelation, that God justly expects the growing exercises of our faith. Thus that faith which is necessary to sal- vation, consists of more or fewer articles, according to the dif- ferent ages of the church, and different degrees of revelation and divine light. Thus though our Lord Jesus Christ was true God when he came first to be manifest in the flesh, yet the complete glory of his person and the beams of his godhead did not discover themselves in a triumphant and convincing light during the days of his humiliation : and though it was necessary then, to all those who had a clear knowledge of his doctrine and miracles, to believe that he was the Messiah : Except ye believe Iltat I ein he, ye shall die in your sins ; John viii. 24. yet it loth not seem at that time to have been made necessary to believe hit deity, since the discoveries of it were but imperfect, and it is plain that his own apostles hardly believed it. It is certain, that after the resurrection of Christ, and the
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