_Answ._ 1. Those papists' perverseness can mean no better than that Christianity itself is not necessary to salvation, to those that have not opportunity to know it (as Johnson's Rejoinder to me, and Sancta Clara, and many others, plainly intimate); and were that never so true and certain, it were nothing to the question between them and us, which is, What are the essentials of christianity? And what is necessary to salvation, where christianity is necessary? or where the christian religion is made known, and men may come to the knowledge of it, if they will do their best? This is the true state of our controversy with them. And whereas they would make all the parts of christian faith and practice equally necessary, where men have a capacity and ability to know, believe, and practise them, it is a gross deceit, unworthy of men pretending to a mediocrity of knowledge in the nature of religion; and thereby they make all sins and errors as equal as all duties and truths. Whereas, 1. There is no man that hath not some error and some sin.[389] 2. There is no man that doth all that ever he was able to do, to understand all the truth. 3. Therefore there is no man whose errors themselves are not (many of them at least) culpable or sinful. 4. And they that distinguish between mortal and venial sins, and yet will not distinguish between mortal and venial errors, are either blind, or would keep others blind. As it is not so damning a sin for a man to think a vain thought, or to speak a vain word, as not to love God, or holiness; (no, though he was more able to have forborne that idle word, than to have loved God;) so it is not so mortal a sin, (that is, inconsistent with a justified state,) to mistake in a small matter, (as who was the father of Arphaxad, or what year the world was drowned in, &c.) as to blaspheme the Holy Ghost, or deny Jesus Christ to be the Saviour of the world, or to deny that there is a God, or everlasting life, or a difference between good and evil. All sins are not equal in magnitude or danger. Therefore all errors are not equal in magnitude, sinfulness, or danger.
2. And what priest is able to know whom to take for a christian, and baptizable upon such terms as these? Who knoweth just what opportunities of knowledge other men have had, and what impediments? And will they indeed baptize a man that is a heathen, because he had not opportunity to come to the knowledge of christianity? I think they will not. Or will they deny baptism to one that knoweth and believeth only all the articles of the creed, and the chief points of religion, because he knoweth not as much more, as he had opportunity to know? I think not. Do not these men perceive how they condemn themselves? For do they not say themselves, that baptism to the due receiver washeth away sin, and puts the person in a state of life? O when will God deliver his poor church from factious deceivers?
3. Either christianity is something and discernible, or nothing and undiscernible. If the latter, then christians are not to be distinguished from heathens and infidels. If the former, then christianity hath its constitutive parts, by which it is what it is. And then it hath essential parts distinguishable from the rest.
4. The word fundamentals being but a metaphor, hath given room to deceivers and contenders to make a controversy, and raise a dust about it. Therefore I purposely use the word essentials, which is not so liable to men's cavils.
5. Those are the essentials of christianity, which are necessary to the baptism of the adult. Know but that, and you answer all the pratings of the papists, that bawl out for a list of fundamentals. And sure it is not this day unknown in the christian world, either what a christian is, or who is to be baptized: do not the priests know it, who baptize all that are christened in the world? And why is baptism called our christening, if it make us not christians? And why hath Christ promised, that "he that believeth and is baptized, shall be saved," Mark xvi. 16, if that so much faith as is necessary to baptism, will not also serve to a man's state of salvation?
6. The baptismal covenant of grace therefore is the essential part of the gospel, and of the christian religion; and all the rest are the integrals, and accidents or adjuncts.
7. This covenant containeth,
I. Objectively, 1. Things true as such; 2. Things good as such; 3. Things practicable or to be done, as such: the _credenda, diligenda, (et eligenda,) et agenda_; as the objects of man's intellect, will, and practical power.
The _credenda_, or things to be known and believed, are, 1. God as God, and our God and Father. 2. Christ as the Saviour, and our Saviour. 3. The Holy Ghost as such, and as the Sanctifier, and our Sanctifier (as to the offer of these relations in the covenant).