Selected quad for the lemma: act_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
act_n	believe_v	faith_n	object_n	6,980	5	9.0206	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A47046	Of the rule of faith a sermon at the visitation of the Right Reverend Father in God, William Lord Bishop of Lincolne, holden at Bedford August 5, 1674 / by William Jackson ...	Jackson, William, 1636 or 7-1680.	1675 (1675)	Wing J95; ESTC R16801	18,948	43

OF THE Rule of Faith A SERMON At the Visitation of the Right Reverend Father in God WILLIAM Lord Bishop of Lincolne holden at Bedford August 5. 1674. By William Iackson D. D. CAMBRIDGE Printed by Iohn Hayes for Henry Dickinson in Cambridge And are to be sold by R. Chiswel at the Rose and Crown in S t Pauls Churchyard in London 1675. S t Iude verse 3. Beloved when I gave all diligence to write unto you of the common Salvation it was needfull for me to write unto you and exhort you that ye should earnestly contend for the Faith which was once delivered unto the Saints OF how fatal consequence to the Peace of the Church and the Purity of our Christian Faith the Licentious Preaching of Dissenters hath been we have had a late and a wofull experience Warning enough surely not to trust them again Having seen not onely the Government and Discipline of the Church broken down and all the Articles of our Creed batter'd by whole Legions of Heresies But also the first Article the very foundation of all Religion taken away too That it hath been by wise men of late thought a necessary work to prove that there is a God and to resume the Primitive Employment of writing Apologies and defences for the Truth and Excellency of Christian Religion as if we had been reformed into the Heathenism of our Fore-fathers And though by the mercy of God and the presence of his Anointed we have for some years had the Government of the Church restored and the Solemn Worship of God returned to our Publick Assemblies yet we do not see that the minds of the People generally are resetled upon that firm basis of the Ancient Catholique and Holy Faith from which they were once so tumultuously removed Those contrary winds of Doctrine that raised that heavy storm are not yet laid and so long as men take so much liberty of Indulgence God knows when they will But till then it can never be unnecessary or improper especially in such an Assembly as this to make use of this verse of St Iude with the variation of one word onely Beloved when I gave all diligence to preach unto you of the common Salvation it was needful for me to preach unto you and exhort you that you should earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the Saints The Text is plain enough to the meanest capacity onely some that think they have a peculiar interest in the word Saints may be mistaken for by that word is meant in plain English Christians those that are baptized into the faith of Christ for so the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 spoken of persons in this life generally signifies in the new Testament and in the Text being used in the plural number seems to denote the Collective body of them the Church And then faith being taken Objectivè for the matters or things to be believed The faith once delivered to the Saints is those Doctrines which it pleased God in one set time to reveal and to deposite as a standing Rule of Faith in the Church for ever There are in the words three things generally observable I. The nature and immutability of the Rule of Faith the Faith once delivered unto the Saints II. The way and means to preserve this as it was first delivered that ye should earnestly contend III. The Importance and necessity of so doing Beloved when I give all diligence to write unto you of the common Salvation it was needfull for me to write unto you and exhort you 1. For the Rule of Faith This must needs be the word of God in what manner soever revealed by what means soever made known to us to be such as might easily be proved to any that do believe there is a God And therefore it is 1. A word that is some Doctrine or Divine truths that we are to believe For it is an Intellectuall Rule or a Rule to the understanding which is to suspend or give assent to the Doctrines of Religion so far as they disagree or accord with this Rule Now seeing there is no belief but of something that is affirmed or denied there can be no Rule of this but onely some Doctrines or propositions presupposed as true and taken for granted before hand And this is the way of all Arts and Sciences which contain such diversity of objects for our belief and understanding Every one of them hath some fundamentall Maxims or Propositions upon which the whole body is afterward raised and in Contradiction to which nothing is to be taken for true in the respective science Now the Doctrine of Christian Religion being the most reasonable Doctrine in the world is questionless also the most regular and Methodicall hath in it as much certainty and evidence of a regular Method as is in any science and more and would so appear to us had we as clear a comprehension of it as we have of other doctrines And therefore agreeably this Phrase The Rule of Faith is not to be taken Causally or Formally as if we sought for a Measure antecedent to the fundamentall points of our Belief to try them by but it is to be taken SubIectivè or Materially that is a Rule consisting of the fundamentall points of Faith and a formall Rule to determine controversies and to condemn Heresies by This was the sense of it both name and thing when it came first into use among the Fathers in the Primitive Church as may be seen by Irenaeus Tertullian S t Austin Epiphanius Nazianzen Leo and the rest of them that treat of the Christian Faith Till of late upon the Popes pretensions to an infallible Iudicature the words have been wrested from their primitive sense to signifie the arguments and motives that perswade us to entertain the Christian Doctrine it self in gross or more especially the chief parts of it for this seems to be the meaning of them in the Controversie at this day But these Arguments or Motives whether from Reason or Authority are antecedent to this Rule the ground and means of coming to it not the Rule it self otherwise we should have as many Rules of Faith as we have arguments from reason or authority why we believe Indeed if we take the word Faith for our Act of believing a Christians Faith hath this in Common with all other belief that the Rule and the object matter of it are the same thing For the immediate limit and measure of all belief is and must be the apparent truth of the thing proposed beyond which our assent cannot go without Error or believing a falshood nor can it fall short of it without infidelity or want of due belief these two properties make a Rule in the most adaequate and exact sense But then nothing can have this apparent truth rightly and Regularly farther then as it is consonant to those propositions on which the truth of it depends and