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A81577 A short essay of modern divinity, by Robert Dixon. D.D. Dixon, Robert, d. 1688. 1681 (1681) Wing D1748A; ESTC R231408 33,711 62

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wrongly as they are not because both cannot be right and wrong But in matters of real Faith as in matters of right Reason they are both so clear the one by Divine Revelation and the other by Divine Instinct and each so firmly and constantly and universally believed and proved by all Faithfull and rational men that they may be said to have no Handle at all much less two one right and the other wrong for they cannot be right and wrong nor believed and proved as right and wrong but certainly are right and cannot be wrong or else our Faith and Reason had no sure Foundation as undoubtedly they have Thus God our Creator and Christ our Redeemer and the Holy Ghost our Comforter and the Catholick Church and the Communion of Saints the Forgiveness of Sins the Resurrection of the Body and the Life Everlasting are most certainly true in themselves as they most certainly are believed and most certainly revealed to us and by Reason imprinted in us without mistakes in the main needing no Judge for them at all for such Spiritual things are Judged of God and are to be judged of no man so carrying the Naked Truth in themselves as to be clear to all men and no Disputes about them at all because they are from God and not from men and true as God is true And Men can no more be deceived in them then they can be deceived in God And therefore there is more certainty in Religion and Reason then there is or can be in any thing else Evidences say all the Mathematicians or Philosophers in the World what they please The Testimony of God is sure and we are all his Offspring and we all know his Will and if we will not believe what we know to be true we are without all excuse Nor can the Revelations of Faith and Impressions of Reason be any more questioned than the Light of the Sun can be questioned to be the cause of life and growth of all the Creatures in the lower World And the evidence of things seen and heard and felt and tasted by the mind is as Scientifical a Demonstration as the evidence of things seen and heard and felt and tasted by the Body To b●lieve in God is to believe all that is of God as well Spiritual things as Corporeal and to deny Spiritual things or beings is all one as to deny God's Spirit or God's being As for the Consequences and Deductions from right and true Faith and Reason in their several Modifications and Qualities Consequences I cannot say but that they are and may be wrong and false and so we may be deceived As for instance concerning Faith Justification Regeneration Adoption New Creation Union and Communion with Christ c. These if you will may have two Handles but they are both of our own making not God's the right and the left and the left be sure is the wrong according as our Apprehensions Believings or Reasonings are right or wrong Vide my Book of the differences of the Two Covenants If therefore in any point of Controversal or Consequential Divinity I have taken the left or wrong Handle I am a Man and 't is my mistake as a man and when I am convinced of my Errour I will ingeniously confess it repent of it and mend it if I can But if I have taken the right Handle I must not alter and let Reason be Judge in all men which in some will be for me and in some against me There is no Question to be made of the truth of God of Christ of the Spirit of Regeneration New Creation Union and Communion with God by the Spirit and of Justification Sanctification Election Faith Adoption Presence of Christ that there are such things as all Christians Grant Modes But in the Manner of our Regeneration New Creature Union and Communion with God and of our Justification Sanctification Election Faith Adoption Presence of Christ c. there are too many and great Questions and too many Disputes Pro and Con about them some of them grating too much upon Barbarity and Profaneness as to be Godded with God and Christed with Christ and that there is no other Christ nor Light nor Heaven nor Hell but what is in us and Justification and Sanctification Law and Gospel are blended together and some of those contrary Positions may not be hurtfull on either side and some are But chiefly the manner of Christ's Presence in the Holy Supper is become a bloody Question and in most suspense with least cause in which there are two bold and Magisterial Assertions made de fide of Transubstantiation and Consubstantiation very hurtfull and dangerous to the overthrowing of the Faith of some But still there is a Presence and the Spiritual Presence is safe to be sure that can do no harm and is most profitable and the Carnal Presence can do no good but may do harm SECT II. Liberty of Opining I claim therefore the Liberty of Opining due to all Mankind most modest and safely as they may that differ in Opinion from me and both may be good and both preserve Love and Charity and let Posterity Judge of both and choose which they like best if they be both safe and impinge not upon God nor hurt the Souls Bodies Estates or Honours of Men. The Church of Rome is pleased to call our Differences from them by the odious nick-name as they have made it of Heresies and falls to Persecution of all Dissenters called by them Hereticks as far as de Haereticis comburendis O certainly this is a most inhumane as well as most Unchristian Practice and no true Protestant I am sure will ever follow them in it no not a far off nor come so near as to Plundering Sequestration or Consiscation because by these though they kill not outright as the Papists do yet they starve them by a lingring death which in some sense is as bad or worse And bloody Religions cannot be true The Ventilation of some Problems on both sides if moderately and charitably managed may tend to much Truth Peace and Love But if we come to Railing Fighting Undoing and Killing farewell all Religion Liberty and Peace The Effects of our Faith Justification Regeneration Union and Communion with Christ we know and feel which we call the work of Grace But the Manner how the Causes work such Effects we do not know For the wind of this Spirit bloweth where and when and how it listeth and we know not where it cometh nor whither it goeth and 't is in vain and sinful to pry too far into these Secrets of God's workings and therefore Faith Reverence and silence in these cases is always the safest But still Peace and Charity are to be maintained by all means or else we spoil all In Sum this is all I do but desire to have fair play for my pains and hurt no body And they that do not like my Opinion
Gospels and Acts and Epistles are when they give not their own Judgement without Gods whose Inspirations were proved by Miracles-working Faith Ancient Fathers Venerable Modern Writers more learned Ancient Writers next to them were not Inspired and did no Miracles yet are Venerable but Modern Writers long after them are more knowing but all subject to failings They came from the Jews and from the Gentiles and did not a little partake of the Jewish and Gentile Religion Consider those Proselytes as men long accustomed to both Doctrines and Rites and it is no wonder if they were loth to part with them Since that by degrees if the Wits of men are more refined in the Gospel purity of Doctrine and Worship wonder not at the matter for they have had more time and more means a great deal to consider things better Fathers Witnesses Errors in Fathers The nearest Fathers were the best Witnesses but the farthest Doctors are the best Judges The Millenaries Opinion was very old The Communion of Infants Their Damnation without Baptism The Corporeity of Angels and of God himself The Re-baptizing of such as were Baptized by Hereticks The long deferring of Baptism The Baptism for the Dead Reliques The Non-Restoring of the Lapsed The Denyal of Repentance Marriage to Priests Adoring Crosses The Limbi Patrum Infantum False Miracles Purgatory The Invocation of Saints and Angels Image Worship and many more Opinions have too much Antiquity and too little Truth They held the Fundamental Truths in great Righteousness we hold the same and many more in too much Unrighteousness Modern Writers The Modern Writers have considered all the Reasons of the Ancients and have added to that which their Fathers invented The Fathers have opened the Door and their Children have entred into the more Secret Recesses of Divine Truths They had not time nor so much skill as their Successors had They did well in their Generations but they could not do all He that lives a thousand Ages hence shall have no cause to be idle he shall find work enough to find out what Truths have not been yet discovered and so to the Worlds end there are more Worlds to discover Multa dies variusque labor mutabilis aevi Retulit in melius Every day brings new light Truth is the Daughter of time What the Fathers saw darkly and afar off peeping through the Lattices the Children see distinctly the Objects coming to a nearer distance by open Windows Judaism and Gentilism came too hot upon them in the First Ages and they did not could not put them by so strongly as we have done since Education Their Education among Jews and Gentiles was a great hindrance of that work Our Education among Christians altogether is a great help to the same work Judaism and Gentilism were but newly renounced they came reeking from them to contrary Principles The Doctrines and Rites of Judaism and Gentilism are stale now and obsolete long since though some would be nibling at them still Other Errors have crept in but of a more remote nature and less contrariant than the former were The Fountains came pure from the Apostles but the Streams of Judaism and Gentilism ran quickly into them and pudled those Waters which since have settled and grown pure in a good measure after the Rabbinical and Philosophical Pollutions especially at the time of the Reformation which daily advanceth it self more and more with the Improvement also of all Arts and Sciences in a high and glorious Success Improvements Venimus ad summum Fortunae pingimus atque Psallimus meliùs luctamur Achivis Virg. The Greeks outdid the Egyptians the Romans out-did the Greeks even in those things which they were taught at Memphis and Athens We want nothing to excell our Forefathers in but Piety and Honesty We are sagaciores in dogmate nequiores in fide There are better Expositions of Scriptures than ever were but worser Manners Richer Veins of Gold but more alloied with baser Mettals Fathers plain and honest Children gay and crafty Novelty no real prejudice to the Authority of Ancient Truth If our Fathers in Religion had refused every Exposition of Scripture that was true because it was new to them we should by this time have had nothing old nor true If any thing be true entertain it though it be found out but yesterday with Men it was from the beginning with God Call nothing New if it be True The World hath been too long deceived by the Antiquity of Errors Wise men look beyond them for there are Ancienter and Wiser than they SECT II. Suppositious Writings Very few of the Writings in the first three Centuries are come to our hands Many Books obtruded under the Names of the Apostles Peter Barnabas Thomas Paul to the Laodiceans Paul and Te●la Euseb l. 1. c. This made Eusebius complain that he had little or no light to guid him ●n his History of those Primitive Times because those Christians did not write much or if they did their Books were lost As the Five Books of Papias Bishop of Hierapolis the Apology of Quadratus Atheniensis of Aristides Basilides c. mentioned by Eusebius St. Jerom and others Clemens Ignatius Justin Martyr Irenaeus Clemens Alexandrinus Tertullian Origen Cyprian Arnobius Lactantius have pretty well escaped though time hath set her Fangs upon them The Writings of the Fourth and Fifth Centuries have exceeded the former for number and good fortune of more safe conveyance but not for worth and authority Many of the oldest are Supposititious and those that are legitimate corrupted Legitimate Writings corrupted and obscure and all hard to be understood by reason of the Languages and Idioms and Schemes of Oratory and Logical Subtilties with which they abound as also the Terms used in a far different Sence then and safer than now they are As Pope Patriarch Mass Oblation Sacrifice Mysteries Mortal Sins Penance Confession Satisfaction Merit Indulgence Altar c. Since that we may complain as Gregory Nasianzen that good man did There was an honest plain and solid way of Preaching Greg. Naz. brief and profitable Late Innovations but afterwards a wanton kind of Divinity embroydered with artifices and delicacies came to be the mode then came in Curiosities Juglings and Tricks of Legerdemain But had he seen the Wagon Loads of Summists Casuists Mysticks Postilers Criticks Canonists Ritualists Cabbalists which these latter Ages have produced He and other Cassandrists that have bore witness in all Ages to the Truth would have been tired with garbling the Errors and Vices of every Sect and choaked with the swarms of Locusts that rush out of the Bottomless Pit Ancient mistakes of Christian Anabaptists about the Antipodes The Souls Propagation and Purgation Corporeity of Angels and Souls of Men Praying for the Dead c. are nothing in comparison to the swinsing Dogma's of Infallibility Supremacy Transubstantiation Consubstantiation worship of Images Angels and Saints