Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n
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A13629
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The reasonablenesse of wise and holy truth: and the absurditie of foolish and wicked errour
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Terry, John, 1555?-1625.
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1617
(1617)
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STC 23912; ESTC S118354
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27,907
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56
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THE REASONABLENESSE OF WISE AND holy truth and the absurditie of foolish and wicked Errour ECCL 7. 27. I haue compassed about both I and mine heart to knowe and to enquire and to search wisdome and reason and to knowe the wickednesse of folly and the foolishnesse of madnesse MATTH 11. 19. But wisdome is iustified of all her children AC OX AT OXFORD Printed by Iohn Lichfield and William Wrench Printers to the famous Vniversitie 161â— TO THE RIGHT REVErend Father in God ARTHVR Lord Bishop of BATH and WELLES Vice chancellour of the Vniversitie of Oxford and Warden of New Colledge IOHN TERRY wisheth all increase of that Glory and Vertue wherevnto you are called by our most glorious holy Lord. 2. Pet. 1. 2. MY duety bindeth me right Reuerend and my very Good Lord to offer vp to God for you the sacrifices of thankesgiuing and prayer Some of the Heathen offred sacrifice to the sunne rising for benefits to come and other to the Sunne setting for such as were already receaued VVherefore it being a great shame for a Christian to be out gone in any good dutie by an Heathen I cannot but offer vp to our most blessed Sauiour Christ the true Sonne of righteousnesse the sacrifice of thanksgiuing first for causing such a bright starre as your Lordship is to appeare aboue our Horizon in the west and secondly for causing you to set with leauing much good to that Colledge whereof my selfe was once a member And how can I also but offer vp prayer to God first that the fresh memorie of your renowned learning and religious life may instill such a sweet influence of celestiall grace into the hearts of all the members of that societie that they may bee effectually stirred vp to walke in your waies and to devote themselues by your example to the publike good as secondly I am to beseech him that walketh in the midst of the seauen golden Candlesticks and holdeth the starres in his right hand that he would hold vphold you long to his owne glory and to the edification and comfort of his people among whom hee hath now placed you to hold out the word of life And thus commending you to God the Father of light and to the word of his grace the most worthie instrument thereof with all humble thanks vnto your Lordship for your louing acceptance of this small paper present I rest Your Lordships in all Christian loue and dutie JOHN TERRY IOHN 17. 17. Sanctifie them with thy truth thy word is truth THis Chapter containeth a most divine and heavenly prayer of our most blessed Saviour Christ wherein hee requesteth of his Father that hee would by the gracious word of his Gospell make more and more manifest the glorious worke of mans redemption For that hereby he and his father should be most glorified and all such as his father had giuen him should be made partakers of life everlasting For this is everlasting life saith he to know thee the only true God and whom thou hast sent videlicet to accomplish the worke of the redemption of all the elect Iesus Christ For the cleere doctrine of the Gospell laying open the glorious worke of mans redemption doth make manifest the light of Gods countenance shining in Christ and doth giue vnto all that are truely lightned therewith the holy eie of sauing faith whereby they assuredly apprehending and most certainely beleeuing the vnspeakable loue of God towards them that do cleaue vnto Christ and are made one with him and by him haue communion and fellowship with God and so are made partakers of life everlasting And verily the true sauing faith wrought by the Gospell is nothing else but such a sure and certaine knowledge of Gods vnspeakable loue in Christ as is accompanied with all manner of holy and heavenly graces And therefore as v. 8. our Saviour testifieth that he had given his Fathers words to them which he had giuen vnto him and they had receaued them and had surely knowne that hee came from the Father had beleeued that the Father had sent him so in this verse hee prayeth to his Father that the would sanctifie them with the truth that was contained in the same word In the which petition of our Saviour Christ we are to obserue these two points first the thing that our Saviour requesteth at his Fathers hands that hee would bestow vpon all those that he had giuen him which is Sanctification Secondly the meanes whereby it is wrought which is the truth of his owne word Sanctifie them with thy truth thy word is truth Now the sanctification that our Saviour here prayeth for is not maymed wanting any essential part but totall and whole even such a sanctification as doth sanctifie the minde with sauing knowledge faith the will and the affections with all other graces and gifts of the holy Ghost and so doth sanctifie the whole man Neither is this whole and total sanctification bestowed onely vpon some principall persons in the Church of Christ but even vpon the meanest also As the Apostle testifieth 2. Cor. 3. 18. Wee all saith he behold as in a mirrour the glory of God with open face there is the subiection action obiect clerenesse of faith and are changed into the same image from glory to glory as by the spirit of the Lord there is the inseparable effect of sauing and sanctifying faith one and the same in substance though not in circumstance in all the faithfull And verily how can it otherwise bee but that all such as by faith are engraffed into Christ Rom. 11. 17. should immediatly be made good trees so consequently be enabled to beare good fruit Mat. 7.17 How can it otherwise be but that all such as by the linely word of God Heb. 4. 12. are quickned to a liuing faith Gal. 2. 20 should shew themselues to be aliue to God Rom. 6. 11. by the exercise of al holy and godly works For nature is never idle much lesse grace Gal. 5. 6. and therefore as the body without the operatiue spirit is dead so faith without workes is dead also Iac. 3 26. And therefore the same Apostle in the same chapter willeth Natura est nunquam otiosa all such as lay claime to a true faith to make proofe thereof by their good workes after the example of Abraham the father of the faithfull For after that he had shewed himselfe readie at the commandment of God to offer vp in sacrifice his most deare sonne Isaac then he made it manifest that he so firmely apprehended by an assured faith the incomprehensible loue of God in Christ Eph. 3. 19. towards himselfe that he preserred it before his most intire loue towards his own most deare sonne and then was the Scripture fulfilled Abraham beleeued God and it was imputed to him for righteousnes Wherefore it was not without cause that S. Peter writing to such as had obtained like pretious faith with himselfe willeth them to
serued and glorified and our selues beautefied thereby Ioh. 6. 29. but also that so we may stop the mouthes of our adversaries For among al the most slanderous imputations that they lay to our charge this is not the least that they avouch that wee teach a bare and naked faith without the fruit of all good workes in that wee affirme that faith is alone in the worke of our iustification The which is as true as if they should say that wee hold that the eye is alone in the body without the residue of the other senses seeing that wee avouch that the eie is alone in the apprehension of all such things as are subiect vnto sight And yet for this cause we must be called Solâ—fidians as if wee reiected all other fruits of the spirit with the practise exercise of all good works Nay let vs make no lesse vse hereof then Philip did of those slanders the which the Athenians had raised vp against him I am much said he beholding to the Athenians for that by their slanderous reports I am made the more careful to look to my waies that I may hold a right course that so I may confute them both by my words and workes So likewise whereas our doctrine is that the true Christian saith is accompanied with all manner of divine and heauenly graces and is fruitfull in all good workes let vs giue all diligence to confirme the same by an holy life and conversation that so we may confute them by our deeds also And so we may bee bold to retort vpon them iustly and truly that which they vntruely charge vs withall For in that they avouch that the true Christian faith may not only be in the reprobate but even in the very divels themselues thereby they teach that it may be alone without the company of any vertue without the practise of any good worke And therefore they may be truely tearmed not onely Solifidians but Implijfidians ' Diabolifidians also Vndoubtedly hereby they make it manifest to the whole world that they hold not the true Catholike faith seeing thereby in the iudgement of S. Austine the iust are discerned from the vniust Aug. ad Bomf l. 3. c. 5. Whereas by that faith which themselues hold to be Catholike they cannot be discerned from the very Divels themselues Now if they bee not severed from the Divels in their faith neither can they bee seuered from them in their workes seeing faith is the root works are the fruits and such a root such a fruit Now if they bee severed from the Divell neither in their faith nor workes how can they bee severed from him in their punishments Wherefore let them disgrace this gracious gift of faith which haue no part nor portion in the reward thereof But as for vs which acknowledge it to be a principall part of true sanctitie and holinesse let vs most carefully obserue the meanes whereby it is coliated by God set downe in these words of our text Sanctifie them with thy truth thy word is truth Wherein we are to obserue these two points First that God doth sanctifie his by the truth secondly that this truth is contained in Gods word even in that word of God which is delivered vnto vs by the Prophets and Apostles Concerning the first which is that truth is the true meanes whereby we attaine to an holy faith and to all the residue of the graces of sanctification it is manifest in this that truth doth rectifie our vnderstanding will affections in the vprightnesse of the which our whole and totall sanctification doth consist And therefore by S. Austine truth is tearmed The virginitie of the soule and the chastitie of the mind As falsehood and vntruth is the adulterous pollution of them all insomuch that all such as in Gods service embrace lyes either taken by tradition from their ancestors or sucken out of their owne heads are iustly charged by the spirit of God to goe a whoring after humane inventions Num. 15. 39. Here of it is that men of al professions lay claime to the truth and for proofe thereof make a shew to deriue the pedegree of their doctrine from God the author of truth and from his word the authenticall and vndeniable evidences thereof As it may appeare by Celsus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Who as Origen reporteth entituled his bookes The word of truth which yet hee wrot against the truth Wherefore as the Apostle exhorteth we are not to beleeue every spirit but to trie the spirits whether they are of God or no and wisely to examine the grounds of all doctrines before that we make them Articles of our Creed that so we may imbrace the knowledge of the truth whereby we may bee saved and reiect the strong delusion of Satans lies which are the venome and poison of our soules 2. Thess 2. 10. Now the word of God which our blessed Saviour the wisdome of God Prov. 8. revealed by his spirit to the Prophets and Apostles is this word of sanctifying and sauing truth For if we continue in the same We shall knowe the truth the truth shall make vs free Ioh. 8. 32. And how doth truth make vs free but by sanctifying vs with al divlne and heavenly vertues For a true vertuous man is the only free man Let vs then come to the second point and take a true view of such proofes as may be produced to make manifest that the word of Christ revealed by his spirit to the Prophets and Apostles is only the rich treasury of that pretious truth whereby all the elect of God are brought to a sanctifying and sauing faith The which thing that we may effect let vs first search and enquire where and what truth is that so truth may speake and manifest it selfe Truth is either in things or words Truth in things is the fit and apt agreement of the causes with their effects and the effects with their causes of the accidents with their subiects and subiects with their accidents and so of all other arguments and reasons with the things whereof they are argumeÌ„ts reasons Vera est propositio quaÌ„do praedicatum convenit subiecto Tum praedicatuÌ„ coÌ„venit subiecto cum est genus c. So truth in words is when true reasons which agree with the things whereof they are reasons are accordingly set downe in the words which are deliuered to expresse the same Hence then we thus conclude that if all true reasons whereby the true God and true Godlinesse may be knowne and embraced are rightly set downe in the doctrine revealed by Christ to the Tum veritas est in verbis quando ita est in rebus quemadmodum verbâ— significant Prophets and Apostles and by them registred and enrolled in the Canonicall Scriptures of the old and new Testament then this word is the word of God and the word of truth But in these bookes are set downe all manner of most forcible and