Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n
Text snippets containing the quad
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A48904
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A vindication of The reasonableness of Christianity, &c. from Mr. Edwards's reflections
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Locke, John, 1632-1704.
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1695
(1695)
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Wing L2769; ESTC R18275
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16,897
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48
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taking Reprizals even on the most Priviledged sort of Men. Mr. Ed's who is entrenched in Orthodoxy and so is as safe in Matters of Faith almost as Infallibility it self is yet as apt to Err as others in Matter of Fact But he has not yet done with me about the Epistles All his fine Draught of my slighting that part of the Scripture will be lost unless the last strokes compleat it into Socinianism In his following words you have the Conclusion of the whole Matter His words are these And more especially if I may Conjecture by all means Sir Conjecturing is your proper Talent you have hitherto done nothing else And I will say that for you you have a lucky Hand at it He doth this i. e. pass by the Epistles with Contempt because he knew that there are so many and frequent and those so illustrious and eminent Attestations to the Doctrine of the ever to be adored Trinity in these Epistles Truly Sir if you will permit me to know what I know as well as you do allow your self to conjecture what you please you are out for this once The Reason why I went not through the Epistles as I did the Gospels and the Acts was that very Reason I printed and that will be found so sufficient a one to all considerate Readers that I believe they will think you need not strain your Conjectures for another And if you think it be so easie to distinguish Fundamentals from not Fundamentals in the Epistles I desire you to try your Skill again in giving the World a perfect Collection of Propositions out of the Epistles that contain all that is required and no more than what is absolutely required to be believed by all Christians without which Faith they cannot be of Christ's Church For I tell you notwithstanding the shew you have made you have not yet done it nor will you affirm that you have His next Page viz. 112. is made up of the same which he calls Not Uncharitable Conjectures I expound he says Iohn 14. 9. c. after the Antitrinitarian Mode And I make Christ and Adam to be Sons of God in the same sense and by their Birth as the Racovians generally do I know not but it may be true that the Antitrinitarians and Racovians understand those places as I do But 't is more than I know that they do so I took not my sense of those Texts from those Writers but from the Scripture it self giving Light to it 's own meaning by one place compared with another What in this way appears to me its true meaning I shall not decline because I am told that it is so understood by the Racovians whom I never yet read nor embrace the contrary though the generality of Divines I more converse with should declare for it If the sense wherein I understand those Texts be a mistake I shall be beholding to you if you will set me right But they are not Popular Authorities or Frightful Names whereby I judge of Truth or Falshood You will now no doubt applaud your Conjectures The Point is gained and I am openly a Socinian since I will not disown that I think the Son of God was a Phrase that among the Iews in our Saviour's time was used for the Messiah though the Socinians understand it in the same sense And therefore I must certainly be of their Perswasion in every thing else I admire the acuteness force and fairness of your Reasoning and so I leave you to Triumph in your Conjectures Only I must desire you to take notice that that Ornament of our Church and every way Eminent Prelate the late Arch-Bishop of Canterbury understood that Phrase in the same sense that I do without being a Socinian You may read what he says concerning Nathanael in his first Serm. of Sincerity published this year His words are these p. 4. And being satisfied that he our Saviour was the Messiah he presently owned him for such calling him the SON OF GOD and the King of Israel Though this Gentleman know my Thoughts as perfectly as if he had for several years past lain in my Bosom yet he is mightily at a loss about my Person As if it at all concerned the Truth contained in my Book what Hand it came from However the Gentleman is mightily perplexed about the Author Why Sir What if it were writ by a Scribler of Bartholomew Fair Drolls with all that flourish of Declamatory Rhetorick and all that smartness of Wit and Jest about Capt. Tom Vnitarins Vnits and Cyphers c. Which are to be found between 115 and 123 Pages of a Book that came out during the merry time of Rope-Dancing and Puppet-Plays What is Truth would I hope nevertheless be Truth in it however odly sprused up by such an Author Though perhaps 't is likely some would be apt to say such Merriment became not the Gravity of my Subject and that I writ not in the stile of a Graduate in Divinity I confess as Mr. Ed's rightly says my fault lyes on the other side in a want of Vivacity and Elevation And I cannot wonder that one of his Character and Palate should find out and complain of my flatness which has so over-charged my Book with plain and direct Texts of Scripture in a matter capable of no other Proofs But yet I must acknowledge his excess of Civility to me He shews me more kindness than I could expect or wish since he prefers what I say to him my self to what is offered to him from the Word of God and makes me this Complement that I begin to mend about the Close i. e. when I leave off quoting of Scripture And the dull work was done of going through the History of the Evangelists and Acts which he computes p. 105. to take up three quarters of my Book Does not all this deserve at least that I should in return take some care of his Credit Which I know not how better to do than by entreating him that when he takes next in hand such a Subject as this is wherein the Salvation of Souls is concerned he would treat it a little more seriously and with a little more Candor left Men should find in his Writings another cause of Atheism which in this Treatise he has not thought fit to mention Ostentation of Wit in general he has made a Cause of Atheism p. 28. But the World will tell him That frothy light Discourses concerning the Serious Matters of Religion and Ostentation of triflng and misbecoming Wit in those who come as Ambassadors from God under the Title of Successors of the Apostles in the great Commission of the Gospel is none of the least Causes of Atheism Some Men have so peculiar a way of Arguing that one may see it influences them in the repeating another Man's Reasoning and seldom fails to make it their own In the next Paragraph I find these words What makes him contend for one single Article with the exclusion