Selected quad for the lemma: christian_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
christian_n	believe_v	jesus_n	messiah_n	1,398	5	10.9446	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A70688	The exceptions of Mr. Edwards in his Causes of atheism against the Reasonableness of Christianity, as deliver'd in the Scriptures, examin'd and found unreasonable, unscriptural, and injurious also it's clearly proved by many testimonies of Holy Scripture, that the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ is the only God and Father of Christians.	Nye, Stephen, 1648?-1719.	1695 (1695)	Wing N1506B; ESTC R41202	41,602	48

THE EXCEPTIONS Of Mr. EDWARDS in his Causes of Atheism Against the Reasonableness of Christianity as deliver'd in the Scriptures EXAMIN'D And found Unreasonable Unscriptural and Injurious ALSO It 's clearly proved by many Testimonies of Holy Scripture That the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ is the only God and Father of Christians London Printed in the Year MDCXCV To the Author of the Reasonableness of Christianity as delivered in the Scriptures SIR IN reading your Book of that Title I readily perceived your Design intimated in your Preface to be therein most industriously and piously pursued So that you have with full Evidence of Scripture and Reason shewed against the manifold obscure and tedious Systems that the Fundamentals of Christian Faith necessary to constitute a Man a true Member of Christ's Church are all comprehended or implied in this plain Proposition That Jesus is the Messiah Whereby you have happily provided for the Quiet and Satisfaction of the Minds of the honest Multitude or Bulk of Mankind floating in Doubts and Fears because either they cannot understand or can find no clear Evidence in Holy Scripture of those intricate Points requir'd to be explicitly believ'd upon pain of eternal Damnation You have also argued clearly the Reasonableness and Vsefulness of the Christian Revelation against Atheists and Deists These things consider'd 't was no marvel that the Systematical Men who gain both their Honour and Profit by the Obscurity and Multitude of their Fundamental Articles should raise an Outcry against you like that of the Ephesians magnifying their DIANA They have more cause for it than Demetrius had But that they should traduce your Work as tending to Atheism or Deism is as strange from Reason as many of their Articles are from Scripture And that Mr. Edwards has done it and forc'd it in among his Tendencies to Atheism is I think to be imputed to the Co-incidence of your Book 's being publish'd and striking strongly upon his inventive Faculty just when it was in hot pursuit of the Causes of Atheism rather than to any the least Colour or Inclination that way which Mr. Edwards can spy in it in his cool Thoughts For I am much perswaded on the contrary that there is no Atheist or Deist in England but if he were ask'd the Question would tell Mr. Edwards that their obscure and contradictious Fundamentals were one Cause or Inducement to his casting off and disbelief of Christianity In this Mind I have undertaken to vindicate your Doctrine from the Exceptions of Mr. Edwards against it But whether I have done it as it ought to have been done I cannot be a competent Judg. If I have mistaken your Sense or us'd weak Reasonings in your Defence I crave your Pardon But my Design in this Writing was not to please you whom I know not nor any Man whatsoever but only to honour the One God and vindicate his most useful Truths I am SIR Your very humble Servant Mr. EDWARDS 's Exceptions against the Reasonableness of Christianity examined c. IT seems to me that Mr. Edwards printing his Causes of Atheism whilst the Reasonableness of Christianity was newly publish'd was put upon it by his Bookseller to add some Exceptions against that Treatise so much noted for its Heterodoxy that so the Sale of his own Tract might be the more promoted whence it comes to pass that his Notes being writ in haste are not so well digested as might be expected from a Person of his Learning and Ingenuity In pag. 104. he takes notice of A PLAUSIBLE CONCEIT which hath been growing up a considerable Time c. but tells not his Reader what that Conceit was till he hath charged it upon a very Learned and famous Author whom he is pleased to call a wavering Prelate and another of the same Order and a Third of a lower Degree but more particularly fully and distinctly upon the late Publisher of The Reasonableness of Christianity c. Here at length in his next Page he tells us That this Author gives IT us over and over again in these formal words viz. That nothing is required to be believed by any Christian Man but this THAT JESVS IS THE MESSIAH I think if he had not been in haste he would have cited at least two or three of those Pages wherein we might find those formal Words but he has not one and I do not remember where they are to be found for I am almost in as much haste as Mr. Edwards and will not seek for them It 's true he says That all that was to be believed for Justification or to make a Man a Christian by him that did already believe in and worship one true God maker of Heaven and Earth was no more than this single Proposition That Jesus of Nazareth was the Christ or the Messiah But then he takes to be included in this Proposition 1. All synonimous Expressions such as the Son of God The King of Israel The sent of God He that should come He of whom Moses and the Prophets did write The Teacher come from God c. 2. All such Expressions as shew the manner of his being the Christ Messiah or Son of God such as his being conceived by the Holy Ghost and Power of the most High his being anointed with the Holy Ghost and Power his being sanctified and sent into the World his being raised from the Dead and exalted to be a Prince and Saviour after the time he was so c. 3. Such Expressions as import the great Benefits of his being the Messiah as having the Words of Eternal Life his having Power from the Father to remit Sins to raise the Dead to judg the World to give eternal Life to send the H. Spirit upon the Apostles whereby they might work Miracles and preach the Light of Life to Jews and Gentiles and the like For all those Quotations of Scripture which the Author as Mr. Edwards observes has amassed together out of the Gospels and the Acts of the Apostles which take up about three quarters of his Book for the proof of his Proposition are indeed expository of the meaning of that Proposition and are included in it Not that it was necessary that every one who believed the Proposition should understand and have an explicite Faith of all those particulars for neither the Believers during the Life of Christ nor the Apostles themselves understood many of them no nor presently after his Death and Resurrection for they had still divers erroneous Opinions concerning the Nature of his Kingdom and the preaching to the Gentiles and other things And in the beginning of Christ's preaching though Philip believ'd that Jesus was the Messiah the Son of God the King of Israel yet he seems to be ignorant of his being born of a Virgin for he calls him the Son of Joseph John 1. 45. But as he that believes that William the 3d is the true King of England c. believes enough to make

which are generally form'd not in Scripture-Terms and about which there is such endless Contentions when they be explain'd to them as well as our Author's Article Jesus is the Messiah Nay he is confident that there is no more Difficulty in understanding this Proposition The Father Son and Holy Ghost are one God or Divine Nature than in that other of our Author see pag. 120. when yet the World knows to its Cost that this Article has exercis'd all the greatest Wits of the Church these fourteen or fifteen hundred Years to understand the Terms and take away the Contradictions and at this Day the English Trinitarians have most fierce Contentions among themselves about the meaning of it The nominal Trinitarians agree with the Unitarians that the Realists that hold three real Persons are Tritheists and the Realists agree with the Unitarians that the Nominals or Modalists destroy the Reality of the Eternal Son and Holy Ghost and are Patripassians or Sabellians Besides Mr. Edw. knows that each of these Parties are at vast difference among themselves they easily find Inconsistences or Contradictions in one anothers Explications so that supposing there be but ten different Trinitarian Hypotheses I think there are more every one has mine against him all which he looks upon as faulty and they on the other Hand do all reject his They reject them I say not as the Bishop of Sarum in his Letter to D. W. pag. 56. would paliate Matter as having the same Acts of Piety and Adoration though different ways of Explaining either the Vnity of the Essence or the Trinity of the Persons but as having different Acts except we can have the same Idea's when we worship three Gods as when we worship one only or when we worship one all-perfect Person as when we worship three such or when we worship one real Person and two nominal Ones as when we worship three Equals or when we worship one self-existent God and two dependent Gods not self-existent as when we worship three Self-existents and the like Again Mr. Edw's Proposition is never once found in Holy Writ but our Author 's often expresly He uses Terms in such a Sense as they are never us'd in Scripture for Divine Nature is never put there for God nor does the word GOD or one God ever signify Father Son and H. Ghost but always one singular Person and throughout the Holy Scriptures from the Beginning to the End God is spoken of and spoken to as one only Person and by Terms and Pronouns that signify singularly and never otherwise God indeed does twice or thrice speak of himself Plurally as Persons of Dignity and Dominion do often But our Author both his Words in Form and his Explications are all taken out of Scripture and in the Days of our Saviour and his Apostles there was no difficulty in understanding them The most illiterate Fishermen and Shepherds and Women knew what was meant by JESVs and what by Messiah The only Question was whether the Proposition Jesus is the Messiah was to be affirm'd or denied But notwithstanding all this Mr. Edw. says Truly if there be any Difficulty it is in our Author's Proposition why pray For here is an Hebrew word first to be explain'd before the Mob can understand the Proposition But by his favour the word Messiah is by our Translators adopted into the English Tongue and the common People the Rabble as Mr. Edw. is pleas'd to call them understand it as well as they do the Christ or the Anointed and also the Explications of those Terms provided they use to read either themselves or hear others read the Holy Scriptures But the word Messiah was in our Saviour and the Apostles Time most common among the Jews therefore our Author designing to represent the Preaching and Faith of that Time chose to use it more frequently than any other Term see pag. 30. But I presume Mr. Edw. brought in this Objection only as a Diversion If he really think as he says it 's a sharp Reflection upon all the Learned Trinitarian Controvertists upon this Point except they take it more candidly for an Invitation to their Reverences and right Reverences to come to the most Learned Mr. Edw. to inform their Understandings and solve all the Difficulties that make them at so great Odds one with another And it 's to be hoped he will give such a clear Explication of the Trinity as will satisfy the Mystery-men or Ignoramus-Trinitarians that at length they may understand what they now profess to believe without Understanding But to return for all this will seem a Digression except the Reader please to remember it is for a Vindication of our Author from Mr. Edw's hard charge of purposely omitting the Epistolary Writings because fraught with other Fundamental Doctrines besides that one which he mentions Among those Mr. Edw. reckons chiefly and more especially The Doctrine of the ever to be adored Trinity eminently attested in those Epistles This Doctrine he has given us in his Proposition above discoursed and has attempted to show against Matter of Fact in all Ages and especially in this present Time that this Fundamental ought not to have been omitted because of its Difficulty or Unintelligibleness for it is he saith less difficult than that of our Author Jesus is the Messiah but how successfully I leave to consideration But if it be Unintelligible or Contradictious at least to the Bulk of Mankind then it 's impossible it should be a Fundamental Article and therefore our Author needed not purposely to omit the Epistolary Writings of the Apostles for fear of finding it there since Mr. Edw. himself cannot find it there nor in the Bible But what says he to our Author 's full Answer to the Question about the Usefulness of the Epistles though the Belief of many Doctrines contained in them be not necessary to Salvation Our Author answers 1. That he that will read the Epistles as he ought must observe what 't is in them is principally aim'd at for that is the Truth which is to be receiv'd and believ'd and not scatter'd Sentences in Scripture-Language accommodated to our Notions and Prejudices What says Mr. Edw. to that 2. for I abridg There be many Truths in the Bible which a good Christian may be wholly ignorant of and so not believe which perhaps some lay great stress on and call Fundamental Articles because they are the distinguishing Points of their Communion What says Mr. Edw. to this 3. The Epistles were writ to those who were in the Faith and true Christians already and so could not be design'd to teach them the Fundamental Articles and Points necessary to Salvation This he shows from the Address of all the Epistles or something noted in them 4. Their resolving Doubts and reforming Mistakes are of great Advantage to our Knowledg and Practice 5. The great Doctrines of the Christian Faith are dropt here and there He has cited some such Passages in the Proof

no Christians and that Quakerism is no Christianity However retaining still the Words wherein the Christian Faith is exprest though in an equivocal Sense and having some among them as George Keith and others who still believ'd the Gospel in the proper Sense they made a shift to be reputed generally Christians And indeed this Conduct of theirs deceived even many of their own Party which is manifest in William Rogers of Bristol Francis Bugg Thomas Crispe John Pennyman and especially in George Keith who having been a Quaker about 30 Years yet did not till within these three or four Years discover the Infidelity of the Primitive and true Quakers who are deservedly call'd Foxonians because holding the Principles of George Fox their Author But G. Keith living in Pensylvania where the Quakers were Governours and might be free to open their Minds plainly did then perceive they did not believe the Doctrine of the Apostles Creed the summary of Christian Faith which made him preach it and contend for it more earnestly This provok'd the Foxonians so far that it came to a Breach and Separation and at length to Impeachment Fines and Imprisonment Then G. Keich returns to London where the matters in Contest between him and the Foxonians of Pensylvania was taken into Consideration and had divers Hearings by the general Annual Meeting of Quakers 1694 who gave a kind of a Judgment in the Case but no clearer Determination of the principal Matter concerning Christ within and Christ without and the other Articles of Christian Faith than their former equivocal Expressions The next Year 1695 at the like General Meeting they absolutely excommunicate G. Keith and make this the Ground of it viz. that he had not given due observance to their former Order and was troublesome to them in his Declarations c. For he had still continued to preach frequently Christianity as before See a late Book titled Gross Error and Hypocrisy detected c. The Reader I hope will excuse it that I have detain'd him in this long Story because it was necessary for me first to prove the Quakers are Deists and then to proceed and shew Secondly That the Obscurity Ambiguity and Numerousness of Systematical Fundamentals is that which is the chief Cause of their being so For not being able to satisfy themselves in understanding and determining the Truth and Certainty of those Fundamentals for the proof of which Scriptures were alledg'd but those of so doubtful a sense and variously interpreted by opposite Parties that they readily embrac'd George Fox's only Fundamental of the Light in every Man that is in reality the natural Light whereby we distinguish between Good and Evil in ordinary whence it is that as saith the Apostle Paul We as the Gentiles are a Law to our selves and our Thoughts accuse or excuse Rom. 2. 14 15. Which is in Truth an excellent Doctrine and has great certainty and clearness in it But G. Fox preaches this not as a natural Principle but 1. As a supernatural Revelation And 2. Christ being call'd in Scripture the Light that lighteth every Man and the Light of the World because be brought the Light of the Gospel into the World George Fox applies these Terms and Phrases and almost every thing that is spoken of Christ to the Light in every Man and so turns the plain sense of the Gospel into a Parabolical or Mystical Sense and makes the Christian Scripture to speak nothing but Deism 3. G. Fox adds certain Observances of giving no respect in Word or Gesture or Title nor speaking as others speak nor saluting as others salute nor paying Tithes nor using the Sword nor swearing in common Form c. and all as inspired Dictates that so the only People of God might be separated from all the World and they serve admirably for that purpose Now if you consider the experimented certainty of their Principle the Light within that accuses and excuses and their Perswasion that it was a Divine Inspiration which also was confirm'd to them by their giving obedience to those Ceremonies which were so contrary and offensive to the World and expos'd them to much Suffering All suffering for Religion especially for a clear Revelation from God confirming the Sufferers in their Perswasion You may clearly perceive it was the Uncertainty Obscurity and Intricacy of their former Principles which induced them to embrace G. Fox's Religion which is all dictated by the Spirit of God in every Man Whence it is they upbraid other Professors with Doubtfulness and Fallibility and every one of them counts himself as infallible as the Papists do the Pope How can ye but delude People says G. Fox that are not infallible Myst p. 33. Lastly The Obscurity Uncertainty and Multiplicity of Fundamentals is that which has given an Argument to Popish Priests and Jesuits wherewith to seduce Protestants to Popery For evidence of this I shall mind you of a Paper written by a Jesuit in the late King James's time titled An Address presented to the Reverend and Learned Ministers of the Church of England c. The purport of which is That all things necessary to Salvation are not clearly contained in Scripture as Protestants hold because the Belief of a Trinity one God and three Persons is necessary to Salvation but not clearly contain'd in Scripture Then he goes about to shew that the Scriptures commonly alledged for the Trinity admit of another sense He goes the same way in the Article of the Incarnation Thus supposing these Articles to be necessary to Salvation as Protestants hold and not clearly contain'd in Scripture it follows that the undoubted Certainty of them must be found in the Determinations of the Church and then that Church which professes Infallibility is the only Refuge and I believe as the Church believes supplies all other Articles No Certainty any where else but Certainty must be had in these Points Here the making of those Articles Fundamental which cannot be clearly prov'd from Scripture subverts the Sufficiency and Clearness of Scripture and sends poor Protestants to Rome for the Certainty and Infallibility of the Christian Faith They did so glory in the strength of this Argument that the Jesuit-Preacher in Limestreet read their Paper and made the same Challenge in his Pulpit where he had a great number of Protestants that went out of Curiosity to hear him Having thus as I presume vindicated our Author and shewn the Mischiefs of Mr. Edw's Fundamentals I may now take my leave of my Reader Only I am first willing to let Mr. Edw. know that I have not undertaken this Defence out of any ambitious Humour of contending with so Learned a Man as he is nor would I have made opposition to him in any other Point of Learning or Divinity but Fundamentals every Man is concern'd in and ought to know and to be assured that he holds them all Eternal Salvation is a greater thing by far than any Empire and will therefore justify and exact our utmost Care and Endeavour for the obtaining it So that in these Considerations of Mr. Edw's Exceptions I have done my Duty to my self and that I have publish'd them I am perswaded I have therein done a great Charity to my Neighbours the Poor and Bulk of Mankind for whose Salvation I hope I should not think it too much to lay down my Life however Mr. Edw. speaks so scoffingly of them even where their eternal Happiness or Misery is deeply concern'd THE END ERRATA Pag. 9. Col. 2 l. 0. for a read or P. 11. col 2. l. 14. r. perfect Man P. 14. col 2. l. 8. f. mine r. nine l. 14. r. palliate the.