Selected quad for the lemma: church_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
church_n	believe_v	divine_a	revelation_n	3,649	5	9.8192	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A55818	A discourse for the vindicating of Christianity from the charge of imposture Offer'd, by way of letter, to the consideration of the deists of the present age. By Humphrey Prideaux, D.D. and arch-deacon of Suffolk.	Prideaux, Humphrey, 1648-1724.	1697 (1697)	Wing P3412A; ESTC R219515	81,417	183

I desire to know among what sort of Men you will place them while you thus plead their excuse For they must be one of these three that is either Atheists Deists or Believers of an instituted Religion 1. If you say they are Atheists that word alone contains enough to prove them perfectly wicked whatever can be said to the contrary It is indeed agreeable enough to the Principes of this sort of Men that such an Imposture as we are treating of may laudably be made use of to a good End For they hold that all Religion is nothing else but a device of Politicians to keep the World in awe But if the Atheist be the deviser what intention of Good can the device carry therewith None certainly towards God since he utterly denies his Being or can it in this case have any towards Men since by denying him for whose sake it is that we are to do good to others he casts off therewith all the reason and obligation which he hath abstractive of his own interest of doing any such at all All the good therefore that such an one can aim at must totally center in himself to advance his own enjoyments and gratifie his own lusts in all those things which his corrupt affections carry him after and to enjoy these without restraint of Laws or fear of punishment being that alone which is the real and true cause that makes any Man deny that supreme and infinitely good and just Being whom all things else prove whoever is an Atheist must be perfectly wicked before he can be such and what is there which can while in that impiety ever give him a better character afterwards 2. If you say they are Deists such as you profess your selves to be your main Principle is against all instituted Religion whatever as if God were dishonoured and Man injured by every thing of this nature practised among us and can you then think that any who are thus persuaded can without being first corrupted to a great degree of Impiety as well as Hypocrisie ever become themselves so contrary to their own Sentiments on any pretence whatsoever the Authors and Teachers of such a Religion among us 3. But if you place them among those who are Believers of an instituted Religion they must abolish that which they believe to be true before they can introduce that by Imposture which they know to be false And this must be the case of Jesus Christ and his Apostles if they were such Impostors as you hold them to be For they were educated and brought up in the Jewish Religion which they believed to be from God and the whole Tenour of the Religion which they taught supposeth it so to be and that it was the only true way whereby God was to be worshipped by them till they delivered their new Revelations which totally abolished this Religion and established the Christian in its stead and therefore if those Revelations were not true and real as they pretended they were but all forged and counterfeited by them as you say they must abolish a Religion which they believed to be true to make way for that which they knew to be false and thereby become wilfully and knowingly according to their own belief the Authors of leading Men from saving Truths into damning Errours to the utter destruction of their Souls for ever and also of depriving God of that acceptable Worship whereby he was truly honour'd according to his own appointment to introduce in its stead a false superstition of their own devising which must be constant dishonour unto him as long as practised among us And if Jesus Christ and his Apostles were such Impostors as all this imports and such they must be if they were Impostors at all they must be guilty of that impiety towards God as well as that injustice towards Men herein as must necessarily suppose them the wickedest of Men before they could arrive hereto and therefore if they were not such wicked Men this abundantly demonstrates they could not be such Impostors as you charge them to be As to the second Objection That a Man may be an Impostour through Enthusiasm and Mistake and falsely impose things for divine Revelations not out of a wicked design to deceive others but that he is herein really deceived himself and that therefore there is no necessity that all Impostors should be such wicked persons as I have alledged my Answer hereto is 1. I do acknowledge that Enthusiasm hath carried Men into very strange conceits and extravagancies upon the foundation of a Religion already established as we have instances enough hereof in the Anabaptists of Germany the Quakers here with us the Batenists among the Mahometans and in some of the Recluses of the Church of Rome But that Enthusiasm could ever go so far as to fansie a divine Revelation for the establishing of a new Religion and upon such a fansie propagate that Religion in the World as if it came from God is that which I cannot believe and there is no instance that I know of that can be given hereof But 2dly Allowing it possible this Objection then as applied to the case in hand must suppose Jesus Christ and his Apostles to have been deceived by Enthusiasm into the Religion which they taught and that therefore although they were by no means such wicked Men as a wilfull Imposture must suppose them to be yet still they might be Impostors by mistake and being by Enthusiasm so far deluded as to think that to come to them from God by divine Revelation which had no other birth but from their own wild fancies might preach it to Men as such not out of a wicked design to deceive but that they were really herein deceived themselves But is it possible for any Man to conceive that so grave so serious and so wisely a framed Religion as Christianity is could ever be the spawn of Enthusiasm Whatsoever is the product of that useth ever to be like the Parent wild and extravagant in all its parts often disagreeing with all manner of Reason and often as much with it self But Christianity is in all its parts as rational as it is good giving us the justest Notions of God the best Precepts of our duty towards Him and the exactest Rules of living honestly and righteously with each other and hath a thorough conformity to it self in every particular of it on which account it hath been approved and admired for the excellency of its composure and the wisdom of its constitutions even by the best and wisest of those who never submitted thereto and therefore always carries with it Marks and Evidences enough in the very Nature of it sufficiently to prove it vastly above the power of such a Cause ever to produce it 3. The Founder and first Teachers of Christianity gave such evidences for the truth thereof as Enthusiasm could never produce For can Enthusiasm raise the dead to life again cure all manner of