Selected quad for the lemma: doctrine_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
doctrine_n	holy_a	scripture_n	tradition_n	3,735	5	9.1394	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A59808	The danger of corrupting the faith by philosophy a sermon preach'd before the Right Honble, the Lord Mayor and Court of Aldermen at Guildhall-Chappel on Sunday, April 25, 1697 / by William Sherlock.	Sherlock, William, 1641?-1707.	1697 (1697)	Wing S3280; ESTC R28137	15,328	30

Christian World 1. As to begin with Revelation in general The Books of Moses are the most Ancient and that considered the best attested History in the World the whole Nation of the Jews whose History he writes pay the greatest veneration to him and if we believe the Matters of Fact which he relates he was certainly an Inspired Man who could neither deceive nor be deceived And it is impossible to have greater Evidence for the Truth and Authenticalness of any Writings at such a distance of time than we have for the Writings of the New Testament and indeed the Infidels of our Age have very little to say purely against the Credibility of the History and then one would think that all their other Objections should come too late unless they will justify Pharaoh in disbelieving Moses and the Scribes and Pharisees in disbelieving our Saviour after all the Miracles they did For if they will disbelieve Moses and Christ though they have nothing material to object against the Truth of these Histories nothing which they would allow to be good Objections against any other History they must by the same reason have disbelieved them though they had seen them do all those great Works which are reported of them in such Credible Histories But whatever the Authority of these Books are they think they may securely reject them if they contain any thing which contradicts their Reason and Philosophy and they find a great many such things to quarrel with They think Moses's History of the Creation very unphilosophical That the Story of Eve and the Serpent is an incredible Fiction That the Universal Deluge is absolutely impossible and irreconcileable with the Principles of Philosophy and it does not become Philosophers to have recourse to Miracles That what we call Miracles are not the effects of a Divine Power but may be resolved into Natural Causes That Inspiration and Prophesy is nothing but Natural Enthusiasm and all the Pretences to Revelation a Cheat and Imposture That Nature teaches us all that we need to know That there is no other certain knowledge but this That we are not bound to believe any thing which our own Reason cannot grasp and comprehend and therefore Revelation is perfectly useless and God himself cannot oblige us to believe any thing which does not agree with the Reason of our own Minds and the Philosophy of Nature Those who understand the Mystery of Modern Infidelity know that these and such like are the wise Reasons for which they reject and ridicule all Revealed Religion and endeavour to rob and spoil men of one of the greatest Blessings in the World A Divine Revelation So that Infidelity is resolved into these vain Pretences to Philosophy that Men will understand how to make destroy and govern the World better than God 2. As these men oppose Reason and Philosophy to Revelation so others either deny the fundamental Articles of Christianity for the sake of some Philosophical Difficulties or corrupt the Doctrines of Christianity by a mixture of Philosophy The Gospel of our Saviour is the plainest Revelation of the Will of God that ever was made to the World all its Doctrines are easily understood without Art and Subtilty and yet there is not a more nice intricate perplext thing in the World than what some men have made the Christian Faith All the Subtil Disputes of Philosophy are brought into the Church and Plato and Aristotle are become as great Apostles as St. Peter or St. Paul As to give some few Instances of it for time will not permit me to discourse it at large What are the Arian Socinian Pelagian Controversies but meer Philosophical Disputes with which these Hereticks corrupted the Catholick Faith There is nothing more plain and express in Scripture than the Faith of Father Son and Holy Ghost or the Doctrine of the Trinity in Vnity and that great Art and Subtilty which has been used and to so little purpose to pervert those Texts of Scripture wherein this Doctrine is contained is an evident proof That this is the plain natural obvious sense of those Texts since it requires so much Art and Criticism to put any other sense on them and that will not do neither till men are resolved rather to make any thing of Scripture than to find a real Trinity there If then this Faith be so plainly contained in Scripture what makes all this dispute about it What makes those who profess to believe the Scripture so obstinate against this Faith Truly that which makes some men Infidels makes others Hereticks that is a vain pretence to Philosophy The first Philosophical Dispute is about the Divine Unity We all own with the Scripture that there is but One God but we say further as the Scripture teaches us That there are Three Father Son and Holy Ghost each of which is true and perfect God This they say is a Contradiction and if it be so there is an end of this Faith for both parts of a Contradiction can't be true But to be Three and One upon different accounts and in different senses is no Contradiction for thus Three may be One and One Three and this is all the Scripture teaches or that we profess to believe whatever the Mystery of this Distinction and Unity be But this will not satisfy these Philosophical Wits unless they can comprehend how Father Son and Holy Ghost are really and distinctly Three and essentially One the manner of which the Scripture gives no account of and therefore this is no Dispute in Faith but only in Philosophy Another Objection concerns the Divine Generation how God can beget a Son of his own Substance which the Arians thought inferred a division of the Divine Substance And a Third Objection concerns an Eternal Generation how it is possible that the Father should beget an Eternal Son that the Son should be begotten without any beginning of Being and that the Father should not be at least some few moments before the Son and consequently the Son not Eternal Now we all grant that we can give no Philosophical account of this no more than we can of the simple Divine Essence or of Eternity it self but we may believe that God has an Eternal Son as we do that there is an Eternal God without knowing how any thing is Eternal These are Disputes in Philosophy and such as none but vain men will dispute about as being acknowledged above our Comprehension and therefore no reasonable Objection against our Faith This as for the Doctrine of the Incarnation nothing can be plainer in Scripture than that the Son of God was made man That the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us That God was manifest in the flesh And all the disputes about this Article are purely Philosophical Some men reject it because they cannot understand how God and Man can be united in one Person Others confound the Divine and Human Nature as Eutyches did or divide the Persons as Nestorius did both

The Dean of St. PAVL's SERMON Before the Lord Mayor and Aldermen On APRIL 25. 1697. Clarke Mayor Martis quarto die Maij 1697. Annoque R. Rs. Wilhelmi Tertii Angliae c. Nono THIS Court doth desire Mr. Dean of St. Paul's to print his Sermon preached before the Lord Mayor and Aldermen of this City on Sunday the 25th day of April last GOODFELLOW The Danger of corrupting the Faith by Philosophy A SERMON Preach'd before the Right Hon ble the Lord-Mayor AND Court of Aldermen At GUILDHALL-CHAPPEL On SUNDAY APRIL 25. 1697. By WILLIAM SHERLOCK D. D. Dean of St. Paul's Master of the Temple and Chaplain in Ordinary to His Majesty LONDON Printed for W. Rogers at the Sun against St. Dunstan's Church in Fleetstreet MDCXCVII COLOS. II. 8. Beware lest any man spoil you through Philosophy and vain deceit after the traditions of men after the rudiments of the world and not after Christ. HAD St. Paul lived in our Age it would have required little less than the Courage and Bravery of the Spirit of Martyrdom to have said this And nothing but the Authority of so great an Apostle which though some men do not much value yet they dare not openly despise can skreen those who venture to say it after him What some men call Philosophy and Reason and there is nothing so foolish and absurd which some men will not call so is the only thing which those men adore who would either have no God or a God and a Religion of their own making And what Attempts some have made to undermine all Religion and others to corrupt and transform the whole Frame of the Christian Religion upon a pretence of its contradicting Natural Reason and Philosophy is too well known to need a Proof That thus it was in his days and that thus it was likely to be in future Ages St. Paul was very sensible when he gave this Caution to his Colossians and I 'm sure it is as proper a Caution for us as ever it was for any Age since the writing of this Epistle for this vain Pretence to Reason and Philosophy never more prevailed and never did more mischief to the world It is an endless and fruitless Task to go about to confute all the absurd Hypotheses and wild inconsistent Reasonings wherewith men abuse themselves and others The Experience of so many Ages wherein Philosophy was in all its Glory and the several Sects disputed and wrangled eternally without ending any one Controversy gives no great Encouragement to hope for much this way at least it can never be expected that ordinary Christians should be better instructed and confirmed in the Faith by Philosophical Disputes The Christian Religion has from the very beginning been corrupted by a mixture of Philosophy Thus it was in the Apostles days and thus it has been more or less in all Ages of the Church to this day and the direction the Apostle gives for the security of the Christian Faith is Not to dispute such matters but to distinguish between Philosophical Disputes and Matters of Revelation and to reject all the Pretences of Philosophy when it does or seems to contradict the Faith of Christ or would make any corrupt Additions to it Beware lest any man spoil you through Philosophy and vain deceit 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is to make a Prey or to carry away as a Prey that is to seduce them from the Christian Faith or from the Purity and Simplicity of it Through Philosophy and vain deceit that is through the vain deceit of Philosophy which cheats men with a flattering but empty appearance may unsettle weak Minds but cannot lay a sure and solid foundation of Faith may cheat men out of their Faith but when that is done can give them nothing certain in the room of it For it is but after the traditions of men and after the rudiments of this world Some of these Doctrines may possibly plead Prescription as having been so long received that no man knows their Original or if they have the Authority of some Great Name yet it is but a Human Authority and they are but the traditions of men and of men who at best had no better information than from the visible appearances of Nature and their own imperfect Observations and corrupt or defective Reasonings after the rudiments of this world And is this an Authority to oppose against the Faith of Christ which both wants that Divine Confirmation which he gave to his Doctrines and contradicts them For they are not after Christ neither taught by Christ nor consonant to what he taught These Words might afford great Variety of Discourse but I shall confine my self to what is most Useful and reduce that into as narrow a compass as I can by shewing I. What great need there is of this Caution To beware lest any man spoil us through Philosophy and vain deceit II. What great reason we have to reject all these vain Pretences to Philosophy when they are opposed to the Authority of a Divine Revelation I. As for the first of these Whoever considers what an Enemy these vain Pretences to Philosophy have always been to Religion will see need enough for this Caution True Reason and the true Knowledge of Nature which is true Philosophy would certainly direct us to the Acknowledgment and Worship of that Supreme Being who made the World And yet we know that there never was an Atheist without some Pretence to Philosophy and generally such loud noisy Pretences too as make ignorant people think them very notable Philosophers and that tempts some vain empty persons to affect Atheism that they may be thought Philosophers That this is vain deceit all men must own who believe there is a God And if it be possible to pretend Philosophy for Atheism it self it is no great wonder if it be made to patronize Infidelity and Heresy But this plainly shews of what dangerous Consequence it is to admit Philosophical Disputes into Religion which if at any time they may do any service to Religion much oftner greatly corrupt it and shake the very Foundations of it of which more anon At present I shall only shew you how the Matter of Fact stands That most of the Disputes in Religion are nothing else but the Disputes of Philosophy and therefore according to the Apostolical Command to be wholly flung out of Religion and not suffered to affect our Faith one way or other To be a Philosopher and a Christian to Dispute and to Believe are two very different things and yet it is very evident that most of the Arguments against Revelation in general and most of the Disputes about the particular Doctrines of Christianity are no better than this vain deceit of Philosophy that were the matters of Faith and the Disputes of Philosophy truly distinguished this alone would be sufficient to settle the Faith of Christians and restore Peace and Unity at least in the great Fundamentals of Religion to the